Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, emphasized Easter’s message of hope as a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection after being crucified.

“Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!” the pope implored.

With the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in its second month and Russia’s ongoing campaign in Ukraine, Leo acknowledged a sense of indifference “to the deaths of thousands of people ... to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow … to the economic and social consequences they produce.’’

Without mentioning the wars by name, Leo quoted his predecessor, Pope Francis, who during his last public appearance from the same loggia last Easter reminded the faithful of the “great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day.’’

Francis, weakened by a long illness, died the next day on Easter Monday.

The Urbi et Orbi blessing, Latin for “to the city and the world,’’ has traditionally included a litany of the world’s woes. Leo followed that formula during his Christmas blessing. There was no immediate explanation for the shift.

Earlier, Leo addressed some 50,000 faithful from an open-air altar in St. Peter’s Square flanked with white roses, while the steps leading down to the piazza where the faithful gathered were filled with spring perennials, symbolically resonating with the pope’s words.

He implored the faithful in his homily to keep their hope in the face of death, which lurks "in the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.’’

Speaking from the loggia, the pope announced a prayer vigil for peace April 11 in the basilica.

Small shifts in traditions

Leo greeted the global faithful in 10 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Latin, reviving a practice that his predecessor Pope Francis had let lapse.

Before retreating into the basilica, Leo stepped forward out of the loggia’s shadow and waved to the cheering crowd below. He later greeted people in the piazza from the popemobile that took him all the way down Via della Conciliazione toward the Tiber River and back.

During the marathon that is Holy Week, Leo also reclaimed the tradition of washing priests’ feet on Holy Thursday, a gesture of encouragement toward clergy, after Francis had chosen a more inclusive path, traveling to prisons and homes for the disabled to wash the feet of women, non-Christians and prisoners.

The 70-year-old pontiff also became the first pope in decades to carry the light wooden cross for the entire 14 stations during the Way of the Cross on Good Friday.

Christians in the Holy Land mark a subdued Easter

Traditional ceremonies at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered by Christians as the traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, were scaled back under an agreement with Israeli police. Authorities have put limits on the sizes of public gatherings due to ongoing missile attacks.

The restrictions also dampened the recent Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr holiday, as well as the current weeklong Jewish festival of Passover. On Sunday, the Jewish priestly blessing at the Western Wall — normally attended by tens of thousands — was limited to just 50 people.

The restrictions have strained relations between Israeli authorities and Christian leaders. Police last week prevented two of the church’s top religious leaders, including Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, from celebrating Palm Sunday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Gaza’s tiny Palestinian Christian community celebrates first Easter since ceasefire

At the Holy Family church in Gaza City, Catholics young and old gathered for a traditional Easter Mass. Singing, they formed a queue in the aisle, waiting for their chance to kiss a sketch of Jesus held by a member of the clergy who wiped the glass frame between turns.

“There is great joy, especially after the ceasefire and after nearly three years of suffering and being unable to celebrate all the holy holidays,” said George Anton from Gaza City. “People are somewhat relieved and more stable.”

Armenian Christians try to show normalcy by celebrating in Iran

Armenian Christians observed Easter at a church in Iran’s capital on Sunday, striving to maintain a sense of normalcy five weeks into the war.

Families embraced and children exchanged painted eggs at the St. Sarkis Cathedral in central Tehran. Iran’s capital has been targeted by daily airstrikes since the United States and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.

“Whether we like it or not, we have young children who do not understand what’s going on,” said Juanita Arakel, 40, an English language teacher. “They just need to feel normal.”

The Islamic Republic, with a population of around 90 million, is home to some 300,000 Christians, mostly Armenians, and three seats in parliament are reserved for Christians.

“Our calls and prayers are that we will be able to end this war,” said Sepuh Sargsyan, the archbishop of the Armenian Diocese of Tehran. “Our calls and prayers are that we will be able to end this war.”

____

Barry reported from Milan. Associated Press journalists Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Bassem Mroue in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

A defiant Iran showed no sign of backing down, striking infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries and challenging the U.S. account of the rescue.

In a social media post, Trump promised strikes on Iran’s power plants and bridges and said the country would be “living in Hell” if the strait, a crucial waterway for global trade, isn’t opened to marine traffic by Tuesday. He ended with “Praise be to Allah.”

Trump has issued such deadlines before but extended them when mediators have claimed progress toward ending the war, which has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices in just over five weeks.

Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets like oil fields and desalination plants critical for drinking water, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.

"Iranian civilians will be the first to suffer from the destruction of power plants and bridges,” Amnesty International head Agnes Callamard said on social media, calling Trump’s threat “revolting.”

U.S. describes a dramatic rescue

The rescue of the U.S. aviator followed an intense search after Friday's crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle, while Iran promised a reward for anyone who turned in an “enemy pilot.”

Trump said that the service member was “seriously wounded and really brave” and rescued from “deep inside the mountains." He said a second crew member was rescued in “broad daylight” within hours of the crash.

A senior U.S. administration official said that prior to locating the pilot, the CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had found him and were moving him on the ground for exfiltration, confusing Iranian officials. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

The fighter jet was the first known American aircraft to crash in Iranian territory since the U.S. and Israel launched the war with strikes on Iran on Feb. 28.

Iran also shot down another U.S. military plane, demonstrating both the perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of Iran's degraded military to hit back. Neither the status of the U.S. A-10 attack aircraft's crew nor where it crashed is known.

On Sunday, Iran’s state television aired a video showing what it claimed were parts of U.S. aircraft shot down by Iranian forces, along with a photo of thick, black smoke rising. The broadcaster said that Iran had shot down a transport plane and two helicopters that were part of the rescue operation.

However, a regional intelligence official briefed on the mission told The Associated Press that the U.S. military blew up two transport planes because of a technical malfunction and brought in additional aircraft to complete the rescue. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the covert mission.

Iran’s military joint command, which said that four U.S. aircraft were destroyed during the operation, warned of stepping up retaliatory attacks on regional oil and civilian infrastructure if the U.S. and Israel attack such targets in the Islamic Republic, according to state television.

“We once again repeat: if you commit aggression again and strike civilian facilities, our responses will be more forceful,” a spokesman said in comments published by the IRNA news agency.

The laws of armed conflict allow attacks on civilian infrastructure only if the military advantage outweighs the civilian harm, legal scholars say. It’s considered a high bar to clear, and causing excessive suffering to civilians can constitute a war crime.

Diplomatic efforts continue

Trump's deadline of 9 p.m. EDT Monday (0100 GMT Tuesday), centers on growing alarm over Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, critical for shipments of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf to Europe and Asia. It's also key for delivering humanitarian supplies. Some ships have paid Iran for passage.

Diplomatic efforts continued.

Oman's Foreign Ministry said that deputy foreign ministers and experts from Iran and Oman met to discuss proposals to ensure “smooth transit” through the strait. Oman has often served as a mediator between the U.S. and Iran.

Egypt said that Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had spoken by phone with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, as well as with Turkish and Pakistani counterparts who are helping to mediate.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said it had conveyed to Araghchi that Islamabad supports “all efforts aimed at de-escalation.” Islamabad has said that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran.

An escalation, however, could see Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen resuming attacks on vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a key waterway to and from the Suez Canal.

Iran attacks Gulf infrastructure and economic targets

In Kuwait, Iranian drone attacks caused significant damage to power plants and a petrochemical plant. They also put a water desalination station out of service, according to the Ministry of Electricity.

In Bahrain, a drone attack caused a fire at one of the national oil company’s storage facilities and a state-run petrochemical plant, the kingdom’s official news agency said.

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities responded to fires at a petrochemical plant in Ruwais that they said were caused by intercepted debris, halting operations.

The strikes came a day after Israel struck a major petrochemical plant in Iran that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said generated revenue used to fund the war.

The petrochemical industry converts oil and gas into products like plastics and fertilizer.

Meanwhile, more than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Ten Israeli soldiers have died there.

___

Sam Metz reported from Jerusalem and Samy Magdy from Cairo. Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, contributed to this report.

Universal Pictures released the sequel globally on Wednesday, capitalizing on kids’ spring break vacations in the week leading up to the Easter holiday. With an estimated $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets, the film is looking at an astronomical $372.5 million debut — the latest hit for the PG rating. Mexico is leading the international bunch with $29.1 million from 5,136 screens, followed by the U.K. and Ireland with $19.7 million.

The animated sequel is the industry’s biggest debut since “Avatar: Fire and Ash” launched over Christmas. The Chinese movie “Pegasus 3,” which was not a Motion Picture Association release, has the slight edge for the 2026 global record, however.

It’s also a dip from the first film, which opened to $204 million domestically during the same five-day time frame in 2023 ($147 of that was from Friday, Saturday and Sunday). “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” went on to be the second biggest movie of 2023, with over $1.3 billion in box office receipts.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which features returning voice actors Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day, had a massive footprint in the U.S. and Canada, where it played in 4,252 theaters, including 421 IMAX and 1,345 premium large format screens. It also cost around $110 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. But it arrived on a wave of less-than-stellar reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently sitting at a lousy 40%. Ticket buyers were more enthusiastic, however.

The family audience gave the movie five out of five stars according to PostTrak exit polls, while general audiences gave it four stars and an A- on CinemsScore. Audiences skewed male (61%) overall, although when it came to families attending there were slightly more moms (52%) than dads.

Last year, the first weekend in April hosted the launch of another video game blockbuster, “A Minecraft Movie,” which had a bigger three-day debut ($162.8 million) but didn’t have a “Project Hail Mary” in a strong second place, meaning the weekend overall is still up around 5%.

As expected, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ended the two-week reign of the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi hit “Project Hail Mary,” which landed in second its third weekend in theaters where it added $29.8 million, bringing its domestic total to $216.3 million.

Third place went to A24’s provocative new movie “The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which made an estimated $14.4 million from 3,087 theaters. The film’s stars have been on a massive and charming press blitz to promote their R-rated movie about a engaged couple grappling with an unnerving revelation, which cost a reported $28 million to produce. The reveal has drummed up a fair amount of cultural discourse. While reviews have been more positive than not (82% on Rotten Tomatoes), it got a less promising B CinemaScore.

“Hoppers” and “Reminders of Him” rounded out the top five.

Trump punctuated his threat with profanity in a social media post Sunday, saying that Tuesday will be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.”

He also offered details of the rescue of a “seriously wounded and really brave” U.S. service member he identified as a “respected colonel” who was missing since Iran shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle on Friday.

The U.S. president said the rescue was a rarely attempted type of operation because of the potential dangers. A second crew member was rescued earlier in “broad daylight” after seven hours over Iran.

The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.

Here is the latest:

US official says CIA launched ‘deception campaign’ to find second crew member

Details about the rescue of a second U.S. crew member in Iran, who was a weapons systems officer, are trickling out hours after Trump’s announcement.

A senior U.S. administration official said Sunday that before locating the crew member, the CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had already found him and were moving him on the ground for exfiltration.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public, said the campaign managed to confuse Iranian officials while the agency conducted its search-and-rescue operations.

___

— Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Over 1,400 people in Lebanon have been killed in war between Israel and Hezbollah militant group

Among the 1,461 killed are 97 women, 129 children, and 54 paramedics, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

4,430 people have been wounded since the latest fighting began on March 2.

After Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel, the Israeli military launched an intense military operation with daily strikes across the country and a ground invasion into southern Lebanon.

Top satellite imagery provider says US asked it to suspend access to Mideast imagery

The U.S. government has asked top providers of satellite imagery to stop publishing photos from parts of the Middle East because of the Iran war, says the company Planet Labs.

Planet Labs and companies like it provide near-daily imagery crucial to reporting on regions where on-the-ground access for journalists is impossible, limited or unsafe. That has made it an especially key tool for reporting on the Iran war, which has impacted nearly all Middle Eastern countries.

In a Saturday email to users, including the AP, Planet Labs said it was complying with the U.S. government’s requests and would indefinitely delay publication of imagery taken after March 9, 2026. It said it would release new imagery on a “case-by-case basis and for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest.”

The company said the new measures would be in place until the end of the conflict.

Democratic US Sen. Kaine warns Trump administration on war rhetoric

As he expressed “overwhelming relief” at the rescue of the military personnel in a downed U.S fighter jet in Iran, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine called on the president and his top officials to dial down their rhetoric amid the war in the Middle East.

Kaine referenced remarks from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month when the latter declared “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies” at a news conference.

“This kind of rhetoric is really dangerous,” Kaine said Sunday in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.

He added: “That really encourages them to mistreat our folks.”

Turkish foreign minister to meet with Syrian and Ukrainian presidents

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan arrived in Damascus Sunday, with Turkish media reporting that he will hold a trilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

According to state-run Anadolu Agency, topics of discussion will include joint projects for the rebuilding of Syria as well as regional developments, such as the integration of northeast Syria into the central government and the impact of nearby conflicts in Iran and Lebanon.

Fidan’s last visit to Syria was on Dec. 22, 2025, alongside Defense Minister Yasar Guler and National Intelligence Chief Ibrahim Kalin.

Christians celebrate Easter in wartime Tehran

Armenian Christians celebrated Easter at a church in Iran’s capital on Sunday, striving to maintain a sense of normalcy five weeks into the war.

Families embraced and children exchanged painted eggs at the St. Sarkis Cathedral in central Tehran. Iran’s capital has been targeted by daily airstrikes since the United States and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.

“Whether we like it or not, we have young children who do not understand what’s going on,” said Juanita Arakel, 40, an English language teacher. “They just need to feel normal.”

The Islamic Republic, with a population of around 90 million, is home to some 300,000 Christians, mostly Armenians, and three seats in parliament are reserved for Christians.

“My appeal first is to those who started the war to look up to the sky where love and mutual respect was given to us, whether through the birth of Jesus or his rising from the dead,” said Sepuh Sargsyan, the archbishop of the Armenian Diocese of Tehran. “Our calls and prayers are that we will be able to end this war.”

Across the Middle East, Christians have departed in large numbers in recent decades, fleeing war, persecution and upheaval, and seeking economic opportunities in the West.

Arakel said her family wants to stay in Iran, but that will depend on the war’s consequences. “Maybe we will be forced to leave Iran, but if it’s up to us, and it’s our choice, we prefer to stay here.”

Trump offers details of ‘seriously wounded’ pilot's rescue

U.S. President Donald Trump said the rescue of the second F-15 pilot was a rarely attempted type of operation because of the potential dangers.

Trump said in a social media post Sunday that the pilot was “seriously wounded and really brave” and rescued from “deep inside the mountains” in Iran.

“The Iranian Military was looking hard, in big numbers, and getting close,” Trump wrote. “He is a highly respected Colonel.”

He also gave details of the rescue of the first pilot, who Trump said was rescued in “broad daylight” after seven hours over Iran.

Trump promises to strike Iran’s infrastructure on Tuesday if Strait of Hormuz isn’t reopened

U.S. President Donald Trump is hardening his threats to strike Iran’s critical infrastructure if the government in Tehran doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz by his Monday deadline.

In a profanity-laced social media post Sunday, Trump says Tuesday will be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it.”

His direct message to Iran’s leaders is, “Open the F------ Strait, you crazy b-------, or you’ll be living in HELL – JUST WATCH.”

The Republican president has threatened widespread destruction of Iran’s energy resources and other vital infrastructure, potentially including desalination plants that supply drinking water, if the vital waterway doesn’t reopen.

Iran threatens more forceful attacks if its civilian installations are targeted

Iran’s joint command threatened on Sunday to step up its attacks on oil and other civilian infrastructure facilities if the U.S. and Israel attack Iranian civilian facilities.

Iran’s state-run news agency quoted the Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters as saying that it had attacked a number of other oil infrastructure facilities in Israel and in Gulf Arab countries after an Israeli airstrike struck Iran’s largest petrochemical complex.

“We once again repeat: if you commit aggression again and strike civilian facilities, our responses will be more forceful,” the IRNA news agency quoted a spokesman.

President Donald Trump has threatened to unleash “all Hell” on Iran if the Strait of Hormuz isn’t reopened.

Iran says it destroyed 4 US aircraft

Iran’s joint command claimed on Sunday that the aircraft were destroyed during the complex rescue of an airman whose fighter jet was shot down on Friday.

Iran's state TV quoted the Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters as saying the aircraft, which included two C-130 military transport aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters, were destroyed in the province of Isfahan, where the rescue took place.

Earlier Sunday, Iran’s state TV aired a video showing what it claims are parts of a U.S. aircraft that they had shot down and a photo of thick black smoke rising into the air.

The claims could not be independently verified.

Israeli strike severely damages 3-story building in Beirut neighborhood

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the building in the Jnah neighborhood was filled with residents and sustained “severe damage.”

It's located across the street from the government-run Rafic Hariri University Hospital.

The strike came without warning soon after an earlier one that came with advance notice.

Casualties were rushed to nearby hospitals, but there was no immediate word on their number.

UAE reports attacks with dozens of missiles and drones

The United Arab Emirates’ Defense Ministry said on Sunday that among the 60 projectiles fired at the country were nine ballistic missiles, 50 drones and one cruise missile.

This brings the total number of projectiles that have targeted the UAE during the war to 507 ballistic missiles, 24 cruise missiles, and 2,191 drones.

Iran’s internet blackout becomes the world’s longest

Iran’s internet blackout is now the world’s longest nation-scale internet shutdown on record, according to an internet monitoring group.

NetBlocks said Sunday the internet blackout in Iran has lasted for 37 consecutive days, exceeding all other comparable incidents the group has recorded.

Drone attacks ignite fires at oil and petrochemical facilities in Kuwait

The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said the drone attacks ignited fires at several of the company’s operational facilities, as well as to facilities at the Petrochemical Industries Company.

Damage was described as “significant.” Firefighters were working to control the fires.

No casualties were reported.

Israel says Iran has launched new missile barrage

The Israeli military said on Sunday that its air defenses are being activated.

Israeli military says it struck 120 targets in Iran in 24 hours

The Israeli military said on Sunday the strikes focused on air defense, drone and missile systems.

The announcement comes in the wake of Iran’s downing of two U.S. warplanes.

Officials from Iran and Oman discuss transit through the Strait of Hormuz

The Omani Foreign Ministry posted on social media Sunday that deputy foreign ministers and experts from both countries met to discuss “a number of visions and proposals” to ensure “smooth transit” through the strait.

Oman has often served as a mediator between the US and Iran in the past.

Saturday’s meeting came two days before U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed deadline for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz was due to expire.

Trump had warned of “devastating consequences” if Iran doesn’t comply by Monday.

4-year-old girl among 7 killed in Israeli strike in southern Lebanon

Lebanon’s Health Ministry’s statement Sunday was issued after Israel struck the town of Kfar Hatta near the coastal city of Sidon.

The Israeli military had called on the entire town late Saturday to evacuate.

Kfar Hatta hosts many displaced people who fled from southern Lebanon.

Iranian drones attack Bahrain petrochemical plant

Bahrain’s official news agency said Sunday the attack ignited fires in two units at the state-run petrochemical plant.

According to the Bahrain News Agency, which cited the Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company, firefighters have placed the fire under control and authorities were assessing the damage.

Iran says 10 killed, 7 injured from strikes in country’s southwest

Nournews, a media outlet believed to have close links with Iranian security forces, reported on Sunday that the strikes occurred in Dehdasht county and the Vezq district, around 360 miles (580 kilometers) south of Tehran.

Nournews didn’t specify if those killed included military personnel, but said two were tourists.

Media reports had said on Friday that a U.S. pilot who went missing after his aircraft was shot down may have been in the same areas where the strikes happened.

Nournews didn’t say if the deaths were linked to a rescue operation for the U.S. pilot.

Egypt’s foreign minister discusses ways to de-escalate day before Trump’s Hormuz deadline expires

Minister Badr Abdelatty has spoken by phone with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, as well as with his Turkish and Pakistani counterparts who are also helping mediate between the U.S. and Iran.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that Abdelatty discussed a day earlier “ideas and proposals to achieve the required calm” and warned of an “unprecedented explosion” in the Middle East.

It didn’t elaborate further.

U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his threats for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz by Monday or face devastating consequences.

Hezbollah says it attacked an Israeli military barge with a cruise missile

The militant group said in a statement on Sunday that the barge was some 78 miles (126 kilometers) away from the Lebanese coast.

Although most Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in this latest war have been conducted by jets and drones, some have come by sea.

The Israeli military did not immediately issue a statement.

Production halted at a United Arab Emirates petrochemicals plant after attack

Authorities in Abu Dhabi said Sunday that they have responded to multiple fires at the Borouge petrochemicals plant.

They said the fires were caused by falling debris following successful interceptions by air defense systems.

The plant is in Ruwais, near the UAE’s western border with Saudi Arabia.

It is a joint venture of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. and Borealis of Austria.

Pakistan, Iran foreign ministers discuss de-escalation of war

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday that it had conveyed to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that Islamabad supports “all efforts aimed at de-escalation.”

It said in a statement that the two diplomats exchanged views on the evolving regional situation and agreed to remain in close contact.

Pakistan is currently helping to broker a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran by offering to host peace talks.

Iran says it has shot down 3 more U.S. aircraft

Iran’s state TV on Sunday quoted a statement from the country’s joint military command that two Black Hawk helicopters and one C-130 military transport aircraft had been shot down in the city of Isfahan.

The statement said the aircraft were taking part in a failed rescue operation for a U.S. pilot.

The state broadcaster showed still images of an aircraft as well as a long-distance shot of a column of dark smoke rising from a desert area.

The pilot had been missing since Friday when Iran downed a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle. A second crew member had been rescued earlier.

U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to questions about the aircraft.

A regional intelligence official briefed on the mission said the U.S. military blew up two transport planes due to a technical malfunction that forced them to bring in additional aircraft to complete the rescue.

He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the covert mission.

Aid groups warn that Iran war has hindered food and medicine delivery to millions

Aid groups say that more people will suffer if the violence continues, as the conflict is also disrupting supply chains and forcing them to use costlier, more time-consuming routes.

Key pathways such as the Strait of Hormuz have been effectively cut off and flights from strategic hubs such as Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi have spiked in cost with higher fuel and insurance rates.

This means fewer supplies can be delivered with the same amount of money, further straining humanitarian response in conflict-hit countries across the region.

The U.N. food agency warns that if the conflict continues through June, 45 million more people will be acutely hungry, adding to nearly 320 million people facing hunger around the world.

Drone attack strikes government office complex in Kuwait

Kuwait’s Finance Ministry said Sunday’s drone attack resulted in “significant damage” to its office complex in Kuwait City.

It said no casualties were reported.

Iranian drone attack takes out water desalination plant and 2 power plants in Kuwait

Kuwait’s Electricity Ministry said in a statement Sunday that damage to the facilities was “significant.”

The ministry said the attack resulted in two power generation units being taken out of service.

No injuries were reported.

Bahrain’s petroleum company says Iranian drone set fire to one of its storage tanks

BAPCO Energies said in a statement Sunday that the fire was extinguished and that no injuries were reported.

It said emergency response teams responded immediately in close coordination with authorities to contain the fire.

It added that damage to the storage facilities is now being assessed.

Iran executes 2 men who took part in January protests

Mizan Online, a media outlet for Iran's judiciary, said on Saturday that Mohammad Ami Biglari and Shahin Vahedparast had been convicted on charges of taking part in an attack on a military facility, setting fire to it and attempting to reach its arms depot.

It said the two men were hanged after the country’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court death sentence.

A crackdown on nationwide protests in January resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and the arrests of thousands more.

Rescues kept secret to avoid risk to operation

U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States didn’t confirm the rescue of the first aviator from the F-15 fighter jet that was shot down in Iran on Friday “because we did not want to jeopardize our second rescue operation.”

In his social media post early Sunday, Trump said the second aviator “was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour.”

Trump says service member rescued in Iran is injured

U.S. President Donald Trump said a service member rescued in Iran is injured but “will be just fine.”

Trump said in a social media post early Sunday that the aviator took refuge “in the treacherous mountains of Iran.”

He said the rescue involved “dozens of aircraft” and that the U.S. had been monitoring his location “24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.”

US service member missing in Iran rescued

U.S. officials say a service member missing after Iran shot down a fighter jet has been rescued.

That’s according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.

It comes after a frantic search-and-rescue operation. The crew member had been missing since Friday, when Iran downed a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle. A second crew member had been rescued earlier.

By Matthew Lee and Konstantin Toropin

Senegal limits foreign trips for officials as the fallout from Iran war deepens

The country banned all but essential foreign trips for government ministers as part of cost-saving measures triggered by the energy crisis linked to the war.

Senegal, like many African countries, imports most of the petroleum products it consumes. That leaves its economy vulnerable to supply disruptions such as the chokehold on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which has sent the price of crude soaring.

Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said his office is taking steps to limit public expenditure, pointing out that initial budget forecasts were based on an oil price of $62 per barrel. It is now almost double that.

“I have taken a number of drastic measures to restrict everything related to government spending, including the cancellation of all nonessential missions abroad,” the government-owned newspaper Le Soleil quoted Sonko as saying.

He added that he canceled several trips, including to Niger, Spain and France.

The Gamecocks have reached the championship game in four of the past five seasons while the Bruins are playing in their first NCAA title contest.

Both teams played stifling defense in the semifinals of March Madness, with South Carolina knocking off UConn 62-48 to end the Huskies’ 54-game winning streak on Friday night. UCLA was even more stingy on the defensive end in its 51-44 win over Texas.

South Carolina and UCLA have played each other many times over the past few seasons, but this time the stakes couldn't be higher.

The Bruins have been on a mission this season since losing to UConn in the Final Four last year. It was the Bruins’ first-ever trip to the national semifinals of the NCAA Tournament. With most of the key players back from that team along with a couple of new additions, UCLA ran through the regular season, with the only setback a November tournament loss to Texas in Las Vegas.

Cori Close and her team will try to hang a championship banner to go with the one the school won by taking the 1978 AIAW title, which was the postseason tournament for women’s basketball before the NCAA took over in 1982.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Share that with any of the 91 players in the field, and some explaining is required.

The hole was 340 yards and had no bunkers, only a gully in front of the green. Alister MacKenzie wanted it be similar to the “Valley of Sin” on the 18th hole at St. Andrews, so the best approach would be to run shots up to the green.

That shot by Nelson changed everything.

Horton Smith, who won two of the first three Masters, suggested the green be elevated and moved some 20 yards back and to the right, with several deep bunkers guarding the front. Augusta National's co-founders, Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, agreed. They hired Perry Maxwell, renowned for his work at Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes, to do the work at a cost of $2,500.

Trees were planted on the left side to along along with those on the right, creating a tight drive. And then in a span of five Masters from 2002 to 2006, the tees twice were moved back some 40 yards. That puts it at 450 yards on the scorecard now.

Nelson wouldn't recognize it.

“You have to hit it in the fairway,” two-time Masters champion Scottie Scheffler said. When it was suggested that such strategy would hold true on many holes at Augusta National, he stopped walking to emphasize his point.

“No,” he said. “There's certain holes you don't have to be in the fairway. If you hit a really good tee shot (on No. 7), it's not a difficult hole. But if you miss the fairway, you can't hit it on the green.”

The par-4 seventh is called “Pampas" for the grass bush native to Argentina that grows just left of the members' tee box. No. 7 was never a favorite of Roberts and Jones. Roberts once referred to it as “the only weak hole of the 18."

It was inspired by the 18th on the Old Course, a short hole with a boomerang-shaped green that gave players the option to run the ball through the gully in front. Nelson drove the seventh at Augusta in 1937. Players still drive onto the 18th at St. Andrews, most recently Cameron Young.

With the first change, it became a tight drive that was typically a 2-iron and a wedge. That led Jack Nicklaus to once call the seventh "a beautiful little hole — a little, short par 4. You got to be pretty precise with your tee shot. Then it’s a very demanding little second shot. It’s very difficult to recover from if you get off track.”

Throw in an additional 100 yards, and it's no longer a hole where players can build some scoring momentum. Par is more than acceptable. The all-time scoring average is 4.156, the 10th-toughest hole at Augusta National.

“You're not licking your chops unless you're in the fairway,” Xander Schauffele said. “Even then, you're conceding a 20-foot putt as a really good golf shot. Maybe even before I was on tour, you could think, ‘If I birdie this, I get some momentum.’ Now it's, ‘Oh boy, I need to hit a good drive or I’m going to have to make a tough par.'”

It's not as simple as hitting a straight drive on a straight hole. The fairway cants to the right. And the trees have grown, so a tee shot too far to the right means the approach is blocked by trees.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only 20% of players have hit the seventh green after missing the green the last five years. Only No. 5 and No. 11 have a lower percentage. It can be done.

There have been some remarkable recoveries from the trees. Jon Rahm once holed out after chipping out from the trees. Joaquin Niemann once threaded a running shot through two bunkers. Those shots are rare.

“If you get out of position, it's like No. 10 at Riviera — you're trying to put it in a spot to get the next one on the green,” Harris English said. “You can get in some bad spots. But if you hit a good tee shot, it could be a birdie hole.”

Still fresh was Rory McIlroy in the left trees last year, hitting a 9-iron because of a tiny gap he saw.

His caddie, Harry Diamond, wasn't seeing it.

“He wasn't for it at all, but I just kept seeing this gap up in the trees,” McIlroy said, referring to the shot as “achievable.”

“That's when Harry does a great job and says, ‘Look, if you feel like you can see it, go ahead and hit it,’” McIlroy said. “My mindset was this is the final round of the Masters, and I have a chance to win the only tournament that ... I've wanted to win for such a long time. If that isn't the time to take a risk, I don't know when the time is.”

It doesn't decide the tournament being on the front nine. But it's no longer the “beautiful little hole” Nicklaus once described.

“Missing it left is no good. Missing it right is no good,” Brooks Koepka said. “If you get slightly out of position, it becomes a scramble for par. If I hit the fairway, I’m pretty excited about it.”

___

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

The quirky stadium with the tilted roof and unique catwalks underwent major repairs after Hurricane Milton swept through downtown St. Petersburg on Oct. 9, 2024, and caused extensive damage.

High wind ripped sections of the original roof, allowing rain to fall into the stadium bowl for months. Water caused mold and damage to electrical, sound and broadcast systems.

There was thought initially the Rays would never play another game at the only ballpark they had called home since the franchise’s debut in 1998. Instead, nearly $60 million was spent to replace the roof and rebuild the Trop.

While the Rays played their 2025 home games across the bay in Tampa at Steinbrenner Field — the spring training home of the New York Yankees — their stadium got a makeover.

The new roof was installed last August, and the final panel was put in place Nov. 21. Luxury suites and the stadium video board were upgraded. The stadium has new artificial turf, home-plate club seats, clubhouse carpet and lockers, and new flooring on the outfield deck.

“I think guys are excited, and rightfully so,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said about the team’s return home. “Our organization has worked incredibly hard and the city and the county, to get it back up to speed. I briefly walked through there, couldn’t be more impressed with the way it looks, and excited to see our fans. I think our guys are going to appreciate just having our fans in the building, cheering us on for our opening day.”

It’ll be the 20th consecutive season the Rays have sold out their home opener, excluding 2020 when fans weren’t allowed inside the stadium because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m just really excited to get back in the Trop,” said reliever Griffin Jax, who joined the team last July. “I always enjoy going there as a visitor. It’ll be cool to see all the new renovations and upgrades they made along the way. We’ve seen it a handful of times walking through and seeing pictures and stuff. It looks great. It’ll be good to be back in our home.”

After spending a season playing in a minor league ballpark, the Rays are looking forward to going back to big league amenities.

“It was difficult,” Jax said about playing at Steinbrenner Field. “I don’t think anybody expects to play in a situation like that. It’s just one of those things you have to make any adjustment you can and get ready to play because there is still baseball to be played that night. The situation isn’t great. The environment wasn’t awesome, but it’s still baseball. You just have to roll with it. I was only there for two months. Shout out to all these guys who were there for an entire year because it was not ideal.”

Tropicana Field may not be home for the Rays for much longer. The Rays are under lease to play there through at least the 2028 season, but the team's new ownership group is pursuing a new ballpark that would be built in Tampa, in the shadows of the Yankees’ spring training complex and across the street from Raymond James Stadium, home to the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

___

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

The Writers Guild of America West said on X that its negotiating committee unanimously approved a tentative agreement with The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios. The alliance confirmed the deal in a separate statement on its website Saturday.

“We look forward to building on this progress as we continue working toward agreements that support long-term industry stability,” read the alliance statement.

The precise terms of the deals were not immediately announced, but it is expected to include several writers’ priorities such as better health care plans and more protections against artificial intelligence. The union said on X that the deal protects the writers’ health plan builds on gains from 2023 and “helps address free work challenges.”

The contract agreement, a year longer than a typical three-year deal, must be approved by the guild’s board and members before it is ratified.

The surprise agreement came within weeks of negotiation — a stark contrast to the contentious contract negotiation three years ago when Hollywood writers went on a historic strike that partially brought the industry to a standstill.

The screenwriters voted almost unanimously to approve that agreement, which provided them with more compensation, length of employment and control of artificial intelligence. The current contract was set to expire in May.

The studios were also working on new deals with union leaders representing actors and directors, whose contracts are set to expire at the end of June. Sean Astin, president of the SAG-AFTRA, said in a February interview with The Associated Press that he has seen signs that the studios want “to work as partners again.” Hollywood actors also walked out of their jobs for months in 2023 demanding for a better contract.

The writers' tentative deal with studios came as the Writers Guild of America West faces an ongoing strike by its own staff union that started in February. More than 100 people working in legal, events and residuals departments went on strike over allegations of unfair labor practice, according to the Los Angeles Times.

It is not clear how, or whether, the weekslong strike would have an impact on the tentative deal with the studios. The union announced last month it canceled its annual award ceremony because of the staff union strike.

The road to the Eastern Conference title will run through Detroit, which locked up the No. 1 seed on Saturday with a win over Philadelphia.

The Pistons are 12-3 in their last 15 games, even while Cade Cunningham has been out for much of that stretch while recovering from a collapsed lung. And while the East is locked up, technically there is still something to play for — home-court advantage in the NBA Finals. Detroit will be no worse than the No. 3 overall seed but still has a shot of catching San Antonio for the second-best record.

Also in play for the Pistons: the third-best record in team history. At 57-21, they could still get to 61 wins. Only the 2005-06 Pistons (64-18) and the 1988-89 Pistons (63-19) won more games than that.

Who's in and who's out?

Here's what we know so far regarding the NBA playoff field for this season.

— Eastern Conference playoff teams: Detroit has locked up the No. 1 seed and will open the postseason on April 19. Boston, New York, Cleveland are in. At this point, Atlanta and Toronto would get the other two guaranteed spots, but those are not clinched.

— East play-in teams: Nobody is locked into the play-in yet, but entering Saturday, the four teams headed there are Philadelphia, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami.

— East eliminated teams: Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Brooklyn and Washington.

— Western Conference playoff teams: Oklahoma City, San Antonio, the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver and Houston are in. Minnesota is likely to grab the sixth and final guaranteed spot.

— West play-in teams: Phoenix is probably going to the play-in tournament. Portland, the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State definitely are.

— West eliminated teams: Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Utah and Sacramento.

Saturday recap

— Heat 152, Wizards 136: Good news for Wizards, Bam Adebayo didn't score 83. Bad news for Wizards, everything else.

— Nuggets 136, Spurs 134, OT: Nikola Jokic scores 40, Victor Wembanyama scores 34 in this potential West semifinal matchup.

— Pistons 116, 76ers 93: Detroit clinches No. 1 seed in East, Philadelphia falls back to play-in range for now.

Sunday's schedule

— Toronto at Boston: Celtics rolling toward No. 2 seed.

— Washington at Brooklyn: Someone will win, possibly to their chagrin.

— Phoenix at Chicago: Suns likely will be No. 7 in West play-in.

— Memphis at Milwaukee: Doc Rivers can be announced as a Hall of Famer for first time.

— Indiana at Cleveland: Cavaliers looking to tune up before playoffs.

— Charlotte at Minnesota: The Hornets are playing without fear right now.

— Orlando at New Orleans: Magic have to keep building some momentum.

— Utah at Oklahoma City: Thunder just won’t let the Spurs make up too much ground.

— LA Lakers at Dallas: Neither team will have Luka Doncic, who remains beloved by Mavs fans.

— LA Clippers at Sacramento: Clippers looking to get a home play-in game (or two, if needed).

— Houston at Golden State: Warriors have five games to prep for the play-in, and this will be Stephen Curry’s return.

Monday's schedule

— New York at Atlanta: Hawks are 18-2 in their last 20 games, likely No. 5 seed in East. Knicks could make a statement here.

— Detroit at Orlando: Magic have three players who finished at Michigan, Pistons have two. This during the NCAA title game is just wrong.

— Cleveland at Memphis: Cavs could still catch Knicks, with some help. A slipup here wouldn't be ideal.

— Philadelphia at San Antonio: Spurs won’t play another road game until Game 3 of West quarterfinals.

— Portland at Denver: Trail Blazers in extremely close race with Clippers for No. 8 seed in play-in tournament.

National TV schedule

Sunday on NBA TV: Toronto-Boston.

Sunday on NBC and Peacock: LA Lakers-Dallas, Houston-Golden State.

Monday on Peacock and NBCSN: New York-Atlanta.

Betting odds

Oklahoma City (+130) is favored to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, followed by San Antonio (+450), Boston (+550), Denver (+1200), Cleveland (+1200) and New York (+1900). Detroit, the No. 1 seed in the East, is +2500. And after Luka Doncic's injury sent the Los Angeles Lakers' odds soaring, from +2500 beforehand to +12500, Austin Reaves' injury made them even bigger long shots. They're at +50000 now.

Key dates

— Friday: All 30 teams play their 81st games of the season.

— April 12: All 30 teams play their regular-season finales.

— April 14, 15 and 17: NBA play-in tournament dates.

— April 18 and 19: NBA playoff series openers.

— May 2, 3 or 4: Conference semifinals begin.

— May 10: NBA draft lottery.

