The remains found are those of 1st Lt. Kendrick Lamont Key Jr., a 14A Air Defense Artillery officer, was among two U.S. soldiers who fell off a cliff during a recreational hike in Morocco while off duty. He was 27 years old.

The two were reported missing May 2 after participating in African Lion, annual multinational military exercises held in Morocco.

“A Moroccan military search team found the Soldier in the water along the shoreline at approximately 8:55 a.m. local time May 9, within roughly one mile of where both Soldiers reportedly entered the ocean,” U.S Army Europe and Africa said in a statement.

The two went missing around 9 p.m. near the Cap Draa Training Area outside Tan-Tan, a terrain characterized by mountains, desert and semidesert plains, according to the Moroccan military.

Their disappearance triggered a search-and-rescue operation involving more than 600 personnel from the United States, Morocco and other military partners. The operation deployed frigates, vessels, helicopters and drones.

Search efforts will continue for the missing second soldier, a U.S. defense official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to speak publicly on the issue.

The official said a U.S. contingent remained in Morocco after the multinational war games ended Friday to provide command and control and to continue search and rescue operations.

Key was assigned to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, U.S Army Europe and Africa said.

He earned a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with minors in international business, entrepreneurship, and business administration. He entered military service in 2023 as an officer candidate and earned his commission through Officer Candidate School in 2024 as an Air Defense Artillery officer. He later completed the Basic Officer Leader Course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, according to the statement.

The search-and-rescue operation, now in its ninth day, has covered more than 12,000 square kilometers of sea and littoral zone, currently adding around 3,000 square kilometers per day.

The soldiers had been taking part in African Lion 26, a U.S.-led exercise launched in April across four countries – Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana and Senegal – with more than 7,000 personnel from over 30 nations. Since 2004, it has been the largest U.S. joint military exercise in Africa.

In 2012, two U.S. Marines were killed and two others injured during a helicopter crash in Morocco’s southern city of Agadir while taking part in the exercises.

They have built a strong relationship, chemistry and timing in their first three seasons collaborating.

During that span, Collins emerged as a Pro Bowl selection and three-time 1,000-yard receiver who has piled up 209 catches for 3,420 yards and 21 touchdowns.

Now, Collins is seeing encouraging signs from a leaner Stroud who’s been described as locked in and ultra-focused on the heels of a rocky playoffs that included five interceptions and five fumbles and seven turnovers that included a career-high four interceptions in a divisional round loss to the New England Patriots. Collins sees Stroud regaining his NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and Pro Bowl form and a big season unfolding after uncharacteristic performances in the playoffs.

For his career, the former second overall pick, consensus All-American and Heisman Trophy finalist from Ohio State has completed 63.8 percent of his throws for 10,876 yards, 62 touchdowns and 25 interceptions.

“Different guy, different dude, man on a mission,” Collins told KPRC 2 during his annual youth football camp Saturday at Santa Fe High School. “Man, he’s ready to hunt.”

#Texans Pro Bowl receiver Nico Collins has gotten to know this young man at all of his annual youth football camps. It means the world to him to interact each year and be a part of the camp experience 'Show him love and support'@KPRC2 @FlexWorkSports @nfl@DrewJRosenhaus https://t.co/nv86IChFBY pic.twitter.com/debVaodiNE

— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) May 9, 2026

That approach defines the Texans’ ambitions collectively.

The Texans have lost three consecutive AFC divisional round playoff games and are 0-7 all-time at that stage of the postseason. They’re determined to take the next step in the fourth season after going 3-3 in the playoffs under the direction of coach DeMeco Ryans.

Since the end of the season, they’ve traded for punishing running back David Montgomery, signed veteran offensive linemen Braden Smith and Wyatt Teller, retained guard Ed Ingram on a three-year, $37.5 million deal, drafted offensive lineman Keylan ‘Big Red’ Rutledge, signed safety Reed Blankenship and spent a ton of money on contract extensions for defensive end Will Anderson Jr. (three years, $150 million), linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair (three years, $54 million), defensive end Danielle Hunter (one year, $40.1 million) along with kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn and tight end Dalton Schultz.

“The excitement is great, man,” said Collins, whose absence due to a concussion impacted Stroud and the Texans against the Patriots as they played without their most dangerous offensive player. “I feel like we had a great draft. Getting back in that mode, I feel like the energy is great and we’ve got to continue to go in our mission because ahead is our Super Bowl. So, it starts right now, though.”

During the NFL draft, Texans general manager Nick Caserio delivered an unequivocal message to anyone potentially interested in trading forCollins: Don’t bother.

Caserio was asked about a trade rumor that NFL teams had made inquiries regarding Collins, the Texans’ most dangerous offensive skill player.

“Look, teams call teams all the time to ask about players,” Caserio said in response to a question from KPRC 2. “We’re not trading Nico Collins. Whoever reported it, whatever information they had, I mean, they can take it and shove it. We’re not trading Nico.”

Collins signed a three-year, $75 million maximum value deal two years ago that included a $17 million signing bonus.

Collins is due $20 million fully guaranteed in 2026 and $21.25 million nonguaranteed in 2027. He has salary-cap figures of $27.517 million and $28.59 million over the next two years. He is now the 18th highest paid wide receiver in terms of average compensation per year.

The deal could be restructured again for salary cap purposes. And Collins is also likely due for a raise at some point and additional years on his contract. It’s certainly not out of the question that the contract could be addressed this year or before next season. Especially factoring in his importance to the Texans’ offense.

Collins, for his part while not discussing anything specific regarding private financial matters, wants to remain a Texan for as long as possible, preferably for his entire career.

“I love the Texans,” Collins said. “I got drafted here. It’s somewhere I want to end. I love the city, the people, the community. There’s a lot of great positive vibes coming out of the city of Houston. So, it’s definitely a place I would like to retire.”

#Texans Pro Bowl wide receiver Nico Collins @lbg_nico7 gives back, and plays quarterback for over 600 kids at his annual youth football camp. 'It was great. It's always a blessing' @KPRC2 @FlexWorkSports pic.twitter.com/vx8oEOdf6t

— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) May 9, 2026

In February, Collins struck a similar stance when it comes to his future in Houston.

“Yeah, for sure, just keep this thing rolling, for sure, 1,000 percent,” Collins told KRPC 2. “I love the city of Houston, man. I want to be here long-term, forever. My mom said every day, continue to be myself, continue to prove myself and get better. When the time is right, it will come.”

In the first season of offensive coordinator Nick Caley, the Texans averaged 23.8 points per contest to rank 13th in the NFL in scoring offense. They finished 18th in total offense, 14th in passing offense and 22nd in rushing offense. The running game, with Joe Mixon missing the entire season due to a mysterious foot injury that involved an infection and ultimately required surgery, struggled mightily to complement the passing game. With Montgomery in the backfield, there should be more balance overall and options for Caley as a play-caller.

“Absolutely, you got to take one play at a time,” Collins said. “We know what our mission is. We know where we want to go. At the end of the day, we got to take one play at a time.

“We got to move the sticks. We’ve got to continue to put points on the board for the defense, because we know the type of defense we got. So, I’m excited about this year, second year with Caley and let’s rock.”

Collins’ value was underscored by his absence from the playoff game.

He caught 71 passes for 1,117 yards and six touchdowns during the regular season on 120 targets.

Not having a prototypical 6-foot-4, 222-pound wide receiver with 4.44 speed in the 40-yard dash changed the equation markedly for the Texans’ suddenly ineffective passing game.

As off as Stroud was, Collins could have potentially steadied the damage. Playing without Collins and losing Schultz, the leading receiver in the regular season with 82 receptions, couldn’t be overcome.

Now, Collins is determined to take his game up another notch.

“Not get complacent, not get comfortable, continue to find the things I need to improve on,” Collins said. “Even though you have success, it’s still not good enough, continue to aim for the stars and continue to be the best version of yourself every day.”

Another potential improvement for the offense could involve the return of wide receiver Tank Dell.

Dell missed the entire season last year due to a devastating knee injury suffered in a December 2024 regular-season game against the Kansas City Chiefs. At Arrowhead Stadium, Dell dislocated his knee and tore anterior cruciate, medial collateral and lateral collateral ligaments. He has undergone two surgeries and he has made a lot of progress in his recovery, running again and cutting in his routes. He is not 100 percent yet, but he’s doing well in the Texans’ offseason conditioning program.

“Tank Dell looked good,” Collins said. “I’m glad he’s back now and getting his groove back. You know how much this game means to him, and nobody wants to get hurt the way he did. So, his work ethic, his mindset on the road to recovery was amazing. So, it’s only right he get back on the field with us, with his brothers, get back to what he’s been doing. I’m happy he’s back.”

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

A 1-0 win over relegation-threatened West Ham restored Arsenal’s five-point lead over second-place Manchester City and came with a huge dose of controversy.

Leading thanks to Leandro Trossard’s 83rd-minute goal, Arsenal looked like it would be throwing away two crucial points — and losing its slim advantage in the title race — when West Ham substitute Callum Wilson lashed a shot over the line following a corner in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

Arsenal’s players complained and there was a long video review, which spotted West Ham player Pablo had his left arm across the face of David Raya as the Arsenal goalkeeper attempted to get to the ball after the corner was swung in.

The referee, Chris Kavanagh, looked at the incident on the pitchside monitor and chose to rule out the goal.

“I saw the replay now,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said, “and I think it's an obvious decision.”

For Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard, it was a “big moment for us.”

“We had to dig deep — to try and try and try — and we got there in the end,” he said.

West Ham's players felt aggrieved, with Tomas Soucek complaining that video reviews were only brought in to look for “big errors.”

“For football, this is a disappointing moment,” Soucek said, “and for every fan this is not what we want — we want goals, we want celebrations. Not to wait 10 minutes for a small foul.”

It was a big call with huge ramifications.

It left Arsenal two wins from a first league title since 2004, with games to come at home to already-relegated Burnley and, in the final round, away to a Crystal Palace team that might field a weakened lineup due to having the Conference League final three days later.

It also left West Ham a point adrift of safety, in third-to-last place with two games remaining, while guaranteeing another season in the Premier League for Nottingham Forest and Leeds.

Fourth-to-last Tottenham can move four points clear of West Ham with a win over Leeds on Monday. It's now a two-team fight for survival between West Ham and Tottenham.

Man City's chances fade

It was a huge blow to City, which has three games left — against Palace at home on Wednesday, Bournemouth away on May 19 and Aston Villa at home on the final day.

Even three wins might not be enough for City to pull off a seventh title success in Pep Guardiola's 10-year reign.

Arsenal is still in sight of a Premier League-Champions League double, having reached the final of Europe's top competition against Paris Saint-Germain on May 30.

Villa not sure of top-five spot yet

Aston Villa still has work to do to secure Champions League qualification after being held 2-2 at already-relegated Burnley.

That kept Villa in fifth place, behind Liverpool on goal difference and four points above sixth-place Bournemouth in the race to finish in the top five and get into Europe's top competition.

All three teams have two games left, with Villa and Bournemouth still having to play Man City.

Villa's players have another possible route into next season's Champions League: By winning the Europa League.

If they do that and finish fifth in the league, then the team that places sixth — currently Bournemouth, though Brighton is only two points further back — would also qualify.

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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

Iran seeks to end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, and to ensure the security of shipping, its state TV said. Washington’s latest proposal addressed a deal to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and roll back Iran’s nuclear program, an issue that Tehran would rather discuss later.

The White House had no immediate comment about Iran’s reply but U.S. President Donald Trump on social media accused Tehran of “playing games” with the United States for nearly 50 years, adding: "They will be laughing no longer!"

Trump is giving diplomacy “every chance we possibly can before going back to hostilities,” the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told ABC earlier Sunday.

Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard publicly since the war began, “issued new and decisive directives for the continuation of operations and the powerful confrontation with the enemies” while meeting with the head of the joint military command, the state broadcaster reported, with no details.

Drone attacks target Gulf Arab nations

The fragile ceasefire was tested when a drone ignited a small fire on a ship off Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait reported drones entering their airspace. The UAE’s Defense Ministry said it shot down two drones and blamed Iran. No casualties were reported, and no one immediately claimed responsibility.

Qatar's Foreign Ministry called it a “dangerous and unacceptable escalation that threatens the security and safety of maritime trade routes and vital supplies in the region." The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said the ship attack happened 23 nautical miles (43 kilometers) northeast of Doha. It gave no details about the ship's owner or origin.

Kuwait Defense Ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al Otaibi said forces responded to drones “in accordance with established procedures” but did not say where they came from.

Iran and armed allied groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon have used drones to carry out hundreds of strikes since the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28.

Iran says it's on ‘full readiness’ to protect nuclear sites

Trump has reiterated threats to resume full-scale bombing if Iran does not accept an agreement to reopen the strait and roll back its nuclear program. Iran has largely blocked the strategic waterway that's key to the global flow of oil, natural gas and fertilizer since the war began, rattling world markets.

The U.S. in turn has blockaded Iranian ports and on Friday struck two Iranian oil tankers it said were trying to breach the blockade. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy says any attack on Iranian oil tankers or commercial vessels would be met with a “heavy assault” on one of the U.S. bases in the region and enemy ships.

The American military said Sunday that it has turned back 61 commercial vessels and disabled four since the blockade began April 13.

Another sticking point in negotiations is Iran’s highly enriched uranium. The U.N. nuclear agency says Iran has more than 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.

In an interview with state media posted late Saturday, an Iranian military spokesperson said its forces were on “full readiness” to protect nuclear sites where uranium is stored.

“We considered it possible that they might intend to steal it through infiltration operations or heli-borne operations,” Brig. Gen. Akrami Nia told the IRNA news agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an excerpt of an interview with CBS scheduled to air later Sunday said the war isn't over because the enriched uranium needs to be taken out of Iran. “Trump has said to me, ‘I want to go in there,’ and I think it can be done physically,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Moscow’s proposal to take enriched uranium from Iran to help negotiate a settlement remains on the table.

The majority of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely at its Isfahan nuclear complex, the International Atomic Energy Agency director-general told The Associated Press last month. The facility was bombarded by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in the 12-day war last year and faced less intense attacks this year.

Pakistan oversaw face-to-face talks between the U.S. and Iran last month and continues to pursue mediation. In rare public comments, army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir said Islamabad remains committed to helping end the conflict. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke by phone with his Qatari counterpart.

Iran warns against French-British effort in the strait

Iran's deputy foreign minister warned against a planned French-British effort that aims to support maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz after hostilities are over.

“The presence of French and British vessels, or those of any other country, for any possible cooperation with illegal U.S. actions in the Strait of Hormuz that violate international law will be met with a decisive and immediate response from the armed forces,” Kazem Gharibabadi said on social media.

French President Emmanuel Macron responded by saying it won't be a military deployment but an international mission to secure shipping once conditions allow.

Several attacks against ships in the Persian Gulf have occurred over the past week, and a U.S. effort to “guide” ships through the strait was quickly paused.

South Korea announced initial findings from an investigation that said two unidentified airborne objects struck the South Korean-operated vessel HMM NAMU about one minute apart while it was anchored in the strait last week, causing an explosion and fire. A foreign ministry spokesperson said officials have yet to determine who was responsible.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

Spanish passengers were the first to leave the MV Hondius following its arrival in Tenerife, the largest island in the Spanish archipelago off the West African coast. They were then flown to Madrid and taken to a military hospital. Hours later, a plane that evacuated French passengers landed in Paris, where it was met by emergency vehicles.

One of the five French passengers developed symptoms on the flight, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said in a statement, and all were put into strict isolation with plans to be tested.

Earlier, officials from the Spanish Health Ministry, the World Health Organization and the cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions had said none of the more than 140 people who were then on the Hondius had shown symptoms of the virus.

The planes arriving in Tenerife were to fly out passengers from more than 20 countries. The evacuations are expected to last until Monday.

Three people have died since the outbreak began, and five passengers who left the ship earlier are infected with hantavirus.

Health officials say risk to public is low

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reiterated that the general public should not be worried about the outbreak.

“We have been repeating the same answer many times," he said. "This is not another COVID. And the risk to the public is low. So they shouldn’t be scared, and they shouldn’t panic.”

Even so, those disembarking and personnel working at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife wore protective gear during the evacuation process, including hazardous materials suits, face masks and respirators. Video obtained by The Associated Press showed passengers on the tarmac donning similar suits and being sprayed down with disinfectant.

Passengers were relieved to be on their way to their home countries, another WHO official said.

“It’s been great seeing all the buses coming out and people really happy to be on land again and being repatriated,” said Diana Rojas Alvarez, the WHO health operations lead, who is on Tenerife.

Authorities have said the disembarking passengers and crew members will be checked for symptoms and will be forbidden from having any contact with the local population. They are to be taken off the ship only when evacuation flights are ready. Tedros and Spain’s health and interior ministers are supervising the operation in Tenerife.

Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings, and the disease not easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Passengers and disembarking crew members left behind their luggage and were being allowed to take only a small bag with essentials, a cellphone, a charger and documentation.

Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to Rotterdam, Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, Spanish authorities said.

The journey to Rotterdam takes about five days, the cruise company said.

Passengers will be monitored

The WHO is recommending that passengers' home countries "have active monitoring and follow up, which means daily health checks, either at home or in a specialized facility,” Van Kerkhove said.

“We are leaving this up to the countries themselves to actually develop their own policies,” she added. “But our recommendations are very clear, and this is really a cautionary approach to make sure that we don’t have any opportunities for this virus to pass from others.”

Numerous countries have said their people would be quarantined or hospitalized for observation. Earlier, for example, the French Foreign Ministry said its passengers would be hospitalized for 72 hours of monitoring, then would quarantine at home for 45 days.

After the passenger came down with symptoms, the prime minister said the five would be kept in the hospital "until further orders."

Americans on board will be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska. Passengers and crew from the U.K. will be hospitalized for observation, British authorities said.

Australia is sending a plane, expected to arrive Monday, to evacuate its people and those from nearby countries, such as New Zealand, and unspecified Asian countries, said Spanish Health Minister Mónica García, who added that the evacuation flight was expected to be the last to leave Tenerife.

Norway sent an ambulance plane to the island with personnel trained to transport patients with high-risk infections, its Directorate for Civil Protection told public broadcaster NRK.

British medics parachute into remote territory

Elsewhere, British Army medics parachuted onto the remote South Atlantic territory of Tristan da Cunha, where one of the 221 residents has a suspected case of hantavirus.

The patient was a passenger on the MV Hondius and disembarked last month.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said a team of six paratroopers and two medical clinicians jumped Saturday from a Royal Air Force transport plane, which also dropped oxygen and medical equipment.

Tristan da Cunha is Britain’s most remote inhabited overseas territory, about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the nearest inhabited island, St. Helena. The group of volcanic islands has no airstrip and is usually accessible only by a six-day boat voyage from Cape Town, South Africa.

