Outside at Good Time Charley’s, students lined up early — some camping out for free admission.

“There’s no place I’d rather be,” said Luca Lazaris, who brought his air mattress with him.

Lazaris said he arrived around 11:30 p.m. Sunday night, expecting no one to be waiting — but quickly joined them. “I came here at 11:30 (and) thought, no way are there people camping out,” he said.

The wait felt worth it for Sofia Gollard and her friends, who said they coordinated “shifts” to hold their place. “Me and my friends have done shifts. Thankfully, we have been on rotation,” Gollard said.

She said the first shift started at 4:30 a.m. Soon after, they set up a tent and waited through bouts of rain, sleet and wind.

“I’m just excited to be here today — the energy around. I cannot believe the line is this long,” Gollard said. “No matter where you go, people are just ready for the game.”

Many bars also offered a paid option — a “leap line” — where $100 or more could get fans a wristband and a reserved spot.

“We woke up and got here as soon as we could,” said Olivia Burke, who was picking up a wristband from the Garage Bar so she could return after an exam.

Ann Arbor police increased their presence along South University Avenue and Church Street, but crowds did not mean chaos.

“It’s been very orderly, as expected,” said Ann Arbor police Chief Andre Anderson. “We’re hearing ‘Go Blue’ a lot — ‘Go Blue.’”

For many, the long lines were part of the buildup.

“My heart’s been racing all day — from nerves, excitement, everything,” said Brady Teishman. “It’s a special day. A special day in Ann Arbor.”

Mayor Mary Sheffield announced a new transportation pilot called Ride to Rise, which provides free rides on public bus lines for all Detroit K-12 students, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The mayor first introduced the initiative during her State of the City address last week.

For Pershing High School senior Mac Sconi, the change is immediate.

“It’s way less stressful for anyone who has to get to school on time,” Sconi said.

Sconi said he previously raised transportation concerns directly with Sheffield during a visit to Pershing’s campus a few months ago — particularly how access to reliable transportation can affect safety and attendance.

“Transportation is one of the biggest reasons why attendance could fall short, or people coming to school on time for academic excellence,” he said.

While the City of Detroit doesn’t run the school district, Sheffield said the city worked closely with DPSCD to create the pilot.

“The program goals, number 1 are to reduce absenteeism,” Sheffield said. “The second goal, of course, is to connect students to opportunity.”

City leaders say easier transportation can help students get not only to class, but also to after-school programs, libraries, community centers, and internships.

Student Katelynn Tyner, who regularly rides DDOT, said the pilot could eliminate a recurring burden.

“I would love to not have to pay money to get on the bus,” Tyner said. “And I would also love not having to go to the office every 30 or 31 days asking for a bus pass.”

Under the Ride to Rise pilot, students attending public, private, or charter schools in Detroit can ride by simply showing a valid school-issued ID.

DPSCD estimates that about 14,000 high school students rely on city buses.

Pershing High School’s Principal, Bryant Tipton, said transportation has been one of the most common reasons students give when they miss school — and this program gives schools a clearer answer.

“A lot of our students said we don’t have transportation,” Tipton said. “But with this, we could say, hey, you’ve got your ID, get on the bus, and we’ll see you when you get here.”

DPSCD currently spends about $700,000 on student bus passes. For now, the city is covering the cost for this six-month pilot.

City leaders hope the Detroit City Council will adopt an ordinance to continue the program after data is collected. Meanwhile, district leaders say they’ll explore reinvesting any savings into student programming if the pilot becomes permanent.

The decision removes the federal obligations for the schools to keep up measures such as faculty training on abiding by a student’s preferred name and pronouns and allowing students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity.

One of the school systems, Delaware Valley School District in rural eastern Pennsylvania, received notice of the change from the Trump administration in February and has since voted to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students.

The other affected districts are Cape Henlopen School District in Delaware, Fife School District in Washington, and La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Sacramento City Unified and Taft College in California.

Under the Biden and Obama administrations, the department interpreted Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education, to include protections for transgender and gay students.

The Trump administration has penalized schools that have made efforts to accommodate students based on their gender identity. It has filed lawsuits in California and Minnesota over state policies permitting transgender students to participate in interscholastic sports, and opened civil rights investigations into schools and universities over their policies on transgender students.

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said the action reflects the administration’s efforts to keep transgender students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports teams and accessing shared locker rooms.

“Today, the Trump Administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda,” she said in a written statement.

Rescinding civil rights agreements is an unusual step, but one the Trump administration has taken before on education issues. Last year, the Education Department terminated one agreement involving books removed from a school library in Georgia, and another targeting harsh discipline and unequal education opportunities for Native students in the Rapid City Area School District in South Dakota.

The rescission of the agreements would mean a step back from protecting vulnerable students in schools, said Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center.

“This is part of the Trump administration’s assault on education and assault on those who are most vulnerable to experiencing discrimination and harassment, including trans students,” Patel said. “They’ve made their intention very clear in wanting to erase protections for trans people.”

Under a settlement the Delaware Valley School District reached with the Obama administration, the district was required to shield transgender students from discrimination and to permit students to use bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity.

In February, the Trump administration sent the district a letter saying it was rescinding the settlement. The administration went further, requiring the district to roll back antidiscrimination protections for transgender students.

The school board voted in late March to change its transgender student policies to abide by the Trump administration’s demands.

Since the day he returned to the White House more than a year ago, Trump and his administration have aimed at the rights of transgender people in several ways — and not just in schools.

He has tried to end participation of transgender women and girls in women’s and girls' sports competitions and has sued states that don’t comply. He’s also blocked transgender and nonbinary people from choosing the sex markers on passports. His administration has also tried to stop those under 19 from receiving gender-affirming medical care. ___

Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco, Moriah Balingit in Washington and Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

___

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

The six-hour flyby is the highlight of NASA’s first return to the moon since the Apollo era with three Americans and one Canadian — a step toward landing boot prints near the moon’s south pole in just two years.

First came a prize — and bragging rights — for Artemis II.

Less than an hour before kicking off the fly-around and intense lunar observations, the four astronauts surpassed the distance record of 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) set by Apollo 13 in April 1970.

They kept going, hurtling ever farther from Earth. Before it was all over, Mission Control expected Artemis II to beat the old record by more than 4,100 miles (6,600 kilometers).

“It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now. It is just unbelievable,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed ahead of the flyby. He challenged "this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived.”

Moments after breaking Apollo 13's record, the astronauts asked permission to name two fresh lunar craters already observed. They proposed Integrity, their capsule's name, and Carroll in honor of commander Reid Wiseman's wife who died of cancer in 2020. Wiseman wept as Hansen put in the request to Mission Control, and all four astronauts embraced in tears.

“Such a majestic view out here,” Wiseman radioed once he regained his composure and started picture-taking. The astronauts called down that they managed to capture the moon and Earth in the same shot, and provided a running commentary to scientists back in Houston on what they were seeing.

Some peaks were so bright, pilot Victor Glover noted, that they looked as though they were covered in snow. Besides photographing the scenes with high-powered Nikon cameras, the astronauts also pulled out their iPhones for some impromptu shots.

Wiseman, Glover, Hansen and Christina Koch started the momentous day with the voice of Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, who recorded a wake-up message just two months before his death last August. “Welcome to my old neighborhood,” said Lovell, who also flew on Apollo 8, humanity's first lunar visit. “It's a historic day and I know how busy you'll be, but don't forget to enjoy the view.”

They took up with them the Apollo 8 silk patch that accompanied Lovell to the moon, and showed it off as the crucial flyby approached. “It's just a real honor to have that on board with us,” said Wiseman. “Let's go have a great day.”

Artemis II is using the same maneuver that Apollo 13 did after its “Houston, we’ve had a problem” oxygen tank explosion wiped out any hope of a moon landing.

Known as a free-return lunar trajectory, this no-stopping-to-land route takes advantage of Earth and the moon’s gravity, reducing the need for fuel. It’s a celestial figure-eight that will put the astronauts on course for home, once they emerge from behind the moon Monday evening.

The Artemis II astronauts were on track to pass as close as 4,066 miles (6,543 kilometers) to the moon, as their Orion capsule whips past it, hangs a U-turn and then heads back toward Earth. It will take them four days to get back, with a splashdown in the Pacific concluding their test flight on Friday.

Their expected speed at closest approach to the moon: 3,139 mph (5,052 kph).

Wiseman and his crew spent years studying lunar geography to prepare for the big event, adding solar eclipses to their repertoire during the past few weeks. By launching last Wednesday, they ensured themselves of a total solar eclipse from their vantage point behind the moon, courtesy of the cosmos.

Topping their science target list: Orientale Basin, a sprawling impact basin with three concentric rings, the outermost of which stretches nearly 600 miles (950 kilometers) across.

Other sightseeing goals: the Apollo 12 and 14 landing sites from 1969 and 1971, respectively, as well as fringes of the south polar region, the preferred locale for future touchdowns. Farther afield, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn — not to mention Earth — will be visible.

Their moon mentor, NASA geologist Kelsey Young, expects thousands of pictures.

“People all over the world connect with the moon. This is something that every single person on this planet can understand and connect with,” she said on the eve of the flyby, wearing eclipse earrings.

Artemis II is NASA’s first astronaut moonshot since Apollo 17 in 1972. It sets the stage for next year’s Artemis III, which will see another Orion crew practice docking with lunar landers in orbit around Earth. The culminating moon landing by two astronauts near the moon’s south pole will follow on Artemis IV in 2028.

While Artemis II may be taking Apollo 13’s path, it’s most reminiscent of Apollo 8 and humanity’s first lunar visitors who orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968 and read from the Book of Genesis.

Glover said flying to the moon during Christianity’s Holy Week brought home for him “the beauty of creation.” Earth is an oasis amid “a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe” where humanity exists as one, he observed over the weekend.

“This is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing and that we’ve got to get through this together,” Glover said, clasping hands with his crewmates.

___

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 video — from a city-owned security camera — captured part of the incident in which federal officers chased a Venezuelan man to his residence. Another Venezuelan man who lives there was shot during the confrontation. Federal authorities in February dropped all charges against the two immigrants and opened a criminal investigation into whether two immigration officers lied under oath about what had happened.

The city released the video after the New York Times, which obtained a copy earlier, reported that the footage raised questions about why it took weeks for the federal government's case against the two men to collapse. The Times reported that federal investigators had access to the video within hours of the Jan. 14 shooting, but did not watch it until nearly three weeks after they had charged the two men.

“The video makes it crystal clear that, just like in other situations during Operation Metro Surge, the federal government’s account of what happened simply does not match the facts,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a statement.

Federal authorities initially accused Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis of beating an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel during the incident. The officer fired a single shot from his handgun, striking Sosa-Celis in his right thigh. Protesters quickly flocked to the scene and clashed with other officers, who were wearing gas masks and helmets.

The city provided no narrative on what the video depicts except to say that it was “related” to the shooting. A statement added, “The City has no additional information and will not be making further comments at this time.”

The video, shot from a distance in the dark, appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.

The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn’t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.

The camera actively panned over to view the street where the incident happened before any vehicles arrived, indicating that someone may have been manually controlling it in real time.

The cases against Aljorna and Sosa-Celis were dropped after a highly unusual motion from the chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota, U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, who said “newly discovered evidence” was “materially inconsistent with the allegations” that were made in the criminal complaint and with evidence presented at a hearing at their preliminary hearing. He said dismissal with prejudice, which meant the charges couldn't be refiled, “would serve the interests of justice.”

Rosen and other federal prosecutors involved in the case, as well as the Department of Justice, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Monday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not mention the video in a statement, but reaffirmed its earlier statement that two officers involved appeared to have given untruthful testimony under oath, and that they were immediately placed on administrative leave pending completion of an internal investigation. Their names were not made public.

“Lying under oath is a serious federal offense. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is actively investigating these false statements,” the ICE statement said. “Upon conclusion of the investigation, the officers may face termination of employment, as well as potential criminal prosecution.”

The statement did not elaborate on the status of their case.

Aljorna's attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Sosa-Celis' attorney, Robin Wolpert, said, “The video is evidence in ongoing state and federal investigations so I can't comment."

Both men are free while they seek legal status. They were ordered released even before the criminal charges were dropped, but ICE took them back into custody for alleged immigration violations before releasing them, again under court order.

State and county prosecutors have been frustrated by the refusal of federal authorities to share information on the incident, as well as the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers. They sued the Trump administratio n late last month for access to evidence they say they need to independently investigate the three shootings.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office declined to comment on the video, citing the active investigation.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, the president refused to say whether any civilian targets would be off-limits.

Iran on Monday rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the conflict.

“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press.

Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Iran on Monday, killing more than 25 people. Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.

Here is the latest:

US special forces were on the ground in Iran as part of rescue mission

The special operators were part of the teams sent in to retrieve the pilot and weapon systems officer of a downed fighter jet, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military operation.

During a briefing Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “Our special operators, pilots and support crews performed with near perfection under fire,” but he stopped short of confirming that U.S. troops set foot on Iranian soil.

Hegseth and Trump have said they haven’t ruled out boots on the ground but also repeatedly argued that the conflict was limited in scope.

Hegseth has lambasted previous presidents who oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, insisting that the Iran war “is different. It’s laser-focused.”

— Konstantin Toropin

Shooting by Israel-backed group at a shelter in Gaza is followed by an Israeli strike, killing 8

An Israel-backed armed group in Gaza kidnapped children from a school-turned-shelter on Monday, according to a witness, after which Israel launched an airstrike on the site, health authorities said.

The Israeli military had no response when reached for comment.

An anti-Hamas Palestinian group called Abu Nusseirah posted on social media that they killed five Hamas fighters at the shelter in Maghazi.

An elderly displaced woman sheltering at the school told the AP that dozens of men stormed the site, clashed with people there and forced kids — including girls — into vehicles. Speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals, she said her son was killed in the fighting.

Bodies were taken to al-Aqsa hospital, where health officials said some had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on the school after the clashes. AP footage showed dozens of mourners gathered at the morgue.

Many displaced Palestinians say they fear the Iran war has overshadowed Gaza’s dire humanitarian situation.

3 US troops injured during fighter jet shootdown and rescue

Those injured were the weapon systems officer from the U.S. Air Force F-15E fighter jet that was shot down in Iran late last week as well as two aircrewmen from a helicopter that took fire during the initial rescue for the pilot from the downed jet.

That’s according to a U.S. official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military operation.

After rescuing the pilot, the HH-60 Jolly Green II helicopters were “engaged by every single person in Iran who had a small arms weapon, and one of the aircraft, the trailing aircraft, took several hits,” said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

At the same White House briefing, Trump said the jet’s downed weapons officer was “bleeding profusely” but still able climb mountainous terrain and communicate his location.

— Konstantin Toropin

A 12-hour drive through Iran offers glimpses of destruction, defiance and daily life

A black banner hangs over a border crossing and portraits of Iran’s killed supreme leader stare down, promising vengeance against the United States and Israel.

But on the 12-hour drive south to the capital, Tehran, daily life continues, with only occasional signs of the ongoing war, including a Shiite religious center that officials say was damaged by a recent airstrike.

Associated Press reporters made the journey on Saturday after crossing into Iran from Turkey. They gained a glimpse of the country at the center of a regional war that has jolted the world economy and shows no sign of ending.

▶ Read more

US stocks drift higher ahead of Trump’s deadline to bomb Iranian power plants

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.5%.

Like stock indexes, oil prices seesawed through the day amid continued uncertainty about what will happen in the war with Iran and how long it will slow the global flow of crude oil.

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market.

▶ Read more

The US and Egypt are pushing Israel not to strike the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing, official says

That’s according to Lebanon’s General Security chief, Hassan Choucair, who said those “ongoing contacts” by Washington and Cairo aim to protect and reopen the Masnaa border crossing.

It’s been closed since Saturday after Israel warned it could be targeted over alleged weapons smuggling by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Officials in Lebanon and Syria deny that claim, saying vehicles are thoroughly inspected.

The crossing’s closure has forced travelers to take a longer northern route. More than 200,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria since the war escalated five weeks ago, many of them fleeing the conflict.

Trump details the rescue of US airmen shot down in Iran

The United States relied on dozens of aircraft, hundreds of personnel, secret CIA technology and a dose of subterfuge to rescue a two-man F-15E fighter jet crew downed deep inside Iran.

Trump and his top defense aides detailed the daring rescue operation in an unusual level of detail during a news conference at the White House on Monday.

The U.S. surged helicopters, midair refuelers and fighter jets deep into Iran to rescue the pilot within hours. But finding and picking up the jet’s weapon systems officer was a more complicated endeavor.

▶ Read more

Israeli TV station counts down to Trump deadline

As reporters spoke on air, Channel 13 TV’s evening newscast showed a large digital clock marking down the hours and minutes until Tuesday night’s deadline.

Trump lashes out at Pacific allies for not assisting in Iran fight

The president continued to grumble about NATO allies’ refusal to get involved in reopening the Strait of Hormuz and their hesitance to assist U.S. offensive operations against Iran.

As he wrapped up his lengthy news conference Monday, he also fumed about the lack of support from Pacific allies.

“You know who else didn’t help us? South Korea didn’t help us,” Trump said. “You know who else didn’t help us? Australia didn’t help us. You know who else didn’t help us? Japan. We’ve got 50,000 soldiers in Japan to protect them from North Korea. We have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect us from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well.”

Trump says it would take 4 hours to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants

The president described the consequences that Iran would face if it didn’t reach a deal with the U.S. by Trump’s 8 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

“We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night,” Trump said during his Monday news conference.

Power plants in Iran, he continued, would be “burning, exploding and never to be used again.”

Trump refused to say whether any civilian targets would be off limits in the U.S. response.

UN chief warns the US not to strike Iran’s civilian infrastructure

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the U.S. that attacking civilian infrastructure is banned under international law, his spokesperson said Monday.

“Even if specific civilian infrastructure were to qualify as a military objective,” spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, an attack would still be prohibited if it risks “excessive incidental civilian harm.”

A court would need to decide whether such attacks were war crimes, he said.

Trump dismisses that his threatened attacks on Iran’s infrastructure would be war crimes

Trump says he’s “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes as he continues to threaten the destruction of Iran’s bridges and power plants if they don’t meet a Tuesday evening deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“I hope I don’t have to do it,” Trump added.

Israeli military is preparing for weeks of battle against Iran

The military’s chief spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, says the army’s chief has approved battle plans for the next three weeks in the absence of a ceasefire.

“Every day that passes, we hit them more and more. Already we have very good achievements, and we want to reach excellent achievements,” he told a press conference Monday.

Israel’s defense industry to export a $750 million rocket system to Greece

The Israeli and Greek defense ministries signed the four-year export agreement Monday in Athens, said a statement from Israel’s defense ministry.

The Precise & Universal Launching System, is built to launch rockets of different ranges, the statement said.

Israeli defense giant Elbit Systems will supply the rocket launchers and the warheads to Greece. Greek defense industries are expected to produce some parts of the system.

US fighter jet was downed by shoulder-held missile launcher, Trump says

Trump said the F-15E fighter jet that set off a two-day search-and-rescue operation was downed by a shoulder-launched rocket.

Trump described the weapon as a “hand-held shoulder missile — heat-seeking missile.”

The president went on to suggest that the fighter jet was ultimately downed not by the explosion but because of related damage to the aircraft’s engines.

“They shot it and it got sucked in right by the engine,” Trump said.

Trump insists Iranian civilians want the US to keep bombing

Asked why Iranians would want him to follow up on his threat to blow up the country’s infrastructure, Trump says everyday citizens are “willing to suffer ... in order to have freedom.”

“‘Please keep bombing. Do it,’” Trump claimed U.S. officials have heard Iranians say via “intercepts.”

“And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding,” he said.

US warplane that crashed amid search for downed aviators was hit by enemy fire, general says

A U.S. aircraft that crashed amid the search for the downed airmen was hit by enemy fire while engaging Iranian forces, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday.

Caine, speaking at a briefing at the White House, said that a U.S. A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft was “violently suppressing and engaging the enemy in a close-in gunfight to keep them away” from the pilot of a downed F-15 fighter jet while also being “primarily responsible for communicating with the downed pilot.”

Caine said that after being hit, “this pilot continued to fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit, flew his aircraft into another country and determined that the airplane was not landable.”

The pilot then decided to eject over friendly territory and, according to Caine, “was quickly and safely recovered, and is doing fine.”

Hegseth describes ‘unblinking’ mission in coordination call

The defense secretary said the coordination call held by national security officials during the daring mission to rescue the U.S. airmen lasted nearly two days straight.

“For 45 hours and 56 minutes, we held that call open for coordination,” Hegseth said, describing the call that was held in a secure facility. “Our mission was unblinking.”

CIA Director John Ratcliffe says top-secret technology led to rescue of downed airman

Speaking at a White House press conference, Ratcliffe said the agency used “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service” possesses to locate the aviator after the F-15 was shot down in Iran.

At the same time, the CIA mounted a deception operation to mislead the Iranians who were looking.

Ratcliffe said the search and rescue operation was “comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”

The CIA declined to respond to questions Monday about the kind of technology used to locate the airman.

Hegseth draws parallels between the story of Easter and rescued airman

The Defense secretary, who has frequently infused his leadership of the Pentagon with references to Christianity and the language of his faith, said the airman who evaded capture for more than a day was shot down on Good Friday, “hidden in a cave” on Saturday, and on Easter Sunday, “a pilot reborn, all home and accounted for.”

Hegseth said that when the airman was finally able to activate an emergency transponder, his first transmitted message was: “God is good.”

Trump threatens to jail journalist who first reported on downed airman

Trump threatened to jail the journalist who first reported that U.S. forces were searching for an F-15 weapons officer shot down in Iran, if they don’t reveal their sources.

“The person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say, and that doesn’t last long,” Trump said.

Trump didn’t name the journalist or news organization. He said the leak tipped off the Iranians, endangering the officer and his rescuers. He called the leaker “a sick person.”

Iran’s supreme leader issues a rare public statement

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei expressed condolences over the killing of the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence chief.

In a written social media post, Khamenei said Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi joined a “steadfast line of warriors and fighters” to sacrifice their lives. Israeli strikes have killed dozens of top Iranian leaders, including Khamenei’s father.

The younger Khamenei has not been seen or spoken in public since he succeeded his father as supreme leader.

Trump offers more details of dramatic airman rescue

The president described the scale of the operation undertaken by the U.S. to rescue the second airman from the downed aircraft.

The operation included 155 aircraft — four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, and 13 rescue aircraft, among others, Trump said.

Much of it was an effort to throw off the Iranians, who were also looking for the missing crew member, the president said.

“We were bringing them all over and a lot of it was subterfuge,” Trump said. “We wanted to have them think he was in a different location.”

Trump says downed officer rushed to get away from the crash site

Trump says the downed weapons officer followed his training to get as far away from the crash site as possible.

When a plane crashes in hostile territory, “they all head right to that site, you want to be as far away as you can,” Trump said.

Trump says the officer was “bleeding profusely” but was able climb mountainous terrain and contact U.S. forces to communicate his location. Rescuers mobilized a massive response that included subterfuge to confuse the Iranians about where they were looking.

Trump says 21 aircraft came to help rescue airmen who crashed in Iran

The president began describing the rescue efforts from Friday and over the weekend after two airmen ejected and landed alive “deep in enemy territory” in Iran.

Trump said 21 aircraft were deployed to help with the search and rescue in the first wave, flying for hours under “very, very heavy enemy fire.” He said the U.S. has one helicopter with many bullets in it.

Trump news conference begins

He is accompanied by his top national security advisers, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and special envoy Steve Witkoff. Also in attendance are his children, Eric and Tiffany Trump, as well as their spouses.

Declaring that “this was one of our better Easters,” Trump started his news conference by speaking about the dramatic rescue of two U.S. airmen in Iran over the weekend.

Trump, with Easter bunny nearby, talks Iran war

In a surreal scene on the White House lawn with flowers and Easter decor, Trump decided to give reporters an update on the Iran war.

With children waiting nearby, someone in a bunny costume steps away, and soft, cheerful music in the background, the president spoke about the rescue of a missing airman shot down in Iran, defended his expletive-laden threats on social media, and warned that Iran should capitulate or face threats to its bridges and power plants.

Turkey’s president says his country has intensified push to end the war

“We are striving to seize any chance, however small, for hostilities to cease and negotiations to open,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised address following a Cabinet meeting. He did not provide details.

Erdogan, a vocal critic of Israel, again accused the country of undermining all attempts to stop the fighting.

Trump defends his use of vulgar language in a social media post

The president used profanity in a Sunday social media posting warning Iran he was serious about targeting the country’s infrastructure if it doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday deadline. He ended the short post by saying, “Praise be to Allah.”

Asked by a reporter about his language, Trump responded he used it “only to make my point.”

Trump added about his use of an expletive, “I think you’ve heard it before.”

Trump suggests Kurdish groups have held onto guns meant for Iranian protesters

Trump appeared to confirm that the U.S. had intended to arm Iranian protesters after mass demonstrations against the government broke out throughout Iran in late 2025 and continued early into this year.

Thousands of anti-government protesters were killed during the crackdowns by government forces. Fox News reported on Sunday that Trump had told the network’s Trey Yingst in a telephone interview that Kurdish groups who were supposed to be delivering the U.S.-provided weapons held on to them.

“They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against these thugs,” Trump told reporters on Monday about the weapons intended for protesters. “You know what happened? The people that they sent them to kept them because they said, ‘What a beautiful gun. I think I’ll keep it.’ So, I’m very upset with a certain group of people and they’re going to pay a big price for that.”

Trump says he’d prefer to ‘take the oil’

Trump said he’d prefer to use U.S. military power to take control of Iran’s vast oil reserves, but he acknowledged there’s not much appetite for such a move among the American electorate.

“Take the oil because it’s there for the taking,” Trump said. “There’s not a thing they can do about it. Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home. If it were up to me, I’d take the oil. I’d keep the oil. I would make plenty of money.”

Trump warns Iran they’re making a mistake by not capitulating

Shortly after state media reported Iran had rejected a ceasefire proposal, Trump offered a new harsh warning to Iran.

“They just don’t want to say ‘uncle,‘” Trump told reporters as he and first lady Melania Trump hosted the White House Easter Egg Roll. “They don’t want to cry as the expression goes ‘uncle,’ but they will. And if they don’t, They’ll have no bridges. They’ll have no power plants. They’ll have no anything.”

He added another ominous warning: “I won’t go further because there are other things that are worse than those two.”

A regional official involved in the ceasefire talks says the efforts haven’t collapsed

“We are still talking to both sides,” he says, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door diplomacy.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu says petrochemical attack weakens Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

He said Monday’s strike on an Iranian petrochemical facility is part of a systematic campaign aimed at destroying the Guard’s “money machine.”

“We are destroying factories, we are eliminating activists and we continue to eliminate senior figures,” he said in a videotaped statement.

An Iranian university student asks the world: ‘Stop this war’

A resident of Tehran in his early twenties says U.S.-Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure and Trump’s intensifying threats have “terrified” people.

“Everyone is very anxious and scared that the water, power and gas will be cut,” he said, speaking anonymously for his security.

The student first spoke with The Associated Press on the eve of the war, when he participated in anti-government protests at his Tehran university’s campus. At the time, he described heated disagreements with friends who said they hoped a threatened Israeli-U.S. attack would overthrow the Islamic Republic.

“Those who were supporting the war are no longer supporting it,” he said Monday.

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

Key Federal Reserve official open to possible rate hikes amid gas price spikes

Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press that if inflation remains persistently above the Fed’s 2% target, the central bank should consider lifting its benchmark interest rate.

While Hammack also said the Fed might have to cut its rate if higher gas prices caused the economy to slow and unemployment to rise, a potential rate hike is a noticeable shift for the Fed from before the Iran war, when officials forecast two rate cuts this year. A hike could lift longer-term interest rates for things like mortgages and auto loans.

“My baseline is that we’re on hold for quite some time,” Hammack said, “but I can foresee scenarios where we would need to reduce rates ... if the labor market deteriorates significantly. Or I could see where we might need to raise rates if inflation stays persistently above our target.”

Houthis claim they hit military sites in Israel

The Iran-backed Houthis said they launched a barrage of cruise missiles and drones at several military sites in southern Israel, “successfully achieving its objectives,” according to the group’s military spokesperson.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency says Tehran has rejected the latest ceasefire proposal

The agency said it had has conveyed its response to the U.S. through Pakistan, a key mediator.

“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press on Monday. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”

Israel to ramp up production of air defense interceptors

Israel’s ministry of defense said Monday that the country’s defense industries would “significantly increase” production and stockpiling of missile interceptors as the war with Iran stretches on.

In a statement, the ministry said production of missile interceptors for the Arrow system, which defends against long-range ballistic missiles, would be sped up. Arrow has been critical in Israeli air defense during the current war, throughout which Israeli authorities have maintained there’s no shortage of interceptor missiles.

Israel’s military says it struck 3 Tehran airports overnight

The military says the strikes hit dozens of helicopters and aircraft it said belonged to the Iranian Air Force. It said the strikes targeted Bahram airport, Mehrabad airport and Azmayesh airport.

US-Israeli assault brings ‘destruction and bloodshed’ to Iran’s capital, resident says

A resident of central Tehran has described living with “anxiety and fear” as U.S.-Israeli strikes pummel the capital.

“Constantly, there is the sound of bombs, air defenses, drones,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for her safety.

At least one strike hit near her home, waking her on Wednesday, she said. Rushing into the neighboring street, she saw it “filled with people in pajamas, some of them wrapped in blankets, some of them crying with fear.”

She also described her anger at the popular satellite channel, Iran International, which is based abroad. She said its coverage had amplified exiled Iranian voices supporting strikes on the Islamic Republic. “Some people thought war might bring good things, but war doesn’t bring anything but destruction and bloodshed.”

Iranian authorities have moved to ban any contact with several Persian-language satellite channels based abroad. Many viewers inside Iran say the frequencies are often disrupted.

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

U.S. forces rescued the pilot within hours of the F-15E Strike Eagle going down late Thursday, surging helicopters, midair refuelers and fighter aircraft deep into Iran after confirming his location, Trump said in a valedictory news conference at the White House, describing the military operation in an unusual level of detail.

The second aviator aboard the aircraft — the weapons systems officer — was rescued nearly two days later.

Trump boasted of the military resources surged and coordination across U.S. agencies to pull off the daring mission to recover the troops in enemy territory, describing the shootdown of the jet by Iran as “a lucky hit” after claiming in a national address last week to have “beaten and completely decimated Iran.”

Another jet is downed in the rescue for the F-15 pilot

The search and rescue operation began in daylight over Iran, with helicopters and other aircraft flying low for seven hours, “at times facing very, very heavy enemy fire,” Trump said.

An A-10 Warthog, which was the attack aircraft primarily responsible for keeping in contact with the downed F-15 pilot on the ground, was hit by enemy fire while engaging Iranian forces, said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The A-10 was “not landable,” Caine told reporters, but the pilot continued fighting before flying to a friendly country and ejecting. He was quickly rescued and is doing fine.

After rescuing the F-15 pilot, HH-60 Jolly Green II helicopters were “engaged by every single person in Iran who had a small-arms weapon, and one of the aircraft, the trailing aircraft, took several hits,” he said. The crew members received minor injuries and were going to be OK, Caine said.

The rescue of the fighter jet pilot, who was flying under the call sign Dude-44 Alpha, occurred before the Iranians could marshal a comprehensive search of their own, but finding and bringing home the weapon systems officer was an even more complicated endeavor.

An anchor on a channel affiliated with Iranian state television had been urging residents in the mountainous region of southwest Iran where the fighter jet went down to hand over any “enemy pilot” to police and promised a reward for anyone who did.

The weapon systems officer, who rode in the backseat of the F-15 under the call sign Dude-44 Bravo, was injured but followed his training to get as far from the crash site as possible.

Second airman climbs into the mountains to hide out

“Bleeding profusely,” in Trump's telling, the aviator managed to climb mountainous terrain and call for help Saturday using “a very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus.”

When a plane crashes in hostile territory, “they all head right to that site, you want to be as far away as you can,” Trump said.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the spy agency used “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service” possesses to locate the aviator. At the same time, the CIA mounted a deception operation to mislead Iranians who also were trying to find him.

Ratcliffe said the search and rescue operation was “comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”

The CIA declined to respond to questions Monday about the kind of technology used to find the airman, but Trump colored in some details.

He said intelligence officials noticed something moving in the dead of night, in the mountains where they were surveilling. Trump said officials kept a camera on the moving object for 45 minutes and when it was no longer moving, they thought maybe they had it wrong.

But “it was the head of a human being,” the president said. “And then all of a sudden, 45 minutes later, he moved a lot, stood up, and they said, ‘We have him.’”

He added, “And that was really at the beginning of something incredible.”

Protected by an “air armada” of drones, strike aircraft and more, rescuers moved in on Sunday. Cargo planes flew in three small helicopters and assembled them near the patch of mountains where the missing airman was concealing himself inside a cave or crevice.

But when it came time to leave, the cargo planes were too weighed down by equipment and personnel to take off from the sandy terrain. The downed airman and his rescue team were picked up by three “lighter, faster aircraft” and the equipment on the ground was blown up to keep it out of Iranian hands, Trump said.

US makes several efforts to throw off Iranian forces

Many of the dozens of aircraft that were part of the operation were there for deception, Trump said.

“We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge,” Trump said. “We wanted to have them think he was in a different location.”

Back in Washington, national security officials coordinated on a call, keeping the phone line open for nearly two days straight.

“From the moment our pilots went down, our mission was unblinking," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. “The call never dropped. The meeting never stopped, the planning never ceased.”

