Customers could receive the drone deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes, Amazon said in a news release. The drones can carry packages up to 5 pounds.

The plan will intensify the battle between Amazon and Walmart to provide consumers with the fastest delivery times. Both giants rely on a mix of drones and drivers to deliver everything consumers have ordered.

Amazon's plan would expand its drone delivery operation more than sixfold nationwide into hundreds of new communities, including the Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland and Boise metro areas. The drones will primarily fly in the suburbs well away from skyscrapers and major airports that could cause problems.

Drone delivery is growing fast but remains a small factor

Hundreds of thousands of packages have already been delivered by Amazon drones this year, but even after this expansion drones will still only handle a fraction of the hundreds of millions of package deliveries each year. In addition to only being able to carry 5 pounds, the drones Amazon builds face countless challenges from tree cover to landscaping and inflatable pools that can make it hard to find a good drop zone.

There are also regulatory hurdles to overcome in every community where Amazon wants to set up operations. Noise concerns also pose a potential challenge.

“It’s still an experiment. It’s still in test and learn mode,” said Sucharita Kodali, who is a retail analyst with Forrester.

The novelty of drone delivery may attract orders at first

Initially, consumers might order something delivered by drone because they are curious about it, but it's not clear how often they will continue to use the service, and Amazon is still working out the economics, Kodali said.

The service will be free for Amazon Prime members who are ordering more than $50 worth of goods, but smaller orders will cost members $2.99. Non-members will pay $4.99 for drone delivery.

Prime members get free deliveries while non-members pay a flat fee if the shipment is under $35 for standard delivery or up to $12.99 for same‑day shipments when available.

Kodali said drones could prove more useful for certain light-weight deliveries that are needed urgently like prescription medications.

DoorDash and other delivery companies also are experimenting with using drones to deliver foods and other goods.

Amazon CEO believes drone delivery will be part of the mix

Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy told shareholders in his annual letter in April that the company has learned a great deal by flying drones in 11 sites across Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, and Texas. In each location, the drones launch from an Amazon warehouse and cover about 175 square miles, so it takes multiple drone launching locations to serve a large metro area.

“Prime Air now has a design that’ll scale, plans to serve communities with 30 million customers by year-end, and expects to deliver half a billion packages by the end of this decade (with an aim to deliver inside 30 minutes),” Jassy wrote.

Amazon is also continuing to invest in its warehouses, smaller fulfillment centers closer to customers and its fleet of trucks as the company competes to deliver packages within minutes or hours instead of just days.

Amazon is already certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and the company has been awarded waivers to fly drones beyond the line of sight of the pilots. Amazon has invested in safety measures to help drones avoid collisions with anything else in the sky while they are making deliveries.

The federal government has proposed a rule that would allow more drone operators to fly beyond the horizon, but that hasn't been finalized yet.

Swalwell resigned from Congress amid sexual assault allegations earlier this year. Regardless of who is chosen to replace him, the 14th Congressional District seat is guaranteed to remain under Democratic control.

Florida's primary will choose candidates to complete the remainder of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s term in the U.S. Senate. There’s also an open contest to replace term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis, featuring Rep. Byron Donalds on the Republican side and former Rep. David Jolly as a Democrat.

Alaska voters will narrow down a wide field of candidates for a competitive U.S. Senate seat that’s expected to play a pivotal role in determining which political party will hold a majority in the Senate next year. Among the 16 candidates running in the all-party primary, the most notable are Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. The top four vote-getters will advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation and the winner in November will be determined by ranked choice voting.

An unusually high number of open-seat races are on the ballot in Wyoming's primary after two prominent Republican officials announced their retirements. The upcoming departures of Gov. Mark Gordon and U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, along with U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman’s decision to run to replace Lummis, mark the first time in 32 years that Wyoming has had open seats for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House at the same time.

Here's the latest:

Debbie Wasserman Schultz wins Democratic nomination in new Florida district

The victory positions Wasserman Schultz to serve a 12th term in Congress. She switched districts after Republicans redrew the state’s congressional map to boost their chances in November.

Wasserman Schultz, who is white, faced criticism for running in a district that has elected Black Democrats to Congress since 1992.

She defeated several opponents in the primary, including Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who wanted her seat back after resigning earlier this year while facing an ethics investigation.

Candidate with same name as incumbent Alaska senator seeks to advance

Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, hopes to advance in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, where the incumbent is Sen. Dan S. Sullivan.

The challenger successfully sued to appear on the ballot after the incumbent and GOP allies accused him of being a sham candidate intent on sowing voter confusion. Dan J. Sullivan has said his frustration with the incumbent was an impetus for his candidacy.

He appears on the ballot as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation, while the senator appears as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent. The decision to list them that way was made by the Division of Elections. Dan J. Sullivan appears as a Republican elsewhere, including on the division’s official candidate list online.

In Florida, Rep. Byron Donalds touts Trump endorsement but has a careful message on the president’s economy

The southwest Florida representative has had the president’s backing for the duration of his campaign to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But Donalds has offered a broader message, promising to tackle an economy that’s tough on many Floridians — while not blaming Trump.

“Affordability is a problem for all Floridians. It doesn’t matter what your politics are. It doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is,” Donalds said, promising to address taxes, property insurance premiums and health insurance access.

His message is notable not just because he so carefully frames economic realities under Trump but also because Donalds explicitly mentions race. Donalds would be the first Black governor of Florida, but he typically does not emphasize that historic possibility.

Donalds faces several primary opponents, including Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and business owner James Fishback. Florida’s winner-takes-all rules mean there’s no runoff, making Donalds a strong favorite.

Ball

ot measure focuses on money in political campaigns

Alaska voters will decide whether to reimpose campaign contribution limits, five years after a divided federal appeals court struck down a number of contribution caps.

The lone measure on Tuesday’s primary ballot asks voters whether to impose a $2,000 limit on the amount individuals can give to candidates in state and local elections. The measure would cap at $5,000 what an individual could give to political parties.

It also would set limits on spending on groups other than political parties and how much individuals and groups could give to joint campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor.

Supporters say limits are needed to prevent special interests and wealthy donors from having outsized influence on a campaign or race. Opponents say the measure would favor candidates with existing name recognition and that limiting what someone can contribute limits their voice.

Early voting went down in Florida from ’22 and the GOP’s advantage narrowed

Early voting totals for Florida’s Tuesday primaries were down significantly across the board compared to four years ago.

Republicans cast 870,934 early ballots compared to Democrats’ 806,668. Adding independents and minor party voters, the total early turnout was 1,913,985. That includes in-person voting and mail ballots.

In the 2022 primary, Republicans cast 1,725,184 early votes, Democrats cast 1,535,743, and the total early vote was almost 3.7 million.

Those numbers mean Republicans’ early advantage dropped from 46.6%-41.5% four years ago to 45.5%-42.1%. Democrats have argued that independents are breaking solidly in their favor. Still, the early vote totals do not suggest the kind of surge in enthusiasm among the Democratic base that the party has seen in many other states this year.

Florida Democrats need a much bigger swing overall in November to close their statewide general election gaps from 2022.

Alaska voters contend with high fuel costs

Races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and governor top Alaska’s primary ballot Tuesday, at a time when residents are feeling the squeeze from high fuel and energy costs.

Spikes in oil prices driven by the war in Iran have helped the financial outlook for the state, which relies on oil revenue. But it’s also hit many consumers hard, including residents of rural western Alaska who get their supplies by barge or plane and rely on diesel fuel.

Many communities had to lock in their shipments when prices were high.

A retired colonel, rancher and Wyoming’s education leader vie for governor

Wyoming’s governor’s office is up for grabs now that Republican Mark Gordon is winding down his second term in office.

Though not the final word on who will succeed him — that happens in November — Republicans have won the governor’s race every year since 2010.

This year, four Republicans are competing for the job. Brent Bien, a retired U.S. Marine colonel and combat pilot, is running again after getting almost 30% of the vote against Gordon four years ago.

Also running is state Sen. Eric Barlow, a U.S. Marine veteran and livestock veterinarian. He’s a former Wyoming House Speaker.

A third candidate is Wyoming’s state superintendent of public instruction, Megan Degenfelder, who previously worked in the coal, oil and gas industries.

Also running is Curt Blake, a rodeo and Western events organizer who hasn’t actively campaigned or participated in candidate forums.

The winner will face Ken Casner, an Elk Mountain store owner who is unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Groups blast Alaska elections officials over handling of voter rolls

Voting rights groups say Alaska election officials acted unconstitutionally in moving about 3,000 people from active voters rolls weeks before the primary and asking them to verify their citizenship.

The groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, stopped short of suing but kept that as an option if election officials did not take steps to ensure all eligible Alaskans who received the letter are able to vote in Tuesday’s primary.

The groups want to ensure that polling locations have a list of voters who were affected and that poll workers know voters can cast questioned ballots. They also want voters to know that they do not need to provide proof of citizenship.

An Alaska Division of Elections spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

In early August, the division said about 100 people responded to the letter to say they’re not citizens and about 685 affirmed their citizenship. About 2,250 others had not responded or could not be reached by mail.

Progressives may not find the same juice in Florida as elsewhere

Democrats’ left flank has won notable victories since Trump’s second inauguration, even with mixed results in recent Midwestern primaries. But the party’s progressive wing may find a tougher landscape in Florida.

Our Revolution, the organization started by Vermont’s democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, has endorsed state Rep. Angie Nixon in her U.S. Senate bid against former National Security Council aide Alex Vindman.

Several congressional hopefuls have the nod from various progressive groups, but in most competitive Democratic primaries, progressives face better-funded moderates. In south Florida, especially, many Latino voters are skeptical of anything labeled “socialism” because they or their families fled authoritarian socialist governments to come to the U.S.

Our Revolution endorsee Elijah Manley, one of the candidates running against moderate Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Broward County, said he believes voters are “ready for a more progressive approach because the system we have just hasn’t delivered for them.”

California election will determine Eric Swalwell’s temporary successor

Tuesday is voters’ last chance to decide whether a progressive state lawmaker or a moderate San Francisco Bay Area transit leader will fulfill the remainder of Swalwell’s term ending in January. Swalwell, a Democrat, dropped his bid for California governor and resigned from Congress in April after he was accused of sexual assault. He denies the allegations.

Aisha Wahab, a state senator, is running against Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director and former Dublin mayor. The two Democrats, who advanced after a crowded primary in June, are vying to represent California’s 14th Congressional District, which includes cities east of San Francisco such as Hayward, Livermore and Union City.

Wahab and Hernandez will also face off in a separate general election in November to determine who will serve the next full two-year term.

Aisha Wahab, a state senator, is running against Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director and former Dublin mayor. The two Democrats, who advanced after a crowded primary in June, are vying to represent California’s 14th Congressional District, which includes cities east of San Francisco such as Hayward, Livermore and Union City.

Wahab and Hernandez will also face off in a separate general election in November to determine who will serve the next full two-year term.

Incumbent Sullivan and former Rep. Peltola headline Alaska’s US Senate race

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola are the highest-profile candidates in a race that will be among the few in November to determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Sullivan and Peltola have vastly outraised any of the other candidates in the overall field of 16. The candidates and groups that support them have dominated the airwaves and filled mailboxes with flyers ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

Alaska’s primary features all candidates on one ballot, with the top four advancing to November’s ranked vote general election.

Sullivan has leaned into his background as a Marine and supporter of the military, while Peltola has repurposed the “fish, family, freedom” slogan that propelled her to the U.S. House in 2022. She lost reelection in 2024.

Republican redistricting shapes Florida primaries

Gov. Ron DeSantis, in response to Trump’s desire for a better shot to defend the Republican majority on Capitol Hill, eagerly pushed to redraw Florida congressional districts.

It’s yielded a round of political dominoes in South Florida.

Broward County, the state’s most left-leaning county, is down to one presumed Democratic district. It’s plurality Black. But Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an 11th-term lawmaker who doesn’t live in the district, is the favorite as the lone white candidate in District 20.

Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Jared Moskowitz live in a redrawn District 22 that now reaches the more conservative Gulf Coast. But Moskowitz isn’t running in his home district either. He’s running in a new District 25 that stretches along the coasts of multiple southwest Florida counties, including Broward.

National Democrats’ favorite in District 22 is educator Pia Dandiya. Moskowitz and Dandiya are favored over primary opponents. Trump won both districts comfortably.

Wyoming GOP Senate race includes Hageman and 4 little-known candidates

The five Republicans competing to become Wyoming’s next U.S. senator include one with an overwhelming funding and name recognition advantage: Harriet Hageman.

Hageman seeks the GOP nomination after two terms as Wyoming’s representative in the U.S. House.

Through July, Hageman had over $900,000 still available to spend on her campaign, eight times more than the funding runner-up in the GOP race, rancher and business owner Sam Mead.

Former oil field services business owner Jimmy Skovgard had $3,200. The Federal Election Commission had no campaign finance records online for the other two Republican candidates — massage therapist Jill Edwards and U.S. Air Force veteran and attorney John Holtz.

Former state legislator Jim Byrd, one of two Democrats seeking the party’s nomination, had about $350 cash on hand, according to the FEC.

The winner will succeed Republican U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who is retiring.

Republican incumbent faces independent newcomer for Alaska’s only House seat

Independent commercial fisherman Bill Hill is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Nick Begich in the race for Alaska’s only House seat.

Hill, a former educator, has focused on issues such as affordability and reining in the influence of ultra-wealthy people and special interests in politics. Hill lives in a fishing community of about 425 people in southwest Alaska, where goods are brought in by plane or barge.

In July, the highest-profile Democrat in the race, pastor Matt Schultz, suspended his campaign and urged voters to back Hill.

No other candidates in the crowded race have reported raising money. Begich has been endorsed by Trump.

Race to replace Swalwell reflects Democratic divide

The special general election pits California state Sen. Aisha Wahab, a progressive who’s championed housing issues, against San Francisco Bay Area transit leader Melissa Hernandez, a moderate who’s made cracking down on crime central to her campaign.

Hernandez, who is raising more money, has accused her rival of being too soft on crime, which Wahab denies. Wahab, who won the June primary decisively, says she’s better positioned to fight against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Democrats look for any foothold they can get in Florida

A generation ago, Florida decided a presidential race by mere hundreds of votes and court fights that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet Democrats haven’t won a presidential race, Senate contest or gubernatorial election there since 2012.

It’s gotten so dire for the party that they’re expected, for the second governor’s race in a row, to nominate a former Republican. The leading candidate this time is former Rep. David Jolly, a critic of President Donald Trump who joined Democrats in 2025 after shifting his position on abortion and the Affordable Care Act.

That kind of move didn’t work four years ago, though. Former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist won the nomination and got trounced by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Alaska has an unusual way of selecting its officeholders

Alaska has open primaries, meaning all candidates are listed on one ballot. It uses ranked choice voting in general elections.

In each race in the primary, voters get one pick. The four candidates with the most votes advance to the November election, where voters can choose to rank the candidates in order of preference. The top races on the ballot — for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and governor — each feature more than a dozen candidates. Few races for state legislative seats have more than four candidates running in Tuesday’s primary.

Alaska voters approved this system in 2020, which supporters say lends itself to more moderate candidates, and it was first used in 2022. There have been several efforts to repeal it, including one heading to the November ballot.

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds is banking on President Donald Trump ’s endorsement in hopes of securing the Republican nomination and advance to the fall election. His opponents include Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and political newcomer James Fishback.

Democrats' leading candidate for governor is David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who switched parties last year.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a leading conservative figure who has clashed and collaborated with Trump over the years, is barred from running for a third consecutive term.

The first polls closed at 7 p.m. in Tuesday's primaries, which are giving final form to a November ballot whose races will test Trump’s grip on his adopted state and Democrats' ability to resurrect Florida as a national political battleground. Florida has moved notably to the right since Trump won his first election in 2016, though Democrats hope to regain ground from his slumping popularity ratings.

Two Democrats are battling for nomination in a U.S. Senate special election to complete Marco Rubio’s term after he became Trump's secretary of state last year. Progressive state lawmake r Angie Nixon matches up against retired Army Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, a former National Security Council official who testified in Trump's first impeachment case in 2019.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ashley Moody, the DeSantis appointee currently holding the seat, appears in a strong position as she seeks the Republican nomination with Trump's endorsement for the term's final two years.

For Congress, Tuesday's biggest fight involved longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who won her contest against former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and others in a redrawn south Florida district.

Wasserman Schultz, who is white, wants voters in the new, plurality Black district to grant her a 12th term. Cherfilus-McCormick is seeking a comeback after resigning earlier this year under a pending federal indictment and threat of House ethics sanctions.

Donalds is trying to make history — and Jolly, too

There have been three elected Black governors in U.S. history. Yet the 47-year-old Donalds is more likely to tout his conservative credentials than the possibility of joining that select group.

He promises to push tax cuts, overhaul Florida's insurance regulations to lower consumer costs and seek greater price transparency from healthcare providers.

“The people of Florida want to make sure that the Florida dream is alive and well into the future,” he said recently. “Affordability is a problem for all Floridians. It doesn't matter what your politics are. It doesn't matter what the color of your skin is.”

Trump has had an inconsistent record on picks for governor in primaries this year, and a strong showing by Donalds would leave him, and Republicans in general, in a more commanding position for November. Though DeSantis coasted to reelection in 2022, he squeaked into office in 2018 by little more of 32,000 ballots out of 8.1 million cast.

Republican voter Timothy Clawser in Port St. Lucie said that while he generally supports Trump as president, he did not support Donalds for governor, calling him “untested.”

“I know Trump carries a lot of weight and throws his endorsement behind different candidates,” Clawser said. “I’m looking more for your record and what you are doing. I think there are a better choices than Byron Donalds."

Meanwhile, Jolly is hoping ultimately to prove a party-switching former Republican can actually carry the Democratic banner in a state where that's failed before. Democrats nominated former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist in 2022 only to see him lose by nearly 20 percentage points to DeSantis.

Rich Chamberlin, a retiree in Port St. Lucie, said he supported Jolly in Tuesday's primary, spurred on by attack ads against him.

“I saw anti-Jolly ads. I said ‘Ok, if they are against him, then I must be for him,'" Chamberlin said, adding he didn't mind Jolly used to be a Republican.

He even praised him for the switch. “All the Republicans tear each other apart saying they are not real Republicans,” Chamberlin said. “This is the flip side of that. That’s good ... Not everybody is going the wrong way.

Can Democrats make the Senate race interesting?

Moody, a former state attorney general tapped for Rubio's seat in 2025, is in a strong position seeking the GOP nomination. DeSantis, when he appointed her, praised her as a law-and-order prosecutor ready to help Trump “shut the border,” tame inflation, and overhaul a federal bureaucracy “run amok.”

Democrats face a familiar theme of 2026 primaries, with the progressive Nixon confronting Vindman from the party's center-left establishment. Vindman's testimony in 2019 was notable in the Democrat-led House impeachment case that led to Trump's acquittal in the Republican-led Senate. Trump ousted Vindman afterward.

Floridians haven’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2012.

Wasserman Schultz runs - and wins - in a new plurality Black district

Serving in Congress since 2005 , she faced a new district — thanks to DeSantis' successful push for new congressional maps amid the national redistricting battle intended to boost Trump's midterm election prospects.

It’s not the first time Wasserman Schultz has had to convince new voters after Republicans tinkered with boundaries. But this time she’s the only white candidate in a plurality Black district. The redrawn Florida 20th is concentrated in the most Democratic and diverse parts of Broward County, and doesn't include her hometown of Weston, west of Fort Lauderdale.

Her four Black primary opponents — including Cherfilus-McCormick — had argued that the district requires a Black representative. Wasserman Schultz disagreed.

“Representation matters and lived experience matters. But experience and making sure that you have someone who has the seniority and the seasoning to be able to deliver for a district, it matters as well,” she said recently.

Cherfilus-McCormick, meanwhile, had sought to return to Congress despite a pending federal indictment that accuses her of stealing $5 million in federal disaster aid. She has plead not guilty and disputed alleged violations of House rules.

Republican Rep. Cory Mills faces primary challenges

DeSantis and other Republicans have bailed on Republican Rep. Cory Mills as he seeks a third term in Florida's 7th Congressional District at the same time he's denying domestic violence allegations. He faces three primary opponents.

“I have not endorsed Cory Mills, and I do not support Cory Mills,” DeSantis said recently in Mills' district.

____

Associated Press reporters Gisela Salomon in Miami and David Fischer in Port St. Lucie, Florida, contributed.

The campaign featured over a dozen contenders in each of the top races — for Senate, U.S. House and governor. Under Alaska’s open primary system, all candidates appear on the same ballot, and the four who receive the most votes qualify for the ranked vote general election.

Tuesday's ballot also included state legislative candidates and a statewide initiative that would reimpose campaign contribution limits in state and local elections.

Senate race includes 2 Dan Sullivans and a former congresswoman

The highest-profile candidates in a field of 16 were two-term Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola.

The race, which could help determine control of the Senate, has drawn significant attention from outside groups, with Republican and Democratic campaign organizations identifying it as a top target. Peltola shook up her campaign leadership days before the primary, letting her campaign manager go and elevating a deputy to that role. In a statement, the campaign described the changes as “staffing updates as we transition into the general election.”

Sullivan, a veteran and ally of President Donald Trump, has campaigned on supporting the military, opening more land for oil and gas extraction, and voting for Trump's signature tax and spending law. He accused Peltola of being aligned with Lower 48 “liberals.”

Peltola leaned into the “fish, family, freedom” slogan that first got her elected in 2022, and criticized a political system she said is rigged by special interests and allows politicians to enrich themselves.

But it was a third candidate, a Republican also named Dan Sullivan, who garnered much of the attention.

Dan J. Sullivan won a legal fight to appear on the ballot despite claims by the senator and GOP allies that he was a sham candidate running at the behest of Democrats with the intent of causing confusion. Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from the island community of Petersburg, denied that and said frustration with the incumbent prompted him to run.

He appeared on the ballot as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation — a decision that a state elections official said was intended to minimize possible confusion. Meanwhile, the senator was listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent. No other candidate seeking reelection has the “incumbent” label.

The drama involving the dueling Dan Sullivans caught the attention of Trump. In a social media post endorsing the senator days before the primary, he called the other's candidacy an attempt to trick voters and urged his followers to vote for “SULLIVAN, DAN S.”

Republican Begich faced challenge from independent fisherman

In the race for Alaska's only U.S. House seat, the most prominent candidates were Republican Rep. Nick Begich, seeking a second term, and independent Bill Hill, a fisherman and former educator from a small southwestern village.

Progressive Democrat Matt Schultz suspended his campaign last month but remained on the ballot. His campaign said Schultz would withdraw as a general election candidate if he makes the primary's top four.

Schultz urged support for Hill, who leaned into concerns about affordability. Begich, who was endorsed by Trump, cast himself as hardworking and effective in his role. House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared at a rally for Begich in a conservative part of the state this month, though the event was closed to news media.

Governor's race wide open

The campaign for the state’s top executive office was an open race this year because Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy was barred by term limits from seeking a third consecutive stint.

Two Democrats hoped to emerge from a crowded, largely Republican field: former state lawmakers Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Tom Begich, who is Nick Begich's uncle. If either wins in November, he would become Alaska's first Democratic governor since Tony Knowles left office in 2002.

Republicans in the race included Bernadette Wilson, a businessperson and conservative activist; Click Bishop, a former state labor commissioner and lawmaker; Dave Bronson, former mayor of Anchorage; and Adam Crum and Treg Taylor, two former members of Dunleavy's Cabinet.

Former Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, also was on the ballot.

Ballot measure addresses money in state politics

The lone ballot measure in the primary asked voters to reimpose campaign contribution limits, five years after a divided federal appeals court struck down a number of caps.

The measure proposes a $2,000 limit on how much individuals can give to candidates in state and local elections and a $5,000 cap on what they can give to political parties. It also would limit spending by groups other than political parties, and limit what individuals and groups can give to joint campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor.

Supporters say such limits are needed to prevent outsize influence by special interests and wealthy donors. Opponents say the measure would favor candidates with name recognition and restrict the free expression rights of contributors.

Political spending by wealthy people has become a flashpoint in races in Alaska and elsewhere. In 2025 in Wisconsin, billionaires Elon Musk and George Soros helped push spending in a state Supreme Court campaign past $100 million, the most ever for a court race in the U.S.

A pivotal trial for the parent company of Instagram and Facebook kicked off in a California federal court Tuesday, with four states seeking billions of dollars in damages as well as fundamental changes to how Meta runs its platforms.

A jury will decide whether the states' attorneys general have made their case that the tech giant designed its apps to “hook the users, hold them for as long as they can, harvest their data and hide the truth from the public,” as Megan O’Neill, a deputy attorney general for the California Department of Justice, put it in her opening statement.

California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were among the 29 states that sued the tech giant in 2023 over child safety and privacy — the other 25 will go to trial later. The company also faces lawsuits in state courts, including one underway in Tennessee.

The lawsuit accuses Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms and hides these harms from the public. It also argues that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, in violation of federal law.

The company has defended its safety record and said it has a strong case.

States argue Meta exploited research on child development

O’Neill laid out the states' case for the eight jurors during opening statements in federal court in Oakland, California.

“You're going to hear that Meta knew a lot about kids' brains,” O'Neill said. This includes how they are constantly seeking rewards, how they are sensitive to social feedback and “how they are still developing their ability to control impulses the way adults do.”

Meta, she said, researched these vulnerabilities and talked about how it could change Instagram to respond to them.

“ ‘The young ones are the best ones’ is a title of a Meta study we are going to show you,” she said, telling jurors that for Meta, “kids are the product.”

Meta, O'Neill said, also knew that kids under 13 were using its products even though they were banned from it, and “failed to take the simplest most obvious steps to keep them off.” For instance, she said, when Meta found that someone on Facebook was under 13, it would disable the person's Facebook account but not their connected account on Instagram.

The states called as their first witness former Meta executive Arturo Béjar, who worked as an engineering director at Facebook from 2009 to 2015, attracting wide attention for his work to combat cyberbullying. He returned from 2019 to 2021 as a contractor to work on safety issues.

Béjar said that, contrary to Meta's statements, the company's research on safety issues was not being used to improve products.

For example, regarding eating disorder content, Meta's engineers “had very good ideas on how to make it better” so that users, especially young ones, would not be exposed to it.

“But once it was reviewed, it got whittled down to a little pebble that didn’t make a difference,” he said.

Meta attorney highlights company work on safety

Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt laid out his case beginning with what is not disputed in the trial — that even though kids under 13 are not supposed to be on its apps, some lie about their ages; that some teens struggle to manage their time; and that some people post "negative content" on Facebook and Instagram.

But he said he will focus on the work Meta does to make its platforms safer and share information with the public.

“Much of this lawsuit is about the government attorneys and their witnesses saying in trying to improve, we’d do it a little differently,” Schmidt said. "In talking about how to improve, we disagree with how you talk about it. It’s meaningful, and the evidence will be meaningful, these efforts Meta has taken to improve.”

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland is overseeing the proceedings, which are expected to last six weeks with testimony from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives and former employees. Gonzalez Rogers, appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, has overseen a bevy of complex, high-profile cases involving Big Tech. These include Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and its founders as well as Epic Games' lawsuit against Apple over its app store.

If Meta loses the trial, the court would have wide discretion over the size of any financial penalty. Meta has said if it loses, the case could leave it liable for damages amounting to $1.4 trillion, but legal experts say anything close to that amount would be unlikely.

Meta faces thousands of lawsuits, angry parents

The trial is the latest in an avalanche of lawsuits against Meta Platforms and other social media companies including Google’s YouTube, TikTok and Snap, over arguments that their platforms harm young people, illegally collect their data and are deliberately designed to addict them.

As the trial began, child safety advocates and parents who trace their children’s deaths to social media harms gathered outside of the courthouse Tuesday. Many parents held photos of their late children as they spoke to reporters outside, at times speaking through tears.

Several parents held a banner with the names and ages of children who died from social media-related harms. It was several feet long.

Mary Rodee, whose son Riley Basford died by suicide at age 15 after being sextorted on Facebook Messenger, was among the parents and said she had helped write the names. They have had to add 39 new ones to the banner since March, she said.

“It’s not just a banner,” Rodee said. “Every name that I wrote on there is a promise that these children will never be forgotten and that their stories will force accountability where silence once reigned.” ___

Huamani reported from Los Angeles.

Written on it in black ink were the names of children and young adults who have died from social media related harms, including deaths by suicide after bouts of cyberbullying or sextortion. Giovanni, an 11-year-old, Bubba, a 13-year-old, and Englyn, a 14-year-old, were among the nearly 600 names. Parents said the names were “just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Behind us, justice is going to be served,″ said Lennon Torres, an advocate with the organization Heat Initiative. “The courtroom doors are open, and it is time that the public see what the executives at Meta have known all along: that their products are designed to addict and to harm children.″

Many of the gathered parents have attended previous trials, congressional hearings and other events related to online child safety. But they say this trial, in which the attorneys general from four states are seeking billions of dollars in damages for social media harms to children, marks a significant moment.

They see it as the culmination of years of work and public pressure on social media firms to do more to protect kids online. Social media companies are increasingly facing lawsuits over harms to young users, and Meta already has lost two pivotal cases over harms to children and teens this year, both of which it is appealing.

The trial represents a “groundswell of public perception changing against these companies,” said Amy Neville, whose 14-year-old son Alexander Neville died from fentanyl poisoning after being deceived by a drug dealer operating on Snapchat. Neville, like many other parents who have lost their children in similar ways, has dedicated her life to educating and spreading awareness of the dangers of social media.

“If we can keep holding them accountable over and over, something has to give, and I don’t want us to stop doing this until they’ve made their products safe by design,” she said.

Lawsuit focuses on broad claims

This lawsuit is not focused on any individual person, case or specific harm tied to social media, but rather broader claims that Meta made decisions in designing Instagram and Facebook that put young users at risk. The states also claim Meta knew the platforms to be dangerous and lied about how dangerous they were.

Meta has rejected the allegations and said the trial will show the work it has done to make its platforms safer.

The trial's outcome could have significant consequences for Meta’s bottom line and how its platforms are designed and operated. But many parents are eager for evidence from the trial, namely internal Meta documents, to be brought to light.

John DeMay, whose son Jordan died by suicide at age 17 after being subject to a sextortion scheme on Instagram, is one of those parents who will be closely watching the trial and the evidence that emerges.

“As this information starts to unfold and unfold and unfold, the American people, the American mothers and the American fathers who are not seeing this stuff every day can see it and go, ‘Oh my God, this is really what’s happening,’ ” he said.

Some of the parents present outside of the courtroom were residents of the four states that are the plaintiffs in this trial — California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey — and they thanked their attorneys general for the work on the case.

Lori Schott of Colorado said Attorney General Phil Weiser has viewed the content that populated her daughter Annalee's social media feeds and read her journals after her death by suicide. Annalee, who was 18 when she died, wrote in her journals about feeling ugly and comparing herself to other girls' social media profiles.

Parents call for accountability

In a message to Meta, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, Schott said outside of court that they have built one of the most powerful companies in the world, “but power does not excuse harm.”

“Profits does not erase the responsibility of Big Tech and no company — no matter how wealthy, no matter how influential, no matter how untouchable it feels it is — should get to stand above the truth, the law and our children," Schott continued.

Many parent advocates seemed to carry optimism with them on Tuesday. Erin Popolo, whose daughter Emily Murillo died by suicide after being subject to intense cyberbullying, was hopeful the trial's outcome could lead to meaningful change on social media.

“I think that we’re going to make history here," she said.

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Associated Press journalist Terry Chea contributed to this report.

William Frances Silvia, 61, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke.

Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up at 6 p.m. He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution, and a priest sat at his feet and prayed.

Asked if he had any final words, Silvia said, "I’m sorry all this happened. It was an accident. I never meant to hurt her."

A warden shook him and shouted his name several minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing but got no response. A medic declared him dead a short time later.

Silvia is the 13th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, which has two more executions scheduled in September. The state has carried out more than half of the nation’s 23 executions so far in 2026.

Courts twice sentenced Silvia to death

Silvia was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for the deadly 2006 attack on Patricia Silvia, along with her mother, Betty Woodard.

According to court records, William Frances Silvia purchased a shotgun that year and then went to Woodard’s Orlando-area home, where his wife had been living since their separation two months earlier. The family was in the middle of a cookout when Silvia arrived, and after an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile, authorities said Silvia retrieved the shotgun from his truck and shot the two women.

Pamela Wyatt, Patricia Silvia’s sister, said William Frances Silvia’s actions not only took her sister's life but changed the lives of everyone who loved her.

“Nothing that happens today can give us those stolen years. No execution can return Patricia to her children and give her the grandchildren she dreamed of knowing,” Wyatt said after the execution. “But today can be an opportunity to remember that Patricia’s life was bigger than the terrible act that ended it.”

Silvia was first sentenced to death following his 2008 trial. A court later vacated that sentence following an appeal related to Florida’s death penalty sentencing procedures, but after being granted a new death penalty phase in 2018, he was again sentenced to death.

A Florida state agency, the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, provides legal representation to death row inmates. Silvia’s attorneys have argued that the agency couldn’t provide adequate legal assistance because it was already helping another death row inmate. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal.

Florida leads the way in executions

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with 19, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.

Two more executions are planned in Florida next month. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is scheduled to die on Sept. 1, followed by Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Sept. 10.

Lucas was convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends.

Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man that he had paid to pose for nude photos, and authorities suspect him of similar homicides committed in the 1990s in southwest Florida.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

City Council recently approved an ordinance creating a “social district” in the city’s downtown, allowing customers to carry alcoholic drinks purchased at participating bars and restaurants into a designated outdoor zone while they walk, shop, and explore.

For some businesses, this is exciting.

“Business in Rochester has been a little bit slower than normal,” said George Saigh, manager of Rochester Mills Beer Company. “Summer’s not typically the busiest time of the year. During the lights is actually our busiest season for Rochester, so yeah, anything we can do to bring more people into the city is always a great thing.”

Right now, customers at Rochester Mills can drink only inside the restaurant or out on the patio.

Once the social district is in place, they’ll be able to take their drinks to go within the district boundaries in approved containers and continue visiting other downtown shops and venues.

“Anything we can do to get more people walking through downtown Rochester and getting people excited about it is always a great thing,” Saigh said.

The downtown development authority executive director, Kristi Trevarrow, said the idea of getting the district came about after business owners reached out to her.

She said they researched it and thought it would be good, especially for special events.

“Our downtown businesses, while they wanted to accommodate their customers, they recognize it’s about the bottom line and the economics.”

Local 4 also reached out to other areas to see how this social district has helped their businesses.

According to the Farmington Hills Downtown Development Authority executive director Jessica Westendorf, their social district has helped Farmington Brewing Company generate about $40,000 annually.

Residents, meanwhile, are split.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Rochester resident Linus Thalman while walking downtown.

Others like the potential economic impact but worry about oversight and safety.

“Watching how much people are drinking and being able to keep track of the locations they’re going afterwards instead of just taking open containers in their car I feel like is very important,” said resident Isabela Dinverno.

The social district still has a few steps to go before people can stroll Main Street with a drink in hand.

After City Council’s approval, the plan now goes to the state for review. If the state signs off, restaurants and bars would then have to apply to be a part of the program.

The executive director of the Rochester Downtown Development Authority said the goal is to have the social district up and running sometime around November, in time for the city’s busy holiday season and Lagniappe.

Attorney General Keith Ellison is asking a federal judge to bar the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant so that Minnesota officers can take custody.

Minnesota officials have clashed with the federal government over who has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct. Ellison is a Democrat and Abbott is a Republican ally of President Donald Trump.

Castro was arrested in Texas in May on Minnesota charges of assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 wounding of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Castro, 52, is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg with a bullet that lodged in a child’s bedroom wall. Prosecutors say Castro then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.