Meanwhile, a Spanish woman in the southeastern province of Alicante suspected of being infected tested negative for hantavirus, Spanish health authorities said Saturday.

The woman was a passenger on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after traveling on the cruise ship.

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Naishadham reported from Madrid. Associated Press writers Angela Charlton in Paris, Jill Lawless in London and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

Her transfer comes after days of pleading by her family and others who described her condition as critical. Her foundation said she has been granted a prison sentence suspension on bail. It was not clear for how long her sentence is suspended, the foundation said.

Mohammadi had been imprisoned since December in Zanjan prison. She lost consciousness twice and was transferred to a local hospital on May 1.

A statement from her foundation, shared with The Associated Press, said the suspended sentence is not enough and that Mohammadi needs “permanent, specialized care.”

The statement added that “we must ensure she never returns to prison to face the 18 years remaining on her sentence. Now is the time to demand her unconditional freedom and the dismissal of all charges.”

Mohammadi’s Iran-based lawyer Mostafa Nili said on social media the transfer order was issued following the decision of the Legal Medicine Organization — government-appointed medical examiners — “which stated that, due to her multiple illnesses, she needs to continue treatment outside prison and under the supervision of her own medical team.”

There was no immediate comment from Iranian authorities.

Mohammadi’s brother Hamidreza Mohammadi, who is based in Oslo, Norway, had said medical examiners previously recommended her transfer to Tehran but the decision was blocked. He blamed Iran’s intelligence agency.

“I’m relieved now. I can breathe lightly,” her brother told the AP in a message.

The 53-year-old rights activist and champion of women’s rights was awarded the Nobel in 2023 while in prison and has been jailed repeatedly throughout her career. Her current imprisonment began when she was arrested in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad.

Mohammadi’s family said her health had been deteriorating in prison, in part because she was heavily beaten during her arrest. She had a heart attack in March and has a blood clot in her lung since before her imprisonment that needs blood thinners and monitoring to manage it.

Since being taken to the Zanjan hospital’s cardiac care unit, Mohammadi’s blood pressure had been swinging between extremely low and extremely high, and she was receiving oxygen to breathe and can’t talk, according to her brother.

The Nobel committee had called on Iranian authorities to immediately transfer Mohammadi to her dedicated medical team in Tehran, saying that “without such treatment, her life remains at risk.”

Authorities said Thomas has a medical condition that can cause seizures and is mentally disabled. She was last seen about 8 a.m. Sunday in the 2400 block of Palmer Lake Lane in Spring.

Thomas was last seen wearing green floral pajama pants. She has dreadlocks with brown tips.

Anyone who has seen Thomas or may know where she is should contact the Precinct 4 Constable’s Office or their local law enforcement agency right away.

Deputies are also encouraging people to share the information to help bring her home safely.

The plane, on route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday,” according to a post on the airport’s official X account.

Passengers were evacuated via slides, and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. An airport spokesperson said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.

Some people on board expressed concern about the evacuation, including being stuck in the plane for several minutes as smoke filled the cabin and left on the tarmac in the cold once they were out. Video also showed some passengers coming down the slide with what looked to be their carry-on bags.

“We are gathering information about the emergency evacuation to determine if it meets criteria for a safety investigation,” NTSB spokesperson Sarah Taylor Sulick said early Sunday, adding that the agency might have more details in a few hours.

Frontier Airlines didn’t respond early Sunday to a request for information about the evacuation.

A spokesman for the Denver Police Departmet said Sunday the investigation into the incident was ongoing and that the identification of the person on the runway will be confirmed and released by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner.

The person was hit two minutes after jumping the fence and crossing the runway. The person is not believed to be an airport employee.

“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”

The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway.”

The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”

Frontier Airlines said in a statement that flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff.” It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision.

The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.

“We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities,” the airline said.

Passengers said panic took hold on the flight after an engine caught fire and the cabin began filling with smoke.

“Honestly, I thought I was going to die,” passenger Mohamed Hassan told Colorado’s 9NEWS.

“A lot of people next to me were screaming and crying. I just closed my eyes,” he said. "At that time, you’re not really thinking of anything, you know? Because we were just about to take off and I heard that boom, so I wasn’t sure what happened. I just thought something really, really bad happened.”

Passenger Nikil Thalanki told local media outlets that he felt “this jerk” as the plane was about to take off, adding that it felt like the wheels had left the ground but then came back down.

“There was fire on the engine. There was lots of sparks that are happening. Immediately came to a stop,” Thalanki said. "As soon as we saw the sparks on the flight, smoke filled the cabin completely. It was super hard to breathe.”

Kimberly Randle said passengers were panicking and desperate to get off the aircraft.

“In a few minutes, they finally opened the door. People were running to get out of the plane," he said. "It was chaos everywhere.”

The NTSB has for years expressed concerned about evacuations, especially passengers leaving with their carry-ons. In an April report on the evacuation aboard a United Airlines flight at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the NTSB described a troubling scene.

Passengers were evacuated via slides and stairs last year from the jetliner after an engine problem during takeoff caused smoke and fire on the right wing.

Despite the flight attendant telling passengers to remain seated, several began shouting, “fire on the engine, let me get out!” That trigged “widespread panic" and prompted many passengers to get up and start retrieving their belongings. Some climbed over seats and began obstructing the aisle.

Three large men insisted the evacuation occur, pushing past a flight attendant and going down a slide before it had fully deployed – causing it to deflate and become unusable.

“Cabin crew training emphasizes assertive command presence and passenger control during evacuations; however, this event demonstrates how rapidly escalating passenger behavior can affect evacuation dynamics even in the absence of confirmed fire or smoke conditions,” according to the report.

The incident in Denver came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while on the job at the Orlando International Airport. In a statement, the airline said the employee was killed Thursday night without providing details of the incident or the name of the employee.

“We are focused on extending our full support to family and taking care of our Orlando team during this difficult time,” the airline said. “We are working with local authorities as a full investigation gets underway to determine what occurred.”

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AP reporter John Raby contributed from Charleston, West Virginia.

A level 1 (green) means more isolated storms, level 2 (yellow) means scattered but more organized with greater coverage while level 3 (orange) means more numerous strong thunderstorms.

Our severe weather risk is now a 2 out of 5 for areas like Columbus, The Woodlands, and Conroe. Areas like Houston, El Campo, and Sugar Land are at a 1 out of 5, while northern Brazos County is at an enhanced risk of 3 out of 5.

Weather Bullets:

• We’ll for a few isolated chances for thunderstorms from 5-7 pm north of I-10, as the front makes it way to the College Station area by midnight, moving into Houston around 3 am and pushes off the coast around 5 this morning.
• We’ll watch for rain, thunderstorms, a slight hail for folks up north and a very slight tornado risk at the tip of our viewing area.

Depending on how the front develops and the atmosphere evolves, that will determine the intensity of the storms — and that’s what we’ll be tracking tonight.

You can track radar here anytime:

Here’s the timing of the front: Timing can change, but this at least gives you an idea on how to plan your day. We’ll for a few isolated chances for thunderstorms from 5-7 pm north of I-10, as the front makes it way to the College Station area by midnight, moving into Houston around 3 am and pushes off the coast around 5 this morning.

5 PM: Dry for most but tracking a few isolated cells to the east between Beaumont and The Woodlands.

8 PM: Scattered storms for a select few areas.

11 PM: Tracking front Columbus, Brenham, College Station.

Monday 3 AM: The Woodlands, Bush, Houston, Sugar Land, down to El Campo

Monday 5 AM: Pushing off to the coast before the 6 AM commute.

Rainfall totals are expected at 0.10–0.25”, though some cells are capable of producing more.

We’ll watch for rain, thunderstorms, a slight hail for folks up north and a very slight tornado risk at the tip of our viewing area.

Hail: We’re tracking a 5% risk for hail for area to our north.

Tornado: We’re tracking a low tornado risk for areas north of Huntsville.

Wind Risk: We will track heavier winds as our front pushes through -giving us a 15% wind risk for areas in yellow while the areas in brown have a 5% risk.

As yesterday - we had rain, thunderstorms and hail for some not all.

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Rainfall totals for the past 24 hours (as of 6 AM):- Liberty: 1.35”- Katy: 1.61”- Conroe: 0.57”While other places stayed dry.

Wishing you the very best day today, whether you’re off or working like me. Daji will have a close eye on the radar tonight.

Brittany

Mbappé, the league's leading scorer with 24 goals, was not included in Madrid's squad after failing to recover from a left-hamstring ailment that has kept him sidelined since late April.

Mbappé last week addressed a fresh wave of criticism of him in Spain, insisting he was fully committed to the club and to recovering from his latest injury. Some Madrid fans had expressed concern that the France forward was saving himself for the upcoming World Cup.

Barcelona hosts Madrid at Camp Nou with the opportunity to celebrate the La Liga crown with a victory or even a draw against its fiercest rival. Barcelona enters the last clasico of the season leading Madrid by 11 points with four rounds remaining.

It will be an emotional match for Barcelona following the news — announced just a few hours before kickoff — of the death of Hans Flick, the father of the team's head coach.

“FC Barcelona and the entire blaugrana family wish to send all our love to Hansi Flick after the passing of his father,” Barcelona said in a statement. “We share in your sorrow and our thoughts are with you and your family during this difficult time.”

Hansi Flick is still expected to be on the bench for the match. Spanish media reports that Barcelona players will wear black armbands as a sign of mourning and there will be a minute's silence held before kickoff.

Madrid, playing mostly for pride and to avoid the humiliation of watching Barcelona celebrate at its expense, is reeling after an embarrassing week in which players Federico Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni were each fined 500,000 euros ($589,000) for an altercation during training that left Valverde sidelined with a head injury after allegedly accidentally knocking his head on a table.

It was not the only altercation involving Madrid players during training last week. Álvaro Carreras confirmed he was in a “minor” incident with a teammate. Spanish media said he and fellow defender Antonio Rüdiger got into a scuffle.

Álvaro Arbeloa, the coach who was promoted from Madrid’s reserve team when Xabi Alonso was fired in January, has Madrid facing a second consecutive campaign without a major trophy amid rumors in Spanish media that club president Florentino Pérez is considering bringing back José Mourinho to straighten out his underperforming team.

Concerns over Nico Williams

Spain forward Nico Williams had to be substituted before halftime of Athletic Bilbao's 1-0 loss to Valencia at home, prompting more concerns ahead of the World Cup.

Williams appeared to suffer a hamstring injury, and was replaced by brother Iñaki Williams in the 37th minute.

Nico Williams had already been sidelined for several weeks earlier this year because of another injury.

Athletic did not immediately release details about Sunday's injury.

The 23-year-old forward has been a regular in Spain's squad, playing in attack along with Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, who is also injured.

Spain coach Luis de La Fuente is set to announce a 55-name pre-list for the World Cup on Monday.

Also Sunday, Mallorca stayed two points clear of the relegation zone after a 1-1 draw at home against third-place Villarreal.

___

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

Deputies were called to the 14200 block of E. Sam Houston Parkway near Forest Acres Drive.

HCSO initially said Precinct 3 deputies received a report of a “carjacking,” but later learned that a man showed up at a residence with a car jack and was allegedly disgruntled after a fight with a resident the day before. Investigators said the two individuals know each other.

• 2 INVESTIGATES: Houston drivers paid nearly $1 billion in tolls — so why are they still stuck in traffic?

HCSO said an individual came outside and shot the man. The wounded man was driven to a hospital and later airlifted to another hospital. He is expected to be OK and was listed in stable condition, per authorities at the scene.

The case will be submitted to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office for review for possible charges, which is standard procedure, investigators said.

Update: it does not appear to be a carjacking incident, as both parties are said to know each other. Scene investigation is underway. https://t.co/7gM18t2IrQ

— Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) May 10, 2026

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia was neither observing the truce nor “even particularly trying to,” adding there had been no calm in front line areas despite a lull in large-scale attacks and pledged that Ukraine would retaliate to any aggression shown by Moscow.

“Yesterday and today, Ukraine refrained from long-range retaliatory actions in response to the absence of large-scale Russian attacks,” Zelenskyy said in evening statement, stressing Ukraine's increasing ability to hit targets far inside Russia.

“We will continue to respond in the same mirrorlike manner, and if the Russians decide to return to full-scale warfare, our response will be immediate and significant.”

Ivan Fedorov, head of Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, said one person had been killed and three others had been injured by Russian artillery and drone attacks in the last 24 hours. Another 16 people were also wounded in attacks across other regions of Ukraine, local officials said.

Russia's Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, accused Kyiv of committing more than 1,000 ceasefire violations, state media reported, citing a daily briefing. The ministry said Ukrainian forces had attacked civilian targets in several Russian regions and carried out strikes against Russian military positions on the front line.

Russia's military had “responded in kind” to the ceasefire violations, the ministry said.

Two people were injured by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, the area’s Moscow-installed leader Vladimir Saldo said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that Russia and Ukraine had bowed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday to mark Victory Day, the Russian celebration marking the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Trump said there would also be an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Zelenskyy, who had said Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” during the May 9 parade in Moscow, followed up on Trump’s statement by mockingly declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes to allow the Russian parade to go ahead. The Kremlin shrugged off the comment as a “silly joke.”

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Sunday he expects U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner — who have both taken a leading role in negotiations to end the war — to visit Moscow “soon enough.”

However, he stressed that Moscow would not move from its demand that Kyiv's troops withdraw from Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. “Until (Ukraine) takes that step, we can hold several more rounds, dozens of rounds (of negotiations), but we’ll be stuck in the same place,” Ushakov was cited by the state news agency Tass as saying.

Previous ceasefires, most recently at Orthodox Easter, have failed to produce any tangible results amid deep mistrust between Moscow and Kyiv more than four years after Russia launched its invasion of its neighbor. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the war have also largely stalled.

___

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

But Sunday night a cold front moves through. This front will bring a line rain and thunderstorms. Our northern cities have a chance of hail and strong winds. The storms will weaken the closer they get to the coast.

You can track radar here before you leave your house:

Here’s a look at Futuretrack:

We’ll for a few isolated chances for thunderstorms from 5-7 pm north of I-10, as the front makes it way to the College Station area by midnight, moving into Houston around 3 am and pushes off the coast around 5 this morning.

Morning lows:

Once our front passes, our morning lows go from the 70s to the 60s for a few days but our highs will stay in the 80s.

10 Day Forecast:

Looking ahead into next week, expect a drier weather pattern but the mugginess will stick around with temperatures forecast to range between 84 to 88 degrees. Next chance of rain is Sunday May 17th.

Have you captured a dramatic rain photo or video? Share your weather moments with the KPRC 2 community through Click2Pins at Click2Houston.com/pins.

Formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., Aramco reported a profit of $32.5 billion for the quarter ending March 31. The state-owned company had reported a 12% decline in annual profits in 2025.

“Aramco’s first-quarter performance reflects strong resilience and operational flexibility in a complex geopolitical environment,” Aramco President and CEO Amin H. Nasser said in a statement, adding that the company’s East-West Pipeline, which runs across Saudi Arabia from its Eastern oil fields to the Red Sea, is now operating at its maximum capacity of 7 million barrels of oil per day. Nasser said the pipeline is “helping to mitigate the impact of a global energy shock and providing relief to customers.”

However, it cannot replace the capacity lost to the shipping disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. Before the war, 20% of the world’s traded oil typically flowed through the strait every day, as well as large supplies of natural gas, fertilizer and other petroleum products.

Iran effectively seized control of the critical waterway after the U.S. and Israel attacked it on Feb. 28 and a U.S. naval blockade imposed last month also complicates its use.

“Recent events have clearly demonstrated the vital contribution of oil and gas to energy security and the global economy, and are a stark reminder that reliable energy supply is critical,” Nasser said in a statement. “Despite these headwinds, Aramco remains focused on its strategic priorities and is leveraging both its domestic infrastructure and its global network to navigate disruption.”

A suicide bomber and several gunmen detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the post in Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, late on Saturday, senior police official Sajjad Khan said. The attack triggered a shootout, and some officers were killed in the exchange, while others died later after the building collapsed.

Rescuers searched for hours and used heavy machinery to retrieve bodies from under the rubble, Khan said, adding that three police officers were wounded in the attack.

Meanwhile, hundreds gathered at the Bannu police headquarters for the funerals of the slain officers. Uniformed colleagues stood in silence as coffins, draped in the national flag, were carried past grieving families. Some relatives broke down upon seeing the coffins. A Muslim cleric led funeral prayers under tight security

Security forces have launched an operation to track down the perpetrators.

A newly formed militant group, Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to reporters. While the group claims it was formed by splinter factions of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, authorities have accused it of being a front for the TTP.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant violence in recent years, much of it blamed on the TTP, a separate group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Islamabad often accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing sanctuary to the TTP, a claim that Kabul denies.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack and expressed their condolences to the families of the victims. Zardari instructed local authorities to assist the wounded and residents whose homes were damaged in the attack.

Zadari said that militants find safe havens in neighboring Afghanistan and also vowed to target “their facilitators and sponsors.”

“Terrorists operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan under the Taliban administration and supported externally are targeting civilians and law enforcement personnel in Pakistan,” he said.

Tensions between the two neighbors have persisted, and both sides have engaged in fighting that has killed hundreds of people since late February.

In early April, Afghan and Pakistani officials held peace talks mediated by China. However, despite the talks, sporadic cross-border clashes have continued, though at a lower intensity than before.

___

Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Former Laredo City Council member Alfonso “Poncho” Casso filed the petition to remove Cuellar in Webb County district court last week, citing the federal indictment and other misconduct allegations. Casso’s filing, which was first reported by The Laredo Morning Times, asked the court to suspend the five-term South Texas sheriff from office pending a trial that seeks to permanently remove him from the post.

Cuellar denied all allegations outlined in the petition and “demands strict proof,” according to a response filed in court on Friday. He already pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, which were unsealed in January.

Casso’s petition largely relies on the five-count indictment, which accuses Cuellar and two other people of misappropriating funds from the Webb County sheriff’s office during the COVID-19 pandemic.

They allegedly opened a private disinfecting business in April 2020 that operated “almost entirely with county employees and supplies,” including to complete a $500,000 contract cleaning schools in Laredo, according to the indictment. Cuellar then received around $175,000 and used it to purchase property in the area, according to federal prosecutors.

Rick Rodriguez, Cuellar’s former deputy who was involved in the business, already pleaded guilty. If convicted, the sheriff could face up to 10 years in federal prison for conspiracy and theft of federal funds charges, and another 10 years for money laundering charges.

Beyond the indictment, Casso’s petition also alleges mismanagement of the county jail as well as violations of the Texas WhistleBlower Act, the Texas Elections Code and procurement laws.

“He has been compromised and has no credibility managing the Webb County Sheriff’s Office or County Jail,” his filing said.