As Trump detailed the operation, his penchant for boasting and flair for dramatic imagery bumped up against some of his aides' instinct to protect military and intelligence secrets. At one point, Trump turned to Caine, his top military adviser, and asked, “How many men did you send altogether, approximately, for the operation?”

Caine equivocated, responding, “Uhhh, I’d love to keep that a secret, Mr. President.”

“OK, well, we are," Trump continued. "But I will tell you — the number, I’ll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds.”

___

Cooper reported from Phoenix, and Amiri from New York. Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.

Each year, just .002 percent of the U.S. population will become a living organ donor. Consiglio is now part of an even more exclusive club of people who have donated twice -- both times to a stranger.

Consiglio is a Woodhaven native and a pediatric surgical nurse at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

He said one of his very first patients inspired this life-changing journey.

A bond formed during COVID

Consiglio began his nursing career at the height of the COVID pandemic, caring for adults in a COVID intensive care unit. He soon developed a special bond with one of his patients.

“We would talk. We would watch the Lions games together. Everything, he, honest to God, became my best friend,” Consiglio said.

But the patient’s health took a terrible turn.

“He ended up on a ventilator, but he was still conscious,” Consiglio said. “He writes to me, ‘Hey, the doctors are telling me my kidneys aren’t doing so well.’”

Consiglio’s response was immediate.

“I said, ‘Hey, don’t even worry about it, I’ll give mine.’ I meant it fully,” Consiglio said. “He ended up passing away in the middle of November of 2020, and that was the last conversation we had. It was devastating losing him, to be really honest. And above anything else, that promise stuck in my head.”

A promise kept -- and then some

In January of 2022, Consiglio reached out to the University of Michigan Transplant Center. Later that year, he donated a kidney to an anonymous recipient.

“It was the best decision I’ve ever made in my entire life,” Consiglio said. “More than a blessing, more than anything I could have ever hoped for in my life.”

But he wasn’t finished.

After working on pediatric transplant surgeries at Mott, Consiglio decided he wanted to donate part of his liver to a child.

“July of 24, I got my clearance for surgery,” he said. “And on Halloween, I got my match.”

Unbeknownst to him, his match wasn’t far away.

Two-year-old Quinnlyn Smith was a patient at Mott, desperately in need of a new liver. She was born with propionic acidemia, a metabolic condition that caused toxins to build up in her blood. Quinnlyn was in the hospital constantly and had suffered a stroke.

Her mother, Kelly Smith, said the wait was extremely emotional.

“It was one of the hardest moments in our life to wait for that liver,” Smith said. “It was very difficult to think that somebody else was losing their baby, so that mine could survive.”

Smith prayed a living donor could be found instead. Consiglio was the answer to that prayer.

Answered prayers and a new life

“We got the phone call on Halloween,” Smith said. “Telling us that they had a living donor that was willing to donate a piece of their organ, and I was, I think I was in complete shock.”

On December 2, 2024, Consiglio donated part of his liver to Quinnlyn.

Neither side was allowed to know anything about the other. Smith desperately wanted to know who the donor was.

“The entire stay in the hospital, I kept asking daily, weekly, anytime I saw the doctors,” she said.

A year later, all of that has changed, starting with their emotional first meeting.

“I was just in tears,” Smith said. “I couldn’t stop thanking him over and over again.”

Consiglio is now part of Quinnlyn’s family — and vice versa.

“We were family from the start,” Smith said. “It was like we were long lost relatives, that we knew each other, and it was just crazy.”

Consiglio is especially thrilled to finally have a brother in Quinnlyn’s brother, Wyatt.

“It makes me so happy,” Consiglio said. “They’re a phenomenal family.”

Quinnlyn is doing amazing and hasn’t been hospitalized for illness all year.

“It’s just milestones after milestones that she’s meeting,” Smith said. “Before, she wasn’t even talking, and now, she’s saying things.”

A surgeon’s hope: “Flip the wait list around”

Transplant surgeon Dr. Meredith Barrett said Quinnlyn’s experience is a testament to how life-altering living donation can be.

“My goal would be to eventually flip the wait list around,” Barrett said. “So instead of having children waiting on organs, we have donors waiting on kids who need organs.”

As one of Consiglio’s coworkers, she said she’s most impressed by his heart.

“I think that that obviously comes from an incredible heart,” Barrett said. “An incredible desire to help your fellow human, especially someone you don’t even know.”

Consiglio recovered well from both of his surgeries.

He said his family has been supportive of his donations.

“My mom, being a nurse, she was also sort of nervous,” Consiglio said. “I told her both times, ‘The one thing you’re not gonna do is talking me out of it.’ And she said, ‘Okay.’”

Consiglio said he’s not done yet.

“I still donate blood regularly. I was just put on the bone marrow registry, and I am also going to try and find a way to talk Dr. Barrett into working me up for pancreas donations, although that is exceedingly rare,” said Consiglio.

For now, seeing Quinnlyn making strides is the greatest gift.

“Having the opportunity to give somebody that second shot at life that they so well deserve is, I don’t have the words for it, almost a year later,” Consiglio said. “It is indescribably beautiful, and it is the absolute joy of my life that I got to do it.”

How rare is donating twice?

Double organ donors like Consiglio are incredibly rare. One study finds there have only been about 100 since 1981.

All living donors go through extensive medical and psychological testing before being accepted as a donor.

To learn more about living organ donation at the University of Michigan, click here.

To learn more about Gift of Life Michigan and the deceased organ donor registry, click here.

34-year-old Kirk Woodley and his girlfriend, 31-year-old Chantel Peavy, both of Detroit, were each charged with five counts: food stamp fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and aggravated identity theft. They both pleaded guilty to fewer counts: Woodley, who had already been in jail on other charges, pleaded guilty to Conspiracy and Aggravated Identity Theft, while Peavy pleaded guilty to Conspiracy.

The span of their alleged crimes

A special agent with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General said the investigation into Woodley and Peavy began in 2016 -- a year after the pair is accused of starting the “food assistance fraud scheme.”

Woodley and Peavy engaged in this scheme from May 2015 to about 2024, investigators said: “Over the course of that time, they have defrauded the SNAP program of at least $1.1 million.”

Investigators said the couple applied for SNAP benefits through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), but the personal information used in those applications, federal authorities said, came from dozens of people across the country, including New Jersey, Arizona, Missouri, Washington state, Colorado and California.

The lengthy investigation

The investigation started in 2016, and investigators said they determined Woodley and Peavy made applications to MDHHS for SNAP benefits using victims’ personal identifiable information. Woodley and Peavy also allegedly recruited individuals to sell fraudulently obtained EBT cards after approval by the state.

Investigators said Woodley and Peavy “engaged in this scheme” from about May 2015 to about mid-2024. The feds said they arrived at $1.1 million “by tabulating victim applications and benefits issued.” They also said the majority of victims are non-Michigan residents whose “only connection to Michigan is the food application.”

In May of 2015, records show a non-Michigan resident had allegedly applied for food assistance benefits at a home in Detroit. For about two years, SNAP benefits were received. In January of 2024, investigators interviewed the person, “who confirmed they did not apply for SNAP benefits in Michigan and stated they never lived in or visited the state.”

In March 2017, investigators said they conducted a search warrant related to access device fraud and identity theft at Woodley and Peavy’s home on Archdale in Detroit. There, they found multiple EBT card numbers in other people’s names written on pieces of paper. There were also “multiple Wayne County Department of Human Services mailings to individuals” not named Woodley or Peavy, investigators said.

Selling EBT cards

Woodley was allegedly interviewed the same month and denied applying for and receiving EBT cards that were not in his name. Investigators said they later interviewed a man who admitted to buying EBT cards from a man known as “Bud.” “Bud” was later identified as Woodley.

Woodley allegedly provided the man 2 to 24 EBT cards per month. The man allegedly said he then sold the EBT cards to other people and returned $100 to Woodley per card. The feds said Woodley also paid the man $10 cash per card and allowed the man to “keep EBT cards for personal use.” The man told investigators that Peavy also helped Woodley “with EBT card dealings.”

Surveillance footage

From January to May 2023, investigators said they caught Woodley on camera using an EBT card at Fairlane Food Center for $350 and again for $281. Then again, at Walmart in Dearborn for $26 and later for $48. He then allegedly used it at Walmart in Taylor for $345.

The person whose name was on the card told investigators they had never been to the state of Michigan and had never applied for SNAP benefits before. In March 2023, MDHHS closed the victim’s case due to suspected fraud. Just two months later, however, another application was submitted to MDHHS for benefits under that person’s name, which were approved. Two months after that, in July 2023, the case was closed again, due to suspected fraud. In December 2023, another application was made, but that application was denied.

In March 2023, a person’s EBT card was used at a Metro Detroit Walmart for a $99 Red Bull energy drink purchase.

In May 2023, both Woodley and Peavy were seen on video at a Metro Detroit Meijer using two fraudulent EBT cards. The feds said in two different SNAP transactions, Woodley purchased 8 12-packs of Monster Energy drinks, 2 Red Bull Watermelon 12-packs and 15 Red Bull 12-packs. The total was about $530.

In November 2023, Woodley and Peavy were seen on Walmart surveillance video using an EBT card in someone else’s name for about $165. A month later, the couple is seen on surveillance video at a Metro Detroit Walmart using an EBT card belonging to someone else for about $99.

Woodley and Peavy were seen on surveillance later in December 2023 and again in January 2024 at Walmart, and later in 2024, purchasing items at Walmart for $586 using personal information from people in Colorado and California.

In December 2023, Woodley was interviewed by investigators and admitted to using a friend’s EBT cards “a couple of times” but denied creating EBT cards in other people’s names.

‘Peavy signed her real name by mistake’

According to court records, investigators discovered overlaps between suspected fraudulent FAP applications and addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses used by Woodley and Peavy. They said one address on 29th street in Detroit, for example, had been used “for over 20 suspected fraudulent FAP applications” from 2016 to 2021.

Federal investigators said at one point, it appeared Peavy had been filling out an application for Woodley, but “Peavy signed her real name by mistake.”

Investigators said they also discovered that Woodley and Peavy had been using the Archdale Street address in Detroit for “over 20 suspected fraudulent FAP applications between May 2015 to February 2017.”

Woodley and Peavy’s next court dates

Woodley, who has a history of receiving and concealing stolen property, carrying a concealed weapon, retail fraud, and other charges out of Wayne County, is scheduled to appear in federal court on Friday, April 10, 2026. His plea hearing is scheduled for May 7, 2026. Woodley pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud and Aggravated Identity Theft.

Peavy is scheduled to be sentenced on June 29, 2026. She pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud.

Both Woodley and Peavy face up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine (or twice the loss) and 3 years of supervised release for the Conspiracy charge alone.

Background on the Food Stamp Program

The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is commonly referred to as the Food Stamp Program. It’s designed to “raise the level of nutrition of low-income households” and is funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and largely administered in Michigan by the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (USDA-FNS) and MDHHS.

To become eligible to participate in SNAP, you are required to complete, sign and submit a FAP application to MDHHS. Then, the applicant’s expenses, assets and income are reviewed to determine program eligibility. To receive SNAP benefits, the recipient may not have more than $15,000 in assets and vehicles. The applicant must be a Michigan resident and U.S. citizen, “or possess acceptable alien status.” Verification documents are requested to confirm the information submitted on the application. Applicants are then told to sign and agree that the information they are submitting is truthful, that they will repay benefits they received that they should not have, even if it is the department’s error, that they will cooperate with state or federal reviewers for an audit, etc. Upon signing, the applicant also agrees to release information for program needs, to use benefits legally, and to provide paperwork that shows what they told the department is true: “I have told the truth; I understand that I can be held criminally responsible for lying on this application,” one application said.

Federal authorities said the application also includes language about perjury prior to the applicant signing: “Under penalties of perjury, I state that I have reviewed this application and to the best of my knowledge and belief, the answers I give within this application are true, including household, citizenship, and non-citizenship information, and I have listed all amounts and sources of income and property I receive/own.”

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Country hitmaker Ella Langley releasing her sophomore album, Nintendo dropping the monster combat game Pokémon Champions and “Malcolm in the Middle” fans getting a four-episode revival with Frankie Muniz, Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek.

New movies to stream from April 6-12

— Sydney Sweeney stars as real-life boxing legend Christy Martin in David Michôd’s “Christy” (HBO Max, Friday, April 10). The film, which Sweeney also produced, drew some of her best reviews. Her distinctly unglamorous performance spans Martin’s small-town West Virginia beginnings to a professional career shadowed by her abusive manager-turned-husband (Ben Foster). In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote that Sweeney “imbues her no-holds-barred portrayal of Martin with both sweetness and rage, with brio and real vulnerability.”

— One of the highlights of last year, Akinola Davies Jr.’s tender father-son drama, “My Father’s Shadow,” begins streaming Friday, April 10, on MUBI. The film, penned by Davis and his brother, Wale, is loosely autobiographical. Their father died when they were young. But in “My Father’s Shadow,” two Nigerian boys have unexpected day with their father ( Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù ) in Lagos, at a pivotal time for the country. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr called it “a gem, a deeply felt memory piece and vibrant portrait of Nigeria in 1993.”

— Jonah Hill made his directorial debut with the coming-of-age skate film “Mid90s.” He returns to directing in “Outcome,” a Hollywood satire starring Keanu Reeves as a movie star named Reef Hawk who fears a video could destroy his reputation. Hill, who co-wrote the movie, also co-stars as Reef’s crisis-management lawyer. It debuts Friday, April 10, on Apple TV.

— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

New music to stream from April 10

— A chart-topping country hitmaker preps her sophomore album: Ella Langley — known for such radio mainstays like the throwback “You Look Like You Love Me” with Riley Green and the George Strait-referencing No. 1 “Choosin’ Texas,” co-written with Miranda Lambert — will release a new record on Friday, April 10. If the whole of “Dandelion” is anything like those songs, she’s got a long career ahead of her.

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

New series to stream from April 6-12

— “The Boys” launches its fifth and final season Wednesday on Prime Video. The critically acclaimed series is based on comic books and follows villainous superheroes and the crew trying to thwart them. Series regulars Jack Quaid, Karl Urban, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty and Jessie T. Usher and Chace Crawford are all returning, as are more recent additions played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jensen Ackles. “Hamilton” star Daveed Diggs also joins the cast.

— Hulu’s sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” called “The Testaments,” also premieres on Wednesday. Ann Dowd reprises her Aunt Lydia character from the original and is now in charge of a school for girls that basically prepares them for adulthood, marriage and babies. These young women have never known anything other than Gilead. It stars Chase Infiniti and Lucy Halliday and is also based on a novel by Margaret Atwood.

— Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen lead a new sci-fi comedy, “The Miniature Wife,” for Peacock. They play a couple working on their marriage when their lives are further complicated after an unusual accident. It premieres Thursday.

— Another series launching its fifth and final season is “Hacks” on HBO. The show, debuting Thursday, follows the love-hate relationship between a legendary comedian (Jean Smart) and a talented writer played by Hannah Einbinder. The series has racked up a lot of hardware, including an Emmy for outstanding comedy series. Smart has won four consecutive Emmys for the show while Einbinder has taken home one.

— Do you ever wonder how your favorite former TV stars would fare in the present day? “Malcolm in the Middle” fans are getting their wish. Twenty years after their show went off the air, Frankie Muniz, Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek return to TV for a revival where Muniz’s character is now a dad to a teenage girl. The four episodes of “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” premiere on Friday, April 10, on both Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

— Alicia Rancilio

New video games to play from April 6-12

— Nintendo is pulling out all the stops to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pokémon. Just a month after releasing the cozy community-builder Pokémon Pokopia, it’s dropping the considerably less comfortable Pokémon Champions. This time it’s all about the combat, as you recruit and train monsters before pushing them into the arena to fight other trainers’ creatures. You can compete in ranked events with players from around the world, or enjoy casual or private battles that won’t affect your ranking. It’s a free-to-start challenge, but you may want to set some cash aside for in-app purchases. The fight club opens Wednesday on Switch and Switch 2, with iOS and Android versions coming later in 2026.

— Annapurna Interactive’s People of Note tells the tale of a pop singer named Cadence who decides she wants to start a band. That means she’ll need to trek across the world of Note, where each city is defined by its own style of music. In her travels, though, Cadence learns that a Harmonic Convergence is disrupting music itself, and she and her bandmates will have to solve puzzles, explore dungeons and fight tone-deaf villains to stop Note from going silent. Los Angeles-based Iridium Studios promises that “each battle is an interactive musical performance,” and you can pump up the volume Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

— Lou Kesten

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, coming off its first winning week in the last six. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 165 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.5%.

Oil prices likewise rose after seesawing through the day amid uncertainty about what will happen in the war with Iran and how long it will slow the global flow of oil and natural gas. Iran on Monday rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and instead said it wants a permanent end to the war.

“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”

Fighting continued in the war, meanwhile, including an Israeli attack on an Iranian petrochemical plant. And in the background was the clock ticking toward a deadline, one that Trump has moved multiple times, where he has threatened to attack Iranian power plants if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s oil typically sails through the strait during peacetime.

Trump on Monday suggested that his latest deadline of Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time will be the final one, saying he’d already given enough extensions. “The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said.

Monday also offered the first chance for U.S. stock prices to react to a report from Friday that said U.S. employers hired more workers last month than economists expected. The unemployment rate unexpectedly improved.

They’re encouraging signals for an economy that’s had to absorb painful leaps in costs for gasoline since the war’s beginning. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is nearly $4.12 across the country, according to AAA. It was below $3 a couple days before the United States and Israel launched attacks to begin the war in late February.

For countries that don’t produce as much oil as the United States, the pain has been even worse. That’s because they are more reliant on oil coming from the Middle East, and the war has blocked in much of the crude produced in the Persian Gulf area. That oil typically gets to customers around the world by exiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 0.8% to settle at $112.41 after erasing an earlier modest dip. Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.8% to $109.77 per barrel and remains well above its roughly $70 price from before the war.

On Wall Street, a split performance for the Big Tech stocks that dominate the U.S. market kept things in check. Apple rose 1.1%, and Amazon added 1.4%. Tesla slid 2.2%, and Microsoft fell 0.2%.

Bank stocks were strong, including a 1.3% rise for JPMorgan Chase.

CEO Jamie Dimon said in his annual letter to shareholders released on Monday that the U.S. economy continues to be resilient, and businesses still look healthy. He, though, also acknowledged that prices for stocks and other assets are high, which could imply “anything less than positive outcomes could have a dramatic impact on global markets.”

All told, the S&P 500 rose 29.14 points to 6,611.83. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 165.21 to 46,669.88, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 117.16 to 21,996.34.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The 10-year Treasury yield was sitting at 4.33%. That’s still well above its 3.97% level from before the war. The rise has pushed up rates for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which slows the economy.

A report on Monday said that finance, transportation and other U.S. businesses in services sectors grew in March for a 21st straight month of expansion. But the growth was slightly slower than economists expected, and a measure of prices accelerated at its fastest pace since 2022 in a potentially discouraging signal for inflation.

In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.5%, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.4%. Many other markets in Europe and Asia were closed for holidays.

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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

The overall success rate in the Automated Ball-Strike System was 55.2% (299 of 542), with fielding teams winning 59.7% of challenges (175 of 293), including 60.4% by catchers (169 of 280).

“I like it a little more. I was pretty staunch against it, which I still may be to some degree,” New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.

There were just 13 challenges by pitchers, who won six. Batters were successful on 49.8% (124 of 249).

“I think it’s fun. It’s its own game inside the game, almost," Tampa Bay catcher Hunter Feduccia said.

Success rate was up from 49.5% last year at Triple-A, where defense won 53.7% and batters 49.5%

Detroit won the highest percentage of calls at 75% (15 of 20) while Arizona was at 71%, and Baltimore and Cincinnati both 67%.

Minnesota called for the most challenges with 32, winning 20 for a 63% success rate. Texas had the fewest, winning 4 of 10.

Cleveland was the least successful at 32%, with Washington at 38% and St. Louis and Texas at 40%

Detroit catchers were 8-0, with seven wins by Dingler.

ABS' impact could be seen when Atlanta played at Arizona last Thursday. The Braves were ahead 2-1 when the Diamondbacks' Ryne Nelson threw a 3-2 curveball on the upper, outside corner to Ozzie Albies that was called a strike by Malachi Moore. Albies challenged and headed toward first even before ABS showed the pitch missed the strike zone by 1.1 inches. The walk started an eight-run rally in a 17-2 romp.

“In some of these games, it’s had a more of a swinging effect on outcomes of at-bats and how things change than maybe even you thought,” Miami manager Clayton McCullough said.

Logan O’Hoppe of the Los Angeles Angels had the most victories, successful on 10 of 12. The Marlins’ Agustín Ramírez won 7 of 9 and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Will Smith 8 of 11.

Seattle’s Cal Raleigh won 4 of 9 and the Athletics’ Shea Langeliers 3 of 9.

Among batters, Mark Vientos of the New York Mets and Iván Herrera both went 3-0. Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels was 3-1 along with Philadelphia's Kyle Schwarber and Tampa Bay's Jake Fraley.

Colorado's Hunter Goodman and Washington's Luis García Jr. were both 0 for 3.

Boone said Yankees staff and players daily review challenges made and opportunities missed.

Players still are getting used to ABS. Washington's Jorbit Vivas tapped his helmet signaling for an appeal on March 31 when the Nationals already had exhausted their two challenges.

Among umpires, Mike Estabrook had 11 of 12 calls overturned (91.7%), Andy Fletcher had 15 of 17 (88.2%), Ron Kulpa and Paul Clemons each 7 of 9 (77.8%) and Chris Segal 10 of 13 (76.9%), according to taptochallenge.com.

Will Little had just 1 of 10 calls reversed while Erich Bacchus was perfect with no overturned calls in five challenges. Others with low overturn rates with at least five challenges included Emil Jiménez (1 of 5), Jordan Baker (2 of 8), Ryan Additon and Nick Mahrley (both 2 of 7) and David Rackley (3 of 10).

Offense at record low

Offense again lagged through the first 139 games of the 2,430-game season.

The .234 big league batting average is down from .239 through 12 days last year (including the two games in Japan), when it finished at .245. The average usually increases as the weather warms. The full-season low of .237 was set in 1968.

Runs per game averaged 8.8, up from 8.7, and stolen bases dropped to 1.4 per game from 1.6

Fastball velocity at record high

Average fastball velocity is 94.6 mph, up from 94.1 mph through the first full week last year. The final figure increased in each of the last five seasons to a record 94.5 mph in 2025. It was 91.9 mph when MLB first started tracking in 2008.

“I wish I was facing the same pitching as I did my rookie year back when guys were throwing 88-mile-an-hour sinkers over the plate," said 33-year-old Cleveland catcher Austin Hedges. “That pitch doesn’t exist anymore.”

Game time

The average time of a nine-inning game is 2 hours, 43 minutes, up from 2:37 at this point last year, when it finished at 2:38.

Pitch clock violations averaged 0.17 per game, down from 0.22 through 139 games last year.

Attendance

MLB's average crowd of 31,725 through 138 dates was up 1.5% over 31,255 for the same period last year.

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AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston and Steve Megargee, and AP freelance writer Tom Withers contributed to this report.

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

Necessity so that he can start playing closer to home again.

One of the early and polarizing defectors to LIV Golf a few years ago, the 2018 Masters champion made the similarly difficult decision to leave the lucrative, Saudi-backed tour earlier this year and return to the PGA Tour. But under the terms of his reinstatement, Reed cannot play in its events until after Aug. 25, which means most of this season will be spent on the European tour.

Where he already has won twice ahead of his return to Augusta National this week.

“Everyone kind of gets to be a creature of habit, and wants to eat what they're comfortable with and go," Reed said after a practice round Monday, “but I like checking out all the local places and really experiencing the culture."

Pimento cheese sandwich, anyone?

The truth is as much as Reed enjoyed playing in Dubai and Qatar, where he packed wins around a playoff loss in Bahrain — 1,200 miles (7,500 km) from home, wife Justine and their two kids — there are few things Reed loves more than walking among the Georgia pines.

It's not exactly home; that's The Woodlands, Texas. But it sure feels like it.

Reed played college golf down the road at Georgia, and he recalls practice rounds spent at Augusta Country Club, where certain holes offer a teasing glimpse through the trees of the par-5 13th hole of its much more famous neighbor.

“There's just something so special about this place, the traditions behind it, and then on top of it, it's the one major that stays in the same place,” Reed said. “All the way back from when I played my first time ever here, even when we played in November that one (COVID) year, and any time I’ve come back and played it, it’s always in perfect shape. It’s one of those golf courses that you can’t hit just one golf shot. You have to play golf kind of old-school way. You have to hit shots, different shapes, different flights.”

Indeed, the Masters has been one of the few constants on Reed's ever-changing global calendar.

When he resigned from the PGA Tour, Reed effectively said farewell to familiar, high-profile places like Pebble Beach and Bay Hill for LIV events in far-flung corners of the world. But his status as a former Masters champion meant that, despite the deep rift that once appeared to threaten the game itself, Reed was always welcomed back to Augusta National.

He tied for fourth a few years ago. He was third last year.

"I feel like it’s the best test of golf we play all year round," Reed said. “For a guy that’s played just about everywhere in the world — just about — it’s one of those places that I say, hands down, it’s the best test of golf and best golf course I’ve ever played.”

Reed acknowledged Monday that LIV had presented him with a contract earlier this year to remain one of its biggest stars. But when he talked with his family, “I felt like the best decision for us was to come back and join the PGA Tour.”

Even when he left, Reed said, he always considered the PGA Tour to be the best barometer of golf greatness.

“I’ve played now every tour. I’ve played on every single one of them,” Reed said. "That’s the place that I feel like is best for us to go and compete against the top guys year in and year out, week in and week out, but at the same time, to be able to spend more time closer to home makes it a lot easier to spend time with the kids.

“My daughter is now 11. My little man's 8. It seems like time has flown," the 35-year-old Reed said. "I definitely want to watch them grow up and be home a little bit more, yet still at the same time to play against the best guys.”

Reed will be able to do that this week. And again on a weekly basis soon enough. But until his PGA Tour return this fall, Reed is building out a DP World Tour schedule that includes a few weeks spent on the road followed by a few spent at home.

It's a work-life balance that seems to work at this point in his life.

“You not only sharpen your game, but you get a lot of family time," Reed said. “Those travels overseas, it’s going to be a lot this year, but at the same time, I can’t wait to obviously go out there and compete, but at the same time, come home and see the family.”

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

Melvin Benn, the managing director at Festival Republic, shared a statement on Monday backing his company's decision to book Ye.

“Forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world,” he wrote. "I would ask people to reflect on their instant comments of disgust at the likelihood of him performing (as was mine) and offer some forgiveness and hope to him as I have decided to do.”

Ye, who changed his name in 2021, is booked to perform in front of around 150,000 revelers over the course of the festival’s three nights, July 10 - 12.

The rapper has drawn widespread condemnation in recent years for antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler. Last year, he released a song called “Heil Hitler” and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. The 48-year-old apologized this past January for his antisemitic remarks in a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

Wireless sponsors Pepsi, Rockstar Energy and Diageo have pulled out of the festival since Ye was announced as the headliner, although lead sponsor Pepsi didn't offer a reason. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the booking “deeply concerning.”

“Ye’s music is played on commercial radio stations in this country. It is available via live streams and downloads in this country without comment or vitriol from anyone and he has a legal right to come into the country and to perform in this country,” Benn's statement said.

“We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions,” the statement continued.

Last week, Ye held two concerts at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, marking his first major U.S. performances in nearly five years. There, fans appeared to separate his personal beliefs and public statements from his music — and were ready to forgive after his January apology letter.

“I don’t really bring into politics or the way someone’s personal opinion are. I’m into the music artistry," said Yovani Contreras, one fan in attendance. "Like, I just, to me, Ye is always gonna be Ye. Kanye is always gonna be Kanye.”

A representative for Ye didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment Monday.

The Bulls gutted their roster before the trade deadline. But Karnisovas and Eversley won't be around for the next phase of a revamp.

Chicago was 224-254 during their tenure. The Bulls entered Monday sitting in 12th place in the Eastern Conference at 29-49 and missing the playoffs for the fourth straight year.

President and CEO Michael Reinsdorf said in a statement that Karnisovas and Eversley “led with a deep commitment to the Chicago Bulls” and that the change is “about positioning our team for sustained success moving ahead.”

“I want our fans to know that I hear you and understand your frustration," Reinsdorf said. "I feel it as well. I know this will take time, and I am fully committed to getting this right. At the Chicago Bulls, our focus remains on building a team that can compete at the highest level and ultimately contend for championships. We are committed to taking the necessary steps to move the Bulls forward in a way that makes our fans proud.”

The Bulls tore up their roster leading up to the trade deadline in February, dealing Nikola Vucevic to Boston, Kevin Huerter to Detroit, Coby White to Charlotte and Chicago product Ayo Dosunmu to Minnesota in an effort to shake up a franchise mired in mediocrity. They hung on to Matas Buzelis and Josh Giddey with the idea of building around those two. The Bulls have the salary-cap room to make some big moves this offseason.

“Being in the middle is what we don’t want to do,” Karnisovas said at the time. “I think we’ve seen that for the past four years and we want to change that.”

That's mostly where the franchise has been since Karnisovas was hired out of Denver's front office in April 2020. The Bulls brought in Eversley from Philadelphia a few weeks later and hired coach Billy Donovan that September. Donovan's future is uncertain.

The Bulls' lone playoff appearance during Karnisovas and Eversley's tenure came during the 2021-22 season, when they finished sixth in the Eastern Conference at 46-36 and got knocked out by Milwaukee in the first round. The Bulls lost point guard Lonzo Ball to a knee injury during that season, and he missed the next two years.

Chicago's most recent All-Star was DeMar DeRozan in 2023. The lack of a franchise cornerstone player was glaring, and Karnisovas' reluctance to launch into a major rebuild was a big source of frustration among Bulls fans. Rather than give the team the best shot at winning the lottery, he stressed patience and not skipping steps.

That changed this year when Karnisovas made seven trades before the deadline. The Bulls mostly loaded up on second-round draft picks and didn't get any first-rounders in return.

Among the players they acquired were Jaden Ivey from Detroit, hoping the No. 5 pick in the 2022 NBA draft could regain the form he showed before knee surgery. But the Bulls waived him last week following anti-LGBTQ+ comments about religion he made in videos posted on his Instagram account.

Ivey had been sidelined since Feb. 11 and appeared in just four games for Chicago. His contract was set to expire at the end of the season.

Donovan, meanwhile, got a contract extension last offseason. But he could seek another NBA coaching job or return to the college game if he doesn’t remain in Chicago.

Donovan has a 467-411 record in 11 seasons as an NBA head coach. He was arguably the top candidate on the market when the Bulls hired him in September 2020 to replace the fired Jim Boylen following a five-year run in Oklahoma City. He led the Thunder to a 243-157 record and playoff appearances each season while working with stars such as Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Chris Paul.

Donovan previously coached for 19 seasons at the University of Florida and won back-to-back NCAA titles. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in September.

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

The News Media Guild, the union that represents AP journalists, said more than 120 of the staff members it represents received buyout offers on Monday.

The news organization is becoming more focused on visual journalism and developing new revenue sources, particularly through companies investing in artificial intelligence, to cope with the economic collapse of many legacy news outlets. Once the lion’s share of AP’s revenue, big newspaper companies now account for 10% of its income.

“We’re not a newspaper company and we haven’t been for quite some time,” Julie Pace, executive editor and senior vice president of the AP, said in an interview.

Despite changes – the company has doubled the number of video journalists it employs in the United States since 2022 – remnants of a staffing structure built largely to provide stories to newspapers and broadcasters in individual states have remained.

That has its roots well back in American history; the AP was started in the mid-19th century by New York newspapers looking to share the costs of reporting outside their immediate territory.

Exact numbers of staff reduction unclear

The number of AP journalists who will lose jobs is murky, in part intentionally. The AP does not say how many journalists it employs, though it has a large international presence as well as its U.S. staff. Pace said the AP's goal is to reduce its global staff by less than 5%.

Since buyouts are being offered now to only U.S. journalists, it stands to reason that the cut among that workforce will be more than 5%. Whether there are layoffs depends on how many people take the offer, Pace said.

“The AP employs hundreds of talented journalists who are willing and able to adjust to the changing media landscape,” the union said in a statement. “However, the company refuses to offer them appropriate training and tools. Instead, AP continues to get rid of experienced staff and flirt with artificial intelligence — ignoring the opportunity to differentiate AP news stories as ones that are and always will be created by human journalists.”

The union said AP ignored a request last week to bargain over artificial intelligence. The news outlet had no immediate comment on that claim, or the union's estimate of how many people were offered buyouts. It's not clear whether the buyout offers were concluded by Monday afternoon.

Over the past four years, the AP’s revenue from newspapers has declined by 25%. Gannett and McClatchy, two of the largest traditional newspaper publishers, dropped AP in 2024.

In recent days, the company learned that Lee Enterprises — publishers of newspapers like The Buffalo News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Richmond Times-Dispatch — is seeking an early exit from a contract due to expire at the end of 2026.

Pace said the buyout plan was in the works before learning about Lee Enterprises. “We made a decision earlier this year that we needed to be bolder in this transformation,” she said.

An even higher focus on the day’s biggest stories

Besides the transition to more video capabilities, the AP is deploying rapid-response teams where staff members, no matter their geographic base, contribute to the day’s big stories, she said. The AP is putting more journalists on beats to break news on topics of known customer interest. But it is committed to maintaining a presence in all 50 states.

“The AP is not in trouble,” Pace said. “We’re making these changes from a position of strength but we’re doing so now to recognize our changing customer base.”