Minnesota officials fear ICE agent could flee

Ellison told a news conference that unless he's extradited, Castro could be released from jail as early as next week — 90 days since he was detained — under Texas law. And if he's freed, Castro could slip into Mexico from the border town where he's being held, Ellison said. The lawsuit said Castro has been making calls from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released.”

If Castro was to reach Mexico, “it may be difficult or impossible to locate and have him re-arrested,” with the process slowed further by a complex international extradition process that normally requires requests from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a legal memo filed by Ellison's office.

Complicating the situation, travelers face few difficulties crossing from the U.S. into Mexico. Pedestrian border crossings typically have no immigration checks for people leaving the U.S., and only occasional requests for passports on the Mexican side.

“Christian Castro has been charged with breaking the law in Minnesota,” Ellison said. “He must face justice in Minnesota. Gov. Abbott should have granted Gov. Walz’s extradition request long ago and is required to do so now.”

Ellison's office later said Castro could be freed as early as Aug. 26.

Abbott said Tuesday that he has no immediate intention to respond to extradition requests from Minnesota. He cited ongoing investigations of fraud in government social service programs in Minnesota, which Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.

“I will not respond to them at all until they step up and do what’s right and they acknowledge their fault in the fraud that took place,” Abbott said during a news conference on an unrelated topic in Austin, Texas.

Moriarty said that since Castro’s arrest, Texas has extradited three unrelated criminal defendants without incident to Minnesota.

“Gov. Abbott has received communication with us on an ongoing basis, including recently,” Ellison said. “We have to take the position that they are refusing to honor the extradition request.”

The lawsuit Ellison filed in U.S. District Court in Texas cites a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that compliance with the Constitution’s extradition clause is mandatory, affording no discretion to the governor of a state where a defendant is being held.

Peter E. Larsen, an assistant professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, said Ellison's argument was based on a “fairly straightforward legal principle” that requires states to hand over criminals, or accused criminals, to other states when they are asked.

Abbott's rationale, tying the extradition to unconnected fraud cases, makes the Minnesota argument even clearer, he said.

“I don’t think that the courts (even the fairly partisan Roberts Court) would consider that as a legitimate basis for noncompliance with the extradition request,” he said in an email.

It was not immediately known if Castro had a lawyer who could speak for him. Online court records in Minnesota and county jail records in Texas did not list a defense attorney. The jail holding Castro declined to relay a message to him from The Associated Press.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the legal action to compel Castro’s extradition “should be a completely unnecessary lawsuit.” She said jail officials and prosecutors in Texas have been “very cooperative,” and that an extradition “is not supposed to be controversial.”

The office of Cameron County Sheriff Manny Trevino declined to comment Tuesday on the case.

Federal agency has called agent's prosecution a 'political stunt'

Authorities say Sosa-Celis was shot after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., according to Minnesota officials.

Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether agents lied about what happened.

Regardless, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has called Moriarty's prosecution of Castro “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt,” saying only federal authorities have jurisdiction in the case.

The federal government took a similar stance following the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the Minneapolis enforcement surge. Moriarty sued the Trump administration to gain access to evidence in those cases before federal prosecutors turned it over last month.

___

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. AP journalists Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis and Anna Wilder in Austin, Texas, contributed.

Others remained in the courtroom to face the grim facts of what happened to his body.

The grisly photos came on the second day of testimony in the trial of 63-year-old Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who is charged with orchestrating the 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyer in opening statements called the prosecution's narrative “fiction.”

Dr. Lisa Gavin, a forensic pathologist and medical examiner for Clark County, Nevada, described Shakur's injuries and explained his cause of death. Jurors were shown photos of his body. Some relatives who remained in the courtroom looked away.

Tupac's family in the Las Vegas courtroom

Shakur’s cousin Zayd Akinyela said he wanted to stay in court to learn more.

“I feel like the details, especially for people that are close to him, honestly for me helps, helps the grief process. I think we’ve been waiting 30 years to grieve properly,” Akinyela told The Associated Press outside the courtroom. “A lot of people don’t get to grieve until they understand what happened to their loved one and how it happened." He added, “That’s why I wanted to stay and just see for my own personal closure.”

He said he hadn’t known how many times his cousin was shot and can’t help but think of the ways the night could have played out differently.

Seeing the photos of Shakur’s body made him feel “Very angry, very angry, to say the least, very sad,” Akinyela said.

What the forensic pathologist said about the gunshots

Gavin described three bullets. One of them caused his lung to collapse and bleed, and doctors ultimately removed the damaged lung in an effort to save his life, she said.

Additional bullets damaged his intestines and other parts of his body, she said.

Jurors looked intently at the photos of Shakur’s body, which was bloated and had multiple chest wounds. The nearly full courtroom was silent. Chest tubes were still in his body from the six days he spent in the hospital before dying. .

Gavin was not at Shakur’s 1996 autopsy but was called as a witness because the examiner who performed it has since died.

Surveillance video of a clash before the drive-by shooting

Prosecutors allege Shakur was killed to avenge Shakur’s entourage attacking Davis’ nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson a few hours earlier at the MGM Grand after a Mike Tyson fight.

Jurors were shown the casino surveillance video of a group of people beating and kicking someone on the ground.

The video then showed Shakur and his entourage moving quickly through the crowded building in the minutes after.

A few hours later, Shakur, riding in a black BMW with hip-hop mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, was gunned down by shots fired from a white Cadillac that had Davis, Anderson and two other men inside. Davis is not accused of pulling the trigger.

‘Hostile’ witness refuses to revisit the past

After many technical and procedural witnesses, James McDonald brought both hostility and humor to the stand when he testified unwillingly under a court order.

McDonald, like Knight, had been affiliated with the Mob Piru Bloods gang, and worked security for Knight at his Club 662, where Shakur and Knight had been headed when they were fired on. Davis was a member of the rival South Side Compton Crips.

Asked by Chief Deputy District Attorney Binu Palal if he was aware of why Anderson was beaten, he wouldn't say.

“I’m aware of a lot of things,” McDonald said, “things that was going on, people ain’t talked about them in 30 years. Today ain’t one of them.”

He said, “Me or anybody else bringing up the dead is wrong," and “you'd better treat me as a hostile witness.”

McDonald said he wanted to avoid answering questions that will hurt Davis.

“Here I am explaining to people what I used to be. I’m not proud of that,” McDonald said. “I don’t want to send him to prison, even though we don’t like each other."

He directly addressed the defendant. “What you’re going through, brother, is what you’re going through," McDonald said, adding "I didn’t want to be a part of it.” Davis had no visible reaction.

But McDonald also brought several moments of levity.

Asked if there were specific fights or disputes he could remember regarding the gang rivalry, McDonald said, “Are you serious?!” and laughter broke out in the courtroom.

Death Row security officer chronicles Bad Boy rivalry

Reggie Wright Jr., a former Compton police officer who owned a security company that was contracted by Knight's Death Row Records, detailed the way tension had grown between the label and Sean “Diddy” Combs Bad Boy Records leading up to the Shakur shooting.

He said he had doubled Shakur's security guards after he released the video for “Hit ‘Em Up,” one of the most vicious diss tracks in the history of hip-hop, aimed at Bad Boy's Notorious B.I.G., who was killed six months later.

Wright said Shakur was to perform at Club 662 to fulfill required community service. He was on probation for California weapons and assault convictions.

After the shooting, Wright went to University Medical Center where Shakur was taken, and said a crowd was gathering there. He called his father, who worked in the Compton Police Department’s gang division, to tell him about the brawl and shooting, and warned him that trouble could be coming there.

Wright testified that he received Shakur's ashes after he was cremated, and saw that they got to Shakur's family.

Wright has long been among those rumored to be involved in Shakur's killing.

Palal asked him if he had anything to do with it.

“Absolutely not," Wright replied.

Tupac's legacy and memory

Shakur remains a cultural icon. He is considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time and had a burgeoning film career as an actor. He died as his popularity was peaking at age 25, and his legend has only grown in the years since.

Akinyela, Shakur's cousin, said, “I’m very spiritual, so just seeing the body doesn’t affect me the same way as it might some people. I do believe that his spirit is still around and still lives on through his family and through his legacy.”

____

Associated Press Writer Rebecca Boone contributed from Boise, Idaho and AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton contributed from Los Angeles.

“It was the Valkyries' first game ever, and somehow it felt like this arena was filled with lifelong fans who had been following this league for 30 years,” Engelbert recalled. “It was the true sense that the team already belonged here.”

Now, Engelbert is bringing the WNBA All-Star Game to the Bay Area and “Ballhalla” next summer so all of women's basketball can experience what she did that night in May 2025.

Engelbert made the announcement Tuesday that the WNBA showcase game will be held July 31, 2027, at Chase Center after a weekend of All-Star activities around the San Francisco region.

“I remember looking around that night and thinking to myself, ‘This place is going to be special,' and in less than two seasons the Valkyries family has proven just how special it can be," Engelbert said. “The Bay Area community hasn't simply welcomed the Valkyries, this community has embraced the Valks as their team.”

And Golden State has waited for this moment all along. For Warriors and Valkyries owner Joe Lacob, this is decades in the making since he first began supporting women's basketball.

Lacob has loved women’s basketball for decades and became one of the original investors in the former American Basketball League with the San Jose Lasers. He bought the Warriors in 2010 then Golden State was granted an expansion team in October 2023.

“It is actually a great honor to be hosting the All-Star Game. All I will say for all of us at Golden State but me in particular, it is a full-circle moment, well it will be full circle when we win the championship,” Lacob said.

At the All-Star Game in Chicago last month, players' union president Nneka Ogwumike, who played in college at Stanford, said many players felt that Golden State would be a great host for next year's mid-summer exhibition game.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr and guard Gary Payton II were among those in the audience for the announcement at Chase Center, where a cable car was set up inside the arena for the occasion.

“When you walk into this building for a Valkyries game, it is unlike any experience,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said.

Hosting world-class events was always in the plans since long before Chase Center opened in 2019. The Valkyries have sold out all of their home games since the franchise's inception last year — and the team became the first expansion organization to make the playoffs in its inaugural year. Golden State lost to the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx. The Valkyries clinched a playoff berth for this year on Monday night with a win over Dallas.

The NBA All-Star Game was played at Chase Center last year.

“Hosting AT&T WNBA All-Star in only our third season is an incredible honor and a reflection of everything this fanbase, this region, and this organization have built together,” Valkyries President Jess Smith said. “From day one, the Bay Area has shown up for this team in a way that’s redefined what’s possible in women’s basketball, and we can’t wait to put that same energy on display for the entire league next summer.”

Last week, Major League Baseball announced the 2028 All-Star Game would return to nearby Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.

The Super Bowl was played in February at Levi's Stadium, which then hosted the World Cup this summer.

Smith can't wait for her team to add to that list — saying such an opportunity will never be taken for granted “to have a chance to be a part of the WNBA's growth.”

“But it's part of what we knew was possible from Day 1 with this organization,” she said. “We have embodied the bay's energy in every decision that we've made, along with the community and our fans and our players, and one of the things we keep in mind is this that we understand this is where the world looks to see what comes next, whether it's technology, innovation or how we treat people, how we connect what it means to gather, and we're doing that at Ballhalla. The opportunity to do that in honor of all those stakeholders here, on behalf of this league with the best players in the world, is immense.”

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

The space agency released before-and-after photos of the impact area on Tuesday.

The Falcon rocket’s upper stage plowed into the moon at 5,400 mph (8,700 kph) on Aug. 5 after drifting through space for more than a year. It launched a pair of private moon landers with experiments and even a tiny rover in 2025 as part of NASA’s push to commercialize lunar exploration.

Based on these new photos by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the fresh crater appears to be 60 feet (18 meters) across and less than 10 feet (3 meters) deep, according to scientists.

Dark and bright streaks are clearly visible emanating like butterfly wings from the crater. The darker lines represent excavated material that was close to the surface and shaped by eons of solar wind, cosmic rays and micrometeorite strikes. The brighter rays indicate fresh rocks and dirt that were hurled from farther down.

The spacecraft photographed the crater a week after the collision from 60 miles (96 kilometers) up, while zooming along at one mile per second. Flight controllers had to tilt the spacecraft so its cameras pointed toward the impact scene.

The orbiter completes a lunar polar orbit every two hours, as the moon rotates beneath. It took six days before the crash scene came into view.

South Korea’s Danuri spacecraft was first on the scene to beam back photos.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been orbiting the moon since 2009, serving as NASA's up-close eyes as the space agency works to return astronauts to the lunar surface.

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

The U.S. Forest Service is filing a proposal that would scrap the so called roadless rule adopted in the last days of Bill Clinton’s presidency in 2001. The agency described the rule as a one-size-fits-all restriction that has frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to reducing wildfire risks in the nation’s forests.

“Our forests can’t afford another decade of inaction. Across the country, we’ve watched preventable conditions — overgrown stands, insect outbreaks and disease — turn healthy landscapes into tinderboxes,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement.

Scientists say that worsening wildfires are driven by a combination of climate change that warms and dries out forests, less logging and decades of fire suppression that has allowed fuels to build up.

Clinton had signed the rule to safeguard undeveloped national forest land from commercial logging and mineral leasing, with a goal of keeping ecosystems pristine and protecting water supplies.

Calling the roadless rule a failure, Rollins said the proposal calls for restoring authority to local forest managers and removing barriers that have kept them from improving forest health across millions of acres.

The roadless rule has affected 30% of national forest lands nationwide, or about 59 million acres (24 million hectares), according to the Department of Agriculture, the agency over the Forest Service.

The Forest Service will gather public comment on the proposal and on a draft of the environmental impact statement that was filed Tuesday in the Federal Register. While the rescission removes national designation of roadless areas, officials say it doesn't mandate timber cutting or road construction.

The filing comes as no surprise as the Trump administration first announced its intention to get rid of the rule during a meeting last summer in New Mexico.

Environmentalists have been sounding the alarm since then and reiterated Tuesday that lifting protections would have detrimental effects for old growth forests, wildlife and water supplies.

“Americans across the political spectrum have made it crystal clear that they don’t want political appointees removing protections from public lands,” said Chris Krupp, an attorney with the group WildEarth Guardians. “It would be a gross misreading of public sentiment to take the roadless rule away from Americans and our wildlife, and politicians do so at their jeopardy.”

Numerous groups raised concerns about what a rescission could mean, especially for places such as Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the nation's largest national forest and a lightning rod for litigation. State political leaders there have supported an exemption to the roadless rule that they argue impedes economic opportunities.

During the latter part of Trump’s first term, the federal government lifted restrictions on logging and road-building in the Tongass, something the Biden administration later reversed.

Emma Powell, the Alaska Wilderness League's government affairs manager, described the Tongass as a global treasure that serves as a home for salmon runs and abundant wildlife. She added that cultures and livelihoods are connected to the forest.

“From fisheries to tourism and outdoor recreation, these landscapes also support thousands of jobs and generate billions in economic activity each year,” Powell said.

Alex Craven, the Sierra Club's forest campaign manager, disputed officials' claims that getting rid of the rule would allow for more work to be done to reduce wildfire threats. Craven suggested more roads would lead to more fires and that it never prevented the Forest Service from doing targeted work to reduce wildfire fuels.

He vowed that the Sierra Club and other groups would fight the proposal at each step.

David Jenkins, president of the Virginia-based nonprofit Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, criticized the proposal as fiscally irresponsible and pointed to an existing maintenance backlog that stretches into the billions of dollars.

“The agency doesn't have the budget to take care of the 368,000 miles of roads already riddling our national forests,” he said.

The deadline for comments is Sept. 21.

A protester was seen scuffling with police as some barriers were knocked down outside the library.

Officers maintained a heavy presence as crowds gathered ahead of the 7 p.m. council meeting.

Protesters said they were upset over an incident involving an influencer who was reportedly attacked.

Video of the incident circulated widely online, and some protesters criticized police response.

An influencer promoted the demonstration as a “Christian Crusader March.”

Organizers said they expected as many as 50,000 people, although the crowd that began gathering around 3 p.m. Tuesday was significantly smaller.

Michigan State Police were working with Dearborn police to monitor the demonstration and maintain order.

The city moved the council meeting from its usual location to the Henry Ford Centennial Library because officials anticipated a larger crowd.

Dearborn’s mayor, police chief and Christian leaders from across the region gathered Monday to call for unity and urge people to reject hatred.

City leaders have asked residents not to engage with protesters and encouraged people not to attend the council meeting unless necessary.

The mayor also asked the Michigan attorney general’s hate-crime unit to get involved.

City officials have acknowledged that the First Amendment may still protect speech considered hateful.

Tensions continued to rise as the protest got underway Tuesday evening, with police and protesters confronting each other outside the library.

Details about the arrests, including how many people were taken into custody and potential charges, were not immediately available.

The Dearborn City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

Previous coverage:

A Greenville police officer who responded to the residence Sunday afternoon was met by the brothers and then observed paramedics performing CPR on an unresponsive woman, the report states.

“The patient did not seem to have any obvious physical reasons to be unresponsive,” the officer notes. After attempting lifesaving measures, the emergency workers declared Panettiere dead at 2:31 p.m.

No cause has been determined, and her death remains under investigation. An autopsy found no signs of trauma, and police said officers saw no signs of foul play.

The onetime child star, who soared to fame in the TV shows “Heroes” and “Nashville” while enduring struggles with alcohol addiction and depression, would have turned 37 on Friday.

Tumultuous relationship

Panettiere and Brian Hickerson had been in a tumultuous relationship for years, with allegations the 37-year-old aspiring actor physically abused her.

He was charged in 2020 with multiple counts of felony abuse, and he pleaded no contest to two counts of injuring a spouse or partner and served a short time in jail due to the case. He was sentenced to four years of probation and anger management and Alcoholics Anonymous sessions.

He completed the terms and recently asked a judge to reduce his conviction to misdemeanors; that request was denied Thursday by a Los Angeles judge. Messages were sent Tuesday seeking comment from Pat Carey, an attorney for Hickerson.

Panettiere wrote of Hickerson's time behind bars, and how she hoped it would change him, in her memoir, “This Is Me,” which came out in May.

“I wanted Brian to be in jail just long enough to scare him, but not long enough where’d he become a worse person,” she wrote. “I needed him to admit his wrongs and change because of them, but I didn’t want to traumatize him in an irreversible way.”

She wrote about her decision to “let go of my resentment” and try to forgive Hickerson, who she'd met at a West Hollywood restaurant in 2018 after noticing his “charming smile.”

Police report has redactions

The police report, which is heavily redacted, said the responding officer first spoke with Zach Hickerson, who said the unresponsive woman was his brother's girlfriend.

“I observed Zach to be very emotional while EMS were working on Hayden. Brian did not become emotional until EMS declared her officially deceased,” the officer said.

After she was declared dead, the officer escorted the brothers out of the apartment. The officer spoke with Brian “more in depth,” but the details of that conversation are redacted in the police report.

Also redacted is a list that of medications that Panettiere had been taking.

She had been open about addiction issues

In her book, Panettiere described lifelong scars from her early fame, and acknowledged being addicted to alcohol and enduring postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, Kaya, with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.

Panettiere’s daughter, now 11, began living with Klitschko full-time in Ukraine when she was 2. At the time, the actor was struggling with mental health and addiction. She entered rehab in 2015, while filming “Nashville.”

“I think there’s been this very common misconception that I just gave up my child,” she said in an interview with podcaster Jay Shetty in May. “That could not be farther from the truth.”

In a statement Tuesday, Klitschko said he will make sure their daughter always remembers her mother.

“She built an incredible career through immense talent, while also facing the darker sides of a very demanding industry. Nothing will erase the times we shared or the place she had in our lives," Klitschko said on Instagram.

Panettiere had endured numerous family struggles, and tragedy. Her parents’ marriage was strained, and eventually ended. Her younger brother, Jansen Panettiere, who was also an actor, died of a heart condition in 2023, at age 28.

Started out as a child actor

Panettiere was one of two children born to Skip Panettiere, a former New York City fire captain, and Lesley Vogel, a former soap opera star who had been the prime force behind her early career before the two became estranged. Panettiere began acting in commercials and soap operas, including as the ever-troubled Lizzie Spaulding on “Guiding Light.” In “This Is Me,” she wrote that the traumas her character endured, from being kidnapped to killing her mother’s boyfriend, led her to associate “catastrophe with adoration.”

“Is it any wonder why I’ve faced so many real struggles in my life?” she wrote.

She had much warmer memories of her role as a cheerleader with supernatural powers in “Heroes,” which propelled her to fame in 2006. The series revolved around the mantra: “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”

She went on to win three Teen Choice Awards for that role. She was also nominated for a Grammy for a children’s spoken word album, “A Bug’s Life: Read-Along.”

Panettiere later played a brash country upstart opposite Connie Britton on “Nashville,” which aired on ABC for four seasons before being canceled and revived on CMT. She did her own singing in the show, which scored some hits on country charts, spawned U.S. tours and earned Panettiere two supporting actress Golden Globe nominations.

The officials said the Trump administration has told Oman it is opposed to parts of the yet-to-be-announced deal, including the joint Iranian and Omani management of the exit route out of the passage that’s critical to global supplies of oil and natural gas. The officials were briefed on the U.S. position and how the administration views Oman's position.

Meanwhile, a projectile hit a ship as it sailed out of the strait, and a cargo vessel was rendered a “constructive total loss” by multiple projectiles off the coast of Yemen, according to the British military's maritime monitoring agency. The defense ministry of the United Arab Emirates said two ballistic missiles were launched from Iran toward the UAE.

An Iranian official said the strait would not reopen until the United States meets Iran’s conditions.

US believes Oman has not been tough enough with Iran

The U.S. believes Oman has not been tough enough in its negotiations with Iran and is unhappy with Oman’s agreement to collect voluntary fees from vessels, even if the charges are related to security and maritime environmental protection, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

Trump on Monday threatened to bomb Oman as it works with Iran on a deal to open the strait and pave the way for the U.S. and Iran to resume negotiations to end the war.

He posted a map on social media on Tuesday depicting the strait as U.S. territory. The president first mentioned the idea in an offhand comment last week. On Monday, he told reporters in the Oval Office, “I like the idea of declaring it a territory,” without providing details.

The White House on Tuesday referred to Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office and declined to comment further about Oman.

Iran refers to Trump's ‘delusion’ about the strait

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi appeared to respond to Trump’s post on social media depicting the strait as American territory.

“Just as Trump correctly wrote the name of the eternal Persian Gulf, his delusion regarding the Strait of Hormuz will soon either be corrected, or we will correct this deluded man’s delusions for him,” Gharibabadi wrote on X.

Trump's comment on Monday was not the first time he has threatened Oman. In May, he told reporters during a Cabinet meeting that Oman “will behave just like everybody else, or we will have to blow them up.”

Iran reiterated Tuesday that Tehran plans to maintain its grip on shipping traffic until Washington meets its conditions.

“Until the United States fulfills its commitments under the agreement, including lifting the blockade, releasing frozen assets, lifting oil sanctions, ending threats and military operations on all fronts, and implementing the other conditions to which it committed, the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen,” said Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and negotiator in previous talks with the U.S.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the Iranian-Omani deal could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to return to negotiations for a “comprehensive and permanent deal that addresses all concerns and enhances regional security and stability."

The statement came after a meeting between Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Omani counterpart Badr al-Busaidi. But it did not address Trump’s latest threat against Oman.

Trump insists the strait is open as more attacks are reported

Trump said on Tuesday the U.S. has no planned talks with Iran but insisted the strait is “open and operating,” despite limited traffic, the reported boat strike and the end on Monday of the 60-day negotiating period between the countries.

Trump wrote on social media that a U.S. blockade of the strait remains “in full force and effect,” adding that all water mines have been removed.

As the talks between Iran and Oman continue, more attacks were reported in the region.

Both missiles fired at the UAE fell into the sea, the UAE Defense Ministry said. No damage or injuries were reported. Iran disputed the UAE’s claim that it launched missiles toward the country.

The ministry later said assessments showed that the missiles targeted maritime traffic. It was not clear whether they directly targeted UAE ships or the country’s territorial waters.

In the weeks after the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28, the UAE was frequently targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, but Tuesday’s reported attack was the first in weeks.

An unidentified projectile hit a ship early Tuesday in the strait off the coast of Oman, damaging the engine room and causing a casualty, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations center.

The monitoring agency did not release any details about the ship or its cargo, and it was unclear whether the crew member was killed or wounded. The agency said the Omani Coast Guard was assisting other crew members and that authorities were investigating.

Elsewhere, the cargo ship that was deemed a loss was struck about 40 nautical miles (74 kilometers) southeast of Mokha, Yemen, the UKMTO center reported.

The center did not identify the projectiles or those responsible.

The Iran-aligned Houthi rebels resumed attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea in July and escalated attacks on Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces. The renewed assaults have threatened shipping through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, another key global trade route.

In other developments, the Houthis claimed they fired drones at an oil refinery in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the latest attack that threatened to reignite Yemen’s civil war and open another front in the Middle East.

The attack targeted a facility run by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, according to a report by the Houthi-run SABA news agency. There were no immediate reports of damage or comment from Saudi Arabia.

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Associated Press writer Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.

Earlier this week, Trump also threatened to bomb Oman as the country sought a deal with Iran to manage shipping traffic through the strait, two regional officials said Tuesday, a day after Trump reportedly leveled the threat if Oman "gets in the way.” Iran says the waterway will not be reopened until the U.S. meets its conditions.

As talks between Iran and Oman continue, a projectile hit a ship in the strait and Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed they fired drones at an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia.

Here’s a look at the latest developments Tuesday in the Iran war and the wider Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.

Trump looms over negotiations to reopen Strait of Hormuz

As Oman and Iran say they are nearing a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said on social media Tuesday that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remains “in full force and effect,” but asserted that all water mines have been removed and that other marine traffic was free to pass.

Trump posted a map depicting the strait as U.S. territory.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi appeared to respond to Trump’s post.

“Just as Trump correctly wrote the name of the eternal Persian Gulf, soon his delusion regarding the Strait of Hormuz will either be corrected or we will correct the delusions of this deluded man," he wrote on X.

The Trump administration has told Oman it opposes parts of the yet-to-be-announced deal, according to officials briefed on the U.S. position. Those include joint Iranian and Omani management of the passage's exit route and the collection of voluntary fees from vessels, even if the money is used for security and maritime environmental protection.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

The White House on Tuesday referred to Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office and declined to comment further about Oman.

— By Samy Magdy in Cairo

Egypt says Iran-Oman agreement could open door to Iran-US deal

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the Iranian-Omani deal could pave the way for Washington and Tehran to return to negotiations for a “comprehensive and permanent deal that addresses all concerns and enhances regional security and stability.”

The statement came after a meeting between Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Omani counterpart Badr al-Busaidi. But it did not address Trump’s latest threat against Oman.

The 60-day negotiating period ended this week between the U.S. and Iran with no clear end to the war in sight.

Ship traffic drops significantly in Strait of Hormuz

Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped significantly last week, with confirmed crossings falling 19.5% to 95 transits. Only three vessels made it through the waterway on Sunday, according to shipping data platform Kpler.

The ships used the Iranian-designated route through the strait, with no crossings recorded through the Omani routes.

Crossings through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait increased 6.7% to 254 transits, while so-called dark transits, in which ships turn off the transponders that broadcast their location, fell from 40 to 16, Kpler said.

Projectile damages ship in strait causing casualty

An unidentified projectile damaged the engine room of a ship in the Strait of Hormuz near Oman and “resulted in a crew casualty," according to the British military’s UK Maritime Trade Operations center.

The maritime monitoring agency did not release any details about the ship or its cargo, and it was not clear whether the crew member was killed or wounded.

No environmental damage has been reported and the agency said the Omani Coast Guard was assisting other crew members and authorities were investigating.

Iran-backed Houthis claim an attack on a Saudi oil refinery

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed they fired drones at an oil refinery in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the latest attack threatening to reignite Yemen’s civil war and open another front in the Middle East.

The attack targeted a facility run by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, according to a report by the Houthi-run SABA news agency. There were no immediate reports of damage or comment from Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis have escalated attacks against government forces in Yemen and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemeni government, and the kingdom’s shipping in the Red Sea, an important alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

Israel strike on Gaza City kills 6 people

An Israeli strike hit Gaza City on Tuesday, killing six people, including a child, and wounding 14 others, according to Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken.

The Israeli military said it struck Hamas commanders in the Shati area who it said were planning to carry out attacks against Israeli forces.

The heaviest fighting has subsided since a ceasefire in the more than two-year war took hold in October. Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes since then, killing at least 1,266 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza.

The Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Missiles fired at the United Arab Emirates

The defense ministry of the United Arab Emirates said two ballistic missiles were launched from Iran toward the UAE on Tuesday.

One landed outside of the country’s waters, and the other landed within them, the Emirati Defense Ministry said. It was unclear whether the missiles were shot down by air defenses or fell. No damage or injuries were reported. There was no immediate statement from Iran.

In the weeks after the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28, the UAE was frequently targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, but Tuesday’s reported attack was the first in weeks.

Iran denies it fired missiles toward the UAE

Iran early Wednesday rejected the UAE’s claims that it launched missiles toward the country.

In a post on social media, the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said Dubai’s accusations were “detrimental to ongoing efforts to strengthen trust among the countries of the region and prevent a further deterioration of security.” He called on the nations in the region to not make “baseless accusations” against Iran.

Earlier, the UAE defense ministry said Iran launched two ballistic missiles targeting maritime traffic that fell into the sea.

The dispute centered on a Flock camera the city installed at the entrance to Jars Cannabis on 12 Mile Road near I-75.

The company responded by posting a “No Flock Zone” sign in front of the camera to block its view, setting off a viral standoff.

Background on the dispute

Jars Cannabis was only permitted to open in Madison Heights after the company sued the city and the two parties reached a settlement.

Part of that original agreement included allowing a Flock camera to be placed at the dispensary’s entrance.

But after customer concerns, Jars pushed back — publicly.

“We share our community’s concerns about increased surveillance, which is why we placed the No Flock Zone sign in front of the camera to block its ability to record,” the company wrote in a social media post earlier this month.

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A post shared by JARS (@jars_life)

The city quickly responded, threatening sanctions if Jars did not remove the sign.

New agreement reached

The two sides have now reached a revised settlement.

The mayor confirmed to Local 4 that the city entered into a revised settlement agreement, pending final approval by the city council.

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A post shared by JARS (@jars_life)

Jars addressed the resolution on social media, writing: “We thank everyone who spoke up, shared information, and held us accountable.

This is not a flex. It was a situation we had a responsibility to address."

Camera gone — but not entirely

Although the Flock camera pointed at Jars’ parking lot has been removed, another Flock camera remains approximately 50 yards away.

That camera, however, faces the street rather than the parking lot.

Watch our full interview with the CEO of Flock Safety here.

Beard was in hospice care when he died Tuesday at his ranch in Richmond, Texas, with family members at his side, according to publicist Bob Merlis. Band co-founder and guitarist Billy Gibbons, on tour with bassist Elwood Francis, hailed Beard in a statement.

“Today, Elwood and I lost a great friend and collaborator, and the world lost one of the most naturally innovative drummers and a great and true son of Texas. His signature backbeat was key to keeping ZZ on top. The band of which he was part for six decades is going to keep on keeping on as he had wished,” Gibbons said.

ZZ Top sold more than 50 million records and had six singles that reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Seven of their albums have been in the Billboard 200’s Top 10 and they earned three Grammy Award nominations.

“I’ve found the people I was meant to play with,” Beard says in the 2019 documentary “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas.” “I never wanted to quit, and never wanted to get fired.”

Drummers went to social media to pay tribute to Beard's influence, including Rage Against the Machine's Brad Wilk, who wrote his mind was blown seeing Beard's two-hand shuffle live in high school. Former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum called Beard “a very special and unique man behind the kit.”

How the band came together

Beard, from Frankston, Texas, met Gibbons in a band called The Moving Sidewalks and later introduced bassist and vocalist Dusty Hill who had been in several bands with Beard.

The trio formed ZZ Top in 1969, naming themselves in part after blues singer Z.Z. Hill and influenced by the British power trio Cream and Jimmy Reed. They maintained their original lineup for more than five decades. Their signature look — long, bushy beards on Gibbons and Hill, and dark sunglasses for all — didn’t change much, either.

When Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards helped induct the trio into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, he joked: “These cats know their blues and they know how to dress it up. When I first saw them, I thought, ‘I hope these guys are not on the run, because that disguise is not going to work.’ ”

ZZ Top songs — with their sly and humorous lyrics — were popular in Hollywood, which used “Gimme All Your Lovin’” in “Happy Feet,” “Sharp Dressed Man” in “Evan Almighty,” “Legs” in “Air,” “Sleeping Bag” in “I, Tonya,” “Tush” in “Dazed and Confused,” “Mexican Blackbird” in “From Dusk Till Dawn” and “La Grange” in “Armageddon.”

“The best way to describe ZZ Top is we’re interpreters of a great American art form,” Gibbons told The Dallas Morning News.

Their debut release, “ZZ Top’s First Album,” came out in 1970. Their sound was described as a hybrid mixing elements of rock, blues and funk into a steaming-hot Houston stew. They called themselves a “Little Ol’ Band From Texas.”

Breaking through

Three years later, they broke through commercially with “La Grange,” a funky blues song on the album “Tres Hombres” that paid tribute to the Chicken Ranch, a brothel outside of the Texas town of La Grange that operated from 1905 until 1973 and was immortalized in the Broadway show and the film “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.” Gibbons has ascribed the power of “La Grange" to its simplicity — just two chords and a Robert Johnson-inspired guitar solo.

The band went on to have such hits as “Tush” and “Cheap Sunglasses.” But their 1983 “Eliminator” — named after one of Gibbons’ custom cars — added more production elements, synthesizers and drum machines to their stripped-down sound and yielded the hits “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Legs” and “Sharp-Dressed Man.” The band toured with a Texas-shaped stage, live rattlesnakes and a longhorn steer.

Long beards weren’t always part of the band’s look. Gibbons said it happened by accident: In 1976, the trio took a long break and scattered. Beard went to Jamaica, Hill went to Mexico and Gibbons went to France.

“Although we were speaking by phone, this was pre-video phone. And Dusty and I did not know that we had gotten so lazy that we had decided to forget to shave,” Gibbons told The Tribune in San Luis Obispo in 2010. “So after three years we returned and showed up, and lo and behold here was this sort of wacky-looking image. And it just kind of stuck with us.”

A boost from MTV

The band’s rock-chic cool played well on the nascent MTV crowd and their videos, featuring models in short skirts emerging from one of Gibbons’ custom roadsters, became a mainstay.

They kept the beards, hats and cheap sunglasses in the video trilogy of “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” and “Legs,” made with director Tim Newman.

“ZZ Top reveled in the humor and ridiculousness of it all, busting their synchronized dance moves and spinning their white-fur guitars. These guys always got the joke, at a time when other bands were still just nervously lip-syncing in front of brick walls,” Rolling Stone said in 2021.

In 2012, superstar producer Rick Rubin helped update the trio’s sound with the band’s comeback album, “La Futura.” The album landed at No. 6 on the Billboard chart, their highest position since 1990's “Recycler,” some 22 years previously.

Hill died in 2021.

In March 2025, the band announced via Instagram that Beard would temporarily step away from the band’s tour to tend to foot and ankle problems. Beard died weeks after ZZ Top called off its Aug. 5 concert at the Hollywood Bowl due to his health issues.

Beard is survived by his wife, Debbie Meredith, and three children.

Johnny, Jimmy, Janie, Joey and Jesse Buss reiterated their stance Tuesday in a statement issued to ESPN, saying they “remain united in that decision. ... We intend to move forward thoughtfully, respectfully and through the appropriate process."

