The American leader issued the stark threat Tuesday, about 12 hours ahead of his deadline for Iran to agree to a deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz or face punishing strikes.

Iran rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the war as Trump's ultimatum to make a deal ticked closer with an expanded threat of strikes against the Islamic Republic to include all power plants and bridges.

Trump said Monday he is “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes as he again threatened to destroy Iranian infrastructure if Tehran does not meet his deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

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

Here is the latest:

Key bridge between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain closes

The King Fahd Causeway, a key bridge linking Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, closed Tuesday for the second time as a precautionary measure following alerts issued by the National Early Warning Platform in the Eastern Province.

The King Fahd Causeway Authority said on X Tuesday evening vehicle traffic has been suspended.

Iran-backed Iraqi militia releases American journalist Shelly Kittleson

American journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped in Baghdad last week, has been released, an Iraqi official with direct knowledge of the situation said Tuesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said Kittleson was freed in the afternoon. He did not share her current whereabouts but said that before her release, she was being held in Baghdad.

The powerful Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah said in a statement earlier Tuesday that it had decided to free the journalist, and officials with the militia told The Associated Press that members of the group previously detained by Iraqi authorities would be released in exchange.

Pope Leo expresses solidarity with Lebanese Christians facing ‘injustices’ as Israel invades

In an Easter message released Tuesday by the Vatican, Leo suggested a parallel between Christ’s crucifixion and the suffering of south Lebanese Christians.

“In your misfortune, in the injustice you endure, in the feeling of abandonment you experience, you are very close to Jesus. You are close to Him also on this Easter Day when He conquered the forces of evil, and which resonates for you as a promise of the future,” read the message.

The message was written in French, was signed by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and was addressed to the residents of the village of Debel.

A convoy carrying over 40 tons of aid led by the Vatican was supposed to have reached the Christian village of Debel for Easter, but was canceled for what Lebanon’s Maronite Church said were “security reasons.”

Leo visited Lebanon late last year on his first international trip as pope.

US senators warn Britain against changes to Diego Garcia island base

Two Republican senators warned Prime Minister Keir Starmer that altering the status of the U.S. military base on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia could harm U.S.-U.K. relations, as the base plays a key role in operations tied to the Iran war.

Sens. Ted Cruz and Tommy Tuberville urged Britain to halt a planned transfer of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, saying it would undermine U.S. national security.

Passage of the deal through the U.K. Parliament is on hold until American support can be regained.

The Trump administration initially welcomed the deal, but the president changed his mind in January, calling it “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY.”

Iraqi militia says it will free a kidnapped American journalist

The powerful Iran-backed Iraqi militia known as Kataib Hezbollah said in a statement Tuesday that it will release American journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped from a Baghdad street last week.

The group said its decision came “in appreciation of the patriotic stances of the outgoing Prime Minister,” Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, without giving more details. It added that “this initiative will not be repeated in future.”

Kataib Hezbollah had not previously acknowledged that it was the group responsible for Kittleson’s abduction, although both U.S. and Iraqi officials had pointed fingers at the group.

Iran agrees to French prisoner swap deal

Iran’s state-run IRNA news outlet confirmed Tuesday that an agreement was reached with Paris for the release of two French citizens, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, held in Iran over alleged espionage, in exchange for Iranian woman Mahdieh Esfandiari, who was detained over her social media content. The French government will also drop its case against Iran.

The French citizens had been holed up in the country’s diplomatic premises there since their release from prison.

The green light for them to leave Iran, long sought by France, signaled how Iran is differentiating between nations, treating some favorably and others as foes, in the context of the Iran war.

Iranian diplomat responds to Trump’s latest threat

Responding to Trump saying “a civilization will die tonight,” an Iranian diplomat described the country’s civilization as a tree that nourished the West.

“Therefore, no fool would cut off the branch of a tree he is sitting on because he himself would fall first, and it is the sturdy tree that always stands, not the branches and appendages that have grown from it,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press.

Iran fires more missiles at Israel

Just before sunset on Tuesday — twice in less than half an hour — Israel’s military said it was working to intercept missiles launched from Iran.

Sirens went off in the Tel Aviv area as well as parts of the occupied West Bank.

Rubio accuses Iran of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday accused Iran of committing acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz by attacking commercial shipping vessels attempting to navigate the key waterway.

“The whole world has been impacted, unfortunately, because Iran is violating every law known by striking commercial vessels in the Straits of Hormuz,” Rubio told reporters at the State Department. “It’s a big problem for the world. I mean, this is a regime that doesn’t believe in laws and rules or anything like that. It’s a state sponsor of terrorism, so it is not surprising that they’re now conducting terrorist operations against commercial vessels.”

He declined to respond to a question about what Trump meant when he threatened that “a whole civilization will end tonight” if Iran does not meet U.S. demands to reopen the strait.

Congress, away from Washington, watches and waits on Trump’s threat

Lawmakers are on recess from Washington as Trump threatens to kill “a whole civilization” in the Iran war. So far, the reaction from Congress — which is supposed to have the ultimate say in matters of war — has drawn sharp rebukes from Democrats and mostly silence from Republicans.

Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro called on Trump to immediately make it clear that he is not considering using nuclear weapons, and Colorado Democratic Rep. Jason Crow warned that “calling for the elimination of a civilization is a war crime.”

Most Republicans stayed away from the issue, though Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast that he was “hoping and praying” that Trump’s threat was “bluster.”

“I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure,” Johnson said.

Democrats intend to force further votes on legislation to rein in Trump’s ability to attack Iran, but not until Congress returns to Washington next week.

Russia and China veto a watered-down UN resolution aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz

The vetoes by Russia and China came despite the resolution being repeatedly weakened to get the two countries to abstain.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council on the Bahrain-sponsored resolution was 11-2, with Pakistan and Colombia abstaining. It came hours before Trump’s 8 p.m. Eastern deadline for Iran to open the strategic waterway or face attacks on its power plants and bridges.

Bahrain’s initial proposal would have authorized countries to use “all necessary means” — U.N. wording that would include military action — to ensure transit through the Strait of Hormuz and deter attempts to close it.

The final text eliminated Security Council authorization for offensive or defensive action. Instead, it “strongly encourages” countries using the Strait of Hormuz to coordinate defensive efforts to ensure safe navigation through the waterway, where about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.

Canada’s prime minister urges US not to target Iran’s civilian infrastructure

“Canada expects all parties in this conflict to respect international laws, the rules of engagement, and that means not targeting certainly civilians or civilian infrastructure,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said. “And we urge all parties in this war to follow those responsibilities.”

He made the comments Tuesday at an unrelated announcement outside Toronto.

Carney has at times been critical of Trump, who has previously threatened Canada’s sovereignty. Early in the war, Carney said he supported the strikes on Iran “with some regret” as they represented an extreme example of a rupturing world order.

Iraqi authorities say a drone fired from Iran hit a civilian home, killing two people

The authorities say the explosive-laden drone hit a home in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

The drone dive-bombed and crashed into a house in the village of Zargazawi, in the province of Irbil, early Tuesday, killing a couple asleep in their bed. As the latest in a wave of Iranian bombardment of Iraqi Kurdistan, the attack underscored the rising danger to civilians in the area as the Islamic Republic retaliates against the United States and Israel by hitting their allies in neighboring countries.

The dead couple’s children, sleeping in a separate room, were unharmed. Surveying the damage to the home, Aladdin Jabbar, a cousin in the family, said the two bodies were torn beyond recognition.

“It was a huge injustice,” he said.

Regional authorities condemned the strike and urged the Iraqi government to do more to protect the Kurdish population.

Pakistan’s premier Sharif speaks to Saudi crown prince and briefs him on his peace efforts

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke by phone Tuesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reaffirming Pakistan’s “unwavering solidarity” with the kingdom and condemning a strike on an oil facility in Saudi Arabia earlier in the day.

According to a government statement, Sharif praised Saudi restraint amid the current tensions and reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to advancing peace efforts aimed at de-escalating the region.

It said Sharif praised the “wisdom and sagacity” of Saudi leadership in exercising restraint during the ongoing conflict.

He also briefed the crown prince on the latest developments in Pakistan’s mediation efforts to ease the Middle East crisis. It said the crown prince appreciated Pakistan’s peace efforts.

Packing up to leave Tehran, a young designer says she’s ‘terrified’

Facing heavy bombardment, many middle-class residents of Iran’s capital have been waiting out the war in the country’s coastal north.

A young designer who lives in central Tehran said her parents left at the beginning of the war but she stayed behind to take care of her cat.

Now, she says she’s “terrified” by Trump’s threats and is planning to drive north with her cat to join her family — if the U.S. really does knock out power plants after Tuesday night’s deadline.

“If there is no electricity, there is no water because the water pressure in Tehran is low and all buildings have electric water pumps. You can’t cook either. In the north, you can at least do something in nature, like the ‘Stone Age’ that he promised,” she said.

The designer spoke on condition of anonymity for her safety.

Normally a popular vacation spot, the Caspian Sea coast is carpeted in forested mountains with plentiful water — unlike other areas which have suffered years of drought.

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Hezbollah militants, more than 1,500 have been killed

And more than 1 million people have been displaced, the country’s health ministry said.

Among the 1,530 killed are 102 women and 130 children are among the dead, as well as 57 paramedics, according to the government count.

The number of Hezbollah militants killed is unclear.

More than 4,800 people were also wounded in the war.

Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

This latest war was sparked after Hezbollah fired rockets towards northern Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran also at war with Israel and the United States.

Israel’s military says it struck eight ‘bridge segments’ in Iran

The military gave more details on the strikes following Netanyahu’s confirmation that he and Defense Minister Katz had ordered them.

In a statement, it said it struck bridges in Tehran, Karaj, Tabriz, Kashan, and Qom that were being used by Iranian forces to transport weapons and military equipment.

Top Senate Democrat calls Trump ‘an extremely sick person’

Sen. Chuck Schumer responded to President Trump’s dire threat against Iran by calling on Republicans to vote against the war.

Schumer, a New York Democrat, has joined with others in his party in forcing votes on legislation that would halt Trump from ordering further attacks on Iran unless he received congressional approval. So far, though, just a few Republicans have voted to rein in Trump’s power to order the attacks.

Schumer said on social media that any Republican who declines to vote “against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence” of Trump’s actions.

Oil prices rise as US stocks dip, but markets hold mostly steady ahead of Trump’s deadline for Iran

Oil prices are rising and U.S. stocks are falling Tuesday, but the moves aren’t as dramatic as the dire talk coming from both sides in the war with Iran.

President Trump threatened that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if Iran doesn’t meet his latest self-imposed deadline at 8 p.m. Eastern time to open the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials, meanwhile, urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants Trump has threatened to bomb.

But the S&P 500 slipped just 0.5% as officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing, even though it was unclear if a deal would come in time to head off Trump’s threatened attacks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 271 points, or 0.6%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% lower.

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Netanyahu confirms that Israeli warplanes struck bridges and railways in Iran

In a statement released by his office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was using them to transport materials to make weapons.

He said he approved the strikes with Defense Minister Israel Katz and said they weren’t meant to target Iranian civilians but the government.

“This is no longer the same Iran, nor is it the same Israel. We are changing the balance of power from one end to the other,” Netanyahu said.

Pakistan’s military backs mediation efforts, warns attacks on Saudi Arabia risk derailing diplomacy

Pakistan’s military on Tuesday voiced support for government efforts aimed at ending the conflict in the Middle East, stressing the need for restraint and dialogue while warning that recent attacks on Saudi Arabia risk undermining ongoing diplomatic initiatives.

The remarks came during a meeting of top commanders chaired by Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, according to a statement from the military.

It said the military strongly condemned recent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s petrochemical and industrial facilities, calling them an “unnecessary escalation” that could spoil “sincere efforts to resolve the conflict through peaceful means.”

The forum noted that Saudi Arabia’s restraint “despite grave provocations” had helped enable mediation and diplomatic options but warned that continued attacks risk damaging the “conducive environment” needed for negotiations.

US didn’t target oil infrastructure in Kharg Island strikes, US official says

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, described the strikes overnight as hitting targets previously struck and not directed at oil infrastructure.

The official didn’t clarify what was specifically hit on the island.

The U.S. has already struck various targets on the island, including air defenses, a radar site, the airport and a hovercraft base, according to satellite analysis by the Institute for the Study of War and American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.

— Konstantin Toropin

Iran has allowed two French former detainees to leave country, French President Emmanuel Macron says

They had been holed up in French diplomatic premises there since their release from prison.

“Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris are free and on route toward French territory, after three and a half years of detention in Iran,” Macron tweeted.

The green light for them to leave Iran, long sought by France, signaled how Iran is differentiating between nations, treating some favorably and others as foes, in the context of the Iran war. Macron has distanced France from the conflict, saying his country wasn’t consulted in advance about the U.S-Israel strikes and didn’t want the war.

Macron thanked Oman for playing a mediation role.

Vance seemed to confirm reports of US strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island

Responding to a question on the reported strike, he said it is “my understanding ... that we were to strike some military targets on Kharg Island. I believe we’ve done so.”

US Vice President JD Vance says he’s ‘confident’ Iran will respond to US demands by evening deadline

“I hope they’re smart,” he said.

Speaking during a news conference in Hungary’s capital Budapest, Vance said the United States had already defeated Iran’s militarily and that Iran was now “trying to exact as much economic pain on the world as possible” by keeping the Straight of Hormuz closed.

The U.S., he said, “has the ability to extract much greater economic cost on Iran than Iran has an ability to extract cost on us or on our friends in the world.”

“We feel confident that we can get a response, whether it is positive or negative, by 8 o’clock tonight,” he said referring to the 8 p.m. ET deadline set by President Trump.

US again strikes Kharg Island, a critical oil hub for Iran

That’s according to a White House official who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. hit military targets on the island, the official said Tuesday. The strikes came hours ahead of a deadline Trump set for Iran to capitulate to his demands or face a major attack. He said Tuesday morning that “’whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not make a deal.

Trump has threatened to deploy ground troops to seize critical oil infrastructure on the island, but experts warn such an operation would cost the lives of many U.S. military members and would not be a decisive move to ending the war.

The U.S. had earlier in the war struck several targets on the island, including air defenses, a radar site, an airport and a hovercraft base, according to satellite analysis by the Institute for the Study of War and American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.

Earlier Tuesday, the semiofficial Mehr news agency put out a report saying there had been several explosions on Kharg Island, without elaborating.

— Seung Min Kim and Michelle L. Price

Strikes on Iran’s railroads threaten to disrupt travel out of the country

Since the war shut Iran’s air travel, trains, along with buses and rented taxis, have ferried thousands of Iranians toward the Turkish border, carrying to safety those who’ve chosen to wait out the war abroad.

Passenger trains were booked through this week, one Tehran resident told The Associated Press shortly after he crossed into Turkey at the end of March. Speaking anonymously for his security, he said he had rented a taxi to travel roughly 545 miles (880 kilometers) west to the border. He planned on returning to Iran after a few months.

Earlier Tuesday, Israel’s military warned Iranians not to use train travel “for the sake of your security.”

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

Israel’s foreign ministry condemned the attack on its consulate in Istanbul

And the foreign ministry said it appreciated the action of Turkish security forces to combat it.

“Terror will not deter us,” the ministry wrote on X.

President Trump warns a ‘whole civilization’ could die but adds Iran still has time to capitulate

The American leader issued the stark threat Tuesday, about 12 hours ahead of his deadline for Iran to agree to a deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz or face punishing strikes.

Trump wrote on his social media site: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

He added: “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

But Trump’s statement nonetheless kept the possibility of an off-ramp open, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”

Missile strikes UAE telecommunications building, injuring 2

A telecommunications building in the United Arab Emirates was struck Tuesday by an Iranian ballistic missile, injuring two people, authorities said.

The missile hit an administrative building for the Thuraya Telecommunications Company in Sharjah, the medical office said.

The two Pakistani nationals injured in the strike were taken to a hospital, the office said.

Bridges struck by airstrikes in Iran

Iranian authorities said Tuesday that a series of airstrikes took out a railway bridge in Kashan, a train station in Mashhad and highway bridge near Tabriz on Tabriz-Tehran freeway.

Neither the United States nor Israel immediately claimed the attacks.

Tehran resident fears Iran will be ‘destroyed’ by US infrastructure attacks

A northern Tehran resident says friends and family are storing water and charging phones over fears the U.S. will take out Iran’s energy infrastructure.

“By attacking infrastructure, the Islamic Republic will not be destroyed, only we will be destroyed,” the resident told The Associated Press, speaking anonymously for her safety.

The teacher in her 20s spoke to the AP in the weeks before the war when Iranians were reeling from the killing of thousands of anti-government protesters.

Many opponents of Iran’s government hoped a threatened U.S.-Israeli strike would quickly overthrow it, she said.

“Like the people who were desperate and were afraid of people getting killed again, I believed Trump’s words. I thought that he would kill a few leaders of the regime and the work of this regime would be finished,” she said Tuesday.

Now she fears U.S. and Israeli attacks will spread chaos: “If we don’t have the internet, and if we don’t have electricity, water, and gas, we’re really going back to the Stone Age, as Trump said.”

Iran’s internet remains largely blocked, throttling news as panic spreads that critical infrastructure will be destroyed in the next 24 hours.

Gunmen attack building housing Israeli Consulate in Istanbul

Three assailants opened fire at police outside a building housing the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, sparking a gunfight that left one attacker dead, Turkish officials said.

The two other assailants were captured with injuries.

Two police officers sustained slight injuries in the clash, Istanbul Gov. Davut Gul told reporters. The assailants were carrying long-barreled weapons.

Interior Minister Mustafa Cifti wrote on X that the attackers had traveled to Istanbul from the neighboring city of Izmit in a rented car. One of the assailants was linked to a group he described as “exploiting religion,” without naming the organization.

The Islamic State group has carried out deadly attacks in Turkey in the past.

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A previous version of this item incorrectly reported two assailants had been killed.

Iran warns fuel will be cut off ‘for years’ if Trump carries out threat

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard warned Tuesday it would “deprive the U.S and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” if U.S. President Donald Trump carries out his threat to attack power plants and bridges if the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t open.

Multiple Iranian media outlets carried the statement.

It also issued a new threat to the Gulf Arab states.

“We have exercised great restraint and had considerations in choosing retaliatory targets, but from now on all these considerations have been removed,” the warning read.

1 wounded in northern Israel rocket attack

Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said a 20-year-old woman was taken to hospital with a mild head injury from shrapnel in the northern town of Nahariya.

Several cars burst into flames and buildings were damaged from a direct impact on a residential street, medics and Israel’s Fire and Rescue service said.

Rocket and drone attacks by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah have set off sirens throughout Tuesday in Israeli communities close to the Lebanon border.

Container ship hit in Persian Gulf

A container ship in the Persian Gulf has been hit by a projectile that caused damage, the British military said Tuesday.

The attack happened in international waters south of Iran’s Kish Island, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

It said no one was hurt and there was no environmental impact from the apparent attack.

Over 20 ships have been attacked in the Mideast by Iran since the war began.

Even before the deadline, airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station, and the U.S. hit military infrastructure on Kharg Island. It was the second time American forces struck the island, a key hub for Iranian oil production.

Since the war began, Trump has repeatedly imposed deadlines linked to threats, only to extend them. But the president insisted this one is final and will expire at 8 p.m. in Washington without a major diplomatic breakthrough.

He has also offered contradictory statements about what might actually happen.

Trump has made reopening the strait — through which a fifth of the world’s oil transits in peacetime — part of avoiding wider attacks and suggested that the waterway is not as vital to U.S. oil interests as it to other countries. He has also said he would be willing to deploy ground troops to seize Iranian oil, while maintaining that major combat operations in that country could soon conclude.

That means the next moves by the U.S. are largely a mystery, even as rhetoric on both sides has reached a fever pitch.

Meanwhile, Iran’s president said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight. That's despite Trump threatening that U.S. forces could wipe out all bridges in Iran in a matter of hours and reduce all power plants to smoking rubble in roughly the same time frame. He also suggested the entire country could be wiped off the map.

New strikes may not have been linked to Trump's larger threats

It was not clear if the latest airstrikes were linked to Trump’s threats to widen the civilian target list. At least two of the targets were connected to Iran’s rail network, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli warplanes struck bridges and railways in Iran.

Tehran fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting the temporary closure of a major bridge.

While Iran cannot match the sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its chokehold on the strait is roiling the world economy and raising the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.

Officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing, but Iran has rejected the latest American proposal.

Trump has shrugged off concerns about war crime accusations

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal isn’t reached, Trump said in an online post Tuesday morning. But he also seemed to keep open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”

Earlier, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video message calling on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants.

Iranians have formed human chains in the past around nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West. Some images of people surrounding power plants were posted Tuesday by local Iranian media, though how widespread the practice was is unknown.

President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X that 14 million Iranians had answered campaigns urging people to volunteer to fight — and said he would join them — while a Revolutionary Guard general urged parents to send their children to man checkpoints.

The Guard warned that Iran would “deprive the U.S. and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” and expand its attacks across the Gulf region if Trump carries out his threat.

In Tehran, the mood was bleak. A young teacher said that many opponents of Iran's Islamic system had hoped Trump's attacks would quickly topple it.

As the war drags on, she fears U.S. and Israeli strikes will spread chaos.

“If we don’t have the internet, and if we don’t have electricity, water, and gas, we’re really going back to the Stone Age, as Trump said,” she told The Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity for her safety.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot joined a growing chorus of international voices saying that attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure could constitute a war crime.

Such cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute, though, and Trump says he’s “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes.

Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said he deplored the rhetoric being used over the last two weeks “by all parties, including the latest threats to annihilate a whole civilization and to target civilian infrastructure.”

Airstrikes hit Iran, which fires on Saudi Arabia and Israel

Intense airstrikes pounded Tehran, including in residential neighborhoods. In the past, such strikes have targeted Iranian government and security officials.

The Israeli military said it attacked an Iranian petrochemical site in Shiraz, the second day in a row it hit such a facility. The military later said it also struck bridges in Tehran, Karaj, Tabriz, Kashan and Qom that were being used by Iranian forces to transport weapons and military equipment.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, described the strikes on Kharg Island as hitting targets previously struck and not directed at oil infrastructure.

Earlier in the war, American forces hit air defenses, a radar site, an airport and a hovercraft base there, according to satellite analysis by the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.

Saudi Arabia said it intercepted seven ballistic missiles and four drones launched by Iran.

Saudi Arabia temporarily closed the King Fahd Causeway, the only road connection between Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and the Arabian Peninsula. Iran also fired on Israel.

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

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, more than 1,500 people have been killed. and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

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

Chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz

Iran effectively blocked shipping through the strait after Israel and the U.S. attacked in February. That, and Iran’s attacks on the energy infrastructure of its Gulf Arab neighbors, have sent oil prices skyrocketing, raising the price of gasoline, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East.

Tehran has rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal, saying it wants a permanent end to the war. But as Trump's deadline neared, an official said indirect communications between the United States and Iran remained underway. Mediators from Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey “are racing against time” to reach a compromise before the deadline, the official said.

He said Iran has linked the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to sanctions relief, and the U.S. was open to easing some sanctions, especially on Iran's oil sector, in part to stabilize the global oil market.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing diplomacy.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers David Rising in Bangkok; John Leicester in Paris; Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia; Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem; and Seung Min Kim, Michelle Price and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

At around 10 a.m., the Pearland Police Department received a call claiming there was a bomb inside the Walmart located in the 1900 block of North Main.

Police contacted the store, and the building was evacuated as a precaution. Authorities confirmed that no injuries have been reported.

Our Sky 2 Chopper was over the scene, capturing the police presence.

Bomb detection units, including K-9 teams, are currently on scene as officers investigate the threat.

No additional details have been released at this time. KPRC 2’s Rilwan Balogun is en route to the scene to learn more about the incident.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said Kittleson was freed in the afternoon. He did not share her current whereabouts but said that prior to her release, she had been held in Baghdad.

The powerful Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah said in a statement earlier in the day that it had decided to free the journalist, and officials with the militia told The Associated Press that members of the group previously detained by Iraqi authorities would be released in exchange.

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

BAGHDAD (AP) — The powerful Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah said in a statement on Tuesday that it will release American journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped from a Baghdad streetcorner last week.

The group said its decision came “in appreciation of the patriotic stances of the outgoing prime minister," Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, without giving more details. It added that “this initiative will not be repeated in the future.” The statement added that Kittleson must “leave the country immediately” upon her release.

Kataib Hezbollah had not previously acknowledged that it was the one responsible for Kittleson’s abduction, although both U.S. and Iraqi officials had pointed fingers at the group.

Two officials within the militia, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, told The Associated Press that in exchange for freeing Kittleson, several members of the group who had previously been detained by Iraqi authorities would be released.

Kittleson, 49, a freelance journalist, had lived abroad for years before the kidnapping, using Rome as her base for a time and building a respected journalism career across the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria. Like many freelancers, she often worked on a shoestring budget and without the protections afforded by large news organizations to staff.

She had entered Iraq again shortly before her abduction. U.S. officials have said that they warned her multiple times of threats against her, but that she did not want to leave.

Iraqi officials have said that two cars were involved in the kidnapping, one of which crashed while being pursued near the town of al-Haswa in Babil province, southwest of Baghdad. The journalist was then transferred to a second car that fled the scene.

Three Iraqi officials said earlier Tuesday that attempts to negotiate her release had run into obstacles.

The two Iraqi security officials and one official from the pro-Iran Coordination Framework political bloc spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the sensitive case publicly.

One of the security officials said that an official with the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of Iran-backed militias that is nominally under the control of the Iraqi military, had been tasked with communicating with the abductors to secure Kittleson’s release but had run into difficulties in communicating with the Kataib Hezbollah leadership.

“The primary challenge is that the leaders of the Kataib militia — specifically, the commanders of the battalions — are nowhere to be found. No one knows their whereabouts, and the process of establishing contact with them is extremely complex,” they said. “These leaders have gone underground, maintaining no active lines of communication, out of fear of being targeted.”

The political official said a message had been sent to the Kataib leadership to determine their demands in exchange for releasing the kidnapped journalist. Iraqi authorities were willing to release six Kataib Hezbollah members who are currently detained, most of them in connection with attacks on a U.S. base in Syria, they said.

The second security official said that to further complicate matters, the Iraqi official in charge of the case had not yet received the go-ahead from U.S. officials to proceed with negotiations.

U.S. officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The State Department previously said that it is working with the FBI to secure Kittleson's release.

Journalist advocacy groups had urged the U.S. government to formally designate Kittleson a hostage, or “wrongful detainee,” a designation that triggers an elevated level of response.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

Offset, who was once married to Cardi B, was being treated at a hospital after Monday night's shooting, the spokesperson said in a statement, although his exact condition was unknown. Police said the injuries were not life threatening.

More than three years ago, Offset’s cousin Takeoff, another member of Migos, was shot and killed at a Houston bowling alley.

Monday's shooting followed a fight at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, just north of Miami, police said. Officers detained two people.

A rapper known as Lil Tjay, Tione Jayden Merritt, was arrested for the altercation that occurred before the shooting, the Seminole Police Department in Florida said. He was charged with disorderly conduct and operating a vehicle without a valid license.

His lawyer, Dawn M. Florio, told The Associated Press that Lil Tjay did not have a gun and was not charged with any weapons or gun-related crimes.

She said he paid the bond related to the charge against him and was expected him to be released Tuesday afternoon. The 24-year-old rapper is a stalwart of New York’s South Bronx scene, celebrated for his sing-rapping and pop-hip-hop style delivered atop drill beats.

While police said one person sustained injuries at a valet area outside the casino, they did not identify the victim.

The second person detained at the scene has not been charged and investigators were working to identify others involved, police said in a statement Tuesday.

Offset, born Kiari Kendrell Cephus, first made a name for himself with Migos. The Atlanta trio is one of the most popular hip-hop groups of all time, celebrated for their rapid-fire triplet flow, an often imitated delivery that changed the trajectory of trap.

Their career kicked off with the 2013 hit “Versace.” They then had several multiplatinum selling singles, including “Bad and Boujee,” which went No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart, “Stir Fry,” “Narcos,” and “T-Shirt.” Migos released four full-length albums across their career, closing that chapter after the killing of Takeoff.

Offset and Cardi B were secretly wed in September 2017 in Atlanta. In 2024, Cardi B announced that she filed for divorce. They have three children together.

The third member of Migos, rapper Quavo, sought to transform his nephew Takeoff’s tragic shooting into a force for change, holding a summit against gun violence in 2024.

Police said Takeoff was an innocent bystander when he was shot outside a Houston bowling alley after a disagreement over a dice game. Takeoff’s death was among a string of fatal shootings in recent years that involved hip-hop stars such as Nipsey Hussle, Pop Smoke, PnB Rock and Young Dolph.

Offset embarked on a solo career years before Takeoff's death.

As a solo artist, Offset is known for an idiosyncratic style — a melodic, aggressive finesse. He released three full-length albums: 2019’s “Father of Four”; 2023’s “Set It Off,” which he described to The Associated Press as an effort to “bring rap back” in a genre currently led by rappers who sing; and 2025’s “Kiari.”

“‘Set It Off’ was a freedom,” he told AP last year, proof that he could shine as a solo artist outside of Migos. “Kiari,” instead, is “me, for what I am. And recognizing who I am, because I feel like sometimes you could get lost in trying to please other people and trying to do what they want you to do. So, this is like my rebellion. My rebellion album.” ___

Sherman reported from New York. Associated Press reporters Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

Indianapolis councilman Ron Gibson said he and his 8-year-old son weren’t harmed in the incident that occurred around 12:45 a.m. Monday, but the bullets struck just steps from the dining room table where his son played with Legos the day before.

“That reality is deeply unsettling,” Gibson said. “This was not just an attack on my home, but endangered my child and disrupted the safety of our entire neighborhood.”

The incident comes as data centers have emerged as a target for extremists motivated by a range of anti-tech, anti-government and pro-environment narratives, according to Jordyn Abrams, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.

Though the details behind the latest incident are not yet clear, Abrams said local conversations around data centers have increasingly made them a symbol for grievances spanning the political spectrum.

Concerns include the centers’ massive energy consumption and water usage, which consumer advocates fear could drive up electric rates and deplete wells. Data center developers also can strike confidential power deals with local utilities that are profitable for utilities, making it unclear whether center operators are paying for their electricity or are foisting costs onto ratepayers, consumer advocates warn.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement that officers called to a home on East 41st Street just after 9 a.m. Monday found evidence of gunshots being fired at a house, but no injuries were reported. Police said they believe it was an isolated, targeted incident and the FBI was assisting.

