The two tornadoes in Southeast Michigan were among at least eight confirmed across the state late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, highlighting the scope of a widespread severe weather outbreak across Michigan.

In Southeast Michigan, the strongest of the confirmed tornadoes tracked through the Ann Arbor area. It developed at 1:44 a.m. near Jackson Avenue and Interstate 94 and moved southeast through Veterans Memorial Park and nearby neighborhoods before lifting at 1:46 a.m. near West William Street and Fourth Street.

This tornado reached estimated peak winds of 110 mph, carving a path about 1.7 miles long and up to 500 yards wide. Damage included numerous uprooted and snapped trees, large downed limbs, and snapped stadium light poles. Portions of an elementary school roof were also blown off. After the tornado lifted, additional straight-line wind damage occurred nearby, including roof panel damage at Yost Ice Arena at the University of Michigan.

A second, shorter-lived tornado touched down near the Allen Park and Lincoln Park border in Wayne County at 2:14 a.m. and lifted just two minutes later. This tornado had peak winds of 95 mph and traveled about a third of a mile with a maximum width of 200 yards.

It began near Wall Avenue and Ruth Avenue, producing minor roof and shingle damage before strengthening to EF-1 intensity. The tornado snapped trees and caused damage to homes and businesses, including windows, roofs, and HVAC equipment, as it moved east-southeast and crossed Dix Highway into Melvindale.

Additional tornadoes confirmed across Mid-Michigan

Earlier in the night, additional tornadoes were confirmed across Mid-Michigan.

An EF-1 tornado touched down in Albee Township in Saginaw County at 11:53 p.m. Tuesday and remained on the ground for five minutes. It reached peak winds of 105 mph and tracked nearly four miles, with a maximum width of 880 yards.

Damage along its path included uprooted and snapped trees, destroyed outbuildings and silos, and significant structural damage to homes. One home lost most of its roof, and garage walls were blown out.

Two weaker EF-0 tornadoes were also confirmed in the region.

An EF-0 tornado occurred near Durand in Shiawassee County just before midnight, traveling about 1.7 miles. Damage included downed trees, siding ripped from homes, and damage to barns and outbuildings.

A few minutes after midnight, a brief tornado near Bridgeport in Saginaw County produced winds near 80 mph. It damaged barns, tore roofing from structures, and uprooted trees along a path of about a half mile.

Widespread wind damage and heavy rain

Beyond the tornadoes, the storms produced widespread damaging winds and heavy rainfall across Southeast Michigan.

Wind gusts reached 70 mph in Ann Arbor and 69 mph at Detroit Metro Airport. Reports of downed trees, power lines, and structural damage were recorded in multiple communities, including Romulus, Dexter, and parts of Oakland and Macomb counties.

Rainfall totals exceeded 2 inches in some locations, including parts of Livingston, Oakland, and Shiawassee counties, contributing to localized flooding concerns.

Statewide outbreak extends into West Michigan

Damage from tornadoes extends across the state.

In West Michigan, the National Weather Service confirmed three tornadoes, including:

• An EF-1 tornado near Otsego, tracking through Allegan and Barry counties with peak winds near 100 mph
• An EF-1 tornado from Fenwick to Perrinton in Montcalm and Gratiot counties, traveling nearly 19 miles with winds up to 110 mph
• An EF-0 tornado in Allegan County, beginning near Schermerhorn Lake and staying on the ground about 6.5 miles

No reported fatalities

No fatalities or injuries have been reported from any of the confirmed tornadoes.

All tornadoes surveyed so far fall within the EF-0 to EF-1 range on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which includes winds from 65 to 110 mph.

Cars were stranded in high floodwater on a highway in Milwaukee and video shared by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showed a woman and young child being rescued from a vehicle.

The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office posted online to urge people not to drive in southeast Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers declared a state of emergency after storms, which had started moving through the state Monday, brought strong winds, hail and heavy rain. At least three tornadoes have been confirmed and more severe weather was expected.

Meanwhile, communities in Michigan were recovering after powerful overnight storms damaged two ice arenas, flooded streets and uprooted trees.

Wind gusts as strong as 70 mph (113 kph) were reported at the University of Michigan football stadium, with similarly strong gusts at the Willow Run Airport, meteorologist Sara Schultz said. National Weather Service crews were surveying damage in places including Ann Arbor to determine whether one or more tornadoes touched down.

Another round of strong storms with potentially damaging winds was moving into the area Wednesday from states to the west.

Schools and ice arenas damaged

Some public school buildings in Ann Arbor suffered structural damage and many lost power. The district was closed because of a fiber outage impacting fire, phone and camera systems, and building access.

Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor said structural engineers were assessing damage to a wall at the city's Veterans Memorial Park Ice Arena. Part of the roof was torn from the university's Yost Ice Arena.

The storm uprooted a hulking tree outside Seungjun Lee's home in Ann Arbor, barely missing his upstairs bedroom.

“If the tree fell down a couple more feet, I would not be standing here,” said Lee, a 20-year-old junior at U-M.

Lee and his roommates were awakened by a siren, then an alert blasted from their phones between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., urging them to take shelter.

More rain and dead fish

The storms dumped as much as 2.5 inches (6.3 centimeters) of rain across parts of southeastern Michigan by Wednesday morning, and more was expected across the Midwest, Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions. Flood watches were issued for a big chunk of Michigan's eastern Lower Peninsula, southeastern Michigan, northern Indiana, northwestern Ohio, the Chicago area and Wisconsin.

In northern Michigan, a power outage during a storm killed 1,750 steelhead trout at a state facility where eggs and milt are collected to produce more fish. Scott Heintzelman of the state’s fisheries division said it was a “devastating event” involving “big, beautiful fish.”

Heintzelman said staff discovered Tuesday that a loss of electricity had stopped the flow of oxygenated water, dooming the fish.

Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources said it was watching levees around Portage, a city of about 10,000 people, as the Wisconsin River rises. As of Wednesday morning, the river there swelled to nearly 19 feet (5.7 meters), about 2 feet (0.6 meters) over flood state, and could rise to about 20 feet (6.1 meters), they said.

After days of rainfall and winter snow melt, a “significant influx of water” is also entering Black Lake, in northern Michigan, the sheriff's office said.

The lake empties into the Black River and feeds the Cheboygan River, which flows through the city into Lake Huron. Officials have been managing that flow through the city’s Cheboygan Dam by raising gates, adding pumps, raising a bridge and closing some riverfront to the public.

Flooding and unsafe travel forced Cheboygan Area Schools to cancel classes and athletic events for Thursday and Friday.

"Conditions are not improving significantly and, in some areas, continue to worsen,” the district said.

Where's all this weather headed?

Bill Bunting, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center, described a “very dynamic weather pattern” that combines very moist air with a strong jet stream across the central United States and Great Lakes to create conditions for severe thunderstorms.

By Wednesday afternoon, the weather service had received more than 400 reports of hail, winds above 60 mph (96.5 kph) or tornadoes, he said.

The system was stretching northward Wednesday night from central Texas into Iowa and southern Wisconsin and then eastward across parts of Michigan, Illinois, northern Indiana and Ohio on its way toward upper Pennsylvania and the Buffalo, New York, area, Bunting said.

Further east, it is expected to be as hot as a furnace, threatening record high temperatures in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., through the weekend, forecasters say.

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Williams reported from West Bloomfield, Michigan. Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit, Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, and Hallie Golden in Seattle, contributed to this story.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 2.4% to 59,549.59. South Korea’s Kospi climbed 2% to 6,215.38.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.2% to 26,269.99, while the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.6% to 4,050.42. China on Thursday reported 5% economic growth for the January-March quarter, an acceleration from the previous quarter. While economists say China has largely shrugged off the initial impacts from the Iran war, some are warning its massive export engine could be hit more significantly in the coming months on slower global economic growth.

Taiwan’s Taiex was trading 0.9% higher, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.1%.

On Wednesday, regional officials told The Associated Press that the U.S. and Iran had an “in principle agreement” to extend a two-week ceasefire deal that is expiring next week and were making progress toward another round of talks.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also warned that Washington was preparing to apply secondary sanctions on those doing business with Iran – including potentially those from China that’s buying Iranian oil – in order to step up economic pressure on the country.

Oil steadied early Thursday. Brent crude, the international standard, edged up less than 0.1% to $94.94 per barrel. Benchmark U.S. crude, meanwhile, was up 0.4% to $91.66 a barrel.

Oil prices have surged since the Iran war began in late February. The Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway where roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passes through normally, has remained largely closed. The U.S. has imposed a sea blockade on Iranian ports this week to force Tehran to reopen the strait and to accept a deal.

“The key upside risk for the market is that peace talks between the US and Iran break down,” ING Bank strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a note Thursday. “This isn’t an unrealistic scenario, given that US and Iranian demands remain fairly wide apart.”

On Wednesday, Wall Street hit a record on optimism over progress on a longer term ceasefire of the Iran war. The benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.8% to 7,022.95, eclipsing its prior all-time high set in January.

The Nasdaq composite gained 1.6% to 24,016.02, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down 0.2% to 48,463.72.

Shares of Bank of America were 1.8% higher after the bank announced better-than-expected quarterly results and its CEO Brian Moynihan saw signs of a “resilient American economy” including solid spending by consumers. Shares of Morgan Stanley gained 4.5% also following better-than-expected quarterly results.

San Francisco-based shoe brand Allbirds’ share price ballooned 582% to nearly $17, after saying it’s shifting into artificial intelligence and would be changing its name to NewBird AI.

In other dealings, gold and silver prices were higher. Gold’s price climbed 0.5% on Thursday to $4,846.40 an ounce, while silver prices climbed 1.3% to $80.62 per ounce.

The U.S. dollar fell to 158.58 Japanese yen from 159 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1814, up from $1.1799.

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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed to this report.

The back-to-back Israeli attacks on the southern village of Mayfadoun, near the bigger town of Nabatiyeh, hit the first group of medics responding to a distress call from wounded civilians, a second group trying to assist their wounded colleagues and a third group rushing to aid the first two teams that had been targeted.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on the strikes beyond saying it was “looking into” what happened. It has previously accused the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group of using ambulances as cover for militant activities, without offering evidence.

The Lebanese Health Ministry condemned the attacks as a “blatant violation” of international law.

Abou Haidar Hayya, an official with the Islamic Health Committee involved in the rescue operation, said he feared such direct targeting of medics meant that “there are no more red lines in this war."

“Ambulances are protected under all international laws and conventions. It is forbidden to target them. And when those prohibitions collapse, we have nothing left,” he said by phone from the health center in Nabitiyeh.

Since the Israel-Hezbollah war began on March 2, at least 91 Lebanese medical workers have been killed by Israel, the ministry said, underscoring the intensity of the ongoing strikes and strain on Lebanon's health system. The overall death toll from the war in Lebanon jumped to 2,167 on Wednesday.

A succession of Israeli attacks on medics

Israel first struck a team from Lebanon’s Islamic Health Committee, a major healthcare provider that is affiliated with Hezbollah’s political movement, killing two paramedics, the group said. A second team from the committee headed to the site and was struck in another Israeli attack that wounded three medical workers, the ministry reported.

The Nabatiyeh Emergency Services as well as the Islamic Risala Scout Association, a paramedic group affiliated with the Amal movement, a Hezbollah ally, mounted a third rescue attempt. They were hit by a strike that killed two more medics.

Most of the wounded medics remain in moderate condition except for one medic in serious condition after being hit in the chest by shrapnel, the Islamic Health Committee said.

Footage captured by the Nabatiyeh Emergency Services and shared with The Associated Press shows the second team of medics wearing their uniforms and riding in clearly marked emergency vehicles struggling to pull their bloodied colleagues out of wrecked ambulances that had veered onto the side of the road.

Rescue workers are seen administering aid to two wounded colleagues on stretchers in the back of an ambulance when an Israeli strike smashes into the vehicle, blowing out its windows and sending glass shattering everywhere. The camera shakes, and the medic who was treating his colleagues screams in pain. The video then shows a third team arriving to help the others before being attacked.

Hayya, from the Islamic Health Committee, said he doesn't regret dispatching one team after another into the line of fire.

“We went in three times because we refuse to leave our paramedics behind, even if it costs all of us our lives," he said.

He promised that the Islamic Health Committee and other paramedic groups would continue to carry out their duties in southern Lebanon despite the increasingly impossible conditions.

Israel presses its ground invasion

Across southern Lebanon, Israeli forces said they had struck more than 200 Hezbollah targets over the past 24 hours. Hezbollah claimed rocket attacks on military targets in northern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address late Wednesday that he had ordered the military to expand its so-called “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon toward the east. He said that Israel is pursuing negotiations with the Lebanese government alongside its military campaign against Hezbollah in hopes of disarming the militant group and achieving a “sustainable peace" with its northern neighbor.

In Lebanon, those negotiations have drawn backlash from Hezbollah and its supporters. Al Akhbar, a Lebanese newspaper that is closely allied with Hezbollah, declared the government to be a “regime of shame” in its front-page report about Tuesday's talks in Washington.

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah castigated Lebanese authorities for what he called the “disgraceful image” of direct negotiations with Israel “at a time when it is killing Lebanese people and committing massacres."

He urged the government, which has long sought the disarmament of Hezbollah to no avail, to hold a popular referendum on the future of Hezbollah's arsenal rather than decide its fate in talks with Israel.

“We are ready for a referendum on these choices,” Fadlallah told reporters, saying he expected the results of any such vote to show that a majority of Lebanese people support Hezbollah's militant activities.

On the streets of Beirut, Lebanese were divided. Some agreed with Hezbollah that Israel can only be stopped through military force. Others welcomed the talks in Washington as a possible step toward ending the war.

“The negotiations are more in our interest than in Israel’s interest because we are the ones whose country is being destroyed, we are the ones suffering losses,” said Mohamed Saad, a Beirut resident.

A refuge of last resort

The Israeli military has issued evacuation warnings for wide swaths of southern Lebanon. But tens of thousands of people have stayed — either because they don’t want to leave their homes or because they have nowhere to go.

Many displaced families see the coastal city of Tyre as the last remaining refuge in southern Lebanon, removed from the heaviest clashes closer to the border.

Increasingly, though, residents say nowhere feels safe. Across the normally bustling beach town, the war is visible in shattered buildings, mounds of rubble and debris-strewn streets.

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DeBre reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Fadi Tawil contributed to this report.

The White House said any further talks would likely take place in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, though no decision had been made on whether to resume negotiations.

The U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports continued as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration would ramp up economic pain on Iran with new economic sanctions on countries doing business with it, calling the move the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign.

Pakistan has emerged as a key mediator after it hosted direct talks between the U.S. and Iran in Islamabad that authorities said helped narrow differences between the two sides. Mediators are seeking a new round before the ceasefire expires next week.

Meanwhile, Trump wrote late Wednesday on Truth Social that leaders from Israel and Lebanon would speak the next day in a renewed effort to broker a ceasefire after the countries' first direct talks in decades ended the previous day in Washington without a deal. It was not clear what leaders Trump was referring to. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond for comment, which was posted before dawn in Israel and Lebanon.

The war has jolted markets and rattled the global economy as shipping has been cut off and airstrikes have torn through military and civilian infrastructure across the region. Oil prices have fallen amid hopes for an end to fighting, and U.S. stocks on Wednesday surpassed records set in January.

Officials say US and Iran are making progress

Even as the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and renewed Iranian threats strained the ceasefire agreement, regional officials reported progress, telling The Associated Press the United States and Iran had an “in principle agreement” to extend it to allow for more diplomacy. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, took part in a preliminary meeting Wednesday with Asim Munir, Pakistan's army chief of staff, Iranian state media reported.

But even as mediators worked for peace, tensions simmered.

The commander of Iran’s joint military command, Ali Abdollahi, threatened to halt trade in the region if the U.S. does not lift its naval blockade, and a newly-appointed military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said he doesn’t support extending the ceasefire.

Mediators seek compromise on sticking points

Mediators are pushing for a compromise on three main sticking points that derailed direct talks last weekend — Iran’s nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz and compensation for wartime damages, according to a regional official involved in the mediation efforts.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Iran is open to discussing the type and level of its uranium enrichment, but his country “based on its needs, must be able to continue enrichment,” Iranian state media reported.

The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,100 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.

China calls for Strait of Hormuz to reopen

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the window of peace was opening during a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, who briefed him on the latest developments in Iran-U.S. negotiations and Tehran’s considerations on the next step, according to a statement from China’s foreign ministry late Wednesday.

Wang told Araghchi that the situation has reached a critical juncture between war and peace, and said Iran’s sovereignty, security, and legitimate rights should be respected as a littoral state of the Strait of Hormuz, while freedom of navigation and safety through the strait should be ensured.

Since the war began, Iran has curtailed maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which a fifth of global oil transited through in peacetime. Tehran’s effective closure of the strait sent oil prices skyrocketing, raising the cost of fuel, food and other basic goods far beyond the Middle East, and the U.S. has responded with a blockade on Iranian shipping.

U.S. Central Command said Wednesday that no ships had made it past the blockade since it was imposed two days earlier, while 10 merchant vessels complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around and reenter Iranian waters.

The blockade is intended to pressure Iran, which has exported millions of barrels of oil, mostly to Asia, since the war began Feb. 28. Much of it has likely been carried by so-called dark transits that evade sanctions and oversight, providing cash that’s been vital to keeping Iran running.

Strikes continue in Lebanon after Washington talks

Meanwhile, Israel pressed ahead with its aerial and ground war in Lebanon. The country's National News Agency reported airstrikes and artillery shelling throughout southern Lebanon on Wednesday, including near Bint Jbeil, where Israeli forces have encircled Hezbollah fighters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli troops were about to “eliminate this great stronghold of Hezbollah” and would continue expanding control of areas in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu said negotiations are continuing, with disarming Hezbollah a key goal.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said Israel struck three teams of paramedics Wednesday in southern Lebanon, first hitting one team and then two more that rushed to help. The attacks killed three paramedics and wounded six others, the ministry said.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel and Lebanon have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948, and Lebanon remains deeply divided over diplomatic engagement with Israel.

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Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, Ahmed from Islamabad and Corder from The Hague, Netherlands. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Aamer Madhani and Joshua Boak in Washington; Julia Frankel in New York and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

In the first three months of the year, Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico’s campaign said he brought in $27 million, while vulnerable incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia said he raised $14 million. Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s campaign said he’ll report $13.8 million and former Sen. Sherrod Brown will report $12.5 million in his comeback bid in Ohio.

The money will help Democrats make their case to voters and counter Republican attacks, but it doesn’t change the fundamental fact that control of the Senate will be decided in territory that favors Republicans. Except for Maine, where Democrats Graham Platner and Janet Mills are still battling for the party's nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, all of the top battleground races are in states President Donald Trump won in 2024.

While Democrats touted their totals, they offer only a snapshot of overall fundraising, as campaigns had until the end of the day Wednesday to file with the Federal Election Commission.

Republicans lagged

In races where Republicans had reported their fundraising by Tuesday evening, Democrats were far outpacing them.

In Texas, incumbent Sen. Jon Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton — who are locked in a bitter runoff for the GOP nomination — raised $2.5 million combined, less than 10% of Talarico's revenue for the quarter. Two of the three main Republicans in Georgia — Derek Dooley and Buddy Carter — combined for about $1.1 million. The third, Mike Collins, had not yet reported his fundraising as of Wednesday evening.

Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley raised $2.1 million in North Carolina and Sen. Jon Husted raised $2.9 million in Ohio.

Collins, a top target for Democrats, raised $3.1 million in Maine. Mills, the governor who is preferred by much of the Democratic establishment, said she’ll report raising $2.6 million, while Platner, an oyster farmer backed by progressive leaders including Sen. Bernie Sanders, said he raised $4 million.

In Alaska, Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola said she'll report raising $8.9 million, compared with $1.7 million for Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Money isn't everything

Republicans said flush coffers don't guarantee victory.

Retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina pointed out that his opponent in 2020 also celebrated successful fundraising quarters but didn't win.

Democrats Beto O'Rourke in 2018 in Texas and Jaime Harrison in 2020 in South Carolina shattered fundraising records and still lost to their Republican rivals.

"We don’t have to outraise them," Tillis said. "We just got to out run them.”

There's an imbalance in Republicans' favor at the national committee level. The Republican National Committee reported roughly $109 million cash on hand in its most recent FEC filing, compared with roughly $16 million for their Democratic counterpart, plus Democrats are carrying about $17 million in debt.

Waiting in the wings for Republicans is a super political action committee tied to Trump — MAGA Inc. — which has more than $300 million cash on hand, according to the FEC.

The rosy first-quarter contributions carry some advantages for Democrats, namely the ability to buy limited advertising slots ahead of the election to get on the air early and make an impression with voters. Candidates also get favorable rates for television ads so their money goes further than independent expenditures by outside groups, though that advantage is eroding as ad spending increasingly shifts toward digital streaming.

“Winning in Texas will require unprecedented resources,” Talarico campaign manager Seth Krasne said in a statement. “This grassroots fundraising haul puts our movement in a strong position to spread our message in some of the most expensive media markets in the country.”

Talarico will face the winner of the GOP runoff on May 26 between Cornyn and Paxton.

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Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

Separately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that the U.S. is preparing to ramp up economic pain on Iran by levying secondary sanctions on financial institutions that do business with the Middle Eastern nation. Bessent called the measure the “financial equivalent” of the bombing campaign.

Mediators’ efforts to extend a U.S.-Iran ceasefire made progress as the two sides are expected to hold another round of negotiations, regional officials said. But a senior U.S. official said Washington has not formally agreed to extend the ceasefire. A Pakistani delegation arrived for talks in Tehran in the latest diplomatic move.

Israel, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with its aerial and ground war against the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, a day after the two nations held their first direct talks in decades.

Trump says leaders of Lebanon and Israel to speak

Trump wrote late Wednesday on Truth Social that leaders from Israel and Lebanon would speak the next day in a renewed effort to broker a ceasefire after the countries’ first direct talks in decades ended the previous day in Washington without a deal. It was not clear what leaders Trump was referring to. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond for comment, which was posted before dawn in Israel and Lebanon.

Chinese foreign minister says reopening of Hormuz an international demand

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Iranian counterpart that reopening the Strait of Hormuz was a unanimous demand from the international community.

Wang Yi told Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a phone call that Iran’s sovereignty, security, and legitimate rights should be respected as a littoral state of the Strait of Hormuz, but freedom of navigation and safety through the strait should be ensured.

“Working to resume normal passage of the strait is a unanimous call from the international community,” Wang was quoted as saying in a government statement late Wednesday.

Wang noted that the current situation had reached a critical juncture between war and peace and also said that the window of peace was opening .

Consecutive Israeli strikes kill 4 Lebanese medics

Paramedic groups say a fourth Lebanese rescue worker has died after three consecutive, targeted strikes by the Israeli military Wednesday that also wounded six others.

The back-to-back Israeli attacks on the southern village of Mayfadoun, near the bigger town of Nabatiyeh, hit the first group of medics responding to a distress call from wounded civilians, a second group trying to assist their wounded colleagues and a third group rushing to aid the first two teams that had been targeted.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on the strikes beyond saying it was “looking into” what happened. It has previously accused the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group of using ambulances as cover for militant activities, without offering evidence.

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Fire damages Australian oil refinery, further reducing nation’s fuel supply threatened by the Iran war

Officials say there were no suspicious circumstances behind the blaze that broke out late Wednesday at the Viva Energy Geelong refinery southwest of Melbourne, and no one was injured.

The facility is one of two refineries in Australia and provides 10% of the nation’s gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Australia has agreed to underwrite two companies buying fuel at prices inflated by the war. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned last week that supply disruptions would “have a long tail” even if the Iran ceasefire holds.

The government had agreed to terms with Australia’s largest suppliers Ampol and Viva Energy to underwrite contracts for gasoline and diesel bought on the spot market for prices above normal commercial rates, Albanese said.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen said Thursday it was too early to tell the extent of the fire’s impact on gasoline production.

“The refinery is still producing diesel and jet fuel at reduced levels as a safety precaution,” Bowen told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

On gasoline, Bowen said, “It’s not a positive development. It will have an impact.”

Firefighters said the blaze had been contained to the gasoline plant.

Sharif praises Saudi restraint

According to the statement, Sharif assured the Kingdom of Pakistan’s “full solidarity and support” and praised what he described as Saudi Arabia’s restraint under the crown prince’s leadership.

Pakistan has a defense agreement with the Kingdom, which has faced retaliatory attacks from Iran in recent weeks, causing damage.

Pakistan’s prime minister briefs Saudi crown prince on efforts to ease US-Iran tensions

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a visit to the Kingdom, briefing him on Pakistan’s efforts to ease U.S.-Iran tensions and assuring him of Islamabad’s “full support,” his office said before dawn Thursday.

Wednesday’s meeting lasted more than two hours, and Sharif was accompanied by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.

The statement said the crown prince praised what it described as the constructive role played by Sharif and Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, in the peace process.

Sharif dispatched Munir to Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders.

Pakistan has long maintained close ties with Saudi Arabia while also keeping relations with Iran.

Military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader says he does not support extending ceasefire, according to state media

“We are subject to the decisions of the relevant officials, but personally I do not agree to extend the ceasefire,” said Mohsen Rezaei, formerly a commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who now advises Mojtaba Khamenei on military affairs, Iranian state media reported.

Rezaei also urged officials to be more cautious than they had been before in negotiations over economic matters with the U.S.

He said Iran was setting the preconditions in the next round of talks, not the U.S.

“Unlike the Americans who are afraid of continuous war, we are fully prepared and familiar with a long war,” he said, according to the report.

Blockade ‘has been fully implemented,’ US admiral says

That’s according to Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, who says: “U.S. forces have completely halted economic trade going in and out of Iran by sea.”

The command said Wednesday that no vessels have made it past its forces during the blockade’s first 48 hours. The blockade began Monday.

Central Command noted that 10 vessels have complied with directions to turn around and return toward an Iranian port or Iran’s coastal area.

The blockade is being enforced “impartially against all vessels of all nations entering or leaving coastal areas or ports in Iran,” the Command said. Vessels avoiding Iranian ports are not affected.

The action could put serious pressure on the Iranian economy, while Tehran’s earlier cutoff of the waterway crucial to oil and gas supplies has sent energy prices higher.

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Wall Street hits a record on hopes for an end to the Iran war

The U.S. stock market hit a record Wednesday after adding to its two-week rally built on hopes the war won’t create a worst-case scenario for the global economy.

The S&P 500 rose 0.8% and eclipsed its prior all-time high set in January. After falling nearly 10% below its record in late March, the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts has since roared more than 10% higher.

Much of the rally was due to expectations for calming tensions in the war and a resumption of the full flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. Hopes remained high as regional officials told The Associated Press that the U.S. and Iran had an “in principle agreement” to extend a ceasefire to allow for more diplomacy.

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US aircraft carrier sets deployment record

The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, broke the U.S. record Wednesday for the longest post-Vietnam War deployment, a nearly 10-month span that saw it take part in both the military raid that captured Venezuela’s leader and the Iran war.

The ship’s 295th day at sea surpassed the previous longest modern deployment by an aircraft carrier, when the USS Abraham Lincoln was sent out for 294 days in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data compiled by U.S. Naval Institute News, a news outlet run by the nonprofit U.S. Naval Institute.

Sen. Tim Kaine said the record-breaking deployment has taken “a serious toll” on the mental health and well-being of the crew.

“They should be home with their loved ones, not sent around the world by a President who acts like the U.S. military is his palace guard,” the Virginia Democrat said.

Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate in ‘critical’ condition after heart attack

Narges Mohammadi ’s family and lawyers visited her in Zanjan prison twice in the last month, a statement by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation said on X Wednesday, finding that her health condition was dire. She is weak, pale and has lost weight, said the statement.

The report comes after Mohammadi had a heart attack in the prison on March 24, according to a cardiologist she saw soon after, according to the statement.

The statement said that following the heart attack Mohammadi was unconscious without anyone resuscitating her for over an hour.

Her brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, said in the Wednesday statement that the cardiologist who saw her after the collapse told the family it was partially due to the medicines she’d been prescribed by prison doctors.

He added that she was being kept in a cell with people convicted of murder and that she’d faced threats from them on numerous occasions.

Mohammadi is a rights lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 while in prison. She was arrested in December during a visit to the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad and sentenced to seven more years in prison.

Iranian state media says Iran-Pakistan talks have started

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi took part in a preliminary meeting with the Pakistani Army Chief of Staff, Asim Munir, in Tehran Wednesday, according to a report on IRIB, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

The report said more extensive talks would continue Thursday to discuss latest communications with the US.

Pakistan is mediating talks between Washington and Tehran.

US official says Trump would welcome an end to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict

A U.S. official says President Donald Trump would welcome an end to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict as part of a broader peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon but has not specifically asked for one.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Trump administration’s position during closed-door talks between Israel and Lebanon, said an Israel-Hezbollah truce is not part of peace negotiations the U.S. is having with Iran.

Iran has demanded a truce between Israel and its proxy Hezbollah as a condition to return to talks with the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday hosted the first talks in decades between high-level Israeli and Lebanese officials.

Israeli prime minister says forces will continue push in south Lebanon

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the current fighting is concentrated in the strategic south Lebanon town of Bint Jbeil, where Israeli troops are about to “eliminate this great stronghold of Hezbollah.”

Netanyahu, in a video address Wednesday evening, said he has given instructions for the military to continue to widen the security zone in south Lebanon — a reference to areas close to the border that the Israeli army now occupies — and to spread it eastward.

He said Israel is concurrently negotiating with Lebanon, with two central goals: disarming Hezbollah and a sustainable peace. “Peace through strength,” he added.

He also said the U.S. was updating Israel on the talks with Iran and that Israel was prepared for any scenario, should the fighting with Iran resume.

Senate Republicans again reject effort to halt Trump’s Iran war

The Republican-led Senate on Wednesday rejected the latest Democratic attempt to halt President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, turning aside a resolution that would require the U.S. to withdraw forces from the conflict until Congress authorizes further action.

The 47-52 vote was the fourth time this year that the Senate has voted to cede its war powers to the president in a conflict that Democrats say is illegal and unjustified. Republicans say they will keep faith in Trump’s wartime leadership, for now, citing Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the high stakes of withdrawal. But GOP lawmakers are also anxious for the conflict to end — and they may not defer to the executive branch indefinitely.

Some Republicans have already made clear that they are eyeing future votes that could become an important test for the president if the war drags on.

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Treasury sanctions Ali Shamkhani-linked network, warns of secondary sanctions

The U.S. is imposing sanctions targeting an Iranian oil smuggling network tied to the deceased senior Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani.

Sanctions include dozens of individuals and companies accused of transporting and selling Iranian and Russian oil through front companies, many of which are in the UAE.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement, that banks “should be on notice that Treasury will leverage all tools and authorities, including secondary sanctions, against those that continue to support Tehran’s terrorist activities.”

US ready to hit Iran with economic pain equivalent to bombings, top Trump official says

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned on Wednesday that the U.S. is preparing to ramp up economic pain on Iran, saying the Republican administration is preparing action that will be the “financial equivalent” of the bombing campaign.

Bessent said the administration has “told companies, we have told countries that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure. And the Iranians should know that this is going to be the financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.”

The warning comes the day after Treasury Department sent a letter to financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, threatening to levy secondary sanctions for doing business with Iran.

White House says talks with Iran are ongoing

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. had not “formally requested an extension of the ceasefire” with Iran.

The ceasefire announced on April 7 is currently slated to expire next Tuesday.

“At this moment, we remain very much engaged, in these negotiations, in these talks,” Leavitt said, adding that there are “discussions” about more talks being held unperson “but nothing is official until you hear it from us here at the White House.”

She said that the possible next rounds of talks “would very likely” be in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad as they were previously.

Bessent says Americans can choose if they want to use their tax refunds to buy increasingly pricey gasoline

Asked if the tax refunds would go toward gasoline averaging more than $4 a gallon, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the public is free to spend its money however it wants.

“Americans have more money. They can decide how they want to spend it,” Bessent said.

Higher prices at the pump because of the Iran war has created the risk that President Donald Trump’s tax cuts will offset the cost of fueling up autos to go to work and run errands, instead of boosting spending in ways that could help overall economic growth.

Bessent ‘optimistic’ that gasoline prices going back to $3 a gallon this summer

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that he believes gasoline prices will be closer to $3 gallon this summer, saying pumping oil can resume within a week of the Strait of Hormuz opening.

“I’m optimistic that sometime between June 20th and September 20th that we can have $3 gas again,” said Bessent.

Gas prices are averaging $4.11 a gallon, up from $3.17 a year ago, according to AAA.

US Navy says it will use force to compel compliance with Iran blockade

U.S. Navy warships are telling merchant ships in and around Iran that they are ready to board them and use force to compel compliance with the blockade on ships trading with Iran.

“Vessels will be boarded for interdiction and seizure transiting to or from Iranian port,” a Navy radio message, posted to social media by U.S. Central Command, said. A military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing military operation, confirmed the message is currently being broadcast to all ships in the region.

“If you do not comply with this blockade, we will use force,” the radio message added.

—- Konstantin Toropin

Iranian and Emirati officials discuss de-escalation efforts

UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf discussed regional developments on a phone call and ways to de-escalate tensions, UAE state-run news agency WAM reported, without further details.

UN allocates $12M for Iran aid

UN Relief Chief Tom Fletcher said $12 million has been allocated for humanitarian support in Iran.

“Thousands of civilians killed. Infrastructure destroyed. Essential services disrupted. This funding will help our partners deliver life-saving assistance at scale,” he wrote on X.

Israel to convene security cabinet to discuss developments with Lebanon

An Israeli official said the meeting would be held Wednesday evening. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The meeting comes a day after Lebanon and Israel held their first direct diplomatic talks in decades in Washington, following more than a month of war between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.

—- Melanie Lidman

No ships have made it past U.S. naval blockade, military says

U.S. Central Command said in a statement Wednesday that no vessels have made it past U.S. naval forces during the first 48 hours of the blockade on ships entering and exiting Iranian ports.

Central Command also said nine vessels have complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around and return toward an Iranian port or Iran’s coastal area.

First crude tanker passes Strait of Hormuz since US blockade

A Malta-flagged vessel is the first crude oil carrier to head west through Strait of Hormuz since the United States blocked Iranian ports, according to a global shipping tracking monitor.

The Malta-flagged VLCC Agios Fanourios I is expected to arrive on Thursday in Basra, Iraq, where ports are not under U.S. blockade. Marine Traffic said the vessel attempted again a transit after anchoring in the Gulf of Oman for nearly two days.

