Bijan Robinson rushed for 194 yards and two touchdowns as the Falcons capitalized on the return of quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and trounced the punchless Green Bay Packers 35-14 on Thursday night.

Atlanta (1-2) erased an early 7-0 deficit by scoring 27 straight points to take control amid a chorus of boos at Lambeau Field. The Falcons outrushed the Packers 242 yards to 17.

It was a stunning turn of events for an Atlanta offense that hadn't run a single play inside an opponent's 20-yard line during the first two weeks of the season.

“That was the weight off the shoulders — just getting back to the red zone,” Robinson said. “And we knew we had to punch it in every opportunity we get when we get down there. That was the main focus — to get the ball down there and let's put the ball in the end zone. When we scored, it was definitely something we enjoyed, and we kept on doing it.”

Penix went 18 of 25 for 256 yards with one touchdown and an interception in his first action since tearing the ACL in his left knee during a loss to Carolina on Nov. 16.

“I'm proud of him,” Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski said. “It's not easy to rehab from injuries. That's a tough thing to do, that he's put himself through — the extra workouts in the weight room, the extra treatments in the training room, all those times that he's out in the field and he's running when no one's watching.”

Atlanta (1-2) had struggled to produce any offense whatsoever in two games with Cooper Rush at quarterback. The Falcons became the first team since the 2008 Rams not to run any plays in the red zone through the first two weeks of a season.

That wasn’t a problem Thursday.

Robinson and Drake London became the first teammates to each compile at least 190 yards from scrimmage in a road game since Lawrence McCutcheon and Ron Jessie did it for the Rams at Miami on Oct. 3, 1976. London caught nine passes for a career-high 194 yards.

“That means a lot,” Robinson said. “Me and Drake, that's my real-life brother. I call him my blood brother. We do everything together.”

Green Bay (1-2) lost a home opener for the first time since falling 30-22 to the San Francisco 49ers in 2012. The Packers had won 13 straight home openers from 2013-25 to share the NFL record with the Miami Dolphins, who also won 13 in a row from 1976-88.

“We’ve got a couple extra days here, and everybody’s got to take a long, hard look at themselves,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “We’ve got to find solutions and just come back ready to work.”

Green Bay's Jordan Love went 28 of 53 for 312 yards with two touchdowns — one to Christian Watson and another to Matthew Golden — and an interception. MarShawn Lloyd and Kaleb Johnson combined for 17 yards on eight carries.

Love was working behind an offensive line missing left guard Aaron Banks and right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele, who tore his patellar tendon Sunday and will miss the rest of the season. Banks was dealing with a toe injury.

Jager Burton, a rookie fifth-round pick from Kentucky, made his first career start at left guard, and 2025 second-round selection Anthony Belton started at right tackle.

The lack of discipline that hindered Green Bay in its first two games cropped up again Thursday.

Green Bay led 7-0 and had forced an apparent third-and-11 incompletion late in the first quarter when Brenton Cox Jr. was called for roughing the passer. Robinson delivered a 55-yard carry on the next play to set up his own 3-yard touchdown run.

The Packers had committed an NFL-high 26 penalties through the first two weeks of the season.

Atlanta dominated the rest of the first half and led 17-7 at the break.

Nick Folk put Atlanta ahead by hitting a 44-yard field goal with 4:48 left in the second quarter. After Atlanta’s Zach Harrison blocked Trey Smack’s 47-yard field-goal attempt, Penix threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Austin Hooper on third-and-goal with 59 seconds left in the half.

Green Bay wasted a red-zone opportunity on its first drive of the second half when Love couldn’t connect with Watson in the end zone on fourth-and-1 from the 7. Atlanta poured it on from there.

“It felt great to get a win. It felt great to come out of there healthy. Just blessed, just blessed,” Penix said.

Injuries

Falcons: CB A.J. Terrell (groin) didn't play after getting placed on injured reserve this week.

Packers: LB Edgerrin Cooper was evaluated for a concussion in the second half. G Jacob Monk hurt his quadriceps late in the fourth quarter.

Up next

Falcons: At New Orleans on Monday, Oct. 5.

Packers: At Tampa Bay on Oct. 4.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Tropical storms have spawned in what seems like assembly-line fashion in recent weeks, as El Nino conditions that emerged in June have caused waters to grow warmer than normal, setting off a chain of unusual weather around much of the world.

“It’s ramping up to be perhaps the strongest El Nino on record,” University of Miami hurricane expert Brian McNoldy said.

The number of hurricanes in the eastern Pacific has already surpassed what occurs in a typical season. This week alone, Hurricane Polo drenched Mexico’s Pacific coast as it seesaws between Category 4 and 5. And in storm-weary Hawaii, there’s the potential for catastrophic flooding from a growing Hurricane Nolo.

During El Nino, low-level surface winds blowing from east to west across the Pacific are weakened or sometimes reversed. It causes a shift in the jet stream and drives record global heat, severe droughts, wildfires and shrinking water supplies.

El Ninos don’t follow a regular schedule, occurring every two to seven years on average. Some can be mild. Others can pack a punch. McNoldy predicted that the current El Nino will peak during the coming winter but linger into 2027.

“It doesn’t turn off right away,” he said.

While the focus is on the increased number of Pacific storms, El Ninos conversely curtail hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean: Tropical weather activity in the Atlantic has been virtually silent this year.

A turbocharged hurricane year in the Pacific

Thanks to El Nino, both the eastern Pacific and the central Pacific have seen four more tropical storms than is normal to date with more than two months left in the hurricane season, said Matthew Rosencrans, lead hurricane season forecaster with NOAA’s National Weather Service.

From 1991 to 2020, there was an average of 15 named storms in the eastern Pacific per season, which runs from May 15 to Nov. 30.

But surpassing the yearly average in September? “That's a different story,” Rosencrans said.

What also sets this year’s El Nino-fueled storms apart is that three Pacific hurricanes have reached Category 5 strength, tying a record set in 2002, also during an El Nino, he said.

The most active season on record in the eastern Pacific was 1992, when there were 25 named storms, Rosencrans said. For the central Pacific, it was 14 in 2015.

In 2015 there were nine major hurricanes, of Category 3 or higher, in the eastern Pacific, but no reported deaths. Due to El Nino, forecasters said the eastern Pacific storms formed farther west and tracked more westward, remaining over the open ocean throughout their cycle.

During another strong El Nino in 1997, hundreds of people died when Hurricane Pauline tore across Mexico’s Pacific coast. That same year Tropical Storm Nora gave landlocked southwestern Arizona an unusual soaking. And a December storm in Southern California caused flooding that swept cars into a storm channel and prompted evacuations of some mobile home parks.

In 1998, El Nino was blamed for flooding in China that killed 4,150 people, most along the Yangtze River.

Hawaii finds itself in the crosshairs again

Hawaii has felt the wrath of two hurricanes over the past month. Lala in August and Lowell in early September combined to destroy or damage more than 510 homes and cause $168 million in damage to public infrastructure. Lala also caused $21.5 million in damage to 38 schools.

Nolo, which strengthened to a hurricane Thursday night, is expected to make it three. Forecasters say the storm could drop rainfall amounts on Hawaii that are measured in feet, not inches.

On top of that, heavy rains in March caused the worst flooding to hit Hawaii in two decades. That was followed in May by a magnitude-6.0 earthquake, prompting Gov. Josh Green to remark that this year has been “unlike anything I can recall.”

Two hurricanes came within 200 miles (320 kilometers) of Hawaii in 1957, but that did not happen again for more than a half century. Then it occurred in 2014, 2016 and 2018 before this year's predicted trifecta.

Meteorologists often worry about “preparedness fatigue,” when communities gear up for storms that never arrive or fall short of their potential strength. But John Bravender, a weather service warning coordination meteorologist, said 2026 has yielded a different type of weariness in Hawaii.

“The fact that we’ve had these damaging impacts that keep happening, and as we’re recovering from them, we have to get ready for the next event — that’s a new one that really drains the resources and leads to this overall sense that this is a very busy hurricane season for us,” he said.

Residents understand the risks and are getting more accustomed to preparing.

“I think community members realize how dangerous the weather can be, how important it is for them to be self-sufficient, have food, water and also look out for their neighbors,” Bravender said.

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Associated Press writer Gabriela Aoun Angueira contributed to this report.

Leo is spending four intense days in Paris, the Catholic shrine at Lourdes and the northeastern city of Metz. He's hoping to draw attention to his appeals for peace at a time of war, and for greater reflection as artificial intelligence questions the very essence of what it means to be human.

Church bells across France are expected to toll at 10 a.m. Friday, when Leo’s charter flight lands at Paris’ Orly airport, and upward of a million people are expected to turn out to see him. The welcome has underscored the surprising level of interest in Leo’s visit, the first by a pope in 18 years.

Leo was to meet with President Emmanuel Macron at the airport upon arrival and then again at the Élysée Palace. During his busiest day of the trip, Leo was to then deliver a speech at UNESCO headquarters, celebrate vespers at the newly reopened Notre-Dame cathedral and then preside over a massive youth vigil at the Paris stadium Friday night.

A capstone visit as Macron's term ends

For Macron, who is barred from seeking a third term in May elections, hosting the American pope is something of a capstone, after Pope Francis refused repeatedly to make a proper state visit to France during his 12-year pontificate.

“For a president of the republic as Macron, who is at the end of his mandate, it can be important to be aside the pope and to capture a part of his popularity. It’s not new,” said Charles Mercier, director of history and sociology of Catholicism studies at Paris EPHE university.

With seven months left in his term, Macron’s approval ratings are near record lows, driven by anger over the rising cost of living and criticism of France’s growing debt and deficit and deteriorating public services. Macron’s office said Friday’s meeting with Leo will provide an opportunity to discuss global challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence, along with European and international affairs. The talks also are expected to address end-of-life care and the protection of children.

Leo to appeal to loftier questions about life

Leo seems keen to emphasize Europe’s Christian roots and try to push the church’s message about the value and dignity of human life in a country where the right to abortion was enshrined in the Constitution in 2024 and where lawmakers recently gave final approval to a bill allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication.

The French Catholic hierarchy strongly opposed the measures, in keeping with Catholic teaching that human life must be protected and defended from conception until natural death. But the French hierarchy has lost much of its influence amid the secularizing trends at play across Western Europe as well as a credibility crisis stemming from France’s reckoning with its legacy of clergy sexual abuse.

France’s distinctive model of secularism, known as laïcité and enshrined in its Constitution, guarantees the freedom to believe or not to believe, as well as the freedom to practice a religion as long as it doesn't disturb public order. It also requires the state to remain neutral toward all religions.

Key rules have been defined by a historic 1905 law, primarily intended to distance the state from the then-powerful influence of the Catholic Church.

Leo, whose paternal ancestors were French, isn’t expected to scold the French over the abortion and end-of-life legislation. Rather, he's expected to summon them to a fundamental, higher-altitude consideration about what it means to be human today, said the Vatican’s editorial director Andrea Tornielli.

“The pope is not landing in the City of Light to condemn anyone, nor to barge into the French political debate, which is as polarized as that of every other European country,” Tornielli wrote in Vatican News. “He comes as a shepherd to meet a people, their history, and their culture.”

High security reminiscent of Olympics

Olympic-level security measures were being put in place, including mounted police, bomb disposal experts, anti-drone measures and counter-terrorism measures, said Paris police prefecture spokesperson Hélène Denéchère.

In Paris alone, plans called for 14,000 police officers, gendarmes, and military personnel and 2,500 firefighters on Friday. On Saturday, when Leo celebrates Mass at the central Place de la Concorde, the numbers are only slightly lower.

“We are implementing a system similar to what was in place during the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which means a protective perimeter around which other security perimeters will be added,” Denéchère said.

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Visual journalist Jeffrey Schaeffer contributed from Paris.

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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.

Across the world, communities are dedicating Friday to honoring the beloved country singer. The day is falling on Sept. 25, a wink at Parton’s hit song “9 to 5.”

Parton, who died of cancer last month at age 80, built an impressive legacy over the decades as a singer-songwriter, actor, philanthropist and entrepreneur — leaving big and small ways to honor the icon.

So whether it’s dusting off your rhinestones, donating a book or throwing back a pink-themed cocktail, here’s how you can celebrate Dolly Parton Day.

Join a celebration

In the U.S., a growing number of state and local leaders are establishing Sept. 25 as an annual Dolly Parton Day from California to the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The proclamations highlight Parton’s successful career and stress her lifelong commitment to promoting literacy.

In Nashville — where Parton had lived since she was 18 — the city will honor the singer with pink lights and posters and give away stickers, buttons and bookmarks. Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines announced that it would hold a Parton-inspired karaoke Friday for travelers and employees. Tennessee state and local officials are currently in the process of renaming the airport after Parto n.

“Dolly Parton’s impact on Nashville will be felt for generations, through the music she has given us, the people she has helped and the example she continues to set,” said Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell in a statement. “She has shown us that caring for a community means showing up for one another.”

Over in New Orleans, the marching group Krewe of Dolly will lead a parade through the city’s French Quarter to honor Parton.

And in San Francisco, organizers are planning a public event in the heart of the city, called “Dolly Day,” designed to be a celebration of life that will include “singing loud, dressing up, and being a little kinder than usual in her honor.”

Donate a book to Imagination Library

For those chained to their actual 9 to 5 job on Friday, sneaking away for an event may be challenging. Instead, you can channel Parton’s giving spirit.

Parton made it her mission to improve literacy through her Imagination Library book giveaway program. The program has quickly expanded, resulting in more than a million books sent out each month to children in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.

The Imagination Library is encouraging the public to give directly to their local Imagination Library Partner on Dolly Parton Day, or help establish a new program in their community.

Don’t know where to start? The Dollywood Foundation is directing people to ImaginationLibrary.com, where a ZIP code search can find nearby programs.

“For Dolly, giving was always personal and from her heart,” said Jeff Conyers, president of The Dollywood Foundation, in a statement. “She believed deeply in helping people, especially children, and she always felt if you are in a position to help, you should help.”

Get inspired by Parton's style and songs

The Queen of Country was known for her over-the-top style, proudly wearing sequins with big hair and plenty of fringe in her signature color pink.

Parton especially adored butterflies, singing that “love is like a butterfly, as soft and gentle as a sigh.”

Dig into your closet and throw on something extra flashy, shiny or sparkly. Feeling adventurous? Some tattoo artists are offering Dolly-inspired tattoos on Friday, but a butterfly clip will also work.

Of course, there's no easier way to celebrate Parton than by playing one of her many, many albums throughout the day.

Known for her hits “9 to 5,” “Jolene,” and “I Will Always Love You,” Parton's catalog runs deep, and there's room to discover new favorites.

It was Parton’s wish that her songs would have a lasting impact, and that in turn, she would be remembered for trying to make the world a better place.

“I hope that a lot of my songs may last that long. And I hope I’ll be remembered as somebody that tried to do some good in the world and left, you know, a few good things,” she told The Associated Press in 2024.

Even if a school policy was written without overt racial bias, it might unfairly hurt one group of students over another, the understanding went. The concept is known as systemic racism, and Republican and Democratic administrations agreed: Schools and universities that received federal funding had an obligation to address it.

Under President Donald Trump's administration, that's no longer the case. One by one, the administration has limited the remedies schools can use to address systemic racial injustice.

This summer, the Education Department rescinded a regulation that allowed schools to gauge potential discrimination by comparing outcomes across races, such as the racial breakdown of students in advanced classes. Then, it issued a letter to American schools, emphasizing it's illegal to consider race when crafting discipline policies — even if one particular racial group ends up suspended or expelled more often.

At the same time, Trump's Justice Department has stepped away from many school desegregation cases. In a news release Thursday, the department boasted of successfully working through the courts to close more than 50 desegregation cases since Trump took office, with motions to dismiss in the works in many other cases. Previous administrations had used these federal court cases to hold schools accountable when students of color had worse outcomes than white students — high rates of discipline, worse school facilities or reduced access to extracurriculars and advanced coursework.

While Trump's first administration deprioritized enforcing racial justice, his current administration has gone further — threatening to punish schools for any consideration of race in their policies and practices.

To the administration, the practice of examining different outcomes for particular groups of students, sometimes known as “disparate impact,” was itself a form of racial discrimination.

“The Obama and Biden Administrations weaponized disparate impact by effectively coercing schools to discipline students differently based on race in order to engineer equitable disciplinary outcomes across racial groups,” Education Department spokesperson Sabin Sidney said. "These practices unfortunately led to unsafe classrooms and undermined student learning."

Critics worry the administration's actions will make it easier to get away with racial discrimination.

“When they talk about returning it to the states and making America great again, they’re talking about returning to how it was before 1954,” when school segregation was legal, said U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va.

School discipline data had offered insights on discrimination

Since Trump's return to office, the administration has set its sights on school discipline.

In May 2025, the president signed an executive order directing federal agencies to stop looking for “ disparate impact," or policies that appear neutral but result in outsized impact to one group over another. Those policies had been examined for possible discrimination, regardless of their intent.

In education, that analysis had most often been applied to school discipline — especially to removing students from the classroom, such as through suspensions, expulsions and referrals to law enforcement.

Federal and state data have long shown students of color, particularly Black students, are more likely than their peers to be pulled from the classroom for similar infractions. Research shows that students who are suspended are more likely to become disengaged from school and to have worse academic outcomes.

In 2021, the Education Department began investigating a complaint alleging Black male students with disabilities in Denver Public Schools were being disproportionately pushed out of the classroom. Progress on the case halted after Trump took office in 2025.

Advocates had also filed the complaint with state authorities, who found violations of civil rights laws and ordered the district to mandate new training. Meanwhile, families have heard nothing from the federal Education Department.

The silence gives school districts permission to continue with business as usual, said Pam Bisceglia, executive director of Advocacy Denver, which filed the complaints.

“I’d like to say that we have overcome and that marginalized communities are enjoying equal protections. We see that, in fact, that isn’t true,” she said.

Trump's administration has changed which cases are investigated

Under Trump's first administration, the Education Department continued to investigate and resolve cases of racial discrimination against minority students.

In 2018, the Education Department reached a settlement agreement with Durham Public Schools in North Carolina, after examining whether the district's discipline policies, or their effects, were racially discriminatory. The investigation found Black students were disproportionately given out-of-school suspension — especially in instances involving subjective decisions on matters like disobedience.

For a time, Jovonia Lewis, a parent and former Durham school board member, constantly received calls about her son being kicked out of the classroom. She was told he couldn’t sit still. But the federal settlement agreement helped Black parents see their children's experiences were not occurring in isolation, Lewis said.

“We knew our kids were being treated differently, but this data gave us leverage,” she said.

The investigation had a significant impact in Durham, Lewis recalled. The district adopted a new student code of conduct and created an equity affairs office.

Under the Trump administration's new guidance, federal authorities are unlikely to take up similar cases.

“The federal government has chosen to close its eyes to that way of understanding discrimination,” said Catherine Lhamon, who oversaw education civil rights under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, both Democrats.

The impact of the administration's changes will outlast Trump's presidency, said Johnathan Smith, a former attorney in the civil rights division at the Justice Department and a managing director at the National Center for Youth Law. Once the administration changes rules and regulations, future efforts to investigate civil rights could be held up in court.

“They're building an infrastructure that says, ‘Not only are we taking down these structures, but we are building in roadblocks to make it very difficult for any future administration to change course,’” Smith said.

Decades-old school desegregation cases are being closed

Across the South, the Justice Department has taken an interest in closing cases of court-mandated school desegregation, arguing the decades-old orders are outdated. But civil rights attorneys say the impact of segregation continues to be felt today.

Courts have long maintained the passage of time is not enough to rule that discrimination has passed, said Kelly Gardner, deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. To be released from a desegregation order, schools have had to show that they have removed the lingering effects of segregation to the extent possible. That can involve assessing extracurricular offerings, funding levels and the state of school facilities.

Now, the Justice Department is intervening to close cases, often without taking account of those considerations, Gardner said.

In January, a federal court granted a request from the Justice Department and the DeSoto Parish School Board in Louisiana to release the small district from its desegregation order. In the order, the district had allowed students to transfer out of racially isolated schools, with transportation provided. As recently as 2024, the order was used to ensure those students had equal access to extracurriculars in their new schools.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, praised the court decision for freeing the district from federal oversight.

“After 60 years of litigation and federal control, the elected members of the DeSoto Parish School Board now have the full powers of their office, as our Constitution has always intended,” Murrill wrote in a social media post at the time.

A few months after the order was lifted, the school district amended its policies. The district would no longer accept new applications for transfers, and students in the transfer program would have to return to their zoned schools once they finished the highest grade at their current school.

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

Xi is expected to depart Washington after touring the nation's vault of records, where the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are held. The two leaders have made a show of working to preserve harmony between the world's two largest economies, though there were no major breakthroughs on issues such as trade or the safety of artificial intelligence.

The visit comes as the U.S. celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, and Trump said Thursday that he wanted to show Xi “some of the greatest treasures of that proud history.”

The Archives has a special exhibit marking the sesquicentennial, titled “The American Story,” which highlights the country’s accomplishments and advances, along with images depicting its darker moments.

Trump showed Xi one copy of the Declaration of Independence on Thursday — a wall-mounted copy he keeps in the Oval Office.

The U.S. president also said he wanted to show Xi artifacts about the relationship between the two countries. “Just as our ancestors reached across the ocean centuries ago to trade, to learn, and to build a better world, our two countries do really the same thing, and we’re very proud of it,” he said.

Xi's day will begin at the White House, where Trump and first lady Melania Trump will host the Chinese leader and his wife, Peng Liyuan, for tea.

The Trumps feted their guests Thursday night with a black-tie state dinner attended by technology industry titans. Earlier in the day, Trump gave Xi a personal tour of his White House flourishes, including a gallery wall of presidents and a new 100-foot-long (30-meter) granite helicopter landing pad — and pointed out his ballroom, still under construction. Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan toured the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.

The two leaders also met behind closed doors for 90 minutes on Thursday, during which they discussed issues such as the Middle East, Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula, according to the official Chinese government readout of the meeting. The White House has not yet provided any information about the private talks.

The crash occurred on Thursday (Sept. 24) at about 7:14 p.m. near Warren Road and Burgundy Street, according to the Canton Police Department.

Police said a 33-year-old Ann Arbor woman was driving a 2013 red Hyundai Elantra west on Warren Road when the vehicle struck the pedestrian as she crossed the roadway.

Officials said the pedestrian was taken to a local hospital for medical treatment.

Police did not release information about her condition.

The Canton Police Department’s Accident Investigation Team responded to the scene and is investigating the crash.

Police said alcohol and drugs do not appear to have been factors in the crash.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Nolo became a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday night and was expected to strengthen while turning toward the Big Island, the National Hurricane Center said. Forecasters warned that the Big Island could see rainfall totals of 15 to 30 inches (38 to 76 centimeters), with higher amounts possible through Saturday. The island of Maui also could be hit with life-threatening floods, the hurricane center said.

Meanwhile, heavy rains from powerful Hurricane Polo could cause torrential flooding and landslides in Mexico, according to the U.S. hurricane center. In the port city of Lázaro Cárdenas, seawater already swept through homes Thursday and left wooden planks and furniture strewn on the streets.

Polo has fluctuated between Category 4 and 5, both major-hurricane strength. It was expected to regain Category 5 status on Friday, then gradually weaken Friday night and Saturday, the hurricane center said.

After skirting Mexico's coast, Polo was expected to move farther out to sea Thursday night and Friday before hooking back toward land to the north on Saturday.

The series of powerful storms comes as the weather phenomenon El Niño prompts major environmental shifts across the world, fueling drought in some areas and flooding in others. El Niño traditionally dampens the Atlantic hurricane season, while it tends to rev up tropical cyclone activity in the Pacific with moist air and little wind shear.

Hawaii has been battered this year by major flooding in the spring, an earthquake and two other hurricanes since mid-August.

“In my 20 years of experience here, I’ve never seen three hurricane watches for the islands in the same year,” said John Bravender of the National Weather Service in Honolulu.

Polo could trigger flooding and mudslides in Mexico

Mexican authorities were opening shelters and clearing people from beaches, while coastal residents tried to protect businesses from getting swept away. People in high-risk areas were being evacuated, though authorities didn’t immediately say how many.

Much of the worry from locals comes from hurricanes in past years that devastated cities along the Pacific coast. Hurricane Otis in 2023 unexpectedly plunged Acapulco into turmoil for weeks.

“So many people said it wouldn’t happen and then it did. After that, you’re left on edge,” said Gonzalo Ramírez, a bartender in the city.

Polo posed the biggest threat to Guerrero and Michoacán, neighboring states in southwest Mexico that share a long coastline scattered with small ports, tourist towns and fishing villages. Much of the area is marked by poverty, and residents routinely complain they are left to fend for themselves during natural disasters.

Mexican authorities have deployed 15,000 security personnel across the coast and suspended schools.

In Lázaro Cárdenas, a port city in Michoacán that was hit with high surf, locals and government officials were clearing out piles of wooden planks from a number of destroyed ramadas and shoveling thick mud coating much of the town.

Alicia Contreras said the walls and roof of her restaurant had been severely damaged by 15-foot (4.5-meter) waves. As officers and family helped pick through the damaged house, Contreras worried how she would economically recover.

“This is huge because we have no other source of income. Now we’re just surviving,” Contreras said.

Nolo could flood parts of Hawaii still recovering from other storms

While the Big Island is expected to bear the brunt of Nolo, its full path remains uncertain, according to Bravender, the weather service's warning coordination meteorologist in Hawaii.

Most concerning, he said Thursday, is that the heaviest rain is likely to fall over the same southeastern region of the Big Island hit in August by Hurricane Lala and where grounds are still wet from additional precipitation.

“There are several communities that were isolated, flooded, roads that were washed out,” he said. “It’s that same area that is most under threat,” Bravender said.

Hawaii officials told residents to put together emergency kits and the governor issued an emergency proclamation, activating more than 230 Hawaii National Guard members. Schools were closed for the rest of the week.

Hawaiian Electric, the state’s primary utility, said crews that had been helping restore power in Kauai after this month’s Hurricane Lowell would return to Oahu, Maui and the Big Island in preparation for the coming storm.

Odalys and Fay are not near land

A third storm in the Pacific, Hurricane Odalys, was centered far from land, roughly 1,110 miles (1,785 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

In the northern Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Fay re-formed early Thursday, the U.S. hurricane center said. It was nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) west-southwest of the Azores.

Tropical Storm Gonzalo formed in the Atlantic Ocean late Thursday, about 190 miles (306 kilometers) southeast of the Cape Verde islands off the coast of West Africa. The U.S. hurricane center said that if it stays on its current track, the storm will pass near or over portions of the islands on Friday.

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Aoun Angueira reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Jeriel Vargas Ambriz in Lázaro Cárdena, Mexico, contributed.

The Houthis — who have controlled Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and much of the country's north for over a decade — stormed down Yemen's coast this month and seized the crucial port city of Mokha and key Red Sea islands. That gives them better surveillance of ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, at the sea's southern end. About 12% of the world’s trade usually passes through the waterway.

The rebels have declared a blockade on Saudi shipping. While asserting there's no other threat to commercial shipping on the Red Sea, they have warned other nations not to get involved.

But the vice president of the internationally recognized government council urged world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly not to trust the Houthis' assurances — and to see a bigger picture in the strife around the strait.

“The Houthi militias' use of the safety of navigation as a tool for blackmail threatens not only Yemen. It is taking hostage the entire global economy,” said the vice president, Abdullah Abdulkader al Alimi-Bawzer.

Yemeni VP says weapons, technology should be kept from rebels' hands

Arguing that protecting the strait “is the responsibility of every economy that depends on secure supply chains, energy security and freedom of navigation,” he urged the international community to keep weapons and technology from getting into the rebels' hands.

For years, the U.N. Security Council has imposed an arms embargo on the Houthis and an asset freeze and travel ban on their leaders and top officials.

Iran denies arming the Houthis, but smuggled Iranian weapons and parts have been seized from numerous shipments bound for Yemen, and a report by U.N. experts in 2024 documented extensive military ties between the Houthis, Iran and its other allies. Al Alimi-Bawzer contended Thursday that the rebels wouldn't have been able to maintain their position for a dozen years without Iranian weapons, expertise and military technologies.

The Houthis claimed Thursday to have fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia’s southwestern Jazan province. A Saudi military spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, said the kingdom intercepted six ballistic missiles targeting its Red Sea port of Yanbu and the southwestern city of Taif, blaming the Houthis.

His statement followed alerts by Saudi civil defense authorities, who later noted the danger had passed.

Fighting risks full-scale return to civil war

In Yemen, the latest fighting risks a full-scale return to the civil war that killed more than 150,000 people and forced millions from their homes. Already, nearly 130,000 people have been newly displaced and hundreds killed, and a humanitarian crisis is deepening in the Arab world’s poorest country.

The fighting near the crucial Red Sea shipping corridor and the Houthis' pursuit of a blockade of Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, also have worried global markets. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait has become all the more crucial since Iran has asserted control over the even busier Strait of Hormuz, off its coast, since the U.S. and Israel attacked the Islamic Republic in February.

After the Houthis overran Sanaa and northern parts of Yemen in 2014, Saudi Arabia formed a military coalition to intervene on behalf of the Yemeni government. But the fighting wore on, and the Houthis endured.

A truce took hold in 2022. But after the Israel-Hamas war began the next year, the Houthis began attacking Red Sea shipping. The attacks continued until a U.S. bombing campaign in 2025.

Yemeni official thanks Saudis and US

On Thursday, Al Alimi-Bawzer thanked the Saudis and hailed the U.S. for having shown a “decisive approach.”

The Saudis have recently again sought military support from allies, but the U.S. hasn't renewed military involvement. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said repeatedly that the U.S. will fulfill its defense commitments to Saudi Arabia but has not specified how.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told reporters at the U.N. on Thursday that his country was “continuing to work with our partners in the U.S. to address the issue of this conflict.”

Despite the Houthis’ latest advances, he suggested his country wasn’t worried about a Houthi takeover in Yemen's south. The Yemeni government, he said, “is very capable of defending the territory it controls."

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Anna reported from Jerusalem and Khaled from Cairo. Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed from the United Nations.

Temperatures will drop through the 50s and into the 40s overnight, with the chilliest air near the I-69 corridor and in the Thumb.

Some communities outside Metro Detroit will wake up in the lower 40s Friday, and a few rural and usually cool spots may reach the upper 30s. It is a good night to take a jacket if you will be out late.

Friday

Friday starts with sunshine, but clouds will become more noticeable during the afternoon and evening.

That may keep temperatures a few degrees below Thursday’s levels, with highs generally in the mid- to upper 60s.

The clouds should not bring more than a change of scenery. The forecast remains dry.

That is welcome news for a weekend packed with sports. The Tigers host the Pittsburgh Pirates at Comerica Park at 6:40 p.m. Friday.

Fans arriving early can expect a comfortable start, though it will feel cooler by the later innings.

Friday night’s high school football games will also have classic sweatshirt weather, with temperatures falling through the 50s.

Saturday

Saturday offers plenty of choices for fans.

The Tigers and Pirates play again at 1:10 p.m. in Detroit.

Michigan hosts Iowa in Ann Arbor at 3:30 p.m., and Michigan State welcomes Nebraska to East Lansing at 5 p.m. Highs should reach the upper 60s to around 70 degrees under mostly sunny skies.

It is a favorable forecast for tailgates and afternoon games, but fans staying into the evening will want another layer as temperatures fall.

Sunday

Sunday brings a busy afternoon downtown.

The Lions host the New York Jets at Ford Field at 1 p.m., while the Tigers close their series with the Pirates at Comerica Park at 3:10 p.m.

Expect comfortable conditions for the walk to either venue and for outdoor tailgating.

Skies may be partly cloudy, with highs in the upper 60s to lower 70s.

Workweek

The dry pattern should hold Monday and Tuesday, with seasonable afternoons and cool nights.

The next meaningful opportunity for showers arrives Wednesday into Thursday as a weather system approaches the Great Lakes.

The timing and coverage will become clearer over the next several days, but there is little sign of rain interfering with this weekend’s local plans.

National weather

Elsewhere in the country, the weather story is far less quiet.

A developing coastal storm is expected to bring wind and heavy rain to parts of the Northeast and New England this weekend, with coastal flooding and rough surf possible.

Boston’s forecast, for example, calls for strengthening northeast winds Friday night and periods of heavy rain Saturday.

Farther west, monsoonal moisture is fueling thunderstorms across parts of the Southwest, where intense downpours can quickly flood washes, roads and other low-lying areas.

That distant weather is not expected to interrupt Southeast Michigan’s run of cool mornings, pleasant afternoons and mostly dry weekend games.

Share your weather photos with Local 4 at MIPics.

But rather than letting the condition define her, she is using her experience to help other families and raise awareness.

Little was diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, also known as CMT, when she was three years old.

“I was diagnosed at three years old, and ever since then, it’s kind of always been a part of my life,” Little said.

CMT is a hereditary neuromuscular disorder caused by genetic mutations that affect the nervous system.

The condition can affect the hands, feet, and legs and can cause problems with walking and muscle strength.

For Little, it has also meant dealing with unwanted attention.

“As I’ve entered my teenage years, just the way I walk, a lot of people tend to notice and aren’t really considerate when it comes to them asking why I walk like that or why I do things differently,” Little said.

Her father, Matthew Little, said CMT affects several members of their family.

He said he and his son have relatively mild symptoms, while Ava experiences the disease more intensely.

“Everybody in our family has CMT type 1A, which is a very broad spectrum in how badly it affects you,” Matthew said. “My son and me have it very mild. Unfortunately, Ava suffers from it just a little bit more intensely.”

Rather than keep her struggles to herself, Ava has made raising awareness and supporting research part of her life.

“I just didn’t want to sit on the sidelines anymore. I wanted to help make a difference, as well as find a cure by trying my best to help get donations and help spread awareness for Charcot-Marie-Tooth,” Ava said.

Ava is the captain of a team called “Little But Mighty,” which is taking part in the annual Walk for CMT on Saturday, Sept. 26, at Hawk Island Park in Lansing.

Her involvement has made her father proud.

“Her attitude towards raising money for this, it makes me proud,” Matthew said. “To know that she wants to be so involved.”

Ava’s determination also earned her a Go-4-It Award from Local 4.

“I was very shocked. I was not thinking at all that I would receive this award, but it truly, it just made my day, and I’m incredibly honored to be receiving it,” she said.

Ava hopes her story will encourage other people with CMT and other disabilities not to let physical challenges prevent them from pursuing the things they want to do.

“There are just so many people with CMT that are just such positive and happy people,” Ava said. “Even though we might struggle physically, it doesn’t mean that we aren’t capable of doing anything that anyone else can do, and if anything, it makes us stronger.”

Ava said participating in the CMT walk has also helped her regain confidence and connect with other people who understand what she is going through.

“She said, ‘When I come back home, we will drink the tea made from Chinese flowers,’” said Oles Visich, Kalynychenko’s partner. He has now been waiting for news about her for a month, after she and thousands of others disappeared in catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-China border.

Her last known location was exiting China at a border post at 10:22 a.m. local time, 15 minutes before the flood.

Kalynychenko, 36, was part of a group of 56 people, mostly Ukrainians, who had traveled to Mount Kailash in Tibet for a spiritual retreat.

Their families' situation is a sign of how complex and time-consuming the process is of rescuing, recovering and identifying victims lost to the disaster. Given the number of missing, the process will likely take months.

They disappeared while heading from China to Nepal on their way home. Some relatives say they have received no information from authorities. The Chinese government has told at least two families that their relatives left Chinese territory before the flood struck, but they haven't been able to confirm whether they entered Nepal as Nepal's immigration complex and its records were destroyed in the floods.

Little information is reaching families

The floods killed more than 1,400 people and left more than 6,000 missing, most of them on the Nepali side of the border. Nepal has said that 636 foreign nationals remain missing, including 54 Ukrainians. China has reported 261 foreign nationals among the missing on its side, including one Ukrainian.

Families in Ukraine say most of them have not received any answers since realizing their relatives were among the missing.

“We only have the statistics that are being posted online — how many people have been found, how many are alive, how many are dead, and how many are still missing,” said Stanislav Solohub, whose brother and sister-in-law went missing on Aug. 25.

Nepal says it has recovered 1,451 bodies, but only 112 have been handed over to families so far.

The government said it has collected DNA samples from 2,035 relatives so far, but it has not disclosed how many victims have been identified.

Last messages were sent minutes before the floods began

The group, led by Irina Blonskaya, a spiritual teacher who often organized retreats, was returning from its journey home in China when the flood struck Aug. 26. Their plan was to travel by bus from the Tibet region to Kathmandu, where its members would board flights to their respective countries. The group’s last message was sent at 8:27 a.m. Nepal time, about 10 minutes before the mountain slope collapsed.

Many had not checked in with their loved ones that morning, owing to the time difference.

Authorities have said the were triggered when a section of ice and rock broke away from a Himalayan mountain slope, creating a fast-moving torrent of water, ice, mud and debris. It destroyed communities and Gyirong Port, a border crossing used by some pilgrims traveling to or returning from Mount Kailash.

‘Who is looking for them?’

Vladsylava Horlova’s mother, Elena, was traveling in the group as well. She initially found her mother’s name of the list of the missing from the Nepali government, but hasn't received any further information from the Nepali side. Later, the Chinese embassy confirmed her mother had left the country, and was not counted in China's list of missing people.

Horlova, a college student who is a refugee in Norway, worries her mother wasn't in either country when the flood struck. There’s a stretch of road between the Nepali immigration building and the Chinese one along the border, videos from travelers show.

“You think about what if someone appeared to be in a no man’s land or that they left China, but not physically, who’s looking for them?” she asked.