The sheriff is the brother of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, the Laredo Democrat who was indicted in May 2024 on bribery, money laundering and conspiracy charges related to his relationship with an Azerbaijan-run oil-and-gas company and a Mexican bank. President Donald Trump pardoned the representative in December before criticizing him of disloyalty for deciding to run again as a Democrat for his 12th term.

Starmer plans to use a speech on Monday to argue that he can change tack and revive his government’s fortunes. But his position is fragile as rivals weigh their options. One lawmaker, Catherine West, said she will try to trigger a leadership contest if she doesn’t like what she hears in the speech.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, often seen as a potential challenger, said the party “needs to change,” though she did not explicitly call for Starmer to go.

She said “the prime minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs.”

Starmer is trying to regain momentum after heavy losses for his center-left party in local elections across England and legislative votes in Scotland and Wales. Last week’s elections were widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he swept to power in a landslide less than two years ago.

His government has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps and policy U-turns on issues including welfare reform. He has been further hurt by his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.

Last week’s elections saw Labour squeezed from both right and left, losing votes to both the anti-immigration Reform UK and the “eco-populist” Green Party. It reflects the increasing fragmentation of British politics, long dominated by Labour and the Conservatives.

Still, Starmer told The Observer newspaper on Sunday that he wants to remain in office for a decade. He’s pinning his hopes on Monday’s speech and an ambitious set of legislative plans to be set out in a speech Wednesday by King Charles III at the State Opening of Parliament.

A key policy is closer ties with the European Union, which the United Kingdom left in 2020, four years after the “leave” side narrowly won a membership referendum. Starmer’s government has already moved to ease some of the trade restrictions that have burdened British businesses since Brexit, and he says he will secure a youth mobility deal so young people can spend a few years working across the continent.

“Brexit has held back our young people,” Starmer told The Observer, adding that “we have to be closer to Europe.”

Labour campaigned to stay in the EU during the 2016 referendum campaign, but has been reluctant to reopen a debate that bitterly divided the country. Starmer has ruled out seeking to reenter the EU, or to rejoin the EU’s customs union or single market, two things that would make a big difference to U.K. businesses.

Starmer’s future hangs in the balance

None of the high-profile Labour politicians considered potential challengers to Starmer — including Rayner, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham — has called for him to resign.

But a growing number of Labour lawmakers urged the prime minister to set a timetable for his departure. British politics allows parties to change leader midterm without the need for a new election.

Josh Simons, a formerly loyal Labour lawmaker, wrote in the Times of London that Starmer “has lost the country” and “should take control of the situation by overseeing an orderly transition to a new prime minister.”

West, a former junior minister, is trying to hurry the process along, vowing to try to trigger a leadership contest unless Starmer delivers a barnstorming speech on Monday. West acknowledged she does not have the support of 81 colleagues, needed to force a contest, and her move appeared to be an attempt to force more high-profile contenders to make a move.

“Working people sent us a message,” West said. “We have to listen to that, and we have to change and we have to do it quickly.”

This weekend had wide variety of newcomers playing in wide release, including the family-friendly whodunnit “The Sheep Detectives” and a James Cameron co-directed Billie Eilish concert film.

But it was the holdover that triumphed. “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” which has grossed $433.2 million worldwide in its first 12 days in release, helped push The Walt Disney Studios over $2 billion globally for the year. It’s also surpassed the total grosses of the first film, which earned $327 million globally in 2006, not accounting for inflation.

Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends for Comscore, said Mother's Day might have helped “Prada” get the advantage over the newcomer and have such a modest 44% dip in weekend two.

“The release date was perfect,” Dergarabedian said. “This may be the new blueprint for how to start a summer."

“Mortal Kombat II” provided some gendered counterprogramming in the second weekend of Hollywood's summer movie season. Warner Bros. opened the movie in 3,503 locations where it drew a heavily male audience. According to PostTrak, 75% of the ticket buyers were men. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” had almost the exact opposite gender breakdown on its first weekend.

The first movie in this series, “Mortal Kombat,” was released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max in April 2021 as a part of Warner Bros.’ pandemic-era day-and-date strategy. Reviews have been mixed for the sequel, as was its B CinemaScore. It also earned $23 million from 78 markets internationally, adding up to a $63 million global debut.

“Michael” landed in third place in its third weekend with another $36.5 million over the weekend, down only 33% from last weekend. The Michael Jackson biopic has now earned $240.5 million in North America, surpassing the total domestic grosses of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and $577.4 million globally.

Fourth place went to Amazon MGM Studios' “The Sheep Detectives” which brought in $15.9 million in its first weekend in 3,457 theaters. The quirky, all-ages murder mystery features a starry ensemble including Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson and Nicholas Braun, as well as the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Regina Hall and Patrick Stewart as the sheep who try to figure out who murdered their shepherd. Audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore. The movie cost a reported $75 million to produce.

Rounding out the top five was “Billie Eilish—Hit Me Hard & Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)” an immersive concert experience which Cameron shared co-directing credits on with Eilish. Paramount released the movie in 2,613 theaters, where it earned $7.5 million in North America and $12.6 million internationally. The movie was very well reviewed by critics (93% on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences, who gave it an A CinemaScore.

“Project Hail Mary,” in its eighth weekend, and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” in its sixth weekend, are still going strong as well — adding up to a weekend that is up significantly from the same weekend last year. Dergarabedian said the films that seem to be doing well and drawing new and repeat audiences week after week are the ones offering “pure, escapist entertainment.”

“This is playing out very well for movie theaters right now,” he said.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” $43 million.

2. “Mortal Kombat II,” $40 million.

3. “Michael,” $36.5 million.

4. “The Sheep Detectives,” $15.9 million.

5. “Billie Eilish—Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour,” $7.5 million.

6. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” $6.6 million.

7. “Project Hail Mary,”$6.1 million.

8. “Hokum,” $3.3 million.

9. “Deep Water,” $780,274.

10. “Animal Farm,” $663,624.

An All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection at Syracuse who averaged a school-record 47.1 yards per punt last season, Stonehouse is competing with former New Orleans Saints starting punter Kai Kroeger for the starting job and accompanying roster spot.

“For Jack,we saw a guy that’s very consistent,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said of Stonehouse, the third-highest graded punter in the nation last year. “He has a very strong leg. He does a great job of booting the ball. He had a really good first day today. You can hear the ball coming off his foot. That’s the thing that stood out about him today.”

Stonehouse, whose father and cousin played in the NFL, had a long punt of 64 yards, with six touchbacks, and 25 fair catches. He set a school career record with a 45.8 yards per punt average.

Stonehouse went to the NFL scouting combine and East-West Shrine Bowl. He participated in the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers’ local prospect days and met privately with the San Francisco 49ers. A Missouri transfer, his average hang time was 4.29 seconds, fourth in the nation.

A former undrafted free agent from South Carolina where he was an All-American selection and All-Southeastern Conference selection, Kroeger averaged 44.8 yards for the Saints. He had 18 punts land inside opponents’ 20-yard lines. He had two blocked punts, impacting his average.

“Having that healthy competition is only going to make that position better when it comes to the punter position,” Ryans said. “We’ve got Kai Kai’s done it in the league and now adding Jack is going to be really healthy competition coming through training camp.”

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

A .300 Blackout AR-style rifle with a suppressor, along with a Sheriff’s Office ballistic vest and a deputy’s duty belt, were stolen from an unmarked deputy vehicle on Friday, May 8.

On May 9, investigators were watching a home in Texas City based on the tip. They detained a resident who they saw leaving the home.

Investigators said that person admitted the stolen items were inside the home.

• MORE NEWS: Man critical after being shot during fight with son at Houston gas station, HPD says

Officers then surrounded the home and several people came out peacefully.

After getting a search warrant, the sheriff’s office found the stolen rifle, ballistic vest, and additional stolen property, including a Smith & Wesson handgun, inside the home.

They took a juvenile suspect into custody.

Wyatt was booked into the Galveston County Jail this evening.

She is charged with driving while intoxicated.

This marks the second time she has been arrested for DWI.

Court records indicate she was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated back in 2023. Prosecutors stated her blood alcohol concentration level was at least .15.

The charge was dismissed after she completed a pretrial diversion program.

Back in December she was arrested in Harris County, charged with burglary of a motor vehicle.

• PREVIOS REPORT: Attorney says Harris County treasurer’s behavior was ‘unusual’ but had ‘no intention to commit a theft’

A Harris County grand jury returned a no-bill on that charge which means the charge was dismissed.

Stay tuned to KPRC 2 and click2houston.com for latest on this new arrest.

From early-morning alarms to late-night newscasts, our team knows what it takes to show up for our viewers and for their families. These photos highlight the moments our staff is most proud of: the kids, the hugs, the smiles, and the everyday memories that make Mother’s Day meaningful.

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Happy Mother’s Day from all of us at KPRC 2.

Officers responded to the Diamond Ridge Apartment Homes on Antoine Drive just before midnight and found a man who had been shot in the leg, according to HPD. He was taken to a hospital, and police said his injuries were not considered life-threatening.

Investigators said the victim described the suspect along with the vehicle involved to them. While officers were still collecting information, a car matching that description came back to the scene, police said. The driver was detained and later identified as the suspected shooter. A gun was also recovered, according to investigators.

• MORE NEWS: Judge issues gag order limiting public comments in Lee Gilley capital murder case

Police said the two men know each other. Investigators believe the confrontation started after the victim was disturbed by a loud vehicle in the area, leading to an argument that escalated before shots were fired.

Before this year, there were 18 teams that started an NBA postseason with a 7-0 record. Of those, nine went on to win the championship, and nine didn't.

The Thunder are the 19th member of that club after beating the Los Angeles Lakers for a 3-0 lead in their Western Conference semifinal series on Saturday night.

The nine teams that started 7-0 and went on to win the title: Minneapolis in 1949 and 1950, the LA Lakers in 1982 and 2001, Philadelphia in 1983, Detroit in 1989, Chicago in 1993, Cleveland in 2016 and Golden State in 2017.

The nine that didn’t win it all: the Lakers in 1989, Indiana in 1999, Miami in 2005 and 2020, Detroit in 2007, Cleveland in 2009 and 2017, Orlando in 2010 and San Antonio in 2012.

On Sunday, there are two games but three outcomes to follow: New York will be in Philadelphia looking to finish off a sweep, San Antonio will look to take a 3-1 series lead at Minnesota and the NBA draft lottery is being held in Chicago.

Sunday's schedule

— Game 4, New York at Philadelphia, 3:30 p.m. EDT (ABC)

Series: New York, 3-0.

Odds: New York by 1.5.

The Flyers got swept out of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs on Saturday. The 76ers will look to keep Philly fans from seeing it happen again on Sunday. For whatever it's worth, the 76ers and Flyers have never been swept in the same year.

— Game 4, San Antonio at Minnesota, 7:30 p.m. EDT (NBC, Peacock)

Series: San Antonio, 2-1.

Odds: San Antonio by 4.5.

Victor Wembanyama is averaging 21.9 points, 11.4 rebounds and 5.0 blocks per game in these playoffs. Nobody has ever done that over an entire postseason. It's not a must-win for Minnesota on Sunday ... but it feels like a must-win for Minnesota on Sunday.

Monday's schedule

— Game 4, Detroit at Cleveland, 8 p.m. EDT (NBC, Peacock)

Series: Detroit, 2-1.

Odds: Cleveland by 3.5.

Cleveland knows what's at stake in Game 4. The Cavaliers are 5-0 at home so far in these playoffs, and 0-5 on the road. Detroit put together yet another big run in Game 3 — this one being a 26-7 burst in the third quarter — to erase a 17-point deficit but couldn't find a way at the end.

— Game 4, Oklahoma City at LA Lakers, 10:30 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Oklahoma City, 3-0.

Odds: Oklahoma City by 10.5.

The Lakers won the first half, again, in Game 3. The Thunder rolled through the second half, again, in Game 3. Such was the trend in Game 2 as well, and now the dreaded 0-3 deficit is staring LeBron James and the Lakers in the face. If OKC wins Monday, it'll get a week off before the Western Conference finals start.

Saturday's recap

— Cavaliers 116, Pistons 109 to cut series deficit to 2-1. Harden was the closer.

— Thunder 131, Lakers 108 for 3-0 series lead. Ajay Mitchell on a roll for OKC.

— Steve Kerr is coming back to the Warriors.

When Donovan Mitchell is right ...

Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell had the fourth game of his career with at least 35 points and 10 rebounds in the Cavaliers' win over Detroit on Saturday.

All four of those games for Mitchell have come since he joined the Cavs, all of them were home games — and as might be expected, Cleveland is 4-0 in those contests.

Awards watch

A breakdown of this season's NBA awards:

— Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year: DeAndre Jordan, New Orleans.

— Hustle Award: Moussa Diabaté, Charlotte.

— Defensive Player of the Year: Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio.

— Clutch Player of the Year: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City.

— Sixth Man of the Year: Keldon Johnson, San Antonio.

— Sportsmanship Award: Derrick White, Boston.

— Most Improved Player: Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Atlanta.

— Rookie of the Year: Cooper Flagg, Dallas.

— Executive of the Year: Brad Stevens, Boston.

Among the announcements still to come:

— Most Valuable Player: Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama or Denver's Nikola Jokic.

— Coach of the Year: Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff, San Antonio's Mitch Johnson or Boston's Joe Mazzulla.

Betting odds

Defending champion Oklahoma City (-160) is favored to win the NBA title, according to oddsmakers.

The Thunder are followed by San Antonio (+300), New York (+700), Detroit (+1800), Cleveland (+6000), Minnesota (+8000), the Los Angeles Lakers (+40000) and Philadelphia (+40000).

Key dates

— Sunday: NBA draft lottery.

— Monday through May 17: NBA draft combine.

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

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

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

— June 23: Round 1, NBA draft.

— June 24: Round 2, NBA draft.

Quote of the day

“They're pretty damn good from top to bottom, and they don't let their foot off the gas.” — Lakers star LeBron James, on the Thunder.

Stats of the day

— The Thunder have won 76.2% of their regular season and playoff games over the last three seasons, the best three-year run in the NBA since Golden State won 79.5% of its games from 2015-16 through 2017-18.

— There have been four playoff triple-doubles in Pistons history — two by Isiah Thomas in 1989 and two by Cade Cunningham. He had one last season and had 27 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists against the Cavaliers on Saturday.

___

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

The plane, on route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday,” according to a post on the airport’s official X account.

A spokesperson for the airport said the person, who jumped a perimeter fence, has died. They said the unidentified person was hit two minutes after entering the airport. The person is not believed to be an airport employee.

“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”

The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway.”

The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”

Frontier Airlines said in a statement that flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff.” It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the collision.

The airline said the plane was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members.

“We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities,” the airline said.

Passengers were evacuated via slides and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. The airport spokesperson said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to hospitals.

One passenger, Jacob Anthens, posted video showing people sliding down with their backpacks. He also posted photos of what looked like a damaged engine.

“As we were lifting off the engine of the plane exploded. There was so much smoke we couldn’t even see 1 ft in front of us,” Anthens said on his Facebook page, adding that passengers had to wait for over a hour on the runway and “still no transport or help with the cold.”

Other video shows passengers calmly walking down the aisle of the plane and using the slide to evacuate. They were told to step away from the plane.

Denver Airport said the National Transportation Safety Board had been notified and that runway 17L, where the incident took place, was closed amid an investigation. It reopened Saturday around 11 a.m.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the person “breached airport security at Denver Int’l Airport, deliberately scaled a perimeter fence, and ran out onto a runway.”

He added: “No one should EVER trespass on an airport.”

The incident came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while on the job at the Orlando International Airport. In a statement, the airline said the employee was killed Thursday night without providing details of the incident or the name of the employee.

“We are focused on extending our full support to family and taking care of our Orlando team during this difficult time,” the airline said. “We are working with local authorities as a full investigation gets underway to determine what occurred.”

But Beijing’s deep economic ties to Iran, as well as trade tensions over tariff threats stretching back to Trump’s first term, could crimp the good feelings when Trump flies to Beijing this week — even though the Republican president has for years effusively praised Xi, making it clear he sees China’s leader as a competitor strong enough to warrant his respect and admiration.

Trump isn't fond of long plane rides or extended stretches away from the White House or his properties in Florida and New Jersey. He is expected to only spend parts of three days on the ground in China.

There will be plenty of pomp, but the grandeur is not expected to rival Trump's first visit to China in 2017, which Beijing dubbed a “state visit-plus.”

“Even before this whole conflagration with Iran, they weren’t going to go state visit-plus like last time, just because things are tense,” said Jonathan Czin, a former director for China at the National Security Council during the Biden administration.

Xi's ‘better understanding’ of Trump

On Trump's first-term trip, China rolled out the red carpet for his arrival, with a band playing military music and children waving flags and chanting “Welcome.”

Xi offered a tour of the Forbidden City. Trump and first lady Melania Trump even had a private dinner there. Trump was the first foreign leader since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949 to experience what was once reserved for emperors.

The following morning brought another welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People and featured a military parade. There also was a state banquet in Trump’s honor with video highlights from the Chinese leader’s previous visit to Florida and a clip of Trump’s granddaughter Arabella singing in Chinese.

Beijing does not offer this level of spectacle to most visiting foreign leaders. When British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited the Forbidden City in January, Xi did not attend and the site remained open to the public. Starmer had to contend with tourists.

Ali Wyne, senior U.S.-China research and advocacy adviser for the Washington nonprofit the Crisis Group, said the “Chinese delegation will likely do its utmost to ensure that Trump leaves Beijing believing that he has just concluded the most extraordinary state visit of his two presidencies.”

But, he said, the “pomp and circumstance would serve a different role now than they did when he first visited Beijing” because “Xi has a much better understanding of Trump, and the administration’s own national security strategy and national defense strategy recognize China as a near-peer.”

Expectations for what gets accomplished could be lower this time, said Czin, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. He predicted that the Chinese may not offer major breakthroughs on trade or anything else because they are “working backward from our midterm elections” with the theory that the closer they get to Election Day “the more leverage they are going to have.”

The GOP is focused on retaining control of Congress, even as polling shows most Americans are unhappy with Trump’s economic policies and believe that the United States went too far in Iran. Still, the White House argues that Trump's previous firm hand with Beijing on tariffs — which the Supreme Court subsequently struck down — means the U.S. will remain in a strong position.

“President Trump cares about results, not symbols," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “But even still, the president has a great relationship with President Xi, and the upcoming summit in Beijing will be both symbolically and substantively significant.”

Trump and Xi may see a lot of each other this year

Trump could meet with China's leader four times in eight months.

After his visit to Beijing, Trump plans to host Xi at the White House. Trump might also attend the November Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Shenzhen, China. And Xi could come to the Group of 20 summit the following month at Trump’s resort in Doral, Florida.

Czin noted that Xi also is not very fond of travel, meaning not all of the planned encounters may happen. He said China's leader also does not “do personal connections" like the kind Trump relishes, noting Xi led a Chinese military purge in January that included replacing officials with long-standing personal ties to his family.

