Paramount said in a filing Friday that it won't close its Warner buyout until either a court ruling is made on the states' claims or June 1, 2027. The agreement comes just days after U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted a temporary restraining order to freeze the transaction for weeks, noting that the states had raised some “serious questions” and made a strong case about the merger's potential to “substantially lessen competition.”

Paramount and the states have also agreed to cancel an preliminary injunction hearing that was set for Aug. 3. The states’ case in now headed down the path toward a larger antitrust trial.

Both sides touted the delay as a victory.

The result was “exactly what we have sought from the outset: a direct path to a trial based on the evidence," Paramount said in a statement. The company, which was bought by Skydance just last year, added that it looked forward to proving its transaction is “good for competition, good for consumers, and good for creators.”

Meanwhile, California Attorney General Rob Bonta — who is leading the states' case — called the delay great news for audiences, movie theaters and entertainment and media workers nationwide.

“Our argument against this illegal merger is straightforward: When too few corporations have too much power in markets central to American life, it makes things more expensive, and it makes things worse,” Bonta said in a statement. He added that the states were eager to see their challenge through court and ensure the Paramount-Warner combo "never sees the light of day.”

The Writers Guild of America has also filed a lawsuit seeking to block the merger, arguing that the deal would cause specific harm to movie and TV writers. The delay will give more time for that case to make its way through court, too.

States argue merger would harm Hollywood competition

A Warner-Paramount tie-up would bring together two of the last five legacy studios in Hollywood and a host of TV networks that include CNN. Warner’s HBO Max streaming service and fan favorite titles like “Harry Potter” would come under the same roof as Paramount-owned CBS and the Paramount+ streaming service, which includes titles like “Top Gun."

Last week, the 12 states — which, beyond California, also include entertainment heavyweights like New York — sued to block the buyout, alleging that such a combination would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers.

Paramount has repeatedly called the states' claims meritless and not reflective of the current industry. The company points to tech and streaming giants’ growing reach across the entertainment industry and argues the merger would help it compete with bigger rivals like Netflix (which once wanted to buy much of Warner’s business itself) and others “who have harmed the market for theatrical exhibition.”

The states' complaint doesn’t focus specifically on streaming. It alleges that the merger violates the Clayton Act — a key federal antitrust law — due to anticipated reach across three markets: theatrical movie distribution, theater releases of bigger blockbusters and the licensing of basic cable channels.

Trump administration says deal would benefit consumers

The challenge by the states — all of which have Democratic attorneys general — notably contrasts with the Trump administration’s effective greenlight of the deal. The U.S. Justice Department announced in June that it wouldn’t challenge the merger, and instead released an unusually long statement ruling that a Paramount-Warner tie up would bring “benefits for American consumers and workers.”

The Justice Department maintained that its review wasn’t political. But critics have raised their eyebrows — and pointed to Republican President Donald Trump’s close relationship with the billionaire family of Paramount CEO David Ellison. Many eyes are also on Warner assets like CNN, a network that has long attracted ire from Trump and members of his administration, particularly in light of editorial turmoil at Paramount-owned CBS following Skydance's takeover.

Friday's delay “materially reduces the near-term concern that a politicized Paramount would control CNN during the 2026 midterms,” noted Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at Forrester.

Still, there is uncertainty farther down the road.

“I’ve said from the start that anyone who thinks they know how this deal ends should think again," Proulx wrote. “What we know is that the path to either outcome just got longer, messier, and likely more expensive.”

The now monthslong delay could become very costly for Paramount. The company previously pledged to start paying Warner shareholders added “ticking fee” compensation amounting to about $7 million per day if the deal wasn’t closed by Sept. 30.

Including billions of dollars in debt, Paramount’s proposed purchase of Warner is currently valued at nearly $111 billion based on outstanding shares.

Beyond the U.S., Paramount has also touted regulatory clearances in countries like Canada, China and Australia. The European Union also gave the deal its blessing, conditional on company commitments to adjust film distribution partnerships there. Meanwhile, ongoing reviews continue in the U.K., which has separately suggested it may intervene.

The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office said patients suffered head injuries, broken bones and cuts. At least five of the passengers had been discharged from hospitals, and one who was previously described as critical was in satisfactory condition Friday at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, hospital spokesperson Susan Gregg said.

The cause of the crash Thursday evening was not immediately known. It came less than three weeks after a seaplane carrying eight people made a rough landing in New York City’s East River, causing minor injuries.

Videos posted on social media show the aircraft turning to one side as it flies low over the water near several boats and the shore. The plane makes a hard landing, at first touching down on just one float, then briefly skips into the air before hitting land. The person recording the video gasps when a crunching sound is heard from the plane's impact just out of sight.

The plane was carrying a pilot and 10 passengers. It crashed at about 5:20 p.m. Thursday on Sucia Island, an uninhabited state park. Sucia is north of the main San Juan Islands, a rugged archipelago between Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, that is a popular summer vacation spot known for its ferries, whale watching and hiking.

First responders and witnesses race to the scene

Dave Eastman was in a dinghy on the water when he saw the plane coming in. At first he was worried it was going to hit his boat, he said, but then he saw it flying low toward the island. He said there were six or seven boats in the area, including a couple of aluminum fishing boats, and everyone raced to help.

In the videos, passengers can be seen exiting the plane as black smoke rises and bright orange flames engulf the fuselage, which came to rest partially submerged against a large rock. Eastman took photos of the burning plane after those on board had been evacuated.

“It kind of just shook us up a little bit,” he said. “Knowing everyone’s OK, at least that everyone is alive at this point, that kind of helps ease the concern.”

Eastman, of Lynnwood, Washington, said Thursday started off with nice weather, but a storm with lightning hit the area around the time of the crash. It wasn’t clear if the storm played a role. Heavy rain began falling as the plane was burning, he said.

“An Urgent Marine Information Broadcast was issued to mariners in the area, and numerous good Samaritan vessels responded to assist,” the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement Friday.

Several agencies scrambled to respond. The Coast Guard sent a helicopter while their Canadian counterparts mobilized a hovercraft, according to a recording of San Juan County dispatch audio posted by Broadcastify.

Sucia Island features a maze of coves, beaches and rocky points. The plane went down near Shallow Bay, which cuts a wide crescent into the island near a campground. Videos show several sailboats and other large pleasure boats were anchored there Thursday.

The same type of seaplane crashed near Seattle in 2022

The plane's operator said it was a DHC-3 Otter made by de Havilland Aircraft of Canada. That is the same model of floatplane as one that plunged into the waters of Puget Sound northwest of Seattle in 2022, killing 10 people.

Federal regulators ordered seaplanes to be inspected afterward, and investigators found a single component of a critical flight control system had failed.

The plane that crashed Thursday was operated by Kenmore Air, a tourism airline based near Seattle, which is a different company than the one involved in the 2022 crash. Founded in 1946, Kenmore Air bills itself as the largest seaplane operator in the U.S.

The Otter is a workhorse seaplane model that has been used widely for decades, aviation safety expert John Cox said.

The cause of the crash will be investigated

The National Transportation Safety Board may be able to quickly get an idea of what happened because investigators will be able to interview the pilot and witnesses and watch videos of the crash, Cox said.

The wreckage of the seaplane was recovered and placed on a barge by Friday afternoon, and it was being moved to a location where investigators can examine it. The agency will publish a preliminary report in about a month, but the final report identifying the cause likely won’t be done for a year or more.

In a statement, the airline said it would not speculate about why the plane went down. According to the flight tracking website Flightradar24, the seaplane made an abrupt 180-degree turn about three minutes before the crash, heading back toward Sucia Island, which it had just passed on its path west.

“We are grateful that everyone aboard has been accounted for,” Kenmore CEO David Gudgel said. He said the company canceled all scheduled flights for Friday and was cooperating with investigators.

The aircraft took off from Lake Union in Seattle, which is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Sucia Island, and was headed to Roche Harbor, the site of a historic hotel, marina and resort on San Juan Island.

___

McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire, and Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut. Associated Press transportation reporter Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.

The U.S. and Iran showed no sign of backing away from their conflict after a 13th straight night of strikes. With fighting flaring again and diplomacy uncertain, both sides made moves suggesting an escalation was possible. U.S. embassies in the Middle East began alerting Americans in the region that options to leave could become more limited, while Iran’s Revolutionary Guard advised residents of neighboring countries to stay away from bases with U.S. troops.

American forces disabled the M/T Lavine in the Gulf of Oman after the ship attempted to run the blockade at least four times, Capt. Tim Hawkins, U.S. Central Command spokesman, told The Associated Press. Hawkins stressed that the ship’s crew was warned and didn’t comply with commands. The military then fired into its engine room. It’s the second commercial ship to be disabled since the military reimposed its blockade. U.S. Central Command said it also has redirected 12 vessels.

The same day the naval blockade was reimposed, the U.S. military said it opened fire on the Curacao-flagged oil tanker Belma sailing toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. After the ship “ignored multiple warnings,” a U.S. aircraft disabled the merchant vessel by firing a missile into the ship’s smokestack on July 15.

Earlier on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump described negotiations with Iran as “by far the most serious that we’ve seen,” even as the U.S. has launched daily strikes.

“We're locked and loaded and ready to go, but we're talking to them,” Trump told reporters, adding that he's “not in a hurry” to end the war.

Vowing that Iran “will not bow to U.S.” bullying, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi noted ongoing discussions with two global powers often at odds with Americans — China and Russia — and warned in an interview with the semiofficial news outlet Tasnim that the Islamic Republic is “neither intimidated by threats nor will we yield to pressure.”

At the center of the fight is the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passage for world energy supplies that has been effectively shut down by Iranian attacks, sending fuel prices soaring and causing widespread economic turmoil.

US strikes sites across Iran and countries in the region are targeted

In the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, which is home to a contingent of American military advisers, security officials said Friday that U.S.-led forces had shot down five explosive-laden drones. Repeated blasts echoed in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, and plumes of black smoke were seen near its airport, where U.S. forces are based. U.S. military officials did not respond to a request for comment on the apparent attacks.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had targeted the U.S. base in Udairi, Kuwait, setting ablaze and destroying three ammunition and storage sheds. It also claimed to have struck a watchtower for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, which it said was damaged.

U.S. Central Command did not respond to inquiries about the claims.

Both Bahrain and Jordan said they had intercepted aerial attacks by Iran on Friday.

As a barrage of assaults was aimed at bases of the United States and its allies, the U.S. hit a Revolutionary Guard naval base in northern Iran, according to the semiofficial news outlets Fars and ISNA. Blasts from U.S. bombardment were also reported on Iran’s Qeshm Island, a base for naval assets including drone boats that Iran can use to attack vessels in the strait, as well as in Isfahan province, home to a major Iranian air base and one of Iran’s nuclear sites.

Additional strikes reportedly hit Iran’s southwest Khuzestan province and southern Fars province.

Central Command said the latest barrage was designed to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting regional waters” as the Americans push to reopen the strait, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas transited in peacetime.

Houthi attacks give Iran more leverage in potential negotiations

A diplomatic delegation from Oman, which has been involved in mediation efforts between the U.S. and Iran, was in Tehran on Friday to discuss managing shipping traffic in the strait, according to Iran’s state news agency.

Iran’s ability to effectively close the strait — and cause economic chaos far beyond the Middle East — gives it tremendous leverage in negotiations. Its Houthi allies increased that leverage when they targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea on Thursday — increasing the risks of shipping through another vital route for Middle Eastern oil. The attacks made good on the Houthis’ threat to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi-linked shipping.

An official at the Transport General Authority also said a Saudi vessel was targeted Friday while sailing in the Red Sea, resulting in minor damage to its hull, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

The strait at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, and around 12% of the world’s trade, including one-fourth of global container traffic, passes through there.

The passage has become more crucial for Saudi Arabia, which has been forced to divert millions of barrels of oil a day to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump has threatened “major military punishment” against the Houthis if their attacks on ships continue.

The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, dipped slightly Friday to about $96, but it is still up substantially from before the start of the war, when it was trading around $72 a barrel. Motorists in the U.S. saw gas prices tick up to an average of $4.11 a gallon, AAA said.

No signs of diplomatic breakthrough as war's human toll expands

Beyond the economic impact, the human toll was also apparent, with the Iranian Health Ministry reporting that 3,434 people have been killed since the war began.

In other developments, the International Maritime Organization said at least 6,000 mariners were stranded on about 400 vessels around the Strait of Hormuz. U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk called for “urgent action” to help them. His office said the seafarers are exposed to the fighting and some have been abandoned by their ships’ owners, leaving them to “fend for themselves without food, water, fuel, medical care, electricity or means to communicate with their families.”

There have been no public signs of progress in any negotiation efforts.

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar of Pakistan, which has played a significant role in previous negotiations, met his Iranian counterpart, Araghchi, on Friday. But before the meeting, Araghchi appeared to brush off any attempts at mediation, saying he did not think the conflict needed more mediators, instead insisting the U.S. must change its position.

The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28 and have offered shifting goals for the war, including toppling Tehran’s government and eliminating its nuclear program.

Israel signaled its willingness to rejoin the conflict in recent days. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he would travel to the U.S. next week and meet with Trump.

___

Frankel reported from Jerusalem and Toropin from Washington. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Erin Cunningham in Jerusalem, Matthew Lee, Darlene Superville and Collin Binkley in Washington, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.

U.N. member nations rejected a U.S. proposal to delay the vote until the end of next week as well as a Russian proposal to extend Türk’s term just until the end of the year. The vote in the 193-member General Assembly to reappoint Türk was 144-10, with 13 abstentions.

While he got strong support, the votes and speeches also reflected concern that Secretary-General António Guterres quietly nominated the Austrian lawyer this month after private consultations, with no public discussion, as the U.N. chief nears the end of his own 10-year tenure.

Türk’s job as the U.N. rights chief, by its nature, is tricky: It requires speaking out against rights violations by the governments of the countries that make up the membership of the world body. For instance, Türk has sharply criticized Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Türk got wide support but loud pushback from the U.S. and Israel

Türk, whose term was supposed to expire on Oct. 11, has faced opposition from critics and some countries for his criticism of Israel’s attacks in Gaza and his approach to China’s crackdown on its Uyghur minority. None of Türk’s predecessors have served two full terms since the job was created in 1993.

U.S. deputy ambassador Jeff Bartos warned before the vote that reappointing Türk would prove that the General Assembly “is dysfunctional” and that the vote “was quietly shoved onto the agenda at the last minute to bypass meaningful review.”

“Make no mistake, if this assembly tolerates procedural overreach, backroom deals and the misuse of U.N. posts, there will be consequences,” he warned. “The United States will immediately reassess our engagement, participation and funding.”

The Trump administration already owes nearly $4 billion to the U.N. for its regular dues and for the separate budget for U.N. peacekeeping operations.

Russia’s deputy ambassador, Dmitry Chumakov, said Guterres had sown discord among U.N. members and accused Türk of “political bias” and promoting “Western geopolitical interests under the pretext of concern for human rights.”

Speaking for the European Union, Ireland’s U.N. Ambassador Fergal Mythen reaffirmed the 27-nation bloc’s “wholehearted support” for Türk.

“The European Union believes that Mr. Türk has demonstrably fulfilled responsibilities entrusted to him effectively and with integrity in an objective and non-selective manner over the past four years,” Mythen said. He takes on another term when “the multiplication of obstacles and challenges and rights violations is relentless, and the promotion and protection of all human rights becomes ever more contested.”

Guterres, whose own second five-year term ends Dec. 31, sent letters to regional groups at the United Nations this month informing them of his intention to reappoint Türk. The African group had no objection, but the Latin American countries had several, including Nicaragua, Argentina and Paraguay.

Before the vote, Israel’s Foreign Ministry called Guterres’ action to get a second term for Türk the U.N. secretary-general’s “latest moral failure,” saying on social media that the choice should be left to his successor.

“After years of bias against Israel, the answer is accountability — not rewriting the rules,” the ministry said.

Guterres is ‘following the rules’ on the reappointment, UN says

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric says Guterres was following the 1993 resolution that established a U.N. high commissioner for human rights and allows for a second term.

“The secretary-general is doing things in a very transparent manner, following the rules and his authority,” Dujarric told reporters Friday. “Consultations were had with member states prior to this and with regional groups.”

As human rights chief, the longtime U.N. functionary who worked for Guterres at United Nations headquarters in New York, Türk has expressed concerns on issues in China as diverse as the fate of detained individuals — like artist Gao Zhen, lawyer Yu Wensheng and media mogul Jimmy Lai — and counterterrorism and assimilation practices that affect ethnic minorities including the Uyghurs in the regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet.

Critics insist he could have done more to publicly follow up on a report issued by his predecessor, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, that said China’s discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity.

Türk also has stopped short of joining independent U.N. rights experts who have accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians during its war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies those claims.

Former head of Human Rights Watch Ken Roth said: “The biggest stain on Türk’s reputation is his utter abandonment of the Uyghurs.”

Türk has used both private engagement with Beijing and public advocacy to support human rights in China, his office said. Roth called that “an admission that he is doing nothing, that he’s putting the plight of the Uyghurs on the deep back burner, and is just pretending to care.”

The Chinese government denies the Uyghurs have been or are being persecuted. It maintains its policies in Xinjiang rooted out terrorism and religious extremism after sporadic bouts of violence rocked the region in previous decades.

___

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Farnoush Amiri in New York and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Friday, July 24

• Houston celebrates Art House Theater Day with a “Car Wash” screening and preshow party
• • Houston Art House Theater Day
• The best tacos in Texas arrive in Houston this weekend + Texas Monthly Taco Editor‘s spicy gig getting paid to eat tacos
• • 2026 Texas Monthly Taco Fest South
  • Huncho’s Tacos
• BISSELL Pet Foundation Empty the Shelters
• Rosenberg Animal Control and Shelter

Thursday, July 23

• Meet the Houston Rig Hands: The city’s pro 3-on-3 basketball team 🏀🏀
• • Follow Houston Rig Hands on Instagram
  • BIG3 Playing at Toyota Center Tickets
• Houston City College’s Coleman Campus: Training the next generation of health care workers
• • Houston City College
• Vic Mignogna on Anime Matsuri, Star Trek & life with Dominique Sachse
• • Follow Vic Mignogna on Instagram
  • Anime Matsuri

Wednesday, July 22

• 16th annual Mayor’s Back 2 School & Health Fair brings free supplies, screenings to Houston families
• • Mayor’s Back to School & Health Fair
• Tips for Planning the Perfect Summer Getaway
• • Travel Expert, Jeanenne Tornatore | The Outside Insider
  • Marriott Bonvoy
  • Official Guide to Breckenridge
• Celebrate National Tequila Day at Zanti Cucina Italiana in River Oaks
• • Zanti Cucina Italiana
• Academy Award-winner Morgan Freeman heading to Houston for blues experience
• • Performing Arts Houston Presents "Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience"

Tuesday, July 21

• How CenterPoint Energy says they’re building a stronger, more resilient electric grid
• • CenterPoint Energy Action Center
• NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior”
• Ox St. Kitchen
• Ivan Chavez Chavos BBQ
• The world’s fragrance community comes together at FRAGCON in Houston
• • Global Fragrance Convention

Monday, July 20

• Houston’s Girl Gone Grilling shares her buffalo chicken stuffed garlic bread
• • Katherine Salom “Girl Gone Grilling”
• Powerhouse performer Christina Wells, now in a wheelchair, is still lighting up Houston stages
• • Christina Wells
• When a smile needs more than veneers: one Houston patient’s transformation
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, July 17

• Hidden Omakase serves up a Summer favorite while continuing its comeback story
• • Hidden Omakase
• East Houston Medical Center works to improve access to health care in the community
• • East Houston Medical Center
• “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” at The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts
• 13th Annual Ohana Surf Dogs Competition

Thursday, July 16

• 93Q’s Cowboys & Angels Concert Brings Country Stars to Houston
• • 93Q’s Cowboys & Angels
• Here’s Blue Willow Bookshop’s summer reading picks you need to add to your TBR
• • Blue Willow Bookshop
• UniverSoul Circus brings big top thrills to Houston Life
• • UniverSoul Circus

Wednesday, July 15

• Llamas, haunted houses, and mermaids?! Houston realtor Noel Collier talks HGTV’S ‘Extreme Buyers Club’
• • HGTV’s ‘Extreme Buyers Club’
  • Noel Collier Group
• Protect Yourself After a Crash: What to Do If You’re Illegally Solicited
• • The Miller Law Firm, home of The Texas Bulldog
• Skip the oven and beat the summer heat with this no-bake chocolate raspberry tart
• • Florence Jackson
• Raising Cane’s and the Norris family to honor Chuck Norris’ legacy on National Chicken Finger Day
• • Raising Canes

Tuesday, July 14

• Casa de Cultura turns a Houston gallery into a living archive one family story at a time
• • Photographer Violeta Álvarez
  • FreshArts
• The late Chuck Norris continues to empower kids through Kickstart Kids martial arts program
• • Kickstart Kids
  • Raising Canes
• Protein-Packed Plates: Casa do Brasil, Los Tios and a High Protein Bowl with Tanji Patton of Goodtaste TV
• • Goodtaste for the Soul with Tanji Patton

Monday, July 13

• Remembering the iconic artist David Adickes on his 99th birthday and his lasting legacy in Houston
• • David Adickes Art
• Spend the Summer at Moody Gardens: Animal encounters, weekly themes, and how to register
• • Moody Gardens
• There’s a story behind every building: Take a tour of Downtown Houston with Preservation Houston
• • Preservation Houston
• Celebrate 713 Day with Houston Rap Legend Lil’ Keke
• • Follow Lil Keke on Instagram
• Best places and deals around Houston to celebrate 713 Day

Friday, July 10

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Houston Hula Academy brings the spirit of Polynesia to Houston Life
• • Houston Hula Academy
  • Drums of the Pacific
• A car lover’s dream! Where to see life-size Hot Wheels cars in the Houston area
• • Hot Wheels Legends Tour
• Fire Up The Grill: Easy Grilling for a Crowd
• • III Catering
• Sleep in Heavenly Peace

Thursday, July 9

• Meet the Houston 6-year-old golfer makes national tournament history
• • Ascend Golf Academy
• Fort Bend County Fair Celebrates 90 Years with Pat Green, Sawyer Brown and a Star-Studded 2026 Lineup
• • Fort Bend County Fair
• Houston City College: College that fits your schedule
• • Houston City College
• Goode Company Seafood celebrates 40 years
• Goode Company Seafood x Texas Parks and Wildlife

Wednesday, July 8

• Fort Bend County Fair
• Fung’s Kitchen
• East Houston Medical Center hosts free FIFA World Cup 2026™ watch parties and a chance to win a free trip to the final
• • East Houston Medical Center
• Houston’s Ensemble Theatre marks 50th anniversary with premieres, revivals and, honoring the past
• • The Ensemble Theatre
• Stars of Netflix’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ chat reimagining the iconic story
• • Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie

Tuesday, July 7

• KPRC 2 Insider
• Inside the New Era of Fitness: How 24 Hour Fitness Is Rethinking the Modern Gym
• • 24 Hour Fitness
• Cosmic Ice Cream and Trill Burgers teaming up for National Ice Cream day
• • Cosmic Ice Cream
  • Trill Burgers
• Houston Ballet’s Dance 2 Thrive program brings movement, music and wellness to the Community
• • Houston Ballet
  • Dance 2 Thrive registration form

Monday, July 6

• Why Trae Tha Truth Keeps Turning His Birthday Into Houston’s Biggest Give-Back
• • Traeday 2026
• PopUp Bagels lands in Houston — grip, rip and dip your way to a viral bagel
• • PopUp Bagels
• When a smile needs more than veneers: one Houston patient’s transformation
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Your Bucket List Guide
• Flora Houston
• Make this at home! The Two-Ingredient Cocktail Popping Up Around Houston During the FIFA World Cup 26™
• • Bucanita by Buchanan’s

Thursday, July 2

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• These women athletes from Afghanistan escaped Taliban rule. Now the players of Houston Shine FC find joy in soccer again
• • Houston Shine FC
• ‘Read With Jenna’ debuts cozy Book Nook aboard MSC Seascape sailing from Galveston
• • ‘Read with Jenna’
• Keep Kids Safe Around Water: Expert Guidance on Supervision and Drowning Prevention
• • Bivona Law Firm
• New Sprouts in Kingwood Is Here | And Yes, You Can Sample Just About Anything
• • Sprouts Farmers Market

Wednesday, July 1

• Celebrate America’s 250th with Houston Life’s special Fourth of July Show
• • Houston Christian University’s Independence Hall
  • Baytown’s Fourth of July Festivities
  • PBS’s Annual A Capitol Fourth celebration
  • Houston Zoo
  • Blue Bell Creameries
• LIST: Fourth of July fireworks, parades, celebrations across Greater Houston

Tuesday, June 30

• This Thai-inspired hot dog brings new flavor to your Fourth of July cookout
• • MaKiin Concepts Hospitality Group
• Firework Safety | Cy-Fair Fire Department, TX
• United Against Human Trafficking
• Houston native shares how being stranded at sea during COVID inspired a documentary, memoir and mission to help others
• • Angela Harger Productions
• 5 Things Houston Homeowners Should Know Before the Next Power Outage
• • GenPro.com

Monday, June 29

• Meet the cast of ‘Young Washington’ ahead of the film’s July 3rd release
• • ‘Young Washington’
• From Houston to American homes: Good Ranchers celebrates America’s 250th with homegrown meat
• • Good Ranchers
• New Zealand by train: Scenic journeys, culture and food
• • Gabe Saglie The Travel Guy
• Gexa Energy gives back: Make-A-Wish reveal brings joy to local child
• • Gexa Energy
• Hands-on training at Houston City College prepares students for high-demand careers
• • Houston City College

Friday, June 26

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Best Friends Animal Society hosts a free pet adoption event this Saturday
• • RSVP to Best Friends “Bring Love Home” Adoption Event
• Houston’s own Tyce Green stars in Disney’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’
• • Houston Broadway Theatre’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”
• Stay connected with reliable internet during hurricane season
• • Ezee Fiber
• Better STAAR scores, bigger goals: Here’s why Good Reason Houston focuses on a path to a living wage
• • Good Reason Houston
• Baytown Is Going Big for the Fourth of July
• • Visit Baytown
• Rodney Atkins

Thursday, June 25

• Best Friends Animal Society hosts a free pet adoption event this Saturday
• • RSVP to Best Friends “Bring Love Home” Adoption Event
  • Best Friends Houston
• A New Sprouts Farmers Market Has Opened in Webster—Here’s What You’ll Find Inside
• • Sprouts Farmers Market
• Why this financial expert says small business success starts with financial organization
• • Aragon Tax Return Services
• Mattress expert links poor sleep to serious health risks
• • Texas Mattress Makers

Wednesday, June 24

• Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo announces historic agriculture complex benefitting Texas youth
• • Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
• Vegan recipes to add to your summer cookout menu
• • Dr. Chinwe Orabuchi
• Could your roof be hiding storm damage: What Houston homeowners should know
• • Adams Roofing
• Companion Energy brings ‘Energy that Cares’ to the Houston Humane Society
• • Companion Energy
• Travel Mom Emily Kaufman says now’s the time to book Australia
• • Travel Mom
  • Visit Sydney
  • Visit South Wales

Tuesday, June 23

• Houston Life goes LIVE from new IKEA Webster ahead of Grand Opening
• • KPRC 2 Insiders, Enter for a chance to win IKEA gift cards!
  • IKEA
  • IKEA Webster: Friends and Family Shopping Event

Monday, June 22

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Family-owned restaurant Foreign Grill shares Uzbek flavors ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026™ match
• • Follow Foreign Grill on Instagram
• Prime Day Picks to upgrade your home
• • Home Improvement Expert, Kathryn Emery | Be The Best Home
• Meet the Houston skincare brand embracing beef tallow with no frills and all the beneficial ingredients
• • NutréLux Beauty
• Future-Proof Careers: Celebrating the HVAC Technicians Who Keep Houston Cool
• • Fortis College
• Why cruises are the hottest ticket this summer - expert tips & where to go
• • Carnival Cruises
  • Travel Expert, Jeanenne Tornatore | The Outside Insider

Thursday, June 18

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
• • Kroger
• The South Dakota Road Trip You Didn’t Know You Needed
• • Your Bucket List Guide
  • Travel South Dakota
• Hands-on training at Houston City College Southeast prepares students for high-demand careers
• • Houston City College
• Stay connected with reliable internet during hurricane season
• • Ezee Fiber

Wednesday, June 17

• WANTED: An audience ready to laugh at the Texas Outlaw Comics tonight at Houston Improv
• • Texas Outlaw Comics
• The cast of Netflix’s ‘I Will Find You’ talks bringing the bestselling thriller to life
• • Netflix’s Harlan Coben’s "I Will Find You"
• Saunawelt opens Houston’s first public European sauna house
• • Saunawelt
• Village Plumbing, Air & Electric shares summer safety tips as company celebrates 80 Years of servicing Houston
• • Village Plumbing

Tuesday, June 16

• ‘Heart & Hustle: Houston’ Star Muneera Page opens up about fame, friendship and season two
• • OWN’s “Heart & Hustle: Houston”
• Looking for a Father’s Day activity? See more than 100 exotic cars at Velocité in Houston
• • Velocité – A Father’s Day Tradition in Motion
• AEW Star Thunder Rosa balances two wrestling worlds while inspiring fans to chase their dreams
• • All Elite Wrestling at Smart Financial Centre
  • Follow Thunder Rosa on Instagram
• Transform your outdoor space with Carvestone - Plus, a chance to win $5,000 in outdoor furniture
• • Allied Outdoor Solutions

Monday, June 15

• Local 17-year-old filmmaker makes her mark with movie focusing on men’s mental health
• • “Used to Be” tickets
• WWE star Braun Strowman chats season 2 of ‘Everything On The Menu’
• • USA Network’s “Everything on the Menu With Braun Strowman”
• How Houston Habitat for Humanity is helping families build generational wealth
• • KPRC 2 Habitat for Humanity
  • Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Houston’s own Cris Sosa competes on NBC’s ‘America’s Got Talent’ Season 21
• • Comedian Cris Sosa
  • NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”

Friday, June 12

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Why the Rothko Chapel may be Houston’s most transformative space
• • Rothko Chapel
• Keep your home cool and save on energy with these tips from Champion & Nash
• • Champion and Nash
• Marco’s Pizza brings New York-style pizza to your neighborhood
• • Marco’s Pizza
• Meet Yassine Cheuko, personal bodyguard to soccer superstar Lionel Messi

Thursday, June 11

• FIFA Fan Festival™ Houston

Wednesday, June 10

• Houston physician and educator Dr. Tim Garson makes history approachable and relatable to modern life in new book
• • Dr. Arthur “Tim” Garson
  • Book: “Five Thousand Years of Controversies: A Family’s Journey Through World History”
• Ishida Dance Company presents ‘Waiting/Rex’ at Asia Society Texas
• • Ishida Dance Company Tickets
• Father’s Day finds and summer-ready home upgrades
• • Kathryn Emery
• Peptides and functional health: How Antiage Institute helps Houstonians age better
• • Antiage Institute

Tuesday, June 9

• How a community effort saved Houston’s printmaking legacy
• How custom coasters are made by hand at Red Bird Press studio
• • Red Bird Press
• A 34-Day soccer watch party in Houston with Diplo, wagyu burgers and VIP lounges?
• • The Ranch Presents Pitch Live
• Find the right mattress with expert help in Texas
• • Texas Mattress Makers

Monday, June 8

• Meet Saxboy Billy, the man behind the viral “Puerto Rico Song”
• • Follow Saxboy Billy on Instagram
• Celebrate Culture through music and movement with Tx2 Dance Company
• • T2 Dance Company
• NBC’s ‘American Ninja Warrior’ Season 18: What Lauren Kelly learned from the Hosts
• • NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior”
• Replace an entire arch, not just a tooth: How ONEARCH changes lives
• • Texas Dental Implant Center
• Visit San Antonio

Friday, June 5

• The music collective behind the Houston remix for FIFA World Cup 2026™
• • Bombón
  • Official FIFA World Cup 26™ Houston Sonic ID
• Why Alley Theatre’s “Misery” is leaving Houston audiences gasping
• • Misery at Alley Theatre
• Young Houstonians will learn how to train like a pro at the Simple Truth Will Anderson Jr. ProCamp
• • Will Anderson Jr. Football ProCamp

Thursday, June 4

• Magician Michael Carbonaro is ready to wow fans in Houston with his new show ‘WONDERBOY’
• • Michael Carbonaro at Houston of Blues
• HCC Southwest ramps up hands-on training in AI, robotics and cybersecurity
• • Houston City College
• The Travel Mom’s tips for planning and booking a breathtaking Alaskan cruise
• • The Travel Mom
  • Holland America Cruises
• Spice Routes: Cardamom Challenge a culinary passport awaits at Houston’s stunning Ismaili Center
• • Ismaili Center

Wednesday, June 3

• Celebrate Freedom Festival returns to Emancipation Park this Saturday
• • Juneteenth Houston
• Why this red velvet cornbread recipe belongs on your Juneteenth table
• • Chef Cassi
• Houston Rockets Skills Camp returns to various locations this summer
• • Houston Rockets Youth Skills Camp
• KPRC 2’s 2026 Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide
• IMDB “Masters of the Universe”

Tuesday, June 2

• CPR and AED basics: Simple skills that can help save a life
• • Register for FREE CPR webinar on June 3
  • Gail Gould
• Meet the local break dancers uplifting women and youth through hip-hop, culture, and the arts
• • BGirl City Worldwide
• Cool Treats in the Heights: Where to find Hawaiian shaved ice and frozen cocktails
• • Happy Go Lucky

Monday, June 1

• Houston Author Jenny Block drops new book about finding authenticity, success and joy in life
• • Follow Jenny Block on Instagram
• The laughs keep coming in season 2 of Netflix’s ‘The Four Seasons’
• • Netflix’s “The Four Seasons”
• Discovery Green celebrating summer with free family fun and soccer-inspired events
• • Discovery Green
• Why natural looking dental implants are the new luxury in facial rejuvenation
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, May 29

• Texas Teen Pageant Queens use their platforms to empower foster kids, fight bullying, and inspire future farmers
• • Kyleigh’s Kidz
• Immersive Gamebox is launching ‘Soccer Arcade,’ the world’s first immersive soccer experience
• • Immersive Gamebox
• Tanji Patton reveals what’s next after 11 seasons of Goodtaste TV
• Sweet, Savory & Spicy: Creative cantaloupe recipes worth trying this Summer
• • Goodtaste with Tanji Patton

Thursday, May 28

• Game day skin care tips for FIFA World Cup 2026™ watch parties and summer heat
• • Board-Certified Dermatologist Dr. Sherry Ingraham
• A Quick Drive From Houston, This Louisiana Resort Delivers Vegas-Style Luxury Without the Flight
• • Coushatta Casino Resort
• Licasa Treatment Center Opens in Conroe to expand compassionate mental health and addiction care
• • Licasa Treatment Center

Wednesday, May 27

•  Powering Houston’s future: Electrical apprentices showcase skills at annual Wire-Off Competition 
• • IEC Texas Gulf Coast
• Los Souldees is the local band bringing the sounds you love from the past with a fresh Houston twist
• • Los Souldees

Tuesday, May 26

• Lone Star College
• A Houston little boy’s toughest battle led to a monster surprise!
• • Gexa Energy
• Captain MC’s Seafood
• The Window Source Houston

Friday, May 22

• Get your bike ready for summer rides with these simple safety tips
• • Sun & Ski Sports
• This easy road trip from Houston comes with luxury suites, gaming, and a powerful legacy
• • Coushatta Powwow
  • Coushatta Casino Resort
• Hear the hits - ‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’ in Houston
• • “The Carole King Musical” at Theatre Under the Stars
• Support local veterans while having fun at the Patriots Charity Classic
• • Patriots Charity Classic Event

Thursday, May 21

• The World comes to Houston! Here’s what to expect ahead of the FIFA Fan Festival™ kicking off in EaDo
• • FIFA Fan Festival™
• This easy road trip from Houston comes with luxury suites, gaming, and a powerful legacy
• • Coushatta Casino Resort - New Legacy Tower
• SUMMER SWEEPSTAKES: Enter to win 3 weeks of free airport parking from The Parking Spot
• • The Parking Spot
• Train for Houston’s in demand jobs at HCC Northeast - Public Safety, Automotive, & more
• • HCC Northeast
• Schlotzsky’s Deli launches new stacked subs in Houston - Try three bold flavors
• • Schlotzsky’s Deli

Wednesday, May 20

• Schlotzsky’s Deli launches new stacked subs in Houston - Try three bold flavors
• • Schlotzsky’s Deli
• Swap, shop, sustain: Houston’s eco-friendly clothing event returns this Sunday
• • The Houston Clothing Shop
• A Houston little boy’s toughest battle led to a monster surprise!
• • Gexa Energy
• Early detection, AI tools, personalized care redefine preventive health
• • Fountain Life Houston Clinic
• Get your backyard summer ready with pest control, pool upgrades, trampolines and whole home backup power
• • Kathryn Emery
• Need summer plans? This easy Galveston getaway has dinosaurs, beaches & lazy rivers
• • Moody Gardens

Tuesday, May 19

• In the Kitchen with Kroger: Memorial Day hosting doesn’t have to start from scratch
• • KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
  • Kroger
• Moody Gardens
• Houston Ballet closes 2025-2026 season with two standout productions
• • Houston Ballet
• From award-winning tv to action-packed films, Bob Odenkirk chats ‘Normal’
• • Follow Bob Odenkirk on Instagram

Monday, May 18

• Celebrate World Ocean Day in Galveston with art, music & ocean fun for free 🌊 🌊
• • Artist Boat
• A collector’s dream: U.S. Coins & Jewelry opens brand new showroom for buying and selling
• • U.S. Coins and Jewelry
• Mental Health Awareness Month: How to spot the signs when stress becomes something more
• • The Harris Center for Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD)
• Spring couple transforms builder-grade patio into beautiful backyard with Allied Outdoor Solutions
• • Allied Outdoor Solutions
• Why natural looking dental implants are the new luxury in facial rejuvenation
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, May 15

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• At Houston’s Alley Theatre, “Dear Alien” explores the beautiful weirdness of being human
• • “Dear Alien at Alley Theatre
• Gear up inside the newly renovated and relocated Sun & Ski Sports Memorial City
• • Sun & Ski Sports Memorial City
• The Travel Mom on the perks of RV life on the road
• • The Travel Mom
  • Go RVing

Thursday, May 14

• Musaafer Houston Beekeeper cocktail program highlights honey from local neighborhoods
• • Musaafer
• Help us save lives at the KPRC 2 Community Blood Drive with Gulf Coast Blood
• • Schedule an appointment
• Port Aransas
• Children’s Museum Houston

Wednesday, May 13

• Why one Fulshear homeowner calls his generator “The Easy Button”
• • GenPro.com
• Family fun meets coastal charm in Port Aransas, Texas’ premier Gulf Coast getaway
• • Port Aransas
  • Red Dragon Pirate Cruises
• Local chef turns pandemic setback into a thriving Filipino food pop-up business
• • Aleng Nina’s
  • Chef Nina’s Pop-up Event at Third Place

Tuesday, May 12

• Rob Riggle among authors featured in ‘A Celebration of Reading’ 2026
• • Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation
• Texas’ legendary 1877 tall ship ELISSA joins Sail250 voyage to New York Harbor
• • The Official Official Tall Ship of Texas
  • Galveston 250 Kickoff Party Tickets
• The Future of noninvasive wellness is in Sugar Land
• • Oasis Aesthetics & Wellness and Oasis Dry Eye Center
• Chef Jose Hernandez on his roots, restaurants, and fresh pasta
• • Savoir Restaurant
  • Patton

Monday, May 11

• Texas breweries shine at World Beer Cup as American Craft Beer Week kicks off
• • What’s on Tap Radio
• Could Retirement Living Actually Feel Like a Resort? Inside Life at Eagle’s Trace
• • Eagles’ Trace by Erickson Senior Living
• Empty Bowls Houston returns for its 20th anniversary
• • Empty Bowls Houston
  • Houston Food Bank

Friday, May 8

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Children’s Museum Houston and Houston Life present a first look inside the ‘Gallery of Wonder’ on KPRC 2
• Easy at-home kitchen STEM activities to spark curiosity with Children’s Museum Houston
• • Children’s Museum Houston
• Rung Film Festival returns to Houston, highlighting Pakistani storytellers on the big screen
• • Rung Film Festival
• Scammed out of $90,000: Houston woman shares warning for seniors
• • AARP Houston
• KPRC 2’s “Eat Like a Local”

