“It's all so funny,” she says. “When I tell them I run the trade association for independent stores, they'll say, 'It's just so sad that they're disappearing.' I don't think they're really keeping track, or they just know about a store that closed or heard about one closing.”

The decline of physical bookstores remains so embedded in popular culture that the man dating Anne Hathaway's character in “ The Devil Wears Prada 2 ” laments that bookstores are “getting downsized and consolidated.” But the decline actually ended years ago, and the latest numbers from the American Booksellers Association show independent stores expanding at a pace not seen this century.

Membership in the ABA grew by more than 500 over the past year, to a total of 3,417 (at 3,783 locations), nearly triple what it was a decade ago and the highest level since the late 1990s. The surge included stores of various kinds — general interest shops like Hey Books! in San Diego; mobile stores like the Wandering Quills Bookshop in Westerville, Ohio; pop-up stores like Banyan Books in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Many of the new members reflect the current boom in romance, fantasy and their hybrid, romantasy, whether the Spicy Librarian in Denver or the Flutter Romance Bookstore in Austin, Texas: “Where butterflies begin. And every story ends in happily-ever-after,” according to its web site.

Both a business and a calling

Independent bookselling, rarely a way to get rich, is a meeting ground for idealists — for young people with a sense of mission, retirees embarking on a new life or middle-aged people no longer satisfied with their careers. “I think people want to realign their lives with their values,” Hill says.

In Wentzville, Missouri, 55-year-old Kelley Hartnett is a marketing consultant and copywriter who had always wanted to run a bookstore. Her husband's concerns included competing against Amazon, but Hartnett went ahead and opened Double Dog Bookshop in 2025 as a mobile store. She rode about the area in a converted cargo trailer, joined by two Australian Cattle Dog mutts, and has since opened a storefront downtown.

“For me, Double Dog is about maybe 50% books and 50% community,” says Hartnett, who hopes to find a larger space that would make it easier for customers to gather and “just be.”

“People are craving connection, especially in-person connection,” she said. “People are over the internet and virtual meetings and algorithms. They're not the same as having a human to human connection. It feels really healing.”

Hill can joke about the mistaken elegies for bookselling, while expressing concern that the state of independent stores is healthy but “precarious.” Costs are high, and schools and libraries face budget cuts that limit their purchases from local stores.

Is there room for indies and giants?

Independent owners also find themselves worrying about a onetime competitor which itself had seemed endangered, Barnes & Noble.

The superstore chain was the dominant seller in the 1980s and 1990s, and was widely seen as the leading cause for hundreds — maybe thousands — of independent stores shutting down. But by the 2010s, Barnes & Noble had been surpassed by Amazon. It began shutting down stores instead of opening new ones and struggled for years to find a new owner before the hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. bought it in 2019.

Under the leadership of CEO James Daunt, Barnes & Noble is expanding again, adding more than 100 stores over the past two years. In Chicago, the owner of the decade-old Volume Books has blamed a new Barnes & Noble for putting her out of business, while Hill added that “even a small decrease in sales can make or break a bookstore’s year in an industry with paper-thin margins.”

Daunt denies any intent to take business from independent sellers, saying it's not in his “DNA.”

“I'm an independent seller myself,” he says, noting that he founded Daunt Books in London. Daunt says he has customers who shop at his store and the British chain Waterstones (where he's also managing director). “I never thought of the market as finite.”

The owners of The Book Loft Oak Park, another Chicago-area store that opened last summer, acknowledge some nerves about a nearby Barnes & Noble coming soon. But Heather Nelson and Sophie Schauer Eldred hope the stores ultimately compliment each other.

“We’re hoping people whose curiosity is piqued by the new Barnes and Noble will walk down the street,” Schauer Eldred said, “and pop into our bookstore.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are hanging near their records Wednesday as oil prices fall and ease the pressure on households and businesses worldwide.

The S&P 500 rose 0.1% and added to its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 243 points, or 0.5%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.

Stocks of companies with big fuel bills helped lead the way on hopes that lower oil prices will remove a big drag on their profits. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings climbed 5.9%, and United Airlines rallied 6.5%. Delta Air Lines rose 3% and is on track to set an all-time high.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil fell 4.6% to $92.25 after the ceasefire between the United States and Iran appeared to hold despite the U.S. military launching what it called “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude fell 5.5% to settle at $88.68 on hopes that the United States and Iran can reach an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and allow oil tankers to exit the Persian Gulf for deliveries again.

Stocks have been able to run to records despite the painful inflation and uncertainty caused by high oil prices largely because companies have reported surprisingly strong profits for the start of 2026, and the forecast is for them to continue.

Bath & Body Works rallied 10.7%, and Abercrombie & Fitch climbed 16% after both reported bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. That's even as U.S. consumers continue to say they're feeling discouraged about the economy and inflation.

Lululemon Athletica rose 4.2% after reaching a deal with its founder, Chip Wilson, where it will add a former chief marketing officer of ESPN and a former co-CEO of On to its board of directors.

On the losing side of Wall Street was Dick's Sporting Goods, which dropped 4.5% despite delivering a profit for the latest quarter that edged past expectations. Analysts pointed to how much profit it wrung out of each $1 in revenue, which some called a bit weak.

Oil-and-gas stocks also sank, hurt by the dropping prices for crude. Exxon Mobil fell 1%, and Chevron slipped 1%. Halliburton dropped 3.1% to bring its gain for the year so far back below 41%.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after falling oil prices took pressure off inflation. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.48% from 4.50% late Tuesday and from 4.67% roughly a week ago.

It’s a respite following recent gains for yields in bond markets worldwide, which threatened to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. High yields have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level since last summer, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the artificial-intelligence data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. South Korea's Kospi was one of the world's best performers and jumped 2.3% after SK Hynix, which is a big beneficiary of the artificial-intelligence boom, soared 9.3%.

A day before, Micron Technology surged to become the latest Big Tech company to be worth more than $1 trillion on AI excitement. Its stock has more than tripled already in 2026, and analysts at UBS said Tuesday it could soar even more because of how fundamentally AI has improved demand for computer memory.

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AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the chair and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees college sports, briefed The Associated Press on details of the bill they crafted in hopes it can get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate.

“This is a stability bill, not just an NIL bill,” Cruz said, referencing the name, image and likeness payments that have led to football rosters with $30 million payrolls and reshaped the industry.

Cantwell said she and Cruz teamed on the legislation "because he and I really do believe the college sports system is in a bit of chaos.”

The bill looks very much like a “best of” pair of legislative proposals — one called SCORE, another called SAFE — that have gone nowhere over the past several months. It contains two elements the NCAA has supported: a limited antitrust exemption and a clause that would preempt much of the patchwork of state laws currently regulating NIL.

Meredith Page, the chair of the NCAA Division I Student Athlete Advocacy Committee and a former volleyball player at Radford, called the bill “a phenomenal step,” especially after the latest setback for the SCORE Act, which the SAAC also supported.

“I think this has lots of great protections and gives the ability for us to stablizie the field that is so, so unstable right now,” Page said.

Antitrust help

College sports has been looking to Washington for help as it grapples with rising costs of paying players and an out-of-control transfer portal that have threatened smaller sports, many involving women, that make up the backbone of the U.S. Olympic pipeline.

This bill, called the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), would offer what Cruz and Cantwell said was targeted antitrust protection for the likes of the NCAA and the College Sports Commission, which was part of the largely Republican-backed SCORE Act that many Democrats opposed. That would be in exchange for what Cruz said would be “public-facing protections" for athletes in 10 areas, including guarantees for health insurance and scholarships, more stringent regulations for NIL deals from third parties and agents who broker their deals.

“I think it's better predictability,” Cantwell said. “Why did we do it? Because when you've got thousands of athletes being cut, hundreds of programs being cut, the risk to the whole infrastructure was too high to not try to get better predictability.”

Rules for players and coaches

The bill would limit players to one unrestricted transfer over the course of their college careers — a widely supported idea across the country — and would adopt something close to the five-year eligibility period that the NCAA appears ready to enact next month.

The bill also tries to regulate coaching movement. Kiffin's sudden move to LSU from rival Mississippi while the Rebels were preparing for the College Football Playoff last season put a fine point on an issue that has only gotten worse in an era where teams spend millions to fill out rapidly shifting football rosters: Schools have less patience (and more money) to devote to hiring coaches for a quick fix.

Under terms of the bill, midseason coaching changes would be prohibited.

“It's not fair or right to poach a coach in the middle of the season while the team is still competing," Cruz said. "There’s a reason the NFL has a rule that you can’t do that. Obviously, NFL teams hire coaches away from each other but they don’t do so in the middle of the season.”

Media rights money

The bill would rework the Sports Broadcasting Act to allow conferences to pool their TV rights — a move proponents have said could add billions of dollars to the ecosystem in a conclusion the Southeastern and Big Ten Conferences believe is inaccurate.

The senators said leagues wouldn't be required to join the media pooling but those that do would have to use a percentage of any increase from that to support women's and Olympic sports. That alone could be a dealbreaker for the SEC.

The commissioners of the Atlantic Coast and Big 12 conferences each said they were looking forward to reviewing the details, with the ACC's Jim Phillips saying he hoped the bill afforded his league a chance to “build upon today's positive momentum.”

Can the measure pass?

The SCORE Act, which garnered little support from Democrats, was on the House schedule last week but was abruptly pulled off when the Congressional Black Caucus and NAACP came out against it. Even if it had squeaked by in the razor-tight House, it had virtually no chance of passing as written in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to break a possible filibuster.

“The Congressional Black Caucus and I have the same objective: stop the ‘SEC SCORE Act,’” said Cantwell, referencing the SEC as one of dozens of conferences who have supported that bill.

Some Democrats were reluctant to support a bill, like SCORE, that prohibited college athletes from being classified as employees of their schools. The new bill takes what Cantwell said was a neutral stance on the issue of employment.

“Sen. Cruz and I have been very concerned about producing a bill that's not just about the 1% of athletes who go on and have a professional career," she said. "We took care of the entire ecosystem and have opportunities for athletes to continue to have that collegiate experience.”

Mit Winter, a Missouri attorney who specializes in sports law, said the proposal was so sprawling he was skeptical it will pass as is.

“When you start getting into the stuff about giving the CSC and NCAA antitrust exemptions and liability protection from enforcing rules on athlete denial of compensation, I think that’s where things get a little more dicey,” he said.

“There almost wouldn’t be any reason from the school side or NCAA side to collectively bargain if this entire bill is enacted into law because it provides everything they would want on their side from collective bargaining – limit on transfers, has the eligibility rules and it caps compensation for the athletes,” he added.

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AP College Sports Writer Eric Olson contributed.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

The 14-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, California, works with three coaches. He pays for word lists and study guides. He tries to learn every Greek and Latin root, every language pattern, every spelling bee-worthy word he can find. And he competes throughout the year in online bees that pit him against the country's other top spellers.

Shrey's approach has proven effective for spellers seeking to hold the trophy, and it was good enough to make him one of 54 kids competing in Wednesday's semifinals and seeking a spot in Thursday's finals. But at least one semifinalist has gone old-school, shunning outside help and using the dictionary as his guide.

Their opposing strategies have revived a long-running if good-natured debate in spelling circles: Which is more important, mastery of languages or rote memorization?

“At the end of finals, most of the words aren’t going to have a really clean-cut language pattern or rule that you can pull from. So I think memorization is really important,” said Sam Evans, who coached each of the past two champions. “Sometimes it gets a bad reputation, but you have to do it.”

Every word is in the dictionary, if you can find it

It’s all but impossible to reach the finals without knowing the components that make up words absorbed into English: roots and languages of origin. But some champions have stood out for their incredible recall, the ability to instantly visualize any word they’ve run across or even recite dictionary definitions verbatim: Nihar Janga in 2016, Zaila Avant-garde in 2021 and Bruhat Soma in 2024.

Sarv Dharavane might be the next of that group.

Sarv finished third in 2025 as a relative unknown in the spelling community. There’s a reason for that. The 12-year-old sixth-grader from Dunwoody, Georgia, has no coach. He doesn’t participate in online bees. And his only study guide is the source for every word in the competition: Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged dictionary.

“The book is my coach,” Sarv said.

And given his past success, he saw no reason to change it up.

“I didn't really change anything because my strategy got me far last year, but I did more of what I did before,” Sarv said.

“I used to read the dictionary and set aside difficult words to study later,” he explained. “I did it a lot, so I got a lot of words and it was really easy just to go through them. I've always been able to remember pretty well, and I can read through long lists without getting tired, so this strategy works pretty well for me.”

Simple, right?

Many spellers think there's a better way.

Master the roots, and you don't need to memorize as much

Dev Shah, the 2023 champion, advocates an artistic approach to spelling — the one also championed by his coach, Scott Remer. Master roots, master language patterns, and learn how to spot the exceptions, and you can spell a word that you’ve never seen or don’t remember.

Shah accepted that he could never memorize the dictionary — “No one can,” he said — and he believed if he got a word he didn't know, he could figure it out.

“The skill of guessing is everything,” he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed after his victory.

In an interview Wednesday, Shah said memorization was important, especially for quirky words with obscure origins. He said the best spellers, including Avant-garde, found a balance between memorization and mastery.

Having a conceptual understanding of how words are spelled can also help spellers perform under pressure when their memory fails them, said Shah, who admitted he finds it daunting to memorize a huge volume of words.

Former champion Sohum Sukhatankar, who coaches Shrey, said spellers need to fill their brains with the most useful information.

“When you’re at the highest level, you have to be prepared for hundreds of thousands of words,” he said. “You want to do as little memorization as possible to avoid the chance that you just forget it, so it’s all about efficiency.”

After a catastrophic school bee, one speller seeks every edge

Shrey knows he might have to guess when he's at the microphone, but he wants to eliminate variables. That makes sense, given that a year ago, he wasn't even the top speller at his school.

“I had a fever at my school bee last year, and I just blanked on the word ‘calipers’ ... and I missed it,” he said. “I was really devastated.”

It took a few months before Shrey was motivated to start studying again. Once he did, he added Sukhatankar to his coaching team. He's learned how to slow down when he's at the microphone because of a bad experience in 2023, when he rushed through a word, didn't enunciate it clearly and judges determined he got it wrong.

He's also a believer in study guides. Shrey said an interactive, AI-assisted platform called Onyma that offers personalized learning and competition with other spellers — launched this month by Sukhatankar and Evans — has helped with his preparation.

He also uses SpellPundit, an online resource created by two former spellers and their parents that made a splash at the 2019 bee when the majority of that year’s eight co-champions used it. The company claims every champion since as a customer.

Shrey won the annual SpellPundit bee, the South Asian Spelling Bee and several other online bees, which he doesn't necessarily see as an advantage.

“I feel like it (creates) more pressure to perform,” he said.

Evans believes spellers who want to win should use their study time efficiently, but there's no barrier to learning every possible word.

“There's a common joke among spellers that says everything's in the dictionary, so it's all ‘on-list,’” he said. “The dictionary is the most basic thing that spellers need to know.”

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Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.

Woodensky Pierre is a defensive midfielder who plays for Violette AC in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. An estimated 70% of that city is under siege by violent gangs.

The other 25 players on the World Cup squad play outside the country, coming from leagues in places like England, France, Portugal, Canada and the United States.

This year's World Cup will be only the second for Haiti in its history — the country’s only other appearance on soccer’s biggest stage was in 1974.

Haitian soccer federation spokesman Thecieux Jeanty said all but one player on the 1974 World Cup team was living and playing in Haiti at that time.

The U.S. visas for Pierre and nearly a dozen other officials with the Haitian soccer federation have yet to come through as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump continues to expand travel restrictions from countries including Haiti.

Pierre continues to train at a field with synthetic grass in Pétion-Ville, an upscale area of Port-au-Prince, as he awaits his visa, “in hopes of being with his team as soon as possible,” Jeanty told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday.

“I hope he doesn’t have to live in (Haiti) after the World Cup,” Jeanty said. “It’s an opportunity to present himself to the world and await a contract.”

The team’s home stadium in Port-au-Prince — not far from the neighborhood where Pierre is from — was deemed too dangerous, forcing Haiti to play its “home” World Cup qualifiers in Curaçao.

Pierre is from Cite Soleil, a seaside slum that has endured violence and hunger for years and serves as a base for powerful gang leaders. Cite Soleil has seen multiple massacres and gang rapes, with violence recently displacing more than 5,300 people, according to the latest report from the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.

“It’s a source of pride for him,” Jeanty said of Pierre being able to play in the World Cup. “It’s satisfying for (soccer) officials and for the public, too. As you know, Haiti is in crisis.”

Pierre did not return messages seeking comment, and neither did the team’s coach.

Officials for Haiti’s squad arrived in Florida on Sunday, and players began training in Port St. Lucie on Tuesday. Three other players are scheduled to arrive on Wednesday, Jeanty said.

There is still time to resolve Pierre’s situation. Haiti will play two World Cup warmup matches, first against New Zealand on Tuesday and then against Peru on June 5, in South Florida.

Haiti opens World Cup play on June 13 in Foxborough, Massachusetts, against Scotland, then plays five-time champion Brazil on June 19 in Philadelphia and Morocco on June 24 in Atlanta.

Jeanty said he first made contact with Pierre in 2022, when they traveled together to Honduras for a under-20 match.

“I saw him as a top-level player,” Jeanty said, adding that “everybody’s very happy” to have Pierre on the team.

“There is soccer in Haiti,” Jeanty said. “It’s a country that wants to live.”

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AP Sports Writer Tim Reynolds in Miami contributed to this report.

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AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

The warmest day of the week is about to come to a close.

Although an isolated shower can’t be ruled out this evening, most of us will stay dry.

Lows Wednesday night dip to the upper 50s.

Thursday

Sunshine returns on Thursday, but it will be breezy and cooler.

Highs stay a degree or two below normal, around 73. Winds NNE 10-20mph.

Weekend forecast

Rinse and repeat for the rest of the week and into the weekend.

Friday will be warmer with highs back to the upper 70s to around 80.

Then Saturday returns to the low 70s.

Find the latest forecast from the 4Warn Weather team here

Remember to download the free 4Warn weather app -- it’s easily one of the best in the nation. Just search your app store under WDIV, and it’s right there, available for both iPhones and Androids! Or click the appropriate link below.

• Download for iPhone
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Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence to 60-year-old Kenneth Iwamasa in federal court in Los Angeles. He was also sentenced to two years of probation and a $10,000 fine.

It was the fifth and final sentencing in the 2 1/2-year investigation and prosecution that followed Perry’s death at age 54 on Oct. 28, 2023.

“You were privy to his struggle with addiction,” Judge Garnett said before handing down the sentence. “Your conduct was reckless, not just on the day of his death but in the days leading up to his death.”

The sentence was exactly what prosecutors had sought, though Garnett disagreed on some of the details. She found that Iwamasa did not abuse a position of trust, which could’ve brought more prison time.

She also told Iwamasa, “there is no hard evidence that you acted with malicious intent, though some would disagree.”

Iwamasa was at Perry’s side through the final days of his life, acting as the actor’s enabler, drug messenger and de facto doctor. He was the last person to see Perry alive, and he was the one who found him dead in his Jacuzzi.

Iwamasa stood at the court’s podium before the sentencing and made the unusual move of looking right at Perry’s family and friends as he spoke into the microphone.

“I’m horribly, horribly sorry, and I offer my condolences to you,” he said. “I’m just so sorry to have done these illegal acts that I will forever regret. I will take that to my grave.”

Iwamasa wore a charcoal-gray suit, with his long white hair combed back. He had no visible reaction to the sentence. His father and brother sat in the audience with other supporters.

Iwamasa was the first person to reach a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty in August of 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death, and became their most important witness.

Iwamasa’s lawyer Alan Eisner argued for a six month prison term with six months of home confinement, emphasizing he was always acting at the direction of a boss with much more power than he had.

“His loyalty to Mr. Perry was paramount,” Eisner told the judge. “He worshipped Mr. Perry, he looked up to Mr. Perry. All he did was please and accommodate Mr. Perry.”

When Eisner said Iwamasa was unable to act differently than he did, the judge cut him off and said: “Unwilling. Not unable. He could have said no.”

Perry’s mother and sisters made it clear in letters to the judge that there is no one they blame for his death more than Iwamasa — a longtime friend they thought would help the actor maintain sobriety but instead indulged the worst impulses of a lifelong addict.

Perry's stepfather, longtime “Dateline” journalist Keith Morrison, spoke for his loved ones at the sentencing.

“We really felt that he was part of the family," Morrison said. “We trusted him implicitly.”

Morrison acknowledged the power imbalance, but said Iwamasa still had a choice.

“You did the injections. You could have made the phone call,” he said. “But you didn't. Because you were living a dandy life.” He added, “You were in control of one of the most famous people in the world.”

Lisa Ferguson, Perry's business manager for most of his career and now his estate executor, painted a darker picture, saying Iwamasa deliberately drove out everyone else surrounding Perry, including sober-living companions and medical workers, to shore up his own power and influence. She angrily said he used Perry's addiction to his own advantage.

“What you are is the monster that killed him," she said. She said he had shown “not a shred of guilt or remorse” since Perry's death, and that he ought to “rot in prison.”

“Matthew deserved to live,” she said. "You don't."

Iwamasa looked right at Morrison and Ferguson throughout their remarks from his nearby seat.

Perry had hired Iwamasa in 2022, and he was paying him $150,000 a year to live at his Los Angeles home and act as his assistant.

The actor had been taking the surgical anesthetic ketamine legally for depression, an increasingly common off-label use. But he wanted more than his doctor would give him.

According to Iwamasa's plea agreement, he bought off-the-books ketamine from another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, who taught him how to inject it. Plasencia was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in July.

Iwamasa also began buying ketamine from Perry acquaintance Erik Fleming, who was getting it from a street dealer. Fleming was sentenced to two years in prison two weeks ago.

The dealer, Jasveen Sangha, dubbed “The Ketamine Queen,” was sentenced to 15 years on April 8.

The criminal investigation began not long after Iwamasa returned from running errands to find Perry dead.

The LA County Medical Examiner found that ketamine was the primary cause of death. Drowning was a secondary cause.

At first, Iwamasa had lied to police, omitting ketamine from the list of medications Perry was using, and saying nothing about his injections. But after investigators served a search warrant in January of 2024, he began coming clean.

Perry became one of the biggest stars of his generation along with Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow on “Friends,” NBC’s megahit sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.

The quarantine and treatment center being set up by the Departments of Defense, State and Health and Human Services will be designed for Ebola patients who need to get out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and receive care quickly, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to share the Republican administration’s plans. The person said the plan would help patients avoid an hourslong medical evacuation to the U.S.

It was unclear where in Kenya the new facility will be built or whether the Kenyan government has signed off on the plan.

The official said the facility will be able to care for the full spectrum of Ebola, a rare but severe disease that is often fatal in people. But the official said people may be transported elsewhere for more advanced care as appropriate.

Kenya’s health minister confirmed officials there were talking with the U.S. about “preparedness and response mechanisms for Ebola” but didn’t address whether the country would establish a treatment facility for Americans.

“Any arrangements regarding international health cooperation will be guided by Kenya’s national laws, public health regulations, biosafety and biosecurity standards, and the government’s responsibility to safeguard the health and welfare of Kenyans,” Health Minister Aden Duale said in a statement.

For decades, medical experts have suggested moving patients suffering from Ebola and similar illnesses as little as possible in case their condition worsens, said Dr. Ali Khan, the public health college dean at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. But, he added, the quality of care must be equivalent to what someone would receive in American facilities.

“You’ve got to make sure the patient gets the best quality care, and you need to ensure excellent infection control,” said Khan, who earlier in his career led international responses to Ebola and other outbreaks for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Craig Spencer, a public health professor and emergency medicine doctor at Brown University who survived Ebola in 2014, said he doesn’t expect the facility in Kenya to provide the same quality of care that dedicated facilities in the United States do. He said refusing to consider bringing American Ebola patients home for treatment is “a moral abdication of what this country owes its own.”

An earlier outbreak

During a massive Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 2014 and 2015, more than a half dozen infected Americans were brought back to the United States. That experience prompted the establishment of a U.S. network of quarantine and isolation facilities across the country.

But during that earlier outbreak, Trump, then a businessman and reality TV star, repeatedly criticized then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, for bringing infected Americans home for care.

“The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back. People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!” he wrote in a 2014 tweet.

He also suggested a plan similar to the one described to the AP by the administration official: “Treat them, at the highest level, over there,” Trump wrote in July 2014.

During a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the State Department and other agencies were working “very, very hard to contain this crisis to the countries where it’s currently located, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

“We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” he said.

Americans who've been exposed to Ebola

Earlier this month, an American doctor working in Congo tested positive for Ebola and was sent to Germany for medical care. Serge, a Christian missionary organization, identified him as Dr. Peter Stafford. Stafford’s wife and four children did not have symptoms but also were flown to Germany and placed in isolation at Berlin’s Charite University Hospital.

On Wednesday, the hospital said the patient was in stable condition.

“The viral load measured in the patient has dropped very, very rapidly over the course of the week," likely thanks to antiviral therapy, Dr. Leif Erik Sander, director of the hospital’s infectious diseases department, told reporters.

Another American medical missionary, Dr. Patrick LaRochelle, was transported to the Czech Republic for isolation after he was exposed to Ebola, though he did not have any symptoms, according to the missionary organization.

Health authorities in Congo have been struggling to contain the outbreak, which the World Health Organization has said is outpacing them.

The number of suspected Ebola cases in eastern Congo is nearing 1,000, with at least 220 suspected deaths. Congo’s health ministry on Tuesday said 101 cases have been confirmed and it's looking into more than 3,000 possible contacts.

Challenges include the threat of armed groups in eastern Congo, a large number of displaced people and poor infrastructure.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report the Trump administration's plan for the Kenya facility.

US officials expand airport screening

Meanwhile, officials have been expanding the number of U.S. airports where CDC staffers are screening and monitoring incoming passengers from outbreak countries. Enhanced screenings began last week at Washington Dulles International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. CDC staff began screenings at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston this week, and are being dispatched to start screenings Friday at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The CDC’s acting director, Jay Bhattacharya, sent an email Monday to CDC employees asking for volunteers from across the agency to work the screening stations. CDC veterans say it’s not unusual to see a call for volunteers for staffing major epidemic responses.

The government also has temporarily banned the entry of people without U.S. passports, as well as U.S. green-card holders, who have visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the last 21 days.

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AP journalists Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Julie Walker in New York and Kerstin Sopke in Berlin contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

It happened just after 2 p.m., Wednesday, May 27, near the intersection of Moross and Kelly roads.

Police said they were executing a search warrant connected to a shooting on Waltham Street on May 23.

Two women and a child were cleared from the home as they searched.

The officers reportedly found a closed bedroom door and when they opened it, a 20-year-old man inside fired a single shot at them. An officer returned fire, killing the man.

No officers were injured. A large police presence remains on the scene.

A 17-year-old boy wanted in the Waltham Street shooting is still being sought. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Detroit Police Department at 313-596-5900

This is a developing story.

The 39-year-old Djokovic was pushed by 74th-ranked French player Valentin Royer — who is 15 years younger than him — for more than 3½ hours before he reached the third round with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-7 (7), 6-3 victory.

For the fourth straight day of this year’s tournament, the temperature rose above 32 degrees Celsius (90 Fahrenheit).

“When you play a three-and-a-half hour match on clay, it’s long and very exhausting,” Djokovic said. “These days have been really, really very challenging for a lot of players.”

When Djokovic won a key point early in the fourth set with a forehand that he whipped around the net post from far off the court, the 24-time Grand Slam champion waved his arms toward the crowd inside Court Philippe-Chatrier.

Djokovic wasted a chance to close the match out earlier when he missed a backhand long in the third-set tiebreaker then required four more match points in his final service game before a forehand from Royer landed in the net to conclude a long rally.

When it was finally over after 3 hours and 44 minutes, Djokovic first nearly stumbled to the clay. Then he performed his violin celebration, acting as if he were playing the strings on his racket like the musical instrument.

Before arriving in Paris, Royer had earned only one tour-level win across 11 tournaments he played this season.

Djokovic came to Roland Garros with questions over his form after getting beat in his only clay-court match before the tournament. He lost to Croatian qualifier Dino Prizmic at the Italian Open after two months out due to a right shoulder injury.

But Djokovic is playing himself back into form after coming back from a set down to beat Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, another Frenchman, in a first-round match that lasted nearly three hours.

Djokovic improved to 14-0 in his career against Frenchmen at Roland Garros and reached the third round in Paris for a 21st straight year. He raised the Coupe des Mousquetaires trophy in 2016, 2021 and 2023.

“Hopefully I won’t face another Frenchman until the end of the tournament,” Djokovic said with a laugh during his on-court interview. “Oh my God, I’ve had enough.”

One duo of Djokovic fans inside the main stadium held up a sign with a goat on it — for “Greatest of All Time” — that read “39 is the new 29.”

Up next for Djokovic is potentially a bigger test against 19-year-old Brazilian Joao Fonseca, who came back from two sets down for a 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2 victory over the 20-year-old Prizmic. Fonseca has been touted as a future Grand Slam contender.

Meanwhile, Jakub Mensik collapsed to the clay because of cramps and had a tough time getting up after edging Mariano Navone in a fifth-set tiebreaker. That match lasted 4 hours, 41 minutes.

Then in the next match on Court 6, Hailey Baptiste was forced to retire while facing a set point against Wang Xiyu after landing awkwardly on her left leg.

Djokovic suggested that French Open organizers should consider moving more matches later in the day and night on days with extreme heat.

“With Grand Slams it shouldn’t be an issue, because we have so many courts,” Djokovic said. “If you have certain days that you have extreme heat and conditions, then maybe that’s something to consider.”

Later, second-seeded Alexander Zverev was playing Tomas Machac in the night session.

Ukraine gets 3 wins

Elena Rybakina, this year’s Australian Open winner, was beaten by Ukrainian opponent Yuliia Starodubtseva 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (4).

Also advancing were in-form Ukrainians Elina Svitolina and Marta Kostyuk, who are coming off trophies at the Madrid Open and Italian Open, respectively.

The seventh-seeded Svitolina beat Kaitlin Quevedo 6-0, 6-4 to extend her winning streak to eight matches. The 15th-seeded Kostyuk beat Katie Volynets 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-3 to extend her winning streak to 13 matches.

“I’m most pleased that I didn’t cramp to death or didn’t pass out during this match,” Kostyuk said after her match, which lasted nearly three hours. “It was not easy for everyone.”

Swiatek improves Paris record to 42-3

Four-time champion Iga Swiatek improved her career record at Roland Garros to 42-3 by eliminating 35th-ranked Sara Bejlek 6-2, 6-3.

Swiatek won Roland Garros in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Swiatek next faces Magda Linette in the first all-Polish meeting at Roland Garros in the professional era (since 1968). Linette eliminated 2017 champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-2, 2-6, 6-2.

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AP Sports Writer Samuel Petrequin contributed to this report.

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

Authorities said there was no hope of finding more survivors, but crews were set to resume searching Wednesday for those who went missing following Tuesday's tank failure at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview, which also injured eight people, including a firefighter.

The search was delayed over concerns that the ruptured tank might collapse further and spill more of the highly destructive liquid inside, a mixture called white liquor that is used in paper manufacturing. The rupture caused the huge circular tank to buckle on one side, and officials said they would only work during daylight because of the dangers.

Authorities said the rupture hasn't affected the safety of the air and drinking water in Longview, a Columbia River city of about 40,000 people with long ties to the Washington and Oregon paper and lumber industries. But they warned residents to keep away from ditches and dikes.

It was the second notable issue with a chemical in days on the West Coast, following the evacuation of thousands of Southern California residents due to an overheated tank an aerospace plant before those orders were lifted Tuesday night.

The paper mill tank was holding about 900,000 gallons (3.4 million liters) of a liquid made of mostly sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. Known as white liquor, it is used with heat to break down wood to make kraft paper, a durable material used in packaging, shopping bags and other products.

The sprawling plant, which employs about 1,000 people, makes material for tissues, printing paper, cups, plates, and cartons. It sits along the river next to other timber, paper and chemical businesses.