Horlova has attempted to contact organizations ranging from the Ukrainian embassy in China, to Norwegian police, and even the Red Cross. She, like the others, have submitted their DNA samples to police to help the search.

On the other side of the border, China has said that when the remains of foreigners are identified, it will notify their respective embassies, but the authorities have not given any details about how many identities have been confirmed so far.

People still have hope

Though it has been a month since the original disaster, some families are still holding on to hope.

Just days before Kalynychenko left for her travels, she organized a retreat for women in Ukraine whose partners were fighting on the front lines of the war, some of whom had not heard from their partners for two years.

Visich, her partner, sees the irony of his situation, but like others in the group, has chosen to stay positive. Visich, also a psychologist, wrote a support guide for others like himself, offering tips on mental health.

“Because for my Olenka, for example, the most important thing in our connection, that each other … needs to be happy,” Visich said.

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AP writer Binaj Gurubacharya in Kathmandu, Nepal and senior video producer Volodymr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed to this report.

The demonstrators represented a range of causes, from calls for religious autonomy and greater freedoms in Tibet, Hong Kong and the ethnic region of Xinjiang to demands to keep China out of self-governed Taiwan.

Protests against visiting Chinese leaders are nothing new — in 2006, a woman heckled Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao at a White House welcome ceremony — but Xi has become the focus of attacks for his tough approach to tightening control over Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other regions and the Chinese military's growing threats to Taiwan, which he says must come under Chinese rule.

Crowds gathered behind a fence along Lafayette Park, waving flags and holding signs. Loudspeakers carried their voices across the park to the White House’s North Portico, where an honor guard and a red carpet awaited guests attending the state dinner.

The crowd chanted, “Xi Jinping has got to go” and “Shame! Shame on Xi Jinping!” The chants grew louder throughout the ceremony.

Pro-China demonstrators also turned out in Washington. Around 200 supporters of Xi gathered outside the hotel where he was staying, waving Chinese and American flags and chanting, “Welcome, welcome, a warm welcome.” They had banners reading, “A warm welcome to Chairman Xi on his visit to the U.S.” and “Hello, Uncle Xi.”

Meanwhile, protesters of the Xi's government gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in the morning before marching through the city. By late afternoon, a few hundred people gathered at a park near the White House to “unwelcome” Xi.

Many waved Tibetan flags and called for a “Free Tibet.” Others carried flags bearing the Chinese words for “freedom” and “democracy,” along with signs reading, “Keep Taiwan Free” and “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” a slogan associated with Hong Kong’s mass protests in 2019.

Anjali Tenzin Sonn, 17, joined a mostly Tibetan group calling for a free Tibet outside the U.S. Capitol. She said she felt compelled to participate after growing up hearing stories about her mother fleeing Tibet on foot and her grandfather suffering as a political prisoner. She described the protest as “inspirational.”

“I hope Emperor Xi won’t remain in power. I hope he can give Chinese people real freedom — freedom of speech and religion,” said Zhang Na, a 31-year-old warehouse worker in Los Angeles who traveled to the same protest.

Zhang said she became weary of China’s prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns and flew to Ecuador three years ago before walking to the United States through the southern border.

Yang Fan, a 39-year-old Christian, attended with his wife and daughter and held a handwritten sign calling for “freedom of religion” and an “end to dictatorship.” He said he wanted to stand up for Christians in China and hoped Xi would release those imprisoned for their religious beliefs.

“I would like to see the liberation of Hong Kong and the complete restoration of its freedoms,” said Melody Calkins, 30, who spent much of her childhood in Hong Kong.

The August disaster “was not just a local tragedy. It was a warning to the world. And I ask you today: Have you really heard that warning?” Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah said at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday night. “Nearly three years ago, standing in the shadow of our Mount Everest, the secretary-general of the United Nations warned about humanity about the madness and impending climate disaster.”

“That cry from the rooftop of the world was not heard enough,” Shah said. “We in Nepal heard it. Our communities heard it. Scientists around the world heard it. They repeated it with evidence. But we, the political leaders, have been negligent to translate those warnings in action at the speed and scale that the vulnerable people require.”

International scientists have connected melting permafrost from climate — caused by burning coal, oil and gas — to the instability of the glacier, which partly collapsed and triggered a massive flood that has killed at least 1,400 people with even more still missing.

Shah said that Nepal contributed less than one-tenth of 1% of the heat-trapping gases behind climate change. About 99% of Nepal's electricity comes from hydropower, and many workers were trapped in tunnels by the flooding.

“We did not create this crisis, yet we are paying a colossal price for it,” said Shah, 36, a former rapper and engineer who is the youngest head of government to address the General Assembly this year. “Our glaciers are retreating, our mountain slopes are becoming unstable, our rivers are becoming less predictable, and every major disaster threatens to erase years of development.”

He said climate change ‘does not recognize borders’

In a black Dhaka topi, a traditional brimless Nepali hat, Shah spoke while wearing his signature dark sunglasses, which he uses for medical reasons. He said “the tragic consequences of a warming climate” tells the world that “climate change does not recognize borders. Glaciers and floods do not travel with stamps and passports.”

Subeksha Khadka, a humanitarian and former Miss Nepal International, in an online interview, praised Shah's speech and echoed the warning: "This time Nepal has been on the target, but it could be anyone. This is our story right now, and it can be anybody else’s tomorrow. So it’s time to act.”

Shah didn't ask for a specific amount in aid, but he called the international financial aid system inadequate and too bureaucratic. This included a loss and damage fund agreed upon a few years ago for poor nations hit by climate disasters not of their own making.

“Climate finance must not become another bureaucratic maze through which vulnerable countries spend years” maneuvering through when they need help. “When the house is burning, we do not ask a family to complete 50 forms. We act. This is what climate justice means.”

He exhorted the General Assembly to act on relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction — which are traditional international help concepts — but also “responsibility, reparation, resilience.” Reparation is a word and an issue that rankles industrial western nations like the United States, which is historically the world's biggest carbon emitter.

He says it's ‘not an isolated disaster’

Over the past 75 years, the United States has spewed about 1,500 times more carbon into the air than Nepal has, according to the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that track greenhouse gas emissions by countries. Historical emissions matter because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for more than a century trapping heat.

The U.S. this week announced $31 million in aid to Nepal for flood recovery, which bring America's total financial help up to $36 million. It's less than 1% of what they need.

“Preliminary assessments indicate that from recent disaster alone, Nepal has suffered loss of over $5 billion, nearly 15% of our GDP and a third of our annual budget," Shisir Khanal, Nepal's foreign minister, said Wednesday at the UN climate summit. "Thus for Nepal, this catastrophe is not merely a humanitarian emergency. It is a development emergency dismantling years of progress. It is a justice crisis exposing the inequities of global climate action and it is an existential crisis striking at the very survival of our communities and our future.”

“What happened in Nepal is not an isolated disaster but a preview of what awaits many vulnerable nations,” Khanal said.

Former United States Vice President Al Gore said in an interview that Nepal's disaster shows that the climate crisis “was getting worse much faster” than people can handle and foreshadows problems with melting glaciers that feed all of the great rivers of Asia, putting the water supply of 2 billion people at risk.

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Delgado reported from New York. Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report.

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

Attorneys representing the 18-year-old Black college student's family have called for transparency, asking that the grand jury investigative materials and the official autopsy report be publicly released. Crump and his team discussed the contents of the cellphone analysis, but they did not release a full report of all the messages sent and received in the days leading up to and the day of Wells' death.

The grand jury had access to that information, including 282 pages of Snapchat conversations, when it convened last week, according to the panel's report and Crump. Crump said the forensic examiner was able to track messages received and sent and tie them to the location of Wells' phone from the day before he went missing all the way up to when his family got the phone back.

“The messaging, as I said, was very telling … some of his own friends were concerned about (how) people on Horn Island can be racist,” Crump said Thursday.

Wells' family and their legal team have slammed the grand jury report and have been working to keep the investigation open and active. They've asked for federal authorities to look into the events surrounding Wells' death. His body was found two days after he went with a group of mostly white friends on a boat trip to a barrier island for a July 4 party.

The high-profile death in a Deep South state with a history of racial tension has sparked rampant speculation and suspicion. State and local officials and several of Wells' white friends who had become the target of that speculation had hoped that the grand jury report would quell critics.

Wells' parents and lawyers express suspicions

Wells’ parents and their lawyers voiced suspicions after Wells’ friends left the island without him, saying he wanted to stay behind and talk to a girl. Wells’ phone was on the boat that took him to the island, and his family and their attorneys have expressed doubt that he would choose to stay behind without his phone.

Crump said the last text message sent by Wells was July 3 around 8:30 p.m., but that was not unusual given that he and many teenagers communicate primarily on social media, including Snapchat and Instagram.

Andrew Garrett, the forensic examiner who extracted the contents of Wells' phone, said the GPS and other phone data showed that Wells had opened it with his face while it was on the boat around 2:17 p.m. It was then locked and continued to receive messages as it traveled on the boat, then by car and eventually was picked up by his family.

Garrett also said at the news conference Thursday that some snap messages had been deleted. He did not specify whether the senders deleted those messages on their own phones, but he made clear that he could not ascribe intent to those deletions. There was no evidence presented that suggested someone had unlocked Wells' phone after it left the island and before the family got it back.

The Associated Press sent a message to Crump's team seeking clarification Thursday.

A lawyer who represents some of Wells’ friends who have been the subject of speculation and online hate said it was unclear what new information the cellphone report revealed, reiterating that none of his clients were on the boat carrying Wells’ phone.

“They never had the phone,” attorney Edward Paltzik said of his clients.

The grand jury findings attempt to explicitly clear the friends who left the island without Wells from any wrongdoing, including trying to squash several online rumors.

In a statement released after Crump's Thursday news conference, District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath stood by the investigation and said: “Again, if the Crump team genuinely has new information or evidence that Nolan Wells was murdered they should stop playing games and immediately provide it to me.”

Lawyers question drowning determination

The grand jury report said the panel found Wells' death to be “consistent with drowning” and found that he had not been in a fight or altercation while on the island.

Crump and Wells' parents questioned how the panel could determine Wells likely drowned, when both the official and independent autopsies said the cause of death could not be determined.

The state's official autopsy report, which Crump's team received late Wednesday, also said Wells' airways and stomach were empty, which they said raised questions about the grand jury's finding.

“What this means is that there is no water in the stomach, there is no water in the lungs and there is no water in the throat,” Wells' family attorney Liza Park said.

Both the official and independent autopsies noted fresh bruising on Wells' head. A witness testified to the grand jury that he saw Wells slip awkwardly off the side of a boat around 3:30 p.m. on July 4, but that Wells continued to socialize after the fall and didn’t appear injured, the report said. The panel said it couldn’t determine whether the fall caused the bruising, but noted it was not a fatal injury.

Premier Giorgia Meloni’s conservative government said the package is aimed at strengthening integration through language learning and has drawn support from right-wing allies.

Opponents including some educators, unions and opposition parties warn that new rules could force students to attend schools far from their neighborhoods, while critics accuse the government of turning immigration into a political issue.

With elections possible as early as next spring, analysts say the measures allow the premier to reassert her credentials on issues central to her conservative base, even though their impact is likely to be limited and significant questions remain about how they would be enforced.

Under the plan, a limit of 30% of foreign students lacking sufficient Italian proficiency would be allowed in any individual classroom.

The government decree goes into effect immediately but needs to be endorsed within 60 days in parliament, where Meloni's coalition commands a majority.

Meloni wrote on social media that they are “common-sense measures that do not divide but help foster genuine integration, avoiding ‘ghetto’ classrooms and giving all students equal opportunities.”

The decree comes as Meloni faces mounting pressure on her right flank from a new hard-line challenger, retired army Gen. Roberto Vannacci, who has been seeking to capitalize on voter concerns over immigration and national identity.

A limited number of classrooms are affected

Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said local school authorities will coordinate student placements to avoid concentrations of non-Italian-speaking pupils, while schools unable to comply would be eligible for exemptions and additional language-support funding.

The minister says it would affect around 1,000 classrooms, about 0.3% of the total nationwide, and primarily those with high concentrations of recently arrived students with little or no Italian-language proficiency.

School principals questioned how the measure could work in areas with large migrant populations.

“From an educational perspective, the issue is well-founded and valid, but it’s difficult to turn it into a practical solution,” said Antonello Giannelli, president of the National Association of Principals.

"We have situations in which there is a district, a neighborhood that is mainly inhabited by immigrants and maybe there is only one school. So, since these are children, presumably young children in primary school, it is evident that they will hardly be able to go kilometers from their home,” Giannelli added.

Teachers’ unions criticized what they called a lack of both consultation and resources for the measure. They argued that the government’s 14-million-euro ($16 million) funding package would not be enough to hire specialized language teachers and cultural mediators needed to support students.

“Differences mean opportunities, and as with every opportunity one must be able to catch it. In most cases they (foreign students) allow the class to enrich their view of the world,” said Giovanni Castagno, a 52-year-old primary school teacher in central Rome.

According to Education Ministry data, students without Italian citizenship accounted for 11.2% of Italy’s school population in the 2022-23 academic year, while classes with more than 30% foreign students represented 7.6% of the total.

Foreign students who were born in the country would be exempt from the cap, along with those who attended Italian preschool or have already progressed through the school system.

Burqas and niqabs banned from schools

The decree also bans burqas and niqabs in schools while continuing to allow hijabs.

The measure is narrower than restrictions adopted in some other European countries.

France banned full-face veils in public spaces in 2011, citing public security concerns, despite the small number of women affected. France also prohibits students from wearing conspicuous religious symbols, including Islamic headscarves, in public schools under its strict secularism doctrine.

Critics in Italy said the provision addresses a phenomenon rarely seen in Italian classrooms. Educators noted that while headscarves are common among some Muslim students, full-face veils are seldom seen in schools, and they argued that the provision risks becoming a symbolic political issue rather than an educational one.

Opposition parties also said the 30% threshold largely mirrors guidance already introduced by the Education Ministry in 2010, noting the government was repackaging an existing policy rather than investing in struggling schools. Center-left leader Elly Schlein accused the government of using schools to advance a political message on migration.

Valditara, the education minister, rejected those criticisms, saying the goal is integration through language acquisition and stronger educational support.

Parents asked to attend Italian-language courses

The decree provides additional teaching resources for schools where newly arrived foreign students exceed 20% of enrollment and additional language-learning funds for schools exceeding the 30% threshold.

It also would require some parents of foreign students to attend Italian-language courses when language barriers within families contribute to educational or behavioral difficulties.

Schools would refer eligible families to social services, which could enroll them in a tailored support program through adult education centers. Parents who fail to attend the courses could face fines ranging from 200 to 1,000 euros, although exemptions are included for those with certified age-related, medical or disability-related barriers to language learning.

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AP video journalist Paolo Santalucia in Rome contributed to this report.

Texas will be the third stop for the franchise. The team moved to Connecticut in 2003 from Orlando. The Sun made four trips to the WNBA Finals and hosted a record four All-Star Games, and Connecticut was the first team to turn a profit in the league's history. The team, which was purchased for $10 million, was sold for $300 million.

“It’s been an emotional week,” team president Jen Rizzotti told The Associated Press. “The silver lining of the chapter closing is it forces you to look at what this franchise has meant for over two decades and make sure the story is told and the legacy lasts forever.”

The franchise is moving to the home of the former Comets, who won the first four WNBA titles. Its time in Connecticut ended Thursday against Toronto in the regular-season finale. The Sun went out a winner, beating the Tempo 95-81.

Rizzotti will move to Houston with the team as president of basketball operations. She said that 75-80% of the front office staff will also make the move.

“It’s exciting to celebrate the past while also being emotional that it’s ending,” she said. “Thursday is a celebration of our fans with fan appreciation night. One game isn’t enough to show the appreciation of how much they poured into the franchise for 24 years.”

Why are the Sun moving?

The WNBA seems to have outgrown the Sun, with the new collective bargaining agreement demanding standard amenities for all teams that include state-of-the-art practice facilities.

The Mohegan Tribe, which owns the franchise, sold the team to Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta for $300 million.

The Sun had an offer for $325 million from a group led by Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca that would have moved the franchise to Boston. The WNBA basically blocked that deal by saying that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams.”

Now the franchise is becoming the first to relocate since San Antonio moved to Las Vegas in 2017.

“It’s sad,” former Sun CEO Mitchell Etess said in a phone interview. “I put a lot into it and to see it go is sad. It did confirm that it was a good business decision to bring it there in the first place. If I was still CEO I’d recommend we sell it for that much profit.”

Being in the smallest market in the WNBA led to difficulties for the franchise to attract top free agents. Over the past two years the team has gone from being a WNBA Finals contender to rebuilding mode.

Sun honored their past this season

Throughout the season, Connecticut honored some of the franchise's iconic players, including Jonquel Jones, Jasmine Thomas, Alyssa Thomas, Tina Charles along with coaches Curt Miller and Mike Thibault. The group joined other Connecticut standouts — Margo Dydek, Katie Douglas, Nykesha Sales, Taj McWilliams-Franklin, Lindsay Whalen and Asjha Jones — in the rafters at the arena.

Thibault was the last of the group to be honored as Connecticut hosted the event after last Sunday's game against Minnesota. Whalen, Charles and McWilliams-Franklin were in attendance for that contest as well as dozens of other former employees and front office staffers.

They told stories and stayed well after the game reminiscing about the franchise. Rizzotti expected a similar celebration after Thursday's finale.

“I know we’re going really blow the game out,” she said. “Lot of things we’re giving away, postgame mingles and autograph opportunities. When everybody leaves we’ll just pop Champagne on the court for the last time. I'm proud of what we built.”

Connecticut was ‘icebreaker’ with gambling partnership

Etess remembers trying to sell NBA Commissioner David Stern on moving a franchise to the Mohegan Sun. The late commissioner was concerned about putting a team in a casino, but as it turns out, he was ahead of his time.

“There was a lot of excitement at the beginning, still a casino and a professional sports team being together wasn’t well received everywhere,” Etess recalled in a phone conversation. “David Stern took a lot of the hard questions when that was happening. In retrospect, it was an icebreaker for a lot of the gambling stuff that happened since. The tribe was proud of having the team as it was great to bring national attention to the state and casino.”

The Mohegan Tribe bought the team for $10 million and with the WNBA in CBA negotiations the franchise had a few months to get everything ready to start in 2003. Thibault remembers when he was hired as the coach in January, the franchise had literally nothing.

Thibault said he had to order basketballs, uniforms and even sports bras for his players. The franchise quickly turned into contenders, reaching the WNBA Finals in 2004 and 2005.

Building a faithful fan base

Thibault joked that when the team first started fans came to games to cheer on former UConn players when they came to town, but soon they became fans of the franchise.

“The first year, we didn’t have as good attendance as we had hoped, but that changed quickly,” Etess said. “We didn't give tickets away. After the second year we were always up there in total attendance for many, many years.”

The Sun became the first team in WNBA history to make a profit when they made it happen in 2010.

“It meant a lot to us,” Etess said. “We really focused on doing everything right, trying to run the team professionally.”

Etess is sad to see the state lose its last professional team in an area that has been a women's basketball hotbed for so long.

“It's odd that the league didn’t want the team to stay in Connecticut,” he said. “Connecticut is such a crucial part of women’s basketball. The state that loves women’s basketball isn’t going to have a pro team, doesn’t feel right to me.”

___

See AP’s full WNBA coverage here

Even as a sizable Cuban delegation was approved to come to the U.N. General Assembly this week, the State Department is now weighing “strict controls” on the officials who plan to return next month for an annual U.N. vote on the decadeslong U.S. economic embargo on Cuba.

That is according to U.S. officials and an internal document obtained by The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because a decision on the details of what the restrictions will entail has not yet been finalized.

Potential plans to further restrict officials in New York for diplomatic work come as Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez bemoaned the “lack of progress” in negotiations between Havana and Washington. He also blasted the oil blockade that the Trump administration imposed on the Caribbean island nation in January.

“What defines the present status of the Cuba-U.S. relations is the brutal tightening of the economic and financial blockade and the total oil siege imposed on our country, which is equivalent to a naval blockade,” Rodríguez said in Spanish during an AP interview on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders.

His comments, made through a translator, follow President Donald Trump's wide-ranging U.N. address Tuesday, when he again called Cuba a “failed state" and said he was “seeking a fundamental ⁠change in the situation in Cuba.”

His administration has been trying to force changes to Cuba’s political system by cutting off fuel to the island, leading to massive power outages that affect basic activities such as cooking, water supply, and internet and telephone service.

“Communism will never be coming to America, but freedom ​will be coming to Cuba," Trump said at the U.N.

US-Cuba negotiations once again reach an impasse

Rodríguez, who has served as foreign minister since 2009, said that while no meetings now are scheduled with U.S. officials, “Cuba remains willing to keep these channel of contacts open.”

He refused to say when the last talks took place, noting that while past conversations have been “respectful,” the public statements and policy decisions made by U.S. officials afterward have been “extremely aggressive."

Millions of people have lost access to electricity as Cuba’s power grid has collapsed at least six times since the U.S. energy blockade began at the start of the year. The restrictions prevent Cuba from importing fuel needed to operate its thermoelectric power plants or replacement parts to maintain infrastructure that in many cases has become obsolete.

Other U.S. measures have included imposing more economic penalties on industries in the already heavily sanctioned country and broadening enforcement of laws that bar Americans who visit the island from dealings with government-owned or -affiliated businesses.

"These measures hamper some processes that could lead to discussion of things in the common interests of both nations," Rodríguez said.

Havana has recently integrated historic economic reforms, opening up the island to the private sector. Officials, including Rodríguez, have said these are not concessions to the U.S., but they are moving in the direction the Trump administration wants.

Cuban delegation could face new obstacles to visit United Nations

Rodríguez and other members of his government are planning to return to New York next month for the annual U.N. General Assembly vote on the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba — a vote that has historically condemned American policy toward the island by overwhelming margins.

Cuban officials already face heavy restrictions in New York and Washington due to their U.S. designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, with travel and commuting limited to a 25-mile radius of the U.N. headquarters in Manhattan.

But any new U.S. travel restrictions could make it more difficult or impossible for Cuban officials to attend the vote, which has been taking place for more than three decades.

Last year, Washington’s isolation on the issue was softened as countries like Argentina, Ukraine and Hungary — all closely allied with the Trump administration — rejected the Cuban-backed effort even as friction has grown in the region around American military actions there.

While General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, they reflect world opinion.

Rodríguez told the AP last year that the U.S. had mounted a pressure campaign to influence the vote. He said then that Havana had heard from other countries, mainly in Europe, that the State Department was encouraging them to vote against the resolution.

In response, a State Department spokesperson said last year that “the Cuban regime does not deserve the backing of America’s democratic allies.”

The administration said the ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came Wednesday just minutes before midnight, forcing the cancellation of a flight with 70 people that was headed to three countries. It said justices needed to step in to “halt that chaos” and said the flight cancellation “required a new round of diplomatic engagement with each of the three countries,” which it did not name.

Plaintiffs for immigrants sought emergency relief from the appeals court Wednesday night, saying they heard from “multiple sources” that a deportation flight was scheduled the next day from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Burundi, Rwanda and the Central African Republic.

Within hours of that request, the appeals court said it was clarifying a ruling against the policy last week and said a previous order allowing flights to continue while legal challenges play out was no longer in effect.

Administration officials reacted furiously. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the order “in the dark of night” robbed authorities of “an entirely legal and valuable tool to stem the tide of illegal immigration.”

The justices previously allowed the deportation flights to temporarily continue when the case came before them last year.

The vast majority of people deported to countries other than their own have been sent to Mexico, but under a series of often-secret agreements, the administration has deported thousands of others to more than two dozen countries, from Liberia to Guyana.

Some have found themselves in countries they’d never heard of before their arrivals and held there against their will. Some also face serious safety risks, and are left with little choice except to return to the home countries they were fleeing.

This month, lawyers for two men deported to Equatorial Guinea said they were beaten and held at gunpoint in a hotel-turned-detention center by police who covered their heads with bags.

Trump's Republican administration has said that it sends people with final deportation orders to third countries when their homelands won’t accept them or they can’t be returned there. Those governments provide assurances that people won’t be persecuted or tortured, attorneys said.

James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel, said Wednesday on X that 25,000 people in the U.S. illegally have been deported to third countries, calling those deportations “an essential public safety tool.”

The lower court order doesn't completely prohibit third-country deportations, but it requires the government give people a meaningful chance to object.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to halt that decision, arguing it would force unreasonable delays and the reworking of agreements with foreign countries.

“The order below would again obstruct DHS from efficiently removing aliens ... by inordinately delaying third-country removal for any alien who voices a fear of persecution or torture in that country, no matter how frivolous or belated the claim,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.

The appeal comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally.

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Tim Sullivan contributed to this report from Minneapolis. Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

The event featured a cavalcade of billionaires, Washington powerbrokers, business leaders and the type of festivities that most excite Trump, who has a reputation for reveling in hosting parties.

“President Xi and I both understand we represent different systems, but the ties between our people endure, and we’ve never gotten along better,” Trump said during his toast, adding that “together, we can continue to build a relationship that promotes prosperity and security for future generations.”

Trump has done his best to impress Xi during China's leader's during Xi's three-day visit to Washington, and praised their close personal relationship — even as he has decried top Democratic candidates as “communists” ahead of the November midterm elections.

Xi and Trump discussed tensions over Taiwan, trade and artificial intelligence during business hours — even as an ongoing, First Amendment fight over press access at the White House has unfolded. But Trump publicly chose to focus on showing Xi his White House updates on Thursday afternoon, including letting him tour his Marine One presidential helicopter and a new helipad he built for it — before attention quickly turned to the flashy details of the swanky meal.

Xi noted in his own toast that “President Trump has pledged to make America great again” and that “China is committed to achieving great national rejuvenation.”

“These two goals are both ambitious and can surely be mutually reinforcing,” Xi said.

Trump wore a tuxedo, and her office said first lady Melania Trump opted for a tuxedo-style outfit: a white Saint Laurent cotton poplin blouse, a black silk cummerbund and black brocade pants — both from Dolce & Gabbana — with a peony motif.

Xi chose a black suit and his wife, Peng Liyuan, wore a red gown. The East Room, where the dinner was held, featured low lighting and place settings with elegant red and gold decor.

Those in attendance included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who signed autographs upon arriving at the White House. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang opted for a tuxedo over his trademark black leather jacket. Bernard Arnault, the CEO of French luxury goods company LVMH, walked through black security fencing to enter the event.

Trump says he can't help but talk up the ballroom being built

The president toasted his strong relationship with Xi and the bond between the U.S. and China, but then added, “If I could go off script just for a second, I just want to say I had to do it,” as those assembled laughed.

“I’d like to invite everyone in the room to visit through that beautiful curtain in the back,” Trump said, referring to the construction site of his White House ballroom on the South Lawn, which he said, “you've heard so much about.”

Trump said the project was a year from completion, and said he thought attendees “will see something that I think you will really love.”

The president said that after the dinner attendees could go see the worksite and be “the first people to step foot” on it.

“We’ll do that. Maybe after we’ve finished with the entertainment tonight,” Trump said, asking, “Anybody wants to walk into a construction site that’s nice and sparkling, it’s our honor to have you do so.”

Trump has called the ballroom he’s building the “Great Hall of the United States,” and suggested it could rival the Great Hall of the People, where he dined during a state visit to Beijing in May.

The president also presented Xi with an eagle statue that he said was designed “in personal collaboration with Melania and myself.” Xi did not present Trump a public gift in return during the dinner.

Guests dined on squash and sea bass

The first lady helped craft the evening's menu, which was served on the red china from Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It features a first course of yellow squash velouté with wild mushrooms, fresh herbs, crispy pancetta and drizzled scallion oil.

After that, guests got sesame-crusted sea bass with braised baby bok choy, roasted garden eggplant and a sauce verte. Dessert is vanilla crémeux with sour cherry confit and walnut frangipane, as well as ice cream with honey from the White House.

Trump has sought to one-up Xi after Beijing

The dinner came after the president took the unusual step of personally greeting Xi and his wife on Wednesday as they arrived at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington. Normally, presidents wait for their state visit guests to arrive at the White House itself before offering a formal welcome.

Thursday's dinner was packed with technology industry titans like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman, and Dell Technologies chairman and CEO Michael Dell.

During his own visit to Beijing in May, Xi hosted Trump for a state dinner that unfolded beneath grand chandeliers in the Great Hall of the People. That event also included many tech luminaries, such as Tim Cook, formerly Apple's CEO, and Musk.

It was all a stark departure from 2015, when then-President Barack Obama was preparing to host Xi for a state visit and Trump — in the midst of his first presidential run — criticized all the hubbub.

“Just take them to McDonald’s and go back to the negotiating table,” Trump said then, during a rally in South Carolina. He later conceded on Fox News Channel that Xi might at least be worthy of getting “probably a double-size Big Mac.”

Pettit's alma mater, LSU, announced Thursday that he died a day earlier. The university did not provide a cause of death.

Pettit was an All-American at LSU before going on to the NBA, where he was an All-Star for each of his 11 seasons, all with the Hawks. He led them to the 1958 championship over the mighty Boston Celtics, the Hawks’ lone title.

He was also the NBA MVP in 1959 and was the MVP of the All-Star game four times, an achievement matched only by Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant.

Pettit was a force at a time when the NBA featured the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson and Elgin Baylor. But it was also before a time when the NBA was widely seen on television, and Pettit — playing in a smaller market — was denied a larger audience.

At 6-foot-9 and 205 pounds and with a deeply receding hairline, Pettit was a physical presence at power forward, before such a position became part of basketball’s vocabulary. He rarely missed a game. He also played center and was one of the first big men who did not play solely with his back to the basket.

Pettit was the Rookie of the Year in 1955, the last year the Hawks played in Milwaukee before moving to St. Louis.

He captured the MVP the next season, leading the league in scoring at 25.7 points a game. He also was the NBA’s scoring leader in 1959 at 29.2 points.

He retired after the 1964-65 season with career averages of 26.4 points and 16.2 rebounds. At that time, he was the NBA’s career leader in points (20,880) and second in rebounds (12,849).

He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970.

“Lean, graceful, and always well-conditioned, Bob Pettit's physical build made him one of the first big men to play facing the basket,” reads Pettit’s biographical profile at the Hall of Fame. “But Pettit's resolve set him apart from his peers; he simply would not be outworked.”

Robert Lee Pettit Jr. was born on Dec. 12, 1932, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His father worked in law enforcement and served as East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff. Pettit was a late bloomer in basketball, not making the Baton Rouge High School varsity until his junior season.

As a senior, he led Baton Rouge to a state championship and wound up with more than a dozen college offers. He chose to stay home and starred at LSU as a sophomore, an era when players could not join the varsity until then.

He led the Southeastern Conference in scoring all three of his seasons, with averages of 25.5 points as a sophomore, 24.9 as a junior and 31.4 as a senior.

Pettit is one of only three LSU players — Pete Maravich and Shaquille O’Neal the others — to earn a place in the Hall of Fame. Bronze statues of Pettit and O’Neal stand outside LSU’s home arena, the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. His No. 50 is retired by LSU, his No. 9 by the Atlanta Hawks.

“We are grateful for his contributions to our franchise and to basketball history,” the Hawks said in a statement. “His retired No. 9 jersey continues to hang proudly at State Farm Arena as a lasting reminder of the impact he made on our organization. We extend our deepest condolences to Bob’s family, friends and loved ones during this difficult time. We also join those across the basketball world in celebrating a remarkable life and legacy that will never be forgotten.”

Pettit’s misfortune was that most of his career coincided with a run of Celtics championships that remains one of the most dominant runs in American pro sports history.

Pettit was two victories short of being a three-time NBA champion. Pettit’s Hawks advanced to the finals four times, all against Boston, twice losing in seven games.

The first meeting, won by Boston in 1957, came down to double overtime of Game 7. The second ended with a championship for the Hawks, interrupting Boston’s run of nine titles in 10 seasons. The Hawks also dropped NBA Finals matchups with the Celtics in 1960 (in seven games) and 1961 (in five).

Pettit retired to his native Baton Rouge after leaving basketball and worked in banking and financial consulting. He was a regular at LSU and New Orleans Pelicans games in recent years.

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See AP’s full NBA coverage here

James Fulton Engstrom carried an ornate vessel containing the relics of his namesake, the man whom the Catholic Church credits with his miraculous survival as a newborn — Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who died in 1979.

It was a highlight of a lengthy ceremony of beatification for the famed 20th century TV prelate, who will now be known as Blessed Fulton Sheen — one step away from sainthood.

Catholic devotees converged on St. Louis for the afternoon ceremony, taking place at the Dome at America’s Center after years of delays. The indoor stadium was chosen because there wasn’t a venue large enough in his home Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, to accommodate the anticipated crowd.

The ceremony comes 16 years to the month since James was born at home without a pulse and was rushed to the hospital, even as his parents and others prayed earnestly and asked Sheen to add his heavenly prayers, following the Catholic tradition of seeking the intercessions of departed holy people.

After a formal inquiry, the Catholic Church determined that James' resuscitation — when medical workers were about to declare him dead — was a miracle attributable to Sheen's prayers. To qualify for beatification, the Vatican typically requires one miracle attributed to the candidate.

James' mother, Bonnie Engstrom, said before the ceremony that she expected it would feel like a “foretaste of heaven.”

She said she’d been praying to Sheen throughout her pregnancy, and “it was just a very natural thing in the hardest hour of our life” to seek his help.

The presentation of the relics, placed on a pedestal by the altar, was a highlight of a lengthy service that began with a formal procession of hundreds of priests and scores of bishops, lasting more than half an hour and accompanied by robust organ, choral and orchestral music.

A 20th century bishop draws a new audience

About 50,000 tickets were distributed, according to organizers. The halls and exhibit areas were thronged in the morning by pilgrims — priests in cassocks, nuns in habits, families with young children in tow, elderly worshippers who recalled watching Sheen on TV. Scores of bishops, a thousand priests and hundreds of religious order members, seminarians and deacons participated.

Many thronged exhibit booths or stood in long lines to give confession. Others quietly meditated throughout the morning in a makeshift chapel in front of a Eucharist displayed on an altar, including some who knelt on the concrete floor. Bishops have been seeking to promote this traditional devotion, which Sheen practiced regularly.

The Vatican’s top evangelization official, Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle, the lead celebrant for the Mass, brought greetings from Pope Leo XIV, calling him Sheen’s “fellow Illinoisan.” Tagle called Sheen a model for evangelization, or sharing the faith.

Sheen was once a regular presence in the living rooms of millions of Americans — including that of the future pontiff, who says he watched Sheen's broadcasts while growing up in Chicago.

Attendees, many too young to have seen Sheen's broadcasts, said they’ve taken inspiration from his books and online videos.

“There’s just a revival in the American church as a whole,” said Joseph Punswick, a seminarian from the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas. “To have an American pope, to have an American beatified man, is amazing to see. Look around. You see kids, you see young families, you see college kids.”

Other attendees, such as Mary Chalupsky of Milford, Connecticut, recalled watching Sheen’s original TV programs. “He brought so many to the faith,” she said.

The service reflected the modern media era, with a livestreamed liturgy and electrical signs urging attendees to use the social media hashtag #celebratesheen.

Sheen's journey from Peoria to primetime

Sheen was a pioneering radio priest who quickly adopted the burgeoning medium of television in the 1950s, when he began hosting the Emmy-winning program, “Life is Worth Living.” Dressed in a cassock, cape and skullcap, he stood at a chalkboard and delivered moral and religious lessons without a narrow Catholic focus.

Sheen was born in 1895 in the small town of El Paso, Illinois, and raised in Peoria. After becoming a priest and earning a doctorate in philosophy, he became a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

He became known for his academic lectures and his plainspoken addresses from the pulpit and the broadcast studio. He often signed off with the benediction, “God love you.”

Sheen appeared in a Time magazine cover article, and he guided celebrities and others converting to Catholicism.

He met with popes and spoke at the reformist Second Vatican Council. He railed against communism, though he opposed the Vietnam War.

Sheen raised funds and traveled the world on behalf of Catholic missions. He served as a bishop in New York State, retiring as an archbishop. After his death at 84, he was buried at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York until his niece won a court battle in 2019 to move his body to Peoria’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, which now draws pilgrims to his tomb.

The Illinois teen tied to Sheen's path to sainthood

The late Pope Francis approved the beatification, attributing to Sheen the miracle of James' resuscitation.

James was born at home without a pulse in September 2010 and rushed to the hospital. Medical workers attempted to resuscitate him but were about to declare him deceased when his heart began beating normally, Engstrom and other witnesses said.

Bonnie Engstrom said she and her husband chose Sheen for James' patron after discovering the prelate's old videos, adding that Sheen's Midwestern-accented voice reminded her of her grandfather and great-grandfather. “He’s like a local boy,” she said at a news conference.

James, who just turned 16, has a devotion to Sheen, but he's largely avoiding the media spotlight. “He’s a delightful young man, but he’s still just a teenage boy, and he needs to be given the space and the grace to have his own journey of life,” his mother said.

Sheen's beatification backstory

The beatification was originally scheduled for 2019, but the Vatican delayed the ceremony. The Diocese of Rochester, which Sheen briefly led in the 1960s, requested the delay out of caution, due to legal investigations taking place then into the oversight of priests accused of sexual abuse across New York State.

Church officials later concluded that Sheen’s record gave no cause for further delay, and plans for the ceremony resumed. Pope Leo approved the beatification earlier this year.

Monsignor Jason Gray, executive director of the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, said church investigators review records and interview witnesses before determining whether a healing qualifies as a miracle. He said there are now six more cases under investigation; a second miracle would qualify Sheen for sainthood under Vatican rules.

Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka said he believes the wait for canonization will be shorter than for the beatification, especially with an Illinois-born pope who's “very much aware of who Sheen is and how he influenced his own life.”

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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.

Niagara County Supreme Court Justice Frank A. Sedita III granted Gayle’s request Thursday (Sept. 24), giving the 6’4” guard the opportunity to compete for Michigan during the 2026-27 season.

The ruling came in Gayle’s hometown of Niagara Falls, New York, and could allow him to begin playing immediately.

Unlike a temporary restraining order, the preliminary injunction will remain in effect while the case proceeds, the ruling said.

The NCAA is expected to appeal.

Gayle is among the first college basketball players seeking additional eligibility under the NCAA’s new eligibility model to receive a favorable ruling in court.

A national champion last season, Gayle sued the NCAA on Aug. 31, arguing that he should be eligible for another season under the association’s newly expanded eligibility system.

The NCAA adopted the new system in June, replacing its traditional four-seasons-in-five-years framework with an age-based model that provides five years of eligibility without limiting the number of seasons an athlete can play during that period.

Gayle’s attorneys argue that the new rule’s language makes him eligible for the 2026-27 season.

They contend the NCAA improperly excluded athletes who graduated high school in 2022, enrolled immediately and played four consecutive seasons.

“The exclusion is the deviation,” the lawsuit states. “Roddy’s inclusion is what the rule’s text requires.”

Gayle graduated from Lewiston-Porter Senior High School in Youngstown, New York, in 2022 and enrolled at Ohio State that fall.

He played two seasons for the Buckeyes before transferring to Michigan, where he played his final two seasons.

In four Division I seasons, Gayle appeared in 146 games and started 72, according to the lawsuit.

He scored 1,288 points and became an important contributor during Michigan’s run to the national championship in April.

Michigan defeated Connecticut 69-63 on April 6 to win the program’s first NCAA men’s basketball championship since 1989.

Gayle averaged 10.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.3 blocks during Michigan’s first four NCAA Tournament games.

--> Michigan basketball ends title drought, wins first NCAA championship since 1989 in 69-63 victory vs. UConn

Michigan offered Gayle an opportunity to return for the 2026-27 season, according to the lawsuit, but that opportunity was contingent on NCAA eligibility.

The filing said Gayle was already practicing with the team prior to Thursday’s decision.

The lawsuit also addresses Gayle’s participation in two NBA Summer League games with the Detroit Pistons after he went undrafted in June.

His attorneys argue that the summer appearances should not affect his college eligibility because Gayle never signed a professional contract, played in a professional regular-season game, or permanently left college for a professional career.

According to the complaint, Gayle received a $1,700 stipend for his Summer League participation.

His attorneys cited several other athletes who they say were permitted to return to college basketball after playing professionally in Europe or the NBA G League.

They argue that treating Gayle’s summer participation differently would be inconsistent with previous NCAA eligibility decisions.

“Roddy did not fail as a professional,” the complaint says. “He was never a professional in any meaningful sense at all.”

The lawsuit also challenges the NCAA’s treatment of athletes who graduated from high school in 2022.

Gayle’s attorneys argue that athletes who delayed college enrollment or attended preparatory school can qualify under the new rules, while athletes who enrolled immediately after graduating in 2022 and played four consecutive seasons cannot.

The complaint further alleges that the NCAA’s eligibility policies violate contractual obligations to student-athletes.

Gayle’s attorneys argue that the NCAA Constitution and bylaws create contractual obligations and that student-athletes are intended third-party beneficiaries.

The case comes amid separate litigation over the NCAA’s eligibility changes.

On July 31, a federal court in Colorado issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the NCAA from enforcing the class-of-2022 exclusion.

The NCAA appealed, and on Aug. 21, a divided panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed that injunction while the appeal proceeds.

Gayle’s lawsuit argues that the federal litigation, which involves antitrust claims, does not resolve his separate contract claims under New York law.

The lawsuit asks the Niagara County court to prevent the NCAA from enforcing its eligibility rules against Gayle, interfering with Michigan’s decision to allow him to practice and play, or penalizing Michigan for allowing him to compete under a court order.

Gayle also asked the court to block enforcement of the NCAA’s “Rule of Restitution,” which can impose penalties on teams and athletes if competition conducted under a court order is later determined to have violated NCAA eligibility rules.

The timing of the case was significant for Gayle and Michigan.

Michigan lost five-star freshman guard Brandon McCoy Jr. for the 2026-27 season after suffering an ACL injury to his right knee.

--> Michigan basketball 5-star freshman Brandon McCoy Jr. out for 2026-27 season with ACL injury

The Wolverines also signed former Columbia point guard Kenny Noland prior to the season, and he too was deemed eligible for the national champions.

Noland was a second-team All-Ivy League point guard last season, averaging 17.1 points per game, 3.4 rebounds per game, and 3.7 assists per game.

Gayle is scheduled to graduate from Michigan in May 2027, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages. Instead, Gayle is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that would allow him to remain eligible and compete for Michigan while the case proceeds.

Thursday’s ruling gives the reigning national champions another option at guard and allows Gayle and Noland to continue pursuing another college season while the legal battle with the NCAA continues.

But media coverage of Trump’s White House was hardly normal. On a high-profile day when Chinese leader Xi Jinping was visiting Washington and attending a state dinner, no major American network was airing live coverage.

After the White House banned CNN from a rotation of five major U.S. broadcast outlets who take turns shooting and sharing video, the other four — in a show of solidarity — were still declining to participate in the so-called video pool.

Though CNN and MS NOW were back on the White House grounds Thursday, both news outlets said their journalists were denied access to Xi's state dinner arrival. CNN wrote in a blog post that the White House said it would only allow a photojournalist and an audio technician to the event, and refused to allow a reporter and a producer entry.

MS NOW reported that journalist Laura Barrón-López was also denied entry to the arrival ceremony on the portico ahead of the state dinner. Barrón-López was one of the journalists whose press credentials were reinstated under the judge's order.

Reporters and producers from other networks were allowed in, CNN wrote.

The president posted online that TV networks “refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years ... because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to “TRUMP.”

It was a chaotic day for the media at the White House and in court.

Initially, in the morning, CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists were denied entry. A Secret Service agent had confiscated their credentials as part of the ban. After the ruling for the outlets in the early hours Thursday, White House operations officials were notified to restore access to the affected reporters, but said they needed time to find, reactivate and deliver their entry badges. The process took over two hours, according to an administration court filing.

In his decision to provisionally lift the ban, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the three outlets’ access. He said they had met the legal thresholds to obtain a temporary restraining order and were likely to succeed in showing that their press passes were revoked without due process.

The ruling did not address CNN's removal from the White House video pool. The White House did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The judge's ruling issued a temporary order

Kelly — whom Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018 — said the government must have clear standards for conduct that would lead to revoking a press pass. He called the standard of objectionable reporting outlined in letters that the White House sent the outlets “so vague it hardly does the trick.”

The judge also made clear he did not buy the administration’s argument that the news outlets’ reporting endangered national security — and noted that Trump himself had not used that argument in the beginning, focusing solely on what he called negative coverage.

Theodore Boutrous Jr., the news outlets' attorney, said the judge’s quick ruling vindicated the freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law.

“I think we’re going to end up stronger because of this, and this tactic of just attacking the press, attacking individual journalists, is going to be discredited,” Boutrous said in an interview on MS NOW Thursday afternoon. “The law is just clearly on our side here,” he said.

The temporary restraining order — typically designed to preserve the status quo pending a closer review of the case by the court — expires in two weeks. The judge gave both sides until Oct. 5 to file their arguments over whether he should consider issuing a longer-lasting ruling called a preliminary injunction. Kelly said he “intends to rule expeditiously” on the preliminary injunction request.

Attorneys debated access to the White House and any risk to national security

Boutrous argued in the hearing that there was an urgent need for renewed access, saying that the ban caused irreparable harm to the outlets at a time of momentous news events. “We’re at war," he told the judge. "We have world leaders coming to Washington.”

Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik, in his argument, reiterated the administration’s point that the president has the right to choose who gets into the White House.

“Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” Velchik said.

In arguing that Trump was not engaging in viewpoint discrimination — the government singling out specific media outlets for the content of what they say or publish — Velchik said the president had criticized other news organizations, but not banned them. He noted, for example, that Trump had called ABC “the worst."

Major networks refrained from covering Trump for the media pool

On Wednesday, after the hearing, the major networks refused to air footage of Trump without assurances that CNN would be permitted back into the video pool.

At Joint Base Andrews, where the president formally welcomed Xi, journalists from Fox News, CBS and NBC were present but not shooting video. The major networks also declined to participate in the video pool for the state dinner.

The chair of the TV press pool, Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon. Earlier this week, Boughton sent an email seen by The Associated Press that advised the TV pool would not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the president after the White House prevented CNN from taking part in the pool.

Other television outlets whose crews were present for some or both events, according to signs on their tripods and cameras, were NewsNation, Newsmax, Right Side Broadcasting Network, One America News and LindellTV.

The Associated Press said it provided video coverage of Trump greeting Xi to its customers, so they could decide whether to broadcast. “We did not stream the coverage on our own platforms, including APNews.com or our YouTube channel,” said an AP spokesman, Patrick Maks.

In an advisory to customers, AP said it would not have independent video coverage of meetings between Trump and Xi. It noted that a U.S. government handout live feed could be accessed on the White House website.

The AP was one of some 50 groups filing an amicus brief ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, urging the court to immediately restore the three outlets’ White House access.

Some network personalities were invited guests at the state dinner

Paramount CEO David Ellison, who is several days away from closing a multibillion-dollar merger that will give him control of CBS, CNN and various streaming platforms, was a guest at the state dinner along with his wife.

So were some Fox News employees, including anchor Bret Baier and commentators Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters.

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Golden reported from Seattle, and Kellman from London. AP reporter Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed.

Reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico returned to the White House Thursday afternoon, hours after a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s ban of three news outlets. Despite the ruling, the journalists were initially denied access Thursday morning. The back-and-forth was the latest in an extraordinary showdown between Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

Trump’s pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration voiced support for the safety of long-established vaccines at a hearing Thursday, even as senators questioned her about the White House’s efforts to upend childhood immunizations.

Here's the latest:

Senate Democrats criticize the pomp of the summit

In a statement, 19 Senate Democrats criticized the pageantry of the Trump-Xi summit for failing to deliver for the American people.

“Rather than confronting China’s unfair trade practices, technology theft, complicity in attacks against our troops or economic and military aggression against our allies, President Trump opted for pageantry over purpose—trading tough diplomacy for a ballroom tour and a lavish dinner with his billionaire friends,” read the statement by the senators, including all Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Democratic senators criticized Trump for trading away the U.S. technological dominance for commercial gains, decimating the U.S. education and research and alienating its allies.

Trump’s MAGA and China’s rejuvenation goals can help each other, Xi says at state dinner

In his toast at the state dinner, Xi said Trump’s pledge to “Make America Great Again” and his call for China to achieve great national rejuvenation are both ambitious and can “help each other achieve” their respective goal.

“China and the United States must act as responsible major countries, meet the expectations of our peoples,” Xi said.

Trump says the White House new ballroom is a military complex — and he wants Chinese officials to check it out

The U.S. president invited Xi and other government officials to tour his under-construction White House ballroom.

That could be a national security problem.

Trump has described the building as more than a place for entertainment. He has said that “the military is building a big complex under the ballroom” — and he has now invited Chinese officials to tour an incomplete site that Trump has described as essential for national security. The ballroom, once completed, is also slated to have drone ports to fend off attacks.

No Chinese CEOs on state dinner guest list

The White House list of more than 130 invited guests for the state dinner includes plenty of American tech giants, but Chinese CEOs are conspicuously missing.

U.S. and Chinese planners did discuss including several executives from some notable Chinese companies, according to a person familiar with the planning for the state visit who was not authorized to comment publicly.

One obstacle that came up during the negotiations for the state visits was that the U.S. side was slow to suggest protocols and clarify what roles the Chinese CEOs would have in the state visit, the person said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

—Aamer Madhani

Hundreds of protesters gather in downtown Washington to protest Xi’s visit

A few hundred protesters gathered at a park near the White House on Thursday afternoon to “unwelcome” Xi during his state visit to the U.S.

Many waved Tibetan flags and called for a “Free Tibet.” Some carried flags bearing words for “freedom” and “democracy” in Chinese, along with signs reading “Keep Taiwan Free” and “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” the slogan from Hong Kong’s massive 2019 protests.

“I hope Emperor Xi won’t remain in power. I hope he can give Chinese people real freedom — freedom of speech and religion,” said Zhang Na, dressed as Winnie the Pooh, a character often used to mock Xi in China.

Yang Fan, a 39-year-old Christian, held a handwritten sign calling for “freedom of religion” and an “end to dictatorship.” He said he wanted to stand up for Christians in China and hoped Xi would release those jailed for their religious beliefs

As Republicans court working-class voters, Trump hosts billionaires at White House dinner

At tonight’s state dinner, Trump is surrounding Xi with the one group in which America leads the world — billionaires.

The tuxedoed soiree is a far cry from the Republican candidates attempting to brand themselves as being a party for workers.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault are roughly worth a combined $680 billion.

Add in OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and the financiers Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink and that number keeps going up.

Of course, Trump is worth about $7 billion, helped out in large by gains in crypto tied to his political resurgence.

Xi arrives at state dinner

Trump, clad in a tuxedo, and first lady Melania Trump, in a tuxedo-style jumpsuit with a large necktie bow, greeted Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan in front of the White House.

Xi, in a black suit, and Peng, in a red gown, emerged from their limousine onto a red carpet at the North Portico, where they shook hands with the Trumps.

The four then posed for pictures before going inside.

Loud protest near White House can be heard as guests arrive at dinner

The crowd standing behind a fence along Lafayette Park held flags and signs and appeared to have speakers that carried their voices across the park and all the way to the North Portico of the White House, where an honor guard and red carpet were laid out for guests attending the state dinner.

The protesters could be heard chanting “Xi Jinping has got to go” and “Shame! Shame Xi Jinping!” as their chants grew louder.

It’s prime day for Amazon founder at state dinner for Chinese leader

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez Bezos, arrived at the White House for the state dinner.

Trump has bragged about the wealth gathering in the East Room for the meal, and Bezos brings with him a net worth of $369.3 billion, according to Forbes.

Here’s what’s on the state dinner menu

First lady Melania Trump has ordered a three-course meal that will be served on the red china dishes from Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

The meal will open with a starter of yellow squash velouté and wild mushroom fricassee with crispy pancetta beneath a drizzle of scallion oil.

It will be followed by an entrée of sesame-crusted sea bass with braised baby bok choy, roasted eggplant and herb sauce.

The meal will be capped by a vanilla crémeux with a sour cherry confit center on top of a walnut frangipane and a serving of ice cream made using honey from bee houses at the White House.

Billionaires behind AI join state dinner

Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, famous for wearing black leather jackets at public events worldwide, came to the White House with his wife, Lori, looking far more formal in a well-tailored tuxedo.

The chipmaker whose products power AI is worth an estimated $192.7 billion, according to Forbes.

Open AI CEO Sam Altman autographed baseballs and other items as he arrived at the White House. Altman has warned about AI models creating major risks for the world, but he’s coming to the state dinner as something of a celebrity.

The buildout of AI has been powering U.S. economic growth, and Altman is worth $3.3 billion, according to Forbes.

Democratic senator blasts Trump for deferential treatment of Chinese leader

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, lambasted Trump’s deferential treatment of Xi and said Trump hadn’t pressed China hard enough to keep its commitments on trade.

“In return for China breaking nearly every trade promise it has made, Trump is rolling out the red carpet for President Xi,’’ Wyden said in a statement. “Trump has not even succeeded in forcing China to live up to the weak deal that he struck.”

Wyden referred to unfulfilled promises made by China to buy more U.S. farm goods and release rare earth minerals, which he said is “harming our manufacturers and American jobs.”

“There is no evidence that Trump is using this opportunity to push back on the Chinese government policies that hurt our workers and businesses, from forced labor to state subsidies,” Wyden said.

More pomp than substance, former US diplomat says

Danny Russel, a former U.S diplomat serving in the Obama administration, expressed concern that the two leaders spent more time on social and ceremonial events than the actual talk, which was about 90 minutes.

“Pageantry and protocol don’t add up to progress. Pandas are cute, but what America needs are rare earths,” said Russel, now a distinguished fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“What we’re seeing isn’t diplomacy so much as ‘diplotainment,’ which won’t do much to solve the serious problems in the U.S.-China relationship,” Russel said. “No amount of flattery and pomp translates into leverage over China.”

Trump fumes about networks not covering Xi’s White House welcome ceremony

The president posted online that TV networks “refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years.”

He added, “The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television” but no network covered it “because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to “TRUMP.”

The event actually wasn’t covered because the White House’s five-network television pool rotation has refused to cover Trump’s events after he moved to ban one of its members, CNN, along with MS Now and Politico, from the White House grounds.

A judge issued a temporary order on Thursday allowing the three outlets back at the White House. But the network pool has continued not to cover Trump because CNN hasn’t yet had its place in the pool rotation covering presidential events restored.

Xi and Trump talk about Iran, Russia-Ukraine and North Korea, China says

The two leaders exchanged views on global and regional issues such as the Middle East, Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula, according to the official Chinese government readout of the meeting at the White House.

Xi and Trump also confirmed their mutual support for hosting regional meetings in the coming weeks, the statement said.

China is to host the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping in November, and the U.S. is holding this year’s G20 summit in Florida. The statement didn’t say if the leaders will attend each other’s summit.

Xi also said the two leaders decided to build a “constructive strategic and stable China-U.S. relationship.” Such a relationship benefits not only the Chinese and American people, but the people of the world, the statement said.

Chinese state media: Xi urges talks over Iran and supports a comprehensive deal

In meeting with Trump, Xi said China supports the U.S. and Iran returning to an interim deal that was signed in June in an effort to wind down the war, according to the Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television.

Xi said China hopes the two sides can return to dialogue and negotiations as soon as possible for an eventual, comprehensive deal, including on Iran’s nuclear program.

The interim deal broke down soon after it was signed as the sides traded renewed fire over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for energy shipments. China is Iran’s biggest oil buyer and its largest trading partner.

The Chinese state broadcaster is authorized to release official statements.

International body says it wasn’t invited to observe US election in break from tradition

An international body known for monitoring elections in 57 countries says it has not been invited to observe the U.S. midterm elections, as it has for every federal election there since 2002.

The United States is a founding member of the group, the Organization for Security and Cooperation and Europe, which was created during the Cold War to help ease East-West tensions.

Maria Telalian, the director of OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said the office had built a constructive relationship with U.S. authorities and electoral stakeholders over the years. She said the organization regrets not being able to continue that work.

The State Department said: “The United States is one of the world’s oldest constitutional democracies. ODIHR should focus its limited resources on elections where it can have the greatest impact.”

Committee vote for surgeon general nominee delayed

A key Senate committee has delayed a vote on the nomination of Trump’s choice for surgeon general, Dr. Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor.

Saphier’s nomination, which is Trump’s third pick for the role, was expected to move this week out of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

However, a committee statement says her nomination vote has been postponed and will not take place this week. A new date has not yet been set.

Meanwhile, the nomination of Chris Klomp to serve as deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services has advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee — on a 14 to 13 vote. It’s unclear, however, when a full Senate vote will take place on that nomination.

Energy Department to spend $2B to squeeze more electricity from aging power grid

The Energy Department said Thursday that it will spend almost $2 billion to try to squeeze more electricity out of the nation’s aging and stressed power grid.

That announcement comes as the Trump administration steps up efforts to avoid blackouts amid skyrocketing energy demand spurred by artificial intelligence.

Officials say the money will go toward 31 projects across 26 states that are expected to produce enough additional electricity to power 16 million homes. The projects are to use new technologies such as sensors to ensure safe transmission or direct power away from congested or overloaded paths.

The Energy Department says the upgrades could improve power reliability and lower electricity costs for about 100 million Americans. It comes as electricity bills rise faster than inflation in many parts of the U.S.

Israel’s Netanyahu: Attacking Iran was ‘one of the easiest decisions’ he’s ever made

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told world leaders at the United Nations that attacking Iran “was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make.”

He denounced as “moral cowards” a mass of delegates who walked out of the U.N. General Assembly when he took the podium to speak. When Netanyahu walked to the rostrum, a mix of cheers, boos and mass walkouts erupted.

The Palestinian delegation had called for a mass walkout.

Netanyahu also thanked Trump for taking decisive action against Iran, and he insisted Israel would prevail: “We will continue to win because we have no other choice.”

Xi departs the White House

The Chinese leader left from the North Portico of the White House around 1:30 p.m.

Before he climbed into his limo, Xi shook hands with Trump and the men briefly spoke about the meeting they had.

Xi will return later Thursday evening for the state dinner.

Xi says there can be more direct flights between US and China

In his remarks at the White House, Xi said the two countries “may also increase direct flights to facilitate two-way travel and trade.”

The number of direct flights between the U.S. and China fell during the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to recover to the pre-pandemic level.

Xi also said China is willing to strengthen cooperation with the U.S. on counternarcotics and law enforcement and that the two militaries “should maintain regular dialogue, and improve mechanisms for crisis communication and prevention.”

Trump FDA nominee Heidi Overton voices support for vaccines

The president’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration faced questions Thursday from senators who will vote on her nomination to lead the federal agency.

A physician and top White House adviser, Dr. Heidi Overton has worked on administration health efforts. That included a plan from Trump announced last month to break up longtime combination vaccines for children over safety concerns.

Overton said Thursday that FDA-approved vaccines remain safe and effective. She also responded to questions about FDA’s oversight of the abortion pill and vaping products.

The committee with vote on her nomination later.

In her current role as a domestic policy adviser, Overton also worked on White House health initiatives including the revamped food pyramid. Previously she was an executive at the America First Policy Institute, authoring papers critical of abortion and transgender care.

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US cybersecurity agency releases its report for the midterms

The agency is laying out potential threats to election systems and listing services it can offer to election officials to protect the vote.

Its report comes just 40 days before Election Day in the midterms and after state election officials have complained that they’ve not been getting the level of cooperation from the agency they’ve had in previous elections.

The Trump administration gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s election work last year. It cut some 1,000 employees and slashed $10 million from two cybersecurity initiatives. That forced state and local election officials to pay for private services to ensure they were prepared for this year’s midterms.

CISA, as the agency is known, is housed under the Department of Homeland Security. Since its founding in 2018, it has helped warn state and local election officials about potential threats from foreign governments.

▶ Read more

US farmers are watching China’s promises to buy more soybeans

After the previous U.S.-China summit in May, the White House announced that China agreed to buy $17 billion annually in American agricultural products. That was atop China’s earlier commitment in October 2025 to purchase soybeans.

The deal restored an export market for farmers struggling with high fuel and fertilizer prices. But while soybean purchases have doubled since last year, China had only bought $3.9 billion worth of other U.S. agricultural products in the first seven months of 2026, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

That rate is only slightly higher than during the trade war in 2025, and it’s unclear if China will reach the committed level by the end of the year. The USDA forecasts that China will purchase $21.5 billion worth of U.S. agricultural products in the fiscal year starting in October.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico reporters back at White House after judge intervenes

Reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico have returned to the White House, hours after a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s ban of three news outlets.

The judge said early Thursday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored.

Early Thursday afternoon, CNN and MS NOW journalists were back at the White House after the latest back-and-forth in an extraordinary showdown between Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

The president announced Friday he was banning the outlets, assailing what he called “fake news.” The outlets argued they were singled out over the content of their coverage.

White House Press Operations Director Micah Stopperich wrote in a court filing that officials were notified at 7:10 a.m. Thursday to restore access, and the reporters got their badges back shortly after 10 a.m. once the Secret Service located and reactivated them.

Senate to vote on resolution to halt the Iran war as gas prices upend midterms

Increasingly anxious about the Iran war, senators are set to vote Thursday on a war powers resolution seeking to halt Trump’s military action, which has been largely blamed for the spike in fuel prices and become a flashpoint in the midterm election.

The Senate vote, days after Trump’s bombastic address to the United Nations in which he threatened to “annihilate” Iran, is likely to be the last chance for lawmakers to go on record about the war ahead of November. More Republicans are peeling way from the president as the war drags on, a rare slap back to Trump, as they campaign for control of Congress.

“They have been carrying water for this ridiculous and illegal war for months and months and months and not listening to their constituents,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, who pushed the war powers resolution forward. “And now they finally are.”

▶ Read more

Trump and Xi do a military review

In the late morning, Trump and Xi participated in a military review in the Rose Garden that was smaller in scale compared to the troop review Xi prepared for Trump in May.

With military band members positioned on the roof of the West Wing, the two leaders and their spouses watched as other musicians played, dressed in colonial wear and white wigs in homage to America's 250th anniversary. Twelve Marines later performed rifling tossing and formations. The military review concluded with a flyover of a B-2 bomber and four fighter jets soaring over the White House.

Xi confirms 2 pandas will come to Zoo Atlanta in the coming days

The Chinese president announced that as a measure of good faith, China would send two pandas to Zoo Atlanta after Beijing reclaimed four pandas in 2024 as diplomatic tensions between China and the U.S. intensified.

China and the zoo first announced in April that two pandas, male Ping Ping and female Fu Shuang, would be coming to the U.S. as part of a giant panda conservation agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association.

He called the panda loan programs with the U.S. “an envoy of friendship.”

China and the US must ensure AI is under human control, Xi says

Xi touched on artificial intelligence in his opening remarks, saying the two superpowers have a responsibility to ensure that humans always operate AI.

“We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good and ensure that a development of AI is always under human control and serves the well being of the people,” the Chinese leader said.

The two countries’ finance ministers earlier this week met, with the U.S. proposing a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents between the two nations.

This is the first Trump-Xi meeting at the White House

The U.S. president noted that he and the Chinese leader have met all over the world, including in China and in Palm Beach, Florida, at the president’s club.

But this is actually the first time the two are meeting at the White House proper, Trump noted.

“We have spent time together all over the world,” he said.

During those visits, Xi and Trump have “forged a friendship, a truly great friendship, actually,” the U.S. president said.

Trump noted that a lot has changed at the White House since Xi was last there for an Obama-hosted state visit — a nod to his renovation projects.

Xi state visit underway at the White House

Just after 10 a.m. ET, the official state visit by China’s Xi Jinping was underway.

To the blare of trumpets, Trump and first lady Melania Trump walked out of the White House residence onto the South Lawn, where they were to greet Xi and Madame Peng.

China’s leader and his spouse then walked out of a black vehicle, where they warmly shook hands with the Trumps. Then the four posed for the cameras.

Trump-Xi schedule does not include a joint news conference

The presidents of the U.S. and China are scheduled to deliver remarks Thursday morning at the White House and again in the evening as part of a state dinner.

The schedule does not include a news conference, and it’s unclear whether Trump and Xi will take questions from either American or Chinese reporters.

In a 2015 meeting, Xi and President Barack Obama held a joint news conference as part of a White House summit. In the Rose Garden, which Trump has since turned into a patio, each president made opening remarks. Then they each answered one question from a U.S. reporter and another from a Chinese reporter before taking additional, nation-specific questions.

The Trump-Xi summit comes as U.S. networks are boycotting White House pool coverage in protest of Trump stripping credentials from MS Now, Politico and CNN.

The money will go toward 31 projects across 26 states that are expected to produce more than 23 gigawatts of additional electricity capacity — enough to power 16 million homes. The projects will use new technologies such as sensors to measure real-time weather conditions to ensure safe transmission or direct power away from congested paths, the department said.

The upgrades could improve power reliability and lower electricity costs for about 100 million Americans, officials said.

“This is a quick way to lower electricity prices and increase reliability: using fibers that are already in the transmission lines to analyze what’s the temperature out, what’s the wind out, how can we use this transmission line to distribute more power, but safely and only in the right conditions," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a news conference promoting the grants Thursday at a PPL Corp. facility in Allentown.

The eastern Pennsylvania electric utility says two data centers in its territory came online this year and six more are under construction, with enough other data centers in the advanced planning stages that its peak electric demand could quintuple by 2032.

PPL said it is receiving $71.5 million to modernize an existing high-voltage transmission line across roughly 30 miles in northern Pennsylvania.

The announcement comes amid warnings that AI’s voracious demand for power is threatening to overwhelm U.S. power supplies, as massive new data centers come online faster than new power plants can be built. It also comes as electricity bills rise faster than inflation in many parts of the U.S., blamed in some areas on demand from data centers.

The snowballing opposition to data centers in communities across the country has thrown a wrench into the plans of the world’s richest companies and transformed the midterm election landscape.

Trump continues to stick up for data centers, even as politicians from both major political parties criticize them and many communities try to block them.

In the meantime, Congress and some states are trying to push utilities to expand their use of new technologies to make grids more efficient and to lessen the need to build new power plants.

Julia Selker, the executive director of the WATT Coalition, a trade association for grid-enhancing technologies, said both the projects and the scale of the investment are significant. Utilities in the U.S. are lagging places like Europe in adopting the technologies, despite federal investment in the past to develop and test them, Selker said.

Still, Drew Maloney, CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade association of for-profit utilities, said America's electric utilities are making a “significant investment” every year in new technologies to strengthen the grid and reduce outages.

Wright said that work on the projects should begin right away and that he hoped some efficiencies are in place before this winter to tamp down price spikes when extreme weather sends demand skyrocketing.

Wright said he didn't know whether the projects would have gotten done without federal funding. Many, he said, had been under consideration before the grants were offered, but the grant recipients hadn't “quite pulled the trigger” on them.

Projects being announced Thursday will involve component enhancements on more than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of transmission lines and technological enhancements across nearly 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometers), the department said.

Projects were prioritized based on those that can be put into operation quickly, officials said. Money for the grants comes from the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted by Congress under then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat. The government's $1.9 billion in funding will be matched by $3.35 billion from the recipients, the department said.

Recipients include utilities, cooperatives and four state agencies. The state agencies — in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio and Oklahoma — were the biggest recipients, collectively drawing $810 million, with the Colorado and Oklahoma projects promising improvements to regional grids.

Trump has vowed to “unleash” the nation's energy sector in his second term, aiming to drive up record-setting domestic oil and gas production, strip away pollution restrictions on power plants and keep expensive coal-fired power plants operating past their retirement dates.

The administration also has pledged nearly $4 billion to buy back offshore wind leases as Trump seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.

His administration meanwhile has pushed to help tech giants build and connect data centers to power plants and high-voltage power lines and convert Cold War-era uranium enrichment plants into data center and power plant complexes.

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Daly reported from Washington.

The subpoenas require the former FBI employees to testify in Fort Pierce, Florida, as the Justice Department pursues an ill-defined theory of a “deep state” conspiracy to deprive Trump of his civil rights and keep him from power.

The investigation so far has been focused largely on former government officials who examined ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, but the subpoenas disclosed Thursday hint at the far-reaching nature of an investigation that is also scrutinizing the FBI's 2022 search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida for classified documents. That search formed the basis of one of four criminal cases Trump faced between his first and second terms.

Justice Department officials are pressing ahead with what's commonly known as the “grand conspiracy” investigation after the resignation this month of Joseph diGenova, a Trump ally who had been brought in to help lead the probe that has animated right-wing commentators who have long alleged former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against the Republican president.

The filing on behalf of the subpoenaed employees tees up a fresh legal question for U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge who not only dismissed the classified documents prosecution of Trump but also sits in the Fort Pierce courthouse where the Justice Department has centered its yearlong conspiracy probe of Trump's perceived foes.

Cannon last February issued an order blocking the release of a report on the classified documents investigation prepared by special counsel Jack Smith, whose team in 2023 brought dozens of felony charges against the then-Republican candidate, and barring the release of non-public information about the case to people outside the Justice Department.

Lawyers say their clients are willing to testify

Now, lawyers for the subpoenaed former employees are asking Cannon to clarify whether that order precludes their clients from being able to testify before the grand jury since they'll be asked detailed questions about the investigation.

Without that clarification, they say, they may be forced to decide between being in contempt of the order if they testify, “not providing full, unconstrained testimony" in order to comply with the order or invoking their constitutional rights against self-incrimination — an option they say “creates unnecessary negative options for innocent former civil servants.”

“Specifically, clients seek to confirm that they can freely discuss non-public information related to their work on the investigation with individuals outside the DOJ, including but not limited to the grand jury and client's own counsel, without running afoul of the terms of the order,” the lawyers wrote.

The attorneys observed that the Justice Department has already taken the position that testimony about the Mar-a-Lago investigation would violate Cannon's order, noting that government lawyers emailed attorneys for Smith before he testified before Congress that he was not permitted to reveal non-public information. But they say officials in the current conspiracy investigation in Florida have declined to articulate a position or seek clarity from the court about its order.

The lawyers say their clients are happy to testify about the investigation if legally cleared to do so.

“If allowed by the court to testify unconstrained by the order, clients will readily provide to the grand jury a detailed account of the investigation, reasoning, decision-making, and other ‘non-public’ information spanning from the time the classified documents investigation was first referred to the FBI up through and including the execution of the warrant," the filing says. “Clients will each detail their firsthand memories of investigating a properly predicated allegation that then-citizen Trump had unlawfully retained hundreds of highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.”

The filing reveals new details about the scope of the investigations and negotiations with the government.

Submitted on behalf of a group of current and former agents and analysts who participated in the Mar-a-Lago investigation, the filing says that the FBI in July and August reached out to request voluntary interviews and told the attorneys that grand jury testimony would follow those interviews.

The lawyers say two clients received subpoenas on Monday. One individual was subpoenaed to testify next week and two others, including one represented by separate lawyers, have been subpoenaed to appear the following week, according to the filing.

They say the Justice Department has broached the possibility of giving immunity to the witnesses but has not formally offered that yet. But they say immunity wouldn't resolve the issues, in part because their clients don't believe they or anyone else involved in the Mar-a-Lago investigation broke any laws.

With their countries in a generational contest for economic and technological dominance, the two appear to be betting that a combination of personal rapport and mutual interest can prevent the competition from boiling over into open conflict.

“From the time of my first election in 2016, President Xi and I have forged a friendship, a truly great friendship, actually, built on mutual respect and the vital interests of our people,” Trump said as he welcomed Xi to the White House for a pomp-filled state visit.

Xi was more pointed than Trump, saying Chinese and American interests are “deeply intertwined” and that the “competition should be a healthy one and should be kept within bounds.”

He also reiterated his warning that the U.S. and China must avoid the “ Thucydides trap,” referring to the idea that when a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the result is often war. Xi offered a similar warning when Trump visited Beijing in May.

“It should be a race of catching up with one another, not a wrestle in which one either wins or loses,” Xi added.

China has resisted the Trump administration's urgings — and economic threats — to use its considerable leverage to prod Iran to agree to U.S. terms to end the nearly seven-month war. Xi wants to see Trump permanently halt arms sales to Taiwan and loosen export restrictions on cutting-edge advanced chips. The two sides on Wednesday agreed to extend by two months a one-year trade truce that was set to expire Nov. 10 as they work to find a more durable agreement.

Xi presses Trump on Taiwan

During their private conversation on Thursday, Xi told Trump he hopes the U.S. can adhere to opposing Taiwan independence and urged him to “prudently handle the Taiwan issue,” according to the Chinese state media outlet Xinhua. The White House did not immediately release any readout of the talks and Trump, who frequently offers his own take of his interactions with foreign leaders on his social media platform, has yet to weigh in on the substance of his conversations with Xi.

Trump, who is in the midst of a legal fight after trying to bar CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House, did complain that TV networks “refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years.” The White House’s five-network television pool rotation refused to cover Trump’s events in response to the action against CNN.

China has made clear it views Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in the U.S.-China relationship. Beijing considers Taiwan to be Chinese territory and vows to annex the island by force if necessary. The United States is obligated by law to provide Taiwan with sufficient hardware to deter any armed attack from the mainland. The U.S. has said it opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side.

China has repeatedly pressed Washington to permanently halt the arms sales, including when Trump and Xi met in Beijing in May.

After that meeting, Trump said he was holding off on final approval for a record $14 billion arms package that was in the pipeline. He also described arms sales to Taiwan as a “very good negotiating chip” with China.

Xi says China and US should make sure AI is ‘always under human control’

Trump said in a social media post earlier Thursday that artificial intelligence — “superintelligence” as he is trying to rebrand it — was high on the agenda. The president has been dismissive of calls for greater regulation amid growing global anxiety that the technology will kill jobs or potentially even wipe out humanity.

“I want to leave it exactly where it is,” Trump wrote. “That is China’s position also.”

But Xi, in his opening comments, said that the two countries had “the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people.”

The two countries’ finance ministers met earlier this week, with the U.S. proposing a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents between the two nations.

Trump rolls out the red carpet for Xi

Trump had made clear he wanted to impress Xi with the visit. The Republican president made sure construction of a new helicopter landing pad on the White House's South Lawn was completed before the visit and he met Xi and his wife on Wednesday evening when they flew into Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.

The White House also arranged an elaborate military review, which the leaders and their spouses observed before the Oval Office talks.

After about 90 minutes of talks, the leaders stepped out to the South Lawn so Trump could show off the new White House helipad and give Xi a tour of Marine One, the presidential helicopter. Trump and Xi also appeared to peer at the ballroom construction site from afar. Xi left the White House shortly after the quick tour and returned in the evening for the state dinner.

No Chinese CEOs at state dinner

Tech titans, including Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, and Tesla and SpaceX's Elon Musk, were among the 130 guests invited to the black-tie dinner, but Chinese CEOs were conspicuously absent.