Wyne, though, said Xi also “appreciates that he is unlikely to deal with another U.S. president who admires him as greatly and embraces as narrow a view of strategic competition.”

That means Xi may "attempt to pocket as many economic and security concessions from Trump as possible,” Wyne said.

Trump has long praised Xi

Trump told The Wall Street Journal's editorial board in 2024 that Xi “was actually a really good ... I don’t want to say ‘friend.’ I don’t want to act foolish. ‘He was my friend.’ But I got along with him great.”

Trump even suggested at the time that military force might not be required to ensure that Chinese troops do not encroach on Taiwan, simply because China’s leader "respects me,” despite Trump more recently discussing potentially selling arms to Taiwan.

Trump has continued to praise the bilateral relationship since returning to the White House, even after his Beijing visit, originally scheduled for March, was postponed due to the early stages of the Iran war.

He unsuccessfully prodded China to get involved in reopening the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian forces choked it off and disrupted global economies. But China did use its leverage as the largest purchaser of Iranian oil to encourage Iran to agree to what has been a fragile ceasefire.

Beijing has strong economic ties to Tehran, and the war could hurt its economy, which was already projected to grow more slowly. If China can help establish lasting peace, though, that might boost its standing in negotiations on trade issues with the Trump administration.

Trade issues a sticking point

During his 2017 visit, Trump announced $250 billion in nonbinding trade deals, some of which never materialized. A round of trade deals announced in 2020 and worth $200 billion mostly never came to fruition before Trump's first term ended.

More recently, Trump’s announcement last year of steep global tariffs prompted China to cut off purchases of U.S. soybeans and clamp down on exports of rare earth minerals needed by American factories.

Tensions have eased somewhat since the U.S. reached a trade truce last fall that has limited tariffs on both sides. The administration has continued to make reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China a priority, insisting it can do so while still working to encourage trade between the two countries.

“I expect great stability in the relationship," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. "But that doesn’t mean our trade deficit can’t continue dropping.”

Kelly, the White House spokeswoman, said Trump “doesn’t travel anywhere without bringing deliverables home to our country."

"Americans can expect the president to deliver more good deals for the United States while in China,” she said.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature raised the state gas tax and a range of fees last fall as a way to pay for road improvements and plug a hole in the state’s transportation budget. Republicans responded with a petition to repeal the increases, leading to a referendum that will land before voters just as the Iran war is causing the price of gas to skyrocket around the United States.

“It is a hell of a time to be raising gas taxes on people,” said Jeanine Holly, filling up her tank on a recent morning in Portland.

The gas tax repeal on the state’s May 19 primary ballot comes amid widespread disruptions in the oil industry from the war with Iran started by Israel and President Donald Trump. Discontent is high among U.S. consumers across the political spectrum, with the price of gas topping $4.50 a gallon nationally on Friday and averaging about 80 cents more per gallon in Oregon.

The referendum will give voters a chance to weigh in on a hot-button issue hitting them directly in the pocketbook at a time when prices remain elevated for everything from housing to groceries. Nationally, Democrats have focused on the affordability concerns similar to those that helped propel Trump to victory in 2024. Some of their candidates have even proposed ways to cut taxes as a way to promote their agenda and counter a traditional GOP strategy.

“It’s difficult to imagine a worse situation for ... a gas tax increase than right now in American politics,” said Chris Koski, professor of political science and environmental studies at Portland’s Reed College.

Republicans sense an opportunity

Republicans wasted no time in appealing to voters after the Legislature and Democratic governor signed off on the tax increase, which also included a higher payroll tax for transit projects and a boost in vehicle registration and title fees.

They needed 78,000 voter signatures to qualify the referendum for the ballot. They quickly got 250,000.

“That is a remarkable number,” said Republican strategist Rebecca Tweed.

Republicans in Oregon have countered Democrats’ affordability messaging by portraying the tax and fee increases as further fueling the high cost of living.

“Do Oregonians want to pay more? The answer is no,” said GOP state Sen. Bruce Starr, who helped lead the referendum campaign. “Everything they’re looking at is expensive.”

Under the legislation, Oregon’s gas tax would rise from 40 cents to 46 cents a gallon. That would make it tied with Maryland for the eighth highest gas tax of any state when factoring in other state taxes and fees, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

At the Portland gas station, Michael Burch said he used to spend $70 to fill three-quarters of his pickup truck's tank, but now pays $80 for just over half a tank.

“I'm sick and tired of taxes,” the 76-year-old retiree said. “Gas is certainly dampening the spirits and the coffers of folks that aren't as well off.”

Hannah Coe, a 30-year-old student, said she was not sure how she would vote on the primary ballot referendum.

“I think I would be in favor of it if it was going to go to the things that it was saying it was going to go to, such as fixing our roads,” she said. “I also kind of feel like that’s just a grab at trying to get more money from the people who live here.”

Democrats blame the Iran war

Oregon Democrats spent much of last year fighting to pass a transportation funding bill to help raise money for services such as road paving and snow plowing. The debate came amid projections of declining gas tax revenue as more people adopt electric, hybrid and fuel-efficient cars.

They finally passed a narrower version of their plan during a special session called by Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek.

She recently acknowledged the challenging timing of the referendum.

“Certainly, the conversation at the ballot this year ... is a tough sell right now, because I think everyone is feeling a pinch on their household budgets,” she told reporters.

But she and other Democrats said the root cause of the spike in gas prices is Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran. She suggested the federal government consider reducing the federal 18 cent-a-gallon gas tax if it wants to provide relief at the pump for Americans.

Some Oregonians are receptive to the Democrats’ reason for passing the legislation last year. Kurt Borneman, 68, said he would support the gas tax increase, even though he's now paying at least $10 more to fill up his tank.

“I realize that money’s tight and roads need to be improved,” he said at the Portland gas station. “I want less government, but I also want nice roads.”

Democratic state Rep. Paul Evans said his party lost the battle over how to frame the gas tax increase to the public. So far, there has been no organized effort from Democrats and their allies to oppose the ballot referendum.

“When anything is reduced to, ‘Do you want a tax or not?’ Most people are going to say no,” he said. “The messaging got away from us, and it became focused upon the price instead of the value.”

Dispatch received an alert about the crash around 3:40 a.m. this morning in the 26000 block of Lexington Road, where deputies found a red Tesla in a ditch on the southbound side of the roadway, according to HCSO.

Investigators said the driver — described as a man in his 20s — was traveling at a high rate of speed when he didn’t make the turn and left the roadway. The vehicle rolled about three times through a ditch, and struck a tree. Airbags deployed in the crash, and EMS used the Jaws of Life rescue device to remove the driver after the Tesla’s electric doors would not open.

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The driver was transported to HCA Houston Northwest, where he was pronounced dead around 4:45 a.m. Officials said it is not known whether the vehicle’s self-driving capability was in use at the time of the crash.

The incident is being handled by HCSO.

A Liberty County judge found that items were removed from the victim’s body before law enforcement secured the scene, and that prosecutors referenced a missing cell phone during opening statements without disclosing it to the defense. The court said this information could have been favorable and material to Jenkins’ self-defense claim.

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“He’s been saying this for 11 years. That was his testimony in 2015, and it was overlooked,” said Ashley Thomas, Jenkins’ sister. “That was a major piece of the case.”

The victim and the incident

The victim, Brandon Jenkins’ father-in-law, had reportedly been close friends with Jenkins prior to the incident. According to family accounts, what began as a disagreement between the two men escalated into a physical altercation, resulting in the father-in-law’s death.

The family maintains that Jenkins acted in self-defense. Thomas described the men as “like two peas in a pod,” and said the confrontation was tragic rather than premeditated.

“Of course we believe Brandon acted in self-defense that day,” Thomas said. “It was a fight that got out of hand, and the court overlooked key evidence that could show that.”

The trial and conviction

Jenkins was convicted in 2015 in Liberty County and sentenced to 99 years in prison. The family argues that the trial was unfair because critical evidence was removed or withheld, including the victim’s cell phone and other items that could have shed light on the events of that day.

“Just imagine the families that don’t have the money to get the attorneys to fight for justice,” Thomas said. “I could just imagine how many more people are fighting cases just like this.”

Years of fighting for review

Reopening the case took over a decade of effort, financial resources, and legal assistance from outside the family. Thomas says the experience has made her reflect on the many families who might not have the same means to challenge a conviction.

“All I would ask is they could just be fair. Be fair, look at the facts,” she said.

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Next Step: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

The case now moves to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court. Judges there will decide whether Jenkins’ trial should be reviewed and if he could be granted a new hearing based on the newly highlighted evidence.

For the Jenkins family, the legal process has been long and emotionally exhausting, but they remain determined to see justice applied fairly and equally, regardless of resources.

“We just want the facts to be looked at and the law to work the same for everyone,” Thomas said.

Strickland won two scorecards 48-47 while Chimaev took the other scorecard at 48-47 in front of a crowd of 17,783 fans at the Prudential Center.

Strickland, the second former middleweight to regain the title, mimed putting the belt around his waist after the fifth round ended to wrap a fight where neither fighter ever seemed in serious danger. He had help with his shiny new fashion accessory when Chimaev did the honors for him inside the cage.

“I should be a better (expletive) example when I try to sell these fights for you,” fans, Strickland said.

UFC beefed up security at hotels, public events and around the cage for this one following one of the more loathsome displays — specifically, Strickland — of trash talk in recent fight history. Strickland threatened to shoot Chimaev and labeled him a terrorist because of his ties to Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.

Chimaev, who lost for the first time in 16 pro fights, is of Chechen ethnicity and fights under the United Arab Emirates banner, had countered by saying he would “take off” Strickland’s head.

UFC CEO Dana White — who expressed confidence Conor McGregor would return to fight this summer — said Chimaev told him after the fight he wanted to move up in weight class.

The fighters tapped gloves to start the fight to prove they were professionals and the prefight hostilities never spilled over into the cage.

The 35-year-old Strickland, who won the 185-pound belt in September 2023 and lost it in his first title defense, apologized after the fight to fans of all ethnicities and acknowledged he “went too (damn) hard” in weaponizing stereotypes to sell the fight.

“I respect all you guys,” Strickland said, rattling off Christians, Muslims, and also races.

Van retains flyweight title in co-main event

Joshua Van mauled Tatsuro Taira into a bloody mess in the co-main and successfully defended his 125-pound championship in the first title fight in company history contested between two Asian fighters.

Van dominated with elite boxing and won via stoppage at 1:32 of round five and had the crowd roaring in his first title defense since he beat Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 323.

Van (17-2) seized control in the second round with a violent right hand to the jaw for the knockdown and he repeatedly bashed Taira (18-2) in the face. Van failed to finish the round but continued to rip shots the rest of the rounds to the face and body that left Taira’s face and chest smeared with blood.

Van and Taira marked the first time UFC has a title fight with both competitors born in the 2000s.

The 24-year-old Van, of Myanmar, has won seven straight fights and 10 of 11 since he signed with UFC — and few bigger than in the co-main event of UFC’s 11th stop in Newark.

Taira failed in his try to become the first Japanese fighter to become UFC champion.

UFC held its last major card before its June 14 show at the White House to fete President Donald Trump, a proud proponent of cage match politics. The show — what White dubbed a “1 of 1 event” — is timed for Trump’s 80th birthday and as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary. Trump, who frequently attends major UFC events, did not attend Saturday night at the Prudential Center.

In other fights of note on the main card, Sean Brady defeated Joaquin Buckley via unanimous decision; King Green chocked out Jeremy Stephens; and Alexander Volkov defeated Waldo Cortes-Acosta via unanimous decision.

White said the company was aware of abnormal betting patterns ahead of the Brady fight but found nothing wrong.

“It's not surprising when a card is this good, and a fight like that, the line will move,” White said.

Miller win first fight since teenage son beats childhood cancer

On the undercard, 42-year-old Jim Miller used a submission victory to boost his record totals for UFC fights and career victories in his first return to the cage since his teenage son beat a rare form of childhood cancer.

A New Jersey native, Miller defeated Jared Gordon in a lightweight bout at UFC 328 with a rear naked choke at 3:29 of the first round and his family cheering him on from the Prudential Center. Miller extended his record with 28 career wins in 47 fights under the UFC banner.

Miller, who signed a new five-fight deal Saturday, also earned his 20th finish, second most in UFC history.

Wyatt Miller, 14, was diagnosed last year with rhadbomyosacroma, a rare type of cancer that starts as a growth of cells in soft tissue and is more common in childhood. Wyatt underwent two courses of chemotherapy and five weeks of proton radiation at Rutgers University Cancer Institute and was eventually given a clean bill of health.

“My son went through some really difficult times the last couple of months,” Miller said inside the octagon. “He ended up kicking the (heck) out of cancer. He’s all good today. He’s cancer free. One of the things I told him when he first got diagnosed was, Millers have been called a lot of names over the years, but fragile’s never been one of them. He fought his way through it.”

His son’s cancer scare kept Miller out of the cage for 13 months, an eternity for a fighter who made a habit of competing multiple times a year. Miller lost to Chase Hooper in his last fight at UFC 314 in April 2025.

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AP MMA: https://apnews.com/hub/mixed-martial-arts

The 53-year-old father of four fears the strain will worsen if the war drags on, saying long hours waiting for fuel have sharply cut his income and made it increasingly difficult to support his family in Dhaka, the nation's capital, including a daughter at university and a son in college.

“My family was managing fairly well through ride-sharing," he said. “But after the fuel shortage began, I would buy fuel one day and run the bike for two days. As a result, I had to sit idle for one day, which reduced my income.”

The strain in Islam's household reflects a broader squeeze in Bangladesh, heavily dependent on imported fuel, where energy shortages have disrupted daily life, slowed industrial output and raised concerns about economic growth as global tensions push up costs and strain supplies.

Conditions have eased slightly in recent days, with shorter queues at fuel stations after the government increased supplies, but concerns persist across sectors.

Across Asia, governments are facing similar strains as the war-driven surge in energy prices rattles economies dependent on imported oil and gas.

The continent is exposed because it relies on imported fuel, much of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint for about a fifth of global oil and natural gas trade.

Higher fuel costs are leading to inflation and squeezing household budgets, while industries from manufacturing to transport are facing rising operating costs and supply disruptions.

The Asian Development Bank in late April cut growth forecasts for developing Asia and the Pacific, warning that war-driven energy disruptions would slow economies and fuel inflation. It now expects growth of 4.7% in 2026, with inflation rising to 5.2% as oil prices climb and financial conditions tighten.

Many are hoping for a quick end to the conflict and a return to normal.

“If this situation continues, we will have to move back to our village and find some other way to earn a living,” Islam, the struggling father said. It is not possible to survive in Dhaka by doing ride-sharing under these conditions.”

Energy crunch weighs on Bangladesh’s economy

Rising energy prices are also expected to strain Bangladesh’s finances, with the government likely to spend an additional $1.07 billion on LNG subsidies in the April-June quarter alone if global prices remain high.

Bangladesh has sought supplies from its big neighbor India, which has responded positively as it has diversified sources, including Russia, of fuel.

Already, authorities have imposed austerity measures to manage the crisis as global lenders warn of slower growth in the nation of more than 170 million people. Gas and diesel shortages have triggered more frequent power cuts in industrial zones.

The government has also shut fertilizer factories to divert gas to power plants, restricted evening hours for shopping malls and introduced fuel rationing.

The World Bank said in April it expects growth in Bangladesh to slow to 3.9% in the fiscal year ending in June 2026, warning that a prolonged Middle East conflict could fuel inflation, widen the current account deficit and strain public finances through higher energy subsidies.

Jean Pesme, the World Bank’s division director for Bangladesh and Bhutan, said the economy already faced “pre-existing vulnerabilities and challenges, in particular on the economic and employment front.”

The rising costs now are “obviously making the fiscal situation more difficult.”

He also warned that authorities should be cautious in raising fuel prices, saying higher costs could hurt farmers and agriculture.

Bangladesh garment industry is hit as exports slow

The energy crunch is also driving up costs and threatening Bangladesh’s garment exports, the backbone of its economy, business leaders say.

Anwar-Ul Alam Chowdhury, president of the Bangladesh Chamber of Industries, said exports to Europe and the U.S. could face a significant setback. Shipments have fallen between 5% and 13% in recent months, he said. He worries that customers could lose confidence in Bangladesh’s ability to deliver and that competitor nations such as India, Vietnam and Cambodia could gain market share if the crisis persists.

Chowdhury said factory output has dropped by 30% to 40% for various reasons and that the situation has worsened since the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran, while business costs have risen by about 35% to 40%.

Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest garment exporter after China, earns about $39 billion annually from the sector, which employs around 4 million workers, mostly women from rural areas.

Alvi Islam, director of Arrival Fashion Limited, said manufacturers are facing higher costs for petroleum-based materials such as sewing threads, poly bags — plastic bags used in packaging — and cartons, while spending more on diesel generators to cope with frequent power cuts.

His company, which exports products worth about $40 million annually, now runs generators at least four hours a day during production.

“For that reason, the cost of doing business for exporting garments has increased quite significantly in past one month,” he said.

Workers worry about livelihoods

Garment worker Mosammet Runa, 35, said she fears for her family’s future if the war continues.

“Millions of people like us depend on this industry. It is how we survive,” said Runa, who, along with her husband, earns about $400 a month to support their family of six.

She said a prolonged conflict could wipe out jobs and called for an end to the fighting.

“We are innocent people. The world should not make us victims," she said.

___

AP journalist Al Emrun Garjon contributed to this report.

The Cote d’Azur spectacular will play host — starting on Tuesday — to some of the most anticipated movies of the year in a constant parade of red carpets and megawatt premieres. This year, Hollywood studios are mostly on the sidelines. But for more than 78 years, Cannes has been an unparalleled showcase, and sun-dappled circus, for some of the best in cinema.

Last year that included Oscar nominees like “Sentimental Value,” “The Secret Agent” and “It Was Just an Accident.” This year is just as likely to produce a crop of contenders. In recent years, movies like “Parasite” and “Anora” have launched at Cannes and gone on to win best picture at the Academy Awards.

Presiding over the jury deciding the Palme this year is South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. At the opening ceremony Tuesday, Cannes will also bestow an honorary Palme d’Or on Peter Jackson. Later, Barbra Streisand will get one, too.

So there will be much to keep an eye on at this year’s Cannes, including “The White Lotus.” The HBO series has come to the Croisette — the Mediterranean city's famous promenade — to shoot its fourth season.

On the screen, these are some of the movies that should stir Cannes.

‘Hope’

Na Hong-jin isn’t as well known as some of his fellow Korean filmmakers, but he may be poised for a breakout moment this year. His latest is a long-gestating sci-fi thriller that Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux said “constantly changes genres.” The cast has both Korean and Hollywood stars, including Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell.