Paper mill worker was always there to help, friend says

Authorities haven't released the names of the two people whose deaths were confirmed or of those missing, but some names have begun to trickle out.

Todd Cornwell said his friend, Gilbert Bernal, was an electrician at the plant and was the first confirmed death. They knew each other through church and were in the same Bible study group, he said.

“We actually had our group last night and instead of doing Bible study, we talked about him,” Cornwell said. “He was always there willing to help in whatever needed to be done. When the local church school started flooding, he was one of the people there.”

Brian Williquette, a chemical supplier for the region’s mills, was at the plant Tuesday morning when he heard an alarm over the intercom and first wondered if it was drill. He was able to get out safely and didn’t see any of the damage.

“It’s just unfathomable,” he said at a community vigil Tuesday. “There’s not anybody that lives here that doesn’t know somebody at a paper mill.”

Crystal Moldenhauer, a Longview resident, said she has friends at the plant who remained unaccounted for. She said people called and texted each other all day trying to figure out what happened.

“We’re all still waiting for answers,” she said. “There’s families that have been torn apart, and we don’t know why.”

The cause of the rupture remained unclear.

Authorities press for answers about the rupture

Nippon Paper Group in a statement said Wednesday that it was offering its “deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved families.”

Scott Goldstein, a fire chief with Cowlitz County, said Tuesday night that the tank still held about 90,000 gallons (more than 340,000 liters) of the volatile liquid.

“We don’t know until we know, hopefully tomorrow, how we can stabilize the tank. Do we remove the product first? Do we stabilize the tank first or the vice versa?” Goldstein said.

Hours after the disaster, officials repeatedly referred to the situation as a recovery effort.

Some of those who were injured suffered burns or inhalation injuries, authorities said.

Following the tank's rupture, the liquid spilled into a drainage ditch, said Brittny Goodsell, a state Ecology Department spokesperson.

“I know there’s a lot of questions about how all of this happened and I want to assure you that we will all continue to pressure to get answers to those questions,” Murray said.

The mill faced complaints and fines

Safety complaints were filed against Nippon Dynawave in March and May. The state’s labor and industries department said on X that both were unrelated to the current situation. One was an anonymous complaint about a valve on a tank, according to the department, which noted that it was not the tank that imploded.

Nippon Dynawave, a subsidiary of Japan-based Nippon Paper Group, has been fined $3,400 for three separate health and safety violations found by Washington Department of Labor and Industries inspectors since the start of 2021, according to the department’s online database.

Just over 40 people died between January 2021 and mid-October 2023 as a result of hazardous chemical incidents in the U.S., according to a paper released by a network of environmental justice organizations in late 2023.

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Associated Press reporters Gene Johnson and Hallie Golden in Seattle, Kathy McCormack in Concord New Hampshire, Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed.

Speaking at the start of a Cabinet meeting, Trump expressed confidence that a deal is near. Over the weekend, he even declared that his administration and Tehran had “largely negotiated” a settlement, though the talks are still in flux.

The president is looking for a settlement that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and provide him with a credible argument that Iran’s nuclear capability has been diminished enough to declare victory, winding down a conflict that's been politically unpopular for Republicans.

But as things stand, Trump also risks finding that closure to his war of choice comes with an unsatisfactory ending.

The emerging deal puts off many critical issues to be resolved later and has already exposed the Republican president to fierce criticism — even from some of his own supporters — that Iran's hard-line leaders will emerge from the conflict battered but emboldened. It all comes to a head just as the midterm elections to determine control of Congress come into focus and as Republicans worry that rising costs and fuel prices are darkening the American electorate's mood.

But Trump on Wednesday dismissed the idea that the upcoming elections would shape his Iran strategy.

“They thought they were gonna outwait me. You know, 'We’ll outwait him. He’s got the midterms,'” Trump said. “I don’t care about the midterms.”

Trump acknowledged there's still work to do, but he spoke with a measure of certainty that the two sides would get there.

“They want very much to make a deal,” Trump said. “So far, they haven’t gotten there. We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be — either that or we’ll have to just finish the job.”

Talks were further complicated after U.S. forces carried out what the Pentagon called “defensive” strikes on missile launch sites and minelaying boats in southern Iran on Monday. The U.S. said it acted with “restraint” in light of the weekslong ceasefire, while Iran decried the action as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability.”

Some Trump backers are skeptical

While Trump insists a deal is within reach, there appears to be daylight between the U.S. and Iran on several key issues. The president is also facing scrutiny from Republican allies, including Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas, who have said the terms seem too favorable to Tehran.

They're balking at aspects of the deal that have emerged publicly that they say too closely resemble the nuclear agreement reached with Iran by Democratic President Barack Obama, which Trump scrapped during his first term.

Under the potential deal, Tehran would agree to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium — a key Trump demand — in return for sanctions relief. That's according to two regional officials and one senior Trump administration official, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

One regional official, with direct knowledge of the negotiations, said how Iran would give up the uranium would be subject to further talks during a 60-day period. Some would likely be diluted, while the rest would be transferred to a third country, the official said.

Trump said that he “wouldn’t be comfortable” with either Russia or China taking Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The two countries have the closest relations with Tehran, and nuclear analysts have said they could be a potential acceptable third party to the Iranian Republic to take possession of the enriched uranium as part of a potential deal.

Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran has not publicly committed to giving up its uranium.

How Trump's plan affects Israel's war in Lebanon

Another key issue unresolved is whether the ceasefire will also cover Israel’s operations against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon. Iran has insisted that Lebanon must be covered by any ceasefire agreement negotiated with the United States.

The administration appears to leave some wiggle room on the Lebanon question. The emerging memorandum of understanding calls for a ceasefire between the U.S. and its allies against Iran and its proxies, such as Hezbollah, but also underscores Israel's right to act against imminent threats and in self-defense.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday announced that the Israeli military is “deepening its operation” in Lebanon. Overnight, Israel's military clashed with the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group along a strategic river in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops pushed farther north.

Jonathan Conricus, a former spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said Israel expects that Iran would quickly move to direct any sanctions relief to restore its military capability and boost proxy groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza.

“We’re not done fighting, because the Iranian regime isn’t done,” said Conricus, who is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank.

‘Stunned silence’ as Trump ties Abraham Accords to Iran deal

Trump on Wednesday also reinforced his call that the deal should include a requirement for several additional countries, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan, to join the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements from Trump’s first term aimed at normalizing diplomatic and economic relations with Israel.

“We’re, you know, requesting strongly that they join,” Trump said.

Trump’s optimism that the other Middle Eastern and majority-Muslim countries could soon sign on to the accords might be overly ambitious.

For example, Saudi Arabia, the most significant power in the Arab world and long seen as the biggest prize for the normalization effort, has insisted that establishing a guaranteed path to a Palestinian state remains a precondition. It's something that Israel vehemently opposes.

Trump pushed for the Abraham Accords during a call with leaders of Mideast allies over the weekend.

Barbara Leaf, a retired U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and senior State Department official during President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, said officials from Gulf countries who were on the call told her that Trump's pitch was greeted by “stunned silence.” A person familiar with the call disputed that characterization and said that some regional allies responded positively to the president’s call to join the accords. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity about the private conversation.

Leaf, a distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute, said that Middle Eastern allies of the United States recognize that Iran will likely use any money from sanctions relief to bolster its military capabilities. Still, they have been supportive of Trump’s efforts to end the conflict.

“They see no other way out,” Leaf said of American allies in the region. “And they see no other way out because of many of these early mistakes that the president and the administration made in conducting the war.”

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AP writers Matthew Lee, Michelle L. Price and Darlene Superville in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., Samy Magdy in Cairo and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a Manhattan Democrat, said after touring Delaney Hall in Newark that detainees were refusing to eat over what he described as “inhumane” conditions.

“We will shut this center down. We will shut it down,” he vowed after the roughly hourlong visit.

U.S. Reps. Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman, also Manhattan Democrats, later spoke with protesters and family members of detainees demonstrating outside the facility’s security gate.

“We want to make sure the conditions here are going to be dealt with,” said Goldman, shortly before the two lawmakers entered the facility.

More than 50 people held signs saying “Stop Family Separation” and chanted “Free Them All” and other slogans.

Some shouted directly at the armed and helmet-wearing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers standing outside, calling them “cowards” and “idiots.”

The protests began Friday and have been tense at times.

On Monday, U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, said he was pepper-sprayed as he and New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill led a delegation of Democratic officials who tried to visit detainees but were denied entry.

“Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire,” Kim posted on social media after Monday’s clashes. “Civilians were tackled and restrained, and agents fired pepper balls and spray into the crowd.”

Gabriela Soto said Wednesday that her husband was among the detainees who participated in the hunger strike before he was transferred to another facility.

“At first it was just 300. Then it became a little bit more. Now, every single detainee inside there is participating. Every single one,” she said, wearing a black shirt that said “Abolish ICE.”

Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said his organization has heard “horror stories” of detainees, including pregnant women, not getting the proper medical treatment for their health conditions.

“Cruelty is the point,” he said.

ICE representatives have not responded to an email seeking comment Wednesday, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, has denied any hunger strike, abuse or poor conditions inside the center and dismissed the criticisms as political posturing.

“The fact is, we’re giving them the calories they want,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Wednesday of detainees at Delaney Hall. “This isn’t Holiday Inn.”

President Donald Trump also defended the detention center.

“We run the finest facilities anywhere in the world — of their type — but we have some horrible killers,” he said Wednesday.

Located along an industrial stretch of Newark Bay and run by a private prison company, Delaney Hall has been a frequent flashpoint of protests and clashes between immigrant rights advocates and immigration enforcement officials.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat, were among those arrested during protests when the 1,000-bed facility opened last May.

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Marcelo reported from New York. Associated Press photographer Seth Wenig in Newark contributed to this story.

Pilgrims in Mina chanted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” in the ritual seen as a symbolic stoning of the devil. The act is also seen as rejecting evil and a commemoration of the Prophet Ibrahim’s rejection of temptation when the devil tried to dissuade him from submitting to God’s will.

The physically demanding Hajj is occurring in intense heat. Many pilgrims poured water over their heads to cool themselves or carried umbrellas. Saudi authorities have highlighted the importance of drinking water and reducing direct exposure to sunlight. The National Center of Meteorology shared the high temperatures.

Aamar Shakur, a pilgrim from Pakistan, said he saw the pebble throwing as a symbol of confronting personal struggles in which he was “throwing the stone to my own devil.”

Crowds moved through the sprawling Jamarat complex after arriving from Muzdalifah, following a day of worship and prayer at Arafat on Tuesday.

The last days of the Hajj coincide with Eid al-Adha, or “Feast of Sacrifice,” marking the willingness of Ibrahim, known as Abraham to Christians and Jews, to sacrifice his son. During the holiday, Muslims typically slaughter sheep or cattle and distribute part of the meat to the poor.

The Hajj, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is required once in a lifetime of every Muslim who can afford it and is physically able. Performed over several days, the Hajj can be a deeply moving spiritual experience and a chance to seek God’s forgiveness. Rituals on its final days also include circling the cube-shaped Kaaba.

The joyous occasion is subdued for some

The Hajj brings together Muslims of diverse races, ethnicities, languages and socioeconomic classes, creating a sense of unity for many. More than 1.5 million pilgrims have arrived from abroad, a Saudi official said Friday.

This year's Hajj takes place against the backdrop of a tenuous ceasefire in the Iran war and related uncertainty throughout the region. Eid al-Adha is typically joyous, marked with communal prayers, food and festive gatherings. In some places, though, conflicts and economic pressures are dampening festivities.

Lebanon is observing Eid al-Adha amid a conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. Many displaced people are sheltering in tented settlements or public schools repurposed as shelters.

“There is no Eid for us. We are displaced, forced to leave our land, our homes, our livelihoods, while our memories are being destroyed,” said Rabee Khreis, who fled the village of Khiyam, where intense fighting has taken place.

A U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict appears more nominal by the day, complicating efforts at a broader peace.

‘Eid is only for the people who lost no one’

In the Gaza Strip, where the Israel-Hamas war has devastated the territory and displaced most of its people, Palestinians are observing a subdued Eid al-Adha under a fragile ceasefire and rampant suffering.

“This is not Eid ... we’re dead,” said Mahmoud Saqer, a displaced man from Khan Younis.

In Khan Younis and Gaza City worshippers gathered for prayers amid destroyed buildings and with few signs of celebration.

“There’s no Eid. My children were killed,” said Ayda Al-Banna, a displaced woman from Gaza City, who prayed with her granddaughter. “Eid is only for the people who lost no one.”

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 72,803 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Israel launched the offensive after Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage on Oct. 7, 2023. While the heaviest fighting has mostly subsided since a fragile ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10, deadly Israeli strikes have repeatedly disrupted the truce. Hamas and Israel have accused each other of violating the ceasefire.

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Fam reported from Winter Park, Florida. Associated Press journalists Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Ali Sharafeddine in Beirut contributed.

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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.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth celebrated the U.S. military’s strength, even as a new analysis shows it could take three years for defense contractors to replenish the key weapons systems used in the Iran war. Trump also praised his administration’s work to stamp out fraud, saying his administration is “bringing our country back to honesty.”

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South African government and Afrikaners reject US claim of a humanitarian emergency for white people

The South African government and advocacy groups for the country’s Afrikaner white minority on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s position that there’s a humanitarian emergency affecting white people in South Africa.

The argument served as the administration’s rationale for raising the U.S. refugee cap by 10,000, but only for white South Africans. The Trump administration announced the increase on Tuesday and cited “an unforeseen emergency refugee situation.”

The South African government calls these allegations unfounded, saying some beneficiaries of the refugee program have chosen to return to South Africa. Around 6,000 South Africans have moved to the U.S. since the Afrikaner program started last year, according to the U.S. government.

Afrikaner groups such as Solidariteit and AfriForum say that refugee status isn’t a solution, and they aim to improve conditions in South Africa. Critics argue the U.S. decision prioritizes white South Africans over refugees from war-torn regions.

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Iran insists on peace in Lebanon as part of a US deal as Israeli-Hezbollah fighting expands

The Israeli military on Wednesday told residents across southern Lebanon to leave as it expands its operations and applies “extreme force” against Hezbollah militants. Already, Israeli troops clashing with Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters have pushed north of the strategic Litani river as Lebanon and Israeli delegations head to talks in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the expansion amid a surge in Hezbollah’s exploding drone attacks.

More than one million people in Lebanon have been displaced, and over 3,200 people have been killed in Israeli strikes, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, since open warfare began on March 2 with Hezbollah rockets fired toward Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said 23 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed, along with two civilians.

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Alabama attorney general says state did not intentionally discriminate against Black voters

Steve Marshall also said Alabama should be allowed to hold new elections this year under a map chosen by lawmakers, not judges.

More than 879,000 voters cast ballots statewide in Alabama’s May 19 primaries, using a court-ordered map that led to the 2024 election of U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat. State Republicans want voters to return to the polls and use their map instead. It would reduce the Black voting age population in his district from 48% to 39% to reclaim the seat for the GOP.

Alabama’s GOP-controlled legislature already voided the May 19 results in the four districts affected by the map switch. Marshall is asking for Supreme Court action by Monday as the state prepares for new special primaries for Aug. 11 in those districts.

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Trump ends public portion of latest Cabinet meeting

Trump wrapped up the public portion of his latest Cabinet meeting after roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes.

The U.S. president started the meeting shortly before noon. He talked about his renovation and architectural plans for Washington, as well as the Iran war, efforts to lower prescription drug prices and the vice president’s task force on fraud, among other subjects.

“We’re doing great,” Trump said before dismissing the reporters in attendance. “Our country is doing fantastically well, and this group of people is outstanding.”

Trump says he opposes Russia or China retrieving Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile

“That would not make me comfortable,” the president said.

The two countries have the closest relations with Tehran. Nuclear analysts have said either country could serve as a potentially acceptable third party to the Iranian Republic to take possession of the enriched uranium, which could be used to make a nuclear weapon, as part of a potential deal with the U.S. to end the war.

But Trump seemed to shut down that possibility Wednesday.

Under a 2015 deal negotiated by President Barack Obama, Russia took a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that Iran had at the time.

Trump spends 5 minutes talking about Reflecting Pool project

The president elaborated on the project with painstaking detail. He introduced his lengthy tangent as “a slightly smaller subject,” then walked through work on the 2,400-foot pool between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, saying it’ll be done by July 4.

“We cleaned it. We fumigated it. We had 10 major truck – dumpsters of garbage taken out. Can you believe it?” Trump said, blaming his Democratic predecessors for the “disgusting” conditions and disrepair.

“We made the surface as good as it can be,” Trump said. “And we’re now covering it with the most beautiful blue, very thick – you can think of it as a very sophisticated form of rubber. No leaks. No problems. And it’s beautiful. It’s called American flag blue.”

Trump at one point justified his intense oversight: “I’ve built hundreds of pools,” he said, later adding, “It’s not as simple as people think.”

Trump says deal on Iran has ‘got to be perfect’

Saying “I’m not sure we should make the deal” on Iran if additional countries don’t join the Abraham Accords — the U.S.-brokered agreements from Trump’s first term aimed at normalizing relations with Israel — Trump said he’s “requesting strongly” that others, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar sign on.

But asked by reporters at the Cabinet meeting if an Iran deal were contingent on that act, Trump added, “I don’t want to say that.”

Trump also said that, while he felt a “good deal” with Iran could be achieved now, he preferred “a great deal,” and then said the agreement must be even better than that.

“It’s got to be perfect,” Trump said. “I didn’t do this to get a crummy agreement.”

Trump defends New Jersey detention center where protesters and federal officers have clashed

“We run the finest facilities anywhere in the world — of their type — but we have some horrible killers,” Trump said Wednesday when asked about an immigration detention center where some detainees have been on a hunger strike to protest conditions.

Recent protests at the center have drawn elected Democrats including Sen. Andy Kim, who said officers shot pepper spray at him and others this week.

Asked by Trump to weigh in, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Kim “probably shouldn’t have been there.”

“The fact is, we’re giving them the calories they want,” Mullin said of the detainees. “This isn’t Holiday Inn.”

Trump says ‘Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up’

The president made the comment Wednesday after being asked whether he would accept a deal allowing Iran and Oman to share control the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaking at his Cabinet meeting, he said the strait must be open to everyone and that no one can control it, though he said the U.S. will “watch over it.”

After issuing the threat to Oman, Trump added: “They understand that. They’ll be fine.”

Bessent channels Biden era and calls higher inflation ‘transitory’

Bessent just dropped a “T” word to describe inflation — echoing past remarks by two of Trump’s favorite targets, former President Joe Biden and former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, that higher prices would soon fade.

“In terms of prices, I believe the prices are transitory,” Bessent said. “Oil will be lower than preconflict levels when this ends.”

He was repeating an administration talking point that energy prices will plummet once the Iran war comes to a close. But his remarks contained a degree of irony.

Powell’s past use of “transitory” and Biden’s use of “temporary” came to haunt them. That’s because inflation remained persistently high as the economy emerged from the pandemic and was slower to ease than the public expected. The words formed the basis of attacks by Republicans and helped return Trump to the White House.

Bessent says Trump Accounts app coming Thursday

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during the Cabinet meeting that the app would launch “on all major platforms.”

A provision of Trump’s tax legislation, Trump Accounts are meant to give $1,000 to every newborn, so long as their parents open an account. That money is then invested in the stock market by private firms, and the child can access the money when they turn 18.

Calling it a “great symbol of the 250th anniversary,” Bessent said that “nearly 6 million kids” had been signed up for the accounts, which officially launch July 4.

Trump says World War II Memorial fountain is next in line for renovation

The president said his administration will turn to the war memorial after finishing an overhaul of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

“Now we’re looking at the World War II fountain, because that’s also in pretty bad shape on the bottom,” Trump said Wednesday at his Cabinet meeting. “We’re going to duplicate it, I think with the — maybe with a slightly different color. Actually, we’ll go with a lighter color.”

Trump ordered the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to be resurfaced in what he calls “American flag blue” after he said a friend complained about the condition of the pool.

The World War II Memorial sits at the east end of the reflecting pool, featuring stone pillars and arches surrounding an oval fountain.

Trump said he and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum “have a lot of fun” with the renovations.

Trump says anti-fraud work is ‘bringing our country back to honesty’

The president devoted a long stretch of his Cabinet meeting to a recap of the vice president’s anti-fraud task force, which officials see as a winning issue ahead of midterm elections.

Vance highlighted efforts to stop fraud and misuse in social programs from Medicare and Medicaid to federal student aid. Vance said officials have found tens of billions of dollars in Medicaid and Medicare fraud, adding that “we’re going to find a lot more.”

Trump congratulated officials on the effort, saying it’s a “tremendous amount of money.”

Rubio: No Ebola patients allowed in the US

The Trump administration “cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States” amid the ongoing outbreak overseas, Rubio said in the Cabinet meeting.

Rubio said the State Department and other agencies are working “very, very hard to contain this crisis to the countries where it’s currently located, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

The comments come as the Trump administration has said it is setting up a facility in Kenya where Americans exposed to Ebola can be sent for quarantine and treatment.

Rubio says having ‘failed state’ Cuba so close to the US is a ‘national security threat’

The secretary of state said “Cuba’s in a lot of trouble” and being run by “incompetent communists.”

He didn’t offer any details on U.S. actions related to the island, including a possible intervention, which Trump has hinted might be coming.

But Rubio said of Cuba: “Having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States.”

Rubio says ‘diplomacy is always the first option’ on Iran

Asked to give an update on negotiations, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he felt “there’s been some progress” on discussions with Iran and said the “next few hours and days” would yield more information.

Seated at Trump’s right hand, the country’s chief diplomat stressed that, while the president has “other options” if talks don’t yield the U.S.’ desired outcome, Rubio added, “We prefer the negotiated, diplomatic route, and we’re going to give it every chance to succeed.”

Trump said Rubio had been “all over the place” in recent days. The secretary of state returned to the U.S. last night after a five-day trip that included stops in Sweden and India.

Zelenskyy asks Trump for more US air defense help against Russian missile attacks, Kyiv says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has written to Trump and Congress asking for more American-made air defense ammunition to counter intensifying Russian ballistic missile attacks, Kyiv said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers have backed a bill to draft bank employees to fight against Ukraine’s long-range drones that strike deep inside Russia — with trained bank staff shooting down the unmanned aircraft.

As aerial attacks by both sides escalate in the more than four-year war, Anne Keast-Butler, head of U.K.’s intelligence agency GCHQ, asserted that Russian President Vladimir “Putin is going backwards on the battlefield,” and new data shows “almost half a million Russian soldiers have now been killed since the conflict began.”

Zelenskyy’s letter, obtained by The Associated Press, says deliveries of Patriot PAC-3 missiles and other air defense systems are falling dangerously short as the Iran war diverts U.S. stocks.

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Trump, looking to move his Cabinet meeting along, suggests not all officials will speak

The president said he’d limit speaking roles in the Cabinet meeting to Vance, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Kelly Loeffler, small business administrator.

“And maybe, if you have some questions, we’ll go to others,” he told reporters.

“But everybody around here has got a lot to say,” Trump said. “But we did that once, and it lasted for like four or five hours. It was a little much.”

Trump’s Cabinet meetings often feature top officials spending long periods of time praising him. That’s led to marathon sessions, though not quite as long as he suggested.

Last summer, one such meeting exceeded three hours.

Trump says his fraud task force will save Social Security. The numbers say otherwise

The U.S. president said at his Cabinet meeting that Social Security payments will be rescued by the crackdown on fraud by a task force led by Vice President JD Vance — a claim undermined by the numbers for the social insurance program.

“I think we have a chance to save Social Security without doing anything to it,” Trump said. “We’re going to make our Social Security so strong.”

The government said last year that Social Security’s trust funds — which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034. That’s because the cost of the benefits for an aging population are exceeding payroll tax revenues.

There is no sign that stopping improper payments would be sufficient to close the gap, as the government estimated they were 3.8% of Social Security expenditures in fiscal 2025.

Despite Social Security’s deteriorating finances under his watch, Trump said it “would be bankrupt” if Democrats were in power.

Trump doubles down that midterms don’t affect his Iran strategy

The president suggested that Iranian leaders think upcoming U.S. elections give them leverage over Trump because of his lagging approval ratings. If so, they’re flat wrong, Trump said.

“They thought they were gonna out-wait me. You know, ’We’ll out-wait him. He’s got the midterms,” Trump said. “I don’t care about the midterms.”

The president alluded to his preferred Texas GOP Senate nominee, Ken Paxton, trouncing Sen. John Cornyn.

“That was the prelude to the midterms,” the president insisted.

To be clear, Trump’s hold over the GOP is unquestioned at this point. But that doesn’t seamlessly translate to November victories – and even many Republicans are nervous that Trump’s standing and GOP nominees like Paxton will drag the party down in the fall as Democrats try to flip control of Capitol Hill.

Trump mixes up U.S. military operations, saying Venezuela when he meant Iran

Early in his Cabinet meeting, the president was trying to downplay the war in Iran, saying, “I don’t call it a war. I call it a conflict.”

“Despite the conflict with Venezuela, who no longer has a navy, no longer has an air force, no longer has a lot of people that were leading the country into very bad places,” Trump said, mixing up that South American country with Iran.

U.S. forces ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to face drug charges. before the U.S. and Israel began airstrikes on Iran.

He later added of Iran and talks about the ongoing ceasefire, “They’re negotiating on fumes,” but also renewed threats to renew major U.S. attacks, “Maybe we have to go back and finish it, maybe we don’t.”

Trump Cabinet meeting begins

It’s the first meeting of the president’s Cabinet since Tulsi Gabbard announced that she would step down as director of national intelligence, effective June 30, due to her husband’s health.

Gabbard is the fourth Cabinet member to depart during Trump’s second term, all of them women.

The meeting also comes at a precarious moment for talks aimed at ending the war with Iran, just days after Trump insisted that his administration and Tehran had “largely negotiated” a settlement but with the negotiations still in a state of flux.

Alabama asks Supreme Court to allow use of congressional map ruled racially biased

Alabama on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to use a congressional map favoring Republicans in this year’s elections, despite a court ruling that the redistricting plan intentionally discriminates against Black people.

The state’s Republican leadership filed an emergency appeal with the justices a day after a three-judge court refused to let the state use a map it adopted three years ago that has a majority Black population in just one of its seven congressional districts.

The judges instead required Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map put in place for the 2024 elections that includes two districts where Black residents comprise a majority or close to it.

The appeal is the latest development in the fallout from last month’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. That ruling has led Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, to take steps to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats.

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South Africa rejects Trump’s claim that Afrikaners need US refuge

The South African government and advocacy groups for its Afrikaner white minority on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s position that there’s a humanitarian emergency affecting white people in the country.

The argument served as the administration’s rationale for raising the U.S. refugee cap, but only for white Afrikaners. The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will admit an additional 10,000 white South Africans into the U.S. as refugees this year, while blocking refugees from other countries.

Trump blamed the government for “recent increases in the incitement of racially motivated violence,” without providing details that could be fact-checked. AfriForum, a lobbying organization for Afrikaners with more than 300,000 members, said it “does not have information” regarding the assertion of an emergency refugee situation.

Advocates say Trump’s decision has stranded people fleeing war and strife around the world.

▶ Read more

Kenya says protecting its own citizens from Ebola is ‘paramount’

Kenya’s health minister has confirmed discussions with the United States and other international partners amid growing public concern about Ebola.

Aden Duale’s statement Wednesday did not confirm, however, that the talks involve the U.S. establishing Ebola treatment facility in Nairobi.

“The Government of Kenya notes ongoing discussions with the US government and other global partners regarding international collaboration on strengthening preparedness and response mechanisms for Ebola Virus Disease and other emerging public health threats,” Duale said.

“Any arrangements regarding international health cooperation will be guided by Kenya’s national laws, public health regulations, biosafety and biosecurity standards, and the government’s responsibility to safeguard the health and welfare of Kenyans,” said Duale. “Protection of Kenyan citizens, frontline health workers and communities remains paramount.”

▶ See AP Photos of Ebola’s impact in Congo and Uganda

But this wasn't a small-town mayor assuring a few dozen community members at a town hall that municipal improvement efforts would be completed in time for Little League season.

This was President Donald Trump — channeling his decades as a high-profile real estate developer — regaling his assembled Cabinet and a nationally televised audience on Wednesday with the ins and outs of beautification projects around Washington.

“I love construction. It's very exciting,” Trump said, maintaining that the face-lift he's helped oversee to the nation's capital means “D.C. is looking beautiful.”

His aside lasted 10 minutes and was far more comprehensive than anything said about the other major issues discussed during the meeting, including the war in Iran. There were also only passing references to gas prices nationwide that have spiked and fears about a weakening economy that could hurt Trump's Republican Party in its push to retain control of Congress after November's midterm elections.

He offered new details of his construction plans, suggesting for the first time that they'd extend to the fountain at the World War II Memorial.

The president also said that, under his watch, construction crews were working to improve 28 fountains, then bragged about a push to renovate the “reflecting lake” or “reflecting pond” — actually the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — which he said had been steam-cleaned, fumigated and coated with “American flag blue” paint.

“Over the years, I built hundreds of pools,” Trump said, recalling his days as a construction mogul in 1970s and '80s New York. “I always like to build Olympic-sized swimming pools.”

The president noted that, as part of the revamp, cleaning crews had removed “more than 10 dumpsters of garbage.”

“Every corner had massive amounts,” he said, before offering, “I guess that’s the way the tide goes” — even though no tide flows into the pool.

Trump said the idea was to complete the project by Independence Day and it was mostly on track, except that recent rains in Washington had presented delays.

But the most detail came when the president turned to power-washing.

Workers “sandblasted it, and then we pebble-blasted,” Trump said, explaining it as “a bigger version of sand.”

He said that, to guard against leaks, crews were using “a very sophisticated form of rubber.”

The president also said he'd been responsible for a rebuild of the park across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

“I made a contribution to redoing Lafayette Park. That’s the entrance to the White House. And it was an embarrassment that floors were broken,” Trump said, meaning the park's brick walkways.

Through it all, most Cabinet members listened intently with little emotion, except Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — already known for conspicuously laughing loudest at such meetings — who nodded frequently and enthusiastically along this time. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum also offered comments about some of the renovation projects when prompted.

Before turning his attention to city improvements, the president opened the meeting by saying only a few select Cabinet members would be allowed to speak in hopes of moving things along more quickly.

“Everybody around here has got a lot to say. But we did that once, and it lasted for like four or five hours. It was a little much,” Trump said.

That was an exaggeration, though his past Cabinet meetings have indeed featured lengthy comments — often highly laudatory of Trump — from top officials. One such meeting last summer pushed the public portion past the three-hour mark.

In the end, Trump's construction update took up about one-eighth of an 80-minute meeting. It was up to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to help get things back on track and steered toward Iran. “I think, actually, your efforts on the reflecting pool are actually a great segue,” Hegseth offered.

“If you look at Washington and Lincoln, these are two men that faced monumental tasks and stood up in historic fashion and delivered for the American people,” the defense secretary said. “And, when you step back and look at 47 years of what Iran waged — war against us and our people — there’s only one man, over the course of both presidencies, who has stood up and said they will never get a nuclear weapon.”

Timothy Hudson was initially arrested and charged as a juvenile, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres ruled in February that the 16-year-old could live with an uncle and be electronically monitored. But after the case was transferred to adult court, prosecutors wanted Hudson in custody.

Minors are rarely prosecuted in federal court, and this case landed there because Kepner apparently died in international waters, outside any state’s jurisdiction.

The judge ended Wednesday morning's hearing without making a final decision, saying he wanted to speak with the U.S. Marshals Service about the logistics of detaining Hudson in central Florida, closer to his family, rather than South Florida, where the trial is taking place.

It's unknown when Torres will announce his decision. In the meantime, Hudson walked out of the courthouse after the hearing, rather than being immediately taken into custody.

Hudson has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse. His federal public defenders have declined to comment on the charges.

Hudson's stepsister, Anna Kepner, had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November with her family, including Hudson. Before the ship was scheduled to return to Florida, her body was found concealed under a bed in a room she was sharing with Hudson and another teen, a criminal complaint said.