“I understand that public service can bring strong opinions and disagreement, but violence is never the answer, especially when it puts families at risk,” Gibson said on Monday. “This will not deter me. I will continue to serve the residents of this district with integrity and respect for all voices.”

Last week, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Development Commission approved a rezoning petition for a project for Metrobloks, a data center developer, in Gibson's district. Some area residents and leaders opposed to the project attended last week’s hearing, raising concerns about the project’s impact on the community, news outlets reported.

Gibson supported the commission's decision in a statement last week.

“The site has remained underutilized for years, and today’s action is an important step toward bringing it back into productive use in a way that benefits both the surrounding neighborhood and our city,” Gibson said. “As the district councilor, when this petition comes before the full Council, I do not intend to call it down.”

But new research released Tuesday shows that such financial gains for many Black-led nonprofits were short-lived, if they happened at all. A subset of large, Black-led nonprofits saw only temporary funding increases between 2020 and 2022, according to the analysis by nonprofit research service Candid and Black philanthropy group ABFE. Smaller organizations saw no significant change.

The pattern of disinvestment put many community groups at a greater disadvantage when President Donald Trump’s policies curtailed funding for diversity, equity and inclusion. The nonprofit sector's struggles deepened as the administration threatened a range of social service programs, left future grants uncertain by cutting agency staff and chilled racial justice funding through anti-DEI executive orders.

Black Voters Matter co-founder Cliff Albright noted these community nonprofits are the same ones now tasked with helping more and more low-income families deal with spiking healthcare costs and rising food prices.

“We're literally being asked to do more with less resources,” Albright told The Associated Press.

Small, Black-led nonprofits tended to have to rely on new rather than continuing funders, losing out on transformational relationships that sustain their longer-term goals and cushion them through challenging periods. These small organizations — those with annual expenses of $1 million or less — got just over one-third of their funding from continuing supporters, according to the report.

The dynamic rang true for a South Side Chicago group serving a predominantly Black neighborhood among the city's most impoverished. Asiaha Butler, the CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, cofounded the nonprofit more than 15 years ago to empower her neighbors to combat their area's negative narratives.

That mission had a handful of consistent backers. But summer 2020 brought more than two dozen new funders.

“All of a sudden, we were desirable for people to fund,” recalled Butler, adding the “spurt” became a “curse” as the quick infusion of capital tapered off.

“We started seeing this revenue and thinking we're gaining really great relationships with funders," she said. "And, really, those priorities shifted quickly.”

Lacking relationships

Foundations lacked relationships with Black organizations of any scale prior to 2020, according to ABFE CEO Susan Taylor Batten.

Black philanthropy professionals say that distance created a scramble when protestors demanded businesses and philanthropies address systemic racism.

Kia Croom, whose fundraising firm works with nonprofits in Black communities, said her clients received more funding than ever from corporations. Some hired additional development staff to meet the demand — and then underwent layoffs when funds disappeared.

“It was just a very transactional gift at best,” she said.

Positive Results Center CEO Kandee Lewis oversees a Los Angeles nonprofit assisting survivors of domestic violence and other harms. It was wonderful, she said, to receive checks from new supporters. But oftentimes, the support turned out to be a one-time donation rather than the beginning of a relationship.

Lewis felt the funding came only because her group was Black-led — not because funders understood its work.

"They were so busy trying to figure out who was who that they didn’t really take time to get to know people," she said.

Limited networks

Jaleesa Hall knows philanthropy is a relationship game.

She heads Raising A Village Foundation, which aims to advance educational equity through tutoring programs. She didn't have many high net worth members in her network when she founded the Washington, D.C. nonprofit more than six years ago.

That circle made it difficult to catch the attention of foundations, which she said “haven't really cracked” how to find potential grantees outside of their existing web of connections.

“Small, Black-led nonprofits simply aren't in those rooms to begin with," Hall said.

Most of their foundation grant dollars came from first-time funders, according to the report.

Cathleen Clerkin, the associate vice president of research at Candid, said the nonprofits' work is made even more challenging by the “song and dance” necessary to secure long-term investment every year.

“They're just constantly going on first dates with new funders and hoping that somebody will invest in them and understand them,” she said.

Small nonprofit leaders are so focused on day-to-day upkeep and financial viability that they don't have time to attend networking opportunities or money to fly out for national convenings.

T’Pring Westbrook, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute's Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, co-founded a consulting group that works with small nonprofits. The problem isn't that foundations don't want to support marginalized communities, she said, but that they do so through “trend funding.”

“Maybe during Black History Month there will be a funding campaign,” she said. “But the thing about a campaign is a campaign doesn't build sustainability.”

Restrictive practices

Small nonprofits say they face additional barriers, regardless of race, including grant eligibility requirements. And limited staff may prevent qualifying organizations from keeping up with foundations' required weekly or monthly reports on the status of projects they’ve funded.

“It ends up feeling like a burden,” Hall explained. “The juice isn't worth the squeeze."

Philanthropy has seen a sector-wide shift towards trust-based models that offer general operating support and multi-year grants, acknowledging nonprofits' expertise on how to best fulfill their missions. But Batten, the ABFE leader, said Black-led nonprofits generally have not reaped the benefits of those best practices.

The report showed Black-led nonprofits had significantly fewer continuing funders than their non-Black counterparts. Only one-third received general operating support, compared to just over half of other nonprofits.

“We are still seeing remnants of bad practice when it comes to investing in Black communities," Batten said. "There’s just no way for a foundation to move its mission for communities in this country, let alone Black nonprofits to move theirs, if we do not evolve this sector."

‘Pulling teeth’ in Chicago

Butler, the Chicago neighborhood association leader, hears excuses now from supporters who gave at the height of the 2020 racial justice movement: “Priorities have shifted,” they tell her, or there are “new strategic goals."

“Little buzz words that just say perhaps this nonprofit -- grassroots, Black-led, very focused on the Black population -- is probably just not in peoples’ cards to continue to support,” she said.

That downturn delayed a nearly $7 million capital project building off their economic justice work after the post-George Floyd civil unrest. An 8,800-square-foot (817 square-meter) building would include a dine-in restaurant and another Black-owned business. One tenant would provide workforce development trainings. Her goal is to strengthen Englewood’s economic and social fabric through a thriving Black business district.

By 2023, she had secured a $1 million grant — her nonprofit's largest — to start the project. But she compared her search for additional funding to "pulling teeth.” Past philanthropic partners withheld support. Their prospects weren't good.

She's turning to public funding. The City of Chicago provided a $2.5 million grant and Butler said another $1.5 million state award is pending.

“Things shifted and so we didn’t want to start soliciting for a capital campaign,” she said. “The timing was off.”

___

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 Board of Regents announced it had scheduled the meeting for 6 p.m. EDT to consider firing Jay Rothman, the leader of the state's four-year colleges. The regents have not given a clear reason why they're considering terminating Rothman, who has served a little more than four years in the top leadership post.

The vote is scheduled just five days after The Associated Press first reported that the regents asked Rothman to either resign or be fired. Rothman said in two letters to the regents that he would not leave voluntarily without knowing what he did wrong.

Regent President Amy Bogost said in a statement Monday that the board has shared results of a performance review with Rothman, with “direct conversations and clear feedback regarding leadership expectations.” She said the system needs “a clear vision” but did not elaborate on the review's findings.

Rothman countered Tuesday with his own statement insisting regents repeatedly declined to cite a specific reason for finding no confidence in his leadership. No one ever indicated to him that an evaluation could lead to termination, he said, adding that Bogost called his review “overwhelmingly positive.”

“It is disappointing that the first I heard any sort of defense of their position was when they communicated with the media,” Rothman said. “I am left to conclude that, at best, this reflects an after-the-fact rationalization of a decision that was previously made.”

The secrecy has drawn the ire of Republicans who control the Legislature and the system's purse strings.

“This lack of transparency is unacceptable,” said GOP state Rep. David Murphy, chair of the Assembly's colleges and universities committee. “President Rothman deserves to know exactly why the Board has lost confidence in his leadership.”

Rothman has served as president of the 165,000-student, multicampus system since January 2022. The former chair and CEO of the Milwaukee-based Foley & Lardner law firm, Rothman had no prior experience administering higher education.

He has spent his tenure lobbying Republican legislators to increase state aid for the system in the face of federal cuts, navigating free speech issues surrounding pro-Palestinian protests, and grappling with declining enrollment that has forced eight branch campuses to close. Overall enrollment across the system has remained steady under his leadership.

He has to tread carefully dealing with a Republican-controlled Legislature and a Board of Regents with a majority of members appointed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Rothman brokered a deal with Assembly Republican Speaker Robin Vos in 2023 that called for freezing diversity hires and creating a position at UW-Madison focused on conservative thought in exchange for Vos releasing money for UW employee raises and tens of millions of dollars for construction projects across the system.

The regents initially rejected the deal only to approve it in a second vote held just days later. Evers said at the time the deal left him disappointed and frustrated.

Asked Monday about the move to oust Rothman, Evers didn't take a side. “It's their call,” he said of the board.

The fight over Rothman’s future comes as the flagship Madison campus is losing its chancellor. Jennifer Mnookin is leaving in May at the end of the current academic year to take the job as president of Columbia University.

Rothman makes $600,943 annually as UW president. He can be fired for no stated reason and he has no appeal rights, said Wisconsin employment law attorney Tamara Packard, who reviewed Rothman’s contract at the AP’s request.

Under the contract, Rothman would have to be given six-months’ notice of his termination. In practice, what usually happens is the person is told to focus on transitioning their duties and not actually work in the office any longer, Packard said.

The vote — 11-2, with two abstentions from Pakistan and Colombia— took place just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump issued an unprecedented threat that a “whole civilization will die tonight" if Iran does not open the strategic waterway and make a deal before his 8 p.m. Eastern deadline. One-fifth of the world’s oil typically passes through the strait, and Iran’s stranglehold during the war has sent energy prices soaring. “Failing to adopt this resolution sends the wrong signal to the world, to the people of the world,” Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani said after the vote — “the signal that the threat to international waterways can pass without any decisive action by the international organization responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

Al Zayani had asked before the vote if the international community would accept being “held hostage to economic blackmail,” pointing to Iran’s threats to global trade and food security by blocking the strait.

It’s doubtful the resolution introduced by Bahrain, even if it had been adopted, would have impacted the war, now in its sixth week, because it was been significantly weakened to try to get Moscow and Beijing to abstain rather than veto it.

The initial Gulf proposal would have authorized countries to use “all necessary means” — U.N. wording that would include military action — to ensure transit through the Strait of Hormuz and deter attempts to close it.

The United States, which had supported the draft from its original form, assailed the countries that objected to the resolution.

“No one should tolerate that they are holding the global economy at gunpoint," Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said of Iran, “but today, Russia and China did tolerate it.” He said in his statement: “They sided with a regime that seeks to intimidate the Gulf into submission, even as it brutalizes its own people during a national internet blackout, for daring to imagine dignity or freedom.”

After Russia, China and France, all veto-wielding countries on the 15-member Security Council, expressed opposition to approving the use of force, the resolution was revised to eliminate all references to offensive action. It would have authorized only “all defensive means necessary.” A vote had been expected on Saturday.

But instead the resolution was further weakened to eliminate any reference to Security Council authorization — which is an order for action — and limit its provisions to the Strait of Hormuz. Previous drafts had included adjacent waters.

The resolution vetoed Tuesday "strongly encourages states interested in the use of commercial maritime routes in the Strait of Hormuz to coordinate efforts, defensive in nature, commensurate with the circumstances, to contribute to ensuring the safety and security of navigation across the Strait of Hormuz.”

This should include escorting merchant and commercial vessels, and deterring attempts to close, obstruct or interfere with international navigation through the strait, it says.

The resolution also demanded that Iran immediately halt attacks on merchant and commercial vessels and stop impeding their freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian infrastructure.

In response to the U.S. and Israeli attacks beginning on Feb. 28, Iran has targeted hotels, airports, residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in more than 10 countries, including the Islamic Republic's Gulf neighbors, some of the world’s major exporters of oil and natural gas.

Iran's blockade in the strait is seen by Gulf nations as an existential threat. Bahrain, a Gulf nation that hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet and is the Security Council’s Arab representative and its president this month, has been pressing for U.N. action.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia and China’s U.N. Ambassador Fu Cong have blamed the U.S. and Israel for starting the war and sparking an expanding global crisis. They told the Security Council last week that the most urgent priority now is to end military operations immediately.

In response to Iran’s strikes against its Gulf neighbors, the Security Council adopted a Bahrain-sponsored resolution on March 11 condemning the “egregious attacks” and calling for Tehran to immediately halt its strikes.

That resolution, adopted by a vote of 13-0 with Russia and China abstaining, also condemned Iran’s actions in the Strait of Hormuz as a threat to international peace and security and called for an immediate end to all actions blocking shipping.

Trump's previous deadline was weeks ago, but it was postponed several times as the Republican president oscillated between heated threats, announced delays and proclamations that the negotiations were going well, sometimes in the same statement.

That was true in Trump's Truth Social post ahead of his Tuesday 8 p.m. ET deadline. After threatening a “whole civilization," Trump said that Iran's new leaders were more reasonable and “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”

Officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were ongoing, but it was unclear if a deal would be reached by the deadline, which Trump has suggested was final. Trump raised the ante on his threats from Monday.

“They’ll have no bridges. They’ll have no power plants. They’ll have no anything," he wrote.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned the U.S. that attacks on civilian infrastructure are banned under international law, according to his spokesperson. Trump, speaking with reporters, said he's “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes with such attacks.

So how did Trump's deadline delays and threats escalate over the last weeks?

An ultimatum about reopening the Strait of Hormuz

On March 21, Trump posted on Truth Social that if Iran doesn't “FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS.”

Iran had until the evening of March 23.

Then 12 hours before the deadline, Trump took to Truth Social to share the good news: that both countries had productive conversations toward concluding the conflict.

“I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD,” he wrote, adding that was subject to the success of the discussions.

That pushed the deadline out to the end of that week.

A threat to target desalinization plants

Before the deadline, on March 26, Trump doubled down on his threats on Truth Social: “They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!”

But later that day, he extended the deadline for another 10 days, to April 6 at 8 p.m., and said on Truth Social that negotiations were “going very well.”

On March 30, Trump put out a mixed statement: celebrating progress in the talks with Iran while also expanding his threatened bombing if a deal wasn't “shortly reached,” adding that “it probably will be."

“We will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!),” he wrote.

It's unclear how soon “shortly reached” meant for Trump, but a deal was not made as the deadline loomed.

An expletive-filled threat to attack power plants and bridges

“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday, "Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.”

As the deadline approached, his posts had doubled down on his threats until Sunday, when Trump pushed the deadline again in an expletive-filled post.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F——-in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” Trump said on Truth Social, followed by another post that specified 8 p.m. as the deadline.

Trump then suggested on Monday that Tuesday's deadline would be final, saying he'd already given Iran enough extensions.

“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Trump said. “We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night.”

By Tuesday morning, Trump had sent his statement saying “a whole civilization will die tonight,” to which he added that “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

What's next for diplomacy with Iran?

Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, said Iran no longer trusts the Trump administration after the U.S. bombed the Islamic Republic twice during previous rounds of talks.

“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” he told The Associated Press.

The talks were ongoing as the Tuesday night deadline ticked closer.

We had another cool start Tuesday morning, with the 50s!

Over the next three days, high temperatures gradually warm up. Thankfully humidity stays low until late week. However, with the reintroduction of winds coming in off the gulf, the mornings will start to get a little stickier.

Late Week Pattern Change:

The perfect spring weather doesn’t last long; multiple disturbances move through southeast Texas, increasing rain chances by late week.

The rain chances are due to multiple disturbances moving out of the Pacific, through the west coast into the plains. The one that looks to have more widespread thunderstorm chances is on Friday and Saturday.

As you can see above, we’re going to be looking at more energy waves coming across the US which will keep Texas in a stormy pattern for a good chunk of next week as well. Be ready for some much needed rain chances coming!

Extended forecast:

Temperatures creep back into the 80s late week as rain and storm chances return.

According to authorities, the officer attempted to initiate a traffic stop on a white Chrysler 300.

However, the driver refused to comply and continued driving, prompting a pursuit.

The chase continued along the Gulf Freeway before the driver eventually exited the freeway and came to a stop in the 2700 block of Reed Road.

Police say two people were taken into custody at the scene. No additional details about the suspects or potential charges have been released at this time.

Our Sky 2 Chopper was over the scene, capturing multiple police vehicles near the intersection where the chase concluded.

It is unclear whether anyone was injured during the incident.

Authorities have not said what initially caused the driver to act erratically.

Bidunga finished his second season with the Jayhawks as the Big 12 defensive player of the year and an Associated Press All-Big 12 second-team pick. He averaged 13.3 points and 9.0 rebounds and was a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year finalist. He led the Big 12 and was fourth nationally with 91 blocked shots and 10th in field-goal shooting at 64%.

Bidunga recorded 13 double-doubles and was the only Division I player to average more than 13 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.5 blocked shots.

Harris was voted the Atlantic Coast Conference's most improved player after he increased his scoring average from 6.1 points as a freshman to 21.4 this past season. He also was an AP All-ACC second-team pick after becoming one of two players in program history to score 750 points in a season. Myles Colvin, the Demon Deacons' second-leading scorer, joined Harris and four other teammates in the portal.

Murauskas was joined in the portal by four of his teammates as the Gaels transition from longtime coach Randy Bennett, who left for Arizona State, to Mickey McConnell, who was Bennett's associate head coach. Murauskas was the West Coast Conference's second-leading scorer with 18.4 points and had two 30-point games. He was an All-WCC first-team pick both years he was with the Gaels after transferring from Arizona.

Isaiah Johnson, who led Colorado and was third in the Big 12 in scoring with 16.9 points per game, went into the portal after one season with the Buffaloes.

Providence, which fired Kim English last month and hired Bryan Hodgson, had just one player listed on its 2026-27 roster Tuesday. Among seven players in the portal was Stefan Vaaks, who as a freshman averaged 15.2 points and 3.3 assists and made a Big East-leading 91 3-pointers.

California saw its top two scorers enter the portal in Dai Dai Ames and Justin Pippen. Ames is looking for his fourth school in four years after having made one-year stops at Kansas State and Virginia. He scored 16.9 points per game for the Bears. Pippen, son of NBA great Scottie Pippen, started his career at Michigan and will be heading to his third school in three years after averaging 14.2 points.

Also entering the portal was San Diego State forward Miles Byrd, the Mountain West's defensive player of the year.

Purdue announced it had signed forward Caden Pierce, who played three seasons at Princeton and sat out this year as a redshirt while completing his degree. Pierce started 89 games for the Tigers and was 2023-24 Ivy League player of year after averaging 16.6 points, 9.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists. He chose the Boilermakers over Duke, Gonzaga, Louisville and Connecticut.

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Two police officers sustained slight injuries, Istanbul Gov. Davut Gul told reporters. The assailants were carrying long-barreled weapons.

The consulate is located in a high-rise building in Levent, one of the city’s main business districts. Officials said that there are no Israeli diplomats present in Israeli missions in Turkey. Israel withdrew its diplomats amid security concerns and deteriorating relations with Turkey during the war in Gaza.

Interior Minister Mustafa Cifti wrote on X that the attackers had traveled from the city of Izmit, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Istanbul, in a rented car. One of the assailants was linked to a group he described as “exploiting religion,” without naming the organization.

The Islamic State group has carried out deadly attacks in Turkey in the past.

The two wounded assailants are brothers, identified as Onur C. and Enes C. The first has a criminal record related to drugs. Both are being interrogated, according to the Interior Ministry.

Video from the attack showed one assailant carrying what appeared to be an assault rifle, wearing a brown backpack and hiding behind a bus when exchanging fire with police. A police officer falls to the ground, apparently having been shot, and then rolls away to get behind a tree for cover.

One of the police officers was wounded in the leg and the other in the ear, the Interior Ministry said.

Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said that three prosecutors, including a deputy chief prosecutor, have been assigned to lead an investigation.

Police sealed off the building and blocked several roads, while forensic experts in white protective suits combed the area for evidence.

A witness described seeing officers take cover behind parked cars and communicate with each other during the shooting.

“In general, this is a noisy area, so initially we thought this might be something else. But the gunshots continued,” said Omer Dilki, 34. “We saw the police officers standing behind the cars, take shelter, and call out to each other.”

Ali Rıza Arpacı, who works nearby, described witnessing “serious clashes” happening right in front of him.

“We were almost inside the clashes,” he said, adding that the gunfight lasted for around 10 minutes.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced what he said was a “treacherous” attack.

“We will resolutely continue our fight against all forms of terrorism, and we will not allow the climate of security in Turkey to be harmed by vile and timed provocations like today’s,” he said.

U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack condemned the assault, praising Turkish authorities for “their swift and decisive response.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the attack and commended Turkish security forces for their rapid action in thwarting it.

___

Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara. Mehmet Guzel contributed to this report from Istanbul.

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A previous version of this story, relying on Turkey’s Haberturk news, incorrectly reported that two attackers had been killed. Only one of the three assailants was killed, while the other two were wounded and captured, according to Turkish officials.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Samsung confirmed in an update on its website Tuesday that this end of service guidance only applies to the U.S. market.

The trial started last month, nearly a year after Gerhardt and Arielle Konig went on a hike on the Pali Puka trail in Honolulu that ended with her bloodied and screaming that he tried to kill her. Gerhardt Konig has pleaded not guilty.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the national domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233 in the U.S.

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The couple were on a weekend trip to Hawaii's capital city for her birthday in March 2025 while their two young sons stayed home on Maui. Near a lookout offering sweeping views, Gerhardt Konig, 47 — upset about his wife's relationship with a coworker — tried to push her off the steep trail, bashed her head with a rock and attempted to stab her with a syringe, prosecutors said.

The trial, with testimony livestreamed by Court TV, has aired the couple's marital problems leading up to the hike, along with their versions of what happened on the trail.

Gerhardt Konig testified that his wife was having an affair, which he confirmed by unlocking her phone while she slept. The relationship, which Arielle Konig characterized as an “emotional affair” involving flirty messages with a coworker, came up during the hike.

Arielle Konig testified that her husband grabbed her and moved her toward the cliff's edge, but she threw herself on the ground in an attempt to hold on. He straddled her and had a syringe in his hand, she said, but she batted it away. She bit his forearm and squeezed his testicles in attempt to get him off her, she said.

Her husband denied pushing her toward the edge and testified that she hit him with a rock on the side of his face. He wrestled the rock away and hit her with it twice in self-defense, he said.

He denied having any syringes on the mountain, or trying to stab her. His defense attorney told jurors no syringe was found at the scene.

Two hikers who heard Arielle Konig's screams helped her get down the trail.

Pali Puka, which means “pierced cliff” in Hawaiian, leads to a hole in a rock ridge through which hikers can look out over the forest to see the ocean. The trail is closed because state officials have deemed it unsafe, but hikers often enter through a small clearing, ignoring a warning sign that reads: “Area Closed! Do not go beyond this sign.”

Gerhardt Konig testified that as he watched his wife crawl away, he believed his marriage and career were over, and he decided to jump to his death. But first, he called his adult son from a previous marriage. The son told authorities that his father said he "tried to kill your stepmom” — a confession Gerhardt Konig denied having made.

He spent hours on the mountain before deciding to come down and surrender to police.

His wife has since filed for divorce.

A day after the historic lunar flyaround, NASA on Tuesday released striking new photos taken by the U.S.-Canadian crew.

The four astronauts channeled Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968 with their own: Earthset, showing our planet setting behind the gray, pockmarked moon. Another photo captures the total solar eclipse that occurred when the moon blocked the sun from the crew’s perspective.

The three Americans and one Canadian are now headed home, with a splashdown in the Pacific set for Friday. In the meantime, scientists at Houston’s Mission Control are poring over the stream of moon photos beaming down.

Apollo 8’s three astronauts became the world’s first lunar visitors, orbiting the moon on Christmas Eve 1968. Their Earthrise shot became a symbol of the modern-day environmental movement.

Artemis II marks NASA’s first return to the moon with astronauts — a critical step toward a lunar landing by another crew in two years.

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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.

The S&P 500 fell 0.8% as Trump threatened that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if Iran does not meet his deadline at 8 p.m. Eastern time to open the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials, meanwhile, urged young people to form human chains to protect power plants that Trump has threatened to bomb.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 355 points, or 0.8%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.2% lower.

The moves were tentative, much like they've been since the start of the war with Iran, because of deep uncertainty about when the fighting may end. During just the first hour of Tuesday's trading, the Dow careened between a gain of 74 points and a loss of 425.

The moves were sharper in the oil market, where prices have spiked because the war has snarled the production and transportation of crude in the Persian Gulf. Much of that oil exits the gulf through the Strait of Hormuz to reach customers around the world, but Iran has blocked it to enemies.

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude climbed 3.2% to $116.08. Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.9% to $110.75 and is well above its roughly $70 level from before the war in late February.

The worry in markets has been that a long-term disruption will keep oil prices high for a long time and send a painful wave of inflation crashing through the global economy. Iran on Monday rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and instead said it wants a permanent end to the war.

So far in the war, Trump has made a series of threats to blow up Iranian power plants if it doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz, only to delay it several times. The possibility remains that Trump could back down again, among other scenarios, which is keeping uncertainty high.

A year ago, Trump ultimately backed off many of the stiff tariffs that he initially threatened to put on imports from other countries, though they ended up higher than from before his second term.

“Investors are likely to remain on edge and markets unable to establish trends, probably until there is a clear outcome later this evening: a deal, the U.S./Israeli strikes intensify, or Iran’s retaliation becomes escalatory instead of proportional,” according to Paul Christopher, head of global investment strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

On Wall Street, companies with big fuel bills fell to some of the sharpest losses as further gains in oil prices cranked up the pressure.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holding dropped 5%, and United Airlines sank 3.9%.

Companies whose customers may have the least room to absorb the recent jump in gasoline prices also struggled. Dollar Tree slid 4.9%, and Dollar General fell 2.7%.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline across the United States has leaped to $4.14, according to AAA. It was below $3 a couple days before the United States and Israel launched attacks to begin the war in late February.

Companies enmeshed in the cryptocurrency industry were also losers as the price of bitcoin sank. Coinbase Global dropped 4%, and Strategy fell 4.4%.

Stocks of health insurers helped limit the market’s losses after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said Medicare Advantage payments will likely see a net average increase of 2.48% in 2027. That was well ahead of what some investors expected, according to UBS analysts led by AJ Rice.

UnitedHealth Group jumped 8.7%, and Humana rose 6.2%.

Universal Music Group also helped to limit losses for global stock indexes after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management offered to buy the record label behind Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny in a cash-and-stock deal valued at approximately $64 billion.

The proposed purchase, which Pershing Square argued would clear uncertainty that’s weighed on UMG’s stock, would bring the company to Nevada and move its stock listing from Amsterdam to the New York Stock Exchange. UMG’s stock in Amsterdam jumped 12.3% but remains below what Pershing said its bid is worth. That could indicate investor doubt that the deal will happen.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe. Asian stock indexes were stronger, with South Korea’s Kospi up 0.8% for one of the world’s bigger gains.

In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher ahead of Trump’s looming deadline. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.36% from 4.34% late Monday, egged on in part by the rise in oil prices.

That's well above its 3.97% level from before the war, and the rise has pushed up rates for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses, which slows the economy.

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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

At this weekend’s 39^th annual Houston Art Car Parade of course! There will be over 250 art cars on display, and the event is FREE.

From lowriders to fire-breathing sculptures and Houston slabs - it’s all about reinvention and joy.

Plus, this year’s grand marshals are Grammy award-winning artist - Kam Franklin and soccer legend and recent Houston Sports Hall of Fame inductee - Brain Ching who will help kick off the celebration and guide the procession through downtown Houston

We’ve gathered all the info so you can get a jump start on planning your weekend:

Thu (Apr 10): Main Street Drag (mini-parades to schools/hospitals) + Art Car Sneak Peek at Discovery Green (6-9:30pm, free)

Fri: Art Car Ball (6-11pm) at Hermann Square at City Hall (900 Bagby)

Sat (Apr 11): Lineup Party 11am (close-up viewing) + Kids Creative Zone + Parade 2pm (FREE); lasts ~2 hours; streets reopen ~6pm

Sun (April 12): Awards 11am at Orange Show HQ

This year introduces a new location for the Legendary Art Car Ball at Hermann Square, creating a seamless connection into parade day as the space transitions into the VIPit viewing experience.

Watch as Derrick Shore chats with Briand Ching and Kam Franklin, as well as Lauren Kelly along with artist Rickey Polidore all about this year’s exciting event.

One of the most versatile safeties in the draft, Kilgore also visits the Carolina Panthers, Indianapolis Colts, Seattle Seahawks and Washington Commanders. The Gamecocks team captain has private workouts with the Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints and Buffalo Bills.

Kilgore (6-foot-1, 211 pounds, 4.40 speed) is known for his outstanding tackling and ball skills. The former freshman All-American intercepted eight career passes, including five interceptions two seasons ago to tie for the conference lead.

He finished his career with 178 tackles and 21 pass breakups before declaring for the draft after his junior year.

He recorded 54 tackles last season and had a team-high 10 pass breakups with a dozen passes defensed and recovered two fumbles.

A Georgia native, Kilgore played wide receiver and safety and also excelled in track and field and basketball. He was the state long jump champion as a sophomor

At the NFL scouting combine, he had a 10-10 broad jump and a 37-inch vertical leap with a 4.32 short shuttle and bench pressed 225 pounds 16 times.

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

Festival organizers canceled the three-day outdoor event as a result of the travel ban and said those who had bought tickets would get refunds.

Ye applied for an electronic travel authorization to visit the U.K., but it was blocked by the government on the grounds that his presence in the country would not be “conducive to the public good.”

“Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement posted on social media. “This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism. We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values.”

The rapper, who changed his name in 2021, had been expected to play his first U.K. dates for more than a decade in front of around 150,000 revelers over three nights July 10-12 at the Wireless Festival, in London’s Finsbury Park. Other acts for the festival had not yet been announced.

The event's organizers had been under mounting pressure from sponsors and politicians to cancel the gigs by the rapper, who has drawn widespread condemnation for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Last year, Ye released a song called “Heil Hitler” and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. Officials in Australia canceled the musician's visa in July after the release of the single.

The 48-year-old apologized in January with a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

Wireless sponsors Pepsi, Rockstar Energy and Diageo pulled out of the festival since Ye was announced as the headliner.