Those customers now are dominated by broadcast, digital and technology companies, an illustration of where people are getting news. The AP has seen 200% growth in revenue from technology companies over the last four years, said Kristin Heitmann, senior vice president and chief revenue officer.

The AP was among the first news outlets to make a deal with an AI company, agreeing in 2023 to lease part of its text archive to OpenAI as it built out its capabilities. The AP launched on Snowflake Marketplace last year to license data directly to enterprises building their own system. It has launched AP Intelligence, a division designed to sell data to financial and advertising sectors, for example.

Google contracted with AP last year to deliver news through the Gemini chatbot, the tech giant’s first deal with a news publisher.

“If you can think of a large technology company,” Heitmann said, “they are a customer of ours.”

Predictions markets now part of the picture for AP

Last month, the AP agreed to sell U.S. elections data to Kalshi, the world’s largest predictions market.

AP’s long tradition in counting and analyzing elections data is another growth area; the company saw a 30% increase in customers between the 2020 and 2024 cycles. It got an additional boost last year when ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN signed on to the service.

The company, traditionally a wholesaler of news to other companies, has also seen growing interest in its direct-to-consumer product, apnews.com, which provides revenue through advertising and donations.

The new business frontiers do not indicate a weakening in the AP’s standards of providing fast, accurate, non-biased news, leaders said. “If anything, it makes it more important that we retain these values as we make the transition,” Pace said.

The AP is trying new forms of fact-checking, including use of video, and more often putting its journalists in public to explain how they got particular stories, she said.

“I think that authenticity, and the fact that you can associate a real person who is often quite experienced and quite deep on their beats … it builds more credibility,” she said. “We’re really trying to embrace that because I do think it’s vital when there is so much misinformation out there.”

Florida authorities determined Woods was impaired March 27 when his Land Rover struck a trailer and flipped on its side on a residential street. They found two painkiller pills in his pocket. Woods was arrested and briefly jailed for refusing to submit to a urine test.

“He's just a human being like everyone else and we have struggles,” Day said. "It's unfortunate. The only thing that I don't understand is that it's a little bit selfish of him to drive and put other people in harm's way, as well.

“But when you're the player that he was and how strong-willed he is, he thinks he can do almost anything,” Day said. “And that's probably why he's driving and a little bit under the influence.”

This is the second straight year Woods has missed the Masters, under entirely different circumstances. He had ruptured his Achilles tendon in March of 2025 and didn't even make it to the Masters Club dinner for champions.

Woods entered a plea of not guilty last week, and then sought — and was granted — a motion to seek treatment outside the country.

“He was my hero — he's my hero,” said Day, the Australian who reached No. 1 in the world a decade ago. “The reason why I play golf is because of this tournament and Tiger. It’s hard to see him go through what he’s going through, and especially under the microscope. It must be hard to be who he is and have everything, everyone look on, kind of down on him.

“Some people want him to fail. Some people obviously want him to succeed,” Day said. “It’s really difficult for me to go through that and watch him, and I know that he’s getting the help now, which is good. I’m just hoping he comes out on the other side and is better.”

Woods is a five-time champion at the Masters, the last one in 2019 to complete a most remarkable comeback in golf. In the 14 years between winning green jackets, he had reconstructive knee surgery (2008) and four back surgeries (2014-17), and one arrest for taking what he said was a bad mix of painkillers when he was found asleep behind the wheel of his running car (2017).

Since winning his last Masters, his right leg and ankle were crushed in 2021 when his SUV going about 85 mph ran over a median and tumbled down a hill on a coastal road in Los Angeles. He also had surgery on the Achilles tendon and a seventh back surgery last year.

Nick Faldo was particularly critical of Woods in an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph last week when he said, “There are two sides to this right now. There’s one side that’s like ... let’s care for Tiger. And then there has got to be a responsibility and an accountability side as well.”

“Forget about golf. We are not meant to be on the streets with two pills in our pocket,” Faldo said. "The bottom line is that I really think that this is a serious issue and something should be done that is a little bit more serious than waving him off to a tropical island and saying, 'Welcome back,’ in three or four months or whatever it might be.”

Phil Mickelson, a three-time Masters champion who was a runner-up in 2023 at age 52, also is skipping the Masters as he deals with a family health matter at home. It's the first time since 1994 neither Woods nor Mickelson was at Augusta National for the first major of the year.

Mickelson is with LIV Golf and plays on a big stage only four times a year at the majors. Jacob Bridgeman, one of the 22 newcomers to the Masters, didn't know Mickelson wasn't playing and is young enough in golf to have only played two majors with him last year.

Woods is a huge part of the Masters, not only from the records he shattered in 1997 at age 21 but recently with his work on a short course during the refurbishing of a municipal course in town known as “The Patch.” He also is opening a TGR Learning Lab in Augusta.

“He’s such a legend in this game, somebody I looked up to,” Harris English said. “Watching him win around this place in ’97 is kind of the reason I started getting into golf. I know he’s going to get through this. He has a big fight ahead of him. He’s a fighter. That’s what he does.”

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

Karl Jordan Jr. wasn't automatically let go because he still faces drug charges unrelated to the pioneering DJ's 2002 death. For now, Jordan remains behind bars while prosecutors decide this week whether to appeal the bond decision. If they don't, he'll go free as soon as his bond paperwork is in order.

“There's a real chance, Mr. Jordan, that you may be released in the very near term,” U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall said. If that happens, she added, “I wish you luck. And you will stay out of trouble.”

Jordan quietly agreed as more than a dozen of his relatives and supporters looked on from the audience. Some have attended nearly six years of court dates in his case and 17 agreed to cosign his bond. Jordan’s loved ones also agreed to put up Southern properties worth a total of $525,000. If released, he will be under electronic monitoring.

His lawyers declined to comment after court.

Jam Master Jay, born Jason Mizell, was fatally shot in his New York City recording studio in 2002. As the DJ in Run-DMC, he helped rap reach music's mainstream with 1980s hits including “It’s Tricky” and a remake of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” He later mentored up-and-comers including a young 50 Cent.

After the case went cold for years, Jordan and Ronald Washington were arrested in 2020. Washington, now 61; and Jordan, 42, denied the charges.

A jury convicted the men in 2024, after hearing eyewitness testimony that Jordan shot Mizell while Washington blocked the door. But in December 2025, DeArcy Hall unraveled Jordan’s conviction and acquitted him, while upholding the verdict against Washington.

Her reasoning centered on whether prosecutors had proven that the killing was narcotics-related, a requirement of the federal murder charge in this case. Witnesses testified that after Run-DMC’s heyday, Mizell dabbled in cocaine deals to pay his bills and was providing drug-trade opportunities to Jordan and Washington — the DJ's godson and old friend, respectively.

The judge concluded that the jury heard sufficient evidence that Washington was bitter at Mizell about the collapse of a planned drug transaction in Baltimore. But there wasn't such proof, “just conjecture," that Jordan had the same animus, DeArcy Hall wrote.

Prosecutors are appealing her decision to acquit Jordan of Mizell's killing.

Jordan's attorneys argued that he ought to get bond while that appeal and the outstanding drug and weapons charges play out.

Jordan, whose girlfriend is a city jail official, “is not a danger to the community. But his continued detention is a danger to Mr. Jordan," lawyer John Diaz said at a March 13 hearing. Jordan was stabbed and seriously wounded in Brooklyn’s troubled federal jail last year; other inmates were charged with assaulting him.

Prosecutors deplored the stabbing but urged the judge to continue detaining Jordan, maintaining that he remained a flight risk.

DeArcy Hall concluded Monday that Jordan's bond package outweighed concerns that he might flee. But she told him, “At the end of the day, sir, bond is about you giving me your word.”

“Yeah, I'm aware of that,” he replied.

Turning toward the audience, she sought to make sure his family also got the message that Jordan needs to comply with bond conditions.

“You all know I do not play,” the judge warned. “We all understood, folks?”

A collective “yes, your honor” rose from the audience.

Meanwhile, prosecutors are in plea talks with a third man charged in Mizell's killing, prosecutors and his lawyers told the judge in a March 12 letter. The third man, Jay Bryant, was indicted in 2023 after his DNA was found on a hat at the shooting scene. He has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors claimed that Bryant slipped into the studio building and opened a back door for Jordan and Washington, having met them through a mutual acquaintance. Jordan's lawyers have argued that the case against Bryant raised doubts about the now-dismissed allegations against Jordan.

Trump posted late Sunday on his social media platform Truth Social that he has known Hilton for years and called the conservative commentator “a truly fine man” who could turn around a state beset with notoriously high taxes. California, Trump wrote, “has gone to hell.”

“With Federal help, and a Great Governor, like Steve Hilton, California can be better than ever before!” Trump added.

The endorsement — coming about a month before mail ballots go to voters in advance of the June 2 primary — will help Hilton coalesce conservative support in a race with no clear leader. However, Trump is widely unpopular in heavily Democratic California outside his conservative base and Trump's backing would become a liability if Hilton faces a Democrat in the November election.

With a large field, Democrats have been fearful that a quirk in the state's unusual “top two” primary system could allow only two Republicans to reach the November general election ballot — Hilton and GOP rival Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff. Trump's decision — a strong signal to undecided conservative voters — will make that outcome less likely by helping Hilton lure additional support.

Democratic consultant Paul Mitchell called Trump's decision “the safe bet” for Republicans. Rather than cling to a long shot hope that both Republicans reach the November ballot — or risk that both Hilton and Bianco fall short — Trump's blessing should consolidate support behind Hilton and allow him to emerge from a large primary field and reach November.

“Having a Republican on the top of the ticket is essential" to drive turnout in critical down-ballot races, with control of the U.S. House in play," Mitchell added. In an unpredictable, wide-open race, the smart play for the GOP is to “get one Republican on the ballot.”

There are more than 50 candidates on the ballot — including eight established Democrats and along with Hilton and Bianco, the two leading Republicans. An all-GOP general election is possible in California, which puts all candidates on one primary ballot and only the top two vote-getters advance to November, regardless of party.

Polling in early February by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found the field had broken into two distinct groups, with Bianco, Hilton and three Democrats — U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter and billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer — in close competition, with other candidates trailing.

In a statement, Hilton thanked Trump for his support and promised to grow jobs and bring down the state's punishing cost of living. “Together we can turn things around,” Hilton said.

Republicans have not won a statewide election in California in two decades. Registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in the state by nearly 2-to-1.

Beltrán will become the ninth player in franchise history to have his number retired. Previously, Tom Seaver (41), Mike Piazza (31), Jerry Koosman (36), Keith Hernandez (17), Willie Mays (24), Dwight Gooden (16), Darryl Strawberry (18) and David Wright (5) had their numbers retired.

The Mets also have retired the numbers of former managers Gil Hodges (14) and Casey Stengel (37) and all major league teams have retired No. 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson.

Mets outfielder Tyrone Taylor, who currently wears No. 15, will change his number to 28.

Beltrán was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame earlier this year. He announced he would wear a Mets cap on his plaque. The Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be on July 26.

Beltrán was hired as the New York Mets’ manager on Nov. 1, 2019, then fired on Jan. 16, 2020, without having managed a game. New York announced its decision three days after he was the only Astros player mentioned by name in a report by Major League Baseball regarding the team’s illicit use of electronics to steal signs during Houston’s run to the 2017 World Series championship — his final season.

He was hired by the Mets as a special assistant to the general manager in February 2023. He continues to work as a special assistant to president of baseball operations David Stearns.

Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen released a statement on Monday praising Beltrán as “one of the greatest offensive players in team history, combining power and speed with elite defense.”

Beltrán said having his number retired and entering the team's hall of fame is "the highest possible tribute, and I truly feel blessed. The Mets hold a special place in my heart. This summer will be incredibly meaningful, from my induction into the baseball Hall of Fame to this Mets hall of fame honor, with the cherry on top being my number retirement. I’m deeply grateful.”

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

“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said. He suggested that his Tuesday 8 p.m. ET deadline was final, saying he'd already given Iran enough extensions.

The U.S. has told Iran to open the crucial Strait of Hormuz to all shipping traffic or see power plants and bridges wiped out, sparking warnings about possible war crimes.

Israel piled on pressure by attacking a major petrochemical plant and killing the intelligence chief for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Tehran with its rejection conveyed its own, 10-point plant to end the fighting through Pakistan, a key mediator, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said.

“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press. He said Iran no longer trusts the Trump administration after the U.S. bombed the Islamic Republic twice during previous rounds of talks.

A regional official involved in talks said efforts had not collapsed. “We are still talking to both sides,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.

And even Trump said negotiations with Iran continued.

Trump says Iranians ‘willing to suffer’ for freedom

Trump has issued ultimatums to Iran before, only to find ways to back off. But he was more explicit this time on plans to follow through.

“Every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night,” he said, and all power plants will be “burning, exploding and never to be used again.”

Asked if he was concerned about accusations of war crimes, Trump responded, “No, not at all." He suggested that Iranians want the U.S. to carry out its threats because it could lead to the end of their current leadership.

Iranian citizens are “willing to suffer," he said, "in order to have freedom.” But there has been no sign of an uprising in Iran as residents shelter from bombardment.

International warnings piled up against expanded strikes. “Any attack on civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law and a very clear one,” United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric later told journalists.

Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators had sent Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff a proposal calling for the ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, two Mideast officials told the AP. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.

Iranian and Omani officials also were working on a mechanism for administrating the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime. Iran’s grip on it has shaken the world economy.

Tehran has refused to let U.S. and Israeli vessels through after they started the war on Feb. 28.

Iran's new supreme leader makes rare statement

Israel struck a key petrochemical plant in the South Pars natural gas field, saying it was aimed at eliminating a major source of revenue for Iran. The field, the world’s largest, is shared with Qatar and is Iran’s biggest source of domestic energy for its 93 million people.

The strike appeared to be separate from Trump’s threats. An earlier Israeli attack there in March prompted Iran to target energy infrastructure in other Middle East countries, a major escalation.

Israel also killed the head of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, according to Iranian state media. And Israel said it killed the leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s undercover unit in its expeditionary Quds Force, Asghar Bakeri.

“We will continue to hunt them down one by one,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said of top Iranian officials.

New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who still has not been seen or heard in public, issued a rare statement expressing condolences over Khademi. Israeli strikes have killed dozens of top Iranian leaders, including Khamenei’s father.

Israel’s military also said it struck three Tehran airports overnight — Bahram, Mehrabad and Azmayesh — hitting dozens of helicopters and aircraft it said belonged to the Iranian Air Force.

A Tehran resident said “constantly there is the sound of bombs, air defenses, drones,” speaking on condition of anonymity for her safety. Another detailed taking sleeping pills to get through nightly bombardments, and said people worry about power, gas and water cuts.

Airstrikes kill more than 25 across Iran

Smoke rose near Tehran’s Azadi Square after an airstrike hit the grounds of the Sharif University of Technology. Multiple countries have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Authorities and Iranian state media reported at least 29 people killed across the country by strikes.

In Lebanon, where Israel has launched air attacks and a ground invasion that it says target the Iran-linked Hezbollah militia, an airstrike hit an apartment in Ain Saadeh, a predominately Christian town east of Beirut. It killed an official in the Lebanese Forces, a Christian political party strongly opposed to Hezbollah, his wife and another woman.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

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Weissert reported from Washington, Magdy from Cairo and Gambrell from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Isabel DeBre in Ain Saadeh, Lebanon, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Amir-Hussein Radjy in Cairo and Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this story.

The Mets announced Monday that scheduled night games against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday and Wednesday have been changed to afternoon games because of expected cold and windy conditions.

The Mets scheduled the first pitch for each game for 4:10 p.m. ET. The games had been set for 7:10 p.m. starts.

Tuesday’s game between the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Guardians has been moved up five hours to a 1:10 p.m. ET first pitch. The change was made because temperatures are expected to be below freezing at night.

The time change was also made to avoid a backlog in the schedule or another doubleheader early in the season. Kansas City had a twinbill against Milwaukee on Saturday after Friday’s game was postponed, while Cleveland is coming off a doubleheader against the Chicago Cubs on Sunday when Saturday’s game was rained out.

Meanwhile, the White Sox moved up the first pitch for Tuesday's game against the Baltimore Orioles from 6:40 p.m. CT to 2:10 p.m. because of expected cold temperatures.

The Mets said in appreciation for the fans' “understanding, commitment and flexibility” the team was offering a limited number of complimentary tickets to each game.

The Mets said the complimentary tickets to the afternoon games will be offered on a first-come, first-served bases. Fans can log onto Mets.com/Tickets and enter code THANKYOU to claim up to four tickets for each game.

Additionally, the Mets are offering vouchers to a future game to fans who have already purchased tickets for the Tuesday or Wednesday games. The vouchers will be good for home regular-season games scheduled for Monday through Thursday.

All tickets for the previously scheduled night games will be valid for the afternoon games.

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

Despite an intense search involving thousands of law enforcement officers and volunteers, there has been no sign of the 84-year-old mother of three since she was reported missing Feb. 1. Her children, including the NBC host, have made heartbreaking video pleas for help, but to no avail.

Here is a timeline of events:

Saturday, Jan. 31

5:32 p.m. — Nancy Guthrie takes an Uber to her family’s home for dinner.

9:48 p.m. — Guthrie is dropped off at her Tucson-area home by a family member. The garage door opens and closes minutes later.

Sunday, Feb. 1

1:47 a.m. — The doorbell camera is disconnected.

2:12 a.m. — The camera’s software detects movement. Investigators initially said there was no video available since Guthrie didn’t have an active monitoring subscription. But digital forensics experts kept working to find images in backend software that might have been lost, corrupted or inaccessible.

2:28 a.m. — Her pacemaker app disconnects from her phone.

11:56 a.m. — Her family checks on her after learning she didn't attend church. Moments later, they call 911 to report her missing.

12:15 p.m. — Investigators arrive and launch a search operation, including the use of drones and dogs.

Monday, Feb. 2

Authorities say they believe Guthrie was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will.

KOLD-TV says it received an email Monday night that appears to be a ransom note. It includes a demand for money with a deadline set for 5 p.m. Thursday and a second one for Monday, investigators say.

Tuesday, Feb. 3

A person familiar with the investigation tells The Associated Press that investigators found signs of forced entry at Nancy Guthrie’s home.

President Donald Trump tells reporters the situation is “terrible.”

Wednesday, Feb. 4

After allowing Guthrie's family back on her property earlier in the week, authorities return for a “follow-up investigation.”

That evening, Savannah Guthrie posts video on social media in which she tells her mother’s kidnapper that her family is ready to talk but wants proof she is alive.

Thursday, Feb. 5

Officials reveal that DNA testing determined that blood found on the home's front porch was Nancy Guthrie's.

The FBI offers a $50,000 reward for information about Guthrie’s whereabouts.

Friday, Feb. 6

Tucson TV station KOLD receives an email tied to the Guthrie case. The station didn't disclose it's contents and forwarded the message to federal investigators.

Investigators return to Guthrie’s neighborhood to gather more evidence.

Saturday, Feb. 7

Savannah Guthrie post another social media video aimed at her mother’s potential abductors.

“We received your message, and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her,” she said. “This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”

Monday, Feb. 9

Savannah Guthrie posts another video, saying her family is at an “hour of desperation” and believes her mom is still alive. She asks for prayers and for people to report anything they might see or hear to law enforcement.

An FBI spokesperson says the agency was not aware of ongoing communication between Nancy Guthrie’s family and the possible kidnappers, despite a deadline set for Monday evening.

Later, in a March interview, Savannah Guthrie clarifies that some of the purported ransom notes were fake, but that she believes the two that she and her siblings responded to were real.

Tuesday, Feb. 10

The FBI says it managed to recover doorbell camera video of what it describes as an armed person tampering with a camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door.

Video shows the person wearing a backpack and balaclava who tries to cover a camera near the front door with their gloved hand before ripping out a plant from the yard to block the camera’s view.

Following the FBI’s announcement, Savannah Guthrie posts images of the apparent kidnapper on Instagram. She writes: “We believe she is still alive. Bring her home,” and includes phone numbers for the FBI and sheriff.

Later, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department says a person was detained for questioning during a traffic stop south of Tucson. The man is released. He tells reporters that he made deliveries in the Tucson area.

The sheriff’s department also says it searched a location in Rio Rico, a city south of Tucson, with the help of the FBI.

Wednesday, Feb. 11

Authorities confirm that the man detained a day earlier was released but do not say what led them to stop him.

FBI agents and sheriff’s deputies knock on doors and search the desert terrain in the neighborhoods surrounding the homes of Nancy Guthrie and her oldest daughter, Annie Guthrie, whom she had visited hours before disappearing.

Thursday, Feb. 12

Investigators ask residents in a 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) radius of Nancy Guthrie’s home to share any camera footage and report any suspicious activity they noticed in the month before she disappeared.

The FBI later doubles the reward, to $100,000, for information that would lead to Nancy Guthrie or an arrest and conviction.

It also describes the person seen in the video from Guthrie’s porch the night she went missing as a male with an average build and about 5-foot, 9-inches (175 centimeters) tall. In the video, the FBI says he is wearing a black, 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack.

Sunday, March 22

Savannah Guthrie posts a family statement on Instagram urging the public to think back to Jan. 31 — when her mom was last seen — and Feb. 1, as well as the evening of Jan. 11.

“Please consult camera footage, journal notes, text messages, observations, or conversations that in retrospect may hold significance. No detail is too small,” the statement says.

The family also acknowledges that Nancy Guthrie might not be alive.

Monday, March 26

The “Today” show airs the first television interviews with Savannah Guthrie since her mothers disappearance.

“We are in agony,” she tells NBC News colleague Hoda Kotb, saying she wakes up every night thinking about what her mother went through.

She also shares new investigation details, including that her mom's home's back doors were found propped open and her phone and purse were found inside.

Monday, April 6

Savannah Guthrie returns to the “Today” show, which she has co-hosted since 2012.

“Here we go, ready or not,” Guthrie says as it opens. “Let’s do the news.”

After running through a series of headlines, Guthrie says “we are so glad that you started our week with us and it’s good to be home.” Her co-host, Craig Melvin, says “It’s good to have you back at home.”

The nation's second-leading scorer is one of more than 1,100 Division I women's basketball players who entered the portal after it opened just after midnight, according to an Associated Press review of the portal.

In January, the NCAA approved moving the portal's opening to the day after the national championship game for a 15-day window. It didn't take long for players to enter.

The portal used to be open after the second round of the NCAA Tournament for 30 days until the change this year. Last year there were 1,570 Division I women's basketball players in the portal in the entire time it was open.

President Donald Trump signed an order last week intended to stabilize college sports that included limiting athletes to one transfer, with another available once they get a four-year degree.

With revenue sharing and name, image and likeness deals, players have been able to make more money while playing college sports. Financial incentives is one of the top reasons players change schools.

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said at the NCAA Tournament's Sacramento Regional last month that money is now one of the top questions in conversations with transfers and high school players.

“How much is it going to cost us? That’s the conversation. You’ve got to lead with that,” Staley said. “Because you don’t really want to waste your time. You either are going to have enough to pay players, or you don’t. And you move on.”

Iowa State wasn't the only school hit hard by the transfer portal. Tennessee already has five of its players in the portal: Talaysia Cooper, Kaniya Boyd, Alyssa Lathan, Lauren Hurst and Jaida Civil.

Civil was part of coach Kim Caldwell’s highly ranked recruiting class for 2025. Other Lady Vols freshmen Mia and Mya Pauldo announced their intent to enter the portal last week on social media.

Miami and Georgia each have eight players in the portal. The Lady Bulldogs made a coaching change over the weekend. Stanford has four players in the portal, including star Nunu Agara.

UCLA coach Cori Close said she was going to be very active in the portal after winning the national championship Sunday. She needs to replace the six seniors who scored all the Bruins' points in the Final Four and title games.

She said, smiling: “transfer portal just got easier.”

There were nearly 900 players combined from Division II and III in the portal already as well by Monday afternoon.

Last season the portal allowed movement among many top stars, including Ta'Niya Latson from Florida State to South Carolina; Olivia Miles from Notre Dame to TCU, MiLaysia Fulwiley from South Carolina to LSU and Cotie McMahon from Ohio State to Mississippi.

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

Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and members of Parliament during a five-day trip that ended Sunday.

Díaz-Canel wrote on X Monday that upon meeting with Jayapal and Jackson, he “denounced the criminal damage caused by the #blockade, particularly the consequences of the energy embargo imposed by the current U.S. administration and its threats of even more aggressive actions.”

Díaz-Canel added: “I reiterated our government’s willingness to engage in serious and responsible bilateral dialogue and find solutions to our existing differences.”

Both the U.S. and Cuba have acknowledged recently that talks are ongoing at the highest level, but no details have been disclosed.

Jayapal told reporters she believes that recent steps taken by Cuba, such as opening the economy to certain investments by Cuban Americans living abroad; the recent announcement that more than 2,000 prisoners would be pardoned; and the arrival of an FBI team to collaborate in the investigation of a fatal shooting involving a U.S.-flagged boat, “indicate that the moment is here for us to have a real negotiation between the two countries and to reverse the failed U.S. policy of decades, a Cold War remnant that no longer serves the American people or the Cuban people.”

Cuba's government has released the pardoned prisoners who were accused of a variety of crimes, although none so far appear to be political prisoners.

In late January, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on any country that would sell or provide oil to Cuba, although he made an exception for a Russian ship that reached the island last week with 730,000 barrels of crude oil. It was the first petroleum shipment in three months to dock in Cuba, which produces only 40% of the oil it needs.

“This is cruel collective punishment — effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country — that has produced permanent damage. It must stop immediately,” Jayapal and Jackson said in a statement released Sunday.

Critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the U.S. attacked the South American country in early January and arrested its then-leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Cubans already suffering from five years of economic crisis have acutely felt the impact of the fuel shortage: national blackouts, gasoline shortages and rationing, lack of public transport, cuts in working hours, paralyzed hospitals and surgeries, and suspension of flights, among other things.

Russia has promised a second delivery of petroleum, although it’s not clear when it might arrive. Experts have said that the first shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.

Jayapal said that while such shipments are critical, they are only temporary solutions: “We need a longer, permanent solution for the Cuban people and the American people.”

Meanwhile, Jackson compared the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast to the oil blockade in Cuba, adding that the island “is the most sanctioned part of Earth.”

“Our government is fighting to keep the Strait of Hormuz open so there is a free flow of oil around the world. We want, for humanitarian reasons, a free flow of oil, fuel, and energy in our own hemisphere,” he said.

Jackson and Jayapal said they would prepare a report and continue to work on initiatives proposed by fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives to lift sanctions against Cuba to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

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

The law, criticized by free speech advocates, allows a top official at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to designate a group as a domestic or foreign terrorist organization, with the governor and three other members of the Florida Cabinet approving or rejecting the designation. Besides the governor, the Cabinet is made up of the state attorney general, the chief financial officer and the agriculture commissioner, all of whom are elected separately.

Once designated a terrorist organization, a group can be dissolved and it can no longer receive any state funding through school districts or state agencies. Universities also would have to report the status of expelled students attending on visas to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“So this will help the state of Florida protect you. It’ll help us protect your tax dollars,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Tampa. “It’ll help us protect things that should not be happening in the United States of America, but certainly shouldn’t be happening in the free state of Florida.”

DeSantis last December designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhoods as foreign terrorist organizations. A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the enforcement of DeSantis' executive order.

PEN America, a free speech advocacy group, said the new law has vague language that could restrict education programs deemed to be “promoting” terrorism and that it could target student protesters who criticize Florida officials.

The new law “could chill education at every level,” said William Johnson, PEN America's Florida director. “The implications are fraught.”

The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Monday because discussions were not being made public.

Lawrence has played his first seven NFL seasons with the Giants since they selected him with the 17th pick in the 2019 draft out of Clemson.

Now 28, he still has two years left on his contract, set to earn $20 million and $19.5 million in each of the next two seasons.

Coming off a dislocated left elbow from a game on Thanksgiving in 2024, Lawrence started all 17 games last season. He finished with a career-low 31 tackles and a half-sack for a defense that ranked 30th out of 32 teams in the league.

Lawrence has 341 tackles and 30 1/2 sacks in 109 regular-season games in the league. He made 12 more tackles in two playoff games.

The Giants began spring workouts Tuesday under new coach John Harbaugh, who along with general manager Joe Schoen hired Dennard Wilson as the team's defensive coordinator. They have the fifth pick in the upcoming draft after going 4-13.

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

New York put the four-time All-Star on the 10-day injured list Monday, a move retroactive to Saturday. The Mets said the typical timeframe for a return to play for this type of injury is about two to three weeks.

Infielder Ronny Mauricio was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse.

Soto, 27, is in the second season of a record $765 million, 15-year contract. He is hitting .355 with one homer and five RBIs in eight games after batting .263 with 43 homers, 105 RBIs, 38 stolen bases, 127 walks and a .921 OPS in his first season with the Mets.

Soto was hurt Friday night trying to run from first to third during the Mets’ 10-3 win at San Francisco.

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

After running through a series of news headlines, Guthrie said that “we are so glad that you started our week with us and it's good to be home.” Her co-host, Craig Melvin said that “it's good to have you back at home.”

She greeted longtime co-worker Al Roker with “Good morning, Sunshine,” when he noted that it was good to see her on the set. At the end of the first 25-minute portion of the show, she offered Melvin a high-five.

Emotions got the better of her before the last half hour, when she joined her colleagues in front of fans gathered at the show's Rockefeller Center studio. She fought back tears when one fan was seen with a “Welcome home Savannah” shirt, and clutched colleague Jenna Bush Hager's arm and thanked people for their support.

Guthrie says it's hard to go forward not knowing what happened

Guthrie, one of morning television's most recognizable faces, has been a “Today” host since 2012. She has acknowledged that she's a changed person and that it's hard to go forward not knowing what happened to Nancy Guthrie, who authorities believe was taken against her will from her Arizona home.

Despite an intense search involving thousands of federal and local officers and volunteers, there has been no sign of the 84-year-old mother of three since she was reported missing Feb. 1.

The “Today” show has followed the story closely for the past two months, but it wasn't mentioned during the first hour of her return on Monday. Bringing things back to normal was clearly intentional: Her return wasn't referenced during interviews with NBC's Gabe Gutierrez at the White House and military analyst Steve Warren on the show's set.

Hoda Kotb, the former anchor who had filled in for Guthrie for much of the past two months and interviewed her former colleague, wasn't on set Monday.

“Today” has seen a ratings boost over the past two months and has even eclipsed ABC's “Good Morning America” as the leader in the morning show ratings. The shows aren't the profit generators they once were for the networks, but the rivalry is still intense.

“Today” averaged 3.1 million viewers for the first three months of the year, up nearly 9% in an era most broadcast programs lose viewers. It's hard to tell how much the Guthrie story had to do with that: NBC also aired the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in February, and both events tend to help a morning show's ratings.

“Good Morning America” averaged 2.93 million viewers, up 2% over 2025 while “CBS Mornings” plunged 17% to 1.76 million, according to the Nielsen company.

As part of a video message released by her New York church on Easter Sunday, Guthrie spoke about feeling “moments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment.” But she said the resurrection is not fully celebrated “if we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain, and yes, death.”

In announcing her return to NBC's flagship morning show, Guthrie said she was uncertain whether she'll feel like she still belongs.

“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness,” she said just over a week ago on “Today” during her first interview since the disappearance. “I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back because it’s my family.”

She didn't anticipate faking her way through the show, which is normally light-hearted with a mix of serious, breaking news.

Guthrie's mom had made occasional visits to show's set

There had been a great deal of speculation about whether she would return.

“I want to smile, and when I do it will be real,” she told Hoda Kotb, who came back to “Today” to fill in while Guthrie focused on the search. “Being there is joyful, and when it's not I'll say so.”

Nancy Guthrie made occasional appearances on “Today” over the years, once taking part in a cooking demonstration and surprising her daughter on the set. When Savannah Guthrie returned to her hometown of Tucson in 2025 for a segment recorded for the show, the two visited one of their favorite restaurants and talked about their love of Arizona.

The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of their mother.

Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will after finding blood near the doorstep of her home in the foothills outside Tucson. The FBI later released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night. Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders in the first weeks after she vanished.

But attention has faded from an investigation that was declared to be a top priority for the FBI and local authorities. Investigators have not released new evidence in weeks and say the number of tips has slowed. The FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department both said late last week that they had no updates.

Early on, some media outlets reported receiving ransom messages tied to the case. Guthrie said she and her siblings responded to two that they believed were real and offered to pay.

Guthrie said her celebrity status might be the reason her mother was taken, but said that possibility was “too much to bear.”

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Associated Press correspondents John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.

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Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said in an interview with The Associated Press that her general preference is for the Fed keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged “for quite some time."

And she also said the Fed might have to cut its rate if higher gas prices caused the economy to slow and unemployment to rise. But if inflation remained elevated, a rate hike could be needed, she said.

“I can foresee scenarios where we would need to reduce rates ... if the labor market deteriorates significantly,” Hammack said. "Or I could see where we might need to raise rates if inflation stays persistently above our target.”

Hammack's comments suggest a growing concern among at least some policymakers that inflation, which was elevated before the Iran war, may require rate hikes to tame further. Rate increases by the Fed would be a sharp shift from late last year, when the central bank cut its key rate three times. Rate hikes could lift borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, including for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards.

Other Fed officials have recently opened the door to rate hikes, including Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Fed. And minutes of the Fed's meeting in late January said that several of the 19 officials on the rate-setting committee supported altering the post-meeting statement to reflect the possibility of “upward adjustments” to rates.