— May 10-17: NBA draft combine.

— May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.

— May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.

— June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).

Numbers watch

San Antonio is now 37-2 this season when scoring 121 points or more. Both losses are to Denver — and in each of the first three meetings between those clubs this season, both teams have reached at least 131 points.

Stat of the day

The Heat had zero instances of scoring 150 points in their first 3,264 games. They've scored 150 or more three times in their last 86 games.

___

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

The deportees will start arriving in Congo this month, the Congolese Ministry of Communications said in a statement, without further details on the date or the number of deportees expected.

It described the arrangement as a “temporary” one that reflects Congo’s “commitment to human dignity and international solidarity.” It would come with zero costs to the government with the U.S. covering the needed logistics, it said.

The U.S. has struck such third-country deportation deals with at least seven other African nations, many of them among countries hit the most by the Trump administration’s policies that have restricted trade, aid and migration.

The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a report released recently by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Lawyers and activists have raised questions over the nature of the deals with countries in Africa and elsewhere. Several of the African nations that have signed such deals have notoriously repressive governments and poor human rights records — including Eswatini, South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.

A key bone of contention in many such agreements is that they involve many migrants with protection orders from a U.S. immigration judge not to be returned to their home countries over major safety concerns.

Congo’s government said no automatic transfer of the deportees is planned, adding: “Each situation will be subject to individual review in accordance with the laws of the Republic and national security requirements.”

Not only has the conflict cut off vital shipping routes, creating a global energy crisis, it’s also disrupting supply chains for aid groups, forcing them to use costlier, more time-consuming routes.

Key pathways such as the Strait of Hormuz have been effectively shuttered and routes from strategic hubs such as Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi have also been impacted. Transport costs have spiked with higher fuel and insurance rates, meaning less supplies can be delivered with the same amount of money.

The World Food Program says it has tens of thousands of metric tons of food heavily delayed in transit. The International Rescue Committee has $130,000 worth of pharmaceuticals intended for war-torn Sudan stranded in Dubai and nearly 670 boxes of therapeutic food meant for severely malnourished children in Somalia stuck in India. The U.N. Population Fund says it's delayed sending equipment to 16 countries.

Steep U.S. cuts to foreign aid already had hobbled many aid groups, who say the war is exacerbating the problem.

The United Nations says this is the most significant supply chain disruption since COVID, with up to a 20% cost increase on shipments and delays as goods are rerouted. And the war is creating new emergencies, such as in Iran, and also in Lebanon where at least one million people have been displaced.

“The war on Iran and disruption to the Strait of Hormuz risk pushing humanitarian operations beyond their limits," said Madiha Raza, associate director for public affairs and communications for Africa for the International Rescue Committee.

Even when the fighting stops, the shock to global supply chains could continue to delay lifesaving aid for months, she said.

Longer and more costly routes

The war has forced organizations to find new ways to transport goods, with some bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal and rerouting vessels around Africa, adding weeks to the delivery.

Others are using a hybrid of methods, including land, sea and air, increasing costs.

Jean-Cedric Meeus, chief of global transport and logistics for UNICEF, said his agency is using a mix of land and air routes to send vaccines to Nigeria and Iran in order to get them there in time for the vaccination campaigns, but the costs have soared.

Before the war, UNICEF sent vaccines to Iran by plane directly from vendors around the world. Now it’s flying the vaccines to Turkey and driving them into Iran, which has increased costs by 20% and has added 10 days to the delivery time, he said.

Save the Children International, which would normally send supplies by ocean freight from Dubai to Port Sudan, will now have to truck the goods from Dubai through Saudi Arabia and then by barge across the Red Sea, it said. The route adds 10 days and increases costs by about 25%, at a time when over 19 million Sudanese face acute food insecurity. The delay puts more than 90 primary health care facilities across Sudan at risk of running out of essential medicines, it said.

The spike in prices also means organizations have to choose what to prioritize.

“In the end, you sacrifice either the number of children that you serve ... or you sacrifice the number of items that you can afford to buy,” said Janti Soeripto, president of Save the Children for the United States. The group said it has stockpiles in countries where it works but some of those could run out within weeks.

Rising costs are also impacting people's ability to seek help within their countries.

Doctors Without Borders said rising fuel prices across Somalia — where some 6.5 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity — have driven up transport and food costs, making it harder for people to get care. In Nigeria, the IRC says fuel prices have surged by 50% and clinics are struggling to power equipment, such as generators and mobile health teams have scaled back operations.

Hunger crisis could deepen

One of the biggest concerns is the impact the war will have on global hunger.

WFP warns that if the conflict continues through June, 45 million more people will be acutely hungry, adding to nearly 320 million people facing hunger around the world.

Some 30% of the world's fertilizer comes through the Strait of Hormuz and with planting season ahead in areas like East Africa and South Asia, small farmers in poor countries will be hard hit. Sudan imports more than half its fertilizer from the Gulf and Kenya approximately 40% from there, aid groups say.

The U.N. secretary-general has established a task force to facilitate fertilizer trade — modeled on the Black Sea Grain Initiative. But aid groups say that won't be enough. If there's no ceasefire, governments need to provide more funding for organizations to respond to the rising costs, they say.

Humanitarian experts say there's been a slower international response to fund aid during this war compared to previous conflicts like Ukraine, which could reflect growing pressure to invest in security over aid at a time when the world is in turmoil.

“They’re making hard choices between defense security and humanitarian aid,” said Sam Vigersky, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has written about the war’s impact on aid.

He said when the U.S. goes to war, it normally has provisions for aid, but hasn't been “activating” those provisions. “It’s not a capacity issue, it’s a policy decision,” he said.

Tommy Pigott, principal deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said that the U.S. has been the “most generous country in the world" when it comes to humanitarian aid.

The department said it's releasing an additional $50 million in emergency assistance to Lebanon, including to the World Food Program and working closely with the United Nations and others to address the humanitarian needs.

—

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations

No injuries were reported and no suspect was found after a search of the park and the surrounding area after midnight, the agency said in an online post.

President Donald Trump was spending the weekend at the White House, which had no immediate comment on the incident. White House operations remained as normal but security in the area was increased, according to the Secret Service.

The park has been fenced off for weeks of renovations.

The Secret Service said it was working with District of Columbia police and U.S. Park Police.

Just after 5:30 p.m. on Saturday evening, the National Weather Service in Detroit issued a Tornado Warning for the heart of Wayne County, including areas like Belleville and Van Buren Township.

4Warn Meteorologist Bryan Schuerman talks about what Exact Track 4D Radar looked like on Saturday evening as we were tracking this possible tornado touchdown.

The National Weather Service in Detroit/Pontiac has told Local 4 News that they will conduct a damage assessment today to determine whether the damage we are looking at is severe thunderstorm wind damage or an actual tornado touchdown.

Local 4’s Kyla Russell and Amaya Kuznicki were in Van Buren Township Saturday Night and into Sunday Morning looking at some of the damage from the severe weather on Saturday afternoon & early evening.

Stay with WDIV Local 4 News and 4Warn Weather, we’ll keep you updated as we learn more from the National Weather Service in Detroit/Pontiac throughout the day on Sunday.

Maybe you read parts of it from a floppy disk or a CD-ROM for that social studies project due tomorrow. Or scanned its list of countries for Latvia, because that is the country you are representing next week in Model U.N. Even better, you wandered the earth in your imagination as you held the physical Factbook in your own hands, unfolding its maps and understanding, perhaps for the first time, that the thumbs-up gesture your friends flash each other is considered an obscene insult in parts of the Middle East, Europe and Argentina.

Who knew? The Factbook and its readers did, for more than six decades.

Its authors — some of the world's best intelligence-gatherers, who contributed thousands of their own photos — kept the curated database updated and online for public use at no charge. The reasons stated were geopolitical and philosophical. But since we are talking about facts, it also is true that the Factbook went public in 1975 with lofty statements of purpose at a time when Congress was revealing abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA.

“We share these facts with the people of all nations in the belief that knowledge of the truth underpins the functioning of free societies,” the CIA itself explained in its pages.

The spy agency is not sharing them anymore.

On Feb. 4, the Trump administration abruptly shuttered this widely accepted account of humanity and its flags, nations, customs, militaries and borders. The CIA framed the move as one of progress for an agency whose core mission has changed.

A great wave of grief rose from Factbook fans. Many said they mourned an America that valued knowledge for its own sake. Some saw darker forces at work under a president whose administration has promoted — in times of war and peace — “alternative facts.”

“Stay curious,” the CIA advised in its “fond farewell" to the Factbook.

And, it might have added: Good luck figuring out what's true from the wild and frequentlyinaccurate world of the internet and artificial intelligence.

The Factbook's origin story

Decades before Google became an everyday verb, there was the Factbook.

Its origin story is rooted in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, a U.S. intelligence failure that inspired a more coordinated approach to gathering and organizing information on America's enemies. The Joint Army Navy Intelligence Studies was born, the country's first interdepartmental basic intelligence program. But by 1946, national security experts agreed that “the conduct of peace involves all countries, all human activities — not just the enemy and his war production,” in the words of one, George S. Pettee.

The job of gathering basic intelligence on other countries was assigned to the newly minted CIA in 1947, according to the agency's website.

The Cold War exposed the ongoing need for a one-stop source of basic intelligence — and an opportunity for what in 1971 became the unclassified Factbook. It was released to the public four years later.

In addition to becoming useful to students, it held geopolitical influence. The Factbook showed off American intelligence capabilities to the former Soviet Union and other enemies. Being included in it could confer legitimacy upon a nation or an opposition party. And it was ironic that an agency founded on the need to know and keep secrets was sharing so much data — called “basic intelligence” — with the public.

The Factbook also likely served as a boost to the CIA's public image and put distance between it and other intelligence agencies tarnished by congressional investigations. In 1975, U.S. Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, convened a panel that held more than 100 public hearings, many televised, of the most significant oversight of intelligence agencies since World War II.

In 1976, the Church Committee reported widespread abuse by the CIA, IRS, the National Security Agency and FBI, including the revelation of the CIA's “Family Jewels.” That was an internal account of illegal CIA activities, such as spying on American activists and an assassination plot against Cuba's Fidel Castro.

Also in 1975, what would become the CIA World Factbook went public, ascending as a reliable research tool often recommended in class projects. There was never confirmation that the bad press inspired the wide release of the Factbook, but doing so around the same time fit the CIA's need to rehab its brand.

In 1981, the CIA renamed the publication The World Factbook, and in 1997, it leapt online. The CIA has described it as representing “a tremendous culmination of efforts from some of our country's brightest analytic minds."

The jolt of its Trump-era demise

News of the Factbook's end shocked more than just U.S. students and researchers. It was picked up by news outlets abroad. The story shot across social media, with Reddit users pointing each other to archived Factbooks and racing to set up and identify other sources of unbiased information that might suffice.

Isabel Altamirano, chemistry librarian assistant professor at Auburn University in Alabama, said the information is still out there, but “it'll be harder to find.” University libraries, for example, offer similar resources to students, who get access through their tuition.

“It was so easy, because it was all in one place,” she said in an interview, noting that on Feb. 4, when she saw the news, she rushed to delete the Factbook from a list of resources for her students in a business communications class.

Fundamentally, one analyst said, a Factbook assembled by a government agency with secret agendas and shadowy methods might never have been unbiased in the first place.

“The compilers aren't, nor can they be expected to be, neutral,” said Binoy Kampmark, a professor of global, urban and social studies at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. Mourning its loss, he wrote in an email, would be “misplaced.”

The Factbook, he added, might be better saved as a historical document. Its last publication on Feb. 4 is already outdated, according to an archived version: Under Iran, the country's head of government is still listed as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei was reported killed March 1 in U.S. and Israeli strikes. And the world changed once again, this time without the Factbook to note it.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy skies. Low: 33.

MONDAY: Mostly cloudy skies. A chance of rain showers. High: 48.

MONDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy skies. Low: 23.

TUESDAY: Mostly sunny skies. Remaining cooler. High: 41.

TUESDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy skies. Low: 28.

After a roller coaster of weather over the past few days across the region, we’ve seen some sunshine, temperatures well into the 70s, then some severe weather Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening, a much more tranquil weather forecast moves in looking ahead throughout the next few days.

Colder air moves into the region, looking ahead to the end of the weekend on Easter Sunday, we will keep cloud cover around as well. Mostly cloudy skies can be expected. High temperatures are warming into the low to mid-40s by Sunday afternoon. But once you factor in the winds, expect wind chills to be in the 30s to low 40s for much of the day. With the colder air moving into the region, do not be surprised to see a snowflake or two throughout the day on Easter Sunday.

With the northwesterly flow continuing on Sunday, we will keep the chance of an isolated rain shower or two in the forecast, but most of us should stay dry for most of the day. If you’re heading out to the Detroit Tigers game this evening, a 7:20 PM first pitch at Comerica Park, we will keep the clouds and breezy winds around. Temperatures into the 40s for the first pitch, but you’ll need your jacket if you’re going to the game.

Rain chances return to the forecast, looking ahead into the start of next week on Monday. Expect chilly temperatures to stick around into the start of the week as well. High temperatures warming into the upper 40s by Monday afternoon.

High pressure builds into the region, and we dry things out looking ahead into the middle of next week. Expect a mixture of sunshine and clouds for Tuesday and Wednesday. High temperatures will remain in the 40s for Tuesday, then we will warm into the mid-50s by Wednesday.

Another chance of rain showers moves into the forecast for Thursday, and temperatures will get even warmer. High temperatures warming into the upper 60s by Thursday. Chances for rain showers remain in the forecast, looking ahead into the end of the week for Friday, before we dry things out and keep some cloud cover around, looking ahead into the start of the weekend on Saturday. High temperatures are expected to remain in the 60s on Friday and in the lower 60s on Saturday.

“What was the nature of the controversy of Graham’s tattoo he received while in the Marines?” an emcee recently asked at a local community center.

The answer? “It was claimed to be a Neo-Nazi tattoo (totenkopf).”

This was not a new way of delivering opposition research, but an official campaign event for Platner's supporters. And it showed how the 41-year-old oyster farmer and military veteran has capitalized on voters' willingness to forgive past transgressions and embrace a populist message.

Platner is facing Gov. Janet Mills, 78, in the June 9 primary, with the winner taking on five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, 73, in a race that could help determine Senate control.

“Graham Platner’s campaign gave me a place to put my energy in a positive way,” said Beth Knight, a 63-year-old teacher who attended the trivia night in Kittery, a small seaside town on the border with New Hampshire. “I believe he has a true redemption story.”

Participants drank soda and ate cookies while listening to Dropkick Murphys, a Boston punk band that Platner likes. Some seemed to know a lot about a candidate who was practically unknown just last year, from his dog's name to the name of a bar where he once worked in the nation's capital.

Among the questions was “what characteristics make Graham the best candidate to beat Susan Collins?” One of the options was “he is handsome and has a deep voice,” but the correct answer in the game was "he has grown as an individual and is honest.”

Mills, now in her second term, is backed by the party leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, and other Democrats who say it is too risky to support an untested candidate such as Platner. Maine has one of the oldest voting populations in the country, and voters often elect politicians with a reputation for being moderate.

But Platner has excited some supporters with an antiestablishment message that his campaign believes could carry him to victory.

“What specific group did Graham identify as the primary enemy in his campaign launch video?” the emcee asked at trivia night. The answer was "the oligarchy and the billionaires.”

Increased visibility

Platner has centered his campaign on affordability issues such as housing and health care, but much of the news coverage has focused on his past behavior. He has been dogged by questions about the skull-and-crossbones tattoo reminiscent of a Nazi symbol that he said he got during a night of drinking while on military leave in Croatia.

Platner has maintained that he was unaware at the time that the image had been associated with Nazis, and he has since covered the tattoo with a different design. But there also have been lingering questions about inflammatory comments he made in old online postings, which he has since disavowed. More recently, he has been questioned for being a guest on a podcast hosted by Nate Cornacchia, a retired Green Beret who has been accused of antisemitism.

All the while, Platner keeps filling theaters, meeting halls and rallies. From his August campaign announcement to the end of March, Platner had hosted 50 town halls throughout Maine. His campaign accused Mills and Collins of holding none.

The events include traditional canvassing and phone-banking training, as well as happy hours at breweries and poster-making before No Kings protests. That wide footprint has increased Platner's visibility. For example, on the same night that the campaign hosted the recent trivia game in Kittery, Platner was more than 350 miles away at a town hall in Fort Kent, in the state's far north.

“He’s bringing an energy of wanting to create something in this race, win or lose. He wants to create a lasting connection in communities where people can get together and can actually talk to their neighbors face to face again,” said Megan Smith, a community organizer with the Maine People’s Alliance, an advocacy group that has endorsed Platner.

The Mills and Collins campaigns both rejected the idea that Platner is more accessible to voters, and both cited their candidate’s busy workload as an elected official.

“As the only Democrat to have won statewide in 20 years, voters trust Janet Mills, they know she is the only candidate who has delivered progress for Maine people, and they see her leading our state every single day,” Mills campaign spokesperson Tommy Garcia said.

Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen said that “town halls are often organized by partisan or dark money groups."

“She prefers smaller group meetings, rather than holding town halls where very few people get to speak, and the level of civility is often not that high,” she said.

Spending and scrutiny ramp up

To date, Platner has significantly outspent Mills on advertising since jumping into the race in August, $4.8 million compared with Mills’ $1.5 million according to a recent analysis by AdImpact.

The spending comes as the campaign intensifies as the primary nears. Mills recently released a video in which women read some of Platner’s old social media posts that were dismissive of sexual assault.

Platner's defenders do not appear worried about that increased attention, arguing that Democrats are more willing to elect candidates who are honest about past mistakes as long as they make an effort to show how they have changed.

“In this environment, you know, where we have people like Donald Trump in public office who have done terrible things, there is more appetite in the Democratic Party to have people that are not just purely polished and have been on an election track their whole lives,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat who has endorsed Platner.

Questioning the establishment

Smith, the community organizer, said some voters bristle at the assumption that outsiders such as Schumer know better than Mainers.

“Mainers are kind of stubborn and we don’t like to be told what to do,” she said. “They’re not thrilled to have D.C. Democrats weighing in on our primaries.”

Still, Platner will have to overcome historical precedent to beat Mills.

“Historically, there’s been an inclination of Democratic primary voters in Maine to pick the known candidate,” said Michael Franz, a government professor with Bowdoin College. “Oftentimes, that is an older candidate who’s been in office for a while.”

Franz described Platner as “a high-risk, high-reward type of candidate.”

“He might end up being the new national figure that captures everyone’s attention if he’s elected to the Senate," he said. "Or he might just be the candidate that everyone thought could come out of nowhere but ended up only getting 42% of the vote.”

___

Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I. Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

Moore was arrested on Dec. 10 after a 911 call reporting a man attacking a woman in a Pittsfield Township apartment.

The man ended up being Moore, who is accused of breaking into his former assistant’s apartment to confront her about him losing his job over her reporting him to the University of Michigan for having an inappropriate relationship.

Pittsfield Township officials, alongside Saline police, can be seen placing Moore in the back of the police cruiser while wearing the Block M across his chest.

Moore was visibly emotional and could be heard hysterically, saying, “She ruined my life.”

He was later detained and placed in protective custody by mental health professionals.

During his Dec. 12 arraignment, prosecutors said Moore and the woman had been involved in an intimate relationship “for a number of years.”

Prosecutors said the woman ended the relationship on Dec. 8, but Moore continued calling and texting her, leading to his firing after she reported him on Dec. 10 to the university.

On Dec. 10, Moore went to the woman’s apartment, grabbed “several butter knives and a pair of kitchen scissors” from a drawer, and threatened to hurt himself.

Moore left after she threatened to call her lawyer and the police.

Moore was released on a $25,000 bond and was ordered to wear a GPS tether, undergo mental health treatment, and have no contact with the woman.

Watch the full arrest video below

Plea deal

Moore has pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges in connection with the case involving his alleged inappropriate relationship with the woman as part of a plea deal.

He was scheduled to appear in the 14-A District Court in Washtenaw County on March 6 before Judge Cedric Simpson for an evidentiary hearing.

However, when Moore was in court on Friday (March 6), he pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charges of malicious use of a telecommunications device involving a domestic relationship (punishable by up to six months in jail) and trespassing (punishable by up to 30 days in jail).

As part of the plea, the charges Moore was initially issued, third-degree home invasion, stalking, and breaking and entering, have been dismissed.

Moore is scheduled to be sentenced at 2 p.m. on April 14.

Woman urges action

Attorneys Andrew M. Stroth and Steven A. Hart issued a statement on behalf of the woman after former Moore entered a no-contest plea in his criminal trespassing case.

Moore pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges in connection with a case involving his alleged inappropriate relationship with the woman as part of a plea deal.

Moore was scheduled to appear in the 14-A District Court in Washtenaw County on March 6 before Judge Cedric Simpson for an evidentiary hearing.

The statement, released on March 6, says the plea “represents a critical moment of acknowledgment and accountability following a frightening and deeply disturbing incident.”

Moore’s no-contest plea was entered a mere days following a report alleging his failure to report sexual assault allegations against former assistant coach LaTroy Lewis.

→ Ex-Michigan football assistant LaTroy Lewis dismissed by Falcons after Ann Arbor sexual abuse probe

As part of the plea, the charges he was initially issued, third-degree home invasion, stalking, and breaking and entering, have been dismissed.

Stroth and Hart said the woman was forced to endure years of manipulation, harassment, and exploitation by Moore, who held enormous power over professional life as the head coach of one of the nation’s most prominent college football programs.

Stroth and Hard said Moore’s plea confirmed the seriousness of the criminal misconduct, but the case was about far more than one terrifying incident.

They said his actions raised urgent and troubling questions about how a powerful figure within a major university athletic program could engage in years of inappropriate conduct toward a subordinate without meaningful intervention or oversight.

→ Woman’s attorneys urge action from University of Michigan after Sherrone Moore’s plea deal

Sean Kokenos, of St. Clair Shores said he was driving westbound on I-94 near the Frazho Road overpass on March 29 when he heard a loud bang and realized his vehicle had been hit.

“There was actually a rock the size of my hand stuck inside of it,” Kokenos said.

Photos show a chunk of concrete lodged in his front bumper. Another piece struck the lower portion of his windshield.

“The initial hit sounded like a gunshot. It had some force behind it,” he said.

Kokenos initially wondered whether the debris came from construction on the overpass. But when police arrived, he learned he wasn’t the only driver hit.

“As they are taking pictures, a Dodge Ram pulls up and says, ‘Someone just hit my car from the freeway,’” Kokenos said.

He said the other driver told police he saw a group of kids on the overpass. Kokenos also believes it was intentional.

Now, Kokenos is left dealing with the costly repairs and is grateful it wasn’t any worse.

“You might think that it’s having fun and all that, but someone could get hurt and you guys could ruin your own lives,” he said.

Local 4 reached out to the St. Clair Shores Police Department about the case on Tuesday and are still waiting to hear back.

If this happened to you reach out to Lauren Kostiuk at lkostiuk@wdiv.com

Here’s a list of chain stores open or closed on Easter Sunday, according to RetailMeNot:

*Call the store ahead of time to confirm hours, as they vary by location.

Stores open on Easter Sunday

• 7-Eleven
• Ace Hardware*
• Barnes & Noble*
• Bass Pro Shops
• BJ’s Wholesale Club
• Dollar General
• IKEA
• Kroger (Pharmacy hours may vary)
• Petco
• PetSmart
• Starbucks
• The Home Depot
• Trader Joe’s
• Walgreens
• Walmart
• Whole Foods

Stores closed on Easter Sunday

• ALDI
• Best Buy
• Costco
• Dick’s Sporting Goods
• Hobby Lobby
• HomeGoods
• The Honey Baked Ham Company
• JCPenny
• Kohl’s
• Macy’s
• Marshalls
• Michaels
• Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack
• Office Depot
• Sam’s Club
• Target
• T.J. Maxx

The Auburn Hills residents said black mold was just one of the health nightmares they experienced inside the manufactured home they rented at Oakland Estates.

The family reached out to Local 4 after the station published several stories about issues plaguing communities like theirs.

From the roof to the underbelly, Brian Bartenbaker says his home was filled with black mold, and the underbelly was rotten.

He says management refused to help.

The issue led his kids to the hospital countless times, and they’ve got the paperwork to prove it.

“Upper respiratory infection, acute,” Bartenbaker said, holding a stack of sick-visit summaries.

Bartenbaker and his family moved into the home at Oakland Estates four years ago.

He’d lived in the community years ago and decided to come back and rent.

Part of their choice to rent was because management would help with any maintenance, or so they thought.

“It’s not our problem, ‘Hey, if you lease, we don’t operate like that no more, either buy the place or move out,’” Bartenbaker said, describing what management often told him when he asked for help.

Bartenbaker says there were two undeniable issues: mold that spread and a floor that failed.

The mold got so bad that they ran an airborne test.

“When we took those tests, within seconds, these things mushroomed up. It was so disgusting,” Bartenbaker said.

Bartenbaker’s girlfriend’s mom had cancer and noticed the mold immediately. She died last summer.

“Her last wish was for us to get out of here because she knew something was wrong with this place,” Bartenbaker said.

Since the day they moved in, they say the underbelly was rotten.

“If our feet are going straight through the floor and there is no insulation,” Bartenbaker said. “So, if there is a hole in the floor, then the animal can come right through. The kids are terrified to use their own bathroom because they think they are seeing eyeballs of creatures under the trailer.”

It became a greater hazard every day.

“I came running, ‘What now?’ and all you see is her foot halfway through the floor, and it’s like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Bartenbaker said.

It got so unsafe that the family decided to leave a few weeks ago.

They say the management company wants to collect this month’s rent.

Local 4 reached out to the company that manages the manufactured home community and did not hear back.

The company has also not responded to Local 4’s requests for comment for previous stories.

The Inkster family was nearly out tens of thousands of dollars for damage to their deceased father’s cabin after AAA initially refused to cover the claim.

That family turned to Local 4, and now the insurance company says their claim is eligible and will be processed accordingly.

We had just gotten to the car after speaking to Jeffrey Woodruff and checking their email.

There it was: AAA now said the claim was eligible.

They turned right back around to deliver the news Woodruff had been waiting nearly a year to hear.

“You solved it for us,” Woodruff said. “Thank you so much. There you go, Channel 4 News, the best.”

Just five minutes earlier, Woodruff had told us how this all started.

“My dad bought a house out in Jackson in ’85, I believe it was,” Woodruff said of his dad, Alvin. “It was just a small, one-room summer cottage.”

For 40 years, Alvin and the entire family turned that summer cottage house into a home.

“We went out there all the time,” Woodruff said. “We have many memories of camping in his backyard and fires.”

Alvin died at the end of 2023.

Heartbroken, but determined to protect what he left behind, Woodruff says the family still checked on the place week after week.

“We had a lifetime neighbor over there that would mow the lawn and check on the house and stuff like that,” Woodruff said.

As the winter crept in, the gas furnace was left running at 60 degrees. The bills for the house show the furnace was on.

All other appliances had been removed from the house the summer before, aside from the dishwasher, because it was electric.

The family says the house is also heavily insulated.

In January 2025, the family says there was a minus-25 degree cold snap, and the furnace stopped working.

“They walked into a waterfall,” Woodruff said. “Over the course of a week, the house got colder and colder and burst the pipes.”

The damage was devastating. The family immediately told AAA.

“I am pretty sure, from the time he bought that house in ’85, he insured his car through AAA, he insured his girlfriend’s car through AAA, and the home, and he only filed one minor claim, a couple thousand for siding damage,” Woodruff said.

They had everything repaired. All told, it was $38,000. They got a denial letter from AAA in the mail.

“You guys filed this claim, and then they denied it for what reason?” I asked Woodruff.

“They said we didn’t take ‘reasonable precautions,’” Woodruff said.

We asked Woodruff why this denial felt so personal.

“That’s our inheritance from my father,” Woodruff said. “That’s what he left us. They are taking part of our inheritance is how I feel about it.”

Now, he’s grateful to have a piece of his dad back.

“Kyla Russell and Channel 4 News, they get it done,” Woodruff said.

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” AAA told Local 4. “Upon further review, we confirmed the claim is eligible under the policy and will be processed accordingly.”

Belle Isle draws more than 5 million visitors a year. It’s owned by the city of Detroit and maintained by the state as a public park. But a group of business leaders say it could become something far more powerful.

They want to transform the 982-acre island into the first special economic zone. Think high-income housing, shopping, entertainment, and a community of up to 50,000 people. The total price tag: $50 billion.

So what does Detroit get out of it? Under the plan, investors would make a $1 billion down payment on a long-term lease from the city, plus $50 million every single year. And the job numbers are staggering -- 46,000 permanent positions, with Detroit residents first in line to be hired.

And here’s something that may surprise you -- voters like it.

A new poll from Mitchell Research and Communications surveyed more than 800 voters — and found majority support both statewide and right here in Detroit.

Here’s the reality -- this is a long way from happening. Three separate approvals would have to fall into place.

Rodney Lockwood, the developer behind the project and chairman of Belle Isle Freedom City, and Steve Mitchell of Mitchell Research and Communications, joined Local 4 Live to talk more about it. You can watch the full interview in the video at the beginning of this article.

The Wolverines led by as much as 28 points in the game, which was kicked off by Elliot Cadeau, who was getting whatever he wanted in the matchup.

Cadeau controlled the game, finishing with 13 points, 10 assists, and five rebounds in the matchup.

Michigan jumped out to a 10-1 lead without their best player as Yaxel Lendeborg picked up two fouls in 1:22 to open the game.

But Michigan jumped out to a 16-5 lead at the 14:27 mark, thanks to stellar defense that forced four turnovers and precision passing by Cadeau.

Leading by 14, Arizona went on a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to seven.

Michigan weathered the storm to take a 48-32 lead at the half and ended up taking a 27-point lead in the second half and didn’t look back.

Aday Mara was the leading scorer with 26 points in the victory, but the story after the game will be Lendeborg’s health ahead of the title game on Monday.

With the victory on Saturday (April 4), head coachDusty May won his 63rd game in a two-year span out of 76 games with the Wolverines, moving him into a three-way tie with Bruce Weber (2003-2005) and Tubby Smith (1997-1999) for most wins in a coach’s first two seasons as head coach of any school, all time.

The victory also moved him one game behind John Calipari (2009-2011) for most wins in their first two seasons as head coach of any school and put the Wolverines in the NCAA Tournament championship game for the first time since 2018.

In the matchup of the No. 1 seeds on Saturday (April 4) inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the Fab Five came together to call an alternate broadcast in the arena for the first time in over 30 years for the victory.

The Fab Five 〽️ pic.twitter.com/TXwKhptsWx

— Michigan Men's Basketball (@umichbball) April 5, 2026

The atmosphere was electric as fans got to see Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson, who, alongside Adam Lefkoe, relived their Michigan moments as they watched their alma mater advance to the title game, where they will take on Bill Murray and the UConn Huskies on April 6.

With the victory, Michigan improved to 8-1 in the Final Four, with its lone loss coming in 1964 against Duke, whom the Wolverines wanted to play in the title game to seek revenge for an early February defeat.

1st half

The Wolverines won the tip, and Aday Mara cleaned the glass for an offensive rebound and a putback to take a 2-0 lead.

Yaxel Lendeborg picked up his first foul of the game on a Koa Peat drive before picking up his second on a Jaden Bradley drive, sending him to the line for two with 18:38 to play.

Bradley missed the first but made the second to score the team’s first point of the game.

Roddy Gayle Jr. entered the game for Lendeborg before Nimari Burnett drilled a corner three-pointer to take a 5-1 lead.

Elliot Cadeau made a floater before finding Morez Johnson Jr., down the lane for a contested layup, getting fouled and sent to the line, making the and-one as Michigan led 10-1.

Bradley hit a jumper over Cadeau to cut the deficit to 10-3 before Mara stepped out of bounds on the next possession, timeout with 15:59 play in the half.

Out of the timeout, Tobe Awaka cleaned the glass for the putback before Gayle Jr. found Mara for an alley-oop jam to take a 12-5 lead.

Ivan Kharchenkov traveled on the next possession, before Johnson Jr. cleaned the glass and found Mara under the basket for an easy bunny.

Cadeal got a steal on the next possession and found a leaking Trey McKenney for the fastbreak slam as Arizona called a timeout, trailing 16-5 with 14:27 to play.

Out of the timeout, Dwayne Aristode drilled a three-pointer, but Cadeau countered with a three-pointer of his own to take a 19-8 lead, but Motiejus Krivas made a contested jumper in the post.

Cadeau drew a charge on Bradley on the next possession, but Johnson Jr. got called for traveling as Michigan led 19-10 with 12:34 to play.

Lendeborg entered the game and hit a three-pointer from a Cadeau assist, taking a 22-10 lead, before Aristode got the ball stolen from him by Lendeborg, who found McKenney on a one-on-three fastbreak, leading to a deflection out of bounds with Michigan keeping the ball.

Timeout with 11:34 to play.

Michigan couldn’t convert out of the timeout, but Michigan got another defensive stop before Cadeau tried to hit Will Tschetter in the corner, but he couldn’t control the pass as it went out of bounds.

Michigan got a defensive stop, and Cadeau found a cutting Johnson Jr., who got hammered at the rim, sending him to the line for two, making both to take a 24-10 lead with 10:35 to play.

Mara played good defense on the other end and then cleaned the glass on offense to take a 16-point lead, but Peat made a contested layup to cut the deficit to 14.

McKenney turned the ball over on offense, leading to a fastbreak, but he got back on defense and got a block before Peat made a jumper to cut the deficit to 12.

Lendeborg got hurt on the following possession, rolling his ankle.

He walked it off, tied up his Air Jordan 13 Carmelo Anthony player exclusives, and hit both free throws before exiting the game.

Up 14, Johnson Jr. picked up his first foul, sending Peat to the line for two, making both as the deficit was cut to 12.

Arizona turned defense into offense as Kharchenkov drilled a three-pointer, got another defensive stop, and found Krivas for a contested jumphook, causing Michigan to take a timeout, up 28-21 with 7:21 to play.

After leading by 28-14, Arizona went on a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to seven.

After the timeout, with the Wildcats fans back in the game, Mara picked up his second foul, claiming he was hooked and held by Krivas, prompting May to appeal the play for a flagrant foul with 6:56 to play.

The appeal was unsuccessful, costing Michigan a timeout on the play.

With Mara headed to the bench, Arizona fed Krivas for a jumpshot to extend the run to 9-0 before Gayle Jr. made a massive jam to stop the run, but Krivas got fouled by Johnson Jr., picking up his second of the half.

Krivas bricked the first free-throw, but McKenney got called for a foul, sending Kharchenkov to the line for a one-in-one, missing as Michigan got the defensive rebound.

Johnson Jr. couldn’t convert, but Michigan got a defensive rebound, and Cadeau found Burnett for an up-and-under layup to push the lead to 32-23.

Bradley got called for his third foul of the game before Cadeau missed a layup, which was cleaned up by Johnson Jr., who found McKenney for a wide-open three-pointer to take a 35-23 lead before Arizona called a timeout with 4:35 to play.

McKenney got called for his second foul, sending Brayden Burries to the line for a one-in-one, making the first and the second to stop the run.

Up 10, Cadeau missed a floater, but Arizona missed a bunny at the rim, leading to a Gayle Jr. corner three-pointer to take a 13-point lead before Krivas got called for an offensive foul, his second of the game, leading to an official’s timeout with 3:21 to play.

Michigan couldn’t convert on the possession, leading to an Awaka contested layup, but Mara drew a foul, sending him to the line to complete a three-point play.

Michigan forced a turnover on the next possession, leading 41-27 with 2:26 to play.

Mara caught a lob on the next play and then got fouled again on the following possession, sending him to the line for a one-in-one, making both as Michigan led 45-27 with 1:45 to play.

Anthony Dell’orso drilled a three-pointer, but Johnson Jr. got fouled on a dunk attempt, making the free-throw to complete the and-one.

Awaka made a contested bunny.

Arizona got a stop on the other end and had the ball on the inbounds before turning the ball over to Michigan, who couldn’t convert as they led 48-32 at the half.

2nd half

Both teams came out of the half stagnant, but a loud pop was heard as Lendeborg returned to the game.

Cadeau found Mara for the slam, followed by a Lendeborg rebound and three-pointer, before Kharchankov made a driving layup.

Krivas picked up an offensive foul, his third of the game, as Michigan led by 22, as Lendeborg made another three-pointer, before Peat made a jumper and was fouled by Burnett, capping off a three-point play.

Gayle Jr. turned the ball over to Peat, who found a springing Brayden Burries for a driving layup, which got blocked, but was called a goaltend on Johnson Jr.

Out of the timeout, McKenney drained a three-pointer to take a 59-39 lead.

Michigan forced a shot-clock violation, leading to another three-pointer by McKenney.

Awaka made a tip in before Mara made a dunk then Burries made a three pointer before McKenney made a contested jumper.

Kharchenkov got fouled and sent to the line, splitting the pair before Cadeau drained a three-pointer.

Cadeau drained another three-pointer as the lead jumped to 27 with 12:17 to play.

Michigan turned defense into offense as Cadeau found Mara for a lob; he missed but cleaned up his miss for a putback.

Burries made a floater before picking up an offensive foul, sending Cadeau to the floor, and the timeout came with 11:05 to play.

Michigan turned the ball over on the inbounds play, leading to a foul against Kharchenkov.

Burnett got a steal, leading to a McKenney three-pointer, but Peat got an offensive rebound and putback on the other end.

Burnett picked up a foul, sending Bradley to the line for two, making both.

McKenney turned the ball over on the next possession, before picking up his third foul, sending Peat to the line for two, missing the first and making the second, as Michigan led 77-52 with under 10 to play.

Gayle Jr. made a dunk, but Peat hit a three-pointer.

Mara hit a jumper, but Burries hit a three-pointer, followed by a Bradley layup as Arizona cut the deficit to 81-60, before Kharchenkov picked up a foul on McKenney, timeout with 7:33 to play.