The cause of Kepner's Nov. 6 death was determined to be mechanical asphyxia, which is when an object or physical force stops someone from breathing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alejandra Lopez argued Wednesday that the crimes Hudson is accused of are so serious that the court shouldn’t risk another violet attack. An autopsy determined that Kepner had been pinned down and violently raped, the prosecutors said. She also noted that it likely took 3-5 minutes for Hudson to strangle Kepner until she was dead.

“I believe there is clear and convincing evidence that this defendant is a danger to the community,” Lopez said.

The prosecutor also argued that Hudson was a much greater flight risk because he now faces a possible life sentence if convicted of the adult charges. As a juvenile, he would have been released at age 21, regardless of what counts he was found delinquent on.

Evan Kuhl, with the Federal Public Defender’s office, told the judge that Hudson has abided by the conditions of his release for months without issue.

The judge acknowledged that an adult facing these charges would almost certainly be detained until trial, but he still needed to consider the reality of Hudson's age, despite the adult charges. While the judge said he agreed with the defense that Hudson was a low flight risk, he still hadn't decided whether the teen posed a threat to the community if certain pre-trial restrictions remained in place.

Kepner's father, Christopher Kepner, previously released a statement, saying the family was placing “trust in the justice system to pursue the truth with care and integrity.”

“The situation is deeply painful and complex for the entire family,” Kepner said.

Anna Kepner was a high school cheerleader at Temple Christian School in Titusville, Florida, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of Orlando. At her memorial service in November, family members encouraged people to wear bright colors instead of the traditional black “in honor of Anna’s bright and beautiful soul.”

The traffic stop occurred at around 6 p.m. on May 22.

The front windshield was heavily tinted and in violation of Michigan law, police say.

During the stop the 42-year-old driver, registered to the car was identified to have a license with “restricted status”, police say.

Restricted status allows the driver to only operate vehicles with breath alcohol ignition interlock device.

Police say there was no interlock device installed in the vehicle.

The driver was briefly detained, issued an appearance citation, and his vehicle was impounded, police say.

Police say it was discovered the driver had an extensive criminal history, including drug offenses, fleeing and eluding police, resisting or assaulting a police officer, and nine prior alcohol related offenses on his driving record.

His drunk driving convictions date back to 2004, with the latest occurring on February 11, 2025, police say.

After his last conviction, the driver had been accepted into a sobriety court program in Washtenaw County and was granted a restricted driver’s license with an interlock requirement on September 12, 2025, police say.

Judge Pamela K. Chen accepted the explanation provided by U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. about why the government wanted to dismiss the indictment against Hernan Lopez.

A smiling Lopez, the former CEO of Fox International Channels, later left the Brooklyn federal courthouse, telling reporters he was relieved that “a case that never should have started is finally over.”

Nocella told Chen that the administration preferred to focus on domestic and foreign terrorist organizations, national security, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking and violent gangs.

The judge said Nocella's stated reason, along with an explanation in a written document submitted to the court, “does provide sufficient justification” to accept the request to dismiss the indictment.

Lopez and Full Play Group SA, a South American sports media company, were convicted in 2023 of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to nab broadcasting rights to the World Cup and other top soccer matches. But they were subsequently granted an acquittal by Chen.

An appeals court reinstated the convictions in July, but additional appeals followed and the fate of the prosecution had been uncertain.

Chen said during Wednesday’s hearing that she was not basing her decision to dismiss the indictment “in any way” on her prior decision granting the acquittal.

Prosecutors told the Supreme Court in December that the government has now determined that “dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice,” though they did not expand on their rationale.

Before ruling Wednesday, Chen asked the various parties to say how a broader decade-old corruption case related to TV rights for international soccer tournaments, including numerous convictions, would be affected by the indictment dismissal.

FIFA, soccer's governing body, said in a court filing two weeks ago that it agreed with the U.S. government that dismissing charges against Lopez and Full Play “would have no direct effect on the convictions of other defendants.”

FIFA said it has worked closely with the Department of Justice “in its efforts to root out corruption in football” and had taken disciplinary action, including lifetime bans to address misconduct the United States had unearthed.

The Justice Department told the judge in a March 12 letter that every other prosecution in the case had its own particular facts and circumstances.

In its filing, FIFA said the U.S. government had already turned over $201 million to FIFA and other organizations to disburse funds to support soccer-related projects with community impact worldwide.

Among projects FIFA cited were those establishing after-school soccer leagues in poor neighborhoods in Miami, the refurbished of community soccer fields in Ohio, Tennessee and Washington, D.C., the establishment of training programs for teachers and coaches in the Caribbean, and the hosting of children's soccer tournaments in South America.

Jacobs was arrested Tuesday in Brown County on allegations of strangulation and suffocation and other offenses over the weekend. His lawyers said he denies wrongdoing.

District Attorney David Lasee said it's too soon to make a formal charging decision.

“Our office has requested additional investigation, as there is reason to believe that additional evidence may exist that would impact whether criminal charges are appropriate, and what charges would be issued. ... The investigation remains open and is ongoing," Lasee said.

Jacobs' lawyers — David Chesnoff, Richard Schonfeld and Clarence Duchac — said they're pleased that he's out of jail.

“We encourage everyone to keep an open mind while the matter is fully reviewed. We remain confident that, once all of the evidence is gathered and evaluated, it will confirm that no charges should be brought against Josh in the future,” they said.

Hobart/Lawrence Police Chief Michael Renkas said police responded to a complaint about Jacobs around 8:30 a.m. Saturday.

Jacobs is the Packers’ top returning rusher after running for 929 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2025. That followed a 2024 season in which he ran for 1,329 yards and 15 touchdowns while earning his third Pro Bowl selection.

The Packers, who started organized team activities this week, had issued a statement Tuesday saying that they were aware of the matter and that “as it is an ongoing legal situation, we will withhold further comment.”

“I know there’s going to be a lot of questions about Josh,” LaFleur said before the Packers' practice on Wednesday. “I’m going to stick with the statement that we put out as an organization and just let the process play out.”

LaFleur declined comment on his reaction to the arrest, how he addressed the matter with the team and whether the Packers had communicated at all with Jacobs over the past few days. He also was asked about whether he has to prepare for the possibility the Packers might have to play part of the season without Jacobs.

“I think a lot’s going to happen between now and then,” LaFleur said.

The Packers canceled a scheduled post-practice availability for reporters with players Wednesday.

Jacobs, 28, has rushed for 7,803 yards and 74 touchdowns in his seven-year career, which included five seasons with the Raiders. He earned All-Pro honors and had an NFL-leading 1,653 yards rushing with Las Vegas in 2022.

The only active players with more career touchdown runs are Baltimore’s Derrick Henry (122) and Buffalo’s Josh Allen (79).

Green Bay lacks proven running backs aside from Jacobs.

The Packers' second-leading rusher last season was Emanuel Wilson, who has since signed with the Seattle Seahawks. The Packers didn’t draft any running backs this year.

Green Bay's second-leading returning rusher is quarterback Jordan Love, who ran for 199 yards last season. The Packers did re-sign running back Chris Brooks, who rushed for 106 yards on 27 carries last season and ran for 183 yards and a touchdown on 36 attempts in 2024.

MarShawn Lloyd, a 2024 third-round pick from Southern California, didn’t play at all last year and appeared in only one game as a rookie because of injuries.

“I think he’s done everything he can in his power to put him in the best possible position," LaFleur said of Lloyd. "He’s just going to have to go out there and prove it.”

Other running backs on Green Bay’s roster include Damien Martinez, Pierre Strong and rookie undrafted free agent Jaden Nixon.

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White reported from Detroit.

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

The first bee was held in 1925, when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to Washington. After a long run at a convention center in suburban Maryland, the bee returns to the nation's capital this year at Constitution Hall, a few blocks from the White House.

Another change for this year: ESPN NFL analyst and recent “Celebrity Jeopardy!” champion Mina Kimes has joined the bee as its television host.

This is the 98th bee; it was canceled from 1943 to 1945 because of World War II and again in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s champion will be the 111th, because the bee ended in a two-way tie several times and an eight-way tie in 2019.

Thirty of the past 36 champions have been of Indian heritage, including last year’s winner, Faizan Zaki.

How can I watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

The bee is broadcast and streamed on channels and platforms owned by Scripps, a Cincinnati-based media company.

Wednesday's quarterfinals will stream on Scripps Sports Network and spellingbee.com from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the semifinals can be watched on those platforms from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tape-delayed semifinals will be broadcast on ION from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The finals will be broadcast Thursday on ION from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The semifinals and finals will also air or be streamed on these Scripps-owned channels or services: ION Plus, Bounce, Grit, Laff, The Spot, Bounce XL, Grit Xtra, Laff More, Scripps News and Scripps Sports Network.

What are the rules of the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

Spellers qualify by advancing through regional bees hosted by sponsors around the country. In order to compete, spellers must not have advanced beyond the eighth grade or be older than 15.

Competitors must get through two preliminary rounds, where they are quizzed on words from a list provided in advance. There is one spelling round and one multiple-choice vocabulary round.

Those who make it through the preliminaries sit for a written spelling and vocabulary test, with the top 100 or so finishers advancing to the quarterfinals. The words for the test, and for all subsequent rounds, are taken from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged dictionary.

Throughout the quarterfinals and semifinals, spellers are eliminated at the microphone through oral spelling or vocabulary questions.

About a dozen spellers advance to the finals. When only two remain, Scripps has the option to use a lightning-round tiebreaker known as a “spell-off” to determine the champion.

Who is competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee?

This year's bee has 247 spellers representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, three U.S. territories and five other countries: The Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. After the preliminary rounds, 167 were left, and that field was cut to 95 quarterfinalists after a written spelling and vocabulary test.

The top returning finisher from 2025 is Sarv Dharavane of Dunwoody, Georgia, who finished third last year as an 11-year-old fifth-grader and got a perfect score on the written test. Even if he falls short this year, he has two years of eligibility left.

Three other potential contenders had perfect test scores:

— Shrey Parikh, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Rancho Cucamonga, California, who finished third in 2024. He has dominated the bee circuit in the past year, winning the South Asian Spelling Bee, the SpellPundit National Spelling Bee and the Words of Wisdom Spelling Bee.

— Oliver Halkett, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Los Angeles who finished in a tie for seventh last year.

— Esha Marupudi, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Chandler, Arizona, who also tied for seventh last year.

What are the prizes for the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion?

The winner receives a custom trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes. Here are the prize payouts:

— First place: $52,500 in cash, reference works from Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, a custom trophy and commemorative medal, and $1,000 in flight credits from Delta Air Lines.

— Second place: $25,000.

— Third place: $15,000.

— Fourth place: $10,000.

— Fifth place: $5,000.

— Sixth place: $2,500.

— All other finalists: $2,000.

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Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.

The closure happened around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in the northbound lanes near Plymouth Road.

Police said they received a report of a shooting involving a vehicle, but at this time, no injuries have been identified.

The northbound lanes are shut down from Warren Road to Joy Road as the investigation continues. Drivers are asked to avoid the area.

Lloyd wasn't sure what to tell them, but she knew the confusing new policy would slow down applications.

“It has a chilling effect because we have some cases that we were going to proceed and I can tell already, we should wait and see what’s going on," she said.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday that foreigners in the U.S. who want a green card will need to leave and apply in their home country, barring some unspecified exceptions.

The announcement, which potentially affects hundreds of thousands of green card applicants a year, was the latest immigration policy unveiled by Trump's Republican administration to stun and confound lawyers, advocates and immigrants. It's also part of a pivot by the administration to target legal pathways to immigration, after focusing since last year mostly on migrants in the U.S. illegally.

“This is simply an attempt to try to limit and scare people away from the legal immigration process,” immigration attorney Charles Kuck said, adding that he expected legal action against the change. “This is a scare tactic.”

As worried immigrants and their employers flood immigration law offices with questions, it's unclear what the effect will be, what exceptions might be allowed and how the policy will play out on the ground.

Some green card seekers were already facing questions about why they should be allowed to apply from the U.S.

A confusing rollout for the new policy

For more than half a century, foreign nationals with legal status have been able to apply for and complete the process for permanent residence in the United States — including people married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and political asylum-seekers, among others.

That appeared to change suddenly on Friday, when USCIS announced the shift on its website.

“From now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a Green Card must return to their home country to apply, except in extraordinary circumstances," the agency said.

USCIS also issued a more detailed policy memo designed as guidance for its staffers who decide these cases. Immigration experts who were trying to decipher the news said the memo was more nuanced, leading to confusion over what the change actually entailed.

In response to questions from The Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday the shift wouldn't prevent anyone “who legitimately and properly” qualifies from obtaining a green card although it will result in some people having to apply overseas with the State Department. The department said the policy would have “no noticeable impact on highly qualified applicants and skilled professionals who have followed the law.”

One immigration law firm, Boundless Immigration, in a blog post on its website stating its interpretation of the policy, said officers were being instructed to “apply existing discretionary standards more rigorously” but surmised that the policy doesn't completely stop the adjustment of status process for “eligible applicants” depending on the category of visa they have.

The company cited previous policy memos about citizenship acquisition that had not prompted harsher steps in practice.

Immigration firms and advocates left guessing who'll be impacted

Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the guidance may be targeting people who overstayed their visas, such as the parent of a U.S. citizen who remained after a visa expired, an employee of a company who transferred to the U.S. or people in the country on visas specific to clergy and other religious workers.

“It seems like maybe who they’re targeting is potentially those whose period of stay lapsed while they were here,” she said.

Kevin Miner, a partner with the immigration law firm Fragomen, said he expected that people on employment-based visas, like H-1Bs, would be exempt. Known as dual-intent, these visas allow people on nonimmigrant visas in the U.S. to seek a green card. Those dual-intent visas were specifically mentioned in the memo as areas of possible exception.

“Those probably are cases that will continue to precede business as usual and that we won’t see a significant impact,” said Miner, who said the announcement Friday took people by surprise.

Matthew Soerens, the U.S. director of church mobilization for World Relief, an organization that helps resettle refugees in the U.S., said language in the memo referring to cases in which immigrants have to adjust their status in the U.S. gives the organization “hope” and “expectation” that the guidance doesn't apply to refugees.

Refugees are people who are fleeing their homeland who meet a specific set of criteria to be admitted to the U.S. after lengthy vetting. They are required to do that green card processing a year after arriving in the U.S. and can't go home because of the risks they'd face there, Soerens said.

Trump's administration has slashed the number of refugees admitted into the U.S. this year and limited them to white South Africans.

People who entered the country under humanitarian parole, which allows presidents to admit people for humanitarian reasons and which President Joe Biden's Democratic administration expanded dramatically, could also be impacted, Soerens said.

Many of those people might have already had family in the U.S. or they married a U.S. citizen — both of which potentially give them pathways to apply for a green card that could now be complicated.

All of these nuances make it difficult to provide general legal advice to people, said Dalal-Dheini.

“It’s going to be a very case by case specific thing," she said.

Immigrants facing questions about their applications, group says

The American Immigration Lawyers Association said several people in green card interviews under the new guidance faced questions Tuesday that haven’t previously been asked of applicants.

One person who was applying to get a green card based off their marriage to a U.S. citizen was asked why they applied to adjust their status in the U.S. instead of going back to their home country and applying at the embassy there. They were asked if there were any factors that would prevent them from applying back at their home country and if they still had family there.

Another person was asked to file a form demonstrating why they should be allowed to apply from the U.S. and were told evidence should prove they wouldn't be a financial burden or a “public charge” on the U.S. and could include their 2025 tax return, a letter from an employer stating their salary and bank statements.

Lloyd, the immigration attorney, said she has sent emails to her corporate and noncorporate clients telling them that she is monitoring the situation and she will reach out to them as soon as she has more guidance and practical applications.

She said she thinks the policy will deter some companies from pursuing green cards for their clients.

“I don’t want everybody to panic,” she said. “My advice to them is wait and see.”

The measure, which goes against World Health Organization guidance, underscored growing fears of contagion in this East African country that, like Congo, has experience responding to Ebola outbreaks but faces a type this time, Bundibugyo, with no approved medicines or vaccines.

A local Ebola task force made the decision after Ugandan health workers were exposed to the virus by Congolese patients who crossed the border before the outbreak was declared on May 15.

Travel across the Congo border will be authorized only in emergency cases, including for the outbreak response, cargo or security reasons, Dr. Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health, told journalists. Any people entering from Congo under emergency circumstances will be taken into mandatory self-isolation for 21 days.

Congo says over 100 cases have been confirmed

Tracing and isolating Ebola contacts is seen as key to stopping the spread of the disease, which usually manifests as hemorrhagic fever. The virus is spread through close contact with sick or deceased patients’ bodily fluids. Experts say healthcare workers and family members caring for patients face the highest risk.

The number of suspected cases in eastern Congo is nearing 1,000, with at least 220 suspected deaths. Congo’s health ministry on Tuesday said 101 cases have been confirmed, and they are looking into over 3,000 possible contacts.

The WHO, while declaring this outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, discouraged border closures while acknowledging that neighboring countries are at high risk of contagion.

Closures "push the movement of people and goods to informal border crossings that are not monitored, thus increasing the chances of the spread of disease," the U.N. agency said.

The border between Uganda and Congo is several hundred miles long and crossed by numerous footpaths beyond formal border posts. Many people come and go in the course of a day to visit families or to trade.

Health authorities in Congo are struggling to contain the outbreak that the WHO has said is outpacing them, after the rare type of Ebola was confirmed weeks late as tests were carried out for a more common type.

Challenges include the threat from armed groups in eastern Congo, a large number of displaced people and poor infrastructure.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in the region to allow safe access for responders and others, saying on social media that “attacks on health facilities make tracking cases and their contacts nearly impossible.”

Responders in Congo have said they are underprepared and underprotected for this outbreak, while conflict-traumatized residents long wary of outsiders have attacked a number of clinics and hurled stones and abuse at volunteers trying to make people aware of the virus and its risks.

The WHO has said infected people or those have been in contact should not undertake international travel unless it’s a medical evacuation. On Wednesday, the Trump administration said it is planning to send Americans who are exposed to Ebola to a new facility in Kenya instead of flying them to the United States.

Uganda is concerned about exposed health workers

Uganda has reported seven cases of Ebola, including the first case of a 59-year-old man who died in Kampala, the capital, on May 14. While the Ebola case load is not spiking, the number of locals exposed to infection via health workers has been rising.

“They have families, and so the number has been increasing,” Atwine, the health official, said of health workers.

She also said she was dismayed to see some Ugandans forming crowds to celebrate Arsenal as British Premier League champions. The team has a large following in Uganda.

“I don't understand,” Atwine said, urging people to be vigilant, avoid shaking hands and use sanitizer.

Congo has had 17 Ebola outbreaks. Health experts say aid cuts last year by the United States and other rich nations are devastating for eastern Congo because of the region’s unique problems.

Aid groups fighting this outbreak say they don’t have the equipment they need such as face shields and suits to protect health workers from infection, testing kits and body bags needed to safely bury victims.

Cartez Howard, 38, of Detroit, was convicted by a jury of two counts of possession of firearms as a felon in December 2025.

On Tuesday, May 26, 2026, a judge sentenced Howard to 200 months in federal prison.

According to court records, in September 2025, Howard, a convicted felon with a violent criminal history, was on federal supervised release and got into an argument over a parking spot outside a business.

Police said the argument ended when Howard pulled an AR-style rifle from his car, pointed it at a man, and fired a shot at his feet.

Howard then tried to grab the man’s glasses before driving away.

The man followed Howard to report him.

Howard drove into a residential neighborhood and fired around 30 shots, police say.

Eleven days later, Howard drove the same car to a gas station with the same rifle in the backseat and abandoned the car when police located it.

After Howard was arrested, agents searched Howard’s apartment, where they found a second gun hidden in his bedroom closet.

The authorities say the gun was tucked under a baby blanket in the room he shared with his infant child and the child’s mother.

The president bragged at his Cabinet meeting Wednesday that Paxton's romp “was a prelude” for success in the November midterms. But Trump's tightening grip on his party could make it harder to hold back Democratic advances as Republicans face a broader electorate that has soured on his second term and the economy.

The risk is compounded, Republican operatives say, by how cavalier the billionaire president has been in addressing Americans’ financial worries, which have been exacerbated by Trump's trade roller coaster and his ongoing war against Iran. And the president gave them new material to worry about when he said concerns about November are playing no part in his negotiations with Tehran.

“They thought they were going to out-wait me. You know, ’We’ll out-wait him. He’s got the midterms,” Trump said while surrounded by top administration officials. “I don’t care about the midterms.”

The only priority, he said, was keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Republican strategist David Urban, a Trump ally, acknowledged the president’s approach is making things harder for his party.

“It’s going to be a tough fall unless things dramatically change,” Urban said.

He warned that Trump cannot afford a haphazard exit from Iran to resolve a conflict that has created a chokehold on global oil supplies and driven gas prices higher for Americans.

“You do not want to give the Iranians a win just because of the midterms,” he said.

Trump, meanwhile, offered no second thoughts about backing Paxton over Cornyn. Senate Republican leaders have feared that Paxton would be the more vulnerable nominee because of years of scandals, but the president insisted on social media that the Texas attorney general will “become a fantastic, common sense Senator, one who is respected by all.”

Still, Trump hinted he may be aware that Paxton will need an extra boost in a state that hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1988.

“I will do some nice, big, beautiful rallies for Ken. Texas, this will be FUN!” Trump wrote.

Trump brushes off economic troubles

Not only are prices higher after Trump’s tariffs and his Iran war, but the president has repeatedly described affordability concerns as a “hoax.”

Trump has mused that increases in gas prices — up more than 50% in the U.S. since Trump and Israel launched attacks on Iran — amount to “peanuts.” He previously said he does not consider Americans’ personal finances “even a little bit” when mulling his options on the war.

All of that comes as Trump badgers Congress to spend $1 billion on his White House ballroom project and allocate $1.8 billion to pay restitution to people who believe they were prosecuted for political purposes — potentially including those who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

It’s a cascade that Republicans in every battleground House district, Senate election or statewide contest will have to navigate in the fall.

“You keep the House and Senate by having a message, by dealing with the issues voters are clearly complaining about,” said Republican strategist Rick Tyler, a Trump critic. “The administration has utterly failed to do this.”

It has been more than two weeks since the Republican National Committee distributed talking points to surrogates that mention the economy, according to messaging documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

The only talking points sent out last week focused on defending Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund.”

“Democrats and the fake-news media are deliberately ignoring the fact that this fund is not limited to Republicans or Trump supporters,” said the message on May 23.

Democrats see opportunity in Trump’s struggles

Republicans began Trump’s second presidency with a 220-215 advantage in the House. They’ve boosted their chances to hold the majority by redrawing congressional maps in several Republican-run states. But Democrats are still confident they can flip enough seats to reclaim a majority.

Republicans have a more significant 53-47 advantage in the Senate. However, leaders of both parties agree that control of the chamber is in play. Some Republicans blame Trump for backing candidates such as Paxton, who has faced years of scandals and could prove more vulnerable against Democratic nominee James Talarico.

Trump hails Paxton as a “true MAGA warrior.” But the state attorney general also carries the weight of a yearslong criminal securities fraud case and disclosure of marital infidelity. He was indicted and impeached, but survived efforts to remove him from office and was reelected twice during the investigation. However, he ultimately agreed to pay $300,000 in restitution to avoid a felony trial.

Paxton's baggage was enough that Senate Republicans' campaign arm, which backed Cornyn, accused him of “repulsive and disgusting” behavior and quoted his ex-wife saying she filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.”

Viet Shelton, a spokesman for House Democrats’ campaign committee, pointed to Trump’s redistricting push as proof he understands his party’s tenuous hold on the House majority.

“They’ve given up on trying to win over voters fair and square, so they’re resorting to rigging the midterms through illegal gerrymanders and voter suppression,” Shelton said.

Democrats plan to feature Trump's comments on the economy in advertising this fall, as well as more specific local concerns — even in places the president carried by double digits in 2024.

In U.S. House districts in Iowa, for example, that means emphasizing how tariffs have affected the farm economy and how the war in Iran has increased the prices of diesel fuel and fertilizer. In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, that means talking about how Trump’s immigration crackdown has roiled the local economy in Latino communities.

Republicans are frustrated behind closed doors

Republican strategists are worried by Trump’s lack of focus on the economy — and the lack of transparency from Trump’s team about how it plans to deploy its massive campaign accounts.

The pro-Trump super PAC known as MAGA Inc. held more than $356 million at the end of April. Yet many Republican strategists say they’ve received no clear indication of how, where and when Trump’s team plans to spend the money, according to several operatives who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

They see one bright spot in James Blair, Trump's political general, leaving the White House to focus on the midterms.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the president’s strategy and confidence about the midterms.

Mike Marinella, spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Trump “puts House Republicans in the strongest possible position to defy history and win in November.”

Of course, a candidate must win the Republican nomination to even be around for the fall campaign.

“The president has chosen to be aggressive in endorsing candidates he believes are the best advocates for his agenda and have been loyal to him,” Republican campaign veteran Chip Lake said.

Lake is leading an independent expenditure effort on behalf of Georgia Republican Burt Jones, the Trump-endorsed candidate in a June 16 primary runoff for governor.

“It’s difficult, if not impossible,” Lake said, “to win a primary in today’s environment if the president is working against you.”

___ Barrow reported from Atlanta. Peoples reported from New York.

Instead of trying to copy symmetrical shapes from nature by building robots that look like people, dogs or insects, engineering professor Boyuan Chen and his team focused on uniformity in action, or what he calls “dynamic symmetry.”

The result was Argus. The roly-poly robot named after a mythological many-eyed giant has depth-sensing cameras attached to 20 telescoping legs that radiate from a central core. With no front, back, top or bottom, it can see and move in any direction instantly.

“Instead of measuring how your legs are arranged around a different part of your body, we’re measuring how fast you can move in any direction,” Chen said. “Who said, you know, if you have a robot to help us in a most effective way, it has to look like us?”

In experiments, Argus has navigated sandy beaches and forest undergrowth, rolling over obstacles and stabilizing itself after being pushed. It can climb between parallel brick walls by alternating bracing and thrusting motions with its legs. If one or more motor dies or a leg breaks, it continues to function.

“Watching Argus move is unlike watching any other robot we’ve worked with,” said Jiaxun Liu, a graduate student and co-author of a study about Argus published online Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics. “The first time we saw it navigate among trees and rough terrain, even under heavy collisions, we knew this was something different.”

As part of their work, researchers developed a new design principle called dynamic isotropy that rates robots on a scale of 0 to 1 based on how uniformly they can accelerate in every direction. Most robots in use today, including humanoids and drones, score below 0.6. Argus scores 0.91.

“When a robot can accelerate equally well in every direction, it stops needing to face the world in any particular way,” said Chen, who hopes the same principle could guide the development of search and rescue robots, underwater or aerial vehicles or robots with the ability to grip objects.

“Instead of building a robot hand that looks like a human hand … one idea is to think about having Argus be the hand itself, and it can manipulate objects in any direction,” he said. “The knowledge we can transfer to the rest of the world is much more deeper than building an existing robot or copying an existing species.”

____

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

The midfielder was substituted Saturday against Arsenal in the Premier League after a knock to the ankle but is in Palace's starting lineup to face Rayo. U.S. defender Chris Richards is on the bench after ankle ligament damage.

Rayo attacking midfielder Isi Palazón starts in what will be his first game since the semifinal win over Strasbourg on May 7 due to a suspension in the Spanish league for confronting a referee. He scored two vital goals in the 4-3 aggregate win over Greece’s AEK Athens in the quarterfinals.

Fan unrest in Leipzig

Fans of Palace and Rayo earlier clashed in Leipzig late Tuesday, German police said.

Police said bottles, beer mugs and furniture were thrown Tuesday evening when a group of around 300 Rayo fans encountered Palace fans who were sitting outside restaurants, and that officers also intervened in another incident when around 60 Palace fans “provoked” Spanish supporters.

Leipzig police said two people were detained and two police officers sustained minor injuries but remained fit for duty. More than 300 people had their identities checked, police said.

Glasner's last game

Both teams are in their first European final, and it's the last game at Palace for coach Oliver Glasner before he leaves at the end of the season.

A win for Palace on Wednesday would keep English clubs on track for a potential sweep of all three main European men's club continental competitions. Aston Villa won the Europa League last week and Arsenal is due to play Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final on Saturday.

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

Anne Keast-Butler, director of the communications intelligence agency GCHQ, said that Britain and its allies are in “a space between peace and war” as Russia increases its “daily hybrid activity” against the West — even as Russian combat deaths in Ukraine approach 500,000.

She said that the West risks losing the conflict in cyberspace against Russia and other adversaries, unless citizens, companies and governments treat cybersecurity with much greater urgency.

“I’ve spent three decades working in national security, and the risk of miscalculation is as high as I’ve ever seen it,” Keast-Butler said in a speech at a World War II code-breaking center near London.

She said that “tech companies are releasing AI-driven innovations at a remarkable pace, with untold consequences, as algorithms are weaponized often just below the threshold of traditional warfare.

“AI is an unstoppable force with great opportunity,” she added. “But it is also a force with risks.”

Keast-Butler singled out Russia as a threat, accusing Moscow of “relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust,” as well as stealing technology and plotting sabotage and assassination attempts.

“Russia is scaling up its daily hybrid activity against the U.K. and Europe, stretching from the seabed to cyberspace,” she told an audience of computing experts, diplomats, journalists and senior officials.

She said that one focus for British spies is “exposing Russia’s intent, motive and underwater capabilities” to target undersea telecoms cables and energy pipelines.

At the same time, she said that Russian troops are “going backwards on the battlefield,” with new intelligence suggesting “almost half a million Russian soldiers” have been killed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

The speech is the latest in a string of warnings from Western spies and intelligence experts that Russia is stepping up hostile activity in a “gray zone” that falls just below the threshold of war.

In recent months, authorities in countries including Sweden, Poland, Denmark and Norway have alleged that hackers linked to Russia targeted their critical infrastructure, including power plants and dams.

The head of the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre, Richard Horne, warned last month that hostile states including Russia, China and Iran are behind the most serious cyberattacks the country faces. He said such attacks could increase dramatically if Britain becomes involved in an international conflict.

Keast-Butler said that rapid advances in artificial intelligence mean that “the ground beneath our feet is shifting” and there is a “narrowing window for the U.K. and allies to stay ahead” of countries such as China, a science and technology “superpower.”

She said that the threat extends to space, where thousands of satellites have been launched in the last few years, and “both China and Russia are investing heavily ... to support both peace and war ambitions.”

The spy chief said that GCHQ is developing a plan to use cutting-edge agentic AI for a national cybershield that could protect U.K. infrastructure and businesses from cyberattacks — though it's thought to be several years from completion.

Harnessed responsibly, she said, AI can help spies “enhance algorithms, translate foreign languages, and find needles in haystacks quicker than ever before.”

Keast-Butler also said that the U.K.-U.S. intelligence partnership is “fundamental for the security of both our nations.” She spoke as U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy platform and disregard for longtime allies strain the relationship between London and Washington.

GCHQ, short for Government Communications Headquarters, is the U.K.’s electronic and cyberintelligence agency. It works alongside the domestic security service MI5 and the foreign intelligence agency MI6.

Keast-Butler, the first woman to head the agency, delivered the GCHQ director’s annual lecture speech at the agency’s World War II headquarters of Bletchley Park, a manor house 45 miles (72 kilometers) northwest of London where hundreds of mathematicians, cryptographers, crossword puzzlers, chess masters and other experts worked to crack Nazi Germany’s supposedly unbreakable secret codes.

Their work both shortened the war and hastened the birth of modern computing.

Watch the video above to learn more about how the organization is encouraging young people to make the most of their summer break.

The championship weekend will be held at Ford Field on May 30-31.

Spectators can watch both in-person and from a live stream.

This season participation is at nearly 70k girls.

In the 2018/2019 season participation was 11k.

The league was officially launched in 2022 and has support from the Detroit Lions and local schools across the state.

The league played its first season with 4 teams.

This year the league has 80 teams.

Here is a full list of all participating schools for this year.

Girls flag football continues to gain popularity.