The five Buss siblings said Monday they had voted to sell the family trust's remaining 17.8% stake to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, who are acquiring majority ownership from Mark Walter.

Jeanie Buss announced her intention to fight back against the plan later Monday through a letter from her attorney, Adam Streisand. Jeanie Buss claims the siblings can't sell the trust's ownership shares without her approval.

If the five siblings are able to sell their remaining ownership, Jeanie Buss would no longer be able to serve as the Lakers' governor, a position she is scheduled to hold until at least 2030 under the deal struck with Walter last year when he purchased majority control of the team at a valuation of $10 billion.

The Buss siblings reportedly made nearly half a billion dollars apiece in that sale, but the 17-time NBA champion team is considered to be worth even more with Walter flipping his ownership to Kushner and Iger at a valuation of $12.5 billion.

Jeanie Buss has been the Lakers’ governor since Jerry Buss’ death in 2013, and she led the family’s decision to sell to Walter, who is now under federal investigation for tax issues. Not all of the siblings were in favor of relinquishing majority control of the Lakers last year, and Joey and Jesse were fired from their front-office jobs with the team last November.

The Buss siblings have been in frequent conflict since their father’s death in 2013, with Jeanie firing Jim from his job as the Lakers’ head of basketball operations in 2017, followed a week later by a lawsuit against her brothers amid an attempt by Jim and Johnny to oust Jeanie from her role as the Lakers’ controlling owner.

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

The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation's most prestigious academic institutions were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the investigations were "predetermined, without regard to the evidence" in a “politically mandated effort” to extract money from schools through settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism, the complaint alleges.

The work of the multi-agency task force, launched by the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in February 2025, was “marked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual or legal support” and disregard for the law and Constitution, lawyers for the former government attorney wrote in seeking watchdog investigations into their client's complaints.

The complaint taps into a broader public discussion about the administration's efforts to confront allegations of antisemitism at colleges, a problem that received renewed attention during campus protests over Israel's war in Gaza that some Jewish students said made them feel unsafe. President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a goal of rooting out antisemitism that he said had gone unchecked during the Biden administration, but critics have called his government's response heavy-handed and said it infringed on free speech rights and coerced concessions from public institutions.

A key House Democrat is publicizing the whistleblower's allegations

Lawyers for the former Justice Department attorney, identified as Haley Van Erem, filed the disclosure with the inspectors general at the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services, as well as with the Office of Special Counsel.

Van Erem spent nearly a decade working in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division before being involuntarily assigned to HHS to work on the Title VI investigations into the universities, the complaint says.

The health department assignees were initially told to scrutinize allegations of antisemitism at medical school commencement ceremonies — the lawyers were advised of a New York Post story describing antisemitic conduct at graduation events, the complaint says — but the inquiries were later expanded to focus on the entire schools in the cases of Columbia and Brown, according to Van Erem's account.

Van Erem left the Justice Department in May 2025 because she was "unwilling to be made vulnerable to further participation in politically motivated investigations unsupported by facts and contrary to law," says the complaint, which also says “officials targeted some Middle East Studies faculty for the content of their work and other professors for their Muslim faith.”

Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokesperson, said the department “stands behind the integrity” of its investigations. A spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment Tuesday.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote separately to Harmeet Dhillon, who as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has been a public face of the department's efforts to counter antisemitism. In his letter, he said antisemitism at colleges and medical schools is a real problem that needs to be investigated.

“But,” he told Dhillon, “your 'investigation’ into antisemitism was fake, a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in nature.”

Raskin wrote that “the whole project was designed to harass professors and administrators at major universities, to curtail their freedom of speech and academic freedom, and to strip targeted institutions of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that they had already been awarded on the merits of their applications.”

Scrutiny over the handling of investigations into elite schools

The whistleblower complaint deals chiefly with investigations into three Ivy League universities: Brown, Harvard and Columbia.

It alleges that in the case of Brown, the investigative team did not find evidence to support a violation of Title VI, the section of the Civil Rights Act that bars discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs that receive federal funding, but that “leadership refused to permit a notice of no violation and instead sought some form of settlement or resolution despite acknowledging the absence of a legal basis for doing so.”

Investigators did find evidence of discrimination at Columbia, the complaint says, but the investigation was done on an accelerated timetable before “adequate factual development and legal review were completed” and relied on allegations that “were unsupported, based on news reports or litigation filings, or that implicated protected First Amendment activity."

Columbia University agreed to pay the government $200 million as part of an agreement restoring access to federal funding. Brown University separately agreed to pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations to end the three federal investigations involving allegations of antisemitism and racial bias in admissions, with no findings of wrongdoing.

In the investigation into Harvard, Trump administration officials discussed “extraordinary funding freezes and sweeping proposed settlement terms” before an investigation had been completed that could establish Title VI violations. Sean Keveney, then-HHS acting general counsel, said he believed Harvard would settle because they were “over a barrel,” according to the complaint.

A federal judge last year ordered the Trump administration to reverse its cuts of more than $2.6 billion in research funding for the university, saying the government “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” And a different judge last week dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit that accused Harvard University of turning a blind eye to harassment of Jewish students.

Just a few days later, the truth emerged: The poll was fabricated.

The California results were among at least three “polls” across three states posted online this month by Median Strategies, a previously unknown organization that admitted to the Los Angeles Times on Monday that the purported results were fake. The company wrote before shuttering its website this week that it “was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”

The post offered no explanation of who was behind the “experiment” or for what purpose.

The trajectory of the California poll offers a cautionary tale about the perils of trusting unvetted polling. While high-quality independent polls still exist, they appear amid a slew of other surveys produced by outside groups, campaigns or super PACs or using undisclosed or questionable methodologies. It can be a struggle to make sense of the findings — and as the latest episode shows, even campaigns may end up falling for falsified data.

“This is much bigger than one fake poll,” said Chris Wilson, a veteran Republican pollster who now leads the public opinion firm EyesOver. “It’s never been easier to make invented numbers look legitimate, and campaigns and outside groups have every incentive to amplify anything favorable before anyone verifies it.”

The Median Strategies fake polls, none of which appeared in AP coverage, claimed to evaluate support in the Democratic primary for governor in Wisconsin, the gubernatorial race in Nevada, and the mayoral race in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles poll, which purported to show Bass, an incumbent Democrat, leading councilmember Nithya Raman, a progressive Democrat, by about 12 percentage points in the mayoral race, was shared by the Bass campaign on social media and covered by the California Post before it was revealed to be bogus.

The Bass campaign has since deleted its social media post promoting the poll, but defended itself by saying that it “was reported on by multiple news outlets.”

"Any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Bass campaign spokesman Alex Stack said.

Transparency is critical for evaluating poll findings

Median's “findings” were shared by polling aggregation accounts on social media. They were not, however, included in the databases of major independent aggregators, including The New York Times, Real Clear Politics or FiftyPlusOne.

The New York Times and FiftyPlusOne noted that the polls were released without basic information that was needed for vetting, such as who was running the firm. When they reached out, Median Strategies did not respond to requests for more information.

“When the poll was released, it lacked basic information about how it was conducted and who was behind it,” Will Davis, director of Election Data Analytics at The New York Times, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “Releasing this type of information is standard practice for pollsters, and because that information was not provided, we did not include it.”

Mary Radcliffe, Head of Research at FiftyPlusOne, also thought the methodology statement for the Wisconsin poll was missing key details, including the source for the voter file the company claimed to have used and the vendor who fielded part of the sample.

Median did not respond to her questions, so the polls were not included in FiftyPlusOne’s database. But Radcliffe noted that her method for screening polls is not infallible.

“There is a universe where they could have come up with plausible answers to my questions,” she said. “This is an industry built on trust. I have to trust that people are answering my questions in good faith.”

While admissions of falsified polling data are rare, they are not without precedent.

In 2010, for instance, the left-leaning blog Daily Kos said that polling for its website, conducted by a firm called Research 2000, was fraudulent.

But it’s common for pollsters to release polls with minimal information about how the survey was conducted, what questions were asked, or who was behind it. Higher-quality polls rely on expensive methodologies, such as randomized sampling, so many pollsters opt for cheaper solutions. In addition, many election polls are conducted by campaigns or super PACs with a stake in the outcome of the race. This can leave few — if any — reliable and independent polls to evaluate in contests like midterm primaries.

Before writing about any poll, AP verifies that it meets high standards of transparency and methodological rigor. But even high-quality polls have some amount of error, which underscores the importance of examining each finding with caution.

Prediction markets introduce more complexity

The introduction of prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket gives polls a different significance for people betting on election outcomes.

The posts about Wisconsin and Nevada drew little reaction and were not accompanied by any discernible movement on the two prediction markets when they were released, but there were some shifts on both platforms after Bass shared the false Median Strategies numbers.

On Kalshi, the price of a “yes” contract on Bass winning the Los Angeles mayoral election rose two cents, from about 63 cents to about 65 cents, within fifteen minutes of Median’s post. On Polymarket, roughly twenty separate accounts traded thousands of contracts in Bass’s favor six minutes after the tweet.

In the days leading up to Bass's post about Median, trading on the LA mayoral election had been thin, with a typical trade over that week being under ten dollars.

While the price movements were small, the concentration of trading on both platforms shortly after the release of Median’s fake poll was not.

Before it was taken down, the Median Strategies website included a statement claiming that “no individual involved held or traded any position in an election prediction market, betting market, or other financial instrument tied to the races covered by Median Strategies.”

Motivations for the fake data remain unclear

More than a week after the firm began sharing “results,” it remains unclear who is behind Median Strategies.

No one responded to AP's questions sent to an email address listed on its website, which was created little more than a week ago. Before it was taken offline, the only content on the site was a statement indicating that the firm “has concluded its polling project and will not publish additional polls.”

“All previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data,” it wrote.

The firm highlighted what it called “a credibility problem” in its first social media post earlier in the month.

“Polling has a credibility problem. Ours is the fix: no partisan clients, no campaign or party money, numbers that go wherever the data takes them even when it’s inconvenient. Trustworthy polling, rebuilt,” it wrote.

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AP writers Linley Sanders and Michael Reo in Washington, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin and Michael Blood in Los Angeles contributed.

Asked if he thought Marte would play for Arizona again this year, Lovullo said he hoped so. A three-time All-Star, Marte is hitting .249 with 21 home runs and 67 RBIs over 118 games this season.

“We need him,” Lovullo said before Tuesday's game against the Red Sox. “He’s one of the best players in the National League as far as I’m concerned.”

Arizona placed the 32-year-old Marte on the restricted list Monday, the second time in as many seasons the D-backs have done so.

Marte failed to show up for Arizona’s 11-1 loss at Boston on Monday night in what Lovullo said was a crazy day as Marte deals with a personal issue. Lovullo said he spoke to Marte on Monday trying to find out what was going on without getting any answers.

The second baseman traveled with the team to Boston and Lovullo wasn't certain after Monday night's loss if Marte was still there.

This wasn’t the first time Marte had a strange disappearance.

Last season, he went on the restricted list when his home in Arizona was broken into during the All-Star break. He missed three games after flying back to his native Dominican Republic and later apologized for his absence.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

How did Flock Safety begin? What problem were you looking to solve?

“It feels like yesterday, but nine years ago, I was sitting at my dining room table asking the question: Why does crime exist? Why is it so hard to solve? And in my neighborhood in Atlanta, we were frustrated that crime was happening, and it felt like the police couldn’t do anything. The individual who oversees our neighborhood said, ‘You know, if we had a license plate, we could catch these people.’ They were breaking into cars and breaking into homes. I said, ‘Really? A license plate?’ I went to Georgia Tech. So, I called two of my friends that I went to Georgia Tech with and said, ‘We’ve got to build a camera that reads license plates.’ And so we did that. About two months later, we had them up in my neighborhood. We made our first arrest. You’ve maybe never had a detective call you, but it’s a little scary. He called to say thank you. Fast-forward nine years, and some of the biggest companies in the world rely on Flock. Almost 7,000 police departments and tens of thousands of neighborhoods across the country use our products every day.”

Originally, Flock was targeted just for neighborhoods?

“Just neighborhoods. It kind of became a business about six years ago. A small town in Texas called Jersey Village said, ‘Wait a second, our neighborhoods have this. Can we buy it for the major intersections of the city?’ And we said, ‘Sure, I guess.’”

You have 120,000 cameras across 49 states scanning billions of vehicles every day. What are the benefits you see with Flock?

“Let’s talk about Michigan. Last month alone, in July, 53 missing people were detected. Those are real humans. That’s our grandparents, that’s our kids, that’s our friends. Over 2,000 stolen cars. Those are stolen cars, you know, that weren’t stolen to take a joyride. They were stolen to go do something much worse. So, that’s about one month of impact in one state. Now, if you scale it to the country — over 1,000 missing people last month and over 22,000 stolen cars. That adds up to real impact. I was on the phone with one of our customers in Florida, a sheriff, and he was like, ‘Look, Garrett, I’ll never be able to prove this, but this whole decline in crime that we’re seeing in America, maybe it’s because of Flock.’ We look at the data and say, ‘I think it’s a good chance.’ We want to continue to see that happen.”

How are the conversations going with departments here in Michigan?

“Just over a third of the state uses Flock every day. I’d love to get back to 100 percent, but what they see are the results from our customers — whether it’s a kidnapping or an attempted homicide. The sad part is crime happens, and for us, what’s even worse is when we see that crime is not equally distributed. Today in America, depending on what ZIP code you’re born into determines your level of safety. I just think everyone should have the right to be safe.”

Let’s talk about the growing backlash concerning Flock: data sharing and privacy. Some have referred to it as Big Brother and mass surveillance. What do you think about that?

“I think you have to break it into two buckets. There’s a part of the bucket which is valid criticism and really healthy debate about things like how much power local law enforcement should have. I would say they should have enough power, but not more than they need to do their job. But with that power should come real accountability and real guardrails. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t want to be safer. Maybe they exist, and I’ve traveled the country, and I have not met that person yet. I think those are really good conversations. Then I think there’s a lot of misinformation. I was with an elected official earlier today in Michigan, and she said, ‘When did you guys add facial recognition?’ I said, ‘Ma’am, we don’t do facial recognition.’ She said, ‘But do you sell the data?’ We don’t sell the data. We don’t own the data; our customers do. We don’t work with ICE. The customer chooses whom to share the data with. So I’ve found that once people see the truth, they go, ‘This feels like a very good trade-off.’ But at the end of the day, we have to find a society where safety and privacy can coexist.”

What do you believe are the biggest misconceptions?

“I think the biggest misconception is that we own the data and sell it. That’s the natural worst-case scenario, and sadly in our industry, that was the case before Flock. The leading provider of this type of technology before Flock owned the data and sold it for commercial purposes, and that’s not illegal, but I don’t think it’s a good balance of safety and privacy.”

Several communities have canceled their contracts with Flock. Do you believe your company is doing enough to protect people’s privacy?

“I think we are doing enough to protect people’s privacy, but I don’t think we’ve done an effective job explaining ourselves. People need to know the trade-offs that can be made. I worry, and I’m sad for those cities that have chosen not to work with us, because they’ll be less safe today than they were the day before. We’ve seen that unfold. You go to places like Austin, which no longer works with us, and there are drive-by shootings, and it takes a small town nearby to find the shooters. We’re thankful to have so many great customers here in Michigan, and I think we look at the customers who’ve chosen to pause or cancel, and what’s less often reported is the dozens of customers who’ve turned us back on as they see the impact.”

There have been a lot of stories recently about misuse and abuse of Flock by law enforcement. What is being done to prevent this from happening?

“Let’s start with the fact that any abuse, be it of Flock’s technology or any technology used by law enforcement, is just unacceptable. I think it’s horrible because 99.99% of law enforcement officers go into this profession to keep people safe, and that one bad apple ruins it for everyone. It destroys trust in the community, and it’s just despicable. Because we’re a technology company, we can do something. When we started the company nine years ago, we knew abuse was possible. We didn’t know if it’d be prevalent or not. So, we have an audit log. Every single action taken in Flock is stored in that audit log, and in most places, like I was just with a town earlier today in Michigan, it is both the city administrator, who’s the attorney, and the police chief who review that audit log. The challenge, though, in a more recent development, is that it might work for a town of 50,000 people. But what about Detroit? Detroit has hundreds of officers who use Flock every day. The audit log would simply be too big. So, we built a pattern-recognition tool called Audit Assistance. Since we helped solve over a million crimes last year through Flock, we know what normal behavior looks like in a system. We also know what abnormal behavior looks like. So, we now flag that behavior for the administrator in real time. That individual can be locked out in real time. Abuse is horrible, but we as an industry can do better for communities to root these people out. I’d say I’ve yet to meet a chief who doesn’t say thank you. They want this technology. They want the ability to find bad actors and get them out of their agency.”

In Michigan, there are currently bills at the statehouse looking to regulate your cameras, including adding warrant requirements, stricter data retention and penalties for misuse. Do you support regulations?

“We definitely support regulation. I look across the country this year, and today, nine states have already chosen to enact regulations. While we might not agree on every I and T, I think regulation in general is a good thing, right? Because we have a beautiful system that’s worked for 250 years, where we democratically elect individuals to make decisions on our behalf. So, we hope a great bill gets passed in Michigan that regulates this and, for our customers, establishes what is and is not permissible.”

How long is data retained? Is that up to the local user?

“Every local municipality gets to choose how long the data is stored, absent state regulation. So, in a place like New Jersey, it’s five years; that’s the mandate. In the state of Washington, it is 21 days. So, cities can choose to do anything below those numbers; they cannot go above them.”

Where does the data go? Who can access it?

“The data is captured and stored within that local municipality, be it a county or a city, and then they can choose whom they share it with and whom they do not share it with. And then, one layer deeper, they can also select what types of crimes can be investigated using their cameras.”

So, if I’m an officer here in Detroit and I want to access the data from Flint, I can do that if they have agreed to share?

“Yes, if the two parties agree to share. This is where regulation can be really helpful, because in places like Connecticut, they’ve decided as a state they want to share not only within the state of Connecticut, but with any neighboring state. But they don’t allow sharing outside of those neighboring states. The state of Washington does not allow out-of-state sharing. Our job as a technology company is to wait for regulation to happen, and then encode that regulation into our software.”

Can ICE access the data? What would stop me if I’m a police officer in Detroit and I’m also on a federal task force? Where is that line drawn? What’s stopping me from accessing Flock?

“That’s a great question. A few years ago in Troy, in partnership with federal authorities, we busted a massive human trafficking ring during the NFL draft. Federal authorities and local authorities were working together. We as a company don’t tell police departments how to interact with federal authorities. There are policies. There are restrictions. There are internal rules for how task forces operate, and those are different from city to city.”

Do you believe that there need to be more safeguards when it comes to Flock? What kind of safeguards do you support?

“I think one of the things that’s missing from most state regulations is severe enough punishment for police officers abusing their power. To me, it’s not enough to simply be terminated from your job. If you’re stalking an ex-partner, if you’re looking up the criminal records of your daughter’s boyfriend, that should be a criminal offense. We give power to those who are entitled and ask them to keep us safe, and the accountability has to come with that. When I look at regulation, I say there are a couple of things we have to get right. We have to decide how long this data should live. Whether it’s seven days, 30 days or a year, the state of Michigan should decide what matches its public safety strategy. We should decide how the data gets shared. And then we should decide the penalties for abusing that power. That’s not just for Flock; that’s for all of the systems they have access to.”

What is your company doing to help states kind of figure this out?

“One of the things that we’re really proud of is we’ll go into these sessions with our fiercest adversaries, including groups like the ACLU, who have the same goal that we have. We want Michigan to be safer. The question is how do we get there, and what trade-offs are we willing to make? So, you’ll often see in a state like Michigan, New Mexico or Georgia, we’ll show up and have the debate. We’ll bring our data, which shows how law enforcement uses it day in and day out. And the ACLU and other peer groups will show up with their opinion of what the right balance of privacy is. I think if you look at them in particular, our biggest debate is how long the data should be stored. And that’s a very reasonable thing to figure out.”

What do you want to say to the critics who believe these cameras should not exist?

“I’m the father of three little kids. I have one job: It’s to keep them safe. It is not acceptable to me that just because my kids live in one part of Atlanta, they’re safer than kids who live in a different part of it. I don’t think that should be the case. I just wish everyone could understand that there’s a world we can build together where safety and privacy coexist, and that’s the world that I want to live in.”

Following the interview with Local 4, Flock Safety announced major system and policy changes to its network following reports of police misuse.

Key changes include:

• Shorter data retention: Flock reduced its recommended default storage period for captured vehicle data from 30 days to seven days. An “Evidence Mode” allows detectives to move specific data into long-term storage for active investigations.
• Mandatory monitoring: The company said its artificial intelligence-powered monitoring tool will be required for all law enforcement clients by the end of the year. The tool flags abnormal search patterns.
• Automatic lockouts: Users flagged for suspicious or abnormal activity will be locked out in real time while an administrator reviews the activity.
• Required case information: Law enforcement searches must include a specific criminal case number or offense type, limiting speculative or unauthorized searches.
• More sharing controls: Communities and local agencies can filter and restrict the types of offenses outside agencies are allowed to search using their cameras.

Full video:

The Motown Sole Foundation, led by Executive Director Dr. Wendy Ringo, is partnering with Local 4 and Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries for the August Go 4 It event, “Hygiene Basics.”

The drive will collect personal care items for individuals and families in need.

Ringo, who also owns the Sugah Please Breakfast Brunch Bar in downtown Detroit, said the foundation has donated nearly 10,000 pairs of socks each year for the past six years.

“Socks are the number one requested item within shelter environments,” Ringo said. “You’d be amazed how a fresh pair of socks makes someone feel.”

The foundation donated 16 boxes containing about 250 pairs of socks each.

The donations will help Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries assemble hygiene kits for people seeking shelter across its facilities, including its men’s shelter in Midtown.

Dr. Barbara Willis of Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries said the organization relies on community support to provide basic necessities.

“Basic things like a toothbrush, washcloths, towels, sheets, pillows, pillowcases — all the kinds of things that they need just to be here overnight with us,” Willis said.

Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries is partnering with WDIV-TV, Local 4, for the August Go 4 It event. The groups will hold a live community Hygiene Basics Drive from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026, at 150 Stimson Street in Detroit.

Requested items include:

• Soap and body wash
• Deodorant
• Toothbrushes and toothpaste
• Combs and hairbrushes
• Feminine hygiene products, including pads
• Wet wipes
• New socks and underwear for men, women, and children
• Blankets
• Twin XL sheets

Donors can bring individual items or preassembled kits to 150 Stimson Street on Aug. 19.

Items can also be purchased online and shipped directly through the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries donation page and registry.

“You don’t have to have a lot to make a great impact,” Ringo said.

The backlash to the massive server warehouses is enveloping races for governor in some of the nation's biggest states and presidential battlegrounds.

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said his administration would no longer put data center projects at the head of the line when it comes to issuing construction permits or granting developers a lucrative tax exemption if they don't meet certain standards.

Those include plans to pay the full cost of their electricity and show how they will use advanced technology to limit water use. They also must first win local approval before they can seek state approval. They are, he said, the “strictest guardrails in the nation,” although he stopped short of imposing a moratorium on issuing permits.

Shapiro, considered a potential contender for the White House in 2028, is facing increasing pressure from his GOP opponent, Stacy Garrity, as communities across the state revolt against proposed data centers.

At a news conference, Shapiro slammed what he called “predatory developers” trying to bully local officials and ram through dozens of projects in Pennsylvania — his administration said it counted reports of more than 100 — that likely will never be built because they don't have the financing, power supply or tech-sector clients to use the space.

“These speculators are nevertheless scaring our communities, being aggressive with township officials, bullying our neighbors, our fellow Pennsylvanians, and refusing to listen to the people,” Shapiro said. “And they are threatening to fundamentally change the character of our communities.”

In particular, he singled out developers aiming to build six campuses of about 50 server warehouses in tiny Archbald Borough that has spawned a community uprising, a lawsuit by one developer and motions by another to force the recusal of six of the town's seven council members.

In a statement, Garrity said Shapiro “lit the fuse on the chaos we are seeing in community after community.”

Meanwhile, in Texas, Democratic challenger Gina Hinojosa released a TV ad in rural markets Tuesday accusing Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of “selling you out” to data center executives and companies.

The ad airs as Hinojosa, a state lawmaker, has aggressively looked to exploit an undercurrent of discontent in rural, Republican strongholds over data centers' perceived threat to rural life, ranchland and dwindling water supplies.

Challengers are capitalizing on growing discontent

At one time, both Shapiro and Abbott had been cheerleaders for data centers and actively sought to recruit them, with Shapiro appearing with Amazon officials to announce a $20 billion investment in Pennsylvania, and Abbott, likewise, appearing with Google execs to announce its $40 billion investment in Texas.

But in recent weeks, Abbott ordered regulators to take steps to ensure Texans were not paying higher electricity bills because of data centers, even telling them to hold up data center projects until they complete their work.

He also promised to push a legislative agenda next year to impose regulations on data centers, including taking away the state’s billion-dollar-plus-per-year tax break.

For much of the past year, a growing number of data center projects have met rejection in local zoning or permitting board votes across the U.S., as angry residents pack once-sleepy municipal meetings.

Losing open space, farmland, forest or rural character is a big concern. So is the damage to quality of life, property values or health by on-site diesel generators kicking on or the constant hum of servers. Others worry that wells and aquifers could run dry or electricity bills will skyrocket.

Small, under-the-radar data centers have been around for decades. But the explosion of artificial intelligence chatbots has given rise to data centers that are larger than anything just about any town has ever seen. Some of them dwarf football stadiums and factories and use more energy than small cities.

States trying to tighten the screws on data centers

In some states, governors and lawmakers are trying to force data centers to pay for their own electricity supply, limit their water use, disclose more about their operations and do more to win community support. They are also chafing at the rising tab for the sales tax exemption most states offer data centers.

In Arizona, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who is seeking reelection, got lawmakers to agree to slap a three-year moratorium on the state's sales tax exemption for data centers. Hobbs, who had voted to create the tax credits when she was a legislator, called it a “corporate handout.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat seeking reelection, ordered a one-year ban on large data centers to give the state time to impose protections for the environment and its energy grid.

Shapiro isn't the only potential 2028 White House hopeful to step up his criticism of data centers. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat running for a third term, halted new sales tax exemptions for data centers there until lawmakers impose tougher standards on their operations.

In Ohio, the Democratic and Republican nominees for governor — Dr. Amy Acton and Vivek Ramaswamy — in recent days each unveiled dueling data center policies that called for developers to meet tougher standards before being built.

Data center opposition isn't necessarily a golden ticket

In Wisconsin, the Democratic nominee for governor, David Crowley, narrowly defeated a challenger who made her call for a one-year moratorium on data center construction a centerpiece of her campaign.

Crowley has taken a more nuanced approach, saying local communities must have veto authority, while also saying data centers are a part of the modern economy and could bring significant economic benefits to the state.

His Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, has attacked Crowley on the issue, including a TV ad released this week where he calls him “Data Center David Crowley.”

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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and J.J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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

Attorneys general from California, New Jersey, Kentucky and Colorado are leading the multi-state coalition against the trillion-dollar company. States claim Meta’s products fueled anxiety, depression and, in some cases, suicide among young users.

Michigan steps back, but stays invested

Michigan withdrew from the lawsuit after early court orders created what the state described as an undue financial burden.

“Our office withdrew from the multistate Meta litigation following early, adverse orders from the Court that we believed imposed overly burdensome litigation costs on the State consistent with Meta’s efforts to weaponize discovery against plaintiffs,” a spokesperson for Nessel’s office said. “At the time we withdrew, we did so knowing other state plaintiffs would continue to litigate the claims against Meta, and that any successful outcome in this case will have a positive impact affecting nationwide changes to Meta’s business model that will benefit Michigan youth.”

The spokesperson added that Nessel has long held grave concerns over the ways social media conglomerates target children and the negative impacts their use has on children.

Nessel has been a vocal supporter of the Michigan Senate’s Kids Over Clicks bill package and is optimistic the case will bring forward many of the reforms already proposed to protect Michigan youth.

What’s at stake

The trial is expected to last six weeks. If the states prevail, Meta could be forced to pay damages. Meta has denied the allegations against it.

Jennifer Tuskal, co-founder of the Michigan Parent Alliance for Safe Schools, said she is watching the case closely while simultaneously working to drive change in Michigan — regardless of how the trial ends.

“This really comes down to responsibility,” Tuskal said. “While parents have a responsibility to guide our kids and set boundaries around technologies, we shouldn’t have to out-engineer some of the most powerful companies in the world just to keep them safe. When they deliberately design products to maximize engagement...”

Tuskal said the trial raises a broader question about corporate accountability.

“Big Tech has operated almost as if they’re untouchable,” she said. “So this trial is asking whether companies should be held accountable when knowingly designing addictive products targeting kids.”

Push for reform in Michigan

Tuskal’s organization has thrown its support behind the Kids Over Clicks package of bills, which has already passed the Michigan Senate.

The legislation would ban tech companies from using minors’ personal data to curate their feeds, make AI chatbots inaccessible to children and force big tech companies to be more accountable.

Tuskal said the approach centers on building protection into the product itself, rather than placing the burden entirely on families.

“It’s all about safety by design,” she said. “So requiring tech companies to build stronger protections for kids into their products from the start instead of putting that entire burden on parents.”

She said the urgency is real and the stakes could not be higher.

“Current and future generations of our children is at stake here,” Tuskal said. “They’ve gotten away with having no accountability for far too long. They need to start having that accountability so that future generations of kids don’t have to grow up in the same environment as the current generations of kids have grown up into.”

One of his formative memories was seeing his father celebrating the Cowboys' success watching a game on TV. His mother, however, is not a fan.

"This should be the first year where everybody’s unified on one team, so it’s pretty cool to have everybody in blue,” Miller said at an introductory news conference after signing a one-year contract that could be worth up to $7.5 million with his hometown team on Tuesday, with the 37-year-old standout pass rusher hoping to return them to their Super Bowl-winning heights of his childhood.

Miller had previous conversations about joining the Cowboys, including after claiming his second Lombardi Trophy with the Los Angeles Rams following the 2021 season. He ended up signing with the Buffalo Bills, where he spent three years, before joining the Washington Commanders last season. This time around, everything lined up.

"It's like that movie, 'Inception,' like a dream within a dream. I always wanted to play in the National Football League, and then to play for the Dallas Cowboys. We're going deep with it, year 16,” Miller said.

It helped that Miller has ties to the Cowboys' new defensive coaching staff. Pass rush consultant B.T. Jordan is his longtime trainer. Miller also worked alongside coordinator Christian Parker in Denver and line coach Marcus Dixon in Los Angeles.

Add in his relationships with several Cowboys players, including outside linebackers Rashan Gary and Donovan Ezeiruaku, and even crossing paths with star quarterback Dak Prescott in Las Vegas last month, Miller felt everything was coming together to finally fulfill his aspirations of wearing the famous “star” helmet.

“For it to happen, it just shows you that you can really manifest everything. And to be here with the Dallas Cowboys back in my hometown, it's really cool,” he said.

Miller, the NFL's active sack leader, is coming off one of his better seasons in recent memory. He had nine sacks last season with a carefully managed workload for the Commanders, and Miller is confident he can “walk into eight of those” playing a similar number of snaps for the Cowboys.

“Like, am I gonna go out here and just beat somebody to death for 60 plays a game? Probably not, but it's still in there. And I can still win a lot of these reps, especially when it's crunch time," he said.

Not everything is finalized for Miller. He is still trying to figure out what number he will wear for the Cowboys. Miller and fullback Hunter Luepke both had No. 40 on during a joint practice with the New Orleans Saints on Tuesday.

“I'm not gonna get caught up in the number, but I did make some offers to him already that I feel like he can't really come off of those. I think a lifetime supply of chicken will do it," said Miller, who owns and operates a poultry ranch. “A number would be fine, but I think the most important thing is to win a lot of these games, play in big games, and the number would just be an afterthought.”

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

The deportees will be received within a year, with the first batch of 20 expected on Thursday, Liberia’s Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah told reporters. The 1,200 deportees will include Africans as well as nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean, Piah said.

Under a series of often-secret agreements, the Trump administration has deported thousands of people to nearly two dozen countries that are not their own, advocates say, with about 10 of them in Africa.

A key issue in the agreements is that they can involve migrants with protection orders from a U.S. immigration judge not to be returned to their home countries because of concerns for their safety. The Liberian minister did not say if the deportees expected in Liberia had such protection orders.

Liberia’s Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh said at Tuesday’s briefing that the country has screened the list of migrants ahead of their arrival.

“Most of them are people who had immigration violations and offenses,” he said.

They “may wish to seek asylum” in Liberia after their arrival or “can leave the country whenever they desire,” Piah said.

Piah added that Liberia will receive support from the U.S. to manage the program and strengthen its migration system.

“Liberia’s gesture is entirely humanitarian and in keeping with the country’s longstanding traditions,” he said.

“The government of Liberia intends to provide the transferred persons with the necessary support to seek protection in Liberia and to be safe during their stay here."

Immigration lawyers have said the Trump administration uses deportations to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers back to their home countries.

In many cases, migrants are deported to countries they've never been to or where they face safety risks and are left with little choice other than to return to the home countries they were fleeing from.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

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“Lindsay was struggling — we were all concerned,” said Susan Clancy. Her son, Patrick Clancy, found the Massachusetts couple's children after they had been strangled in the family basement in January 2023. Lindsay Clancy also attempted to take her own life that night and was left paralyzed. Lindsay and Patrick Clancy are now divorced.

The trial centers not on whether Lindsay Clancy killed her children on Jan. 24, 2023, which her lawyers do not dispute, but on her state of mind at the time. Her attorney argues she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.

Former mother-in-law says Lindsay was open about her struggles

Susan Clancy’s testimony echoed emotional accounts the day before from Lindsay Clancy’s mother and sister, who recounted for jurors how they saw her become increasingly anxious, paranoid and suicidal starting in the fall of 2022.

Susan Clancy, who, like Lindsay, worked as a labor and delivery nurse, said in Plymouth Superior Court that she and her former daughter-in-law were close and described Lindsay as a “wonderful mother” who was “very nurturing, very loving.”

Susan Clancy said that Lindsay was open with her about struggling and asked for her mother-in-law's support. The jury was shown texts between Lindsay and Susan Clancy in which Lindsay spoke about fears that she had developed a dependence on benzodiazepines, but couldn't sleep without taking them.

“I'm not okay and I'm terrified of taking meds tonight,” Lindsay texted her mother-in-law on Nov. 30, 2022, two months before the killings.

On Monday, Lindsay Clancy’s mother, Paula Musgrove, said her daughter was scared of sleeping alone, became increasingly paranoid and believed the medications she was taking “were destroying her mind.”

That December, Lindsay Clancy told her mother and her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, that "she had thoughts of harming the children,” Musgrove said. Lindsay Clancy’s sister Allison Ozga testified that at the end of December, Lindsay told her she had experienced suicidal thoughts every day for a month.

Psychologist who visited Lindsay in the hospital said there's no evidence she's lying

Prosecutors argue that Lindsay Clancy planned the killings and contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him out on errands. They have pointed to normal activities she performed that day, including taking her children to the doctor and playing with them in the snow.

Lindsay Clancy’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, has argued that in addition to suffering from postpartum psychosis, she had bipolar disorder and that antidepressants prescribed after the birth of her third child worsened her condition.

Dr. Paul Zeisel, a clinical and forensic psychologist who visited Lindsay Clancy in the hospital in early February 2023, described seeing her handcuffed to a hospital bed and unable to move below her sternum. Her memory of what had happened was “fuzzy and foggy,” he said, and she was taking medication for significant pain following surgery.

