Hamilton led FEMA briefly last year until he was fired after defending its existence. His nomination comes as the Republican administration has increasingly signaled it is backing away from promises to dismantle an agency that has been heavily criticized by the president.

Hamilton was named temporary head in January 2025, just days before the president floated the idea of “getting rid” of FEMA. Hamilton had never been a state or local emergency management director and had himself publicly criticized FEMA in the past.

Once on the job, he said he was concerned about threats to abolish the agency. At a House hearing last year, he said he did not “believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate” FEMA. He was fired the next day.

“My focus will be to ensure that FEMA is objective, is fair and reasonable, follows the law, and is consistent" in how it reviews disaster declaration requests, Hamilton told Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Peters had asked about partisanship in granting major disaster declarations.

Hamilton, who did not give an opening statement, was one of 10 nominees being considering by the committee. Among the others were Trump's pick for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Hal Duncan, and administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, David Cummins.

Peters criticized the committee chairman, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., for scheduling so many nominees at once, saying that made it more difficult for senators to properly screen them.

“The lineup today severely limits our ability to have transparency for the American public,” Peters said. He noted that Hamilton was among two nominees whose FBI background investigations were not yet complete, and that two others had not submitted their financial disclosure reports.

Paul said the committee would only vote on the nominees when their financial and background checks were complete.

If confirmed, Hamilton would be the principal adviser to Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on emergency management. FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

He would be FEMA’s first permanent administrator in Trump’s second term. The agency has gone through four temporary leaders, including Hamilton’s brief tenure from in 2025 from January to May.

Hamilton would take over an agency still reeling from Kristi Noem’s turbulent leadership at DHS. FEMA’s workforce has been worn down by mass staff departures, policies that hamstrung operations and a protracted DHS shutdown.

Hamilton will need to ensure that FEMA is prepared for summer disaster season, while answering to Trump, who is likely to expect major changes after a council he appointed recommended sweeping moves at the agency.

The chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, said he planned to proceed with Wednesday's confirmation hearing unless Trump orders Clayton to not appear or withdraws the nomination.

The Republican president said in a social media post just hours before the hearing that he will keep Bill Pulte, a top U.S. housing official, as acting director of national intelligence. Democratic and Republican lawmakers had opposed Trump’s selection of Pulte, citing his lack of known experience in intelligence and his use of his current administration perch to target perceived adversaries of the president — resistance that last week forced Trump to turn to Clayton.

The abrupt announcement creates instant uncertainty over the long-term leadership of the 18-agency intelligence community and dashes hopes for a swift renewal of a crucial surveillance program that expired in Congress last week due to bipartisan anger over Trump’s pick of Pulte.

That tool, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, permits spy agencies to collect without a warrant the communications of targeted foreigners located outside the United States. National security officials across both major political parties have for years described Section 702 as vital for gathering intelligence that can disrupt terror attacks and espionage operations, though some lawmakers and civil liberties advocates have raised concerns over the government's use of information about Americans that is incidentally collected through the program.

Clayton had been set to appear on Wednesday for a Senate confirmation hearing that was fast-tracked because of the program's lapse. Democrats had said they would not renew the expired surveillance programs until Trump withdrew the selection of Pulte.

Trump's post suggests that debate to revive Section 702 could be indefinitely postponed. Lawmakers have sounded the alarm about the government operating without congressional authorization of the powerful spy tool.

A court order from last March certified that the program could continue for another 12 months, though it's possible that communications companies could challenge the government's authority to force them to cooperate and share data.

In his social media post, Trump accused Democrats of breaking a deal to renew the program after he nominated Clayton. Trump also said he does not want to remove Clayton from his current position as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before his replacement, James McDonald, is approved. McDonald was named to the Justice Department post on Saturday.

And Trump added another condition: linking his approval of the surveillance program to the passage of a bill requiring people to show ID to vote.

“Therefore, to add a slight bit of intrigue but, for the Good of the Nation, and the People of our Country, I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it,” Trump said, using the acronym for the surveillance program and his name for the voter ID bill.

The Republican-controlled Congress has not acted on the voting bill because it does not have enough support in either chamber, particularly from Democrats.

Trump made the announcement in Evian-les-Bains, France, where he was participating in the final day of the Group of Seven summit of leading industrial economies.

The intelligence director position became available after Tulsi Gabbard, who had held the job, announced last month that she was resigning to spend time with her husband as he fights cancer.

Clayton, a chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, has spent the last 14 months as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, one of the Justice Department’s premier posts.

His office during that time facilitated the unsealing of thousands of pages of court records from the prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, documents that were made public as part of the Justice Department’s release of records related to the late sex offender and his longtime confidant.

Clayton has also overseen the prosecution of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, on drug trafficking charges.

Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was convicted of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein but insists she's innocent. Maduro and his wife have protested their capture and said they're not guilty.

___

Superville reported from Geneva. Tucker and Jalonick reported from Washington. AP writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

Judge Gregory Carro said Mangione's lawyers have informed him they will attempt to show that he was suffering from “extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the occurrence.”

If they succeed, Mangione could be sent to a psychiatric treatment facility instead of prison.

Carro’s ruling came two weeks after he held a secret hearing on the matter at the request of the defense. He said he will unseal records pertaining to the hearing and the defense's move for a psychiatric defense.

“The reasons for the sealing was to give the defense an opportunity to determine whether they were going forth with that defense and the nature of that defense,” Carro said.

Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said unsealing the transcript of the secret hearing and materials related to his psychiatric defense will harm him in his federal case.

“The reason why we asked for the sealing is that this defense is not available federally and Mr. Mangione is being prosecuted federally and this is prejudicial to his defense to the exact same facts,” Friedman Agnifilo said.

The judge had been set to rule on the matter on Tuesday, but delayed it a day because prosecutors failed to inform Mangione's jail that the defendant was needed in court.

Mangione sat between his lawyers wearing a blue suit and a light-colored button down shirt. He is set to go to trial on Sept. 8.

Mangione, 28, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges in the Dec. 4, 2024, killing. His federal trial, which involves stalking charges, is set to begin on Oct. 13. He could spend his life in prison if convicted in either case.

Thompson, 50, was killed as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. At the May 18 hearing, Carro ruled that a gun and notebook that prosecutors say link Mangione to the killing can be used as evidence against him.

The gun, a 3D-printed pistol, matches the one used to kill Thompson, prosecutors said. The notebook describes wanting to “wack” a health insurance executive and rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel.”

Also Wednesday, Carro dismissed a charge related to a gun magazine that he had ruled inadmissible because it was found during an initial search of Mangione’s backpack at the McDonald’s.

Drivers who came upon the burning plane, which was nearly sheared in half and tipped on its side, captured dramatic rescue scenes on video or rushed toward the aircraft on foot to help. Two people came running with a sledgehammer and shovel, which they used to strike the cockpit glass and try propping open the plane's door.

The plane crashed on the Loop 20 highway near the Texas-Mexico border shortly after 10 p.m., said Jose Baeza, an investigator with the Laredo Police Department. He said one person on the plane died in the crash. A person in a car struck by the plane was taken to a hospital in stable condition.

Dashcam footage posted on social media showed the aircraft careening down the highway, taking out a light post before coming to a stop. It came to a rest not far from the Laredo International Airport.

“It looked like part of a movie. I was in shock,” said Zayra Garza, an esthetician who was driving her co-workers home when she came upon the crash.

No injuries on the ground were immediately reported, though five officers were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation.

The plane, a Cessna Citation Latitude twin jet, departed Tuesday evening from San José del Cabo in Mexico and was bound for Austin, Texas, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

It's not clear what caused the crash as it reached Laredo, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio. Laredo International Airport Director Gilberto Sanchez told KGNS TV in Laredo that the plane experienced a mechanical failure. He provided no details.

Video posted to social media showed the plane on its side, smashed into a highway barrier. The tail was ripped from the fuselage and laying mostly intact on a lower-level road beneath where the rescue was taking place.

Garza began shooting video as she approached the scene and then stopped her vehicle across from the crippled jet, which was on fire.

She saw someone inside the plane trying to break the cockpit window to escape. Soon, people got out of their vehicles to try to smash the window from the outside as the fire on the fuselage continues to burn.

Garza’s husband jumped out of their vehicle to help and Garza then saw the door of the plane open. She said three people who looked to be teenagers rushed out, followed by someone who appeared to be a pilot. Another member of the crew tried to pull out a person who seemed to be unconscious.

As smoke billowed from the plane, a firefighter used a small ladder to climb into the aircraft to rescue the remaining passenger, while others shot water out of a hose at the wreckage. Rescuers can be heard calling for a rope as others use rods to hold up the plane door.

Several times, officers helping prop open the door dart away from the plane and double over in coughing fits because of the intense smoke.

“What was worrying me was the fire,” she said. “I was concerned that it could have just exploded at any time.”

This was the third significant aviation accident in as many days. A B-52 crashed Monday during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California and killed all eight people aboard, while on Sunday, 12 people were killed when a plane on a skydiving outing in Missouri crashed.

NetJets said in a statement that the crash involved one of its aircraft and it is working with authorities. NetJets is owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and allows people to buy part ownership in private jets.

Robert Kuzovkov, known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, was shot and killed at close range near his home in the eastern Polish city of Biala Podlaska on Monday, prosecutors said Tuesday.

“Everything points to this being a political murder," Tusk said at a news briefing in Warsaw. “But we must wait for evidence or more concrete indications. Because if that was the case — if it was ordered by Russia — then it is an extremely serious matter internationally. It would constitute state terrorism.”

Polish investigators initially detained two Belarusian citizens but Tusk said Tuesday that they had been released because authorities had no evidence that they were directly involved in the killing.

Tusk stressed that law enforcement authorities are still collecting evidence.

“The case is difficult. If there’s a hired killer involved, it’s unfortunately not easy to identify such a person,” Tusk said, adding that Skrepetsky had been offered protection by Polish authorities but he had refused it.

Through his art, Skrepetsky “expressed criticism of the current policies of the Russian authorities,” Polish prosecutors said in a statement Tuesday.

He painted unflattering portraits of Putin, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and other high-ranking Russian officials. One depicts Putin being cradled in the arms of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

On Sunday, he posted a video on his YouTube channel showing him in Berlin putting a Russian flag in a trash can on June 12, the holiday marking Russia’s sovereignty.

Prosecutors said the artist was approached near his home around 9:45 a.m. Monday by an unidentified man who fired two shots at him, then shot him three more times at close range before fleeing. Prosecutors said the victim died at the scene of gunshot wounds to the head, chest and back.

Since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been accused of trying to assassinate its opponents abroad, including targeting exiled activists in France and Lithuania.

Officials in Germany have also broken up plots targeting the head of a German weapons supplier to Ukraine and a Ukrainian military official.

Polish authorities arrested a man in 2024 in what they said was a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That same year, a Russian helicopter pilot who defected was killed in Spain, with Russian operatives as the prime suspects.

The two left the Rwampara Treatment Center on Tuesday, near Bunia, in Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak, along with five other people who also recovered from Ebola.

“The joy is immense given the state he was in at first,” Kahindo Mireille Pierrette said of her infant. “If you had seen him before, you wouldn’t believe he could have this strength now,” she added.

Pierrette said she brought her child to the treatment center at the end of May, after he started bleeding from the mouth and nose and could barely move.

Modet Camara, a doctor at the center, said the baby was treated with antibiotics after a PCR test came back positive for Ebola on his second day at the hospital.

Congo's Ministry of Health said Tuesday that 837 cases of the virus have been confirmed so far, including 196 confirmed deaths. However, the number of cases is believed to be higher because the outbreak was confirmed on May 15, weeks after it is suspected to have begun.

Since the outbreak was declared in mid-May, 49 have recovered, the ministry said.

The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which has no approved treatment or vaccine. The more common Zaire virus, which now has a vaccine, was responsible for most of Congo’s past 16 outbreaks of the disease.

More than 90% of the cases in the current outbreak are concentrated in Congo’s eastern province of Ituri. Cases have also been recorded in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces and have spread across the border to Uganda.

The head of Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday that the outbreak could become the worst on record, noting that tens of thousands of contacts of infected patients have yet to be traced.

“If we don’t stop the outbreak very soon it will ​be worse than what ​we had in West Africa and eastern ‌DRC,” ⁠Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said during a virtual meeting of African heads of ​state.

An outbreak a decade ago across several countries in West Africa was the worst on record, with more than 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths.

Nearly a million people have been displaced by years of conflict in Ituri, according to the U.N. humanitarian office, making contact tracing difficult as people flee attacks or move frequently in the vast province with dense forests, poor roads and remote villages that can take days to reach.

Tracing is also difficult among the thousands of miners who regularly move among remote sites in the mineral-rich region.

The accord, due to be signed Friday in Switzerland, also envisions Iran receiving at least $300 billion to rebuild after the war and says the U.S. would work to end all American and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran — if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

The U.S. and Israel went to war on Feb. 28 in part to prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon, although U.S. President Donald Trump's goals in the conflict have repeatedly shifted. The interim deal stops the war before that aim is secured. Instead, it opens a two-month period for nuclear negotiations and appears to offer Iran several benefits up front while extracting little in return.

The U.S. agreement to immediately allow Iran to sell its oil freely and the offer to eventually lift all sanctions, for instance, represent major concessions that go beyond the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that Trump withdrew America from in his first term, declaring it the “worst deal ever.”

The accord likely will draw intense opposition in Washington, and it appears to be a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come under criticism at home from the media, his opponents and even some allies as details emerge.

The deal will stop the fighting and start more negotiations

Much of the agreement would restore the status quo before the war, including ending hostilities, restarting negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, and reopening the strait, which is a crucial passage for the world’s oil and natural gas and whose closure created a historic energy crisis.

The deal includes an end to the fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said Israel must withdraw under the deal, although the leaked versions make no mention of withdrawal.

A person who was briefed on the memorandum of understanding after it was signed and another who viewed a copy beforehand said it largely matched the text of what was published by the Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya, which reported details of the deal Tuesday. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Another two officials in the Mideast, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, also said the versions published by Al Arabiya and Bloomberg broadly matched the final agreement.

The White House and other American officials have not published the terms and did not immediately respond to questions. However, White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote online Wednesday after CNN published a leaked version of the deal that it “does not reflect the language of the actual" agreement, without elaborating.

Iran also has not published an official version of the deal. The country's semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, claimed Wednesday that Bloomberg's version had missing portions, without offering a full accounting.

Trump has cited various goals for the war, including at times vowing it would end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups in the region. He also suggested it could lead to toppling the Iranian government.

The interim deal falls short of all of these goals, but Trump hailed it Wednesday.

“Nobody knows what it is, but it’s very strong,” Trump said in France, where he is attending a Group of Seven summit.

But he also opened the door to abandoning it: “It’s a memorandum of understanding and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs.”

Major concessions have been offered to Iran

Some concessions to Iran — including the full lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets — would happen gradually and be linked to progress in the nuclear talks, according to officials from Pakistan, a key mediator. They outlined some of the deal’s major points on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

But in the meantime, the U.S. will issue waivers to sanctions that allow Iran to sell oil freely.

The Islamic Republic's oil export revenues in 2024 were more than $46 billion. Its main buyer of oil, China, is believed to have bought at below-market prices because of its willingness to ignore the sanctions.

Granting oil waivers at the start of the 60-day talks strips the U.S. of a major point of leverage. Only at the conclusion of the overall deal in 2015 were sanctions on Iran's oil lifted.

The interim deal also opens the door to ending all sanctions Iran faces from the U.S. and at the U.N. — including those over Tehran’s weapons programs and human rights abuses — though it says the schedule for that will be worked out later. Still, that far surpasses the 2015 deal, which only lifted some sanctions in exchange for Iran drastically reducing its enrichment and stockpile of uranium.

The accord would also provide Iran with at least $300 billion to rebuild after an intense U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign — an extraordinary figure and another major benefit for Iran. The money also appears dependent on the progress of further negotiations.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would invest that amount. But Gulf countries would likely be reluctant to help Iran after Iranian attacks in the war destroyed oil facilities and other sites in their territory.

Trump reiterated Wednesday that the U.S. would not contribute and said it was up to other countries if they wanted to invest.

The pact would provide relief to the global economy

The deal provides a major win for the global economy — the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed before the war began. Since then, Iranian attacks on shipping and the threat to vessels effectively shut the strait.

The strait's closure drove up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Iran let out some vessels that paid tolls, something never done before in the strait, which has long has been considered an international waterway. The U.S. later provided military support to get other tankers out, but traffic was nowhere near levels before the war.

The deal also says the U.S. will lift a blockade imposed on Iranian ports and that the strait will return to its prewar traffic levels in 30 days, while acknowledging Iranian mines may need to be destroyed.

Many issues would have to be resolved in future talks

The interim deal sets a 60-day window, which can be extended, to negotiate over limiting Iran's nuclear program, which has been discussed at multiple rounds of talks during Trump's second administration without success. The U.S. promises not to make threats of military action under the current deal after two rounds of talks were interrupted by attacks.

Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, though it has enough highly enriched uranium to build multiple atomic bombs, should it choose to do so, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In the interim deal, Iran reiterates that it will never build a nuclear weapon — a promise it also made in the 2015 nuclear accord.

___

Miller and Price reported from Washington, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Evian-les-Bains, France, Darlene Superville in Geneva and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this story.

Yet when they took the field at Larbi Zaouli Stadium in Casablanca, Morocco, they marked Sudan’s first appearance in international women’s soccer since a civil war erupted in a country where women’s participation in sports has long been controversial.

“My goal is to lift up soccer in my country,” Nura Mohamed, the 17-year-old team captain, told The Associated Press.

“It’s a beautiful, unique feeling because, at the end of the day, I just love playing.”

With the men's World Cup unfolding on the other side of the planet, Sudan’s under-17 women’s national team traveled to Morocco last week for qualifying matches on the road to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The inexperienced squad suffered heavy defeats against Comoros, conceding 30 goals in two matches. Many of the players broke down in tears after the final whistle in front of a dozen cheering fans.

They faced an older, fitter, and more experienced opponent. Unable to assemble a senior women’s squad in time, Sudan’s soccer federation entered a younger team to avoid forfeiting its place in the qualifiers. They only started training weeks ago.

“The difference between us and the others is huge. We cannot yet compete at the highest level," Burhan Tia, a veteran Sudanese soccer coach who oversees all of Sudan’s women’s national teams, said after the first match, a 17–0 defeat.

“Comoros has many players competing in Europe, our team is mainly made up of schoolgirls."

This team represents hope for Sudan's future

Sudan’s women’s soccer collapsed when civil war erupted in 2023. For federation officials, debuting this young squad in Casablanca after years of conflict marks an important step in keeping women's soccer alive in Sudan.

“Some traveled long distances just to attend training. Many are separated from their families, yet they continue to work hard and pursue their dream," Manal Ali Bushra, a businesswoman who heads the women’s soccer committee, told the AP.

To support that vision, Ali Bushra said the federation is working on infrastructure projects, including a planned sports city and the renovation of key stadiums in safer parts of the country. She declined to answer questions about the women’s program budget and funds.

Tia knew the magnitude of the challenge when he accepted the job of rebuilding a shattered team.

“First, I had to find girls who played soccer. Then, once I found girls who played, I had to make sure they were the right age,” he said. “Then I needed to convince their parents to let them miss classes for training.”

With the league suspended, his scouting trips took him to schools across Sudan and to neighboring Egypt, where many families had fled the war. He recruited 10 players from teams and academies in Cairo, with the rest drawn from Sudanese cities.

Tia would have liked to recruit from conflict-hit areas like Darfur or Kordofan, a region known for producing Sudan’s top athletes. But many girls had lost their identification documents, making it impossible to verify their ages under international regulations. The war has also shattered transportation, turning journeys between cities that once took hours into perilous trips lasting days.

On the field, the players’ lack of experience was evident. Several struggled with basic positioning, failing to hold the offside line or maintain tactical discipline. Throughout the matches, they repeatedly looked to the sidelines for instructions from the coach and his assistant.

Facing war, fatwas and conservatism

The United Nations has described the war in Sudan as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It began in 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted into fighting marked by mass killings, rape and ethnic violence. More than 40,000 people have been killed, according to U.N. figures, and over 14 million have been displaced, with famine and disease spreading across parts of the country.

The war halted every sports activity, including the women’s soccer league, which was officially established after the 2019 progressive revolution that ousted President Omar al-Bashir. His three-decade Islamist rule was marked by Public Order Laws that rights groups said restricted women’s freedoms. Even after the revolution, prominent Sudanese preacher Abdulhay Yousif said the establishment of a women’s football league was aimed at undermining religion.

“The idea of women running, jumping, sweating, and even something as simple as their bodies being visible in motion, was seen by Bashir’s Islamist regime as producing fitna, which in a Sudanese context was understood as sexual or moral chaos,” Liv Tønnessen, a political scientist researching gender politics in Sudan, told the AP.

“So when women step onto a soccer pitch, they are directly confronting that entire logic. They are not just present in a male-dominated sports arena, they are moving freely in it, on their own terms,” Tønnessen, a former guest researcher in a women-only university in Sudan, added.

Beyond institutional hurdles, players also faced a wave of sexist abuse online. On the national team’s social media accounts, many commenters mocked them for big defeats. Others posted the phrase “go back to the kitchen,” in multiple languages.

A team caught in politics

While Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s military government has allowed international soccer trips for teenage girls, the U.N. has documented sexual and gender-based violence by the Sudanese Armed Forces, which he commands.

Tønnessen sees the state backing as a calculated effort by the military to project legitimacy. By sponsoring the team, she said, the army attempts to signal that the state is functioning normally and to align itself with the spirit of the 2019 revolution.

Hala Al-Karib, a prominent Sudanese women’s rights activist, dismissed critics who say the team is being used to portray a more progressive image on women’s rights.

“The main challenge for me is a reform of the federation,” she told the AP, citing a lack of investment in and support for women’s soccer in Sudan.

Back on the field in Casablanca, the politics, war and debate faded away, leaving only a group of teenagers chasing a ball.

The 41-year-old is set to enter the World Cup on Wednesday when Portugal meets Congo after impressive performances by the tournament’s other top stars.

France’s Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland of Norway each had two goals as they opened their World Cup campaigns on Tuesday, while Lionel Messi scored a hat trick for Argentina. That gave Messi 16 career goals in the World Cup, tying him with Germany’s Miroslav Klose for the all-time record.

Ronaldo is also looking to make history by becoming the first player to score in six World Cups. Messi, too, is playing in his sixth World Cup but failed to find the net in 2010.

“Well, I wish him the best — I hope that he scores but not against us," Congo coach Sébastien Desabre said of the Portugal forward.

Ronaldo's focus has been on his team's success.

“We go match by match, but not with the expectations of winning it all,” Ronaldo told reporters in Portugal last week before the team’s departure. “It has to be step by step. A good start is the most important thing,”

Some Portugal supporters question whether the aging star will be a help or a detriment to the team.

After scoring just once in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Ronaldo was upset after he subbed off against South Korea and benched for the club's first knockout-stage match against Switzerland. He also failed to score in the 2024 European Championship — the first time that has happened at a major international tournament.

But Ronaldo has also shown signs of his old productivity.

He scored eight goals during Portugal’s 2025 UEFA Nations League title, including an equalizer in the final against Spain. And, he recently won his first Saudi Pro League title with Al-Nassr, scoring a club-high 28 goals.

What to watch on June 17

— Portugal vs. Congo, 1 p.m. EDT in Houston (Fox/Telemundo/Peacock)

— England vs. Croatia, 4 p.m. EDT in Arlington, Texas (FS1/Telemundo/Peacock)

— Ghana vs. Panama, 7 p.m. EDT in Toronto (FS1/Telemundo/Peacock)

— Uzbekistan vs. Colombia, 10 p.m. EDT in Mexico City (FS1/Telemundo/Peacock)

Kane, England seek strong World Cup start vs. Croatia

Harry Kane, one of the world’s dominant goal scorers, leads England into its first match against Croatia with the Three Lions seeking their first World Cup title since 1966, when they won on home soil.

Kane has been a force over the past year with 61 goals in 51 matches for Bayern Munich across all competitions. The 32-year-old striker has eight goals in two previous World Cups and won the Golden Boot in 2018 by scoring six times in Russia.

But he didn’t score in England’s semifinal loss to Croatia in 2018. In 2022, he missed a penalty late against France in a 2-1 semifinal loss in Qatar when he sent the ball over the crossbar.

Kane’s eight World Cup goals are two shy of Gary Lineker's England record.

Ghana to be without Partey for opener after appeal denied

Ghana will play its opening match against Panama without midfielder Thomas Partey after a Canadian judge on Tuesday rejected a bid to allow him into the country as he awaits trial on rape charges.

Partey's visa application was denied last week.

He will remain in the United States while his teammates play in Toronto on Wednesday. He will be eligible to play in Ghana’s next two matches — both in the U.S.

Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had criticized the visa denial, calling it a “high-handed and extremely unfair decision.” Its appeal was heard by the court earlier Tuesday.

Partey is awaiting trial in Britain while facing allegations from several women dating to his time playing for Arsenal from 2020-25. He has pleaded not guilty.

England's Livramento will miss tournament with injury

England fullback Tino Livramento was ruled out of the World Cup on Tuesday because of a calf injury, forcing coach Thomas Tuchel into a late squad change ahead of his team’s opener against Croatia.

Chelsea defender Trevoh Chalobah was called up as a replacement and due to head to the England training camp in Kansas City. Livramento was injured during training on Sunday.

“A subsequent scan and medical assessment on Monday unfortunately confirmed he could play no further part in England’s tournament,” it said in a statement.

Uzbekistan ready to make World Cup debut

Uzbekistan will mark the biggest moment in the country's soccer history on Wednesday when it participates in its first World Cup, facing Colombia.

Coached by Fabio Cannavaro, Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning captain and a former Ballon d’Or winner, Uzbekistan finished second in Asian qualifying to earn its way into the expanded 48-team field.

Colombia is back in the World Cup after failing to qualify in 2022.

More World Cup news

— France striker Kylian Mbappé scores 13th and 14th World Cup goals, moving into tie for 3rd all time

— US official says Iran knew team would have to leave shortly after match

— Social media star Tim Payne leaves New Zealand for Paraguay’s Olimpia

— Tunisia fires coach Sabri Lamouchi after 1 match at the World Cup and appoints Herve Renard

— US forward Christian Pulisic practices on his own in calf injury rehab, team says he is ‘day to day’

— This Sweden defender at the World Cup isn’t your typical soccer player: He’s a baron!

— Highlights from Day 6 in photos

Stats of the day

England has struggled against European opposition at the global showcase, losing six of its last eight matches. Its overall record versus UEFA teams at the World Cup includes 14 wins, 12 losses and 13 ties.

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This story was updated to correct the spelling of Partey.

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AP Sports Writers Jim Vertuno and Kristie Rieken contributed to this report.

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

NATO’s supreme allied commander, an American, is working on backup plans to defend Europe after the U.S. signaled on June 3 that it would no longer supply an aircraft carrier and support ships, aerial refueling planes and dozens of fighter jets, among other military assets, in a crisis.

But Rutte said the U.S. is not withdrawing more troops from Europe. “This is not about where forces and assets are currently located,” he said on the eve of a meeting of NATO defense ministers that he will chair in Brussels.

“It’s about who would do what if our defense plans were activated. So, let’s say in case of an Article 5 situation,” Rutte told reporters.

Under NATO’s collective security guarantee – Article 5 of its founding treaty – the 32 allies pledge that an attack on one of them will be considered an attack on all. It does not oblige them to provide military support, although many likely would.

In essence, the United States is scaling back how it might help should an ally trigger Article 5. The U.S. has by far NATO's biggest armed forces. It does not intend to withdraw its nuclear weapons in Europe, which are key to NATO's deterrence.

Allies are ordered to address U.S. gaps

The so-called NATO Force Model is the alliance's Plan A for making forces from the 32 member nations available in times of peace, crisis or war. It sets out the military assets that commanders can call on in phases over the first six months of any conflict.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon informed its NATO allies that it would no longer provide as much as it focuses on potential threats elsewhere, notably from China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Rutte said NATO’s top commander, U.S. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, believes that “there are largely capabilities available that other allies already have, or will have in the near future,” to fill the U.S. shortfall.

“The overall picture is looking good,” Rutte said.

But some of the equipment being held back has surprised U.S. allies. Much of it is in short supply in Europe. Still, the U.S. wants to know how they intend to replace these assets, or make do without them, by the time President Donald Trump and his counterparts meet for a NATO summit on July 7-8.

Before then, European allies and Canada want to hear more from U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the Trump administration’s plans for the summit in Turkey’s capital, Ankara. Hegseth skipped their last meeting in February.

Trump bewildered the allies last month with plans to send 5,000 additional U.S. troops to Poland, sowing confusion as his administration continued to insist on reducing — not increasing — the U.S. military footprint in Europe.

Cutbacks are occurring in Kosovo

Cutbacks are happening. On Friday, NATO military headquarters announced that it will reduce the size of its security force in Kosovo. U.S. forces are expected to be among those to leave.

The U.S. currently has 590 troops deployed with KFOR there, second only among the 31 contributing nations to Italy with its 907 personnel. U.S. Black Hawk helicopters are also stationed at the sprawling U.S. base there, Camp Bondsteel.

KFOR began deploying in 1999 to keep the peace between Kosovo and Serbia.

Once composed of 50,000 personnel, KFOR has been routinely scaled back over the years as tensions eased, although 1,000 additional troops were deployed in 2023 after fresh violence erupted.

Rutte confirmed on Wednesday that more than 1,000 personnel would leave. Grynkewich has said he believes Kosovo is calm enough now to “optimize” the size of KFOR.

Retail sales rose 0.9%, up from a revised 0.4% gain in April, according to new Commerce Department data released Wednesday. Sales got a boost from generous government tax refunds in both April and May, though economists say that cash cushion is starting to fade.

Excluding sales at gas stations, retail sales in May rose 0.7%.

Spending was broad-based. Business at clothing, accessory and furniture stores all posted increases. Online sales rose 1.5%.

There were a few weak spots. Electronics and appliance stores and department stores both registered slight declines.

The data released Wednesday offers only a snapshot of consumer spending and doesn’t include activities like travel and hotel stays. The lone services category – restaurants – registered a 0.1% decline.

But the so-called control group—which excludes food services, autos, building materials and gas station sales and is used to calculate economic growth—rose 0.7%. That suggests solid spending, economists said.

Consumers are the engine of the American economy, driving most of the nation’s economic growth. And the latest retail sales report underscores that spending has remained resilient so far this year despite rising prices. Solid increases in hiring have also buoyed spending, economists said.

"The stronger-than-forecast and broad-based gains in May retail sales show that consumers continued to spend strongly despite higher gasoline prices in the month,” Nationwide Chief Economist Kathy Bostjancic writes. “The large tax refunds and overall tax reductions for households this year and the recent strengthening in employment growth helped buffer the negative drag from higher gasoline prices.”

Rising gas prices pushed inflation to its highest level in three years, U.S. data showed last week, with consumer prices rising 4.2% in May, compared with last year. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.5% last month, after big gains of 0.6% in April and 0.9% in March.

There is a tentative deal to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but even after oil starts flowing again from the Middle East it could take awhile for the supply crunch to ease.

Gas prices fell about a penny overnight to $4.02, down 11% from a month ago, according to motor club AAA. The national average for a gallon of gasoline has not been below $4 since March, according to AAA.

“While the deal is encouraging, our industry is still holding its breath,” said Steve Lamar, the CEO of trade group American Apparel & Footwear Association. ”Our question now is, will this agreement be strong enough for our global industry to begin recovering?”

Lamar noted that unplanned costs continue to squeeze profit margins, with companies facing higher expenses for ocean freight, air cargo and packaging. He said that even under the best-case scenario, it will take time to stabilize.

The spike in gas prices this year due to the Iran war may alter some behavior, peace deal or not.

Even as gas prices continue to retreat, analysts say some shoppers will stick to habits they picked up as prices soared, like filling up the car at big box stores where they can get discounts.

Visits to gas stations operated by big box chains like BJ’s, Costco and Sam’s Club, which offer discounts to members, began to accelerate in early March, aligning with a sharp rise in fuel prices, said R.J. Hottovy, the head of analytical research at Placer.ai, which tracks people’s movements based on cellphone usage.

The S&P 500 added 0.1%, coming off a mixed day where falling tech stocks weighed on the index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 40 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.

Stocks involved in the artificial-intelligence business headed back up their roller-coaster ride, supporting the market. Jabil jumped 12.4% after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected, as CEO Mike Dastoor said that “AI infrastructure demand remains extremely strong.”

Broadcom rose 2.3%, and Micron Technology climbed 2.3%.

Such AI stocks have veered up and down in recent weeks and yanked the rest of the market behind them on worries that their prices shot too high because of the mania around AI. SpaceX, meanwhile, rose 2.8% and was on track for a fourth straight gain since its big debut on the U.S. stock market.

Outside of tech, La-Z-Boy jumped 26.3% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It benefited from revenue made at newly opened stores, though Chief Financial Officer Taylor Luebke said the company continues to have “a measured view” of the broad sales environment.

A report released Wednesday said retailers across the country saw their revenue grow at a faster pace in May than economists expected, offering hope that solid spending by consumers can support the economy. But high inflation has also made U.S. shoppers feel more discouraged about their finances.

The day’s main event will come in the afternoon, when the Fed will announce its latest decision on what to do with interest rates. The widespread expectation is that it will leave its main interest rate alone, as it has throughout this year.

Investors are more interested in the projections that Fed officials will give about where they see interest rates heading in upcoming years and what Kevin Warsh will say after his first meeting as the Fed’s chair.

Traders had been building bets that the Fed may have to raise its federal funds rate this year in order to keep a lid on inflation, which has accelerated because of expensive oil caused by the war with Iran. But oil prices have pulled back below $80 per barrel after the United States and Iran reached a tentative agreement on their war.

Iran is set to immediately take steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once the deal is signed, and that would allow oil tankers to exit the Persian Gulf once again and deliver crude to customers worldwide. The hope is that will take pressure off inflation.

As a result, traders are split on where the Fed could take interest rates through the end of the year. Some are betting on a cut to rates, which is something that President Donald Trump has angrily been calling for. But the most popular bet is for no move on rates, while some traders still see a hike as the most likely outcome, according to data from CME Group.

Oil prices ticked higher Wednesday following their sharp slides on optimism about the tentative U.S.-Iran deal to get the global flow of oil going again. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil rose 1.1% to $79.82. It’s still above its roughly $70 price from before the war, but it’s well below its $100-plus price from a few weeks ago.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained at 4.43%, where it was late Tuesday.

High yields in bond markets worldwide caused by worries about inflation have been threatening to slow economies and undercut prices for all kinds of investments.

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

London’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2% after a report showed U.K. inflation remained at 2.8% in May.

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.6%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.7% for two of the world’s bigger moves.

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

The golf course, a links-style masterpiece that was one of the USGA's five founding clubs in the 1890s, lies across ancient burial grounds that once belonged to the Shinnecock Nation, whose own people built the course.

On Thursday, 156 players from around the world will tee it up for the sixth U.S. Open held on the site. Among those playing back in 1896 — the first time the USGA brought the Open to the outer reaches of Long Island — was John Shippen, the African-American golf teacher and club maker at the club who, as a 16-year-old, joined Shinnecock tribe member Oscar Bunn on the tee sheet.

Shippen was the first Black player to play in the U.S. Open; he and Bunn are believed to be the first two American-born players to play in America's national championship.

Before the tournament, pros from Britain told USGA management they refused to play against the Black and Native American players. The USGA president, Theodore Havemeyer, told those pros the tournament would go on with or without them.

Though the decision flew beneath the radar during a fledgling time for golf in the U.S. and for professional golf anywhere — in that era, the amateur game, not the pro game, drew the best players — the precedent Havemeyer set looks better as the years pass in a sport with a checkered record of inclusion.

“You think of the word ‘pioneer,’ and it's probably overused a little bit," USGA historian Mike Trostel said. “But I think in the case of Shippen, his pioneering spirit as the first African-American professional” stands out.

Shinnecock shares history with a tribal land and its people

While there's little debate about Shippen's role as a largely unheralded pioneer, the history between the Shinnecock people and their surroundings is more complicated, and it involves much more than golf.

As detailed in a documentary, “The Land We Share,” that came out in the weeks leading up to this week's Open, New York's state legislature forced the Shinnecock to cede most of its territory to the village of Southampton in 1859. The nation's boundaries now consist of about 800 acres located south of Montauk Highway — a short drive from the entrypoint to one of the most exclusive golf clubs in the country.

But it was members of the Shinnecock tribe who were brought over by the landowners to build this course and who, for decades, maintained it. Tribal member Peter Smith was the third generation from his family to serve as head of the Shinnecock grounds crew. He was widely praised for his setup of the layout when the U.S. Open returned here in 1986, then again in 1995.

Smith's firing in 1999 — the reasons aren't well laid out in the documentary and contemporaneous media reports say it was simply because the club was looking to take things in a new direction — created a rift with the Shinnecock that only recently has started to heal.

Smith's nephew, Matthew, is an assistant on the grounds crew now and was a central figure in the documentary.

“My ancestors built that course, my ancestors died on that course,” Smith says in the movie. “There's blood, sweat and tears on that course.”

The president of Shinnecock Hills, Brian Pickett, acknowledged in the movie that the course and the Shinnecock Nation share “a part of American history that you can't hide from." Tribal council chair Lisa Goree spoke about the realities of a poor tribe situated in the middle of “all this wealth and opulence.”

“There are so many people who pass right through the golf club, they have no idea where that name came from,” Goree said.

As first Black player in the US Open, Shippen made history quietly

Pretty much every telling of Shippen's story acknowledges he wasn't focused on the history he made when he played Shinnecock in 1896. The short version is that once he started working at the club and took up golf, he quickly became Shinnecock's best player.

Members recognized that and paid his entry fee to the U.S. Open. He was part of a field of 35 and was tied for the lead after the first round of the two-round event. He got stuck in the sand on the 13th hole during the second round. He made an 11 there en route to a fifth-place finish and a $10 paycheck.

“I've wished 100 times I could've played that little par-4 again,” Shippen recounted in a 1969 interview with Tuesday magazine.

Were it not for that mishap, he might not only have been the first Black player in a U.S. Open but the first Black winner, as well.

It took 90 years for the USGA to return to Shinnecock — largely a product of its remote location on the south fork of Long Island. In between, the sport's struggle with diversity has been a well-documented part of its story.

Players like Charlie Sifford (first Black player to earn a PGA Tour card), Lee Elder (first Black player in the Masters) and Calvin Peete (12 wins on the PGA Tour) are on the short list of African-Americans who pierced golf's racial barrier.

Tiger Woods won the Masters in 1997 to make the most pronounced breakthrough in the white-dominated culture of this country club sport.

Shippen's contribution 101 years earlier — much like Shinnecock's Native American heritage — still remains a footnote. Both, however, are revisited whenever golf returns to one of the more special and complex landscapes from its past.

“It's complicated,” Pickett said. “To us, having had those relationships and talking about the complications is far better than not having the conversation at all.”

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

Unplugged summer: Why families, experts are ditching screens for outdoor play

School is out. So are the screens.

Device usage is expected to rise among children, but there’s a growing movement of families pushing back. Some parents are swapping devices for outdoor adventures, books and imaginative play.

April White, a mother from Farmington Hills, said her family makes a point to start every day outside.

“That’s kind of how we do it,” White said. “We start our day outside and sometimes we just never even feel the temptation to get to the screens.”

A 2023 study examined how devices can impact a child’s language development, social interactions and academic performance. Clinical psychologist Dr. Rose Moten said the evidence is growing and concerning.

Read more.

Out-of-state woman arrested hours after robbing Comerica Bank in Sterling Heights

A woman was arrested hours after a bank robbery in Sterling Heights, following a multi-agency investigation that led authorities to recover most of the stolen money.

The incident occurred on Monday, June 15, when Sterling Heights police responded at about 2:41 p.m. to a report of a robbery at Comerica Bank, 43020 Van Dyke Ave.

Officers said they arrived within two minutes and confirmed that no injuries had been reported. Police said the woman handed a note to a bank teller demanding money. No weapon was displayed or seen during the robbery.

Read more.

Oakland County man tackles 320-mile Ultraman to honor mother, support HOPE shelters

An Oakland County man is preparing to tackle his first self-supported Ultraman, using the three-day endurance event to raise money for HOPE Shelters in memory of his mother.

Ryan Walker of West Bloomfield said he has been running for as long as he can remember, starting with 5K races as a child alongside his grandfather.

In 2018, while recovering from a broken leg, Walker set a goal of running six miles a week—a routine that helped him rebuild his fitness and eventually led to longer distances.