In a statement issued Tuesday before his travel authorization was revoked, Ye said he “would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the U.K. in person, to listen.

“I know words aren’t enough — I’ll have to show change through my actions,” he said. “If you’re open, I’m here.”

Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, had said the group would be willing to meet with the musician if he pulled out of the festival.

“The Jewish community will want to see a genuine remorse and change before believing that the appropriate place to test this sincerity is on the main stage at the Wireless Festival,” Rosenberg said.

Organizer Festival Republic had stood by Ye. In a statement issued Monday, managing director Melvin Benn urged people to offer the performer “forgiveness and hope.”

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

Announcing the cancellation, Festival Republic said that “multiple stakeholders were consulted in advance of booking Ye and no concerns were highlighted at the time.

“Antisemitism in all its forms is abhorrent, and we recognize the real and personal impact these issues have had,” it said in a statement. “As Ye said today, he acknowledges that words alone are not enough, and in spite of this still hopes to be given the opportunity to begin a conversation with the Jewish community in the U.K.”

The Community Security Trust, which works to protect British Jews, said the government had made the right decision.

“Anti-Jewish hatred should have no place in society and cultural leaders have a role to play in ensuring that is the case,” it said in a statement.

“People who show genuine and meaningful remorse for previous antisemitic behavior will always receive a sympathetic hearing from the Jewish community, but that process must come before this kind of public rehabilitation.”

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

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

One of the school systems, Delaware Valley School District in rural eastern Pennsylvania, received notice of the change from the Trump administration in February and has since voted to roll back its antidiscrimination protections for transgender students. Another district, Sacramento City Unified, said Monday it "remains committed to the support of our LGBTQ+ students and staff.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taft College, a community college in California’s Central Valley, settled a case in 2023 with the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights after a student accused faculty of discrimination that included refusing to use the student’s preferred pronouns. The college agreed to faculty training on Title IX and a revision of college policies to clarify that refusal to use a person’s preferred name and pronoun could constitute harassment.

The agreement with Sacramento City Unified School District stemmed from a complaint brought in 2022 by a student after a teacher refused to use preferred pronouns or to place the student, who identified as male, in a boys’ group for a class activity. The 2024 resolution agreement mandated training for employees on civil rights law, sexual harassment and how to handle formal complaints.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The activist and former San Francisco 49ers quarterback has completed “The Perilous Fight,” to come out Sept. 15 through the Hachette Book Group imprint Legacy Lit. His memoir will come out almost exactly 10 years after he knelt before a preseason game, a protest against police violence and racial inequality that was emulated by some players and criticized by politicians, team owners and fans, some of whom booed him and burned his jersey.

Kaepernick, who has not played in the NFL since 2016, said in a statement that he wanted to offer context for what led to his taking a knee. Before that, he had remained seated during the anthem.

“People saw the moment. But they didn’t see the years that made it possible: the questions about who I was; the injustices I could no longer ignore; the voices of those who came before me that I carried into that stadium,” Kaepernick said in a statement released Tuesday. “That journey, from a Black kid navigating an identity the world didn’t always make space for, to an athlete who realized the game was bigger than football, shaped everything. When I took a knee, it wasn’t a sudden act.”

Legacy Lit is calling the book “equal parts memoir and manifesto,” tracing “the off-the-field battles that turned a single act of protest into a movement that changed American sports and culture forever.” Kaepernick is narrating the audio edition, produced and to be sold exclusively by Audible.

Kaepernick, 38, played six years for the 49ers and helped lead them to an appearance in the Super Bowl in 2013. Baltimore won the game 34-31.

Kaepernick has spoken out often on social issues, launched his own publishing imprint and co-written the picture story “We Are Free, You & Me” and the graphic novel “Change the Game.”

As time ticks down on U.S. President Donald Trump's latest ultimatum, their thoughts were clouded by new fears: How long will the power be out if plants are bombed? How would they leave the city if the bridges are taken out?

Five weeks on, they have grown used to the roar of American and Israeli fighter jets, the sound of explosions and sleepless nights. Like many, they've left the capital and returned in search of elusive safety. Married for over a decade, they made it through the COVID pandemic and the 12-day war last June.

They've used clear packing tape to lines the edges of their windows, a precaution against blasts. Mirrors and fragile objects have been moved or secured. A packed bag holds documents, medications and essentials, ready in case they need to leave quickly.

In an expletive-laden threat over the weekend, Trump vowed that “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day,” and that Iran's leaders will be “living in Hell” if they don't open the Strait of Hormuz.

“Honestly, the situation is really unclear,” Arghavan said. “We don’t really understand things like how long the power might go out if it does, or what life without electricity would even look like.”

Alishir said he and his wife could handle life without power — and potentially without running water — for a week at most. “If it goes on longer, we’ll definitely run into problems,” he said.

Their struggles began even before the first American and Israeli bombs slammed into Iran on Feb. 28.

The Iranian government's crackdown on nationwide protests in January severely limited internet access. The internet monitoring organization NetBlocks says it's the longest nationwide shutdown ever recorded.

Arghavan runs a small language school that teaches French to Iranians who want to live in the Canadian province of Quebec.

“We were basically an online school, and our students had classes with kids abroad,” she said. “Around 50% of our learners were outside the country. But now, with all these internet outages, it’s really disrupting our work.”

Iranians are divided over the war: Some take part in daily pro-government rallies; others quietly cheer the strikes against their leaders while condemning the deaths of civilians and damage to infrastructure.

The couple blames Israel and the U.S. for starting the war and hope for a diplomatic solution.

“I really hope an agreement is reached soon and that whatever happens, it ends up helping people, because right now people are the ones paying a heavy price,” Arghavan said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the school hasn't publicly discussed its search. Malone would replace Hubert Davis, who was fired March 24 after five seasons as the successor to retired Hall of Famer Roy Williams.

ESPN was the first to report UNC moving toward hiring Malone.

The 54-year-old Malone spent 12 seasons as a head coach in the NBA, including a 10-year run in Denver. He led the Nuggets to the 2023 championship behind three-time league MVP Nikola Jokic.

The Nuggets fired Malone last spring with less than a week left in that regular season. Almost a year to the day, in another surprise move, Malone is on the verge of taking over a blue-blood program with six national titles, a record 21 appearances in the Final Four and alums including Michael Jordan, James Worthy Vince Carter and Atlantic Coast Conference career scoring leader Tyler Hansbrough.

UNC now has big-name former pro coaches leading its two highest-profile programs. The Tar Heels hired six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick as their football coach in December 2024. Belichick struggled to a 4-8 record in his debut season.

Davis’ firing opened one of the top jobs in college basketball for only the fourth time since the late Hall of Famer Dean Smith’s retirement after 36 seasons in October 1997.

The job had stayed in the “Carolina Family” ever since. Longtime assistant Bill Guthridge replaced Smith, followed by former UNC player Matt Doherty, former Smith assistant Williams and then Davis, who played under Smith and worked on Williams' staff.

Names like Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd, Michigan’s Dusty May and Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan — who led Florida to the 2006 and 2007 NCAA titles — had been linked to the job since Davis’ firing. Lloyd announced Friday at the Final Four that he would return to the Wildcats while praising UNC for “the way they’ve handled this.”

Three days later, the search had turned in an unexpected direction with Malone, who has never been a college head coach and has spent most of his career in the NBA. His primary connection to UNC athletics is the presence of daughter Bridget on the Tar Heels’ volleyball team.

During an October appearance on the UNC athletic department’s “Carolina Insider” podcast, Malone recalled hearing his late father, NBA coach Brendan Malone, talk often about Smith and UNC basketball. He also mentioned attending multiple recent practices and Davis asking him to speak to the team at least once.

“I’ve always been a Carolina fan,” Malone said. “And when (Bridget) decided to come here that made it even that much more special, because now I’m ‘Go Heels’ for everything. I root for all the teams, have fallen in love with Chapel Hill.”

Malone's time in the NBA included a brief stint in Sacramento, where he was fired in December 2014, just 24 games into his second season. He also worked as an assistant with the New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, New Orleans Hornets and Golden State Warriors.

Malone had stints in college as an assistant at Oakland, Providence and Manhattan. He spent only one season in the Atlantic Coast Conference, working as director of men's basketball administration at Virginia under Pete Gillen in 1998-99.

David Adelman, Malone's successor in Denver, said he was happy for his friend, adding that Malone would be comfortable with players earning big money through name, image and likeness deals.

“It’s more of a professional environment now, especially at schools like that, where you have to look at it like these guys are under contract now,” Adelman said. “And I think a lot of NBA coaches understand what it means to coach somebody that’s making money.”

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AP freelancer Michael Kelly in Denver contributed to this report.

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Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball

The five fabulous transfers who make up coach Dusty May's starting lineup got down and dirty with the rest of the Wolverines — coming out with the national title trophy Monday night after muscling their way to a 69-63 victory over stingy, stubborn UConn.

Michigan only made two 3-pointers all night.

The Final Four's most outstanding player, Elliot Cadeau, led the Wolverines with 19 points, including the team’s first 3, which came 7:04 into the second half. The second 3, from freshman Trey McKenney, came with 1:50 left and felt like a dagger, giving May's team — which had scored 90 points in five straight March Madness games leading to the final — a nine-point lead.

To no one’s surprise, UConn fought to the finish. Solo Ball banked in a 3 to cut the deficit to four with 37 seconds left — and after two missed free throws, UConn’s Alex Karaban (17 points) barely grazed the rim on a 3 that would’ve cut the deficit to one with 17 seconds left.

Not until McKenney sank two free throws to bring Michigan’s shooting from the line to 25 for 28 for the night could the Wolverines (37-3) kick off the celebration for the program’s second title — the other coming in 1989, a few years before the Fab Five arrived and made two trips to the championship game, but never won a title.

“HAIL TO VICTORS!!!!” Jalen Rose, one of the Fab Five stars, posted on social media. “NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!”

It was the first men's hoops title for the Big Ten since Michigan State in 2000. Including UCLA's win in the women's NCAA Tournament Sunday, the conference swept the football (Indiana) and basketball titles this year.

Michigan won this one with defense, holding UConn to 30.9% shooting — the fourth straight game the Wolverines held their opponent to a season-low field-goal percentage.

“These guys have done it all year,” May said. “When one side of the ball has let us down, the other side has picked it up. Our togetherness defensively ultimately got us over the hump.”

Michigan had to fight for everything. The Wolverines missed their first 11 shots from 3, finished 2 for 15 beyond the arc and won despite the struggles of their best player, Yaxel Lendeborg. Ailing with a hurt knee and foot that kept him from elevating, the graduate transfer from UAB finished with 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting.

“If you’d told me we would shoot it this poorly and (be) dominated on the glass and still find a way to win, I don’t know if I would have believed you,” May said. “This team just found a way all season.”

The two 3-pointers were tied for second fewest by a winning team in the title game, according to Sportradar. Michigan also got outrebounded 22-12 on the offensive glass by a UConn team that would not go away.

“How are you disappointed at all in your group?” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “These guys have 22 offensive rebounds versus that group of ‘mon-stars’ out there. So, proud of the guys.”

Truth be told, it wasn’t anyone’s prettiest night.

UConn’s hopes of becoming the first team since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty to win three titles in four seasons came up short, done in by massive foul trouble and its own terrible shooting.

Hurley’s team missed its first 11 shots from 3 in the second half.

Braylon Mullins, the hero of the Duke win that put UConn in the Final Four, finished 4 of 17, though he made a pair of late 3s that kept the game in reach. Tarris Reed Jr., the transfer from Michigan, finished with 13 points and 14 rebounds but never took control.

UConn (34-6) covered the 6 1/2-point spread, and Hurley kept his players out on the court to watch the podium get set up for the victors.

About the only consolation: The Huskies clogged things up, slowed things down and made Michigan beat them at their game.

“It’s complicated, because everyone’s crushed,” Hurley said. “We came here to be out there, doing what those guys are doing right now.”

Nobody did it quite like the Wolverines this year. They came into the title game shooting freely and winning big. In each of their five tournament games, they broke 90 and won by 13 or more.

In this one, they didn’t hit 70 and had to battle to the buzzer. It was ugly — the opposite of an instant classic. And yet, in almost every way, it was the prettiest of them all for Michigan — the one that gives the school what the Fab Five couldn’t manage — namely, a natty.

“Nobody cared about stats the whole season,” Cadeau said. “Nobody cared about nothing but winning. I’m just glad to be part of that.”

Style points aside, this was a championship built from outside — the best team money could buy.

All five Wolverines starters played college ball elsewhere, and all but Nimari Burnett came to Ann Arbor this season. That’s a product of the transfer portal that May has shown no reluctance to use since he arrived from Florida Atlantic two seasons ago.

His ability to form a makeshift group into a winner shows the value of a coach and a culture.

“They might be still calling us mercenaries but we’re the hardest-working team,” Lendenborg said. “We’re the best in college basketball and we’ll be one of the greatest ever.”

Pretty much everyone in the maize and blue would second that.

“Go BLUE. …champions!!! Respect- Love!” was the social media post from another Fab Five icon, Chris Webber.

___

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

Vance's two-day visit to Budapest is a bid to turn the tide in Orbán's election campaign where the long-serving leader, a close Trump ally, is trailing in the polls.

Orbán is running for his fifth-straight term as prime minister. He and his nationalist-populist Fidesz party are facing their toughest race in two decades against a center-right challenger, the Tisza party led by Péter Magyar, that could bring an end to Orbán’s 16 years in power.

The prime minister has bristled at the slightest mention of the Hungarian election by any of his partners in the European Union, decrying any expressions of support for his opponent as a grave breach of Hungary’s sovereignty and meddling in the election.

Yet speaking at a joint news conference with Orbán at his headquarters in Budapest's Carmelite Monastery, Vance campaigned openly for the prime minister, saying he wanted to “help as much as I possibly can” ahead of the April 12 vote.

Vance was scheduled to appear later on Tuesday at an election rally for Orbán dubbed a “Day of Friendship” event — an unusual step from a foreign leader and a break with the practice of most politicians who avoid taking an active role in the political campaigns of other countries.

Despite his clear endorsement of Orbán, Vance lashed out at the EU for what he said was “one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that I’ve ever seen or ever even read about.”

“I won’t tell the people of Hungary how to vote. I would encourage the bureaucrats in Brussels to do the exact same thing,” he said, adding that he was confident Orbán would win the election.

Long accused by critics of taking over Hungary’s institutions, clamping down on press freedom and overseeing entrenched political corruption — charges he denies — Orbán has become an icon in the global far-right movement.

Trump has repeatedly endorsed Orbán’s candidacy for reelection, and many in the Make America Great Again movement approve of the Hungarian leader's opposition to immigration, curtailing of LGBTQ+ rights, and capture of the media and academia.

But with most independent polls showing a double-digit deficit for Fidesz among decided voters ahead of the April 12 vote, Orbán has sought to boost his profile by appearing publicly with his international admirers.

Hungary, which has broken with most European Union countries by refusing to assist Ukraine with financial assistance or weapons to ward off Russia's full-scale invasion, has remained firmly committed to purchasing Russian energy despite EU efforts to wean off such supplies.

In November, Hungary received an exemption from U.S. sanctions on Russian oil and gas after a White House meeting between Orbán and Trump.

Yet on Tuesday, Vance seemed to contradict U.S. efforts to push its allies to break with Russian energy, excoriating other EU countries for moving to cease their imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to the war.

“It is funny to watch prime ministers and leaders in some of the Western European capitals talk about the energy crisis when frankly they should have been following the policies of Viktor Orbán,” he said.

Vance's visit wasn't the first gesture of support for Orbán's reelection.

In February, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Budapest where he enthusiastically praised Orbán and the “person-to-person connection” he’d established with the president, telling Orbán that Trump was ”deeply committed to your success, because your success is our success.”

Late last month, Orbán hosted dozens of allies from around Europe and beyond at the Hungarian iteration of the Conservative Political Action Conference, and at a meeting of the far-right Patriots for Europe party family, the third-largest group in the European Parliament.

Trump sent a video message to CPAC Hungary, saying Orbán had his “complete and total endorsement” and was a “fantastic guy.”

The Trump administration's embrace of Orbán reflects its affinity for European far-right parties broadly, and the admiration, from Spain to France to Germany and the Netherlands, has been mutual.

Still, Trump’s recent approach to foreign affairs has reverberated in Europe, with his actions over Greenland, Venezuela and Iran straining those relationships.

Orbán, however, has remained deferential, and has echoed Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. In comments to state radio just before Trump began his second term, Orbán said Democrats “took the presidency away from Donald Trump through fraud.”

Kitselman (6-foot-5, 255 pounds) is a former Alabama transfer who played in the East-West Shrine Bowl all-star game and was invited to the American Bowl.

Kitselman is known for his blocking prowess as a tough presence and his versatility.

He has posted a 34 1/2 inch vertical and a 9-8 broad jump at the NFL scouting combine.

A Kansas native who began his college football career at Hutchinson Community College, Kitselman caught 26 passes for 253 yards and two touchdowns last season for the Volunteers.

Two seasons ago, he caught 22 passes for 301 yards and four touchdowns.

He caught 48 passes for 554 yards and six touchdowns for the Volts and rushed for another one.

At Tennessee, he was a member of the team leadership council and all-academic selection.

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

And keep in mind, the day begins with scenarios where six teams — Atlanta, Toronto, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami — all have mathematical chances of finishing fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth or 10th in a muddled Eastern Conference. (Many of those chances are improbable, but they exist.)

Miami and Toronto start a two-game series in Ontario, with the Raptors trying to keep the No. 6 spot in the East and the Heat desperate to start a final-week clawing out of the No. 10 spot.

The game of the night might be in Boston, where Charlotte will pay the Celtics a visit. The Hornets are 43-36, tied with Philadelphia and Orlando for the seventh-best record in the East, and they'll hold either the No. 6, No. 7 or No. 9 spot in the conference — temporarily, anyway — when Tuesday's slate is complete.

Both Los Angeles teams are home; the banged-up Lakers could jump back into the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference with a win, and the Clippers could strengthen their tenuous hold on the No. 8 spot.

Who's in and who's out?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday recap

— Knicks 108, Hawks 105: Jalen Brunson had 17 in the 4th, CJ McCollum's miracle make was too late.

— Magic 123, Pistons 107: Orlando led almost the whole way, had 40-19 edge in free throw attempts.

— Cavaliers 142, Grizzlies 126: Memphis tied the NBA record with 29 made 3s — and still lost by 16.

— Spurs 115, 76ers 102: San Antonio hits 60 wins, waiting to hear about Victor Wembanyama's ribs.

— Nuggets 137, Trail Blazers 132, OT: Portland led by 13 with 6:01 left in regulation, then fell apart.

Tuesday's schedule

— Timberwolves at Pacers: Wolves still vying to clinch 6 seed, then focus on health before Round 1.

— Heat at Raptors: Miami plays at Toronto twice in a three-day span, huge stakes for both teams.

— Hornets at Celtics: Probably game of the night, which nobody would have predicted in October.

— Kings at Warriors: This week is basically preseason for Golden State and its play-in tune-up plan.

— Thunder at Lakers: Oklahoma City on verge of getting No. 1 overall seed for second straight year.

— Mavericks at Clippers: Dallas' Cooper Flagg’s final-week rookie of the year push tour continues.

— Rockets at Suns: Kevin Durant goes back to Phoenix, one of his former stomping grounds.

— Bulls at Wizards: All about lottery odds.

— Bucks at Nets: All about lottery odds.

— Jazz at Pelicans: For Utah, all about lottery odds. (New Orleans’ pick should convey to Atlanta.)

Wednesday's schedule

— Atlanta at Cleveland: A very possible East first-round preview.

— Minnesota at Orlando: Wolves sputtering, Anthony Edwards is aching.

— Milwaukee at Detroit: Giannis Antetokounmpo still wants to play.

— Memphis at Denver: Nuggets chasing No. 3 seed, need a win here.

— Portland at San Antonio: Blazers have work to do to avoid 9-10 game.

— Oklahoma City at L.A. Clippers: Clippers have work to do to avoid 9-10 game.

— Dallas at Phoenix: Suns almost certainly will be No. 7 seed for play-in.

National TV schedule

Tuesday on NBC and Peacock: Charlotte-Boston (8 p.m. Eastern) and Houston-Phoenix (11 p.m.).

Wednesday on ESPN: Atlanta-Cleveland (7 p.m. Eastern) and Portland-San Antonio (9:30 p.m.).

Betting odds

Oklahoma City (+130) is favored to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, followed by San Antonio (+450), Boston (+550), Denver (+1200), Cleveland (+1200) and New York (+1900). Detroit, the No. 1 seed in the East, is +2500. The Los Angeles Lakers were +2500 before Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves got hurt; they're +45000 now.

Key dates

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

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

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

— April 18 and 19: NBA playoff series openers.

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

— May 10: NBA draft lottery.

— May 10-17: NBA draft combine.

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

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

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

Numbers watch

If Denver averages 127 points in its final three games, the Nuggets would become the eighth team in NBA history to reach 10,000 points in a regular season. There have been three Western Conference teams to hit that milestone — they would be the Nuggets in 1981-82, the Nuggets in 1982-83 and ... you guessed it ... the Nuggets in 1983-84.

Stats of the day

— If Houston wins one more game this season, the NBA will have nine teams reach the 50-win mark. The last season with more than nine such teams was 2014-15, which saw 10 teams reach 50 wins. (Minnesota could get to 50 this season if it wins out.)

— Denver has allowed 134 and 132 points in its last two games, respectively, and gone 2-0. It's the seventh time a team has done that in NBA history; three of the previous six instances were done by the super-high-octane Nuggets in 1981 and 1982. San Antonio did it in 1984, Minnesota in 2021 and the Los Angeles Lakers did it in 2024.

___

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

Deputies with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office responded to reports of a pedestrian in the middle of the highway around 3 a.m.

When deputies arrived, they found the pedestrian had been hit by possibly multiple vehicles on the southbound lanes of I-45.

The deputies believe the pedestrian may have been unhoused, as many unhoused individuals frequent the area.

No suspects have been identified.

The Texas State Board of Education is in the process of rewriting the state’s social studies curriculum, known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS.

These standards determine what students are taught in history, civics, economics, and geography from elementary school through high school.

Right now, the proposed standards are still in draft form.

That means:

• Board members are reviewing the language

• Advisors have submitted feedback and revisions

• The public is now weighing in before a final vote

This week’s meeting in Austin is one of the last chances for people across the state to speak directly to decision-makers before the process moves forward.

The draft suggests a shift in how history is structured.

There is a stronger emphasis on U.S. and Texas history, taught in chronological order, starting in early grades.

At the same time, some reviewers have raised concerns that:• Global history may receive less attention• Topics outside Western civilization could be reduced• Geography and world cultures may not be as deeply covered

One of the most closely watched parts of the draft is how difficult topics are explained, especially to younger students.

In early grade levels, reviewers have pointed out that slavery is described in more general terms, such as “unfair treatment based on race,” without detailed explanation of forced labor and violence.

Critics argue that this could minimize the severity of slavery if not expanded upon as students move through higher grades.

Others say younger students require simplified explanations, with more detailed instruction introduced later.

There are also concerns about how other historical events are covered.

Some reviewers say topics like Japanese internment camps during World War II could be reduced or removed from certain grade levels, while others argue the standards still allow flexibility in how teachers present those lessons.

Religion is another major point of discussion.

The draft includes references to religion as part of historical instruction, particularly when teaching about the founding of the United States and Western civilization.

Some reviewers have raised concerns that the standards may place a stronger emphasis on Christianity, including references that describe the U.S. as having roots as a Christian nation.

Supporters of the draft say religion is a key part of history and should be included to help students understand historical events and cultural development.

Others argue public schools must be careful to present religion in a balanced way that reflects the diversity of beliefs in Texas.

Beyond specific topics, some advisors reviewing the draft say the standards may be too broad in some areas and too limited in others.

Feedback highlights:• Heavy emphasis on Western and American perspectives• Limited coverage of regions like Africa, Asia, and the Middle East• Concerns about removing or reducing certain historical topics

At the same time, others argue that the draft improves clarity by focusing on key historical concepts and organizing them in a more structured way.

There is also disagreement over how the draft is being developed.

Some educators and advocacy groups say the timeline is moving quickly, pointing out that the public had limited time to review lengthy documents before providing feedback.

State officials and board members say the process follows established guidelines and includes input from more than 100 educators, parents, and community members across Texas.

The impact of these decisions could extend beyond the state.

Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the country, meaning curriculum changes here can influence how textbooks are written and used nationwide.

The board is expected to hear public testimony during this week’s meeting in Austin.

After that:• A public comment period will follow• Board members will review feedback• A final vote is expected later this year

If approved, the new standards would be implemented in classrooms in the coming years.

For parents and students, this process will help determine how history and social studies are taught in Texas schools.

From how slavery is explained… to how religion is discussed… to which parts of history are emphasized… the decisions made in this process could shape classroom learning for years to come.

Let’s get into some news of the day. I’ve been telling you about the history-making NASA is doing since last week. Like, literally. I am so amazed by our scientists, and a lot of it is happening right here in Houston.

On Monday, Artemis II broke Apollo 13’s distance record with a daring moon flyby, which included some celestial sightseeing besides yielding rich science.

A total solar eclipse greeted the three Americans and one Canadian as the moon temporarily blocked the sun from their perspective. Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn nodded at them from the black void. The landing sites of Apollo 12 and 14 also were visible, poignant reminders of NASA’s first age of exploration more than half a century ago.

In an especially riveting retro throwback, Artemis II shattered the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. NASA’s Orion capsule reached a maximum distance of 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers) from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon, 4,101 miles (6,600 kilometers) farther than Apollo 13.

To read more, click here.

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YOUR MORNING FORECAST ☀️

TODAY:76 ° TONIGHT: 62°

KPRC 2 Meteorologist says:

“Over the next three days, high temperatures will gradually warm up. Thankfully, humidity stays low until late week. The perfect spring weather doesn’t last long; multiple disturbances move through southeast Texas, increasing rain chances by late week. The rain chances are due to multiple disturbances moving out of the Pacific, through the west coast into the plains.”

Get your forecast details here.

TOP STORIES

All lanes of I-45 at Spring Cypress shut down after pedestrian fatally hit by multiple vehicles

All morning, we have been dealing with this crash on I-45 at Spring Cypress. All lanes of the highway were shut down after a pedestrian was hit by multiple cars and died Tuesday morning.

White Oak Bayou Project: Several I-10 closures begin Tuesday night through Thursday

It’s a project we’ve been telling you about for months, and now, construction has already started. Tonight, multiple closures will happen on I-10, which will last through Thursday.

ONLY ON 2: Records show viral Harris County judge was sued by own client in 2021 for malpractice

KPRC 2 obtained court documents which reveal that a Harris County judge now going viral for his courtroom behavior was once sued by his own client—accused of mishandling a case that later grew into a class action.

The documents detail Judge Nathan Milliron’s time as a defense attorney representing mortgage company Gregory Funding in a lawsuit that ultimately expanded to potentially impact other borrowers nationwide.

The case began in 2017, when a Houston man sued Gregory Funding, accusing the company of violating federal consumer protection laws tied to debt collection practices.

ARE YOU A KPRC 2 INSIDER? HERE’S SOME EXCLUSIVES

Craving Cajun food in Houston? These restaurants deliver big variety and flavor

CLICK2PINS: SHOW US WHAT YA GOT 📷

See a news story in your neighborhood? Capture a great weather moment? Just want to share a photo of your pet? Send your photos and videos to Click2Pins, and you may see them on air and online!

The horn sounded, and Morez Johnson Jr. came over to share a celebratory scream and hearty hug — from one transfer to another — as the Wolverines began running toward midcourt to celebrate a national championship.

Maybe a school really can build an ideal college basketball roster amid the topsy-turvy chaos of the transfer portal, paying players and top-to-bottom overhauls.

Michigan proved it Monday night, rolling out an all-transfer starting lineup that was too big, too strong and too capable of countering anything that UConn could muster — even on a night when the 3-point shot wasn't falling and All-American Yaxel Lendeborg was hobbled by ankle and knee injuries.

The Wolverines still had enough to hold off the Huskies 69-63 and claim the program's first title in 37 years.

And they showed how second-year Dusty May assembled a resilient roster by diving all the way into the portal.

“Man, this whole year, we were a team that played together,” Lendeborg said as he stood amid the confetti on the court at Lucas Oil Stadium. “We didn't have a best player, like I said before. We have a guy that steps up big-time in these games.

“We have players that make plays when they need to make them. And we just played a full all-around team basketball game today. We did it.”

It didn't matter that the Wolverines shot just 38% while making 2 of 15 3-pointers — stunning numbers for a team that entered the NCAA Tournament ranked No. 8 nationally in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency (126.6 points per 100 possessions).

It didn't matter that they were outrebounded — and gave up an incredible 22 offensive boards.

Nor that Lendeborg carried an awkward gait as he grinded his way through a 4-for-13 shooting effort in 36 minutes after twisting his left ankle and spraining a knee ligament in Saturday's win over Arizona in the Final Four.

Not the way these guys complemented each other on the sport's biggest stage.

Point guard Elliot Cadeau, in his first season after two up-and-down years at North Carolina, had 19 points and was named the Final Four's most outstanding player. Johnson, in his first year from Illinois, had 12 points and 10 rebounds. The 7-foot-3 Aday Mara, in his first year from UCLA, helped hold UConn big man Tarris Reed Jr. — who had been a March Madness force — to just 4-of-12 shooting.

“Nobody cared about stats the whole season. Nobody cared about nothing but winning,” Cadeau said.

Four of Michigan's five starters were in their first year after transferring: Cadeau, Johnson, Mara and Lendeborg (UAB).

The fifth starter, Nimari Burnett, was practically a Michigan lifer by comparison; he was in his third season with the Wolverines, after starting his career at Texas Tech then spending two years at Alabama. A similar story followed Gayle, a reserve who had spent two years at rival Ohio State before these last two years in Ann Arbor.

That left only two players in Michigan's eight-man rotation who would qualify as “homegrown” talent: freshman Trey McKenney and fifth-year graduate Will Tschetter.

It's an approach that tailored to the current era of the sport, with players transferring freely between campuses and cleared to profit from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL), along with schools able to pay athletes directly with the arrival of revenue sharing.

Purists have complained that the revolving door of players makes it harder for fans to get behind their schools than it was when most players spent multiple seasons in the same uniform. Transfers even featured prominently in an executive order signed last week by President Donald Trump seeking to reform college sports.

May shrugged off the critics on Sunday, noting, “I think we are all better in certain situations than others.”

