Scattered showers, and perhaps an isolated thunderstorm, will linger this morning near Lake Erie, where locally heavy rainfall remains possible. Drivers in these areas should be prepared for reduced visibility and ponding on roadways during the morning commute. As the morning progresses, the rain will gradually move out, giving way to improving conditions.

For the rest of Southeast Michigan, expanding high pressure will bring a welcome stretch of dry and comfortable weather through Tuesday. Afternoon temperatures will climb into the low to mid-80s, right around seasonal averages, while humidity levels remain manageable. Expect a mix of sunshine and fair-weather clouds, making for excellent conditions to spend time outdoors.

The warming trend resumes by the middle of the week as temperatures climb back into the upper 80s, once again running above average for early July. While sunshine will continue to dominate Wednesday, humidity will slowly begin to increase. The next opportunity for rain doesn’t arrive until later Thursday, when another weather system approaches the Great Lakes. Showers and thunderstorms will become possible by late in the day and into Thursday night.

Metro Detroit Forecast Highlights

• This Morning: Showers linger near Lake Erie with isolated thunder possible and locally heavy rainfall.
• This Afternoon through Tuesday: Dry, pleasant weather with highs in the lower to mid-80s.
• Wednesday: Warmer with highs returning to the upper 80s under mostly sunny skies.
• Thursday: Increasing clouds and humidity, with the next chance for showers and thunderstorms arriving later in the day.

All of the ballistic missiles launched by Russia struck their targets, underscoring Kyiv’s shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. The attack came hours after Ukraine’s president warned that a large-scale attack was imminent.

A further 60 people were wounded, according to local officials, as emergency workers combed through rubble looking for survivors at residential high-rise buildings in two locations that suffered direct hits.

The new attack came days after a Russian strike killed 31 people in the capital on Thursday, the deadliest for the capital this year. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the bombardment was retaliation for Ukraine’s recent long-range strikes, which have caused severe fuel shortages and pressured President Vladimir Putin.

More than four years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine’s advances in drone technology have given it an edge in recent months, analysts and Western officials say. Strikes on supply routes behind the front line have stripped the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield, they say, slowing its advance and driving up the cost.

But Russia is now exploiting a different kind of momentum: vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s air defenses, which remain heavily reliant on the U.S. Patriot systems to intercept ballistic missiles it can rarely shoot down any other way. The war in the Middle East has strained the global supply of Patriot interceptors, already produced in limited numbers — a shortage now most of all being felt in Ukraine.

Gaps in Ukraine's air defense

Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at the country overnight, targeting mainly Kyiv, and 29 ballistic missiles that were launched struck their targets, underscoring how little Ukraine can do to stop them.

“To intercept ballistics, we need the means for interception,” Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on national television, commenting on the attack. “Russians are certainly using the fact that there is a serious deficit of interceptor missiles now, in Ukraine and the world.”

Ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that Ukrainian forces had performed well against drones and cruise missiles but not against Russian ballistic missiles — a shortfall he blamed on insufficient interceptor supplies. He urged U.S. and European partners to leave the summit with strong decisions to bolster Ukraine’s air defense and protect civilian lives.

“As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep “vanquishing” residential buildings. The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” he said in a statement following the attack.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack targeted weapons factories in Kyiv, including sites it said produce drones, sea drones, armored vehicles and missiles, as well as facilities that repair air defense systems and fuel and energy infrastructure in the city and surrounding region. The claims could not be independently verified.

Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukraine have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.

“These are residential buildings. Places where people slept and lived their ordinary lives,” said Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, in a post on Telegram.

A residential building in the Podilskyi district partially collapsed, he said. In the Darnytsia district, several multistory buildings were damaged and people were believed to be trapped under the rubble.

Witnesses recount harrowing escape

Khrystyna Piatetska, 20, a resident of Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, said she began screaming after the first strike, which was followed by a second blast that blew out the windows in her apartment building.

The lights went out, the smell of burning filled the air and the stairwell was thick with smoke, she said.

“When we were leaving the building, bodies were lying there,” Piatetska said. “When we got downstairs, cars started exploding, and we came out from under the rubble straight into the fire.”

Halina Ivanivna, a 61-year-old Kyiv resident, said she woke to the sound of the first strike at around 2 a.m. Moments later, her apartment building began to collapse around her.

“Everything was falling down,” she said. Water poured through the building as smoke filled the air while emergency crews rushed to evacuate residents.

About five minutes after the initial impact, a second strike hit, she said.

Ukrainian attacks in Russia and occupied Crimea

Meanwhile, an energy provider in Russia-occupied Crimea reported a blackout across the peninsula due to “external impact.” The Moscow-appointed head of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said Ukrainian attacks cut power supplies to the city early Monday, but it was later restored using backup equipment.

Russia's Yaroslavl region Gov. Mikhail Yavrayev said two people were wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of the same name. He said over 70 Ukrainian drones were downed as they attacked the city. Yavrayev didn’t say if any facilities were damaged, but Astra online news outlet said the attack targeted an oil refinery in the city, causing a fire.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 519 Ukrainian drones overnight.

___ Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Susie Blann in London contributed to this report.

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

Oil prices slipped after OPEC+ announced Sunday that seven of its members plan to expand oil production by a combined total of 188,000 barrels per day in August. It was the fifth straight month that OPEC+ members have agreed to raise output.

The countries increasing their output are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman.

Uncertainty over supplies persists as talks with Iran aimed at fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz appear to be on hold during funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which will continue for several days.

Brent crude, the international standard, lost 40 cents to $71.72 a barrel. U.S. benchmark crude fell 29 cents to $68.40 a barrel.

In early European share trading, France's CAC 40 rose 0.3% to 8,529.96, while the DAX in Germany edged 0.1% higher to 25,805.02. Britain's FTSE 100 was unchanged at 10,678.07.

The future for the S&P 500 gained 0.5%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1%.

In Asian trading, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was virtually unchanged at 69,737.69. Tech giant SoftBank Group Corp. declined 3.1%, while computer chipmaker Tokyo Electron shed 1.2%.

South Korea’s Kospi dipped 0.5% to 8,051.33.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng gained 1.1% to 23,616.32. The Shanghai Composite index inched down less than 0.1% to 4,041.24.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.2% to 8,831.00.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 162.29 Japanese yen from 161.32 yen, resuming its climb despite rumors that authorities might intervene to stem the yen's decline. A year ago, the dollar was trading at 140 yen levels.

The euro cost $1.1419, down from $1.1437.

Markets in the U.S. were closed on Friday, July 3, for the Independence Day holiday. This year, July 4th fell on a Saturday.

This week will bring updates on U.S. housing, inflation and unemployment.

___

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama

It marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ernest Hemingway ’s book that launched the future Nobel Laureate to literary fame and put Pamplona on the map for millions of people around the world.

Hemingway’s 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises” has captivated generations of readers with its sexy Jazz Age tale of American and British bohemians trying to fill some inner void with the distractions of exotic travel, vast quantities of alcohol and the anguishing pursuit of impossible love.

Its success established “The Sun Also Rises” as a cornerstone of the American literary canon, right up there with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” It also popularized the term “lost generation” to describe the tight-knit group of early 20th-century writers expatriated in Paris. Hemingway's terse style forever changed American literature. In Spanish, its title is translated as “Fiesta.”

Hillmann, who hails from Chicago, was 19 when Hemingway’s vivid depiction of the bull running festival first enthralled him, especially descriptions of average Spaniards risking their lives sprinting through the streets to guide the bulls to the bull ring during the nine-day festival. It kicks off with a firework blast over a packed plaza on Monday, and the first of eight bull runs is on Tuesday.

“It was the first book I ever read,” Hillmann told The Associated Press in Pamplona as he looked down on the pen where the bulls are held before being set free on the cobblestoned route. “I sat there for about six hours, well past midnight, reading the book. And by the time I was done with that book, I was going to be a writer and I was going to be a bull runner.”

Since that literary encounter, the 44-year-old Hillmann has run with the bulls in Spain hundreds of times, counting both his trips to Pamplona and his participation in dozens more bull runs in other Spanish towns. His infatuation with Hemingway and Pamplona has never waned, even though he nearly died one time that he was gored by a bull horn.

Hillmann’s appreciation led him to earn a doctorate in English, and now it is his turn to teach “The Sun Also Rises” at East-West University in Chicago, and write about bull running.

Americans are the biggest group of foreign bull runners

Hillmann is just one of many Americans inspired to travel to Spain to see the festival firsthand. Americans are still the leading group of foreigners who run at the San Fermin festival. In 2022, 16% of the bull runners were Americans, the largest percentage among foreigners and four times more than those from neighboring France, according to Pamplona’s City Hall.

Dallas-based tour operator Bruce Anderson, whose company “Running Of The Bulls” has helped thousands of Americans attend San Fermin over the years, says that Hemingway’s work made the festival a bucket-list destination. This year, his company is bringing 1,400 people to the festival, with over two-thirds from the United States.

“There’s a lot of energy, a lot of excitement around just remembering that book and the impact that it’s had,” said Anderson, himself a lifelong Hemingway fan. He spoke in Pamplona’s art deco Café Iruña, which features heavily as a drinking spot in “The Sun Also Rises” and today houses a life-size statue of Hemingway bellying up to the bar.

And Anderson, with his thick white beard, is something of a Hemingway look-alike. Local Spaniards often call out to him: “Papa!” – a nickname for their adopted hero.

It is impossible to avoid Hemingway in Pamplona

Hemingway is etched into the landscape of Pamplona. Hotels and bars have busts of him or signs up that he was once there. Outside the Pamplona bull ring, which also has a statue of the writer, a huge banner hangs in honor of the novel, including a quote that shows how the festival left the writer speechless: “At noon of Sunday, the 6th of July, the fiesta exploded. There is no other way to describe it.”

When Hemingway made his last visits to Pamplona, he would frequent the Perla Hotel; his suite still has furniture from the 1950s when he stayed there. The room, which overlooks the bull run route, also has two glass book cases holding dozens of copies of “The Sun Also Rises.”

“Hemingway did a lot for Pamplona because he made it known around the world,” said Fernando Hualde, who worked for four decades as a receptionist in the hotel.

Hemingway’s legacy has become complicated over time

Hemingway’s local legacy, however, is mixed.

Beside a feminist critique of his hyper masculine public persona, Hemingway has drawn criticism from the animal rights movement for his praise of bull fighters. In “The Sun Also Rises,” he spills far more ink on descriptions of their bravery than on the bull runs.

Animal welfare activist Brook Spurling said during a protest against the San Fermin bullfights that “Hemingway wrote about many, many themes that today would not be accepted into society. He writes about hunting, about war, and we don’t want to be appreciating these themes today.”

Hualde says that some Pamplona residents rue his early promotion of the festival due to the ills of overtourism the sleepy provincial city is now experiencing.

Pamplona has 200,000 residents and receives over a million more people for the festival. While most are Spaniards, around 15% of the revelers are from abroad. And many, especially the younger visitors, follow Hemingway’s example of drinking to excess.

Some locals take pride in spots that weren’t touched by Hemingway. Local literature professor Gabriel Insausti of Pamplona’s University of Navarra recalls being in a bar with a sign that read “Hemingway was not here.”

“In general, Hemingway has become a product of a franchise associated with San Fermin festival that has obscured his novel,” Insausti said. “People know who Hemingway is, but they haven’t read his novel.”

But the power of Hemingway’s English prose lives on

Hillmann said that the high percentage of inexperienced foreigners today makes the Pamplona bull runs particularly dangerous. The last death was in 2009 but gorings and other injuries are common. Novice runners can easily panic and make a wrong move that can cause a pileup or send someone into the path of a bull.

He was badly gored in 2014 when he said a bad maneuver by a fellow runner left him exposed to a bull. He thought he was dying, such was the quantity of blood gushing from his leg.

After another goring in 2017, Hillmann told the AP from his hospital bed in Pamplona that he would not stop running. “People think this is just crazy people running. There is real art. If you pay attention, you can see it,” he said then.

Hemingway's granddaughter, the actress Mariel Hemingway, recalls being treated “like royalty” when she attended San Fermin years ago. Mariel, who has written and spoken about her grandfather as a sufferer of mental illness that led to his suicide in 1961, is convinced his work will endure.

That fascination with death is likewise timeless.

“Identity, love, purpose, and how to rebuild after profound loss ... those themes haven’t ever changed. That’s what’s great about my grandfather,” Mariel Hemingway told the AP from her home in Idaho.

“I think he captured something that will never go away.”

The missile was launched at 12:01 p.m. and carried a dummy warhead, according the official Xinhua News Agency. China last conducted a missile test in the Pacific two years ago, then firing an intercontinental ballistic missile with a dummy warhead. That previous launch in international waters was the first in decades since 1980.

The launch was part of routine annual training, complied with international law and practice, and was not directed against any country or target, according to a short statement from Xinhua, which was reposted by the Ministry of Defense.

The 2024 launch mirrored testing that the United States does for its own ballistic missile fleet, which experts viewed as an assertion of China's growing superpower status.

Australia, Japan and New Zealand criticized the launch.

The New Zealand government said it was informed of the planned launch hours beforehand and noted that the missile was fired into the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone.

The nuclear-free zone was established by the 1986 Treaty of Rarotonga, which prohibits nuclear weapons throughout the region. China in 1987 ratified the protocols pledging not to test nuclear weapons within the zone or threaten to use them against signatories with territory in the region.

“It appears that despite our long-standing concerns about this type of activity, China carried out the test within hours of informing us,” Foreign Minister Winston Peters told The Associated Press in a statement.

The launch took place the same day Australia and Fiji signed a new mutual defense treaty meant to counter Chinese influence in the Pacific.

“Australia has been clear with China that we regard this as destabilizing to the region,” Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong told reporters in Fiji in response to the test.

Japan's Defense Ministry in a statement conveyed its concern about China’s increasing military activity and asked Beijing to “rethink” its missile testing so the projectiles would not fly over Japan or pose other security risks.

“China’s military activities, combined with its lack of transparency, has become a grave concern for Japan and the international society,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said in Japan, citing Beijing's active military activities around Japan and its increased military spending.

Beijing brushed off the criticism Monday.

“We hope that the relevant countries will avoid overinterpretation,” a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said.

China maintains a “no first use” of nuclear weapons policy, but is also actively pursuing nuclear technology and weaponry as part of its long-term strategy to modernize the People’s Liberation Army.

China has a fleet of six ballistic-missile submarines and 59 nuclear-powered attack submarines, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based think tank.

In its latest report to Congress on China’s military capabilities, released in late 2025, the Pentagon said China had an estimated stockpile of around 600 nuclear warheads in 2024, adding that the PLA remains on track to field more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.

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Graham-McLay reported from Wellington, New Zealand. Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Japan, and E. Eduardo Castillo in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Chinese official media later reported a Chinese submarine had test-launched a long-range ballistic missile in the South Pacific, a move criticized by Australia.

Albanese and his Fijian counterpart, Sitiveni Rabuka, signed the Ocean of Peace Alliance in Fiji’s capital, Suva. They also signed an economic treaty, the Vuvale Union, under which Australia will invest more than 1 billion Australian dollars ($693 million) in its island neighbor over a decade.

The alliance is Fiji’s first mutual defense treaty. It is Australia’s fourth, following a treaty with the United States and New Zealand signed in 1951 and the bilateral treaty signed with Papua New Guinea last year.

“The Ocean of Peace Alliance introduces a mutual defense obligation and there’s no higher obligation than to come to each other’s aid at a time of need,” Albanese told reporters.

Rabuka did not expect a negative reaction from Beijing to the new treaties.

“I do not expect China to have any severe pushback on either government. And I believe that they will welcome the understanding that is between Australia and Fiji,” Rabuka told reporters.

“It does not threaten Fiji’s relationship with China nor Australia’s relationship with China,” he added.

The Chinese missile launched Monday was tested as part of routine training and carried a dummy warhead, according to the Xinhua News Agency. China last conducted a missile test in the Pacific two years ago, then firing an intercontinental ballistic missile with a dummy warhead.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who was in Fiji for the signing, did not comment on whether China had attempted to send a message by launching the missile on the same day as the security treaty was signed.

“I’ll leave China to speak to its intent,” Wong told reporters.

Wong said Beijing had informed her government in advance of the launch. She spoke before the launch was confirmed.

“Australia has been clear with China that we regard this as destabilizing to the region,” she said.

“Australia has been clear that this ... proposed test is in the context of a rapid military buildup by China which is lacking in the transparency and reassurance as to intent that the region expects,” she added.

In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters that the test launch was a routine military arrangement and that it was not directed at any specific country.

“We hope that the relevant countries will avoid overinterpretation,” Mao said.

Asked about the defense pact between Australia and Fiji, she said China's cooperation with Pacific island nations has always adhered to the principles of mutual respect and equality and that it does not seek political self-interest.

“We hope relevant countries will genuinely respect the independence and autonomy of the island nations, focus on their sustainable economic and social development and refrain from targeting or harming the interests of third parties,” she said.

Australia has been attempting to shore up its role as the security partner of choice in the region since 2022 when China struck a secretive security treaty with the Solomon Islands. That deal raised fears of a Chinese naval base being built in the South Pacific.

Albanese will fly to the Solomons on Tuesday to meet with his counterpart Matthew Wale after the two nations agreed to further discussions on a security pact.

Wale said while visiting Australia last month that his new government would review the deal with Beijing.

On Wednesday, Albanese will host Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape and Tongan Prime Minister Fatafehi Fakafānua in the Australian city of Brisbane.

The Australian defense treaty with Papua New Guinea, the country’s nearest neighbor, takes effect Wednesday.

Australia and Vanuatu last week signed a long-awaited bilateral security and economic treaty that prevents China creating a military base on that island nation.

Albanese signed the so-called Nakamal Agreement with his Vanuatu counterpart, Jotham Napat, in the Australian capital nine months after the Vanuatuan government rejected an earlier draft. Vanuatu had feared the deal would limit its ability to attract infrastructure investment.

China expressed concern last week that the Nakamal Agreement may be targeted at Beijing.

Khamenei's flag-draped coffin, and those of members of his family killed Feb. 28 in an airstrike at the start of the war launched by Israel and the United States, sat on board a truck decorated to resemble the ornamental grating that surrounds the shrine of an imam. The massive turnout, encouraged by Iran's theocracy as a sign of strength, came as it negotiates with the U.S. over a permanent end to the war that killed the 86-year-old cleric.

Helicopter images aired on Iranian state television showed a massive crowd stretching from Tehran’s Azadi, or Freedom, Square for kilometers (miles) down a multilane street of the same name. The crowd appeared to be larger than the one that turned out for the 2020 procession for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Solemani, which drew over 1 million people.

Authorities offered no immediate crowd count as the truck crept down the street. But people alongside the truck and elsewhere on the route carried placards, signs and banners calling for Trump's death.

“Today that we are here for the funeral for our leader, it’s a very tough day,” mourner Fatima Hassan said. “We are not here to say goodbye to him, we are here for revenge. And we will take revenge.”

Sea of mourners greets Khamenei

Mourners reached out to touch the truck, and some threw scarves and other items for attendants to brush against the coffin, a common practice in Iran seen as a blessing. Attendants, some on the ladders of firetrucks, sprayed misted water across the crowds to cool them in the heat.

Authorities appeared concerned about the dangers of having a large crowd alongside the procession, with officials on loudspeakers urging the public to walk slowly, not to push and to stay to the edges of the street.

The coffins will be taken through the streets of Tehran on a 12-hour journey to Mehrabad International Airport, said Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hasan Hasanzadeh, who is overseeing the procession.

Authorities have shut down streets, airspace and daily life for the mourning, which began Saturday and will end Thursday as Khamenei is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace.

“This is the last time I am seeing him,” said a weeping Maryam Alizadeh. “Our generation lived with him for decades.”

Calls for Trump's death grow as funeral goes on

As the funeral has gone on, however, there have increasingly been calls from mourners to avenge Khamenei’s death. Mourners and the signs they carry have called for the killing of both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Such signs were seen again Monday along the procession’s route, with one effigy of Trump being hanged.

"We are here to show that his path will continue, and every single one of these people will continue down his path with clenched fists and soon we will certainly avenge his death against the U.S and Israel,” said mourner Sahar Zaraatgar

U.S. federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years, stemming from Trump’s ordering the 2020 killing of Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force. Iran has repeatedly denied plotting to kill Trump, though hard-line propaganda footage long has suggested Trump was in Tehran’s crosshairs.

Trump meanwhile promised to destroy Iran’s civilization during the war, among other threats.

Negotiations over war remain on hold

The U.S. is meanwhile eager to press ahead with negotiations with Iran aimed at fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz, rolling back its disputed nuclear program and reaching a permanent end to the war. Talks appear to be on hold until after the burial.

The funeral was in part a show of unity as Iran demands a measure of control over the strait, a vital waterway for global energy that it shut down during the war. The U.S. has rejected those demands, and the sides are divided on other key issues, including Iran’s nuclear program and the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, meanwhile has yet to make an appearance in the funeral ceremonies, which are unfolding over several days. He is believed to be in hiding after reportedly being wounded in the airstrike that killed his father.

At the height of the war before an April ceasefire, Israel targeted top leaders, in at least one case likely using their public appearance to fix their position. It has also threatened to kill the younger Khamenei.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

More than 6,000 police officers, including anti-riot squads, were deployed to secure the Senate, where about 400 anti-Duterte demonstrators converged, chanting “convict Sara now.” Duterte did not appear but was represented by her lawyers at the start of the trial, which will run for 92 days, according to a pretrial plan seen by The Associated Press.

If convicted of the charges, which include amassing unexplained wealth and publicly threatening to have Marcos assassinated, Duterte may be permanently disqualified from holding public office. She denies the charges.

A conviction would be a lethal blow to her announced plan to seek the presidency in mid-2028, when Marcos ends his six-year term. They were running mates in the 2022 elections in a whirlwind alliance that combined the vote-getting power of two of the country’s most formidable political dynasties, but the union rapidly fell apart.

The vice president is the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, Marcos’ predecessor. He was arrested last year on orders of the International Criminal Court and flown to The Hague, where he remains detained and was scheduled to face trial over alleged crimes against humanity on Nov. 30.

The charges stem from the ex-president’s brutal anti-drugs crackdowns that left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead, alarming Western governments and human rights groups. Rodrigo Duterte has denied authorizing extrajudicial killings but repeatedly threatened suspects with death while in office.

The vice president has blamed Marcos for her 81-year-old father’s arrest and handover to the ICC.

Marcos and the Dutertes have contrasting geopolitical leanings. Marcos has expanded defense engagements with the United States, his country’s treaty ally, as his administration stood up to China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea.

Rodrigo Duterte had nurtured cozy ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin while threatening to sever ties with Washington. The vice president has come under fire for not condemning China’s assaults, including with the use of powerful water cannons, against Filipino forces and fishermen in the disputed waters.

Last month, the House of Representatives, which is dominated by Marcos’ allies, voted overwhelmingly to impeach the vice president over alleged unexplained wealth, misuse of confidential state funds and a public threat to have the president, his wife and a former House speaker and ally assassinated if she herself were killed due to their political disputes.

She has generally denied the charges but has refused to publicly answer the allegations in detail ahead of the impeachment trial. Her supporters have accused Marcos and his key aides of politically persecuting the vice president and her senatorial allies to ensure her impeachment.

Two-thirds of the 24-member Senate, or 16 votes, are needed to convict the vice president.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, who belongs to a Senate bloc backing the Duterte family, was arrested and detained last month on a nonbailable charge of plunder in connection with a flood-control project bribery scandal. Estrada denies any wrongdoing.

Another pro-Duterte senator, Rodante Marcoleta, was arrested Monday over a nonbailable charge of plunder, or largescale graft, for receiving huge campaign donations and failing to declare the funds in his assets declaration. Marcoleta has denied committing any irregularity.

A third senator, Ronald dela Rosa, has gone into hiding after the ICC issued a warrant for his arrest as a co-perpetrator in the Duterte-era killings. Dela Rosa served as Rodrigo Duterte’s national police chief, who first enforced the then-president’s deadly crackdown against illegal drugs.

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Joeal Calupitan in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

Now 74, Helou has a wide following in the region and elsewhere and has released nearly a dozen books since the 1990s about food in the Middle East and beyond. Last month she received Britain’s prestigious Guild of Food Writers Lifetime Achievement Award.

The daughter of a Lebanese mother and a Syrian father, Helou was born into a Christian family and grew up watching her mother, grandmother and paternal aunt cooking. It opened her eyes to the food traditions of the two countries, both widely known in the region for their varied and flavorful cuisine.

“I was always fascinated by the kitchen, by their movements (and) by how they put things together, by the chopping,” Helou said about her mentors. “I love being in the kitchen with them and of course I loved eating.”

Helou’s latest book, “Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland,” was officially released in late June in Beirut in a ceremony at Lebanon's Tourism Ministry attended by scores of people including food critics and restaurant owners.

An homage to the cuisine of Lebanon's war-battered south

The book, which comes as the country has been battered by two wars in the past three years between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group, includes a section about food in some of the southern Lebanese villages that have suffered the worst destruction.

During her repeated visits there, most recently in October 2023, she found residents had their own regional variations of traditional cuisine. They include mujadara, a dish mainly consisting of lentils that is often cooked with rice, but in southern Lebanon is more likely to be made with bulgur.

“I discovered more, like, variations and added dishes, rather than something that was a complete revelation,” Helou said.

She has picked walnuts from a tree growing along the giant wall separating southern Lebanon from northern Israel and met residents who have lost their homes and businesses in the Hezbollah-Israel conflict.

Helou recalled Moussa Ibrahim from the southern village of Dibbine, which has been the site of intense clashes between Israel troops and Hezbollah fighters. Fighting there in 2024 caused Ibrahim to lose his business producing mouneh: vegetables, fruits, grains and dairy preserved with traditional Lebanese techniques including sun-drying, salting, pickling or submerging in olive oil.

Representing the Middle East and Muslims through recipes

Helou, who has traveled the world to sample food, said she loves Korean and Japanese in addition to Middle Eastern cuisine.

“Lebanese, Iranian and Moroccan are among the greatest cuisines,” Helou said earlier this month in her late mother's apartment in the Mount Lebanon town of Ballouneh.

“Lebanese cuisine is kind of a little bit more sophisticated, a lot fresher, more vibrant” compared with some other Middle East food, Helou said as she prepared a traditional Lebanese lamb confit called awarma.

Asked for the home of the region’s best food, Helou did not hesitate to move outside Lebanon and name Syria’s largest city, Aleppo.

Famed for its centuries-old covered market, which was badly damaged during Syria’s civil war beginning in March 2011, Aleppo is known for varied and elaborate cuisine with influences from Persia, North Africa and Armenia.

“I think that Aleppo is undoubtedly the gastronomic capital of the Middle East, regardless of me being Syrian,” she said.

Global anti-Islamic sentiments rose dramatically after the Islamic State group took large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014, launching deadly attacks in the region and the world.

Helou responded with a book of about 300 recipes of dishes from Muslim countries.

“I was thinking, one way of presenting Islam and Muslim people positively could be through their foods,” she said.

Starting late in the world of cooking

Helou, who left Lebanon at the age of 21, holds citizenship in Lebanon, Syria and the United Kingdom and has spent much of her time in Britain and Italy. She still regularly visits Lebanon, cooking and asking people how they make specific dishes.

Helou refused to cook for years while she was a young woman and told her partner at the time not to expect her to make meals.

“I didn’t want to be domesticated. I was like a feminist and so I didn’t cook for a very long time,” she said.

One day a friend prepared a meal at their home and Helou saw the happiness it gave her partner, prompting her to think she should start cooking.

Her decision to become a food writer came in 1992 when a discussion with a group of Lebanese living abroad gave Helou the idea of filling a gap in Lebanese cookbooks with a collection of her mother's recipes. As it happened, there was a publisher looking for someone to write such a book.

“That’s how I started, by sheer coincidence,” Helou said.

Emily Barker, Nick Hutcherson and Sydney Watson were remembered as courageous public servants who left a lasting impact on the communities where they worked.

“They showed up to make order out of chaos day after day with purpose, dedication and heart,” U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy said during a memorial service in Grand Junction, Colorado, near where the firefighters died while battling flames on the Colorado-Utah border.

While that fire is now almost entirely contained, nearly 40 large fires are still going strong across the West. Most of the current fires are scattered around Colorado, Utah and New Mexico while there are wildfires in eight other states — from Alaska to Arizona.

Over the holiday weekend, more evacuations in Colorado were ordered across four counties where the Aspen Acres fire had burned about 136 square miles (352 square kilometers) south of Colorado Springs.

The fire had damaged or destroyed more than 200 structures as of Sunday, authorities said. National Guard soldiers were sent in Friday to help with staffing checkpoints on roads near the fire zone.

Months of dry weather and a record lack of snow this past winter in some places along with erratic winds have been fueling the fires.

The three firefighters killed on June 27 in western Colorado were members of a Helitack crew that sometimes drops into remote areas by helicopters.

Barker, Hutcherson and Watson and two others who sustained burn injuries were overcome by flames from fast-moving fires in Mesa County. They had deployed emergency protective shelters, which are considered a “last resort” for firefighters when there is no other way out.

Fennessy, the Wildland Fire Service chief, said Sunday that “the weight of this tragedy is felt way beyond our wildland fire community.”

Photos of the firefighters were set up on the stage at the memorial service alongside flowers and flags.

They worked jobs that require courage, selflessness, strength and heart, said Sarah Fisher, the U.S. Forest Service's deputy chief for fire and aviation management.

“The work demands long days, heavy burdens and quiet acts of bravery,” she said. “We will remember them, we will honor their legacy and we will carry their light forward.”

Emily Barker

Barker, 38, had so much spirit, and the people around her always strived to be a better person by her presence, said Sarah Brubeck Schnurbusch, a friend and former roommate.

Barker was from Clinton Township, Michigan, and liked hiking, skiing, dirt biking and playing hockey. She loved firefighting.

“I’ve never seen someone so excited to go to work,” Brubeck Schnurbusch said. She added that her friend helped pave the way for many women in the industry.

Barker was a trailblazer, first working as a teacher “shaping young lives,” Fennessy said.

“She didn't just live in wild places, she helped to shape them, care for them and make them better,” he said.

Nick Hutcherson

Hutcherson, 27, served in the U.S. Navy and had plans to become a physical therapy doctor, according to the Kaibab National Forest in northern Arizona where he was assigned. He was also an active member of the Northern Arizona Deaf and American Sign Language community.

Hutcherson, who was from Glendale, Arizona, “embodied the spirit of public service” Fennessy said.

He was a dedicated practitioner of Muay Thai martial arts who trained in Flagstaff.

His favorite saying was “easy day,” Fennessy said, “because Nick had an uncommon ability to face hard things with optimism, humility and a smile.”

Sydney Watson

Watson, 27, was from Warrior, Alabama, and a graduate of the University of Tennessee Southern, where she was a pitcher on the softball team, the university said.

In 2023, she participated in a program in North Carolina organized by the Women-in-Fire Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges, the group said. In her application, she said she wanted to see more women on the fire line and to learn from other women in the field, the university said.

“From the time she was very young, she knew she wanted to be a firefighter someday,” Fennessy said.