“I set a goal of running just six miles a week, and I was like, if I can be consistent and run — just do six miles a week — that’ll be 300 by the end of the year, and I ran my first half marathon that year,” Walker said.

Read more here.

Michigan man arrested in child sex abuse case facing more charges after child porn found on phone

A Genesee County man who is facing charges in an alleged child sex abuse case is facing more charges after officers found child pornography on his phone.

Jordan Craig, 19, was charged with one count of accosting a child for immoral purposes, one count of using a computer to commit a crime, one count of capturing or distributing an image of an unclothed person and seven counts of child sexually abusive activity.

According to the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office, Craig allegedly tried to meet with a person he believed was a child for sex on Feb. 4.

Read more here.

Weather: Flood Watch issued for most of SE Michigan — here’s how much rain is expected

A 4Warn Weather Alert has been issued for this afternoon and evening across Southeast Michigan as a potent storm system brings the threat of heavy rain, flash flooding, and severe thunderstorms.

New this morning, a Flood Watch has been issued for Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties through 4:00 a.m. Thursday. The watch highlights an increasing concern for excessive rainfall that could lead to flooding of roads, low-lying areas, and poor drainage locations. Keep checking your basements!

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According to a petition filed by Nessel’s office, the AG received a “volume of complaints” from consumers in recent years about inflated prices at the BP station.

It’s located at the corner of Middlebelt and Wick Roads in Romulus, across the street from the airport rental car return lots. It’s operated by William Bazzi of M-Twelve Fuels, LLC.

“With the price of everything already squeezing families, the last thing Michiganders and our visitors who are rushing to return a rental car need is to be taken advantage of at the pump,” Nessel said. “Allegations of marking up prices, here by as much as 72% over the average, call for a vigorous investigation.”

Prices far above competitors

On Tuesday morning, the BP was charging $5.89 per gallon for cash and $5.99 for credit.

By comparison, a Sheetz down the road was at $3.48, a Marathon at $3.99, and nearby Shell and Mobil stations were at $4.07.

Nessel’s office received more than 16 complaints about the station in 2025 and 2026.

An investigator from the Michigan Department of Attorney General purchased fuel from the station back in April for $5.24 per gallon, while data from GasBuddy showed nearby stations charging between $3.79 and $3.99 per gallon.

The department has continued comparing the station’s rates to competitors in recent weeks, reporting a “gross disparity ranging from 22% to 72% more than its competitors for similar gasoline.”

Drivers frustrated

Many drivers say they already know to avoid the station. David Church of Romulus put it plainly.

“He’s always got the gas prices really, really, really high. It’s just absolutely ridiculous,” Church said.

Lavonne Fuller of Redford said she doesn’t even stop for gas there.

“I never get gas from here. I just come to the shop,” Fuller said.

Church has a direct message for the owner.

“Lower the prices. You know, just because you are by the airport doesn’t mean you have to skyrocket the price,” he said.

Prices dropped after station employee confronted

Local 4 visited the station on Tuesday to speak with owner William Bazzi, but was immediately kicked out after being told the owner wasn’t there.

About an hour later, prices dropped — from nearly $6 per gallon to $5.14 for cash.

This is also not the gas station’s first run-in with state investigators.

The Attorney General launched a similar investigation into the same location in 2023, when the station was believed to be under different ownership.

In April, Local 4 also followed up on complaints from frustrated drivers.

The court granted Nessel’s request to investigate, and the Attorney General’s office is in the process of issuing Civil Investigative Subpoenas related to the matter.

If you believe a gas station is price gouging, you can file a complaint with the AG’s office here.

Many view the onset of hemorrhagic fever as a spiritual affliction and seek out herbs and prayers instead of going to the hospital. This is the case now in Congo, which is suffering its seventeenth outbreak of Ebola since 1976, when the virus was first identified in the rich Congo Basin ecosystem.

Five decades later, the virus continues to mystify many of the sick in Africa while turning religious leaders into first responders in a deadly emergency. The current outbreak’s victims include health workers without protective gear as well as pastors and worshippers who gathered while Ebola was spreading, according to humanitarian workers and others who spoke to The Associated Press.

Ebola spreads through close contact with sick or deceased patients’ bodily fluids. The current outbreak is particularly worrisome in a region where many are distrustful of health workers and refuse to seek medical care.

In Bunia, a town in Ituri province that is the outbreak's epicenter, misinformation about Ebola has made it harder for health workers to respond to the outbreak that has so far killed at least 181 people. One rumor suggests that Ebola is spread by malicious people who drop magical charms tied to dollar bills down pit latrines.

“Some people still describe Ebola as something mysterious, spiritual, or brought by outsiders, rather than a disease that needs medical care,” said Onesphore Bangenza of the aid group Mercy Corps, speaking from Bunia. “When people do not trust the health system, they often go first to traditional healers, faith leaders, or people they already know. The danger is that many only reach the hospital when they are already very sick.”

Uncommon type of Ebola causing the outbreak

The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare type of Ebola that has no approved medicines or vaccines to combat it. It is occurring in a remote area of Congo that also faces armed violence by rebel groups as well as displacement. Ebola intensifies the suffering, with its terrifying symptoms that evoke a modern-day plague.

The outbreak was confirmed on May 15. Some experts believe infections may have been occurring in February, but health officials initially tested for a different kind of virus that causes Ebola disease.

The World Health Organization quickly declared the event a public health emergency of international concern. The U.S. government has imposed a temporary ban on the entry of people without U.S. passports who have recently visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan.

With so many people in afflicted communities seeking spiritual answers to the outbreak, humanitarian workers are urging religious leaders to get involved in combating Ebola.

In a video widely shared among people in Ituri, a catechist leader recently cured of the disease in the Ebola hot spot of Mongbwalu spoke candidly of the mistake that could have cost him his life.

“I don’t usually rush to the hospital, so I decided to go to the fields,” Deogratias Kasereka said, before explaining how his children compelled him to seek medical treatment.

His symptoms had included muscle weakness and headaches, and he “felt very hot.” Ebola in later stages also can bring about internal and external bleeding.

The symptoms are so disturbing — and sometimes shameful — that some victims prefer the privacy of a traditional healer’s shrine, said Vincent Isimbwa, an elder among Seventh-day Adventists in a remote community of Ugandans that faced the first-ever outbreak of Bundibugyo in 2007.

“They faced it so rough,” said Isimbwa. “The challenge with Ebola is that it is so bad that some people can believe that there are supernatural powers behind it.”

That outbreak of Ebola killed at least 36 people and left the community terribly scarred. Many here also regret that the Bundibugyo virus is named for their district, the mountainous homeland of roughly 200,000 people mostly living as farmers.

Mistrust and medical limitations drive sick people to healers

In Bundibugyo two decades later, the Ugandan nurse whose sample of blood confirmed the 2007 outbreak said his symptoms confused those who examined him in the early days of the outbreak. Some thought Samuel Kuule had a case of food poisoning. While others afflicted may have gone to see healers, described pejoratively as witch doctors, he was nursed in a narrow hospital room by caregivers including his pregnant wife, who was never infected.

Kuule recalled that his symptoms — peeling skin, bloodshot eyes and severe headache — terrified him without shaking his Seventh-day Adventist faith, unlike some others who may have felt they were being bewitched.

“For those who are weak in faith, they may (think) that they are being bewitched,” he said. “Maybe they can believe it.”

Some locals recalled that an early victim of the 2007 outbreak was a woman stretchered down the mountains and into the shrine of a traditional healer, an older man who survived but lost three sons to Ebola. Speaking through his presumptive heir, Amon Balinda, the healer said he switched his service from benediction and prayer to the prescription of herbs after he was told Ebola was spreading.

“For us in African traditional societies, in most cases when you fall sick and you go to the hospitals and they give you some injections and there is no improvement, there and then you switch to your neighbor, or anybody, and say maybe he is the one bewitching you,” he said. “Then you decide to go to the witch doctor.”

In fact, Ebola outbreaks are believed to start with the virus spilling over into humans from an infected animal such as a fruit bat. These cross-species infections often happen when people handle and eat wild meat, experts say.

The WHO is urging early testing for Ebola, in addition to isolating contacts in the current outbreak.

That's challenging in communities with deep religious faith, Christian but especially traditional. People insist on burying the dead according to established custom, because to do otherwise may deprive the dead of an afterlife. Pastors who stake their authority on the ability to heal the sick are expected to perform. Traditional healers face similar hopes.

This is why Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni rebuked religious leaders in a recent televised speech, saying there was no need to touch the sick in the time of Ebola. He said that Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO chief, told him while visiting Uganda that many victims in Congo are religious people.

“The pastors, the pastors, the pastors,” Museveni said, squinting in apparent disappointment. “The people of God — they are the ones who touch patients. … God is not deaf. You can pray without touching.”

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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.

"It feels like you're stepping back into his world," Ward said of the grounds in Hyde Park, New York, that once were home to the Roosevelt family. “The library and home collections reflect all his many interests — stamps, coins, birds he shot and had stuffed as a boy, model ships, children’s books, books about naval history, the pony-drawn sleigh he rode in as a child, and on and on.”

Since FDR helped launch the modern system of presidential sites in the late 1930s, a network of museums and research facilities has grown nationwide, overseen in part by the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA, but otherwise as varied as the men they honor. They are set everywhere from the scenic Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in California's Simi Valley to the small-town setting of the Herbert Hoover Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa, to the vast Barack Obama Presidential Center that opens to the public on Friday, Juneteenth, in Chicago.

Historian Douglas Brinkley, who says he has visited all of the post-FDR libraries, calls them vital hubs for lectures, research, school tours and tourists.

“Each of the libraries have their own aura," Brinkley says. “Roosevelt came up with a perfect idea by gifting his home in Hyde Park to the people of America, instead of having his papers stored in a warehouse in Virginia or Maryland. He started a tradition of having them go where the president lived.”

A little presidential spin

Libraries carry with them a given president's personality and legacy. Brinkley and others note that while the library archives are managed by NARA, the museum is funded by private donors who are likely to prefer a given president's more favorable moments be emphasized or less favorable ones softened.

On the Hoover website, a page dedicated to the Great Depression emphasizes that some of the policies enacted by Roosevelt, who easily defeated Hoover for reelection, were first proposed by Hoover. The Richard Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California, was for years at the heart of a battle between museum administrators and the former president and his supporters over everything from control of his archives to how much space should be dedicated to the Watergate scandal that helped lead to his resignation.

Max Boot, author of a 2024 biography of Reagan, contrasted his access to the Reagan archives with the museum itself. The late president's records were “administered by federal employees in an entirely professional and apolitical fashion. There is no attempt to hide anything,” he said. The museum “naturally focuses on Reagan’s achievements and shortchanges his failures.”

“It’s designed to present a positive portrait. Thus, volumes critical of Reagan are not sold in the library bookstore,” Boot said.

Historian Ted Widmer, a former speechwriter for Bill Clinton, said, “While it’s inevitable that the presidential libraries will present the highlights of a presidency, there has been some progress toward transparency in recent years.”

He praised the Lyndon Johnson library, located in Austin, Texas, for its willingness to take on LBJ's widely criticized handling of the Vietnam War. In 2023, the library helped revive interest in one of Johnson's most notorious campaigns — the 1948 Senate campaign now widely believed to have been stolen — by posting recordings on its website of interviews by Associated Press reporter James W. Mangan with a former Texas election judge who acknowledged certifying false votes that helped LBJ win.

“It is hard to know if future libraries will continue that trend, in an era in which history is increasingly politicized and polarized,” Widmer says. "But it’s healthy for our democracy to encourage the study of history as it really happened — not a sanitized version.”

The Obama experience

Obama officials have faced criticism for the center's size and aesthetic — “The building has an ominous presence, its mostly windowless heft recalling a menacing sci-fi headquarters,” wrote The Guardian's Oliver Wainwright — and for their decision not to have a NARA facility on site. A substantial amount of the former president's records are digital, a trend Brinkley expects to continue with future libraries.

As many as 1 million people are expected to visit the center's 20-acre campus each year, with highlights including a public library branch, an NBA-grade basketball court, a fruit and vegetable garden and a playground. Obama tested out one of the high metal slides in May.

“That was fantastic,” he said after zipping down, according to a video posted to the Obama Foundation’s social media. “I was a little tall for it.”

Obama also decided many of the center's details and features, from textured stone on the museum’s 225-foot tower to a pair of high-backed reading chairs inside the library. Among his favorite items, though, are charcoal grills that will be available for public use. He floated the idea to the public at a 2017 community meeting and was met with warm laughs from the hometown crowd.

“We don’t have any folks who grill here?” Obama said at the time. “I thought this was the South Side of Chicago.”

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Associated Press writer Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.

In a declaration issued overnight, the leaders called the deal a “historic opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring any nuclear weapon and tackling the threats related to its regional and ballistic activities.” The leaders said that they were “ready to contribute to its implementation,” although neither the White House nor Iran has released the text of the agreement.

According to leaked copies of an interim agreement, Iran will immediately take steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once the deal is signed and will be allowed to sell its oil without restrictions. Officials say the leaked text broadly matches the document.

The accord, due to be formally signed in a ceremony in Switzerland on Friday, lays out that the U.S. would work to end all American and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

Trump, however, said the deal is still under wraps. He was speaking at a one-to-one meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

“Nobody knows what it is but it’s very strong,” he told reporters. He added: “It’s a memorandum of understanding and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs.”

The final day of summit talks started late with Trump, the last to arrive, saying “I’m the boss” as he entered the room and sat next to host French President Emmanuel Macron. The assembled leaders laughed, and Trump grinned.

The G7 leaders were closing the formal talks of the leading industrial democracies at a lakeside resort in the French Alps on Wednesday with sessions on the future of artificial intelligence and fostering economic growth.

They discussed concerns that China is flooding export markets with subsidized products, unfairly out-competing their own industries and destroying jobs. Leaders of India, South Korea, Kenya and Brazil also joined the meeting.

The U.S. leader later plans to make a stop for a glitzy dinner at the Palace of Versailles outside of Paris before he jets back to Washington.

What's in the deal

While G7 leaders gave it their backing, Trump still has to sell the deal to some members of his own party who doubt it will defang Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, he faces an anxious international community looking for him to follow through on his promise that the deal will reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic, and keep it open.

The leaders said that an international maritime mission led by France and the U.K. “can play an important role to facilitate the resumption of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz by protecting merchant vessels, reassuring commercial shipping operators, and supporting verification that all mines are removed.”

Before the Iran war, a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime chokepoint that Iran has effectively shuttered since the first days of the conflict that began on Feb. 28.

The deal also calls for an immediate end to all fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said Israel must withdraw under the deal, although the leaked versions make no mention of withdrawal.

In their declaration, G7 leaders said they supported “through an immediate robust ceasefire” Lebanese efforts to disarm Hezbollah, and protect Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed nearly 4,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, and displaced more than 1 million since fighting there began on March 2. “Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,” Trump said.

Leaders vow to support Ukraine, tackle global drug gangs and migrant smugglers

In a flurry of declarations issued in the early hours of Wednesday, the G7 leaders stressed their support for Ukraine as it battles Russia's invasion and agreed to increase deliveries of air defense systems. They also said they would bolster sanctions on Moscow, including on Russia's oil and gas industries.

Leaders also pledged to step up the fight against the multibillion dollar international drug trade. The statement comes as Trump has been waging his own battle against drug traffickers.

United States military strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats transiting in Latin America have killed more than 200 people since September, when the Trump administration began an operation it has justified as necessary to stem the flow of drugs.

Critics have questioned the legality of the strikes.

In a separate declaration, the G7 leaders reaffirmed their efforts to halt migrant smuggling and human trafficking, which they said “constitute serious transnational crimes that erode the sovereign right of States to control their borders and expose smuggled and trafficked persons to life-threatening risks.”

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Superville reported from Geneva. AP writers John Leicester in Evian-les-Bains, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed reporting.

Page’s Bookshop in North Rosedale Park and the Howard Family Bookstore in Harmony Village will both be hosting live butterfly metamorphosis kits throughout the month of June, allowing residents, customers and local youth to observe the miraculous transformation from caterpillars, to chrysalises, to butterflies in real-time.

Because the entire biological process takes up to three weeks, the butterflies are expected to hatch closer to the beginning of July. Once the metamorphosis is complete, each bookstore will host a public release of their butterflies into the community.

“Our goal is to name Detroit the city of transformation,” said Shamere Duncan, founder of She So Detroit. “We want to give Detroit youth and families a front-row seat to this beautiful process, celebrating the vital role pollinators play in our community while recognizing the potential within each of us.”

Local residents and youth who are unable to take part in the “Pollinators of Tomorrow” program in person can follow the state-by-stage metamorphosis journeys on the bookstores’ social media platforms.

To follow the butterflies’ journey online, learn more about metamorphosis, or find updates on the upcoming butterfly release dates, visit shesodetroit.com.

Executives of leading AI companies including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei are attending discussions as U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders close formal talks of the leading industrial nations in the lakeside resort of Evian-les-Bains with a session on the future of artificial intelligence and another on fostering economic growth.

Trump plans to stop outside Paris for a glitzy dinner at the Palace of Versailles before jetting back to Washington on Wednesday.

The G7 leaders spent the bulk of the meetings Tuesday discussing the war between Russia and Ukraine and a tentative deal to end the Iran war. Trump did not reveal details of the agreement expected to be signed by the United States and Iran on Friday in Switzerland, saying “nobody knows what it is but it’s very strong."

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

Here is the latest:

Tourists at Versailles are out of luck: It’s shut down for Trump-Macron dinner

The vast, glittering palace built for France’s ″Sun King’’ Louis XIV closed its gates for Wednesday’s dinner, which was just confirmed four days ago.

A helicopter is flying now over the vast grounds of the chateau as security tightens.

It took 25-year-old Ben Olson and his girlfriend, Amanda Gruell, both from Minnesota, an hour to get from Paris to Versailles, only to learn they wouldn’t be able to enter.

“I don’t know what they’re going to talk about,” Olson said. The disappointed couple decided to walk around the town instead.

As G7 leaders meet AI titans, their spouses discuss dangers of the technology

Brigitte Macron took some G7 leaders’ spouses to an event called “Protecting Children in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” as their partners met with AI titans.

Macron led Kenya’s Rachel Kimetto, Germany’s Charlotte Merz, Canada’s Diana Fox Carney, South Korea’s Kim Hye-kyung, France’s Brigitte Macron, Britain’s Victoria Starmer, Brazil’s Janja Lula da Silva and Heiko von der Leyen, husband of the EU executive, to La Buvette Cachat, an ornate wood and glass pavilion built in 1832 in Art Nouveau style on the south shore of Lake Geneva.

Trump says US won’t spend 10 cents to help Iran rebuild

The tentative agreement would provide Iran with at least $300 billion to rebuild after the intense U.S. and Israeli-led bombing campaign, according to leaked copies of the document.

But Trump insists the U.S. won’t aid the effort.

“We’re not putting up ten cents,” Trump said while meeting with Egypt’s president. “People can decide to do that, but that’s up to them. We are not investing in it, and we do not have a fund.”

Trump said he’s not asking Gulf countries to contribute. He said other countries are free to do so if they choose.

Merz says ‘no personal disturbances’ as allies met Trump

The German leader says the G7 leaders spoke “very openly” and “very constructively” about the issues on the summit agenda.

Merz got off to a good start with Trump last year, but their relationship cooled after Merz said earlier this year that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by Iran and criticized Washington for going into the war without a strategy.

Merz said when asked about his relationship with Trump Wednesday that he “experienced this G7 summit as very constructive and really carried by a joint spirit, and at no point were there any personal disturbances.”

Germany pledges support on Iran deal but sees no ‘time pressure’

Merz is reiterating Berlin’s intention to help support a peace deal in the Middle East. That could include a military mission in the Strait of Hormuz if there is a ceasefire.

But Merz said there is “a series of preconditions that are not yet fulfilled, so there is no immediate hurry.”

Germany’s government would need to secure a parliamentary mandate for any military mission.

Merz noted that there are still two weeks of parliamentary sessions before the legislature’s summer break starts in July and said that “there is no time pressure at the moment.”

Trump says agreement with Iran still hasn’t been finalized

“It’s a memorandum of understanding and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs,” Trump said.

Trump also repeated his claim that his negotiating prowess and willingness to use military action pushed the Iranians to make a deal.

“Nobody could have made this deal,” he said.

Egypt’s leader touts US efforts to settle Cairo’s dispute with Ethiopia

During a news conference with Trump on the sidelines of the summit, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said that his government “values the U.S. support to Egypt,” as well as efforts to solve the Ethiopian dam issue.

El-Sissi has forged close ties with Trump since the American leader’s first term in the White House.

Egypt fears that Ethiopia’s controversial dam could slash its share of Nile water, and it has called for a legally binding agreement on the dam’s operation.

German leader highlights G7 support for Ukraine

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the outcome of the summit shows that the group’s support for Ukraine is “as strong as seldom before.”

He said it also sends a clear signal to Moscow that all G7 members will step up pressure on Russia, including through sanctions.

“That sets a new tone, including in trans-Atlantic unity and determination,” Merz said, adding that it could be a “decisive step” toward peace negotiations.

G7 AI lunch is one of the first times OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs are appearing together

The G7’s AI lunch will be one of the first times that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei will be appearing together since they made an awkward appearance at an AI summit in India earlier this year.

At that meeting, the two rivals were part of a group of 13 tech leaders on stage when the summit host beckoned them to lift up their hands in a chain, like at the end of a theater show.

But Altman and Amodei avoided hand contact, and both eventually put up their fists instead, in a moment that went viral on social media.

The two have longstanding differences over approaches to AI safety. Amodei worked at OpenAI before he and a group quit to form Anthropic in 2021.

Trump says the emerging Iran deal is a good one, even though details remain secret

“Nobody knows what it is but it’s very strong,” Trump said of the deal that is expected to be formally signed by U.S. and Iranian officials on Friday.

Trump added that a surging stock market is validating the deal.

“There’s nothing so smart as the market, and the market loves it, Trump said.

Nvidia boss Huang and Amazon founder Bezos among those not at G7 AI lunch

Among those not expected at the G7 lunch was Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who opened a new factory in Dallas on Tuesday and gave an exclusive interview to The Associated Press. Huang, whose company’s advanced chips are seen as essential for the AI boom, said he thought new social norms are needed when it comes to AI.

Another tech figure who was in France but not at the G7 was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who appeared at a tech conference in Paris. Bezos told the crowd his new AI startup, Prometheus, would be different from current AI large language models because it would be the basis for a series of engineering tools.

He also said disagreed with the view that AI will eliminate jobs, saying the technology “is going to create a labor shortage because it’s going to make it possible for people to identify more problems” to solve with AI.

Trump offers a round of applause for Macron

Trump offered a round of applause for Macron at the beginning of the G7 session on global economic imbalances, saying the French president is “doing great” and paying tribute to the Evian summit’s organisation, a diplomat informed of the talks said.

An AP reporter close to the meeting’s room was able to hear the applause.

A senior French diplomatic official later described the Evian gathering as “the best G7” in years, citing the quality of informal exchanges among leaders. The official said those discussions helped secure endorsement from all G7 members, including Trump, of a joint statement on key geopolitical issues, including the Middle East and Ukraine.

Officials would not speak publicly about the leader’s talks that were behind closed doors.

AI bosses attend lunch with leaders to talk about safe deployment of the technology

High-profile AI industry figures will take part in a rare huddle with political leaders on the meeting’s final day.

The leaders of three of the world’s most powerful AI companies — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — were due to attend a working lunch on the theme of “Ensuring a safe, rapid and effective deployment of artificial intelligence.”

European AI labs were represented by Arthur Mensch, CEO of France’s Mistral AI; Robin Rombach, CEO of Germany’s Black Forest Labs, Victor Riperbelli of U.K.-based Synthesia and Uljan Sharma, CEO of Italy’s Domyn.

Other AI founders joining the lunch include Aidan Gomez, CEO of Canada’s Cohere, Ren Ito, the founder of Japan’s Sakana AI, Vivek Raghavan of India’s Sarvam AI. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was also taking part.

Trump told other G7 leaders ″I’m the boss’’

That was his opening phrase as he walked in — late — to the first session of the day at the G7 summit.

The room laughed, and Trump grinned. After exchanging niceties with the U.S. president, Macron then got the meeting underway.

G7 leaders focus on China trade surges and consequences for industry and jobs

G7 leaders were to discuss concerns that China is flooding export markets with subsidized products, unfairly out-competing their own industries and destroying jobs. They gathered for a session focusing on “promoting balanced, shared and sustainable economic growth” alongside partners including leaders of India, South Korea, Kenya and Brazil.

Talks come as China is redirecting its products away from the U.S. tariff wall and toward more open markets in Europe and elsewhere in Asia.

The shift in Chinese trade risks creating a European sequel to the China Shock that wiped out hundreds of thousands of factory jobs in the American heartland in the 2000s. Despite U.S. sanctions, China notched a record global trade surplus last year.

Informal talks begin

Leaders of France, the UK, Italy, Germany and Canada have gathered for informal talks ahead of a G7 session on global economic imbalances, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.

They then joined the meeting involving partners including India, South Korea, Kenya and India.

Starmer says he discussed Russia oil sanctions with Trump

Keir Starmer says he isn’t sure whether Trump has made a decision about whether to reimpose sanctions on Russian oil.

The British leader says he talked to Trump about the temporary U.S. sanctions waiver.

Starmer told British broadcaster ITV he and Trump had “a very constructive discussion about Ukraine,” but “I don’t know that a decision has been made yet.”

He said G7 leaders shared “a real determination to stand with Ukraine,” including through more sanctions on Russia.

Trump delays Jay Clayton’s nomination for intel director to try to push Congress on voting bill

Trump said on Wednesday that he’s delaying Jay Clayton’s nomination to lead the U.S. intelligence community in a bid to force Congress to act on a voter ID bill that currently lacks enough support for passage.

Trump said in a lengthy post on his social media site that he will keep Bill Pulte, a top U.S. housing official, as acting director of national intelligence. Lawmakers in both parties had opposed Trump’s nomination of Pulte, citing his apparent lack of experience in the intelligence field, which essentially forced Trump to turn to Clayton.

Clayton had been set to appear on Wednesday for a Senate confirmation hearing that was fast-tracked because of the lapse of a crucial surveillance program due to bipartisan anger over Trump’s pick of Pulte.

No Bilateral Meeting for Carney and Trump at G7 as Trade Pact Renewal Looms

Carney did not get a bilateral meeting with Trump at the summit, despite the free trade agreement between the countries being up for renewal on July 1.

Carney says he had seven or eight discussions with Trump and he expects to have more Wednesday.

He says they discussed a wide range of subjects, from the economy, relations, his birthday, artificial intelligence, Ukraine and Iran.

Canadian prime ministers usually get a bilateral meeting with an American president at G7 summits. And it is a crucial time for talks to potentially renew the free-trade agreement between the two countries and Mexico. Trump said last week that he may not renew the deal.

Macron is the only G7 leader to get a bilateral meeting thus far. Trump met with the leaders of non-G7 countries of Qatar, UAE, Egypt and India.

Trump to close final day in France at Palace of Versailles

The expansive palace is where he’ll have dinner with Macron before the flight back to Washington.

At the final day of the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, Trump is set to participate in working sessions with his counterparts from France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan, alongside leaders from some developing nations and tech CEOs.

In between sessions, he’ll hold one-on-one talks with Egypt’s president and India’s prime minister.

Trump is also holding a news conference before the trip to Versailles.

Leaders pledge Ukraine support including air defense technology

G7 leaders said in a joint statement overnight they would increase military support for Ukraine after recent “progress on the battlefield.”

They also plan to levy harsher sanctions on Russia’s energy sector in the wake of the recent deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

They plan to give more air defense technology including interceptors and grant military production licenses to Ukraine.

Kyiv has sought the permits to construct their own Patriot missiles.

Carney says Iran deal could be a global game changer

Carney says a tentative deal to end the Iran war could be a game changer in the world.

The Canadian prime minister, speaking on the final day of the summit, said the agreement could have positive effects including the ability to provide additional defensive support in Ukraine.

Carney said here has been a change in tone concerning Ukraine, which was discussed in detail at the summit on Tuesday.

Many countries are vested in making the Iran deal work, he said.

G7 leaders call for safe and toll-free shipping in Strait of Hormuz

Leaders gathered at the G7 summit issued a joint statement overnight Tuesday on the agreement reached between the U.S. and Iran focused on securing safe passage without tolls in the Persian Gulf.

“We reaffirm that the right of transit passage without restrictions or tolls is the bedrock of international trade,” said the statement of leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Iran floated a similar idea in April to fund reconstruction of areas in the country damaged by war.

The closure of the strait has driven up fuel and fertilizer costs and rattled economies worldwide.

The statement also offered support to a French and British-led naval mission to the Persian Gulf to safeguard ships and remove mines from one of the crucial choke-points in the world’s energy supply chain.

Carney gives birthday gift to Trump

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave U.S. President Donald Trump a present for his 80th birthday, but said it’s “not gold.”

Trump was “very pleased,” Carney said, adding that he “likes it a lot.”

Carney didn’t specify what the gift was and a spokesperson for the prime minister didn’t immediately know.

Trump is known for his love of gold. An Oval Office makeover at the start of his term included large amounts of fresh gold trim.

Trump and Carney have a positive relationship despite Trump’s previous comments about making Canada the 51st state of the United States.

Norton, who served 18 terms as the District of Columbia’s nonvoting representative in Congress, chose not to run for reelection after mounting concerns that, at 89 years old, she was no longer capable of forcefully combating a Republican-led Congress and presidential administration constantly overriding the heavily Democratic city's leadership. Voters choose their local leaders, but Congress has final say on the laws the city passes and its budget.

Council member Robert White Jr. won the Democratic primary to replace Norton and is expected to win the general election in November. He will face Republican Denise Rosado, an immigration attorney who ran unopposed.

A D.C. native and lifelong resident, White is a lawyer and worked as Norton's legislative counsel for five years, as well as serving at the attorney general's office for the District of Columbia before winning the special election in 2016 for an at-large seat on the D.C. Council.

“Our turn will never come unless we demand it. Eleanor Holmes Norton understood that. The generations before us understood that. And before this night is over, I hope every Washingtonian understands it, too: We will not yield,” White told a cheering crowd of supporters after polls closed Tuesday.

A new era for DC politics

The D.C. delegate position is a nonvoting one, but it grants the nearly 700,000 people of the district, who have no other representation in Congress, a voice through speechmaking on the House floor and bill introduction.

In Congress, Norton championed education, including securing a grant program that provided up to $10,000 annually to D.C. high school graduates to assist with out-of-state tuition. She also pushed for federal legislation that helped save the city from financial ruin.

Calls for her to step aside grew in the aftermath of a surge of federal law enforcement officers and National Guard troops into the city last year by President Donald Trump. Critics, including her former chief of staff, argued that she was diminished and no longer capable of providing the energy and presence the moment called for against Trump.

The pressure on Norton to drop out came as questions of generational change gripped the Democratic Party after President Joe Biden, also in his 80s, tried to run for reelection despite concerns about his age. He eventually dropped out and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, but she lost to Trump, sparking ongoing recriminations.

Before running for office, Norton was a fixture of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, she split her time between Yale Law School and Mississippi, where she volunteered for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. One day during the Freedom Summer, civil rights activist Medgar Evers picked her up at the Jackson airport. He was assassinated that night. Norton also helped organize and attended the 1963 March on Washington.

Norton went on to become the first woman to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which helps enforce anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.

Political historian Matt Dallek said her credentials bring a certain gravitas and moral standing that “I think a lot of residents in the district could respond to and did respond to. It resonated with them.”

“That kind of generational moral clarity and moral gravitas that she and others brought to the political arena is being lost. That’s not to say that others can’t pick up that mantle” he said, but White will have different concerns and experiences in a city changing demographically.

Different challenges and priorities for a changing city

White would become only the third Washington delegate to Congress since 1971, when Walter Fauntroy Jr. was elected as the nonvoting delegate. The position was created in 1970 under the District of Columbia Delegate Act.

George Derek Musgrove, associate professor of history at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, said no candidates seeking the office have the national stature of their predecessors, “which is, for me, one of the biggest changes in the city.” Both Fauntroy and Norton, Musgrove said, “leveraged their national political contacts to do the work of the delegate.”

White made D.C. statehood and pushing back on federal interference in local affairs priorities in the campaign.

He will need to build relationships quickly, said Amanda Huron, a professor at the University of the District of Columbia who teaches courses on D.C. history and politics. It is especially critical with a Congress that intervenes in local affairs.

“One of the real challenges of governing D.C. locally is that you’ve got these people in Congress who we don’t elect so these decisions are being made at a congressional level where we don't even have any representation effectively,” Huron said.

Maurice Jackson, a historian at Georgetown University, said Norton is also a brilliant constitutional lawyer along with being a civil rights legend and EEOC trailblazer. That said, he added, change is not always a bad thing.

The question, he said, is whether White will fight for the rights of all the city’s residents and work to stop the Black population from leaving a city that is changing demographically.

When Martin Luther King Jr. died “everybody knew there would never be another King,” he said. "So there's no need to worry about whether there'll be another Norton. There are people who can step forward.”

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Follow the AP's coverage of the District of Columbia at https://apnews.com/hub/district-of-columbia.

Canadian leaders typically get a bilateral meeting with American presidents at summits of the world's leading industrialized democracies, but Carney dismissed any notion of a snub.

“I wouldn’t take a big message from that,” Carney said. “I had seven or eight discussions with President Trump over the course of last 36 hours. I’ll have more today, a wide range of subjects from the economy, relations, his birthday, artificial intelligence, Ukraine, obviously Iran.”

Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January helped make him an international political star, when he declared the global rules-based order over and condemned coercion by great powers on smaller countries. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks and upstaged Trump at the gathering.

Talks on the latest iteration of the North American free-trade pact have reached a crucial moment. The agreement, which has intertwined the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico since the early 1990s, is up for renewal on July 1. Trump said last week he may not renew the deal.

Preserving the accord is critical for Canada, which sends about 75% of its exports to the U.S.

Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister responsible for trade with the U.S., and Janice Charette, Canada’s chief negotiator, met with U.S. Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer at the summit. LeBlanc said they made progress.

LeBlanc has previously said he believes the U.S. might want to have the trade agreement subject to annual reviews, and that the Trump administration might seek to cause uncertainty about its permanence.

French President Emmanuel Macron, the summit host, is the only G7 leader to get a bilateral meeting thus far. Trump also met one on one with the leaders of non-G7 countries of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and India.

Carney noted the host country always meets with the American president.

Carney used humor to engage with Trump in at least one of their interactions about trade. In a lighter moment, a microphone caught Carney and Trump joking about stealing Macron’s watch.

Carney then moved to a serious exchange about allowing Chinese electric vehicles into Canada. A microphone recorded Carney telling Trump about how less than 3% of Canada’s market, 49,000 cars, will be allowed to enter from China after he made a deal with Beijing.

“It’s a cap, we capped, a hard line,” Carney said. “I thought you’d actually like that.”

“That’s good, I like it,” Trump responded.

Breaking with the United States, Canada agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars earlier this year in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products. Carney said he spoke to Trump about it twice.

“I’m not surprised that the president of the United States doesn’t follow every detail of every agreement that Canada has, and he likes the structure. Actually, we had a follow-up conversation about it as well,” Carney said.

Peter Boehm, a member of the Canadian Senate who led a number of G7 summits for Canada, said Carney would have had a lot of time for conversations with Trump.

“I wouldn’t see it as a snub,” he said. “It’s amazing how much time leaders can actually have to have conversations.”

Device usage is expected to rise among children, but there’s a growing movement of families pushing back.

Some parents are swapping devices for outdoor adventures, books and imaginative play.

April White, a mother from Farmington Hills, said her family makes a point to start every day outside.

“That’s kind of how we do it,” White said. “We start our day outside and sometimes we just never even feel the temptation to get to the screens.”

Families weigh in on screen time

At Ralph C. Wilson Centennial Park, families from across the metro area are drawing a clear line: screens may have a place in learning, but they shouldn’t define the childhood experience.

Nikki Pradel, a Detroit mother, said her family lives by that philosophy every day.

“We’re outside,” she said. “We’re outside 24/7. We are bathing every single night because they’re dirty and they’re playing outside with sand and water with all the toys in the backyard and front yard.”

Pradel said she’s intentional about keeping her children young and imaginative for as long as possible.

“I don’t want that be taken by anything that’s out there on the screens, social media or any of that. I want to keep them young as long as I can,” she said.

White echoed that sentiment, explaining that getting outside early in the day sets a natural tone for the rest of it.

“I think it just starts from a young age, just instilling like a natural practice of getting outside,” White said. “So, we go outside first thing in the morning and once they’re outside, they’re really self-entertained and they love to be out there playing and exploring, adventuring, and they usually forget about screens until like the end of the day.”

What the research says

A 2023 study examined how devices can impact a child’s language development, social interactions and academic performance.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Rose Moten said the evidence is growing and concerning.

“There’s actually been, and it’s increasing, studies that’s actually showing that it’s really slowing down development in areas and regions of the brain that is very concerning and troubling, especially for those of us in the mental health field, but it should be concerning for all of us,” Moten said.

Moten said the COVID-19 pandemic offered a stark example of what happens when children are cut off from real-world social interaction.

“When we go back even to the pandemic when the pandemic occurred and kids weren’t able to get out and be social with other children — what I hear from many educators is that they’re still ruling from children who don’t have a sense of just social confidence with connecting with their peers,” she said.

She said the stakes go beyond social skills — they reach into a child’s core identity.

“This sense of confidence, this sense of creativity, this sense of identity, this needed skill of being able to connect socially cannot be downloaded. It can’t be downloaded and it can’t [be] learned in front of a screen,” Moten said.

Tips for parents: Make it positive, not punitive

For parents considering limiting their child’s screen time, Moten said the framing matters enormously.

“Parents want to be very careful in not suggesting that lack of screen time is punitive,” Moten said. “You want to encourage them that there are some benefits to screen time, but there are even more benefits to being away from that screen.”

She said boredom itself can be a powerful tool.

“Tap into their imagination. Utilize when kids say they’re bored, because we always hear that from children. But look at boredom as an opportunity,” Moten said. “It’s an opportunity to really help children — introduce them to just their imagination.”

Moten outlined what she calls the “three I’s” of child social development — industry, initiative and identity — all of which, she said, are best developed away from screens.

“Play is the work of kids, let me just say that first of all,” Moten said.

Screen-free ideas at Time Blaster Toys

Just up the road, Time Blaster Toys in Livonia is stocking up on screen-free options for the season.

Owner Keith Libra said the shop carries something for every generation, ranging from vintage action figures to the latest must-have toys.

“You go to a vintage toy store like ours; traditionally, maybe it appeals to someone my age, a collector like me, maybe not so much for the young kids,” Libra said. “And what we try to do here is not only have that toy that’s going to spark nostalgia from the 80s or 90s, but we want that new, latest, and greatest toy for little guys, you know, little girls and boys.”

Libra highlighted four screen-free categories parents can explore this summer: books, bubbles, puppets and classes.

“We have some awesome Choose Your Adventure books. I’m sure you remember reading those when you were young back in the day,” Libra said. “Really popular back in the day, and they’re still produced today.”

On the puppet front, Libra said the store has been pleasantly surprised by the response since they started stocking them six or seven months ago.

“Kids are into puppets,” Libra said. “There are customers who come in with their own puppet [who] will come into our store to shop puppets.”

The store’s bubble selection has also expanded to feature giant bubbles to touchable bubbles to the quantum bubbler.

Melanie Libra, who helps run the store, described the touchable bubbles as something straight out of a childhood dream.

“You blow them, you wait for a minute, and then you can put your hand out and catch the bubbles in your hand. It’s like what you always dreamed of when you were a kid,” she said.

Lab classes for all ages

Time Blaster Toys also offers hands-on creative classes inside the Lab, a classroom space inside the store. The two-hour classes are open to all ages.

Melanie Libra said the store’s art instructor has been painting since she was five years old and leads kids through everything from snowman paintings to clay art.

“She also has the kids dabbling in oil painting now, which is just amazing,” Melanie Libra said. “All ages. So, you’ll just paint at your level.”

The watch was issued for Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne counties through 4 a.m. Thursday, June 18.

A 4Warn Weather Alert was also issued for the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, June 17.

Timeline

Rain will begin to overspread Southeast Michigan during the afternoon hours, with light but steady rainfall expected to blanket much of the region by mid-afternoon.

Conditions will deteriorate further on Wednesday evening as thunderstorms begin developing after 6 p.m. This could greatly impact the evening drive as rain becomes heavier, possibly reducing visibility and creating ponding and pooling on the roads. Remember, just a few inches of moving water can sweep away a vehicle, so turn around, don’t drown.