U.S. and Chinese planners did discuss including several executives from some notable Chinese companies, according to a person familiar with the planning for the state visit who was not authorized to comment publicly.

One obstacle that came up during the negotiations for the state visits was that the U.S. side was slow to propose protocols and clarify the roles the Chinese CEOs would have during the state visit, the person said. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the absence of Chinese business leaders.

While Trump has offered plenty of glitz, some China analysts observed that the talks seemed light on substance.

Danny Russel, a former senior State Department official who served in former President Barack Obama's administration, observed that the two leaders spent more time in social and ceremonial events than in formal talks about the core issues facing the two nations.

“What we’re seeing isn’t diplomacy so much as ‘diplotainment,’ which won’t do much to solve the serious problems in the US-China relationship,” said Russel, who is now a distinguished fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute..

Xi urges US and Iran to return to interim agreement

The two sides discussed the ongoing conflict in Iran, according to Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television.

Trump has argued to little effect that China, which is far more dependent on Gulf oil than the U.S., has plenty of incentive to use its sway with Tehran to help force an end to the conflict.

But Trump's war of choice has unnerved Beijing, with the government condemning the U.S. and Israeli military action and Xi previously expressing concerns that the conflict signaled a return to what he called the “law of the jungle.” The U.S. administration has warned China, Tehran's biggest trading partner, not to aid Iran’s military effort.

Xi, during Thursday's talks, said China supports the U.S. and Iran returning to a short-lived interim deal from the summer to wind down the war, according to CCTV. That agreement broke down soon after it was signed in June as the countries traded renewed fire over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for energy shipments.

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Associated Press writers Bill Barrow, Collin Binkley, Josh Boak, Kevin Freking, Seung Min Kim, Darlene Superville and Will Weissert and AP photographer Jacquelyn Martin contributed to this report.

Juszczyk was fined $14,926 after he imitated drinking a beverage following a catch in the third quarter of San Francisco's win over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.

“Your imitation of chugging a beer constituted an offensive demonstration and could reasonably be construed as being in poor taste,” the league wrote in the fine letter to Juszczyk, which was obtained by The Associated Press. “Players are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects positively on the game and is consistent with NFL standards of sportsmanship.”

Juszczyk, whose nickname is “Juice,” has been doing a version of that celebration throughout his career in San Francisco in response to 49ers fans chanting his nickname after catches or other big plays.

“I don't know how else to say it. I wasn’t drinking beer in my celebration,” Juszczyk said Thursday. “I think you guys all know my nickname is Juice. I have Juice on my pads. The stadium yells ‘Juice’ when I catch the ball. When I celebrate, I celebrate by drinking juice, and it’s been that way for years. So I was surprised as anybody when I got a fine this week.”

The fine was first reported by ESPN.

Juszczyk said he initially thought coach Kyle Shanahan was joking when he told him about the fine and hopes it gets removed after his appeal next week.

The NFL has vowed to crack down on celebrations this season and Juszczyk wasn't the only player to get fined this week. Juszczyk said he was told about six other players got fined. That includes Cincinnati receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins with Chase saying the two were docked for their new “people’s elbow” celebration.

Chase insisted the “people’s elbow” celebration, which involves grabbing his right elbow with his left hand and flopping the right arm forward, isn’t the sort of off-color humor others have made it out to be on social media, and they are simply creating a new way to signal a first down.

Juszczyk said he doesn't remember what the players were told about the crackdown during preseason but he never would have thought it would have applied to his longtime celebration.

Juszczyk's teammates are amused by the situation, with tight end George Kittle saying that his new nickname will be “Beer” instead of “Juice.”

Juszczyk himself had fun with it. Before talking to the media, he put a container on his locker shelf wrapped in white paper and “NOT BEER” written on it. He also had a picture of a juice box with his uniform number 44 displayed.

“That’s the other side of it, is I don’t even drink beer,” Juszczyk said. “I maybe drink like five times a year in the offseason. It’s usually with George because he peer pressures me.”

Juszczyk has been the 49ers' nominee for the Art Rooney Award for sportsmanship for the past six seasons. The only fines he has had previously are for illegal use of the helmet and low blocks. Juszczyk was fined $20,033 for illegal use of helmet in Week 1 and will be appealing that as well next week.

Juszczyk is in his 14th season in the NFL and 10th with San Francisco. He has made the Pro Bowl 10 times and was an All-Pro in 2023 and '25.

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AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi and AP freelancer Jay Morrison contributed to this report.

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Two decades later, the Mohegans have sold the Sun to the Houston Rockets and the Sun is relocating.

“I remember the energy in the arena,” Meehan said. “I knew it was Mohegan’s team we were cheering for.”

Now 29, Meehan is among a loyal group of Mohegan fans preparing to say goodbye to a team that became a point of community pride.

The Mohegan Tribe purchased its WNBA franchise for $10 million in 2003, becoming the first Native American tribe to own a professional sports team. Over 24 seasons, the Connecticut Sun connected generations of tribal members and gave Mohegan people a platform to share their language, culture and values with the league and its fast growing fan base.

But in May, the tribe’s business arm closed a $300 million deal with Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta to sell the Sun and relocate the team, with proceeds going to help strengthen the tribe's balance sheet as it digs out from substantial debt.

Beth Regan, chairwoman of the Mohegan Tribe’s Council of Elders and a self-proclaimed “Day 1” Connecticut Sun fan, said the team’s last game on Mohegan land on Thursday night will be emotional.

“Family and community mean everything to us,” Regan said. “The Connecticut Sun are part of our cháhshayooô, our family.”

Tribal members embraced the team

Basketball is not a particular passion for Meehan. Their loyalty and enthusiasm for the Sun is an exception.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s not a good year and they’re not winning or whatever,” Meehan said. “The team is special and the fan base is special.”

Meehan remembers wearing their hair in space buns like their favorite Sun player, Nykesha Sales, and flocking to the tunnel with other tribal members to ask for players’ autographs.

Players visited tribal youth camps and the annual Mohegan Wigwam Festival. The Sun’s fiery, free-spirited mascot, Blaze, made appearances at social dances.

Generations of Heather Landry's Mohegan family connect over their love of the Sun. Landry bought season tickets this year, giving her 10-year-old daughter Emersyn an opportunity to meet favorite players and even score a selfie with Brittany Griner and Saniya Rivers.

But Landry said her favorite memory of the team came when her family stopped by the Mohegan government center, happened upon a Sun practice session in the community gym and got invited to watch from the bleachers.

“I’m sure my daughter will cry when we walk out of the arena on Thursday,” Landry said of the team's last game in Connecticut.

The Sun “Moheganized” the WNBA

In April, when WNBA guard Charlisse Leger-Walker learned she had been drafted by an Indigenous-owned team, she felt it was “meant to be.”

Leger-Walker, who is Māori and Samoan, said Mohegan elders often visited Sun practices to welcome new players and offer blessings and prayers for the team’s success.

“It was cool for me to come to that realization, that a lot of my values that I carry with me from home are the exact same here,” Leger-Walker said.

From halftime performances featuring tribal singers and dancers to a team logo styled after a traditional Mohegan symbol, the Connecticut Sun brought Mohegan culture to the WNBA and to a national stage.

Regan has smudged the team with sage during losing streaks, a cleansing practice meant to help the players let go of poor performances. She has also gifted injured players sweetgrass braids and laughed when she remembered athletes including 6’6” center Jonquel Jones hugging their knees to squeeze into the community’s sweat lodge.

In 2021, when the WNBA and Nike gave team uniforms an upgrade, Regan said it was the perfect opportunity to “Moheganize” their uniforms with imagery like the “trail of life” motif, which is traditionally painted on woven baskets, and alternating purple and white trim styled after a wampum collar. One of the team’s alternate jerseys displays the word “Keesusk,” the Mohegan word for “Sun.”

“Our languages were taken from us in colonization,” Regan said. “So to see ‘Keesusk’ on those uniforms is so joyous, so validating for our tribe.”

The tribe took an early bet on the WNBA

The Mohegan Tribe purchased the WNBA’s Orlando Miracle in 2003 amid a financial crisis for the league with no clear path forward. That's when the team relocated to Uncasville, Connecticut and became the Sun.

By 2010, the Sun had made deep playoff runs, ranked near the top of the league in game attendance and became the first WNBA team to turn a profit despite playing in the league's smallest market.

Following the Mohegans' lead, other tribes have since invested in professional sports to diversify their economies. Wilton Rancheria is now majority owner of Major League Soccer's Sacramento Republic FC. The Seneca Nation recently purchased the National Lacrosse League’s Rochester Knighthawks. And the Pechanga Band of Indians' business arm is a founding partner of the LA Clippers' Intuit Dome arena.

Regan said the “writing's been on the wall” since the WNBA exploded in popularity and players negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement that requires teams to provide state-of-the-art practice facilities among other expensive upgrades that the tribe would have struggled to afford.

The Mohegan Tribal Council declined an emailed interview request Wednesday. In selling the team, Meehan trusts that the council made the right business decision. But they called the WNBA's move to effectively block a deal that would have sent the Sun to Boston, a much closer venue, a “betrayal" of the tribe that they say rescued the franchise.

Ahead of Thursday's final game, Meehan is gathering 24 years of Connecticut Sun mementos — ticket stubs, their original 2003 team jersey — to keep in a framed shadow box signed by the 2026 team's players.

Regan fought tears while explaining what Mohegan people will lose when the team relocates. She said her people should be proud of the role they played in shaping the WNBA's success story.

“Before all the attention, when the WNBA needed investment, who stepped up?” Regan said. “Mohegan did.” ___ This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.

Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im had the advantage on four straight holes along the back nine and finally converted for a 1-up lead. And then the Americans took over at just the right time. Burns hit an 8-iron to 2 feet on the 14th. Scheffler closed out the International side with a superb bunker shot on the 18th to secure par for a 1-up victory.

The lead fourballs match was the swing match as the Americans took a 3-2 lead.

“We certainly haven’t had the results that we’ve hoped for,” Burns said. “I feel like at times in the past we’ve played pretty well and just gotten beat. So it probably just was a little bit of a sigh of relief to finally get a point and just kind of let that out.”

It was the ninth time in the last 10 Presidents Cup the Americans won the opening session in a competition they have turned into an exhibition with 10 straight victories and only one loss since these matches began in 1994.

The Internationals showed plenty of fighting spirit, right down to the last hole in the lead match. Both captains came away pleased.

“A session win is a session win. We’re going to take it any way we can get it,” Snedeker said.

“We would have loved to have won the session,” International captain Geoff Ogilvy said. “But 2-3, we had a chat when we got back to the room, and I’m proud of the boys and I’m proud of how they played today. They’re all pretty excited to get out there tomorrow.”

Five matches of foursomes are scheduled for Friday at Medinah Country Club. Burns and Scheffler are out first against Canadians Corey Conners and Nick Taylor.

Jackson Koivun also wasted little time getting a point on the board. The 21-year-old Koivun, who turned pro just over three months ago, teamed with Justin Thomas in a 4-and-3 victory over Conners and Nico Echavarria, who managed only three birdies in the easier better-ball format.

Burns already delivered one big moment by making an 18-foot birdie putt on the par-3 ninth with Lee in tight for a sure birdie. But his 8-iron from 172 yards on the 14th swung momentum so much that Scheffler called it the “shot of the match.”

“I was basically out of the hole after my second shot. Sam was essentially was playing two-on-one there,” Scheffler said. “So for him to step up there and hit a really nice shot, I think you can definitely feel the momentum. He was put in a tough spot there, and he responded the way he knows how.”

The Internationals picked up two wins behind Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune — the first time for two Japanese players in the Presidents Cup since 1998 — and Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim in the anchor match.

“It’s been a long time. I’ve been waiting for another guy from Japan to come play with me, and I was really happy today,” Matsuyama said.

The Americans got their other win behind Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa, who never trailed against Adam Scott and Ryan Fox in a 3-and-2 win.

For so much of a cloudy afternoon at Medinah, two wins apiece looked certain for the Americans and the Internationals. Up for grabs was the opening match, which was tight the entire way.

Scheffler and Burns, 0-3-1 as partners in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, birdied the opening four holes. The Internationals ran off four straight birdies of their own to square the match through five holes. It was clear for so much of the day this would decide who had the lead.

Im and Lee, whose putting hurt them along the back nine, each missed par putts on the 17th to fall behind. Lee went long of the green, and Im gassed his 40-foot birdie putt some 15 feet by the hole. They couldn't catch up on the closing hole.

Koivun is the first player to win a Walker Cup point and a Presidents Cup point just over a year apart. He was part of Auburn's NCAA title team in June. He won his first PGA Tour title in the 3M Open in his third start. And now he's part of a dominant American team.

He said he told Thomas that “once I get my first tee shot out of the way, I’m going to be good.” His second tee shot went out-of-bounds, though Thomas saved it with a beautiful bunker shot to halve the hole. Koivun's wedge to 7 feet for birdie on the par-5 sixth gave them a 3-up lead, and the Internationals never seriously threatened the rest of the way.

Thomas improved to 7-0 in fourballs at the Presidents Cup.

“First two holes, definitely a little shaky,” Koivun said. “But after that kind of found a groove. Me and J.T., we played really well out there. He picked me up when I didn’t play too hot, so thankful for that, but we had a fun time.”

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See AP’s full golf coverage here

Leaving their husbands behind at the White House, the first ladies visited the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in a display of soft power that united two figures known for fusing style and diplomacy. It was the first public meeting in nearly a decade between the spouses, one a former fashion model and the other a famed soprano.

The first ladies arrived to crowds gathered on sidewalks across from the museum, many waving Chinese and American flags.

Inside the museum, the first ladies toured the Peacock Room, a gilded green, blue and gold dining room that was once housed in a London mansion before opening to the public in Washington in 1923. The room was created by American artist James McNeill Whistler.

They also paused to look at a stone disk from ancient China, along with “Princess from the Land of Porcelain,” an oil painting by Whistler hanging in the Peacock Room and featuring a kimono-clad woman standing and holding a fan. Later, youngsters from Hope Chinese School serenaded the women with renditions of famous Chinese folk songs, “Song and Smile” and “Jasmine Flower.”

First ladies last met in 2017 in Beijing

The meeting drew global attention, featuring two powerful and glamorous women from the world's two biggest economies.

“They definitely add to the grandiosity and the symbolic significance of this trip,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank.

Every interaction between the first ladies was scrutinized for clues about the standing between their countries, Sun said. Also closely watched were their style choices, which are followed in fashion circles. Melania Trump wore a black tweed jacket and skirt from Alexander McQueen, while Peng wore a qipao-style dress with a traditional collar adorned with a silver flower.

Their last public meeting was in 2017, when President Donald Trump stopped in Beijing during a tour of Asia in his first term. During that trip, the first ladies shared tea at the Palace Museum and visited a school where students performed songs and dances. Melania Trump did not attend her husband’s visit to Beijing earlier this year.

Trump and Peng approach their roles differently

Peng, 63, has embraced a more public role than her predecessors, who rarely attended state visits and usually stayed in the background. Melania Trump, who is 56, keeps a lower profile, often preferring to work behind the scenes.

They split off from the White House on Thursday while Donald Trump and Xi Jinping held private talks, touring the museum after a White House welcome ceremony and before a lavish state dinner.

Peng’s last trip to the White House was in 2015, when President Barack Obama hosted Xi. A noted star before her husband's rise, Peng ascended to national fame in the 1980s as a military singer, performing patriotic songs in full dress uniform.

As the children's choir sang on Thursday, Peng quietly mouthed some of the lyrics and later clapped along with the boys and girls. At one point, she turned and shared a laugh with Melania Trump.

Peng is also a public welfare advocate, taking on roles that have little precedent for her position in China. She has been an official antismoking ambassador in China, and in 2011 she was appointed as the World Health Organization goodwill ambassador for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

She has been appearing more in public recently following a period in which she was less visible on the global stage because of the COVID-19 pandemic and a cutback in diplomatic trips by her husband.

Asian art museum houses thousands of objects

During the visit, Peng expressed appreciation for the return of Chinese cultural relics from the U.S. in recent years, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Last week, U.S. authorities handed over 64 cultural relics and fossils that had been seized by law enforcement agencies, according to an earlier report from the agency.

The Smithsonian has been part of an effort to return stolen or unethically obtained objects to their home countries. Last year, the Asian art museum returned fragments of a silk manuscript from China that dated to more than 2,000 years ago and had been looted from a tomb.

Located along the National Mall, the museum has also been a target of the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate what it sees as liberal ideology from the institution's museums.

The White House last year ordered a review of Smithsonian museums to make sure exhibits “celebrate American exceptionalism” and “remove divisive or partisan narratives.”

In a Fox News Channel interview on Wednesday, Melania Trump said she was taking Peng to the museum to show the “connection with the culture, with us and China.”

When Peng visited the White House in 2015, she joined first lady Michelle Obama at a naming ceremony for a giant panda at the National Zoo. The ceremony also featured songs sung by preschoolers at a local Chinese immersion school. The panda, Bei Bei, was later returned to China in 2019 to enter a breeding program.

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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Didi Tang and Fu Ting in Washington and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

Michigan State Police said they have around 200 open cold cases at any given time, and with September being National Cold Case month, they’re working to get these cases the attention they deserve.

There is a lot of interest in true crime right now and Michigan State Police are trying to take advantage of that interest by launching a website to highlight some cold cases.

The website only has 11 cases so far, but Michigan State Police said they’re planning on adding more.

MSP Detective Sergeant Larry Rothman said the cases were hand-picked by detectives and that they reached out to family members to make sure they want their loved one’s cases listed.

“Our big focus is victim-centered and everything that we do, we wanna put the victim and the victim’s family first and foremost,” Detective Sergeant Larry Rothman with Michigan State Police said.

---> Find more Michigan Cold Case coverage here.

Ruth Postif

Ruth Postif was was 17 years old when she disappeared on October 18, 1973.

She left her Dearborn home to drive to the mall. Two days after she vanished, her vehicle was found in a wooded area between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. More than 200 volunteers helped search for her.

Her body was found more than three weeks later by a hunter in a muddy field 20 miles West of her home.

She had been stabbed to death.

Mary Alice Ellicott

Mary Alice Ellicott was last seen between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. on October 11, 1981, leaving the Polar Bear restaurant (now Thompson’s Bar & Grill) in Saline Township.

Her body was found nearly two weeks later in a grassy field about one and a half miles from the restaurant.

She was well-known at the bar. She had quit a job as a bartender there a week earlier, according to the Associated Press.

Her death was ruled a homicide.

Alcona Dam Jane Doe

This woman was found dead on October 26, 1994. She still hasn’t been identified.

Her remains were found by a hunter on Bamfield Road, near the Alcona Dam. The dam is just outside the town of Glennie, Michigan. Police estimate that she died one to four years before her remains were found.

She’s described as a white woman estimated to have been between 30 to 50 years old. She was 5′ or 5′4′' tall. Her hair was brown and may have had a red tint. There is a distinct gap between the two upper front teeth and evidence of missing and/or pulled teeth.

She had a fracture to her left arm just above the elbow that would have happened years before she died. The broken bone in her arm may have been the result of a car crash. She also had evidence of injuries to the spinal column in the upper and lower thoracic region.

All 11 cases listed on MSP website

Here are links to all 11 cold cases listed on the Michigan State Police cold case website:

• Mary Alice Ellicott
• Ruth Postif
• Diana Lee Peckham (Elmore)
• Janis Kay Sanders
• Glenna Jane West
• Alvaro (Al) Loera
• Janette Roberson
• David Laya Sr.
• Glennie Jane Doe
• Calvin M. Anderson
• Helen Leone Dymond

These people, these cases, they haven’t been forgotten. Part of the help MSP is getting comes from college students and interns who donate their time by digitizing case files.

“They’re able to help organize those cases which many of which are still in bankers boxes and filing cabinets here and there. So, that’s a heavy lift,” Rothman said.

If you have information about a cold case or you want your loved ones case listed, you can reach out to Michigan State Police through a form on the cold case website or by emailing them at MSP-ColdCase@michigan.gov.

Visit Michigan.gov/ColdCases to learn more or to submit a case to Michigan State Police.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco in February seized approximately 650,000 ballots from a November 2025 special election on statewide congressional redistricting favorable to Democrats and pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The measure easily passed statewide, and won in Bianco's county by roughly 80,000 votes.

The court called the ballots’ seizure “unlawful,” saying California law requires ballots to remain in the custody and control of election officials, even during a criminal investigation.

Bianco said in an email message to his supporters that he will comply with the court’s order.

“We are very disappointed and wholeheartedly disagree with the court’s ruling,” Bianco said in a statement shared later Thursday with The Associated Press.

Election officials watched the case with an eye to the November midterms

Bianco’s ballot investigation came as President Donald Trump repeatedly disputed the results of the 2020 election, citing unsubstantiated instances of fraud. Trump’s administration in January seized ballots and other documents from an election office in Georgia. Some Republicans have mirrored Trump’s rhetoric on voting in their states.

Election officials and civil rights groups have been following the Bianco case carefully as they brace for the possibility that Trump or his allies may try to seize ballots in November.

Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta immediately launched a legal challenge after the seizure, arguing the sheriff had no authority over election materials and warning his action was designed to sow distrust in elections. He ordered Bianco to return the ballots, but Bianco did not.

“The Court has now made clear that this kind of defiance cannot stand, that the Attorney General has the authority to intervene when sheriffs take improper action, and that voted ballots belong in the custody of elections officials,” Bonta said Thursday.

Sheriff seized the ballots after receiving a complaint about the vote count

Bianco said he confiscated the election materials after receiving a complaint from a local citizens group that the count was off. The group said it found a gap between the number of ballots cast and the number of ballots received in the election for the measure, sparked by a nationwide redistricting fight.

The group said it found a roughly 45,000-vote gap between the number of ballots cast and the number of ballots received by Riverside County in the special election for Proposition 50, the measure that redrew California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.

Riverside County Registrar of Voters Art Tinoco said the group misread ballot data and that the actual gap was 103, well within the margin of error set by California’s secretary of state.

At the time, Bianco was one of two prominent Republicans running for governor in a crowded June primary. He did not advance to the general election and later announced plans to seek reelection as sheriff in 2028.

The University of California, Los Angeles Voting Rights Project also sued the sheriff and the Riverside County Registrar of Voters on behalf of several voters. Xavier Becerra, a former state attorney general and Democrat running for governor, was part of the UCLA lawsuit.

The state Supreme Court heard arguments in both cases last month.

Bianco began his own recount

Bianco began recounting the vote shortly after seizing the ballots, using sheriff’s officials under the supervision of a special master appointed by a court. But he suspended it days later, citing mounting legal challenges. He stopped the count after the California Supreme Court ordered him to do so.

Attorney Bradley Hertz, representing Bianco, argued before the court that the sheriff had a legal duty to open the investigation after receiving the complaint and followed the penal code to carry out that investigation, first issuing search warrants in February, but the court disagreed.

“If election misconduct is suspected, the Elections Code provides several mechanisms for law enforcement to review and examine ballots without compromising their integrity,” the court wrote.

The court ruled Thursday that a search warrant does not override the state’s electoral law.

“These are the voters’ ballots. They must be protected through the processes the Legislature has established. This ruling provides important clarity for election officials, law enforcement, and voters across California,” said Chad Dunn, legal director and co-founder of the UCLA Voting Rights Project.

On Saturday, Newsom signed a bill that would prevent anyone from seizing ballots.

Court finds state attorney general orders are binding

The court also settled whether the state's attorney general has authority over county sheriffs, saying the attorney general's orders are binding. Bianco had argued that an attorney general's role is that of an adviser.

Bianco said in an email message to his supporters that while he will comply with the court's rulings, he “will not obey the message behind them — that local law enforcement works for Sacramento, not for the people who elected us.”

Copenhaver was in the bleachers during the event in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop, grazing Trump’s right ear with one bullet. Copenhaver was struck in the arm and in the abdomen, wounds that left him with lingering injuries and walking with a cane.

Two other attendees were also shot — David Dutch, who survived, and Corey Comperatore, who shielded his family from gunfire and was killed.

Copenhaver died Wednesday at Allegheny Health Network’s West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh, according to a statement from the Allegheny County medical examiner cited in local media accounts.

Copenhaver’s lawyer, Joseph Feldman, said in a statement issued on behalf of the family that he died surrounded by loved ones. The statement did not specify if his death was directly related to the injuries he suffered at the rally.

Copenhaver and his wife, Marianne Copenhaver, sued the federal government in June, alleging that the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security had “utterly failed” to provide appropriate security at the rally. Copenhaver’s injuries required multiple surgeries, including a transection of his colon, and he had lingering kidney and other damage, including a loss of feeling in his leg. The lawsuit described the wounds as “debilitating, grievous, permanent and life altering.”

The family's statement Thursday called Copenhaver above all else a devoted husband, father and grandfather who instilled the values of hard work, integrity and the service to others in his children.

“James’s dedication to this great country was a defining part of his life,” it said. “As a veteran, he proudly served our nation in the armed forces, and his love of country never wavered. James was a true American patriot who believed deeply in the freedoms and ideals upon which this nation was founded, and he embodied the very best traits of our great nation.”

In a statement posted to social media, Trump on Thursday called Copenhaver “a true American Patriot.”

“Jim showed tremendous bravery, courageously continuing to FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, and maintaining a positive spirit despite unimaginable hardships,” Trump wrote.

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Johnson reported from Seattle and Smyth from Columbus, Ohio.

The camp, located near Michigan Avenue and Merriman Road, is hidden from plain sight but accessible through several trails.

Tents, miscellaneous clothing, and piles of garbage were found at the site.

“You know I was once homeless before, so I understand the struggle. I understand what they’re going through, and it’s still people out here that need help,” said Keith Dallas, who shops in the area.

Dallas didn’t hold back when asked whether the city is doing enough.

“The city is not doing enough. I can actually vouch for that. The city is not doing enough,” he said.

Westland resident Hollie Taylor echoed that sentiment.

“I definitely don’t think there’s enough help for people, and that’s just what’s crazy. It doesn’t make sense,” Taylor said.

Mayor acknowledges encampment, points to county ownership

Westland Mayor Kevin Coleman said the encampment near Michigan and Merriman is not new.

“Oh, we’re very aware of it,” Coleman said.

He also noted that while the encampment sits within Westland’s borders, the land is owned by Wayne County.

“Because it’s government property, people can kind of go on there, and unless they’re asked to leave, they stay,” Coleman said. “Certainly some people are struggling and want to find housing. But also for some people, it’s a choice to kind of live outdoors.”

Coleman said he is actively pursuing state and federal funding to address homelessness in the community.

In the meantime, he is directing residents in need to the Wayne County Family Center and First Step Wayne.

“We want to make sure that we’re taking care of people in our community,” he said.

Westland police detail outreach efforts

Despite the land falling under Wayne County Parks jurisdiction, the Westland Police Department said it has stepped in repeatedly to address the situation.

According to Deputy Chief Robert Wilkie, Community Police Officers and a department Behavioral Health Clinician and Substance Use Disorder Specialist have visited the area and spoken with people living there.

Those who identified mental health or substance use challenges were offered services — but most declined. Rides to homeless shelters were also offered, with most declining those as well.

The department’s outreach hasn’t stopped there. During winter months, officers and clinicians have handed out coats that convert into sleeping bags, along with care packages containing winter clothing, socks and snacks.

In a statement, Wilkie said Wayne County Parks was recently on-site addressing the situation and that the department would continue working with other agencies toward a resolution.

“The Westland Police Department recognizes the public has concerns involving this situation, and will continue its proactive work to offer both assistance and services to the homeless while also working toward resolving this situation with the other agencies involved,” Wilkie said.

Wayne County Parks pledges holistic approach

Wayne County is also taking steps to address the encampment. Communications Director Matt Allen said Wayne County Parks has addressed the encampment twice since the end of July and planned another assessment visit.

“The Wayne County Parks Department has addressed the homeless encampment issue twice since the end of July. We are going out tomorrow to assess the issue again. Our approach is to treat all persons with dignity as we seek a holistic approach to solving this problem going forward,” Allen said.

Residents push for creative solutions

Some residents say the answer may already be hiding in plain sight.

“There’s so many empty buildings everywhere. Like why are we not using those to house people that need housing. Like that’s crazy,” Taylor said.

Douglas Stewart Carter was sentenced to death in 1985 after a jury found him guilty of murdering Eva Olesen, the aunt of a former Provo police chief. The state Supreme Court last year ordered a new trial, citing misconduct by investigators. Carter remains in custody and maintains his innocence.

No physical evidence linked him to the crime scene, but the jury convicted Carter, a Black man, based on a signed confession and two witnesses who said he had bragged about killing Olesen, who was white.

Judge Derek Pullan set a bond hearing for Monday, when defense attorney Neal Hamilton said he expects his client to be released pending an eight-week trial set to begin next July.

“It's not time to try to save face and continue with a tainted prosecution,” Hamilton said. “They know they don't have a case. The moral obligation is to dismiss.”

Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray said in a Wednesday court filing that the state was withdrawing an earlier notice that it intended to seek the death penalty. He said results of a DNA analysis received Tuesday excluded Carter as a possible match to blood found on a doorknob and material found on the handle of a knife used to stab Olesen, who was also shot.

Gray said the state planned to reexamine its decision to move forward with the case. But the prosecutor added that the new evidence “does not necessarily exonerate Carter of the murder.” Gray noted the handgun used to shoot Olesen was never found and Carter confessed.

Members of Olesen's family had testified during a hearing last month that Carter could pose a safety risk to them if he were released.

In a Thursday statement, the family said they “will not comment on the guilt or innocence of any individual” while prosecutors decide how to proceed.

“The latest developments have raised difficult questions and once again left our family without the sense of resolution we had hoped for after so many years,” the family said in the statement released by the Utah County Attorney's Office.

Carter has said his signed confession was coerced. The two witnesses he allegedly bragged to — a couple living in the U.S. without legal status — said years later that police and prosecutors offered to pay their rent, coached them to lie in court and threatened them and their son with deportation if they did not implicate Carter.

His defense attorneys also say witnesses saw a white man fleeing the crime scene and that an investigator suppressed evidence pointing to other suspects, including the victim’s husband, Orla Olesen. They allege prosecutors were close to filing charges against the husband, but a Provo police lieutenant asked them not to, so he could continue investigating. Carter was identified as a suspect soon after, the document alleges.

Orla Olesen, who died in 2009, had told police he found his wife dead in their home, partially undressed and with her hands tied behind her back.

James' departure was still on general manager Rob Pelinka's mind when he held his start-of-the-season news conference with coach JJ Redick on Thursday. The general manager also exuded optimism about his first discussions with the Lakers' latest new owners, praised the continued additions to his front office and got excited about the major changes to their roster, headlined by the addition of center Walker Kessler.

Pelinka began the afternoon by thanking James profusely for their eight years together, but he declined to go into any detail about the dissolution of the Lakers' partnership with the top scorer in NBA history and the focal point of their franchise. James informed the Lakers on June 30 that he wouldn’t return, and he chose the Philadelphia 76ers on July 24.

“We’re grateful for the LeBron era, and I think the communications with him this offseason were held diplomatically and professionally and honestly,” Pelinka said. “It was done amicably, professionally, gracefully, and we look at the whole thing with gratitude. It was a great era, and we're grateful for it.”

James' eight seasons with the Lakers were the longest continuous stretch with a single team of his NBA career, and he won the franchise's 17th championship in 2020 while returning it to consistent playoff success, if not annual title contention. He even became the first father to play alongside his son in league history, teaming up with Lakers guard Bronny James for the past two seasons.

When James left his son behind to move to Philadelphia, he pointedly did it on a two-year, $8 million deal — a steep discount that the Lakers never got. But if Pelinka and the Lakers feel any disappointment about the circumstances of James' departure, the GM has no intention of revealing it publicly.

Instead, the Lakers are moving on with a firm focus on maximizing the talents of NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic and fellow high-scoring guard Austin Reaves.

“Luka is the world’s greatest offensive player, and for us to have an opportunity to have that player in our building every night as a 26-year-old is special, and it requires us to do special things to build a team around it,” Pelinka said. “That’s what we started this summer, and we’re really, really happy with the way it’s looking so far.”

The biggest move was the acquisition of Kessler, the 7-foot-2 center acquired from Utah for a host of first-round draft capital and then signed to a four-year, $130 million contract. Kessler fills Doncic's longstanding desire for a center who can impact the game on both ends, both as a rim protector and a rim-rocking lob finisher.

“I think Walker is a perfect fit for Luka and AR, just in terms of his rim protection and really being an anchor for our defense,” Redick said. “That’s an area we’ve struggled with.”

Redick is already working on the changes he'll make with James' departure and Kessler's arrival. The Lakers have done copious defensive switching in recent years, but Redick understandably wants Kessler to spend his time protecting the rim. Redick also intends to go deeper into his bench on a consistent basis, because that bench has improved: “We're going to play more guys this year. We're just naturally deeper.”

Those additions include Collin Sexton, Quentin Grimes, Kevon Looney, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Ziaire Williams, Matisse Thybulle and rookie Cameron Carr, who is already drawing rave reviews from the Lakers' staff.

When asked to speculate on the Lakers' starting lineup, Redick was typically blunt and sarcastic: “I'm pretty confident in three of the spots. The other two spots will not be white guys.”

Doncic, Reaves and Kessler are white, as is 15-year NBA veteran Redick.

Even after being sold for the second time in two years, the Lakers are continuing to bolster their infrastructure with changes begun during Dodgers owner Mark Walter's brief stewardship. Pelinka said he has added more than 15 people to his front office, investing heavily in scouting and development with the goal of becoming the NBA's best in those categories.

Pelinka also expressed a desire for continuity in the Lakers' roster after years of wholesale upheaval in their desperate attempts to assemble a championship-caliber team around James as he entered his third NBA decade.

“One of the things we really wanted to lean into was a team that lined up in age with Luca and AR,” Pelinka said. “We want this team to grow together, and I think we were very intentional to get younger and deeper. I think if you look at our roster, that thesis was consistent throughout.”

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See AP’s full NBA coverage here

For many people in Michigan, fall means changing leaves, cooler temperatures and worsening allergies. Why is that?

Pollen peaks in late summer, early autumn, so right now.

One of the biggest culprits is ragweed pollen. A single ragweed plant can release billions of pollen grains, and on a windy day, those grains can travel for miles.

And it’s not just pollen.

It turns out “The Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” is more than just a White Stripes banger. It can also describe one of the reasons fall can be rough on allergy sufferers.

Falling leaves can trap moisture, creating the perfect environment for mold spores. And when you start cleaning up the yard, you can stir those spores into the air.

Even mowing the lawn can be a mixed bag. Keeping grass cut can help prevent it from producing as much pollen, but mowing can also stir up pollen and other particles already in the yard.

As temperatures cool, another seasonal factor can come into play. The hard frost that typically brings relief from some fall allergens can arrive later than it once did as temperatures warm. That can extend the period when certain plants are producing pollen.

Then there’s the shift indoors.

As temperatures drop, people tend to spend more time inside, where they can be exposed to dust, pet dander and indoor air pollutants. Opening windows can help bring in fresh air, but it can also allow outdoor pollen to enter the home.

So what can you do?

Check daily pollen counts and replace or clean air filters as recommended. Keep windows closed when pollen counts are high. If possible, avoid activities such as raking when conditions are especially dusty or pollen-heavy.

Showering after spending time outdoors can help remove pollen from your skin and hair. You can also brush pets after they’ve been outside to reduce the amount of pollen they bring indoors.

And, yes, wearing a mask outdoors can help reduce your exposure to airborne allergens.

Authorities in Florida arrested Robert M. Murphy Jr. on Wednesday night, and he was being held Thursday in the Marion County jail on out-of-state fugitive warrants from North Carolina. That came after a Wake County grand jury indicted Murphy on Sept. 14 on nine felony counts of sexual contact under pretext of medical treatment and 23 counts of sexual battery, a misdemeanor.

In a statement Thursday to The Associated Press confirming the indictment, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said the charges were linked to 14 victims who were interviewed by law enforcement officers amid a multiyear investigation.

“This is a big step in a longer process committed to seeking justice on behalf of these victims,” Freeman said. “We commend the hard work of law enforcement and the courage of the victims who have brought us to this point.”

The Marion County Sheriff's Office listed the 32 charges but no additional details on its online database after his arrest, which was first reported by ESPN.

Allegations have moved from civil to criminal court

The case originated with a federal civil lawsuit from a single athlete filed four years ago. That complaint alleged years of misconduct by Murphy, such as improper touching of the genitals during massages and intrusive observation while collecting urine samples during drug testing.

The case eventually landed in state court in 2025 with 14 former Wolfpack athletes, with that number growing to 31 joining the lawsuit by late January. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in June, citing procedural reasons, while attorneys for the players have appealed.

According to the indictments unsealed Thursday afternoon, the 32 charges scattered among 14 victims covered allegations ranging from October 2016 to fall 2021. Murphy faces as many as six charges with two felony counts related to a single accuser, as well as a total of four charges and two felonies with another.

Jared Hammett and Seth Blum, Raleigh-based attorneys who have represented Murphy in the civil suits, have denied wrongdoing by their client. They did so again Thursday in a statement to the AP in response to the criminal charges that referenced N.C. State's 2022 statement that campus police had conducted an investigation that year and filed no criminal charges.

“We are very disappointed that the Wake County District Attorney’s office would choose to prosecute based on a changing story,” Hammett and Blum said. “Four years ago law enforcement concluded there was not enough to support charges. Apparently, after enough careful editing, someone came up with a story that got a prosecutor’s attention.

“We, as always, believe that when people hear the actual facts of what occurred, Mr. Murphy will be cleared and the truth will be paramount.”