‘Paper Tiger’

Though not initially announced as part of the festival competition slate, James Gray’s latest Queens-set drama was subsequently added. And it instantly became one of the most anticipated and star-studded American films at the festival. Gray, the filmmaker of “Armageddon Time” and “The Immigrant,” tells a story about two brothers (Adam Driver, Miles Teller) who become mixed up with the Russian mafia. Scarlett Johansson co-stars.

'Fjord’

The Romanian director Cristian Mungiu is a heavyweight of European cinema because of films like the 2007 Palme d’Or winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and 2022’s “R.M.N.” Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star in his latest as a Romanian-Norwegian couple who move to the wife’s remote Norwegian hometown.

‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’

Jane Schoenbrun has quickly established themselves as a vital voice in contemporary American film with 2024’s “I Saw the TV Glow” and 2021’s “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” Playing in the Un Certain Regard section, Schoenbrun’s new one stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in a movie about the making of a slasher film.

‘Fatherland’

Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is best known for a pair of black-and-white, powerfully succinct period dramas: “Ida” and “Cold War.” His latest makes it three. It stars Hanns Zischler as the German author Thomas Mann on a road trip following World War II. Accompanying him is his daughter, played by Sandra Hüller.

‘All of a Sudden’

The Japanese auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi makes his French-language debut. Hamaguchi’s 2021 opus “Drive My Car” made history as the first Japanese film nominated for best picture. His 2023 follow-up, “Evil Does Not Exist,” was also acclaimed. “All of a Sudden,” starring Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, is about a nursing home director and a terminally ill Japanese playwright.

‘Sheep in the Box’

Long revered for his delicate humanism, the Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda will unveil his latest. Kore-eda has already won the Palme d’Or, for 2018’s “Shoplifters.” But his three decades of moviemaking have made him a never-to-be-missed filmmaker of exquisite tenderness. The sci-fi “Sheep in the Box” is about a couple, grieving the loss of their son, who adopt an infant humanoid robot.

‘The Man I Love’

Before Gray’s film entered the competition, Ira Sachs ’ “The Man I Love” was the sole American selection. Coming quickly on the heels of Sachs’ “Peter Hujar’s Day,” with Ben Whishaw, “The Man I Love”’ stars Rami Malek as a an actor with a life-threatening illness in 1980s New York, preparing for what could be his final performance.

‘The Unknown’

The French filmmaker Arthur Harari three years ago co-wrote the Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” with his partner, Justine Triet. In “The Unknown,” Harari directs and cowrites a film about a photographer who, after photographing a woman at a party and then following her, wakes up in her body. Starring Léa Seydoux.

‘Minotaur’

The Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev has been behind some powerfully potent dramas, including 2014’s “Leviathan” and 2017’s “Loveless” — both of which were Oscar nominated. After a near-death experience during the pandemic, Zvyagintsev returns to Cannes with a business executive in crisis in rural Russia.

’John Lennon: The Last Interview’

Steven Soderbergh ’s documentary about John Lennon’s final interview, granted at the Dakota in New York just before he was killed, drew headlines after Soderbergh acknowledged using artificial intelligence to illustrate some of Lennon’s more philosophical musings. But the film, playing in Cannes as a special screening, promises to lend unparalleled intimacy with the great Beatle.

‘Bitter Christmas’

Pedro Almodovar is among the most regular filmmakers in Cannes. This festival, he'll debut “Bitter Christmas,” a multilayered melodrama about filmmaking, grief and aging. After making his English-language debut with “The Room Next Door,” starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, Almodovar is back in his native Spain with one of his most personal films yet.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 23 points and nine assists for the Thunder, who coolly improved to 7-0 — both in these playoffs overall, and in their seven games this season against LeBron James and the Lakers. Oklahoma City is the NBA's sixth defending champion to start 7-0 in the following postseason after three wins over short-handed Los Angeles by a combined 59 points.

Game 3 was remarkably similar to Game 2 in many respects: The Lakers again had to fight desperately just to keep up with the champs into the third quarter, only for the Thunder to run away with their usual merciless efficiency when LA finally faltered. Chet Holmgren had 18 points and nine rebounds for Oklahoma City, which outscored the Lakers 33-20 in the third quarter and wasn't threatened at all down the stretch.

“I think (the first half) wasn't our best half, and in the locker room we just talked about it and knew that we had to adjust and be better,” said Mitchell, who continued his postseason emergence by scoring at least 14 points for the sixth consecutive game. “I think we did a great job coming out of the half.”

Game 4 is Monday night in Los Angeles.

James had 19 points, eight assists and six rebounds, while Austin Reaves had 17 points and nine assists. But both stars struggled from the field to a combined 12 for 32, and 21 points from Rui Hachimura weren't enough to keep LA in contention with the champs.

“We had moments in the first half that were really good for us,” James said. “In the third quarter, we didn't knock down shots, we didn't defend or get stops and allowed them to take us out of the game.”

Gilgeous-Alexander had his highest-scoring game of the series despite missing nine of his first 11 shots amid another concerted defensive effort by the Lakers on the NBA MVP, albeit with fewer double-teams than in the series' first two games.

“These obviously haven't been my best performances,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “But I think I've been able to help the team win, and that's most important. If the rest of the playoff run or the rest of my career looked like what it looked like the past few games, I'd be OK with it, because we won games.”

Luke Kennard added 18 points for the Lakers, who have lost five of their last six games since midway through the first round against Houston.

“They're an incredible basketball team,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “Third straight game we're right there after 2 1/2 quarters. We tried different lineups, different coverages. Still lost those minutes. Again, we've got to be better, but I'm not giving up on the series. We're going to go try to win on Monday. We're going to try to extend the series.”

NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic missed his 14th consecutive game for the Lakers since straining his hamstring April 2 in Oklahoma City. He is not thought to be close to returning from an injury that often requires two months of recovery.

Except for Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder all began Game 3 in another shooting groove. Los Angeles still surged to a small halftime lead behind 16 points from Hachimura.

Oklahoma City erased that lead with a methodical surge out of halftime, going up by 13 in the third quarter.

Third-leading scorer Jalen Williams missed his fifth straight game for the Thunder with a strained hamstring.

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Kerr has reached an agreement in principle on a two-year contract to continue coaching the Warriors, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations. Kerr still must sign his new deal, the person told The Associated Press on Saturday night, speaking on condition of anonymity because the contract must be finalized.

The Warriors missed the playoffs for the second time in three years, earning the 10th seed in the Western Conference and eventually losing at Phoenix in the play-in tournament.

Kerr's 12-year coaching run with the franchise has featured four championships and six NBA Finals appearances alongside Stephen Curry and Draymond Green, including five straight from 2015-19. Kerr shared an embrace with those two stars near the end of the loss in Phoenix, saying afterward he knew it could be their final time together.

He has a career record of 604-353 and a 104-48 playoff mark, with Golden State winning its last championship in 2022.

The Warriors were 37-45 this season while dealing with numerous injuries, including losing Jimmy Butler to a season-ending right knee injury in January and Curry's 27-game absence with a right knee injury of his own.

ESPN first reported Kerr's new contract.

Kerr, 60, got his first coaching job in 2014-15 and immediately guided Golden State to the franchise's first title in 40 years. The Warriors would then begin the next season with a record 24-0 start without him as assistant Luke Walton led the way as Kerr missed the initial 43 games as his team went on to a record 73 victories. Kerr took a leave of absence to recover from debilitating complications following two back surgeries, then missed time again in 2017 with Mike Brown filling in as Kerr underwent a procedure to deal with a spinal fluid leak.

Green had predicted on his podcast once the season ended that Kerr wouldn't return.

Throughout his coaching career, Kerr has used his platform to speak out against gun violence and social injustice among other prominent issues. He lost his father, Malcolm, president of the American University of Beirut, when he was murdered in Beirut when Kerr was 18 and a freshman at the University of Arizona.

In March 2018, Kerr took part in the Oakland March for Our Lives. Earlier that same month, he joined Democratic Congressmen Ro Khanna and Mike Thompson — then-chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force — and students from throughout the South Bay during a town hall at Newark Memorial High School to discuss gun violence in schools and cheered the efforts of youth nationwide.

Kerr has said it isn’t hard to do double duty as a basketball coach and a voice as a public figure for those who don’t have one.

“I think in some ways the balance is presented to us, given what’s happening around the country,” Kerr said. “I know that when I played, players and coaches were never — maybe not never — rarely asked about politics and voting.”

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

Frederik Andersen made 15 saves for Carolina, which has not lost in eight playoff games.

Alex Bump and Tyson Foerster scored for the Flyers.

Taylor Hall and Jaccob Slavin assisted the winning goal. Blake's shot from the slot bounced off Dan Vladar's glove and over the goal line.

“Once I saw it go in, just excitement,” Blake said.

Vladar stopped 37 shots for Philadelphia.

Carolina will play the winner of Buffalo and Montreal in the Eastern Conference finals after the NHL’s first 8-0 start in the playoffs since 1985.

“Everyone is chipping in; everyone is doing their job,” Hall said.

Andersen has started every game in the postseason, winning them all.

“He's just playing lights out,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said.

The Hurricanes, who reached the Eastern Conference finals for the third time in four years, are looking for their first Stanley Cup since 2006. Carolina is the 24th team in league history to win eight or more consecutive games during a playoff run. Eighteen of them have won the Stanley Cup.

“For me, it's just fun to sit back there and watch it, to be honest,” Brind'Amour said.

Philadelphia scored just five goals over the four games. After an unlikely berth in the playoffs, fans saluted the home team when it was over with chants of, “Let's go, Flyers!”

“I can't ask for more,” Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said.

Bump scored 5:52 into the third period to tie the game at 2-2.

Stankoven’s seventh tally of the playoffs 4:13 into the third period gave Carolina a 2-1 lead after he finished a beautiful cross-ice pass from Hall with a one-timer from just outside of the crease. Philadelphia evened the score 1:39 later when Bump shot past Andersen’s glove side from the slot after a setup from Travis Konecny from behind the net.

Blake tied it at 1-1 with 7:25 remaining in the second when his wrist shot from along the boards caromed off Philadelphia defenseman Jamie Drysdale and past Vladar. It appeared as if Carolina went in front just 28 seconds later when Mark Jankowski beat Vladar, but the goal was overturned following a challenge by Tocchet when officials ruled that Carolina’s William Carrier interfered with Vladar.

The Flyers had a pair of good chances late in the period to take the lead but could not convert. The best opportunity came in the final seconds of the period when Christian Dvorak’s wrist shot from close range went off the post on Andersen’s glove side.

Carolina finished regulation with a 36-15 advantage in shots.

Russian winger Matvei Michkov was a healthy scratch for the Flyers. Michkov, 23, was the No. 7 overall pick in 2023 by Philadelphia and was heralded as an important piece for the rebuilding franchise’s future. But the right wing has struggled thus far in his first playoff experience, garnering one point while accumulating a minus-3 in eight games. It is the second time he has been a healthy scratch this postseason, following Game 5 against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first round.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL

Harden hit three big shots and Strus came up with the steal and go-ahead basket in the Cavaliers' 116-109 victory on Saturday to cut the Pistons' lead to 2-1.

“We know how important it is to get this first win to make it a series. So, really a team win where a lot of guys contributed tonight,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said.

The Cavaliers will look to even the series when they host Game 4 on Monday night.

Donovan Mitchell led Cleveland with 35 points and 10 rebounds, while Harden finished with 19 points and Jarrett Allen scored 18.

There were 11 lead changes, with the final one occurring with 2:28 remaining when Strus jumped to snare Cade Cunningham's inbound pass to Daniss Jenkins near midcourt. Strus then drove past Cunningham and Jenkins to make a layup and give the Cavaliers a 106-104 advantage.

Atkinson called it the winning play of the game.

“That was a game changer right there. It gives us a lead, get a couple stops and a couple buckets and that’s the game,” Harden said.

Strus said it was about 3-4 seconds into the inbound play that he timed his jump and made the play.

“My job is to help win in any form or fashion,” said Strus, who finished with seven points, five rebounds and one steal. “Some nights it’s going to be shooting. Some nights it’s going to be defense. Some nights it’s going to be rebounds. The ball didn’t find me tonight, but I don’t care. As long as our team wins, I just want to make an impact and find a way to win.”

It was also the first of three straight turnovers by Cunningham, who had his second career postseason triple-double with 27 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, but also committed eight turnovers.

“I don’t want to say they were careless turnovers because I care about it a lot. They were just bad turnovers,” he said.

Harden, who drew plenty of criticism for turnovers in the clutch in the first two games, kept the Cavaliers in front with big shots. The 17-year veteran hit a 16-foot step-back jumper to extend the lead to 108-104. After a driving dunk by Cunningham, Harden made a floating 7-footer to put the lead back up to four.

Cunningham responded with a 3-pointer before Harden provided the decisive blow with 25 seconds remaining on a step-back 3-pointer while being guarded by Harris to make it 113-109.

Mitchell reached 2,000 career postseason points in his 73rd game, tied for third-fastest among active players and ninth in NBA history. He said Harden's performance showed why he wasn't worried after two tough games in Detroit.

“I think the biggest thing is just he’s always consistent. He’s not result based. I think the biggest thing is we’ve seen him thrive and for me and for the group just continue to be like, ‘Hey, we know who you are. Keep being yourself.’ We’ve seen him play at a very high level, so we have no doubt that he’s going to continue to be great,” Mitchell said. “Every game might not be that way for him, for me, for whoever. But it’s just how do you continue to stay even keel and find ways to impact the game.”

Tobias Harris added 21 points for Detroit, which had its five-game playoff win streak snapped.

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The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, with more than 140 passengers and crew on board, is headed to Spain's Canary Islands, off the coast of West Africa, and is expected to arrive at the island of Tenerife early Sunday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, along with Spain’s Health Minister Monica Garcia and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, arrived on the island Saturday to coordinate the disembarkation of passengers and some crew.

“I know you are worried. I know that when you hear the word ‘outbreak’ and watch a ship sail toward your shores, memories surface that none of us have fully put to rest. The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” Tedros said in a statement to the people of Tenerife.

“But I need you to hear me clearly: This is not another COVID. The current public health risk from hantavirus remains low. My colleagues and I have said this unequivocally, and I will say it again to you now,” Tedros added.

The WHO, Spanish authorities and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said nobody on the Hondius is currently showing symptoms of the virus.

Hantavirus can cause life-threatening illness. It usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus.

Some Tenerife residents say they don't want the ship there

Some on Tenerife say they are worried. On board the cruise ship, some Spanish passengers have voiced concern about being stigmatized.

“I tell you, I don’t like this very much,” said 69-year-old resident Simon Vidal. “Anyone can say what they want. Why did they have to bring a boat from another country here? Why not anywhere else, why bring it to the Canary Islands?”

Others said they empathized with the boat's passengers, but were still concerned.

“The truth is that it is very worrying,” said 27-year-old Venezuelan immigrant Samantha Aguero. She added: “We feel a bit unsafe, we don’t feel as there are 100% security measures in place to welcome it. This is a virus after all and we have lived this during the pandemic. But we also need to have empathy.”

Passengers can take only limited belongings and will be isolated

Garcia said passengers and some crew would disembark in Tenerife “under maximum safety conditions.”

The ship will not dock but will remain at anchor, with people ferried off in small boats. Everyone disembarking will be checked for symptoms and won't be taken off the ship until a flight is already in Tenerife waiting for them, Garcia said during a news conference in Madrid. There are currently people of more than 20 different nationalities on board.

Authorities are aiming to complete the evacuation flights on Sunday and Monday, the director of the WHO's Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Management, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a briefing Saturday.

Both the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens. Americans are to be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska.

All Spanish passengers will be transferred to a medical facility and quarantined, Garcia said. Oceanwide has listed 13 Spanish passengers and one Spanish crew member on board.

Those disembarking will leave behind their luggage, Garcia said, and will be allowed to take only a small bag with essential items, a cellphone, charger and documentation.

Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to the Netherlands where it will undergo disinfection, the minister added.

A medical evacuation plane will be on standby

According to a letter sent by the Dutch foreign and health ministers to parliament late Friday, Spain has activated the EU civil protection mechanism for a medical evacuation plane equipped for infectious diseases to be on standby in case anyone on the ship becomes ill. That person would then be transported by air to the European mainland.

The Dutch government will work with Spanish authorities and the ship company to arrange repatriation of Dutch passengers and crew as soon as possible after arrival in Tenerife, subject to medical conditions and advice from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the letter said. Those without symptoms will go into home quarantine for six weeks and be monitored by local health services.

As the ship is Dutch-flagged, the Netherlands may also temporarily accommodate people of other nationalities and monitor them in quarantine, it said.

Countries scramble to track passengers who disembarked

Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who disembarked before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship’s operator have said.

It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a passenger.

Dutch public health authorities have been monitoring people who were on a flight that was briefly boarded by a Dutch ship passenger who later died and was confirmed to have hantavirus. Three people who were on the flight and had symptoms have all tested negative for hantavirus, Dutch National Institute for Public Health spokesperson Harald Wychgel told The Associated Press on Saturday.

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Becatoros reported from Sparta, Greece. Associated Press reporters Angela Charlton in Paris and Helena Alves in Tenerife contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the name for Maria Van Kerkhove, from Kerkove in earlier versions of the story.

Normally, Collins is on the receiving end of those type of throws as the Texans’ Pro Bowl wide receiver and expert at contested catches.

On Saturday, Collins was in a different role as the permanent quarterback during his annual youth football camp at Santa Fe High School. Collins had a good time throwing touchdown passes to 625 campers in partnership with FlexWork Sports.

“It’s always a blessing to come out and hang out with the kids, spend this wonderful day with the kids,” Collins told KPRC 2. “It’s always a blessing to come out to see the kids’ faces, smiling, and just having fun, enjoying the moment. That’s what it’s all about.”

#Texans Pro Bowl receiver Nico Collins has gotten to know this young man at all of his annual youth football camps. It means the world to him to interact each year and be a part of the camp experience 'Show him love and support'@KPRC2 @FlexWorkSports @nfl@DrewJRosenhaus https://t.co/nv86IChFBY pic.twitter.com/debVaodiNE

— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) May 9, 2026

Collins spent a lot of time Saturday talking with a young man that uses a wheelchair and has attended several of his camps. He brought him onto the field for a couple of plays to make sure he was included in the fun.

“My mission is just to show everybody that everyone is equal, make him feel like he can do the same thing, feel loved,” Collins said. “So, I just want to give him love and show him the love and support from me. I’m glad that he came and be able to come out and have fun here today.”

For Collins, having his family with him at these camp events, including his father and brother Saturday, makes the experience a lot more fun.

“That’s most important,” Collins said. “My family is everything. Your family, that’s the stepping stone and I’m glad they’re in my corner.”