Widespread rainfall totals of 1 to 2 inches are expected across much of Southeast Michigan, with localized swaths of 3 inches or more possible where thunderstorms repeatedly track over the same locations.

The heaviest rainfall is expected between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m.

Related --> Flood safety: How does heavy rainfall lead to flooding?

Storm threats

Some of these storms may become strong to severe, bringing the risk of damaging wind gusts, large hail, isolated tornadoes, and flash flooding.

The greatest concern remains the potential for torrential rainfall that could overwhelm drainage systems and cause localized flooding.

Most of Southeast Michigan remains under a Slight Risk (Level 2 of 5) for severe weather Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Areas north of I-69 are included in a Marginal Risk (Level 1 of 5), where isolated severe storms remain possible.

The leaders of the world’s leading industrial economies promised to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses and ensure its energy supply, as well as step up international economic pressure on Moscow, as Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s all-out invasion stretches into its fifth year with no end in sight.

“The G7 Summit in France delivered important results for Ukraine. Most importantly, we agreed on additional strengthening of Ukraine’s air defense,” Zelenskyy, who attended the gathering, said on X.

“Our partners will ensure support for our defense and energy resilience,” he said, adding they will also introduce new sanctions on Russia.

The Ukrainian leader has spent a lot of time since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 trying to secure international support for his country and diplomatically isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zelenskyy was expected to attend a European Union summit in Brussels on Thursday. Ukraine on Monday officially started EU membership negotiations, launching a process that could take years even as it fights Russia.

The Iran war has distracted Washington from its largely fruitless yearlong effort to stop the fighting in Ukraine, and Zelenskyy sought to engage with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G7 gathering where key European leaders were also present.

Putin has tried to cut out Europe and Kyiv and negotiate Ukraine’s future directly with Washington.

G7 leaders applaud Ukraine's recent battlefield performance

The leaders of Japan, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the U.S. threw their support behind Ukraine in a joint statement published overnight.

“We commend Ukraine for its resilience and progress on the battlefield in recent months and emphasize there is now a new momentum” in Kyiv’s resistance, it said.

Ukraine’s battlefield performance against Russia’s bigger army has markedly improved in recent months, Western officials and analysts say.

High-tech Ukrainian drones are pinning down Russian troops on the front line, choking Russian supply lines in occupied regions of Ukraine and disrupting oil production deep inside Russia that provides vital revenue for Moscow. That has made the war, which Moscow refers to as a “special military operation,” more visible to Russians and increased pressure on Putin.

But Ukraine is short of American-made Patriot air defense missiles, in part because of U.S. stocks being depleted by the Middle East conflict, leaving it vulnerable to the ballistic missiles that Russia uses in its strategic bombing campaign.

The G7 statement promised Ukraine more air defense capabilities, without specifying what type of weapons.

The leaders also said they would consider granting Ukraine licenses for it to manufacture Western weapons. Kyiv has asked for permits to make Patriot missiles itself.

The summit outcome shows that G7 backing for Ukraine is “as strong as seldom before” and sends a clear signal to Moscow, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.

Ukraine says a Russian drone kills horses at a school

In attacks reported Wednesday, a Russian drone struck an equestrian sports school for children in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, hitting a stable and killing horses, a regional official said.

Staff at the school were not hurt in the nighttime attack, according to preliminary information, said Oleh Hryhorov of the Sumy regional military administration.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 157 Ukrainian drones from late Tuesday until early Wednesday.

___

AP reporters Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this story.

___

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

Eugene Hurd said the issue began as a small spot when he first moved into his unit, but has since grown despite his efforts to clean it regularly.

To some, the toilet may look simply dirty. Hurd is convinced it’s mold.

“Lysol, bleach, chemical spray, and lemon,” Hurd said, listing just some of the products he says he uses on the toilet every week. “Nothing seems to help it.”

Hurd said he also believes there is mold in other parts of the bathroom, like directly behind the toilet.

He said he reported the problem to the apartment’s management but felt his concerns were dismissed.

“When they came out, they said that we need to use the fan and that it’s moisture,” Hurd said. “So the hot and the cold, because this sweats, this sweats a lot, and he said there’s nothing they can do about it.”

Unsatisfied with that explanation, Hurd filed a complaint with the city in April against the property management company.

He said nothing had been fixed, and as he began to feel sick, he went to the doctor last week to report his concern about mold.

He was prescribed medication to treat upper respiratory symptoms.

Hurd then filed a second complaint with the city.

In response to questions about those complaints, the city of Ypsilanti said.

“We can confirm that both complaints have been received and addressed by city staff. The city was notified by both the landlord and tenant that the initial complaint was resolved after a violation notice was issued,” the city said.

Hurd disputes that the problem was ever resolved, but said he was encouraged by an email he received today regarding his latest complaint.

“Your complaint has been assigned to Inspector Jamaica Berry. Inspector will be reaching out to you,” Hurd read out loud.

Local 4 also contacted the property management for Hurd’s complex. The company did not respond to an email request for comment. A staff member reached by phone said she would pass along the message.

Hurd said he hopes that once the city inspects his unit and sees the conditions, his landlord will either fix the problem or help him move into another one of the company’s rentals.

The city of Ypsilanti recently launched an online form to make it easier for renters to report housing issues without visiting city offices in person. Residents can describe their concern, submit the form, and wait for a follow-up.

City officials said staff members respond within two business days of a complaint being filed by scheduling an inspection and, if necessary, issuing violation notices in accordance with city ordinances and building regulations.

The city typically receives one to two property maintenance complaints about rental properties each month. Before submitting a complaint, tenants must notify their landlord of the problem in writing and allow the landlord 10 days to make corrections.

If a landlord fails to respond or address the issue, then a property maintenance complaint form must be submitted to the city’s building department.

A 4Warn Weather Alert has been issued for the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, June 17.

A Flood Watch has been issued for Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties through 4 a.m. Thursday, June 18.

Timeline

Rain will begin to overspread Southeast Michigan during the afternoon hours, with light but steady rainfall expected to blanket much of the region by mid-afternoon.

Conditions will deteriorate further on Wednesday evening as thunderstorms begin developing after 6 p.m. This could greatly impact the evening drive as rain becomes heavier, possibly reducing visibility and creating ponding and pooling on the roads. Remember, just a few inches of moving water can sweep away a vehicle, so turn around, don’t drown.

Widespread rainfall totals of 1 to 2 inches are expected across much of Southeast Michigan, with localized swaths of 3 inches or more possible where thunderstorms repeatedly track over the same locations.

The heaviest rainfall is expected between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m.

Related --> Flood safety: How does heavy rainfall lead to flooding?

Storm threats

Some of these storms may become strong to severe, bringing the risk of damaging wind gusts, large hail, isolated tornadoes, and flash flooding.

The greatest concern remains the potential for torrential rainfall that could overwhelm drainage systems and cause localized flooding.

Most of Southeast Michigan remains under a Slight Risk (Level 2 of 5) for severe weather Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Areas north of I-69 are included in a Marginal Risk (Level 1 of 5), where isolated severe storms remain possible.

TRT said in a statement late on Tuesday that the commentator, identified by Turkish media as Murat Ekrem Çimen, had been withdrawn from the World Cup broadcast team in the U.S. pending investigation. It added that he would not continue to comment on matches during the tournament.

According to reports in Turkish media, Cimen referred to Iran’s attacks as New Zealand’s and described New Zealand’s moves as Iran’s during the opening minutes of the broadcast. The teams shared a 2-2 draw on Monday night in Group G.

TRT said the mistake was “unacceptable” under its broadcasting standards.

“We apologize to our viewers and the public for this error,” it said. “It is unacceptable for TRT that someone with over 30 years of experience in sports broadcasting would make such a mistake.”

___

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

Angered by Bores' legislation regulating artificial intelligence, a political group underwritten by investors in OpenAI spent more than $7 million on ads designed to crush the former computer engineer, who's running in the ultracompetitive June 23 Democratic primary for a Manhattan-based U.S. House district. That group, Leading the Future, counts titans of Silicon Valley, major venture capitalists and alumni of President Donald Trump's Republican administration among its donors.

Bores complained about the spending, warning that it would deter other state lawmakers and members of Congress from trying to rein in the fast-growing industry. He swiftly became a nationally recognized cautionary tale of an underdog politician battling against an overwhelming tide of tech money.

But then another wing of Silicon Valley rode to Bores' rescue. Political groups partly funded by Anthropic, the maker of the chatbot Claude, have spent more than $10 million boosting Bores' campaign. Crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, an Anthropic investor, has pledged another $3.5 million.

Bores' race is now a proxy battle for two competing visions of how government should treat the technology industry and artificial intelligence. Adding to the tension is Bores' past working for Palantir, which he quit during Trump's first term over what he said were concerns about the tech company's work on immigration enforcement.

“The lines are being drawn, and this primary is very much an expression of that,” said Morten Bay, a research fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California. “The core divide is regulation — whether you're for or against it.”

Tech industry is at odds over regulation

The schism mirrors a similar one running through Silicon Valley. Some tech titans, like Elon Musk, have embraced Trump and his movement, as well as the idea of limiting or eliminating most government regulations. But a large chunk of the industry remains traditionally Democratic, in favor of some government safeguards.

Leading the Future — funded by major Trump donors like OpenAI President Greg Brockman, venture capitalist Marc Andreesen and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale — has spent $7.6 million through a subsidiary against Bores.

The political action committee, formed last year as the artificial intelligence industry's main political muscle, says that it supports AI regulation but that Congress should take the lead. The group contends that Bores is the only candidate who is bought and paid for.

“As we have said from day one, Anthropic, its investors and the dark-money groups it funds would spend millions to send Alex Bores to Congress, and that is exactly what has happened,” said Josh Vlasto, a co-lead of Leading the Future.

Bores points to his own record crafting AI safety legislation for how he'd tackle the issue at the federal level. The regulation he spearheaded, known as the RAISE Act, is considered among the most sweeping attempts by a state to control the new technology. It requires major AI companies to file reports about safeguards against “catastrophic” risks that could injure more than 50 people, like the previously only-in-science-fiction scenario of AI melting down nuclear power plants or engineering new viruses.

Leading the Future opposed Bores' original proposal but acceded to a modified version that was signed into law. But the PAC has made clear it hasn't forgiven Bores and describes his views as extreme.

Bores pushed strict rules in New York

The RAISE Act is the sort of regulation that would be nullified by Trump's proposed AI framework, which would bar states from enacting their own AI rules so Congress could create a national standard. However, there's been little movement in Washington to do that, which has left the industry essentially unregulated at the federal level.

Leading the Future's refrain that Bores is a tool of OpenAI's business competitor has been taken up by Bores' many rivals in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler. His 12th Congressional District stretches across upper and midtown Manhattan and is one of the wealthiest and most Democratic districts in the country. At recent debates, Bores' opponents have claimed he's simply a pawn in a corporate battle.

“You’re in the middle of a civil war between OpenAI and Anthropic. It has nothing to do with standing up to Trump’s mega donors," said Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy family heir and social media personality also running for the seat.

Bores and his allies contend his opponents are simply trying to confuse voters.

“This race started with AI megadonors pledging $10 million to stop me because they were afraid after I passed the strongest AI safety law in the country," Bores said in a statement. "Since then, everyone who supports AI regulation and safety — from teachers to tech workers, from AI safety advocates to progressive activists — has united to take the other side. This isn’t one company versus another, this is one ideology versus another: regulate the powerful and protect people, or don’t.”

Some tech groups are backing Bores

Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, runs the political action committee Public First, which has spent more than $6 million to back Bores through a subsidiary. The committee was created explicitly to counter Leading the Future and was an outgrowth of a nonprofit Carson helped fund to push for AI regulation.

In an interview, Carson bristled at the suggestion that the enterprise was simply an Anthropic tool and said it had raised $30 million from nongovernmental organizations before Anthropic made a $20 million contribution. “It's not like two billionaires fighting it out,” Carson said. “It's two philosophical movements fighting it out. All of them have wealthy supporters.”

Chris Larsen, a cryptocurrency billionaire who's pledged about $3.5 million on Bores' behalf, said in a statement that his decision to get involved "resulted directly from OpenAI’s threats to make examples of candidates who seek common-sense regulation.”

Bay, the research fellow, noted that the district is an odd one for the more Trump-friendly groups to invest in because it's so liberal. Indeed, Bores' main rival for the nomination, Assemblyman Micah Lasher, supported Bores' RAISE Act. Carson said his group wants Bores to win but is comfortable with Lasher.

“He's very good on AI issues too,” Carson said. “We win either way.”

A Flood Watch has been issued for Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties through 4 a.m. Thursday, June 18.

Full forecast --> Flooding, severe storms possible Wednesday evening across Southeast Michigan -- what to know

What is a 4Warn Weather Alert?

We issue a 4Warn Weather Alert when we’re expecting weather conditions that will be inconvenient to our viewers.

Why did we issue an alert for Wednesday?

Heavy rain, flash flooding and severe thunderstorms are a risk in Wednesday’s storm system.

Rain will begin to overspread Southeast Michigan during the afternoon hours, with light but steady rainfall expected to blanket much of the region by mid-afternoon.

Conditions will deteriorate further on Wednesday evening as thunderstorms begin developing after 6 p.m. This could greatly impact the evening drive as rain becomes heavier, possibly reducing visibility and creating ponding and pooling on the roads. Remember, just a few inches of moving water can sweep away a vehicle, so turn around, don’t drown.

Some of these storms may become strong to severe, bringing the risk of damaging wind gusts, large hail, isolated tornadoes, and flash flooding.

The greatest concern remains the potential for torrential rainfall that could overwhelm drainage systems and cause localized flooding.

Widespread rainfall totals of 1 to 2 inches are expected across much of Southeast Michigan, with localized swaths of 3 inches or more possible where thunderstorms repeatedly track over the same locations. The heaviest rainfall is expected between 8 p.m. and 12 a.m. Check the sump pump in your basement!

Related --> Flood safety: How does heavy rainfall lead to flooding?

Most of Southeast Michigan remains under a Slight Risk (Level 2 of 5) for severe weather Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Areas north of I-69 are included in a Marginal Risk (Level 1 of 5), where isolated severe storms remain possible.

To help people considering a used plug-in hybrid, the car experts at Edmunds have identified five models across different vehicle categories that are among the best used plug-in hybrids you can buy. They’re all less than 8 years old, and many will have less than 50,000 miles. Pricing will vary depending on vehicle condition, but we’ve estimated what you can expect to pay at nationwide retailers such as CarMax and Carvana.

Small car: 2023-2024 Toyota Prius Prime

Toyota redesigned the Prius for the 2023 model year, giving the thrifty little hatchback a stylish design, improved performance and fresh technology. The Prius Prime is the plug-in hybrid version of the car, capable of traveling up to an EPA-estimated 45 miles on electricity before the gas engine fires up and provides up to 52 mpg for the rest of the trip. Available in SE, XSE and XSE Premium trim levels, the Prius Prime offers 220 horsepower for zippy acceleration. Add its hatchback design, which provides more cargo space than a sedan, and a used 2023-2024 Prius Prime is an excellent daily commuter and weekend errand-runner.

2023 Prius Prime estimated price: $30,000

Compact SUV: 2022-2025 Hyundai Tucson Plug-in Hybrid

Choosing a plug-in hybrid SUV gives you more interior room than a Prius for passengers and cargo, but it comes at the cost of driving range and efficiency. Nevertheless, a 2022-2025 Hyundai Tucson Plug-in Hybrid provides up to an EPA-estimated 33 miles of electric range while offering 35 mpg in combined city and highway driving. All-wheel drive is standard, and the turbocharged powertrain supplies a robust 261 horsepower for quick acceleration. Cargo space is generous at 66.3 cubic feet, and the Tucson Plug-in Hybrid offers impressive infotainment, safety and convenience technologies.

Average 2022 Tucson Plug-in Hybrid estimated price: $29,000

Three-row SUV: 2022-2025 Kia Sorento Plug-in Hybrid

Sometimes, you need a third-row seat. If that requirement crops up infrequently and you want a plug-in hybrid SUV, consider the 2022-2025 Kia Sorento Plug-in Hybrid. It’s not as big as a typical family-size three-row SUV, but its small third-row seat accommodates kids and shorter adults for quick trips when necessary. Leave it folded down, and a Sorento Plug-in offers up to 45 cubic feet of cargo space. Its turbocharged 261-horsepower powertrain gets up to an EPA-estimated 32 miles of electric range and up to 34 mpg when driven as a hybrid. If your budget allows, get a 2025 model for its updated styling, interior and technology.

2022 Kia Sorento Plug-in Hybrid estimated price: $30,000

Luxury SUV: 2021-2025 BMW X5

Most used X5s have a regular gas engine, but BMW also sells a plug-in hybrid version. Notably, steep depreciation puts a BMW X5 within budget range for many shoppers looking for a used plug-in hybrid. The 2021-2023 X5 plug-in hybrid’s powertrain provides an EPA-estimated 31 miles of electric range and 20 mpg in hybrid mode. BMW updated the powertrain for the 2024 and 2025 X5s to get 39 miles of range and 22 mpg. All X5s have roomy seating for up to five people in a practical and luxurious midsize package.

2021 X5 plug-in hybrid estimated price: $35,000

Performance car: 2018-2020 Porsche Panamera

When you think of Porsche, you probably think of its iconic 911 sports car. But strange as it sounds, you can also get a plug-in hybrid. The Panamera is the brand’s flagship luxury sedan and its available 4 E-Hybrid trim level has a plug-in powertrain. These cars are a rare find, but it’s possible to get one for less than $50,000. The 4 E-Hybrid clocks a Porsche-estimated 0-60 mph acceleration time of 4.4 seconds. At an estimated 14-16 miles, the electric range isn’t impressive, but it can return up to 23 mpg while providing a more thrilling driving experience than most other plug-in hybrids.

2018 Porsche Panamera plug-in hybrid estimated price: $44,000

Edmunds says

Plug-in hybrids may come in all shapes and sizes, but they all have one thing in common: They’re a great way to dip your toes into the electric vehicle pool without completely giving up the convenience of gasoline. Charge them each night when energy rates are low, and they will undoubtedly reduce your fueling bills over time.

____________

This story was provided to The Associated Press by the automotive website Edmunds.

Christian Wardlaw is a contributor at Edmunds.

Rain will begin to overspread Southeast Michigan during the afternoon hours, with light but steady rainfall expected to blanket much of the region by mid-afternoon. Conditions will deteriorate further this evening as thunderstorms begin developing after 6 p.m. This could greatly impact the evening drive as rain becomes heavier, possibly reducing visibility and creating ponding and pooling on the roads. Remember, just a few inches of moving water can sweep away a vehicle, so turn around, don’t drown.

Some of these storms may become strong to severe, bringing the risk of damaging wind gusts, large hail, isolated tornadoes, and flash flooding. The greatest concern remains the potential for torrential rainfall rates capable of overwhelming drainage systems and causing localized flooding. Widespread rainfall totals of 1 to 2 inches are expected across much of Southeast Michigan, with localized swaths of 3 inches or more possible where thunderstorms repeatedly track over the same locations. The heaviest rainfall is expected between 8 p.m. and midnight. Once again... check the sump pump your basement!

Most of Southeast Michigan remains under a Slight Risk (Level 2 of 5) for severe weather this afternoon and evening. Areas north of I-69 are included in a Marginal Risk (Level 1 of 5), where isolated severe storms remain possible. Once this storm system exits, a quieter weather pattern settles in for the remainder of the week and much of the weekend. Temperatures will stay slightly below average, with highs generally holding in the 70s.

Looking ahead, long-range forecast models continue to suggest another chance for rain arriving late Sunday. Current trends move that rain out of the area before Monday evening, meaning much of Father’s Day should remain dry and that conditions will improve in time for the Ford Fireworks on Monday night in Detroit. Stay tuned for forecast updates as we get closer to the weekend.

However, following the dayslong police operation, several of the cats died because of the harsh conditions they were found in, animal welfare groups said. They didn't elaborate or provide an exact number on the cats who didn't make it.

Since the operation, veterinarians and volunteers have flocked to care for the cats at a temporary rescue center set up at a facility run by the Ho Chi Minh City Criminal Police Division.

“People who lost their cats can come to the police station to identify their pets and help the police with the investigation,” police official Nguyên Thê Bâo told local media.

This operation is “a sobering reminder of the enormous scale of Viet Nam’s cat meat trade,” according to Karanvir Kukreja, who leads a campaign against dog and cat meat consumption for the international nonprofit Humane World for Animals.

Local media also reported that the Ho Chi Minh City police investigation into a spate of pet thefts resulted in the arrest of nine people

During the operation, police raided a yard and uncovered 45 cages containing around 400 live cats and four ice-filled foam containers holding approximately 80 dead cats. About 20 live cats were also recovered at a separate location, according to police, who said a kilogram of cat meat sold for around 70,000 Vietnamese dong (around $2.70).

The operation, with a total of more than 500 cats seized, was one of Vietnam's largest cat welfare cases in recent years, media reports also said.

The suspects admitted to trapping and collecting cats across south Vietnam over the past three years — in Ho Chi Minh City, the country's largest city, as well as in the cities of Tay Ninh and An Giang, police said.

“The sad truth about this trade is that thousands of cats every month are being stolen, trafficked and slaughtered for meat across the country,” said Phuong Pham, the country director of the Humane World for Animals in Vietnam. “Thankfully, these survivors escaped.”

Several of the rescued cats were pregnant, leading to kittens being born in police custody this week, she said.

Chris Gindelhumer with the nonprofit Vietnam Cat Welfare, who is helping care for the rescued animals, said he “saw quite a lot of tears in the last few days.”

“It’s really beautiful to see how many Vietnamese families are coming, looking for their cats,” he said. “But it’s also heartbreaking because many families were looking for their cats and didn’t find them.”

Many veterinarians and volunteers are working around the clock for the cats, Gindelhumer said.

Consumption of dog and cat meat is legal in Vietnam. Vendors must have permits to validate the animals' origins. But certain cities like Hoi An in central Vietnam are working with global animal welfare groups to stop dog and cat meat consumption in the city.

Not long after South Korea's 2024 ban on dog meat, Vietnamese officials said the government plans to rebuild parts of the legal system to better protect pets and the rights of their owners.

“This event surprised a lot of people and has raised awareness among many to stop consuming cat meat,” said An Pham, a master's degree student and avid cat lover in Ho Chi Minh City.

🍇 Grapevine

🌅 Good morning! On this day in 1885, the Statue of Liberty made landfall on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor after being shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in 350 pieces and packed into more than 200 cases. The 450,000-pound copper and iron statue, gifted to the U.S. by France, was reassembled and dedicated in October the following year.

Here are a few things to know about for Wednesday, June 17, 2026:

⛈️ 4Warn Weather: A 4Warn Weather Alert has been issued for this afternoon and evening across Southeast Michigan as a potent storm system brings the threat of heavy rain, flash flooding and severe thunderstorms. Check out the 10 day forecast.

🙅🏻‍♂️ Bloomfield Hollow Pushback: Neighbors of a proposed $17 million venue in Bloomfield Township are pushing back against the project, raising concerns about noise, traffic, property values — and the integrity of data presented to support it. Read more.

⌚ Ford Fireworks Curfew Passes: The Detroit City Council voted 6 to 2 on Tuesday to approve a superseding curfew for minors in parts of downtown and along the riverfront during this year’s Ford Fireworks. Read more.

⛽ Price Gouging Complaint: A BP gas station near Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus is under investigation by the state for allegedly price gouging motorists, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced on Tuesday. Read more.

🚘 Detroit’s First Auto Strike: The 1913 Studebaker strike stands as Detroit’s first major labor strike in automaking. And while the strike failed, fear of further strikes led to improved conditions for other automakers. Read more.

🏊 Morning Dive

Good morning ☀️

The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) 2026 draft is headed to Detroit tonight!

The draft, presented by Upper Deck, will be held at the Fox Theatre at 5 p.m., with the Draft Order of Selection led by the Vancouver Goldeneyes, who earned the first overall pick after finishing first in the PWHL’s ‘Gold Plan’ standings during the regular season.

The Goldeneyes will be followed by the Seattle Torrent, who finished in last place in the regular-season standings.

On Tuesday, the league announced five-time U.S. Olympian Hilary Knight’s trade to Detroit as part of a sign-and-trade agreement reached with fellow expansion team Las Vegas last week.

Find out how to watch tonight’s draft, where to buy tickets, and everything else you need to know at Local 4.

Get the full story.

🗞️ Other headlines to know today

• Out-of-state woman arrested hours after robbing Comerica Bank in Sterling Heights
• Oakland County man tackles 320-mile Ultraman to honor mother, support HOPE shelters
• St. Clair Shores police seek SUV in hit-and-run involving 2 children
• ‘Nothing seems to help it’: Ypsilanti renter says suspected mold in apartment bathroom is making him sick
• Man dead, another arrested after fatal shooting following altercation on Detroit’s west side
• Ex-Michigan House Speaker’s wife pleads guilty to embezzlement
• Nightlife mainstays Spot Lite and UFO Bar closing at the end of June
• Accused ‘heartless grifter’ auto scammer from Dearborn released on bond
• Detroit Lions legend Frank Ragnow’s foundation raises over $100K for grieving families at charity event
• Teen on e-bike hit by car in Commerce Township
• Detroit’s Fowling Warehouse will close at the end of the month
• New autism emergency response support program launches in Oakland County
• Michigan mastodon to find new ‘habitat’ at Cranbrook Institute of Science
• Wayne County man arrested on child pornography charges after FBI receives anonymous tip
• One phone call away; Michigan program aims to combat food insecurity
• Meet our pet of the week: Andy
• ‘Monkee’ squeeze toys sold in Michigan recalled for asbestos — here’s what to do
• 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:

Iran will immediately take steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once a tentative deal with the U.S. to end the war is signed and will be allowed to sell its oil without restrictions, according to leaked copies of an interim agreement that officials say broadly matches the document.

The accord, due to be formally signed in a ceremony in Switzerland on Friday, lays out that the U.S. would secure at least $300 billion to rebuild Iran after the war and work to end all American and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

The U.S. agreement to immediately allow Iran to sell its oil freely and the offer to eventually lift all sanctions represent major concessions that outstrip the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from in his first term, declaring it the “worst deal ever.” (Read more)

----

Federal prosecutors have charged 15 people with impeding the Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year, accusing them of coordinating efforts to block arrests and deportations as part of a conspiracy against the U.S. government.

The monthslong investigation focused on members and associates of “Direct Action Minnesota,” a left-wing coalition of protest groups that played a role in the “surveillance, operational planning and rapid mobilization against law enforcement,” Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said.

Rosen said some of the defendants self-identified as “antifa,” an umbrella term for a loose movement of militant left-wing activists that President Donald Trump has labeled a domestic terror group. (Read more)

----

Ukraine has won key pledges of further support for its fight against Russia from world leaders attending the Group of Seven summit in France, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

The leaders of the world’s leading industrial economies promised to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses and ensure its energy supply, as well as step up international economic pressure on Moscow, as Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s all-out invasion stretches into its fifth year with no end in sight.

“The G7 Summit in France delivered important results for Ukraine. Most importantly, we agreed on additional strengthening of Ukraine’s air defense,” Zelenskyy, who attended the gathering, said on X.

“Our partners will ensure support for our defense and energy resilience,” he said, adding they will also introduce new sanctions on Russia. (Read more)

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📝 Word Up

Today’s Word Up is: Querulous / ˈkwer-yə-ləs / (adjective) -- defined as “habitually complaining; petulant; whiny.”

Example: “The flight attendants did their best to pacify the querulous passenger who was complaining about her seating assignment.”

🧹 Housekeeping

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Musket balls and other artifacts from one of the American Revolution’s most consequential battles were buried just below their feet the whole time.

Inspired by a centuries-old map, archaeologists have been digging in the park that sits on the site where American patriots hastily constructed an earthen fort to slow advancing British forces at what became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Ground-penetrating radar identified potential locations for the fort in Boston's Charlestown section. Soon after digging the first trench, the team led by Joe Bagley, the city of Boston's archaeologist, found definitive signs of a ditch constructed hours before the battle on June 17, 1775, one of the first of the American Revolution.

“The part that’s really crazy to me is that we get to stand in the same ditch,” said Bagley, standing over one of the two dig sites, where soil is removed about 4 inches (10 centimeters) at a time, put in buckets and filtered through screens. Any items found are bagged up and identified.

Tea cups and wig curlers

So far, the dig has uncovered musket balls and parts of a musket from the battle. They also found objects likely left behind by British troops who occupied the area after the battle — including tea cups, tobacco pipes, sleeve buttons and a wig curler. There were nearly 150 combatants who died there but no human remains have been found, though a forensic archaeologist is on site to identify any bones.

“Everything about the ditch is from 1775. You’ve got musket balls, gun flints. It’s what you would expect to see,” Bagley said. “It’s pretty powerful because these things are being dropped in the middle of the battle.”

The start of the American Revolution is often associated with the Battle of Lexington and Concord, skirmishes fought on April 19, 1775. But many scholars cite Bunker Hill and June 17 as the war's first significant battle.

Historic battle

Rebels intended to hold off a possible British attack by fortifying Bunker Hill, a 110-foot-high (34-meter-high) slope in Charlestown across the Charles River from British-occupied Boston. But for reasons still unclear, they instead took a position on a smaller and more vulnerable ridge known as Breed’s Hill, where most of the fighting took place.

The battle ended with the rebels in retreat, but not before the British had sustained more than 1,000 casualties. Bunker Hill is often portrayed as an American victory, since the British failed to win decisively and it served to galvanize the colonies against the British.

Today, a 221-foot (67-meter) white obelisk atop Breed's Hill memorializes the battle.

Musket balls tell stories

At the dig site, Joel Bohy, a battlefield archaeologist who specializes in identifying American Revolution weaponry, marveled at what had been pulled from the dirt. One volunteer held in her hand two jagged stones — the gray one was an English gun flint while a beige one was a French gun flint. When the trigger on the musket was pulled, flint struck the steel, producing sparks that ignited the gunpowder.

They also found eight marbled-sized musket balls from both sides in the battle. The markings and shape of some bullets showed they had been fired from a distance but didn't hit anyone. If they had, the balls would have been deformed.

“You can see the ramrod mark from when the soldier rammed it down. You can the little ring on the top where it was pushed down,” Bohy said, adding that “marks on the edge of the ball” show that it had been fired.

Where was the fort?

Using pick axes and shovels, more than 1,000 provincials and residents dug through the night to construct a ditch that was 3 feet (1 meter) deep and over 6 feet (2 meters) wide. They shoveled the soil in front of the ditch to make a 6-foot-high wall or parapet that reached 150 feet (46 meters) long on each of the four sides.

A map drawn by Henry Pelham two months after the battle showed a square redoubt on Breed's Hill. But it wasn't until the dig that anyone had confirmed the shape in the map was accurate. Previous digs in the 1990s had found items related to the battle and some evidence of the ditches.

“If you come to the site, we have the monument, we have a lot of maps on display, and the landscape is beautiful. But you can’t really see the fort, the fortifications that were built,” Bagley said. “Very little of what’s here visibly is from 1775. So, this trench is the reason why all of this is here.”

History comes alive

Beyond locating the fort, the dig also provides visitors a chance to hold “a piece of the battle in their hand,” Bohy said. “In a way, it makes the history more dimensional when you look at these objects from the battle itself.”

Several tourists from Colorado stopped by to watch the dig. One visitor, Greg Nockleby, who had spent a week in Boston learning about American history, said watching the archaeologists at work was a “wonderful surprise.”

“A live dig happening right now to uncover our nation’s history is amazing,” he said. “To see that there has been people here who have died for our freedom and our nation is very immersive.”

Thursday's ticker-tape parade for the new NBA champions will be a first. When the team won the title before, in 1970 and ‘73, they weren't honored with New York's signature procession.

Why not? There's no one definitive explanation. But there is some informative context: The '70s wins came at a time when then-Mayor John Lindsay had reined in the confetti-tossing spectacles. He celebrated the Knicks at the mayoral mansion and then City Hall — august settings, for sure, but not the fabled trip through lower Broadway’s “Canyon of Heroes.”

If there's pent-up demand for a Knicks parade, current Mayor Zohran Mamdani seems determined to meet it. He has predicted that Thursday’s celebration might be “the largest parade in New York City history.”

“There will be performances, there will be New Yorkers, there will be the team and there will be history,” the mayor, a Democrat, said Monday while visiting a city facility that prepared temporary “Champions Way” signs for the parade route. The event is set to start at 10 a.m. Thursday near Battery Park and end at City Hall.

New York's ticker-tape tradition began in the late 19th century, when brokerage firm workers watched parades from office windows and — apparently to add decoration — flung out the narrow paper used by telegraph-era “stock ticker” machines, according to the Downtown Alliance, a lower Manhattan advocacy group. It joined with the private Museum of the City of New York to research and list the parades.

The organizations say the ticker-tape tradition began with an 1886 event honoring the dedication of the Statue of Liberty and became city-organized in 1919 to welcome returning World War I soldiers. The first ticker-tape celebration of athletes was a tribute to the 1924 U.S. Olympic team.

The parades proliferated, celebrating various feats in aviation, war, sports, music, space travel and more, according to the museum and the Downtown Alliance.

Processions honored historical anniversaries, firefighters, the Red Cross, ship rescues, an attempted ship rescue and even a ship replica (the Mayflower II, in 1957). There were a handful of parades for U.S. presidents and dozens for visiting foreign leaders, some notorious. For example, French Marshal Henri Petain was showered with ticker tape in 1931 and later convicted of treason for heading the Vichy government that collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.

By the time Lindsay took office in 1966, not everyone loved a parade.

Lower Manhattan businesses resented the frequent disruptions, and some New Yorkers saw the celebrations as rote and manufactured. Lindsay and his public events commissioner — former Knicks captain and jump-shot ace John “Bud” Palmer — eschewed ticker-tape extravaganzas for visiting dignitaries, instead favoring more personal and inexpensive gatherings, according to news stories by The Associated Press and other outlets at the time.

By 1970, the nation was in a recession. The city events budget had been cut, and Palmer — whose salary was a symbolic $1 — was peeved about the rejection of a $372 bill (about $3,300 today) for some materials for a 1969 ticker-tape parade celebrating the New York Mets' World Series win, according to memos unearthed by the city Department of Records & Information Services.

There was no ticker-tape bash for the New York Jets' 1970 Super Bowl win, which came days after such a parade honored the Apollo 8 astronauts ' historic orbit around the moon.

The Knicks topped the Los Angeles Lakers to win the NBA championship later that year. Lindsay, a liberal Republican, sent a congratulatory telegram and hosted the Knicks for a reception at the official mayoral residence, according to news coverage at the time.

When the Knicks bested the Lakers again to win the 1973 title, Lindsay scheduled a celebration in front of City Hall and urged “every New Yorker who can to come.”

Officials apparently were startled when more than 2,000 mostly young fans did just that. Police struggled to keep the speakers' stand clear, according to a New York Times article from the day.

But the ceremony went ahead as planned, and Lindsay bestowed the team with a distinctly municipal honor: medals commemorating the 75th anniversary of the unification of New York's five boroughs into one city.

Parades for championship sports teams picked up in subsequent decades. The city's most recent ticker-tape festivities honored the WNBA's New York Liberty in 2024.

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation announced Wednesday that Patchett is this year's recipient of the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award for “a writer whose body of work reflects the Prize’s mission of fostering peace, social justice, and global understanding.”

The award is named for the late diplomat who served under President Bill Clinton among others and is credited with helping to broker the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia. Previous winners include former President Jimmy Carter,Elie Wiesel and Margaret Atwood.

Patchett, 62, is known for such novels as “Bel Canto,” “The Dutch House” and “State of Wonder.” She also owns the Nashville-based bookstore Parnassus and advocates often for fellow writers, her efforts leading PEN America to present her its PEN/Audible Literary Service Award at a gala last month in Manhattan.

In a statement issued Wednesday through the Dayton foundation, Patchett advised setting realistic goals for how to make meaningful contributions.

“If you wait to find a way to bring peace to the world there’s a good chance that nothing will be accomplished,” she said. “Instead, I recommend bringing about peace in any small way that is available to you. Live as peacefully and as generously as possible. Invite others to stand with you or, better yet, go and stand with them.”

The foundation also announced that Amanda Knox’s memoir “Free: My Search for Meaning” is among the 12 finalists for Dayton Literary Peace Prize awards for fiction and nonfiction from 2025 that demonstrate “the power of the written word to foster peace.” Knox's book recounts her life after being imprisoned in Italy on murder charges and eventually being exonerated.

Nonfiction contenders besides “Free” include Danielle Leavitt's Ukraine chronicle “By the Second Spring,” Jack Fairweather's “The Prosecutor: One Man's Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice” and Eve L. Ewing's “Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism.” Gish Jen's “Bad Bad Girl,” Karen Russell's “The Antidote” and Sam Wachman's “The Sunflower Boys” are among the fiction finalists.

Winners, to be announced in September, each receive $10,000.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that most Americans across demographics believe the right to vote, the right to free speech and freedom of religion are integral to the country. But they were more divided on the importance of the right to bear arms, and few — about one-third or less — saw those rights as safe from threats.

The survey, which was conducted April 16-20 — before the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that winnowed a section of the Voting Rights Act — highlights an enduring consensus among Americans that personal freedoms are vital to the country's national identity. But it also reveals deep anxieties about the nation’s trajectory on the cusp of a summer filled with celebrations of the country's semi-quincentennial birthday.

“Our idea of rights has been very consistent in this country until the last few years,” said Louise Rochon, 85, of Connecticut. “Now, they’re all under threat. Every single last one of them.”

Americans see rights as vital, but threatened

About 9 in 10 Americans say the right to vote is “extremely” or “very” important to the United States’ identity, the poll found. About the same proportion of Americans consider freedom of speech to be highly important to the country’s identity. Meanwhile, about 8 in 10 Americans consider freedom of religion to be core to the national identity, while about 6 in 10 Americans consider the right to keep or bear arms as highly important to the nation’s identity.

But many in the country see those same principles as imperiled today. About two-thirds of Americans view the right to vote as under some threat, with about one-third saying voting rights are under “major threat” while about 3 in 10 said they faced a “minor threat.” Only about one-third of Americans said voting rights faced “no threat at all.”

Additionally, nearly half of Americans say freedom of speech is under major threat, followed by about 3 in 10 who said the same about gun rights and religious freedom.

The country is going “down the drain,” said Tracy Gonzales, an independent from San Antonio, Texas. Americans of all stripes, she said, have “thrown religion to the side at the moment” and allowed for other civil liberties to be eroded amid fierce debates over immigration and the economy.

“Given everything going on with our president, you really don’t have time to think of anything else,” said Gonzales, 37, of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdowns. “There are so many other crimes that are being committed and people that actually need help, and you’re focused on the ones that are trying to get it together.”

Vast majority of Black Americans see threat to voting rights

The poll's results also surfaced complicated opinions about democracy and identity among Black Americans. Those are likely rooted, at least in part, in the country's history of denying voting rights and full citizenship to people of African descent for centuries.

Black Americans are less likely than white Americans to say the right to vote is “extremely” or “very important” to American identity, with about three-quarters agreeing with the sentiment compared to about 9 in 10 white Americans.

But about 4 in 10 Black Americans say that the right to vote is facing a “major” threat in the country today, higher than any other racial group.

“You cannot feel like you are a total and full part of the American experiment unless you have the right to vote,” said Antonio Williams, a school administrator in Dallas, Texas, who is Black. “And African Americans didn’t fully get to enjoy the right to vote until about 60 years ago, and I feel like it’s under threat right now."

Younger adults see the right to vote as less important

Independents and younger adults are less likely than Americans overall to say voting and freedom of speech are central to American identity.

“My age group has grown up a lot more with social media as part of their existence in life and the microcosms that that creates in politics,” said Julian Goodwin-Ferris, 28, a professional dancer from New Jersey.

“I think we feel more like our voice doesn’t matter as much because it feels like we’ve grown up with our rights sort of being more ignored,” said Goodwin-Ferris.

Democrats and Republicans are divided on magnitude of threat

Americans at times diverged along partisan lines in their view of the threats to rights, with Democrats seeing a greater threat to freedom of speech, while Republicans were more worried about the right to keep and bear arms.

While Democrats and Republicans are similarly likely to say freedom of speech is at least “very important" to the nation's identity, about 6 in 10 Democrats say freedom of speech is facing a “major threat” compared to about 4 in 10 independents and roughly one-third of Republicans.

Similarly, while most Americans believe the right to bear arms is at least “very” important to the nation's identity, about 8 in 10 Republicans agree with that sentiment, compared to only about 4 in 10 Democrats. About half of independents shared that view. And about 4 in 10 Republicans found that the right to bear firearms was under threat, an increase from October 2025 not reflected among either Democrats or independents.