“I have no doubt she inspired many young women to become a firefighter,” he said.

In the same stadium where England fell victim to Diego Maradona’s Hand of God goal in the 1986 World Cup against Argentina, it was the foot of Kane that gave the nation redemption 40 years later.

“I am just proud of the mentality and the attitude ... round of 16 it is a moment in tournaments when you find a way to win and we did it with pure mentality and heart,” England coach Thomas Tuchel said. “We overcame every obstacle that was thrown our way.”

Bellingham scored two goals 98 seconds apart in the first half. And six minutes after Jarell Quansah was sent off, Kane converted a penalty to restore England's two-goal lead.

England moves on to face Norway on Saturday in Miami Gardens, Florida, for a spot in the semifinals.

“It was a crazy game. We had to fight,” Kane said, his voice hoarse. “I can't really talk, but the occasion, the team, everything against us, we found a way.”

Bellingham stunned the crowd of 80,824 at a venue where Mexico was unbeaten in 10 World Cup matches, including three this tournament, when he scored on a header in the 36th minute and again in the 38th on a pass from Kane.

“We’ve done something incredible tonight, no doubt about it, and we’ll enjoy it. And we’ll sing songs until we lose our voices on the plane and whatnot, but we’ll have a couple of days recovering, then it’s straight back to business in terms of facing Norway,” Bellingham said.

Julián Quiñones scored for El Tri in the 42nd minute, and the game appeared to turn in Mexico’s favor when Quansah was shown a red card in the 54th for a dangerous foul on Jesús Gallardo.

But England was awarded a penalty for a challenge by Mexico goalkeeper Raúl Rangel, and Kane converted for his sixth goal of this tournament and 14th of his World Cup career, matching Gerd Müller of West Germany for fifth on the scoring list. Kane sits one behind Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland in the Golden Boot race.

Kane then committed a foul that made him the first player since at least 1966 to score and concede a penalty in a World Cup game. Raúl Jiménez converted the kick with a stutter-step approach to move El Tri within 3-2.

“Forty, 50 minutes with 10 men — even on sea level it’s almost impossible to overcome but we did it. We did it in altitude,” Tuchel said. “They’re almost too exhausted to celebrate. It’s just beautiful that players on that kind of level just give everything for the win and for the country and for that shirt.”

Mexico attacked relentlessly over the final 21 minutes, plus 11 minutes of stoppage time, but goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and England's defenders held steady.

“This is probably one of the biggest England wins in a while, probably the biggest one I can remember as a fan or player,” Bellingham said. “The best night of my England career.”

Midfielder Jordan Henderson was taken to a hospital after the match with a wrist injury, Tuchel said. He was hurt when he tumbled over an advertising board during the postgame celebration.

“I have mixed feelings; I am sad because Jordan injured his wrist and it is quite serious. It just does not fit with the evening that Jordan is not with us,” Tuchel added. “I do not know the procedure; the doctor told me that he is in the hospital.”

Mexico has not reached the World Cup quarterfinals since hosting in 1986. Since then, it has lost in the round of 16 eight times, failed to advance past the group stage in 2022 and was disqualified from the 1990 tournament.

“Dreaming and falling like this hurts a lot, but the players should leave with their heads held high,” Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said. “They left everything on the pitch, but today it just wasn’t meant to be. The fans had high hopes, and we couldn’t get the job done and give them another night of joy.”

It was Mexico’s third competitive loss at Azteca, which opened in 1966, after a pair of 2-1 defeats in World Cup qualifiers, to Costa Rica in 2001 and to Honduras in 2013.

The stadium sits 7,300 feet (2,200 meters) above sea level and England's travel schedule gave it no opportunity to get used to the altitude. Mexico's passionate fans blasted horns outside the England hotel to disrupt players' sleep, and the start of the match was delayed an hour because of a thunderstorm.

No matter. England is on to the quarterfinals as it seeks its first title since 1966, and its outnumbered fans continued to serenade the victorious Three Lions with Oasis' “Wonderwall.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Authorities urged residents in parts of Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, to remain indoors and shut their windows and doors due to toxic smoke from a burning recycling plant that was engulfed by a wildfire.

Another major wildfire broke out Sunday afternoon west of the Greek capital, Athens. The fire department said 210 firefighters, backed up by volunteers, specialized teams and 29 aircraft, including water-dropping planes and helicopters, were deployed to battle the blaze burning through pine forest in the Mandra area. Authorities were racing to contain the blaze before nightfall, when aircraft can no longer perform firefighting operations.

In central Portugal’s Vouzela area, more than 1,200 firefighters backed up by nearly 400 vehicles and 15 aircraft tried to put out a blaze that broke out Thursday, according to the Civil Protection authority. The wildfire had burned across an area of 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) by Sunday, information from the European Union’s Copernicus satellite mapping agency showed.

The EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid said that Spain sent 120 firefighters and 45 vehicles as reinforcements to Portugal on Friday, while three firefighting aircraft from Italy and Spain were also dispatched to help.

By Sunday afternoon, the fire appeared to be abating somewhat, with Portuguese media quoting officials as saying it no longer had major active fronts but that some hot spots remained.

In Spain, a wildfire burning since Friday in the northeastern Girona region had burned nearly 2,200 hectares (5,400 acres), the EFE news agency said. Catalan Fire Service head of operations Eduard Martinez said the blaze had a perimeter of 40 kilometers (25 miles) and firefighters may not be able to bring it under control on Sunday, EFE said.

Toxic smoke from wildfire in northern Greece

On the other side of southern Europe, in Greece, a fast-moving blaze at a recycling plant broke out Saturday evening near the Oraiokastro suburb of Thessaloniki, triggering evacuation alerts for three suburbs and a facility housing 157 people with disabilities.

Strong winds fanned the flames, and around 160 firefighters were deployed to battle the flames through the night until water-dropping aircraft could take off at dawn, the fire department said.

Oraiokastro Mayor Pandelis Tsakiris said on Greece’s state broadcaster ERT that several businesses and homes were damaged but a clearer picture would emerge after authorities conduct a full evaluation.

A 76-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of having started the blaze through negligence by generating sparks with his vehicle that set vegetation near the road alight, the fire department said. He was due to appear before a prosecutor Sunday.

The fire came days after another wildfire in a nearby area killed a 12-year-old boy and his father.

Most fires in Greece caused by negligence, fire department says

Fire department spokesman Brig. Ioannis Artopoios, speaking on ERT TV on Sunday, said that about 85% of wildfires in Greece were caused by negligence, including through sparks generated through the use of agriculture machinery, discarded cigarettes and the use of outdoor barbecues. “This means most of them could have been avoided,” he said.

Greece suffers frequent, often devastating, wildfires during its hot, dry summers. In 2018, a blaze east of Athens killed more than 100 people, while a massive fire in 2023, which tore through a remote nature reserve in northeastern Greece, was the largest wildfire recorded in the EU.

The country has increasingly turned to technology to combat the threat of fires, exacerbated by climate change. It is integrating an array of four satellites, launched into low orbit in May, that will monitor for wildfires.

So far this summer, Greece has been spared the heatwaves that have scorched much of western Europe in recent weeks. But it has still seen dozens of blazes across the country, both on the mainland and the country's islands.

Balogun, the American leader with three goals in the tournament, received a red card for stepping awkwardly on the right ankle of Tarik Muharemović of Bosnia-Herzegovina in a 2-0 round of 32 win on Wednesday, triggering an automatic one-game suspension.

FIFA announced Sunday that the suspension had been lifted for the round of 16 match, an extraordinary move that triggered praise from Trump and outrage from Belgium’s team. It appeared to be the first time since 1962 that a red card during a World Cup didn't result in a suspension.

Trump called FIFA president Gianni Infantino after the game asking FIFA review the red card, according to a person familiar with the call who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

“Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!” Trump said in a statement on social media.

The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) said it was “astonished,” and Belgium coach Rudi Garcia mocked FIFA’s action.

“I didn’t know that in the offices of FIFA the fifth of July was the first of April in Europe,” Garcia said through a translator in an April Fools' Day comparison. “The Belgian federation does not defend itself, it does not protect the national team. She defends football in general, she defends her integrity, her ethics. I think it’s the first time in the history of the World Cup that there is this kind of decision.”

Garcia wouldn’t respond when asked about a possible appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport or whether he thought Trump impacted FIFA’s action.

“In order to safeguard the legitimate rights of all participating teams and to protect the fundamental principles of fair play in our sport, both at this FIFA World Cup and at future editions of the tournament, the RBFA is investigating all potential options,” the Belgian federation said in a statement.

American players learned of Balogun’s availability when social media posts started popping up during the 10-minute bus ride Sunday morning from their hotel to training at the University of Washington’s Husky Soccer Stadium, where they were greeted by Dubs II, the university's Alaskan Malamute.

Balogun’s red card had been one of the World Cup's most controversial and consequential decisions. Brazilian referee Raphael Claus didn’t initially signal a card but showed Balogun red after a video review.

“If you look at the foul, it was just zero intent at all,” U.S. star Christian Pulisic said. “I felt like there was much worse ones that went on this tournament.”

The U.S. Soccer Federation learned of FIFA's action in a message sent by FIFA in its portal at 10:31 a.m. EDT.

“The implementation of the match suspension is suspended for a probationary period of one year,” FIFA announced. “If Folarin Balogun commits another infringement of a similar nature and gravity during the probationary period, the suspension shall be revoked and the sanction enforced without prejudice to any additional sanction imposed for the new infringement.”

U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino applauded FIFA's move.

“We were punished enough against Bosnia-Herzegovina to play with 10 men (for) 30 minutes in a decision that was completely unfair,” he said.

Pochettino, who played for Argentina in the 2002 World Cup, was not surprised Trump decided to call Infantino.

“I came from a culture, Argentina or Europe, that football, soccer is a religion, more than the religion,” he said. “If we go keep going, pushing on, maybe one step more tomorrow you will see that the sport is magic, that the sport is amazing, is so powerful, unite people, unite a country like us.”

England coach Thomas Tuchel wondered whether more decisions going forward could be challenged, whether yellow cards could be overturned for England's Declan Rice and France's Michael Olise.

“We can now debate endlessly: I think it’s not a yellow card,” he said. “Where does this end? Where does it stop?”

Balogun’s three goals included a go-ahead strike against Bosnia. He matched Landon Donovan in 2010 for the second-most goals by an American in a World Cup, behind only Bert Patenaude’s four in the initial tournament in 1930.

A 25-year-old who plays for Monaco, Balogun scored 13 Ligue 1 goals last season and has 12 goals in 30 international appearances. He was born in Brooklyn to Nigerian parents who were living in London and in 2023 opted to change his national team affiliation from England, which he had represented at the under-21 level.

“He strikes fear into a lot of defenders,” Richards said.

The host U.S. is seeking to reach the quarterfinals for the first time since 2002. The Americans lost in the round of 16 to Ghana in 2010, Belgium in 2014 and the Netherlands in 2022. They failed to advance from the group stage in 2006 and didn’t qualify for the 2018 tournament.

The USSF didn't make Balogun available for comment Sunday, but Balogun posted on social media a picture of himself in front of U.S. fans and overlaid with music of Michael Jackson’s pop single “Bad.”

On Friday, Balogun said he thought a yellow card instead of red “would have been fair.”

FIFA said its decision relied on Article 27 of disciplinary committee rules.

“The judicial body may decide to fully or partially suspend the implementation of a disciplinary measure,” the rule states. “By suspending the implementation of the sanction, the judicial body subjects the person sanctioned to a probationary period of one to four years.”

FIFA in November deferred the final two games of a three-match ban for Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo for a red card against Ireland in a World Cup qualifier, allowing him to play at the start of the World Cup.

Argentine defender Nicolás Otamendi and Ecuadoran midfielder Moisés Caicedo in April had one-game bans deferred for red cards in qualifiers, also allowing them to be available for World Cup openers.

Brazilian midfielder Garrincha received a red card in the 83rd minute of the 1962 semifinal against host Chile for kicking an opponent but was allowed to play in the final against Czechoslovakia after a lobbying campaign that included support from Chile President Jorge Alessandri. Brazil won the final for its second straight title.

“What about the next red card? What happens then?” Norway coach Ståle Solbakken said. “Is there going to be some committee somewhere that is going to take that card away? It’s a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad decision that will hurt the World Cup.”

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Price reported from Washington, D.C.

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AP Soccer Writer James Robson in Atlanta and AP Sports Writers Andrew Destin in Seattle, Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and Stephen Whyno in East Rutherford, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The location in Alexandria, Louisiana, would remove logistical headaches caused by wrangling children from foster homes and shelters across the country and not having anywhere to put them during final preparations for flight. Those obstacles were apparent last year when Guatemalan children were awoken at night and given almost no time to get to Harlingen, Texas, where they waited on an airport tarmac for hours.

A federal judge prevented their deportation, but the chaotic episode illustrated the challenges authorities face because they don't have anywhere to put families and children near the airport. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is calling the Alexandria facility a “staging area,” not a detention center, and says people would only be there a few days at most.

However, several immigration advocates expressed concern that children could be held at the new facility for weeks or months, which happened at other federal immigration holding sites. These advocates are also concerned about oversight, and say the facility represents a departure from how the government manages those children.

“It’s an expansion of the deportation system in ways we haven’t seen before,” said Leecia Welch, chief legal counsel at the nonprofit Children’s Rights. “There’s just so much that could go wrong with this facility.”

ICE has tapped a private prison company to run the deportation facility

Unaccompanied children who are in the U.S. without parents or close relatives are not taken to facilities overseen by ICE. Instead, the law says they must be swiftly placed in the care of state-licensed shelters and foster care programs.

Those are run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services. However, that agency isn't involved in the Alexandria facility’s operation, according to a spokesperson at the airfield where it's being built.

Instead, the facility would be run by a nonprofit arm of LaSalle Corrections, a private prison contractor, according to Ralph Hennessy, executive director of the England Airpark Authority. He said it could be operational as early as August.

ICE officials signed a contract late last month to build the facility at the former military base near Alexandria International Airport, roughly 175 miles (280 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans, Hennessy said.

It would operate as a 72-hour holding center for migrants awaiting deportation, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Compass Connections, a Texas-based nonprofit that runs shelters for unaccompanied immigrant children, had originally been tapped to help operate the facility and laid out plans during a public presentation in February.

But the company’s president, Sonya Thompson, told the AP last week that it was no longer involved. She did not elaborate.

Officials have said the facility is for ‘self-deporting’ families

In public board meetings, airpark officials said the facility is a “humanitarian effort” for families that are “self-deporting.” Immigration advocates say families and unaccompanied children sometimes make that decision under pressure or because they don't understand their options.

“These are people that are volunteering to go back home and they’re going back home as a family unit,” Hennessy told the AP.

The facility would sit next to the nation's largest hub for deportations. More than 4,400 immigration enforcement flights came into and out of the Alexandria International Airport in 2025, according to data from the ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First. ICE planning documents say families and children at the facility “are in the legal custody of ICE and can only be released at the direction of ICE.”

The agency has instructed contractors that families at the facility cannot be referred to as prisoners, detainees or inmates, records show. The agency ordered contractors to not use bars or cages when transporting families and unaccompanied children. The facility will not be required to engage in headcounts and should allow families to “wear their own clothes,” the agency added.

The private prison company runs other ICE detention centers

Louisiana-based LaSalle Corrections runs a range of private prisons and federal immigration detention centers throughout the South, including the “Louisiana Lockup” inside the state’s maximum-security prison in Angola.

The official contractor for the new ICE holding facility will be the company's nonprofit arm, the LaSalle Family Foundation. According to its tax records, the nonprofit provides chaplain services and educational programming in correctional facilities.

However, LaSalle Corrections itself will be involved in operating the holding facility and ensuring compliance, the company’s chief financial officer, Tim Kurpiewski, wrote in an email reviewed by the AP.

LaSalle spokesperson Scott Sutterfield declined to comment.

The deaths of two detainees have been reported since April at a LaSalle-run ICE facility in the state.

Winn Correctional Center was also found in June to have violated standards governing environmental health and safety, food service, use-of-force, medical care and other subjects, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.

He finally stepped onto the Dodger Stadium field for that moment Sunday, but in heartbreaking circumstances.

Alfonzo's teenage sister and his stepmother — the wife of his father, former big leaguer Eliézer Alfonzo Sr. — have both been missing since Venezuela’s catastrophic earthquakes last month. A few hours before the Dodgers' first pitch against the San Diego Padres, several Latin American media outlets reported their bodies had just been found.

Alfonzo had only just received his long-awaited callup to the defending World Series champions on Saturday amid his family's acute uncertainty, which turned into crushing sadness the following morning.

After speaking to his father, brother and girlfriend, Alfonzo still summoned the strength to play for the Dodgers, drawing peace from the knowledge of how much it meant — not to him, but to 16-year-old Eliana.

“It’s a sad, tough moment,” Alfonzo said. “Because like three weeks ago, she told me that she had a beautiful dream, but she wasn’t going to tell me anything until the dream came true. I’m pretty sure the dream was something about this. I wish she was alive to watch me playing in the big leagues, but I know she’s on God’s side now, and she’s going to protect me and she’s going to enjoy every moment that I’m going to have playing.”

The 26-year-old Alfonzo batted ninth and caught the first seven innings in the Dodgers’ 5-2 loss to the San Diego Padres, going 0 for 2 before being removed for a pinch hitter.

When Alfonzo first stepped to the plate at hallowed Dodger Stadium in the third inning, the Los Angeles crowd rose to give him a huge ovation, aware of the strength required to take these swings.

“I was excited and very emotional when I heard those cheers,” Alfonzo said. “It’s something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

Alfonzo’s sister and his stepmother, Patricia, have been missing since multiple earthquakes hit his homeland on June 24. They were staying at a hotel in La Guaira, where Alfonzo Sr. reportedly had been searching for them amid the rubble with heavy equipment in recent days.

When the news reached Dodger Stadium, both teams rallied around Alfonzo. Miguel Rojas, the Dodgers' veteran Venezuelan infielder, was among several teammates who hugged and spoke to Alfonzo in the dugout. At the plate, Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. appeared to have a heartfelt moment with the catcher.

Rojas, who played against Alfonzo's father in Venezuelan winter ball nearly two decades ago, understood why Alfonzo would choose to play at a moment of personal devastation.

“We’re trying to go after a dream that is not just our dream, but this is the dream of his sister, his father, his whole family,” Rojas said. “He’s been working really hard to get this opportunity. I’m proud of the way he approached everything that happened today to him, but at the same time, it’s really hard to put this moment into context. It’s never easy to lose a family member, (but) especially when something like that happens. All we can do as a club is be here for him and kind of lift him up in these tough moments.”

Alfonzo had been waiting for this day since he signed with the Detroit Tigers in 2016, when he was 16 years old.

He has appeared in 581 minor league games over the past nine seasons, riding hundreds of buses and enduring innumerable address changes to chase his goal. He got as far as the Tigers' Triple-A affiliate in Toledo last year before he signed a minor league contract with the Dodgers last November.

Alfonzo was batting .313 with 17 RBIs for Triple-A Oklahoma City this season, but he knew he was behind veteran Dodgers starter Will Smith and backup Dalton Rushing — and even depth veteran Chuckie Robinson.

Rushing has been LA's starter while Smith has been sidelined for nearly a month with a neck injury. After Robinson got the first shot at the backup job, the Dodgers decided to give a chance to Alfonzo right at this unimaginably painful juncture.

“He realized a dream today,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Obviously that was certainly on his heart all day, but he did a fantastic job of driving our pitching staff, compartmentalizing, and I’m sure after today it’s going to really hit him and deal with his reality. All of us feel for him and his father, who I know, and their family. So it’s just devastating.”

Alfonzo's father spent parts of six seasons in the majors as a catcher for four teams from 2006-11. He's extremely popular with Venezuelan players across the generations, Rojas said, because of his ebullient personality and willingness to help others pursuing the major league dream.

Rojas said the earthquakes have caused agony for Venezuelan players, even those who didn't lose family or friends.

“I think I’ve been in shock the last 10 days,” Rojas said. "I know a lot of family and close friends that are going through it, living everything that’s happening. It’s really hard, because I feel like I can’t really stop playing, but at the same time, it’s hard to stay present and to stay here, and stay connected mentally ... because you feel selfish (by) being here and playing. We’re out there having fun and laughing. When I put my head to bed and the show is over, it’s really hard to go to sleep.

“I’m pretty sure a lot of Venezuelans are going through the same thing. I can tell you that it’s been really hard, and I can only imagine how Eliezer is feeling today.”

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

But the private sector's unifying ambitions have been met with a mixed response, complicated by an uneasy national mood. Fewer Americans see their country as exceptional compared to 10 years ago, according to a recent survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, part of a broad decline in patriotic sentiment. Views of the American flag — a prominent feature of semiquincentennial celebrations — are divided by politics, age and race.

Rival events, planned by two different commissions, are adding to the conflicted feelings. Late last year President Donald Trump created Freedom 250, a nonprofit led by his allies, to organize alternative programming to America250, the official nonpartisan group formed in 2016 by Congress.

“The American dream is alive again. That’s something that nobody thought they’d be saying when you went through that last four years of incompetence,” Trump said at his June 24 campaign-style rally kicking off Freedom 250's Great American State Fair, which lost nearly all scheduled musical performers over concerns the event had grown too politically charged.

Philanthropy sees local impact as key to engagement

The tone contrasted with one of America250’s tentpoles: America Gives. The initiative aims to strengthen volunteering habits by encouraging Americans to serve with its nonprofit partners and log those hours in an online tracker.

Salvation Army USA National Commander Merle Heatwole lamented that a number of potential participants have assigned political agendas to the nonpartisan program, which is co-sponsored by his Christian aid nonprofit. Still, he celebrated that thousands of churches supported their “Good Neighbor Day” of volunteering in May.

“Some people have shied away because they’re not sure whether this is a nonpartisan effort, or whether it’s connected to the Trump administration versus the Democratic administrations,” Heatwole said. “That, I think, has hindered it slightly. But I think that overall, people are excited about having an opportunity to get involved.”

The America Gives tracker counted ”just over 38 million hours volunteered entering the holiday weekend." It's unclear how many hours would set the single-year record. Americans recorded 4.99 billion service hours in a one-year span from 2022-2023, according to an AmeriCorps analysis of Census Bureau data.

America250 Chair Rosie Rios said there will be a big year-end increase because many partners wait until “the last second" to populate their hours. She emphasized that highlighting the value of service is their only agenda.

Most nonprofits aren't leveraging semiquincentennial campaigns, one consultant found. Jayne Cravens, whose 30-year nonprofit career has included volunteer coordination, said nonprofits lack the infrastructure to provide meaningful service experiences. That's especially so after the Trump administration gutted AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism, in 2025. Nonprofits scrambled to replace lost workers and funding.

Audra Watson, who leads youth civic programs at the nonprofit C&S, is spearheading a three-year effort to increase civic engagement among 20 million people ages 14 to 24.

She finds most young people are getting engaged through appeals outside of the 250th. While the milestone has sparked “some excitement for some young people,” she said, those participants are “hand-raisers” already “deeply excited about history.”

The more they encourage young people to consider local impact, where she said they hold the most influence, the more she finds they depart from partisanship.

“For some young people, the 250th is their thing,” she said. "But for many, many more of them this is about really taking that energy and catalyzing that energy around issues of their community.”

Dueling logos muddle the market

Marketing consultants say brands have to tread carefully, given a divided nation and shrinking national pride.

Further jumbling 250th celebration advertising, marketing executives noted, have been the two competing logos. The America250 emblem depicts a bold red, white and blue continuous ribbon that spells out “250.” The Freedom 250 design features the words “Freedom 250” written in a classic serif font, placed inside a circular arrangement of 13 stars, a nod to the original U.S. flag

“Once you have two competing logos, it’s confusing,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce.

Walmart, an America250 founding sponsor, is sponsoring a mobile recording studio that is collecting oral histories across the country. The Library of Congress will archive a selection of stories, the company said.

Coca‑Cola launched “Paint the Nation,” a large-scale public art initiative resulting in dozens of murals created with local artists. The company said each mural will reflect local culture and community pride, creating a “visual legacy that extends beyond the anniversary year.” Commemorative mini-cans are also being issued for all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.

Aaron Hilton of Suffolk, Virginia says he’s seen lots of paper plates, cups and T-shirts with the America 250 reference. He's not interested, blaming his lack of enthusiasm on the Trump administration.

“I’ll end up getting the Coke because I do drink Coke, but otherwise I really don’t want to buy anything like that," said Hilton, 36. "I’m not feeling really patriotic about this.”

Darrell Brown, 60, of Alexander, Arkansas, has already bought commemorative T-shirts and flags. Every year, he decorates his lawn with a 7-foot inflatable Uncle Sam. This year, he's added more American flags than usual to commemorate the milestone.

Brown saye he's been sticking to merchandise with America250 references. He finds it politically divisive to have two logos.

“I don’t believe this should be a political issue,” he said. “I think it should be just about celebrating the country, regardless if you’re a Democrat or Republican."

Grassroots programming defined commemoration 50 years ago

Future generations might be pleasantly surprised to see all their communities accomplished under the milestone's banner, according to M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, a cultural historian who wrote a book about the 1976 bicentennial.

She recalled that the Vietnam war and Watergate still felt fresh during those celebrations. President Richard Nixon initially replaced Lyndon B. Johnson’s bipartisan planning commission with one composed of political appointees interested in a top-down celebration of American supremacy.

But Nixon scrapped those plans in place of federal funding for grassroots programming, Rymsza-Pawlowska said, which grew into forms of civic engagement still popular today. Environmental pick-ups and get-out-the-vote work were common forms of bicentennial volunteerism.

Private funders still support such efforts, though not at the scale possible with government backing. State humanities councils launched a “By the People” campaign to fund community-driven programs exploring the nation's culture and imagining its future. Her Washington, D.C. chapter created an oral history project that promises “an intimate and complex portrait of what it means to call the nation’s capital home" today.

“We don’t really know what the ultimate legacy of the 250th will be,” Rymsza-Pawlowska said. “A commemoration is just an opportunity to do a thing that you were already doing but have an occasion for it. And possibly get some money for it.”

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

King Charles III’s wayward son is traveling to the land of his birth for a series of charity engagements that begin Tuesday. But for most royal watchers that’s just background noise.

For the past 10 days, British tabloids and news broadcasts have been filled with speculation about whether Harry’s wife, Meghan, will accompany him and, more importantly, whether they will bring their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, so they can finally get to know Grandpa Charles. But everything is up in the air as Harry seeks to arrange protection for his family after a government committee refused to authorize taxpayer funded security.

“With just days to go until Harry’s first public engagement in the UK on Tuesday … very little is guaranteed at all,” the Times of London reported on Saturday. “For Archie and Lilibet to meet the king, it’s now or never,’’ wrote the Telegraph.

The kids' trip hinges on adequate security measures

Harry, a British army veteran who served in Afghanistan, planned the visit to mark a year before the Invictus Games, the Paralympic-style competition he founded to motivate and inspire military veterans around the world as they work to overcome battlefield injuries.

Not on the official schedule but very much in the media spotlight, however, is a decision Tuesday at the High Court in London, where the judge will reveal his verdict in Harry’s invasion of privacy lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail.

The decision about whether to bring the children, according to reports based on off-the-record briefings and unidentified people close to the royals, hinges on whether the U.K. government agrees to provide security for Harry and his family. It is an issue that has hung over every trip the prince has made to Britain since he and Meghan decamped to North America six years ago.

British authorities say Harry isn’t entitled to blanket protection because he is no longer a working member of the royal family and they will assess his security on a case-by-case basis, just like any other celebrity. Harry says it is unsafe for his children to travel to Britain without protection because his family remains a target simply by virtue of their royal status.

The decision rests with a government committee known as Ravec, that rules on who should get state-funded protection.

The outcome could be problematic for the royal family, which is trying to show that it provides value for money after months of embarrassing headlines about the links between the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the former Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

“In the paranoid atmosphere of waiting for more Andrew shoes to drop, Ravec and the royals themselves are terrified of public blowback if taxpayers are asked to fund protection for the House of Sussex,’’ royal commentator Tina Brown wrote on X. “The issue is not a hill that either the king or the government wants to die on, and who can blame them?’’

Harry wants his children to get to know their grandfather

After initial reports that Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, would visit the U.K., plans began to wobble after the Daily Telegraph reported that Ravec had again rejected Harry’s request for protection.

The Times of London reported that Harry was “distraught” after the decision and told friends he wouldn’t let his children be “chased by paparazzi” through the streets of London.

By Sunday, it was clear that the family wouldn’t accompany Harry when he arrives in the capital on Monday, though there was still a chance they would join him later in the trip.

Nonetheless, Harry has said that he wants to reconcile with his 77-year-old father, who is being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer. And he really wants his children, who first met the monarch during celebrations for the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, to spend time with their grandfather now that they are old enough to remember the experience.

Harry's relations with the palace have been tense

Tension within the House of Windsor have been strained ever since Harry and Meghan gave up royal duties and moved to California to pursue lucrative media deals free from the pressures of royal life in London.

They reached a new low after Harry published an explosive memoir that included unflattering depictions of the royal family and damning allegations of a toxic relationship between the monarchy and the press.

Harry’s description of royals leaking information about other members of the family in exchange for positive coverage of themselves is just one of the tawdry allegations in his book, “Spare.” The prince was especially scathing about Queen Camilla, accusing her of feeding private conversations to the media as she sought to rehabilitate her image, after her longtime affair with Charles when he was heir to the throne.

After losing a court battle over the security issue last year, Harry said he hoped to rebuild relations with his family, even as he suggested that the royals had sought to prevent him from receiving police protection to punish him for walking away from royal duties.

“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry told the BBC. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

The five-day preliminary hearing will mark the most significant presentation of evidence in the case so far — and the first time that Kirk’s parents and widow will be in the courtroom with defendant Tyler Robinson.

Robinson, 23, is charged with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk, a conservative activist and ally of President Donald Trump, at Utah Valley University. Robinson turned himself in a day after the shooting.

Prosecutors allege he confessed in a note left for his roommate, who was also his romantic partner, that read, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”

Robinson has not yet entered a plea, and his attorneys have not commented on his guilt or innocence. They have, however, sought to get the death penalty taken off the table, so far unsuccessfully.

The proceeding will resemble a minitrial, but prosecutors need only demonstrate that there are reasonable grounds to believe Robinson killed Kirk. The standard is lower than for a trial, where prosecutors have to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Once it’s finished, state District Judge Tony Graf must determine if there is enough evidence for the case to proceed to a trial.

Prosecutors have said they plan to present DNA evidence linking Robinson to the suspected murder weapon, testimony from investigators, autopsy findings, witness statements and video of Kirk’s killing. They are also expected to argue the shooting endangered others at Kirk's campus event — an aggravating circumstance that could make the crime punishable by death under Utah law.

Prosecutors this week can use secondhand information, or hearsay, to help present their case.

Robinson's roommate is not expected to testify in person during the hearing. Still, the roommate's recorded testimony could be a focal point for prosecutors.

In addition to the alleged confession note, Robinson reportedly texted his roommate that he targeted Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred,” prosecutors have said.

Before his death, Kirk and the organization he co-founded, Turning Point USA, galvanized the conservative youth vote to help Trump win a second term.