Cadeau turned the ball over and picked up his fourth foul, sending Bradley to the line for a one-in-one, making both, cutting the deficit to 19.

Michigan got a stop on the other end and found Johnson Jr. for two points.

Bradley made a jumper to cut the deficit back to 19 with 5;29 to play.

Mara got hacked under the rim before picking up another foul on Awaka, sending him to the line to complete a three-point play, which he did as Michigan led 86-64.

Johnson Jr. grabbed the defensive rebound but got called for an offensive foul on the following possession, sending Awaka to the line for a one-in-one, which he missed.

McKenney got called for an offensive foul with 4:30 to play.

Bradley made a circus shot as Arizona trailed by 20 with under four minutes to play.

Cadeau made a floater to push the lead back to 20.

Tschetter got called for a foul, leading to a timeout with 3:02 to play.

Michigan went on to roll Arizona.

They will take on the UConn Huskies on Monday, April 6, in Indianapolis, in a bid to capture their first national championship since 1989.

But the talk after the game was about the injury status of Yaxel Lendeborg, the Big Ten Player of the Year.

After the game on Saturday (April 4), Lendeborg, when asked if he was expected to go on Monday, April 6, gave Local 4 some insight about his status.

“Yeah, man, absolutely,” Lendeborg said. “If I wake up tomorrow and I fall as soon as I wake up, that’s the only way I’m not playing. But I will be on that floor on Monday.”

What happened

With under 10 minutes to play in the half, Lendeborg drove to the basket and twisted his ankle and knee, leaving him rything in pain.

He got up and tried to walk it off, but took a knee at halfcourt before tying his Air Jordan 13 Carmelo Anthony player exclusives, heading to the line and drilling both free throws before walking to the locker room.

Lendeborg struggled early in the half, picking up two fouls with 18:38 to play before suffering the injury.

He scored five points in the half and returned to the bench momentarily, but he returned to the locker room with a trainer.

Lendeborg entered the game in Willis Reed style, grabbing two rebounds and draining two three-pointers to help Michigan advance to the title game on Monday.

Lendeborg said, at worst, it was going to be an MCL sprain or an LCL-type issue he suffered on the play.

He said he will get an MRI after giving a postgame soundbite to the media.

“I just said, ‘Thank you, Lord,’” said Lendeborg. “I asked him to guide me and to help me through this situation, and he was there for me. So just a quick little praise. I usually would celebrate a little wild, but just a quick praise to him for allowing me to be on the floor tonight.”

Update: Michigan basketball star Yaxel Lendeborg gives update on injury; status for title game vs. UConn

With under 10 minutes to play in the half, Lendeborg drove to the basket and twisted his ankle, leaving him rything in pain.

He got up and tried to walk it off, but took a knee at halfcourt before tying his Air Jordan 13 Carmelo Anthony player exclusives, heading to the line and drilling both free throws before walking to the locker room.

Lendeborg struggled early in the half, picking up two fouls with 18:38 to play before suffering the injury.

He scored five points in the half and returned to the bench momentarily, but he returned to the locker room with a trainer.

Lendeborg entered the game in Willis Reed style, grabbing two rebounds and draining two three-pointers as Michigan led 56-39 with 15:40 to play.

--> Michigan basketball crushes Arizona in Final Four showdown, sets up championship game vs. UConn on Monday

That was the praise Hunter heaped on the Los Angeles Angels' Jo Adell after the right fielder made three homer-robbing catches, the last a spectacular leaping grab while crashing into the seats near the right-field foul pole in the ninth inning, in a 1-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.

“I’ve never seen three home run robberies in one game, and I’ve never seen a guy on the third one fall into the stands, catch the ball and keep his feet in like he’s a wide receiver,” said the 50-year-old Hunter, a special assistant to the general manager who watched the game from the bench. “I was jumping up and down. I almost passed out.”

Adell, who struggled on defense for several years before transforming into a Gold Glove finalist in 2024, leaped high above the yellow line on the wall in straight-way right field to deny Cal Raleigh of a solo homer in the first inning, and made a nearly identical catch to against Josh Naylor in the eighth.

J.P. Crawford then led off the ninth with a drive toward the right-field corner, where Adell raced toward the ball, leaped to glove it, flipped over the low wall and fell into the first row of seats before holding his glove up to present the catch, which was upheld after a replay review.

“After the first one, I was pretty fired up,” Adell said. “When I got to the second one, which looked identical to the first, I thought, ‘Wow, my routes are on point tonight.’ The third one was just grit. Top of the ninth, you have to get it done. It was crazy.

“You just get there, then it’s decision-making. The ball was hit high enough to where I could get there. I watched it (into my glove), fell over and ended up in somebody’s lap. I don’t know who it was, but it was a softer landing than I expected. The fans were as fired up as me.”

According to Inside Edge, Adell has 10 home run robberies since 2020, tied with Kyle Tucker of the Dodgers for the most in the big leagues. The outfielders with the most home run robberies in the entire 2025 season were Jacob Young of the Nationals and Fernando Tatis of the Padres. Both had four.

This was believed to be the first time in baseball history a player has robbed three homers in one game.

“It was like a movie scene,” Hunter said about Adell’s third catch. “It was like the music was playing, then he caught the ball, then he went down and we didn’t see him anymore. The music paused, he came up and said, ‘Yeah!’ I started cheering and almost blacked out.”

Hunter, the former Minnesota Twins, Angels and Detroit Tigers star, has worked extensively with Adell on defense during the past few years.

“His impact has been huge,” Adell said. “It’s mental when you’re out there — it’s a mindset of going to get the baseball, being aggressive. Early, I was caught in between on some plays, and sometimes that happens.

“When you err on the side of being aggressive and trying to make the plays, you’d be surprised at how many plays you make. That’s the mindset Torii had all those years, winning all those Gold Gloves.”

___

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

Off went the jackets and backpacks, on came burgundy cassocks and white surplices. Then they trooped into the cathedral, opened their mouths and sang as one. The youthful gaggle had become a choir, giving voice to a tradition of choral music in the Church of England that has survived largely unchanged for almost 500 years.

“I think for me, it’s one of the sounds of our country,’’ said Adrian Bawtree, the choir’s music director. “All of our cathedrals are beautiful, sacred spaces where you can come and just sit and be and you can be immersed, bathed, nourished, sent out back into the world transformed by an experience in 30 minutes.”

The epitome of that tradition is Choral Evensong, an evening service of hymns, psalms and prayers laid out by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant archbishop of the Church of England, in 1549. The service is performed by the choir, with the congregation participating simply by listening.

But that tradition is under threat as the demands of modern life, declining church attendance and tight funding make it harder to find and train the next generation of choristers.

Enthusiasts are trying to reverse that, launching a campaign for the government to recognize English choral services as an important part of Britain’s culture under a U.N. program that seeks to protect “intangible cultural heritage,” as well as historic buildings and natural wonders.

Traditions strengthen identity

The U.K. government is seeking nominations for a nationwide inventory of cultural traditions — from Morris dancing to the craft of building dry stone walls — that should be preserved. Protecting such traditions is crucial to strengthen community identity and bolster the U.K. economy as heritage tourism generates billions of pounds in annual spending, the government says.

While many people have been introduced to English choral services through the angelic voices of the choristers in flowing robes and Elizabethan ruffs who sing at royal weddings and carol services, choirs perform every day in much more humble settings.

And many are struggling, according to the Cathedral Music Trust, which was founded in 1956 to stem the decline of church music after World War II. Last year it gave 500,000 pounds ($661,000) to 28 cathedrals and churches around the country.

It can be a lot. Rochester, for example, spends about 250,000 pounds ($330,000) a year on music, a substantial outlay for a provincial cathedral but less than some.

The trust hopes recognition of the English choral tradition will bring attention and much-needed funding to choirs, which it says are an important training ground for the musicians of tomorrow, both religious and secular.

“Whilst it happens every day, it is actually quite fragile,” trust CEO Jonathan Mayes said. “It takes an awful lot of work and it takes a lot of funding to actually make it happen and that doesn’t come without effort.’’

Evensong links the present day to the Protestant Reformation

Preserving Evensong is important historically because the service was instrumental in the development and spread of the modern English language, said Diarmaid MacCulloch, an expert on Christianity and an emeritus professor at the University of Oxford.

The service is based on the Book of Common Prayer, compiled by Cranmer to make English the language of the Church of England after it broke away from the Latin-dominated Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation.

The idea was to create services everyone could be part of.

“It is very much a drama, and it is a drama which has been performed by the people of England from 1549 through to the present day,” MacCulloch said. “It’s far more a vehicle of public consciousness performance than any play of Shakespeare.’’

And while a growing number of choirs including Rochester now take girls as well as boys, in other respects it hasn't changed much since then.

“The service would be really quite recognizable to Queen Elizabeth I as much as Queen Elizabeth II," MacCulloch said. "And that’s quite remarkable.”

The power of music to transform lives

Bawtree, the music director at Rochester Cathedral, is one of those working to preserve the tradition as he oversees the youngest singers, aged 9-13, known as choristers, as well as a youth choir for older children. All are backed by professional adult singers.

Bawtree said he was captured by church music the first time he heard an organ play and a choir sing when he was about 9 years old. Now he wants people to know that services like Evensong make it possible for anyone to turn up and listen to beautiful choral music, regardless of their beliefs.

“When I heard it, it was like big octopus arms came and grabbed me and said, ‘You’ve got to be part of this.’ So I think I am trying to speak to that 9-year-old child and saying actually this is something that could speak to most people, if not everyone.

“And because I had that experience, I would like to share that with future generations and be passionate about that," he said. "We talk in the world of mindfulness and the power of music to transform lives. This is an extraordinary arena where that can happen.”

___

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.

He spent much of that time grimacing or biting his lip. And he didn't look much more comfortable when he did return to start the second half Saturday night against Arizona.

The good news is Michigan didn't need much from the first-team All-American as it cruised to an unexpectedly lopsided 91-73 win in a matchup of the NCAA Tournament's last two No. 1 seeds, not with the Wolverines' depth simply overwhelming the Wildcats. The question now is how Lendeborg's injuries might affect him for Monday night's NCAA title game against UConn.

Lendeborg said he rolled his left ankle and sprained his MCL. He also was emphatic when asked if there was any chance he would miss the Wolverines' first appearance in the championship game since 2018.

“Absolutely not,” he said at his locker, surrounded by multiple rows of reporters. “Unless I wake up and I get up and fall off my feet, I'm going to be in that game.”

Lendeborg was effective even when hobbled

The 6-foot-9, 240-pound Lendeborg entered the game averaging 15.2 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists, offering strength and size with versatility to chase on the perimeter. He finished with 11 points on 3-of-4 shooting in 14 minutes, including a pair of 3-pointers in his hobbled post-halftime minutes.

For much of the second half, he rode an exercise bike behind the Michigan bench, clapping for baskets or screaming with glee as the Wolverines made big play after big play.

He also spent time late in the game sitting on the court near the end of the bench and almost alongside the photographers on the baseline before having an ice pack wrapped around his left knee. He wore that for the final minutes and still had it on as he carefully made his way through the postgame handshake line with the Wildcats.

But he stayed engaged throughout, climbing to the raised court to greet teammates with high-fives as coach Dusty May emptied the bench in the final minute.

“Our team has extreme depth,” guard Roddy Gayle Jr., said. “We have the ability to feel happy when other people are being successful. Then, even when you're having a bad night, you're able to lean on your teammates for extra help.”

Lendeborg had to count on his entire team to carry the load without him.

Injury leads to a scary moment

Lendeborg had a rough start with two quick fouls and then exited after he stepped on the foot of Arizona big man Motiejus Krivas and twisted his left ankle, the same one he had tweaked during the loss to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.

Fear hit hard in that moment.

“I tried my best to get up as quickly as possible to try to not dwell on that feeling. I tried to walk it off,” Lendeborg said, adding with a chuckle: “It didn't get walked off.”

Lendeborg left the bench for trainers to retape his ankle and treat it with ice, returned briefly, then went back to the locker room again.

“I was going to give it a go but there was like five minutes left (before halftime) so they advised it was best to get treatment right away,” he said. “I sat there, got treatment, got ice. I did the best I could to analyze the situation. I was watching the game and trying to make it feel better.”

Lendeborg wore a brace on his left knee when he returned for the second half.

Getting ready for Monday

Lendeborg checked out at the 13:02 mark and headed to the bike. He returned again at the 7:10 mark after Arizona had cut a 30-point deficit to 20, saying he wanted to be a secondary ballhandler.

Why did May put him back in with the big lead?

“Well, apparently you missed the UConn-Duke game,” May said, referencing the Huskies' rally from 19 points down to stun the tournament's No. 1 overall seed in the Elite Eight.

Lendeborg said he told his teammates he would largely work around the arc and avoid crashing into the interior to raise the risk of aggravating the injury. He also said he wanted to get a feel for how he might be able to function with the Wolverines headed for one more game.

Michigan had more than enough to put away Arizona, notably with 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara going for 26 points to lead five players in double figures. Michigan shot 47.8% and made 12 of 27 3-pointers. Now, Lendeborg will race to be ready for the shot at leading Michigan to its first national title since 1989, as well as the first by a Big Ten school since 2000.

“For me, it's a lot of treatment, a lot of time with the trainer, a lot of time away from my teammates which I'm not going to like,” Lendeborg said.

Whatever it takes.

“I'm playing,” he said. “I have to.”

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Michigan overpowered Arizona early and humbled the ’Cats for 40 long minutes Saturday, turning their highly anticipated Final Four matchup into a 91-73 Wolverines dunkfest-slash-highlight reel.

Junior center Aday Mara scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds. About the only question in this one concerned the health of Wolverines forward Yaxel Lendeborg, a first-team All-American who landed on an Arizona player's foot, rolled his ankle and sprained his knee, but still had 11 points over 14 minutes.

He vowed he'd be ready for Monday's title matchup against UConn, a 71-62 winner over Illinois in the early semifinal that was billed — wrongly — as the undercard to this battle of No. 1 seeds.

“It’s going to take a full 40 minutes of fighting,” Lendeborg said.

This one was over in about five.

The Blue blew through their fifth straight March Madness opponent by double digits while becoming the first team to break 90 points five times in a single tournament.

It was all quite a shock, considering Michigan and Arizona came in with the nation’s top two defenses, a pair of top-five offenses and somewhere between eight and a dozen NBA stars between them.

But it was the Wolverines (36-3) who looked like pros, running to a double-digit lead only 5:31 into the contest, then swatting (three blocks) and slamming (nine dunks) Arizona into oblivion.

“These guys have such, I guess, extensive background in playing high-profile basketball games,” said Michigan coach Dusty May, who was spotted at courtside earlier in the evening, scouting UConn-Illinois for a Monday night game he sensed he'd be part of. “We just felt like we are battle-tested.”

The game plan against the Big 12 champion Wildcats (36-3) couldn't have worked any better.

Michigan packed the paint on defense, basically giving the team that averaged the fifth-fewest 3-point attempts in the country this year free rein from long distance, then daring Arizona to create inside. The Wildcats failed at both.

Koa Peat had a quiet 16 points and 11 rebounds for Arizona, which shot 6 for 17 from 3, 36% overall and had two assists and nine turnovers over a first half that ended with them trailing 48-32. Sparkplug Jaden Bradley got his fourth foul 94 seconds into the second half and finished with 13 points, most in extended garbage time.

Arizona’s only two losses before this were by four and by three back in February. The Wildcats trailed by nine less than 2:30 into this one.

“No one has been able to do that to us all year,” said Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, who got a contract extension over the weekend, presumably to keep him from going to North Carolina.

Making it all the more impressive for Michigan was that it started this runaway without Lendeborg, who committed two fouls within five seconds of each other less than 90 seconds into the game, then landed on Motiejus Krivas’ foot a little later and went to the locker room for ice.

Lendeborg called the injury “a weird feeling” but promised, “there’s no way I’m missing the game on Monday no matter what goes on.”

In fact, he returned for the second half and made two quick 3s to push Michigan's lead past 20. He was on the bench — and the stationary bike — for good with 5:19 left, enough time for rest and ice to get ready for UConn, which is going for its third title in four seasons.

Michigan is going for only the program’s second championship (1989), though its most famous team — the Fab Five, which made the final twice in the early ’90s — was in the building to helm an “alt-cast” of this Michigan celebration.

Some of this — the dunks, the alley-oops, the rim hanging and jersey tugging (but no baggy shorts) — might have reminded them of them.

Freshman Trey McKenney made four 3s and had 16 points for the Wolverines. Elliot Cadeau overcame a bout with his nut allergy to compile a crazy stat line: 13 points, 10 assists, six turnovers, five rebounds and four steals on 5-for-17 shooting. Even with that, Michigan finished 47.8% from the floor and 12 for 27 from 3.

Asked why he kept Lendeborg in for as long as he did, May recalled UConn’s second-half comeback from 19 down against Duke in the Elite Eight.

“We felt like the game was still in hand,” May said.

Not really.

What sufficed for drama down the stretch was whether May’s team would join Jerry Tarkanian’s 1990 UNLV juggernaut as only the second team to hit triple digits at the Final Four in the modern era.

The Wolverines emptied the bench with a few minutes left and came up short, but no matter. Everybody knew who the better team was in this one. That it got figured out so early was the real shock.

“It's tough for me to process this right now,” Peat said.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Michigan still might need a healthy Yaxel Lendeborg to end the Big Ten's 26-year title drought.

It's a Monday night title tilt between two loaded teams that have peaked during March Madness. The Wolverines have been installed as 7 1/2-point favorites, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.

“There’s no better feeling than being on that bus on Monday night, just being one of the last two teams standing,” Huskies coach Dan Hurley said after Saturday's 71-62 victory over Illinois. “It’s just a cool experience. I look forward to obviously the ability to max out the season to get to the last game.”

Hurley has grown accustomed to playing into April. Three years ago, his team beat surprise finalist San Diego State 76-59 to win the school's fifth title. Two years ago, UConn beat Purdue 75-60 to become the first back-to-back champ since Florida in 2006-07.

After making an early exit against the Gators last season, UConn is back with a chance to celebrate Hurley's 200th win with the Huskies by becoming just the third Division I school to win seven national titles. North Carolina and the UConn are tied at six, behind only UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight).

No school has won three crowns in four seasons since the UCLA dynasty won eight in nine (1967-75), with only N.C. State's 1974 title preventing a clean sweep. Alex Karaban can become the first player since those Bruins squads to win three titles during his career.

Behind 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara, coach Dusty May's Wolverines have looked virtually unbeatable in the tournament, winning four games by 17 or more points, including the last two. They are the first team to reach the 90-point mark five times in a single March Madness.

The good news for UConn: Hurley faced a similar predicament in 2024, when the Huskies had to contend with Purdue and 7-4 Zach Edey, the two-time national player of the year.

The Wolverines could be even more formidable. After losing starting point guard L.J. Cason to a season-ending torn ACL in late February, Michigan has steamrolled through its schedule, with the exception of an 80-72 loss to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.

The biggest question for Michigan: What's the status of Lendeborg, a first-team All-American who averages a team best 15.2 points per game? He reinjured his left ankle and sprained the MCL in his left knee against Arizona.

“I’m going to bust through,” Lendeborg said. “There’s no way I’m missing the game on Monday night no matter what goes on.”

Michigan also has some unfinished business.

The program's only title came in 1989, when it beat another Big East foe, Seton Hall, 80-79 in overtime after coach Steve Fisher replaced Bill Frieder for the tourney. Since then, Michigan has lost four straight title games — with the Fab Five in 1992 and 1993 against Duke and North Carolina, respectively, to Louisville in 2013 and to Villanova in 2018.

Michigan State was the last Big Ten team to win the title in 2000, and that came in Indianapolis.

Move over, Sparty. Big Blue could cut down the nets in Indy on Monday night.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

She was considering traditional therapy but decided instead to try single-session counseling. Rather than committing to weekly therapy sessions, she would get only 60 minutes to tackle the problem. It worked.

“It helped me get unstuck, is how I would describe it, in a very positive, meaningful and effective way,” said Hart, of Springfield, Virginia.

Hart joined what experts say is an increasing number of people who, at least for now, have decided to forgo the weeks, months or even years that traditional therapy implies in favor of a more targeted approach.

The therapy is what it sounds like: one session, typically an hour, where a counselor helps the client identify concrete steps toward relieving a specific problem. The intention is not to completely solve a problem, but rather to help clients walk away with a toolbox of strategies on how to approach it.

“Those strategies made all kinds of sense,” Hart said. “But you can’t identify them when you’re in it.”

Where single-session therapy comes from

It’s not new. Sigmund Freud notably offered it.

But it has become increasingly common as a way to fill gaps in access to mental health care, and the need is greater than ever, said Jessica Schleider, a Northwestern University psychology professor and the founding director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health.

The cost of traditional therapy has risen to several hundred dollars a month, and even those who can afford it or have insurance encounter long waiting lists.

“Even if we doubled miraculously the number of trained mental health professionals overnight, we still wouldn’t come anywhere close to meeting the need for mental health support,” Schleider said.

That doesn’t factor in other barriers, such as people who can’t take time off work to attend weekly sessions.

Besides, data show that the most common number of sessions people are likely to receive is just one because many people start and don't come back, Schleider said.

“It’s a really elegant solution to get people support they need at the moment that need arises,” she said.

How it differs from traditional therapy

Sharon Thomas, a psychologist and director of signal-session therapy at the Ross Center in Washington, D.C., said both counselor and client enter the session with expectations: “That the client will be able to have meaningful change in their life, and that we’ll see an improvement in both their self-efficacy and a decline in their symptoms in just one visit.”

Rather than do a full assessment of the client’s past and current circumstances, the counselor targets a specific problem. By the end of the session, the client walks away with a written plan of steps toward alleviating it.

“Not everyone wants to discuss childhood trauma,” Thomas said. “It’s very much focused on what the client wants to focus on in that moment.”

Who it’s for

Most people can benefit from single-session therapy, whether they are struggling with a difficult circumstance like a work problem or something more persistent, such as anxiety, said Arnold Slive, a psychology professor at Our Lady of the Lake University in Texas, who helped pioneer walk-in single-session therapy clinics in Canada in the 1990s.

Slive said counselors still have an obligation to screen for risk of self-harm, and many people with chronic mental health issues could still benefit from traditional therapy or medication.

“It’s not meant to replace all those other things that mental health professionals do, but it can help people feel better,” Slive said.

Another expectation is that every client already walks in with strengths that will help them address their issue. Single sessions also often attract a different type of client, such as someone who might be skeptical about whether traditional therapy is right for them.

“It’s like putting a toe in the water,” Slive said.

Experts point to research that it works

Schleider said research on single-session intervention has “blossomed in the past five or 10 years to where this has become a more well-established form of mental health support.”

Her lab conducted a meta-analysis of 415 clinical trials and found that in most cases, single-session approaches reduced mental health difficulties across various problems, including depression and anxiety, for both youth and adults, she said.

For Hart, she has continued to feel better months later, and she said she felt more confident because she knew she could come back.

“I left feeling so optimistic,” Hart said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, food and travel. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

Only when he turned to the courts as a last resort did he learn that the girl had suffered alleged sexual abuse at the foster home where she’d been placed after immigration officials separated her from her mother.

“She was so long in there,” said her father, who is a legal permanent resident in the United States. “I just think that if they would have moved faster, nothing like that would have happened.” He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to prevent identifying his daughter as a victim of sexual abuse.

President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting detained immigrant children, like the man’s daughter, last year when it implemented new rules and procedures, which were immediately followed by a dramatic jump in detention times. The federal government intensified efforts to expand family detention indefinitely by motioning to terminate a cornerstone policy ensuring the protection of immigrant children in federal custody.

For months after the girl was placed in foster care, her father’s attempts to be reunited stalled as the government told him it couldn't make an appointment to take his fingerprints.

During that time, according to court documents, the girl said she was sexually abused by an older child staying with her in foster care in Harlingen, Texas. A caregiver noticed the child’s underwear was on backward, according to the lawsuit. The girl then told the caregiver she was abused multiple times and it caused bleeding. Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement officials told the father that there had been an “accident” and his daughter would be examined, he told the AP in an interview.

“I asked them, ‘What happened? I want to know. I’m her father. I want to know what’s going on,’ and they just told me that they couldn’t give me more information, that it was under investigation," the father said.

The girl underwent a forensic exam and interview. Although the father wasn't told of the outcome, the older child accused of the abuse was removed from that foster program, according to the lawsuit.

The girl was forensically examined and interviewed, according to the lawsuit. The abuse allegations were reported to local law enforcement, said Lauren Fisher Flores, the lawyer representing the girl. The Associated Press does not typically name people who have said they were sexually abused.

“To have your child abused while in the government’s care, to not understand what has happened or how to protect them, to not even be told about the abuse, it is unimaginable,” Fisher Flores said. “Children deserve safety and they belong with their parents.”

The ORR and its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, were named in the child's lawsuit but did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Trump administration changes release policies

The girl and her mother illegally crossed the border near El Paso on Sept. 16 of last year. When her mother was charged with making false statements and they were separated, the toddler was sent to the custody of the ORR, which cares for immigrant children in shelter or foster settings.

Children in ORR's care are released to parents or sponsors who submit to a rigorous process that has grown more extensive under the Trump administration.

Stricter rules were imposed on documentation required for sponsors, border agents started pressuring unaccompanied children to self-deport before transferring them to shelters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement started arresting some sponsors in the middle of the release process.

Legal advocates filed lawsuits challenging the policy changes, anticipating that they would result in prolonged detention.

Average custody times for children cared for by ORR grew from 37 days when Trump took office in January 2025 to almost 200 days this February. The total number of children in ORR custody fell by about half during the same time period.

Attorneys are now turning to habeas petitions, which function as emergency lawsuits, to expedite the release of children to their parents and sponsors.

Fisher Flores, legal director of the American Bar Association’s ProBar project, said that this year the organization has worked on eight habeas corpus petitions representing children who have been held in federal custody for an average of 225 days. They had not filed these kinds of petitions for children before the start of this Trump administration.

Fisher Flores said that legal intervention helped prompt the federal government to respond to the father’s sponsorship application.

Alleged abuse wasn't immediately disclosed to the father

After the monthslong delay, attorneys sent the government a letter in February and prompted them to allow the father to receive appointments for a fingerprinting background check, a home visit and a DNA test. Then ORR stalled again, offering no timeline on her expected release.

Attorneys filed the habeas petition in federal court and two days later, ORR released the girl to her father.

It was while the attorneys prepared the lawsuit that the father realized that the “accident” officials had told him about was alleged sexual abuse.

“Increasingly, we have to turn to the federal courts to challenge these harmful legal violations and demand that children be released,” Fisher Flores said.

The fingerprinting policy was challenged during the first Trump administration by legal advocates including the National Center for Youth Law. Other nationwide lawsuits are opposing more recent changes affecting the custody and care of immigrant children.

“This represents yet another version of family separation,” Neha Desai, managing director at Children’s Human Rights and Dignity at the National Center for Youth Law, said of the 3-year-old girl’s case.

“A bipartisan Congress designed protections around the simple principle that children should be released to their family quickly and safely. This administration has been consistently flouting its legal obligations to release children to their families, profoundly jeopardizing children’s health and well-being,” Desai added.

When the father finally reunited with his daughter, he cried. His daughter was happy to see him, too.

But after her five months in detention, he started noticing changes: She had nightmares and was easily upset. “She was never like that” before, her father said.

The pair now live in Chicago with the girl's grandparents while her case moves through the immigration court.

Fabulous freshman Braylon Mullins made another last-minute 3-pointer — his only basket of the second half — and the Huskies muscled their way past Illinois 71-62 on Saturday to reach their third national championship game in four years.

Tarris Reed Jr. had 17 points and 11 rebounds and Mullins finished with 15 points as the Huskies (34-5) rode strong inside play and tough defense to their 19th straight victory in the Sweet 16 or later rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

They'll face Michigan with a chance to win their seventh national title, all since 1999, as Hurley tries to become the only active coach with more than two championships.

“We’re a tough program, we’re a group of fighters,” said Hurley, who won it all in 2023 and 2024. “We’ve got incredible will. We go into these games, we’re ready for battle. For us, it’s not a game that we’re just kind of running around in uniforms throwing the ball around, hoping it goes in. That’s not what we’re doing out there. We’re fighting. It’s a life-and-death struggle for us to get to Monday night for the opportunity to win a championship.”

Mullins sent the Huskies past Duke, the top overall seed, in the Elite Eight last weekend with the shot of the tourney — a 35-foot 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left. He was equally effective this time, a short drive from his hometown of Greenfield, Indiana.

After Silas Demary Jr. secured an offensive rebound, Mullins hit a catch-and-shoot 3 with 52 seconds left that gave UConn a 66-59 and thwarted Illinois' late charge.

“The set was going to be run for anybody on the team. You’ve just got to shoot with confidence,” Mullins said. “Just trying to find the best look on the floor, and I know our point guards are going to get us the ball, so I think that was the biggest shot I hit tonight.”

UConn needed it on a night star forward Alex Karaban struggled with his shot. He had nine points on 1-of-8 shooting while adding four rebounds and four assists as he tied Hurley's brother, Bobby, for second in career March Madness victories by a player with 18. A win Monday also would make him the first player since John Wooden’s dominant UCLA teams in the 1960s and 1970s to finish as a three-time champion.

Thanks in part to Karaban, the Huskies haven’t lost a tournament game played past the opening weekend since 2009, when they fell in the national semifinals to Michigan State. With one more victory, they would break a tie with North Carolina and move into third place alone in national titles, trailing only UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight).

Freshman guard Keaton Wagler had 20 points and eight rebounds to lead the Fighting Illini (28-9), who reached their first Final Four since losing the championship game to UNC in 2005.

Wagler and Mullins became the first pair of freshmen to top 15 points in a Final Four game since Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing in 1982.

“It’s margins, they’re so small,” said Illinois' Brad Underwood, a 62-year-old coaching lifer who reached his first Final Four. “Getting here is really hard. Winning is really hard. It’s why I have so much appreciation for Alex Karaban. He’s been to three of them. That’s freaky. It’s a rebound, it’s a loose ball, it’s a ball rolling in, it’s a banked 3.”

Tomislav Ivisic had 16 points and seven rebounds for the Illini, who couldn’t replicate the blueprint that carried them to double-digit victories over Penn, VCU, Houston and Iowa. Illinois made just 3 of 14 3-pointers in the first half and finished 6 of 26 beyond the arc.

UConn took full advantage even though the Huskies had two long scoring droughts — nearly six minutes in the first half and more than six minutes in the second. The latter allowed Illinois to charge back from its biggest deficit of the season, 57-43 with 9:43 to play, to get within 57-53 with 5:03 remaining.

But the Huskies answered and closed it out at the free-throw line for their fifth straight win in the series. UConn beat Illinois 74-61 on Nov. 28 in Madison Square Garden, and now the Huskies have held the Illini to their two lowest scoring totals and shooting percentages of the season. UConn also beat Illinois 77-52 in the Elite Eight two years ago.

“We held them to 35 percent (shooting),” Underwood said. “They just made more 3s than we did.”

And finished with a little more punch.

“The year hasn’t been a joy ride,” Hurley said. “We haven’t been a machine of destruction. We’ve been a team that’s had to grind out games like this.”

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Raleigh Minning, owner of Made with Love Donuts, endured 30 rounds of radiation, 18 rounds of chemotherapy and a full lymph node dissection before there was no sign of the disease. Rather than stepping away from the experience, she channeled it into building something bigger.

“The first thing I prayed was God if this is your will then I am ready but if not use me and I feel like he’s done that with this business,” Minning said.

From diagnosis to donation

All proceeds from Made with Love Donuts go directly to local cancer patients and cancer research. The shop has donated more than $100,000 — without soliciting a single outside donation.

“From just our work, that’s it. We haven’t asked for donations,” Minning said.

That milestone is not lost on Minning, who remembers the uncertainty of her diagnosis just a few years ago.

“Going from scared cancer to now this. I mean five years ago I didn’t know what my outcome was going to be and now we’re able to help others the way they helped me,” she said.

More than donuts

Made with Love Donuts is completely gluten-free and has operated in Michigan for three years, starting in Wyandotte before relocating to Allen Park. The shop offers an array of items, from gluten-free donuts to cookies — and the menu has grown well beyond traditional bakery fare.

“Then I quickly realized there were a lot of pastries but not a lot of grab-and-go meals, so that’s when we shifted to making copy cat Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches, lasagnas, pierogis,” Minning said.

The shop’s reach has extended beyond its storefront as well. Minning’s gluten-free buns are now sold at concession stands inside Comerica Park.

As the business grows, Minning hopes the donations keep pace — and that her story helps bring wider attention to metastatic melanoma.

Visit Made with Love Donuts

Made with Love Donuts is located at 9837 Reeck Road, Allen Park, MI 48101.

Hours:

• Thursday: 3-9 p.m.
• Friday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
• Saturday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

For the most up-to-date information, visit madewithlovedonuts.com

The storm ripped through one family’s barn, destroying the exterior and leaving a trail of debris across their yard and beyond.

The family spoke to Local 4’s Kyla Russell as they took stock of what happened.

Just before 6 p.m. on Saturday, Rob Salenbien and his girlfriend had just returned home from celebrating Easter. It was a typical weekend day.

“I had just put food away and the rain hit, and the power flashed off and on, and just as soon as we saw the rain, we saw high winds and I was peeking out the window and all the sudden we saw the spinning, I was like ‘Let’s go,’” Salenbien said. “When we saw it, just after the hard rains, we saw it twirling, the trees swinging all the way around, we ducked into the center of the house to get away if anything was collapsed.”

The barn is used for hosting for the most part. It’s even fit with with a bar, couches and gym equipment.

“It’s our entertainment place,” Salenbien said. “We were just hosting my family, my mom and dad is inside – their 60th wedding anniversary is coming up on April 30th, we were going to have a party here on Mary 3rd.”

There’s some damage to their house too, but they are grateful everyone is ok.

“The foundation appears to be ok, got a little bit of water in the basement, we’ll find out what that’s from. Could just be the hard rain,” he said.

Other areas in Van Buren Township took hits too.

Local 4 chatted with crews working to address downed power lines. There were at least three within a half mile radius near the intersection of East Huron River Drive and Haggerty Road.

Several trees were downed, too.

“When you look at this, what are the words that come to mind?” Local 4 asked Salenbien.

“Just thankful that everyone is ok, nobody is hurt -- we can fix wood.” he said.

Following an NHL-record 14 seasons of futility, during which the team finished no better than 19th in the league, the Sabres clinched a berth on Saturday when the New York Rangers defeated the Detroit Red Wings in regulation. Buffalo's playoff drought was among the four North American major sports’ longest active streaks, ranking second behind the NFL's New York Jets, who last qualified in 2010.

The Sabres clinched with six games left in their season, before being beat 6-2 at Washington on Saturday night, and are in contention to earn the Eastern Conference's top seed. At 46-23-8, Buffalo is riding a 35-9-4 surge that has vaulted the team after sitting last in the East in early December.

The turnaround has been remarkable for a franchise that through Saturday has gone 5,458 days since the Lindy Ruff-coached team lost Game 7 of a first-round series to Philadelphia on April 26, 2011.

“Obviously unbelievable. I’m happy for the city, I’m happy for all the guys that have been grinding here for years, like the equipment managers, trainers, my teammates ... wow, it’s going to be special, that’s for sure,” captain Rasmus Dahlin said.

In the ensuing years, the Sabres have finished last overall four times and are on their seventh coach, with Ruff back for a second stint, and their fourth general manager, Jarmo Kekalainen.

Buffalo’s run up the standings coincided with Kekalainen being promoted from his position as senior adviser on Dec. 15, replacing Kevyn Adams, who was fired after five-plus seasons.

The Sabres already had won three straight when the change occurred and proceeded to go on a franchise record-matching 10-0 run. They’ve not looked back since. Buffalo is 14-4-2 since returning from the Olympic break, and the team’s worst stretch since December has been a 0-1-2 skid.

“The guys have worked so hard to get to this point,” Ruff said. “Every month has been pretty darn consistent, and we played a good brand of hockey. We’ve gotten rewarded for how hard we’ve played.”

Though Adams’ firing played a role in spurring the team, so did Buffalo getting healthier.

The Sabres’ top two lines were replenished with the return of Josh Norris and Jason Zucker, and their goaltending got a boost with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen shaking off an early season injury to resume sharing the starting duties with Alex Lyon. After opening the season 4-5-1, Luukkonen has gone 15-4-2 since Dec. 21.

“I find that we deserve to be where we’re at. ... From where we were at the start of December to where we got, asked a lot of the players and got a lot back,” Ruff said.

Kekalainen also added depth at the trade deadline last month by acquiring center Sam Carrick, forward Tanner Pearson and defensemen Logan Stanley and Luke Schenn.

The team is led by two of its longest-tenured players: Dahlin, the No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft, and forward Tage Thompson, who was acquired in a trade that sent Ryan O’Reilly to St. Louis in the summer of 2018.

Dahlin ranks sixth among NHL defensemen with 69 points, while Thompson is tied for 11th among all skaters with 38 goals.

The next test for Buffalo is winning a playoff series, something the team hasn’t done since beating the Rangers in six games in the second round in 2007.

The turnaround has revived a fanbase that had grown weary with losing, various rebuilding plans that failed to generate a winner and a revolving door of talent being shuffled in and out of Buffalo — from O’Reilly’s departure to Jack Eichel being dealt to Vegas in November 2021 following a lengthy standoff over how to repair a neck injury. Each went on to win the Stanley Cup with his new team.

The Sabres have not hoisted the Cup through their first 54 seasons of existence.

“It’s something that we’ve worked hard for for a long time to be able to get into the postseason,” Thompson said. “It felt good.”

“I’m really proud of the group,” Alex Tuch added. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Buffalo has had 21 home sellouts this season, including 15 in a row, a year after selling out just five games.