US called on Iran to halt uranium enrichment for 20 years

The negotiating team led by Vice President JD Vance called for Iran to agree to a uranium enrichment moratorium as part of a potential deal to end the war, according to a regional official involved in the mediation efforts and a person briefed on the matter.

The Iranians rejected the U.S. plan laid out during last weekend’s talks in Islamabad and came back with a counteroffer to suspend enrichment for five years, the regional official and a person briefed on the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the negotiations.

The White House rejected the Iranian proposal that was conveyed by Tehran’s negotiators earlier this week.

The White House and the vice president’s office did not respond to requests for comment about the proposals.

The U.S. and Iranian proposals were first reported by the New York Times.

Democrats grill US envoy in first opportunity to question Trump administration on Iran

Attending a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on reforms to the United Nations, ambassador Mike Waltz unintentionally became the highest-level U.S. official to testify before Congress since U.S. and Israeli strikes started a war against Iran.

Democratic senators, including Chris Coons, Chris Murphy and Tim Kaine, took that opportunity to express their frustration with the Trump administration’s decision not to consult or further brief Capitol Hill on military action it is taking against Tehran.

“Those of us on the Democratic side do find it amazing that we still have not had an open hearing on this committee or the Armed Services Committee on this conflict,” Murphy, who represents Connecticut, told Waltz.

Asked several times about Trump’s threats last week to end Iranian civilization, Waltz defended it as “tough talk” and a “mean tweet” that yielded diplomatic results.

“They clearly got the message, and they clearly came back to the table,” he said.

Workers who earn tips and overtime are seeing bigger returns this tax season, but those savings and others resulting from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that Trump signed last year have been eaten away by higher gas pricesdriven by the Iran war.

The president’s rare trip out West comes as Trump faces growing political pressure to wrap up the war and focus on a message that helps his party as they try to defend their congressional majorities in November’s midterm elections.

On Friday, Trump will hold an event in Phoenix with conservative political group Turning Point USA. But his first stop is in Las Vegas where he will hold a roundtable with several police officers who have benefited from new tax breaks on overtime, along with a barber and a casino pit supervisor, who got to claim the new tax breaks on tips.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the average tax refund this year has been over $3,400, up about $340 from a year ago.

Vegas, once known for affordable living, feels economic pain

Trump has said he first conceived of his “no tax on tips” in Las Vegas, a city where entertainment is the financial lifeblood and many workers depend on gratuities from visitors.

But it’s also a city of commuters, including the tipped workers who drive to their jobs at glitzy casinos. Gasoline is averaging $5 a gallon in Las Vegas, up 28% from a year ago, according to AAA.

Nicholas Delaney, an airline attendant who lives in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson and said he did not vote for the president in 2024, said he thinks Trump is doing a “terrible” job when it comes to the cost of living. He thought the tax break for tips was a good policy, but is concerned about the cost of groceries and gas.

“I gotta spend over $100 for a full tank of gas, 13 gallons? Crazy,” Delaney said.

Paula Goodman, a bartender in a Henderson casino, said the cost of living is her biggest concern right now, adding that she spends more than $400 a week on groceries for her family.

But Goodman, who voted for the president, said she thought he is “doing a pretty good damn job,” and doesn’t blame him for high gas prices, which she portrayed as just a fluctuation. As a bartender, she said she personally appreciated the tax savings on tips she brings home.

“Every little penny nowadays is, like, huge,” she said. “You’ve seen diesel, right? $6.11.”

Tax refunds are offset by gas prices

The White House said Trump is focused on tax cuts, deregulation and boosting U.S. energy production to drive down prices, and describes high gas prices as a temporary disruption from the war in Iran.

“Tens of millions of Americans are benefiting this tax season from the president’s signature provisions” in the tax law, said White House spokesman Kush Desai, saying that shows “how the administration hasn’t lost focus on delivering on our affordability agenda at home.”

Even so, the conflict has made things less affordable. The Bank of America Institute looked at its deposit and spending data and in a Tuesday analysis concluded that “the average increase in tax refunds could cover the average increase in gasoline spending for at least five months.”

Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, the insurance and financial services company, said last week in an analysis that “the steep rise in gasoline prices looks likely to completely offset the increased tax funds windfall with households,” stressing that the money back would likely prevent a sharper drop in consumer spending.

Trump's economic message focusing on the tax breaks has also been drowned out this week by distractions from the president himself, who angered even some of his own supporters when he got into a public fight with the pope and posted a now-deleted image on social media depicting himself as Jesus.

GOP strategist Ron Bonjean said among Republicans, “the frustration and concern is growing every week about whether or not we will be able to hold onto the House this November.”

It takes a lot of repetition for a message like promoting the tax bill to break through to voters, but Trump’s tendency to drift into other subjects can dilute that, Bonjean said. Trump, who has at times dismissed affordability concerns as “a hoax,” and “con job” from Democrats, has to acknowledge the economic realities people are facing now if he wants to help his party this November, Bonjean said.

“He absolutely has to talk about his plan to bring down high gasoline costs, or else he’s lost his own message. It won’t be credible just to talk about no taxes on tips,” Bonjean said.

When will gas prices come down?

While the president has said he thinks the war with Iran will end soon, a deal to resolve it has not yet emerged, with the U.S. and Iran still proffering stances that are far apart.

Trump on Sunday said in a Fox News Channel interview that gas prices “could be the same or maybe a little bit higher” by the November midterms.

By Wednesday, in another Fox News interview, Trump walked back that comment. “I think they'll be much lower” before the election, on the assumption the war will be long over.

“When that’s settled, gas prices are going to go down tremendously,” Trump said.

Hours later at the White House, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was less rosy, predicting that gas prices will fall sometime this summer, depending on how the negotiations with Iran go.

“I’m optimistic that sometime between June 20th and September 20th, that we can have $3 gas again,” Bessent told reporters.

___

Price reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

One can find it in the country’s name — the UNITED States of America — and in the sentiment of the motto written in Latin on its coins and one-dollar bills: E Pluribus Unum, or “out of many, one.”

The effort has been optimistic and unrealistic, successful and a failure, enduring as an American ideal during moments when citizens struggled — and struggle today — to practice it.

How has the notion of unity in American society evolved in 250 years and more? What does it mean — and what doesn't it mean, particularly in fraught and troubled moments? “It's a question,” says one scholar, “that every society has to answer.”

I. The beginnings of these ‘United’ States

From the milestone moment of the nation’s beginning, the founders emphasized that unity would be a vital component of the new country, where government would be based not on a king and monarchy as in Europe but instead, as the Declaration says, “on the consent of the governed.”

“It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it … indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest,” George Washington said as he stepped down from two terms as the first American president.

At the start of the experiment, the fabric of a nation first stitched together from 13 original colonies, defining what unity meant was far from settled.

Even as the founders spoke of high-minded ideals, they put limits on who they allowed to take part, who had rights and freedom and who didn't. All these years later, determining the meaning of unity can still be a challenge. Do we interpret that Latin motto to mean a blending of different perspectives to create a country that is greater than the sum of its parts, or does it mean there can only be one, that unity requires sameness?

Either way, here’s the thing about aspirations, as anyone who’s ever quit on a New Year’s resolution can tell you: They don’t turn into reality without effort and commitment, or come out of just a sole moment, no matter how singular.

Our individual lives are built not just from the milestones but from the everydays in between. How could the life of a nation be any different?

II. Aspiration vs. reality

Even as unity has stood among the ideals, the on-the-ground experience of life in America for the last 2½ centuries has reflected the reality that in this created nation, there’s never been just ONE America, where everyone lived in the same way or had the same access to power and prosperity.

It wasn't there at the country's inception. And in the moment the U.S. is living now, it certainly isn't either.

“I think the United State has had a more volatile history in terms of how it deals with questions of inclusion and exclusion, how it draws the line and polices the line of who’s in and who’s out,” says Daniel Immerwahr, a professor of history at Northwestern University.

“It’s a question that every society has to answer … who’s on the inside, who’s on the outside,” he says. “I would say that what’s interesting about the United States in this regard is how changeable and nonobvious some of the answers to those questions are.”

Sometimes the differences have been straightforward — like geography (rural vs. urban, plains vs. mountains) and climate (heat vs. snow, wildfires vs. flooding). Sometimes they were, and remain, cultural — people from different countries of origin, newcomers vs. generations deep, speaking different languages, following different denominations of Christianity or other religions entirely. And of course, the differences have been economic; rich and poor have always lived differently.

But sometimes, the differences have been travesties — like enslaved Africans and their American-born descendants, forced to live under the lash as they worked in the fields and elsewhere for the benefit of white owners. Even after slavery was outlawed, they were subject to discrimination and worse under racism that was legalized in systemic ways into the 20th century and that echoes still.

The Indigenous tribes whose populations were decimated by death and disease as the American experiment moved westward and newly arrived settlers hankered after their tribal lands, and whose cultures were stripped from generations as the U.S. government tried to force “unity” through brutal efforts at assimilation.

Communities of people barred from possibility because of gender, sexual orientation or other characteristics.

There have also been persistent efforts across eras to create a country where the opportunities available to some — say, voting, economic growth, or access to education — would be made available to all. That came gradually through protest movements, legal action, and callbacks to those same American founding ideals and aspirations of unity and equality.

“It provided a language for the groups that were challenging these exclusions to draw on … invoking the ideals of the Revolution and the Declaration and saying, ‘Look, this is what the nation is supposed to be about,’” says Eileen Cheng, a professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College. “They could challenge the system and yet claim that they were being the true Americans.”

III. What could ‘unity’ even look like?

One of the things about ideals, though, is that they can be somewhat abstract.

What does it mean for a country to be ‘united'? Does unity mean uniform? Is it, to borrow a reference from one of satirist Terry Pratchett's books, that people are on the same side, or can they be on “different sides that happen to be side by side.” Is unity overall even a good thing in the context of a raucous democracy?

A look around the globe and through the history books shows there's no single answer. There have been countries with a single official language, others that have recognized multiple languages, and some, like the United States, that for generations have never officially designated any. At times, countries have chosen official religions. Nations have different standards and processes for naturalizing new citizens.

“There are always tensions between the unity and the separateness,” said Paul Wachtel, a psychology professor at the City College of New York. “There’s no society that is just one or just the other … what’s really most essential is that we learn how to negotiate those tensions.”

The United States experienced that firsthand in its infancy. The Constitution we live under is the second attempt at a framework for government. The first, the Articles of Confederation, kept the federal government weaker and the individual states stronger. It quickly became clear that having such a weak central government — i.e., less unity — wasn't effective for the new country, leading to the Constitution.

For some countries, like many in Europe, those negotiations have taken place under the weight of centuries of history and geography, and other established backdrops like the existing form of government, which impacted the direction they decided to go. The U.S., from the founders' perspective, was a new entity.

“What it is to be of the United States is to adhere to a set of principles rather than to have a certain kind of lineage,” Immerwahr says. “Sometimes that makes the United States remarkably open, and then sometimes that gets the leaders of the United States in all kinds of weird contradictions as they try to explain why they’re doing some forms of inclusion and not others.”

The United States has a decidedly mixed history when it comes to dealing with those tensions. Things have fluctuated.

Take migration, for example. There have been eras when the influx of people coming to these shores was seemingly a never-ending stream, but also times when much of the world was barred. In politics, the idea that there would be different factions represented by different parties was loathed by some, even as it became embedded in the political culture. Groups that were once looked down on are later brought into the fold, and vice versa.

“What have we learned over the last 250 years is that things change,” says Cindy Kam, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. “We are inclined to be social animals, but what those groups are is culturally constructed. So political elites, social elites, cultural elites, they do that work in identifying what the groups are, who is part of ‘us’ and who is a part of the ‘other.'”

By no means is it settled; if anything, the demographic, technological, economic and other changes of the last several decades are making discussions about unity more relevant than ever. In recent years, Americans have lived in a country where polarization is rampant, and serious — sometimes dire — questions abound over what the future holds. That's probably more in line with the country's beginnings than people realize.

“This polarization, people talk about it like it’s a new thing. But I think it’s really a return back to the way that we were at the beginning of the country,” Cheng says. “It’s not like this kind of linear development where we’re growing more and more accepting of difference. I think it’s up and down.”

___

This story is part of an Associated Press package looking at the United States at age 250. For more stories, click here.

For a host of reasons, Hatzenbuhler and other ranchers across the country are reluctant to grow the national herd — now its smallest in more than 75 years — and until they do so, demand will outweigh supply, and beef prices will likely remain high.

Adding cattle makes sense for some ranchers, but others are struggling to stay afloat with the cattle they have, Hatzenbuhler said.

“They’re good times, and they’re bad times,” she said. “It’s a combination of both.”

Why is the beef herd so small?

Hatzenbuhler will make her choices as cows give birth to about 700 calves this spring on her family's Diamond J Angus ranch on more than 2,000 wind-swept acres near Mandan, North Dakota. Does she opt to increase her herd, or does she offset the new arrivals by selling an equal number of cattle to be slaughtered?

The national herd size isn't the only factor that determines what beef costs at the grocery store. Still, the dwindling number of cattle is a key reason the average price of all uncooked ground beef in the U.S. was $6.86 per pound in March, 3 cents off the record high set in February, according to federal statistics. That price in March is up nearly 48% from March 2021.

The U.S. cattle herd reached a high of 132 million head in 1975, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that figure has gradually fallen to 86 million this year.

Thanks to changes in cattle genetics and feeding techniques, ranchers now produce far more meat from each animal, so despite the much smaller herd, the country's beef production hit a record 28.4 billion pounds in 2022, said Tim Petry, a North Dakota State University livestock marketing specialist. About 26 billion pounds of beef are expected in 2026.

About 2.5 billion pounds of beef were exported to other countries in 2025, and the tight remaining supply, along with the high demand, has caused record prices.

Ranchers acknowledge the higher prices, but they face plenty of challenges weighing against growing herds, especially from drought.

Drought limits land for grazing

Dry conditions have persisted across much of cattle country, with about 63% of the U.S. cattle herd in drought areas, according to the USDA. Some areas have also seen giant wildfires that left no grass for grazing.

“You’ve got to have rain. You’ve got to have grass to keep cows on because they’re out on pastures for over half the year, and so that’s been the dilemma, is we had forced liquidation of cows,” Petry said.

This time of year, as calves arrive, ranchers decide whether to retain young cows called heifers and calves for breeding herds, and a big factor is pasture conditions, said Bernt Nelson, an American Farm Bureau Federation economist.

Feed is the highest cost for ranchers, and due to drought in spots like Texas and Oklahoma, they have had to truck in supplies from elsewhere. Those extra costs make it hard to increase a herd.

“When these pasture conditions deteriorate, and water becomes an issue, some of these states have to go as far as to haul hay, haul water from other regions of the country that have grass and easy access to water, and that adds a significant cost to operations,” Nelson said.

Even if ranchers opted to raise more cattle, it takes 15 to 24 months for a calf to mature before it can be slaughtered.

Role of meat processors in beef prices

Ranchers often blame the concentrated meat processing systems — primarily driven by four companies — for high beef prices, but the picture is complicated.

In a statement and market updates, the Meat Institute, a meat processors trade group, noted that retailers and food service companies, not packers, set prices for consumers. And the organization said livestock producers were “earning record profits” while packers were losing money.

The Meat Institute also argued that the concentration ratio hasn’t “changed appreciably” over the past 30 years.

“Rhetoric about beef industry concentration implies that consolidation in the beef packing sector is ongoing and that market power is becoming increasingly concentrated. That is not the case,” the group said.

John Robinson, a spokesman for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said he sees many reasons for high prices, and in some cases, meat processors are responsible, but that “it’s far more complicated than most people will give it credit for.”

A pest forces border closure

Another driver of high prices is the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to livestock imports to slow the spread of a flesh-eating parasite called the New World screwworm. The closures that began in late 2024 have stopped about 1 million cattle from being hauled from Mexico into the U.S., said Warren Rusche, an extension feedlot specialist at South Dakota State University.

The border closure particularly affects cattle feedlots and ranchers who graze cattle in the southern plains.

President Donald Trump has called for increased beef imports from Argentina, but the country's expanded quota would be only a tiny percentage of U.S. beef production, Rusche said.

Are ranchers getting rich?

Hatzenbuhler, the North Dakota rancher, isn't getting rich, but for ranchers who own their land and equipment, she said it's a good time to raise cattle. It's not as good for people looking to break into the business, given the high cost of everything from equipment to fertilizer and the difficulty of finding workers.

“If you’re a young guy and want to get in, it’s probably not the time to do it, but if you’re kind of established and been doing this for a while, you’re doing good,” she said.

California rancher Mike Williams said he wouldn't discourage someone from getting into ranching but would caution them, “don't get too far upside down.”

“I would say that we're finally maybe getting a fair price,” Williams said. “I think people are starting to realize the value of beef, and they're finding that they're willing to pay maybe a little more than they have in the past for the quality of the product that they're getting."

The National Weather Service confirmed one tornado tracked through the Ann Arbor area in Washtenaw County around 1:44 a.m. near Jackson Avenue and Interstate 94.

A second tornado touched down near the Allen Park and Lincoln Park border in Wayne County around 2:14 a.m.

In Garden City, strong winds snapped a large tree and brought down power lines, briefly sparking a small grass fire, resident Susan Steffke said.

“I got an alert to take cover, and I got up and split second, it was raining and thundering and lightning,” Steffke said.

Steffke said the fallen tree blocked a side street, and wires hung into her backyard.

“The tree totally was across the side street, and I had wires in my backyard, hanging down, and the telephone pole got split in half, and the top half was laying on the sidewalk,” Steffke said.

Neighbors nearby were without power for hours after the storm, said Garden City resident Julie Feinthel, who said electricity went out around 3 a.m. and returned just before 4:30 p.m.

“DTE was working around the clock to get it back up,” Feinthel said.

In Downriver, the Wayne County tornado crossed Dix Highway into Melvindale, the weather service said, snapping trees and causing damage that included roofs, windows, and HVAC equipment.

The storms also brought heavy rain and flooding, submerging flood-prone stretches of Gibraltar in southern Wayne County.

Bayview Drive in Gibraltar was closed as crews set up an additional pump to help drain standing water, officials said.

“Not much you can do, hopefully they pump it out or what have you, but it’s the first time the street’s been blocked,” said Gibraltar resident Gary Gagne.

No deaths or injuries were reported in connection with either tornado, according to the National Weather Service.

The Pistons said the postseason experience, presented by Henry Ford Health and Ticketmaster, will debut with Game 1 on Sunday, April 19, and will be highlighted by a pregame fan fest outside the arena.

Festivities will begin at 3:30 p.m. at Little Caesars Arena Plaza, where fans can enjoy a variety of family-friendly activities.

The outdoor setup will include an airbrush tattoo station, sneaker cleaning and customization, a photo booth, and a half-court basketball area.

Free coffee and smoothies will be available, along with a live art experience. Food and beverage options will also be available for purchase.

Ford will showcase an F-150 as part of its “Arena Live” display outside the Comerica Entrance and will distribute “Detroit Wasn’t Built in a Day” T-shirts while supplies last.

Arena doors open at 5 p.m. for Game 1, when the first 10,000 fans will receive thundersticks.

All fans in attendance will find a T-shirt at their seats, courtesy of Henry Ford Health.

Game 2

For Game 2, the first 10,000 fans will again receive thundersticks, along with rally towels presented by BetRivers.

All attendees will receive a T-shirt provided by Ticketmaster.

Team officials are encouraging fans to arrive early and be in their seats before tipoff to take part in additional playoff elements, including player introductions and in-game entertainment.

Michigan native LaToya Turrentine-Brown is scheduled to perform the national anthem for Game 1.

The Detroit Youth Choir will handle anthem duties and provide halftime entertainment for Game 2.

→ Detroit Pistons’ first playoff game will air on Local 4 -- here’s when, who they’ll play

A severe storm moved through Monroe County earlier Wednesday afternoon, prompting a warning for 60mph winds and quarter-sized hail.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms will continue through 9 p.m. with the highest risk for severe weather closer to the Ohio border.

Thursday

A brief break in the action before more storms return overnight. Flooded roads could slow down your morning commute on Thursday.

More rain is expected on Thursday, with a marginal risk of severe weather in some areas.

But the biggest concern will be flooding if heavy rain continues to fall on our already saturated ground.

Friday/Saturday

Friday brings sunshine and highs in the upper 60s before more heavy rain returns Saturday.

Find the latest forecast from the 4Warn Weather team here

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The White Sox said Gerald Chaney, a longtime anthem performer, was “doing well” while continuing to be evaluated. He collapsed while performing “Lift Every Voice and Sing," and the team said he was alert before leaving Rate Field.

Chaney was a few words into the hymn considered the Black national anthem when he stopped. He started again and collapsed.

“I'm really glad to hear that he is doing well,” White Sox manager Will Venable said after his team's 8-3 loss. “But obviously a scary moment. I think everyone did a great job in responding and did the best to make sure he's all right. Really good news to hear that he is all right. That's the most important thing, obviously.”

Emergency medical technicians tended to Chaney for several minutes before he was loaded onto a gurney and taken from the field. The teams watched from their dugouts.

Chaney was also scheduled to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” after performing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” The start of the game was delayed 12 minutes.

“The entire White Sox family is sending love to Gerald and his family for a full and speedy recovery,” the team said in a statement.

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

Standing water covered much of Swan Creek Mobile Home Park in New Boston on Wednesday (April 15), where residents said heavy rain from recent storms left large portions of the area underwater.

Residents described the flooding as a recurring issue whenever significant rainfall hits the region, raising concerns about drainage and the need for long-term solutions.

“The poor kids have to walk down to the bus stop, and they’re walking through the water, and it’s bad, and it’s only supposed to get worse this week,” said a resident.

The flooding follows a round of severe weather that brought strong winds and tornadoes to parts of southeast Michigan overnight.

→ Two EF-1 tornadoes confirmed in Southeast Michigan from overnight storms

While conditions improved as storms moved out of the area, saturated ground and runoff continued to pose problems, particularly in low-lying neighborhoods.

Local officials have urged residents to use caution when traveling through flooded areas and to avoid driving through standing water.

Management said they do have water pumps on the property, but the sheer amount of rain Local 4 saw has overwhelmed the system.

Russian strikes hit more than a half-dozen areas of Ukraine behind the front line on Tuesday and Wednesday. An 8-year-old boy was killed in the central Cherkasy region and a woman was hit in southern Zaporizhzhia, according to Zelenskyy and local officials.

“Every day we need air defense missiles — every day Russia continues its strikes,” Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

With no plans announced for further U.S.-mediated talks with Russia, Zelenskyy was visiting three European capitals in 48 hours to try to secure promises of further military and financial support. Germany and Ukraine agreed on a defense package valued at 4 billion euros ($4.7 billion), and Norway has pledged 9 billion euros in assistance, Ukrainian officials said.

“Italy in particular is very interested in developing joint production, especially in the area of drones, a sector in which we know well that Ukraine, in recent years, has become a leading nation," Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni told reporters after meeting with Zelenskyy in Rome.

After more than four years of fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has battle-tested drone interceptor expertise and has developed groundbreaking air defense technology, but it lacks the money to scale up production to levels that would press its advantage.

Zelenskyy said he is asking European countries to keep adding money to a fund that allows the purchase from the United States of American-made weapons for Ukraine, especially the Patriot air defense system that can stop Russian cruise and ballistic missiles.

Between November and March, Russia launched 27,000 Shahed-type drones, nearly 600 cruise missiles and 462 ballistic missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said.

Zelenskyy is also championing joint weapons production agreements, including for drones and missiles, while pushing for the European Union to move quickly on providing a promised 90 billion euro ($106 billion) loan.

‘Unpredictable consequences’

Defense leaders from about 50 nations who regularly gather to coordinate weapons aid for Kyiv held an online meeting Wednesday chaired by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and British Defense Secretary John Healey. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also attended.

Ahead of the meeting, Britain announced it will send 120,000 drones to Ukraine this year, its biggest delivery of the weapons so far. Officials didn’t say how soon they will be sent.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the European nations' decision to ramp up drone production for Ukraine was a “deliberate step leading to a sharp escalation of the military-political situation across the entire European continent and the creeping transformation of these countries into Ukraine’s strategic rear area.”

The ministry warned that attacks on Russia involving the drones manufactured in Europe for Ukraine are fraught with “unpredictable consequences.”

“Instead of strengthening the security of European states, the actions of European leaders are increasingly drawing these countries into a war with Russia,” it said.

It published a list of branches of Ukrainian drone-producing factories in the U.K., Germany, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic as well as factories producing components in Germany, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Israel and Turkey.

“The European public should not only clearly understand the true causes of the threats to their security but also know the addresses and locations of ‘Ukrainian’ and ‘joint’ enterprises producing drones and components for Ukraine on the territory of their countries,” the ministry said.

Dmitry Medvedev, the hawkish deputy head of Russia's Security Council, followed up with a more explicit threat on social media: “Russian Defense Ministry’s statement must be taken literally: the list of European facilities which make drones and other equipment is a list of potential targets for the Russian armed forces. When strikes become a reality depends on what comes next.”

Ukrainian deep strike operations

Ukraine’s war effort has gained momentum in recent weeks, according to Western officials and analysts. Its short-handed troops have disrupted Russia’s spring offensive, thanks in part to drones and ground robots, and its long-range strikes have dented Russian oil exports and some manufacturing output.

Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Wednesday that last month Ukrainian troops recaptured nearly 50 square kilometers (20 square miles) of territory from Russian forces. Also in March, Ukrainian deep strike operations hit 76 Russian targets, including 15 oil refining facilities, he said.

But the Iran war drains stockpiles of advanced air defense missiles that Ukraine needs, and Kyiv’s money is running short.

“We cannot lose sight of Ukraine” amid the Middle East conflict, NATO chief Rutte said.

Russia and Ukraine continue strikes

Russia launched 324 drones and three ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said, in its biggest barrage in almost two weeks. Air defenses intercepted 309 of the drones.

Russia also fired a powerful FAB-1500 glide bomb, weighing 1.5 metric tons, at the central part of Sloviansk before dawn Wednesday, the Sloviansk City Military Administration head Vadym Liakh said. The blast destroyed a children’s sports facility that was a city landmark, he said.

In a strike on the southeastern city of Dnipro, Russian hit two universities overnight, damaging academic buildings, dormitories and nearby homes, Mayor Borys Filatov said. The blast wave shattered more than 1,000 windows in surrounding buildings, he said, adding that there were no military targets in the area.

Ukraine proceeded with its long-range drone attacks, with the Russian Defense Ministry reporting Wednesday that its air defenses intercepted 85 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Ukrainian drones targeted an industrial facility in Sterlitamak, a Russian city about 1,300 kilometers (roughly 800 miles) east of the border with Ukraine, local authorities said.

Radiy Khabirov, governor of the Bashkortostan region where Sterlitamak is located, said in an online statement Wednesday that several drones were shot down over Sterlitamak’s “industrial zone,” and debris fell on one of the facilities there, starting a fire. One person died in the attack, he said.

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Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Colleen Barry in Rome and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

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

The only hospital on Saipan, an island in the archipelago, suffered severe flooding and there were reports of major resorts that lost backup generators, said Ed Propst, a former lawmaker who works in the governor’s office.

“It’s pretty bad conditions right now,” he said, adding that residents were bracing for a long stretch without electricity and water.

Authorities were just beginning to assess the damage left behind by Super Typhoon Sinlaku. The storm first hit the islands Tuesday night local time and continued with a barrage of fierce winds and relentless rains for hours Wednesday that flipped over cars, toppled utility poles and ripped away tin roofs. So far, there have been no reports of deaths.

Power and water were out and many of the roads were impassable across Saipan and Tinian, islands in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, home to about 45,000 people, according to officials.

“We still have a shelter in place so first responders have not been able to do a full damage assessment,” Bernard Villagomez, public information officer for the territory’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said in a text message to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency planned to send more personnel to the region and ramp up shipments of supplies.

The storm also battered Guam, another U.S. territory and the site of several American military bases, with tropical force winds.

The typhoon — the strongest tropical cyclone this year — was packing sustained winds of up to 150 mph (241 kph) when it made landfall on the islands, the National Weather Service said.

The monster storm still had winds of 125 mph (201 kph) late Wednesday night as it pulled away to the north from the islands of Saipan, Tinian and Rota, the weather service said. Sinlaku is expected start curving toward sparsely populated volcanic islands in the far northern Marianas.

The storm was about 170 miles (274 kilometers) northwest of Saipan on Thursday, the weather service said. Many sensors on the island were down, but the weather service estimated winds were about 60 to 70 mph (97 to 113 kph).

The winds made it unsafe to go outside, but some stores were open on Tinian on Thursday and people were rushing to purchase supplies, said resident Mathew Masga.

"While driving around, I noticed numerous wooden and semi-concrete houses with damaged rooftops due to the passing typhoon," he said in a Facebook message to the AP. “Notably, many of our power poles and power lines are down.”

Images from Saipan and Tinian showed residential lots littered with debris and mangled trees. Winds crumpled metal bleachers at a sports field.

Resident Dong Min Lee shot video of a car sitting on top of two others in his apartment building’s parking lot. The winds tore off part of his balcony railing.

The American Red Cross and its partners were sheltering more than 1,000 residents across Guam and the Northern Marianas, agency spokesperson Stephanie Fox said.

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Associated Press writers Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in San Diego contributed to this report.

After chastising Pope Leo XIV, Trump turned his ire on Meloni, long one of his closest European allies, for calling his papal broadside “unacceptable” and not backing the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

“I thought she had courage,’’ Trump said in an interview with leading Italian daily Corriere della Sera. “I was wrong.”

Meloni has not directly responded to Trump’s attacks. But they may be to her advantage as she recovers from a decisive referendum defeat last month and as she seeks to dull the impact of the deeply unpopular Iran war, including higher energy prices.

“I actually think this is a godsend for her,’’ said Nathalie Tocci, a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS Europe and the director of the International Affairs Institute. “Trump has become completely toxic across Europe, across much of the world, including Italy.”

Trump doubled down on Wednesday, saying their bond had frayed. “She’s been negative,” Trump told Fox News. “Anybody that turned us down to helping with this Iran situation, we do not have the same relationship.”

The Meloni-Trump arc

The only European Union leader invited to Trump’s second inauguration, Meloni was expected to leverage her strong ties with him once he returned to office 15 months ago. The two had a perceived natural alliance, with nationalistic tendencies and similarly hard-line stances on immigration.

But Italy was not spared the pain of Trump’s tariffs, and some may argue she has gotten little out of the relationship. When asked if they had spoken this month, Trump told Corriere, “No, not in a long time.''

After an uncomfortable appearance in the Oval Office a year ago when she avoided directly confronting Trump on tariffs, the distance grew over the Iran war. Meloni has stated Italy will not participate in the war and the country last month refused U.S. bombers the authorization to land at a pivotal air base in Sicily.

Meloni’s statement this week calling Trump's attack on the pope “unacceptable” was the most direct criticism of the president yet.

“It's been building up over time, not so much because she is moving away from him but because he has become increasingly unhinged,’’ Tocci said.

Alliance strained but standing

Cabinet minister Adolfo Urso, a member of Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy, said U.S.-Italy relations would not be shaken by the flap.

“Italy and the United States are allied countries and maintain their relationship and alliance within international institutions, starting obviously with the Atlantic Alliance,’’ he told Radio 24, adding that the church’s moral teachings “cannot crack relationships consecrated in alliances signed a few decades ago.”

Mariangela Zappia, president of the ISPI think tank and a former Italian ambassador to the U.S., said Trump’s “hot-blooded” reaction could be attributed to his frustration with Europe, not just Italy. Besides not getting support for the Iran war, Trump lost a strong ally with Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in the Hungarian elections this weekend.

Still, she said Trump's personal outburst aimed at Meloni should not be construed as damaging the alliance as a whole.

“Europe absolutely considers the United States its historic ally, but in some way wants to be involved in the decisions that are taken,’’ Zappia said.

Trump, on the other hand, is realizing “this European Union is not easy to dismantle,” she said. “We are different, we react differently. Some are clearly anti-Trump, some are pro-Trump but in the end, destroying the European project, separating us on the things on which we see as our future, that is very difficult.’’

Meloni focused on Italy

Meloni has sought to shore up support after the referendum loss, which became a de facto confidence test of her leadership. She made a two-day whirlwind solo tour of three Gulf states to shore up Italy’s gas and oil supply from the region during a growing energy crisis but returned home without any formal deals.

On Tuesday, she announced Italy would not automatically renew a defense agreement with Israel, after warning shots hit an Italian convoy that is part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, a move that analysts say is driven more by domestic politics than a strategic shift.

“The Gulf tour was a way to show public opinion that she was being proactive. The fact it didn’t actually lead to anything is beside the point,’’ Tocci said. The Israel move “substantively is rather meaningless because there is not much in this agreement but symbolically it helps because Israel has become just so unpopular in Italian public opinion.”

No matter what damage control she has done after the referendum loss, Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor at the LUISS school of government, predicts a difficult last year and a half of her mandate before elections due in 2027, largely due to the economic impact of the Iran war.

“People want to see their gas bills go down, not just see Meloni talk about gas. What matters are the bills you get every month,’’ he said.

The incident occurred on Wednesday, April 15, around 7:20 p.m. in the 11300 block of Dexter Avenue, where police said there were reports of a non-fatal shooting.

Police said the victim suffered injuries that were not considered life-threatening and was transported to a Metro Detroit hospital.

Officials said the shooting occurred behind a liquor store near Collingwood Street.

Investigators indicated the business does not appear to have been involved in the incident.

No suspect information was released.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Detroit Police Department’s 10th Precinct or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.

The Vatican had said fighting corruption in the mineral-rich central African country would be one of the themes of Leo’s visit, and the American pope didn’t hold back in addressing Biya and government authorities in an address at the presidential palace.

“In order for peace and justice to prevail, the chains of corruption — which disfigure authority and strip it of its credibility — must be broken,” Leo said. “Hearts must be set free from an idolatrous thirst for profit.”

Biya, who at 93 is the world’s oldest leader, sat passively as Leo read his speech in French. Cameroonian television halted its live feed for parts of Leo’s speech, but it wasn’t clear if technical issues were to blame.

The Vatican has made clear that Catholic social teaching disapproves of the types of authoritarian leaders that Leo is encountering on his four-nation African visit.

The highlight of Leo’s visit will be a “peace meeting” on Thursday in Cameroon’s northwest city of Bamenda, which has been plagued by separatist violence.

Pope calls for a ‘bold leap’

Biya has led Cameroon since 1982 and just Tuesday signed into law a bill that reintroduces the vice president position, a move the opposition says will further strengthen his grip on power.

Cameroon’s opposition has contested the result of the Oct. 12 election that secured another victory for Biya. His rival Issa Tchiroma Bakary claims to have won and has called on Cameroonians to reject the official result.