The Republican president has said he hopes Robinson receives the death penalty.

Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, said during his memorial service that she forgives Robinson. She is expected in court throughout the week with her husband’s parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

This week when he meets leaders in Turkey, his mission is to enforce that pledge.

The speed with which most NATO countries have tried to heed Trump’s call to spend 5% of their annual gross domestic product on defense over the next decade underscores how the U.S. president has reshaped the alliance and bent it to his will — even as he continues to spar with its members over the Iran war, his flirtation with annexing Greenland, and various personal tiffs.

“President Trump fully expects that all allies will step up immediately and get on the path to 5% and do it with urgency,” Matt Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told reporters in a preview of the administration’s message before this week’s summit in Ankara.

Trump leaves Monday evening for the summit, and for days leading up to the trip has been airing grievances about how much the U.S. spends on defense compared with other countries. That’s despite efforts from Mark Rutte, the alliance’s secretary-general, who tried to feed the ego of the tempestuous U.S. leader in an Oval Office meeting last month. There, he displayed large charts on easels showing what he called “ The Trump Trillion ” — how much allies had boosted their spending commitments since 2017.

Luke Coffey, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think thank in Washington, described the Ankara gathering as the “first report card” after last year’s summit in The Hague.

“If NATO members play their cards right — if the leaders show up demonstrating a commitment and a reasonable plan to meet these spending targets — then it’ll allow President Trump to take a victory lap,” Coffey said.

Trump will meet with Ukraine's Zelenskyy

Trump left last month’s G7 summit in France buoyed by support from his counterparts for his interim agreement to end the war with Iran. He praised unity among leaders — who also worked to bring Trump onside to boost security assistance for Ukraine in its fight with Russia.

That war, now in its fifth year, is expected to be a key focus at the Ankara summit. The White House said Trump will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday. Trump spoke with both Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 4.

Trump also plans to meet on the sidelines of the summit with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa. The White House has not provided goals for that discussion, but it comes as Trump has publicly mused about Syria playing a bigger role fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon. Al-Sharaa, who led an Islamic insurgent group and whose rebel forces ousted former Syrian President Bashar Assad, has said he has no interest in doing so.

The U.S. president also plans a separate meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the host of the summit whom Trump counts as a close friend.

But he has no bilateral meetings planned with other leaders. Despite the positive tone of the G7 summit, Trump resurrected feuds as soon as he returned stateside.

He proclaimed that Keir Starmer would resign as British prime minister before the embattled leader made it official, arguing that Starmer “failed badly” on immigration and energy. Meanwhile, Trump asserted that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had begged him for a photo, prompting a ferocious denial by her and the cancellation of a U.S. visit by the country’s foreign minister.

Despite the fallout, Trump egged it on further on Sunday when he posted a photo on social media of Meloni smiling at him, along with the words “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED.”

Trump has remained on tense terms with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and while French President Emmanuel Macron charmed Trump with a lavish dinner at the Palace of Versailles last month, it hasn’t always been smooth between the two leaders.

Aware of those tensions, a bipartisan group of senators is again headed to the summit this year, trying to represent the broad support for the alliance on Capitol Hill and to serve as a counterweight to Trump’s often caustic attitude toward NATO.

“They are our best allies, they are our best trading partners, they are critical to our national security, to our economic success, and we need to encourage those relationships,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who is leading the delegation to Ankara. “That’s part of what Congress understands that the administration doesn’t seem to.”

Trump’s team is making the case for more NATO changes

The summit comes as Trump’s administration makes the case for what it calls “NATO 3.0,” which envisions an alliance that has Europe taking on more of its security needs, allowing the U.S. to shift its focus elsewhere.

The strategy was outlined by Elbridge Colby, a U.S. undersecretary of defense, earlier this year at a gathering of NATO defense ministers.

Then, in a scathing speech to other NATO defense ministers last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth added to the pressure by announcing that the U.S. will conduct a six-month review of its forces in Europe. This surprised countries in the alliance that had anticipated coordinating with the Trump administration through the transition.

Trump himself sparked much confusion earlier this year when he seemed to send conflicting signals on the issue, announcing that he would send 5,000 U.S. troops to Poland weeks after ordering the same number of forces pulled out of the continent.

Shaheen said the NATO 3.0 concept “fails to understand -- as this administration has consistently failed to understand -- the threat that Putin and Russia are to Europe and subsequently to the United States.”

Europe is boosting spending, but still counts on the U.S.

The U.S. president last year was the driving factor in a broad target reached in The Hague for NATO countries to spend 5% of their GDP on defense over the next decade.

Of that, 3.5% would be for core defense spending and the rest would be related expenses, such as infrastructure. Spain said at the time that it couldn’t meet those levels, and some others have voiced reservations about the ambitious goal.

Despite the increased pledges and spending, experts say many parts of the continent are nonetheless reliant on the U.S. for their defense should they come under attack. The defining feature of the NATO alliance is the view that an armed attack on one member is an attack on all.

“This is the reality for most Europeans,” said Liana Fix, senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. She said most are far from being able to defend themselves without the United States, “even if they’re starting to develop all that.”

Apart from the spending pledge, NATO has worked to accommodate Trump in other ways.

The alliance earlier this year introduced “Arctic Sentry,” a NATO-led military exercise aimed at countering Russian and Chinese activities in the region. It’s also meant to address Trump’s repeated threats to seize Greenland, since the Republican president has insisted the U.S. needs to acquire the semiautonomous territory of Denmark for strategic security reasons.

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Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

Fifth Third Bank completed its acquisition of Comerica, and beginning Sept. 8, Comerica customers will transition onto Fifth Third’s systems. The switch affects everything from mobile banking to direct deposits.

What Comerica customers need to do

Steve Davis, regional market president for Michigan, said the transition is designed to be straightforward for most customers.

“For the most part, what our customers are going to need to do is on September 8th, they’re going to log in to the Fifth Third app or their website, create a new user ID, a new password, and they’re good to go,” Davis said. “Their debit card, their ATM, their direct deposit information, all their ACHs — that’s all going to transfer over for them.”

To help customers prepare, welcome packets will be mailed in August walking through every step of the process. The bank says it is also staffing up to handle an expected surge in questions.

“It’s an all hands on deck to make sure that we can exceed customer expectations,” Davis said.

Customers looking for additional information can visit Fifth Third’s Better Together page.

Branch closures, but more options overall

The $10.9 billion all-stock deal — finalized in October — comes with significant changes to the branch network. More than 70 locations are slated to close as part of the merger.

The bank says it is working to relocate affected employees or help them find other opportunities. And while the closures mark a loss for some communities, Davis says the combined network ultimately gives customers more options.

“If you’re in the tri-county of Southeast Michigan — like Livingston, Macomb, Wayne, etc., we’re going to be number one in terms of branches there,” Davis said. “In the City of Detroit, we’re going to be number one in terms of branches there, so for our customers on average it’s a much better thing than a worse thing.”

Will Comerica Park be renamed?

Perhaps no question has captured more public attention than the fate of Comerica Park — the downtown Detroit ballpark that is home to the Detroit Tigers.

Could it become Fifth Third Park? That answer isn’t ready yet.

“We’re evaluating everything — we’ll decide something in the offseason,” Davis said. “It’s really cool that people care so much about Comerica Park and what it’s meant to them.”

Small purchased some on a return trip to the U.K., and he promised to share if Briscoe won on the crew chief's birthday. That made Sunday night's victory pretty sweet.

Briscoe held off Christopher Bell in NASCAR’s return to Chicagoland Speedway, racing to his first Cup Series win of the season. And Small delivered the chocolates to Briscoe moments after it was over.

“They were pretty dang good,” Briscoe said.

Briscoe was followed closely by Bell in the final laps on the 1.5-mile oval about 50 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. But Bell was unable to run down his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate.

The 31-year-old Briscoe, an Indiana native, celebrated his sixth career win with a burnout before standing on his car and waving to the sellout crowd.

“This has been a place that I've always loved coming to, back when we used to, and I've missed it,” Briscoe said. “It's always been one of my top-five tracks.”

It was Bell’s fourth runner-up finish this season. He was wearing a splint on his arm as he continues his recovery after breaking his left wrist in a crash at Michigan on June 7.

“I think he’s handled that as well as you can handle it,” team owner Joe Gibbs said. “He’s got a burning desire to stay in there and win. I think he had, you know — he had a real good car tonight, too.”

Denny Hamlin, who started on the pole, was third. William Byron, who won two stages while leading a race-high 94 laps, and Alex Bowman rounded out the top five.

“I thought I was in control early on, even though I wasn’t leading,” Hamlin said. “I felt in control and probably got a little lazy on some restarts and things like that. Just taking for granted that I’ll just go up there and get it.”

NASCAR ran 19 Cup races in Joliet before pulling out after the 2019 season. It tried to build interest in the event in a crowded sports market, but the race struggled with attendance.

After racing on a street course in downtown Chicago each of the previous three years, NASCAR decided to go back to Chicagoland — eager to see how the Next Gen cars would do on the rough and bumpy asphalt at the facility. Rain on Friday and Saturday caused some parking issues, but the racing was compelling.

Led by Briscoe, Bell and Hamlin, Toyota accounted for seven of the top 10 cars for the first time in a Cup Series race — continuing a strong season for the manufacturer.

“Yeah, Toyotas are fast,” Bell said.

Driving a “Space Jam”-themed car in honor of the 30th anniversary of the Looney Tunes movie, Bubba Wallace was sixth in his No. 23 Toyota Camry. Wallace is part of the 23XI Racing team that is co-owned by Michael Jordan, one of the stars of the 1996 movie.

Ryan Blaney was seventh in his seventh consecutive top-10 finish. Ty Gibbs, Corey Heim and Riley Herbst completed the top 10.

Tyler Reddick’s championship hopes were damaged by an oil leak with about 32 laps left in Stage 2. There was a long caution while Reddick’s 23XI Racing crew worked on his No. 45 Toyota in the garage, replacing the radiator because of a hole.

Reddick, who won the first three races of the season, finished 36th. He trails Hamlin by 44 points at the top of Cup standings after he was down by one going into the weekend.

Kyle Larson also had a rough day after qualifying second behind Hamlin. He was in third place when he spun out of Turn 4 on Lap 93. He drove his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet into the wet infield grass and had to be pulled out of the mud.

Larson finished 34th, extending his winless drought to 43 races. He finished second in each of the previous two Cup races at Chicagoland.

Updating the In-Season Challenge

Briscoe, Bell, Hamlin and Blaney were among the winners in the second round of NASCAR’s In-Season Challenge. Byron, Chase Elliott, Todd Gilliland and Alex Bowman also moved on.

The winner of the five-race, bracket-style tournament receives $1 million.

Briscoe eliminated Ty Gibbs, who won the inaugural competition last year. Byron defeated Larson, his teammate with Hendrick Motorsports.

Up next

The Cup Series is at EchoPark Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, next weekend. Reddick won the February stop at the track.

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

She reached out to Local 4 for help and now AARP tells the woman that they are helping to replace the aids. Additionally, AARP says they are working to remove the provider from their network as a result of the story.

But, the woman doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else.

“Apparently, you called AARP and the next Friday, I got a phone call, about a quarter until 5,” Paulette Seaton, 99-year-old Dolly Seaton’s daughter-in-law, said. “I get multiple phone calls. I wasn’t available and I said ‘Oh my gosh, what’s wrong?’ So, I called back and they said, ‘Well, you are going to get a pair of hearing aids.’”

But, before Local 4 got involved and tried to help the Seatons, they spent almost six months trying to get answers.

This started in December when their hunt for hearing aids began.

“So I started looking for mobile providers,” Paulette Seaton said.

They looked to AARP’s UnitedHealthcare Hearing. Their list of providers included a man named William Robinson with Robinson Hearing Centers.

They got in touch with him and they say he came to Dolly Seaton’s senior living facility.

“He was supposed to be selling us an AARP package and he appealed to her, saying ‘I can give you much better quality, way less expensive,’” Paulette Seaton said.

Dolly Seaton agreed to go the “private pay” direction and signed a check over to Robinson for $1,360.

The hearing aids came about a month later. Everything seemed fine, until Paulette Seaton says she got a message on Feb. 12.

“He said, ‘Hey, there’s a major upgrade and I said, ‘You know what? She’s fine. We don’t have to mess with this.’ He said, ‘No, we have to do this upgrade because the hearing aids may not function properly,’” Paulette Seaton said, describing the conversation.

They say he told them the aids would be returned in two to three days.

Reluctantly, Dolly and Paulette Seaton agreed. They say someone from Robinson’s team came and picked the hearing aids up on Feb. 15.

“We haven’t seen them since,” Paulette Seaton said.

Then came months of back and forth. Paulette Seaton reached out time-and-time again asking where the hearing aids were. She showed Local 4 the text messages.

“I could not get anybody to give me answers. I kept getting stalling,” Paulette Seaton said.

At one point, they say Robinson gave them a day he’d return them in person. Paulette Seaton says he never showed.

“I received a text from him that he said he was changing his business model,” Paulette Seaton said.

He asked them to pay him more money, they said.

“If you wish to add one thousand to the purchase price, we can accommodate, or $1,500 for a five year service guarantee. Otherwise, we will refund you within 30 days,” Paulette Seaton said, reading a text message from Robinson.

She responded within minutes.

“Immediately, please refund,” she said in a text to Robinson.

It’s the start of July and they say they’ve gotten no refund. They’ve been asking since.

At one point, they say he threatened to sue them.

“We’ve received no letters, no refunds, no anything,” Paulette Seaton said.

Local 4 has been reaching out to Robinson for 10 days, sending the first message to him on Thursday, June 25 at 10:29 a.m.

The message included a timeline of what the Seatons said occurred and asked Robinson if he was going to refund Dolly Seaton the money or return the aids. Additionally, the message asked if there was any statement or context Robinson would like included in the story.

Local 4 followed up with several other messages asking for a statement, but haven’t received one. Robinson’s responses to the messages included frustration with the story, but no answers on if he plans to return the money or aids.

Meanwhile, Dolly Seaton is grateful AARP is stepping in, but there’s one thing she still wants.

“I’d like to get the money back. I need it, don’t I?” Dolly Seaton said.

AARP Hearing Solutions by UnitedHealthcare Hearing responded to Local 4 with a statement.

“Customer care is our top priority,” they said. “We hold our network of providers to the highest standards to support patient care and quality outcomes, and we regret the inconvenience and frustration this situation caused. We were deeply disappointed a provider failed to deliver on our customer promise. We are in the process of removing that provider from our network.

Due to HIPPA privacy rules, we are unable to discuss the specific details related to this or any of our member interactions. But we are working with the impacted member to ensure they receive the very best care for their hearing needs. It is what all our members deserve and should expect from us.”

Heading in the go-ahead goal in the 79th minute and scoring again before the end of regulation time, Haaland put Norway on his back and carried it into the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time with a 2-1 defeat of Brazil on Sunday that showcased the towering striker on soccer’s biggest stage.

“Maybe this will write history in Norway,” Haaland said. “Everyone just need to enjoy themselves. This is just an insane day. It’s one of the most insane days in Norwegian history. Just enjoy it, embrace it and enjoy the moment.”

After being a nonfactor for much of the afternoon and having limited touches, Haaland spoke at the second-half hydration break with coach Ståle Solbakken, who told him to drain his energy and go for it.

Haaland turned it on when it mattered most, getting the right side of his head on the ball after a perfect setup by Andreas Schjelderup, who entered at halftime. Haaland scored a little over minutes later for his seventh of the tournament, through Danilo's legs to tie Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé of France in the race for the Golden Boot.

“It felt it was a gift from God that it actually went into the net,” Haaland said after scoring in a 14th consecutive competitive match internationally. He has 27 in that stretch and 62 in 54 with Norway.

At the other end, goalkeeper Ørjan Nyland was stellar. He made a crucial stop early, diving to his left to deny Bruno Guimarães’ penalty kick in the 14th minute, then got his left hand on a shot by Endrick late when Norway was hanging on to a one-goal lead.

The only goal Nyland allowed was to Neymar on a penalty kick late in stoppage time, which changed just the final score. Neymar, who is 34, said this was his final game playing for Brazil's national team.

Nyland, who at 35 is his team’s oldest player, was a huge factor in a historic victory that ranks among the most significant in the country’s history — at least on the men’s side. Norway’s women’s team won the World Cup in 1995, but the men have only qualified four times and not since 1998. They had not gone further than the round of 16.

“I think that all Norwegian citizens are experiencing the night of a lifetime,” Solbakken said. “Some people say that we have changed Norway forever. Probably, they will party for a week or so.”

Norway next faces England on Saturday in Miami Gardens, Florida. Solbakken said he had more than a dozen friends already book travel to South Florida.

Guimarães became the first Brazil player not to score on a World Cup penalty kick since Zico in 1986. The decision to have him take it instead of star Vinícius Júnior brought immediate second-guessing and may be questioned and criticized for quite some time.

Coach Carlo Ancelotti said he and his staff did a yearlong statistical study that determined, with Neymar not on the field and Raphinha injured, Guimarães was the right choice.

There were plenty of other missed opportunities, including Casemiro missing Neymar on a crossing attempt on what could have been the tying goal.

“We really fell short in the opportunities that we did create,” captain Marquinhos said. “We had a penalty kick, we had some other chances as well, but here’s the World Cup for you. Those that make the least mistakes are able to move forward to the next round, and to be victorious.”

Brazil goes home having massively underachieved expectations set pretty much at win or bust for the five-time World Cup champions. The global powerhouse had its streak of quarterfinal appearances at the tournament end at eight, losing before that stage for the first time since 1990.

It was Brazil’s seventh consecutive loss to European opponents in the knockout round at the World Cup, dating to beating Germany in the 2002 final. The absence of injured midfielder Lucas Paquetá did not help.

Norway got defender Julian Ryerson back from his injury that sidelined him the past two games, and Solbakken was rewarded for making changes at halftime by Schjelderup setting up each of Haaland’s goals.

“During the game, you have to take the calls decisions that you feel are appropriate,” Solbakken said. “It’s a gut feeling that Oscar (Bobb) and Andreas might make a difference, and I felt more secure with them on the pitch the way I wanted us to play the second half, and then you saw what happened.”

Those moves played a role in the upset, though this one was not nearly as massive as the group stage in 1998. Norway showed how much it had evolved as a soccer nation since then, with knocking off Brazil the latest step in that process.

Yellow-clad Seleção fans outnumbered those in Norway red, many of whom did the now-famous Viking Row in the stands — with Brazil supporters even cheering it before kickoff. Brazil's fans were stunned silent when it returned after the game, with Haaland banging the drum and leading the celebration.

“I’ve peaked a couple of times during this tournament, but this was a new peak,” Haaland said.

Also in the sellout crowd of 80,663 were rapper Jay-Z, comedian Chris Rock, actor Woody Harrelson, actress Sofía Vergara and basketball player Jalen Brunson of the NBA champion New York Knicks, who elicited a healthy roar when he was shown on video screens.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Flares are safety devices that allow for the safe combustion of excess gases under certain operating conditions, according to Marathon.

Refinery personnel are conducting off-site air monitoring, the company said.

As a precaution, a section of Schaefer Road from I-75 to Dix Road is closed. Local law enforcement is managing the closure.

Marathon said the company’s top priorities are the safety of employees, responders and the community, as well as limiting any environmental impact.

Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield said her administration is monitoring the situation closely.

“EGLE (the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) and refinery personnel are conducting air quality monitoring both on-site and in the surrounding neighborhoods. At this time, monitoring has not detected gas readings of concern,” the statement said.

Local 4 reached out to EGLE and a spokesperson said the agency is sending all media inquiries to the city of Detroit.

The eye of the storm passed over the island of Rota Monday morning local time, bringing winds of more than 150 mph (241 kph), according to the National Weather Service. It was traveling at around 9 mph (14 kph) west toward the Philippines, the weather service said.

“Hang tight,” National Weather Service meteorologist Brandon Aydlett said. “We're coming just out of the peak of conditions. It's going to be a slow improvement, but improvement is coming.”

The storm impacted other parts of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, as well as Guam. The area was still recovering from another destructive cyclone that struck in April.

On the island of Saipan, the international airport recorded wind gusts of more than 100 mph (161 kph), the weather service said. Many people living in Saipan and nearby Tinian had been without power since the Super Typhoon Sinlaku, the agency said.

Bavi was a Category 5 super typhoon with winds that could reach 180 mph (290 kph) per hour and gusts of 215 mph (346 kph) per hour, said weather service meteorologist Edwin Montvila.

In addition to Rota, typhoon and flash flood warnings were in effect for Guam, Tinian and Saipan, while tropical storm warnings and watches were in place for other islands in the area. The weather service said the storm could bring a total of at least 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain by the time it passes through the region.

A cyclone becomes a super typhoon when it has maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (241 kph) or stronger. That’s equivalent to a high-end Category 4 or a Category 5 storm.

Bavi posed an “imminent danger to life,” Montvila said, with the weather service telling residents across the islands to move to interior rooms and stay away from windows.

“Entering outside can result in death from flying projectiles. Utility poles and associated power lines will be down,” Montvila said.

Bavi passed through the region at a faster pace than Sinlaku, the weather service said. But because of the size of the storm, the islands could still face tropical storm conditions, including torrential rains, through at least Monday night.

Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero urged people to stay home or at a shelter.

“Here we are experiencing another severe force of winds on our island, but as we know, we are always ready and prepared in our planning and our protection of our people,” she said in a video posted on social media Sunday.

The Rev. Francis Hezel, a priest at Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Dededo, Guam, heard winds howling outside his house for hours since waking up before dawn. He said he hoped the typhoon wouldn't cause widespread damage on the island because most residents live in concrete homes.

“By this time, people are used to typhoons,” he said. “They know what they have to do to prepare for them.”

And still, McCullough pulled the plug.

Pérez was removed after retiring all 21 batters he faced, a move that almost blew up on the Marlins when they nearly squandered an eight-run lead in a 9-8 victory over the Athletics.

“I totally get it,” McCullough said. “There was a part of my heartstrings pulling at his opportunity to keep on going, but I have to think about Eury and our organization, our team and what’s best moving forward to give us a chance to continue to win games.”

Making his third start since returning from the injured list, Pérez was lifted after throwing 92 pitches over seven perfect innings.

“Going into this game, 90-plus was the pitch count but … us looking to play beyond the regular season, Eury’s going to be an important part of that," McCullough said. "He had it really going today.”

Heriberto Hernández homered twice for the surprising Marlins (49-42), who have won nine of 12 overall after completing a three-game sweep. Leo Jiménez and All-Star shortstop Otto Lopez also went deep.

A crowd full of A’s fans booed when McCullough replaced Pérez with reliever Lake Bachar to begin the eighth.

Bachar issued a leadoff walk to Lawrence Butler, the first baserunner for the A’s. Joshua Kuroda-Grauer then dunked a pop-fly single into shallow right field for their first hit.

Carlos Cortes followed with an RBI double, Max Muncy walked and Jonah Heim launched a grand slam that shaved Miami’s lead to 8-5.

Brian Serven singled to chase Bachar, who didn’t retire any of the six batters he faced. Michael Petersen got through the eighth without any more damage, and Miami tacked on an insurance run in the ninth. That proved critical when Pete Fairbanks gave up three runs, two earned, in the bottom half before finally closing it out.

After all that, Pérez defended his manager for making the change.

"It’s something that doesn’t feel good,” Pérez said. “But they don’t know the inside information. We had a plan of 90 pitches. I’m very proud of my team and very proud of my manager. Mostly the communication that we have.”

The 23-year-old Pérez, who has never tossed a complete game in his major league career, struck out eight before giving way to the bullpen.

“I’m a fan of baseball, too, and I know there’s a history of this game,” McCullough said. “It wasn't lost on me.”

The 92 pitches were the most Pérez has thrown since returning from the injured list June 24. He had been sidelined since late May because of a bizarre leg injury sustained while he was stretching in the dugout.

Pérez was initially expected to miss about two months with a high-grade strain of his right gracilis — a long, thin muscle on the inside of the thigh. He exited a May 27 outing in Toronto after throwing four shutout innings because his right hamstring spasmed while he was doing lateral lunges on the bench to limber up for the fifth. He was in such pain he needed assistance from a teammate to descend the steps into the clubhouse.

The 6-foot-8 Pérez was facing the A’s for the first time since his rookie season of 2023. He induced seven groundouts and six flyouts, one of which made it to the warning track. The right-hander improved to 5-6 with a 3.84 ERA in 15 starts this year.

“Really used his whole arsenal,” McCullough said. “This is a version of Eury we’ve seen trending.”

There have been 24 perfect games in big league history — each authored by a single pitcher. Domingo Germán threw the most recent one, for the New York Yankees against the A’s on July 28, 2023.

The Marlins have not had a perfect game in their 33-year history.

Armed with a 98-99 mph fastball, Pérez was rated one of baseball’s top prospects before making his major league debut at age 20 in May 2023.

He sat out the 2024 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery with an internal brace, and returned to Miami’s rotation in June 2025. He entered Sunday with a 16-18 record and 3.85 ERA in 53 major league starts.

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

The Guard members are part of a federal task force in Memphis created by President Donald Trump, who last year sent troops and federal agents to Democrat-run cities that he described as overrun with crime. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, had deployed the Guard to support the effort.

Authorities said the soldiers in Memphis were responding with local police to reports of gunshots around 4 a.m. when they began pursuing an armed man fleeing on foot. The guardsmen opened fire after the man turned toward them with his weapon, according to the city's police department.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation identified the man as Tyrin Johnson, 20, and said it is investigating the circumstances of the shooting. No law enforcement officers were injured, the agency added.

Johnson died at the scene after two National Guard medical specialists attempted first aid, Guard spokesperson Lt. Col Darrin Haas said in a statement.

Johnson’s older cousin, Terracle Nelson, 46, said authorities told family members that he had been shot twice in the chest. Authorities on Sunday did not immediately respond to questions about the number of shots fired and TBI declined to comment on Nelson's account of the shooting.

Evaniel Johnson said his grandson had taken classes at Tennessee State University, was the father of a young child and was preparing to help lead the family construction business. He said his grandson was also passionate about making music.

He said he wanted to review findings from investigators and any video of the shooting before making judgment.

“I believed in him, and I know he still had so much life ahead of him,” Johnson said. “The heartbreaking reality is that he will never have the chance to enjoy what we were building together. That is a pain no grandparent should ever have to endure.”

Mayor Paul Young called the shooting an “unfortunate incident” and said he was waiting to see the results of the TBI investigation before commenting further, according to a statement provided by spokesperson Penelope Huston.

A search of online records in federal and state courts Sunday did not immediately show any cases related to Johnson. In Memphis and in Nashville, local court records showed he had a handful of minor traffic violations.

Federal troops have been patrolling the city since October over the objections of Young, a Democrat. The troops are part of the Memphis Safe Task Force, convened by Trump and comprised of federal and local agencies.

The task force has led to more than 10,000 arrests, the U.S. Marshals Service reported in June.

There have been at least four officer-involved shootings tied to the task force, according to TBI data. Two of those shootings occurred in May and did not involve National Guard members discharging their weapons. The TBI also tied the task force to an October shooting, but did not specify which law enforcement agencies were involved.

The TBI and the National Guard did not respond to questions about whether Sunday's shooting was the first instance troops had fired their weapons since they were deployed to the city.

For years, Memphis, whose population exceeds 600,000, has dealt with high violent crime, including assaults, carjackings and homicides. Both Democratic and Republican officials have noted decreases last year in some crime categories, preceding the deployment and paralleling trends across U.S. cities.

In April, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled that state and local Democratic officials lacked standing to block the deployment of federal troops in Memphis.

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

Some neighbors told Local 4 they heard more than a dozen shots, while others were stunned and thought they were simply fireworks.

The Macomb County Sheriff’s Office said it responded at 11:11 p.m. Saturday to reports of a shooting near the intersection of Court Street and Clemens Street, where the neighborhood gathering was underway.

When deputies arrived, they found five people suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. Emergency medical personnel responded, and all five victims were taken to area hospitals for treatment.

Police said the victims include two juveniles and three adults. Their identities and medical conditions have not been released as investigators continue to notify family members and gather additional information.

The shooting unfolded during what neighbors described as a long-running annual block party that typically draws hundreds of people.

“It was every year,” one neighbor told Local 4 anonymously. “The block party has… bounce houses and everything, food trucks, so it really is nice — a nice turnout.”

“It was just too many people not from this area,” another neighbor said. “It’s usually a big thing for the kids in the neighborhood, you know, but people were out — I saw cups. I’m like, they’re drinking. So, yeah, I stayed in for this one.”

The neighbor said the celebration began around 3 p.m. and normally wraps up shortly after the Fourth of July fireworks are set off.

Instead, the festivities ended in chaos. One neighbor and partygoer told Local 4 the gunfire erupted suddenly and they did not hear what lead up to it.

“You just heard shooting, and everybody just took off running, so you didn’t know what was going on,” the neighbor said. “There was definitely shooting back and forth.”

The neighbor said they heard more than a dozen gunshots. Another neighbor, who also wished to remain anonymous, said the same adding that a couple cars with bullet holes in them were towed away. Local 4 saw bullet holes in the window of a residence off of Court and several in a tree.

Detectives and crime scene investigators continued processing the scene Sunday, conducting interviews and collecting evidence to determine what led to the shooting.

As the investigation remains in its early stages, the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone with information about the shooting to call (586) 307-9412. Anonymous tips can also be submitted through Crime Stoppers. That number is 1-800-SPEAK-UP.

And he handed it to Bruno Guimarães.

And by the time Neymar — in what he said was his final World Cup appearance — took and made Brazil's second penalty kick, it was too late for the five-time champion.

Guimarães had his penalty shot stopped by Ørjan Nyland in the 14th minute and Brazil couldn't get one past Norway's goalkeeper until deep in stoppage time, losing 2-1 on Sunday in the round of 16 for its earliest World Cup exit since 1990.

“We just have to apologize to the Brazilian people, to everyone that attended this venue and witnessed this match, and I think we have to learn from our mistakes,” Brazil captain Marquinhos said. “For those that come in the new generation, I ask that the people will support them from the beginning.”

The Brazilians will be left with four years of second-guessing, wondering why they chose not to have one of soccer’s elite scorers take the penalty shot after Matheus Cunha was taken down by a sliding tackle in the box.

No foul was called originally, to the Brazilians' protest, but the penalty was awarded after a video review. Vinícius, who came into the game leading Brazil with four goals in four games, had the ball in his hands, and it appeared he would take the kick.

Instead, Guimarães walked to the spot and Vinícius handed him the ball, then went and stood to the left of the box and watched as Guimarães stutter-stepped, then fired the shot that Nyland dived to his left to knock away.

Guimarães ended up the choice through a combination of analytics and injuries.

Coach Carlo Ancelotti explained that the Brazilians had compiled statistics on their best penalty takers for a year, and the best choices were Neymar and forward Raphinha. Guimarães was next.

But Neymar, who has battled injuries and didn't even play in Brazil's first two matches, wasn't in the game yet. Raphinha injured his hamstring last month.

“So, we chose Bruno Guimarães because we felt that he was the best on the field at that point,” Ancelotti said.