This season, the Sabres have shown resolve in rallying back from deficits. Buffalo entered Saturday with 19 come-from-behind wins, tied for seventh in the NHL. That included defeating Tampa Bay 8-7 last month after trailing 7-5 with nine minutes left in regulation.

The Lightning also clinched Saturday, before beating the Bruins, for their ninth consecutive appearance and 12th in 13 years.

___

AP freelance writer Sammi Silber in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

___

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

Not far away, Illinois freshman Keaton Wagler headed dejectedly to his bench, pulling his jersey over his face. He disappeared into the arms of consoling teammates, then emerged with his head covered by a towel as the handshake line formed.

Only one of the two fantastic freshmen could end the night in triumph, but both led their teams on a rough offensive night for the Huskies and the Illini in UConn's 71-62 win Saturday in the Final Four.

Mullins — the home-state hero who hit an incredible shot to send UConn to Indianapolis — got off to a fast start and finished with four 3-pointers and 15 points. Wagler, a second-team All-American, had a game-high 20 points to go with eight rebounds while the Illini never found the groove that had brought them to their first Final Four since 2005.

Both hit key 3s as UConn fought to maintain its tenuous late lead. And by the final horn, Mullins and Wagler had become the first opposing freshmen with at least 15 points in a Final Four game since 1982 — when a couple of kids named Michael Jordan (North Carolina) and Patrick Ewing (Georgetown) were squaring off for the national title.

Only Mullins will have a chance to add to his March run.

“We’re so ready for the national championship game,” Mullins said after exchanging an exuberant hug with coach Dan Hurley. “This is what I came here for. Let’s get it on Monday.”

Mullins is an Indiana star and the face of March Madness

Mullins was a prep star out of Greenfield, roughly 30 miles from Lucas Oil Stadium, the cavernous home of the Indianapolis Colts that hosted the Final Four. He was already the star of the week in Indianapolis after hitting the 3-pointer that capped UConn's stunning comeback from 19 points down to beat No. 1 overall tournament seed Duke in the Elite Eight last weekend.

This time, he faced an opponent that had elevated its defense to go with its season-long efficiency. The Illini allowed just 0.976 points per possession through four NCAA Tournament wins to lead the four remaining teams while leaning on their paint-controlling size advantage.

That only magnified the importance of Mullins, a 6-foot-6 wing who came armed with a fearless look — whether shaking off a second half full of misses or ending up on the floor after getting stuffed at the rim on a baseline drive before halftime.

He set the tone during the opening three minutes, when he knocked down his first two 3-point tries, the second after losing Jake Davis around a screen then backpedaling and clapping with a big grin. He even banked in a straightaway 3 for a 37-27 lead, prompting him to grin sheepishly and stick out his tongue.

“The shot clock was winding down and I was just trying to find a pick and pop,” Mullins told reporters huddled around his locker. “I knew when I saw that separation I was going to put it up. But I did not expect to hit glass. You’ve got to have a smile on your face when that happens because those shots do happen.”

He saved his biggest moment for the second half. Mullins was 0 for 5 since halftime when Illinois had trimmed a 14-point deficit to four. Alex Karaban missed a 3-pointer, but Silas Demary Jr. outfought Illinois’ Ben Humrichous for the rebound to set up Mullins’ 3 with 52.1 seconds left.

It was his only second-half basket as UConn shot just 28.6% after halftime in a rock fight of a game.

Wagler has raw emotions after loss

It was a harder night for Wagler, the former four-star recruit who rose to prominence this season as part of a stellar freshman class nationally. He finished 7 for 16 from the floor but went just 2 for 10 from 3-point range — he entered shooting 40.7% from behind the arc — on a night when Illinois shot just 33.9% overall.

“I felt like I was settled in, it was just my shot was off, which happens,” Wagler said. “So I was just trying to stay confident throughout the game and keep shooting them. I felt like I'm a good shooter so I kept shooting them.”

He came through with a big one to answer Mullins' late 3, hitting a step-back against Demary with 43.5 seconds left to keep Illinois within four. But he missed another one moments later, slapping his right thigh in frustration as it became clear the game was finally out of reach.

By the end of the night, he sat his locker with teammate Ty Rodgers' left arm wrapped around him.

“Every day when you go through something like this with a group for this long, and you love them, it's hard when it ends,” Wagler said, pausing to fight back tears as Rodgers patted him on the shoulder. “You know, when it ends, it's just sad.”

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

The strike by thousands of workers at the Swift Beef Co. plant in Greeley, Colorado, began on March 16 in coordination with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union in a bid for higher wages and better health care.

The strike came as U.S. cattle numbers hit a 75-year-old low this year, a decline driven in part by drought and low prices offered to ranchers. Meanwhile, beef prices have soared to record levels, adding to economic anxiety in the U.S.

The union said in a statement that workers will return to work Tuesday morning after plant owner JBS USA agreed to reopen talks later in the week.

“Workers remain united and will continue to fight,” said local union president Kim Cordova in a statement.

JBS USA spokesperson Nikki Richardson said the company is “preparing to resume and ramp up operations at the Greeley plant next week.”

“Our Last, Best and Final offer remains on the table,” Richardson said in an email that did not include terms. “We hope employees will have the opportunity to review and vote on it soon.”

The strike at Greeley is the first strike at a U.S. slaughterhouse since workers walked out at a Hormel plant in Minnesota in 1985. That strike lasted more than a year and included violent confrontations between police and protesters.

JBS is the world’s largest meatpacking company with a market capitalization of $17 billion. It is the top employer in Greeley, a city 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Denver with a population of about 114,000 people.

The strike at Greeley was launched on accusations by union officials that management at Swift Beef Co. retaliated against workers and committed other unfair labor practices.

The union said the company had offered less than 2% more a year in wages, which is less than inflation in Colorado. JBS USA has denied any labor law violations and said its contract offer was fair.

The Greeley plant has about 6% of the total U.S. beef slaughterhouse capacity, said Abby Greiman, a livestock market adviser for industry consultant Ever.Ag.

An extended strike threatened to disrupt the industry, which could ultimately drive up prices, said Jennifer Martin at Colorado State University’s animal sciences department.

The price for 100% ground chuck beef more than doubled over the past two decades from $2.55 to $6.07 per pound, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Colorado walkout followed the January closure of a meatpacking plant in Lexington, Nebraska, which was expected to ripple through the local economy and community. Tyson Foods cited the smaller herd and millions of dollars in expected losses this year.

JBS shares were approved for trading on the New York Stock Exchange last May despite environmental opposition and a federal probe that led to its guilty plea in October to bribing Brazilian officials for the financing it used for its U.S. expansion.

At the Greeley plant, union officials said the company tried to intimidate workers to quit the union in one-on-one meetings, union general counsel Matt Shechter said.

The hardest-hit areas appear to be in parts of Wayne and Monroe counties, where strong winds and possible tornadoes moved through during the late afternoon and early evening hours.

In Monroe County, damage was reported from an earlier storm that moved through during the mid to late afternoon. At 3:13 p.m., a severe thunderstorm warning was issued, which included the potential for a brief spin-up tornado. It produced numerous reports of trees down, leaning utility poles and damage to homes, particularly in the Whiteford Township and Lambertville areas. Photos from the region showed at least one home with a tree puncturing the roof.

A second line of storms tracked into Southeast Michigan in the evening.

In Wayne County, including Van Buren Township and areas near Belleville, multiple reports confirmed trees and power lines down, with damage concentrated near Huron River Drive and surrounding neighborhoods. At 5:49 p.m., a tornado warning was issued for parts of Wayne County as a storm capable of producing a tornado moved through the Romulus and Belleville areas. Emergency crews also received reports of significant damage to structures, including homes impacted by fallen trees.

Tornado warnings were later issued for parts of Monroe, Oakland, Macomb counties shortly after 6 p.m. as additional storms showed rotation along the line.

The National Weather Service’s Detroit/Pontiac office said it plans to send survey teams out Easter Sunday morning to determine whether any tornadoes touched down and to assess the extent of the damage.

View this post on Instagram

In addition to the wind damage, heavy rainfall added another layer of impact. Between 1 and 3 inches of rain fell across parts of Southeast Michigan earlier in the day, with additional rainfall Saturday evening. The rain has led to standing water on roads, rising rivers and localized flooding in low-lying and poor drainage areas. A Flood Watch remains in effect through midnight. Additional runoff could worsen conditions overnight.

The timing of the storms is especially difficult for families, as the damage comes just hours before Easter Sunday. Instead of final preparations for holiday gatherings, some residents are dealing with power outages, debris cleanup and assessing damage to their homes and neighborhoods.

Officials are urging residents to use caution in the aftermath of the storms. Downed power lines should always be treated as live and avoided. Drivers are advised not to travel through flooded roadways, where water depth can be difficult to judge. Those without power are encouraged to use flashlights instead of candles to reduce fire risk.

Authorities often also ask the public to avoid traveling into damaged areas unless necessary, allowing emergency crews and utility workers to safely clear debris and restore power.

While conditions are expected to quiet down overnight and into Sunday, the focus now shifts to recovery.

If you were able to safely capture photos, submit them to Local 4 at MIPics.

Meanwhile the search continued for a second day in a remote area of Iran for a missing U.S. pilot whose warplane was shot down. Iran has urged residents to turn in the “enemy pilot” for a reward.

And Israel vowed to “continue to crush” Iran and confirmed it struck a petrochemical complex Saturday. Iranian state media reported at least five people were killed.

Here is the latest:

Senegal limits foreign trips for officials as the fallout from Iran war deepens

The country banned all but essential foreign trips for government ministers as part of cost-saving measures triggered by the energy crisis linked to the war.

Senegal, like many African countries, imports most of the petroleum products it consumes. That leaves its economy vulnerable to supply disruptions such as the chokehold on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which has sent the price of crude soaring.

Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said his office is taking steps to limit public expenditure, pointing out that initial budget forecasts were based on an oil price of $62 per barrel. It is now almost double that.

“I have taken a number of drastic measures to restrict everything related to government spending, including the cancellation of all nonessential missions abroad,” the government-owned newspaper Le Soleil quoted Sonko as saying.

He added that he canceled several trips, including to Niger, Spain and France.

Housing market trends favor home shoppers, but Iran war clouds the outlook for mortgage rates

The economic fallout from the war is driving up the cost of buying a home, even as other housing market trends in many parts of the country favor home shoppers this spring.

Mortgage rates have been rising since the war began, as surging energy prices heighten worries about higher inflation, pushing up the yield on U.S. 10-year Treasury bonds, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

As recently as the last week of February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage dropped to just under 6%, its lowest level in more than three and a half years. It climbed this week to 6.46%, its highest level in nearly seven months.

“The war in Iran has seriously complicated the spring buying season,” said Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com. “I expect that many buyers will be put off by rising rates and mounting economic uncertainty, choosing to bide their time rather than jumping on board for a purchase before rates go up.”

▶ Read more

Leo celebrates his first Easter vigil service as pope, calls for harmony and peace in a world torn by war

Pope Leo XIV ushered in Christianity’s most joyous celebration Saturday night, calling for the holy day to bring harmony and peace to a world torn by wars.

In his homily, Leo called sin “a heavy barrier that closes us off and separates us from God, seeking to kill his words of hope within us,’’ and likened it to the stone that covered Jesus’ tomb but was found overturned, revealing his resurrection.

Leo said there are stones representing sins to be overturned today, some “so heavy and so closely guarded that they seem to be immovable.”

“Some weigh heavily on the human heart, such as mistrust, fear, selfishness and resentment; others stemming from these inner struggles, sever the bonds between us through war, injustice and the isolation of peoples and nations.

“Let us not allow ourselves to be paralyzed by them!” Leo said, calling for a commitment “so that the Easter gifts of harmony and peace may grow and flourish everywhere and always throughout the world.’’

▶ Read more

Iranian state media reports airstrikes in southwest Iran killed at least 3 and wounded others

The attack took place in the same area where a missing American crew member is believed to be.

Iran vows to open ‘gates of hell’ if the US and Israel escalate attacks

The commander of the joint military command said his country will target all infrastructure used by the U.S. military in the region, as well as Israel’s infrastructure, if aggression against Iran escalates.

Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi’s comments Saturday evening, carried by state media, came a few hours after Trump warned Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face devastating consequences.

“Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them,” Trump said via social media, as he re-upped a previous April 6 deadline for opening the shipping channel.

5 university professors and 60 students killed since war started, Iranian official says

Iran’s Minister of Science, Research and Technology Hossein Simaei Sarraf spoke to reporters Saturday while checking the aftermath of strike on a university research center in southern Tehran.

A laser and plasma research center at the prestigious Shahid Beheshti University was damaged Friday following an airstrike.

“The enemy with no roots in history, culture and civilization is acting worse than (humans living) in the stone age and attacks a scientific center,” he told reporters while standing in the midst of the wreckage. AP video from the scene shows fallen ceilings and walls, blown out windows and damaged equipment.

It wasn’t clear if the strike was carried out by the United States or Israel or why the center was targeted. Iranian media did not report any casualties.

Since 2011, Shahid Beheshti University has been sanctioned by the EU for its involvement in nuclear weapons development.

AP journalists witness destruction at Shiite religious complex in Zanjan, Iran

Residents in the northwestern Iranian city told the AP an airstrike that hit the Grand Husayniyya of Zanjan on March 31 also caused damage to a library and clinic within the complex where people used to get treated for free. Part of the Husayniyya, a congregation hall for Shiite commemorations and rituals, is centuries old.

Damage could be seen in the building’s golden dome and nearby minaret during a visit Saturday. A nearby building within the complex was heavily damaged. Workers were still cleaning up debris.

Jaafar Mohammadi, director general of cultural and Islamic guidance in Zanjan province, said the strike killed two people, including the caretaker of the library, Alirezza Soubatlo, and a volunteer with the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

The library was home to more than 35,000 books, many of which are very old and handwritten.

Prediction market taking bets on search for missing US military service member has been shut down

A prediction market accepting bets on the search for a U.S. military service member still missing from a fighter jet shot down in the Iran war Friday has been shut down by Polymarket for violating its standards.

Polymarket, which has turned prediction markets into an increasingly popular phenomenon alongside rival operator Kalshi, disclosed it blocked the wagering on the search for the missing military member about two hours after U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton posted a note of outrage on social media.

“This is DISGUSTING,” wrote Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts who was in combat in the Middle East while serving in the Marines.

In its response on the social platform X, Polymarket said Friday that it removed the market cited by Moulton and was investigating how it slipped through the safeguards set up to protect its integrity standards.

Polymarket has recently been coming under increasing scrutiny, including calls for tougher regulation of prediction markets.

The criticism has mounted after some of its users made substantial bets ahead of the war in Iran and the military action in Venezuela earlier this year.

Police forcibly dispersed anti-war protest in Tel Aviv amid wartime restrictions

Several hundred people attended the demonstration at Habima Square in Tel Aviv calling for an end to the war, in between sirens warning of incoming missiles from Iran and from Yemen.

Israeli wartime restrictions currently limit gatherings in public areas to 150 people. But in response to an appeal, supreme court justices on Saturday evening issued an interim ruling saying at least 600 people would be allowed to gather at Habima Square and 150 at each of several other locations across the country.

At around 8 p.m., police declared the demonstration unlawful, claiming there were “hundreds more than the court ordered” at the protest. Police officers forcibly removed protesters from the square and arrested at least 17.

Argentina says Iran’s top diplomat has been expelled from the country

Argentina’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Saturday it had expelled Iran’s top diplomat as tensions increase between Iran’s theocratic regime and Argentina’s libertarian government, which is closely aligned with the Trump administration.

In a message on X, Argentina’s Foreign Affairs Minister Pablo Quirno said Iran’s Charge D’Affaires, Mohsen Soltani Tehrani, had left the country “in compliance” with a resolution issued Thursday that gave the Iranian diplomat 48 hours to leave the South American country.

Tensions between both nations intensified earlier this week after Argentina declared Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. The measure will enable the Argentine government to issue financial sanctions against those conducting business with that branch of Iran’s armed forces and seize any assets it could own in Argentina.

Iran’s Foreign Affairs Ministry replied to the terrorism designation with a statement which said Argentina’s actions amounted to an “unforgivable offense” influenced by the United States.

Iran state media say five killed in strikes on petrochemical facilities

The U.S.-Israeli strikes also wounded others in the attack on the facilities in the Mahshahr Special Petrochemical Economic Zone in southwestern Iran, state media cited a provincial security official as saying.

The Israeli military claimed responsibility for the attack on the facilities earlier Saturday and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in a video statement on X to press ahead with more attacks. He claimed the complex was “responsible for producing and exporting chemical materials to the regime’s armed forces” and that the targeted facilities were “used to produce materials for explosives, ballistic missile, and additional weaponry.”

White House says Trump is ‘working nonstop’

As the clock ticks closer to the U.S. president’s Monday deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the White House says Trump is firmly at work.

“There has never been a President who has worked harder for the American people than President Trump,” Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted on X. “On this Easter weekend, he has been working nonstop in the White House and Oval Office. God Bless him.”

The president often travels to his Palm Beach, Florida, club on the weekends, but he’s staying in Washington for the Easter weekend. Since he delivered his prime-time address on Iran on Wednesday night, the president has held a series of closed-press meetings at the White House.

Meloni says Gulf visit aimed at solidarity and protecting Italy’s energy and security interests

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said in a video message released by her office Saturday that her mission to the Gulf was aimed at showing solidarity with countries “that continue to suffer unjustified attacks by Iran,’’ while also addressing Italian security and energy interests.

Meloni is the first EU leader to travel to the Gulf since the U.S.-Israel war on Iran began, visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on a two-day visit.

“I think it is important for Italy in such a difficult moment to be present in the places where a fundamental part of our security is being decided, and also our economic future,’’ Meloni said in the video shot as she was being driven in the back of a car through Doha, Qatar. “Because when instability increases in the Gulf, not just the international balance is impacted, but also energy prices,’’ which affect companies’ cost and families’ purchasing power.

She noted Italy receives 10% of its natural gas from Qatar and the Gulf region supplies 15% of its petroleum needs.

Netanyahu confirms Israel hit Iranian petrochemical factories, says they’ll continue to ‘crush’ Iran

“After we destroyed 70% of its ability to create steel, which is used as the raw material for the weapons used against us, today we attacked their petrochemical factories,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement posted on his X account.

The Israeli military said that earlier Saturday its air force struck a petrochemical complex in Mahshahr, in southwestern Iran. It alleged the complex was “responsible for producing and exporting chemical materials to the regime’s armed forces” and that the targeted facilities were “used to produce materials for explosives, ballistic missile, and additional weaponry.”

“I promised you that we will continue to crush the terrorist regime in Tehran, and that is exactly what we are doing,” Netanyahu said.

World commodity prices rise for 2nd straight month with Strait of Hormuz closure posing additional risks

World food commodity prices rose for a second consecutive month in March, driven largely by increasing energy costs linked to the escalating conflict in the Middle East, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization reported Friday.

The latest FAO benchmark index, tracking monthly changes in the international prices of a basket of globally traded food commodities, rose 1% from a year ago, highlighting how geopolitical tensions are pushing up production and transportation expenses, adding renewed pressure on global food markets. Prices were up 2.4% from a month earlier.

Price surges have been relatively contained compared with after the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 because markets remain well-supplied following strong harvests in major growing regions, said David Laborde, the FAO agrifood economics director.

With a large portion of the world’s fuel and fertilizer moving through the Strait of Hormuz, he noted that a long-term closure will force farmers to make difficult planting decisions. That will affect the cost of producing the next harvest, as well as yields.

Iran says Iraq is exempt from transit restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz

Iran’s joint military command spokesperson said in a statement in Arabic on Saturday that the restrictions imposed in the Strait of Hormuz “only apply to enemy countries.”

Addressing Iraqis, Ebrahim Zolfaghari said in a speech carried by state media that “you are a nation that bears the marks of American occupation on your chest, and your struggle against America is worthy of appreciation and praise.”

Iran-backed militias in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks on U.S. bases and other facilities in the country in solidarity with Tehran since the war began.

The Iran war, now its second month, has dealt a massive blow to Iraq’s economy. The country is heavily dependent on oil revenues for almost 90% of its budget and most of its oil is exported through the Strait of Hormuz, where cargo traffic has effectively been stopped by Iran during the conflict.

Israel says a ballistic missile from Yemen was launched against the country

The attack triggered sirens across the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The Houthis in Yemen have launched several missiles against Israel since joining the war last week in support of Iran.

Israel says another soldier killed in Lebanon

The death brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon in the current war to 11.

A military official said the soldier was killed by friendly fire. He spoke anonymously in line with military regulations.

— Natalie Melzer

Meloni wraps Gulf tour in UAE, discusses end to conflict and new investments

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni concluded her two-day visit to three Gulf states in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, discussing with the country’s leader additional investments by both countries in energy, defense and security, her office said in a statement.

Meloni is the first EU, G20 and NATO leader to visit the Gulf region since the start of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. She began her two-day visit Friday in Saudi Arabia and visited Qatar earlier Saturday. The start of the mission was unannounced due to security concerns.

Meloni and UAE’s president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also discussed ways to bring an end to the conflict in the region and open the Strait of Hormuz, Meloni’s office said. The Italian leader also expressed her support for the country, which has suffered attacks from Iran following the launch of the war.

US revokes green cards and visas of several Iranian nationals connected to Tehran government

The Trump administration has revoked the green cards or U.S. visas of at least four Iranian nationals connected to the current or former Iranian government, including two who’ve been detained by immigration authorities and are to be deported.

The latest actions were taken just this week when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined they were no longer eligible for either lawful permanent resident status, or to enter the United States. The steps follow a move late last year in which the visas of several diplomats and staffers at Iran’s mission to the United Nations were also revoked.

In a statement Saturday, the State Department said the niece and grand-niece of former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike near the Baghdad airport in 2020, had been arrested late Friday by immigration agents after Rubio revoked their green cards.

▶ Read more

Pakistan says US-Iran talks effort on track as Tehran denies refusing Islamabad visit

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said Saturday there was no truth to speculation in local media that the mediation effort had stalled due to Iran’s refusal to send a delegation.

He dismissed reports suggesting an impasse in the regionally backed initiative, saying the peace efforts are right on track.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in a post on X also said Tehran had “never refused to go to Islamabad” but was seeking a “conclusive and lasting” end to the conflict. “We are deeply grateful to Pakistan for its efforts and have never refused to go to Islamabad,” Araghchi wrote.

He said “What we care about are the terms of a conclusive and lasting end to the illegal war that is imposed on us.”

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar welcomed Araghchi’s remarks, saying he appreciated the clarification.

Pakistan, with backing from regional partners, is still working to bring Washington and Tehran to the negotiations table. However, no dates have been set for the proposed talks and it remains unclear whether any such engagement would be direct or indirect.

Israel says it identified another launch of missiles from Iran, the 8th on Saturday

It comes shortly after an attack that damaged buildings in East Jerusalem. Sirens were activated across northern Israel.

Buildings damaged in East Jerusalem after the latest barrage in a day of consistent fire from Iran

For the seventh time Saturday, missiles launched from Iran triggered sirens in multiple cities and towns in Israel.

Fire and Rescue services said their teams were treating two sites in East Jerusalem where buildings were damaged in the latest round. It wasn’t immediately clear if the impact was from parts of a missile or of an interceptor. No injuries were reported.

The military had said its defense systems were activated to try and intercept the missiles.

Hezbollah on Saturday also kept up its rocket fire on communities in northern Israel. Most were intercepted and there were no reports of injuries.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claims it struck two US Black Hawk helicopters

In a briefing Saturday, Iran’s joint military command spokesperson said it hit other enemy targets Friday, including the two helicopters.

The AP could not independently verify the claims. Some media outlets in the U.S. have reported the helicopters were hit.

Ebrahim Zolfaghari said in a statement carried by state media that it “must be called a black and humiliating Friday for the American and Zionist enemies.”

Iran had claimed the downing of two American warplanes Friday.

On Saturday, the U.S. military was pressing ahead with its search for a missing pilot over a remote area in southwestern Iran.

Israeli fire kills one Palestinian in central Gaza, health officials say

The airstrike on a civilian vehicle wounded two others, according to health officials at Al-Aqsa hospital, where the casualties arrived.

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

The Gaza Strip has seen near-daily Israeli fire and strikes since a fragile ceasefire was reached in October, and nearly 713 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to figures from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Since the Iran war began over a month ago, Gaza militants have sat out the conflict and haven’t claimed any attacks against Israel.

US military jets hit in Iran war are the first shot down by enemy fire in more than 20 years

Iran shooting down two American military jets marks an exceedingly rare assault for the U.S. that hasn’t happened in more than 20 years and shows the Islamic Republic’s continued ability to hit back despite President Trump asserting it has been “completely decimated.”

The attacks came five weeks after U.S. and Israeli strikes first pounded Iran, with Trump saying earlier this week that Tehran’s “ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed.”

Iran shot down a U.S. F15-E Strike Eagle fighter jet Friday, with one service member getting rescued and the search still underway for a second, U.S. officials say. Iranian state media also said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed after being hit by Iranian defense forces.

The last time a U.S. warplane was shot down by enemy fire in combat was an A-10 Thunderbolt II during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell, a former F-16 fighter pilot.

▶ Read more

Kuwait continues to intercept Iranian aerial attacks

In its daily briefing posted on X, the Kuwaiti army said Saturday that it had intercepted eight ballistic missiles and 19 drones over the last 24 hours.

Since the war began, Kuwaiti air forces have engaged with a total of 709 Iranian drones, 327 ballistic missiles and nine cruise missiles, according to the briefing.

Encompassing roughly 6.3 square miles (about 16 square kilometers) in Riverside County, about 64 miles (103 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, the Springs Fire was no longer growing and at least 75% percent contained Saturday, said Terra Fernandez, public safety information specialist for the Riverside County Fire Department. It was 25% contained on Friday.

Fire officials also lifted evacuation orders for a large swath of neighborhoods Saturday morning. Fernandez said she expected the rest will be lifted by the end of the day.

“It's pretty much under control,” Fernandez said.

The fire was fueled by strong Santa Ana winds with gusts predicted to get up to 45 mph (72 kph) on Saturday. But winds had “dissipated a bit” since Friday, helping the efforts of fire crews, Fernandez said. Natural equestrian trails around the area also helped firefighters make access to the fire and build effective containment lines around its perimeter, she said.

So far, no structures have been damaged or destroyed.

Crews began early Saturday dropping water and retardant all around the fire by air. About 260 personnel are battling the blaze, including crews from around the region who are building and strengthening the containment lines and laying hose, she said.

A handful of zones in the county remained under mandatory evacuation orders. It was not immediately known how many households were affected by the orders.

The fire is located in a populated unincorporated part of Riverside County that is a recreational area near the city of Moreno Valley, which has a population of roughly 200,000.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

On the downside, their toilet is on the blink again.

The three Americans and one Canadian are set to reach their destination Monday, photographing the mysterious lunar far side as they zoom around. It is the first moon-bound crew in more than 53 years, picking up where NASA’s Apollo program left off.

“The Earth is quite small, and the moon is definitely getting bigger,” pilot Victor Glover reported.

Until the Orion capsule's bathroom is fixed, Mission Control has instructed the astronauts to break out more of the backup urine collection bags. The so-called lunar loo malfunctioned following Wednesday’s liftoff and has been hit-and-miss ever since. A version of the Artemis II toilet was tested on the International Space Station several years ago.

Engineers suspect ice may be blocking the line that is preventing urine from completely flushing overboard. The toilet is still open for No. 2 business.

Debbie Korth, NASA’s Orion program deputy manager, said the astronauts have also reported a smell coming from the bathroom, which is buried in the floor of the capsule with a door and curtain for privacy.

“Space toilets and bathrooms are something everybody can really understand .. it’s always a challenge,” she said, noting that the space shuttle toilet was also often on the fritz.

John Honeycutt, chair of the mission management team, said it is human nature to be interested in the space commode, and even though it is “in a good state right now,” he’d like it to be working at 100%.

“They’re OK,” he said of the astronauts. “They trained to manage through the situation.”

Artemis II is poised to set a distance record for humans, traveling more than 252,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon and heading home without stopping or entering lunar orbit. The record is currently held by Apollo 13.

The Canadian Space Agency celebrated the country’s role in the mission, speaking from Quebec with astronaut Jeremy Hansen as he headed toward his lunar rendezvous. Hansen is the first non-U.S. citizen to fly to the moon.

“Today he is making history for Canada,” Canadian Space Agency President Lisa Campbell said. “As we watch him taking this bold step into the unknown, let his journey remind us that Canada’s future is written by those who dare to reach for more.”

In the live televised linkup, Hansen said he has already witnessed “extraordinary” views from NASA's Orion capsule.

Hansen, Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch are the world's first lunar astronauts since Apollo 17's crew of three in 1972. Koch and Glover are the first female and first Black astronauts to the moon, respectively.

Their nearly 10-day mission — ending with a Pacific splashdown on April 10 — is the first step in NASA's bold plans for a sustainable moon base. The space agency is aiming for a landing by two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2028.

___

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 NBA issued a statement offering an update on the investigation Saturday, a day after Antetokounmpo told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Athletic that he’s healthy and he wants to play.

Antetokounmpo hasn’t played since leaving a March 15 victory over the Indiana Pacers after landing awkwardly on a dunk. The Bucks released an injury report Saturday ruling him out for Sunday’s matchup with the Memphis Grizzlies, which will mark the 11th straight game he has missed.

“The NBA’s Player Participation Policy investigation into the Milwaukee Bucks and Giannis Antetokounmpo is ongoing and certain facts remain in dispute,” an NBA spokesman said. “The investigation has found that the Bucks scheduled Giannis to work out last week in three-on-three scrimmages as part of his return-to-play process, but he declined to participate. There is a disagreement as to whether the team requested that Giannis participate in a group workout earlier this week, and the league is continuing to monitor the situation.”

ESPN first reported that an investigation was taking place.

Since that Indiana game, the Bucks have ruled Antetokounmpo out due to left knee hyperextension and a bone bruise. Antetokounmpo has been participating in pregame warmups lately with no apparent limits.

“I’m healthy,” Antetokounmpo told reporters before the Bucks’ 133-101 loss to the Boston Celtics on Friday. “I hate it when people force me to do things against my nature. I’m a player. I get paid to play.”

The Bucks were eliminated from postseason contention on March 28, snapping their string of nine straight playoff appearances.

Sunday will mark the career-high 42nd game Antetokounmpo has missed this season. He had two extended absences earlier this season due to right calf strains. He also sat out four games early this season with a left adductor strain.

The 31-year-old Antetokounmpo says he’s feeling better now and wants to get back on the floor. He has played his entire 13-year career with Milwaukee, which selected him with the 15th overall pick in the 2013 draft.

Given his long history with the team, Antetokounmpo said the Bucks should have known he wouldn’t want to be shut down for the season just because their playoff hopes have vanished.

“You know who you’re dealing with,” Antetokounmpo said Friday. “So, for somebody to come and tell me to not play or to not compete, it’s like a slap in my face.”

This dispute comes amid much speculation regarding Antetokounmpo’s future with the Bucks.

Antetokounmpo becomes eligible to sign a four-year contract extension worth up to $275 million in October. If he doesn’t sign the extension, Antetokounmpo could become a free agent after the 2026-27 season, or the Bucks could decide to trade him beforehand.

Bucks coach Doc Rivers said after Monday’s game that he wishes this disagreement had been kept between the two parties. Rivers added that “this is a grown man’s game, and it should be handled that way by everybody.”

“I just don’t like that this is so public,” Rivers said. “This is where grown men get in a room and they talk it out. Whether they agree or disagree, that doesn’t matter. But this should not be public, and I don’t like that.”

___

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

Trump has called Tehran “beaten and completely decimated " in the war, now in its sixth week, but the downing of two U.S. warplanes on Friday and Iran’s call to find the “enemy pilot” have again raised the stakes.

“The doors of hell will be opened to you” if Iran’s infrastructure is attacked, Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi with the country's joint military command said late Saturday in response to Trump’s renewed threat, state media reported. In turn, the general threatened all infrastructure used by the U.S. military in the region.

The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened, and hit, civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.

“We will continue to crush them,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, and confirmed that Israel's military struck a petrochemical complex in Mahshahr that he said helps to fund the war. Five people were killed and 170 injured, Iranian state media reported, citing a provincial security official.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that an airstrike hit near its Bushehr nuclear facility, killing a security guard and damaging a support building. The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, said that 198 workers were being evacuated. It was the fourth time the facility was targeted.

Hopes for talks

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, told The Associated Press that his government’s efforts to broker a ceasefire are “right on track" after Islamabad last week said that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that Iranian officials “have never refused to go to Islamabad.”

Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt were working to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.

The proposed compromise includes a cessation of hostilities to allow a diplomatic settlement, according to a regional official involved in the efforts and a Gulf diplomat briefed on the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.

Trump reminded Iran of his deadline in a social media post: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them."

A missing US pilot

The U.S. warplane, identified by Iran as a F-15E Strike Eagle, was one of two attacked on Friday. Iran’s joint military command on Saturday said that it also struck two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters, but the AP couldn’t independently verify that.

The search for the U.S. pilot focused on a mountainous region in Iran’s southwestern province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad. An anchor on a channel affiliated with Iranian state television urged residents to hand over any “enemy pilot” to police.

In an email from the Pentagon, obtained by the AP, the military said that it received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East. A U.S. crew member was rescued. The Pentagon notified the U.S. House Armed Services Committee that the status of a second service member wasn't known.

Trump told NBC News that what happened wouldn't affect negotiations with Iran.

Iranian state media reported that airstrikes in southwestern Iran on Saturday killed at least three people and wounded others — in the same area where the missing American crew member is believed to be.

A second U.S. Air Force combat aircraft went down in the Middle East on Friday, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation. It wasn't clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down, or whether Iran was involved.

Iranian state media said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iran’s defense forces.

Oracle's Dubai headquarters struck

The Dubai offices of tech company Oracle was hit after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened the firm. Footage verified by the AP outside the UAE showed a large hole in the building's southwestern corner.

The sheikhdom’s Dubai Media Office, which speaks for its government, noted a “minor incident caused by debris from an aerial interception that fell on the facade," saying there were no injuries. Oracle Corp., based in Texas, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Guard has accused some large U.S. tech companies of being involved in “terrorist espionage” operations against the Islamic Republic and called them legitimate targets. Amazon Web Services facilities in the UAE and Bahrain were hit in earlier drone strikes.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait

Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, issued a veiled threat late Friday to disrupt traffic through a second strategic waterway in the region, the Bab el-Mandeb.

The strait, 32 kilometers (20 miles) wide, links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. More than a tenth of seaborne global oil and a quarter of container ships pass through it.

“Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?” Qalibaf wrote.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and there have been more than 1 million displaced people. Ten Israeli soldiers have died there.

___

Jon Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Samy Magdy from Cairo. Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia; and Konstantin Toropin, Seung Min Kim, Will Weissert, Michelle L. Price, Lisa Mascaro and Ben Finley in Washington, contributed to this report.

That sets up a marathon finish Sunday in the final event before the Masters, with some players having to go 30 holes to finish the tournament. Groups will stay together the rest of the way.

MacIntyre was at 15-under par at the TPC San Antonio. Ludvig Aberg had three birdies in six holes playing alongside MacIntyre to reach 13 under.

No one played more than 14 holes of the third round. That included Matt Wallace, who was 7 under for the round through 14 holes and within four shots of the lead. Marco Penge, who makes his Augusta National debut next week, shot 30 on the front nine and was at 10 under through 11 holes.

Penge was among 15 players in the Masters who made the cut.

___

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

A visibly upset Auriemma went over to Staley in the final seconds of South Carolina’s 62-48 victory on Friday night and appeared to chastise her. Coaches from both teams had to separate them. When the game finally ended, Auriemma walked off the court to the locker room without going back to shake hands with anyone from South Carolina.

“There’s no excuse for how I handled the end of the game vs. South Carolina. It’s unlike what I do and what our standard is here at Connecticut,” the Hall of Fame coach said in a statement on Saturday. “I want to apologize to the staff and the team at South Carolina. It was uncalled for in how I reacted. The story should be how well South Carolina played, and I don’t want my actions to detract from that. I’ve had a great relationship with their staff, and I sincerely want to apologize to them.”

Staley said Saturday morning she was focused on the title game against UCLA on Sunday and not what happened a night earlier.

“For me, no distractions at this time. I'm concentrating on winning a national championship, that’s it,” Staley said. “That’s a little disheartening. This is sports, sometimes things like this happen. Continue to focus on my team and ability to advance in this tournament and hopefully win another national championship.”

Staley added that she would address the issue at a later point.

After the loss, Auriemma said the exchange was about the lack of a traditional pregame handshake between the coaches. Staley said she was confused Friday night.

“I have no idea,” the South Carolina coach said after the game. “But I’m going to let you know this: I’m of integrity. I’m of integrity. So if I did something wrong to Geno, I had no idea what I did. I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning of the game. I didn’t know. I went down there pregame, shook everybody on his staff’s hand.

“I don’t know what he came with after the game, but, hey, sometimes things get heated. We move on.”

According to the NCAA's policy in its operations manual for the tournament, after starting lineups are announced for both teams, the two coaches are directed to meet at midcourt and shake hands. Staley and Auriemma shook hands earlier in the pregame, but not after introductions, which irked Auriemma.

The women’s basketball committee always reviews issues that arise in the tournament after it concludes, the NCAA said.

South Carolina advanced to play UCLA in Sunday's title game. The Gamecocks are seeking their third championship in five seasons.

UConn and South Carolina are set to play each other in each of the next two seasons, with the first game in Connecticut.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Latest forecast --> Showers and thunderstorms move into Metro Detroit for Saturday; some strong to severe

Here’s a list of the alerts by county on April 4, 2026.

Wayne County

• A tornado warning has expired.