Athletic director Warde Manuel offered a similar defense on the court Monday night after the program claimed its first national title since the Glen Rice-led Wolverines cut down the nets in Seattle in 1989.

“A lot of teams around the country benefited from transfers,” Manuel said. “You can't just say, ‘Well, Michigan had the most transfers.’ Dusty put this team together the way he did.”

And it worked to perfection.

By the end, Mara was jumping around with a few teammates after they had watched the “One Shining Moment” music montage of tournament highlights, with someone picking up a handful of confetti and tossing it into the air to flutter around them.

“It's important to get the right people on the bus,” assistant coach Justin Joyner said. “It's important to get unselfish guys that are about winning, that are about the group. We had that with the best of our players. Yaxel Lendeborg's one of the most unselfish superstars you'll ever be around.

“So when you have that from the top, it permeates through your locker room, it permeates through your group. And eventually you can become a unit that's about winning.”

___

This story corrects a typo in McKenney's last name.

___

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

Agyemang was visibly emotional when he was stretchered off, with his right leg strapped, after landing awkwardly in Derby’s 2-0 victory over Stoke in the second-tier English Championship on Monday.

Derby confirmed on Tuesday that the striker would miss soccer’s biggest tournament, which is being held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico in June and July.

“As a result of this injury, Patrick will unfortunately miss this summer’s FIFA World Cup,” Derby said in a statement. “At this stage it would be wrong to put a timeline on his recovery."

The club added that Agyemang would undergo more tests later on Tuesday and “further updates will be communicated in due course.”

Agyemang has helped Derby into contention for promotion to the Premier League thanks to a team-leading 10 goals since arriving last summer from Charlotte in Major League Soccer.

During the recent international break, he came off the bench for the United States and scored in a loss against Belgium and also got some minutes against Portugal.

___

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

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. Let’s get into some news of the day.

If you’ve been keeping up with Artemis II, then you know that today is a big day for the four astronauts who will see a side of the Moon human eyes have never seen before.

During a six-hour fly-by, the astronauts will become the most distant humans in history, surpassing the distance record of  248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) set by Apollo 13 in April 1970.

Mission Control expected Artemis II to surpass that record by more than 4,100 miles (6,600 kilometers).

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

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

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to pass as close as 4,070 miles (6,550 kilometers) to the moon, as their Orion capsule whips past it, hangs a U-turn and then heads back toward Earth. It will take them four days to get back, with a splashdown in the Pacific concluding their test flight on Friday.

To read more, click here.

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YOUR MORNING FORECAST ☀️

TODAY: 74° TONIGHT: 59°

KPRC 2 Meteorologist says:

“The cool weather continues Monday morning, with the 50s! Sunshine will take its time coming back, but should make an appearance by the afternoon as clouds clear out. Over the next three days, high temperatures stay in the 70s, and humidity is low, making for a great start to the week. ”

Get your forecast details here.

TOP STORIES

20-year-old arrested in deadly Westheimer hit-and-run that killed woman

A 20-year-old has been arrested after police say he hit a woman and then attempted to leave the scene Sunday night. The woman was hit while walking on Westheimer. Unfortunately, the woman died, and police say the driver left the scene but was later captured by police.

Texas reviewing what students learn about history, slavery, and religion in major curriculum rewrite

A major decision is unfolding in Texas that could shape what millions of students learn in the classroom, including how topics like slavery, religion, and American history are taught.

The Texas State Board of Education is in the process of rewriting the state’s social studies curriculum, known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS.

These standards determine what students are taught in history, civics, economics, and geography from elementary school through high school.

Family and friends remember 33-year-old killed in Paradise City shooting as ‘life of the party’ in slab community

Friends and family have identified the man killed in a weekend shooting at a southeast Houston gentleman’s club as 33-year-old Miguel Angel Padilla Franco, known as “Nawfside Linco.”

The shooting happened around 5 a.m. Saturday at Paradise City. Franco was pronounced dead at the scene. Another person was taken to the hospital.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

The Latest: Trump threatens to strike Iran’s infrastructure if Strait of Hormuz isn’t reopened

ARE YOU A KPRC 2 INSIDER? HERE’S SOME EXCLUSIVES

Craving Cajun food in Houston? These restaurants deliver big variety and flavor

CLICK2PINS: SHOW US WHAT YA GOT 📷

See a news story in your neighborhood? Capture a great weather moment? Just want to share a photo of your pet? Send your photos and videos to Click2Pins, and you may see them on air and online!

Police responded to reports of shots being fired on a bus around 7:40 p.m.

When officers arrived, although the suspects had fled the scene, the bus driver said a rider got upset over the bus fare and fired a shot on the bus. No injuries have been reported.

Police are reviewing surveillance video to help identify the suspect.

Tuesday, April 7

• Souls of the Titanic
• Pella Windows and Doors
• Follow Chef Machete on Instagram
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Monday, April 6

• Houston’s Garden Theatre celebrates 5 years with Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”
• • The Garden Theatre
• Sysco’s World Cup-themed food show is a preview of how Houston plans to feed the world
• • Sysco World Cup-themed food show
• The Houston Art Car Parade

Friday, April 3

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• WWE Wrestler Je’Von Evans
• WWE Monday Night Raw at Toyota Center Tickets
• IBEW Local 66
• KPRC 2’s “Eat Like a Local”

Thursday, April 2

• Disney on Ice
• The Chevron Championship
• Maxine Sharf brings ‘Maxi’s Kitchen’ to Houston Life with her mom
• • Follow Maxine Sharf on Instagram
  • "Maxi’s Kitchen: Easy Go-To Recipes to Make Again and Again"
• Father daughter duo Steve Zahn and Audrey Zahn chat new film ‘She Dances’

Wednesday, April 1

• Spring gets sweeter with two easy recipes: Carrot cupcake and blueberry crumble bun
• • Follow Cookbook Author Florence Jackson on Instagram
• This Houston Restaurant Hasn’t Raised Prices Since Its Food Truck Days
• • Black Restaurant Week
  • Chitalian Pizzeria
• Tarot, the Fool card and finding meaning on Derrick’s birthday (April Fool’s Day)
• • Tarot Card Reader Amber Ambrose
• Theatre Under the Stars presents ‘Back to the Future: The Musical’ through April 5th
• • TUTS “Back to the Future: The Musical”

Tuesday, March 31

• Send Well Wishes to Tessa on her last day
• • Tessa Barrera announces she’s leaving ‘Houston Life’
• Calling all book lovers: Houston indie bookstore crawl returns for its third year of literary adventure
• • 2026 Houston Bookstore Crawl
• Preview the 13th annual Insperity Invitational presented by United Healthcare
• • Insperity Invitational
• Texas roots and coastal growth, how the Oyster Bros in Palacios are redefining the gulf oyster
• • Oyster Bros
• Goodtaste with Tanji Patton

Monday, March 30

• How Autism Moms of Houston became a lifeline for families raising children who are neurodivergent
• • Autism Moms of Houston
  • Autism Awareness Festival
• An offer fit for a new you! Grab the Alloy Personal Training Houston Life Deal
• • Alloy Personal Training Houston
  • Houston Life Deals
• Who’s responsible when a child is hurt at daycare?
• • Bivona Law
• NBC’s “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins”

Friday, March 27

• Family fun, charity, & of course golf shine at Texas Children’s Houston Open ⛳
• • Texas Children’s Houston Open
  • TCHO Cleats for Kids

Wednesday, March 25

• Tessa Barrera announces she’s leaving ‘Houston Life’
• Plan aims to turn Garden Oaks Theater into an arts hub before it’s too late
• • Save the Garden Oaks Theater
• Fore! Preview the 2026 Texas Children’s Houston Open
• • Texas Children’s Houston Open
• Women, Wealth, and breaking ‘The Success Lie’
• • Chantell Preston
  • “The Success Lie” by Chantell Preston
• McGovern Allergy & Asthma Clinic
• Gexa Energy

Tuesday, March 24

• From puppy playtime to pesky nipping, helpful springtime tips for dog owners
• • Stephanie Bennett’s Believe in Dog Training
• How one Houston program is helping kids discover confidence—and their future
• • Sam Houston Area Council Boy Scouts of America
• Houston Ballet’s Busy Spring: Nutcracker Market, Sons de L’âme & YAGP Finals
• • Houston Ballet
• Breaking barriers and popping corks with CEO and Master Sommelier June Rodil
• • Master Sommelier June Rodil
  • Goodnight Hospitality

Monday, March 23

• Blooming Wonders at ARTECHOUSE
• • Spring arrives at ARTECHOUSE Houston with ‘Blooming Wonders’
• Texas Dental Implant Center
• • Trusted Dental Implant Care in Houston — Board-Certified Periodontist Helps Complex Cases
• Disability Attorney Marc Whitehead
• • Expert tax advice: Are your Social Security and Disability benefits taxable?
• Allied Outdoor Solutions
• • From basic to beautiful: See this stunning backyard transformation in Weston Lakes

Thursday, March 19

• Springtime fun at the Houston Zoo
• • Zoo Bloom
  • All you can Zoo
  • Saving the Galápagos Islands

Wednesday, March 18

• Houston Latino Film Festival celebrates 10 Years with Cheech Marin
• • Houston Latino Film Festival
• Find the good vibes every weekend for Jazzy Sundays in the Parks
• • Jazzy Sundays in the Parks
• Get to know Dash rising star, Avery Patterson
• • Houston Dash
• Kevin Williamson makes fans SCREAM all over again in latest franchise installation
• • Kevin Williamson
• Self Employed? Tax Filing Moves That Help You Qualify for a Mortgage
• • Habayit Home Loans
  • Mortgage Expert Rich Bonn’s Upcoming Webinar

Tuesday, March 17

• Houston’s Mezclada Dance Company blends hip hop, Latin and contemporary dance forms into high-energy performances
• • Performing Arts Houston New/Now featuring Mezclada Dance Company
• METRO rolls out systemwide changes: A first look at the new technology to help streamline your ride
• • Metro Houston
• Houston Life Deals: Fun & savings for the entire family
• • HoustonLifeDeals.com
• Frontier Utilities teams with Kids’ Meals Houston to pack thousands of meals
• • Frontier Utilities

Monday, March 16

• Affordable rodeo-ready outfits you can find at Target this season
• • Target.com
• Houston’s growing need for linemen: Why the trade pays and how to start
• • IBEW Local 66
• ET hosts Nischelle Turner and Kevin Frazier share highlights from the 98th Academy Awards
• • Entertainment Tonight Oscars Coverage
• Houston Ballet principal dancer Karina González brings Frida Kahlo to life in Broken Wings
• • “Broken Wings” at Houston Ballet Tickets
• The Largest Indoor Waterpark in the U.S.? It’s Just a Road Trip from Houston
• • Kalahari Resorts and Conventions

Friday, March 13

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Houston Life Deals: Fun & savings for the entire family
• Outriding the Devil: Angela Ganter’s incredible rodeo comeback
• • Outriding the Devil premieres at River Oaks Theatre
• ‘Aliens’ 40th anniversary cast reunion and more at Pop Culture Con 2026
• • Pop Culture Con
• Alley Theatre brings Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” to Houston with a fresh twist
• • “The Importance of Being Earnest” at Alley Theatre Tickets
• Bounce your way to better fitness: trampoline workouts in West U
• • Motiv Fitness at West University
• Moon 2 Mars Festival returns to Space Center Houston with out-of-this-world fun and concerts this spring break
• • Space Center Houston

Thursday, March 12

• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to see Tim McGraw at RODEOHOUSTON
• The Birthday Joy Program helps kids in foster care, shelters and group homes celebrate their special day
• • the Birthday Joy Program Website
• Inside “The Feminine Universe” Houston’s new all-women immersive art experience
• • The Feminine Universe Art Show Tickets
• Bring the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo home with these sips and bites
• • Entertaining Expert Paul Zahn
• Spring is in full swing at CITYCENTRE Houston
• • CITYCENTRE
• Kalahari Resorts and Conventions

Tuesday, March 10

• Enjoy Spring Break at the Houston Museum of Natural Science
• • Houston Museum of Natural Science
• Honoring the fallen & recognizing community heroes
• • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
  • BP America
• Houston author Margie Seaman proves it is never too late to chase a dream
• • Margie Seaman
  • “Someday Is Our Horizon” by Margie Seaman on Amazon

Monday, March 9

• NestFest beach cleanup invites volunteers to protect nesting sea turtles on the Galveston Coast
• From bumper boats to STEAM activities, enjoy a FUNonmenal spring break at Discovery Green
• • FUNomenal Spring Break at Discovery Green
• This veteran-owned business is helping Houstonians keep the heat the out and the savings in with new windows
• • The Window Source
• You’ve been diagnosed with cancer, now what? Non-profit CanCare pairs you with survivors who can help
• • CanCare
• Spring Break Staycation: Why The Travel Mom says Houston families love Great Wolf Lodge
• • The Travel Mom
  • Great Wolf Lodge

Friday, March 6

• Houston Life Deals
• Pickle vs. anime: Largest pickle festival in Texas comes to Rosenberg with anime-inspired food
• • In A Pickle Festival
• Expedia’s 2026 Air Hacks: Best days to book, when to fly and top savings
• • Expedia Air Hacks Report
• The Parking Spot making airport parking a breeze
• • The Parking Spot
• A rustic dream venue just outside Houston
• • Country Oaks Venue
• Rare Texas artifacts step out ‘From the Vault’ at The Bryan Museum
• • The Bryan Museum
• Rhythm Energy Question of the Week

Thursday, March 5

• Gold Buckle Foodie Awards at Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Houston Life Deals
• Avoiding vacation headaches: New Vrbo survey on group travel reveals common pet peeves
• • Vrbo
• Houston wellness trend: A local body sculpting technique focused on lymphatic health
• • The Tox
• Catching up with Russell Dickerson ahead of debut RODEOHOUSTON performance
• • RODEOHOUSTON

Wednesday, March 4

• Houston Life Deals
• Moon 2 Mars Festival returns to Space Center Houston with out-of-this-world fun and concerts this spring break
• • Space Center Houston
• What to Wear to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo: Your Ultimate Style Guide 
• • Boot Barn
• Destin-Fort Walton Beach, more than beaches: reefs, fishing, little adventures
• • Visit Destin-Fort Walton Beach
• Baz Luhrmann’s ‘EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert’ gives fans a front-row seat to The King
• • “EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert” Film

Tuesday, March 3

• Diana Ross coming to Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land
• Learn about the untold history of Black baseball
• • Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy
• Houston Life Deals
• Modern dental implants give Houston patients natural, comfortable smiles
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Houston native Kyrie McAlpin Talks ‘The Burbs’, Keke Palmer & a very Seth MacFarlane Christmas party

Monday, March 2

• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• • Houston Life kicks off opening day at 2026 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Suits & Boot Injury Lawyers

Friday, February 27

• Gabriel Basso takes us behind the scenes of Netflix’s ‘The Night Agent’
• • Netflix’s “The Night Agent”
• Mudbug Mania: Tanji Patton celebrates crawfish season in Houston
• • Goodtaste with Tanji Patton
  • Crawfish Shack
  • Crawfish Hideaway
• Theatre Under The Stars reveals 2026-27 season with Broadway tours & local shows
• • Theatre Under the Stars
• Boot Barn
• What to see and do in Malta — beaches, history and booking tips from The Travel Mom
• • The Travel Mom

Thursday, February 26

• Diana Ross at The Sugar Land Smart Financial Center
• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for a chance to see Creed perform at RodeoHouston
• Get a peek inside RodeoHouston’s World Championship BBQ Cookoff
• • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Soulful river cruises that connect Black travelers to heritage and culture
• • AmaWaterways Soulful Experience River Cruise
• Houston Life Deals
• Allied Outdoor Solutions
• HCC Southeast College

Wednesday, February 25

• Behind the scenes of TUTS’ ‘Million Dollar Quartet’
• • Tickets to ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ at Theatre Under the Stars
• Houston influencers share their best thrifting tips for Rodeo
• • Find your nearest Goodwill store
• Plan the ultimate spring break getaway for everyone at Moody Gardens
• • Moody Gardens
• Ride along: METRO Police Chief explains new safety measures for Houston transit
• • Metro Houston

Tuesday, February 24

• Spring Break, but make it San Antonio
• • Visit San Antonio
• Alley Theatre’s ‘English’ explores identity, belonging, and the weight of learning a new language
• • Tickets to ‘English’ at Alley Theatre
• Looking for a Career Change? Here’s How You Could Be Job-Ready in 10 Months
• • Learn more about programs at United Education Institute Houston

Monday, February 23 (WE ARE BACK!!!)

• Indian Film Festival of Houston celebrates France with film, food and culture
• • Indian Film Festival of Houston Website
• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for a chance to see Riley Green perform at RodeoHouston
• • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Chris Hemsworth will keep you on the edge of your seat in ‘Crime 101’
• • “Crime 101” Movie Times
• Modern dental implants give Houston patients natural, comfortable smiles
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

February 6 - 20

• Houston is off air due to the Winter Olympics, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stop entertaining you. Be sure to follow us on social media to see all the HL fun. We’ll be back Feb. 23.
• • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Pinterest

Thursday, February 5

• Papa Johns Pizza
• The Cody Stephens Foundation saves lives with free heart screenings for young athletes
• • Cody Stephens Foundation
• Get ready for the return of the one and only Monster Jam in Houston
• • Tickets to Monster Jam at NRG Stadium
• Getting your best night’s sleep: How the latest materials and technology can help you sleep better
• • Texas Mattress Makers
• What is an “Orphan Generator”? And why it could put Houston homes at risk during an outage
• • GenPro.com
• Follow Mersha the Mini Panther on Instagram (Use MERSHA20 to get a discount at PrettyLitter)

Wednesday, February 4

• Simon & Garfunkel Story at The Sugar Land Smart Financial Center
• Behind the scenes of ‘Real Women Have Curves’ on stage at Alley Theatre
• • Tickets to ‘Real Women Have Curves’ at Alley Theatre
• Decoding body language: How to spot liars, read subtle signals, and communicate with confidence
• • Jan Hargrave
• In the Kitchen with Kroger: Why they are your one stop shop for the Big Game and Valentine’s Day
• • Kroger

Tuesday, February 3

• MFAH’s new exhibit explores Frida Kahlo’s lasting legacy
• • ‘Frida: The Making of an Icon’ at MFAH
• United Way of Greater Houston’s 211: Help is one call away
• • United Way of Greater Houston’s 211 Helpline
• After the freeze - now what? How to care for perennials and shrubs in Houston
• • Gardening with Skip
  • Houston Home and Garden Show
• Go back in time at Popfancy Dessert Bar’s new retro 80’s sci-fi arcade cafe
• • Popfancy Fan Cafe

Monday, February 2

• Kenny G at The Sugar Land Smart Financial Center
• The relationship advice that helps couples feel closer — even during hard conversations
• • Connection Expert Jenn Pinkerton
  • Connectin Cards Couples Edition on Amazon
• Paris Hilton’s “Infinite Icon”
• Arandas Bakery
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, January 30

• Monster Energy Supercross heads into Houston featuring the world’s fastest racers
• • Monster Energy Supercross at NRG Stadium This Weekend
• From Trinidad and Tobago to Top Chef: Tristen Epps’ journey is rooted in culture
• • Chef Tristen Epps
  • A Classically Black Dinner - Vibrant + Modern + African
• Few physicians leave a legacy like this: Houston honors cancer pioneer Dr. Philip Salem
• • Salem Oncology Center
• The Travel Mom: Family-Friendly Wave-Season Deals from Princess
• • The Travel Mom
  • Princess Cruises

Thursday, January 29

• The Simon & Garfunkel Story at The Sugar Land Smart Financial Center
• Former KPRC 2 reporter shares ‘With Love From Harlem’: The story behind America’s First Black power couple
• • ReShonda Tate’s new book ‘With Love from Harlem’
• American Home Buyer
• How personalized aesthetics - Botox, fillers & lasers - can help you age better
• • Anti Age Institute
• The cast of ‘Bridgerton’ takes us behind-the-scenes of the ton for season 4
• • Netflix’s Bridgerton Season 4

Wednesday, January 28

• KPRC 2’s new evening anchor Stephania Jimenez makes her Houston debut with passion and purpose
• • Follow Stephania on her KPRC 2 Instagram Account
• Cars, boats and more: What to know about this year’s Houston AutoBoative Show 2026
• • Houston Autoboative Show (Save $20 with Family Four Pack Option)
• Get a taste of Old Town Katy with Tanji Patton of Goodtaste TV
• • Goodtaste with Tanji Patton
  • Peanut Butter Pie from Southern Dough
  • Southern Dough Baking Co.
  • Humble Grounds Coffeehouse
  • Harvest Kitchen & Bakery
• A Family Business Built on Trust: Luke’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning Serves Houston for Over 30 Years
• • Luke’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning

Tuesday, January 27

• Remembering the iconic artist David Adickes on his 99th birthday and his lasting legacy in Houston
• • David Adickes Art Website
  • Follow ‘Adickes Art’ on Instagram
• Plan a Vacation Day: Experts share 2026 travel trends and how to protect your trip
• • The Travel Mom
  • Follow The Travel Mom Emily Kaufman on Instagram
  • Travel Guard Insurance
• Texans Serving Texans: Gexa Energy gives back
• • Gexa Energy
• Bill Skarsgård steps beyond horror roots in new film, ‘Dead Man’s Wire’

Monday, January 26

• Houston relationship and intimacy expert dishes on the small relationship habits that make love last
• • Houston Relationship Therapy
  • VIVID Relationships app
• Crawfish & Noodles gearing up for a busy crawfish season
• • Crawfish & Noodles
• Traveling smarter in 2026: What travel experts say to book now
• • Travel Expert Jeanenne Tornatore
  • Follow the Outside Insider on Instagram

Friday, January 23

• Discover why Sam Houston Race Park is a top spot for family outings with “Houston Life”
• • Sam Houston Race Park
  • Corgi Races
  • Shannon Jewelers Presents Diamond Dig
  • Wiener Dog Races

Thursday, January 22

• WEIGH IN: What are your must have products during a freeze?
• Cars, boats and more: What to know about this year’s Houston AutoBoative Show 2026
• • Houston Autoboative Show (Save $20 with Family Four Pack Option)
• Honoring Dr. Philip A. Salem for innovations in cancer care and research
• • Salem Oncology Center
• Bert Kreischer talks fatherhood, fame, and his new scripted comedy series, “Free Bert”
• • Netflix’s “Free Bert”
• Last chance to enjoy the Green Mountain Energy Ice at Discovery Green
• • Ice at Discovery Green

Wednesday, January 21

• Seth Rogen, Ike Barinholtz & Chase Sui Wonders chat comedy series ‘The Studio’
• • Apple Tv+’s ‘The Studio’
• Allied Outdoor Solutions
• Living Designs Furniture
• The Women’s Resource empowers women and girls through free financial and career coaching services
• • The Women’s Resource
• Houston woman helps bring Black cowboy history to PBS
• • Alma’s Way on PBS Kids
  • Black Cowboy Coalition

Friday, January 16

• School Makes You Super: KPRC-TV reporter and mom Haley Hernandez debuts first children’s book to ease school anxiety
• • Buy ‘School Makes You Super" here
• Children’s Museum Houston celebrates the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
• • MLK Day Celebration at Children’s Museum Houston
• Two experts explain why Key Largo, Florida should be on your 2026 travel list
• • The Travel Mom
• The man known as “the human lie detector” works to keep serial killers behind bars
• • Killer Confessions

Thursday, January 15

• Young voices, lasting legacy: Houston students honor Dr. King in 30th Annual Oratory Competition
• • Foley MLK Jr. Oratory Competition
• Breaking through the plateau with Dr. Ian Smith’s ‘The Last 15′
• • Follow Dr. Ian Smith on Instagram
  • Purchase “The Last 15″ on Amazon
• Mindful eating tips and a pesto vinaigrette recipe to kickstart a healthier new year
• • Leaf & Grain
• Stay powered and protected with GenPro.com, Houston’s premier generator specialists
• • Call or log on to book an estimate and receive a functional mini generator worth $50 for FREE

Wednesday, January 14

• Check out the fun, food and giveaways for Houston Rockets fans this week
• • Houston Rockets Game Day Tickets
• A Kroger pharmacist’s guide to everyday wellness in 2026
• • Enter for a chance to win a Kroger gift card
  • Kroger
• Mix-MATCH Festival returns with over 20 performances celebrating Houston’s creative spirit
• • Tickets to 3rd Annual Mix-MATCH Festival
  • Daisies & Pancakes

Tuesday, January 13

• Kick off the new year with magic: Magician Curt Miller returns with his show “The Conjurer”
• • Curt Miller
  • Tickets to The Conjurer: An Intimate Magical Experience with Curt Miller
• Brad Meltzer Book Signing
• • Follow Brad Meltzer on Instagram
• Innovative Lasers of Houston

Monday, January 12

• Turn to tea this year to slow down, reset, and satisfy without regrets
• • Tea Please
• The Travel Mom: Family fun at Knott’s Berry Farm - a California getaway everyone will love
• • The Travel Mom
  • Visit Buena Park
  • Knott’s Berry Farm
• Pet adoption events for the new year at Fort Bend County Animal Services
• • Fort Bend County Animal Services
• New Year, New Smile: AI-driven smile design at Texas Dental Implant Center
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, January 9

• Shop The Sale Houston with proceeds benefitting childhood cancer research
• • The Sale Houston
• A new chapter begins: Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones chat about their new pairing
• • TODAY with Jenna & Sheinelle
• Former radio personality, Sarah Pepper returns to Texas to emcee 2026 Chevron Houston Marathon
• • Follow Sarah Pepper on Instagram

Thursday, January 8

• Belle comes to Houston - Kyra Belle Johnson stars in Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ now at the Hobby Center
• • Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” Tickets at Hobby Center
• Mathew Knowles launches new Destiny’s Child nationwide tribute tour; Houston is first stop
• • Destiny’s Child: Iconic Reimagined Tribute Tickets
• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Wednesday, January 7

• The story behind Luke’s Plumbing and Air Conditioning serving Houstonians since 1991
• • Luke’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning
• Where karaoke meets claw machines: Welcome to Klaw‑Oke Kingdom in Pearland
• • Klaw-Oke Kingdom
• Brace yourself, the 1993 Oilers vs. Bills game is featured in new docuseries ‘Don’t Call it a Comeback’
• • VICE TV’s “Don’t Call It A Comeback”
• New Year, Strong Start: EōS Fitness Experts Share Tips to Crush 2026 Goals
• • EōS Fitness

Tuesday, January 6

• Houston bagel pros talk schmear, slices and specials ahead of National Bagel Day
• • Bagel Shop Bakery
• Comedian Chinedu Ogu takes H-Town-rooted comedy on a national tour
• • Chinedu at Punch Line Houston
• Start your new year weight loss journey at Health Solutions and Weightloss
• • Health Solutions and Weightloss
• Enroll Now: Key deadlines and tips for 2026 Marketplace coverage
• • Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas

Monday, January 5

• Rosca de Reyes Season is here - and this Houston bakery is busy
• • Arandas Bakery
• Damp or Dry January? These non-alcoholic wines actually taste like wine
• • Daniela Garrido | Wine and Travel Expert
• New Year, New Smile: AI-driven smile design at Texas Dental Implant Center
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Freeze Miser

Friday, January 2

• Tough but fair: NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas visits Houston Life
• • NBC Nightly News
  • Tom Llamas
• Tarot Card Reader Amber Ambrose
• Opening weekend kicks off at Sam Houston Race Park TODAY!
• • Sam Houston Race Park

Thursday, January 1

• New Year’s fitness made simple: Tips and a low-impact workout for beginners
• • Hoodfit
• Chantell Preston
• HiFi at The Finn

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According to the Texas Department of Transportation, crews will begin a series of closures tied to the I-10 White Oak Bayou Elevation Project starting Tuesday night.

Beginning at 9 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, the westbound I-10 exit ramp to Taylor Street will be completely shut down through 5 a.m. Thursday, April 9. Drivers will be detoured to the Patterson Street exit, where they can make a U-turn and use the eastbound frontage road to reach Taylor Street.

Additional closures will begin at 9 p.m. Wednesday, April 8. Those include a lane closure along westbound I-10 between Heights Boulevard and North Main Street, as well as a full closure of the westbound entrance ramp from Louisiana Street.

Drivers trying to access I-10 westbound from Louisiana Street will need to detour by turning right on Franklin Street, then left on Travis Street to merge onto I-45 northbound before reconnecting to I-10.

Also impacted is the I-45 northbound connector ramp to I-10 Katy Freeway, which will be closed during the same overnight window. Motorists will instead continue north on I-45, take the connector to I-610 West, and then reconnect to I-10.

All closures are expected to reopen by 5 a.m. Thursday.

The traffic switch will move westbound lanes onto a newly constructed bridge and is part of a larger $400 million project to raise I-10 above the floodplain near White Oak Bayou. The project also includes rebuilding HOV lanes and reconstructing the Houston Avenue bridge.

TxDOT says the project is on schedule for completion in 2028, but drivers should expect changing traffic patterns and are urged to follow detour signs and use caution in the area.

Their flyby of the moon — NASA’s first return since the Apollo era — even included some celestial sightseeing besides yielding rich science. It was a significant step toward landing boot prints near the moon’s south pole in just two years.

A total solar eclipse greeted the three Americans and one Canadian as the moon temporarily blocked the sun from their perspective. Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn nodded at them from the black void. The landing sites of Apollo 12 and 14 also were visible, poignant reminders of NASA’s first age of exploration more than half a century ago.

In an especially riveting retro throwback, Artemis II shattered the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. NASA’s Orion capsule reached a maximum distance of 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers) from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon, 4,101 miles (6,600 kilometers) farther than Apollo 13.

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

Artemis II astronauts get an Apollo wake-up message

Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell wished the crew well in a recording made two months before his death last August. Mission Control beamed up his message to commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen, before their fly-around began.

“Welcome to my old neighborhood,” said Lovell, who also flew on Apollo 8, humanity’s first lunar visit. “It’s a historic day and I know how busy you’ll be, but don’t forget to enjoy the view.”

The Artemis II astronauts carried up with them the Apollo 8 silk patch that accompanied Lovell to the moon. “It’s just a real honor to have that on board with us,” Wiseman said.

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

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

Astronauts lock in on lunar observations

Artemis II’s lunar fly-around and intense observation period lasted seven hours, by far the highlight of the nearly 10-day test flight that will end with a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday.

Venturing as close as 4,067 miles (6,545 kilometers) to the gray dusty surface, the astronauts zipped through a list of more than two dozen targets, using powerful Nikon cameras as well as their iPhones to zoom in on impact craters and other intriguing lunar features.