Thursday, May 7

• Celebrate National Hamburger Month with OMG! Burger
• • OMG! Burger
• How Houston City College Is Building the City’s Workforce
• • Houston City College
• The Insperity Invitational presented by United Healthcare happening in The Woodlands this weekend
• • Insperity Invitational
• Bridge the Gaps

Wednesday, May 6

• From local finds to feel-good vibes, ‘Shop Fulshear First’ family-friendly night market
• • “Shop Fulshear First”
• Why you keep repeating the same unhealthy relationship patterns and how to change them
• • Jenn Pinkerton
• Houston Grand Opera

Tuesday, May 5

• Bun B announces “UGK Been Ridin’ Dirty,” Celebrating 30 Years of a Southern Hip-Hop Classic
• • Bun B Presents “Been Ridin’ Dirty” Tickets
• From classroom to center stage: The Tommy Tune Awards showcase Houston’s rising theatre talent
• • Tommy Tune Awards Finalists List
• Houston Life co-hosts learn calligraphy with live event artist Jenny Blaschke
• • Jenny Blaschke

Monday, May 4

• “Houston’s Enchilada Queen” Sylvia Casares serving up big flavor & family tradition
• • Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen
• This Houston program uses comedy to build confidence and change lives
• • Comedy Unlocked
  • The Opportunity Center
• Hot products: Summer grillin’ and chillin’ with Lifestyle and Home Improvement expert Kathryn Emery
• • Kathryn Emery
• New Smile: AI-driven design at Texas Dental Implant Center
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, May 1

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Teatro Indigo
• Teatro Indigo at Hobby Center for the Performing Arts
• Mahjong for a Cause
• Sam Houston Race Park

Thursday, April 30

• St‑Germain Elderflower Liqueur
• National Pet Month is here! Houston SPCA offers tips for responsible pet ownership
• • Houston SPCA
• From Knee Replacement to the Boston Marathon: A Story of Movement, Medicine, and Meaning
• • Dr. Richard A. Berger Outpatient Hip and Knee Surgery
• Tyler Henry “The Hollywood Medium” heading to Houston for unforgettable live show
• • Tyler Henry Live at Smart Financial Center
  • Connect with Tyler Henry

Wednesday, April 29

• In the Kitchen with Kroger: Celebrate Mother’s Day with Kroger, the world’s largest florist
• • KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
• Sail into Alaska with Princess Cruises - tips from The Travel Mom, Emily Kaufman
• • The Travel Mom
  • Princess Cruises
• How wearing denim became an international symbol of supporting assault survivors and victims
• • National Denim Day
  • Fort Bend Women’s Center
• Country superstar Parker McCollum surprises nurses ahead of National Nurses Week

Tuesday, April 28

• Inside Golden Roastery: A popular Middle Eastern shop serving traditional desserts and coffee
• How to make a popular Arab dessert Kunafa
• • Golden Roastery (Walk-in offer only; get 20% off Kunafa items from now to May 10)
• Help us save lives at the KPRC 2 Community Blood Drive with Gulf Coast Blood
• • Community Blood Drive at KPRC 2
• Cedric The Entertainer brings the laughs in new Netflix animated film ‘Swapped’
• • Netflix’s ‘Swapped’

Monday, April 27

• Summer safety for kids: what parents need to know
• • Bivona Law Firm
• From Blueprint to Backyard Oasis: A Missouri City Transformation Designed for Real Life
• • Allied Outdoor Solutions
• First annual AAPI Fest coming to Alief
• • AAPI Fest
  • Kaminari Taiko of Houston,
• The story behind Agnes and Sherman where Asian flavors meet American comfort food
• • Agnes and Sherman
  • AAPI Restaurant Weeks
• Hosts Mike “The Miz” Mizanin and Rocsi Diaz chat reboot of ‘American Gladiators’
• • American Gladiators

Friday, April 24

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Step inside August Wilson’s “Fences” at Houston’s Alley Theatre - A timeless story of love, legacy, and second chances
• • August Wilson’s “Fences” at Alley Theatre
• Prime Video’s ‘Cocaine Quarterback’ Owen Hanson visits Houston, shares incredible comeback story
• • “Cocaine Quarterback” on Prime Video
• National Bucket List Day: A Trafalgar River Cruise with The Travel Mom
• • The Travel Mom
  • Trafalgar

Thursday, April 23

• Silambam Houston highlights the beauty of Indian classical dance at the Hobby Center
• • Silambam Houston
• A preview of Great Age on the Green, Houston’s new festival celebrating aging boldly
• • Great Age on the Green
• Kids learn money the fun way with Financial Fortunes card game
• • Financial Fortunes Card Game
• Teeing off for the LPGA’s first major of the season - The Chevron Championship
• • The Chevron Championship

Wednesday, April 22

• Houston is driving the Biotech future - starting with students
• • Texas Medical Center BioPath Program
• From ‘Dance Moms’ to the stage and page: Nia Sioux’s next act
• • Follow Nia Sioux on Instagram
• From ‘Dance Moms’ to the stage and page: Nia Sioux’s next act
• • Nia Sioux’s Memoir “Bottom of the Pyramid”
• Wildflowers, western heritage, and a Mother’s Day to remember at The George Ranch
• The George Ranch

Tuesday, April 21

• Orchid care 101: Simple tricks to keep your orchids blooming longer
• • Ace Berry
  • Flora & More
• Affordable luxury: New upholstered bed collection unveiled at Texas Mattress Makers
• • Texas Mattress Makers
• Music, food and rodeo fun for all at the Galveston County Fair & Rodeo
• • Galveston County Fair & Rodeo
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Monday, April 20

• Robins Landing Neighborhood Floor Plans - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Homeownership Process - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Volunteering - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• ReStore - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Third Ward - Houston Habitat for Humanity

Friday, April 17

• ‘Houston Life’ is live today at the Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market Spring
• • Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market® SPRING
  • Dog Collar World
  • Linked by Stevi
  • The Hive
  • Big Creek Farms
  • EK The Boutique
  • House of Cottonwood
  • ParkerJoe

Thursday, April 16

• TUTS presents ‘Monty Python’s Spamalot’ rides into the Hobby Center
• • Monty Python’s Spamalot at TUTS Tickets
• One ticket, endless fun at the Galveston County Fair and Rodeo
• • Galveston County Fair and Rodeo
• Carpet Giant celebrates 50 years of proudly serving generations of Houstonians
• • Carpet Giant Website (mention Houston Life to get $150 off your purchase of $1,000)
• Faith ‘One Arm Wonder’ Malton and Zack ‘Pitbull’ Ruhl rappel 30 stories for non-profit Camp For All
• • Camp For All
  • Faith Malton

Wednesday, April 15

• Brush up on your makeup routine at Blushington River Oaks
• • Houston Life Deals (Get 20% off beauty services at Blushington River Oaks)
  • Blushington River Oaks
• The King himself shares how to save 20% on tickets to the Texas Renaissance Festival
• • Texas Renaissance Festival
• Ethan’s Ohana
• Cube Against Cancer 2026 Houston
• Cube Against Cancer
• Fortis College

Tuesday, April 14

• Former Texans WR Steven Sims Jr. to host FREE youth football camp
• • Must See Foundation
• Why it’s not just the generator - it’s the company behind it
• • Gen Pro
• How the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce helps local companies grow
• • Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
• Step Onward Foundation uses music to fight homelessness in Texas
• • Step Onward Foundation
  • Sunday Funday Community Celebration

Monday, April 13

• Robins Landing Neighborhood Floor Plans - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Homeownership Process - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Volunteering - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• ReStore - Houston Habitat for Humanity
• Third Ward - Houston Habitat for Humanity

Friday, April 10

• Your guide to the Houston Barbecue Festival this weekend: Top pitmasters, unlimited BBQ samples, and more
• • Houston BBQ Festival
• Texas CASA’s partner agencies train volunteers to be a voice and a lifeline for children in the foster care system
• • Become a CASA
• ‘Grow the Game’ Initiative expands soccer access in Houston ahead of the World Cup with Guinness World Records attempt
• • Airbnb GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™
• Houston’s Garden Theatre celebrates 5 years with Stephen Sondheim’s “Company”
• • The Garden Theatre
• Father daughter duo Steve Zahn and Audrey Zahn chat new film ‘She Dances’

Thursday, April 9

• The Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary kicks off 22nd annual ‘Chic Boutique’
• • Chic Boutique
• Aramie Payton brings Broadway pedigree to Alley Theatre’s revival of “Fences”
• • Alley Theatre
• Layoff leads Houston creator to viral small business mission
• • Follow David on Instagram
• At just 19, Jalyn Hall is stepping into his moment
• • NBC’s “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins”
• KPRC 2’s “Eat Like a Local”

Wednesday, April 8

• Houston Underwater Film Festival returns this weekend with stunning ocean films 🌊🌊
• • School, college and scuba students: claim a free ticket by emailing huff@hups.org
  • Houston Underwater Film Festival Tickets
• Celebrate Earth Month by sipping sustainably!
• • Wine and Travel Contributor Daniela Garrido
• Shred Day Houston: Safely destroy documents and fight hunger on April 18
• • Comerica Shred Day Houston
• Trade-show-tested home picks: Coffee, Water, Bidets and Moving Gear
• • Kathryn Emery Home Improvement & Lifestyle Expert
• A kid’s guide to top play picks to cut screen time and spark creativity
• • Kid-trepreneur Dylan Emery

Tuesday, April 7

• Grand Marshals Kam Franklin & Brian Ching preview the 39th annual Art Car Parade
• • Houston Art Car Parade
• This Texas artist is turning Titanic artifacts into art
• • Souls of the Titanic
• In Houston, Your Windows May Not Last as Long—Here’s What to Know (and What to Do About It)
• • Pella Windows and Doors
• Houston’s Trillest Chef bringing bold flavors of H-Town the national stage
• • 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
• At just 19, Jalyn Hall is stepping into his moment
• • 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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Whitmer remains popular in the battleground state, where she has twice won by substantial margins, and her endorsement gives Stevens a significant boost a day before early in-person voting begins. Whitmer also has history with El-Sayed, whom she defeated in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor.

“Haley's got what it takes to win," Whitmer said Friday in Detroit while appearing with Stevens and South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn. "If you're ready to show the rest of the country how Michigan gets the job done, vote for Haley Stevens.”

Stevens has pitched herself as a Democrat who has won tough elections, including flipping a Republican-held House seat. She has been backed by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, a two-term Democrat who is retiring from the seat.

She's in a tight race for the Democratic nomination against El-Sayed, a progressive whose supporters include Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

“The corporate establishment has closed ranks and made their pick – now, Michigan voters will get to make theirs,” said Roxie Richner, a spokesperson for El-Sayed.

The winner of the Aug. 4 primary will face Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in November for a critical, battleground Senate seat. Democrats are hoping to flip the Senate in November, and Michigan remains a key part of their plan.

Stevens is a four-term congresswoman from the Detroit area. Her candidacy has benefited from tens of millions in spending by outside political groups, including nearly $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which supports pro-Israel candidates.

El-Sayed, who accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, has criticized Stevens for taking money from AIPAC.

Whitmer is a two-term governor who isn’t on the ballot this fall, though she has been mentioned as a possible 2028 presidential candidate. She is the best-known politician in Michigan.

Whitmer had long weighed the decision. Stevens’ success winning in a competitive district, including converting the GOP-held seat for Democrats in 2018, was among the factors in the endorsement, according to a person who was familiar with the governor’s deliberations but was not authorized to discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

POSITION OVERVIEW

As a Broadcast Executive Producer, you will be responsible for leading and guiding the broadcast team to deliver transformative, engaging, and value-additive content across platforms. Your leadership will ensure that our consumers receive content that adheres to our guiding brand pillars. By working closely with the Streaming EP, Digital EP, and Managers of Content and Coverage, you will play a crucial role in setting the editorial direction, fostering a strong newsroom culture, and leveraging new technology to keep our content at the forefront of innovation.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Oversee the onboarding and training of new producers, cultivating a pipeline of talent and working closely with them on script writing and newscast crafting.
• Utilize showcasing skills to assist producers in creating compelling and memorable newscasts.
• Collaborate with the Streaming Executive Producer, Digital Executive Producer, and Managers of Content and Coverage to ensure complementary and cohesive content delivery across all platforms.
• React to breaking news with urgency, demonstrating impeccable news judgment and the ability to pivot coverage priorities seamlessly.
• Advocate for content and coverage that resonates with our diverse audience and explores critical issues that impact our community.
• Foster an environment that values community connection, ensuring that our content and talent are actively engaged in the community.
• Maintain a focus on our guiding brand pillars, ensuring that all content aligns with these core values and meets consumer needs.
• Willing and able to step in for Managers of Content and Coverage as requested.
• Other duties as assigned.

KEY QUALIFICATIONS

• Prior years’ experience as a producer in a large-market television news operation, with a demonstrated track record of success.
• Proven ability to write creatively for news promos and teases, coupled with the skills to be a strong copy editor.
• Familiarity with Augmented Reality and proficient use of Edius and other editing programs.
• Exceptional leadership and coaching skills, with a passion for mentoring and developing journalistic talent.
• Demonstrated creative and editorial judgment with a mastery of journalistic ethics and libel laws.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to motivate and lead both veteran reporters and young producers.
• An understanding of the metrics used for television and digital success, with the ability to translate insights into action.
• Flexible availability, willing to work early mornings, overnights, and as needed to cover breaking news and lead the team effectively.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Prior years’ experience as an Executive Producer, showcasing the ability to lead a newsroom through high-pressure situations and daily deadlines.
• A college degree in Journalism or Communications.

Location: KPRC 2

8181 Southwest Freeway, Houston, Texas 77074

To apply: Please submit your updated resume and application to:

Taylor Berry, Manager of Content and Coverage at tberry@kprc.com

Click HERE to download and complete employment application.

Any offer of employment is conditional upon the successful completion of a pre-employment drug screening, investigative background check, employment/education verifications, and reference checks. You must hold a valid driver’s license and be insurable under Texas Law.

No Phone Calls Please

KPRC 2 is an Equal Opportunity Employer. In addition to complying with the requirements of federal law, KPRC 2 will comply with applicable state and local laws prohibiting employment discrimination.

Founded in 2016, by Art House Convergence in Chicago, the annual event highlights indie theaters that champion films meant to provoke, challenge, entertain and inspire. This nationwide movement has grown to include 136 participating art houses — including Houston.

Black Cinema Club HTX Society and Houston Cinema Arts Society are teaming up with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to mark the day with a screening of the 1976 cult-classic comedy “Car Wash,” presented in a 4K restoration. The screening begins at 7 p.m. with an introduction by Houston film writer Craig D. Lindsey.

Before the movie, attendees can kick off the night with a pre-screening reception from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Mo’ Brunch and Brews, 1201 Southmore Blvd. The reception includes a vinyl swap with collectors and DJs, including DJ Good Grief, Daniel Jackson of Good Junk Vintage and DJ Elevates (aka The Wizard).

Tickets are $9 general admission and $7 for members, students and seniors. Find event details and tickets here.

For more information, watch the interview — with Jerry Madison Jr., founder and CEO of Black Cinema Club HTX, and Leroy Cook, the organization’s director of partnerships — in the video above.

The ballistic missile strike came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in Kyiv with senior representatives of Raytheon, the U.S. company that makes the Patriot air defense systems that Ukraine desperately needs to counter the devastating ballistic missiles Russia uses to advance its invasion. Raytheon didn't immediately respond to an email inquiring whether any of its workers were at the event.

“Missiles for Patriot systems are the number one priority,” Zelenskyy said on social media, where he reported the attack.

The attack hit the grounds of a privately operated military training site that was hosting an event, acting regional military administration head Ruslan Oliinyk wrote on Facebook, citing preliminary information. The site is about 20-30 kilometers (12-19 miles) from central Kyiv, in the Bucha district.

Emergency crews responded to the area, where 27 homes and 44 vehicles also were damaged, Oliinyk said.

The Ukrainian Defense Industry Council, which describes itself as the country’s largest association of private defense manufacturers, said industry representatives were at the site when it was hit, although it did not immediately provide further details.

Ruslan Kravchenko, the country’s prosecutor general, opened a war crimes investigation into the attack and a separate criminal case over possible negligence in organizing the event.

Investigators will examine who approved its location, timing and format, and whether adequate precautions were taken, Kravchenko said.

The Ukrainian government imposed reporting restrictions on the attack.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian attack on a military plant in Russia killed six people and wounded 26 others, the regional governor said.

Zelenskyy meets with delegation from US company Raytheon

The Raytheon meeting came less than three weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to give Ukraine a license to produce Patriots. The pledge marked an important shift, as Trump recently adopted a more positive tone toward Zelenskyy.

In another sign that Ukraine is changing minds in Washington, ardent Trump ally Laura Loomer met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday. After years of minimizing the invasion, she rebuked Russian President Vladimir Putin for missile attacks on Ukraine.

The Ukrainian leader said late Thursday that he held talks with a Raytheon delegation, adding that the company was ready to jointly produce Patriot interceptors with Ukraine. The system is comprised of radars, command-and-control systems, and different types of interceptor missiles.

The company made no immediate comment about the meeting on its website or social media accounts.

“Our teams — both at the government level and from the private sector — will stay in close touch to work (it) out,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

Zelenskyy is keen to move quickly on a coproduction agreement as Russia relentlessly fires ballistic missiles that are hard to stop and cause civilian casualties as well as inflicting huge damage on civilian areas.

Zelenskyy has for several years been pleading for more and quicker Patriot deliveries from Western partners. Ukraine has developed its own innovative air defenses, but large-scale production is vital.

Even so, experts and Kyiv officials have cautioned that setting up production in Ukraine would likely take years.

Ukraine hits another hub of Russia's biggest online retailer

When the Trump administration engaged in a diplomatic effort to end the war last year, Putin portrayed Russia as negotiating from a position of strength. The peace efforts have produced no results so far.

But since first attacking its neighbor in 2014, Russia has captured only around 20% of the country.

Now, the Russian army’s advance is stalling due to Ukraine’s successful front-line and mid- and long-range attacks using cutting-edge drone technology it has developed at home and that is now coveted by other countries, Western officials and analysts say.

Ukraine has expanded its campaign of disruption with bigger and increasingly frequent drone attacks inside Russia that are hitting high-profile targets, causing fuel shortages and piling pressure on Putin.

Ukrainian forces again targeted the logistical hubs of Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer that is often compared to Amazon, the company’s founder said Friday.

Founder Tatyana Kim said Wildberries logistical facilities came under attack in St. Petersburg, the adjacent Leningrad region and in Simferopol — a city in illegally annexed Crimea.

Photos and videos published by Russian media showed massive plumes of smoke rising over St. Petersburg.

Ukraine struck four other Wildberries warehouses across Russia in recent days, sparking massive fires.

Kyiv officials want ordinary Russians to feel the consequences of the war and question whether Putin can keep them safe. The almost daily attacks have caused consternation in Russia.

Ukraine keeps targeting Russian oil facilities, weapons plants

Ukrainian long-range weapons hit an oil facility nearly 1,350 kilometers (840 miles) from the Ukrainian border, as well as a military plant, Zelenskyy said Friday.

The plant in Russia's Kirov region makes components for aircraft and missiles used in attacks on Ukrainian cities, he said.

The Ukrainian attack on the military plant killed six people and wounded 26 others, regional governor Alexander Sokolov said. He didn’t identify the plant, but Astra online news outlet said it was the Avitec plant, which makes air defense missiles and aircraft components.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported Friday that its air defenses shot down 571 Ukrainian drones overnight.

___

This story was corrected to show that the Ukrainian attack that killed six people in Russia was on the military plant, not the oil facility.

___

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

The EU, a day earlier, fined Google 890 million euros ($1 billion) for allegedly breaking digital antitrust regulations by corralling consumers toward its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.

Trump’s announcement comes a day after the White House said it would impose double-digit tariffs on imports from more than 60 countries, accusing them of inadequately enforcing bans on goods produced by forced labor. The new tariffs replace temporary 10% worldwide import taxes that Trump imposed after a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court.

Also, a series of explosions sounded near a military base hosting U.S. forces in northern Iraq and sirens rang out in Bahrain on Friday, hours after the American military said it finished its 13th night of strikes against Iran. The conflict has flared again over the past week, as the U.S. has pounded Iran while Tehran has attacked ships in the Strait of Hormuz and targeted U.S. assets and allies in the region.

Here's the latest:

US military says it fired on another merchant vessel trying to breach blockade of Iranian ports

American forces disabled the M/T Lavine in the Gulf of Oman on Friday after the ship attempted to run the blockade at least four times, Capt. Tim Hawkins, U.S. Central Command spokesman, told The Associated Press.

Hawkins stressed that the ship’s crew was warned and didn’t comply with commands. The military then fired into its engine room.

It’s the second commercial ship to be disabled since the military reimposed its blockade. U.S. Central Command said it also has redirected 12 vessels.

Hegseth names replacement for Army chief in Europe

The Pentagon has nominated a replacement for Gen. Christopher Donahue, who suddenly departed last month as commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and commander of NATO’s Allied Land Command.

Hegseth announced Friday that he’s selected Lt. Gen. Kevin D. Admiral for the post.

Admiral will not be promoted to general, confirming earlier reports that the Pentagon plans to downgrade the post from a four-star to a three-star position as part of a broader effort by Hegseth to reduce the number of generals in the ranks.

Admiral now is serving as commanding general, III Corps and Fort Hood in Fort Hood, Texas. An Army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said Donahue is now on transitional leave pending approval of his retirement.

Trump says he thinks Michael Jordan is the best ever but ducks suggestions he’s a sports ‘fixer’

Asked if Jordan or LeBron James were the best basketball player ever, the president said he golfed with Jordan and “he’s a really good guy.”

“I think LeBron is, maybe he’s a racist,” Trump said. “Maybe he doesn’t like Trump.”

He added, “I like people that like me, so I would say Michael Jordan all the way.”

Trump was also asked about golfer Bryson DeChambeau who reportedly threatened to call the president after being given a controversial two-stroke penalty during the recent British Open.

The president didn’t say if he sees himself as a sports “fixer” after intervening to help get a U.S. red card overturned during the World Cup.

Trump suggested it was more like “me being a judge.” He said of DeChambeau, “I thought it was a tough call against him.”

Trump says Xi and Putin vowed to stay out of Iran war — and he trusts them

Asked about a recent comment from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying China and Russian are “enabling” Iran, Trump suggested otherwise.

“President Xi said he will not partake, and President Putin said the same thing,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday. “I trust them.”

He added that there “could be some things they do” — without elaborating — but emphasized it “has not been major.”

Earlier on Friday, Trump said that both Xi and Putin had personally promised not to sell weapons to Iran.

“If they did, it would be very bad for them,” Trump said on social media. “Certainly not in their best interests.”

Trump defends new tariffs announced this week

Trump called the latest tariffs his administration announced on 60 economies late Thursday “very standard tariffs” that “follow the line” when asked whether he believes the latest tranche announced this week could overcome legal challenges.

The administration’s tariffs announced this week are based in the argument that the countries targeted have failed to adequately enforce a ban on goods made with forced labor.

Citing the Supreme Court’s decision this summer that struck down the president’s Liberation Day tariffs, Trump said: “I thought the decision by the Supreme Court was not a good one, but we have many forms of tariffs.”

Trump said he’d be ‘willing’ to call senators to help move stalled elections bill

“I’d certainly be willing,” Trump said when asked if he could be doing more to help the Republican-controlled Senate pass a stalled elections bill he wants to sign into law.

Trump said he helped move the bill through the Republican-controlled House by calling a few representatives and getting them on board to send the bill to the Senate.

He said Senate Majority Leader John Thune has “got four or five people that are very difficult,” including some “I put out of office.”

“So I understand how it feels. I mean, they’re doing the wrong thing,” Trump said, asking who wouldn’t be for showing ID and proof of citizenship to vote.

“No Republicans should put us in a position where they don’t approve of something like that,” he said.

Trump says he’s not feeling pressure to settle the Iran war ahead of the midterm elections

The president said, as far as the elections are concerned, “I’m not in a hurry.”

He said he won’t let rising gas prices and inflation continuing to run hot sway his decision on the war in Iran.

“We have to do it right,” Trump said, adding “elections take care of themselves.”

Trump was reelected in 2024 promising to bring down the cost of living but has seen prices rise dramatically in the months since the war with Iran began.

That has complicated things for Republicans hoping to maintain control of Congress.

Trump celebrates new nuclear reactors in his push to speed up power production

The president hosted executives from nuclear power companies in the Oval Office to celebrate a new milestone in the White House’s push to accelerate the growth of nuclear power in the U.S.

Last year, Trump signed four actions creating a pilot program aimed at having four new nuclear reactors go critical by July 4. Four companies ended up meeting that deadline, Trump said on Friday.

“America is building again, America is dreaming again, and we’re leading the world in pioneering the next generation of nuclear power,” he said.

Trump says U.S. will place ‘a major tariff’ on Mexico for diarrhea-causing parasite

Asked when it would be safe to eat lettuce again, after a diarrhea-inducing parasite found in lettuce produced in Mexico has affected patients in nine U.S. states, Trump said his government is “going to put a major tariff on tax on Mexico because of the lettuce.”

He added that his administration would also “put a big tariff on Canada because of the smoke” caused by hundreds of wildfires raging across Canada, which has carried smoke by winds into the U.S.

Trump defends subpoenas targeting New York Times journalists, says case isn’t over

A day after his administration withdrew subpoenas that would have required three New York Times journalists to testify about their sources, Trump said he isn’t retreating.

“We have a long way to go with that case,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday.

Trump said he supports the subpoenas, which were issued in response to a story about Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet.

“We’re not after journalists, we’re after leakers,” Trump said. “And the way you find them is through the journalists.”

Trump says US and Iran are talking, he thinks they’re being ‘serious’

“Sort of everybody” is involved in the talks with Iran to end the war, Trump said.

He said Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and “a lot of people” are talking to Iran.

“We’ll see what comes of it,” the president said.

“We’re talking to them right now,” Trump said. “I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason. But we are talking to them right now.”

Trump says Venezuela is ‘not really ready’ for election yet

Asked when that the country will hold elections after U.S. forces toppled President Nicolás Maduro, Trump responded, “They’re not really ready for them yet.”

He said the U.S. has brought economic benefits to Venezuela without elaborating, or mentioning the devastation of recent, major earthquakes there.

“They’re not ready yet for the elections, but at some point they will be,” the president added before mentioning the country’s prowess in the Miss Universe pageants once he owned.

Trump declines to answer question about possible war crimes in Iran

Answering questions from reporters, Trump was asked if he considers it a war crime to blow up civilian power plants and bridges, as he has repeatedly threatened to do in Iran.

Trump replied, “I wont respond to that question.”

The president has repeatedly threatened to blow up civilian infrastructure in Iran before backing down.

Democrats demand answers on Iran war casualties from Pentagon

Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee are demanding answers on how the Pentagon is handling the reporting of Iran war casualties.

In a letter Friday, the 12 lawmakers note that the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, “has reported inconsistent casualty figures, raising additional questions about the transparency and reliability of the Department’s public reporting and statements.”

Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell argued this week that the system is “regularly updated online” following news reports that information about injuries was being withheld.

However, the system now shows only 14 troops killed, though that total stands at 18. The system also shows only 420 troops have been wounded in the conflict. A U.S. official has told The Associated Press that the total is well over 500.

Parnell blamed “temporary data disruptions” in a social media post Thursday.

The lawmakers are seeking detailed information about the Iran war casualties as well as details about the reporting process of that data to DCAS

Trump’s newest tariffs face immediate court challenge

The Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian advocacy group that successfully challenged earlier Trump tariffs, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, challenging the double-digit import taxes that Trump imposed Friday.

The Trump administration, invoking the Trade Act of 1974, targeted 16 U.S. trading partners with tariffs of 10% to 12.5%, charging that they had failed to crack down on imports produced by forced labor.

But the Liberty Justice Center calls the new tariffs a pretext to allow Trump to maintain a wall of tariffs around the U.S. economy after the Supreme Court struck down big global taxes he’d imposed last year.

The new levies took effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday as time ran out on temporary tariffs Trump had turned to after the Supreme Court defeat.

“The administration allowed one global tariff to expire and immediately replaced it with another under a different statute,” said Sara Albrecht, chair of the Liberty Justice Center. “Changing the statute doesn’t change the law. Every tariff authority has limits, and every administration must respect them.”

Her group represented businesses that successfully challenged Trump’s 2025 global tariffs.

Trump says he’s ‘fine’ with Canada disinviting US from opening ceremony for new shared bridge

On social media, Trump says he’s OK with Canada’s decision “considering they are paying substantial TARIFFS to the United States.”

Canada alone is celebrating the completion of a new bridge to the U.S. over the Detroit River. The multibillion-dollar Gordie Howe International Bridge will serve as a critical path for trade and casual travel between the U.S. and Canada.

Canada scratched a joint gathering after Trump this week suddenly announced 50% tariffs on Canadian goods entering the U.S.

Trump says US will investigate EU trade practices, claiming the bloc unfairly fined tech giants

The president says he’s opening the formal investigation because the bloc has unfairly levied billions of dollars of fines against Google, Apple and other U.S. companies.

Trump made the announcement a day after the EU hit Google with a fine of 890 million euros ($1 billion) after it said the technology behemoth broke digital antitrust regulations by setting up Google Play and its ubiquitous search engine to corral consumers toward its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.

In a lengthy post on social media, Trump said he has warned the EU about its practice of fining U.S. tech companies. He named Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon and others.

Democrats select South Carolina for their first presidential nominating contest in 2028

The decision most likely cements a dramatic break from decades of tradition by keeping Iowa and New Hampshire off the top of the calendar and elevating more racially diverse states.

The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee weighed competing bids led by South Carolina and Nevada for the first spot. The choice will need to be approved by the full Democratic National Committee, which is scheduled to meet in August.

South Carolina or Nevada had been expected to go first, with each state aggressively campaigning for the coveted spot.

US embassies across the Mideast begin sending country-specific travel warnings for Americans

U.S. embassies across the Middle East sent out country-specific travel alerts to Americans, advising them that already limited options to leave the region may become more limited due to escalating tensions between the United States and Iran.

At least 11 embassies in the Mideast released advisories that echo broader “worldwide caution” and regional warnings that the State Department has put out since last weekend. The department was criticized for its messaging to Americans in the Middle East before and during the war that began in late February.

Neither the worldwide alerts nor the country-specific ones being released on Friday say that intensified hostilities are imminent but they note that some airlines have already canceled flights into the region and that others may follow suit.

The 11 embassies to issue the alerts are Bahrain, the virtual embassy in Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Netanyahu to visit Washington next week for meeting with Trump

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to the United States for an official visit next week, his office said in a statement Friday. He’ll meet with President Trump in Washington on Tuesday, according to the statement, and also attend the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The last time the two leaders met in Washington was in February, just weeks before they launched a joint war against Iran. Since then, tensions have grown between the longtime allies, including over how to prosecute the war.

Israel had opposed Trump’s recent negotiations with Iran, while Trump was upset over Israeli military action in Lebanon, which he saw as a threat to his diplomatic efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

But with Iran and the United State fighting once again, Israel has also signaled its willingness to rejoin the conflict. In recent days, Israeli officials have said they’re preparing to respond if Iran launches an attack on Israeli soil.

Second lady Usha Vance shares family photo after son’s birth

Vance added a message with her social media post thanking the public “for all the good wishes as we settle into life as a family of six.”

She included photos of her larger family seated on a couch, as well as a close-up of the baby.

Vance gave birth Sunday to Alec Neel Vance, her fourth child with Vice President JD Vance. Alec is also the first child born to a sitting vice president in more than 150 years.

He joins older siblings Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.

White House correspondents’ dinner, redux: What will Trump have to say?

When guests arrive for the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, security will be much tighter, the guest list smaller, the partying pared down.

That much, the correspondents’ association can control.

What remains out of its control — and perhaps the biggest question — is what the dinner’s most prominent guest, President Donald Trump, will bring to the table.

Call it White House Dinner 2.0, or Take Two, or, in Trump’s own words, a “HOT ticket.”

The big unknown is whether Trump will bring the fighting words (“rather nasty,” he said) against the press he’d planned to deliver in April — before the event descended into chaos when a gunman stormed a security checkpoint, forcing an evacuation of the room.

▶ Read more

The latest import duties might stick

Wendy Cutler, a former senior U.S. trade official, said the latest round of tariffs involved “few surprises” since they range just between 10% and 12.5%.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office spent four months investigating the basis for those tariffs to meet legal requirements under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974.

“Time will tell whether the third attempt to impose tariffs is the charm and this action stands up to legal challenges,” said Cutler, senior vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

These duties are less likely than earlier ones to be overruled by U.S. courts, she said.

Further tariffs may be coming in the fall related to alleged structural excess capacity of trading partners, she noted.

China opposes unilateral tariffs in ‘all forms’

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “opposes all forms of unilateral tariffs” in response to the new 12.5% tariffs, reiterating a longstanding statement by Beijing.

“Tariff wars and trade wars do not serve any parties’ interests,” ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular news conference.

Trade tensions have clouded relations between China and the U.S., two of the world’s biggest economies, as Trump’s hefty “Liberation Day” tariffs resulted in a sharp drop in Chinese exports to the U.S.

Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who agreed to set up new boards of trade and investment at their mid-May meeting in Beijing, are expected to meet again in September.

“They not only tackled him, not only tased him, not only kicked him, but you saw they shot him three times in his head and other parts of his body,” Crump said.

He spoke at an emotional news conference with Ruiz's mother, siblings and 13-year-old daughter, Kah’liyah Aliomar.

Ruiz, 38, was killed on a busy city street Wednesday, just a couple of blocks away from his daughter's home and along the route she walks to school. Police say Ruiz pulled a knife during a struggle with four officers, injuring one of them. That officer then fired the shots, according to police. All four officers have been placed on administrative leave pending a state investigation, and the officer who fired the shots has not yet been identified.

Aliomar cried as she described learning of her father’s death.

“My heart was broken and hurt so much knowing I can’t see my father anymore,” she said.

His mother Elsa Ruiz said she never imagined she would have to bury her son.

“He was my love. He loved his daughter, he loved his family. He did not deserve to be taken out like that. They took my baby from me,” she said, sobbing.

The family promised to seek justice for Ruiz’s death, which Crump called an unjustified “execution.”

“Anytime there is excessive use of force, there should be accountability,” Crump said. He said it was “shocking on every level.”

The shooting was captured on cellphone video that was widely shared online, though Madison Police Chief John Patterson cautioned Thursday that the video did not show the altercation from the police officers’ perspective.

But unlike nearly every other similarly sized city, Madison doesn’t require its police to use body-worn cameras, so there is no footage from the officers’ perspective. Over the last decade city officials have repeatedly debated adopting the cameras — at times creating subcommittees and doing studies on the idea — but local officials have primarily blamed budget concerns and political inertia for the ongoing stalemate.

Another common source of opposition, identified in a 2021 feasibility study, came from community groups worried the cameras would be used to surveil and criminalize marginalized groups. Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said Thursday that she expects the new budget that takes effect in January to include funding for body-worn cameras.

“Thank God there was video,” Crump said. “If there wasn’t video, imagine what the narrative would have been.”

Wisconsin court records show Ruiz had been in and out of jail over the past decade for mostly misdemeanor offenses including disorderly conduct, drug possession, auto theft, battery and invasion of privacy. He was also convicted of felonies including possession of cocaine and marijuana, robbery, strangulation, resisting an officer and causing bodily harm.

“People are saying he’s a criminal. So what? He had a family, he had me,” Aliomar said, breaking down into tears.

Police said they were at the street to investigate reports that someone was trying to enter parked cars, something Crump said amounted to only the suspicion of a low-level property crime.

“I need somebody to help me understand why they felt it was OK to execute my brother based on no facts at all,” Veronica Ruiz said. “I hope everyone continues to support and come together and find justice for him.”

The police chief has released few details about the shooting. Patterson said Thursday that a Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation probe must run its course. A separate investigation by the city’s independent police monitor is also underway.

“The situation was clearly dangerous,” Patterson said, and that he did not know the extent of the knife injuries sustained by the officer. He also said he wanted transparency and accountability in the investigation.

The killing sparked protests, calls for justice from elected officials and anger from a community where police have killed three people in the same neighborhood since 2012.

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This story has been updated to correct that Corey Ruiz's daughter's last name is Aliomar, not Ruiz.

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Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.

The ouster of Karim Khan comes at a time when the court is already facing daunting challenges, including a campaign by the United States to “dismantle” the ICC, which was established to prosecute people responsible for humanity’s worst crimes.

By a large majority, the ICC’s 125-member states voted to remove Khan, a British barrister, for “serious misconduct and serious breach of duty,” the court’s oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties, said in a statement.

“The ICC should hold itself to the highest standards. This includes ensuring a safe workplace with effective and credible mechanisms available to staff or others who experience abuse, including sexual violence or harassment,” Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The 56-year-old Khan was accused of sexual misconduct with a female aide, as outlined by the AP in a series of stories, allegations he has steadfastly denied. According to documents seen by the AP, Khan engaged in a sexual relationship with the woman and tried to prevent her from pursuing her allegations.

The oversight body will now need to hold elections for a new prosecutor, someone who is likely to face sanctions by the Trump administration, which has already brought the force of financial penalties and travel bans on 13 members of staff, including Khan.

Khan's lawyers criticized the process leading to his ouster, complaining that he was blocked from addressing the session Friday and arguing the regulations had been rewritten to disadvantage him.

Khan's “removal was determined by a process in which he was never given a fair opportunity to be heard, and in defiance of the conclusions of the independent judges who examined the full evidential record,” attorney Tayab Ali said in a statement. He said Khan's legal team would challenge the decision “through all available legal mechanisms."

The decision comes at a time when the global tribunal is under enormous pressure.

In a statement last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. was launching a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.”

Rubio said he will pressure member states to withdraw from the institution, sanction organizations that work with the court and ban staff from traveling to the United States. Countries that “enjoy the benefits of the U.S. security umbrella” will be called upon to reject the court’s jurisdiction over U.S. citizens, Rubio said.

Hours after Friday's vote, Venezuela announced it would withdraw from the court. “Venezuela considers that the Court’s actions reflect a demonstrated geographical bias, which has disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American countries, to the detriment of the Global South,” Félix Plasencia, the country’s foreign affairs minister announced in a statement.

Earlier this year, prosecutors at the court announced they were dropping an investigation into whether U.S. sanctions against Venezuela qualified as crimes against humanity, citing a lack of evidence. A separate investigation into possible crimes committed by Venezuelan security forces under former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will continue.

Trump’s administration already has brought sanctions against Khan and a dozen other ICC staff in retaliation for warrants the court has issued for top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the war in Gaza and investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

The allegations against Khan have become entwined with the court’s investigation into the war in Gaza, experts said.

“Political considerations have been folded into this, especially as it is the first time a prosecutor has pursued warrants against a Western ally,” Iva Vukusic, a researcher at Utrecht University who has been following the process, told the AP.

Khan's removal will have no immediate impact on the arrest warrants in 2024 for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity, which can only be withdrawn by ICC judges.

Before ending the closed session, Kaukoranta called for the international community to respect “the dignity and privacy of all those involved” in the case regarding Khan.

“I expressed my deep appreciation to the assembly of states parties for the diligent consideration of this difficult matter, and for the spirit of unity shown in upholding the integrity of the court,” she said.

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Quell reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Amiri reported from New York.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the outbreak first tied to shredded lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants now includes Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. Previously the agency's investigation included five states: Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

The CDC, Food and Drug Administration and state health officials have been tracing the supply of the lettuce and interviewing people across the nation about the foods they ate two weeks before getting sick.

The number of cases linked to the lettuce is now 1,947, including at least 98 people who had to be hospitalized. There have been no deaths, the agency reported on its website.

The total number of people sickened by the outbreak is likely higher than the official tally, given that not all cases are reported, the agency noted.

FDA officials earlier this week said they remain focused on lettuce from Taylor Farms as the source of the multistate outbreak. The company last week announced it was recalling iceberg lettuce grown in central Mexico.

Asked when it would be safe to eat lettuce again, Trump said Friday that his government is “going to put a major tariff on tax on Mexico because of the lettuce.”

On Thursday, the FDA announced it was investigating a separate outbreak of cyclospora reported in 72 people. Regulators had not yet identified the products linked to the illnesses.

Overall, cyclospora cases have set a U.S. record. Since May 1, CDC has received reports of more than 4,100 laboratory-confirmed cases and is investigating more than 7,400 other likely cases across 41 states. Federal health officials have said that other “brands, restaurants, retailers, or distribution channels” could be tied to the outbreak as the investigation continues.

Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that infects food that has come into contact with human feces, most commonly when produce is irrigated or washed with contaminated water. When ingested, the parasite causes intestinal illness marked by “frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the CDC.