A rate hike would almost certainly prompt President Donald Trump to lash out at the Fed, which he has harshly criticized for not cutting rates further. He has called for the central bank's key rate to be lowered to 1%, down from its current level of about 3.6%.

The government will update two inflation measures this week, though only one will likely reflect the impact of the jump in gas prices since the Iran war began Feb. 28. Gas prices averaged $4.12 a gallon nationwide Monday, according to AAA, up 80 cents from a month earlier.

On Friday, the government will issue the March inflation report, providing a first read on the impact of higher gas and energy prices. Economists forecast that annual inflation will worsen significantly, jumping to 3.1% from 2.4% in February, according to a survey by data provider FactSet. On a monthly basis, they expect consumer prices rose 0.8% in March from February, which would be the biggest increase in almost four years.

The Commerce Department will report the Fed's preferred inflation gauge for February on Thursday, though that won't incorporate any impact from the Iran conflict.

Hammack said that the Cleveland Fed's own estimates show inflation could reach 3.5% in April, which would be the highest since 2024. Inflation spiked to 9.1% in June 2022 before slowly declining.

“Inflation has been running above our target for more than five years now,” Hammack said, and a further increase would mean it is “moving in the wrong direction, away from our 2% objective.”

The Federal Reserve is required by Congress to seek low inflation and maximum employment, and higher gas prices could threaten both those mandates, creating a challenging situation for Fed officials.

Consumers may react to higher gas prices by cutting back on their spending elsewhere in the economy, Hammack said, which could lead to weaker growth and layoffs, which the Fed would need to respond to with rate cuts.

How the war impacts the economy will depend on how long it lasts and how high it lifts gas prices and other costs, Hammack said. Now in its sixth week, the conflict has already lasted longer than she expected when the Fed last met March 17-18, Hammack said.

Hammack said rising gas prices stemming from the Iran war are “the No. 1 thing” she hears about from people in her district, which covers Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

“We know that causes a lot of pain personally, as it eats up a bigger and bigger share of people’s paychecks. So it’s important for us to stay focused on it,” she added.

Sunshine Midweek

Sunshine returns tomorrow, but even cooler with highs around 40. Seasonal low 50s return on Wednesday as conditions remain dry.

Rainy End to the Workweek

The next chance for rain will be Thursday into Friday with highs climbing back in the 60s.

For the Wolverines to go down as one of college basketball's best ever, they'll have to do it one more time by taking down a UConn program seeking its third national title in four seasons.

The teams meet Monday night in the NCAA championship game, bringing down the curtain on a March Madness full of surprises and fun — and highlighted by two finalists that have been shooting for history in their own distinct ways.

At Michigan, a roster freshly constructed out of last year's transfer portal, has become the first team to score 90-plus points in five straight tournament games in the same season. On the other end, 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara leads a defense that amassed eight or more blocks in the first four games of the tournament — the first time that's happened since blocks became an official stat in the 1980s.

The Wolverines (36-3) had only three swats against Arizona, but that was a 91-73 win in a game that was supposed to be the best of the tournament but turned into something else. Michigan is trying to become the fifth team to win six tournament games by a dozen or more. The last two: the UConn title teams in 2023 and '24.

“We have a team that we think is elite,” coach Dusty May said. “But we also know that means nothing. You still have to do all the things that got you to this point, and you have to weather storms. You have to handle success.”

No program has done that better over the past four years than UConn (34-5) — a feat made more impressive by the landscape it must navigate.

Coach Dan Hurley has used the transfer portal in a more targeted way than Michigan — for instance, he nabbed Tarris Reed Jr. from the Wolverines but also has a UConn lifer in Alex Karaban — to keep the program near the top in an era of quick change.

“We want to have a lot of continuity,” Hurley said. “Our culture is unique. It’s specific. It takes a certain type of player to play for me.”

UConn comes into the game as a 6 1/2-point underdog, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, the third straight game the oddsmakers have picked the Huskies to lose. Bad bet, so far. Braylon Mullins produced the moment of the tournament so far with his 3-pointer to cap UConn's 19-point comeback against Duke to get the Huskies to the Final Four.

If they defy the odds again, they'll become the first program to win three titles in four years since the UCLA dynasty of the 1960s and '70s.

“The last thing we’re thinking about now, as we prepare for one of these teams, is dynasty,” Hurley said after the Illinois win. “We’re gonna go watch this one and go through the preparation and focus on just ... trying to — whoever we play — try to win the game.”

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

Dr. Solomon Cogan, owner and clinic director of The Nerve & Disc Institute, has launched a program called “Pain Free 4 Free,” inviting patients living with chronic back, neck or knee pain to submit their stories online for a chance to win a complete treatment program - from start to finish - with no out-of-pocket expense.

“We want to hear your pain story, and we’re going to choose 5 people to have an entire treatment program from start to finish,” using the clinic’s signature IntraDiscNutrosis therapy, Cogan said. The procedure is used to treat herniated discs, bulging discs, degenerative disc disease, stenosis and knee conditions - all without surgery.

Cogan’s motivation is deeply personal. As a high school wrestler, he was thrown and felt what he described as lightning bolts shoot down both legs, leaving him temporarily paralyzed. Eleven doctors told him he was done for the season. A twelfth told him, “I’ll have you ready in 2 weeks.” Two weeks later, Cogan was the 112-pound freestyle state champion.

That experience shaped everything that followed. By 35, years of competitive wrestling, collegiate judo and skiing had left his back so deteriorated that three surgeons recommended spinal fusion. He refused - and healed himself instead using a multidisciplinary, high-tech approach modeled on professional athlete care. The lesson stuck.

“I decided I was going to treat my regular patients like professional athletes, because it’s the right thing to do.”

Two years ago, he went off a 20-foot cliff and blew out another disc. With his clinic’s own treatment, he was skiing again by Thanksgiving.

The “Pain Free 4 Free” initiative, Cogan said, grew out of gratitude.

“I wanted to give back. So, we came up with a program called Pain Free 4 Free.”

For Cogan, the work is more than a career. “It is absolutely a calling,” he said. “I do what I do because I love it.”

To watch the segment, click on the video above.

To enter, visit nervediscinstitute.com/pain-free-4-free/ or call 586-416-3472. The contest runs through April 30th.

Atlanta also receives the right to swap second-round picks with Chicago in 2028.

The 6-foot-3 Reese averaged 14.1 points and 12.9 rebounds in her two seasons with Chicago, earning All-Star honors each year while finishing as the runner-up for rookie of the year in 2024.

"Angel is a dynamic talent and a perfect fit for what we are building in Atlanta,” general manager Dan Padover said in a statement released by the Dream. “She has already proven herself as one of the most impactful players in the league, and her competitiveness, production and drive to win align seamlessly with our vision. This is an exciting moment for our organization and our fans.”

Reese, 23, was the No. 7 overall pick by Chicago in the 2024 WNBA draft after leading LSU to the 2023 national championship.

The trade comes after Reese expressed frustrations late in last season's 10-34 finish for the Sky. She told the Chicago Tribune that she “might have to move in a different direction and do what’s best for me” if the team didn't improve its outlook. She later apologized to the team for the comments.

“I’m not settling for the same ... we did this year,” Reese told the newspaper. “We have to get good players. We have to get great players. That’s a non-negotiable for me. I’m willing and wanting to play with the best. And however I can help to get the best here, that’s what I’m going to do this offseason.

“So it’s going to be very, very important this offseason to make sure we attract the best of the best because we can’t settle for what we have this year.”

The Sky suspended Reese for half of a game for comments deemed “detrimental to the team.” The team listed her as dealing with a back injury for its final three games, raising speculation about her long-term future in Chicago.

"This trade is designed to achieve roster balance and represents a great opportunity for all parties,” Chicago general manager Jeff Pagliocca said in a statement released by the Sky.

“Angel has achieved many record-breaking milestones in her first two years in the WNBA and has been a competitive force for the Sky. We are thankful for her many important contributions to this league and this game, and we know she will continue to have a big impact on the court and beyond. We wish Angel all the best in her next chapter.”

Reese averaged 14.7 points last season and led the WNBA with 12.6 rebounds per game. She joins an Atlanta roster that boasts other established stars and flourished under the leadership of coach Karl Smesko.

Allisha Gray finished fourth in the MVP voting last season. Rhyne Howard became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach 300 career 3-pointers. Naz Hillmon was named Sixth Player of the Year and Brionna Jones was an All-Star.

“I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity to join the Atlanta Dream organization,” Reese said. “I’m focused on continuing to grow my game, competing at the highest level, connecting with the fans, and giving everything I’ve got to the Dream.”

Atlanta set a franchise record with 30 wins in 2025. Smesko said Reese will add elite skills.

“Angel’s ability to impact the game on both ends of the floor is elite,” Smesko said. “Her energy, toughness and instincts will thrive in our system, and we’re excited to integrate her into the style of play we are constructing here in Atlanta.”

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

The sun is shining more, the days are getting longer, and suddenly we’re all ready to ditch the indoors, get outside, and soak up every second of that spring energy.

Spring fever was the topic of discussion during What’s The Buzz on “Live In The D” Monday. Watch the video above to see the conversation.

Prodded by the Trump administration, the justices threw out an appellate ruling upholding Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

The move frees a trial judge to act on the Republican administration’s pending request to dismiss Bannon’s conviction and indictment “in the interests of justice.”

The dismissal would be largely symbolic. Bannon served a four-month prison term after a jury convicted him of contempt of Congress in 2022. A federal appeals court in Washington had upheld the conviction.

The justices also issued a similar order in the case of former Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who was pardoned by Trump last year.

Sittenfeld had served 16 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him of bribery and attempted extortion in 2022. The high court order allows a lower court to consider dismissing his indictment.

The Justice Department brought the case against Bannon during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, but it changed course after Trump took office again last year.

Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. But the House panel and the Justice Department contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the Capitol riot.

Bannon separately has pleaded guilty in a New York state court to defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail time. That conviction is unaffected by the Supreme Court action.

Dimon described inflation as the potential “skunk at the party” this year, cautioning that turmoil in oil and commodity markets could ripple through the economy, affecting everything from gasoline prices to manufacturing costs. He also warned that sustained inflation could force the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates higher for longer, posing risks to the broader economy and financial system.

“Given our complex global supply chains, countries are experiencing disruptions in shipbuilding, food and farming, among others,” Dimon wrote. “The outcome of current geopolitical events may very well be the defining factor in how the future global economic order unfolds — then again, it may not.”

Dimon has long used his annual letters to weigh in on major economic and policy issues. Past letters have focused on topics such as the COVID-19 pandemic, political upheaval in the United States, the global financial crisis and trade tensions.

Despite the risks, Dimon struck a generally optimistic tone.

“Despite the unsettling landscape, the U.S. economy continues to be resilient, with consumers still earning and spending (though with some recent weakening) and businesses still healthy,” he wrote.

While acknowledging the geopolitical context of the conflict, Dimon pointed to broader risks tied to instability in the region.

“We should not turn a blind eye to the role the current regime in Iran has played in fostering terrorism and killing thousands of people, including Americans and many of its own citizens, over many years,” he wrote.

On April 5, just before 9 p.m., police responded to a home on Pond Village Drive, near Eureka and Inkster roads, for a report of a shooting. There, officers found a person with a gunshot wound to the chest. The person was taken to a local hospital and is listed in stable condition.

Taylor police said, after further investigation, they identified Joshua Malik Obie, 25, as a person of interest.

Obie allegedly left the area before police arrived. Police said he is considered armed and dangerous.

Obie is 5′11″ tall and is known to travel to Detroit.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Taylor Police Department at (734) 287-6611.

“Your home should be a reflection of who you are,” Petroskey said during an appearance on Live in the D. He describes the company’s guiding philosophy as “combining the principles of interior design with a philosophy of celebrating self-expression.”

That philosophy plays out on the showroom floor, where Gorman’s designers take an intimate approach with each customer. “The designers connect with their clients to learn how they live, the way that they live, and the way they want to express themselves in their homes,” Petroskey said.

One of the most distinctive features of the Novi showroom is its designer rooms - curated spaces where each staff designer gets free rein. “We allow each designer to create their own room in the store,” Petroskey said.

The latest addition, unveiled just weeks ago, is a Stickley-furnished “lodge retreat” designed by Scott Hastings. “Very earthy and welcoming and warm,” Petroskey said, evoking “kind of a getaway.” Shoppers can purchase the room exactly as displayed or work with a designer to customize it to their taste.

The showroom spans a broad spectrum of aesthetics. “Pretty much whatever style you want, from traditional, very traditional, to very contemporary - we can help you create whatever feel you want using whatever style you want,” Petroskey said.

Shoppers looking for a deal have a reason to act soon. Gorman’s is running its Italian leather sale starting April 16th, with 40 to 50% off all Italian leather.

Customers can connect with Gorman’s designers at gormans.com/designers or find a location at gormans.com.

To watch the segment, click on the video above.

But on the 12-hour drive south to the capital, Tehran, daily life continued, with only occasional signs of the ongoing war, including a Shiite religious center that officials say was damaged by a recent airstrike.

Associated Press reporters made the journey on Saturday after crossing into Iran from Turkey. They gained a glimpse of the country at the center of a regional war that has jolted the world economy and shows no sign of ending five weeks after Khamenei was killed in the opening U.S. and Israeli salvo.

The Associated Press has been granted permission by the Iranian government to send an additional team into the country for a brief reporting trip. AP already operates in Iran. The visiting team must be accompanied by a media assistant from a government-affiliated company. AP retains full editorial control of its content.

A religious center damaged by an airstrike

The first major sign of the war's destruction came in the northwestern city of Zanjan, about six hours' drive from the border.

Iranian officials say an airstrike hit a religious community center, known as a husseiniyah, killing two people and destroying a clinic and a library. Other parts of the compound, some of which is centuries old, suffered damage, including its golden dome.

When asked about the strike, the Israeli military said it had hit “a military headquarters,” and that it tries to avoid harming civilian facilities, without elaborating.

“It has hurt me a lot and distressed me a lot,” said Somayeh Shojaei, a local resident who has attended religious and cultural events at the center. “With these airstrikes, (the U.S. and Israel) are showing their malicious intent to the whole world,” she said.

The strike killed the library's caretaker and a volunteer with the Iranian Red Crescent first responders, according to Jaafar Mohammadi, the provincial director of cultural and Islamic guidance.

He said poor people had received free treatment at the clinic and students had made use of the library that housed more than 35,000 books, including antique manuscripts.

He said he did not know why the complex was targeted.

“Iran wanted to negotiate for peace with (U.S. President Donald) Trump, but Trump responded with war,” Mohammadi said. “He started the war, but we will definitely be the victorious side.”

Life goes on in much of Iran despite fear and uncertainty

The U.S. and Israel have carried out thousands of strikes across the country, and Trump has threatened to bomb Iran “ back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” Over the weekend, he reiterated a Monday deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas.

Iran's surviving leaders have remained defiant and in control, rejecting what they say are unreasonable U.S. peace proposals. Israel has given no indication it plans to let up on its strikes, and has called on Iranians to overthrow their leaders.

Even as the war generates global turmoil — and fear and anxiety within Iran — daily life goes on.

In city after city on the road to Tehran, AP reporters saw normal traffic, businesses open and people walking the streets. A restaurant served Iranian delicacies like grilled lamb and rice, barley soup and saffron drinks as R.E.M.'s “Losing my religion” played on loudspeakers.

Many women could be seen going about their day without wearing the theocracy's mandatory head covering, the enforcement of which has eased in recent years.

The team passed through two checkpoints on the approach to Tehran without being stopped.

Destroyed government buildings and police stations in Tehran

The city was eerily quiet after midnight. There had been heavy airstrikes on the mountains overlooking the capital the previous night.

Tehran is on the front lines, having seen wave after wave of strikes that the U.S. and Israel say are aimed at the military and internal security forces. Authorities in Iran say over 1,900 people have been killed. It's unclear how many were soldiers or civilians.

The AP reporters saw several government buildings and police stations that had been destroyed. They passed a number of checkpoints operated by plainclothes Basij, an internal security force, and uniformed members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

They were stopped once and asked to open the car and show press cards before being waved onward.

Fuel is heavily subsidized, such that a gallon (4 liters) of gasoline costs around 15 U.S. cents. But people are only allowed to purchase around 5 gallons (20 liters) at a time. There were no signs of gas lines.

Back in Zanjan, Mohamoud Maasoumi, a retired soldier, said the conflict with the U.S. — “the world's arrogance” — goes back to a 1953 CIA-backed coup that is seared into the minds of many Iranians. He expressed hope that Iran's leaders would defend the country.

“The enemy sees that we are not ever succumbing,” he said.

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Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed.

The crash happened on northbound I-75, just south of Sigler Road, in Berlin Township, on April 6 at around 5 a.m.

According to investigators, a 39-year-old Detroit man was driving a Honda on the right lane of northbound I-75 and came to a complete stop. Authorities said it’s not clear why the Detroit man stopped on the freeway.

The Honda was then struck from behind by a semi-truck, forcing it to leave the freeway to the east and come to a rest facing southwest on the shoulder of I-75. The semi-truck jackknifed, leaving the freeway, then came to rest against the median guardrail.

According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the 39-year-old Detroit man was not wearing a seatbelt, and the Honda’s airbags did not deploy. The driver of the semi-truck, a 49-year-old from Ohio, was wearing his seatbelt, and the semi-truck was not equipped with an airbag system.

The Detroit man was taken to a local hospital and is in critical condition. The Ohio man was also taken to a local hospital and is in serious condition.

The sheriff’s office said alcohol was not a factor in the crash.

According to police, a man agreed to meet the suspect in the 15900 block of E Warren just before 4 p.m. on April 2 to sell his cellphone in the parking lot.

Police said the suspect approached the man and was handed the cellphone before telling the man he had a gun and then leaving the area in a black car.

Detroit police said the suspect is described as a young man in his late teens or early 20s, wearing a black jacket with a hood, black pants, white socks and black shoes.

Anyone who recognizes the suspect or has information regarding the crime is asked to call the Detroit Police Department’s 5th precinct at (313) 596-5540, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-Speak Up, or DetroitRewards.tv.

The Bruins were a unanimous choice from the 31-member national media panel, ending the season as the top choice for the first time in school history. Their first No. 1 ranking came after they also beat South Carolina in November 2024.

The Gamecocks were second behind the Bruins with Final Four participants UConn and Texas third and fourth, respectively. The Huskies, who have finished in the top 10 of the final poll for 33 straight years, had been the No. 1 team all season until Monday. They had been unbeaten until a loss to South Carolina on Friday.

No. 5 Duke, No. 6 TCU and No. 7 Michigan, which all reached the Elite Eight, followed the Longhorns. LSU was eighth and Notre Dame ninth. The Fighting Irish made the biggest leap in the poll, climbing 13 spots after reaching the regional final with an upset of Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16.. The Commodores were 10th.

Celebrating history

The Bruins are one of only three teams that were in both the first women’s basketball poll 50 years ago and the final Top 25 this season. Maryland and Baylor are the other two. The Terrapins ended the season ranked 20th and the Bears were 23rd.

Ranked Cavaliers

No. 19 Virginia earned its first ranking since 2011 after reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time in 26 years. They also became the first team that played in the First Four to reach the regional semifinals.

Even with their success, the Cavaliers made a coaching change over the weekend, firing Amaka Agugua-Hamilton. The Cavaliers had been a mainstay in the poll until dropping out on Nov. 10, 2011.

Conference supremecy

The SEC and the Big Ten each had eight teams in the final Top 25 of the season. The ACC had five and The Big 12 three. The Big East had one.

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Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball

You might be a fighter against book bans, like Valerie Byrd Fort at the University of South Carolina; or a mentor for graduate students researching biomedicine, like Joanne Doucette at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, or transform a dark basement into a gathering space for families, like Mary Anne Russo at the Hubbard Public Library in Ohio.

They are among 10 recipients of the I Love My Librarian Award, which comes with a $5,000 cash prize and a $750 stipend for the American Library Association's annual convention, held this year in Chicago from June 25-29. The winners were selected from a pool of more than 1,300 submissions by library patrons who explain how a “librarian made a difference in your life or gone above and beyond to serve your community.”

“We recognize the remarkable contributions these 10 librarians make for our communities, for learning, for our health and for the public good,” ALA President Sam Helmick said in a statement Monday. “These librarians are people who power possibility in our neighborhoods, our schools, and our places of higher learning. Their leadership, creativity, and innovation strengthen the communities they serve, and we are proud to honor them.”

Other winners include Tracy Fitzmaurice from Jackson County, North Carolina, praised by the ALA as a “transformative leader for rural libraries”; Deb Sica of the Alameda County Library, in Fremont, California, a champion of diversity and intellectual freedom; Zachary Stier, who has worked for years on literacy projects at the Ericson Public Library, in Boone, Iowa; and Christine Szeluga of New Jersey's Cranford High School, where she secured grants for a podcast studio and history archive.

Also cited were Mahasin Ameen, whose initiatives at Indiana University cover everything from health literacy to information literacy; Mia Gittlen, who transformed the shuttered library at California's Milpitas High School; and Jenny Cox of South Carolina's Georgetown Middle School who worked to boost funding for thousands of new books.

The awards, established in 2008, are presented by the ALA, the New York Public Library and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

According to an end of service announcement published on the tech giant's U.S. support website, Samsung Messages will be discontinued in July. Impacted owners of Samsung smartphones and other gadgets are being asked to switch to Google Messages in the meantime, “to maintain a consistent messaging experience on Android.”

All Samsung Galaxy phones run on Google's Android operating system. To switch to Google Messages, Samsung's website gives users instructions to download the app from the Play Store, if not already on their phone, and set it as the default. Some people may also receive an in-app notification to guide them through the process.

Samsung says switching to Google Messages will give users access to updates like the latest artificial intelligence features from Google's Gemini — which includes an experimental feature called “Remix” to generate images during conversations and AI-powered reply suggestions — and the ability to share higher quality photos between Android and Apple iOS devices through RCS-enabled messages.

Users of older Android operating systems (dating back to Android 11 or older) will not be impacted by the end of Samsung Messages, the company noted. To check what Android OS you have on a Samsung device, open the settings app, click on “software information” and scroll to “Android version.”

Meanwhile, owners of Samsung's latest Galaxy 26 lineup and other newer phones cannot download the Samsung Messages app from the Galaxy Store today.

All devices will no longer be able to download Samsung Messages after it's officially discontinued in July, the company noted. Samsung said users can check their app for the exact date for when service will go offline.

Beyond the U.S., Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for further information about whether its guidance for Samsung Messages was the same globally.

According to police, a trooper was sitting in her fully-marked patrol car with emergency lights and spot lights activated on westbound I-94 near Merriman on April 6, just after 1 a.m., when a 32-year-old driving a Lincoln lost control, crashed into the passenger side door of the patrol car, spun out and crashed into two other cars before stopping in the middle lanes of the freeway.

The trooper had to be removed from the patrol car by Romulus fire crews and was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The 32-year-old driver of the Lincoln was taken to a local hospital for a blood draw and was lodged. Police said the driver showed signs of intoxication.

There were no other injuries reported, police said. The investigation is ongoing.

“We were extremely lucky that [there] were only minor injuries in this preventable crash,” said F/ Lt. Mike Shaw. “This crash serves as a reminder of two things. One, that if you see emergency vehicles on the side of the road to slow down and move over a lane. And two, there is never a reason to drive impaired. Ever.”

Vinícius spoke Monday, less than a week after Yamal criticized the chants by Spanish fans in Spain’s friendly against Egypt last Tuesday. Yamal, who is Muslim, said the chants were disrespectful and intolerable.

Vinícius, a Brazil international, has been often subjected to racist taunts while playing in Europe and is vocal about the fight against racism. He said “it's always complicated” to talk about the subject but “these things happen a lot.”

“Hopefully we can continue with this fight,” he said. “It's important that Lamine speaks about it. It could help others. We are famous, we have money, we can balance these things better, but the poor people and the Blacks who are everywhere, they surely struggle more than we do. So we have to stick together, those who have a stronger voice, the players …”

In a Champions League match last month in Lisbon, Vinícius accused Benfica player Gianluca Prestianni of calling him a monkey after the Brazil forward celebrated in front of the home fans when he scored for Madrid. Benfica fans insulted Vinícius from the stands.

“I'm not saying that Spain or Germany or Portugal are racist countries, but there are racists in these countries, and in Brazil and other countries as well,” Vinícius said. “But if we keep fighting together, I think future players and people in general won't have to go through this again.”

Vinícius spoke on the eve of the first leg between Madrid and Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

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

The nighttime attack on Odesa heavily damaged an apartment block, killing the women and a 2-year-old child, officials said. Rescuers working under floodlights pulled four people from the rubble.

Eleven people were hospitalized, including a pregnant woman and two children — the youngest less than a year old, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

Russia has pounded civilian areas of Ukraine since it invaded its neighbor just over four years ago, killing more than 15,000 people, according to the United Nations.

Over the past week, Russia has launched at Ukraine more than 2,800 attack drones, nearly 1,350 powerful glide bombs and more than 40 missiles of various types, according to Zelenskyy.

In the southern city of Kherson, Russian shelling killed an elderly woman and three other women, 86, 79 and 44, were hospitalized, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration. The injured women sustained shrapnel wounds, concussion, blast injuries and head trauma, he said.

Seven people were injured by Russian drones and shelling in the southern city of Nikopol, leaving a 62-year-old in critical condition as the strikes damaged a multistory building and a pharmacy.

Drones also hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, injuring three people, according to regional military administration head Oleh Sinehubov.

Russia has taken aim at Ukraine’s power grid, and overnight barrages hit energy infrastructure in Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, Zelenskyy said.

More than 300,000 households were without electricity in northern Chernihiv after distribution facilities were damaged in the attacks, according to the regional power utility.

Zelenskyy expressed concern in a weekend interview with The Associated Press that the war in the Middle East is draining stockpiles of weapons that Ukraine needs to defend itself, especially American-made Patriot air defense systems that can stop missiles.

Zelenskyy said Monday that the country’s partners “need to strengthen air defense together so that the interception rate of drones and missiles continues to increase.”

With U.S.-led peace efforts stalled, Zelenskyy added: “Russia has no intention of stopping” its invasion.

Ukraine has fought back by developing its own long-range drones, which now reach targets some 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) inside Russia.

Ukraine has used them recently to hammer Russian oil facilities as Moscow looks to boost its exports after the Trump administration gave it a temporary waiver from sanctions to ease supply constraints. Kyiv officials complain that Russia will use the additional revenue on new weapons to hit Ukraine harder.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian drones struck the Novorossiysk oil terminal, one of Russia’s largest Black Sea ports, overnight. The attack damaged a pipeline, loading and unloading berths, and set fire to four tanks holding petroleum products.

The strike damaged assets belonging to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium run by U.S. and Kazakhstani companies, it said.

Eight people, including two children, were injured in the Novorossiysk attack that damaged six apartment buildings and two private houses, according to Krasnodar Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev.

Last week, Ukraine’s drones struck oil facilities in the Gulf of Finland, in northwest Russia.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 50 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Ukraine’s armed forces claimed they hit a Russian Black Sea frigate, the Admiral Makarov, and a drilling rig.

Russian officials did not immediately comment on the claim.

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

Detroit will be the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, and 10 other teams know their seasons will come to an end on Sunday. Everything else remains a guessing game.

Some of that guesswork isn't really much of a mystery.

— Oklahoma City and San Antonio will almost certainly be No. 1 and No. 2 in the Western Conference, in that order.

— Boston will probably be No. 2 in the East, with New York No. 3.

— Denver looks like it has the inside track to be No. 3 in the West, especially with the Los Angeles Lakers now missing Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves because of injuries.

— Golden State will be in the 9 vs. 10 play-in game, almost certainly as the road team.

— Minnesota gets the No. 6 seed in the West in nearly every possible remaining scenario, with Phoenix No. 7.

This brings us to the rest of the East, and in an annual tradition of sorts, it's a mess.

Orlando and Miami seem like they're headed to the play-in tournament, but there are scenarios where either club could finish in the top six and earn a guaranteed playoff berth on Sunday. In fact, there are paths — highly, highly improbable paths in some cases, but paths nonetheless — for Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami to all finish in the No. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 spots when the regular season ends.

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 Philadelphia 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 Monday, the four teams headed there are Toronto, 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.

Sunday recap

— Celtics 115, Raptors 101: It's looking very much like Boston will end with the No. 2 seed.

— Nets 121, Wizards 115: Brooklyn made six more 3s than Washington, won by six points.

— Suns 120, Bulls 110: Devin Booker scored 30, Phoenix pulled away in the fourth quarter.

— Bucks 131, Grizzlies 115: Memphis' Rayan Rupert 31st player with triple-double this season.

— Cavaliers 117, Pacers 108: Donovan Mitchell scores 38, Cleveland pulls away in the fourth.

— Hornets 122, Timberwolves 108: Charlotte is very much in the race to avoid East play-in.

— Magic 112, Pelicans 108: Orlando's 7th win after trailing by 15, tied for most in NBA (Spurs).

— Thunder 146, Jazz 111: OKC was 25.5-point favorite, top odds in at least a decade, and covered.

— Mavericks 134, Lakers 128, OT: Cooper Flagg, at 19, scored 45. LeBron James, at 41, scored 30.

— Clippers 138, Kings 109: Sacramento's DeMar DeRozan moved into 16th on all-time point list.

— Rockets 117, Warriors 116: Stephen Curry returned, scored 29, nearly won game at the buzzer.

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 — featuring Michigan — 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.

Tuesday's schedule

— Timberwolves at Pacers: Wolves still vying to clinch 6 seed, then focus on health before Round 1.

— Heat at Raptors: Miami plays at Toronto twice in a three-day span, huge stakes for both teams.

— Hornets at Celtics: Probably game of the night, which nobody would have predicted in October.

— Kings at Warriors: This week is basically preseason for Golden State and its play-in tune-up plan.

— Thunder at Lakers: Oklahoma City on verge of getting No. 1 overall seed for second straight year.

— Mavericks at Clippers: Dallas' Cooper Flagg’s final-week rookie of the year push tour continues.

— Rockets at Suns: Kevin Durant goes back to Phoenix, one of his former stomping grounds.

— Bulls at Wizards: All about lottery odds.

— Bucks at Nets: All about lottery odds.

— Jazz at Pelicans: For Utah, all about lottery odds. (New Orleans’ pick should convey to Atlanta.)

National TV schedule

Monday on Peacock and NBCSN: New York-Atlanta.

Tuesday on NBC and Peacock: Charlotte-Boston, Houston-Phoenix.

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. The Los Angeles Lakers were +2500 before Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves got hurt; they're +50000 now.

Key dates

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

— Sunday: 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

The NBA's single-season total points record is set to fall Sunday, the final day of the season. The league's teams are on pace to score a combined 284,300 points or so this season — which would top the record of 282,127 set last season. Teams are averaging 115.6 points per game this season, and that would be the biggest per-game number since 1969-70 (116.7).

Stats of the day

— The Clippers shot 53% from the field, 49% from 3-point range and 95% from the foul line Sunday. It was the 1,000th time NBA regular-season history that a team had 50-40-90 shooting splits in a win.

— Cooper Flagg, 19, scored 45 points and LeBron James, 41, scored 30 points in Dallas’ OT win over the Lakers on Sunday. It was the first time in NBA history that a teen and a 40-something both reached 30 points in the same game.

___

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

That all changed when he was 13. A family friend and babysitter came over to his house in Newton, Massachusetts and handed him a binder filled with accessible instructions for building a Middle Eastern palace. The instructions, written in braille, allowed him to complete the set without having to rely on the brightly colored pictures that typically come with Lego sets.

“This was the first time that I was able to build a Lego set on my own,” Shifrin said at his home, surrounded by sets he has built including a Statue of Liberty figurine and NASA's Apollo Saturn V rocket. “It was truly an amazing experience because I was completely in control of the whole building process. I knew where the pieces went and I was able to learn about the world around me.”

Inspired to reach more blind Lego builders

After Shifrin's babysitter died, he wanted to honor her memory. So he set about fine-tuning the instructions the two had posted online to reach other blind builders.

Three years ago, Shifrin launched Bricks for the Blind. The 28-year-old now works with a team of 30 sighted writers and blind testers. His website makes the downloadable instructions available for free to anyone who's blind or visually impaired. They can either print the step-by-step instructions in braille, use braille computers or turn to screen readers, which are software applications that convert the text into speech.

The instructions allow a blind person to build on their own, but Shifrin's website also says a sighted person might be needed to sort Lego bricks. Otherwise, the blind builder could turn to one of several apps that identify bricks using artificial intelligence.

So far, the nonprofit has created instructions for more than 540 Lego sets, ranging from a 100-piece car to a 4,000-piece bridge. About 3,000 builders have used their instructions across the United States and as far away as Australia.

Shifrin also approached the Denmark-based Lego Group in 2017 about making their products more accessible, which inspired the company to create audio and braille instructions for a growing number of Lego sets. That launched in 2019.

Separately, the company also introduced Lego Braille Bricks in 2020, which are available in French, English and Spanish, and feature studs on the bricks that correspond to letters, numbers and symbols. It also has introduced several characters in their sets with vision loss.

Blind parents, children and their families find connection

Shifrin, who also is an actor, composer and opera singer, said he has gotten messages from many people who couldn't build Lego until now.

He's heard from grandparents who are blind and say they're now able to build with their grandkids. “We couldn’t build with our kids. They didn’t want our help, but now we can teach our grandkids about Lego,’” Shifrin said. “Or blind parents who say, ‘My kids are sighted, they don’t want my help, but it’s amazing to really understand what all this hype about Lego is about because now I can build on my own

Daniel Millan, who lost his sight in 2024, turned to Bricks for the Blind after a tumor crushed his optic nerves. The 31-year-old master's student from San Diego, who's studying to be an assisted technology instructor, first completed a Lego ornament set. Then on his anniversary, he completed a Lego rose set with his wife.