Zeisel said Clancy knew who she was but didn’t know where she was and wasn’t sure of the time. She asked about Patrick, how he was doing and whether she could speak to him. Two days later, she spoke to Patrick using Zeisel’s cellphone.

“She told Patrick that she loved him very much,” Zeisel testified. He said Lindsay Clancy then told Patrick “that she heard a male voice ordering her,” telling her she had no choice but to kill her children and then herself.

Zeisel has met with Lindsay Clancy dozens of times since then. He testified that psychological testing administered by a government doctor found no evidence she was faking or exaggerating psychiatric symptoms.

Zeisel also testified that before the killings, Lindsay Clancy described having “horrible thoughts” and believing her thoughts were so loud other people could hear them.

He testified that psychotic symptoms can come and go, and that a person experiencing psychosis can still perform ordinary activities such as making a phone call or driving a car.

If convicted of murder, Lindsay faces life without parole

Clancy’s livestreamed trial has generated intense public interest. Over the prior weeks, jurors visited the home where she killed her children, and heard emotional testimony from Patrick Clancy.

At the start of the trial, Patrick Clancy described the horror of returning home to find his dead children. Prosecutors played a seven-minute 911 call in which he can be heard finding the bodies and telling a dispatcher, “She killed the kids!”

If convicted of murder, Lindsay Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty because of a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.

The board announced the decision Aug. 18. Regents are expected to formally vote on Raver’s appointment during a special meeting Sept. 1. If approved, she will take over Dec. 1.

Raver would succeed President Domenico Grasso, who plans to remain in the role through Nov. 30 and help with the transition.

Raver has been Vanderbilt’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs since 2021. She previously served as deputy provost at New York University and held faculty positions at the University of Chicago and Cornell University.

She holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Yale University. Her research has focused on child development, education policy and poverty.

In a statement, Raver said she is honored to be considered for the position and called the University of Michigan’s impact in research, education, economic growth and public service “unmatched.”

“I look forward to working alongside faculty, staff, students and alumni to lead Michigan forward with clarity and confidence,” Raver said.

Her selection comes as U-M prepares to welcome new and returning students for the fall semester.

“I’m excited to move into my fall dorm. I’m also excited to start my classes,” student Kendall Hall said.

“It’s like a bittersweet emotion. You’re ready to get going, but then your family’s back home. But once you get into the swing of things, it really takes off,” student Liam Cohrs said.

Elaine Maimon, the former president of Grand Valley State University, said university leaders are facing increasing political pressure.

“I don’t see people really defending the status quo because there is room for improvement. I think the problem here is that those improvements shouldn’t be mandated in a partisan way by the federal government or state governments,” she said.

The State Department said Tuesday it had hit ICC president Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in U.S. jurisdictions or come into contact with the U.S. financial system.

“The Trump Administration has been clear: the International Criminal Court is a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “We will not tolerate its assault on state sovereignty.”

The move is the latest by the Trump administration against the ICC, which it says has exceeded its mandate by investigating or trying soldiers, commanders and political officials from countries, such as Israel and the United States, that are not members of the court.

The ICC was quick to respond, as it has done when faced with previous Trump administration actions, saying that the sanctions “undermine the rule of law.”

“When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk,” it said.

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Associated Press writer Mike Corder in The Hague contributed.

Now that he has joined the New York Giants, the veteran running back does not anticipate making them wait for him to contribute. Fresh off signing with them following a workout Monday, Harris has his confidence back and is eager to play sooner than later.

“How long’s it going to take? I don’t know, but I’m going to be good,” Harris said Tuesday after doing limited individual work in practice. “It’s not going to take a long time. It doesn’t take a long time for me to get in shape. I take that seriously. I’m committed to that, so I’m not really too worried about that at all.”

Coach John Harbaugh estimated it would take 2-3 weeks for Harris to be game ready. New York's season opener against Dallas on Sept. 13 is 3 1/2 weeks away.

"Just in time, probably," Harbaugh said. “He’s an experienced back. Anybody that’s watched him play knows what type of a back he is. He’s a downhill runner, a physical runner."

How substantial Harris' role might be is anyone's guess as the 28-year-old joins a backfield that includes prospective starters Cam Skattebo and Tyrone Tracy and another runner with more than 100 games of experience in the league, Devin Singletary. Skattebo only recently became fully healthy again after breaking his right fibula and dislocating his right ankle in October.

Harris also went through a long rehabilitation process after tearing his left Achilles tendon on a noncontact play with the Los Angeles Chargers against Denver on Sept. 21.

"I’m proud of the work that I did," Harris said. "It’s been a process, but I learned a lot about myself: Just trying to get back, get the strength back and push off of it. It went really well."

Before the injury cut his season short at three games, Harris was a full-time feature back with the Pittsburgh Steelers and eclipsed 1,000 yards rushing four years in a row from 2021-24. Even with that resume, he feels he has a lot to prove.

“Everything that I did in the past is in the past, and really everything I do now is really what matters,” Harris said. "I know there’s going to be a lot of questions of how I’ll come back looking, and I’m ready to answer all those.”

The Giants with Harbaugh in charge are expected to rely heavily on the running game. Harris at 6-foot-1 and over 240 pounds gives them another battering ram, and he said he likes the opportunity in front of him, even at a crowded position.

“The style of play that they’re heading towards is the style of play that aligns with me,” Harris said. "I’m willing to just put my foot in there and help out any way I can.”

Forcing his way into carries means there may be fewer for Skattebo and Tracy. Harbaugh said he's excited for the possibilities with Harris but hasn't addressed the situation with the other backs.

“Everybody understands,” Harbaugh said. "Football’s competitive, the NFL’s competitive and we’re building the strongest team we can and he’s a really good football player.”

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

The remains are believed to be those of a man who may have been sacrificed during a ritual in which a canal linked to a ceremonial pool was closed.

Gladys Paz, the archaeologist who led the excavation, said the bones will help researchers better understand "the rituals of the Lima culture” and reconstruct ceremonies performed hundreds of years ago.

Paz said that the body was buried inside a canal, resting on its left flank, with the skull facing the pyramid and the Pacific Ocean.

The Lima culture flourished between the 1st and 7th centuries along Peru’s arid central coast, about 700 years before the rise of the Inca Empire.

Huaca Pucllana was one of the most important ceremonial and administrative centers of the Lima culture, which disappeared centuries before a group of Spanish conquistadors founded Lima in 1535.

Today, the pyramid is surrounded by parks, leafy streets and upscale apartment buildings in the districts of Miraflores and San Isidro.

Huaca Pucllana is open to tourists, with a restaurant serving Peruvian specialties like ceviche, stir-fried beef and roasted alpaca meat.

According to Peru’s government, there are more than 400 archaeological sites across metropolitan Lima. Pieter Van Dalen, an archaeology professor at the National University of San Marcos who was not involved in the excavation, said that it's common to find tombs, mummified remains and other burial-related items along Peru’s coast. Such discoveries have also been made while construction workers dig canals to install gas pipes.

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

The S&P 500 fell 0.7% for a third straight modest loss since setting its all-time high on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 116 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.3%.

Leading the way lower were stocks that have been big winners in the boom around artificial-intelligence technology. They’ve been veering up and down this summer on worries that their prices shot too high in the AI frenzy and that the strong demand for memory, processors and other building blocks of data centers may fizzle out if AI proves less profitable than promised.

Micron Technology dropped 7%, and the seller of computer memory was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500. So were chip companies Nvidia, which fell 2.3%, and Broadcom, which sank 3.2%.

Even with their recent swings, such stocks remain big winners, and Micron has more than tripled this year.

But stocks that critics call too expensive get more scrutiny when interest rates are high, and yields remained that way in bond markets worldwide Tuesday.

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury edged down to 4.70% from 4.72% late Monday but remains well above its 3.97% level from just before the war with Iran began. The 30-year Treasury yield also ticked lower but is still near its highest level since 2007.

Yields have jumped since the war began because high oil prices are pushing upward on inflation. All the while, continuing worries about huge debt loads for governments and their increases in borrowing keep yields high.

When yields are high, investors are less willing to pay high prices for stocks and other kinds of investments, particularly those seen as the most expensive.

Much of the pressure on yields has come from oil prices, and Brent crude added 0.2% to $91.02 per barrel. It’s been swinging sharply on uncertainty about when and whether the United States and Iran can reach a deal to allow oil tankers to exit the Persian Gulf freely again. Brent was going for $72.87 per barrel just before the start of the war.

High yields have already sent the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate near its highest level in a year, which has hurt the housing industry. A report on Tuesday said homebuilders broke ground on fewer new houses last month than economists expected.

Such data helped to restrain Home Depot’s stock, which slipped 0.1% even though the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said Home Depot saw its customers continue to pursue smaller projects.

High yields could also slow the borrowing Big Tech companies are doing to pay for data centers, putting at risk one of the big sources of growth for the U.S. economy.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Klarna fell 22.8% even though the payments company reported stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The buy-now, pay-later company cut some of its financial forecasts for 2026, largely because of expectations for Germany, its largest market by volume.

Meta Platforms fell 4.4% as opening statements began in a pivotal trial in a California federal court, where states are seeking billions of dollars in damages for social media harms to children.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 53.30 points to 7,691.76. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 116.38 to 53,343.40, and the Nasdaq composite sank 355.20 to 26,289.71.

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

South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.5%, which counts as relatively modest move for it. It had swung by at least 2.4% in each of its three prior days. Seoul’s market has been home to some of the world’s sharpest AI-induced swings because it’s dominated by two tech giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

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AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.

Oswaldo Pirela, a catching coach in the Padres' minor league system, was being held in a detention center in El Paso, federal records show. The Padres said in a statement that the team was aware of Pirela's arrest and was trying to gather more details.

Pirela was on a work trip when he was arrested Sunday around 5 a.m. at an airport in El Paso, according to Daniela Pirela, his sister. The Padres have a minor league affiliate team in the city, the El Paso Chihuahuas.

Daniela Pirela said her 34-year-old brother has lived in the U.S. for 12 years and has followed the law. She said he applied for asylum in 2015 and lives in Peoria, Arizona, with his wife and two children, ages 9 and 4, who are both U.S. citizens.

“Since he arrived in this country, the only thing he’s done is follow the rules of this country and do things properly,” Daniela Pirela told The Associated Press.

The Department of Homeland Security said Oswaldo Pirela entered the country legally in 2014 and was granted permission to stay until 2018. He then “overstayed his welcome,” DHS said in a statement, adding that work authorization or pending applications “do not confer” U.S. legal status.

Pirela is in ICE custody pending removal, DHS said.

Oswaldo Pirela had a brief minor-league playing career as a catcher in the Texas Rangers organization.

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Turbay is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Terrell Williams, 44, has been charged with second-degree burglary, safe cracking, money laundering and other felonies, Iredell County Sheriff Darren Campbell announced at a news conference. Williams was being held without bond in Cobb County, Georgia, on suspicion of another home burglary. Jail records did not list an attorney.

Campbell said investigators were led to Williams in July, when Cobb County police arrested him and found items taken from Biffle's home.

Biffle, his wife and his two children, along with three others, died in the Dec. 18 crash, which remains under investigation by the NTSB.

Authorities reported a break-in at the home on Jan. 8 and have said $30,000 in cash, two Glock handguns, NASCAR memorabilia and gold and silver coins were stolen.

Investigators have recovered some of the stolen items, including NASCAR memorabilia, Campbell said. They also found a radio-frequency detector they believe Williams used during the burglary to locate security cameras.

He said Williams is also suspected in another North Carolina burglary that occurred when a law enforcement officer was in the hospital.

“He used headlines, social media posts, different things to find out when people were and were not home, and he executed his plan in that capacity,” Campbell said.

Campbell said investigators have also identified a person of interest in a separate fraud case following the Biffle family's death.

Investigators have said bank, Venmo and PayPal accounts tied to the Biffles were accessed online using personal information, with phone numbers and email addresses changed to gain control of funds. Money was then allegedly transferred to accounts not belonging to the family and used for purchases, according to a search warrant affidavit.

At least one fraudulent check tied to Biffle’s business interests was cashed, and other attempts were made to access accounts. The activity occurred across multiple states.

The crash happened at around 9:30 a.m. in the area of Telegraph and Sibley roads on Aug. 18.

According to police, a large truck had stopped to make a left turn when a minivan struck it from behind.

The driver of the van -- identified as a 53-year-old man from Newport, Michigan -- was seriously injured and died at the scene.

The investigation is ongoing.

Riley English, a 26-year-old transgender woman, said she was in the grips of a mental health crisis and abusing drugs when she drove to Washington in January 2025 and told Capitol police that she was there to kill Bessent on the day of his Senate confirmation.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” she told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras. “I'm not a political person. I'm not a violent person.”

Contreras, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, sentenced English to six years and one month of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. English has remained jailed since her arrest and will get credit for the nearly 20 months that she already has spent in custody. She pleaded guilty in March to two weapons charges.

“You’ve had a very difficult life,” Contreras told English. “Hopefully, the progress you’ve made in jail to this date has set you on the right path.”

Nobody was injured, and Contreras said her plan to harm Bessent had an “exceedingly low or non-existent” chance of success. Bessent wasn't at the Capitol when English arrived on Jan. 27, 2025. The Molotov cocktails that English brought to the Capitol appeared to be incapable of igniting, the judge noted.

Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 10 years and one month for English. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Horan said English had been planning the “attempted political assassination” for at least a month at a time when the threat of politically motivated violence has been mounting in the U.S.

“This was not a chance encounter or an impulsive act,” Horan said.

The case against English fits a pattern of politically motivated violence that has plagued the U.S. over the past decade. In a letter addressed to the judge, Bessent said he worries the country “cannot survive this assault.”

“Political violence is an attack on the rule of law and on representative government itself,” Bessent wrote. “It also deprives our country of service by talented men and women with ability and integrity who may reasonably decide that no job is worth threats to themselves and their families.”

English's prosecution drew comparisons to the case against California resident Sophie Roske, who was sentenced last October to over eight years in prison for attempting to assassinate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his Maryland home. Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of no less than 30 years for Roske, a transgender woman. They appealed Roske's sentence by U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, calling it unreasonably lenient.

Defense attorney Maria Jacob said English was “terrified and traumatized” by fears of what would happen to transgender people under the second Trump administration.

“Our argument is that she was in a diminished mental state,” Jacob said.

Investigators said they found a folding knife, two homemade firebombs and a lighter in English’s possession at the Capitol.

English, of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, told police that she was influenced by Luigi Mangione, the man who was charged with fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. She said she was “on a mission” and “had been thinking about this for a while because of Luigi Mangione,” prosecutors said. English told officers that she was terminally ill and “wanted to do something before I go,” according to prosecutors.

English also said she traveled from Massachusetts to Washington intending to kill other Republican political figures — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson — and to burn down the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, according to police. English changed her target to Bessent after reading an internet post about his confirmation hearing, police said.

Jacob said English's actions last year were “a cry for help.”

“There was no indication that she was acting rationally that day,” the judge said.

The lawsuit, originally filed in October 2022, alleged that the two men were racially profiled and illegally stopped by Clayton County police at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The settlement agreement, announced Tuesday by the pair's lawyers, does not include an admission of fault or liability but says the county has ended the program at issue and has no intention of reactivating it.

Both men said officers at the airport singled them out because they were Black and grilled them about drugs while other passengers watched during separate stops about six months apart. In an interview when the lawsuit was filed, André called the experience “dehumanizing and demoralizing.”

The stated purpose of the program was to fight drug trafficking, but the lawsuit said drugs are rarely found, criminal charges seldom result, and seized cash provides a financial windfall for the police department.

“It’s a major victory that Clayton County has confirmed that it has ended this program and is now taking steps to prevent this type of abuse from happening in the future,” André said in a press release.

“What happened to me was wrong, and I wasn’t willing to let it happen to other people,” English said in the release.

“As reflected in the settlement agreement between the parties, there has been no admission of any fact or liability whatsoever relating to the incident involving the plaintiffs,” county spokesperson Valerie Fuller said in an email. “However, all have agreed that it is in everyone’s interests to resolve this matter to end litigation and move forward.”

The county Board of Commissioners authorized a payment of $30,000, with half going to each comedian, as part of the settlement, according to minutes from the board's Aug. 4 meeting.

The county also agreed to require police officers assigned to the airport to use body-worn cameras and to undergo training on constitutional limits regarding police encounters at airports, the settlement says.

Police records cited in the lawsuit showed that from Aug. 30, 2020, to April 30, 2021, there were 402 jet bridge stops, and the passenger’s race was listed for 378 of those stops. Of those 378 passengers, 211, or 56%, were Black, and people of color accounted for 258 total stops, or 68%, the lawsuit said.

Those 402 stops resulted in three reported drug seizures: about 10 grams of drugs from one passenger, 26 grams of “suspected THC gummies” from another, and six prescription pills without a prescription from a third, the lawsuit said. Only the first and third person were charged.

Those 402 stops also yielded more than $1 million in cash and money orders from a total of 25 passengers. All but one were allowed to continue their travels, and only two — the ones who also had drugs — were charged, the lawsuit said. Eight of the 25 challenged the seizures, and Clayton County police settled each case, returning much of the seized money, the lawsuit said.

The Belle Isle Aquarium turned 122 on Tuesday, Aug. 18.

Designed by renowned architect Albert Kahn, the aquarium opened Aug. 18, 1904, and was considered one of the largest and most advanced aquariums in the world at the time.

According to Historic Detroit, more than 5,000 people visited on opening day, and nearly half a million people came through its doors during its first year -- a small fraction of Michigan’s total population at the time.

The aquarium has weathered more than a century of challenges. During the Great Depression, the city could no longer afford to maintain the saltwater exhibits, and they were shut down. Big Pete, a beloved sea turtle, was reportedly sold to a meat market and turned into soup.

In 1954, an 8,531-gallon tank was added to the center of the building. Originally, the tanks were made of wood and glue, and after the renovation, they were made of concrete.

Budget constraints forced the city to close the aquarium in 2005. However, volunteers with the Friends of Belle Isle Aquarium maintained the building during the closure, and the aquarium reopened in 2012 -- drawing thousands of people once again.

Since then, fundraising by the Belle Isle Conservancy has helped improve and restock exhibits, make repairs, expand hours and keep the aquarium’s doors open.

Even the COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique challenge. When visitors were kept away, aquarium staff brought in an animal behaviorist to keep the fish engaged through enrichment activities and help prevent stress, boredom and depression.

Today, the aquarium is open Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free, though a $5 donation is encouraged.

More information on the Belle Isle Aquarium can be found on its official website here.

Norman's comments came in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press ahead of the Aug. 25 GOP runoff to pick a replacement for the senator, who died unexpectedly last month. In a state that routinely elects only Republicans for statewide office, GOP primaries are often the most contentious competitions. Tuesday's winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews in November.

Norman finished second to Graham in a 10-candidate special primary on Aug. 11, though neither won the majority needed to win outright. AP's request for a similar interview with Graham has not been granted.

Darline Graham was appointed as interim senator after her brother's death. She opted to run in the special primary for a full term, something she said Trump — long an ally of her brother — urged her to do. Darline Graham says she's accomplished much during her time as interim, has years of experience running a state agency in South Carolina and will continue to advocate for Trump's goals in the Senate.

Norman said he’s skeptical that South Carolina voters have had enough time to vet the political newcomer for a six-year term, while he’s already been through a statewide campaign this cycle, coming up short in the June gubernatorial primary. He also eschewed the millions being spent on ads against him, much of it from a super PAC that had been aligned with Lindsey Graham and now supports Darline Graham.

Norman backed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley over Trump in the 2024 presidential primary, but has since been a Trump supporter.

Here are excerpts from the AP's conversation with Norman about the race. This transcript has been edited for space and clarity:

You oppose ‘endless wars’ and support Trump. What should the U.S. do next on Iran?

A: If you read the mood of the public across the country, it's, “we want gas prices down.” They don’t understand what’s left.

(Trump) did a great job of taking out the nuclear threat that we had for 40 years. … but there’s still a lot of work to be done. The American people do not understand the Strait of Hormuz not being completely controlled by America. That’s what I hear. And gas prices, as a result, are staying high. And I think one of the worst things the president wants is the public to turn on him because he’s not ending it.

Now, what does ending it mean? Well, no one really knows. I mean, does it mean, just a remnant of leaders that are opposed to him? Does it mean bombing? He mentioned that he was going to take out the electrical supplies. He was going to decimate the country. Well, that hasn’t happened. So, I think it’s a communication issue that he needs to get involved with.

So I think he’d be doing himself a big favor to explain more now. He says it’s under no timeline. Well, when the public turns on you, they turn on you.

How does Trump's support for Graham complicate your campaign?

A: Imagine if I went to (head football coach) Dabo Swinney at Clemson and any of the coaches and said: “Look, I got a prospect I want you to look at, and I want them to. They can start. I want you to sign them up. They can start for the next six years.” “What’s the qualifications?” “They’re kin to Tom Brady.” Tell me how that analogy doesn’t work here.

It’s politics. It’s votes, and I’ve stuck with it, and I will continue to.

Has Darline Graham done enough to let voters get to know her?

A: It’s not the fact that she hasn’t been in politics. Now, she’s worked at a governmental agency. I’ve run a business. I’ve made money and I’ve lost money, and that’s the drawback for any politician. You need to have done that. I have demonstrated that I want to get the national debt solved, which is the cancer that I see is bankrupting this country, but by dodging debates, that’s going to hurt her, and it should.

You got to get out there and answer all questions.

She can run a campaign like she wants to. What’s happened? She’s told the Washington elite they’re dictating the terms because it’s not South Carolina money. Mine is my money and South Carolina’s money, so they’re dictating the terms and giving her the political answers, like Biden: Don’t show up, be in a basement. His was because he was senile. Hers is they want her to win this election.

The powers that be do not want Ralph Norman in there, and it would be questioned, what’s the return on investment that they’re having to come after me like that? What’s the return on investment for the president? If I were your typical politician, I would say, “No, that makes me mad, I’m gonna stop him at every level.” I’m not gonna do that. I don’t play like that. It would be horrible if Kamala Harris had won this. He saved the country, and I really think that. He should go on Rushmore. He really should. What he’s done, it took guts.

But this one is a head scratcher. I’m gonna win this election. We’re gonna win this election, and unless something happens that I, you know — I can just feel it. People are with us, and I’ve got a record they can’t dispute.

Does support from Nikki Haley hurt you in a race dominated by Trump?

A: No. And I told the president it was a loyalty issue. I came in with Nikki. She’s from South Carolina, and he understands that. And again, anybody can take anything and use it to say that was a reason. Look, the minute she lost (the 2024 presidential primary against Trump), I called him, and my record since he’s been in office has been lock solid.

It’s because I believe in him. I just believe what he’s doing. Now I don’t like what he’s doing now, but he’s president. I give him all the leeway to do it if that’s what you want to do. But he’s done so many good things, right, to me.

Voters have to decide that. I mean, if they want to hold that against me, it’s out there. I’m not apologizing.

If elected, what would be your Senate priorities?

A: People bait us, “Are you gonna fire (Senate Majority Leader John) Thune?” Well, it’s deeper than that. One, I wouldn’t do it to somebody that I wouldn’t have a conversation with first. When you fire anybody, you talk with them, and you come to an agreement. You either disagree or agree. I would get with Thune, who is a nice man, from what I've been hearing, say, “How can we work on getting the SAVE Act passed? Now, if it’s still the same, “We don’t have the votes. We’re not going to try anything,” and then I’ll just say, “Well, fine, I’m going to work to replace you, and we’ll see who that is.”

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

The San Francisco-based company says ChatGPT for Teens is tailored for kids ages 13 to 17 with stronger protections including content restrictions around things like suicide, self-harm and romantic or sexual chats. It also provides homework and study support designed to help students learn rather than spit out answers and school essays.

The idea is to guide teens toward healthy AI use in an age-appropriate environment, the company said.

“We want to treat teens like teens, which means that we have to make sure that we’re showing up with the right developmental stage when we’re not either talking down to them or treating them like kids, but we’re also making sure that they’re not exposed to material that they shouldn’t be exposed to,” said Ann O'Leary, vice president of global policy at OpenAI.

The effectiveness of the safeguards remains to be seen, said Brendan Bouffard, associate general counsel for AI and privacy at children’s advocacy group Fairplay. He said it is unclear whether OpenAI’s actions are enough to address young users' compulsive use of and emotional dependence on chatbots.

“Announcements like these can be seen as a step in the right direction,” he said. “But I also would caution against parents being lured into this false sense of safety based on the announcement.”

Risks abound in widespread teen usage of AI chatbots

Parents, educators and child development experts have been sounding alarms over children's use of AI chatbots, which have been blamed for facilitating cheating on schoolwork and even suicide. While even adults can fall victim to anthropomorphizing AI and developing unhealthy relationships with it, teenagers' brains are not yet fully developed and they can be particularly vulnerable.

Last year, research from a watchdog group found that ChatGPT would tell 13-year-olds how to get drunk and high, instruct them on how to conceal eating disorders and even compose a heartbreaking suicide letter to their parents if asked. In interactions with researchers posing as vulnerable teens, ChatGPT typically warned against risky activity but went on to deliver startlingly detailed and personalized plans for drug use, calorie-restricted diets or self-injury.

In the U.S., more than 70% of teens are turning to AI chatbots for companionship and half use AI companions regularly, according to a 2025 study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using digital media sensibly.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said the company is trying to study “emotional overreliance” on the technology, describing it last year as a “really common thing” with young people.

For users of ChatGPT for Teens, the chatbot is prevented from suggesting it has personal feelings toward the user or implying that it is conscious or experiences emotions, according to OpenAI. That's in addition to blocking romantic or sexual chats.

“We went through and identified what are the hypothetical cues that a model could give that might make a teenager kind of develop a relationship to it,” said Allison Mishkin, head of child development at OpenAI.

A new version of the chatbot expands safety protections

OpenAI doesn't verify users' ages, but it already uses age assurance to estimate if someone is under 18 based on factors such as their types of queries. If someone is identified or identifies themselves as a minor, they are automatically placed into the teen version of the chatbot. This is similar to Meta's approach to teen accounts on Instagram, which have stricter content, chat and privacy restrictions than regular accounts.

To use parental controls, both the teen user and their parent or guardian have to opt in. But O'Leary said the idea with the teen chatbot is to “make sure that this is safe, even if you don’t use parental controls.” Parents with linked teen accounts can set “quiet hours” when their teen can't access ChatGPT, and receive safety notifications in limited high-risk situations, such as the possibility of a user hurting themself.

“We are adding additional notifications related to eating disorders, while limiting what is shared and focusing on moments when offline support may matter most,” OpenAI said.

Bouffard of Fairplay said some of what he would consider to be the most important safeguards, such as restricting ChatGPT's long-term memory, are not in place by default in the teen accounts and would require the intervention of parental controls. That creates “a major gap in safety” despite the default protections around content and other areas of concern, he said.

For homework help, OpenAI said the teen chatbot is designed to guide students to come up with answers on their own. The company already offers a version of ChatGPT for teachers, and tailoring a model to help kids with studying and homework could give OpenAI more ways to bring its product to schools.

“We continue to also invest in expanding interactive learning because research shows that people learn more effectively when they actively engage and struggle with concepts,” Mishkin said.

___

Huamani reported from Los Angeles.

The USS Benfold “reported an engineering casualty involving its generators, causing a loss of power” on July 24, Navy spokesman Cmdr. Matthew Comer said in the statement. The breakdown meant the crew went without drinking water, meals, functioning toilets and air conditioning for days aboard the ship, Comer said.

The incident, which only became public on Friday when it was first reported by USNI News, comes as the Pentagon grapples with serious questions about the quality of life aboard naval vessels and the military's ability to supply ships during the conflict with Iran.

Democratic lawmakers are calling for investigations into conditions aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Reports last week revealed that the ship, which has spent a record-setting 250 uninterrupted days at sea, has experienced shortages of supplies, including food and hygiene products, while crew members have suffered from stress and poor mental health.

Comer stressed that there were no injuries to the crew of the Benfold, “who demonstrated resilience, grit, professionalism, and unwavering steadiness in their response,” but that the ship needed assistance from the George Washington carrier strike group.

The cruiser USS Robert Smalls provided meals to the stricken destroyer.

Ultimately, Comer said the Benfold had to be towed to Subic Bay, in the Philippines, for repairs, arriving on July 28. The crew was then provided food and lodging off the ship. On Aug. 8, the Benfold left port “with all engineering, combat systems, and crew support systems functioning normally,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the ships from the George Washington strike group, including the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, were spotted heading toward the Middle East. The carrier was expected to replace the Lincoln, which the acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, said last week would be returning home soon.

This would leave the waters of the Pacific without a U.S. carrier presence for an unknown period of time. The Trump administration sees China, the dominant power in the region, as “a settled force” that only needs to be deterred from dominating the U.S. or its allies and not the top global adversary that it was under the Biden administration.

Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in a car near his Biddeford home on July 13. Rep. Chellie Pingree said during a hearing in Maine on Monday that ICE's intended target was Durán Guerrero's roommate, who was the owner of the car Durán Guerrero was driving.

Pingree called the discovery a “shocking revelation in clear contradiction to what ICE" and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have said about the shooting. She added that it was previously established Durán Guerrero was not the intended target and also did not have a final order of removal, but did have a pending asylum case and a valid work permit.

“Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero should be alive today,” Pingree said during the hearing. “More than a month later, there are still so many basic questions that remain unanswered by ICE and the Trump administration.”

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement late Monday that it stands by its prior assessment of the shooting. ICE was conducting “targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal,” a spokesperson for the agency said.

“We are not going to disclose law enforcement sensitive intelligence and methods. Nowhere did we state that Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero or his roommate were the target of the operation,” the spokesperson said.

The shooting of Durán Guerrero remains under investigation by the Office of the Maine Attorney General. Pingree was among several Democratic House members who spoke at a hearing in Biddeford on Monday to discuss ICE's use of deadly force in the state. The Department of Homeland Security said at the time of the shooting that Durán Guerrero attempted to flee the scene and the ICE officer discharged his weapon because he feared for public safety.

Pingree and other Democratic Congress members have also called for answers from Homeland Security about its training and vetting of agents after it was disclosed that the ICE officer involved in the shooting had a history of violent behavior and mental health issues. The shooting also appeared to lead to a policy change in which ICE would suspend most vehicle stops, but President Donald Trump swiftly expressed opposition to that change.

Police identified Richard Johnson as a suspect after Livonia Police Department field evidence technicians processed latent fingerprints collected from several vehicle break-in scenes.

Police said their investigation linked Johnson to multiple vehicle break-ins in Livonia and similar incidents in surrounding communities.

On Friday, Aug. 14, investigators located Johnson while he was allegedly attempting to break into vehicles, police said.

Johnson tried to flee the area in his vehicle, but officers stopped him using a Grappler device designed to entangle a vehicle’s rear tire and bring it to a stop.

Police took Johnson into custody without incident.

He has been charged with one count of felony larceny from a motor vehicle, one count of felony larceny, six counts of misdemeanor larceny and habitual offender status.

Johnson was arraigned Monday, Aug. 17, in the 16th District Court in Livonia before Magistrate Roger Spence.

The court set a $50,000 cash bond.

A probable cause conference is scheduled for Aug. 27 at the 16th District Court in Livonia.

Anyone who believes they were the victim of a vehicle break-in in Livonia in recent weeks and has not yet reported it is encouraged to contact the Livonia Police Department.

For more information, contact Livonia police Public Information Officer Capt. Eric Marcotte at 734-466-2306.

The U.N. political mission in Afghanistan confirmed the injuries near the education center and said the children are between 9 and 14 years old, according to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Earlier, Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said that “a number of children” had been wounded by a hand grenade on Monday, and that an investigation was underway. He did not provide further details.

The U.N. mission known as UNAMA also called for an investigation to establish the circumstances of the explosion, Dujarric said.

Richard Bennett, the U.N.'s independent investigator for Afghanistan, on Tuesday condemned the “heinous attack harming numerous children near a school."

Afghan media had said that around 50 children were hurt in the blast, which occurred in a part of Kabul populated mainly by the Hazara ethnic minority, which makes up around 9% of the Afghan population and has long suffered attacks and persecution.

Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims, and they have been targeted repeatedly in the past by Sunni Muslim radicals like the Islamic State group. They have also faced discrimination in the Sunni majority country.

In May 2021, a few months before the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in the wake of a chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led troops, three bombings at a school in Kabul killed dozens of people, all of them from the Hazara community. Most of them were young girls leaving class.

That school, like the school complex where Monday's explosion took place, was in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, the main Hazara district in the Afghan capital.

In a social media post on X, Bennett said an independent investigation to bring those responsible to justice was essential. “Once again this mainly Hazara part of Kabul has been targeted. Deplorable!” he wrote.

The U.N. humanitarian office noted that schooling in Afghanistan already faces challenges, with girls denied access to education beyond the sixth grade, Dujarric said. In addition, around two-thirds of the 900,000 children who returned to Afghanistan, mostly from neighboring Pakistan — some 600,000 youngsters — remain out of school.

The U.N. and its humanitarian partners are supporting children’s education, but Dujarric said their efforts have been limited by continued underfunding.

___

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

The U.S. and Canada are negotiating ahead of Trump’s midnight deadline to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products starting Wednesday. The fate of the Gaza ceasefire remains unclear after Jared Kushner left a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with no firm Israeli commitment to the latest U.S.-proposed plan. And Trump’s pivot away from South Korea is raising broader concerns about U.S. security interests in Asia and elsewhere.

The Latest:

Congresswoman says target of ICE operation in fatal Maine shooting wasn’t up for removal

The person an ICE agent shot and killed in Maine last month was not subject to a final removal order, a Democratic congresswoman said.

Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national, was shot and killed by an ICE agent near his Biddeford home. Rep. Chellie Pingree said during a hearing that ICE’s intended target was Durán Guerrero’s roommate, who owns the car Durán Guerrero was driving.

Pingree called the discovery a “shocking revelation in clear contradiction to what ICE” and DHS have said about the shooting.

“Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero should be alive today,” Pingree said during the hearing. “More than a month later, there are still so many basic questions that remain unanswered by ICE and the Trump administration.”

DHS said in a statement late Monday that it stands by its prior assessment of the shooting.

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Woman accused of plotting to kill Treasury Secretary is sentenced

A Massachusetts woman who told police that she brought homemade firebombs to the U.S. Capitol to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was sentenced on Tuesday to just over six years in prison.

Riley English, a 26-year-old transgender woman, said she was in the grips of a mental health crisis and abusing drugs when she drove to Washington in January 2025 and told Capitol Police that she was there to kill Bessent on the day of his Senate confirmation.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” she told U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras. “I’m not a political person. I’m not a violent person.”

Contreras, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, sentenced English to six years and one month of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. English has remained jailed since her arrest and will get credit for the nearly 20 months that she already has spent in custody.

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Trump to lead tech event

The U.S. president is hosting an event on Wednesday with various leaders in the tech industry, according to a White House official.

The event is meant to “strengthen America’s innovative and technological dominance,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting that has not been publicized.

The official offered few other details about the gathering except to say that prediction markets would not be participating in the White House event.

US hits ICC president and senior prosecutor with sanctions in another move against the court

The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on the president of the International Criminal Court and one its top prosecutors as it continues a campaign to dismantle the tribunal that it accuses of trying to unfairly prosecute U.S. and Israeli soldiers for alleged crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Gaza.

The State Department said Tuesday it had hit ICC president Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in U.S. jurisdictions or come into contact with the U.S. financial system.

The move is the latest by the Trump administration against the ICC, which it says has exceeding its mandate by investigating or trying soldiers, commanders and political officials from countries, like Israel and the United States, that are not members of the court.

Minnesota attorney general sues Texas governor to compel extradition of ICE agent for trial

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday, seeking to compel the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent to stand trial for assault and falsely reporting a crime in the wounding of a man during the agency’s crackdown in Minneapolis.