#Texans Pro Bowl wide receiver Nico Collins @lbg_nico7 gives back, and plays quarterback for over 600 kids at his annual youth football camp. 'It was great. It's always a blessing' @KPRC2 @FlexWorkSports pic.twitter.com/vx8oEOdf6t

— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) May 9, 2026

Collins is one of the Texans’ most active players in the community. Between his football camps, shopping sprees for kids at Dick’s Sporting Goods and giving out food with the Salvation Army, Collins devotes himself to giving back. That’s the legacy he wants off the field.

“That’s always my mission, always give back to the community,” Collins said. “I love that, it’s part of me, part of my heart. Give back to the youth, family that’s in need, and just always just have a big heart with that.”

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

The victims of the April 19 shooting in Shreveport included seven siblings who were shot by their father in an attack that also killed their cousin.

The service on Mother’s Day weekend at Summer Grove Baptist Church began with a long procession of mourners slowly filing past eight white caskets with large photos of the children next to them. Gold crowns and bouquets of white flowers were placed on top of the closed caskets. A choir behind the altar and individual singers performed throughout the service.

“In spite of how you may be feeling today, we still need to know that God is still good,” Bishop Bernard Kimble, senior pastor of the Mount Olive Baptist Church, said in opening remarks.

The funeral's pamphlet contained tributes to each of the children, who ranged in age from 3 to 11. Some of them had affectionate nicknames: 3-year-old Jayla Elkins was called “Jaybae”; Kayla Pugh, 6, was “K-Mae”; and Mar’Kaydon Pugh, 10, was “K-Bug.”

Six-year-old Khedarrion Snow had “a sweet and loving heart,” and “though his life on earth was short, his light was mighty,” according to the pamphlet. Layla Pugh, 7, was “bright, intelligent, bold, and full of love” and enjoyed making TikTok videos with her siblings and cousins.

Pastor and gospel singer Kim Burrell reminded family and community members trying to make sense of the shootings that “God is still on the throne.”

“To ask the question, 'Why is this fair, God? How could you, Lord?' He’s still God,” Burrell said. “The same God that healed you from the stuff that you don’t want to tell nobody about. But he is a God that doesn’t have to give us all the clues. Just know that he makes no mistakes.”

The children’s father, Shamar Elkins, used an assault-style weapon despite a 2019 felony firearms conviction. His wife, who was seeking a divorce, and another woman were wounded in the shooting that stretched across two houses in a Shreveport neighborhood.

Elkins died after fleeing and a police pursuit. It was not clear whether he was killed by officers who fired or from a self-inflicted gunshot, according to police.

An investigation remains ongoing into the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. in more than two years.

During the service, other speakers included Shreveport Councilwoman Tabatha Taylor, who acknowledged that “there are no words sufficient to ease this pain,” while Councilman James Green implored audience members to collectively “take off our funeral face” because “this is a celebration” of the children's lives.

Indeed, churchgoers often stood clapping their hands in response to singers and speakers. The children's names were read or shown several times throughout the service, where Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux expressed the city's condolences.

“May we honor them by carrying forward the gentleness, joy and love they so freely shared,” Arceneaux said.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry ordered U.S. and state flags to be flown at half-staff over the next week at the Capitol and state government buildings. A message read from Landry said the victims “were the light of their homes and the heart of their classrooms. They were full of promise and found joy in the simplest things, such as dancing, playing outside and sharing laughter with family and friends. Their futures were bright and held great promise.”

“It is incumbent upon us to honor the memory of those lost by standing together against such senseless violence.”

Among those in attendance was former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, whose political career was cut short by a 2011 assassination attempt.

“She just wanted to come and just let the family know that this pain is not just in Louisiana,” said U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Louisiana. “This pain is all across the nation.”

Buses were made available afterward to transport mourners to a graveside burial. At the conclusion of the church service, Kimble prayed for healing to begin.

“Help us as we move from this spot,” he said. “Because we know, oh God, grief is only temporary. And if we'll put our hands in your favor, you'll lead us through this.”

Seeking to win back-to-back events, Young threatened the course record at Quail Hollow on Saturday before settling for an 8-under 63, leaving him two shots behind Alex Fitzpatrick at the Truist Championship.

Fitzpatrick was at 14-under 199 through 54 holes, one shot ahead of Norway's Kristoffer Reitan after each shot 64.

Young, who won last week’s Cadillac Championship at Doral by six strokes, needed to play the final two holes in 2 under to break Rory McIlroy’s course record of 10-under 61, set in 2015.

But his birdie putt on No. 17 stopped inches from the hole and his drive on the 18th settled in pine straw behind a tree, forcing him to punch out and leading to his only bogey of the day.

“I know (the record was) 10 under and I knew I was at nine,” Young said. “But that wasn’t my thought. I was just trying to hit it somewhere right of the hole on 17 and hit a couple good shots on 18. Unfortunately had one of my few bad swings of the day on 18.”

Before that, Young had sent his shot from a fairway bunker 238 yards away to within a few feet of the hole on No. 7 for eagle. He seized that momentum to birdie six of his next nine holes.

Matt Fitzpatrick was one of the favorites to win the Truist Championship — but it turns out little brother Alex is the one to watch this week.

Alex Fitzpatrick, who only earned his PGA Tour card two weeks ago when he teamed with his brother to win the win the Zurich Classic, rebounded from his only bogey of the day with a tee shot to 8 feet on the par-3 17th hole for birdie to reach 14 under.

Matt Fitzpatrick is a former U.S. Open champion who's currently ranked fourth in the world, and Alex said having his brother to lean on has been invaluable.

“I feel like he’s been and done everything that I want to do in the game — whether that’s Ryder Cup and win majors,” said Alex Fitzpatrick, who tied for ninth last week at Doral. “So having him being around and me being there for all of that, I felt like I got a really good sense of what it takes and what the atmosphere is like.”

Reitan, also a rookie, made some noise at the Masters before going 73-77 over the weekend to finish tied for 41st. He closed Saturday with four birdies over the final six holes to surge into second place.

“Just the opportunity to be near the leaderboard on a Sunday at a PGA Tour event, you know, rookie season — I’m just over the moon about that,” Reitan said.

Nicolai Hojgaard was four shots behind along with second-round leader Sungjae Im, who struggled down the stretch and shot 70.

Im skulled a bunker shot on the 15th hole, and the ball hit a grandstand and rolled back across the green before settling not far from where he began. It was one of two bogeys for the South Korean over the final four holes.

Justin Thomas, J.J. Spaun and Tommy Fleetwood were five shots back.

Rory McIlroy, the world's No. 2 player and four-time tournament champion, had a disastrous day, shooting 75 to fall out of contention.

Playing in his first event since winning his second Masters, McIlroy looked like he might make a charge up the leaderboard after bombing his drive down the middle on No. 1 and hitting his approach within a few feet for birdie.

But he didn't make another birdie until the 15th hole, with six bogeys in between on one of his favorite courses. He fell 13 shots off the pace.

Fitzpatrick could have a challenge holding the lead on Sunday.

Young has won three of his last 14 starts, including the Players Championship in March, to move to No. 3 in the world.

“I’m playing great,” Young said. “There is not a ton going on in my head, which is I think a very good thing. There is all kinds of stuff, but it’s nothing complicated. I’m thinking about shots and I’m thinking about my execution and that’s mainly where my head is at.”

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

Cox died in Marietta, Georgia, according to the Atlanta Braves. He had a stroke in 2019 and heart issues that complicated his recovery.

“Bobby was the best manager to ever wear a Braves uniform. He led our team to 14 straight division titles, five National League pennants, and the unforgettable World Series title in 1995. His Braves managerial legacy will never be matched,” the Braves said in a statement.

Cox took over a last-place team in June 1990 and led the Braves to a worst-to-first finish in 1991, losing the World Series to the Minnesota Twins in seven games. That was the start of what was to become a record 14 consecutive division titles, a feat no professional team in any sport had accomplished.

He managed the Braves for 25 years and led Atlanta to its first World Series title in 1995, retired after the 2010 season and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.

Cox ranks fourth all-time with 2,504 wins, fifth with 4,508 games, first with 15 division titles including a record 14 in a row, first with 16 playoff appearances and fourth with 67 playoff victories. Only Connie Mack, John McGraw and Tony La Russa had more regular-season wins than Cox.

“He was the first one to the park every day," Atlanta manager Walt Weiss said of Cox. "He’d have his spikes on at 12 o’clock. I never saw a manager wear spikes, but that was one of Bobby’s trademarks. He just loved the game. He loved the game, and he loved leading a group of men trying to win a championship.”

Cox also was first in being ejected from 158 regular-season games. Weiss, who called Cox instrumental in bringing him back to the Braves as a bench coach, was asked if he might get tossed in Cox's honor.

“It’s a different game now, you know, a very different era,” Weiss said. "Nobody can do it like Bobby, believe me.”

Cox's death came four days after that of fellow Atlanta icon Ted Turner, who as owner of Braves lured Cox back to the team in 1990.

The Braves retired Cox’s No. 6 jersey in 2011, when he joined the team’s Hall of Fame.

“RIP my second father,” Andruw Jones wrote on social media. The 10-time Gold Glove winner with Atlanta in July will become the sixth who played for Cox with the Braves to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Cox spent 29 seasons as a major league manager, including four with Toronto. He managed 16 postseason teams. He brought an old-school approach to the dugout. He always wore spikes and stirrups, and his fatherly demeanor inspired loyalty from his players.

Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux said players around the league always wanted to know what it was like playing for Bobby Cox: “The first word that comes to mind is respect. He had that from players. When Bobby talked, we listened. We wanted to play for him.”

Cox was the first NL manager to win at least 100 games in a season five times. He was Manager of the Year four times and the only one to win in consecutive years (2004, 2005). He also had close ties with his successors, Fredi González and Brian Snitker.

He regularly attended games and spring training before a stroke in 2019 that affected his speech and movement. Cox recovered enough to visit the Braves later that season, watching a game from the press box level. His wife, Pam, said in 2020 that heart trouble slowed his recovery from the stroke.

His long marriage survived a 1995 confrontation in which he was accused of hitting his wife in the face. He was charged with simple battery and in custody for an hour. The following day, Bobby and Pam appeared at a news conference and each denied he hit her in the face.

Cox said the couple would seek counseling. The charge was eventually dropped.

Despite all his regular-season success, Cox won only the one World Series title in five tries. He led the Braves to Atlanta’s first major professional sports championship in 1995, beating the Cleveland Indians in six games to win the World Series. Cox said critics usually focused on the World Series losses instead.

The Braves lost in 1992 to Toronto in six games and in 1996 in six to the New York Yankees before being swept by the Yankees in 1999.

“It’s a game of breaks when you get down to a four-game, must-win series,” Cox said. “We’ve played well. We’re proud of what we’ve done. They always ask that, though. It is irritating, to be honest with you.”

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 21, 1941, Cox graduated from Selma High School in California in 1959 and attended nearby Reedley Junior College before signing with the Dodgers for a $40,000 bonus.

He spent seven years in the Dodgers’ farm system before being traded to the Braves’ organization, playing one year at Richmond (1967). He was traded to the Yankees for Bob Tillman and Dale Roberts and played third base for his only two seasons in the majors (1968-69) before bad knees forced him to retire at age 30.

Cox began the first of six years as a minor league manager in 1971. He returned to the majors in 1977 as a first base coach for the Yankees, who went on to win the World Series.

His first major league managerial job came with the Braves in 1978. The best season of his first stint in Atlanta was an 81-80 finish in 1980, and he went 266-323 in four seasons.

The Toronto Blue Jays hired Cox in 1982, and he led them to their first American League East championship in 1985, in his fourth and final year there. He was lured back to the Braves as general manager by Turner, their outrageous owner and visionary media mogul, in 1986.

As GM, his Atlanta teams never had a winning season. Cox did develop players key to the Braves’ success in the ’90s: Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Jeff Blauser, Mark Lemke, Dave Justice, Javy Lopez and Ron Gant. He also had two No. 1 draft picks who excelled, Steve Avery and Chipper Jones.

Cox returned as field manager on June 22, 1990, after Russ Nixon was fired.

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman played the first 12 seasons of his career with the Braves. He recalled Cox giving him 80 plate appearances in spring training when he was 19. Freeman has a jersey signed from Cox saying, “To Freddie, keep on hitting.”

“He lived a great life,” Freeman said. "Everyone loved him in baseball. Braves country loved him.”

Cox usually shied away from the limelight and was uncomfortable when talking about himself.

“Honestly, I’m just doing my job. I let everything else fall where it may,” he said.

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AP freelance writer Dan Greenspan contributed from Los Angeles.

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

That's why the two-time Gold Glove-winning catcher was not shocked when he learned from Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey after Friday night's game against Pittsburgh that he was being traded to the Cleveland Guardians.

The trade, in which the Giants received minor league left-hander Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson and the 29th pick in the 2026 amateur draft, was announced Saturday afternoon. Bailey took a cross-country flight from San Francisco to Cleveland and arrived before the Guardians faced the Minnesota Twins.

Bailey was listed as a pinch-hitter on the pregame lineup card. The game did not start on time due to a rain delay.

“A little bit surprised, but at the same time you can kind of see the writing on the wall a little bit there with my time,” Bailey said. “Just felt like I was losing opportunities, losing at-bats and obviously Jesús (Rodríguez) and Sus (Daniel Susac) had been playing really well. When you stop playing, you get a feel for what’s going on.”

Bailey has been regarded as one of the top defensive catchers in the game thanks in part to his elite pitch-framing skills since being called up in 2023. He leads the majors since 2023 with 69 catcher framing runs and 42 defensive runs saved over the past two-plus seasons.

But his hitting has been an issue and bottomed out this season. Bailey was batting .146 with one homer and five RBIs in 89 plate appearances. His .396 OPS ranked last among 286 players with at least 75 plate appearances this season.

Bailey had become expendable for the Giants with Susac and Rodríguez expected to handle most of the catching duties, with Eric Haase as another option. Those players have provided much more offense for the Giants, who enter the day last in the majors in scoring with 3.16 runs per game and tied with the New York Mets for the worst record in the National League.

“I think it’s more the confidence that we have in Jesús Rodríguez and Daniel Susac and just the strides that we feel like as an organization they’ve made defensively,” Posey said about the trade before Saturday's game against the Pirates.

Manager Tony Vitello pointed to Susac and Rodríguez's offense as another reason.

“You get competitive at-bats. You don’t always get the result you want but they’re both versatile. I mean, we could use either of those guys in a pinch-hit spot, a DH position and Jesús in particular, in different spots,” he said.

Besides acquiring Bailey, the Guardians made another surprising move by optioning Bo Naylor to Triple-A Columbus. Naylor has been the Guardians' regular catcher since 2023.

Cleveland general manager Chris Antonetti said before Saturday night's game against the Minnesota Twins that the organization has had interest in Bailey for a long time, but the right opportunity didn't happen until this past week.

“We didn’t set out necessarily to acquire catching, but this was an opportunity that we felt made sense because it, in our view, will help us win games and help us pursue our goal of winning a World Series,” Antonetti said. “About a week ago, we had some initial dialogue with the Giants and it seemed like for the first time there might be the opportunity to overlap."

Bailey, who turns 27 later this month, won Gold Gloves at catcher in 2024 and 2025. He is a career .224 hitter with a .611 OPS. He also becomes teammates with Austin Hedges, who is a close friend, and David Fry.

The Guardians entered the day with a 21-19 record and in first place in the AL Central.

“Kind of excited about a fresh start here. Super confident in my ability to hit. I know I’ve shown spurts of being a really good hitter and I’m confident that’s going to show up," Bailey said.

Manager Stephen Vogt, a former catcher, said bringing in a new backstop can be a learning curve for everyone involved, and that the first couple days will be a bit of a whirlwind.

“It's difficult. You’re coming overnight to a place that’s already rolling, 13 pitchers, other catchers game planning, how’s their stuff working that the teams aren’t always familiar that you’re playing," he said. "So it takes a lot of work and your first few days are very busy. It’s a lot of information, a lot of conversations, trying to get those relationships going.”

Naylor had a .237 batting average as a rookie in 2023 but has struggled offensively the past two-plus seasons. His .143 batting average this season is last in the majors among the 29 catchers with at least 90 plate appearances.

His .192 batting average since 2024 is next-to-last among catchers with at least 200 games played.

“That was probably my least favorite conversation I’ve had since getting this job (in 2024),” Vogt said of the conversation with Naylor about being sent down. “We still believe that Bo has a bright future with us, but any time you send somebody away from here, it’s the worst. But that one, especially.”

The 23-year-old Wilkinson pitched for Canada in the World Baseball Classic earlier this year. He has made six starts this season at Double-A Akron, going 1-2 with a 1.59 ERA with 36 strikeouts in 28 1/3 innings.

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Freelance reporter Kenzo Fukuda contributed to this story. Dubow reported from San Francisco and Reedy from Cleveland.

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Security was tight in Moscow as Putin and several foreign leaders attended the parade, which was scaled down even as a U.S.-brokered three-day ceasefire eased concerns about possible Ukrainian attempts to disrupt the festivities.

Putin, in power for more than a quarter-century, has used Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, to showcase the country’s military might and rally support for his military action in Ukraine, now in its fifth year.

Speaking at the parade, Putin hailed Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, declaring that they “face an aggressive force that is armed and supported by the entire bloc of NATO," and are fighting for a “just cause.”

“Victory has always been and will be ours,” Putin said, as columns of troops lined up on Red Square.

Talking to reporters later, he accused Western “globalist elites” of arming Ukraine to defeat and break up Russia and declared that “I think the matter is coming to an end.”

But in a notable shift this year, the parade took place without tanks, missiles and other equipment put on display every year since 2008, aside from a traditional flyover of combat jets.

Officials explained the change of format by the “current operational situation” and the threat of Ukrainian attacks. The authorities also ordered restrictions on all mobile internet access and text messaging services in the Russian capital on Saturday. Putin told reporters after the parade that it didn’t feature heavy weaponry because the military needs it on the battlefield in Ukraine.

For the first time, Saturday's parade featured troops from North Korea, a tribute to Pyongyang that sent its soldiers to fight alongside Moscow forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Earlier ceasefires failed to hold until Trump stepped in

Russia declared a unilateral ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a truce that was supposed to begin on May 6, but neither held as the parties traded blame for continuing attacks.

Fears about the festivities' security eased Friday, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Russia and Ukraine have bowed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday and an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Zelenskyy, who said earlier this week that the Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” on May 9, followed up on Trump's statement by declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes and mockingly permitting Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, a move that the Kremlin shrugged off as a “silly joke.”

Putin told reporters after the parade that Trump offered to broker a ceasefire after Russia informed the U.S. and others that it would launch a massive missile strike on the center of Kyiv fraught with collateral damage if Ukraine attempts to disrupt Saturday’s festivities.

“We just described the situation to our friends, colleagues and partners: We don't have any intention to exacerbate or worsen relations with anyone, but it could happen because all control and decision-making centers in Kyiv are located close to diplomatic missions,” Putin said. “When we started such a dialogue with the U.S. administration, we warned them about this, pointed out the possible consequences and asked them to do everything necessary to ensure the security of their diplomatic mission.”