Leo told Biya that Cameroon needed to take “a bold leap forward” to impose transparency in public finances and integrate civil society organizations into the fabric of daily life.

Young people in general — and women in particular — had a vital role to play in bringing Cameroon into a new dawn, he said.

“Their commitment to education, mediation and the rebuilding of the social fabric is unparalleled and serves to curb corruption and abuses of power. For this reason, too, their voice must be fully recognized in decision- making processes,” Leo said.

The pope, who wrote his canon law dissertation on the wielding of authority by Augustinian religious superiors, cited St. Augustine on the correct role of political leaders that he said was relevant today.

“Those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others,” he said, quoting Augustine.

He added: “From this perspective, serving one’s country means dedicating oneself, with a clear mind and an upright conscience, to the common good of all people in the nation.”

'Light entering a dark room'

Cheering Cameroonians gave Leo a raucous welcome, the first pope to visit since Pope Benedict XVI in 2009. They lined the road into the capital Yaounde from the airport, two and three deep in places, dancing and waving palm fronds as the pope's motorcade whizzed by.

Many women dressed in identical bright dresses and stood behind banners announcing the name of their parish, while billboards splashed posters of the pope and Biya under the banner “Land of Hope.”

Gerald Mambeh, a Catholic teacher in Yaounde, said the pope’s visit needs to spark genuine dialogue and accountability to achieve lasting peace.

“This visit feels like light entering a dark room … but peace will not come from symbolism alone,” said Mambeh. “In a country where many feel abandoned, his presence feels like God has not forgotten us. Let the pope hear this beyond the politics: Cameroonians are not asking for miracles, we are asking for fairness, dignity, and a future.”

'Share in the national cake'

Cameroon has significant reserves of oil, natural gas, cobalt, bauxite, iron ore, gold and diamonds. The extractive sector accounts for nearly a third of the country’s exports, according to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

But rights groups and the Catholic Church say revenues from extraction rarely reach the rural and indigenous communities that live closest to mining and drilling operations, while foreign companies and a small national elite capture most of the profits.

Leo said such a status quo cannot remain.

“Transparency in the management of public resources and respect for the rule of law are essential to restoring trust,” he said. “It is time to examine our conscience and take a bold leap forward.”

Public official Angelica Ambe Mundi said she was touched by Leo's message. After he finished, she stepped forward and gently touched his chair before pressing her hand to her chest. She then knelt in quiet reverence.

“He spoke about the even distribution of state resources… violence comes when people feel disgruntled, when they are marginalized,” she told The Associated Press.

For her, his words cut to the core of Cameroon’s unrest: “People get violent when they are hungry. To stop violence, every Cameroonian must feel they belong — and share in the national cake.”

Pause in fighting

English-speaking separatists launched a rebellion in 2017 with the stated goal of breaking away from Cameroon's French-speaking majority and establishing an independent state. The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced over 600,000 others, according to the International Crisis Group, a think tank.

On the eve of Leo’s arrival, the English-speaking separatists announced a three-day pause in fighting to allow “safe travel” for his visit.

The Unity Alliance, which includes several separatist groups, said in a statement Monday that the pause reflects the “profound spiritual importance” of the pope's visit and is intended to allow civilians, pilgrims and dignitaries to travel safely.

Biya, who has shunned dialogue with the English-speaking separatists, spoke of a world in need of tolerance and hope as a replacement for “the voice of arms.”

“The world needs the message of peace, justice, tolerance, forgiveness, and love that you embody,” he told Leo.

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

The killing of the DHS worker, Lauren Bullis, and shootings of the two other victims on Monday led Homeland Secretary Markwayne Mullin to issue a statement raising concerns that the 26-year-old defendant, U.K.-native Olaolukitan Adon Abel, was granted U.S. citizenship in 2022, when Democrat Joe Biden was president.

“These acts of pure evil have devastated our Department and my prayers are with the families of the victims,” Mullin wrote in a statement posted on social media, cataloging a litany of the defendant's previous alleged crimes but not specifying whether they happened before he was granted citizenship.

Court records show that Olaolukitan Adon Abel, whose name appears in different variations in court and government records, pleaded guilty in California in October 2024 to assaulting two police officers with a deadly weapon and attacking another person when he was stationed at Naval Base Coronado.

Authorities have said they believe at least one victim in this week's shootings was targeted at random, and possibly more.

A morning of violence

The first victim was found with multiple gunshot wounds near a restaurant in the Decatur area at around 1 a.m. Monday. She was taken to a hospital but died, DeKalb County Police Chief Gregory Padrick said at a news conference. Police have not publicly identified her.

About an hour later in Brookhaven, an Atlanta suburb about 12 miles (19 kilometers) northwest of the first attack, a 49-year-old homeless man sleeping outside of a grocery store was shot multiple times, Brookhaven Police Chief Brandon Gurley said. The man, whose name hasn't been released, remains hospitalized in critical condition.

“It is apparent to us that it was a completely random attack on a member of our unhoused community,” Gurley said.

Just before 7 a.m. and more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) away in the suburb of Panthersville, officers responding to a call found Bullis with gunshot and stab wounds, Padrick said. She died at the scene.

Investigators in Brookhaven determined that the three attacks were connected, Gurley said.

Adon Abel was taken into custody later Monday during a traffic stop in Troup County, which borders Alabama. He is charged with two counts of malice murder, aggravated assault and firearms counts, court records show. He waived an initial court appearance Tuesday, and a public defender listed as his attorney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Toyin Adon Abel Jr., the defendant's brother, said he did not want to talk about his brother when reached by phone but expressed sympathy for the victims. “I feel terrible for the victims, their families and their connections,” he said. “It’s a horrible thing.”

Remembered for her warmth and compassion

Bullis served in multiple roles at DHS Office of Inspector General, including as an auditor in the Office of Audits and as a Team Leader in the Office of Innovation, DHS posted on social media, saying she brought “warmth, kindness, and a genuine sense of care to her colleagues each day.”

Relatives said in a statement, that she loved her family, running, reading and traveling, and “her warmth and generosity touched everyone surrounding her.”

Fellow DHS auditor Ashley Toillion of Denver said she met Bullis at a work conference last year. The two became fast friends as they bonded over running and quickly made plans to do a race at Walt Disney World.

“You couldn’t meet her and not be her friend,” Toillion said, choking back tears. “She was just the nicest, sweetest, most encouraging person I’ve ever met.”

Naval service and criminal case in California

Military records show the defendant enlisted in the Navy in 2020, last serving in the Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron in Coronado, California, and as a petty officer received a Navy “E” Ribbon for superior performance for battle readiness.

But in 2024 he was arrested and charged with assaulting two Coronado police officers and attacking another person. He pleaded guilty, court records show, and he was kicked out of the Navy in September of that year.

Mullin says suspect had criminal record

Mullin said Adon Abel has a criminal record that includes a sexual battery conviction.

Online court records show that someone listed with a similar name and the same birth date pleaded guilty last June in Chatham County, Georgia, to four misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.

Mullin also noted that since President Donald Trump took office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which DHS oversees, has worked to ensure that people with criminal histories don’t attain citizenship. But the U.S. has long barred people convicted of most violent felonies from becoming citizens, and it wasn't immediately clear if Adon Abel had a criminal record that predated him becoming a citizen in 2022.

In response to a request for further details about the case and the defendant's criminal history, DHS referred The Associated Press to its post about Bullis and her death.

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Brumfield reported from Cockeysville, Maryland, and Watson from San Diego. Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and John Hanna, in Topeka, Kansas, contributed.

The Sixers moved on to a first-round series that begins Sunday at Boston.

Desmond Bane and the Magic aren't done yet. They will host Charlotte on Friday night, with the winner earning the No. 8 seed in the East and a first-round matchup with Detroit.

The Hornets held on to beat Miami 127-126 when Miles Bridges blocked Davion Mitchell’s attempt at a winning layup at the buzzer. Charlotte’s LeMelo Ball will play, although he was fined $35,000 for what the league said was an uncalled flagrant foul when he tripped Bam Adebayo, causing a back injury that forced the Miami star out of the game.

Embiid had an emergency appendectomy last week in Houston. While the 76ers haven’t given a timetable for his return, the two-time scoring champion returned to the team on Wednesday, surprising teammates in the locker room and watching the game from the bench.

Maxey, named an Eastern Conference All-Star starter for the first time in his career, scored seven straight points late in the fourth to give the Sixers some breathing room against a Magic team that wasted a chance to play this game at home with a late collapse in a loss to the Celtics in the season finale.

Bane, who averaged 20.1 points and played all 82 games, carried Orlando's offense with 34 points. He hit a 3 that moved Orlando within two and Anthony Black hit a 3 that pulled the Magic to 87-86.

Maxey had a bit more help down the stretch.

Andre Drummond filled the void left by Embiid with 14 points and 10 rebounds off the bench. Kelly Oubre Jr. scored 19 points and Paul George had 16.

George, who served a 25-game suspension this season for flunking a drug test, hit a fadeaway jumper in the third quarter that stretched the lead to seven and prompted an Orlando timeout. He later popped the ball free and dumped it to Edgecombe, who dunked on — and got in the face of — Jalen Suggs for a 73-62 lead.

Edgecombe, the No. 3 overall pick in last year's draft, was whistled for taunting and officials had to separate the teams. Oubre waved his arms toward a roaring crowd and the Sixers seemed primed to build some separation.

Up next

Game 2 is Tuesday in Boston, and the Sixers return home for Game 3 on April 24.

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

The league said Ball made “unnecessary and reckless contact” with Adebayo on Tuesday night. Ball was fined $60,000 for the foul and for using profanity in an interview, but he remains eligible to play in the Hornets' elimination game Friday against Orlando.

The flagrant foul from Tuesday’s game, if called in real time, would have resulted in Miami being awarded two free throws and possession of the ball. The Heat wound up losing 127-126 in overtime, ending their season.

The NBA said a flagrant foul, penalty two, was merited. If that had been called, Ball would have been ejected.

Adebayo was hurt early in the second quarter and did not return, leaving Miami without its best player. Ball made the decisive layup for the Hornets in overtime.

While he lauded the way Charlotte played, Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said he felt Ball should have been ejected and wondered how officials Zach Zarba, Curtis Blair and Gediminas Petraitis all missed the incident.

“I don’t think that belongs in the game, tripping guys, shenanigans,” Spoelstra said. “Curtis was there. It’s his responsibility to see that. And if it’s not his responsibility, then Zach’s got to see it. Somebody’s got to see that. He should have been thrown out of the game for that. I don’t know him from anyone. There’s no place in the game for that.”

Per NBA rules, the Heat could not challenge the ruling on the play because no foul was called. Play continued, leaving no opportunity for a replay review.

“The play wasn’t whistled in real time,” Zarba told a pool reporter. “Play continued with a fast break. And because play wasn’t stopped immediately, and there was no whistle on the play, the window to review the play was closed.”

Ball was fined $35,000 for the foul on Adebayo. He was fined $25,000 for using profanity in an on-court postgame interview. The league did not publicly address a separate incident where Ball struck Charlotte’s mascot during the postgame celebration.

Tuesday's play was reminiscent of one during a game at Miami in January 2024, when Ball grabbed at Adebayo’s leg as the Heat center was running to the other end of the court. Adebayo stumbled but did not fall.

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

The change was passed last month by the Legislative Assembly, which is controlled by Bukele's party, and would apply to people convicted of committing or acting as an accomplice to crimes including homicide, femicide, rape and gang membership. The measure was pushed forward by Bukele's cabinet.

Previously, the maximum sentence in El Salvador was 60 years for adults and less for youths. The reforms slated to take effect April 26 would create new criminal courts to try cases. They also stipulate a mandatory review of life terms decades into the sentences, depending on the age of the convict and the gravity of their crimes.

Critics say the reforms are just the latest harsh move by Bukele more than four years into his war on gangs.

Following a burst of gang violence in 2022, Bukele announced a then-temporary state of emergency, which has become the new normal in the Central American nation as it's been extended for years. He suspended constitutional rights and locked up more than 1% of El Salvador's population, often on vague charges with little evidence. Prisoners are often judged in mass trials and lawyers regularly lose track of where their clients are.

In one mass trial last year, alleged gang members were handed sentences of hundreds of years.

Officials in Bukele’s government have previously vowed that gang members detained “will never return” to the streets.

Under the crackdown, Bukele's government has detained around 91,650 people in El Salvador. Bukele has said that less than 10% of those people have been released.

It's fueled accusations of human rights abuses and arbitrary detention, but also sharply dipped homicide rates in a country long terrorized by gangs, handing Bukele soaring popularity levels.

The right-wing ally of U.S. President Donald Trump has been fiercely criticized for weakening checks and balances and undermining El Salvador's fragile democracy.

The sentencing changes are the latest in a slew of constitutional reforms jammed through by Bukele and his allies. Last year, the government pushed through one of its most contentious reforms that would eliminate presidential term limits, paving the way for Bukele to remain in power indefinitely.

Emboldened by Bukele’s alliance with U.S. President Donald Trump, the government has also gone after its enemies, detaining critics and activists, and increasingly forcing journalists and opposition voices to choose between exile or prison.

Human rights organizations have documented cases of arbitrary detentions for years, and one of them even filed a complaint before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, stating that the vast majority of those imprisoned under the state of emergency were detained arbitrarily, something the leader denies.

The memo, a copy of which was sent to The Associated Press, followed a long day of reports suggesting Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund was on the verge of cutting its financial backing of the upstart league.

The newsletter Money in Sport reported in February that LIV Golf already had spent $5.3 billion and was projected to surpass $6 billion by the end of the year.

“I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O'Neil said. “While the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass. We are heading into the heart of our 2026 schedule with the full energy of an organization that is bigger, louder, and more influential than ever before.”

Left unclear was how long the funding would last for LIV Golf, which launched in June 2022 by paying roughly $1 billion in signing bonuses to some of the PGA Tour's biggest names, such as Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm.

Prize money for individuals and the 13 teams was raised to $30 million this year.

Koepka since has left LIV and was allowed to rejoin the PGA Tour this year with stipulations. Patrick Reed also left LIV and is playing a European tour schedule this year. He is virtually certain to be eligible to return to the PGA Tour in 2027 through the European tour points race.

Questions about LIV's future funding were raised as the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia revealed a new five-year investment strategy.

“The 2026-30 strategy marks a natural evolution as PIF moves from a period of rapid growth and acceleration to a new phase of sustained value creation, with a strengthened focus on maximizing impact, raising the efficiency of investments, and applying the highest standards of governance, transparency and institutional excellence,” the PIF said in a release.

The plan was developed before the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the PIF governor who loves golf and was behind LIV Golf, told the London-based Financial Times, “Of course the war would add more pressure to reposition some priorities.”

LIV players at Chapultepec Golf Club for LIV Golf Mexico that starts Thursday did not have answers as speculation ran rampant throughout the day.

One player said Al-Rumayyan met with players the first week of March in Hong Kong and said funding for LIV was set through 2032. The player spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. The player also said O’Neil arrived in Mexico City Wednesday and was to meet with the players.

LIV Golf promoted the Mexico event Wednesday evening on social media with the message, “Slow news day? We are ON.”

LIV has played five events this year, in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Africa. It celebrated an inspirational victory at its biggest event in Australia when Anthony Kim won after the American had been away for 12 years while battling drug and alcohol addiction.

DeChambeau won the last two events in playoffs, and this week tries to become the first LIV player to win three in a row. DeChambeau, a two-time U.S. Open champion, missed the cut in the Masters last week.

LIV's focus has been on a global reach, with its first U.S. tournament not scheduled until May 7-10 at Trump National in northern Virginia.

“The life of a startup movement is often defined by these moments of pressure,” O'Neil said. “We signed up for this because we believe in disrupting the status quo. We have faced headwinds since the jump, and we’ve answered every time with resilience and grace. Now, we answer by doing what we do best: putting on the most compelling show in sports.”

He ended his note to the staff by saying, “We are pioneers, and while the road isn’t always smooth, the destination is worth every mile. Let’s go out and show the world why LIV Golf is the future of the game.”

LIV is in the second year of a Fox Sports television deal, with network putting it on various platforms like FS1. The opening round of the Mexico event has three hours on the Fox Sports app. The previous two years, its U.S. broadcast partner was the CW.

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

While details remained sketchy, Bangladesh Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Sabbir Alam Suzan told The Associated Press on Wednesday that nine people, including three Rohingya and six Bangladeshis, were rescued on April 9. Suzan said that the Bangladesh flag carrier M.T. Meghna Pride rescued the nine people when the crew found them floating at sea after the capsizing.

The status of any search on Wednesday or when the boat sank weren't immediately clear.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, and the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, said in a joint statement on Tuesday that the trawler departed from Teknaf in the southern Bangladeshi district of Cox’s Bazar carrying a large number of passengers to Malaysia.

The IOM said Wednesday in a new statement that the boat reportedly sank on April 9.

Overcrowding, strong winds and rough seas caused the vessel to lose control and sink, the agencies said.

A Rohingya woman who survived the capsizing and was rescued narrated her ordeal on Wednesday. The survivor said that she set out for Malaysia on April 4, and about 20 women were on board when the boat sank.

“I drifted in the sea for two days and one night," said Rahela Begum, who was brought to a refugee camp. "There were many people on the trawler, but after it sank, I have no idea what happened to them or where they went,"

“After drifting in the sea for two days and one night, the piece of wood I was holding onto also flipped over and I lost it. At that point, I lost consciousness. When I regained consciousness, I saw that Allah had sent a ship. The ship rescued me," she said.

Shari Nijman, a UNHCR communication officer in Cox’s Bazar, said Wednesday that the agency had no other updates.

Another coast guard media official told the AP by phone Wednesday that the rescued people, eight men and one woman, were all safe, after being handed over to the coast guard, which brought them to the police in Teknaf.

The official said that the rescue wasn't part of any official search operation, because the area is outside Bangladeshi territory, and that the crew of the M.T. Meghna Pride saved the people while it was on its way to Indonesia from Bangladesh's Chittagong.

The official spoke by phone on condition of anonymity in line with official policy.

UNHCR and IOM said that the disappearance reflected the protracted displacement of Rohingya people and the absence of durable solutions.

They said that ongoing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state has made the Rohingya’s safe return to Myanmar uncertain, while limited humanitarian assistance, as well as restricted access to education and employment in refugee camps, continue to push vulnerable Rohingya refugees to choose risky sea journeys, often based on false promises of higher wages and better opportunities abroad.

“This incident is a stark reminder of the grave risks people continue to face when undertaking dangerous sea journeys in search of safety and better opportunities,” IOM spokesperson Mohammedali Abunajela said in a statement on Wednesday. “No one should have to choose between remaining in situations of profound hardship or embarking on a journey that may cost them their lives.”

UNHCR and IOM urged the international community to strengthen funding and solidarity to ensure lifesaving assistance for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, which has sheltered more than 1 million Rohingya from Myanmar.

In 2025, more than 6,500 Rohingya refugees embarked on dangerous maritime journeys from Bangladesh and Myanmar, almost 900 of whom lost their lives, the IOM said. On the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal specifically, deaths and disappearances increased by more than 40% compared with 2024 figures, the U.N. organization said.

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Suzauddin Rubel reported from Cox's Bazar.

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered John Eastman disbarred and his name stricken from the state roll of attorneys. It caps a yearslong effort by the state bar to strip Eastman of his law license after he developed a legal strategy to have then-Vice President Mike Pence interfere with the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

A judge for the State Bar Court of California in 2024 recommended that he lose his California law license. Eastman argued he was being punished for simply giving legal advice.

George Cardona, chief trial counsel for the State Bar of California, said Wednesday's decision follows clear evidence that Eastman "advanced false claims about the 2020 presidential election to mislead courts, public officials, and the American public.”

“The Court’s order underscores that Mr. Eastman’s misconduct was incompatible with the standards of integrity required of every California attorney,” he said.

Eastman’s attorney, Randall Miller, said the decision “raises pivotal constitutional concerns” and that they plan to seek review in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling, he said in a statement, “departs from long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent protecting First Amendment rights, especially in the attorney discipline context.”

The States United Democracy Center, which filed an early ethics complaint against Eastman, cheered the decision.

“His unethical actions have had real, lasting consequences for our democracy,” Christine P. Sun, a senior vice president for the nonprofit, said in a statement.

Eastman was a close adviser to Trump in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He wrote a memo laying out a plan for Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes for Biden while presiding over the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 in order to keep Trump in the White House.

Prosecutors looking to strip Eastman of his law license had depicted him as fabricating a baseless theory and making false claims of fraud in hopes of overturning the results of the election.

An attorney for Eastman had countered that his client wasn't trying to steal the election but was considering ways to delay electoral vote counting so states could investigate allegations of voting improprieties. Trump’s claims of fraud were roundly rejected by courts, including by judges Trump appointed.

Eastman has also faced criminal charges in Georgia in the case accusing Trump and 18 allies of conspiring to overturn the Republican’s loss in the state. The case was dismissed in November.

Earlier that month, Trump had pardoned Eastman and many others accused of backing the Republican’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The pardon only applies to federal crimes.

Eastman had served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and as dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California from 2007 to 2010. He was a professor at the school when he retired in 2021 after more than 160 faculty members signed a letter calling for the university to take action against him.

The California State Bar is a regulatory agency and the only court system in the U.S. that is dedicated to attorney discipline.

The detailed report from Human Rights Watch said the heightened pressure was part of a decade-old campaign to ensure that religious denominations and independent churches are loyal to the officially atheist Communist Party.

China’s Catholics have been divided between an official, state-controlled church that didn’t recognize papal authority and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution.

Pope Francis, in 2018, sought to ease Vatican-China tensions with a deal giving the state-controlled church a say in naming bishops — a task traditionally exclusive to the pope.

Despite that deal, “Catholics in China face escalating repression that violates their religious freedoms,” said Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Pope Leo XIV should urgently review the agreement and press Beijing to end the persecution and intimidation of underground churches, clergy, and worshippers.”

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, didn’t immediately respond Wednesday when asked to comment on the report.

China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a query by The Associated Press.

Human Rights Watch said its researchers are not allowed into China. It said its report is based on input from people outside China “who had firsthand knowledge of Catholic life in China,” as well as experts on religious freedom and Catholicism in China.

Under the 2018 agreement, Beijing proposes candidates for bishop that the pope can then veto, though the agreement’s full text has never been made public.

Last June, a month after becoming pope, Leo made his first appointment of a Chinese bishop under the agreement. And in a subsequent interview, Leo specified that he would continue with the agreement “in the short term.”

“I’m also in ongoing dialogue with a number of people, Chinese, on both sides of some of the issues that are there,” Leo said. “ It’s a very difficult situation. In the long term, I don’t pretend to say this is what I will and will not do, but after two months, I’ve already begun having discussions at several levels on that topic.”

Since 2018, according to Human Rights Watch, Chinese authorities have pressured underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association "by arbitrarily detaining, forcibly disappearing ... and subjecting underground Catholic bishops and priests to house arrest.”

The report described some of those actions, attributed to people who had left China and who were not named in the report.

The government has also intensified ideological control, surveillance, restrictions on religious activities, and foreign ties in official churches, according to Human Rights Watch. It said that regulations adopted in December subject foreign travel by Catholic clergy to state approval.

The Chinese government officially recognizes five religions — Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam — and tightly supervises them.

In 2016, President Xi Jinping said he would “Sinicize” the country's religions — increasing oversight and ideological control in a bid to align religious practice with the Communist Party’s ideology and leadership.

Since then, Human Rights Watch asserted, the authorities have demolished hundreds of church buildings or the crosses atop them, prevented adherents from gathering in unofficial churches, restricted access to the Bible, and confiscated religious materials not authorized by the government.

The Sinicization campaign has also meant severe repression of Tibetan Buddhism and Islam , Human Rights Watch said.

In October, a pastor of a prominent underground Christian church was detained, according to his daughter, a church pastor and a group that monitors religion in China.

They said Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri of the Zion Church was detained at his home in Guangxi province, along with dozens of other church leaders across China.

Zion Church is among the largest so-called underground or house churches that are unregistered with the Chinese authorities. They defy government restrictions requiring believers to worship only in registered congregations.

Last month, ChinaAid — a U.S.-based group advocating for religious freedom in China — urged U.S. President Donald Trump to demand Mingri’s release ahead of his planned meeting with Xi in May.

“The Chinese Communist Party has escalated its systematic campaign to eradicate independent religious life,” said Bob Fu, ChinaAid’s president. “The United States must respond with consequences — not just concern.”

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AP Vatican correspondent Nicole Winfield in Yaounde, Cameroon, contributed to this report.

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

It was a pretty big deal to Carano, too. The $120,000 she said she got to headline against Cris “Cyborg” Justino in 2009 in her last bout was quite a jump from the $1,000 she said she earned from her first.

The two pioneers will earn significantly more when they end their lengthy layoffs to face each other May 16 at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. But Carano said Wednesday the opportunity for her meant far more than a paycheck.

This is the chance for the fighter-turned-actor to write an ending to her MMA journey, and for that she thanked Rousey.

“It's so crazy being here and having Ronda Rousey acknowledge what I did and most people would've written me off,” Carano said, appearing to get choked up. “I would have disappeared in history had she not wanted to fight me. So now people are like, she was a fighter, not just an actress.”

Indeed, and one of the most accomplished ones in her sport at one time. Carano (7-1) was a network draw in MMA's early days and fought in the first Nevada-sanctioned bout between women in 2006. But that wasn't giving her a good living, with Carano saying she also had to appear on “American Gladiators” on the side to help make ends meet.

Pay eventually wasn't a problem for Rousey, who went on to become one of the biggest superstars — male or female — in MMA. Nakisa Bidarian, the former UFC executive who co-founded Most Valuable Promotions with Jake Paul, said Rousey (12-2), who won the UFC’s first-ever women’s bout in 2013, had become the highest-paid female athlete in the world by 2015.

Now she wants other fighters to cash in, in ways that many never could in UFC. Rousey revealed during the press conference Wednesday that every fighter on the card that will stream on Netflix will earn a minimum of $40,000. That could clearly entice other mixed martial artists to Paul’s promotion by paying more than most fighters would ever get from the UFC.

“I want to do everything I can to help everybody else out in every way and that goes for people even at the bottom of the card that have very small records,” Rousey said. “They are important in making MMA more of a viable career path.”

It's unknown how much Carano and Rousey will make next month. But whatever it is will be far more than Carano, who turns 44 on Thursday, thought she'd ever make again in the sport. After leaving MMA after the loss to Justino, she appeared in several films and became a cast member of Disney’s “The Mandalorian.”

She faced mental and physical challenges in the years after fighting, gaining weight that is clearly gone as she prepares for five rounds at the 145-pound limit again. She said now it doesn't even feel like her last fight was so long ago.

It was Rousey who proposed they fight in 2024 and sought to work with MVP, having been impressed with its promotions when Paul fought Mike Tyson, and Amanda Serrano boxed Katie Taylor in some of the biggest women's boxing matches ever.

She noticed during the buildup how much fans had missed Tyson, the dominant heavyweight boxing force in the 1980s and '90s, and figured maybe they would feel the same way about the two MMA trailblazers.

“I knew that me and Gina bring something to the table that people miss,” Rousey said.

Rousey and Carano shared a lengthy embrace after the traditional face-off to end press conferences, in appreciation of what they had done before and what they are now doing together.

While Rousey knew all about her career, Carano said even some of her neighbors didn't.

“I'm like, YouTube me,” Carano said with a laugh. “I swear I'm on there.”

In a month she'll be on Netflix, where more than 300 million viewers can watch with their subscriptions a card that also includes MMA stars such as former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and Nate Diaz.

If MVP's first MMA promotion after four years of boxing is successful, more fighters will have the opportunities to make the kind of money Rousey believes they deserve when they enter her sport.

“It shouldn't be such a gamble,” she said.

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

Several replacement officials have completed hiring steps including background checks and will soon progress to undergoing physical exams, per a memo sent to teams on Wednesday that was obtained by The Associated Press. Training sessions with NFL officiating supervisors would then begin as early as next month.

The league has undertaken these steps because negotiations with the referees’ union have been unsuccessful, two people with knowledge of the discussions told The Associated Press last month. Both people spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversations are private.

The NFL's collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Referees Association is set to expire on May 31.

NFL senior vice president of officiating Perry Fewell informed head coaches and general managers in the memo that teams will receive further information in the coming weeks about when replacement refs would be able to work offseason workout programs and minicamps, which begin in June.

The league and the union have been negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement since the summer of 2024.

“The league remains committed to reaching a fair and reasonable agreement with the NFLRA but will be prepared in the event the NFLRA permits the current agreement to expire,” Fewell said in the memo.

The NFL has increased its offer to a 6.45% annual growth rate in compensation over a six-year labor deal, but the NFLRA wants 10% plus $2.5 million for marketing fees, the two AP sources said last month.

NFLRA executive director Scott Green told the AP “those numbers are not accurate.” He said negotiations with the league are similar to 2012 when a stalemate resulted in a 110-day lockout and replacement referees were used. ___

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

In recent months, 20-somethings around the world have taken over social media with posts enthusing about how they’re embracing Chinese ways of life. Videos proclaiming users are “Chinamaxxing,” or “in a very Chinese time of their lives” — namely by drinking hot water with boiled goji berries, eating dumplings or wearing slippers in the house, or flying to China and gushing about its modern infrastructure — are racking up millions of views.

Along with its economic and geopolitical rise, China’s government has tried for years to push its soft power on the global stage. But those official efforts never came close to the success the “becoming Chinese” meme is enjoying now.

Even senior Chinese diplomats have noted the trend. Xie Feng, the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., referenced the internet craze recently as he promoted a new visa-free transit policy and urged more Americans to “experience for yourselves a real, dynamic and panoramic China.”

The TikTok trend is the latest example of how Chinese products and consumables are enjoying a cultural cachet they’ve never had before globally. From movies to music, Labubu toys and even ordinary habits like drinking hot water, Chinese things are now seen by many as cool.

“China is gaining real soft power, and you can see it most clearly in how Chinese culture and ‘Chineseness’ are becoming familiar, repeatable, and globally consumable in everyday life,” said Shaoyu Yuan, a professor at the New York University School of Professional Studies’ Center for Global Affairs.

“That legitimacy,” Yuan said, “is earned through taste, utility, and entertainment.”

That soft power rise is enabled by China's development in many industries: From manufacturing, where it holds a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus with the rest of the world, to social media, where it developed the addictive algorithms that made TikTok, to its own consumer culture, where homegrown names compete head to head with global brands.

Mixed feelings among Chinese Americans

Sherry Zhu, a 23-year-old from New Jersey, posted a couple of videos last year joking about how if you liked noodles and hotpot and wore slippers at home you were Chinese. One of her videos was shared almost a million times in December, and other TikTokers quickly caught on with the “becoming Chinese” meme.

But the trend has also raised thornier questions. For many Chinese people who have long faced discrimination in the West, the internet’s fascination with Chinese culture seems to be the latest form of cultural appropriation.

“Appreciation does not erase the racism that many Chinese people grew up with,” said Elise Zeng, 28, from Brooklyn, New York. A video she posted critiquing the social media phenomenon was liked by more than 36,000 people.

She recalls how during the COVID-19 pandemic she was afraid for her parents stepping out of the house because they heard about people getting attacked just walking down the street. At the time, many Asians reported being assaulted or verbally abused by people who blamed East Asians for the spread of the virus.

“Those experiences don’t just disappear because Chinese culture is suddenly cool and trendy,” she said.

Zhu acknowledged that she, too, has experienced bullying based on her identity, but said she was proud of her Chinese heritage. “I believe that visibility and cultural sharing can reduce misunderstanding over time,” she said.

China’s success in soft power has been building

The meme is riding on a broader embrace of Chinese popular culture that’s been building globally.

The frenzy over Labubus, the fuzzy ugly-cute dolls carried by the likes of Rihanna and other top celebrities, reached a peak last spring and summer, bringing a 300% rise in annual profit for Chinese parent company PopMart.

Several other cultural exports with more distinctly Chinese attributes have also found global success. On TikTok, the Chinese rapper known as Skaii isyourgod or “Lanlao” has gained fans around the world — even though he raps in Cantonese and with a thick regional accent, which many people in China wouldn’t understand either.

But that didn’t matter. Skaii isyourgod’s single “Blueprint Supreme” went viral last summer in China and abroad, amassing billions of views on TikTok globally.

Last year “Ne Zha 2,” the animated blockbuster about a young god from a popular Chinese children’s tale, became the highest grossing animated film of all time even before its release in North America.

Another success, the big budget video game “Black Myth: Wukong,” was similarly based on a story familiar to many Chinese kids about an adventurous monkey hero. The game broke the record for most-played single-player game on Steam when 2.4 million people played it simultaneously after its release.

More recently, Chinese digital maps like Amap have gone viral on social media over standard ones like Apple or Google for their level of detail, such as the ability to inform users if they will be in the shade versus the sun.

Soft power goes beyond official narratives

Xi has long pushed for his government to promote Chinese soft power abroad, calling on officials to “tell China’s story well” since 2013.

They have attempted to do so with ambitious projects like the multibillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative — a plan to build Chinese-funded infrastructure across the world — and investing in hundreds of Confucius Institutes.

But many Confucius Institutes, meant to be Beijing-funded centers teaching Chinese language and culture, have shut down in the West over concerns they were fronts for spying and propaganda, while the Belt and Road Initiative has been criticized as a debt trap by Western countries.

China’s ascending hard power has been well documented. It is the dominant manufacturer in the green energy sector, most visibly with its electric vehicles, but also across solar energy. It has the world’s second-largest military, behind the U.S. It is a manufacturing powerhouse, and its exports have swept the world.

Soft power, in contrast, is harder to quantify — or manufacture. China’s government has been eager to capitalize on the latest social media trend and throw state support behind cultural moments after they’ve broken out.

Global Times, a state-owned tabloid, claimed that the popularity of the “becoming Chinese” meme is linked to the success of “China’s social development.”

But the more officials vocally claim such successes and frame them as part of the “China story,” the more it may be received with skepticism, said Yuan, the professor.

“Cultural influence travels farther when it is chosen rather than announced,” he said.

“‘The Odyssey’ is a story that has fascinated generation after generation for 3,000 years,” Nolan said from the stage. “It’s not a story, it’s the story.”

He introduced an extended clip from the film showing the arrival of the Trojan Horse and the intense nighttime infiltration of the city of Troy. Or, as Jon Bernthal’s Menelaus calls it, “the story of the horse.”

“The Odyssey” is the first motion picture shot entirely on IMAX film, thanks to the development of new cameras that aren’t quite so noisy, fulfilling a dream Nolan said he's had since he was 16.