Oakland County

• A tornado warning has expired.

Macomb County

• A tornado warning has expired.

Washtenaw County

• No active weather alerts.

Monroe County

• A severe thunderstorm watch has been issued until 9 p.m.

Livingston County

• No active weather alerts.

Lenawee County

• No active weather alerts.

Lapeer County

• No active weather alerts.

Genesee County

• A flood warning has been issued Saturday afternoon and remains in affect until further notice.

St. Clair County

• No active weather alerts.

Sanilac County

• No active weather alerts.

Fresh off losing the English League Cup final to City before the international break, Arsenal saw another potential trophy slip from its grasp when conceding in the 85th minute to lose 2-1 at Southampton — a team in seventh place in the Championship.

It left City as the big favorite to clinch a cup double this season, with the thrashing of Liverpool securing a place in the FA Cup semifinals for a record eighth straight season.

Mohamed Salah’s failure from the penalty spot added to the woes of Liverpool, whose meltdown at Etihad Stadium will put more heat on under-pressure manager Arne Slot.

Chelsea also advanced, routing third-tier Port Vale 7-0. The semifinal line-up will be completed Sunday when West Ham hosts Leeds, after which the last-four draw will be made.

Arsenal cup hopes disappearing

So much for Arsenal's hopes of a quadruple of major trophies this season.

It's now just the Premier League and Champions League up for grabs with manager Mikel Arteta's decision to field a weakened lineup backfiring at St. Mary's stadium.

Trailing to a 35th-minute strike by Ross Stewart, Arsenal sent on Viktor Gyokeres — fresh off scoring the goal that lifted Sweden into the World Cup on Tuesday — and the striker equalized in the 68th.

Still, Southampton continued to look dangerous on the counterattack and Shea Charles, a former academy product at Man City, fired home from inside the area to secure a famous win.

“To go and beat arguably the best team in Europe at the minute is an incredible feeling,” Stewart said.

In an added blow to Arsenal ahead of its upcoming Champions League quarterfinal against Sporting Lisbon, Brazil center back Gabriel Magalhaes was forced off with a left knee injury midway through the second half. He was seen later with ice on the knee.

“This is the first moment that we have (this season) with a certain level of difficulty,” said Arteta, whose team has a nine-point lead in the Premier League.

Haaland's 12th hat trick for City

Haaland's 18-minute hat trick started with a penalty in the 39th minute after Virgil van Dijk tripped Nico O'Reilly. Then he headed home a cross from Antoine Semenyo in first-half stoppage time, before sweeping in a finish off the crossbar in the 57th.

The Norway striker's first hat trick of the season for City was his 12th for the club since he joined in 2022.

Semenyo scored the other goal in the 50th for City, which sealed a return to Wembley Stadium two weeks after beating Arsenal there in the League Cup final.

“This club has to win trophies,” said Haaland, who was described after the game as a “machine” by City assistant coach Pep Lijnders — the former Liverpool No. 2 who was deputizing in the dugout while Pep Guardiola served a touchline suspension.

Salah, who announced during the international break he’s leaving Liverpool after nine trophy-filled seasons, was beginning his long goodbye to the Reds but couldn’t mark it with a goal. The best of the many chances he spurned came from a penalty, which City goalkeeper James Trafford palmed away in the 64th.

It was a record 18th straight home win for City in the FA Cup, dating to 2017. Guardiola's team shared a record with Clapham Rovers for reaching seven consecutive FA Cup finals but now holds it outright.

Many Liverpool fans were seen leaving the stadium after the fourth City goal.

“The fighting spirit wasn’t there enough, the mentality wasn’t there enough," Liverpool midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai said. "None of us were there to be honest as much as we could.

“It’s a hard time but we have to stick together."

Chelsea overwhelms Port Vale

Like City, Chelsea romped to a big win — though this one was expected.

Playing without Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez for disciplinary reasons, Chelsea still had more than enough to dispatch Port Vale at Stamford Bridge thanks to goals by Jorrel Hato, Joao Pedro, Tosin Adarabioyo, Andrey Santos, Estevao and Alejandro Garnacho. There was also an own-goal.

Chelsea has won the FA Cup eight times, most recently in 2018.

___

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

Reaves and Doncic both incurred potentially significant injuries on Thursday in Oklahoma City, throwing a major complication into the postseason hopes of the Lakers (50-27). Doncic is out for at least the next two weeks after straining his left hamstring in the Lakers' blowout loss to the Thunder.

Reaves and Doncic both got injured in the first half Thursday, but both returned to the game. Doncic was diagnosed with his second significant hamstring injury on Friday, while Reaves had an MRI on Saturday and was subsequently ruled out by the Lakers, who play at Dallas on Sunday.

Both Doncic and Reaves have been diagnosed with injuries that often take a month or more to heal properly, but the Lakers haven’t speculated on their availability beyond the next five games.

Reaves has blossomed into an elite NBA scorer and remained a vital offensive option alongside Doncic and LeBron James this season during the Lakers' run to the Pacific Division title. The former undrafted free agent is averaging 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds while playing in 51 games this season, his fifth with the Lakers.

Reaves missed 19 games after straining his left calf on Christmas. He would be the NBA's 11th-leading scorer if he had played enough games to qualify.

The Lakers have won 16 of their last 19 games to surge into the third seed in the Western Conference. The playoffs begin in two weeks.

Before the severity of Reaves' injury was announced, Lakers coach JJ Redick told reporters in Dallas on Saturday that the team can't stop moving in Doncic's absence.

“Our mission, it hasn’t changed,” Redick said. “The rest of these guys and my staff, we’re going after the 3-seed, and we’re going to try to win a playoff series.”

After his breakout offensive play in his first full season alongside Doncic, Reaves will be eligible for a significant contract extension this summer if he declines his player option for the 2026-27 season as expected. Reaves and the Lakers both expect him to stay with the club.

The Lakers’ regular-season finale is April 12 at home against Utah.

___

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

Asterisk Talley never imagined the nightmare that helped make it possible Saturday in the Augusta National Women's Amateur.

Marin stuck to her plan of staying close until a moment that changed everything with shocking swiftness — her changing her mind and going for the green on the par-5 13th for a go-ahead birdie, and Talley adding to the sad history of collapses on the back nine at the home of the Masters.

“I just reminded myself that I had to stay really, really patient because anything can happen out here,” Marin said after closing with a 4-under 68 for a four-shot victory. “When that last putt sank in, I just thought to myself, ‘Well, I made it.’ All of my hard work has paid off, and I’m just extremely proud of myself.”

Talley was devastated. The 17-year-old Californian twice went from the back bunker into Rae's Creek for a quadruple-bogey 7 on the par-3 12th hole. That allowed Marin to go from a tight contest to a five-shot lead.

Talley, who didn't make her first bogey of the tournament until the 11th hole of the final round, shot 42 on the back nine for a 75 to finish six shots behind.

“I’m just a little emotional, not only because I didn’t get it done today, but also just everyone is so supportive,” Talley said. “It’s hard when they have to watch that and see you not do well or not accomplish what you wanted. I still played fine today even though that one hole just kind of got me.”

Marin, a junior at Arkansas, becomes the third NCAA champion to win at the home of the Masters, following Jennifer Kupcho and Rose Zhang, and this one featured a shocker on the back nine.

Talley, who led by as many as four shots early, missed a short birdie chance on the 10th and a short par putt on the 11th to fall into a tie with Marin.

And then it all came undone.

Talley went long with an 8-iron into a back bunker on the 12th, the hole that ruined Jordan Spieth's chances of a repeat Masters victory in 2016. She went at the right pin with a shot too strong, and the ball rolled off the front, down a slope and into the water. Talley decided to drop in the bunker, and then did the same thing again.

“I didn’t think going to the other side was the best option at the time,” Talley said. “I thought since we could rake the bunker, maybe we could get it to not be so hard. It was still the same after dropping. The same thing happened. Just couldn’t really get under the ball there.”

Stunned, she took her next penalty drop on the other side of the water, pitched to about 8 feet and holed that for a quadruple-bogey 7.

“Probably should have done that the first time,” Talley said. “But you don’t really think of that when you’re in the moment.”

Marin had far better fortune on No. 12. Her shot came up short, and was close enough to the bunker that it stayed up on a small shelf of grass instead of rolling into the water. She saved par, and began to pull away with her two-putt birdie on the 13th and Talley's big blunder on No. 12.

“I think it was just God holding the ball there,” Marin said.

The last challenge for Marin came from Andrea Revuelta, who birdied Amen Corner to stay on the fringes of contention.

Marin finally saw a leaderboard showing her four shots ahead and said the adrenaline played a part in hitting a wedge over the green. She had to make a 5-foot putt for bogey, right after Revuelta narrowly missed an 8-foot birdie.

Marin hit 7-iron to 6 feet for her sixth birdie that put it away.

Revuelta closed with a 68 and was runner-up. Talley took a double bogey on the 16th — she played par 3s in 6 over on the back nine — and wound up in a five-way tie for fourth. Meja Örtengren of Sweden, playing in the final group with Talley, shot 74.

Marin set an Augusta National Women's Amateur record at 14-under 202. The smile never left her face as she walked up the 18th green, raising her right hand when she tapped in for par. Among those who celebrated with her was Maria Fassi of Mexico, another Arkansas star who was runner-up in the inaugural tournament. Marin has called that moment a big inspiration.

Masters chairman Fred Ridley presented the trophy to her in Butler Cabin, and Marin held it aloft, smiled wide and said, “It's so pretty.”

“Winning in this place, I don’t think there’s ever going to be a feeling to describe it. It’s just magical,” she said. “This is the temple of golf, and just getting this win, it’s amazing for me.”

___

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

Verlander, the major league's oldest active player at 43, was placed on the 15-day injured list with left hip inflammation. On Sunday night, Verlander was scheduled to make his first start in a Tigers uniform at Detroit's home park since Aug. 20, 2017.

“It's frustrating for me, obviously,” Verlander said. “I also know a lot of fans were excited about tomorrow night.”

Verlander was dealt to Houston at the trade deadline in 2017. He re-signed with Detroit on a one-year, $13 million contract in February after spending last season with San Francisco.

Verlander made 380 starts for Detroit from 2005-17. In his first start this season, Verlander gave up five runs and six hits in 3 2/3 innings on Monday against Arizona and took the loss.

The injury popped up during that start. Verlander said it wasn't serious and that he might have been able to pitch on Sunday but the organization wanted to take a cautious approach.

“It was really sore the next day or two but it's been trending in the right direction,” he said. “So it was kind of a wait-and-see game if it could get good enough. To be quite frank, it probably is good enough if we wanted to push it. But AJ (manager AJ Hinch) and the front office — and I agree with them — felt it was not the time of year to do that. And unfortunately we don't have an off-day to finagle with it, which also kind of hurts.”

Verlander believes he'll have a short stay on the IL.

“It's not ideal but nothing too bad,” he said. “I think we got it under control.”

RHP Keider Montero was recalled from Triple-A Toledo and is expected to start the finale of a three-game series against St. Louis.

___

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

Pride with how interest and investment in women's hoops has skyrocketed since her days dominating at Southern California. Pride with how women's athletes are celebrated. Pride with the development in player skill over the years.

“A lot of these players are so dedicated, not just the X's and O's or the physical, their skillset," said Miller, who was honored this week as one of the greatest players of The Associated Press women’s basketball poll era, "but taking care of their bodies, the nutrition and sleeping better and what’s provided for them now at certain universities and programs. It’s just the evolution of the game itself.”

Miller and other women's basketball trailblazers, including Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman and former UCLA standout Ann Meyers Drysdale, spoke about the state of college sports at “The AP Top 25 Fan Poll Experience,” which was held at Arizona State’s First Amendment Forum in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix.

Most conversations centered on how name, image and likeness along with the transfer portal are shaping the college game.

The changes in college sports have permeated politics, and ahead of the start of the Final Four for both men and women, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at restoring “order, fairness and stability” to college athletics.

The order directs federal agencies to bolster the effectiveness of key rules on transferring, eligibility and pay-for-play by evaluating whether violations of such rules render a university unfit for federal grants and contracts.

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, whose team will play Sunday in the national championship game for the fourth time in five years, recently said her conversations with recruits nowadays reflect the new college sports landscape. While Staley's talks with recruits once centered on earning degrees, they're mostly focused now on money, especially with players in the transfer portal.

That's the same adjustment Arizona State coach Molly Miller has been forced to make.

"Recruiting a high school athlete is a lot different than recruiting a portal athlete," Miller said on a panel hosted by the AP on Thursday.

“Their questions are totally different than the portal kids,” she added. "Their questions are, ‘What’s the student-to-teacher ratio?' When you get in the portal they’re like: ‘Am I going to play? What’s the depth chart like, is the culture good and how much (money)?’”

Ackerman, who was the first president of the WNBA, sees tremendous growth in institutional investment in women's college sports, which she pointed out was evident in the success of the Final Four teams — South Carolina, UConn, Texas and UCLA — in Phoenix.

While that growth is paying off in brand value and fan engagement, Ackerman worries that it will lead to a wider disparity between schools with major football revenue and institutions that rely on smaller revenue streams.

“I’m not sure what the future holds,” she said. “I think it’s going to require leadership on campuses and innovation in terms of how to deploy resources that are finite for all sports.”

___

AP Top 25 Fan Poll Experience: https://apnews.com/https:/apnews.com/projects/arizona-state-fan-poll-experience/

___

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP mobile app). AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball

Authorities announced the arrest of Roberto Mazzarella, 48, following a raid Friday on a villa on the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy after allegedly using false documents to rent the luxury coastal property.

Meloni, who is on a tour of Gulf states, described Mazzarella’s arrest as an “an important blow against the Camorra,” referring to the notorious criminal organization that originated in Naples.

“This sends a clear message that the state will not back down” Meloni said in an online post.

Mazzarella is wanted in connection with a 2000 fatal shooting at a delicatessen in central Naples.

The bearded 41-year-old was recognized on the video board by the Stars early in the game, and plenty of Dallas fans joined a vocal Avs contingent in cheering for Burns.

The all-time ironman streak belongs to forward Phil Kessel, who played in 1,064 consecutive regular-season games from Nov. 3, 2009, to April 13, 2023. He appeared with Toronto, Pittsburgh, Arizona and Vegas.

Burns, who appeared in his 1,500th game in October against the Stars, has been in the lineup for every game since Nov. 21, 2013, with San Jose. He also has played for Minnesota and Carolina.

Burns is in his first season with the Avalanche and has 11 goals. He and Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom are the only defensemen in league history to score double-digit goals at 40 or older.

The meeting with the Stars is Burns' 1,572nd career regular-season game. He entered the game with 941 points (272 goals, 669 assists). Burns spent 11 of his 22 seasons with the Sharks.

___

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

Parker, Holdsclaw and members of the 1996 Olympic team were all in attendance Friday at halftime of the UConn-South Carolina game during the women's Final Four, where the selections were announced, as was Amar’e Stoudemire and Mike D’Antoni.

They will be joined by longtime NBA official Joey Crawford, NBA coach Doc Rivers and Gonzaga coach Mark Few in the Hall of Fame.

Parker won three titles in the WNBA with three different teams: Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas. She is the only player in league history to win both the MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season.

She also won two titles while playing in college for Tennessee under Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt, plus two Olympic gold medals and two WNBA MVP awards.

Delle Donne won two league MVP awards in 2015 and 2019, the second of which came when she led the Washington Mystics to their lone WNBA championship. Delle Donne became the first player in league history to shoot more than 50% from the field, 40% from behind the 3-point line and 90% from the free-throw line.

Holdsclaw won three straight titles at Tennessee from 1996-98, the first team to accomplish that. The 1998 championship was Tennessee’s first undefeated season at 39–0 and the Vols also set an NCAA record for the most wins in a season. Holdsclaw went on to have an 11-year WNBA career.

Stoudemire, who was the only NBA player in this year's class, was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2003 and six-time All-Star. He spent the first eight years of his career with the Phoenix Suns, where he teamed with D'Antoni.

Rivers has 1,192 victories on his resume, which puts him sixth on the all-time wins list. He led the Boston Celtics to the NBA championship in 2008 and also was in charge of the Los Angeles Clippers during their Lob City era.

Few has won more than 770 games at Gonzaga in his career at the school. He set the NCAA Division I men's coaching record by winning 81 games in his first three years at the school.

Crawford officiated 2,561 regular-season NBA games and 50 Finals games over his 39-year career. He retired in 2016.

The enshrinement ceremony will take place in August at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

___

This version corrects Rivers’ placement on career wins list from eighth to sixth.

___

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

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said Saturday that he and his Artemis II crewmates got to watch the film with their families before launching on the lunar fly-around. He said it was “a real treat” to view the movie while getting ready for his own space adventure.

Gosling, a fellow Canadian, sent best wishes to the four astronauts ahead of Wednesday's liftoff.

“Art imitates science and vice versa,” Hansen said during a live televised event arranged by the Canadian Space Agency. “I thought it was just such an inspirational example — somebody who goes out there and just gets what was done to save humanity. It’s a pretty extraordinary example that we can all follow.”

Hansen is the first non-U.S. citizen to fly to the moon.

___

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.

In a motion filed Friday, National Park Service lawyers say that the federal judge's order to suspend construction of the new facility is “threatening grave national-security harms to the White House, the President and his family, and the President’s staff.”

“Time is of the essence!” the lawyers write, citing materials that will be installed to make a “heavily fortified” facility. The ballroom construction also includes bomb shelters, military installations and a medical facility, according to the filing. The ballroom is part of President Donald Trump's plans to quickly remake Washington.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington on Tuesday ordered the temporary pause of the construction project that has included demolishing the East Wing of the White House. He concluded that unless Congress approves the project, the preservationist group suing to stop it is likely to succeed on the merits of its claims because “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.”

The judge suspended enforcement of his order for 14 days acknowledging that the administration would appeal his decision.

Leon's ruling and the appeal come the same week a key agency tasked with approving construction on federal property in the Washington region gave final approval to the project.

In his ruling Leon, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush, suspended enforcement of his order recognizing that "halting an ongoing construction project may raise logistical issues.”

Leon also addressed national security in his ruling, saying that he reviewed information that the government privately submitted to him and concluded that halting construction wouldn't jeopardize national security. He exempted any construction work that is necessary for the safety and security of the White House from the scope of the injunction.

Trump lashed out at the ruling, but also noted that it would allow work on underground bunkers and other security measures around the White House grounds to continue — even though those will be paid for by taxpayers. Trump has pledged that he, along with private donors, will cover the costs for the ballroom construction.

But the National Park Service argues in its motion that the president has “complete authority to renovate the White House” and the current state of the grounds, which is an open construction site, make it harder to protect the White House.

“Canvas tents, which are necessary without a ballroom, are significantly more vulnerable to missiles, drones, and other threats than a hardened national security facility,” the motion says.

The Trump administration is asking the appeals court to make a decision on its request by Friday. It also asked that the 14-day suspension of Leon's order be extended by another two weeks so that the case can be taken to the Supreme Court.

With the officiating. With his team's performance. With South Carolina coach Dawn Staley.

The Huskies coach ripped into the officiating during a live TV interview and then had a heated argument with Staley in the final seconds of their 62-48 loss to the Gamecocks. But a rough night for UConn stars Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd was the main cause of the Huskies' poor showing in the national semifinals of the women's Final Four on Friday night.

A minute after his sideline blowup, Auriemma stalked off the floor alone, stewing over the nightmare performance.

Fudd — a senior — shouldered the blame, saying she felt she let the team down.

“I thought some of our shots were a little rushed, some of our offense was a little rushed, out of pace,” Fudd said. “But when we got a lot of good looks, a lot of shots in our offense, shots that we are used to taking, we just didn’t hit very many.”

The Huskies hadn't faced much on-court adversity this season, winning almost all of their previous 38 games by a lopsided margin. Once it hit on Friday, UConn wasn't able to respond.

Auriemma said the officiating didn't help.

“There were six fouls called that quarter — all of them against us," Auriemma said on the broadcast at the end of the third quarter. "And they’ve been beating the (expletive) out of our guys down there the entire game. I’m not making excuses, ’cause we haven’t been able to make a shot. But this is ridiculous.

“Their coach rants and raves on the sideline and calls the referee some names you don’t want to hear. And now we get 6 to 0, and I got a kid with a ripped jersey, and they go, ‘I didn’t see it.’ Come on, man. It’s for a national championship.”

Auriemma wasn't finished showing his displeasure. The 72-year-old coach walked toward Staley in the final seconds of the game before the two had an angry exchange, with assistants having to get in between them. Auriemma blamed the dustup on Staley not following the proper protocol for a pregame handshake.

Once the game finally ended, Auriemma slowly walked off the court and down the tunnel without a postgame handshake with the Gamecocks. The teams did shake hands and Auriemma apologized for his behavior on Saturday.

UConn has relied all season on Strong and Fudd, a pair of All-America selections who were steady throughout the season. Against South Carolina, Strong finished with just 12 points on 4-of-16 shooting. Fudd scored eight on 3-of-15 shooting, including 2 of 9 from long range.

The Huskies' lone offensive bright spot came midway through the third quarter. Kayleigh Heckel, Blanca Quiñonez and Fudd each hit a 3-pointer in a 90-second span to cut the deficit to 40-39, but UConn was never able to take the lead. South Carolina took a 44-39 advantage into the fourth quarter and slowly pulled away.

UConn scored just nine points in the fourth, shooting 2 of 14 from the field. The 48 points were easily a season low. The Huskies were also dominated on the glass, with South Carolina holding a 47-32 advantage.

It's true that it was a physical game. Bodies were flying under the basket for the majority of the night for both teams. UConn was whistled for 17 fouls, while South Carolina was called for just eight.

The problem for Strong and Fudd was they couldn't hit shots even when they had a little space to operate. The 6-foot-2 Strong — AP's Player of the Year — was bothered by South Carolina's interior size, with several of her inside shots rattling in and out.

“Well, sometimes we do forget she’s a sophomore,” Auriemma said. “She’s carried a huge load for this team. An awful lot falls on her. Tonight she’ll be the first to tell you that she is not proud of how her game went today.”

Strong's teammates couldn't pick up the slack. Ashlynn Shade finished with 10 points and Quiñonez added seven. Heckel missed a layup late in the game and the broadcast showed her starting to cry walking back down the court.

Teammates encouraged her and one even lifted her chin, but the damage was done.

UConn’s 54-game winning streak is over.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Auriemma said it started at the beginning of the game, but the ending is what everyone will talk about.

A visibly upset Auriemma went over to Staley in the waning seconds of South Carolina's 62-48 victory over his UConn team in the Final Four and appeared to chastise her before the two shook hands. Staley responded with “don't do that" while assistant coaches from both teams separated them.

Auriemma later said the exchange was about the lack of a traditional pregame handshake between the coaches. Staley said she was confused.

“I have no idea,” Staley said when asked what happened. “But I’m going to let you know this: I’m of integrity. I’m of integrity. So if I did something wrong to Geno, I had no idea what I did. I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning of the game. I didn’t know. I went down there pregame, shook everybody on his staff’s hand.

“I don’t know what he came with after the game, but, hey, sometimes things get heated. We move on.”

The Gamecocks will play UCLA in their third straight title game on Sunday, but not everyone was willing to move on from the exchange so quickly.

Auriemma immediately left the court without shaking hands when the game ended, and the moment quickly spread on social media.

Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie, a former Olympic teammate of Staley, posted on X: “It’s a real shame that #Geno took the low road! We have all had to lose with class! Geno of the @UConnWBB needs to start with an apology!!!”

There were no apologies Friday night, but Auriemma explained why he was frustrated before ultimately following up with an apology on Saturday.

“For 41 years I’ve been coaching and, I don’t know, 25 Final Fours,” Auriemma said. “The protocol is before the game you meet at halfcourt. Anybody see that before? Two coaches meet at halfcourt and they shake hands, correct? Ever see it? They announce it on the loudspeaker.

“I waited there for like three minutes. So it is what it is.”

Auriemma and Staley have been the gold standard in women's basketball for years, and their battle for supremacy has produced some of the most thrilling moments in women's college basketball over the last decade.

They've coached some of the greatest talent in the game. They have a combined 15 national championships and nearly 2,000 wins with their respective programs, and their teams have faced each other 15 times.

Despite the intensity on the court, Staley and Auriemma have typically exchanged public pleasantries, complimenting each others' successes and importance to the women's game. They sparked conversations in 2023 when Staley defended her team after Auriemma criticized the Gamecocks' physicality — but their rivalry had never boiled over in the way it did on Friday.

Auriemma ripped the officiating in the third after the Gamecocks were not whistled for a foul in the quarter. He continued to voice his displeasure with how Staley spoke to the refs in his postgame news conference.

“I’m of the opinion that if I ever talk to an official like that, I would get tossed,” he said. “So I just want to make sure there’s not a double standard, that some people are allowed to talk to officials like that and other people are not. That’s it.”

Staley did not want to talk about the exchange in her postgame news conference.

“You can ask Geno the question,” she said. “He’s the one that initiated the conversation. I don’t want what happened there to dampen what we were able to accomplish today.”

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Less than a quarter later, Flagg became the first teenager to score 51 points in an NBA game in Dallas' 138-127 loss to the Orlando Magic on Friday night.

Flagg scored 24 points in the fourth quarter after coach Jason Kidd and forward Naji Marshall were ejected for complaining about what they thought was a no-call when Desmond Bane fouled Flagg.

Kidd was tossed even though he was assessed just one technical foul, while Marshall had gotten another tech at the end of the first half. His second came just moments after Kidd was thrown out.

“It’s great to see,” Flagg said after going 19 of 30 from the field and making all seven of his free throws to top his previous career high of 49 in a 123-121 loss to Charlotte on Jan. 29.

“I already know that coach has my back and Naji ... I know he has my back for sure out there,” Flagg said. “Just seeing their emotion, seeing them fight for me and fight for the calls. Definitely some emotion, and motivated me even further.”

Flagg initially exited the game with 45 points, but assistant coach Frank Vogel, filling in for Kidd, told the 19-year-old he was just resting him during a defensive possession.

Vogel called a timeout to get Flagg back in with 3:22 remaining, and Flagg made history a little more than a minute later. He missed a 3-pointer the first time down, then missed a follow attempt on Brandon Williams' miss, got the rebound again and made a corner 3.

On the next Dallas possession, he hit an off-balance shot in the lane while getting fouled to clinch 50, made the free throw and left to a standing ovation.

The Mavericks were down 30 when Flagg started his fourth-quarter scoring barrage in what ended up being their 14th consecutive home loss. It's the longest home losing streak since Dallas lost the first 19 games at since-demolished Reunion Arena in 1993-94.

“It’s always fun getting into that type of mode,” Flagg said. “The basket feels big. My teammates are looking out for you, helping you out. But I like to win. That was my main focus. It’s hard for me to fully enjoy myself out there when we’re down 20, down 10, down 15, for the majority of the game.”

Flagg said he thought it was obvious Bane had fouled him in the opening two minutes of the fourth.

“I think it was warranted,” Flagg said about Kidd's reaction. “I’m not going to lie. I talked to Bane after the play, and he told me he was intentionally trying to foul me. I honestly don’t know how they didn’t see that. Obviously, they must not have had the right view, or they weren’t paying attention. But they missed it.”

Kidd said there was “a lot of excitement in the back” as he watched Flagg on a TV delay, hearing the crowd reaction before the buckets as the former Duke standout was 8 of 12 from the field and 4 of 6 from deep in the fourth.

Flagg's previous career high came against former Duke teammate Kon Knueppel, the fourth overall pick and fellow contender for rookie of the year.

Kidd continues to stump for Flagg to win the same award that Kidd won with the Mavs 31 years ago, and dropped a Michael Jordan reference after Flagg's latest milestone. Yes, Jordan was the 1985 Rookie of the Year.

“He should be rookie of the year,” Kidd said. “It’s unbelievable. The country’s not watching the same thing we get to watch on a daily basis. He’s in rare air. He’s with the GOAT when you talk about MJ and what he did in his rookie year. And as a teenager, to see what Cooper’s doing, just the excitement, the joy, playing the game, win or lose, his spirit, is about winning. Right now we’re not.”

For at least one night, the rookie overshadowed the long home losing streak, even though he couldn't end it.

___

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

Ahem, tortoise.

This all probably needs an explanation.

During a game last August, Brewers manager Pat Murphy was caught taking a pancake from the pocket of his hoodie for a midgame bite, right in the middle of a dugout interview during a game against the Nationals. It wasn't necessarily new for Murphy, who's been known to have everything from waffles to eggs rolls close at hand should he get the munchies.

But given the game was nationally televised, the moment immediately went viral. And the Brewers even latched onto the momentum, introducing “Murph's Pocket Pancakes” as concession items for Sunday home games at American Family Field.

Back to the turtle — er, tortoise.

The Brewers were supposed to play the Royals on Friday night on Apple TV, though the game was called 90 minutes before first pitch because of the rain. During a pregame interview with Apple's reporter, Tricia Whitaker, Murphy said he was informed “under no uncertain circumstances, no pocket pancakes” during their talk, so he pulled out what was supposed to be a pocket turtle.

“This is Bobby Jr.,” Murphy said in presenting it to her, having named the creature after his longtime friend, Bobby Witt, and his son, Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. “I didn't want to pull out pancakes so here we are.”

Whitaker posted the moment on social media, and fans immediately informed her that the reptile was not, in fact, a pocket turtle — or any turtle. It was a tortoise, or more specifically a Sulcata tortoise, which can live 70 years and grow to 100 pounds.

“How am I supposed to fly this home?” Whitaker asked.

Good question.

Turns out, as Whitaker later posted on social media, American Airlines has “a strict no reptiles policy,” so Bobby Jr. had to stay behind in Kansas City. The agreement, she wrote, is that the club would keep the tortoise for the time being.

Indeed, the reptile was happily living under a heat lamp in the visiting clubhouse at Kauffman Stadium on Saturday, though the plan is to find Bobby Jr. a good home soon. He won't be traveling with the club all season.

“It was suggested by one player,” Whitaker said, “that they get to keep the ‘rally turtle' if they win today. If they lose, I am hoping, consideration will be given to send me the tortoise.”

___

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

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV in Boston on Friday granting the preliminary injunction follows a lawsuit filed last month by a coalition of 17 Democratic state attorneys general. It will only apply to public universities in plaintiffs.

The federal judge said the federal government likely has the authority to collect the data, but the demand was rolled out to universities in a “rushed and chaotic” manner.

“The 120-day deadline imposed by the President led directly to the failure of NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) to engage meaningfully with the institutions during the notice-and-comment process to address the multitude of problems presented by the new requirements,” Saylor wrote.

President Donald Trump ordered the data collection in August after he raised concerns that colleges and universities were using personal statements and other proxies to consider race, which he views as illegal discrimination.

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of affirmative action in admissions but said colleges could still consider how race has shaped students’ lives if applicants share that information in their admissions essays.

The states argue the data collection risks invading student privacy and leading to baseless investigations of colleges and universities. They also argued that universities have not been given enough time to collect the data.

“The data has been sought in such a hasty and irresponsible way that it will create problems for universities,” a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Michelle Pascucci, told the court, adding that the effort seem was aimed at uncovering unlawful practices.

The Education Department has defended the effort, arguing taxpayers deserve transparency on how money is spent at institutions that receive federal funding.

The administration's policy echoes settlement agreements the government negotiated with Brown University and Columbia University, restoring their federal research money. The universities agreed to give the government data on the race, grade-point average and standardized test scores of applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. The schools also agreed to be audited by the government and to release admissions statistics to the public.

The National Center for Education Statistics is to collect the new data, including the race and sex of colleges’ applicants, admitted students and enrolled students. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has said the data, which was originally due by March 18, must be disaggregated by race and sex and retroactively reported for the past seven years.

If colleges fail to submit timely, complete and accurate data, the administration has said McMahon can take action under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which outlines requirements for colleges receiving federal financial aid for students.

The Trump administration separately has sued Harvard University over similar data, saying it refused to provide admissions records the Justice Department demanded to ensure the school stopped using affirmative action. Harvard has said the university has been responding to the government’s requests and is in compliance with the high court ruling against affirmative action. On Monday, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights directed Harvard to comply with the data requests within 20 days for face referral to the U.S. Justice Department.

The blaze broke out in the Kadamtali area of Keraniganj near Dhaka, according to the fire service and civil defense.

Seven firefighting units were deployed to extinguish the blaze, which started in the afternoon, the fire department said. It took several hours to bring it under control.

Firefighters recovered five bodies by the evening and they couldn't immediately be identified.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

The latest actions were taken just this week when Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined they were no longer eligible for either lawful permanent resident status, or to enter the United States. The steps follow a move late last year in which the visas of several diplomats and staffers at Iran’s mission to the United Nations were also revoked.

In a statement on Saturday, the State Department said the niece and grand-niece of former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike near the Baghdad airport in 2020, had been arrested late Friday by immigration agents after Rubio revoked their green cards.

“Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are now in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the statement said, adding that Afshar’s husband has also been banned from entering the United States.

Afshar and her daughter had been living a “lavish lifestyle” in Los Angeles for many years while publicly supporting the Iranian government and anti-American attacks, according to the statement.

She is “an outspoken supporter of the Iranian regime who celebrated attacks on Americans and referred to our country as the “Great Satan,” Rubio said in a post on X. “The Trump administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes.”

The Iranian mission to the U.N. had no comment Saturday.

Afshar and her daughter are just the latest Iranians to have their legal status in the U.S. rescinded by Rubio, who recently revoked the visas of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, an academic and the daughter of Iran’s former national security adviser Ali Larijani who was killed in a U.S.-Israel airstrike last month. Her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi, also had his visa revoked, the State Department said. Neither are still in the U.S.

In early December, well before the surge of anti-government protests in Iran and the start of the war, the State Department revoked or declined to renew visas of several Iranian diplomats, including the deputy ambassador, and staffers at Iran’s mission to the United Nations.

The department said Friday that action had been taken on Dec. 4 but declined to comment further “for privacy and security reasons” except to note that it was unrelated to either the protests or the war.

___

AP reporter Farnoush Amiri contributed to this story.

The attacks came five weeks after U.S. and Israeli strikes first pounded Iran, with Trump saying earlier this week that Tehran's “ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed."

Iran shot down a U.S. F15-E Strike Eagle fighter jet Friday, with one service member getting rescued and the search still underway for a second, U.S. officials say. Iranian state media also said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed after being hit by Iranian defense forces.

The last time a U.S. warplane was shot down by enemy fire in combat was an A-10 Thunderbolt II during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell, a former F-16 fighter pilot.

But, he said, that’s because the U.S. had largely been fighting insurgents who didn’t have the same anti-aircraft capabilities. The fact that there have not been more fighter jets lost in Iran, Cantwell said, is a testament to the capabilities of U.S. forces.

"The fact that this hasn’t happened until now is an absolute miracle,” said Cantwell, who served four combat tours and is now a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “We’re flying combat missions here, they are being shot at every day.”

Shoulder-fired missile likely used, experts say

U.S. Central Command said in a statement Wednesday that American forces have flown more than 13,000 missions in the Iran war while striking more than 12,300 targets.

After more than a month of punishing U.S.-Israeli airstrikes, a degraded Iranian military nonetheless remains a stubborn foe. Its steady stream of strikes against Israel and Gulf Arab neighbors have been causing regional upheaval and global economic shock.

When it comes to American dominance over Iran's airspace, there’s still a distinction between air superiority and air supremacy, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran program senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank.

“A disabled air defense system is not a destroyed air defense system,” he said. “We shouldn’t be shocked that they’re still fighting.”

American planes have been flying missions at lower altitudes, which makes them more vulnerable to Iran's missiles, Taleblu said. It’s possible that Iran fired at the F-15 with a surface-to-air missile, but it's more likely that a portable, shoulder-fired missile was used, he said. Those are much harder to detect and reflect how Iran is “weak but still lethal.”

“This is a regime that is fighting for its life,” he said.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and a senior defense adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that a shoulder-fired missile was likely used against the fighter jet.

Nonetheless, the American air war against Iran has been a “tremendous success” so far, he said.

To put things in perspective, he said the loss rate for American warplanes flying over Germany during World War II was 3% at one point, which would equal about 350 warplanes in the U.S. war against Iran.

“But then there’s the political side — you have a American public that is accustomed to fighting bloodless wars,” Cancian said. “Then a large part of the country doesn’t support the war. So to them, any loss is unacceptable.”

Pilots are trained on what to do if their plane is hit

The last U.S. jet shot down in combat was struck by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile over Baghdad on April 8, 2003. The pilot safely ejected and was rescued, according to the Air Force.

In high-threat environments like missions over Iran, Cantwell, the retired general, said an aviator's blood pressure goes up and they become highly alert to incoming missiles. Those are typically either infrared- or radar-guided missiles, he said, requiring different evasive tactics.

If they are hit and need to eject from their aircraft, they are trained on what to do next, he said.

Pilots learn to check for wounds after a violent ejection and the shock of a missile explosion and, most crucially, how they are going to communicate their location so rescuers can find them.

At the same time, he said, the enemy is likely working to intercept the communications or even spoof the location.

Helicopters are more at risk than other aircraft

The planes that went down Friday were not the first crewed American aircraft to be lost overall in Iran.

A military helicopter and airplane exploded in 1980 during an aborted mission to rescue several dozen American hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, according to the Air Force Historical Support Division.

After a series of setbacks, including severe dust storms and mechanical failures, the mission was called off. As the aircraft took off, the rotor blades of one of the RH-53 helicopters collided with an EC-130 aircraft full of fuel and both exploded, killing eight.

More U.S. helicopters have been shot down in recent decades, including a MH-47 Army Chinook helicopter that was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan in 2005, killing 16. Helicopters are more dangerous because “the lower and the slower, the more susceptible you are,” Cantwell said.

That’s why those who went out on this week's rescue missions, likely in helicopters, he said, did “such a brave and honorable act.”

___

Bedayn reported from Denver.