Ellison said he would request a temporary restraining order barring the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office in Texas from releasing ICE agent Christian Castro and requiring Abbott to sign the extradition warrant allowing Minnesota law enforcement agents to take custody of him.

Castro was arrested 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.

Ellison said at a news conference that Castro faces release from jail next week -- 90 days since he was detained -- under Texas law unless he’s extradited to Minnesota.

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CDC has zombie programs that are funded but don’t have staff

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has several programs that have turned into zombies: They appear to be alive, at least according to legislation and congressional appropriations. But functionally they are dead or nearly dead, because the CDC experts who did the work were laid off by President Donald Trump’s administration or remain on leave — paid but not allowed to do their jobs.

These programs include initiatives for Alzheimer’s, smoking prevention and epilepsy.

Trump’s Republican administration laid off thousands of employees as a cost-cutting move beginning in April 2025. While some cuts were reversed, many experts remain on paid leave due to ongoing legal battles.

The lone Democrat on the FCC praises the lawsuit

The sole Democrat on the commission, Anna Gomez, commended ABC and Disney for pushing back against the FCC’s actions.

“For months, the FCC has waged a campaign of censorship and control against Disney’s ABC stations,” she said in a statement, “using the threat of broadcast license revocations to punish a company for speech this administration doesn’t like.”

“I have long called on companies to push back against this kind of government intimidation, and I’m glad Disney has shown courage and stepped up,” Gomez said. “This should be a welcome sign for every broadcaster who has felt the weight of this overreaching government pressure in silence.”

ABC says FCC’s challenge of its broadcast licenses present an ‘existential threat’

The FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr cited the network’s diversity practices as a reason for a rare early review of some of its local broadcast licenses, but it took the action shortly after a joke by ABC’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel had infuriated the president.

“Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech — the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air,” the network alleges in its lawsuit filed Tuesday seeking to block the FCC action. “Those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech.”

“If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company in the country will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government. In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free,” it says.

Forced out of the Kennedy Center, National Symphony Orchestra is going on the road

Forced from its concert hall, the orchestra announced Tuesday that it’s splitting its 2026-27 season among six venues in and around Washington, D.C.

Trump loyalists took control of the center named by Congress after President John F. Kennedy and added his name to the complex before a federal judge ordered it removed. Now the board plans a two-year renovation and a new name: “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.”

“For us to perform and to be somehow disconnected with the Kennedy Center probably will convince some of the audience who stayed away from the center to come back to our concerts, and not only that, even to increase the number of the audience,” music director Gianandrea Noseda said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hormuz ship traffic is down sharply, despite Trump’s claims

While Trump insists the Strait of Hormuz remains “open and operating,” the numbers show vessel transit dropped significantly last week, with confirmed crossings falling 19.5% to 95, including just three on Sunday, according to shipping data platform Kpler.

The platform said the transited vessels used the Iranian-designated route, while no crossings were recorded through the Omani routes.

Iran refers to Trump’s ‘delusion’ about the strait

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi appeared to respond to Trump’s post on social media depicting the strait as American territory.

“Just as Trump correctly wrote the name of the eternal Persian Gulf, his delusion regarding the Strait of Hormuz will soon either be corrected, or we will correct this deluded man’s delusions for him,” Gharibabadi wrote on X.

Trump floats idea of declaring Strait of Hormuz a US territory

He posted a map on social media Tuesday depicting the strait as a U.S. territory. The president first mentioned the idea in an offhand comment last week. On Monday, he told reporters in the Oval Office, “I like the idea of declaring it a territory,” without providing details.

The White House on Tuesday referred to Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office and declined to comment further about Oman.

Tankers and cargo vessels are seen in the Gulf of Oman, along shipping routes linking the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea, Tuesday, June 16, 2026. (AP Photo)

US believes Oman has not been tough enough with Iran

The reason Trump threatened to bomb Oman is because he’s unhappy the country is close to a deal with Iran to manage ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, two regional officials said Tuesday.

The officials said the Trump administration has told Oman it is opposed to parts of the yet-to-be-announced deal, including the joint Iranian and Omani management of the exit route out of the passage that’s critical to global supplies of oil and natural gas. The officials were briefed on the U.S. position and how the administration views Oman’s position.

The U.S. believes Oman has not been tough enough in its negotiations with Iran and is unhappy with Oman’s agreement to collect voluntary fees from vessels, even if the charges are related to security and maritime environmental protection, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

Whistleblower alleges political pressure, lack of evidence in antisemitism probes

A whistleblower is alleging that a Trump administration task force created to combat antisemitism has rushed to push for settlements with Ivy League universities, despite incomplete investigations that failed to establish any violations of the law.

The complaint obtained by The Associated Press before it was made public Tuesday details allegations made by a former Justice Department attorney who was involved in the task force. It alleges that the investigations were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes.

Spokespeople for the Justice and Health and Human Services Departments did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment Tuesday.

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Trump says US has no planned talks with Iran

The president asserted that even as U.S. has no planned talks with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz remains “open and operating,” despite limited traffic and an attack Tuesday on a ship trying to exit the waterway.

Trump also wrote on social media Tuesday that a U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping remains “in full force and effect,” and asserted that all water mines have been removed.

His post comes after a 60-day negotiating period ended this week between the U.S. and Iran with no clear end to the war in sight.

Disney sues FCC, claiming broadcast licenses challenge is retaliation over ‘Jimmy Kimmel’

Disney’s suit filed Tuesday against the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission alleges a violation of its First Amendment rights.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr defended the agency’s early review of eight ABC local broadcast licenses well before they expire, saying Friday that broadcasters have a duty to “operate in the public interest” and the FCC is merely trying to restore that standard.

Carr has said the country should have a “trusted, respected news media, and we’re not there.”

ABC has accused the agency of a brazen attempt to chill its constitutionally protected free speech — and by extension, that of every media outlet in the country.

The 1930 tariff law Trump invoked against Canada made the Great Depression worse

After the Supreme Court ruled the president overstepped his authority by imposing double-digit import taxes on almost every country on earth as a national emergency, Trump last month imposed new import taxes of 10% to 12.5% on 59 countries and the European Union — which together account for 99% of U.S. imports, accusing them of allowing forced labor.

And to whack Canada, he invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose 50% tariffs, starting Wednesday.

These so-called Smoot-Hawley tariffs are notorious among economists and historians for limiting world commerce and making the Great Depression worse. Never before used, Section 338 allows for import taxes on products from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses.

Trump claimed Canada discriminates against U.S. exports of autos, alcohol and cheese.

US criticizes Israeli strikes on Syrian air base

Syrian state TV said eight Israeli airstrikes hit the runway of the Abu Duhur air base early Tuesday, causing damage without inflicting any casualties.

U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack posted on X that Washington is “deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes” constitute “an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability.”

There was no comment from the Israeli military on the attack and Turkish officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said foreign fighters used to stay at the base before they were recently asked to leave, and that Turkey, a main backer of Syria’s government, has been rehabilitating the base after the Syrian conflict left nearly half a million people dead.

Ship attacked in Hormuz strait as Iran throttles key waterway

A projectile has hit a ship sailing out of the Strait of Hormuz , according to the British military’s UK Maritime Trade Operations center, causing “a crew casualty” but no environmental damage.

Iranian threats to shipping effectively closed the strait after Israel and the U.S. started the war nearly six months ago.

An Iranian official said Tuesday that the waterway will remain closed until the U.S. meets Tehran’s conditions, which include ending a U.S. blockade on Iranian shipping, “releasing frozen assets, lifting oil sanctions (and) ending threats and military operations on all fronts.”

Turkey urges Trump to seek a diplomatic solution to the war

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Trump in a telephone call to continue to seek a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Iran.

The call came late Monday as the 60-day negotiating period to find a peace deal between the United States and Iran was expiring, with no word of an extension and both sides seemingly as far apart as they were at the start.

“President Erdogan said it is important to make maximum use of diplomacy amid tensions between Iran and the United States,” according to a statement from the Turkish presidential communications office.

The 60-day deadline for an Iran peace deal is expiring. Here’s where things stand

The deal that Trump signed at Versailles in June set an ambitious 60-day deadline for ending the war with Iran and reaching an accord on its nuclear program.

The deadline was Monday, and the two sides are further apart than they were then.

Talks, such as they are, have focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting a U.S. blockade on Iran, both of which were supposed to have happened under the interim deal. There has been no sign of any compromise on the strait, or that detailed nuclear talks have even begun.

The U.S., meanwhile, has no good options for getting out of the war it started alongside Israel.

Acceding to Iran’s latest demands would mean giving it control over a critical international waterway that carried a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas before the war — and would be tantamount to admitting defeat. Escalating the deeply unpopular war would further draw down U.S. supplies of advanced missile interceptors, jolt the world economy, and drive up gas prices ahead of U.S. congressional elections.

So both sides have dug in, hoping the other will blink first. So far, neither has.

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Trump’s slight of South Korea in favor of the North raises broader US security concerns

Trump on Sunday ordered the U.S. military to downsize the 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, which began Monday as scheduled. It wasn’t known which parts of the training were being scaled back.

His announcement baffled many in South Korea, which has been closely allied with the U.S. for decades and where national security is a top priority due to threats from nuclear-armed North Korea.

Trump explained his decision by citing South Korea’s refusal to join his war against Iran and pointing to what he said was his good relationship with North Korea’s reclusive dictator, a transactional and personal approach to foreign policy that has defined the Republican’s presidency.

“There is no American interest that I can see in this,” said Dan Fried, an assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the George W. Bush administration. “On all levels it makes no sense. It undermines the South Koreans, undermines the Japanese, frightens the Taiwanese, unnerves NATO and emboldens the Chinese, not to mention the North Koreans.”

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The money will help Haiti’s government update its voter lists and procure 350,000 blank identification cards, the OAS said in a statement.

Gang violence has displaced a record 1.5 million people across Haiti, with many leaving their IDs and other important documents behind when fleeing their homes under attack by armed men in Port-au-Prince and beyond.

The OAS said the grant also would help reduce the backlog of Haitians awaiting identification, expand services in rural communities and improve power and internet connections in decentralized offices.

Last month, Haiti’s government began voter registration in Port-au-Prince, where an estimated 70% of territory is controlled by gangs.

The first round of elections is scheduled for Dec. 13, although experts have said ongoing gang violence could push back the date once again.

Haiti hasn’t had a president since Jovenel Moïse was killed at his private residence in July 2021. Moïse became president following the November 2016 elections.

Work location: Onsite at WKMG (Orlando, FL) or WSLS (Roanoke, VA)

About the Role

The Client Strategy Lead is a client-growth and media-strategy leader who partners with Sales Leadership and Account Executives to design insight-led, cross-platform marketing solutions that drive measurable business outcomes and long-term retention. This role elevates GMG from “media vendor” to growth partner by leading with business objectives, audience intelligence, and accountable performance

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Account Executives to identify, strategize, and close new integrated revenue opportunities with both existing and prospective clients.
• Design and implement cutting-edge, multi-platform strategies leveraging GMG’s digital product suite and vendor partnerships to deliver measurable results.
• Lead digital discovery sessions, develop compelling proposals, and deliver persuasive client presentations focused on client-centric solutions that ultimately secure high-value deals.
• Maintain a deep understanding of the competitive landscape, emerging advertising technologies, and market trends to position GMG as a leader in digital solutions.
• Provide advanced digital and modern media planning education and development to local sales teams, empowering them to confidently pitch and execute digital solutions.
• Collaborate with the Director of Strategic Sales to refine product offerings, set ambitious campaign goals, and ensure optimal performance outcomes.
• Responsible for tracking, analyzing, and forecasting digital sales performance, delivering actionable insights to drive continuous improvement and revenue acceleration.

Requirements

• Minimum of 3 years of experience in digital media sales or strategy, preferably within a broadcast or media company.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and execute innovative, results-driven digital strategies.
• Strong understanding of digital advertising platforms, targeting, analytics, and emerging technologies.
• Outstanding presentation and interpersonal skills, with a proven ability to influence and inspire both internal teams and external clients.
• Consistent achievement of or exceeding revenue goals in a fast-paced, competitive environment.
• Ability to work seamlessly across teams and departments, driving alignment and shared success.
• Competitive mindset with a focus on achieving and exceeding goals.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to adapt to changing market dynamics.
• Experience in developing marketing solutions tailored to client needs, rather than selling pre-packaged offerings
• Deep understanding of consumer behavior and retail dynamics to craft impactful strategies.

Contact: Kim Jakubowski, Director of Strategic Sales

kjakubowski@grahammedia.com

Graham Media Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. In addition to complying with the requirements of federal law, GMG will comply with applicable state and local laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Any offer of employment is conditional upon the successful completion of a pre-employment drug screening, investigative background check, employment/education verifications, and reference checks.

ESPN historian Mike Soltys said Rasmussen died at his Florida home from the effects of Parkinson’s disease. Rasmussen announced in 2019 that he had been diagnosed with the degenerative disease in 2014.

“Bill was a remarkable man — a visionary and an innovator who conceived the idea of a network entirely devoted to sports,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. “Quite simply, none of us would be here today if it wasn’t for Bill’s passion and all the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit he put into building ESPN in the late 1970s — key aspects of our company culture that still carry on to this day.”

Rasmussen and his son Scott came up with the idea of a network carrying sports around the clock, and it would revolutionize Americans’ TV-watching habits. But the Rasmussens didn’t stick around long. They were forced out after only a year by ESPN majority owner Getty Oil.

Cable operators initially scoffed at Rasmussen's concept

Bill Rasmussen’s original idea was a cable channel covering only Connecticut sports. Many cable operators in the state were skeptical, but someone suggested buying satellite time to reach a national audience.

ESPN was launched on Sept. 7, 1979. George Grande welcomed viewers to the first “SportsCenter” broadcast before the network’s first live event, a slow-pitch softball game between the Kentucky Bourbons and the Milwaukee Schlitz.

“In those days, we didn’t know if we’d last four weeks, four years, let alone 40-some, but we knew it was special,” Grande said. “Bottom line was Bill Rasmussen was the true purveyor of the original American dream, and he gave us all something very special that we still have today.”

The Rasmussens secured financial backing from Getty Oil and a rights deal with the NCAA, and built a studio in Bristol, Connecticut, still under construction when ESPN went on the air.

The Getty investment and the deal with the NCAA occurred on the same day.

“When someone tells you you can’t do something, you want to prove them wrong,” Bill Rasmussen said. “Many, many people told us there wasn’t enough sports to do a 24-hour channel. I didn’t argue with anybody. I just thought they were wrong and I was right.”

When the Rasmussens were forced out of ESPN in 1980, Getty owned 85% of the network. Texaco, which had acquired Getty, sold its interest in ESPN to ABC in 1984.

ESPN helped bring a host of sports to cable

In 1980, only months after its debut, ESPN started televising the NFL draft. The network debuted the ESPY Awards in 1993 and launched the X Games competition in 1995.

The college football landscape underwent massive changes. Games were spread throughout the week to tailor to TV audiences and the number of postseason bowls skyrocketed. ESPN has held exclusive broadcast rights to the College Football Playoff since it began after the 2014 season. In 2024, the network agreed to a new six-year, $7.8 billion contract for the playoff through the 2031-32 season.

While CNN was finding its footing on the news side, ESPN jostled with major networks to bring NFL and college sports to cable audiences that had been over the airwaves for decades. ESPN also pioneered funding and broadcasting women’s sports, particularly college basketball, volleyball and the softball World Series.

Rasmussen was courted back by ESPN years later

Bill Rasmussen and ESPN were estranged until 1999, when company executives invited him to the 20th anniversary celebration. Since then, he has been embraced and recognized for his vision of creating an all-sports network. He toured the country in 2019 for the 40th anniversary and gave speeches at Walt Disney Co. and ESPN events.

“Bill was our George Washington and a good friend,” said veteran anchor Chris Berman, who joined ESPN three weeks after the network launched in 1979. “He was such a grateful person and every sports fan can be grateful for Bill. He wasn’t a glass half-full guy; his glass was always overflowing with optimism. He greeted everyone with a smile and we can all smile knowing Bill’s legacy.”

ESPN's debut came after Rasmussen was fired from a previous job

Born in Chicago, Rasmussen earned degrees from DePauw University in Indiana and Rutgers University and served in the Air Force. He started an advertising services business, then worked in radio and television as a broadcaster during the 1960s.

He was hired in 1974 as public relations director for the World Hockey Association’s New England Whalers in Hartford, Connecticut. The team’s entire front office was fired in 1978, and Rasmussen soon turned his attention to brainstorming with his son on the creation of sports on cable TV with the help of a $9,000 credit card advance.

“There was a whole lot of chutzpah and a whole lot of vision, and they’re maxed out on their credit cards. It’s the American dream,” said Bob Ley, one of the network’s original anchors.

Rasmussen was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2025.

Rasmussen was predeceased by his wife of 56 years, Lois, in 2011 and is survived by two sons, Scott Rasmussen and his wife, Laura, and Glenn Rasmussen, daughter Lynn Van Hollebeke and her husband, Louie, seven grandchildren, one great-grandson and one great-granddaughter. In addition to his wife, Bill was predeceased by his brothers Robert and Donald Rasmussen, sister Vivien and a grandson.

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See AP’s full sports coverage here

“I love the game of football a lot … it brings me joy,” the 39-year-old Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman said Tuesday in his first public remarks since his mother's death. “It was a little harder training, but as far as football goes, I love this game a lot. And this is a very fun place for me to be. So playing football has been great for me.”

The Ravens signed the six-time Pro Bowler in April to a one-year deal for his 19th NFL season.

In late June, police found his 71-year-old mother dead at her home in Atlanta during a welfare check. Her 41-year-old son Ciarre Campbell was charged with murder after he was found with a knife, according to arrest warrants. The family told police that Ciarre struggles with mental illness.

The Ravens permitted Calais Campbell to miss the first few full-team practices of training camp. He participated in his first team session on Aug. 3, five days after the Ravens opened full-team camp.

“These last couple months have been pretty tough for me and my family, but we’re working through it,” Campbell said. “And I really appreciate all the love and support and the prayers that have been coming from all over, really, from all the NFL community. … Continue praying for us because we need it.”

Campbell, who will turn 40 on Sept. 1, previously played in Baltimore from 2020-2022, making his sixth and final Pro Bowl during his first season with the Ravens.

He returns to an organization with a different look, including first-year head coach Jesse Minter and a mostly new coaching staff.

“(He) brings great versatility along the D-line, is an unbelievable leader and mentor in that room and in the defensive room and with the team,” Minter said of Campbell, who has 117 career sacks in 278 NFL games, including 259 starts. “The timing of it obviously was really tough for him and his family. We allowed the first week or two of camp for him to really kind of work himself to get ready, as it affected his summer preparation, obviously. … I’m really happy that we have him.”

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

The nonprofit Corporate Accountability Lab said it spent more than three years investigating the working conditions on plantations owned by Central Romana Corporation, Ltd., the largest employer and landowner in the Dominican Republic. Its owners have ties to U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the report noted.

Central Romana Corporation was previously investigated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which accused the company of isolating workers, withholding wages, fostering abusive working and living conditions and pushing for excessive overtime. In 2022, the U.S. imposed a ban on imports of sugar and related products made by the company, but the ban was reversed last year under the Trump administration.

One of the owners of Central Romana is the Florida-based Fanjul Corp., which owns Florida Crystals. The Fanjul family has close ties to Trump and the Dominican government, the report stated.

The human rights group called on the U.S. government to reinstate the ban.

“As long as sugar and other well-positioned interests enjoy the benefits of such market access while ignoring labor rights abuses in their supply chains, U.S. policy will remain complicit in the very kinds of abuse it claims to oppose,” the nonprofit said.

Local civil society groups estimate that up to 8,000 workers toil in the company’s sugarcane fields that span more than 173,700 acres.

They have long complained about a lack of wages and of being forced to live in cramped housing that often lacks water or electricity, as verified by Associated Press journalists in recent years. Many of them are Haitian migrants or descendants of them, who, despite being born in the Dominican Republic, do not have citizenship.

The report quoted one unidentified worker as saying that he doesn’t have any documents to get another job: “Why would we stay? This way we are their slaves.”

Corporate Accountability Lab called on Central Romana Corporation to enroll workers in the country’s social security system; pay them at least the minimum day wage; allow them to join an independent union and protect their health, among other things.

One unidentified worker was quoted as saying that company employees assign jobs and make decisions about how much someone is owed: “They are always underpaying us, but we can’t fight for them to pay us justly because we don’t have that kind of power.”

The nonprofit asserted that a “climate of fear … pervades the industry” as it called on sugar customers to adhere to a proposed code of conduct that would be developed by workers.

“I want to complain every week, but since everyone is so scared, nobody will support you,” one unidentified worker was quoted as saying.

Such fears were reflected in a recent study by the U.S. Department of Labor, with the U.S. government also describing living conditions on plantations as “inhumane” and “abusive.”

The report by Corporate Accountability Lab included comment from Central Romana Corporation, which was quoted as saying that the report was “riddled with inaccuracies and untruths” and that the company had not violated local laws or international labor standards.

The company did not immediately respond to a request seeking additional comment.

Corporate Accountability Lab called on the Dominican government to regularize the immigration status of all those recruited to work on sugarcane fields, to disburse owed pensions and enforce labor and environmental laws.

The organization found that two types of workers are most vulnerable: elderly canecutters who have not received their retirement benefits and those who are stateless.

“Governments of all countries should prohibit the importation of sugar and sugar-based products made with forced labor in the Dominican Republic,” the nonprofit said.

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

Oman has played a relatively low-profile role since the Iran war began, including as a mediator. But its geography has thrust the sultanate into the uncomfortable position of negotiating with Tehran over management of the strait while facing Trump’s threats.

Trump this week told Fox News reporter Trey Yingst that the U.S. would bomb Oman if it “gets in the way,” using an expletive for emphasis. It’s not the first such threat he’s made. Oman’s foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to emailed questions about Trump’s threat and when Oman and Iran might issue a joint statement on their deal.

Here’s a look at the country in the middle of the Washington-Tehran tug-of-war.

Trump is not happy about emerging Oman-Iran deal

Trump threatened Oman because he’s not happy that it’s close to a deal with Iran over the strait, two regional officials said Tuesday.

Trump is under pressure. He vowed a quick war and a weakened Iran, along with a better deal on Tehran’s nuclear program. Instead, Iran has seized on the Strait of Hormuz as a new weapon in talks, asserting control of what had been seen as an international waterway before the war.

U.S.-Iran negotiations have dried up. This week ended the 60-day period that launched when the U.S. and Iran signed an interim agreement. It had been meant to open the way for more detailed talks. There's no sign of it being extended. Trump now says there are no planned talks with Iran.

So the only confirmed discussions happening now are between Iran and Oman about shipping on the strait. These have been going on for weeks. Oman hasn’t said much about them publicly. Tehran says they’re finalizing a joint statement. There’s widespread thinking that Iran is not in much of a hurry.

Trump has made plenty of threats against Iran. Now he's venting his frustration at Oman, too.

The sultanate had been trying to make peace

Oman, with a population of just over 5 million, is one of the quieter actors in the Gulf. It has allowed the U.S. military to use its facilities, though Washington has described defense relations as smaller in scale compared with Gulf neighbors like the United Arab Emirates.

Unlike other regional states, Oman hasn’t been targeted during the war in the way that Tehran has lashed out at other Gulf neighbors. The Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft notes that while Omani ports have been targeted by drones, Iran hasn't claimed responsibility and Oman hasn't blamed Iran, and no missiles have struck Omani territory.

Oman’s leaders have long preferred engagement with Iran. The sultanate has been involved in mediation efforts, but that work is now being driven by Qatar and Pakistan.

The world's focus has turned more toward Oman since the interim agreement was signed. Not long after the signing, the relative calm was shattered when Iran started firing at ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz near the Oman coast on a route supported by the U.S.

Now Oman is in discussions that appear to be driven by Iran, which has described the talks as aiming to “develop mechanisms to ensure safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz while respecting the sovereign rights and sovereignty of both coastal states, as well as Iran’s security and national interests.” The mechanisms might include fees.

Regional officials have said the emerging deal calls for ships to enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route and exit through a route controlled by Oman. But any deal appears to rely on the U.S. lifting its blockade of Iranian ports.

Oman earlier this month described the talks as “proceeding in a positive and constructive atmosphere,” while in the same statement condemning repeated attacks on ships transiting the strait.

After a meeting Tuesday between Oman’s foreign minister and his Egyptian counterpart, Egypt said the Iranian-Omani deal could pave the way for the U.S. and Tehran to return to negotiations for a “comprehensive and permanent deal that addresses all concerns and enhances regional security and stability.”

It is not clear what effect Trump’s threat might have

Oman is caught between two heavily armed and stubborn powers. Meanwhile, global supplies of oil, natural gas and related goods are only able to get through the strait at a reduced level, with ships still at risk of attack.

Since Trump's latest threat, the government's Oman News Agency has been posting about other things — the Muscat Stock Exchange, sports, imports of coffee and tea. Foreign ministry statements have focused on diplomatic meetings and greetings.

It is not clear whether Trump’s threat will make any difference in Oman's talks with Iran, including in hurrying the countries to finalize and announce a deal.

But it's clear that the U.S. president is passing along the growing heat his administration feels as midterm elections approach, and as the global economy watches events on the Iran-gripped strait for any sign of relief.

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Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.

In the lawsuit, ABC, its parent company Disney and the eight ABC-owned stations whose licenses are affected asked a federal court to stop the early renewal proceedings.

The FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr, an ally of President Donald Trump, had ordered the early review in April — itself a rare move — of all eight licenses owned by ABC, years before they are set to expire. Licenses are issued for eight-year periods. The FCC cited the network’s diversity and inclusion practices as a reason, but the development came shortly after a joke by ABC’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel — an outspoken Trump critic — had infuriated the president, who has called for Kimmel's firing.

“Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech — the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air,” the network alleged in its lawsuit Tuesday. “Over time, those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech."

“Facing this existential threat,” it added, “Plaintiffs have no choice but to seek redress from the judicial branch for the Administration’s blatant retaliation for their First Amendment speech.”

It said ABC had “no alternative means to eliminate these ongoing and immediate threats other than total capitulation to the Administration’s demands." It asked the court to “immediately enjoin Defendants from taking or threatening to take any action against Plaintiffs in relation to the early license renewal applications.”

There are already clashes between ABC and the administration

The early license review is only one part of a long-simmering confrontation between ABC and the FCC.

The network has also been fighting Carr’s efforts to make the morning talk show “The View,” whose hosts and guests are often critical of Trump, subject to equal-time rules. That's a question ABC says the agency itself decided — in the network's favor — more than two decades ago. ABC argues “The View” is a bona fide news program, meaning it’s exempt from equal time rules, which require granting equal airtime to competing candidates for office.

The ABC lawsuit Tuesday also spoke of broad ramifications that go well beyond one network.

“The consequences of the Administration’s campaign against free speech reach well beyond ABC,” it said. “If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company in the country will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government. In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free.”

It added: “The FCC Chairman has left little doubt that this is his goal.”

The lawsuit also quoted Carr as saying, when Kimmel made comments that angered the administration, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways . . . to take action . . . on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Carr, a longtime FCC commissioner, was named chairman by Trump in November 2025. He has indeed made it clear that he is considering revoking ABC's licenses, or trying to, in what would surely be a drawn-out legal process.

Longtime free-speech attorney Floyd Abrams noted that tensions between the press and the commission are not new — but have never been this pronounced.

“There has long been a level of tension between the broadcast media, which seeks full First Amendment protection, and the FCC,” Abrams wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “But not until the Trump Administration has the government so directly, so deliberately and so dangerously sought to limit the freedom of the broadcast press to cover and discuss the news.”

The lone Democrat on the FCC praises the lawsuit

The sole Democrat on the commission, Anna Gomez, commended ABC and Disney for pushing back against the FCC’s actions.

“For months, the FCC has waged a campaign of censorship and control against Disney’s ABC stations,” she said in a statement, “using the threat of broadcast license revocations to punish a company for speech this administration doesn’t like.”

“I have long called on companies to push back against this kind of government intimidation, and I’m glad Disney has shown courage and stepped up," she said. "This should be a welcome sign for every broadcaster who has felt the weight of this overreaching government pressure in silence.”

In late July, Carr defended his agency’s actions against ABC, saying broadcasters have a duty to “operate in the public interest.” The FCC, he said, was merely trying to restore that standard. Besides investigating ABC, Carr has also opened separate investigations into CBS News and NBC News.

Broadcasters like ABC, Carr said in an interview on the Fox Business Network, “struck a deal with the American people. You broadcasters get subsidized access, free access to a valuable public resource, the airwaves, worth billions of dollars. In exchange, you have to operate in the public interest.”

“Look, as a country, we should have a trusted, respected news media, and we’re not there,” Carr said. “So I hope more broadcasters return to their public interest obligations.”

On Tuesday, an FCC spokesperson reiterated that position.

“All broadcasters have a legal obligation to operate in the public interest — even Disney," said a statement from the commission, responding to the lawsuit.

"The FCC has been examining claims that Disney engaged in illegal DEI discrimination for over a year. Disney is obviously very concerned about the FCC’s proceeding, as evidenced by their ongoing campaign of disinformation as well as their decision to ask a court to stop the FCC from further pursuing matters. The FCC will continue to follow the facts and law wherever they lead.”

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Associated Press journalist Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

“Thank you, baseball,” Mancini wrote on lnstagram.

Mancini, 34, agreed to a minor league contract with the Angels in February, a deal that included an invitation to major league spring training. Mancini hit .273 with six homers, 29 RBIs and three steals for Triple-A Salt Lake this year.

The right-handed batter had three hits in his first major league game since 2023 playing first base in a 5-4 loss to the Houston Astros in 10 innings. Mancini's final major league appearance was June 14, and he was designated for assignment on June 17.

“I am blessed to have made a home in the Orioles organization for 10 years, win a World Series in Houston, play for the Cubs in Chicago (I wish I played better for you guys), and make it back up to the MLB with the Angels,” Mancini wrote while also thanking the Reds, Marlins and Diamondbacks as well.

Mancini batted .263 with 129 homers and 404 RBIs in the majors. He played parts of six seasons with the Orioles and hit a career-high 29 homers in 2019.

He then missed the 2020 season after surgery to remove a malignant tumor from his colon. He made a successful return to the Orioles in 2021, and he won a World Series ring in 2022 after Baltimore traded him to Houston.

Mancini spent part of the 2023 season with the Chicago Cubs. He has since played in the minor league systems of the Reds, Marlins and Diamondbacks. He opted out of a minor league deal with Arizona last July after batting .308 with 16 homers for Triple-A Reno.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

“Dinosauria is a pathway you can take at the zoo, and it takes you in back in the time of the dinosaurs. You can walk amongst them and just listen to them roar,” explained Cole Kielpinski, the assistant guest relations manager at the Detroit Zoo.

Dinosauria lets you get up close with massive, life-size animatronic dinosaurs that move, roar, and make you feel like you’ve stepped straight into Jurassic times.

Watch the video above or click here to learn more about Dinosauria and all you can experience at the Detroit Zoo.

The midfielder who helped Spain secure its second World Cup title transferred from Man City to join a squad already filled with world champions such as Lamine Yamal, Dani Olmo, Pau Cubarsí, Gavi and Pedri.

The 30-year-old Rodri's contract will run to 2030, Barcelona said. The announcement was made after the midfielder underwent a medical and the clubs finalized transfer details.

“It’s a very special day, a very important new chapter in my career,” he said. “It was a tough decision. First, because I’m leaving Manchester City, a club that has given me everything and where I’ve been incredibly happy. I’ll be eternally grateful,” Rodri said. “I’m also grateful that they understood it was a good time to leave. Barcelona is a fantastic club, a global reference for its approach to football and the values ​​it represents. I had other options, but Barcelona was my first choice.”

Rodri, who had one year left on his City contract, said upon arriving in Barcelona on Monday that it was “a dream to play” for the Catalan club.

“When offers came in, the first step was understanding that a chapter at my club had ended and it was time to look for a way out. It took me a while to process that. It was the most special club I’ve ever been at,” Rodri said Tuesday. “I studied and analyzed the offers, they were from very important clubs. Together with my family and friends, we made the decision we thought was best.”

Barcelona agreed to a transfer worth 76.5 million euros ($88.5 million), according to a person with knowledge of the transaction confirmed to The Associated Press on Sunday. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details of the deal have not been made public.

Real Madrid was also reportedly interested in signing Rodri at first — and the midfielder had loudly praised Barcelona's rival in the past — but Spanish media said no agreement could be reached.

Barcelona, chasing a three-peat in La Liga, has already boosted its squad with England forward Anthony Gordon, who will help to make up for the departures of Robert Lewandowski and Ferran Torres, who scored the winning goal in extra time in the World Cup final against Argentina.

The club is also set to add defender João Cancelo.

Rodri won the Golden Ball as the World Cup’s best player and was crucial for Spain's title-winning campaign.

“I’ve been with many of my teammates for almost two months now, and it’s been a warm welcome," Rodri said. "It’s a very young dressing room, eager to do important things. I hope to contribute to what they’ve brought me here for. I’m joining a tight and enthusiastic dressing room.”

Rodri spent seven years at City, making 298 appearances, scoring 28 goals and helping the English club win 14 trophies.

He scored the winning goal in the Champions League final victory over Inter Milan in 2023, and won the Ballon d’Or as the world’s best player the following year after being part of Spain’s European Championship-winning team.

Rodri had joined City from Atletico Madrid. He previously played at Villarreal. His departure further weakens City’s midfield, with Bernardo Silva having left for Real Madrid this offseason.

“Rodri has been a quite magnificent servant and played a huge part of what the club has achieved since he arrived,” City director of football Hugo Viana said. “With his achievements, Rodri has more than cemented his place in the history of Manchester City and we all wish him well in the next chapter of his career.”

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Meanwhile, a Russian missile strike on a village in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed at least 10 people and wounded 17 others as the barrage demolished homes, officials said.

The countries are locked in an escalating duel of long-range aerial strikes. Fighting on the roughly 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine is restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots threatening troop movements, and neither side is making significant battlefield progress, analysts say.

Putin resists pressure for peace talks

In the past year, Ukraine has devised and deployed domestically produced long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia. Its drone technology has impressed governments and defense manufacturers around the world.

Officials in Kyiv aim to make the Russian public feel the war’s consequences and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. Putin has so far shown no sign he intends to stop the invasion.

“Putin continues to drag out the war instead of accepting Ukraine’s realistic ceasefire proposals and ending the bloodshed,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.

Russian air defenses overnight intercepted 791 Ukrainian drones over a number of regions, as well as annexed Crimea and the Black and the Azov seas, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said, in what was the second-largest drone attack since January 2025, according to an Associated Press tally.

More than 600 Ukrainian drones flew toward the Moscow region, where 180 were shot down, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said without elaborating.

Officials reported no deaths or major damage. Ukraine has increasingly launched swarms of hundreds of drones to try to overwhelm Russian air defenses.

In the region that surrounds the capital, three people were wounded, Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said.

Three people were also wounded in the adjacent Ryazan region where three private houses were damaged, Gov. Pavel Malkov said.

The overnight attack started a fire at a warehouse of Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, in an industrial zone. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the company, which it says helps supply the Russian military, an allegation Moscow denies.

Wildberries said its facility sustained “insignificant damage.”

Russian TV doesn't report news of the attack

Coverage of the attack in state and Kremlin-backed Russian media was mostly muted, as is often the case. Russia’s main TV channels — state-run Russia 1 and Channel One — did not mention the attack at all in their morning news bulletins.

But Russian state news agency RIA Novosti featured it among the main news on its website’s homepage, describing it as “one of the most large-scale attacks on Moscow since the beginning of the summer.”

State newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on its website prominently featured a roundup of what Moscow regional Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported about the attack, describing it as “massive” in the headline. Pro-Kremlin tabloid MK featured a news brief about it on its home page.

Zelenskyy accuses Russia of a ‘brutal attack’ on civilians

A Russian missile strike on the village of Pechenihy in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed 10 civilians, according to preliminary information, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration.

Another 17 people were wounded, he said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a brutal attack” that damaged 10 homes, a cafe, a post office, a store and at least seven vehicles, according to Syniehubov.

“We will definitely respond to this Russian strike,” he said on social media.

Also, three people were killed and three others were wounded over the past day in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region, Ukraine’s National Police said.

UK vows continued Ukraine support

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took office last month, said the U.K. will continue to stand by Ukraine after Russia said that Kyiv’s reported use of British drones for attacks on Russian soil would bring unidentified consequences.

“We are providing support so that Ukraine can defend itself, and that’s been the British position all the way through this conflict by previous prime ministers," Burnham said. “It remains the case with me.”

British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that two U.K. companies made drones used by Ukraine to hit Russia.

Following the report, the Russian Embassy in the U.K. said in a statement that “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian state TV that Moscow has the right to view British involvement in strikes on Russian territory as “participation in the war, with all the ensuing consequences.”

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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Brian Melley in London contributed.

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

This afternoon will feature a mix of sun and clouds and highs in the low 80s to near 85°.

With a breeze out of the west-southwest, it will be a comfortable afternoon to be outdoors. Cloud cover increases into the evening, and particularly in our northernmost counties, a stray shower will be possible.

The better chance for rain arrives overnight.

A few storms are possible but nothing severe is expected. Rainfall totals look to be less than a quarter inch for most of Southeast Michigan.

Overnight temperatures will fall to the mid 60s before only reaching near 80° Wednesday afternoon.

We’ll see partly sunny skies tomorrow with isolated rain possible in the afternoon.

Thursday and Friday will be dry with more sunshine and highs in the lower 80s. The next chance of rain moves in Saturday.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed its request less than a week after the Trump administration asked the nation's highest court to allow the White House to continue construction on its $400 million ballroom project during the appeals process.

Lawyers for the trust accused the administration of trying to “outrun judicial review” rather than obtain permission for the work from Congress, as required by federal law.

The administration “cannot identify any statute granting them ‘express authority’ to destroy a third of the White House and replace it with a massive, privately funded ballroom, because none exists,” trust attorneys wrote.

The building of the 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom has included demolishing the East Wing of the White House and is part of Trump’s plans to quickly remake Washington. The project includes the addition of an underground military facility that the administration says is necessary to protect the president.

The petition comes after a divided appeals court panel upheld an order to pause aboveground construction on the project. The ruling was suspended to let the administration appeal.

The ruling left intact an order by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush. Leon wrote that “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.”

The administration argues that the president, not Congress or the courts, has unimpeded authority to renovate the White House. The current state of the project, essentially an open construction site, makes it harder to protect the White House, the Justice Department contends.

The administration also says the National Trust for Historic Preservation does not have the legal right, or standing, to sue over the ballroom.

Trust attorneys said the preliminary injunction issued by the lower court is “already narrowly tailored, and limited in scope and duration.”

“It expressly allows (the administration) to continue building their underground military facility, to protect the President, his family, and his staff, and to maintain the safety and security of the White House complex,” they wrote.

Chief Justice John Roberts had set a deadline of Tuesday for the trust to respond in writing to the administration's petition. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who represents the administration, asked the Supreme Court to rule on its stay petition before the appeals court panel’s decision takes effect on Friday.

“This case involves an extraordinary and unlawful injunction that will halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space, at the East Wing of the White House, which is vitally required by national security,” Sauer wrote.

The ballroom has been under construction for 10 months. The administration says the work is roughly 65% finished.

City Bird + Nest are teaming up with more than 25 local vendors and small businesses for the North Cass Summer Sidewalk Sale.

From unique gifts and home goods to locally made finds and special deals, it’s a chance to shop, explore, and support some of the creatives and entrepreneurs who make Detroit so special.

The North Cass Summer Sidewalk Sale will take place on Canfield Street, Willis Street, and Cass Avenue in Midtown Detroit from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22.

Watch the video above to learn more about the event and to see some of the items you can expect to find at the sale.

Lise Klaveness, who heads the Norwegian Football Federation since 2022, told The Associated Press that the firing of FIFA’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour was “unacceptable” and urged other senior leaders to resist potentially damaging orders.

Lamour’s exit late Monday came 17 days after his statement to AP criticizing Infantino’s $20 billion private equity project, which was withdrawn just hours later.

“Now he is thrown out and we are supposed to move on. It’s unacceptable, it’s management by fear,” Klaveness told the AP in a telephone interview, describing Lamour as “the best football administrator I have ever met.”

“Now we also have to call upon FIFA leadership and the administration to not submit to orders you know are not in the interests of football,” Klaveness added, especially targeting FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafström.

Klaveness is a former Norway international soccer player, a judge in Oslo and an elected executive committee member at European soccer body UEFA who has built on her country’s long-held reputation as a champion of good governance in soccer. The Norwegian federation's board last week called on Infantino to resign and has backed a London-based NGO's formal complaint to FIFA ethics investigators about his political ties to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Lamour was a long-time colleague of Infantino, first as senior officials at UEFA from 2007-15, on his campaign team to be elected FIFA president in 2016, then moving two years ago from UEFA to oversee much of FIFA’s operations in Zurich.

Infantino in crisis

With a reputation among the most trusted executives in the often murky world of global soccer politics, Lamour’s pointed criticisms of Infantino’s leadership intensified a crisis for the FIFA president.

A backlash by UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and north American soccer body CONCACAF was provoked by a secretive plan to sell future World Cup profits to investors led by Joshua Kushner.

A $4.2 billion investment to take a 20% stake in a FIFA commercial spin-off was to fund offers of $20 million to each of its 211 national member federations. They already effectively own the non-profit soccer body, which has multibillion dollar reserves, and would have had a mid-September deadline to accept.

Lamour’s statement on July 31 spoke of FIFA staff being “deceived” by Infantino’s lack of openness over the now-failed sale and how they “deserve better than contempt and intimidation.”

The French executive called on soccer leaders worldwide "to make the right decisions” and signed off: “If that means I lose my job, then so be it. I will understand and respect that decision. At least I’ll sleep well tonight.”

Fired, not resigned

“This is a firing situation, it’s not a resignation,” Klaveness said of Lamour’s exit, suggesting it was done by Grafström “obviously being pressured by the president.”

FIFA didn’t respond to a request for comment on Klaveness’ remarks.

In a statement, FIFA said it “thanks Kevin for his two years of service and wishes him the best of luck for the future. No further comment will be made on the matter.”

Lamour did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment Tuesday.

“His statement was necessary to kill the project,” Klaveness said of Lamour’s intervention. “He said something that was obvious, that was very important that someone within the staff told us the story so that we knew it was not FIFA, as such, but one person.”

Infantino called a meeting with senior management minus Lamour in Rabat, Morocco. After that Aug. 5 meeting, a FIFA statement apologized for errors and said those managers who attended “reaffirmed their full support” of Infantino’s presidency.

“We all got reports in Morocco, we know it’s a management of fear,” Klaveness said. “It’s not in football’s best interests.”

Until the uproar over Infantino's “FIFA Forward Enterprise” proposal, he seemed sure to be reelected unopposed next year in Morocco for a fourth and final term in office through 2031. The deadline is Nov. 18 for challengers to enter the contest.

Norway not discussing other candidates right now

Though UEFA and other critics of Infantino want him ousted from the $6 million-per-year FIFA job, Klaveness said any search for an opponent was not a talking point in Norway.

“We are not there at all and that is 100% the truth," she said, though adding any eventual candidate "has to be very accountable to a governance structure that will not in four or five years just deteriorate.”

Infantino was appointed by UEFA in 2015 to a panel advising FIFA on reforms, in fallout from corruption scandals provoked by U.S. federal investigations. That group's recommendations limiting FIFA presidents to 12 years in office, plus limiting their executive powers and patronage all have retreated under Infantino.

Klaveness acknowledged FIFA members have been less “passionate about the details of governance” than Norway.

Lamour also won praise and support Tuesday by UEFA vice president Laura McAllister, also a former player and now a university professor of governance in Wales, who lamented the “shabby events of the past weeks.”

“Kevin’s sacking seriously weakens FIFA’s administration," McAllister said, "whilst undermining this unique opportunity to shift the culture at FIFA and to reset the organization on sporting values, not simply commercial and financial ones.”

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Sloane Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion, was one of six other women to receive a wild card, and the U.S. Tennis Association said the final one is still to be announced.

That almost certainly would go to Serena Williams, if she decides she wants to return to the tournament at 44.

Venus Williams received a wild card last year, returning to the Grand Slam event she won twice for the first time since 2023. The 46-year-old has become the oldest entrant in singles at the tournament since Renee Richards played at 47 in 1981, according to the International Tennis Federation.

She has continued to play some singles matches and this week joined Serena for their first doubles tournament together since the 2022 U.S. Open. They lost Monday at the Cincinnati Open in a match tiebreaker against Marta Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns.

The sisters planned to play at Wimbledon but had to withdraw after Serena injured her knee in her singles match. That marked her first time playing singles since the 2022 U.S. Open, and she indicated afterward that she hoped to keep competing if healthy.

Headlining the wild-card recipients on the men's side were 39-year-old Gael Monfils, a past U.S. Open semifinalist who is set to play his final Grand Slam tournament before retiring, and Australian Alexei Popyrin, who upset Novak Djokovic in 2024 on the way to the fourth round.

One spot is also being held among the eight men's wild cards. Stan Wawrinka, the 2016 champion at Flushing Meadows who at 41 is playing his final season, could be a candidate for that.

Also receiving women's wild cards were Carol Young Suh Lee, Reese Brantmeier, Thea Frodin, Leolia Jeanjean and Taylah Preston.

The other men receiving wild cards were two-time reigning NCAA singles champion Michael Zheng, Martin Damm, J.J. Wolf, Sebastian Gorzny and Jack Kennedy.

Kei Nishikori, the 2014 U.S. Open runner-up who also is retiring, was given a wild card into the men's qualifying tournament, along with Jordan Lee, Trevor Svajda, Andre Ilagan, Spencer Johnson, Michael Antonius, Andrew Johnson and Daniel Milavsky.

Women given spots in the qualifying tournament were Caroline Dolehide, Janae Preston, Katrina Scott, Ayana Akli, Annika Penickova, Julieta Pareja, Kristina Penickova and Savannah Broadus.

The main draw begins Aug. 30, with the qualifying tournaments being played earlier that week.

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See AP’s full tennis coverage here

The commemorative bottle pairs the team’s milestone year with Blue Run’s newly launched Blueprint Series bourbon, according to Katy McBrady of Molson Coors.

“The short answer is I can’t think of a better way to celebrate 125 years of Tigers baseball than with an ultra-premium Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey,” McBrady said during an appearance on Live in the D. “This year we launched our Blueprint Series Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, and it’s one of our most special items.”

The bottle’s design incorporates hand-applied details, including a butterfly modeled on Kentucky’s state butterfly, pinstripes matching the Tigers’ uniforms, a throwback logo and a 125th anniversary marker.

“I like to call picking up the bottle the first handshake with the brand,” McBrady said.

Only about 1,000 of the commemorative bottles have been made, and they are available at Total Wine locations, select Kroger and Meijer stores, and other fine wine and spirits retailers.

“We’ve only made about 1,000 of these,” McBrady said. “So, you’ve got to get them while they’re hot.”

While the commemorative packaging is limited, the Blueprint Series bourbon itself is available year-round. McBrady described the tasting profile as starting with floral and stone fruit notes before finishing smooth.

“In addition to clearing your sinuses, right on the nose, you’re going to get a little bit of soft floral and stone fruit,” she said.

To watch the segment, click on the video above.

The illicit initiation was revealed Monday as Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday charged 14 people — including 13 current or former Penn State students — in connection with the alleged drug ring.

The man accused of leading the operation, 24-year-old Agostino Abbatiello, surrendered on Tuesday after failing to appear for a scheduled arraignment on Monday on charges including possession with intent to deliver and conspiracy. He was ordered jailed without bail.

A message seeking comment was left for Abbatiello’s lawyer.

According to court documents, the drug ring operated in 2023 and 2024, fueled by bulk quantities of cocaine that two of the charged men obtained from contacts in Philadelphia and New York.

They cut and bagged the drugs mainly at the Sigma Chi and Delta Upsilon fraternity houses, using frat brothers and pledges as labor, then distributed it through Penn State students, court documents said.

One of the men said a co-defendant was the “largest distributor of cocaine” at Penn State and would “boast about how much money he was making from selling cocaine.” At least four of the defendants are current students, Sunday’s office said.

“This is very serious criminal conduct. There was nothing junior or childlike about this type of conduct,” Sunday said at a news conference on Monday. “This was an upper-level trafficking organization for this region in Pennsylvania.”

Four people are charged with conspiracy, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity, felony corrupt organizations and other offenses. Another defendant is charged with felony conspiracy and criminal use of a communication facility.

Eight defendants are charged with misdemeanor drug possession.

Paul Robinson, the father of a student who was accused with Abbatiello of being one of the ring's two main suppliers, is charged with felony tampering, hindering apprehension and obstructing the investigation. Authorities say he took steps to conceal evidence, including a safe containing drugs and cash.

Court documents did not list a lawyer who could speak on Robinson’s behalf.

Penn State said it placed Delta Upsilon on interim suspension, noting Sigma Chi is not recognized by the university and is not subject to its oversight.

Delta Upsilon Executive Director Justin Kirk said anyone involved in the drug ring who had ties to Delta Upsilon was expelled or suspended from the fraternity if they did not resign.

Sigma Chi’s executive director, Michael Church, said the three Sigma Chi members who were charged have been suspended pending the outcome of the judicial process. He said the fraternity has suspended all operations at its Penn State chapter on an interim basis “while we determine whether these allegations reflect individual conduct or organized chapter activity.”

“This conduct is an egregious violation of our values and has no place in our fraternity, community, or society," Church said, adding that any members involved “will be held fully accountable to the extent available to our fraternity.”

According to Local 4 Lifestyle Editor Jon Jordan, a wave of consumer pushback is reshaping everything from car dashboards to closets, as shoppers grow more discerning about what they’ll accept - and what they won’t.

The average new car in America now costs about $50,000, and buyers are tired of paying for complexity they don’t want. Automakers are responding by stripping back overloaded touchscreens in favor of simpler controls.

“There’s a trend in the automotive business to now come up with the basic car and sort of get rid of the bells and whistles. That’s what consumers want,” Jordan said. “Things like switches, knobs, and toggles are being reintegrated into fancy virtual dashboards.”

Even luxury buyers are rejecting all-digital interiors, he said, noting shoppers “want to be able to turn the radio volume down with a knob.”

The rejection trend extends to retail, too. After years of e-commerce dominance, shoppers are heading back to physical stores.

“People are going back to brick and mortar, which means physical stores,” Jordan said. “They want the experience of feeling something and trying things on.”

Independent boutiques and mom-and-pop shops are benefiting most, Jordan said, as shoppers crave personal service that online retailers can’t replicate.

“These are the retailers that are really seeing an influx of new customers,” he said. “They like the in-person attention and advice.”

Social media influence is fading too, according to Jordan, who cited research showing that likes and followers aren’t translating into sales the way businesses once assumed.

“Now that the research is more discerning, it’s the influencers are not so influential,” he said.

Meanwhile, fast fashion’s decline is fueling an unexpected resurgence: the suit. Jordan said workers are trading business casual for versatile, travel-friendly suiting that can be mixed, matched and packed without a second thought.

“There’s a growing number of people who are in the workforce who are choosing to wear suits,” Jordan said. “There are suits you can buy now that you can wad up in a bag and literally throw it in a carry-on.”

Whether it’s dashboards, closets or shopping carts, Jordan said the message is clear: less can be more.

“Rejection is still trending,” he said - “with the exceptions.”

Click on the video above to watch the full segment.

The globally recognized “Hips Don't Lie” musician toured damaged schools in Quibdó, the capital of the Colombian province of Chocó, an area where roughly 40 schools completely collapsed and hundreds more were affected.

"What worries me the most is that schools are not rebuilt once this emergency is over,” Shakira told journalists after visiting with students, hugging and taking photos with them. “Every day that children don’t go to school is a day they miss out on their future.”

She was accompanied by Howard Buffett, son of billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett and longtime donor to Colombia who has helped Shakira set up schools there before. The Howard G. Buffett foundation will collaborate with Shakira's Fundación Pies Descalzos, or Barefoot Foundation, to reconstruct 10 schools.

“When she calls, I come,” Buffett said during the visit.

The singer also said she would focus her “personal efforts” on rebuilding a severely damaged technological university in Chocó, and announced pledges of $500,000 each from the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund and Live Nation and $250,000 from CAF Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean toward rebuilding schools and getting children back into classrooms.

The 7.4 magnitude quake on Aug. 10 struck a vast swath of western Colombia, killing at least 287 people and destroying more than 26,000 dwellings, authorities said. The government has said 194 people are missing, while other civilian-run databases put the number at more than 4,100. Thousands of educational centers were affected.

The epicenter was in Chocó, one of Colombia's poorest regions and where at least 3,100 homes were destroyed, according to the regional government's latest report Monday.

“It’s a place I love, a place where I’ve seen our students grow in our classrooms,” Shakira said in a video posted on X by the Colombian news outlet La FM.

Her foundation, which focuses on educational access for youths in Colombia, has been in Chocó for 22 years, running two schools from which hundreds of students have graduated. “I really want to see it rebuild again,” she said.

Aid groups and officials are still assessing the damage in Chocó, an area the size of Switzerland where communication and travel are challenging. The province has few roads linking it to the rest of the country, and its towns and villages are connected mostly by rivers and unpaved roads.

Most of Chocó's 600,000 inhabitants live in poverty, according to figures published last year by Colombia’s national government, and it is largely inhabited by Indigenous tribes and Afro Colombian communities.

“There is not a way to alleviate the pain of so many, there are no magic solutions," Shakira, 49, said during her visit to a large high school in Quibdó.

“But what there is, is commitment to be here alongside those from Chocó, to not abandon El Chocó like it historically has been abandoned, until every Colombian and every person from Chocó can return to their normal lives like they deserve and all the children can return to their schools and dream of the futures they deserve," she said.

The Grammy award winner known for hits like “Whenever, Wherever,” “La Tortura,” and the 2026 FIFA World Cup anthem “Dai Dai” is a longtime supporter of educational access and advancement. She recently headlined the halftime show of the World Cup final match in July and performed in May on Brazil’s Copacabana Beach to a crowd of 2 million.

After Venezuela’s twin earthquakes in June, Shakira announced the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund would commit $500,000 to education recovery there.

Her announcement Monday is the latest of many commitments from prominent Colombians and other Latin American artists to help Colombia and Venezuela. On Sunday, Marc Anthony and Chayanne joined dozens of other artists at a Miami benefit concert and live fundraiser for both countries' earthquake relief.

Colombian singer Karol G pledged to match fan donations to her Con Cora Foundation during her three-night run at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles last weekend. She will also join Maluma, Sebastián Yatra and others at a benefit concert in Bogotá this Sunday.

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An earlier correction stated Shakira committed to building 10 new schools, not rebuilding 10 schools. She and Buffett are helping reconstruct the schools, not building new ones.

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Gabriela Aoun Angueira reported from San Diego.

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

Nine designs, three in each category, were picked in the statewide contest. Over 2,000 designs were submitted.

This is the second election year the Michigan Department of State held a statewide design contest for the “I Voted” sticker.

Michigan’s election clerks can order the winning stickers to give to voters in the upcoming November general election.

See previous winning designs --> Which ‘I Voted’ sticker did you get? Was it the werewolf one?

Here’s a look at the winning designs:

Elementary/Middle School

Created by Aryana Lintz of Berrien Springs

Created by Naia Montgomery of Detroit

Created by Aleymi Perez Ramos of Romulus

High School

Created by Ahmad Bazzi of Dearborn Heights

Created by Keirsten Sturm-Richmond of Remus

Created by Lenore Coil of Saginaw

General Entry

Created by Lisa Damesworth of Redford Charter Township

Created by Hilarie Williams of Oak Park

Created by Maddie Tallman of Woodhaven

The government is appealing the May ruling by U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw that threw out charges of human smuggling against the Salvadoran national. The ruling amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a Justice Department that under President Donald Trump has repeatedly been accused of targeting defendants for political purposes.

Crenshaw found that Abrego Garcia would never have faced criminal charges had he not successfully sued the government over his 2025 deportation. The ruling was an embarrassment for the Trump administration, which only brought him back after securing a criminal indictment against him.

Crenshaw stopped short of finding the government acted with “actual vindictiveness,” a rarely-met standard that usually requires evidence like a prosecutor admitting that charges were filed in retaliation against someone. But the judge did find there was enough evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness.” That included the timing of the indictment.

Homeland Security had been aware of the 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee that was the basis for the human smuggling charges for more than two years before Abrego Garcia was deported. The agency only reopened the case and began investigating in earnest after Abrego Garcia was ordered returned to the U.S.

Crenshaw also found that statements by U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was a deputy at the time, suggested the Justice Department was targeting Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful-deportation case.

In a brief filed Monday night with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal prosecutors argued that Crenshaw got it wrong. Blanche’s statements, they argue, demonstrated a legitimate motive for prosecuting him. His rationale reflected a “normal assessment of the societal interest in punishment,” not an “improper penalty,” they said. The statements “explained that the government was seeking to protect the public and confirm its prior assertions about Abrego's criminal activity," the brief states.

But even if Blanche's statements reflected an animus against Abrego Garcia, they are irrelevant because the person who actually brought the charges was then-Acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Rob McGuire, the brief states — rehashing an argument thoroughly rejected by Crenshaw that McGuire's motives were the only motives that mattered in the case.

Crenshaw's ruling noted the sustained oversight of the case by top Justice Department officials, including regular communications between McGuire and Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh, in finding that the criminal case was thoroughly tainted. Crenshaw also noted that prosecutors never called as a witness the investigator who actually reopened the case, to explain why.

Abrego Garcia, 31, is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years although he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. A 2019 order by an immigration judge prohibited his deportation to El Salvador, finding he had a “well founded fear” of a gang that had targeted his family there. The judge allowed him to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision, but he was not given residency status.

Blocked from re-deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, the Trump administration has vowed to deport him to a third county, threatening to send him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and, most recently, Liberia. Abrego Garcia has said he would agree to be deported to Costa Rica, which has said they will accept him, but the government has so far declined to send him there.

He is fighting deportation to Liberia in a separate federal court case in Maryland.

Mia was shot the evening of July 26, and the couple's 27-year-old son, Elijah, was arrested. Eric left the Chiefs right away to help his family through the crisis, and he returned to camp last week ahead of a preseason loss to the Rams.

"First and foremost, yes, she's on a great road to recovery. Yes, she's doing great,” Bieniemy said of his wife, speaking to reporters for the first time since she was rushed to the hospital with multiple wounds. “It is one of the main reasons that I am back here, because of her recovery. She's truly a soldier. She's a saint. And it's been incredible to watch.”

Bieniemy was never far from camp, even while he was back home in Ashburn, Virginia. He was able to watch streams of practice from Missouri Western State University, and he was often conferenced into team meetings before and after the workouts.

At one point, he called Chiefs general manager Brett Veach — who he knew was seated beside coach Andy Reid — and told him to give Big Red the phone. Bieniemy proceeded to remind Reid to get on one of his players for a seemingly minor coaching point.

“I was yelling at the screen, yelling at players, yelling at coaches — ‘What the hell are we doing?!’ I'm yelling at myself, 'Why would you put that play in!?” Bieniemy said, smiling. “At the end of the day, I was making sure I was keeping up with what was going on.”

At the same time, he was driving Mia and the rest of the family crazy.

“So she was like, ‘You have my blessing to leave,’” Eric said, “so it was time to get back.”

Elijah Bieniemy has been charged with malicious wounding, the use of a firearm in commission of a felony and discharge of a firearm inside a dwelling. His court appearances remain delayed pending a mental health evaluation.

“I'd like to say thank you to the Hunt family, the entire Chiefs family for the outpouring, the love and support that my family has received through this particular situation,” Eric Bieniemy said. “And with all that said, we're back to football.”

While brash and demanding, Bieniemy is universally beloved within the Kansas City locker room. He was part of coaching staffs that helped the Chiefs reach three Super Bowls and win two, and he helped to set the foundation for the dynasty to come.

When he left a few years ago to serve as the Commanders' offensive coordinator, it was in the hopes that calling his own plays could someday lead to an NFL head coaching job. But Washington struggled in his lone season there and the coaching staff was let go, and Bieniemy ended up spending a season at UCLA and last season coaching the running backs for the Chicago Bears.

He returned to Kansas City to replace Matt Nagy, who left to become the offensive coordinator of the Giants.

“Obviously it’s great to have him back. We missed him and prayed for his family when he was out,” Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton said. “But to have a guy like that come back to the field, man, a competitor — it brings out the best in us.”

NOTES: LT Josh Simmons did not practice Tuesday because of back pain. He worked out alongside RG Trey Smith, who has been out with a hip injury. ... DE Ashton Gillotte (foot) and WR Tyquan Thornton (hamstring) left practice early. Gillotte already has missed time with a hamstring injury. ... LB Drue Tranquill (back) and CB L'Jarius Snead (knee) were back in pads for the workout.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Dry heat and minimal relief were day-to-day life, and many had to get a little creative. Some slept outdoors under damp sheets. Others adjusted schedules to avoid working outside during high daylight hours.

Then a great way to beat the heat emerged. It was dubbed the “swamp cooler.”

Basic cooling principles were used centuries ago in ancient civilizations; air was fanned by hand over water in clay pots or jars. In the early 20th century, those same principles were refined in the United States. The evaporative cooler, or swamp cooler, was the result. America’s first system using the concept of evaporative cooling was perfected by Oscar Palmer in 1908 in Arizona.

It's relatively simple: A fan pulls a stream of fresh hot air through vertical, porous pads saturated with water. It evaporates, cooling and humidifying the air and directing it indoors.

By the 1930s, the gadgets changed entire swaths of the country, cooling southwestern states like New Mexico and Nevada. Even today, in the age of air conditioning, they play a role in making desert-like states more livable.

“If it’s really dry out, in Arizona, you’re going to get a greater cooling effect,” says Eric Verpolegen, the founder of CoolVeg, a nonprofit dedicated to evaporative cooling for fruits and vegetables.

Traditional air-conditioning units didn’t become standard in the U.S. until the 1950s, and central air conditioning remains a luxury. But the swamp cooler endures.

“Where you don’t have air conditioning and where the climate allows, evaporative coolers could be a good solution and are low cost, low energy consumption,” says Ankit Kalanki, principal of cooling at RMI, a nonprofit dedicated to clean energy.

Swamp coolers and fans fall short in humid regions because the air is already saturated and can't handle more water. Experts say humidity has been worsening in some areas.

“There is a lot of innovation happening where people are trying to come up with hybrid solutions, where they are marrying evaporative cooling with something that can manage humidity separately,” Kalanki says, “and so now you have the best of both worlds.”

Evaporative coolers remain in use for Americans and many around the world who lack other cooling options.

“We’ve got this vicious circle where the hotter it gets, the more cooling we need,” Verpolegen says. “So you’re going to spend more energy, which could lead to more greenhouse gas emissions.” That's where Palmer's cooler tech and even more modern iterations come into play.

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Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here. Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

Green Lantern is the winner of this year’s Vote 4 The Best category for best pizza (all types) in Metro Detroit.

Here are the results for the top five:

1. Green Lantern.
2. Toarmina’s Pizza.
3. Mootz Pizzeria & Bar in Detroit.
4. Alibi of Troy.
5. Square One Pizzeria in Mt. Clemens.

Congrats to all of our finalists.

This year’s Vote 4 The Best received more than 163,000 votes during the finalist phase, with Metro Detroiters supporting their favorite restaurants, venues, and local businesses in 80 different categories.

Our winner reveal begins Monday, Aug. 10.

Click here to view a full list of this year’s Vote 4 The Best winners as they are announced.

Methodology

Fans nominated their favorite businesses from June 1 through June 14 -- one nomination in each category per person.

After the nomination period closed on June 14, we announced the finalists for each category at the end of the week -- on June 19.

Voting on finalists opened June 22 during our Ford Fireworks special. Fans voted in each category once per day until voting ended on July 20.

Winners are announced from Aug 10 through Aug. 21.

Click here to read the official Vote 4 The Best rules.

Thanks to our Vote 4 The Best sponsor, Wallside Windows!

Have a question? Email us at clickondetroit@wdiv.com , and we’ll get you an answer.

“I’d ask you to confirm a simple statement: the Department of Defense will not send Federal troops to the polls or to seize election materials of any kind,” Slotkin wrote to Hegseth and to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in letters Tuesday.

The Pentagon said in an email that it will respond directly to Slotkin, as it does with all congressional correspondence. The Joint Chiefs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Slotkin told The Associated Press that Trump has been laying the groundwork to claim the midterms were stolen. She noted that Trump contemplated using the military to seize voting machines after his loss in 2020 and has deployed the National Guard to cities against the wishes of Democratic leaders. He also deployed active duty Marines to Los Angeles during his immigration crackdown in 2025.

“He’s very clearly laying the breadcrumbs to be able to say the day after the election that he didn’t really lose the House or he didn’t really lose the Senate,” Slotkin said.

Slotkin asked Hegseth during an April congressional hearing if he would follow orders to seize ballots. Hegseth called the question a “gotcha hypothetical,” but said, “I’ve never been ordered to do anything illegal, and I won’t.”

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles denied in a Vanity Fair interview last year that Trump would use the military to suppress voting in the midterms.

“I say it is categorically false, will not happen. It’s just wrongheaded,” she said.

Federal law prohibits the deployment of armed federal forces to election locations unless “necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” If any element of the military were to get involved, it would likely be the National Guard under state control.

In 2020, Gen. Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to a similar letter from Slotkin, then a congresswoman.

“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley wrote. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military."

The ruling is the latest development in a yearslong battle over where to house the main office for the nation's premier law enforcement agency. A site in Greenbelt, Maryland, was picked during former President Joe Biden's administration, but Trump appointees sought to reverse that decision last year in favor of repurposing the Ronald Reagan Building, a federal office complex a few blocks from the FBI's existing headquarters.

U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang, an appointee of President Barack Obama, ruled that the move was “ not in accordance with law,” and blocked the Trump administration from moving the FBI to the Reagan building, renovating it for the FBI or repurposing funds.

“This is not the first time courts have tried to undermine the administration in its goal to make government more cost-effective for American taxpayers,” the FBI said in a statement. “The court has chosen to impermissibly intervene for political reasons. This FBI is mission focused and will continue the best course of action to meet the needs of law enforcement.”

The suit was brought by the state of Maryland and Prince George's County.

“Maryland and Prince George’s County committed more than a decade of work to earn the FBI headquarters and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars," Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement. “By blocking the Trump Administration’s unlawful attempt to move the FBI to the Reagan Building and divert the funds Congress set aside for this project, the Court has cleared the path back to Greenbelt.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, also a Democrat, said, "Now it is time to stop the games and get to work building the world-class FBI headquarters that our public servants deserve, where it belongs: in Prince George’s County, Maryland.”

The FBI's current Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, was dedicated in 1975. Proponents of moving the headquarters have said the brutalist-style building, where nets surround the facility to protect pedestrians from falling debris, has fallen into disrepair.

The Maryland location was selected over nearby Virginia following an intense competition between the two states.

A special meeting will be held on Sept. 1 at 11 a.m. to make a formal vote. Her appointment will take effect Dec. 1, pending approval.

Raver, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Vanderbilt University, has been Vanderbilt’s chief academic officer since 2021 and is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Peabody College.

“Dr. Raver has a proven record of building strong teams, expanding research excellence and strengthening every institution she has served,” said Michael Behm, chair of the University of Michigan Board of Regents. “She understands what it takes to lead a complex, world-class university and she shares our unwavering belief that Michigan has been, is now and must remain the best university in the country. We are confident she is the right leader for this moment and we look forward to the board’s formal vote.”

“It is an extraordinary honor to be considered as the University of Michigan’s 17th president at this pivotal moment in higher education,” Raver said in a statement on Tuesday. “Michigan’s scale and impact across research, education, economic growth and public service are unmatched, and I’m eager to build on its remarkable legacy. I look forward to working alongside faculty, staff, students and alumni to lead Michigan forward with clarity and confidence.”

President Domenico Grasso will continue to lead the university through Nov. 30 and will work closely with Raver to ensure continuity in academic and research leadership through the transition.

But this year's Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, one of two main drills conducted by the allies annually, could be disrupted after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered his Pentagon chief to “substantially” scale it back just before its start Monday.

He cited what he said was a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s refusal to join the U.S. war against Iran. It was unclear what parts of the 11-day exercise were being cut and to what extent, but many experts say Trump's move threatens to hurt combined U.S.-South Korean readiness and eventually weaken their decades-long alliance.

The exercise is central to the US-South Korea alliance

The Ulchi Freedom Shield, or UFS, is largely a computer-simulated command post exercise meant to hone the allies' ability to deal with potential regional security threats like North Korean aggression. The two countries usually hold field training exercises during the command post exercise period.

South Korea's military had earlier said this year's exercise would be similar in scale to previous years, with the participation of about 18,000 South Korean soldiers. The U.S. military said it would incorporate lessons from recent conflicts such as North Korea’s battlefield experiences on the Russia-Ukraine front. Local media reported South Korea and the U.S. had planned 14 field training exercises.

The UFS, along with a similar joint war game in the spring, is a central pillar of the U.S. -South Korea alliance, which dates back to the 1950-53 Korean War. But it's also a long-running source of tensions with North Korea, which has denounced the exercises as a rehearsal for war and responded with provocative missile tests.

On Friday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. and South Korea of plotting more provocative drills this year and vowed to respond with “a new level of a deterrent.” The U.S. and South Korea have said their regular drills are defensive in nature.

Field training will likely be affected by Trump's decision

In a social media post, Trump called the exercise costly, "with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America.” During his first term, Trump complained about the cost of drills with South Korea, suspending joint exercises in 2018 to advance now-stalled nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of about 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, visited South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back on Tuesday for talks likely focusing on the adjustment of this year’s drills, according to media reports. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it couldn’t confirm the reports.

Yang Uk, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the U.S. will likely participate in the command post exercise but cancel “some costly field training that requires large-scale movements of troops."

Yang said that a downsizing or suspension of military drills matters because commanders of the allies change periodically. He said a one-year suspension of drills would see commanders unfamiliar with procedures of those drills taking part when they resume.

Trump's move could strain the US-South Korea alliance

Jung Chang Wook, head of the Korea Defense Study Forum think tank in Seoul, said Trump’s move could result in the U.S. downsizing other regular drills with South Korea, posing “a big, crippling blow” to their joint operation posture.

Lee Illwoo, an expert with the Korea Defense Network, said downsizing the exercise will likely delay the planned transfer to a system in which wartime operational control would be exercised by a binational command led by a South Korean general.

Under the current system, the U.S. military would command joint forces in the event of war.

The South Korean and U.S. militaries had earlier said the exercise would be an opportunity to support preparations for the transfer. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday stressed the need to complete the transition during his term that ends in 2030.

Many South Koreans view the transition to South Korean leadership of the combined forces in wartime to be a matter of national sovereignty, but others worry that could weaken the alliance.