It was Brazil's first unsuccessful penalty kick in the World Cup — not counting shootouts — since 1986, and a huge boost to the belief of the Norwegians, who had never won a game in the knockout stage until the previous round.

“Obviously, when you’re able to save a penalty that early, you feel that it’s very hard to beat you, which was a great moment in the game for myself but also for the team to give ourselves some breathing space,” Nyland said.

There would be some more quality chances, but Nyland turned them away each time, many of them right in front of the large section of yellow-shirted fans behind the goal Brazil was shooting at in the first half.

Vinícius was dangerous with some speedy runs along the left side and Ancelotti brought on Neymar in the 68th minute for extra firepower. Their longtime great took and made the shot after another penalty was called late, joining Pelé as the only Brazilian players to score in four World Cups.

His team needed more than that and failed to reach the quarterfinals for the first time since falling to Argentina in the round of 16 in 1990.

The Brazilians returned four years later when the U.S. last hosted the World Cup and won. The Seleção won their fifth title in 2002 but remain empty since.

“I mean, I’ll do the mea culpa here. I’m the captain. I’m one of the older guys,” Marquinhos said. “We have to take on the blame so the next generations can move forward and do their job when it comes to time. This is a cycle that is going to start from now on. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The Stoned Climbers festival, which took place last week in the Zhytomyr region, is Ukraine’s biggest outdoors event combining climbing and live music. Like many public events in wartime Ukraine, the festival blended ordinary leisure with reminders that the war is never far away.

Visitors received multiple air raid alert notifications on their phones throughout the weekend. Soldiers on leave quietly blended into the crowd, while organizers directed all profits from this year’s festival to a fundraising initiative supporting Ukraine’s Azov Brigade. Unlike last year, however, no Russian drones or missiles crossed the sky above the campsite on their way toward Kyiv.

The volunteer-run festival was launched in 2023 by about 15 friends who had spent more than a year climbing together after becoming fascinated by Yosemite’s climbing culture.

The U.S. national park has long been regarded as one of the birthplaces of modern rock climbing, where climbers built a counterculture around sleeping in tents, living out of vans and spending months on the granite walls of the valley.

“We realized climbing could be much more than just a sport,” said festival co-founder Dmytro Isaienko, 39. “It’s about a specific way of life — in nature, camping, on the rocks.”

Isaienko and his friends wanted to challenge the perception that climbing was reserved for elite athletes. Their first festival attracted about 150 visitors. This summer, attendance grew to more than 500, most of them beginners or amateur climbers.

Organizing the festival during wartime has given it a broader purpose, Isaienko said. He believes creating places where people can gather, learn new skills and spend time together has become a way of sustaining one’s well-being through a prolonged war.

“You need to get away from the war for a while,” he said. “Leave Kyiv and come spend some time here together, a little longer than usual.”

A climbing community grows even as war grinds on

On the rocks below, instructors help complete beginners fasten their harnesses, chalk their hands and search for the next hold on the granite wall. Whenever someone reaches the top of the 25-meter (82-feet) cliff — often for the first time — spectators, instructors and climbers break into applause.

Among the festival’s newcomers was 21-year-old Liliia Karpach, who traveled from Ukraine’s western Lviv region for her first Stoned Climbers festival.

“I decided to come because it had been a very long time since I’d climbed on real rocks,” she said. “I also wanted to meet the community in person and get to know new people.”

She said climbing is mental as well as physical exercise, and hopes others will give it a try.

“If you’re really nervous about coming on your own, invite some friends,” she said. “Even if neither of you knows how to climb, you’ll have a good time together.”

Helping first-time climbers gain that confidence is one of the most rewarding parts of the festival for instructor Andrii Lamei, 24.

While belaying a young woman during her first climb, he calmly talked her through the most difficult part of the ascent. As she climbed higher, her movements became more confident. After reaching the top, Lamei encouraged her to pause before descending.

“Look around,” he shouted. “Enjoy the moment. You made it.”

“Climbing helps you work with stress,” Lamei said. “It helps you manage stressful situations in everyday life.”

He dreams of climbing outside Ukraine one day but, like most Ukrainian men, he cannot leave the country while wartime travel restrictions remain in place.

“I want to go across the border to visit Yosemite, to visit Norway's mountains, but I can’t,” he said. “But maybe this is how I’m forced to enjoy what I have here.”

For Isaienko, that is precisely why festivals like Stoned Climbers matter.

While many Ukrainians have put parts of their lives on hold during the war, he hopes the community taking shape around the cliffs shows that new traditions can still emerge.

“This is a festival for everyone,” he said. “Including people who have never tried climbing before.”

And each time another first-time climber reaches the top, the applause rising from the rocks below suggests that, little by little, that community is growing.

Rain this evening will be scattered, and although a few rumbles of thunder can’t be ruled out, severe weather is not expected.

Rain chances continue overnight with low temperatures falling to the mid 60s.

Isolated rain will linger into midday Monday.

We’ll see more sun Monday afternoon and evening with highs in the lower 80s.

Skies will be mostly sunny Tuesday and Wednesday. Highs Tuesday will be near 85° before a bump in the heat Wednesday.

Highs Wednesday and Thursday will be closer to 90° before we fall back to the lower 80s Friday.

Southeast Michigan will have the chance for rain Thursday and Friday.

Here are this year’s finalists:

• Al Ameer Restaurant
• Alex Kabob House in Southgate
• Amo Sami’s Shawarma
• Bucharest Grill
• My Big Fat Shawarma

We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

Now that nominations are over, voting on finalists can begin. Voting is open from June 22 through July 20, and you can vote for each category once per day during that time.

Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

It came months after another racist post by the president that showed the couple as primates in a jungle. That one was deleted after stiff, bipartisan backlash.

The latest image shows the Obamas smiling and waving at the top of stairs alongside a baby blue and white presidential plane with graffiti painted on it that included the Democrat's campaign slogan “Yes We Can,” “Obama” and “BLM,” short for Black Lives Matter. The post also shows graffiti in Arabic on the plane that says the phrase “alhamdulillah,” which means “praise be to God” or “thank God."

The use of graffiti is a coded message to remind people of crime and urban decay and has been used in racist messaging against Black people in the past.

Trump has a yearslong record of intensely personal criticism of the Obamas, and of using incendiary, sometimes racist, rhetoric. That includes everything from feeding the lie that Obama was not born in the United States to crude generalizations about majority-Black countries and posts that have sparked anger on his Truth Social website.

The president's racist post of the Obamas as primates came in February, during the first week of Black History Month. It was removed following widespread criticism from civil rights leaders and Republican senators. Trump refused to apologize, however, and a staffer was later blamed for making the post.

This time, the presidential plane is a sensitive topic since Trump last week took his maiden voyage on a new Air Force One — a retrofitted Boeing 747-800 worth $400 million gifted by Qatar. The aircraft's trademark light blue hull that helped Air Force One blend into the sky was replaced with Trump’s preferred color scheme: a navy-blue belly with red and gold stripes.

After giving a speech on the National Mall in Washington to mark Independence Day and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on Saturday night, Trump had no public events on Sunday and spent the day at his golf club in Virginia. He's set to leave Monday for Turkey to attend a summit with NATO allies.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Nor did a spokeswoman for the Obamas.

Sunday’s post also followed one from last month when Trump shared a doctored image of Obama’s new presidential library in Chicago, so that it looked like the building had a large bag of garbage on top and was surrounded by a wasteland. “The Obama Library ten years from now will be a ‘Mecca’ for those who hate America! President DJT,” he wrote then.

Trump has frequently criticized the Obama library in public comments, and he posted the library image twice on his social media platform.

The Air Force One image was part of a series of Sunday posts Trump made on Truth Social, including a past picture that appeared to show Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni grinning and gazing upward at Trump under the words “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED.”

That, too, could touch off a new firestorm at this week's meetings in Turkey, since Trump had suggested that Meloni asked “over and over” for a photo with him during the recent Group of Seven summit — and suggesting she begged for such a picture.

Trump's comments prompted Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to cancel a subsequent, planned trip to Washington, while Meloni called Trump's account “completely fabricated," saying “Italy and I never beg."

Greene sent a two-run home run to right field in the fourth inning and hit a two-run triple high into the left-field corner during a four-run fifth inning.

Casey Mize (4-5) allowed two runs on five hits in 6 2/3 innings as the Tigers won the series rubber game to finish a 5-1 road trip.

Kenley Jansen pitched a perfect ninth for his 10th save in 14 chances.

Mize came off the best start of his major league career — seven shutout innings in a win at Yankee Stadium last Monday during which he allowed one hit and no walks with 10 strikeouts.

Greene homered off Kumar Rocker (2-7), his fourth of the trip and ninth since June 1 after a 29-game homer drought.

The Rangers’ second consecutive loss dropped them to .500 at 45-45.

Texas contributed to Detroit’s four-run outburst. Rocker didn’t cover first base on a right-side grounder hit by No. 9 batter James Outman that became an infield single. Elias Díaz was called for catcher’s interference. A wild pitch by Robby Ahlstrom scored rookie Kevin McGonigle.

Rocker, 1-7 at home this season, gave up three runs in 4 1/3 innings.

Two of Texas’ runs came on solo homers — Jake Burger in the third inning and Ezequiel Duran in the eighth. Burger was previously hitless in 15 at-bats.

Josh Jung, the Rangers’ regular third baseman, was a late scratch because of pain from fouling a ball off a kneecap on Saturday.

Up next

Both teams begin three-game home series on Tuesday. LHP Tarik Skubal (4-4, 3.15 ERA) will start for the Tigers against the Athletics. Rangers RHP Jacob deGrom (7-5, 3.58) will go against the Los Angeles Angels.

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

Yet for Coco Gauff at Wimbledon on Sunday, the All England Club's 11 p.m. curfew made it seem like there was.

And Gauff hit the winning shot at the buzzer.

Two minutes before 11, Gauff converted her first match point with a service winner out wide to reach the quarterfinals at the grass-court Grand Slam for the first time.

After beating Belinda Bencic 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, Gauff tapped her left wrist with the fingers on her right hand to acknowledge the timely ending.

Gauff said it “kind of reminded me of” Kawhi Leonard’s shot for the Toronto Raptors in 2019 that bounced off the rim four times before becoming the first Game 7 buzzer-beater in NBA history.

Because if Gauff hadn’t ended it in that game, the match would have been suspended until Monday.

“I was looking at the clock the last service game,” she said. “I was like, ‘I got to hit some big serves and some big shots.’ And honestly, that match point, I was going for a serve and volley because I was like, 'I need to end the point.'

“That was probably the most dramatic finish. I’ve never had to race against time. Playing tennis we’re used to not having a clock. But honestly, today I felt the pressure. … Glad I didn’t choose basketball.”

Gauff did play basketball as a kid. But, she said, “I did not hit any buzzer-beaters.”

Gauff had reached the fourth round four times in her Wimbledon career – including during her breakthrough run as a 15-year-old in 2019. Now, for the first time, she’s gone one step further.

“I’m definitely hungry for more,” Gauff said. “But it’s a great accomplishment.”

Gauff’s quarterfinal opponent will be fellow American and occasional doubles partner Jessica Pegula, who beat Iva Jovic — another American — 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

“It will be the third flat hitter I’ve played in a row,” Gauff said. “The last two matches I’ve had definitely gave me prep for her.”

___

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

The utility says it expects to restore service to about 90% of impacted customers by the end of the day Sunday.

As crews continue restoration efforts, many viewers have reached out to Local 4 with questions about how DTE decides which areas get power restored first, what resources are available for customers who depend on electricity for critical medical equipment, and whether the company reimburses customers for food spoiled during an outage.

To answer those questions, we spoke with Brad Craig, DTE’s storm emergency preparedness and response director.

Watch the full interview above for Craig’s responses to your questions.

Gotterup avoided a playoff when Ben Kohles, trying to win for the first time in his 120th start, hit his approach to the 18th left and into the water and wound up with a double bogey.

Gotterup next week defends his title in the Scottish Open, where he began his remarkable run to reach the top 10 in the world. He held off Rory McIlroy a year ago in Scotland, and then won the Sony Open and the Phoenix Open this year.

This might have been as enjoyable as the others. His brother, Patrick, caddied for him at the TPC Deere Run and Gotterup was in tears on the practice range when he became the winner.

Gotterup received a sponsor exemption to the John Deere Classic in 2022, after he finished his college career at Oklahoma. He remained loyal to the tournament, even playing despite having a title to defend across the Atlantic and the British Open the following week.

“I really like this tournament. They've been super nice to me,” Gotterup said. “To have Patrick out here with me ... it's just so awesome.”

He finished at 20-under 264 and moved to No. 7 in the world.

It was a devastating finish for Kohles (68), who two years ago made bogey on the final hole of the Byron Nelson and lost in a playoff.

He birdied the 16th to join Gotterup at 20-under par and missed a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-5 17th. Kohles belted his drive on the 18th down the middle, but he got over the shot quickly and tugged it left, bounding off the hill into the water.

He was able to take a penalty drop by the green, then caught a big break when his stance was on a sprinkler head, allowing him to drop on the fringe and use putter. But the par putt to force extra holes was wide right the entire way, settling just inside 3 feet away.

He missed that to go from a two-tie for second with Max Homa into a three-way tie was a difference of $316,800.

Kohles said he was between 8-iron and 9-iron on the shot from the 18th fairway.

“Thought if I hit a full 8, it could have a chance of going over,” Kohles said. “So I was just trying to hit kind of a three-quarter punch shot. Yeah, just tugged it a little, and obviously ended up in the water. Tough way to finish, especially how I played all day.”

Homa ran off four straight birdies on the back nine and closed with a 64 to finish alone in second, which moved him to No. 49 in the FedEx Cup, a huge step for a former Ryder Cup player who missed the postseason a year ago and had fallen out of the top 100 in the world.

It was his highest PGA Tour finish in more than three years.

Lucas Glover and Lee Hodges, who shared the 54-hole lead, started strong but each had to settle for a 69 to tie for third.

Gotterup made up ground quickly with four birdies in five holes at the start, the only par coming when he failed to convert an up-and-down from just off the green at the par-5 second.

His final birdie was a 15-footer on the 17th that sent him to the practice range to wait to see if it would hold up. The victory was his third of the year, the most individual titles of any player. Matt Fitzpatrick has three wins, including the team event in New Orleans.

Zach Johnson, the 50-year-old former champion who skipped the U.S. Senior Open this week to play in what he considers a hometown event, shot 68 to tie for ninth.

Blades Brown, the 19-year-old who turned pro while still in high school, closed with a 68 and tied for 12th as he tries to work his way toward a PGA Tour card. Another shot back was NCAA champion Preston Stout, who shot 69 and tied for 15th.

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

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies — collectively known as OPEC+ — announced on Sunday that seven countries would expand oil production by a combined total of 188,000 barrels per day in August. It was the fifth consecutive month OPEC+ agreed to raise oil outputs.

The participating countries in Sunday's decision are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman.

“The countries will continue to monitor and assess market conditions, and in their continuous efforts to support market stability, they reaffirmed the importance of adopting a cautious approach,” the group of oil producers said in a statement.

In the last month, market optimism caused crude oil prices to tumble before and after the U.S. and Iran reached an interim deal to end their fighting. As part of a broader memorandum of understanding, Iran agreed to allow ships to pass unimpeded through the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. agreed to end its blockade of Iran's ports.

More and more commercial vessels have since transited the strait, which before the war was a conduit for roughly a fifth of the world's oil. But ship traffic remains below pre-war levels, and tensions over the waterway continue. Iran’s joint military command warned as recently as Thursday that all oil tankers moving through the strait must use its approved routes or face a “forceful response."

Oil prices have continued to decline while negotiators for Iran and the U.S. try to reach a final peace agreement. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was going for under $72 a barrel when shortly after commodities trading opened Sunday night. That's close to what it cost before the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late Feburary — and far below soaring prices that in March climbed to nearly $120 per barrel.

The war created an energy crisis in much of the world. With most shipping blocked in the Strait of Hormuz, the limited production hikes pledged by OPEC+ in previous months could not counteract the impact on global oil supplies.

Early in the war, many major oil producers across the Middle East had to cut production because their crude had no where to go. S&P Global Energy said in a recent estimate that it did not expect Gulf oil production to rebound fully until at least the first quarter of 2027.

Energy experts have repeatedly warned that fuel prices and the cost of consumer good were likely to stay elevated long past the conflict's end.

In a matchup of two of the hardest hitters on tour, that was Naomi Osaka's strategy against top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in the most highly awaited matchup of Wimbledon so far this year.

Sabalenka had beaten Osaka in all three of their previous matches this year — including at the same stage of the French Open last month.

“On the clay courts I felt like she was pushing me back a lot. I just tried to do it to her first,” Osaka said.

The tactics worked, and Osaka outslugged Sabalenka 6-2, 7-6 (2) to reach the quarterfinals at the All England Club for the first time on Sunday.

Osaka’s pace and flat groundstrokes overwhelmed Sabalenka.

“Obviously we’re big ball strikers. It’s not like I’m going to start running around the court trying to draw an error from her. I can only focus on my strengths," Osaka said.

"I just tried to serve really well, because it’s grass. I also tried to get the upper hand in the rallies first.”

Osaka's power had an even bigger impact than usual as her balls flew through the air faster on the warmest day of the tournament so far: The temperature during the match reached 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit).

“She overpowered me,” Sabalenka said. “I felt like it was incredible level from her."

Besides Paris, Sabalenka also beat Osaka in Indian Wells, California, and Madrid this year.

“That really sucked,” Osaka said. “So I wanted to turn it (around)."

When it was over, Osaka performed a few fist pumps, let out a brief smile and then placed her racket over her head and spun around in delight to celebrate her first career win on Centre Court.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had so much fun on the court," Osaka said. "And to do it here, it really means a lot.”

Mental health and maternity

It was Osaka’s first win over a No. 1 player since beating Ash Barty in Beijing in 2019. That was before Osaka, a former No. 1 herself, took breaks from the tour to manage her mental health in 2021 and for maternity leave that resulted in her missing all of 2023.

Osaka's daughter turned three on Thursday.

After getting routed by Iga Swiatek at the Italian Open in May, Osaka said she “shut everyone out” on her team and "literally just got on a plane back home.

“It wasn’t the most professional thing to do,” she said. “I felt really ashamed about what I did. So then after that I just told myself, ‘Hey, I’m nearing 30, I really got to enjoy the time that I have.’ Also, obviously tennis is very, very important to me, but I have a life outside of that. I have to treasure tennis in the way that I can, which is not putting too much importance on it.”

Sabalenka to ‘forget about tennis’

It’s the second straight Grand Slam in which Sabalenka has failed to reach the latter stages. After a stunning meltdown against Diana Shnaider in the French Open quarterfinals last month, Sabalenka said she “just want to quit tennis.”

This time, Sabalenka said she wanted to “get completely drunk, forget about tennis, and try to get in better shape.”

Sabalenka and Osaka have each won four Grand Slam titles. All their major trophies have come on hard courts — at the Australian Open and U.S. Open.

Osaka is coming off her first grass-court final. She had to retire against Karolina Muchova in Bad Homburg, Germany, last weekend because of a foot injury.

She'll now get a rematch with Muchova, who beat 2024 Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova 7-5, 5-7, 6-3.

Kimono walk-on fashion

Before the match, Osaka came out in the white kimono she’s been wearing for her walk-ons at Wimbledon — which was inspired by a character in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Unlike at the French Open, when the designer for Osaka's walk-on outfits “was sewing things immediately after I won,” the kimono was designed in Japan, so “it’s not like (the designer) can make a brand-new thing every time.”

Instead, Osaka is using variations on the same outfit. For her past two matches, she's employed “the free-robe vibe” inspired by an anime called Bleach.

Aces and winners

Osaka saved the only two break points she faced and put 87% of her first serves in play — compared to 69% for Sabalenka.

Osaka also led 8-5 in aces and 21-15 in winners in the match, which lasted less than 1 ½ hours.

“What could I do if the person is acing and hitting the lines, just going for her shots without any fear?" Sabalenka said. "She was just going for it.

“Level-wise, today,” Sabalenka added, “I wasn’t world No. 1.”

Coco breaks through

Coco Gauff reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals for the first time by overcoming Belinda Bencic 4-6, 3-6, 6-4 just before the 11 p.m. curfew.

Gauff will next meet fellow American Jessica Pegula, who beat Iva Jovic — another American — 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

Djokovic edges Federer

Earlier on Centre Court, Novak Djokovic beat 132nd-ranked qualifier Roman Safiullin 7-6 (6), 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 for a record 106th match victory at the All England Club.

Djokovic will next play third-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime, who beat Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-1.

Top-ranked Jannik Sinner beat Japanese qualifier Shintaro Mochizuki 6-3, 7-6 (0), 6-3 and will next meet Jan-Lennard Struff, who advanced when Hubert Hurkacz retired while trailing 4-2 in the fifth set due to a strained abdominal muscle.

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

The pilot of Delta flight 1076 notified air traffic controllers just before landing at Chicago Midway International Airport on Saturday night that a firework hit the commercial airliner during its descent. In an audio recording published online by LiveATC.net, the pilot described feeling “a big bang” on the plane.

According to the recording, the incident occurred when the plane was flying at an altitude of 200 to 250 feet. The pilot said the crew hoped the bang “was just a mortar that went off,” referencing the tube that helps launch aerial fireworks.

Both the Federal Aviation Administration and Delta said the plane, which had taken off from Atlanta carrying 52 passengers and six crew members, landed safely just after 8:30 p.m. local time.

The incident didn't result in any onboard injuries, and Atlanta-based Delta said Sunday that mechanics who inspected the Airbus A319 did not find any damage.

The FAA said it would investigate the incident.

It's unclear if fireworks struck other airplanes on Saturday. In the LiveATC.net audio, an air traffic controller was heard saying there had been “multiple reports" of such encounters and that Chicago city officials were aware.

The FAA did not immediately respond to questions about whether it was aware of additional firework-related incidents impacting Saturday flights. The Associated Press also reached out to the city government and the Chicago Police Department for further information.

Crowds of hundreds of thousands chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” as they called for revenge over the Feb. 28 attack that killed the 86-year-old supreme leader and other top officials, triggering the war. Some hard-liners called for the assassination of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has yet to make an appearance in the funeral ceremonies, which are unfolding over several days. He is believed to be in hiding after reportedly being wounded in the airstrike that killed his father.

At the height of the war, before an April ceasefire, Israel had targeted top leaders, in at least one case likely using their public appearance to fix their position. It has also threatened to kill the younger Khamenei.

The U.S. is meanwhile pressing ahead with negotiations with Iran aimed at fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz, rolling back its disputed nuclear program and reaching a permanent end to the war. Talks appear to be on hold until after the burial.

Ziba Naderi, a nurse attending the funeral Sunday, said Iran needed to heed Mojtaba Khamenei's commands. “I heard the call for revenge, but our leader should say what we need to do,” she said. “And we must listen to him.”

Top officials appear as the crowd size swells

Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a 97-year-old Shiite cleric, led the prayers at Tehran's Grand Mosalla for the late Khamenei and his family members killed in the strike.

On hand were Khamenei’s other sons, Masoud, Meysam and Mostafa, who had not been seen since the war. Revolutionary Guard head Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, who was photographed for the first time since the war on Thursday, could be seen in the crowd by Associated Press journalists, flanked by plainclothes security forces and wearing a black baseball cap.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf — who has led the negotiations with the U.S. — and Esmail Qaani, who leads the elite Quds Force of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also attended.

The crowd had grown from the day before. Mourners dressed in black carried banners and flags honoring Khamenei.

Some mention Trump by name as mourners call for revenge

Posters and graffiti at the Grand Mosalla called for the killing of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Why is the biggest bastard in the world still alive?” Mohammad Rasouli, a poet who emceed the event before the prayers, said to the crowd over loudspeakers, referring to Trump. “The world is no longer a good place” for Trump, he added as the crowd cheered.

“I came here to shout and seek revenge,” said Gholamreza Sabooni, a 29-year-old man who works in a grocery. “They killed our imam. We should kill their leader, Trump.”

The U.S. president was giving a speech at the same time across the world in Washington, D.C., for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.

“We’ve had tremendous success,” Trump said about the U.S. military. “You look at Venezuela, you look at Iran. We wiped it out, wiped out their military.”

U.S. federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years. The threats stem from Trump ordering the 2020 killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who had led the Quds Force. Iran repeatedly has denied plotting to kill Trump, though hard-line propaganda footage long has suggested Trump was in Tehran's crosshairs.

Trump meanwhile promised to destroy Iran's civilization during the war, among other threats.

Funeral postpones talks with US

Khamenei’s body will be transported to cities in Iran and neighboring Iraq, with authorities planning to drive his casket and others through the streets of Tehran on Monday. Authorities have shut down streets, airspace and daily life for the mourning, which will end Thursday as he is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, Khamenei’s place of birth.

Authorities offered no attendance count for the event Saturday and Sunday. Other cities across Iran also held mourning ceremonies.

The funeral was in part a show of unity as Iran demands a measure of control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for global energy that it shut down during the war. The U.S. has rejected those demands, and the sides are divided on other key issues, including Iran's nuclear program and the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The U.S. assisted 70 transits of the Strait of Hormuz over the past 72 hours, including 18 on Saturday, a multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday. It called traffic steady along routes near Oman and Iran but still below prewar levels. The threat level remained “substantial” and mine clearance and surveying work continued.

“Our foreign policy should not be shaped in a way that allows our martyred leader’s blood to be dishonored,” mourner Mohammad Reza Sharifi said. He said he expected a “serious response” from Iran's government.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Cara Anna in Lowville, New York, contributed.

Djokovic set a men's record for most match wins at Wimbledon after overcoming a surprisingly tough challenge from 132nd-ranked qualifier Roman Safiullin on Sunday to reach the quarterfinals.

The seven-time Wimbledon champion screamed out his frustrations at times — later referring to the outbursts as “meltdowns” — before winning 7-6 (6), 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 for his 106th match victory at the All England Club. That puts him one ahead of Federer atop the all-time list for men, although he still trails Martina Navratilova’s 120 match wins.

That's clearly not the record he's after at Wimbledon, though. Not when he's also trying to match Federer's eight titles and become the first man or woman to win 25 major trophies.

“Not on my priority list,” Djokovic said. “Didn’t even know about it until after the last match win ... That’s really quite insignificant to me at the moment.”

The win also put him into the Wimbledon quarterfinals for the 17th time — one behind Federer’s record. But the Serb acknowledged that he will have to raise his game in order to go further.

“Survive to thrive, that’s how I feel,” Djokovic said when asked to sum up his first week of the championships. “So hopefully the thriving part is coming.”

The 39-year-old Djokovic has never lost a Grand Slam match against a player ranked as low as Safiullin, or to a qualifier, but he looked in danger at times on Centre Court.

Djokovic had to save two set points when trailing 5-2 in the first set and was warned for apparently yelling out an obscenity in Serbian on Centre Court when he was broken early in the third. He then drew boos from the crowd when he hit the ball away in frustration after losing that set.

In his on-court interview, he apologized for what he called “the outbursts, the meltdowns.”

“I had a few of those today,” he said.

Djokovic, who is renowned for his mastery of baseline tennis, also said he opted to play more at the net than usual after repeatedly being outplayed in long rallies by Safiullin.

“I don’t get to feel inferior from the back of court with too many players, to be honest, throughout my career,” Djokovic said. “Today it was one of those days where I didn’t want to stay in the rally for too long. So I had to mix things up. And it worked.”

He quickly seized control in the fourth set by jumping out to a 3-0 lead, and then served out the match at love.

Auger-Aliassime comes through five-setter

Djokovic will next face third-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime, who came through a five-setter against No. 22 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on No. 1 Court that featured one of the best points of the tournament.

Auger-Aliassime won 6-7 (4), 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-7 (2), 6-1 in a meeting between the only two men's players who had yet to drop a set in the tournament. Auger-Aliassime had not even lost a service game until he was serving for the match at 5-4 in the fourth set, when his Spanish opponent managed to break back despite hurting his ankle and needing medical treatment.

“I played a few roller-coaster matches over the course of my career, but this is for sure the top of the charts,” the Canadian said. “It was a crazy match.”

One point in particular had the crowd on its feet and even had Auger-Aliassime laughing in disbelief, even though he lost it.

At 3-1 in the fourth set, Davidovich Fokina made it 40-0 after chasing down a drop shot, running back to the baseline to retrieve the next ball by hitting a lob, then returning an overhead from Auger-Aliassime, chasing down a second drop shot and finally diving at full stretch to return a passing shot with a backhand volley.

As the crowd's screams grew louder throughout the point, Auger-Aliassime started laughing even as he chased down that last diving volley, and sent his backhand into the net when the whole court was gaping and Davidovich Fokina was still on the ground.

“I'm actually laughing as I'm running to the ball, I think that's a first,” he said. “The crowd was on their feet as the point was still going on. In my head I was thinking, ‘This is too good.’ And then I missed the open shot.”

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

McMorrow’s exit comes after many Democrats increasingly viewed her as a long shot for the nomination. It also creates a fresh dynamic in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races, forcing Democratic voters into a direct choice between Stevens, a mainstream congresswoman backed by much of the party establishment, and El-Sayed, supported by many progressive movement leaders.

The binary choice will be on full display Tuesday, when Stevens and El-Sayed are set to face off in a televised debate. During a May debate, El-Sayed repeatedly went on the offensive against Stevens, who mostly declined to engage directly with him.

McMorrow’s departure could also prompt influential Democrats in the state to announce their support for Stevens because of concerns about El-Sayed’s electability in a general election. Some had stayed on the sidelines because of relationships with McMorrow.

The seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is one that the party must hold if it hopes to reclaim the Senate majority in this fall’s midterm elections. The primary winner is expected to face Republican Mike Rogers, who lost to now-Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024.

McMorrow made the announcement in a statement and video posted online Sunday, which came after ballots have already gone out.

“Today, I’m announcing that I am suspending my campaign for United States Senate,” McMorrow wrote.

“And I’m doing it with a deep, deep sense of gratitude," she said. “For our thousands of volunteers, for everyone who donated what you could — building a campaign with zero corporate PAC dollars. For my staff, who built this team up from nothing. I thank you.”

While McMorrow did not elaborate on her decision to exit the race, a person with direct knowledge said the biggest factor was the recent influx of outside spending boosting Stevens. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has poured millions into ads supporting Stevens, leaving both McMorrow and El-Sayed struggling to keep pace. The person, who would only speak on condition of anonymity, said McMorrow has no plans to endorse either remaining candidate at this point.

McMorrow's rivals reacted quickly to her announcement.

El-Sayed appealed to McMorrow supporters to join “our movement” and accused “party insiders” of “bullying anyone who opposes their chosen candidate.” In a post on X, he said, “We cannot allow the establishment to decide our nominee for us.” Stevens described herself as “the strongest Democrat to defeat Mike Rogers this November” and said in a statement that she looked forward to working with McMorrow “to build a stronger Michigan for everyone.”

The race has increasingly split Democrats along ideological lines, with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer backing Stevens and El-Sayed drawing the support of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and allies such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

State Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced on Facebook that she was endorsing Stevens soon after McMorrow dropped out.

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Peoples reported from New York.