“Being able to do it independently, it’s freedom,” he said, adding that his sudden vision loss left him wondering about what he wouldn't be able to do again.

But after building Lego sets, he soon learned that “It’s not about what I can’t do anymore. It’s more about what I can do,” he said.

Building with their children

For Natalie Charbonneau, who is blind, the instructions have allowed her to complete sets without relying on her sighted husband. It's also allowed her to have fun with her 5-year-old son — and build many fire trucks and other vehicles.

“If he has questions, I have the ability to check his work or to follow along instead of saying, ’You have to wait for your dad' or ‘You have to ask your dad.’ It’s something that I can now do with him as well, which is empowering,” she said. Charbonneau, a tester for Bricks for the Blind, is a doctoral student who lives in Bellingham, Washington.

Teri Turgeon, the education director for community programs at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts — where Shifrin went as a baby — said the accessible instructions allow blind children to experience the same pleasure as their sighted peers. It also helps them visualize a wider world and develop “fine motor and tactile skills.”

“He’s created a space around innovation and accessibility that was otherwise not there prior and he’s done so with a toy that children play with every day,” she said.

In the founder's Lego room

Back at his house, Shifrin helped fellow blind builder Minh Ha to build a go-kart. Ha grabbed Lego bricks and elements from two bowls and began to first put together a driver figurine.

“It’s just legs, torso, head, helmet. You’ve built this before. It’s a piece of cake. I believe in you,” Shifrin told her.

“Awesome,” she said with a smile. “All right, I’m gonna put the helmet on the head. And then … put the legs on the body.”

She reflected on a journey that began two years ago when she built a lotus flower.

“A lot of blind people have been left out of this cultural and kind of childhood phenomenon of being able to build Lego, play with Lego,” Ha said. “There is something incredibly satisfying and also relaxing to be able to put together these very intricate, very beautiful and architecturally complex builds.”

As each one takes flight, snapping through the air, more than 1,000 spectators cheer and applaud — families, off-duty soldiers, and bat enthusiasts, a few dressed in Goth outfits.

Hundreds of bats, many rescued from war-torn areas in the east of the country, were released late Saturday at one of multiple events around Ukraine planned to coincide with the arrival of spring.

“This is important for us as an organization because these are on a red list of endangered animals. Preserving them is very important,” said Anastasiia Vovk, a volunteer at the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center, which organized the release.

All 28 bat species in Ukraine are listed as protected animals due to declining populations.

For many attendees, the event offered welcome relief and an excuse for a family outing after a harsh winter marked by subzero temperatures, nightly Russian drone and missile attacks and crippling power cuts.

Late Saturday, children, many wearing bat-themed T-shirts and hats, watched as volunteers fed the animals mealworms with tweezers before letting them go. Some were allowed to wear gloves and handle the bats themselves.

“Life goes on despite the war,” said Oleksii Beliaiev, a 54-year-old Kyiv resident who attended with his family. “The war is the main thing right now, but there has to be something else as well.”

Beliaiev runs a small printing business and spends time volunteering for army projects.

The war has displaced animals as well as people. Buildings destroyed by shelling damage bats’ shelters, and explosions terrify the tiny mammals, experts say.

“In winter, bats hibernate, and if they are disturbed, they can die. They reproduce slowly — one or two offspring per year — so populations recover very slowly,” said Alona Shulenko, who headed Saturday’s release.

“As natural hibernation sites disappear, bats move into cities, into cracks in buildings and balconies. But repairs or destruction of these places can kill entire colonies,” she said.

All Ukrainian bat species are insect-eating and legally protected, while the country lies on an important east European migratory route.

The charity says it has rescued more than 30,000 in total, including 4,000 bats last winter.

“We are all living in wartime, and everyone has their own struggles,” Shulenko said. “But we are doing what we know best. … If we stop what we are doing, thousands of bats will die.”

–––

Associated Press writers Volodymyr Yurchuk and Dan Bashakov contributed to this report.

Gabriela Jaquez, Lauren Betts and the rest of the UCLA seniors secured the first NCAA women's basketball national championship in school history — a goal that was set after losing in the first Final Four last season.

Jaquez scored 21 points, Betts added 16 and UCLA routed South Carolina 79-51 Sunday in the title game.

“I knew we were going to do it. Coming to UCLA we all set out for a goal, and I imagined this moment,” Jaquez said. "I imagined it so many times, and I am just so, so proud. ... Crying a lot, the confetti, all of the fans being here to support us, my family being here, it just means everything. Celebrating with this group, like ... I’m so happy.”

The near-record lopsided victory completed the Bruins’ journey through this year’s March Madness. The Bruins ran through their opponents this season with their only loss coming in November, to Texas in a Thanksgiving tournament.

“It’s immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams.”

UCLA (37-1) was led by Betts and her fellow seniors and graduate students, like Jaquez — who played all four years with the Bruins. She also had 10 rebounds and five assists in front of her brother Jaime, who plays for the Miami Heat and flew in to attend the game to watch his alma mater win.

The group that coach Close put together through a combination of high school commitments and transfer portal players capped off their stellar careers with a championship, scoring all the points in the title game.

“Connectivity. Attention to detail. You know I looked them in the eyes before in the locker room, before the game, and I said, ‘I’m so proud to be able to say this,” Close said. "Because all year we’ve been saying the talent is our floor, but our character will determine our ceiling.’”

The title is UCLA’s first since winning the 1978 AIAW championship, which was the postseason tournament for women’s basketball before the NCAA took over in 1982.

The championship game loss was the second straight for the Gamecocks, who won the title in 2024. Dawn Staley and her Gamecocks (36-4) will be favored to return to the game’s biggest stage with a talented group of expected returnees, led by Joyce Edwards and Agot Makeer.

Like their 51-44 semifinal win over Texas, the Bruins were locked in defensively, anchored by Betts. She finished with 11 rebounds and exited the game with 3:45 left, giving Close a huge hug. The 6-foot-7 senior earned Most Outstanding Player honors of the Final Four.

“UCLA is a quality team with very experienced players who got a taste of being in the Final Four last year, and you make adjustments,” South Carolina's Staley said. "From last year to this year -- they played determined last year, but they played more determined this year because they were so close.”

Offensively, the Bruins had a much easier time than in the semifinal game that saw the team score only 20 points in the first half. The Bruins surpassed that total in the opening 10 minutes against South Carolina. Kiki’s Rice 3-pointer just before the first-quarter buzzer made it 21-10 as the Bruins got off to a strong start and South Carolina struggled with 17% shooting, it’s poorest quarter of the season.

The Bruins extended the lead to 15 points in the second quarter by clogging up the paint on defense and working the ball inside on offense for a 36-23 lead at the half.

UCLA put the game away in the third quarter, opening the period with a 12-3 run. Jaquez had five points during the spurt. South Carolina never threatened again as the Bruins outscored them 25-9 in the period.

“We just didn’t have it today. We tried, but we just didn’t have it today,” Staley said. "They were the better team.”

South Carolina avoided the most lopsided loss in championship history of 33 points, set in 2013 when UConn defeated Louisville. The Gamecocks also surpassed the title game record low of 44 points by Louisiana Tech in 1987 against Tennessee.

The Gamecocks were trying to cement their name as the premiere program in the sport with a fourth championship and third in the past five seasons. It just wasn’t meant to be Sunday as they had their worst shooting game of the season against a talented UCLA team.

“This is not the ending we wanted, but we got here. No one thought we would, and we did it,” said Tessa Johnson, who led South Carolina with 14 points.

Makeer added 11 for the Gamecocks.

“The score speaks for itself.” said Gamecocks senior Raven Johnson, who played in five Final Fours in her career.

Close has been at UCLA for 15 seasons, but her connections go deeper with the school as she was mentored by the legendary Bruins men’s coach John Wooden, who won 10 national championships at the school.

Their bond began when she was 22 years old and he was 83. She shares the same first name with one of his great-granddaughters. Close visited Wooden bi-weekly, adopting his “Pyramid of Success” and focus on character and its paid off with her team.

“Coach Wooden always said, ‘You got to do it the way you’re wired to do it, not the way anyone else did.’ And I just tried imperfectly to stay true to that," Close said.

___

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

First-year general manager Mathieu Darche announced the abrupt decision to part ways with Roy and name Peter DeBoer his replacement with four games left in the season. The Islanders have lost four in a row and seven of their past 10 games, going from comfortably in a playoff spot to needing help down the stretch in a competitive Eastern Conference race.

Getting outshot 40-16 and losing 4-3 at division-leading Carolina on Saturday night in another must-win game was the final straw for Darche, who took over last summer and decided at the time to keep Roy behind the bench.

Roy is the second head coach fired over the past eight days. The Vegas Golden Knights fired Bruce Cassidy and hired John Tortorella on an interim basis a week ago.

This is not an interim move. DeBoer is taking the job full time.

The 57-year-old is fresh off serving as an assistant on coach Jon Cooper's Canada's staff at the Milan Cortina Olympics, serving as an advanced scout and helping a talented group reach the final before losing to the U.S. in overtime.

“More of preparation was just when everybody arrived here and you’ve got basically three days to prepare, that a lot of the grunt work is done,” DeBoer said in Milan. “I was involved in the scouting selection process. That was totally different for me and an exciting kind of wrinkle in what we usually normally do as coaches.”

DeBoer has taken two teams to the Stanley Cup Final and most recently coached the Dallas Stars to three consecutive trips to the Western Conference final before being fired last year following their latest exit.

Internationally, DeBoer was an assistant for Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off last year and has filled that role at multiple world championships. He called it a great opportunity for learning and perspective, even if being a head coach suits him better.

“Oh yeah, I’m a head coach,” DeBoer said. “I’m a short-term assistant coach. ... You always come back a better head coach for, I think, doing that.”

Roy, a Hall of Fame goaltender considered one of the best to ever play the position, was hired by former GM Lou Lamoriello in January 2024 as a midseason replacement for fired coach Lane Lambert. Sparked by his arrival, the team made the playoffs that year and lost in the first round to Carolina. Regression has followed since, though players in recent days still had praise for Roy.

“He cares about the guys in the room,” captain Anders Lee said last week. “I think his messaging this season has been on point and he’s been able to read the room in a really good place and done his best to continue us on this journey of an 82-game hockey season.”

Roy did not make it to game No. 82, nor did he have the kind of public outbursts during games that were part of his first NHL gig with Colorado.

“I heard (about) his temper and stuff, or I’ve seen it over the years, like everybody,” said winger Ondrej Palat, who joined New York in a trade from New Jersey in late January. “He seems very calm. On the bench, he could get heated with all the circumstances that happen in a game. But in the room and around the boys, he’s pretty calm and positive.”

Parting ways with Roy comes at crucial point for the organization. Rookie of the year front-runner Matthew Schaefer has been a revelation in his first NHL season at the age of 18, and several other top prospects are on their way.

Roy was in his second job running a team in the league, following a three-year tenure with the Avalanche from 2013-16 that included winning the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year and abruptly resigning in the middle of the summer. They hired Jared Bednar, who then coached them to the Stanley Cup in 2022.

Darche and the Islanders are hoping for the same trajectory after making this change.

___

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

One big announcement: the Move Detroit Coalition, aimed at retaining and growing the city’s population.

For the fourth year in a row, Michigan’s population is growing. Last year, we added 28,000 people, and for the first time since the early 90s, more people moved into Michigan than moved out. And here in Detroit, the city is growing too. Back in 2020, the city’s population was about 639,000 people. That number has since climbed to 645,000.

It’s momentum — but the city wants to keep it going. And that’s exactly what the MoveDetroit Coalition is designed to do.

During her State of the City, Mayor Sheffield announced the MoveDetroit Coalition — a city-wide push to grow Detroit’s population and build a stronger, more prosperous city for everyone who calls it home.

The idea is pretty straightforward — keep the people who are already here, bring back former residents who left, and roll out the welcome mat for new neighbors.

Michigan’s former Chief Growth Officer, Hilary Doe, who’s spearheading the Move Detroit Coalition alongside the mayor’s office, joined Local 4 Live to talk about the coalition more. You can watch the full interview at the beginning of this article.

West Bloomfield woman says Priority Waste sent her a delinquency notice despite paid bill

A West Bloomfield woman says she got a “Notice of Delinquency” from Priority Waste, even though she says she’s paid her bill. It’s the latest billing blunder in a string of issues she says she’s had with the company.

Sonya Khal says her concerns with Priority Waste started when the company took over her trash service about 1.5 years ago.

In the beginning months, she says she didn’t get her bill because it was addressed to a couple who hasn’t lived in the home for over a decade.

“When you first get something in the mail and it’s not addressed to you, you write ‘Return to Sender,’” Khal said.

So, she did that for months.

Read more here.

EF-1 tornado confirmed in Van Buren Township

The Detroit National Weather Service surveyed damage in Wayne County Sunday, determining a tornado touched down Saturday.

The tornado has been given a rating of EF-1 with maximum wind speeds of 100 mph.

The tornado was on the ground for 3.25 miles, reaching a maximum width of 200 yards.

Read more here.

University of Michigan hosts watch party for national championship game vs. UConn inside Crisler Center

The University of Michigan will host a watch party Monday evening at Crisler Center for the national championship game between the Michigan Wolverines and UConn.

The event is free and open to all University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff.

Read more here.

‘I was treated like an animal’: Federal jury awards $307.6M to Michigan inmate denied surgery over cost

A federal jury returned a $307.6M verdict after a former Michigan inmate said he served over two years with a leaking, foul-smelling colostomy bag, and said the state prison health provider refused to pay for surgery as a cost-cutting move.

The verdict came down on April 2, 2026, after years of allegations that the company, Corizon Health, deliberately denied a medically necessary surgery on Kohchise Jackson.

It was not for any medical reason, but because it was cheaper to force him to live with a colostomy bag in prison, where he was subjected to physical abuse by other inmates as a result, the man’s attorney said.

Read more here.

Weather: Spring snowflakes across Metro Detroit before warmer weather returns

Staying cooler than average through Tuesday thanks to a pair of cold fronts. The potential for a mix of rain and snow exists this morning and again this afternoon into tonight. Brief bursts of snow showers will be possible, with a dusting of accumulation on grassy surfaces in some areas. Highs in the upper 40s today.

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Sonya Khal says her concerns with Priority Waste started when the company took over her trash service about 1.5 years ago.

In the beginning months, she says she didn’t get her bill because it was addressed to a couple who hasn’t lived in the home for over a decade.

“When you first get something in the mail and it’s not addressed to you, you write ‘Return to Sender,’” Khal said.

So, she did that for months.

Khal showed Local 4 the names on the bills from early 2025. They were not addressed to her, but included her address.

Finally, she called the company as a way to try and cut through the confusion.

“They said, ‘Yes, you owe us X amount of dollars with X amount of late fees,’ I was like, ‘woah woah woah, pardon me,’ I am like, ‘no, if you don’t send me a bill, then how am I supposed to know if and what I owe you?’” Kahl said.

She asked them to address the letters to her name or to “Current Resident.”

“They started threatening me, ‘Oh we will put it on your taxes,’” she said.

She says the company did add the hundreds of dollars in charges to her property taxes last year.

She thought the issue was resolved because they started addressing the bills to “Current Resident.”

She says she paid every quarterly bill in full and on time.

“Even if I paid the bill in full, with late fees that don’t belong to me to begin with,” she said. “Here I am, with more late fees.”

A few days ago, she got that “Notice of Delinquency” letter. It says she owes a late fee she doesn’t know what for.

“If not paid in full by April 30th, or they are going to add it to my property taxes,” she said.

She says she just wants answers.

“Explain it to me, please, how is it that I owe it when I have a zero balance the last time since I paid you in full, explain it to me - and never an answer, never a return phone call,” she said.

Local 4 reached out to Priority Waste multiple times for requests for comment, including to their billing line, but has not heard back.

Experts also warn consumers probably won’t see a dime.

The refunds fall under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. In February, a U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down most of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy under the act. A lower court has since ruled the government must return those funds which opens the door for businesses to find some financial relief.

The federal government reports it’s getting closer to finishing the system to process refund claims.

Building the system from scratch

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is still developing the system to process refund claims.

In a recent filing with the U.S. Court of International Trade, a CBP official detailed that the processing system is still in development with a goal of taking up to 45 days to review and process refund claims once it is operational.

Dr. Jeff Rightmer, an associate professor of teaching at Wayne State University’s Mike Ilitch School of Business, believes the process will be long and complex.

He noted that while companies are expected to pay tariffs within 10 business days of goods crossing the border, getting money back is a different story.

“[The] government’s great at taking in money. It’s a lot harder to give back money,” Rightmer said.

The refund process — and who gets it

Rightmer explained that the Supreme Court addressed the legality of the tariffs but stopped short of spelling out what happens to the money already collected.

“They ruled on the legality of the tariffs under the War Act and ruled that we’re not at war with these countries, so you can’t use this. So, they struck that down. But they didn’t say anything about, ‘OK, you’ve collected all of these. What are you going to do with them? Do you have to give it back or anything?’” he said.

Only entities that are listed as importer of record like big-box stores or small businesses are eligible, not customers who may have absorbed the costs, he said.

Detroit small businesses feel the squeeze

For Detroit-area small business owners, the tariff fight is deeply personal.

Sherrie Savage is the founder of The Coloring Museum, an interactive art space that uses the power of coloring to promote mental wellness. She launched the concept from her self-published coloring book, “Naturally Illustrated,” and grew it into a business after a series of pop-up coloring events showed real community demand.

In 2025, Savage says she spent well over $10,000 in tariff costs.

While Savage has worked to keep prices reasonable, she acknowledges some of those costs have been passed on to customers. She also uses various suppliers in an effort to keep costs down.

For Savage, a refund would mean more than padding her bottom line.

“Everything. So, as I mentioned to you before, one of the things that I really would have liked to happen during the holiday season was to give back to my employees some bonuses. The Coloring Museum is all about social impact, it’s about community, and then also about my staff and making sure that they’re taken care of along with their families,” Savage said.

Absorbing the cost

Jennifer Harmon, owner of Jen’s Finest Things, took a different approach. Rather than pass tariff costs on to her customers, she absorbed them — eating roughly 20 percent of her supply costs last year.

Jen’s Finest Things sells handmade beaded jewelry, custom earrings, patches, sunglasses and accessories — with a pricing range designed to stay accessible to everyone.

A refund, Harmon said, would go straight back into the business.

“A refund on these tariffs would mean a lot because it would give me back some of the profit that I would have made. It will allow me to have a profit versus just a small amount, because again, I didn’t apply it to the customer,” Harmon said.

Despite the financial pressure, her customers never stopped showing up.

“Even though the tariffs were there, my customers still were supporting me. So that was the blessing on the one hand,” Harmon said.

She closed with a direct message to the public.

“The climate for small business owners right now is that we need your support. Regardless if it’s sharing our information, referring somebody to us, or even making a purchase — being it a small purchase or a big purchase — it will help us all,” Harmon said.

What businesses should know now

Not only does CBP have to pay back eligible importers, it also must do so with interest.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has published guidance for small businesses navigating the refund process, and CBP has resources available on its website.

One final note of caution: experts warn scammers may try to take advantage of the moment. Any business working with a customs broker should verify that broker’s legitimacy before moving forward.

The tensions played a prominent role during last year's elections in Georgia, New Jersey and Virginia, and now they're sweeping through Arizona and Alabama, where once-sleepy contests are becoming political brawls.

Even national groups like Turning Point Action — better known for its role mobilizing young conservatives behind President Donald Trump — are getting involved by knocking on doors and texting campaign messages. The organization wants to curb environmentalists' influence over the Phoenix-area Salt River Project, the largest public utility in the country, in a Tuesday election.

The skirmishes are a preview for more campaigns later this year, when at least a half-dozen states will hold elections for utility regulators. That includes Georgia, where a second-straight hotly contested campaign is anticipated.

The burst of attention is dragging the behind-the-scenes politics of elected utility commissioners — long dominated by power brokers or monopolistic companies, critics say — into an intensely national debate over how to power artificial intelligence without driving up electricity costs.

"And that means suddenly there’s all this pressure,” said Dave Pomerantz of the Energy and Policy Institute, which pushes utilities to keep rates low and use renewable energy sources.

Arizona race draws massive players

In Tuesday's election that will determine control of Salt River Project, more than three times as many people requested early ballots than two years ago. Yard signs pepper street corners and ratepayers — they must own land to vote — are getting text messages, fliers and door-knockers.

The utility has already been under pressure to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas that emit planet-warming greenhouse gases. But now campaign organizations are converging on the race as the fast-growing Phoenix area becomes a destination for data centers and semiconductor factories. The utility projects that it will need to double its power capacity within a decade.

Two rival slates are vying for the board's majority. One is backed by Turning Point Action, which wants to stop “radical environmentalists.” The other is supported by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, which is opposing “oil-loving candidates.” Also involved are local chapters of progressive groups, energy interests, construction firms and data center developers.

“If they want to just overnight switch us to solar, there’s a reliability issue, there’s a cost issue there, and we just can’t keep up," said Jimmy Lindblom, a construction executive who formed the business-backed Arizonans for Responsible Growth. “We’d have blackouts. And so these things are really important to the growth of Arizona.”

Turning Point Action is putting its muscle behind the Arizonans for Responsible Growth slate. They're also using the election to build momentum ahead of this year's midterms in the battleground state.

The slate running as the “clean energy” team said Salt River Project's current majority is too eager to hook up to natural gas, raise rates and embrace data centers. They also said the board is too dismissive of clean energy technologies to meet spiking demand and offers no incentives to install solar panels.

“It’s insane, especially now,” said Randy Miller, a clean energy advocate on SRP's board.

About a dozen supporters gathered around picnic tables last week at a park in Tempe, arriving as the sun set to canvass for voters who had requested ballots but not returned them. After a brief pep talk, they fanned out.

Some voters were bothered by Turning Point's involvement.

“Very, very, very troublesome,” said Laura Kajfez, a 66-year-old retiree from Tempe. “We don’t need that intervention in our local politics. We have enough problems as it is."

In the last two elections, an average of 7,500 ballots were turned in. As of Thursday, with five days of voting remaining, turnout had already topped 22,000, according to SRP.

Campaigning for the Salt River Project board is a complex puzzle. The utility has more than 2 million power and water customers and is governed by byzantine rules. Votes for most positions are weighted by acreage, so large landowners carry outsized sway.

Rising bills fuels push to reshape Alabama commission

In the heavily Republican state of Alabama, anxiety over rising power bills is spilling into the statehouse and onto the campaign trail, fueling a push to reshape the Alabama Public Service Commission. Alabama has some of the highest power rates in the South, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

State lawmakers this week voted to overhaul the commission, effectively shifting more authority to the governor. Supporters described it as a way to address affordability. But it comes ahead of this year's elections, which some candidates are seeking to make a referendum on electricity prices — similar to how Georgia Democrats won blowout victories in two races for their state's commission in 2025.

Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, who is a Democratic candidate for Alabama governor, called the bill a “first-rate con job” on voters.

“Republicans in the Alabama Legislature want to completely revamp the PSC because all of the sudden after two wins in Georgia, they realize that maybe the people don't like what's going on with the PSC,” Jones said on social media.

The legislation, which was signed by Gov. Kay Ivey, will expand the three-member commission to seven elected members. The four new members will be initially appointed by the governor. In addition, utilities will be forbidden from raising retail base rates until 2029.

Republican legislative leaders said the bill was a significant step forward for consumer protection.

“The Alabama Legislature passed HB475 to put a freeze on electric rates and to give the people of Alabama broader representation on the Public Service Commission," Ivey said. House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter and Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger said in a joint statement that lawmakers “stood united to reform how utilities are regulated and demand an unprecedented amount of accountability for consumers across the state.”

Two of the current three seats on the commission are up for election this year, and Republican incumbents face both primary challengers and Democratic opponents running on the message of affordability.

Democrats are pointing to Georgia’s election as a model for how the party can be successful, even in a GOP-dominated state like Alabama.

“What happened in Georgia could happen in Alabama,” said Tabitha Isner, vice chair of the Alabama Democratic Party. “That’s why the alarm bells are going off and so much money is being poured into maintaining the status quo.”

___

Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pa., and Chandler from Montgomery, Ala.

The contests are among the notable highlights of Wisconsin’s spring election, where races for judicial, municipal, educational and other traditionally nonpartisan offices will be decided beyond the din of the more explicitly partisan November elections.

In the race for the high court, state Appeals Court judges Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar are running to replace retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley from the court’s conservative bloc. Taylor is a former Democratic state representative who has endorsements from the court’s four sitting liberal justices. Lazar served as assistant state attorney general under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. She is endorsed by conservative Justice Annette Ziegler, who announced in March she will not seek a third term in 2027.

This year’s contest has not generated the same level of attention as recent Wisconsin Supreme Court races, since the ideological balance of the bench is not at stake. But the winner will be a part of a panel that could be at the center of a political firestorm if there are any disputes related to either the 2028 presidential election or the next round of congressional redistricting in the early 2030s. Justices are elected to 10-year terms.

Liberals are looking for their fourth consecutive state Supreme Court victory. Liberal justices gained a 4-3 majority on the court in 2023 for the first time in 15 years after Justice Janet Protasiewicz won a seat previously held by a conservative. In 2025, Justice Susan Crawford joined the court and preserved the liberal majority after a campaign where Elon Musk and groups associated with him spent millions in support of a conservative candidate.

In any statewide election in Wisconsin, Democrats tend to win by large margins in the populous counties of Milwaukee and Dane (home to Madison), while Republicans win by wide margins in the smaller, more rural counties that stretch across most of the state. Republican candidates also tend to rely on strong showings in the “WOW” counties — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington in suburban Milwaukee — which help counter Democratic advantages in urban areas. Victory is determined by how big those margins are in the respective party strongholds, as well as which side can win over the more competitive swing areas.

In the 2024 presidential election, then-Vice President Kamala Harris won Milwaukee County with 68% of the vote and Dane County with 75%, while narrowly losing statewide. In comparison, Protasiewicz and Crawford in their successful state Supreme Court races received 73% and 75% of the vote in Milwaukee County and 82% of the vote in Dane County. They both won statewide with double-digit margins of victory.

Protasiewicz and Crawford each also won more than 10 swing counties that voted for Trump in 2024, most notably in Brown County, home to Green Bay, which Trump carried in all three of his White House campaigns.

In the race for Waukesha mayor, Common Council President Alicia Halvensleben and state Rep. Scott Allen are running to replace Mayor Shawn Reilly, who is not seeking a fourth term. Allen has been one of the most conservative Republicans in the Legislature since his election in 2014. Halvensleben is the preferred candidate of the Waukesha County Democratic Party.

Reilly is an independent who left the Republican Party after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He has endorsed Halvensleben.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Recounts are not automatic in Wisconsin, but a trailing candidate may request one if the winning vote margin is less than a percentage point. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 8 p.m. local time, which is 9 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in the races for state Supreme Court and Waukesha mayor.

Who gets to vote?

Any registered voter in Wisconsin may participate in the spring election.

What do turnout and advance vote look like?

As of April 1, there were about 3.6 million active registered voters in Wisconsin out of about 4.5 million eligible voting-age adults. Voters in the state do not register by party.

Nearly 2.4 million votes were cast in the 2025 spring election for state Supreme Court, which was about 62% of registered voters. About 29% of voters cast their ballots before election day.

As of Friday, nearly 281,000 ballots had already been cast.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2025 spring election, the AP first reported results in the race for state Supreme Court at 9:09 p.m. ET, or nine minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 2:12 a.m. ET with about 99% of total votes counted. The race was called at 10:16 p.m. ET.

When are early and absentee votes released?

In previous Wisconsin elections, counties varied in terms of when and how they released results from early and absentee voting. In the 2024 general election, roughly a third of the counties released all or most of their early and absentee voting results in the first vote update, while the rest released them throughout the night along with results from in-person Election Day voting.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 210 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

Tuesday’s special congressional runoff marks the second time in less than a month that voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District cast ballots for their representative in Washington. None of the 17 contenders in a March 10 special election received a majority of the vote, triggering Tuesday’s contest between the top two vote-getters.

The outcome will almost immediately affect the fragile balance of power in the closely divided U.S. House, where Republicans cling to a 217-214 majority. An additional seat is held by a former Republican who became an independent in March, while twoseats remain vacant.

Democrat Shawn Harris received the most votes in the Georgia special election, where all candidates ran on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation. Harris edged Republican Clay Fuller by about 2 percentage points, aided in part by the fact that the district’s sizable Republican vote was split among a dozen Republican candidates.

Harris is a retired Army brigadier general who lost to Greene in the 2024 general election. Fuller is a district attorney who has Trump’s endorsement. Both are also seeking their parties’ nominations for a full term in the May 19 primary ahead of the November midterm elections.

The district has a history of heavily favoring Republican candidates in general elections. Trump carried the district in 2024 with 68% of the vote. The 37% Harris received in March was slightly better than the roughly 36% of the vote he notched in his head-to-head matchup with Greene in 2024.

Harris modestly improved his vote share in nine of the district’s 10 counties since 2024. He also outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris' 2024 presidential vote share in all 10 counties. But to win the seat, he needs to far surpass the overall mid-30% range that Democrats have received in the district in recent general elections.

His best performances in the special election were in Cobb and Paulding counties, two metro Atlanta counties that are the two most populous in the northwest Georgia district. But Greene still carried every county in the election that year.

Harris, who did not face major Democratic opposition in the special election, raised a total of $6.4 million for his campaign, compared to about $1.3 million for Fuller. As of March 18, Harris had about $745,000 in the bank, while Fuller had about $53,000.

Trump’s endorsement should be a boost for Fuller, considering the president outperformed Greene districtwide. But turnout in special elections is typically much lower than in presidential elections, and turnout for runoffs tends to be even lower.

Elsewhere in Georgia on Tuesday, runoffs will also be held in state Senate District 53 and state House District 94. Republicans control both chambers of the General Assembly, and the outcome of the two special runoffs will not threaten their majorities.

The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

There is no automatic recount provision in Georgia, but a losing candidate may request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total vote. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in the special runoff elections for the 14th Congressional District, state Senate District 53 and state House District 94.

Who gets to vote?

Any registered voter may participate in the special runoff election in their district, regardless of whether they voted in the March 10 special election.

What do turnout and advance vote look like?

As of Friday, there were about 571,000 total registered voters in the 14th Congressional District, including about 524,000 active voters. Georgia voters do not register by party.

About 116,000 votes were cast in the March 10 U.S. House special election, roughly 52% of which was cast before Election Day.

Nearly 47,000 ballots had already been cast in the U.S. House special runoff election as of Friday.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the March 10 special election, the AP first reported results in the 14th Congressional District at 7:05 p.m. ET, or five minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was from Paulding County at 9:51 p.m. ET with about 99.9% of total votes counted.

When are early and absentee votes released?

All 10 counties in the 14th Congressional District tend to release some or all of their absentee voting results in the first vote update of the night. Four counties, including the two largest, Paulding and Cobb, also tend to include all of their results from early voting in the first vote update. Since the 2020 election, Democrats have been more likely to cast their votes early or by mail. In jurisdictions that release mail and early vote results at the start of the night, this could result in the Democratic candidate taking an initial lead in the vote count until votes from in-person Election Day ballots are tallied.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 210 days until this seat is up again in the 2026 midterm elections.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

🍇 Grapevine

🌅 Good morning! On this day in 1980, 3M began sales of Post-it Notes. The canary yellow sticky pads quickly became one of the best-selling office supply products in history and a ubiquitous staple in schools and offices around the world.

Here are a few things to know about for Monday, April 6, 2026:

⛅ 4Warn Weather: Staying cooler than average through Tuesday thanks to a pair of cold fronts. The potential for a mix of rain and snow exists this morning and again this afternoon into tonight. Check the 10-day forecast.

🌪️ EF-1 Tornado: The Detroit National Weather Service determined a tornado touched down in Wayne County on Saturday. Read more.

🏀 March Madness: The University of Michigan will host a watch party tonight at Crisler Center for the national championship game between the Michigan Wolverines and UConn. Read more.

🚨 Middle East Latest: Iran and the United States received a draft proposal late Sunday calling for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, two Mideast officials speaking condition of anonymity told The Associated Press. Read more.

🗑️ ‘Explain it to me’: A West Bloomfield woman says she got a “Notice of Delinquency” from Priority Waste, even though she says she’s paid her bill. It’s the latest billing blunder in a string of issues she says she’s had with the company. Read more.

🏊 Morning Dive

Good morning ☀️

With the moon looming ever larger, the Artemis II astronauts raced to set a new distance record this morning from Earth on a lunar fly-around promising magnificent views of the far side never seen before by eye.

The six-hour flyby is the highlight of NASA’s first return to the moon since the Apollo era with three Americans and one Canadian — a step toward landing boot prints near the moon’s south pole in just two years.

A prize — and bragging rights — awaits Artemis II.

Less than an hour before kicking off the fly-around and intense lunar observations, the four astronauts were set to become the most distant humans in history, surpassing the distance record of 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) set by Apollo 13 in April 1970.

Mission Control expected Artemis II to surpass that record by more than 4,100 miles (6,600 kilometers).

Artemis II is using the same maneuver that Apollo 13 did after its “Houston, we’ve had a problem” oxygen tank explosion wiped out any hope of a moon landing.

Known as a free-return lunar trajectory, this no-stopping-to-land route takes advantage of Earth and the moon’s gravity, reducing the need for fuel. It’s a celestial figure-eight that will put the astronauts on course for home, once they emerge from behind the moon Monday evening.