Durham-based attorney Kerry Sutton, who has represented players going back to the original case, told the AP that the number of athletes who have contacted players’ attorneys with similar allegations has grown to 35.

“This is a huge development for the men,” Sutton said in a statement about the criminal charges. “They are extremely grateful for (Wake) ADA Melanie Shekita’s dedication and for the assistance of law enforcement in North Carolina and Florida.”

Civil lawsuits have taken winding paths through court system

All but two of those 31 athletes were “John Doe” plaintiffs to protect their identity, while two former men’s soccer players were named.

One is Benjamin Locke, who filed the original complaint in August 2022 and whose allegations dating to August 2015 were the subject of the N.C. State campus police's initial investigation. The AP typically doesn’t identify those who say they have been sexually assaulted or abused unless the person has spoken publicly about it, which Locke has done.

The other is one of two athletes who filed their own federal lawsuits in February 2023 and April 2023. One of those cases were dismissed by a district court before being revived in January 2025 by a federal appeals court.

The lawsuit in state court with 31 athletes as plaintiffs listed Murphy, who was at N.C. State from 2012-22, among nine defendants named individually. Others are school officials accused of negligence in oversight roles, including former athletic director Debbie Yow and current AD Boo Corrigan.

The judge's June dismissal of the lawsuit cited reasons such as the statute of limitations expiring in claims dating back as early as 2013. It had also cited jurisdictional grounds, stating any complaint should go through the North Carolina Industrial Commission — a state agency that deals with workplace matters because N.C. State is a public university — rather than civil court.

In a statement, N.C. State said it was aware of the criminal charges filed against Murphy.

“Sexual misconduct of any kind is unacceptable,” the university said. “The health and safety of students and student-athletes is paramount to N.C. State Athletics and the university. We are aware of the charges filed by Wake County against Robert Murphy. We will cooperate with law enforcement in this matter. As this is an ongoing legal matter, we cannot comment further at this time.”

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See AP’s full sports coverage here

Hamas said it was ready to move forward on a Gaza peace agreement, while a top European Union official said only a small amount of the funds needed to rebuild the Gaza Strip has been collected.

Here is a look at the latest news from the Middle East. More coverage of the U.N. General Assembly is available here.

Netanyahu calls claims of Gaza genocide the ‘lie of the century’

Allegations of Israeli genocide in Gaza are “the biggest lie of the century,” Netanyahu told world leaders in a defiant speech before the U.N. General Assembly.

Netanyahu's appearance in the hall was met with a mix of cheers, boos and mass walkouts. Scores of delegates trooped out and a majority of seats sat empty as he spoke.

“If there are any other moral cowards who have not yet left the hall, please do so now,” Netanyahu said.

His voice rising in emphasis, Netanyahu said attacking Iran “was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make” and denounced as “moral cowards” delegates who walked out of the hall.

Abbas addresses UN by video after visa is denied

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was forced to address the U.N. in a prerecorded video after the United States again denied him a visa to attend the General Assembly.

The 90-year-old leader’s popularity at home and relevance abroad have both waned. But in his remarks, Abbas made clear he did not intend to quietly accept being sidelined.

“We will not leave our homeland. We will not accept displacement. And we will not allow anyone to decide our future on our behalf,” Abbas said.

Though world leaders have repeatedly invoked the plight of Palestinians in speeches throughout the week, Abbas urged the international community to take more tangible action against Israel.

It was the second straight year Abbas was denied a visa.

Hamas says it's ready to advance Gaza peace agreement

A Hamas spokesman said the group is ready to move forward with the next steps of a peace agreement, after Trump’s Board of Peace unveiled a six-month, $2.45-billion plan for Gaza's reconstruction.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem expressed the Palestinian militant group’s “full readiness to implement the Board of Peace’s roadmap” but made no mention of any disarmament plans.

Israel has said it will not allow reconstruction until Hamas disarms.

Last year, Hamas agreed to a plan that includes disarmament but has since traded accusations with Israel of ceasefire violations and has accused Israel of violating the agreement by continuing to occupy much of Gaza.

Houthis claim attacks on Saudi targets

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed attacks on a “sensitive target” in the Saudi capital of Riyadh and on Aramco oil company facilities in the Saudi port city of Yanbu, but did not provide evidence of those claims.

Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in a statement that cruise and ballistic missiles and drones were used, but did not specify when. It was the second claim of an attack against the Saudi capital in days.

The rebels also said they fired dozens of missiles and drones on the southwestern Saudi province of Jazan. Saree said that they were in response to the “unjust siege and the launching of aggressive airstrikes” from Saudi territory.

The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the claims.

The Saudi government and Aramco did not immediately respond to requests for comments. A Saudi military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, had said earlier that six ballistic missiles targeting Saudi Arabia ’s Red Sea port of Yanbu and southwestern city of Taif had been intercepted.

At the U.N., Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said he wasn’t worried about a Houthi takeover of parts of Yemen, and that the government is “very capable of defending the territory it controls.”

UN urges access to humanitarian aid for civilians in Yemen

The U.N. pleaded for the fast delivery of humanitarian aid in Yemen as fighting between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed government forces intensifies an already dire humanitarian situation.

U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said people fleeing violence need access to food, shelter and healthcare. Ground fighting, artillery and aerial strikes have killed and wounded at least 125 civilians since the beginning of August. Türk also called for the release of 73 U.N. staffers detained by the Houthis in the past few years.

UNRWA raises tens of millions of dollars

UN agency for Palestinian refugees raises tens of millions of dollars including from France, Germany, Spain and Belgium

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said over 50 countries attended a closed ministerial meeting on the agency, known as UNRWA, on the sidelines of the U.N.’s annual gathering of world leaders on Thursday which he welcomed.

“We continue to emphasize that UNRWA is indispensable, irreplaceable against the horrific humanitarian reality that continues to exist in Gaza,” he told a press conference afterward.

Israel has banned UNRWA from operating in its territory and the United States has cut all funding.

UNRWA’s acting commissioner-general Christian Saunders said the agency received about 30 million euros Thursday, according to an unconfirmed tally, bringing its deficit down to near $60 million.

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This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

The verdict came more than three years after what was supposed to be a fun and educational summer STEM program trip became a life-altering tragedy for two families.

Elijah Gibson, 8 at the time, and Lavell McGee, 10 at the time, suffered “life-altering injuries,” according to the families’ attorney, Jon Marko.

“It was a severe tragedy,” Marko said. “What was taken from this family and taken from these children is priceless, and it can never be brought back.

The $896,467,970 verdict was awarded to the family of Elijah Gibson.

The crash

The crash happened in July 2023 at a Continental test track, now known as an Aumovio facility.

According to a civil complaint filed in Oakland County Circuit Court, children attending a Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program, or DAPCEP, summer STEM camp were invited to a vehicle demonstration organized by Continental.

“They had no idea that they were going to get there and be placed next to a high-speed racetrack,” Marko said. “They didn’t even tell the school that they were going to do this, so it’s the absolute last thing that any parent could imagine.”

The complaint alleged that Continental positioned the children directly behind a guardrail near the track.

Some children were leaning over or on top of the guardrail, according to the filing, and the company allegedly failed to stop them or provide warnings and signage about the danger.

After making a turn, the driver accelerated and lost control, according to the complaint.

The vehicle struck the guardrail and hit the children before flipping onto its roof.

Marko said the vehicle was traveling about 55 miles per hour and that the driver had only been working at the facility for about three months.

“They threw him the keys and said, ‘You’ve got to drive,’ because the professional driver who was supposed to be driving was at his bachelor party,” Marko said.

Marko said the children’s injuries were life-altering. The lawsuit said one child was hospitalized with large wounds to his legs and other parts of his body, along with a traumatic head injury, scarring, and disfigurement. The other child suffered permanent brain and orthopedic damage.

“They’re never going to be the same,” Marko said.

Marko also accused Continental of disabling safety systems, including traction and braking control, before the demonstration.

“There were so many opportunities to stop this from happening,” Marko said. “So many intentional bad decisions were made. When you put profits over people, bad things happen.”

Marko also alleged that, immediately after the crash, a Continental employee contacted a corporate lawyer while the children were still being treated at the scene. Marko alleged the company was trying to locate waivers that could help it avoid responsibility.

“It’s disgusting,” he said. “While these little children were on the ground struggling for their lives, the head VP of their marketing and communications department was on the phone with the corporate lawyer before the kids were even loaded into the ambulance.”

‘We remain profoundly disappointed by Continental’

Elijah Gibson’s father, Vincent Gibson, said the family was grateful to its legal team and the jury “for acknowledging the immense physical and emotional trauma our son has endured since July 2023.”

He said the verdict would help secure Elijah’s future care but criticized Continental, now known as Aumovio, for what he described as a lack of accountability and compassion throughout the legal process.

“While this verdict secures his future care, we remain profoundly disappointed by Continental’s (Aumovio’s) absolute lack of accountability and complete apathy toward our family throughout this years-long ordeal,” Gibson said.

“No verdict can undo the permanent injuries Elijah suffered, but the jury gave us the justice the company refused to offer,” he said. “Our focus now is entirely on Elijah’s lifelong healing.”

Marko said the verdict was one of three major verdicts his firm obtained this summer – totaling nearly $1 billion. The other child’s family received $32.7 million, his firm said.

“These decisions that Continental made have changed their lives forever -- for the worse,” he said. “This should scare any parent.”

Responses to the verdict

Local 4 reached out to Continental for comment on the verdict, but we are waiting to hear back.

A spokesperson with DAPCEP stressed that the claims in this matter “were dismissed with prejudice, and the case has since been resolved.”

DAPCEP declined to comment further, but added that it remains “committed to creating safe and engaging learning experiences, and the safety and well-being of the children we serve has always been and remains our highest priority.”

“After incarceration, a lot of people don’t see us, they don’t hear us, they don’t know what our issues are,” Howell, 36, said. “They don’t care.”

She’s a peer leader with Nation Outside – a nonprofit organization based in Southwest Detroit that focuses on helping the formerly incarcerated.

Howell helps people like her who have served their time and are trying to start over.

She was first introduced to the organization’s program manager, Rachel Worthy.

Howell was openly skeptical about them until finding out that all of the people who work there – including Worthy – were also former felons.

“They made me feel welcome, and I found out everybody essentially there had, you know, experienced incarceration or had a felony or knew what I was feeling,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I was walking in there with my number on my forehead”

Worthy pled guilty to identity theft and embezzlement while she was a student at Wayne State.

“I met Delenia through work we were doing at the Oakland County Parole Office,” Worthy said. “Her agent actually came to me and was like, she a big part of our program and she just needs someone to talk to.”

“I’ve served my time”

In March 2021, Howell was one of six people charged in the killing of her ex-boyfriend, Jason Foster, in Eastpointe on Dec. 9, 2020.

Foster, who was also the father of Howell’s children, was killed in apparent retaliation for the killing of her then-boyfriend, Jonas Williams, one day earlier in Detroit.

She was accused of organizing the killing.

“I lost my boyfriend at like 11 p.m. maybe, and then at like Noon the very next day, I lost my kid’s father,” she said. “Everything changed for me.”

Staring down a life sentence, she accepted a plea deal in Nov. 2022 and was sentenced as an accessory and served three years in prison.

She was paroled in 2023, and her sentence was officially discharged in December 2024.

The hardest part of incarceration for her was being away from her three children.

“I never ever wanted to be away from my kids, and I feel like I made a decision to be around the wrong people, and I made them suffer for a decision that I made,” she said. “I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to be back with them, but it was the worst time of my life.

“I thought I would never be able to serve my community again”

“Delenia is a great representative of what happens when you are supported, when you’re heard, when you’re seen, and somebody gives you a second chance,” Cecilia Zavala, Nation Outside’s executive director, said. “We all are formerly incarcerated, have a post-conviction in everybody we serve, so we’re all in this unique community.”

Like Howell and Worthy, Zavala is living out her second chance.

“You get in trouble with the law, have a conviction, and now are starting over,” she said. “We’re lucky if they let us fold pizza boxes at Little Caesars.”

In August 2016, she pleaded no contest to embezzlement while serving as COO of the now-defunct nonprofit Esperanza Detroit, an agency that served at-risk students at Detroit Western High School.

She didn’t serve prison time, but the conviction sits like a scarlet letter on her record.

“Being walked off jobs because of your felony conviction, having trouble finding a place to live,” she said. “I still feel that felony is the first thing people see.”

Zavala was accused of using Esperanza’s credit and debit cards without approval between November 2011 and May 2014. She says that evidence that would have exonerated her was not allowed in court, and she took the plea deal.

“I was so ashamed and embarrassed of my conviction that I just didn’t think I could do it,” she said. “It’s really difficult to build and thrive after you get a conviction.”

Zavala says one of Nation Outside’s goals is to also shine a light on the criminal justice system that disproportionately affects Black and Brown people and also does not do enough to rehabilitate people, particularly those who have a release date.

“The system is designed especially for certain people to keep people in that cycle of poverty,” she said. “When you see people that are successful, that starts to break that cycle and end that stigma.”

Howell is set to be honored at their “Seeds of Change” event on Friday night in Southwest Detroit. Her goal is to continue to rebuild her life for both herself and her family.

Nation Outside’s state funding was cut in last year’s budget, and they are constantly raising money to stay afloat. Howell says the organization has helped change her life.

“I really hope that Nation Outside finds exactly the funding they need,” she said. “It’s really for us to help people because when they come back from being incarcerated, it is very hard.”

“It’s a barrier to even wanting to ask for help because you feel so ashamed and you feel so alone,” Zavala added. “We’re trying to end that.

“We want people to feel supported,” she said. “We want them to come home to community. We don’t judge; we support.”

The forward's goal made the score 1-1 early in the second half. He then jogged to the corner, pulled out the corner flag, dropped his right knee to the grass and rested the pole on the back of his left hand before making a firing gesture. It wasn’t immediately clear if Farchi was simulating a pool cue shot or a weapon.

The referee promptly showed the Colorado Rapids forward a second yellow card, just four minutes after his first, leading to a red card.

Romano Schmid’s penalty had opened the scoring. Phillipp Mwene and Saša Kalajdžić scored in the final minutes for Austria to win the game 3-1.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Instead, they matter-of-factly formed a handshake line, as if their 9-1 win over the Royals was any 'ol mid-summer matinee.

They were saving the party for the clubhouse.

The White Sox clinched no worse than one of three AL wild-card spots with the rout in Kansas City, and in the plastic-draped visiting locker room, the bottles of Moët were stacking up quickly. Miguel Vargas was drenched, Munetaka Murakami was beaming and a team expected to finish last in the AL Central was relishing in a most improbable postseason appearance.

“This means a lot for us,” Vargas said. “We've been chasing this moment for a long time. It's special for us. It's special for the whole organization. This is a special group of guys, and this is the most fun we can have.”

That might be a bit of hyperbole. The White Sox could be replicating — or, one-upping — the celebration this weekend.

That's because they still have their sights set on a division title. The White Sox began the day just a game back of Cleveland, which was finishing a three-game set in Boston later Thursday. Chicago was headed home for three games against last-place Colorado, while the Guardians were getting ready to fly to Kansas City, where they wrap up their regular season this weekend.

Maybe that's why the White Sox showed some restraint in celebrating their postseason berth right in front of the Royals.

They could still use a little help from them.

“They know what this is about,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “This comes with the expectation that this was going to happen, which is really cool. They're definitely letting loose right now, we'll have a fun plane ride, but then back to business tomorrow.”

It was a charmed all-around day for the city of Chicago. Just as the White Sox were securing a postseason pass, the Cubs were tying up a 2-1 win over the Marlins, clinching a wild-card spot of their own in the NL playoffs. Both Chicago teams reached the postseason for the fourth time after 1906, 2008 and 2020.

The Cubs made it last year, too, when the White Sox were busy losing 102 games and seemed to have little reason to hope.

It wasn't just that the White Sox were two years removed from losing 121 games, setting a post-1900 record, or that no team had made the playoffs after consecutive 100-loss seasons — let alone three in a row. But even midway through April, they were making good — err, bad? — on most folks' expectations, starting 6-13 and looking every bit the part of a perennial loser.

But then their youngsters starting slugging, and the White Sox started piling up wins.

Murakami, who signed a two-year, $34 million deal in December — after the White Sox paid a $6,575,000 posting fee to the Yakult Swallows — has 33 homers and drove in his 74th run Thursday. Vargas has been receiving some MVP hype after hitting 33 homers of his own and driving in 92. And Colson Montgomery, who on Thursday tied Mark Reynolds' season record of 223 strikeouts, has masked all those whiffs by hitting 31 homers and driving in 87 runs.

“W’s are all that matters,” Montgomery said, Champagne and beer dripping from his goggles in the middle of the pandemonium. “You see this? This is all that matters. Whatever I can do to help the team, that’s all I care about.”

Chicago's trade of left-handed ace Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox in December 2024 also has paid long-term dividends.

Three players that the White Sox landed in the deal — Kyle Teel, Chase Meidroth and Braden Montgomery — were in the lineup Thursday, and all played a big role in helping the White Sox clinch the 12th postseason appearance.

Teel homered, reached base five times and scored three runs. Meidroth had a couple of hits, extending his on-base streak to 15 games. And batting last in the order, Montgomery had a hit and scored during a three-run second inning that broke open the game.

It was 6-0 after two innings and 8-0 after four. And pretty soon, plastic tarps were going up in the visitors clubhouse, an almost unfathomable party just 90 minutes away.

“This is what the White Sox is. We come together,” Murakami said, “and this is not the end. We’re going to start from here.”

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

The city’s average credit score is 570.

Compare that to Chicago at 630 and Grand Rapids at 634.

But if you need to bring that score up a bit, there is help. Gesher Human Services is teaming up with Huntington Bank to offer a free four-week virtual program for anyone in metro Detroit with a credit score of 600 or lower.

It’s the Home Credit Initiative.

It runs every Thursday, Oct. 8, 15, 22, and 29, from noon to 1 p.m.

When you finish the program, you’ll receive a $750 grant to help pay down debt.

Click here to learn more.

Watch the full interview above for more information.

Looking glamorous in an animal-print coat, dark sunglasses and a blowout, the rapper took her seat next to stylist Kollin Carter and the show could go on.

Fausto Puglisi turned up the volume as he evolved the Cavalli vocabulary. His Spring-Summer 2027 womenswear collection piled animal prints, florals and feathers onto the house’s familiar foundation of exposed skin and embellished denim.

Flowing robes topped low-rise jeans worn with thongs and bra tops. Cropped jeans glittered with crystals and sprouted feathers, while a mesh minidress erupted into crinkled golden ruffles. Chiffon skirts fell into long shredded hemlines, and animal prints were pieced together in a mishmash suggesting a rumble in the jungle. Prints clashed joyfully in an exuberant collection that played on all the Cavalli codes of sex, glamour and animal instinct.

“What I like about Cavalli is that you have the possibility to create jeans as an object,’’ Puglisi said backstage. “You feel them, you have them and you put them in your wardrobe, and you feel better. It’s about joy.”

The 34-year-old mother was fatally stabbed during her lunch break in downtown Detroit over the weekend.

The case is also raising questions about whether the suspect slipped through the cracks of Wayne County’s mental health system.

Community rallies around Wix family

An honor song was performed during Wednesday’s press conference at Detroit Police Department headquarters to help carry Wix’s family through the loss.

“Our family wants to stand here today, first and foremost to say thank you to our community and to everyone nationwide that this story has touched. Thank you for stepping up, supporting us, holding us, and carrying us through the unimaginable loss and pain of losing Jaquoya,” said Alicya Wix, Jaquoya’s sister.

Alicya also spoke to the kind of person her sister was and the void her death has left.

“Jaquoya was deeply loved just as she loved others. She was a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend, a coworker and her loss leaves a hole in our hearts that can never be filled. But today because of our community and everyone who refused to look away, justice is moving forward,” she said.

The family also expressed gratitude to restaurant workers who rushed to help Jaquoya after the attack, saying their courage and compassion meant a great deal to them.

Suspect charged with first-degree murder

Devon Watson was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in connection with the Sunday afternoon attack.

According to investigators, Watson approached Wix as she sat in an alley behind a Chipotle restaurant in downtown Detroit and stabbed her multiple times before fleeing the scene.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kim Worthy called the killing premeditated — despite the fact that Watson and Wix did not know each other.

Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison acknowledged the weight of the case at the press conference.

“There are some incidents that are difficult even for those of us who have spent our careers in law enforcement to comprehend, and this is one of them,” Bettison said.

Bettison also said there will be an increased police presence downtown, with officers paying closer attention to alleys and areas where people may be more vulnerable.

Mental health system questioned

Beyond the criminal charge, the case is drawing attention to Wayne County’s mental health monitoring system.

According to court documents obtained by Local 4, a nurse filed a petition with Wayne County Probate Court on July 3 to have Watson committed to a psychiatric hospital after he was brought into Corewell Health Trenton’s emergency room following a reported disturbance at a coffee shop.

The nurse wrote that Watson was “not making sense” and appeared psychotic. A doctor concluded Watson suffered from acute psychosis.

The petition to have Watson committed was granted July 13.

He was admitted to a hospital for mental health treatment for up to 60 days, with follow-up outpatient treatment ordered after discharge.

Under the court-ordered Assisted Outpatient Treatment plan, the order was sent to the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network, which then forwarded it to a local provider.

That provider was required to file a form with the probate court confirming a treatment plan was in place — a critical step that allows the court to monitor a patient’s compliance and take action if appointments are missed.

But according to retired Wayne County Probate Judge Milton Mack, that form was never filed.

That means the court had no way to track Watson’s progress — or intervene if he stopped complying with treatment.

James E. White, CEO of the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network, stopped short of addressing the specifics of Watson’s case but signaled an internal review is coming.

“Without getting to the specifics of this case, know that as more information comes forward, we will be launching an investigation internally to look at the practices that occurred,” White said.

Chief Bettison and other officials also declined to comment on specifics of Watson’s background, saying doing so could interfere with the judicial process.

WAYNE COUNTY – Seasonal allergies, colds, influenza, scooter & e-bike injuries, respiratory illnesses, asthma flare-ups, stomach viruses.

Dr. Avery Harrell -- Trinity Health Livonia Emergency Medicine Physician

“With fall settling in, our emergency department is beginning to see the familiar seasonal rise in respiratory complaints, asthma flare-ups, stomach illnesses, and a few early cases of the flu. With school and fall activities back, now is a good time for families to consider receiving their annual flu vaccine, and to reinforce simple habits such as good handwashing and staying home when sick. For those with asthma, keeping rescue inhalers and other medications readily available can also help prevent minor symptoms from becoming an emergency.”

Dr. Glen Clark -- Emergency Center Chief, Corewell Health Beaumont Grosse Pointe Hospital

“Interestingly, we’re seeing an increase in patients presenting with a general viral syndrome. While they are testing negative for COVID-19 and influenza, many are experiencing symptoms such as muscle aches, nausea, and congestion.”

Dr. Tiffney Widner -- Pediatrician, Children’s Hospital of Michigan

“We’re seeing lots of patients for allergies and colds. Parents should emphasize good hand-washing hygiene and sneezing into the elbow with their kids.”

Dr. Robert Sherwin -- Emergency Department, DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital

“Flu is starting to peek its ugly head a little – but prevalence is still very low. People are still out-and-about making bad decisions on scooters and e-bikes, leading to visits to our Emergency Department.”

OAKLAND COUNTY – Seasonal allergies, upper respiratory viruses, COVID.

Dr. James Ziadeh -- Emergency Center Chief, Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital in Royal Oak

“There’s currently no particular seasonal condition that’s peaking right now. We recently had an uptick in COVID cases but nothing significant. Influenza isn’t in season quite yet. Also, cryptosporidium (a diarrheal disease) is no longer an issue. We are seeing run-of-the-mill ER complaints with a heavy load of behavioral health conditions.”

Dr. Rena Daiza -- Primary Care Physician, Henry Ford Medical Center Bloomfield Twp.

“I’m seeing the usual seasonal illnesses starting to pick up, especially respiratory viruses, which is normal with school back in session and more people gathering indoors. The best ways to protect yourself are staying up to date on vaccinations, washing your hands regularly, and staying home when you’re feeling sick.”

Dr. Josh Newblatt -- Pine Knob Urgent Care

“Seeing a lot of patients whose allergies have kicked up as well as increase in viral upper respiratory illnesses.”

Dr. Rachel M. Klamo -- Primary Care Physician, Henry Ford Glennan Primary Care

“This week we have seen traditional fall viruses as the weather changes and a few UTIs.”

WASHTENAW COUNTY – Respiratory viruses, sore throat, asthma flare-ups, croup, gastrointestinal illnesses, sports injuries, influenza.

Dr. Stuart Bradin -- Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics, Michigan Medicine

“We’ve seen an increase in viral respiratory symptoms—especially in college-aged kids—with patients being stuffy or congested and having sore throats. We have also seen several cases of asthma, and some cases of croup and GI illness with belly pain, vomiting and diarrhea. We continue to see several orthopedic injuries, especially football related.”

Dr. Brad Uren -- Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Michigan Medicine

“The adult side is still seeing some URIs and influenza-like illnesses. The weather change is also causing some asthma and COPD exacerbations.”

Washtenaw County Health Department

“Influenza cases in Washtenaw County residents are currently at moderate levels. Influenza A wastewater detection is currently at low levels in both Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. “Influenza B wastewater detection is currently at low levels in both Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. According to the most recent MDHHS MI Flu Focus report, influenza A H3N2 is currently dominating the 2026-2027 influenza season.”

MONROE COUNTY – Upper respiratory infections, sore throat, seasonal allergies.

Dr. Nicholas Schenk -- ProMedica Monroe Regional Hospital Family Medicine Residency

“We have been seeing a growing number of upper respiratory infections that are not influenza, COVID-19, or RSV. We have seen these illnesses most frequently in middle and high school students, but they are occurring in all age groups. These infections typically do not require specific treatment beyond symptom management and generally last about one week. For many patients, a sore throat is the primary symptom. The best approach is prevention through frequent handwashing, limiting contact with others when you are ill, and maintaining healthy habits such as staying hydrated and good nutrition.”

MACOMB COUNTY – Strep throat, gastrointestinal illnesses, sports injuries.

Dr. Emily Orille -- Emergency Physician at McLaren Macomb

“While not a condition that is trending, there have been a noticeable number of school-aged patients with strep throat. Similarly, there have also been more pediatric patients with gastrointestinal distress, with symptoms of an upset or painful stomach, nausea, and diarrhea. Youth athletes also continue to present to the emergency department with various sports injuries, while other patients are treated for injuries related to a fall. Changing weather has alleviated many airborne allergens and there have been noticeable less patients seeking care for asthma and other allergy complications.”

LIVINGSTON COUNTY – Sinus infections, yellowjacket/bee stings, influenza, injuries from e-bikes, mopeds & bicycles.

Trinity Health Livingston Emergency Department and the Brighton Medical Center

“We are seeing an influx of bee stings, as well as some influenza cases. Additionally, we are continuing to see injuries stemming from E-bike, moped, and bicycle accidents.”

Dr. Bashar Yalldo -- Henry Ford Byron Family Medicine- Howell

“I have treated a few patients with yellowjacket stings this week. We have also seen a few cases of sinus infections.”

The sharply divided decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals leaves Melissa Lucio on Texas’ death row, where she narrowly escaped execution in 2022 when the same court ordered a review of her case two days before her scheduled lethal injection. Lucio's attorneys said Thursday they will now appeal her case to federal courts.

Lucio, 58, was convicted of capital murder in the death of her daughter, Mariah, after the child sustained severe head trauma that prosecutors said came from abuse.

Efforts to get Lucio's conviction overturned focused on claims that the child wasn't beaten but was injured in an accidental fall down a steep staircase two days before she died. They were bolstered when the appeals court ordered the trial court to review some of her claims. Her original trial judge then issued a 62-page ruling in 2024 that concluded Lucio was “actually innocent” of capital murder.

Prosecutors had long maintained Mariah was the victim of abuse and noted her body was covered in bruises. But the trial judge's ruling on Lucio's innocence also determined that prosecutors presented false testimony, suppressed evidence and that new scientific evidence that was not available during Lucio’s 2008 trial undermines and contradicts evidence presented by the state. Prosecutors had conceded during Lucio's appeal that they had withheld material evidence in her trial.

But the majority opinion issued by the all-Republican appeals court on Thursday said the judge’s ruling relied too heavily on Lucio’s interpretation of events of the case and not the prosecution. The five-judge majority opinion was unsigned, and four judges dissented.

Many lawmakers and celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, an advocate for criminal justice reform, and Amanda Knox — an American whose murder conviction in the death of a British student in Italy was overturned — had rallied to Lucio’s cause.

Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project and one of Lucio's attorneys, said her legal team will appeal beyond state courts.

“We will proceed to federal court and do everything in our power to make sure Melissa ..., an innocent mother who has suffered unbelievably, is not executed for a crime that never occurred,” Potkin said.

If exonerated, Lucio would be the first woman declared innocent from Texas death row, joining 18 exonerated men since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

If ultimately put to death, Lucio would be the first Latina executed by Texas since 1863, and the first woman the state has put to death since 2014.

Xi was making his first state visit to the U.S. in 11 years, and the geopolitical rivals had a long list of thorny subjects before them, including the risks of unchecked artificial intelligence, Taiwan, trade tensions over tariffs and the war in Iran, a country with which Beijing has close economic ties.

But Trump made time for a tour of his White House projects. After 90 minutes in the Oval Office, he walked his Chinese counterpart out to the South Lawn, where his chopper had been parked in advance on the new granite landing area.

As the leaders approached, a Marine opened the door and saluted as Trump and Xi climbed aboard with a small group of aides and translators. They looked around and chatted with the pilots for several minutes, though the aircraft never took off.

Trump also spent time gesturing toward the ballroom he is building where the East Wing once stood. Xi peered at two hulking concrete towers under construction as Trump intently watched Xi’s face while he spoke about the project, out of earshot of a group reporters summoned for the occasion.

Trump says Xi ‘loves good granite’

The president's attempts to impress Xi come as he's built his party's midterm election messaging strategy around slamming Democrats as “communists.”

Trump has devoted an increasingly large portion of his second term to building projects around the White House and greater Washington. He has spent weeks saying crews were scrambling to finish the helipad in time for the Chinese leader’s visit and lamenting that the ballroom wouldn't be done.

“We had a great meeting and he has great interest in granite,” Trump said after giving Xi a first-hand look.

"He’s an expert on stone, aside from many other things -- and he loves good granite,” he said.

Trump gestured with relish and pointed to the large letters spelling out the “Seal of the President of the United States” on its surface. He enthusiastically touched Xi’s arm repeatedly, and China’s leader even returned the gesture a single time, reaching to tap Trump back once.

During Xi's visit, the president didn't miss the chance to brag about the photos he's hung inside the West Wing, images of Trump around the world, framed in gold.

Trump showed Xi a picture of the two of them taken when the U.S. president visited Beijing in May, according to a social media video posted by a White House aide.

“Who is that? I don’t recognize him!” Trump joked. “That’s great,” Trump said in the video. “We have a lot of respect for you. We have this up. We’ve had that up for a year. A lot of respect,” Trump said.

Trump also showed Xi the wall-mounted copy of the Declaration of Independence he had installed in the Oval Office, according to a handout image released by the Chinese Embassy.

Trump also gives Xi a glimpse of his autopen gag

Trump's tour started even before their Oval Office session, when Trump walked Xi past a row of presidential portraits Trump has installed along the colonnade between the White House residence and the West Wing — pausing to gesture grandly at his own picture.

There are two portraits of Trump, one for each of his terms. Between them, instead of a picture of President Joe Biden, Trump has hung a depiction of an autopen signing his Democratic predecessor's name — a reference to Trump’s frequent allegation that Biden was not up to the job by the end of his term in office.

An aide's video showed Trump pointing to the three images, saying, “Trump, and then Trump, and this is the autopen,” as Xi laughed.

“It’s Biden,” Trump said, slapping Xi on the arm.

Netanyahu addressed the plenum after days of speeches by world leaders condemning Israel's war in Gaza and accusing him of orchestrating a genocide against the Palestinian people. At times, the Israeli leader, facing a tough race for re-election next month, became emotional and indignant as he lectured his critics, among them New York's mayor.

Netanyahu, his voice rising in emphasis, said attacking Iran “was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make” and denounced as “moral cowards” a mass of delegates who walked out of the hall when he took the podium to speak.

“In defending itself, Israel is also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this hall,” Netanyahu said. “In fact, I want you to know that many of their leaders even thank us privately for taking out Iran’s nukes.”

When Netanyahu walked to the rostrum, a mix of cheers, boos and mass walkouts erupted. Scores of delegates marched out and a majority of visible seats sat empty afterward. “Order in the hall, please,” General Assembly President Khalilur Rahman said repeatedly.

“If there are any other moral cowards who have not yet left this hall, please do so now,” Netanyahu said.

A speech aimed at a domestic audience

Netanyahu's remarks — which at times sounded like a stump speech — were aimed largely at the audience at home as the country prepares for elections on Oct. 27. It was delivered during the evening prime time in Israel and filled with standard talking points used to defend policies in the occupied West Bank and treatment of the Palestinians.

Netanyahu reminded the assembly of the scale of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people.

“This is equal to 40,000 innocent Americans slaughtered in less than 24 hours,” he said, or 16 times the death count of the 9/11 attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York and more in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon.

Netanyahu said the attack left Israel with no choice but to hit Hamas hard. Many governments have accused Israel of committing war crimes, and Netanyahu himself faces an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court accusing him of crimes against humanity.

He predicted the fall of Iran's government

While the war in Iran has been inconclusive and caused havoc on the global economy, Netanyahu insisted he had made the right decision.

He thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for taking decisive action against Iran, and predicted Iran’s theocratic government would fall. Trump made a similar assertion at the outset of the war that began nearly seven months ago, but the Iranian government appears to remain firmly in charge.

Netanyahu, known for using visual aids during his General Assembly speeches, at one point held up a pager while reminding the audience of the Sept. 17, 2024, attack in which Israel remotely detonatedthousands of pagers that had been distributed to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. The pager attack wounded more than 3,000 people and killed 12, including two children.

He says reports of settler violence in the West Bank are distorted

Netanyahu dismissed incidents of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank as a “handful of young juvenile delinquents” throwing stones, chopping down olive trees and lighting fires.

“I can’t stand that. I won’t stand for vigilantism,” the prime minister said before accusing foreign leaders and the international press of distorting the scale of violence in the West Bank.

Netanyahu’s government is dominated by settlers and their allies, and has made few arrests in the wave of settler violence.

Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want both as part of their future state. The Palestinians and most of the international community view the settlements as illegal and as an obstacle to creating a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported more than 1,600 settler attacks this year.

At least 104 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers this year, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry. Four Israelis have been killed by Palestinians over the same period. This week, a settler was killed and the son of Israel's ambassador to the U.S. badly wounded in separate Palestinian attacks.

Israel is increasingly isolated on the world stage

Netanyahu also accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of spreading lies about Israel and endangering Jewish New Yorkers with his criticism of the country's military actions in Gaza.

Before the prime minister arrived in New York, Mamdani called him a “war criminal” and pushed for his arrest. The mayor has acknowledged that New York does not have the authority to execute an International Criminal Court warrant but urged federal authorities to do so.

In past years, Netanyahu has used his General Assembly speech to both denounce the United Nations as biased and make Israel's case to world leaders. His address is the cornerstone of an abbreviated trip to the United States as Israel has grown increasingly isolated throughout the war in Gaza.

The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. At least 73,922 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's subsequent offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government whose numbers are generally considered reliable by the international community.

A ceasefire agreed to by Israel and Hamas last October halted the heaviest of the fighting and led to the release of the remaining hostages yet further steps have since stalled. Israel maintains control of most of Gaza and continues to carry out airstrikes on Palestinians near military-held zones. Hamas not disarmed or relinquished power and there has been no progress toward reconstruction in the mostly destroyed territory.

Netanyahu has said no Palestinian state will be established while he is Israel’s leader and has argued that the Palestinian Authority is not a partner for peace.

Netanyahu followed the Palestinian president’s remote speech

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also addressed the U.N. General Assembly earlier Thursday, delivering prerecorded remarks from his office in Ramallah after the United States denied him a visa to attend the gathering for the second year in a row.

Though world leaders have repeatedly invoked the plight of Palestinians in speeches throughout the week, Abbas urged the international community to take more tangible action against Israel.

“How long will some countries continue to remain silent about Israel, or continue supplying it with weapons that it uses against our people?" Abbas said. “What, then, is the international community waiting for before it acts to protect the Palestinian people?”

___

Associated Press reporters Jennifer Peltz and Edith M. Lederer contributed.

Election officials said the plan is both inadequate and belated after the administration gutted the agency’s election security work last year, prompting the officials to pay for private services to ensure they were prepared for the upcoming elections.

“For them to come in five weeks before the election, yeah, nice effort,” said Nevada's Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, who added that he would have liked to see the federal government provide more funding for cybersecurity, rather than Nevada taxpayers having to pay for it.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had originally promised to release the plan by mid-August as part of the Trump administration's move to kickstart election security assistance after a hiatus. He announced the plan at the same time he threatened election officials for not cooperating with the administration's preferred methods to hunt down noncitizen voting, a phenomenon that research shows is extremely rare.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is housed under the Department of Homeland Security, has since its founding in 2018 helped warn state and local election officials about potential threats from foreign governments.

But CISA, as it’s known, was largely absent from that role in last year’s elections after the Trump administration dismantled much of its role in election security. The administration cut some 1,000 employees from CISA and slashed $10 million from two cybersecurity initiatives, including one dedicated to helping state and local election officials.