He noted that Russia immediately welcomed Trump's offer that was driven by humanitarian motives and “respect to our common victory over Nazism.”

Putin has used Victory Day celebrations to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in 1941-45 in what it calls the Great Patriotic War, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche and remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule.

Putin says he could meet Zelenskyy when a peace deal is ready for signing

Russia’s bigger and better-equipped military has been making slow but steady gains along the more than 1,000-kilometer (over 600-mile) front line. Ukraine has hit back with increasingly efficient long-range attacks, striking Russian energy facilities, manufacturing plants and military depots. It has developed drones capable of reaching targets over 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) deep into Russia, far beyond its capabilities before 2022.

Zelenskyy has proposed to meet with Putin to negotiate a peace deal, but dismissed the Russian leader's suggestion that he come to Moscow. On Saturday, Putin said he could meet with Zelenskyy in another country, but only to endorse a comprehensive accord.

“A meeting in a third country is also possible, but only after a peace treaty aimed at a long-term historic perspective is finalized,” Putin told reporters. “This should be a final deal, not the negotiations.”

Putin praises foreign guests, Merz criticizes Fico

Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko attended the festivities in the Russian capital.

Putin hailed the foreign guests who attended the parade for “personal courage,” noting that they had decided to come to Moscow before the ceasefire brokered by Trump defused security concerns.

Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia, a European Union member, laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial just outside the Kremlin walls but stayed away from the Red Square parade. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized Fico’s trip, saying, "I deeply regret this, and we will discuss his visit to Moscow with him.”

Speaking at a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, Fico bemoaned what he called a new “Iron Curtain” in Europe that hampered trade, and emphasized the importance of Russia's energy supplies to Slovakia. Putin hailed the Slovak leader for conducting a “sovereign” foreign policy and honoring the memory of fallen Red Army soldiers.

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More than 20 foxhounds, a breed specifically trained to run alongside horses and hunters, took to the turf course Saturday to kick off the race day as fans cheer and take photos and videos.

The huntsman and his team, who are called whippers-in, has the sometimes difficult task of keeping the hounds on course, especially when they can get distracted by the tens of thousands of spectators in the infield and all their delicious tailgating food.

One hound loved the attention from the fans so much that she veered off course, said Charles Montgomery, a master and huntsman with the Mells Foxhounds, the hunting group that runs their pack in the steeplechase. “She had the best time. She loved going into the beer tents,” Montgomery said.

She loved it so much, she ran to the beer tent again the next year, so now she's not invited back to the race, Montgomery said.

The Iroquois Steeplechase is one of the premier American steeplechase races, with a total of $730,000 awarded in purses, on a grass turf course with hurdles that opened in 1941 as a Works Progress Administration project. The Nashville race was founded by members of the Hillsboro Hounds, another fox hunting club in the Nashville area.

Steeplechase racing and fox hunting are wedded together, said Stephen Heard, one of the trustees of the Iroquois Steeplechase and a member of the Mells Foxhounds group. The tradition came from the British Isles, where horses were raced from church steeple to church steeple and trained to jump obstacles like fences while hunting with dogs.

"Many of the horses that we use fox hunting are ex-steeplechase horses, Heard said.

With 25,000 spectators who are eating and drinking in tents and in the stands, the dogs need some time to adjust to the noise and smells.

“I took one dog last year and he heard the speakers and he said, ‘This is not for me,’” Charles Montgomery said.

“It's high pressure,” said Boo Montgomery, one of the whippers-in. When a child held out a fried chicken leg through the rails one time, it was a temptation no hound could resist. “You couldn't fault Brightly for stopping and having a snack,” she said, of one of the foxhounds.

Charles Montgomery said he usually will bring the veteran hunting hounds who can guide the younger ones along the course. On the morning of the race, the hounds bounded off their trailer, eager to sniff grass and chew on sticks and roll in the clover.

The hounds wear GPS-equipped collars whenever they hunt and when they come to the racetrack. That came in handy last year when a dog got spooked and took off into the wooded park nearby.

While the racetrack is not their normal working environment, the hounds seem to enjoy the challenge that comes with kicking off the horse races, Boo Montgomery said.

“It's a great exposure for hunting to get to see these hounds and the horses,” Boo Montgomery said. “It's nice to be able to show off.”

The homes were flattened just hours earlier as storms spawned at least three tornadoes across the bottom half of Mississippi, injuring a dozen at the trailer park in the rural community of Bogue Chitto.

Lemley had no idea where the kitten was, but he was determined to find it. After a few minutes, the meowing stopped, and Lemley feared the worst.

Then, five minutes later, he heard it again.

“I said, ‘Oh, he’s still alive!’” Lemley told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Lemley quickly dug under insulation from a flattened wall until his flashlight beam found the kitten — wet, scared and hiding between two wooden posts.

Lemley captured the moment on video: “Oh my goodness, I found him!" he says to the camera. "Are you OK? Come here – it’s OK. … We’ll get you cleaned up, baby. Don’t you worry.”

Lemley held the kitten in his arms for a few minutes before handing it off to the commander of the United Cajun Navy, a volunteer disaster-response group, who dried it off and took it to safety. Lemley marveled that it didn’t appear to be injured.

“I’ve been in these situations so many times,” said Lemley, who has been chasing storms since 2010. “I don’t try to get overly emotional. But it is very heartbreaking to see any type of animal or human go through something like that.”

Lemley says there’s already a lot of interest from people who want to adopt the kitten if its owners are not located. Some, he said, want to name it Tornado.

It won’t be coming home with him, though: Lemley is allergic to cats.

The street banners dotted the downtown landscape, the handmade signs were visible from any vantage point inside the sold out arena and, of course, Caitlin Clark jerseys and T-shirts remained a trendy favorite. And why not live it up as Clark's 10-month wait to play a meaningful game on her home court finally ended with the weekend's featured matchup between Clark and the Fever and Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings.

Yet even with the anticipation of seeing two of the league's most popular players and the last four No. 1 draft picks squaring off in Game 1, nobody was more excited to get started than Clark.

“I think there's a different juice inside your body when you're putting on your uniform and you're mentally locked in to go and play a basketball game,” she said before tipoff. “Like I was excited for my teammates last year, 100% I was their biggest fan. But it's not the same, it just isn't. I missed having the butterflies in my stomach before a game. Like I love that, and that means you're ready.”

The WNBA schedule makers certainly gave fans what they wanted following an offseason filled with collective bargaining agreement negotiations and uncertainty about this year's action.

By Friday night, it was all in the past. Two old rivals, the New York Liberty and Connecticut Sun, played the first game of the league’s 30th season with two potentially budding rivals, the Seattle Storm and Golden State Valkyries, capping the night in the third and final game. In between, fans got their first glimpse of the expansion Toronto Tempo against Washington.

That set up Saturday’s nationally televised matinee between Clark and Bueckers, and it didn't disappoint.

Clark scored 10 of her 20 points in the third quarter to help the Fever rally from a 60-51 halftime deficit, but she missed a logo 3-pointer that would have tied the score at 107 with 4.5 seconds left in the game. The former Iowa star finished 2 of 9 on 3s as the Wings held on for a 107-104 victory.

She also had seven assists, five rebounds and joined the 1,000-point club while Bueckers finished with 20 points despite missing two free throws with 1.6 seconds left. Azzi Fudd, this year's No. 1 draft pick, took only two shots in 18 minutes, making a 3 for the only points in her regular-season debut.

Clark also gave fans another injury scare. She briefly left the bench twice in the second half to have her back worked on but managed to finish the game, something she did not do in last week’s preseason game against Dallas after banging her kneecap hard on a fall.

“I feel good, started off a little slow I think just the anxiety of the first game,” she said. “Felt like I was literally just a couple of buckets away from putting together a really, really good game and getting a win.”

The result didn't temper the fanfare surrounding this game, though.

Clark and her teammates walked down the stairs and through the crowd to the court for player introductions with the loudest roar, naturally, reserved for Clark.

“I'm getting chills right now just thinking about where we are as a league," Fever coach Stephanie White said. “I mean this is what we dreamed about, right? From the time I was a rookie in this league to the time we won a championship in 2012 (with the Fever) when we were seeing sold out arenas only in championship games or in Finals games to becoming mainstream.”

While Clark played a big role in making sellouts the norm — in college and the WNBA — it's not just about Clark anymore.

Saturday's crowd included a small group in UConn jerseys, a nod to both Bueckers and Fudd, while another had a cutout of Bueckers on a sign saying she'd skipped her prom to attend the game. And there was a smattering of Bueckers fans dressed in Dallas jerseys, too.

“It's huge. I watched a lot of the games on YouTube TV las night so to be able to play on national television where a lot more people have access to it,” Bueckers said. “There's way more accessibility to it than when I was growing up watching the Minnesota Lynx. There wasn't as much national television coverage, you didn't see shows about it, you didn't so much on social media.”

But the addition of Bueckers, last year's WNBA Rookie of the Year, and the return of Clark, the 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year, from a season-ending groin injury have the league poised for potentially its biggest season yet.

And the opening weekend fanfare had a little bit of everything — David Letterman and NBA All-Star Tyrese Haliburton sitting courtside, a moment to honor some of the pioneers from the Women's Professional Basketball League and Fever players walking through the crowd to the court during player introductions with the two biggest roars reserved for Clark and Bueckers.

“I think it's great for women's basketball more than anything,” Clark said referring to the four No. 1 picks — Fever center Aliyah Boston in 2023, herself in 2024, Bueckers last year and now Fudd. “And you know this might be the first time this has ever really happened in sports — having two No. 1 picks on both sides. I think it speaks to the young talent in this league, how excited fans are about them and how excited they are about these two teams having us match up in the first game of the season."

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

Grant drove an 0-2 pitch from Nebraska's Jordy Frahm deep to left-center field for a solo home run, giving UCLA a 2-0 lead in the third inning of the Big Ten Championship Game. The senior took the record she shared for one day in her 55th game. Arizona’s Laura Espinoza hit 37 home runs over 72 games in 1995.

The chance to write her name into the record books as one of the sport's best is what Grant wanted when she came to college.

“To be able to do that, it's just, it's surreal," Grant said of the home run record. “I'm just so grateful for the opportunity I was blessed with and just to follow the people that were before me it's just an honor.”

Grant had the ball in her backpack after Nebraska defeated UCLA 7-2 on Saturday to win the conference championship. She planned to give the ball to her grandmother.

Down 0-2, Grant was just hoping to put the ball in play anywhere she could against Frahm.

“The pitch was up, and I had a feeling it was out once I heard the crowd cheering,” Grant said of her home run. “I kind of usually just put my head down and run as hard as I can to first base, and then I think right when I touched first I knew.”

Grant said she let out a lot of energy rounding the bases celebrating all the way to the dugout with her teammates. She thinks they were focused on the milestone before refocusing on trying to win the game.

“It’s nice to be able to do it on a big stage,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said of Grant's record-setting home run.

Grant trailed Oklahoma’s Kendall Wells by one homer heading into conference tournament play. Wells did not homer in Oklahoma’s loss to Georgia on Thursday in the Southeastern Conference Tournament. Grant hit home runs in each of UCLA's three Big Ten Tournament games.

The race to see who ends up with the single-season home run record could last until the Women’s College World Series. Wells has 36 and Grant’s teammate, Jordan Woolery, has 33.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

McDonald uncoiled out of his three-point stance at the Texans’ rookie minicamp, firing off the football with explosiveness and intensity.

McDonald was determined to make his first NFL practice count, and establish a gold standard.

It was obvious how much McDonald is putting into his rookie season. And the former Ohio State consensus All-American defensive tackle, the Big Ten Conference Defensive Lineman of the Year, should bolster the top-ranked defense in the league.

Once projected as a first-round draft pick and selected in the second round with the 36th overall selection, McDonald has set his ambitions on the kind of banner first season that would make history.

“Win a Super Bowl, Rookie of the Year, All-Pro first year,” McDonald said in response to a question from KPRC 2 on his goal-setting. “These are realistic for me. I wrote those down and I’m blessed to be here and I’ve got a chance.”

McDonald doesn’t shy away from high expectations.

After meeting formally with the Texans at the NFL scouting combine, he visited them along with the New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, Miami Dolphins, Washington Commanders, Chicago Bears and the Cincinnati Bengals. McDonald had a special feeling about the Texans throughout the draft process.

“Yes, sir. I thought it all the way through,” McDonald said. “Texans, they made it clear who the best defensive tackle was. It’s a blessing to be here. I’m ready for the opportunity.”

The Texans needed a young, athletic defensive tackle to work in tandem with Sheldon Rankins, Tommy Togiai and Logan Hall and play inside opposite Pro Bowl defensive ends Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter.

McDonald, a Texarkana native who grew up in Suwanee, Georgia, provides a dominant inside presence at 6-foot-2 1/8, 326 pounds and operates with outstanding leverage and pad level. The first-team All-Big Ten Conference selection recorded 65 tackles last season for the Buckeyes with three sacks, two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.

Yes, McDonald rivaled his Buckeyes teammates, Washington Commanders first-round linebacker Sonny Styles and Dallas Cowboys safety Caleb Downs, for the first hit throughout the season. He was simply that active.

“What I like about Kayden and his tape at Ohio State is the physicality, it shows up,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. “When he’s across the line from an offensive lineman, no matter who it was, he was knocking those guys back in the backfield. That translates to Houston Texans defense.

“We want to knock guys back. He does that. He’s still a very young player who has so much room to grow, so much room to ascend. It starts right here today. You see him in his individual drills. He has the power. We can win with that type of power.”

And confidence, too.

McDonald has stated multiple times he’s the best defensive tackle in the draft. The fact that he wasn’t the first defensive lineman selected bothers him to this day. And it provides significant motivational fuel.

“Being blessed, staying in the moment,” McDonald said. “You can’t take this for granted. I’m walking out here today, and it’s like: ‘This is your first day in the NFL.’ It’s not a game no more. It’s a job, and you got to take it serious. ..

“Just getting out there with my teammates for rookie minicamp. We’ve all got energy and enthusiasm. It’s a great opportunity. At the end of the day, we want to get to L.A. and win a Super Bowl.”

The way that McDonald can complement the pass rushers and edge-setters that headline the Texans’ front seven and keep blocks off of Pro Bowl middle linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair can make him a tone-setter for defensive line coach-run game coordinator Rod Wright.

“He’s one of the best in the league, he wants everything his way and we’ve got to follow that,” McDonald said. “You’ve got to stay on that $50 million, $40 million line. You’ve got Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter, those are two All-Pro guys. You just follow that plan and all things are going to work out.”

McDonald was in the green room during the first round of the draft. When he got passed over, McDonald was convinced by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to return for the second night of the draft. That led up to an emotional moment where McDonald got the life-changing call from the Texans after they traded up two spots to land him.

“Roger, he told me I’m going to be a special guy,” McDonald said. “He got a lot of respect for me and I’ve got a lot of respect for him. It meant a lot to me to come back on Day 2 and walk that stage.”

McDonald is already making fast friends with Anderson and is happy to reunite with former Ohio State players like quarterback C.J. Stroud and tight end Cade Stover. McDonald met Anderson at the Rockets’ playoff game against the Los Angeles Lakers.

“My teammates, it’s like a brotherhood here,” McDonald said. “Staff, training staff, even the dieticians, people that cook the food, it’s been a warm welcome.

“Got to help out the defensive ends, get them to second-and-long, get them to third-and-long, let Will and Danielle Hunter and all the other guys get off the edge. It’s going to work out. Three-and-out, get off the field, give it back to C.J. and go score.”

The Texans’ defense, under the leadership of coach DeMeco Ryans and defensive coordinator Matt Burke is formidable.

“It’s going to be tough to score on us,” McDonald said. “We already got the pieces on defense. Adding me, it’s gonna be special.”

The Texans traded the 38th overall pick and 117th overall selection of the fourth round in exchange for the Raiders’ original 36th overall pick and the 91st overall selection in the third round.

“We felt McDonald was probably the best run defender in the draft,” Texans general manager Nick Caserio said. “Matt Patricia did a really good job with him, got the most out of him. He’ll be a good fit for our program. We like the player. The player falls, we can’t control any of that.

“We brought him in the building, had a good visit with him. Did a lot of work on him. We felt like he was the best run-stopping defensive tackle in the draft. So, let’s add him to the team.”

One of the top defensive players in the draft, McDonald is determined to prove the Texans made a great decision to pick him.

“Everybody that went before me, that’s what fuels me,” McDonald said. “There’s not one player better than me in this class. I’m gonna show it.”

TRYOUT CENTRAL

The Texans worked out multiple players during their rookie minicamp, including former University of Houston quarterback Clayton Tune.

Tune has played for the Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers.

The Texans also worked out Connecticut kicker Chris Freeman, Texas A&M long snapper Jacob Graham, a Memorial High graduate, Connecticut tight end Louis Hansen, Washington quarterback Kai Horton, former Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers and Northwestern running back Evan Hull, Lenoir-Rhyne defensive tackle ANdre Jefferson and Marshall wide receiver Demarcus Lacey.

Rookie running back Jordan Whittington, an undrafted player from Oregon, participated in the drills despite not being fully recovered from offseason toe surgery, per a league source.

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

Iranian state TV reported the warning a day after the United States struck two Iranian oil tankers, casting doubt on the month-old ceasefire that the U.S. has insisted is still in effect. The U.S. military said the tankers were trying to breach its blockade of Iran’s ports.

Meanwhile Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s regional headquarters, said it arrested dozens of people it alleged had links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Washington awaits Iran's response to its latest proposal for a deal to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping and roll back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program. And Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow's proposal to take enriched uranium from Iran to help negotiate a settlement remains on the table.

Bahrain says arrests were linked to Guard funding attempt

Bahrain said it had arrested 41 people it said are part of a group affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard. The interior ministry said investigations confirmed they were in contact with the Guard and collected funds “with the aim of sending them to Iran” to support its "terrorist operations.”

The small Persian Gulf island is led by a Sunni Muslim monarchy but, like Iran, has a majority Shiite population. Rights groups have said the kingdom has used the war between Iran and the U.S., which bases its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, as an excuse to crack down on dissent.

Iran issued a warning to Bahrain: “Siding with the U.S.-backed resolution will bring severe consequences. The Strait of Hormuz is a vital lifeline; do not risk closing it on yourselves FOREVER," Ebrahim Azizi, head of the national security commission of Iran’s parliament, said on social media.

Iran has mostly blocked the critical waterway for global energy since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, causing a global spike in fuel prices and rattling world markets.

The U.S. has imposed its own blockade of Iran’s ports. U.S. Central Command said on Saturday its forces had turned back 58 commercial ships and “disabled” four since the blockade began April 13.

Britain deploys warship to the Middle East

Britain’s defense ministry said it was deploying a warship to the Middle East to join a potential mission to protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz once hostilities end.