Eastern Michigan University plans to add girls flag football as a varsity sport in 2027.

The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will debut Girls flag football.

We are heading into the final week of this year’s Michigan Girls High School Flag Football League regular season! The state champion will be crowned at the end of this month.

4 teams in inaugural season (2023), 80 teams in 2026!

exposure to a new sport for high school girls, developing new skills on and off the field, collegiate sports opportunities

The support that the Detroit Lions, Ralph C. Wilson Foundation and the NFL offer to the participating schools

Championship weekend at Ford Field (May 30 & 31) – spectating available in person and live stream

The trio of Trinity Rodman, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson, nicknamed Triple Espresso at the 2024 Olympics, were named on Tuesday to the U.S. training camp roster for a pair of June matches against the Brazilian national team in Brazil. The three have not played together since the gold medal match at the Paris Games.

Swanson was included on the U.S. roster for the first time since October 2024. She recently returned to her club team, the Chicago Stars, after taking time off for the birth of her daughter in November.

The 28-year-old Swanson has 38 goals in 103 appearances with the national team and scored the lone goal in the 1-0 victory over Brazil for the gold medal in Paris.

Wilson had returned to the national team in April after taking maternity leave last year for the birth of her daughter. She has 24 goals in 61 appearances for the United States.

“That front three haven’t been together since the Olympic gold medal match, that’s a long time, and we cannot waste a single minute," U.S. coach Emma Hayes said. “We absolutely have to put the very best players together with every opportunity that we have. But the circumstances are slightly different. We have Mal, who is coming back last, and yes, she is competing and contributing to Chicago, but like Soph last camp, it is so important to get them into the environment to reconnect with their teammates.”

The United States will play Brazil on June 6 in Sao Paulo and June 9 in Fortaleza.

Because the national team does not play many friendly matches away from the United States, the games in Brazil give the younger players an opportunity to experience travel routines.

Additionally, Brazil is hosting next year's Women's World Cup. The United States will attempt to qualify for the tournament starting in late November at the CONCACAF W Championship.

“This is another moment where we get to see how we cope with all of the environmental conditions that come with going to Brazil, whether that’s adapting to different cultures, different training facilities, different hotels, different experiences, fan experience, feeling like the away team, but with the pressure cooker of a top opponent. All of these things really, really matter," Hayes said.

Hayes named 26 players to the camp roster for the international window, with 23 players to be designated as available for each match.

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Goalkeepers: Claudia Dickey (Seattle Reign), Mandy McGlynn (Utah Royals), Phallon Tullis-Joyce (Manchester United)

Defenders: Tierna Davidson (Gotham), Emily Fox (Arsenal), Avery Patterson (Houston Dash), Lilly Reale (Gotham), Tara Rudd (Washington Spirit), Emily Sonnett (Gotham), Gisele Thompson (Angel City), Kennedy Wesley (San Diego Wave)

Midfielders: Croix Bethune (Kansas City Current), Lindsey Heaps (OL Lyonnes), Claire Hutton (Bay FC), Riley Jackson (North Carolina Courage), Rose Lavelle (Gotham), Olivia Moultrie (Portland Thorns), Jaedyn Shaw (Gotham), Lily Yohannes (OL Lyonnes)

Forwards: Michelle Cooper (Kansas City Current), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Emma Sears (Racing Louisville), Ally Sentnor (Kansas City Current), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Stars), Alyssa Thompson (Chelsea), Sophia Wilson (Portland Thorns)

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

The warning — which fell on the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha — came a day after Israeli troops clashed with the Iran-backed Hezbollah along a strategic river in southern Lebanon, with Israeli forces pushing farther north, days ahead of talks in Washington between Lebanese and Israeli delegations.

Wednesday's warning is the first that orders the Lebanese to relocate from the south since a ceasefire went into effect on April 17 and follows an escalation in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Israeli troops have crossed the Litani River, edging closer to the southern city of Nabatiyeh. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has also intensified in the town of Zawtar al-Sharqieh, along the strategic river. Israel has not struck Beirut or areas near the capital since the truce started.

The war started on March 2 after Hezbollah fired rockets towards northern Israel in solidarity with Iran. Over one million people in Lebanon have since been displaced, and over 3,200 people killed in Israeli strikes according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Many displaced people are sleeping in public schools that have turned into makeshift shelters or in tents pitched in encampments across the Lebanese capital.

Earlier, the Israeli military had called on the residents of Nabatiyeh and the city of Tyre along the Mediterranean coast to leave and stay away, saying there were Hezbollah members and military posts there.

Roads have been jam-packed with cars fleeing Tyre and surrounding neighborhoods heading north, seeking shelter. Strikes in the southwestern region have intensified in recent days.

Those who have nowhere to go are staying in the city, said Moussa Nasrallah of Lebanon's Civil Defense. He and other first-responders have been helping move the elderly and others living further out in the province to the city.

At least four Israeli strikes hit near Tyre since the warning was announced, Nasrallah said. The Israeli military said it has been targeting what it called “command centers” belonging to Hezbollah without giving further details.

“We can’t use our vehicles to evacuate people out of the area and not be available for the wounded,” Nasrallah told The Associated Press, fearing his colleagues would be stuck in the traffic, and unable to return to the front lines to help civilians.

Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for several attacks on both Israeli troops in Lebanon and northern Israeli border villages.

Also, amid a surge in Hezbollah attacks with exploding drones, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Israeli military will expand the scope of its attacks against Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it has struck 550 targets since the beginning of the week, a significant increase in the number of attacks.

Hezbollah has vowed to fight until the war ends in Lebanon and Israel withdraws its troops that operate across large swaths of the country's south. The Iran-backed group has dismissed Lebanon's direct talks with Israel and has backed Iran's talks with Washington to their war. Among Tehran's conditions is ending the war in Lebanon as well.

Israel's widened attacks in recent days have struck areas in eastern Lebanon along the Bekaa Valley, near the border with Syria. On Tuesday, Israel struck near the Qaraoun Dam, Lebanon's largest, on the Litani River.

One humanitarian duo wants to ensure conflict-stricken children get funding for an often-overlooked need: education. Under an agreement announced Wednesday, the LEGO Foundation committed $97 million to expand International Rescue Committee programs that use play to help millions of children learn and recover.

“Children who are born in conflict have their childhood stolen from them," IRC President David Miliband told The Associated Press. “But what’s remarkable about children is that if you give them a bit of their childhood back, they make the most of it. And this is about giving the best of childhood back.”

The five-year partnership aims to reach 5 million children across East Africa and the Middle East. Who, exactly, they serve will change as conflicts evolve. LEGO Foundation CEO Sidsel Marie Kristensen pledged to focus on those “in the most dire contexts." Currently under consideration are Ethiopia, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Uganda.

Kristensen said the “truly agile” framework is designed to bring play-based learning wherever it’s needed most, rather than funding individual place-based grants that might become outdated as conflicts evolve in real time.

“In the world we are living in right now, nobody knows honestly what is happening tomorrow or in two months,” Kristensen said. “That (flexibility) is what we need right now.”

The investment will introduce more classrooms to an IRC-led program called PlayMatters that offers training for teachers of 3-to 12-year-olds to integrate what they call “playful learning" into lessons. The goal is not to tell educators what they should teach but help tailor instruction to the needs arising in schools serving children traumatized by crises. Program leaders also act as a policy advocates for education funding at the national level, working with government officials to embed their materials into their curriculum.

Engaging kids to process their experiences with ‘playful learning’

At a primary school serving refugees in western Uganda’s Nakivale settlement, one teacher credits PlayMatters with reducing absenteeism. Sister Kasingye Secunda said attendance used to be an issue. Teachers try their best to make students "feel at home,” she said. But many students don’t understand both the local language and English, the language of instruction.

Children learn colors through a game where they select mangoes, bananas and other fruits to share with their classmates. They build confidence through class presentations and develop leadership as they take turns guiding small groups through activities.

“Learners enjoy the lessons,” Secunda said. “They are eager to come to school.”

From Ethiopia to Tanzania, a radio show helps children name their emotions through episodes offered in multiple languages featuring culturally familiar characters. PlayMatters Project Director Martin Omukuba said they are expanding such digitally delivered multimedia lessons. The radio show, for example, helps them remotely reach schools in South Sudan that are made inaccessible by flooding for half the year.

The LEGO Foundation provides flexible funding so that IRC can respond to the fluid nature of conflicts. A refugee class size can quickly jump from 25 to 150 students, Omukuba noted, creating new demands for sanitation, nutrition or other classroom needs not traditionally classified under education. Omukuba credited the LEGO Foundation for trusting them to move grant money around in emergencies.

“We need first to make sure that children are alive,” he said. “We can introduce the education when they are stabilized.”

‘Trust-based’ collaboration aims to inspire others amid aid cuts

The partners first collaborated in 2019 when the LEGO Foundation committed $100 million to “Ahlan Simsim," the educational programming launched by IRC and the nonprofit Sesame Workshop with MacArthur Foundation support to help kids affected by the Syrian refugee crises and other regional conflicts.

Kristensen, who leads the Denmark-based corporate foundation that funds early childhood development, said they've been scaling up their donations in these settings. The LEGO Foundation recently announced a separate $30 million partnership with global funding collaborative Co-Impact to support locally led solutions to issues of learning and wellbeing among children impacted by conflict and crisis.

She wants Wednesday's announcement to inspire greater collaboration among governments, civil society and the private sector. “That is so needed in a world right now where the development aid is decreasing,” she said, referring to international assistance cuts by the United States and many European nations.

Those cuts have stretched the humanitarian system's capacity over the past year. Already, Miliband said, the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Congo provides “a graphic demonstration of the short-sightedness of aid cuts for activities that are considered marginal." He pointed to sanitation and handwashing programs in the Congo's Ituri province, where the global health emergency is centered, that lost U.S. funding last year as part of the Trump administration's dismantling of international development.

“We warned at the time what the risk was,” he said. “And sure as night follows day, we end up with an under-detected Ebola outbreak.”

International Rescue Committee officials similarly see early childhood development not as a luxury, but a necessary intervention to toxic stress that alters brain development and delays learning.

Education was an underfunded part of humanitarian responses even before wealthy countries slashed their aid budgets, according to Patty McIlreavy, the president and CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. “Life saving” assistance was too narrowly limited to “what do you actually need to keep the body alive,” she said," a definition that excluded “life sustaining” efforts such as children's education.

She pointed to Wednesday's announcement as an example for donors, who often ask her how they can actually help in complex conflicts without clear ends in sight.

“It's not our role as philanthropy to fix what's broken in a country," she said. "That's politics. That's bigger than us. But there's so much we can do — even by offering six months or a year of education.”

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

The directive, issued on Tuesday to international news outlets based in the capital, Tehran, specified that mandatory language be included on “all submitted content, including photos, videos, reports, and other media productions.”

The instructions were sent to a number of news organizations, including The Associated Press, from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which oversees media activity. “Responsibility for failing to comply with this directive rests with the submitting media outlet,” said the instructions, translated from Farsi.

The new restrictions come three months after the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran that grew into a continuing, occasionally flaring war in the region. President Donald Trump insisted a peace deal is close on the 88th day of the war, even as Iran on Tuesday denounced the most recent U.S. strikes as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability."

Under the new measures, international news outlets are required to say that the content in question cannot be used by Israeli media, and also Farsi-language TV stations based outside Iran. For years, Iran has banned international media from sharing some material with BBC Persian, VOA Persian, Manoto TV and Iran International at the risk of having their operations shut down in the country.

Despite the restrictions, many Farsi-language media outlets abroad still access images and videos released by Iranian state media through a variety of websites and messaging apps.

The Washington-based group Freedom House ranks Iran as not having a free and independent media, noting that all television channels are controlled by hard-liners within its theocracy and those working in other outlets face harassment and arrest.

Satellite dishes are banned, though many have them to watch Farsi-language channels broadcasting from abroad. Iranians began to regain internet access on Wednesday, after authorities ended a monthslong shutdown. But users said service was slow and spotty in some areas, with apps like YouTube and Instagram heavily restricted.

In a statement, Associated Press spokesman Patrick Maks said that the "AP, like all international news media operating inside Iran, are subject to their new restriction.

“Our team there," Maks added, “continues to produce strong, independent journalism under challenging conditions, ensuring the world has access to factual, eyewitness reporting about what’s happening on the ground.”

Destinie Halimon left her residence without permission in a blue sedan on the 1400 block of Campbell on Monday (May 25) and failed to return home.

She was last seen wearing a black jacket, black shorts and black slides.

Halimon is 14 years old, 5′0″, 116 pounds, has black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information should contact the Detroit Police Department’s 4th Precinct at 313-596-5440.

David Lee Montgomery has been charged with assault with intent to murder and felony firearm in connection with the Saturday, May 23, shooting. He was denied bond.

Authorities said it happened during an argument. The bullet missed her carotid artery and struck her in the jaw. She is expected to recover.

The couple’s grandchildren were reportedly in the home at the time of the shooting.

Tonight the sun will set at 8:59 p.m. before setting at 9 p.m. Thursday night. Note this is following the reporting station at Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus for climatological purposes.

Sunsets will continue to be later into early July, when the sunset time will be 9:13 p.m.

We start seeing earlier sunsets on July 4th, losing less than a minute or so of daylight a day to begin the month. By the end of July, we’re losing around 2 minutes of daylight per day.

The last 9 p.m. sunset for this Summer will be on July 24th, with the sun setting at 8:59 p.m. July 25th.

In regards to the sun coming up, our current sunrise time is 6:02 a.m. The sunrise will be at 6 a.m. or earlier throughout the month of June before starting to become later in July.

Luckily we’ll see plenty of sun in the near forecast.

While the best moisture and rain chances will be well to our south today, Southeast Michigan has an isolated shower and non-severe thunderstorm chance this evening.

Rain chances end late tonight with clouds decreasing into tomorrow morning. Low temperatures will be in the mid 50s to near 50° in our northern-most neighborhoods.

Thursday will be comfortable with highs in the low 70s under mostly sunny skies.

We’ll see plenty of sunshine all the way into next week. Check out the difference in forecasted moisture in the Great Lakes from Wednesday to Friday - much drier to end the week.

We’ll turn warmer for Friday with afternoon temperatures back near 80°, then settle into the mid and upper 70s through the weekend.

Jeffrey Donaldson, 63, former leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, pleaded not guilty to one count of rape, four counts of gross indecency and 13 indecent assault charges involving two alleged victims between 1985 and 2008.

Prosecutor Rosemary Walsh told jurors in Newry Crown Court that the alleged victims complained to police more than two years ago about “difficult and traumatic incidents they say happened when they were children.”

Donaldson resigned as leader of the DUP and quit as a lawmaker in the U.K. Parliament, after he was arrested in March 2024.

Donaldson’s resignation shocked the DUP shortly after the party ended its boycott of Northern Ireland’s semiautonomous government and returned to a power-sharing agreement, after he won concessions on Britain’s post-Brexit trading arrangements with the European Union.

As leader of the DUP between 2021 and 2023, he was the most powerful figure in Northern Ireland’s unionist movement, which seeks to maintain the region’s historic ties to the United Kingdom.

The two alleged victims told police that Donaldson groped them when they were around primary school age, and the older of the two, referred to in court as Complainant B, said that the abuse continued for several years, Walsh said.

Years later, Complainant B said that a meeting was arranged through a church and Donaldson apologized “for what had happened in the past.”

When Donaldson was interviewed by police, he said that it was “unbelievable” that he would have touched her sexually.

His wife, Eleanor Donaldson, has denied charges of aiding and abetting her husband’s alleged offenses, but she's not in court because Judge Paul Ramsey ruled her unfit to stand trial for mental health reasons.

Jurors will decide her case on facts, but she can't be convicted of a crime or punished. The trial is expected to last up to a month.

Monique Verdieux, 56, fled to the highway after watching armed men burning houses in her neighborhood. Her family scattered in different directions and she said she's not sure where they are.

“I am now sleeping in the street,” Verdieux said, noting it was unsafe to return.

Gangs have overtaken more than 70% of Port-au-Prince since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 at his home. That number was as high as 90% but has dropped. Police say they have expanded their activities — including looting, kidnapping, sexual assaults and rape — into the countryside. Haiti has not had a president since the assassination.

In a statement released Monday, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders announced the evacuation of its hospital in Cité Soleil following intense clashes in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood on Sunday. The organization, known by its French acronym MSF, reported treating over 40 gunshot victims within 12 hours while providing temporary shelter to 800 people fleeing the violence. One of those injured was a security guard who was hit by a stray bullet in the hospital's grounds.

“We managed to evacuate him and his condition is now stable,” said Davina Hayles, MSF’s head of mission in Haiti. “But it is unthinkable that our teams and civilians should become victims of these clashes.”

For the past two weeks, Haitian rum maker Barbancourt and two of the nation's largest bottlers have also warned about deteriorating security conditions near Port-au-Prince's Toussaint Louverture International Airport, where operations are now severely restricted.

In a statement released on Sunday, the companies said that the government's response to the crisis has been “largely insufficient,” and noted that the poor state of the roads leading to the airport makes it difficult for Haitian security forces to patrol the area. The companies are among Haiti’s main fiscal contributors.

“You cannot secure an airport if you allow the roads around it to degrade,” the statement read.

In April, the first foreign troops linked to a U.N. force arrived in Haiti to help quell ongoing violence.

The U.N. Security Council in late September approved a plan to authorize a 5,550-member force, which has not fully arrived in the island nation. An unknown number of troops from Chad have so far been deployed.

A report published earlier this year by the International Organization for Migration found that gang violence has displaced more than 1.4 million people in Haiti, with approximately 200,000 of them now living in crowded and underfunded sites in the nation's capital.

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This story was first published on May. 12, 2026. It was updated on May. 27, 2026 to correct the spelling of Jovenel Moïse.

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

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This story clarifies that gangs control 70% of Port-au-Prince, down from 90% previously.

Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) confirmed to Local 4 on Wednesday morning that Guskiewicz will step down to serve as the next president of Clemson University in South Carolina.

In a statement issued on Wednesday from the Office of the President, Guskiewicz cited “discouraging behavior by a few trustees” as a contributing factor in his decision to leave, noting that “At times, too much energy has been spent revisiting past conflicts and internal disagreements rather than focusing collectively on the opportunities and aspirations ahead of us.”

“Effective university leadership requires a shared commitment to collaboration, trust and a forward-looking vision,” the statement read. “While many across this university community have embraced that spirit, it has become increasingly clear that there are differing perspectives within the Board of Trustees regarding how best to move MSU forward.”

Just eight days ago, the MSU Board of Trustees voted overwhelmingly to offer Guskiewicz a new, amended contract that would nearly double his annual base salary from $1.02 million to $2 million and extend his presidential term through 2031, among other changes, the university reported.

In a special Board of Trustees meeting held via Zoom on Sunday, trustees acknowledged that the significant raise was a preventative effort to keep Guskiewicz at MSU, as he was being “aggressively pursued” by other universities.

Guskiewicz’s original contract was set to expire in 2029.

“I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished these past two-plus years,” he said. ”I have shared this decision with the board, and I will remain in my role over the next several weeks to help support a smooth and successful transition."

Roselaine Jean-Pierre, 67, was among two dozen people who gathered at an intersection in Cite Soleil holding tree branches and demanding that police intervene in the area, even as gunshots were ringing nearby.

“I did not do anything to deserve this,” said Jean-Pierre, who fled her home on Sunday, and is now sleeping in the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Some of the protesters said they saw people getting killed over the weekend in Cite Soleil, where burned cars and dead cows could also be observed. Haitian authorities have not released any information on casualties.

“I know of seven people that have been killed and also people that have been shot,” said Michel-Ange Toussaint, who had returned briefly to her home in Cite Soleil to gather some clothes.

She said the attacks on civilians began Sunday around 6 p.m., prompting many people to flee the area in search of safety. “It is our good feet that saved us,” Toussaint said.

Gangs have overtaken Port-au-Prince since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 at his home. Police say they control about 70% of the capital — down from 90% — and have expanded their activities — including looting, kidnapping, sexual assaults and rape — into the countryside. Haiti has not had a president since the assassination.

In a statement released Monday, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders announced the evacuation of its hospital in Cite Soleil following the intense clashes Sunday.

The Centre Hospitalier de Fontaine, another hospital that operates in Cite Soleil, said on Tuesday that it had also suspended operations due to the outbreak of violence that began Sunday, and had to evacuate all of its hospitalized patients, including 11 newborns.

In April, the first foreign troops linked to a U.N. force arrived in Haiti to help quell ongoing violence.

The U.N. Security Council in late September approved a plan to authorize a 5,550-member force, which has not fully arrived in the island nation. An unknown number of troops from Chad have so far been deployed.

A report published earlier this year by the International Organization for Migration found that gang violence has displaced more than 1.4 million people in Haiti, with approximately 200,000 of them now living in crowded and underfunded sites in the nation’s capital.

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This story was first published on May. 12, 2026. It was updated on May. 27, 2026 to correct the spelling of Jovenel Moïse

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

Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment's notice.

Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86% of capacity from before the cutoff. Internet analysis firm Kentik said internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good illustration of usage, was at around 40%.

Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity analyst, said there were still widespread disruptions. “It's too early to say the shutdown is over,” he wrote on X.

An unprecedented shutdown

Iran’s roughly 90 million people have been cut off from the internet for most of 2026, one of the world’s longest and strictest national shutdowns. Young people with online careers saw their incomes evaporate. Job losses and the closure of online businesses added to the war's steep economic costs.

The cutoff made it difficult for Iranian families to communicate through months of unrest and war. At some points, phone lines were also cut off, though they were later restored.

A woman living in Tehran said that for months she was barely able to speak to her sons living abroad. She couldn't believe authorities had restored access, saying she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the outage.

A taxi driver said service was restored but weak. He expressed hope it would improve so he could use messaging apps with family and friends. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Prices spiked during the shutdown, with residents in Tehran at times paying around $7.50 per gigabyte. Prices are back down to around $2.25 for 30 gigabytes, roughly where they were before the protests.

Even then, Iran tightly controlled access to popular social media sites, leading many to rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs. The cost of those workarounds soared during the shutdown, making them unaffordable for many as the economy was battered.

A slow return to service

Businesses have started reappearing online, announcing their return with posts on sites like Instagram and Telegram.

A gamer and tech influencer in the central city of Isfahan said the shutdown had caused him to lose a lot of his audience on YouTube and Instagram, where he had spent years building up a large following.

“All my views and interactions are way down. I’ve been erased from the algorithm,” he said in a voice note sent by WhatsApp, adding that his internet connection was still slower than before the shutdown.

“The situation is such that many content producers have had their income reduced to zero, have moved on to other jobs, or have been forced to sell their equipment to survive,” he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Iran claimed the shutdown was a wartime necessity

Iranian authorities first shut down the internet in January during mass anti-government protests that were eventually stamped out in a violent crackdown. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands detained.

That cutoff was just starting to ease when the government imposed a complete internet blackout after the start of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran's supreme leader and other top officials.

The government faced criticism for the prolonged shutdown, which caused even more harm to an economy devastated by inflation, strikes on key industries and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.

The internet cutoff cost an estimated $30-40 million daily, with indirect losses likely twice that much, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Afshin Kolahi, told a local newspaper last month. About 10 million people have jobs that depend on internet connectivity, according to Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi.

Iranians still had access to a national net, but that has a far narrower reach, and users complained of poor service and heavy censorship. Senior government officials are given SIM cards granting them access to the global internet. Under pressure, the government expanded access to the SIM cards to some professions during the shutdown.

The man won the first prizes from the $2 Blackjack ticket, he won the second prize from the $2,000,000 Bonus Scratch Multiplier ticket.

The 45-year-old man chose to remain anonymous.

He bought his winning tickets at Clyde Park Fuel, located at 2354 Clyde Park Avenue Southwest in Grand Rapids.

“Every once in a while, I’ll buy a $2 ticket, but I typically don’t play the $20 games,” said the man. “While my gas was pumping, I won $20, so I went back inside to cash it. I debated using my winnings on two $10 tickets, but the $2,000,000 Bonus Scratch Multiplier ticket caught my eye, so that’s what I went with.”

He recently visited Lottery headquarters to claim the big prize.

The man chose to receive his prize as a one-time lump sum payment of about $1.3 million rather than annuity payments for the full amount.

With his winnings, he plans to buy a house, take a vacation, and then save the remainder.

The state's Republican leadership filed an emergency appeal with the justices a day after a three-judge court refused to let the state use a map it adopted three years ago that has a majority Black population in just one of its seven congressional districts.

The judges instead required Alabama to continue using a court-ordered map that was put in place for the 2024 elections that includes two districts where Black residents comprise a majority or close to it.

Attorney General Steve Marshall told the court that the state did not intentionally discriminate against Black residents and should be allowed to hold elections this year under a map chosen by lawmakers, not judges.

The appeal is the latest development in the fallout from last month's Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana and weakened the federal Voting Rights Act. That ruling has led Republicans in several Southern states, including Alabama, to take steps to reshape voting districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats.

The redistricting frenzy is part of a broader push by President Donald Trump to try to hold on to Republicans’ slim House majority in the November elections.

The Alabama cases stretches back several years. The three-judge panel in 2023 ruled that a map drawn by Republican state lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black citizens. The court said the state, which is about 27% Black, should have two districts where Black voters are the majority or close to it. The court-selected map was used in 2024.

After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the Louisiana case, Alabama officials moved to implement the 2023 state-drawn map. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed to lift the injunction that had blocked the map’s use and sent the case back to the three-judge panel for reconsideration in light of the Louisiana ruling.

In the meantime, voters cast ballots in Alabama’s May 19 primaries, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey set new special primaries for Aug. 11 in four congressional districts affected by the map switch.

Upon further review, the judicial panel said it was standing behind its initial finding that there was “undisputed evidence” of intentional racial discrimination, a holding that was independent of and unaffected by the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act.

It said the special congressional primaries should instead proceed under the previous court-approved districts.

The use of the court-ordered map led to the 2024 election of U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat. State Republicans are seeking to use a map that would give the GOP an opportunity to reclaim the south Alabama seat.

The state is asking for Supreme Court action by Monday as it makes preparations for the special vote in August.

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This story has been corrected to show the Alabama primaries were May 19, not May 11.

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Associated Press writer Kim Chandler contributed to this report from Montgomery, Ala.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

The weapons systems are Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are used to strike targets deep inside enemy territory, and Patriot and THAAD interceptors that defend against incoming missiles and drones.

“The United States has enough munitions for any plausible scenario in the Iran war, but the depleted inventories have created a window of vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in its new report, provided to The Associated Press. “The time needed to rebuild those inventories has thus become a major concern.”

China has a stated goal of ensuring its military is capable of taking Taiwan by force if necessary by 2027, which experts see as more aspirational than a hard deadline. But Chinese President Xi Jinping warned this month that if Washington mishandles its relations with the self-governing island, the U.S. and China could end up clashing or even in open conflict.

Trump administration is boosting funding, but production takes time

The analysis by the Washington think tank factors in the Republican Trump administration's historic $1.5 trillion defense budget proposal for 2027, which significantly accelerates spending on high-end munitions that began under the Democratic Biden administration. While there's bipartisan agreement in Congress to boost inventories, “the problem today isn’t money; it’s time,” the report said.

“It takes time to expand production capacity and to build these complex systems,” the report said, adding that the window of vulnerability will last “for several years until inventories return to their previous levels and another several years before they get to the levels that war planners desire.”

Although munitions inventories are classified, CSIS said sufficient public information exists in Pentagon budget materials to estimate production timelines.

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have insisted the U.S. is capable of fighting any war. They have pushed defense contractors to speed up munitions production, with Hegseth telling lawmakers last month that military spending under Trump will help manufacturers double or even triple their capacities.

During Trump’s Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Hegseth lauded the president’s efforts to expand the nation’s defense manufacturing sector, with private contractors investing in new plants and production lines “so that we’re getting weapons faster than ever.”

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement that the military “has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing.”

“We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests,” Parnell said.

Some military experts have pushed back. Pentagon officials “knew the reality of our military stockpiles and hopefully told someone, ‘Hey, if we go to this fight, even in the most conservative estimates, we are drawing down our stockpiles to a critical level,’” said Virginia Burger, a senior defense policy analyst at the Project On Government Oversight watchdog group and a former Marine officer.

Concerns about diminished stockpiles were a theme at recent congressional hearings. For Democrats, the munitions supply is a damning metric against the Iran war, which Trump launched without lawmakers' approval. Some Republicans argue that the problem stems from the U.S. sending Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine after Russia invaded in 2022, although several American allies use those systems.

The roots of the predicament can be traced to the end of the Cold War, said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at CSIS who co-authored the study with research associate Chris H. Park.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the U.S. assumed future wars would be short and regional with little need for large numbers of such high-end weapons, Cancian said in an interview. The Pentagon ordered relatively low numbers, assuming the military would not need many of them. Military contractors responded in kind, relying on a relatively small manufacturing footprint to build them.

Russia’s war with Ukraine showed that wars could be protracted and require deep inventories of advanced weapons, Cancian said. At the same time, U.S. military strategists were war-gaming possible conflicts in the western Pacific.

“The thinking started to change, but it just takes time to build inventories,” Cancian said, adding that part of the challenge is bringing up to speed a complicated web of supply chains and subcontractors that produce very novel components.

President Joe Biden's administration should get some credit for starting conversations with the defense industry, putting money into the industrial base and ramping up production, said Cancian, who oversaw acquisitions of military hardware at the Office of Management and Budget under Presidents George W. Bush, a Republican, and Barack Obama, a Democrat.

“A lot of people in the Trump administration are inclined to say that everything was terrible until they arrived, and that’s not true,” Cancian said. “Now, it is true that the Trump administration really increased funding.”

How long it will take to rebuild key stockpiles

The U.S. fired 1,000-plus Tomahawk missiles at Iran, and it could take until late 2030 to fully replenish the prewar inventory, CSIS estimates show.

Fewer than 200 Tomahawks are made a year because of small orders in the past, the report says. However, manufacturer Raytheon has a goal of ramping up capacity to more than 1,000 per year.

RTX, Raytheon's parent company, declined to comment on the CSIS findings because it had not yet seen the report. But RTX pointed to investments of several billion dollars to boost production, including expanding facilities in Alabama and Arizona.

For in-demand air defense systems, replacing as many as 290 THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, interceptors that shot down incoming Iranian drones and missiles could take until the end of 2029, CSIS estimates. Replenishing more than 1,000 Patriot interceptors should wrap up in mid-2029.

Lockheed Martin is significantly boosting production of rounds for both systems, while deliveries of THAADs “were apparently re-sequenced to prioritize U.S. needs over those of allies and partners,” CSIS noted.

"Patriot deliveries pose a dilemma for the United States because of the need to replenish its own inventories, help Ukraine defend against Russian missile attacks, and meet the needs of 17 other countries that use the interceptor," the report said.

Lockheed Martin said in a statement that it's investing $9 billion through 2030 and “is already delivering tangible results to meet heightened munitions demand, including a new facility in Alabama announced last week along with more than 20 others across the United States.”

In the meantime, CSIS said a potential conflict with China is “not all bleak,” with the U.S. military recently displaying its capabilities against Iran, Venezuela and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“China is deeply aware that it has no recent combat experience and that it performed poorly in its last war — against Vietnam in 1979," the report said. "That difference in experience may preserve deterrence until munitions inventories are restored.”

The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office alleges that Ziad Khalel, 55, accepted a $10,000 retainer to represent a client as their attorney in December 2025. However, Khalel’s law license had been suspended two months earlier after pleading guilty to healthcare fraud in a separate case and agreeing to stop practicing law, retaining clients or advertising his legal services, according to prosecutors.

Khalel was arraigned at the 41A District Court in Sterling Heights on Tuesday for one count of false pretenses with intent to defraud — a five-year felony — and an additional offense for being a habitual offender, an aggravating sentencing factor.

He received a $7,500 personal bond and is scheduled for a probable cause conference before Judge Eric Douglas Shepherd on Thursday, June 4.

“No one is above the law,” said Macomb County Prosecutor Peter J. Lucido in a statement. “Our office applies the law evenly and without exception. A defendant’s profession — whether attorney, law enforcement, or otherwise — does not alter our commitment to protecting victims and pursuing justice.”