One of the victims, a 21-year-old woman, was in critical condition while the others were described as being stable and expected to survive, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Sunday.

The shooting occurred Saturday night in the courtyard of an apartment building about a block from the famed Coney Island boardwalk and not far from the site of the Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest held earlier on the holiday.

The police commissioner said a suspect wearing a black mask fired into the courtyard where a family had gathered for a cookout. The shooter fled but police did recover a gun, Tisch said.

The children shot are ages 6, 7, 12 and 14, Tisch said. There were no reports of any earlier disturbances at the gathering, she said.

Here are this year’s finalists:

• Bread Basket Deli
• Breakaway Deli in Troy
• Ernie’s Market in Oak Park
• New York Deli
• Ventimiglia Italian Foods in Sterling Heights

We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

Now that nominations are over, voting on finalists can begin. Voting is open from June 22 through July 20, and you can vote for each category once per day during that time.

Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

Robinson, who last week agreed to leave the Knicks and sign with the Boston Celtics, wrote a Facebook post Sunday that addressed the injury and other mental health concerns he had during the season.

His injury emerged after the Knicks eliminated Cleveland in the Eastern Conference finals and was strange because coach Mike Brown said it didn't happen on the court. It was originally called a broken bone in his hand.

But Robinson clarified Sunday that it was an injury to his knuckle after he returned from the Knicks' victory in Game 4 and learned one of his brothers had been hurt in a serious car crash.

“Upon returning to New York, I received an unexpected phone call, and my family members contacted me, informing me that my youngest brother had been involved in a car accident,” Robinson wrote.

“As the eldest sibling, I felt a deep sense of concern, and I immediately went into panic mode. I began returning calls and texts, and when I FaceTimed my brother, I thought he was deceased. He was wearing a neck brace, unresponsive, and not speaking. I broke down in tears, feeling like a failure for not being able to protect my siblings. Being 910 miles away, I felt helpless. In a moment of frustration, I banged my hand on my truck.”

Robinson has a fondness for trucks — one of his was in the Knicks' championship parade — but said his family was most important to him and referenced challenges that he faced last season while helping lead the Knicks to their first NBA title in 53 years.

“Before judging someone, it is essential to understand their circumstances, which may not be publicly known. Life is unpredictable, and it is how we respond to challenges that truly matters,” Robinson wrote, adding that he consulted with doctors.

“So at the end of the day I battled with so much throughout this season even made a huge sacrifice to not see my daughter as much this season because I needed to focus and lock in so she can have a better future than I did.”

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

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly confirmed the meetings in a call with reporters while previewing the upcoming summit in Ankara, where Trump also plans to meet with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday. Before returning to the United States on Wednesday, Trump is scheduled to have a news conference, Kelly said.

Trump's meeting with Zelenskyy comes as Russia’s war in Ukraine is now in its fifth year. Both Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin held phone calls with Trump on Saturday, congratulating him on the July Fourth commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence.

Zelenskyy said in a statement on X after his call that he and Trump spoke about the situation on the front lines of the war, where analysts say Russian advances have sputtered. Ukraine, has stepped up its attacks on Moscow and demonstrated its ability to strike deeper into Russia.

The Ukrainian leader said there is “a real prospect of ending this war,” and that conversation would continue at the NATO summit in Ankara.

Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said that in Putin’s call with Trump, the Republican president reaffirmed his “readiness to help achieve a quick cessation of hostilities and search for peaceful solutions to settle the crisis” in Ukraine.

A senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity on Sunday to describe the administration’s approach said Trump feels a sense of urgency to bring the war to an end and will speak to Zelenskyy about how to do that. Trump is expected to follow up with Putin after his meeting with Zelenskyy in Ankara, the official said.

U.S. officials did not provide any details about the goals for Trump's meeting with al-Sharaa.

As Trump has grown frustrated with Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has complicated negotiations in the Iran war, the U.S. leader has repeatedly stunned many in the region by suggesting that Syria instead fight Hezbollah.

Al-Sharaa, who led an Islamic insurgent group and whose rebel forces ousted Bashar Assad as Syria's president, has said he has no interest in doing so. He has suggested Trump's comments were misconstrued, even as Trump has repeated them.

Like President Donald Trump, Burgum said he was 100% sure that vandals caused the damage to the century-old Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. Trump has charged that a 350-foot gash was cut into the pool's liner in the midst of recent renovations, while Burgum described it as multiple cuts adding up to that figure. He also said the pool would have to be at least partially drained in the coming week to finish the repairs.

The repairs will not be opened up to new contractors, he said.

“We’ll use the same company, because they did a fantastic job,” Burgum told CNN's “State of the Union." ”Thankfully, the vandalism was small. It was bad. I mean, it could cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair, so then it could fall into a felony ... just like damaging any other government property could. But the job that was done to fix the Reflecting Pool was done extremely well."

Trump this spring pledged to beautify the Reflecting Pool before the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations on July Fourth. Water was drained and the Republican president directed that the bottom be painted a color he called “American flag blue.” But after the site was restored, the water was plagued by an algae bloom for more than a week, and pieces of the new coating have appeared to be peeling off the bottom.

The pool was closed for the Independence Day celebration, but Burgum said that was due to a safety issue related to the fireworks.

The evolving debate over the Reflecting Pool has inflamed the broader fight over Trump's aggressive push to overhaul Washington landmarks, including the White House, nearly two years into his final term in office.

Authorities have arrested more than a half dozen people in relation to Reflecting Pool damage, including former Olympian David Hearn, who was indicted last week on a felony of property destruction.

The top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, said Hearn ripped up recently installed sealant on the pool in “a deliberate act” that caused more than $1,000 in damage. She accused him of “forcefully and violently” pulling up the bottom liner “with both hands” and acting belligerently toward an employee who told him to stop.

Hearn's lawyers, Democracy Defenders Fund co-founder Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann, said the charges were “outrageous and should be alarming to every American.” Eisen and Dohrmann construed the case as representative of “the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative.”

Burgum was asked and did not answer directly whether there was photographic evidence of vandals cutting the pool's liner. He was also asked whether Hearn should face a 10-year prison sentence, which is the maximum legal penalty for his charge.

“Just because you were a former something doesn’t exclude you from the law today,” Burgum told CNN. “The courts will decide.”

Meanwhile, questions loom over the no-bid contracts for the project that were awarded to vendors with prior ties to Trump.

Ohio-based Green Water Solutions, also known as Greenwater Services, was given a $1.7 million contract to install a water-purification system in the Reflecting Pool, while Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded $14.7 million to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor.

About 10 Democratic senators and House members are investigating the pool project.

“Taxpayers deserve a full explanation of how these failures occurred and who will be held accountable for correcting them,″ said a letter signed last month by six senators.

Burgum also appeared on ABC's “This Week.”

But the goalposts keep shifting, raising the stakes ahead of this week’s summit in Turkey.

Initially, it was about money. Trump has long railed against NATO allies for spending too small a fraction of their national budgets on defense. But those problems were addressed at their summit last year, when U.S. allies committed to invest as much as America, in gross domestic product terms.

NATO's real problem now is turning that money into military capabilities, particularly as European countries worry about a possible attack from Russia.

Still, Rutte tried to put to bed any lingering concerns at a White House meeting last month, with a new pitch using a chart labeled the “The Trump Trillion” in gold letters — showing $1.2 trillion in spending by European allies and Canada since 2017.

But Trump appeared unmoved, saying he was still disappointed at some NATO allies’ refusal to join the Iran war, which he had launched alongside Israel without consulting them.

“We don’t need their money — we don’t need anything,” Trump said. “I just want loyalty.”

Trump suggested he might have skipped the upcoming summit entirely were it not being hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It’s a sign that even Erdogan and Rutte — foreign leaders Trump seems to hold in rare esteem — will have their work cut out for them in keeping the summit on track.

Rutte set a new marker for flattery at the White House

Historically, the prime tasks of NATO’s top civilian official — always a European, never an American — have been to encourage consensus in an organization that makes its decisions unanimously, and to speak on behalf of all 32 member countries.

But during both of Trump’s terms, Rutte and his predecessor at the helm of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, have dedicated a huge amount of energy just to keep the United States inside their alliance.

Trump has threatened to leave NATO, dallied with pulling U.S. troops out of Europe and vowed to take over the island of Greenland — a semiautonomous part of ally Denmark. He has cast doubt over whether he would defend another member not spending enough on their military, eroding trust.

Rutte’s approach has been heavy on flattery. Last month’s carefully choreographed pitch in the Oval Office — with props redolent of an American flag — laid down a new marker, even for a man heavily criticized for likening Trump to a “daddy.”

The charts showed tens of thousands of U.S. jobs were being created and a backlog of $300 billion in European orders for military equipment — all thanks to the “leader of the free world,” Rutte said.

He pushed back, gently, on Trump’s complaints that NATO did not support the U.S. against Iran, noting that up to 5,000 U.S. planes took off from bases in Europe before an April ceasefire.

Trump has threatened to pull forces from Europe at a moment of peril

NATO cannot function without its biggest and most powerful ally. Europe is being pushed to fend for itself even as Russia, the historical reason for the alliance, poses a greater threat.

Last month, the Pentagon surprised its NATO allies by announcing that it was scaling back the number of troops, warships, aircraft and drones it would provide if one of them came under attack. Trump has also sent conflicting messages about whether U.S. troop numbers would be lowered or increased.

The cutbacks and mixed messaging has undermined unity at the alliance, just as Russia has been probing Europe's defenses with drone flights near military bases across multiple countries, according to a study released on Thursday.

Flattery worked last year, but now there are new challenges

Each summit is meant to showcase the commitment to collective security — the all-for-one, one-for-all pledge enshrined in Article 5 of NATO’s treaty. It’s only been invoked once, when allies came to America’s aid after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The last NATO summit was held in The Hague, the hometown of Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister. The Dutch royal family hosted dinner, and Trump stayed overnight at the king’s palace.

Rutte got the allies behind a major defense spending pledge, and Trump left a happy man, calling his NATO partners a “nice group of people.”

This year, the summit will be hosted by Erdogan, another key NATO member with an independent streak. His close ties to Trump may keep the American president at the table, but it’s unlikely to mend the rifts.

Rutte has tried to convince Trump that his European partners are spending so much more that America can safely turn its attention to security challenges posed by China while they handle the war in Ukraine.

But Trump wants more now, and his demand for “loyalty” is hard to capture on any chart.

Rutte’s predecessor, Stoltenberg, has written in his memoir about chairing a 2018 summit that Trump nearly upended.

“If an American president says he no longer wishes to defend the other allies and leaves a NATO summit in protest, then the NATO treaty and its security guarantee aren’t worth very much,” Stoltenberg wrote.

Leclerc surged past Antonelli at the start as the Mercedes driver dropped to third but the Italian was chasing Leclerc down in the final laps when he reported a steering problem. Leclerc took a landmark 250th victory for Ferrari under the safety car brought out by a spectacular spin into the gravel from third by Max Verstappen.

“Finally!” Leclerc said over the radio after taking the win. “This one felt particularly good, even if I wished it was a more normal ending.”

Leclerc leaped out of his car and ran to a crowd of Ferrari staff who surged forward to embrace him, toppling a crowd barrier onto their driver. Leclerc’s last F1 victory was at the United States Grand Prix in October 2024.

Antonelli's race falls apart

After Antonelli reported issues with his car, he came into the pits but that didn't help and he started dropping back through the field. Later, Verstappen's spin shook up the race again.

Antonelli's Mercedes teammate and title rival George Russell went on to second to deny Ferrari a one-two finish, staying out on old tires when Lewis Hamilton came into the pits under the safety car.

Hamilton had fresh tires but couldn't use them because the race ended up finishing behind that safety car. He was third.

Hamilton held onto third after getting only a reprimand in a post-race investigation into allegedly infringing yellow-flag conditions. He said he was distracted by looking in his mirrors for Verstappen, not realizing he had gone off, and didn't notice the flag.

Antonelli was ninth across the line after ignoring the team’s pleas to retire the car so he could fight for the final points places. He ended up outside the points anyway. The Italian dropped to 16th with a time penalty for going off-track as he wrangled his damaged car around the corners.

Mercedes has dominated the 2026 season so far but reliability is becoming its weak spot.

Antonelli has now missed the points twice in three Grand Prix races after car trouble also derailed him when Hamilton won the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, and Russell had a dramatic car failure in Canada in May.

The lack of racing at the finish was a disappointment to fans, especially after a graphic was wrongly displayed indicating the safety car would come in, leaving a one-lap sprint to the finish.

Russell gets title boost despite lack of pace

Second place for Russell revives his title chances even though the British driver had struggled for competitive pace all weekend. Antonelli's lead shrinks from 43 points over Russell to 25, the value of a single race win.

Russell had been fourth in the sprint, fourth in qualifying and was battling Verstappen for fourth in the race before the late drama.

“If I want to fight for the championship, the performances need to be better,” he said. “I need to be better.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff told Sky Sports Germany the team believed Antonelli's car was damaged when he hit a curb on what he called a bittersweet day for the team.

Verstappen crash echoes Austria incident

When he saw a replay of Verstappen's crash post-race, Russell called the crash “weird” and questioned whether there'd been a problem with the rear wing on the four-time champions car.

If so, it would be the second time in just over a week that's happened to Verstappen, who was thrown into a barrier when his wing broke in qualifying in Austria.

Lando Norris was fourth for McLaren after his teammate Oscar Piastri's race was ruined by early damage, while Isack Hadjar was fifth for Red Bull.

The Racing Bulls duo of Liam Lawson and British rookie Arvid Lindblad were sixth and seventh, ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto in eighth for Audi. The two Alpine drivers, Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly, ended up ninth and 10th thanks to Antonelli's penalty.

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

The report released late on Independence Day by the White House Domestic Policy Council comes in the midst of Trump’s aggressive campaign to overhaul some of Washington's most sacred cultural and historic institutions. Trump in March revealed his intention to force changes at the Smithsonian Institution with an executive order that targeted funding for programs that advanced “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology,” as he continued a broadside against culture he deems too liberal.

"The Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of American History in particular, under its current leadership and current interpretive ideology, cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic,” according to the report by the council, which is led by a former top Trump speechwriter.

The authors added: “As this report shows, confirmed in the words of Museum leadership, this ideological capture has moved the Museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”

The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.

Historian Lonnie Bunch, the Smithsonian's current secretary, is the first African American to lead the institution. In an unrelated interview that aired Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press,” Bunch said “the notion of being a more perfect union, not the perfect union, is really what motivates me.”

“I think what I want people to understand is that there is a responsibility to continue to make those aspirations available, accessible, meaningful to a whole range of people,” Bunch said. “And that, in essence, America’s greatest strength, it’s not running away from its history, but it’s understanding how that history shaped us and continues to shape us.”

Historian Anthea M. Hartig is the first woman to serve as director of National Museum of American History.

Trump's escalating effort to force changes at the Smithsonian marks the Republican president's latest move to transform cultural pillars of society, such as universities and art, that he considers out of step with conservative sensibilities. Trump had himself installed as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with the aim of overhauling programming, and his handpicked board voted to add his name to the building, only to have a federal judge later order the signage to be removed.

The administration also forced Columbia University to make a series of policy changes by threatening the Ivy League school with the loss of several hundred million dollars in federal funding.

Trump has also imposed changes on historical sites beyond Washington, including in Philadelphia, where the administration won a court ruling last week allowing it to reinstall interpretive panels that critics say whitewash the history of slavery at the site of President George Washington’s home. Advocates, academics and officials have been concerned for months that the version that complies with Trump’s order could give a history that plays down the pain in the nation’s past in favor of a more triumphant view.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Pa., accused Trump and his allies of trying to “rewrite history."

“There’s not one individual narrative that a president gets about our history,” Shapiro, a potential presidential prospect, said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN's “State of the Union.” “And any president should want to make sure that that full history is shared, that the American people are able to draw their own conclusions.”

Shapiro added, “If we understand where we came from, we’re going to have a better path forward."

Trump's Domestic Policy Council does not necessarily agree.

The National Museum of American History "confronts visitors with materials intended to undermine faith in American institutions and the longstanding shared ideals of the American people,” the council's report said. “We must be committed to restoring truth and sanity in how American history is presented and taught.”

In seeking to fulfill Trump's order, which he called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” the review concluded by finding that the museum “by the intention and at the direction of current Museum and Smithsonian leadership, has become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”

“Minions & Monsters,” the seventh film in the “Despicable Me” franchise, earned $36.4 million at the holiday weekend box office, according to studio estimates for North America. “Toy Story 5,” a juggernaut that last week beat “Supergirl,” earned an estimated $31 million.

The Minions movie, which has the devious henchlings seeking movie glory in Hollywood's Golden Age, opened on Wednesday and earned an estimated $61.4 million in its first five days, according to studio estimates. The Minions are a popular franchise globally and “Minions & Monsters” has earned $160 million worldwide in its debut week.

Audiences looking for patriotic fare amid the United States' 250th birthday celebration had “Young Washington” to consider; it opened in third place with nearly $21 million. The movie focuses on George Washington's service during the French and Indian War.

That left “Supergirl” in fourth with just under $10 million at the box office, a steep 74% drop from its disappointing opening weekend.

The weekend box office was down year-over-year about 24%, according to figures compiled by Rentrak, though this summer is up from 2025 by nearly 12%. That's due in part thanks to the low-budget Gen-Z sensations “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” which took the sixth and seventh spots, behind Steven Spielberg's “Disclosure Day.”

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak:

1. “Minions & Monsters,” $36.4 million.

2. “Toy Story 5,” $31 million.

3. “Young Washington,” $20.8 million.

4. “Supergirl,” $9.6 million.

5. “Disclosure Day,” $6 million.

6. “Obsession,” $5.3 million.

7. “Backrooms,” $3.3 million.

8. “Jackass: Best and Last,” $2.7 million.

9. “Scary Movie,” $1.1 million.

10. “The Invite,” $800,708.

New Jersey officials said Saturday that they began seeing what they believe are heat-related deaths as early as Thursday with most occurring in the central and northern parts of the state.

“Unfortunately, many of these individuals were found in homes without air conditioning,” state Health Commissioner Dr. Raynard Washington told reporters Saturday. "A few were outside their residences, some on the street and some even in parked cars.”

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill called the current weather “the hottest stretch we’ve seen in over 14 years.”

“The heat's hitting all of us, not just seniors, not just with underlying health conditions, people of all ages,” Sherrill said.

On Thursday, LaGuardia Airport in New York set a new record high of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), topping the previous record of 101 F (38.3 C) set in 1966, according to Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center.

Trenton, New Jersey, reached 101 F, which broke the record of 100 F (37.7 C) set in 1901. Newark’s high Thursday was 105 F (40.5 C).

Atlantic City, New Jersey, hit 103 F (39.4 C) on Thursday, breaking the city’s record of 100 F set in 1966, Jackson said. Atlantic City reached 105 F on Friday and 106 F (41.1 C) on Saturday.

Heat domes can be dangerous and combine very high temperatures with high moisture, Jackson said.

“In a lot of cases they also had direct sunshine,” he said. “It was relentless. It was multiple days. It was not as cool overnight, as well. The low Friday morning in Atlantic City was 80. The body can't recover as well. You just have that multiple day buildup and too much added stress on the body.”

But even as the heat moved to the east, lowering temperatures a bit, severe storms blew in with heavy winds that toppled utility poles and split trees, causing their boles and branches to fall onto power lines.

About 900,000 utility customers in parts of the central, eastern and southern United States were without electricity early Sunday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.com.

More than 223,000 customers in Michigan and close to 170,000 in Pennsylvania had lost power.

PPL Electric reported 121,417 without power Sunday morning, including about 47,000 in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area.

Central Hudson in New York State reported that it had more than 430 reported downed wires on Sunday. The utility said about 50,000 customers were affected by the storm and that about 650 still were without power Sunday.

Amanda Vesper was putting her children to bed Friday evening when the first storm rolled through the Detroit area, knocking out her power.

“It didn't seem that awful. It got quite windy,” said Vesper, 40, of Commerce Township.

As of late Sunday morning, the electricity still was out.

“We've been going back and forth between a hotel and our home because we have dogs there,” she said. “We really can't stay there. I have a small child with autism. Our well runs on an electric pump.”

The outage also ruined the family's July 4 celebration.

“We had planned on having company over at the house, but had to cancel,” Vesper said. “I went grocery shopping. I'm hoping my freezer holds.”

Jackson, with the Weather Prediction Center, said Sunday will see heavy thunderstorms in and around the Cleveland area. Those storms then will shift eastward and move into Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York — where chances exist for flash flooding, he added.

The five-day preliminary hearing that starts Monday will be the first time members of Kirk's family are in the Utah courtroom with defendant Tyler Robinson. The hearing will be livestreamed.

Robinson turned himself in after the shooting. Prosecutors allege that he also sent a text message confession to his partner and left a note saying he had an opportunity to kill one of the nation’s leading conservative voices “and I’m going to take it.”

He has not entered a plea in the case, however.

Robinson, 23, is charged with aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk, who was addressing a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University. His attorneys have not commented on his guilt or innocence.

Months of legal jostling leading up to the hearing centered largely on media access. Beginning Monday, the focus shifts to whether there is enough evidence for a trial and if the death penalty is warranted, said Paul Cassell, a University of Utah law professor and former federal judge.

Cassell said evidence made public to date in court filings suggests prosecutors have “an overwhelming case.”

“This seems like the proverbial slam dunk at this stage of the case, where the only issue is whether there is a sound basis for moving forward with a trial on the merits,” he said.

A death sentence is an option in Utah only when a crime has aggravating circumstances. Prosecutors will argue in Robinson's case that Kirk’s shooting endangered others in attendance.

The proceeding will resemble a minitrial, with prosecutors planning to offer DNA evidence linking Robinson to the suspected murder weapon, testimony from investigators, autopsy findings, witness statements and video of Kirk's killing. They are not required to present all their evidence and can use secondhand information, or hearsay.

After the hearing concludes, state District Judge Tony Graf must determine if the case should proceed.

Reporters and the public will be allowed to attend after Graf denied a defense request to restrict access.

Kirk’s killing drew backlash from his Republican allies, including President Donald Trump, who first announced Robinson’s arrest in a Sept. 12 interview on Fox News and said, “I hope he gets the death penalty.”

This week prosecutors need only demonstrate that there are reasonable grounds to believe Robinson killed Kirk. The standard is lower than for a trial, where prosecutors have to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Authorities have said DNA consistent with Robinson’s was found on the trigger of the rifle used to kill Kirk, the fired cartridge casing, two unfired cartridges and a towel used to wrap the rifle.

Robinson’s parents had confronted him after authorities released a surveillance photo of the suspect and details about the rifle, authorities have said. His parents convinced him to meet with a family friend, who is a retired sheriff’s deputy, who reportedly helped arrange for Robinson to turn himself in.

Prosecutors have said Robinson left a note for his roommate, who was also his romantic partner, that read, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.” They also said he wrote to his roommate in a text message about Kirk: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

Defense attorneys unsuccessfully sought to block prosecutors from using recorded statements from Robinson’s roommate during the hearing. The defense wanted the roommate to testify in person so Robinson could exercise his right challenge the credibility of witnesses against him. Graf said the time for challenging witnesses would come later.

Before his death, Kirk and the organization he co-founded, Turning Point USA, galvanized the conservative youth vote to help Trump win a second term.

His widow, Erika Kirk, who took the helm of the organization after his death, pushed to maintain public access to Robinson’s prosecution when defense attorneys sought to exclude cameras from the courtroom. She forgave Robinson during her husband’s memorial service.

She is expected in court throughout the week with her husband's parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

Here are this year’s finalists:

• 423 Main Bar Grill & Rooftop in Rochester
• DOX Grillhouse in St. Clair Shores
• Kamper’s Rooftop Bar in Detroit
• Rock & Brews Royal Oak
• Tin Roof Detroit

We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

Now that nominations are over, voting on finalists can begin. Voting is open from June 22 through July 20, and you can vote for each category once per day during that time.

Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

Armed with loudspeakers, horns and fireworks, the crowd gathered outside the JW Marriott hotel in Santa Fe, in the western part of Mexico City and did its best to disturb the guests.

Earlier in the week, “El Tri” supporters deployed the same tactics before a crucial match against Ecuador — Mexico won 2–0 — prompting the Ecuadorian football federation to file a formal complaint with organizers.

England manager Thomas Tuchel anticipated the disruption but downplayed its potential impact.

“We have a 6 p.m. (Sunday) kickoff, so if we miss some hours of sleep, we’ll make them up in the late morning,” Tuchel said on Saturday.

These late-night hotel “serenades” are an entrenched and polarizing tradition in Latin American football. While they began as a passionate display of support for the home team, they have increasingly evolved into a psychological weapon designed to deprive opponents of sleep.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Here are this year’s finalists:

• Ariel Radtke Johns-Keller
• Justice Johnson
• Leslie E. Martin
• Next Level Realty
• The Perna Team

We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

Now that nominations are over, voting on finalists can begin. Voting is open from June 22 through July 20, and you can vote for each category once per day during that time.

Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

Hussam Abu Safiya who served as director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, became the face of health workers struggling to treat patients throughout the Israel-Hamas war.

He led the facility through an 85-day siege by the Israeli military, releasing videos in which he pleaded for help before he was arrested in December 2024. He has not been charged.

The Israeli military said Abu Safiya, 53, was being investigated on suspicion of cooperating with or working for Hamas. Staff and international aid groups that worked with him deny the claims.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel and Abu Safiya’s lawyer, Nasser Odeh, said Abu Safiya appeared extremely weak and struggled to sit upright during a visit on July 2. Odeh said he had recent head injuries around his eyes, ears and neck and experienced difficulty breathing.

Odeh and Physicians for Human Rights Israel said they have petitioned to have Abu Safiya transferred to another facility.

Abu Safiya faced physical and psychological abuse and was kept in solitary confinement for extended periods, Odeh said following an appearance before Israel’s Supreme Court last month challenging his continued detainment without charge.

Abu Safiya appeared briefly by video during that hearing, looking pale and gaunt and with lash-like marks on both arms.

Israel’s Prison Service called the allegations “false and entirely without factual basis.” The prison service declined to discuss the case directly, citing privacy concerns, but said all prisoners and detainees are held in accordance with the law and receive medical care based on Ministry of Health guidelines.

“The Israel Prison Service rejects allegations of abuse, torture, starvation, or denial of medical treatment,” the prison service said.

Israel has faced severe criticism over its treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees since the start of its war with Hamas in October 2023. Human rights organizations and the United Nations have alleged systematic patterns of abuse.

The number of Palestinians in Israeli detention surged after the start of the war and thousands remain in detention. The Associated Press has previously reported on the dire conditions in prisons.

The war between Israel and Hamas began Oct. 7, 2023, after the Gaza-based militant group led an attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage. Since then, more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

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Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

Speaking in Washington after storms prompted a roughly two-hour evacuation of the National Mall, Trump honored veterans, including several from World War II and one of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat in Vietnam. They appeared before flags that symbolized some of the most significant and challenging moments in American history, from the one that was draped over Abraham Lincoln's casket to the one that flew on the plane piloted by the Wright Brothers.

Yet Trump also leaned into partisan territory unusual for an Independence Day address, which presidents typically use as a moment to unify the country. Instead, he stumped again for the SAVE America Act, an elections bill that's encountering challenges even from Trump's fellow Republicans in Congress. He highlighted his support for the Second Amendment and revived denunciations of communism, which are becoming an increasingly central part of Trump's message ahead of the November midterms.

The speech capped a holiday that Trump has gone to great lengths to shape to his own tastes. He was introduced by two musical performers who often appear at his trademark rallies, including Lee Greenwood, who performed “God Bless the USA.” The event organizers were largely aligned with the White House, supplanting a bipartisan organization that was launched by Congress a decade ago.

“We will always be on top,” Trump said. "We will never let our country fall. We will always be the best.”

Trump didn’t talk about himself as much as he does during his normal rally speeches. Still, he still found time to include a joke about seeking a third presidential term and about World War II’s “greatest generation.”

“They are the greatest generation,” Trump said. “I hate to admit that, but they are.”

Anticipation for the milestone holiday has been building for much of the year, serving as an opportunity for Americans to reflect on their complicated history as onetime colonists of an empire who became a superpower of their own. Organizers of celebrations months in the making had to adjust or cancel activities entirely as much of the East Coast sweltered under heat that approached and in many cases surpassed triple digits.

Heat is defining the big weekend in many places

Severe weather prompted the cancellation of celebrations in Hartford, Connecticut, along with Harrisburg and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Spectators at Boston’s fireworks and concert were told to briefly seek shelter before events later resumed. An evacuation was also ordered in Philadelphia. New York and Pittsburgh moved forward with fireworks but shifted the time to accommodate the shifting weather.

The disruption was particularly acute in Washington, where signs at the Great American State Fair posted an alert shortly after 7 p.m. ET encouraging participants to leave the area. Crowds gathered in museums, subway stations and federal buildings near the Mall. At the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center they waited in chairs and sat on the floor to cool off in the air conditioning.

Crowds were building in the area several hours before the evacuation. Tina Hale, 58, of Cohoes, New York, watched three of her grandchildren children dip their hands into a pool of water near a museum. Hale pointed toward the sky and urged them to look up as three military jets roared above the crowd.

“If that doesn’t make you proud to be an American,” she said.

David Koshko, 42, and his wife, Jennifer Koshko, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, came to Washington for a baseball game but planned to stay for the city’s fireworks show. After baking in the heat for hours during the Pittsburgh Pirates’ win over the Washington Nationals, they took a break in the shade of an overpass near the National Mall to plot their next stop.

“Just to be a part of the 250 years (anniversary) is an amazing thing,” said David Koshko, a commercial driver and veteran of the Marine Corps reserves.

In Philadelphia, fireworks began to crack as early as midday in the birthplace of the nation near the site where the Declaration of Independence was adopted by delegates to the Second Continental Congress. Hundreds of visitors were gathering at Independence Hall in the sweltering heat to await the celebrations coinciding with the France-Paraguay World Cup knockout game at Philadelphia Stadium, which began with commemorations of the holiday.

“It’s one big party in here,” Carlos Alban, who traveled to Philadelphia from Chicago to watch the match, said as he arrived at the stadium, adding that he spotted a fan in the parking lot dressed as one of the Founding Fathers.

In New York, tall ships, with their masts, rigging and white sails outlined against a blue sky, made a procession around the Statue of Liberty and up the Hudson River, recalling the fanfare around America’s 200th anniversary in 1976.

The 43 ships were followed by a display of aerial might with a stealth bomber and the Navy's Blue Angels. Patrouille de France, the French Air Force's acrobatic teams, flew over New York Harbor with their red, white and blue trails, evoking images of the American flag.

“We got up early and just rode our bikes about a mile down here to come see the scene,” said Oona Moore, a Jersey City, New Jersey, resident who took in the New York festivities. “We saw the tall ships and we saw the planes, you know, all different manner of military aircraft. I’ve never seen it so close and in the sky at the same time.”

At George Washington's Mount Vernon, people took the Oath of Allegiance to become U.S. citizens. They stood with eyes closed and hands over hearts for the national anthem.