Mexican health officials announced Thursday that the parasite was not detected in the lettuce or water at the Taylor Farms plant in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

The results were announced following a visit by Mexican health authorities to the Taylor Farms plant between July 18 and 20, during which 10 samples of iceberg lettuce were collected. Four water samples also were collected for analysis, authorities stated.

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Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this story from Mexico City. Fatima Hussein contributed from Washington.

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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.

Miles, 17, of Knoxville, Tennessee, is one of more than 500 incoming first-year students at Howard who learned this week that they have been unenrolled from the prestigious, historically Black Washington, D.C., university and no longer have spots for the upcoming fall semester that begins Aug. 17.

Many have taken to social media — some in tears — to share their stories. Some posts have gone viral.

After Miles learned she had been unenrolled, her mother, Kendra Miles, said the school's automated system would not allow the family to enroll in a payment plan because the amount that was owed made them ineligible to sign up.

“I’ve reached out since we got the email (Wednesday). I've emailed, literally, everybody," Kendra Miles said. “I emailed her adviser. He responded and said it wasn't a mistake and there was nothing they could do.”

On Friday, Howard confirmed in an email that the school sent notifications to “502 first-time-in-college students whose accounts did not reflect the required enrollment and financial obligations by the previously communicated deadlines."

Starting in March, the unenrolled students began receiving specific communications about enrollment requirements, payment expectations and deadlines via email and orientation sessions, the school said.

“The university recognizes that timing differences may have occurred between when financial aid was reflected and when charges were finalized,” Howard said in the email. “Students who believe their account did not accurately reflect their financial standing at the deadline should contact the Bursar’s Office. Each case will be reviewed individually to determine whether adjustments or reinstatement are appropriate.”

Howard, one of about 100 historically Black colleges and universities in the United States, had an undergraduate enrollment last fall of about 11,000. The average annual tuition for undergraduate students living on campus is about $38,000. Housing costs are about $13,600.

Colleges try to walk a fine line

Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said colleges generally try to walk a fine line in making sure students can enroll, but also making sure students pay their bills.

Howard “either had students who owed a lot of money and they didn’t think a lot of students would pay, or potentially, they have a really big incoming class and they can replace those students,” Kelchen said.

Laverne Mickens coaches students and their families on how to apply for college scholarships. Mickens said that she answered more than 400 emails Wednesday and Thursday from students and families impacted by the enrollment situation at Howard. She said most of them were strangers and they were “frantic and crying.”

Students and parents are upset

“People are devastated,” said Mickens who runs The Scholarship College Mama LLC, which is not affiliated with Howard. “Parents are saying: ‘Can you help us? Howard unenrolled us.’ ”

A'Zariah Miles, who plans to major in biology, chose Howard over other schools that accepted her. Now, she is worried that it is too deep into the summer to enroll elsewhere.

“Everybody’s housing is booked, or I can’t enroll because it’s too late or I missed orientation,” she said. “I've been trying to continue to have hope with Howard, but I don't really have that much time before school starts and I don't really want to have a gap year.”

Like Miles and others, Saniah Collins learned Wednesday that she no longer was enrolled at Howard.

“My mom is part of a parent group chat,” said Collins, 17, of Atlanta. “That day we learned that a lot of students were getting unenrolled."

Collins received an email from the school Wednesday afternoon that said a July 10 deadline to pay her tuition balance or make payment arrangements had passed and the school no longer could hold her place.

But Collins said she was also told by an adviser that most of her balance for the fall semester was paid. She's not giving up.

“I worked like crazy to get into this school,” Collins said. “Howard has been my everything. My whole senior year, my whole summer I worked consistently on scholarships. We tried to make ourselves 10 steps ahead to make sure we were on the right page.”

Given that HBCUs are seen as caring and nurturing places for Black students, the mass removal of students from Howard’s fall enrollment is a bad look for the school, said Marybeth Gasman, an expert in higher education at Rutgers University.

“If it were me and it was over 500 students, I wouldn’t have done it in one day,” Gasman said. “I would have also done the due diligence of going through each one. Now, they are going to have to go back and do that.”

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Williams is as member of AP’s Race & Ethnicity team. He reported from Detroit.

Garcia’s statement came late Friday as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus held an oversight hearing in Houston focused on the recent deadly incidents involving ICE.

“We can now confirm that the substance found in Lorenzo Salgado’s van was not a narcotic or any other illicit substance. As his family has said all along, this was an electrolyte powder to stay hydrated working outside in the hot Texas summer. The attempt to cast a shadow over Lorenzo Salgado’s name has failed,” Garcia wrote on X.

KPRC 2 News has reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for additional information, but a spokesperson said Friday they had nothing to share at this time.

Background of the allegations

Salgado Araujo’s family had pushed back against allegations stemming from an FBI search warrant which stated investigators found several bags containing what appeared to be a “white crystal-like substance” that an agent believed was consistent with methamphetamine.

“Lorenzo and narcotics were never in the same sentence. It never would happen,” immigration attorney Ruby Powers told KPRC 2 News at the time. She represents Lorenzo’s brother, Victor Salgado Araujo.

In a statement, Powers said the family believed the substance was granulated salt mixed with lemon and water as a homemade electrolyte drink commonly used by outdoor workers.

• RELATED: Family says ‘crystal-like substance’ found in Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s work van was homemade electrolyte mix, not drugs

“After consulting with my client and his family, our understanding is that this was granulated salt, which is paired with lemon and water as a homemade electrolyte mix used by outdoor workers in extreme Texas heat, not methamphetamine or any other illicit substance,” Powers said.

Powers emphasized that the FBI affidavit was part of a request for a search warrant and did not establish that a crime had occurred.

“A search warrant does not equate to guilt. An unidentified substance is not a confirmed narcotic,” she said.

In an interview with KPRC 2 News, Powers said Victor Salgado Araujo was shocked and angry at the government’s claims.

“He didn’t even know what meth was,” Powers said. “He’s already detained. He already lost his brother. And now you’re trying to insinuate that he’s involved with drugs, trying to discredit who he is.”

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare also publicly questioned the significance of the FBI affidavit during an interview with CNN.

Teare said investigators from his office were present while the FBI executed the search warrant and that, based on what his office had seen, “we don’t believe that they are drugs.”

Statement from Ruby Powers

Powers released a statement Friday following Garcia’s social media post:

“From the beginning, the Salgado Araujo family told us the substance found in Lorenzo’s van was not an illicit drug. We expect the full lab results on Monday, which will confirm exactly what the substance is. We learned this from the family, who were told that DPS has the result. The preliminary report is already clear: the substance was not a controlled substance. An unproven claim was allowed to circulate before it was tested, and the way it was made public did real damage, diverting attention from what actually matters in this case. Lorenzo was shot, and no lab report answers for that. His brother Victor is a witness to that killing, and he remains in ICE custody. Justice for Lorenzo is release for Victor. We continue to call for his release so he can participate fully in the investigation, and for an independent investigation into how Lorenzo died. We want the truth to reach as many people as the accusation did, because Lorenzo deserves that much.”

“ @KingJames hey bro hope you’re having a good day...... Want to join us in philly?? Peace," Embiid wrote.

His recruitment skills were on point and James — the four-time NBA champion and career scoring leader — will join Embiid in a startling turn of events on the Philadelphia 76ers.

Ok, fine, just a short 12 years after the July 1, 2014, post.

The 76ers expect James to be worth the wait and hope he can win an NBA championship in Philadelphia much as he did in his previous three stops in Cleveland, Miami and with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The 76ers are used to playing the long game. The franchise hasn't won an NBA championship since 1983, when Julius Erving still soared and a year before James was born.

Certainly not as dominant as he was in his MVP heyday, LeBron James is still, well LeBron James and his addition should lift any team mired in the NBA mucky middle such as the Sixers into contention.

Throw him into in a lineup that includes a league MVP in Embiid, All-Stars Tyrese Maxey and Jaylen Brown, and promising second-year standout VJ Edgecombe, and it's no shock the Sixers moved up few a few pegs Friday on the betting board and into the short list of favorites for an NBA title.

Just not the favorite.

James is again chasing a ring and his arrival on a two-year deal for the veterans' minimum of about $3.9 million per season shook up the Sixers and put the Eastern Conference on notice — yes, even the NBA champion Knicks — that a real championship contender might finally emerge in Philly.

The 76ers won the offseason

Here they come, team of the year?

The Sixers earned straight A's on their summer school report card even before James said he would sign with team.

The Sixers fired team president Daryl Morey and replaced him with longtime Cleveland executive Mike Gansey, who came out swinging for the fences in his first month on the job. He pulled off the shocker of a trade with Boston that landed them Brown — the 2024 NBA Finals MVP, a five-time All-Star and the league’s fourth-leading scorer this past season.

It's difficult to fathom that an oft-injured Embiid — who won Olympic gold with James — and Maxey alone would have been enough to coax James to Philadelphia.

But adding a stud like Brown?

Brown surely played a key deciding factor in James' decision — his “last” one, he says — and now the Sixers boast perhaps the top starting five in the NBA.

And boy, what a bargain.

There are some caveats, of course.

James turns 42 in December and there are a lot of miles on those legs. James battled injuries last season and played in only 60 games. Embiid has never been reliable with only 57 combined games played the last two seasons, and the Sixers have churned through a slew of imported stars over the last decade — James Harden, Jimmy Butler, Paul George — and still haven't advanced out of the second round since 2001.

There's only one ball and a lot of talent that has the resume to command it.

But with apologies to Wilt Chamberlain, many, many apologies, James becomes the most accomplished player to ever wear a 76ers uniform.

He won't be alone in that No. 23 uniform — Fanatics sold out almost instantly of his jerseys on Friday.

It’s also a big win for front office boss Bob Myers, who openly pitched for James to sign in Philadelphia on his agent’s podcast and won four championships as a Golden State Warriors executive.

The balance of power shifts in the East. Not by much

The Sixers ended their season with a second-round sweep to Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and the NBA champion Knicks.

The Knicks are still the team to beat. By talent, by virtue of winning it all and, at least out of the East, the betting favorite to again reach the NBA Finals.

The Knicks have largely stayed pat while other hopeful contenders went for major moves.

The Heat — hey, when exactly is that presser? — like their chances after they traded with Milwaukee for Giannis Antetokounmpo. The two-time MVP was the latest on a long list of superstar acquisitions made since Pat Riley arrived to take over as team president in 1995.

Much like the Sixers before they acquired Brown, the Heat are a two-star team with Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo. Antetokounmpo, Adebayo and James would have made them a new Big 3, much like when James won titles in Miami with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

Toronto is hopeful for a resolution to their held-up trade with the Los Angeles Clippers that should land them Kawhi Leonard. The trade is on hold pending the outcome of the NBA’s investigation into whether the Clippers circumvented salary cap rules.

It's a bad day for Cleveland

The Cavaliers would have loved a sentimental third tour with James and have the franchise's greatest player eventually retire in Cleveland.

James instead left the Cavaliers in a lurch, and they have to hope they can re-sign 36-year-old James Harden as part of a lineup that includes Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell.

They will be projected to finish behind the Knicks and 76ers in the East.

Don't forget, Detroit won 60 games last season and would like to prove its early playoff exit was a part of the growing pains of a contender.

LeBron's legacy

Look, James' legacy is set and not even a flameout in Philly is going to change his indelible stamp on the game from the court to the cash register.

There is one major mark he could hit should he send the Sixers on a parade route down Broad Street. He would become the first player to win NBA titles with four teams.

Sixers coach Nick Nurse turned 59 on Friday and there's no better professional gift he could have received than LeBron James.

Purchased on a discount rack.

Look for LeBron on opening night in New York. Look for LeBron on a Christmas game in Philadelphia. Look for LeBron to keep Sixers' tickets sky high on the secondary market even on nights when Embiid sits.

Look for the ride of a lifetime in Philadelphia where the franchise wants to reach the sky again just like it did with Dr. J.

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

Several consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures are possible, while heat index values could reach around 107 to 110 degrees. Overnight lows near 80 will provide little relief, increasing the risk of heat stress through the upcoming workweek.

Tonight’s Forecast:

Friday night will stay warm and muggy under partly cloudy skies. Temperatures will only fall into the upper 70s, with a light south breeze and no meaningful relief from the humidity.

Weekend Forecast:

Saturday will be mostly sunny, hot and humid, with a high near 96 degrees. Sunday turns even hotter, with temperatures climbing close to 100 degrees. Rain chances remain very low, so outdoor plans should stay dry, but anyone spending extended time outside will need frequent breaks, water and shade.

High pressure dome will keep a sizzling forecast:

A very stout ridge of high pressure is strengthening across the Central Plains and will be the dominant weather pattern for us for the next 7-12 days.

Once these high pressure ridges get into place, they are usually very strong and do not move for a number of days. We will likely see this high keeping our temperatures pushing close to 100 each afternoon for the next week and maybe longer. Rain chances will be very minimal.

Next Week’s Forecast:

The most intense heat arrives next week as a strong ridge of high pressure settles over the region. Houston is forecast to reach 100 degrees Monday, followed by highs around 101 to 102 degrees through Friday.

Heat index values could reach 107 to 110 degrees each afternoon, and overnight lows near 80 will offer very little recovery. Heat advisories will likely be needed during at least part of the week.

The tropics will stay quiet:

We’ll get long break from our next storm. There is nothing brewing in the tropics for the next seven to ten days.

10 Day Forecast:

The forecast remains mostly dry through the middle of next week as temperatures surge into the triple digits. Thursday and Friday currently look like the hottest days, with highs near 102 degrees. A slight increase in clouds and moisture could bring temperatures back into the upper 90s next weekend, but there is no major cooldown in sight.

According to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office’s arrest report, Romo performed poorly on field sobriety tests after getting stopped while driving south on Interstate 43 on Thursday. Sheriff’s officials said Romo was taken into custody, booked and released.

He has a court appearance set for Sept. 21.

Romo went to high school about 35 miles from Milwaukee in Burlington, Wisconsin.

The 46-year-old Romo has been the lead game analyst for CBS’ NFL coverage since 2017 after making four Pro Bowl appearances during an NFL career that ran from 2004-16 and was spent entirely with Dallas.

CBS had no comment regarding the arrest.

Romo remains the Cowboys’ franchise leader in career touchdown passes with 248. He held the franchise record for career passing yards (34,183) until Dak Prescott overtook him last season.

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

According to the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office’s arrest report, Romo performed poorly on field sobriety tests after getting stopped while driving south on Interstate 43 on Thursday. Sheriff’s officials said Romo was taken into custody, booked and released.

He has a court appearance set for Sept. 21.

Romo went to high school about 35 miles from Milwaukee in Burlington, Wisconsin.

The 46-year-old Romo has been the lead game analyst for CBS’ NFL coverage since 2017 after making four Pro Bowl appearances during an NFL career that ran from 2004-16 and was spent entirely with Dallas.

CBS had no comment regarding the arrest.

Romo remains the Cowboys’ franchise leader in career touchdown passes with 248. He held the franchise record for career passing yards (34,183) until Dak Prescott overtook him last season.

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

Firefighters and authorities in both European countries were caught off guard by the virulence of the fires, which were fueled by high temperatures and the long-term effects of climate change. Firefighters in Spain admitted the fires were so fast and violent that they could not be tackled head on. Some people even fled by boat when flames swept through the touristic area on France’s Atlantic coast.

Some 141,000 fled homes in the Gironde and Landes departments in France, the French interior ministry said. In central Spain, 60,000 were forced from their homes, according to the Spanish interior ministry.

Dozens of French firefighters were injured, authorities said, but no deaths were reported in either country despite the scenes of panic as townsfolk fled by car and police went door to door to tell people to leave as large plumes of smoke rose from the neighboring woodlands.

Wildfire headed toward Bordeaux

France’s Interior minister Laurent Nunez said that the large wildfire that ravaged large swaths of land in southwestern France in now heading toward the city of Bordeaux.

Speaking to French TV channel Tf1, Nunez said the wildfire that earlier in the day forced the evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula has swept across 140 square kilometers, with 110,000 people fleeing their homes in the Gironde region.

“We learned in the middle of the afternoon that, following the wind shift, it had become a large, self-sustaining fire that is extremely difficult to bring under control,” Nunez said. “It is now moving east, toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area. We are going to reorganize our response so we can fight it from the ground and prevent it from advancing toward Bordeaux.”

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron has asked the Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to activate the government’s crisis response unit, and has instructed the armed forces to mobilize in order to provide the maximum possible reinforcement to the civilian emergency services.

“This fire that we have been living with and fighting against here in Gironde for three days has reached an unprecedented magnitude," Sophie Brocas, the Nouvelle Aquitaine Prefect, said. “To combat it, we will receive extremely significant national reinforcements.”

The blaze started on Wednesday near Cap Ferret peninsula on France’s Atlantic coast, located 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Bordeaux. Local authorities in the Gironde department said 53 homes and a campsite were destroyed, adding that 42 firefighters were injured. Around 1,500 people who fled the peninsula arrived by sea in the city of Arcachon, some aboard small water taxis and others on larger boats.

“It’s quite impressive and even frightening," said Laurent Moretti, a resident in the town of Arès. “An evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control.”

A separate wildfire broke out in Landes, causing 31,000 evacuations. Authorities believe the cause of both of fires in France were accidental.

More than 20,000 people had already been evacuated from towns and vacation resorts on Thursday, but that number exploded on Friday as both France and Spain asked fellow European Union members for help.

Macron said France will receive EU reinforcements including two Croatian Canadair firefighting aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor aircraft, and two heavy-lift Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that Italy and Greece are each sending two Canadair water-dumping airplanes, while a thousand Spanish soldiers helped firefighting efforts.

Spain struggles to tackle multiple fires amid a heatwave

In Spain, the government declared a national emergency for wildfires for the first time as the blazes in Madrid and the nearby province of Ávila prompted the evacuation of some 60,000 people from towns west of the capital.

“I want to send a message of support to the thousands of families who face a difficult night ahead,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who will visit the fire-ravaged area on Saturday, wrote on X.

The fires are being fanned by a heat wave with temperatures expected to top 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit).

Two major fires near Madrid merged into one single blaze that had quickly charred 30 square kilometers (11.5 square miles) by Friday afternoon. Regional President Isabel Díaz-Ayuso called it the worst in Madrid's history.

Francisco Martín, the central government representative for the region of Madrid, said that another 20,000 people had been ordered to shelter at home. Martín said more evacuations could be coming and that the priority now was to protect the town of San Lorenzo, the home of the Escorial, Philip II's 16th-century royal palace and monastery.

Meanwhile, a blaze in Ávila, less than two hours northwest of Madrid, consumed 90 square kilometers (34 square miles). Spain's Civil Guard arrested one man and is investigating another for allegedly having used heavy machinery in an area where it was prohibited for fire risk. Police believe a spark ignited the fire on Thursday.

“All around the town was smoke and fire, I was scared. Everything was fire and smoke, people were nervous,” 33-year-old Joaquin Espinosa said before he and his neighbors were evacuated from the village of Chapinería.

Devastating summer for fires in Spain

In one week, Spain has had the worst fires on record for both the regions of Castilla La Mancha and Madrid.

Firefighters were still trying to extinguish Spain’s second-largest ever fire in the Guadalajara province of Castilla La Mancha after it had destroyed some 320 square kilometers (120 square miles) over the last week. Thirteen people were also killed in a fire in southern Spain earlier this month, the deadliest fire in recent memory for Spain.

Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen said that Spain has seen 1,140 square kilometers (440 square miles) already burned this year, more than five times the burned terrain it had through the first half of 2025.

Spain has experienced record temperatures in recent summers and forest fires of increasing violence.

Wildfire analyst Raúl Quílez said that besides the impact of climate change, Spain’s rural areas have become more exposed to fires with the abandonment of farmlands that traditionally provided buffer zones around villages. Now, he said, trees and undergrowth often reach right to homes, putting them in harm’s way.

"That makes a perfect cocktail for this type of fires,” Quílez told The Associated Press by phone from Valencia, where he works as an analyst for regional firefighters.

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Alicia León in Chapinería, Spain, contributed to this story. Petrequin reported from Paris. Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.

The decision by the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will need to be approved by the full organization, which is scheduled to meet in August.

Nevada is expected to follow South Carolina, with New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia rounding out the early-state calendar. Those states will wield outsized influence in the nominating contest before Super Tuesday, when voters across a large group of states cast presidential primary ballots.

“This calendar will battle test our candidates, ensure our nominee can appeal to broad swaths of the electorate and this calendar will allow voters, not money, but voters to be the ultimate decider,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said after the vote.

The overhaul reflects Democrats’ effort to give greater influence to states that better mirror the party’s diverse coalition, particularly Black and Latino voters, after years of a calendar led by Iowa and New Hampshire, two states with overwhelmingly white electorates.

But hopes of emerging from Friday’s meeting with a party unified around one map were dashed by anger from states that had previously led the process. Rita Hart, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, said she was disappointed but not surprised by Friday’s calendar vote, which she called “very messy” and a sign that the national party is “out of touch with voters.”

There was more angst in New Hampshire, where the secretary of state is required by law to schedule its presidential primary at least seven days before any other state holds a similar contest, setting up a potential conflict with the DNC calendar.

“The Democratic National Committee’s decision today is wrong for Democrats, wrong for New Hampshire, and wrong for the country,” said a group of congressional leaders in New Hampshire, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.

Democrats elevate more diverse states

Democrats opted to lead with South Carolina after President Joe Biden successfully pushed to move the state to the front of Democrats’ 2024 calendar after the state revived his struggling 2020 presidential campaign. South Carolina has long been the first Southern contest and has served as a key test of candidates’ support among Black voters.

Jaime Harrison, a former DNC chair in attendance Friday, told The Associated Press after the vote that keeping his home state first on Democrats’ nominating calendar signaled to Black voters the value they bring to the party, especially after a Supreme Court decision aimed at weakening their voting power.

“I think we needed a strong statement to say to the most loyal members of our party, which are Black voters, that we’re going to stand up with you,” said Harrison, who also chaired South Carolina's Democratic Party. “It was just really important for us to stand up and say, ’We see you, we hear you, but most importantly, we’re gonna fight like hell for you. And your voices are important.'”

Much of Friday's debate stood as a contrast on several fronts. South Carolina proponents argued they had the experience to stand up a lead-off primary, and served as a showcase for the Black voters whose support has become vital for Democrats.

“Black voters didn't just show up for this party in 2020. They saved us,” Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb said, in making her argument for South Carolina. "They saved our entire country from Donald Trump.”

Nevada's supporters, meanwhile, portrayed their state as the party's future, in which they argued Latino voters play a larger and larger role.

“We are the battleground state," said Artie Blanco of Nevada, a DNC vice chair. "We win elections because we leave no voter untouched.”

Republicans still need to do their calendar. They’re expected to stick with their traditional early-state lineup led off by Iowa and New Hampshire.

Anger emerges from states that are not selected

Iowa has long led both parties' calendars with caucuses. Hart declined to say whether Iowa Democrats will defy the national party in 2028. She said they will wait until after the state’s midterm races when Democrats hope to make recently unattainable gains in the increasingly conservative state.

“We’re going to win elections here, and then we’re going to tell them what we’re going to do,” said Scott Brennan, who formerly represented Iowa on the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee.

New Hampshire Democrats similarly would not commit Friday to following the new calendar.

“This committee’s vote does not change the realities governing New Hampshire’s primary, which are beyond the control of both this committee and our state party,” said New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley.

Asked about some states not committing to the new calendar, Martin said the party will “have to cross that bridge when we get there.”

“We got some time, and the calendar was just set here,” said Martin.

The new map will shape the opening stage of what is expected to be a crowded Democratic presidential primary. Without an incumbent or clear front-runner, the states that vote first could once again play an outsized role in determining which candidates gain momentum, attract donors and emerge as viable contenders.

The calendar decision is one of the first milestones in what's expected to be a tumultuous two-year sprint to the Democratic nomination.

There has not been a truly open Democratic presidential primary — without an incumbent president or a dominant front-runner — in almost two decades.

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Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed reporting.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C., and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

Clark called her conversation with Obama “a moment I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.”

“It was obviously super cool. He just complimented me for the way that I handle everything, obviously with everything that’s been going on,” the Indiana Fever star said Friday after meeting Obama. “He’s somebody that has been in front of the media quite a bit and he reminded me, ‘When I got famous in my 40s, I didn’t have to do it in my 20s.’"

Obama spoke to the players for a few minutes on the basketball court at the center which opened last month.

“Some of you I’m meeting for the first time. All of you are extraordinary and I could not be bigger fans,” Obama said. “The way the game has been growing lately, the way it’s been picking up and people paying attention to your excellence, I think it’s been something for basketball fans, generally, a sight to see. It’s been making me happy.”

He spoke to the players for a few minutes before taking a group photo. Obama then spent about 10 minutes shaking hands with the players and taking photos with them, including Clark.

“I know many of you are involved in some wonderful ventures off the court, looking out for other young people and inspiring them. I just wanted to say thanks,” Obama said.

The former president gave a shout out to A’ja Wilson in his talk to the players and then went over and chatted with her as well.

After the photo-ops were done, Obama stepped on the court and talked with New York Liberty star Jonquel Jones, getting down in a defensive stance for a few seconds on her.

“I feel like as a hooper, you know when someone’s challenging you. So I was just like, let me go over there with the basketball, you know, do a little cross, bump him a little bit," Jones said. “And I knew that I would get him activated a little because he’s a hooper, too.”

Jones said she had met Obama once before.

“He’s a role model for me and it was nice to be able to have that moment,” Jones said. “Someone that I look up to, someone that has paved the way for a lot of people to be here and see him continuing, his family continuing to give back to the community when they’ve already done so much is just so inspirational.”

That was the extent of his time on the court. He told the players that he didn’t play 5-on-5 anymore to protect his Achilles. He did say that he broke in the court with a game of “horse.”

Obama was the first sitting U.S. President to attend a WNBA game when he and his daughter, Sasha, sat courtside in 2010 for a Washington Mystics game. He also has hosted many of them at the White House after they either won WNBA championships or NCAA titles.

Obama was gifted with a No. 44 WNBA All-Star jersey that the players were going to autograph later.

This was the first professional sport to use the basketball court at the center, which opened in June. Obama went to the NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles in February. Obama said he unfortunately wasn’t going to be able to make the All-Star Game on Saturday because of a previous engagement with his wife, Michelle.

“It’s fitting for our 30th anniversary that we’re here as the first sports league to play in the Obama Presidential Center,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said. “Someone who has inspired hundreds of millions of people to dream big and accomplish things like President Obama has and his tie to basketball is amazing, too. I think there’s no more fitting person to be meeting with the players.”

After talking to the players, Obama went across the center to talk to a group of investors in the league and nearly 100 high school girls to talk.

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

Abbott said a person attempting to drive through floodwaters was swept away Monday.

The governor went to the city of Cotulla, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio, for a flyover to assess the damage of floodwaters he said have left some areas of the city still unreachable. The Nueces River reached major flood stage at 29 feet (8.8 meters), but has crested and is expected to continue to decline.

Other areas downstream will continue to see waters rise into early August, notably at the Lake Corpus Christi reservoir, Abbott said.

“Anyone living, working, commuting or just walking around areas downstream of the Nueces ... needs to be aware of possible dangers,” Abbott said.

The Central Texas area was pounded by rain for several days last week. Tropical Storm Bertha made landfall Thursday, but Abbott said state officials had not received any new reports of flooded homes or businesses from that storm.

The governor has already issued a disaster declaration for 59 counties and requested federal disaster help for 33 counties.

As Texas Monthly’s Taco Editor, Ralat has spent years traveling the Lone Star State, tasting thousands of tacos and sharing the stories behind the restaurants, families, and traditions that make Texas one of the country’s premier taco destinations. He even helped create the unique role after pitching the idea to the magazine for several years before officially becoming Taco Editor in 2019.

That passion is on full display as Texas Monthly prepares for Taco Fest South, a celebration of tacos, Mexican culture, music, and art featuring some of the state’s best taquerias, including several from Houston. The festival gives taco lovers the chance to sample restaurants featured in Texas Monthly’s prestigious 50 Best Tacos in Texas and 25 Best New (and Improved) lists.

Among the Houston restaurants earning recognition in the magazine’s latest 25 Best New list is Huncho’s Tacos, a family-owned restaurant that has quickly built a loyal following thanks to its commitment to authentic Mexican flavors and premium ingredients.

For co-owner Shane Allana, the recognition is especially meaningful in a state where tacos are more than just a meal.

“It was major for us because tacos are probably our staple food here in Texas,” Allana said. “José visited several times, tried our Ribeye Taco, and understood our vision.”

Huncho’s Tacos was founded on a simple philosophy: great tacos begin with exceptional ingredients. The restaurant specializes in premium halal meats, fresh house-made salsas, and recipes inspired by taco traditions from across Mexico and Texas.

Their signature Ribeye Taco has become the restaurant’s best-selling item. Built on a handmade corn tortilla, it’s topped with perfectly marbled ribeye, mozzarella cheese, grilled onions, fresh lime, and salsa verde.

Beyond serving great food, Huncho’s celebrates the diversity of Mexican cuisine by featuring tacos inspired by different regions, from Monterrey and Mexico City to Tijuana and Tex-Mex favorites.

Texas Monthly Taco Fest South takes place at Discovery Green and features unlimited taco tastings from participating restaurants, along with live entertainment celebrating Mexican culture. Tickets are available HERE.

Produced by environmental scientists, the report — which the state for more than six months had refused to release — said regulators should have more authority to reject industrial water withdrawal permits, force entities to examine alternative sources of water and clamp down on users who might be using more water than they should be.

The report noted limits around publicly available information on data center water use but did not lay blame with the industry for the concerns raised about the aquifer.

The groundwater supply in Virginia’s populous eastern coastal plain region “is constrained, and current projections indicate declining availability in the near future,” said the report, which Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s office provided to The Associated Press Thursday.

Data centers use water, sometimes in large amounts, to cool their servers. Worries about data centers' impact on the quality and supply of both ground and surface water — and about tech companies’ failures to be as transparent as the public would like — have dogged projects around the country. The issues have become politically explosive heading into the midterm elections.

Perhaps nowhere are those topics more resonant than in Virginia, home to hundreds of data centers with more under development and where the sustainability of groundwater, the supply stored naturally under the earth's surface, in the coastal eastern region has been a long-running concern.

A wide range of interest groups had begun to publicly admonish the governor's administration for withholding the report; those reviewing it Friday said its findings were sobering.

“We’re standing on the ledge,” said Jay Ford, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Virginia policy manager.

Report says lawmakers should tighten regulations

Virginia enacted its first groundwater law in 1973, but legislators acknowledged it was “too permissive” and tightened it in 1992, the report said. The law remains in effect, but the report warns it should be strengthened again.

State Sen. Richard Stuart, a conservative Republican who represents Virginia’s coastal Northern Neck region and has made conservation a cornerstone of his legislative work, said he's been making noise about the issue for at least 15 years. Increasingly, local governments in his district are being told by regulators that they will have to shift to new surface water sources because of the strain on groundwater.

He said the water crunch is happening at the same time as many new data centers are coming online across his district. He wanted more specifics, so he passed a bill requiring the study.

The report found that groundwater withdrawals in the region fell sharply roughly 15 years ago after a paper mill closed, which, along with regulatory efforts, helped water levels rise in the area’s biggest aquifer. Recently, those trends stalled, and levels throughout the aquifer are projected to resume declining, it said.

There likely isn’t enough groundwater to sustainably add any big, new industrial user, according to the study.

The report suggests the Legislature strengthen regulators' permitting authority; require applicants who want to tap large volumes of groundwater first examine surface water or water reuse; require better planning for local water use; and beef up funding for water management staffing and equipment.

Lawmakers should also weigh in on how they want regulators to prioritize drinking water for the public with current law, which directs them to consider protecting current uses.

Stuart said Friday that while he was still processing the more than 100-page report, its summary findings were worrisome, though they will help lawmakers make tough decisions moving forward.

“Folks worry about the lack of the ability for growth. A lot of them are talking about industrial and commercial. I’m worried about our citizens having drinking water, and I’m worried about our seafood industry because they need clean water,” he said.

Data centers would struggle to get a groundwater permit, study finds

The report said most existing and planned data center capacity is located in public water supply service areas that mostly draw from surface water. But it went on to note that no comprehensive public data exists about groundwater-sourced water withdrawals from the facilities.

While it’s also not clear exactly how many data centers are under development in the state’s eastern region, 371 are in operation across the state and another 438 are planned, according to Cleanview, a company that tracks data centers and other power infrastructure development.

The report’s authors performed an analysis to evaluate what hypothetical water withdrawals from a data center would look like and whether they could be permitted.

“Under current conditions, it appears unlikely that a data center with evaporative cooling technology (or any comparable water user) would find a reliable, sufficient groundwater supply anywhere” in the region, the report said.

Groundwater management and quality as more data centers come online has also been a concern in states including Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Georgia and South Carolina.

Administration initially blocked the report's release, but Spanberger says she will act on it

The state’s delay in issuing the report had raised transparency concerns and questions about its contents, partly because of its connection to data centers.

A wide range of advocacy organizations and a committee that advises state regulators on eastern Virginia groundwater issues had begun to raise concerns in June and July about why the report due in January had not yet been made public. Stuart said he had not been able to obtain a copy of it.

The AP sought the report under an open records request, and the Department of Environmental Quality withheld it. After AP requested comment for a story about the refusal to release the report, the governor’s office provided a copy late Thursday night.

Jack Bledsoe, a spokesperson for Spanberger, who took office in January, attributed delays in the report's release to a backlog of outstanding items from the previous governor's administration.

“This report represents the most comprehensive analysis of groundwater resources conducted in Virginia history. Governor Spanberger is committed to working with the General Assembly to carefully evaluate its findings, strengthen the Commonwealth’s groundwater management policies, and protect Virginia’s water supply for future generations,” Bledsoe said.

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Associated Press reporters Michael Phillis in Washington and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

Every major index lost ground overall for the week amid increasing pressure from a sharp escalation in the U.S. war with Iran. Investors are also contending with new tariffs from the Trump administration and worries about the economy suffering under the weight of stubborn inflation.

The S&P 500 barely budged in a day of uneventful trading. It rose 3.68 points, or less than 0.1%, to 7,411.98. The index notched its second consecutive losing week, which hasn't happened since March.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 235.60 points, or 0.5%, to 51,947.25.

The Nasdaq fell 161.87 points, or 0.6%, to 24,975.82. It was weighed down by sharp losses from several big tech stocks.

Micron Technology fell 7% and Broadcom fell 2.7%. Both companies have large market values that tend to weigh more heavily on the market. They were big reasons for the technology-heavy Nasdaq lagging the market, and also why the market's gains were kept in check despite more stocks rising than falling within the S&P 500.

Heavy fighting in the Middle East throughout the week again threatened to slow the global flow of oil and gas. It has been an ongoing concern for Wall Street, and now many of the buffers in the energy market from earlier in the year, including strategic reserves in the U.S., have been weakened.

“If escalation continues and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the impact will land on an energy market with far less resilience than in the spring,” wrote Theodore Bunzel, head of geopolitical advisory at Lazard Asset Management, in a report.

Brent crude, the international standard, fell 3.9% to $96.78. It rose the first four days of the week and moved back above $100 on Thursday. Before the Iran war began in late February it was trading around $72 per barrel.

Bond yields also eased and relieved some of the pressure on stocks. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.68% from 4.71% late Thursday.

Markets in Europe gained ground, while Asian markets closed lower.

The U.S. is also ramping up its global trade war with a fresh round of tariffs on dozens of nations. The new round of tariffs impacts nearly all U.S. imports and they are paid by companies importing those goods, who then typically pass the added costs along to consumers. That move came just as the clock was running out Friday on stopgap levies the president imposed after a stinging defeat for other tariffs at the Supreme Court.

Rising energy prices and fresh tariffs could result in hotter inflation, which has been squeezing consumers and looming over the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy.

The Fed meets next week and has been closely monitoring prices and their impact. Rising inflation dashed hopes earlier this year for an interest rate cut. Wall Street has since leaned more toward a potential rate increase, which the central bank can use to help cool inflation.

Wall Street is anticipating at least one rate hike by the end of the year, with a nearly 38% chance that could happen at the upcoming meeting next week, according to CME FedWatch.

Higher energy costs threaten to take a bigger chunk out of household budgets, which means a shift in spending toward more basic needs, like gasoline. Nationally, a gallon of gasoline costs $4.10 per gallon, according to AAA. That’s still lower than this spring as the conflict in Iran expanded, but it’s almost a dollar higher than last year at this time.

Investors are worried about the impact to companies profits. Those profits and expectations for more growth are what typically justifies a stock's value. The latest round of corporate earnings showed that companies are still notching growth, but concerns are growing.

American Express fell 4.3% despite reporting a jump in profit during its most recent quarter. AmEx maintained its profit forecast for the year and has been spending more heavily to keep wealthy individuals amid more competition.

Worries about the sustainability of broader profits are on top of lingering concerns about AI-focused tech companies. Companies like Alphabet and Nvidia have been spending heavily on AI technology. Investors are increasingly questioning whether those investments will produce profits to justify the large stock values that have been steering the broader market higher throughout the year.

___

AP Business Writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

Assistant Chief James Bryant said officers were called around 9:15 p.m. to an Old Navy near the 5000 block of Westheimer Road for a reported shoplifting.

Police obtained a description of the suspect vehicle and located it near South Rice Avenue and Westpark Drive. Officers attempted to conduct a traffic stop, but the driver refused to stop, prompting a chase.

According to HPD, the suspect vehicle entered the northbound lanes of US-59 and continued toward the Interstate 45 interchange.

As the pursuit approached the interchange, investigators said the dark-colored Chevrolet Tahoe was involved in a minor crash with another vehicle.

• Tropical Storm Bertha in Houston: Everything you need to know to prepare

After the crash, all four females inside the SUV got out and ran across Highway 288, which is also in the same area.

Police said the females successfully crossed the northbound lanes but were attempting to cross the southbound lanes when two of them were struck by passing vehicles.

Both females were pronounced dead at the scene. Houston police later said the two killed are a 15 and 16-year-old girl.

The other two females were detained shortly afterward and are now in police custody.

• Woman’s body found in NE Harris County dumpster after family couldn’t find her

Police also said a tracking device helped officers locate the suspect vehicle during the pursuit.

Police identified one of the two females taken into custody. 30-year-old Deandra Mercedes Cooke, 30, is charged with misdemeanor evading on foot. The other person is 16-years-old and was referred to the Harris County Juvenile Probation Authorities on a charge of evading on foot.

The investigation remains ongoing.

Note: Availability is typically first-come, first-served and may be limited while supplies last. Some events require kids to be present to receive items.

19th Annual Back to School Drive, Health Fair & Business Expo

• When: Saturday, July 25 | 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Where: PlazAmericas Mall 2nd Floor, 201 Sharpstown Center, Houston
• What to know: This is a free, family event giving out 5,000 backpacks and school supplies; free immunizations and medical screenings; health and wellness resources; business expo exhibitors; and family activities.

Operation Backpack (Attorney Brian White) — 3,000 filled backpacks + free entertainment

• When: Saturday, July 25 | 10 a.m.–12 p.m.
• Where: Launch Family Entertainment, 13331 Westheimer Road, Houston, TX 77077
• What to know: Organizers say the event will distribute 3,000 backpacks filled with essential school supplies. Families will also get free admission to Launch during the event, with access to attractions (including trampolines and other activities).
• Details: Backpacks are available while supplies last; children must be present to receive a backpack.

Verizon retailer Round Room “School Rocks” Backpack Giveaway (Houston-area locations)

• When: Sunday, July 26 | Starts at 1 p.m. (lines expected before start)
• Where (Houston area):
• • 3420 7th Street, Bay City
  • 1140 North FM 3083 West Road, Suite 300, Conroe
  • 27117 Fulshear Bend Dr., Ste 200, Fulshear
  • 3351 Clear Lake City Blvd., Ste 600, Houston
• What to know: Round Room, a Verizon authorized retailer, says it is giving away $3 million worth of free backpacks nationwide during its annual “School Rocks” event.

Pasadena to Fill the Bus for Local Students

• When: Monday, July 27 | 8 a.m.-4 p.m.
• Where: Pasadena Convention Center, 7902 Fairmont Parkway, Pasadena
• What to know: The City of Pasadena is collecting donated school supplies for students. Community members will then deliver the supplies throughout the day. Volunteers will receive and organize the donations.

The Mayor’s Back 2 School & Health Fair presented by Shell

• When: Saturday, Aug. 1 | 8 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Where: George R. Brown Convention Center, 1001 Avenida de las Americas, Houston
• What to know: The Houston Mayor’s Office will be holding its 16th annual back-to-school fair with backpack and school supply giveaways in addition to free health/dental screenings and routine immunizations. Make sure to register your student beforehand.