The film boasts a massive ensemble with Anne Hathaway playing Odysseus’s wife Penelope, Tom Holland as their son Telemachus, Zendaya as the goddess Athena and Robert Pattinson as Antinous, one of Penelope’s suitors. Nolan said it would be quicker to say who isn’t in “The Odyssey,” his first feature since “Oppenheimer,” which won best picture and best director at the Oscars in 2024.

“It’s always been a film, first and foremost, about this idea of family, this idea of homecoming,” Nolan said, adding that it is almost done.

The footage was shown as part of the Universal Pictures presentation to exhibitors where the studio also has a new “Minions” movie and Steven Spielberg’s original science fiction film “Disclosure Day" coming to theaters this summer.

“I’m just really glad not to be following Steven Spielberg,” Nolan said.

Later, Spielberg, like Nolan, got a rousing, retrospective montage of his films and a big standing ovation from the audience as well. For Spielberg’s first visit to the convention, the Motion Picture Association even gave him an award. Colman Domingo, who co-stars in “Disclosure Day,” led a discussion with Spielberg about his 35th feature, which opens on June 12.

Spielberg said he’s always been fascinated by what’s happening in the sky, and, particularly, the UFO phenomenon. And 50 years after “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” he said he's convinced that there’s more truth to it than fiction. The movie, which also stars Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor, has been kept quite secretive. Spielberg said he was adamant about not spoiling the third act.

"All I can say is it's an experience," Spielberg said. “And all you need to get from the beginning to the end is a seat belt.”

He also spoke about the industry at large and the importance of giving the audience original stories.

“That is what’s going to keep this business alive,” Spielberg said.

Snoop Dogg kicked off the presentation performing “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and announcing that he’s partnered with Universal “to finally tell my story.” Craig Brewer will direct and it’s aiming to be in theaters next year.

“My movie will be rated R, you can believe that,” he said. “So kids, get your parents’ permission.”

Universal currently has the year’s biggest box-office hit in theaters with “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which has only been out for 15 days and has already made over $631 million worldwide. It is on its way to being the year’s first billion dollar movie, said Donna Langley, the NBC Universal Entertainment chairperson. Last month the studio also pledged to extend the exclusive theatrical window for all its movies to 45 days starting in 2027.

“We’ve always been a theatrical first studio,” Langley said.

For decades the standard exclusive window was 90 days in theaters, but the pandemic and the rise of streaming led to drastic shifts from all the major studios. Universal experimented with 17-day windows during the pandemic era, as well as some day-and-date releases, but for its biggest movies they had already settled into the 45-day model.

It’s an important guarantee for theater owners and operators with the box office still at a 20% deficit from its pre-pandemic highs. Disney, by contrast, has a 60-day window, the longest in the industry but still quite depleted from the old 90-day norm.

“Audiences will find what they want to watch whether they’re big or small,” Spielberg said. “But studios need to help us by expanding their exclusive windows like Donna Langley just did.”

He added: “But today I’ve got to be greedy: Do I hear 60 days? ... We can all make it happen; we have to insist on making it happen."

The ruling, in a lawsuit brought by dozens of states, won’t immediately bring relief for concertgoers who have long complained about high ticket prices. But it could cost Live Nation hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps force the company to sell some of its concert venues when the judge hands out penalties later.

Among other things, the jury found Ticketmaster's anticompetitive practices led to people in 22 states paying an extra $1.72 per ticket, which the judge could order the companies to pay back.

A jury in New York deliberated for four days before reaching its decision. State attorneys general who sued Live Nation said the verdict could potentially lead to lower ticket prices for music fans.

Live Nation said in a statement that the verdict “is not the last word on this matter.”

The company predicted that once a remedy phase of the litigation is completed before the judge and all appeals are resolved, the outcome likely won't be much different from what the federal government achieved with a settlement it reached with the company just after the trial began.

That deal included a cap on service fees at some amphitheaters, plus some new ticket-selling options for promoters and venues — potentially allowing, but not requiring, them to open doors to Ticketmaster competitors such as SeatGeek or AXS.

The trial was a backstage pass

The trial gave fans the equivalent of a backstage pass to a business that dominates live entertainment in the U.S. and beyond.

Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino testified, answering questions about matters including the company’s Taylor Swift ticket debacle in 2022. Rapino blamed a cyberattack.

Jurors also got to see a Live Nation employee’s internal messages to another employee declaring some prices “outrageous,” calling customers “so stupid” and boasting that the company was “robbing them blind, baby.” The employee, Benjamin Baker, who has since been promoted to a position as a ticketing executive, apologetically testified that the messages were “very immature and unacceptable.”

Live Nation Entertainment owns, operates, controls booking for or has an equity interest in hundreds of venues. Its subsidiary Ticketmaster is widely considered to be the world’s largest ticket-seller for live events.

The verdict could cost Live Nation and Ticketmaster hundreds of millions of dollars, based on the jury's estimate that customers paid an extra $1.72 per ticket. The companies could also be assessed penalties. In addition, sanctions could result in court orders that they divest themselves of some entities, including venues such as amphitheaters that they own.

In its statement, Live Nation said the jury's award of $1.72 per ticket applied to “a limited number of tickets” sold at 257 venues and representing about 20% of total tickets sold. The company estimated the aggregate single damages figure would be below $150 million, though it would be trebled.

The civil case, initially led by the U.S. government, accused Live Nation of using its reach to smother competition — by blocking venues from using multiple ticket sellers, for example.

Live Nation denies it is a monopoly

Live Nation insisted it is not a monopoly, saying that artists, sports teams and venues decide prices and ticketing practices. A company lawyer said its size was simply a function of excellence and effort.

“Success is not against the antitrust laws in the United States,” attorney David Marriott said in his summation.

Ticketmaster was established in 1976 and merged with Live Nation in 2010. The company now controls of 86% of the market for concerts and 73% of the overall market when sports events are included, according to an attorney for the states, Jeffrey Kessler.

Ticketmaster has long drawn ire from fans and some artists. Grunge rock titans Pearl Jam battled the business in the 1990s, even filing an anti-monopoly complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, which declined to bring a case then.

Decades later, the Justice Department, joined by dozens of states, brought the current lawsuit during Democratic former President Joe Biden's administration.

Days into the trial, Republican President Donald Trump's administration announced it was settling its claims against Live Nation.

A handful of the states joined the settlement. But more than 30 pressed ahead with the trial, saying the federal government hadn't gotten enough concessions.

Attorneys hail verdict

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a release after the verdict that Live Nation's “illegal, anti-competitive practices” had driven up ticket prices and made it harder for fans to see their favorite acts.

New York Attorney General Letitia James called the verdict “a landmark victory.”

After the victory, Kessler would not say specifically what the states will seek in the next phase of the litigation, which was expected to involve another lengthy legal proceeding before penalties are decided.

But he celebrated the moment.

“It’s a great day for consumers," he said.

The land’s transformation, documented through a network of cameras and sensors, offers a playbook for wetland restoration as cranberry farms see slimmer profits from New England to Wisconsin because of climate change and other factors. The crop requires cold winters and plenty of water, but warmer temperatures and longer droughts are challenging harvest seasons.

Settlers in Plymouth were among the first to farm this native New England crop, and since then cranberry farms have been passed down through families for centuries.

“For many of these farmers, it’s their life savings and what they want to pass on to their children,” Davenport says. “It’s very complicated.”

Land that Davenport and her husband sold for restoration, now known as Tidmarsh Wildlife Sanctuary, has set an example as the single largest freshwater restoration project in Massachusetts. Together with researchers, technologists and artists, she has created a living laboratory for wetland conservation science. The cameras and sensors provide live, publicly available data showing how the land is recovering its natural biodiversity.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is a collaboration between the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing and The Associated Press.

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Scientists who studied the sanctuary and an adjacent town preserve that’s also on her family's former farmland have published peer-reviewed studies documenting the changes. Lessons learned at Tidmarsh also helped the state launch a cranberry bog restoration program to connect farmers with nonprofits, which will either buy the land to restore it or help them take on a restoration project themselves.

Nature lovers have found other creative uses for the data: Once, birdwatchers took audio data of a bird call from several microphones to triangulate a bird’s location. Some users play wetland sounds for ambience in their bedrooms or offices.

Restoring the land

To make restoration possible at Tidmarsh, over 20,000 native plant species were planted, several old dams removed and new waterways dug. Excavators sifted through sandy soil degraded by more than a century of cranberry production that formed a thick, hard layer over the natural freshwater wetlands the farms were built on.

Ecologists who believed cranberry farmland to be “ecologically dead” saw a wetland emerge instead. Within just a year of the restoration work that began in 2010, the sandy soil began to sprout.

A 2025 study of sites including the Foothills Preserve in Plymouth, land that was also once part of Davenport’s farm, by researchers at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and the University of Connecticut suggested the sand at Tidmarsh held long-dormant native seeds that just needed to be mixed with peat to germinate. Similarly, a 2021 study of Tidmarsh and other restored sites — including an earlier, smaller restoration in Plymouth known as Eel River Headwaters — found that water retention, soil health and microbial communities improved rapidly in just a few years.

“We discovered that former cranberry farms were actually highly restorable,” says Beth Lambert, director of the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration.

The results of the transformation are on display during tours given by Mass Audubon, the conservation organization that bought and manages most of the land at Tidmarsh. Kim Snyder, the group’s education coordinator, leads groups ranging from birdwatchers to schoolchildren on field trips.

“A lot of Plymouth residents who have been here a long time remember it as a cranberry farm,” Snyder says.

Setting an example

Lambert says Tidmarsh helped launch the state’s Cranberry Bog Restoration Program, which can provide technical assistance and connect farmers to federal funding and conservation-minded buyers. Today, the state has helped complete construction on nine restoration projects totaling around 500 acres (202 hectares) and 10 miles (16 kilometers) of stream habitat. And 11 additional projects spanning another 500 acres are currently in planning stages. Lambert says she aims to have restored another thousand acres in the next 10 to 15 years.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of retired cranberry farms in Massachusetts grew by about 40% between 2017 and 2022.

It’s not a given that farmers will choose to sell their lands for conservation purposes. They can sell to other buyers to develop. Or they could let the land languish, taking decades to return to a wild, productive ecosystem.

“If we don’t conserve, if we don’t protect these lands that … owners are walking away (from), we lose it forever,” Davenport says.

A now-retired filmmaker, Davenport believes that the more research on wetland restoration she supports, the more knowledge can be communicated to the public — which could inspire other restoration projects launching elsewhere.

That belief led her to create the Living Observatory, a nonprofit group that describes itself as a “learning collaborative” for researchers, artists and others to document how former cranberry farms recuperate.

Through the network of sensors — which monitor conditions from soil moisture to temperature — and live cameras, the Living Observatory created a trove of data on how to restore cranberry farms. The project’s website now houses data from multiple restoration sites in the state beyond Tidmarsh.

Gershon Dublon, a data and systems researcher and director of the board of the Living Observatory, said researchers were grateful for a fairly simple tool: a centralized place to access the data and add their own. After the success at Tidmarsh, ecologists from as far as the Amazon rainforest reached out to Living Observatory asking for their input on how to deploy a similar bespoke sensor network in their work, Dublon says.

Climate-resilient landscapes

Wetland restoration projects and the knowledge gained from them are important tools in the fight against climate change, says climate scientist Christopher Neill at the Woodwell Climate Center. Wetlands work as barriers that soak up water from floods and storms, Neill says. According to scientists, extreme precipitation is becoming more common in the Northeast.

At Tidmarsh, one example of that resilience is sphagnum moss growing next to a mile-long boardwalk. Snyder likes to tell visitors about its antimicrobial properties. The moss also absorbs and stores planet-warming carbon dioxide.

“It’s a great property to show … the scope of restoration work,” she says, smiling.

The changes at Tidmarsh, a farm that had been owned by her husband's family, give Davenport hope. Native pitcher plants grow in clusters in the wetlands. Insects drone over running brooks. Her boots sink on the mushy, wet ground. Those were sounds she never heard on the farm before.

“The quiet goal is, can we make a dent in the amount of land that’s put in conservation?” Davenport says.

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This story has been updated to correct that Davenport did not grow up on the farm and to clarify that she and her husband sold the land.

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

The two resolutions to block U.S. sales of bulldozers and bombs to Israel were opposed by all Republicans and rejected 40-59 and 36-63. But Sanders has repeatedly forced votes on the issue to put pressure on his colleagues — both Democrats and Republicans — to oppose Netanyahu’s regime.

Similar resolutions forced by Sanders in 2024 and 2025 were also rejected, but the number of Democrats voting with the Vermont Independent has more than doubled in less than two years amid Israeli campaigns in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon and a stepped-up campaign by party activists who have increasingly seen support for Israel as a litmus test for support.

“It’s clear that Democrats are beginning to listen to the average American who is sick and tired of spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu’s horrific wars when people in this country can’t afford housing or health care,” Sanders said after the vote.

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., voted in support of the two resolutions after opposing some of Sanders’ previous efforts. In a speech just before the vote, Kelly said that “the reckless decisions being made by Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump” led him to his decision, which he said he did not take lightly.

“Under Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government, we’ve seen an expanded war in Lebanon that is putting innocent Lebanese civilians at risk, and ongoing violence against Palestinians and their homes being demolished in the West Bank,” Kelly said. “All of this has undermined the path forward for peace.”

Among the Democrats voting against the resolutions were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Nearly 100 protesters were arrested during a demonstration on Monday calling on the two New York senators to vote in favor of Sanders' two measures.

Led by the antiwar group Jewish Voice for Peace, the crowd of hundreds initially attempted to stage a sit-in inside the senators' offices as they said they were abetting Israel’s intensifying attacks in Lebanon and the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. But they were blocked and many of the protesters were arrested.

“The majority of Americans and New Yorkers want a resolution to what the Israeli government is doing,” said the group’s communications director, Sonya Meyerson-Knox.

Democrats supported a resolution earlier on Wednesday to halt Trump's war in Iran, though that was also rejected, 47-52. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat who voted against Sanders' Israel resolutions, said he voted to end the Iran war but did not want to abandon Israel.

“My votes should be taken neither as an endorsement of the actions of the Netanyahu government nor as an abandonment of the state of Israel, the Jewish people, or the US-Israel relationship,” Coons said in a statement after the vote.

Republicans said the vote could hurt U.S. efforts in the Iran war.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said the resolutions could embolden Iran and “send the message that the U.S. is prepared to leave our ally Israel vulnerable.”

“They will not help the United States of America,” Risch said ahead of the vote.

A strike would be the first in 35 years and would affect 1.5 million renters, co-op owners and condo dwellers across the city, according to the workers' union, called 32BJ SEIU. Residents could have to take on such tasks as staffing doors, sorting packages, mopping hallways, sweeping sidewalks and hauling trash to the curb.

If no deal is reached, a strike could start as soon as midnight Monday, when the current contract expires.

The union says building owners are trying to squeeze 34,000 workers who already strive to afford the pricey metro area on salaries that average about $62,000 a year for doorpersons. Averages vary for other jobs.

Building owners, represented by an umbrella group called the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, say they are facing financial pressures themselves. They want the workers to start paying health insurance premiums and want new hires to come in under a new job classification that the union says would be lower-paying.

At a rally that stretched for more than four blocks along Manhattan's Park Avenue on Wednesday, thousands of workers held up cards that said “YES I am ready to strike” as some of their colleagues looked on from their posts at doorways on the tony boulevard.

Adam Cintron, a doorperson at a building elsewhere in Manhattan, was hoping a deal would avert a strike. But he is concerned about keeping up with the cost of living.

“I love my job," Cintron said as he attended the rally with his rescue dog, Jett, whom a dog-loving resident of the building helped him find. To Cintron, that is an indication of residents' regard for the staffers who work to ensure their home runs smoothly.

“We try to take care of everyone,” said Cintron, 39.

While battling owners’ health care and new-hires proposals, the union is pushing to increase pensions and increase wages, although it has yet to make an exact proposal on pay. Union President Manny Pastreich emphasized that workers face rising costs, including rents — a source of income for “the very same building owners who say they have to come after our health care to make ends meet.”

The Realty Advisory Board says building owners also face rising expenses — and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s push to freeze rent on the city’s roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. Mamdani, a Democrat, joined the building workers' rally Wednesday, saluting “those who maintain multimillion-dollar apartments, and yet, when they get home, struggle to understand how they can make rent on the first of the month.”

Realty board President Howard Rothschild, meanwhile, called for negotiating a contract that “supports a viable path forward.”

“Without meaningful movement to address costs ... the long-term sustainability of the industry and its workforce is at risk," Rothschild said in a statement.

Building owners note that few U.S. workers enjoy family health benefits without paying premiums.

But to workers such as Percy Jackson, a porter in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood, the benefits make his job of 23 years viable.

“With everything going up in New York ... if we had to pay, actually, into our medical, it wouldn't work," said Jackson, whose position entails cleaning, dealing with trash and more.

Being a doorperson — many New Yorkers call the mostly male workers “doormen” — might conjure a white-gloved fellow ceremoniously opening an ornate entrance. But the job often involves other functions (and uniforms aren't always quite so formal).

Besides providing basic security in buildings that can have hundreds of residents, doorpersons field package and food deliveries that have mushroomed since the COVID-19 pandemic. They help people with strollers and walkers navigate lobby stairs. In some buildings, they might also handle cleaning, snow shoveling, and wrestling refuse bins out of basements and alleys for pickup.

Superintendents, meanwhile, oversee maintenance, repairs and day-to-day operations in buildings that may be a more than a century old.

Some building managers already have told residents they may need to postpone renovations, moves and major deliveries and minimize deliveries and visitors, among other steps, if there is a strike.

The union's last strike, in 1991, lasted 12 days. In the years since, the union has at times voted to authorize a strike but then reached contract deals.

Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. He went on to win Rookie of the Year honors, become a six-time All-Star and the 1949 National League MVP. He played in six World Series, and won his only championship in 1955 with the Dodgers.

“Every player of color who now enjoys our great sport, they owe it to this man,” said Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

Robinson made his pro debut with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues in 1945. He was there five months before Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey interviewed him for possible selection to Brooklyn's International League farm club. Rickey wanted to make sure Robinson could withstand the racial antagonism without reacting angrily.

“What he did was incredibly difficult under some of the most harsh circumstances you could ever imagine," Kendrick said. "He had to go out there and deal not only with the racial hatred but he was carrying 21 million Black folks on his back when he walked across those lines. Had he failed, an entire race of people would have failed. That's an enormous amount of pressure. How he did it with such grace, class and dignity is absolutely incredible. And no, we should never forget Jackie Robinson."

The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets gathered around the centerfield statue of Robinson stealing home at Dodger Stadium. Among the Dodgers were Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernández, Will Smith, Roki Sasaki, Alex Vesia and Will Klein. Shohei Ohtani, who has attended previously, was not there ahead of pitching against the Mets later.

“A special day, especially for me as a Latino. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't because of him,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Talk about dealing with pressure at this level, imagine what he dealt with back in the day."

Dave Roberts, one of just two Black managers currently in the majors, told the teams Robinson would be proud that they reflect his dream and vision of what equality and unity would look like.

“My ask is that we remember how we got here,” Roberts said.

In New York, Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. wore his pinstriped pants loose and blousy and rolled at the knees the way many players did in the 1940s, including Robinson.

A video commemorating Robinson and narrated by former Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia was played on the stadium scoreboard before the team’s game against the Los Angeles Angels.

“You look at the diversity in our game as far as now, worldwide, and Jackie was the start of opening those doors to not just Black players being able to play but Latin America,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, "and now we have people from all over the globe playing this, and Jackie was the start of all that.”

In Pittsburgh, Pirates manager Don Kelly said, “It doesn’t seem like one day is enough to really give back to Jackie and what he meant to baseball and to people.”

Two of Robinson's granddaughters joined the teams at Dodger Stadium, not far from Robinson's adopted hometown of Pasadena. He was a four-sport star at Pasadena Junior College before going on to UCLA, where the Georgia native was better known for football than baseball.

Last year, a historical marker honoring the Robinson family was unveiled by the city of Pasadena at their former home.

“We’re really carrying the legacy now and it’s an incredible honor,” said granddaughter Ayo Robinson, whose father David is Robinson's youngest son. "It’s a weight that feels good because it keeps you grounded in what is so important. I feel like the legacy is just as important today as it has ever been.”

Robinson's widow, Rachel, turns 104 in July. She lives in New York and still visits the Jackie Robinson Museum.

“She's the strong matriarch of our family, surrounded by love and intention to continue to allow her to live a life that she wanted,” said granddaughter Sonya Pankey Robinson, whose father was Jackie Robinson Jr.

Also on hand in Los Angeles were recipients of scholarships from the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

For the first time in at least two decades, the percentage of Black players on opening day rosters increased this season. Major League Baseball says 6.8% of players on opening day rosters, injured lists and the restricted list were Black, up from 6.2% at the start of the 2025 season and 6.0% at the start of 2024.

“He’s an icon,” Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “To take this day and make it something special says a lot about the character of the game.”

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AP Sports Writers Will Graves in Pittsburgh, Steve Megargee in Milwaukee and Mike Fitzpatrick in New York contributed to this report.

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

It's the first time since May 28, 2021 with the Los Angeles Angels that Ohtani has not been in the batting lineup during a mound start.

Ohtani is still sore from being struck on the back of his right shoulder by a pitch from the New York Mets' David Peterson on Monday. The Japanese superstar let out a howl, but stayed in the game.

“If it weren’t for the hit by pitch, he would’ve been DHing and pitching tonight,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “But I do think that just to be able to pitch and focus on that will be a benefit for the mind and the body, and hopefully, we’re just in a little moment of fatigue and we can get past it.”

Roberts said Ohtani has felt progressively better since Monday. But the training staff, coaches and Roberts felt it was better for him not to hit in the series finale, although Ohtani was initially surprised to hear the decision.

“Because I’ve never asked him to pitch and not hit,” Roberts said. “I think that he understands that I’m making a decision that’s best for the player, for him, and for the team.”

Ohtani is 0 for 7 at the plate since getting hit.

His career-best on-base streak reached 48 games after he was intentionally walked in the eighth inning on Tuesday. It's the fourth-longest streak in franchise history.

Roberts expects Ohtani to be back hitting and pitching in his next start, although he said he would consider giving Ohtani a hitting break again on a night when he's pitching at some point in the future.

“It's got to make sense to not have your best hitter not in the lineup,” Roberts said. “Then the question is when he does hit, on days that he pitches, where’s the best for him to hit in the order? I think there’s fair arguments to both, to moving him down a little bit, give him a breather, let him get into the game. But I’m not prepared to make that decision quite yet. But it is something that I’m mindful of it.”

On the mound, Ohtani had his 22 2/3 inning scoreless streak snapped at Toronto last week, but the right-hander hasn't allowed an earned run since Aug. 27, 2025, against Cincinnati — a span of 28 2/3 innings.

Ohtani made his Dodgers pitching debut last season, going 1-1 with a 2.87 ERA and 62 strikeouts in 47 innings over 14 starts. His four-seam fastball averaged a career-best 98.4 mph last year.

Ohtani owns the longest on-base streak by a Japanese-born player at 48 games, surpassing Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki, who reached in 43 straight games in 2009.

Roberts said Ohtani would not be available to pinch hit against the Mets.

“You can tell Carlos Mendoza he's an option, though,” he joked, referring to New York's manager.

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

The state’s settlement with Arizona Public Service, which previously prohibited shutoffs because of nonpayment between June 1 and Oct. 15, also called for the utility to pay $2.7 million that will be deposited into a state consumer protection fund and another $3.4 million to improve a program that lets customers designate family members or friends as emergency contacts who can receive notices in a bid to help prevent shutoffs, including sending text messages to inform customers of delinquent bills and disconnection notices.

Mayes’ office said the lawsuit grew out of concerns about disconnection practices during extreme heat, including the death of Katherine Korman at her Sun City West home.

Her service was cut off in mid-May 2024 because of nonpayment on a day when the daily high temperature in her area reached about 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). She was found dead six days after her power was disconnected.

APS said it made 10 attempts to contact Korman by phone, email, door hanger and monthly bills to let her know the status of her bill and offer help. The utility said regulators who examined the case determined APS had followed the rules on customer outreach and disconnection.

“No Arizonan should be at risk because they cannot afford their electric bill,” Mayes said in a statement. “This settlement ensures that APS will no longer disconnect power based on the date on the calendar alone – if temperatures are dangerous, the power stays on.”

APS, which didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, said in a statement that it already met or exceeded state laws and regulations in its disconnection policies and customer communications. “Our entire team at APS prioritizes customer safety and cares deeply about the well-being of our customers and community,” the utility said. The agreement specifies the payments from the settlement must come APS shareholder funds and that they can't be recovered through future rate cases or surcharges.

“If APS wants to spend additional shareholder funds, it is free to do so," Douglas Clark, executive director of the Arizona Corporation Commission, said in a statement. "The consent agreement makes it clear that this payment is outside the regulatory framework and will not be passed on to ratepayers.”

Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix, confirmed 430 heat-related deaths last year, a decrease from 608 in 2024 and 645 in 2023. The county’s first confirmed heat-related death in 2026 was announced last week.

Jury selection started Tuesday in the onetime movie mogul's latest retrial, where jurors will weigh — for the third time — whether he raped hairstylist and actor Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel in 2013.

It's a more streamlined proceeding than the array of allegations that were aired at Weinstein’s previous trials in New York and Los Angeles. The Oscar-winning producer denies all the accusations and declared in court this winter that he had “acted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone.”

Still, the retrial is expected to last up to six weeks. Questioned about the length of the proceeding and whether they could be fair and impartial about the much-publicized case, more than 80 people asked to be excused during initial screening Tuesday morning. The day ended with no jurors chosen.

The process is scheduled to resume Wednesday with prospective jurors being questioned individually in private about their knowledge of the case and Weinstein. Wider-ranging questioning in court should follow eventually.

A surprise move from prosecutors

In a surprise move before jury selection began, prosecutors said they had a new piece of evidence — a remark that Weinstein allegedly made to a court officer six years ago.

According to Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Candace White, the officer told prosecutors last week that he was present during Weinstein’s February 2020 sexual assault conviction — which was later overturned — and heard Weinstein say: “If you had seen these girls, you would have done the exact same thing.”

Weinstein’s lawyers urged Judge Curtis Farber to keep any mention of the supposed remark out of the upcoming retrial.

“This sounds far-fetched,” defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said, also arguing that it emerged too late.

A subject that was explored in prior trials — a claims fund for women who said Weinstein sexually mistreated them — likely won't come up again. The defense team doesn’t intend to raise the subject, Farber said.

A new defense team

Agnifilo and his partners took on the case in February, when longtime Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala stepped aside from the retrial to focus on the former studio boss’ appeals and civil matters. Both Aidala and Agnifilo are well-known New York defense attorneys, but their litigation styles differ. Aidala is folksy, while Agnifilo is more buttoned-up.

Weinstein wielded significant clout in the entertainment industry, having built his reputation on such critical and popular hits as “Shakespeare in Love,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Chocolat.” He also became a prominent Democratic donor.

Then a series of sexual harassment and sex assault allegations against Weinstein began to emerge in news media in 2017, propelling the #MeToo movement.

He was criminally charged in New York in 2018 and in Los Angeles two years later.

A tangled series of trials

Weinstein went to trial and was convicted of some — but not all — counts in both cases. His initial New York convictions were overturned, spurring a retrial last year.

The retrial verdict was mixed: Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on production assistant and producer Miriam Haley in 2006, but he was acquitted of forcibly performing oral sex on model-turned-psychotherapist Kaja Sokola. The jury didn’t decide on the rape charge involving Mann because the foreperson refused to keep deliberating.

Mann has testified that she had a consensual, on-and-off relationship with the then-married Weinstein. But when he cornered her in a Manhattan hotel room where she was staying on a weekend getaway, she protested, “I don’t want to do this,” she told jurors. She said he kept making advances and demands until she “just gave up.”

Weinstein hasn’t testified at any of his trials. His lawyers have contended that he never had non-consensual sex.

At his trials to date, the defense claimed that his accusers accepted his sexual overtures because they wanted his help in show business. The women said Weinstein dangled his Hollywood influence to attract and victimize them.

He's appealing the Los Angeles verdict and is expected to appeal the New York conviction involving Haley. It carries the potential for up to 25 years in prison; no sentencing date has been set.

In this case, the rape charge is a lower-level felony punishable by up to four years behind bars. Weinstein, 73, already has served longer than that.

Weinstein has various health problems and uses a wheelchair. He told the judge in January that his “mental state is collapsing” in New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. Haley, Mann and Sokola agreed to be named.

Luis Díaz and Michael Olise scored late for the Bavarian powerhouse to beat Madrid 4-3 and advance to the Champions League semifinals on Wednesday.

In the last four two-legged ties between the sides, the Spanish giant had prevailed each time.

The second-leg quarterfinal game ended in acrimony with Madrid’s players furious that referee Slavko Vinčić sent off substitute Eduardo Camavinga in the 86th minute with a second yellow card for an innocuous challenge on Harry Kane.

Díaz fired inside the right post three minutes later and Olise ended the contest definitively with a spectacular strike in stoppage time to give Bayern a 6-4 win on aggregate after the Bavarian powerhouse won the first leg of their quarterfinal 2-1 in Madrid last week.

Madrid’s players surrounded Vinčić after the game. Arda Guler, who scored two brilliant goals to spark the visitors’ hopes of a famed “remontada” (comeback), was shown a red card for his vehement complaints.

“Everything was over with the red card,” Madrid coach Álvaro Arbeloa said of Camavinga's sending off. “It’s unbelievable. You cannot send off a player for this action.”

Bayern will play defending champion Paris Saint-Germain in the semifinals. Also Wednesday, Arsenal advanced past Sporting Lisbon to set up a last-four showdown against Atlético Madrid.

Blistering start in Munich

Guler opened the scoring after just 34 seconds thanks to a mistake from Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer – who was outstanding in the first leg – whose attempted pass went straight to the 21-year-old Turkey star, who fired the ball into the empty net from distance.

Bayern seemed unfazed and Aleksandar Pavlović equalized with a point-blank header from a Joshua Kimmich corner in the sixth minute. Bayern maintained its dominance with Madrid patiently looking for breaks.

Konrad Laimer did well to block Kylian Mbappé, who had an adhesive bandage above his right eye after getting a heavy blow to his face last weekend.

Guler beat Neuer with a brilliant free kick in the 29th, but Bayern had legitimate complaints it should not have been awarded with Brahim Díaz going down after minimal contact from Laimer.

Bayern again seized control and it was no surprise when Harry Kane equalized in the 38th inside the right post after being left free by English compatriot Trent Alexander-Arnold.

It was the England captain’s 12th goal in the competition this season and his 50th across all competitions for Bayern.

Vinícius Júnior then struck the crossbar before setting up Mbappé to restore Madrid’s lead on the night in the 42nd.

Bayern coach Vincent Kompany was booked for complaining about an foul from Antonio Rüdiger on Josip Stanišić in the buildup. It means he’s suspended for the semifinal first leg.

There were no more goals, however, until the late drama.

“I hope all the kids in Germany were allowed stay awake a little longer,” Kimmich said. “I hope my wife let my son stay up a bit longer and then late to school tomorrow.”

Bayern targets treble

Bayern, which smashed the Bundesliga goals record last weekend, can clinch yet another German league title on Sunday — the 13th in 14 years — if Borussia Dortmund drops points the day before.

Bayern also faces Bayer Leverkusen in the semifinals of the German Cup on April 22 as it chases a repeat of the treble it won in 2013.

Madrid and Mbappé empty-handed again

The Champions League was Madrid's best remaining chance of salvaging a trophy from a troubled season. The 15-time European champion is now facing a second year without a trophy after its fourth match without a win across all competitions.

Madrid was held 1-1 at home by Girona in La Liga last weekend, allowing Barcelona to open a nine-point lead, while it was knocked out of the Spanish Cup by second-division side Albacete Balompié in January, a result that contributed to Xabi Alonso's dismissal as coach.

Unless Barcelona squanders its sizable lead in the remaining seven rounds of the league, Kylian Mbappé's drought in major trophies since joining the club in 2024 will continue.

Arsenal in semifinals again

A 0-0 draw with Sporting Lisbon at the Emirates Stadium saw Arsenal advance 1-0 on aggregate.

Arsenal has never won the European Cup and only once reached the final. But it is now just two games away from this year’s showpiece in Budapest, Hungary.

Kai Havertz’s late winner in the first leg of the quarterfinals in Portugal last week proved to be decisive as Sporting failed to find a breakthrough in London.

It is the fourth time Arsenal has advanced to the semifinals, having lost to eventual winner Paris Saint-Germain at that stage last season.

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

The White House said any further talks would likely take place in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, though no decision had been made on whether to resume negotiations.

The U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports continued as the Trump administration warned it would ramp up economic pain on Iran with new economic sanctions on countries doing business with it, calling the move the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign.

Pakistan has emerged as a key mediator after it hosted direct talks between the U.S. and Iran in Islamabad that authorities said helped narrow differences between the two sides. Mediators are seeking a new round before the ceasefire expires next week.

Officials say US and Iran are making progress

Even as the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and renewed Iranian threats strained the ceasefire agreement, regional officials reported progress, telling The Associated Press the United States and Iran had an “in principle agreement” to extend it to allow for more diplomacy. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, took part in a preliminary meeting with Asim Munir, Pakistan's army chief of staff, Iranian state media reported. It said talks would continue Thursday.

But even as mediators worked for peace, tensions simmered.

The commander of Iran’s joint military command, Ali Abdollahi, threatened to halt trade in the region if the U.S. does not lift its naval blockade.

And a newly-appointed military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said he doesn’t support extending the ceasefire.

Iranian state media quoted Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as saying: “Unlike the Americans who are afraid of continuous war, we are fully prepared and familiar with a long war.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the White House has warned countries and private companies they could face sanctions for doing business with Tehran.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. had not “formally requested an extension of the ceasefire" with Iran, which is set to expire Tuesday.

"At this moment, we remain very much engaged in these negotiations, in these talks,” Leavitt said, adding that any further in-person talks “would very likely” return to Islamabad.

Mediators seek compromise on sticking points

Mediators are pushing for a compromise on three main sticking points that derailed direct talks last weekend — Iran’s nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz and compensation for wartime damages, according to a regional official involved in the mediation efforts.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Iran is open to discussing the type and level of its uranium enrichment, but his country “based on its needs, must be able to continue enrichment,” Iranian state media reported.

The negotiating team led by Vice President JD Vance urged Iran to agree to a 20-year moratorium on uranium enrichment as part of a potential deal to end the war, according to the regional official and a person briefed on the matter.