Before getting started, they requested permission to name two bright, freshly carved craters. They suggested Integrity, the name of their capsule, and Carroll, commander Wiseman’s wife, who died of cancer in 2020.

Wiseman wept as Hansen put in the request to Mission Control, and all four astronauts embraced in tears.

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

At one point, Koch reported an overwhelming sensation of emotion for a second or two while zooming in on the moon. “Something just drew me in suddenly to the lunar landscape and it became real,” she said.

The Artemis II astronauts made their closest approach to the moon and reached their maximum distance from Earth while they were out of contact. Their speed at closest approach: 3,139 mph (5,052 kph). The spacecraft accelerated as it appeared from behind the moon and the planned communications blackout and made tracks for Earth.

An Earthrise came into view showing Asia, Africa and Oceania as Mission Control called out: “We are Earthbound and ready to bring you home.” Flight controllers in Houston flipped their mission patches over to signify the return leg.

President Donald Trump phoned the astronauts following the flyby, calling them “modern-day pioneers.”

“Today you’ve made history and made all America really proud, incredibly proud,” the president said, adding that more lunar traveling is coming and ultimately “the whole big trip to Mars.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

Police have not confirmed the name of the 47-year-old former soldier who was arrested Tuesday. But he has been widely reported in the media to be Roberts-Smith, a former Special Air Service Regiment corporal who was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan.

Police charged him Tuesday with five counts of war crime murder. He will remain in custody overnight and make his first court appearance on Wednesday, a police statement said.

He will potentially apply for release on bail Wednesday.

Roberts-Smith is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

Former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz, 44, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of war crime murder. He is accused of shooting Afghan man Dad Mohammad three times in the head in an Uruzgan province wheat field in May 2012.

War crime murder carries a potential sentence of life in prison. It's a federal crime in Australia, defined as the intentional killing in the context of armed conflict of a person who is not taking an active part in hostilities, such as civilians, prisoners of war or wounded soldiers.

Police arrested Roberts-Smith at Sydney Airport on Tuesday after he arrived on a flight from Brisbane, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said.

“It will be alleged that the victims were not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder in Afghanistan. It will be alleged the victims were detained, unarmed and were under the control of ADF members when they were killed,” Barrett told reporters, referring to the Australian Defense Force.

“It will be alleged the victims were shot by the accused or shot by subordinate members of the ADF in the presence of and acting on the orders of the accused,” Barrett added.

A civil court has already found similar allegations against Roberts-Smith credible in a defamation suit he brought after several newspapers published articles in 2018 accusing him of a range of war crimes. In 2023, a federal judge rejected Roberts-Smith’s claims and ruled that he likely killed four noncombatants unlawfully in 2009 and 2012.

But while the civil court found the war crimes allegations were mostly proved on a balance of probabilities, the new charges would have to be proved in a criminal court to a higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

In September, Australia’s High Court said it would not hear an appeal, ending his chances of overturning the ruling.

Nick McKenzie, a reporter unsuccessfully sued for defamation by Roberts-Smith who has been investigating allegations against the soldier since 2017, expected SAS colleagues to testify in the criminal trial as they had during the civil trial.

“You’re investigating conduct allegedly taken by some members of the most secretive, elite fighting force Australia has. The journalism task is difficult. What’s been really difficult, though, is those brave SAS witnesses” testifying, McKenzie told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“For them to come forward and say: ‘Well, we served our country bravely like Ben Roberts-Smith did, alongside him in Afghanistan, but we saw things with our own eyes that we feel uncomfortable about.’ These brave soldiers, some of them broke down after they testified, so difficult was it for them to stand up and speak out,” McKenzie added.

The charges follow a military report released in 2020 that found evidence that elite Australian SAS and commando regiment troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and other noncombatants.

Barrett said few soldiers were involved in the new allegations.

“The alleged conduct related to these charges is confined to a very small section of our trusted and respected ADF which helps keep this country safe,” Barrett said.

“The overwhelming majority of our ADF do our country proud. Today’s charges are not reflective of the majority of members who serve under our Australian flag with honor, with distinction and with the values of a democratic nation,” she added.

The Office of the Special Investigator was established to work with police on the war crime allegations. The office’s director of investigations Ross Barnett said allegations of 53 war crimes had been investigated and 39 of those investigations had concluded without charges. Around 40,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, of whom 41 were killed.

Hoping to ease some pain for consumers, President Donald Trump and other heads of state have been pulling on various levers, launching more oil on the market in a bid to calm the chaos.

A group of 32 nations that are members of the International Energy Agency began releasing the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history: 400 million barrels. Trump is tapping into oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve while lifting sanctions on Russian and Iranian crude and temporarily waiving the Jones Act, a maritime law that requires ships carrying goods between U.S. ports to be U.S.-flagged.

But despite those maneuvers, crude oil has soared well past $100 a barrel and gasoline is selling for $4.14 a gallon on average in the U.S. While the stopgaps are helping, they're not adding up to enough oil to replace what's stranded, experts say.

“They're all incremental,” said Mark Barteau, professor of chemical engineering and chemistry at Texas A&M University. "You’re talking about these different patches being at the level of maybe 1 to 2 million barrels a day each, and you’ve got to get to 20, so it’s hard to see those actually adding up to the numbers that are needed. And then the question is, how long can you sustain those?”

Trapped oil

Before the war began, roughly 15 million barrels of crude oil and 5 million barrels of oil products passed daily through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, amounting to about 20% of global oil consumption, according to the International Energy Agency.

In addition to that loss, some oil producing nations in the Middle East have halted oil production because they can't ship fuel out of the Gulf and their storage tanks are full. That's taken about 10 million barrels per day off the market, the IEA said.

Then there are the eight countries around the Persian Gulf that together hold about 50% of global oil reserves. Under normal circumstances, they coordinate closely to raise or lower their output to keep prices steady, said Jim Krane, energy research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute. Usually Saudi Arabia steps in to bring spare oil to market and calm things down, he said.

“But all of that spare capacity is also bottled up inside the Persian Gulf right now and it can’t get to market either,” Krane said. “So the main emergency response system that we have is also blocked.”

The IEA said in its recent report that “the resumption of transit through the Strait of Hormuz is the single most important action to return to stable oil and gas flows and reduce the strains on markets and prices.”

Barring that, world leaders are grasping for ways to free up more oil.

Limitations of short-term fixes

Some nations have found workarounds to move oil out of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is using its East-West pipeline, which stretches from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, to transfer about 5 million barrels per day out of the Gulf, said Michael Lynch, distinguished fellow at Energy Policy Research Foundation, a non-partisan institution focused on energy and economics. But the nation was already using that pipeline to transport oil, so it doesn’t have a lot of spare room to move oil from stranded tankers.

Trump also temporarily lifted sanctions on approximately 140 million barrels of Iranian oil that was already in transit. But that didn’t add oil to the market — it just widened the pool of potential buyers, said Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy.

Typically, most Iranian oil was bought by private refiners in China, who purchased it at a steep discount, Sternoff said. But with sanctions lifted, others could scramble to buy the oil, which in turn raises its price to the benefit of Iran, he said.

“As soon as you are moving to waive sanctions on your adversary with whom you’re fighting a military conflict, to do something in their benefit, it just shows you that you are running out of options to try to prevent a rise in the price of oil,” Sternoff said.

The decision to lift sanctions on Russian oil could have more impact, because Russia had been storing unpurchased oil in tankers, Sternoff said. “By waiving sanctions, it will allow those barrels to clear.”

Trump’s temporary waiver of the Jones Act to allow foreign ships to temporarily transport goods between U.S. ports could potentially help ease natural gas prices by enabling companies to more efficiently ship liquefied natural gas from the Gulf Coast to New England.

But experts don’t expect the waiver to significantly impact the price of oil or gasoline. “It’s helpful, but not a game changer,” Lynch said.

Why U.S. oil production can't solve the problem

The U.S. is a major oil producer, and exports more oil than it imports. But like any other oil producing nation, it can't just ramp up production instantly to fill the void.

“If the U.S. were to try to make up the global shortfall, we would need to nearly double our production,” Barteau said. “We couldn’t drill wells that fast even if we wanted to.”

Increasing domestic production by even 1 million barrels per day, a feat the U.S. accomplished during the shale boom, would be hard to duplicate, Lynch said.

“If we run every drilling rig right now, what happens a week from now when the war is over and the price goes back down $20?” Lynch asked. “People don’t want to develop long-term production based on a short-term price spike.”

Halting exports and using that oil within the U.S. wouldn't bring down gasoline prices either, experts say.

For one, oil is traded on a global market, so events happening halfway around the globe impact prices for everyone.

In addition, the U.S. doesn't produce enough of the type of oil its refineries process. It produced about 13.7 million barrels per day of oil at the end of 2025, according to the Energy Information Administration. And refineries processed about 16.3 million barrels per day that year, relying on imports to fill in the gaps, according to the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), a trade association.

That's because nearly 70% of U.S. refineries are set up to process heavy, sour crude, according to AFPM. But much of the oil produced in the U.S. is light, sweet crude, which was unlocked during the shale revolution.

“They need different crudes than the ones that are being produced right next to them now,” Krane said.

As a result, just 60% of the crude oil processed in U.S. refineries is extracted domestically, according to the AFPM. And retooling domestic refineries would cost billions of dollars, the group said. It also would require shutting down the refinery for a period of time, which generally raises gasoline prices.

“A lot of people like the IEA are making the point that this is the biggest oil crisis ever, which is partly true, partly an exaggeration, depending on how you count things,” Lynch said. “A lot of it has to do with how long does this last ... if it goes on for another six weeks we get to be in some serious trouble.”

Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd reunited to mark the show's 50th anniversary at PaleyFest LA on Monday night. They were greeted with a standing ovation and whoops and cheers from an audience at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

The hour-long crime adventure series debuted on Sept. 22, 1976, in a pre-Internet and streaming world when there were just three major television networks. It was a top-10 hit for ABC in its first two of five seasons, ending in 1981.

“I knew the show was different, special and unique,” Smith told the audience. “Three women chasing danger instead of getting rescued.”

Jackson added, “We made an impact, I think.”

Farrah Fawcett-Majors became a 1970s icon with her feathered hair and sexy swimsuit poster. She left after the first season to pursue a film career. She died in 2009.

She was replaced by Ladd, who showed up on her first day wearing a Farrah Fawcett Minor T-shirt. She had turned down producer Aaron Spelling three times, knowing how beloved Fawcett had been.

“I knew that there was nobody that was going to replace Farrah, so I made a joke of myself,” Ladd said on the red carpet. “Everybody laughed. Farrah would have done something like that.”

Jackson added, "Cheryl stepped in and we didn’t miss a beat.”

Critics weren’t kind, however, calling the show “jiggle television” because the women dressed scantily to go undercover and slamming it for vapid acting.

“It didn’t bother me,” Jackson said on the red carpet. “I knew what we were doing and Gloria Steinem knew what we were doing, and some other very impressive people knew what we were doing. We were helping to punch a hole in that glass ceiling and that makes a big difference."

Five decades later, the show remains popular in reruns and DVDs, having spawned a film series starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu.

"We were giving people an hour to sit back, put their feet up, forget everything and watch television,” Jackson said, “and then again just kind of subtly getting the message in there that women are just as capable, intelligent, can do anything that a man can do.”

The mostly older audience cheered and laughed as scenes from various episodes were played. Included in the highlights were Shelley Hack, who lasted one season after replacing Jackson, and the late Tanya Roberts, who appeared in the final season. Smith and the late David Doyle, who played Charlie's go-between, were on the show's entire run.

Smith, who is 80, and Ladd, who is 74, went on to prolific careers in made-for-TV movies and guesting on other shows. Jackson, who quit after three seasons, later starred in the CBS hit “Scarecrow and Mrs. King.”

Jackson left the business nearly 20 years ago to raise her son. Now 77, she said, “I’m ready to go back.”

The trio's sisterhood includes all of them overcoming breast cancer, with Ladd revealing for the first time publicly Monday that she had an aggressive form of the disease. She didn't say when it occurred.

“When Cheryl called me,” Smith said, “the first thing I did was send her my wigs.”

Smith was at Jackson's bedside during her cancer battle. Each of them urged the audience to have regular health screenings.

In one of many lighter moments, the women were asked to name their favorite outfits.

“I wore a lot of turtlenecks,” Jackson said, drawing laughs.

Smith singled out her tiny white bikini seen in the opening credits.

Ladd recalled, “Bikinis, a lot of bikinis.”

Smith joked, “Our ratings went up.”

Jackson, Smith and Ladd will reunite again on May 14 when they are among the recipients at the Paley Honors gala in New York. Smith's memoir titled “I Once Knew a Guy Named Charlie” comes out in September.

“I was really proud to be part of that show,” said Ladd, who always welcomed fans expressing their fondness for the Angels. "I felt so loved. You couldn't be in a bad mood. It was always uplifting to hear it.”

And Texans showed up with record turnout for the March primaries. Now, as we head toward the May 26 primary runoffs, including the rematch between U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, we want to hear from Texas voters and residents.

Please take a couple minutes to fill out the form below, which will help us center the voices of everyday Texans in our reporting and understand what you care about this election cycle. We want to hear from all Texas residents — regardless of voter eligibility. While not all Texans can cast ballots, everyone who lives here is impacted by policy decisions in the state.

More than a month later, the president has been noncommittal about the runoff. He has stayed on the sidelines well past the deadline for candidates to drop off the May ballot and downplayed the threat of Democratic nominee James Talarico.

“I believe that any human being running against him, sick, incompetent, close to death or even a child, would win,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on March 22. “He may be the Worst candidate I have ever seen.”

That missive was a notable shift from Trump’s message the day after the primary, when he said he’d expect the candidate he did not endorse to drop out for “the good of the Party,” adding, “We must win in November!!!” The president’s posture at the time appeared to bode well for Cornyn, whose allies have tried to convince Trump that Paxton would be a weaker candidate in the general election.

But since then, Paxton supporters and activists in the MAGA movement have loudly campaigned against a Cornyn endorsement, and the attorney general was seen discussing the runoff with Trump himself at a GOP fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, Politico reported.

The notoriously unpredictable president could still weigh in over the next seven weeks. But his inaction before last month’s dropout deadline has only hardened the rivalry.

“Trump not endorsing at this point has had an impact,” said John Wittman, an unaffiliated Republican consultant and former adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott. “And so the reality is that this is still a very close race. Paxton is probably the favorite right now, but this is absolutely a winnable race for John Cornyn.”

The president’s decision to stay out of the runoff, thus far, has coincided with a relatively quiet post-primary period, as the campaigns and their outside supporters reload. But as the May 26 election creeps closer, the race is expected to heat up once more.

The main pro-Cornyn super PAC, Texans for a Conservative Majority, has begun its runoff push, with new AI-forward ads attacking Paxton for various ethical liabilities, including his alleged extramarital affairs. And the Cornyn camp says there’s more coming.

Aaron Whitehead, the executive director of Texans for a Conservative Majority, said after $100 million in spending in the primary, voters need a break from the inundation of ads. But, he assured, they will “see a lot more spending” in the near future.

Texans for a Conservative Majority has been airing an ad depicting an AI-generated Paxton swiping on a dating app and giving money to liberal characters. Whitehead said the attorney general, dogged by allegations of infidelity and ethical impropriety, can expect more negative ads now that it’s a two-man race.

“The problem is, for Paxton, now that it’s mano a mano, we get to focus on him,” Whitehead said. “Only $13 million was spent on him in the primary, just because it was whack-a-mole. We had to do positive [ads], we had to hit [eventual third-place finisher] Wesley Hunt. … Paxton already underperformed.”

Paxton’s position, meanwhile, is bolstered by the conventional wisdom about runoffs, which typically feature a smaller electorate where hardline conservatives make up a larger share of the vote. Speaking to the crowd at CPAC in Grapevine last week, Paxton said he was “optimistic” about the runoff.

“We had six other people in the race — they took 18%,” Paxton said. “That 18%, we’ve done the analytics, more of them go to me than they do to John Cornyn. And finally, we’re gonna raise more money this time. He’s not going to outspend me 20 to 1.”

Early polling of the runoff has shown Paxton leading by a single-digit margin in most surveys, though much of the polls released have been conducted by Democratic groups.

Texans for a Conservative Majority, the pro-Cornyn super PAC, found the runoff started with the two candidates deadlocked at 45%. A runoff poll conducted in late March by right-leaning Quantus Insights found Paxton with an 8-point lead.

Some polling has found that a Trump endorsement for Cornyn would have limited impact on moving the electorate. And Paxton has said he’s committed to staying in the race no matter what Trump does.

Pro-Cornyn machine starts to mobilize

After his initial endorsement pledge, Trump has instead focused on flaws he sees in Talarico.

The president suggested the Austin lawmaker was a weaker candidate than his Democratic primary opponent, Dallas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and that Republicans “allowed” him to win the race before “releasing the avalanche of information we had on him.”

Since Talarico’s primary win, Republicans in Texas and Washington have dug up and promoted numerous clips of Talarico talking about race, gender and sexuality.

Trump’s apparent belief that Talarico is easily beatable, regardless of who Republicans nominate, undermines the Cornyn camp’s chief argument for the endorsement — that Paxton would endanger the seat, and draw precious resources away from other Senate races, in the general election.

The Cornyn campaign, on the other hand, sees Talarico’s candidacy as a threat that their guy is best suited to take on.

“Democrats nominated their strongest candidate for U.S. Senate,” Cornyn senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said. “Texas Republicans must nominate John Cornyn, who is our strongest nominee by far to gain five new congressional seats and advance Trump’s legislative agenda in the final two years of his second term. We have a plan to win the runoff and we are executing it.”

Washington has been relatively quiet since the start of the runoff, but Cornyn’s allies in Senate GOP leadership say their position remains unchanged.

“We’ve been very clear that the fight to protect President Trump’s Senate Majority should not be fought in Texas, and John Cornyn is the only candidate who ensures that does not happen,” Joanna Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement.

A joint fundraising committee between Cornyn’s campaign and other groups, including the NRSC, has already made runoff ad buys.

The president’s prioritization of the Save America Act, a bill that would impose new federal restrictions on voter registration, has also shaken up the race. When Paxton offered to consider dropping out if the Senate passed the bill — which does not have the support of enough senators to meet the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster — he thrust the issue, already a favorite of Trump’s, into the spotlight in the Senate runoff.

Will the spending onslaught continue?

As long as Trump stays out, the May 26 runoff will instead be shaped solely by the opinions of the runoff electorate, and the money both sides deploy to shape it.

Cornyn received 41.9% of the vote in the primary to Paxton’s 40.7%, outperforming the attorney general in the state’s big urban counties while Paxton received the edge in rural areas. The two were nearly tied in suburban counties.

Cornyn’s surprise first-place finish in the primary was helped by a larger-than-normal midterm primary electorate, spurred into action by a heated campaign season that ended as the most expensive Senate primary for one state, when including both parties, in U.S. history.

After a furious flurry of ads leading up to the primary — primarily by Cornyn and allied PACs, who dropped over $70 million — the first five weeks of the overtime period have been quieter. Cornyn allies have spent over $2.2 million since March 3, including new ads directly attacking Paxton, while the Paxton camp has spent under $30,000, according to media tracking firm AdImpact.

Ads from the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC have been largely targeted at one specific non-Texas voter. About half of the Paxton camp’s spend has been in the West Palm Beach market, where Trump typically spends his weekends.

The Paxton campaign believes it will be better resourced in the runoff. Immediately after the primary, Paxton registered a new leadership PAC and a joint fundraising committee with both Lone Star Liberty PAC and the leadership PAC, creating a larger constellation of organizations from which to spend.

Cornyn saw relatively little incoming compared to Paxton and certainly Hunt in the primary — much of the late spending, from organizations in both camps, was against Hunt, helping to collapse his support. The Paxton camp plans to change that trend in the runoff and begin attacking Cornyn on the airwaves, according to a campaign adviser.

Both campaigns have also rolled out new endorsements since the primary. Among federal legislators, Reps. Nathaniel Moran, R-Tyler, Randy Weber, R-Galveston, and Roger Williams, R-Willow Park, announced support for Cornyn. Paxton got the backing of Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Flower Mound.

With the campaign expected to heat up this month, both candidates will need to appeal to the 13.5% of Republicans who cast a ballot for Hunt. The Houston Republican praised Paxton’s Save Act gambit but has not endorsed between his two former opponents. His supporters, who have leaned toward Paxton in some initial runoff polls, could help decide the overtime winner.

Paxton’s narrow second-place finish came after he significantly lagged Cornyn’s political network in fundraising. The two sides will have to disclose their latest fundraising and spending activity by April 15, providing insight into how much money each candidate has raised since the primary — and how much support Cornyn can expect from the constellation of groups in both Washington and Texas that deployed tens of millions on his behalf in round one.

Trump’s lack of endorsement means donors in his orbit lack a clear signal about who to back, keeping fundraising ability at the forefront of the race.

Waiting on the other side is Talarico, who has proven a prolific fundraiser himself. Though Republicans have spent the early runoff period dumping on the Democratic nominee, some have cautioned that they still expect a difficult race this fall, raising the stakes of the runoff. Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, recently said Democrats are “going to show up in huge numbers, which means we need to take the general very, very seriously.”

“I have concerns about the general election,” Cruz, who has stayed out of the Republican contest, told the Washington Examiner at CPAC. “Regardless of who wins the nomination, the two candidates have attacked each other relentlessly, and the hard left is really energized.”

Disclosure: Politico has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Before submerging, the 12 men and women testified how Jesus Christ changed their lives.

Most of them came to this moment through the ministry of Church Under the Bridge, whose congregants include the unhoused and mentally ill as well as Baylor University students and professionals.

It was an Easter Sunday tradition for the congregation to leave its usual home under an Interstate 35 overpass near Baylor University for baptism in the countryside west of Waco.

This would be the last service and last baptism led by founding pastor Jimmy Dorrell, 76, who is retiring from the church after 33 years and 1,700 Sundays. He hopes to be an occasional presence in the congregation but spend more time with ministries overseas.

Dorrell and his successor, Baylor ministerial student Kevin Brown, teamed up Sunday to immerse the newly committed Christians. Each baptism was followed by whoops and applause from the crowd of more than 100, which included Baylor President Linda Livingstone.

The first baptismal candidate in line addressed the crowd before he waded into the cold water.

“I’m John Dokken and I’m dedicating my life to Christ,” he said. “As I approached 80 and turned 80, I realize this is my final chapter.”

A fellow candidate patted his shoulder as he began to weep.

“Through Jimmy, and Kevin, I found a new home, and when it’s time to go I know that I’ll be ready,” he said. “I’m just here to do God’s will. He tells me he’s not through with me so I’ve got to keep going.”

Dorrell said afterward that baptism is always an emotional experience for him.

“These are pivotal moments for people to stand on what they have said verbally but never publicly professed and shown with their words and their baptism that they’re committed to this walk with Christ,” Dorrell said.

Dorrell and his wife, Janet, started Church Under the Bridge in 1993 after they spontaneously invited some homeless residents to join them on a restaurant patio near the interstate. It grew into a weekly Bible study, then a full-fledged worship service under the concrete canopy of Interstate 35.

Not long before, the Dorrells had launched Mission Waco, an urban ministry that was to grow into one of Waco’s major nonprofits serving homeless people using the empowering principles of “Christian community development.” 

Jimmy Dorrell is retired from Mission Waco but involved in its tiny home development, Creekside Community Village, that will soon provide long-term housing for those now homeless.

Over the decades, the Dorrells have continued to live on North 15th Street, a once-blighted street that has been transformed with new housing and small businesses thanks to Mission Waco’s efforts.

Clarice Barron, his neighbor and a Church Under the Bridge member who attended Sunday, said Jimmy Dorrell has transformed many lives in Waco.

“He’s able to actually put himself in the place of the homeless and the mentally ill, and the people with substance abuse [problems],” she said. “He just really wants to do something about it.”

Cindy Julian, who has attended Church Under the Bridge since 2012, said Sunday’s event was joyful but “bittersweet, to watch both of them, Jimmy and Kevin, do the baptisms in the river. We’re going to miss Jimmy, but he’s left us in good hands.

“But Easter is amazing in itself out here. We’re literally practicing what heaven’s like right here. We’ll all be together.”

Disclosure: Baylor University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The move departs from Vietnam’s tradition of shared leadership, in which the jobs have typically been held by different people, and echoes power structures in China under Xi Jinping and neighboring Laos.

It has been widely expected since Lam’s reelection as Communist Party head in January, when observers noted that his consolidation of party authority positioned him to assume the presidency as well.

Former central bank governor Le Minh Hung was elected as the country's prime minister for the next five years.

After being sworn in, the 69-year-old told the National Assembly that his top priority was to maintain peace and stability, which were the foundation for fast and sustainable growth. “We aim to improve people’s livelihoods so all can share the benefits of development,” he said.

This is To Lam’s second time holding both jobs, after briefly doing so in 2024 when his predecessor as party chief, Nguyen Phu Trong, died.

The concentration of power was significant since it meant that Lam had a “stronger mandate and far more political room to push through his agenda than any leaders” since the 1980s, when Hanoi launched reforms to shed a state-run economy in favor of a market-oriented one open to foreigners, said Nguyen Khac Giang, of Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute research center.

“The opportunity is obvious. Faster decision-making, greater policy coherence, and a better chance of pushing difficult reforms at a pivotal moment. But the risk is that concentration of power can move faster than institutional reform,” he said.

Lam's rise to the top caps the ascent of a career policeman who advanced from Vietnam’s security services to the top of the political system. This was aided by a sweeping anti-corruption campaign launched by his predecessor, which he oversaw as head of the Ministry of Public Security.

As party chief, Lam has led Vietnam’s biggest bureaucratic overhaul since the 1980s, cutting jobs, merging ministries, redrawing provincial boundaries and advancing major infrastructure projects.

He has focused on economic performance and private-sector growth, aiming to move Vietnam beyond the labor- and export-driven model that has helped lift millions from poverty and build a manufacturing-based middle class. The country is targeting 10% or higher annual economic growth over each of the next five years.

Hung, the new prime minister, said that the 10% growth target is meant to help achieve the country’s strategic goals and that the government had identified “strengthening science, technology, innovation and digital transformation as top priorities.”

But challenges remain, especially the immediate task of turning this ambitious vision into reality with the world economy upended by the energy shock from the war in Iran. Vietnam’s economy expanded at an annualized rate of 7.8% in the first three months of the year, up from 7.1% last year but below the 9.1% target and slower than in late 2025.

Giang said that Lam also faces political hurdles for reform buy-in and the challenge of maintaining Vietnam's pragmatic approach to foreign policy.

Vietnam is facing U.S. pressure over its trade surplus but also has to balance ties with China, its largest trading partner and rival claimant in the South China Sea.

“It has benefited from a careful balancing strategy in foreign policy, but maintaining that position will become harder in a more turbulent world,” he said.

___

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The Texans have also hosted Ohio State defensive tackle Kayden McDonald for a visit and host Texas A&M defensive tackle Tyler Onyedim for a visit Tuesday, per a league source.

Miller, a 6-foot-4, 321-pound All-Southeastern Conference selection, also has met at his campus with the Los Angeles Rams, who don’t do 30 visits, and the New Orleans Saints.

He has upcoming visits with the Buffalo Bills, New York Giants, Green Bay Packers, Denver Broncos, Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Miller was a four-star recruit and a Georgia all-state selection at Cedar Grove High School.

He started every game last season, recording 23 tackles, 10 solos, four tackles for losses, 1 1/2 sacks and 23 quarterback hurries.

As a junior, he had 27 tackles in 10 starts with 3 1/2 for losses and 1 1/2 sacks.

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

Wembanyama took an inadvertent elbow to the ribs from Paul George when the Philadelphia forward was attempting to deflect a pass as the 7-foot-4 Frenchman was sprinting up court on a fastbreak with 10:49 remaining in the first half. Wembanyama tumbled to the court and remained down for a minute while George patted him on the backside apologetically.

The extent of the injury and whether Wembanyama will be available for the Spurs' final three games of the regular season — all at home — against Portland (Wednesday), Dallas (Friday) and Denver (Sunday) wasn't known after Monday's game.

“At halftime I was told he wasn't coming back and I honest to God haven't heard anything else up to this point,” San Antonio coach Mitch Johnson said after the win.

Wembanyama subbed out of the game shortly after the collision and immediately went into the tunnel leading to the locker room while keeping his arm pressed to his side.

Wembanyama returned with 5:33 remaining in the period, but asked Johnson to take him out with 44 seconds remaining in the first half. He again went into the tunnel leading to the locker room while holding his arm to his side and was ruled out at the start the second half.

“I think it would be a positive that he felt like he could come back and he played the last four or five minutes of the half," Johnson said. “So, that’s a positive from my perspective, but I have nothing (as far a status update).”

George was not available for comment after the game.

Wembanyama had 17 points, five rebounds and three blocks while playing 15:40 in the first half.

Wembanyama has made it clear that he wants to win the league's MVP award this season. The NBA allows a maximum of two games in which a player logs between 15 and 19.59 minutes to count toward the league-required minimum of 65 games played for award eligibility.

Wembanyama has played 63 games this season, including the NBA Cup Final.

San Antonio (60-19) is is 2 1/2 games behind Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City (62-16) and assured of finishing no worse than second in the conference.

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

There's been a lot of thinking to do given the new Giants manager's frustrating 3-8 start in his jump from college coach to the major leagues.

Vitello had a little extra time following Sunday afternoon's game with a night contest the next day to ponder everything that went wrong in San Francisco's third straight defeat, when he was ejected for the first time in his career for arguing in the seventh after Jerar Encarnación was ruled out for running inside the designated lane on his way to first base.

Yes, he constantly dissects the various decisions he makes and is determined to figure this out. The Giants lost again Monday night, squandering an early four-run lead to the Philadelphia Phillies in a 6-4 setback.

“At 3-7 and how yesterday went, I didn't think yesterday was the proper time for me to go gallivanting around San Francisco, so, yeah, I was in my condo the whole night,” Vitello said beforehand. “Whether I'm there or sitting with family I apologize to them, ‘Find something better to watch if you’re watching this.' We're at dinner, I am thinking about this more than that. So, yeah, yesterday sitting at home you finish on a day game and you have a night game, you've got a lot of time to go over that stuff. You replay it all.”

Before the start of a three-game series with the Phillies, Vitello and Matt Chapman connected to discuss the third baseman getting caught stealing after his leadoff single in the ninth inning of a 5-2 loss to the Mets that gave New York a weekend sweep.