Taste of Ann Arbor will run from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 31st in downtown Ann Arbor.

Watch the video above to learn more about the event and to see some of the food that will be featured.

The arrests took place at the Retiro bus station in Buenos Aires, the Argentine Federal Police confirmed in a statement Monday.

The two detainees, who were not identified, remained in custody awaiting extradition proceedings requested by the United States.

According to local police, the two Chilean citizens were part of a crime ring that targeted the homes of prominent athletes in the U.S. and Argentina, including NFL stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce and former tennis player Juan Martín Del Potro.

Targets also included the homes of NBA players Luka Doncic and Mike Conley Jr.

In 2024, the NFL issued a security alert to teams and the players’ union following the burglaries involving the homes of Mahomes and Kelce.

According to the FBI, organized crime groups from South America used publicly available information and social media to track athletes’ habits and travel. The groups used technology allowing them to bypass alarm systems, block wireless internet connections and disable devices, cover security cameras and hide their identities.

Jewelry, millions of dollars in cash, trophies and medals were among items stolen from residences while the athletes were out of town.

In February, seven Chilean citizens were charged in a federal court in Florida with conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

For 17 years, the university’s “Faces on Design” program has paired seniors from the College of Engineering & Science and the College of Health Professions with local clients to develop customized technology that doesn’t already exist on store shelves. “It can’t be anything that’s on the market. It can’t be something you can buy on Amazon,” said Dr. Molly McClelland, Ph.D., a nursing professor at Detroit Mercy. “What we’re trying to do is have our students use their academic - their education - to support the mission of our university.”

McClelland said the process starts with a blank slate - and real lives at the center. “We give them a blank sheet of paper and we say, here’s the students from engineering and nursing disciplines, here’s the client, figure it out,” she said.

One recent project focused on a challenge faced by Bobbi Stevens, a polio survivor and client volunteer: transferring from her wheelchair into a car. After visiting Stevens’ home and observing her daily routine, engineering student Colin Gaddey said the team realized existing transfer boards weren’t meeting the need.

“The ones that are out there on the market are just a sheet of wood, basically,” Gaddey said. The student-built prototype hooks onto the car door and uses an adjustable leg for stability, bridging the gap between wheelchair and seat while staying lightweight and adaptable across different vehicles. “It’s lightweight,” he said, adding that the leg and hook are adjustable “so it’s very versatile for other type of cars.”

For Stevens, the impact is immediate. “Yes, it works great,” she said. “It will give me the freedom that I was lacking before.”

Stevens said she learned about the program after McClelland visited her post-polio support group to share the opportunity. “I was so excited about it right away,” Stevens said, adding that the experience “worked out beautifully” and that she “had a ball working with the students.”

Beyond the device itself, Stevens described the collaboration as meaningful on both sides. “They’re all wonderful and smart, and I just had so much fun with them,” she said. “Learning from them and having them learn from me.”

Gaddey said the work isn’t necessarily finished once the semester ends. “I’m still going on campus with my professor working on stuff - different improvements,” he said, noting it could take years to bring the concept to market. Still, he believes the design could fill a gap in existing options. “I don’t think there’s anything like this out there,” he said.

McClelland said the program’s broader goal is to ensure people with disabilities aren’t overlooked - and to train students to solve problems with both skill and empathy. “Oftentimes people who have physical disabilities are forgotten,” she said. “And so this is - that’s the concept that we’re doing with this collaborative program.”

To learn more about the program, visit UDMercy.edu.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) issued the new vaccine recommendations in April in response to the recent uptick of measles cases across Southeast Michigan.

Over the next five weeks, the state reported seeing a 210% jump in early vaccine rates against MMR in the seven counties that received the recommendation — which included Washtenaw, Monroe, Wayne, Oakland, Jackson, Livingston and Lenawee counties.

“The increase in early MMR vaccines helped protect Michigan babies during this measles outbreak,” said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive, in a news release. “Measles is incredibly transmissible and because people can transmit the virus before they experience symptoms, we made this recommendation to keep the most vulnerable members of our communities safe.”

Though no more community transmission or outbreaks have been reported since the early dose recommendation was ordered, Bagdasarian says Michigan residents should still take steps to protect their families and communities by staying up to date on all vaccines.

Families still interested in vaccinating their babies early for MMR should talk with their healthcare provider. For more information about the measles in Michigan, visit michigan.gov/measles.

On Wednesday he added minority investor in the Cleveland Guardians to his resumé.

The Guardians announced before their game against the Washington Nationals that the Kansas City Chiefs tight end has purchased a minority share in the franchise.

The Cleveland Heights native bought a small share of David Blitzer's 35% stake. Blitzer can become the controlling owner after the 2027 season or he can wait to exercise that option later.

“The opportunity came across my desk and I just couldn’t say no,” Kelce said on the “New Heights” podcast with his brother, Jason Kelce. “These guys (Blitzer and majority owner Paul Dolan) gave me the opportunity to show my Cleveland love and plant my roots in Cleveland forever, no matter what. It’s an awesome feeling knowing that a childhood kid that grew up on the east side is now part owner of his favorite baseball team.”

Kelce lettered in football, basketball and baseball at Cleveland Heights High School. He was a Cleveland Plain Dealer baseball player of the week after going 14 for 22 with two home runs and 12 RBIs during one stretch in May 2008, his senior year. He also played on a collegiate summer team in 2010 while attending the University of Cincinnati.

“Travis Kelce knows what it takes to win at the highest levels and he’s exemplified that throughout his playing career and in the way he shows up as a community leader and businessman,” Dolan and Blitzer said in a joint statement. “He cares deeply for Cleveland and Northeast Ohio and is committed to supporting our mission of building out a world-class organization that helps uplift the communities we serve. It’s great to welcome Travis home and we know he’ll make a lasting impact here."

Kelce was wearing a Guardians' City Connect jersey during the podcast and recounted going to games growing up. The brothers said their favorite players during childhood were Albert Belle and Jim Thome.

“There’s so many countless memories of the 1990s and then early 2000s where it’s in me to always root for the Guards and always wanted to be a part of them from,” he said. “It’s a dream come true for a Cleveland kid. Any Cleveland kid would be through the roof right now, and I’m happy to be the honorable one to get to do it for us.”

Kelce and Swift were in Cleveland last weekend and attended Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Cavaliers and New York Knicks.

Kelce's first act as part of the Guardians will be to throw a first pitch on June 14 against the Detroit Tigers. He tried to throw the first pitch during Cleveland's 2023 home opener against Seattle but ended up throwing a ball that spiked near the plate and skipped to the backstop.

Guardians manager Stephen Vogt was mostly thrilled to hear about Kelce joining the organization. Vogt is a die-hard San Francisco 49ers fan and hasn’t forgiven Kelce for the Super Bowl wins over his favorite football team.

“I’m still a little bit bitter because the Chiefs beat the Niners twice in the Super Bowl,” Vogt said before the series finale against the Nationals. “But outside of that, it’s pretty cool to have Kelce on board.”

Kelce becomes the second member of the Chiefs to have a stake in a baseball team. Patrick Mahomes has a share in the Kansas City Royals and tweeted a video of Kelce's first pitch in congratulating him.

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AP freelance writer Tom Withers contributed to this report.

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

Schoenherr Roofing, based in the greater Detroit area, was named a 2025 MVP Top Performer by Owens Corning, one of the world’s largest shingle manufacturers, for the Great Lakes region. The company was among just 13 contractors nationwide to receive the distinction out of a pool exceeding 100,000 Owens Corning-certified roofers.

“We’re one of 13 that got this award in 2025 for the MVP top performer,” said Ross Schoenherr, founder and owner of the company.

Schoenherr started the business in 1995, putting a roof on his own rental property in Waterford at age 23. Thirty years later, he says the core philosophy hasn’t changed.

“Under-promise, over-deliver, just not being a traditional or the stereotypical contractor, just doing what we say we’re going to do when we say we’re going to do it,” he said during an appearance on Live in the D.

That philosophy, he says, is what separates Schoenherr Roofing from a wave of consolidation sweeping the industry. Private equity has poured into the roofing sector over the past five years, with large investment-backed companies acquiring local firms across the country.

Schoenherr has watched it happen - and kept his distance.

“We don’t report to investors or other people like that. So, it’s family run. I care deeply,” he said.

Owens Corning, founded in 1938 and a Fortune 500 fixture for over seven decades, evaluates contractors on customer reviews, business integrity, and growth. Schoenherr Roofing has accumulated more than 1,000 five-star reviews online, with a 4.9-star average rating.

Schoenherr said the award reflects a deliberate choice to stay lean and personal.

“We’re going to keep it small enough to serve, keep it small enough to where we can still give personalized service, really, truly care, truly give you the best experience you’ve ever had or ever will have.”

The company has served roughly 7,000 homeowners in the Metro Detroit area. Free in-home estimates are available at mymichiganroof.com.

Green, known for his protests during President Donald Trump's speeches, has served in Congress since 2005. He became a standard-bearer of progressive legislation on racial justice, often drawing the ire of Republicans.

“I am so honored to have served for these many years, more than twenty. And I’m honored to have done some things that I’m very proud of,” Green told his supporters during an election night event.

“You probably see me smiling and it’s because it’s because this is not the end,” he added as the audience cheered. “This is the beginning of a new chapter.”

In his primary contest, Green, 78, became a target of the cryptocurrency industry for his opposition to the emerging technology.

“Rep. Green’s defeat proves that anti-crypto hostility carries real electoral consequences, making him the first Democratic incumbent this cycle to lose his seat,” said Geoff Vetter, a spokesperson for Fairshake, a pro-cryptocurrency super PAC that spent millions in the runoff to unseat Green. “Fairshake was the difference-maker in this race, and we will continue to aggressively back leaders like Rep. Menefee across the country.”

The former top attorney for Texas’ largest county, Menefee, 38, was sworn into Congress in February after winning a January special election to succeed the late Rep. Sylvester Turner. Turner had died in February of last year and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not set a special election for the seat for months. Democrats denounced the delay as an effort to protect Republicans' razor-thin majority in Congress.

Menefee lauded Green’s career in a statement following his win over the congressman, calling Green an “icon” and vowed to carry on his work in Congress.

“For decades, Congressman Green has done what so few in public life are willing to do: he has spoken truth to power, directly to their faces, without flinching,” said Menefee. “He protested with his body, his voice, and his career on the line. He stood in the well of the United States House of Representatives and called President Trump out to his face, even when he stood alone. That is a legacy that will outlast any election.”

Menefee also condemned the state’s electoral process.

Under previous maps, Green and Menefee had served in neighboring districts before the state’s Republican lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional maps in an effort to create more Republican-leaning seats.

“Republicans have made this hard on purpose,” Menefee told his supporters. “They delayed this election. They drew maps designed to dilute our power. They made you come back to the polls over and over again because they were hoping you would get tired and give up. You didn’t. Now it’s time to finish the job.”

Green in 2017 became the second Democrat to file an article of impeachment against Trump during the president’s first term and has continued to call for the president’s removal. Last year, Green filed three separate articles of impeachment against Trump, including for abuses of power and allegedly inciting death threats against lawmakers and judges.

Following Tuesday's runoff, Trump called Green “one of the most mentally deficient Congressmen in the history of our Country” in a social media post cheering the results.

“But I will miss that lunatic not screaming and violently waving his cane at me during my next State of the Union Speech,” Trump wrote.

For a growing number of adults, that gap is more than just an inconvenience. Royal Swim School wants to close it, one video at a time, with its new digital platform, Zero to Swim.

A poll conducted by Gallop found 55 percent of people around the world can’t swim without help. Researchers interviewed more than 150,000 people from roughly 140 countries, aged 15 and older.

“I think everybody should be able to save their own life,” said Katie Sullivan, co-owner of Royal Swim School. “There’s water everywhere, and you should be able to save yourself no matter what.”

Fear tops list of barriers for adult learners

Sullivan said fear is the biggest obstacle keeping adults out of the pool — and that hesitation is more common than many people think.

Sullivan added that some adults feel embarrassed taking in-person lessons alongside children or other beginners. Zero to Swim eliminates that barrier by allowing learners to work through video lessons independently, at a pool of their choosing with a lifeguard present.

“They can go to a pool and do it on their own, but also at their own pace, because everybody learns at their pace,” Sullivan said.

What’s inside Zero to Swim

The course walks learners through the basics — from entering the water safely to floating, breathing technique and freestyle swimming. Videos generally run about three minutes, with the longest clocking in at nine minutes.

“Repetition is key,” Sullivan said. “Getting comfortable in the water, if you’re literally starting at zero where you don’t want to put your face in the water — the videos start with how to get in the water safely.”

Sullivan said the back float is one of the most important survival skills taught in the program.

“Floating in the water is just freedom,” she said. “The best way to save your life is a back float. And when you do that and your ears are underwater and you’re in the right body position, you can hear what’s going on underwater, and you’ve got that free-floating feeling. It’s actually really relaxing.”

Co-owner Zach Ortiz said the mental hurdle of getting into the pool is often the hardest part.

“To be honest, I think it’s just overcoming the fear of getting into the water,” Ortiz said. “I’ve taught lots of adults, and what I tend to see is once we can get them to relax, they start to learn everything really quickly.”

For learners who need extra support, Sullivan said the team offers live FaceTime or Zoom sessions — and will also review video submissions and send back personalized analysis.

The course costs $99 and includes access to the full library of lessons. Learners who follow Zero to Swim on Instagram or TikTok and comment “swim” can receive at least $20 off.

One swimmer’s story: ‘It’s never too late’

Courtney Cook, an editor at Local 4, knew she wanted to learn how to swim. She just didn’t know where to start.

“The Y was full, all these places were full,” Cook said.

I remember someone mentioning, why not try Aqua-Tots and I thought it was a joke, she recalled.

“I was like, wait, there’s nothing but kids on the page,” she said.

Before turning 40 years old, Cook completed swim lessons and learned how to breathe underwater, float on her back and freestyle. She said the experience was about far more than just learning strokes.

“I have a few reasons why I wanted to learn how to swim,” Cook said. “One was for survival. I didn’t want to feel uncomfortable when I would go out with friends.”

Cook also cited a deeper motivation — representation.

“You don’t see a lot of people of color that know how to swim, unfortunately,” she said. “So, I wanted to beat the odds. I even put it on my social media — beating the stereotype.”

She also swam in honor of a family member.

“My aunt was learning how to swim in her 60s, and unfortunately she passed away and she didn’t finish the class, so I wanted to finish for her,” Cook said.

Overcoming a childhood trauma

One of the biggest challenges Cook faced wasn’t physical — it was mental. She had nearly drowned as a child and had blocked out the memory until her swim instructor asked about it.

“The challenging part, actually, for me — I’m an overthinker,” Cook said. “So, this was the one place I couldn’t think. I had to allow myself to get comfortable with the water and trust the water so that I could float.”

Cook said her instructor helped her recognize the connection between that childhood experience and her hesitation in the water.

“The minute I wasn’t thinking and I would clear my mind, I was floating,” Cook said.

She recalled the near-drowning incident from when she was younger than eight years old, saying she had followed an older cousin into deeper water and began struggling before a bystander pulled her out.

Cook’s advice for hesitant adults

Cook, who documented her swimming journey on social media, said she hopes her story encourages others who are on the fence.

“I would just say it’s never too late,” Cook said. “We always pivot in our lives. I’ll say it — I’m 40. I’m not ashamed of learning at 40. We hear it all the time, people talk about picking up a new hobby or switching careers. So, why can’t we do it with swimming? There’s no age limit.”

This summer, Cook said her goal is to get comfortable in the deep end — and to eventually go kayaking without a second thought.

“The water won’t determine if I’m gonna have a good mood on a cruise or kayaking,” she said. “I’ll know how to survive.”

The median employee at companies in the S&P 500 earned $89,744, reflecting a 4.7% increase year over year. While that gain outpaced the rate of inflation in 2025, many workers were still feeling pinched by the accumulation of higher prices over the past few years and had to cut corners to make ends meet and run up credit card debt to pay for everyday necessities.

The Associated Press’ CEO compensation survey, which uses data analyzed for The AP by Equilar, included pay data for 337 executives at S&P 500 companies who have served at least two full consecutive fiscal years at their companies, which filed proxy statements between Jan. 1 and April 30.

Here's a look at some highlights from the survey.

The pay gap

At half the companies in AP’s survey it would take the worker at the middle of the company’s pay scale 200 years to make what the CEO did in one, up from 192 years in last year's survey. Companies have been required to disclose this so-called pay ratio since 2018.

While the biggest gaps occur at companies where the CEO received compensation loaded with one-time awards of stock, the pay ratio also tends to be highest at companies in industries where wages are typically low. For instance, at Coca-Cola, its CEO earned nearly 1,739 times the median pay of $17,947 for its workers. The CEO at the retailer TJX Cos. makes about 1,774 times what a worker making the company’s median pay does.

Sarah Anderson, who directs the Global Economy Project at the progressive Institute for Policy Studies, noted in an email that there are ballot initiative campaigns in San Francisco and Los Angeles to raise taxes on companies with sizable gaps between CEO and worker pay.

“At a time when working families are struggling with rising costs, it’s obscene to see CEO pay continuing to skyrocket,” Anderson wrote.

Overall, wages and benefits netted by private-sector workers in the U.S. rose 3.4% through 2025, according to the Labor Department. The average worker in the U.S. makes $67,000 a year. That figure rises to $96,000 when benefits such as health care and other insurance are included.

The nature of CEO pay

While many people may think of a pay package as consisting of salary, bonus and some perks, those components make up only a small percentage of pay for the modern CEO.

Many companies have heeded calls from shareholders to tie CEO compensation more closely to performance. As a result, a large proportion of pay packages consist of stock awards, which the CEO often can’t cash in for years, if at all, unless the company meets certain targets, typically a higher stock price or market value or improved operating profits. And if the CEO delivers on those metrics, companies often give them one-time rewards as incentives to stay on and not look for a bigger payday elsewhere.

Shareholders can weigh in on a CEO's pay package through “say on pay” votes at a company's annual meeting. But the votes are non-binding and most pay plans pass with overwhelming support. The average “yes” vote at companies in this year's survey was around 90%.

Big rewards, lofty goals

As CEO pay has grown significantly over the past few decades, criticism of the lofty payouts has largely come from worker advocates and certain members of Congress.

Elon Musk's pay package is so extraordinary that even the pope weighed in.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla, received compensation valued at $132.3 billion, all in the form of stock awards. To actually get the shares, Musk must meet ambitious targets over the next 10 years for the company's market value and Tesla's electric vehicles, as well as his futuristic goals of developing a fleet of robotaxis and an army of humanoid robots.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shankh Mitra of Welltower received the second-largest compensation package in the survey at $821.1 million, the bulk of it in stock awards. Since October 2020, when he became CEO of the healthcare real estate investment trust, and October 2025, Welltower's stock price tripled. Mitra can only receive the full compensation, beyond a $110,000 annual salary, after a 10-year period.

CEO Hock Tan's pay package at Broadcom, valued at $205.3 million, covers the years 2028-2030 — companies assign a value at the time the package is awarded — and is tied to Tan's ability to greatly increase the revenue Broadcom generates from artificial intelligence, making it one of the few companies at this time to use AI as a benchmark in its compensation plans.

“Use of AI considerations or metrics in incentive plans has not yet taken hold as a majority practice,” said Kelly Malafis, founding partner at Compensation Advisory Partners, in an email, although she expects that could change going forward.

David Zaslav was at the center of a takeover battle that ended with him selling Warner Bros. to Paramount Skydance for $31 a share, up from $12.54 before reports of Paramount’s interest in a deal came out. For negotiating the deal at a premium and also exceeding certain financial and strategic goals, Warner gave Zaslav a pay package valued at $165 million, fourth largest in the survey. Since becoming CEO in 2007, Zaslav's compensation has totaled $1.1 billion, according to Equilar.

Big payouts for bankers

CEOs of three the nation's biggest banks got rewarded for yearslong efforts to retool their companies and revive a stagnant stock price.

Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon's pay package totaled almost $119 million — including stock valued at $80 million he can receive after five years. Goldman's board pointed to the 57% gain in the company's shares, as well as a hefty increase in its earnings per share. Solomon also sold off the company's Apple Card portfolio after an unsuccessful effort to expand Goldman's consumer-focused business.

Jane Fraser of Citigroup received a pay package valued at $95.8 million — tops among the 27 women CEOs in this year's survey and the highest-ever for a woman CEO in the survey's history. Fraser received a one-time award valued at $25 million in restricted stock and options after being elected Citi's chairman. She also got a one-time award for overseeing a wholesale reorganization of Citi into a leaner company, including laying off thousands of workers.

Overall, the median compensation for women CEOs in the survey fell 2.6% to $18.1 million, compared to a 6.4% increase for their male counterparts to $17.7 billion.

Wells Fargo gave CEO Charles Scharf a pay package worth $94.5 million after his yearslong effort to lead the bank back from a scandal involving fake bank accounts that landed Wells under federal supervision. And new scandals emerged along the way. The Federal Reserve finally let Wells leave the penalty box last year.

Other notables

In his last year as CEO of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett received compensation worth $389,488 — down 4% from the year prior.

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg's compensation was valued at $25.1 million and almost all of it involved costs for the company to provide security for him and his family, as well as the use of corporate aircraft.

Jensen Huang of Nvidia, the most valuable publicly traded company, got a pay package valued at $36.3 million. He didn't make the AP survey because Nvidia filed its proxy after April 30.

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Editors Dorothea Degen and Paul Harloff, and reporters Bernard Condon, Matt Ott, Alex Veiga, Ken Sweet and Chris Rugaber contributed.

Meanwhile, Russian lawmakers have backed a draft bill to have bank employees join the fight against Ukraine’s long-range drones that strike deep inside Russia — with trained bank staff shooting down the unmanned aircraft.

The steps came after a recent escalation in aerial attacks by both sides in the more than four-year war that followed Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor. Neither side has been able to make much progress on the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line.

Also on Wednesday, Anne Keast-Butler, head of U.K.’s intelligence agency GCHQ, asserted that Russian President Vladimir “Putin is going backwards on the battlefield." New data shows that "almost half a million Russian soldiers have now been killed since the conflict began,” she added.

Ukraine has pounded Russian targets, especially oil facilities and manufacturing plants, with its domestically produced drones. At the same time, the Russian military has intensified its aerial attacks, firing almost 90 missiles as well as hundreds of drones at Kyiv last weekend in an effort to overwhelm air defenses.

Zelenskyy seeks more Patriot defense systems

The Ukrainian leader urged Trump and Congress in a letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press, to supply more Patriot PAC-3 missiles and other air defense systems, warning that deliveries to Ukraine are falling dangerously short as the Iran war diverts U.S. stocks.

Ukraine has raised its drone interception rate to more than 90%, the letter says, and Ukrainian specialists have helped countries in the Middle East — specifically the Gulf Arab region — strengthen air defenses. They have also helped at American military bases in the Mideast, the letter says.

But Ukraine cannot yet produce its own anti-missile defense systems, Zelenskyy said, and for that relies “almost exclusively on the United States.”

“For us — for a nation fighting for its survival — there is hardly anything more painful to see than Patriot batteries with no missiles loaded,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Deliveries, he says, are “no longer keeping up with the reality of the threat we face.”

Washington did not immediately comment on the letter.

The U.S. weapons that European nations and Canada buy to donate to Ukraine are a vital component of the country’s air defenses, but only a few NATO allies are investing significant sums in the arrangement, alliance officials say.

Russia wants bank employees to join the fight against Ukrainian drones

The ambitious plan approved by the country’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday envisages banks installing electronic jamming systems on their premises while selected employees would be trained to shoot down incoming drones.

And with banks in almost every town, their incorporation into Russia's air defenses could help expand its cover.

The bill, which state news agency Interfax said was first presented last August and later expanded in scope, must still be approved by the upper house Federation Council and signed by Putin before coming into force.

Russia is finding it hard to protect its large land mass from a growing number of attacks by increasingly sophisticated Ukrainian long-range drones. Smaller drones are also holding back Russian troops along the front line, Western analysts and officials say.

As the intensity and depth of Ukrainian drone attacks have increased, Russian authorities have encouraged businesses to contribute to protective measures against aerial strikes.

Russian banks are not known to have been a prime target for Ukrainian drones in the war that followed Moscow’s 2022 invasion. The plan encompasses Russia’s central bank and other top institutions, including majority state-owned Sberbank.

With little details included in the bill, it has raised questions about how such a project would work. The widespread installation of equipment and training of staff in how to use it would require a huge organizational effort.

With Putin keen to shield Russians from the war, the plan could work against his efforts by involving regular citizens in it and making the consequences of the invasion more visible.

Russia's need for drone help suggests its defense are failing, analyst says

The proposed measure reflects growing problems for Russia against Ukraine’s increasingly sophisticated drones, according to Thomas Withington, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The draft bill “seems to indicate that … military-level drone defense capabilities in Russia are failing, because if they were working you wouldn’t need to do that,” Withington told The Associated Press.

“This situation is not improving for Russia,” he said, noting that Moscow is battling to keep up with Ukrainian drone innovations.

The measure seeks to “try and offload some of the burden of drone protection to the non-military, non-law enforcement sectors,” which are under strain, he said.

The bill says bank employees may jam or intercept drone control signals, and damage or destroy uncrewed aerial, underwater and ground vehicles threatening their facilities, without waiting for a response from security services.

“Jamming will be used to make it more difficult for (the drones) to target and attack the relevant targets,” Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, told Russian media outlet RBK. “Plus, we’ll also use means to shoot down these drones, thereby protecting the relevant targets.”

Each organization would determine which employees would be trained to deploy the measures.

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

Gov. Jenniffer González said the executive order would allow her administration to accelerate projects to protect natural resources and vulnerable coastal communities. The government said in a statement that rising sea levels, storm surges and other factors have intensified coastal erosion in Puerto Rico.

González pledged to help northern towns including Loiza, where people have been evacuated and chunks of asphalt from coastal roads have tumbled into the ocean following heavy swells.

The order was signed just days before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

The cost of the projects has not yet been determined.

The victory could provide a model for similar campaigns gaining traction in states including California and Illinois, where labor organizers are increasingly targeting app-based industries as drivers also grapple with the rapid expansion of self-driving technology.

As drivers waved signs and chanted with the gold dome of the Massachusetts State House providing a backdrop, labor leaders described Friday's certification as the largest private-sector organizing win since Ford autoworkers unionized in 1941.

Jean Fredo, who has driven for Uber for more than seven years, said he hopes the union will bring better pay, stronger protections against sudden deactivations and more stability for drivers.

“With the union, it will not feel like we’re working for nothing,” he said in French through a translator. “Now the money will not only stay in the billionaire’s pockets. The money will actually come to the workers who work very hard.”

Uber and Lyft said they planned to work with the new bargaining framework as negotiations move forward. Uber said it would work with the union and regulators while preserving “driver flexibility and hard-won benefits,” while Lyft said it was committed to “engaging in good faith” and “helping drivers succeed while keeping rideshare affordable and dependable for everyone who counts on it.”

The certification became possible after the state’s voters approved a 2024 ballot measure creating a first-in-the-nation framework allowing ride-hailing drivers to unionize and bargain collectively while remaining independent contractors — a model some business groups and legal scholars argue could face antitrust challenges under federal law. Organizers say the union will ultimately represent nearly 70,000 drivers statewide.

Drivers hope for relief on wages, deactivations

“Without the support of the drivers, we wouldn’t be here,” Victoria Acosta, a mother who drives for both Uber and Lyft, said in Spanish through a translator. She said she hopes the victory inspires drivers in other states.

Uber and Lyft drivers are generally classified as independent contractors rather than employees, meaning they are not covered by many traditional labor protections under federal law. Drivers typically use their own vehicles, pay for expenses such as gas and maintenance themselves and can choose when and how long they work through the apps.

Fredo said when he started driving for Uber he appreciated the flexibility and the ability to make his own schedule while still being present for his family. But over time, he said, he found himself working longer hours while earning less as gas and maintenance costs climbed.

Drivers can also lose access to the apps with little warning, he said.

“I live with stress — always scared to lose my app. This is not a way to live," said Fredo, who helped sign up hundreds of other drivers at airports and gathering spots around the Boston area.

“This is my family,” he said, holding up a photo of his four children. “I’m fighting for a better life for them — just like everyone else is fighting for their families. My dream is to save and send my kids to college, and I believe we will get there.”

A labor fight shadowed by automation fears

Supporters say rising vehicle costs, fluctuating pay and opaque app algorithms have fueled frustration among drivers who pay many work expenses themselves. Uber and Lyft have argued that drivers value the flexibility of app-based work and have opposed efforts that could reclassify workers or alter the industry’s business model.

Massachusetts regulators are considering new ride-hailing rules involving safety standards and driver oversight. Days before the union certification, Uber warned in a blog post that some of the proposals could raise costs and reduce flexibility for drivers, while supporters said the changes are intended to strengthen safety and accountability.

The organizing effort has also unfolded alongside the rapid expansion of autonomous vehicle technology. Massachusetts still requires a licensed human operator inside autonomous vehicles tested on public roads.

Waymo has expanded driverless taxi operations in cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, heightening anxiety among some ride-hailing drivers about the future of their jobs.

Autumn Weintraub, executive director of the App Drivers Union, said drivers across the country regularly communicate with one another about changing conditions in the industry, including the expansion of autonomous vehicles.

“Drivers now have an official organization and can speak with one voice about what’s happening in this industry,” Weintraub said. “We cannot let billions of dollars leave Massachusetts and go to Silicon Valley. That money feeds people’s families, that money pays the rent."

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This story was first published on May 26, 2026. It was updated on May 27, 2026, to correct a quote’s attribution to the union's executive director, Autumn Weintraub, not spokesperson Julie Blust.

Background: 2 cats rescued after e-bike starts fire in Ann Arbor garage

According to authorities, it happened just after 2 a.m., May 26, at a home on Ravenwood Avenue, near the intersection of Miller Avenue and Maple Road.

The footage shows a flash of light as the fire ignites, followed by flames and thick smoke quickly filling the space. The force of the exploding battery blew open the door connecting the garage to the living area, allowing smoke to spread throughout the home.

You can watch the footage in the video player above.

Firefighters found two cats inside the home, including one that required oxygen at the scene.

Both cats were transported to an emergency veterinary hospital on Jackson Avenue for treatment.

The resident was not home at the time of the fire but was alerted by the home’s security cameras.

The Ann Arbor Fire Department said the battery was not charging at the time of the fire and that the owner “did everything right.”

Related: An ‘explosion-proof bag’ failed on Mackinac Island. Here’s the e-bike battery safety rules that actually work

E-bike safety: What riders need to know

• E-bikes and e-scooters typically run on lithium-ion batteries, which can overheat, catch fire or even explode if damaged, defective or misused. Fires fueled by these batteries burn extremely hot and release toxic gases.
• Experts recommend only purchasing and using devices, batteries and chargers listed by a nationally recognized testing laboratory. Riders should always follow the manufacturer’s instructions and use only the original or compatible charger and battery.
• When it comes to charging and storage, riders should avoid charging past full and charge devices one at a time to prevent circuit overload. Batteries should be kept at room temperature.
• Batteries should also be kept away from direct sunlight, hot vehicles, liquids and children, and should be stored away from exit doors and flammable materials.
• Repairs should only be performed by a qualified professional. Lithium-ion batteries should never be thrown in the trash -- they should be recycled or disposed of according to local waste guidelines.
• Riders should stop using a battery immediately if it shows any warning signs, including unusual odor, color change, excessive heat, physical deformation, leaking, smoking or an inability to hold a charge.
• If a fire breaks out, leave the area immediately, do not attempt to fight the fire and call 911.

More e-bike safety tips can be found on the official National Fire Protection Association website.

Moody measures the City’s Issuer and General Obligation Unlimited Tax (GOULT) and S&P measures Detroit’s Unlimited Tax General Obligation (UTGO) bond.

Before Moody rated Detroit as Baa1, now moody raises its rating to A3.

S&P raises it’s rating for the city from BBB to BBB+, one step before “A”.