HISD “Ready, Set, School!” Back-to-School Resource Fair & School Supply Giveaway

• When: Saturday, Aug. 1 | 9 a.m.–12 p.m.
• Where: Delmar Fieldhouse, 2020 Mangum Road, Houston, TX 77092
• What to know: Houston ISD says families can receive free backpacks and school supplies, plus free routine health screenings.
• Extras: District teams including enrollment, transportation and nutrition will be available to help families get ready for the school year.

Terry Bryant Accident & Injury Law — $200 gift card giveaway (Texas residents)

This is a statewide drawing (not an in-person Houston backpack event), but it may still help some families.

• What: The firm says it will award 15 Texas residents a $200 gift card through a random drawing.
• Deadline: Runs through 10 a.m. CT on Aug. 19 (per the announcement).

Have a giveaway to add?

Send details (date, time, address, what’s being given away, and any registration requirements) to Desk@kprc.com and we can update this list.

The flood victim was swept away while driving July 20 in Val Verde County, Abbott said during a media briefing in Cotulla, a city about 90 miles southwest of San Antonio

The widespread flooding killed two last week — one person who was driving in Uvalde County, and another whose RV was swept away in Kerr County.

Abbott said earlier this week that as many as 135 homes in Kerry County were destroyed or heavily damaged by the flood, and that the state is continuing to assess the damage it left behind.

Since the flooding began July 12, the state has “provided more than 2,700 personnel, more than 1,400 vehicles, more than 22 boats, more than 20 aircraft,” Abbott said. “And altogether, the state has rescued more than 500 people across our state.”

He said the number of homes damaged is expected to grow in coming days because some areas are still so inundated with water that they’re inaccessible.

Abbott assessed damage from a helicopter earlier Friday and said the area with the most water was Cotulla, where at least 48 homes were  recorded as damaged, but he called it a preliminary number.

“We all know that as soon as the waters recede, evaluators will be able to get in and evaluate more about the properties damaged,” he said. “So, that number is likely to go up.”

Until then, he said, the water is still high as floodwater continues to flow downstream. 

“Once you’re above the Nueces [River], that water is everywhere, and it seems like it just continues to persist,” he said. “We saw destruction to homes. We saw destruction to infrastructure.”

As the six-lane Gordie Howe International Bridge dominated the skyline behind them, officials lined up in Windsor, Ontario, to hail what one described as “one of the most significant infrastructure achievements in Canada's history.” The bridge opens to traffic on Monday.

“Some days are remembered because they mark the end of a journey. Others are remembered because they mark the beginning of something entirely new. Today is both,” said Chuck Andary, interim CEO of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, which will operate the bridge.

Missing from the event: U.S. and Michigan representatives. Canada scratched a joint gathering after President Donald Trump this week suddenly announced 50% tariffs on Canadian goods entering the U.S. A soloist sang the national anthem, “O Canada,” but the U.S. anthem was not performed.

“Our relationship has been challenged over the last few years, and President Trump is threatening tariffs just this month. But team Canada has never been more united,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford told the crowd, which applauded at times during his defense of the country.

Bridges are critical to moving goods between countries

More than 70% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S., making America its largest trade partner, and Detroit is the No. 1 port for truck traffic on the U.S.-Canada border, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The Howe bridge will instantly create competition. For nearly a century, the privately owned Ambassador Bridge has been the only route for large commercial trucks moving between the U.S. and Canada at Detroit. Businesses say the new span will be faster and less expensive.

The bridge is named for Howe, a Canadian icon — “Mr. Hockey” — who played on the other side of the Detroit River for the NHL's Detroit Red Wings. He died in 2016. Ford and Mark Wiseman, the Canadian ambassador to the U.S., wore hockey sweaters with Howe's No. 9.

Trump didn't attend, but his role was felt

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens repeatedly praised Howe and appeared to take a subtle dig at Trump. He said he recently texted Dr. Murray Howe to ask who might be his father's target these days if he had to slam someone into the hockey boards.

“He's a gentleman. He didn't answer,” Dilkens said. “But I think we all know who that person might be if Gordie was going to check one person into the board.”

Surrounded by family, Murray Howe thanked residents of both countries and specifically named Canadian officials and the U.S. president. He recalled how his father grew up in Saskatchewan before moving to Ontario at age 16 for a tryout with the Red Wings.

“This bridge will serve as an unmistakable symbol of the priceless bond and true friendship between the people of Canada and the people of the United States,” Murray Howe said, expressing the same long-term view as other speakers.

Canada paid for the bridge but will share revenue

Construction, which began in 2018, took years, partly because of a global slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Canada paid to build the bridge at an estimated cost of $6.4 billion. A recent agreement says Canada will share some toll revenue with the U.S. government for 15 years.

Trump praised his administration for that deal in a social media post while the Ontario event was in progress. “We changed the terms,” he said.

Michigan will also get a share, but not until Canada’s costs are recovered, likely decades from now.

The bridge is 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) long and rises 151 feet (46 meters) above the Detroit River at its highest point. Pedestrians and bicyclists carrying proper identification will be able to cross it for free in a few weeks.

___

White reported from Detroit.

Colt Gray, 16, entered the plea Friday without having reached a deal with prosecutors. The Sept. 4, 2024, shooting also left several others wounded at the school of 1,900 students about 45 miles (73 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta.

Gray, who was 14 at the time, was charged as an adult. His trial had been scheduled to start in mid-October.

A jury in March convicted his father, Colin Gray, on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. He is scheduled to be sentenced next week. Prosecutors said he gave his son the assault-style rifle used to open fire at the school.

Teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, died in the shooting. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire.

Teen faces life in prison

Barrow County Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm questioned Gray to ensure he understood the consequences of his plea and was entering it voluntarily. Gray responded, “Yes, your honor,” each time.

Murder carries a minimum sentence of life in prison. The judge must decide whether Gray should be eligible for parole after hearing victim statements, evidence and each side's summary of the case.

Victim: ‘Those decisions were his and his alone’

Family members of those killed and students who were shot gave statements, expressing anger and grief, with most asking the judge to sentence Gray to life without parole.

Breanna Schermerhorn, whose son Mason was killed, said she doesn't forgive Gray. While adults around him missed warning signs, she said, he brought the gun and pulled the trigger.

“Those decisions were his and his alone,” she said.

Shayna Aspinwall, Richard Aspinwall's wife, lamented that the lives of their daughters, who were 2 and 5 when their father died, will be “forever marked by his absence.”

“It is a life sentence of grief and trauma for those left behind,” she said.

A teenage student who was shot told the judge she remembered feeling “really scared and confused because I saw Colt standing in the door with a gun.” The Associated Press is not identifying the girl, who is a minor.

She said she realized she had been shot and asked a friend to hold her hand. She asked other friends to call her brother to let him know she'd been shot and didn't know if she'd make it. She had multiple surgeries and wasn't able to walk for about a year.

“After the shooting, I struggled with so much anxiety, and I felt like my life was over,” she said.

Apalachee High School Principal Jessica Rehberg said Colt Gray’s “cruel actions” deserve “the harshest consequences.”

The hearing is set to resume Monday, and Gray's defense attorney wrote in a court filing that he plans testimony from a psychologist, a juvenile detention center counselor and Gray's grandmother.

Investigator says Colt Gray carefully plotted the shooting

Barrow County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Jason Smith testified about the timeline. Gray told his second period teacher just before 10 a.m. that he needed to see a crisis counselor but instead went to a bathroom to prepare for the shooting, Smith said.

He emerged from the bathroom at 10:21 a.m., and when he was unable to reenter his classroom, he went down the hall to another classroom, where he opened fire and then shot other people in the hallway. He ultimately surrendered to law enforcement officers.

Smith said he interviewed Gray at the school and again at the sheriff’s office.

Prosecutors played a recording of the interview at the school. Gray sobbed hysterically during questioning. He repeatedly apologized, said he wasn't trying to justify his actions and said what happened was “horrible" and “the worst nightmare for everyone involved.”

He talked about having uncontrollable urges and hearing people tell him to do things and said he was supposed to see a doctor soon: “I was so close to getting the help I need and the medication I need.”

Gray told Smith that right before the shooting he felt things were getting really bad and he feared he was going to be attacked. He repeatedly mentioned believing teachers, and possibly students, were plotting against him.

The teenager was much calmer several hours later during the second interview. He said he didn’t target anyone specifically and didn't know how many people he'd killed.

“Colt indicated that it was spontaneous, that it was a last minute thing,” that he heard voices and on the way to the crisis counselor and “decided to do the shooting,” Smith testified. But the investigation showed that the shooting had been planned in detail for some time, he said.

The investigator described a notebook Gray had that included a detailed step-by-step plan to get himself ready in the bathroom that included notations like, “Don’t shoot anyone in the bathroom. You will alert people.”

On one page he wrote, “I’m not a killer,” and “I’m scared.” On multiple pages, he wrote “why” dozens of times. He also estimated the number of people he would kill and injure. On one page, he wrote, “Surprised if I make it.”

Sheriff’s deputies had previously interviewed Colt and Colin Gray in May 2023 about an online threat linked to the son. Colt Gray denied making the threat.

Investigators found a shrine in Colt Gray's bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, prosecutors have said. Gray told Smith he “became obsessed with him on an emotional level,” referring to Cruz.

An investigator testified during Colin Gray's trial that he had sought help for his son from a counseling service weeks before the shooting but then failed to follow through.

Colt Gray's mother, Marcee Gray, who was separated from Colin Gray, told investigators she had urged him weeks before the shooting to secure his guns and restrict their son’s access to them. Instead, over time, Colin Gray bought the teenager ammunition, a gun sight and other shooting accessories, records show.

That much, the correspondents’ association can control.

What remains out of its control — and perhaps the biggest question — is what the dinner’s most prominent guest, President Donald Trump, will bring to the table.

Call it White House Dinner 2.0, or Take Two, or, in Trump’s own words, a “HOT ticket.” The big unknown is whether Trump will bring the fighting words (“rather nasty,” he said) against the press that he’d planned to deliver in April — before the event descended into chaos when a gunman stormed a security checkpoint, forcing an evacuation of the room.

“The president looks forward to finishing what he started,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday, confirming Trump's attendance. “I encourage everyone watching tomorrow night to tune in for what promises to be a very entertaining and memorable evening."

Trump has been coy about what he might say

As for Trump himself, he indicated last month he wasn’t sure. “I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out," the Republican president wrote on his Truth Social platform. “In any event, it will be a ‘HOT’ ticket!”

Besides the pared-down approach, there is another change at Friday’s dinner: two additional awards. One will be presented to Victor Gonzales, the Secret Service agent who was staffing a security checkpoint in April and was struck in his protective vest.

“Officer Gonzales … ran toward danger so that thousands of others could make it home safely," Weijia Jiang, WHCA president, said in a statement. “His courage stemmed from a dedication to service, which we are looking forward to honoring this week.”

A second award will be presented to the staff of the Washington Hilton hotel, site of the first dinner.

Other changes: With security in mind, there will be only one entrance at the much smaller venue, with airport-style metal detectors. Guests received individual QR entry codes in advance, and nobody can get in unless recognized. “There is NO red carpet at this dinner,” said a memo Jiang sent to some guests last month, seen by The Associated Press. “There are NO onsite pre-dinner receptions."

The dress code this time is a looser “black tie optional," and dinner includes grilled peach and burrata salad, lobster, and beef Wellington. The evening, as at the last dinner, has entertainment by mentalist Oz Pearlman, along with the awards presentations and Trump's remarks.

Jiang and her fellow board members worked hard to bring about this WHCA dinner 2.0, not wanting to let a violent act — or the image of colleagues hiding under tables — remain the final thought. Announcing the rescheduling, she emphasized the dinner’s stated purpose: “a celebration of a free press and the vital role of journalism in our democracy for over a century.”

“We will not allow an act of violence to have the last word, especially during a year when we are reflecting on the 250th anniversary of America and everything we stand for,” Jiang said.

There's still lots of criticism of the event

But it’s also clear that some people felt the dinner should not be rescheduled at all.

Many never thought it was much of a good look in the first place, with the sight of journalists in formal wear cozying up to their sources, or the objects of their reporting.

“It undermines the public faith in how the press does its work, and it makes it look like we are pals with the people we cover,” Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, said when the deliberations were taking place.

The new dinner comes during a time of fast-increasing tension between the media and a president who, in his second term, has tried to exert pressure on media outlets he is unhappy with in a variety of ways. That pressure has ranged from sanctions against members of the White House press corps to regulatory actions through the Federal Communications Commission to outright lawsuits.

Those tensions have only escalated since April, with the latest example reaching a New York courtroom on Thursday. There, criticized by a federal judge for sloppy legal work, the government withdrew subpoenas that would have compelled three New York Times reporters to testify about their sources for articles about Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet.

That escalation was the impetus behind a letter from a coalition of press freedom groups and hundreds of former journalists, urging the WHCA to stand up to Trump forcefully at the dinner.

“We believe it is hypocritical to celebrate the First Amendment in front of the man who relentlessly attacks it,” the letter says. “We urge the WHCA to condemn the administration’s actions from the podium and pledge to fight all attempts by his administration to undermine this core pillar of a functioning democracy.”

___

Jocelyn Noveck covers the intersection of media and entertainment for The Associated Press.

Nope — to all of those teams.

The blaring headline in bold letters still seemed like a feverish dream to the bulk of a fan base that wasn't even alive the last time the franchise won a title, but it's true:

LeBron James is heading to the Philadelphia 76ers.

The NBA’s all-time leading scorer made the announcement on social media Friday, saying it will be his “last decision” and that it comes after he strongly considered retirement.

“I believe I can help make the Philadelphia 76ers a championship team and I am so excited to energize a new fan base and start this incredible journey one last time,” James said.

A four-time NBA champion, James wrote he was “done” when his 23rd NBA season ended and that it was his last with the Los Angeles Lakers.

“I was pretty sure I played my last game. I was honest at that last press conference when I said I needed to look at myself and deicide if I still love this game," James wrote. “I still truly love this game, and I have more to give.”

The 41-year-old James is set to sign a modest $8 million, two-year contract on the veterans' minimum with the Sixers, according to ESPN. He made nearly $53 million last season.

“I’m not going for money. I’m not going for family,” James wrote. “What am I really playing for at this point? I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind. I still want to compete, to win and to have a chance at the feeling of winning.”

James celebrated his decision on Instagram with a career highlight reel set to Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill's “Dreams and Nightmares,” the adopted sports anthem of city teams.

The video ends with the lyric, “hold up, wait a minute. Y'all thought I was finished?” and cuts to a 76ers' logo.

Fanatics already had his No. 23 jersey on sale for $125 with delivery not expected until the end of August. The company sold out within hours of the announcement.

Much as James did for Cleveland when he ended a 56-year championship drought for the city by leading the Cavaliers to the title in 2016, he can snap a lengthy title drought for the Sixers.

The Sixers went 45-37 last season and were swept in the second round by the NBA champion New York Knicks.

Most betting sites had the Sixers as 9-1 favorites to win the championship behind the Oklahoma City Thunder, the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks, as of Friday afternoon.

James joins a 76ers team that has not won an NBA championship since 1983 and has not advanced out of the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs since 2001.

The 76ers should boast one of the top starting fives in the NBA with second-year standout VJ Edgecombe, fellow All-Stars Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Jaylen Brown — the 2024 NBA Finals MVP, a five-time All-Star and the league’s fourth-leading scorer this past season acquired in a stunning offseason deal with the Celtics.

Maxey posted an Instagram story of him celebrating in a gym and yelling “what!? what?!” over the news while Brown wrote on X “#throwtheballup.” Brown wrote the same phrase in his introductory note to Philadelphia, and it has already been branded on billboards throughout the city.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro even proclaimed Friday as LeBron James Day in the state.

Turned out with the Brown deal, new 76ers team president Mike Gansey — an Ohio prep basketball star with James — was just getting started with his summer of surprises.

No move, of course, hits like James' arrival.

Playing with his home team in Cleveland to the bright lights of Los Angeles and with the talent he took to Miami, James won an NBA championship everywhere he played. James left the Lakers after an eight-season run highlighted by the 2020 NBA title.

James is the NBA’s oldest active player at 41 and the only player in league history to have a career spanning 23 seasons; this coming season will be his 24th. Speculation has been rampant for more than two months about his future, officially starting in May when the Lakers were eliminated from the NBA playoffs.

James’ resume is beyond compare in NBA history. He’s a 22-time All-Star, a 21-time All-NBA selection, a four-time Most Valuable Player, a four-time NBA Finals MVP, a three-time All-Star Game MVP, and was a member of the NBA’s 75th anniversary team.

He’s also coming off a season where he averaged 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game. For his career, he’s averaged 26.8 points, 7.5 rebounds and 7.4 assists in more than 1,600 games.

James started his career in Cleveland in 2003 and spent seven seasons with the Cavaliers before heading to Miami for four seasons — where he won his first two NBA titles. He then returned to Cleveland for four more seasons, including that title run in 2016, and left in 2018 for the Lakers.

Cleveland and Miami were believed to be on James’ radar again as he weighed this decision.

“Thank you LA. Miami I’ll forever love and Northeast Ohio will always home!” James wrote.

He eighty-sixed them all for a shot to win a title with the 76ers, a franchise with a career lineup that includes Wilt Chamberlain, Allen Iverson, Julius Erving, Charles Barkley and, for the next two seasons, LeBron James.

___

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

Much of what Dr. Grant Ho of the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner said on the stand was already known: She had been killed by two sharp force wounds to her upper body and her dismembered, decomposing body was found in the trunk of a Tesla.

But the details he shared of what the autopsy showed — and tellingly, what it was unable to determine because of how degraded her body was when it was found — made Friday's proceedings perhaps the most difficult so far. Photos shown from the autopsy brought uncomfortable shifting in seats and murmurs in the courtroom.

The defense seized on the uncertainties to suggest there might have been other causes of death, including an overdose or self-inflicted injuries.

The preliminary hearing began on Tuesday, and will be used by a judge to decide if the case should go to trial.

Rivas Hernandez's parents were in the building but stayed outside the courtroom for the autopsy testimony. D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, sat next to his lawyers in orange jail clothes and glasses, and did not show any emotion during the testimony.

Rivas Hernandez's body was discovered in a Tesla towed from the Hollywood Hills in September, nearly five months after authorities said Rivas Hernandez was killed.

Autopsy conclusions were hard to reach

Ho testified that he could not say when the death occurred — one of many challenges brought on by the body's degradation.

“It’s extremely difficult to tell,” Ho said.

He said she had been dead for “at least weeks.” Asked by Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman whether it could have been four to five months, he said “potentially.” Authorities believe she was killed in April 2025; her body was discovered last September.

Rivas Hernandez was found the day after she would have turned 15.

“She didn’t make it to her 15th birthday, correct?” Silverman asked. “Correct,” Ho replied.

Ho said there were many “skin defects” that could have been postmortem, but the two he identified as potential stab wounds had related internal trauma. One wound on the abdomen penetrated her liver. Another, on the left chest, damaged her ribs.

Ho said, “it would take minutes, at least,” for someone to lose enough blood to die from the injuries. The prosecution has asserted in a court filing that Burke “stood by while she bled out.” When pressed, he said it could have potentially taken an hour, but wouldn't commit to that.

Defense seizes on inconclusive drug test

He testified that toxicology tests, done only on her liver because no blood was available, showed a low level of alcohol that may have been caused postmortem by bacteria. He said the tests initially showed positives for benzodiazepines — medications typically used for anxiety — and methamphetamine. He said with further testing the benzodiazepine was negative. The methamphetamine was inconclusive, and as a result Ho said "I cannot say that it played any role in the death.”

Burke's attorney, Marilyn Bednarski, asked if decomposition could affect the accuracy of drug test results, and Ho agreed it could.

"In the toxicology report there is not enough information to support an overdose death, correct?" Bednarski asked. Ho said she was correct.

Bednarski asked if it helps in an autopsy examination to talk to the friends and family of the deceased about their life — if they had a mental health issue, were suicidal, were a frequent drug user or were violent.

Ho answered “potentially” to each of those but said there were no such conversations in this case.

Ho said he could not tell if there had been a struggle before death, or where the wounds came from.

“You can’t rule out that she was holding an instrument that caused either of those wounds?” Bednarski asked.

Ho said self-inflicted injuries usually include surrounding superficial “hesitation marks” — and those were not found — but otherwise he could not say.

Burke could stand trial for murder, mutilation and sexual abuse

Prosecutors are seeking to prove Burke began sexually abusing Rivas Hernandez when she was 13 and he was 18, then stabbed her to death when she threatened to reveal their long sexual history and crater his career. They allege he dismembered the body in his garage, and a police analyst testified in the preliminary hearing that samples pulled from apparent blood stains there matched the DNA of Rivas Hernandez.

Burke has pleaded not guilty to murder, sexual abuse of a child and mutilation of a body, and his lawyers have said he is innocent.

An indie-pop singer whose music and online presence brought him a huge following, D4vd's songs and videos often have dark and violent imagery often delivered through an alter-ego character he calls Itami. His breakthrough single in 2022 was called “Romantic Homicide,” one of several of his songs with more than a billion plays on Spotify.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office says Sabastian Jones was last seen in the 5200 block of FM 1960 West on July 17.

The sheriff’s office says Sabastian may be with his mother, 25-year-old Alena Thornton.

The sheriff’s office says the case is connected to an ongoing parental custody dispute. They say Thornton has had contact with her family, but the sheriff’s office is trying to located her.

According to the alert, Thornton was last seen wearing a green shirt.

If you have seen Sabastian or have any information, you are asked to contact the Harris County Sheriff’s Office at 713-274-9191.

The race for Texas’s senate seat is shaping up to be one the most expensive competitions in the nation. Democratic nominee James Talarico is setting records, raising more at this stage of the race than any Texas general-election candidate in the past decade and posting the largest quarterly haul of any active Senate race.

GOP nominee Ken Paxton is lagging behind, having raised less than a quarter of what his rival has since the start of the race. Despite his fundraising disadvantage, Paxton benefits from new rules on how national party committees can spend in coordination with candidates and, like many cash-strapped Republicans, is leaning heavily on fundraising in coordination with other candidates and party groups.

Here’s what you need to know

• How much have the candidates raised?
• How do they compare to past cycles?
• What kind of donations are they getting?
• Where are the contributions coming from?
• What about ad buys and outside spending?

How much have the candidates raised?

The campaigns of Talarico and Ken Paxton reported raking in $31.6 million and $9.3 million, respectively, in their last quarterly filing with the Federal Election Commission. Since the beginning of 2025, Talarico’s campaign has lapped Paxton’s several times over, raising a cumulative $72.0 million compared to $16.8 million by Paxton’s. 

The Democratic Senate nominee ended June with $23.3 million on hand, more than triple his GOP rival. Despite Paxton’s weaker fundraising performance, his campaign may have less to worry about after the Supreme Court struck down federal limits on how much political parties could spend in coordination with their candidates. 

While the ruling lets both parties spend without limit, Republicans are expected to benefit more, due to their stronger large-donor support at the national level. National party committees can accept up to $44,300 per year from an individual donor, compared with just $3,500 per election for candidate committees.

Through his principal campaign committee, Paxton raised $9.2 million since the start of his campaign. Additionally, $7.5 million was raised through his joint fundraising committees, which allow candidates to raise money alongside other candidates or organizations and split the dollars according to a predetermined formula. Talarico’s joint fundraising committees raised about $6 million, only about 8% of his total haul compared to about 45% of Paxton’s.

The use of joint fundraising committees has grown in recent years. In 2024, an FEC deadlock meant the fundraising vehicles could be used for buying ads without allocating their costs to candidates, effectively allowing some candidates or organizations to subsidize the campaigns of others. Republican candidates, who are often more strapped for cash, have taken advantage of this loophole more frequently.

How do they compare to past cycles?

Note: Fundraising includes dollars reported by candidates’ principal fundraising committees. Dollars are adjusted for inflation and reflect the latest dates covered by committee filings.

Compared to the same point in past cycles, Talarico has raised more than any other general election nominee in the previous decade. On the other hand, Paxton is falling behind his Republican predecessors.

While Democratic candidates significantly outperformed their Republican counterparts in 2018 and 2024 as well, that has yet to translate into a win for the challengers. In 2024, Colin Allred ended his campaign having raised nearly $21 million more than Ted Cruz and lost by 8.5 percentage points. Beto O’Rourke raised nearly $45 million more than Cruz in 2018 but still lost by 2.6 percentage points.

What kind of donations are they getting?

The Senate candidates are running in one of the country’s most anticipated elections, driving large hauls from individual donors. Neither candidate has received strong support from PACs. Talarico and Paxton have received just about $359,000 and $241,000 from PACs, respectively. The Senate hopefuls have relied on contributions from individual donors to fuel their war chests. 

Talarico’s campaign has shown strong small-donor fundraising. Of his total fundraising, 51% came from individuals who have contributed less than $200 over the course of the campaign. In contrast, 88% of Paxton’s contributions came from larger donors.

Where are the contributions coming from?

Contributions to the candidates were concentrated near the state’s largest cities. Talarico received the most from Travis County, where donors who contributed over $200 sent a combined $3.8 million to his campaign as of June 30, 2026. Paxton’s largest pull came from Dallas County where he raised about $1 million as of May 6, 2026, though Talarico still managed to outraise him there too.

Of the itemized contributions that went to Talarico and Paxton, about 55% and 83% came from within Texas, respectively. Of their out-of-state contributions, Talarico saw the most come from California and New York while Paxton received the most from Florida and Utah.

What about ad buys and outside spending?

Since the GOP runoff election on May 26, pro-Paxton advertisers have been relatively quiet. Meanwhile, Talarico’s campaign launched its largest ad push so far in the general election: a $4.4 million ad buy, according to AdImpact. The 30-second ad features the Democrat speaking about affordability while leaving a Red & White food store.

So far, the bulk of independent expenditures have been spent opposing Paxton leading up to the primary and GOP runoff. The largest spender was a pro-Cornyn super PAC named Texans for a Conservative Majority, which spent about $25 million opposing Paxton. The group has close ties to Trump’s inner circle and has purchased some of the race’s most expensive ads to attack Paxton. 

The GOP candidate’s largest outside support came from Lone Star Liberty PAC, which spent about $770,000 supporting Paxton and $200,000 opposing Talarico. The second largest spender supporting Paxton was Fellowship PAC, a crypto super PAC which spent $500,000.

Talarico has only been the target of about $763,000 in opposition spending. Leading up to the primary, about $4.1 million was spent supporting his candidacy, nearly $4 million of which came from Lone Star Rising PAC. The super PAC is Talarico’s largest outside spender and is backed by several billionaire donors.

Corey Durell Ruiz, 38, was shot and killed on a city street Wednesday, the moments of his death captured in bystander videos that were later posted online. The race of the officer who fired his gun has not been released by police. Ruiz is identified as Black or Latino in Wisconsin court records.

“It does not matter who you are or what your past is, you should not lose your life as a result of an encounter with law enforcement,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said during a news conference Thursday afternoon.

Wisconsin court records show Ruiz had been in and out of jail over the past decade for mostly misdemeanor offenses including disorderly conduct, drug possession, auto theft, battery and invasion of privacy. He was also convicted of felonies including possession of cocaine and marijuana, robbery, strangulation, resisting an officer and causing bodily harm.

“He’s a human being. He had a family. He has parents who loved him, who brought him home, who cared for him,” Common Council President Sabrina Madison said, adding that she’s struggling to understand what she’s seen in videos of the shooting that have circulated on social media.

“My first thought is, when the officer’s walking away, why isn’t he walking away in cuffs?” Madison said. “I’m angry, there’s no way around it.”

Ruiz's family has retained Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney, who said the case must be examined for excessive force.

Shooting sparks turmoil in a fed-up community

Frustrated residents marched, and a memorial of flowers and signs grew near the place where Ruiz died. It was just blocks from where two other police killings happened in 2015 and 2012.

A group of about 20 protesters burst into Thursday's news conference, taking the microphone from police Chief John Patterson and arguing with some attendees who said they wanted to hear more about the investigation.

One protester held a sign saying “Corrupt cops deserve to die too!!!”

Moments earlier, the mayor said the shooting would be “rigorously investigated.”

Once the protesters quieted down, the chief resumed his presentation, promising his department's full cooperation with the state investigation.

Police have released few details

None of the four officers who were detaining Ruiz wore body cameras, but passersby recorded the confrontation on video, and accused the officers of overreacting.

“I thought, ‘Holy cow — what could have warranted that?’ It looked to me like they had him under control,” David Ortiz-Whittingham, who saw officers swarming and heard the gunshots, said Thursday. “Even now, knowing about the knife, did he have to die for it? Could this have been de-escalated?”

The police chief released few details Thursday, saying a Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation probe of the officer-involved shooting must run its course.

Earlier Thursday, Madison's independent police monitor, Aeiramique Glass, said police had not yet shared evidence or the officer's identity with her office, which will review the case and can recommend to the district attorney that charges be filed if warranted. She said the department and city are “obstructing what the community and the public” want.

“Let me do my job,” she said.

Patterson said the police were committed to cooperating with Glass.

The chief urges people not to draw conclusions

Patterson has urged caution in reading too much from the cellphone videos. He said none show the perspective of the officers, and additional unreleased video was being reviewed.

The officer who fired his weapon is an 11-year veteran of the force, the chief said. He and the three other responding officers will be placed on administrative leave.

Patterson said police were responding to calls that someone was attempting to enter parked vehicles, and the suspect fled on a bike before the officers surrounded him. One deployed a taser, but Patterson said the effort failed to control the man.

In the videos circulating online, the man can be seen standing before he's brought to his knees as the officers struggle to force him into a prone position. Then he falls quickly to the pavement after what sounds like three gunshots, and seems motionless as the officers handcuff him behind his back. Arriving officers then escort one of the officers a short distance away.

Patterson said he did not know the extent of the knife injuries sustained by the officer.

“This situation was clearly dangerous,” Patterson said before adding he was saddened by the loss of life.

A neighborhood now accustomed to police shootings

The shooting happened in the middle of an intersection in the popular Marquette neighborhood, less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the state Capitol. Bystander videos show numerous cars at the scene, with people watching as it unfolds.

“I saw everything! I saw everything! You did not need to kill him! ... We watched it all!” a woman yells in the video recorded by Ortiz-Whittingham.

Residents who dealt with two other police killings expressed frustration Thursday.

In 2015, a white police officer shot and killed Tony Robinson, who was biracial, on the same street. Large protests followed, but the district attorney filed no charges, determining the officer was justified. In 2012, Paul Heenan, a white musician, was fatally shot after he had been drinking and mistakenly entered his neighbor's house. That officer was exonerated as well.

The chief acknowledged that the neighborhood “has experienced a lot of trauma” and urged people to support one another.

“I want transparency. I want accountability,” Patterson said.

Questions about race and technology emerge

Black advocacy groups, protesters and politicians are speaking out against the shooting, which has also focused attention on the Madison Police Department’s lack of body-worn cameras. The force of around 500 is among the largest in the Midwest that doesn’t use the devices.

Madison, the Common Council president, said Thursday that she expects a police request for $400,000 to be approved, enabling the cameras to be phased in over the next three years. Others lamented that cameras weren't already being used.

The mayor said her budget, which has not yet been released, will include funding for body-worn cameras. Rhodes-Conway said the city needs to put together a policy for their use before the budget takes effect in January.

And now it's a talking point in the governor's race

The shooting has quickly infused itself into the race to succeed Gov. Tony Evers, who is not seeking a third term. Voting is already underway in the Aug. 11 primary.

Democratic socialist candidate Francesca Hong called the shooting “state sanctioned violence.” Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, a Democrat, said the reports are “painfully reminiscent of the tragedies we have witnessed in Kenosha, Minneapolis, and far too many communities.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany called on his rivals to let the state investigation “establish the facts without politicians rushing to judgment.”

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This story was first published on July 23, 2026. It was corrected on July 24, 2026, to remove inaccurate information about the killings of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. The story previously corrected the name of a state agency to the Division of Criminal Investigation, not the Department of Criminal Investigation.

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Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.

If you need a reason to train between now and fall, Shipley Donuts is offering one — and it comes with a side of community impact. The company’s annual Donut Dash returns to Sam Houston Race Park on Saturday, Oct. 17, with organizers aiming to raise $5,000 or more for Kids’ Meals.

Kids’ Meals is a Houston-area nonprofit that delivers free, healthy meals to more than 13,000 food-insecure preschoolers across Greater Houston every weekday, according to event organizers. The nonprofit notes that $2 can provide one healthy meal for a child.

Race times and location

• 10K: 7 a.m.
• 5K: 8 a.m.
• Kids Dash: 9:45 a.m.
• Where: Sam Houston Race Park

You can register at the sign-up link here.

The Donut Dash has grown into a lively, family-friendly race day, pairing traditional road-race competition with playful donut flair. Participants can expect race shirts, donut-themed medals, and complimentary donuts and mini kolaches offered along the route with cold brew coffee at the finish line.

Competitive runners will also have something to chase: awards for top male and female finishers across race categories and age groups.

Shipley CEO Flynn Dekker said the company is expanding the event after last year’s turnout.

“After the incredible response to the Shipley Donut Dash in 2025, we’re bringing this event back bigger this fall. What started as a fun, community race has quickly evolved into a meaningful event rallying our hometown around the fight against food insecurity. This year, we’re building upon the momentum to deepen our impact, engage more participants and continue to support Kids’ Meals’ mission to feed preschoolers in Houston.”

Flynn Dekker

The event drew a record 1,500-plus runners last year and is expected to grow again. Runners who can’t make it to Houston can still take part through a virtual race option, available while spots last.

The event includes three distances — a 10K, a 5K and a kids dash — and organizers say a portion of each registration fee will go to Kids’ Meals through Shipley’s partnership with Adrenaline Special Events, the race production company.

• Houston Arboretum’s ‘lawn crew’ is back: Hundreds of goats set to tackle the Ravine

Kids’ Meals CEO Beth Braniff Harp said the partnership helps keep attention on the need — and the families behind it.

“Childhood hunger continues to affect thousands of families across Houston, and this community’s generosity keeps stepping up to meet that need. We’re proud to stand alongside Shipley Donuts again this fall as the Donut Dash grows into one of Houston’s most impactful charitable events, moving us closer to a hunger-free future for the children who need it most.”

Beth Braniff Harp

The administration announced tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on 60 economies late Thursday, saying the countries had failed to adequately enforce a ban on goods made with forced labor.

The new tariffs took effect just as stopgap levies Trump imposed after a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court expired at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

Countries object to what they call unfounded labor claims

Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell rejected claims linking Australia, a major exporter of beef, gold and copper, to modern slavery and raising the tariff on its exports to the U.S. to 12.5% from the 10% level imposed after Trump’s “Liberation Day” hikes last year.

“We believe that amongst all of the countries in the world Australia does take the issue of slavery, modern slavery, seriously, and will continue to do that,” Farrell told reporters in Adelaide.

Australia believes the higher tariffs are “completely unjustified and we will continue to lobby the United States Trade Representative to remove all tariffs on Australian goods,” Farrell said.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the tariffs on his country, also subject to a 12.5% import duty, were “extremely disappointing,” unjustified and harmful to trade.

A U.S. investigation serving as the basis for the tariffs did not provide meaningful evidence to support allegations of forced labor.

“Tariffs are not the way — they drive up costs and uncertainty for businesses,” he wrote on X.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas questioned the U.S. stance in comments on Channel News Asia.

“If you compare our labor laws to the ones of the United States, I mean we have, people have paid vacations, we have very good conditions, labor conditions for our employees, so it's not really grounded,” Kallas said.

Also facing a 12.5% tariff, Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry said it would “continue to engage the USTR (United States Trade Representative) to explore options.”

Some hope to forestall the new tariffs

Japan likewise protested the 12.5% tariff imposed on its exports, noting Tokyo had been reassured by the Trump administration that there would be no more tariffs on top of an earlier agreement on a 10% U.S. import duty.

“Our understanding is both sides are still committed to that,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said.

“It is regrettable that the measure imposes tariffs on the grounds of non-existence of measures banning imports of goods made by forced labor, even though Japan’s industry and trade are in line with international rules,” Kihara said.

South Korea’s trade ministry said the announcement eased some uncertainty over U.S. trade policy, but noted that a Section 301 investigation into alleged Korean excess production continues.

The combined duties on South Korean exports should not exceed 15%, the ministry said in a statement.

Thailand noted it is subject to the new 12.5% tariff by the U.S. under the forced labor provision, but the measure exempts around 2,120 items, representing more than half the value of Thai goods exported to the U.S.

China opposes unilateral tariffs in ‘all forms’

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “opposes all forms of unilateral tariffs” in response to the new 12.5% tariffs.

“Tariff wars and trade wars do not serve any parties' interests,” ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a press conference.

Trade tensions have clouded relations between China and the U.S., two of the world’s biggest economies, as Trump’s hefty “Liberation Day” tariffs resulted in a sharp drop in Chinese exports to the U.S.

Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who agreed to set up new boards of trade and investment at their mid-May meeting in Beijing, are expected to meet again in September.

Some Chinese exporters say, however, the impacts are limited as the latest U.S. tariffs on China remain at lower levels than last year's rates, which were initially 34%.

“Of course it’d be best if they (the tariffs) are not there,” said Richard Chan, manager of Golden Arts Gifts & Decor, which manufactures Christmas trees and decorations in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan and supplies globally to those including Walmart.

Golden Arts' share of sales to the U.S., however, already have fallen as U.S. tariffs added more uncertainty. They have pivoted more to Europe, which now accounts for roughly 70% of their sales, Chan said.

The latest import duties might stick

Wendy Cutler, a former senior U.S. trade official, said the latest round of tariffs involved “few surprises” since they range just between 10% and 12.5%.

The U.S. Trade Representative's office spent four months investigating the basis for those tariffs to meet legal requirements under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974.

“Time will tell whether the third attempt to impose tariffs is the charm and this action stands up to legal challenges,” said Cutler, senior vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

These duties are less likely than earlier ones to be overruled by U.S. courts, she said.

Further tariffs may be coming in the fall related to alleged structural excess capacity of trading partners, she noted.

Experts say these tariffs may be less disruptive

Washington has generally tended to engage in increased trade friction, William Bratton of BNP Paribas said in a research note Friday.

“On the positive side, however, these tariffs are lower than the earlier (Emergency Powers Act) ‘reciprocal’ tariffs and appear to exempt a substantial proportion of Asia’s current trade flows with the U.S.,” he said.

The Trump administration has made tariff exceptions, however, including imported goods that the U.S. does not produce, Cutler noted.

“This should reduce the impact of these duties. Nevertheless, they will contribute to higher prices both for end consumers and businesses importing inputs and machinery,” she said.

Immediate pushback, legal and political

There was immediate pushback, both legally, and politically.

The Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian advocacy group that successfully challenged earlier Trump tariffs, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, challenging the double-digit import taxes that Trump imposed Friday.

The group called the new tariffs a pretext to allow Trump to maintain a wall of tariffs around the U.S. economy after the Supreme Court struck down big global taxes he’d imposed last year.

“The administration allowed one global tariff to expire and immediately replaced it with another under a different statute,” said Sara Albrecht, chair of the center. “Changing the statute doesn’t change the law. Every tariff authority has limits, and every administration must respect them.”

Her group represented businesses that successfully challenged Trump’s 2025 global tariffs.

Rep. Linda Sanchez, a California Democrat questioned the reasons for the latest slew of tariffs.

“If he was serious, he would not be applying the same tariff rate to China, one of the worst forced labor abusers in the world, as he does to countries like Australia,” she said. “Then again, unlike China, Australia doesn’t manufacture any Trump corporation products.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said Americans will be the ones paying for the new tariffs.

“Instead of continuing his disastrous tariff scheme, the president must put the American people first and revoke these harmful policies that are making everyday Americans’ lives flat-out unaffordable," Gillibrand said. "At home in New York and across the country, people are struggling, and they need relief.”

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Chan reported from Hong Kong. Associated Press writers Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Grant Peck in Bangkok and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, as well as AP Economics Writer in Washington, and AP Business Writer Michelle Chapman in New York, contributed to this report.

California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still be counted, provided the envelope is postmarked by Election Day.

Yet even with that generous weeklong window, the primary driver of the higher rejection numbers is late-arriving ballots, according to data compiled by the secretary of state's office. Voting experts suspect the main problem is postmarks on ballots that came after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted. The culprit could be U.S. Postal Service changes that might affect the timing of when postmarks are applied.

Late-arriving ballots drove the rejections

According to state data, 148,241 mail ballots were rejected in the June election, or a rate of 1.73% of all mail ballots.

In raw numbers, that's up from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 mail ballots were rejected, or a 1.56% rate. In 2022, 105,818 mail ballots were voided during the primary, or a rate similar to 2024.

Lateness accounted for 93,479 rejected ballots in June, by far the largest category for disqualifying a ballot. That was up from about 70,000 in the 2022 primary and about 76,000 in the 2024 primary, though turnout in those elections was smaller compared to last June.

Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the jump in rejected ballots because of lateness is a major concern that — along with postal procedures — might also be connected to a late surge in ballots in June. Many voters waited until the final days to make a decision in a wide-open and chaotic race for governor.

“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander wrote in an email.

Rejection rates have fluctuated over time, but the growing number of those set aside for lateness compared to recent elections “does really demand the question why this is happening,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, a nonpartisan research group.

Lawmakers concerned about USPS postmark changes

In January, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service, alarmed that mail-processing changes might affect postmark dates for mail-in ballots during an election year that will determine control of Congress.

Updated agency policy says postmarks might not indicate the first day the Postal Service received the mail, but rather the day it was handled in one of its processing centers. Those centers are increasingly likely to be further away from certain communities because of recent consolidations within the Postal Service, which could further delay postmarks.

On Thursday, two Wisconsin Democrats, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers, called on the Postal Service to address delays that caused hundreds of ballots to arrive after Election Day in the state in April. In June, a federal judge halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.

Earlier this year, California election officials urged voters to send their mail ballots early, warning that Postal Service changes could lead to slower mail service.

In California, the highest mail ballot rejection rate in June — 3.52% — was in Tulare County, in the agriculture-heavy Central Valley. It was followed by Alpine County, south of Lake Tahoe, and Merced County, also in the Central Valley, which both notched a 3.36% rejection rate.

Mismatched signatures and multiple ballots in an envelope

Nearly 44,000 ballots were set aside because the voter’s signature didn't match the one on record with county officials. Over 8,300 ballots were rejected because there was no signature on the returned ballot envelope.

In 743 cases, the voter had already cast a ballot, so the mail ballot was voided. Other reasons for rejection included a ballot being missing from the return envelope, or multiple ballots were sent back in a single envelope.

The data didn’t break down the uncounted ballots by party registration.

Florida, Texas and other large population states quickly wrap up vote counting, while California is a national laggard.

After the June primary, President Donald Trump seized on California’s reputation as the national slowpoke in vote counting to renew his long-standing criticism of the state’s elections, while the Republican’s Department of Justice launched an investigation into Los Angeles County’s elections.

There is no indication of any widespread problems with mail voting, which has gained in popularity among Democrats and Republicans alike. A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that the number of cases of mail voting fraud was minuscule — about four cases per 10 million mail ballots.

The Republican president made the announcement a day after the EU hit Google with a fine of 890 million euros, or $1 billion, after it said the technology behemoth broke digital antitrust regulations by setting up Google Play and its ubiquitous search engine to corral consumers toward its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.

In a lengthy post on social media, Trump said he has warned the EU about its practice of fining U.S. tech companies. He named Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon and others.

“The United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!” Trump said, adding that his post should serve as notice of an immediate trade investigation “into the practice of ‘ROBBING’ American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer.”

“The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about,” he said.

In the post, Trump asserted that the penalties against the companies “will be entirely reversed” and predicted “a substantial TARIFF” would be placed on the EU “at the earliest possible moment.”

“Stay tuned!” he said.

Investigation follows new Trump tariffs

Trump's move comes a day after the White House announced double-digit tariffs on imports from more than 60 countries, accusing them of inadequately enforcing bans on goods produced by forced labor. The new tariffs replace temporary 10% worldwide import taxes that Trump imposed after the Supreme Court struck down his biggest tariffs.

The new tariffs are being implemented using Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices.

José Castañeda, a spokesperson for Google, said the company has worked hard to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act and has expressed its concerns about the effects of recent decisions by the European Commission.

"We appreciate the engagement by the administration and U.S. government,” he said.

Representatives of Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment. There also was no immediate comment from the Brussels-based European Commission.

Trump had threatened retaliation over EU fines

The EU's billion-dollar fine against Google was the latest major crackdown on Big Tech by Brussels, which has led the world in reining in some of the world’s largest companies from Silicon Valley to Beijing.

It has done so despite the risk of incurring the wrath of Trump, who has lashed out at the 27-nation bloc’s digital regulations in a broader campaign against Europe: imposing high tariffs, making threats to seize Greenland from Denmark by force, and rattling trust within the NATO military alliance.

Trump had threatened retaliation if American tech companies are penalized.

Google had recently lost its appeal of a $4.5 billion antitrust fine imposed by the EU for throttling competition and reducing consumer choice through the dominance of its mobile Android operating system.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch and highest antitrust enforcer, said it was acting in the interest of consumers after an investigation of Google.

“The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine. And European consumers have a right to be told by app developers where to sign up to the best offers, even when the app store owner does not get a cut,” said Teresa Ribera, the commission’s executive vice president for clean, just and competitive transition.

Google’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, assailed the fine as “product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants” that will hurt European businesses and consumers.

He said the EU’s Digital Markets Act forces Google “to strip away real-time search features Europeans love — like instant pricing and direct availability for hotels, flights, and restaurants — and dismantle safety protections on Google Play.”

The EU describes some of the world’s leading tech giants — Amazon, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance — as “gatekeepers” that control access for consumers.

“In the EU, businesses have the right to compete fairly. Gatekeepers have the obligation to ensure a level playing field and consumers the right to choose for cheaper alternative offers,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said. Alphabet reported $403 billion in revenue last year.

—-

Associated Press writer Kaitlyn Huamani in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

In an interview this week, Mealer addressed the shooting in detail for the first time, expressing full confidence that ongoing investigations by the Texas Department of Public Safety, FBI and Houston police will produce a “fulsome accounting” of what happened.

“Any time there’s a loss of life, that is obviously a profound tragedy,” Mealer said, adding that she has been in touch with the FBI’s Houston field office. She acknowledged “the one issue that I think everyone will agree upon” is the need to outfit agents with body cameras, which none of the officers were wearing.

But she otherwise preached patience to let authorities’ fact-finding unfold, drawing on her Army background to argue that incomplete information can distort early conclusions about incidents where someone is gunned down.

“I think we need to see what comes out of those [investigations], because from being in the military as well, things go wrong,” she said. “You look at something from one lens, you’re missing feedback. So, I support the calls for investigation. Speculating to me is not a helpful, productive path forward.”

Mealer’s comments about the July 7 shooting were her first since she posted on social media that same day, calling the incident “yet another reminder of the dangers law enforcement face” while voicing confidence that investigators would “ensure justice is served.” Her more circumspect approach stands in sharp contrast to the assertive response from U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, the Democrat who currently represents much of Houston’s predominantly Hispanic East End, including Magnolia Park.

The neighborhood is among the East End territory being shifted into a new red-leaning seat, which Mealer hopes to represent, under the new congressional map approved by Texas Republicans last summer.

Garcia, a longtime and ardent critic of President Donald Trump’s border agenda, moved aggressively to fill the information vacuum in the days after the shooting, pressing federal officials for answers as Immigration and Customs Enforcement remained initially tight-lipped.

That effort began with a letter she and other Houston Democrats penned to the heads of ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, demanding an independent investigation and more transparency to back up ICE’s account that the agent shot Salgado Araujo after he tried to run over the agent with his van. Garcia later challenged that version of events after meeting with two witnesses who said agents fired into the vehicle unprovoked.

Additionally, Garcia directly pressed ICE officials on what led up to the deadly vehicle stop, to which DHS said they received a “credible tip from law enforcement partners.” Through a series of follow-up calls, Garcia announced acting ICE Director David Venturella further disclosed two details the agency hadn’t volunteered publicly: there was no dashboard camera footage, and Salgado Araujo wasn’t the target of the operation.

Houston Police Chief Noe Diaz said this information played into his agency’s move to launch its own probe after initially planning to defer to the federal investigations.

“The facts have changed, right?” Diaz said. “So now we hear, because of the congresswoman’s great work, that the wrong person was in the van, and well, perhaps it was the wrong van.”

Garcia has also pressed ICE on its uneven rollout of body cameras, noting at a press conference earlier this month that Congress approved funding in April for DHS to carry out a pledge from the agency’s then-secretary to “rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras” to its agents.

“Even after we’ve given ICE specifically $20 million for body cameras, and [former DHS Secretary] Kristi Noem promised in February of this year that she was going to purchase them and get them in the field, here we were in Houston and the agents didn’t have them,” Garcia said. She added that Acting ICE Director David Venturella told her that all agents in the field will have body cameras by the end of July.

DHS has since said ICE field offices that have yet to receive body cameras would have them in hand within 60 days.

When asked this week how redistricting might impact Magnolia Park’s ability to hold ICE accountable, Garcia said “it’s important to have someone that looks like you,” adding that “representation matters.”

“I know that many of the constituents that I have in the current 29th Congressional District are saddened, and they’re concerned because they’re not sure that they’re going to be able to compete, particularly with parts of the district that go all the way to Liberty County,” she said in a press call with reporters, referring to the newly crafted 9th Congressional District that is set to take in parts of Garcia’s district, pairing it with Republican-heavy areas outside Houston.

Mealer, who is endorsed by Trump and has campaigned on upholding his immigration agenda, is considered the favorite to defeat Democratic opponent Leticia Gutierrez for the seat, one of five targeted by Texas Republicans in the redistricting map they approved last summer. In 2024, Trump carried the area covered by the new District 9 by 20 percentage points.

Mealer’s push for accountability — more limited in nature, given she does not yet hold the official powers that come with a congressional seat — has focused on the body camera deficit. She contended that their usage by police departments has improved community relations and can help “bridge the gap.”

A 2021 study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Business School found officers who had access to their own footage felt less distanced from the public — a shift linked to more respectful behavior during stops.

Asked what she would do differently if she was in Congress when the shooting occurred, Mealer said she hasn’t “heard a specific action item at this point that isn’t already happening” beyond the push for cameras. And she insisted that it would not be prudent to rush to judgment before the full picture emerges.

“With these issues, you want it to be based on facts that happened, not turned into partisan talking points,” she said. “Once we see the results of the investigation, then [we] can see — were there other safeguards, or was this just a tragedy?”

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin 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 Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Kim birdied the final four holes of his bogey-free round at TPC Twin Cities to get to 14-under for the tournament.

This marks the fourth 59 on tour since 2024. Jake Knapp was the last to do so during the first round of the 2025 Cognizant Classic. Jim Furyk holds the tour record with a 58 at the 2016 Travelers Championship.

“Today was an awesome day, but still, I’m only halfway there so still need to kind of get focused up for the weekend,” said Kim, who shot 69 Thursday and holds a three-shot lead over first-round leader Ben Kohles after the Friday morning rounds.

Kohles shot a 2-under 69 to get to 11-under. His post-round interview was interrupted by a roar when Kim made his final putt.

“That’s sick,” he said smiling. “There’s a 59. I guess 62 wasn’t as good.”

Kim’s mindset is to not play “too protective.” That is not easy at the par-3 No. 17 and par-5 No. 18 where water lines each hole.

“I just kind of told myself like, ‘Hey, this is the way, this is the moment to get into the history books and let’s go for it, let’s not try to luck our way into it, let’s try to step up and hit some really good shots,’” he said.

Kim made a 17-foot birdie putt on No. 17, and a wedge from 124 yards landed pin high but rolled to the fringe of the 18th green, leaving an uphill putt with little break.

“I tend to leave those short when it’s that uphill and I just, last thing was just get it there, just don’t leave it short,” said Kim, who raised his hands and did a few fist bumps when the ball sank into the cup.

Kim, whose previous career low round was 62, made five straight birdies beginning on No. 3 and added three in a four-hole stretch beginning on No. 9.

Eight of his birdies were from more than 10 feet.

“When you hit a putt and it does exactly what you kind of envisioned before you hit it, it’s an awesome feeling. Felt like that all day out there,” said Kim, whose lone tour win came at the 2018 John Deere Classic.

Second in the Valero Texas Open in April, Kim's best finish in 12 tournaments since was 17th, and he missed four cuts, including the past three weeks at the British Open, Scottish Open and John Deere Classic.

Playing the previous five weeks, Kim thought about skipping this week’s tour stop.

“I felt decent energy-wise," Kim said, "so I went home after I missed the cut at the Open, just spent a couple days relaxing and came up here and really happy I did.”

___

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

The Bulldogs received 88 of 164 votes to reach the title game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta in early December. Texas was the second choice, with 57 votes, and Mississippi a distant third with six. Texas A&M, Alabama, Oklahoma, LSU and Kentucky also received votes.

Only 10 times since 1992 has the media’s preseason predicted champion proceeded to win the SEC title game.

Media also voted on preseason All-SEC teams, with Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss edging Texas’ Arch Manning for first-team quarterback.

Predicted order of finish

1. Georgia, 2,510 points

2. Texas, 2,449

3. Mississippi, 2,004

4. Texas A&M, 1,967

5. LSU, 1,961

6. Alabama, 1,930

7. Oklahoma, 1,914

8. Tennessee, 1,320

9. Florida, 1,217

10. Missouri, 1,105

11. South Carolina, 956

12. Auburn, 936

13. Vanderbilt, 751

14. Kentucky, 546

15. Mississippi State, 467

16. Arkansas, 262

First-team offense

QB: Trinidad Chambliss, Mississippi

RB: Kewan Lacy, Mississippi; Ahmad Hardy, Missouri

WR: Cam Coleman, Texas; Ryan Coleman-Williams, Alabama

TE: Trey’Dez Green, LSU

OG/OT: Trevor Goosby, Texas; Cayden Green, Missouri; Jordan Seaton, LSU; Earnest Greene III, Georgia

C: Drew Bobo, Georgia

All-purpose: Mario Craver, Texas A&M

First-team defense

DL: Colin Simmons, Texas; Will Echoles, Mississippi; Dylan Stewart, South Carolina; Princewill Umanmielen, LSU

LB: Whit Weeks, LSU; Xavier Atkins, Auburn; Rasheem Biles, Texas

DB: KJ Bolden, Georgia; Zabien Brown, Alabama; Bray Hubbard, Alabama; Ellis Robinson IV, Georgia

First-team specialists

PK: Tate Sandell, Oklahoma

P: Grant Chadwick, LSU

Return specialist: Ryan Niblett, Texas

Kickoff specialist: Tate Sandell, Oklahoma

Long snapper: Ben Anderson, Oklahoma

Second-team offense

QB: Arch Manning, Texas

RB: Jadan Baugh, Florida; Nate Frazier, Georgia

WR: Mario Craver, Texas A&M; Isaiah Sategna III, Oklahoma

TE: Lawson Luckie, Georgia

OG/OT: Dontrell Glover, Georgia; Michael Fasusi, Oklahoma; Michael Carroll, Alabama; Lance Heard, Kentucky

C: Mark Nabou Jr., Texas A&M

All-purpose: Ryan Niblett, Texas

Second-team defense

DL: David Stone, Oklahoma; Elijah Griffin, Georgia; Taylor Wein, Oklahoma; Quincy Rhodes Jr., Arkansas

LB: Raylen Wilson, Georgia; Suntarine Perkins, Mississippi; Kip Lewis, Oklahoma

DB: Kelley Jones, Mississippi State; DJ Pickett, LSU; Ty Benefield, LSU; Eli Bowen, Oklahoma; Peyton Bowen, Oklahoma

Second-team specialists

PK: Lucas Carneiro, Mississippi

P: Grayson Miller, Oklahoma

Return specialist: Isaiah Sategna III, Oklahoma

Kickoff specialist: Lucas Carneiro, Mississippi

Long snapper: Trey Dubuc, Texas

Third-team offense

QB: Gunner Stockton, Georgia

RB: DeSean Bishiop, Tennessee; Hollywood Smothers, Texas

WR: Ryan Wingo, Texas; Nyck Harbor, South Carolina

TE: Willie Rodriguez, Kentucky

OG/OT: David Sanders Jr., Tennessee; Patrick Kutas, Mississippi; Brandon Baker, Texas; Wendell Moe Jr., Tennessee

C: Braelin Moore, LSU

All-purpose: Jaden Baugh, Florida

Third-team defense

DL: Kam Franklin, Mississippi; DJ Hicks, Texas A&M; Gabe Harris, Georgia; Jayden Woods, Florida

LB: Arion Carter, Tennessee; TJ Dottery, LSU; Yhonzae Pierre, Alabama

DB: Keon Sabb, Alabama; Champ Anthony, Auburn; Khalil Barnes, Georgia; Jelani McDonald, Texas

Third-team specialists

PK: Alex McPherson, Auburn

P: Ethan Pulliam, Mississippi State

Return specialist: Vernell Brown III, Florida

Kickoff specialist: Terry Bussey, Texas A&M

Long snapper: Brett Le Blanc, Missouri

___

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Paxton’s office secured the injunction last year against clinics operated by Maria Margarita Rosas. She still faces criminal charge that she provided unlawful abortions and employed unlicensed individuals.

But the Texas 15th Court of Appeals, created three years ago by the Texas Legislature to handle major business and state civil cases, found that the trial court erred in granting the injunction because the judge relied only on affidavits from Paxton’s office that didn’t provide direct evidence that the violations occurred.

Justice Scott Field’s opinion said the evidence submitted to support the injunction “does not reasonably support” the claim that abortions were performed at the clinics and the lower court “abused its discretion in granting the temporary injunctive relief.”

Abortion is completely banned in Texas with very limited exceptions.

The appeals court, overseen by three Republican judges appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, did not give an opinion on whether the accusations against Rosas are valid. Instead, it focused on the injunction that forced the clinics’ closure.

A spokesperson for Paxton’s office said the attorney general will appeal the court’s decision to the Texas Supreme Court to “ensure clarity in temporary injunction procedure in this and other cases.”

In a statement, the Center for Reproductive Rights called the appeals court ruling a “significant step” toward justice for Rojas, adding that the state has unfairly targeted her.

“The state of Texas has no case,” said Jenna Hudson, the group’s senior counsel. “Maria Rojas has been an upstanding midwife who delivered babies and provided lawful care for underserved pregnant patients.”

Rojas owned and operated Clinica Waller Latinoamericana in Waller, Clinica Latinoamericana Telge in Cypress, and Latinoamericana Medical Clinic in Spring, according to the attorney general’s office.

Disclosure: The Center for Reproductive Rights 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 Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

• Mexico to request criminal charges over deaths following fatal shooting of Houston man by ICE agents

The forum, titled “Seeking Justice,” is scheduled for 11 a.m. at Harris County Commissioners Court. Organizers say members of Congress will hear testimony from Salgado Araujo’s family, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, faith leaders and community advocates.

The hearing comes after Salgado Araujo, 52, was fatally shot by an ICE officer during an encounter in Houston on July 7.

• Activists demand justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, plan citywide Houston shutdown Friday

Federal officials have said Salgado Araujo used his vehicle as a weapon during the incident. His family has disputed that claim and has called for more transparency surrounding the investigation.

The hearing follows a July 15 news conference in Washington, D.C., where U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus raised concerns about two fatal ICE shootings and called for additional oversight.

• ‘A hardworking Mexican man’: Son of man killed by ICE in Houston demands investigation

Lawmakers have criticized the handling of the investigation and have called for an independent review of the shooting.

“This is why we need congressional oversight,” Garcia said at the time, calling for an “independent top-to-bottom” investigation.

Activists and community leaders have continued calling for accountability following Salgado Araujo’s death, with some demanding a broader review of ICE’s use of force.

• Hundreds march in Houston demanding justice after ICE shoots, kills Lorenzo Salgado Araujo

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus hearing is expected to include witness accounts and testimony related to the shooting and concerns surrounding federal immigration enforcement.

A new campaign launched Friday will promote programs that let veterans who recently drove large military vehicles skip the required skills test for a commercial driver’s license. Other soldiers can attend a commercial driving school during their last six months of active duty. The GI Bill will also pay for 100% of commercial driver's license training and for some people even pay a housing allowance while they are in school.

The campaign will be part of a broader interagency effort to help veterans find good civilian jobs that the White House plans to announce on Monday.

The Transportation Department began enforcing existing English language requirements for truckers last summer. Concerns about truck driver qualifications then took on more urgency after an August crash in Florida, when a truck driver performed an illegal U-turn that killed three people. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that driver, who is from India, should never have been licensed in the first place.

Audits conducted in every state uncovered numerous non-domiciled commercial driver's licenses that remained valid long after an immigrant's work permits had expired or were issued without properly verifying their citizenship status.

Since then, about 26,000 drivers have been pulled off the road for failing to demonstrate English proficiency, and the Transportation Department said 30,000 commercial licenses were canceled because they were issued illegally. The federal government has tried to withhold millions of dollars of highway funds from California and New York for failing to comply and revoke thousands more licenses, but that has wound up in court. Several other states — including Pennsylvania, Minnesota and North Carolina — have been warned they are at risk of losing funding.

“We are removing more and more dangerous foreign drivers off our roads every day and restoring the integrity of America’s trucking industry,” Duffy said. “Our new Freedom Haulers campaign will help build on these successes and get the word out that there’s never been a better time for America’s former service members to get behind the wheel of a big rig.”

The federal government has been actively enforcing CDL rules

The trucking industry has applauded the administration's effort to get unqualified drivers off the road and close down sham CDL schools, and companies praised this new effort to get more veterans behind the wheel.

“Veterans make up 15% of our workforce and bring the highest levels of leadership, discipline and technical skills that are essential to our success. We are dedicated to providing them with meaningful careers and a supportive environment where they can thrive," said Derek Leathers, who is chairman and CEO of Werner Enterprises.

Cole Stevens, who is chief strategy officer at the trucking company that bears his last name, said veterans' backgrounds make them great drivers.

“Some of the best drivers and industry leaders I’ve had the privilege of working with are military veterans," Stevens said. “Their integrity, accountability, and mission-first mindset make them an incredible asset.”

In addition to enforcing existing restrictions, the government announced plans to restrict which immigrants can qualify for a non-domiciled commercial driver's license and require them to take the test in English, but those rules are being challenged in court.

The only immigrant drivers who can get a license under the new rules are holders of an H-2A, H-2A or E-2 visa. H-2A is for temporary agricultural workers while H-2B is for temporary nonagricultural workers, and E-2 is for people who make substantial investments in a U.S. business.

Immigrants account for about 20% of all truck drivers, but all of these non-domiciled licenses for immigrants represent only about 5% of all commercial driver’s licenses, or about 200,000 drivers.

Some immigrant groups have said they believe that many drivers are being unfairly targeted. The spotlight has been on Sikh truckers because the driver in the Florida crash and the driver in another fatal crash in California in October are both Sikh.

Truck driving may appeal to veterans

The Transportation Department plans to work with the Pentagon and Departments of Veterans Affairs and Labor to promote the career field as a good job that offers independence to veterans who don't want a desk job in civilian life.

Veterans still have to study the rules and pass the written test for a commercial driver's license, but soldiers who recently drove big military vehicles over 2.5 tons (2.25 metric tons) can skip the skills test. The government said more than 40,000 veterans have already used that program, which can enable them to get on the road within a few weeks.

The Transportation Department said that truck drivers currently make an average of $70,000 a year, as the truck market has tightened up and rates have increased.

Veterans who served for at least three years can also use the money from the GI Bill program to pay for CDL training, and they might even qualify for a housing stipend.

According to the League City Police Department, its Business District Unit (BDU) recovered more than $400,000 worth of stolen merchandise — an estimated 15,000-plus items — and arrested 52-year-old Claudia Ivonne Higuera-Torres of Houston.

Police said officers were first dispatched to a theft report at the store on July 12. From there, investigators say the case quickly broadened into a multi-jurisdictional effort involving numerous cities and several counties across the region.

Higuera-Torres was taken into custody on July 21 and charged with first-degree felony organized retail theft, police said. Her bond was set at $150,000, but the judge denied her release due to an ICE detainer, according to the department.

Investigators said Flock Safety camera systems were key to the case, helping them identify vehicles tied to the alleged theft ring, track when League City businesses were being targeted, and connect similar thefts reported by multiple retailers in other jurisdictions.

• Massage therapist arrested after reported indecent assault at Magnolia spa, sheriff says

“Organized retail crime impacts businesses, employees, and consumers throughout our communities. Through strong partnerships, advanced technology, and relentless investigative work, the BDU was able to identify those responsible and bring a significant criminal operation to an end,” LCPD Assistant Chief Stephen Antley said.

Police also said the investigation is ongoing and they expect additional arrests and charges as detectives continue identifying others they believe are involved.

A lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City on behalf of Rhonda Grayson and Jeffrey Kennedy names Principal Chief David Hill and the Muscogee Nation Citizenship Board as defendants.

It says that Hill and the citizenship board are violating an 1866 treaty between the tribe and the U.S. government by refusing to recognize Black Creek Freedmen as citizens as ordered by the Muscogee Nation Supreme Court in July 2025.

The board denied the applications of Grayson and Kennedy in 2019 after it incorrectly determined they could not identify a lineal descendant of the tribe, but the court said the pair are entitled to tribal citizenship.

However, Hill and the board have not yet issued the citizenship cards, denying Grayson and Kennedy their “right to vote and the ability to participate fully as members of the Nation,” according to the lawsuit.

Last August, Hill blocked the tribe’s citizenship board from issuing citizenship cards until leaders decide how to change the tribe’s constitution. The tribe's headquarters is in Okmulgee, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northeast of Oklahoma City.

A spokesman for the Muscogee Nation said late Thursday afternoon that it had not yet been served with the complaint.

“We would point out that federal law and precedent is clear that matters of Muscogee Nation law and governance are to be addressed through the Nation’s own governmental institutions,” the Muscogee Nation said in a statement.

“We are committed to ensuring that the Muscogee Nation’s Constitution and laws are followed fairly and consistently,” the statement said. “Getting policies right is always more important than getting them done quickly. Anything less would undermine the integrity of our governmental processes and the rights of our citizens.”

The Muscogee Nation is one of five tribes in Oklahoma that once practiced slavery.

Under the 1866 treaty, the tribe abolished slavery and granted citizenship to the formerly enslaved. The Muscogee Nation adopted in 1979 a constitution that restricted membership to the descendants of people listed as “Muscogee (Creek) Indians by blood” on the Dawes Rolls, a census of members of the five tribes created around 1900.

When the Dawes Rolls were created, people were listed on two separate rolls: those who were Muscogee and those who were identified by the U.S. government as Freedmen.

The court's 2025 ruling also directed the board to apply the treaty of 1866 to future applicants who can trace an ancestor to either roll. The decision could create a path to tribal citizenship for thousands of new members who are not Muscogee by blood.

Attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons, a Black Creek Indian who is one of the lawyers representing Grayson and Kennedy, said Thursday that there are about 100,000 Black Creeks across the United States.

Successful legal cases were brought against two of the five Oklahoma tribes, the Seminole Nation and the Cherokee Nation, which have since granted citizenship to Freedmen descendants.

“Every day of non-compliance is another day that Black Creek Freedman are denied our birthright and our very identity as citizens,” said Grayson, president of the Muscogee Creek Indian Freedmen Band.

“The fight is bigger than every one of us,” she told reporters Thursday. “It belongs to every Black Creek Freedman descendant who has carried this history, protected these stories and refused to let our identity be dismissed or diminished.”

___

This story was first published on July 23, 2026. It was updated on July 24, 2026, to make clear that the Muscogee Nation Citizenship Board’s determination was incorrect when it said the Creek Freedmen citizenship applicants could not identify a lineal descendant of the tribe.

___

Williams is a member of AP's Race & Ethnicities Team. He reported from Detroit.

The crash happened Wednesday evening. Metro police say the driver was speeding before losing control and striking the HOV barrier. The car flew off the overpass, landing in the middle of the Southwest Freeway. All three women inside, miraculously survived.

KPRC 2 News reporter Corley Peel spoke exclusively with one of the Good Samaritans, Jack Johnson, about the moment he stopped to help.

View this post on Instagram

Johnson said he did not see the car fly off the overpass, but he saw the barrier crumble and then spotted the car in the road.

“I just seen the car just flat rooftop down, smashed in, and I saw a couple of gentlemen that was there,” Johnson said.

Johnson, couldn’t sit back and watch. 

“Something just told me just to get out the vehicle and just go see what was going on and just to go help,” he said.

What he found was intense. Three women trapped inside the crushed car, screaming for help.

“All I can just hear is the young girls in there just screaming, yelling, saying, ‘Get me out. Get me out. Help me. Help me.’ And I thought about my little girls,” Johnson said.

Hearing their voices was an immediate relief.

“That was a major relief. I’m glad I didn’t walk up to not hearing any voices at all,” he said.

The group of strangers worked together relentlessly, each taking on a different task to free the women.

“Everyone had their own little task. They had one standing on top of the car and they said they smelled gas. They just pulled off fire extinguishers and everything, just to make sure,” Johnson said.

Once first responders arrived, the three women were safely removed from the vehicle. It is described as a miracle that all three survived.

After it was over, the strangers never exchanged names, only handshakes, before going their separate ways.

Johnson says he hopes to reconnect with the other Good Samaritans and get in touch with the three women to know they are okay.

For Johnson, the moment captured something bigger about the city he calls home.

“Houston comes together. At a time of need, we come together and that made me feel wonderful that everybody would just stop their lives to deal with another person that was in danger,” he said.

Metro Police say the investigation into the crash is ongoing.

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A post shared by Zion Christyan Webb (@zionwebbtv)

A Houston Transtar camera at the Southwest Freeway and Beltway 8 showed the vehicle blocking the freeway Wednesday afternoon.

Drivers were seen using sledgehammers to try to free the three women who were trapped inside the vehicle.

Police said the car was headed southbound in the HOV lane and turned into the park and ride when it went through the barrier. Authorities say the women were “conscious and talking” after the crash and had non-life-threatening injuries.

Traffic alert: IH-69 Southwest Fwy NB at Beltway 8 West, a one vehicle major crash has the freeway closed. A vehicle fell from the HOV onto the Southwest Freeway. Traffic is backed up and will be for hours. Find an alternate route. First responders are on scene. @HCSOTexas… pic.twitter.com/YqoNoLxbdS

— Terry Garza, LT (@HCSO_TerryGarza) July 23, 2026

Merz's presentation of an incomplete set of changes, however, raised questions and risked undermining his effort to generate new momentum.

Merz took office less than 15 months ago with pledges to reform and turn around Germany’s economy, Europe’s biggest, after years of stagnation. But that economic turnaround has been slow to start. And the middle-of-the-road coalition of Merz’s center-right Union bloc and the center-left Social Democrats, two traditional rivals, has yet to persuade voters that it can produce results.

That has resulted in Merz’s popularity sinking to rock-bottom levels, while the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has gained support on the back of widespread discontent.

Merz tries to seize an opportunity

Merz took the opportunity to make a series of changes after a senior ally quit as the leader of his bloc's parliamentary group over personal conduct that undermined his credibility. Merz plans to put his chief of staff, Thorsten Frei, in that job.

The German leader said Health Minister Nina Warken will take Frei’s place at the chancellery, a post that is key to the smooth functioning of the government. She will be the first woman to take that job. Another close ally, Carsten Linnemann, the general secretary of Merz’s Christian Democratic Union party, will become health minister.

Merz said there will be further Cabinet changes, but didn’t offer details. He said those decisions will take “a few days yet, and perhaps more time.”

“The personnel changes follow a clear line,” he said. “We want a government that works with great vigor and pleasure and also represents the personal diversity of our society and politics. We are a reform government and want to continue showing that.”

Difficult regional elections are ahead

The governing parties face three difficult regional elections in September. In the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt on Sept. 6, AfD is hopeful of winning a majority that would give it control of a state government for the first time.

After months in which voters were turned off by squabbling in the coalition, Merz’s government recently embarked on big plans for potentially painful change — including a proposed reform of the creaking pension system that would include raising the retirement age gradually, income tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners and an effort to slash red tape.

“The government has found its rhythm, despite some criticism,” Merz declared last week. “We have delivered, and we have recognized the dimension of the tasks we face.”

Ally quit over surrogacy

Only days later, though, he faced a new distraction. Jens Spahn quit as leader of the Union’s parliamentary group — one of the most powerful positions in the coalition — after it emerged that he and his husband had used the services of a surrogate mother in the U.S. to have a baby.

Surrogacy isn’t allowed in Germany. Merz’s party opposes allowing it, a position that it reaffirmed at a convention in February, and Spahn himself had spoken out against it in the past. That prompted accusations of double standards.

Frei will now take Spahn’s job, a position he’s widely considered better suited to than coordinating the chancellery. Frei was the Union’s parliamentary chief whip under Merz when the center-right was in opposition.

Warken takes his place at the chancellery after shepherding the first of the government’s reforms, meant to curb rising costs in the German health insurance system, through parliament earlier this month.

Merz said she has showed that “she can push through reforms against resistance," praised her as a tough negotiator and said that “she is also at home with the security policy issues” that are important at the chancellery.

Linnemann, a conservative who lacks government experience, will take her place at the Health Ministry. Merz said that “we must maintain the course of reform” in health policy and that requires a “steadfast” minister.

Merz took no questions and didn't mention multiple German media reports that he also plans to replace Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder. That issue remained open Friday afternoon amid reports that a candidate had first accepted the job, then changed his mind, and the uncertainty drew negative headlines.

Merz’s coalition last year set up a huge fund to underpin an effort to upgrade worn-out transport infrastructure, but frustration remains — for example with the unreliability of the national railway.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel argued that Merz had caused “yet more chaos” with his reshuffle and said in a post on X that the government being preoccupied with itself doesn't do justice to Germany's “many-faceted” problems.

“Germany needs new elections,” she wrote. The next national election isn't due until early 2029.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logged 2,318 cases of measles as of Thursday, according to an agency update on Friday.

The nation had 2,289 cases in 2025, the worst year for measles in more than three decades. Now, 2026 has easily become the U.S.’s worst year for measles since 1991, as major outbreaks in South Carolina, Utah and Arizona have sickened hundreds and smaller clusters of cases sparked in other states.

In November, international health officials will meet to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have lost their measles-free status. The U.S. eliminated local measles spread in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, which have fallen in recent years to below the 95% coverage needed to prevent outbreaks.

Measles cases are undercounted

While measles cases in the U.S. are climbing, it may be impossible to say exactly how far-reaching the spread is. Public health departments and disease researchers have long acknowledged that official counts are incomplete, because some people get sick and don’t seek out treatment — something not unique to measles.

Furthermore, experts say the spread might be greater than what’s known because the virus is one of the most contagious known to medicine and vaccination rates nationwide have declined. National vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella — which dropped to 92.5% among kindergartners in the 2024-25 school year, from 95.2% in 2019-20 — obscure even lower rates in certain communities.

In Utah, where public health officials have fought measles for more than a year, the virus has sickened more than 700 people during that time, according to the state health department. Experts relying on mathematical modeling and genetic analyses indicate that a large outbreak on the Utah-Arizona border could be around three to four times bigger than what’s currently known, state epidemiologist Dr. Leisha Nolen said.

The picture is muddier in South Carolina, which had the nation’s largest outbreak in 35 years. There, the 997 total is likely an undercount, the state health department has said, but it doesn’t know by how much.

Dr. Brannon Traxler, acting director of the state department of health, said the undercount is “impossible to know and may vary during the course of an outbreak.”

Data gaps can make it hard to reliably estimate an outbreak’s true scope. Experts say hospitalization rates can be a good barometer, but measles hospitalizations are not required to be reported in every state.

“If we really had some kind of solid gold standard for the percentage of all cases that have hospitalization or some measure of severity, then that would be another way of estimating the outbreak size that we could see if it’s consistent with these other methods,” said Damon Toth, an applied mathematician at the University of Utah’s medical school who is working on one of the Utah outbreak analyses.

Researchers are still analyzing the 2025 Texas outbreak

In Texas, researchers are still working to estimate the size of the state’s 2025 outbreak and early findings show it might have been nearly twice the size of the 762 known cases.

Rémy Pasco, a mathematical epidemiologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who is working on the analysis, said the undercounts were unsurprising. In the absence of an adequate community vaccination rate — 95% according to health experts — “there’s just not much you can do about measles once you have it,” he said.

The CDC defines an outbreak as three or more linked cases. But by the time three such cases are identified in communities with low vaccination rates and less disease surveillance, “either you missed the previous ones or you’re going to have a lot more,” he added.

Dr. Varun Shetty, Texas’ chief state epidemiologist, said there were instances where people tested positive for measles but health officials couldn’t confirm who else was in the person’s household or if they were sick.

“What we’re able to count and report is almost always an underestimate of what actually occurred, because it relies on people being willing to be able to get tested, to share information with healthcare providers and with public health,” Shetty said. “Sometimes that just doesn’t happen.”

The state health department previously reported that 182 probable measles cases went unconfirmed in March 2025 among minors in Gaines County — the epicenter of the outbreak — due to a lack of information. The confirmed case count for the western Texas county for the whole outbreak is 414.

Shetty expects to keep seeing measles cases and even outbreaks because so many people are unprotected.

“It’s really critical, not only for individual people, but for communities, to have high vaccination coverage,” he said.

Vaccination is about protecting others, physician says

Dr. Mark Roberts, retired director of the Public Health Dynamics Lab at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, worries most for the people he calls “innocent bystanders.”

Research and measles modeling by his team shows those who cannot get vaccinated — young babies, people with weak immune systems and those who rarely don’t get robust immunity from the vaccine — bear the brunt of outbreaks early on.

Some people see skipping vaccination as like deciding not to wear a seat belt in a car, Roberts said.

“Not vaccinating your kid is like saying, ‘I don’t want my car to have brakes,’” he said. “Because it’s other people that you can hit. It’s not just you in your car. It’s other people.”

___

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.

From the 1.6 million dozen shell egg recall and the Cyclospora-related iceberg lettuce concerns, below is a quick, easy-to-scan roundup of the food and dietary supplement recalls posted by the FDA in the last two weeks that specifically list Texas in distribution or availability, plus what to look for to see if you have an affected product.

Shell eggs (multiple brands) — Salmonella risk

• Posted: 07/22/2026 | Company: Midwest Poultry Services, L.P.
• Texas connection: Produced/distributed from Texas; shipped to TX (also OK, LA). Sold at Kroger (TX); Brookshire Grocery footprint includes TX.
• ID: Carton codes P-1950 or 0840962 + Julian Date 157–184.

Peter Rabbit Organics fruit puree pouches (4 oz) — possible soft plastic

• Posted: 07/21/2026 | Company: PT Organics Limited
• Texas connection: Sold nationwide at Kroger, Meijer, and Target (includes Texas stores) between 03/06/2026–07/13/2026.
• ID: Barcode 8 15367 01078 0; lane number “4” on the rear right-hand seam; Best-Before-Date 01/19/2027, 01/20/2027, 03/17/2027, 03/18/2027, 05/14/2027, or 05/15/2027.

Zen Principle moringa capsules (180 count) — possible Salmonella

• Posted: 07/19/2026 | Company: Relay Peak Research LLC (Zen Principle Naturals)
• Texas connection: Sold nationwide online (incl. TX) via Amazon and zenprinciple.com .
• ID: Lot A6FF4 | Best By 11/2028.

Iceberg lettuce (multiple SKUs/brands) — Cyclospora concern

• Posted: 07/18/2026 | Company: Taylor Farms de Mexico / Taylor Fresh Foods
• Texas connection: Distribution list includes TX.
• Where it may show up: Select Walmart (Marketside) items; Taco Bell locations that received recalled lettuce.

Ola-Ola pounded yam (2–10 lb) — undeclared milk

• Posted: 07/17/2026 | Company: Fayus Inc. (Yusol International Foods)
• Texas connection: Distributed in U.S. states including TX (African/Caribbean market outlets).
• ID: Affected exp. dates Nov 2028–May 2029; packaging that does not declare milk (sodium caseinate).

Khong Guan glutinous rice balls (14.1 oz bags) — undeclared peanuts

• Posted: 07/15 & 07/16/2026 | Company: Khong Guan Corporation
• Texas connection: Distributed online + retail in states including TX.
• ID:
• • Black sesame filling: UPC 6908791000053 | Use By 9/22/2027 or 10/19/2027
  • Black & white (black sesame): UPC 6908791000084 | Use By 10/19/2027

“It’s been just really rewarding to see the team kind of like, carry a little bit more confidence in their step,” Cantú told The Associated Press. “Maybe I’ve got some new confidence too.”

The feat caps a trajectory that began with Cantú getting his first star right out of the gate when Californios opened in 2015. He got a second one in 2018. At a June ceremony in San Diego, Cantú, with his wife Carolyn by his side, received his third star and a crisp white Michelin chef's jacket.

The accolade feels like validation not just for Californios but for the notion that Mexican food in Mexico and across the diaspora can be an elevated experience. Similar to fine dining Chinese restaurants just a few miles away from Californios, Mexican American restaurants have dealt with criticism for daring to charge more and offering tasting menus. Meanwhile, few bat an eye at French and Japanese restaurants with similar prices.