"We have the Bill of Rights for a reason," said Nuri Simmons, a warehouse worker in New York and a registered Democrat. Simmons, 31, said that threats to different rights “bleed into each other” and that while he was most concerned about threats to voting rights today, he understood that others may feel differently.

“Like when people try to bring some gun control into it, I think some people look at that as an attack on their rights. I guess that all depends on your politics," he said.

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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.

Brian Mitchell, 43, entered a guilty plea Friday, June 12, to one count of wire fraud in federal court.

According to court records, Mitchell admitted to defrauding multiple investors by making false claims about the security, profitability, and use of their money.

Prosecutors said Mitchell solicited investments through entities known as Young Pros Investment Group, or YPIG, and My Nest Egg.

Mitchell acknowledged that he repeatedly told investors that their principal investments were protected from loss and guaranteed, and that they would receive specific returns and could withdraw funds at designated times.

Federal authorities said those representations were false.

After suffering significant trading losses, Mitchell continued to mislead investors about the status of their funds.

Among the false statements, Mitchell claimed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, had seized assets he described as backup funds intended to protect investor money.

Prosecutors said Mitchell’s conduct continued despite a previous settlement agreement with the CFTC stemming from violations of the Commodity Exchange Act between January 2018 and January 2019.

Under that agreement, Mitchell was barred for three years from participating in commodity futures trading and from soliciting or accepting investor funds for such activity.

Despite the ban, Mitchell admitted he continued to seek investments, accept funds, and trade commodity futures on behalf of third-party investors.

He also failed to disclose the trading prohibition to those investors, according to prosecutors.

As part of his plea agreement, Mitchell agreed to pay $2.7 million in restitution to victims.

Federal authorities are encouraging additional potential victims to come forward. Information can be submitted through an FBI victim assistance form related to the investigation.

Mitchell is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 7, 2026.

He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.

The case was investigated by the FBI.

Jordan Craig, 19, was charged with one count of accosting a child for immoral purposes, one count of using a computer to commit a crime, one count of capturing or distributing an image of an unclothed person and seven counts of child sexually abusive activity.

According to the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office, Craig allegedly tried to meet with a person he believed was a child for sex on Feb. 4.

When he was arrested, Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, on June 16, said officers searched his phone and found child pornography and photos of unclothed people that were photographed without their knowledge or permission.

He is scheduled to be in court on June 17 for a preliminary examination.

And while the strike failed, fear of further strikes led to improved conditions for other automakers.

It started with a change in how the company did payroll.

Studebaker shifted its pay schedule from weekly to biweekly, a change that quickly drew sharp criticism from workers already stretched thin.

When the company fired Dale Schlosser, who voiced opposition to the new policy, workers took to the streets.

On June 17, 1913, an estimated 3,500 workers walked out of Studebaker’s #3 plant, located near the intersection of Clark Street and West Jefferson Avenue.

They demanded a return to weekly pay, better working conditions, and an eight-hour workday.

The thousands of workers began to march, picking up auto workers at other plants. The crowd reportedly grew to nearly 6,000 people.

“It was one of the most splendid demonstrations of solidarity for a common cause in the history of the labor movement in the United States,” wrote Matilda Rabinowitz, a labor organizer for the IWW.

After police attacked the striking workers on June 19 outside the Packard, Detroit banned large marches and parades, causing the strike to lose steam.

“Police, both on foot and on horseback, charged the marchers, scattering them in all directions, and using their clubs freely,” wrote August Walquist. “One of the marchers carried an American flag which was torn from his hands, the staff broken over his head and shoulders and the flag trampled.”

Studebaker offered employees access to 70% of their pay at the midpoint of the biweekly pay period and the workers voted to end the strike on June 23, after six days.

Despite the concession, the strike was widely seen as a failure.

However, fear of more strikes and more unions is believed to be the reason Henry Ford introduced the $5-a-day wage for his workers.

Studebaker eventually went defunct in 1968.

The draft, presented by Upper Deck, will be held at Fox Theatre at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, June 17.

Here are some details on how to watch the draft:

How to watch

Detroit

The first two rounds will air on WMYD in Detroit.

Canada

The first two rounds will air on TSN. The entire draft will air on TSN+.

The entire draft will also be available everywhere on the PWHL YouTube Channel.

Where to buy tickets

Tickets can be purchased here via Ticketmaster.

Ticket prices start at $21.25 per person.

If you are attending, here is some important event information from Ticketmaster:

• All bags, purses, and clutches larger than 4″ x 6″ x 1.5″ are prohibited (diaper and medical bags are permitted and should be no larger than 14″ x 14″ x 6″).
• Cashless payment methods only for parking, concessions and merchandise.
• All tickets are mobile. Prior to the show, download and save your tickets to your mobile wallet for ease of entry. Early arrival is strongly recommended due to multiple events in the District Detroit.
• Re-entry to the venue is prohibited.

Draft order

The incident occurred on Monday (June 15), when Sterling Heights police responded at about 2:41 p.m. to a report of a robbery at Comerica Bank, 43020 Van Dyke Ave.

Officers said they arrived within two minutes and confirmed that no injuries had been reported.

Police said the woman handed a note to a bank teller demanding money.

Officials said no weapon was displayed or seen during the robbery.

Police said the woman obtained an undisclosed amount of cash before fleeing the scene.

Officers said they immediately began searching the area and deployed the Sterling Heights Police K-9 Unit, which tracked the woman’s path to a nearby parking lot.

Police said they reviewed surveillance footage from the bank and developed descriptions of both the suspect and the vehicle believed to have been used in the getaway.

Officials determined the woman’s vehicle had been reported stolen from Troy on June 14.

Police also learned the woman fled the area in a vehicle without a license plate.

The vehicle was later captured on nearby surveillance cameras.

Sterling Heights detectives worked with the FBI, Macomb County Violent Crimes Task Force, the Macomb Auto Theft Squad, and the Troy Police Department Special Investigations Unit to identify and track the woman.

As a result of the investigation, an out-of-state woman was located in Warren and arrested without incident later that day.

Police said investigators recovered several pieces of evidence, including most of the money taken during the robbery.

Officials credited the quick arrest to coordinated efforts among multiple law enforcement agencies, investigative technology, and the work of responding officers and detectives.

The case remains under investigation.

Charges are expected to be submitted to the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office for review.

Police said the woman’s identity will not be released unless charges are authorized and the suspect is arraigned.

Anyone with information related to the investigation is asked to contact Detective Orvelo at 586-446-2844.

The veteran running back, entering a new chapter in Detroit after building a championship résumé with the Kansas City Chiefs, said his focus has been on learning the offense, correcting mistakes, and finding ways to contribute wherever needed.

“Pinpointing the details in the work and coming out here and executing at a high level, but most importantly, not making the same mistake twice,” said Pacheco. “Coming out and being better from that mistake.”

Pacheco said he has embraced the culture he found in Detroit, pointing to the team’s competitive mindset during offseason workouts.

“They got their own culture here, and I love being a part of it so far since I got here,” Pacheco said. “It’s the grit. You got guys willing to compete every single time we get a chance.”

Fitting into a new system

The transition has meant adjusting to a new offensive system and a different role.

With the Lions’ backfield featuring established starter Jahmyr Gibbs, Pacheco said his approach remains simple: stay prepared and help the team however possible.

“This game here, it takes a lot of us to win the game and not just one person,” Pacheco said. “Everybody on the team, the staff, the coaches, nutritionists, everybody plays a part.”

Pacheco credited running backs coach Tashard Choice for helping him understand the importance of preparation and said he has also learned from teammates about competing and improving daily.

He also emphasized the value of mental repetitions when players are not taking every snap.

“If someone’s in, you got to watch them, get that mental rep,” Pacheco said. “So when you’re up and then ready to go, you got to compete at a high level.”

Pacheco is also continuing work at return positions, saying his goal is to be available in any role that helps the team.

“Just doing whatever I could do to help the team win,” Pacheco said.

TeSlaa ready to play faster in year two

Second-year wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa said his biggest advantage entering his sophomore season is comfort.

After spending his rookie year learning the offense and adjusting to the speed of the NFL, TeSlaa said he feels more prepared to play faster and think less.

“I don’t think in football you can ever really relax because you got to have an edge about you,” said TeSlaa. “But just being so much more comfortable. I feel like I’m able to play a little bit faster, doing a lot less thinking this year.”

TeSlaa said the Lions have spent more time mastering fundamentals this offseason rather than loading players down with new concepts.

“I feel like we’re trying to nail the basics before we start adding on stuff,” TeSlaa said. “We’ve done a good job mastering the basic things.”

Weapons create mismatches across the board

TeSlaa’s role expanded late last season, and he said he is excited about the possibilities within an offense featuring multiple playmakers.

“With the weapons that we have, I don’t know how you’re going to guard all of our skill positions,” TeSlaa said. “If you want to try to double a guy, then you’re just leaving another extremely skilled person wide open.”

The Michigan native said his personal goals for the season remain private but acknowledged they are higher than at the start of his rookie year.

“Last year I came in not really knowing what to expect,” TeSlaa said. “This year, now that I feel like I’ve gotten a little more comfortable, I have some pretty lofty goals for myself.”

Clark focused on communication, turnovers

Safety Chuck Clark has embraced his opportunity with Detroit, focusing on communication and leadership within the defense.

Clark said he does not view stepping into a larger role as a source of pressure, but rather as part of the preparation required at every level of the NFL.

“It’s football,” said Clark. “You just always got to be ready.”

Clark pointed to his own career path as an example of how quickly opportunities can develop in the league.

“I wasn’t a starter, but in a matter of a week, I became a starter, a green dot player, captain of a defense,” Clark said.

Building chemistry in the secondary

A major focus for Clark has been building chemistry with teammates. He said defensive backs recently spent time together watching film and discussing tendencies.

“It’s actually good hearing another person’s perspective and how he watches film as opposed to how you watch film,” Clark said.

Clark said creating turnovers remains a top priority for the defense.

“You get the ball back to the offense so they can go put up points, and we do it again,” Clark said. “That’s the name of the game.”

The veteran safety said his physical style of play comes from a willingness to sacrifice for the team, but acknowledged that maintaining longevity requires consistent preparation.

“It’s not one specific thing,” Clark said. “It’s an accumulation of things, taking care of your body, recovery, stretching, everything.”

As offseason work continues, the Lions’ newcomers and returning players remain focused on the same goal: building habits that carry into the regular season.

“Get fast, physical, and continue to build off of this camp,” Pacheco said. “Come back in shape. Ready to roll.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced on Tuesday (June 16) that Jessica Klimp, 45, and Jason Klimp, 47, were sentenced in Wexford County’s 28th Circuit Court after pleading no contest to two counts each of first-degree child abuse.

Jessica was sentenced to eight years, three months, and four days in prison, while Jason received eight years, three months, and nine days.

The sentences were structured under a plea agreement to align with the defendants’ existing 10-year prison sentences in Tennessee, where they were convicted in a related case.

The case stemmed from an incident in February 2024 while the family was staying at a rental home in Tennessee.

One of the couple’s adopted children was taken to the University of Tennessee Hospital before being transferred to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital with symptoms of severe dehydration and malnutrition.

Investigators determined that two of the adopted children were severely underweight, were fed only liquid food, and had access to food only under supervision.

The investigation expanded to Michigan when the Michigan State Police executed a search warrant at the family’s Wexford County home.

Authorities reported finding a straitjacket in a bedroom, security alarms installed on a bedroom door, and dog cages that appeared to have been used to confine children.

The Wexford County Prosecutor’s Office initially charged the couple in February 2024.

In a separate but related Tennessee case, the defendants pleaded guilty to one count each of aggravated child abuse and were sentenced in October 2025 to 10 years in prison.

They were later extradited from Tennessee to Michigan to face the additional child abuse charges.

Jason and Jessica were the parents of four adopted children and four biological children.

Authorities said the couple’s parental rights have since been terminated.

Gane finished off Pereira in the second round to win the title on Sunday after sending him stumbling with a right jab followed by a hammer fist. The referee then stopped the fight 1:27 into the round after a left to the chin.

After hitting Pereira with a jab, Gane launched a brutal floor sequence that included elbows to the back of the head.

Pereira said on his social media it was difficult for him to recover from those “illegal shots.”

“I believe that if it wasn’t for those shots I'd be in that situation, and I could have possibly recovered," he said. “Maybe not, but they were very hard shots, and illegal.”

Pereira criticized referee Herb Dean, saying he should not have been picked for their fight. Dean explained his decisions in a video, saying “the rule we’re talking about is the back of the head, and that's confusing because it's different in boxing."

Donald Trump celebrated his 80th birthday and the nation’s 250th anniversary with an unusual UFC show featuring seven fights within an eight-sided, wire-mesh cage on the White House South Lawn.

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

The wars in Iran and Ukraine have dominated discussions at the Group of Seven summit of major industrialized nations this week but AI will have its moment on the meeting's final day.

In a rare huddle of AI industry figures, leaders of three of the most powerful AI companies — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — are due to attend a working lunch on the theme of “Ensuring a safe, rapid and effective deployment of artificial intelligence.”

Also attending are the heads of smaller AI labs, including Canada’s Cohere AI, France’s Mistral, Germany’s Black Forest Labs, Italy’s Domyn, Sakana AI of Japan and U.K.-based Synthesia.

In Europe the distrust of American companies dominating AI and other tech ecosystems has shown up at the European Commission, which unveiled a tech sovereignty package this month with plans to boost homegrown AI, and the Vatican, where the pope last month called for robust regulation of artificial intelligence.

Many outside the United States also took notice last week when Anthropic took down its most advanced AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, to comply with a Trump administration order citing an unspecified national security concern. The U.S government barred any non-Americans, either inside or outside the United States, from accessing the models, which forced the company to suspend access to all customers.

The episode highlighted how Europe, Canada or other countries “can be put in an extremely vulnerable position” if they get cut off from advanced AI models, said Zach Meyers, director of research at CERRE, a Brussels-based think tank.

“There is a general anxiety about the state of Europe, the fact that we’re relying on other countries for quite important strategic infrastructure and a desire to do something about it, whatever that is,” Meyers said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney touched on the Anthropic development on his way to the G7 meeting, telling reporters during a stop in Ireland that it highlights a need to “build out and diversify.”

Sovereignty requires “unhindered access to AI,” he said in a speech in Dublin.

Earlier this month, Canada announced a plan to help middle powers or like-minded countries develop an alternative to the big AI players. A few days earlier, Trump signed an executive order sketching out a framework for oversight of advanced AI systems.

The G7 is a chance for business and political leaders to engage with each other on the risks and benefits of AI, as countries seek to harness the technology to boost their economies and advance their geopolitical aims.

Digital sovereignty has been a longtime cause for the G7 meeting's host, French President Emmanuel Macron. His government has even started requiring civil servants to ditch Zoom and Microsoft Teams for a homegrown video conference system.

Aidan Gomez, CEO of Cohere, which bought German AI startup Aleph Alpha earlier this year, said the company's focus at the G7 was “to expand our sovereign AI ecosystem partnerships beyond Canada and Germany to include all G7 nations — and companies — establishing a global standard that guarantees ownership of models, data, and local compute.”

The G7 comprises France, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Brazil, India, Kenya and South Korea were among guest nations invited to participate in some discussions.

In his tournament debut, he showed he’s more than up for that challenge.

Haaland scored two goals, including one off a defensive blunder, on Tuesday to propel Norway to a 4-1 victory over Iraq in Group I.

The Manchester City striker's 56th and 57th international goals came in Norway’s first appearance in the tournament since reaching the knockout round at the 1998 World Cup in France — two years before Haaland was born.

Haaland said he will do his best to meet the expectations he created with this performance.

“Of course I will try,” Haaland said. “It’s about continuing and don’t think too much. It’s difficult at this stage. But I’ll focus on (the) next (game) and of course be happy. But also stay calm.”

Norway coach Stale Solbakken said he had a feeling Haaland was ready after watching how loose he was in the team's last training session before the match.

“You could see that he lived up to the occasion,” Solbakken said. “The occasion wasn’t too big for him.”

Leo Ostigard scored in the 76th minute off a corner kick from Martin Odegaard. An own-goal by Iraq forward Aymen Hussein just before the final whistle completed Norway's scoring.

Hussein also scored for his team, an equalizer just nine minutes after Haaland’s first strike.

Haaland put the Norwegians in front for good just before halftime when he sneaked in front of a poor back pass to Iraq goalkeeper Jalal Hassan. Haaland beat Hassan to the ball, preempting his attempted clearance, and then used his shin to put the ball in the back of the net.

“It's one of those things. It happened,” Iraq coach Graham Arnold said. “It is what is and we have to learn from it.”

Haaland’s first goal, which came in the 29th minute, followed a cross into the box from David Moller Wolfe. Haaland slid and used his right heel to finish it off. It ignited waves of cheers from the Norway supporters, who dominated the stands clad in red as they broke out in synchronized Viking row chants.

Iraq, playing in the World Cup for just the second time after debuting in 1986, held its own with a sizable contingent of supporters that was mostly concentrated behind one of the goals.

That energy helped Iraq briefly get back into the game.

In the 38th minute, Amir Alammari corralled a ball on the baseline halfway between the left corner and the goal and fired a cross in front of the net. It eluded Norway’s defenders, allowing Hussein to get a clean header that bounced under the hand of diving goalkeeper Orjan Nyland to even the score at 1-1.

It was Hussein’s 34th international goal. That includes his winning goal against Bolivia in Iraq’s final World Cup qualifying match in April that gave the country the last spot in the 48-team tournament field.

“It’s a proud moment to be back in the World Cup after 40 years. To lose 4-1, it hurts,” Iraq's Hussein Ali said.

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

Now, as Trump tries to finalize a deal to end the war with Iran, he's unloading on Netanyahu with rhetoric that no other American leader has dared to use publicly.

He claimed credit for Israel's existence — “without me, there would be no Israel” — and cursed his judgment in interviews. He even described him as “crazy.”

Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister spans four U.S. presidents, and he's frustrated all of them at one point or another. But none has voiced that as openly as Trump, who started the conflict in tandem with Netanyahu.

The tension comes as Trump criticizes recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon, which threatened to jeopardize negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Trump has been pushing for a deal as he faces political blowback at home, where the war is unpopular and has driven up gasoline prices.

“If Netanyahu gets in between something Trump really wants, and that’s out of this war, he’s prepared to use the leverage that he has,” said Aaron David Miller, who served as an adviser on Middle East issues to Democratic and Republican administrations over two decades.

An agreement is scheduled to be signed on Friday in the Burgenstock resort near the city of Luzern. Speaking on Tuesday at the annual G7 summit in France, Trump said he told Netanyahu that he's been unhappy with his recent moves.

“Without the U.S., there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no Israel because no other president was willing to do what I did,” Trump said. “I have had a great relationship with Bibi. Now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.”

There has long been a bipartisan consensus around supporting Israel in Washington, but that has frayed in recent years. Liberals have been increasingly outraged by Israel's treatment of Palestinians, especially during the war in Gaza, and conservatives have questioned the importance of longstanding American support for Israel. There are concerns about antisemitism on the left and the right.

Trump’s latest comments drew swift criticism from left-leaning groups.

“He is framing Israel’s mere existence as contingent on him,” said Halie Soifer, who leads the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “It’s deeply offensive to the vast majority of Jews who care about Israel’s future.”

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris often disagreed with Netanyahu during the war in Gaza, and sometimes they criticized him publicly. But they were more circumspect to avoid facing accusations of being anti-Israel.

Conservative, pro-Israel groups were divided on the seriousness of Trump’s public condemnation of Netanyahu.

Republican Jewish Coalition President Matt Brooks described Trump’s criticism as little more than the inevitable disagreement among family members.

Brooks dismissed that any muted criticism of Trump’s comments from his party represented a political mixed message because Trump has been reliably supportive of Israel as president.

“If Biden or Harris said something critical, it came from the position of someone who was hostile toward or didn’t have the same level of support for Israel that President Trump has,” Brooks said.

He noted the first Trump administration’s role in moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza during the president’s second term, among other acts.

Biden had criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza, though Trump’s criticism of Netanyahu comes with a “tremendous reservoir of goodwill on this issue that neither Biden nor Harris ever had.”

Pro-Israel advocate Mort Klein said Trump should have kept the comments private, especially in light of his public praise over the years of authoritarian leaders in Turkey, North Korea and China.

Klein, president of the conservative Zionist Organization of America, said he worried that Trump was making the comments in public to appeal to Israel critics “because he sees that Americans have become more hostile toward Israel than they’ve ever been.”

“That worries me,” Klein said.

Then he scored again. And again.

Suddenly, any questions about Messi's hamstring injury, or whether he could help Argentina become the third team to win consecutive World Cups — even as his 39th birthday approaches next week — had been answered. With a brilliant hat trick in a 3-0 win over Les Fennecs, Messi moved into a tie with Germany's Miroslav Klose for the career scoring record at the men's World Cup.

“My tears after the first goal? I’ve had some tough days. It wasn’t related to football. And those feelings were because of that,” Messi said afterward, without elaborating. “I thank my teammates, the coaching staff and the delegation for helping me.”

Messi scored that emotional first goal in the opening minutes on a nifty feed from Inter Miami teammate Rodrigo De Paul, the second off an opportunistic rebound early in the second half, and the third on a crisp strike moments before subbing out to a standing ovation from a crowd of 69,045 tilted heavily toward the three-time World Cup champions.

“At a loss for words about Leo. What can I say?” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “He’s incredible.”

Messi has starred in the World Cup for two decades

His incredible trio of goals came 20 years to the day that Messi made his World Cup debut in a match against Serbia and Montenegro — he scored in that one, too — and made the pride of Rosario only the second player to score in five editions of the men's tournament.

Messi has 16 goals in his record six World Cup appearances overall, and it seems inevitable that Klose's record will fall in the coming weeks. The hat trick was the 61st of Messi's career, his 11th while playing in his national team colors and his first in the World Cup.

It also was the fifth straight World Cup game in which Messi has scored.

“It makes me very happy to have lived through everything that came my way. What I’m living though now is the cherry on top,” Messi said. “I’m very happy an grateful for this wonderful group. I enjoy it so much.”

Messi upstaged two of soccer's other stars — Kylian Mbappé of France and Erling Haaland of Norway — who had big games of their own on Tuesday. Mbappé scored twice in France’s 3-1 win over Senegal to move into a tie for fourth on the men's World Cup goals list with 14, while Haaland scored twice for Norway in its 4-1 victory over Iraq.

“Messi is a madman,” Haaland said in a post on Snapchat during Argentina's game.

Shaking off injury, Messi remains Argentina's engine

Messi had been dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami that slowed him in the lead-up to the World Cup. But the eight-time winner of the Ballon d'Or, which honors global soccer's best player, had no problems in a tuneup last week with Iceland, scoring on a penalty kick while playing 20 minutes in a sharp performance.

“This is my sixth World Cup, and I still feel like I’m in good shape,” Messi said. “Fortunately, I’m doing well, and today we managed to win a tough match. It’s important to start the tournament with a victory in the first game, as that’s never easy in a World Cup.”

Messi's appearance against Algeria was the 200th of his international career, which began in 2005 at age of 18. The only players with more are Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, who will play his 229th on Wednesday, and Bader al-Mutawa, who played in 202 for Kuwait.

Messi and Ronaldo are the only men to have scored in five World Cups.

“Class is permanent,” Algeria coach Vladimir Petkovic said. “He's fortunate to have the privilege that the entire Argentina team works for him, and supports him, and for a number of years now — decades — he's done incredible things.”

Fans flock to Kansas City for a glimpse of the GOAT

Argentina is among four national teams making their base camps in the Kansas City metro. And much as it has the rest of the world, Messi-mania has swept through the area ever since La Albiceleste's arrival in the Heartland about two weeks ago.

On match day, thousands of fans wearing his No. 10 jersey trekked into the home of the NFL’s Chiefs on the outskirts of Kansas City, singing odes to their hero. Meanwhile, during a watch party at the downtown Power & Light District, a goat accompanied by former NFL quarterback-turned Fox broadcaster Jameis Winston came on stage wearing an Argentina jersey.

The humorous moment seemed to have foreshadowed a big night for Messi when he scored an hour later, and the argument that he's soccer’s GOAT — the greatest of all time — is becoming no argument at all with every match he plays.

“It’s an advantage to have Leo because of how he handles the group and pushes it forward. Because of who he is,” De Paul said. “He doesn’t care about individual records. He prioritizes the group, and for us it’s incredible.”

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

In the Senate race, Rep. Mike Collins, 58, topped former football coach Derek Dooley and advanced to face Sen. Jon Ossoff, the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in a state that Trump won two years ago. The outcome will help determine control of Capitol Hill for the final years of Trump’s second presidency.

For governor, healthcare tycoon Rick Jackson, 71, outpaced Lt. Gov. Burt Jones after spending about $100 million of his own money on the campaign. That investment ultimately outweighed Jones' backing from the president. Jackson will face Democratic nominee and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in November.

Trump, who endorsed Jones nearly a year ago and Collins two days before the runoff, is poised to be a fault line in both general election contests. The president was notably absent in Republicans’ remarks on Tuesday, however, a shift from other primary nights where candidates paid homage to their party's leader despite his sagging approval ratings.

Collins, a second-term congressman, is a self-described “MAGA warrior” and echoes Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election loss in Georgia was rigged. Yet when celebrating in his hometown, Collins thanked his wife, children, grandchildren, siblings, friends, supporters and staffers — but never the president. He even touted his bipartisanship and pitched himself as a sound conservative who can achieve progress by “building coalitions and finding common ground.” And he promised to campaign in “every ZIP code and every community” of this closely divided state.

Ossoff, first elected during the 2020 cycle, has made Trump a focal point, blasting him as a “national embarrassment” who is using the presidency to enrich himself and his family. The 39-year-old faces tremendous pressure to hold his seat as Democrats try to gain a net of four seats to claim a Senate majority.

In the governor's race, Jackson spent months comparing himself — the tremendously wealthy political newcomer — to Trump and his unusual path to the presidency. He didn't do that as directly Tuesday night.

“I’m the only candidate who doesn’t owe a thing to the political establishment,” he said, later adding, “We proved the people of Georgia are in charge.”

Trump congratulated Jackson on social media, saying he “very successfully campaigned on being ‘TRUMP,’ and won.”

“He will be your next Governor of Georgia," the president added. "Can’t wait!”

Republicans face an immediate task to unify and raise money

Both parties in Georgia are trying to buck trends. Republicans haven't won a Senate race here since 2016, the year of Trump's first election. Democrats haven't won a governor's race since 1998.

But Democrats are bullish after they drew about 160,000 more voters than Republicans in the May primary, the first time since their victorious 1998 year that they led primary turnout. Republican runoff turnout also was lower Tuesday than in recent election cycles.

Collins said he had “good conversations” with Dooley and Gov. Brian Kemp, who had supported Dooley, and that Republicans “stand united around one mission” — defeating Ossoff in November.

Dooley offered a similar message to his more subdued crowd in metro Atlanta. “We have a lot of disagreements but the one thing that hasn’t changed is my opinion of Jon Ossoff,” Dooley said.

There were bitter attacks in both Republican runoffs — some of which Democrats are promising to recirculate in the general election.

Dooley repeatedly hammered Collins for a House ethics complaint that accuses him of abusing taxpayer funds by paying the girlfriend of his former top adviser for congressional job duties she allegedly did not fulfill. After an initial investigation, a federal panel forwarded the matter to the House Ethics Committee. Kemp told voters for months that they should nominate Dooley as a “political outsider” who could relentlessly attack Ossoff without having to defend a record of his own.

Jones lambasted Jackson as a faux conservative who has employed immigrants in the country illegally and whose wife has donated to Democratic candidates.

State Republican Chairman Josh McKoon said he's confident about corralling the party base and appealing to swing voters.

“This election is going to be won by the side that is able to become the party of common sense,” he said.

Collins also begins the general election campaign at a financial disadvantage. He raised about $4.9 million through the end of May, and reported having less than $1.2 million remaining. Through late April, the last time Ossoff had to file before his primary, the incumbent had raised $60.4 million and had $32.5 million on hand.

Republican candidates will need to navigate Trump ties

Despite his ties to Trump, Collins has argued that he has broad appeal, and he plans to use immigration as a contrast with Ossoff.

In the House, Collins sponsored the Laken Riley Act, a 2025 law that requires immigrants accused of certain crimes to be detained. It is named for a Georgia nursing student killed in 2021 by a Venezuelan man who was in the U.S. illegally. Ossoff voted against a version of the legislation before backing the final proposal after Trump’s return to power.

He leaned heavily on his decades building his trucking company, based in the same community where he was raised.

“You see, I know what it’s like to have employees and their families count on you to make the right decisions every day. Jon Ossoff doesn’t,” he said.

Trump's mixed results in Georgia come after most of his preferred candidates have prevailed in primaries this spring. But Jackson's seemingly bottomless personal coffers were a new variable.

Jackson blanketed television and online platforms with ads. He's pledged that immigrants in Georgia illegally will be “deported or departed.” He promises a slew of tax cuts. And previewing a potential general election argument, he played up his biography as a product of the state foster care system and featured his grandchildren advising him on how to make friendlier ads.

Jones, 47, comes from a wealthy family but his personal spending measured in the single millions. And despite Trump's endorsement, the president did not travel to Georgia to campaign with Jones.

Runoffs for elections chief could shape 2028

Georgia's secretary of state race was open for the first time since Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election, famously pressuring outgoing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” to overtake Biden. Raffensberger refused.

For his potential successor, Republicans were left to choose between an outright election denier, Vernon Jones, and a state lawmaker, Tim Fleming, who avoids explicitly disputing the president’s 2020 election lies. They went with Fleming, who won the nomination on Tuesday.

Jones, a perennial candidate who was once a Democrat, embraced Trump’s “stop the steal” movement and said he stood “with those who believe there was election fraud.” Fleming, who once served as deputy secretary of state, has said there were “irregularities” in 2020, a word choice that has become code for Republicans who want neither to ratify nor call out Trump’s errant claims.

Democrats voted for Penny Brown Reynolds — a former state judge in Fulton County who also served in the Biden administration as deputy assistant secretary for civil rights for the Department of Agriculture — over Dana Barrett, a Fulton County commissioner.

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Associated Press reporters Kate Brumback in Jackson, Tom Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and Matt Brown in Washington contributed.

Rick Jackson's campaign spent more than $100 million, largely out of his own pocket, to defeat Trump-endorsed Burt Jones in the Republican runoff for Georgia governor. It was another rare example of the president's choice falling short in a primary battle.

Trump's efforts were more successful elsewhere. His candidate for U.S. Senate won a runoff in Alabama, and his pick for Oklahoma governor advanced to another runoff there.

Four states and the District of Columbia held primaries Tuesday. Among Democrats, the contests hinged on longstanding divides between progressives and moderates as the party tries to chart the best path forward to November.

Here are some takeaways as votes come in from Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Georgia and Oklahoma.

Trump's endorsement can be overcome — for a price

Nothing is certain in politics, but a “complete and total endorsement” from Trump is about the surest path possible to winning a Republican primary.

Jackson found another path to the Republican nomination for Georgia governor, but it was pricy. The billionaire healthcare tycoon personally supplied most of the $100 million-plus that his campaign has spent to persuade Republican primary voters to overlook Trump’s advice.

Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones more than a year ago and reiterated his support last week, praising Jones’ “Courage and Wisdom” in a social media post.

Before Tuesday’s runoff, Jackson came in second behind Jones in the May 19 primary, though nearly a third of voters backed other candidates.

Jackson will face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, in November to lead one of the nation’s preeminent battleground states.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s Republican primary for governor tested Trump’s endorsement in a different way. There, the president weighed in late, throwing his support two weeks ago to former state Sen. Mike Mazzei among a crowded field without a clear front-runner. Mazzei secured a spot in a runoff on Aug. 25, finishing nearly even with Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

Trump is used to getting his way, but earlier this month his choice for governor of Iowa, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, lost to Zach Lahn in the state’s primary.

MAGA becomes the insider movement and faces an outsider

Trump rose to power as an outsider, the head of a “Make America Great Again” movement keen to bulldoze the old political order.

But now the onetime insurgent sits atop a sprawling establishment. What happens when he endorses an insider candidate?

In Alabama, it worked out for Trump. He successfully backed U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, a three-term congressman who has promised to be “a warrior for President Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda" if elected to the Senate.

Moore defeated former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson, who presented himself as a Washington outsider and tried to harness the anti-establishment fervor that propelled Trump to power to defeat Trump’s preferred candidate.

Alabama is a Republican stronghold, so the GOP primary victor will be heavily favored to prevail in November.

The seat is being vacated by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee in the race for Alabama governor.

DC mayor’s race features a democratic socialist and a new voting system

One of the leading Democratic contenders in the District of Columbia mayor's race, Janeese Lewis George, describes herself as a democratic socialist, a political denomination that became more prominent with Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns.

Lewis George’s bid for the party’s nomination is not so far removed from democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's upset victory for New York City mayor last year. The race has drawn national attention, including the president's.

Trump indicated days before the mayoral primary election that he might take over the city if Lewis George wins, saying “we won’t put up with it.” Lewis George called Trump’s threat “an attack on democracy itself.”

The overwhelmingly Democratic city's relationship to the president is a focal point of the campaign as Trump has exercised broad power over Washington, D.C. That’s included an open-ended deployment of National Guard troops in the streets and his culling of the federal workforce, a chunk of the city’s jobs.

Some residents were frustrated that the mayor, Muriel Bowser, didn’t push back enough on the administration. Part of Lewis George’s platform on her website, which heavily focuses on affordability, is to “protect Home Rule” with “leaders that stand up and fight back, not shrink in the face of injustice.”

The race was too early to call on Tuesday night, and it could be decided by D.C.’s new ranked choice voting system.

Like a handful of other places, D.C. voters ranked the candidates on a ballot, and if no one crosses 50% of the popular vote, then residents' second choices come into play. That happened in Maine, where election officials started counting ranked choice votes for governor and a key House race three days after election night.

In D.C., election officials have warned the new system could delay results by days.

Georgia Republicans opt for candidate less skeptical of the 2020 election

State Rep. Tim Fleming won the Republican nomination for Georgia secretary of state Tuesday night, defeating opponent Vernon Jones, who leaned more into conspiracies over Trump's loss to Joe Biden.

The two were competing in an election to replace Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who resisted Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud and the president's request to “find 11,780 votes" six years ago.

Those claims hovered over Tuesday's race.

Jones had said he believes there were “irregularities” and “violations” in 2020 and he stands “with those who believe there was election fraud.” Of four key points on Jones’ campaign platform, three had to do with election management, including stronger voter identification rules.

Fleming tiptoed around the topic, saying there were “irregularities” in 2020 but adding he’s “not running on conspiracy theories.” Of the seven platform points on his campaign website, however, four were focused on election management and one said the state should “make it impossible for the Left to cheat in our elections.”

Fleming will face Democrat Penny Brown Reynolds, who won her party's nomination Tuesday.

More progressive candidate advances in California race to serve out Swalwell's term

Democrat Eric Swalwell resigned from the U.S. House and dropped his bid for California governor in April after a woman alleged he had sexually assaulted her twice, saying she was too intoxicated to consent to sex in both cases.

A special primary election was held Tuesday to finish Swalwell's term, and Democratic state Sen. Aisha Wahab advanced to the special general election on Aug. 18. It remained too early to determine who would fill the second slot.

Whoever wins will serve in the U.S. House through January. Wahab was favored along with Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director.

Wahab, who's established in California politics, represents a more progressive wing of the party, while Hernandez is a local politician who sits closer to the political center. To lower costs, Wahab takes aim at “corporate profiteering” and argues for an expansion to social safety nets. Hernandez focuses on local job growth and supporting small businesses.

Both candidates also ran in the regular primary election for Swalwell’s seat and will face off in the general election in November. Whoever wins that race will take over next year.

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This story has been corrected to show Trump wanted to find 11,780, not 11,800, votes.

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Cooper reported from Phoenix, and Bedayn from Austin, Texas.

White’s win in the heavily Democratic city sets him up to take the top spot in November’s general elections, when he could replace 18-term delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. Norton, 89 and a fixture of the Civil Rights movement, decided not to run again after facing growing concerns over her ability to forcefully push back against the Trump administration’s federal intervention into the city’s affairs.

White had campaigned on promises to fight for the city’s autonomy, which has been squeezed under President Donald Trump, who deployed the National Guard on an ongoing, open-ended mission meant to fight crime and rattled the capital’s economy by downsizing the federal workforce.

“My election means we’re going to keep our independence and we’re going to get statehood. People know I’m not going to lay down. I’m going to fight,” White told The Associated Press after his win was declared.

The D.C. delegate position is a nonvoting one, but it grants the nearly 700,000 people of the district, who have no other representation in Congress, a voice through speechmaking on the House floor and bill introduction.

The primary marked the first time in a generation that D.C. residents voted for a new mayor and delegate in the same election. And in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, that party’s winner is expected to come out on top in both races in November. The AP has not yet called a winner in the race for mayor.

Current Mayor Muriel Bowser, who was first elected in 2014, decided not to seek a fourth term. Democratic front-runners Janeese Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie are hoping to replace her. The primary includes ranked choice voting for the first time, which the district's election officials have warned could delay results.

Trump looms large over the vote

Central to all the campaigns has been the city's fraught relationship with the Trump administration and the federal government. The city has limited autonomy and federal leaders retain significant control over local affairs, including approval of the budget and laws passed by the D.C. Council.

That autonomy has been further squeezed under Trump, who launched a federal law enforcement surge last summer and sent in the National Guard. Trump's efforts to downsize the federal government also roiled the capital region, costing thousands of people their jobs. He has also been reshaping the city by removing or renovating storied landmarks and putting his name or image on buildings.

Bowser found herself walking a fine line between staying in Trump’s good graces and responding to the concerns of constituents, many of whom said she didn’t push back hard enough on Trump’s actions.

Trump last week threatened a new federal takeover of Washington when asked about his response to a potential victory by Lewis George, a democratic socialist.

“Maybe we’d take back Washington, run it on the federal basis,” he said.

Lewis George, who has pledged to protect the city's autonomy, stood that ground at her post-election event where pop music blared and a crowd danced with the candidate on stage.

“If there was any doubt, right now we lay it to rest," she said to cheering supporters. "It is the people of D.C. who elect the mayor.”

McDuffie, closing out the day at an event with supporters, echoed that sentiment.

“It is under threat right now, but Donald Trump does not run Washington, D.C. We do. The people of D.C. run Washington, D.C.," McDuffie told the crowd. "And we will fight for D.C.’s autonomy every single day of the week.”

Neither candidate declared victory as preliminary results rolled in.

Federal intervention, affordability among candidates' top priorities

Washington resident Fran Tatu, 69, said the National Guard deployment was a concern for her.

“What’s at stake — many young lives with the surge of federal officers by Trump and all of the troops that are here,” she said, adding that she was voting for Lewis George and White.

White said he plans to call for Washington residents and other actors to mobilize as much as possible and head to battleground states to help the campaigns of candidates who will be friendlier to the city's needs.

“We cannot have a Congress that is in complete opposition to D.C. come January,” he said.

Candidates have also made affordability a priority, which Lewis George has blamed on the Trump administration. Public safety has also emerged as a top concern even as the Trump administration has touted its federal law enforcement intervention as a successful crime fighting initiative.

Other candidates for mayor include former council member Vincent Orange and Hope Solomon, a former federal contractor who lost her job because of cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency.

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A previous version of this story misspelled D.C. congressional delegate candidate Kinney Zalesne's first name. It is Kinney, not Kenney.

Held at the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest, the exhibition is called “A.REST 1989.” The Securitate Video Archive uses video footage to reconstruct how detentions and interrogations worked under the Securitate, the sprawling network of spies that enforced Nicolae Ceausescu’s rule, until he was overthrown and executed in December 1989.

The exhibition features original videotaped recordings of interrogations of four detainees investigated by the secret police, shown on grainy, wall-mounted monitors in the museum’s central hall. All were recorded in 1989 by the Criminal Investigations Directorate of the Securitate.

In the middle of the exhibition space is a reconstructed cell furnished with a small bed, an empty metal bowl and cup, which evokes the isolation that detainees might have felt. It also highlights the Securitate’s extensive reach and power under communism and the investigation techniques they used on suspects.

Many of the recordings reveal coercive questioning and intimidation tactics that often drift into the absurd, as detainees are ground down or left bewildered. During one such back-and-forth, a woman whose husband had allegedly defected tells her questioner: “I no longer have the strength to fight. I need logical arguments, not this nonsense.”

A memorial to the victims

“In the world of Securitate ‘justice,’ detainees or those under arrest were merely prisoners, captives in the operational labyrinth of manufactured guilt,” the organizers say, adding that the exhibition can serve as a belated “memorial plaque” to victims. “The victims, thus, gain a voice and a place."