Moody’s rating brings the city to an “A” for the first time since 1999.

This is Detroit’s 12th consecutive year with an upgrade.

During the city’s 2013 bankruptcy, Detroit’s credit rating had fallen to junk bond status.

In 2024 Detroit returned to investment grade.

The City has steadily rebuilt its financial standing through governance and operating performance.

The dual credit rating increase also came the same week a federal bankruptcy court judge closed its 13-year-old case with the city.

Moody’s report noted: “The upgrade to A3 reflects the city’s strengthened financial resilience on par with A3 peers, supported by consistently solid operating performance, strong reserves, low leverage and good governance practices.”

Both agencies assigned a stable outlook for Detroit, S&P expressing its strong confidence in the Motor City’s long-term financial health and resiliency.

Mayor Mary Sheffield says the dual upgrade shows fiscal discipline can co-exist alongside increased investment in residents and neighborhoods

Recent and ongoing initiatives in Detroit

Investing in People and Neighborhoods

• block-level neighborhood investment, including a $9.5M program to eliminate the entire 6300-location backlog of sidewalk replacement requests, Brighten Up the Block initiative with the Public Lighting Authority to add thousands more mid-block lights to neighborhoods.
• Investment of $1.5M over three years in the RxKids program to provide cash prescriptions to the families of each new baby born in Detroit.  The program has 2,600 families enrolled and has distributed nearly $5M.
• A commitment to pay all 9,000 city employees a livable wage of $21.45 per hour

Transformational Investments

• The University of Michigan Center for Innovation (UMCI), a major new research, education, and entrepreneurship hub under construction in downtown Detroit to provide workforce training and non-degree programs
• Henry Ford Health’s $2.2 billion Destination: Grand development, including a new hospital tower, expanded medical facilities, mixed-income housing, and new public green space
• AI and cybersecurity firm Eccalon headquarters at The Icon Building, reinforcing Detroit’s growing position as a technology and innovation hub and expected to create approximately 800 jobs
• Construction of two new 600-room convention center hotels to support the attraction of major conferences 

Supporting Small Business

• Launch of the Detroit Small Business Technology Fund in partnership with the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and Rocket Community Fund to help local businesses modernize and grow
• $1.5M investment in Motor City Match, helping 205 small businesses open in neighborhoods across the city
• $700,000 investment in the Detroit Start Up Fund to help support and attract innovators to Detroit
• $300,000 for the Detroit Legacy Business fund, providing grants to businesses that have operated in the city for at least 30 years
• Creating the position of Director of Retail Attraction 

A Growing City

• “Move Detroit” population growth strategy focused on attracting new residents, retaining current Detroiters, and welcoming former residents back to the city through housing assistance, entrepreneurship support, and relocation incentives. The US Census Bureau recently announced Detroit’s third consecutive year of substantial population growth.
• Significant progress in residential growth and property values, the City added more than 12,000 residents between 2021 and 2024 and residential property values increasing by approximately $500 million

”These two rating increases also are a result of 12 years of sound, responsible budgetary choices made by the city department heads and Detroit City Council, alongside the expertise of our Chief Financial Officers.” said Mayor Mary Sheffield.

O'Hara, who led local police during the recent federal immigration crackdown in the city, was under investigation on accusations that he was engaging in intimate relationships with city employees.

While those allegations were never substantiated, Frey said investigators found that O'Hara had interfered with the probe. He is accused of deleting a contact card from his city-issued cell phone in an attempt to shield evidence and telling another city employee about the investigation after he was instructed to keep it quiet, according to a written reprimand obtained by The Associated Press.

The mayor told O'Hara he would be disciplined, which could include his termination. He chose to resign instead, Frey said.

“It was an extremely painful decision, obviously, but I concluded that that was necessary to maintain public trust, and this was the right way to move forward as a city,” Frey said.

“Trust is not secondary to the job. It is the job,” he added.

The city still has 17 open complaints against O'Hara — separate from the investigation that resulted in disciplinary action — and will continue investigating, mayor's office spokesperson Jennifer Lor said. Lor could not comment on the nature of those complaints.

O'Hara did not immediately respond to a LinkedIn message seeking comment.

O'Hara became the chief in 2022 as the department was at the center of a nationwide reckoning over racism and brutality in policing. Two years prior, Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white officer in Minneapolis, igniting global Black Lives Matter protests and calls to defund the police.

Last year, Minneapolis entered an agreement with the federal government to overhaul its police training and use-of-force policies in the wake Floyd's murder. The U.S. Department of Justice under President Donald Trump canceled the agreement months later.

O'Hara oversaw the law enforcement response to the deadly Annunciation Catholic School shooting last August.

He criticized immigration enforcement tactics in December after a federal agent kneeled on a woman's back during an arrest and then tried to drag her to a car. Minneapolis police faced scrutiny from all sides during Trump's immigration crackdown by people who thought the officers were helping or hindering federal agents and protests.

Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell has stepped in to lead the department during the search for a new chief, Frey said.

The Grosse Pointe Farms Department of Public Safety reports that surveillance video showed the man entering a residence in the area of Grosse Pointe Boulevard and Hendrie Lane through an unlocked front door. He was discovered inside the home by the homeowner before fleeing the area through an unsecured private street security gate.

The suspect is described as a heavy-set black man with shoulder-length dreadlocks, approximately 20–30 years old. He was wearing a black baseball cap with a white “P” on the front, a green t-shirt, black shorts with a white stripe, and white shoes during the incident, police said. No vehicle description has been provided and it’s unclear whether anything was taken.

Anyone who recognizes the suspect or has tips related to the home invasion is asked to contact Det. Keith Colombo at 313-885-2100 or kcolombo@gpfdps.com.

The argument served as the administration's rationale for raising the U.S. refugee cap, but only for white Afrikaners. The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will admit an additional 10,000 white South Africans into the U.S. as refugees this year, increasing its annual quota, but blocking people from other countries from entering through the program.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was increasing the refugee cap for white South Africans because of “an unforeseen emergency refugee situation.” He blamed the South African government for “recent increases in the incitement of racially motivated violence,” but gave no specific information.

South African Foreign Ministry spokesperson Chrispin Phiri said accusations of systemic persecution of Afrikaners were unfounded and that some beneficiaries of the refugee program have chosen to return to South Africa.

Around 6,000 South Africans have moved to the U.S. since the Afrikaner program started last year, according to the U.S. government.

Afrikaner trade union Solidariteit said refugee status isn't a viable solution for Afrikaners, who should thrive in South Africa instead. Spokesman Jaco Kleynhans said the organization didn't know about any "unforeseen emergency refugee situation" for Afrikaners but respected the autonomy of U.S. refugee policy.

The union “is in no way aware of anything that the Trump administration could be referring to,” Kleynhans said.

AfriForum, a lobbying organization for the country’s white Afrikaner minority with more than 300,000 members, said it “does not have information” regarding the specific assertion that there's an emergency refugee situation.

The organization’s CEO, Kallie Kriel, said the group’s focus is “fighting to create the circumstances in South Africa where there is no need for Afrikaners to leave.”

Trump suspended the U.S. refugee program on his first day in office and has turned it into a vehicle to allow Afrikaners — white South Africans descended mainly from Dutch settlers — into the United States. Advocates say the decision to focus a decades-old program on one group has left people around the world fleeing war and strife stranded and with few options.

Refugee groups have questioned why white South Africans are being prioritized ahead of people from countries facing war and natural disasters. Vetting for refugee status in the U.S. often takes years.

The Trump administration’s preference for white Afrikaner refugee admissions raises questions about selective humanitarianism, inconsistent refugee protection and favoring privileged groups while ignoring others experiencing severe hardships, according to Bryony Fox, a social justice researcher at South Africa's Stellenbosch University.

“This risks politicizing refugee protection in a way that may ultimately weaken the legitimacy and universality of the refugee regime itself,” she said.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

He wasn't the best player on the floor Tuesday night.

That was not the only reason why the Spurs fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5 of the West finals — there were many — but it was certainly among them. Wembanyama, who has had 41-point and 33-point outings in winning efforts during the series, never seemed to get fully rolling, and the Spurs lost 127-114.

Now down 3-2 in the series, they'll try to extend the matchup — and save their season — in Game 6 at San Antonio on Thursday night.

Wembanyama scored 20 points, his lowest of the series, and only a 12-for-12 effort from the foul line helped him get there in Game 5. He was 4 for 15 from the floor, missing all five of his 3-point tries, never seeming to get into any sort of rhythm.

“He’s got to take more than 15 shots, even with the free throws,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said in his postgame news conference. “He’s going to have to score more than 20 points, for sure. ... OKC did a good job. We’ve got to do a better job.”

Wembanyama did not speak with reporters after the game.

The first halves have told much of the story. In San Antonio's two wins in this series, Wembanyama has gone 7 for 15 and 6 for 11 from the field. In the three losses, his halftime shot numbers — 2 for 4, 2 for 5 and 2 for 6, the last of those what he did in the first two quarters on Tuesday.

Wembanyama offered an impassioned speech to teammates during a timeout barely two minutes into the third quarter, after the Thunder opened an 18-point lead. And it worked — to a point. Oklahoma City scored again to get the lead up to 20, but the Spurs closed within eight later in the third.

It seemed like there was hope. But the Spurs didn't get any closer. The deficit was 10 going into the fourth, the Spurs scored only two points in the first 4:02 of the final quarter, and whatever momentum that seemed like it was building after Wembanyama's timeout speech appeared to be gone.

And on a night in which the Thunder just kept throwing different bodies — Isaiah Hartenstein, Chet Holmgren, Jaylin Williams, Alex Caruso and more — along with different looks at Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 French star just didn't have enough answers.

“It's a team defense,” Thunder guard Jared McCain said. “We talked about it. We made adjustments to it. We know that when he gets going, their whole team gets going."

Obviously, the Spurs know what's coming from the Thunder on Thursday — more of the same. San Antonio has two days to figure out how to counter.

“I think they sent so many bodies towards him, it’s hard at times,” Spurs guard Stephon Castle said. “I think he just wants to make the right play and wants to win. ... He’s our best player. We need him to be aggressive. I feel like him being aggressive opens up shots for other guys.”

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

Coventry’s reassurance to the annual meeting of Summer Games sports bodies came after she warned in February of “uncomfortable” talks ahead to make future Olympic hosting more efficient.

The International Olympic Committee aims to finalize within months the list of sports on the Brisbane program that Coventry previously told their leaders will be fewer than the 36 being played at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“There is a path (back), it’s not just an end,” the IOC president told The Associated Press on Wednesday on the sidelines of the assembly of the summer sports group known as ASOIF.

Brisbane also could have fewer than the 353 medal events being competed for at Los Angeles.

“I know that not everyone will be happy,” Coventry acknowledged to ASOIF members Wednesday, adding "the goal is not to destroy any sport.”

Coventry also met Tuesday with ASOIF members and assured them “we don’t have specific numbers” as targets for the sports and events program for Brisbane.

The most important metric shapes to be the number of venues needed as the IOC looks to manage costs for hosts.

“The cost and complexity comes when you start adding additional venues for single purpose events,” Coventry told the AP. “That’s where we need to look and say: ‘How could we change that?’”

A major step toward streamlining the program for Brisbane and beyond is a June 24 meeting of the full IOC membership in Lausanne that should agree a process for evaluating sports and events.

A list of sports at Brisbane could be confirmed in December, with a longer timeline into 2029 to confirm the detailed program of medal events.

The 36 sports in Los Angeles is up from just 26 at the 2012 London Olympics, and ASOIF president Ingmar de Vos later acknowledged “It has grown too much and needs to be brought back into proportion.”

Sports at risk?

Modern pentathlon has long been seen as vulnerable to losing its historic Olympic status, while canoe slalom has a very specific venue demand. Sports added to the LA program — including flag football, lacrosse and squash — will be competing for their place in Brisbane before having their showcase in 2028.

The 2036 Olympics hosting contest was paused by Coventry last year in the first big decision of her new presidency. Qatar is widely seen as a strong contender for a project likely to be spread in the Middle East region, which has been targeted during the conflict between the United States and Israel against Iran.

Los Angeles update

Organizing committee officials overseeing sports and venues came to Lausanne to update federation leaders ahead of a big week in Los Angeles.

Incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass is trying to secure another term until beyond the Olympics, and there is the annual in-person visit by the IOC panel — known as “cocom” for coordination commission — overseeing games preparations.

“Certainly we are paying attention to it,” Shana Ferguson, LA 2028’s head of sport and games delivery, told the AP about Tuesday's primary election.

One big reveal will be announcing where cycling road races will finish — always a key Olympic event to showcase the city. Paris set a high bar with finish lines framed beneath the Eiffel Tower.

“We are ready — buckle up,” Ferguson said.

Shares of LA revenues

ASOIF members are anxious to learn what the IOC will give them as a collective share of Los Angeles Olympics revenues worth several billions of dollars.

With IOC president Coventry sitting in the front row, ASOIF president Ingmar de Vos called for “fair and sustainable models” to recognize his members’ work and value at the Summer Games.

The IOC paid $590 million from Paris Olympics revenues which was a 9% collective rise on $540 million from the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021.

ASOIF members agree their formula to distribute it, with track and field’s World Athletics typically paid the most. That was $39.6 million for Paris, a slight raise from Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

“We are increasingly being asked to do more with the same resources,” De Vos cautioned, later noting ASOIF has “three more mouths to feed,” with the governing bodies of skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing now eligible for a revenue share.

De Vos, the International Equestrian Federation president, suggested each Olympic sport could make cost efficiencies and it was "for the IOC also to look into its own operations.”

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Jared McCain — getting the call with Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell both sidelined — scored 20 in his first playoff start for the defending NBA champion Thunder, who lead the Western Conference finals 3-2.

Chet Holmgren had 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Thunder, while Isaiah Hartenstein had a 12-point, 15-rebound night.

The Thunder, who were held to 82 points in a Game 4 loss two days earlier, had 82 points on Tuesday before the third quarter was 3 1/2 minutes old.

“We obviously played a lot better, in terms of our process and then also the outcome,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It's a playoff series. If you look at any playoff series that goes to six games, at least, there's going to be some tough games. We had a tough game the other night. This team does a great job of just coming back in the next day in a very neutral way, taking whatever the lessons are, applying them forward and getting into the next opportunity.”

Stephon Castle scored 24 points for San Antonio, which got 22 points from Julian Champagnie and 20 points from Victor Wembanyama — who was held to 4-of-15 shooting.

Keldon Johnson scored 15 off the bench for San Antonio, which missed 29 of its 41 3-point tries.

“It just felt like it was a little bit of everything in terms of we did not put ourselves in position enough to be successful on each possession,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “And so, to beat a team of this caliber, in their building, with the stakes, we'll need to be a lot better to give yourself a chance.”

Game 6 is Thursday in San Antonio. If there's a Game 7, it'll be back in Oklahoma City on Saturday — and while this series winds down, the New York Knicks are waiting to see who emerges.

The Knicks will visit either the Thunder or Spurs in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on June 3.

Oklahoma City scored 40 points in the second quarter to take control and kept the lead the rest of the way.

“We just played to who we were tonight,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

It took nearly 10 minutes for the first free throws to be awarded. But when the parade to the foul line started, it didn't stop.

The teams combined to make 29 free throws in the second quarter alone, the most in the second quarter of any NBA game since the bubble playoffs nearly six years ago. It wasn't a one-sided thing — the Spurs were 15 for 17 in the quarter, the Thunder 14 for 14.

Oklahoma City went up by 20 in the third, before San Antonio closed within eight. The Spurs might have had some chances to cut even further into the deficit, but were fuming — and rightly so, it seemed — over some missed calls in the final minute of the quarter.

A tip-in try by San Antonio's Luke Kornet with about 56 seconds left was knocked off the rim by Oklahoma City's Cason Wallace and should have been goaltending. And on the next Spurs' possession, an out-of-bounds call that should have gone their way — replays showed the ball went out off of Holmgren — did not. Johnson tried to challenge the call, got ignored, then got a technical foul for arguing.

“They just said they didn't see me,” Johnson said.

After all that, Oklahoma City's lead was 101-91 going into the fourth. The Thunder kept a double-digit lead for all but 25 seconds of the final quarter — a huge turnaround from a 21-point loss in San Antonio on Sunday.

“We definitely got better from the last game,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

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

Because climate change from the burning of fossil fuels should make more high-energy unstable air, which is conducive to hail forming, global storms pelting roofs, cars and the ground with hail bigger than a large marble will increase between 38% and 47% by the end of the century, depending on how much heat-trapping gas the world spews, a study in Wednesday's journal Nature said. And storms that produce smaller hail will shrink by 4% to 8%, researchers found.

Hail generally doesn't kill people, but it is expensive. It already costs the U.S. about $10 billion a year and around $80 billion globally, said study co-author John Allen, a meteorology professor at Central Michigan University.

Hail does more damage than tornadoes and generally costs “more than a couple hurricanes a year now,” Allen said in the morning from Guymon, Oklahoma, before he ventured out with scientists who drive into the heart of hail storms to figure out what makes them tick. “We’ve seen record hailstones in recent years. I find this extremely concerning because we’re not really building our environment to be resilient to hail. We don’t include this in our design standards, for example, for built homes in the U.S. or indeed internationally.”

Allen's computer simulations show the mix of larger stones will grow with climate change. Those are the ones that cause more damage, he and outside scientists said.

Bigger stones mean bigger problems

Bigger stones weigh more and fall through the air faster to hit with more power.

While small hail can damage crops, large hail of around 2 inches (5 centimeters) “can cause major damage to vehicles, roofs, solar panels, and other infrastructure,” said Andreas Prein, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, who wasn’t part of the study.

One hole on a roof from a single hailstone can be patched, but many large stones hitting that roof usually means an expensive roof replacement, Allen said.

What happens is there's more water vapor in a warmer atmosphere — nearly 4% more per degree Fahrenheit (7% per degree Celsius) — and “that increases the available energy to the atmosphere and so we tend to get end up with stronger updrafts,” Allen said. “And that leads to more thunderstorms with updrafts capable of producing hail.”

But with warmer air, there's less cold as high up for smaller hailstones and they tend to melt more, where bigger ones don't, Allen said.

Previous studies have mostly focused on hail in the United States — which has the most hail — and didn't do the three-dimensional modeling of hail formation that the new study has done with lead authors out of China, Allen said. Other studies have looked at potential increase in frequency instead of size.

Hail is a global problem

Argentina, Europe, Canada and the U.S. Northern Plains will likely see the biggest increase in larger hail, while parts of the tropics should see a reduction because of smaller stones melting, Allen said.

“Hail is not just a U.S. problem,” Allen said. “Yes, we do see large losses here, but the global hail losses seem to be something that is really spiraling in recent years.”

Study authors looked at hail bigger and smaller than 1.2 inches (30 millimeters) in diameter, which is somewhere between a marble and golf ball, and about the size of a U.S. 50-cent coin. The team looked at three scenarios based on carbon emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas. In a slightly optimistic scenario of not so much carbon pollution, larger hail increases by 38%. In a more pessimistic scenario, where temperatures rise nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) even warmer than the other scenario, larger hail jumps by 47%.

“This is a meaningful climate signal,” said Walker Ashley, a Northern Illinois meteorology professor who wasn’t part of the study. “But disaster losses are not driven by the peril alone.”

As more people, more houses, more solar farms and more infrastructure move into areas prone to hail, the risk and damage increases, Ashley said. He added: “Climate change may be increasing the potential for larger, more damaging hail in some regions, but the future loss signal will also depend heavily on where people build, what they build, how resilient those structures are, and how land use changes.”

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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 seven villagers entered the cave in Xaisomboun province on May 19, but heavy rain triggered flash flooding that blocked the exit, according to Lao and Thai rescue teams involved in the operation.

Thai rescuer Chakkit Taengtang posted video of himself in the cave saying divers were delivering food and water to the five and planning to extract them as soon as possible.

All of the villagers are men, according to a Facebook post by the Lao group Rescue Volunteer for People.

“I’m still shaking. Our team made it happen,” Bounkham Luanglath, a member of the Lao rescue team, said in a voice message to The Associated Press. He said the search for the missing would continue.

A video posted by the rescue group appeared to show the moment divers emerged from the water and discovered the trapped men. In the footage, the men are wearing headlamps and sitting on a rock surrounded by floodwater.

Other videos showed rescuers inside and outside the cave cheering, jumping and hugging each other in joy after the discovery.

Another villager who went into the cave with the seven was able to escape when the flooding began, and he raised the alarm about the trapped men.

Rescue workers from neighboring Thailand arrived at the site over the weekend. Those helping out included several divers who took part in the complicated 2018 rescue in northern Thailand of 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach who were trapped for more than two weeks in a cave.

Miiko Paasi, a Thai-based Finnish diving instructor who participated in the rescue of the schoolboys and joined the search effort in Laos, said in a social media post that the men were “healthy and in good spirits,” but he warned that the extraction would not be easy.

The cave is in a rugged, remote area in Xaisomboun province’s Longcheng district, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Vientiane. Rescuers have detailed on social media the challenging mountainous terrain and heavy rain that has hampered their work.

Videos shared online by Thai rescuers showed that reaching the cave’s entrance requires a steep hike of roughly 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). The entrance is also steep and rocky and barely wide enough for a single person.

It's not clear why the villagers went into the cave. Bounkham has said that the cave was frequented by local residents looking for gold, despite repeated warnings about safety.

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Associated Press journalists Tian Macleod Ji and Haruka Nuga in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Hamas said in a statement that Mohammed Odeh died Tuesday along with his wife and two of his children in an airstrike. It came after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that the Israeli military had targeted and killed Odeh.

At least five people — including Odeh and his family members — were killed and 12 injured in Tuesday’s strike on a market in Gaza City, local hospitals said. The attack came on the eve of Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday.

Thousands of people gathered Wednesday for the joint funeral of Odeh's family in Gaza City. Mourners covered the four bodies with green Hamas flags and marched from a mosque through the city, chanting and firing shots in the air. Some carried posters with Odeh's poster emblazoned with the words “one of the chiefs of staffs of the Qassam Brigades,” referring to Hamas' military wing.

Hamas condemned the strike, and said Odeh had been active with the group for more than three decades and was part of the first generation that helped establish the movement’s military and armed wing.

Katz called him “one of the architects” of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that triggered over two years of war in Gaza and said it was the fourth time Israel has killed the head of Hamas’ military wing since that massacre. Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the previous head, was killed on May 16.

Katz said that Israel would continue to target Hamas leaders involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack. “We pledged that Hamas will not hold civilian or military rule,” he wrote on X.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is preparing for elections in the fall, also threatened that Israel will target everyone involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

A grim Eid in Gaza

The attack came as Muslims prepared for Eid al-Adha, normally a joyous time of family gatherings and large meals.

The holiday once again is subdued this year in Gaza, where the vast majority of people remain displaced and live in tents or temporary shelters after a devastating war. Around 90% of Gaza’s more than 2 million people have lost their homes, according to U.N. estimates, with most of them now sheltering in huge tent camps with rat infestations and pools of sewage. They are dependent on aid to survive.

Eid al-Adha, or “Feast of Sacrifice,” is an Islamic holiday celebrated by millions of Muslims across the globe. The four-day holiday, which begins during the Hajj pilgrimage, also is known for being a joyous occasion during which families gather, and children are given new clothes and gifts.

“This is not Eid ... we’re dead,” said Mahmoud Saqer, a displaced man from Khan Younis, who described people as being distressed by the ongoing human suffering and killings in the territory.

In Khan Younis and Gaza City, amid destroyed buildings, including a ruined mosque, people gathered for Eid prayers with few signs of celebration beyond a few clusters of balloons lining one street. Tahrir al-Khatib said the joy that accompanies Eid has been silenced in Gaza.

“There’s no Eid. My children were killed. Eid is only for the people who lost no one,” said Ayda Al-Banna, a displaced women from Gaza City, who prayed Eid prayers with her granddaughter.

Fragile ceasefire holds in Gaza

A ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas in October remains fragile. Israeli attacks have killed more than 880 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect. Israel says its attacks are in response to violations by Hamas or threats to its soldiers, but Palestinian health officials say scores of civilians have been among the dead. Four Israeli soldiers have also been killed during this period in Gaza.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks in October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says over 72,803 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. The ministry, part of Gaza’s Hamas government, does not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths. ___

Associated Press writer Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut and Fatma Khaled contributed from Cairo.

But right now, our state is facing a shortage of tradespeople, and it’s expected to last through 2030, according to Pure Michigan. The state believes there will be 45,000 openings in the skilled trades every year.

Local 4 is honoring those critical workers through our “Trade Up” brand, and also with a monthly award called the “Ace of Trades.”

You can nominate a tradesperson for Ace of Trades award by using the form below, and we will choose a winner each month.

The shooting happened in September at a Port Huron apartment complex, near the intersection of Kraft Road and 24th Avenue.

A 17-year-old boy, a 13-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl were taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds, where the 17-year-old died from his injuries.

A GoFundMe has been established to help the family. You can donate here.

---> Neighbors gather to support family after deadly Port Huron shooting

Jeffery Smerer, the children’s father, was taken into custody on an unrelated warrant, but was later charged with 10 felonies in connection with the shooting.

On Tuesday, May 26, Smerer pleaded guilty to open murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of first-degree child abuse and five counts of felony firearm.

Smerer remains in custody ahead of his June 29 sentencing.

Emmanuel Perkins left his residence without permission in the 19200 block of Kelly on Thursday (May 21) and failed to return home.

He was last seen wearing a black ski mask, black hooded sweatshirt and black jeans.

Perkins is 13 years old, 5′7″, 150 pounds, has black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information should contact the Detroit Police Department’s 9th Precinct at 313-596-5940.

The search of the office in central Madrid is another blow to the party of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, whose Socialists have been hammered by a series of corruption scandals to his some of its leader's closest confidants, his wife and brother and the previous Socialist to hold his office.

“We respect the justice system, we will collaborate with the courts and there is the commitment in the Socialist Party that if there are new episodes of improper behavior, we will act with the same firmness we always have,” Sánchez told a news conference in Rome.

Sánchez, who has been Spain's leader since 2018 and is a major critic of U.S. President Donald Trump, has not been directly named in any investigation.

A court statement issued on Wednesday said that judge Santiago Pedraz ordered the Civil Guard to “confiscate diverse documentation and electronic archives in an investigation of a ring designed to destabilize judicial processes that were affecting the ruling party.”

The searches were strictly limited to that case, and not a wholesale raid of the offices, the police said.

The case against started in 2025 when audio recordings appeared in Spanish media of then party member Leire Díez apparently involved in attempts to discredit a member of the Civil Guard’s anti-corruption unit. Further reports linked Díez to alleged attempts to influence the work of state prosecutors. The judge's probe is targeted on seeing if she received payments to allegedly carry out these efforts.

The Socialist party said she was acting on her own. Diez, who has left the party, has denied wrongdoing.

The judge said that in addition to Díez, he is now also probing the alleged involvement of former Socialist heavyweight Santos Cerdán — who is already under investigation in a separate corruption case — as well as a former member of the regional government of Andalusia, a police officer, a business owner and two lawyers. The judge is investigating them on suspicions of bribery, making false testimony, forging commercial documents, influence peddling, and corruption.

Legal woes mount

The searches add to a growing list of legal cases that are hounding Spain's Socialists.

A separate court said last week it was investigating former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in connection with a government airline bailout. Zapatero, who was in power from 2004-2011 and is a major backer of Sánchez, has denied any wrongdoing.

Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos, who held two ministerial posts under Sánchez, were placed under investigation in 2025 on allegations they played a part in a kickback ring that started during the COVID-19 pandemic, which they have denied.

Ábalos has been tried for one case of alleged corruption along with two other cohorts. A verdict is expected to come soon.

Ábalos and Cerdán were early Sánchez supporters inside the party and both rose to be the party’s No. 3 ranked official before they were forced out of the party when their scandals broke.

Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, has been charged by an investigative judge for inappropriately using her position to be named to an academic post at a university, while his brother, David Sánchez, and other local officials in Badajoz have been charged with having created a civil service post for him to occupy unrightfully. Gómez and David Sánchez, whose trial starts on Thursday, deny any wrongdoing.

Cases ‘do nothing to stain the work of government ’

Sánchez has called the cases against his family a “smear campaign.” But the corruption case against his former cohorts led him to ask the nation for “forgiveness.”

His minority government depends on the support of a junior coalition partner, which for now has stuck with it despite the judicial actions.

The search of his party's offices came while Sánchez was in the Vatican for an audience with Pope Leo XIV, who is set to visit Spain from June 6-12. The prime minister said he delayed his news conference so that he could be informed of the searches before speaking to reporters.

The leader of Spain’s leading opposition party, conservative Alberto Núñez Feijóo called for snap elections. “There is no other solution other than immediately letting the Spanish people voice their opinion,” the Popular Party leader said.

Sánchez brushed off calling early elections, which will have to take place next year at the latest.

While acknowledging the “seriousness” of the events in Madrid, Sánchez insisted that the cases of corruption “do nothing to stain the work of this government that, with progressive parties, is working for a social and economic transformation.”

There is a growing push to save and restore the building before more history is lost.

The building was closed after burst pipes led to major interior damage in 2024.

Leaders of the club say, without the space it’s been harder to provide programs and services the community relies on.

The DAWC located near Ferry and Brush has been a gathering place for women, activists and community leaders for more than a century.

The organization was founded during the Black uplift Movement in the early 1900s.

Members of the club helped lead social programs, civil rights efforts and community support across Detroit.

Candace Calloway, president of the Detroit Association of Women’s Club, joined Local 4 Live to talk about how the damage has impacted their organization’s work with the community and what is next for restoration.

You can watch the full interview in the video at the beginning of this article.

According to authorities, it started at about 11:30 a.m. on May 4 when a Hazel Park police officer attempted a traffic stop on a black pickup truck that ran a red light on Eight Mile Road.

Police said the driver fled, reaching speeds of up to 80 mph before crashing into a car driven by a 73-year-old Warren man on Seven Mile Road. The Warren man suffered broken legs and a broken pelvis.

The driver of the pickup truck, Zaylin Faulkner, was arrested and charged with 2nd-degree flee and elude and driving while license suspended causing injury.

On Tuesday, May 26, Faulkner pleaded no contest to the charges. He is expected to be sentenced June 23.

The deal will allow the Ann Arbor medical center and its affiliated physicians, clinics and facilities to keep their in-network status for BCBSM members.

Michigan Medicine and University of Michigan Health announced in March that despite months of negotiations, BCBSM proposed an unacceptable 30% reduction in reimbursement for the world-class care at Michigan Medicine,” referring to the offer as “unsustainable.”

Earlier in negotiations, BCBSM said Michigan Medicine demanded a 44% increase in payment over the next five years, an increase which Michigan Medicine flatly denied, adding that the healthcare system was seeking either single-digit annual increases or an extension of the current contract that ties any future increases to quality and cost outcomes for patients.

“We have been negotiating this contract in good faith for more than a year,” Julie Ishak, chief nurse and operations executive for Michigan Medicine, told Local 4 in May. “And we are looking for a high-value partnership with Blue Cross.”

Details of the new agreement are still being finalized ahead of the anticipated June 30 renewal date. Final terms of the contract will remain proprietary between the two organizations, according to Michigan Medicine.

Michigan Medicine includes the U-M Medical School and University of Michigan Health, which includes the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital, University Hospital, the Frankel Cardiovascular Center, Kellogg Eye Center, University of Michigan Health-West, University of Michigan-Sparrow and the Rogel Cancer Center.

Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans and the University of Michigan Health Plan that covers employees, faculty, staff and retirees at the university are not part of the contract negotiations.

Steyer — a former hedge fund manager turned liberal activist — has spent or booked more than $195 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio with the tally still growing, according to data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact.

His torrent of ads has opened the one-time presidential candidate to criticism that he is trying to buy the governor's chair, and his ad total represents more than 20 times the amount spent by his nearest rival, fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra, as the two duel for a spot in the November election.

Nationally, his spending is unparalleled — no one is even close.

In Georgia, Republican health care executive Rick Jackson has spent about $83 million on advertising in his primary race for governor, which is headed for a June runoff, ranking him second. The third place spot is held by his Republican rival, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has President Donald Trump’s endorsement and has spent nearly $31 million on ads, according to AdImpact.