___

This story has been clarified to show that a U.S. military jet has not been shot down in 20 years vs. general aircraft.

It's a question that can produce some, well, uncomfortable answers if you happen to be an earthling.

“If I were looking at Earth from a distance, I would be pretty disappointed,” theoretical physicist Avi Loeb says. “Most of our investing is dealing with conflicts to prevent other people from killing us or us killing others. Look at the Ukraine war over a little bit of territory. That is not a sign of intelligence."

The debate on whether little green men or UFOs are among us escalated in February when former President Barack Obama, responding to a podcaster's question, said aliens are “real,” but he ”hasn’t seen them” and “they’re not being kept at Area 51.” President Donald Trump later announced on social media that he was directing release of government files because of “tremendous interest.”

Stepped-up interest in UFOs also is swirling as the United States heads back toward the moon with Wednesday's launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission. The four astronauts aboard will do a fly-around of the moon before returning to Earth.

In a world riven by war, civil unrest, climate change and divisiveness, it's easy to wonder what newcomers to Planet Earth might make of us and our struggles. Whatever the case, well over a majority of Americans echo the sentiment of the slogan from “The X-Files”: “The truth is out there."

A 2021 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center showed about two-thirds of Americans said their best guess is that intelligent life exists on other planets. About half of U.S. adults said UFOs reported by people in the military are “definitely” or “probably” evidence of intelligent life outside Earth.

“We don’t want to think this is the only place in this extraordinarily and incomprehensibly large universe where life and intelligence and even technology have emerged,” says Bill Diamond, president and chief executive of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

“It sort of says about humans, ’We don’t want to be alone.'"

Something is up there. But what?

Americans have been fascinated by the thought of life outside this planet following the recovery of debris in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico. The military initially said the material was from a flying disc, only to reverse course and tell the public it was from a weather balloon.

Hollywood ran with it. Flying saucers, little green men and eventually humanoid gray aliens became part of popular culture. April 5 even is celebrated annually throughout the iconic “Star Trek" franchise as “First Contact Day” to mark the date in 2063 when humankind, in “Trek” canon, first made contact with Vulcans.

Much in the popular culture suggests any aliens might be aggressive. Priscilla Wald, who teaches about science fiction at Duke University, has a theory as to why.

“It seems to me it’s a reflection on who we are, that we’re projecting onto aliens the way we treat each other," Wald says. "So the aliens are coming down, they want to conquer us, they’re violent. Who does that sound like? It sounds like us.”

In 2024, the Pentagon released hundreds of reports of unidentified and unexplained aerial phenomena. However, that review gave no indications that their origins were extraterrestrial.

On two separate occasions, Debbie Dmytro saw things in the sky over Michigan’s southern Oakland County. The greenish object Dmytro says she saw March 1 in the sky over Royal Oak, Michigan, looked like neither plane nor helicopter. Dmytro, a 56-year-old medical professional, acknowledges that it could have been some type of commercial or delivery drone.

What she saw in 2023 in the same general area north of Detroit is not so easily explained.

“Four yellow lights, yellowish golden lights and they were all flying very, very low,” Dmytro remembers. She says the lights were about 100 feet (30 meters) up at their nearest.

“I’ve never seen anything so low without any noise and flying in complete uniformity,” she says. “Is it something man-made? Is it something that’s not manmade? Who knows?”

Who knows indeed? UFOs, the term for unidentified flying objects, has in recent years given way to UAP — unidentified aerial phenomena or unidentified anomalous phenomena.

“Absolutely, there are such things” as UAPs and UFOs, says Diamond, whose SETI — Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence — seeks to explore, search and understand the nature of life and intelligence in the universe.

“People observe things in the sky that they can’t immediately identify or recognize as either human engineering such as planes or drones or helicopters, or animals, such as birds, and therefore they don’t know what they are," Diamond says.

Time for the truth

Like so many, Dmytro wants to know what the government knows. “I think there’s more information out there. I’m open to learning more,” she says. “I have an open mind. It’s always about scientific proof.”

Retired Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet says evidence clearly shows there are UAP zipping around the airspace and in the oceans.

“The nonhuman intelligence that operates them or controls them are absolutely real,” Gallaudet says. “We’ve recovered crashed craft. We don’t know if they’re extraterrestrial in origin."

Gallaudet worked as acting administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He participated in a 2024 congressional hearing on UAP disclosure and says the release of government files promised by Trump is something people find of interest. He just hopes the president follows through.

There are billions of galaxies in the universe and each has billions of stars, so the likelihood life developed elsewhere is fairly high, according to University of Michigan Astronomy Professor Edwin Bergin, who teaches about looking for life elsewhere. He believes that if intelligent beings navigated vast distances to reach Earth they would make themselves known — despite humanity’s penchant for creating chaos.

“I would think that they would look at us like we were crazy ... but they would come out," he says. "I mean, why come here otherwise unless you’re going to sit and observe.”

Loeb, director of the Institute for Theory & Computation at Harvard and head of the university's Galileo Project for the Systematic Scientific Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifacts, believes in the likely existence of extraterrestrials.

“They might be laughing at us,” he says. "They might be watching us ... to make sure we will not become predators, that we will not become dangerous to them.”

In the interest of national security

Much of the government’s secrecy around UFOs and UAP is tied to national security concerns, according to Diamond.

“We have pretty advanced technologies, satellite, ground-based that are for various purposes mostly national security and defense that are pointing at the sky or things on board aircraft,” Diamond says. “Sometimes these pick up objects. The technology behind it is sensitive and protected.”

Government data, including a “trove ” of UAP video the Navy is sitting on, should be shared with scientists for research and a better understanding of the characteristics of the objects, says Gallaudet, who spent 32 years in the Navy and viewed classified UAP video.

“When you look at these things in our airspace having near collisions with our aircraft, that’s a real valid concern,” he says. “We are just not sure of what they are and what they intend to do with their interaction with humanity. That could be a national security threat, or not."

“When has ignorance ever been a good national strategy?" Gallaudet asks. "Whether it be scary, harmful or not, or a mix, I think seeking the truth is in our best interest.”

Meanwhile, Diamond doesn't think any “true alien encounter could be kept secret.”

“If any civilization has mastered interstellar travel, they have technology and capabilities beyond our wildest comprehension,” he says. “If they want to interact, they will; if they don’t, they won’t. If they want to be seen, they will be, and if not, they won’t be!”

The price had been $8,680 when FIFA sold tickets after the tournament draw in December.

FIFA’s category 2 tickets for the July 19 game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, were $7,380, up from $5,575, and category 3 cost $5,785, an increase from $4,185.

Tickets were listed for 17 of the 72 group-stage matches by Wednesday night and none of the knockout stage games.

Soccer's governing body is using dynamic pricing for the tournament, which will be played in 11 U.S. cities plus three in Mexico and two in Canada.

Only $2,735 tickets, the highest-priced seats, were available by evening for the U.S. opener on June 12 against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and the price was unchanged from December. No tickets were listed for the Americans' June 19 game against Australia at Seattle or their June 25 match against Turkey at Inglewood.

Only $2,985 seats were available by Wednesday evening for the tournament opener between Mexico and South Africa on June 11 in Mexico City, up from $2,355 in December. And only $2,240 tickets were available for Canada's first game on June 12 against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto, an increase from $2,170.

Soccer's governing body did not announce which games and price categories were available, leaving potential ticket buyers to search for themselves on a FIFA ticketing site that often took hours to enter.

Some people who clicked on what FIFA called its “last-minute sales phase” when sales opened at 11 a.m. EDT were directed into a queue for "PMA late qualifier supporters sales phase," aimed for a segment of fans for the six nations who earned berths on Tuesday.

FIFA did not have an explanation for why the link misdirection occurred but said around noon that the links were working properly.

FIFA also said that not all remaining tickets were being put on sale for the 104 games to be played in the U.S., Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19 and that additional tickets will be released on a rolling basis.

This was the fifth phase of ticket sales following a Visa presale draw from Sept. 10-19, an early ticket draw from Oct. 27-31, a random selection draw from Dec. 11 to Jan. 13 and an unscheduled 48-hour availability in late February.

FIFA said this phase, which will remain open through the tournament, marked the first time a specific seat location could be purchased rather than a request for a ticket in a category.

For the monthlong sales phase after the Dec. 5 draw, tickets were priced at $140 to $8,680. After complaints, FIFA said $60 tickets would be made available to each participating national federation for their most loyal supporters, an amount likely to be 400-700 per team for each match.

“The employment of dynamic ticket pricing for the 2026 FWC starkly contrasts with FIFA’s core mission to promote the accessible and inclusive promotion and development of soccer globally,” 69 Democratic members of Congress wrote in a March 10 letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. “Despite host cities’ cooperation in bringing the vision of the largest, most global World Cup in history to fruition, the consequences of dynamic pricing will make the 2026 FWC the most financially exclusionary and inaccessible to date.”

FIFA also has its own resale market, collecting 15% from both the buyer and seller.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Congo, the Czech Republic, Iraq, Sweden and Turkey completed the World Cup field. Fans of teams eliminated Tuesday could attempt to resell tickets they already had purchased, nations that include Italy, Poland, Denmark, Jamaica and Bolivia.

Infantino claimed in January that the amount of ticket requests FIFA had received was the equivalent of “the request for 1,000 years of World Cups at once.”

“This is unique,” he said at the time. “It’s incredible.”

It was unclear if many of those requests were for seats in the lowest-price categories.

Fan groups have voiced concern over the soaring costs for resold tickets and one filed a formal complaint to the European Commission last month.

Infantino defended FIFA's cut of resales, saying the governing body was engaged in a legal commercial activity under U.S. law. Some European countries have laws that can restrict resale by requiring tickets to be sold for face value or only by authorized partners of the event organizers.

___

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

Mohibullah Niazi, a neighbor who helped in the rescue efforts, said Saturday that the eight people killed on the outskirts of Kabul after a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan the previous night were a refugee family recently returned from neighboring Iran.

There was only one survivor: a boy of around 3 years old, who was injured and has been hospitalized in Kabul.

Afghanistan's deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat on Saturday increased the overall death toll from the quake to 12, with another four people injured. Fitrat said five homes were destroyed and another 33 significantly damaged, affecting 40 families in the provinces of Kabul, Panjshir, Logar, Nangarhar, Laghman and Nuristan.

The Afghanistan Disaster Management Authority put the overall death toll at nine. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.

The family near Kabul was among the millions of Afghan refugees who have recently returned from Iran and Pakistan, after both countries launched crackdowns in 2023 on foreigners — particularly Afghans — living in their countries.

They had arrived 15 days ago and were living in a tent on land next to Niazi’s home. The family head, Najibullah, who was about 50 years old, “had no other shelter," Niazi said. “He was a very poor person.”

‘We tried our best’

The family had set their tent up next to a wall separating the plot of land from Niazi’s home, which stood on higher ground, in the village of Ittefaq on the eastern outskirts of the Afghan capital.

Heavy rains over the past several days, which have led to deadly floods in many parts of Afghanistan, had left the ground sodden and soft. When the earthquake struck, the wall collapsed on the family.

“My daughter shouted to me that a wall had fallen on them. The whole family ran, but there were so many big rocks,” Niazi recounted Saturday as he stood at the scene. “We tried our best.”

On Saturday morning, piles of bricks and mud were all that were left, along with blankets, cooking utensils and other personal belongings salvaged from the rubble and set into a pile.

“For about three minutes, I could hear the voices of these people,” Niazi said. “But we couldn’t do anything. There were two or three of us, but this was not the work of three people.”

Neighbors soon rushed to help, digging through the mud and rubble with spades and their hands. They alerted the local Taliban police checkpoint, which sent rescuers and ambulances.

The young boy, Aarash, was pulled out alive but injured, and rushed to the hospital. Health Ministry spokesperson Sharafat Zaman, who visited the boy Saturday, said he was being treated for a severe head injury.

For the rest of the family — the father and mother, four daughters aged between 12 and 23, and two sons — it was too late. The rescuers could only recover their bodies.

Niazi said he had hosted the family in his own home one night. On Friday, just half an hour before the earthquake struck, he had renewed the offer, telling the family they could spend the night in his own guest room to shelter from the cold and rain. “But they did not come with me,” he said.

A string of deadly quakes

Friday night’s quake had an epicenter in the Hindu Kush mountain range, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) east of the northern city of Kunduz, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Center and the U.S. Geological Survey. The area is roughly 290 kilometers (180 miles) northeast of Kabul.

Afghanistan lies in a highly seismically active part of the world, and quakes have caused thousands of deaths in recent years.

Last August, a 6.0 earthquake that struck a remote, mountainous part of eastern Afghanistan killed more than 2,200 people. Most casualties were in Kunar province, where people typically live in wood and mud-brick houses along steep valleys.

In November, a 6.3 earthquake struck Samangan province in northern Afghanistan, killing at last 27 people and injuring more than 950. It also damaged historical sites, including Afghanistan’s famed Blue Mosque in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, and the Bagh-e-Jahan Nama Palace in Khulm.

On Oct. 7, 2023, a 6.3 quake followed by strong aftershocks in western Afghanistan killed thousands of people.

___

Associated Press writer Abdul Qahar Afghan in Ittefaq, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

More rain has been forecast for the coming days throughout Afghanistan, and the authority warned the public to stay away from river banks and areas prone to flooding.

So far this year, dozens of people have died due to extreme weather in Afghanistan, an impoverished country that is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events. Earlier this year, heavy snowfall and flash floods left dozens of people dead across the country.

The recent toll includes 26 people killed over the past 48 hours, the disaster authority said. Overall, 793 homes have been completely destroyed and a further 2,673 have been damaged, while floods and landslides have destroyed 337 kilometers (about 210 miles) of roads, it said.

Businesses, agricultural land, water wells and irrigation canals have also been damaged, with more than 5,800 families affected overall, the authority said.

Several highways connecting the country’s capital to the provinces have also been damaged by floods and landslides, forcing travelers to take long, circuitous routes to reach Kabul, Public Works Ministry spokesman Ashraf Haqshinas said Saturday.

They include the Kabul to Jalalabad highway, which is the main route linking the capital to the Pakistani border and eastern Afghan provinces. A landslide and rockfalls, as well as flooding, shut the highway on Thursday morning, and Haqshinas said crews were working to re-open the road.

The Public Works Ministry warned travelers to be cautious when using roads in affected areas.

Flooding has also shut the Salang Pass, a high mountain pass in the Hindu Kush mountain range that connects Kabul to the country’s north, including the major cities of Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif.

Snow and heavy rain often trigger flash floods that kill scores, or even hundreds, of people at a time in Afghanistan. In 2024, more than 300 people died in springtime flash floods.

___

Elena Becatoros contributed from Kabul, Afghanistan.

The attacks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Istanbul for talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He will also meet with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Christians.

“We are working to strengthen our partnership to ensure the real protection of lives, advance stability, and guarantee security in Europe and the Middle East. Joint efforts always yield the best results,” Zelenskyy said in a post on the messaging app Telegram after arriving in Istanbul.

Russia fired 286 drones at Ukraine overnight, 260 of which were downed, the Ukrainian Air Force said in an online statement.

Five people — three women and two men — were killed in the city of Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and 19 others were wounded, the head of the regional military administration Oleksandr Hanzha said. The attack damaged market stalls and a shop.

In the city of Sumy, not far from the border with Russia, a strike wounded 11 people, the National Police said. Residential areas were hit, and houses, cars and utility networks were damaged in the attack.

In the capital, Kyiv, a drone strike caused a fire on the first floor of a three-story office and warehouse building, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said. No casualties were reported.

In the partially occupied Donetsk region, a Russian drone strike hit a civilian car on the Kostyantynivka–Druzhkivka road on Saturday morning, killing one woman and wounding another, according to the head of the Kostyantynivka City Military Administration, Serhiy Horbunov.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Saturday that its forces fired “long-range air- and ground-based precision weapons, as well as strike drones” at unspecified “military-industrial and energy facilities used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

Meanwhile, the Russian-installed head of the occupied Luhansk region, Leonid Pasechnik, said Ukrainian forces hit railroad infrastructure in the region and private houses, killing a family of three — a couple and their 8-year-old child.

The Security Service of Ukraine, also known as the SBU, claimed it used drone strikes to halt production at a metallurgical plant in the Russian-occupied city of Alchevsk in the Luhansk region, most of which is controlled by the Russian forces.

The SBU said on its Facebook page that drone strikes damaged blast furnaces, key production workshops, distillation columns, gas pipelines and electrical substations that power the plant, which supplies Russia’s state tank and railroad car plant, Uralvagonzavod.

There was no immediate comment from Russian officials.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that the Russian military overnight shot down 85 Ukrainian drones over nine Russian regions, the annexed Crimea region and the Black Sea.

In Russia's Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, one person was killed and four sustained injuries, according to the region's governor, Yuri Slyusar. The attack sparked a fire at a warehouse facility of an unspecified logistics company, and another fire on a dry-cargo vessel flying a foreign flag several kilometers from the shore, Slyusar said.

In the Samara region's city of Tolyatti, one person was wounded, Gov. Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said. The roof of a residential building was damaged and windows were shattered in several apartments, he said.

“We've beaten and completely decimated Iran,” he said in a prime-time speech from the White House on Wednesday. “They are decimated both militarily and economically and in every other way.”

He added: “Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force.”

His certitude is now colliding with the uncertainty of war.

The American fighter jet that was shot down in Iran on Friday was a searing reminder of the dangers associated with war, prompting a search operation that resulted in the rescue of one crew member. Another U.S. aircraft was hit by Iranian air defenses, Iranian state media reported, days after Trump said Iran had “no anti-aircraft equipment.”

For the Republican president, who did not appear in public Friday, the developments were the latest example of his triumphal characterization of the war appearing misplaced.

He has expressed surprise at Iran's moves to strike its Gulf neighbors. He has struggled to respond to Iran's move largely shuttering the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global oil supplies and sending pump prices soaring in the United States. His overtures to world leaders to help him reopen the vital waterway have been rebuffed, with some allies waiting for the fighting to end before addressing that situation and others openly critical of a war that Trump chose to initiate.

Trump has long relied on unyielding self-confidence to propel him through the worlds of business and politics, boasting during the 2016 campaign that “I alone can fix it.” That has often translated into a go-it-alone approach where only Trump has the answers in a chaotic world and dysfunctional Washington. This view of the presidency has justified his executive orders at home and tariffs that affect the global economy.

But the war with Iran, which he undertook alongside Israel and without consulting other allies or Congress, has provided a test like almost nothing before. For Trump, it is no longer “America First” but America alone, and he is the principal.

“You can be the most assertive, aggressive president in the world but you don’t control what happens overseas,” said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University.

Some traditional allies speak out

As the war enters its sixth week, that reality is becoming more apparent. Trump spent most of the first year of his second term using trade penalties as a weapon that would force other countries to bend to his will. Today, in a time of war, some traditional American allies are becoming more outspoken.

French President Emmanuel Macron said this week that the United States “can hardly complain afterward that they are not being supported in an operation they chose to undertake alone.”

“This is not our operation,” he said.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not budged from his refusal to be drawn into the war despite fierce criticism by Trump. France and the United Kingdom are leading efforts to reopen the strait once the fighting ends.

At home, even some of Trump's fellow Republicans are reinforcing the need to maintain strong international relationships. After the president threatened to withdraw from NATO this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said there were not enough votes in the Senate to support that.

“We got an awful lot of people who think that NATO is a very critical, incredibly successful post-World War II alliance,” Thune said of past conversations among Republicans about the move. “I think in the world today, you need allies.”

Trump made no mention of leaving NATO during his White House address.

John Bolton, a first-term Trump national security adviser who has since become an adversary, said the current administration made a “serious mistake” by not consulting allies before going to war.

“If you don’t build your coalition before the war, it’s pretty tough to do it while you’re in it,” said Bolton, who pleaded not guilty last fall to federal charges accusing him of emailing classified information to family members and keeping top secret documents at his Maryland home.

But he also cautioned European leaders against reflexively opposing Trump out of frustration with his lack of consultation. That, Bolton said, would be “juvenile and petulant.”

Trump on his own terms

Trump's penchant to work on his own terms is not limited to the war.

Just this week, he said congressional approval of a ballroom he wants to build at the White House is “not necessary” despite a judge's ruling. He signed an executive order to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and to restrict mail-in voting.

In a first for a sitting president, he appeared in the courtroom of the Supreme Court as his administration tried to defend an executive order restricting birthright citizenship.

But as with the war, Trump's go-it-alone strategy at home is also confronting limits.

The Supreme Court struck down his far-reaching tariff program. Democrats quickly challenged his voting executive order in court and, despite his courtroom presence, the justices seemed skeptical of his bid to dismantle the Constitution’s provisions providing birthright citizenship.

Then there is the uncertainty about the ballroom.

During private comments at an Easter lunch at the White House this week, Trump — ever the builder — seemed to lament the constraints on his job.

“I’m such a king I can’t get a ballroom approved,” he said to laughter from an audience that included Cabinet members and religious leaders. "I’m doing a lot. But I could be doing a lot more if I was a king.”

___

Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

Mortgage rates have been rising since the war began, as surging energy prices heighten worries about higher inflation, pushing up the yield on U.S. 10-year Treasury bonds, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

As recently as the last week of February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage dropped to just under 6%, its lowest level in more than three and a half years. It climbed this week to 6.46%, its highest level in nearly seven months.

The conflict is also injecting more uncertainty into the U.S. economic outlook at a time when the job market is sputtering.

While rates are still down from a year ago, their recent upward trend has already led to a slowdown in mortgage applications. Further increases threaten to put a damper on home sales during what’s traditionally the busiest time of the year for the housing market.

“The war in Iran has seriously complicated the spring buying season,” said Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com. “I expect that many buyers will be put off by rising rates and mounting economic uncertainty, choosing to bide their time rather than jumping on board for a purchase before rates go up.”

Home shoppers who can afford to buy at current mortgage rates this spring are likely to find a more buyer-friendly housing market than this time last year. That means they'll have more leverage when negotiating with sellers, who in many cases are watching their property go unsold for weeks, potentially making them more willing to lower their initial asking price or offer buyers money for closing costs, repairs or other concessions in order to get a deal done, real estate agents say.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, lower listing prices and more homes on the market are forcing many sellers to price their home more competitively or consider offering some incentives to land a buyer, said Matthew Crites, an agent with Coldwell Banker Realty.

“It’s been a really good buyer’s market to kind of start the year off with,” he said.

The trends helped give home shopper Anne King a strong hand when she set her sights on a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style house in Fort Worth listed at $275,000.

The contract administrator offered $10,000 below the listing price. She also asked that the seller kick in $5,000 toward closing costs. The seller accepted, and later agreed to throw in another $12,000 for repairs after a home inspection revealed roof damage.

“Fortunately for me, the seller was in a position they needed to sell,” said King, 57. The purchase was finalized in late February, just before the start of the conflict in the Middle East.

King had hoped mortgage rates would ease further before she bought the home, but decided it made sense to buy sooner, rather than risk having to compete this spring against more homebuyers who could potentially trigger a bidding war -- something she experienced last May when she bought a two-bedroom, two-bath townhouse in Arlington, Texas.

She locked in a 6% rate on her mortgage and plans to refinance to a lower rate whenever rates drop.

“I feel like I got a good deal on this property, and that’s all that matters,” she said.

Home shoppers gain more leverage

While the inventory of homes for sale nationally is still low by historical standards, active listings — a tally that encompasses all homes on the market except those pending a finalized sale — jumped nearly 8% in February from a year earlier, according to data from Realtor.com.

The increase varies across the U.S., with the West, Midwest and South far outpacing the Northeast. Still, some 43 of the 50 largest metro areas had more homes for sale in February than a year earlier, with listings up between 10% and 38.5% in many markets, including Seattle, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Houston and Denver.

As homes take longer to sell, prices have started falling. The median listing price was down in February from a year earlier in just over half of the nation’s biggest 50 metro areas, including a nearly 9% drop in Austin and Memphis, and declines of more than 5% in Washington D.C., San Diego and Los Angeles.

In another sign that buyers may have the edge negotiating with sellers this spring, an analysis by Redfin estimates that there were about 46% more sellers than prospective buyers in the market nationally in February. That’s up from about 30% a year earlier and represents the largest gap between buyers and sellers on records going back to 2013, according to Redfin.

Miami, Nashville and Austin are among the metro areas where sellers most outnumber buyers, Redfin found.

A buyer's market, if you can afford it

The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low. They have remained sluggish so far this year, declining in January and February versus a year earlier.

While the pace of home price growth has slowed or fallen in many metro areas, affordability hurdles remain daunting for many aspiring homebuyers because wage growth has not kept up with home prices.

Consider, the median price of an existing home sold in February was $398,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. That's nearly five times the median household income. A historic rule of thumb was that homes generally cost three times the household income.

The recent increase in mortgage rates adds slightly to the affordability challenge. On a $400,000 home near downtown Dallas, for example, factoring in a 20% down payment and a 30-year mortgage at 6%, the buyer’s monthly payment would be about $2,248. At a 6.4% rate, that payment would climb to $2,331.

And while mortgage rates are still lower than a year ago, making monthly payments more manageable, rates are still much higher than the sub-3% averages available to homebuyers during most of 2020 and 2021 as the weakened economy dealt with the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath.

Sellers under pressure

The housing market has cooled considerably since earlier this decade, when rock-bottom mortgage rates set off a frenzy that sent home prices soaring. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for a home to fetch well above the seller’s asking price after receiving offers from multiple buyers.

While some sellers are still receiving multiple offers now, it’s far from the norm.

Jo Chavez, a Redfin agent in Kansas City, tells clients looking to sell to expect that their home probably won’t sell right away. She also advises them to be “reasonable” with how they price their home.

“We have a lot of sellers who have that idea of like, ‘well, my neighbors sold for this much, and so I think I should price $10,000 above them,’” said Chavez. “And that’s obviously not a logical approach, because there were less sales last year.”

Kansas City is among the few metro areas where the median listing price isn’t falling. It rose 4.1% in February from a year earlier, according to Realtor.com. However, the number of homes on the market soared by nearly 20%.

Gail Sanders and her husband, David, put their four-bedroom, three-bath home in Olathe, Kansas, on the market in late February. But even after hosting a couple of open houses, and after lowering their asking price from $535,000 to $525,000, the couple had yet to receive any offers as March drew to a close.

The couple wants to sell the house and buy a home in another Kansas City suburb closer to their three adult children and grandchildren. But until they find a buyer, those plans are on hold.

“We just didn’t think it was fair to somebody else to put a contingent offer on (another house), but then also lock ourselves into something when we weren’t sure how fast ours was going to move,” said Gail Sanders, a senior claims director. “I don’t want to be stuck with two house mortgages on the off chance.”

He was already a social media star — in part through his relentless attacks on his cousin, Trump administration heath secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and had been bouncing around the national Democratic scene very much looking the part of a Kennedy heir.

Now, among a crowded field hoping to win a prized House seat in Manhattan, Schlossberg has another potential advantage no other candidate could dream of: a hit TV show about his family that's renewed Kennedy clan fervor.

But even with the familial connections and the excitement over the show, “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” the 33-year-old grandson of former President John F. Kennedy insists the buzz is all organic.

“They don’t just like me because I’m a Kennedy. Ask them how they feel about RFK Jr.,” he said. “They like me because of my experience, my ideas and they trust me because they see what’s going on with their very own eyes.”

So far, one of the big criticisms of Schlossberg is that he's never held public office, though he's tried to spin that in his favor, casting himself an energetic, outsider candidate whose big online following proves that he can excite young voters and bring fresh ideas to Washington.

Despite Schlossberg's thin political resume, his candidacy has received both attention and financial support, along with the endorsement of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, long a Kennedy backer.

No love for ‘Love Story’

Schlossberg, whose full name is John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg, is no fan of the “Love Story” series, previously criticizing it as a cash grab at the expense of his famous family.

“I don't watch much TV,” he said.

Nevertheless, lots of people did tune in and the series became a hit, stoking the enduring mystique of the Kennedy family, especially among a younger generation of new fans.

Spots where Schlossberg's aunt and uncle dined and hung out have attracted viewers of the TV show, with leather-jacket-wearing women and button-down-and-tie guys lining up to get in. Not too long ago a crowd gathered in Washington Square Park for a JFK Jr. look-alike contest where young men donned suits, backward hats or rollerblades, attempting to mimic his style.

Also recreating JFK Jr.’s style is Schlossberg himself, copying one of his uncle’s best known looks — riding a bike in suit and tie and a backward cap and a heavy chain bicycle lock around his waist — in a photo on his campaign website, which was posted before the show’s debut.

But does the Kennedy family still have the juice to sway an election? George Arzt, a longtime Democratic political consultant in the city, isn't too sure.

“I don’t think that gets you votes,” he said. “People will say ‘Who’s Schlossberg?’ And they’ll go ‘He’s the grandson of JFK.’ So? What’s that going to do for me?”

Schlossberg maintains people on the street are less interested in his family ties than his policies, including one that, if passed, would allow rent payments to be tax deductible.

He batted away criticism over his scant professional experience, noting a stint at the State Department's environmental bureau, his joint law and business degree from Harvard and a handful of political opinion pieces he wrote for Vogue. He also cited his social media presence, which has at times been zany. In August, for example, he posted a video of himself in a blonde wig reading a letter that first lady Melania Trump wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I’m the only one who has engaged millions of people on a progressive and aggressive political message,” he said. “I’m not just an influencer who’s hawking products. I make informative videos.”

A crowded field

Schlossberg faces solid opposition in the June primary, which is usually the deciding contest in the safely Democratic district.

The district's current representative, U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, who is retiring, endorsed his former aide Micah Lasher, a state Assemblymember who's spent his career working in New York politics and casts himself as a seasoned, serious candidate.

“The voters of this district are highly informed voters. They do their homework before they make their decisions,” he said.

State Assemblymember Alex Bores is also running and has racked up local endorsements, including support from former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who represented parts of the district for decades before it was redrawn and she lost her seat to Nadler.

George Conway, who was once married to former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway before turning into a vocal antagonist of the president, hopped in the race earlier this year as a Democrat.

Conway, a lawyer who helped create the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said he does think Schlossberg has a big advantage because of his family name and excitement around “Love Story.” But he believes voters will ultimately opt for someone who has more experience.

“There's something very appealing about a young, fresh face and I think he's very smart to play that up,” Conway said. “But I also think there's something to be said for an older, experienced fresh face and that's what I'm trying to be.”

Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo said Saturday that his counterparts from Germany, Italy, Portugal and Austria had signed a letter to the European Commission citing “market distortions” caused by the price spike.

“The conflict in the Middle East has caused oil prices to rise, placing a significant burden on the European economy and on European citizens,” the letter, dated Friday and made public by Cuerpo in an online post, said.

“It is important to ensure that this burden is distributed fairly,” it added.

Europe is largely dependent on imported oil and gas, leaving it vulnerable to external shocks. In 2022, turmoil in energy markets following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine pushed inflation into double digits in many European countries.

At the time, the EU imposed a “solidarity contribution” that included caps on excess energy profits.

“Given the current market distortions and fiscal constraints, the European Commission should swiftly develop a similar EU-wide contribution instrument,” the letter said. “It would also send a clear message that those who profit from the consequences of the war must do their part to ease the burden on the general public.”

Driven largely by higher oil prices, the annual inflation rate in the 21 countries that use the euro rose to 2.5% in March, from 1.9% in February.

Iran has blocked most tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint for about 20% of global oil and gas — in a move that threatens to stress fuel markets for months.

European Union Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen warned this week that disruption caused by the closure means fuel prices are unlikely to “go back to normal in a foreseeable future.”

SATURDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy skies, a chance of showers and thunderstorms early. Drying out and breezy overnight. Low: 38.

SUNDAY (EASTER SUNDAY): Mostly cloudy skies and chilly. Breezy winds anticipated. High: 45.

SUNDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy skies. Low: 33.

MONDAY: Mostly cloudy skies. A chance of rain showers. High: 49.

After a beautiful end of the week with lots of sunshine and very warm temperatures on Friday, we are bringing wet weather into the forecast, looking ahead into the upcoming weekend.

We start the weekend with chances for showers and thunderstorms on Saturday, our first round as you’re waking up on Saturday morning, with another round expected Saturday afternoon into Saturday evening. Some storms could be strong to possibly severe Saturday afternoon and evening as well.

The Storm Prediction Center has placed most of the region under a Slight Risk (2 out of 5) for severe weather to start the weekend. These storms will be along ahead of a cold front that will move through by late Saturday night. Damaging winds of over 60 miles an hour and heavy rainfall will be the primary threats, but an isolated tornado cannot be ruled out. After a chilly start with 30s in the 40s, early on Saturday morning, high temperatures were warm into the upper 60s to near 70° by Saturday afternoon.

If you’re looking to head to the Detroit Tigers game at Comerica Park with the St. Louis Cardinals in town for the weekend, we’ll be on the alert for a rain delay situation or a potential washout due to then

Once the cold front rolls through late Saturday night, we will keep the cloud cover in the forecast overnight, and it will also be chilly. Overnight lows are dropping into the mid-30s by early tomorrow morning.

Colder air moves into the region, looking ahead to the end of the weekend on Easter Sunday, we will keep cloud cover around as well. Mostly cloudy skies can be expected. High temperatures are warming into the low to mid-40s by Sunday afternoon. But once you factor in the winds, expect wind chills to be in the 30s to low 40s for much of the day. With the colder air moving into the region, do not be surprised to see a snowflake or two throughout the day on Easter Sunday.

Rain chances return to the forecast, looking ahead into the start of next week on Monday. Expect chilly temperatures to stick around into the start of the week as well. High temperatures warming into the upper 40s by Monday afternoon.

High pressure builds into the region, and we dry things out looking ahead into the middle of next week. Expect a mixture of sunshine and clouds for Tuesday and Wednesday. High temperatures will remain in the 40s for Tuesday, then we will warm into the mid-50s by Wednesday.

Another chance of rain showers moves into the forecast for Thursday, and temperatures will get even warmer. High temperatures warming into the upper 60s by Thursday. Sunshine returns to the forecast for the end of next week on Friday. Expect high temperatures to remain mild, into the lower 60s by Saturday afternoon.

Rose, who was honored with the 2025 Ice Cube Impact Award at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, will share the spotlight with his Fab Five brothers, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson will be together on-site at the Final Four on Saturday (April 4) for the first time in almost 30 years, alongside host Adam Lefkoe, to share live reactions and timeless stories with their unique perspectives on the heavyweight matchup.

The Ice Cube Impact Award was created in 2024 to recognize individuals who make substantial contributions to their communities through basketball, as Rose does with his Jalen Rose Leadership Academy.

--> Fab Five reunion set for Michigan basketball vs. Arizona Final Four showdown in Indianapolis

“It’s going to be incredible. For the world, since 1993, we’ve only been in the same place at the same time, around 2002, when I had a celebrity game in Chicago, when Michigan played against Louisville in the championship, where Trey Burke got a phantom foul that I am still angry about, just like I’m still mad about the Bill Laimbeer foul against Kareem in 1987 against my Detroit Pistons, we were in the same place when Juwan was coaching and then this weekend. So that’s three times in 35 years. So it’s going to be an amazing opportunity for us to get up and break bread. Hopefully, we have a great champagne, crab, and lobster dinner tonight.”

Jalen Rose

The Fab Five, freshmen starters who helped redefine college basketball culture in the early 1990s, have seldom gathered since their run to back-to-back national title games.

For Rose, a single image of Michigan’s Fab Five still carries decades of meaning.

When reflecting on photos from the early 1990s, Rose pointed first to the group’s edge and fearlessness, qualities that defined their rise and helped reshape college basketball culture.

“That guy was fearless,” Rose said. “He didn’t care about anything.”

But beyond the bravado, Rose said the deeper takeaway is the bond that still connects the group today.

“I see brotherhood. I see love,” Rose said.

The 1991 freshmen class left a lasting imprint not only on the court but across the sport’s identity.

From long shorts to black socks and shoes, their style became a defining look that continues to influence the modern game.

Rose noted that while today’s players benefit from name, image, and likeness (NIL) opportunities, the Fab Five helped drive commercial attention to college basketball.

“We sold products, jerseys, shorts, shoes, socks,” Rose said.

Rose also credited earlier powerhouse programs, including those led by John Thompson at Georgetown and Jerry Tarkanian at UNLV, for paving the way.

“We stood on the shoulders of giants,” Rose said.

If he had to sum up what those images represent, Rose said the answer is simple.

“If I had to embody that picture in one word, it’s love,” Rose said. “Love from U of M, because we are the greatest university in the world, and if you don’t recognize, you’d better recognize. Just to see us then and to see us now is just an incredible thing. So, we’re really blessed.”

Greatest Michigan team ever

As Michigan moves closer to a potential national championship, questions about where this team ranks in program history are already surfacing.

For Rose, the answer is simple: win first, debate later.

“To be honest, we don’t care. We just want them to win it,” Rose said. “If saying you’re the best team means you’re going to win it, go do it.”

Rose said he still considers Michigan’s 1989 national championship team, led by Glen Rice, Terry Mills, Loy Vaught, Rumeal Robinson, and Sean Higgins, as the program’s gold standard.

“They were the only team to ever do it,” Rose said. “So, for me, they’re the greatest team.”

That group, which featured multiple future professionals, remains the benchmark until another Michigan team finishes the job.

Still, Rose acknowledged that this year’s squad, coached by Dusty May and led by Big Ten Player of the Year Yaxel Lendeborg, has put itself in a position to enter the conversation.

“If this team cuts down the nets, then it’s time to have that conversation,” Rose said.

Rose praised the current roster’s potential but noted there is still work to be done, particularly in the frontcourt.

“We need Aday Mara to stay out of foul trouble,” Rose said. “We need him to block a couple more shots. We need 10 rebounds out of him.”

For now, Rose said, the focus should remain on the task at hand, finishing the season with a championship.

“I’m rooting for them,” Rose said. “I want to see them do so well.”