In Phoenix, Steven Dortch, 25, and his brother JayLn Dortch, 23, gathered at Granada Park to try to forge a new July 4 cookout tradition. JayLn Dortch said young people in the U.S. give him hope by thinking for themselves and not taking the words from older people at face value.

He said the country needs to keep in mind the everyday, hardworking people who “keep America going.”

___

This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the last name of a holiday visitor to Washington. It is Jennifer Koshko, not Koskho.

___

Associated Press writers Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix, Emily Wang in New York, Luis Andres Henao in Philadelphia, Kristie Rieken in Houston, Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va., Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., Safiyah Riddle in Los Angeles and Jesse Bedayn, Anna Johnson, Will Weissert and Michael Kunzelman contributed to this report.

Two others were injured in the attack on northern Crimea, including one in a serious condition, the Russia-installed regional Gov. Sergei Aksyonov wrote on Telegram. He did not give details of the attack.

In recent weeks Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on key infrastructure targets in Crimea as Kyiv’s military seeks to isolate the vital Russian-held peninsula in the latest stage of the war.

The peninsula was seized by force and illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Ukraine’s increasing use of long-range strikes has highlighted its ability to inflict painful damage on Russia and put added pressure on the Kremlin while Moscow’s advances recently have ground to a near halt, Western analysts and officials say.

The latest attacks came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Trump on ending the war.

Writing on X, Zelenskyy said he called to congratulate Trump to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence and that the two leaders discussed the situation along the front line.

“There is a real prospect of ending this war, and America’s determination will be crucial. We agreed to continue the conversation in person during the NATO summit in Ankara,” he said late Saturday.

The Kremlin said that Putin and Trump discussed the conflict in Ukraine in a “constructive” phone call on Saturday.

Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said that Putin congratulated Trump and the American people on the 250th anniversary of America’s independence during the call that lasted nearly an hour and half, their fourth conversation so far this year.

Ushakov said that Trump reaffirmed his “readiness to help achieve a quick cessation of hostilities and search for peaceful solutions to settle the crisis” in Ukraine, while Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will continue mediation efforts and stand ready to visit Moscow.

The Kremlin adviser said Putin once again emphasized Russia’s “preference for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict, provided that Russia’s well-known, fundamental positions are taken into account.”

At the same time, Putin charged that Kyiv and its European allies are “betting on prolonging, and even escalating the conflict,” arguing that “the European ‘party of war’ proceeds from a flawed perception of the overall situation and the state of things along the line of contact,” Ushakov said.

He added that Putin told Trump about the “real situation on the battlefield, where Russian armed forces are confidently advancing, liberating one settlement after another.”

The Russian leader specifically mentioned the capture of the Ukrainian stronghold of Kostyantynivka, describing it as a key step toward the “liberation” of the entire Donetsk region.

Kyiv has denied the Russian claim of capturing Kostyantynivka. Ukraine’s General Staff reiterated that the embattled city remains under Ukrainian control in a statement on Telegram on Sunday, a day after Zelenskyy said that Russia's claim to have taken control was “just another Russian lie.”

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

SUNDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy skies. Low: 63.

MONDAY: Partly cloudy skies, a chance of showers and thunderstorms. High: 84.

MONDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy skies. Low: 63.

TUESDAY: Mostly sunny skies. Drier and warmer. High: 86.

TUESDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy skies. Low: 66.

After some showers and thunderstorms, and a little bit of sunshine working throughout the day on Saturday for the Fourth of July, the fireworks from Mother Nature will continue looking ahead into the end of the holiday weekend.

We’re watching an area of low pressure and a frontal boundary moving across the region on Sunday morning. We will keep the chance of some scattered showers and thunderstorms under the forecast to end the weekend on Sunday, but the day will not be a complete washout, but expect more clouds than sunshine. High temperatures remaining in the mid upper 80s by the end of the weekend.

With this frontal boundary, slow to move away from the region, we will keep the chance of a few thunderstorms under the forecast looking ahead to the start of next week on Monday. High temperature temperatures remaining into the mid 80s by Monday afternoon.

High-pressure will build back into the region, looking into the middle of next week for Tuesday and Wednesday. Expect a mixture of sunshine and clouds both days. High temperatures warming into the mid to upper 80s for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon.

Chances for showers and thunderstorms return to the forecast looking ahead into the end of next week. I don’t think either of these days will be a washout. High temperatures warming into the upper 80s near 90° by Thursday, then dropping back into the mid 80s by Friday afternoon.

Drier weather returns to the forecast looking ahead into the start of next weekend. Expect a mixture of sunshine and clouds for next Saturday. High temperatures near where we should be for the middle part of July. High temperatures will head into the middle 80s by Saturday afternoon.

Two villagers died in a mountain flash flood Saturday evening in the eastern part of China's Inner Mongolia region, the official Xinhua News Agency said. One drowned while herding cattle and the other fell into water while driving a cattle herd away, the report said.

Three other people died the same day in neighboring Liaoning province's Fushun city, about 390 kilometers (240 miles) to the southeast, Xinhua said. It did not provide details on how they died.

A heavy rainstorm battered Fushun for several hours early Saturday with rainfall of up to 32.9 centimeters (13 inches) in one area, according to state media reports. Video posted online showed streets turned into lakes. About 3,600 residents were relocated to safer areas.

In southern China, Tropical Storm Maysak headed north into the Guangxi region on Sunday after making landfall the previous night with winds of 101 kilometers (63 miles) per hour in neighboring Vietnam's Quang Ninh province. It weakened from severe tropical storm to tropical storm strength as it moved inland.

Rivers overflowed in Guangxi's Fangchenggang city, submerging cars up to their roofs, footage on state broadcaster CCTV showed. Rescuers used inflatable boats to reach trapped people. Residents described it as the most severe flooding in two decades, according to a China News Service report.

In Vietnam, the storm knocked down trees and ripped metal roofs off buildings in the town of Mong Cai on Saturday evening, Vietnamese state media said. Crews used chainsaws and heavy machinery to clear debris and reopen roads after the winds subsided.

Maysak also uprooted trees in Dongxing, a city that borders Vietnam. The tropical storm dumped rain on China's Hainan island last week before crossing water and making landfall again in Vietnam.

Two of the trench collapses happened in Oakland County, and one was in Livingston County.

MIOSHA is investigating all three trench collapses.

Oxford Township trench collapse

Oakland County Sheriff’s Office and the Oxford Fire Department responded to a report of a worker trapped at around 9:30 a.m. on June 30 at the 3900 block of Barber Road.

Investigators said workers were installing field tile as part of a septic system when the man entered the trench to glue pipe together. While the man was inside, a trench wall collapsed, burying him beneath the soil.

First responders successfully extricated the worker, a 35-year-old Ira Township man, and he was sent to a local hospital for further evaluation. He is expected to recover.

Orion Township trench collapse

At around 9:41 a.m. on July 1, deputies from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office responded to the area of Squirrel Road and Silverbell Road for a report of a worker trapped in a trench collapse.

According to the sheriff’s office, a subcontractor excavation company was excavating for the installation of a sanitary sewer within the new residential development. During the excavation, a 25-year-old worker from Clarkston was inside a trench box when the surrounding ground gave way, trapping him below the waist.

The man was freed by first responders and was taken to a local hospital. He is expected to be okay.

Handy Township trench collapse

According to the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office, deputies were dispatched around 2:30 p.m. on July 1 to a construction site near Grand River Avenue and Nicholson Road in Handy Township for a reported industrial accident.

MIOSHA said workers were installing underground tanks at the site when the trench collapsed, trapping the 30-year-old worker inside.

Deputies said the man was trapped for a short period of time before deputies and other workers were able to remove him from the trench.

Emergency crews were said to have attempted life-saving measures, but the worker died from his injuries at the scene.

Officials have not released the victim’s name or the company involved.

The Livingston County Sheriff’s Office first reported the worker was 23 years old. However, MIOSHA reported the worker was 30 years old.

Zeff Nikollbibaj, 34, was denied bond by 47th District Court Judge Marla E. Parker at the 2 p.m. hearing, despite his attorney‘s request for a high-cash bond and GPS tether.

Though according to his attorney, Nikollbibaj has no prior history of assault convictions, Parker disagreed, stating that “there is not any [bond] condition that this court could impose that would address the issue of protection of the public.”

Prosecutors allege that Nikollbibaj killed his grandmother, Ana Nikollbibaj, on Tuesday by shooting her in the head and bludgeoning her with a metal pry bar. Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald called the murder “especially shocking.”

“Sadly, this is a reminder that domestic violence takes many forms,” she said. “While nothing we do will bring Ana back, we will work to hold her killer accountable.”

Police responded to the home on Middlebelt Road near Northwestern Highway around 7:40 a.m. to find Ana unconscious on her bedroom floor with severe head trauma and lacerations. A spent firearm shell was also found near her body, according to police. She was transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead, and a bullet was later recovered during her medical examination.

Police say three people were inside the home at the time: the grandmother, the suspect, and another grandson, who was not injured.

Records show a petition was filed over three years ago in Macomb County seeking court-ordered mental health treatment for Zeff Nikollbibaj.

Some neighbors told Local 4 they were shocked and “blown away” by the news, while others seemed less surprised.

Others told Local 4 that police had been called to the home before for issues including fighting, but not specifically for the suspect. Neighbors only described the suspect as “quiet.”

Investigators have not said what led to the violence and said the suspect has not offered many answers so far.

Nikollbibaj is due back in court for a preliminary hearing at 9 a.m. on July 10. First-degree murder is punishable to up to life in prison.

The state ranks among the top in the nation for reported Bigfoot sightings, with more than 220 encounters listed in the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization database. Most of those reports come from the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula.

Now, a man known as “Snake the Bigfoot Hunter” claims he found what he believes is the first scientifically verified Bigfoot specimen -- a claim that has drawn both attention and skepticism.

He claims that, after DNA testing, the body he found has 58.5% Neanderthal and 41.5% human DNA.

Snake Stuart claims to have found the body while camping. He joined Local 4 Live to tell us what he found.

You can watch the full interview in the video at the beginning of this article.

I’m not talking about the Basilosaurus that lived here 37 million years ago.

Much more recently. Not the ancient ancestors of whales, but species that are still around in the oceans today. They just happened to live here just a few thousand years ago.

Whale remains scattered across Michigan

The skeletal remains of a baleen whale were found in Ortonville. Sperm whale remains have turned up in both Lenawee County and Wexford County. A bowhead whale was discovered in 1927 while workers were digging a foundation for a schoolhouse in Oscoda. Finback whale remains have been found in Genesee County.

“Many whale bones and teeth continue to turn up in Michigan,” wrote Dr. J. Alan Holman, former professor of geological sciences and zoology and emeritus curator of vertebrate paleontology at Michigan State University. “Sperm whale teeth have been found by people walking Michigan beaches.”

OK, so how, why

To understand how whales ended up in the Great Lakes State, it helps to understand Michigan’s history. It involves a lot of water, full disclosure.

Let’s jump in.

Michigan spent millions of years either submerged underwater or buried under ice. That’s why the state has no dinosaur fossils, and it’s also why Petoskey stones are found along its shorelines.

Marine fossils are so common in Michigan that our state rock is a fossil. We’re the only state whose official state rock is a fossil, by the way.

The last glacial period ended roughly 12,000 years ago. As the glaciers began to melt, an unfathomable volume of water moved southward.

Just, like, so much water

With the Rocky Mountains to the west and the Appalachian Mountains to the east, south was basically the only direction the water could go.

Just to reiterate what an incomprehensible amount of water this was: Michigan was once buried under a mile of ice.

There was so much water that the Mississippi River was five miles wide at some points.

This allowed marine animals like whales to travel far inland. Whales are mammals and warm-blooded, so this massive cold freshwater highway to Michigan was viable for them in a way that it wasn’t for sharks.

Related: The great white sharks-in-the-Great-Lakes post is wrong. Here’s why it’s not even close

The precursors to the Great Lakes had abundant marine life that you wouldn’t expect. The remains of a walrus were once found on Mackinac Island.

Why we’re no longer underwater

Eventually, as the ice retreated far enough north, the water found a new path -- flowing east rather than south. Nearly every Great Lake’s water was redirected in that new direction.

This is also why whale remains have been found in the once 6th Great Lake, Lake Champlain.

It’s a shame. Whale watching on Lake Michigan or Huron sounds awesome.

But what if they were planted?

Not everyone has been convinced that the whale bones are genuine and that it’s an elaborate hoax. The idea is that hundreds of years ago, people just took whale bones from coastal areas and just took them to Michigan like a bored teen stealing a traffic cone.

Dr. Claude W. Hibbard, a former University of Michigan geology professor and widely renowned paleontologist, had a pretty sharp response to that theory.

“If such is the case, the Indians, or the settlers, possessed a good knowledge of the prehistoric Wisconsin lake beaches in which to bury their discarded whale bones.”

Sick archeological burn, Hibbie.

In other words, the bones were found in exactly the geological layers where you’d expect them to be. They were not randomly buried but were found in places that are consistent with the glacial timeline and geographical history of Michigan.

The whales of Michigan were real. Can we uncover the mural now?

Timeline of events

• 1,000,000–10,000 years ago: Multiple major glaciations occur; Michigan is completely covered by glacier ice during each of the 4 major advances.
• 1,000,000–250,000 years ago: First three ice sheets extend as far south as the Ohio River; Michigan remains ice-covered.
• 90,000–10,000 years ago: Last major glaciation; again, Michigan fully ice-covered for long periods.
• 10,000 years ago): Southward movement dated to ~10,000 years ago; then ice begins retreating north, enabling reinhabitation of southern Michigan by plants/animals.
• As ice retreats (post-10,000 years ago): Meltwater ponds south of the ice; these ponded waters become the beginnings of the Great Lakes; later, new north/east outlets open (Niagara route, North Bay route).
• Post-glacial Michigan (after retreat): Buried stagnant ice blocks melt, creating depressions -- many Michigan lakes form.
• 4,000-7,000 years ago: Retreating ice allows water to flow east, rather than south, drying out significant parts of the Midwest and forming the Great Lakes as we know them.

Related: One of the world’s deadliest animals once swam freely in the Detroit River. A dog stopped him

The game at the iconic North Side ballpark was delayed by fog for 15 minutes after the sixth inning. The Cardinals led 2-0 when play was stopped, then went on to win their third straight.

The crowd of 38,872 joined in singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” as the delay began. The early 1970s hit song has re-emerged during the World Cup soccer tournament, with U.S. players joining tens of thousands of fans in singing it at the end of matches.

The rare Saturday night game at Wrigley started an hour late due to rain, then fog billowed in from the north starting in the second inning and got denser.

The visibility became so poor that players said they would lose sight of the ball. They struggled and called out tracking fly balls, but there were no misplays.

“Yeah, that was brutal,” Cubs All-Star center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong said. "I've never seen anything like that so, I’ll just leave it at that. It was reminiscent of when like I was kid playing rec ball, soccer and stuff like that. Yes, you could see the ball hitting the bat, then not so much."

Crow-Armstrong, a Gold Glove winner last season, somehow caught Masyn Winn's deep fly for the second out of the sixth. He drifted to the edge of the warning track, then dropped to one knee to do it.

“I don't know how he saw my ball, to be honest with you,” Winn said. “When the ball was getting above the lights, I just thought it disappeared. I was crazy to me.”

Winn, the Cardinals shortstop, said he had a tough time seeing on the field.

“Right when they hit it, you could see kind of the direction of where the ball was going” Winn said. "And you know, as soon as it touched, like light level, it was gone. It was weird.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh this is pretty damn cool.' It felt like this was a sick game to play on July 4. But by the end of it, I was, like, ‘This is crazy.’ Nobody could see anything.”

Winn said Cardinals left fielder Lars Nootbar told him he couldn't see the hitters. Nootbar went on to catch Dansby Swanson's drive against the wall for the final out of the seventh after the fog subsided.

Nootbar said he thought Swanson's ball was headed to the stands for a two-run homer, but the wind that had pushed the fog into the ballpark kept Swanson's fly inside as well.

“I'm glad they didn't put more balls in the air, because we probably would have been in some trouble,” Winn said.

The umpires conferred with St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol and Chicago’s Craig Counsell after the sixth. Then the delay was announced on video boards as the result of “weather in the area.”

Marmol said it was the right call.

“There was a point there where no one on the field could see where the ball in play was,” Marmol said. "Thankfully we got a groundball to short with some punch-outs involved, because it would have been very circus-like otherwise.

“So good job pausing the game, letting (the fog) go through and then continuing, because that was different.”

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

Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri arrived in Los Angeles and “is finally reunited with his family,” Frances Hui of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation wrote on X.

He and 17 other leaders of the underground Zion Church were detained in October in one of China’s largest crackdowns on a single church in decades, raising worries over an escalation in the government’s curtailing of religious freedom.

A family statement said Jin's release happened very quickly. It thanked Trump and said they know the release could not have happened without Xi’s direct intervention.

“We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations,” the statement said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jin’s case gained attention after Trump, on the way home from a state visit to Beijing in May, said he raised with Xi the detentions of both the pastor and that of imprisoned Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai.

“He said he’s gonna strongly consider the pastor,” Trump told reporters on his flight. But, he said, Xi told him that Lai's case “would be a tough one.”

The 78-year-old Lai, a former clothing magnate and publisher of a Hong Kong tabloid critical of Beijing, received a 20-year sentence in February.

Activists welcomed Jin's release but also remembered other church leaders still being held.

“At least 8 members of Zion Church remain detained in China,” Maya Wang from Human Rights Watch wrote on X. “They should all be freed.”

The Zion Church is among the largest underground or house churches in China that are unregistered with authorities. They defy a requirement that believers worship only in registered congregations.

The ruling Communist Party, which is officially atheist, views organized religion as a potential threat to its hold on power. Under Xi, Chinese authorities have pushed to “Sinicize” religion by demanding loyalty to the party.

“My father started Zion in order to worship freely in a church that put God as the sole head of our church, like many faithful Christians everywhere,” his daughter Grace Jin Drexel, who lives in the United States, told a congressional committee in November.

Jin brought his family to the U.S. after authorities targeted Zion Church in 2018 but decided to go back despite the risks. His daughter said last fall that she hadn't seen her father in six years.

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Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

The 36-year-old Gray allowed a run and four hits in six innings, striking out seven and walking two, to improve to 10-1 with a 2.61 ERA — the second-best mark in the American League. He has six straight quality starts since May 30, going 5-0 with a 1.97 ERA.

But when All-Star rosters were announced Saturday, fellow starter Ranger Suarez and closer Aroldis Chapman were Boston’s only picks for the AL team.

“I was disappointed, a little bummed, for sure,” Gray said. “I’m just being honest, you know? I’m happy for Ranger, and I’m happy for Chappy, for sure. They’re very well-deserving. But a little selfishly, yeah, I was disappointed.”

Gray carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning of his previous start, a 7 1/3 inning, one-hit, nine-strikeout, 97-pitch effort in a 5-4 win over the New York Yankees last Sunday.

Interim manager Chad Tracy thinks there is a good chance that Gray will be added to the AL roster.

“When the All-Star Game happens, there’s so much roster fluctuation — it happens every year with pitchers who can’t go, people are hurt, people back out,” Tracy said. “Things happen, so I’m still holding out hope for a couple more guys on the team who I feel are deserving.”

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

Prosecutors will lay out their evidence against Tyler Robinson in a five-day preliminary hearing. When it is over, the judge will decide whether the case will proceed to trial, with the death penalty as a possible punishment if he is convicted.

Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, and his parents are expected to be in the Utah courtroom, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The hearing will be livestreamed.

Robinson has not entered a plea.

Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, was a top podcaster and ally of President Donald Trump. He led an effort to remake the Republican Party’s get-out-the-vote effort in the 2024 election.

Here are moments leading up to Kirk’s event, his death and the charges filed against Robinson. All times are local.

Aug. 29

Ahead of Kirk's visit to Utah Valley University, a change.org petition is started titled “Prevent Charlie Kirk from speaking at Utah Valley University.”

Sept. 3

Utah Valley University releases a statement affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”

Sept. 10

Approximately 11:51 a.m.: School surveillance cameras capture the suspected shooter walking onto campus, according to charging documents.

Noon: Kirk kicks off his event in the Fountain Courtyard of the university's Orem Campus.

Approximately 12:20 p.m.: Kirk is taking questions from an audience member about gun violence when a shot rings out. Authorities say the shot came from a distant roof.

12:23 p.m.: A Utah Valley University police officer states, “Alpha 34, we have shots fired. Charlie Kirk is down,” according to a broadcast recording from the department's dispatch line made available by OpenMHz. Shortly afterward a different officer notes that there has been gunfire, and Kirk is “on his way to the ambulance. He’s on his way to the hospital.”

12:39 p.m.: FBI agents arrive on the scene, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.

Around this time, videos begin to appear on social media that show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans ”The American Comeback” and ”Prove Me Wrong.” A single shot rings out, and Kirk reaches up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away.

12:47 p.m.: Utah Valley University issues an alert that says a “single shot” was fired. It also says the suspect is in custody.

2:40 p.m.: Trump announces on social media that Kirk has died.

2:45 p.m.: Orem Mayor Dave Young says the suspected shooter remains at large.

4:21 p.m.: Patel says on social media that “the subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.”

4:30 p.m.: During a news conference, authorities confirm Kirk was brought to Timpanogos Regional Hospital and died there. They say no one is in custody.

5:59 p.m.: Patel posts on social media: “The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in interest of transparency.”

Exact time unknown: Robinson sends a text to his roommate that says, “look under my keyboard.” Under it is a note that says, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it,” according to charging documents.

Robinson and his partner continue to text, with his partner appearing to be shocked, according to court documents, asking Robinson “why he did it and how long he’d been planning it.” In another moment of the exchange, which was released by authorities and did not include timestamps, Robinson writes about potentially trying to retrieve his rifle but says a law enforcement car is nearby.

Sept. 11

7:55 p.m.: The FBI says it is looking for a “person of interest” and releases a series of photos showing the person wearing a hat, sunglasses, a long-sleeve black shirt and a backpack.

Police release video of the person racing across the roof of the building from where authorities say the shot was fired, dropping down to the ground and walking off campus.

Exact time unknown: Robinson’s mother recognizes him when authorities release a picture of the suspect, and his parents confront him, according to charging documents.

The family arranges for him to meet with a family friend — a retired sheriff’s deputy.

8:02 p.m.: Washington County Sheriff Nate Brooksby receives a call from the retired deputy who says he knows the shooter’s identity and is working with the family to try to convince Robinson to come in voluntarily.

Around 9 p.m.: Robinson appears quiet and somber when he turns himself in with his parents at the Washington County Sheriff’s office, Brooksby said. Robinson had agreed to surrender as long as it was done peacefully.

Sept. 12

8:05 a.m.: Authorities announce that Robinson is in custody in Kirk's shooting. He is booked into Utah County Jail.

Around 10:20 a.m.: A probable cause statement outlines the evidence gathered against Robinson, who was arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a weapon causing serious bodily injury and obstruction of justice. All are state felony charges, and aggravated murder carries the possibility of the death penalty.

Sept. 15

Patel reveals on the Fox News show “Fox & Friends" that DNA on a towel wrapped around a rifle found near where Kirk was assassinated is a match to Robinson.

Sept. 16

Around noon: Prosecutors announce that Robinson has been charged with aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm and obstructing justice. He is also charged with witness tampering because he allegedly told his partner to delete their text messages and to stay silent if questioned by police, according to Gray, the Utah County attorney.

Around 3 p.m.: Robinson appears briefly before a judge by video from jail. He nods slightly at times but mostly stares straight ahead as the judge reads the charges against him aloud and says he will appoint a defense attorney.

Sept. 17

Students return for the first day of classes since the shooting. Care stations offering stuffed animals, candy and connections to counseling dot the campus.

Starting July 3, anyone under the age of 17 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian after 10 p.m. through July 4.

Dearborn’s Fourth of July celebrations draw large crowds — and that size can sometimes lead to trouble. Police say they regularly receive complaints about illegal fireworks being set off in residential neighborhoods.

“We have in the past seen juveniles, young youth in city streets, at the schools, lighting off these fireworks and using illegal fireworks,” said Cpl. Dan Bartok, a spokesperson for the Dearborn Police Department.

Bartok says complaints spike this time of year. When illegal fireworks start flying in Dearborn’s densely packed neighborhoods, situations can quickly turn dangerous.

“This is a great example of just how dangerous illegal fireworks use can be, as you can see our neighborhoods are densely populated,” Bartok said.

Residents say the curfew isn’t just about protecting kids — it’s about protecting the entire community.

“They’re all young, they don’t think, so they’re just trying to have fun but they do it wrong. Hopefully when they get older they’ll understand,” said Dearborn resident Hussien Charara.

One anonymous resident said the measure is long overdue.

“If we didn’t have a curfew they’d be all night long, as in the past, so it’s a very good idea,” the resident said.

The curfew lifts at 6 a.m. Minors found outside without a parent or guardian before that time could face arrest, a curfew violation citation, and their parents may also be held responsible.

Bartok urged families to stay engaged during the holiday weekend.

“We really encourage parents and guardians to pay attention to what their children are doing, where they’re at especially on holidays or the evening hours,” he said.

Police say the goal isn’t to put a damper on Fourth of July festivities — it’s to make sure everyone gets home safely.

Residents inside American House in Farmington Hills on Middlebelt Road say they woke up this holiday unable to fully turn on the lights or adjust the thermostat. They say that’s just where their concerns start.

“If you can get us some air,” one woman told Local 4 as soon as the crew walked in the building’s front doors. “There’s people here on oxygen and CPAP machines.”

She’s one of several who tell Local 4 there’s no power inside.

Her biggest concern is centered on seniors who are being dressed by staff in the dark, little light in the memory care unit, and those who rely on a CPAP machine.

“CPAP machine and you have AFib? That’s a danger,” she said.

Local 4 is told this issue started on Friday night.

“Constant calls,” one close family member of a resident said. “Phone was getting blown up saying that they were hot and nobody was coming into their room. They don’t know what’s going on.”

They asked us not to share their identity for safety reasons.

On Friday, as storms surged across the area, their phone started buzzing. They say the calls continued in the morning, so they went to check things out.

“We were all a little frustrated, assuming that a place that has a bunch of elderly people, should definitely have some kind of backup in case this happens in the future,” the family member said.

On Saturday, Local 4 was able to speak to a maintenance person.

“I see some stuff is on, so do we have a generator on? Is there a generator running?” Local 4 asked.

He said he does have generators running, but wouldn’t say more.

Residents, and family members of residents inside, say it’s not cutting it.

“Trying to take care of the elderly, especially your loved ones, and it’s frustrating because there is nothing you can really do about it,” one resident said.

“They can’t charge their phone, so they can’t call 911,” another woman said.

“I’ve called DTE to ask if they can give us a more specific timeline and they keep saying this Monday. What would you like to see happen?” Local 4 asked the close family member of a resident.

“Someone get out there really fast and in the future, I would like to see this place have generators, so that it doesn’t happen again,” they said.

“Severe weather, including winds in excess of 60 mph, moved across Michigan Friday evening, causing widespread power outages,” DTE said. “Our Storm Response Team restored power to one-third of affected customers overnight and expects to have 60% of customers restored by the end of the day. Hundreds of out of state and Canadian crews are on their way to help speed restoration. Your safety is our number one priority. Please stay at least 25 feet away from downed wires and anything those wires touch. Report any outages or downed wires.”

On June 22, 1986, during the quarterfinals of the World Cup, Argentina defeated England 2-1 en route to lifting the trophy.

That match remains etched in the memory of soccer fans worldwide, defined by the late Diego Maradona scoring two of the most famous — and contrasting — goals in the history of the sport: the Hand of God and the Goal of the Century.

In the first one, Maradona punched a loose ball past an advancing Peter Shilton with his left hand. Minutes later, the Argentina great controlled the ball in his own half and danced past half the England team to score what some consider to be the greatest World Cup goal in history.

“Everyone remembers that match; they are iconic goals — well, there were two iconic goals in this stadium,” England coach Thomas Tuchel said Saturday, a day before England was to meet Mexico in the Round of 16.

To commemorate Maradona’s feats, the stadium’s owners installed a plaque in one of the tunnels leading to the pitch. Tourists from all over — but especially Argentines — flock to take photos with it during regular tours of the venue when it's not hosting the World Cup.

“It’s something that still hurts; the wound is open, but we aren’t here for revenge,” Tuchel said.

England faces a different foe in a different era

Tuchel, who is coaching England in the World Cup for the first time, downplayed the historical baggage.

“It’s the same stadium, but not the same opponent — and even if it were, looking for revenge wouldn’t make sense,” Tuchel said. “We are here to write a new chapter.”

Forty years after that heartbreaking match, the narrative has shifted. This time, England’s adversary isn’t Argentina, but the host country.

Mexico will be backed by an raucous home crowd and will also look to take advantage of Estadio Azteca's altitude — more than 7,200 feet (2,200 meters) above sea level.

“It will take a lot of courage to put out a top performance against Mexico. But we have a brave team,” Tuchel said. “We have an experienced team and at the same time a young team who is ready to take these challenges.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout earned his 12th All-Star selection and first since 2023 based on the second round of fan balloting announced Saturday by Major League Baseball. Trout, who grew up near Philadelphia in Millville, New Jersey, was voted by fans to start for the 11th time and hopes to return from a strained right hamstring sustained June 17.

First baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., among four All-Stars from the American League champion Toronto Blue Jays, said he will skip the July 14 game at Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park to rest a bad back that has bothered him for much of the season.

“Those four days will be great,” Guerrero said through a translator, “to come back strong in the second half.”

Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, elected to his eighth start, will miss the game because of a broken rib that has sidelined him since May.

Skenes, the NL starter in the last two All-Star Games, is scheduled to pitch for Pittsburgh on Tuesday and Sunday. The 24-year-old right-hander is 0-6 in his last nine starts, dropping to 6-8 with a 3.62 ERA for the season. He was voted in by players, as was Misiorowski.

“To be honest, probably a little surprised,” Skenes said of his selection.

Misiorowski, averaging 100.4 mph with his fastball and leading the major leagues with a 1.47 ERA, was an All-Star last year after just five big league games.

“This year I think I proved that it wasn’t a fluke thing and that I do belong. It’s really cool,” he said before Saturday night's game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

He also is scheduled to start Sunday.

“We’re looking for September, October,” he said Friday. “It sucks — obviously I want to throw in a game like that — but so be it.”

Ohtani, a three-time, two-way All-Star and six-time pick overall, is unlikely to pitch in the game because of a right biceps issue that will push his last prebreak start to next weekend, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

Freddie Freeman became a 10-time All-Star when the LA first baseman was announced Sunday with Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy and outfielder Andy Pages as winners in the second phase on fan voting, which ran from June 29 to Thursday. They joined Ohtani, who won the NL designated hitter spot by finishing with the most votes in the initial round of fan selection announced June 25.

In the closest race, Pages edged Atlanta's Michael Harris II by fewer than 5,000 votes for the third NL outfield spot.

Four Dodgers were elected to start for the first time since Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Reggie Smith in 1980. World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto was picked for the NL pitching staff by Major League Baseball with one of its six selections, giving the Dodgers five or more All-Stars for the seventh straight time.