The exhibition runs until mid-September and is a collaboration between the National History Museum, Romania’s National Council for Studying the Securitate Archives, or CNSAS, and the Ministry of Culture.

The organizers said the 26 videotapes held by CNSAS are “a remnant, the accidental result of the disorderly and violent end” of socialist Romania, recorded by the criminal investigations technical department in 1989.

Oana Demetriade, a historian at CNSAS and exhibition curator, told The Associated Press that she initially wanted to use the videotapes to make a documentary for students and school kids, but decided to pursue an exhibition instead.

“The project grew organically through the discussions I had with architects and designers,” she said. “From the very beginning, the first discussions I had with my husband who works at CNSAS and everything I found in these tapes made me go ‘wow!’ … They were being watched in cells non-stop.”

“That’s what this whole archive brings new,” she added. “How it gets here and how people, those who are arrested, in the end, are repeatedly threatened, yelled at, threatened with beatings, threatened with the family suffering, and so on.”

The power of words

Also exhibited are artifacts such as a printing press that belonged to journalist Petre Mihai Bacanu, which was confiscated by the secret police in early 1989. Bacanu and several associates used the press to print an anti-Ceausescu and anti-government newspaper.

“How could we, after 45 years of socialism, still be afraid of people’s opinions, even of their thoughts?” Bacanu says during an interrogation in February 1989.

Another item exhibited is a pair of glasses that were used to stop detainees from “seeing where they were going or identifying” other persons.

The detention facility had spaces for two different types of detention, says Mihai Demetriade, also a historian at CNSAS and an exhibition curator along with his wife.

While “preventative detention” was used in political cases alleging crimes against the state, “operational detention” units were used to lock people up in what he described as a form of kidnapping — to imprison and silence potential dissenters during sensitive moments like a congress or visiting foreign dignitary.

“We are not talking about the testimonies of victims after the fall of communism, nor about documents, nor about books, nor about manuscripts,” he said. “We have something not open to manipulation … a live recording of events that occur in interrogation rooms or cells. It’s hard to fight against something like that as a denialist.”

“This space is important because it proves how rapacious, tough, aggressive the communist dictatorship remained even in the last moments of the communist system," he added.

Communist nostalgia

In recent years, as nationalism has risen in Romania, so too has a nostalgia for life under communism during the Ceausescu years, especially among young people who typically have limited or no memories of life in the country before 1989.

Cornel Constantin Ilie, manager of the National History Museum of Romania, says the new exhibition can help expose the realities of that period in Romania’s history and “reach the minds and, why not, the souls” of visitors.

“It is an exhibition that puts you in front of facts that cannot be ignored,” he said. “It’s very important because we must not forget and we must not repeat. … What we see in this exhibition is an ugly face of history, it is a story in which human freedom, human dignity were suppressed.”

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McGrath reported from Leamington Spa, England.

The call to action was issued at the 11th Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, the first time an African nation has hosted the major annual event, which focuses on addressing critical ocean issues, including climate change, biodiversity and pollution.

Hundreds of delegates from Africa, the United States, the European Union, and climate-vulnerable Caribbean and Pacific island nations are taking part in the conference, where leaders have sought to position Africa as a driving force in global ocean governance.

Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in his opening remarks at the Commonwealth Ocean Ministers’ Roundtable that the High Seas Treaty, which came into effect in January after ratification by 60 countries, marked a historic turning point by creating, for the first time, a legal mechanism to establish protected areas in international waters.

But he warned that progress remained too slow.

“We have 10% of the ocean under protection this year,” Kerry said. “That is worth marking. But only 3% is highly or fully protected, and the rest of the protections are, unfortunately, just lines on a map.”

Kerry said that industrial fishing fleets continue to exploit the oceans, with some vessels operating thousands of miles from home and using massive nets that indiscriminately catch marine life.

“Ratify it if you haven’t, and move immediately to implementation,” he urged countries, noting that key decisions on the future of the treaty will be taken next year.

The treaty, formally known as the Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, aims to help countries achieve a global target of protecting 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030.

The Kenyan Cabinet secretary of maritime affairs, Hassan Joho, said that governments must now shift from promises to tangible action.

“The purpose of this roundtable is not to restate ambition, but to convert such pledges into measurable results for our communities, our economies and our oceans,” Joho said.

Joho noted that since 2014, the One Ocean Conference has generated more than 2,900 pledges worth more than $169 billion. The challenge, he said, is to turn them into effective management of marine ecosystems.

The Commonwealth’s 56 member states collectively account for 36% of the world’s ocean jurisdiction and nearly half of its coral reefs, giving the bloc a unique responsibility in protecting marine resources.

Africa, meanwhile, is increasingly setting itself as a leader in ocean conservation.

Kerry praised African countries for championing transboundary marine protection and pointed to commitments by eight Gulf of Guinea nations to sustainably manage all of their waters by 2030.

“A region long described as a victim of ocean exploitation is now choosing to lead instead,” he said.

The East African nation has adopted integrated coastal management plans, expanded marine protected areas and stepped up efforts to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Its 640-kilometer (400-mile) coastline and vast exclusive economic zone support fisheries, tourism and other sectors that sustain millions of livelihoods.

As negotiations continue in Mombasa, delegates say the coming months will be critical in determining whether the new treaty becomes a transformative tool for ocean conservation or another set of international promises that fail to materialize.

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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. ___

This story has corrected the dateline to Mombasa, not Nairobi.

Trump has been at the center of this year’s midterm campaigns, and his influence was being tested in different ways as four states and the District of Columbia held primaries.

Among Democrats, the primaries hinge on longstanding divides between progressives and moderates as the party tries to chart the best path forward to November.

Here's the latest:

Robert White Jr. wins Democratic primary for DC’s delegate to Congress

He becomes the favorite to replace 18-term delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who decided to not seek reelection in the heavily Democratic city.

White, an at-large member of the D.C. Council, would become the third delegate in the district’s history, following Norton and Walter Fauntroy Jr., both politicians with national standing in the civil rights era.

Norton faced heavy pressure to step down from critics who argued she didn’t challenge the Trump administration strongly enough when it deployed the National Guard to the city, among other contentious actions.

DC mayoral candidate says Trump’s attacks on her energized voters

Trump last week threatened a federal takeover of Washington if Janeese Lewis George becomes the city’s next mayor. Lewis George, a self-described democratic socialist, said she believed that threat prompted people to go out and vote.

“Some people who weren’t paying attention to this race until the very end, when Trump made those comments, people were (like) ‘Wait a minute I need to pay attention,’” she told reporters.

Robert White addresses supporters as he seeks to become DC delegate

White, a former city councilman, is running to succeed Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s outgoing congressional representative and his former boss.

He thanked his supporters and spoke about the capital’s history as a refuge for Black Americans during the Great Migration, its crisis and reconstruction after riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the city’s tensions with the current president.

White said that he was often “counted out as a kid” but that the district’s community “never gave up on me and I will never give on you.” He said the district’s community was proud and undaunted by threats to its autonomy.

“Because our turn will never come unless we demand it. Eleanor Holmes Norton understood that. The generations before us understood that. And before this night is over, I hope every Washingtonian understands it, too: We will not yield,” White told a cheering crowd.

Democrat Aisha Wahab advances in California special election to replace Swalwell

Wahab, a state senator, moves on to the Aug. 18 special general election, which will determine who will fill the remainder of Swalwell’s term through January. At that time, the winner of November’s election for California’s 14th District will be sworn in for a full two-year term.

Wahab also is competing in the November election.

Swalwell’s seat was vacated when he resigned from Congress amid allegations of sexual assault.

DC mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George gives upbeat speech to supporters

“Tonight we are making history by showing America that the dream of America is alive in its capital city,” Lewis George told a crowd at her election viewing party.

With results still rolling in, Lewis George expressed confidence in her chances.

“The early results have come in, and it is looking good for us,” she said as she thanked the coalition of volunteers and workers that came out to support her.

Everett Wess wins the Democratic primary runoff for US Senate in Alabama

The attorney defeated businessman Dakarai Larriett and moves on to the November general election.

Wess is seeking the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor.

Wess is the managing partner of The Wess Law Firm, a former municipal judge, city prosecutor and public defender. His legal practice is primarily focused on estate planning and criminal defense. Wess has emphasized his legal experience and experience working within the Democratic Party.

“Families throughout Alabama are struggling with inflation, housing costs, high gas bills, high utility bills and these everyday expenses,” he said during an online candidate forum hosted by Birmingham Indivisible.

Republicans dominate Alabama politics, currently holding all statewide offices. But Democrats believe that frustration about inflation and other issues could give them an opening to sway some voters.

Moore says GOP primary and runoff were ‘brutal’

Alabama’s Republican nominee for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat told supporters he was humbled as they stood by him through a “brutal” campaign.

His runoff win Tuesday is another chapter in his political survivor story.

Moore was first elected to the state’s 2nd District in 2020. But after the district was redrawn to favor a Democrat in 2024, he challenged the sitting GOP incumbent in the 1st District and won. In the Senate primary, he defeated Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and newcomer Jared Hudson.

Moore said he was grateful for the endorsement the president, whom Moore called the “greatest president of my lifetime.” He supported Trump as far back as 2015 after he announced his first run for president.

“For him to come out early for us, and get in the fight for us, that was a full-circle moment for our family,” Moore said.

Polls have closed in California

In-person Election Day voting concluded in California’s 14th Congressional District at 11 p.m. ET. Comparable past elections can offer clues about when to expect the first vote results and how long the vote count might take.

In the statewide special election for Proposition 50 on Nov. 4, 2025, the AP first reported results from Alameda County, home to the 14th District, at 11:14 p.m. ET, or 14 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 1:33 a.m. ET, with about 57% of total votes counted. The county completed about 99% of the vote county by Nov. 10.

Voters were still casting ballots hours after most DC polls closed

Election board spokesperson Sarah Graham said six centers remained open around 10:30 p.m. ET. She said it was unclear whether the cause of the delay was long lines.

Guidance for the Board said the voting centers would remain open for anyone who was still in line at 8 p.m. when polls closed. D.C. has 75 such centers and residents are allowed to vote at any of them.

Tuesday’s primary marked the first time that D.C. has ever had ranked choice voting. There are a number of races on the ballot, including several D.C. Council seats as well as primary elections for mayor and delegate to Congress.

Alabama city could be well represented in Congress

If Moore prevails in November, both of Alabama’s U.S. senators will be from the same hometown.

He and Republican Sen. Katie Britt grew up in Enterprise, a city of about 31,000 in southeastern Alabama. They also graduated from Enterprise High School — Moore in 1984 and Britt in 2000.

Moore had his election night watch party at Rawls Restaurant, an Italian restaurant in Enterprise, where he still lives. A large crowd gathered in the private event room decorated with campaign signs. Britt now lives in Montgomery.

Enterprise is in a region of the state called the Wiregrass, which refers to a type of native grass that dots the region. It’s best known for peanut farming and Fort Rucker, an Army base where helicopter pilots are trained — but could soon be known as the hometown of senators.

Burt Jones laments his loss in Georgia governor’s race

Jones kept his remarks short, expressing his disappointment and thanking his supporters.

“Looks like we’re going to come up a little short here tonight and that’s unfortunate,” he said. “We had a great Election Day. We just didn’t have enough runway to get it all the way there.”

He thanked Jackson and congratulated him on his win.

“We were outspent probably seven or eight to one, and it was a very competitive race, and we felt like we had a chance to win tonight and just came up a little short,” Jones said.

After his remarks, Jones circulated among his supporters, posing for photos and thanking them for being there.

US Rep. Barry Moore wins GOP nomination for US Senate in Alabama

Moore benefited from Trump’s endorsement in the solidly Republican state. He defeated political newcomer Jared Hudson in the Republican primary runoff.

Moore is a three-term congressman and a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. In endorsing him, Trump said Alabama deserved a “Trump conservative” in the Senate

Hudson, a former Navy SEAL, had forced Moore into a competitive runoff after the state’s May primary by running as a political outsider and attacking Moore over his ties to Washington.

The seat is being vacated by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor in November.

Mike Mazzei, Gentner Drummond advance to Oklahoma GOP runoff for governor

Mazzei, a former state senator, didn’t receive Trump’s endorsement until the final weeks of a race that featured several prominent Oklahoma Republicans.

In the runoff he’ll face Drummond, who has served as Oklahoma’s top law enforcement official since 2023 and has loaned his campaign millions of dollars in a bid to become the state’s first new governor in eight years.

The eventual GOP nominee will be a heavy favorite to succeed outgoing Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who cannot run again because of term limits.

The runoff will take place Aug. 25.

DC mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie addresses supporters

McDuffie told those gathered that it’s “going to be a while before we know the results of this election.” He urged voters to “respect the process.”

McDuffie thanked his supporters and said that Washington residents had “showed up in this election like I have never seen before.”

He defended the city’s autonomy against threats of a federal takeover by the Trump administration.

“Washington, D.C., has a right to govern itself. It is under threat right now, but Donald Trump does not run Washington, D.C. We do,” McDuffie told the crowd. “And we will fight for D.C.’s autonomy every single day of the week.”

Jackson says his early life experiences gave him empathy

He said he feels the pain of Georgians.

“I know what it’s like to feel like nobody sees you,” he told supporters after the Republican gubernatorial runoff.

“I had seven different stepfathers and a mother who battled alcoholism,” he said. “I lived with five different foster families and attended 13 different schools.”

“But with God’s help, I built a business, created thousands of jobs and lived the American dream.”

Rick Jackson tells supporters “I can’t be bought”

Jackson sounded jubilant after the Georgia Republican gubernatorial runoff.

“The SEC championship is over — on to the national championship,” he said to a cheering audience. “Thank you, Georgia.”

The billionaire noted his outsider status as a strength.

“I’m the only candidate who doesn’t owe a thing to the political establishment,” he said. “I can’t be bought and I won’t back down.”

Jackson, whose opponent Burt Jones was endorsed by Trump and Gov. Brian Kemp, said: “We proved the people of Georgia are in charge.”

Billionaire Rick Jackson wins Georgia’s GOP nomination for governor

Jackson, who gave his campaign more than $93 million of his own money, defeated Burt Jones, the lieutenant governor who carried Trump’s endorsement after being part of the president’s effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

Jackson said he was the most Trump-like figure in the race as an outsider businessman. His personal investment puts him among the biggest self-funded candidates in U.S. history.

He’ll face Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms in the general election. Bottoms was just the second Black woman to serve as Atlanta mayor and she’s vying to become the first Black woman elected governor of a U.S. state.

Derek Dooley concedes to Collins in Georgia and attacks Ossoff

The former college football coach said he had been “humbled” by the grueling Senate campaign. He thanked his political ally, Gov. Brian Kemp, for endorsing his Senate bid, as well as his family and campaign staff for their support.

“I will be forever indebted to you, and I will help you any way I can,” Dooley told his staff.

“Congratulations to Congressman Collins. He ran a tough campaign, he got out early and we just never could catch him. We have a lot of disagreements but the one thing that hasn’t changed is my opinion of Jon Ossoff,” Dooley said.

Collins says the mission is to defeat Ossoff

“Y’all know what the mission? It’s to put a Republican in that seat and to get rid of that Jon Ossoff,” Collins told supporters after winning the Georgia Republican Senate runoff.

“We can put forward an agenda that puts Georgians first. One that builds on a vision where the forgotten man is forgotten no more,” he said.

“It stands in stark contrast to what Jon Ossoff has done,” Collins said, calling the Democrat “the deciding vote for Joe Biden’s massive spending bill.”

Collins thanks family but not Trump in victory speech

Collins is thanking supporters after winning the Georgia Republican runoff for U.S. Senate.

Amid waving signs of “I like Mike” and “Delivering wins,” the U.S. House member first thanked his wife of 37 years, Leanne, before mentioning others.

“She is the rock of our family,” he said. “And has always had my back.”

Collins did not mention Trump, who endorsed him in the runoff.

Senate super PACs ready for major showdown in Georgia after Collins wins GOP runoff

Senate Leadership Fund, the top Senate Republican super PAC, congratulated Collins on his win. It then then immediately pivoted to attacking his general election Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff,” as a “rubber stamp” for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

In a statement, the PAC said Ossoff “is wildly out of step with Georgia voters, spending the last six years advancing radical liberal priorities at the expense of working families.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority PAC, the top Democratic super PAC in Senate campaigns, swiftly lambasted Collins.

“Mike Collins is an opposition researcher’s dream,” Lauren French, a spokesperson for Senate Majority PAC, said in a statement. “He treats Congress like a money-making scheme for his family business, an ethics-free zone, and a conspiracy theory clearinghouse — sometimes all in the same week. This unelectable nepo baby doesn’t have what it takes to beat Jon Ossoff.”

Janeese Lewis George’s watch party gets started in DC

The crowd has started filtering into the mayoral candidate’s party inside the historic Howard Theatre, where some of the biggest names in Black music and entertainment history have played, including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and James Brown.

Frazier O’Leary, a former member of the D.C. Board of Education got there early to support Lewis George. He met her in 2018 during his first campaign.

“She helped me in my campaign,” he said. They supported one another’s campaigns until 2024, when he lost his reelection bid.

“I’ve always been impressed by her commitment to the city and to the things I care about,” he said. “It’s been wonderful watching her grow as a person.”

Trump-backed Rep. Kevin Hern wins GOP Senate nomination in Oklahoma

Hern is seeking the Senate seat once held by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

His victory is the latest demonstration of the power of Trump’s endorsements within the GOP.

The four-term congressman received more than 50% of the vote in a five-person field to avoid an August runoff after Trump’s support kept his most serious potential rivals out of the race.

The endorsement arrived even before the Senate confirmed Mullin as a replacement for fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Hern will be favored to win the seat in November. Democrats haven’t won a U.S. Senate race in Oklahoma since 1990.

Mike Collins wins Georgia’s Republican Senate nomination

Collins, a second-term congressman, defeated Derek Dooley. He advances to face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff for a seat that will help determine control of the Senate for the final years of Trump’s second presidency.

The president endorsed Collins on Sunday. The congressman has identified closely with Trump since he first won his House seat in 2022.

A trucking company owner and son of a congressman, Collins campaigned as a self-described “MAGA warrior.”

Trump will be a key fault line in the general election matchup. Ossoff was first elected in 2020 and blasts Trump as a “national embarrassment.”

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Correction: This post has been corrected to show that Trump endorsed Collins.

Voter sees Jared Hudson’s military service as a plus in bid for US Senate seat in Alabama

Julian Metheny, who voted for Hudson in Shelby County, said he liked the Republican candidate’s service as a Navy SEAL, his Christian messaging and that he is not part of the political system.

“I like the fact that he was willing to put his life on the line for our country,” said Metheny, 70, who is from a family with multiple veterans.

“He’s not playing the game of politics. He’s an outsider,” he said.

Supporters of US Rep. Barry Moore for US Senate in Alabama like his experience

Trump’s endorsement helped Moore with certain voters, but some said it wasn’t the only factor in deciding to cast their ballot for him.

Moore voters at a Methodist church in Pike Road, a rural-feeling suburb near Montgomery, cited his political experience in Washington and the state capital.

“He’s the best qualified, I can tell you that — no question,” said Bob Marshall, 91.

Jim and Sandy Cowen said they also thought Moore’s years in office were a benefit.

“I like the way Moore presents himself. I don’t know Jared,” Jim Cowen said, referring to Moore’s opponent in the GOP primary, former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson.

Polls have closed in Alabama, Oklahoma and Washington, DC

In-person Election Day voting concluded in Alabama, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C. at 8 p.m. ET. Comparable past elections can offer clues about when to expect the first vote results and how long the vote count might take.

In Alabama’s GOP U.S. Senate primary on May 19, the AP first reported results at 8:28 p.m. ET, or 28 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 12:54 a.m. ET, with more than 99.9% of total votes counted.

In the 2022 Oklahoma state primary, the AP first reported results at 8:10 p.m. ET, or 10 minutes after polls closed. By 10:30 p.m. ET, more than 90% of the votes had been counted. The last vote update of the night was at 12:33 a.m. ET, with about 99.9% of total votes counted.

In the 2022 primary election in Washington, D.C., the AP first reported results at 8:30 p.m. ET, or 30 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 11:59 p.m. ET, with about 69% of total votes counted. The District’s new ranked choice voting system will extend the timeline for any races that advance to ranked choice tabulation.

Polls have closed in Georgia

In-person Election Day voting concluded in Georgia at 7 p.m. ET.

Comparable past elections can offer clues about when to expect the first vote results and how long the vote count might take.

In the May 19 Republican primary for governor, the AP first reported results at 7:13 p.m. ET, or 13 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 3:13 a.m. ET, with more than 99.9% of total votes counted.

Personal relationships with candidates color Georgia voters’ choices

At a polling place in Griffin, some Republican voters relied on their personal knowledge of candidates when making their selections.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who’s running for governor, and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, who’s running for U.S. Senate, both grew up in Jackson, about 20 miles away.

Joann Colwell-Kinard, 82, said she voted for both Jones and Collins, having known their families for more than 50 years and believing them to be “good, honest people.”

“I just think he’s a very honest person and I think he’ll do a good job,” she said of Jones.

Stephen Tobias, 63, said he voted for former football coach Derek Dooley for Senate, saying he didn’t like Collins. He also backed Rick Jackson over Burt Jones for governor because he doesn’t like data centers.

“They’re putting a data center right in my backyard, so I’m not really a happy camper,” Tobias said.

The General Assembly convenes Wednesday in a special session called by outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp in response to the court's Louisiana v. Callais decision, which struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander.

Kemp, who is in the final months of his second term, deviated from other governors who fast-tracked new congressional maps for the November midterms partly in response to President Donald Trump's pleas to shore up the party's chances at maintaining control of Congress. Kemp instead wants Georgia lawmakers to draw districts for the 2028 elections. Yet the governor moved ahead of his Southern counterparts by asking the Republican-controlled Assembly to redraw its own boundaries, as well.

That would make Georgia the first state to apply Callais to its legislature and demonstrate the cascading effect of the high court's decision across Southern states that have the nation's highest proportion of Black voters and Black lawmakers.

The issue is especially salient in Georgia, where the Capitol complex includes a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and sits blocks from where the slain civil rights icon lived, preached and led the movement that yielded the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Still, neither Kemp nor Republican legislative leaders had unveiled proposed changes as of late Tuesday, frustrating Democrats and activists who plan daily demonstrations throughout the session.

“They have not been transparent,” said state Rep. Tanya Miller, a Black legislator from Atlanta who is the Democratic nominee for attorney general. “Something as fundamental as voters getting to choose their leaders ought not to be done in the dark, ought not happen in back rooms.”

The governor told The Associated Press he wasn't ready to discuss details.

“I’ll talk about redistricting on Wednesday,” Kemp said as he campaigned for fellow Republicans ahead of Georgia’s primary runoffs that were held Tuesday.

House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, a veteran of earlier redistricting efforts, said the outcome “will be a legislative prerogative” — a notion Kemp aides confirmed. But Jones said that even as a top-ranking Republican on the committee that would consider new maps, she hasn't “been in any room creating maps.”

Asked directly who is drawing new districts, she replied: “I don't know.”

Conservative justices gave the green light

Before Callais, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was understood to require maps — for Congress, state legislatures and local legislative bodies — that gave historically marginalized minorities a reasonable chance to select candidates of their choice. Nationally and in Georgia, those so-called “opportunity districts” have disproportionately elected Black and other nonwhite representatives.

For example, about a third of Georgia's 180 state representatives are Black. Latino, Asian and other minorities bring the total nonwhite share to about 40% — roughly reflecting the state's overall population. Georgia's U.S. House delegation has five districts out of 14 total where the electorate is majority or plurality nonwhite. All elected Black Democrats in 2024.

With the Callais ruling, issued earlier this spring, a conservative majority of justices concluded that jurisdictions drawn with racial makeup in mind are discriminatory and violate the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause. The justices declared that apportionment should be “race neutral.”

Their stated reasoning did not hinge on party interests, and federal courts have said partisan gerrymandering is constitutionally permissible. But in Southern states, especially, party loyalty dovetails considerably with race and ethnicity. So the decision has allowed Republicans — a party dominated by white people — to redraw maps to goose likely GOP districts by redistributing nonwhite voters who tend to support Democrats.

That, many civil rights activists and experts argue, makes it impossible for Southern legislatures to be genuinely “race neutral” when drawing boundaries.

Emory University professor Carol Anderson compared Callais and the resulting redistricting push to poll taxes and literacy tests imposed by white Southern conservatives — and blessed by the Supreme Court — during the Jim Crow era.

“They used racially neutral language for policies that were clearly racially targeted,” said Anderson, who is also a board member of Fair Fight Action, a group organizing against the Georgia redistricting.

There are risks for Kemp and Republicans

It's not guaranteed that Georgia Republicans can get what they want from new maps.

Partisan gerrymandering involves redistributing voters — packing certain citizens into fewer districts or dividing them across more districts. Around metro Atlanta, spreading nonwhite, Democratic-leaning voters across more districts could make more seats seem to lean Republican. The risk, however, is that more battleground districts emerge because white metropolitan voters are trending less conservative, which could give Democratic candidates of any race or ethnicity more chances to win.

That's perhaps not a major factor in the Georgia state Senate, which already is considered gerrymandered for Republicans. But it could be a consideration when drawing state House and U.S. House maps.

Kemp is effectively asking Republicans, especially in metro Atlanta, to redraw their own boundaries and take on new, unfamiliar territory.

Trump started the fight before the Supreme Court decision

Nationally, a partisan redistricting battle started last year when Trump urged Republican-controlled states to redraw congressional boundaries to shore up the GOP's narrow House majority in Washington this November. Texas answered the call first.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento answered with their own gerrymander that voters later approved. A succession of states followed. The outcome would have been close to even had the Virginia Supreme Court, controlled by conservatives, not struck down new Democratic-drawn maps approved by the state’s voters. All told, Republicans think they could gain as many as 16 seats from their redistricting efforts while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.

That still may not be enough for the GOP to hold a congressional majority, given Trump's lagging approval ratings. But it could mitigate Democratic gains and set Republicans up well for 2028 and beyond.

Messi scored his first goal in the opening minutes on a nice feed from Inter Miami teammate Rodrigo De Paul, the second on a rebound early in the second half. Shortly after he got his third on a strike from the top of the penalty box, he subbed out to a standing ovation from a heavily pro-Argentina crowd.

The trio of goals gave him 16 for his career, putting him in a tie with Germany’s Miroslav Klose for the career record. They also allowed him to join Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo as the only players to have scored in five World Cups.

“The first matches at the World Cup are always tough,” Messi said after playing in the tournament for a record-setting sixth time, “and we’re seeing that nobody’s giving anything away.”

Well, almost nothing. Algeria made some crucial mistakes on the first two of Messi's goals, which came 20 years to the day that he made his World Cup debut for Argentina in a match against Serbia and Montenegro — he scored in that one, too.

“We're not talking about any old footballer,” Algeria coach Vladimir Petkovic said. “Unfortunately we also afford him the opportunity with the first and second goal, and we actually made it easier for him. But Messi, with his clear thinking in crucial stages of the game, is able to do things that much more easily.”

Messi's brilliant hat trick helped Argentina get off to a much better start than its last World Cup. Four years ago, La Albiceleste were beaten by Saudi Arabia in their opening match in Qatar, only to rally from there to win their third world title.

“The first match is always tricky,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “We had stumbled in the last World Cup and we needed to have a good debut today.”

Messi, who turns 39 next week, nearly had two other goals against Algeria, never once looking like the mild hamstring injury that worried fans in the run-up to the tournament was a problem. One found the back of the net but was called back because he was ever-so-slightly offside, and another strike in the second half just cleared the crossbar.

He was a pest on defense, too, helping Argentina lock down the overmatched Les Fennecs.

“Argentina have a special player who can change a game on his own,” Algeria star Riyad Mahrez said.

Algeria's best chance came in the opening minutes, when Fares Chaibi's would-be goal was taken away by a VAR review that showed he was offside. Messi scored moments later, and the rest of the night belonged to him and Argentina.

“I like playing soccer. It’s been my passion since I was little,” Messi said. “When I’m in good shape, I give it my all.”

The game played at Arrowhead Stadium fulfilled the longtime dream of the late Lamar Hunt, who not only founded the NFL franchise that calls it home, but who was instrumental in the growth of soccer in the U.S. from the 1960s through the early 2000s.

Hunt played a big role in the U.S. hosting the 1994 World Cup. His sons, Clark and Dan, are doing likewise with this edition.

Among those in the crowd on a picture-perfect night in the Heartland were Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who traded in his usual red-and-yellow football uniform for a blue sweatsuit and white shirt, and his wife, Brittany.

Argentina will continue its pursuit of back-to-back titles in Arlington, Texas, when it plays Austria on Monday and Jordan on June 27. Algeria plays Jordan on Monday in Santa Clara, California, before facing Austria in its Group J finale on June 27 in Kansas City.

“The goal,” De Paul said, “is always to arrive on the first day and leave on the last.”

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

The 57-year-old Frenchman had four days to get the team prepared for its second Group F game against Japan on Saturday.

“At the moment we need to be focused on ourselves,” Renard told reporters at the team’s training ground just hours after flying into Monterrey. “We still have a few days to be ready.”

Renard led Saudi Arabia at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where the Green Falcons earned a shocking 2-1 victory over favorite and eventual champion Argentina. In the 2018 tournament, his Moroccan side earned a draw against Spain but failed to reach the knockout stage.

Renard said he was eager to experience the trill of the tournament again.

“It’s a World Cup,” he said. “I know the passion around this event. That’s what motivated me to come and it’s a challenge which isn’t easy.”

It’s not the first time Renard has replaced Lamouchi. The two-time Africa Cup of Nations winner succeeded his French counterpart in 2014 as head coach of Ivory Coast following its group stage exit at the World Cup.

It would be a tough ask for Renard to guide Tunisia out of the group stage for the first time in seven World Cup appearances. After their loss to Sweden on Sunday, the Eagles of Carthage need results against Japan and group favorites Netherlands if they are to advance.

“I’ve told them they have to keep their heads up, you’re here to represent your country,” Renard said.

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Maya Koluder-Ramirez and Ethan Wilcox are students in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.

Preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear bomb is a key reason that President Donald Trump said he launched the war alongside Israel in February, but the tentative agreement he has trumpeted leaves little runway to negotiate the long-running sticking point. The previous nuclear pact between Iran and world powers, which Trump pulled the U.S. from in his first term, took many months to negotiate.

Few details have been publicly released about the initial deal, set to be officially signed Friday in Switzerland, but it generally calls for reopening the Strait of Hormuz to global oil shipments, financial incentives for Iran if it meets certain benchmarks, and a 60-day period for talks on ending the country's nuclear program.

There is deep skepticism among both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, pro-Israel advocates and Israel itself that the deal is realistic, workable or would have any effect on nuclear talks.

“My skepticism is Iran itself. What would a good deal look like? No enrichment. And we’ll see if we can get there,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close Trump ally and longtime Iran hawk, said Tuesday. “But whether or not we can get phase two, I don’t know.”

A nuclear deal takes commitment to the details

David Schenker, director of the Arab Politics Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that “this administration has proven that it has a hard time keeping its attention on these issues.”

Schenker, who served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs in the first Trump administration, questioned whether the current administration would have the wherewithal to reach a nuclear deal even if the agreement is signed Friday.

“This is the kind of thing that requires dogged attention, attention to detail and numerous technical experts involved,” he said. “Trump loses his attention, moves on, and so does the administration. It’s like they don’t understand Iran’s strategy. They didn’t get it the first time, or the second.”

The Trump administration has maintained its confidence. Vice President JD Vance said much of the technical detail must be negotiated but that the U.S. must see action for Iran to receive incentives like sanctions relief.

“Our plan under this deal is, again, the Iranians are getting a lot of benefits so long as they dismantle that nuclear weapons program," Vance told Megyn Kelly on her podcast Tuesday.

“People always ask me, ‘Why do you believe it this time?’ I don’t believe them,” he added. “I don’t trust anything that anybody says. I trust what people do. And the way this deal is structured is that as they do more, they receive more. As they do less, they receive less.”

Iran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful.

It took over a year and a half to get the previous nuclear deal

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, took more than 18 months to negotiate, starting with secret talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Oman at the end of then-President Barack Obama’s first term.

They required dozens of direct high-level interventions from Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, not to mention a team of dozens of technical experts traveling to Europe and elsewhere before the conclusion of the negotiations in Vienna, Austria.

Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 before most of its more contentious concessions had come into effect, and there is no indication now that Iran is willing to offer much more.

The JCPOA relied on very technical language and understandings, including limits on uranium enrichment, advanced centrifuges and heavy water production. In exchange, Iran was granted significant sanctions relief, amounting to billions of dollars.

As unhappy as critics were about the JCPOA — Trump called it the “worst deal ever negotiated,” while all Republicans and a number of prominent Democrats voted against it — all sides acknowledge it took more than 18 months to get to an even imperfect agreement.

Republicans say Congress must approve any deal

Republicans say any nuclear deal with Iran should be brought to Congress, as required by law. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said he “would certainly anticipate that” the Senate will get the final say.

GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said he had little confidence Iran would abide by any agreement.

But Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., one of a handful of senators who has spoken to Vance about the agreement, said the shortened timeline could be an advantage.

“Iran’s modus operandi is to negotiate for the purpose of delaying, so they can rearm themselves,” Marshall said. “I think the president has to give them some type of a finite amount of time, or there’s going to be consequences. So I think it can be done.”

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., noted that what could help Trump’s negotiators to hammer out a nuclear agreement in such a truncated timeline is that there is “a base" to work from following the Obama-era talks.

Still, the JCPOA "took years to put together. You had allies and even adversaries — China and Russia — around the table, you had the IAEA at the table, the Obama chief negotiator had a Nobel Prize in physics, Ernie Moniz,” Kaine said. “I don’t know that either Jared Kushner or Steve Witkoff have a Nobel Prize. So it’s going to be hard.”

Trump envoys Witkoff and Kushner, neither of whom had any prior experience in nuclear negotiations, made numerous but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to reach an agreement under Omani mediation during the first months of Trump’s second term.

Those tapered off after the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025 — after which Pakistan emerged as the main facilitator.

There also is uncertainty about other issues besides nuclear that have been of concern to Arab countries, Israel, Europe and the United States.

It is not clear that any of those issues, including Iran’s ballistic missile program, its support for militant proxies in the region or repression of its own people, will be addressed by either the interim or potential longer-term agreements.

Without significant capitulations by Trump up-front, it is hard to imagine that nuclear negotiations with Iran will take only several months.

“A deal is better than more fighting, but the war America and Israel prosecuted against Iran has fallen short of achieving its stated objectives,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. “This agreement is mostly about cleaning up an unnecessary mess and putting the best face on it.”

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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.

Yet Warsh isn't expected to immediately usher in significant policy changes. The Fed is likely to keep its key rate unchanged Wednesday at about 3.6% for the fourth straight meeting, economists say. Fed policymakers could change their post-meeting statement so that it no longer signals the central bank's next move will be to reduce interest rates. Such a change would suggest it could keep rates unchanged for an extended period — or even raise them if inflation stays elevated.

Wednesday's highlight is likely to be the press conference Warsh will hold in the afternoon, which Wall Street investors, economists, and quite likely the White House will closely watch to see how Warsh conducts himself. Warsh was previously an investment banker, a member of the Fed's board of governors from 2006-2011, and a visiting fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution.

Fed-watchers will look for clues to the answers to some key questions: What, if anything, will he signal about where interest rates will head next? How does he think the Fed should address the elevated inflation stemming from the Iran war and its boost to gas prices? Will he change the Fed's communication practices, and how?

It's possible, for example, that Warsh could cut the number of press conferences each year from eight — one after each meeting — to four, or one after every other meeting, which was the approach taken by former chair Ben Bernanke when he inaugurated the post-meeting press conference. Warsh has said he would like the Fed to lower its public profile and reduce its commentary on the economy, which he thinks can lock in Fed officials to supporting specific policies for too long, simply because they've expressed their support publicly.

Yet reduced communication — whether through fewer press conferences or other means — risks alienating the public and financial markets, which have grown used to clear guidance on where the Fed is headed.

Warsh also faces a sharply different economic environment than when he appeared to campaign for the job of Fed chair last year. Back then, he was outspoken in favor of lower interest rates, as Trump has demanded. He pointed to the development of AI as a technology that could vastly expand the economy's ability to produce goods and services cheaply, which would over time bring down inflation.

Even then, many economists were skeptical of his claim. At least in the short run, analysts note that soaring investment in semiconductors and computing equipment is contributing to higher inflation.

Indeed, since the Iran war began Feb. 28, inflation has accelerated to a three-year high of 4.2%, lifted mostly by costlier gas stemming from the Iran war. The Fed typically fights higher inflation by raising its key interest rate to cool spending and growth.

Trump has announced an initial peace agreement that could bring the three-month conflict to an end, but it's not clear if peace will hold. And even if oil flows freely out of the Middle East again, it could take months for prices of gas, groceries, and items such as airline fares, to cool. Already, inflation according to the Fed's preferred measure has topped its 2% target for more than five years.

At the same time, hiring has picked up in recent months, removing a key rationale for cutting rates. In January, the Fed forecast that it would reduce rates twice this year, as part of its quarterly economic projections. A big reason for those potential cuts is that employers were shedding jobs and policymakers worried that the unemployment rate would rise. The central bank typically cuts its key rate to spur economic growth and hiring.

But earlier this month a government report showed that hiring jumped in May, when employers added 172,000 jobs, the third straight month of solid job gains.

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly demanded that the Fed cut its key rate. Yet in recent weeks as inflation has picked up, he has said he wants “Kevin” to be independent and make his own decisions. But he also said earlier this month that the Fed shouldn't raise rates, despite higher inflation.

Trump repeatedly attacked Warsh's predecessor, Jerome Powell, for not cutting rates deeply enough. In January, the Department of Justice even launched an unprecedented investigation into Powell over brief testimony he gave last July about a building renovation. A federal judge threw out the DOJ's subpoenas in the case and the government dropped the investigation.

The move largely backfired, as Powell decided to stay on the Fed's board of governors even after his term as chair ended May 15. He can serve a separate term as governor until January 2028. By staying on, he has denied the Trump administration an opportunity to fill an additional seat on the seven-member board. Powell is expected to vote on the Fed's rate decision Wednesday.

All eight people aboard were killed in Monday’s fiery crash of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, which was taking part in a test mission as part of a program to keep the oldest aircraft in the U.S. fleet flying for decades to come.

No cause has been determined. Officials at the base said it could take six months to complete the investigation.

The bomber took off shortly before noon on a clear day, heading southwest into the prevailing winds. It flew straight and crashed on the same 15,000-foot (4,572-meter) runway. The compact wreckage indicates the plane dropped sharply.

Officials have not yet released the names of the crash victims.

Lauren Smith told Eyewitness News KBAK-CBS and FOX58 that her husband, Jeromy Smith, was among the victims. He was a flight test engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense and died doing what he loved, she said.

“It is such a horrible hurt, and I’m still processing everything that happened,” she said.

The airfield remained closed Tuesday. Crews were making the crash site safe for search and recovery teams to enter, after fires flared up overnight, said Mike Paoli, a spokesperson for the 412 Test Wing at Edwards.

The aircraft was supporting a “radar modernization program,” Col. James Hayes, the deputy commander for the 412 Test Wing, said Monday. In 2025, Boeing sent a B-52 to Edwards with a modernized radar system that is key to keeping the bomber in the air through at least 2050, nearly a century after it first entered service.

A test team planned to conduct ground and flight test activities on the aircraft throughout 2026 to feed a production decision, the Air Force said in a 2025 news release. The modern Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system replaced the aircraft’s antiquated radar. It was unclear if that was the same aircraft involved in Monday’s crash.

AESA replaced 1960s radar technology and offers improved navigation and targeting capabilities, according to a 2023 news release from Raytheon, which designed the new system for the Air Force’s entire B-52 fleet.

B-52 began flying in the 1950s

The B-52, a long-range bomber that entered service in 1955, is designed to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. It has been used in conflicts involving the U.S. military from Vietnam to Iran.

Along with a new radar, the fleet of 76 B-52s are scheduled to receive additional upgrades, including new engines, crew compartments, conventional and nuclear communication systems, avionics and weapons. The military said the goal is to make the B-52 a complement to the Air Force’s newest strategic bomber, the B-21 Raider.

Aerial footage showed virtually nothing left of the aircraft that went down at the base in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles (161 km) northeast of Los Angeles. Officials determined no one could have survived after reviewing footage of the crash, Hayes said at a news conference.

Those on the B-52 included government contractors, Boeing employees and uniformed military.

Edwards is home to the 412th Test Wing, which conducts regular developmental testing of all Air Force aircraft, weapons systems, software and components before purchase by the service as well as throughout their life span. Test missions take place at Edwards daily, Hayes said.