Final Four

Michigan’s Final Four matchup with Arizona presents one of the toughest tests of the season, according to Rose.

“Arizona’s a problem,” Rose said. “They really are.”

He pointed to Arizona’s mix of emerging young talent and experienced leadership as key strengths.

Freshman forward Koa Peat has been among the standouts in a season where first-year players have made a significant impact nationally, while guard Jaden Bradley provides stability at the point.

Rose also highlighted Caleb Love as a dynamic scorer, comparing his offensive ability to that of NBA star and fellow Michigander Devin Booker.

“They have a guy who can really score and shoot it,” Rose said. “And coach Tommy Lloyd has done a terrific job with that roster.”

Despite strong performances from other Final Four teams, Rose believes the Michigan-Arizona matchup features the two best teams remaining in the tournament.

“I don’t want to disrespect anyone else,” Rose said, “but I feel like these are the two best teams.”

With a spot in the national championship game on the line, Rose expects a high-level battle and believes the winner will have the edge moving forward.

“Whoever wins this game,” Rose said, “is going to win it all.”

The letter, confirmed as authentic by the property manager through an Ecorse police officer, reads in part: “This serves as a notice and final warning regarding large crowds and high traffic at your unit.”

It also includes the lines: “Do not bring the club back to your unit! This is not the projects anymore.”

Guests push back on notice

Guests who visited the property say the notice goes too far -- and that management has no right to restrict who tenants can have over.

“You can’t tell people that they cannot come over here. If people are paying their rent, you cannot tell them they cannot have friends and family visit them,” one visitor said.

Another visitor described a direct confrontation tied to the notice.

“I was chilling with a friend, and he called the friend on the telephone, and he said if that guy is in front of your house you’re going to get put out. Move him immediately,” the visitor said.

Management stays silent; police confirm letter

Local 4 made multiple attempts to reach property management -- emailing, calling and ringing the office doorbell -- but received no response.

Reporters then visited the Ecorse Police Department, where an officer said he was unaware of the notice but confirmed that officers regularly patrol the property. The officer happened to have the property manager’s phone number and called him during the visit. The manager declined to comment on camera but confirmed to the officer that the letter is real.

Not everyone is upset with the management’s approach. One resident expressed support for the decision to take action.

“I’m happy that the office did have the people who are not into all the mess backs and stood up for them like, hey, you’re going to take this elsewhere because it is property management. It’s their job to manage the property,” the resident said.

The notice also reminds residents that quiet hours are from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. and states that evictions are already underway for some tenants.

Renaissance Estates of Ecorse released the following statement to Local 4:

“We are committed to maintaining a respectful and stable community for all residents. Our team is focused on consistently enforcing lease terms and community policies, including those related to noise, large gatherings, and other disruptions that may impact the resident experience.

We take these matters seriously and address concerns in accordance with our established policies and procedures, with a focus on upholding community standards."

This is not the first time Renaissance Estates has made headlines. Local 4 reported on the complex in 2021, when families said they had seen an increase in violent crime at the property.

---> Families living at Renaissance Estates of Ecorse say they’ve seen an increase in violent crime

Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, laid out the findings at a press conference on Monday, March 30, saying investigators processed hundreds of digital and forensic evidence items and conducted more than 100 interviews of witnesses, family members, and associates.

“Despite the fire in the truck and the assailant’s attempts to delete his digital footprint, we have processed hundreds of digital and forensic evidence items,” Runyan said.

The FBI defines terrorism as a violent criminal act by an individual inspired by or associated with a designated foreign terrorist organization. Runyan said agents did not make that designation lightly.

“In this case, the evidence shows the attacker was motivated and inspired by Hezbollah militant ideology,” Runyan said.

Activity dating back to January 6

A review of his internet activity dating back to January 2026 revealed a consistent pattern of consuming pro-Hezbollah news channels, Iranian news channels, and videos about shootouts and bullets.

He regularly watched live coverage of Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem and followed news “about an Iranian fatwa calling for total jihad against the U.S. military,” according to the FBI.

March 9: Weapons, ammunition, and target research

The attacker’s direct planning began in the early morning hours of March 9, when he started searching the web for local synagogues.

By afternoon, he tried to purchase a weapon from two different people, both of whom FBI agents have since identified and interviewed. When those attempts failed, he went to a gun store in Dearborn Heights and bought an AR-style rifle, 10 rifle magazines, and approximately 300 rounds of .223 rifle ammunition.

While still at the gun store, he also placed an online order for a rifle magazine pouch and 40 collapsible 5.3-gallon water containers. He then began searching for local fireworks vendors, according to the FBI.

That night, he spent hours browsing websites for Jewish cultural, educational, and religious centers across the Metro Detroit area, including multiple pages covering upcoming events at Temple Israel.

March 10: Practice, fireworks, and more research

On March 10, the attacker continued searching online using specific phrases, including:

• “largest gathering of israelis in Michigan”
• “orthodox synagogues”
• “israeli near me”
• “what time is the trump rally in Michigan”
• “a center affiliated with the israeli embassy in Michigan”

He later tried to delete those searches. Investigators were able to recover them.

At about 1 p.m., he went to a local shooting range and practiced firing his newly purchased rifle.

An hour later, at about 2 p.m., he drove to the fireworks vendor he had researched and spent more than $2,200 on fireworks.

After leaving the fireworks store, he continued looking at web pages about Temple Israel, its clergy, and upcoming events.

March 11: “Vengeance” album, gasoline runs, and posts

In the early morning on the day before the attack, he created a Facebook photo album he titled “Vengeance” and began filling it with images that included photos of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Hezbollah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah.

One image included Arabic text reading: “Burn their world, for we have a vendetta against them, and we will never forget.”

He also posted photos of deceased family members, brothers, a niece, and a nephew, and exchanged messages with relatives that morning, according to the FBI.

The water containers that he had ordered while at the gun range arrived at 2:22 p.m.

By 2:45 p.m., he began loading and organizing his truck.

To avoid drawing suspicion, he made four separate trips to gas stations to fill the containers, spreading out the trips rather than going to fill them all at once, according to the FBI.

While making those gas runs throughout the afternoon, he continued researching Temple Israel’s events online. By 6:30 p.m., he was posting pro-Hezbollah propaganda to social media, including videos about his brother and content claiming Israel is “the most violent country in the world,” the FBI said.

Among the posts he shared that day was a statement from the Islamic Resistance of Hezbollah announcing a military operation launched on March 11 called “Al-’Asf Al-Ma’kool,” a term from the Quran referring to the destruction of enemies and turning them into withered, dead leaves.

The post included the logos of the Military Media of the Islamic Resistance and Lebanese Hezbollah. He also shared a meme featuring the actual verse from the al-Fil chapter of the Quran, which describes a similar theme of destroying one’s enemies.

At approximately 9:40 p.m., he searched online for “what time is lunch at temple israel.” He later deleted this from his search history.

By 10:50 p.m., he made one last stop at a gas station and bought two torch lighters. Investigators believe he used these to set his truck on fire during the attack.

March 12: The morning of the attack

During the early morning hours on the day of the attack, the attacker posted more photos of his deceased family members on Facebook and began leaving comments on random Facebook profiles.

Those comments, timestamped by investigators, included:

• 2:51 a.m.: “We will seek retribution for their sacred blood.”
• 3:05 a.m.: “Simo, Heaven is fortunate to have you.” (a reference to his brother)
• 6:24 a.m.: “Israel is a cancerous/malignant growth.”
• 6:28 a.m.: “Israel is pure evil.”
• 6:55 a.m.: “And the oppressors will soon know what kind of end they will meet.”

At 6:56 a.m., the FBI said he searched online for additional rifle accessories.

At 7:20 a.m., he posted on Facebook and said: “You killed the Ali and Hussein of our time, we will avenge their blood.”

He also added more comments across various Facebook posts and continued uploading images to his “Vengeance” album.

Between 8:45 and 9:52 a.m., he went on the websites for a local firearms vendor and a sporting goods store, and also searched for a double magazine holster.

March 12: Attacker heads to Temple Israel

At about 9:18 a.m., the attacker left for Temple Israel.

He arrived at 9:58 a.m.

At 10:01 a.m., he sent his sister a photo of a receipt and said, “$2,000 to dad.”

By 10:12 a.m., while sitting in the Temple Israel parking lot, he posted four videos to Facebook that he had recorded while driving to the temple that morning.

In the background of each video, Arabic battle anthems played, with themes centered on resistance, military defiance, and “the impending dawn,” according to the FBI.

One minute later, at 10:13 a.m., he posted a photo to his “Vengeance” album with the caption: “There is no need to learn Hebrew anymore.”

March 12: Messages to his sister from the parking lot

Beginning at 10:34 a.m., while still parked outside Temple Israel, the attacker sent his sister overseas 19 videos, photos, and messages over the course of roughly 10 minutes.

The communications spelled out his intent clearly: he planned to carry out a mass terrorist attack, and his motivation was rooted in Hezbollah ideology, according to the FBI

Among the content he sent her:

• A meme reading: “Jihad is a gateway to heaven; one that God opens to his chosen ones.”
• A Quranic verse overlaid on a photo: “For such He has written Faith in their hearts and strengthened them with a spirit from Himself. And He will admit them to Gardens beneath which Rivers flow, to dwell therein. God will be well pleased with them, and they with Him. They are the Party of God. Truly it is the Party of God that will achieve Felicity.”
• A video of himself sitting in the vehicle holding his weapon while an anthem called “This People Sends You a Call” played in the background. The chant praised fighters from South Lebanon and those who die for the cause. At the end of the video, he displayed his rifle and said, “We rely on God.”
• A second video with a chant encouraging followers to “bomb the enemies,” “bring death upon them,” and “invade and attack the enemies’ fortresses.”
• A video of him listening to Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem say “that listeners have one of two choices: victory or martyrdom.” Arabic text in yellow on the screen read: “I remain committed.”
• A video in which he recorded himself driving while a battle song played, one referencing “slaughter and bloodshed” and declaring “it’s no time to draw back.” During the recording, he yelled “Allahu Akbar” and declared total devotion to God, saying he was “answering the call to heaven.”
• A photo with a verse from the Quran at the top saying: “the believers who are true to what they promised God; some have died for the cause, and some are still waiting but will never change.” There was text at the bottom saying “Burn or ignite their world, for we have a vendetta that we will never forget.”
• A meme in which he covered the Israeli flag with yellow paint and wrote the phrase “Party of God” or “Hezbollah” over it. Yellow is a color commonly associated with Hezbollah symbolism, according to the FBI.

His sister had asked him to stop sending the photos and videos. He continued anyway.

March 12: 10 minutes before the attack

About 10 minutes before the attack, the attacker sent his sister two final videos.

In the first, he said in Arabic: “This is the largest gathering place for Israelis in the State of Michigan in the United States. I have booby-trapped the car. I will forcefully enter and start shooting at them. God willing, I will kill as many of them as I possibly can.”

Shortly after sending that, he sent a brief three-second follow-up video and typed the message: “A special operation.”

During the same window of time, the attacker also exchanged five short phone calls with his ex-wife.

His ex-wife then called the Dearborn Heights Police Department and requested a welfare check for him.

March 12: The attack

At 12:19 p.m., the attacker drove his truck into Door 5 of Temple Israel.

The FBI said he hit it once, repositioned his truck, then accelerated at a high rate of speed, traveling about 200 feet down the hallway.

From 12:20 to 12:22 p.m., the attacker and Temple Israel security guards exchanged gunfire. At approximately 12:22 p.m., the attacker appeared to set off the fireworks from inside the vehicle.

By 12:30 p.m., the vehicle was on fire, and the hallway was filled with smoke.

Aside from the attacker, there were no other fatalities.

“We are very grateful that, aside from the assailant, there were no additional fatalities,” Runyan said. “However, this evidence makes very clear the attacker intended to cause a significant amount of harm to the members and children present at Temple Israel that day.”

What investigators found

The FBI said they found no evidence of co-conspirators and said there is no information indicating an active threat to the community.

Runyan also addressed several points of public concern and media speculation:

• At the time of the attack, the attacker was not the subject of any prior FBI investigation and was not on the terrorist watchlist.
• There is no evidence he visited Temple Israel or conducted physical surveillance of the synagogue before the attack.
• There were no additional improvised explosive devices beyond the fireworks.
• Based on the size of the water containers, investigators now believe the attacker used approximately 35 gallons of gasoline — not the 20 to 30 gallons previously reported — in an effort to amplify the fireworks he ignited inside the truck.

Click here for all of our coverage on the West Bloomfield temple attack.

After a 12-week trial, Ylli Didani was convicted by a federal jury on May 16, 2025, on charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, conspiracy to distribute cocaine on a vessel, and money laundering conspiracy.

The conviction stems from his role in a massive, $100 million international cocaine trafficking organization that planned to use an underwater drone to ship drugs to Europe.

Federal officials said Didani and others planned and financed the distribution of cocaine from several places, including Michigan.

On Tuesday, March 31, Didani was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

A global operation with deep roots

Didani reportedly directed transnational cocaine operations from approximately 2015 until his arrest in March 2021.

During that period, he reportedly orchestrated shipments of roughly 9,000 pounds of cocaine and laundered millions of dollars in proceeds.

Authorities said Didani’s network used international shipping routes, luxury real estate purchases, and high-end spending -- including armored vehicles and bulletproof gear -- to move and conceal drug money.

The ‘cocaine torpedo’ plan

Federal officials claim Didani led the organization while another member oversaw the design of an underwater drone that could transport large shipments of cocaine to Europe.

Prosecutors called it a “cocaine torpedo.”

Didani and a co-conspirator allegedly planned and paid for the construction of a submersible container designed to attach to the hull of a cargo ship.

Feds said the drone would be equipped with an underwater modem and GPS antenna.

When the ship would arrive at its destination, the cocaine drone would be remotely released from the containership and picked up by a fishing boat controlled by the organization.

A Canadian firm was reportedly hired to design a prototype, though the company was told the device was intended for ship-hull scrubbing.

The plan was ultimately abandoned after the co-conspirator died in July 2018.

---> Feds say Metro Detroit businessman financed drug ring prior to 2018 fatal plane crash

Money laundering in Michigan

Prosecutors say evidence gathered from phone warrants, iCloud data, and bank records ties Didani directly to money laundering activity in Michigan.

Authorities said communications recovered from those sources included discussions about “cleaning money.”

One example reportedly involved approximately $864,000 in checks cashed through pawn shops and gold shops, which was then converted into bulk cash.

In June 2016, after cashing $200,000 in checks, the money was taken to Illinois to purchase more cocaine.

Court documents show photos of Didani reportedly posing with large amounts of cash ahead of cocaine purchases

Criminal history, contraband phone add to sentence

Prosecutors pushed for a lengthy sentence, saying Didani has five prior felony convictions and 14 misdemeanor convictions, and has virtually no lawful employment history.

His felony record allegedly includes multiple drunk driving convictions beginning in 2001, a false pretenses conviction involving a $100,000 fraud scheme, and an assault and battery conviction following an incident in which officers recovered cocaine, a semi-automatic firearm, and three loaded magazines from his apartment.

Prosecutors said Didani showed contempt for rules even while in custody. In September 2025, officials at FCI Milan reportedly found a TCL smartphone hidden inside a hollowed-out stack of papers in Didani’s cell.

A search of the phone showed Didani had been conducting internet searches for cocaine seizures, researching his co-conspirators, browsing news about his own case on YouTube and social media, and had a photograph of kilograms of cocaine saved on the device.

East Tennessee prosecutors and law enforcement officers said they are continuing to disrupt what they describe as a Detroit-to-Tennessee drug pipeline through the multiagency 313 Initiative, an effort aimed at getting drugs, dealers and guns off the streets in multiple states.

The latest case unfolded last weekend, when the Knox County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Unit and Organized Retail Crime Unit, while specifically targeting the Detroit-to-Knoxville drug pipeline, attempted to stop a Dodge Caravan.

The driver allegedly took off, but after a short chase, detectives seized thousands of dollars, along with 11 pounds of methamphetamine and marijuana, officials said.

Three people were arrested: 21-year-old Damaino Farris and 41-year-old James Costner, both of Roseville and 33-year-old Kevin Foy of Detroit.

According to court records, Foy was released from prison less than a year ago after pleading no contest to manslaughter and home invasion charges out of Macomb County.

Farris, Costner and Foy are scheduled to be back in court April 1, 2026.

The 313 Initiative

Officials said the weekend bust is part of the 313 Initiative, described as a “concerted effort by numerous federal, state and local agencies to identify, target and dismantle drug trafficking organizations from the Detroit area that have chosen Knox County and surrounding counties to distribute large amounts of drugs.”

Since December 2022, the Knox County District Attorney’s Office says investigators working under the 313 Initiative have seized about 145 pounds of methamphetamine, 84 pounds of fentanyl or heroin, more than 7 pounds of cocaine or crack, thousands of prescription pills, nearly $800,000 and 251 guns, and have made 453 arrests.

“In Knox County alone, we believe the work of the 313 Initiative has contributed to the decrease in overdose deaths we saw from 485 deaths in 2023 to 301 deaths in 2024,” said District Attorney Charme Allen. “Between holding drug dealers accountable and providing more treatment opportunities for drug users, our community was able to save 184 lives last year.”

Surrounding jurisdictions have also reported improvements, prosecutors said. In 2024, the 5th Judicial District noted a 57% decrease in reported overdose deaths from the previous year.

Agencies involved

Partner agencies in the initiative include the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Tennessee Department of Correction, the 4th Judicial Drug Task Force, Sevier County Street Crimes, the 5th Judicial Drug Task Force, Knoxville Police Department, Knox County Sheriff’s Office, the 7th Judicial Crime Task Force, Campbell County Sheriff’s Office, Claiborne County Sheriff’s Office, the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Michigan State Police, Detroit Police Department, Kentucky State Police, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and the district attorneys’ offices for Tennessee’s 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th judicial districts.

Gathering in the Detroit east side neighborhood where Shamekia Kelly grew up, her family shared their heartbreak after police said the 36-year-old was found stabbed to death last week at the Lakeside Village Apartments in Clinton Township.

“She was a joy. She brought joy to our family,” said her sister, Nivra Duren.

Duren said Kelly was in nursing school and “loved to care for people,” adding she worked as a tech for more than 10 years. The family said they became worried when they couldn’t reach her.

“We were trying to reach her, going to voicemail, and her job did a welfare check on her, and that’s when they discovered her deceased in her apartment,” Duren said.

Kelly’s sister, Tamira Bracey, said the family is demanding answers.

“She was a loving person. She didn’t deserve this at all. She was my big sister. I want justice for her,” Bracey said.

The family said Clinton Township police have shared limited information about the investigation. They also said Kelly had been in an abusive relationship for the past four years, and they had been worried about her safety.

“When we would be on the phone, she would be like, whispering like she is scared to voice herself or rush me off the phone,” Bracey said.

Kelly’s aunt, Yolanda Bracey, urged others to recognize warning signs.

“I just want to urge these young ladies that domestic violence is just not always abuse as physical. It can start from isolation,” she said.

Local 4 has repeatedly contacted the Clinton Township Police Department for an update on the investigation, but has not received a response yet.

The game will take place on Saturday (April 4) inside Lucas Oil Stadium at 8:49 p.m. and will have an alternate broadcast that will feature Fab Five members Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson, bringing them together for the first time in almost 30 years, alongside host Adam Lefkoe to share live reactions and timeless stories with their unique perspectives on the heavyweight matchup.

Head coach Dusty May believes forward Morez Johnson Jr. has earned the freedom to expand his game — and the results are showing at the right time.

Johnson Jr.’s development, particularly as a perimeter shooter, has added a new dimension to Michigan’s lineup as the Wolverines prepare for their Final Four matchup against Arizona.

“Yeah, he’s earned the right to do what he does based on his work,” said May. “He’s incredibly consistent and thorough with everything that he does.”

May said Johnson Jr. struggled with outside shooting during the offseason but remained committed to refining his mechanics, balance, and rhythm.

That persistence has translated into growing confidence from the coaching staff.

“There are certain times this year where I was actually disappointed when he would turn one down,” May said. “We felt so confident in his shooting ability and in his decision-making with the ball.”

Johnson Jr.’s versatility, along with fellow big man Aday Mara, has helped Michigan maintain spacing despite playing with size.

Both players can dribble, pass, and now stretch the floor, giving the Wolverines flexibility on offense.

Identity

Michigan’s identity, however, extends beyond individual development.

May described a team culture built on energy, unselfishness, and celebrating the subtleties that don’t always show up in the box score.

“If you watch our team play, the things that we value are the things that they react with great passion and energy,” May said. “The extra pass, the hustle plays.”

That approach has created a tight-knit group, one that May said emphasizes recognizing the “invisible plays”, screens, ball movement, and defensive effort that lead to success.

“We want to make sure everyone else feels great about their role in how it all transpired,” he said.

May’s path to Michigan followed a successful run at Florida Atlantic, and he said navigating the evolving landscape of college basketball, particularly the transfer portal and name, image, and likeness opportunities, shaped his perspective.

“We just felt like we knew the full landscape of what this was,” May said. “We had a broader perspective.”

Balance

In his first season in Ann Arbor, May has guided Michigan from an eight-win campaign to a Final Four appearance, leaning on both experienced transfers and impactful freshmen like Trey McKenney.

Players credited the team’s chemistry and composure for the postseason run.

“The biggest thing is being able to kind of balance those emotions,” forward Will Tschetter said. “There’s so much thrown at you, you’ve got to stay focused.”

McKenney echoed that sentiment.

“You don’t want to put too much emotion in the game,” said McKenney. “You want to be kind of level-headed throughout this tournament.”

Challenging schedule

Michigan’s challenging schedule, which ranked among the toughest in the country, also prepared the Wolverines for high-pressure moments.

May pointed to his team’s ability to elevate its play late in close games.

“When the stakes are the highest, these guys perform at such a high level,” May said.

Arizona

Now, Michigan faces an Arizona team that May described as consistent, physical, and disciplined.

“Their identity stays the same,” May said. “They change just based on their personnel.”

Despite the magnitude of the stage, May said his approach remains steady.

“We’ve done our work,” May said. “We’re going to be more focused on staying in character and doing our absolute best and trusting that that’s going to be enough.”

Eleven months after releasing a song titled “Heil Hitler” and just over two months after publishing an apology letter for his antisemitism, Ye let two decades of hits — and 70,000 screaming loyal fans — speak the loudest on Friday night at SoFi Stadium.

"I want to thank y’all for sticking by me all these years. Through the hard times, through the low times," he told the crowd. “I love you for that.”

Hill joined Ye on a stage for the first time ever for an energetic rendition of his 2004 hit “All Falls Down,” which originally sampled her voice. Ye left the stage as she performed “Lost Ones” and “Doo Wop (That Thing)” before rejoining for his 2021 “Doo Wop”-sampling song “Believe What I Say.” They hugged as she exited.

Travis Scott, CeeLo Green and Ye's tween daughter North West also strapped on safety harnesses to join Ye high above the stadium floor atop a striking half-orb stage, which alternately depicted a moon, a rotating Earth and a smoking sphere throughout the two hours-plus livestreamed performance.

A loud singalong of “Heartless” midway through the more than 40-song Good Friday show seemed to boost Ye’s spirits: “That’s what 80,000 people sound like, ladies and gentlemen. … They said I’d never be back in the States. Two sold-out concerts, baby!”

The first SoFi show Wednesday, his first major U.S. performance in nearly five years, turned out to be more of a warm-up as Ye was tentative in his rapping and drew attention to technical mishaps.

Fans at that show said they separated the 48-year-old performer’s personal beliefs and public statements from his music — and were ready to forgive after his January apology letter.

“You gotta back your family no matter what,” said Vince Da Prince, a rapper from Downey, Calif. “He’s a part of our fam since we were little kids.”

Added fan Yovani Contreras: “I don’t really bring into politics or the way someone’s personal opinion are. I’m into the music artistry … Like, I just, to me, Ye is always gonna be Ye. Kanye is always gonna be Kanye.”

Luis Velasquez said he’d been a longtime fan and had been put off by controversies in recent years, but felt the apology was sincere.

“Yeah he did apologize,” he said. “He’s taking the medication I think is what he mentioned. … For me as a fan that’s, like, respect, right? Like I think that’s cool enough to bridge that gap.”

Ye released his latest album, “Bully,” under both the names Ye and Kanye West, at the end of March. He dominated hip-hop and pop charts in the 2000s and early 2010s, winning 24 Grammy Awards despite public outbursts and a polarizing personality. He lost nearly all his major business partnerships and many fans after a string of controversies in the last several years including antisemitic remarks and social media posts.

He closed Friday night's show with his “toast to the douchebags" hit “Runaway,” and walked out of the stadium behind his wife Bianca Censori and two of his children.

Both Richardson and Coleman are racing from “scratch” in the 144th edition of the event, meaning they must run the entire distance and chase down opponents who in some cases may start up to 25 meters ahead of them.

Richardson, who gave away 10 meters to her closest competitor at the start, won her heat in 13.815 seconds Saturday and Coleman his in 12.681.

On Monday there will be six semifinals in each of the men's and women's divisions, with the winners of each of the heats advancing to the respective finals. Only two men and two women have won the race starting from scratch.

“My experience so far is just reminding me what track and field feels like — love the respect and also fun,” Richardson told Seven Network television after her heat.

“It felt like being a kid again, playing tag, like playing rabbit. I had a great time, and it just kind of woke my body up with this being the first time running in 2026 . . . chasing everyone actually made me activate and work on my race pattern."

Richardson is one of the fastest women of all time, winning a silver medal in the 100 meters in the 2024 Paris Olympics, and gold in the 4x100 relay that same year.

Coleman is a former world champion over 100 meters. He and Richardson appear to have continued their relationship despite a domestic violence charge against Richardson last July.

There are more than 700 competitors in the Stawell race, including many of Australia's top runners, in the event held about 235 kilometers (145 miles) west of Melbourne. The men's and women's finals each carry a prize of 40,000 Australian dollars ($27,500).

It has not been disclosed whether Richardson or Coleman have been paid appearance money to take part in the race. Last year Australian media reported that top Australian sprinter Gout Gout was paid 50,000 Australian dollars (35,000) to run at Stawell, where he was eliminated in the semifinals.

Richardson said this week that she was excited about the handicap format.

“I’ve been known to be a chaser in a couple of races, so actually the challenge of the stagger makes me more technical and sound, and with that comes great results," she said in comments on the Australian Athletics website.

Coleman, known for its fast starts, said he's the opposite.

“I’m usually leading from the front and people are trying to come catch me. I feel that this will be the perfect start to the season, to have some fun, but also be able to work on the things I have been practicing,” he said.

___

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

“There’s obviously concern,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after his team's 10-3 victory. “The calf area could be tricky. We’ve just got to wait, but there’s obviously concern.”

Soto singled off Tyler Mahle in the top of the first and appeared to slow up while going first to third on Bo Bichette's run-scoring single.

“He felt something,” Mendoza said. “As he was standing at third base, he continued to get tight.”

Soto was forced out at home plate when Brett Baty grounded into a 1-2-3 double play, and Tyrone Taylor replaced Soto in left field for the bottom of the first.

The 27-year-old Soto is in the second season of a record $765 million, 15-year contract with the Mets. He had 43 homers and 105 RBIs while playing in 160 games last season.

The four-time All-Star and six-time Silver Slugger award winner has played at least 150 games six times in his eight major league seasons before this one. The only times he didn't were the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and his rookie year with Washington in 2018, when he was called up on May 20. He hasn't been on the injured list since early in the 2021 season with the Nationals.

Soto has hit safely in all eight Mets games this season. He entered Friday with a .282 career batting average and 245 home runs.

He also has played for the San Diego Padres and New York Yankees.

___

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

The two-time All-American made sure there wasn't a repeat performance in this year's Final Four, swooping in for the biggest play in a game that sends the Bruins into the NCAA national championship game for the first time.

Heeding her coaches' persistent advice to sprint back on defense, Betts swatted fellow All-American Madison Booker with 20 seconds left, allowing UCLA to withstand a late charge by Texas for a 51-44 win in the Final Four on Friday night.

“When that play happened, I really have so much confidence that every time she is in a matchup, she’s going to find a way to alter, block, scare somebody from doing that,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “I just think she’s spectacular.”

She needed to be.

Motivated by the beatdown in their first Final Four a year ago, Betts and the Bruins (36-1) dominated their way to another national semifinal with the best season in program history.

A chance at a first national championship game appearance had to go through the only team to beat them this season.

Texas was overpowering in the first meeting, but the Bruins turned the bully tables on the Longhorns (35-4), shutting down All-American Madison Booker while building a 13-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.

The Longhorns are one of the nation's best defensive teams and flexed their D during a 12-2 run that cut UCLA's lead to 47-44.

Betts swatted the Texas run to halt.

With the Longhorns on the break and Booker attacking the basket, Betts backpedaled and timed her jump just right. She blocked Booker's shot, gathered the ball herself and Kiki Rice hit two clinching free throws, sending Close's crew into the title game.

"As soon as I saw her getting downhill I was like ‘Alright, please block this. Don’t let her score,’” Betts said.

Betts' big block and the Bruins grinding win earn them a spot Sunday’s title game against South Carolina, the three-time national champions who ended reigning champion UConn’s undefeated season and left Huskies’ coach Geno Auriemma fuming.

So was Booker after a brutal finish to what was otherwise a stellar season. She hit her first shot, missed the next 17 and finished with six points on 3-of-23 shooting.

“It did surprise me when I couldn’t get out of my funk because every shot I put up it felt like it was going to be money,” Booker said. “I wish a few more fell in, not just for me but for my teammates, too.”

Same for Texas coach Vic Schaefer after another agonizing Final Four loss.

He twice lost in the national title game at Mississippi State — once on a buzzer beater — and watched the Longhorns clank their way out of their second straight Final Four appearance.

The Longhorns got off to a brutal start with six points in the first quarter, shot 38% from the floor overall and 2 for 9 from 3-point range in the third-lowest scoring in Final Four history.

The chance at a second national title stretches to another year — 40 years and counting.

“We feel like, in our locker room, we let one get away,” Schaefer said. "I feel like this one will haunt me as the coach probably until the day I die.”

In the teams' first meeting, Texas dominated early and held on late for a 76-65 win on Nov. 26 in Las Vegas.

The rematch was more like a wrestling match, players hitting the floor and coaches screaming for fouls that weren't called — just like in the first Final Four game.

UCLA dominated the first quarter to lead by eight. Texas tightened the screws in the second, limiting the Bruins to six points — the 28th opponent they've held to single digits in a quarter to pull within 20-17 by halftime.

Betts turned out to be a huge difference maker.

The 6-foot-7 center was held to a season-low eight points the first go-round against Texas, but had some success early in the national semifinals by attacking before the double teams arrived. She continued to produce while her fellow All-American labored, finishing 7 of 10 from the floor with 11 rebounds and three blocked shots — none bigger than the late one against Booker that all but secured UCLA's 29th straight win since the loss to Texas.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

South Carolina will be trying to win its fourth national championship in nine years. The Gamecocks played stifling defense to knock off UConn 62-48 and end the Huskies' 54-game winning streak in the semifinals of March Madness on Friday night.

UCLA played incredible defense of its own in its 51-44 win over Texas. The Bruins spoiled a chance at the first all-SEC title game since 2017, when Staley’s team beat Mississippi State, which was led by current Texas coach Vic Schaefer. That victory was South Carolina's first title and started the current run that the Gamecocks have been on over the last decade.

South Carolian and UCLA have played each other many times over the past few seasons. UCLA coach Cori Close has been impressed with what Staley has built at South Carolina.

“Dawn does such a great job and is a standard-bearer in our sport,” Close said. "Thankful for what they’ve done, not just for South Carolina, but for the game. We also are an incredibly competitive, confident group. I’m sure they are as well. All you can ask for is to play your best basketball for a national championship."

The Bruins have been on a mission this season since losing to UConn in the Final Four last season. It was the Bruins' first-ever trip to the national semifinals of the NCAA Tournament. With most of the key players back from that team and a couple of new additions, UCLA ran through the regular season with the only loss in November to Texas in a tournament in Las Vegas.

That loss was the only blemish the Bruins had this year, and they cruised to both the Big Ten regular-season and tournament championship.

Now, they'll have a tall test with South Carolina, which put on a defensive clinic against UConn. The ending of that game was overshadowed by a dust-up between Staley and UConn coach Geno Auriemma as they were shaking hands with less than a second left. The two coaches needed to be separated by their assistants.

Coming into the season Staley wasn't sure about this team as they were dealing with injuries and trying to work in star transfer Ta'Niya Latson from Florida State. The country's leading scorer last season while at Florida State just wanted to have a chance to win a national championship.

“This is why I came to South Carolina. It was a personal sacrifice that I had to make. I mean, I know a lot of people don’t get that, they don’t understand my why,” said Latson. “This is my why. This is why I came to South Carolina.”

Close and her team will try and hang a championship banner to go with the one the school won by taking the 1978 AIAW title, which was the postseason tournament for women's basketball before the NCAA took over in 1982.

The Bruins are a veteran team, even though they have no championship game experience. UCLA's starting five, led by center Lauren Betts, are all seniors or graduates.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Even as Hollywood still drives how Americans envision little green men with big eyes and bigger heads, fiction soon could be separated from — or revealed as — fact if government agencies release secret files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs as called for in February by President Donald Trump.

The science fiction genre has shaped how people think about intelligent life elsewhere in the universe — “whether it’s invasion narratives or aliens coming to warn us that we’re on the wrong track or aliens just trying to come and make contact and help us with things or just say ‘hi,’” says Duke University professor Priscilla Wald, who teaches a class on science fiction and film.

Trump's announcement on social media followed former President Barack Obama suggesting in a podcast interview that aliens were real. Obama later clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens had made contact, but said since the universe is so vast odds are good that life exists elsewhere.

Movies say they are nearly everywhere, from a Pennsylvania cornfield in 2002's “Signs” to Wyoming's Devil's Tower in 1977's “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to a Central American jungle where 1987's “Predator” was set.

“Hollywood has basically been preparing the public for this,” retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet says of any revelation that intelligent life from outer space exists and has visited Earth. “I think people can handle it. It does, of course, depend on what information is released (by the government)."

Hollywood quickly latched on following the 1947 discovery of debris near Roswell, New Mexico. Authorities initially identified crash materials as a flying disc before quickly backtracking and saying they were from a high-altitude weather balloon.

About three years after Roswell, “The Flying Saucer” made it to theaters. That was followed by a some low-budget and mostly forgettable movies, while others continue to inspire sci-fi buffs like 1951’s “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

“If you think back to the flourishing of alien films, this starts really in the U.S. in the 1950s,” Wald says.

“The aliens are gentle souls who come down and try to warn us after nuclear war," she says of “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” “They’re trying to warn that we’re creating problems in the cosmos and that if we don’t stop, they are and have to do something about it."

Still others depict visitors arriving with more nefarious motives and intentions — to kill us, to take over the Earth, sometimes even to make us food.

“I think if we found out aliens were on the way, there would be a mix of responses,” Wald says. “I think there would be a lot of people out there welcoming them. A lot of people would be going down to the cellars and stocking them with canned food."

A plethora of documentaries also have been released, including 2025’s “The Age of Disclosure,” which details government knowledge of the existence of intelligent life outside of humans and attempts to reverse engineer alien technology.

Steven Spielberg has directed such box office hits as 1982's “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” His upcoming film “Disclosure Day” teases: “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?”

“My question is always, 'Well, what is that fear really about?'” Wald says. “It seems to me it’s a reflection on who we are, that we’re projecting onto aliens the way we treat each other. So, the aliens are coming down, they want to conquer us, they’re violent. Who does that sound like? It sounds like us.”

___

AP national writer Allen G. Breed in Durham, North Carolina, contributed to this story.

Descovich was back at the White House a few months later, seated alongside CEOs of Google and IBM to weigh in on artificial intelligence and education policy.

Last month, when first lady Melania Trump hosted a global technology summit in Washington, Descovich was there, too.

Her presence at the White House underscores the meteoric rise of a group that made its name in local politics, fighting to win school board seats and end “wokeness” in U.S. schools. What started as a fringe of far-right mothers has seen its interests collide with a presidential administration that embraces and amplifies their message, launching the group into a new level of influence in public policy.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Descovich said she has a voice in discussions around transgender sports bans, AI in education, the dismantling of the Education Department and a campaign to end diversity, equity and inclusion.

“We have a seat at the table in so many policy discussions throughout the administration,” Descovich, who lives in Florida, said during a recent visit to Washington. “We’re invited to participate in discussions and meetings where some of these things are hashed out.”

Supporters say the group's trajectory speaks to the power of its “parental rights” agenda, which has become a plank of conservative politics. Critics are alarmed by its presence at the White House, saying the group promotes extreme views and undermines public schools.

Alliance with Trump offers a new lifeline after ups and downs

Founded five years ago in Florida, the organization became known for challenging classroom instruction it deemed inappropriate for children, often involving sex, race or LGBTQ+ themes. It later turned to state capitols, securing legislation like Florida's “Don't Say Gay” law.

It claims more than 300 chapters, with sharply growing revenue flowing in from groups like the Heritage Foundation and conservative megadonors, including Richard Uihlein.

By some measures, however, its influence had appeared to be waning. School board candidates endorsed by the group struggled in elections, and rival liberal groups rose up to compete for power in America's suburbs.

A series of missteps fueled ridicule among opponents, including an incident in which an Indiana chapter quoted Adolf Hitler in a parent newsletter in 2023.

Yet when Trump returned to office, the group's political fortunes swung upward. His administration charges into the same cultural battles Moms for Liberty staked its name on, including a push to keep transgender athletes out of girls' sports.

By her count, Descovich has been to the White House about a dozen times this administration.

Descovich was in attendance when Trump signed an order to overhaul the foster care system. She brought more than a dozen members to an event honoring Women’s History Month in March. Co-founder Tiffany Justice was there when Trump signed an order to dismantle the Education Department.