CISA has also gone the entirety of Trump’s second term without a Senate-confirmed director, instead cycling through a series of acting leaders.

Plan refers to ‘consistent’ support that many election officials say has been lacking

The 13-page document released Thursday warns of various threats to election security, including software vulnerabilities, hacks of voter registration databases, insider threats and physical security incidents, such as bomb threats that targeted several polling locations in the 2024 elections.

But it affirms that many longstanding election practices can address such threats and says the agency’s goal is “to ensure the American people can trust voting systems and know that physical safety measures will be in place when they go to their assigned polling locations to cast their votes.”

It states that DHS has “consistently supported CISA’s delivery of cybersecurity and physical security services to election officials,” something numerous election officials around the country have said isn't true.

Multiple secretaries of state told The Associated Press that services previously provided by CISA, such as live tabletop exercises and penetration tests to evaluate security of their systems, were not available in the lead-up to this year's midterms.

Minnesota Secretary of State Scott Simon, a Democrat, said in August that his office expects to spend roughly $250,000 on private vendors to conduct penetration testing, which can expose security vulnerabilities and recommend actionable fixes.

Shenna Bellows, the Democratic secretary of state in Maine, told the AP the same month that communications with CISA had been “sporadic and irregular, to say the least.” She said it would be helpful if the Trump administration could restore intelligence briefings that used to be granted to election officials about threats from foreign adversaries, but noted that trust with federal officials had been broken with the cuts to the agency.

Thursday's plan doesn't mention any specific 2026 threats from adversaries like Russia, Iran or China, all of whom have sought to meddle in U.S. elections — either directly through hacking or indirectly through influence campaigns.

Kris Warner, the Republican secretary of state in West Virginia, said Thursday that some of CISA’s assistance to his state had been continual throughout the Trump administration, including no-cost reviews of its public-facing websites for cybersecurity issues.

Warner acknowledged CISA had cut back under the Trump administration but said he views the agency “as a resource and not as a service provider” and said his office had last year hired a departing CISA election security adviser who has helped fill any gaps that may exist.

Report follows August call between CISA and election officials

In early August, two CISA officials — acting director Nick Anderson and assistant director for integrated operations Jim Harrell — joined a National Association of Secretaries of State call attended by a bipartisan group of secretaries of state, according to several election administrators.

The call grew tense when Arizona's Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes voiced his concerns about the withdrawal of federal resources.

Fontes told the AP at the time that he told the CISA officials he didn’t trust them. He said it seemed to him the officials were there “to cover their butts.”

“They even acknowledged on the call that it was too late for them to do anything for 2026,” he said.

Simon said the officials appeared interested in rebuilding relationships and previewing their future plans, which he appreciated. But he said the effort at goodwill came later than election officials needed.

“Secretaries of state have already moved on and sought other partners and other resources for the services that CISA has retreated from over the last year and a half,” Simon said.

In Michigan, a voting rights group has tried to fill the gap

In Michigan, where mail ballots have already been sent out for the Nov. 3 elections, Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie said the state’s relationship with CISA has been “nonexistent” this year despite working together closely in previous election cycles.

“If the federal government wants to be helpful, they can’t do so at the 11th hour,” the Democrat said.

Ashiya Brown, the Michigan state director of the voting rights group All Voting Is Local, agreed. She noted the new plan says CISA has 10 regional directors to support election administrators but still doesn't answer her biggest question.

“Does CISA still have the people and capacity to provide that support when clerks need it?” she asked. “I’m glad CISA has put forward a plan, but what matters now is whether the support described in it reaches local election officials before November.”

CISA has been hiring on its website for new positions, Brown said, but it's unclear whether they are all staffed yet.

Meanwhile, Brown, a former security official with the Michigan Department of State, said her group has hired former CISA employees to help provide training and other support to election clerks and fill the gap.

Edevbie said even without collaboration with CISA, he is confident the state’s elections are secure.

“We are always prepared to defend our elections and to ensure that every voter who is eligible to cast a ballot can do so here in Michigan,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Jessica Hill in Las Vegas and Jacqueline GaNun in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.

Dr. Heidi Overton is currently serving as a White House adviser and has worked on a series of Trump health initiatives, including an executive order last month that called for splitting up and spacing out decades-old childhood vaccinations. Overton, a physician, stood beside Trump in the Oval Office when he falsely remarked that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine could be “quite lethal.”

Senate Health Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana, pushed Overton to reject that statement and affirm the safety of FDA-approved vaccines.

“Right now every vaccine that is on the market has been determined to be safe and effective,” including the MMR vaccine, Overton said.

Cassidy has repeatedly tried to extract commitments from Trump health nominees to uphold vaccine standards, including from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., only to see the Republican administration push forward with efforts undermining their use.

“Kennedy gave me guarantees, and he did not keep them," said Cassidy, a Republican. “If the president asks you to do something that goes against those guarantees you give us today, what will you do?”

Overton said she would “follow the statutory requirements” for FDA commissioners and give Trump her best advice. Later in the hearing, Overton declined to explicitly say that Trump was wrong about the MMR vaccine's safety.

“This committee needs to know whether you will be radically honest, whether you will use your authority to stand up for sound science and protect children’s health,” Cassidy said. He didn’t indicate whether he’d support Overton’s nomination or when he might schedule a committee vote on it.

If confirmed, Overton would inherit a raft of other controversial projects at the agency, including a safety review of the nation’s principal abortion drug and new rules that make it easier to sell flavored electronic cigarettes. Both issues were a focus for Republicans and Democrats on the panel.

Overton sidesteps past statements on abortion pill

The FDA approved the abortion pill mifepristone in 2000 and has repeatedly affirmed its safety while broadening access, including allowing it to be sent through the mail. But Kennedy ordered an FDA review of the drug’s safety last year, following calls from anti-abortion groups and lawmakers favoring abortion restrictions.

While working at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, Overton wrote that the FDA decision to allow mail delivery of mifepristone was “dangerous to women,” referring to the practice as “chemical abortion on demand.”

In response to questions from Washington Sen. Patty Murray, Overton sidestepped her personal views on the drug, stating that it “has met the safety and efficacy determinations of the FDA.” Overton said she didn't want to “prejudge” the FDA's ongoing safety review of the pill.

“The FDA has said this is safe,” responded Murray, a Democrat. “We need someone in FDA to make sure this is done by science.”

Republicans on the health committee, including Cassidy, recently published a report suggesting the handful of companies that sell mifepristone may not be complying with rules for overseeing doctors who prescribe the drug.

“If I’m confirmed as commissioner I would be committed to making sure every company is following the law,” Overton told Republican Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana.

Overton’s abortion views could complicate her efforts to win over two moderate Republicans on the panel: Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Both have bucked their party on the issue, supporting federal access to abortion. Collins is currently locked in a tight reelection race in which abortion access is a central issue.

But Collins focused her questions Thursday on a different issue: recent FDA decisions allowing new flavored e-cigarettes onto the market. Under previous administrations, including Trump's first term, the agency had restricted sweet vaping flavors due to their potential appeal to kids.

Overton pointed out that approval of several fruit-flavored vapes had the backing of FDA scientists, who determined the products met the standard of “appropriate for the protection of public health,” by helping adult smokers quit cigarettes.

“They believed that standard was met because so many adult smokers are using flavors preferentially,” Overton said.

To become commissioner, Overton will need a majority of votes from the 21-member health committee, followed by a positive vote from the full Senate.

Under the current administration, leading the agency has involved balancing Trump’s demands for slashing regulations — such as those for vaping products — alongside Kennedy’s interests in scrutinizing vaccines, drugs and food ingredients.

The previous FDA head faced numerous challenges before quitting

Those challenges dogged the tenure of the previous FDA head, Dr. Marty Makary, who resigned in May. Makary's time at the agency was defined by scientific disputes, leadership changes and a string of media stories detailing low morale and internal dysfunction among staffers. The FDA has lost about 20% of its employees to layoffs, buyouts, retirements or resignations since Trump took office.

Overton studied under Makary at Johns Hopkins University, where she received a doctoral degree in clinical research after earning her medical degree at the University of New Mexico.

Like Makary, Overton has no experience running a large bureaucracy, a critical skill for steering the FDA's 16,000 staffers spread across numerous U.S. and international locations.

In financial disclosure forms, Overton reported no investments in healthcare or food companies. That’s a stark contrast to Makary and other recent FDA nominees who have had to divest investments or cut other financial ties with companies regulated by the FDA.

Overton reported $50,000 to $100,000 in student loans.

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

The national statistics agency, known as INDEC, reported that the share of Argentines living below the poverty line jumped four percentage points from 28.2% in the second half of 2025. Extreme poverty, or indigence, rose from 6.3% to 7.5%.

The reversal comes after Milei repeatedly touted declining poverty as evidence that his free-market economic overhaul was bearing fruit. Poverty surged to nearly 53% in the first half of 2024 after his government’s devaluation of the peso and sweeping spending cuts left most Argentines unable to afford a basket of basic goods. But the rate then fell rapidly as Milei’s austerity drive helped tame inflation, hitting an eight-year low of 28% in the second half of 2025.

Thursday’s report suggests that progress has lost momentum as unemployment edges higher and rising prices squeeze Argentines’ purchasing power, with average salaries still below where they stood in real terms when Milei took office in December 2023. Average per-capita household income rose 11.5% from the previous six months, while the basic basket of goods used to set the poverty line increased nearly 20%, INDEC said.

Roughly 9.7 million people across the 31 urban areas surveyed by INDEC were living below the poverty line, including 2.25 million in extreme poverty. Nearly 45% of children under 15 were poor. The survey covers 30.1 million people living in major urban areas across Argentina, rather than the country’s entire population of 46 million.

Milei inherited triple-digit inflation and chronic fiscal deficits from his populist predecessors and responded with one of the most aggressive austerity programs in Argentina’s recent history, slashing public spending and subsidies while tightening monetary policy. His government argues that fiscal balance is key to stabilizing Argentina's crisis-stricken economy and laying the groundwork for improved living standards.

But the macroeconomic stability Milei has achieved has yet to translate into stronger jobs and growth. Formal private-sector employment has fallen for 13 straight months, while economic activity dropped 2.9% in July from the previous month, INDEC reported Thursday.

“Milei persuaded people that achieving a fiscal surplus required sacrifice, and that by now those sacrifices would be paying off,” said Lucas Romero, a political analyst who heads the polling firm Synopsis Consultores. “Without tangible results — in economic activity, jobs and incomes — it will be difficult to persuade people to keep making sacrifices, especially if the government asks for further austerity.”

Milei’s critics say the poor have paid a high price for Argentina’s economic stability, with cuts to pensions and social assistance accounting for nearly a quarter of his government’s inflation-adjusted spending cuts, according to a September analysis by the Argentine Institute of Fiscal Analysis, a research organization.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo acknowledged Thursday’s increase on social media but emphasized that poverty remained far below the levels recorded during Milei’s first months in office.

“While poverty and extreme poverty increased compared with the previous semester, both rates remain sharply lower than in the first half of 2024,” he wrote.

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Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre contributed to this report.

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

The National Weather Service said the tornado produced winds of up to 115 mph, downing nearly 300 trees and damaging 101 homes and businesses.

For Nadine Rivers and her family, the storm ripped the roof from part of their home on Canton Street and sent it crashing onto the porch. Nearly all of the windows were blown out.

“This is my home. My momma left me,” Rivers said. “She told me whatever I did, don’t lose her house. And I didn’t. I fought for it.”

City inspectors have determined the home is unsafe to enter, leaving Rivers’ family of eight temporarily displaced.

They have been staying in hotels and do not have access to most of their belongings.

Rivers said she has been working with the city and calling daily to find out what comes next.

She was surprised Thursday when she saw a demolition notice posted outside the damaged property.

A spokesperson from the city’s demolition office told WDIV the property is in the demolition pipeline but clarified that only the porch is currently scheduled to be removed — not the entire home.

That news offered Rivers some temporary relief as she hopes to save the rest of the house.

“I want to save my home so bad,” Rivers said. “I don’t think they walked in there and seen that the back is really intact. It’s just the front of the house.”

Rivers said the family did not have homeowners’ insurance. They had planned to purchase coverage the week the tornado struck.

Friends, relatives and community groups, including the Red Cross, GenesisHOPE and leaders with the IslandView Association, have been helping the family with meals and other necessities.

But Rivers said the family’s immediate needs remain significant, including water, temporary housing and financial assistance.

“We need our home back,” she said.

Those who want to help the Rivers and Addison family can contribute to their tornado disaster fund: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/rivers-and-addison-family-tornado-disaster-fund.

Seiya Suzuki homered for the Cubs (88-71), who assured themselves of one of the NL's three wild card berths.

Chicago also was a wild card last year, when the Cubs beat San Diego in the first round and lost to Milwaukee in a Division Series. The Cubs will be making consecutive postseason appearances for the first time since four straight from 2015-18, which in 2016 included their first championship since 1908.

The Cubs clinched their berth shortly after the White Sox earned their postseason trip with a 9-1 win at Kansas City.

Miami (78-81) was assured its third straight non-winning season.

A favorite to win the NL MVP award, Crow-Armstrong became the seventh 40-40 player, joining a group that includes Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani and Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. Jose Canseco was the first with the 1988 Oakland Athletics.

Crow-Armstrong hit his 45th homer during Sunday’s 9-1 win at Cincinnati, extending his career high. The 24-year-old drew a leadoff walk from Tyler Phillips in the first inning and swiped second base on the next pitch to Suzuki for his 40th steal in 47 attempts. Fans chanted “MVP” as the Wrigley Field videoboard proclaimed the feat.

Ohtani was the previous player with a 40-40 season, hitting 54 homers and stealing 59 bases for the 2024 Dodgers. Acuña hit 41 homers and swiped 73 bases for Atlanta in 2023. Alfonso Soriano (2006 with Washington), Alex Rodriguez (1998 with Seattle) and Barry Bonds (1996 with San Francisco) are the other 40-40 players.

Matthew Boyd (10-5) allowed one run, five hits and two walks over seven innings, and Ryan Zeferjahn pitched a perfect ninth for his seventh save to finish a five-hitter.

Ian Happ tripled off Jack Ralston (0-2) to start the sixth and came home three pitches later on Nico Hoerner’s single, breaking a 1-1 tie.

Miami’s Jakob Marsee had an RBI single in the third and Suzuki hit his 26th homer in the fifth, a drive off Jack Ralston.

Up next

The Marlins return to Miami on Friday to begin a season-ending, three-game series against Atlanta.

The Cubs play a day-night doubleheader Friday at Boston. The opener was shifted to Sunday by Major League Baseball because of a forecast for a storm.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Star Meat Delivery Inc., based in Lucama, North Carolina, is recalling more than 167,000 pounds (75,750 kilograms) of raw pork, beef, and goat nationwide. The USDA said that number could grow as it continues its investigation.

Food produced without inspection may contain undeclared allergens, harmful bacteria, or other contaminants, the agency said Tuesday in announcing the recall. So far, there have been no confirmed reports of illnesses or injuries from the meats, according to the USDA.

The meat in question was produced “on various dates” before Sept. 22 and has USDA inspection stickers falsely bearing an establishment number — EST. 1363 — that the agency said “does not have a federal grant of inspection.” However, some packages people purchased may not bear that labeling because retail stores may have applied their own stickers with pricing and safe handling instructions, the agency warned.

The products were shipped to Georgia distributor A&D Foods to send to retail and restaurant locations nationwide.

The USDA said the products should be considered misbranded and unsafe to eat and be discarded or returned to the place of purchase.

The agency said the problem was discovered during the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service’s routine checks. It’s not clear whether anyone has been arrested or criminally charged.

Star Meat Delivery, in a statement posted on its Facebook page Thursday, pushed back at the notion that the inspection stamps on its products were somehow falsified. It said the establishment number in question was “legitimately reserved” as part of the USDA application process while it seeks approval to process and package meat for the Georgia distributor.

That approval process is still underway, Star Meat said, although the meat involved was sourced from a USDA-inspected supplier.

“No other products sold by Star Meat Delivery were mislabeled, and no other products sold by Star Meat Delivery are part of the recall that has been issued,” the company said. “We are cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities to finalize the application and are following the recall procedures that have been put into place.”

The USDA didn’t immediately respond to Star Meat's statement.

Recalls triggered by forged inspection stamps are relatively rare, according to Keith Schneider, a food safety professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

“This is someone taking a shortcut,” he said. “Systems are in place to catch these sorts of things and it appears the system worked as intended. You can’t skip inspections.”

Last year, some 32,000 pounds (14,500 kilograms) of meat, including chorizo, pork chops and ribs, produced by Sabrositos Hondurenos, of New Jersey, were recalled after the USDA determined they had fake inspection stickers.

The S&P 500 finished nearly flat and edged down by less than 0.1% following several turns between losses and gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 161 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite added less than 0.1%.

Stocks have slowed their rally since the S&P 500 climbed to the brink of its all-time high earlier this week as pressure from the bond market has cranked higher.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 5.20% from 5.11% late Wednesday and is back to where it was in 2007. High yields slow the overall economy by making it more expensive to borrow money, while also undercutting prices for stocks and other investments.

Yields climbed through the morning, which pushed stocks downward, until they took a sudden turn lower in the midday hours. The 10-year yield dropped from nearly 5.17% to less than 5.13% in about 20 minutes before ultimately turning higher again.

Yields once again were following the track of oil prices, which have been scattershot because of uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow crude oil to flow freely again from the Middle East.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude in the most actively traded part of the market went from $102 to roughly $99 in a matter of minutes midday Thursday. It later rose to settle at $100.22, up 2.1% from the prior day.

It’s not just worries about expensive oil and inflation that have sent Treasury yields higher. The U.S. economy continues to expand, which also supports yields.

On Thursday, a report showed fewer U.S workers applied for unemployment benefits last week and further strengthened expectations for the economy.

Such numbers could convince the Federal Reserve that the economy can withstand more hikes to short-term interest rates. The Fed raised its main interest rate last week for the first time in three years in hopes of slowing the economy and removing some of the fuel for inflation.

Traders now see better than a coin flip’s chance that the Fed could raise rates twice more by the end of the year, according to data from CME Group.

So far, the solid overall economy has helped U.S. companies continue to deliver strong growth in profits. That in turn has helped their stock prices remain relatively strong despite worries about war, inflation and tariffs.

“The headlines have turned more ominous, but the underlying drivers of growth remain intact,” strategists at Barclays wrote in a report. “As long as AI-related investment, US corporate profitability, and consumer spending continue to beat expectations, the economy and markets seem capable of absorbing tighter central banks and higher rates.”

Stitch Fix became one of the latest U.S. companies late Wednesday to report better quarterly results than analysts expected. But its stock nevertheless tumbled 21.6% after it said “a more challenging consumer environment” could hold back its revenue growth this upcoming fiscal year.

Darden Restaurants, the company behind Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, fell 3% after reporting a profit for the latest quarter that matched analysts’ expectations.

High yields in the bond market hurt prices for all kinds of stocks, and they often hit hardest on those seen as the most expensive. That puts the target on AI stocks, which soared for years in the frenzy around the technology.

Higher yields also make it more expensive for companies to borrow money to build AI data centers, which could slow their construction and restrain demand for AI chips.

Nvidia slipped 0.4% and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

On the winning side of Wall Street was Everpure. The data storage and management company’s stock jumped 11.2% after it stood by its financial forecasts for this fiscal year and said it expects revenue growth to accelerate in the following one.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 1.90 to 7,704.13 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 161.61 to 51,349.98, and the Nasdaq composite rose 3.34 to 26,939.37.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly around much of the world. A drop of 1.2% in Shanghai and gain of 0.8% in Tokyo were two of the bigger moves.

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AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report.

Osiris, a 26-year-old female whale, died on Monday, Chicago's Shedd Aquarium said in a statement. The death comes less than a week after a fourth beluga, named Jelly Bean, died since it was rehomed at Oceanogràfic de València in Spain.

The deaths were sudden and unexpected as their health wavered amid the challenges of adjusting to a new home, according to statements from the aquariums.

Beluga whales are particularly vulnerable to changes in their environment, like climate change, pollution and other sources of stress, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Beluga whales native to the Cook Inlet on Alaska's coast are classified as an endangered species, and their population rapidly declined by nearly 80% from 1979 to 2018.

“When Shedd was asked to help with this rescue, we understood that these animals arrived with significant vulnerabilities and that the outcome for every individual could not be guaranteed,” the Shedd Aquarium said in a statement.

The belugas struggled to adapt to the aquarium

The Shedd Aquarium took in 10 of the 30 belugas and four dolphins stranded at Marineland, an Ontario park that closed years ago and could no longer care for them. The Canadian government signed off on a last-minute agreement to move its last captive whales out of the country earlier this year, saving them from euthanasia.

The belugas came from the Marineland park and zoo in Niagara Falls, Ontario, which announced in early 2023 that it was for sale and closed to the public in late summer 2024. Twenty whales — 19 belugas and one killer whale — had died at Marineland since 2019, according to provincial government data obtained through freedom of information laws and official statements.

The rescued belugas were moved in custom-made slings and temperature-controlled containers, Shedd staff told The Associated Press. Aquarium personnel traveled to Marineland to examine their health records in preparation for the move. They have monitored their health minute-by-minute since they arrived, the aquarium staff said.

Peekachu and Rain died at the Shedd in late August and early September after arriving from Canada. Another beluga that had lived at the aquarium for decades died around the same time.

Osiris was a “whale of clinical concern” since she arrived, according to the aquarium. The whale did not eat as consistently as her fellow animals, which complicated the efforts to keep her well-fed and hydrated, according to the statement.

“Osiris experienced periods of meaningful progress, both nutritionally and socially, but her overall condition remained closely monitored,” the aquarium stated.

Osiris' caretakers noticed sudden changes in her behavior and breathing patterns the morning of her death, according to the aquarium. She was moved to the medical habitat, but “her condition declined rapidly,” and she “passed away despite lifesaving efforts.”

A beluga sent to Spain died suddenly

Jelly Bean, the whale that died at Oceanogràfic de València, also died “suddenly and unexpectedly,” according to José Rafael Serra, a spokesperson for the facility. The whale “experienced feeding difficulties, prompting the veterinary team to intensify her monitoring,” despite periods of improvement, Serra said in an email.

The Spanish aquarium took in two of Marineland's beluga whales, including Jelly Bean. The Georgia Aquarium and SeaWorld locations in San Diego and San Antonio have also accepted whales from the Canadian park.

The two rescued whales at the Georgia Aquarium showed decreased appetites and were examined, but no issues were found, the aquarium said in a social media post Friday. The whales at SeaWorld are in “stable health,” according to AnneMarie Iturrizaga, a spokesperson for the company that owns the parks.

The Shedd Aquarium notified the NOAA of Osiris’ death Monday, according to John Chu, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries. Within 30 days of the whales’ deaths, the aquarium must formally submit their names and causes of death, and on request, provide copies of necropsy reports, Chu said in an email earlier this month.

The Shedd Aquarium said it will conduct necropsies into the whales and will share the results when they are confirmed.

Andrew Trites, the director of the University of British Columbia’s Marine Mammal Research Unit, said it was concerning that the four belugas had died “so shortly after arriving in their new homes."

The belugas were in small, confined spaces on the flights out of Marineland, but that's not out of the ordinary for them, Trites said. The whales often swim in narrow spaces between sheets of ice, and “should be reasonably well adapted to that sort of condition,” he said.

“Four animals have died so shortly after arriving in the new homes, and that’s what stands out to me as being surprising," Trites said.

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This story corrects the name of the agency to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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Mayes-Osterman reported from Chicago, and Associated Press reporter Ryan J. Foley contributed. Mayes-Osterman 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.

They could still win the AL Central, too. The White Sox began the day one game behind the Cleveland Guardians.

Chicago has three games left at home against the last-place Colorado Rockies, while the Guardians wrap up their series in Boston on Thursday night before flying to Kansas City, where they coincidentally have three left against the Royals. The White Sox win mathematically eliminated Baltimore from postseason contention.

Kyle Teel homered and reached base five times, and five different White Sox drove in runs. David Sandlin (3-2) allowed one run on five hits over six innings against the club that drafted him out of Oklahoma four years ago.

Randy Dobnak (3-5) allowed six runs — four earned — for Kansas City. He also made two errors while retiring just four batters.

Salvador Perez homered for the Royals, reaching 20 in a season for a club-record 10th time.

The first couple of innings summed up what the White Sox have done so masterfully this season: They capitalized on mistakes.

Sam Antonacci opened the game with a single, Teel reached on a bunt when Dobnak's throw was wide of first base, and Miguel Vargas followed with an RBI single. Andrew Benintendi added a sacrifice fly and, after Vargas stole second to get into scoring position, Tristan Peters brought him home with another single to make it 3-0.

More hijinks ensued in the second: Braden Montgomery singled leading off, Dobnak walked Antonacci, then the right-hander threw to nobody covering first base for his second error. That allowed Montgomery to easily score from second.

By the time Dobnak plunked Teel and Vargas added another RBI single, the champagne was probably on ice in the clubhouse.

The White Sox improved to 82-77, a record number of wins for a club coming off three straight 100-loss years. They head home having won four of their last five with their first playoff appearance since 2021 in their pocket and a division title still in their sights.

Up next

The White Sox finish the regular season against the Rockies with RHP Sean Burke (10-7, 3.40 ERA) starting Friday night.

The Royals welcome the Guardians on Friday night with LHP Noah Cameron (9-8, 3.92) on the mound.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

This statement is meant to shift the international response to the rise in sea level driven by humans from fragmented initiatives to sustained, coordinated and adequately-funded action. It comes as country after country has lamented the toll of climate change in speeches this week and called for collective action.

Contrarily, U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly calls climate change a hoax, a con job or a scam.

Here are the world leaders in their own words:

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THE QUOTE: “Until recently, the response to climate change was firmly established at the center of the international agenda. This year, however, the topic disappeared from the debates of the G7 and G20, forums that bring together the largest carbon emitters. It is time to resume the offensive and inflict a defeat on denialism. Nature reminds us every day that we live on one planet. The glaciers in the Himalayas are melting. The super El Nino may cause torrential rains, droughts and forest fires in different parts of the globe.”

— Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil

THE SITUATION: Climate change and deforestation threaten the Amazon. A strong El Nino, a cyclic warming of the equatorial Pacific, causes higher temperatures and drier weather in the rainforest, conditions that worsen wildfires.

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THE QUOTE: “What we experienced in Nepal was Himalayan tsunami. But the larger looming threat is even more consequential. It is not only the devastation we mourn today; it is for greater danger that lies ahead if the world continues to look away... I call upon you to treat climate action not as a charity, but as a matter of justice.”

— Shisir Khanal, minister of foreign affairs for Nepal

THE SITUATION: Human-caused global warming thinned glaciers and thawed mountain permafrost, likely helping to destabilize the Himalayan slope that collapsed last month and unleashed catastrophic flooding across Nepal, according to a World Weather Attribution report. More than 1,300 people were killed and over 5,000 remain missing.

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THE QUOTE: “To protect the lives of present and future generations, all states must take serious action to tackle global warming. I believe that climate action and economic growth can go hand-in-hand.”

— Sanae Takaichi, prime minister of Japan

THE SITUATION: Japan is working to protect communities from warming and has pledged to slash emissions, but extreme heat remains a threat in the short term.

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THE QUOTE: “I think this summer was a summer of truth. The recent summer months have been, as we heard from the scientists, the hottest on record, but may be the coolest for the years to come.”

— Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission

THE SITUATION: Europe is heating up twice as fast as the global rate, making it the fastest-warming continent.

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THE QUOTE: “By the end of this century, 12 to 18% of our coastal areas could be submerged by sea level rise, affecting the livelihoods of tens of millions. Climate change has caused loss and damage equivalent to 1% of our GDP. And our food security is at serious risk”

— Tarique Rahman, prime minister of Bangladesh

THE SITUATION: The low-lying geography of Bangladesh makes it one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change.

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THE QUOTE: “Cabo Verde speaks with the same voice as other countries that are also living the climate crisis every day. For us, climate change is not a distant risk. It is an existential reality affecting our economies, our food and water security, our coastlines and ultimately our people’s future.”

— Francisco Carvalho, prime minister of Cape Verde

THE SITUATION: Cape Verde, like other small island developing states, is grappling with rising sea levels and increasingly powerful storms that erode shorelines, submerge land and threaten homes and livelihoods.

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THE QUOTE: “Nearly a third of the world’s tuna is caught in Pacific waters. And it’s moving east into the high seas. More than a quarter of our people live within a kilometer of the shore. Six of our communities have already moved. Two more are moving now. And half a degree is not a rounding error. For us, it is the difference between adaptation and relocation.”

— Naiqama Lalabalavu, president of Fiji

THE SITUATION: Lalabalavu cited projections that by 2050, the fish available to each Fijian is projected to fall by nearly a quarter, from 41 kilograms (90 pounds) a year to about 31. And more than half of that loss comes from climate change, he said.

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THE QUOTE: “The climate crisis is often referred to as a ‘global group project shared by all 8 billion people on Earth.’ A single country cannot tackle this challenge alone. At the same time, abandoning growth cannot bring everyone on board.”

— Lee Jae Myung, president of Korea

THE SITUATION: The impact of extreme weather worsened by climate change is far-reaching in South Korea. Farmers face higher costs and must use more labor to produce the same or lower yields.

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THE QUOTE: “We live in a fragmented world. Nations are turning inward. Promises are made loudly and kept quietly, if at all. Each country is tempted to say: It is not my storm, not my coastline, not my problem. The ocean does not recognize that thinking. It is one body of water. What warms in one hemisphere breaks upon another. The sea has never been fragmented. Only we are.”

— Philip Davis, prime minister of the Bahamas

THE SITUATION: Like many other countries in the Global South, Bahamas has a lot of debt from warming-connected weather disasters. Hurricane Dorian, the strongest storm to hit the country on record, caused $3.4 billion in damage in 2019.

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THE QUOTE: “For those who have declared climate change a hoax perpetrated by geopolitical opponents, the warnings of recent times cannot have been clearer. Melting glaciers, flash flooding, droughts, record-breaking heatwaves, brush fires, hurricanes and other extreme weather phenomena are unmistakable signals of an overburdened planet. Climate change is the ultimate test of global equity.”

— John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana

THE SITUATION: Ghana faces erratic rainfall, erosion of its coastal towns and accelerating desertification. In June, Mahama said Ghana and coastal West Africa were hit with unprecedented torrential rain that killed 39 people.

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

The airstrikes struck the southern and eastern Afghan provinces of Kandahar, Paktia and Khost, killing four civilians, Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

“These shameless acts of aggression and attacks by the Pakistani military regime will be met with an appropriate response,” he said.

Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced the strikes after officials said Afghanistan’s Taliban forces had fired eight drones and shelled Pakistani border posts after Pakistani troops foiled what they described as a cross-border infiltration attempt by militants.

Tarar also posted on X aerial footage that appeared to show several strikes hitting sprawling compounds in Afghanistan’s Kandahar and Khost provinces. He said the air and drone strikes destroyed militant hideouts and support infrastructure, including drone launch and storage sites, across 10 locations in Taliban-controlled areas. He said the sites were linked to attacks on civilians in Pakistan and the drone incursions on Wednesday.

Mujahid, the Afghan government spokesperson, rejected Pakistan's claims of drone attacks and warned of “consequences” for Pakistan over its airstrikes.

On Monday, Pakistani fighter jets struck sites in eastern Afghanistan that Islamabad said were militant hideouts.

The escalation threatens mediation efforts by China, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to broker a lasting peace between Kabul and Islamabad.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of allowing militants to operate from its territory and carry out attacks across the border, an accusation Kabul denies.

“Instead of dismantling these networks and taking credible and verifiable action against those using Afghan territory to perpetrate terrorism against Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban regime has chosen to escalate the situation through hostile drone operations against Pakistan,” Tarar said.

“The strikes were deliberate, precise, calibrated, and proportionate and strictly limited to identified military objectives directly linked to the attempted attacks against Pakistan,” he added.

Pakistani officials also claimed Wednesday that security forces had neutralized eight rudimentary drones launched by the Afghan Taliban before they could enter the northwestern city of Kohat and the border town of Torkham, and that Afghan forces fired mortars and other heavy weapons at Pakistani border posts. Pakistani forces responded with artillery fire targeting Taliban border posts, mortar sites and defensive positions, they said.

The four officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media about the latest flare-up.

Pakistan’s Information Ministry said 28 militants were killed in Monday's airstrikes, while Afghan authorities said at least three civilians died and four others were wounded. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan confirmed the civilian casualties and Kabul formally protested the attack.

On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar expressed concern about what he said was the presence of more than two dozen anti-Pakistani militant groups in Afghanistan.

Monday’s airstrikes followed a shootout with militants in Hangu, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, that killed six Pakistani security personnel. Days earlier, a suicide bomber struck a mosque inside a police compound in the nearby city of Kohat.

Eight gunmen then stormed the compound, triggering a 20-hour gunbattle that killed at least 21 people, most of them police officers. No group had claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Pakistani authorities blamed the violence on the Pakistani Taliban and allied militant groups. The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have stepped up their attacks on Pakistani security forces, boosted by the Afghan Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.

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Ahmed reported from Islamabad. AP writer Abdul Qahar Afghan in Kabul, Afghanistan contributed to this report.

The New York-based CPJ says it regularly updates its findings as new information comes to light. It removed another three Palestinians from its list because their role as journalists could not be established. It reinstated six cases, including two Israeli journalists killed in Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war.

“The accuracy and credibility of CPJ’s research are fundamental to our mission,” CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. “We base the determinations we make solely on whether individuals meet our definitions of who we consider to be a journalist, not an individual’s affiliation or views, nor in response to pressure or intimidation from any government or interest group.”

The group said that even after the review, its figures show that Israeli forces were responsible for “by far the majority of killings of journalists and media workers worldwide since 2023.”

Among those killed during the war was Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who worked for The Associated Press and other outlets. She was killed, along with 21 other people, including rescue workers and other journalists, when Israel carried out a double strike on a Gaza hospital in August 2025.

Israel denies targeting journalists and has said a number of slain journalists were members of Hamas or other armed groups posing as reporters. In some cases, it has provided evidence of such ties that was rejected by their employers.

In a statement, the Israeli military said the revised numbers showed CPJ's “hypocrisy and lack of professionalism in its fact-checking of events on the ground.”

Critics accuse Israel of deliberately targeting journalists to silence war coverage. Israel has barred foreign reporters from entering Gaza outside of brief military-run visits since the start of the war, while officials at the same time have questioned the credibility of Palestinian journalists inside the territory. CPJ says that it considers all Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza to have been killed in connection with their work since they can do their work anywhere and because they are not allowed to leave the territory.

Journalists are protected under international law

CPJ said obituaries for Hamas and other militants released after the October 2025 ceasefire deal identified fighters who the rights group had previously classified as journalists.

That prompted CPJ to launch an internal review in June and commission an auditor the following month to examine its findings.

Since the Oct. 7 attack, CPJ has removed a total of 27 people from its list of slain journalists after finding that they participated in combat or belonged to a militant group. It removed another nine for other reasons. The updated list also includes a Palestinian journalist killed by a Palestinian militia and four Israelis killed by Hamas.

Journalists are considered civilians under international law regardless of their political views or affiliations, unless they participate in hostilities. Israel says militants posing as journalists have used such protections to collect intelligence and help target Israeli forces.

Hamas and other armed groups operate media outlets, as well as political parties, charities and other civilian institutions alongside their highly secretive armed wings. They also have military media units embedded with fighters that film attacks and release propaganda and hostage videos.

CPJ said it initially did not consider membership in a military media unit alone as proof of engagement in combat, but has since revised its criteria to exclude "anyone with active membership of any military arm of a state or non-state actor." Five of the 19 were removed because of those new criteria, it said.

AP Executive Editor Julie Pace is on the CPJ board.

Israel has faced heavy criticism over the killing of civilians

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and abducted 251 people. The last remaining hostages were released, or their remains were returned, under the ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 74,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its figures but says around half were women and children. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records, and its figures are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts.

Israel says it only targets militants and takes extraordinary measures to avoid harming civilians, blaming their deaths on Hamas because it operates in dense residential areas. Major rights groups and experts have accused Israel of genocide, allegations it vehemently denies.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao provided the information to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in a letter dated Tuesday after the New York Democrat inquired last month about the strike group's crew. The Lincoln's extended deployment drew the nation's attention following reports of crew stress and poor mental health, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products.

Eight attempts in a strike group of 6,000 sailors over 10 months is actually low, experts say. The Navy reported 356 suicide attempts across the service in 2024, while there were more than 1,500 attempts among all active duty personnel that year, according to the latest annual report.

However, the reported attempts are not the best measure for conditions on the Lincoln and its supporting destroyers, particularly with no other additional details, said Dr. Harold Kudler, a former national lead for mental health services at the Department of Veterans Affairs and a retired VA psychiatrist.

“But something happened to get those families upset. Something happened to raise concerns about the health and well-being of those troops,” Kudler said, referring to media reports that quoted sailors and their families. “It reverberated through the military and reverberated across the country. So we need to understand what that was because we don’t need that to happen again.”

Acting Navy secretary offers information following questions about mental health and hygiene

Gillibrand had asked Cao several questions focused on ship conditions, including about the availability of mental health support and healthy food as well as hygiene. The senator also asked if there were any suicides.

“There have been no suicides on board during this deployment,” Cao wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press and reported earlier by CNN. “Since the beginning of LINCOLN'S deployment, there have been a total of eight suicide attempts across the strike group — this number includes the LINCOLN crew and Sailors from the carrier wing, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, escorting destroyers, and all embarked aviation squadrons.”

Cao wrote that the carrier deployed with a psychologist, a clinical social worker, a counselor, three behavioral health technicians and a therapy dog.