The Iranians countered with an offer to suspend enrichment for five years, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the negotiations.

The White House rejected that. The dueling proposals were first reported by The New York Times.

The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,100 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen U.S. service members have also been killed.

Trump says Iran wants a deal

The war has jolted markets and rattled the global economy as shipping has been cut off and airstrikes have torn through military and civilian infrastructure across the region. Oil prices have fallen amid hopes for an end to fighting, and U.S. stocks on Wednesday surpassed records set in January.

Yet the future of the fragile ceasefire still hung in the balance as the U.S. pressed ahead with its blockade, which threatens to sever Iran from economic lifelines.

“I think they want to make a deal very badly,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria."

In a social media post, Trump said China has agreed not to provide weapons to Iran as reports circulated that Beijing has considered transferring arms.

China has long supported Iran’s ballistic missile program and backed it with dual-use industrial components that can be used for missile production, according to the U.S. government.

US military says no ships got past blockade

U.S. Central Command said Wednesday that no ships had made it past the blockade since it was imposed two days earlier, while 10 merchant vessels complied with direction from U.S. forces to turn around and reenter Iranian waters.

The blockade is intended to pressure Iran, which has exported millions of barrels of oil, mostly to Asia, since the war began Feb. 28. Much of it has likely been carried by so-called dark transits that evade sanctions and oversight, providing cash that’s been vital to keeping Iran running.

Since the war began, Iran has curtailed maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which a fifth of global oil transited through in peacetime. Tehran's effective closure of the strait sent oil prices skyrocketing, raising the cost of fuel, food and other basic goods far beyond the Middle East.

Strikes continue in Lebanon after Washington talks

Meanwhile, Israel pressed ahead with its aerial and ground war in Lebanon. The country's National News Agency reported airstrikes and artillery shelling throughout southern Lebanon on Wednesday, including near Bint Jbeil, where Israeli forces have encircled Hezbollah fighters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli troops were about to “eliminate this great stronghold of Hezbollah” and would continue expanding control of areas in southern Lebanon.

The fighting continued after Israeli and Lebanese officials concluded their first direct talks in decades. Netanyahu said negotiations are continuing, with disarming Hezbollah a key goal.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said Israel struck three teams of paramedics Wednesday in southern Lebanon, first hitting one team and then two more that rushed to help. The attacks killed three paramedics and wounded six others, the ministry said.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel and Lebanon have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948, and Lebanon remains deeply divided over diplomatic engagement with Israel.

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Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, Ahmed from Islamabad and Corder from The Hague, Netherlands. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Aamer Madhani and Joshua Boak in Washington; Julia Frankel in New York and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

Officials said water is beginning to return to Sanford Lake, with full restoration expected by Memorial Day, a development long awaited by lakefront property owners who have lived with a dry lakebed since 2020.

For years, residents looked out over exposed mud where water once filled the lake.

Now that gates are reopening and water levels are rising, officials and homeowners said lake life is finally returning.

“This is a time of celebration for us because April 15 is here, and we have our permit for our dam, and our water’s going to start coming up,” said Matt Smith, a Sanford homeowner who bought his property a year before the dam failed and experienced flooding in his home.

Smith said he chose to stay and rebuild rather than leave the community.

“You start to look out, and you see more of that water that’s extending across where you normally would have riverbed,” Smith said. “It was like, ‘Oh, I do remember what it looks like when there’s water there.’”

Sanford Lake was drained after the 2020 failure of the Sanford Dam, part of a broader disaster that devastated communities in Midland and surrounding areas.

The event displaced residents, damaged homes, and reshaped the local landscape for years.

Now, residents say the return of water signals both relief and renewal.

“My boat has been in storage since 2019. So I’m anxious to get it back out and get out there and see my neighbors and be part of lake life again,” said resident Rebecca Schamel.

Drone 4 footage showed water slowly reclaiming areas that had remained dry for years.

Recent heavy rainfall has helped accelerate the refill process.

In downtown Sanford, residents and business owners described renewed energy as construction wraps up and docks are reinstalled along the shoreline.

Some homeowners said landscaping projects are nearing completion as they prepare for the return of summer lake activity.

“I just could not believe that this would have happened to our lake,” said resident Dennis Kucharczyk. “And now to see behind me, to see the new levee, to see the new gates, to see the dam, it’s incredible. It’s exciting.”

Kim Borchard described both excitement and financial strain associated with long-term recovery efforts, including assessments related to dam reconstruction costs.

Still, she said she feels confident in the changes made to prevent future failures.

“I do feel that they had a long time to prepare for this and to fix it,” said Borchard. “So I do feel confident that going forward there’s never going to be an issue.”

Officials said that if conditions continue as expected, Sanford Lake should be fully restored by Memorial Day, a symbolic turnaround for a community that has spent years waiting for water and normalcy to return.

But he made his name in London — though few traces of him remain in the British capital.

A newly discovered 17th-century map sheds new light on the Bard’s London life, pinpointing for the first time the exact location of the only home Shakespeare bought in the city, and where he may have worked on his final plays.

Shakespeare scholar Lucy Munro, who found the document, said that it supplies “extra bits of the jigsaw puzzle” of Shakespeare's life. And as with so many discoveries, it was partly due to luck.

“I came across it in the London Archives when I was looking for other things," Munro said.

New evidence of the building's location

Historians have long known that Shakespeare bought property in 1613 near the Blackfriars Theatre, but the exact location was a mystery. A plaque on a 19th-century building records only that the playwright had lodgings “near this site.”

A plan of the Blackfriars precinct found by Munro and disclosed Thursday by King's College London shows in detail Shakespeare’s house, a substantial L-shaped dwelling carved from a former medieval monastery, including its gatehouse.

The 13th-century Dominican friary had been redeveloped for more secular uses after the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII in the mid-16th century. The precinct included the Blackfriars playhouse, which Shakespeare part-owned.

Munro, professor of Shakespeare and early modern literature at King’s College London, said it was a desirable area moving slightly down-market – due to people like Shakespeare, who was affluent but associated with the slightly déclassé world of the stage.

“After the dissolution of the monasteries, a lot of the nobility, quite high-ranking courtiers, court officials are living in the Blackfriars,” Munro said. By the time Shakespeare bought his property, “there are still a lot of important people living there, people who make protests against the playhouses at various points, because they see the playhouses as a bit of a public nuisance.”

Shakespeare used the profits of his plays to build a fine family house, now demolished, in Stratford, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of London. He died there in 1616 at the age of 52.

It’s not certain whether Shakespeare lived in his London property or just rented it out. But Munro said that the size of the house and its location a five-minute walk from the Blackfriars Theatre suggest he may have spent more time in London toward the end of his life than is widely assumed. She said that he may have worked here on his final plays, “Henry VIII” and “The Two Noble Kinsmen,” both co-written with John Fletcher.

Will Tosh, director of education at Shakespeare’s Globe — a reconstruction of the open-air Elizabethan playhouse where many of the Bard’s plays were first performed — said that Munro’s discovery provides a “dazzling new sense of Shakespeare the London writer. She’s helped us to understand how much the city meant to our greatest ever dramatist, as a professional and personal home.”

Destroyed in the Great Fire

Shakespeare left the property to his daughter Susanna, and it remained in the family for another half-century. Munro also found two archival documents detailing its sale by the playwright’s granddaughter Elizabeth Hall Nash Barnard in 1665. A year later, the building burned to the ground in the Great Fire of London, which destroyed much of the medieval city.

Only a few remnants of Shakespeare’s London remain in the area, now part of the city's financial district, including a fragment of wall from the medieval friary. Nearby, the name Playhouse Yard is a reminder that a theater once stood here.

And visitors can have a pint in the Cockpit pub across the street from the site of Shakespeare’s house. The 1600s map shows it as a building called the Sign of the Cock, likely a tavern. It’s not difficult to imagine Shakespeare and his colleagues carousing there.

“There are certainly complaints in the period about the playhouses leading to the opening of more and more drinking houses — ‘houses for tippling,’ as they call them in one of the documents I was looking at,” Munro said.

The Division I Cabinet discussed the possibility at meetings that concluded Wednesday but did not take a formal position. The Cabinet supports having NCAA staff continue to discuss the idea with other stakeholders to gather feedback.

The Cabinet said the new model would include possible exceptions for circumstances such as pregnancy, military service and religious missions.

The age-based model is similar to an idea included in an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on April 3.

Currently, athletes generally are allowed four seasons of competition over five years with no age restrictions.

The possibility of an age-based model comes after numerous athletes have challenged NCAA eligibility rules in lawsuits with the hope of extending their college careers and ability to earn money through revenue sharing and name, image and likeness deals.

During its meetings, the Cabinet approved changes to preenrollment eligibility rules, including one that would bar athletes who have entered and remained in a professional sports draft from competing in college.

One of the rules requires prospects to withdraw from opt-in professional league drafts, including the NBA draft, to bring precollege enrollment draft rules in line with postcollege enrollment draft rules. Men’s ice hockey and baseball would not be affected because athletes don’t opt in to those sports’ drafts.

The change came after two basketball players, Alabama’s Charles Bediako and Baylor’s James Nnaji, played in college this season after entering the 2023 NBA draft.

Bediako played two seasons at Alabama and entered the draft. He wasn’t selected but played three years in the G League, the NBA’s minor league. He played in five games this past season before the Alabama Supreme Court upheld a ruling that made him ineligible.

Nnaji was selected by the Detroit Pistons in the second round. He played professionally overseas before he enrolled as a freshman at Baylor in December. He was granted eligibility because he had never signed an NBA contract or played in the G League. He would be ineligible in 2026-27 under the new rules.

In other changes, athletes are allowed to sign with agents prior to enrolling for purposes other than name, image and likeness and are allowed to accept prize money in their respective sports without impacting eligibility.

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

The first lady began working on foster care issues after President Donald Trump's first term ended in 2021. Her trip followed a similar and successful lobbying effort last year to get Congress to send legislation to the president to protect women and children from online sexual exploitation.

The visit came a week after Melania Trump's surprise on-camera statement at the White House in which she denied ties to Jeffrey Epstein and knowledge of his crimes, and urged Congress to hold a hearing for his victims. She also demanded an end to “lies” linking her to the late financier and convicted sex offender.

On Capitol Hill, she said youngsters in foster care face barriers to housing, transportation and education and other challenges outside the classroom that affect their academic performance.

“We can close this gap,” Melania Trump said. “New legislation for the foster care community is a moral imperative.”

She met Wednesday afternoon with members of the House Ways and Means Committee who introduced the new legislation, and she also heard from people who were in foster care.

Jaydan Martinez, a freshman at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, said he received just over $2,000 in support per semester, but it disappeared in the “blink of an eye.” He said he supports raising the cap on that financial support.

Jocelyn Fetting, who said she aged out of the system at 21, said thousands in foster care are doing everything right but still struggle because the “systems to support them have not kept pace with their needs.” She said she lost her parents at age 12 and, during college, worked three jobs even with scholarships to meet her housing, food and other needs.

Fetting, who is now 22 and a substitute teacher for grades pre-K through 8 as well as a peer navigator for young adults in foster care, said the proposed changes matter because "we are expecting young people to achieve self-sufficiency without providing support to do so.”

Republican and Democratic committee members have introduced several bills to update the Chafee foster care program to improve outcomes for young people aging out of the foster care system. The measures would increase their access to housing, education and workforce training programs, among other things, to help them succeed in the transition to adulthood and independence.

The bills have a long way to go toward passage in Congress since they've only just been introduced.

The program provides support to foster youth and former foster youth, ages 14 to 21, as they leave the system. The committee said the bipartisan proposals would be the most significant update since the Chafee program was created in 1999.

The Government Accountability Office published a report in January 2025 detailing how states were returning millions of dollars in unused Chafee program funds to the federal government, despite unmet needs of foster youth.

Last November, President Trump created the “Fostering the Future” program by executive order to have federal entities, nonprofits, educational institutions and the private sector work together to improve career and educational opportunities for children raised in foster care.

The first lady, who joined her husband in the Oval Office for the executive order signing, separately spearheads a broader “Fostering the Future” initiative that is part of the “Be Best” child-focused campaign she launched during his first presidential term. The program offers scholarships to current and former foster youth and has a presence on more than 20 university campuses across the United States.

But he said Wednesday that his body is as strong as it's been since he had what school officials said was a minor procedure in January.

“I feel 100 percent right now. We're kind of taking it slow, but if we had a game today I'd be playing,” Manning said. “Obviously when you're not out there, you're kind of antsy. It was hard the first few weeks just not being able to do anything. Now I get to do a little bit more.”

Manning is coming off his first season as the Longhorns' full-time starter. The nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning passed for 3,163 yards and 26 touchdowns and ran for 10 TDs in 2025.

While he waits to do more on the field, he’s been focused on mental reps, footwork drills and getting to know some of his new teammates.

“It’s been different, but it’s been good,” Manning said. “It’s honestly been unique for me getting a bunch of mental reps and kind of being off to the side. But I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with these new guys — freshmen, transfers — and guys coming back. So, it’s been fun.”

Texas was the preseason No. 1 and finished ranked No. 12. The Longhorns missed the College Football Playoff and finished 10-3 with a Citrus Bowl win over Michigan that included Manning’s 60-yard, game-sealing touchdown run.

Manning described the season as a roller coaster.

“I think I could have had more fun. The first half of the season, I was (ticked),” Manning said. “I wasn’t playing well and it wasn’t fun for me. And then I kind of sort of said ‘screw it’ and had a little more fun and started winning some games.”

Now he said he's concentrated on being the best version of himself going forward. He plans to leave the evaluations of how much he's improved to others.

“I think I'm just trying to get better every day,” Manning said. “That's not for me to judge, really.”

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“I got up this morning and came out here; it was a disaster,” resident Donald Walker said.

Walker said eight trees on his property came down.

“This was the first tree I saw here. I said, ‘Oh, one of the trees went down.’ And I came around the corner, and I said, ‘Oh, my God, all of them came down.’”

City officials said the storm blew an exterior wall off the hockey rink at Veterans Memorial Park and tore roofing material off several buildings. Debris from one building landed in the middle of Fourth Street.

Trees fell onto homes, cars, and roads, and security cameras at Washtenaw Dairy captured winds strong enough to topple a tree.

At Bethlehem Cemetery, an estimated 20 to 25 trees were knocked down. Downed power lines also left some residents without electricity.

“We don’t know if it was actually a tornado. The National Weather Service is on the ground in Ann Arbor. They will make that determination,” city administrator Milton Dohoney said.

The storm followed the activation of outdoor warning sirens overnight in Ann Arbor.

The city said it is no longer considering getting rid of the siren system, citing feedback from thousands of residents who raised concerns when officials previously said newer emergency alert technologies would better serve residents.

The city said the decision to keep the system was made before the overnight storms.

“Since people were asking about it, there was no reason not to go ahead and say we’re going to keep the system in place,” Dohoney said.

Event organizer Stefan Pildes was arrested Wednesday on charges that he pocketed the majority of the $2.7 million supposedly raised for charity through SantaCon events from 2019 to 2024.

Money that was supposed to be divided among neighborhood charities was instead used to renovate a lakefront property in New Jersey, buy concert tickets, pay for his fancy car, and finance extravagant meals and luxury vacations in Hawaii and Las Vegas, according to an indictment.

Pildes, 50, of Hewitt, New Jersey, didn't respond to shouted questions as he left a Manhattan courthouse following an appearance on a wire fraud charge.

Widely reviled by many New York residents for the chaos it brings to city streets and subways, the annual SantaCon bacchanal draws thousands of costumed merrymakers to Manhattan’s streets and watering holes every year, with most people dressed as Saint Nick, though there are usually a few Mrs. Clauses, elves and the occasional Grinch.

Many participants pay $10 to $20 for tickets — money organizers insisted would go to charity.

The event traces its origins to a 1994 flash mob-style event in San Francisco dubbed “Santarchy,” intended to mock Christmas consumerism. As the idea spread to cities nationwide, it moved away from its countercultural origins and became more of a mass bar crawl.

The New York City version is now promoted as “a charitable, non-political, nonsensical Santa Claus convention.”

Organizers have also tried to improve the event's reputation for drunken misbehavior by instituting a “Santa code."

“Santa spreads JOY: Not terror. Not vomit. Not trash. Would you want those under YOUR tree?” reads one rule. Another admonishes participants not to urinate in the street, start fights, block streets, climb on cars or deface property — all things that have been problems some years.

As public officials pressured organizers over the years to clean up their act, SantaCon emphasized its charitable work, advertising that money raised from ticket sales would go to antipoverty groups, food banks, city parks and arts foundations.

According to an indictment, Pildes claimed he received no compensation.

“No producer received income from this event, this is a charity event,” the indictment alleges he wrote in a March 2023 email to a potential venue.

But authorities said Pildes, who was freed on $300,000 bail, siphoned more than half of the proceeds raised each year to an entity he controlled, using those funds for personal expenses.

Those included $365,000 to renovate a lakefront property, $124,000 on leasing a luxury Manhattan apartment, a $100,000 investment in a boutique resort in Costa Rica founded by a personal friend and a nearly $3,000 birthday dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan.

"Instead of donating the millions of dollars he raised, he ran his own con game,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a news release.

Pildes was president of and controlled Participatory Safety Inc., the nonprofit entity that organized SantaCon, authorities said.

According to the indictment, he solicited dozens of bars and restaurants to participate and donate 10% to 25% of their food and beverage sales to his charity organization.

A brick building at a strip mall on Dix Highway and Outer Drive suffered significant damage, with brick crumbling off the side; windows smashed and debris scattered across the parking lot. Lincoln Park Fire Chief Michael Prinz confirmed the situation had escalated beyond simple storm cleanup.

“The building has been condemned by the building department at this time,” Prinz said.

Among the businesses affected is a Subway restaurant.

Daniel Billingslea, who lives near the strip mall, surveyed the damage — and said the destruction hit close to home.

“Over there we have the subway, and over here we have the Subway sign,” Billingslea said. “Thankful to God that this wasn’t my front porch.”

Damage spreads into residential areas, Allen Park

The destruction wasn’t limited to the commercial strip. Residential neighborhoods in Lincoln Park and nearby Allen Park were hit just as hard. Whole trees were ripped from yards; utility wires were knocked down across streets, and trampolines and yard debris were tossed far from where they originated.

Mary Roberts was among those who bore the brunt of the storm. A fallen tree landed across her front lawn and pinned her car.

“It’s been a nightmare…It’s been a nightmare,” Roberts said.

Despite the loss, Roberts said she is counting her blessings.

“I’m just grateful that it didn’t fall on my house because it probably could’ve killed me, being as big as that tree is,” she said. “Cars and whatever, it’s material things, you can replace those, but a body you can’t, so.”

Billingslea echoed the sentiment as he pointed to a nearby tree that had been split apart by the force of the storm.

“As you see, the storm karate chopped this tree into three pieces, clean off,” he said. “It hits way too close to home.”

Recovery could take weeks

Getting things back to normal won’t happen overnight. Fire Chief Prinz said the recovery process could take weeks.

Residents with storm damage in the area are encouraged to fill out a storm damage Google Form on the City of Lincoln Park’s Facebook page.

Previous coverage

During National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, Local 4 is highlighting the “unsung heroes” behind the phones and radios at the Warren Dispatch Center.

“You are kind of like the unsung hero. You are the first voice they hear,” said Ciearra Mendelson, who has worked at the center for nearly three years and grew up in Warren.

Dispatchers say the pace can be relentless. Mendelson said they can handle about 400 to 600 calls in a single shift, ranging from family disputes and traffic crashes to shootings, stabbings and medical emergencies.

“You hear gun, and your ears perk up, and we are like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’” Mendelson said.

Darrian Clark, a dispatcher for 12 years who joined Warren a few years ago, said the job demands patience, practice and the ability to stay focused under pressure.

“Just on a day-to-day basis, you never know what’s going to happen,” Clark said. “We could be calm, cool, collected, sitting here talking and then the next call can be something like a shots fired, a shooting or a house fire.”

Ben Mackenzie, a nine-year dispatcher in Warren, said the work is far more than answering calls.

“It’s not just call taking,” Mackenzie said. “We are on the radio for police and fire. We are coordinating the whole response.”

New technology brings the scene to dispatch

Dispatchers also described technology that can give them a real-time look at emergencies as they unfold.

In certain situations, they can link into drones, police dash cameras and officers’ body-worn cameras, providing another set of eyes when seconds matter.

The dispatch center emphasized drones are only used on specific calls—not for constant surveillance. When deployed, dispatchers and drone operators can view standard and thermal video, helping confirm details and guide responders.

“Not many people call 911 because they are having a good day,” Clark said. “So just knowing that I’m here to answer the call when they need help the most, it’s a good feeling.”

Mendelson said teamwork is what makes it all possible.

“We are all really a big family in here so it’s all about teamwork and helping each other,” she said.

Warren Dispatch Center hiring

The Warren Dispatch Center is currently hiring. Click here to apply.

The pedestrian was crossing 8 Mile Road west of Middlebelt near Sunnydale in Farmington Hills at 9:25 p.m. on Friday, April 10, 2026, when they were hit, according to a release from the Farmington Hills Police Department.

Police said an SUV hit the pedestrian as they were crossing 8 Mile. The driver called 911 and stayed at the scene.

After reviewing surveillance video from businesses in the area, investigators determined that a second vehicle was also involved.

“The video showed a second vehicle, described as a white sedan with a black front bumper, traveling eastbound on 8 Mile Road,” according to the release. “This vehicle appeared to strike the pedestrian, who was already lying in the roadway.”

Police said the driver of the sedan didn’t stay at the scene.

The pedestrian was taken to a local hospital and remains in critical condition.

The Farmington Hills police are asking for the public’s assistance as they work to identify the driver. Anyone with information is asked to contact the police department at 248-871-2610.

On Wednesday the San Francisco-based company said it had signed a definitive agreement with an unnamed institutional investor for $50 million in financing to shift its business to AI infrastructure. It will also have a new name: NewBird AI. It plans to use the proceeds to purchase graphics processing units, known as GPUs. The transaction is expected to close during the second quarter of this year.

“The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet,” the company said in the release. “NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap.”

The drastic change of direction has some industry watchers scratching their heads.

“On the surface, it’s a strange pivot,” said AI infrastructure expert Bill Kleyman. “I’ve been in this industry a while, and a company like Allbirds moving from shoes into AI infrastructure is not a very natural adjacency.”

It’s unclear how Allbirds will reinvent itself as a “GPU-as-a-service” business that rents out computing power to AI companies. That means selling access to a huge number of graphics processors, or other specialized AI computer chips designed by companies like Nvidia or AMD, that operate in big data centers typically run by cloud computing giants like Amazon or Oracle.

The business of running physical AI infrastructure “requires access to GPUs in a constrained market, long-term power agreements, advanced cooling strategies, and a credible operating model,” said Kleyman, CEO and co-founder of Apolo.

The announcement comes more than two weeks after Allbirds sold its intellectual property and certain other assets and liabilities to American Exchange Group, a leader in accessories design, licensing and manufacturing, for $39 million. The company owns such retail brands as Aerosoles, White Mountain, Jonathan Adler and Ed Hardy.

That's a dramatic fall from the Allbirds' peak in valuation at $4 billion in late 2021. The company had said that it would not be issuing its quarterly earnings report that was set for March 31.

The latest development marks a dramatic departure from when the company was founded in 2015 by former professional soccer player Tim Brown and renewable resources expert Joey Zwillinger. Its mission: to create footwear from natural material, not synthetics. A year later, Allbirds launched its iconic wool runner shoe. But the company overexpanded, like many dot.com brands that opened physical stores. And many consumers lost interest.

In February, the brand shuttered most of its remaining stores to focus on e-commerce, partnerships with stores and international distributorship. It still operates two outlet stores in the U.S. and two full-price stores in London.

Shares of Allbirds soared more than 600% on Wednesday’s news and were hovering nearly $18 in late afternoon trading. A few days ago, the stock was trading at $3. It once traded at $520 per share.

Kleyman said the stock market surge looks “more like initial excitement and speculative momentum tied to anything AI rather than validation of execution.”

Kleyman also noted that $50 million is not a lot to enter into an infrastructure-heavy market and added that it seems everybody wants to be an AI company.

“Some of those shifts are real and strategic,” he said. “Others feel more reactive. In this case, I think it’s fair to say it can come across as a bit desperate. The underlying business struggled, and AI presents a compelling narrative reset.”

The attempt at a pivot shows that the demand for AI computing power is real, “but so is the hype,” said Jim Piazza, who worked on computing infrastructure at social media giant Meta and now is the chief AI officer at IT services firm Ensono.

Piazza said building a real AI infrastructure business “takes deep capital, technical expertise and disciplined execution,” something that is already “crazy hard for tech-savvy companies” and will be “an impossible challenge” for someone outside of it.

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AP Technology reporter Matt O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

The court's newest justice, Jackson delivered a lengthy assessment of roughly two dozen court orders issued last year that allowed President Donald Trump to put in place controversial policies on immigration, steep federal funding cuts and other topics, after lower courts found they were likely illegal.

While designed to be short-term, those orders have largely allowed Trump to move ahead — for now — with key parts of his sweeping agenda.

Jackson spoke for nearly an hour on Monday at Yale Law School, which posted a video of the event on Wednesday.

Last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor similarly talked about emergency orders in an event Tuesday at the University of Alabama that also took issue with the conservatives' approach.

Jackson has previously criticized the emergency orders both in dissenting opinions and in an unusual appearance with Justice Brett Kavanaugh last month. But her talk at Yale, addressing the public rather than the other eight justices, was notable.

She referred to orders, which often are issued with little or no explanation as “back-of-the-envelope, first-blush impressions of the merits of the legal issue.”

Worse still, she said, was that the court then insists that “those scratch-paper musings” be applied by lower courts in other cases.

The orders suffer from an additional problem, she said, a failure to acknowledge that real people are involved, making them “seem oblivious and thus ring hollow.”

She also pushed back on the court's assessment that preventing the president from putting his policy in place also is a harm that often outweighs what the challengers to a policy might face.

“The president of the United States, though he may be harmed in an abstract way, he certainly isn't harmed if what he wants to do is illegal,” Jackson said during a question-and-answer session with law school dean Cristina Rodriguez.

The court used to be reluctant to step into cases early in the legal process, she said. “There is value in avoiding having the court continually touching the third rail of every divisive policy issue in American life,” Jackson said.

While she said she couldn't explain the change, “in recent years, the Supreme Court has taken a decidedly different approach to addressing emergency stay applications. It has been noticeably less restrained, especially with respect to pending cases that involve controversial matters.”

Jackson, often joined by Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan, has frequently dissented.

There have been conversations about emergency orders among the justices, Jackson said, but she decided to speak publicly with the goal of being “a catalyst for change.”

Also on Wednesday, Sotomayor issued a rare public apology to another justice, Kavanaugh, for what she termed “hurtful comments" she made last week during an appearance at the University of Kansas law school.

Referencing an opinion Kavanaugh wrote in an immigration case where the court granted an emergency order sought by the administration, Sotomayor said her colleague “probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.” Her remarks were reported by Bloomberg Law.

That’s the question still hanging over a Michigan family as they mark another year since Jeffrey Zoltowski -- an experienced hiker described as a generous, funny “free spirit” -- disappeared during a solo trip to Hawaii in 1993.

“My logical brain says there’s no way he’s alive, but there’s always that teeny tiny percentage of hope,” his sister, Stephanie Siordia, told Local 4.

Zoltowski’s disappearance

Zoltowski was 23 years old and living in Livonia when he set out in the spring of ‘93 on a four-month hiking trip -- a dream he’d talked about and, according to his family, stayed in close contact about.

“Anytime he was on a trip, he would call almost every day,” Siordia said. “He called 31 times in 49 days.”

So, when the calls stopped for weeks, his family tried to stay calm -- until time kept passing.

By May, a missing person’s report was filed, and Zoltowski’s family learned his last known sighting was March 31, in the rugged Wailau Valley on the island of Molokai -- an area known for steep terrain and remote, unforgiving conditions.

Zoltowski was reportedly seen speaking with two men in a helicopter that day, asking if he could be flown out of the valley. His feet were “blistered and bleeding,” his sister said. The two men later reported his condition didn’t appear life-threatening, and the flight out was denied.

The men later brought Zoltowski’s heavy backpack to the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources base yard, Siordia said. She said they later offered him a lift but claimed he didn’t have enough money.

Then came a detail the family still can’t shake: Zoltowski’s backpack had been sitting at the base for 41 days.

The never-ending search

His father traveled to Molokai for six weeks to search.

“Just searched high and low -- and nothing,” Siordia said.

And the search never truly ended.

“He’s stuck in 1993, emotionally,” Siordia said of her father, through tears.

She said her family has lived with a constant tug-of-war between what seems likely after so many years, and what feels impossible to fully accept.

“If you ask my dad, I think in my heart he knows, but how do you tell a dad to stop looking for his child?’” she said.

Siordia said she still finds herself mentally filling in the blanks and then catching herself. She said she also struggles, because she believes the initial police response should have been much better.

Physical description

Zoltowski has been missing since March 31, 1993, from Molokai, Hawaii. He is classified as lost/injured missing.

Zoltowski is a white male, 6 feet tall and weighs about 160 pounds. He was last seen wearing white shorts and a purple tie-dyed T-shirt.

Zoltowski has brown hair and brown eyes. He reportedly has a birthmark on the outer right anklebone about the size of a nickel or quarter and a slight scar under his left eye.

He may have a mustache, beard or goatee. He is left-handed and has previously fractured his left ankle and left hand.

If you have any information on Zoltowski, call the Maui Police Department at 808-244-6400.

A key provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act permits the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies to collect and analyze vast amounts of overseas communications without a warrant. It incidentally sweeps up the conversations of any Americans who interact with those foreigners targeted for surveillance.

The program expires Monday, and critics want changes, including a requirement for warrants before authorities can access the emails, phone calls or text messages of Americans. They also want limits on the government's use of internet data brokers, who sell large volumes of personal information gleaned online, offering the government what critics say amounts to an end-run around the Constitution.

Planned votes on the legislation were canceled Wednesday as an agreement between House Republican leaders and some rank-and-file members remained elusive. Members have pushed back despite a pressure campaign that included a trip to the White House and direct involvement from CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

The chances of significant changes, however, seem to have dropped since Trump announced his support for the program's renewal, saying it had proved its worth in supplying information vital to recent U.S. actions in Venezuela and Iran.

“The fact is, whether you like FISA or not, it is extremely important to our military,” Trump said on social media Tuesday.

Trump calls for another extension of the program

U.S. authorities say the program, known as Section 702 of the law, is essential to national security and has saved lives by uncovering terrorist plots. Critics question what they say is a dangerous infringement on civil liberties and privacy.

In a Truth Social post, Trump said a different FISA provision was used to spy on his 2016 campaign but that he supported Section 702's renewal despite misgivings that political adversaries could use parts of the law against him in the future. He urged lawmakers to extend the foreign surveillance program for 18 more months.

“My administration has worked tirelessly to ensure these FISA reforms are being aggressively executed at every level of the Executive Branch to keep Americans safe, while protecting our sacred Civil Liberties guaranteed by our Great Constitution,” Trump wrote.

The Republican president is a longtime critic of the nation's intelligence services and was once opposed to Section 702 before he reversed himself. His director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, sponsored legislation to repeal Section 702 as a Hawaii congresswoman but now supports it. She says new protections added since her time in Congress helped change her mind.

Some Republican House members who have opposed the extension without changes went to the White House late Tuesday to discuss the matter. Ratcliffe also met with lawmakers early Wednesday.

“I am asking Republicans to UNIFY, and vote together on the test vote to bring a clean Bill to the floor,” Trump said Wednesday. “We need to stick together.”

Greater protections are sought

for Americans' communications

In addition to a requirement for a warrant to access Americans' data, critics also want greater protections on how the FBI or other agencies can search communications and how that is reported to the public.

“Journalists, foreign aid workers, people with family overseas, all could have their communications swept up in this surveillance merely because they talked to someone outside of this country,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. He is pushing for changes that he said will ensure the government is not violating civil rights in secret.

Several Republicans also have suggested changes, such as the warrant requirement.

“National security and civil liberties are not mutually exclusive,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. “We can give our intelligence professionals the tools they need to target foreign threats while ensuring that Americans are not subjected to unconstitutional surveillance.”

Gabbard's office releases an annual report showing the number of foreign surveillance targets and number of searches likely to identify an American. For 2025, the number of foreign surveillance targets increased to nearly 350,000 from almost 292,000 in 2024. Searches using terms likely to identify an American decreased slightly to 7,724 from 7,845 in 2024.

The totals are incomplete because agencies such as the FBI have found ways to access the data without reporting the searches publicly, said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

FBI officials repeatedly violated their own standards when searching for intelligence related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and racial justice protests in 2020, according to a 2024 court order.

“It’s reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover's tenure at the FBI,” Goitein said, referring to the FBI's founding director who used illegal surveillance to harass and spy on Americans. “They can pretty much target anyone."

There's little time to make changes to the law

Despite bipartisan concerns about the law and its implications for civil liberties, time is running out for Congress to make any changes before Monday's expiration.

Trump's support also reduces the odds that enough Republicans will break ranks and join Democrats to push for an overhaul.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, announced a proposal Tuesday that would require the Justice Department to seek a court order before the FBI could access search results involving Americans. Himes said in a statement that he wants to see Section 702 renewed with new protections.

It “is too critical to allow it to expire, but the legitimate concerns about the possibility of abuse also demand that we consider additional reforms,” he said.

The best chance for inserting changes likely is the House, where a large number of lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns.

But Rep. Rick Crawford, an Arkansas Republican who leads the House Intelligence Committee, is backing Trump's call for an 18-month renewal.

Crawford has said he believes the government can empower spy agencies while also holding them accountable.

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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

A 0-0 draw with Sporting Lisbon at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday saw Arsenal advance 1-0 on aggregate to set up a clash with Atletico Madrid in the last four of European club soccer’s top competition.

“To go back-to-back is an amazing achievement for this group,” Declan Rice told TNT Sports. “We want to now go one step further than last year and get to the final.”

A Premier League and Champions League double remains possible for Mikel Arteta’s team, despite a slump in form in recent weeks.

Bayern Munich beat Real Madrid 4-3 in Wednesday's other second-leg quarterfinal to advance 6-4 on aggregate. The Germans face defending champion Paris Saint-Germain in the semifinals.

Arsenal has never won the European Cup and only once reached the final. But it is now just two games away from this year’s showpiece in Budapest, Hungary.

Kai Havertz's late winner in the first leg of the quarterfinals in Portugal last week proved to be decisive as Sporting failed to find a breakthrough in London.