The base is where Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager reached a speed of Mach 1.05 and broke the sound barrier in 1947.

Investigators will closely examine the flight controls and engines

Aviation safety experts have said their first thoughts about what might have caused the crash were about a malfunction in the flight controls or engines, but it is way too early to know. And investigators will consider a myriad of factors, including the age and maintenance of the plane.

J. Joseph, a retired Marine Corps colonel and airline pilot. said that even in a B-52 with eight engines, a malfunction can make the plane difficult to control if the pilot loses the outboard engines, and the forces pushing the plane get out of balance in a condition Joseph called asymmetric thrust. Although if there is time, the pilots can adjust the other throttles to rebalance the forces.

Heather Penney, a former F-16 combat pilot and aviation expert, said she knew one of the people who died aboard the B-52 personally — reinforcing how tragic this crash is for the close-knit community of military aviators. She declined to name the person before officials do.

She said it is unlikely that pilot error caused this crash given the expert training and experience of the test pilots on this flight. The age of the B-52 also opens up the possibility of problems with the structure of the plane.

“The youngest B- 52 was delivered to the Air Force in 1962. That was before the Cuban missile crisis, before the first man walked on the moon, before we had personal computers,” said Penney, who is director of Studies and Research at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “These are old airplanes. They’re structurally robust, but they are old aircraft. So structural failure can’t be ruled out.”

All the modernization efforts and upgrades that have been made to the B-52s over the decades have extended the life of these planes. At some point, these bombers will have to be replaced, but for now they continue to play a crucial role for the Air Force.

“The B-52 fleet that we have today, is the backbone of America’s bomber force. It’s over 50% of our bomber force, and it can go further, have larger payload, and stay airborne longer without refueling than any of our other bombers,” Penney said. “There’s no other bomber in our force has the attributes of the B-52. It’s been a workhorse. It’s going to continue to be a workhorse.”

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This story has been updated to correct details of the bomber’s flight based on data analysis by AirNav Systems. AirNav now says the plane took off toward the southwest, not the northeast flew straight and crashed almost immediately, and was not airborne for 3 minutes and did not make a turn. It flew straight and crashed almost immediately.

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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press journalist Konstantin Toropin contributed from Washington, D.C.

Morning sunshine will give way to increasing clouds, followed by rain and thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening.

Widespread rainfall is anticipated, with most areas likely to receive one to two inches.

Some locations could see more than three inches, increasing the risk of flash flooding.

While flooding appears to be the primary concern, a few storms could also produce gusty winds, and an isolated tornado cannot be ruled out.

Parts of the area remain under Marginal and Slight Risks, Levels 1 and 2 out of 5, for severe weather.

High temperatures on Wednesday are expected to reach the mid-70s.

Thursday

A few lingering showers may persist into early Thursday before drier conditions return for the afternoon.

Highs will remain seasonable in the lower 70s.

Friday

Looking ahead, sunshine and pleasant conditions are expected on Friday, with temperatures returning to the mid-70s.

Weekend forecast/next week

The weekend forecast calls for highs in the low to mid-70s, with the next chance for rain arriving Sunday and continuing into Monday.

Find the latest forecast from the 4Warn Weather team here

Remember to download the free 4Warn weather app -- it’s easily one of the best in the nation. Just search your app store under WDIV, and it’s right there, available for both iPhones and Androids! Or click the appropriate link below.

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The incident occurred on Tuesday (June 16) at 7 p.m. in the 12000 block of Vaughan Street when officers from the Detroit Police Department’s 6th Precinct responded to a report of shots fired.

Police said the victim was transported to a Metro Detroit hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Officials said the shooter was taken into custody in connection with the shooting.

Police said preliminary information indicates the shooting followed an altercation between the victim and the person who was taken into custody.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone who witnessed the incident or has information is asked to contact Detroit police Homicide at 313-596-2260 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-Speak Up.

All tips to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. Click here to submit a tip online.

Ryan Walker of West Bloomfield said he has been running for as long as he can remember, starting with 5K races as a child alongside his grandfather.

In 2018, while recovering from a broken leg, Walker set a goal of running six miles a week—a routine that helped him rebuild his fitness and eventually led to longer distances.

“I set a goal of running just six miles a week, and I was like, if I can be consistent and run — just do six miles a week — that’ll be 300 by the end of the year, and I ran my first half marathon that year,” Walker said.

Half marathons turned into triathlons and eventually into an Ironman.

Walker said he decided to run for a cause tied to his mother, Lori Picard, who died in 2008 at age 44.

He said she was known for her willingness to stop and help people.

“She would always be willing to stop and talk to anybody. If someone needed something, she would literally want to give them the shirt off her back, not just hand over a dollar and keep walking, but like sit down with us, have a meal, and that was very consistent,” Walker said.

Walker said his mother struggled with addiction and bipolar disorder, but he remembers her as someone who tried to support others in need.

He said he discovered HOPE Shelters three years ago and felt the organization’s mission aligned with how his mother lived.

“We came to know Ryan about three years ago, and he came to us, and he had this passion, and he wanted to do this in memory of his mom, so now this is the third year, and we are so grateful,” said HOPE Shelters Executive Director Katonya Jones.

Walker has raised more than $30,000 for the organization through previous fundraising challenges, including a 100-mile run, a bike ride, and swim around Mackinac Island.

Now, he’s preparing for an Ultraman — a grueling, three-day, 320-mile event that combines swimming, biking, and running. Walker is doing the race self-supported, with up to 12 hours per day.

He launched a GoFundMe that has already raised more than $13,000, with proceeds benefiting HOPE Shelters.

HOPE Shelters helps an average of over 500 people a year, working to help them find stability and permanent housing.

“We rescue them, we restore them, and we give them stability with housing, to put them back out in the market and help them find jobs,” Jones said.

Walker said he’ll have a support system along the route.

“There’s a lot of people that are planning to meet me along the way, whether it’s to run a few miles or ride their bike for a little bit — and that’s the part I really want to be present and take it all in,” Walker said.

Walker will complete the Ultraman from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Each day, he plans to divert from his route to pass HOPE Shelters’ location on Baldwin Avenue, where staff members said they will be cheering him on.

You can make a donation here.

Three fans bicycled nearly 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers) from South America to Kansas City, Missouri — without tickets in hand. One group drove 20 hours, living off sandwiches to save money. Daniel Otero, a 73-year-old attending his seventh tournament, is shelling out around $100,000 so he and his two sons can watch the team play over the coming weeks.

“We are crazy for Argentina,” he said. “That’s why we spend so much money to see our country, our national team.”

The obsession was rewarded in Kansas City as the team made opened its World Cup defense, defeating Algeria 3-0. Scoring all three of those goals was the legendary Lionel Messi who, turning 39 next week, could be playing in his last World Cup.

“Argentina now is like the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan,” said Juan Martin, 43, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, before the match. “In his prime, he had fans around the world. Argentina has fans around the world with Messi.”

Martin plans to spend the next month following the team with his girlfriend, 31-year-old Agostina Gomez Uvia, a quest that he estimates will cost them $20,000 each. Similarly Otero is spending $40,000 on tickets alone.

Otero and his son, Franco Otero, 27, marveled that U.S. families also were wearing Argentina jerseys, emblazoned with Messi’s name.

“I can't remember an Argentinian team without Messi,” Franco Otero said.

“He changed the game,” agreed Manuel Valdes, a 29-year-old engineer from Corrientes, Argentina, who traveled to the match with his father and younger brother. “There’s a before and after in football.”

In the parking lot outside the stadium, 11-year-old Andre Cornuz, of Miami, joined his father as he set up a flag atop a van before the game. In front, members of the band Los Sin Entradas (translation: Those Without Tickets) lined up drums. Passersby stopped to pose for photos in front of the display, which included a giant banner that read, “Lio Te Quiero” — “I love you, Lio” — and a photo of Messi.

“I have been raised with Messi,” said Andre, whose father is from Argentina and who often travels back to visit his family. “I am very connected to the land.”

The band's next stop is Dallas, where Argentina is playing next, and then “wherever it takes us,” Andre said.

Pam Kramer, the chief executive of the Kansas City organizing committee, has marveled over the past week at the lengths that Argentina fans have gone to support the three-time World Cup champions, including the trio that cycled their way to Kansas City in time for the opening match.

“We had those three Argentine cyclists come here, and they came here without tickets. And the people in Johnson County (Kansas) were like, ‘You know what? We’re fans too. We’re going to make sure you get to a match,’” Kramer said, “and that’s genuine. Nobody is doing it for show. We want people to see what we see, that this place is pretty special.”

Three hours before kickoff, fans already were lining up to get into the stadium. Jorgelina Skorput, 34, of New York City, waited with her friends as police officers on horseback patrolled the crowd. They drove two days to get here, munching on sandwiches and staying at an Airbnb an hour out of town because it was cheaper.

All told, she figures the trip cost her $2,000, including the $800 game ticket.

“I felt like this is the only time, the only opportunity I’m going to get to see the World Cup,” said Skorput, who was born in Rosario, Argentina, and moved to the U.S. when she was 9. “We’re the last champions.”

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AP Sports Writer David Skretta contributed to this report.

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

Mbappé scored his 13th and 14th World Cup goals on Tuesday in France's 3-1 tournament-opening victory against Senegal. Those were his 57th and 58th playing internationally, tying and passing Oliver Giroud for the most in the country's rich history.

“I play to make history with my country and help my team win the World Cup,” Mbappé said in French, adding that he was thinking of his family, friends and loved ones when he scored.

Mbappé first scored in the 66th minute after having several quality scoring chances denied by goalkeeper Édouard Mendy, including earlier in the second half. He scored again from long range in the sixth minute of stoppage time, mere seconds after Senegal got its first goal.

“It was crazy,” France defender William Saliba said. “We just conceded the first goal for Senegal, and just one minute after, we score a banger. I was so happy. Yeah, a crazy goal.”

Mbappé's second goal broke a tie with Pelé. He celebrated by mimicking playing a flute, after comedian James Corden suggested that on his Fox show.

After scoring his second of the afternoon to pass countryman Just Fontaine, the 27-year-old playing in his third World Cup is now tied with Germany’s Gerd Müller for the fourth most in tournament history. Mbappé is one behind Brazil's Ronaldo and two away from the record of 16 held by Miroslav Klose of Germany and Lionel Messi, who had a hat trick for Argentina hours later to match that mark.

“Of course I think he has everything to beat the World Cup (record),” Saliba said. “I hope he is going to do it in this tournament because for sure he has everything, and I’m sure that he will do it.”

France coach Didier Deschamps liked what he saw from Mbappé even before putting the ball in the net.

“Before he scored the first two goals today, as a captain and outside of the field he does a lot for the group,” Deschamps said through an interpreter. “He’s got a global aura due to his real talent. He’s a very decisive player at all times.”

Deschamps called Mbappé an iconic player, while acknowledging there will always be criticism. That does not seem to be a problem for a player coming off scoring 25 goals this past season for Real Madrid.

“The critics? It’s not about revenge,” Mbappé said. “If I started playing for all the people who criticize me just to silence them, I’d have to play until I was 80.”

Mbappé helped France win the World Cup title in 2018 and reach the final in 2022, when he was awarded the Silver Ball as the second-best player. Joined up front by Désiré Doué and reigning Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembélé, France went into this year’s tournament as the co-favorite along with Spain.

Mbappé had little trouble finding room between Senegal defenders several times in the first 14 or so minutes. But he was sloppy with the ball for much of the rest of the first half before he and his teammates started to mesh.

Then the goals materialized, a good sign for France given the lofty expectations. Mbappé will be counted on to keep scoring to contend to win the World Cup.

“For him, it’s a good thing to achieve this thing to be the best scorer of the French national team,” teammate Adrien Rabiot said. “Great achievement. We are happy for him. And I hope he will continue like this for the tournament.”

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AP Sports Writer Eric Nunez contributed to this report.

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

Mbappé scored twice to move past Pelé with 14 World Cup goals, celebrating by mimicking a flutist as he had promised, and Les Bleus beat Senegal 3-1 Tuesday in their World Cup opener.

“He could have scored four or five goals, OK, theoretically, but we’re happy with two goals,” France coach Didier Deschamps said.

Mbappé had 14 touches in the scoreless first half, the fewest of any player, then put France ahead in the 66th minute. He burst past Senegal captain Kalidou Koulibaly, turned onto a diagonal pass from Michael Olise and slid the ball past goalkeeper Édouard Mendy from just outside the 6-yard box.

In a segment with Mbappé taped May 20 and aired Friday by U.S. broadcaster Fox, award-winning actor and television host James Corden suggested the 27-year-old star striker celebrate his next World Cup goal by imitating a flute player. Mbappé practiced the instrument for a year or two as a child at the behest of his parents.

“I’ll do it for you first game,” Mbappé said.

Mbappé ran toward a corner, brought both hands to his lips and air-tooted for a few seconds.

“If he wants to miss the first half again and score two goals in the second half in another match, that’s OK with me,” Deschamps said.

Bradley Barcola doubled the lead in the 82nd, two minutes after entering, and Ibrahim Mbaye cut the deficit in the fifth minute of stoppage time. Mbappé scored just 68 seconds later on a spectacular right-footed shot from 30 yards. The ball dipped perfectly between Mendy's outstretched left arm and the crossbar.

“A crazy goal,” French defender William Saliba said.

Mbappé, who led the 2022 tournament with eight goals, moved one ahead of Lionel Messi and fellow Frenchman Just Fontaine on the World Cup career scoring list before Messi scored his 14th, 15th and 16th for Argentina later Tuesday. Mbappé is tied with Germany’s Gerd Müller, trailing Messi, Germany's Miroslav Klose (16) and Brazil's Ronaldo (15).

“I’m sure that he will do it,” Saliba said of Mbappé setting the record.

Mbappé also became France's career scoring leader with 58 goals, one more than Olivier Giroud.

“He can from time to time miss a game or two but on one action he really is able to tip the scales and bring his team to victory,” Deschamps said. “People say he doesn’t defend enough. Well, he’s not here to defend.”

Mbappé brushed off critics.

“It’s not about revenge,” he said. “If I started playing for all the people who criticize me just to silence them, I’d have to play until I was 80.”

Trying to reach its third straight World Cup final, France plays Iraq on Monday in Philadelphia, then closes Group I on June 26 against Norway at Foxborough, Massachusetts. Senegal meets Norway on Monday at MetLife Stadium and finishes the first round against Iraq at Toronto.

With fans in Senegal denied visas by the U.S. government, supporters of the Lions of Teranga appeared limited to a few sections in MetLife's southwest corner on a sunny 77-degree Fahrenheit (25-degree Celsius) afternoon.

While most of the stadium was filled with a just-under sellout crowed of 80,545, there were empty seats in a mezzanine club level, which has air-conditioned suites behind the outdoor chairs.

Two hours before kickoff, tickets dropped to as low as $69 on FIFA’s resale site. FIFA sold tickets at $220-$620 in December.

France was outshot 5-1 in the first half. Senegal striker Nicolas Jackson’s 25th-minute shot hit a post, rebounded off the heel of goalkeeper Mike Maignan and bounced into touch.

Les Bleus then outshot their opponents 10-1 in the second half, when Olise shifted centrally from the right flank.

“If we had been more efficient, by halftime, we would have been able to lead 1- or 2-nil,” Senegal coach Pape Thiaw said.

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AP Sports Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.

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

Pratt made his major league debut and went 0 for 3 in a 2-1 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Tuesday night after getting called up from Triple-A Nashville. The Brewers made room for Pratt by designating third baseman Luis Rengifo for assignment.

“This is a kid we’ve signed for the long term,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said before Tuesday's game. “We feel confident he will be our shortstop of the future. He’s going to play.”

Pratt, 21, found out he was going to the big leagues when Nashville manager Rick Sweet notified him during the Sounds' game on Sunday.

“It was magical, man,” Pratt said. “It didn’t quite feel real.”

The news came at an ideal time for Pratt because the Brewers were off Monday, enabling his family to make it to Milwaukee for his first MLB game. Pratt's father, Russell Pratt, doesn't travel by airplane.

That meant a 700-mile drive from the Pratt's family home in Oxford, Mississippi. Those long-distance drives were common during Pratt's road to the big leagues.

“We drove in travel ball for like 20 hours sometimes, from like Mississippi to Arizona,” Pratt said. “Arizona to Texas. We drove all over.”

Pratt signed an eight-year deal on April 3 that includes club options for 2034 and 2035. The $50.75 million contract includes escalators that could raise the value by $10 million if he repeatedly finishes high in MVP voting and the team exercises those two options.

In the weeks after agreeing to that deal, Pratt felt pressure to live up to that contract. His batting average in Nashville didn't climb above .200 for good until April 26.

He has performed better lately. He was hitting .241 with a .349 on-base percentage, six homers, 32 RBIs and 17 steals in 58 games with Nashville at the time of his promotion.

Pratt's defense is ahead of his offense at this point in his development. He won a Gold Glove as the top shortstop in the minor leagues in 2024.

“Now we’re well aware of a guy making his first trip to the big leagues, it could go many different ways,” Murphy said. “When are they ready? When is it a perfect time? Right now, in my opinion, it doesn’t really matter. It matters he gets comfortable in the big leagues, understands it, starts to make his adjustments he needs to make, and then we roll from there.”

Murphy has a connection to Pratt's family. Pratt is the nephew of BYU coach Trent Pratt, who played for Murphy at Arizona State from 1999-2000.

The Brewers can afford to be patient with Pratt’s bat as long as he fields the way he did in the minor leagues.

Milwaukee has received little offensive production from the left side of its infield all season, yet the Brewers still entered Tuesday leading the NL Central by 4 ½ games over St. Louis as they chase their fourth straight division title. The versatile David Hamilton had been splitting time with Joey Ortiz at shortstop and with Rengifo at third base.

Hamilton entered Tuesday battting .231 with a .316 on-base percentage, .320 slugging percentage, three homers, 11 RBIs and 14 steals in 58 games. Ortiz was hitting .207 with a .299 on-base percentage, .262 slugging percentage, one homer, 14 RBIs and five steals in 60 games.

Rengifo was hitting .205 with a .280 on-base percentage, .254 slugging percentage, no homers, 19 RBIs and three steals in 57 games.

Murphy mentioned that he now might have Hamilton and Ortiz splitting time at third base, with Hamilton primarily starting against right-handers and Ortiz getting the call against lefties. Ortiz was Milwaukee's starting third baseman in 2024.

“I've had many meetings with Joey, and he totally understands what's happening," Murphy said. “Six weeks ago, I sat with Joey and said, ‘Joey, this has happened. They signed this guy. Do you understand that? ... But it doesn’t mean you can't have an incredible career in the big leagues, including playing shortstop for us at times.' ”

Pratt was one of two Brewers prospects to sign a lucrative long-term deal this year while still in the minors. Luis Lara, a 21-year-old outfielder playing for Nashville, signed a seven-year deal worth $31 million last week.

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

The Department of Justice will take on enforcement of civil rights in education, while the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee special education, administration officials announced. With those moves, the Education Department has now carved away the vast majority of its functions for other agencies to handle.

The two Education Department offices involved — the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and the Office for Civil Rights — defend the rights of children with disabilities and those who experience discrimination based on race, sex or religion. Advocates worry the change could mean lapses in communication for families and school officials who need help.

Trump, a Republican, campaigned on shutting down the Education Department, saying he would “move education back to the states where it belongs.” While only Congress can close the department, Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, a billionaire and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, has formed agreements with other federal agencies to handle much of her department’s work.

McMahon said the agreements align federal responsibilities with the agencies best positioned to support them.

“The Trump Administration has been clear: as we scale back federal micromanagement when it hinders success, we are equally committed to bolstering the efficacy of federal oversight where it is essential,” McMahon said in a written statement.

Critics warn of impacts to student services

Advocates said the changes would create uncertainty around services relied upon by millions of students and families.

“As is too often the case, traditionally underserved students — including students with disabilities, Black and Latino students, multilingual learners, students from low-income backgrounds, and students in rural communities — will bear the greatest burden created by this reckless decision, to which the disability and civil rights communities have already been vehemently opposed,” said a written statement from EdTrust, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for educational equity.

The Education Department already has offloaded some of its programs through 10 earlier internal agreements, but the offices affected by Tuesday’s announcement were among the most closely watched.

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services manages billions of dollars in grants and oversees state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The Office for Civil Rights, which has been thinned by mass layoffs, investigates complaints of discrimination at the nation’s schools and universities.

The Department of Justice also will take over work protecting student privacy and will provide some training and advisory help to schools.

While Justice and Health and Human Services will handle over most day-to-day duties of the assigned offices, the Education Department will continue to perform some tasks, such as responding to audits and issuing final determinations in civil rights cases, which it is explicitly required to do by law.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said the announcement Tuesday was a political one intended to fulfill the president's campaign promise. The changes, he said, will likely widen inequities for students of color and students with disabilities.

The agreements are scattering education programs to agencies that do not have the expertise to manage them, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

“Instead of helping kids get a great education, this administration is spending its time, energy, and taxpayer resources fixated on where employees sit and illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education,” Murray said in a written statement.

Rachel Gittleman, president of the union that represents department employees, said the moves will create chaos for families, students and schools.

“This will leave our most vulnerable students and families who have been shut out of our education system without the services they need and without protection when they face discrimination,” Gittleman said in a written statement.

Families of students with disabilities opposed the decision

The transfer of special education to Health and Human Services most alarmed disability advocates, who say oversight of whether schools are adequately serving children with disabilities is best handled by education experts — not medical experts.

“The IDEA is intended to equip students as they learn alongside their peers, not cure them — the HHS is not prepared to oversee and administer the IDEA program effectively. Health and education systems speak in entirely different languages, including variations in terminology, training and disciplines," said Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of the Center for Learner Equity.

The Education Department said McMahon spent over six months in listening sessions with families, advocates and educators to better understand concerns around how the department's dismantling could affect special education. Many families raised concerns about obstacles to obtaining proper services for their children, but Coco said participants in those sessions were united in their opposition to moving special education oversight out of the Education Department.

“I think we agree on the problem,” Coco said. “We have stark disagreement on the solution and these transfers today don’t feel like a solution to that problem.”

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

Mystikal, whose given name is Michael Lawrence Tyler, pleaded guilty to third-degree rape in March with a sentencing cap of 20 years, five years less than the maximum punishment for the crime. His plea deal reduced the charge from first-degree rape, which carries an automatic life sentence.

Days before his Tuesday sentencing hearing, he asked a judge to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he “did not have sufficient opportunity to fully consider the consequences," according to ABC affiliate WBRZ.

The victim spoke in court before sentencing and asked the judge to give Mystikal the maximum sentence, WBRZ reported. She reportedly said the rapper had punched her, choked her, pulled out her braids and forcibly raped her at his home in Prairieville, about 18 miles (29 kilometers) from Baton Rouge.

“If I did that to you, I deserve the max sentence,” he said in response, according to the local TV station.

A lawyer for the rapper did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mystikal has been held without bond at the Ascension Parish Jail since his arrest in 2022.

The Louisiana rapper rose to national recognition in the 1990s and is known for his 2000 hit “Shake Ya A(asterisk)(asterisk),” which was nominated for a Grammy in the best rap solo performance category.

In 2003, he pleaded guilty to sexual battery and was sentenced to six years in prison. That same year he was a Grammy nominee in two categories: best rap album for “Tarantula” and best male rap solo performance for his single “Bouncin’ Back (Bumpin’ Me Against The Wall).”

Huang has been optimistic about AI’s potential to rapidly transform society, creating faster economic growth and more scientific breakthroughs. But as the head of a computer chip company now developing AI systems, he and others are confronting a public increasingly concerned about the potential harm the technology might bring. Huang has felt obligated to respond to critics who warn of job losses and threats to humanity itself.

“We need to create new social norms,” Huang said in an interview. “I would advocate that everybody use AI. Just go engage it.”

Huang made his case as AI has emerged as a political flashpoint, with objections to plans to build more data centers and fears that the speed with which it’s being adopted could spur the layoffs of workers who might not have a safety net. Such questions have threatened public support of the technology at a time when a race has kicked off with China, a contest Huang believes can best be won by a U.S. that is open to competing globally in AI.

His close relationship with President Donald Trump also has been a source of criticism among Democrats, even as he emphasized that the computing power created by AI is vital to adding the factory jobs that have been promised for decades without much enduring success. It was an argument delivered by a 63-year-old man who has watched the technology develop and described himself as “boring” because his own life revolves mainly around work and his family.

Huang disclosed during the interview some personal details, saying his favorite movie is “Kingdom of Heaven,” the 2005 epic about the 12th century Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. He said he had watched the movie “Project Hail Mary" three or four times and “I think we might watch it again this weekend.”

Huang said the ability of AI to design a website, analyze complex documents, guide advanced research or even plan a kitchen remodeling has helped to close the technological divide in America. People can now do advanced work on computers without having to know how to program or write software, he added.

Huang contended that there is a need for some government regulation and safety standards for AI, emphasizing that national security also needed to be a priority for the technology that has been powering stock market gains and U.S. economic growth in recent years.

Huang said society will adapt to AI just as it did to automobiles. He said cars were once portrayed as killing children, but the world changed its norms by having sidewalks and crosswalks and stopping kids from playing in the streets.

Huang skeptical of what government ownership of AI companies would achieve

With a market capitalization of roughly $5 trillion, Nvidia has soared in valuation in recent years to become the world’s most valuable company. AI modeling companies OpenAI and Anthropic are potentially set to also clear the $1 trillion mark once their stocks are publicly traded.

That explosive surge in wealth concentrated in AI companies has prompted renewed worries about economic inequality. Trump has tried to defuse those concerns, recently musing about the prospect that the U.S. government could own some shares in AI firms, so any windfalls would be more broadly shared with the public. That idea has also been advanced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Huang expressed skepticism about the idea, saying he expects the country will already benefit broadly from AI advancements.

“I’m not exactly sure what they’re trying to achieve,” he said regarding government ownership. “I haven’t had a dialogue with them about that. But just remember that these are American companies. Their success benefits the stock price, of which many Americans are investors in. It generates taxes, which helps many Americans. It creates a lot of jobs.”

He noted that AI companies could also lead to higher profits for energy, construction and hardware technology firms.

“Americans have a stake in American companies already, naturally, in a whole lot of different ways,” Huang said.

Huang says national security needs to be a priority on AI

The Trump administration has recently reversed course from using a light touch on regulating AI to taking a heavier hand.

It placed export controls on the AI company Anthropic’s latest models, leading the company on Friday to shutter all public access to those models over security concerns. Trump, a Republican, also signed an order to have new AI models voluntarily screened by the government before their release.

Huang said the government was properly focused on national security issues, but it was important to provide clear guidance.

“National security should always be the top concern of all technologies,” Huang said. “But having said that, you know, you have to be very specific about the risk that you’re concerned about, before setting up policies for export controls.”

During the Biden administration, Nvidia pushed back against export controls that were designed to restrict its ability to sell chips to China, rejecting the administration’s premise that a ban would preserve an American edge on AI. Huang had warned that the export controls might limit America’s ability to develop the world’s AI ecosystem, as China would respond with its own advanced chips.

Huang says energy is key problem for America’s AI development

Huang stressed that the U.S. is vulnerable because of its deficient energy supply. The data centers performing the computations used in AI are creating a huge demand for electricity, which could be a strain on the power grid.

Some data centers will be constructed with their own electricity sources, but Huang said the U.S. is starting from a disadvantage on energy. And without more energy, it can be harder to play to American strengths in its AI infrastructure, models and computer chip development.

“The United States is woefully behind in energy production,” Huang said. “We just suffocated energy production for too long.”

Huang complimented Trump on his approach to generating more energy in the U.S.. The president has aggressively supported the use of oil, coal and natural gas, but he has scorned the use of solar and wind power.

The Nvidia CEO was not commenting on Trump's opposition to climate-friendlier energy sources. But the gap he identified goes to some of the fears that U.S. households have about AI increasing their utility bills.

Huang was speaking Tuesday in Sherman, Texas, at an expansion of the Coherent factory to develop a laser for transmitting data among chips, which could cut power use by AI systems by up to 50%.

Trump’s fondness for Huang started at a Mar-a-Lago dinner

Trump, not known for technological expertise, quickly developed a friendship with Huang. The president has called him “smart" and “amazing," insisting that Huang accompany him on foreign trips. Most recently, Trump had Air Force One pick up the leather-jacketed CEO in Alaska while en route to his state visit to China.

Their relationship started last year with an invitation to dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home and private club in Florida. Huang was in the area to receive the Edison Achievement Award for his AI work.

“He says drop by for dinner, and so I did,” Huang said. He went with his wife, Lori.

“He was incredibly engaging, incredibly charismatic, conversational, asked a lot of questions,” Huang recalled. “From the moment that I met him, the only thing that he’s ever talked to me about is creating more jobs, reindustrializing the United States, protecting national security, winning.” He added that Trump "calls me in the middle of the night and wants to talk about one of these topics.”

But his proximity to Trump has also led to criticism from Democratic lawmakers. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., objected to Huang not testifying before a Senate committee even as “he has time to attend a $1 million-a-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago."

Huang said he wants the U.S. president and other officials — regardless of party — to succeed. “We could differ with politics, but we should want him to succeed," he said. "Because when President Trump succeeds, our country succeeds.”

New statistics released by the U.N. reveal that 2,300 people have been killed across Haiti so far this year, with another 100 kidnapped, while 1.5 million have been displaced. Among those abducted is James Boyard, cabinet director of the Defense Ministry, who was kidnapped last week in one of the few relatively safe areas of the capital.

Guterres’ one-day visit to Port-au-Prince comes after more than 30 people were killed, injured or missing last weekend in Cité Soleil, a seaside slum, according to Cooperative for Peace and Development, a local human rights organization.

His convoy sped past a neighborhood once fully controlled by gangs that left in their wake decimated car dealerships, abandoned homes and dozens of concrete buildings pockmarked with bullet holes. A colorful bus known as a tap-tap rumbled past, its windshield peppered with bullet holes.

Graffiti scrawled on a crumbling concrete wall read: “Down with Viv Ansanm, long live the police.” Viv Ansanm is a powerful gang federation that the U.S. government designated a foreign terrorist organization. It is estimated to control 70% of Port-au-Prince.

Guterres traveled past dozens of Haitians who fled the clashes and now live in makeshift homes under large pieces of canvas strung up with frayed rope.

They are among the more than 300,000 people displaced by gang violence across Port-au-Prince — a record. Among them are more than 18,000 people who fled the Cité Soleil slum in May, according to the U.N. International Organization for Migration.

“Haiti’s displacement crisis is entering an even more alarming phase,” Gregoire Goodstein, IOM chief of mission in Haiti, said in a recent statement.

Guterres’s first stop was the headquarters of the new gang-suppression force, which the U.N. Security Council approved in September. It replaces a U.N.-backed mission led by Kenyan police that aimed to help Haiti’s National Police fight gangs but remained underfunded and understaffed. So far, Jamaica, Chad, El Salvador and Guatemala have deployed troops that number less than 1,000 to form part of the growing force, which is due to start operations in the coming weeks.

They are expected to work with Haiti’s National Police and its growing Armed Forces, with hundreds of Haitian men and a couple of women lining up on a dusty road hoping to interview to join.

Guterres then met behind closed doors with Prime Minister Alix Didier-Fils-Aimé, who is under pressure to hold elections in the country of nearly 12 million people that hasn’t had a president since Jovenel Moïse was killed at his private residence in July 2021.

“We had a frank conversation about what’s happening in Haiti, the vision the government has for the future,” Fils-Aimé told The Associated Press after the meeting.

He said security is a priority so the transitional government can hold elections and “get back to republican rule.” Fils-Aimé added that Guterres can help with that effort by ensuring that the countries backing the gang-suppression force “live up to their engagement.”

Forced to flee to makeshift shelters

Guterres also stopped by a makeshift shelter in a former school where dozens of the people living there crowded around him.

Forced to flee their homes after gangs shot up their community and set fire to it, some had been living there for up to four years.

“Solino is not ready,” 31-year-old Clifford Lala said of going back to his community. It was one of the last holdouts in Port-au-Prince until gangs overran it.

Guterres ducked into a hot classroom and met privately with a group of six women who decried the lack of privacy at the shelter, even to shower or use the bathroom, and said they worried about their young children.

"It’s skin-to-skin and mouth-to-mouth,” said one woman.

The shelter houses more than 1,200 people who sleep side by side, and only one meal a day is guaranteed.

“We’re going to do our best,” Guterres told the women.

Outside, a man began to slap the building’s metal siding and bellowed, “We want to go back home!” His voice grew louder and angrier as security walked into the room and whisked Guterres away.

Wendy Cejour, 26, told the AP that he and his family have been living at the school for a year and a half.

“As long as we’re alive we have hope, but … things are difficult,” he said. “We ask ... to return to our neighborhood to live better, because we don’t have a life here.”

A day before Guterres’s visit, Human Rights Watch published a letter urging him to protect the population and target the root causes of violence and human rights abuses. Guterres said he was deeply impacted by what he saw.

“What I saw will not leave me,” he said. “Each day is a fight to survive. ... The women and the children pay the highest price.”

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

Griffin’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nevada, says that in 2025 her former middle school classmate “told The New York Times — and through it, the world — that Amy Griffin is a fraud and a thief.”

The lawsuit says that in the woman's telling, “Mrs. Griffin stole the rape of another woman and built a bestseller on it.”

A Times spokesperson said the lawsuit misrepresents its story and reporting. The former classmate said her account will prove true in court.

In “The Tell,” a hit that became an Oprah's Book Club selection, Griffin, a venture capitalist and memoirist, recounts being sexually abused as a child by a teacher at her middle school in Amarillo, Texas, and writes that years later she recovered memories of the experience by undergoing therapy using the psychedelic drug MDMA.

The Times story published six months after the book included stories from a classmate who said some of Griffin's experiences were eerily similar to her own. Then in March the woman filed a lawsuit in California state court, which Griffin is fighting and seeking to have dismissed.

The Associated Press doesn’t typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly or otherwise consent. The woman who sued Griffin filed her lawsuit as Jane Doe, and her name did not appear in the Times story.

Griffin says documentation backs her in every aspect

Griffin's lawsuit says the most essential fact is that she put her account of her abuse in writing in 2020, and in 2021 she provided another detailed and documented account in an interview with the Amarillo Police Department. Both accounts match up with the book, and both came before Griffin is alleged to have extracted the woman's abuse story by having someone posing as a talent agent call her in 2022, according to the lawsuit. The statute of limitations prevented the criminal investigation from moving forward.

Griffin's lawsuit says the woman falsely claimed to be another middle school classmate who appears in “The Tell” under the pseudonym “Claudia,” whose meeting with the author is recounted in the book. The lawsuit Griffin had not talked to the woman in more than 35 years, had never been part of the same church youth group as alleged, and was demonstrably not in the Palm Springs area in 2019 — or the years before or after — when the woman claims the two of them met for coffee.

Griffin's lawsuit says the coffee shop conversation with “Claudia” took place thousands of miles away in the presence of a collaborator, and that the woman in the Times story had been unable to produce any evidence the meeting with her had taken place.

“Amy Griffin’s accuser has had every opportunity to set the record straight," Griffin's lawyer Tom Clare said in a statement to the AP on Tuesday. "This lawsuit’s purpose is to make the truth known. The New York Times knowingly promoted her false allegations and must also be held accountable.”

Accuser says this is an attempt to silence her

In an email to The Associated Press sent through her lawyers, the woman said the shame and humiliation from her sexual assault were unimaginable and she was “violated all over again after reading about my own experiences in Amy’s book.”

“Despite trying to remain anonymous, Amy has now chosen to use her immense wealth and influence to try and silence me,” the email said. “She has had her lawyers identify me publicly as well as sue me. I am shocked and disappointed that she would choose to take this route, especially since she herself knows the truth."

Griffin's attorneys said in filings that the woman's attorneys gave them her name — which they have used unredacted in exhibits that they've shared — and have not proceeded with the case anonymously under California law.

Griffin's lawsuit seeks a declaration that the allegations that she stole the woman's abuse stories are false, along with financial damages to be determined at trial.

New York Times stands by its reporting and story

Griffin's lawsuit, while not naming the Times as a defendant, is harshly critical of the paper, saying it "deemed the story too good to scrutinize” despite Griffin's lawyers making it clear the woman's account was “demonstrably false.”

Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said in an email to the AP that the lawsuit and related filings “repeatedly misrepresent The New York Times story and its reporting,” and that the article “is markedly different in key aspects put forth” in both women's lawsuits.

Rhoades points out that many of the allegations Griffin is pushing back against did not appear in the Times' story, including that the woman they spoke to was “Claudia,” or that a person posing as a talent agent on Griffin's behalf called to get her stories of abuse.

And Rhoades said the Times story did not say Griffin “misappropriated” the woman's story, and she said claims that the reporters did not vet their story are false, and that they “engaged extensively with Ms. Griffin’s legal representatives prior to publication including meticulous fact checking.”

“Our story was about a publishing phenomenon, the reliability of memories recovered while under the influence of MDMA and the impact of a bestselling memoir on the author’s hometown,” Rhoades said. “Our reporters’ only agenda was to pursue the facts, including corroboration of accounts from all sources.”

Investigators recovered high-powered firearms from several of the suspects and reviewed encrypted text messages between roughly 20 participants who shared detailed maps and aerial photographs of the area and discussed the need for a “safe house” and escape routes after the intended attack, the documents show.

But it's unclear from the court records how close the would-be attackers could have come to being able to carry out the plan had it not been thwarted.

Several suspects or co-conspirators who were questioned by the authorities said they did not intend themselves to carry out violence but planned to instead observe others. One said he would have traveled to the UFC event as a protester but had to return home after his vehicle malfunctioned. And though the participants spoke of using drones rigged with explosives, charging documents suggest they were still looking to acquire such equipment when the plot was interrupted.

“It didn't even get close to the point of execution,” Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday evening on Fox News Channel, describing the planning as “not that advanced.”

“They weren’t in town. They had not really done that much planning,” he said.

United by conspiracy theories and anger over the country's direction

Law enforcement officials learned about the possible threat on June 10, four days before the mixed martial arts extravaganza on the White House’s South Lawn, “and thanks to the rapid action of the FBI, our partners, and the Department of Justice in a multi-state operation, multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold,” Director Kash Patel said in a post on X on Tuesday.

Five people from states including Ohio, Missouri, Nebraska and California were arrested on federal charges, the Justice Department said.

Asked about the arrests Tuesday, Vance said there was “more violent rhetoric coming from the left than the right these days.” But the charging documents paint a more muddled view of their views, depicting them as espousing a tangled web of anti-government sentiment, antisemitic grievances, fury over the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and conspiracy theories about a powerful elite that sacrifices and consumes children.

Both Trump and Vance said they had not been briefed in advance of the plot. A top Secret Service official suggested Tuesday the investigation was continuing and an announcement might have been premature.

“Anyone that believes that case was worked in a bubble is naive,” Deputy Secret Service Director Matthew Quinn told reporters at an unrelated news conference. “I'll tell you the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning. I'll tell you that it's ongoing. In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it.”

Communications took place on TikTok and Signal

Among those arrested was Tycen Proper, a 19-year-old Ohio man whose mother contacted law enforcement last week with concerns about his firearms purchases and online communications, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

Proper told officials he participated in the planning of an attack, according to the affidavit, which says some members of the group began communicating with each other last March through a TikTok group called “Vanguard of the Old.”

“The members of the group stated that they wanted to protect the United States, which they believed was headed in the wrong direction,” the affidavit says. “Members of the group believed that the United States needed to be torn down so that it could be rebuilt. Some expressed a desire that people who were involved with Jeffrey Epstein should not govern the country.”

Trump, who celebrated his 80th birthday at the UFC event on Sunday, was friends with Epstein many years ago but has said he ended their relationship before the disgraced financier’s crimes became known. Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

A lawyer for Proper, who is charged with firearms offenses and crimes including attempted murder of an officer or employee of the United States, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

The logistics were discussed via Signal, an app that uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calling services, through a primary chat of “approximately 19 individuals" and smaller side chats, authorities said. Messages obtained from Proper's phone show he identified by name several Republican lawmakers he said should be targeted because they apparently received donations from causes supportive of Israel, the affidavit said.

Proper told law enforcement officials that he had been planning to drive with weapons and body armor to a meet-up spot in Fredericksburg, Virginia, court papers say. He said though he did not intend to shoot people at the White House, others in the group did, the affidavit said.

The plan called for the use of drones that would be detonated over the north side of the White House, prompting an evacuation into the line of fire of waiting snipers in an attack Proper said was designed to “jumpstart” a revolution, authorities said.

Investigators who examined Proper's phone and TikTok account identified additional suspects.