For the Trump administration, Moms for Liberty appears to be playing a role that's often filled by groups like the National PTA, said Rick Hess, director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank. As those establishment groups shy away from Trump, he said, Moms for Liberty has stepped up.

“Moms for Liberty speaks to a very active part of the MAGA community, and education has been a big part of what the administration has been focused on for the last 15 months,” he said.

Behind the scenes, Descovich has been a tipster for agencies that investigate schools over transgender sports and bathroom policies. After meeting with Justice Department officials, she delivered more than 250 complaints, she said.

“We really are this grassroots team that’s working hand-in-hand with helping move forward President Trump’s agenda,” she said.

The group is carrying the momentum to Capitol Hill

Asked about its relationship with Moms for Liberty, the White House declined to offer specifics but said Trump is “the most pro-family President in history,” citing his child tax credit among other initiatives.

The White House “is proud to tout these great accomplishments for American families alongside many leaders,” spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a statement.

Moms for Liberty hopes to carry its momentum to Congress, too.

On a recent March morning, more than 100 members fanned out across Capitol Hill, delivering homemade cookies to lawmakers and their offices. Some brought their children, including a boy sporting a suit and red tie like Trump's.

House Speaker Mike Johnson stopped for a photo with a few parents, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., posted a photo to social media of himself giving a thumbs-up alongside a Moms for Liberty member.

Members of the group call themselves “joyful warriors,” a moniker that critics say disguises their anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and aggressive tactics. The group has been accused of harassing teachers and school board leaders, calling its opponents “groomers” and “predators.”

Descovich dismisses the criticism. “Our motto has been, from Day One, we’re joyful warriors, because we knew we needed to advocate in a way that was OK for our children to watch,” she said.

Yet she doesn't shy away from a fight. The group has a deep feud with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which in 2023 labeled the parent group as “extremist.”

Late last year, Descovich led a letter urging the federal government to cut ties with the SPLC. The FBI agreed to do so soon after, echoing language from her letter.

Critics say an extreme voice is getting a platform

The presence of Moms for Liberty has gained at the White House is both unsettling and unsurprising, said Seth Levi, chief program strategy officer for the SPLC.

It's “further evidence that they are more interested in platforming extremist voices and policies rather than listening to the American people, who are demanding solutions to make their lives easier and more affordable,” Levi said.

The leap up to federal policy marks a new chapter in the group's evolution, said Maurice Cunningham, a former political science professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston who tracks the organization and its relationships.

Yet he sees the group's influence as political advocacy rather than parental input. He identifies the group as a close cousin to groups like the Heritage Foundation, which has been influential in Trump's second term.

“They're in the White House, there's no question,” he said. “But they are there as a voice of the organized institutional right wing.”

Descovich said the relationship with Trump took root at a 2023 convention where Republican presidential candidates jostled for the group's endorsement. When Trump took the stage, he called Moms for Liberty “the best thing that’s ever happened to America.”

Moms for Liberty threw its weight behind Trump, and Descovich said she stayed close with his team.

The organization's latest concern is AI in the classroom, which Moms for Liberty sees as a threat to parental control over education. At a White House meeting, Descovich pushed for guardrails to ensure humans guide instruction, not algorithms.

It's also expanding its national presence with a new online training program called M4L Academy, featuring videos on “critical race theory” and other topics the group sees as taboo. And while its first trip to Congress was mostly seen as an introduction, it's gearing up for more.

“We’re not really doing any lobbying for any specific bills at the federal level yet,” Descovich said. “That will come next year.”

The rescue occurred as the U.S. military was conducting a search and rescue operation, according to three people familiar who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitivity of the situation. Israel is helping the United States with the operation.

Iranian state media has claimed in a post on X that Iran’s military shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle.

According to an email from the Pentagon obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. military said that it received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East. The email did not provide more details.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a previous statement that President Donald Trump had been briefed but did not offer any additional information.

The number of crew on board wasn’t immediately known.

The war now entering its sixth week is destabilizing economies around the world as Iran responds to the U.S. and Israeli attacks by targeting the Gulf region's energy infrastructure and tightening its grip on oil and natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. forces will keep hitting Iran “very hard” in the next two or three weeks.

Here is the latest:

Oracle building in Dubai damaged by drone debris

Authorities in Dubai said the facades of two buildings were damaged by debris from intercepted drones, including one belonging to U.S. tech firm Oracle. No injuries were reported.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has threatened to attack Oracle and 17 other U.S. companies after accusing them of being involved in “terrorist espionage” operations in Iran.

Previous Iranian drone strikes caused damage to three Amazon Web Services facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

365 service members have been wounded in action in Iran war

As of Friday, 247 of the wounded were Army soldiers, 63 were Navy sailors, 19 were Marines and 36 were Air Force airmen, according to Pentagon data available online.

It is unclear if the data includes any of the service members involved in the downing of two combat aircraft reported Friday.

Most of the wounded — 200 — were also mid to senior enlisted troops, 85 were officers and 80 were junior enlisted service members.

The current death toll remains at 13 service members killed in combat.

Bahrain postpones vote on UN resolution aimed at ending Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz

The Gulf nation of Bahrain, which holds the presidency of the U.N. Security Council this month, postponed the vote on a resolution aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz that had been watered down significantly because of opposition from Russia and China, two U.N. diplomats said.

The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because council consultations have been private, said the vote will now be held sometime next week.

The Bahrain-sponsored draft resolution that had been expected to be put to a vote on Saturday would authorize defensive measures — not offensive action that Gulf nations and the United States initially supported — to ensure vessels can safely transit the waterway where one-fifth of the world’s oil typically passes.

Bahrain has sought support from all 15 council nations, and the postponement of the vote indicates that the watered-down draft is still not acceptable to Russia and China.

A-10 aircraft hit by Iranian air defenses, second US aircraft to go down in the Middle East

A U.S. A-10 aircraft has been hit by Iranian air defenses, Iranian state media reported, citing Iran’s Army public relations office.

The Associated Press reported earlier that a second U.S. Air Force combat aircraft had gone down in the Middle East on Friday.

No other information was immediately known including the whereabouts of the pilot. The Pentagon and White House did not immediate comment.

The A-10, also known by the nickname Warthog, is a single-seat aircraft.

▶ Read more

White House says Trump won’t appear before press on Friday

The White House at 4 p.m. EST called a “lid” for press, indicating the president would not be making any appearance in front of the media for the day.

The call came hours earlier than normal and signaled the president and White House are remaining tight-lipped as the search-and-rescue mission continued.

Trump declines to speak about search for missing crew member

In a brief telephone interview with NBC News, Trump declined to discuss the search and rescue effort.

He was asked if it would impact negotiations with Iran and said, “No, not at all. No, it’s war.”

Status of a second service member unknown after F-15E shot down

The House Armed Services Committee has been notified by the Pentagon that the status of a second service member is not known after the downing of the fighter jet.

The panel was told that an F-15 was shot down and one service member has been recovered, according to a congressional aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose the private communication.

The other service member’s duty status is unknown, the aide said.

That generally means the Defense Department does not know the person’s whereabouts and they have gone missing.

—- Lisa Mascaro

Second US aircraft went down

A second U.S. Air Force combat aircraft went down in the Middle East on Friday, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation.

It was not clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down or whether Iran was involved. Neither the crew’s status nor where the aircraft went down was immediately known.

The New York Times earlier reported that the second aircraft went down.

Also Friday, a U.S. fighter jet was shot down in Iran and one crew member was rescued.

—- Konstantin Toropin

One person killed in fires caused by falling debris in Abu Dhabi

The Abu Dhabi government media office said Friday that one Egyptian national was killed in fires caused by falling debris at Habshan gas facilities, following the interception of an Iranian aerial attack, according to a statement posted on X.

In the same fires, another four expats, including two Egyptians and two Pakistanis, sustained minor wounds, added the statement.

The Abu Dhabi government did not specify whether air defenses had intercepted a missile or a drone.

“Significant damage has occurred at the facilities and an assessment is ongoing,” read the statement.

Iranian official derides the US after downing US aircraft

Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf mocked the U.S. after his country shot down a U.S. aircraft over southwestern Iran and at least one crew member ejected.

“This brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from “regime change” to “Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?,” Qalibaf wrote on his X account.

Iranian state media has claimed in a post on X that Iran’s military shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle.

Qalibaf, doubling down on his mockery, wrote, “What incredible progress. Absolute geniuses.”

WHO chief calls for urgent support for health systems in war-affected countries

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated on Friday his agency’s appeal for $ 30.3 million in immediate funding to support strained health services in Iran and another four Arab countries including Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Syria.

“This appeal will support essential health services and trauma care, disease surveillance and early warning systems, mass casualty management and national readiness for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear emergencies,” he said on the social platform X.

So far, the conflict has killed 3,300, wounded 30,000 and caused the displacement of over 4 million people.

The WHO first launched the appeal on Thursday, explaining that this amount will cover the period from March to August 2026.

Archbishop leading US military’s Catholic chaplains questions whether Iran war is just

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who heads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, tells CBS News that a case can be made that the Iran war is unjustified.

Broglio was asked during an interview to be aired on Easter Sunday on “Face the Nation” if the war was justified.

“Under the just war theory, it is not,” replied Broglio, who then evoked the specter of a threat of nuclear arms.”

“It’s compensating for a threat before threat is actually realized,” he said. “I would line myself up with Pope Leo, who has been urging for negotiation.”

“The Lord Jesus certainly brought a message of peace and also, I think war is always a last resort,” Broglio added. “I’m not making a judgment about that, because I really don’t know. But I do think that it’s hard to cast this war, you know, as something that would be sponsored by the Lord.”

Israeli official says Israel providing intel for search effort

The official says Israel is assisting with intelligence, but not active in any on-the-ground rescue.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the unfolding operation.

—- Josef Federman

Kuwait defends against air attacks

The Kuwaiti army said on Friday that its air defenses had engaged with seven ballistic missiles, two cruise missiles and 26 drones over the last 24 days, according to a statement posted on its official page on X.

The statement added that interceptions were still going on causing in Kuwaiti skies, causing explosions.

Israeli tank shelling kills one in southern Syria

An Israeli tank fired on a car in the southern province of Quneitra Saturday, killing a young man, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported, without giving further details.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said witnesses said that the man was a civilian “and that the attack occurred while he was driving his car on a public road connecting villages near the border strip.” There was no immediate statement from the Israeli military.

After the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad by Islamist-led rebels in December 2024, Israeli forces seized control of a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria, which Israel initially described as a temporary move to protect its borders.

The Syrian government says Israel is violating a 1974 disengagement agreement between the two countries and has called for it to withdraw its forces.

Israel reports new missile launch from Iran

The Israeli army says air defenses are being activated and residents instructed to seek shelter in affected areas.

F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet has a 2-person crew

Iranian state media has claimed that Iran’s military shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle. The aircraft is a variation of the Air Force fighter jet that carries a two-person crew consisting of a pilot and weapons system officer.

Alan Diehl, a former investigator for the Air Force Safety Center, said the Strike Eagle has an emergency locator beacon in a survival kit that can be set to activate automatically or manually.

The Pentagon has not immediately responded to repeated requests for comment

Israel suspends airstrikes as search for downed US pilot proceeds

An Israeli official says airstrikes have been halted in areas “relevant” to the rescue effort.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the operation is ongoing.

—- Josef Federman

Tehran resident describes projectile overhead and smoke near medical research center

A resident of central Tehran says she was walking home Thursday when she spotted what appeared to be a missile streaking overhead.

“I saw it go over my head and I heard the explosion,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to media restrictions in Iran.

Then she saw smoke rising from a nearby area of the capital hosting many government buildings, including the offices of Iran’s Supreme Leader, which Israel heavily struck early in the war. Next to that is the Pasteur Institute, which has played a leading role in Iran’s health sector for over a century. An Iranian health ministry spokesman confirmed the institute had been struck on Thursday.

The resident said she’s also seen least two police stations “destroyed” in her area of the capital.

—- Amir-Hussein Radjy

An explosion in southern Lebanon injures three UN peacekeepers amid fighting between Israel and Hezbollah

The peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL reminded Israel, Hezbollah and other actors of their obligation to ensure the peacekeepers’ safety, including by avoiding combat near their facilities and positions.

“This has been a difficult week for peacekeepers working near the central part of UNIFIL’s area of operations,” UNIFIL said.

Three U.N. peacekeepers were injured, two seriously, in an explosion of unknown origin inside their position in El Adeisse on Friday afternoon, UNIFIL said. Three UNIFIL peacekeepers from Indonesia were killed earlier this week and others were injured.

Aircraft was ‘shot down,’ US military says

According to an email from the Pentagon obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. military said that it received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East. The email did not provide more details.

Iran accuses the UN nuclear watchdog of siding with its enemies

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran denounced on Friday what it describes as the U.N. nuclear agency’s “silence” as the US and Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Iranian agency accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of “not merely inaction but complicity with perpetrators,” according to a statement posted on X. It said it has sent a protest letter to the IAEA’s director. “This historic negligence erodes the IAEA’s little remaining credibility,” read the statement.

The Iranian government has constantly said that it needs to expand its nuclear plants to meet its electricity needs rather than to build weapons.

Jordan and Israel warn of more air attacks

The Israeli military says air defenses are being activated to intercept the fire.

Jordan, the state-owned news agency says alarms are sounding across the country.

One crew member has been rescued after American aircraft went down in Iran, US and Israeli officials say

One crew member has been rescued after an American aircraft went down in Iran, according to one U.S. and one Israeli official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive ongoing military operations.

US officials are being informed about the rescue operation in Iran

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been notified about the situation with the pilot in Iran, his office said.

The Defense Department has notified the speaker and said it would provide further updates.

The U.S. military has been conducting a search and rescue operation in Iran, according to three people familiar who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitivity of the situation.

Gas tanker affiliated with Japan makes it through the strait

A liquefied natural gas tanker co-owned by Japanese and Omani companies has passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a first passage of a Japan-affiliated vessel through the waterway since the start of the U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran, Japan’s NHK public television said.

The Japanese shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines said the Panamanian-flagged tanker Sohar LNG, also owned by Oman Shipping Company, crossed the strait Friday and is now out of the Persian Gulf, NHK reported.

The tanker was among 45 Japanese-affiliated ships stuck in the area since the start of the war in the region. Mitsui did not disclose other details, such as the ship’s destination, citing security reasons, NHK said.

Four US planes had already gone down during the Iranian war

Four U.S. military planes had gone down during the Iran war before Friday’s search and rescue operation — three fighter jets hit by friendly fire over Kuwait and a refueling tanker plane that crashed in Iraq following an incident with another U.S. aircraft.

The KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq while supporting operations in Iran. All six crew members aboard the aircraft died. U.S. officials attributed the crash to an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace,” and said the other plane landed safely.

Separately, three U.S. F-15E fighter jets were mistakenly targeted by friendly Kuwaiti fire. All six crew members ejected safely.

US has launched a rescue operation after Iranian state media says American fighter jet went down in Iran, AP source says

The U.S. military rescue operation launched Friday after Iranian state media said an American fighter jet went down over southwest Iran and at least one crew member ejected.

Israel is helping the United States with the search and rescue operation, according to an Israeli military officer briefed on the information who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a U.S. announcement.

Social media footage showed American drones, aircraft and helicopters flying over the mountainous region where the Iranian channel said at least one pilot bailed out of the fighter jet.

It would be the first time the U.S. has lost aircraft in Iranian territory during the five-week war. It was not clear if the jet was shot down or crashed. The number of crew on board was not immediately known.

The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command didn’t immediately respond to several messages seeking comment. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “President Trump has been briefed.”

Bahrain cracks down on dissent as Iran war reignites internal unrest

A man detained in Bahrain as the island came under missile attack from Iran vanished for days, until his family was called to a military hospital to retrieve his body, covered in slash marks and bruises. The death of Mohamed al-Mousawi has become a flashpoint in the Sunni-ruled, Shiite-majority country on the war’s front lines, where critics say authorities have revived tactics used to suppress Arab Spring protests in 2011.

Bahrain, a monarchy that hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, has arrested dozens of people for filming airstrikes and demonstrations or expressing support for Iran.

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said al-Mousawi was arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran — allegations denied by his family — and that images of his wounds were “inaccurate and misleading.” A Bahrain government statement said the country is defending its national security and denied any sectarianism, saying authorities have acted lawfully and that independent bodies investigate allegations of abuse.

▶ Read more

Iranian motorcyclist describes a tale of two cities in wartime Tehran

A woman in her forties says she has made a point of riding a motorcycle around Tehran as “a form of civil resistance.” Cruising the capital’s streets has also shown her two faces of the wartime capital, she said.

Faced with years of protests, Iran’s Islamic rulers have recently eased enforcement of the mandatory veil and other restrictions on women, including harassing female motorcyclists.

A downtown resident, the woman said she rode uptown to the capital’s richest areas, where she found the cafes were packed.

“Now I’m outside on my motorbike. I stopped by the side of the street. There was an explosion. Several people sitting on chairs by the café, looked up, glanced at the sky and started drinking coffee again,” she messaged The Associated Press, communicating anonymously for her safety.

In other parts of Tehran, she said, “the streets where a building has been damaged and destroyed, or the houses around it, are different. It’s like Gaza. Silence. The smell of death.”

— By Amir-Hussein Radjy

___

This story has been corrected to replace a headline to show that Trump budget is seeking $1.5 trillion in defense spending.

___

This story has been corrected to show WHO is seeking $30.3 million in immediate funding.

Ta’Niya Latson scored 16 and Agot Makeer added 14 points and South Carolina played stifling defense to beat UConn 62-48 on Friday night, ending the Huskies’ 54-game winning streak.

The Gamecocks have now reached the NCAA championship game in four of the last five seasons, including the past three. They will be looking to win a fourth national title Sunday when they face UCLA, capping off another March Madness.

“I thought our players just locked in once we built a little lead. We got suggestions from coaches as to should we change our defense, start switching everything. I’m like, No, this is what is working," Staley said. “Let’s continue to do what’s working.”

As the final seconds ticked down, Auriemma walked down the sideline to shake hands with Staley and had an animated conversation with her while pointing to the floor. Staley yelled back at him as assistants from both teams separated the two.

When the clock finally ran out, Auriemma walked straight to the tunnel and didn’t shake hands. The two teams did shake hands.

“I have no idea,” Staley said when asked what happened between the coaches. “But I’m gonna let you know this, I’m of integrity. I’m of integrity. So if I did something wrong, to Geno, I had no idea what I did.

“I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning of the game. I didn’t know. I went down there pregame, shook everybody on his staff’s hand.

“I don’t know what he came with after the game, but, hey, sometimes things get heated. We move on.”

Auriemma didn't want to disclose what he said to Staley specifically, but made it a point of saying he was annoyed about the lack of a pregame handshake.

“I’ve been coaching and been to 25 Final Fours,” Auriemma said. “Protocol is we meet at halfcourt, two coaches meet at halfcourt and shake hands. They announce it on the loudspeaker, waited there for three minutes.”

Auriemma was also upset that in the third quarter star Sarah Strong’s jersey was ripped, in his opinion because of South Carolina’s physical defense.

Strong said: “It was an accident, I missed my shot.”

UConn (38-1) entered the Final Four undefeated for the ninth time in school history, and for the third straight time left without a title. The Huskies also lost in the 2017 and 2018 national semifinals. This was the fewest points UConn had scored since putting up 49 points in a national championship game loss to the Gamecocks in 2022.

“Coach was pretty mad going into the half," Latson said of Staley. "She was yelling ‘Meet the moment! Meet the moment!’ We couldn’t be scared to play on this stage, especially against UConn. I mean, they were undefeated.”

The Huskies and Gamecocks played last season for the title and UConn came away with an 82-59 rout for the school’s 12th national championship. UConn also beat South Carolina handily during the 2024-25 regular season.

Leading 46-44 a few minutes into the third quarter, South Carolina scored five straight points, capped by Agot Makeer’s 3-pointer to extend the advantage to seven.

Strong hit a 3-pointer to get the Huskies back within 51-47 with 4:39 left. The Huskies didn't score again until Strong hit a free throw with 30.8 seconds left, after South Carolina had scored 11 straight points.

“I think our defense is pretty elite. We were super prepared by all of our coaches,” Makeer said. “I think we all wanted this really bad. We were just ready.”

South Carolina clamped down on UConn’s two stars. Strong, who was honored as the AP Player of the Year on Thursday, had 12 points and 12 rebounds, but went 4 for 16 from the field. Azzi Fudd had just eight points for the Huskies, making only 3 of 15 shots.

UConn had its worst shooting night of the season finishing 19 for 61 (31.1%) from the field.

Both teams had cruised to the Final Four, each winning in the first four rounds of the tournament easily. The Huskies had been rarely challenged all season long, routing their Big East opponents by record margins.

Facing their first real test in a long time, they had no answer.

The opening 20 minutes was full of missed shots and turnovers. The two teams combined to shoot 22 for 62 from the field (35.4%) and had 14 turnovers. UConn led 26-24 at the half.

There were dozens of former Huskies and Gamecocks players in the crowd including Diana Taurasi, Paige Bueckers and Aliyah Boston. Boston was sitting next to Flavor Flav, who is a huge supporter of women’s sports.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

A brief warmup across Southeast Michigan will be followed by a round of unsettled weather before a sharp cooldown arrives for Easter Sunday.

Rain develops overnight into early Saturday morning, with thunderstorms becoming possible during the afternoon and evening hours.

While a few storms could produce gusty winds, the overall severe threat remains limited across Metro Detroit.

The better chance for stronger storms is expected farther south into Ohio and east into Southwestern Ontario.

Temperatures on Saturday will climb to around 70 degrees despite clouds and periods of rain, creating a springlike feel ahead of an approaching cold front.

That front will move through by Saturday evening, bringing an end to most of the showers and ushering in cooler air.

Sunday

By Sunday, conditions shift noticeably. Easter Sunday will be mostly cloudy and breezy, with highs only reaching the mid-40s.

While a stray sprinkle or even a flurry cannot be ruled out, most of the day is expected to remain dry.

The cooler weather will be noticeable for those attending the Detroit Red Wings game Sunday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena.

Puck drop is scheduled for 1 p.m., with temperatures in the lower to mid-40s under mostly cloudy skies and a brisk west wind.

Looking ahead

The colder pattern continues into early next week, with highs remaining in the 40s Monday and Tuesday before a gradual warming trend begins by midweek.

Share your weather photos with Local 4 at MIPics.

Find the latest forecast from the 4Warn Weather team here

Remember to download the free 4Warn weather app -- it’s easily one of the best in the nation. Just search your app store under WDIV, and it’s right there, available for both iPhones and Androids! Or click the appropriate link below.

• Download for iPhone
• Download for Android

Desmond Bane had 27 points as the Magic remained a half-game behind eighth-place Charlotte in the Eastern Conference. Orlando is safely in the play-in tournament with an outside shot at the top six and automatic entry into the East playoffs.

Coach Jason Kidd and Maji Marshall were ejected seconds apart early in the fourth quarter for the lottery-bound Mavericks, who are on their longest home losing streak at 25-year-old American Airlines Center. Dallas lost the first 19 games of the 1993-94 season at since-demolished Reunion Arena.

Flagg was caught up in the disagreement that led to Kidd's ejection, drawing his own technical foul before Kidd went onto the court apparently to protest the same non-call that drew Flagg's ire.

The 19-year-old responded with 24 points in the fourth quarter to become the youngest in NBA history with a 50-point game.

Assistant coach Frank Vogel, who filled in for Kidd, briefly pulled Flagg late in the fourth quarter when he had 45 points. After returning, Flagg hit a corner 3-pointer, then clinched 50 points with a bucket and foul, making the free throw and coming out of the game to standing ovation.

Flagg went 19 of 30 from the field, including 6 of 9 from long range, and made all seven free throws.

Jalen Suggs and Tristan da Silva scored 19 points apiece for the Magic, and Franz Wagner added 18.

Brandon Williams scored 23 points for Dallas.

P.J. Washington Jr., Dallas' third-leading scorer, missed a third consecutive game with an illness.

Up next

Magic: At New Orleans on Sunday.

Mavericks: Host the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday.

___

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

The incident happened just after midnight Thursday (April 2) in the 16900 block of Wormer Street, police said.

Officers initially stopped a young man they believed was violating Detroit’s curfew for minors, then realized he was carrying a gun, according to police.

The man ran from officers and into a nearby home, police said.

Video circulating on social media shows officers at the door trying to enter the house. The video shows yelling between officers and family members escalating into an altercation as officers attempted to move past them.

In the video, officers restrain a man, and one officer appears to punch him repeatedly before other officers intervene.

Retired Assistant Detroit Police Chief Steve Dolunt said officers can enter a home without a warrant in limited circumstances, including “hot pursuit,” when officers are chasing someone they believe is armed or has committed a violent felony.

“If there’s hot pursuit, you’re chasing someone who you know is armed or has committed a violent felony, not a misdemeanor, a felony, you can hot pursuit enter a dwelling because someone’s life could be in danger,” Dolunt said.

Dolunt said a second exception is “exigent circumstances,” which he described as emergency situations in which someone is in immediate danger.

“Someone’s either in grave danger, or someone’s got a gun, it could be anything that could be considered a violent felony, or someone’s life is in danger, or they’re going to be the victim of a violent assault,” he said.

Detroit police have said the man seen being restrained in the video could face charges of obstructing an officer.

Dolunt said attempts to stop officers from entering a home during a hot pursuit can be considered obstruction.

“Why are you obstructing me? What else is going on in here?” he said, adding that officers may also question whether there are weapons or contraband inside.

Dolunt said officers are trained to de-escalate their use of force once a person stops resisting.

“The use of force goes up as the person raises the level; once the person calms down, you have to bring it down,” Dolunt said.

In an online comment, the Detroit Police Department said it is conducting an internal investigation into the officer’s actions and has placed one officer on administrative duty while the review continues.

Police said the young man who fled was arrested and had a handgun.

He could face charges, including carrying a concealed weapon. Police said warrant requests have been submitted to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, which will decide whether charges will be filed.

Update: Bank robbery suspect captured after broad daylight heist in Bloomfield Township

The incident occurred on Wednesday (April 1) at 2:03 p.m. at Mi Bank located at 3707 W Maple Road.

Bank employees reported that a man entered the bank and demanded money; a weapon was not implied.

Police said the teller handed over a sum of cash, and the suspect left the bank on foot.

Bloomfield Township police said they immediately responded to the area, but the man was not located.

The case was turned over to the Bloomfield Township Investigations Unit and is currently under investigation.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Bloomfield Township Police Department at 248-433-7755 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-Speak Up.

All tips to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. Click here to submit a tip online.

The incident occurred on Wednesday (April 1) at 2:03 p.m. at Mi Bank located at 3707 W Maple Road.

Bank employees reported that the man entered the bank and demanded money; a weapon was not implied.

Police said the teller handed over cash, and the suspect left the bank on foot.

Bloomfield Township police said they immediately responded to the area, but the man was not located until he was arrested on Thursday (April 3).

Anyone with information is urged to call the Bloomfield Township Police Department at 248-433-7755 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-Speak Up.

All tips to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. Click here to submit a tip online.

Guard Julie Allemand, who played last season for the Los Angeles Sparks, was selected by the Toronto Tempo with its first pick.

The Tempo won a coin flip and opted to take the sixth pick in the college draft on April 13 over the top pick in the expansion draft. So Portland went first on Friday and will have the seventh pick in the college draft.

Carleton, who has played for the last seven seasons for the Minnesota Lynx and averaged 6.5 points and 3.6 rebounds a game last season off the bench, was an unrestricted free agent.

“Once we finalized our process, and zoomed in on Bridget, and knew we had our first expansion pick, it was obvious we did not want to have Toronto hold our destiny in their hands," Portland general manger Vanja Cernivec said.

Allemand averaged 5.4 points, 3.7 rebounds and 5 assists in 34 games last season.

“This group gives us the ability to compete from day one while continuing to build, and embraces the opportunity to help shape something new in a new country as Canada’s first WNBA team,” Toronto general manager Monica Wright Rogers said.

The league's teams protected five players apiece ahead of the expansion draft but those lists were not made public, leading to speculation about which players were available.

On Wednesday, the Chicago Sky announced trades with the Tempo and the Fire, which prevented the expansion teams from selecting Sky players. In exchange, the Fire got the No. 17 pick in the college draft and the No. 26 pick went to the Tempo.

The expansion draft had two rounds, with up to six picks for each team in each round. The teams alternated picks, with the Tempo picking first in the second round after the Fire got the first overall selection.

Teams could only lose two players to the expansion draft. If a player was taken in the first round, a second player from that same franchise couldn't be taken until the second round.

Following Allemand, the Tempo selected center Nyara Sabally from the Liberty, guard Marina Mabrey from the Sun, forward Aaliya Nye from the Aces, guard Lexi Held from the Mercury, and forward Maria Conde from the Valkyries.

In the second round the Tempo selected forward Maria Kliundikova from the Lynx, center Adja Kane from the Liberty, center Nikolina Milic from the Sun, guard Kitija Laksa from the Mercury, and guard Kristy Wallace from the Fever.

After Carleton, the Portland Fire selected guard Carla Leite from the Valkyries, center Luisa Geiselsoder from the Stars, forward Emily Engstler from the Mystics, guard Maya Caldwell from the Dream and forward Chloe Bibby from the Fever.

In the second round Portland took guard Haley Jones from the Wings, forward Nyadiew Puoch from the Dream, guard Sara Ashlee Barker from the Sparks, guard Sug Sutton from the Mystics and guard Nika Muhl from the Storm.

Mabry was also an unrestricted free agent. Each team was allowed to pick only one unrestricted free agent.

The teams still do not know when free agency will open. More than 80% of the players are free agents this year, as many players have expiring contracts or opted out of the previous collective bargaining agreement.

The college draft is set for April 13 and training camps open on April 19. The season will start on May 8.

The Tempo and Fire join the WNBA as the league's 14th and 15th teams. Portland previously had a WNBA team, also called the Fire, that played from 2000 to 2002.

___

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

When her 20-year-old son Emilio Alejandro Leyva walked out of the doors of the detention facility with dozens of other prisoners, bags and a small release document in hand, she wrapped her arms around her son, who was detained for a robbery, for the first time in years.

“It has been so difficult, but today God has given me so much joy,” said Arias, 43, breaking down in tears. “Today, I feel so happy. This is how all mothers who will have their children released today should feel.”

The outpouring of joy from families comes the day after Cuba's government said it was going to release 2,010 prisoners in what it said was “humanitarian gestures” ahead of Holy Week. But the releases were quickly met with criticisms by human rights groups who said they hadn't seen evidence that those who were released included any of the 1,214 people they have registered as being imprisoned for political reasons.

The government denies holding political prisoners. With very little information provided by the government, it wasn't immediately clear how many people were released on Friday.

The release comes as the Cuban government navigates extreme pressure and a crippling oil blockade by the Trump administration, which has openly expressed its desire for regime change and the release of those arrested for protesting.

Uncertainty over released prisoners

On Friday, detainees in the La Lima prison on the rural outskirts of Havana said they were woken up at 6 a.m. and heard their names called out. Hours later they were walking into the arms of loved ones awaiting them in front of blue prison gates.

The prisoners interviewed Friday by The Associated Press were not serving time for political charges. It's uncertain how many of those released were protesters — often charged with public disorder, contempt or terrorism. Many of the more than one thousand people the activist organization Prisoners Defended has registered as detained for political reasons were protesters from the 2021 mass demonstrations on the island, which were met with widespread arrests by the government.

Sporadic protests have broken out in recent months as the island sinks into a deeper crisis. In one March incident, protesters burned the headquarters of the communist party in central Cuba, leading to five arrests.

The lack of information over releases on Friday fueled frustration among human rights and opposition groups, who said the releases were a good sign, but fell short of real change.

“The government presents it as a humanitarian gesture toward prisoners, not as the release of political prisoners,” said Manuel Cuesta Morúa, leader of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba, the island’s main opposition platform. “By doing so, it mixes things up to avoid giving the impression that it recognizes political imprisonment in Cuba.”

The group has demanded a government amnesty law and says that people who were previously freed are often placed under house arrest or live under conditions where they can't speak freely.

During a previous release of 51 people in March, organizations monitoring prisons in Cuba noted that 22 had political motives in their cases.

The nongovernmental organization Justicia 11J wrote in a statement Friday that no partial release can be considered progress “as long as the criminalization of the exercise of fundamental rights persists.”

“Although every release represents immediate relief, especially for families, in a context marked by the severity of conditions in the country’s prisons … we warn that this gesture does not constitute a change in the repressive policy of the Cuban state,” the organization said.

US pressure on Cuba

The releases come as U.S.-Cuban tensions are running high. The Trump administration has suffocated the island by imposing an oil blockade, pushing the already stricken island to the brink, crippling hospitals and increasing the number of islandwide blackouts.

Cubans were offered a brief moment of relief this week when U.S. President Donald Trump said the government allowed a Russian ship carrying a nine to 10 day supply of fuel to the island. It wasn't clear if the Cuban or Russian governments made any concessions to allow the shipment to go through. A second Russian tanker is on the way.

Cuba periodically frees prisoners at key moments.

In January 2025, Cuba’s government released 553 prisoners as part of talks with the Vatican, a day after the Biden administration announced its intent to lift the U.S. designation of the island nation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Cuba's government said Friday's release marked the fifth since 2011, and that it has freed more than 11,000 people.

Despite ongoing uncertainty, scenes of hope emerged outside the La Lima prison on Friday as families wrapped their arms around each other and a father planted a kiss on the head of his child swaddled in pink.

Damián Fariñas, 20, who has served the majority of his 2-year prison sentence for a robbery, was greeted by three beaming friends waiting for him on the street.

“This is freedom, a pardon, owing nothing to anyone. I’m heading out into the world,” he said.

___

Associated Press journalists Ramón Espinosa and Ariel Fernández contributed from Havana. Megan Janetsky contributed from Mexico City.

___

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

The threat of cutting funding to cash-starved schools that don’t comply is real, even if the stricter rules Trump wants to come out of the executive order he signed Friday could take a while to figure out.

In the order signed hours before the women’s Final Four tipped off one of the biggest weekends in college sports, Trump went after eligibility rules, transfers and the spiraling costs associated with an industry that now pays its players millions of dollars per year.

He called on federal agencies to ensure schools are following the rules and threatened to choke off federal grants and funding — a similar approach his administration has taken to force universities around the country to alter policies involving diversity, equity and inclusion, transgender rights and even the kinds of classes they offer.

In some ways, forcing those changes might seem like child’s play compared to making major changes to college sports. The NCAA, the newly created College Sports Commission, the four power conferences, dozens more smaller ones and hundreds of educational institutions all have a say here: It’s a big reason Congress, which Trump instructed to act quickly, has been stuck for more than a year on this.

“I'm glad to know the President wants Congress to pass something,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a key member of the Senate committee looking into changes, who mentioned ongoing bipartisan negotiations.

Trump’s order was his second since last July and it included a laundry list of proposed fixes, many of which lawmakers and college leaders have been pushing for since the approval of a $2.8 billion settlement changed the face of games that were once played by pure amateurs.

In one of the more clear-cut demands in this order, Trump called for “clear, consistent and fair eligibility limits, including a five-year participation window," that limits athletes to one transfer with one more available once they get a four-year degree.

“I'm extremely supportive of the President's order,” said Cody Campbell, the Texas Tech regent and billionaire who is helping shape policy. “I'm very excited that we're making progress and look forward to continued work in the (Congress) to permanently preserve a system that's done so much for America.”

At a college sports roundtable he hosted last month, Trump said he anticipated any order he signed would trigger litigation. Athletes have largely won the freedom to transfer almost at will via the portal along with the ability to be paid by schools that are now doling out more than $20 million a year to their athletes.

Some of those players have also been suing the NCAA about eligibility limits, and their right to do that has been a major sticking point in the Congressional deliberations.

Trump also raised the need to fix revenue-sharing in a way that protects Olympic sports, which are most in peril if the college funding model spirals out of control.

Sarah Hirshland, the CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said Trump's order “sends an important signal about the value of preserving and promoting investment in women’s and men’s collegiate Olympic sports in America.”

As much as the changes he directs, Trump’s call for the Education Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the attorney general’s office to evaluate “whether violations of such rules render a university unfit for Federal grants and contracts” stands out as a way to force change.

Several universities across the country have made policy changes to comply with federal orders and avoid funding-related showdowns with the government. It hasn't prevented big-named schools like Penn State and Florida State from facing huge debts.

“From what I saw, some of the social media traffic, it’s pretty clear that he made clear that we need Congressional action to sort of seal the deal on a number of these things, which is good, because we do," NCAA President Charlie Baker said.

Commissioners at the Atlantic Coast and Southeastern Conference released statements thanking Trump for weighing in, with the ACC's Jim Phillips saying “there continues to be significant momentum to preserve the athletic and academic opportunities for the next generation of student-athletes and we appreciate the ongoing efforts.”

Attorney Mit Winter, who follows college sports law, said the order is likely to set up a situation where the NCAA and schools have to decide whether to follow a federal court order or an executive order.

“Either way, we’re likely going to see litigation challenging the EO by athletes and third parties,” Winter said.

University of Nebraska president Jeffrey Gold said he didn't want to try to predict what the courts would do.

“But it is critical to what we must do to keep college athletics in line with what we do," Gold said. “The roundtable a few weeks ago showed there is a profound sense of urgency around this.”

___

AP Sports Writers Maura Carey, David Brandt and Eric Olson contributed to this report.

___

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Gary Stevens, who suffers from cognitive impairment, was last seen during the early hours of Tuesday, March 31, after leaving his residence on foot in the area of S Lilley Road and Palmer Road.

Stevens was last seen wearing a maize University of Michigan sweatshirt, blue jeans, and black boots.

Anyone with information should contact the Canton Police Department at 734-394-5400 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