It is the fourth time Arsenal has advanced to the semifinals and the first time it has gone back-to-back having lost to eventual winner Paris Saint-Germain at that stage last season.

“To be part of those (final) four teams, it’s something very special,” Arteta said. “It comes down to making the last step. We are making the steps that haven’t been done in this club for 140 years, so players deserve credit for what they’re doing.”

The result was the perfect way for Arsenal to start a crucial week in which it also plays Premier League title rival Manchester City on Sunday.

There have been signs of the tension getting to Arteta's players as the season enters the closing stages, having lost the English League Cup final against City and then crashing out of the FA Cup at the hands of second-division Southampton.

Defeat at home in the league against Bournemouth last weekend only added to the sense that it was faltering at a critical time.

“Who cares what people think? All that matters is what this group thinks, what the manager thinks and we’re in another semifinal,” Rice said. “Bring on the last few weeks. It’s a roller coaster, no one’s going to hand you anything in this game, so just keep going and, what will be will be.”

It was another tight encounter between Arsenal and Sporting with chances rare.

Substitute Leandro Trossard came closest to winning it for Arsenal on the night by heading against the post late on. Geny Catamo had hit the woodwork for Sporting in the first half.

Arsenal and Atletico have already faced each other in the Champions League this season, with the English club winning 4-0 in the league phase.

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

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

The ship's 295th day at sea surpassed the previous longest deployment by an aircraft carrier in the past 50 years, when the USS Abraham Lincoln was sent out for 294 days in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data compiled by U.S. Naval Institute News, a news outlet run by the U.S. Naval Institute, a nonprofit organization.

It raises questions about the impact on service members away from home for long periods as well as increasing strain on the ship and its equipment, with the carrier already enduring a fire that forced it to undergo lengthy repairs.

The Ford began its deployment in June 2025, heading to the Mediterranean See from its home port in Norfolk, Virginia. The military rerouted it to the Caribbean Sea in October as part of the largest naval buildup in the region in generations.

The carrier took part in the military operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Then it would see more battle, heading toward the Middle East as tensions with Iran escalated.

The carrier took part in the opening days of the Iran war from the Mediterranean Sea before going through the Suez Canal and heading into the Red Sea in early March.

However, a fire in one of its laundry spaces forced the carrier to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs.

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said the record-breaking deployment has taken “a serious toll” on the mental health and well-being of the crew. He noted that the fire temporarily left 600 sailors without places to sleep.

"They should be home with their loved ones, not sent around the world by a President who acts like the U.S. military is his palace guard," the Democratic senator said in a statement.

Pentagon officials have not said how long the Ford will stay deployed, but the Navy's two highest-ranking officers both said publicly that they expect the ship to be deployed for around 11 months. That would put the ship returning home in late May.

“You’re going to see a record-breaking deployment by Ford,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, the Navy’s top officer, said during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at the end of March.

Caudle told reporters in January that he would “push back” on extending the Ford and told The Associated Press in February that he wants to convince commanders to use smaller, newer ships in combat zones instead of consistently asking the Navy to send aircraft carriers.

While Navy officials have not formally said the Ford's deployment is record-breaking, they did not dispute the data compiled by U.S. Naval Institute News.

Another carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush, is slated to head to the Middle East and is located now in the waters off Africa after deploying two weeks ago.

The Ford's 295-day deployment falls short of the longest deployment during the Cold War, a record held by the now-decommissioned USS Midway. It was deployed for 332 days in 1972 and 1973.

More recently, the crew of the USS Nimitz was on duty and away from home for a total of 341 days in 2020 and 2021. However, that included extended isolation periods ashore in the U.S. meant to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In the nation's capital, forecasters were calling for a high temperature of 93 degrees (33.9 Celsius) late Wednesday afternoon and another high of 93 on Thursday.

The heat is unusual for April, not only because it is scorching much of the nation so early in the year but also for its expected duration. The near-record temperatures are expected to last into this weekend, forecasters say.

On the Jersey Shore, hundreds of people took advantage of the gorgeous spring day Wednesday to stroll along boardwalks. Temperatures soared into the 80s in some inland areas, but was about 15 degrees cooler along the water, as a slight breeze blew.

“After all the nasty cold and snow we had to deal with this winter, this is our payback,” New Yorker Javier Estrada, 19, said while taking a break from a beach football game in Seaside Park, New Jersey.

“I’m here with my buds, we’re having a blast and God is smiling on us,” he said. “What more can you ask for?”

The potentially dangerous heat comes as pieces of the roof of Yost Ice Arena, one of the nation's oldest college hockey arenas, were found scattered by a storm Wednesday in nearby yards in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That arena and another one in the same community — a city ice rink — were both damaged by the severe weather that struck Michigan overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning. Severe storms earlier this week also tore through Kansas, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

While it's not unprecedented to see high temperatures climb toward 90 degrees (32 Celsius) on an April day, the length of such an April heat wave is rarely seen, experts say.

“That’s borderline unprecedented as far as the duration of it this time of year,” said John Feerick, senior meteorologist at the forecasting firm AccuWeather.com.

Feerick said that starting Wednesday “we're going to have records challenged from basically Georgia all the way up through the New York City area and back toward the Ohio Valley.”

The National Weather Service is projecting a high temperature of around 86 degrees (30 Celsius) for Central Park in New York City on Wednesday. The record high for the date is 87, set in 1941.

Even hotter weather is expected in Philadelphia, where Wednesday's high is expected to be 92 degrees (33 C). Other likely hot spots include Washington, D.C., which could see a high of 94 (34 C); and Atlanta, where the high is projected to be 88 (31 C).

“It's really some very impressive heat for the middle of April, for sure,” Feerick said.

“The good thing about this is that the humidity is not summertime levels,” he added. That means it won't feel as hot as a sizzling July day.

The early-season heat can be more stressful on people's bodies since they haven't had a chance to acclimate.

Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the U.S., the weather service warns. Infants and young children; older adults, people with chronic medical conditions and pregnant women are especially vulnerable to heat-related injuries and death.

A strong ridge of high pressure fueling moisture into the southern plains was responsible for bringing the unusual heat to the eastern U.S., the weather service said.

Though Wednesday is a day when many records could fall, the heat wave will continue through Friday in many areas, forecasters said.

“Widespread lower to even middle 90s are expected Friday across the lower elevations of the Carolinas, which could set additional daily records and perhaps come close to some monthly records,” the agency's Weather Prediction Center wrote in a memo.

The heat wave should finally be breaking down by Sunday as a strong cold front moves toward the Eastern Seaboard, and then it should be “pleasantly cooler” by Monday with the front heading out to sea, the weather service said.

In Seaside Park, Tom Larkin, 48, of Toms River, New Jersey, and his 3-year-old Labrador retriever, Vader, were among those strolling on the boardwalk.

“He just loves to see people and get petted, so what should be a 20-minute walk usually ends up taking about an hour and a half at least,” Larkin joked as Vader made friends with passersby.

“But on a day like this I don’t mind the extra time here," he said. "The people are great and the scenery is gorgeous, and it’s not too crowded yet, like it will get after Memorial Day.”

—

Martin reported from Atlanta.

As crews work around the clock, residents prepare for the possibility that the dam could be topped.

Consumers Energy says they are monitoring the situation and may proactively shut off power in parts of the area.

On Wednesday, there was also a brief moment this afternoon when people were without power as Consumers Energy worked on the electrical system. Over 1,000 people were impacted.

“Other than throwing our meds in there, we’re ready to go, if we have to,” Cheboygan resident Kathy Buckingham said.

Buckingham lives just about two blocks from the Cheboygan River and the dam complex.

As the water creeps up, so do her fears.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Local 4 asked Buckingham.

“No, I haven’t. Never. I haven’t even seen a snowfall like we had this year either,” she said.

Today, Local 4 spoke to multiple members of the Department of Natural Resource’s Incident Management Team and the county emergency management.

“The first two we have are 24-inch pumps and should bring together a volume of 20,000 gallons per minute,” Laurie Abel, the public information officer for the DNR’s incident management team, said.

“We are in constant communication with our engineering staff and private contractors to keep the aquadam behind me in place and stabilized with reinforcement as needed,” Nate Stearns, the operation section chief of the incident management team for the DNR, said.

In addition to the six gates that are open, now authorities say the hydroelectric portion of the complex could be turned on before the end of the day Wednesday.

“We are monitoring the Kleber Dam down and also the Alverno Dam,” Jeremy Runstrom, the Emergency Management Director at Cheboygan County, said. “We are keeping an eye on them.”

On Wednesday, authorities lifted the evacuation for the part of the city impacted by a levee that broke in the Little Black River area.

Part of the area is still in a “Ready” zone. It’s a part of the “Ready, Set, Go” system.

Ready means the water is under 12 inches below the top of the dam and people should be ready with a “go” bag, like Buckingham’s.

“We’ve got toothpaste, shampoo, razors, everything you need for an overnight stay somewhere or two days,” Buckingham said.

Authorities say anyone here should be signed up for emergency alerts and should reach out to 211 for local resources.

Jonathan Mack is accused of the death of Kevonte Javon Smith, 28, during what investigators described as an apparent robbery.

In addition to first-degree murder, Mack faces charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, discharging a firearm in or at a building, carrying a concealed weapon, and three counts of felony firearm.

A conviction on the murder charge carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The shooting occurred Saturday (April 11) at about 2:15 p.m. in the 100 block of Crystal Lake Drive in Pontiac.

Deputies responding to the scene found Smith lying in a driveway with a gunshot wound to the back.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities said Mack, who was on probation for a drug conviction and previously served prison time for an unarmed robbery conviction in 2016, was arrested at a residence on Spokane Drive in Pontiac.

Witnesses told investigators that Mack, who was acquainted with Smith, fled the area after the shooting.

A K-9 unit and drones were used in the search.

Detectives later recovered the weapon believed to have been used in the shooting, along with clothing the suspect allegedly wore at the time.

Mack was taken into custody by the sheriff’s office directed patrol unit.

A probable cause conference is scheduled for April 28 in 50th District Court.

A preliminary examination is set for May 5.

The fundraiser — shown on the scoreboard during Tuesday’s home game against the Carolina Hurricanes — featured a photo of Erik Duran, who was sentenced last week to three to nine years in prison for causing the death of 30-year-old Eric Duprey.

It included a QR code for direct donations to Duran’s legal defense, along with a message from his union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, requesting fans join “the fight for justice.” The team also said it would direct a quarter of proceeds from a 50/50 raffle toward the cause, the union said.

The union’s president, Vincent Vallelong, said the fundraiser came together after someone at The New York Post informed him that the Islanders “wanted to do something” for Duran.

A spokesperson for the Islanders declined to comment. An emailed inquiry to The Post was not returned.

An attorney for Duprey’s family, Jon Roberts, said they were “deeply troubled by the decision of the New York Islanders to align themselves, even symbolically, with efforts that appear to support Sgt. Duran’s legal defense.”

“This was not a neutral act,” Roberts' statement continued. “It sends a message — intended or not — that risks undermining public confidence in a fair legal process and deepens the pain of a family still grieving.”

The NHL did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Duprey's death came as Duran and other narcotics officers were carrying out an undercover drug bust in the Bronx in 2023.

Surveillance footage showed Duran lifting a bystander's cooler full of drinks and ice and throwing it at Duprey as he attempted to flee on a motorized scooter. The impact of the cooler caused him to crash into a tree, and he died almost instantly.

The former sergeant's conviction in February drew fierce protests from police officers and their supporters, who argued it would discourage officers from doing their jobs and hurt public safety. It is the first time in at least two decades that an NYPD officer will spend time in prison for an on-duty death. His attorney has said he will appeal the sentence.

Vallelong, the union president, said the chance to raise money for Duran at a professional hockey game “came out of left field.”

Photographs published by The New York Post show Vallelong posing with the Islanders co-owner Jon Ledecky and newspaper executive Pat Judge inside the team's stadium, which is on Long Island.

Vallelong said “the arena blew up into applause” when Duran's photograph appeared on the video screen. He dismissed criticism of the hockey team's decision to solicit donations.

“They’re a private organization. They can do whatever they want,” he said of the Islanders, likening the promotion to celebrations of the military common in professional sports.

Vallelong declined to say how much money was raised for the legal defense fund. The 50/50 raffle took in $44,890, according to the Islander’s website.

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Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at a White House briefing Wednesday that the U.S. plans to ramp up economic pain on Iran, and said the new moves will be the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign.

The threat of secondary economic sanctions on countries doing business with people, firms, and ships under Iranian control — including allies like the United Arab Emirates and competitors like China — represents an escalation of sanctions that the U.S. is already employing.

Bessent said the administration has “told companies, we have told countries that if you are buying Iranian oil, that if Iranian money is sitting in your banks, we are now willing to apply secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure. And the Iranians should know that this is going to be the financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.”

The Treasury Department warns China, Hong Kong, the UAE and Oman

The warning comes the day after the Treasury Department sent a letter to financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, the UAE, and Oman, threatening to levy secondary sanctions for doing business with Iran, and accusing those countries of allowing Iranian illicit activities to flow through their financial institutions.

It's part of an economic playbook that President Donald Trump still can use to pressure Iran to accept U.S. proposals to limit its nuclear ambitions, a person familiar with the administration's thinking told The Associated Press. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private discussions on the record.

Privately, the argument being made to Trump is that the Iranians think they can weather the storm — but if they cannot pay their loyalists, that could pressure Iran to the table.

And some in the administration believe there are still more economic targets that can be hit that would put the economic hurt on Iran, including bonyads, the charitable trusts that account for a significant percentage of the Iranian economy.

Bessent told reporters that two Chinese banks have received warnings about handling Iranian money. Trump is preparing to visit Beijing next month for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Bessent also said that Iran’s Gulf neighbors are now willing to look at freezing Iranian money in their banks because of Iran's aggression during the war.

More sanctions could be ineffective or risk blowback, say experts and lawmakers

Still, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, argued that any new economic sanctions would be effectively offset by the financial windfall that Iran was seeing in the aftermath of the war.

“Instead of circumstances where we can keep sanctions on Iran and constrict their economy, the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz — combined with the sharply rising price of oil — has helped Iran’s economy,” Warren said, adding, “What Secretary Bessent is trying to do is mop up the mess that Donald Trump has created by initiating this war.”

Daniel Pickard, a sanctions attorney, said imposing secondary sanctions could result in “diplomatic and economic blowback” from allies that could hurt efforts to build coalitions against Tehran.

“A lot of our trading partners have been outspoken in regard to their opposition to the conflict in Iran," Pickard said. “Most economic sanctions professionals would agree that when you get more people on the team, the chances of your economic sanctions being effective or greater."

On Wednesday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on an oil smuggling network connected to the deceased senior Iranian security official Ali Shamkhani, who was a close adviser to the former Supreme Leader of Iran. Sanctions include dozens of individuals, companies, and vessels involved in secretly transporting and selling Iranian and Russian oil through front companies, many of which are in the UAE.

“Treasury will continue to cut off Iran’s illicit smuggling and terror proxy networks," Bessent said in a statement. "Financial institutions should be on notice that Treasury will leverage all tools and authorities, including secondary sanctions, against those that continue to support Tehran’s terrorist activities.

The administration believes the momentum has shifted

Trump administration officials have also signaled growing confidence that the ceasefire and a blockade of shipments from Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz have shifted momentum in Trump’s favor.

Iran has endured tens of billions of dollars in damage during the bombardment to the country's infrastructure — including setbacks to its oil industry, the heart of its fragile and long-isolated economy — that could take years to repair.

Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday said Trump “doesn’t want to make, like, a small deal. He wants to make the grand bargain.”

"That’s the trade that he’s offering,” Vance said. “If you guys commit to not having a nuclear weapon, we are going to make Iran thrive.”

The president's deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, offered a more caustic assessment of the moment, suggesting that Trump had “played the checkmate move" on Iran by implementing the blockage in the strait.

“If Iran chooses the path of a deal that's great for the world, that's great for everybody. If Iran chooses the path of economic strangulation by blockade, then the world will pass Iran by,” Miller said in a Fox News appearance Tuesday evening. "New energy routes will be established. New supply chains will be established. Other nations throughout the region — throughout the world, and especially America — will power the world and Iran will become a footnote.”

Some Republicans are skeptical that more sanctions will work

Some Republicans believe that any tactic to exert more pressure on Tehran is worth trying.

“I would support anything,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “If the administration came up with the ideas, I would support all of the above. More pressure, the better.”

Others were skeptical, noting that Tehran was already facing a litany of economic penalties that had little impact on its behavior.

“I’m not sure if it’s sanctions that’ll do it. I think we’re putting some pretty heavy sanctions on right now,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a member of the Banking and Armed Services Committees. “I personally am just not optimistic that we actually can fix this thing without a regime change.”

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, a think tank that has been critical of Trump's decision to launch the war, says that Trump had been “politically cornered and strategically constrained" before he announced the ceasefire. But now, Parsi argues, Trump may have altered the difficult dynamic and created a situation where “Iran now appears to need an agreement more than the United States does.”

“The window now open offers Tehran a chance to convert battlefield leverage into lasting strategic gain," Parsi wrote in a new analysis. "To let it close would mean forfeiting not just incremental progress, but the possibility of reshaping its economic and geopolitical position. By contrast, the United States, having already secured a tenuous exit ramp through the ceasefire, has less at stake in the short term.”

The S&P 500 rose 0.8% and eclipsed its prior all-time high set in January. After falling nearly 10% below its record in late March, a drop steep enough that Wall Street calls it a “correction,” the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts has since roared more than 10% higher.

Much of the rally has been due to expectations for calming tensions in the war and a resumption of the full flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide. Hopes remained high Wednesday as regional officials told The Associated Press that the United States and Iran had an “in principle agreement” to extend a ceasefire to allow for more diplomacy.

To be sure, stocks could easily get back to falling if those expectations get undercut, which has happened before in the war. Oil prices drifted up and down Wednesday and showed that caution remains in financial markets. Stock indexes around the world also made only modest movements following their big gains in recent weeks.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.1% to settle at $94.93. That’s still well above its roughly $70 price from before the war, though it’s down from its $119 peak when worries about the fighting have been at their heights.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 72 points, or 0.1%, while the Nasdaq composite gained 1.6%.

But if U.S.-Iran talks do happen and if they are successful, the war could end up being just a temporary setback for the global economy instead of a new normal of very high oil prices and inflation. And that in turn could allow investors to return their attention to what matters most for stock prices: money.

Through all the day-to-day noise that can affect investors’ opinions, stock prices tend to move with the direction of corporate profits over the long term. And positive trends there had stock markets doing well before the war began. Analysts also see continued growth ahead, for now at least.

Bank of America rose 1.8% after saying it made $8.6 billion in profit during the first three months of the year, more than analysts expected. CEO Brian Moynihan also said the bank saw signs of a “resilient American economy,” including solid spending by U.S. consumers.

Morgan Stanley jumped 4.5% after the investment bank likewise delivered a better-than-expected quarter of results.

Companies hurt earlier in the year by worries about artificial-intelligence technology also rose to recover more of their losses for 2026. Some of the concerns were about companies potentially spending too much to build out AI capabilities, while others focused on businesses that may go obsolete because of AI-powered competition.

The worries got so deep that they shook private-credit companies that have lent money to software businesses and others potentially under threat because of AI.

ServiceNow climbed 7.3%, Oracle rose 4.2% and Ares Management gained 5.9% for some of Wednesday’s bigger gains in the S&P 500. All are still down between 12% and 39% for the year so far.

With stock prices overall back to where they were in January, and with analysts’ expectations for upcoming profits from big U.S. companies only rising since then, optimists say many stocks look less expensive than they did a few months ago.

“Today, we see compelling opportunity potential” to shift into areas of the market that look like better buys than earlier this year, such as technology stocks, said Mason Mendez, investment strategy analyst at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

The stock price of Allbirds surged 582% to nearly $17 after the company said it’s shifting gears and moving into the AI compute infrastructure industry, while changing its name to NewBird AI. The Allbirds name will stay with the shoe brand that the company has already agreed to sell to American Exchange Group.

Nike rose 2.8% after CEO Elliott Hill and Tim Cook — a Nike director and the CEO of Apple — disclosed that they purchased a combined 48,000 shares of the athletic shoe maker at a cost of about $1 million each. Nike shares are still down nearly 29% this year.

On the losing end of Wall Street was Live Nation Entertainment. It fell 6.3% after a jury found the concert giant and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had a harmful monopoly over big concert venues.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 55.57 points to 7,022.95. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 72.27 to 48,463.72, and the Nasdaq composite rose 376.93 to 24,016.02.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following modest gains in Asia. South Korea’s Kospi was an outlier and jumped 2.1%.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.28% from 4.26% late Tuesday.

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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

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This version corrects the last name of Nike’s CEO, which is Hill.

“This settlement will create a safer environment for our children online, and I hope that it will serve as a bellwether for how online interactive platforms allow our state’s youth to use their products,” the Democratic attorney general said Wednesday.

Roblox, which is used by nearly half U.S. children under 16, will give $10 million over three years to support programs like the Boys & Girls Club and other nondigital activities, Ford said. It will also fund a law enforcement liaison position to respond to safety concerns about the platform and fund an online safety awareness campaign, Ford said.

The settlement, which was agreed upon in lieu of litigation, includes enhanced protections for minors who use the app, such as requiring age verification for all users and restricting nighttime notifications for minors. The gaming platform faces litigation in other states, including Texas and Kentucky, which allege it fails to protect children.

“Roblox is proud to have worked alongside Attorney General Ford to reach this landmark agreement, which builds on our work to establish a new standard for digital safety,” Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman said in a statement.

Kaufman said the agreement creates a blueprint for how industry and regulators can work together to protect children.

The settlement comes as prosecutors have filed lawsuits against social media companies over the role they play in children’s lives. Last month in California and New Mexico, social media companies like Meta and YouTube were found liable for designing their platforms to hook young users and were ordered to pay over $375 million in penalties.

Ford also has lawsuits pending against Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Kik, alleging the companies failed to implement safety measures for children.

As part of the agreement, Roblox will implement facial age estimation technology to limit younger users’ chats to only those in similar age groups. Adult users and users under 16 will not be allowed to chat unless they are communicating with a trusted friend, Ford said. A trusted friend can be added through a QR code or their phone contacts to ensure the child knows the person outside of the platform, he said. The company will also monitor activity to see if a user lied about their age, he said.

Roblox will create kids accounts for users under ages 16 that blocks access to adult-rated content and provides games vetted for suitability. The agreement also expands parental oversight to users under 16. That oversight was previously available for users under 13.

Donch’e King, supervising criminal investigator at the attorney general's office, said half a million online predators pursue children at any given moment, often across multiple platforms. The majority of predatory contact occurs through chat rooms and instant messaging, he said. He urged parents to communicate frankly with their children about the platforms they are on and to report concerns to law enforcement.

“Protecting Nevada’s children is not an option; it’s our duty,” King said.

Speaking at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum, Infantino said it is important that Iran participates in the World Cup even though its participation has been in doubt since the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on the country.

“The Iranian team is coming for sure, yes,” Infantino said. “We hope that by then, of course, the situation will be a peaceful situation. As I said, that would definitely help. But Iran has to come. Of course, they represent their people. They have qualified. The players want to play.”

Infantino met with the Iranian national team in Antalya, Turkey, two weeks ago and said Wednesday he was impressed.

“I went to see them. They are actually quite a good team as well," Infantino said. "And they really want to play and they should play. Sports should be outside of politics now.”

Infantino acknowledged it's not always possible to achieve the separation of sports and politics.

“OK we don’t live on the moon, we live on planet Earth," Infantino said. "But you know if there is nobody else that believes in building bridges and in keeping them, you know, intact and together, well we are doing that job.”

The United States will co-host the World Cup with Canada and Mexico.

Iran is scheduled to play two group-stage games in Inglewood, California, and one in Seattle.

The war has raised doubts about Iran’s participation in the World Cup. There have been conflicting public comments from Iranian government and soccer officials. U.S. President Donald Trump discouraged the Iranian team from attending the tournament, citing safety concerns.

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

Duran made the gesture as he returned to the dugout after a fifth-inning groundout in Boston’s 6-0 loss to Minnesota on Tuesday night at Target Field.

“We were made aware of the situation late last night and are looking into it,” Twins senior vice president of communications and public affairs Dustin Morse said. “There's no place in our game for conduct like that.”'

MLB confirmed its own investigation, per standard practice of reviewing the conduct of both the player and the fan before determining any potential discipline.

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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. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

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“Somebody just told me to kill myself. I’m used to it at this point, you know?” Duran said after the game, adding that he "shouldn’t react like that, but that kind of stuff is still kind of triggering.”

Duran discussed bouts with severe depression and a suicide attempt in a Netflix documentary series that debuted last year.

“Honestly, it’s my fault for talking about my mental health because I kind of brought in the haters. So I’ve just got to get used to it,” Duran said. “I was just trying to hold it in and not really bring that up to the team. I mean, we’re trying to win a game. I shouldn’t even bring that up to anybody. ... It just happens.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora said after the game he hadn’t witnessed the confrontation or reviewed video of it, but he shared his thoughts with reporters ahead of the series finale on Wednesday.

“I know the Twins are all over the case and trying to find out who he was, and hopefully they find the person," Cora said, adding that if found “it’s probably the last big-league game that that person is going to attend.”

“We have Jarren’s back. Like I said last year, for him to open up, he saved lives,” Cora added. "And it’s not easy. It’s not easy because, like he said, we’re in the business of winning games, and he doesn’t want to be a distraction. And he’s not a distraction. He’s not. He’s just a player that plays for the Red Sox and has our full support.”

Duran played all nine innings in left field on Wednesday, going 0 for 5 with a run scored in Boston's 9-5 victory.

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AP Sports Writers Ronald Blum in New York and Dave Campbell in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

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

The declaration for Wednesday (April 15) applies to Alcona, Allegan, Alpena, Antrim, Arenac, Barry, Benzie, Charlevoix, Clare, Crawford, Emmet, Grand Traverse, Gratiot, Iosco, Kalkaska, Lake, Leelanau, Manistee, Menominee, Missaukee, Montcalm, Montmorency, Newaygo, Oceana, Ogemaw, Oscoda, Osceola, Presque Isle, Roscommon, Saginaw, Shiawassee and Wexford counties.

“Today, I’m declaring a state of emergency for 32 additional counties following severe weather.

Significant snowmelt, record rain, flooding, straight-line winds, and tornadoes have damaged homes, roads, and businesses.

This emergency declaration will help the state deploy additional resources to help local officials and first responders protect Michiganders and their property.

The state will continue to coordinate with local governments and monitor the situation. I encourage everyone to stay updated and follow guidance from your local emergency manager. We will get through this together.”

The latest action extends a previously issued emergency declaration for Cheboygan County, issued on April 10, due to the threat of overtopping at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex.

That order remains in effect.

On April 14, Whitmer activated the State Emergency Operations Center statewide to monitor weather-related impacts.

Later that day, she also declared an energy emergency statewide due to a disruption of gasoline supply at the U.S. Energy Cheboygan terminal on the Cheboygan River.

The Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division is coordinating the state’s response through the State Emergency Operations Center.

State police troopers are assisting local emergency responders in affected areas.

State officials said the declaration allows the use of state resources to support local response and recovery efforts and enables eligible communities to seek financial assistance under Section 19 of Michigan’s Emergency Management Act.

Information on current conditions and response efforts is available at michigan.gov/cheboygandam.

Updates on the statewide response are posted at michigan.gov/aprilstorms.

The State Emergency Operations Center’s Joint Information Center is handling state communications, and officials said media inquiries should be directed to SEOCmedia@michigan.gov.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Marie-Therese Ross in Alabama on April 1 after she overstayed her 90-day visa, according to DHS. Ross is now being held at a federal immigration detention facility in Louisiana.

Ross is among the thousands of people targeted by the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda that has detained the spouses of U.S. soldiers and military veterans who previously received greater leniency under scrapped policies.

Rodolphe Sambou, Consul General of France in New Orleans, told the AP that the French government has “fully mobilized” to push for her release. He said he has visited her in detention twice so far.

“Given her age, we really want her to get out of this situation as soon as possible,” Sambou said. “We want to get her out of jail.”

Sambou said that he has been communicating frequently with Ross’ family and French officials in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Paris to try and coordinate Ross’ release and ensure she has access to sufficient food and health care. He said the French government has also contacted DHS.

He declined to comment on her legal status or other details of her case.

Ross married Alabama resident William Ross in April last year, Calhoun County marriage records show. Ross died in January, according to an obituary from his family, which says he was a former captain in the U.S. Army.

A lawyer who is representing Ross in a separate legal matter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ross' family did not respond to requests for comment.

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Associated Press writer Samuel Petrequin contributed reporting from France.

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Brook 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.

If you haven’t prepared your household for a weather emergency, now is a good time to start.

“This time of year is really the time of year to put those items aside,” said meteorologist Kim Adams, who says the first thing on your list should be bottled water.

The National Weather Service says a basic emergency kit should include the following items:

• Backpack or storage tub to hold your supplies
• Bottled water
• Non-perishable food and a can opener
• Flashlight with extra batteries
• First Aid Supplies
• Tissues
• Toilet paper and bags with ties
• Paper and pen or pencil
• Sleeping bag or warm blanket
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Personal hygiene items
• A whistle
• Important documents
• Battery-powered NOAA Weather Radio
• Formula and diapers (if there is an infant in your home)
• Extra pet food
• Dust mask or cotton t-shirt
• Duct tape
• Cups and utensils
• A change of clothes
• Rain gear
• Cash
• Fire extinguisher
• Paper towels
• Cards or games

The National Weather Service recommends keeping the emergency kit within reach of your shelter.

Experts also say you should identify which items are most important to your household, and keep track of when items expire.

Adams also says conversations about weather preparedness should also include a discussion about what to do if severe weather strikes while you’re outdoors.

She suggests reminding kids that the safest place to be is indoors, and even if thunder sounds far away, it means lightning has struck nearby.

The meeting announcement Wednesday follows repeated pledges by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to loosen regulations on peptides, which are often pitched as a quick way to build muscle, heal injuries or appear younger. There's little research behind those claims and most peptides have not been reviewed for safety by the FDA.

Kennedy has discussed using peptides for his own injuries. And some major supporters of his Make America Healthy Again movement are big proponents of them, including Gary Brecka, a self-described “longevity expert" who sells various peptide formulas through his website.

The FDA said in a federal notice Wednesday it will ask a panel of outside advisers to review seven peptides at a meeting in July, specifically whether they should be added to a list of substances that can be safely produced by pharmacies. In the meantime, the agency said it would soon remove the chemicals from a restrictive list reserved for unapproved, high-risk drugs. The peptides under discussion include some of the most popular among influencers, such as BPC-157, which is marketed to heal injuries and reduce inflammation.

“The Wild West is about to become wilder,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, a former FDA official who now leads the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In an interview, Lurie said allowing peptides on the market without clinical testing poses a “profound threat” to FDA's decades-old system for vetting drugs.

“I don’t see why one would take the path of a proper drug approval if there is now this less rigorous, alternative path to market,” he said.

Under President Joe Biden, the FDA added nearly 20 peptides to the federal list of substances that should not be produced by compounding pharmacies — businesses that mix medications that aren't available from drugmakers.

At the time, the FDA's panel of pharmacy advisers voted overwhelmingly that the peptides did not meet the criteria for substances that can be safely compounded. And FDA regulators agreed, saying later that the substances “present significant safety risks,” because most have not been extensively tested in humans.

Many of the FDA advisers and internal staff who oversaw those decisions no longer work for the agency. The FDA's pharmacy panel currently has a number of vacancies, which Kennedy could fill before the July meeting.

Kennedy previewed Wednesday's move in an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan. Both men have repeatedly spoken about peptides and claimed to have benefited from their use.

RFK Jr. claims personal benefit from peptides

“I’m a big fan of peptides,” Kennedy told Rogan. “I’ve used them myself and with really good effect on a couple of injuries.”

Given Kennedy's statements, Lurie said it was doubtful the drugs would receive real scrutiny from FDA.

“Everybody knows the outcome that the secretary wants,” Lurie said. “I don’t believe for one moment that what’s going on here is an honest investigation of whether these products should be compounded.”

Scott Brunner of the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding said the coming meeting will be the start of a “protracted process.” Even if the panel votes to make the peptides available, and FDA agrees, the agency will still have to draft and publish rules on the change, he noted.

Peptides are essentially the building blocks of more complex proteins. Inside the human body, peptides trigger hormones needed for growth, metabolism and healing.

In recent years peptides have become widely known through the blockbuster success of GLP-1 medications, which the FDA has approved for treating obesity and diabetes. Other FDA-approved peptides include insulin for diabetics and hormone-based drugs for several medical conditions.

But many of the peptides promoted online have never been approved, making them technically illegal to market as drugs. Several peptides, such as BPC-157 and TB-500, are banned by international sports authorities as doping substances.

But that has not stopped them from gaining a foothold in the burgeoning marketplace for wellness hacks and alternative remedies.

“I think this is a disaster in the works,” said Dr. Eric Topol of Scripps Research Translational Institute, who has studied the issue. “These peptides have no data to support their safety and efficacy.”

Meanwhile, some dietary supplement makers have begun mixing peptides into capsules, protein powders and gummies. At a recent FDA meeting, the industry argued for expanding the federal definition of supplements to permit the use of newer ingredients like peptides in their products.

Safety risks were cited previously

When the FDA added a number of injectable peptides to its list of restricted substances in 2023, it cited safety risks including cancer and liver, kidney and heart problems.

That triggered pushback from wellness entrepreneurs, compounding pharmacies and their allies in Washington.

Last year several members of Congress, including Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, sent letters to Kennedy asking him to lift limits on peptide production.

Some in the compounding industry argue that FDA's restrictions have given rise to an illicit market of imported chemicals from China and other countries, which are not subject to U.S. drug standards.

Kennedy has echoed those concerns.

“With the gray market you have no idea if you’re getting a good product,” Kennedy told Rogan. “And a lot of this stuff that we’ve looked at is just very, very substandard.”

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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 Masters is the first major of the year, a high-stress test at Augusta National that requires full attention on just about every shot because of the razor-thin difference in the outcome. The RBC Heritage provides a tight, tree-lined Harbour Town course that oozes a sense of peace.

The winner gets a green jacket one week, a plaid one the next.

And there was one other element that made Cameron Young look forward to the week after being in contention at Augusta National.

“It is easier, physically, like the walk,” Young said after finishing nine holes of a pro-am round. “And staying closer. Everything seems simpler.”

Otherwise, it's time to move on amid a reminder there is no time to stop to rest.