Read more here --> Artemis II astronauts race to set a new distance record from Earth and behold the moon’s far side

According to NASA, as of 6:30 a.m. today, Artemis II is just over 240,000 miles from Earth and less than 28,000 miles from the Moon, traveling at 1,240 mph.

To track Artemis II, head to NASA’s website here.

🗞️ Other headlines to know today

• Menopause products are having a hot minute. But doctors urge women to be wary of the marketing surge
• Savannah Guthrie returns to ‘Today’ for the first time since her mother’s disappearance
• Two dead in Detroit house fire
• Secret Service investigates reports of gunfire near Lafayette Park across from the White House
• Allen Park bakery owner beats cancer, turns shop into community lifeline
• It’s-a-hit: ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ box office blasts off with $372.5 million globally
• After harsh winter, Ukrainians find joy in releasing bats rescued from war
• Asian shares mostly gain while European trading stays closed for a holiday
• Find more Local News headlines here
• Find more Entertainment headlines here
• Find more Health headlines here
• Check out the latest ClickOnDeals here
• Introducing the ClickOnDetroit Help Desk: How it works and how to use it

🌎 Meanwhile

News from around the world via the Associated Press:

A juvenile gray whale that amazed Washington state residents after it swam 20 miles up a small river was found dead, and an official with a marine mammal research group suspects hunger may have driven the whale to new hunting grounds as the species’ population declines.

The whale was discovered Saturday near Raymond, Washington, in the Willapa River, which feeds into the ocean at Willapa Bay. A number of gray whales are currently in the bay on their 5,000-mile (8,000-kilometer) spring migration from birthing grounds in Baja California, Mexico, north to feeding grounds in Alaska.

The larger issue that the population of gray whales in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean has faced since 2019 is reduced food availability in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas off Alaska’s coast, John Calambokidis, a research biologist with the Cascadia Research Collective, told The Associated Press on Sunday. (Read more)

----

Just before the holidays in 2025, Julie Hart felt stuck. A nagging problem she had struggled with for years left her ruminating all day and questioning nearly everything she had ever said, done or could do.

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. (Read more)

----

Pressure was mounting Sunday on American rapper Ye to be pulled from his headline role at a London music festival this summer, after criticism from U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Pepsi already has withdrawn its lead sponsorship role of the Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park in north London between July 10-12. Other sponsors of the event, including Budweiser and PayPal, are being urged to follow suit.

Pepsi didn’t provide an explicit reason for its decision to pull out of the event, even though publicity for the festival promoted the event under the branding “Pepsi presents Wireless.” (Read more)

---> Find more headlines from around the world right here <---

📝 Word Up

Today’s Word Up is: Cavil /ˈkav(ə)l/ (verb) -- defined as “Make petty or unnecessary objections.”

Example: “Tara always cringed when going into a meeting with Margaret, who would likely cavil for hours over every suggestion she brought up.”

🧹 Housekeeping

Hey, if you like this newsletter, let us know. We’d love your feedback. We also offer several other newsletters, including Live in the D, All 4 Pets and more. Hopefully, we have one that caters to your interests -- unless you’re only interested in art museums. We don’t have one for that, sorry.

✍🏽 Written and curated by: Samantha Sayles (Have something to say? Feel free to send an email here.)

Shohei Ohtani hadn't driven in a run until Friday, then homered in that game and again Sunday. He and Aaron Judge each have three straight multihit games.

Judge hasn't needed to carry the Yankees, who are 7-2. They had allowed a paltry 15 runs on the season before a 7-6 loss to Miami on Sunday. Cam Schlittler has made two scoreless starts and New York ran wild against the Marlins — with even Giancarlo Stanton stealing a base.

It wasn't a great first week for the Dodgers' quartet of sluggers — Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman — but then they broke out in a big way as Los Angeles posted 31 runs in three games at Washington. The Dodgers are 7-2 with Andy Pages off to a 16-for-34 start at the plate, so they can afford to be patient with their stars.

That includes Betts, who went on the injured list with an oblique strain.

Los Angeles now heads to Toronto for a three-game series — the first meeting between the teams since the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series in Canada last year.

Battling Bucs

On the topic of teams succeeding while waiting for stars to get untracked, Pittsburgh swept three straight from Baltimore to improve to 6-3. The Pirates have won five straight, although Paul Skenes has allowed six runs in 5 2/3 innings through his first two starts.

They haven't needed much from top prospect Konnor Griffin either. The infielder is 1 for 9 since being called up, but he has yet to play in a loss. The Pirates have 10 of their next 13 games at home, with Skenes expected to take the mound Tuesday when they host San Diego.

Trivia time

When is the last time the NCAA men's basketball champion and baseball's World Series champion came from the same state in a given year?

Performance of the week

Jo Adell went 1 for 3 at the plate Saturday, but it's what he did defensively that made a real impact. The Angels' outfielder made three home run-robbing catches to help Los Angeles to a 1-0 win over Seattle.

Adell made spectacular catch while crashing into the seats when J.P. Crawford led off the ninth with a drive to right. Adell also denied Cal Raleigh what would have been the catcher's first homer of the season.

Comeback of the week

Arizona trailed Detroit by four Tuesday night before scoring six times in the bottom of the eighth to win 7-5. The Tigers had a win probability of 96.4% after seven, according to Baseball Savant.

Corbin Carroll hit a bases-loaded double that scored two runs, and Jose Fernandez added a three-run homer. It was the second home run of the game for Fernandez, who was making his major league debut.

Trivia answer

In 1973, UCLA won the national title and the Oakland Athletics won the World Series. That pairing also won in 1972.

There was a recent near-miss in 2021 when Baylor won the NCAA Tournament and the Houston Astros lost to the Atlanta Braves in the World Series. The only way this double can happen this year is if Michigan wins in basketball and the Tigers prevail in baseball.

___

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

Three sloppy basketball games later, it feels like another missed opportunity. Much like last year's lopsided title game. The sport is on the rise but the last two Final Fours have featured blowouts, long-distance shooting struggles and point-blank misses.

That's not to take anything away from UCLA, which understandably thought Sunday's result was beautiful after beating South Carolina 79-51 for its first NCAA tournament title and first overall since an AIAW championship in 1978.

“I want to grow the game so bad, I felt guilty walking off the floor because it was not pretty in any way, shape or form,” UCLA coach Cori Close acknowledged Friday after her team’s 51-44 win over Texas in the semifinals wasn’t very easy on the eyes.

In that game, Texas All-America selection Madison Booker, one of game's best mid-range shooters, was 3 of 23 from the field, missing 17 straight shots at one point.

“The reality is, too, it’s really all about toughness at this point and finding a way to make a winning play,” Close added, "even if it’s a winning play you wouldn’t have predicted or chosen.”

The UCLA-Texas game wasn’t the only one that wasn’t aesthetically pleasing. South Carolina beat previously undefeated UConn 62-48 in the first semifinal game, holding the Huskies to just 31.1% shooting and a season low in points.

The lasting memory from this year's Final Four likely won't be a basketball moment. UConn coach Geno Auriemma angrily confronted South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, leading to a tense moment between two of the game's top coaches.

The clunky basketball continued into the final.

UCLA — led by Final Four MOP Lauren Betts and Gabriela Jaquez — played well. South Carolina did not. The Gamecocks shot just 29% from the field and made only 2 of 15 3-point attempts.

The lack of execution the past two years was somewhat surprising, considering the pedigree of the four programs. UConn, South Carolina, Texas and UCLA are accustomed to the bright lights and were all back in the Final Four for a second straight season.

“Sometimes in this moment things happen,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “We came out of a timeout on two different occasions and people are in the wrong place. So sometimes it happens like that.”

Double-digit outcomes happen often in women's title games. Over the last 20 years, only six women's championship games have been decided by single digits — the last one was in 2021, Stanford beat Arizona 54-53.

One factor for the elite teams is that often the don't face much competition in the NCAA Tournament until the final weekend. Through the first two weeks, UConn won its tournament games by an average of 32.5 points while Texas (35.5), South Carolina (40.3) and UCLA (27) also cruised with huge margins of victory.

Once the elite teams have to face each other, the contrast in talent can be shocking.

“You could tell. Shots were short,” Staley said after the title game loss. “I thought we didn’t really do a good job at making extra passes, like the things we were doing probably worked for other teams, but other teams didn’t have a (Betts). You have to navigate differently.”

___

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

They lose their top six players to graduation after putting on one of the most dominant performances in championship history to win their first NCAA title and second overall, routing South Carolina by 28 points Sunday.

But with the transfer portal open now, the UCLA coach can build a new team quickly. Close has said that the school will be very active, looking to add five players.

“Transfer portal just got easier,” Close said smiling.

Challenging the Bruins will be the runner-up Gamecocks and coach Dawn Staley. They look to get over the loss and reach a seventh consecutive Final Four next season and win a fourth national championship. With young stars Joyce Edwards and Agot Makeer returning along with a strong complementary crew they will be one of the favorites for the title when the Final Four moves to Columbus, Ohio.

Joining them should be other Final Four participants UConn and Texas, who have two of the best players in the country with Sarah Strong and Madison Booker. Each will have to replace a key player with Azzi Fudd for UConn and Rori Harmon for Texas gone to the WNBA.

After the four Final Four teams, it could be interesting to see who the women's basketball powers will be in 2027.

So much can change through the transfer portal. Over the past few years so many big name players have changed their schools by entering it. TCU, which reached the Elite Eight the last two seasons has added a half dozen players each of the past two years.

Michigan and Duke also reached the regional final this year and each has potentially a strong nucleus of players coming back.

A few teams have already been hit hard by the portal with many players announcing on social media they were transferring.

Iowa State has lost most of its top players, including the nation's second-leading scorer in Audi Crooks.

Stanford and Tennessee, which had been two of the women's basketball staples in the sport over the past 40 years have been hit hard already with so many of their players announcing on social media that they will enter the portal.

___

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

So the 6-foot-11, 265-pound St. Louis native stayed in the transfer portal, found a school willing to give him a fresh start and a coach committed to helping him turn raw talent into real productivity.

On Monday, two years after giving up a starting job at Michigan to become a backup for a UConn team seeking a third straight national title, Reed's journey will complete his college career against the university he called home for his first two college seasons in the championship game.

“We're just chopping it up and talking a little bit, but like I said it's the national championship on the line,” Reed said Sunday, referring to the two former Michigan teammates still on the Wolverines' roster. “It's not personal. We know it's just competing for the best outcome of our team."

The era of college players facing former teams in March Madness is becoming more routine in a college sports world where players often use their freedom to transfer to find more NIL money and more playing time with coaches and systems that better their natural skills.

Forward Nimari Burnett, Reed's former teammate at Michigan, logged 17 minutes in a Sweet 16 matchup against his former team, Alabama. And Illinois guard Kylan Boswell could have faced his former team, Arizona, Monday night — if Saturday's semifinal results had been reversed.

The reasons for finding new schools vary, and in Reed's case it was all about opportunity.

“Tarris had heard that Vlad (Goldin) was probably going to be coming with us,” May said, explaining Reed's decision. "So he came in, and I talked to his parents, and I talked to everyone around him and he basically said, ‘Coach, I know Vlad is coming with you. Do you think you can make that work?’ I said, ‘Tarris, you both are really good; it won’t be easy. We haven’t played like that before. But I’m very confident that because of both your skill sets and talent we can figure it out.’”

Then Danny Wolf decided to transfer to Michigan and suddenly Reed felt he was out of a job.

Goldin and Wolf are, in fact, no longer at Michigan either, replaced by newcomers such as Big Ten Player of the Year Yaxel Lendeborg and 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara.

Yet Reed, a two-time all-state selection in Missouri thought he'd found the perfect landing spot at UConn.

While his 2024-25 stats improved slightly from his final season at Michigan — 9.6 points and 7.3 rebounds in 35 games as a backup on an NCAA Tournament team compared with 9.0 points and 7.2 rebounds as a full-time starter on an 8-24 squad. — the transition didn't always go smoothly.

Hurley acknowledged their relationship was sometimes strained because of his demands. Still, Reed tried to epitomize the rugged, gritty nature of the Huskies culture on the court, though behind the scenes Reed sometimes struggled.

“There were days where, after that season, I’m in my room just crying, ‘What the heck do I do?’ I’m writing in my journal, and I’m trying to think, ‘Do I stay? Do I go?’ When I started writing in my journal, it was obvious I had to stay at UConn," said the Big East's 2024-25 Sixth Man Award winner. “Coach was coaching me so hard that there was a point where we were about to split ways after the season, after my junior year,”

Instead, Reed returned stronger both physically and emotionally, more committed to proving he was the right fit in Storrs, and his final college season couldn't have gone any better.

He blossomed into a first team all-Big East selection, teamed up with the likes of Alex Karaban and Braylon Mullins to lead the Huskies (34-5) to their third national championship game in four years. A win Monday night would give UConn its seventh title — all since 1999.

In tourney play, nobody has fared better. Reed registered 31 points and 27 rebounds, both career highs, in an 82-71 first-round win over Furman. He was named the East Region's Most Outstanding Player after averaging 21.7 points and 13.5 rebounds in four wins and then he added 17 points and 11 rebounds in Saturday's 71-62 victory over Illinois.

Even his relationship with Hurley changed.

“It’s really improved since he’s been on a tear. Now we’re best friends,” Hurley said Sunday with a laugh. “But I’ve been saying that, go back six weeks, go back two months, go back three months, our season is going to be determined by what Tarris Reed does, which Tarris Reed we get, does the light switch go on for Tarris Reed.”

Burnett, for one, couldn't be happier to see Reed excel.

“He’s always been just a happy person, someone who is always joyful of the moment and just a joyful teammate even during that time, that year where things weren’t as happy (at Michigan), he brought joy,” Burnett said. “He brought enthusiasm. He’s just a great person, and we also have similar beliefs and faith. So I have a good connection with him."

If Burnett wasn't playing Reed on Monday, Burnett might even be cheering for his friend.

But this a game that goes beyond friendship. The winner will forever be called a national champion forever, and the runner-up will likely be relegated to the history books.

Regardless of the outcome, Reed insists he'll have no regrets helping UConn finish what he started at Michigan.

"I started my career at Michigan and now I’m about to play them in my final game of college basketball. I never would have thought that would happen in a million years,” he said. “It's the national championship game, so I feel like they’re going to be coming at my neck, we’re going to be coming at their neck, so it’s going to be a great, fun bloodbath and just a competitive game.”

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

“They know,” Tocchet said. “They see the standings.”

The standings in the Eastern Conference look a lot different than they did in late March. For one thing, Tocchet's Flyers have crashed the party and are in a playoff spot for the first time since Jan. 12.

Way ahead of them, the Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins and Montreal Canadiens have solidified their positions, while the Detroit Red Wings have dropped from what was once a comfortable lead to the outside looking in. Things went so sideways for the New York Islanders that they fired coach Patrick Roy, and the Washington Capitals look to be running out of time to give Alex Ovechkin possibly one more postseason appearance at age 40.

"It’s just frustrating," Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said after an 8-1 loss at the New York Rangers. “It’s frustrating because we fought as hard as we have to get back into this spot where we’re within striking distance.”

Race turns upside down

Before play began on March 26, only four points separated the Canadiens (88), Columbus Blue Jackets (87), Penguins and Bruins (86), Ottawa Senators and Islanders (86) and Red Wings (84). With the Flyers all the way back at 80, it looked like seven teams vying for five spots.

Montreal reeled off six consecutive victories and clinched Sunday before its eight-game winning streak that began March 21 came to an end at night. Pittsburgh won five of seven, and Boston went 4-2-1 to erase any doubt of postseason hockey in those markets this spring.

“With where the league’s at, our division, there’s pressure every night on every team,” said Canadiens winger Cole Caufield, who's on the verge of being the franchise's first 50-goal scorer since 1990. "That’s what makes this thing so fun. It’s just the guys in this group, in this room that are pushing each other and the staff that we have is unreal. We’re just going to keep this thing going.”

Philadelphia beating the Bruins in overtime Sunday on top prospect Porter Martone's first NHL goal leapfrogged the Flyers over the Islanders into third place in the Metropolitan Division. Long before Martone arrived following the completion of his college season at Michigan State, the Flyers were 13th out of 16 teams in the East out of the Olympic break and have since won 14 of 21 games to burst into contention.

“These past 10 or so games, they’ve been playoff games and we’ve been playing the right way,” forward Noah Cates said. "It’s been the simple things, the little things that just kind of get us over the hump and in the win column.”

Red Wings and Blue Jackets are falling

Detroit led the Atlantic Division and was tied for the most points in the East on Jan. 15. The cushion ahead of the conference's ninth-placed team was 12 points.

After falling behind by three goals, rallying to tie it and losing 5-4 in regulation to Minnesota on Sunday, the Red Wings have gone 8-9-3 since that point and sit two points out with five games left to play.

“Obviously, we would have loved to be in a playoff spot, but that’s not the case,” forward Lucas Raymond said after a dud of a 4-1 loss at the Rangers on Saturday. “We’ve got a great opportunity here. We’ve got these games left here to really do something special with this team. The faith is high in here. We have a lot of faith in ourselves, in our team, so it’s just about going out there and getting it done.”

Raymond and his teammates have failed to score in the first period in 43 of 77 games, the most in the league.

“I wish I had the answer,” coach Todd McLellan said. “We can get out of the gate quicker: don’t dip our toe in the water.”

Columbus made a coaching change from Dean Evason to Rick Bowness in mid-January and won 19 of 27 games to surge to second in the division. The Blue Jackets have lost seven in a row since.

Islanders and Capitals running out of gas

Since March 18 when it looked like they'd cruise into the playoffs in Matthew Schaefer's magical rookie year, the Islanders have lost seven of 10 games, including four in a row. First-year general manager Mathieu Darche dismissed Roy and hired Peter DeBoer on Sunday with four games left, hoping the new-coach bump could get his team in.

The Capitals are not contemplating any such change with Carbery, the reigning Jack Adams Award winner who should see them through the post-Ovechkin transition, whenever that is. Veteran defenseman John Carlson and depth center Nic Dowd got traded at the deadline with a youth movement afoot, but going 8-3-2 from March 9 through Saturday made the playoffs seem possible.

Getting blown out by the already-eliminated Rangers unearthed some of the defensive issues Carbery thought were there for the past dozen games or so that were covered up by strong goaltending, outscoring the problems and getting lucky. Washington needs a lot of that, plus some help, now three points out with four games remaining.

“It’s tough we put ourselves in this spot,” forward Aliaksei Protas said. “But those big games, I feel like they can really show who we are as a team and where we’re at as a team.”

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AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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

Tipoff is slated for 8:50 p.m. on Monday (April 6) inside Lucas Oil Stadium.

Head coach Dusty May didn’t shy away from the spotlight or the scrutiny.

On the eve of the national championship, May embraced both, framing his program’s rapid rise as a product of environment, development, and belief.

“It’s an honor to be one of the two teams still standing,” said May. “Our job is to put a competitive roster on the floor that represents Michigan the way it deserves to be represented.”

Facing questions about roster construction in the modern era of transfers, May defended his approach.

Rather than focusing on how players arrive, he emphasized what they become.

“We’re going to bring in really good guys that are high achievers,” May said. “I think we all are better in certain situations than others. Our job is to help them become the best version of themselves.”

May pointed to the model of team-building at the professional level, referencing the Oklahoma City Thunder, and said he doesn’t treat MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander differently because he joined the team after leaving the Los Angeles Clippers in the Paul George trade.

Or Isaiah Hartenstein for signing with the Thunder and helping them win a championship after leaving the New York Knicks, in comparison to his team of transfers, which consists of Aday Mara, Elliot Cadeau, Morez Johnson Jr., and Yaxel Lendeborg, and their unselfish style of play as an example of culture outweighing circumstance.

Yaxel Lendeborg

Speaking of Lendeborg, May broke news that the Big Ten Player of the Year should be good to go for Monday night’s title game.

May said Lendeborg’s injury does not appear to be serious after imaging results came back clean.

“All imaging has come back clean,” May said. “He’s getting treatment and doing rehab all day today (Sunday, April 5).”

Lendeborg underwent an MRI earlier in the day after suffering a MCL sprain and a twisted ankle during the first half against Arizona in the Final Four on Saturday, April 4.

He experienced discomfort after the game, but the results showed no structural damage.

His availability moving forward will depend on how he responds to treatment and guidance from the team’s medical staff, per May.

“He’ll give it a go tomorrow, but that’ll be entirely up to him and the medical staff,” May said. “They’ll tell me if he can go.”

Despite the injury, Lendeborg played through the second half of the Final Four, drawing praise from May for his toughness and adaptability.

“We were laughing, he played that second half like a 38-year-old at the YMCA,” May said. “A really good 38-year-old at the YMCA.”

May added that regardless of how Lendeborg feels physically, his presence on the court remains valuable.

“Whatever version of Yaxel we get, it’s going to be somebody that helps us play better basketball,” May said.

Building toughness through preparation

A defining trait of this Michigan team has been its preparation.

Players have repeatedly described practices as more difficult than games, by design.

“We try to create an environment that will prepare our players to play well in the games,” May said. “If we don’t play well, it’s because of our poor planning.”

That preparation, he believes, has led to a composure evident in high-pressure moments.

Michigan’s deep tournament run has been marked by poise, something May attributes to months of demanding work behind the scenes.

Reset after adversity

Michigan’s path wasn’t without setbacks. A loss in the Big Ten Tournament championship game forced a reset, but May said the response came from within the locker room.

“We knew we had lost our edge a little bit,” May said. “It was more of a reboot, getting back to what we know are the right things.”

That internal accountability has translated into dominant performances throughout the NCAA Tournament, including a 91-73 victory over the Wildcats, their fifth game of 90 or more points, setting a March Madness record.

Learning from the past

May’s coaching philosophy has been shaped by influential figures, including his time under Bobby Knight.

From Knight, he learned the importance of preparation and anticipation.

“You’re always thinking ahead,” May said. “You’re figuring out solutions before problems happen.”

That mindset extends to roster building.

May said he prioritizes personality traits, competitiveness, unselfishness, and love for the game, alongside talent.

“We look for guys who either love to compete or love to hoop,” May said. “Then we build around their strengths.”

Leadership and culture

Veteran players like Will Tschetter and Nimari Burnett have played a key role in shaping Michigan’s culture, helping integrate newcomers and maintain a team-first mentality.

“I give those guys as much credit as our staff,” May said. “They brought new players in because they wanted to be on this stage.”

That cohesion has been critical, especially in an era of frequent roster turnover.

Players echo coach’s message

Tschetter and Burnett reinforced May’s emphasis on preparation and adaptability.

“We’ve been challenged with different ways to beat teams all year,” said Burnett. “Our mindset is to dictate the pace and still play our style.”

Tschetter highlighted the team’s ability to absorb scouting reports and adjust quickly.

“Our preparation is second to none,” said Tschetter. “We’re dialed in on tendencies and ready for quick turnarounds.”

Both players credited May’s creativity, from unconventional drills to attention to small details, as a competitive edge.

Focus on the final task

Despite the magnitude of the moment, May made clear that Michigan’s focus remains narrow.

“We never ride momentum,” May said. “It’s about what we need to do to prepare to play well.”

Standing one win away from a national title, Michigan’s message is consistent: preparation over hype, development over perception, and team over everything.

“We’ve made it this far,” May said. “We’d hate to drop the last one.”

The event is free and open to all University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff.

An MCard is required for entry.

Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. on Monday (April 6) with students entering through the Maize Rage entrance and faculty and staff entering through the northeast entrance.

Media are invited to attend and are asked to complete a Google form in advance.

Media access will begin at 7 p.m. through the north tunnel/service entrance of Crisler Center.

Photographers may shoot from the floor toward the stands, but attendees will not be permitted on the floor.

Interviews must be conducted in the stands or on the concourse.

Media seating will be available in Sections 201 and 202 on a first-come, first-served basis.

Free event parking will be available in the Blue Lot surrounding Crisler Center, including lots SC4, SC5, SC6, and SC7.

The lot can be accessed from Stadium Boulevard and East Keech Avenue, off South Main Street, or from Greene Street, off East Hoover Street.

Media members with a men’s basketball season credential are encouraged to bring it.

All approved media will be listed at the north tunnel entrance.

According to authorities, Erich Zeeb met the 15-year-old Marquette County girl online and presented himself as an Olympian-in-training to the victim and her parents. He reportedly convinced them that he could help the girl achieve her Olympic dreams before grooming and sexually exploiting her multiple times.

Authorities said Zeeb gained her parents’ trust and used that access to coerce the teen into creating sexually explicit content.

On Thursday, April 2, Zeeb was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for sexual exploitation of a child.

Investigators believe there may be other victims. Police said they believe other girls were abused by Zeeb in a similar manner and are encouraging anyone with information to come forward.

LeBron James woke up from a nap to find out about the prognosis on Reaves' strained left oblique. He had gone to sleep knowing the outlook on a strained left hamstring for Doncic, the NBA scoring leader.

“It was a shot to the heart and to the chest and the main frame with Luka, and we got that news kind of quick,” James said after the Lakers' 134-128 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night. “And (Reaves), he's kind of dealing with the pain, we're saying, ‘OK, whatever the case may be.’

“I woke up from my nap yesterday and then saw that news, I was like ... (expletive),” James said, pausing for several seconds before punctuating his thought.

For now, the playoff-bound Lakers will lean on James as their primary scorer and floor leader, while keeping in mind the 41-year-old is wrapping up his record 23rd NBA season.

Sure enough, James had 30 points and 15 assists against the Mavericks, but did struggle in the fourth quarter after sparking a rally in the second. He was 2 of 7 from the field in the final 12 minutes, and missed both free throws when the deficit was eight with 3:50 remaining.

“I think we have to be mindful of that. I think that’s a valid question,” coach JJ Redick said before the game. “For all our guys, him included, we want to put them in positions to be successful. Certain guys are gonna be tasked with doing stuff they haven’t done a lot of this year.”

Doncic and Reaves, LA's No. 2 scorer, both were injured in a blowout loss to Oklahoma City on Thursday night.

Of course, Doncic is the centerpiece of that conversation as an MVP candidate who will finish the season one game short of the 65 required to be eligible for that and other postseason awards.

“I just know that he’s gonna do everything he can to try to be back,” Redick said. “I talked to him Friday, I talked him again (Saturday), I talked with him again (Sunday) morning. He’s gonna go through all the necessary things to be back at some point, and it’s our job again to extend the season so that both those guys can get back.”

On Sunday, ESPN reported that Doncic will go to Europe to seek specialized treatment on his hamstring, citing agent Bill Duffy of WME Basketball.

Redick spoke of point guard by committee, an approach made necessary by another absence in Marcus Smart, who has a right ankle injury. Redick included James' son, Bronny James, in that mix along with Luke Kennard, Nick Smith Jr. and the seldom-used Kobe Bufkin.

Kennard had his first career triple-double with 15 points, a career-high 16 rebounds and 11 assists, but had a rough shooting nigh against the Mavericks, going 5 of 17. Among the others mentioned by Redick, only Bronny James played more than five minutes, scoring five points in nine minutes.

“I think simplicity wins,” Redick said. “It’s nothing too crazy. But it’s just being really simple with the menu and hopefully over the next five games, we can really figure out what works for this group. And that’s obviously trial and error.”

James had a triple-double with 21 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists in a victory over Washington last week when Doncic was serving a one-game suspension for receiving his 16th technical foul this season.

The loss to Dallas dropped the Lakers into a third-place tie with Denver in the Western Conference. Fifth-place Houston could end up chasing home-court advantage in the first round as well, particularly with the Lakers so wounded.

Rui Hachimura scored 12 of his 21 points in the first quarter against the Mavericks, who built a 22-point lead before halftime and held on despite James' strong showing and 23 points from backup center Jaxson Hayes.

The Lakers shot 52% with 36 assists, two off their season high, but let the Mavs match that 52%. Dallas, one of the NBA's worst teams from 3-point range, made 14 of 32 (44%).

“We’ve got a week left of the regular season and then a week to prepare and we’ve gotta have the commitment to do it on both ends,” Redick said after the game. “That’s the reason that we’ve put ourselves in the position to be in the playoffs is because we became a really good offensive team and a really good defensive team. So it’s gotta be the commitment to both ends.”

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

He was looking to do the same on the last possession with Golden State down a point, but missed a long, straightaway 3-pointer.

No matter the result, Curry is back and healthy at long last for the Warriors after a right knee injury, and everyone at Chase Center celebrated right along with him in Golden State’s 117-116 loss to the Houston Rockets on Sunday night.

With Curry back, the Warriors hope to make it out of the play-in tournament.

"There were a lot of nerves all day, my family supporting me at home when I was a nervous wreck trying to pass the hours before I got to the arena but once you get back into your routine I've been doing it so long muscle memory takes over and the adrenalin takes over," Curry said. "I appreciate the fans and the reception and just the buzz that was in the arena because you know at a certain point you won't be able to tap into that. So very grateful, it was a beautiful day and now I can kind of settle in to how we're going to finish the year.”

Coming off the bench in the regular season for the first time in 14 years, Curry was greeted by a warm standing ovation and greetings on the big screen — he also expressed his gratitude on video — when he entered with 4:54 left in the opening quarter.

He immediately passed off for an assist on a dunk by Charles Bassey, who just signed with Golden State earlier in the day. Curry made a 3-pointer with 34 seconds remaining in the period.

“You can just feel it, we're back in the mix, we're back in the fight with Steph,” coach Steve Kerr said.

Curry finished with 29 points on 11-for-21 shooting and became the 26th player in NBA history with 9,000 field goals. He was 5 of 10 on 3s, playing 26 minutes.

Fans chanted “We want Steph! We want Steph!” during the fourth quarter, seemingly unaware of his minutes restriction.

This marked the first time he has come off the bench in a regular-season game since March 7, 2012, against Memphis. He last was a reserve in Game 4 of the first round of the 2022 playoffs during the Warriors’ last championship run.

Curry's pregame warmup is always a must-see show long before the main event, and the cheers were extra loud for his latest session now that he's finally back on the floor.

He was cheered before tipoff, too, and was supposed to play 24 minutes following a two-plus-month absence and 27 straight games sidelined because of a right knee injury.

He signed a few autographs after his shooting routine then missed his full-court heave before disappearing into the tunnel.

“He's one of the most beloved players in league history, Bay Area history in any sport and I think a long absence like this reminds everybody how lucky we are to see him, to watch him, to coach him, to play with him,” Kerr said. “So tonight's a special night because we're reminded of how lucky we've been and how lucky we still are.”

Kerr said before the game that it's still unclear how many of the remaining games Curry will play given Golden State has five contests in eight days with a back-to-back the rest of the way — and the expectation is he wouldn't play on consecutive nights.

The schedule will be determined by how Curry feels and input from Vice President of Player Health and Performance Rick Celebrini.

Soon, Curry will be starting again.

Rockets coach Ime Udoka knew Houston would have its hands full with No. 30 back.

“One of the best movers in the game,” Udoka said. "... Obviously, we’ve seen him enough and know some things that have hurt us in the past.”

Curry scrimmaged several times this past week to test his injured right knee, and he said Saturday it was never a consideration to shut it down for the rest of the season. Kerr hoped to have Curry and younger brother Seth finally play together.

At the 6:19 mark of the second quarter, they did — the first time brothers played together in Warriors franchise history, according to Elias. Seth Curry also has been injured much of the season.

Seth Curry did appear in six preseason games for Golden State in 2013 then played for the team’s G League Santa Cruz Warriors that year — with the brothers playing all of 100 seconds together during the fourth quarter of two games during that ’13 preseason.

“That was special,” Curry said. “We both had very difficult years, honestly him more than me with injuries. I was joking calling us the rehab brothers. It's been like that all year but to have that moment coming out of a timeout, talking about our matchups, I was having flashbacks to Charlotte Christian in high school my senior year, his sophomore year was the last time in an actual game. ... That was a dream come true to be honest, it hasn't really sunk in yet.”

Their mother, Sonya, was in the stands for the moment.

Curry warmed up in Kevin Durant's “Scoring Title” Nike KD 4s with former teammate Durant playing for the Rockets.

After Saturday's practice, Curry said dealing with the pain is part of his “new normal” and the offseason will require a significant reset.

The 38-year-old Curry initially expected to be playing right after the All-Star break, but the recovery was prolonged by some difficult moments when he would feel good, push hard then pay for it the following day.

The Warriors (36-42) lost their fourth straight game. They were 13-25 this season without Curry — including 9-18 during the recent stretch with him sidelined by patellofemoral pain syndrome.

Curry was thrilled to battle Durant again — knowing these moments won't last forever. The feeling was mutual.

“Amazing,” Durant said about Curry’s comeback night.

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

More open conversations about menopause and the period leading up to it — called perimenopause — are happening at the same time that marketing has been supercharged by social media. Women are being confronted by lotions and serums and light masks that promise to rejuvenate their faces and necks, dietary supplements claiming to do everything from boost moods to ease hot flashes and gadgets promising to help with symptoms.

“The marketing has gotten very, very aggressive. It's pervasive," said Dr. Nanette Santoro, an OB-GYN professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz.

Santoro and other physicians say that before spending lots of money on products that make big promises, it's important for women to talk to their doctors about what has actually been proven to help — and what could be harmful.

“It really pays to be very, very, very skeptical,” Santoro said.

A flood of marketing

As menstruation winds down, women's levels of estrogen and progesterone drop. In some women, the symptoms can include hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes, vaginal dryness and sleep problems.

Dr. Angela Angel, an OB-GYN with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, said that in the past, doctors would ask women around the age of 50 during their yearly exam if they were noticing any symptoms. But now, she said, patients are making separate appointments and initiating the conversations.