Shoot for the Michelin stars

The Michelin Guide, started in 1889 by French brothers Andre and Edouard Michelin, created a star-ranking system in the 1920s. Today, the guide has ratings for over 40,000 restaurants. To evaluate a restaurant, Michelin sends undercover inspectors posing as regular diners. The inspectors said Californios ascended the ranks because it has never been “afraid to cross borders” on the plate, according to Michelin’s website.

From the first bite, Californios patrons experience the Texas-born Cantú's blend of Mexican culture with California ingredients. He starts a meal with a sope, a small hand-formed masa cake made with white corn and beans from a farm in nearby Santa Rosa. Then, with a spatula, caviar made in partnership with a Sacramento sturgeon farm is carefully placed on top.

“It’s just really, really delicious and kind of feels like a warm hug,” Cantú said. “It feels comforting.”

Michelin inspectors agreed.

Californios deserved a three-star promotion, one of five inspectors said on Michelin’s website, for dishes consistently “executed with such precision, refinement and clarity without losing the Mexican identity — things like kombu or the matsukasa yaki fish taco.”

Sometimes Cantú and his team would try to guess if a diner could be an inspector. That turned out to be a good reminder that “every guest gets the same quality of presentation and hospitality,” the chef said.

Mexican food's growing recognition comes as immigration enforcement gets harsher

In the past few years, Michelin has starred a number of Mexican restaurants including a 10-by-10 foot (3-by-3 meter) taco stand in Mexico City. The growing recognition comes at a precarious time for immigration enforcement policies and the treatment of immigrants — even those in the U.S. legally.

Not someone who seeks to inject politics into food, Cantú could not ignore constant headlines about federal immigration operations — some of which have resulted in deaths including a Mexican man in Houston and a Colombian man in Maine earlier this month. Immigrants are “the backbone of all these dish pits and kitchens,” Cantú said. He has shown support through gestures. In March, he collaborated on an “anti-ICE” fundraising dinner.

“The culinary world is like a huge supporter of immigrants and the need for immigrants and the need to treat people with respect,” Cantú said. “It’s hard for me to say much more.”

Being in a blue state, Cantú is certain most of Californios’ diners share that sentiment.

Gustavo Arellano, a food writer and journalist who’s also Mexican American, believes the cuisine’s popularity really helps humanize the immigration debate.

“You see this especially like in small Southern towns where the rhetoric is ‘I’m against illegal immigrants. I don’t want too many Mexicans,'” Arellano said. “But, then they look at the Mexican restaurant in town and they’re like ‘Well, not them.’”

Californios shows Mexican food is just as worthy of fine dining

Growing up, Cantú watched his father and uncle in Texas run a Mexican restaurant and tortillería. As a chef working at high-end establishments in Austin and San Francisco, he found himself asking, “Why is no one doing Mexican cuisine and treating it with like extreme care?”

Inspired by the Bay Area, he settled on the name Californios. It's a nod to descendants of Spanish and Mexican settlers who settled in the 1700s and 1800s in what would become California.

Californios started with a $57 four-course tasting menu. The pushback was immediate.

“There was a ton of like, ‘This is not Mexican cuisine,’” Cantú said. “Even from our families, you know, trying to explain a contemporary cuisine to a lot of people is totally foreign because people kind of think that cuisine exists in a cookbook and that it doesn’t change.”

Californios is at the forefront of what some call “alta California” cuisine, where the children of Mexican immigrants or immigrants themselves use classical chef training with Mexican flavors. The term refers to the former Spanish province north of Baja California; Arellano describes it as an “ideology” that originated in California and has spread across the U.S.

Raised flavor profiles and prices ultimately raise skepticism. Arellano argues people think this way partly because they're trying to keep Mexican food in a box.

“There's always going to be a knee-jerk reaction,” Arellano said. “It goes to this myth that Mexican food should be cheap because Mexicans, all of us are supposedly working class that cannot afford higher-end stuff. That's classist.”

Cantú plans to keep bringing attention to his Mexican-California brand of fine dining. A cookbook is in the works.

“Mexican cuisine is one of the most diverse and complex cuisines in the world,” Cantú said, “and there’s countless Mexican immigrants in the United States and Latin immigrants who have their own ideas and concepts of what things can be.”

___

Tang reported from Phoenix.

Palestinians in the West Bank have been facing a wave of violence as Israel’s hard-line government, dominated by settler leaders and supporters, has overseen a surge in settlement construction over the past four years. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in these areas to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

4 Palestinians and 2 Israelis killed as fear of violence escalates

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli soldiers shot and killed four Palestinians in the village of Tell in the northern West Bank while the military reported the deaths of two soldiers, one of whom was a settler in a local defense squad.

Two other Israelis and four more Palestinians were wounded, health officials said, and the Israeli military announced it was preparing for an “extensive” counterterror operation in the West Bank. It said it conducting a manhunt for Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis and that it had apprehended two during a raid in Nablus.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a joint statement with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, called Friday for more troops to the West Bank and the razing of the homes of the accused in Tell, as well as collecting weapons and revoking work permits in the village.

“The security forces must be allowed to act freely and with full force against terrorism,” they said.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich went farther, saying that the villages of Tell, Iraq Burin and Beit Furik “need to look exactly like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarm,” referring to the mass demolition campaign that displaced tens of thousands in the West Bank towns last year.

“It is necessary to evacuate the population there for their protection and to clear these villages of terrorist infrastructure,” Smotrich said. “A sharp, determined, and unequivocal military action is required here and now.”

Human rights group B’Tselem warned the violence could spin out of control as Israeli settlers and soldiers amass near multiple Palestinian cities.

“Israeli violence is spreading across the West Bank, fueled by Israeli politicians openly calling for revenge,” said Yuli Novak, the group’s executive director. "We know where this leads. Millions of Palestinians are now completely exposed to further attacks, with no one protecting them.”

An unclear confrontation at the center of the tension

The exact circumstances of Friday’s incident remained unclear, but Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials suggested a group of settlers entered Tell and were confronted by residents who were fearful of an attack.

The village is off-limits to Israelis as part of Area B under the 1993 Oslo Accords struck after the first Palestinian Intifada.

According to the Israeli military, one of the villagers took one of the settlers’ weapons and fired on the group, killing Benayahu Mellet, 32, a security guard in a settlement nearby.

In a video of the incident, confirmed by the Israeli military and circulated online by the military correspondent for Israel’s Army Radio, two armed men in civilian clothing, as well as at least one Israeli soldier, are shown pointing their weapons at a group of Palestinians who had gathered in a field.

At one point, the two armed men rushed toward several Palestinian residents with their guns drawn. In the footage, the residents try to push them back and appear to disarm one of the men before opening fire.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it killed the man who took the settler’s weapon and that he was armed when soldiers shot him. But a separate video, published by Israeli media outlets and confirmed by the military, showed Israeli forces firing on a group of Palestinians in the same field who were already on the ground.

More than a dozen gunshots can be heard in the footage, which is less than a minute long. The military said the suspect was one of the people killed in the field. It did not respond to questions about why soldiers killed the other men — all of whom were related — or how long after the original altercation the killings took place.

Later, army chief Eyal Zamir said he was sending more troops to the occupied West Bank.

Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, a settler group in the northern West Bank, posted a video online in the wake of the Tell confrontation demanding the government crack down hard on Palestinians.

“We demand an iron fist and for the government to carry out a wide military operation against the Palestinian Authority and against Hamas,” he said.

Settlers have long targeted villages in the northern West Bank

Five Palestinian villages surrounding Nablus were attacked by Israeli settlers on Friday, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The towns and villages surrounding Nablus sit in one of the most violent parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In addition to newly approved settlements, at least nine farming outposts dot the area and attacks by Israeli settlers, army incursions and confrontations have become frequent.

Palestinians and human rights groups have increasingly documented armed settlers entering villages in the area. Livestock theft, arson and the defacement of mosques are routinely reported.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, since the beginning of this year, 87 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank governorates, including 21 by Israeli settlers.

Israeli deaths have repeatedly been followed by revenge against nearby Palestinian communities called “price tag” attacks.

That pattern followed the March 21 death of 18-year-old Yehuda Sherman, who was killed when a Palestinian vehicle struck his ATV near Beit Imrin. Senior politicians, including Smotrich, attended Sherman’s funeral and called for vengeance.

At the time, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented 32 settler attacks affecting 30 Palestinian villages and communities across the West Bank, about a third near Nablus governorate over the following two days. Settlers torched homes and vehicles, vandalized property and assaulted residents, injuring at least 32 Palestinians, according to OCHA.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.

——

McNeil reported from Brussels, Bwaitel from Ramallah and Cunningham from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Ramallah contributed to this report.

The Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas is trying to turn a key talking point of his Republican opponent against him — alleging Attorney General Ken Paxton is guilty of the same type of voter fraud he has spent years trying to eliminate.

“As our state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton has gone on a voter fraud witch hunt,” state Rep. James Talarico, who is challenging Paxton in the race to replace U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, said during a campaign event in Houston. “Turns out, he was committing voter fraud the whole time, voting illegally in six elections in a row from the wrong address.”

Talarico’s comments come after ProPublica and The Texas Tribune revealed that Paxton moved out of the home he shared with his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, in 2024 but continued to vote using that address, including during the March Republican primary in which he beat Cornyn. Three election experts told the news organizations that Paxton may have broken state law. 

Last week, the Collin County Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Texas secretary of state, urging that office to investigate Paxton for election fraud.

Paxton has repeatedly declined to answer the newsrooms’ questions about his voter registration and residency. On Tuesday, he held a rare news conference to tout the endorsement of nearly two dozen sheriffs and attacked Talarico as soft on crime. Talarico denied the charge at his own news conference Wednesday, saying he’d voted for billions of dollars in law enforcement funding as a member of the Legislature. 

When a Dallas Morning News political writer asked Paxton why he voted in Collin County, the attorney general shook his head as a campaign aide interceded. 

“We’re just going to answer questions on law enforcement today,” the aide said.

Paxton’s office and campaign did not respond to similar questions on Thursday from ProPublica and the Tribune. They also did not answer questions about Talarico’s comments.

The fact that Paxton voted in six elections from an address at which he appears not to live may resonate with voters because it reinforces longstanding accusations by critics that he has used his office for personal gain, said Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson. That was the central theme of the Texas Legislature’s impeachment of Paxton in 2023 on charges of bribery and corruption. The state Senate voted to acquit Paxton.

“There’s been a whole series of legal challenges he’s been able to slip out of, but voters are at least vaguely aware of them,” Jillson said. The latest reporting about his voting practices “is just another example of playing fast and loose with a law you must be familiar with as attorney general,” Jillson said.

Texas law permits voters to temporarily cast ballots using an address where they do not reside, so long as they intend to return. Election lawyers told the newsrooms that it is unlikely Paxton could make such an argument given his ongoing public and acrimonious divorce. (Examples of reasons considered valid include attending an out-of-area college or serving in the military.)

It is unclear what will happen with the complaint filed against Paxton.  

State law requires the secretary to “promptly” refer complaints to the attorney general if “there is reasonable cause to suspect that criminal conduct occurred.” 

Secretary of State Jane Nelson’s last day in office was Friday, three days after the complaint was filed. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed one of his senior advisers, Robert Howden, to replace her. The office continues to decline to answer questions from reporters, but Collin County Democratic Party Vice Chair Mary Higbe said the secretary of state told her in an email Thursday that the complaint “remains under review by one of our staff attorneys.” 

The attorney general’s office has not responded to questions about whether it received the complaint or whether it would hire a special prosecutor to investigate it, given that it involves the attorney general himself.

The silence from the Republican-led state government suggests an effort to slow-walk investigating Paxton, said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He said that’s difficult to square with rhetoric by Paxton and the secretary of state’s office that securing Texas elections is a top priority.

“You push the idea that you’re going to be really tough on election wrongdoing, and yet here you are with allegations in which you seem to be uninterested in pursuing,” Taylor said. “That smacks of rank hypocrisy.”

The New York-based company said Friday it earned $3.11 billion, or $4.53 a share, compared to $2.89 billion, or $4.08 a share, in the same period a year earlier. The results beat analysts' forecasts, who were looking for AmEx to earn a profit of $4.40 a share, according to FactSet.

AmEx continues to benefit from global economic growth that has disproportionately benefited the wealthy and high net worth individuals, as its customer bases skews heavily toward those demographics with the Platinum Card, Gold Card and other high-end credit cards. Its customers often put almost all of their spending on credit cards, and pay those cards off at the end of each month. The average AmEx customers spent $6,759 on their cards in the quarter, up from $6,393 in the same period a year earlier.

But at the same time, the company is spending heavily to keep those customers as it faces increased competition from other high-end credit card products like JPMorgan Chase's Sapphire Reserve Card, Citigroup's Strata card and Capital One's Venture X brand. The company's quarterly expenses rose 12% from a year ago, costs that went into increased marketing as well as refreshes of its credit card products.

While the company upped its guidance on how much revenue it expects to bring in this year, the company did not change its profit outlook for the year, as the company plans to put more resources into marketing and bringing in new customers. The company also expects to put additional investments into technology like artificial intelligence, like many other Fortune 500 companies.

Those efforts seem to be paying off. The company signed up another 3 million customers in the second quarter, of which three-quarters of those new customers signed up for an AmEx card with an annual fee.

From Aug. 4–11, the Arboretum will host 300 to 400 goats from GoatScaping LLC to graze a seven-acre stretch near the Ravine, the 610 Parking Loop, and the Event Lawn in the northwest corner of the 155-acre nature sanctuary.

The goal: knock back thick understory growth and some of the plants that tend to take over when left unchecked—without relying on heavy equipment or chemical treatments.

The goats’ menu includes everything from brushy overgrowth to plants that can make trails and natural areas harder to manage, including green briars, poison ivy, and ragweed, along with a mix of aggressive and invasive species.

• Fort Bend teen with rare condition hopes to represent Team USA in 2028 Paralympics

Conservation Director Stephen Benigno said the herd will focus on dense vegetation ranging from overgrown native plants to invasives, adding that the steep terrain is part of what makes the Ravine a perfect candidate for goat-powered clearing.

“The Ravine actually has topography, making it an ideal location to implement goat browsing since the steep slopes present challenges for mechanical and manual removal of these species,” Benigno said.

Arboretum Executive Director Debbie Markey said the goats have become a reliable (and crowd-pleasing) tool for land management.

“Since 2020, the goats have been a tremendous asset in helping us manage unwanted vegetation while reducing the need for more labor-intensive methods,” Markey said. “They also provide a fun and educational experience for visitors, especially families with children.”

Want to see them?

The public is welcome to stop by and watch the herd at work and take photos. Arboretum staff asks visitors to not touch, approach, or feed the goats for everyone’s safety.

More details and updates are posted here.

Hours, parking, and entry

• Open daily: 7 a.m.–7:30 p.m. (March–October) and 7 a.m.–6 p.m. (November–February)
• Parking: $6.50; free on Thursdays and every Second Sunday for the general public; free daily for Arboretum Members
• Entrances: 4501 Woodway Dr. or 120 West Loop North (off I-610)

The settlement stems from claims that Amazon made it difficult for some customers to cancel their Prime memberships and used enrollment practices that allegedly misled consumers.

• A jury will look at whether Amazon tricked customers into joining Prime -- and made it hard to leave

Amazon has denied wrongdoing but agreed to the settlement.

Who could get money back?

According to the FTC settlement, some Amazon customers may qualify for automatic payments, while others may need to submit a claim.

Eligible customers generally include Prime members who were affected by Amazon’s enrollment or cancellation practices during the covered period outlined in the settlement.

The amount each person receives may vary depending on eligibility and other factors.

How will refunds be issued?

Some customers will receive payments automatically if they meet the requirements. Others may need to file a claim through an official settlement process.

The FTC warns consumers to be cautious of scams. Customers should not provide personal information or payment details to anyone claiming to offer a refund outside of official channels.

• Amazon ends a program that lets Prime members share free shipping perk with users outside household

What Amazon customers should know

The settlement does not mean every Prime member will receive money back. Eligibility depends on factors including how a customer signed up, used Prime and whether they were impacted by the practices covered in the case.

Amazon Prime members can check official updates about the settlement and refund process once details are finalized.

Amazon Prime is one of the company’s most popular services, offering benefits including free shipping, streaming content and other perks. The FTC’s case raised concerns about how consumers were enrolled and how easily they could cancel subscriptions.

The settlement is among the largest consumer protection agreements involving a technology company.

Customers who believe they may qualify should watch for official notices and avoid clicking on suspicious refund links or sharing account information with unknown sources.

In the span of 24 hours, Jin was 15 time zones away, digging into an In-N-Out hamburger in Los Angeles and watching fireworks with his family on the eve of Independence Day, marking America's 250th anniversary.

“It’s so dramatic. It's unimaginable,” the pastor told The Associated Press outside the nation's capital.

He said he was suddenly released after being held since October, then put on a plane to the U.S. after President Donald Trump raised his case with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May.

“It's a miracle,” Jin said this week.

Jin has led one of China's most influential underground churches, which defy government restrictions by not being registered with authorities. He is an exceptional case of a high-profile Chinese detainee going free following a U.S. request at a time when Beijing's leadership has only become more unyielding to foreign pressure.

Chinese pastor credits Trump for his release

Jin said Chinese authorities released him without forcing him to make a confession or going through a show trial, dropping the charges instead. He said he did not know if there was any deal or swap for his release and credited Trump's “unique diplomacy.”

“It has results,” the pastor said.

Trump, when leaving Beijing in May, told reporters that he brought up Jin's case and that Xi said he would “strongly consider the pastor.” Trump also has vowed to “save our Great Christian population” worldwide.

When asked about Jin's release, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the country manages religious affairs in accordance with the law. “We firmly oppose interfering in China's internal affairs with so-called religious issues,” the ministry said.

Jin is handed new Nikes and taken on an unknown journey

Jin said he was called suddenly to gather his few belongings, including a Bible, on July 3. He was handed new clothes and a new pair of Nike shoes. He was told he was being moved from the detention center in the southern city of Beihai, where he had been locked up for 266 days.

“Could it be that these people, now pressured, would put me under home arrest?” Jin said he wondered. He had heard from his lawyers that Trump had brought up his case with Xi less than two months earlier.

But he crossed out that possibility when the police van whisked by his old neighborhood and took him to a high-speed train station.

He was escorted into a train car with no other passengers, just police officers, who were recording video. Jin said he still did not imagine he could be freed because China rarely responds to outside pressure and many other Christian pastors and political activists are still locked up.

“I thought they would move me to a secretive place,” he said. A release was “too good to believe.”

He and the officers traveled some 470 miles to the southern metropolis of Guangzhou and then headed to the international airport, Jin said.

A temporary court was set up in a VIP room at the airport, where prosecutors read out a document, the pastor said.

After declaring “criminal evidence solid and criminal facts established,” the lead prosecutor informed Jin of the decision not to indict him on charges including illegal business activity and fraud stemming from running an unregistered church.

China has cracked down on the pastor's church

Jin founded Zion Church in 2007, and it grew into one of the most influential independent congregations in China. They are different from officially sanctioned places of worship, which accept Communist Party rule.

In 2018, authorities in Beijing shut down the church's physical sanctuary after the congregation refused to install surveillance cameras. Jin sent his family to the U.S. but stayed behind to keep developing the church, which met in small groups and gained a strong online following during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In October 2025, Jin and other church leaders were detained in another crackdown.

Pastor gets back his passport and heads to America

At the airport, Jin said he was handed his passport before stepping on a plane. A U.S. diplomat had been waiting for him for hours.

For the nearly 13-hour flight, Jin was too excited to sleep. When he landed in Los Angeles, the pastor said he was welcomed by U.S. officials and given a fee-free one-year visa.

He reunited with his family after a yearslong separation and got to hold his three grandchildren for the first time — the youngest was barely a month old.

His daughter Grace Jin Drexel, who had lobbied for months for her father’s release, said she didn’t recognize him at first because he lost a lot of weight and had visibly aged.

Now free, Jin is working for the release of other Christians

Jin said he would be working to help free the eight other Zion Church members and other Christians detained in China. That includes Wang Yi, pastor of the Early Rain Covenant Church, who is serving nine years in jail.

To that end, Jin met House Speaker Mike Johnson this week, along with relatives of three detained Christians in China.

“I am free in this country, so warmly welcomed, so I am making a special call not to forget that many more are still detained,” he told AP, choking up. “I hope we will continue to strive for them to be free.”

The Republican speaker said Jin's release had bipartisan support. “This is something we all agree on,” Johnson said. “It’s about religious freedom around the world.”

Jin said another hope is for China to legalize independent churches.

“Probably the most important wish in my lifetime is that Chinese churches can be recognized by their own government,” Jin said.

___

Associated Press writers Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to the report.

The decision at a U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in South Korea came days after Israel’s Foreign Ministry urged the committee to reject efforts to designate the small West Bank town of Sebastia and the Lebanese castles, calling the nominations a “weaponization of cultural heritage.”

At their meeting in Busan, members of the UNESCO committee decided to place Sebastia and five castles in Lebanon’s Mount Amel area on both the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger after reviewing the nominations on an emergency basis, citing ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.

Sebastia, a hilltop town about 10 kilometers (6 miles) northwest of Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is identified by scholars as ancient Samaria, capital of the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The area’s archaeological remains span the Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods. Christian and Islamic tradition holds that John the Baptist was buried there, according to a UNESCO website.

Sebastia’s nomination, first submitted by the Palestinian delegation to UNESCO in 2012, argued that World Heritage status was needed to help preserve the site, saying it remains largely undeveloped under Israeli control and requires additional conservation despite attracting tourists.

The designation comes as Israel, which does not recognize a Palestinian state, moves to expropriate large swaths of land around the site, even as it faces pressure to crack down on violence by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territory.

The five castles in the Mount Amel region are recognized for their layered architectural heritage, combining Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and local influences, reflecting the evolution of fortified architecture over nearly nine centuries, according to a UNESCO description.

Adel Naim Daoud Atieh, a member of the Palestinian delegation to UNESCO, said the World Heritage designation rewards the perseverance of Sebastia’s residents, “who have protected this extraordinary site through generations, despite occupation, restrictions, and repeated attempts to separate them from their own heritage.”

Israel withdrew from UNESCO in 2019, accusing the organization of being biased against it and of downplaying its historical ties to the Holy Land. A member of the Israeli delegation, which is attending the Busan meetings as observers, said it was a “shame politicization has ruined UNESCO and led to mockery of history.”

In Tuesday’s statement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused the Palestinian delegation of waging a “hostile, one-sided campaign” at UNESCO by falsely portraying Sebastia as an area facing an emergency, calling the effort a political attempt to “erase the site’s profound, well-documented Jewish and Christian history.”

The ministry also objected to efforts to list Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon as a World Heritage site. The castle was part of the nomination covering five castles in the Mount Amel area.

The ministry said Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group, has turned Beaufort Castle into a military stronghold by building tunnels beneath the site and launching rockets from the area, and accused UNESCO of ignoring those developments.

UNESCO and the Lebanese embassy in South Korea declined to comment on the Israeli claims about Hezbollah. At Friday’s meeting, a Lebanese delegate said the castles have been used “only for cultural and tourism purposes” since Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and accused Israeli media of circulating images of tourist facilities as military tunnels.

The UNESCO committee on Wednesday placed another Lebanese site, Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city in the southern part of the country, on the list of world heritage sites in danger.

The action exposed children to cyberbullying, unwanted contact and predatory behavior, commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said.

“Children’s content must never be visible to strangers,” he said. If TikTok does not take steps called for by the European Union's landmark Digital Services Act, “minors are exposed to predators, to grooming and to cyberbullying,” Regnier said, adding that children aged 13 to 15 can “easily” change their accounts from private to public and the private accounts of minors aged 16 to 17 can be seen by anyone on the internet. “We do not accept this,” Regnier said. “Putting default settings for minors is not a beauty contest under the DSA. It must be effective.”

The investigation comes on the heels of back-to-back crackdowns on Big Tech by Brussels, which has led the world in regulating tech behemoths including Meta and Apple.

TikTok can now defend itself and reply to the findings. If unsatisfied with the Chinese firm’s response, the European Commission could issue a so-called non-compliance decision and possible fine worth up to 6% of the company’s total annual revenue.

The Chinese social media firm, whose parent company ByteDance is based in Beijing, said in a statement it would review Brussels' findings and “continue to engage constructively with the Commission.”

“Protecting minors online is a goal we share, and we are committed to building on our strong track record of continuous improvement,” TikTok said in a statement.

If unsatisfied with the firm’s response, the commission could issue a so-called non-compliance decision and possible fine worth up to 6% of the company’s total annual revenue.

The commission estimates most of TikTok's 170 million users in the EU are children, with 7% of children aged 12 to 15 spending four to five hours daily on the app.

The 27-nation European Union found in February that TikTok had breached another aspect of its digital rule book with an “addictive design” of features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling that could harm the physical and mental health of users and minors especially.

China claims virtually the entire sea passage, a key global trade route, despite a 2016 arbitration ruling based on the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea that invalidated Beijing’s expansive claims.

Clash happens in the same area for second day

The latest high-seas faceoff happened near Scarborough Shoal for the second day in a row. The Philippine coast guard said a Chinese coast guard ship approached a Philippine government fisheries vessel at a distance of seven meters (23 feet) in what it called a “reckless” maneuver that created a serious risk of collision.

The Philippine coast guard strongly condemned “the dangerous and unprofessional actions of the China coast guard,” saying the shoal “is an integral part of the Philippine territory and its surrounding waters form part of the country’s territorial sea and exclusive economic zone.”

The Chinese coast guard said multiple Philippine ships, including three coast guard vessels, gathered in the waters on Friday and that it issued verbal warnings, deployed interception measures, and used water cannon to expel them.

“We sternly warn the Philippines to immediately cease its infringing and provocative actions or bear all consequences that may arise,” it said in a statement.

A clash on Monday at the Second Thomas Shoal left two injured.

Violence in South China Sea high on ASEAN agenda

The decades-long territorial standoffs were high on the agenda of the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their Asian and Western counterparts in three days of closed-door talks that started Tuesday in the Philippine capital.

The ASEAN ministers discussed the South China Sea disputes Tuesday and issued a joint statement in which they said that “concerns were expressed by some ministers on the land reclamations, activities, serious incidents in the area, including actions that put the safety of all persons at risk, and damage to the marine environment.”

The 11-nation regional bloc’s top diplomats welcomed “significant progress” in negotiations with China on a code of conduct that aims to prevent a major armed confrontation in the disputed waters. They said they aim to conclude the negotiations this year.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, met Wednesday on the sidelines of the ASEAN talks and discussed Monday's clash at the Second Thomas Shoal, calling the incident “escalatory.”

Two Philippine sailors aboard a boat were injured after being hit by wooden poles by Chinese coast guard personnel in a separate boat, the Philippines said. China accused Philippine sailors of attacking the Chinese with oars and long sticks.

Nearly a week of ministerial meetings in Manila was capped Friday with the commemoration of ASEAN’s 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, a nonaggression pact, where Philippine Foreign Sec. Theresa Lazaro said that in a time of global uncertainty, peace needs to be always defended.

“Peace is a daily choice,” Lazaro said. “It requires continuous labor, deliberate restraint, inclusive dialogue and an unyielding adherence to the rule of law.”

___

Associated Press video journalist Joeal Calupitan in Manila, Philippines and writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

Tropical Storm Bertha is finally out of our hair Friday morning, and it’s just in time for the weekend!

If you were out and about Thursday evening, you may have been caught in the downpours that came from Bertha. Many areas saw flooding, like Missouri City, Sugar Land and Cypress.

But I am happy to report the rain is out and the sun is back out.

As always, follow us for the latest on Click2Houston.com and watch us live on KPRC 2+.

➡️ Love our morning newsletter? Share it with your family and friends!

Weather ⛅

TODAY: 93° TONIGHT: 82°

KPRC Meteorologist Daji Aswad says:

“Friday will be quieter and hotter as the remnants of Bertha move west and away from the region. Most of Southeast Texas will stay dry under partly cloudy skies. There is a 20% chance of rain coming from the sea breeze. High temperatures climb into the mid-90s, and the humidity could push heat index values as high as 106 degrees the next three days.”

➡️ More weather headlines? Check them out here

Get your forecast details here.

Houston’s Top Headlines 📰

Woman’s body found in NE Harris County dumpster after family couldn’t find her

Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies are investigating after a woman’s body was found inside a dumpster behind a strip mall in northeast Harris County on Thursday.

Law enforcement responded to the 3900 block of Aldine Mail Route Road after receiving a call regarding the body a little after 11 a.m.

2 women hit, killed crossing US-59 after Houston police chase tied to Old Navy shoplifting

What began as a reported shoplifting at a Galleria-area clothing store ended in tragedy Thursday night when two women were hit and killed while running across a Houston freeway following a police chase, according to the Houston Police Department.

Assistant Chief James Bryant said officers were called around 9:15 p.m. to an Old Navy near the 5000 block of Westheimer Road for a reported shoplifting.

Divorce can take a major toll on mental health. Experts share ways Houstonians can cope

For many people, the end of a marriage is one of life’s most emotionally difficult experiences, even as divorce rates in the U.S. have declined over the past several decades.

According to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of Americans who have ever been married had experienced a divorce as of 2023.

DNA expert ties 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez to blood stains found in Houston-born singer D4vd’s garage

A DNA expert testified Thursday that evidence recovered from apparent blood stains in the garage of D4vd’s Hollywood home was a strong DNA match for 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, the girl he is charged with stabbing to death.

Prosecutors are alleging that D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, killed the girl, then dismembered her in the garage after she threatened to reveal their sexual relationship and crater his career. Police technicians took the samples from a rubber floor mat, a rowing machine, and a Tesla charger in the garage, and Los Angeles police criminalist Samantha Tosch testified that they matched Rivas Hernandez.

Back 2 School - Moms 💌

Summer Survival: What parents should be doing now before back-to-school

We’re almost two months into summer, and the countdown to back-to-school is getting closer. In this week’s Moms Blog with Houston Moms, we’re checking in on summer regression, what it is, how it can impact kids, and what parents can do now to help their children transition smoothly back into a school routine.

Plus, our Surviving Summer tip covers simple ways to make the most of the season, from planning a fun “Yes Day” with your kids to setting healthy boundaries around digital devices and screen time.

Things 2 Know 💡

Houston drivers feeling the pinch as gas prices rise again; see how much more you’re paying

LIST: Back-to-school freebies — backpack and supply giveaways around Houston

How to keep children with autism safe around water this summer

In case you missed it... 👀

• ‘Houston comes together’: Good Samaritan shares moment strangers helped three trapped women after car flies off overpass
• Judge to issue order in civil case that originally appointed Daniel Wong interim county judge
• 3 women injured after vehicle flies off elevated HOV lane on Southwest Freeway

Share your Pins! 📷

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!

Don’t miss a minute

We’re tracking your forecast, bringing you traffic solutions, and covering important news LIVE from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. on KPRC 2 and the KPRC 2+ livestream. Join us today!

Tropical Storm Bertha is finally out of our hair Friday morning, and it’s just in time for the weekend!

If you were out and about Thursday evening, you may have been caught in the downpours that came from Bertha. Many areas saw flooding, like Missouri City, Sugar Land and Cypress.

But I am happy to report the rain is out and the sun is back out.

As always, follow us for the latest on Click2Houston.com and watch us live on KPRC 2+.

➡️ Love our morning newsletter? Share it with your family and friends!

Weather ⛅

TODAY: 93° TONIGHT: 82°

KPRC Meteorologist Daji Aswad says:

“Friday will be quieter and hotter as the remnants of Bertha move west and away from the region. Most of Southeast Texas will stay dry under partly cloudy skies. There is a 20% chance of rain coming from the sea breeze. High temperatures climb into the mid-90s, and the humidity could push heat index values as high as 106 degrees the next three days.”

➡️ More weather headlines? Check them out here

Get your forecast details here.

Houston’s Top Headlines 📰

Woman’s body found in NE Harris County dumpster after family couldn’t find her

Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies are investigating after a woman’s body was found inside a dumpster behind a strip mall in northeast Harris County on Thursday.

Law enforcement responded to the 3900 block of Aldine Mail Route Road after receiving a call regarding the body a little after 11 a.m.

2 women hit, killed crossing US-59 after Houston police chase tied to Old Navy shoplifting

What began as a reported shoplifting at a Galleria-area clothing store ended in tragedy Thursday night when two women were hit and killed while running across a Houston freeway following a police chase, according to the Houston Police Department.

Assistant Chief James Bryant said officers were called around 9:15 p.m. to an Old Navy near the 5000 block of Westheimer Road for a reported shoplifting.

Divorce can take a major toll on mental health. Experts share ways Houstonians can cope

For many people, the end of a marriage is one of life’s most emotionally difficult experiences, even as divorce rates in the U.S. have declined over the past several decades.

According to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of Americans who have ever been married had experienced a divorce as of 2023.

DNA expert ties 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez to blood stains found in Houston-born singer D4vd’s garage

A DNA expert testified Thursday that evidence recovered from apparent blood stains in the garage of D4vd’s Hollywood home was a strong DNA match for 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, the girl he is charged with stabbing to death.

Prosecutors are alleging that D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, killed the girl, then dismembered her in the garage after she threatened to reveal their sexual relationship and crater his career. Police technicians took the samples from a rubber floor mat, a rowing machine, and a Tesla charger in the garage, and Los Angeles police criminalist Samantha Tosch testified that they matched Rivas Hernandez.

Back 2 School - Moms 💌

Summer Survival: What parents should be doing now before back-to-school

We’re almost two months into summer, and the countdown to back-to-school is getting closer. In this week’s Moms Blog with Houston Moms, we’re checking in on summer regression, what it is, how it can impact kids, and what parents can do now to help their children transition smoothly back into a school routine.

Plus, our Surviving Summer tip covers simple ways to make the most of the season, from planning a fun “Yes Day” with your kids to setting healthy boundaries around digital devices and screen time.

Things 2 Know 💡

Houston drivers feeling the pinch as gas prices rise again; see how much more you’re paying

LIST: Back-to-school freebies — backpack and supply giveaways around Houston

How to keep children with autism safe around water this summer

In case you missed it... 👀

• ‘Houston comes together’: Good Samaritan shares moment strangers helped three trapped women after car flies off overpass
• Judge to issue order in civil case that originally appointed Daniel Wong interim county judge
• 3 women injured after vehicle flies off elevated HOV lane on Southwest Freeway

Share your Pins! 📷

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!

Don’t miss a minute

We’re tracking your forecast, bringing you traffic solutions, and covering important news LIVE from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. on KPRC 2 and the KPRC 2+ livestream. Join us today!

According to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of Americans who have ever been married had experienced a divorce as of 2023.

• Costly, common myths about divorce

Mental health experts say divorce can bring on grief-like emotions, including sadness, depression, loneliness, isolation and low self-esteem. While every person’s experience is different, psychologists say it’s important to recognize that healing often takes time.

“This is a relationship we’re choosing to let go,” one counseling psychologist said. “And depending on the era that we grew up in, if we’re told that we stay married for life, we could also be dealing with some stigma, and that can take a mental toll on us as well.”

• Houston attorney explains how bankruptcy can save your marriage

Experts recommend several strategies to help navigate the emotional challenges that often follow the end of a marriage, including:

• Allow yourself time to grieve. Healing is a process, and it’s normal to experience a range of emotions.
• Lean on your support system. Friends, family and trusted loved ones can provide encouragement during difficult times.
• Consider individual therapy. Speaking with a mental health professional can help you process emotions and develop healthy coping strategies.
• Try journaling. Writing down your thoughts and feelings may help you better understand and work through them.
• Spend time outdoors. Regular time in nature and physical activity can help reduce stress and improve overall well-being.
• Reconnect with yourself. Experts encourage people to rediscover hobbies, interests and goals that may have taken a back seat during marriage.

While recovery looks different for everyone, psychologists say prioritizing your mental health and giving yourself grace can make the journey forward a little easier.

If feelings of depression or hopelessness become overwhelming or interfere with daily life, experts recommend seeking help from a licensed mental health professional.

Wangchuk’s fast became a rallying point for India’s “Cockroach” protests, which began more than a month ago demanding education reforms after alleged leaks in some of the country’s most competitive entrance exams. Since then, the movement has tapped into broader public anger over unemployment, government accountability and economic opportunity, drawing professionals, families and activists to demonstrations in New Delhi and cities across the country.

The demonstrations have become one of the most sustained waves of public dissent against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in recent years, with thousands joining after police used tear gas and batons to disperse marchers trying to reach Parliament on Monday.

The call for nationwide protests on Friday was issued in solidarity with students who were beaten by police during a march to Parliament,

In a post on X, Wangchuk said he ended his fast in the presence of two federal ministers after appeals from dozens of members of parliament and following “a long negotiation on various conditions and in view of possible violence in the country.” He did not elaborate on his talks with the ministers.

Protest organizers said demonstrations would continue until Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned, insisting on comprehensive examination reforms, and compensation for the families of students who died by suicide after exam paper leaks.

After separate talks with two ministers on Friday, the organizers said the government had asked until Saturday afternoon to respond to their demands. Government minister J.P. Nadda confirmed that the two sides would meet again on Saturday.

“We won’t let Sonam sir’s sacrifice go in vain,” said Abhijeet Dipke, the founder of Cockroach Janta Party, using the nickname protesters have given the renowned activist. Dipke's party is the satirical group that has spearheaded the movement, named after a remark by the country’s chief justice of the supreme court comparing some unemployed young people to cockroaches.

Modi publicly addressed the protests for the first time on Thursday, announcing fast-track courts to prosecute cases involving examination paper leaks. In a separate video message, Modi also said his government would introduce legislation in Parliament to crack down on exam paper leaks.

The announcements did little to calm the movement, as protesters said they failed to address their demands for government accountability.

Fabeha Sayyed, 23, said Modi’s video message showed he was finally paying attention to the issue, but she questioned why he had not asked the education minister to resign.

“If he were so concerned about the protests, about the students and the families of students who committed suicide, then it is not hard for him to get a person to resign,” she said.

While George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and William P. Hobby Airport (HOU) are not among the first airports selected, the announcement comes just months after travelers at both airports experienced long security lines and delays during a Department of Homeland Security funding lapse.

The Transportation Security Administration recently unveiled TSA Gold+, an expansion of its existing Screening Partnership Program (SPP). The initiative allows private security companies to perform passenger screening while TSA continues to oversee security standards, training and screening procedures.

Federal officials say the program is designed to improve airport operations and reduce disruptions during future government shutdowns because private contractors continue to be paid through federal contracts.

• TSA launches touchless ID screening at Houston airports, offering faster security option

First airports selected

The first three airports participating in the program are:

• Des Moines International Airport in Iowa (January 2027)
• Charleston International Airport in South Carolina (February 2027)
• Tampa International Airport in Florida (May 2027)

According to the TSA, airports that participate will continue to follow the same federal security requirements as airports staffed by TSA officers.

• Don’t pay someone to wait in TSA line for you, Bush Airport announcement says

What it could mean for Houston travelers

Although Houston’s two commercial airports have not been selected for the new program, aviation experts say more airports could consider joining if the initial rollout is successful.

Earlier this year, travelers at both Bush Intercontinental and Hobby dealt with lengthy TSA lines during the federal funding lapse as thousands of TSA officers worked without pay, leading to staffing shortages at airports across the country.

The new TSA Gold+ program is intended, in part, to help airports avoid similar disruptions in the future.

Houston Airport System officials have not announced any plans to pursue the program.

• Former TSA administrator warns TSA staffing crisis could pose security risks

Supporters say using private security contractors could:

• Improve staffing flexibility
• Reduce wait times during government funding lapses
• Allow airports to adopt new screening technology more quickly

However, the American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing TSA officers, opposes the expansion. Union leaders argue outsourcing airport screening could weaken the federal workforce established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and have raised concerns about accountability and transparency.

Currently, about 20 U.S. airports already use private security screeners through the TSA’s Screening Partnership Program while remaining under federal oversight.

For now, travelers flying through Bush Intercontinental and Hobby will continue to be screened by TSA officers, but the federal government says the new program could expand to additional airports in the coming years if it proves successful.

Prosecutors are alleging that D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, killed the girl then dismembered her in the garage after she threatened to reveal their sexual relationship and crater his career. Police technicians took the samples from a rubber floor mat, a rowing machine and a Tesla charger in the garage, and Los Angeles police criminalist Samantha Tosch testified that they matched Rivas Hernandez.

The testimony came on the third day of a preliminary hearing where a judge will decide if Burke should stand trial on charges of murder, sexual abuse of a child and mutilation of a body. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have said they will vigorously defend him.

Tosch said the matches of several samples were “one septillion times more likely to occur if it originated from Celeste rather than anyone else in the population,” and pointed out the number had 24 zeros.

Prosecutors had previously said in a court filing that her DNA was found in the garage, but the evidence hadn’t previously been shown publicly.