Vitello knows those kinds of mistakes would be more magnified later in the season, and said the Giants are “trying” so hard to win "it's probably something that everybody's been a little guilty of, of not going about it the way they would if they were thinking clearly but when you're trying to win games as hard as possible sometimes it actually contradicts what your end goal is.”

Coming into Monday's game, the Giants had been outscored by 25 runs over their initial 10 contests — the worst mark through 10 games for the franchise since it was minus-49 in 1896. And the club's 3-7 record was tied for its second-worst through 10 games since moving to San Francisco in 1958 — the Giants began 2-8 in 1983.

Chapman, for one, hopes a few things will go the Giants' way so they can grab some much-needed momentum to climb their way up in the powerful NL West after falling to the bottom of the standings, and he is thankful the struggles are happening now when there is plenty of time left. San Francisco has missed the playoffs the past four years.

“Whatever it is, I think it's more of an accumulation of maybe some frustrating things happening because we're right there and we're not able to get the job done,” Chapman said. “... It sucks when it looks like it's sloppy baseball and we're making some sloppy mistakes that kind of shot us in the foot last year and was one of the reasons why we probably weren't able to finish as strong. But I don't think it's going to be something that's going to be the story of our season by any means.”

After his ejection, Vitello offered a long explanation to what had upset him. The former University of Tennessee coach regularly shares stories from his experiences in the college ranks.

“I’m sure he got it exactly technically right,” Vitello said postgame Sunday. “It’s just a play I’ve got a lot of history for. A little frustrated about something else that occurred in the game. … Got a ton of history with that play. Lost a game to Lipscomb on that play, lost the game to (Oklahoma State coach) Frank Anderson and a Big 12 championship on that play. The difference between the two that I’m talking about, and I can talk about others, is the runner in Frank’s instance — and I’ve called his team cheaters — completely interfered with the throwing lane for the pitcher. So again, umpires are held accountable by what the rules are, and they enforce those rules."

Several of his players and coaches have said dating to spring training how much they appreciate the passion, energy and approach Vitello takes.

From Day 1, Vitello acknowledged he would be learning on the fly from the dugout's top step and there would be plenty of ups and downs.

“Listen, Tony's great, I like Tony, he's cool,” said center fielder Harrison Bader, who began the series batting .118 (4 for 34) with a home run and determined to get on track. “At the major league level, a little different in terms of the fans and the speed but he won at a really high level in the SEC. It's the same game, so he's familiar to winning and what it looks like to help players win and what that feeling looks like and how to maintain it. So he's in the right spot.”

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

This year’s Supreme Court election stands in stark contrast to the swing state's previous two, where national spending records were set in battles over majority control. Spending and national attention is down dramatically this year without control of the court at stake.

Democrats are looking to tighten their control of the court just months before a November election in which they seek to keep the governor's office and flip the state Legislature, where Republicans have held the majority since 2011. Democrats aspire to undo a host of Republican-enacted laws that made Wisconsin a focal point for the nation’s conservative movement in the 2010s.

In Tuesday's Supreme Court race, Democratic-backed Chris Taylor, a former state lawmaker who also worked for Planned Parenthood, faces Republican-supported Maria Lazar. Both Taylor and Lazar are state Appeals Court judges.

Liberals would increase their majority on the court to 5-2 from 4-3 with a Taylor win. That would lock in the liberal majority until at least 2030.

Liberals took control of the state's top court in 2023, ending 15 years under a conservative majority. They held onto their majority with last year's victory in a race that drew involvement from President Donald Trump and billionaires George Soros and Elon Musk, who personally handed out $1 million checks to voters in the state.

Liberals argued that democracy was at stake in the 2025 election, noting that when the court was controlled by conservative justices in 2020 it came just one vote shy of siding with Trump in his attempt to invalidate enough votes to overturn his loss in that year's presidential election.

Since liberals took control, the court has reversed several election-related rulings, including one that overturned a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes, and it is poised to once again be in the spotlight around the 2028 presidential election.

Races for the court are officially nonpartisan, but support for candidates breaks down mostly along partisan lines.

Taylor has focused much of her campaign on abortion rights, with one TV ad saying that “abortion is on the ballot.” In another ad, she criticized Lazar for calling the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 “very wise.”

Lazar, who was supported by anti-abortion groups in her run for the appeals court, tried to brand Taylor as nothing more than a politician who will push a partisan agenda on the court.

They sparred over each other's partisanship during the campaign's sole debate last week.

Lazar accused Taylor of being a “radical, extreme legislator” and a “judicial activist.” Taylor said that Lazar would bring “an extreme, right-wing political agenda to the bench.”

Lazar has had a much harder time getting her message out. Taylor had a large fundraising advantage and spent about nine times as much as Lazar on television ads, based on a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The liberal-controlled court has already struck down a state law banning abortion and ordered new legislative maps, fueling Democrats’ hopes of capturing a majority this November.

Taylor has been a judge since 2020 and before that she spent 10 years as a Democrat representing the liberal capital city of Madison in the state Assembly.

Lazar, a judge since 2015, previously worked four years under a Republican attorney general in the state Department of Justice. In that role, she defended a law enacted under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.

A circuit court judge ruled in December that the law is unconstitutional, a decision expected to ultimately land before the state Supreme Court.

Lazar also defended laws passed by Republicans and signed by Walker implementing a voter ID requirement and restricting abortion access.

Democrats are optimistic given the past two Supreme Court elections, which saw candidates they backed winning by double digits.

The seat is open due to the retirement of a conservative justice. Another conservative justice is retiring next year, giving liberals a chance to take 6-1 control of the court if they win on Tuesday.

Raleigh’s homer was pulled deep to right field against two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom of the Texas Rangers to end a 12-pitch at-bat in the first inning. Raleigh fell behind 0-2, fouled off six pitches with two strikes and connected on a 99 mph fastball low in the zone.

His homer was Seattle's lone run in a 2-1 loss.

“Just trying to put the bat on the ball there and fight, don’t punch out,” Raleigh said. “I was able to have a pretty long at-bat, saw some good pitches and put a good swing on that last one.”

It was the second-most pitches in an at-bat that ended with a Mariners homer. Raúl Ibañez homered on the 13th pitch he saw in June 2013.

According to Major League Baseball, it was both the most pitches ever delivered to Raleigh in a plate appearance ending in a hit and the most pitches ever thrown by deGrom during an at-bat ending in a hit.

“That was just an incredible at-bat,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said, “to battle all the way through like that and foul off as many pitches as he did and then finally put that perfect pitch into the right-field seats.”

Raleigh's longest home run drought last season was eight games. He had two homers last season through 11 games, hitting No. 3 in his 14th game.

Raleigh entered batting .132 this year with only one run scored. He nearly homered on Saturday against the Los Angeles Angels in the first inning, but the ball was caught above the wall by Jo Adell, the first of three potential homers the right fielder prevented in that game.

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

Dakota Mortensen, who has temporary custody of his and Paul's 2-year-old son, is asking the court to turn a short-term protective order against her into a long-term one as authorities investigate domestic violence reports from earlier this year.

Paul and Mortensen are expected to participate in the hearing remotely while their lawyers appear in person at the Salt Lake City courthouse. Details of the temporary protective order have been kept sealed.

Attorneys are expected to address reports under investigation from February, not a 2023 fight that led to Paul’s arrest and resurfaced just before her “Bachelorette” season was supposed to premiere, though the older issues may be discussed.

ABC last month announced the unprecedented move of shelving an entire, already-filmed new season of “The Bachelorette” with Paul in the title role. The network and its parent company Disney blamed the cancellation on a leaked video, shot in 2023 and posted by TMZ on March 19, in which Paul appears to punch, kick and throw chairs at Mortensen while her young daughter watches and cries.

Police body camera footage of Paul's arrest in that case was featured in the series premiere of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives," which first aired in 2024. Paul is shown calling it “the worst night of my life.” Video of the fight itself, which appears to be from Mortensen's point of view, was not made public until last month's leak.

Paul was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses, including domestic violence in the presence of a child. She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, and the other counts were dismissed.

Paul has two children with her ex-husband, Tate Paul, along with the son she had with Mortensen after their 2023 dispute.

A Paul representative said after the cancellation that she had been “silently suffering extensive mental and physical abuse as well as threats of retaliation” and was “finally gaining the strength to face her accuser.”

Mortensen said in a statement that he was “used to these baseless claims about me and our relationship, which I categorically deny.”

Production has also been paused on the fifth season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” the Hulu series that made Paul a reality star. Her casting on “The Bachelorette” offered synergy between the shows for Disney, which owns both Hulu and ABC.

She became known as an influencer in the #MomTok community, a group of women from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sharing their lives on TikTok. The group, and Paul's admissions of polyamory within it, helped spawn the hit reality show.

On Sunday, Paul announced she was leaving what is widely known as the Mormon church. She said on Instagram that she will always have love and respect for the Utah-based religious institution but, “It's time to detach myself.”

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Dalton reported from Los Angeles.

“They always say, ‘I’m not trying to hit you,’’’ Contreras said after the Brewers beat the scuffling Red Sox 8-6 at Fenway Park. “That gets old. So, next time they hit me again, I’m going to take one of them out. That’s a message.”

Contreras has been hit by a pitch 131 times in his major league career, including 24 times by the Brewers — which is 10 more than he's been plunked by any other team. He has a testy history with Woodruff, who has nailed Contreras six times.

After the latest one, Contreras yelled at Woodruff from first base. Then, on a force play, Contreras slid hard into second, banging into shortstop David Hamilton’s left knee with his cleats and tearing his pants.

“I mean, we’ve been through that. It’s been like nine years for me. It seems like every year,” Woodruff said. “He’s trying to play a game and he’s trying to get his side fired up, which is fine. Once I knew what was going on, I wasn’t going to let it affect me.”

Before getting traded to the Red Sox in the offseason, Contreras spent his first 10 big league seasons in the NL Central where he played against Milwaukee a lot, first with the Chicago Cubs and then the St. Louis Cardinals.

Contreras was hit Monday night on the left hand with a fastball that grazed his fingers. Brewers manager Pat Murphy challenged the call, which was upheld following a replay review.

“I thought it wasn’t a hit by pitch,” Murphy said. “That’s why we challenged it. Those are really hard to get overturned.”

Contreras’ younger brother, William, was Milwaukee’s catcher Monday night.

Did he try to calm his big brother as he walked toward first with him?

“I tried,” he said. “He plays like that.”

Willson Contreras hit a solo homer in the ninth inning and reached base five times. He flung his bat not only after the homer, but his first-inning walk, too.

From behind the plate, his younger brother challenged a 2-0 pitch to Willson Contreras that was called a ball. The call was confirmed by ABS.

“I was going to check it whether it was my bother at the plate or not,” William Contreras said through a translator. “I saw it a little closer than it was.”

The teams have two games left in their three-game series.

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

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

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

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

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

Here is the latest:

Malaysian commercial vessel allowed to pass in Strait of Hormuz

Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that one of seven Malaysian commercial vessels stranded in the Strait of Hormuz has been allowed to pass and is now heading to its destination.

The ministry said this followed diplomatic talks with Iranian officials led by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. It didn’t give further details.

Malaysia reaffirmed its support for safe and open sea routes under international law, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It called for continued dialogue to maintain peace and stability in the region.

Japan says a Japanese national detained in Iran has been released

Japan said Tuesday a Japanese national who had been detained in Iran since January has been released on bail.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters in Tokyo that his release was confirmed Monday and that Japan is demanding a full release from Iranian authorities.

He said the Japanese ambassador to Iran met the person released and that he was in good health without providing further details.

The person is believed to be a journalist at Japan’s NHK public television.

Another Japanese national, who was detained in Iran last June, was released and returned to Japan in March.

Iran official calls for youths to form human chains around power plants ahead of threatened Trump strikes

An Iranian official early Tuesday issued a video message calling on youths of the Islamic Republic to form “human chains” around power plants in the country ahead of threatened strikes by U.S. President Donald

Alireza Rahimi, identified by Iranian state television as the secretary of the Supreme Council of Youth and Adolescents, issued the video call in a newscast.

“I invite all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors,” he said.

Gather “Tuesday at 2 p.m. around the power plants that are our national assets and capital, regardless of any taste or political viewpoint, belong to the future of Iran and to the Iranian youth.”

Iran has formed human-chain demonstrations, also known as human shields, in the past around its nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s had similar human-shield demonstrations during the 1991 Gulf War. He also dispersed foreign nationals held by his security services to possible targets of the U.S.-led campaign during the war.

Dwindling naphtha stocks strain medical supplies in South Korea

South Korean officials say the country has about three months’ worth of materials to produce intravenous fluid bags as the war in the Middle East threatens to strain critical hospital supplies.

Senior Health Ministry official Jeong Kyung-sil said Tuesday that the country has about three months’ stock of syringes, and materials for roughly two more months of production.

Health Minister Jeong Eun Kyeong said Tuesday the government is prioritizing medical supplies as it seeks to secure more naphtha, a key petroleum product used in plastics manufacturing, amid supply disruptions caused by the war.

“We will continue to secure additional supplies going forward and we are also reviewing alternative supply sources to ensure there are no issues,” the minister said.

South Korea last week said it imported 2.7 tons of naphtha from Russia as it looks to address the shortage.

South Korean chemical giant LG Chem shut down a major industrial plant in Yeosu last month, citing naphtha supply disruptions.

Israel claims recent wave of airstrikes targeting Tehran

Israel claimed the recent wave of airstrikes targeting Iran’s capital, Tehran, but offered no immediate details on what had been targeted.

Already, Israel had faced one missile barrage from Iran on Tuesday.

New Zealand describes US threats against Iranian infrastructure as ‘unhelpful’

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has described Trump’s recent threats against Iranian civilian infrastructure as “unhelpful.”

“Unhelpful because more military action’s not necessary,” Luxon told Radio New Zealand on Tuesday.

“I think the bottom line is that the focus needs to be on not seeing this conflict expand any further,” Luxon said.

“We got threats from the president over the weekend. Any of those actions including bombing bridges and reservoirs and civilian infrastructure would be unacceptable as well,” Luxon added.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ message to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a meeting in Washington, scheduled this week, would be to de-escalate the conflict, Luxon said.

Peters would “certainly be encouraging the U.S. and Iran to de-escalate quickly,” Luxon said.

UN to vote Tuesday on watered-down resolution on Strait of Hormuz

The U.N. Security Council scheduled a vote Tuesday on a resolution aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz that was watered down for a second time because of opposition from Russia and China.

The original Bahrain-sponsored resolution would have authorized countries to use “all necessary means” – U.N. language that can include military action – to ensure transit through the vital waterway, which Iran has largely blocked, and deter attempts to close it.

The sixth revision of the initial text that will be voted on only “strongly encourages” countries using the Strait of Hormuz to coordinate defensive efforts to contribute to safe navigation in the strait.

It says this should include escorting merchant and commercial vessels, and deterring attempts to close, obstruct or interfere with international navigation through the strait.

The vote is scheduled at 11a.m. EDT, hours before an 8 p.m. EDT deadline set by Trump for Iran to open the strategic waterway, where one-fifth of the world’s oil normally passes, or face attacks on its power plants and bridges.

US Central Command says it struck over 13,000 targets

The U.S. military’s Central Command said early Tuesday that it had struck over 13,000 targets in the war so far.

Latest reports of live fire in the war

Activists reported new strikes targeting Iran’s capital, Tehran, early Tuesday morning.

The United Arab Emirates began firing its air defense Tuesday morning, while Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens in the kingdom, with both Gulf Arab countries facing a new barrage of Iranian fire.

Filipina killed in missile attack in Israel, Philippines says

The Philippine government says a Filipino national was killed in a missile attack in the northern Israeli port city of Haifa over the weekend.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila did not immediately identify the Filipina but said she was killed with her Israeli husband and parents-in-law in a residential area in Haifa on Sunday.

On Feb. 28, a Filipina caregiver, Mary Ann de Vera, was killed in a missile strike in Tel Aviv while helping bring her charge to a bomb shelter in the first known Philippine casualty of the war in the Middle East.

About 30,000 Filipinos live and work — many as caregivers — in Israel.

Drone strike kills 2 in Iraq

Two people were killed in the Kurdish region of Iraq after a home was hit by a drone that authorities said had been launched from Iran.

The drone hit the home in the village of Zargazawi in Irbil province early Tuesday, the Counter Terrorism Directorate of the northern Kurdish region said in a statement. Officials condemned the attack, calling it a violation of international law.

The strike came as Iranian forces and allied militias targeted areas across northern Kurdistan with a wave of drones, rockets and missiles.

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

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

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

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

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

— Konstantin Toropin

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

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

The Israeli military had no response when reached for comment.

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

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

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

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

3 US troops injured during fighter jet shootdown and rescue

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

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

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

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

— Konstantin Toropin

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

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

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

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

▶ Read more

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

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

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

Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market.

▶ Read more

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

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

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

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

Trump details the rescue of US airmen shot down in Iran

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

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

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

▶ Read more

Israeli TV station counts down to Trump deadline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Israeli military is preparing for weeks of battle against Iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump insists Iranian civilians want the US to keep bombing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hegseth describes ‘unblinking’ mission in coordination call

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hegseth draws parallels between the story of Easter and rescued airman

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

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

Trump threatens to jail journalist who first reported on downed airman

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

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

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

Iran’s supreme leader issues a rare public statement

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

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

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

Trump offers more details of dramatic airman rescue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump news conference begins

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

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

Trump, with Easter bunny nearby, talks Iran war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

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

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

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

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

Houthis claim they hit military sites in Israel

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

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

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

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

Israel to ramp up production of air defense interceptors

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

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

Israel’s military says it struck 3 Tehran airports overnight

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

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

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

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

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

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

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

And even Trump said negotiations with Iran continued.

Activists reported a new wave of strikes on Tehran early Tuesday. Israel claimed credit but offered no immediate details on what had been targeted.

Meanwhile, Japan said Tuesday a Japanese national who had been detained in Iran since January has been released on bail.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters in Tokyo that his release was confirmed Monday and that Japan is demanding a full release from Iranian authorities. He said the Japanese ambassador to Iran met the person released and that he was in good health without providing further details.

The person released is believed to be a journalist at Japan’s NHK public television. Another Japanese national, who was detained in Iran last June, was released and returned to Japan in March.

Trump says Iranians ‘willing to suffer’ for freedom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iran's new supreme leader makes rare statement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Airstrikes kill at least 29 across Iran

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

The documents detail Judge Nathan Milliron’s time as a defense attorney representing mortgage company Gregory Funding in a lawsuit that ultimately expanded to potentially impact other borrowers nationwide.

The case began in 2017, when a Houston man sued Gregory Funding, accusing the company of violating federal consumer protection laws tied to debt collection practices.

• RELATED: FIRST ON 2: Viral judge filed for bankruptcy last year, listed nearly $70K in debt

At the time, the case was relatively narrow.

But that changed when attorneys—including Houston-based attorney Benjamin Gubernick—became involved and amended the lawsuit.

“We were looking at the mortgage statements that they were sending out,” Gubernick said. “And we were like, ‘oh, hey, these violate the FDCPA. There’s probably something we can do here.’”

FDCPA stands for federal debt collection practices act which protects consumers from abusive debt collection.

The case was later certified as a class action in 2020, allowing it to move forward on behalf of a broader group of borrowers.

Attorney: ‘He didn’t know what he was doing’

Gubernick, who was on the opposing side of the case, said problems with the defense became clear early on.

“It was pretty apparent he didn’t know what he was doing,” Gubernick said.

He described what he called basic mistakes in handling a complex class-action case.

“They filed a one-page opposition,” Gubernick said.

According to Gubernick, Milliron’s lack of experience in class-action litigation became evident as the case progressed.

“It’s a specialized area and the risk to the client skyrockets,” said Gubernick. “It was pretty apparent he didn’t know what he was doing."

Gubernick said one of the biggest issues was a lack of communication.

“He just ignored us and ignored us and ignored us,” Gubernick said, referring to a required list of class members needed to move the case forward.

According to court records, the failure to comply with court-ordered requirements led to sanctions.

But what Gubernick and other attorneys didn’t know at the time, he said, was what was happening behind the scenes.

“Milliron was just not telling them what was going on in this case,” he said. “They did not know it had been amended to be a class action. They did not know that a class had been certified.”

Client later sues its own attorneys

In 2021, Gregory Funding sued Milliron and his former law firm, Hughes Watters Askanase LLP, accusing them of legal malpractice.

The lawsuit alleges Milliron misled the company about the status of the case—telling them the claims were not being actively pursued when, in reality, the case had already evolved into a class action.

The company also claimed it did not learn about the class-action status until more than a year later.

“That just blindsided us when we found that out,” Gubernick said.

The lawsuit further alleges the handling of the case resulted in approximately $20,000 in sanctions and more than $300,000 in legal fees after the company hired new attorneys.

The case was settled in 2022 for an undisclosed amount.

Milliron no longer worked at HWA following the case, although it is unclear at this time if he was terminated.

Shortly after, he opened his own firm and then started running for office.

‘One of the worst performances I’ve ever seen’

Gubernick described the defense of the case as deeply flawed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything this inept,” he said. “Put it like this—I would not hire Nathan Milliron to mow my lawn.”

Gubernick said when he filed a 150-page motion to turn the case into a class action lawsuit, Milliron filed a one page response two hours before the certification hearing took place.

“This guy just did not have any idea how class actions work or how the rules work or what the court’s supposed to be doing here or how you defend a case like that,” said Gubernick. “It’s like driving a car and not knowing which pedal is the gas."

He said the issues went beyond simple mistakes.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Gubernick said. “But this was stacking huge mistakes on top of each other.”

He added the consequences for the client were significant.

“I don’t know how much money Gregory Funding lost. But it had to be a lot, probably seven figures,” Gubernick said.

From attorney to judge

Despite the lawsuit, Milliron later ran for office.

First in 2020, Milliron ran for a seat in the 18th Congressional District, but lost in the Republican primary.

Then in 2022, Milliron ran as a judge for Texas’ 113th District Court. He lost to Judge Rabeea Collier.

Finally in 2024, Milliron was elected as the judge for the 215th District Court. Milliron won against Elaine Palmer by about 300 votes.

Gubernick said that outcome surprised him.

“I had figured that he was never going to get elected to anything,” said Gubernick. “But I was wrong.”

Now, as a sitting judge, Gubernick said he believes the stakes are even higher.

“The damage that an incompetent judge can do is enormous,” he said. “This is someone who’s going to be presiding over multi-million dollar lawsuits and making decisions that impact people’s lives.”

Judge, firm contacted

KPRC 2 reached out to Judge Nathan Milliron for comment but has not received a response.

We also contacted his former law firm, Hughes Watters Askanase LLP, and did not hear back.

Milliron’s term ends in 2028.

The government in partnership with the World Health Organization, the U.N. children's agency and the Gavi vaccine alliance began working to vaccinate children age 6 months to 5 years old in 18 high-risk districts Sunday and will expand nationwide in phases from next month, a joint statement said.

A UNICEF official said the agency was deeply concerned about the sharp rise in cases, which was putting the youngest and most vulnerable children at serious risk. “This resurgence highlights critical immunity gaps, particularly among zero-dose and under-vaccinated children, while infections among infants under nine months, who are not yet eligible for routine vaccination, are especially alarming,” said Rana Flowers, the agency's representative in Bangladesh.

More than 900 cases of measles have been confirmed among 7,500 suspected cases reported since March 15, according to the official data in the South Asian nation of more than 170 million people.

Measles is a highly contagious airborne disease causing fever, respiratory symptoms and a characteristic rash and can sometimes have severe or fatal complications, especially in young children, according to WHO.

Vaccination is crucial to preventing the spread of measles, but the WHO says 95% of the population has to be vaccinated in order to stop the disease from spreading.

Bangladesh’s Health Minister Sardar Mohammed Sakhawat Husain responding to questions in Parliament said Monday that the new outbreak was caused by the mismanagement and failures of past governments.

He said the previous government of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and an interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus failed to make proper decisions regarding vaccine stockpiles, causing shortages affecting vaccines for measles and six other diseases.

The vaccination campaign for measles was disrupted during Bangladesh's recent political upheavals. Hasina was ousted in a mass uprising in 2024, and Yunus led an interim administration that transferred power to an elected government after an election in February.

Authorities are advising parents to go to hospitals whenever someone is suspected to have measles.

““They should avoid taking medicine from shopkeepers unnecessarily. If a child has a fever, especially high fever — 101, 102, 3, 4 (Fahrenheit, or higher than 38.3 Celsius) — they should not rely on medicine from local shops,” said F. A. Asma Khan, deputy director of the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Dhaka.

“Instead, they must take the child to a hospital as soon as possible, because our medical officers are capable of providing proper basic treatment,” she said.

Since the launch of a massive immunization campaign in 1979, Bangladesh has made remarkable progress — raising the coverage of fully immunized children from just 2% to 81.6%.

But UNICEF warned last year that while Bangladesh has made strong strides to increase immunization coverage, stark disparities persist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Second airman climbs into the mountains to hide out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US makes several efforts to throw off Iranian forces

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

Co-owner David Blitzer announced Monday that a decision had been made for Fitzgerald to leave the organization. Fitzgerald had been GM since January 2020 and got the title president of hockey operations early in 2024, along with a contract extension.

“Tom and I had a thoughtful conversation today and agreed it was time to move in a new direction,” Blitzer said. “Tom changed the trajectory of our team here, including setting a franchise record for points in a season and helping make New Jersey a hockey destination. He is a well-respected leader across the Devils’ organization and NHL, and I am grateful for our friendship."

Fitzgerald was responsible for building much of the core of the roster around top picks Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes, who were drafted when he was an assistant to Ray Shero. The 57-year-old endured criticism in recent months for signing players to contracts with restrictive no-trade clauses and for extending Jacob Markstrom early, before the goaltender's struggles.

“After talking with David Blitzer, it was apparent to everyone that the best course of action is to move on for the benefit of the team,” Fitzgerald said. “The Devils are fortunate to have a core of great players, vocal and passionate fans, but most importantly, tremendous people who worked with me toward a common goal. I’ve always said that New Jersey is a hidden gem, and I’m proud of the effort that we put in to raise the standard and make it a destination."

New Jersey made the playoffs twice in the five seasons with Fitzgerald in charge, losing in the second round in 2023 and bowing out in the first round last year.

“As we prepare to move forward, it is important I acknowledge our fans: I recognize we have not delivered in the way you expect and deserve and I understand and share in your frustration,” Blitzer said. "This is a critical offseason for our franchise, and we will explore all avenues that best position the Devils to compete for a Stanley Cup once again.”

It's unclear what this means for the future of coach Sheldon Keefe, who is nearing the end of his second season. Fitzgerald hired Keefe in May 2024.

Fitzgerald, who was part of USA Hockey's management group that constructed the roster that won gold at the Milan Cortina Olympics, could immediately become a candidate for one of the other GM vacancies around the league. The Nashville Predators with Barry Trotz retiring and Toronto Maple Leafs after firing Brad Treliving are currently searching for a new head of hockey operations.

“I am incredibly appreciative to David, Josh Harris, and the entire New Jersey Devils organization for being a part of my life for the past decade," Fitzgerald said. "I look forward to the next step in my hockey career and will always look back fondly on my time with the Devils.”

Fitzgerald spent time in Nashville and Toronto during his playing career. He was the first captain of the Predators, wearing the “C” from 1998-02 while Trotz was coaching the team and played two seasons with the Maple Leafs from '02-04.

After going into management, Fitzgerald was director of player development when Pittsburgh won the Stanley Cup in 2009. He joined the Devils in 2015.

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

There’s a certain kind of energy that surrounds actors right before everything changes, and right now, that energy belongs to Jalyn Hall.

At just 19, Hall is already building a résumé that most actors spend years chasing. But his latest project feels different. Bigger. Bolder. Like a turning point.

He stars the NBC/Peacock comedy The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, a series created by comedy heavyweights Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, and Sam Means. The show centers on Reggie Dinkins, a former football star played by Tracy Morgan, navigating a messy fall from grace—and an even messier attempt at redemption.

Hall plays Carmelo, Reggie’s son. And while the premise leans comedic, the role gives Hall space to do something more layered—grounding the chaos with emotional weight.

He “Retired” From Football at Seven

Long before the bright lights of Hollywood, Hall had already made one of the boldest career moves of his life...at the age of seven.

At the time, he was playing football. But something else had caught his attention: acting. After attending an acting showcase and getting a taste of the craft, he made a decision that, in hindsight, feels both hilarious and oddly prophetic.

He told his mom he was retiring from football.

Seven years old. Retiring.

It’s the kind of story that perfectly captures who he is now—decisive, self-aware, and completely unafraid to follow instinct, even before most kids know what that means.

That early pivot didn’t just stick—it set everything in motion.

Grounded by Family, Driven by Purpose

Behind that confidence is a foundation that Hall is quick to credit: his mom.

He speaks about her with deep gratitude, calling her his greatest support—someone he has immense love and respect for—and credits her unwavering belief in him as a constant throughout his journey.

In an industry that can often feel unpredictable, that kind of grounding matters. And for Hall, it shows.

Holding His Own in a Star-Studded Cast

It’s one thing to land a role in a major network comedy. It’s another to step into a cast that includes names like Daniel Radcliffe, Erika Alexander, and Bobby Moynihan—and not just keep up, but stand out.

That’s what makes Hall so compelling right now.

He doesn’t feel like a newcomer trying to prove himself. He feels like someone who already knows he belongs.

There’s a natural ease to his presence, on screen and off, that suggests he’s not chasing the moment. He’s stepping into it.

A New Generation of Leading Men

Hollywood is always looking for its next wave—and Hall fits squarely into a new generation of actors redefining what a “leading man” looks like.

He’s not just charismatic. He’s thoughtful. Grounded. Curious about the work.

And while The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins is positioned as a comedy, it’s also the kind of project that can quietly launch careers. The kind people look back on later and say, that’s where it started.

The Beginning of Something Bigger

Now airing on NBC and streaming on Peacock, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins is already building buzz as one of the most anticipated comedies of the year.

The series airs Mondays at 8:30 p.m. on NBC and is available to stream the next day on Peacock.

The industry is shifting. Audiences are craving authenticity. And actors like Jalyn Hall, who bring both talent and emotional intelligence to their roles, are exactly where the spotlight is heading.

For now, he’s just getting started.

But it’s not hard to see where this is going.

Watch the video above and find out what Jalyn Hall has in common with the late Heath Ledger.

According to a police source, the incident began around 11:30 a.m. when the three men allegedly robbed a bank located inside a Kroger grocery store on Ella Boulevard.