And at those appointments, she said, many patients tell her they've already tried something. "They’re coming to see me because it’s not effective or because it’s caused some other side effect,” Angel said.

Her hospital has recently started a menopause support group led by doctors and, at the request of participants, an upcoming session will focus on helping women navigate through the marketing onslaught.

Products aimed at women in that stage of life include everything from bracelets and rings claiming to help ease hot flashes to cooling blankets and bedding.

Santoro said her advice to patients is to “balance what you’re going to spend over whether this might help you.”

“If it’s a bracelet that’s going to cost you $20, it’s not a big expenditure. It might provide some improvement," Santoro said. "Things that are not well tested might still work but if you want something that works — come back, I’m not going anywhere and I’ll give you evidence based treatment.”

Santoro said dietary supplements have not been proven in multiple, well-done studies to alleviate hot flashes, but many are low cost with a low potential for harm. She said if a patient wants to try something they see online, it’s important to at least tell their doctor so they can be monitored while taking it — or warned off.

Doctors note that most of the time over-the-counter products like dietary supplements, shampoos or skin care that are advertised for menopausal women aren't different from regular products for that purpose ingredient-wise.

And some products could have side effects.

Advice from doctors

Dr. Monica Christmas, director of the menopause program at the University of Chicago Medicine, said there’s not one symptom everyone gets. Some women get few or none, she said, while others are extremely impacted by a variety of symptoms. What’s most important, she said, is seeking medical help.

Doctors say that hormone therapy prescribed by a doctor can help with symptoms, as can prescriptions for nonhormonal medication. Some women are advised to avoid hormone therapy because they have had certain medical issues.

“Not everybody needs hormone therapy, not everyone is a candidate for hormone therapy, not everybody should be on hormone therapy,” Angel said.

Regular exercise and a healthy diet can help a lot, doctors say. That can help with weight loss, which is associated with reducing hot flashes and night sweats.

And Santoro notes that avoiding alcohol is a good step for someone with hot flashes since it can make them worse.

“Many of the symptoms actually get better over time, so sometimes it really is just a matter of lifestyle modifications and self-care and getting through this most tumultuous time frame,” Christmas said.

For Brandi McGruder, a 49-year-old school librarian from Dallas, it clicked that she was in perimenopause last year when she went out to dinner for her birthday. When she and her friends entered the steakhouse, she was freezing cold. About 20 minutes later, she was burning up.

She said she made an appointment with her doctor, who prescribed an estrogen patch, which helped. McGruder said she’s seen the advertisements for products aimed at women her age, but her first stop was her doctor.

McGruder said that while she doesn’t like the way the symptoms have driven home that she’s getting older, she’s also embracing this time in her life. Her advice: “Laugh. It’s OK. Reach out to others experiencing what you are going through, don’t take it so serious.”

Concerns about skin

There are changes with skin that come both with time as one ages, and during menopause as skin gets less thick because of a loss of collagen and some of the hyaluronic acid that supports skin, said Dr. Melissa Mauskar, a dermatologist and associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Mauskar said using a prescribed retinoid or an over-the-counter retinol can help. Both assist with the production of collagen and reduce the appearance of wrinkles.

She said good over-the-counter moisturizers can be found at drugstores. Her advice is to look for ones with ceramides, which help keep skin hydrated.

“But you don’t want to have anything that has too many additive ingredients — just because it’s natural and a botanical does not mean it’s better,” Mauskar said. “A lot of those actually are contact allergens that can make people more sensitive.”

Ingestible collagen is among the products being marketed to women, but she warns that studies are mixed and ingesting it “doesn’t mean that it’s going to make its way to your skin and plump up your face” — even though products claim it will. Light masks, she said, won’t hurt and some studies show they could help, but they won’t make a difference overnight. She said seeing any improvements from them would likely take daily use for many years.

She said sun damage is one of the biggest reasons patients have more wrinkles, so consistent use of sunscreen is a must for all ages.

“I think there's a lot of new fancy things coming out and targeted to perimenopause, menopause patients," Mauskar said, "but sometimes the tried and true things that we at least have the science for I think still are my kind of gold standard for my patients.”

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:

Strikes in Iran kill at least 9 people

From Sunday into Monday across Iran, local media and activists reported strikes on Ahvaz, Bandar Lengeh, Karaj and Shiraz.

The strikes in Bandar Lengeh and Kong killed at least six people and wounded 17 others, the state-run IRAN newspaper said.

Another airstrike in southeastern Tehran hit a home, killing at least three people, Iranian state TV reported.

Iranian strikes hit Haifa

Israel’s Magen David Adom and Fire and Rescue services said early Monday that there are two reported sites of Iranian missile hits in the northern city of Haifa.

Video footage provided by Magen David Adom of the affected sites show active fire and bombed cars in what appears to be a residential area.

It is still unclear whether those were direct hits or damage from falling shrapnel from interceptions.

The missile strikes comes a day after another attack from Iran also hit a Haifa residential area, killing two people and injuring others.

Two people were still trapped in the rubble caused by the Sunday attack and their fate is unknown.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military warned the public Monday morning of another missile barrage coming from Iran, the third-such alert of the day.

Airstrike on Iranian city of Eslamshar kills at least 13

An airstrike early Monday struck a residential building in a city southwest of Iran’s capital, Tehran, killing at least 13 people, Iranian media reported.

The semiofficial Fars news agency and Nour News reported the strike near Eslamshar.

It wasn’t clear why the building had been struck.

Neither Israel nor the United States claimed the strikes early Monday, but they came after Trump issued a profanity-laced threat to Iran that it must reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Airstrikes hit Tehran university linked to weapons work

Airstrikes early Monday morning on Iran’s capital targeted the Sharif University of Technology.

Iranian media reported the strikes and damage to buildings there, as well as a natural gas distribution site next to the campus.

It wasn’t immediately clear what had been targeted on the grounds of the university, which is empty of students as the war has forced all schools in the country into online classes.

However, multiple countries over the years have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is controlled by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Meanwhile, the Guard and other security forces have been using secondary sites as rally points as their bases have come under repeated attack during the war.

Airstrike in the Irani city of Qom kills at least 5

The state-run IRAN daily newspaper said in an online message that an airstrike in a residential area of Qom killed at least five people. Qom is a holy Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

It wasn’t unclear what the target of the strike was.

Iran has not provided overall casualty figures from the war in days. It also hasn’t discussed its materiel losses.

Airstrikes hit Iran's capital

Before dawn Monday, a series of airstrikes hit Iran’s capital, Tehran. Explosions rang out into the night, though it wasn’t immediately clear what had been struck. The sound of low-flying fighter jets could be heard off and on for hours.

In Israel, authorities sounded one missile alert. In Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, two such alerts went off with air defenses firing, but it wasn’t immediately clear what had been targeted by Iran. Kuwait also said its air defenses worked multiple times overnight to intercept incoming.

Crude oil prices jump in early trading after Trump threats

Crude oil prices jumped sharply in early trading Sunday after U.S. President Donald Trump issued fresh, heightened threats against Iran and its infrastructure.

The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose more than 2% to $111.25. U.S. crude oil prices were up nearly 3% to $114.54 a barrel.

The last time front-month prices for U.S. crude oil prices were above $115 a barrel was the summer of 2022, in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and during a period of high inflation across the globe.

Trump on social media vowed to hit Iran’s power plants and bridges and said the country would be “living in Hell” if the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global trade, isn’t opened by Tuesday.

Official with Lebanese Christian party killed in Israeli strike

Pierre Mouawad, an official with the Lebanese Forces party, was killed along with his wife in an Israeli strike Sunday on an apartment building in the village of Ain Saadeh in the mountains east of Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Another woman was killed and three women were wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

The Israeli military has made no statement about the strike, and its intended target remains unclear.

The Lebanese Forces party is opposed to Hezbollah and has blamed the Shiite militant group for dragging Lebanon into a new war with Israel.

Israeli strikes in Christian-majority areas have led to sectarian tensions, with local residents fearing that Hezbollah members may be hiding among displaced Shiite civilians taking refuge there.

Doctors Without Borders condemns Israeli strike in Beirut neighborhood

The international aid group, known by its French acronym MSF, said the strike in Beirut’s Jnah neighborhood on Sunday hit “a densely populated residential area … only meters from Rafik Hariri Public Hospital.”

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the strike, which came without a warning, killed four people and wounded 39.

“We are seeing elderly people and adolescents arriving with critical injuries to the head, chest, and abdomen, including shrapnel wounds,” Luna Hammad, MSF medical coordinator working in the hospital, said in a statement. “When strikes hit crowded residential areas without warning, the consequences are severe, both in human casualties and in hospitals’ capacity to respond.”

MSF said that “strikes this close to a hospital spread fear and can stop people from seeking lifesaving care.”

The Israeli military has not named the intended target of the strike, which comes five weeks into the renewed Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon.

Iran says US bombarded its own aircraft, personnel

Iran’s joint military command spokesperson said Sunday that the U.S. had to bombard its own military aircraft and personnel that were struck and downed by Iranian fighters to “prevent embarrassment for President Trump and the hollow image of its military.”

Ebrahim Zolfaghari added that several U.S. military aircraft entered Iranian airspace to carry out a rescue operation for the pilot of a downed U.S. fighter jet, but said Iranian fighters and air defense systems struck the aircraft and forced them to make an emergency landing in an area south of Isfahan.

A regional intelligence official, who was briefed on the covert mission and who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it, 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.

Over the weekend, the United States pulled off a daring rescue of two aviators whose fighter jet was shot down by Iran, plucking the pilot from behind enemy lines before setting off a complicated extraction of the second service member who hid deep in the mountains as Tehran called for Iranians to help capture him.

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— Associated Press reporter Toqa Ezzidin contributed to this report.

Bahrain’s foreign minister urges action on Strait of Hormuz

Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani wrote in a statement Sunday that Iran’s weekslong chokehold on the critical waterway has created an “escalating crisis that threatens global stability, food security, and the foundational principles of international law.”

He urged action by the United Nations Security Council on a Bahrain draft proposal, which has faced crucial opposition from Russia, China and France over several issues, including language authorizing the use of force to open the strait. All three countries wield veto power over any resolution in the 15-member council.

The vote on the heavily revised and watered-down draft was scheduled to take place last week, but has been postponed due to lack of consensus.

Al-Zayani noted that the “window of opportunity is narrowing day by day” and failure by the international community to act “sends a dangerous message that vital arteries of the global economy can be threatened without consequence.”

Iranian negotiators have ‘immunity from death,’ Trump says

The U.S. president made the comments during an off-camera interview with Fox News.

“We’ve given them immunity from death. And we’ve told the people that we’re dealing with, who are the top people,” the president said.

Trump contended that the Iranians had already conceded on having a nuclear weapon.

“They’re not even negotiating that point, it’s so easy,” Trump told Fox News. “That’s already been conceded. Most of the points are conceded.”

4 wounded in fire at UAE’s Khor Fakkan port

The United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah government said that one Nepali and three Pakistani nationals were wounded Sunday in a fire caused by falling debris from an intercepted Iranian projectile at Khor Fakkan port, according to a statement posted on the social platform X.

One individual was severely wounded and had to be hospitalized, while the others suffered mild and moderate injuries, the statement said.

The statement did not specify whether the intercepted projectile was a missile or a drone.

3 missing in Haifa apartment building strike

Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority said Sunday they were searching for three people in the northern Israeli city of Haifa after an Iranian missile strike.

Paramedics said they rushed to the scene and searched through the rubble to dig out the injured, finding an older man in serious condition. They added that three other people were mildly injured, including a baby.

Associated Press video filmed at the scene showed much of the multistory building reduced to rubble.

The rescuers described the damage as resulting from a direct hit, but it was not immediately clear if the building had been struck by a missile or shrapnel from an interception.

Israeli fire kills 1 Palestinian in Gaza City, health officials say

The strike on a group of people also wounded others, according to health officials at the Shifa 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 more than 700 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.

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

Since the Iran war began over a month ago, Gaza militants have sat out the conflict and haven’t claimed any attacks against Israel.

Iran’s head of parliament lashes back at Trump

In a social media post on Sunday, Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf dismissed Trump’s recent threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure as “reckless.”

“You won’t gain anything through war crimes,” Qalibaf wrote on X. “The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game.”

Top Iranian official threatens closure of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait

A former foreign minister and adviser to the supreme leader warned Sunday that “the resistance front” could target the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Red Sea, through which about 12% of the world’s trade typically passes.

“If the White House thinks of repeating its stupid mistakes, it will quickly realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single signal,” Ali Akbar Velayati said on social media, signaling possible closure of the vital waterway if the U.S. escalates attacks.

Iran leads the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” which includes armed groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, where Houthi rebels had in the past cut off transit through Bab el-Mandeb with attacks on vessels.

Iran has effectively stopped cargo traffic through the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict, leading to higher oil and gas prices globally.

Iran floats a new condition for Strait of Hormuz reopening

Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaei, a presidential spokesperson, wrote Sunday on the social platform X that the reopening of the vital waterway can only happen if transit revenues are partially earmarked to compensate Iran for war damages.

There has been 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. Trump has threatened to attack Iran’s infrastructure if it fails to reopen the strait by Monday.

Oil-producing countries decide on symbolic output increase

Eight countries from the OPEC+ oil cartel say they will increase production again in May to ensure stability on the oil market — a decision overshadowed by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic due to the Iran war.

The countries said in a statement carried Sunday on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries website that production would be increased by 206,000 barrels per day.

That, however, remains largely on paper due to the loss of an estimated 12 million barrels a day from Persian Gulf producers due to the Hormuz closure.

The countries — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman — warned that damage from attacks on oil infrastructure will take “a long time” to repair and return supply to previous levels.

Such attacks, as well as disruption of navigation, undermine efforts to support stable prices “for the benefit of producers, consumers and the global economy,” they said.

Iranian government minister dismisses Trump threat in AP interview

Iran’s culture minister has dismissed President Donald Trump’s latest threats, calling the U.S. leader an “unstable, delusional figure.”

“Iranian society generally does not pay attention to his statements, as it believes he lacks personal, behavioral and verbal balance, and constantly shifts between contradictory positions,” Sayed Reza Salihi-Amiri told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

Trump on Sunday said he would strike Iran’s power plants and bridges this Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to marine traffic. In an expletive-laden post, Trump promised the Iranians would be “living in Hell” if the waterway isn’t opened.

“It seems Trump has become a phenomenon that neither Iranians nor Americans are able to fully analyze,” said Salihi-Amiri.

He said the Strait of Hormuz is “open to the world but closed to Iran’s enemies.”

Latest attack from Iran hits Haifa apartment building, Israel’s rescue services say

Paramedics say they rushed to the scene and searched through the rubble to dig out the injured, finding an older man in serious condition. They say three other people were mildly injured, including a baby.

Photos and video showed much of the multistory building reduced to rubble.

The rescuers described the damage as resulting from a direct hit. It was not immediately clear if the building had been struck by an Iranian missile or shrapnel from a missile interception.

2 Black Hawk helicopters were hit during the rescue, but got to safety

The two helicopters were able to navigate to safe airspace, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

It was not clear where the Black Hawks landed or if their crew members were injured.

Iran’s joint military command has claimed it struck two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters.

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— Associated Press reporter Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Kuwait and Qatar report further aerial attacks

The Kuwaiti army said Sunday that Iran had fired a total of nine ballistic missiles, four cruise missiles and 31 drones at Kuwaiti territory over the past 24 hours.

That brings the total number of projectiles that have targeted Kuwait since the war erupted to 740 drones, 336 ballistic missiles and 13 cruise missiles, according to an official statement posted on the social platform X.

Also, the Qatari army reported that it had on Sunday intercepted several drones and two cruise missiles fired by Iran, according to another statement on X.

Muslim civil rights group accuses Trump of mocking Islam

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, assailed Trump for invoking Allah in his Truth Social post threatening Iran.

“President Trump’s deranged mocking of Islam and his threats to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran are reckless, dangerous, and indicative of a mindset that shows indifference to human life and contempt for religious beliefs,” CAIR said in a statement.

Trump, in his post on Easter Sunday, demanded that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday, “or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

“The casual use of ‘Praise be to Allah’ in the context of violent threats reflects a disturbing willingness to weaponize religious language while simultaneously denigrating Islam and its followers,” CAIR said.

Iranians say Trump’s threats to strike infrastructure is ‘intent to commit war crime’

Hours after Trump’s expletive-laden post promising Iran will be “living in Hell” over the Strait of Hormuz closure, Tehran’s mission to the U.N. called the open threats to target civilian infrastructure “a direct and public incitement to terrorise civilians and clear evidence of intent to commit war crime.”

“The international community and all States have legal obligations to prevent such atrocious acts of war crimes,” the mission said in a post on the social platform X. “They must act now. Tomorrow is too late.”

Iran says Ahvaz Shahid Soleimani airport hit

Iran state-run television IRIB quoted a security official as saying that so far, no casualties were reported in the aftermath of a US-Israeli strike on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, the United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah government said that Khor Fakkan port was targeted and that no casualties were reported so far, according to a post on the social platform X by the government’s media office.

Earlier, UKMTO said that a captain had witnessed multiple splashes from unknown projectiles near his vessel while conducting loading operations at the same port.

Border crossing between Lebanon and Syria awaits threatened Israeli strikes

The main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria was closed Sunday after the Israeli military warned of plans to strike it the night before, alleging that Hezbollah was using it to smuggle military equipment.

Samir Abdelkhaleq from the Lebanese border town of Majdal Anjar said the closure is an economic blow to many.

“These are real losses for people and for business owners,” he said. “Everyone is just waiting for the strike to be over.”

Syrian authorities, who have a hostile relationship with Hezbollah, have denied that the crossing is being used for smuggling. In recent days, Syria announced the discovery and closure of several tunnels they said were being used by Hezbollah for smuggling.

More than 200,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria in the five weeks since the outbreak of renewed war between Israel and Hezbollah.

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.

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— 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.

Matt Rose, owner of Rose Tree Service in Monroe County, and his crew hit the ground running to help with the recovery effort.

“Probably about 5:30 in the afternoon the wind started picking up and all you heard was tornado sirens,” Rose said.

The storms didn’t last long — but the damage they left behind tells a different story.

“Within 20 minutes I’d say. It did a lot of damage in 20 minutes,” Rose said.

The storms left behind splintered trees, downed wires and ripped at least one barn to shreds.

Rob Salenbien of Van Buren Township watched the storm destroy what he described as his family’s entertainment space — right before a major family milestone.

“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 May 3rd.”

Salenbien and his family say they are thankful no one was hurt.

As for the cleanup, Rose says crews are still working to finish up damage left by a previous storm — and now they have even more on their hands. He estimates the cleanup from this latest round of storms could take weeks.

“We were still finishing up the last storm of trees broken on houses and stuff like that,” Rose said.

Sonya Khal says her concerns with Priority Waste started when the company took over her trash service about 1.5 years ago.

In the beginning months, she says she didn’t get her bill because it was addressed to a couple who hasn’t lived in the home for over a decade.

“When you first get something in the mail and it’s not addressed to you, you write ‘Return to Sender,’” Khal said.

So, she did that for months.

Khal showed Local 4 the names on the bills from early 2025. They were not addressed to her, but included her address.

Finally, she called the company as a way to try and cut through the confusion.

“They said, ‘Yes, you owe us X amount of dollars with X amount of late fees,’ I was like, ‘woah woah woah, pardon me,’ I am like, ‘no, if you don’t send me a bill, then how am I supposed to know if and what I owe you?’” Kahl said.

She asked them to address the letters to her name or to “Current Resident.”

“They started threatening me, ‘Oh we will put it on your taxes,’” she said.

She says the company did add the hundreds of dollars in charges to her property taxes last year.

She thought the issue was resolved because they started addressing the bills to “Current Resident.”

She says she paid every quarterly bill in full and on time.

“Even if I paid the bill in full, with late fees that don’t belong to me to begin with,” she said. “Here I am, with more late fees.”

A few days ago, she got that “Notice of Delinquency” letter. It says she owes a late fee she doesn’t know what for.

“If not paid in full by April 30th, or they are going to add it to my property taxes,” she said.

She says she just wants answers.

“Explain it to me, please, how is it that I owe it when I have a zero balance the last time since I paid you in full, explain it to me - and never an answer, never a return phone call,” she said.

Local 4 reached out to Priority Waste multiple times for requests for comment, including to their billing line, but has not heard back.

A defiant Iran struck infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries and threatened to restrict another heavily used waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Arabian Peninsula.

Trump on social media vowed to hit Iran’s power plants and bridges and said the country would be “living in Hell” if the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global trade, isn’t opened. 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 and spiked fuel prices in just over five weeks.

“It seems Trump has become a phenomenon that neither Iranians nor Americans are able to fully analyze,” Iranian Culture Minister Sayed Reza Salihi-Amiri told visiting Associated Press journalists in an interview in Tehran, adding that the U.S. president “constantly shifts between contradictory positions.”

Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets like oil fields and desalination plants that provide drinking water. Iran’s U.N. mission called Trump’s threat “clear evidence of intent to commit war crime.”

Iran’s joint military command warned of stepped-up attacks on regional oil and civilian infrastructure if the U.S. and Israel attack such targets there, according to state television.

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.

The US describes a dramatic rescue

An intense search followed Friday's crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle, while Iran promised a reward for the “enemy pilot.” It was the first known American aircraft to crash in Iranian territory since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.

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

A senior U.S. administration official said that before locating the second aviator, the CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had found him and were moving him out, creating confusion for Iranians. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

Iran also shot down another U.S. military plane Friday, demonstrating the perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of Iran's degraded military to hit back. Neither the status of the 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 — a transport plane and two helicopters — shot down by Iranian forces during the rescue operation.

However, a regional intelligence official briefed on the mission told the AP 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 joint military command later said the U.S. bombarded its own aircraft to “prevent embarrassment for President Trump."

Two Black Hawk helicopters were hit but navigated to safe airspace, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

Diplomatic efforts continue

Trump's deadline centers on alarm over Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, critical for global shipments of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf as well as humanitarian supplies. Some ships have paid Iran for passage.

An Iranian presidential spokesperson, Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaei, said on social media that the strait can reopen only if some transit revenues compensate Iran for war damages.

A top Iranian adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, warned on social media that Tehran also could disrupt trade on the Bab el-Mandeb, a key chokepoint to and from the Red Sea.

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.

Egypt said that Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had spoken with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and with Turkish and Pakistani counterparts. Russia said that Araghchi also spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Bahrain urged the U.N. Security Council to act on its draft proposal with language authorizing defensive action to ensure safe passage through the strait.

Airstrikes hit Iran

An airstrike early Monday struck a residential building near Eslamshar, southwest of Tehran, killing at least 13 people, the semiofficial Fars news agency and Nour News reported.

Airstrikes also damaged buildings at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran as well as a natural gas distribution site next to the campus, Iranian media reported. It wasn’t immediately clear what was targeted at the university campus, which has switched to online classes because of the war.

Elsewhere in Iran, an airstrike killed at least five people in a residential area of Qom, the state-run IRAN daily newspaper said in an online message. Qom is a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

It wasn't clear why the buildings were struck. Neither Israel nor the United States claimed the strikes early Monday

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said one Nepali and three Pakistanis were hurt in fires caused by debris from the interception of an Iranian projectile at Khor Fakkan port, and interception debris caused fires at a petrochemical plant in Ruwais, halting operations.

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 a national oil company storage facility and a state-run petrochemical plant, the kingdom’s official news agency said.

In Israel, rescue authorities searched for three people in the northern city of Haifa after an apartment building was hit. It wasn't immediately clear what struck it.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but its government has not updated the toll for days.

In Lebanon, whose health ministry said an Israeli strike without warning killed four people in Beirut, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there while targeting Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants.

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.

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Lee and Toropin reported from Washington, Metz from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Lisa Mascaro and Seung Min Kim in Washington; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LeBron James had 30 points and 15 assists for the playoff-bound Lakers, who led for just 13 seconds in the opening minutes of their first game since injuries sidelined Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves for the rest of the regular season.

Doncic, the NBA scoring leader, has a left hamstring strain, and Reaves, LA's No. 2 scorer, is out with a left oblique strain. Both were injured in a blowout loss at Oklahoma City on Thursday.

Flagg, who had nine assists and eight rebounds, recorded consecutive 40-point games for the first time two nights after the 19-year-old rookie No. 1 pick scored 51 to become the first NBA teenager with a 50-point outing. Flagg is the first rookie with back-to-back games scoring at least 40 points since Allen Iverson (1996-97 season).

Luke Kennard had his first career triple-double with 15 points, a career-high 16 rebounds and 11 assists for the Lakers, who dropped into a tie for third in the Western Conference with Denver, although LA holds the tiebreaker on the Nuggets. Houston has a chance to get into the third-place mix in the final week of the regular season.

P.J. Washington Jr. scored 13 of his 15 points after halftime for the Mavericks, whose home skid was their longest at 25-year-old American Airlines Center. They lost the first 19 games of the 1993-94 season at since-demolished Reunion Arena.

James scored 16 points in the second quarter, when the Lakers cut a 22-point deficit to six at halftime.

The 41-year-old in his record 23rd season had back-to-back dunks before the break, then a soaring alley-oop slam from Kennard to get the Lakers within 72-70 early in the third quarter. But LA never got closer.

Up next

Lakers: Host Oklahoma City on Tuesday.

Mavericks: Visit the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday.

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

She rolled to a five-shot win over Nelly Korda and the rest of the star-studded field for her first win in two years.

Coughlin shot an even-par 72 for a 7-under total, earning the 33-year-old from Virginia $600,000. She won her third LPGA Tour title and first in the United States, after winning in Canada and Scotland in 2024.

“I think it just means more because after 2024 and not winning is hard,” Coughlin said. “I didn’t get it done earlier in the year last year when I had a couple chances and that really bothered me. I was like, ‘What if I don’t ever get to do it again? What if that’s the best golf I every played in 2024?’ Those thoughts were hard not to think last year.”

Korda was runner-up yet again after shooting a 75 and finishing at 2 under. She made her one birdie on the par-5 18th, avoiding going without one in a round for the first time since the first day of The ANNIKA last November in the Tampa Bay area.

This was her third consecutive second-place finish after opening her season by winning in Orlando, Florida, moving Korda up a spot to No. 1 in the world ranking.

“I’m just going to stick to what I’m doing,” Korda said. “I’m really happy with the way that my game is trending, and sometimes when you work too hard and you exhaust yourself, you can go the other way.”

Leona Maguire (71) also finished at 2 under, and the only other player with an under-par score was Miyu Yamashita (74) at 1 under.

Korda wasn’t the only tough competitor for Coughlin to overcome. The $4 million prize money in the event organized by Golf Saudi and co-sanctioned by the LPGA and Ladies European Tour drew 38 of the top 40 players. It’s the first such event in the United States, and more appear to be coming to North America.

Players compared this tournament to a major because Shadow Creek because birdies were so difficult to come by. Only four players wound up under par for the tournament.

Coughlin, the former two-time Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year at Virginia, showed why she feels comfortable at Shadow Creek, even though the format for this year's tournament switched from match to stroke play. She made the final pairing last year before a 1-up loss to Madelene Sagstrom.

“It left a sour taste in my mouth,” Coughlin said. “Second is a good consolation, but winning is really fun.”

Her comfort was evident all four days around the 6,765-yard tract that makes players pay dearly for putting the ball in poor locations. Coughlin was in a three-way tie for the lead after the first round and never relinquished that position as others fell off.

She came close to turning the tournament into a laugher at times Friday and Saturday, but going into the final round, Coughlin enjoyed just a two-shot margin over Korda, the 2024 LPGA Tour Player of the Year. Korda ended the third round with back-to-back birdies and an apparent message she wasn't going anywhere.

But then the final round began, and it became clear fairly quickly which direction the tournament was heading. Coughlin began to pull away and all but ensured at the eighth green she would be the one to place her hands on the trophy.

Coughlin rolled in a downhill right-to-left 45-footer for birdie on the par 3. Korda then preceded to three-putt, including missing a 2-footer for par.

Suddenly, Coughlin was at 9 under and Korda at 3 under — and the rest of the round all but a formality. Korda got within four shots when Coughlin opened the back nine by bogeying the 10th and 12th holes, but Korda did the same on Nos. 13 and 15 to again make it a six-shot difference.

“Not even just bogeys, but you can make a lot of big numbers out there,” Coughlin said. “So I was sticking to my game plan and trying to focus on staying in my routine as much as I could and make as many pars as I possibly could.”

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

Teams will have two days to send qualifying offers to players who they have reserved rights for. Teams will also have a chance to offer a franchise tag to one player who is eligible to be cored.

Then, starting Wednesday, teams can begin meeting with unrestricted free agents, with the ability to offer them contracts starting Saturday.

More than 80% of the league’s players are free agents this year, as players had signed deals that expired at the end of last season.

There are only two veteran players who aren’t under rookie contracts that are signed for this season — Seattle's Lexie Brown and Phoenix's Kalani Brown.

Usually teams have a few weeks to court free agents to join their franchise. There’s a chance that many players may just re-sign with their current teams for a year and revisit free agency after the season.

Players could also go after the money and accept a bigger contract from a team they might not know as much about.

The college draft is scheduled for April 13 in New York.

The WNBA and its players’ union agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement last month. The new seven-year CBA, which begins this season and runs through 2032, represents a transformational landmark labor deal for the league. The deal was unanimously ratified by the WNBA Board of Governors and approved through a players’ vote.

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

Spaun won for the second time at the TPC San Antonio, with one big difference. His victory four years ago got him into the Masters. Now he is the U.S. Open champion who already had his spot at Augusta National secured. But this was an important win.

He had yet to finish in the top 20 in seven starts this year — his best was a tie for 24th in The Players Championship — and now the 35-year-old Californian has a validating win in tough conditions as he heads into the first major of the year.

“It’s just — this game is so crazy,” Spaun said. “I haven’t been feeling at the form I wanted to be based on last season, and just trying to take each day as it comes, and accepting what I have."

“There’s just so much that comes with winning big events like that, a U.S. Open or any other major," he said. "I put a lot of pressure on me to start the year, a lot of expectations. I went into the last few weeks starting at the Players trying to be freed up, and put less pressure on myself, and it’s been trying. But sticking to that mantra has really helped me.”

Robert MacIntyre, who had led for so much of the tournament, completed 12 holes Sunday morning in the storm-delayed tournament for an even-par 72 to stay ahead by one shot going into the final round. The groups didn't change for the final round in a bid to finish amid more rain — but no lightning that caused any delays.

Spaun was in the mix with a dozen other players when he hit his tee shot to 3 feet on the par-3 16th for birdie, and then drove the green on the 306-yard 17th hole to 10 feet for eagle.

He finished with a par to set the target at 17-under 271, finishing about an hour before MacIntyre and the final group. He was on the range when MacIntyre, three shots behind with two to play, drove the 17th and holed an eagle putt just outside 15 feet to get within one shot.

But the Scot hooked his second shot from a wet fairway on the 609-yard closing hole — a par 5 that yielded only 10 birdies in the final round — and even after getting relief from temporary immovable obstructions, MacIntyre could only hit wedge to 30 feet.

His birdie putt to force a playoff was short all the way. MacIntyre closed with a 70 to share second place with Matt Wallace (68) and Michael Kim (69).

He won for the third time on the PGA Tour, two of them at the Texas Open.

Ludvig Aberg had his third straight top 10 — including The Players Championship where he gave up the lead on the back nine — going into the Masters. He closed with a 70 and tied for fifth with Andrew Putnam, who needed birdie on the 18th to force a playoff and hit wedge into a back bunker, making bogey for a 70.

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

The two-time All-American did her homework following a season-low points in UCLA's only loss of the season, applying what she gleaned from the game film to help take down Texas in the rematch.

Betts opened up about her mental health issues, the honesty taking a weight off her shoulders while, hopefully, helping others facing their own darkness.

This life of hers has been a pursuit of perfection — or at least the best version of herself — and Betts capped the college basketball portion of it by reaching the pinnacle of her sport with one final dominating performance.

UCLA won its first NCAA national championship with a 79-51 blowout of South Carolina on Sunday and Betts, as she’s been throughout her career, was the catalyst at both ends of the floor.

“I showed up with zero confidence and wasn’t sure if I wanted to really play basketball for that much longer,” Betts said. "Coach Cori (Close) really believed in me and wanted to see me accomplish everything that I’d ever dreamed of. They wanted me to see myself the way they all see me and and I feel like now at this point I can finally, truly do that.”

The 6-foot-7 senior shook off a first-half coughing fit — the dry desert air got to her — to finish with 14 points, 11 rebounds and two blocked shots. She altered and prevented even the thought of several others at the rim to give UCLA its first national championship since taking the 1978 AIAW title.

“She’s a very dominant player,” South Carolina's Tessa Johnson said. “She's consistent and effective. It's hard to scout that.”

Betts had a similar impact in UCLA's 51-44 shutdown of Texas in the national semifinals, a 16-point, 11-rebound, three-block performance that set the stage for her to be selected as the Final Four's most outstanding player.

So what if there wasn't a trophy at the announcement.

Betts got to share a national championship with her younger sister, Sienna, a freshman on the team, along with friends and family in the stands.

“They were crying more than I was because they’ve seen me since my sophomore year, just how I matured and it has been really special for them,” Betts said. "They mean so much to me.”

The closing flourish capped a rocky-at-times career.

Betts was the nation's No. 1 high school recruit out of Grandview High School, in Aurora, Colorado, and chose to play at perennial powerhouse Stanford. She had a solid freshman season, but the building mental health issues she had been struggling with began to bubble closer to the surface even after she transferred to UCLA.