DNA evidence and testing key to hearing

Testing was also done on a trash bag in the garage and stained cleaning wipes inside it. Tosch said the bag swab showed a mixture of DNA from four people, at least two of them male — and one of them that she said was Burke’s.

Rivas Hernandez’s DNA was found on the wipes but not the bag. Burke’s was not on the wipes.

Another police criminalist testified that most of the garage stains were not visible to the naked eye and were uncovered by a chemical test that makes the area glow blue. A photo displayed in court showed the rubber mat cloaked in bright blue.

Tosch conceded under questioning from the defense that she couldn’t say with certainty that the DNA profiles came from blood, and could’ve been from touch.

“It’s possible that they did not come from blood?” Burke’s lawyer, Blair Berk, asked.

“I cannot with any certainty say that they came from blood,” Tosch replied.

Under further questioning by Berk, Tosch also acknowledged that it can’t be determined how DNA got on a spot, and that it’s even possible for it to transfer between people. And she acknowledged there’s no way to clearly establish how long the DNA had been there.

Defense questions how and what police tested for DNA

Burke’s lawyers have previously given little indication of any counternarrative they may present about how Rivas Hernandez was killed and how her dismembered body was found in the trunk of Burke’s Tesla about five months later.

But they began giving glimpses into their defense strategy as they pressed various prosecution witnesses on why they didn’t conduct more DNA testing on items found in the singer’s home and car.

Berk dwelled on a pair of small chain saws found in Burke’s garage, where prosecutors say he dismembered the body. Lauren Wallace, another LAPD criminalist, testified that initial chemical tests showed no signs of blood on the saws, so the handles were not swabbed for any DNA left behind by someone who touched it.

“If an item has somebody else’s DNA on it, you wouldn’t be able to see that at the time,” Berk said.

“No you’re not able to see touch DNA,” Wallace said, then reiterated that the blades had tested negative for blood.

“But that doesn’t preclude at all that there could be somebody else’s touch DNA,” Berk said.

An indie-pop singer whose music and online presence brought him a huge following, D4vd’s songs and videos often have dark and violent imagery often delivered through an alter-ego character he calls Itami. His breakthrough single in 2022 was called “Romantic Homicide,” one of several of his songs with more than a billion plays on Spotify. His debut full-length album, “Withered,” was released two days after prosecutors say Rivas Hernandez was killed.

On Thursday, he wore orange jail clothes and glasses, sitting at the defense table calmly and intently watching the witnesses testify. He did not betray any emotion during the proceedings but was seen during the recess interacting with and smiling with his attorneys.

Rivas Hernandez’s parents were back in the courtroom Thursday afternoon, sitting in the front row. They did not have a visible reaction to the mostly technical testimony.

D4vd relationship with teen began when she was 13

Prosecutors are seeking to prove Burke began a sexual relationship with Rivas Hernandez when she was 13 and he was 18.

They said in a court filing that she had grown jealous of his relationships with other women and threatened to expose him and ruin his multimillion-dollar career the night before she was killed. The court filing said he sent a car to pick her up on the night of April 23, 2025, and stabbed her when she arrived at his home.

Prosecutors say he kept the body for weeks or months in the front trunk of the Tesla, where it was found after the car was towed 4 1/2 months later.

In two cases last month, the Texas Supreme Court pushed back on the agency’s assessment that a parent should lose their rights entirely, clearing the way for the children to be put up for adoption.

In a third June court case, which could change how future abuse and neglect determinations are made, an Austin judge found that DFPS violated the constitutional rights of Temecia and Rodney Jackson after their newborn girl was briefly taken from them in 2023 over a dispute with a pediatrician over managing the child’s jaundice condition.

The judge ruled the agency violated the couple’s due process rights by giving them no way to appeal its decision that it was “unable to determine” whether they abused their child.

“Our goal is to hold people’s toes to the fire to what the Constitution requires. The Constitution requires due process,” said Sophia Howard, a Texas ACLU law fellow who worked on the Jacksons’ successful case.

While there’s no precise way to determine whether families in the crosshairs of a DFPS abuse investigation are winning more than before, Texas courts are giving a clear signal: it’ll take much more than than general concerns about child abuse for the state to permanently remove a child from their home.

What’s happening in the courts is the result of policies Texas has been spearheading for years: an intense decades-long bipartisan effort to rewire the agency’s mission, court-ordered reforms stemming from a costly 15-year-old lawsuit over conditions in the state’s foster care system and a post-pandemic parent population more willing to push back against the state after suffering through school lockdowns and whiplash-inducing public health advice about COVID-19.

Andrew Brown, vice president of policy for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative policy group that has advocated for reform of the state’s child welfare system, said parents are more vocal about exercising their rights.

“I think COVID played into that, because it gave families a very stark reality check,” Brown said.

The pandemic added fuel to a decades-long trend of some parents pushing back against what they see as government overreach, which helped push states like Texas to remake their child welfare systems, Brown and others said.

As part of that overhaul, the state has been transferring nearly all responsibility for foster care children to private companies.

“I think there are multiple streams that are leading to this particular moment,” Josh Gupta-Kagan, director of the Columbia Law School’s family defense clinic.

Child welfare reforms bring other urgent concerns

The idea of putting parents on better legal footing during child abuse investigations is a decades-old conversation that began after studies consistently showed Black children were unfairly targeted in state child abuse investigations.

Some estimates show that over half of all Black children in the United States will have been the subject of a child welfare investigation before their 18th birthday. Most of those investigations are because of poverty misinterpreted as neglect, not abuse, researchers have found.

“There were abuses in the past of removal power. People who weren’t poor, saw poverty as abuse,” said Vicki Spriggs, CEO of Texas CASA, the nonprofit group of volunteers often called on by a judge to serve as a child’s advocate in a Child Protective Services case. “There were some very significant misuses of removal.”

The parental rights conversation is becoming louder as the state’s child welfare agency enters its most transformative era.

DFPS is up for Sunset this year — the routine performance review for state agencies that will undoubtedly be a first comprehensive evaluation of DFPS’ handoff of foster care management to the private sector.

A little over 50% of the state’s foster care management is now in private hands. But it hasn’t been a completely smooth transition.

This week, DFPS abruptly canceled its $137.6 million contract with EMPOWER, which manages foster care placement and services in Dallas and eight adjoining counties, after a rocky two years that saw at least two children die in its care.

DFPS had placed EMPOWER under state supervision in March. That supervision was supposed to continue until next month — but the agency abruptly canceled the contract and transferred the region’s foster care management to two other contractors. The agency has also asked a court to seal a report on the progress EMPOWER has made since March.

At the same time, the agency is also trying to settle a 2011 class action lawsuit filed by children’s lawyers alleging dangerous foster care conditions — which has cost the state more than $200 million to date to pay for federal court monitoring and reforms.

Spriggs worries that so much DFPS regulatory change, coming at the same time as historic federal cuts to public health and tougher restrictions on food assistance and Medicaid, may put more children at risk as poorer families face even more financial strain.

“People are losing jobs, so all those things that keep tensions from happening in families are increasing while … they’ve raised the bar on (child neglect) removals,” she said.

Texas’ long road to reform and rapid fixes

So how did Texas get here? Starting in 2004, a gruesome series of child deaths occurred despite state intervention and regulation.

A 9-year-old Arlington boy was found starved to death despite six CPS visits to his home in 2004. The same year, a woman killed her 10-month old in Plano, months after a CPS visit. More highly publicized deaths followed involving children already known to be in danger by the state.

Then-Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst called for investigations into the agency. In 2005, the state claimed it would need 800 more workers and more than $300 million to improve the state’s child protection system.

Texas lawmakers responded, approving money to improve training, salaries, recruitment and technology for CPS workers.

But by 2017, Democrat and Republican Texas lawmakers had grown frustrated with more than a decade of attempts to fix a swamped state Child Protective Services system that seemed to produce more heartbreaking headlines than stable families. That year, they began moving away from a remove-and-hold child foster care system and enhancing the rights of parents being investigated.

Meanwhile, headlines about the ongoing federal lawsuit over troubling foster care conditions — which lingered despite federal court oversight — prompted the state to hire private lawyers to try to bring it to an end.

“It finally got to the point where people started paying attention and realized, ‘Oh, this isn’t right,” the TPPF’s Brown said. “The system had grown so large, and the net had grown so large, that you were pulling in families that did not need to be there, and you were pulling in families who … previously would have just been helped by community organizations, and places of worship, you know, the civil society in their neighborhoods.”

That year, with House Bill 7, lawmakers streamlined removal procedures, making it less likely that children were removed simply because they lived in poorer circumstances instead of facing immediate physical danger. With House Bill 11, lawmakers began moving both care and placement of foster care children into the hands of private nonprofit organizations.

The 2021 legislative session produced two landmark bills that pushed Texas into the forefront of child welfare reform.

One new law strengthened parents’ rights in child abuse medical investigations, prohibiting the removal of children based on the sole medical opinion of an expert contracted by DFPS. And because most CPS investigations involved families accused of neglect, not immediate harm, the Legislature also narrowed the definition of neglect that would require state intervention, from “substantial risk” to “immediate harm.”

As a result, the number of children removed from their homes began dropping rapidly. In 2016, there were 19,070 child removals in Texas. That number declined by 47% in 2025 to 10,011.

“I do think the system is often overbroad and intervenes in families harmfully and unnecessarily,” said Gupta-Kagan, the family defense lawyer and Columbia Law School professor. “I think the system is basically spread too thin and distracted by too many petty cases.” 


In 2023, Texas lawmakers passed another nation-leading initiative by expanding parental due process rights: Parents subjected to a state child abuse investigation must now be given a written, Miranda-style warning telling them that they can have an attorney present during a CPS investigation interview and can refuse to participate in an interview.

“What Texas really did was, we looked at our system from a couple different angles,” said the TPPF’s Brown, “We looked at both the structural failings of the way the bureaucracy was running. But we also started looking at, well, how are we making these decisions that are impacting the lives of kids and their families?”

State leaders keep child welfare a priority for 2027

When Texas lawmakers return to Austin in January, the public is going to hear more about the treatment of parents and families in the foster care system and whether any adjustments are needed in the way foster care is working under the newer contracted system.

Both Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows have listed the child welfare system — particularly how parents are investigated — as priorities for the upcoming session.

Brown said he’s hoping to see more reforms, especially when it comes to helping parents. Florida has a new complaint office just for parents who are facing state abuse investigations and Brown said he’d like to see a similar office created within the attorney general’s office in Texas.

But he also wants to see the results of the Sunset review of the agency before pitching even bigger ideas.

“We’ve done so much,” Brown said. “Let’s watch Sunset play out … and then make strategic choices on how to move forward.”

Disclosure: Dan Patrick and Texas Public Policy Foundation have been financial supporters 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 Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The Midland school district voted to sue Education Commissioner Mike Morath and state leaders this week, focusing on a piece of Texas’ school finance system known as recapture or “Robin Hood.” Texas courts have repeatedly found recapture in compliance with the state constitution — in 1995, 2005 and 2016, respectively.

But the latest challenge from West Texas represents decades-long frustrations Texas schools hold with state leaders’ approach to paying for public education. Despite new dollars approved last year, many districts have closed schools, shuttered programs and cut staffing in response to a funding crisis they say the Legislature helped cause.

Here’s what to know.

What is recapture?

Recapture, often referred to as “Robin Hood,” passed into law in 1993 after the predominantly Hispanic and low-income Edgewood school district and dozens of other underfunded campuses sued Texas over significant disparities between the resources students in their communities received and kids who attended school in affluent neighborhoods.

Under recapture, school districts that receive more local property tax revenue than their state-determined need must send excess funds back to the state. The state then redirects that money to districts that struggle to generate local funding.

During the 2024–25 fiscal year — the most recent with finalized data — 225 districts sent nearly $3 billion back to the state, according to data from the Texas Education Agency. That’s up from just over $1.4 billion a decade prior.

How much is recapture costing districts?

As districts’ local economies have grown, so has their property wealth — resulting in more districts sending money back to the state.

In 1994 — the year after recapture passed into law — 34 school districts redistributed $131 million through the system, many of them in Texas’ wealthy suburbs, according to the Texas School Coalition, an organization advocating on behalf of recapture districts.

Since then, districts have sent roughly $45.5 billion in total recapture funds to the state — including those located in urban communities with high numbers of students in low-income households as well as from oil-rich areas.

Austin ISD sent more than $770 million back to the state during the 2024-25 school year, by far the most of any district. Austin has led the state in recapture payments for nearly 20 consecutive years, according to the coalition. Slightly less than half of the district’s students come from low-income households, though the number of children learning English and kids with dyslexia rank high above state averages.

West Texas’ Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD paid roughly $198 million, the second-largest amount. The Midland school district, which recently sued the state, paid the sixth-most at $92.4 million. Houston ISD, the largest district in Texas, paid the tenth-most at $55.5 million.

What are arguments for and against recapture?

Some property-wealthy districts argue that because Texas counts recapture as part of its funding contribution to public schools, elected state leaders use it not as a tool to improve resources for low-income students but rather as an excuse to avoid funneling additional money to the children most in need.

Frustrations with recapture are underscored by the reality that many Texas districts are sending money back to the state as they close schools, cut programs and navigate staffing shortages.

But without recapture, advocates fear, schools in property-wealthy districts would receive significantly more funding to educate their students than those in areas with low property values, potentially leaving underserved children worse off.

Some public education advocates argue that the problem is not with recapture but with inconsistent and unreliable state funding. Prior to the 2025 legislative session, for example, Texas schools endured six years without a boost to the pot of money schools can use to raise teacher salaries and cover operational expenses.

What is Midland ISD arguing in its lawsuit?

Located in a community rich in oil and gas, Midland will pay the state more than $83 million for recapture this school year, according to a draft of the legal filing. That represents 27% of the district’s $313 million generated locally.

Midland has consistently ranked top 10 in recapture districts over the last decade, according to the Texas School Coalition.

Midland school trustees contend that recent changes to Texas’ education funding system, dating back to 2019, unfairly deprived local communities of decision-making power over how they tax residents, instead granting much of that authority to the education commissioner.

Rather than allowing local school boards to set taxes within a certain range determined by the state, districts do so at the rate decided by the commissioner or risk losing state funding, they argue. Meanwhile, state lawmakers continue to impose requirements on how districts spend money raised locally, which the Midland trustees say prevents them from addressing their community’s particular needs.

Roughly 68% of the district’s students are Hispanic, while nearly 55% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — the latter of which the state and federal governments consider a measure of poverty. The trustees argue that the number of students who come from low-income households shows that property wealth does not necessarily equate to educational wealth.

What is the broader political context?

State leaders have allocated tens of billions of dollars toward reducing the annual tax bill homeowners and businesses pay each year. They have also imposed tighter limits on how much local governments can increase taxes to pay for services such as public safety and parks.

The legal challenge to recapture from Midland, a community that reliably votes Republican, comes as top GOP leaders such as Gov. Greg Abbott now push to abolish school property taxes. Several Texas House lawmakers and prominent conservative groups have embraced the approach, though finance experts warn doing so would prove costly and appears unrealistic.

Property taxes make up the majority of public school funding, while state dollars generally fill remaining gaps along with some federal aid.

Attorneys Kevin O’Hanlon and Kara Belew, meanwhile, will represent Midland ISD in the recapture lawsuit.

O’Hanlon represented the Texas Attorney General’s Office in Edgewood v. Kirby — the landmark school finance case that led to the creation of recapture. Belew has served as statewide budget director for Abbott, as one of the Texas Education Agency’s top finance experts and as a senior policy adviser for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Disclosure: Texas Public Policy Foundation 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 Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Discussion

At 1000 PM CDT (0300 UTC), the remnants of Bertha were located near latitude 30.0 North, longitude 96.0 West. The remnants are moving toward the west near 14 mph (22 km/h), and this general motion is expected to continue tonight.

Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph (55 km/h) with higher gusts.

The estimated minimum central pressure is 1008 mb (29.77 inches).

Watches and Warnings

CHANGES WITH THIS ADVISORY:

None.

SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT:

There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

For storm information specific to your area, including possible inland watches and warnings, please monitor products issued by your local National Weather Service forecast office.

Land Hazards

STORM SURGE: Water levels may remain elevated through the next high tide cycle along the Louisiana and Texas coastline but should subside thereafter.

RAINFALL: The remnants of Bertha are expected to produce total rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches with isolated totals to 4 inches tonight over South Texas. This rainfall may produce isolated flash flooding, especially in urban areas.

For a complete depiction of forecast rainfall associated with Bertha, please see the National Weather Service Storm Total Rainfall Graphic available at hurricanes.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?rainqpf and the Flash Flood Risk graphic at hurricanes.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?ero.

SURF: Swells generated by the remnants of Bertha will continue to affect the Louisiana and Texas coast through tonight. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions. Please consult products from your local weather office.

A depiction of rip current risk for the United States can be found at: hurricanes.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?ripCurrents

Unlike nearly every other similarly sized city, Madison doesn’t require its police to wear them.

The absence of that footage has left residents in the dark about key moments leading up to the shooting, when police say Corey Ruiz pulled a knife during a struggle with four officers, injuring one of them. That officer then fired the shots, according to police. All four officers have been placed on administrative leave pending a state investigation.

In the meantime, the deadly encounter has reignited a contentious debate about body cameras, one that has long vexed local officials and pitted some of the city’s progressive groups against each other.

This past November, the Madison Common Council rejected a proposal to redirect funding from a police oversight group to a body-camera program. A new proposal to allocate $414,800 for a three-year roll out of the program is expected to be approved by the legislative body.

Police Chief John Patterson has described the proposal as “modest,” adding that the cameras had become “essential tools for the modern police officer.”

Law enforcement experts tend to agree and some expressed surprise that the city’s nearly 500 officers weren’t already using the cameras.

“There are very, very few agencies of that size that do not have a body-worn camera program,” said Michael D. White, a criminal justice professor at Arizona State University who led training on camera adoption for the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Madison has a long-standing tradition of being an innovative, progressive police department, so it’s startling,” he added.

As far back as 2016, roughly 80% of police departments with 500 or more sworn officers had acquired body-cameras — a figure that White said was now approaching 100%.

Over the last decade, Madison officials have repeatedly debated adopting the cameras. Committees have borne subcommittees, which have produced feasibility studies, amendments and hours of debate.

Local officials primarily blame budget concerns, along with political inertia, for the ongoing stalemate. Another common source of opposition, identified in a 2021 feasibility study, came from community groups worried the cameras would be used to surveil and criminalize marginalized groups.

“I cannot approve something that doesn’t have a policy and procedure behind it that is potentially going to hinder the community more than help the community,” said Veronica Figueroa, then a member of the body-worn camera subcommittee.

As camera adoption has become more widespread in recent years, those concerns have largely faded away, according to Common Council President Sabrina Madison.

But she said local officials have largely been preoccupied by another issue: finding shelter for a homeless population that has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was like: if we’re going to figure out anything, we’re going to figure out how to fund shelter operations,” Madison told The Associated Press on Thursday. “So the last couple years, that’s where the focus has been.”

The city did briefly conduct a body camera pilot program in the summer of 2024. A subsequent report found the cameras had little impact on officers’ behavior or the community’s feeling toward police.

Dr. Broderick Turner, an independent researcher who analyzed the program and authored the report, noted the length of the pilot — only 90 days — meant there was little time for anyone to notice a meaningful difference. And he described demographic differences in the city's response.

“Black communities tend to want body cameras, but Madison is majority white,” Turner said. “The groups opposed were less impacted by crime and less impacted by policing.”

For some in the city, Wednesday’s shooting has surfaced memories of Tony Robinson, an unarmed 19-year-old who was fatally shot by Madison police in 2015.

His death ultimately led to the creation of the Office of the Independent Police Monitor.

This past winter, Madison lawmakers shot down a budget proposal that would have paid for a body camera program by cutting funds to the monitor.

Katey Nelson, a member of the police civilian oversight board, said the amendment had presented residents with a “false choice.”

“There are cuts that can be made with the Madison Police Department or the County Sheriff’s department, but they’re trying to pit similar agendas against each other,” she said.

“Nobody can agree on anything,” Nelson added. “Now we’re here, looking at another police shooting where we don’t have what we need to make sure the officers are held accountable.”

Loomer had spent years minimizing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and amplifying Russian propaganda to her nearly 2 million followers. This week she had a change of heart.

“Just experienced my first air raid in Ukraine. Sirens blaring. This is everyday for every Ukrainian,” Loomer wrote on X during her visit to the country. “I often said I don’t care. Looking back, that wasn’t very nice of me to say.”

“We need to have moral clarity,” she added Thursday.

It was a stunning reversal for a woman who had spent years criticizing U.S. support for Ukraine's defense, declaring it “a country full of Nazi apologists” — a claim used by Russia to justify its yearslong invasion — and “led by a Jihadi apologist.”

The skepticism of Ukraine has been shared by other major conservative influencers, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The issue became a major point of contention between more traditional Republicans, like former Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump's MAGA base. Vice President JD Vance was among the earliest and most vocal critics of continued U.S. military aid to the country, and he and Trump clashed with Zelenskyy in a heated Oval Office meeting.

It was unclear what had prompted Loomer's trip or how she had arranged the meeting with Zelenskyy, which she plugged as an interview for her Rumble show, “Loomer Unleashed.”

She posted a photo of the two and later a clip from the interview in which she asked Zelenskyy about the Oval Office confrontation and how his relationship with Trump seemed to have improved since then. Zelenskyy credited a brief conversation at the Vatican for the detente — one he called a “historic moment, because we changed the relations during 15, 20 minutes.”

Loomer and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on the trip, but Trump gave his stamp of approval on social media.

“Very good!!!” he wrote on Thursday evening.

The meeting was confirmed earlier by Dmytro Lytvyn, a spokesperson for the president, who said that no Ukrainian government institution had organized the visit. He added that Zelenskyy's office first learned that Loomer was in Ukraine through social media.

“It is really important that @LauraLoomer is in Ukraine and sees things with her own eyes as they are,” Zelenskyy's office had written Tuesday.

“It takes courage to come to Ukraine and not be deterred by Russian propaganda or air raid sirens. Thank you, Laura,” the office added Thursday.

In addition to the meeting with Zelenskyy, Loomer also visited the Dormition Cathedral of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, one of the country’s most significant religious landmarks, which came under Russian attack last month.

The attack on the monastic complex of golden domes in the heart of Kyiv, which is also known as the Monastery of the Caves, sparked a fire that caused significant interior and exterior damage, according to UNESCO. Zelenskyy had called it Moscow’s “biggest crime yet against Christian culture.”

Russia denied responsibility for the attack, claiming, without offering evidence, that the complex was hit by one of Ukraine’s U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles — saying that it might have veered off course due to its age.

In a video recorded from inside the church, Loomer accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of hypocrisy by portraying Russia as pro-Christian.

“I just don’t think that you should be allowed to say that you’re protecting Christianity if you’re trying to drone strike Jesus Christ,” she said.

Sergiy Kyslytsya and Tetyana Berezhna, two top Ukrainian officials, were among those who met with Loomer and joined her for the visit.

The meeting comes amid continued hostilities between Russia and Ukraine that have been overshadowed in recent months by the war with Iran.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday at an annual gathering of foreign ministers in Manila that the administration is poised to help end the “senseless war” in Ukraine but acknowledged there was no quick path to a deal.

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Colvin reported from New York.

His latest work is a self-portrait where the background of the painting is a shadow that depicts his ego, which is larger than his actual body. He uses moments in life to let out his emotions through paint and wants other athletes to feel free to express themselves the same way.

His message to other athletes: “Just be yourself, freely be yourself, don’t let anybody tell you this isn’t you or something like that.”

Shadre and the Cougars open the 2026 season at home against Oregon State on September 5th.

“There was this emptiness to it,” recalls Myers, of Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh.

He turned to the biblical Book of Psalms — its hymns, poetry and prayers covering “the entire spectrum of human existence and emotion, from elation to utter despair,” Myers recalled. “Something told me it’s in there somewhere, the inspiration that I need."

He started reading all 150 chapters, in order. When he got to 121, he found words that clicked: “My help comes from God, maker of the heavens and the Earth."

“There it was,” Myers says today. ”My faith did have the answers. It just took time to be able to find them."

Myers, 70, is retiring this month as spiritual leader of Tree of Life, a position he had assumed just over a year before the shattering events of Oct. 27, 2018.

On that Sabbath morning, a gunman shot his way into the synagogue, shouting antisemitic invective and murdering 11 worshippers from the three congregations sharing the building — Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life.

In the nearly eight years since, the congregation has worked to grieve and heal. It endured a long-delayed trial leading to the gunman's death sentence. It experienced the disruptive pandemic and the groundbreaking for a new building.

“My mission has come to a conclusion to the best that I could,” Myers said in an interview. “It was time for the next chapter also for the Tree of Life. It’s time to step aside so that there is space for new voices."

Rabbi says goodbye with signature blend of scripture and pop culture

Myers plans to return to his native New Jersey to be near his daughter and granddaughter. He wants to catch up on reading, do some writing, check off some “bucket list” goals with his wife. He also plans to work more on healing his own inner wounds after prioritizing the congregation's needs.

“As Mr. Spock says in ‘Star Trek II,’ the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” says Myers, who frequently glides between scriptural and pop culture references.

Myers similarly quoted from the Beatles and Broadway’s “Rent” in a farewell address to his congregation on July 17. He thanked congregants, clergy, public officials, the police officers who risked their lives to rescue him, some suffering serious injuries.

He recalled each victim by name. “May your memories always be for a blessing,” he said. He concluded by having the congregation join him in singing Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”

Members, in interviews, pay tribute to Myers and what he achieved.

“He was really just a new rabbi and hardly broken in yet, and we went through the thing that we went through,” says Audrey Glickman, a survivor of the attack. "He has steered a constant ship and taken care of everyone, and I think he has earned himself a rest."

His journey to Tree of Life started in his childhood synagogue's choir

Myers grew up near Newark, New Jersey, recalling summers at the beach at Asbury Park, where transistor radios were tuned to pop music stations. As a boy, he sang soprano in his synagogue choir. By his mid-teens, he was leading that choir and developing his distinctive high tenor voice — one that, in 2018, was heard worldwide as he sang the traditional Jewish mourner's prayers for those who fell.

Myers started college as a pre-med student but soon pivoted toward his deep interests in Judaism and music. He went to school to become a cantor or hazzan, a type of Jewish clergy who leads worship.

After several years serving congregations in New York and New Jersey in the middle-of-the-road Conservative denomination of Judaism, he studied for ordination as a rabbi and came to Tree of Life. It was a small Conservative congregation, sharing its building with two others in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the heart of Jewish Pittsburgh.

Sabbath services had just begun that Saturday morning. After hearing gunfire in the lobby, he urged worshippers to flee if they were able — and those who were frail to lie down or hide. He took shelter as he heard gunshots ring out.

“I was praying,” Myers recalled on the witness stand during the gunman's 2023 trial. “I thought about the history of my people, how we’ve been persecuted and hunted and slaughtered for centuries, and how all of them must have felt the moments before their death, and what did they do.”

He asked God to forgive him for being unable to save his congregants. He expected to die but was escorted to safety by police officers.

He was still wearing his prayer shawl.

After surviving the attack, Myers' leadership stood out

In the days afterward, the funeral services unfolded. Alan Hausman, a lay leader in the congregation who has long worked in public safety, accompanied Myers throughout that week. Responding to deadly emergencies “takes a toll on you,” Hausman says. “And he kept going.”

With its damaged building a crime scene, Tree of Life began worshipping at a nearby synagogue, Rodef Shalom. For Myers and others, it was crucial to resume their Jewish observances in defiance of the killer's intentions.

There were uplifting moments. Sam Schachner, the congregation’s then-president, recalls his son's bar mitzvah a few weeks after the attacks — the first truly joyful event after Oct. 27.

Myers “could have reasonably said, ‘I’ve been through a lot. Can we postpone this?’” Schachner says. “He didn’t. He had this ability to be there for others when he was going through such pain.”

Then the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the healing. Myers led remote services from his home. But presiding over his daughter's outdoor wedding helped, fulfilling another Psalm's promise. “God turned my mourning into rejoicing,” he says.

After resuming in-person worship, the three congregations braced for a long-delayed trial. It began in the spring of 2023, just as Myers' daughter was expecting her first child.

Myers told prosecutors that if the baby was a boy, he would attend his circumcision even if it conflicted with Myers' scheduled testimony -- unwilling to “let the shooter deprive me” of partaking in a key Jewish rite. Instead, a granddaughter arrived, and Myers was on the witness stand as scheduled.

The lengthy trial concluded with the conviction and death sentence of the gunman, who remains on death row.

With shared trauma, Tree of Life bonds with church shooting survivors

Tree of Life began a meaningful relationship with Mother Emanuel AME Church of Charleston, South Carolina, a historically Black congregation where a racist gunman killed nine Bible study participants in 2015. Members visited each others' congregations, and Myers developed a bond with Emanuel's pastor, the Rev. Eric Manning.

When Myers testified, Manning was in the courtroom. They understand each other. Manning believes it's important to speak out against rising antisemitism and other forms of hatred — a word he refuses to utter, speaking only of “H.”

“Antisemitism is the world’s oldest disease,” he says. “It doesn’t require any sort of prescription or inoculation to eliminate. It requires people to honor the worth and dignity of every human being.”

Most of the aging and damaged Tree of Life building has been demolished. Plans for a new building, while scaled back from original designs, call for a memorial to the victims, along with antisemitism exhibits, a sanctuary and event space.

The building is slated to open in 2028, says Carole Zawatsky, who heads the nonprofit, The Tree of Life, which is overseeing the project in cooperation with the similarly named congregation.

“The memorial is there to remember each of the 11 victims. To always ground us,” Zawatsky says.

Myers was “the right guy at the right time,” says Robin Friedman, current president of the congregation. She calls it a ”bittersweet" departure.

Recently about 50 Jewish families, many with young children, joined the congregation, bringing their own energy and ideas. That has boosted hopes for the future.

Says Glickman: “We intend not to let the shooter win and not to fade away into history.”

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AP video journalist Jessie Wardarski contributed. She and Smith were among the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette journalists who shared the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for coverage of the synagogue massacre.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The National Hurricane Center said wind gusts of tropical storm force were still possible along the upper Texas coast Thursday evening, and water levels in the area may remain high from storm surge. By late evening, the hurricane center declared Bertha had dissipated.

Its remnants are still expected to produce 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 7.6 centimeters) of rainfall, with isolated totals up to 4 inches (10.1 centimeters) that could trigger flash flooding in coastal and south Texas, the hurricane center said.

Bertha first grazed southern Louisiana on Wednesday in a slow crawl westward. The storm weakened as it made its second landfall about 75 miles (115 kilometers) northeast of Galveston, Texas, on Thursday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center said. It remained a tropical storm for a few hours before being downgraded to a depression, marked by maximum sustained winds of 38 mph (61 kph) or less.

Thick clouds associated with Bertha prompted SpaceX to call off Thursday evening’s planned Starship launch from the southern tip of Texas. The space-skimming test flight was rescheduled for Friday, when the forecast called for clear skies.

No deaths or significant damage have been reported since Bertha formed Monday in the Gulf of Mexico south of the Florida Panhandle. The storm caused some coastal flooding as its center first struck land Wednesday in Louisiana southwest of New Orleans, but its heaviest rains stayed over the Gulf waters.

That rainfall south of the storm's center began moving inland along Texas' southeastern coast Thursday afternoon. Tropical storm force winds on Thursday extended as far as 140 miles (225 kilometers) from the storm’s center, the hurricane center said.

A tropical storm warning was discontinued by evening from Sargent, Texas, to the Vermilion and Cameron Parish line in Louisiana.

Galveston businesses stay open as offic

ials predict a 'windy day’

In Galveston, an island city of 53,000 people southeast of Houston, local officials urged residents to brace for a “windy day” and secure any outdoor objects that might become airborne projectiles.

“While no significant impacts are forecast, some gusty storms may blow through the island throughout the day,” Galveston’s Office of Emergency Management said in a Facebook post Thursday.

The Galveston Historic Seaport canceled its sightseeing boat tours Thursday afternoon as a precaution, but was otherwise operating normally, said employee Jesi Hahn.

“We’ll definitely be open,” Hahn said. “We usually close for big hurricanes.”

At the nearby Harbor House Hotel and Marina, employee Justin Timber said he wasn’t aware of any canceled reservations.

“It seems like a normal day,” he said. “Restaurants are clicking. Everything’s great.”

In Florida, storm damages a boardwalk and topples a Waffle House sign

Electrical outages across the Gulf Coast were minimal, according to the website poweroutage.us. Still, Bertha’s passage wasn’t harmless.

In Pensacola, Florida, officials closed an area around a storm-damaged beach boardwalk, Mayor D.C. Reeves said Thursday on Facebook. He posted a photo showing part of the boardwalk’s support structure ripped away and a fence damaged nearby.

Strong gales earlier in the week knocked over a Waffle House sign onto a car in Panama City Beach, Florida. Heavy surf and the threat of rip tides had prompted warnings at Gulf Coast beaches for swimmers to stay out of the water.

Bertha is the second tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical Storm Arthur in June brought heavy rainfall to the southeastern U.S.

In the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto churned far from land Thursday. The hurricane was more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph).

The hurricane center said swells generated by Fausto could cause life-threatening surf and rip tides in parts of southern California.

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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia, and Thanawala reported from Atlanta. AP journalist Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida, contributed.

At an event for season-ticket holders next to SoFi Stadium on Thursday night, the Rams revealed a new uniform that pays tribute to their 1951 NFL championship team with a yellow jersey and blue satin numerals in the style used 75 years ago. The Rams then introduced a white alternate uniform with blue numerals emulating the Rams' primary look during the 1960s, an era best known for the team's Fearsome Foursome defensive front.

The uniform with yellow jerseys and white pants is dubbed “Classic Sol,” while the all-white alternates with blue numerals are called “Fearsome White.” The Rams will still wear the three uniforms they used last season as well, including their main home and away looks along with their all-black “Midnight Mode” Rivalries uniform.

The Rams will debut their Classic Sol look on Monday night at home in Week 2 against the New York Giants, and they’ll come out again for a high-profile Thursday night home showdown with the Kansas City Chiefs in December. The Fearsome White uniforms will come out on Thanksgiving Eve for a home game against the Green Bay Packers.

While designing these long-anticipated alternates over the past several years, the Rams' creative team focused on creating throwbacks with modern twists that will remind and educate the 21st-century fan about the franchise's roots.

Cory Befort, the Rams’ creative executive director, said fans have repeatedly expressed interest in uniforms that would amplify the historic achievements of a franchise that has relocated several times, but still spent most of its existence in Southern California.

“It felt like it was time, but we wanted to do it with intention and meet the moment,” Befort said.

The Rams spent 49 years in Southern California before former owner Georgia Frontiere moved them to her native St. Louis in January 1995. New owner Stan Kroenke brought the Rams back home in 2016, and he opened their multibillion-dollar stadium complex in Inglewood in 2020.

The Rams were founded in Cleveland in 1937, but moved out west in 1946 to become Los Angeles’ most significant major professional sports team to that point. They subsequently won the city’s first major pro sports championship in 1951, beating the Cleveland Browns in the NFL title game at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

That team celebrated its victories at a bar called Tom Bergin’s in the Fairfax district, and it even donated a championship banner to the still-operating Irish tavern. The wordmark used in the Rams’ Classic Sol throwbacks is pulled directly off that banner, and the numerals are designed to mimic the 1951 jerseys.

Even the blue numerals and shoulder stripes themselves are throwbacks: The creative team decided to use authentic satin, which doesn’t stretch like modern uniform material, so the satin stripes are sewn individually onto pieces of gold polyester to prevent excessive ripping and tearing.

“These uniforms are a celebration and reminder of the moments and people that built the Rams into what and who we are today,” Rams chief marketing officer Kat Frederick said. “Every detail was intentionally designed to honor the grit and greatness of our history while delivering a modern look for today’s players and fans."

The Fearsome Whites are topped by a helmet with a white horn and a white facemask in a departure from the usual blue facemask, while the jersey shoulders have their own small numerals and a continuous blue stripe, just like the 1960s look. The blue chest numerals are outlined in black on the new jerseys.

The Rams launched a rebranding in 2020 for the opening of their new stadium, but never introduced their full NFL complement of five uniform alternatives — a “closet,” in league parlance — until now.

The Rams already unveiled a revamping of their primary uniforms from that rebranding earlier this year, notably eliminating the jersey numerals' unique color gradient — the fade on the colors at the bottom of the numbers — and dumping the nearly-white uniform color called “Bone” in favor of a traditional white shade. The creative team also simplified its Ram head logo and monogram logo.

The team will alter its game presentation depending on which uniforms are being worn at SoFi, Befort said, with new field paint and stenciling along with additional changes that won't be revealed until September.

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

Shortly after the new attacks were announced, Iranian state media reported explosions in the port city of Bandar Abbas, a critical hub for moving military supplies as well as trade cargo, where two people were reportedly injured.

Blasts were also reported on Qeshm Island, home to stores of naval assets including drone boats that Iran can use to attack vessels on the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to the northwest near Andimeshk, Omidiyeh and Firuzabad. Four people were killed and five wounded in a U.S. missile attack on the outskirts of Ahvaz on the Karun River, Iranian state media said.

U.S. Central Command said the latest barrage was designed to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting regional waters” as the Americans push to regain control over the strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas transited in peacetime. It said the strikes ended shortly before 5 a.m. local time Friday.

Meanwhile, the Houthis threatened to shut down another key trade route, with the world economy already reeling from Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran and the U.S. have stepped up attacks as they vie for control of the strait, setting off a scramble for alternative routes.

President Donald Trump threatened “major military punishment” against the Houthis if their attacks on ships continue.

“If they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves,” Trump wrote on social media.

As the rhetoric escalated, so did the economic fallout. The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, spiked more than 6% to about $100 a barrel. That's the highest level since May, before the two sides reached a preliminary peace agreement last month that has since collapsed.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi of Iraq, which has close ties to both the U.S. and Iran, was in Tehran on Thursday to call for peace and dialogue, and he promised not to allow Iraqi territory to be used for attacks on Iran, his office said. Al-Zaidi met with Trump earlier this month in Washington.

Houthi attacks are a ‘double whammy’ on oil shipments

The Houthis' SABA news agency said the rebels had struck two tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, in the Red Sea, causing fires on both. There were no reports of casualties.

It was the first reported Houthi attack on a vessel since they announced a blockade of Saudi-linked shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait earlier this week in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa.

Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a vital shipping chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Around 12% of the world’s trade, including a fourth of global container traffic, passes through there, moving between Europe and Asia via Egypt’s Suez Canal.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported an attack set the Encelia ablaze overnight in the Red Sea. It did not mention the Layla.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said it received a report of a tanker being struck by “an unknown projectile” 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Al Shuqaiq, Saudi Arabia, in the Red Sea.

The Houthi attacks put at risk oil shipments from Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port on the Red Sea and present a “double whammy” on top of the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, said maritime data and analysis firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels a day of oil exports to Yanbu via an overland pipeline as the war has bottled up the Persian Gulf.

The Houthi threat “raises questions on the viability of this route,” Lloyd’s said in slides accompanying an online webinar Thursday.

Both sides dig in over Strait of Hormuz

Iran says it has the right to manage traffic and potentially charge fees in the Strait of Hormuz, which was open to all toll-free before the war. It has attacked ships using a route through the strait that is overseen by U.S. forces and intended to be outside Tehran’s control.

Trump said on social media Thursday that sanctioned Iranian funds in the possession of the U.S. will cover the expense of fixing boats damaged in the war.

“Please let this statement serve to represent, until further notice, that from this point forth, any and all damages done to Ships, Cargo, or anything related thereto, will be paid for by Iranian Money that the United States has in its possession, and controls,” Trump said.

It was unclear what legal mechanisms Trump would use to seize and spend the funds, but he said that doing so would be “the fair and equitable thing to do.”

Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said such a seizure of assets would be an “incendiary” precedent.

"Those who celebrate or profit from such funds should remember: once governments normalize confiscation, no one’s assets are safe," Abbas Araghchi said on social media early Friday. “Ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful.”

In response to Iran’s attacks, the U.S. began the widening campaign of strikes across Iran and restored a naval blockade of Iran's ports. U.S. Central Command said it has redirected about a dozen commercial vessels and disabled one since the blockade resumed.

The war of words has also escalated. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would adopt an “eye for an eye” policy on U.S. strikes against its infrastructure. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio retorted that Trump's policy is “a head for an eye.”

“The price will continue to get higher every single night until they come to their senses,” Rubio told reporters while traveling in the Philippines for a regional summit.

Iran’s health ministry said Thursday that 55 people have been killed and 629 have been wounded since renewed U.S. airstrikes began on June 27.