The suspects then traveled to a Walmart near Highway 290 at Tidwell Road and Hollister Road, where a second robbery was reported.

Houston police officers were able to identify the suspect vehicle—a black Chrysler 300—and initiated a pursuit following the Walmart incident.

The chase continued onto Highway 59 before coming to an end near Almeda Road and Wichita Street, where the Crysler slammed into a tree.

After the crash, authorities said the suspects took off on foot and attempted to carjack a woman near the intersection of Wichita Street and Southmore Boulevard. The attempt was unsuccessful.

The three suspects were taken into custody at the scene. One suspect reportedly locked himself in a public bathroom before being found by police.

A short time after the arrest, our Sky2 Chopper captured one of the detained suspects being moved from an HPD SUV onto a stretcher, before being led to an ambulance.

The extent of the suspect’s possible injuries is not clear, but HPD said it resulted from the collision.

At this time, officials have not confirmed whether any shots were fired during the incidents.

The investigation remains ongoing as authorities work to determine the full sequence of events.

The honor covers the week of March 30 through April 5. During that span, Alvarez hit .471 (8-for-17) in six games, with two doubles, three home runs, seven runs scored, and eight RBIs, while posting a 1.733 OPS.

For the season, Alvarez entered today leading the majors in OPS (1.478), slugging percentage (.900), and on-base percentage (.578). He is also tied with teammate Jose Altuve for first in both walks (12) and runs scored (10).

In his 10 games played overall in 2026, Alvarez is hitting .400 (12-for-30) with four home runs and 10 RBIs.

This marks the fourth time Alvarez has been named AL Player of the Week. The last Astros players to win the award were Alvarez and Alex Bregman, who were named AL co-Players of the Week for August 5–11, 2024.

Alvarez has also won the AL Player of the Month Award twice (June 2022 and September 2023).

The mission will give astronauts a rare look at both the near and far sides of the Moon — including areas never before seen by humans with the naked eye.

Because sunlight angles on the Moon shift constantly, the exact viewing conditions weren’t known until after launch.

• NASA invites KPRC 2 inside Mission Control as Artemis II crew heads toward moon

At 1:56 p.m., the crew is expected to make history — surpassing the distance record set during Apollo 13 mission.

Artemis II astronauts will travel approximately 252,760 miles from Earth, breaking the previous record by more than 4,000 miles.

One of the most dramatic moments comes in the evening. At 6:44 p.m. Central Time, communication between the spacecraft and mission control will temporarily drop as Orion passes behind the Moon — a planned blackout caused by lunar interference.

During that blackout, at around 7:00 p.m., the spacecraft will make its closest approach to the Moon — just 4,067 miles away — before reaching its farthest point from Earth moments later.

From that distance, astronauts say the Moon will appear around the size of a basketball held at arm’s length.

Communication is expected to be restored around 7:25 p.m., as Orion emerges from behind the Moon and re-establishes contact with Earth.

LAST REPORT: NASA officials detail Artemis II plans, life support limits ahead of lunar flyby

Later in the evening, beginning at 8:35 p.m., the mission enters another visually remarkable phase, when the Moon will eclipse the Sun from the crew’s perspective — creating a rare celestial alignment that lasts until about 9:32 p.m.

The flyby observation period will wrap up around 9:20 p.m., with astronauts beginning to transmit images and data back to Earth.

NASA’s science teams will analyze the material overnight before conducting follow-up discussions with the crew the next day.

The Artemis II mission marks a major step forward in NASA’s return to deep space exploration, offering not only record-breaking achievements but also a new perspective on the Moon that could shape future missions.

Scientists say the flyby could reveal new insights—especially from the Moon’s far side.

“We don’t know what to expect,” one scientist said. “This is exploration, right?”

NASA teams are particularly interested in how the human eye will perceive subtle color variations on the lunar surface.

“Negative observations, not seeing something is science,” the scientist added.

NASA will begin live coverage of the flyby on Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

For two decades, The Woods Project has been bridging that gap, offering students from underserved communities a rare opportunity to connect with nature, build leadership skills, and gain a new sense of self-confidence.

As the program celebrates its 20th anniversary, it’s expanding its reach to help even more students experience the transformative power of the outdoors.

A journey into nature

The first time stepping into the wilderness can feel like entering a completely different world. The air is quieter, the distractions of daily life fade away, and for many, the experience is nothing short of life-changing. That’s exactly what The Woods Project has been offering Houston students for 20 years.

Executive Director Natalie Hausman-Weiss believes the physical and mental benefits of nature are profound. “When you’re out in the wilderness, the air quality is better, you sleep better, you are inspired,” she explains. “These are real physical benefits for your body and mental health.”

• 3 suspects in custody after robbery spree leads to police pursuit along Houston highway

For many of the students involved in the program, this is their first real experience with the outdoors. From weekend camping trips to two-week backpacking expeditions, the program helps push teens beyond their comfort zones—sometimes for the very first time.

Shifting perspectives

For Marcus Tierrablanca, who was once a participant in the program and now helps lead it, the time spent in nature is more than just an adventure. It’s a chance to self-reflect. “Being in an environment like this gives you time to really think about who you are and what you want to do with your life,” Tierrablanca says. “You start asking yourself bigger questions, like ‘What am I passionate about?’”

For some students, the opportunity to pause and think without the constant distractions of city life is rare—and deeply transformative. Through the program, many begin to see themselves in a new light.

Building confidence and leadership

The Woods Project is about more than hiking and camping. Over the course of multiple trips, students build teamwork, leadership skills, and confidence. As they face challenges in the wilderness, they discover their own potential—and often realize they are capable of far more than they imagined.

“The magic happens in repetition,” says Hausman-Weiss. “It’s not just about the trip, it’s about coming back again and again. With each new experience, students grow in confidence and begin to see themselves differently.”

• Texas reviewing what students learn about history, slavery, and religion in major curriculum rewrite

This growth isn’t confined to the outdoors. As students return from their trips, they often show significant improvements in the classroom. Teachers from partner schools report better attendance, increased engagement, and a heightened sense of responsibility among students who have participated in The Woods Project.

Breaking down barriers

While the program has been a success for many, Hausman-Weiss and Tierrablanca both recognize that access to nature is still out of reach for many young people in Houston—especially those from low-income communities. “There are a lot of cultural and financial barriers to accessing nature,” Tierrablanca notes. “It’s not always easy for these students to get outside, so we bring the outdoors to them.”

In response, The Woods Project is expanding its efforts. For its 20th anniversary, the organization is broadening its outreach to reach even more students directly in their neighborhoods, not just through schools. By offering more opportunities to experience nature, the program hopes to give young people the tools they need to thrive—not just in the wilderness, but in their everyday lives.

A lifelong transformation

For many students, the moments of clarity and self-discovery they experience during their trips last far beyond the program. “If you can do this, you can do anything,” Hausman-Weiss says, reflecting on the way the program instills a deep sense of belief in oneself.

For some, the transformation is life-altering. They return to school with new goals, improved academic performance, and a belief in their own potential. Others carry the lessons learned in the wilderness into their adult lives, often returning to mentor younger participants.

Looking ahead

As The Woods Project celebrates 20 years of success, it remains committed to expanding its impact. The organization is actively working to reach more students in Houston’s underserved communities, offering opportunities for personal growth, leadership, and empowerment through nature.

“The work we do is incredibly rewarding,” Hausman-Weiss reflects. “We’ve seen firsthand how nature changes lives. And we know that with each student who steps into the wilderness, we’re creating a ripple effect that will last for years to come.”

How to get involved

If you’re interested in supporting The Woods Project or learning more about its mission, visit their website at thewoodsproject.org/ Whether through donations, volunteering, or simply spreading the word, there are many ways you can help make the outdoors accessible to more Houston students.

Another cool start Tuesday morning, with the 50s!

Over the next three days, high temperatures gradually warm up. Thankfully humidity stays low until late week.

Late Week Pattern Change:

The perfect spring weather doesn’t last long; multiple disturbances move through southeast Texas, increasing rain chances by late week.

The rain chances are due to multiple disturbances moving out of the Pacific, through the west coast into the plains.

Extended forecast:

Temperatures creep back into the 80s late week as rain and storm chances return.

From idling at stoplights to buying premium fuel, several common practices may not only fail to improve fuel economy but could also waste money or reduce vehicle performance.

• 20-year-old arrested in deadly Westheimer hit-and-run that killed woman

Here’s a breakdown of 10 common gas-saving myths and what experts say actually works:

Shifting to neutral does not save gas

Some drivers believe putting a car in neutral while coasting or stopped improves fuel efficiency. In modern vehicles, fuel-injected engines already reduce fuel use when coasting in gear. Shifting to neutral can use more fuel and reduce driver control, according to the U.S. Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency.

Premium fuel is not better for most cars

Using premium gasoline does not improve fuel economy in vehicles designed for regular fuel. Experts, including AAA and the Department of Energy, say drivers should follow their vehicle manufacturer’s recommendation and avoid paying extra unnecessarily.

Idling wastes more gas than restarting

For modern engines, idling for more than about 10 seconds uses more fuel than turning the engine off and restarting it. Idling also increases emissions, according to the Department of Energy.

Warming up your car is unnecessary

Letting a car idle to “warm up” is no longer needed for modern fuel-injected engines. Vehicles reach optimal operating temperature faster when driven, not while sitting idle.

Air conditioning vs. windows depends on speed

At lower speeds, rolling down windows can be more efficient. At highway speeds, open windows create aerodynamic drag, which reduces fuel economy. In those conditions, air conditioning is often the better option.

Vehicle size is not the main factor in fuel economy

Larger vehicles do not always use more fuel. Advances in engine technology, aerodynamics and hybrid systems mean some newer SUVs can outperform older, smaller cars in fuel efficiency.

Fueling in the morning does not give more gas

A common belief is that cooler morning temperatures make gasoline denser, giving drivers more fuel for their money. However, gas is stored underground where temperatures remain stable, making any difference negligible.

Cruise control is not always efficient

Cruise control can improve fuel economy on flat highways by maintaining a steady speed. On hills, however, it may use more fuel as the vehicle accelerates aggressively to maintain speed.

Air filter changes have limited impact

Replacing a dirty air filter can improve performance in older vehicles, but it has little effect on fuel economy in modern fuel-injected engines. It remains important for maintenance but is not a major gas-saving solution.

Driving slower has limits

While aggressive speeding reduces fuel economy, driving too slowly is not efficient either. Most vehicles achieve optimal fuel efficiency between about 45 and 65 mph. Fuel economy drops significantly at higher speeds due to wind resistance.

Experts emphasize that consistent driving habits, proper maintenance and following manufacturer recommendations are the most reliable ways to improve fuel economy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a statement, Hilton, who hosted a Fox News show for six years and worked as an adviser to former British prime minister David Cameron, thanked Trump for his support and promised to grow jobs and bring down the state's punishing cost of living. “Together we can turn things around,” Hilton said.

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

Bianco — Hilton's chief GOP rival — said in a video posted on X that “This race is about the future of California, not any one endorsement.” He also posted a photo of Hilton hugging outgoing Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom at a 2016 charity event.

“I have repeatedly said that a Fox News host courting a president's endorsement will never win in California,” Bianco said in the video.

In 2012, Houston-area restaurateur Brad Bailey traveled to Tampa for the Republican National Convention to convince delegates to support a legal pathway for foreign labor — and to soften the immigration rhetoric.

Now, Bailey is likely headed to the Texas House in a campaign supporting the border wall and President Donald Trump’s deportations.

Bailey, the GOP nominee to succeed outgoing state Rep. Steve Toth in House District 15, was the subject of a New York Times dispatch from the 2012 convention about his “personal campaign” to add the foreign labor component to the party platform. Along the way, he condemned the rhetoric around illegal immigration coming from hardliners like then-Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

“Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio are hijacking the issue and damaging the Republican party brand,” Bailey said at the time. “We need to stop the hatred language and fix this problem.”

Fourteen years later, Bailey, now an elected official, has changed his tune. He says he now opposes all attempts at amnesty — or granting legal status to undocumented immigrants already in the country — and supports Trump’s “bold actions” on the border. However, he declined to say where he stands on the guest worker program he was calling for back in 2012.

“The Biden administration’s open-border policies and willingness to allow millions of illegal immigrants into our country have completely reshaped this issue, making me and many other conservatives craft a new solution for the problem that exists today,” Bailey, chair of The Woodlands Township Board of Directors, told The Texas Tribune.

Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office were the subject of a string of racial profiling lawsuits that came to a head in 2011 and 2012. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling upholding the state’s “papers, please” provision Brewer signed into law in 2010. In that context, Bailey and others feared the Hispanic vote would doom Republicans in 2012.

Since then, the GOP has followed Trump’s lead in embracing much of the Arizona-style immigration policy and rhetoric once denounced by Bailey. Some of the biggest immigration laws passed by the Texas Legislature have their roots in Arizona’s SB 1070, including the 2017 sanctuary cities ban and last year’s Senate Bill 8, which requires sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and passed over Democratic opposition that invoked Arpaio’s controversies.

Amid all this, Bailey notes, Republicans have gone from Mitt Romney’s estimated 27% of the Hispanic vote in 2012 to the 48% that went for Trump in 2024. Republicans also cracked South Texas’ longtime status as a Democratic stronghold, turning the Rio Grande Valley red last year as Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz won a majority of the Hispanic vote in Texas.

“The facts show that President Trump’s comments on border security and illegal immigration are resonating with Hispanics and growing the Republican base, not hurting it,” Bailey said.

Bailey will face Democratic nominee Moniqua’ Scott and Libertarian Jessi Cowart in November. Trump carried HD-15 by 27 percentage points in 2024.

Bailey ran unopposed for the GOP nomination after Toth, one of the staunchest conservatives in the Texas House, launched his challenge against U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Humble. Toth was going to support the Texas Youth Summit’s Christian Collins as his successor, but Collins never jumped in.

Despite Bailey’s evolving position on immigration, if elected in November, he’ll likely be a change in pace and tone for the district — at least based on the people and groups he surrounded himself with during the campaign.

He was supported by Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC and the Associated Republicans of Texas, the latter of which backed then-Conroe ISD Board President Skeeter Hubert against Toth in 2024. On top of his $20,000 from TLR PAC, Bailey also received $5,000 from former U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, who successfully defended himself against a primary challenge from Toth in 2016, and $500 from retiring moderate GOP state Rep. Sam Harless in nearby HD-126.

That likely aligns the former restaurant owner with the business wing of the Texas House Republican Caucus. But although some in the business community have warned that deportation raids are hurting the South Texas economy and their standing among Hispanic voters, Republicans at-large are holding the Trump line.

“I still recognize that finding skilled and unskilled labor remains an issue for all business owners, but hiring illegal immigrants to fill these positions is not the solution,” Bailey said.

As the House prepares for a new freshman class after the previous session-defining class of hardliners, Bailey likely isn’t the only candidate whose positions on conservative policy have evolved, particularly around immigration.

“The world today is nothing like it was in 2012, and pretending otherwise ignores reality,” Bailey said.

Disclosure: New York Times has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The issue could turn on whether the power plants were legitimate military targets, whether the attacks were proportional compared with what Iran has done and whether civilian casualties were minimized.

Trump's threat was so broad it did not seem to account for the harm to civilians, prompting Democrats in Congress, some United Nations officials and scholars in military law to say such strikes would violate international law.

The president's eventual actions often fall short of his all-encompassing rhetoric in the moment, but his warnings about the power plants and bridges were unambiguous both on Sunday and Monday as he set a deadline of Tuesday night for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.

A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday warned that attacking such infrastructure is banned under international law.

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

Rachel VanLandingham, a Southwestern Law School professor who served as a judge advocate general in the U.S. Air Force, said civilians are likely to die if power is cut to hospitals and water treatment plans.

“What Trump is saying is, ‘We don’t care about precision, we don’t care about impact on civilians, we’re just going to take out all of Iranian power generating capacity,’" the retired lieutenant colonel said.

Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint in the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world's oil normally flows, has been all but halted, sending oil prices soaring and roiling the stock market.

Trump said Monday that he’s “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes as he continues to threaten destruction. He also warned that every power plant will be “burning, exploding and never to be used again.”

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

When asked for further comment Monday, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said “the Iranian people welcome the sound of bombs because it means their oppressors are losing.”

“The Iranian regime has committed egregious human rights abuses against its own citizens for 47 years, just murdered tens of thousands of protestors in January, and has indiscriminately targeted civilians across the region in order to cause as much death as possible throughout this conflict,” Kelly wrote in an email.

‘Clearly a threat of unlawful action’

As the conflict has entered its second month, Trump has escalated his warnings to bomb Iran's infrastructure, including Kharg Island, central to Iran’s oil industry, and desalination plans that provide drinking water.

In a Truth Social post on March 30, Trump warned that the U.S. would obliterate "all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’“

On Easter Sunday, Trump threatened in an expletive-laden post that Iran will face "Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one,” while adding that “you’ll be living in Hell” unless the strait reopens.

“This strikes me as clearly a threat of unlawful action,” said Michael Schmitt, a professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College and an international law professor at the University of Reading in Britain.

A power facility can be attacked under the laws of armed conflict if it provides electricity to a military base in addition to civilians, Schmitt said. But the strike must not "cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population, and you’ve done everything to minimize that harm.”

Harm does not include inconvenience or fear, said Schmitt, who has taught military commanders. But it does mean severe mental suffering, physical injury or illness.

Schmitt said military commanders should consider alternatives, such as targeting a substation or transmission lines that feed electricity to a base, before destroying an entire power plant.

“If you look at the operation and you’ve got a valid military objective, but it’s going to cause harm to civilians and you go, ‘Whoa, that’s a lot,’ then you should stop,” Schmitt said. “If you hesitate to take the shot, don’t take the shot.”

‘He’s using that leverage'

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said Monday that Trump is “absolutely not” threatening a war crime when he said he might bomb civilian infrastructure.

The infrastructure is also used by the military, Ernst said, and “it’s an ongoing operation.“

“If he needs leverage, he’s using that leverage,” she said while presiding over a brief pro forma session of the Senate.

But Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, also in the Capitol for the brief session, said it would be a “textbook war crime.”

“If you target civilian infrastructure for the purposes the president was talking about, it clearly is a war crime,” Van Hollen said.

Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said the question of whether attacks on civilian infrastructure would be considered war crimes would have to be decided by a court.

However, Katherine Thompson, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said any accountability would more likely come from Congress.

She said thinking otherwise would mean believing that the U.S. would allow its president to be held accountable by foreign entities.

“This is the persnickety, inconvenient truth about international law: It only works if sovereign nations are willing to cede their sovereignty to a foreign body for accountability,” she said.

But Congress would have to say the president has gone too far. And then both houses would have to take action and with enough support to overcome a presidential veto, a highly unlikely prospect.

Trump also appears to have broad legal immunity under the Supreme Court’s ruling in the criminal case before his reelection, said VanLandingham. And the president could also grant preemptive pardons to top officials if needed.

‘We’re giving them a gift'

Even if technically justified under the law of war, strikes that bring harm to civilians could backfire for the U.S. long term, VanLandingham said.

“There's a lot of violence that can still be justified as lawful, but lawful can still be awful,” VanLandingham said. “How far did that get us in Iraq? How far did that get us in Afghanistan? How far did that get us in Vietnam?”

Trump’s rhetoric risks spreading fear among regular Iranians and communicating that the U.S. isn’t worried about their well-being, VanLandingham said. The country’s leaders could use it as propaganda to create and harden opposition, contributing to a longer, tougher war.

___

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Edith M. Lederer in New York and Mary Clare Jalonick and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.

• 3 suspects in custody after robbery spree leads to police pursuit along Houston highway

The shooting happened on Thursday, April 2.

Police received a call from a man who said his friend had been shot and the pair were traveling on State Highway 35 in a car. Officers responded, located the vehicle in the 3100 block of State Highway 35, and found Emad Siddiqui, 18, of Sugar Land, in the backseat of the car with a gunshot wound.

Siddiqui was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Officers learned the shooting happened at a convenience store approximately a mile south of where the vehicle was found. They learned the shooting stemmed from a disagreement over a vehicle trade previously arranged by the victim and suspect.

• NASA prepares for temporary loss of communication with astronauts as Artemis II performs lunar flyby

Eric Olvera, 23, of Alvin, has been charged by warrant with murder. He is not currently in custody and detectives are trying to locate him.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts should contact the Alvin Police Department at 281-388-4370. Olvera should be considered armed and dangerous.

Green, a former Texas A&M All-American and blue-chip recruit from Atascosita High School, was traded last year to the Philadelphia Eagles and a fifth-round draft pick in exchange for veteran safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and a 2026 sixth-round pick.

A former All-Southeastern Conference selection for the Aggies, Green has started 23 of 27 career games. He missed the entire 2023 season due to a shoulder injury, a torn labrum, that required surgery .He started nine of 12 games for the Texans in 2024.

With the Eagles, he was off and on the practice squad and active roster.

He later signed with the Baltimore Ravens’ practice squad and became an unrestricted free agent after the season.

Green has had his ups and downs in the NFL while also displaying vast potential, but is now looking to jump-start his career with this latest opportunity.

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

An Iowa State transfer, Onyedim is a Richmond native and former all-district selection at Foster High School.

Onyedim also has visits with the Carolina Panthers, Los Angeles Chargers and Arizona Cardinals.

Onyedim had 48 tackles and 2 /12 sacks with 8 1/2 tackles for losses for the Aggies.

He had 90 tackles, 13 tackles for losses and three sacks at Iowa State where he was an honorable mention All-Big 12 conference.

He was a teammate of Texans players Jayden Higgins, Jaylin Noel and Xavier Hutchinson.

He had 12 sacks as a high school senior.

Onyedim (6-foot-3 1/2, 292 pounds) has posted a 32-inch vertical leap with a 9-3 broad jump.

The Texans will host Aggies running back EJ Smith at their local pro day workout April 10. He worked out for the Dallas Cowboys at their local prospect day Thursday.

Smith is the son of Cowboys Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith.

A Stanford transfer, Smith averaged 7.4 yards per carry during a road win over Arkansas. He scored touchdowns against Missouri, South Carolina and Texas.

At his Pro Day, he had 10-0 broad jump, a 35 1/2 inch vertical and bench pressed 225 pounds 20 times.

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

Demmings also has visits with the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Miami Dolphins and the Indianapolis Colts. He has multiple private workouts with NFL secondary coaches.

A native of Mesquite, Demmings is a rangy, athletic corner at 6-foot-1, 193 pounds.

At the NFL scouting combine, he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.41 seconds and had a 42-inch vertical leap with an 11-0 broad jump.

An All-Southland Conference selection who intercepted four passes last season with nine career interceptions, Demmings decided to stay at Stephen F. Austin out of loyalty to the program over several lucrative transfer opportunities.

Demmings was a team captain who finished his career with 35 pass breakups.

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

The effort to remove the soldier's wife, who was born in Honduras and remained in a federal immigration detention center Monday, has drawn backlash from military family advocates who called the detention demoralizing in a time of war and warned that deporting spouses could undermine recruitment.

Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank said he brought his wife, Annie Ramos, 22, to his base in Fort Polk, Louisiana, last Thursday so that she could begin the process to receive military benefits and take steps toward a green card. The couple married in March.

Federal immigration agents detained Ramos as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda, which legal experts say has dispensed with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's practice of leniency toward families of military members.

“I never imagined that trying to do the right thing would lead to her being taken away from me,” said Blank, 23, in a statement to The Associated Press. “What was supposed to be the happiest week of our lives has turned into one of the hardest.”

Ramos' detention was first reported by The New York Times.

Ramos entered the U.S. in 2005, when she was younger than 2 years old. That same year, her family failed to appear for an immigration hearing, leading a judge to issue a final order of removal, according to DHS.

“She has no legal status to be in this country,” DHS said in an emailed statement. “This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law.”

In 2020, Ramos applied to receive Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA, but her husband says her application has remained “in limbo” amid legal fights to end the Obama-era program.

Last April, DHS eliminated a 2022 policy that considered military service of an immediate family member to be a “significant mitigating factor” in deciding whether or not to pursue immigration enforcement. The administration’s new policy states that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”

Prior to the Trump administration's mass deportation push, DHS generally allowed the spouses of active-duty military members to gain legal status through policies like parole in place and deferred action that military recruiters promote, according to Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert.

Ramos' case would have been easy to resolve in the past, Stock said, but instead DHS now appears to be focusing on detaining members of military families whenever the opportunity arises — including when, like Ramos, they are attempting to apply for legal status.

“It doesn’t make any sense — they’re going to get arrested for following the law? That's stupid," Stock said. “It's bad for morale, it disrupts the soldiers' readiness.”

In September, more than 60 members of Congress wrote to DHS and the U.S. Department of Defense warning that arrests of military personnel and veteran's family members was “betraying its promises to service members who play a key role in protecting U.S. national security."

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Lydiah Owiti-Otienoh, who runs an advocacy group called the Foreign-Born Military Spouse Network, said she's anecdotally seen an increase in cases where the lives of military families have been upended by tightening immigration restrictions. She believes the federal government is undermining its own interests by attempting to deport military spouses.

“It just sends a really bad message — we don’t care about you, about your spouses, anything you are doing,” Owiti-Otienoh said. “If military families are not stable, national security is not stable.”

Blank’s mother, Jen Rickling, told the AP in a statement that her daughter-in-law, a Sunday school teacher and biochemistry major, had been everything she hoped for — someone who “loves my son with her whole heart.”

“We absolutely adore her,” Rickling said. “I believe in this country. And I believe we can do better than this — for Annie, for other military families, and for the values we hold dear.”

Blank says he had been eager to start building a life and with Ramos on the base while he served his country.

“I want my wife home," Blank said. “And I will not stop fighting until she is back where she belongs, by my side.”

___

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bulls fired executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley on Monday, ending a six-year run that produced just one playoff appearance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 60-year-old Donovan, meanwhile, got a contract extension last offseason. He could seek another NBA coaching job or return to the college game if he doesn’t remain in Chicago. If he stays, the Bulls could give him a bigger say in basketball operations while remaining their coach.

Donovan has consistently said he still has a passion for coaching, is committed finishing the season and will then discuss the direction of the franchise with management and ownership. He did it again prior to the Bulls' win over Phoenix on Sunday.

“I love the organization,” he said. “I love the relationship with Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf and the relationship with the front office. All those things have been great, the players have been great.”

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

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

___

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The former North Shore standout wide receiver and TCU linebacker works out for the hometown Texans on Thursday at their local prospect day, per a league source.

Banks excelled in the East-West Shrine Bowl all-star game and as a starter for UTSA after transferring. He made several tackles and prevented a touchdown with a clutch pass deflection in the red zone.

He met with the Texans at his Pro Day along with the Atlanta Falcons, Washington Commanders, Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions. He also played in the Hula Bowl and American Bowl.

“Good experiences,” Banks told KPRC 2 in a telephone interview. “It was good being around NFL coaches. I went out there and played hard. I’m a playmaker. I’m always around the ball and trying to get to the ball. I’m a leader. I lead by example. I love the game. I’m passionate about the game. I hate losing.”

At UTSA, he made an immediate impact with a team-high 94 tackles, 7 1/2 for losses, two sacks, three interceptions, one forced fumble, three fumble recoveries and two touchdowns. He was named to the all-conference team as he started every game. He returned an interception for a touchdown and recorded a fumble against East Carolina and was named conference defensive player of the week.

He returned a fumble 41 yards for a touchdown and forced a fumble in a 61-13 rout of Rice.

Although Banks didn’t get an invitation to the NFL scouting combine, he did well at a widely-attended Pro Day with a 4.63 in the 40-yard dash , a 32-inch vertical leap and excelled in drills. Banks trains with elite trainer Justin Allen at All-En Performance.

“Everybody at UTSA is a great person,” said Banks, who is represented by Legend Agency. “The coaches want what’s best for you. Going there, I felt like a kid when I first started playing again. They just wanted me to get better and have fun.”

At North Shore, Banks had 17 touchdowns and 1,312 receiving yards as a sophomore on a state championship squad. He chose Texas A&M over Alabama, Florida State, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas before transferring to TCU and intercepting one pass.

“I committed pretty early and didn’t have official visits because of pandemic,” Banks said. “Once I got there, I realized I could succeed somewhere else not at receiver. It wasn’t screens and posts. I had to run more routes. They changed my position. They wanted me to play more running back. I thought I was better at linebacker.

“I only lost three games in high school,” Banks said. “High school just made me a real competitor. I hate losing more than I like winning. We won so much there. They taught me how to compete no matter what.”

In the Big 12 championship game, he had a career-high 10 tackles against Kansas State. He finished 2023 with 62 tackles, 8 1/2 for losses, one sack and a forced fumble. After being limited to four games due to an injury, he entered the transfer portal.

“At TCU, I got my labrum repaired and then the defensive coordinator got fired after my surgery and we had a whole new defensive staff,” Banks said. “I was supposed to work my way back in. It never happened. Unfortunately, I got a concussion. They had changed my position to H-back. That’s why I entered the portal again.”

In San Antonio, Banks became a starting middle linebacker and captain of the defense.

“Loved playing there,” Banks said. “It went pretty smooth.”

North Shore has produced several NFL players, including K’Lavon Chaisson, Upton Stout and Zach Evans. Banks was a first-team all-state and Offensive MVP as a senior.

“It’s a great tradition,” Banks said. “A ton of my friends have made it to the NFL. Can’t wait to get my shot.”

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

The theatre company made its debut during the pandemic with the cabaret-style production “New Beginnings,” staged in a large backyard. The show’s success earned the 2021 Broadway World Regional Award for best streaming concert. Since its launch, the Garden Theatre has produced 24 shows and supported more than 200 artists on and off stage.

At the center of it all is founding artistic director Logan Vaden, who is stepping back into the spotlight for the first time in a decade in Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.” Similar to the show’s main character, Bobby, Vaden will celebrate his 35th birthday on stage.

“About four years ago, I thought, ‘How cool would it be if we got to do “Company,” and I played Bobby and turned 35 for real in the show, surrounded by my friends, the artists,’” Vaden said.

Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” is a Tony Award-winning musical and is considered one of the first productions to explore modern relationships, marriage and commitment through a series of interconnected moments in the life of a bachelor on his birthday.

Audiences are invited to join the celebration April 10–19 at the Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston, as the Garden Theatre closes out its season with “Company.” A complimentary reception with champagne and cake will follow the April 11 performance, giving guests a chance to celebrate the theatre’s five-year milestone and Vaden’s birthday alongside the cast and creative team.