Police said the wanted suspect and an accomplice, Delmar Jijuan-Raffie Williams, allegedly stole 14 catalytic converters from buses at an assisted living center in the 200 block of McDougall at around 6:30 a.m. on July 26.

Williams has already been arrested and charged in connection with the theft. Police are searching for the second suspect.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Detroit Police Department’s 7th Precinct Detective Unit at (313) 596-5740, or make an anonymous tip through Crime Stoppers at 1-800 SPEAK UP or DetroitRewards.tv. A $500 reward is offered for information leading to an arrest.

Location: Detroit, MI (Graham Media Group HQ)

About the Role

Graham Media Group is seeking a highly analytical, detail-oriented, and process-driven Revenue Planning & Analysis Analyst II to join our Revenue Operations team. Reporting directly to the Director of Revenue Planning & Analysis, this role serves as a critical bridge between Revenue Operations, Sales, Finance, Technology, and Market Leadership teams.

The ideal candidate combines strong analytical capabilities with expertise in data governance, quality assurance, process documentation, Salesforce and project management. This individual will champion data integrity across revenue systems, lead cross-functional initiatives, develop scalable operational processes, and leverage emerging AI technologies to drive efficiency and innovation across the organization.

Responsibilities:

• Conduct recurring audits of Salesforce, reporting platforms, and revenue datasets to ensure compliance with data standards
• Partner with stakeholders to improve data collection methods, system adoption, and overall data quality
• Monitor key data health metrics and build scorecards to measure accuracy and completeness
• Create and maintain user guides, training materials, process documentation, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to support system adoption and operational consistency.
• Support onboarding and ongoing training efforts for revenue systems, reporting tools, and operational processes
• Partner with the Salesforce Administrator to support CRM enhancements, testing, user adoption, data hygiene, and reporting
• Assist in troubleshooting system issues and validating system changes and integrations
• Document processes, workflows, and system requirements to support ongoing optimization efforts
• Act as the Revenue Operations team’s project manager for key initiatives, coordinating efforts across Sales, Finance, Marketing, Technology, and Market Leadership.
• Gather business requirements, document processes, manage timelines, and communicate progress to stakeholders.
• Drive process improvement initiatives that increase efficiency, scalability, and operational effectiveness.
• Identify opportunities to leverage AI and automation to improve reporting, forecasting, documentation, and operational workflows
• Assist in the design, testing, and deployment of AI-powered solutions and agents that increase productivity and streamline business processes

Requirements:

• Experience creating and maintaining training materials, user guides, process documentation, and standard operating procedures
• Ability to communicate complex processes and technical concepts in a clear, user-friendly manner for both technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience facilitating training sessions and supporting user adoption of new tools, systems, and processes is a plus
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail — you catch errors before others do
• Collaborative, low-ego, and comfortable in a fast-moving, multi-market environment
• Media, broadcasting, or advertising industry experience a plus, but not required

Please send resumes to Becky Hollandsworth at rhollandsworth@grahammedia.com

Graham Media Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. In addition to complying with the requirements of federal law, GMG will comply with applicable state and local laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Any offer of employment is conditional upon the successful completion of a pre-employment drug screening, investigative background check, employment/education verifications and reference checks.

The Big Ten has eight players on the first team, led by Oregon quarterback Dante Moore and two of his teammates.

Defending national champion Indiana, Georgia and Oklahoma each has two players on the first team, as determined by media members on the AP Top 25 voting panel.

The Texas players on the team are offensive lineman Trevor Goosby, wide receiver Cam Coleman, defensive lineman Colin Simmons and linebacker Rasheem Biles.

Defensive lineman A’Mauri Washington and safety Koi Perich are the Oregon players joining Moore, who edged out Mississippi's Trinidad Chambliss for first-team honors.

Wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, the Big Ten preseason offensive player of the year, is the only selection from Ohio State, the No. 1 team in the preseason AP Top 25 poll.

Smith, Missouri running back Ahmad Hardy and Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore are returning AP first-team All-America picks who are on the preseason team.

Iowa's Kade Pieper was voted first-team center by a wide margin even though this will be his first season playing the position. He moved from right guard to replace 2025 consensus All-American Logan Jones.

The AP All-America team for this season will be released in December.

First team offense

Quarterback — Dante Moore, fourth year, Oregon.

Running backs — Kewan Lacy, third year, Mississippi; Ahmad Hardy, third year, Missouri.

Tackles — Carter Smith, fifth year, Indiana; Trevor Goosby, fourth year, Texas.

Guards — Evan Tengesdahl, fourth year, Cincinnati; Shadre Hurst, fifth year, Houston.

Center — Kade Pieper, fourth year, Iowa.

Tight end — Trey’Dez Green, third year, LSU.

Wide receivers — Jeremiah Smith, third year, Ohio State; Malachi Toney, second year, Miami; Cam Coleman, third year, Texas.

All-purpose player — Wayne Knight, fifth year, UCLA.

Kicker — Tate Sandell, fifth year, Oklahoma.

First team defense

Edge — Colin Simmons, third year, Texas; Dylan Stewart, third year, South Carolina.

Tackles — A’Mauri Washington, fourth year, Oregon; David Stone, third year, Oklahoma.

Linebackers — Rasheem Biles, fourth year, Texas; Xavier Atkins, third year, Auburn; Rolijah Hardy, third year, Indiana.

Cornerbacks — Leonard Moore, third year, Notre Dame; Ellis Robinson IV, third year, Georgia.

Safeties — KJ Bolden, third year, Georgia; Koi Perich, third year, Oregon.

Defensive back — Bray Hubbard, fourth year, Alabama.

Punter — Evan Crenshaw, fifth year, Troy.

Second team offense

Quarterback — Trinidad Chambliss, fifth year, Mississippi.

Running backs — Mark Fletcher Jr., fourth year, Miami; LJ Martin, fourth year, BYU.

Tackles — Cayden Green, fourth year, Missouri; Jordan Seaton, third year, LSU.

Guards — Greg Johnson, fourth year, Minnesota; Luke Montgomery, fourth year, Ohio State.

Center — Drew Bobo, fifth season, Georgia.

Tight end — Terrance Carter Jr., fifth year, Texas Tech.

Wide receivers — Duce Robinson, fourth year, Florida State; Charlie Becker, third year, Indiana; KJ Duff, third year, Rutgers.

All-purpose player — Cam Cook, fourth year, West Virginia.

Kicker — Lucas Carneiro, fifth year, Mississippi.

Second team defense

Edge — Anthony Smith, fifth season, Minnesota; John Henry Daley, fourth year, Michigan.

Tackles — Tyrique Tucker, fifth year, Indiana; Will Echoles, third year, Mississippi.

Linebackers — Sammy Brown, third year Clemson; Raylen Wilson, fourth year, Georgia; Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, third year, Notre Dame.

Cornerbacks — Brandon Finney Jr., second year, Oregon; Zabien Brown, third year, Alabama.

Safeties — Brauntae Johnson, third year, Notre Dame; Ty Benefield, fourth year, LSU.

Defensive back — Kelley Jones, fourth year, Mississippi State.

Punter — Palmer Williams, fourth year, Baylor.

___

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Trump has suggested the massive building be painted as part of his push to remake and beautify the nation’s capital. Planners said the paint job would cost at least $7.5 million.

The proposal to paint the building has alarmed preservationists, architects, historians and others who argue that granite is not meant to be painted and that paint would trap moisture and degrade the stone.

U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich said plaintiffs in an ongoing case had not shown that minimal tests planned for the historic building would cause irreparable harm if those tests go ahead.

The plaintiffs, which include cultural preservationist groups, had sought a restraining order and a temporary injunction to stop the Trump administration from conducting tests and other preparatory work.

At issue was whether that work would get ahead of a larger question before the court over whether the General Services Administration could delegate its authority for such a project to the Executive Office.

“The plaintiffs’ motion rises and falls on irreparable harm,” Friedrich said from the bench. The test areas would include about 8 square feet of the building's massive exterior and several panels that can’t be seen by the public, she said.

Friedrich said that while she was allowing that test to move ahead, she would not hesitate to step in and rule if the administration moved beyond the limited testing. She asked the parties to provide a status report by next Tuesday and ordered regular reports following that.

Gregory Werkheiser, a lawyer with Cultural Heritage Partners and one of the plaintiffs, said that while he and others challenging the painting plan were disappointed, “the reasons we brought this case are untouched by today’s decision.”

The larger issue, he said, is whether “the president has taken power illegally from the GSA and put it in his office in terms of this project and the implications of that. If that holds true for historic properties around the country, that could be devastating.”

Cosmic radiation comes from space. Only a small amount reaches the Earth's surface, but exposure is greater for people flying at high altitudes.

There’s been limited evidence from small studies suggesting that the exposure translates to higher cancer death rates among people who fly often — particularly pilots and flight attendants. The new study “brings important new evidence to bear on this question,” two Australian radiation experts who weren't involved in the research wrote in an accompanying commentary.

The latest study, published Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine, used national data from more than 12 million death certificates that included information about occupations. The authors looked at death rates from cancers that are tied to radiation exposures, including leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and cancers of the skin, breast, thyroid, prostate and central nervous system.

Among more than 500 occupations, flight attendants had the highest percentage of deaths from radiation-related cancers, and pilots were second, the researchers found. For those two occupations, the odds of dying were unusually high for each type of radiation-related cancer.

Neither group showed higher-than-normal death rates from cancers that aren't tied to radiation exposure, noted the commentary writers, Catherine Olsen and Ken Karipidis. That fact “supports the hypothesis that occupational radiation exposure, rather than lifestyle or socioeconomic factors, underlies the observed excess,” they wrote.

The researchers found that flight attendants had about 50% higher odds of dying from a radiation-related cancer than the general working population, and pilots had about 36% higher odds.

In terms of absolute risk, about 6.9% of flight attendant deaths were from these cancers — roughly 1 in 14. Among pilots, it was 6.7%. For the general working population, it was 5%, said the study's first author, Dr. Vishal Patel of Harvard Medical School.

The authors acknowledged some limitations in their study. They do not know how much exposure each flight attendant and pilot got in the air or from other sources. It's also possible occupations were misclassified on some death certificates.

They also could not account for another possible contributor specific to the professions: Cancer risk can be worsened by frequent disruption of the body’s internal clock, which can be affected by jet lag, crossing time zones and irregular work schedules.

The Federal Aviation Administration has acknowledged that aircrews are exposed to ionizing radiation, but the government does not set federal dose limits or require monitoring, the authors noted.

“You can't manage an exposure you've decided not to measure,” Patel said in an email.

Sara Nelson, who leads a union representing 55,000 flight attendants, said the report reinforces that radiation exposure needs to be taken seriously, as the union has suggested for years.

“The risk is known, but crew are not educated or informed. And, no one is taking responsibility,” said Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.

Annual skin examinations may be warranted for all people working on high-altitude flights, and women in those jobs may want to get mammograms earlier or more frequently, Olsen and Karipidis wrote. Doctors who care for pilots and flight attendants also should have a “heightened index of suspicion” for cancer when evaluating these patients, they said.

___

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.

Revenue increased to $47.86 billion from $45.28 billion, edging out the $47.24 billion that Wall Street had expected, according to a survey by FactSet.

Globally, sales at stores open at least a year, a key indicator of a retailer’s health, climbed 1.7%. In the U.S., comparable store sales rose 1.3%.

“We saw broad based demand across the business as customers continued to engage in smaller projects,” Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said in prepared remarks Tuesday.

Customer transactions slipped 1% in the quarter, but the amount shoppers spent rose to $92.50 per average receipt from $90.01 a year earlier.

Healthy spending on smaller projects during the quarter is encouraging, said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData.

“From our data, the number of smaller projects undertaken during the quarter increased by 1.5% over the prior year,” Saunders said in an email. “This may sound unimpressive, but it represents a step change from the declines of previous periods."

But Saunders also pointed out a potential weakness that is impacting almost all businesses where credit is sometimes required.

“The number of bigger-ticket projects undertaken remains down, falling by 2.1% over last year,” he said. "Concerns around financing and a previous lack of moving activity both remain major drags on the bigger-ticket segment.”

Homeowners that are currently considering taking out loans using home equity are realizing that it is considerably more expensive now compared with the ultra-low rates Americans could count on in the early 2020s. A home project that seemed within reach at a 4% to 5% borrowing rate looks a lot more daunting at 8% or higher.

McPhail remains upbeat about Home Depot’s ability to navigate current conditions.

“While consumer uncertainty and housing affordability continue to pressure demand for larger home improvement projects, we remain focused on what we can control,” he said during the company’s conference call.

While the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate fell slightly for the first time in six weeks, it is still up from last year and borrowing costs remain steeper than they were a year ago.

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump dating back to 2022, the year mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows that fueled a homebuying frenzy at the start of this decade.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes slowed again in July as record prices and the highest mortgage rates in a year prove to be an insurmountable hurdle for many prospective buyers. Existing home sales fell 1.7% last month from June, the National Association of Realtors said last week.

Home prices continue to rise and hit unprecedented levels for the month of July, NAR said. The U.S. median sales price increased 2% from a year earlier, to $434,100.

For the three months ended Aug. 2, Home Depot earned $4.77 billion, or $4.79 per share. A year earlier the home improvement retailer earned $4.55 billion, or $4.58 per share.

Excluding one-time items, earnings were $4.92 per share. That’s much better than the $4.73 per share that Wall Street predicted.

McPhail, along with Ann-Marie Campbell, senior executive vice president, are overseeing operations while CEO Ted Decker takes a temporary medical leave of absence. The company said last week that it expects Decker to return within the next few months.

Home Depot also announced Tuesday that it is launching express delivery nationwide. The service will get orders to customers within three hours or less. It will be available for a small flat fee in the U.S., with no subscription or membership required.

The Atlanta company has posted solid back-to-back quarterly performances this year though many Americans have struggled to buy a home. Despite the solid performance, Home Depot stuck with its earlier sales growth guidance for fiscal 2026 of between 2.5% and 4.5%. It also left unchanged its expectations that comparable sales will be flat to up 2%.

Home Depot said that its outlook includes tariff refunds, which are expected to partially offset higher fuel, energy, and other product input costs throughout the year. Last year, the company said that it didn't expect to raise prices because of tariffs, but executive Billy Bastek said at the time that some products that were on Home Depot shelves may disappear.

McPhail said during the call that Home Depot received $730 million in tariff refunds. Of that, $685 million was put towards lowering the cost of goods sold.

The company's stock rose nearly 2% Tuesday.

The NSO made its delayed 2026-27 season announcement Tuesday, 5 1/2 weeks before its opening concert on Sept. 26 and five months later than the release of its 2025-26 schedule.

The Kennedy Center, named by Congress after President John F. Kennedy, was taken over in 2025 by a board of Trump loyalists who added his name to the complex, only to be ordered to remove it by a federal judge. The board said last week it intends to close the complex for a two-year renovation and add Trump's name to the building’s facade so it would read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.”

NSO tickets sales declined from 72% of capacity in 2024 to 58% in 2025 to 41% last season, The Washington Post reported. The NSO did not confirm the figures.

“For us to perform and to be somehow disconnected with the Kennedy Center probably will convince some of the audience who stayed away from the center to come back to our concerts, and not only that, even to increase the number of the audience,” music director Gianandrea Noseda said in an interview with The Associated Press. “At least this is my hope.”

Noseda was the only NSO official who commented on the record about the season announcement. Trump's name was included twice in the joint statement by the NSO and the Kennedy Center, which cited his “strategic direction” as Kennedy Center chair and “vision for a revitalized institution.”

Entering his 10th season as music director, Noseda is signed through the NSO’s 100th anniversary season in 2030-31.

Tickets go on sale Aug. 28, leaving little time to start rebuilding an audience.

There are 64 scheduled NSO classical concerts in the upcoming season, including 56 in the D.C. area and eight on a U.S. tour from April 20-30. The total matches 2025-26, when there were 62 at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall and two on tour.

Next season will include 24 concerts at George Washington's Lisner Auditorium in D.C. (1,350 available seats), 13 at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland, (1,925), nine at Northern Virginia Community College's Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria (900), eight at George Mason's Center for the Arts in Fairfax, Virginia, (1,850), and two each at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in College Park (1,050) and D.C.'s Lincoln Theatre (1,150).

“We’ll increase the ability of the orchestra to adjust very quickly to the acoustics. I’d like to think of this year of the National Symphony Orchestra as a regional touring orchestra,” Noseda said. “So we will be on tour and we will take and bring the music where the people are instead of inviting them to where we perform.”

Capacity of the venues will be below that of the Kennedy Center's Concert Hall, which had up to 2,465 available seats.

The orchestra still intends to rehearse at the Kennedy Center during the reconstruction and keep its office and music library there.

Noseda will conduct 20 concerts at five of the venues during his 10 weeks in the D.C. area starting with a gala Sept. 26 at Strathmore, and he also will lead the tour performances. He said just two of his programs were changed from his original plans, substituting Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 5 for Gioachino Rossini’s “William Tell” overture and one Ottorino Respighi composition for another, both to account for a smaller stage that could accommodate fewer musicians.

Five holiday performances of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” are the only concerts that require a chorus.

“I honestly would have preferred not to go through this, but the situation is the way it is and we have to be proactive,” Noseda said.

If the schools don't complete a review and terminate any arrangements deemed problematic within the next two weeks, they face losing funding. The goal is to protect taxpayer-funded research from theft and exploitation, the Pentagon said Monday.

“The Department of War has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that compromise our national security,” Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said in a news release.

The release didn't name the schools, but a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters said they include Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University.

The schools didn't immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Sarah Spreitzer, vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents, raised concerns that the announcement suggests, without any evidence, that the schools are engaged in wrongdoing.

The order comes after the Pentagon last month released an updated list of 130 foreign institutions it accused of engaging in “activities that increase the likelihood of U.S. government-funded research and development efforts being misappropriated.”

While the vast majority were Chinese, such as the University of Science and Technology of China and the country's Academy of Military Medical Sciences, several Iranian and Russian institutions also appeared on the list.

The first version of the list was developed during Trump's first term, with the help of the American Council on Education, Spreitzer said.

She said most of the council's member institutions moved away from research partnerships with those institutions in the years that followed. She said she worries U.S. schools will be held liable for partnerships that predate the creation of the list.

“We don’t appreciate the implication that we are not good partners on research security, given that we helped create this list, and given that we’ve always partnered with the federal government when there has been national security concerns,” she said.

The audit comes as the Trump administration continues to express deep concern about China’s activities in the Americas, pushing back on Chinese ownership of ports at either end of the Panama Canal, infrastructure projects funded by China’s Belt and Road initiative in the region and Chinese investment in the telecommunications sector.

The Justice Department also is investigating whether Harvard University is allowing Chinese donors to create scholarships that exclude American students, adding to the barrage of federal inquiries the Trump administration has opened in its battle against the Ivy League school.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said in a statement that the country opposes what it described as the politicization of “normal scientific, educational, and academic exchanges.”

“The U.S. side,” the statement continued, “should abandon the Cold War mentality and foster an open, fair, and non-discriminatory environment for educational, scientific, and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States.” ___

Associated Press writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

___

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

The last leg of what is being billed as their farewell tour kicks off in September in Los Angeles and what likely will be an emotional homecoming is at the end of it — in San Francisco in November.

“I’m sure it’s going to be somewhat emotional because that’s where it all started,” says co-founder and lead guitarist Neal Schon. “I know the audience is going to be off the hook.”

The band has plenty of dates before that finale, with stops in Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, Boston, Cleveland, Denver and Las Vegas, among others.

The tour's last show in San Francisco will cap more than 100 concerts this year, and the band frequently plays for more than two hours, adding deep cuts — like the spacy, melodic “Of a Lifetime” from the early ‘70s and songs from the album “Raised on Radio” from the ’80s — to the reliable hits, like “Faithfully.”

“I’m loving it because it’s the type of show I’ve been wanting to do with Journey,” says Schon, who is frustrated when the band is lumped in with other '80s bands like REO Speedwagon, Styx or Foreigner.

“I always felt like even though all those bands have contributed something that a lot of people like, we were much different. I thought musically we could go any place that we wanted to. And so now we’re doing that, finally.”

Expect hits and album tunes alike

Journey has had six Top 10 hits on the Billboard singles chart — including “Open Arms” and “Who’s Crying Now” — and eight albums in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, including the 1981 No. 1 “Escape.”

Fans can expect to hear those hits as well as Journey's enduring anthem, “Don’t Stop Believin,’” which Schon wrote with keyboardist Jonathan Cain and then-lead singer Steve Perry.

It has shown up in the Broadway show “Rock of Ages,” the cut-to-black finale of “The Sopranos,” the TV show “Glee,” Brad Pitt’s “Moneyball,” the movie “Monster” and the Democratic National Convention roll call in 2024. Journey returns to the road this fall after a summer in which “Don’t Stop Believin’” was heard at the World Cup and as the New York Knicks won the NBA crown.

“'Don’t Stop Believin’' has surpassed our expectations,” says Cain. “Every band wishes they had one and we have one. So, I guess that’s our ‘Hey Jude’ calling card. So we’ll take it.”

In addition to Schon and Cain, the current Journey lineup includes singer Arnel Pineda, keyboardist Jason Derlatka, drummer Deen Castronovo and bassist Todd Jensen. Cain, Derlatka and Castronovo pick up the mic to give Pineda a break on some songs.

Band members say they look out and see five generations attending their shows. “I like to say Journey is certain music in uncertain times,” Cain says. “Journey is a soundtrack to a lot of people’s lives.”

Future is uncertain for band members

The band, born in San Francisco in the days of vinyl, have endured through huge changes in the music business — CDs, Napster, digital and streaming. Schon, who cut his teeth playing with Carlos Santana, remembers Journey in the early days opening for Kiss, Jeff Beck and Cheech and Chong

Touring seems to be the only way for most bands to make any money since each streaming song earns them a fraction of a penny. Journey has leaned into the tour, sometimes hitting three cities in one day.

“I feel bad for the new generation,” says Cain. “I remember when I got a big old fat royalty check and they were playing our songs on the radio and that a new album meant you would sell more tickets. Not so today.”

The end point — Nov. 28 at the Chase Center — looms, but the band isn't sure what that night will include. “It’ll be fitting to end there for sure,” says Cain. “Who knows who’s going to show up? I don’t know. There might be a reunion of sorts, I hope.”

After that, the band isn't certain. “The future kind of remains up in the air really,” says Cain. Schon agrees but isn't ready to make predictions.

“I’m not nearly done with what I want to do,” he says. “I think there’s many great opportunities in the future. Whether or not it’s with everybody that’s here right now, I’m not certain.”

Depending on who you ask, tending to the daily barrage of guinea pig needs can be either a fairy tale or a horror show. For Smothermon, it’s often a mix of both.

“If I could figure out how to get out of this at this point, I probably would,” Smothermon joked. “But I do believe that to a certain extent, I probably wouldn’t get out of bed if I didn’t have this.”

Smothermon is the owner of the Guinea Pig Sanctuary, in Salisbury, Massachusetts, roughly 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Boston. On any given day, 350 to 400 guinea pigs are housed in a modest workspace, split into cages stacked from the floor to ceiling.

The space is cramped and chaotic as volunteers and visitors squeeze past each other between the rows of cages in a converted office space. People constantly move throughout the space cleaning out cages and checking on any sick animals.

But there’s also joy. The squeals from the little piggies about to eat lettuce and other vegetation often spark laughter, while others cuddle and comfort some of the guinea pigs. Each animal has a name prominently displayed outside their cage, as volunteers tick off their personalities.

Maui is friendly and gives kisses. Gritty is older, but shy. Rio has spunk and likes to run around. They all remember the smell of their caretakers and gravitate toward their favorites.

“They’re very sensitive animals,” said Janet Woodman, a volunteer at the nonprofit. “I personally think they are probably the best therapy animal next to a horse.”

Smothermon’s operation is one of the handful of animal rescues in the U.S. devoted solely to taking in abandoned guinea pigs — filling a need as people become overwhelmed with the responsibilities required to take care of these pets. The sanctuary additionally offers boarding for guinea pigs when their owners are traveling, as well as encouraging rehoming of the animals when they can.

Measuring between 8-10 inches (20.32-25.4 centimeters) long, these small beasts originally came from South America derived from the Cavia porcellus species, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. After being domesticated in 5,000 B.C., there are now 13 different breeds that are distributed as both pets and for food.

According to Smothermon, guinea pigs often need to be adopted in pairs. They’re social and can’t be kept in cages full time.

Within minutes of opening the sanctuary earlier this year, an older woman walked through the door carrying two cages needing to “surrender” her guinea pigs. The woman’s husband had become sick, she explained to Smothermon, and she couldn’t properly take care of both him and her pets.

Smothermon hugged the woman and waived the usual fee.

“I tell people, just bring them here,” she said. “If that’s what you need to do, I’ll take on the responsibility.”

Other days, Smothermon is fielding calls from across the U.S., asking if she can take 11 piggies from Illinois, seven from Texas, and 97 from New York — where nearly half are expected to have babies.

It's a constant stress that Smothermon never imagined would consume her life. It initially began when her grandson, Alex, brought home a guinea pig. Alex had fallen into a fire as a child and experienced health problems, causing him to avoid most animals up until he was 12, when he discovered it was safe to interact with guinea pigs.

From there, Smothermon said, her family became a resource to take in abandoned guinea pigs. The family ran the rescue out of their New Hampshire house until a fatal fire burned it down in 2019. The fire resulted in the loss of Smothermon's other grandson, two dogs and dozens of guinea pigs.

The tragedy sent Smothermon into a depression, but when her family was living out of a hotel as they looked for a new home, people still kept dropping off guinea pigs that needed help.

Seeing the need gave Smothermon and her family the focus and motivation to continue Alex's dream, and eventually they relocated to Massachusetts.

Smothermon says the work is hard. She only gets a handful of days off a year, but the constant drumbeat of needing to take care of hundreds, if not thousands, of guinea pigs keeps her grounded.

“If I don’t get up, they don’t eat and they can die. So even though it’s not a choice, I have to," she said.

Kayden Brown, 15, was last seen on Aug. 14 near the McDonald’s and Super K Liquor in the area of Woodward Avenue and South Boulevard in Pontiac during the Woodward Dream Cruise.

According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, Kayden lives with his father in Mt. Morris but was staying with his aunt at her home on University Place Drive while visiting the area for the Dream Cruise.

Kayden is 6 feet tall, weighs around 150 pounds, and has brown eyes and medium-length hair. He was last seen wearing a black T-shirt with white writing, gray basketball shorts and black-and-silver New Balance shoes. He was also carrying a black Nike backpack.

Anyone with information on Kayden’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office at (248) 858-4950.

The British government is backing the landmark airspace-scale trial, launched Tuesday, to avoid creating condensation trails, or contrails. Google UK is contributing its artificial intelligence-powered forecasts to identify the contrail regions.

When airplanes fly through cold and humid areas, ice crystals can form around the soot particles emitted from the engine, creating clouds that trap heat and warm the planet. The Shanwick Oceanic Control Area in the eastern half of the North Atlantic corridor, the location of the trial, is a busy gateway for air traffic between Europe and North America. It's also a hot spot for where contrails form.

The 30-month research program known as Operation Blue Skies includes test periods this winter and next, when air traffic controllers will tell some flights to deviate up to 2,000 feet (610 meters) to avoid areas where contrails are likely to form. These will be minor altitude adjustments within standard flight operations, coordinated through established air traffic control communication channels, according to the British government.

There will be about 20 to 40 test days per winter, when there is less air traffic. Around 10,000 flights are expected to pass through the Shanwick airspace during the testing. Hundreds of those flights would deviate their routes. That 1 % to 5% would be enough to demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in contrail formation on an airspace-scale, said Paul Hodgson, Google's technical lead for Operation Blue Skies.

Individual airlines have tested shifting altitudes to avoid contrail regions. Earlier this year, Google and American Airlines announced that the airline significantly reduced the climate impact of some flights using Google’s AI-based forecasting tool to help prevent contrails.

This new effort expands on individual airline trials to try mitigating contrails across an entire flight corridor.

The thin, white lines that form behind airplanes are responsible for a surprising amount of Earth’s warming — 1% to 2%, according to Contrails.org, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to reducing aviation’s climate impact through contrail management, as part of the Breakthrough Energy group founded by Bill Gates. Modeling shows that the Shanwick airspace accounts for about 5% of the total contributed by contrails, with a significant amount occurring during winter.

Keir Mather, the UK minister responsible for aviation, said the government is partnering with Google to back British experts and innovators to find practical ways to make flying cleaner. The government is paying for more than half of the 5 million pound ($6.76 million) study.

Google called contrails one of the most urgent yet solvable climate challenges facing aviation today.

Hodgson said testing over an airspace, versus individual airline trials, can show how it's possible to move multiple planes away simultaneously from an area where contrails will form, and can show if contrails can be reduced overall for a region. This could provide a blueprint for similar airspaces, he added.

Along with Google and the UK Department for Transport, the consortium includes the Met Office, the UK’s leading air navigation service provider NATS, Contrails.org, Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge.

An Imperial College London study in 2020 found that small changes to flight paths could reduce the climate impact of contrails. Professor Marc Stettler said Operation Blue Skies is a chance to test that idea in the real world, on a scale never seen before.

___

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.

Also in the mix are a handful of scandal-plagued candidates, multiple people running with matching last names and several incumbents at risk of defeat.

Tuesday's contests will help shape the fiercely contested midterms this fall to determine control of Congress, where Republicans have a narrow edge, and offer a referendum on President Donald Trump's second term.

Here's a closer look at what to watch.

Historic slate of Black candidates for governor emerging

Trump-backed Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a rising star in the Republican Party, is running to succeed term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis to become the first Black governor of the state. If Donalds wins, he'll become part of a historic slate of Black gubernatorial nominees that includes Republican Rep. John James in Michigan and Lisa Demuth, who defeated pillow-selling conspiracist Mike Lindell in Minnesota.

On the Democratic side, David Crowley won a razor-thin primary against a democratic socialist in Wisconsin, joining Attorney General Aaron Ford in Nevada, State Rep. Jermaine Johnson in South Carolina, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is running in Georgia to be the nation's first Black woman governor.

There is currently only one Black governor in the nation, Democrat Wes Moore of Maryland, who is seeking reelection in November.

The Florida GOP winner will likely face David Jolly, a former Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat.

Redistricting creates skirmishing for Democrats in Florida House races

A GOP-led redrawing scrambled Florida's congressional map, which has created some awkward matchups.

The most contentious pits veteran Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz against former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick in a South Florida district that is almost majority Black. Cherfilus-McCormick resigned earlier this year under threat of House ethics sanctions, but now wants her seat back.

Wasserman Schultz, a former national party chair seeking a 12th term in Congress, is the only white candidate competing against four Black candidates in an area of Broward County that has helped send Black Democrats to Congress since 1992. Her decision to run has raised questions about representation and stirred deep animosity, including charges by one rival that “she stabbed us in the back."

Carpetbaggers and comebacks in the making in Florida?

The race to fill Donalds' House seat features a cast of characters akin to a reality show reunion, including several who have spent time in prison and a handful who have run in other states.

The field includes two former members of Congress who are mounting comeback bids after departing in scandal. Former North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn'stenure was marred by repeat traffic stops, guns at airport checkpoints and a claim he had been invited to a Washington orgy. Former New York Rep. Chris Collins, who resigned before pleading guilty to insider trading charges, served prison time before he was pardoned by Trump.

Trump-endorsed Catalina Lauf ran twice for Congress in Illinois. She lost the 2020 primary to Jim Oberweis, a former state senator, who has also decamped to Florida and is running for the seat.

Another candidate, Ola Hawatmeh, previously ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New York, while Linda Sawyer once tried in Michigan.

Also in the race: John Strand, a former television actor, underwear model and romance novel cover model, who served prison time for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault of the U.S. Capitol.

Progressive vs. establishment candidates at odds again

The internal battle between progressive and establishment candidates that has been roiling the Democratic Party in states like Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, now arrives in more conservative territory.

Progressive state lawmaker Angie Nixon is facing retired Army Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, a former National Security Council official who delivered searing testimony against Trump in his 2019 impeachment trial. They're both running in the Florida special election to fill the last two years of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's former Senate term.

The winner is likely to face interim Sen. Ashley Moody, the Republican appointed by DeSantis to the seat.

Other races will also put fault lines on display. In South Florida, U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz is running for reelection in a new Republican-friendly district against union organizer and democratic socialist Oliver Larkin.

Meanwhile, Republican incumbents are facing their own challenges. Rep. Cory Mills, running for a third term, has been plagued by an ethics investigation stemming from allegations of assault, domestic violence and campaign finance violations, which he denies.

Double-checking the name in Alaska

In a Senate race that is expected to be one of the country's most closely watched this fall, incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Trump ally seeking a third term, is facing another candidate also named Dan Sullivan.

Republicans have argued the second Sullivan, who’ll be appearing on the ballot as “Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.," is a sham candidate running at the behest of Democrats to cause confusion. Dan J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher, has denied the charge.

Also in the race is former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola. She was the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress, and she would become the first Alaska Native senator if she wins in November.

Under Alaska’s open primary system, all candidates appear on the same ballot, and the four who receive the most votes move on to a ranked-vote general election.

There are other surnames for Alaskans to keep straight.

Republican Rep. Nick Begich faces a crowded field in his bid for a second term in the state’s lone congressional seat. His uncle, former state Sen. Tom Begich, and former state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins are the two Democrats in the race for governor. Tom Begich is the brother of Mark Begich, a former Democratic U.S. senator whom Sullivan defeated in 2014.

Seats open up in Wyoming

For the first time in more than 30 years, Wyoming has open seats for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House all up for grabs in a state where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by a 7-to-1 margin.

Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis' decision to retire after a single term has set off a chain reaction, with Rep. Harriet Hageman running to replace her.

She has an overwhelming fundraising advantage and became well-known after defeating former Rep. Liz Cheney, one of Trump's harshest Republican critics, in 2022.

Nine Republicans, meanwhile, are competing to replace Hageman as the state's lone U.S. representative.

Wyoming’s current governor, Republican Mark Gordon, considered seeking a third term and challenging a state term limit law but ultimately decided not to.

Pro-Israel group spending in former Swalwell seat

In California's Bay Area, voters will be picking a replacement for Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, whose resignation amid sexual assault allegations ended his run for governor.

California's 14th District will remain under Democratic control as state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Bay Area Rapid Transit Board President Melissa Hernandez advanced from a special open primary.

The race is reprising a theme that cropped up in other Democratic primaries this year: outside spending, particularly from pro-Israel lobbying groups. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee's super PAC has spent more than $2 million against Wahab and backing Hernandez, and another group with funding from the super PAC has spent nearly $2 million in support of Hernandez.

Pro-Israel group spending seemed to backfire in Michigan's recent Democratic Senate primary, where Abdul El-Sayed emerged victorious despite tens of millions of dollars backing his opponent Rep. Haley Stevens.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

Last week, Putin visited Iturup, one of the four southernmost islands of the chain, which Japan calls the Northern Territories. The Soviet Union took them from Japan in the final days of World War II, and the dispute has kept the countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending their hostilities.

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Putin’s visit, his first to the islands, was “incompatible with the Japanese position on the Northern Territories” and was “absolutely unacceptable.” She said the visit was a further blow to already-strained ties between the two countries over Ukraine, and that Moscow should understand the consequences.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Tokyo “strongly protests” Putin’s visit to Iturup, which Japan calls Etorofu, noting that "the Northern Territories, including Etorofu Island, are Japan’s inherent territory both historically and from the perspective of international law.”

On Tuesday, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin met with Japanese Ambassador Akira Muto to lodge a formal protest over the “anti-Russia” statements by Takaichi and Motegi.

“Russia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over the southern Kuril Islands are absolutely unshakable,” Galuzin told Muto, according to the Foreign Ministry.