Cao said the Lincoln maintained adequate food supplies, but because combat operations limited resupply opportunities, meal options were reduced from two to one for a short time. However, he wrote that four nutritionally balanced meals were served daily.

Cao acknowledged delays in scheduled resupply shipments but said the Navy prioritized the delivery of hygiene products and established a rotation to streamline distribution to different squadrons. He also acknowledged piping failures on the carrier early in its deployment as well as temporary issues with desalination units.

Trump had downplayed reports on ship conditions

President Donald Trump had downplayed reports about conditions on the Lincoln, which left its homeport in San Diego in November, arrived in the Middle East in January in support of Iran operations, and spent a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 260 days.

The carrier and some of its supporting ships stopped in Thailand in early September on their way back home to California. The Lincoln’s commanding officer, Capt. Dan Keeler, said then that the ship was heading home soon but may make further supply stops. He declined to say the exact date the strike group was expected back in the U.S.

Last month, Trump called the nearly nine months at sea that the sailors endured a “good period of time” but added that “over the years, we’ve had them out there much longer.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also had said that conditions about the Lincoln were “completely misrepresented.”

Gillibrand slams the Trump administration for ‘deteriorating conditions’ for troops

Gillibrand took aim at Trump and Hegseth in a statement released this week in response to Cao's letter.

“What Trump and Secretary Hegseth dismissed as ‘fake news’ turned out to be serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members," she stated.

“Our troops and their families make immense sacrifices every single day, yet the president dismissed them with open disrespect,” Gillibrand said. "That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms, and billionaires, but cannot take care of our service members, is completely unacceptable.”

Extended deployments of carriers wear on service members who are away from home for long periods and increase strain on the ship and its equipment. The Navy is enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the nearly seven-month-old war.

Kudler, the retired VA psychiatrist, said it can be challenging for troops counting down the days of their deployment to have it extended. He said the Lincoln could be a learning opportunity for the Navy.

“Let’s really do a serious look at what lessons have been learned and what we can do in the future,” he said, “to ensure that these kinds of deployments, if they are necessary, are easier on the service members and the families.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

The warning Tuesday came despite no “confirmed information” that kratom contributed to either death, Lafayette County Metro Narcotics said in a news release. The students were found Monday afternoon in different locations, one on campus and the other off campus, a university spokesperson said.

The university on Thursday identified the students as Aidan Hamilton, a freshman from Englewood, Colorado, and Robert Strang, a junior from Atlanta. The school said in a statement that their families "have asked for privacy as they grieve.”

U.S. health officials and states have increasingly scrutinized kratom, an herbal extract that acts as a stimulant at low doses and a sedative at high doses, over the past decade. Kratom is legal at the federal level, but some state and local governments have banned the substance and federal authorities have issued warnings about its risks.

Toxicology reports aren't yet available

Two state agencies were working to expedite toxicology reports for the students, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a statement Wednesday.

“Mississippi is praying for the families and friends of the two Ole Miss students during this incredibly difficult time,“ Reeves said.

Authorities said they had no evidence the deaths were connected but noted the kratom found at the scenes was sold at a retail store. Officials did not name the store or say whether any criminal charges would be filed.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we encourage everyone to avoid kratom and any other medication or substance that was not prescribed to you or obtained from a trusted, regulated source,” the task force's news release said.

Kratom is extracted from a tree native to Southeast Asia

It is used in capsules, powders and liquids that are often sold in gas stations or smoke shops. Proponents say that in its pure form, kratom is a safe, natural herbal supplement that can help manage pain, anxiety and depression and ease the effects of opioid withdrawal.

Doctors who treat addiction, however, say people can quickly become dependent on it, leading to withdrawal symptoms. A U.S. Food and Drug Administration webpage is blunt: Don’t use it.

The agency says it carries the risk of serious adverse effects, including liver toxicity, seizures and substance use disorder.

In rare cases, it's been associated with deaths, though kratom was usually used in combination with other drugs in those cases, and the contribution of kratom in the deaths is unclear, the agency says on its website.

A trade organization has pushed back

Mac Haddow, with the American Kratom Association, said the FDA and states that have banned kratom are conflating the natural product with synthetic and chemically manipulated ones, which are associated with adverse effects and even deaths.

Haddow, a senior fellow on public policy with the association, said he's heard numerous people tell lawmakers over the years how kratom has improved their lives.

"Some believe it saved their lives because it allowed them to get off of opioids,” he said.

Podcast host Joe Rogan and Cindy Crawford's late son, Presley Gerber, have talked about their experiences using kratom.

Last year, the FDA recommended a ban on products with concentrated levels of 7-hydroxymitragynine, a chemical found in only trace amounts in natural kratom.

Mallory Pullman, managing director at Mississippi Poison Control, said she's seen an increase in such concentrated products in recent years, and consumers may not be able to distinguish them from natural kratom.

“Until you know what product you’re working with, whether it’s kratom or some of these highly concentrated derivatives, you really have to be careful about buying a product and just taking it arbitrarily,” she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Eleven states have banned kratom

Others, including Mississippi, have regulated it, in part by requiring people to be 21 or older to buy it. Both the city of Oxford and Lafayette County, where the University of Mississippi is located, have bans in place.

North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong signed a bill this month restricting the sale of kratom products after declaring kratom a public health crisis this summer and calling a special legislative session to address it. The state has had 50 deaths associated with kratom since 2019, according to the governor's office.

Despite the bans and restrictions, use of kratom in the U.S. has increased, according to researchers at the University of Michigan and Texas State University.

In a paper published this year, they found kratom use in the U.S. was at an all-time high, with more than 5 million people saying they had used it in their lifetime. The group includes more than 100,000 children ages 12-17.

"Policy changes regarding kratom and 7-OH products are needed in all states if we are serious about protecting our children,” the study's main researcher, Sean McCabe, said in a statement in the University of Michigan News.

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Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed.

The legislation — introduced by state Reps. Donni Steele (R-Orion Township), Ann Bollin (R-Brighton Township), Alicia St. Germaine (R-Harrison Township), Mark Tisdel (R-Rochester Hills) and Tom Kuhn (R-Troy) — would establish minimum prison sentences for first, second and third-degree offenses, and allow life sentences for second and third degree CSC convictions. It would also make fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct a felony.

“These are not minor offenses,” Steele said in a news release shared by House Republicans on Wednesday. “The victims of sexual violence can carry the physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of these crimes for the rest of their lives. Michigan’s criminal justice system must make clear that these crimes will be taken seriously and that those who commit them will be held accountable.”

Steele used a May 2026 assault case out of Orion Township as a prime example of why harsher penalties are necessary for criminal sexual conduct cases.

During the incident, a woman was shot in the hip during a random carjacking outside a shopping plaza while she was with her young son. The suspect, identified as a 25-year-old Ann Arbor man, was on probation at the time for a previous assault during which he allegedly duct-taped and hog-tied a woman to a bed before briefly suffocating her and threatening her with sexual violence.

The investigating agency had sought an assault-with-intent-to-murder charge, Steele says, but the suspect ultimately received a lesser charge and probation rather than prison time.

“This is exactly the kind of egregious crime this legislation is designed to address,” she added.

The bills will now head to the Senate for consideration.

The Senate tally, 49-50, coming days after Trump's bombastic address to the United Nations in which he threatened to “annihilate” Iran, was likely the last chance for lawmakers to go on record about the war ahead of November. More Republicans are peeling way from the president as the war drags on, a rare slap back to Trump, as they campaign for control of Congress. The Senate outcome fell short, with four GOP senators joining most Democrats in favor of the resolution.

“They have been carrying water for this ridiculous and illegal war for months and months and months and not listening to their constituents,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who pushed the war powers resolution forward.

About half of rural American voters believe the economy is worse off now than when Trump returned to office, according to a new survey from The Associated Press in partnership with KFF. The costs of groceries, gas and healthcare rank as top pain points for the rural voters.

"We’ve got to break the cycle,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who joined in voting yes.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky also voted for the resolution to end the war, as they have in many previous tallies, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman voted against.

This was the 14th time the Senate has considered a war powers resolution, since Trump launched the conflict on Feb. 28.

War powers resolutions are largely political statements, without the full force of law, but stand among the sharper tools the House and Senate have to express disapproval of the White House, short of halting funds for Trump's military actions. As resolutions, they do not go to the president's desk for his signature.

As gas prices climb, Republicans start to question the war

Republicans in control of Congress have shied away from directly confronting Trump over the war, now stretching past the seven-month mark. But their unrest is surfacing as stubbornly high gas prices leave voters in a cash crunch back home.

Diesel costs, in particular, have almost doubled, topping $6 a gallon, according to AAA.

Just returning from a swing through Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska stumping for GOP candidates who are suddenly at risk in their elections, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana called on Trump to hold a prime-time address to the nation to explain the Iran war strategy and the end game.

“People are confused about the war and upset about the cost of living,” he said.

But he and others were not yet ready to vote against the war.

“My own view is that the focus right now needs to be on attacking the cost of living issues,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who opposes the war powers resolution and believes the president is acting within his authority to conduct the military action.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries scoffed at the handful of Republicans now trying to distance themselves from what he called Trump's failed economy. “Now all of a sudden they’re waking up,” he said.

Democrats keep pushing war powers votes in Congress

Earlier this month, the House for a third time approved a war powers resolution, this time with seven Republicans joining the Democrats, including two from battleground Iowa, Rep. Zach Nunn and Rep. Mariannette Miller Meeks, where affordability issues among rural voters are dominating the campaigns.

Senators, though, have rarely been able to confront Trump by passing a war powers resolution.

In June, the Senate approved a war powers resolution after four GOP senators joined Democrats, but Republicans abruptly reversed course the next day after Trump berated them during a private lunch over the outcome.

At the time, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, stood up to defend his vote only to end up in a shouting match with Trump. He later switched to oppose the war powers resolution after receiving a personal briefing from the White House.

Thursday's vote was on a resolution that had passed the House in July with GOP support. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who authored the House resolution, said the Senate outcome was "a slap in the face to the millions of American people who want this war to end."

Other options to halt the Iran war

As the war drags on, costing $43.5 billion so far, Congress is also seeking other ways to force Trump to rethink his military strategy in Iran.

Rep. Thomas Massie, the renegade Republican from Kentucky, pushed forward articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth before the GOP leadership abruptly adjourned the House and sent lawmakers home to campaign for the election, avoiding any potential vote on the matter.

Lawmakers also have the power of the purse to curtail military spending, something Republicans have been reluctant to do but Democrats are sure to tackle if they win power in the midterm election. The White House's request for an additional $87.6 billion funding package for the war and other needs has idled in Congress.

First created in the aftermath of the Vietnam War as a way to hold a president accountable for military actions, the war powers act has long posed a test of the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government.

While the Constitution says only Congress can declare war, the president as commander-in-chief is also able to engage the military. The war powers act seeks to provide clarity by requiring the president, within 60 days of any such action, to seek approval — or risk disapproval — from Congress.

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Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

Interscope Records announced that Nov. 13 will be the sale date for U2's 16th studio album and released a new track, “Silencio.” “Street of Dreams,” the first song to be taken from the new album, was released in July.

“It’s a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs," The Edge, the band's guitarist, said in a statement. Added singer Bono: “There will be loud guitars, deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms.”

“Carnaval De Luz” — which translates from Spanish and Portuguese to “Carnival of Light” — is produced by Jacknife Lee, who has been working with U2 since 2004’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.”

The last track on the album is “Torn,” a duet with Parton that a statement describes as “what has sadly turned out to be her last recorded vocal performance.” A representative for Parton confirmed it is her final vocal performance. It was co-written by U2, Parton and Snow Patrol’s Johnny McDaid and is described as “a tender country song detailing broken family ties that holds wider resonances.”

The band, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, has not been dormant, having dropped two EPs, “Days of Ash” and “Easter Lily,” each with six songs, released for Ash Wednesday and Easter, respectively.

The new album cover has The Edge and Bono joined by drummer Larry Mullen Jr. and bassist Adam Clayton walking in a line along a beach, with Bono leading the way in a top hat and black coat, in a clear echo of the Beatles' “Abbey Road” cover.

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AP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this report.

A favorite to win the NL MVP award, Crow-Armstrong became the seventh player with at least 40 homers and 40 steals in a season, joining a group that includes Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani and Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. Jose Canseco was the first with the 1988 Oakland Athletics.

Crow-Armstrong hit his 45th homer during Sunday's 9-1 win at Cincinnati, extending his career high. The 24-year-old drew a leadoff walk from Tyler Phillips in the first inning and swiped second base on the next pitch to Seiya Suzuki for his 40th steal in 47 attempts. Fans chanted “MVP” as the Wrigley Field videoboard proclaimed the feat.

Ohtani was the previous player with a 40-40 season, hitting 54 homers and stealing 59 bases for the 2024 Dodgers. Acuña hit 41 homers and swiped 73 bases for Atlanta in 2023.

Alfonso Soriano (2006 with Washington), Alex Rodriguez (1998 with Seattle) and Barry Bonds (1996 with San Francisco) are the other 40-40 players.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

The record to beat for most people grilling simultaneously was 2,220, set in Japan's Ishigaki City in 2023.

The South African hopefuls, who were denied in a failed attempt last year, poured into a sports stadium in the capital, Pretoria, to take up their positions around 500 grilling stations. Organizers said they expected around 3,000 participants.

The strict rules, according to a Guinness World Records adjudicator who watched over the attempt, were: Everyone needs to be barbecuing simultaneously for a minimum of five minutes to be counted.

“And if anyone leaves, they do get disqualified,” said the adjudicator, Paulina Sapinska, who wore a blue blazer and tie and held an official-looking clipboard as she monitored the mass sausage and burger grilling.

Cooking meat outside on a wood, charcoal or gas fire is a beloved South African pastime, just as it is in the United States, Australia and elsewhere.

It's called a “braai” in South Africa, and one of the favorite meats is a fat, curled up sausage known as boerewors — which translates as farmer's sausage. But there were also burgers, steaks and chops to grill for the record attempt.

The mass cookout came on Heritage Day, a national holiday where people in multiracial and multicultural South Africa are encouraged to show off and celebrate their own specific heritage. The holiday has become known informally as “Braai Day” because the love of the cookout is shared by people across the country and it's how many South Africans celebrate it.

Participant Alex Coetzee said he also took part in the 2025 record attempt, when South Africa fell short because too many people left their grilling stations.

"It’s gonna be better (this time)," said Coetzee, who wore a shirt emblazoned with the colors of the South African flag. "We’re actually gonna break the world record now. South Africans have the record and that’s the most important part.”

But was this year's attempt well done, or did it go up in smoke?

Sapinska, the Guinness World Records adjudicator, kept the country on a knife edge by saying she and other officials were reviewing the evidence and that the final word on if there was a new world cookout champion might only come on Friday.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

“Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York. They talk to me, they tell me ‘this isn’t the city we remember, it changed so quickly,'” Netanyahu told world leaders during the United Nations General Assembly.

Mamdani has long been a vocal critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza and has called Netanyahu a “war criminal” who is “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.”

Mamdani met with U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday in New York.

As the war with Iran has dragged on, Trump and Netanyahu have split over how to prosecute it, straining a relationship between the two allies. Netanyahu has also faced global criticism both for Israel’s war in Gaza and settler violence in the occupied West Bank. Instead of a packed itinerary, Netanyahu, who arrived on Thursday, was scheduled to meet only a handful of leaders before giving his speech.

The apparent snub underscored how badly the relationship between Trump and the prime minister has fractured. Many in Washington associate Netanyahu with the increasingly unpopular fight with Iran and Trump has labored to avoid the appearance that the Israeli leader forced him into a war that Trump said would be a “little excursion” lasting only weeks.

Netanyahu's brief visit also demonstrated how isolated he is globally, three years after launching a punishing war in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023. He faces an election next month widely seen as a referendum on his responsibility for the security failures surrounding the attacks and his ability to defend Israel's reputation on the world stage.

Day after day this week, as other heads of state have stepped to the podium, many have harshly criticized Israel's actions, particularly in Gaza. Ahead of his visit, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged his arrest, saying the U.S. should honor a warrant for Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court. He is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Gaza, though the U.S. is not a member of the court and New York City lacks the authority to arrest him.

Still, the prime minister is a master showman, and often turns to props and visual aids during speeches in flawless English to drive home his message. Last year at the summit, scores of diplomats walked out while he was speaking. But that is unlikely to faze him, as he speaks primarily to an audience of Israeli voters.

“He times his speech so that it is broadcast here in primetime,” said Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. who served under Netanyahu and lives in Israel.

But experts say without the usual high-profile meetings, the trip could hurt Netanyahu’s image at home.

“I think the trip is a mistake, because it exposes his weaknesses,” said Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations and professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan and Reichman universities.

While many Israelis view the U.N. as hostile toward Israel, he added, the fact that he could not secure a meeting with Trump only highlights how poorly Netanyahu has managed the relationship with his nation's strongest ally.

In 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden was reluctant to host Netanyahu at the White House but still made time to sit down with him on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

“Israel cannot survive without the United States,” Gilboa said.

The slight in New York follows sharp criticism from Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel and a longtime supporter of Israeli settlements, of the settlers attacking Palestinian communities in the West Bank. In unusual remarks for an ambassador, he referred to the attackers as “terrorists."

“It’s significant of a deeper rift,” Oren said of Netanyahu's slim itinerary.

When Trump was in New York on Tuesday, he met with an array of leaders from Arab nations, as well as from Denmark, Japan, Greenland, Ukraine and Venezuela, among others. He then quickly returned to Washington to roll out the red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

For a leader who likes to portray himself as a global statesman, it is a “big, big miss for him at a time where he can’t afford misses,” Natan Sachs, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said of Netanyahu.

On other past trips, Netanyahu met with a slate of high-profile leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

This year, though, the prime minister's office said “many world leaders” asked to meet with Netanyahu during his brief visit, but that he was on a “tight schedule” and needed to return to Israel before the start of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which begins at sundown on Friday.

On his schedule, the statement said, were leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panama, Ethiopia, Greece, Slovenia, and Papua New Guinea.

The weekly average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan rose to 7.03% from 6.95% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.30%.

The average rate is now the highest it's been since Jan. 16, 2025, when it was at 7.04%.

“Beyond the immediate financial constraints, the 7% threshold is a foreboding psychological barrier,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS. “Crossing this mark could create a chilling effect on the market" that would lead to a considerable slowing of home sales transactions this fall.

Higher mortgage rates can add hundreds of dollars a month to borrowers’ costs, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power. As rates rise, that can also lead prospective home shoppers to delay buying.

In late February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage briefly dipped to 5.98%, its lowest level going back to late 2022. The roughly 1 percentage point increase in the rate since then translates roughly into an additional $276 a month cost for a borrower financing a $400,000 home loan at the current average rate.

Depending on a borrower’s income, credit and other factors, they may qualify for a rate on a 30-year mortgage that is below or above the current average.

The housing market has been stuck in a rut this year in large part because of elevated mortgage rates, which have been climbing in the months since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February.

Mortgage rates are influenced by inflation, Federal Reserve policy and bond-market investors’ expectations for the economy, among other factors. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

Expectations of higher inflation amid surging oil prices have pushed up the 10-year Treasury yield, which was at 3.97% in late February, before the war began. It surged to 5.17% in midday trading on the bond market Thursday. That’s put it roughly back to where it was in 2007.

The latest increase in the 10-year Treasury yield suggests that “upward mortgage rate pressure seems likely to linger,” said Anthony Smith, senior economist at Realtor.com.

The Federal Reserve’s decision last week to increase its key interest rate for the first time in three years in a bid to tame surging inflation could also keep upward pressure on mortgage rates.

While the central bank doesn’t set mortgage rates, its decisions to raise or lower its short-term rate are watched closely by bond investors and can ultimately affect the yield on 10-year Treasurys. The Fed also signaled that another rate hike could occur later this year.

Wall Street traders now see close to a coin flip’s chance that the Fed could raise rates twice more by the end of the year, according to data from the CME Group.

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low. U.S. sales of those homes slowed again last month.

The latest data on home loan applications show that the upward trend in mortgage rates has given some would-be homebuyers reason to pause.

Mortgage applications, which include loans to buy a home or refinance an existing mortgage, fell 1.5% last week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. This marks the third straight weekly drop.

Applications for loans to refinance existing mortgages also declined, falling to their slowest pace since February 2025.

The latest move in rates on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, is likely to discourage some homeowners eager to refinance. That average rate increased this week to 6.42% from 6.26% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.49%.

The elevated mortgage rates are driving more prospective homebuyers to adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs. Such loans, which typically offer lower initial interest rates than traditional 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages, accounted for nearly 10% of all mortgage applications last week, MBA said.

But there's something different near the end — a bit of text at the bottom that says “paid for by the U.S. government.”

According to AdImpact, which tracks media spending, the advertisement cost $14,000 and it ran during conservative shows on Fox News and Newsmax.

The White House said in a statement the ad is "educational and unapologetically patriotic."

“These public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad," the White House statement said.

Fox News and Newsmax did not immediately return a request for comment.

The White House did not say what agency paid for the spot, which includes background music with singers crooning “love me” over and over.

The advertisement does not say who voters should support in the midterms, but it meshes with campaign messaging from Trump and other Republicans, particularly during the party's unusual convention in Dallas earlier this month.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is in line to chair the House Judiciary Committee if his party wins the majority in November, said in a social media post that it's a violation of the Hatch Act for government employees to work on such a video.

“It is blatantly unethical under numerous federal ethics provisions proscribing the use of government resources for political campaigns,” Raskin wrote.

Republicans also criticized the ad.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who is not running for reelection, referenced the former right-wing Hungarian prime minister to critique the advertisement.

“It’s inappropriate. It’s not like they need a GoFundMe page to have the dollars to do that sort of ad and they could do it. But using taxpayer dollars, it feels like Viktor Orban,” he said.

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said he hadn't seen the ad but questioned whether it was legal.

"I don’t generally like to see politicians use public money to pay for their own campaign ads,” he said.

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Associated Press reporters Joey Cappelletti and Steven Sloan in Washington contributed to this article.

Wearing his “Catman” T-shirt, DeBacker pulled off the intricate rescue of a frightened and exhausted cat named Lola who had spent about five days trapped, likely upside down for most of that time, behind a wall in her family's old home in the New York City suburbs.

Lola's ordeal began about two weeks before the rescue, when she ducked under a floorboard while the family was moving out of their second-floor apartment in Franklin Square.

That’s when DeBacker and his team were called in.

DeBacker, who has been rescuing cats for at least 15 years, set a trap with food and cameras in the hopes of luring Lola out, but she'd avoid the trap when she emerged at night.

Things took a turn for the worse when she stopped showing up at all — she had fallen and was now stuck behind a first-floor wall.

When they found her, Lola was trapped upside-down, eating insulation and becoming increasingly weak. DeBacker was losing hope that they’d get her out alive.

But their luck changed last Friday. With a contractor's help, they used an electric saw to start cutting a hole in the wall and managed to see Lola through an endoscopic camera. She seemed nervous, so to prevent her from trying to flee further into the wall, they switched to a quieter drill.

“After two weeks we did not want to lose the cat again,” he said.

In video of the rescue, DeBacker can be seen reaching through the narrow hole, where he made contact with Lola’s hind legs. He then moves into a standing position, shifts his weight back and carefully pulls her out backward.

“Safe!” a woman can be heard saying as the dusty and exhausted cat is placed into a towel-lined crate.

When Lola was finally freed, DeBacker described it as the greatest feeling in the world.

“We were all so happy,” he said.

“It’s pretty miraculous that the cat survived there five days with no food or water,” DeBacker said. “And when you’re upside-down, all the blood is rushing to your head.”

Lola was taken to an emergency vet, where they found insulation in her body, he said. She is now back with her family and struggling with a poor appetite. Her family has been taking her to the vet to try to figure out what's going on, he said.

DeBacker, who has four cats of his own, offered a word of caution to any fellow cat owners who are preparing to move: "Secure the cats first and not after all the moving. The moving will scare the cat into hiding.”

It is the second big round of store closures under Starbucks Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol, who joined the company in 2024. Last September, Starbucks closed 627 stores in North America and Europe.

In a letter to employees, Starbucks Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams said the locations targeted either aren't delivering acceptable financial results or can't provide the kind of experience that Starbucks wants for customers and employees.

The company didn't say Thursday which coffeehouses will close or how many are located in the U.S.

Starbucks Workers United, which represents workers at the 700 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores that have voted to unionize, said 20 unionized stores are among the 250 that are closing, or 8% of the total. Starbucks stores have been voting to unionize since late 2021, but the union and the company have yet to reach a labor agreement.

Grams said Starbucks is continuing to retrofit its North American coffeehouses to make them cozier and more inviting. The company expects 1,500 stores will be retrofitted by Sept. 30, which is the end of Starbucks' fiscal year.

“This progress has given us a clearer view of the performance of every coffeehouse,” Grams said in his letter. “While most are benefiting from this overall momentum, some coffeehouses continue to underperform despite the hard work and commitment of all of you.”

Grams said Starbucks is still committed to growing its store count in North America. At the end of June, the company had 18,371 stores in the region.

Starbucks said it will transfer employees to other stores if possible or provide severance support if it's not able to place an employee in another location. Starbucks Workers United said Thursday it's sending a formal request for information to Starbucks about the planned closures and will engage in bargaining at every unionized store.

Starbucks has also been cutting its corporate ranks. The company laid off 900 nonretail employees when it closed stores last September. In May, Starbucks laid off an additional 300 corporate employees and closed some underused U.S. offices.

The company said it will incur $300 million in restructuring charges with this round of closures, including $200 million in cash charges as it exits leases and pays employee separation benefits and $100 million in non-cash charges due to the disposal and impairment of coffeehouse assets.

Starbucks shares fell less than 1% Thursday in afternoon trading.

The livestream of the event has ended. You can watch the full press conference in the video at the top of this article.

Jaquoya Wix, 34, was killed in a random attack in an alley near Woodward Avenue and E Congress Street at around 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026.

Jaquoya worked at the nearby Chipotle and was working her regular shift when she was killed.

The suspect, Devon Watson, 42, of Detroit, was tracked to the area of Woodward Avenue and State Street, where he was arrested.

He has been charged with one count of premeditated first-degree murder and was arraigned Wednesday afternoon.

The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office said Watson approached Jaquoya while she was sitting in an alley on break from work and stabbed her multiple times with a knife before running away. Watson and Jaquoya did not know each other.

Officers used surveillance cameras to track Watson to the area of Woodward Avenue and State Street, where officers took him into custody.

“The alleged actions of this defendant appear to be random, but we are confident that we will be able to sustain the charge of First-Degree Premeditated Murder in a court of law. We will work hard to bring justice to Jaquoya and hold him accountable for her death,” said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy in a statement Wednesday.

Watson was arraigned in court via Zoom on Sept. 23 and was denied bond.

Read more --> Downtown Detroit stabbing suspect court ordered to undergo mental health treatment before deadly attack

Family thanks community for help and support

Jaquoya’s sister, Alicya Wix, spoke at the press conference on Thursday on behalf of the family, thanking police and investigators for their work on the investigation that led to Watson’s arrest.

“Knowing he is in custody will help allow my sister to move on to her next path, and the road ahead for our family remains long and overwhelming,” Alicya said.

She also thanked the surrounding businesses and bystanders in downtown Detroit for their support during the attack.

“When the unthinkable happened, they didn’t just stand by,” she said. “They jumped in, stepped up, and supported Jaquoya, and you helped when she needed it the most. Your courage and compassion meant everything to our family.”

“Jaquoya was deeply loved. Just as she loved others. She was a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend, a coworker, and her loss leaves a hole in our hearts that can never be filled.”

“Please continue to keep my family in your thoughts and prayers as we continue to navigate our way through this loss.”

There are ways to sneak little movement into the routine you already have. Fitness expert Jody Trierweiler appeared on “Live in the D” to share how you can microdose exercise at home, at the office, and even during a long commute.

Watch the video above to see the segment on “Live in the D.”

Eastern Market After Dark offers one of the clearest examples. The free event showcases more than 125 Detroit artists, designers and makers alongside music, food, galleries, shops and community programming.

But Detroit’s creative community is not limited to one event -- or even one month.

“What Month of Design reveals about Detroit’s creative economy is the breadth of its volume and range -- the industry and community leaders, cultural stewards and creative entrepreneurs who weave this ecosystem together year-round,” said Akua Hill, director of Arts and Culture at Gilbert Family Foundation.

As a sponsor of Detroit Month of Design and lead sponsor of Eastern Market After Dark, Gilbert Family Foundation helps bring attention to that work. Its broader Arts and Culture portfolio also invests year-round in the people, institutions and opportunities that help Detroiters experience the arts and allows creatives to build sustainable careers.

“Supporting the creative economy year-round means treating it as a true economic engine, not an annual occasion,” Hill said. “It is worthy of real investment in the systems and creative capital that make this city special, so its practitioners can live, thrive and build lasting careers here.”

Bringing creative experiences into Detroit neighborhoods

Month of Design is not confined to a single venue or cultural district. Its citywide approach brings programming and visibility to neighborhoods that may not always receive the same attention.

With support from Gilbert Family Foundation, six neighborhood organizations host Month of Design programming, with coaching and assistance from Design Core Detroit. Participants include Slow Stitch/Neighborhood Arts School -- a new Foundation grantee developing a neighborhood creative hub -- and longtime grantee Canfield Consortium, which partnered with the CONTAINER artist program.

These programs allow residents to engage with arts and culture where they live while giving local creatives opportunities to reach new audiences.

Building access and economic opportunity together

Gilbert Family Foundation’s investments focus on two connected priorities: expanding access for residents and creating economic opportunities for creatives.

“Neither one sustains itself without the other,” Hill said. “Access is what builds the audience and helps create demand. Economic opportunity is what makes the work sustainable for those producing creative works.”

Free events, neighborhood programming, public art and creative experiences in community spaces introduce more residents to Detroit’s creative community. Meanwhile, education, paid projects, residencies, professional networks and exposure help artists turn their talents into careers.

“For both to thrive, the ecosystem needs stronger infrastructure, consistent cultivation and coordination across sectors and geographies,” Hill said.

Creating pathways from creativity to a career

In 2021, Gilbert Family Foundation invested $10 million in Pensole Lewis College, helping the institution establish and open its Detroit campus. Pensole is Detroit’s only HBCU and the country’s only design-focused HBCU that provides hands-on, industry-connected education.

“Clearly defined and accessible creative career pathways are essential to a thriving arts and culture ecosystem,” Hill said. “As the nation’s only design-focused HBCU and Michigan’s first HBCU, PLC is directly carving out new pathways for students to go from creativity to career.”

The Black Footwear Forum, a free annual event at Pensole, demonstrates what that investment can make possible by connecting education, industry, community and exposure to design careers.

Artists also need paid opportunities and platforms for visibility. For a decade, the Small Business Murals Project has paired Detroit muralists with small businesses to create large-scale original artwork. Since 2017, the initiative has engaged more than 35 artists and produced more than 56 murals.

The artists gain paid experience, businesses receive distinctive public art and neighborhoods gain visible creative assets.

Creative entrepreneurs also need guidance for navigating the business side of their work. During a Detroit Masterclass at the Detroit Institute of Arts, filmmaker Spike Lee joined Detroit creatives, educators, storytellers and community leaders for conversations about creativity, culture and business.

Hill said the event brought creative talent and business acumen into the same room, “making the case that creativity is serious business.”

The programming offered practical guidance on industry best practices, pitfalls to avoid and balancing creative and business decisions.

“It was an opportunity for creative entrepreneurs at various stages in their careers to learn from the experiences and wisdom of various industry leaders and apply that to their own journey,” Hill said.

Preserving Detroit’s legacy and elevating its stories

Supporting Detroit’s creative future also means investing in the institutions and stories that have shaped its identity.

As the Heidelberg Project celebrates its 40th anniversary, Gilbert Family Foundation is investing $125,000 to help renovate its iconic Number House into an accessible community and artist-residency space and also support a leadership transition. It is the first major construction funding the organization has received and will help the Detroit arts institution enter its next chapter.

Through a separate $75,000 investment, Stories of Us and the Detroit Public Library are using Talking Drum sculptures and QR technology to invite residents to share their experiences. The funding supports stipends for 11 Detroit artists, an expansion of the storytelling platform across library branches and an exhibition at the Main Branch.

This initiative gives Detroiters an opportunity to participate in the city’s cultural life not only as audiences, but also as creators and storytellers.

A creative economy Detroiters can see and measure

For Gilbert Family Foundation, long-term success means a city where arts and culture are treated as essential civic and economic infrastructure.

“Long-term success looks like Detroit recognized as a national leader in arts and culture --where residents in every neighborhood have access to culturally resonant programming, creatives can sustain thriving careers here, and arts and culture are respected as both civic infrastructure and a driver of economic growth, not an amenity alongside it,” Hill said.

Within five to 10 years, Hill hopes that vision can be measured through jobs, education, fellowships, residencies, thriving neighborhood cultural hubs and stronger resources for creative entrepreneurs.

Detroit Month of Design offers a visible celebration of the city’s talent each September. But from Eastern Market and neighborhood murals to design education, artist residencies and community storytelling, the work continues throughout the year.

Detroit already has an extraordinary creative community. Sustained investment can help its artists and institutions connect, create, earn, grow and shape the city’s future.

Learn more about Gilbert Family Foundation and its work in Detroit.

China and the zoo had said in April that Ping Ping, a male, and Fu Shuang, a female, would go to the United States. But Xi’s announcement at the White House, in opening remarks before talks with President Donald Trump, marked the first public confirmation of the timing. Beijing had reclaimed four pandas from Atlanta in 2024, the last of the animals on loan from China to the U.S. at the time.

Xi said Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, “will come to their new home in Zoo Atlanta and meet with the American people” in “a few days.” He called it “a piece of good news” and hailed the panda loan program as an example of “friendship between the Chinese and Americans.”

The pandas are part of a conservation agreement between the zoo and the China Wildlife Conservation Association. Both pandas were born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.

In 2024, Lun Lun, Yang Yang, Ya Lun, and Xi Lun returned from Zoo Atlanta to China, ending a 25-year partnership and leaving the U.S. without any of the animals for several months. The National Zoo in Washington returned three pandas to China in 2023 before accepting new arrivals Bao Li and Qing Bao, in October 2024 after Atlanta lost its pandas. Other American zoos sent pandas back to China before that as loan agreements lapsed.

When the pandas' Atlanta return was officially promised in the spring, Zoo Atlanta CEO Raymond B. King celebrated “the wonder and joy of giant pandas" and said his facility was “delighted and honored to yet again be trusted as stewards of this treasured species.”

The open-air mall, located off Hall and Romeo Plank roads in Clinton Township, is home to more than 80 businesses and restaurants.

“Our dynamic tenant mix at The Mall at Partridge Creek continues to serve as a community destination in Macomb County and beyond as we offer guests a place to connect with their family and friends,” said Carmen Spinoso, CEO of Spinoso Real Estate Group, which leases and manages the mall. “We encourage the community to come enjoy a day out at Partridge Creek this fall as they explore our new offerings.”

The new tenants moving in this fall include:

Cherry Republic

Cherry lovers will rejoice at the addition of this beloved Northern Michigan retailer, offering over 200 unique cherry products from chocolate-covered cherries to cherry salsa. The 6,277-square-foot store, located next to Pandora inside the mall’s main entrance, is already open and welcoming customers.

Noble Duck Japanese Sushi & Steakhouse

This new local dining concept, owned by Chef Omar Mitchell — creator of Table No. 2 Restaurant in Detroit’s Greektown neighborhood — will offer modern Japanese fine dining with live-fire cooking, craft beverages and more. The restaurant will open this holiday season in a 4,831-square-foot space near Cooper’s Hawk and Powerhouse Gym at the east end of the mall, and will offer patio dining in summer 2027.

See’s Candies

Michiganders are likely familiar with this California-based chocolatier, which has been serving sweet treats via pop-ups and other local retailers for years. The new 1,499-square-foot store, located next to Express at the mall’s main entrance, will open to the public in November as the state’s first permanent brick-and-mortar storefront.

Aéropostale

This specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories for all ages and genders will be opening in late November in a 3,760-square-foot storefront at the east end of the mall, next to American Eagle. The new storefront will be the retailer’s 10th location statewide, joining Ann Arbor, Auburn Hills, Birch Run, Grand Rapids, Grandville, Novi, Okemos, Portage and Saginaw.

See what other businesses and offerings can be found at The Mall at Partridge Creek here.

Blake’s Orchard & Cider Mill Launch Party

Armada

• Tonight - get ready for a nostalgic ’90s-style American tailgate at Blake’s Orchard & Cider Mill. The exclusive launch party celebrates the debut of the beverage American Haze, giving guests a first taste of the new product one week before its official release. Enjoy snacks, live music and line dancing throughout the evening.

Learn more!

Destination Stars Hollow

Brighton

• A beloved early-2000s fan favorite is coming to life! Destination Stars Hollow brings the world of Gilmore Girls to life this weekend. Guests can explore immersive businesses and restaurants, snap photos and upgrade their experience with VIP opportunities featuring actors from the show. The event is free and open to everyone.

Learn more!

Michigan Renaissance Festival

Holly

• Step into a world of knights, maidens and medieval adventure at the Michigan Renaissance Festival. With live entertainment, themed food, games and plenty of costumed characters, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

Learn more!

St. Anne Sausage Festival

Warren

• It’s three days of food, fun, and community at the 53rd annual St. Anne Sausage Festival. Hosted at St. Anne Catholic Parish, the family-friendly event features rides, games, food vendors, live bands and a silent auction. Bring your appetite and enjoy a weekend packed with entertainment.