Michael Alan Thomas, 32, of Pinon Hills, California, told officials he viewed himself as “the planner and advisor for the group, and while he was not willing to take action himself, wanted to guide and instruct others on how to carry out attacks" designed to overthrow the government, an FBI agent said in an affidavit.

The agent said Thomas believed the U.S. government was “run by an elite group of individuals who sacrifice and consume infants who also were deeply involved" with Epstein and are now protected by Trump.

Another suspect, Bryan Omar Roa, also of California, told the FBI he had planned to attend the event as a “protester” but he had to return home because his car was broken, an agent said.

It was not immediately clear who their lawyers were.

Two other suspects were identified as Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, of Kidder, Missouri, who officials say said in a group chat that a target of the attack should be “big and someone a majority of the country knows,” and Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, an Omaha, Nebraska, man who the FBI said posted detailed plans with the co-conspirators.

A lawyer for Alvarez declined to comment and a lawyer for Eskridge did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Évian-les-Bains, France, and Michael Kunzelman in Washington contributed to this report.

The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 208 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.

As with most of the military’s statements on strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. A video posted on X showed a boat traveling in the water before being hit by the strike and bursting into flames.

Southern Command said it "immediately notified U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors."

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The strikes have drawn intense scrutiny from some Democratic lawmakers and military legal scholars. The U.S. military’s first strike in early September drew particular concern from some lawmakers and those who study military law.

Two men on the boat initially survived the attack that killed nine others, and they were clinging to the wreckage when the vessel was struck again, killing them. The White House confirmed the follow-up strike, insisting it was done “in self-defense” to ensure the boat was destroyed and in accordance with the laws of armed conflict.

But some legal scholars said a second strike killing survivors would have been illegal under any circumstance, armed conflict or not.

The Pentagon’s watchdog said in May that it plans to look into whether the U.S. military followed an established targeting framework when carrying out the strikes.

However, the evaluation is focused specifically on what’s known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle and not on the legality of the strikes, the inspector general’s office said.

The veteran right-hander will return to the Tigers’ rotation Sunday (June 21) against the Chicago White Sox, per Detroit’s post on X on Tuesday, capping a rehab process that included two minor league starts and a simulated game.

Must-see JV. pic.twitter.com/mHZdao45KR

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) June 16, 2026

Verlander, 43, reunited with the Tigers this season after signing a one-year free-agent contract.

He made one start before landing on the injured list due to left hip inflammation.

The Tigers placed Verlander on the injured list on April 4, retroactive to April 1.

Verlander has spent the recent weeks building back toward a return, throwing on June 2 and again on June 10, then completing a four-inning simulated game Monday at Daikin Park, before the Tigers took down the Houston Astros 9-3 in the series opener.

Steady progress through rehab

Verlander’s first rehab outing with the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens produced five scoreless innings on 64 pitches.

His second appearance, against the Minnesota Twins’ Triple-A affiliate, the St. Paul Saints, on June 10, was more turbulent, as he allowed four home runs during an 86-pitch, 5 2/3-inning outing.

Verlander’s only major league start this season came March 30 against the Diamondbacks in Arizona, where he lasted 3 2/3 innings in a 9-6 loss, allowing five runs on six hits and two walks.

Historic milestones within reach

The future Hall of Famer enters Sunday’s start as Major League Baseball’s active leader in wins (266) and strikeouts (3,554).

His return gives Detroit another experienced arm as the Tigers continue their season.

Saturday starter still uncertain

Back-to-back Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal is scheduled to start Friday’s series opener against Chicago.

Saturday’s start remains unsettled.

Troy Melton was scratched from his scheduled start on Monday against the Astros due to back tightness and remains a possibility for Saturday if he recovers in time.

With Verlander back on track, Detroit is preparing to add one of baseball’s most accomplished active pitchers back into its rotation.

The initial quake was centered inland about 43 kilometers (27 miles) east-southeast of Palu, and the U.S. Geological Survey said it was about 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep.

The strong shaking sent people fleeing into open areas in and around Palu, a city of about 400,000 people and the capital of Central Sulawesi province. Several hospitals evacuated patients, some with IV drips, outdoors as a safety measure.

Four regencies close to the epicenter — with a combined population of 1.3 million — have yet to be fully assessed. A preliminary report said at least 312 people have been displaced by the powerful earthquake. Also, one person died, 38 others were reported injured and rushed to a nearby hospital, including 13 with serious injuries in the hardest hit Sigi regency, according to Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Management Agency's spokesperson.

He said the earthquake also caused widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure, including 67 houses, six places of worship, four public facilities, two bridges, two government office buildings and three business sites. A section of a provincial road linking Palu city and its neighboring regencies of Sigi and Poso was cut.

Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency also recorded that at least 71 aftershocks continued throughout the day, raising concerns among residents shaken by memories of a devastating 2018 earthquake and tsunami in the region. The aftershocks prompted residents to flee buildings and gather in open areas.

People also moved away from coastal areas as a precaution in case the quake set off a tsunami. The agency said there was no danger of a tsunami but warned aftershocks could continue.

“The earthquake shaking was extremely strong,” Palu resident Muhtar Ahmad said. “We are still traumatized by the previous earthquake, so we chose to remain outside because we are afraid that aftershocks may continue.”

Images from the area showed heavily damaged structures with partially collapsed roofs, shattered walls and debris scattered across the streets.

“We have evacuated all guests from the hotel, including several guests who remained in their rooms,” said Effendi Natali, a general manager of a four-star hotel in Palu.

“They all panicked, which is a natural reaction during an earthquake, but everyone is safe,” Natali said, adding that the hotel sustained only minor damage.

Many Sulawesi residents are haunted by the magnitude 7.5 earthquake that devastated Palu in 2018, setting off a 3-meter (10-foot) high tsunami and a phenomenon called liquefaction in which soil collapses into itself. More than 4,000 people were killed, including many who were buried when whole neighborhoods were swallowed in the falling ground.

In January 2021, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake near the city of Mamuju on Sulawesi island left at least 100 people dead, with thousands sleeping outdoors for days out of fear of aftershocks.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

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Associated Press journalists Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta contributed to this report.

The deal, which is between the U.S. and Iran, has not been made public, and officials have sometimes offered contradictory interpretations of what is in it. While Israel is not party to the agreement, it is part of the war after joining the U.S. in launching strikes on Iran on Feb. 28. Israel also has fought the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon and seized large swaths of that country.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Israel’s continued occupation of southern Lebanon would violate the deal.

“Without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied during this war, the war has not fully come to an end,” Araghchi said.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss outlines of the agreement, has said the deal does not call for an Israeli withdrawal. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel would remain in Lebanon “as long as necessary.”

The negotiations to end the war have been plagued by such disagreements before, leading to a prolonged but uneasy ceasefire that has failed to develop into a permanent end to hostilities and has left the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for the world’s energy supplies, effectively shut.

Switzerland’s foreign ministry said the signing ceremony for the deal will take place Friday at the Bürgenstock resort near the city of Luzern.

Iran's call for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon complicates any deal

Pakistan has said the deal called for an end to military operations, including in Lebanon, as Iran long insisted. But Araghchi’s call for an Israeli withdrawal adds a new wrinkle.

It puts Israel into a dilemma as it tries to degrade Hezbollah’s military capabilities without undermining an agreement championed by its most important ally, the United States. Israel invaded southern Lebanon after Hezbollah fired missiles across the border during the first week of the war. Since then, it has expanded its military footprint to levels unseen in decades and struck targets deep inside Beirut.

Though Hezbollah has been weakened, it retains the ability to strike Israel, leaving open questions about the effectiveness of Israel’s campaign.

As of Tuesday evening, Netanyahu had not seen the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, said a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door details. Another person, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations between Israel and the U.S., said Israeli officials have not asked U.S. negotiators for the memorandum.

Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment on whether Netanyahu or Israeli officials have reviewed the agreement.

The Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, told NPR that while Israel does not know the details of the deal, the apparent inclusion of Lebanon is “unnecessary and unhelpful.”

The extent of Israel’s strikes has at times opened a public fracture between its leaders. U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he was “not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah.”

“It just goes on forever,” he said of Israel’s strategy. Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed nearly 4,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, and displaced more than 1 million.

“Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,” Trump said.

Lebanese government welcomes prospects for a ceasefire

Israel and the Lebanese government have entered their own U.S.-mediated direct negotiations, of which Hezbollah was not part. Those talks have yielded several announced ceasefires that were never implemented on the ground.

Lebanese officials initially tried to keep Lebanon separate from the U.S.-Iran negotiations, not wanting to be seen as beholden to Iran, but they have since welcomed the announcement that the deal to end the U.S.-Iran war would include a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Araghchi’s latest comments appear to match the understanding of two regional officials with direct knowledge of the interim deal. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations, said it would require Israel to leave nearly all the territory it occupies in Lebanon, minus a few hilltop points along the border seized earlier.

The officials say Iran insisted the accord include Lebanon in the last days of the negotiations.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL reported that Israel and Hezbollah are still exchanging fire but at a “significantly reduced level,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday.

Many questions loom ahead of ceremonial signing

Other major questions hang over the planned ceremonial signing.

The agreement is meant to provide a meaningful truce in a monthslong war that has killed thousands across the Middle East and raised the prices of fuel, food and other basic goods far beyond the region.

The agreement provides for the “immediate” opening of the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of the American naval blockade of Iranian ports, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss outlines of the agreement.

At least two oil tankers left Iran on Tuesday and crossed the U.S. military blockade without being stopped, ship tracking websites show. They represented Iran’s first crude oil exports in two months, merchant shipping tracking website TankerTrackers.com said.

The site said it corroborated the departure of the Iranian-flagged tankers Diona and Hero II with satellite imagery and that they were carrying a combined total of 3.8 million barrels of Iranian crude oil. U.S. Central Command said it had no comment.

Next, the U.S. and Iran will begin 60 days of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and the potential lifting of sanctions, Pakistani officials who helped broker the interim deal said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the unpublished text.

The pact also includes the possibility of releasing Iran’s frozen funds and a $300 billion fund to help rebuild Iran if Tehran meets certain benchmarks, senior U.S. officials told reporters Monday. Trump later said the United States would not “invest” funds in Iran.

U.S. officials have not yet explained how they see the agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program, including who will be in charge of verifying that Iran is in compliance and who will destroy or remove highly enriched uranium believed to be buried under nuclear sites that were badly damaged by U.S. strikes last summer.

Iran has agreed to discuss ways to possibly “dilute or remove” the uranium, the regional officials said. However, it remains unclear whether Tehran would agree to that, particularly with hard-liners opposed.

Trump said he’s open to sending the emerging agreement to the U.S. Congress for review. Republicans on Capitol Hill say they want Trump to provide more information about the agreement, with some expressing skepticism that the deal can deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon.

___

Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, and Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Julia Frankel and Koral Saeed in Jerusalem, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Michelle L. Price and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Aamer Madhani in Geneva, Darlene Superville in Evian-les-Bains, France, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

The U.S. sprinter clocked 14.67 seconds to beat a field of runners including Australia’s teenage sprint sensation Gout Gout.

Lyles, who won the 100 at the Paris Olympics and is four-time world champion in the 200, capitalized on a fast start before using his speed to cruise to the finish line.

He beat the previous best set by Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson at 14.92 in April at Miramar, Florida.

Sinesipho Dambile of South Africa placed second in 14.78 and 18-year-old Gout was third in 14.96.

Gout set the under-20 world record in the 200 — a time faster than Usain Bolt’s best at that age — in winning the open Australian title in 19.67 seconds in April.

The young Australian has spent time training with Lyles and had earmarked the rarely-raced 150 as a chance to go head-to-head with the champion American.

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

The Washington Monument is once again visible in the refilled pool, but Trump's vision of an azure expanse between the D.C. landmarks has been complicated by the harsh realities of chemistry and biology known to any backyard pool owner. The work has been confounded by the unique challenges posed by the scale of the structure, bigger than 10 Olympic-sized pools — which Trump has called a lake — and the source of its water: the often-fetid Tidal Basin.

Algae has plagued the site since it opened more than 100 years ago, but Trump set his sights on addressing it as part of his aggressive push to beautify Washington as the country approaches its 250th anniversary. Contracts worth at least $14.8 million have been awarded for the project, announced in April by Trump, who said he was inspired by complaints from a friend visiting from Germany who called the pool dark and disgusting.

Teams of National Park Service employees and contractors deployed chemicals and ozone nanobubbles Tuesday in a bid to keep the algae in check, not dissimilar from efforts to clean the pool before Trump's renovation kicked off.

“What do you expect?” asked Cochise Wanzer II, president of the Pool Service Company in Arlington, Virginia. “You’re basically taking natural, untreated river water, pumping it in and expecting it to do something different from what it would do out in the open.”

And the new coat of paint on the bottom of the pool has added an additional twist to ensuring the cleanliness of one of Washington's most memorable destinations: “Now that the bottom is nice and dark, it elevates the temperature and the algae grows better,” said Wanzer.

The chemicals and ozone nanobubbles — a water purification treatment used to avoid some harsh chemicals — were one part of the effort underway to clean the Reflecting Pool. Workers used a swimming pool-type vacuum cleaner to suck up algae from the bottom, leaving behind clean patches of American Flag Blue paint adjacent to enormous swaths of green algae in a pattern familiar to anyone who has ever vacuumed a carpet before.

The park service said in a statement it is also using hydrogen peroxide, a milder treatment than chlorine and one used in spas and natural swimming pools. “There are no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment,” it said.

As the mitigation work continued, a contractor took off his socks and shoes and rolled up his pants to his knees and proceeded to wade into the pool to place an ozone nanobubble tube as tourists and locals milled about on a sunny morning.

Rick and Ariana Pettit, a couple from Las Vegas who are road tripping in their RV across the United States, posed for photos at the iconic site of protests and marches as cleaning continued. Dressed in American flag-themed leggings and a Make America Great Again leotard, Pettit remarked to her husband, attired in an “Veteran for Trump” American flag button-up: “Look, it’s already looking more blue.”

Wanzer was blunt in his assessment of what it would take to maintain the pool as an algae-free space: “They may want to drain it, hose it all down, and start from the beginning with fresh water and treat it as the water comes in.”

The ruling means Partey, whose visa application was denied last week, will remain in the United States while his teammates face Panama in Toronto on Wednesday. He will be eligible to play in Ghana's next two matches — both in the U.S.

Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had criticized the visa denial for Partey, who awaits trial in Britain, as a “high-handed and extremely unfair decision.” Its appeal was heard by the court earlier Tuesday.

Partey faces allegations in Britain from several women dating to his time playing for Arsenal from 2020-25. Partey, who played in Spain for Villarreal this past season, has pleaded not guilty.

In March, a lawyer for Partey said the player intends to plead not guilty to two new charges of rape after a woman alleged Partey twice raped her on the same day in December 2020. Partey had separately been awaiting trial on five counts of rape related to two other women and one count of sexual assault involving another woman, and the new allegations arose after the first set of charges were publicized.

Partey’s lawyer, Mackeda Bramwell, told the court Tuesday that as a World Cup host nation, Canada had a “public interest” in allowing the “orderly participation of accredited national team athletes.”

In a statement submitted to the court, Partey had said he would remain under constant supervision of team officials, and will leave Canada when the team does.

Millions of his countrymen are hoping the team advances to the knockout round, he said.

“I have not been convicted of any offense. I have pleaded not guilty, and I remain presumed innocent,” Partey said.

Canada officials have said immigration decisions are made on a case-by-case basis regardless of the World Cup.

“He's a tremendous player, everyone knows his ability, and it’s an unfortunate situation,” Ghana forward Brandon Thomas-Asante said Tuesday. “I think we just, as players, we have to adapt.”

Ghana coach Carlos Queiroz said earlier Tuesday before the ruling that the team would be ready but declined to comment on the appeal.

Ghana's base camp for the World Cup is in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Partey remains eligible to play June 23 when Ghana faces England in Massachusetts. Ghana concludes group play June 27 against Croatia in Philadelphia.

“As a team, as a family, we are going to give everything for him to be happy and be proud of us,” midfielder Kwasi Sibo said.

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

The NAACP and other groups say Musk's xAI subsidiary failed to get a permit for its power plant — which is located near homes, schools and churches — creating health risks for families in North Mississippi and nearby Memphis and violating the federal Clean Air Act.

The Justice Department, in a motion late Monday, sought to intervene in the case and dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the plant is needed to power an artificial intelligence data center that is “critical to the economy” and the U.S. military.

The state of Mississippi — not the federal government — is responsible for any permits for the power plant and “decided no permit was required," the Justice Department said in a statement.

“Ultimate responsibility for enforcing federal law belongs to the Executive Branch, not private interest groups,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who is No. 3 at the Justice Department. The motion to intervene in the case is intended to protect national security and promote American energy and innovation, he added.

Trump wants to assert American leadership in AI

The Trump administration has made AI a top national and economic security priority. It has also upended policies meant to address climate change and has worked to undo environmental regulations on business.

President Donald Trump also has had close ties to Musk, who led his federal government cost-saving initiative, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, early last year. Crowned the world’s first trillionaire Friday when SpaceX went public, Musk financed Trump’s presidential campaign more than any other donor and is pouring money into midterms.

The Justice Department action comes just days after SpaceX, Musk's rocket company and the parent of defendant xAI, pulled off the biggest initial offering of stock ever, partly due to the Trump administration's help supplying it with billions of dollars in federal contracts. SpaceX has a total value of more than $2 trillion, making it bigger than Exxon Mobil, Bank of America and Coca-Cola combined.

The NAACP lawsuit, filed in April, accuses xAI of running dozens of portable natural gas turbines without proper controls to limit emissions and without the permitting required by the Clean Air Act., which requires industrial polluters to obtain air permits before construction or operation.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday referred questions on the case to the Justice Department, saying it is not a party in the dispute.

The Justice Department action was not about national security, but instead was a “desperate attempt to protect wealthy tech companies from obeying the laws meant to protect people from pollution,” said Laura Thoms, director of enforcement for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm that represents the NAACP with co-counsel Southern Environmental Law Center.

“Trump’s Justice Department wants to shield Elon Musk’s data center company, xAI, from being held accountable for its illegal pollution — and it’s attempting to grab power from impacted communities, the courts and Congress to do so,'' Thoms said.

AI data centers are turning communities into ‘sacrifice zones,’ critics say

The data center and its pollution are “turning our communities into sacrifice zones,” Thoms added.

Abre’ Conner, the NAACP's director of environmental and climate justice, said the Clean Air Act was designed to hold polluters accountable for decisions that cause harm to communities. "This should not be up for debate, and the NAACP will continue to stand up for democracy and against federal bullying and authoritarianism,” Conner said.

The NAACP brought the complaint under a provision of the Clean Air Act that allows groups or individuals to sue in “citizen suits” to compel enforcement of the law -- a power that the Trump administration now is saying it can undo.

“This is particularly audacious because it is supposedly grounded in constitutional powers,” said Ann Carlson, a professor at the UCLA School of Law. The Justice Department is saying it “can step in and dismiss a lawsuit on any ground and all grounds.”

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said xAI is building a “self-generating power facility” to ensure area residents don't face rate increases from surging demand, an action he said conforms to Trump's Ratepayer Protection Pledge. Tech giants including xAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, OpenAI and Amazon signed the pledge in March as a backlash grew against data centers over fears about rising electricity prices and concerns about pollution and water consumption.

The NAACP lawsuit seeks to “materially slow or outright stop the largest private investment in Mississippi's history,” Reeves said in a letter included in the Justice Department filing. The overall project has created thousands of construction jobs and will create hundreds of permanent jobs once it is completed, Reeves said.

The Justice Department, in a statement Tuesday, said the Pentagon is one of many federal agencies that use AI.

"Overly burdensome regulation, including private lawsuits that seek to implement their own environmental enforcement, can threaten technological growth, American energy independence and national security,'' the statement said.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said that it is in full compliance with the law and takes its environmental responsibilities seriously.

___

Condon reported from New York.

“We were clear this was the process,” Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA Task Force, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei said after Monday's night's 2-2 draw with New Zealand that the team had been ordered to leave the U.S. and return to its training base in Mexico only a few hours later. Ghalenoei said the team had expected to spend the night in California to maximize the normal recovery process after its opening game.

Iran winger Mehdi Torabi's entry visa had also expired after the first game. Team officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon that they had secured Torabi a new, multiple-entry visa after he visited the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana.

“This issue has been resolved,” the State Department said Tuesday. “As soon as we became aware of the issue, we worked to ensure that the player can participate in every game.”

Giuliani said during an interview broadcast Monday night on CBS News that some of the Iranian team’s support staff and team officials were denied entry into the U.S. But he said that all the players and coaches had received visas. He also outlined the conditions by which the Iranian team would be able to come into the U.S. for their games.

“The team will be allowed to come in, match day minus one, so the day before the match. They’ll be asked to leave the day that the match wraps up, so the evening of the match. And they’ll be able to do that again in Los Angeles. They’ll be able to do it again in Seattle,” Giuliani said. The team's next match is Sunday, in LA.

When asked about why some support staff and team officials had been denied entry, Giuliani wouldn’t go into details but referred to previous comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio about denying entry to people with direct ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

“Secretary Rubio said very clearly: Anybody with direct ties to the IRGC is not coming into the United States of America, and they’re not going to let the World Cup be the reason why they can come in,” Giuliani said. “So I think it’s very clear why.”

Iran's federation said in a statement Tuesday evening that it had asked FIFA to follow up on the cases of those who hadn't received visas, noting that “the team’s media duties were being handled by one of the analysts, which is neither professional nor an appropriate arrangement.”

“Like the other 47 participating teams, the Iranian delegation is expected to have its full operational staff in place, including a team manager, a media officer, and an administrative manager,” the federation said. “Their absence creates obvious challenges for the team’s daily operations and is not consistent with standard tournament procedures.”

The Iranians’ World Cup cycle has been in upheaval since the U.S. and Israel began a war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran ultimately decided to compete even after FIFA rejected its request to move its three group-stage matches out of the U.S.

Iran captain Mehdi Taremi said the team endured five hours of travel and security checks during what’s normally a very short trip from Tijuana to the Los Angeles area on Sunday.

“I think FIFA have to help us more than this,” Taremi said.

___

Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington and journalist Gabriela Aoun Angueira in San Diego contributed reporting.

___

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

The burning cross was discovered June 9 in Grant Park, where Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech when he was elected the nation’s first Black president in 2008.

A man identifying himself as a 21-year-old college student told WMAQ-TV that he was the shirtless person in an image distributed by police when they were looking for a suspect. But police did not immediately say Tuesday if he's the person in custody. The man said he was protesting President Donald Trump and not making a racist statement.

“I did know about this historical relevance beforehand. But I didn’t know the severity, how racially motivated it may seem from what I did,” the man told the TV station. “Cause my protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to do with gender.”

Cross burnings in the U.S. have historically been seen as symbols of hate and intimidation against Black people and have often been connected to the Ku Klux Klan.

The Chicago Police Department's communications office confirmed that a person was in custody in connection with the case, but no other details were released. An email seeking comment from the prosecutor's office was sent Tuesday.

“I can’t speak to anyone’s motives. We can only speak to the impact. And the impact was devastating," Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is Black, said when asked about the cross and the man’s remarks to WMAQ.

The man interviewed by the TV station said he was protesting the “ruling class” and Christian nationalists who support Trump. He said he put a red hat on the cross to signify a MAGA hat worn by the president's allies.

The man said he doesn't consider what he did a hate crime.

“I understand why it was interpreted that way, and I apologize for that, but no, the intent was not there,” he said.

Gina Miranda Samuels, faculty director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, said the man seemed sincere that he was not trying to send a hateful message to Black people.

Nonetheless, she added, “it says a lot about how uninformed people can be” about certain symbols, “and that it would be acceptable to use a symbol of hatred and terror in this way.”

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, senior pastor with the local Catholic church The Faith Community of Saint Sabina, said he doesn't buy that the man went to the trouble of making the cross but didn't know it was a symbol of hate.

“Your Lawyer Schooled you well,” he said in a post on Facebook.

Officials from the church had posted on social media a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in the cross burning. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the man interviewed by WMAQ-TV said the hat on the cross was red, signifying a MAGA hat. It was not an actual MAGA hat.

It helps that the guy doing the reading — a victim impact statement in court — is Mark Ruffalo, who is very likely to get an Emmy nomination next month for playing a former priest-turned-FBI agent seeking some kind of redemption for himself and his son who's about to be sentenced for killing his mother, Ruffalo's wife.

“I think that stuff was some of the earliest we wrote,” “Task” creator and showrunner Brad Ingelsby told The Associated Press in an interview. “It was like, 'OK, now, so that’s the emotional journey of the show and then we've got to figure out what the plot is.'”

Ingelsby, who previously took Kate Winslet on a similar journey in similar Pennsylvania terrain in 2021's “Mare of Easttown,” said the idea was “a man of faith and lost his faith in the face of this tragedy that sort of would have to have to find his way back to some belief.” The title “Task” refers both to the police team Ruffalo leads the religious responsibilities that linger in him.

For the court statement, Ingelsby read about experiences of real-life parents of children whose mental disabilities have brought domestic difficulties.

“I specifically remember reading a parent saying, ‘I hate Fridays. I hate going to school and seeing the parents pick up their kids because they’re going off to have a weekend. And for me, that’s the worst day because now I’m home with my child for two days on my own.’”

Ingelsby has been writing films for 15 years, but really hit his professional stride with “Mare of Easttown,” his first foray into television, which won Winslet and her “Delco” or Delaware County, Pennsylvania accent (think “water” as “wooder”) an acting Emmy.

The screenwriter was born and raised in the area outside Philadelphia where urban and rural intertwine both physically and culturally. He moved back around the time of “Mare,” set “Task” there and spoke to the AP from his production office there.

That means he’s been walking around in the place, and among the people, he’s writing about.

“I feel the burden of it when I’m writing things all the time. I feel like if anything, it makes me very vigilant about getting the details right,” he said. “There’s always somebody who says ‘they would never listen to that song or they would ever wear that T-shirt or they wouldn’t drink that beer.’”

He adds, “It’s important to me. I want to do right by them. Even if they don’t like the characters or the decisions of the characters, I want them to feel like we got the place right.”

“Task” was intended as a limited series like “Mare,” but in November HBO announced a second season.

That means that for the forthcoming Emmys, in a move made in recent years by “The White Lotus” and “Shogun,” it shifted from the limited categories to drama.

Along with Ruffalo, Tom Pelphrey, who played the lost-soul criminal at the center of the story, is likely to get a nomination, and “Task” could easily get a raft of others.

Ingelsby has never done a Season 2 of anything before.

“It’s still weird to me that we’re doing another season, because in my head, in many ways, the story had a clear end,” he said.

The idea came from HBO. Ingelsby entertained it simply because the collective cast and crew were such a good hang.

“It really started with just an openness to come back and just work on the show, and that really stemmed from, you know, really loving all of just the time we got to spend together,” he said.

The Season 2 cast includes two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali as a DEA agent. Martha Plimpton, who played against type but felt perfect as Ruffalo’s FBI supervisor, will be among the few returning.

“She was such a find because I just felt like we really need to have some humor in the show,” Ingelsby said, “and Martha’s able to find the humor always.”

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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Ingelsby.

The 300,000-square-foot space is planned along Franklin Road near Square Lake Road in Bloomfield Township. The venue would accommodate up to 600 people and include a banquet space for special events and culinary training, according to developer Chef Zack Sklar.

Residents question the data

At a tense meeting, Brett Northcutt, a neighboring resident, said a property analysis submitted by Peas and Carrots Hospitality Group through real estate firm Signature Associates was fabricated.

“The report from Signature and Associates, that was supposed to be a property analysis, was completely made up,” Northcutt said. “Every single address was fake, the street names were made up, and they were relying on that to address our concerns about property value.”

Signature Associates had presented data showing the five closest homes to each comparable venue appreciated an average of 52% over the past 10 years. Attempts to reach Mark Woods of Signature Associates were unsuccessful.

Sklar disputed the fraud allegation, telling this reporter the inconsistencies in the data presented to residents and the Bloomfield Township Planning Commission were not fraud, but rather a fat-fingered compilation of data.

Concerns mount

Property values are not the only issue. Residents hired an independent acoustics expert, who determined the sound from the venue would be four times louder than what was presented to the commission.

One commissioner voiced concern about the level of community opposition.

“When you have so much opposition to a project, you are going against an entire population in that area — that’s a problem for me,” the commissioner said at the meeting.

Commission delays vote

The Bloomfield Township Planning Commission voted to allow a banquet space in the zoning area but stopped short of voting for or against Bloomfield Hollow itself.

Township officials said the commission is taking additional time to review the information presented. A date for a new vote on Bloomfield Hollow has not been set.

Previous coverage --> Planning commission tables decision on Bloomfield Hollows project in Oakland County

He was speaking shortly after Monday's stunning 0-0 draw in Atlanta against the European champions, when he had gone from about 50,000 followers to more than 1 million. Less than 24 hours after the game, Vozinha already had nearly 10 million Instagram followers — more than NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama (6.2 million) and NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes (6.4 million).

“Crazy, that's crazy,” Vozinha told Brazilian YouTube channel CazéTV after the match that turned him into the biggest new name of the World Cup so far. It was CazéTV, the only channel in Brazil with the rights to all 104 World Cup games, that was taking credit for the huge surge in followers.

CazéTV is anchored by the popular Brazilian streamer Casimiro Miguel, known as Cazé. The channel has more than 31 million subscribers on YouTube and is known for sports broadcasts marked by a more informal and conversational approach, with a focus on community-based fan engagement. While watching Vozinha's performance during the broadcast, Cazé realized that the goalkeeper did not have many Instagram followers and began asking his audience to start following him.

Spain, one of the World Cup favorites, was widely expected to cruise past the tournament debutants. But La Roja could not find a way past Vozinha and a stubborn defense that had an answer to everything Spain’s superstars threw at them.

“Normally we ask for subscribers,” Cazé said. “We are not going to ask for subscribers today, we are going to ask for followers. For Vozinha. He is stopping Spain. He is shocking the world. He is the standout player of the first half. Why not show him some love?”

His followers increased by a few hundred thousand shortly after that, and kept growing and growing throughout the day. Vozinha, who only began playing professionally at 25, is one of the few players 40 or older in the tournament. He made several crucial saves against Spain's powerful attack and was named the man of the match.

The result sparked celebrations in Cape Verde, the group of islands off Africa’s west coast that is home to about half a million people. Cape Verde is the third-smallest nation by population to ever qualify for the World Cup.

Working on mom’s visa

Vozinha said after the game that his mom was not able to make it to the United States to watch him play because of difficulties getting a visa.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department said it had no record of her ever applying for a visa, but that it was working on resolving the situation with Cape Verde authorities. The department said it had notified all players from World Cup countries affected by the $15,000 visa bond requirement that they and their families would be exempt from posting the bond.

“All relatives of players are eligible for visa bond waivers, and the department is actively reaching out to this player’s family to assist with visa services,” the department said.

A person familiar with the situation said that the State Department believes that Vozinha's mother did not apply for a visa because she did not hold a valid Cape Verde passport, but that she is now in the process of getting one.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential visa deliberations. A request for comment was sent to the team Tuesday afternoon. The team's next match is Sunday.

Payne's similar case

A similar case to Vozinha's virality happened last month, with New Zealand defender Tim Payne, after an Argentine influencer called on his followers to make the little-known player a “hero” of the World Cup.

El Scarso, a soccer influencer also known as Valen Scarsini, identified the 32-year-old Payne as the least-known player at the World Cup based on his small social media following.

Payne had around 4,700 followers on Instagram before being singled out by El Scarso. That number quickly rose to more than a million. He had nearly 6 million followers on Tuesday.

Push for new audiences

FIFA has made a push to engage a new generation of fans by giving younger audiences more options to access soccer’s showcase event. For the 2026 World Cup, it reached what it described as a record number of deals with broadcast partners carrying digital-only platforms, and partnered with TikTok and YouTube to allow users to see parts of matches live.

Brazil historically has been one of the countries with the most engagement on social media and digital platforms. FIFA took notice and four years ago did a type of a test run with CazéTV after Cazé's success on Twitch. He broadcast 22 matches during the 2022 Qatar World Cup, leading to a bigger deal for this year's tournament.

“Thank you,” Vozinha told CazéTV. “The Brazilians have always supported us. We felt it during our campaign to qualify for the World Cup and now we are feeling it again at the biggest stage. We are thankful for it.”

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AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed reporting from Washington.

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

During a news conference Tuesday, Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said the defendants “violently opposed the enforcement of federal law” by setting up blockades around government buildings, throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles and “stalking” agents as they moved through Minneapolis.

He said the defendants were part of two groups that he characterized as “antifa,” an umbrella term for a diffuse movement of militant left-wing activists.

Defense attorney Kevin Riach said his client, Isaac Sant, had no affiliation with antifa, which he called “a boogeyman invented by the far-right.”

“The purpose is to intimidate people who came out to observe and protest ICE’s numerous violations of the law,” Riach added. “It’s an affront to the First Amendment.”

President Donald Trump declared last September that he would label “antifa” a domestic terrorist group, urging federal agencies to “investigate, disrupt and dismantle” its members and affiliates.

In March, eight people accused of having ties to antifa were convicted on terrorism charges in a Texas shooting, a first of its kind case that raised concerns among some civil liberties groups.

Asked about the Justice Department’s definition of “antifa,” Rosen said the question was “beyond the scope” of the indictment, but noted that several defendants had self-identified with the term.

The 15 people charged Tuesday were part of “Direct Action Minnesota,” a left-wing coalition of protest groups that trains its members in the “surveillance, operational planning and rapid mobilization against law enforcement,” Rosen said.

The alleged conspiracy began in January, shortly after the Trump administration launched its sweeping immigration crackdown, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, in response to reports of fraud within Minnesota’s Somali community.

The operation — described by the Department of Homeland Security as the largest in its history — brought thousands of federal agents, who often wore masks and traveled in unmarked SUVs, into the Twin Cities and surrounding areas.

Their arrival drew fierce protests from Minnesota residents, who quickly set up a sprawling network of anonymous Signal chats to track the movement of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Protesters then used whistles and car horns to draw attention to detentions as they were happening.

The indictment cites Signal communications between some defendants, who allegedly discussed setting up trailers to block federal vehicles and handing out plastic shields to demonstrators. Rosen declined to say whether any federal agents were injured as a result.

One of the defendants, Kyle Wagner, 37, was previously arrested on charges that he made online threats against ICE officers and their supporters. An attorney listed for Wagner in that case did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Each of the defendants was charged with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison. Three others faced additional charges, including interstate stalking, assault on a federal officer and destruction of government property.

Riach said his client and several other defendants made their initial appearance in federal court in St. Paul on Tuesday afternoon and were released without bail.

Outside the courthouse, dozens of protesters clashed with federal agents, who at one point deployed pepper spray to push the crowd away from the door.

Federal prosecutors said Operation Metro Surge resulted in more than 4,000 arrests.

The administration framed the operation as a response to a burgeoning federal investigation into billions of dollars in fraud within Minnesota programs tied to Medicaid. Dozens of Somali immigrants have been convicted or implicated. Trump has called the state’s Somali population “garbage.”

Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey sought to defend the Somali population and condemned Trump for sending federal officers where they weren’t needed or wanted.

In the months since, federal authorities have sought to prosecute protesters they blame for violence, while state and local Minnesota officials have pursued assault charges against at least two federal officers. The agents who fatally shot two protesters, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, have not been charged.

Walz and Ellison did not immediately respond to email messages Tuesday seeking comment on the federal indictment.

The order from Kennedy, one of the nation’s most prominent critics of vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other government public health restrictions, spurred outrage from some advocates and legal scholars, who called it illegal and rooted in politics rather than public health.

Five weeks after she left the cruise ship, the passenger, Angela Perryman, is still symptom-free. She remained in quarantine as of Tuesday.

“I want to be able to walk outside and put my feet in the grass,” Perryman said in an interview. “I want to be able to feel fresh air on my face when I want to. I want to be able to see people that are not in full PPE. I don’t want to be dehumanized anymore.”

Courtney Spencer, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said the state of Florida chose not to comply with federal requirements for how tightly to monitor Perryman if she returned home. Perryman needs to be quarantined to protect both herself and her community, Spencer said.

Because symptoms of hantavirus have taken as long as 42 days to appear in previous outbreaks, the Americans at the Nebraska facility were to be monitored either there or at home for 42 days — a period set to expire at the end of the day on Sunday, June 21.

Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert who helped shape current federal quarantine regulations, called the decision to keep Perryman in Nebraska “an egregious violation” of a U.S. citizen’s rights.

“She’s being held, deprived of her liberty,” Gostin said, adding that a broad medical consensus supports allowing her to complete quarantine at home.

Kennedy's order strays from the CDC official's recommendation

Kennedy's order keeping Perryman in Nebraska quarantine came Monday. It followed a medical review earlier this month that was overseen by Dr. Michael Bell of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency within Kennedy's HHS.

Bell reviewed testimony from CDC officials and an outside medical expert concerning Perryman’s challenge to an earlier order confining her to the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Bell said federal officials insisted that anyone returning home needed daily in-person monitoring and round-the-clock surveillance by local law enforcement or public officials.

Florida officials refused those conditions — which Gostin called “overkill” and a “waste of resources” — and proposed instead that Perryman simply do once-daily temperature checks and symptom assessments.

Experts at the meeting agreed that Florida's proposal was reasonable. Bell recommended Perryman be allowed to go home, according to a June 11 report obtained by The Associated Press. Kennedy signed the quarantine order anyway.

Perryman says prolonged time in the facility is limiting

Perryman said life in the facility is like being confined in an airport hotel room. Sometimes she can go to its roof for an hour as armed guards watch. Nurses wearing gloves, masks and face shields deliver meals and take her temperature. She said it feels like a “prison.”

The 47-year-old learned that she would be required to stay in the facility until June 21 when Kennedy’s order was slipped under her door on Monday.

“I was appalled,” she said. “I was horrified that the secretary, who is not a physician, would override the doctor and violate the law just to keep me locked up.”

Perryman said she lives primarily in Ecuador but keeps a permanent home with friends in Florida. She said she wants the chance to cook her own food and spend time in more than one room, either in her home or a rental property.

Her quarantine was voluntary, until the order came

Perryman was among 18 Americans aboard the cruise ship who were evacuated to the Nebraska quarantine center on May 11. As of Tuesday, eight of the passengers were still there. The others went home earlier this month, after their states agreed to federal officials' monitoring plan. They'll be watched until June 21.

Hantaviruses usually spread when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings. However, the Andes virus at the center of this outbreak, which killed three people, may spread between people in rare cases.

At first, Perryman said, a CDC official assured her the Nebraska quarantine was voluntary. At his urging, and at the urging of the facility’s medical director, she agreed to stay until May 22 to protect public health because some medical experts say most people who develop symptoms do so within the first three weeks. She was later told she couldn't leave on that date.

Perryman and one other passenger received orders from U.S. health officials requiring them to quarantine at the facility until May 31. Quarantine orders, which can be enforced with fines and prison time, are a rare legal step that can be taken if someone objects to a public health request. The initial orders were signed by the CDC’s acting director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

Perryman said she was told she could leave after May 31 if Florida accepted the federal monitoring requirements. When the state declined, she was ordered to remain in Nebraska.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy questioned universal government-imposed quarantines and argued that the costs of lockdowns should be debated, saying, “quarantines kill people too.”

Gostin said the recent decision clashes with Kennedy’s broader “medical freedom” message.

“This seems to me to drip with hypocrisy,” Gostin said.

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AP video journalist Shelby Lum in New York and AP writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.

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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.

Mayweather was scheduled for an initial appearance Monday in Las Vegas Justice Court. He was not physically present for the hearing, but an attorney represented him on his behalf, according to the Clark County District Attorney's office. His case is scheduled for a hearing in September.

Mayweather, 49, was charged in April with theft as well as drawing and passing a check without sufficient funds with the intent to defraud, according to court records.

Prosecutors in Clark County allege that in December 2024, Mayweather wrote a $200,000 check through Wells Fargo Bank to Las Vegas designer resale store Gold and Beyond, despite having insufficient funds in his account, according to the criminal complaint.

Mayweather's attorney and representatives did not immediately return requests for comment.

The felony charges come as Mayweather faces other legal battles. He was sued in New York over his alleged failure to pay rent at a Manhattan apartment earlier this year, and he was in financial disputes with multiple jewelers. He also filed a lawsuit in New York against his former business manager, alleging a yearslong fraud scheme.

Mayweather, the former five-division world champion, announced earlier this year that he was coming out of retirement and returning to competitive boxing this summer. Mayweather was scheduled to be in Athens, Greece, for the “Battle of the Legends” boxing match on June 27, according to an earlier press release. In April, Mayweather confirmed he would be at a match in Athens.