Twenty-six first-time All-Stars were among the 64 players picked including four rookies: Cleveland second baseman Travis Bazzana, Detroit shortstop Kevin McGonigle, Cleveland left-hander Parker Messick and Cincinnati third baseman Sal Stewart.

McGonigle is the youngest player at 21 and Boston closer Aroldis Chapman at 38 is the oldest.

Atlanta and the host Phillies each have five All-Stars.

Philadelphia outfielder Brandon Marsh was elected to start and will be joined by four fellow Phillies: first baseman Bryce Harper, DH Kyle Schwarber, reliever Jhoan Duran and left-hander Cristopher Sánchez. Harper was a legend pick added by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

Atlanta catcher Drake Baldwin and second baseman Ozzie Albies were voted in as starters and will be joined by left-hander Chris Sale, a 10-time All-Star, and closer Raisel Iglesias.

Toronto has four, with Guerrero joined by second baseman Ernie Clement, who led AL players in the first phase of voting from June 3-25, and pitchers Dylan Cease and Louis Varland.

“Our fan support is unlike any other team, obviously, because of the country backing you,” said Toronto's John Schneider, the AL manager. “Not just Canada — I think a lot of baseball people really recognized how those guys play the game.”

Elected AL starters also include Athletics catcher Shea Langeliers; Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.; Tampa Bay third baseman Junior Caminero; Houston designated hitter Yordan Alvarez; and the New York Yankees' Judge and Minnesota's Byron Buxton in the outfield.

Guerrero will be replaced in the starting lineup by the Athletics' Nick Kurtz and Judge by Yankees teammate Cody Bellinger. Replacements are based on player, manager and coach voting.

Bellinger earned his third All-Star selection but first since 2019.

“That’s going to be cool. Last time I had no kids or family or anything," he said.

NL starters also include New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto and Washington shortstop CJ Abrams.

MLB had in previous years announced starters first, then pitchers and reserves several days later.

Other AL pitchers elected by players include Boston's Chapman, Tampa Bay's Drew Rasmussen, Minnesota's Joe Ryan, Yankees' Cam Schlittler, Cleveland's Cade Smith. Other NL pitchers voted in by players include Cincinnati's Chase Burns and San Diego's Mason Miller.

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AP freelance writers Larry Fleisher and Patrick Stevens contributed to this report.

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

Police said members of the Dearborn Police Department SWAT Team executed a search warrant late Saturday afternoon at a home in Inkster connected to the incident. Authorities said the third suspect was taken into custody safely and without incident just before the warrant was served.

Chief Issa Shahin said, “Our investigators and officers have worked tirelessly over the past 24 hours to identify, locate, and arrest those responsible for this senseless act of violence. I commend the outstanding work of our Detectives, SWAT Team, Patrol Officers, and our regional law enforcement partners for their professionalism, dedication, and commitment to protecting our community.”

The shooting happened at about 1:25 p.m. Friday inside the shopping mall near Michigan Avenue and Evergreen Road.

Officers responding to reports of gunfire found three people who had been shot, police said. One person died at the scene, and a second victim died after being taken to a Metro Detroit hospital.

A third person suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The victims ranged in age from their late teens to early 20s, according to police.

Police said the shooting stemmed from a dispute between two groups that escalated into gunfire.

“Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and all those affected by yesterday’s tragic act of violence at Fairlane Town Center. Out of respect for those affected and to support the ongoing investigation, Fairlane Town Center will remain closed today. The safety and security of our guests, tenants, employees, and visitors remains our highest priority. We appreciate the patience, understanding, and support of our community during this difficult time.”

Fairlane Town Center

The investigation remains active. Police said additional information will be released as it becomes available.

Mexico boasts an incredible record in official matches at Estadio Azteca. Since the venue opened in 1966, the national team has suffered just two defeats there, the latter of which was over a decade ago against Honduras in September 2013.

“The stadium is a monster; that explains the high number of wins and draws, and the few losses — which were just accidents,” said Hugo Sánchez, the striker who played in the 1986 World Cup and now works as an ESPN analyst. “We approach this with optimism because we know it’s England, but if we play the way we did against Ecuador, we can beat them.”

The numbers back up the myth. Across the 1970, 1986, and current World Cups on home soil, Mexico has played 10 matches at Azteca, winning eight and drawing two. In this tournament alone, El Tri has secured three home wins without conceding a goal: 2-0 against South Africa and 3-0 against Czech Republic in the group stage, and 2-0 against Ecuador in the Round of 32. Mexico also defeated South Korea 1-0 in Guadalajara in the group stage.

It's the first time Mexico has started a World Cup by winning four consecutive matches.

“We have played three World Cups in Mexico; it is hard for me to say if it is (the biggest match). In 1970 we played Italy for the semifinals, in '86 we played Germany also for the semifinals,” Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said Saturday. “There have been several important matches in history and tomorrow is certainly one of them.”

Breaking the curse

These results have ignited the hopes of millions of Mexicans, many of whom weren’t even born the last time the nation reached the quarterfinals. After achieving that feat in 1986, Mexico’s World Cup history became a psychological hurdle: It missed the 1990 tournament, followed by seven consecutive, agonizing Round of 16 exits before failing to escape the group stage four years ago in Qatar.

“I’m one of those who couldn’t make it through; it happened to me in South Africa and Korea,” said Aguirre, who coached El Tri during those campaigns. “It’s deeply painful because you play a great group stage, only to be knocked out for a variety of reasons.”

Mexico's eliminations comprise a catalog of heartbreaks, including a penalty shootout loss to Bulgaria in 1994 when Aguirre was an assistant coach under Miguel Mejía Barón and defeats in 1998 and 2014 to Germany and the Netherlands when El Tri squandered late leads in the final minutes.

“We will be facing a top-four team in the world according to FIFA, a world champion in '66 and one country with a great league,” Aguirre said. “In order to beat them, we need to do a nearly perfect match and to be better than what we’ve been so far.”

Now, the script could flip. At Azteca — which sits 7,300 feet (2,200 meters) above sea level — Mexico will rely heavily on the altitude and the backing of a ferocious home crowd, as it did in the group stage.

“England is one of the great national teams in the history of football, with outstanding players. We all agreed that we wanted a match like this,” midfielder Alvaro Fidalgo said Saturday. “We are in great form, the Azteca is an intimidating venue, and ultimately, it’s a World Cup Round of 16 match. That’s never easy for anyone.”

The English challenge

England enters the knockout stage fresh off a 2-1 victory over Congo, powered by a pair of goals from star striker Harry Kane. Kane headlines an elite English squad that reached the quarterfinals at the last World Cup before falling to eventual finalist France.

A victory for the Three Lions would send them to the quarterfinals for the sixth time in their history — and the third consecutive time — keeping alive the dream of a title that has eluded them since 1966.

On paper, England holds the clear advantage in talent, led by Premier League standouts, whereas Mexico’s spearhead is Julián Quiñones, the top scorer in the Saudi League.

“We have very experienced players who play in the toughest leagues and the biggest clubs in the world. We all know these games from Champions League matches where you play up against, against the energy of a stadium and that we are prepared for that,” England coach Thomas Tuchel said Saturday. “We are prepared for strong start of the Mexican team. I guess they will they will try to give us a taste of intensity.”

However, the playing conditions could serve as the ultimate equalizer.

England arrived in the northern part of Mexico City on Friday night, a mere two days before kickoff. Sports scientists and altitude experts generally recommend two options for high-altitude competition: Arrive weeks in advance for full acclimatization or fly in as close as possible to kickoff. By choosing a 48-hour window, England has entered the dead zone experts warn against.

“We feel it. Even if we don’t train, we feel it. I felt a slight headache. And in the hotel room through the day, didn’t sleep as well as the days before, but nothing that you cannot handle,” Tuchel said. “It’s just what it is. We cannot physically adapt. It’s just impossible. But we are here one day before to experience it, at least to not have all the first time experience in the warm-up.”

To compound the strain, passionate Mexican fans are already plotting psychological warfare. Hundreds are expected to converge on England’s hotel to disrupt players' sleep — a tactic deployed against Ecuador, when fans used loudspeakers, drums and revving motorcycles into the early-morning hours.

England is attempting to remain unfazed.

“We had no issues last night. I think FIFA took care of the situation. And we have security around the hotel, so we expect a good night of sleep,” Tuchel said. “I don’t want to talk about problems that don’t exist yet.”

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AP Soccer Writer James Robson in Atlanta contributed to this report.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Tonight temperatures will be a bit more seasonable - good news for those still without power after Friday’s storms. This evening will be comfortable. Most fireworks shows should be ok as rain will be isolated.

Overnight lows will be in the low to mid 60s with a light northeast breeze.

The chance for scattered rain will stay in the forecast tomorrow morning.

On and off rain, and possible thunderstorms, will carry throughout the day Sunday, lingering into the evening hours.

Highs tomorrow will be in the low 80s, and we’ll see more of the same Monday.

Scattered rain and storms are possible into the midday hours Monday before we look to dry out.

Tuesday and Wednesday will feature mostly sunny skies and slightly warmer temperatures, reaching the mid to upper 80s.

The next chance of rain moves in Thursday.

Mbappé stutter-stepped on his way to his 19th goal in 19 World Cup appearances, beating Paraguay goalkeeper Orlando Gill in the 70th minute to break a scoreless tie. France's captain was awarded the penalty when Diego Gomez was called for tripping after a video review.

“I've said from the first day that he had the spirit. He gave all the athletic efforts,” France coach Didier Deschamps said after Les Bleus won 1-0. “He’s a great top-notch player on the pitch. But when he speaks, he speaks for the entire group.”

It was the seventh goal of this tournament for Mbappé, matching Messi in the race for the Golden Boot for the World Cup's top scorer. Mbappé won that award four years ago in Qatar, but Messi and Argentina beat France in the final.

Mbappé is now the only player to score at least three goals in the knockout stage of three World Cups. On Saturday, he endured against perhaps the most physical opponent he's faced in this tournament.

Tempers flared in the first half when Andrés Cubas took down Mbappé and the teams briefly pushed and shoved each other. Matías Galarza also threw his right elbow into Mbappé and sent him crashing to the grass.

After Mbappé ignored Gill's attempt at a postgame handshake, the goalkeeper threw a ball at the France star's back.

“We knew what kind of match it was going to be. We can also get our hands dirty, we know how to do it,” Mbappé said in French. “We know how to play ugly football. Guess they were thinking we were going to show up in tuxedos, but we were ready. Even at that kind of game, we were better than them. That’s their style of football. There’s no right or wrong way to play the game. They tried to beat us that way, but we won.”

And the victory cleared the way for Mbappé to continue chasing Messi's career goals mark.

Messi scored his 20th career World Cup goal in Argentina's 3-2 win over Cape Verde on Friday night. The 39-year-old great also has goals in a record eight consecutive World Cup games.

Norway's Erling Haaland and England's Harry Kane are next in the Golden Boot race with five goals each.

If there’s a tie in the Golden Boot standings when the tournament ends, FIFA will use assists as the first tiebreaker and fewest minutes played as the second tiebreaker. Mbappé has a 2-0 lead over Messi in assists.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

After the final whistle, Mbappé kept on walking and left Paraguayan goalkeeper Orlando Gill hanging as Gill extended his right hand in a show of sportsmanship.

In response, Gill thew the ball right at the No. 10 on Mbappé's jersey.

Mbappé got the last laugh as he scored his 19th career World Cup goal, and France survived stifling heat to beat Paraguay 1-0 on Saturday, sending Les Bleus into the quarterfinals for the fourth straight time.

“We knew what kind of match it was going to be,” Mbappé said in French. “We can also get our hands dirty, we know how to do it. We know how to play ugly football. Guess they were thinking we were going to show up in tuxedos, but we were ready.”

France advanced to play Morocco on Thursday in Foxborough, Massachusetts. France beat Morocco 2-0 in the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

With an extreme heat warning in effect throughout the match as temperatures hovered around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), Mbappé finally broke through against a physical, defensive-minded Paraguay side when he converted a penalty kick in the 70th minute.

That was enough for Les Bleus, whose red, white and blue-clad fans looked plenty patriotic on July Fourth in the city where the United States was founded exactly 250 years earlier.

Mbappé was awarded the penalty when Diego Gomez was called for tripping after a video review. Then he stutter-stepped on his way to his 19th goal in 19 World Cup appearances, one behind career record holder Lionel Messi of Argentina. Mbappé and Messi each have seven goals in this tournament to top the Golden Boot race.

Mbappé won that award four years ago, but Messi and Argentina beat France in the final.

Mbappé — who frequently trash-talked the Paraguayans in Spanish — is now the only player to score at least three goals in the knockout stage of three World Cups.

Mbappé botched a breakaway attempt in the second half, and Manu Koné had his top-corner shot knocked away by Gill after he was wiped out in the netting by Ousmane Dembélé only moments earlier.

Gill also stopped two strong attempts by Mbappé in second-half stoppage time.

The 26-year-old Gill had bested German great Manuel Neuer in a penalty shootout in the previous round. He then lost his cool after the loss to France when he chucked the ball at Mbappé.

“I tried to shake his hand, but since he didn’t pay me any attention, I lost my temper,” Gill said. “But anyway, that was all I did; I calmed down afterward.”

For the criticism that hydration breaks have watered down the pace of play at the World Cup, they were never more needed for the players than in the midst of a miserable heat wave. Sprinklers showered the Kentucky bluegrass field during the breaks and at halftime.

“Given our style of play, it was harder to give high intensity,” France coach Didier Deschamps said.

More than in any of the five other World Cup games played before 68,000-plus fans at Lincoln Financial Field, spectators fled for the concourse at halftime, seeking shade and refuge from the sun.

Maybe they were looking for some action of any kind.

Les Bleus scored 13 goals in the first five games of the tournament but were stymied in the first half by a Paraguay team trying to turn the match into a rock fight. Tempers flared when Andrés Cubas took down Mbappé and the teams briefly pushed and shoved each other. Matías Galarza also threw his right elbow into Mbappé and sent him crashing to the grass.

Paraguay advanced by beating Germany in a penalty shootout on Monday, the biggest upset of this World Cup. But after a gritty effort by La Albirroja, it's France that's moving on.

After defeating Croatia for the 2018 title, France lost to Argentina on penalty kicks in the 2022 final. Les Bleus are 5-0 in this year’s tournament, outscoring opponents 14-2.

“As I said to the players, we’ve had easy games so far, so it is good to have a tough one,” Deschamps said.

The city soaked in the moment as the 250th anniversary of American independence was celebrated. More fans honored America — draped in flags or wearing Uncle Sam hats as they tailgated in the parking lot — than at any of the other games in Philadelphia, and Idina Menzel, The Roots and DJ Jazzy Jeff all performed.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Azzedine Ounahi scored twice to lead Morocco to a 3-0 win over Canada in the Round of 16 Saturday to make the country the first African nation to reach the quarterfinals more than once.

“We are no longer a surprise,” Ouahbi said through an interpreter. “Now when people talk about Morocco we’re a major contender and it’s a great source of pride. I think it’s only the beginning and I hope we continue to have runs like this.”

And despite already making history in this World Cup, Morocco has much higher goals.

“We want to keep going,” Ouahbi said. “We don’t want to stop.”

It’s Morocco’s second straight appearance in the final eight after becoming the first African team to reach the semifinals in 2022.

“We are so proud to represent Africa because it’s a continent with a lot of talent and Africa deserves to be in the best level in football,” goalkeeper Yassine Bounou said.

Neither team was able to break through until Ounahi took a free kick from Achraf Hakimi and made a right-footed shot through traffic from outside the box to the bottom right corner to put Morocco on top 1-0 in the 50th minute.

Ounahi made it 2-0 on a right-footed shot from the middle of the box off a pass from Brahim Díaz in the 82nd minute.

Soufiane Rahimi added a goal in the final minute of stoppage time.

Morocco will meet France, which beat Paraguay later Saturday, on Thursday in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

The loss ends a historic run for World Cup co-host Canada, which won its first-ever knockout round game, beating South Africa 1-0 to reach Saturday’s match. The country was playing in the World Cup for just the third time and the run enchanted a nation that is normally far more interested in hockey than the pitch.

Canada coach Jesse Marsch shared his postgame message to the team.

“I told them that I was proud of them and I challenged them to understand that we can play like this all the time against the best teams in the world,” he said. “We can be better on the day. And then the challenge is, can we hold that standard for 90 minutes?”

Morocco, No. 7 in the FIFA rankings entering the tournament, dispatched the Netherlands in a penalty shootout to reach the Round of 16 and send the country to its earliest World Cup exit.

Marsch lauded how his team performed against a squad of Morocco's caliber and how Canada controlled the match for much of the day.

“The way we pushed, the way we were in the match, the quality we showed, the overall impact in the match, we were better,” he said. “We were better than the No. 7 team in the world today.”

Ouahbi had a strong response when told of those comments.

“In terms of intensity they were good,” he said. “They were good for 98 minutes. Were they better? It’s hard to say. It takes some nerve to say that when you lose 3-nil.”

Canada had a couple of chances to score late. Jonathan David had a free kick from outside the box in the 78th minute, but his shot sailed over the crossbar.

Just after that, Tajon Buchanan’s shot from about 30 yards was stopped with a diving save from Bounou. Bounou, who was born in Canada to Moroccan parents, had three saves.

The victory set off a huge celebration for Morocco's fans back home.

Within minutes, thousands poured into the streets of Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city. Horns echoed as supporters climbed onto car roofs, waving flags and chanting.

Traffic ground to a halt along the Corniche Boulevard, one of the city’s main avenues, where ecstatic Atlas Lions supporters danced, set off fireworks and waved flares. Other major boulevards across Casablanca were also jammed with jubilant fans.

Canada reached the Round of 16 despite missing star Alphonso Davies for the majority of the tournament because of a hamstring injury. The Bayern Munich player logged only 15 minutes as a substitute in the victory over South Africa but wasn't available Saturday.

“His hamstring didn’t feel right,” Marsch said. “We were hoping that by the time he woke up this morning that he would feel better, but he didn’t.”

This game was a rematch from the last World Cup when Morocco beat Canada 2-1 in the group stage. Morocco went on to finish fourth.

It was an extremely physical match with eight yellow cards being issued. Both teams received four.

Hakimi and Canada’s Richie Laryea received yellow cards in the 40th minute. Hakimi shoved Laryea to the ground and then Laryea pushed him and a minor scuffle ensued.

Morocco midfielder Ismael Saibari left with an injury in the 22nd minute.

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Associated Press writer Akram Oubachir in Casablanca, Morocco, contributed to this report.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Paul Pelosi was driving his brown convertible Friday in Yountville, a town in the heart of wine country, when he struck a legally parked car on the side of the road, briefly stopped and then drove away, the Napa County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. No injuries were reported.

A witness saw the collision and called 911. Shortly afterward sheriff's deputies found Pelosi with damage to the front of his car on a road roughly a quarter of a mile away. He reportedly told officers he knew he hit something but was not sure when or what caused the damage.

Pelosi, 86, did not have any alcohol in his system, according to the statement. The sheriff's office referred him to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a process to determine whether he may continue to drive — something that officials say is common for older drivers.

Pelosi was not arrested, and because no one was injured, the sheriff's office recommended a misdemeanor charge for fleeing the scene of an accident.

A staffer for Nancy Pelosi did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Paul Pelosi pleaded guilty in 2022 to misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence in Napa County and was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation. However, he served only two days in jail and received good conduct credit for two other days, leaving just one day to serve in a work program at the courthouse.

As part of his probation, Pelosi was required to attend a three-month drinking driver class and install an ignition interlock device, which forces drivers to provide a breath sample to prove sobriety before the engine will start. He also was ordered to pay about $5,000 in victim restitution for medical bills and lost wages, along with nearly $2,000 in fines.

That same year he was attacked and severely beaten with a hammer at the couple's San Francisco home.

Here are this year’s finalists:

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We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

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Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

The sun beat down and the well-dressed crowd was a flutter of paddle fans stamped with American flags. Their families clung to the shade of the trees on either side, where one woman had two American flags stuck through her ponytail.

“Well, good morning, everybody,” said Anne Neal Petri, the regent of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association.

“Good morning!” an excited crowd returned.

“And Happy Birthday, United States of America!” exclaimed Petri.

There were 150 people from 50 globe-spanning countries sitting in front of the small stage as they prepared to be sworn in as U.S. citizens on the July Fourth holiday and America's 250th birthday. Among them was U.S. Marine Sgt. Diakaria Sangare from Guinea, who attended in his pressed Dress Blue uniform with three medals pinned to his left breast.

Sangare had served two deployments, and, like all assembled, had gone through the long citizenship process: The test, interviews, green cards and biometrics. Others in the crowd, it was said, came from countries bathed in violence. Some fled persecution.

After a speech about Washington, the crowd was asked to rise for the national anthem.

They did. Their hats came off and their hands covered their hearts. The paddle fans calmed.

The singer belted the words: “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there” — as Sangare held his right hand in a rigid salute, his face sober.

As the song concluded, the soon-to-be citizens clapped and returned to their seats, while another speaker asked them to stand and remain standing when their country was called.

“Albania.”

A woman in the front row with long black hair rose with a broad grin, a small U.S. flag in her hand.

“Bangladesh.”

A man in a black shirt stood. The Albanian woman, looking back, beamed at him.

It went on for 50 countries, through China and El Salvador and Iraq and Mongolia, as people stood, sometimes smiling, sometimes sedate.

At “Morocco,” a man in the back thrusts his fists in the air in support. A young boy looked up at him and then did the same, a little flag in his fist.

Then the crowd, with hands raised, recited an Oath of Allegiance, not so different from the oath Washington signed in 1778.

“Congratulations,” they were told. “You just became U.S. citizens.”

There was applause and laughter, then the Pledge of Allegiance. Sangare, his hand now over his heart, closed his eyes for a moment.

Nearby stood a tulip poplar tree, planted at Washington’s direction 250 years ago, that had lived through America's history.

The next speaker, historian Douglas Bradburn, pointed it out in his speech before the day's special guest.

“All the stories that are part of you, now become American stories,” said Bradburn. “When people ask me what are American people like, I now can talk about you, and your stories.”

“The second side of that is that, now, all America’s stories, and our history, are your stories. The father of your country is George Washington.”

The first president, it turned out, was the next speaker.

As he was introduced, the re-enactor stood by a massive draped American flag, a sword scabbard on his hip. Then he donned the stage, doffed his cap to the audience, and began to speak.

“Today the name of ‘American’ belongs to you every bit as much as it does to me,” he said. He spoke to their arduous journeys to this point and their histories, now merged with America.

“So, my fellow Americans, to you, I say simply: ‘Welcome home’.”

Afterward, Sangare, the U.S. Marine, posed for a portrait, hands clasped in front of him, holding the American flag paddle fan, his Marine cap slightly askew.

“I just became a United States citizen,” he said, his emotions pushing out in an earnest smile.

____ Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas.

Instead, she used one that also doubled as a basketball court.

“There would be the basketball hoops, so I couldn’t really step back a lot because then I would hit the basketball hoop,” Eala said.

The 21-year-old Eala found Centre Court at Wimbledon a bit more accommodating Saturday when she beat defending champion Iga Swiatek 7-6 (9), 6-2 in the third round at the grass-court major and made some history in the process.

Eala is the first Filipino player, male or female, to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam singles tournament.

The left-handed Eala dropped to her knees and rolled onto her back after hitting a forehand winner on her third match point.

“It’s incredible to have my countrymen cheering me on and knowing that we’re all in this together,” she said in an on-court interview as she looked around at the Philippines flags.

“This goes out to them, this goes out to my family, this goes out to all the little girls with ruffled socks and chubby cheeks. It means the world,” said the 29th-seeded Eala, who saved two set points in the first-set tiebreaker.

The third-seeded Swiatek earned her first Wimbledon women’s title a year ago when she beat Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 in the final.

“I felt like Alexandra was more brave in important moments,” Swiatek said Saturday. “In the tiebreak we both had many chances to close the set earlier, and it didn’t go my way.”

Eala, who has trained in Mallorca at the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy, gained worldwide support last year on her breakthrough run to the Miami Open semifinals, which included an upset of Swiatek.

She next faces 13th-seeded Jasmine Paolini for a spot in the Wimbledon quarterfinals.

2022 champion Rybakina also out

Shortly before Swiatek's exit, 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina was upset in the third round by Elise Mertens 7-6 (4), 6-1.

At No. 2, Rybakina is the highest seed on the women’s side to be eliminated. Her loss ensures that Aryna Sabalenka — who faces Naomi Osaka in the fourth round on Sunday — will keep her No. 1 ranking after the tournament.

Belgium’s Mertens is the No. 25 seed at Wimbledon, where she’s won two doubles titles. She will next face 21st-seeded Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic.

Keys, Fritz shine on 4th of July

In another upset, Madison Keys rallied to oust the sixth-seeded Anisimova 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in an all-American contest on the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.

The 26th-seeded Keys, the 2025 Australian Open champion, was asked how she'll celebrate the U.S. holiday.

“I have no plans,” she told the Centre Court crowd after her victory. “When you're not in the States, it's just kind of another day.”

Keys will next play ninth-seeded Linda Noskova.

Ashlyn Krueger, another American, has come through qualifying to reach the fourth round. She beat Ukraine's Daria Snigur 6-3, 6-2 and will face another Ukrainian — 12th-seeded Marta Kostyuk — for a spot in the quarterfinals.

The only American man to reach the last 16 is Taylor Fritz, who beat Lorenzo Sonego 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (5) on No. 2 Court. The sixth-seeded Fritz next faces Alexander Bublik, who beat American Frances Tiafoe in five sets.

Grigor Dimitrov outlasted Matteo Berrettini in another five-setter to set up a fourth-round match against fellow wild card Arthur Fery — the last British player left in either men's or women's singles.

French Open champion Alexander Zverev, the No. 2 seed, got past American Marcos Giron 6-2, 7-6 (4), 6-4 to set up a fourth-round match against 13th-seeded Jiri Lehecka.

Ninth-seeded Flavio Cobolli — the runner-up at Roland Garros — overcame a slow start against Karen Khachanov to win 0-6, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-2 and will face No. 5 seed Alex de Minaur in the fourth round.

Cobolli said he felt ill during the first set because he ate “a little bit too close from the match. Just wasn’t fine. I try to vomit in the first set. They give me some pills that helped me a lot.”

Serena and Venus withdraw from doubles

Serena Williams withdrew from her doubles match with sister Venus due to a right knee injury. The 44-year-old Serena was injured during her singles return earlier this week.

The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion said in an Instagram post that she was “heartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles.”

___

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

While the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with rallies, parties and fireworks, the U.S.-born pope traveled to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa to pray at a migrant cemetery and celebrate a solemn Mass for the island's residents and newest arrivals. Later on Saturday, he got into the July 4 spirit with a visit to the residence of the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, a rarity for popes who usually don't call on ambassadors. The U.S. Embassy said Burch gave Leo a commemorative baseball, an apple pie and a U.S. World Cup jersey.

Leo confirmed he was rooting for the U.S. team, the Embassy wrote on X, adding that the two discussed “American efforts to pursue peace, religious freedom and the need for moral clarity and courage around the world.”

A treeless strip of rock 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) long, Lampedusa is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland and is the main port of entry into Europe for hundreds of thousands of migrants who crossed by boat from Libya or Tunisia, often smuggled by human traffickers.

Leo met with some migrants at the port and then walked alone onto the jagged jetty rocks, the wind whipping his cassock and blowing his zucchetto skullcap off as he looked out to the sea. He then blessed a plaque dedicating the dock to Pope Francis, who visited in 2013, before celebrating Mass on land.

“This is a place where gestures speak louder than words,” Leo said. “But for gestures to be human, they need a heart.”

In making the visit on this particular Saturday, Leo was sending a powerfully symbolic message to the United States and Europe of the Christian obligation to uphold the dignity of every human being, migrants and the most vulnerable especially, while reminding the United States that it was founded by immigrants.

In a letter sent to Americans on the July 4 anniversary, Leo insisted that protecting the unborn and all human life also means “welcoming, protecting and assisting immigrants, whose hopes, sacrifices and contribution have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning.”

“To receive them with compassion and generosity is not only an act of charity, but also a recognition of the dignity that belongs to every human person,” Leo wrote.

A tiny island becomes Ground Zero for European migration

In recent years, Lampedusa has become Ground Zero of Europe’s migration debate as the continent struggles to police its borders while honoring its legal obligations to welcome refugees fleeing conflict, climate change and poverty.

In his homily, Leo thanked the residents of Lampedusa for the “miracle of compassion” they have shown in welcoming migrants and urged Europe to rise to the challenge of the moment and assume its responsibility.

“Indeed, before any intellectual consideration or ideological conviction, the encounter with those who lie before us, stripped of everything, calls us to be close to them,” Leo said, wearing vestments decorated with images of waves.

Preaching from “this far-flung corner of Europe on the Mediterranean Sea,” Leo urged European leaders to address the migration phenomenon in a comprehensive way, integrating immediate relief with a long-term strategies to receive, protect, support and integrate migrants while developing their home countries so no one is forced to migrate.

“Here you have seen not just one, but thousands of human beings fallen into the hands of robbers who have taken everything from them, beat them brutally and walked away, leaving them half-dead,” he said.

Others have died making the voyage, he said, “yet we feel their presence, which challenges us no less than that of those who have landed in need of attention and aid.”

The number of migrants arriving in Italy so far this year is significantly lower than in recent years, with the Interior Ministry reporting 14,464 arrivals as of Friday compared with 30,598 in the same period last year and 26,202 in 2024.

At the same time, the International Organization of Migration has recorded more than 35,000 missing migrants in the Mediterranean since 2014, though the actual number of dead is believed to be far higher given the untold number of “invisible” shipwrecks that are never recorded.

Leo has strongly emphasized the need to uphold the dignity of migrants, especially amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation program in his native Chicago. But he has also directed his message to Europe’s Christian leaders.

Last month, Leo visited another European migration hot spot, in Spain’s Canary Islands, to shame leaders who turn migrants away indifferently while also warning people smugglers they will face God’s wrath for exploiting the desperation of migrants.

Leo honors the dignity of the dead and recalls Francis

After arriving in Lampedusa by plane, Leo paid homage to the dead at the island’s migrant cemetery, laying a wreath of yellow and white flowers on their graves, marked by simple crosses made from the splintered wood of shipwrecked boats.

The gestures send a “strong message” of solidarity, said Tareke Brhane, a migrant from Eritrea and president of the Oct. 3 Committee, a nonprofit founded by relatives of victims of a 2013 shipwreck in Lampedusa that left 368 people dead.

“It is a strong sign for our battle with Italy and with Europe in order to register the deaths, because as of today we still do not have a registry (of those deceased),” he told The Associated Press.

Leo’s visit both honors the dead and “gives a message to the relatives, so many of them still waiting and suffering,” he said.

With his visit, Leo followed in the footsteps of Francis, who made the plight of migrants and refugees a priority of his pontificate. For the Catholic Church, welcoming and accompanying people fleeing hardship is part of the Gospel-mandated call to “welcome the stranger.”

Francis traveled to Lampedusa in July 2013, on his first trip outside Rome after his election. He tossed a wreath into the sea in memory of migrants who had died and denounced the “globalization of indifference” that the world shows migrants.