Learn more!

Oktoberfest 2026

Corktown

• Celebrate Oktoberfest in Corktown! The official Oktoberfest Bar Crawl will bring beer lovers together for a festive day at some of the neighborhood’s best bars and venues.

Learn more!

Pave the Way

Stoney Creek

• Lace up for the Pave the Way 5k, 10k, and half-marathon on Saturday, September 26th. Hosted in support of Grace Centers of Hope, the event gives runners and walkers a chance to enjoy the outdoors while supporting people taking their next steps toward a better life. Whether you run, walk or cheer from the sidelines, it’s a great way to make a difference.

Learn more!

Lions vs. New York Jets

Ford Field

• The Detroit Lions will face the New York Jets at Ford Field on Sunday, September 27th. Kickoff is at 1 p.m. Head to the stadium, meet up at your favorite sports bar or settle in for a Sunday football watch party at home.

Learn more!

Tigers’ vs Pirates

Comerica Park

• The Detroit Tigers face the Pittsburgh Pirates in a three-game weekend series at Comerica Park. Catch the action downtown and enjoy an afternoon or evening at the ballpark.

Learn more!

Fourgrounds

Plymouth

• Nothing says fall like a cozy morning and a warm cup of coffee. Stop by Fourgrounds to enjoy our new seasonal menu and find your new favorite fall flavor.

Learn more!

The winner is a 16-year-old who started playing the guitar when she was seven and is proving that age is just a number.

Nene Royal grabbed the attention of America and the judges with her high-energy music that blends rock, metal, and alternative.

The young star’s message to other aspiring performers is to first find your style.

“Second is find the instrument that you really want to do— guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, something like that. Third is Practice, practice a lot,” she said.

“Don’t give up. That’s all you need to do. Your dreams will become true,” she added.

The young star’s journey is just beginning.

“I want to become a rock star doing on tours all around the world,” she said.

Watch the video above to see Nene Royal’s entire interview on “Live in the D.”

Here’s a list of a few events:

• Ferndale - Ferndale Funky Art Fair: The event will feature nearly 140 juried artists showcasing non-traditional works of art. There will be food, live entertainment, and more. September 25th-27th, 9 Mile and Woodward.
• Detroit - St. Joseph Oktoberfest: The event will feature carnival rides, kids’ games, entertainment, beer, food, and more. September 25th-27th, DeSales Park, Gratiot and Vernor.
• Detroit - Black Film Fest: The event celebrates global black cinema and Detroit’s cinematic legacy, with nearly 90 films showcased representing more than 15 countries, an awards ceremony, and more. September 23rd-27th. For more info, click here
• Wyandotte - Flannel and Fire Fest: The two-day event will feature live music, shopping, food trucks, fire performances, family activities, and live chainsaw carvings. September 25th-26th, downtown Wyandotte.
• Madison Heights - Azra House of Horrors: The 20,000 sq. ft. haunted house opens for the season September 25. There will be new rooms, redesigned scares, new terrifying characters, and more. The spooky fun runs through November 2nd in Madison Heights.
• Detroit - Model T Birthday Celebration: The Model T car is turning 119 years old. There will be a celebration with cake, fun, and free Model T rides on September 27 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Ford Piquette Museum.

To see the full segment, please click the video above.

The Dodgers are once again among the best teams in the big leagues, and they'll have several challengers in October, including the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. All three teams could finish the regular season with 100 wins or more. Los Angeles is rolling into the postseason and four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani returned to the lineup on Wednesday after a stint on the injured list and was 1 for 4 at the plate with two strikeouts and a walk.

The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves have also clinched spots in the postseason. Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, a three-time AL MVP, is dealing with a right calf strain that will likely keep him out through at least the Wild Card Series.

While the 12-team playoff field appears mostly set, there are a few long-shot contenders for the postseason, and specific matchups are in flux.

Here's some of what to watch as the season comes to a close.

Here's who can clinch a playoff spot Thursday

In the American League, the Cleveland Guardians can clinch a postseason spot with a win at Boston or a loss by the Rangers or a loss by the Astros.

The Chicago White Sox can clinch a postseason spot with a win at Kansas City.

Over in the National League, the San Diego Padres can clinch with a win at the Dodgers or a loss by the D-backs. The Chicago Cubs can clinch with a win vs. Miami or a loss by the D-backs.

The Philadelphia Phillies can clinch their spot in October with a win vs. Milwaukee and a loss by either the D-backs or the Padres.

AL Central and West are tight, other division winners are set

There's quite a bit of mediocrity in the AL Central and West divisions this season, which has led to some fascinating pennant races and could lead to a sub-.500 team making the postseason.

The Guardians (82-76) have a narrow advantage over the White Sox (81-77) in the AL Central while the Rangers (78-80) and Astros (78-80) are fighting for the AL West. Houston has the tiebreaker if the season ends in a tie.

Over in the National League, the playoff bracket is close to set.

The Padres (88-70), Cubs (87-71) and Phillies (87-71) are jockeying for position in the wild-card race but will almost certainly make the postseason. The only team within shouting distance is Arizona (84-74), which is three games back. Chicago holds the head-to-head tiebreaker for home field over Philadelphia and San Diego, and the Phillies own the tiebreaker over the Padres after sweeping that season series 6-0.

MVP races, stats to watch

MLB's major awards probably won't have much drama this season.

Both MVP races have strong favorites with Chicago's Pete Crow-Armstrong running away with the NL honor while Houston's Yordan Alvarez is the probable choice in the AL, though Tampa Bay's Junior Caminero has also had a fantastic season. Alvarez still has an outside shot at a Triple Crown. He leads the AL in batting average at .316 and his 41 homers are tied with Caminero, New York's Ben Rice and Baltimore's Pete Alonso. His 102 RBIs are eight back of Alonso.

For the Cy Young Award, Milwaukee flame thrower Jacob Misiorowski and New York ace Cam Schlittler are the favorites in the NL and AL, respectively.

The Rookie of the Year races also look set with Cincinnati's Sal Stewart and his 110-RBI season the leader in the NL and Detroit's Kevin McGonigle the favorite in the AL.

What is the MLB playoff format?

There are 12 teams that qualify for MLB’s postseason, including six teams from both the AL and NL. The three division winners in each league get seeds No. 1 through No. 3, ranked by win-loss record. Then the three wild-card teams get seeds No. 4 through No. 6, also ranked by win-loss record.

The top two teams with the best record in both the AL and NL automatically advance to the Division Series. The other eight teams play in the Wild Card Series, which is a best-of-three format beginning on Tuesday, Sept. 29. In both the AL and NL, the No. 6 seed will travel to face the No. 3 seed while the No. 5 seed goes to No. 4. The higher seed hosts all three games.

The winners then advance to the best-of-five Division Series, followed by the best-of-seven League Championship Series and a best-of-seven World Series between the winners of the AL and NL.

What is the MLB postseason schedule?

Wild Card Series: Sept. 29-Oct. 1 (NBC/Peacock)

Division Series: Oct. 3-10 (AL on TBS, NL on FOX/FS1)

Championship Series: Oct. 11-20 (AL on TBS, NL on FOX/FS1)

World Series: Oct. 23-31 (FOX)

Who are the favorites to win the World Series?

The Dodgers (+200) are the favorites to capture a third straight World Series title while the Brewers (+550), Rays (+800) and Yankees (+850) are viewed as the top contenders.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

To see the full segment, please click the video above.

The man, whose identity was not disclosed, was taken away in an ambulance after the encounter on Sunday in Evanston, a city around 12 miles (19 kilometers) north of downtown Chicago. He told police his head, neck and teeth were injured, according to a news release from the Evanston Police Department.

A federal agent told officers who responded to calls reporting an altercation at just before 10 a.m. that morning that five agents in separate vehicles were looking for a fugitive with a Chicago address and a warrant for his arrest, according to the release. The agents mistook the man for the fugitive, the agent told police.

When the man refused to give his identification, the agents tried to handcuff him, the agent said. After realizing he was a U.S. citizen and not the person they were seeking, they released him.

One police officer saw blood on the agent’s hands, according to the release. The agent told police he was injured while trying to handcuff the man, and that they left the area immediately after because they feared protesters who had gathered would attack them, it noted.

Police have visited the man at the hospital and photographed his injuries, and are investigating the encounter.

Local authorities investigating

Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss said in a post on X that the man was treated at St. Francis Hospital for minor injuries. The police department “continues to investigate the situation, and we will remain vigilant about federal activities,” he wrote.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had “encountered an individual who resembled the target” of a “targeted enforcement operation,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “The individual was given lawful commands but was not cooperative and refused to identify himself.”

The officers “left the scene without further incident” after the man identified himself, according to the statement. “When ICE officers offered the individual assistance, he refused.”

Illinois authorities condemn bloody encounter

The incident drew condemnation from Illinois officials as backlash grows against ICE's presence in communities around the country. ICE announced a record number of arrests last month, with nearly 51,000 people arrested.

“I am disgusted and outraged by reports of what happened in my hometown of Evanston on Sunday,” Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky said in a statement.

Eyewitnesses tell AP what they saw

Ryan Garton, 56, told The Associated Press that he saw the agents pinning down the man, who was Black, on the side of the road as he was driving home. He pulled over to document what was happening on video.

One agent had his knee on the man’s back and was “beating up on him,” Garton told the AP. “I’m a citizen, leave me alone,” Garton said the man screamed as the agent pinned him down. Around five people stood nearby and yelled at the agent to stop.

Garton said he urged the agent to get off the man so he could inspect his injuries, and that the agent acknowledged that he was already aware the man was a U.S. citizen. When the agent stepped away, Garton saw bloodstains in the shape of handprints on the man's shirt.

“His upper right eye socket and temple were swollen as if he had been punched” and his face was scraped “as if it had been ground into the sidewalk,” he said.

The man told Garton that he had been walking to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription when the agents stopped him.

Michael Lipson, the owner of a store across the street from where the incident occurred, said he saw the agents wrestle the man to the ground as he repeatedly yelled that he is a U.S. citizen. The man's face looked “badly messed up,” Lipson told the AP.

Lipson said the agents checked cards and papers from the man’s wallet before leaving them scattered on the road. Lipson laid out his sweatshirt for the man to rest on while Garton inspected his injuries.

The same day, ICE agents shot and wounded a man in Austin, Texas, the latest in a string of shootings by federal immigration agents that have prompted growing backlash against the Trump administration's aggressive immigration tactics.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration agents in President Donald Trump's second term, including a Colombian man shot dead in Maine in July by an agent with a history of violent behavior, and a Mexican man hit by a tractor trailer as he fled agents in Florida the same month. ICE agents fatally shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, during the Trump administration's siege of Minneapolis, named “Operation Metro Surge,” earlier this year.

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Mayes-Osterman 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.

As in years past, African leaders attending the U.N. General Assembly this year are demanding a reform of the powerful Security Council that would include permanent seats for countries from the continent in the global body's highest decision-making structure.

Many African heads of state who addressed the meeting since it began on Tuesday have decried the continent’s lack of permanent representation in the Security Council as it navigates global security issues that directly and indirectly affect their populations and governments.

These include the war between Russia and Ukraine, the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and, more recently, the U.S. war with Iran — issues that all loom large at this year's General Assembly.

The 15-member Security Council has five permanent members — the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and China — that hold veto power. Other nations, which do not, are elected by the General Assembly rotate in and out every two years on a staggered basis. Africa holds three of those nonpermanent seats.

The representation question is becoming more urgent

While the calls for Africa to be represented permanently on the Security Council have often been debated by the General Assembly, many said the global conflicts currently faced by the organization made it more urgent for the body to be more inclusive.

According to most African leaders, the unfair representation in the Security Council has created doubt about the credibility of the organization and its oft-trumpeted commitment to multilateralism and equality among nations.

“Every nation is sovereign and equal under the (U.N.) charter. Yet, on the gravest question of war and peace, five nations possess a permanent power that the other 188 do not. The equality proclaimed in this assembly ends at the doors of the security council,” Kenyan President William Ruto told delegates on Wednesday.

They have also highlighted the large African population and the high number of African countries that are member states of the United Nations.

“How can a world led with a right conscience justify the denial of 1.6 billion Africans, the right to equal representation?” asked Ethiopia’s president, Taye Atske Selassie.

In 2024, the United States said it would support the addition of two new permanent seats for African countries on the council. That, however, was under the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Liberia's president, Joseph Nyuma Boakai, said Wednesday that “the historical injustice is no longer tenable.”

“The imbalance is not a favor for Africa,” he said. “It is necessary to restore United Nations trust, credibility and legitimacy.”

Artificial intelligence is a key example

As the world's leaders grapple with the future of artificial intelligence at the meeting, many in Africa also insisted that the decision-making about its rapid growth and development should include the developing nations as they were likely to feel its impact reverberate across the continent.

This came a day after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged global competitors in artificial intelligence to cooperate in addressing threats from the technology. And on the same day, the Security Council held a special meeting about AI that featured the industry's leaders calling for help in managing the technology.

On Wednesday, Botswana President Duma Boko was among the leaders calling for African nations to be included in the discussions. He said this extended to critical minerals, rare earths, and energy resources that power the technological developments. Many of those come from developing countries.

“Therefore, developing countries must have a meaningful voice in setting the standards and safeguards that will govern these technologies, ensuring that they expand opportunities, support decent work, and strengthen public services, while protecting human dignity, rights, and security,” Boko told delegates.

Most leaders are sticking the initial demands contained in the African Union's position on the issue adopted in 2005, which includes a demand for at least two permanent seats on the Security Council.

Said Namibia President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah: “The time has come for us to recognize that we have been negotiating for too long."

Reform is not an attack on the United Nations, said Somalia's president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

“Reform is necessary to protect its legitimacy, renew confidence in its institutions and ensure that it remains capable of responding to the realities of our time,” he said Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Geely Auto unveiled technology that can charge an electric vehicle battery from 10% to 70% in just 4.5 minutes, a leap analysts called a significant development for the Chinese auto group.

Geely is joining the ranks of BYD, which last year overtook Tesla as the world's biggest EV maker, as well as CATL, the world’s largest EV battery maker, both of which this year rolled out around 5-minute EV ultrafast charging.

By comparison, some of the fastest-charging EVs available in the U.S. currently can take roughly 20 minutes, analysts said.

“China is way, way, way ahead in terms of multiple players engaged in the charging competition,” said Lei Xing, an independent analyst of China's auto industry based in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

Geely, BYD and CATL lead ultrafast charging race

Chinese automakers are seeking to eliminate the “ultimate barrier” to EV adoption – range anxiety – by narrowing the gap between EV charging and the roughly five-minute refueling experience of gasoline vehicles, explained Stephen Chan, an analyst at S&P Global Ratings.

At a launch event Wednesday, Geely Auto announced its new system that can charge an EV from 10% to 70% in 4.5 minutes, and 10% to 97% in just 8 minutes and 40 seconds.

BYD in March launched a new generation of its “blade” EV battery that it said can charge an EV from 10% to 70% in 5 minutes, and from 10% to 97% in 9 minutes. In April, CATL rolled out technology that can charge an EV from 10% to 80% in 3 minutes and 44 seconds, and from 10% to 98% in 6 minutes and 27 seconds.

Despite the breakthroughs, experts cautioned there are other obstacles.

“The real challenge is whether the battery can accept that level of current quickly and repeatedly without overheating, excessive degradation or internal bottlenecks,” said Chris Liu, a Shanghai-based senior analyst at Omdia, a technology research and advisory group.

EV makers face intense competition inside China

With more than 100 domestic passenger car brands, Chinese auto makers face intense competition. Domestic car sales have fallen for months in China as automakers are exporting more cars overseas. A focus on technological advancements like ultrafast charging is a way to set themselves apart and try to improve sales.

But success will depend on factors including the scale of companies' charging network.

For one, the majority of China’s public charging stations still operate below 1 megawatt, while Geely, BYD and CATL’s ultrafast charging technologies rely on higher charging power to reach their full potential, said Chan at S&P. That means network expansions or grid updates will remain as hurdles for large-scale adoption.

Some in the industry are already taking ambitious steps. China's BYD, for instance, is targeting 20,000 superfast charging stations by the end of this year, followed by 30,000 more in 2027 and 40,000 in 2028, bringing the total to 90,000 stations by that time, according to a Deutsche Bank analysis.

China leading the world in EV fast-charging

Other countries including the U.S. is still behind China when it comes to ultrafast EV charging.

In the U.S., EV fast-charging sessions typically take roughly 20 to 40 minutes to charge from 10% to 80%, according to S&P, although newer models from brands like Hyundai, Kia and Porsche can reduce charging times to approximately 18 to 20 minutes under optimal conditions.

“Overall, while the battery-charging network in the U.S. is growing at a rapid pace, it is still well behind China’s ultrafast charging speeds by orders of magnitude,” said Neal Ganguli, a partner and managing director in the automotive and industrial practice at consultancy AlixPartners.

But Ganguli also believes the U.S. may not be attempting to match China’s “megawatt race” in EV charging at least in the near future, but to pursue a “more moderate” path to upgrades.

Kitchens for a Cause features seven homes, each designed by local firms, with proceeds supporting the league’s community programs. Sherri McGrill of the Junior League of Detroit said the tour highlights homeowners’ personal style alongside the region’s design talent.

“What makes them unique is that they all reflect the personalities and the likes of the people who live there, who came up with their own vision and their own design, and then sought some very local designers to help them bring their imaginative ideas to life,” McGrill said during an appearance on Live in the D.

Firms including Maltzler, Maple and Mill, and Point Cabinets and Design worked with homeowners on the projects.

McGrill said organizers made a point of representing a range of budgets, so the tour feels accessible rather than out of reach.

“I think the difference is, is that we really tried to do designs and select homes that were across the continuum for every budget and everybody’s likes,” she said.

Proceeds from ticket sales support the Junior League of Detroit’s long-running mission of aiding women and children in the city, a mission that dates back more than a century.

“The Junior League, which has been here since 1914 right here in Detroit, has a long history of supporting women and children. That’s our legacy here in Detroit,” McGrill said.

The organization’s current signature project, Brilliant Detroit, serves families with children up to age 8 through food, clothing, literacy resources and books. The league also awards small grants to nonprofits with aligned missions and funds scholarships for local students.

“And one that I’m very proud of is that we do $10,000 scholarships every year to 10 young women across the Detroit area who are college-bound,” McGrill said.

Tickets for all seven homes cost $50 and are available on Eventbrite by searching “Kitchens for a Cause.” Buyers can also pick up tickets at a drive-through Friday (September 25) or Saturday (September 26) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Grosse Pointe United Methodist Church, 211 Moross Road in Grosse Pointe Farms.

“All you have to do is drive through, roll your window down, we will give you your ticket that has the 7 homes listed on the back,” McGrill said.

Ticket holders can tour the homes in any order and split the visits across both days. Raffle prizes will also be available at the drive-through.

More information is available at jldetroit.org.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office documented costly problems in several initiatives ICE has pursued since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025 and ordered the mass arrest and deportation of people who are in the country illegally.

Among the misspending was nearly $3 million to erect tents at Guantanamo Bay that were never used, $20 million to maintain purchased warehouses that are now being sold without having housed a single detainee, and excessive rates paid to hold detainees at a deficient and now-shuttered Florida lockup.

ICE has no strategic plan for spending its windfall

Congress gave ICE an unprecedented $45 billion to expand detention capacity last year as part of the Trump-backed One Big Beautiful Bill, but the agency still lacks a comprehensive strategic plan for how to spend it wisely, the report warned. The detainee population has increased from 39,000 in January 2025 to 67,000 as of July 30.

“Without taking action to manage detention investments in accordance with program and project management practices, ICE will likely continue to make uninformed decisions and risk further inefficiency and wasted resources,” warned the GAO, a nonpartisan agency that investigated at the request of congressional Democrats.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, told GAO it would develop a plan to guide its detention expansion by Aug. 31, 2027, but that may be too late to prevent more waste, the report said.

ICE and DHS offered no immediate additional comment on the report.

The government scrapped a plan for mass detention at Guantánamo Bay

Shortly after Trump returned to the White House, the government began blowing money by hastily pursuing plans to detain more people who were in the U.S. illegally, the report found.

After the White House directed officials to use the military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for immigration detention in January 2025, the Department of Defense assembled enough tents to hold 5,000 people there at a cost of $2.85 million, the report said. But DHS found that the tents didn't meet detention standards, and they were removed before they housed a single detainee.

The plan for mass detention at Guantánamo Bay was later found to be “infeasible” and scrapped because of the costs of building facilities that could meet federal standards. Instead, the agency housed an average of 16 detainees daily there this year, at a cost of millions of dollars, the report found.

ICE is wasting millions of dollars on empty warehouses

Earlier this year, ICE purchased 11 large warehouses across the country for $1.07 billion as part of a plan backed by former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to increase detention capacity. But that idea was scrapped amid public opposition before any detainees were housed in them because the department didn't conduct “appropriate due diligence and planning," according to the GAO report. DHS is now planning to sell seven of the facilities.

ICE has spent $20 million on costs and services related to those seven warehouses that it will not recover, including zoning assessments, title insurance, utilities and security, and will need to sell them for the total purchase price of $707 million to avoid more waste, the report said.

ICE has also “incurred significant costs” for the four warehouses that it plans to keep, including a $426 million outlay to renovate facilities in Arizona and Maryland that is on hold due to legal challenges.

Report finds waste on ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ and other plans

After the warehouse initiative faltered, ICE launched a plan to purchase facilities owned by private contractors that were already housing detainees, saying it would give more control over infrastructure and limit local governments' ability to restrict their use.

The agency spent $1.5 billion to buy two of them in July and could buy more even though ICE has “not assessed the long-term affordability of owning these facilities," the report said.

The report found fault with other initiatives. ICE never reached a contract with the state of Florida to operate the facility nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” which housed detainees for a year until it was closed in June following reports of substandard and abusive conditions.

Instead, DHS agreed to reimburse the state through a special $608 million Federal Emergency Management Agency grant that authorizes a charge of $249 per detainee per day — 171% higher than ICE's normal rate of $92, the report found. DHS is also paying the state the higher rate for a second facility that's still open in Sanderson, Florida.

ICE is also facing high costs under an agreement in which the Bureau of Prisons is housing detainees at eight facilities. The agreement requires ICE to reimburse the full cost, which has ballooned because of overtime and other staffing assignments, and pay a rate of $182 per detainee per day, the report said.

Akkad runs House of Reem, a luxury residential and boutique commercial design firm based in Birmingham. Her showroom, called House of Reem, gives clients a hands-on look at her curated approach to furniture, artwork, craftsmanship and materials.

“The beautiful furniture, the art, the accessories, that’s all a very small part of what interior design really is,” Akkad said. “In reality, interior design is much more than that. It’s the fusion of art and analytics.”

Akkad said her firm begins every project by getting to know the people who will use the space, well before choosing so much as a paint swatch.

“What is the identity that we want to create, and how does the space need to function?” Akkad said.

She encourages clients to bring her in early, even before construction begins, to avoid costly missteps down the road.

“It’ll allow us to bring our magic in early on before anything is ever built,” Akkad said.

That philosophy holds whether the project is a sprawling home or a boutique medical office, Akkad said.

“We always start with that story,” Akkad said.

House of Reem takes on residential projects ranging from 4,000 to 30,000 square feet, along with commercial work spanning medical and dental offices, retail spaces, hospitality venues and educational institutions.

More of Akkad’s work can be found at HouseofReem.com.

Maria Grazia Chiuri freed the body at Fendi, Simone Bellotti relaxed the uniform at Jil Sander and Meryll Rogge embraced generations at Marni.

If first seasons are when new designers demonstrate their brand knowledge, then second and third are when designers start to blaze their own paths while evolving the fashion house.

“I don’t think we have to be nostalgic. The brand has fantastic recognizable codes. We want to cherish that," Rogge said backstage after the Marni Spring Summer 2027 co-ed runway preview on Thursday. "I have to find my own way to honor the brand, to honor the values and to hopefully make young people dream, and other generations dream.”

Meryll Rogge seeks intergenerational acceptance at Marni

Rogge said Marni's sweet spot is intergenerational appeal and that the brand hit that target with their new bag: Its first customer was a 17-year-old girl and its second an 80-year-old woman.

The runway collection in general hewed more toward the younger crowd with pedal pushers and mini-shifts that many 80-year-olds would have worn in their youths. Older Marni dressers may feel more at home today in the collection's short-haired goat fur coats, which could appeal to any age, if not every pocketbook.

Rogge is in full command of Marni's heritage quirkiness. Men's knit vests were styled like halters and worn over button-down shirts and thin long johns peeked out of baggy boxers. For women, a plaid dress featured a keyhole detail set off by a shoe buckle — shoes being an unlikely inspiration for the collection.

The looks were modern and easy to wear, with an element of gorpcore, or mountain looks made for the city, in a series of anorak dresses and tops.

Fendi frees the body

Chiuri enveloped the runway for her highly anticipated second show at Fendi inside glass walls, allowing the audience to see their images reflected on the models while perhaps obscuring some of the detail. With a soundtrack of Italian dance classics, Chiuri said she was trying to recreate the freedom and frenzy of the dance floor.

“This was meant to be a hall of mirrors, where we actually reflect ourselves in other people’s bodies,’’ Chiuri, 62, said backstage after Wednesday's show. “I believe that for a generation like mine, which believed in the nightclub as a place of freedom, meeting people and dancing and watching other bodies was a way of connecting with others.”

Chiuri returned to Fendi, where she started as an accessories designer, after turns as co-creative director at Valentino and creative director at Dior.

Her co-ed sophomore collection started with undergarments, making bare skin integral to the look and leaning into brand heritage traits of fluidity and layered textures. Think silken slips and deeply scooped tanks that contrasted with tailored military jackets, cape-like trenches and patchwork fur coats.

Arrivals at the show were hindered by a combination of fans waiting to catch a glimpse of front-row guests like Monica Bellucci and Italian singer Jovanotti, and an anti-fur protest. Fendi was born as a furrier, and the brand is sticking with the legacy but putting the emphasis on upcycled pieces.

Jil Sander softens the minimalist uniform

Simone Bellotti’s third collection for Jil Sander brimmed with confidence, as he softened the minimalist uniform with inventive tailoring.

The silhouette was heavily elongated, with three-quarter-length jackets and argyle knitwear that covered the bum. But it also bubbled and billowed, with pleats and built-in capes that allowed air to flow through the garments and around the body.

Bellotti hit his stride with tailoring that gave structure and lightness to the jackets, dresses and skirts in all the right places. Coats featured a single, off-skew pressed fold, which played off the tiny notched collars. Shirts were punctuated by knife pleats that ballooned in the back, while cascading pleats fluttered down the side of skirts.

The color palette was mostly neutrals of black, gray and blue, to keep the focus on the architecture of the looks.

“There is always something that I really like about this idea to distort the precision a little bit. I think it is more honest,” he said after the show on Wednesday.

A particularly striking pair of coats featured an exaggerated cutaway saddle flap of a royal riding jacket, a shape achieved through hand sewing and not a mere styling trick.

“It is very beautiful to see the result of this manipulation, made by hands,” Bellotti said.

The woman left Hollywood Casino in the 400 block of Monroe Street on Wednesday (Sept. 23) and had not been seen since.

On Sept. 24, Detroit police said she was found safe. Her information has been removed from this article.

READ: More Missing in Michigan coverage

The run will begin with three dates next month in Europe. It kicks off at Dublin's 3Arena on Oct. 26, followed by Paris' Accor Arena on Oct. 29 and London's OVO Arena Wembley on Oct. 30.

Additional artist announcements, as well as U.S. dates, are forthcoming.

An artist presale begins at 10 a.m. local time Monday at Macklemore.com.

According to a press release from Live Nation, the shows will benefit several Palestinian aid organizations, including Anera, Glia, Gaza Soup Kitchen, Taawon, HEAL Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Jewish Voice for Peace, Medical Aid for Palestinians. Institute for Middle East Understanding, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and an U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA USA.

“If these last couple of weeks have shown us anything, it’s that something has shifted over the last three years. There has been a collective awakening around Palestinian liberation, the power of billionaires that try to censor that call, and what we expect from artists right now,” Macklemore wrote on Instagram in the caption of his “Free Palestine” announcement. “When the billionaire class can decide which voices are allowed on stage and which ones are too dangerous to hear, everyone should be paying attention.”

What to know about Macklemore's pro-Palestinian comments — and Ed Sheeran

Last week, Macklemore made headlines when it was revealed that he was dropped as an opener for Ed Sheeran’s tour of North and South America because of the rapper’s onstage pro-Palestinian comments. Since then, all of Sheeran’s other supporting acts dropped out, including a group that plays with Sheeran during part of the show.

At the time, Sheeran said the decision to cut Macklemore from the Loop Tour was the promoter’s, not his own.

Macklemore said his removal was the result of an effort led by Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots. His Kraft Group also owns Gillette Stadium, where the NFL team plays and where Sheeran is scheduled to perform later this month.

Macklemore also announced he would donate $1 million from his net earnings from the tour to six organizations helping Palestinians.

The horse’s name drew attention after winning his debut Monday at Horseshoe Indianapolis Racecourse. Hitler was born in Austria and was an artist before becoming the head of the Nazi Party in Germany.

“The Registrar determined that the name is ineligible under Rule 6.F.9.d, which prohibits names that ‘are likely to be offensive or threatening based upon factors including, but not limited to, color, creed, disability, ethnicity, gender, national origin, race, religion, politics or sexual orientation,’” the Jockey Club said in a statement announcing its decision.

Owner and breeder Scott Herbertson said on social media it was a reference to Austrian painter Gustav Klimt and that his filly originally called New Order was named for his favorite band. New Order is also a term for the Nazis' plan for occupying Europe.

The Jockey Club said that horse, a full sister to Merrylegs, had also been unnamed.

“We take these matters seriously and appreciate that they were brought to our attention,” the Jockey Club said.

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See AP’s full horse racing coverage here

The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge from a state moving to rein in popular and now-ubiquitous betting apps that allow people to place wagers on most anything, including sports, weather, elections and technology.

Prediction market platforms have argued states do not have the authority to govern them because they are regulated at the federal level by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

New York officials filed Thursday's lawsuit against Polymarket in state court and want the company to face fines and be forced to pay restitution to users because the platform did not get a gaming license from the state. The state has previously sued other platforms such as Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini using a similar argument.

“By running an unlicensed gambling operation, Polymarket has done more than just knowingly violate state law, they have put New Yorkers at risk, especially those underage who are most vulnerable to problem gaming,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement.

In a statement, Polymarket’s Chief Legal Officer Neal Kumar said, “We'll fight for our users.”

“Polymarket was founded in a tiny NYC apartment and now has more than 350 employees here, embodying why people and businesses come here to make it. We believe in New York and we’re staying here,” Kumar said.

Prediction market platforms have said they operate differently than traditional gambling operations, because consumers are trading against other consumers, similar to how stock markets work. They allow participants to buy and sell contracts tied to the probable outcome of an event. The platforms say prices are based on trading and they only take a fee from the trading.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has opposed state regulation of the platforms, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he believes the rising number of hybrid incidents in NATO countries shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, and that the best way to respond is to give more weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces.

“All the response options are there, and we will use whatever we need,” Rutte said, speaking at a ceremony in New York marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

He said that citizens of the 32 NATO countries can remain calm. “Putin is in a bad place,” Rutte said. “He is not winning the war in Ukraine.”

Danish agency says Russia is more willing to take risks

In a new risk assessment released Thursday, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service said Russia is likely to step up its hybrid campaign — a term for the use of non-conventional hostile acts such as sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation and an array of other methods — to pressure adversaries in the West and NATO.

“This could include destructive cyberattacks that cripple critical societal functions as well as sabotage attacks that carry a high risk of casualties,” it said.

“Russia has become more willing to take risks,” the agency said.

Hybrid attacks can aim to destabilize a country, test its defenses, strain resources, or influence public opinion — often in a way that makes it hard to identify those responsible.

An Associated Press interactive map tracking the incidents of hybrid attacks shows an escalation, from 59 in March 2025 to more than 200 at this point.

Poland's prime minister is also worried about Russia's hybrid warfare

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned last week that Russia is planning hybrid strikes with drones or rockets on European countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland.

He said Russia will likely pretend the attacks are “accidental” in order to “paralyze or at least weaken the motivation of NATO countries” to rush to the defense of a member state coming under attack.

The Danish agency said there is “a low but growing risk that Russia will launch a limited military attack against one or several NATO countries bordering Russia,” but that this “could potentially take place in the coming months.”

The aim would be to divert European resources away from supporting Ukraine and sow division in NATO, the service said. At the same time, it noted there are “no indications that Russia will launch an outright invasion of one or several NATO countries.”

NATO and European Union officials have said that Russia's armed forces are too tied up in Ukraine and that no unusual military activity has been noted near European countries close to Russia.

The US warns against over-reacting

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said earlier this week that the number of incidents right now does not indicate a conflict might be imminent.

“I don’t think it’s at a volume that would mean that it’s the beginning,” Whitaker said on Tuesday in Iowa, where he attended a panel about NATO alongside Rutte.

“I don’t think that it’s in anybody’s interest to head towards a conflict,” he said. “I think one of the things that we have to be very careful (about) is overreacting to any sort of hybrid activity.”

“We haven’t reached that threshold,” he said.

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Moulson reported from Berlin.

But what happens when the hackers aren't human?

That's the question at the center of a public policy debate roiling Silicon Valley and Washington following disclosures by leading tech companies that their artificial intelligence models went rogue and hacked into other organizations. The attacks have generated calls even from within the industry for greater oversight and regulation, spurred congressional inquiries and raised questions about whether a years-old legal framework designed to punish criminal hackers is sufficient in an era of autonomous actors capable of engineering their own havoc.

It all adds up to a “Wild West,” said Jack Nelson, chief information security officer and deputy general counsel at the software company Ivanti. Questions of accountability will focus on what the companies knew when they were developing the models, how much they understood about what could happen and what guardrails existed, he said.

“If you owned a tiger and you didn’t put a lock on the cage, the tiger probably did something bad you didn’t intend for it to but you knew it could have, so you are responsible for not putting a lock on that cage,” Nelson said.

“I don’t know if I would go so far as to say these models are tigers without locks, but that’s probably a decent framework to think of it as,” he added.

The prospect of legal accountability is unclear. Lawsuits are a possibility, but some legal experts believe any criminal investigations would face an extremely high burden given the autonomous nature of the attacks and the absence of evidence the AI models were designed with the intent to hack into other networks.

The FBI director has called the autonomous attacks ‘the new frontier’

The issue surfaced in July when OpenAI revealed that its artificial intelligence system escaped from a testing ground and used stolen credentials to break into the servers of Hugging Face, an AI development hub and marketplace, to obtain information it needed to carry out a task.

Since then, Anthropic said its AI models hacked into three other organizations during testing, triggering a company review into whether the models were able to access the internet from within testing environments that should have been sealed off. Meta has said a “misconfiguration” during testing resulted in an AI model accessing the internet on its own and hacking another company. Google recently made a similar disclosure.

The revelations contributed to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urging a development slowdown. The topic has likewise dominated Washington, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent telling lawmakers he opposed giving AI labs a “liability exemption — which is what they are asking for." President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has resisted calls for greater oversight but did announce plans to appoint an AI czar and task force.

The hacks could tee up a fight over liability reminiscent of the debate over Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields technology companies for material posted on their platforms.

The FBI has not publicly announced any investigations, but Director Kash Patel at a congressional hearing last week called the issue “the new frontier." He suggested in response to questions from Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who has launched a congressional investigation, that the bureau would limit scrutiny to models created with the intent of committing a crime.

“What we need to do on a resource basis is go after the people that created these models that are going rogue ...for the specific purpose and with the intention to commit a criminal act,” Patel said. “We can’t be punishing people if they created something lawfully and then a criminal took it and changed it and then dispersed it."

Attorney General Todd Blanche has said that the Justice Department had no plans to regulate AI but that “if anyone associated with AI violates criminal law, we’ll investigate that.”

The case law and FBI and Justice Department approach "is going to be fascinating because it can go a bunch of different ways,” said former Justice Department cybercrime prosecutor Sid Mody.

Various criminal statutes govern cyberspace

The Department of Justice does have statutes at its disposal for a company determined to have been "reckless in the way that it tests its AI agents," said Michael Zweiback, a former chief of the cyber and intellectual property crimes section of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

"And if in fact the AI agent gets loose in the wild and then causes substantial damage to other companies, then DOJ has to look at it from a prosecutorial discretion issue as to whether or not they want to make an example out of the particular company," he added.

Among the possibly relevant laws: a 40-year-old statute called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it illegal to knowingly access a computer without authorization. The White House cited the statute, which has been used against hacktivists, nation-state hackers and other cybercriminals, in an executive order directing prosecutors to pursue those who use AI to illegally access computers or further other crimes.

But some experts say even if there may be a basis to investigate, that hardly means a crime was committed.

For one thing, the law makes several references to behavior done “knowingly” or “intentionally," but there's no indication the autonomous agents were given any command or authorization by the companies to enter another network, said Kiran Raj, a former senior Justice Department official who specializes in cybersecurity law.

In detailed public accountings of the incidents, the companies have characterized the hacks as inadvertent outgrowths of testing and evaluation, with OpenAI calling its model behavior “unexpected" and “unprecedented" and Meta attributing the incident to a “misconfiguration.”

“I think it would be a pretty big stretch to say any of these companies are intentionally trying to do this. That's not their purpose. That's not what they're doing,” said Raj, also a former lead Microsoft program manager. “The fact that an AI agent may intentionally be doing something is going to be, I think, pretty hard to attribute the intent to the company.”