Masters champion Rory McIlroy chose not to play this $20 million signature event, not a surprise because he didn't play last year, either. Tiny, tight Harbour Town is one that doesn't quite fit him. Justin Rose also pulled out, fresh off his third time with a lead on the back nine at Augusta National without a green jacket to show for it.

The PGA Tour is in the early stages of a six-week stretch that includes two majors and three $20 million signature events.

The Masters is over. They're on to Hilton Head.

“It's over with. Can't really go back,” said Scottie Scheffler, who had reason to replay the final round in his mind in the three days between tournaments.

He was 12 shots behind going into the weekend at the Masters and finished one behind McIlroy despite making only one birdie on the par 5s on the back nine all week.

“So if I would be frustrated, it would be with the start,” Scheffler said. “But I'm proud of how I played on the weekend. That's part of the beauty and frustrating part of golf — I get to try again this week. And if I had won last week, it would be the same thing.”

He speaks from experience. The last time Scheffler won the Masters in 2024, he came to the RBC Heritage and won by three shots. He is known to put winning — and losing — behind him quickly. The difference this week was the time he invested getting ready.

“The preparation looks a little different in terms of not doing nearly as much as a normal week," he said. “That's mainly because this golf course doesn't change too much. Rest is a huge part of that.”

The field is the largest for the signature events, 82 players because of 10 additional players who won in 2025 and did not get to play The Sentry at Kapalua because it was canceled by a dispute over water.

Young had just as good of a chance to win as Scheffler, and that was on his mind when he drove three hours through the Low Country of South Carolina to the next destination. He had eight straight chances at birdie on the back nine at the Masters and finished with nine straight pars.

“I had a really good chance to win, and I played the golf to win,” Young said. “I just didn't, which happens a lot in golf. But I think about all the times Rosey has played the golf to win and hasn't, or even Rory. It does happen.”

What he enjoyed about the week in retrospect was being in the final group, leading by two shots on the front nine. Young was thinking about having a chance a month before the Masters.

“I enjoyed the battle on Sunday. I enjoyed the week,” he said. “I started in a bad spot (a 40 on the front nine Thursday) and enjoyed the grind of getting back to somewhere worthwhile. And by Sunday, I gave myself every chance.”

There is a relaxing vibe about Hilton Head, and a lot of wedges in the hands of the best players, both of which can be deceptive. The Harbour Town course can be challenging with trees that get in the way and plenty of water to punish mistakes.

“When you're out of position here, you're not often able to get it to the front of the green,” Young said. "At Augusta, you can hit it miles off line and a lot of times you can get something to the front of the green. Here, you hit one off line and you're hitting out sideways, or you have water in front.

“It's not an easy golf course,” he said. “There's no foot off the gas at all on the golf front.”

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

Vid Music Group filed the lawsuit for fraud and breach of contract against Messi and the Argentine Football Association in Miami-Dade circuit court last month, according to court records.

Messi and the AFA didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Considered one of the greatest soccer players ever, Messi appears with both his Major League Soccer club Inter Miami and Argentina's national team, and fans routinely pay much higher prices for the chance to see him play.

According to the lawsuit, Vid signed a deal with the AFA last summer for exclusive rights to organize and promote Argentina’s friendlies last October against Venezuela and Puerto Rico in exchange for ticket, broadcast and sponsorship revenue. Vid claims that Messi was supposed to play for at least 30 minutes in each match, unless he was injured.

The 38-year-old Messi watched Argentina’s 1-0 win against Venezuela on Oct. 10 from a suite at South Florida's Hard Rock Stadium, according to the lawsuit.

The next day, Messi scored two goals in Inter Miami’s 4-0 MLS win over Atlanta. That match was important to Inter Miami, since it gave them home-field advantage for Round 1 of the playoffs.

Then, on Oct. 14, Messi played in Argentina's 6-0 win over Puerto Rico. That game was originally supposed to take place in Chicago, but low ticket sales in the city where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were making more than 1,000 arrests led organizers to move the game to Florida. AFA blamed the immigration crackdowns when the smaller venue in Fort Lauderdale didn't sell out, even after ticket prices were reduced to $25 each.

Vid hasn't specified damages they're seeking in the lawsuit, but they claim they lost millions between Messi failing to appear in one game and low ticket sales at the other.

This is the famed “Saturday Night Live” set at New York City's 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and Anitta is running through two new songs — “Choka Choka” featuring Shakira, and “Varias Quejas,” a Spanish-language version of an Olodum classic, a cultural group from Bahia, Brazil — during rehearsal last week.

Both songs are standouts from her forthcoming album, “Equilibrium,” an eclectic mix of Brazilian funk, samba, bossa nova, semba, reggae, electronic pop, Portuguese, Spanish and English — the kind of release that could only be made mainstream by Brazil’s most globally popular musician since Astrud Gilberto sang “The Girl From Ipanema” over six decades ago.

“I think this is the most Brazilian thing I've ever, ever done on television in America,” Anitta told The Associated Press in the NBC offices shortly thereafter.

And “Equilibrium?” “100% my most Brazilian album,” the artist born Larissa de Macedo Machado says. “I really wanted to do an album honoring my roots.”

An evolving sound

“Equilibrium” is a sonic jump from her last release, 2024's “Funk Generation.” That was a full-on tribute to Brazilian funk — what is frequently referred to as funk carioca or baile funk and is heard in working-class neighborhoods known as favelas around Rio de Janeiro. It's a combination of Brazilian rhythms, African and electronic music and rap that has been stigmatized like hip-hop and reggaetón before it. The genre still exists on “Equilibrium,” but so does a myriad sounds — and beliefs — from her homeland.

“Some of the songs are honoring some entities from Yoruba culture, from Orishas,” she says, referring to the religion that originated in West Africa and its divine spirits, like on the track “Nanã.” “One of the songs talks about God and how do I see God in life.”

It should come as no surprise to Anitta fans: In 2024, she released a music video for the song “Aceita,” which featured a video depicting rituals of the Afro-Brazilian faith Candomblé, sparking controversy in a country where religious intolerance is all too common. Elevating marginalized populations, religious groups and also women, residents of favelas, LGBTQ+ and Black people has always been a core feature of Anitta's public persona.

Going global by going home

Naturally, “Equilibrium” is also a full-on embrace of community. The album is stacked with Brazilian collaborators, like the rising songwriter Melly, Liniker's award-winning samba rock-and-then-some, the Brazilian reggae band Ponto de Equilíbrio and countless others. Even “Choka Choka,” the assertive single with Colombian superstar Shakira, is a love letter to Anitta's culture: The “She Wolf” singer performs in Portuguese.

“Anitta wanted to create something for Brazil, but with an international touch,” said “Choka Choka” co-producer Daramola in a press statement. Its Brazilian funk percussion “has a lot of energy, a lot of intensity. And who better to represent that sound than Anitta and Shakira?”

The song, like the rest of “Equilibrium,” seeks to deliver a universal message with regional sounds. Where she could've leaned into conventional, commercial music trends, she doubled down on what makes Anitta, Anitta instead. Clearly the world — and “Saturday Night Live” — are paying attention.

In the past, “If I wanted to reach certain audience, I would do more English or Spanish or whatever,” she says. “And I just think … I don't know if people are accepting better. I don’t care that much as I used to.”

She still sings in three languages, but Portuguese takes a front seat. That may be because this is the freest Anitta has sounded on record. Consider a song like the syrupy “Vai Dar Caô” featuring rapper Ebony and producer Papatinho, with its sample of DJ Mandrake and MC Tikão's “A Pedido,” built over a late-night-at-the-club interpolation of Art of Noise's 1984 New Age classic “Moments In Love.” Anitta's raps are earned show boasts, something that doesn't feel out of place next to the nylon-string classical guitars of a softer song, like “Ternura.”

On “Equilibrium,” specificity and storytelling is key. “The last song, we also bring a mantra from the God Tara, which is a female God, from another type of religion,” she says.

Anitta is referring to “Ouro,” a collaboration with the Brazilian duo Emanazul who describe their work as medicine music. She calls the song a “meditation.”

“I don’t want people to think this is one type of thinking, one direction. I like to join forces," she says. "I think that’s what this album is about: honoring Brazilian roots, honoring everything that I think can make us feel elevated.”

If she sounds self-actualized, that's because it is her ambition for the album. “I think the main message is, like, we are all one. We live in a planet, Mother Earth. It’s our home. We’re supposed to just live in harmony with each other, respect each other’s flavors, decisions, ways of communicating. We should be just, like, admiring our differences,” she says.

It's a deep message but one delivered in a pop package. “I think the album brings a lot of fun instruments, percussions, all that, but also brings like moments for us to … find the balance, the middle term, the middle way of doing things,” she smiles. “That’s the secret.”

The 47-52 vote was the fourth time this year that the Senate has voted to cede its war powers to the president in a conflict that Democrats say is illegal and unjustified. Republicans say they will keep faith in Trump’s wartime leadership, for now, citing Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the potential for ongoing talks and the high stakes of withdrawal.

Still, GOP lawmakers are anxious for the conflict to end, and some are eyeing future votes that could become an important test for the president if the war drags on. And the outcome of a war powers vote in the House, expected this week, is uncertain.

Under the War Powers Act of 1973, Congress must declare war or authorize use of force within 60 days of its start — a deadline that will arrive at the end of this month. The law provides for a potential 30-day extension of that deadline, but lawmakers have made clear that they want the administration to soon lay out a plan for the end of the conflict.

After the 60-day or 90-day deadline, “it’s time to fish or cut bait,” said Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. “I think that the administration would be wise to put together what would look like a well-founded authorization of military force and a funding strategy."

Republican senators mull a war powers resolution

While voting against the Democratic efforts to stop the war, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has been talking to her GOP colleagues about a resolution that would authorize the conflict beyond the 60-day deadline.

She said last month that the Democratic measures would hurt the troops by prompting an abrupt withdrawal. But she said that Congress should eventually draft an authorization of force and vote on it “so the American people know the limits and objectives of this military operation.”

“There is no question that the president should have sought authorization from Congress before striking Iran on this scale, likewise bringing in our allies ahead of time as they now are equally in danger," she said at the beginning of March.

Utah Sen. John Curtis said Wednesday that he had looked at Murkowski's draft and provided feedback, but would not share details. “I think we are all watching” the war and its timeline, Curtis said, adding that he hopes it ends before the deadline.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., also said he would like to see the war end in the coming weeks. If not, he said, “at the end of 60 days, I think we need to vote on a military authorization.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said that the president's power “is not unlimited as commander in chief.”

“If this conflict exceeds the 60 days specified in the War Powers Act, or if the President deploys troops on the ground, I believe that Congress should have to authorize those actions," Collins said in a statement.

Republican leaders are noncommittal

It remains unclear if Republican leaders would go along with a vote to authorize the war. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said this week that “at this point most of us I think feel pretty good about what the military has achieved" in Iran.

But Thune did say that “they do need a plan for how to wind this down, how to get an outcome that actually leads to a safer, more secure Middle East and, by extension, a stronger national security position for the United States.”

Thune said another “inflection point” will be an eventual White House request for war funding. Congress is still waiting for the request, which could total hundreds of billions of dollars.

That is a “power that Congress has to influence what happens there,” Thune said.

Republican Sen. Jim Lankford of Oklahoma said that war funding will “be the big vote." He added that the question, then, will be: “Is it going to happen or is it not going to happen?” Lankford said.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that at the 60-day deadline, Congress isn’t going to “jump up and say that’s it, it’s one second past 60 days, everybody come home.”

Some of the people who want a vote just want to embarrass Trump, Kennedy said.

“I want to see us achieve our objective in Iran,” Kennedy said. “And then I want to see us get out.”

Democrats say war is illegal, unnecessary

Democrats have vowed to force votes on the Senate floor as long as the war continues.

“As our troops continue to sacrifice whatever is asked of them, we senators need to do the absolute minimum required of us,” said Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Iraq war veteran who lost both legs in combat, before Wednesday’s vote.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that with gas prices climbing, “the American people literally cannot afford for Republicans to forgo another opportunity to work with Democrats to end Trump’s disastrous war.”

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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Steven Sloan contributed to this report.

Marcus Winfrey has not been seen or heard from since Thursday (April 9) in the 11000 block of Courville Street.

It is unknown what he was wearing when he went missing.

According to his sister, he has depression.

Anyone with information should contact the Detroit Police Department’s 9th Precinct at 313-596-5940 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-Speak Up.

All tips to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. Click here to submit a tip online.

READ: More Missing in Michigan coverage

“Don’t fear the dead and don’t fear me,” Kilmer’s character, Father Fintan, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist, says at the end of the trailer.

The actor died last year at 65, of pneumonia. The use of generative AI to recreate Kilmer for the historical drama based on archaeologists Ann and Earl Morris became a hot button topic when the filmmakers announced it last month. The trailer shows Kilmer’s character at various ages.

Writer-director Coerte Voorhees, along with his brother John, spoke on a panel Wednesday about the controversial decision to use technology to create a performance from a deceased actor and explained why they feel they've done it ethically by working with Kilmer's children and the actors union. Coerte Voorhees stopped short of calling it a Val Kilmer performance, however.

“Val Kilmer influenced this performance,” Coerte Voorhees said.

Producer John Voorhees said the use of AI actors based on real people is risky territory for anyone to venture into but emphasized that they followed guidelines from the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union that he boiled down to “consent, compensation and collaboration.” Kilmer’s estate, including his daughter Mercedes, gave permission for his digital replication, is being compensated for it and provided archival footage to help the process.

They also compared Kilmer's AI-rendered performance to any actor portraying a historical figure on screen, as Kilmer once did with Jim Morrison in “The Doors.” Kilmer also utilized AI while he was alive. When he lost his natural speaking voice following a throat cancer diagnosis and two tracheotomies, he turned to an AI software company to digitally recreate his voice. Kilmer’s voice was also digitally altered to help his final screen performance in “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Kilmer had signed on to “As Deep as the Grave” years ago; Much of the film was structured around his character, they said. When Kilmer had to pull out at the last minute due to health issues they decided to proceed shooting without the character instead of recasting the role. The production had numerous stops and starts as one of the first to begin shooting in New Mexico in the fall of 2020 amid the pandemic. They realized later that the story really did need Father Fintan, and decided to broach the topic with Kilmer’s children, Mercedes and Jack.

“We were so glad they were so excited and so supportive of the idea,” Coerte Voorhees said. “We didn’t want to do it unless everybody thought this was going to work properly.”

He said that Kilmer is on screen in the movie for one hour and 17 minutes; The final runtime was not revealed but he said it’s long. The filmmakers plan to release it sometime this year.

Neither did the young women she was hired to lead.

Yes, there was a jolt of excitement. There was also a dash of anxiousness. One of the most decorated programs in the history of NCAA gymnastics had fallen off considerably since winning the last of its record 10 national titles in 2009.

The worry that Landi might lean heavily into the transfer portal in search of a quick fix was real. It also turned out to be fleeting.

Minutes into the first meeting that Landi and co-head coach Ryan Roberts had with the team, Landi made it clear she had no interest in blowing everything up and starting over.

“Gymnastics is not rocket science,” Landi said. “It’s about consistency and being fair and working hard and working smart.”

A lifetime in the sport — from competing for her native France at the 1996 Olympics to two-plus decades in coaching — had taught her the value of dreams and the empty feeling that comes when they are taken away. Several college-bound athletes Landi mentored at WCC saw their opportunities altered or pulled outright when a new coach took over. Landi wanted no part of that.

The talent to get the program back to being a factor on the national stage was in the room, she told them. We can do this, and we can do this together.

“I wanted to give everyone a chance and embrace the change and follow the culture we were building,” she said. “I was not going to bring in 10 kids. The kids who committed two years prior, they had that goal. I've had athletes at the club level who had that taken away. It was really, really hard.”

Less than two years after that initial sit-down, the Bulldogs will walk onto the floor at Dickie's Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday for the NCAA semifinals for the first time since 2019 with legitimate hopes of reaching Saturday's finals.

A more level playing field?

They will do it with a roster that has largely remained intact since Landi's arrival, led by senior floor specialist Eryn Williams and senior Ja'Free Scott. And they will do it with a sense of confidence they lacked a year ago, when a resurgent season ended early after a jittery performance in regionals.

Those days appear over. Georgia advanced to nationals by having perhaps its best meet of the season at regionals, finishing second to a powerhouse Florida team loaded with former elites that will look to spoil Oklahoma's bid for its fourth NCAA championship in five years.

While the Sooners have been dominant, the playing field in women's college gymnastics may be starting to level out. The eight-team field at nationals includes the Bulldogs, ninth-seeded Arkansas and 13th-seeded Minnesota, a close runner-up to star-laden UCLA at regionals.

The programs that didn't make it to Fort Worth include longtime NCAA fixtures Utah, runner-up a year ago, as well as Alabama and California.

“It's not going to be the same eight every year like it used to be,” Landi said. “I like that it gives an opportunity to other teams. But it makes it harder because we always have to be better. It also makes it more exciting because you know you can have that chance, you can be there.”

Arkansas rebounds

It's a belief that Arkansas coach and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Jordyn Wieber instilled in her program after the Razorbacks didn't advance out of regionals a year ago, ending an eventful season that included Wieber publicly calling out the NCAA for not allowing Arkansas to schedule a late-season dual meet with Oregon State after it failed to qualify for the SEC championships.

“It was just about the unfairness to our athletes and wanting them to have another competitive opportunity and them to say no for maybe not the best reason,” Wieber said. “We're grateful we’re on the other side of that for sure.”

There were no such scheduling issues this time — the SEC adjusted its parameters to allow all nine schools to compete for a league title — and Arkansas advanced out of the competitive Lexington regional by holding off Missouri with a steady performance on beam in the final rotation, proof of just how far the Razorbacks have come.

“I just feel like we’re building to peak at the right time,” Wieber said. “And their performance at regionals was remarkable.”

Having Morgan Price helped. The senior, who spent the first three years of her career competing at Fisk University — the first historically Black college and university to field a women's artistic gymnastics team — joined Arkansas to compete alongside older sister Frankie.

All she's done over the last four months is record the first perfect 10 in program history with a dazzling performance on vault in a meet against Kentucky in February.

“She’s a great competitor, she’s got swagger and she knows how to put up great scores,” Wieber said. “What people don’t see is who she is on a daily basis. She’s one of the most consistent workers and teammates and strives to be a great leader.”

Price's journey will end this weekend. Just as it will for Williams and Scott and the other seniors at Georgia, who have spent years competing underneath the banners at Stegeman Coliseum that beckon to the program's run of greatness, wondering when their time will come.

Turns out, that time is now.

“We were this amazing team with this legacy so many years ago,” Williams said. “I think for a while, it got lost. People forgot about us. ... I think a lot of them need a reminder of who we are."

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

The testimony from Russell Vought jump-starts the White House's push to increase defense spending to nearly $1.5 trillion in the next budget year, up from nearly $1 trillion this year, while cutting health research, heating assistance and scores of other domestic programs by about 10% overall. Such cuts do not cover mandatory spending, which includes such programs as Social Security and Medicare.

The debate over Trump's proposal underscored the sharp divide that will shape some of the most significant policy debates going into a midterm election that will give voters the ultimate say on the direction of the country.

“For the industrial base to double or triple and build more facilities, not just add shifts, it requires multiyear agreements to purchase into the future,” Vought told lawmakers. “That cost has to be booked in this first year.”

The White House is calling for about $1.1 trillion for defense through the regular appropriations process, which typically requires support from both parties for approval. An additional $350 billion would come through a separate bill that Republicans can accomplish on their own, through party-line majority votes.

Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democratic member of the committee, said he believes in a strong national defense. But he said the idea of increasing defense by more than 40% while cutting programs that people need shows that the Republican administration's priorities are "out of whack.”

The committee chairman, Rep. Jodey Arrington predicted the hearing would be more “amped up” than usual, and that proved to be true, beginning with his opening statement focused on criticizing Democrat Joe Biden's presidency. Arrington, R-Texas, said he did not know of any president in his lifetime who “inherited such a complete and utter mess as President Trump did in January of last year.”

Since then, Arrington said, Trump has secured the border, cut taxes and constrained nondefense spending.

It was the beginning of several back-and-forths at the hearing.

“You know how bad this economy is when we hear Joe Biden being invoked, we hear trans people being invoked. I was waiting for Jimmy Carter to be blamed next," Boyle said in response to Arrington's opening remarks.

Boyle said consumer confidence is plummeting under Trump and noted a gas station he passed in Philadelphia recently was selling gas at $4.11 a gallon versus less than $3 a gallon some six weeks ago because of Trump's “war of choice in Iran.”

Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., called the proposed defense spending increase shocking.

“We've never in the history of this country seen spending like this, paid for by slashing health care, education and housing,” Balint said. “Mr. Vought, yes or no, is $350 billion for the war in Iran lowering costs for Americans?”

“It is certainly not defunding child care. We fully fund child care in this budget,” Vought said, not directly answering the question.

Balint went on to incorporate Trump's “America First” mantra in her questioning.

She said $350 billion could pay for an enhanced health insurance tax credit for 10 years and that her constituents are asking how the country can continue to spend money on wars and not find a solution to helping people afford health care.

Vought said the president has made clear he was not going to let Iran have a nuclear weapons, missiles and a navy that affect U.S. national security.

“He is doing what is necessary to keep us safe, while at the same time trying to pursue diplomacy so that we can get out of wars and lower those costs over time,” Vought said.

Vought said it was unclear how much the administration would seek to fund the war during the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30. That money would be part of an emergency supplemental spending bill and would be on top of the funds the White House is seeking to boost defense spending next year.

“Would it be more than $50 billion?” asked Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas.

“We're still working on it," Vought said. “I don't have a ballpark for you.”

The guards targeted Katherine Blankenship's clients and other detainees at the facility after they complained about not having phone access on April 2, Blankenship said in a court declaration.

The phones, which weren't functioning, are the primary way for detainees to communicate with family and their attorneys while in the detention center. The guards began taunting the detainees, who were in a cell, then became “more aggressive and were yelling and threatening to enter the cage,” Blankenship wrote.

When one detainee approached a guard, he was punched in the face. The guards then started beating other detainees in the cell. One of Blankenship's clients was punched in the right eye, thrown to the floor and beaten by several guards. He was kicked in the head and his shoulder and arm were injured. A guard put his knee on the detainee's neck while restraining him, according to the attorney's declaration, which included a photo made during a video call almost a week later showing the detainee with a bruised eye.

“The officers beat several people during this incident and broke another detained individual’s wrist,” Blankenship wrote. The detainee whose wrist was broken is not one of her clients.

Phone service was restored the next day without any explanation for why it was cut off.

The Florida Department of Emergency Management didn't respond to questions emailed Wednesday about the incident.

Blankenship's declaration was included in a court filing accusing state and federal officials of failing to comply with a federal judge's preliminary injunction last month ordering detention center officials to provide access to timely, free, confidential, unmonitored and unrecorded outgoing legal calls. U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell in Fort Myers, Florida also said facility officials must provide at least one operable telephone for every 25 people held in the facility.

The judge's order came in a response to a lawsuit that claimed detainees' First Amendment rights were being violated.

State officials have denied restricting detainees' access to their attorneys and cited security and staffing reasons for any challenges. Federal officials who also are defendants denied that detainees’ First Amendment rights were violated. State officials last week filed a notice that they plan to appeal the judge's order.

The Everglades facility was built last summer at a remote airstrip by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to support President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Florida also has built a second immigration detention center in north Florida.

During a visit last week to the detention center, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, said she wasn't given the chance to talk to detainees. She described conditions at the detention center as “inhumane.”

“The way the detainees are housed is cruel and unnecessary,” she said.

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Associated Press journalist Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed.

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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.

Terms were not released, per club policy, but ESPN reported it was a three-year, $5 million supermax contract that is the most lucrative in WNBA history.

“A’ja is truly one of one, who has led this franchise to where it is today,” Aces president and general manager Nikki Fargas said in a statement. “Not only has she catapulted into the history books and surpassed almost every record in existence, but she does so with the utmost confidence, authenticity and grace. We look forward to continuing to see her thrive in an Aces uniform.”

In addition to Wilson — last season named WNBA MVP and The Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year — the Aces have re-signed stars Jackie Young, Chelsea Gray and Jewell Loyd, among other key contributors to their third title in four seasons.

Also Wednesday, the Aces signed guard Chennedy Carter to a training camp contract. She last played in the WNBA in 2024 with Chicago and averaged 17.4 points and 3.4 assists. She also had a high-profile takedown of Caitlin Clark and has been dogged by issues with teammates over her career.

A veteran team led by Wilson, whose leadership last season took the Aces from potentially not making the playoffs to a 16-game winning streak and eventual championship, likely wouldn't tolerate unneeded distractions.

Wilson is building a case as the WNBA's best-ever player, and coach Becky Hammon has said her superstar forward is alone on Mount Everest.

No player can match Wilson's four MVP awards. She also took home the trophy in 2020, 2022 and 2024 and was the unanimous choice in 2024.

Wilson also was named the league co-Defensive Player of the Year last season, sharing the honor with Minnesota’s Alanna Smith. It was Wilson's third such award in four years.

She led the WNBA last season in scoring with 23.4 points per game and in blocked shots with a 2.3 average.

It was the second year in a row Wilson averaged at least 20 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks and a steal. She is the only WNBA player to do that even once while playing at least 15 games.

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

If you're worried that you still might not be able to finish your taxes in time, you also can file for an extension, which will give you until Oct. 15 to file.

Here's what you need to know about Wednesday's deadline — and a few tips to keep in mind.

What do I need to file my tax return?

Generally, every tax-filer needs the following at hand

— your Social Security number

— W-2 forms, if you're employed

— 1099-G forms, if you're unemployed

— 1099 forms, if you're self-employed

— Savings and investment records

— A sense of any eligible deductions, such as education expenses, medical bills or charitable donations.

— A sense of relevant tax credits, such as the child tax credit or a retirement savings contributions credit.

To find a more detailed document list, visit the IRS website.

Tax professionals recommend gathering all your documents in one place before you start your tax return — as well as having documents from the year prior, if your financial situation has changed drastically. Experts also suggest creating an identity protection PIN number with the IRS to guard against identity theft. Once you create a number, the IRS will require it to file your tax return.

How do I file for an extension?

If you run out of time to file your tax return, you can file for an extension to take more time by using your preferred tax software, with the IRS Free File tool, or via mail.

However, it’s important to remember that the extension is only to file your tax return, not to pay owed taxes. If you owe taxes, you should pay an estimated amount before the deadline to avoid paying penalties and interest. If you expect to receive a refund, you’ll still receive your money when you file your taxes.

The deadline to file for an extension is Wednesday, which will give you until Oct. 15 to file.

The IRS notes some taxpayers — including members of the military and people who live and work outside of the U.S. — get an automatic, two-month extension to file until June 15. But again, most payments are still due April 15.

How can I avoid mistakes filing my taxes?

Many people fear getting in trouble with the IRS if they make a mistake. To avoid common errors:

— Double check your name on your Social Security card.

You'll want to make sure the name on your tax return matches what's on your Social Security card. Some people may have taken a new last name after marriage, for example, but if that hasn't been updated with the Social Security Administration yet, the IRS notes you'll need to use your former name to avoid delays.

And if you get a W-2 from an employer with a name that no longer matches your Social Security card, the IRS says you should contact your employer to fix it.

— Search for tax statements if you've opted out of paper mail.

While many important tax documents are still sent out on physical paper, people increasingly are opting out of snail mail these days. If you're not seeing it in your mailbox, check your online accounts.

“If you didn’t get anything in the mail doesn’t mean that there isn’t an information document out there that you need to be aware of and report accordingly,” Tom O’Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals, previously told The Associated Press.

— Report all of your income.

If you had more than one job in 2025, you need the W-2 forms for each.

What resources are available?

For those who made $89,000 or less last year, IRS Free File offers free guided tax preparation that does the math for you. And if you have questions while working on your tax forms, the IRS also offers an interactive tax assistant tool.

Beyond TurboTax and H&R Block, taxpayers can also hire licensed professionals, such as certified public accountants. The IRS offers a directory of tax preparers across the United States.

The IRS also funds two types of programs that offer free tax help: Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and the Tax Counseling for the Elderly program (TCE). People who earn $69,000 or less a year, those who have a disability, and those who speak limited English all qualify for the VITA program. Those who are 60 or older qualify for the TCE program. The IRS has a site for locating organizations that host VITA and TCE clinics.

If you have a tax problem, there are also clinics around the country that can help you resolve these issues. Generally, these tax clinics also offer services in other languages such as Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.

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AP Business Writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

Now she is pitching a compromise.

The moderate Democrat says she will push to create a new tax on multimillion-dollar second homes in New York City known as pied-à-terres, attempting to appease Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his supporters while also tending to her concerns about destabilizing the state's finances.

The idea, announced Wednesday, would allow the city to impose a tax surcharge on secondary residences worth over $5 million, with the governor's office saying it could generate at least $500 million annually as Mamdani moves to fill a multibillion dollar budget hole and fund his ambitious agenda.

“As Governor, I understand the importance of stabilizing the city’s finances without compromising on essential services New Yorkers count on," Hochul said in a statement. "If you can afford a $5 million second home that sits empty most of the year, you can afford to contribute like every other New Yorker.”

The governor's office said she would include the measure in this year's state budget, a sprawling bundle of bills that are still being hotly negotiated in Albany after the governor and Legislature blew past an April 1 due date for the spending plan.

Mamdani, who has called for a much broader tax increase on the rich, cast the proposal as a win, saying in a statement that it places him “one step closer to balancing our budget by taxing the ultra-wealthy and global elites.”

At an unrelated forum focused on taxes, Mamdani, appearing in front of a large banner that read “Tax The Rich,” said the proposal would target the “super wealthy who can purchase properties and use them to store their wealth to benefit from New York City’s real estate market but not have to pay back into that same city.”

Hochul has long rejected increasing personal income or corporate taxes, arguing that such measures would further incentivize residents and big businesses to flee the city for states with lower tax rates, thereby eroding the state’s tax base.

Still, the calls have followed her, with progressives chanting “tax the rich” when she appears at events, and even when she was at an annual political conference in San Juan late last year.

The governor is also contending with a possible political vulnerability over raising taxes as she runs for a second full term in office and tries to fend off Republican criticisms over high taxes in the state.

Her Republican challenger this fall, Bruce Blakeman, wasted little time in turning the proposal into a familiar attack.

“Kathy Hochul’s ‘No Tax Hike’ promise has expired faster than the families fleeing New York’s affordability crisis," said Blakeman, a county executive in the city's suburbs. “Unlike Hochul, I’ll actually keep my word when I’m governor: I’ll cut your taxes, slash your utility bills in half, and protect the American Dream.”

Mamdani, a Democrat, has urged the governor and state Legislature to raise taxes on the rich, calling for wealthy residents to pitch in more money for programs intended to help the city's struggling working-class.

At the same time, he also finds himself confronting a massive budget gap — which he first put at around $12 billion but later revised to about $5 billion after savings and financial assistance from the state — that could imperil his agenda and city services more widely.

At a news conference, Hochul said the proposal will help the city close its budget gap without having to cut services, but said the mayor and City Council must find additional savings as they move to balance their budget.

“Our goal is to get the city on stable ground, to close the gap so we can take the pressure off,” she said.

A 21-year-old infielder, McGonigle had four hits in his major league debut on March 26 and entered Wednesday hitting .311 with one homer, eight RBIs and a .417 on-base percentage in 17 games.

“As soon as we saw this kid play and saw the way he commands the strike zone, fights for every pitch and uses the whole field, it was like, ‘Wow, that’s pretty interesting for an 18-year-old kid,’" Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris said. “We knew he could play the infield and he had the right physical gifts.

“It was just about how quickly everything would come together, and they came together more quickly than I ever thought.”

McGonigle became the fourth top prospect to get a big-money deal since late March following a $140 million, nine-year contract for 19-year-old Pittsburgh shortstop Konnor Griffin, a $95 million, eight-year agreement for 20-year-old Seattle shortstop Colt Emerson and a $50.75 million, eight-year pact for 21-year-old Milwaukee shortstop Cooper Pratt.

“If you think about it, this is a kid who would be eligible for this year’s draft if he had gone to college,” Harris said. “Now, he’s up here with a long-term contract, so I guess he made the right decision.”

McGonigle has a one-year contact for 2026 paying the $780,000 minimum while in the major leagues and $127,100 while in the minors.

His new deal calls for a $14 million signing bonus, including $8 million payable within 30 days of the contract's approval by Major League Baseball and $6 million on March 31, 2028. He gets salaries of $1 million next year, $7 million in 2028, $16 million in 2029, $21 million in 2030, $22 million in 2031 and $23 million each in 2032, 2033 and 2034.

“I had the confidence to think there was a possibility for something like this to happen,” McGonigle said. “I'm just super pumped and super excited to spend the next nine years here helping this team win.”

Escalators could increase his salaries in the final three seasons, capped at $25 million in 2032, $26 million in 2033 and $28 million in 2034. The escalators, based on accomplishments starting in 2026, are $2 million for winning an MVP, $1 million for finishing second through fifth in voting, $500,000 for sixth through 10th, $500,000 for making the All-MLB first or second team, $250,000 for being elected or selected an All-Star and $250,000 for winning a Silver Slugger.

He would get a $5 million assignment bonus each time he is traded.

McGonigle's deal covers the first three seasons after he would have been eligible for free agency.

McGonigle was selected by the Tigers at No. 37 in the 2023 amateur draft out of Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast High School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania.

“Ever since I picked up a bat, this was always a dream,” he said. “Definitely at a young age, I'd say I knew I had the opportunity to play at a high level.”

He has reached base in 13 consecutive starts and 15 of 16 games. He is one of only 10 players in the major leagues with more walks (11) than strikeouts (eight) among players with at least 11 walks.

“What he is doing right now is remarkable,” Harris said. "We studied young hitters and their adjustment periods to the majors, and right down the line, they really struggled for the first 150 plate appearances in the big leagues.

“Clearly, (Kevin) hasn't. I can't remember a debut that I was this impressed with through 17 games.”

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

Pauls Valley High School Principal Kirk Moore was shot in the leg during the April 7 attack, but managed to wrestle the suspect onto a bench, disarm him and remain on top of him until law enforcement officers arrived, according to court records.

The video, released by the school district in response to an Open Records Act request, shows a person in a dark hooded sweatshirt enter the school and point a handgun at two students in the lobby. After the gunman fires the weapon, Moore rushes at him, tackling and disarming him while the students run away. Another school official then enters the frame and kicks the gun away before picking it up and taking it away.

No students were injured in the attack.

“The actions of the staff and the principal stepping in as soon as they saw a subject with a firearm saved lives today,” Hunter McKee, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, said after the shooting.