Salvatore Sortino, the IOM’s head of mission for Italy and Malta, said despite the decrease in arrivals, the number of dead had increased proportionally, “in the sense that the diminishing numbers of arrivals hasn’t resulted in a lower number of deaths at sea.”

“That speaks about the vulnerability that remains,” he said. “So the visit of the pope here, where all this happens, I think is a very important reminder of that element.”

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Winfield reported from Rome.

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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.

Why this photo?

As we enter the final rounds of the World Cup, The Associated Press has five photographers covering every match. Four are in different spots around the pitch at field level and one in an overhead position, called the “tribune.” That was me for Friday night’s game between Colombia and Ghana. During halftime an announcement was made for fans to scan a QR code shown on the stadium screens to take part in a light show. Since I also cover the Kansas City Chiefs there, and they do that occasionally, I knew what was coming. The stadium lights would flash on and off with music playing, and fans’ smartphones would also turn on and off.

⁠How I made this photo

I’m normally shooting a telephoto lens at either 400mm or 560mm for action, but have a second camera with a wide-angle lens for overall photos. Once they made that announcement, I grabbed the second camera, changed the settings for less light and waited for the right moment. With action I’m always shooting at over 1/1000 second to stop action, but for this I dropped the shutter speed to 1/80 second and braced the camera on the railing in front of me.

⁠Why it works

It’s rare for the lights to be off in a stadium during a night game, so that, paired with the tens of thousands of smartphone lights, created a scene few people ever see. For most of the light show, though, the stadium lights were just changing in brightness. There were only two brief moments the lights were completely off, and I waited for those. In photography, different is good, so I try to keep that in mind with every assignment I do. And this was very different.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The Rangers partnered with Budweiser on Saturday to set a Guinness World Record for the largest-ever glass of beer. A 12-foot tall, 600-gallon glass beer stein was filled in a plaza outside Globe Life Field before the team's July 4 game against Detroit.

It took nearly two hours to fill the stein before the new record was certified by a Guinness adjudicator who was present for the record.

That broke the previous world record of 550 gallons that was set in 2014 by by Stod Fold Brewing Company, which is based in Halifax in the United Kingdom. That total had significance to that year's Tour de France bicycle race.

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

Dozens of people were there, cheering for them.

After a loss, no less.

Let that be the first sign of how things are going to be very different in many respects for the team, at least for the foreseeable future. Such is the case when a club goes from unheralded — and practically unheard of — to taking Lionel Messi and Argentina to the brink of elimination on soccer's biggest stage, before falling 3-2 in a match that went to extra time.

“It's time to rest and think about the future,” Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha said. “But I am very, very proud of the team's work, and I hope that in the future we can achieve great things.”

In other words, he hopes seeds were planted.

Cape Verde went 0-1-3 in its four matches at its inaugural World Cup, which won't look great on paper. More than two-thirds of the 48 teams in this tournament won at least one game; Cape Verde wasn't one of them.

But the record simply doesn't tell the whole story.

It played Spain to a scoreless draw to open the group stage, making the chance of advancing to the knockout stage very real. There were two more ties in group play — a 2-2 tie against Uruguay that put Cape Verde on the brink of advancing, then a 0-0 tie against Saudi Arabia that was good enough to get the round of 32 trip secured.

Argentina's players and coaches, to their credit, insisted they did not expect a cakewalk past Cape Verde. And when the match was over, Messi — generally considered to be the greatest player of all time — had nothing but compliments for the underdog opponent.

“Some people thought the match was going to be straightforward, but that couldn’t have been further from reality,” Messi said after Friday's match. “They pressed us really well. There are no handouts in knockout football. They’d already performed well against Spain and Uruguay, so we knew it was going to be difficult.”

For Argentina, getting the win was indeed difficult.

For Cape Verde, coming to grips that the ride ends here was also difficult.

That said, when they walked through that hotel lobby, it was like the return of conquering heroes. Bubista, the team's coach, shook his fist in celebration. Many players couldn't stop smiling. Vozinha shook some hands and posed for a few photos.

They were celebrities. Rock stars, almost. The score didn't matter. The totality of three weeks that put Cape Verde on soccer's map did matter.

“I can only thank our team for their effort and for showing so much heart on that pitch,” Bubista said. “And I think everyone should thank them for what they did for this tournament.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The funeral for Khamenei, who ruled Iran for decades before he was killed at age 86 in a Feb. 28 airstrike in the opening moments of the Iran war, could provide a boost for the country's theocracy and its new supreme leader, his son Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.

That is important as Iran tries to leverage its hold on the Strait of Hormuz in negotiations with the U.S. over a permanent end to the war and as concern lingers that Israel could attack again. The funeral was delayed as the war raged, and talks appear to be on hold until it is over.

During the ceremony, Iran's top negotiator warned France and the U.K. over their comments about potentially launching joint patrols in the waterway, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas once passed in peacetime.

Mourners wept at the sight of Khamenei's coffin alongside those of his family members also killed in the airstrike, with some chanting: “Our word is one! Revenge! Revenge!” Some carried banners and flags. Billboards across the city bore Khamenei’s image. Crowds of men rhythmically beat their chests in mourning, a common practice at Shiite funerals.

“Imam Khamenei was our heart, our father, our everything,” mourner Masoumeh Mohammadi said. “I still can’t believe they martyred him. We will not rest until we avenge his death.”

Coffins on display at Grand Mosalla

An outdoor stage at the Grand Mosalla resembled the stage where Khamenei once gave his speeches at a husseiniyah, or congregation hall, at his compound in downtown Tehran. There was a chair like the one he once sat in while giving his sermons, complete with a microphone on a stand and a table next to it. Above it hung an image of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who died in 1989.

Khomeini's funeral saw chaotic scenes as millions thronged his mourning ceremony and trip to the cemetery. Khamenei's death was only the second time Iran has lost a supreme leader since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

On Saturday, volunteers sprayed cooling water on crowds in the summer heat. Men and women congregated separately inside the Grand Mosalla after being checked by metal detectors and body searches. Police with assault rifles stood guard on surrounding streets. Many people stayed outside in the street, lounging under the shade of trees because the city had shut down.

The caskets of his dead family members sat beneath Khamenei's, which had his black turban atop it, identifying him as a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. The dead included the wife of Mojtaba Khamenei, whose possible appearance at the funeral remained unclear. He reportedly was wounded in the attack that killed his father and has not been seen publicly since the war began.

“We attended the funeral to show that we are all committed to defend our country and religion,” said one mourner, Ali Kazemi.

As sunset approached, the streams of people continued. “Authorities advised not to rush to the sites,” said a later visitor, Mohammad Barati. Mourners had also been advised not to stay too long, to allow others to come.

Funeral starts as US marks its 250th anniversary

Iran chose July 4, the 250th anniversary of the creation of the U.S., to begin the funeral. While authorities did not acknowledge the timing, crowds at the ceremony in Tehran chanted: “Death to America!” The refrain has been common in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and U.S. Embassy takeover and hostage crisis. They also cried: “Death to Israel!”

“We knocked the hell out of Iran,” U.S. President Donald Trump said in a speech at the same time in South Dakota in front of Mount Rushmore. “They want to settle so badly. We gave them a week off for a funeral.”

The U.S. president was not forgotten in Tehran. In the crowd in Grand Mosalla, several mourners held a large flag that read: “#KillTrump.”

As the ceremony went on, Iran's chief negotiator Kazem Gharibabadi criticized a joint statement overnight from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron which suggested their militaries stood ready to patrol the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has suggested it wants to charge vessels passing through the strait, upending decades of it being widely considered an international waterway.

“The security of Hormuz lies with the coastal states — the crisis-makers will be held accountable for the consequences of their adventurism,” Gharibabadi wrote on X. “This is a serious warning.”

Khamenei to be buried in Mashhad

Khamenei’s body will be transported to cities in Iran and neighboring Iraq. Authorities have shut down streets, airspace and daily life for the mourning, which will end Thursday as he is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, Khamenei's place of birth.

Authorities offered no immediate attendance count for the event Saturday. Other cities across Iran also held mourning ceremonies.

On Sunday, a prayer for the dead is planned at the Grand Mosalla. On Monday, Khamenei's body and those of his family will be taken through the streets of Tehran, which likely will draw large crowds.

“I am here to say goodbye to my beloved leader Ali Khamenei,” said a weeping Hananeh Mousavi, 27, who attended alongside her mother. “I never expected to see such a day. I wish I had died before this tragedy.”

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

“We came here with our family and it’s really fun to watch,” said a little girl wearing red USA glasses.

“We love watching the fire trucks that go out first, and just seeing what they come up with because every year is different,” said a man sitting in lawn chair with his wife.

“We absolutely love the floats, the parade and all the cars,” she added.

This year marking a significant milestone, America’s 250th anniversary.

“It means freedom and a lot of people don’t understand what it truly means. Many gave their lives for it and if my flag should fall may someone else come and run with it,” said a man waving two large flags.

Decked out in red, white and blue, parents say this is a tradition they want to pass on to their kids.

“Oh it’s beautiful! We’ve been coming here catching candy since we were kids, so I’m happy to pass that on to him,” said a young dad holding a toddler.

Lillyana was enjoying her first July 4th parade. “It’s such a joy to watch it through her eyes,” said Lillyana’s Mom. “She’s having a blast waving and collecting candy with her big brother,” she added.

Whether you were watching the parade or in it, July 4th isn’t complete without pomp and pagentry. Decked out in feathers, one performer said “it’s good to see everyone come together and have lots of smiles!” she said while waving to the crowd.

“My heart and soul are with them,” he said in an emotional postgame interview.

Egypt won its debut in the elimination round of the World Cup by beating Australia 4-2 on penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw in the round of 32 Friday.

The victory comes in Egypt’s fourth World Cup.

A video of Hassan on social media shows him walking around the pitch holding the flag as people chanted “Free, free Palestine!" The video went viral.

“It was the most significant scene,” Yahia Qalash, former head of Egypt’s Journalists’ Union, said of Hassan’s move. “It was a telling scene in an exceptional moment.”

The fate of more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, largely displaced and living amid ruins, remains uncertain after a war that began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel’s retaliation has killed a total of 73,066 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The war has sparked pro-Palestinian protests around the world, with some athletes also expressing solidarity.

Earlier this year, Lamine Yamal waved a Palestinian flag during celebrations of the Spanish league title. The act caused backlash from Israel's defense minister, who criticized Barcelona’s teenage star and said his action “incites hate.”

Hassan is not known to be religious or connected to any political group. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was adored by the youth, a street footballer who played in the slums.

He said Friday he was dedicating the game to the “good and noble” Egyptian and Palestinian people.

Asked about the Palestinian flag, FIFA said it is permitted to display it at the World Cup. There was no indication of any action being taken against Hassan.

“Flags representing all 211 FIFA Member Associations are permitted at FIFA tournaments, and supporters are welcome to display them in accordance with stadium regulations and the FIFA Stadium Code of Conduct," the governing body told The Associated Press in a statement.

The Palestine Football Association is one of FIFA's member organizations.

In other contexts, FIFA has previously sought to restrict what it sees as political statements on the pitch.

During the Qatar World Cup in 2022, some European teams were prevented from wearing armbands in support of the “One Love” campaign, an international anti-discrimination initiative.

During Iran's matches in this World Cup, some Iranian Americans in Los Angeles sought to display the country's pre-revolutionary flag and block a FIFA ban on that flag. They lost in court, and the ban was upheld.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Here are this year’s finalists:

• Polish Village Cafe in Hamtramck
• Polonia Restaurant in Hamtramck
• Polskis Pub and Grub in Clinton Township
• Sabina’s Restaurant in Melvindale
• Three Brothers Restaurant in Plymouth

We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

Now that nominations are over, voting on finalists can begin. Voting is open from June 22 through July 20, and you can vote for each category once per day during that time.

Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

Rennae Stubbs, one of Williams' coaches, pin-pointed a moment about an hour into the 44-year-old's defeat to an opponent less than half her age earlier this week at Wimbledon.

“I noticed in the middle of the second set her take a big sort of deep breath and I actually turned around to Venus and said, ‘Oh I think she just relaxed,’” Stubbs said, referring to Serena's older sister.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday, Stubbs also revealed that she first started coaching Williams again in March and immediately noticed that the 23-time Grand Slam champion could still play.

Williams was beaten 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 by 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia on Tuesday.

While the result on the court was a loss, the reaction in the locker room from other players and coaches was a resounding victory, according to Stubbs.

“They know what it would be like to be in that position of not playing a match for close to four years, going on Centre Court at Wimbledon, knowing there’s how many millions of people around the world watching this match,” Stubbs said. “There’s 15,000 people in Centre Court. They expect good tennis. They expect you to not embarrass yourself. So all the players know, to a small degree, what it must be like.”

The match set ratings records on ESPN and Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic are among the players who have publicly complimented Williams for her performance.

Williams injured her right knee toward the end of the first set against Joint and withdrew from her doubles match with Venus on Saturday.

An Instagram update from Serena included images of four syringes that she said “shows the fluid they drained from my knee after my singles match.” An accompanying video showed her walking with strapping up and down her right leg and what appeared to be one of her daughters holding a cane for her.

“The good news is my knee shouldn’t swell or collect that much fluid again,” Serena said. “The bad news is that, as hard as I tried, I just wasn’t able to get it ready for doubles.”

However, with the U.S. Open approaching, Serena indicated she could play again somewhere else soon.

“All I can say,” Serena said, “is stay tuned to a city near you.”

Right attitude

Serena became known for her emotional outbursts and run-ins with chair umpires and linesjudges toward the end of her career.

So Stubbs was concerned about her on-court behavior during her comeback.

But Williams maintained her composure from start to finish.

“That was sort of like the one sort of thing that I asked, is that she try and — as hard as it was going to be — to control her emotions and her nerves and all that sort of stuff,” Stubbs said. “I don’t think people even remotely can quantify the amount of pressure that was on her to walk out there and do what she did.”

Negative reactions

Stubbs was disappointed, though, to see negative reactions to Williams’ return on social media. She was also criticized for skipping her post-match duties – since the injury was not announced until a day later.

Stubbs herself was also criticized on social media.

“I just don’t understand why people feel the need to tear somebody down,” Stubbs said. “What she’s doing out there is trying to play a sport she loves. That’s what it’s about. Show the kids, be out there, enjoy it and give the people another look at playing. … What is wrong on with a seven-time Wimbledon champion — a 23-time Grand Slam champion — wanting to play another time at Wimbledon? God let her.”

Williams planned to play more

While Williams played two doubles matches before Wimbledon, she hadn’t played singles since the 2022 U.S. Open.

“Ideally would we have loved to have had warm-up matches? Yes,” Stubbs said. “And for anyone to insinuate that she didn’t want to do that is crazy.”

The problem was that Williams wanted to get the feeling of being back on the court first in two doubles tournaments. But after winning in the first round at Queen’s Club with partner Victoria Mboko, the pair had to withdraw when Mboko was injured playing singles.

Then Williams and partner Karolina Muchova lost in the first round at the Berlin Open.

“I would venture to say that if she’d had four or five more doubles matches, she would have even been better because she would’ve had that experience of feeling the big points and hitting the big returns on break point and hitting the serves big,” Stubbs said.

Closed roof

Because the match started late in the day and there were concerns about darkness, the roof over Centre Court was closed for the match.

“She was hitting the ball so well in practice and moving really well and the conditions were very different indoors,” Stubbs said. “They were heavy. Her ball wasn’t shooting through the court like it was outside.”

Despite being away for so long, Williams still hit serves beyond 120 mph and showed off her heavy groundstrokes that landed within inches of the baseline.

The only real issue was her movement.

“When you’re great, you’re great,” Stubbs said. “When you have great timing, you always have great timing. I saw that from the moment I stepped back on court with her. I was like, ‘Well, you never lost that.’

"And then it’s just getting the movement going and getting the body going and all that sort of stuff again and at a certain age you also have to monitor the workload. So what I saw out there didn’t surprise me at all, because I had been seeing it for months: The capacity to hit the ball as well as she’s always hit the ball.”

Gang back together

Stubbs, an Australian who won six Grand Slam titles in women’s doubles and mixed doubles, also coached Williams in her previous farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open.

Now based in New York, Stubbs first went down to Florida to start coaching Williams again in March.

“She was already hitting before that, but that’s when she was like, ‘OK, I need the eyeballs I trust on me,’” Stubbs said.

Serena also brought back her longtime hitting partner, Jarmere Jenkins, who co-coaches her with Stubbs.

“I’ve known Serena since she was a kid,” Stubbs said. “Jarmere knows her very, very well. Derick (Pierson), her fitness guy, is one of her best friends.”

What’s next

While Williams indicated in her injury post that she would play again, her team is still awaiting details.

“She’s not just going to do a one-off,” Stubbs said. “I think she would like to play more but that is 100% her decision. ... I’m sure she’ll re-evaluate and reassess how she wants go forward and then we’ll be there for her either way.”

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

Saturday marked the 18th time Chestnut, 42, won the so-called Mustard Belt in just 21 appearances at the internationally televised Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest. He beat out 13 competitors who came from around the country and world, trekking from the Czech Republic, Australia and South Korea.

“It's a dream, it's electric, there's no place better on Earth,” Chestnut said breathlessly in an interview immediately after the showdown, donning a bulky, bejeweled necklace bearing the name of the sports betting company “Polymarket” around his neck. In a video posted on Instagram before the competition, Chestnut called competitive hot dog eating “the most patriotic sport we've got.”

Chestnut handily defeated the second-place winner, Patrick Bertoletti, 41, who ate 50 hot dogs, but fell short of his own 2021 record of 76 wieners and buns — or approximately 7.6 hot dogs per minute.

Defending champion in the women’s division, the 40-year-old Sudo of Tampa, Florida, won the bright pink Mustard Belt for the 12th time, downing 38.75 dogs. In 2024, she ate a record 51 links.

After competing, Sudo joined the crowd to watch her husband — who proposed to her in 2021 immediately after downing 50 boiled eggs in just over 3 minutes to set a world record — compete in the men's event.

Both champions said that the heatwave that scorched New York on Saturday — bringing temperatures in Brooklyn to roughly 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) during the competition — made that much more difficult. On top of that, ESPN announcers said the humidity changed the consistency of the buns.

“I just said I would have to rely on muscle memory, and the crowd really carried me through to another belt today,” Sudo said.

A large crowd braved the heat to watch the event, wearing foam hot dogs on their heads and standing outside the original Nathan’s Famous restaurant that has been in Coney Island, Brooklyn, since 1972. The superfans who stood closest to the stage wore ponchos as protection in case a competitor threw up.

There was briefly some concern earlier this year that Chestnut wouldn't be able to participate in the 2026 competition after he was arrested for allegedly slapping a man in an Indiana bar. He was put on probation after pleading guilty to misdemeanor battery, but is allowed to travel outside Indiana. Hot dog contest organizer Major League Eating said the criminal case didn’t affect Chestnut’s eligibility for the competition.

Despite his continued reign, Chestnut told an ESPN interviewer after the game that he was disappointed that he wasn’t able to top his previous record.

“Dang, I got so much room left,” said Chestnut, who announcers referred to as the “Michelangelo of Mastication."

Sunday's round of 16 matchup against Mexico at the Azteca Stadium will present challenges above and beyond what the Three Lions have faced so far. The altitude, the hostile atmosphere, plus whatever extra gamesmanship might await — it's all part of the experience of taking on El Tri in Mexico City.

It's also gripping theatre.

There's nothing quite like a big World Cup match involving the host nation, and when that team has a famously impressive home record — which Mexico certainly does at the Azteca — there's a real intimidation factor. Six times the men's tournament has been won by the country playing at home, most recently in 1998. But there is hope for England. Some of the most famous matches in World Cup history were games the home team actually lost.

Here's a look at home field advantage through the years:

Italy, 1934

The first two World Cups were won by the hosts — Uruguay in 1930 and then Italy in 1934. The latter gained infamy because of Benito Mussolini's use of the tournament as a political tool — and perhaps his impact on the officiating?

“The fascist regime made a political abuse of the event,” Italian writer Marco Impiglia said nearly 80 years later. “It was a questionable win and it raised many doubts at the time.”

It should be acknowledged that four years later, Italy became the first team to win a World Cup away from home, prevailing in France.

Brazil, 1950

The Brazilian men have won a record five World Cups, but have never triumphed at home. The hosts needed only a draw against Uruguay to take the title in 1950 — there was a final group stage instead of a singular title game — but with maybe 200,000 on hand at Rio’s Maracana Stadium, the Brazilians went down to an unthinkable 2-1 defeat.

Alcides Ghiggia, who scored the winning goal, once said only three people had silenced the Maracana: “The Pope, Frank Sinatra and me.”

That 1950 loss hovered over the proceedings when Brazil hosted again in 2014 — and the team's semifinal loss to Germany may have been even more embarrassing. At least that time, the suspense was removed early when the visitors scored a flurry of first-half goals on their way to a 7-1 rout.

England, 1966

England's lone World Cup championship came on home soil, and not without controversy. In the final against West Germany at Wembley Stadium, Geoff Hurst's shot in extra time bounced down off the crossbar. Did it go in or not? Goal-line technology was still decades away.

Officials awarded the goal, which put England up 3-2. Hurst later scored again to complete a hat trick, and the final score was 4-2.

Argentina, 1978

The Netherlands lost back-to-back finals in 1974 and 1978 — both times losing to the host country. In 1974, the Dutch scored early, but lost 2-1 to West Germany. Four years later, they had to take on Argentina in front of a frenzied crowd in Buenos Aires. The Argentines took the field several minutes after the Dutch, leaving the visitors by themselves in front of the hostile fans. Then there was a row over whether Rene van de Kerkhof would be able to play with a cast on. Argentina eventually won 3-1 in extra time.

The Dutch nearly faced Brazil in that final. Argentina needed at least four goals against Peru in its final match in its second-round group to make the final. The Argentines won 6-0, leading to plenty of conspiracy theories.

Italy, 1990

Sometimes, it's not all that clear who the home team really is. At least that's what Diego Maradona was hoping when Argentina prepared to face Italy in the 1990 semifinal in Naples. A club star for Napoli, Maradona was beloved there, but would the local fans really cheer for him and Argentina against their own country? Maradona certainly tried to stoke divisions between northern and southern Italy.

“After so much racism, only now they scurry to remember that Naples is part of Italy," Maradona told Corriere dello Sport. ”Now that they have slapped the Neapolitans in every possible way, someone tells them they are Italians, that only Italy counts. It is incredible, absurd, offensive."

Ultimately, fans cheered for Italy, but Argentina became the first team all tournament to score against the Italians, forging a 1-1 draw. Then Argentina won the penalty shootout to eliminate the Azzurri. In the final in Rome, Argentina received an unpleasant reception and lost to West Germany.

France, 1998

The most recent host country to win the title was France, which had never gone all the way until 1998. The French hadn't even qualified for the 1990 or 1994 World Cups, but at home they reached the final, where they denied Brazil a repeat championship.

South Korea, 2002

The 2002 World Cup was co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, with the latter making a remarkable run to the semifinals. Italy and Spain saw little to celebrate about the Korean breakthrough.

After the Italians lost to South Korea in extra time in the round of 16, FIFA said it received hundreds of thousands of emails from Italy fans furious about the officiating. In the quarterfinals, South Korea beat Spain on penalties after the Spaniards had multiple goals disallowed.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter denied any conspiracy, but acknowledged some bad calls.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The tragedy in Wisconsin’s Walworth County in a part of Southern Wisconsin that has long served as a favorite vacation getaway for residents of the Chicago area came with a storm that downed trees, ruptured power lines and made transportation treacherous and complicated across multiple states.

It was a trio of calamities that repeated itself each time storms doused a region. After a similarly vicious storm struck the New York area late Friday, hundreds of thousands of utility customers were left without power, trains to New Jersey were canceled and thousands of trees were damaged or uprooted.

Combined with the Midwest storms, nearly 1 million residents were left powerless. By noon Saturday, about 750,000 utility customers were powerless in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and New Jersey.

But the Wisconsin deaths stood out for how quickly the extreme weather could turn a holiday weekend pleasure outing into a nightmare.

As the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Geneva Lake Law Enforcement Agency investigated the Geneva Lake tragedy, the city's police department issued a statement blaming it on a “sudden and severe storm” that rapidly produced hazards for boats.

It said a privately owned recreational motorboat carrying 10 occupants, including four children, tried to race to safety before it was overwhelmed by severe wind and waves. As it took on water, it eventually capsized and sank, the release said.

Six adults and a child were rescued from the water, but three children recovered from the lake after an intensive search were unresponsive to exhaustive lifesaving measures administered as soon as they were found, police said.

Officials confirmed that all four children on board were wearing life jackets, police added.

After the storm, Lake Geneva Mayor Todd Krause declared an emergency and said one person suffered minor injuries after being struck by a falling tree while downed power lines and trees blocked some streets.

The storms that rolled through the Midwest and Northeast on Friday led multiple cities to cancel holiday festivals and reschedule fireworks displays. Mayor Frank Velez in Belleville, New Jersey, rescheduled them for next year, telling residents: “While we’re disappointed we couldn’t celebrate together tonight, your safety will always come first."

By noon on July Fourth, temperatures across parts of the Northeast were already soaring back toward triple digits, resuming conditions likely to be relieved by the storms predicted to follow, leaving temperatures much lower for the start of a new week.

Almost daily long-range attacks on Russian oil facilities have created a fuel crisis and heaped political pressure on the Kremlin as its all-out invasion of Ukraine stretches into its fifth year.

Gov. Alexander Beglov said the city’s Kirovsky district on the Baltic Sea was hit. He also said that air defenses shot down 72 Ukrainian drones across Russia's second-largest city and the surrounding region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as part of Ukraine’s “long-range sanctions” against Russia. He said that Ukrainian forces also hit a military target on the island of Kronstadt, just off the coast of St. Petersburg.

“The Ukrainian defense forces hit the port oil infrastructure, which earns money for the Russian war, and there were also hits on Kronstadt — an important military target,” he said in a post on Telegram.

St. Petersburg’s Kirovsky district was previously hit in June, ahead of Russia’s flagship St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, has suffered particularly from heavy strikes, causing local authorities to suspend gasoline sales to civilians. A Ukrainian attack on Saturday killed one person and injured two more, including a 10-year-old child, the Moscow-installed Gov. Sergei Aksyonov said.

Ukrainian attacks bring the war home

Russian President Vladimir Putin has shrugged off Ukraine’s strikes on Russia’s energy facilities as “not critical,” and insisted the war will continue until his goals are met.

He has described the attacks on Russian energy as an effort by Ukraine to distract attention from its losses on the battlefield, although analysts say the advance of Russian forces has been stymied in recent months.

On Friday, Putin visited the Russian military headquarters directing the war in Ukraine and received a report on the capture of the city of Kostyantynivka, after weeks of intense street battles. He hailed it as a key step toward capturing the nearby cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the key remaining strongholds in the so-called “forest belt” of heavily fortified cities in the Donetsk region that remain in Ukraine’s hands.

The capture of Kostyantynivka, a big transport and industrial hub, is of “major strategic importance,” Putin, clad in military fatigues, said in televised comments.

In a briefing Saturday, Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, said that Ukrainian troops had been pushed back several kilometers (miles) and that fighting was taking place on the outskirts of the nearby town of Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka.

“The city is now under our full control. Units of the Southern Army Group are completing the clearance of city blocks, rooting out small groups and individual Ukrainian fighters who may still be hiding in basements and ruins,” he said.

Zelenskyy denied that Russia took control of the city. “It is just another Russian lie, an attempt to generate some kind of a news story,” he wrote on social media Saturday. “If Kostiantynivka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic way to finally end this war. But the fact is, he won’t cross the front line — reality is very different from Putin’s words.”

But the Kremlin quickly dismissed Zelenskyy's offer, with Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda on Saturday evening that Putin would meet the Ukrainian leader in Moscow once Kyiv was ready to make "important, consequential decisions.”

Putin appears to believe his government can keep the fuel crisis from eroding his authority and support for the war he launched more than four years ago. At the very least, the attacks have brought the war home even more poignantly for millions of Russians, shattering Putin’s narrative of the conflict as something that doesn’t affect the lives of ordinary people in his country.

The border city of Belgorod, which Ukrainian drone strikes have also repeatedly targeted, was left almost completely without power on Saturday due to overnight attacks, local media reported.

Meanwhile, eight people were wounded after a Russian attack struck residential buildings in Ukraine's southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, including two children, local authorities said on Saturday.

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

“You gotta be careful, don’t drink a lot and use common sense,” said one man.

Last year, Canton firefighter’s responded to dozens of fireworks-related incidents. In some cases, people had to be rushed to the hospital with serious injuries.

“We’ve seen many things over the years, people hold them for too long and the fireworks exploded. We’ve seen people suffer eye and facial injuries and lose limbs,” said Bernie Brosnan, a fire inspector with the Canton Fire Department.

Brosnan is urging people to take precautions.

“Make sure there’s a responsible adult involved in using them. We don’t want to throw fireworks and if you have the dud don’t check on it and see what happens. A nice metal bucket filled with water works as staging area and to put fireworks out in the bucket,” Brosnan added.

Takiyah sells legal fireworks at a Meijer off of Ford Road in Canton and says there are safer way to light a firework.

“I don’t want anybody coming back saying somebody got hurt, I don’t want to hear that on the news, that would break my heart,” Takiyah said.

Remember - you can light fireworks starting at 11 am Saturday morning, but you have to wrap them up by 11:45 pm Saturday night.

Here are this year’s finalists:

• Buddy’s Pizza
• Grandma Bob’s Pizza
• Jet’s Pizza
• Loui’s Pizza in Hazel Park
• Shields Pizza

We received more than 16,700 nominations across our 80 Vote 4 The Best categories this year. Each category was then narrowed down to five finalists.

Click here to view the full list of finalists.

Now that nominations are over, voting on finalists can begin. Voting is open from June 22 through July 20, and you can vote for each category once per day during that time.

Click here to vote for finalists in all 80 categories.

The 44-year-old Serena was injured during her singles return earlier in the week — in a three-set loss.

“I’m heartbroken to have to withdraw from doubles. Coming back to compete again has been a gift, and the opportunity to play alongside (at)venuswilliams once more meant the world to me. I did everything I could but unfortunately my knee just isn’t ready to compete,” Serena said in an Instagram post.

The post included images of four syringes that Serena said “shows the fluid they drained from my knee after my singles match.” An accompanying video showed her walking with strapping up and down her right leg and what appeared to be one of her daughters holding a cane for her.

However, with the U.S. Open approaching, Serena indicated she could play again somewhere else soon.

“All I can say,” Serena said, “is stay tuned to a city near you.”

The Williams sisters — Venus is 46 — were scheduled to play Camila Osorio and Solana Sierra. It was the only first-round doubles match that wasn't scheduled earlier in the week, having been pushed back to give Serena more time to recover.

Serena was beaten 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 by 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia on Tuesday.

Venus played in the mixed doubles tournament on Friday together with Kevin Krawietz, losing in straight sets to Tereza Mihalikova and Lloyd Glasspool.

The Williams sisters are six-time champions as partners in women's doubles at Wimbledon.

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