“These territories passed to our country as a result of World War II that was enshrined in the relevant agreements of the Allied Powers and the U.N. Charter,” the ministry said. “Any attempts by the Japanese side to directly or indirectly call this obvious reality into question are absolutely unacceptable and unlawful.”

Galuzin told the ambassador that in view of Tokyo's adherence to Western sanctions against Russia and its support for Ukraine, “Moscow reserves the right to take appropriate countermeasures.”

The Japanese Embassy said in a statement that Muto, during his approximately 20-minute meeting with Galuzin, “appropriately explained the Japanese position on the Northern Territories and President Putin’s recent visit."

It gave no other details, including how Muto responded to Galuzin’s comment on Russia’s territorial claim of the islands or if Japan is considering taking a retaliatory step, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

Decades of diplomatic efforts to negotiate a settlement haven’t produced any visible results. Moscow over the years has also bolstered its military presence on the Kurils in moves that appeared to underscore its firm stance in the dispute.

Speaking last week aboard a Russian warship taking part in the drills in the Pacific, Putin said Moscow previously “had developed constructive relations with a number of Japanese leaders, including the tragically deceased former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who did much to bring Japan and Russia closer together, to align our positions.”

Japan imposed sanctions on Russia after it sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and “listed Russia as a source of primary threats,” a change in that constructive relationship, he added.

Russia remains ready “to cooperate with all its neighbors, including Japan and other states in the region,” Putin said.

Speaking at the start of the talks with President Min Aung Hlaing, Putin noted both countries have cooperated on foreign policy and security issues and developed economic projects.

They have held joint military drills and developed plans for Russia to build a nuclear power plant, a seaport, oil refineries and other facilities in Myanmar.

The visit is the latest in a series of trips by Min Aung Hlaing to foreign countries, including neighboring China, India, Laos and Thailand as he seeks to strengthen international recognition and regain diplomatic standing with other countries.

Despite the visits, Myanmar has remained largely isolated internationally since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

Western nations have imposed economic and political sanctions in response to the takeover by the military, which he led, and its violent repression of the opposition, which has seen the deaths of thousands of civilians and given rise to a civil war.

Russia has defended Min Aung Hlaing’s military government in international forums while Myanmar’s ruling generals have generally supported Moscow’s foreign policy agenda.

During Tuesday's talks, Min Aung Hlaing thanked Putin for his political support and emphasized that Myanmar has remained a reliable partner.

Russia, along with China, is a major supporter and arms supplier to Myanmar. Russian-made fighter jets are used in attacks on territory under the control of ethnic minority groups, including many allied with pro-democracy resistance forces.

Russia's Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov told reporters that Moscow stands ready to increase supplies of oil products, fertilizers and equipment to Myanmar and boost imports of agricultural products and textiles from the country.

The trip marks Min Aung Hlaing’s seventh visit to Russia. Min Aung Hlaing previously met Putin on the sidelines of Moscow’s World Atomic Week Forum in September. Putin has never visited Myanmar.

Min Aung Hlaing was inaugurated in April following a general election judged by United Nations experts and rights groups to be neither free nor fair. Critics dismissed the polls, held in phases in December and January, as a sham designed to consolidate the military’s grip on power while ostensibly restoring civilian rule.

Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc. issued the recall on Sunday, Aug. 16, due to possible foreign material contamination with glass. The products impacted include Outshine Strawberry, Watermelon, Grape, Tangerine, and Black Cherry 6-Count 2.5-ounce Fruit Bars.

No other Outshine products or varieties are impacted. Only the five flavors listed are impacted, and the lots were distributed to retailers nationwide.

No illnesses or injuries were reported. Anyone with concerns about injuries should contact a healthcare provider immediately. Those who bought the affected product should toss or return it to their place of purchase for a full refund.

Here’s a detailed list of the recalled products:

Outshine Strawberry

Product: Outshine Strawberry 6-Count 2.5 ounce Fruit Bars

Batch code and best before dates:

• LLA616903 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA617003 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA617103 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA617203 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA617303 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA617403 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA617503 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA617603 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA620303 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620403 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620503 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620603 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620703 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620803 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620903 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA621003 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA621103 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA621203 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA621303 – 30 NOV 2027
• LLA621403 – 30 NOV 2027
• LLA621503 – 30 NOV 2027
• LLA621603 – 30 NOV 2027

UPC: 041548610047

Outshine Grape

Product: Outshine Grape 6-Count 2.5 ounce Fruit Bars

Batch code (bottom of package) and best before dates:

• LLA616803 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA616903 – 30 SEP 2027
• LLA619703 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA619803 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA619903 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620003 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620103 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620203 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA620303 – 31 OCT 2027

UPC: 041548244044

Outshine Watermelon

Product: Outshine Watermelon 6-Count 2.5 ounce Fruit Bars

Batch code (bottom of package) and best before dates:

• LLA617603 – 30 JUN 2027
• LLA617703 – 30 JUN 2027
• LLA617803 – 30 JUN 2027
• LLA617903 – 30 JUN 2027
• LLA618003 – 30 JUN 2027
• LLA618103 – 30 JUN 2027
• LLA618203 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA618303 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA618403 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA618503 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA619003 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA619103 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA619203 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA619303 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA619403 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA619503 – 31 JUL 2027

UPC: 041548413624

Outshine Black Cherry

Product: Outshine Black Cherry 6-Count 2.5 ounce Fruit Bars

Batch code (bottom of package) and best before dates:

• LLA618503 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA618603 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA618703 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA618803 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA618903 – 31 JUL 2027
• LLA619003 – 31 JUL 2027

UPC: 041548000121

Outshine Tangerine

Product: Outshine Tangerine 6-Count 2.5 ounce Fruit Bars

Batch code (bottom of package) and best before dates:

• LLA619603 – 31 OCT 2027
• LLA619703 – 31 OCT 2027

UPC: 041548612041

The pop superstar has been nominated in every decade of her musical career. She has 19 competitive MTV VMA wins and in 1986 became the first solo female artist to receive the Video Vanguard Award.

She is up for 11 awards at this year's ceremony, including video, artist and song of the year as well as best collaboration, dance, direction, art direction, cinematography, editing, choreography and visual effects.

If she were to sweep, she'd tie Beyoncé and Taylor Swift for the title of most-awarded musician in VMA history. They have 30 each. (Eminem is the male artist with the most VMAs, with 15.)

Speaking of Swift: She follows Madonna with the second-most nominations, with nine. If she takes home even one award, she will become the most-awarded artist in VMA history.

Swift is up for video and artist of the year as well as best pop, direction, art direction, cinematography, editing, choreography and visual effects.

Madonna and Swift are followed by Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter with seven nods to their name as well as Bruno Mars, PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson with five. Blackpink's LISA has four and Shakira, Tate McRae, GENER8ION and Yung Lean are tied for three.

Rounding out the artist of the year category nominees are Grande, Mars, Carpenter and Morgan Wallen, in addition to Madonna and Swift.

The top prize of the night, video of the year, sees Swift's “The Fate of Ophelia” compete against Madonna’s “Confessions II — The Film,” Grande’s “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” Mars' “I Just Might,” Carpenter’s “Tear” and GENER8ION’s “Storm” starring Yung Lean.

The two-hour show will broadcast live on CBS on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern and 4:30 p.m. Pacific, from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. It will also simulcast on MTV and be available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.

The show will become available to stream globally the next day on Paramount+ and MTV.

CBS is home to a number of award shows, including the Tony Awards and the American Music Awards. It has aired the Grammys since 1973, though that show will head to ABC in 2027.

This year’s Video Music Awards features 26 first-time nominees, which include GENER8ION and Yung Lean (with their aforementioned three nods, for their “Storm” collaboration) and the K-pop boy band CORTIS and viral “Boston” singer Stella Lefty with two each. Other notable first-time nominees include Don Toliver, Kali Uchis, Noah Kahan, Olivia Dean, Tucker Wetmore and Sienna Spiro.

The best dance category has returned for the first time in seven years. Nominees include McRae's “Nobody’s Girl,” Bebe Rexha and Faithless' “New Religion,” Harry Styles' “Aperture,” Lady Gaga and Doechii's “Runway,” Madonna's “Confessions II — The Film,” PinkPantheress' “Stateside” with Larsson and Slayyyter's “Dance …”

Fan voting began online Tuesday across 13 categories and ends Sept. 25 at 6 p.m. Eastern and 3 p.m. Pacific.

Voting in the best new artist category will remain active during the show.

___

An earlier version of this story had an incorrect spelling of Lady Gaga and Doechii’s song “Runway.”

But textile researchers say it’s actually a little more complicated than that.

The fabric matters. But so does how heavy it is, how the clothing is made, how it fits and even what color it is. What works best also depends on what you're doing and how much you’re sweating.

With extreme heat a growing public health concern, scientists are developing and studying clothing designed to help people stay cooler. But clothing is only one component of the body’s response to heat.

Clothing should allow the body’s natural response to heat to work, said George Havenith, emeritus professor of environmental physiology and ergonomics at Loughborough University.

“It’s a really powerful mechanism from humans that we can defend our body temperature with,” Havenith said. “The most important thing in the selection of clothing would be to make sure you do not hamper sweat evaporation.”

Look for lightweight, breathable clothing

In hot weather, look for lightweight clothing that allows air to move through the fabric and reach the skin, which can help sweat evaporate. Researchers refer to this property as air permeability.

The fiber listed on the tag is only part of what determines that. How fibers are woven or knitted also affects how easily air passes through.

“For greatest airflow, open weave and loose knit structures are best, free of any water- or soil-repellent finishes. Cellulosic fibers, like cotton and flax (linen), tend to be more breathable and comfortable,” said Meredith McQuerry, a professor at Florida State University who studies clothing development and performance.

Linen can be a good option, but “linen” on the label doesn't tell the whole story. She said shoppers shouldn't rely on fiber content alone. A more open woven structure will generally be more breathable, regardless of the garment's fiber.

Wicking is slightly different. Wicking fabrics are designed to move sweat away from the skin and spread it across a larger surface area, which can help it evaporate faster. Engineered synthetic fibers are commonly used in sportswear, said Havenith.

But wicking and cooling are not necessarily the same. Moving sweat away from the skin can make clothing feel drier, but evaporation that happens farther from the skin can provide less direct cooling.

Fit matters too. Havenith recommends garments with enough room for ventilation, especially in hot outdoor conditions. McQuerry, however, noted that the right fit can depend on what you're doing. Someone exercising outdoors might prefer a tighter-fitting synthetic tank top, while someone sitting on a porch or doing light yard work might be more comfortable in looser cotton T-shirt.

“In casual settings, wearers may prefer a looser fit that allows for more airflow while standing or sitting. If performing physical activity, a tighter fit may be preferred to enable quicker sweat evaporation,” said McQuerry.

Cotton, polyester and why there is no perfect fabric

People choosing between cotton and polyester should consider how much they expect to sweat and what they'll be doing. Cotton absorbs sweat but can become heavy when saturated, while engineered polyester can move moisture across the fabric and dry quicker, one reason synthetic fabrics are so common in athletic clothing.

During exercise, polyester tends to continuously evaporate sweat, while cotton will work well for a short period until it has absorbed all it can, said Po-Chun Hsu, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago who studies materials and sustainability.

“Imagine you are wearing a wet T-shirt? Of course you get this evaporation going on, but then you also block the breathability and you won’t feel very comfortable when it’s completely wet,” he said.

Polyester is widely used because it is inexpensive, durable and versatile, but not all performs the same way.

It absorbs very little moisture naturally, which can make polyester that hasn’t been treated or engineered uncomfortable in hot conditions as sweat accumulates against the skin, said Jonathan Chen, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies textiles and apparel.

But it can be engineered to move sweat across the fabric and help it evaporate.

Chen suggests looking for lightweight polyester garments designed for breathability. A porous athletic shirt can behave very differently from a dense garment, even if both labels say 100% polyester.

Cotton can have another role in extreme heat. Havenith said deliberately wetting clothing can provide evaporative cooling, including for older adults who may not sweat as effectively.

Sunlight and “cooling” apparel

People spending extended time outdoors in direct sunlight should prioritize covering skin to protect against UV exposure and sunburn, Havenith said.

Loose, ventilated clothing can provide coverage without sacrificing airflow, such as a lightweight long-sleeved shirt.

Color can matter too. White, lighter-colored or highly reflective fabrics can reduce heat gain by reflecting sunlight instead of allowing as much energy to be absorbed, Hsu said.

Hsu said researchers have already made substantial progress in managing sweat and moisture, while engineering clothes to reflect more incoming sunlight remains a developing area.

Consumers should also look beyond the word “cooling” on labels. Hsu said some cooling fabrics are designed primarily to feel cold when they first touch the skin, an effect that can fade as the material warms.

“If it doesn’t really, let’s say, increase the evaporation of the surface area or reflect the sunlight or enhance the breathability, then it’s quite unlikely that it will have any continuous cooling effect,” Hsu said.

Some approaches go beyond the fabric itself. Fan-equipped clothing has become increasingly common among outdoor and factory workers in Japan. The garments use small fans to circulate outside air underneath the clothing, helping sweat evaporate.

Havenith said the garments can improve comfort and lower skin temperature, but don't do much to reduce core body temperature. Battery capacity is also a limitation because of the additional weight, although he expects improvements as battery technology develops.

How effective the fans are also depends on the conditions.

“It should work in all conditions where air temperature is below skin temp. ... In very dry air, the effect may be limited as the sweat evaporates anyway," said Havenith.

For shoppers, the researchers’ advice comes back to looking beyond a single word on the label. Consider whether a garment is lightweight, how easily air moves through it, how it handles moisture, how it fits, whether you will be in direct sun and what kind of activity you will be doing.

There may not be one perfect fabric for extreme temperatures, but there are ways to choose clothing that works with the body’s cooling system rather than against it.

___

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.

Berkley City Council is making it clear: e-bikes aren’t allowed on sidewalks in the city.

Opposition to the ban is growing, with some residents saying the new ordinance goes too far. The city said it’s trying to keep people safe, especially kids and older adults.

On Aug. 17, Berkley City Council voted to ban e-bikes and high-powered moped-like devices from being used on any sidewalk in the city.

Residents will only be allowed to ride e-bikes on the street or walk them on the sidewalk.

Outside of downtown Berkley, residents can still ride their traditional bicycle on the sidewalk.

The city said it will run an education campaign, especially as schools start, to help people get familiar with the rules.

The city also said it is not focused on punishing riders but is looking for compliance to keep people safe. The new ordinance goes into effect in 30 days.

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

Dearborn prepares for ‘Christian Crusader March’ at upcoming city council meeting

Dearborn city leaders are calling for unity ahead of a planned protest. They want to ease tensions before the “Christian Crusader March” takes aim at the city council.

Dearborn City Council is trying to keep things business as usual during its meeting. The exception is that, instead of meeting at its usual spot, it’ll be held at Henry Ford Centennial Library Tuesday night because bigger crowds are expected.

Organizers believe as many as 50,000 people could descend on Dearborn. There are posts circulating about a “Christian Crusader March” in Dearborn.

Read more here.

Berkley City Council passes e-bike ordinance -- what residents need to know

E-bikes are getting more popular around Metro Detroit, and confusion is growing about where people can ride them.

Berkley City Council is making it clear: e-bikes aren’t allowed on sidewalks in the city.

Read more here.

Why experts say now is the time to reset sleep schedules for kids ahead of the school year

It’s almost time for children to head back to school, which means the return of earlier bedtimes and an early alarm clock.

As families prepare for a new school year, sleeping is getting attention at the state level. Michigan lawmakers are taking some steps to raise awareness about teen sleep deprivation.

Read more here.

Detroit’s East Riverfront Community Hub invites residents to shape Riverfront’s future

The East Riverfront Community Hub is giving Detroiters a chance to see — and help shape — the future of one of the city’s most iconic landmarks.

Stepping inside the hub, visitors are met with renderings, historical displays, and interactive features that paint a vivid picture of what the Renaissance Center’s footprint could become.

Read more here.

4Warn Weather: Showers and a few storms return to Metro Detroit tonight

Dry and seasonable weather will dominate much of the day today across Southeast Michigan, with temperatures remaining near average for mid-August. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms develops late this afternoon, mainly across the Thumb. Rain chances increase tonight as a line of showers moves into Southeast Michigan. A few isolated thunderstorms will be possible, but widespread severe weather is not expected locally.

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But on his first day back at his home in the village of Qusra, Loui Ridi was ultimately told to go back inside because the area was a closed military zone.

Israeli soldiers asked the settlers to leave the area as well, but Ridi said he saw at least three settlers close enough to return and threaten his family if the army leaves.

“If I need to walk outside of my house, I’m not able. I have to get a permission and coordination and it’s going to take hours if it’s even possible to leave,” Ridi said.

Ridi yelled at one of the settlers to get off his property and pleaded with the soldiers to remove them, according to video he shared with The Associated Press. He told the settler that he wasn’t allowed to be there and called him a terrorist.

The soldiers who told Ridi to get back inside his home also pleaded with settlers to leave peacefully.

For Ridi, the exchange extinguished any sense of victory remaining after he managed, with the aid of a military escort, to enter his home on Monday. He said the encounter epitomized how the army has been unable or unwilling to clear the area of settlers.

“As soon as (Israeli soldiers) leave — like if they leave today — probably on the same day or a couple hours later, the settlers may come back and build the same tent in front of my house,” he said.

Qusra standoff is the latest violence in the West Bank

Some 2.8 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule in the West Bank, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in population centers. Roughly 560,000 Israeli settlers who live in a growing number of communities and farming outposts across the territory. Emboldened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, extremist settlers have routinely attacked villages and set homes, cars and mosques ablaze in the occupied West Bank this year.

The international community largely considers Israeli settlements to be illegal and obstacles to peace.

Few episodes garner as much international attention as the siege in Qusra. However, settlers have staged takeovers of other Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank. In the neighboring village of Jalud, settlers surrounded a home last month and prevented Palestinians from entering or exiting until they decided to escape and not come back.

Palestinian officials report 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers this year. Three Israelis have been killed including two in a nearby clash last month.

Much like in Qusra, violent settlers rarely face arrest by Israeli police or prosecution in Israeli courts.

Ridi, a 46-year-old who lives with his family in Ohio but has a second home in the Qusra, arrived on Monday, climbing his stairs and raising an American flag on his roof.

The United States — Israel’s closest ally — has condemned the ongoing siege in Qusra, now in its tenth day. President Donald Trump has said he opposes Israeli efforts to annex the West Bank but signaled broad acceptance of settlements and, at the start of his second term, lifted sanctions on settlers accused of violence.

Ridi said he can’t go out to buy groceries without permission and has asked U.S. officials to help guarantee he can bring supplies back to his home in the closed military zone on Qusra's outskirts.

Video shows settlers demanding homeowner stay inside

Ridi said he slept for four hours in a room where he kept the shutters closed because settlers had previously thrown rocks toward the windows.

When he woke up Tuesday and went outside to confront the settlers and soldiers, one settler demanded in Hebrew that the soldiers make him go back inside, saying Ridi’s yard belonged to them.

“Take them to their home. You said it’s a closed military zone,” the settler told an Israeli soldier, according to Ridi’s video.

The soldiers told everyone to leave, saying, “We don’t need this commotion.”

Israel's military said Tuesday that the closed military zone had been cleared but did not answer questions about settlers' presence in and around the Palestinian village.

Soldiers have repeatedly dismantled their tents and shades in the area only to have the settlers return to area on the outskirts of a village 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Palestinian city of Nablus.

One settler was detained last week but Israeli police have not reported any arrests. Ridi fears settlers could ramp up attacks on his home moments after Israeli soldiers leave, much like other areas where settlers have staged takeovers of Palestinian homes.

Ridi said his two daughters in Ohio have stayed up past their bedtimes worried for his safety, texting that they miss him and asking if he is all right.

“I have to lie and say, ‘No, I’m safe. I’m OK. It’s safe here,’ because I want her to sleep,” he said.

Here’s a list of back-to-school giveaways across Metro Detroit:

Aug. 7

• City of Southfield, 26000 Evergreen Rd, Southfield, MI 48037 - Free Backpacks w/School Supplies, Food, Games, Music, Giveaways, K-12 (4-7 PM)
• Boost Mobile, 26310 Eastgate Blvd, Roseville, MI 48066 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More (3 PM)
• Boost Mobile, 19620 Middlebelt Rd, Livonia, MI 48152 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3PM)
• Center of Family Development, 2995 E Grand Blvd, Detroit, MI 48202 - Backpack giveaway, Free Diapers, Family Immunizations (12-4 PM)
• Back-to-school fair in Southfield
• • Where: Southfield Municipal Campus, 26000 Evergreen Rd. in Southfield
  • What: The Southfield Public Schools is holding its annual back-to-school fair, where there will be free backpacks and school supplies, entertainment, food, prizes, and more. For more information, email communications@southfieldk12.org.

Aug. 8

• Abundant Life Church, 29863 Dawson St, Garden City, MI 48135 - Free Backpacks & School Supplies, Food, Family Fun, Bounce House, Face Painting, Community Resources (2- 5 PM)
• Boost Mobile, 34873 Ford Rd, Westland, MI 48185 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)
• Detroit Police Dept 11187 Gratiot Ave, Detroit, MI 48213 - Free Backpack w/School Supplies, Food, Music, Bounce Houses. (12- 4 PM)
• 12-4 PM -- Tuff Elites Back to School, Heilmann Community Center, 19601 Crusade St, Detroit, MI 48205

Aug. 9

• Greater Missionary Church, 2533 Carpenter, Detroit, MI 48212 - Free Backpacks/School Supplies, Dental Services, Food, Community Resources, Bounce Houses, Fun (1-4:30 PM)

Aug. 10

• Em Urgent Care 8030 N Middlebelt Rd, Westland, MI 48185 - Free School Supplies, Bounce Houses, Food Trucks, Giveaways (3:30-7 PM)

Aug. 11

• Greater Grace Temple, 23500 W. Seven Mile, Detroit, MI 48219 - All Free: Backpacks, School Supplies, Eye Exams, Glasses, Dental Care, Shots, Physicals, Zoo, Bike Helmets, Bike giveaway, Community Resources (11 AM- 2 PM)
• MI Dept Human Services, 4733 Conner, Detroit, MI 48210 - School Supplies Giveaway RSVP: (313) 926-8343 Mrs. Thurman (9 AM-1 PM)
• 4–6 PM -- Backpacks & Beats 2026
• • 400 Martin Luther King Jr. St. SE
  • Grand Rapids, MI 49503
  • Free school supplies while supplies last, including backpacks, notebooks, crayons, markers, colored pencils, dry erase markers, highlighters, pencils, pens, folders, scissors, calculators, sticky notes and glue sticks. Also includes a bounce house, hot dogs, ice cream, and community resources including healthcare, education, and food security information. Weather permitting.

Aug. 13

• Boost Mobile, 7451 Gratiot Ave. Detroit, MI 48213 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)
• Boost Mobile, 19085 Eureka Rd, Southgate, MI 48195 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)

Aug. 14

• Boost Mobile, 9169 Telegraph Rd, Redford, MI 48239 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)
• Boost Mobile, 19100 Van Dyke Detroit, MI 48234 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More (3 PM)
• Kemeny Rec. Center, 2260 S. Fort St, Detroit, MI 48217 - Free Backpacks w/School Supplies, Lunch, Community Resources, Bounce Houses, Music, Face painting (12- 4 PM)
• New Era Detroit Back to School Event
• • 2-5PM
  • 19010 Schoolcraft Detroit, MI 48223
  • Free Uniform Giveaway (Child must be present)

Aug. 15

• Boost Mobile, 352 N Telegraph Rd, Pontiac, MI 48341 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)
• Boost Mobile, 22844 John R. Rd, Hazel Park, MI 48030 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)
• Boost Mobile, 6042 Rawsonville Rd, Belleville, MI 48111 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)
• John F. Kennedy, Jr. Library, 24602 Van Born Rd, Dearborn Heights, MI 48125 -Backpacks with school supplies K-12 (11 AM)
• Levagood Park 801 N. Denwood St., Dearborn, MI 48128 - Backpack w/School Supplies, w/Ice Cream - Free Backpacks. (12- 2 PM)
• Douglas Ramsay Park, 14800 Longacre St, Detroit, MI 48227 - Free Backpacks w/ School Supplies, Free Books. Vendors Welcomed. (10 AM-1 PM)
• Magical Touch Quick Lube, 10700 Seven Mile W, Detroit, MI 48221 - Free Backpacks, Food, drinks, DJ (12-4 PM)
• Unity Baptist Church, 7500 Tireman Ave, Detroit, MI 48204 - Free Backpack w/School Supplies (11 AM- 2 PM)
• Beechwood Center, 421 Beechwood St., River Rouge, MI 48218 - Free Backpacks w/ School Supplies, Tacos, Pizza, DJ (2- 5 PM)
• 2-4 PM -- Back-to-school giveaway in Detroit
• • Where: 10700 W. Seven Mile Rd. in Detroit
  • What: The Peace Over Pistols event will provide 400 free backpacks for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Children must be present at the event to receive a bag.
  • The event will also include a DJ, popcorn, cotton candy, and hot dogs. For more information or to donate school supplies, call 313-658-4391.
• 10 AM – 2 PM
• • Where: 12227 Findlay Ave. in Detroit
  • What: The Refuge Temple Cathedral of His Glory Church of God in Christ will host a free community day featuring free backpacks and school items distributed (while supplies last), free food, music, bounce houses, face painting, immunizations, a gaming truck, and more. For more information or to make donations, call 248-508-2182.
• 19493 Joann Detroit, MI 48205
• • What: Back-to-school event with bounce house, food & drinks, live DJ & music, and fun games. Giveaways and more.
  • Contact: 214-899-3100
• Peace Over Pistols Back 2 School Event
• • 12-4PM
  • 10700 W. 7 Mile/Meyers Detroit, MI 48221
  • Free Backpacks, Food, Music
• Purpose Driven Cares Back to School Even
• • 12PM-6PM
  • Calimera Park 19493 Joann Detroit, MI 48205
  • Food & Drinks, Music, Games, Giveaways

Aug. 16

• Penn-Vassar Park 3600 Pardee St., Dearborn, MI 48124 - Backpack w/School Supplies, w/Ice Cream - 125 Backpacks given away (12-2 PM)

Aug. 18

• Xfinity’s Back to School Giveaway for Local Families
• • 10AM-7PM
  • Xfinity Store 2911 Preyde Blvd, Ste 14 Lansing, MI 48912
  • Free Backpacks with school supplies, Tablet Raffle, Bike Raffle, Community Resources
  • Has to be within 20 miles of Lansing

Aug. 19

• Drive-up Back to School Giveaway
• • 11AM-2PM
  • 20280 Lyndon St. Detroit, MI 48223
  • Free backpacks and school supplies.

Aug. 20

• Boost Mobile, 12042 E 10 Mile Rd, Warren, MI 48089 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)
• Joseph Center, 8431 Rosa Parks, Detroit, MI - Backpacks w/School Supplies, Free Food, Haircuts, Braiding, Kids Zone, Health Screenings, Community Resources (2-6 PM)
• Strum & Supplies: A Back-to-School Giveaway + Drive
• • 12PM-1:30PM
  • 614 Seymour Ave. Lansing, MI 48933
  • School supply giveaway, food, music and more!

Aug. 21

• Admire Dental 13219 Eureka Rd, Southgate, MI 48195 - Free Backpacks w/School Supplies (3 PM)

Aug. 22

• Boost Mobile, 866 Dix Hwy, Lincoln Park, MI 48146 - Free Backpack, Food, Giveaways, More! (3 PM)
• Schoolcraft Browns, 12416 Indiana Street, Detroit, MI 48204 - Free Backpack 1st 100 People (2 PM)
• Freedom Missionary Church 2228 Lakeview St, Detroit, MI 48215 (Watch) - All Free: Backpacks, school supplies, Face painting, food, haircuts, bounce house, & more! (1-4 PM)
• True Love Christian Ministries 6138 East Nevada St. Detroit, MI 48234 - Free: Food, Backpacks, school supplies, haircuts, community resources, bounce houses, activities Volunteers Welcomed, RSVP: Impact Detroit Youth
• Community Hub’s 3rd Annual Back-to-School Event Tickets, Saturday, August 22 • 1 PM - 5 PM | Eventbrite (1-5 PM)
• Taylor Christian Church, 11425 Telegraph Rd, Taylor, MI 48180 - Free backpacks, school supplies, face painting, giveaways, haircuts and inflatables (11 AM)
• Sweet Living Towers, 15400 Grand River Ave, Detroit, MI 48227 - All Free: Backpacks, school supplies, haircuts, hair styles, braids, nails, skin care, food, community resources, uniforms, health screenings, Kid Zone, Music & More (12-4 PM)
• Aiyanah’s Gift Annual Back to School Rally
• • 3PM
  • 3801 Martin Luther King Ave Flint, MI 48505
  • Free Backpacks with school supplies, Food, Games, Raffles, Face Painting, Bounce Houses
• Groomsday Back to School Drive
• • 12-4PM
  • Sweet Living Towers 15400 Grand River Detroit, MI 48227
  • All Free: Backpacks, Uniforms, School Supplies, Community Resources, Haircuts, Braids, Gift Cards and more!
• 7135 Elmhurst St. Detroit, MI 48204
• • 1PM
  • Backpack Giveaway filled with school supplies, bounce house and light refreshments
• Back to School Fest
• • 11AM-5PM
  • 1211 Trumbull St. Detroit, MI 48216
  • Backpack Giveaway, bounce house, games, food & resource vendors, with music & entertainment
• 18200 Greenfield Rd. Detroit, MI 48235
• • 11AM-5PM
  • All Free: School supplies, food, music and more!

Aug. 23

• Royal Party Store 20520 Lahser Rd, Detroit, MI 48219 - Free Backpacks w/School
• Supplies, Haircuts, Braiding, Food, Community Resources, Bounce Houses, more! (2- 7 PM)
• Faith Church 894 E Huron River Dr, Belleville, MI 48111 - 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM -Free Backpacks & School Supplies, Food, Hygiene Kits, K-12 (11 AM-1 PM)
• Tax Reliant 25755 W 8 Mile Rd, Redford Township, MI 48240 - Free School Supplies, Refreshments, Games. Activities, Giveaways (12- 3 PM)
• Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, 4454 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201
• Free Backpacks w/School Supplies, Clothing Swap, Free books, Crafts, community resources (1-3 PM) www.facebook.com/groups/michiganfreebies
• 2nd Annual Back 2 School Drive
• • 2-7PM
  • Royal Party Store 20420 Lahser Rd. Detroit, MI 48219
  • Free Backpacks, School Supplies, Haircuts, Braiders, Food, Bounce Houses, Giveaways and more!

Aug. 25

• WCCCD Back to School Rally
• • 11AM-2PM
  • Mary Ellen Stempfle University Center 19305 Vernier Rd. Harper Woods, MI 48225
  • Free Backpacks and School Supplies, Youth and Parent Workshops, Vendors, Community Resources and more!

Aug. 26

• WCCCD Back to School Rally
• • 11AM-2PM
  • Downriver Campus 21000 Northline Rd. Taylor, MI 48180
  • Free Backpacks and School Supplies, Youth and Parent Workshops, Vendors, Community Resources and more!

Aug. 27

• WCCCD Back to School Rally
• • 11AM-2PM
  • Northwest Campus 8200 W. Outer Dr. Detroit, MI 48219
  • Free Backpacks and School Supplies, Youth and Parent Workshops, Vendors, Community Resources and more!

Aug. 29

• Day of Dignity Drive-Thru Community Distribution
• • 12-5PM
  • Islamic Center of Detroit 14350 Tireman Ave, Detroit, MI 48228
  • All Free (ID Required): School Kits & Backpacks, Winter Jackets, Hygiene Kits, Hot Meals, Family Essentials, Health Services provided by ICD Staff, Gifts, Balloon Twisters
• 1678 Fort St. Lincoln Park, MI 48146
• • 12PM-4PM
  • 75 Students will be provided with backpacks and supplies to start the school year
• Laya’s Foundation Book Bag & Shoe Giveaway
• • 1PM-6PM
  • 6617 W. Warren St. Detroit, MI 48210
  • School supplies, shoes and raffles

Aug. 30

• The Movement Stop the Violence 14^th Annual Back to School Giveaway and Resource Fair
• • 2-6PM
  • On The Go Barbershop 10230 Fenkell Ave. Detroit, MI 48238
  • All Free: Backpacks with school supplies, Access to Financial Resources, Health and Wellness Information, Educational Support Services, Community Programs, Haircuts for Students, Free Lunch for Kids, Petting Zoo and more!
• Detroit Heals Detroit Back to School Bash
• • 2-6PM
  • The Healing Hub 19510 Alcoy Detroit, MI 48205
  • Free Uniforms, Free Shoes, School Supplies, Food, Fun
• Detroit Highwaymen Backpack Drive
• • 12-3PM
  • 4746 Gratiot Ave. Kimball, MI 48074
  • All Free: Backpacks, Haircuts, Fingernail Painting, Finger Foods

Sept. 4

• Back to School Drive
• • 2PM-6PM
  • 4677 Conner St. Detroit, MI 48215
  • Back to school giveaway, haircuts, food, music and more

Hichilema secured around 60% of the presidential vote in the southern African nation that has held largely peaceful elections since it returned to multiparty democracy in 1991.

Hichilema's main challenger, opposition leader Brian Mundubile, won around 38% of the vote, according to the electoral commission.

Zambia, a nation of 22 million people that is one of the world's leading copper producers, is a focus for Chinese investment because of its reserves of the critical mineral. It has also drawn interest from the United States under a Trump administration plan to increase U.S. access to copper and other critical minerals used in new technologies and renewable energy systems.

The results released early Tuesday followed days of heightened tensions since last Thursday's election.

The electoral commission suspended vote counting for hours on Friday, citing attacks on some polling station officials and what it called the theft of some ballot boxes.

It didn't say who might be responsible for the alleged violence and theft, but the suspension prompted the deployment of the army to parts of the capital, Lusaka — an unusual development for one of Africa's more stable democracies.

The Zambian government announced later that 11 opposition officials were detained in a law enforcement raid on election night at a property where opposition leader Mundubile was present, though he was not arrested, according to the government.

The raid involved an exchange of gunfire between occupants of the premises and law enforcement officers, the government said.

The government accused the opposition officials of being in possession of “high-grade military weapons, ammunition and other materials for use in armed insurrection” and said they were a national security threat.

Mundubile criticized the raid as an attempt on his life and denied allegations that the officials were part of a militia.

Hichilema said in a statement Tuesday that he and his party were humbled by the trust placed in them by voters and also reached out to opposition supporters.

“To those citizens who preferred the ideas presented by our opponents, we hear you, and we will continue to work for you to ensure that every Zambian benefits from the development we are delivering,” Hichilema said.

A preliminary report by a European Union observer team released before results were announced said the election was largely peaceful but the “broader electoral process took place in an environment that limited fundamental freedoms.”

“Late legal changes, legal uncertainty and unequal campaign conditions distorted the playing field,” said Michael McNamara, chief of the EU observer mission.

The 64-year-old Hichilema's campaign for a second term focused on an economic recovery plan for a country that was mired in a debt crisis when it defaulted on repayments in 2020. Hichilema was first elected in 2021, and Zambia has restructured debt payments, reined in inflation and stabilized its currency under his leadership.

One of Hichilema's main pledges has been to more than triple Zambia's copper production to 3 million tons a year by the end of his final term in 2031.

Critics, however, said the effects of those macroeconomic improvements were not being felt by ordinary Zambians who were growing frustrated with a high cost of living and electricity shortages.

Hichilema vowed “meaningful development for every single Zambian, in every corner of our country.”

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Magome reported from Johannesburg.

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