Following Jones was Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, who spent over $28 million on advertising in a failed bid for U.S. Senate.

Trying to ‘buy the governor’s office?’

Katie Porter, a former U.S. House member who is among seven established Democrats in the California race, has repeatedly criticized Steyer for dipping into his personal fortune to keep ads in front of voters with scant competition from rivals.

“She isn’t spending hundreds of millions of dollars of personal wealth trying to buy the governor’s office,” her campaign wrote in an email to supporters.

In raw numbers, Steyer's ad blitz has eclipsed the 2010 record set by Republican Meg Whitman, who spent $178.5 million in total on a losing bid for governor, much of it her own money. At the time, it was the costliest campaign for statewide office in the nation’s history. When adjusted for inflation, however, Whitman still holds the state record, but that represented spending for the full election, not just the primary.

A crowded field with no clear leader

Steyer's record-level output has lifted him into contention in the crowded race, but he's not breaking away from the field. He's among a leading group of several candidates — including Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton — as the campaign heads toward a June 2 primary. Mail voting started earlier this month.

Still, Steyer's cash advantage is giving him a publicity edge as the contest enters its crucial final days. He's maintained a steady flow of advertising and online posts questioning Becerra's credentials and record, with Becerra, a former state attorney general and Biden administration health secretary, lacking the funds to reply in kind.

One Becerra ad sought to connect with voters who might be getting bleary-eyed from the cascade of Steyer advertising. It used tranquil scenes of Joshua trees, waves curling on a beach and soaring redwoods, with a gentle prod: “You can stop the endless Tom Steyer ads. Vote Xavier Becerra.”

Steyer’s financial edge has allowed him to stretch the boundaries of his campaign far beyond traditional TV and radio ads, with steady posts on online platforms like YouTube and Instagram. The New York Times reported that his campaign paid a progressive Texas influencer $100,000 to help Steyer win the election. The Sacramento Bee reported that Becerra, too, had hired an influencer.

In a statement, Steyer spokesperson Kevin Liao did not directly address the campaign's spending but pointed to millions of dollars pumped into ads by independent groups backed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., real estate agents and others seeking to defeat the billionaire, who has promised to “break up the electric monopolies in California.”

Many voters have been slow to vote in a race without a star candidate and no clear leader. More than 50 names will be on the ballot. California uses a “top two” primary system that puts all candidates on one ballot, with only the top two vote-getters advancing to November, regardless of party.

“In a race this close, it all matters,” said Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta.

Money doesn't always make the difference

History shows that money doesn’t always translate into votes.

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso spent over $100 million in 2022 in his bid to become Los Angeles mayor, much of it his own money, but he was handily defeated by Mayor Karen Bass, who spent a fraction of Caruso’s total. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion of his own money on his 2020 presidential bid before dropping out. And Steyer’s money was unable to lift him into contention in the 2020 presidential contest, from which he dropped out early in the year after a poor finish in the South Carolina primary.

Democratic San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan's campaign for governor was supported by independent committees bankrolled by millions of dollars from tech leaders and venture capitalists, yet he failed to gain traction in the race.

Steyer has never held elected office.

In a 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Steyer was asked what he would say to people who think he’s trying to buy the presidency.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Steyer said at the time, before adding, “I’m never going to apologize for succeeding in business. That’s America, right?”

The contest is unfolding as California struggles with a long-running homeless crisis, wildfire insurance shortages, projected budget shortfalls and housing costs that are out of reach for many working-class families. Voters, meanwhile, are saddled with growing everyday bills for groceries, utilities and gas.

The AdImpact data does not include ads on some popular streaming services, like Hulu and YouTube, or mail advertising.

During his career, Newhouse served as president of The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, and head of Advance Publications' newspaper group, which he navigated into the internet age.

“You reveled in his company. He filled you with energy and humor when you felt doubtful and weak,” Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue and Conde Nast's chief content officer, said in an obituary released Tuesday night by the Newhouse family.

Newhouse, who lived in New York, spent nearly 50 years overseeing the 35 newspapers of Advance Publications, the media business started by his late father, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., in 1922. His older brother, S.I. Newhouse Jr., was chairman of the company and oversaw Conde Nast magazines. He died in 2017.

Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and CEO of the AP, said Newhouse was an extraordinary chairman for the cooperative.

“His voice was never the loudest in the room, but it was often the wisest,” Boccardi said. Newhouse was instinctively private, but behind that, Boccardi said, was a generous man, at home anywhere and curious about everything.

“He could come across as self-effacing and deferential, but in Don's skilled hands those were qualities that made him an enormously strong and effective leader,” Boccardi said.

A man who didn't chase the spotlight

Newhouse, born in 1929, was known for staying out of the public eye. A reporter once asked him to list the biggest chances he took in his career. The answer: “Inviting your questions.”

The usually reserved Newhouse did step into the spotlight when he took on the role of chairman of the Newspaper Association of America from 1993 to 1994 and then chairman of the AP board of directors from 1997 to 2002. He had served on the AP board for nine years before becoming its chairman.

“My dad believed in the journalistic mission of the AP,” said Michael Newhouse, Donald E. Newhouse's son. He added that his dad and the publication's then-CEO would travel around the world to meet AP journalists.

“He was a smart and shrewd businessman but as thoughtful and kind a man as you'll find. Being in his presence was always a joy,” said Doug Clifton, editor of one of Newhouse's papers, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, from 1999 to 2007.

Newhouse attended Syracuse University but never graduated, heading into the family's newspaper business instead. In 2016 he finally received a degree from the school and gave its commencement address.

Newhouse would regularly visit his newspapers but left the ultimate authority of running them to his publishers.

“Each of our newspapers operates independently, with publishers who are strong, who set policy for their individual organizations and who have the authority and responsibility of carrying out the policies they set,” he said in 1993 when taking over as chairman of the newspaper association.

Newhouse was known for spending money to make sure that papers got the best stories. Jim Willse, editor of The Star-Ledger from 1995 until 2010, said they “added staff, modernized the design, took on investigations and other major projects.”

Newhouse's philosophy of spending money to produce quality coverage and a hands-off approach toward his editors led to many successes. From 2001 to 2012, Advance’s newspaper group was awarded a dozen Pulitzers.

Many of those newspapers were able to thrive and remain profitable because they dominated their market, but Newhouse said he was very much aware of what he called the “dramatically changing media landscape” and how people get their news.

“The 15th-century revolution was epitomized by the printing of the Gutenberg Bible; ours by Ted Turner's cable news network and by web-based news sites — news in real time from anywhere to everywhere,” he said in 2004 at the rededication of a communications school named after his father at Syracuse University.

Three years later, he told one of his papers, The Post-Standard of Syracuse, New York, that newspapers can survive “by producing content that is relevant, interesting, accurate and entertaining for newspapers and the internet.”

He steered through financial struggles

Yet the papers did ultimately struggle financially.

Advance was known in the industry for a pledge that employees who weren't in a union would have jobs regardless of economic downturns or technological advances. In 2009, the company announced that the pledge would be withdrawn.

The company also moved away from daily publishing of several papers. In 2012, it announced that the Post-Standard; The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Louisiana; the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and the Birmingham News, the Press-Register of Mobile and The Huntsville Times, all in Alabama, would cease daily publication and would only offer print editions on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Those changes were accompanied by hundreds of layoffs.

“His conservative approach left both the papers and its employees somewhat unprepared for the realities of the internet,” said Thomas Maier, who wrote a 1994 biography of the family.

Newhouse's eldest son, Steven, spearheaded the company's growth on the internet and on mobile devices. Steven Newhouse is currently co-president of Advance Publications.

“My dad spent his life in the newspaper business and was devoted to it, built it up and enjoyed many good years. When it became more challenging, he was first in line to work through, finding solutions to keep the local journalism franchise going,” he said.

While Newhouse was dedicated to Advance, his true passion was his family. His daughter, Katherine Mele, said his favorite pastime was 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) walks with them.

In addition to his children, Newhouse is also survived by his grandchildren. His wife, Susan, died in 2015.

___

Mayerowitz is a former Associated Press journalist. AP reporter Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

“This album in particular is what I think fans would say is the most recognized time in our career,” says Maines.

And so, they expect the shows — which will feature them performing “Taking the Long Way” in full as well as additional songs — will also have them reminiscing about the album and the very unusual time that led up to it, on stage.

The moment that changed everything was back in 2003, when then-President George W. Bush was preparing to invade Iraq. The Chicks were playing a show in London when Maines announced that they were ashamed that the president was from Texas. The backlash was swift, and the stuff of industry lore. They were booed on awards shows, radio stations pulled their music and fans destroyed their CDs. There was an apology, and then in 2006, a rescinding of the apology — with the best revenge served in the form of a multiplatinum selling single, “Not Ready to Make Nice.”

“It was definitely inspiring for songwriting,” said Maines of that period. “It felt like life was happening to us, like we weren't steering the ship.”

“Those were hard times for us,” adds Maguire. “It's all the stages of grief … I think we were kind of in that misunderstood, angry, but also really upset and needing an outlet (stage.)”

And so, they wrote the triumphant “Taking the Long Way,” produced by Rick Rubin, after “licking our wounds,” as Strayer puts it.

“Not Ready to Make Nice” came out of that. “It was like, ‘This is solely selfish. This is our lives,'” Maines says of the song. And they were shocked when it connected — but now, they recognize that “people have their own ‘Not Ready to Make Nice’ story to tell.”

The album went on to earn them five Grammy Awards, including album, song and record of the year, and marked a transformative moment for the band. And its themes still resonate.

“Re-listening and rehearing those songs, I was surprised how relevant they still seemed and how universal they still seemed even though they were such personal stories,” says Strayer.

Later this year, fans will have the opportunity to relive the “Taking the Long Way” era for a 16-night run that starts at the Fox Theatre in Detroit on Sept. 30 and ends in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theatre on Nov. 1 and 2. They'll also do two nights in Chicago, New York, San Antonio, Seattle and San Francisco. They'll hit Washington, Nashville, Tennessee, and Austin, Texas, for one night only.

Tickets will go on sale June 4 at 10 a.m. local time on LiveNation.com.

___

The Chicks' ‘Taking the Long Way’ 20th Anniversary Tour Dates

Sept. 30: Detroit — Fox Theatre

Oct. 3: Chicago — The Auditorium

Oct. 4: Chicago — The Auditorium

Oct. 6: Washington — The Anthem

Oct. 12: New York — Beacon Theatre

Oct. 13: New York — Beacon Theatre

Oct. 15: Nashville, Tennessee — The Truth

Oct. 17: San Antonio — Majestic Theatre

Oct. 18: San Antonio — Majestic Theatre

Oct. 20: Austin, Texas — Bass Concert Hall

Oct. 25: Seattle — Benaroya Hall

Oct. 26: Seattle — Benaroya Hall

Oct. 29: San Francisco — The Masonic

Oct. 30: San Francisco — The Masonic

Nov. 1: Los Angeles — Dolby Theatre

Nov. 2: Los Angeles — Dolby Theatre

Michigan a strong fit for booming car wash business

Car washes are booming nationwide, and Michigan is no exception. Industry analysts point to a wave of private equity investment, the rise of subscription memberships, and the relatively low labor costs and high margins that make modern car washes appealing to owners and investors.

Michigan is an especially strong fit for the trend because of its “dirty-weather” driving conditions.

Read more here.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Michigan Medicine reach tentative contract agreement

After several weeks of tense negotiations, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has reached a new long-term contract with Michigan Medicine.

The deal will allow the Ann Arbor medical center and its affiliated physicians, clinics and facilities to keep their in-network status for BCBSM members.

Details of the new agreement are still being finalized ahead of the anticipated June 30 renewal date. Final terms of the contract will remain proprietary between the two organizations, according to Michigan Medicine.

Read more here.

‘My grandkids are okay’: Detroit grandmother speaks after child jumps from window to escape house fire

A Detroit family is figuring out the next steps after a fire tore through a home on the city’s west side.

Olga Soto left home for coffee Tuesday morning and returned to a nightmare: flames tearing through the second story of her 29th Street home, with family still inside.

“Parked my car and out of nowhere one of my family members are running on the porch, letting me know from upstairs there’s a fire,” Soto said.

Six relatives were in the home, including her four grandchildren.

Read more here.

Oakland County swim school offering course to help adults learn to swim at their own pace

Most people learn to swim as kids, but what happens when you never did?

For a growing number of adults, that gap is more than just an inconvenience. Royal Swim School wants to close it, one video at a time, with its new digital platform, Zero to Swim.

Read more here.

Weather: Wednesday bringing warmest temps of the week before cooler air returns to Southeast Michigan

Metro Detroit is in for another taste of summer today as temperatures climb a few degrees higher than yesterday, reaching the mid-80s by afternoon under a mix of sunshine and increasing clouds. The warmer air mass will remain in place through much of the day, but as a cold front pushes through this afternoon and evening, there will be a low chance for scattered showers and non-severe thunderstorms. Most communities are expected to stay dry, but a few brief downpours or rumbles of thunder cannot be ruled out as the front moves through.

Once the front exits the area tonight, a refreshing stretch of weather ensues for the remainder of the week. Cooler, drier air will settle across the Great Lakes, bringing temperatures back closer to seasonal averages.

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Not even close.

Before the tournament even begins, Curaçao has already crafted a story like none other in World Cup history. A tiny island country — autonomous territory, if you prefer — of about 156,000 residents in the Caribbean is now the smallest, both in terms of population and land mass, to make it to soccer’s biggest stage. And if that wasn’t enough, it's doing so under a coach in Dick Advocaat who, at 78, is about to become the oldest the tournament has ever seen.

They know what the world is probably thinking: Their country is too small, their coach is too old, they don’t have a chance.

They heard all that through the qualifying process as well — and here they are.

“We have made history,” Curaçao defender Sherel Floranus said. “We are writing our own history, for this island.”

The way they see it, they’ve already won.

They rolled through qualifying, going 4-0-0 against Haiti, Saint Lucia, Aruba and Barbados in their opening round, then going 3-0-3 against Jamaica, Bermuda and Trinidad and Tobago in the next round to grab their spot — one of three that were available for 32 teams who went to qualifying from North America, Central American and the Caribbean.

Just how small is Curaçao? Its first World Cup stop — a June 14 match against Germany in Houston — is to a city with 15 times as many people as the island. The stadium in Houston could hold about one-half of Curaçao’s entire population.

It has been a perfect storm to get here. First, the three host nations for this World Cup — the U.S., Mexico and Canada — were exempt from qualifying and already were in the tournament field. And this inaugural edition of an expanded 48-team tournament made it inevitable that there would be some surprise teams getting to the World Cup.

Like, for example, Curaçao. Surprise! With odds of +250000 at some sportsbooks, Curaçao is the longest of long shots in the field. And on the island, they do understand the reality of what that means.

“We know there is a big chance that we don’t win the World Cup, but that we (made it) there ... for Curaçao, a very, very, very good moment,” said Remko Bicentini, a former pro player and Curaçao’s former national team head coach. “We are proud of that.

“It is a party for the whole Curaçao. It’s a big level and all the players ... we worked years, for years, for years, very hard to become where we now are.”

Curaçao’s sports history is sometimes masked by its Dutch ties

The island was part of the Netherlands Antilles until October 2010, when it became a more autonomous “constituent country” of the Netherlands. The Dutch monarchy still reigns, the citizens remain Dutch nationals and the Netherlands government oversees defense and foreign affairs. And this week, Curaçao’s World Cup preparations are happening in the Netherlands — a nine-hour direct flight away, but a place where the team was greeted with “welcome home” signage.

The sense is clearly that the results at the tournament won't mean much. Winning a match would be magical. Tying one would be cause for celebration. Just being there, for those from Curaçao, is a victory in itself.

“I always saw other countries play the World Cup,” said Michael Stokkel, a policeman. “I was a fan of Brazil, but now I will be a fan of my own country. It’s an incredible feeling.”

He’s going to the World Cup, but by himself. It's just too expensive to bring others, he said.

It's not unheard of for athletes from Curaçao to compete on the international stage. The rare part here is that they're doing it actually as “Curaçao.” There have been unsuccessful attempts for the nation to be recognized as its own Olympic team; athletes compete in the Summer Games either for the Netherlands or independent athletes. At the World Baseball Classic earlier this year, players played for the Netherlands.

Ozzie Albies of the Atlanta Braves, a native of Willemstad — the island's capital and biggest city — said his nation getting to the World Cup is "history for the guys and the accomplishment is super special for Curaçao.”

“Soccer has always been a sport we play but never made it to the World Cup," said Albies, one of three Curaçao natives currently on a Major League Baseball roster. "So, to be able to do it is very, very, very special.”

The Dutch are a World Cup contender with their own national team. Curaçao, which will have its base camp at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, when it shifts its full operation to the U.S. in the coming days, is simply savoring its moment.

“I think it’s been amazing for the whole island,” said Tahith Chong, one of the national team’s top players. “Just seeing how the island has lived with it and just knowing, I think that a lot of people don’t know about Curaçao. It loves football and it’s quite big here. So, to be present this year at the World Cup is obviously something amazing for the island.”

‘So the world knows who we are’

The hope, politically, is that the team will be a unifying force.

At 171 square miles, Curaçao has roughly as much land mass as New Orleans. There are at least 125 U.S. cities with larger populations than the entire island. Its population is about the same as Hollywood — no, not the one in California, but the city in Florida that sits between Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

Curaçao’s Prime Minister, Gilmar Pisas, sees this World Cup as an opportunity. The team known as the Blue Wave — a nod to the shimmering turquoise water that surrounds the island — and blue is a theme for everything in the country, right down to the Blue Curaçao liquor that is popular around the world (even though it has an orange flavor).

For the next few weeks, Pisas wants the nation to be Blue Nation as well.

“We will become part of something larger than ourselves, something that, despite our differences, brings us together,” Pisas said. “We share a single anthem and a single flag ... rather than being divided into separate camps. We are, finally, truly united. It is a project dedicated to the construction of a nation. It acknowledges that your people, and you yourself, are an integral part of this collective mission — the ‘Blue Nation.’”

This will not require Brenton Balentien to change much about his regular day-to-day routine.

If you see a bald, bearded, muscular man with his head and face painted blue for Curaçao games, you’ve likely found Balentien — simply known around the island as “Blue Face.” He’s a longtime soccer fan who took notice of how fans in Brazil, Colombia and other places would show up at matches in wigs and elaborate costumes.

“I said, ‘Curaçao needs that,’” Balentien said. “Curaçao is a very passive island. We watch the games and clap, sure, but we’re not the kind of fans who go out there and scream for the full 90 minutes. And I said, ‘No, we have to change that.’”

So, in 2015, Blue Face — someone who began chanting in largely empty stadiums and now has a huge following — was born. He applies the paint himself before every match. He’s basically a national mascot; a bartender, influencer and event organizer in real life, a soccer superfan when the paint comes out. He’s become a motivational speaker, someone whose home overlooking Willemstad has Curaçao’s flag waving in the wind and whose car has two more flags attached to that.

“We do this for this island,” Balentien said, “so the world knows who we are.”

The underdogs hope to be ‘giants in the World Cup’

If the world doesn’t know yet, they’ll see soon enough.

Curaçao, currently ranked No. 82 in FIFA’s global rankings, opens World Cup play against global power and 10th-ranked Germany. It then plays No. 23 Ecuador in Kansas City on June 20 and finishes group stage play against No. 34 Ivory Coast on June 25 in Philadelphia.

It will be underdogs in all three matches, barring something very unusual.

No problem. The Blue Wave is coming, the pressure is off and confidence is high.

“For us, this is the biggest World Cup because our flag will be there in America,” said Ricardo Martinez, a radio broadcaster who calls the matches. “Germany, watch out. Curaçao is coming. We are small — but giants in the World Cup.”

___

AP Sports Writer Charles Odum in Atlanta contributed to this story. Reynolds reported from Boca Raton, Florida.

___

AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn tried for more than a year to show Donald Trump and Texas Republicans that he and the president were on the same team.

Cornyn posted a photo of himself reading Trump's “The Art of the Deal.” He proposed legislation to rename a stretch of interstate in Trump's honor. Perhaps most glaringly, the Senate institutionalist who long supported the filibuster reversed his position in a failed effort to advance voting restrictions that are a priority for the president.

None of it worked. On Tuesday, Cornyn became the latest in a line of Republicans who lost their primaries after falling out of favor with a president with little tolerance for dissent and a seemingly insatiable appetite for retribution. The four-term senator lost by double digits to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Trump endorsed last week as “a true MAGA Warrior.”

Cornyn, on the other hand, “was VERY disloyal to me,” Trump wrote on social media.

Trump's intervention in the Texas runoff came after weeks of successfully backing primary challengers in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky as revenge against incumbents who broke with his agenda.

Cornyn’s attempt to avoid the same fate made even some of his supporters wince.

“You look at the positions he took to please the president and the groveling and whatever,” said former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican and Trump critic who didn't seek reelection during the president's first midterm in 2018. “It was rather painful to watch.”

Trump took an uncommonly equanimous approach to Tuesday’s results the following morning.

“Congratulations to Ken Paxton on such a tremendous win, and to John Cornyn for having run a strong and powerful race but, more importantly, having had a truly great career,” he wrote on social media. “John will remain my friend for a long time to come, as we both watch Ken become a fantastic, common sense Senator, one who is respected by all.”

Cornyn started early with ad touting pro-Trump voting record

Cornyn's loss wasn't for a lack of political gymnastics and astronomical campaign spending.

His campaign began running an advertisement last summer — part of an astounding nearly-$100-million air war by the senator and allied groups — with Cornyn looking into the camera and saying, “I voted with President Trump 99% of the time.”

On Cornyn's campaign homepage, Trump and Cornyn stand side-by-side with thumbs pointed upward in an image aimed at projecting solidarity. Deeper in the website, the category titled “The Trump-Cornyn Record” notes the senator's role securing votes for Trump's signature 2017 tax cut bill.

Cornyn has also been championing provisions in Trump's signature tax-and-spending legislation to finance work on the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The senator had dismissed the project as “naive” during Trump's 2016 campaign. But in January, he stood along a section of completed wall in Texas' Rio Grande Valley touting the measure's $11 billion for Texas contractors' work at “the direction of the president of the United States, to whom I am very grateful.”

Cornyn's 2023 dismissal of Trump's return glares in background

Cornyn's praise for his party's leader and president were not unusual, but they clash with a statement Cornyn made in May 2023, when Trump was mounting his presidential comeback campaign.

“Trump’s time has passed him by,” he told reporters. “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”

Trump would go on to easily win the nomination and carry every battleground state in the general election.

Cornyn would hew closely to the president for the first 16 months of his second administration, hoping at the outside chance of his endorsement or to keeping him from weighing in at all.

But Trump did not forget the past slights.

“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” he wrote on social media while endorsing Paxton.

Smaller gestures, and one big one

Cornyn has playfully worked to promote Trump fandom, last year posting a picture on social media of himself thoughtfully peering into the pages of Trump's 1987 memoir and business advice book, “The Art of the Deal.”

In a more obvious gesture, he proposed designating a section of a U.S. highway from the Texas Gulf Coast to Montana as “Interstate 47,” to honor a 47th president with a well-documented love of naming things after himself. In a news release about the proposal, filed just over two weeks before Tuesday's runoff, Cornyn said it would be known as the “Trump Interstate.”

The more tectonic shift occurred in March, after Trump had teased a possible endorsement of either Cornyn or Paxton in the runoff.

Paxton swiftly said he would consider dropping his candidacy if the Republican-controlled Senate lifted the filibuster and passed the SAVE America Act, a series of voting restrictions that Trump has described as an essential part of his agenda.

The following week, Cornyn wrote an op-ed in the New York Post — Trump's favorite hometown newspaper — backing away from his previous support of the filibuster. He vowed to “support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to get the bill “through the Senate and on the president's desk for his signature.”

Flake watched with unease.

“I know John and his long-held positions on the filibuster and the Senate’s institutions,” he said. “No office is worth that.”

___

Bedayn reported from San Antonio. Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

The child, who police said is non-verbal and possibly autistic, was discovered around 2 a.m. in the area of E. Outer Drive and Haverhill wearing a diaper.

Police say his guardians were found around 7:45 a.m.

The “Everest Summiteers Summit” in Nepal's capital was held during what is believed to be the most crowded season ever on the world's highest peak, with hundreds of climbers and their Sherpa guides scaling the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak in just a few days this month.

A growing number of climbers

Nepal issued a record 494 permits for foreign climbers this season, with the number of people who reached the summit believed to be more than 900. That would be the highest number to ever reach the summit during the spring climbing season. The final official number will be available only later.

A sherpa guide who recently achieved the a record of the most ascents — 32 — warned that the numbers are creating problems.

“Nepal should only allow no more than 250 climbers that are issued permit to climb from the Nepal side,” Kami Rita Sherpa said. “It will be good if the government was to limit the number.”

In recent times photos shared from the mountain have shown lines of hundreds of climbers stuck in traffic jams, clipped to fixed ropes and waiting for the chance to reach the summit.

Keeping Mount Everest clean

With hundreds of climbers, their guides and workers, there are some 3,000 people living on Mount Everest during the climbing season, which ends this month. It has remained a challenge to remove all their waste when tents are pulled down.

There are strict government rules requiring climbers to remove their garbage but much gets left behind anyway. Climbers say keeping the mountain pristine should remain a priority.

“We should take the rubbish from the mountain and we should protect our Himalayas,” said He Jing, a renowned Chinese climber.

Climbing is tougher than what appears on social media

Currently anyone can apply for permit as long as they pay $15,000 to the government as a permit fee.

But now the Nepalese government is working on new regulations requiring them to have experience.

Nathaniel Douglas, a climber from Seattle, told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference that he sees people who have never climbed a mountain who hope to scale Everest after seeing images on social media.

“So they really don’t understand what mountaineering is, like what it actually takes to summit Mount Everest and get back down safely,” he said.

Warmer weather means added risks

British mountaineer Adriana Brownlee, the youngest woman to climb all 14 highest peaks, said the weather on the mountains was getting warmer, increasing the risks for climbers.

“Every year the (Khumbu) Icefall seems more unstable because of global warming,” she said. adding that water underneath is melting faster, causing the seracs — blocks of ice — to fall much easier because of the movement underneath.

A huge serac hanging dangerously over the route just above the base camp forced climbers to delay their climb last month.

Once the front exits the area tonight, a refreshing stretch of weather ensues for the remainder of the week. Cooler, drier air will settle across the Great Lakes, bringing temperatures back closer to seasonal averages. Highs from Thursday through the weekend are expected to remain comfortably in the 70s, accompanied by lower humidity levels and abundant sunshine. The extended forecast continues to look exceptionally favorable for outdoor activities, including one of Detroit’s biggest sporting events of the year...

Detroit Grand Prix Forecast Looks Outstanding

Fans heading downtown for the Detroit Grand Prix can expect ideal weather conditions throughout the weekend: mostly sunny skies, dry weather, and afternoon temperatures in the 70s, creating comfortable conditions for both spectators and drivers. With no significant rain chances expected, the weather should cooperate for race festivities from start to finish.

Forecast Highlights

• Wednesday: Partly sunny and warm with highs in the mid-80s. Slight chance of late-day showers and thunderstorms.
• Thursday: Mostly sunny, less humid, and seasonable with highs in the mid-70s.
• Friday through Sunday: Dry and comfortable with plenty of sunshine and highs in the upper 70s.

“Leaving the training ground and walking to my car with a box full of bobbleheads to take home to my kids,” the 38-year-old defender recalled, “my WhatsApp started to go a little bit crazy.”

Ream was among 26 players who received a video in a group chat from Sam Zapata, the U.S. national team administrative manager, informing those selected for the World Cup roster.

“Guys, if you are watching that video, it is because you are in,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino told them. “I am so excited to communicate that you are going to be on the roster for the World Cup 2026, in the World Cup that you are going to host.”

“It made me stop on my tracks,” said Ream, hoping to become the oldest U.S. player to appear in soccer's top tournament.

Midfielders Gio Reyna and Sebastian Berhalter, sons of a former captain and an ex-coach, were picked by along with forward Alejandro Zendejas.

Midfielders Diego Luna and Tanner Tessmann were left off.

Holding American jerseys with wavy red and white stripes, players were introduced Tuesday at a made-for-TV event on the roof of the South Street Seaport’s Pier 17 with the Brooklyn Bridge as a backdrop. They were announced in the numerical order of jersey numbers assigned by equipment manager Kyle Robertson, taking seniority into account. All were on hand except for defender Chris Richards, in Germany with Crystal Palace for Wednesday’s UEFA Conference League final.

“We want this so bad,” said forward Christian Pulisic, the biggest American star. “If you're not a little bit nervous, you don’t feel a little, you don’t care. So, we care so much.”

Defender Sergiño Dest, midfielder Tyler Adams and forward Haji Wright were added after missing March friendlies because of injuries. Zendejas was bypassed for the March roster after a knee injury last fall.

A few minutes after the Friday video arrived, emails were sent to all 55 players on the preliminary roster informing them of their fate. Pochettino didn't give explanations to those omitted, comparing the rejection with how he felt when Tottenham executive chairman Daniel Levy fired him as manager in 2019 and then asked to speak.

“What do you want to talk about (with) me?” Pochettino said. “I don't want to hear nothing.”

Luna missed the March matches because of a knee injury after playing in 17 of 18 international games last year.

“It’s painful because I really know what it means to be out of the roster,” said Pochettino, who failed to make Argentina's roster as a defender in 1994 and 1998, then was chosen in 2002.

“During two weeks I didn’t sleep," the coach said. "And today still I cannot enjoy the 26 guys that are in front of me because I am thinking in players that are out.”

Final rosters are submitted to FIFA on June 1 and injuries could cause a change until one day before the U.S. opener against Paraguay on June 12.

“Things can happen. They need to be ready because maybe we can call,” Pochettino said.

Reyna, a son of former U.S. captain Claudio Reyna, nearly was sent home from the 2022 World Cup by then-coach Gregg Berhalter for lack of hustle and made just four starts this season for Borussia Mönchengladbach — none since Dec. 19.

“I don’t say that he’s going to play the game, but he can help,” Pochettino said. “He can help because he’s a different player, different talent, and I think in all the roster you need to have a player like him.”

Sebastian Berhalter, a 25-year-old son of the former coach, made his national team debut last June and became the Americans' best corner-kick taker.

Players dropped who had been on the March roster included goalkeeper Patrick Schulte, Tessmann and fellow midfielder Aidan Morris. Two players were sidelined by recent injuries: midfielder Johnny Cardoso (right ankle surgery) and forward Patrick Agyemang (torn right Achilles). Defender Cameron Carter-Vickers is recovering from a torn Achilles in October.

Who is back from 2022?

Half the roster returns from the last World Cup: goalkeeper Matt Turner; Dest, Ream and fellow defenders Antonee Robinson and Joe Scally; Adams and fellow midfielders Weston McKennie, Reyna and Cristian Roldan; and Pulisic and Wright at forward with Brenden Aaronson and Tim Weah.

Richards and Miles Robinson were picked after injuries sidelined them ahead of the 2022 tournament.

Richards is a health concern after tearing two left ankle ligaments on May 17. Pochettino said he won't know Richards' status until he arrives in the U.S. for training because clubs “hide things.”

“Was really, really tough to have the real information to make our best decision,” Pochettino said. “How selfish, no, is the people in soccer or in football?”

Among the final cuts four years ago, Ricardo Pepi made it this time.

Players from 2022 left off included goalkeepers Ethan Horvath and Sean Johnson; Carter-Vickers and fellow defenders Aaron Long, Shaq Moore, DeAndre Yedlin and Walker Zimmerman; midfielders Kellyn Acosta, Luca de la Torre and Yunus Musah; and forwards Jesús Ferreira, Jordan Morris and Josh Sargent.

This year's average age of 26 years, 332 days as of the U.S. opener is up from 25-216 four years ago and the fifth-youngest for an American World Cup roster.

Where are players from?