Betts opened up about her struggles last year and expounded upon it in a recent first-person story, in which she detailed the brutal hospital conditions and the epiphany once she got out — that she wanted to be here.

“I just feel like for me, basketball and this platform that I’ve been given, I was put on this earth to do more than play basketball,” Betts said. “I think the journey I’ve had, the hardships I’ve went through are to help other people.”

Betts dedicated herself to getting better, on and off the court, and became one of the nation's best college basketball players.

She was UCLA's first Associated Press All-American a year ago and backed that up with another All-American nod after averaging 18.5 points and 7.6 rebounds while shooting 60.1% from the field and leading the Bruins with 71 blocked shots.

With Betts anchoring the middle, the Bruins (37-1) one-upped the program's first trip the Final Four last year with the best season in history.

UCLA reeled off a school-record 31 straight wins following the 76-65 loss to Texas, including the payback win in the national semifinals. The Bruins then erased memories of last year's blowout Final Four loss to UConn with its first NCAA national championship.

Betts, as usual, was at the center of it all, the best version of herself leading to the greatest moment of her and her teammates' lives.

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

Scheffler, who tends to keep his golf separate from his home life, had not shared any information since withdrawing from the Houston Open two weeks ago because of the impending birth of his second child. He said wife Meredith gave birth to a boy on March 27. They named him Remy.

“We just liked it,” Scheffler said about the name. His first son, Bennett, was born in 2024 before the PGA Championship. "We didn’t have very many good boy names, to be honest with you.”

There he was, in a stroller Meredith was pushing under the famous oak tree by the clubhouse, 9 days old and already at his first Masters.

It added to the sights rarely seen anywhere else on the Sunday before a major. That holds true with so much about the Masters.

Defending champion Rory McIlroy has been at the club all weekend, watching the Augusta National Women's Amateur on Saturday and handing out trophies to a group of boys in the annual Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals on Sunday.

McIlroy has talked about how much he looked forward to returning as the Masters champion and enjoying all the perks that go with it. He was in his green jacket during the Drive, Chip and Putt, and posed with Maria Jose Marin, the ANWA winner and first Colombian to join the roll call of Augusta National winners.

Then he headed out to the golf course with his father, Gerry, and Augusta member Jimmy Dunne. Next up is the Masters Club dinner Tuesday and the elaborate menu he has put together.

“It is the most exclusive dinner club in all of sport, and I think we should all feel very fortunate that we are there,” he told Golf Channel after his part in the trophy presentation Sunday. “But we’re there because of the hard work and the good play that we’ve been able to produce.”

He also mentioned two players who won't be at the dinner — Tiger Woods, arrested and briefly jailed for suspicion of driving under the influence during a March 27 car crash, and Phil Mickelson, who is tending to a personal health matter at home.

“Unfortunately, there will be a couple of guys that won’t be in that room, which is a shame, but I want to make sure that they’re acknowledged as well,” McIlroy said. "They’ve been two of the greatest champions that the Masters has ever seen. But it’s going to be a really cool night. I can’t wait. I hope everyone enjoys the dinner and enjoys everything that I’ve selected.”

Bryson DeChambeau also was at Augusta National on Saturday for the end of the ANWA, consoling Asterisk Talley after the 17-year-old hit two shots into Rae's Creek for a quadruple-bogey 7 on the par-3 12th hole that cost her a chance to win.

DeChambeau grew up about 45 minutes away from where Talley lives in the central valley of California. They know each other well.

“Obviously, I’ve had difficult moments in my career, and if there’s anything I can do to support her, that’s what I’m here for. That’s why I’m here to support,” DeChambeau told reporters Saturday.

He teed off Sunday by himself after the DC&P was over, walking to slap hands and pose for photos with kids and spectators some 100 yards down the right side of the tee. “I've got to go play,” he told them before running to catch up with his caddie. There are exceptions for running at Augusta National.

Also there was Gary Player, the three-time Masters champion who will be hitting the honorary tee shot on Thursday. The Black Knight was on the putting green as the Boys 7-9 division was preparing for its putting competition on the 18th green.

There was 8-year-old Landyn Kelly from Henderson, Nevada, rapping 40-foot putts toward the hole with 90-year-old Player watching with amazement.

“What a touch! What a touch he has, man!” Player exclaimed.

Scheffler took this Sunday to play with Blake Smith, his longtime manager, who had never played Augusta National. Scheffler and McIlroy are fighting some history this week. Adam Scott in 2013 is the last player to win the Masters after having three weeks off.

“I've been practicing,” Scheffler said. “I've been able to do a good amount at home.”

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

The tornado has been given a rating of EF-1 with maximum wind speeds of 100 mph.

The tornado was on the ground for 3.25 miles, reaching a maximum width of 200 yards.

At 5:46 p.m. the tornado touched down just south of Martz Road between Rawsonville Road and Hoeft Road. This is two miles northeast of Willis in Wayne County.

A hayride trailer was flipped as the tornado moved northeast toward Hull Road.

Along and just south of Hull Road, between Elwell and Bak roads, multiple trees were uprooted, trees and telephone poles were snapped, and a large barn wall was blown out.

Moving northeast, the tornado crossed Sumpter Road, downing power lines and tree limbs.

The tornado lifted at 5:50 p.m. just before Savage Road in Belleville in Wayne County.

Mateus Fernandes and Axel Disasi struck in the 93rd and 96th minutes as West Ham leveled the score at 2-2 at London Stadium and forced extra time — where two goals for West Ham were chalked off for offside — before Leeds won the quarterfinal shootout 4-2. West Ham debutant Finlay Herrick saved a penalty from Joel Piroe but Leeds eventually prevailed with Pascal Struijk scoring the winning penalty.

“At least I’m old enough that I was already born when there was the last semifinal for Leeds United in the FA Cup in the '80s," Leeds manager Daniel Farke said. “It was a crazy game."

The thousands of West Ham fans who had left early were trying, and failing, to get back in when Taty Castellanos thought he had put the Hammers ahead in the opening seconds of extra time after a bad error from Leeds goalkeeper Lucas Perri, only for VAR to rule Castellanos offside.

Then Jarrod Bowen crashed a shot against the crossbar, with Pablo offside when he rolled in the rebound.

The 20-year-old Herrick came on as a replacement for Alphonse Areola, who left the field to receive treatment with five minutes of extra time remaining.

Ao Tanaka and Dominic Calvert-Lewin's penalty had previously built a 2-0 lead for Leeds in a classic FA Cup game between two relegation-threatened teams in the Premier League.

FA Cup semifinal draw

Leeds will play Chelsea in the semifinals in a repeat of the 1970 FA Cup final, which Chelsea won after a replay.

Manchester City and second-tier Southampton meet in the other semifinal match with games to be played April 25-26 at Wembley.

The draw was held after Leeds’ victory.

Penalty shootout controversy

West Ham averted some controversy after it backed down on a decision, reportedly taken by the safety officer before the match, that a penalty shootout would not be taken in front of the end housing 9,000 Leeds fans because of “safety concerns.”

As it was, the coin toss went West Ham’s way.

Farke said: “You could imagine what I think about such a situation."

Absent fans

Stoppage time, extra time and the shootout were played in front of a half-empty stadium after the exodus of home fans.

“What I saw on the pitch was more important than anything,” West Ham manager Nuno Espirito Santo said.

“What I saw was a group of players, a group of boys that didn’t give up. This is the major lesson that we have to take from today.”

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

The whale was discovered Saturday near Raymond, Washington, in the Willapa River, which feeds into the ocean at Willapa Bay. A number of gray whales are currently in the bay on their 5,000-mile (8,000-kilometer) spring migration from birthing grounds in Baja California, Mexico, north to feeding grounds in Alaska.

The larger issue that the population of gray whales in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean has faced since 2019 is reduced food availability in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas off Alaska’s coast, John Calambokidis, a research biologist with the Cascadia Research Collective, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

“Gray whales are facing a major crisis and the heart of it does seem to be feeding on their prey in the Arctic,” he said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries agency declared an unusual mortality event for eastern gray whales — meaning those in the eastern Pacific — from late 2018 to late 2023. It involved 690 gray whale strandings during that time, stretching from Alaska to Mexico.

NOAA Fisheries investigators concluded the preliminary cause was “localized ecosystem changes in the whales’ sub-Arctic and Arctic feeding areas that led to changes in food, malnutrition, decreased birth rates and increased mortality.”

Officials believed the population was rebounding, but the most recent count from 2025 instead showed a continuing decline. The federal agency estimated there were about 13,000 gray whales, the lowest count since the 1970s.

“A lot of these gray whales are looking very emaciated, very thin,” Calambokidis said.

Their migration north is typically the most challenging period for gray whales, the longest they’ve gone without eating, forcing the animals to use up their nutritional reserves.

“When that happens, you often see gray whales in a more desperate search for new areas to feed,” Calambokidis said. "That’s the most likely context for this whale.”

Researchers will attempt to examine the whale, possibly as soon as Monday.

It entered the north fork of the Willapa River on Wednesday, via a bay about 185 miles (298 kilometers) southwest of Seattle. Residents gathered on bridges along the river just to catch glimpses of the massive mammal and flooded social media with photos and video of it expelling air through its blowhole.

While the gray whale appeared thin, it was behaving normally and didn’t appear to have any injuries, the nonprofit Cascadia Research Collective said in a Facebook post.

The organization was giving the whale time and space to leave the river on its own, but when researchers attempted to find it Friday, the animal had traveled further upriver into waters that were unnavigable by boat, Calambokidis said.

Overnight lows will fall to the low 30s across most of the area, but our northern communities could see some upper 20s.

West-southwest winds stay breezy this evening before dropping to 5-10 mph tonight. Wintry mix is possible overnight into Monday morning as a clipper system moves through the region.

Scattered rain/mix lingers into the afternoon before tapering off in the evening. A light dusting will be possible on elevated and grassy surfaces, particularly into the thumb region.

Winds pick up tomorrow, out of the northwest, at 10-15 mph with gusts into the mid 20s. High temperatures tomorrow will only be in the low to mid 40s with wind chills in the 30s.

We see much more sunshine for Tuesday although high temperatures will top out near 40 degrees.

Wednesday will be closer to normal with highs in the low 50s. We’ll more of a mix of sun and clouds Wednesday before rain chances return Thursday.

Highs to end the week will be back in the 60s.

The UCLA great and women's basketball pioneer smiled as she was honored with other members of the 1976 U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team at Sunday’s national championship game.

They all wore matching bright red Team USA shirts. But when Meyers Drysdale was introduced, she waved to the crowd at Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, and then lifted up her red shirt to reveal a blue UCLA top celebrating the team she won a national championship with as a player.

That title was nearly 50 years ago in the now dissolved AIAW — the postseason tournament for women's college basketball before the NCAA took over in 1982 — but Meyers Drysdale was filled with the same joy watching UCLA defeat South Carolina for its first NCAA-era title on Sunday.

“You know, there’s so much pride wearing USA across your jersey,” Meyers Drysdale said. "There’s no question that I am once a Bruin, aways a Bruin. And there’s no way I was not going to wear a UCLA shirt under my USA shirt, just to show the fans that all of us are so supportive of this team.”

Meyers Drysdale was the first woman to receive a full athletic scholarship at UCLA and helped the Bruins beat Maryland in the 1978 AIAW national championship game.

A lot has changed besides the sport’s governing body in the five decades since she and her teammates hoisted that trophy, but Meyers Drysdale's presence within the Bruins program has remained the same.

She has often been a guiding voice, always making herself available to players and coaches for advice and encouragement.

“It’s been spectacular to have Annie. I got a text from her last night,” UCLA coach Cori Close said Saturday afternoon. “I’ve known Annie a long time. She’s never wavered in terms of what she’s been to me, as a young coach all the way through to my being a head coach at UCLA. I am just so grateful for that.”

Close has said that sharing a UCLA championship with Meyers Drysdale and other pioneers who paved the way for her program would be special.

During UCLA's title run, Close often corrected anyone who mentioned the Bruins were chasing their first national championship — making sure no one forgets that 1978 team.

“She is also giving these young women the history of the game themselves,” said Meyers Drysdale, now a basketball analyst and vice president with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, “because they are part of history. This is their win. This is their game. This is their championship. And we are just part of the history of it.”

UCLA used its size, shooting, and the experience and chemistry of its six starting seniors — including 6-foot-7 star Lauren Betts — to completely shut down South Carolina in the national championship game and complete a yearslong climb to the top.

After losing to UConn in their first Final Four appearance last year, the Bruins ran through their opponents this season, with their only loss coming to Texas in a November tournament.

“Just pride, pride,” Meyers Drysdale said of her emotions, one quarter before the Bruins' title became official, "and knowing the journey they’ve been on, not just the last two years, but before that.

“Cori with the players that she’s brought in and the seniors and grad seniors on this team. ... We all love UCLA.”

For Close, who has a deep connection with UCLA, the support of pioneers like Meyers Drysdale is especially meaningful.

Close has coached the Bruins for 15 seasons, but before that she was mentored by Bruins men’s coach John Wooden, who won 10 national championships at the school. Close visited Wooden bi-weekly, adopting his “Pyramid of Success” and focus on character.

It paid off with her team.

“Cori Close and her staff have done such a terrific job," Meyers Drysdale said, ”preaching competitive greatness and being your best when the best is needed. You love the joy that they play with, and they sacrifice for each other. They don’t care who scores. They don’t care who gets what recognition. They’re just all about winning.”

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

Even so, the monster program that Dawn Staley has built over the past 15 years doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

“Obviously, we got smacked today,” Staley said. “We got to figure out how we smack back and put ourselves in the position where we’re hoisting the trophy at the end of the day."

South Carolina should be one of the top contenders to make a seventh straight Final Four in 2027 and will have plenty of motivation after Sunday's miserable performance. The Gamecocks shot just 29% from the field and the 28-point margin was among the biggest in championship game history.

It's the second straight year South Carolina has fallen flat in the title game. The Gamecocks lost 82-59 to UConn in the 2025 final.

“To get here is hard,” Staley said. “To win here is harder, right? We just have to keep getting here and make adjustments when we don’t win.”

Staley will undoubtedly stew over this loss for a while, but once she focuses on next season, there are lots of reasons for optimism. Leading scorer Joyce Edwards and Tessa Johnson are expected to return, while Madina Okot is seeking a fifth year of eligibility from the NCAA.

Veteran forward Chloe Kitts has said she’ll be back after missing this year with a torn ACL. There’s also the possibility that forward Ashlyn Watkins could return after recovering from a knee injury and taking a year away from the program to focus on personal growth.

On top of that, there's a group of promising young players who were reserves on this year's team and a highly-rated recruiting class that includes guard Jerzy Robinson.

Staley will still have work to do. The Gamecocks have to identify a new leader to replace Raven Johnson, who excelled as a floor general during his five-year career.

“Raven was the last of the core group of players that had been together that actually had taken our program to the very top,” Staley said. “I just think we just need players who are committed to team, committed to getting better as individuals, creating pro habits so when they are challenged to perform at a high level, it won’t be something that they wrestle with. It is a norm.”

Johnson had a dream career with the Gamecocks — even if it ended with a loss — never missing a Final Four and winning a pair of national championships.

She was sidelined most of the 2022 title run after tearing her ACL early in the season but was an important part of South Carolina's undefeated title in 2024, when the Gamecocks topped Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the championship game.

Johnson became more of an offensive threat this season, averaging 10 points, but it's her leadership and defense that made her an indispensable part of this Gamecocks title run. In the semifinals, the 5-foot-8 guard matched up with UConn's 6-foot-2 Sarah Strong, stifling the AP Player of the Year for most of the night.

Now, the Gamecocks have to move on without her.

If recent history is any indication, as long as Staley is in charge, South Carolina will be well-equipped for the challenge.

“There’s going to be a lot of highs and a lot of lows, but believe in Coach Staley,” Johnson said. “She wants the best for you. You might not get what you want in that moment, but you just believe in the process and trust the process, everything will turn out good.”

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

Just how big of a Wolverines fan? He named his oldest son after star Michigan receiver Braylon Edwards.

Now, UConn's breakout star, Braylon Mullins, will try to take down the family's favorite program with the national title on the line Monday night. But there's no doubt where the family's allegiance lies.

“It's UConn all the way,” Josh Mullins told The Associated Press, who was seated near the front row with his wife and twin sons for Friday's open practice. “I tried to get all of them to buy in on (Michigan). When I was growing up, you know, the Fab Five. I was a huge football fan, that's why I like Brady.”

The eldest member of the Mullins family has been in high demand this week from both sides of this March Madness finale.

He did a podcast this week with Edwards, though he’s never met the ex-receiver in person, and was hopeful of meeting Jalen Rose, Chris Webber and the rest while they were in Indianapolis doing some TV work over the weekend.

UConn (34-5) fans are excited to meet him, too, since the Huskies likely wouldn't be here without the sensational play of his oldest son.

Braylon Mullins made the long 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left to take down Duke, the tourney's top seed, in the East Region final, then made another crucial 3 with 52 seconds left Saturday to beat Illinois 71-62.

It was his only basket of the second half, setting up the clash — and potential family feud — against Michigan.

"In my household, growing up, it was Michigan football, Michigan basketball,” Braylon Mullins said Sunday. “That's what my family and friends were watching. So having people around me who are probably going to be rooting for Michigan means a little more in this game, just to be fun. But at the end of the day, it's just another game.”

Cadeau and the art of missing on purpose

Michigan guard Elliot Cadeau controlled a lot of Saturday night's win over Arizona despite shooting only 5 for 17. Coach Dusty May says those shot stats aren't as bad as they look because, at least once, Cadeau was missing on purpose.

In a twist of coaching genius, May instructed Cadeau to bounce the ball high off the backboard as a way to get it to 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara, who was dealing with Arizona's 7-4 Motiejus Krivas for much of the evening.

“When you look at the stat sheet it says a missed shot and a put-back,” May said of his guard's stats line, which also included 10 assists, five rebounds and four steals.

Cadeau confirmed this. On Michigan's first possession, he drove to the hoop and Krivas came over to try to stop him, so Cadeau threw the ball high off the glass to set up an easy put-back for a then-wide-open Aday. The center finished with a career-high 26 points.

“You've got to learn new tricks and stuff to get the ball,” Cadeau said. “It's pretty hard. Something I've never done before, never been taught before, but I think me and Aday got established connections on those type of passes now.”

A Big Ten drought could come to an end

Michigan could end a Big Ten drought without the national title that dates to 2000, when Michigan State's "Flintstones” team — led by Mateen Cleaves out of Flint — beat Florida to win the championship.

The Wolverines, of course, are more focused on bringing the second title back to campus — the first since 1989.

But May said he's well aware of what a win would mean to the conference, which has ballooned from 11 to 18 teams since it last cut down the nets at the Final Four — as good a sign as any about the changes that have enveloped college sports over the last quarter century.

“We’re competing against the SEC, the Big 12, the Big East, all these other leagues,” May said. “The better we can do as a group, as a league, and it also helps financially as TV contracts are renegotiated and things like that. So, we have to do well for us and for the Big Ten if we want to continue to be on the cutting edge and hopefully be in the premier basketball league in the country.”

The Big Ten has won the last three national titles in football.

Michigan's May learned from Bob Knight

This marks the 50th anniversary of the last undefeated team in college basketball — Bob Knight's 1975-76 team at Indiana.

Some two decades after that Hoosiers team made history, May served as a student manager for Knight in Bloomington.

The Michigan coach said there was a planning-and-preparation aspect to Knight's work that he has tried to emulate.

“You’re figuring out solutions or contingencies in advance, and if those become a problem you’re ready, as opposed to just always being shocked at what’s in front of you,” he said.

Part of the equation, May said, is related to an emotion commonly associated with Knight.

“Obviously there’s a fear element and a fear of disappointing him, that you wanted to be thinking ahead, you wanted to be on your toes,” May said. “You’re always anticipating what’s next.”

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

More information is expected to be released once the full damage assessment report is completed by the National Weather Service.

Stay with WDIV Local 4 News & 4Warn Weather for more information.

ORIGINAL (Sunday Morning, April 5, 2026): After a roller coaster of weather over the last few days, parts of the region are cleaning up after severe weather, and a possible tornado touched down in Wayne County on Saturday Evening.

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.

In Texas, a man fleeing from police died Sunday. In Alabama, four people died when a car being pursued by a state trooper went off a road and hit a tree Friday. And in California, three people were killed in vehicle crashes during police pursuits in separate incidents last week.

The deadly incidents are among the hundreds of fatalities that occur during police chases each year.

In 2023, a report from the Police Executive Research Forum, a national think tank on policing standards, called for police to put the brakes on car chases unless a violent crime has been committed and the suspect poses an imminent threat. The report noted a spike in fatalities and an increase in pursuits by some departments, including in Houston and New York City.

In the case in Alabama, a driver was trying to elude the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's highway patrol on a rural road in southeast Alabama's Pike County when the crash occurred late Friday night, agency spokeswoman Amanda Wasden said in an email Sunday. No other vehicles were involved.

The driver and two passengers, one of them a 17-year-old, were not wearing seat belts and were thrown from the sedan. A third passenger was not ejected, but all four were pronounced dead at the scene.

Wasden said the crash was under investigation, and no additional information was available. Her email did not say what prompted the pursuit.

In Fort Worth, Texas, police had been pursuing a car which had been driving without headlights on Interstate 35 when the car hit multiple other vehicles and eventually crashed, killing the driver, according to the Fort Worth Police Department.

In southern California, the Pomona Police Department said in a statement that its officers were pursuing a fleeing domestic violence suspect Wednesday when his car hit another vehicle, killing the couple inside. The two were days away from the birth of their child, according to KCBS-TV.

In another case, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said that deputies had attempted to stop a stolen U-Haul truck before it slammed into an SUV, killing the SUV's driver and critically injuring her three passengers.

“He is risen,” declared the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

The Defense Department shared a post on X from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: “The tomb is empty. The promise is fulfilled. Through His sacrifice, we are redeemed. We stand firm in faith, courage, and truth.”

The Justice Department also chimed in on X.

“Today, as millions of Christians gather in their churches across the nation to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, this Department —- is proud to protect and defend religious liberty,” it said.

The posts drew thousands of comments. Some people expressed joy at the departments’ open embrace of Christianity; others were outraged, saying government agencies should not be promoting the doctrine of a particular faith.

Hegseth frequently invokes his evangelical faith as head of the armed forces, depicting a Christian nation trying to vanquish its foes with military might.

Last week, Hegseth hosted his first monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the Iran war began.

“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation,” Hegseth prayed during the livestreamed service. “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

Trump, in a statement issued on Good Friday, evoked the Iran war only indirectly.

“From the Christian patriots who won and secured our liberty on the battlefield and every generation since, the love of Christ has unfailingly guided our Nation through calm waters and dark storms,” he said.

On Easter Sunday morning, his tone was harsher. In a profanity-laced post on Truth Social, he demanded that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday, “or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, responded by assailing Trump's “deranged mocking of Islam.”

Statements of faith are common in American public life, across political parties and religious traditions. Pentagon aides and Hegseth’s defenders cite examples from history, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s support for issuing Bibles to troops.

But the overall tradition, widely adhered to over the decades, has been for presidents and their administrations to honor the constitutional separation of church and state, and avoid a clearcut favoring of one faith over others.

Past presidents had various tones in their Easter messages. Republican George W. Bush, in 2003, explicitly celebrated the resurrection of Christ. Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Barack Obama sometimes issued messages recognizing both Easter and Passover.

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

Brown, who won 12 games with a 2.43 ERA in 2025, pitched six strong innings to lead Houston to a 9-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night. He earned the win by allowing only one hit with two walks and eight strikeouts.

Brown reported shoulder discomfort during a routine throwing session on Friday, according to manager Joe Espada. Brown then flew to Houston to be examined by team doctors.

Espada told MLB.com a timetable for Brown's return is pending further examinations.

The Astros recalled right-hander Christian Roa from Triple-A Sugar Land in a corresponding roster move before Sunday's game against the Athletics. The move with Brown was made retroactive to Thursday.

Brown, 27, has won 11 or more games in three consecutive seasons and has a 3.44 career ERA in 102 games, including 94 starts, over five seasons.

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

Two days ago in a March Madness Final Four game, UConn's Geno Auriemma confronted South Carolina's Dawn Staley over what he viewed was a failure to properly follow pregame handshake protocol. The moment blew up on social media as two of the faces of women's college basketball got into a brief heated exchange in the closing seconds of the Gamecocks' win over the Huskies.

Before UCLA and South Carolina tipped off for Sunday's title game, Staley embraced and shook hands with UCLA coach Cori Close, and the two chatted briefly. Staley also shook hands with other Bruins assistants. She then turned to the crowd and lifted her hands — with a smirk on her face, as if making sure everyone in attendance documented the moment.

That was before pregame introductions, and neither coach walked to halfcourt to shake hands again after lineups were announced.

According to the NCAA’s policy in its operations manual for the tournament, after starting lineups are announced for both teams, the two coaches typically meet at midcourt and shake hands. Staley and Auriemma shook hands earlier in the pregame on Friday, but not after introductions.

That frustrated Auriemma, and he called out Staley after the game.

“For 41 years I’ve been coaching and, I don’t know, 25 Final Fours,” Auriemma said in his postgame press conference Friday. “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.”

He later issued an apology, but Staley said she was disappointed the drama gained so much traction during her team's quest for a third national title in five seasons.

“That’s a little disheartening," she said. "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.”

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

That was the praise Hunter heaped on the Los Angeles Angels' Jo Adell after the right fielder made three home run-robbing catches, the last a spectacular leaping grab while crashing into the seats near the right-field foul pole in the ninth inning of 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 he made a nearly identical catch to deny 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 of whom had four.

Adell was the first player in baseball history to rob three homers in one game since tracking began in 2004, according to Sports Info Solutions.

“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. Adell famously had a ball squirt out of his glove and over the fence for a home run in Texas as a rookie in 2020.

“His impact has been huge,” Adell said of Hunter. “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.”

The Mariners were so impressed with Adell's glove work that someone scrawled this message on a whiteboard in their Angel Stadium clubhouse before Sunday's series finale: “Game plan — Don't hit the ball to Joseph Adell.”

Adell's birth name is actually Jordon, but point taken.

“You know, we’re still very, very early in the season," Mariners manager Dan Wilson said, when asked about the importance of keeping a light touch before such a frustrating loss. "We’ve got a long way to go, and that was something that’s probably never been done in a game before. So move on, and you flush it, and come back today.”

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

The 6-foot-9, 250-pound forward said Sunday he sustained “a couple of fractures” during the Blue Devils' loss in the Elite Eight.

Boozer, who on Friday became only the fifth freshman named as The Associated Press men's national player of the year, was hurt in the first half last Sunday when he went up for a shot against 7-foot-1 center Eric Reibe. Reibe's left elbow struck Boozer near his right eye as Reibe contested the shot, leading to significant swelling around and under the eye.

The swelling around his right eye was down Sunday, though the white part was still bright red. Boozer said he opted against having surgery in favor of giving it time to heal.

“I have a couple of fractures, but I’m all good,” Boozer said during Sunday’s award presentation for winning the AP national honor, along with another from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. “Just going through the healing process.”

Boozer fought through the injury the rest of the way and finished with 27 points, including a tough spinning basket into the paint against traffic with Duke leading by just one in the final minute. It was one of multiple examples this season of Boozer playing through bumps, blows and hard fouls, such as a late-season win at N.C. State in which Boozer had gnarly long scratches near his right shoulder after being scratched by a Wolfpack defender.

The Huskies went on to win on Braylon Mullins' last-second 3-pointer to complete a stunning comeback from 19 down. Boozer's twin brother, Cayden, received torrents of online abuse after committing Duke's last turnover before Mullins' winner.

Cameron pointed out that “that one play isn't the reason we lost.”

“There’s not really that much I can say to make him feel better," Boozer said. "We're all hurting as a team, but we’re going to get through it together. We're a super-connected group.

"It's definitely a hard moment. But he’s a tough guy. We're all tough, it’s going to make us so much better going forward. It's something you’ve got to take on the chin and learn and grow from.”

UConn went on to beat Illinois in Saturday's national semifinal and will face a Michigan team that has rolled through the tournament, scoring 90-plus points in every game and winning each by at least 13 points. Duke, the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, was one of three teams to beat Michigan all year.

Boozer’s award presentation came on the same stage where UConn and Michigan were holding news conferences ahead of playing Monday for the national title.

“It’s a lot of emotions going into it,” Boozer said of being at Lucas Oil Stadium. “But yeah, it’s definitely tough being here for sure.”

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

A neighbor called 911 around 5:35 a.m. Sunday to report a home burning in the 4900 block of Ashley Street. Fire crews arrived about five minutes later and found flames along the side of the house and a car in the driveway.

Firefighters found a woman inside the home suffering from severe burns. Crews carried her out and turned her over to EMS, which attempted to revive her. She was pronounced dead and taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital.

A man was also found dead inside the home.

Fire officials said challenging conditions inside the structure made it difficult for crews to reach the occupants. The cause of the fire remains under investigatio

Just one day before the teams meet in Monday night's national championship game, the big question for both was the health of two key playmakers.

Neither was expected to practice Sunday as they focused instead on getting as much treatment as possible, even as teammates and the players themselves insisted the stars would play Monday night. The coaches, Dan Hurley and Dusty May, also tried to lighten the mood before college basketball's biggest game of the season.

“I’m sure he’ll give it a go tomorrow, but that will be entirely up to him and the medical staff,” May said as he updated the playing status of Lendeborg, a first team All-American. “He’ll tell me if he can go and we were laughing because he played the second half, but he played the second half like a 38-year-old at the YMCA — a really good 38-year-old at the YMCA. So whatever version we get of Yaxel we get, it’s going to be somebody that helps us play better basketball.”

Lendeborg played just five minutes of the first half before getting hurt in Saturday's 91-73 victory over Arizona, which sent Michigan (36-3) to its first title game since 2018. He finished with 11 points and three rebounds in 15 minutes and made two 3-pointers in the second half.

But he hardly resembled the guy who was named the Big Ten's Player of the Year.

When Lendeborg was asked whether missing Monday night's game was a possibility, Lendeborg emphatically told reporters in the locker room, “absolutely not.” He reinjured the ankle he initially hurt in the Big Ten Tournament championship game. The knee injury was a new one and Lendeborg said, at worst, he was told it was a sprained medial collateral ligament. May said MRI results came back clean Sunday.

Still, the combination prevented him from doing the traditional between-games media circuit.

While everyone saw Lendeborg's injury Saturday's, Ball's injury seemed to surprise everyone including Hurley, who said he saw Ball in a walking boot before being told what happened.

Ball has played a key role in helping UConn (34-5) reach its third title game in four years, averaging 12.9 points and starting all 38 games he appeared in this season.

He scored 10 of his 13 points in the second half of Saturday’s 91-72 victory over Illinois — after getting hurt in the first half — and told reporters played through the injury on pure adrenaline. The injury occurred when Ball and teammate Tarris Reed Jr. got tangled.

“I've just been doing everything I can to take care of it,” Ball said Sunday. “It's just a bump in the road, so you've got to keep moving forward. Pain is temporary. People say it pushes you through your toughest performance, so it's only what you're made of. This is the championship game.”

Hurley had other questions, though, as UConn attempts to win its third national championship in four years and the seventh in school history. The Huskies are tied with North Carolina for the third-highest total of national championships, behind UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight).

UConn has won all six of its titles since 1999 and remains hopeful Ball will be a go on Monday.

“I think we’ll see whether this turns into — it’s going to be tough to get an MRI on Easter, on a Sunday,” Hurley said. “I don’t know what the hospitals are like in Indiana. Hospitals stay open.”

Michigan, apparently, had already resolved that issue.

But the Wolverines don't expect Lendeborg's injury to change their mission, snapping a four-game losing streak in NCAA Tournament title games and capturing the school's first national title since 1989 and the second in program history. Nor do they expect it to change their game plan.

“I'll still play the four outs,” Michigan forward Morez Johnson Jr. said. “And Yax is fine.”

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

Pepsi already has withdrawn its lead sponsorship role of the Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park in north London between July 10-12. Other sponsors of the event, including Budweiser and PayPal, are being urged to follow suit.

Pepsi didn't provide an explicit reason for its decision to pull out of the event, even though publicity for the festival promoted the event under the branding “Pepsi presents Wireless.”

“Pepsi has decided to withdraw its sponsorship of Wireless Festival," the company said in a statement Sunday.

Ye was booked perform in front of around 150,000 revellers over the course of the festival’s three nights.

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, changed his name in 2021, and he has drawn widespread controversy in recent years for a series of antisemitic remarks, and has voiced admiration for Adolf Hitler. Last year, he released a song called “Heil Hitler” — a few months after advertising a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website.

The 48-year-old musician apologized in January for his antisemitic remarks in a letter published as a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

Fans of his at a sold-out concert Friday at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, his first major U.S. performance in nearly five years, appeared to separate his personal beliefs and public statements from his music — and were ready to forgive after his January apology letter.

However, Starmer said it was “deeply concerning” that the rapper was booked to perform at the long-established festival,

“Antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted clearly and firmly wherever it appears," he said in remarks published by The Sun on Sunday newspaper. "Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe and secure.”

Ye's scheduled appearance follows signs of growing antisemitism in the U.K.

Two men and a 17-year-old boy were ordered to remain in custody on Saturday on charges of torching four ambulances run by a Jewish community-service in northwest London. And last October, two men died in an attack on a Manchester synagogue.

Phil Rosenberg, president of the board of deputies of British Jews, said it was “absolutely the wrong decision” to allow Ye to play.

Wireless Festival didn't immediately comment when contacted.