In a statement shared on social media, Moore said: “I look forward to returning to work as soon as possible so that I may continue my life's work educating the next generation of Oklahoma leaders.”

Authorities arrested Victor Lee Hawkins, 20, a former student at the school who has been charged with unlawfully carrying a firearm, shooting with intent to kill and pointing a firearm.

Hawkins told investigators that he went to the school with plans to kill students, Moore and then himself in a mass shooting “like the Columbine shooters did,” a reference to the 1999 school shooting in Colorado in which 12 students and a teacher were killed, according to an OSBI affidavit.

Hawkins has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. His court-appointed attorney, Tyson Stanek, declined to comment on the charges, citing policies of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System.

Garvin County Detention Center records show Hawkins is being held on $1 million bond.

Pauls Valley is a community of about 6,000 people 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Oklahoma City.

A Democratic victory in the Democratic-leaning district would further narrow the slim majority Republicans hold in the chamber.

The major party nominees to replace Sherrill are Democrat Analilia Mejia, a longtime progressive organizer and former Labor Department official, and Republican Joe Hathaway, a member of the Randolph Township Council.

Mejia, who had the early backing of progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, narrowly won the Feb. 5 Democratic special primary against a crowded field that included former Rep. Tom Malinowski and former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way. Malinowski was attempting a comeback after losing a neighboring House seat in 2022.

Hathaway ran unopposed for the Republican nomination.

The war in Gaza, which began with the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and support for Israel have been major issues in the campaign. A super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent more than $2.3 million to defeat Malinowski, who had questioned providing unconditional aid to the Israeli government. During a primary campaign forum, Mejia was the only candidate to indicate she believes Israel committed genocide in Gaza. She has also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal. Hathaway has said the U.S. should stand “ in lockstep ” with Israel and opposes putting conditions on aid to an ally.

Mejia had raised about $1.1 million for the special primary and special election and had about $374,000 in her campaign account as of March 27. Hathaway had raised about $525,000 for his campaign and had about $109,000 in the bank.

Democrats have held an advantage in general elections in the district. Sherrill won reelection in 2024 with about 57% of the vote, while Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried the district with 53% at the top of the ballot.

More than half of the district’s 588 precincts are in Morris County, with about 39% in Essex County and 9% in Passaic County. The district’s portion of Essex County is heavily Democratic: Harris carried the area with 64% in 2024. President Donald Trump narrowly won the district’s share of Morris County by about 1 percentage point. He carried the district’s small portion of Passaic County with about 57% of its vote.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

New Jersey does not have automatic recounts, but candidates and voters may request and pay for them, with the cost refunded if the outcome changes. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The AP will provide vote results and declare a winner in the special congressional election in the 11th District. In addition to the candidates named on the ballot, voters also have a write-in option.

Who gets to vote?

Any voter registered in the 11th District may participate in the special election.

What do turnout and advance vote look like?

As of April 1, there were about 603,000 registered voters in the 11th Congressional District. Of those, about 230,000 were Democrats, about 165,000 were Republicans and about 204,000 were not affiliated with any party. The remainder were registered with various minor parties.

More than 68,000 ballots were cast in the Feb. 5 Democratic special primary and about 16,000 in the Republican contest.

About 394,000 votes were cast in the 2024 general election, with nearly half cast before Election Day.

As of Tuesday, about 58,000 votes had already been cast, including about 36,000 from Democrats, about 15,000 from Republicans and nearly 8,000 from unaffiliated voters.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the Feb. 5 special primary, the AP first reported results at 8:04 p.m. ET, or four minutes after polls closed. The last update of the night was at 10:30 p.m. ET with about 91% of total votes counted. The AP called the race at 5:34 p.m. on Feb. 12.

When are early and absentee voting results released?

All counties in New Jersey release most or all the results from early and absentee voting in the first vote update of the night, before any in-person Election Day results are released.

Are we there yet?

As of Thursday, there will be 201 days until this seat is up again in the 2026 midterm elections.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

Southeast Michigan is under a slight (level 2) risk for severe thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening along and south of M-59. North of that corridor, into the Thumb, has a marginal (level 1) risk.

The primary hazard remains damaging wind gusts, but flooding is also a concern.

Click here for the latest forecast from our 4Warn Weather team.

Here’s a list of the alerts by county.

Wayne County

• No active alerts.

Oakland County

• No active alerts.

Macomb County

• No active alerts.

Washtenaw County

• No active alerts.

Monroe County

• A severe thunderstorm warning is in effect until 3:45 p.m.
• A severe thunderstorm watch is in effect until 9 p.m. Wednesday.

Livingston County

• No active alerts.

Lenawee County

• A severe thunderstorm watch is in effect until 9 p.m. Wednesday.

Lapeer County

• No active alerts.

Genesee County

• No active alerts.

St. Clair County

• No active alerts.

Sanilac County

• No active alerts.

Before you get to that counter Lawrence Kajy, the CEO of Kajy Law, suggests looking at your own insurance policy.

“The first thing I would look at is whether your own car insurance covers your medical bills if you’re injured in a rental,” Kajy said.

Many people assume their personal auto insurance covers them in a rental car, but there are gaps in coverage that could leave you financially exposed after an accident.

“If your personal deductible is higher than the rental car’s deductible, then you will be out-of-pocket for that,” Kajy said.

Something else rental car drivers might not know about is the potential to be charged for loss of value.

“If you were in a rental car crash and the vehicle has to be repaired, you could be charged for the days that it was in service where they would have had it rented,” Kajy explained.

“I think it’s safe to say if you’re at the counter and you haven’t reviewed your policy, just get the extra coverage. It’s peace of mind, it’s better coverage just in case your own policy doesn’t cover certain benefits or if you don’t have those benefits on your policy,” Kajy said.

Watch the video above for more insight on rental car coverage.

When it comes to driving, if you have a teenager in your family that’s getting ready to get behind the wheel, you could help them become a better driver by entering them in a contest to win a free driving course at Motor City Driving Academy, courtesy of Kajy Law. Click here to enter the contest.

“I was expecting it to smell bad, but it smelled genuinely like rotting flesh,” said Nyx DelPrado, a first-year student at Mount Holyoke College who visited its Talcott Greenhouse this week to see the blooming of a corpse flower. “Its name is accurate,” DelPrado added with a laugh, nose wrinkled, adding that it reminded them of the scent of a dissection.

The corpse flower, or Amorphophallus titanum, is a rare tropical plant known for its foul odor. It's native to the rainforests of Sumatra and blooms infrequently and for only a brief window, releasing a pungent scent meant to mimic decaying flesh and attract pollinators such as flies and beetles. Nicknamed “Pangy,” the plant first bloomed at Mount Holyoke College in 2023, and its latest appearance has once again drawn crowds eager to witness — and smell — the fleeting spectacle.

What appears to be a single bloom is actually an enormous inflorescence, a cluster of many tiny flowers at the base of a tall central column called the spadix and surrounded by a deep purple, velvety spathe. Although the towering inflorescence withers after a few days, the same plant survives underground and can bloom again in future years.

A repellent smell designed to attract

Tom Clark, director and curator of the Mount Holyoke College Botanic Garden, said the plant’s infamous odor serves an important evolutionary purpose and has inspired a wide range of descriptions from visitors.

“A few people who have come in since have described the smell as being unbearable, tangy, like a trash can — it’s overwhelming,” Clark said. “But that odor is there for a purpose. It’s there to attract pollinators, flies in particular.”

The timing of corpse flower blooms is difficult to predict, often following years of dormancy. Over the past six weeks, Pangy grew rapidly, at times shooting up several inches a day before unfurling. The flower finally opened overnight Monday, and he and other staffers were met with its powerful scent as soon as they got to work the next day.

“Walking through the front door, we could smell it,” he said. “As we walked back to the greenhouse where it’s growing, the smell became stronger and stronger. It was just overwhelming — literally unbearable — to be back there with it. If you weren’t aware of this plant and walked into the greenhouse, you’d say, ‘What died in here?’”

From shock to wonder

“I didn’t know what the name meant. I thought it would smell like a corpse, but I don’t know what a corpse smells like,” said Mount Holyoke student Maheen Siddiqi, laughing after waiting in a growing line of people hoping to take a whiff of the flower. “And I smelled it and it smelled like really bad eggs or sulfur or something.”

Student Bryn Wickere said the smell was less overwhelming than anticipated. Still, Wickere described the towering bloom as “magnificent,” noting its deep color and velvety texture.

“I was actually expecting the smell to fill up the whole room, but it was more when you got up close and personal with her,” Wickere said.

Others found the smell more familiar than shocking.

“I would say it smells kind of like a compost pile, a little bit like a working farm,” said Caroline Murray, a Mount Holyoke senior. “I’m from Vermont, so I’m very used to the smell of the farm and manure.”

The spectacle drew visitors from near and far, including Michael Breton, who drove two hours and took a vacation day to see the bloom after tracking news alerts for years.

“If you see a news article, and it’s from two days ago, it’s gone, so you gotta run quick,” he said. He compared the scent to “a stinky diaper that’s been left out in the sun,” adding that despite the odor, the plant was “bright, beautiful and colorful. It’s a lovely plant.”

A fleeting bloom, an enduring mission

Clark said the bloom highlights the broader mission of the Talcott Greenhouse, which he called a “plant museum” that houses about 2,000 plant species — a small fraction of the estimated 350,000 to 400,000 plant species worldwide.

He called the event a “special opportunity" to impress upon visitors the diversity of the plant world, and some of the amazing adaptations species have to survive in their environment in unique ways.

By midday Tuesday, the odor had begun to dissipate as greenhouse vents were opened, offering visitors a less intense — though still memorable — experience. After the brief flowering period, the plant will gradually deteriorate and collapse. Because corpse flowers cannot pollinate themselves, seeds will only form if pollen from another titan arum is available.

For Namuuna Negi, a Mount Holyoke junior, the fleeting nature of the bloom added to the experience.

“The impermanence of it, I think. People like to be in on what’s happening,” Negi said. “If they hear something’s going to die soon, they want to go see it before that happens so they can talk about it later.”

Two prosecutors and an investigator from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office were turned away on Tuesday by a building contractor and referred to Fed attorneys, one of the people said. The two people familiar with the visit spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation.

The visit underscores that the Trump administration is not backing down from its investigation of the Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, even though the probe has delayed the confirmation of a new chair nominated by President Donald Trump. The investigation is focused on cost overruns and brief testimony about the project last summer by Powell. Trump confirmed in an interview that aired Wednesday on Fox Business that he wants to continue the probe.

Last month, during a closed-door hearing before a federal judge, a top deputy from Pirro’s office conceded that they hadn’t found any evidence of a crime in their investigation of the headquarters project.

Robert Hur, an attorney for the Federal Reserve board of governors, sent an email to Pirro’s prosecutors about their visit and their request for a “tour” to “check on progress” at the construction site. Hur’s email, which The Associated Press has viewed, noted that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg concluded that their interest in the Federal Reserve’s renovation project was “pretextual.”

“Should you wish to challenge that finding, the courts provide an avenue for you; it is not appropriate for you to try to circumvent it,” Hur wrote.

Republican Tillis is key vote

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is a key member of the Senate Banking Committee, has vowed to vote against Kevin Warsh, Trump's nominee to replace Powell as Fed chair, until the investigation is dropped. With the committee closely divided on partisan lines, Tillis' opposition is enough to block Warsh from receiving the committee's approval.

Tillis on Wednesday criticized the investigation as “bogus, ill-timed, ill-informed” and repeated that seven Republican members of the banking panel have said they do not believe Powell committed a crime when he testified last June.

Tillis also said there aren’t enough votes on the committee or in the broader Senate to do an end-run around the committee and get Warsh confirmed some other way.

“There really is no path,” he told reporters, adding that Pirro and her aides were “asleep at the switch” because the investigation has essentially delayed Powell's departure from the Fed, despite Trump's obsessive criticism of the Fed chair. Powell has now said he won't leave until the investigation is resolved.

Tillis suggested Pirro blindsided the White House with her investigation. “They should have consulted with the White House, because I’m sure if they would have, (the White House) would have said, ‘no, we can wait,'” until Powell steps down.

But Kevin Hassett, the Trump administration's top economist, said Wednesday that the Justice Department got involved because “the president wanted to investigate the cost overrun,” Axios reported.

The Banking panel said Tuesday that it will hold a hearing on Warsh's nomination April 21. Powell's term as Fed chair ends May 15, but Powell said last month he would remain as chair until a replacement is named.

Powell is serving a separate term as a member of the Fed's governing board that lasts until January 2028. Chairs typically leave the board when their terms as chair end, but they can remain on the board if they choose. Powell has said he won't leave until the investigation is resolved. If he remains it would deny Trump the opportunity to appoint someone else to the seven-member board.

Late Tuesday Tillis posted a link on social media to The Wall Street Journal’s article on the visit below an image of the Three Stooges and wrote, “The U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. at the crime scene.”

Investigation centers on building renovations

The investigation centers on an appearance by Powell before the Banking Committee last June, when he was asked about cost overruns on the renovations. The most recent estimates from the Fed suggest the current estimated cost of $2.5 billion is about $600 million higher than a 2022 estimate of $1.9 billion.

“It is probably corrupt, but what it really is, is incompetent,” Trump said. “Don't you think we have to find out what happened there?”

The president's support for the investigation threatens a timeframe set out by Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican who chairs the Banking Committee. Scott said Tuesday on Fox Business that he believed the investigation would be “wrapped up in the next few weeks,” allowing Warsh to be confirmed soon after.

Threat to fire Powell

News of the unannounced visit by prosecutors comes as Trump has again threatened to fire Powell, if the Federal Reserve Chair decides to stay on the central bank's governing board after his term as chair expires next month.

“Well then I’ll have to fire him, OK?” Trump said.

Trump has for months wanted to remove Powell, saying he has been too slow in orchestrating interest rate cuts that would give the U.S. economy a quick boost. Powell has said the investigation is a pretext to undermine the Fed's independence to set rates.

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said Trump can only fire Powell “for cause,” meaning some kind of misconduct, “so that's a pretty tall order.”

Supreme Court weighing another Trump removal

Trump’s threat to fire Powell comes as the Supreme Court is weighing the president’s effort to remove another central bank governor, Lisa Cook. Lower courts have so far allowed Cook to remain in her job while her legal challenge to the firing continues. The Supreme Court also seemed likely to keep her on the Fed when the court heard arguments in January. A decision could come any time.

The issue in Cook’s case is whether allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied, is a sufficient reason to fire her or a mere pretext masking Trump’s desire to exert more control over U.S. interest rate policy.

The Supreme Court has allowed the firings of the heads of other governmental agencies at the president’s discretion, with no claim that they did anything wrong, while also signaling that it is approaching the independence of the nation’s central bank more cautiously, calling the Fed “a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity.”

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AP Writers Seung Min Kim, Mark Sherman, Paul Wiseman, Alanna Durkin Richer, and video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.

It’s called the Heart Healthy Initiative, and it includes placing bright orange refrigerators in community sites across seven zip codes to make nutritious food more accessible.

The plan involves marketing healthy, affordable meals in places like convenience stores, community centers, and liquor stores. There’s also a food truck that goes around Detroit with grab-and-go meals.

“We just want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to have a healthy grab-and-go meal,” said Loretta Bush, the CEO of Authority Health Detroit.

“We’re all going to grab and go periodically, and so we want to have choices. Instead of going through that drive-thru line and getting something high in calories, low in nutritional value, we want something that is high in nutrition and also affordable,” she said.

The initiative also includes an educational component where community health workers act as food ambassadors to let people know the connection between the food that they are eating and the prevention of chronic disease, Bush explained.

The Heart Healthy Initiative has a new promotion underway called the One Grand Challenge. Participants can create a 30-second creative video showing their selection from a Healthy and Resilient Communities vending machine. The first place winner will receive a $1,000 gift card.

If you’d like more information about challenge and the Heart Healthy Initiative, watch the video above or click here.

The legislation arose in a state that isn't necessarily a destination for the computer-stocked warehouses that power artificial intelligence, but a couple of proposals there generated intense community backlash and helped propel a measure quickly through the state's Democratic-controlled Legislature. Lawmakers on Tuesday approved sending the bill to Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate.

It's the latest sign that increasingly stiff opposition at the local level is gaining a foothold higher up the political ladder. Tech giants and the data centers they are building have high-level support from President Donald Trump's administration and many governors, who see them as economic engines and essential for winning the artificial intelligence race with China, even as voters raise concerns about the enormous amount of power data centers use. Analysts also warn of the possibility of blackouts in the mid-Atlantic grid in the coming years.

Proposals to slap a moratorium on data centers have been introduced in at least a dozen states, but other than Maine’s, none have even passed a legislative chamber. That's as some states struggle to meet clean energy goals and the centers emerge as a barrier.

Maine's legislation would institute a moratorium for more than a year on data centers above a certain size, and create a special council to help towns vet potential projects. Mills’ office did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday on whether she plans to sign the bill.

“It's not that there's no place for data centers in Maine,” said Democratic Rep. Melanie Sachs, who sponsored the measure. “Frankly, the tradeoffs have not been shown to be of benefit to our ratepayers, water usage or community benefit in terms of economic activity.”

Why Maine?

Despite Maine's relatively low profile among developers of massive data centers, called hyperscalers, supporters of the projects said the moratorium will still matter long into the future to all sorts of industries.

“It says that the state is willing to essentially put a blanket ban on you if it decides that you may be politically unfavorable,” said Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition, a trade association that includes tech companies and developers.

They said it could deter data center developers from going to Maine and deprive the state of a long-term economic development anchor that attracts other industries. It also means local builders and labor unions won't develop the skills necessary to build the facilities and might leave them lagging behind other states, they said.

“We think that these data centers could bring good jobs, good opportunities to these regions,” said Montana Towers, a policy analyst with the free market Maine Policy Institute. “And a lot of these concerns about them are luddite in nature.”

Nonetheless, several communities in Maine have raised concerns about a lack of transparency in potential data center projects. The Maine moratorium is largely about getting those communities to have input in the development process, said Joe Oliva, a spokesperson for the Maine Broadband Coalition and GrowSmart Maine, which both supported the moratorium.

“If this is going to come, we want to be in early and often on the conversation," Oliva said.

Growing opposition

Since last summer, community opposition has become a serious concern for data center developers, with numerous municipalities defeating their proposals in planning and zoning board votes before packed rooms of angry residents.

A handful of counties and municipalities in the U.S. have imposed a moratorium, and some bills emerged in states where development is brisk such as Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin. Voters in Festus, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, replaced half of their city's eight-member city council this month amid a backlash over a data center project.

Some bills died without action, like one in Georgia, a data center hotspot. Other states have explored other ways to rein in data centers, such as by imposing tougher standards around water and energy use, transparency and protection of ratepayers and communities.

In Ohio, residents are trying to bypass the Legislature and get a measure on the ballot in November that is designed to permanently ban hyperscale data centers. They'll need to gather more than 400,000 voter signatures by July 1 in what is perhaps the strictest measure of any under consideration.

Public officials, developers and other interests could otherwise “make this state a virtually unbroken field of data centers,” said Austin Baurichter, a Cincinnati-area lawyer who is helping organize the effort.

In South Dakota, a one-year moratorium bill failed in a state Senate committee amid opposition from power plant owners and data center developers. The governor also opposed it, telling senators that such planning is best done at the local level and that a statewide moratorium holds back municipalities that want a data center.

The sponsor, Republican Sen. Taffy Howard, told senators that “citizens are asking for this” and that the opponents are all lobbyists, "billion-dollar corporations" and government officials.

"Are you going to listen to the people or the paid lobbyists?” she asked.

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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Follow Patrick Whittle on X at https://x.com/pxwhittle and Marc Levy at https://x.com/timelywriter

The layoffs announced during a call with staff are the biggest in more than a decade at the U.K. national broadcaster.

"I know this creates real uncertainty, but we wanted to be open about the challenge,” interim Director-General Rhodri Talfan Davies said in a staff email.

Davies said that the reductions were driven by inflation, pressures to license fee and commercial income and a turbulent global economy.

The BBC said earlier this year that it faced “substantial financial pressures” and wanted to cut about a tenth of its budget by 2029. The bulk of the cuts are to be made in the next fiscal year beginning April 1, 2027.

The cuts come as former Google executive Matt Brittin is scheduled to take over as director-general next month.

He will fill the vacancy left after Tim Davie, and head of news Deborah Turness resigned over a misleading edit in a documentary about U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, before his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion for defamation.

The BBC is both a beloved and oft-criticized cultural institution funded by an annual license fee, which recently rose to 180 pounds ($244), paid by all U.K. households who watch live television or any BBC content.

Opponents of the fee, including rival commercial broadcasters, have grown louder in an era of digital streaming, when many people no longer have television sets or follow traditional television schedules.

The center-left Labour government has vowed to ensure that the BBC has “sustainable and fair” funding, but hasn't ruled out replacing the license fee with another funding model.

The BBC was founded in 1922 as a radio service to “inform, educate and entertain.” It now operates 15 U.K. national and regional television channels, several international channels, 10 national radio stations, dozens of local radio stations, the globe-spanning World Service radio and extensive digital output, including the iPlayer streaming service.

Joseph Vitale, CEO of Vitale Wealth Management, says the anxiety is understandable - but largely avoidable with the right strategy.

“Diversification and proper allocation” are the twin pillars of a sound retirement plan, Vitale said during an appearance on Live in the D. The formula, he argues, isn’t complicated: balance safe money, growth money, tax-free money, and income-generating money. The payoff is what he calls “sleep at night insurance.”

“Proper allocation, having some safe money, some growth money, some tax-free money, some predictable income money really helps you sleep, give you that sleep at night insurance in retirement,” he said.

Vitale’s firm builds 30- to 40-year retirement roadmaps for clients, mapping out Social Security income, expenses, debts, and goals to show exactly what a sustainable retirement looks like. Not everyone is ready to retire today, he acknowledges - but everyone deserves to know where they stand.

With traditional pensions largely a relic of the past, Vitale says his firm engineers modern equivalents - structured income streams designed to deliver “mailbox money” every month, like clockwork.

He also warns retirees about a lesser-known trap: the widow’s penalty. When a spouse dies, the surviving partner shifts from married-filing-jointly to single-filer status, potentially doubling their tax bracket overnight. Without advance planning, he says, the financial shock can be severe.

On Roth conversions, Vitale is equally direct. Tax rates are historically low right now, and waiting could be costly.

“We’re in the lowest tax bracket we’ve ever been, and we don’t know what’s going to happen down the road. Chances are they’re going to go up. So, if we can convert at a low bracket and make it all tax-free for the future, it’s just a win-win.”

For more information, visit VitaleWealth.com.

Encompassing 10,000 different products, Great Value is Walmart's biggest store brand and one of the largest food and consumer packaged goods labels in the U.S. The revamp announced Wednesday comes as shoppers have increasingly treated private-label foods not as a stepdown from national brands, but more as an equivalent.

The new cartons, boxes, bags and other containers will start to appear on Walmart store shelves next month, said Scott Morris, senior vice president of Walmart’s U.S. private brands division. The overhaul does not involve any changes to the products themselves, he said.

The updates include images that are intended to make the product inside more tempting to shoppers. For example, a Great Value frozen lasagna will show a the pasta garnished with a basil leaf, served on a full plate and displayed on a red checkered tablecloth against a red background, according to Walmart executives. The current box features the lasagna against a white background.

Walmart also is moving nutritional information to the upper right hand corner of Great Value food packages, Dave Hartman, Walmart’s vice president of creative design, said. The information previously had no standard location, he said.

U.S. consumers have become more picky about the ingredients in their food, looking for protein-packed meals or items without gluten, for example. Walmart said its customers, as well as the workers who have to pick items off shelves quickly to assembly online orders, need to be able to spot ingredient lists quickly to speed up their shopping or production.

Bags of Great Value chicken nuggets will have “11 grams of protein per serving” printed in the upper right hand corner. The photo on the bag shows the nuggets on a plate with a container of red sauce in the middle. The packages currently in stores don't mention the protein content or feature an entire plate.

Walmart launched Great Value 33 years ago, and the latest changes represents the brand's first full redesign in more than a decade.

“We’re offering this great product at a very affordable price, but there was always this kind of lagging feeling that a customer was buying this product that felt like they had to compromise,” Hartman said. “So that was one of the key impetuses in terms of redesigning the brand.”

Industry analysts have said that challenging economic conditions in recent years pushed more consumers to buy store brands instead of familiar name brands, which tend to be more expensive.

Private brands accounted for 23.9% of the packaged food and beverage products sold in the U.S. last year, up slightly from 23.7% in 2024, according to market research firm Circana. That compares with 76.1% for national name brands last year, down from 76.3% in 2024.

Walmart said its store label brands account for about a quarter of the company's U.S. merchandise sales. The company declined to provide sales figures for Great Value products but has repeatedly said that shoppers are increasingly gravitating toward its store brands.

Other food companies are also redesigning their packaging. PepsiCo. announced earlier this month a refreshed design for Tostitos to highlight claims about colors, flavors or preservatives.

Redesigning Great Value's packaging follows other moves by Walmart to invest in its store label products. The company said last fall that it planned to remove synthetic dyes from its food private brands by 2027.

On Wednesday, the pop superstar announced she'll release a new album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II,” on July 3 via Warner Records — 21 years after the original.

It's exciting for a number of reasons: The album is a sequel to her 2005 release, “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” and her first full-length in seven years, since 2019's “Madame X.” The Associated Press characterized the latter album as a misstep, however, the original “Confessions” has been widely regarded as a return to the top of her pop powers. The critically acclaimed release, which produced such hits as “Hung Up,” “Sorry,” “Get Together” and “Jump,” was dance-pop disco for a new era of clubgoers. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and won a Grammy for best electronic/dance album in 2006.

Madonna has previously teased a second “Confessions” work. In December 2024, she shared an Instagram video of herself in the studio with the original album's producer, Stuart Price.

In the official press announcement, Madonna shared a manifesto that she and Price had for the album.

“We must dance, celebrate, and pray with our bodies. These are things that we’ve been doing for thousands of years — they really are spiritual practices. After all, the dance floor is a ritualistic space. It’s a place where you connect — with your wounds, with your fragility. To rave is an art. It’s about pushing your limits and connecting to a community of like-minded people,” she wrote. “Sound, light, and vibration reshape our perceptions, pulling us into a trancelike state. The repetition of the bass, we don’t just hear it but we feel it. Altering our consciousness and dissolving ego and time.”

Bullis, founder of Michigan Home Restoration, appeared on Live in the D during the show’s Home Improvement Week, bringing candor to a conversation about one of home ownership’s most neglected expenses.

He opened with a warning that most homeowners don’t see coming: granule loss. Those tiny particles embedded in roof shingles act as a protective layer - like sunscreen, Bullis explained - and when they start washing into gutters and downspouts, the clock is ticking. Shingles that look shiny are another red flag. By the time water is actively dripping through a ceiling, the damage has usually grown far beyond a simple patch job.

Bullis recommends inspections every two years, and a full replacement roughly every 30 years.

On cost - a sore subject for most homeowners - he’s equally direct. His company offers zero-down financing with low monthly payments, because, as he put it, nobody wants to pay $25,000 for a roof all at once.

What sets Michigan Home Restoration apart, Bullis said, is a hands-on approach that starts before the first nail is driven and doesn’t end until the homeowner is satisfied. He noted, only half-joking, that he’s spent roughly one hour at his office desk in the last five years.

He also urged homeowners to hold the industry to a higher standard when vetting contractors - and wasn’t shy about why that bar exists in the first place.

“It’s crazy to me how low the bar has been set. People don’t answer the phone. People don’t do research. And you’re spending a lot of money protecting your home.”

Bullis actively encourages customers to get multiple estimates - not as a formality, but as a test. He wants clients who chose him because they trust him, not because they didn’t look anywhere else.

And once the job is done? He’d rather not hear from you again - in the best possible way.

“I hope to see you this one time and I hope to never see you again.”

More information is available at MHRRoof.com.

The pumps, together, are capable of moving 20,000 gallons per minute.

Laurie Abel, Public Information Officer for the DNR’s Incident Management Team, said crews removed some of the smaller pumps already on site to make room for the larger, high-volume equipment. You can watch the full update officials gave on Wednesday, April 15, in the video at the end of this article.

The DNR says it is still bringing in more equipment, with a total of 11 pumps expected to be operational once everything is in place.

As of Wednesday morning, the water level at the dam was sitting about seven inches below the top, around the same level reported Tuesday evening, but officials say it has been fluctuating due to weather and snowmelt.

She said the level will fluctuate, but isn’t changing until it does so continuously and significantly.

Previous coverage --> Dam failure fears grow in Cheboygan as water levels surge, evacuations begin

Richard Hill, DNR Gaylord District Supervisor and Co-Incident Commander, said crews have also been placed in preparation for the possibility that water continues to rise. He said rainfall overnight was roughly in line with forecasts, but officials do not want to see any additional rain.

Local 4 has learned the evacuation order for the Little Black River area was lifted at around noon on Wednesday.

The order had been issued on Tuesday after a levee break along the Little Black River prompted a rapid response from local officials.

Hill said the state is keeping a close eye on two additional dams that could have an impact on the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex if conditions worsen.

The state emergency operations center is also monitoring dams across the state. Hill said officials are actively checking to make sure dams are cresting safely.

Hill and Co-Incident Commander Mike Janisse said their team remains focused on the Cheboygan situation and is not currently engaged with dams in other regions.

Bank of America said on Wednesday that first-quarter stock trading revenues were $2.8 billion, a 30% jump from last year, while Morgan Stanley's much larger trading desk saw its equity trading revenues rise 25% to $5.15 billion. Morgan Stanley also had a very strong performance on its bond-trading desk, posting a 29% jump in revenues to $3.36 billion.

Morgan Stanley had a record quarter across its entire business. The bank reported net income of $5.6 billion and earnings per share of $3.43, a 30% jump in both of those metrics from the previous year.

The results from BofA and Morgan Stanley reflect the results posted by the other big banks this week, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. While market gyrations can be nauseating for average investors, high-speed Wall Street trading desks can take advantage of such market movements. Further, wild market swings tend to increase activity on trading desks, which leads to commissions and fee revenue for the banks.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said that, despite the strong quarter, the bank is “watchful of evolving risks,” noting the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere, plus the sudden rise in energy prices.

In a call with reporters, Bank of America executives said that despite the quarterly volatility, the bank did not post a single daily loss on its trading desk during that time. It was also the bank's biggest quarter for equity sales and trading in its history.

Like their counterparts, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley had strong performances in their investment banking businesses as well. Advisory revenues at Morgan Stanley nearly doubled from $563 million to $978 million, year over year. Both banks are advising some of the largest public companies set to go public this year, including Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Bank of America's consumer banking business, historically the bank's biggest revenue and profit center, posted a profit of $3.1 billion. Deposits and loans grew in the quarter, and its customers spent 7% more on their credit and debit cards compared to last year. Notably the bank also noted that it saw double-digit increases in debit card spending on gasoline and energy, similar to what Wells Fargo executives shared with reporters on Tuesday.

Despite the rise in energy prices, Bank of America executives said they are seeing no deterioration in the U.S. consumer.

“The main thing that we’re always looking for is unemployment, and that remains at 4.3%," said Alastair Borthwick, the bank's CFO. ”So that’s supporting the consumer at this point."

Many of the families have disabilities or medical conditions that require electricity. Concern is growing that the U.S. will abandon them as chronic power outages persist and the Atlantic hurricane season officially nears — it runs from June 1-Nov. 30.

“For them in particular, whether they get a (solar) system or not is something that is really life or death,” Charlotte Gossett Navarro, Puerto Rico chief director for the Hispanic Federation, said in a phone interview.

The nonprofit group is among the organizations that signed a letter released Wednesday to Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

The Hispanic Federation is one of seven organizations that were going to help install the solar systems and educate families about their use. Some of those groups are now formally objecting to the cancellation of the funds or negotiating with the U.S. Department of Energy.

González has said that her administration “had no choice,” because the federal government decided it wouldn't give Puerto Rico those funds. The money is expected to now be invested in the island's crumbling power grid, which was razed by Hurricane Maria in 2017 but was already deteriorated given a lack of investment and maintenance.

Installations of rooftop solar panels have grown in the past three years across Puerto Rico, with an average of 3,850 systems installed per month in 2025, for an overall total of nearly 192,000 by year's end, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Meanwhile, more than 171,000 households and businesses have distributed battery storage systems.

But not everyone can afford such systems on the Caribbean island of around 3.2 million people with a more than 40% poverty rate.

Gossett Navarro said that they haven’t received any answers to pending questions about the funding as a May 9 deadline approaches, marking the end of the program that for some hasn’t even started.

Crews had already installed solar systems in more than 6,000 households as part of the program, but another 12,000 families now remain in limbo.

Yvette Rodríguez, 61, is among them. She needs a sleep apnea machine, and her husband, Luis Soler, a 67-year-old veteran and double amputee, relies on an electric adjustable bed.

“There’s a big need for those solar panels,” said Rodríguez, who resides on the small Puerto Rican island of Culebra with her husband. He needs air conditioning because he has heart problems and lives in a region where heat warnings are common.

She also lamented that ongoing outages force them to throw out food.

“We’re affected economically in a big way because we have to spend what little money we have so that we can eat,” she said.

María Pérez, 80, and her 88-year-old husband, have also been hit by the cut in federal funding. She has high blood pressure and heart problems that have led to several hospitalizations. She also has eyedrops for her cataracts that required refrigeration.

“I put them on ice, but it’s not the same,” she said. “They have us suffering with that money that they took away from us. It’s not fair.”

Pérez gets $364 a month via a Social Security check, but like many Puerto Ricans, her power bill is often the same amount.

Gabriela Joglar Burrowes, executive director of Puerto Rico’s Statewide Independent Living Council, was among those who signed the letter to the governor and Wright.

She said that having solar panels not only would have provided constant electricity, but also peace of mind.

“If you’re a person who depends on equipment like a ventilator, a dialysis machine or medicine that requires refrigeration, the lack of consistent energy represents a risk that could lead to even death,” she said.

Joglar Burrowes, who is disabled, said that thousands of families had been waiting a long time for the solar systems and shouldn’t be forgotten.

“It seems like sometimes we’re disposable, and we’re not,” she said.

Some of the 12,000 families have received the initial eligibility screening, while others have already received a home visit or started repairing their roofs in preparation for a solar system.

Most families live in rural communities, including mountainous towns like Adjuntas, Jayuya and Orocovis.

“It’s even more concerning,” Gossett Navarro said. “It’s hard to get out of the mountains when there’s a disaster.”

The U.S. Department of Energy states on its website that some people will get a system, but officials haven’t said who or when.