For more information and tickets, visit thegardentheatre.org. And be sure to watch Logan Vaden’s full interview in the video above.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In an order signed April 3, 2026, Judge Susan Brown ruled that Morris is ineligible to run for the position and directed the Fort Bend County Democratic Party to replace her on the ballot with plaintiff Nicole Roberts, who finished in third place during he Democratic primary.

“After considering the pleadings, testimony and arguments of counsels, the Court finds the following: Brittanye Lashay Morris is ineligible as a candidate for the Fort Bend County Precinct 4 Commissioner,” the order reads.

Roberts welcomed the decision, framing the lawsuit as a matter of election integrity rather than political advantage.

“I’m grateful the court took these concerns seriously and upheld the integrity of our election process,” Roberts said in a statement posted on social media. “From the beginning, this was never about the outcome of one race. It was about making sure our elections are fair, transparent, and worthy of the voters’ trust. Fort Bend residents deserve a process they can believe in. I’m honored to now be on the ballot and moving forward in this race. My focus is on earning the support of voters and continuing to fight for the families of Precinct 4.”

Morris, who placed first in the primary and had advanced to the runoff, said her campaign plans to continue fighting the ruling.

“While we are disappointed with the court’s ruling, we remain fully confident that the rule of law will ultimately prevail,” Morris said in a statement. “It is important to note that any orders issued are not final for at least 30 days. During this time, our campaign will continue to move forward with unwavering energy and a steadfast commitment to the people we serve.”

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Roberts’ original lawsuit argued that Morris failed to meet Texas residency requirements to run for county commissioner. Under state law, candidates must reside in the precinct they seek to represent for a specified period prior to the filing deadline.

“The Texas Constitution and our election laws require that candidates for public office must have resided continuously ‘in the territory from which the office is elected for six months’ from ‘the date of the regular filing deadline for candidate’s application for place on the ballot,” the lawsuit reads. “Six months from that date is June 8, 2025. Brittanye Morris was not resident of Fort Bend County Precinct by that date. In fact, it is likely that she still resides in Harris County.”

Roberts also argued that, because Morris was allegedly ineligible, the runoff should be recalculated without her votes, which would place Roberts in the runoff instead.

Following the ruling, Morris filed a petition in intervention challenging the court’s jurisdiction and Roberts’ legal standing to bring the case.

“Intervenor Morris was not a party and did not appear or argue during the recent hearing on whether she is eligible to serve in the position she currently seeks,” the filing reads. “This Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this case because Plaintiff Nicole Roberts lacks standing.”

Morris’ filing also cites the Texas Election Code, asserting that once a candidate qualifies for a runoff ballot, their name must remain regardless of eligibility disputes:

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“Because Morris could not, and cannot, be removed from the runoff ballot as a matter of law, Roberts had no legally cognizable interest,” the filing said. “The oral judgment rendered by this Court, as well as any written judgment, must be vacated, and this case must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.”

The ruling immediately alters the May 26, 2026 Democratic runoff for Precinct 4, though further legal challenges could delay or change its implementation. Morris’ campaign has indicated it intends to continue contesting the decision, raising the possibility of an appeal or additional court proceedings.

The Fort Bend County Democratic Party did not comment.

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

New movies to stream from April 6-12

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

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

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

— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

New music to stream from April 10

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

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

New series to stream from April 6-12

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

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

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

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

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

— Alicia Rancilio

New video games to play from April 6-12

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

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

— Lou Kesten

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Offense at record low

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

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

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

Fastball velocity at record high

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

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

Game time

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

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

Attendance

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

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

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

According to Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman’s Office, the crash occurred in the 16900 block of Shrub Oak Drive.

The UTV reportedly went into a nearby bayou. Deputies said three juveniles were hurt in the crash.

The extent of their injuries has not yet been confirmed.

It’s unclear why the children were in the vehicle or if it was being driven without supervision.

A Life Flight helicopter was called to the scene to assist with transporting at least one of the victims.

The area remains active with a heavy police and emergency presence as authorities investigate what led up to the crash.

This is a developing story. Updates will be provided as more information becomes available.

Sysco Houston is helping local restaurants and vendors get ready with their World Cup-themed Food Show on April 8. The event brings together 150+ suppliers and 500+ restaurant operators to explore global flavors, test menu ideas, and prepare for high-volume service during the tournament. “Houston’s diverse food scene is one of the most culturally rich in the country,” says Ryan Forth, President of Sysco Foods South Texas Region. “Chefs can showcase dishes that appeal to both local diners and international fans.”

Restaurants that attend the Food Show will get a sneak peek at creative, fan-friendly menu ideas from globally inspired dishes to playful themed items that draw crowds. Plus, they’ll connect directly with suppliers and industry experts to make sure they’re ready for the rush.

With seven World Cup matches coming to the city over 39 days, restaurants have a chance to boost revenue, highlight their unique offerings, and serve hungry visitors from around the world.

Want to get in on the action? The World Cup-themed food show is not open to the public, but registration for restaurants and vendors is open now and can be accessed up until the start of the event.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 1,008,597 complaints, up from 859,532 in 2024.

The states reporting the most victims and financial losses were:

1. California – $3.6 billion
2. Texas – $1.8 billion
3. Florida – $1.6 billion

The most common complaints included phishing and spoofing, extortion, and investment fraud, with older Americans hit especially hard.

Individuals over 60 reported $7.7 billion in losses, a 37% increase from the previous year.

Cyber-enabled fraud remains a major driver of losses, with 453,000 complaints totaling $17.7 billion, nearly half of which stemmed from investment scams.

Cryptocurrency fraud accounted for 181,565 complaints and more than $11 billion in losses, the highest reported for any category.

ALSO READ: 12 ways you can save money at the pump as 2026 gas prices climb

Scammers are increasingly exploiting new technologies, including artificial intelligence.

For the first time, the IC3 report includes an AI-focused section, detailing 22,364 complaints that resulted in nearly $893 million in losses.

Fraudsters employ high-pressure tactics alongside AI-generated tools, including fake social media profiles, voice clones, forged identification, and realistic videos of public figures or family members to manipulate victims.

To combat cryptocurrency scams, the FBI launched Operation Level Up in 2024, a proactive initiative that identifies and notifies potential victims. The program has alerted over 8,000 people and helped reduce losses by more than $500 million.

In 2026, the FBI introduced Operation Winter SHIELD, providing actionable steps organizations can take to strengthen cybersecurity defenses.

The FBI warns Americans to remain vigilant, carefully vet investment opportunities, and implement strong digital security practices to protect personal information.

Candidates in more than 30 state and federal races are expected to face off again in the May 26 runoff after failing to secure more than half of the votes cast in the March Republican and Democratic primaries. This includes Attorney General Ken Paxton’s challenge to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, as well as several candidates for statewide or district-based elected offices in Texas.

In these undecided races, registered voters can choose their preferred candidate on May 26 or during the May 18-22 early voting period.

But remember, Texas doesn’t allow double dipping. Voters who already voted in the Republican or Democratic primary this year can only vote in that same party’s runoff elections. Voters who didn’t vote in March can choose to vote in either party’s runoff. (Texans don’t have to formally register with a party.)

Here’s what you need to know

• What’s on the ballot?
• What dates do I need to know?
• What do I need to know about voter registration requirements?
• What do I need to know about mail-in voting?
• What do I need to know about going to the polls?
• How can I make sure my ballot is counted?

What’s on the ballot?

Here are the statewide Republican runoffs:

• U.S. Senate: John Cornyn and Ken Paxton
• Texas attorney general: Mayes Middleton and Chip Roy
• Texas Railroad Commission: Jim Wright and Bo French
• Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 3: Alison Fox and Thomas Smith

Here are the statewide Democratic runoffs:

• Lieutenant governor: Vikki Goodwin and Marcos Vélez
• Attorney general: Nathan Johnson and Joe Jaworski

There are also runoff races for various district representatives for Congress, the Texas House, the State Board of Education and a Republican primary for Texas Senate District 19 along the U.S.-Mexico border. While incumbents in state legislative races generally prevailed, multiple incumbents in Congress faced close races or runoffs.

The candidates who advance to the general election and are elected in November will have the opportunity to affect public policy and Texans’ lives in multiple areas, including education, health care and immigration.

Use our address lookup tool below to see if there are any bond or runoff elections in your community. (Note: We don’t collect your data.)

Use our results page to see if there are runoff elections in your districts. (Note: We don’t collect your data.)

What dates do I need to know?

• April 27 is the last day to register to vote and to submit an address change for the runoff elections. Read more about voter registration here.
• May 15 is the last day to apply to vote by mail. This option is limited in Texas. Read more about who qualifies to vote by mail and the process here.
• Early voting in person is May 18-22. Read more about early voting here.
• Election Day – the last day to vote in person and to return a ballot by mail is May 26. Read more about Election Day voting here and about voting by mail in here.

What do I need to know about voter registration requirements?

How do I update my voter registration with an address or name change?

You can report an address or name change online. You should do this if you’ve moved since the last time you voted, particularly if you moved to a different county or political subdivision or legally changed your name.

How do I check if I’m registered to vote?

You can see if you’re registered and verify your information through the Texas Secretary of State’s website.

You’ll need one of the following three combinations to log in:

• Your Texas driver’s license number and date of birth.
• Your first and last names, date of birth and county you reside in.
• Your date of birth and Voter Unique Identifier, which appears on your voter registration certificate.

Who can register to vote in Texas?

U.S. citizens in Texas can register to vote in the election if they are 18 or older or if they will be 18 by Election Day.

Citizens in the state cannot register to vote if they have been convicted of a felony and are still serving a sentence, including parole or probation, or if they have been deemed mentally incapacitated in court. Here are more specifics on eligibility.

Eligible people experiencing homelessness can vote, as long as they provide on their registration an address and description for where they are residing, such as a shelter or a street intersection. If needed, their mailing address can be different, but a P.O. Box address is usually not considered a residence address in Texas.

Students studying in Texas who are from other states can choose to register to vote in the state with their dorm or Texas address.

How do I register to vote?

You must complete and submit a paper voter registration application by April 27.

You can find this at county voter registrars’ offices and some post offices, government offices and high schools. You can also print out the online application and mail it to the voter registrar in your county. Download your application here. You can also request a postage-paid application through the mail, but this will take some time to receive.

Applications must be postmarked by April 27. You can request the postmark at your local post office to avoid postmark delays for mail that is picked up from mailboxes.

If you’re worried about the registration deadline, you can complete or deliver an application in person to your county’s elections administrator. Find yours here. You can also register through organizations that have volunteer registrars like the League of Women Voters, who often hold voter registration events.

Additionally, you can register to vote through the Texas Department of Public Safety while renewing your driver’s license. You may be able to register to vote online if you’re also allowed to renew your license online. This is the only form of online registration in the state.

After you register to vote, you will receive a voter registration certificate within 30 days. It’ll contain your voter information, including the Voter Unique Identifier number needed to update your voter registration online. If the certificate has incorrect information, you’ll need to note corrections and send it to your local voter registrar as soon as possible.

The voter registration certificate can also be used as a secondary form of ID when you vote if you don’t have one of the seven state-approved photo IDs.

Do you have to reregister to vote?

Once you register to vote, you generally remain registered, but there are various reasons why you may want to verify your registration status. For example, if you need to update your registration after a name or address change. You can make those updates online here.

What does it mean if my voter registration is in “suspense”?

If a county receives a non-deliverable notice after sending a voter registration certificate or suspects an address change, a voter is placed on a “suspense list” and asked to confirm their address. Voters on the suspense list can still vote if they update or confirm their address before the voter registration deadline for an election or fill out a “statement of residence” when voting. They may have to vote at their previous polling location or vote on a limited ballot. If no action is taken by a suspended voter, they are removed from the voter rolls after about four years, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

If you’re concerned about your voter registration status, you can verify it online here.

What if I moved after the voter registration deadline?

You must reside in a Texas county by the voter registration deadline to vote in the upcoming election unless you qualify for absentee voting. You can read more about absentee and mail-in voting here.

You can vote at your previous polling location if you moved within the same county or political subdivision. Or you can vote at your new polling location on a ballot limited to the elections you would qualify to vote in at both polling locations, such as statewide races.

Limited ballots are available only during early voting at a “main early voting polling place,” which is usually the office of the election administrator or county clerk who runs elections in your county. The main early voting polling place should be noted in a county’s list of early voting locations.

What do I do if I run into issues with my voter registration?

If you have questions or concerns about your registration, you can find your county’s voter registration contact here.

Inside polling locations, there are typically “resolution desks” where poll workers can address registration issues.

You can also find more information on frequently asked questions from the secretary of state’s office at votetexas.gov.

What do I need to know about mail-in voting?

When do I need to drop off or mail an application?

Applications must be received — not postmarked — by the early voting clerk in your county by May 15. Applications can also be submitted by fax or email, but the county must receive a hard copy within four business days. They can also be dropped off in person.

You can download an application here or request one to be mailed to you here.

If you’re looking to vote by mail, give yourself as much leeway as possible. You’ll need to budget for the time it will take your county to mail your ballot to you after you apply.

What is the deadline to mail my ballot?

The deadline for mail-in ballots to be returned to the county is Election Day, May 26. If a ballot is postmarked by 7 p.m. locally that day, it’ll be counted if the county receives it by 5 p.m. on May 27.

The U.S. Postal Service recommends mailing your ballot at least one week before the deadline. It has also noted that postmarks may not be applied the same day a voter drops a ballot in a mailbox and is urging voters to not wait until the last minute or to visit a post office to request a manual postmark from an employee.

Absentee ballots can also be delivered in person to the county elections office with a valid form of ID while polls are open on Election Day.

Completed ballots from military or overseas voters are accepted if they’re received by June 1. (Military and overseas voters can go through a different ballot request and return process.)

How do I know if I’m eligible to vote by mail?

This option is fairly limited in Texas. You’re allowed to vote by mail only if:

• You will be 65 or older by Election Day.
• You will not be in your county for the entire voting period, including early voting.
• You cite a sickness or disability that prevents you from voting in person without needing personal assistance or without the likelihood of injuring your health.
• You’re expected to give birth within three weeks before or after Election Day.
• You are confined in jail but otherwise eligible (i.e., not convicted of a felony).

College students who are registered at a residence in Texas, such as a parent’s home, but are studying out of state can apply for absentee ballots.

If you are voting absentee, such as from overseas, and want to see what will appear on your ballot, you can get a sample ballot from your county. In most cases, sample ballots can be found on your county’s election website.

What identification do I need to vote by mail?

Texas rules for voting by mail require voters to provide an ID number on both their application for a ballot and the carrier envelope used to return a completed ballot. This must be one the following ID numbers:

• A driver’s license number
• A state ID number
• The last four digits of their Social Security number
• Texas election ID certificate number (issued by DPS and which is different from the number found on your voter registration certificate)

Voters who don’t have any of these can check a box indicating they have not been issued that identification.

This identification rule was added by the Texas Legislature in 2021, and some voters have had their ballots or applications rejected because they didn’t provide an ID number or the number they provided did not match the one the state had for the voter.

If you don’t have a license number on file or are unsure which ID number you provided, the secretary of state has suggested contacting your local voter registrar to ask about how to add one of the required numbers to your voter registration record.

Voting advocates have suggested voters include both their driver’s license or state ID number and the last four digits of their Social Security number, if they have both, to avoid issues.

What counts as a disability to vote by mail?

The Texas Election Code’s definition of disability is broader than other federal definitions. A voter is eligible to vote by mail if they have a “sickness or physical condition” that prevents them from voting in person without the likelihood of “needing personal assistance or of injuring the voter’s health.”

What kind of postage do I need to return my mail-in ballot?

Some counties may pay postage for you. Local elections offices should have the specifics once ballots are finalized. That said, if you don’t have enough postage, your ballot is not supposed to be returned to you. Instead, the Postal Service said its practice is to deliver the ballot and bill your election administrator.

What if there’s an issue with my mail-in ballot?

Texas allows voters to correct their mail-in ballots if the ballots are at risk of being rejected for a technical error, including missing information or signatures. This also applies to issues with mail-in applications. County officials are responsible for alerting voters if there is a defect with their application or ballot.

Voters can use a new online ballot tracker to check the status of both their application to vote by mail and their ballot. The tracker can also be used to make corrections. You can access the tracker here. The deadline to correct mail-in ballot applications is May 15. The deadline to correct a mail-in ballot is June 1. Corrections may also be submitted by mail – if election officials determine there’s enough time to do so – or in-person at a county’s early voting clerk’s office.

What do I need to know about voting in person at the polls?

Early voting in person runs from May 18-22.

• Anyone registered to vote may vote early, but it must be done in person unless you qualify to vote by mail.
• Voters can cast ballots at any polling location in the county where they are registered to vote. Check your county election office’s website for early-voting locations and hours.

If you can’t vote inside of a polling place due to injury or a disability, curbside voting may be available. Read more about what qualifies as a disability and about curbside voting options here.

Election Day is May 26.

• Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Are polling locations the same on Election Day as they are during early voting?

Not always. Check where polling locations are open on your county’s elections website before you head to cast your ballot. In some counties, Election Day voting may be restricted to locations in your designated precinct. Other counties allow voters to cast ballots at any polling place on Election Day.

(Counties should note on their elections website if voters have to vote at a specific location based on their precinct. To find your precinct, you can reference the voter registration certificate mailed to you or use the state’s voter lookup tool if your county doesn’t have a lookup tool online.)

Read more about voting options for those who can’t vote in person here.

What form of ID do I need to bring?

You’ll need one of seven types of valid photo ID to vote in Texas:

• A state driver’s license (issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety).
• A Texas election identification certificate (issued by DPS).
• A Texas personal identification card (issued by DPS).
• A Texas license to carry a handgun (issued by DPS).
• A U.S. military ID card with a personal photo.
• A U.S. citizenship certificate with a personal photo.
• A U.S. passport.

Check out this story for more details.

What if I don’t have a valid photo ID?

Voters can still cast ballots if they sign a form swearing that they have a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining a proper photo ID. Those voters will also have to present one of the following types of supporting documents:

• A valid voter registration certificate.
• A certified birth certificate.
• A document confirming birth admissible in a court of law that establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document).
• A copy of or an original current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other document that shows the voter’s name and address. (Any government document that contains a voter’s photo must be an original.)

If you have a valid photo ID but forgot it, you can cast a provisional ballot but will have to visit the local voter registrar’s office within six days of the election to present an acceptable ID or documentation in order for the ballot to be counted. A registered voter without a valid photo ID or any of the supporting documents can also cast a provisional ballot.

Are there rules at the polls?

Cellphones, cameras, computers and other devices that can record sound or images cannot be used within 100 feet of voting stations where ballots are marked. There are usually traffic cones or signs indicating this. Campaigning — including wearing clothing or other items that publicize candidates, political parties or measures on the ballot — is also banned beyond this point.

A new law also bans the use of wireless communication devices, like cellphones, in the same room where voting is taking place. Voters are allowed to use written notes to cast their ballot at the discretion of election officers, who determine if the material counts as campaigning.

Firearms, including handguns, are prohibited at polling places, according to Texas law.

What are my rights as a voter?

Voters generally have the right to cast their ballots in secret and should not be subject to intimidation.

Guaranteed time to vote:

• On Election Day, voters have the right to cast a ballot as long as they’re in line by 7 p.m.

• Texas law says voters have the right to vote during work hours without being penalized or losing pay, but this may not apply if a worker has two hours before or after their shift to vote.

Voting accommodations and assistance:

• Voters are entitled to get written instructions on how to cast a ballot or to ask a polling place officer or worker (they cannot ask who or what to vote for).
• Voters with disabilities or limited English proficiency can also get interpretation, assistance or other accommodations to vote.
• A state law passed in 2023 allows voters with disabilities or mobility problems to skip the line at their polling location and requires each polling location to have a designated parking spot for curbside voting.

Addressing voting or administrative issues:

• If a registered voter’s name does not appear on the list of voters because of an administrative issue, they have the right to cast a provisional ballot.
• If a voter makes a mistake while marking a ballot, they have a right to use up to two additional ballots to make corrections.
• At the polls, voters can talk to election officers or poll workers if they run into issues.

Who can I contact for help with voting concerns?

• You can contact your county’s voter registrar for questions about your voter registration. Find yours here.
• Contact your county’s elections office or administrator for general questions about local elections. Find yours here.
• The secretary of state’s office has a helpline at 1-800-252-VOTE (8683) where state attorneys are available to answer questions from voters and election officials.
• A coalition of voting rights groups runs voter protection hotlines in several languages. Disability Rights Texas also offers a helpline for people with disabilities.

What if I was planning to vote in person but can no longer do so?

If you didn’t apply to vote by mail but are unable to go to a polling place, consider requesting an emergency early voting ballot or using curbside voting.

Emergency ballot: These ballots can be requested if you become sick or disabled close to an election and are unable to go to a polling place on Election Day.

Emergency ballots are also available, through a different process, for individuals who cannot vote on Election Day due to the death of a close family member.

Contact your county elections office for more details about emergency ballots.

Curbside voting: You can contact your county elections office to determine if you’re eligible for curbside voting, which must be made available at every polling place for voters with disabilities who are unable to enter a polling location. A new law requires curbside voters to fill out a form attesting that they are physically unable to enter a voting location.

How can I make sure my ballot is counted?

How do I know if my provisional ballot was counted?

If you cast a provisional ballot because of an administrative issue or photo ID problem, you should receive a notice by mail letting you know if your ballot was counted in the local canvass, which is the official tallying of votes. These notices must be mailed by June 15, according to the state’s election law calendar.

What about regular ballots?

Counties keep track of voter history, but votes are anonymous once ballots are submitted and added to the vote counts. To ensure vote counts are accurate, counties test election equipment multiple times, including in a public test conducted before an election.

What voter data is public?

Voter history, or whether a person voted in a previous election, is public. This includes primary election history, during which voters have to pick either the Republican or Democratic primary. This means the primary you voted in may be disclosed in the rosters of voters that counties are required to post. Your ballot choices are not public.

Disclosure: The Texas Secretary of State has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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

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

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

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

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

Exact numbers of staff reduction unclear

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An even higher focus on the day’s biggest stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

Predictions markets now part of the picture for AP

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

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

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

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

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

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

A defiant Iran struck infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries and threatened to restrict another heavily used waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Arabian Peninsula.

Trump on social media vowed to hit Iran’s power plants and bridges and said the country would be “living in Hell” if the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global trade, isn’t opened. He ended with “Praise be to Allah.”

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

“It seems Trump has become a phenomenon that neither Iranians nor Americans are able to fully analyze,” Iranian Culture Minister Sayed Reza Salihi-Amiri told visiting Associated Press journalists in an interview in Tehran, adding that the U.S. president “constantly shifts between contradictory positions.”

Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets like oil fields and desalination plants that provide drinking water. Iran’s U.N. mission called Trump’s threat “clear evidence of intent to commit war crime.”

Iran’s joint military command warned of stepped-up attacks on regional oil and civilian infrastructure if the U.S. and Israel attack such targets there, according to state television.

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

The US describes a dramatic rescue

An intense search followed Friday’s crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle, while Iran promised a reward for the “enemy pilot.” It was the first known American aircraft to crash in Iranian territory since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.

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

A senior U.S. administration official said that before locating the second aviator, the CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had found him and were moving him out, creating confusion for Iranians. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

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

On Sunday, Iran’s state television aired a video showing what it claimed were parts of U.S. aircraft — a transport plane and two helicopters — shot down by Iranian forces during the rescue operation.

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

Iran’s joint military command later said the U.S. bombarded its own aircraft to “prevent embarrassment for President Trump.”

Two Black Hawk helicopters were hit but navigated to safe airspace, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

Diplomatic efforts continue

Trump’s deadline centers on alarm over Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, critical for global shipments of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf as well as humanitarian supplies. Some ships have paid Iran for passage.

An Iranian presidential spokesperson, Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaei, said on social media that the strait can reopen only if some transit revenues compensate Iran for war damages.

A top Iranian adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, warned on social media that Tehran also could disrupt trade on the Bab el-Mandeb, a key chokepoint to and from the Red Sea.

Diplomatic efforts continued. Oman’s Foreign Ministry said that deputy foreign ministers and experts from Iran and Oman met to discuss proposals to ensure “smooth transit” through the strait.

Egypt said that Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had spoken with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and with Turkish and Pakistani counterparts. Russia said that Araghchi also spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Bahrain urged the U.N. Security Council to act on its draft proposal with language authorizing defensive action to ensure safe passage through the strait.

Airstrikes hit Iran

An airstrike early Monday struck a residential building near Eslamshar, southwest of Tehran, killing at least 13 people, the semiofficial Fars news agency and Nour News reported.

Airstrikes also damaged buildings at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran as well as a natural gas distribution site next to the campus, Iranian media reported. It wasn’t immediately clear what was targeted at the university campus, which has switched to online classes because of the war.

Elsewhere in Iran, an airstrike killed at least five people in a residential area of Qom, the state-run IRAN daily newspaper said in an online message. Qom is a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

It wasn’t clear why the buildings were struck. Neither Israel nor the United States claimed the strikes early Monday

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said one Nepali and three Pakistanis were hurt in fires caused by debris from the interception of an Iranian projectile at Khor Fakkan port, and interception debris caused fires at a petrochemical plant in Ruwais, halting operations.

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

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

In Israel, rescue authorities searched for three people in the northern city of Haifa after an apartment building was hit. It wasn’t immediately clear what struck it.

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

In Lebanon, whose health ministry said an Israeli strike without warning killed four people in Beirut, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there while targeting Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

___

Lee and Toropin reported from Washington, Metz from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Lisa Mascaro and Seung Min Kim in Washington; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scott, an Auburn transfer, has run the 40-yard dash in 4.37 seconds.

Scott is a speedy second-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection. He returned two interceptions for touchdowns. He had 64 tackles, 13 tackles for losses, five sacks, five pass breakups and two forced fumbles.

He missed two games with a turf toe. Scott briefly transferred to the University of Houston before going back into the transfer portal and moved on to the Hurricanes.

A California native, Scott began his college career at Snow College in Utah. He was a junior college All-American and was named a Co-Defensive Player of the Year.

At Auburn, he had 54 tackles in 2022 and 44 tackles in 2023 and 18 tackles during an injury-limited season in 2024 before entering the transfer portal.

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emerson, 26, tore his Achilles last year during training camp, but is making a sound recovery.

During the NFL owners meeting, Browns general manager Andrew Berry discussed how Emerson wants to be a starting outside corner and that doesn’t fit their alignment with Denzel Ward and Tyson Campbell installed as their starters.

“Selfishly, would love to have him back,” Berry said. “I think we’re also realistic that with M.J. and the injury that he’s coming off of, he’s also got to be in a position where he has maybe a strong opportunity to compete for a starting spot. That’s probably a little bit harder with how we’re configured with Denzel and Tyson. But, certainly, if that changes, we’d love to have him back.”

A former third-round draft pick from Mississippi State, Emerson played under a four-year, $5.471 million rookie contract that expired

Two seasons ago, Emerson recorded 80 tackles, three tackles for losses, one forced fumble and five passes defensed in 15 starts.

Emerson has four career interceptions, all during the 2023 season when he started 12 games

If the Texans add Emerson, he could compete for the third corner role with Jaylin Smith. Smith is expected back for training camp after spending the majority of his rookie season on injured reserve with a torn meniscus that required surgery.

Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com

The good news? Small changes in your habits—and your vehicle—can make a noticeable difference in how much you spend.

Here are practical ways to stretch your gas dollar this year:

1. Use gas price tracking apps

Apps like GasBuddy, Gas Guru, and Waze now offer real-time fuel price tracking, helping you find the cheapest gas nearby.

Experts still say this is one of the easiest ways to save.

Even within the same neighborhood, prices can vary by 10 to 20 cents per gallon.

2. Check your gas cap and tire pressure

A loose gas cap can allow fuel to evaporate, quietly costing you money. Underinflated tires also reduce fuel efficiency.

Keeping your tires properly inflated can improve mileage and save you more over time.

3. Lighten your load

Extra weight in your vehicle—like cases of water, tools, or sports gear—can drag down fuel efficiency.

For every 100 pounds you remove, you could save a few cents per gallon.

4. Slow down on the road

Speed still plays a major role in fuel consumption. Driving 60–65 mph instead of 70–75 mph can significantly improve gas mileage.

Aggressive driving—like rapid acceleration and braking—also wastes fuel.

5. Earn rewards or free gas

Survey and rewards apps still offer opportunities to earn gift cards, including gas.

While it takes time, some drivers use platforms like Swagbucks or Survey Junkie to offset fuel costs.

6. Fill up at grocery stores or wholesale clubs

Chains like Kroger, H-E-B, Costco, and Sam’s Club continue to offer discounted fuel.

Membership programs and grocery rewards points can add up to meaningful savings per gallon.

7. Join gas station rewards programs

Major fuel brands still offer free loyalty programs that give discounts per gallon or points toward future savings.

If you regularly use the same station, this can add up quickly.

MORE INFORMATION: Here are some simple ways Houston drivers can save at the pump

8. Use cash-back credit cards wisely

Many credit cards offer 2–5% cash back on gas purchases in 2026.

Just be sure to pay off your balance each month—otherwise, interest charges can wipe out any savings.

9. Consider paying with cash or debit

Some stations still offer lower prices for cash or debit purchases, typically saving you 5–10 cents per gallon compared to credit.

10. Use the right type of gas for your car

Unless your vehicle specifically requires premium fuel, using regular gas is usually the most cost-effective option.

Higher-priced fuel doesn’t necessarily improve performance in most cars.

11. Time your fill-ups

Fuel prices still tend to fluctuate during the week.

Data shows gas is often cheaper on Sundays and Mondays, while prices typically rise closer to the weekend.

12. Adjust your windows and AC use

At highway speeds, keep windows closed to reduce drag and improve efficiency.

In slower, stop-and-go traffic, consider turning off the AC and opening windows to save fuel.

According to the Houston Police Department, officers were called to the 1000 block of Marcolin Street around 3:25 a.m. on April 5 following reports of a shooting.

When they arrived, they found a vehicle that had crashed into a fire hydrant and a man lying face-down in the grass nearby.

SEE ALSO: 20-year-old arrested in deadly Westheimer hit-and-run that killed woman

Authorities said the victim had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics with the Houston Fire Department pronounced him dead at the scene. The identity of the victim has not yet been released.

Investigators with HPD’s Homicide Division are leading the case. As of now, officials say there are no known suspects and no clear motive.

Anyone with information is urged to contact HPD Homicide at 713-308-3600 or reach out anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

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

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

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

A religious center damaged by an airstrike

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life goes on in much of Iran despite fear and uncertainty

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

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

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

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

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

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

Destroyed government buildings and police stations in Tehran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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