Iran has responded to U.S. attacks by targeting energy infrastructure and desalination plants providing drinking water in parched neighboring Gulf countries.

Polls have shown the war is unpopular among Americans, a fact reflected in the narrow passage Thursday of a resolution in the U.S. House to halt the war. Though a handful of Republicans crossed party lines to support the measure, the vote remained largely symbolic.

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Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece, and Binkley from Washington. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan; Bassem Mroue in Beirut; Michelle L. Price and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad; Konstantin Toropin and Matthew Lee in Washington; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Try to remember this storm. The name Bertha won’t be used again for another six years, and by then most of us will have forgotten just how unusual it was.

Unlike Arthur, which tracked from west to east along the Southeast Texas coastline, Bertha moved east to west and passed right through Houston. Two named storms this hurricane season and both have affected Southeast Texas.

Bertha was an odd storm from the beginning. The combination of land interaction, dry air, and wind shear kept it from strengthening beyond a 60 mph tropical storm. Its elongated, asymmetrical structure gave it a disorganized appearance, with the heaviest rain and strongest winds were consistently well south and southwest of the center.

That changed once the storm reached the Houston area.

Rainfall intensified quickly, with 2 to 4 inches falling in just one hour across parts of Sugar Land and Missouri City, causing significant street flooding. Other communities also picked up around 2 inches in an hour, leading to additional flooding issues.

Bertha will continue moving west overnight and weaken into a remnant low by Friday morning, ending its impacts on Southeast Texas.

So far this hurricane season, we’ve had two named storms and both have made a small mark on Southeast Texas.

KPRC 2’s 2026 Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide

In a series of votes, outside experts to the Food and Drug Administration advised the agency to drop current restrictions barring pharmacies from producing injectable peptides with names including BPC-157, TB-500 and KPV.

The panel’s vote is not binding but is likely to embolden Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has described himself as a “big fan” of peptides and vowed to overturn FDA restrictions put in place under President Joe Biden.

Across several votes, the panelists voted 8-6, with one abstention, in favor of putting the peptides on FDA’s list of substances considered safe for pharmacy compounding. If FDA follows that advice, telehealth companies are expected to ramp up marketing of the chemicals for wellness and cosmetic uses.

Thursday’s vote tally reflected the unusual makeup of the panel. Prior to the meeting, more than a half-dozen people with connections to the peptide industry were added to the group, including doctors, pharmacists or consultants who work in the field.

“I voted yes because it’s time to put this decision back in the hands of the patient, the physician and the pharmacist,” said David Pope, chief pharmacy officer of Xifin Pharmacy Solutions, after the vote on BPC-157.

The panel will vote Friday on three more peptides. The FDA isn't required to follow the group's advice, though it usually does.

FDA scientists remain unconvinced of peptide safety and benefits

The positive votes came despite highly critical reviews from FDA staff scientists, who said there was little data that BPC-157, TB-500 and the other chemicals can be safely used for medical purposes.

Panel members with backgrounds in academia, rather than peptides, mostly voted against the substances, which are widely advertised on social media.

“I’m concerned we’re responding to a market-induced demand rather than a decision based in solid science,” said Dr. Elizabeth Rebello of the University of Texas MD Anderson Center.

Peptide supporters include podcaster Joe Rogan and longevity influencers such as Gary Brecka, a supporter of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda who sells peptides through his website.

But medical experts describe the marketplace as a “Wild West” of unproven, unregulated drugs that could cause serious harm, including infection, allergic reactions or other problems.

“This is really alarming,” said Rita Jew, a pharmacist and president of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, in an interview ahead of the meeting. “There aren’t that many other substances people are injecting into themselves where you see that the clinical evidence is so lacking.”

In recent years, the FDA has warned Americans about the risks of injecting peptides like BPC-157 and TB-500. In 2023, both were placed on a list of substances considered to be too high-risk for pharmacy compounding. But Kennedy announced their removal from that list earlier this year.

Gap between FDA-approved drugs and wellness peptides is wide

Peptides are the building blocks of more complex proteins, triggering hormones inside the body needed for growth, metabolism and healing. Drug companies have brought several to market as medications, including mainstay treatments for diabetes and weight loss.

But most peptides sold online are promoted for unproven uses, often combined in “stacks,” to purportedly heal injuries, build muscle, rejuvenate skin or increase energy.

FDA scientists said they could find little data on the effectiveness of peptides for proposed medical uses like ulcerative colitis, wound healing and opioid addiction.

Five studies of BPC-157 reviewed by the agency “were of short duration, had small sample sizes and evaluated doses that were likely exploratory in nature,” the staffers said.

For TB-500, regulators said they could not find any human studies using the compound.

Even determining which form of the peptides should be used was unclear to regulators, since substances like TB-500 aren't recognized as official pharmaceutical ingredients in the U.S.

“There’s no way to know what the substance actually is, was or will be tomorrow because that name has no legal meaning,” said Russell Wesdyk, an associate director in FDA’s drug center.

Peptide supporters push for easier access

The panel votes are only one part of more than 18 hours of discussions and presentations scheduled across two days.

During several public comment periods, the panel heard from more than two dozen speakers — including doctors, lawyers and peptide entrepreneurs — urging that the substances be made more widely available.

Brigham Buhler, a wellness clinic owner whose clients include Rogan and other celebrities, said allowing U.S. pharmacies to compound peptides would steer Americans away from unvetted products imported from China and other foreign countries.

“It’s crucial to allow patients to have safe and effective access to these treatment options,” Buhler said. “Individuals who have gotten these resources are going to continue to utilize these products.”

After the meeting, the FDA will review the votes, discussion and public comments before making a decision on each of the peptides.

FDA-watchers say the most likely outcome may be a temporary policy reassuring pharmacies that they won’t be targeted for compounding the peptides under review. Formally placing the substances on FDA's list of drugs that are safe for compounding would require new regulations, which can take months or years to draft.

“We’re still going through this process, but I think it’s more than likely that the process will end up at the result that Secretary Kennedy wants,” said Nathan Beaver, an attorney specializing in FDA issues.

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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 United States will slap taxes of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners accounting for 99% of U.S. imports, charging that they have inadequately enforced bans on goods produced by forced labor.

“The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

The new tariffs will take effect just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expire at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Trump had turned to those temporary levies after the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs in February.

Now he's tapping more durable tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices. Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term, and they survived court challenges.

More Section 301 tariffs are likely coming: The U.S. Trade Representative’s office has launched a probe into whether 16 countries — accounting for 70% of U.S. imports — have overproduced goods, pushing down prices and putting U.S. companies at a disadvantage in global markets. The administration has yet to complete that investigation.

Trump, who argues that high tariffs will revive American manufacturing, last year overturned decades of U.S. policy that favored lower tariffs and ever-freer trade. Invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, he imposed double-digit tariffs on imports from almost every country on Earth, saying America’s longstanding trade deficit amounted to a national emergency.

But the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not authorize tariffs. The decision forced the administration to pay refunds to importers that had paid the tariffs.

In response, Trump announced 10% worldwide tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. But he can only use Section 122 levies for 150 days; time runs out on them Friday.

The administration initially proposed the forced labor tariffs last month. Since then, some countries have tightened forced labor enforcement and qualified for lower tariffs, said a senior administration official who spoke under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. For example, the official said, the tariff on imports from India initially was set at 12.5% but now will be 10%.

Some products — including oil and gas and fertilizer — are exempted from the new tariffs announced Thursday. Also being spared are products that qualify for duty-free status under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the North American trade pact Trump negotiated in his first term.

The tariffs drew immediate fire from critics.

“Today’s forced labor justification is too convenient to be taken seriously,” said U.S. Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. “Forced labor is a real and pervasive problem in our supply chains and demands serious enforcement. It should never be cheapened into a pretext for a tariff policy built on dubious legal theories and personal grievances.''

Brazil, which faces a 12.5% forced-labor tariff, called the U.S. move “arbitrary and unjustified” in a statement. It plans to trigger its reciprocity law — which could call for retaliatory tariffs on the United States — and take a complaint to the World Trade Organization. The United States, the Brazilian government said, “chose to manipulate an issue of great importance to human rights and the struggles of workers worldwide in order to accuse 59 countries and the European Union of unfair practices.”

Chile's Undersecretary for International Economic Relations Paula Estévez said that the country has “solid labor institutions, a robust regulatory framework and a firm commitment to the prevention and eradication of forced labor.” Chile faces a 12.5% rate.

“The Government of Chile considers that the application of this measure to our country is inconsistent with these standards, as well as with the technical, political, and legal background presented throughout the investigation process,” she said.

Tariffs are paid by companies in the United States that import foreign products. The importers usually try to pass along the cost by charging consumers higher prices. Americans are already frustrated by the high cost of living. So the administration is taking a risk in rolling out new tariffs ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Human rights watchers say that it’s reasonable to be skeptical of the motivation behind the tariffs. But they say the levies could make an impact on the problem of forced labor.

The tariffs are being imposed on countries that the U.S. found either failed to impose or failed to effectively enforce a ban on importing goods made with forced labor.

Forced labor is defined by the International Labor Organization Forced Labor Convention of 1930 as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself (or herself) voluntarily.”

According to the latest statistics from the ILO, which is a U.N. agency focused on human and labor rights, about 27.6 million people were in forced labor worldwide on any given day in 2021.

“We’ve gone on record for years now advocating for import bans, not as a magic bullet, it’s not a silver bullet, but as a potentially effective tool in combating forced labor across the globe,” said Martina Vandenberg, founder and president of The Human Trafficking Legal Center.

“It’s possible to be extremely critical of tariffs, as we are, and to be very concerned about blanket tariffs used as bludgeons against countries,” she said. “And yet I think it’s undeniable that there is a significant response in terms of the adoption of import bans.”

However, Vandenberg and her organization urged in testimony that the tariffs be implemented in a phased approach to give countries time to implement a ban or a plan for enforcement.

“Our concern is that the import bans will be thin slips of paper with no enforcement,” she said. “Countries need time to build import ban mechanisms that are meaningful and enforceable.”

In a statement, Dominic LeBlanc, the Canada-U.S. Trade Minister, said the move “is not unexpected.”

LeBlanc said Canada shares the U.S.’s objective of ensuring that goods produced with forced labor don’t enter the supply chain.

“We will continue engaging constructively with the United States on this matter, as well as other outstanding issues, over the coming weeks to the mutual benefit of our citizens,” LeBlanc said.

Kenya Davis, partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, said the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, a U.S. federal law passed in 2021 that prohibits the importation of goods made wholly or in part in China’s Xinjiang region or by designated entities, is the most significant legislation related to forced labor that the U.S. has passed before the tariffs.

“The level of effectiveness is certainly up for debate, but it certainly has drawn attention to the issue of labor trafficking and forced labor,” she said. “And so, if nothing else, these import bans will serve that function of bringing greater awareness to forced labor.”

But without a “comprehensive approach” that provides transparency about what the investigations consisted of, and programs that provide countries aid in enforcing bans, “I’m very cautious in my enthusiasm about the (tariffs),” she said.

Isabelle Glimcher, senior research scientist for global labor at the NYU Stern Center for Human Rights, said one flaw in the tariffs is that they focus on levying the tax on countries based on goods they import — not goods they make domestically.

But she said the impending tariffs threat has spurred several countries — such as India — to amend their foreign trade policies to include a forced labor import ban. European Union forced labor regulations due to go into effect later next year are also contributing, she said.

“Not all of these things are necessarily or wholly attributable to the Section 301 investigations, but does seem like countries are responding and starting to take all of this seriously,” she said.

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Anderson reported from New York. AP Writers Nayara Batschke in Santiago, Chile, Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo and Jim Morris in Vancouver, Canada, contributed to this story.

Rubio, who held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in the Philippine capital, alluded to how U.S.-mediated talks have stalled. He called them “unsuccessful or at least unfruitful” in the past but insisted that President Donald Trump was committed to the work “if conditions and factors have changed to make that possible.”

“That’s been the challenge — an end that both sides can accept," Rubio told reporters. "We’ve tried and we’ll continue to try to see if we can, you know, find a middle ground that brings this about. And we’re prepared to play that role if the opportunity presents itself.”

Rubio met Lavrov and several other leaders, including China's foreign minister, on the sidelines of an annual gathering by foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Manila.

America's top diplomat said the U.S. is focused on Asia even as it steps up fighting with Iran, seeks a pathway to end Russia's war in Ukraine and pressures the Cuban government to make changes.

ASEAN talks focused on international conflicts

Three days of closed-door talks that started Tuesday have centered on the escalating fighting in the Middle East and tensions in the South China Sea, where a new clash flared Thursday.

“There’s always going to be a concern that America is so focused on one place that it can’t focus on another,” Rubio said. But he noted that the U.S. remains “engaged in Asia every single day,” citing strong partnerships and economic ties across the region.

After meeting with Rubio, Lavrov largely ignored questions from reporters. The Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow said he emphasized to Rubio “the unacceptability of further arming” Ukraine and accused European countries of pursuing Russia’s “strategic defeat.”

Lavrov reiterated Russia’s readiness for “a political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict” and commitment to agreements reached at a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump in Alaska last year, the Russian ministry said.

But Rubio said “we’ll have to find new suggestions and new ideas” that are acceptable to both sides. There has been no change to Washington’s military support for Ukraine, with weapons being purchased by NATO allies and transferred to the war-ravaged country, he said.

Separately on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated that his priority is finding a way to get back to negotiations.

U.S. efforts to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war have been overshadowed by the outbreak of the Iran war earlier this year. Renewed strikes by Washington and Tehran have been intensifying after an interim ceasefire deal collapsed.

“The price will continue to get higher every single night until they come to their senses,” Rubio said. He insisted Tehran is “begging” for talks but Trump does not see the use in responding because “Iran is clearly not ready to make a deal, at least not one they’re willing to live by.”

Trump has warned Iran that the U.S. will destroy one Iranian bridge or power plant each time Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded by saying the country’s defense doctrine was an “eye for an eye.”

“The president’s policy is a head for an eye,” Rubio said. “They will pay a very heavy price for the things they’re doing.”

China defends maritime military actions

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong renewed her country's alarm over the Chinese navy’s recent test-launch of a missile from a nuclear-powered submarine in the region, saying the lack of notification to the Philippines and Pacific nations where the missile flew over and landed was destabilizing.

“It comes in the context of a rapid military build-up of China’s nuclear arsenal without the transparency or reassurance the region expects,” Wong told a university forum in Manila on Thursday. “This is why Australia has described the test as provocative and destabilizing.”

China has defended its actions, saying the launch was part of annual exercises and that it gave countries in the area appropriate notice in advance.

Rubio met Wednesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and said they discussed a new altercation this week between Chinese and Filipino forces in a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. Rubio called the incident “escalatory.”

“Those need to be managed very carefully, because obviously, a conflict — be it economic or otherwise — between the U.S. and China would have a dramatic global impact,” Rubio said.

He also said they talked a lot about Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s planned trip in September, noting he believes Xi will have a “very positive visit when he comes to Washington.”

In Beijing, the Chinese coast guard said it took necessary measures, including monitoring and blocking, to drive away two Philippine ships that disregarded repeated warnings from the Chinese side in a fresh confrontation Thursday. China said its operations were professional and lawful and urged the Philippines to stop its provocative actions infringing on Chinese territory.

The Philippine coast guard, however, said the two fishing vessels were harassed while bringing fuel aid to Filipino fishermen in the Scarborough shoal. It said a Chinese coast guard ship tried to spray one vessel with a powerful water cannon but missed, calling these “illegal, coercive and aggressive actions.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized China’s assertive actions in the South China Sea to the disadvantage of smaller claimant countries like the Philippines, Washington’s oldest treaty ally in Asia. Taiwan and ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have also been involved in the often-tense territorial standoffs.

ASEAN aims to conclude yearslong negotiations with China on a proposed non-aggression pact by this year, according to a draft of a joint communiqué seen by The Associated Press. The code of conduct aims to prevent a major conflict in the disputed waters, a key global trade route, that could draw in the United States.

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Associated Press journalists Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, Haruka Nuga in Bangkok and Fu Ting in Washington contributed to this report.

British barrister Karim Khan has been accused of sexual misconduct with a female aide, as outlined by The Associated Press in a series of stories, allegations which he has steadfastly denied.

The saga has dragged on for more than two years and has had profound implications for the global tribunal, which is already under enormous pressure. Earlier this month, the United States, which has long criticized the court, announced a campaign aimed at dismantling the 24-year-old institution.

The 56-year-old Khan was formally removed from his duties at the ICC in June after the executive committee of the court’s oversight body found he had committed “serious breach of duty and serious misconduct” by engaging in a “sexual relationship ... (that) escalated over time” and tried to prevent the woman from pursuing her allegations, according to documents seen by The Associated Press. Khan disputes those findings.

Khan faces an unprecedented removal vote

Now his future lies in the hands of the 125 nations who make up the court's oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties, who are holding a special session in New York. It will culminate in a vote where a majority would need to support a resolution to oust him.

Khan will not be present at the closed-door meeting, as he is barred from entering the United States after being sanctioned by the Trump administration over the court’s investigation into Israeli officials for the military's conduct in the conflict in Gaza.

His lawyers have complained about his absence at the meeting. “We know of no court or tribunal in any proper and fair legal system that bars a person facing the gravest professional sanction from being heard,” Tayab Ali and Sareta Ashraph wrote in a letter to the ASP seen by the AP.

He goes into the vote banned from practicing law in his home country of the United Kingdom after being suspended by the British Bar Standards Board pending their own investigation into the allegations against him.

The outcome of the vote, which is secret, is unclear. The court’s host state of the Netherlands will vote for his removal, the country’s foreign minister Tom Berendsen wrote in a letter to parliament. The Netherlands is the only country to have publicly announced its position.

The Gaza investigation complicates the case

The allegations have become entwined with the court’s investigation into the war in Gaza. “Political considerations have been folded into this, especially as it is the first time a prosecutor has pursued warrants against a western ally,” Iva Vukusic, a researcher at Utrecht University who has been following the process, told the AP.

The court issued arrest warrants in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity. That decision sparked considerable backlash, including multiple rounds of sanctions against Khan and other court staff by the Trump administration.

A divided court faces an uncertain future

The lengthy and complicated process has created huge divisions at the court at a time when the institution already is under tremendous strain. “There has been splintering over how the court has handled this,” Lucy Gaynor, a historian of international criminal tribunals at the University of Amsterdam, told the AP.

In April, a group of staff members within the prosecutor’s office sent a letter to the oversight body expressing serious concerns about Khan’s potential return, writing that his “leadership has been materially diminished.”

Last week, a group of Palestinian organizations issued a public letter expressing concerns about the investigation, including accusing the executive committee of “unwarranted political interference” and “subverting the disciplinary process.”

Should Khan be removed, his replacement will have to be elected later. His office is currently being run by his two deputy prosecutors.

Vukusic said that regardless of the outcome, “the court is going to walk away bruised and battered and wounded and less able to face the greater threats.”

The withdrawals in U.S. District Court followed a remarkable back-and-forth between a visibly irritated Judge Arun Subramanian and government lawyers. They come at a time when the Trump administration is vigorously going after news organizations whose reporting and coverage it doesn’t like — and also trying to crack down on leaks inside the government.

The government’s turnabout in the face of vigorous legal opposition and a stern reprimand from a judge marked the latest instance of the Justice Department making aggressive moves to compel journalists to identify their sources before a grand jury — only to later retreat. The administration recently withdrew similar subpoenas that sought to compel testimony from journalists for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal related to separate national security coverage.

Subramanian said he otherwise would have granted the newspaper’s request to reject the subpoenas because regulations pertaining to subpoenas served on journalists maintain that they should be issued as a last resort in an investigation.

“Subpoenas are the last step, not the first step, but the last step,” the judge said, citing rules set to protect against violations of the First Amendment. He said the government’s actions had turned the law and the regulations “on its head.”

“When you see something like this, if this were a civil proceeding, what I would normally do is ask the parties to show causes why sanctions should not be issued,” the judge said, referencing punishment for lawyers for egregious actions.

After the hearing, the Justice Department lashed out at Subramanian in a statement, saying he “threatened our attorneys with sanctions unless subpoenas were withdrawn, and blocked us from presenting the meticulous process of this investigation.”

“The grand jury has a right to hear testimony from all material witnesses in a federal criminal investigation. This judge’s conduct overrides clear longstanding principles and common sense — blocking the grand jury from receiving core evidence in a national security investigation,” the statement said.

“Make no mistake,” it added, “this investigation remains ongoing, and we will pursue justice against those threatening national security by leaking classified information, a serious federal crime.”

Government attorneys upbraided by judge

Subramanian noted that with protections for journalists at stake, the government was required to ensure it could not obtain what it needed from any other sources before issuing subpoenas to journalists.

A Justice Department lawyer, Sean Buckley, cast the government’s missteps as inadvertent errors and said: “No one was trying to pull a fast one.” Buckley apologized for other subpoenas that sought records for phone numbers belonging to one reporter’s mother and two of the journalists’ spouses.

“That was an error, judge, which we own,” Buckley said. “It was a consequence of trying to move quickly.”

“These things are starting to pile up,” Subramanian said, becoming increasingly testy.

The hearing was held publicly despite efforts by the Trump administration to keep secret the litigation spawned by subpoenas it served on the Times’ journalists to try to get them to divulge their sources.

The newspaper’s lawyers had challenged the validity of the grand jury subpoenas, along with subpoenas issued for phone records of several Times journalists and some of their relatives. Senior Times officials, including the paper’s managing editor and general counsel, sat in the gallery watching during Thursday's proceedings.

The request for phone records raised questions about the extent of the investigation being carried out by the Justice Department.

David McCraw, the Times’ chief newsroom lawyer, said after the hearing in a statement that it “was an important affirmation of our country’s commitment to a free press.”

“We are pleased that the government finally conceded that the subpoenas violated the law, but they should never have been issued in the first place,” he said. “We will not be deterred in the face of tactics like these.”

Court action comes after reporting on new Air Force One jet

The new jet in question, a present from Qatar that Trump’s administration spent $400 million to retrofit and upgrade, recently entered service. But Trump used an older model Air Force One jet to leave a NATO summit in Turkey earlier this month.

The Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that the switch had come at the urging of the Secret Service and that the newer plane lacked some of the advanced security features of the older Air Force One aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. On social media, Trump rejected claims of security concerns.

The Times wrote in a letter to the judge several days ago that two subpoenas seek records beginning on Jan. 1, long before the newspaper published articles on July 8 and July 9 that became the basis for the grand jury subpoenas.

It said that lengthy stretch of records sought would indicate that the purpose of the subpoenas might have been “to forage for information about the Journalists’ source relationships more broadly.”

The Times argued for the phone records subpoenas to be disallowed on the grounds that the government had acted in “bad faith” and ignored its own protocols by not giving the journalists advance notice that records were being sought and by demanding the information “without first conducting any serious investigation.”

The Justice Department has justified the grand jury subpoenas by saying that “reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.” The department also said it had complied with its own regulations in issuing the subpoenas and had taken “certain” investigative steps before seeking them. It said it was authorized to delay disclosure of the phone records subpoenas but decided to alert the journalists’ lawyers “so that counsel could advance any arguments—regardless of merit—in furtherance of their motion.”

In fighting the subpoenas, the Times' lawyers highlighted how the government's carelessness could have exposed sensitive information that had nothing to do with the journalists. The mother whose phone records were mistakenly sought is a mental health professional with confidential client relationships and one of the two spouses is the general counsel of a law firm, the lawyers said.

At Thursday’s hearing, a final rebuke from the judge to the government came when he asked its lawyers to assure him that it won’t repeat a scenario that left one journalist being served a subpoena by an FBI agent while he was home watching the family-friendly movie “The Sheep Detectives,” about sheep on a quest to solve the murder of their shepherd.

Said the judge, to loud courtroom laughter: “I can’t think of anything more inconsistent with ‘Sheep Detective’ than an FBI agent showing up at your door.”

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Associated Press Writer Eric Tucker reported from Washington

The controversy stems from a civil lawsuit filed against then-Fort Bend County Judge KP George. After George was suspended, visiting Galveston County Judge Jeth Jones appointed Daniel Wong to temporarily perform the duties of county judge.

That underlying lawsuit was later dismissed, prompting some county officials and residents to argue that Wong’s appointment should also be void.

Attorneys for the parties involved in the original lawsuit appeared before Jones at Fort Bend County District Court on Thursday. The attorney representing the resident who filed the case argued that Wong’s appointment is invalid because the court lacked jurisdiction over the underlying lawsuit from the beginning.

Wong’s attorneys maintain that the Fort Bend County Commissioners Court subsequently approved his appointment through the end of the year. They told KPRC 2 that Wong has the authority to preside over Commissioners Court meetings and that residents should not be concerned about county business having to be redone.

However, Fort Bend County Attorney Bridgette Smith-Lawson argues Wong’s temporary appointment expired June 17.

Democratic commissioners have stopped attending Commissioners Court meetings amid the dispute. Commissioner Dexter McCoy accused Wong and the court’s Republican commissioners of preventing Democrats from participating by insisting they attend meetings he believes are not legally authorized.

“Mr. Wong and our Republican colleagues are blocking our ability to participate in Commissioners Court by insisting we break the law,” McCoy said in a statement. “The county attorney has provided clear legal guidance that Mr. Wong does not have authority to perform the duties of county judge.”

McCoy said routine county responsibilities—including paving roads and paying bills—should not become partisan issues. He argued that the four elected commissioners could continue conducting county business without Wong while Wong seeks another court order affirming his temporary appointment.

“All county business could proceed without his participation, while he awaits a new court order affirming his temporary appointment, as there are four lawfully elected and authorized commissioners who can conduct the people’s business,” McCoy said.

Residents also expressed frustration over the dispute during a Commissioners Court meeting.

“It is very frustrating to watch you impersonate a county judge,” resident Anna Lykoudis said during public comment. “KP George is still the county judge. Although he’s suspended, he’s still the county judge. We cannot have two county judges. Earn the seat. Don’t steal it.”

Political experts told KPRC 2 the Texas Supreme Court may ultimately have to determine whether Wong’s appointment is valid. They said that if the court finds Wong lacked the legal authority to serve, actions taken during Commissioners Court meetings under his leadership could potentially be declared void.

Jones did not issue a decision following Thursday’s hearing.

Richardson had the top time of 10.90 seconds in the women's race. That was despite taking an extra moment in the starting block to make sure she didn't false start and shutting it down early to conserve energy. Richardson is a big favorite to win with reigning 100-meter world champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden skipping the event to focus on the 200.

The semifinals and final will be held Friday at Icahn Stadium.

Lyles, the reigning Olympic champion, started slow — just like Richardson — but quickly powered up to full speed. He finished in 9.97 seconds to edge Ronnie Baker in the second heat. The top time was turned in by Christian Coleman, who went 9.96 in the first heat. Kenny Bednarek, a two-time Olympic silver medalist in the 200, won his heat as well.

Bednarek and Lyles were involved in a shoving and shouting match at U.S. championships last summer as they crossed the finish line of a hotly contested 200-meter final at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

The fourth and final heat of the men's race Thursday contained some drama. There was a false-start warning given to the field and then, after settling back into the starting blocks, the sprinters were instructed to stand back up. Soon after, another false start was called and Ja’Darien Parker was disqualified. Courtney Lindsey ended up winning the heat.

There were several champions crowned Thursday night, including Madison Wiltrout (javelin), Isaac Grimes (long jump) and Rudy Winkler (hammer throw). In the women's 10,000 meters, Sydney Vaught made a decisive move at the midway point to drop most of the pack. She then pulled away on the last lap to beat Katie Izzo. Vaught finished in a time of 33 minutes, 30.60 seconds.

The men's race saw Woody Kincaid patiently wait for his opportunity to take control. He overtook Grant Fisher with around 200 meters to go and held Fisher off down the stretch for the win. Kincaid finished in 30:13.66.

This is a fast track, with Jamaican great Usain Bolt breaking the 100-meter world record by running 9.72 seconds at Icahn Stadium in 2008. Bolt would eventually lower the mark to its current time of 9.58 at the 2009 world championships in Berlin.

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Thursday's announcement by Harbinger Sports Group did not say what percentage of the Athletics it had acquired. Cuban, who maintains a minority stake in the Mavericks, is the general partner and president of the Atlanta-based group. Atlanta Falcons minority owner Rashaun Williams is the founder and chief investment officer.

Co-founder and CEO Steve Cannon is vice chairman of AMB Sports and Entertainment that oversees Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the Falcons. Managing partner Jonathan Mariner is the former chief financial officer for Major League Baseball.

“We are minority investors looking to make our investors a lot of money,” Cuban said.

John Fisher is the majority owner of the A's and is overseeing construction of a $2 billion, 33,000-capacity domed stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.

“We are very pleased to welcome Harbinger Sports Partners as an investor in the Athletics,” the team said in a statement. “The experience of their principals across sports, media, and entertainment, combined with their long-term perspective, makes them a valuable addition to our ownership group as we work to build the future of the franchise in Las Vegas.”

This is Harbinger's first investment, according to its news release, and it has raised more than $460 million in less than six months. Investing in the A's is part of “a long-term strategy centered on the Las Vegas sports market,” the group said.

“Las Vegas represents one of the greatest sports investment opportunities of our generation,” Williams said in a statement. “We’re not simply investing in a baseball franchise. We’re investing in a city that has fundamentally changed the economics of professional sports.”

The company touted the success of professional sports in Las Vegas, pointing to the increased valuations of the NFL's Raiders and NHL's Golden Knights since they began playing in the city and saying it expects the A's to receive a similar boost. The Raiders moved from Oakland in 2020 and the expansion Golden Knights launched in 2017.

“Our conviction is simple,” Williams said. “The next decade of sports ownership will look very different than the last. We believe Las Vegas will sit at the center of that transformation, and Harbinger intends to be one of the firms helping shape its future.”

The A’s are playing the second of three planned seasons at a minor league ballpark in West Sacramento, California.

Club officials have said the Las Vegas ballpark is on target to open in time for the 2028 season. The stadium already is becoming part of the city's skyline, with work being performed on the upper deck.

“As someone who helped lead the development of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, I was incredibly impressed with the Athletics’ vision,” Cannon said in a statement. “The new ballpark will be more than a baseball stadium. It will become a year-round entertainment venue and another landmark destination on the Las Vegas Strip.”

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AP Sports Writer Schuyler Dixon in Dallas contributed to this report.

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Gangs and drug traffickers are increasingly encroaching on Ashaninka land and using the rivers in the Amazon and adjacent land for drug routes. Ashaninka leaders say they’ve reported violent episodes — as recent as this month — and asked for protection, including a meeting with Brazilian officials in the capital on Thursday. Security forces have been deployed. But in this region, their presence is usually temporary, while the threats remain permanent, various Indigenous groups say.

The invasion of Ashaninka territory is part of a broad transformation of the Amazon border as criminal routes expand, through what experts call the Solimoes River route.

Indigenous territories are key to this route. Experts say protecting Indigenous land is one of the most effective ways to curb deforestation in the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest and a key regulator of global climate. But the very forests these communities help protect leave them vulnerable: Dense tree cover in remote, hard-to-reach areas offers attractive hiding sites for drug traffickers.

Despite appeals to authorities, Ashaninka and other Indigenous people say the Brazilian government's help falls short.

“There is an institutional and intercultural blind spot in the public security services provided to Indigenous peoples,” said Maj. Jonatas Soares, a police officer based in the border city of Tabatinga, in Brazil’s Amazonas state near Colombia and Peru.

“The state formally recognizes their territories, yet it fails to translate that presence into continuous protection tailored to their specific needs.”

Indigenous communities become vulnerable as criminal networks expand into the Amazon

The Solimoes River route, which includes a series of navigable rivers flowing from the Peruvian border to Manaus in Brazil, has become a primary route over the past decade for moving cocaine produced in Peru, Colombia and Bolivia to the Brazilian ports on the Atlantic coast, where it is then funneled into domestic and overseas markets, particularly in Europe.

This route is now mostly controlled by the Brazilian gang Red Command, according to Col. César Mello, a retired Amazonas state police officer and professor at the Federal University of Para and the University of the State of Amazonas.

The remote location of Indigenous territories, lack of government oversight, language barriers and cultural differences “make Indigenous peoples a vulnerable population and an attractive source of labor for criminal organizations,” said Col. Mello.

Criminal groups often recruit Indigenous youth by offering them money and status in communities where economic opportunities are scarce. When that doesn't work, they use violence, Col. Mello added.

Preserving traditions has strengthened the Indigenous resistance

The Ashaninka have become an enduring block to trafficking networks in Peru and Brazil.

In the past, drug traffickers approached the community seeking to build a clandestine airstrip inside their territory. The Ashaninka refused.

“We have a long history of opposing any kind of illegal activity,” said Francisco Piyãko, coordinator of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Jurua River.

Local tensions escalated earlier this month after a group of armed men reportedly invaded the Kampa Indigenous territory, located along the winding Amonia River in the western Amazon. On July 6, a group of five Spanish-speaking men, carrying machine guns, threatened families and searched for the territory’s main leaders.

Piyãko filed a formal complaint with Acre state authorities and the Brazilian Army, prompting the deployment of security forces.

“It’s one thing for outsiders to enter our territory to steal resources, like timber and wildlife. But this was different. They entered our land looking for our leaders, intending to kill them,” Piyãko said.

Brazil’s Ministries of Indigenous Peoples and Justice did not respond to requests for comment. The Brazilian Army and the Acre state government’s press office also did not respond.

The Foreign Ministry said its representatives would welcome the Ashaninka leaders in Brasilia to hear their concerns and assess further applicable actions with Peru's government.

Earlier this year, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino ordered the federal government to intensify efforts against criminal organizations operating in the Amazon, citing official records and investigations that showed their growing presence and threat to Indigenous communities.

The community is shaken by the recent threats but determined to resist. Piyãko stressed, however, that confronting armed criminal groups is not the Indigenous responsibility but the duty of the state — both Brazil and Peru.

“They allowed this to happen through their absence, so they bear that responsibility,” he added.

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The “Cockroach” protests began more than a month ago over leaks in some of the country’s most competitive entrance exams for medical colleges and government jobs. The movement has since expanded beyond exam grievances, drawing professionals and families while channeling broader frustration.

Thursday’s demonstrations at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site in New Delhi, followed overnight clashes in which police used tear gas and batons to disperse crowds, the second such confrontation this week.

On Monday, thousands of protesters had defied restrictions and marched toward Parliament before police broke up the demonstration with tear gas and batons.

Protesters regrouped by Thursday morning, returning to the protest site despite roadblocks, while authorities suspended Delhi Metro services at 16 stations to limit access to the demonstrations.

Modi tries to contain protest fallout

The issue of exam leaks has become a powerful symbol of frustration for millions of young Indians. Protesters are demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, examination system reforms and compensation for families of students who died by suicide after exam paper leaks.

Facing mounting pressure, Modi addressed the issue publicly for the first time Thursday, announcing fast-track courts to handle examination paper leak cases. Fast-track courts are special courts created to speed up cases in India’s notoriously slow justice system.

“Nothing is more important than the welfare and future of our youth!,” Modi wrote on X.

The announcement failed to calm protesters, who said Modi was not addressing their demands for accountability and reform.

“Rather than providing solution which is convenient for him, he should work toward a solution which is convenient for the nation and set an example,” law student Daksh Bhargava said.

Cockroach party stays true to satirical origins

Leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party, which launched the protest movement, said they would not end the demonstrations until the education minister resigned. Staying true to the movement’s tongue-in-cheek style, its founder, Abhijeet Dipke, responded by posting a meme of Pradhan captioned, “Hi, my name is Nothing.”

The Cockroach movement began as online satire campaign in May and moved to the streets in June through smaller protests across cities. It gained momentum after prominent activist Sonam Wangchuk joined the demonstration and began a hunger strike that has lasted more than three weeks. Police forcibly transferred Wangchuk to a hospital over the weekend.

Protests reflect rising youth anger

For many young Indians, the protests have become one of the few visible expressions of dissent in a country where demonstrations against Modi’s government have led to a broader crackdown on activists, opposition figures and public protests.

The movement’s rapid growth beyond student groups reflects wider frustration among young Indians and echoes a broader trend across South Asia, where young people have driven anti-government movements in recent years.

The movement also has gained a following among Indians of all ages over concerns about government accountability, unemployment and economic opportunity.

Opposition parties have backed the protests, using the issue to challenge the government in Parliament. Demonstrations and solidarity events have been held in other Indian cities, reflecting how the movement has spread beyond the capital.

India has one of the world’s youngest populations, with millions entering a labor market that has struggled to create enough secure, well-paying jobs. Despite years of rapid economic growth, many young people say their prospects have not improved.

As one of the country’s largest voting blocs, India’s youth could also become an increasingly important political force ahead of future elections.

Trump said the Dodgers edging the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 last fall capped “a hell of a series." He indicated he was surprised to learn that the Dodgers had never before won consecutive titles but also mused about a third in a row.

“I’m thrilled to say welcome back to the White House," he said. "And maybe I’ll see you again next year.”

The president saluted the team in the East Room in April 2025 to mark their 2024 World Series championship over the New York Yankees. He said before the latest event that he was most excited about meeting Ohtani, whom he compared at length to the legendary Babe Ruth — even saying the Dodgers star was arguably the best hitter and pitcher in baseball.

"It’s truly a great — when you talk about a brand — it's one of the great brands anywhere in the world,” Trump said of the Dodgers. He spoke in front of a table with two World Series trophies and a Trump 47 jersey, which the team presented to him.

The Dodgers also gave Trump what looked like a replica of a World Series ring. That prompted Trump to exclaim: “Wow. Do I have to report this? I don't want to report this" before slipping the ring into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

Trump says Iran war has kept him from following baseball closely

Those in the crowd wore blue Dodgers caps to guard against bright overhead sun, and the band played a jazzy instrumental version of Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” before Trump took the stage.

Trump described last year's World Series' epic Game 3 during which the Dodgers won 6-5 in 18 innings. Trump said he stayed up until around 3 a.m. to watch, noting that “it was a long one, but it was amazing.”

“I thought it was a game that you were going to lose about four or five times, and you ended up winning,” he said, adding, “Luck is OK, too, right?” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts agreed: “Luck is OK.”

“But with talent you get a lot of luck,” Trump continued.

The president said he spoke briefly with Roberts before the event and learned that his team currently has the best record in baseball, noting, “I've been a little busy with Iran and some other things.”

That was his only reference during the event to fighting in the Middle East, which has escalated on both sides in recent days.

Roberts also spoke briefly, saying, “We’re going for a three-peat.”

Championship baseball teams have been coming to the White House since 1869, when President Ulysses S. Grant hosted the Cincinnati Red Stockings. They were the first fully professional team to visit the White House and went undefeated that season, though the World Series wasn’t established in its modern form until 1903.

Sports teams' visits to the Trump White House have sometimes been a source of controversy. In 2018, the president rescinded an invitation to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles after many players suggested they might skip such a trip.

Dodgers star right fielder Mookie Betts wasn’t at Thursday’s Rose Garden event, though he did make the 2025 visit. He said he prefers to spend the team’s scheduled days off with his family.

The Dodgers originally considered coming to the White House this past April during a series with the Washington Nationals, but a crowded early season schedule didn’t permit that. Instead, they’re in the nation’s capital during the off-day between a just-completed series against the Philadelphia Phillies and Friday’s opener against the New York Mets in Queens.

The White House has changed since the Dodgers' last visit

Over the past year, Trump has revamped the Rose Garden and added a patio area reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. At Thursday's event for the Dodgers, he referenced the “ Walk of Fame ” installed on the colonnade, which features plaques of past presidents along with partisan insults against Joe Biden and other Democrats.

“I could put some of the great Dodgers on the wall," Trump joked, “but I figured maybe it's more appropriate that we put the presidents.”

Trump, a baseball fan and New York native, has for years been closely associated with the Yankees, whose late, longtime owner George Steinbrenner was a close friend. Trump referenced Steinbrenner on Thursday, saying, “He would do anything to win" before telling the Dodgers' team owners, "But you’re doing the same thing.”

The president isn't always so complimentary of teams, though. During a rally in Georgia on Wednesday, he praised the ownership of the local Atlanta Braves and slammed the Mets for their sky-high payroll and losing record.

Trump was joined on stage during that event by former Braves manager Brian Snitker, and Mike Plant, president and CEO of the Braves Development Company.

”You know, the Mets have the highest salary in baseball, and they lose all the time," Trump said then. And I’m like, maybe we can steal this guy.”

“There are teams like that, where they never go down,” Trump said. “Then you have other teams — ‘We’re rebuilding.’ They’ve been rebuilding for years. I don’t want to mention teams ’cause I know all the owners. They’re all friends of mine.”

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This story has been corrected to show Game 7 was last November, not last October.