Just eight players were taken from Major League Soccer, the fewest since four in 2010. Five players are based in England, three each in Germany’s Bundesliga and France’s Ligue 1, two apiece in Italy’s Serie A and the Dutch Eredivisie, and one each in Mexico, Scotland and Spain.

Pulisic ended his AC Milan season scoreless in 19 games since Dec. 28 and has gone eight U.S. matches without a goal since November 2024.

Pochettino's three strikers finished their club seasons in form, combining for 56 goals: Folarin Balogun and Pepi scored 19 each and Wright 18.

For the first time since 1990, no American goalkeepers are from European clubs.

Ream will be 38 years, 250 days on the day the U.S. plays its opener, older than defender Fernando Clavijo when the U.S. was knocked out by Brazil in 1994.

Defender Alex Freeman, a son of former Super Bowl champion Antonio Freeman, is the youngest American this year at 21.

No. 3 goalkeeper Chris Brady is the first player on the U.S. World Cup roster with no international experience since backup goalkeeper Juergen Sommer in 1994.

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

🍇 Grapevine

☀️ Good morning! On this day in 1937, San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge opened to the public for the first time. Hundreds of thousands of pedestrians were allowed onto the 4,200-foot-long suspension bridge to marvel at the feat of engineering, with vehicles first permitted the following day.

Here are a few things to know about for Wednesday, May 27, 2026:

⛅ 4Warn Weather: Warm weather will linger across Metro Detroit through Wednesday, with an afternoon cold front expected to trigger scattered showers in some communities. Check the 10-day forecast.

🚔 Detroit Zoo Threat: The Detroit Zoo said it briefly investigated a reported threat but determined there was no credible danger after working with Metro Detroit authorities. Read more.

⚠️ OSHA Fines USPS: Federal workplace safety officials have issued citations and fines amid an investigation into the 2025 death of an Allen Park postal worker. Read more.

⚖️ Verdict Reached: A Wayne County jury has found a Canton man guilty of multiple charges stemming from an August 2025 fatal crash in Detroit that killed two children and their grandmother, and left another child seriously injured. Read more.

🚧 Belle Isle Traffic Shift: Central Avenue on Belle Isle is closed this week while the Michigan Department of Natural Resources completes traffic pattern work to help ease road congestion. Read more.

🏊 Morning Dive

Good morning 🌅

This past weekend, thousands of people flooded Hart Plaza to enjoy Movement — Detroit’s biggest electronic music festival.

It’s three days of techno with more than 100 acts performing across six stages. But tickets weren’t cheap, with general admission Friday starting at $227 and costing even more for multiple days or VIP passes.

Many fans say it’s well worth it, but for others, it’s just not in the budget.

In Macomb County, a new music festival is coming this summer. It’s going to be the first-ever Mount Clemens Electronic Music Festival.

Jeff Neimann from Ardis Music and Laura Kropp, mayor of Mount Clemens, joined Local 4 Live to talk more about the festival.

🗞️ Other headlines to know today

• Why so many car washes keep popping up across Michigan
• ‘My grandkids are okay’: Detroit grandmother speaks after child jumps from window to escape house fire
• HUD inspectors finally showed up at a Washtenaw County apartment complex. Residents say it’s long overdue
• ‘It’s heartless:’ Detroit family asks for help after deadly hit-and-run
• Hundreds gather in Pontiac for 16th annual ‘Stomp Out Violence’ march after fatal weekend shooting
• Former CBP officer from Macomb County sentenced for distributing child pornography
• 2 cats rescued after e-bike starts fire in Ann Arbor garage
• Could adopting a pet help your mental health?
• Oakland County Sheriff’s Office seeks public’s help in fatal shooting of 25-year-old man
• Trump wraps up 3-hour medical visit to Walter Reed and declares ‘Everything checked out PERFECTLY’
• Officials lift evacuation orders for some California residents living near a damaged chemical tank
• Find more Local News headlines here
• Find more Entertainment headlines here
• Find more Health headlines here
• Check out the latest ClickOnDeals here
• Introducing the ClickOnDetroit Help Desk: How it works and how to use it

🌎 Meanwhile

News from around the world via the Associated Press:

Drivers for ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft in Massachusetts became the first in the nation Tuesday to certify a union, marking a milestone in the growing effort to organize gig-economy workers amid ongoing concerns over pay, expenses and working conditions.

The victory could provide a model for similar campaigns gaining traction in states including California and Illinois, where labor organizers are increasingly targeting app-based industries as drivers also grapple with the rapid expansion of self-driving technology.

Fully driverless commercial rides without a human operator are not currently permitted in Massachusetts. (Read more)

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President Donald Trump’s push to reshape congressional districts ahead of the November elections suffered a double setback Tuesday, as South Carolina senators declined to do so and a federal court blocked a Republican-backed map in Alabama.

As early in-person voting began Tuesday in South Carolina’s primaries, the state Senate rejected a Republican plan to cancel those congressional votes and instead schedule a new primary under revised districts designed to help the GOP oust a longtime Democrat.

“South Carolina citizens are going to the polls today. And neither my conscience or common sense is going to let me stop an election that is already underway,” Republican state Sen. Richard Cash said. (Read more)

----

A Maine initiative intended to limit transgender students’ ability to participate in sports has been removed from the ballot because of invalid signatures, the secretary of state ruled Tuesday.

The proposal from parents’ group Protect Girls Sports in Maine was slated to go before voters in November. It would have asked voters if they wanted to require public schools to restrict access to bathrooms and sports based on the gender denoted on a child’s birth certificate.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who is running for governor as a Democrat, said Tuesday her staff found that more than 12,000 signatures on the petition for the referendum were invalid. (Read more)

---> Find more headlines from around the world right here <---

📝 Word Up

Today’s Word Up is: Anfractuous / ænˈfræk.tʃu.əs / (adjective) -- defined as “full of windings and intricate turnings; convoluted.”

Example: “The road leading to the top of the mountain was anfractuous, with many twists and turns.”

🧹 Housekeeping

Hey, if you like this newsletter, let us know. We’d love your feedback. We also offer several other newsletters, including Live in the D, All 4 Pets and more. Hopefully, we have one that caters to your interests -- unless you’re only interested in Sears Catalogs. We don’t have one for that, sorry.

✍🏽 Written and curated by: Jenny Sherman (Have something to say? Feel free to send an email here.)

The shortage and high prices are largely due to a blockade of Bamako announced earlier this month by fighters from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, an al-Qaida-linked group. The militants regularly attack convoys of trucks and vehicles transporting goods to the capital, often setting them ablaze.

Landlocked Mali depends heavily on fuel and goods trucked in from coastal neighbors like Senegal and Ivory Coast. The militants' blockade is designed to strangle the country's economy and undermine the military government’s legitimacy, analysts say.

The blockade is not total, as the armed groups avoid holding roadblocks for long, fearing retaliation from the Malian army, and goods continue to trickle into Bamako, staving off an outright food shortage for now.

Nonetheless, it has driven up prices for some goods like meat and led to fuel shortages, forcing residents to line up at the few gas stations still selling fuel.

Since September 2025, the group had already enforced a stifling road blockade on oil imports.

Mountaga Touré, 38, a teacher, said he visited several livestock markets before ultimately giving up on buying a sheep for the feast, saying the price of sheep has almost doubled since the blockade was announced.

“The small sheep that used to cost $177 are now $266 or more,” Touré said.

In some neighborhoods of Bamako, residents have swapped the traditional sheep for cows, pooling money to purchase one so they can have meat during the important Muslim holiday in West Africa.

The blockade follows sweeping, coordinated attacks by separatist and jihadi forces across Mali last month, the largest in the country in over a decade.

Mali has been plagued by insurgencies fought by militants affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, as well as a separatist rebellion in the country’s north for over a decade.

Following a 2020 military coup, the ruling junta turned from Western allies to Russia for help combating Islamic militants. But the security situation has worsened in recent times, analysts say, with a record number of attacks by militants. Government forces and Russian mercenaries have also been accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with militants.

The Malian army and its Russian Africa Corps mercenaries are circumventing the blockade by escorting convoys of trucks carrying goods and fuel to supply markets in Bamako. The military also regularly says it struck positions held by armed groups.

But the escorts and strikes have not been enough to adequately supply the capital, residents say.

“Usually, I bring up to 200 sheep to Bamako to sell during Tabaski," said Amadou Cissé, 45, a livestock trader specializing in Eid sheep, using the West African word for the holiday. "But this year I barely brought 50 because there is not enough space in army-escorted trucks.”

Cissé said the sheep he ordered are still in Diema, a town some 345 km (215 miles) west of Bamako, where many animals bound for the capital originate.

“I was told more escorted convoys would be organized, but so far none have left Diema, so I doubt the sheep will arrive before the holiday,” he said.

Drissa Traoré, who has been selling sheep in Bamako for over a decade, said supply has dropped significantly recently. “This year, we have barely half the number of sheep we usually have during Tabaski,” he said.

The insecurity has also affected the travel plans of many.

Sidi Diarra, an employee at a major financial institution in Bamako, said he usually celebrates the holiday with his parents in Segou, around 240 km (150 miles) from the capital.

“This year, I am afraid to go because of attacks by extremist groups. It is safer to stay in Bamako,” he said.

While there are certain qualities that you’re just not going to find in a budget-priced vehicle — powerful acceleration, for example, or leather seating — the five vehicles here all come with a respectable amount of features for the price. In Edmunds’ evaluation testing, they also earned average or better overall scoring. Another bonus is that each one gets good fuel economy, helping you save money when it comes time to refuel. All listed prices below include the destination fee.

Hyundai Venue

The Venue is Hyundai’s subcompact SUV that also happens to be the least expensive vehicle for the 2026 model year. The base Venue SE trim isn’t as well equipped as some of the other entry-level vehicles listed here, but it does have an 8-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. In testing, Edmunds found the Venue has a useful interior fitted with easy-to-use controls. You also get a long warranty and an EPA-estimated 31 mpg combined city/highway average. One thing that isn’t available is the option to add all-wheel drive, however. Edmunds’ overall evaluation score: 6/10

2026 Venue starting price: $22,650

Chevrolet Trax

Like the Venue, the Trax is a five-seat subcompact SUV that serves as Chevrolet’s smallest and least expensive model. It’s also strictly front-wheel-drive; all-wheel drive isn’t available on any trim. Edmunds praised the surprising amount of interior space given the Trax’s tidy proportions. Another cabin highlight is the easy-to-use 8-inch touchscreen with wireless smartphone connectivity that comes on the base LS trim. Higher trims are outfitted with an 11-inch screen. The EPA estimates you’ll get up to 30 mpg combined with the Trax. Edmunds’ overall evaluation score: 7/10

2026 Trax starting price: $23,495

Kia K4

The Kia K4 is Kia’s least expensive small car. It comes as a sedan or, as a new entry for 2026, a sleek-looking hatchback. Edmunds praised the K4’s generous rear legroom and long lineup of standard features. Even a base LX trim includes a big 12.3-inch touchscreen and adaptive cruise control. Another plus point is the K4’s attractive cabin. It looks and feels like it belongs in a car with a much higher price tag. The K4 can get up to an EPA-estimated 33 mpg combined. Edmunds’ overall evaluation score: 7.5/10

2026 K4 sedan starting price: $23,535

Nissan Sentra

The Nissan Sentra enters the 2026 model year completely redesigned inside and out. This small sedan has a bold new look and an impressive roster of standard driver aids. The base S trim has adaptive cruise control, blind-spot warning and lane keeping assistance. During testing, Edmunds gave the Sentra high marks for its comfortable seating, big trunk and modernized 12.3-inch touchscreen. The Sentra also gets up to an EPA-estimated 33 mpg combined. Acceleration is leisurely, however, even for this group of cars. Edmunds’ overall evaluation score: 6.2/10

2026 Sentra starting price: $23,845

Hyundai Elantra

Coming in at No. 5 of the 2026 class of least expensive new cars is the Hyundai Elantra small sedan. It boasts one of the largest interiors in its class, a roomy trunk and a long warranty. The Elantra’s entry-level SE trim is equipped with the basics plus a few nice extras such as wireless connectivity for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Its standard 8-inch touchscreen isn’t as big as the Sentra’s or K4’s, however. The EPA estimates the Elantra can get up to 35 mpg in combined driving. Edmunds’ overall evaluation score: 6.8/10

2026 Elantra starting price: $23,870

Edmunds says

The five cheapest cars will surprise you in terms of how much you get for your money. Far from being the no-frills economy vehicles of yesteryear — when wind-up windows were the norm and air conditioning was often optional — they overdeliver in terms of style, tech touches and safety features.

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This story was provided to The Associated Press by the automotive website Edmunds.

Nick Kurczewski is a contributor at Edmunds.

“When my contract with Celtic expires in June, my career as an active footballer stops,” Schmeichel said in an interview with TV2 in Denmark broadcast Wednesday. "I think this is the right time now to announce that I have played my last professional football match.”

The 39-year-old Schmeichel has been sidelined since February.

Schmeichel – the son of former Manchester United great Peter Schmeichel – revealed in March he required two surgeries but that he wanted to try to salvage his career.

The former Manchester City, Leeds, Nice and Anderlecht keeper, who played at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, said “it’s not how I would have wanted my career to end.”

Schmeichel’s last appearance for Denmark was in its World Cup qualification defeat against Scotland in November.

DBU, Danish soccer’s governing body, posted on X: “From debut in Skopje to World Cup debut against Peru, big saves against some of the world’s best nations, a Euro semifinal at Wembley and much more. 13 years. 120 matches for the National Team. Thanks for unforgettable moments, Kasper.”

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

Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn that will host next month's UFC bout, helping mark the nation's 250th anniversary — and President Donald Trump 's 80th birthday.

Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like ahead of the June 14 event. It will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars and stripes patterns and two large screens carrying the action live.

The cage and stage will themselves be surrounded by thousands of temporary seats, including ringside space for a full marching band that can set the entire scene to blaring music.

The project is part of a series of events celebrating the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence's signing on July 4, 1776. Other planned functions include an IndyCar race that will pass by the White House and the Great American State Fair taking place on the National Mall.

Trump has said that the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.” Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.

“I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets,” Trump said recently of demand to attend the UFC fight, adding, “That's gonna be something.”

The card has been panned by fans online as underwhelming, featuring just two championship fights. Brazil’s Alex Pereira will meet France’s Ciryl Gane for the interim UFC heavyweight title. Then Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria takes on interim champ Justin Gaethje, one of just two Americans who currently hold even a share of the UFC’s 11 championship belts.

The octagon and surrounding structures are the latest project in the White House building boom Trump is leading.

The president's other efforts to leave his mark include tearing up part of the Rose Garden to make room for a patio space reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, affixing partisan plaques to the wall of the colonnade for a Presidential Walk of Fame, redoing the bathroom attached to the Lincoln Bedroom and renovating the Palm Room, placing new flag poles on the north and south lawns and demolishing the entire East Wing for a sprawling ballroom.

The president also wants to repaint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building beside the White House and build a 250-foot arch at the nearby Lincoln Memorial — the same monument where weigh-ins for the upcoming UFC fight are scheduled to take place, bout organizers say.

But the more apt comparison might be to three years ago when Vegas — in not nearly as much of a surprise — won the Stanley Cup.

Carolina or Montreal, who are playing in the Eastern Conference Final, will have a lot to say whether the Golden Knights complete the task and win another Cup.

But Vegas is back for the third time in its nine seasons to cement itself as potentially the greatest expansion franchise in North American sports history. The Golden Knights got there by beating Colorado 2-1 on Tuesday night for a stunning sweep of the Presidents' Trophy-winning Avalanche.

This team, like the one in 2023, has won with depth scoring, bruising defense and a hot goalie.

“I think we've always built our teams with good depth at the forward position, defensive position and goaltending position,” captain Mark Stone said. “I guess the similarities are that's just the way we build our teams.”

On the 2023 team, 18 players scored goals in the playoffs and 12 had at least 10 points over 22 games. So far through 16 games this postseason, 15 players have scored goals and six have produced 10 or more points.

The depth showed itself in the clincher against the Avalanche when both goals came from the third and fourth lines, with Cole Smith scoring the decisive goal with 5:45 left.

“The third and fourth lines, the five- and six-D, that's how you continue to move in the playoffs,” coach John Tortorella said. "Those are very important pieces as you go through these series. I'm happy for Smitty. I was going to kill him; he's taking so many penalties.

“But I'm happy for him and (Dylan Coghlan and Kaedan Korczak). I mean, how well did they play. Playing against that team with the amount of speed that they bring, they weren't intimidated by a thing.”

Coghlan and Korczak form the third pairing on the Golden Knights' defense, which shut down an Avalanche offense that averaged a league-high 3.63 goals per game during the regular season and in the first two rounds upped that to 4.11. It was 1.75 against Vegas.

Colorado went the final 14:23 of the second period in Game 4 without a shot on goal and more than 25 minutes with just one shot.

The Golden Knights spent the series blocking one Avalanche shot after another, and for the postseason, four of the top nine players in blocked shots play for Vegas, topped by Shea Theodore's 46. Four of the top five in 2023 were Golden Knights, including leader Alec Martinez with 57.

And then there's the goalie play.

Adin Hill shined in 2023, coming off the bench in the second round and then going 11-4 with a .932 save percentage and 2.17 goals-against average. Hill remains on the team, but has been watching from the bench as Carter Hart has taken hold of the position. Hart is 12-4 with a .924 percentage and 2.22 GAA during the postseason.

“Hartsy’s been amazing this whole series, whole playoffs really,” Mitch Marner said. "Made some massive saves throughout all these games and again tonight. Made some massive ones for us to keep the game where it was. Hell of a game by Hartsy again.”

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

A U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict appeared more nominal by the day, complicating efforts at a broader peace in the Iran war as Tehran wants an agreement to include an end to the fighting in Lebanon.

The Litani River has been a de facto boundary in Lebanon, with large areas to the south under Israeli military control despite the ceasefire that's been in place for over a month.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after meeting with his defense minister and senior military officials that Israel will expand its operations in Lebanon.

“The (Israeli Defense Forces) are operating with large forces on the ground and seizing strategic areas,” he said, adding that Israel is trying to fortify an area of southern Lebanon under its control, which it says is necessary to protect residents in its northern border towns from Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks.

Israeli strike kills 12

Meanwhile, an Israeli security official said the military had called up an additional battalion to Lebanon, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Israel's military said it struck more than 100 Hezbollah sites across southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley area overnight, adding that it targeted storage facilities, command centers and observation points used to attack Israeli troops and residents in northern Israel.

One strike hit the eastern village of Mashghara, killing 12 people including several members of the same family, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.

Israel in recent days has intensified strikes in the city and province of Nabatiyeh, just north of the river. On Tuesday it warned city residents to leave.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it launched several rocket, artillery and exploding drone attacks on Israeli troops and vehicles mobilizing along the river toward the Nabatiyeh villages of Yohmor al-Shaqif and Zawtar al-Sharqieh. Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said the militant group repelled attacks along the river banks.

Elsewhere in eastern Lebanon, Israel struck an area near the Qaraoun Dam, the country's largest along the Litani River. The Litani River Authority said there was no direct damage to the dam.

Beirut, the Lebanese capital, has been spared from strikes since the start of the ceasefire, but Israel's latest moves have caused fear.

“By just saying a few words on TV, (Netanyahu) causes everyone to panic and flee their homes,” said Tony Aboud in Beirut’s bustling Hamra district. “I don’t know what’s going to happen and how long we can live like this.”

Lebanon hopes for an agreement that will see Israeli withdrawal

The Lebanese government, which came to power on a platform of reform and disarming Hezbollah and other armed groups, hopes that the direct talks with Israel — which Hezbollah opposes — will lead to a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Israel says it will not withdraw until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat to residents of its northern towns. Hezbollah has vowed to fight until Israel stops its daily airstrikes and withdraws its troops from Lebanon.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah has boasted that it is using new fiber-optic drones that Israeli troops have struggled to intercept, hitting both Israeli forces and northern Israeli villages.

Israel has told people there not to gather in large numbers.

“What this requires of us now is to increase the blows, to increase the intensity. We will smite them hip and thigh,” Netanyahu said Monday.

Over 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced in the war, sparked when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran, two days after the Iran war began.

At least 3,213 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the start of the war, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, with over 9,700 wounded.

According to Netanyahu’s office, 23 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon, and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel, the vast majority by drones.

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Associated Press writers Sam Mednick and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Koral Saaed in Herzliya, Israel, and senior video producer Malak Harb in Beirut contributed to this report.

Testifying before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which is investigating the spread of antisemitism in Australia ahead of the Dec. 14 attack at Bondi Beach, New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner David Hudson described a firepower imbalance.

The police force has responded with a plan to establish an Armed Response Command, equipped with semiautomatic rifles, and by reviving a priority-resourced operation that focused on antisemitic crimes and retaliations against Muslim targets, Hudson said.

Rifles within the force have been largely restricted to two specialized paramilitary squads, he said.

Father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram allegedly opened fire with two shotguns and a hunting rifle on hundreds of people celebrating Hanukkah in a beachside park. Only four police officers were present. They were armed with Glock pistols, which are only accurate for a short distance.

“On Dec. 14, our police officers were placed at significant risk being in a gunfight armed with 9 mm Glocks against long arms,” Hudson told the inquiry.

Within five minutes of the Akrams allegedly opening fire, 11 police officers had reached the scene. Three of those officers were among the dozens wounded in the massacre. Police shot the father dead and apprehended the wounded son less than eight minutes after the first shot was fired, the inquiry heard Monday.

In response to the shooting, police also revived Operation Shelter, which had been established in response to escalating community tensions days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel Hudson said.

Hudson had established Operation Shelter as a “high visibility” proactive police operation to ensure there was no escalation of street violence in Sydney. At its peak, 200 officers had been assigned daily to the operation, which had authority to bring in outside staff from other duties as required.

Operation Shelter existed “in name only” when the Bondi massacre occurred, Hudson said Wednesday, explaining that the program was quickly revived after the shooting and elevated to an “active policing resource” that will remain until the armed response squad is fully operational in the next 18 months to two years.

Duren, 22, earned All-NBA Third Team honors for the 2025-26 season, making him eligible for the extension that would make him one of the youngest centers in league history to reach that financial tier.

--> Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren earn All-NBA honors after Detroit Pistons’ historic turnaround

Duren’s regular-season case

The numbers were hard to argue with.

Duren averaged career highs of 19.5 points and 10.5 rebounds while shooting 65.0% from the field, adding two assists, 0.8 steals, and 0.8 blocks in 28.2 minutes per game.

He was the only player in the league to average at least 19 points and 10 rebounds while shooting better than 60% from the field.

He also ranked among NBA leaders in paint scoring and rebounding, including 14.6 points per game in the paint and 265 offensive rebounds on the season.

Milestone moments punctuated the run.

Duren posted a 31-point, 15-rebound performance against Indiana on Nov. 17 and became the youngest center in franchise history to reach 3,000 career points.

Playoff questions cloud the picture

For all his regular-season dominance, Duren’s efficiency and impact dipped when the postseason arrived.

Opponents made Detroit’s interior scoring a priority, raising questions about his offensive versatility in high-pressure situations.

Team President Trajan Langdon acknowledged the growing pains while remaining publicly optimistic about reaching a deal.

“JD had a fantastic season,” Langdon said. “We look forward to coming together with his representation, getting a deal done, and for him to continue to be a Piston.”

Langdon also offered some context for Duren’s postseason dip.

“Sometimes that happens with young players in the league,” Langdon said. “But he battled.”

--> Detroit Pistons’ Trajan Langdon: ‘We’re not going to rest on our laurels’ after historic turnaround

Cap math adds another layer

The extension decision doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Guard Cade Cunningham remains the franchise cornerstone after earning All-NBA First Team honors, while forward Ausar Thompson emerged as another key piece, earning All-Defensive First Team recognition and positioning himself for a major extension of his own.

If both Duren and Thompson receive maximum contracts, Detroit could face significant long-term salary cap constraints, potentially limiting the team’s ability to address what the front office has openly identified as priorities: perimeter shooting and secondary playmaking.

Langdon made the vision clear when discussing roster construction.

“The more ball handling you can have on the floor, the better,” he said. “And spreading the floor and shooting helps.”

--> Detroit Pistons’ Ausar Thompson named First-Team All-Defense, first player honored since Ben Wallace

Defining a rebuild

The Pistons are coming off a season that represented genuine progress.

But the postseason revealed real gaps, particularly in half-court offense and spacing, which will shape how aggressively Detroit pursues long-term commitments to its young core.

The central question now is whether Duren’s elite efficiency and rebounding justify a $287 million bet, or whether the franchise proceeds with caution as its roster continues to develop around Cunningham and Thompson.

It’s a decision that will define the next chapter of Detroit’s rebuild.

Eric Williams, 60, was charged with false pretenses - $1,000 or more but less than $20,000, and habitual offender - fourth offense notice.

He is also facing embezzlement from a vulnerable adult and operating under false pretenses in a different case, where he allegedly stole more than $30,000 from a woman who was in cognitive decline.

Related --> St. Clair Shores man accused of using elderly woman as ‘personal ATM’

According to prosecutors, Williams is a repeat offender with five prior convictions for scamming elderly victims.

The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office said Williams went to a 76-year-old woman’s home in Macomb Township on May 23, 2025, and quoted to paint the interior of her home. He asked for a 50% deposit, and she gave him the money.

Williams allegedly returned to the woman’s home on multiple occasions over the next few months and asked for more money, saying the payments would be credited toward the remaining balance for the painting work. He allegedly said he would begin the project in August 2025.

No painting services were ever performed, according to authorities. Williams allegedly took about $4,600 from the woman.

He was arraigned in court on May 20 and was granted a $25,000 personal bond.

Williams is scheduled to return to court on June 1 at 1 p.m. for a probable cause conference.

Camp leaders say they tell residents to wash their hands before eating — with soap for the lucky ones who have it. For the rest, the advice is to use oatmeal or sand.

“My fear is that we are here with nothing to protect ourselves. We have no protection, no water or soap, and we live near garbage," Francine Leve Janguzi, a resident of the so-called ISP camp told The Associated Press, as she opened an empty tap in a sea of tarpaulin roofs.

Supplies are being rushed to Ituri province as aid groups and healthcare workers try to stem an outbreak of the infectious disease that has been declared a global health emergency.

But front-line responders are concerned the disease might spread to the large displacement camps located near Bunia, where thousands of people are crammed into limited space, without access to basic hygiene.

“Eastern DRC’s years of conflict and displacement have left health systems on their knees, and that makes containing this outbreak all the harder,” said Heather Kerr, Congo director with the International Rescue Committee.

Almost a million people have been displaced from their homes by conflict in Ituri, according to the U.N.

That means this Ebola outbreak is “unfolding in communities already facing insecurity, displacement and fragile healthcare systems,” said Gabriela Arenas, a regional coordinator at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The majority of residents of the ISP camp — which owes its name to its proximity to the Higher Pedagogical Institute, or Institut Superieur Pedagogique in French — were forced to leave their villages in the Djugu territory following attacks by CODECO, one of the multiple armed groups which operate in the region.

“I’ve been here for eight and a half years. Now we’re hearing about Ebola,” camp resident Janguzi said. “Look at the state of where we’re sleeping. We don’t have any help whatsoever. We don’t have soap or water, yet we’re told to wash our hands regularly and be clean.”

There is no vaccine or treatment for the rare Bundibugyo type of Ebola, which has been spreading undetected for weeks in eastern Congo. Standard tests struggle to detect the Bundibugyo.

Over 1,000 suspected cases and at least 220 deaths had already been recorded as of Tuesday, including seven confirmed cases in Uganda. But the World Health Organization and aid groups on the ground say the outbreak is much larger.

Ebola is a highly contagious virus and can be contracted from bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.

Eastern Congo has for years seen attacks by dozens of separate rebel and militant groups, some of them with links to foreign countries or the extremist Islamic State group.

The Rwanda-backed M23 rebels are in control of parts of the region. While the Congolese government still largely controls the northeastern Ituri Province, the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, that control is tenuous. The Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan Islamist group linked to IS, is one of the dominant rebel groups there and responsible for violent attacks against civilian targets.

Before the outbreak, humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said in an assessment that the insecurity in Ituri had worsened recently, causing doctors and nurses to flee and leaving overwhelmed health facilities and in some parts, “catastrophic conditions.”

Gérard Maki, a community leader in the camp, told AP the disease is very frightening. "I’ve learned that there’s no cure, which is why it scares me. ... Our government should also do everything possible to find a solution to this disease.”

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Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Jean-Yves Kamale contributed to this report from Kinshasa.

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For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The 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.

Tsering, 58, has led the exile government based in Dharamshala, India, since 2021. He secured another five-year term in elections held in February among Tibetans living in India and overseas. Tsering was first elected to the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile in 1996 and served as speaker from 2008 until he rose to the top executive post.

Formed in 1959, Tibet’s government-in-exile, now called the Central Tibetan Administration, has executive, judicial and legislative branches.

Tsering said Wednesday that the Central Tibetan Administration “remains firmly committed to the ‘Middle Way Policy’ envisioned by His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” adding that the policy seeks resolution through nonviolence, dialogue and lasting mutual benefit.

“Until a resolution is achieved, we will continue the back-channel communications with caution and steadiness with the Chinese government,” he said.

Tsering's swearing-in ceremony took place in the presence of the Dalai Lama, who was escorted to the venue by red-robed monks among the sounds of beating drums and chanted prayers. The audience included hundreds of monks and Tibetans who looked on as the Chief Justice Commissioner Yeshi Wangmo of the Tibetan Supreme Justice Commission administered the oath of office.

The February vote marked the fourth direct election of the Tibetan exile leadership since the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, formally ended his role in the administration’s governance in 2011.

China says Tibet has been part of its territory since the mid-13th century and its Communist Party has governed the Himalayan region since 1951. But many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for most of their history and the Chinese government wants to exploit the resource-rich region while crushing its cultural identity.

China does not recognize the Central Tibetan Administration and hasn’t held dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives since 2010. India considers Tibet as part of China, but hosts the Tibetan exile government.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking to separate Tibet from China, which he denies. Some Tibetan groups advocate independence for Tibet, since little progress has been made in talks with China.

Yu Jing, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in India, on Sunday dismissed the legitimacy of the exile administration, saying it was “not recognized by any sovereign country” and had no authority to represent Tibetans or oversee the reincarnation process of the Dalai Lama.

On his 90th birthday last year, the Dalai Lama insisted Chinese authorities would have no role in identifying his successor and the institution of the Dalai Lama would continue after his death.

The space agency outlined the first phase of its moon base plans on Tuesday, awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four U.S. companies.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will provide a pair of landers to deliver moon buggies to the lunar surface, at a spot near the moon’s south pole. These so-called lunar terrain vehicles will be built by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost. Firefly Aerospace, which landed successfully on the moon last year, will deliver the first drones to the moon.

All this hardware is ideally supposed to arrive before the first Artemis astronauts land on the moon, planned for as early as 2028.

During April's Artemis II mission, four astronauts flew around the moon, traveling deeper into space than the Apollo moon crews did during the late 1960s and early 1970s. For next year's Artemis III, another team of astronauts will practice docking NASA's Orion capsule in orbit around Earth with the lunar landers being developed for crews by Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX.

NASA is targeting Artemis III for mid-2027, with a landing by two astronauts following as soon as 2028. The moon base's second phase, from 2029 into the early 2030s, will start building up the permanent infrastructure, including a power grid. As for when the base will be ready to support astronauts for extended periods in specialized permanent habitats, that's expected sometime in the 2030s, during the third phase.

“Then we'll be able to say, 'Hey, we're permanently here and we're not giving it up,'” said NASA's moon base program executive Carlos Garcia-Galan.

Garcia-Galan envisions a moon base sprawling over hundreds of square miles, with a perimeter marked by drones, dubbed MoonFall, stationed at the corners.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said these territory markers are meant to be respectful of other countries' spacecraft and equipment that might be nearby. He expects reciprocity in the matter.

The goal of the moon base is to encourage a lunar economy while conducting scientific research and laying the foundation for a Mars expedition, Isaacman stressed.

“For those waiting patiently, the grand return is close at hand and we will not slow down,” Isaacman said. “We are really just getting started.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.