DeWine, 79, said during a news conference that data indicates the death penalty is not serving as a deterrent to violent crime, which he had always believed was its moral imperative.

“I do not believe that argument today can be successfully made, nor do I believe that there’s any chance in the future the facts that I’ve cited to support that belief will change,” he said. “Therefore, I believe Ohio should abolish the death penalty.”

To bolster his case, DeWine brandished charts and graphs detailing the diminishing number of death sentences meted out by courts and showing the exceedingly long wait times that elapse as legal appeals play out for those on death row. He said condemned murderers are increasingly unlikely to ever be executed, sometimes dying by natural causes or by suicide before their execution date arrives.

“In summary, each decade that the death penalty has been in effect, the chances of a murderer getting executed get more and more and more remote,” DeWine said.

He also cited years of pain brought to victims’ loved ones by the delays and the toll taken on the mental health of state employees who serve on execution teams.

DeWine, facing a term limit in December, said he felt compelled to share his observations now, having had 50 years of experience with the issue from the time he was a young county prosecutor, through being a congressman and U.S. senator, then as Ohio's attorney general. But he said his outright opposition has only crystallized over the past year.

Divided reaction to DeWine’s position

Headed into the announcement, any chance of a legislative repeal of the death penalty appeared unlikely. Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman has said he would oppose such an effort.

In repeatedly extending Ohio’s unofficial death penalty moratorium by postponing scheduled executions, DeWine has cited pharmaceutical suppliers’ unwillingness to provide the drugs used in lethal injections. In January 2025, President Donald Trump ordered then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to help states try to resolve that issue.

Interim Ohio Republican Attorney General Andy Wilson expressed relief that DeWine didn’t choose to use commutations and that his office will continue working to uphold the current law.

DeWine has already said he expects no further executions during his term, but he said the compelling nature of the death penalty data remains the same whether you include the past seven years, when executions have been on hold, or not.

Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, said the governor’s decision is in line with “an evolution on the death penalty” across the political spectrum in Ohio.

“Nobody supports a system that harms victim families, convicts innocent people and wastes millions of dollars without a shred of improved public safety,” Werner said.

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, said his group had been anticipating DeWine’s announcement, which he called “well-reasoned.”

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty and crime victims’ rights, said DeWine may be right that Ohio’s death penalty isn’t currently serving as a deterrent.

However, "what is needed is the political will and effective leadership,” Scheidegger said.

Death penalty's future being debated nationally

The governor noted that Ohio is far from the only state where such trends exist. Use of and support for the death penalty has been on the decline nationally for two decades.

Currently, 27 states allow the death penalty and 23 do not, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center. Ohio is among four states where executions are paused by executive action. The center reported in 2023 that more Americans now believe the death penalty is administered unfairly than fairly, a first.

Texas has executed 600 people since it resumed the death penalty in 1982. Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach, who has met with death row inmates and advocated for reforms, led a group of state lawmakers last year who successfully halted the first execution in the U.S. tied to a murder conviction for shaken baby syndrome.

Then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan, also a Republican, signed off on the execution of one killer then decided not to carry out any more. In virtually his last act as governor, he emptied death row with pardons and commutations in 2003. Numerous governors have commuted some number of death sentences or granted broad blanket clemency to condemned inmates in the years since to empty portions of their death rows.

But the nation remains divided.

Since 2019, Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia have eliminated the death penalty, while five states have approved nitrogen gas executions since 2024 to get around issues with lethal injection protocols. Meanwhile, Trump pushes to expand federal executions. During his first term, Trump’s administration carried out 13 federal executions, more than under any president in modern history.

DeWine’s position has evolved over time

Pushing back execution dates has left Ohio with 30 scheduled over the next four years, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Ohio hasn’t put an inmate to death since July 18, 2018, the year before DeWine took office.

The state reinstated capital punishment in 1981 under a law co-written by DeWine. Ohio resumed death penalties in 1999, and 56 people have since died by lethal injection in the state.

DeWine’s support has slowly shifted since his political career began in 1976. As attorney general, DeWine ordered the Ohio prison system to consider alternative lethal injection drugs. A year later, in 2020, he said lawmakers would have to choose a different method before any more inmates could be executed.

Since then, neither a bipartisan push to ban the practice nor a competing effort to bring nitrogen gas executions to Ohio has gone anywhere. A nitrogen gas execution in Alabama was halted last week, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to set aside a lower-court ruling that found the method unconstitutionally cruel.

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Associated Press writer John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed.

The next comparison could come this week.

Not since Woods has anyone completed the career Grand Slam in his first attempt, at least not in the modern era that dates to 1960 when it became a thing in professional golf.

Woods took only 35 days between his epic 15-shot victory in the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and his eight-shot victory in the British Open at St. Andrews.

Scheffler reached the cusp of the career slam when he overwhelmed yet another field at the British Open at Royal Portrush. Now comes the U.S. Open, the major he has played more than any other, and a Shinnecock Hills test that will be new to him.

Does he want to win? Without question. Does he need to? That goes a little deeper with Scheffler, who cares more about the process than the result.

“For me, would it be a dream to win the U.S. Open? Of course,” Scheffler said Tuesday. “But at the end of the day, the Grand Slam has never been a motivating factor for me. I always just wanted to be the best version of myself, and that got me this far.”

It brought him two Masters titles in 2022 and 2024, the PGA Championship and British Open last year, all of them without drama when he walked up to the 18th green.

“So when it comes to this golf tournament, I'm going to step on the first tee and remind myself I’ve done everything I possibly could in order to play well, and now it’s just a matter of going out there and trying to execute and going back to enjoying the competition versus feeling like you have to win for some reason,” he said.

He didn't go as deep as he did at Portrush last year, when he delivered a remarkable soliloquy asking why he wants to win so badly when the joy lasts only a few minutes.

But it's clear he relishes the challenge, and Shinnecock figures to be every bit of that.

Tuesday brought more wind, this time from a different direction, and there's really no escaping it. Part of the genius of this William Flynn design are three sections of holes that form a triangle, ensuring players face a different wind for each of them.

The USGA has done its part to make sure it doesn't get out of control, keeping the course as green and hydrated as possible in anticipation of a windy week.

“I think it’s the best championship test in the country,” said Rory McIlroy, who last year at the Masters became only the sixth player to win the career Grand Slam. "I think it tests all aspects of the game — driving, iron play, you need to have your wits about you on the greens. It’s a lot of strategy, thoughtfulness.

“Look, it’s a golf course where it can turn very quickly. You get a day like yesterday with a lot of wind and dry, clear conditions like this, and I think we’re just going to have to be mindful of that as the week goes on.”

McIlroy and Scheffler were at Shinnecock on the same day June 1 for a sneak preview, both noticing wider fairways, even though McIlroy was the only one of them who was in the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, just not for long. He shot 80 the first day, 70 the next and was on his way home.

Adam Scott has his own love-hate relationship with Shinnecock. It's among his favorite courses in the world, so much that he plays it often in social settings — he once set the course record of 63 in one such round — but missed the cut in the U.S. Open in 2004 and 2018.

“I still love the golf course,” Scott said, who is playing his 100th consecutive major this week. “I think it's as good as any test we have at the U.S. Open.”

He has played 15 U.S. Open courses during the streak.

This is the ninth U.S. Open for Scheffler — two of them as an amateur — with his closest call in 2022 at The Country Club, where he finished one shot behind Matt Fitzpatrick.

But he is the favorite, as is the case at every tournament he plays, even though this year has been one in which he has similar numbers except for the trophies he has accumulated. His only victory was his first start of the year, The American Express in the California desert.

There were three straight runner-up finishes, including the Masters. He had an astonishing run of 18 consecutive top 10s end at Riviera in February. His worst result was a tie for 24th at Bay Hill.

But that one win was five months ago.

“I’d say I feel like I’ve been close most of the year,” Scheffler said. “I feel like I just haven’t been as sharp as I needed to be. I think the margins in this game are so small. For me to be winning a lot of tournaments, you’ve got to just be really, really sharp."

One week at Shinnecock can change that. And then for Scheffler, it would be on to the next one.

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

That vision might hinge on a factory groundbreaking an hour north of Dallas.

Nvidia on Tuesday formally unveilied plans for a major upgrade to its AI infrastructure as part of its $2 billion partnership with the factory’s owner, Coherent. The factory will produce the material for a laser to transmit data among computer chips, allowing those chips to work as a single system with more power, speed and efficiency, according to executives who discussed the technology before the public announcement.

“AI factories are the infrastructure of the new industrial revolution," Huang said in a statement.

The factory represents a fundamental test of whether, as Huang believes, AI will be a source of job creation instead of a technology that supplants workers as it becomes possible to write software, analyze a spreadsheet, run an assembly line or even drive an automobile without much human effort.

Huang has led Nvidia as it became the world’s most valuable company, worth roughly $5 trillion, to a point where it's looking beyond chips to developing entire AI systems. The companies expected to rely on those systems to further develop AI models could soon join the elite circle of those with a valuation of more than $1 trillion. Just how that wealth spreads and the consequences of the technology have rapidly evolved into fundamental debates about how America itself is structured.

AI is powering academic breakthroughs and it creates the promise of rapid economic growth. But even if stocks are buoyed by those possibilities, there are voters who see reasons for concern over its use of electricity, the potential for job losses and the newfound national security risks.

A shifting approach on AI

President Donald Trump's administration, which once saw a light regulatory touch as essential for fostering AI’s development, has recently begun to reverse course. It placed export controls on the AI company Anthropic’s latest models, leading the company on Friday to shutter all public access to those models over security concerns.

Trump, a Republican, signed an order to have new AI models voluntarily vetted by the government. He has also mused about the government owning a stake in the companies that develop AI, so that the public could benefit from the expected windfall even if that would blur the lines between the public and private sectors.

Still, Trump depends on the AI boom to fuel economic growth, drive future gains in manufacturing and construction, and push the stock market to new heights. He has insisted on Huang accompanying him on foreign trips, most recently having Air Force One pick up the leather-jacketed CEO in Alaska while en route for the state visit to China.

Trump has called Huang “smart,” a “friend” and “amazing” — and he’s publicly recounted that he once mused about breaking up Nvidia because of its dominance, only to admit that Huang was someone that he needed as an ally.

“We are proud to have you in our country,” Trump told the Taiwanese immigrant last year.

AI buildout creating jobs

Coherent’s factory in Sherman, Texas — which includes Nvidia as a major customer — relied on bipartisan government support. The Biden administration approved $33 million in backing from the CHIPS and Science Act to help fund its buildout, while the Trump administration provided an additional $17 million grant to help ensure a key part of the AI infrastructure would be made in America.

“The reason the award was expanded, and we announced this today, was because we continue to grow capacity,” Coherent CEO Jim Anderson said in an interview. “We saw the opportunity with the tremendous AI demand to grow capacity even more than we had originally planned.”

Including construction workers, Coherent estimates that the factory will create 1,000 jobs, with about 550 of them in advanced manufacturing, engineering and technical roles. Anderson said the floorspace of the plant would double and its output would quadruple with the additions being built.

The factory expansion will increase production of Indium Phosphide, which is used to make a laser that has the optical intensity of the surface of the Sun. Each second, the light pulses a few hundred billion times through a fiberglass straw the width of a human hair. That allows Nvidia’s computer chips to share information and work together as one system in what Huang has dubbed “AI factories.”

Power consumption would be cut up to 50%, enabling computations to occur faster and at a drastically lower price. The prospect of reducing the cost of tokens — the industry’s term for AI usage — would make it easier for AI to expand its reach and abilities.

In a paper published this month, the economists Jessica Wachter and Jonathan Wachter noted that the five largest U.S. technology firms invested $380 billion last year as part of the AI buildout and that sum could roughly double this year. Based on that investment, they estimate the possibility of rapid economic growth as AI accounts for more of U.S. gross domestic product. While AI is roughly 3% of the economy now, that figure could grow to a range of 8% to 39%.

One Nvidia executive, who insisted on speaking on background to describe its industrial strategy, stressed that the company was moving from developing computer chips to providing entire AI systems. That has meant clustering more production in the U.S. with chipmaking increasingly centered in Arizona and the assembly process increasingly located in Texas, so that there is a reliable domestic supply chain.

The executive said that Nvidia was selling brains and a nervous system to its customers, so that the intelligence generated can then be applied to their businesses in ways that create new products and identify new savings and business lines. That could allow manufacturers that depend on foreign suppliers to restore production in the U.S., taking an AI that so far has largely been accessed on laptops onto factory floors where it can, in their words, “move atoms.”

The possibility has not been lost on Trump, who sees the industry as essential to American greatness.

“It’s an amazing industry,” Trump said to reporters last week. “It’s bigger than any industry anyone’s ever seen. We are leading China by a lot. And whoever leads that is going to really lead the world to a large extent, that’s how big it is.”

Marcelo Cipriano Alvarado is accused of scamming more than 25 people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to police.

Alvarado appeared in court on Tuesday, June 16, 2026, in Lincoln Park, where he’s facing 10 felony charges -- including conducting a criminal enterprise.

Alvarado is also facing a theft by deception charge in Toledo, Ohio, and has been ordered to appear in court there on July 2, 2026.

Read our original coverage from June 4, 2026, below:

An alleged auto scam that spans multiple southeast Michigan cities and counties, and reaches into another state, has left more than 25 people out hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to police.

Victims said the man behind it is Marcelo Cipriano Alvarado. This is a man the Investigators at Local 4 have been investigating since September of 2025.

Alvarado, 31, of Dearborn is now charged with 10 felonies out of Wayne County including running a criminal enterprise, using a computer to commit a crime, and eight counts of false pretenses.

“It is alleged that the defendant took advantage of honest, hardworking people by taking their money to repair cars and in some instances purchase a car on their behalf,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy told the Investigators at Local 4. “He took their money and took advantage of them.”

Alvarado is accused of taking payments for cars that never arrived, of taking cars to repair and never returning them and of issuing bad checks. Multiple victims Local 4 spoke to said Alvarado gave them excuses like two family members died or their parts were “on the way.” They said eventually, Alvarado would stop answering the phone to buy time.

The Investigators at Local 4, went through hundreds of pages of police reports, complaints and documentation gathered by the Metro Detroit Auto-theft Recovery Team (MDART) -- a task force investigating Alvarado, along with dozens of criminal and civil cases from other agencies. Local 4 also spoke to two alleged victims in depth about their experiences with the man they call a “slick swindler” and “crooked as f---.”

“The victims are shocked that someone they trusted would do something so cruel,” Prosecutor Worthy added. “I would urge these victims not to beat themselves up over placing their trust in this man. He is an alleged practiced and heartless grifter. They have done the right thing coming forward to seek justice.”

If you need something investigated you can reach out to the Investigators at Local 4 through the ClickOnDetroit Help Desk or by emailing us directly at Local4Investigators@wdiv.com.

You can contact Investigator Erika Erickson directly at eerickson@wdiv.com, and Kayla Clarke at kclarke@wdiv.com.

James Balina’s story

James Balina is listed as a victim in the 10-count case against Marcelo.

Balina said he first noticed cars displayed at a storefront in Allen Park in 2021 under the name AP Service Center 1. He said Alvarado convinced him he was buying a Chrysler 300 Hellcat. Balina said his father and brother also bought cars after learning about the pricing, calling Alvarado “very convincing.”

“He’s a slick swindler, and he’s a snake in the grass -- he’s a crook,” Balina said.

Balina said he and his family gave Alvarado money and parts they had already purchased to build one of the cars. At first, Balina said, Alvarado sent photos and texts showing cars “on the way” or “in the shop.” Then, Balina said, the more colorful excuses began. So many, that later, Balina said Alvarado appeared to lose track of his lies.

“He’ll give you the world, and he’ll snag it right under ya and take it and run,” Balina told Local 4. “He has told me his mom has died multiple times. He’s told me brother has died . . . I mean, how many times can you have the same family member die?”

Balina said his calls eventually went unanswered. Months later, he said, the storefront was empty and his family was out a total of nearly $80,000. Balina said they hired an attorney who tried to serve him with a demand letter, but it went nowhere.

“He ran in the house… (Alvarado’s) hiding in the house, so we call the police. We’re just like, ‘we just want our stuff,’” Balina said.

Balina then filed a report with Allen Park Police. His family said they remain without their money or cars years later.

Marvin Morris’ story

Marvin Morris, of Detroit, is also listed as a victim in the 10-count case against Marcelo.

Morris said he “hasn’t seen a dime” -- even after confronting Alvarado and recording him on his cell phone.

He told Local 4 he first met Alvarado at his storefront called Drive Dreams LLC, in Lincoln Park in early June of 2025.

Morris said he dropped his car off for enhancements, adding that his car was in working order. Morris said Alvarado told him that he inspected his engine and told him it required “a full engine teardown.”

After discussing it, Morris said he paid $5,000 up front, and later another $3,500 after being told the engine was being worked on. But Morris said he never saw his original motor or the new motor ever again.

Morris said he was told the motor was at a shop and that another man dealt with “the motor man.” When Morris asked to call the “motor man” directly, he said he was given a slew of excuses -- like he was “an hour away,” and the “shop was closed.”

Then, Morris said he pressed again and began showing up at Alvarado’s shop “every day” asking about his car. In September of 2025, Morris decided to take his car back, after noticing other parts slowly disappearing from it. He was able to retrieve his car, which was still missing “dozens of parts.” Morris said Alvarado then called him to give him excuses.

“(Alvarado) called me on the phone saying his mother died . . . he ain’t got the money. He’s got to pay for funeral arrangements,” said Morris.

Morris said he even captured Alvarado on video admitting to owing him about $12,000 because parts were removed from the car and the “entire motor disappeared.”

Morris confronts Alvarado on video on September 25, 2025:

Morris: “All right, this is recording. So, you’re going to give Marvin Morris how much money tomorrow?

Alvarado: “12 grand. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

Morris: “$12,000 tomorrow.”

Alvarado: “Correct.”

Morris: “All right.”

Known cases against Alvarado

The Investigators on Local 4 found reports of alleged fraud, embezzlement and larceny dating back to 2017.

In 2025, police in Trenton received two reports alleging fraud and larceny tied to Alvarado: one woman said she paid $6,500 and never received a car; another couple said they were scammed out of $3,500. Records show the couple also took Alvarado to civil court.

In Warren, records obtained by the Investigators on Local 4 showed Alvarado was arrested in October of 2023 on allegations that he swindled a woman out of more than $15,000 -- allegedly taking cash and then giving a bad check in return. In Clinton Township, a man told police in March of 2025 that he was “defrauded out approximately $18,000” by Alvarado. Records also show there is an active warrant for Alvarado’s arrest in Toledo, Ohio, for felony theft by deception; Toledo authorities said he issued more than $8,000 in fake checks to buy car engines.

Documents obtained by Local 4 from Michigan State Police and other agencies show Alvarado being investigated by Plymouth Township Police, Lincoln Park Police, Grosse Pointe Woods, Allen Park, Lincoln Park, Wyandotte, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Southgate, Warren, Trenton, Toledo, and Clinton Township -- with a note that some may be missing.

Records also said members of the MDART task force have documented “25+ victims” and “12 more complainants regarding Marcelo that have not been investigated yet.”

Civil cases, licensing records, wife’s financials under investigation

Alvarado has also been the subject of multiple civil lawsuits and is associated with at least two limited liability companies.

In Michigan State Police records, for example, one civil case against Alvarado described a couple being scammed out of $24,000. The Investigators on Local 4 contacted the attorney on that case, Steven Hickey, who said they still “haven’t gotten a penny.”

“This guy is an incredible scammer,” Hickey told Local 4. “I’d love to see someone expose this guy.”

“Not licensed mechanic” and “failed in every category multiple times,” were statements included regarding Alvarado in the hundreds of pages of documents obtained by Local 4.

Members of MDART, according to records, said they are also looking into the accounts of Alvarado’s wife, because “Alvarado has instructed some victims/customers to make checks payable to his wife.”

Attempts to contact Alvarado, his “deceased” mother and attorneys

Alvarado is currently incarcerated on a $10,000 bond out of Wayne County.

When Local 4 went to an address in Dearborn back in October of 2025, where multiple sources said and records show Alvarado had previously resided, we were told he no longer lived there.

When Local 4 went to his home again the week of November 3, 2025, someone who said they were related to Alvarado came outside. We asked if we could speak to Alvarado’s mother, because Alvarado had allegedly been telling multiple people that she was dead.

The family member confirmed that Marcelo Alvarado is related to them and that his mother was “not deceased.” They said his mother was working on cleaning out the garage during our conversation that day.

“She is very much alive,” the family member said, before asking us to leave.

Local 4 was eventually able to catch up with Alvarado before he went into court in December of 2025. After introducing ourselves and telling Alvarado why were there, he got on his cell phone and told us to leave:

• Alvarado: “If you could please leave, I’d appreciate it. Do I need to go get a court officer?”
• Reporter: “They said that you told them your mom died . . .”
• Alvarado (on the phone): “Hey, I have a reporter here. She’s not leaving me alone.”

We left and asked to speak to his now former attorney, Edward Ewald, who is also named as a co-defendant in a civil case against Alvarado. Here’s part of our conversation outside of court after multiple attempts to contact him, previously:

• Ewald: “The police department and Wayne County have decided to turn civil cases into criminal cases.”
• Reporter: “You were named as a defendant also in one of the civil cases. Do you have a comment on that?”
• Ewald: “No. That’s foolish.”

Ewald left the courthouse, but we caught up with him again outside. Here’s part of that conversation:

• Ewald: “You’re only getting part of the story and I’m not here to give you the rest of the story.”
• Reporter: Why?
• Ewald: “Because he’s been charged criminally and I’m not going to try the case in the public. We’re going to court. We’re going to try all these cases.”

Since Alvarado was charged with 10 counts -- including conducting a criminal enterprise, records show his new attorney is Ben M. Gonek of the Law Office of Ben Gonek, PLLC.

Ewald told Local 4 this week: “A decision was made that Ben was going to take over -- it was becoming too overwhelming for me.”

Ewald added that he “is not representing (Alvarado) on any other cases anymore.”

“They’ve got me roped in this lawsuit that I’m still trying to get out of,” Ewald added. He declined to comment any further.

Local 4 reached out to Ben M. Gonek, but he declined to comment on this case at this time.

Impact has been more than financial

Multiple people and their families told The Investigators on Local 4 that Alvarado’s alleged scam has taken a heavy emotional toll in addition to the hefty financial loss.

Balina said his family is “beyond fed up.” Many of Alvarado’s alleged victims have also said they do not believe the abuse and scamming will stop unless Alvarado stays in jail. Others said they don’t believe jail will stop him -- “it will just delay him.”

“How can you steal . . . from multiple people and be OK with it? Sleep?” said Balina.

“I just think everybody just needs to get together and speak up,” Morris said.

Investigators from multiple agencies urge anyone who believes they may be a victim of Marcelo Cipriano Alvarado, who some say also goes by “Celly,” or “Chelly,” to call police and file a report.

Alvarado is scheduled for a Probable Cause Conference regarding the 25^th District Court case (Criminal Enterprise) at 9 a.m. on June 16, 2026.

If you need something investigated you can reach out to the Investigators at Local 4 through the ClickOnDetroit Help Desk or by emailing us directly at Local4Investigators@wdiv.com.

You can contact Investigator Erika Erickson directly at eerickson@wdiv.com, and Kayla Clarke at kclarke@wdiv.com.

ICE said the standards, which apply to for-profit contractors and jails that hold detainees, were revised with input from partners to “reduce the burden on our detention operators.” Experts said the changes would help contractors limit legal liability, reduce costs and get more operational flexibility while doing little, if anything, to improve conditions for roughly 60,000 people currently detained.

“100% it’s going to result in deterioration of already problematic conditions of detention,” said Michelle Brane, a former Department of Homeland Security ombudsman who oversaw immigration detention practices during part of the Biden administration. “It’s consistent with their general practice, which is to eliminate accountability and oversight. They are not concerned with people’s basic rights or safety of detainees.”

The revisions come as ICE detention facilities are reporting deaths in unprecedented numbers and face accusations of medical neglect, inadequate food and other inhumane conditions. They come as ICE is flush with cash, receiving more than half of the $70 billion immigration enforcement spending bill signed by President Donald Trump last week.

Dr. Sanjay Basu, a public health researcher who has studied ICE custody deaths, said the changes include “genuine improvements” to suicide prevention standards and mental health care. But he said the overall trajectory is “toward weaker standards governing a growing share of the detained population.”

ICE said the changes streamline its rules and move toward more relaxed standards used by the U.S. Marshals Service to hold pretrial federal inmates in jails. The agency said it considered input from operators “alongside operational, legal and policy requirements when making a final decision."

Dr. Homer Venters, an expert on correctional health care, said the changes could curtail access to language assistance by eliminating mandates that required in-person and telephone interpretation and translation services.

New standard allows use of AI

The revised standard says facilities can use artificial intelligence tools such as machine-learning-based translation or generative AI for “noncritical communication” or “informal interactions with detainees.” That communication could include giving and receiving information to or from detainees during intake, having conversations with detainees in housing units and responding to a detainee’s grievance or other concerns, it says.

Venters called the changes alarming because grievances often include “very urgent or even emergent information such as when a patient has been denied lifesaving care.” He said the rule also leaves unclear whether health assessments, crucial to flagging medical and mental health conditions, could be conducted through AI.

ICE said the standards ensure contractors provide interpretation and translation services “at no cost to the detainees.”

Several experts said they were concerned by a change that bars facility operators from refusing to admit any detainee ICE sends them.

The change means facilities may not be able to immediately refer severely ill or disabled detainees whom they cannot accommodate to hospitals or other settings for care — but it could reduce their liability for subsequent deaths. A related rule change requires facilities to request that ICE transfer detainees they cannot serve elsewhere, but that might not happen for several days after they are admitted.

A favor to contractors

New language making clear that detainees who participate in voluntary work programs are not employees and therefore not entitled to wages and benefits “is a favor” to ICE’s for-profit contractors, said Dora Schriro, former director of ICE’s Office of Detention Policy and Planning during the Obama administration.

For years, advocates for detainees have argued in lawsuits that these programs, in which detainees have received a minimum stipend of $1 per work day, amount to forced labor. The lawsuits have sought millions of dollars in unpaid wages from ICE contractors like GeoGroup and CoreCivic, and now they could face tougher odds of success by strengthening their legal defenses, Schriro said.

Another change bars facilities from paying above the longtime $1-per-day minimum stipend, which was allowed under the previous standard and an argument that had been used against contractors in court, said Carmen Iguina Gonzalez, an immigration detention expert at the American Civil Liberties Union. She said the work can include cleaning dormitories, cutting hair and other tasks that keep facilities running.

Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former DHS and ICE official who is an expert on detention standards, said ICE could use its increased budget to improve conditions instead of “lowering standards across the board.” She recalled that under prior administrations, she pushed ICE facilities to add soccer fields and other recreation and visitation improvements with leftover money.

“Their goal is to make it easier for the jail operators,” she said. “No longer are they trying to make sure the focus is on the detainees and their care and the experience in custody.”

Not so fast, experts say.

Even after oil starts flowing again from the Middle East, it could take awhile for consumers to see a difference at local fuel pumps, supermarkets and other places they shop, according to economists and industry analysts.

Fighting over the Strait of Hormuz disrupted not only supplies of crude and refined fuel but also the supply chains for fertilizer, food and even footwear. Businesses expect higher costs to linger, which means their customers might need to prepare for that too.

“It is not clear, despite three months of war, that anything has been achieved that makes the American consumer better off,” Brett House, an economist who teaches at Columbia Business School, said. “In fact, by almost any measure, not just the American consumer, but the world, is worse off as a result of this attack.”

If the deal between the U.S. and Iran holds, here’s how experts see the war's effects receding — or not — in the weeks ahead:

US motorists can expect some gas price relief

Following news of the tentative agreement, oil prices fell Monday to about $80 for a barrel of U.S. benchmark crude. That compares to $67 per barrel before the war and the price of over $120 a barrel reached earlier in the conflict.

Refineries typically pay for crude oil a month or more in advance, so even after oil prices drop, they won’t immediately be processing cheaper products.

“The tendency of gasoline prices to fall slowly is partly because the raw material takes weeks to work through the system until it’s delivered to consumers,” said Michael Lynch, a distinguished fellow at the nonpartisan Energy Policy Research Foundation.

In places without enough refining capacity to meet their needs, such as the West Coast of the U.S., gas prices will take longer to drop, said Mark Barteau, a professor of chemical engineering and chemistry at Texas A&M University.

In some Asian and African countries that rely more on oil from the Middle East, the supply shock led to school and government office closures and instructions to work from home, according to the International Energy Agency.

“The bottom line is that getting back to ‘normal’ will be a lengthy process involving many parties and countries,” Barteau said. “Getting an agreement between the U.S. and Iran to open the strait is just the beginning.”

Flights won't get cheaper right away

Industry experts have spent months warning that even if the war ended, travelers should not expect airfares to go down immediately.

Airlines typically buy fuel in advance, adjust their schedules gradually and price tickets based heavily on demand, meaning lower oil and jet fuel prices can take weeks or months to get factored into the cost of commercial flights.

“I think it’s unlikely that we’re going to see a retreat or reduction in the cost of flying at any point this summer,” Columbia's House said.

Fuel surcharges that some airlines outside the U.S. added are one of the first areas where passengers might get a reprieve, said Gordon Ho, a professor at the University of Southern California’s business school.

“Consumers are going to say, ‘Wait a minute, why are you still charging me a fuel surcharge?’” Ho said.

Pressure on grocery prices will likely continue

Reopening the strait is unlikely to deliver instant relief at the grocery store, according to David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University.

Fuel accounts for roughly 15% to 30% of the total cost of food, according to the Independent Grocers Alliance, a grouping of 7,500 global supermarkets.

But it can take months for an energy shock like the one caused by the Iran war to wind through the food supply chain and raise grocery prices. And once prices go up, it takes them a long time to come back down, especially when the future is unpredictable, Ortega said.

“We’re likely still looking at inflationary pressure on food in the coming months,” Ortega said. “There’s still a good deal of uncertainty about how the reopening will unfold, and it will take time for fuel, diesel and retail fertilizer prices to come back down.”

Rabobank, which is based in the Netherlands, said it expected war-related food price inflation to peak sometime next year in Europe. In the U.S., grocery prices are expected to rise 3.2% this year, which compares to a historical average of 2.6%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Farmers remain strapped for fertilizer

Reopening the Strait of Hormuz would also be a welcome change for farmers and the production of food globally. Roughly 30% of the world’s fertilizer passed through the waterway before the war began. Prices soared as the supply was effectively cut off, and shipments probably will take a long time to return to pre-war levels.

The consequences of the shortage facing farmers now may only intensify down the road, regardless.

Many farmers around the world are going through planting seasons without the fertilizer they need or paying sky-high prices for both fertilizer and fuel needed to produce and transport their products. The World Food Program of the United Nations expects this to have a “devastating impact” on crop yields — and consequently, food prices and the availability of food — for months to come.

Retailers don't anticipate a cost reprieve

U.S. retailers that sell shoes were encouraged to see falling gasoline prices, hoping they would mean Americans have more money to spend on back-to-school shopping, said Andy Polk, senior vice president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America trade group.

However, shoe companies anticipate their own costs staying higher for the foreseeable future, Polk said. The group's members keep a two- to three-month inventory of finished products, but their next orders may include suppliers charging more for materials, he said.

Most of the footwear sold in the U.S. is imported, and Polk said he expects shipping costs to remain higher for the rest of 2026 and 2027.

U.S. tariffs imposed last year have made it more difficult for shoe sellers to absorb higher costs or pass them on customers, he said. In May, footwear prices were 5.2% higher than the same month a year earlier, according to government figures.

Shipping industry expects a slow recovery

Judah Levine, head of research at the freight booking platform Freightos, said the Straight of Hormuz closure has affected about 2% to 3 % of the total volume of container ships that are used for global shipping, but higher oil prices and disruption have impacted the shipping industry more broadly.

Josh Steinitz, chief strategy officer of the business logistics platform ShipStation Global, said consumers might notice higher shipping costs and more out-of-stock items online until the end of the year.

“I think fuel surcharges, which then flow into shipping costs, which then get passed along to consumers, are still going to be with us for quite sometime from many of the major carriers,” Steinitz said.

___

Associated Press writers Cathy Bussewitz, Anne D’Innocenzio, and Wyatte Grantham-Philips in New York, Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

They were among a trickle of residents who returned to the city to check on their homes after the announcement of a deal between the U.S. and Iran to end their war. Iranian officials have said the deal will also mandate an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon.

Although the fighting in southern Lebanon has not stopped, the strikes have been more limited since the U.S.-Iran deal was reached, and many people displaced from the area have taken the opportunity to check on their houses.

Jleilati and her 22-year-old daughter, Sukaina al-Muhtadi, lived on the first floor of a three-story building consisting of six apartments that collapsed as a result of the airstrike.

City subjected to intense airstrikes and shelling

Jleilati managed to pull out most of her husband’s scuba diving equipment, as well as some clothes, while her daughter’s main hope was to find a photo album that had pictures taken when she was a little girl.

“What can I say? All that we have gathered in our life has been wasted,” Jleilati said, adding that they knew that their home was destroyed on May 26, when al-Muhtadi saw the destroyed building on a social media platform.

Since the early days of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, the ancient city of Nabatiyeh has been subjected to intense airstrikes and shelling that have killed and wounded scores of people.

The once bustling market of Nabatiyeh suffered wide destruction and on Tuesday, several bulldozers were removing rubble and debris as some people returned following the late Sunday deal reached between the U.S. and Iran to end the conflict.

Jleilati and other residents in the city are not sure whether the truce will last since previous ceasefires that first went into effect on April 17 have been fragile with Israel and Hezbollah continuing their attacks.

Over the past few weeks, Israeli troops have pushed deep into southern Lebanon reaching about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) southeast of the city that has been a trade hub for centuries. It's famous for its Monday market when residents of nearby villages came to sell products in the city.

The importance of Nabatiyeh through the centuries

Since the state of Lebanon was created in 1920 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Nabatiyeh and its surroundings have been a center for religious and cultural activities, with Shiite clerics having strong links with the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in modern day Iraq.

Nabatiyeh historically was the capital of the predominantly Shiite Jabal Amel region from where some religious scholars went to Iran in the 16th century and helped its Safavid rulers convert much of Iran’s population to Shiite Islam.

Nabatiyeh is also a main center in Lebanon where Shiite Muslims mark Ashoura, a solemn day marking the 7th-century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein. The 10-day mourning period that culminates on the 10th of the Muslim month of Muharram, begins on Wednesday.

Widespread destruction in the city as fighting rages nearby

At the center of Nabatiyeh, 75-year-old Kamel al-Kamel looked in shock at his giant business consisting of a supermarket and a coffee roastery burned to ashes while the century-old building housing it crumbled.

Walking with the help of a cane, al-Kamal estimated his losses at $2.5 million. He said that unlike previous wars he has lived through — from the 15-year civil war that broke out in 1975 to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to various rounds of Israel-Hezbollah wars — the latest one has been the worst.

“Thank God we are still alive,” he said, adding that he wept as he walked into Nabatiyeh on Thursday.

Samar Zuraik was happy to find that her house is still standing but damaged and will need some repairs. But she said nothing can compensate her for the loss of her son Ali, 27, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the edge of the city.

She said that despite the Iran-U.S. agreement, Nabatiyeh is unlivable at the present time, still subjected to shelling and without electricity, telephones or internet.

“I wish I lost my house and my son stayed alive,” Zuraik said.

Human losses in the city

There are three major hospitals in the Nabatiyeh area the oldest of which is the Najdeh El Chaabiyeh Hospital on the edge of the city, where hundreds of people wounded in the latest war were treated.

The hospital’s medical director, Dr. Shafi Fouani, said the latest Israel-Hezbollah war was similar to the previous war in 2024.

“It was a very harsh war,” he said about the latest one that broke out on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel two days after the U.S. and Israel launched their attacks against Iran.

He said that during the current war, the hospital dealt with about 500 deaths and treated nearly 1,200 patients, some of whom who were in critical condition and were referred to medical centers in Beirut or the southern city of Sidon.

More than 3,800 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest fighting, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Also, 30 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon, and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

On Tuesday, Israeli troops fired artillery shells toward the outskirts of Nabatiyeh while Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli positions near the city. Thuds of the blasts could be clearly heard in Nabatiyeh as Israeli troops have fought for days in an attempt to capture the Ali Taher hill that overlooks large parts of the city.

Lebanese troops closed some roads that lead to areas where Israeli troops are inside Lebanon.

As Jleilati and al-Muhtadi searched through the rubble of their former home, the young woman found a watch that her mother gave her when she was a child. The women were planning to head back to a Beirut suburb later Tuesday where they have been staying, saying they are waiting to see if the truce will hold in order to come back to Nabatiyeh and rent an apartment until their building is rebuilt.

“We cannot live outside Nabatiyeh,” al-Muhtadi said.

The 79-year-old Republican cited his expertise on the issue as a former county prosecutor, member of both chambers of Congress and Ohio attorney general, as well as his seven years as governor.

But DeWine’s support for a policy change is far from assured to make waves, even in a state controlled by his own party. That is because DeWine is more moderate than many younger Republicans in the state, whose political aspirations rely on endorsements from President Donald Trump, a staunch death penalty supporter.

Here's a closer look at DeWine and his place in Ohio's political landscape:

Fifty years of experience with the death penalty

DeWine was first elected to public office in 1976, when he became prosecuting attorney in Greene County, where he grew up. He still lives in the historic home there where he and his wife, who had eight children, hosted a summer ice cream social each year to encourage and celebrate GOP candidates and officeholders. The event ended its 50-year run just last weekend.

When DeWine was elected to the state Senate in 1980, Ohio had no death penalty law. The old one had been declared unconstitutional, and DeWine was instrumental in writing the new one, which cleared both legislative chambers with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. It has been in effect now since 1981.

He said Tuesday that he always believed the moral justification for the death penalty was its potential to deter violent crime.

During his four terms in the U.S. House, DeWine supported federal legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan that expanded the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty. As a U.S. senator, he backed a bill signed by President Bill Clinton that attempted to speed up the review of capital cases in federal courts.

In between those positions, DeWine was lieutenant governor of Ohio under storied Republican Gov. James Rhodes.

He took a brief break from politics after losing a Senate reelection bid to Democrat Sherrod Brown in 2006, before being elected Ohio attorney general in 2010. In that role, he said Tuesday, he “vigorously” carried out the state's death penalty law.

Since he became governor in 2019, problems obtaining lethal injection drugs have led to an unofficial moratorium on executions in the state, which last conducted one in 2018.

Uneven relationship with fellow Republicans

DeWine may be the titular head of the Ohio Republican Party, but that doesn't mean his party always listens to him. Particularly in the Trump era, he has presided over a party rife with internal divisions.

Clashes became particularly fierce during the COVID-19 pandemic, when DeWine and then-state Health Director Amy Acton — now the Democratic nominee for governor — presided over one of the most rigorous virus responses in the country in early 2020. Within months, a faction of Republicans had mutinied against DeWine's mandates, particularly over business closures, threatening to pass a bill limiting his powers or even to impeach him.

In 2023, after DeWine struck down a ban on gender-affirming care and transgender athletes participating in girls' sports, the Republican-dominated state Legislature easily overrode his veto.

The divisions have also been seen in this year's critical elections.

DeWine had tried to position popular former Ohio State Buckeyes football coach Jim Tressel as a potential successor, appointing the moderate Republican as lieutenant governor last year. But the state GOP rushed to back Trump-endorsed biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy in the race in May 2025, before Tressel had even made up his mind whether to run. DeWine endorsed Ramaswamy in January.

DeWine said Tuesday that he had not shared his decision to call for an end to the death penalty with Ramaswamy, now the GOP gubernatorial nominee. The recent effort by the Trump administration to take on Medicaid fraud has found DeWine defending his administration's work on the issue, even as Ramaswamy, Ohio-born Vice President JD Vance and GOP lawmakers take aim at Ohio's existing fraud-fighting efforts.

Other Republican voices come to DeWine's side

Among proponents of DeWine's push to end the death penalty in Ohio were a host of fellow Republicans, including some staunch conservatives.

“For many years, I was a proponent of the death penalty," former congresswoman and current state Rep. Jean Schmidt said in a statement. "My views changed because of the risks of executing an innocent person, the exorbitant costs, and my belief in the sanctity of life. The death penalty is no longer a policy worth preserving.”

Former Ohio Auditor and Attorney General Jim Petro cited wrongful convictions among the flaws that make the death penalty no longer tenable.

Former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, the great-grandson of President William Howard Taft and grandson of “Mr. Republican” Sen. Robert A. Taft Sr., also sided with DeWine.

DeWine “has been thoughtful and given this issue the careful consideration it needs,” Taft said.