The ministry said the HMS Dragon will “preposition” in the region, ready to join a U.K.- and French-led security plan. France announced this week it was moving its aircraft carrier strike group into the Red Sea in preparation.

Britain and France have led meetings involving several dozen countries on a coalition to reestablish freedom of navigation in the strait. But they stress it won’t start until there is a sustainable ceasefire and the maritime industry is reassured ships can go through the strait safely.

Diplomacy continues ‘day and night’

U.S. President Donald Trump has reiterated threats to resume full-scale bombing if Iran doesn’t accept an agreement to reopen the strait and roll back its nuclear program. On Friday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the country was not paying attention to “deadlines,” according to state-run IRNA.

Diplomacy continues. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country has been in contact with the U.S. and Iran “day and night” in an effort to extend the ceasefire and reach a peace deal.

Russia’s foreign ministry said that it, as well as Saudi Arabia, was calling for diplomatic efforts to reach a “sustainable, long-term agreement” to end the war.

Separately, Putin told reporters in Moscow that taking enriched uranium from Iran to help negotiate a settlement would allow everyone to see “how much of it there is, and where it is located,” and “all of this would be placed under the control of the IAEA,” the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Egyptian and Qatari top diplomats reiterated that diplomacy is the sole path to a solution, according to a readout of a phone call between the two foreign ministers.

Still publicly unseen and unheard since the war began is Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, fueling speculation about his status.

On Friday, a top Iranian official said Khamenei was in “complete health” and eventually would appear in public. Mazaher Hosseini, affiliated with the office of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the war, made the comment at a pro-government gathering. Hosseini said Mojtaba, Khamenei's son, had knee and back injuries in the war’s opening attacks but they’ve largely healed.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

Thitikul started with a three-shot lead and it was gone quickly after a bogey on the second hole and a fast start by Hannah Green.

But Thitikul kept her cool and kept marching along on a Mountain Ridge course softened by spells of rain, but still difficult enough with its contoured greens to present problems.

Thitikul got up-and-down for par with a nifty pitch on the 18th to finish at 10-under 216, two shots over Celine Boutier of France, who had a 67.

“It’s a new day and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but just going to let golf be golf and then let myself be committed to golf and then just go by the flow with it and then just give myself a lot of chances,” Thitikul said. “Another opportunity under my belt that I have in the final round again.”

Hye-Jin Choi had a 66 and was three shots behind.

Green was only the first of the contenders who got within one shot of Thitikul with a four-hole stretch on the front nine that she played in 4 under, including an eagle on the par-5 eighth. But no one could surge ahead.

Ruoning Yin of China was within one shot playing the par-4 15th when she got in trouble off the tee and had a full short iron into for her fourth shot. She hit that to 5 feet and looked as though she might escape with a bogey. But she shockingly three-putted for triple bogey.

Yin answered with a birdie on the par-3 16th with its accessible front pin and had to settle for a 68, leaving her in a tie for fourth at at 6-under 210 along with Green and Allisen Corpuz, who has not won since the U.S. Women's Open at Pebble Beach in 2023. Corpuz shot 68.

“Just my brain, not working on this hole,” Yin said. “When I three-putted on 15 I was like ... I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t angry. I just felt like I still have so many birdie chances coming up. ... I think my game is in a great spot and I think I starting to figure it out this course a little bit.”

Green dropped two shots on the back, including a bogey on the 18th, and she finished when the rain was at its strongest.

“I’m going to have to do exactly what I did on the front nine — put myself in good positions off the tee as well as on the greens,” Green said. “I felt like on the back nine I had a couple of opportunities to make a birdie but it was a downhill putt, so you just can’t be aggressive.”

Boutier played bogey-free after her opening hole, including a string of three birdies over four holes on the back nine to get within one shot.

“I feel like you have to be pretty smart and kind of like almost patient about it, because sometimes you’re tempted to go for things but it’s not always the smartest choice,” Boutier said.

Thitikul, so precise most of the cloudy day, got up-and-down from in front of the green on the par-5 17th for a birdie that gave her a two-shot cushion, and she protected it with a bold play over the cross bunkers from the rough on the 18th, and a super pitch up the false front to save par.

She lost her No. 1 ranking two weeks ago when Thitikul missed the cut at The Chevron Championship in search of her first major, and Nelly Korda won The Chevron and the following week in Mexico. Korda is not playing this week.

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

The three drone strikes south of Beirut marked another escalation since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect on April 17. Both Israel and Hezbollah have continued their daily attacks despite the truce.

On Wednesday night, Israel’s air force carried out an airstrike on a southern suburb in which Israel said it killed a senior Hezbollah military official. It was the first strike near the capital since the ceasefire was reached.

Two of the strikes on Saturday took place on the highway linking Beirut with the southern port city of Sidon in which several people were wounded, while the third happened on a road leading to Lebanon’s Chouf region killing three, the state-run National News Agency said.

An Associated Press journalist at the scene saw a dead body on the highway in the town of Saadiyat.

The Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven, including a child, and wounded 15. The ministry said this was an initial count.

The agency reported strikes in southern Lebanon, including one on the village of Bourj Rahhal that killed three and another in Maifadoun that killed one.

The Health Ministry, meanwhile, said three Israeli drone strikes killed a Syrian man who was riding a motorcycle with his 12-year-old daughter in the city of Nabatiyeh.

The ministry said that after the initial strike, the man and his daughter managed to move away from the site only to be attacked again by the drone instantly killing the man. The girl then moved about 100 meters (yards) away and was hit again by the drone after she had been already wounded. The girl later died in a hospital, NNA said.

“The Ministry of Public Health denounces this barbaric targeting and the deliberate violence against civilians and children in Lebanon,” the ministry said in its statement added that the strike marks an ongoing series “of grave violations of International Humanitarian Law.”

The Israeli military said Hezbollah fired explosive drones into Israel near the border with Lebanon adding that three soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, in one of the attacks. It added that Hezbollah fired drones inside Lebanon as well in which one hit an Israeli vehicle without inflicting casualties.

Hezbollah claimed several attacks inside Lebanon as well as firing a drone at an Israeli military post in the northern town of Misgav Am.

The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, two days after the United States and Israel launched a war on Hezbollah's main backer, Iran. Israel has since carried out hundreds of airstrikes and launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, capturing dozens of towns and villages along the border.

Later, Lebanon and Israel held their first direct talks in more than three decades. The two countries have formally been in a state of war since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

A new round of talks is scheduled to take place in Washington over two days starting Thursday.

A 10-day ceasefire declared in Washington went into effect on April 17. The ceasefire was later extended by three weeks.

In the Syrian capital of Damascus, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam held talks Saturday with Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa in which they discussed strengthening relations between the two neighbors and boosting security cooperation amid regional wars.

Speaking to reporters before heading back home, Salam said that Lebanon will not be used again to harm “our Arab brothers, on top of them Syria.” Salam was indirectly referring to Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria’s civil that broke out in 2011 by backing the five-decade Assad family rule that ended in December 2024.

Magyar’s center-right Tisza party defeated Orbán’s nationalist-populist Fidesz in a stunning blow last month, gaining more votes and seats in parliament than any other party in Hungary’s post-Communist history.

The win, which gave Tisza a two-thirds parliamentary majority, will allow it to roll back many of the policies that gave Orbán a reputation among his critics as a far-right authoritarian.

In a speech to tens of thousands of supporters in a square outside the parliament building after being sworn in, the new prime minister told the crowd: “Today, every freedom-loving person in the world would like to be Hungarian a little.”

“You have taught the country and the world that it is the most ordinary, flesh-and-blood people that can defeat the most vicious tyranny,” Magyar said to roaring applause.

As Hungary's new leader, Magyar has vowed to restore democratic institutions and governmental checks and balances that were heavily eroded during Orbán's rule, and to clamp down on alleged corruption.

His administration is expected to transform political dynamics within the European Union, where the former prime minister had upended the bloc by frequently vetoing key decisions, most recently concerning support for neighboring Ukraine.

A parliament without Orbán

On Saturday, Magyar, a 45-year-old lawyer who founded Tisza in 2024, entered the sprawling neo-Gothic parliament building alongside 140 of his party representatives.

Tisza now controls 141 seats in Hungary's 199-seat parliament. Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition controls 52 seats, down from 135, while the far-right Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) party holds six seats.

The 199 representatives took their oaths of office at around 11 a.m. Orbán was not among them for the first time since Hungary’s first post-Communist parliament was formed in 1990.

Magyar earlier called on Hungarians to attend an all-day “regime-change” celebration on Kossuth Square outside parliament to mark his inauguration and the end of the Orbán era. Many of those gathered waved Hungarian and EU flags and wore Tisza T-shirts.

In his speech, Magyar delivered a message of unity, and promised to help heal the deep social divisions he said Orbán's government had sown.

“Today is the fulfillment of the long journey that we have made together in recent years, the fulfillment of the common belief that Hungary is able to get back on its feet, is able to believe in itself and to once again be a common homeland for all Hungarians,” he said.

Hungary's new National Assembly has 54 women lawmakers, most from the Tisza party — more than a quarter of the total and the most in Hungary’s history.

One of them, Andrea Szepesi, an economist from Budapest, said it was “about time” that more women held seats in parliament. Under Orbán's rule, there were fewer women in government than in nearly all of the EU's other 26 nations.

“Finally, women are able to participate in this new, beautiful democratic system and the flourishing of the country,” Szepesi told The Associated Press.

Repairing relations with the EU

Magyar has promised to repair his country’s ties with the EU, which Orbán had pushed to a breaking point, and to restore Hungary’s place among Western democracies, whose standing had been called into question as Orbán drifted ever closer to Russia.

The EU flag was raised on the parliament building’s facade Saturday afternoon for the first time since Orbán’s government removed it in 2014.

Unlocking about 17 billion euros ($20 billion) of EU funds for Hungary frozen during Orbán’s time in office over rule-of-law and corruption concerns is also among the new prime minister’s top priorities. The money is sorely needed to help jump-start Hungary’s struggling economy, which has stagnated for the past four years.

Another attendee of the celebration, 27-year-old web designer Áron Farsang, said he expects the new Tisza government to restore Hungary's democratic institutions and to “lead us back toward the European Union.”

“I would also really like it if we could get rid of the Russian influence as soon as possible,” he said. “I’m thinking about energy dependency and their general political style.”

Accounting for the past

Many of the nearly 3.4 million Hungarians that voted for Tisza expect Magyar to hold Fidesz officials and their business allies accountable for the perceived misconduct of the outgoing administration.

In his speech to the National Assembly, he called on Fidesz-appointed heads of government institutions, including President Tamás Sulyok, to resign no later than May 31.

Magyar plans to form a National Asset Recovery and Protection Office, an authority tasked with investigating and seeking to recover public funds misused during Orbán’s tenure. He’s also vowed to suspend the news services of Hungary’s public broadcaster — widely seen as a mouthpiece of Orbán’s party — until objectivity can be restored.

In his speech to lawmakers, Magyar referenced his intentions to hold former officials accountable for past abuses, saying voters had “given us a mandate to open a new chapter in Hungary’s history.

• PREVIOUS REPORT: Judge forfeits $1 million bond for capital murder suspect who fled to Italy before trial

In the May 8 order, 497th District Court Judge Peyton Peebles said the restrictions are aimed at protecting Gilley’s right to a fair trial and preventing pretrial publicity from influencing potential jurors.

The judge wrote the court has a duty to safeguard “the Defendant’s right to a fair and impartial jury trial” and to ensure jurors are not prejudiced by publicity.

Why the judge says restrictions were needed

Peebles pointed to what he described as the “unusually emotional nature” of the case and the extensive media attention it has already received, including local and national coverage and interviews with attorneys.

In the order, the judge found that continued interviews could make it harder for both sides to select an impartial jury.

• RELATED: ‘She loved Italy’: Houston murder victim’s friends frustrated over husband Lee Gilley fleeing U.S. ahead of trial

He also found there is a substantial probability that one or both sides’ right to a fair process — and Gilley’s right to a fair trial — could be harmed if lawyers and others make public-facing statements about the facts of the case, including on social media.

Who the gag order applies to

The order applies broadly to the legal teams and others working on the case. It instructs attorneys to follow the Texas disciplinary rules that bar “extrajudicial statements” likely to materially prejudice a proceeding.

It also specifically extends the restriction to attorneys’ staffs, investigators, experts, interns and law enforcement officers involved in the case, directing them not to discuss the case with the media, according to the order.

What can’t be discussed publicly

Rather than banning all communication, the order identifies categories of information the judge said pose a risk of prejudice.

Among the topics restricted are comments about:

• the character, credibility or reputation of any party or witness;
• what a party or witness is expected to testify about;
• non-public statements or admissions (or someone’s decision not to give a statement);
• evidence expected to be presented at trial — or the absence of evidence;
• information likely to be inadmissible at trial that could still sway public opinion;
• and any notes from jurors.

The order also addresses witnesses, saying those who have already given statements to law enforcement or prosecutors — or who testify in investigative, court, or extradition-related proceedings — should not discuss the case with the media.

It similarly warns witnesses who provide statements or testimony after the gag order is entered not to speak publicly about the case.

What people can still say

The order carves out exceptions, stating it does not prohibit people from sharing basic information “without elaboration or characterization,” including the general nature of criminal justice procedures, information already in the public record, and scheduling or results of court proceedings.

Peebles also emphasized the order is not intended to silence everyone outside the case. It says it should not be interpreted to stop third parties from attending open court sessions (with limited exceptions) or from publishing information they already have or obtain in court.

Finally, the judge noted the court may revisit the order: “This Court shall entertain reasonable requests to modify this Order as the need arises.”

What comes next

The gag order was signed Friday evening as the case remains in limbo with Gilley in Italy and extradition still uncertain.

An official familiar with the process told KPRC 2 News the forfeiture of Gilley’s $1 million bond does not mean immediate payment. Collecting the money can take months and depends on Gilley’s return to the United States.

Italian media has reported Gilley is being held in solitary confinement at the Lorusso e Cutugno prison in Turin. During a hearing Friday, journalist Giada Lo Porto reported Gilley’s detention was confirmed and that he is expected to go with his Italian attorney to the Turin Court of Appeal on Monday for a hearing tied to the extradition request.

Lo Porto also reported Gilley has sought asylum and that a commission could decide within the next few days whether to accept that request.

According to Lo Porto’s reporting, Gilley’s attorney has told Italian media the extradition decision could take a long time, though the court indicated a timeframe of within 40 days.

Meanwhile, Gilley is still facing a capital murder case in Harris County, and the timeline for his return to the United States — and any trial date — remains unclear.

Cheers rang around Etihad Stadium after second half goals from Jeremy Doku, Erling Haaland and Omar Marmoush helped second-placed City close the gap on leader Arsenal to two points.

It was a different atmosphere at Anfield where Liverpool fans jeered as the defending champion dropped more points in a 1-1 draw with Chelsea.

Third-placed Manchester United drew at Sunderland 0-0 while there were wins for Champions League-chasing Bournemouth and Brighton.

City keeps title hopes alive

Another big goal from Doku settled City nerves and kept manager Pep Guardiola in contention for a seventh Premier League title.

“I love it. I love to be here again,” Guardiola said, adding he feels no tension in the heat of the title race.

A well-organized Brentford managed to frustrate City until Doku came up with a moment of magic on the hour — curling a right-footed shot into the far corner.

It was a near-carbon copy of his late equalizer against Everton that salvaged a 3-3 draw for Guardiola's team on Monday.

That draw put the title race in Arsenal's hands, but victory against Brentford ensured the pressure remained on the Gunners to get a win at West Ham on Sunday.

“Come on you Irons!” Guardiola said at the end of his post-game news conference in reference to West Ham's nickname.

Haaland bundled the ball over the line in the 75th for City's second and his 50th of the season for his club and national team Norway.

Substitute Marmoush got the third in added time.

Jeers for Liverpool

The draw with Chelsea at Anfield saw Liverpool move a step closer to guaranteed Champions League qualification — fourth in the table with two rounds left — but another unconvincing performance sparked a frustrated reaction from the crowd.

There were boos at the final whistle to mark growing unrest from Liverpool supporters in a season that has seen the team tamely surrender the title despite spending around $570 million in the transfer market.

There has been speculation about the job of coach Arne Slot, who insists there will be improvements next term.

“This season they (fans) will have their opinion and it will not change, but if we can have the summer that we are planning to have I am 100% convinced we will be a different team next season," he said. "Different in terms of results, different in how things look."

Liverpool can make certain of a place in the Champions League with a victory at Aston Villa next Friday. But it could find itself in fifth place by the time that game kicks off.

Villa was fifth and would leapfrog Liverpool by beating relegated Burnley on Sunday. The top five automatically qualify for the Champions League and English clubs could get a sixth spot if Villa wins the Europa League and finishes outside the top four.

The draw allowed Chelsea to break its six-game losing streak. Enzo Fernandez's bouncing free kick went in before halftime to equalize after Ryan Gravenberch's early goal.

Liverpool twice went close to a winner in the second half when Dominik Szoboszlai and Virgil van Dijk hit the woodwork.

Unlikely Champions League contenders

Bournemouth and Brighton were still pushing for Champions League qualification after both recorded wins.

Sixth-placed Bournemouth won at Fulham 1-0 in a game in which both teams were reduced to 10 men.

Brighton was seventh and beat last-placed Wolverhampton 3-0.

A goal after 35 seconds for Jamie Hinshelwood was the fastest Brighton has ever recorded in the Premier League, according to stats provider Opta.

Man U misses players

Without injured striker Benjamin Sesko and Brazil midfielder Casemiro, United failed to find a breakthrough at Sunderland.

United managed just one shot on target in a dour match that could have ended in a Sunderland win when Lutsharel Geertruida hit the post late on.

Championship playoffs

Middlesbrough and Southampton drew 0-0 in the first leg of their Championship playoff semifinal.

Buildup to the match was dominated by allegations Southampton spied on Boro's training. The English Football League charged Southampton with a breach of its rules after Boro complained there was “unauthorized filming on private property” ahead of the game.

After the first leg Boro coach Kim Hellberg let his feelings be known, saying “someone has made a decision to cheat.”

He said he was angry and disappointed “because it’s a big game and you try to get advantage in an ugly way ... unfair way.”

The second leg is at Southampton on Tuesday.

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

But as of Thursday, they will no longer cast the same ballot despite living across the street from each other.

That’s because Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature redrew the congressional district of Memphis, which has long enjoyed its own Democratic-leaning U.S. House seat. Now, the city is split into three Republican-leaning districts, its majority-Black population sliced up and bound to mostly white, rural and conservative communities along lines that branch away from Fowler and Wilson’s East Memphis neighborhood.

A line runs down the middle of the street, placing Fowler in the 8th Congressional District, which runs hundreds of miles to central Tennessee across a dozen counties. Wilson is zoned for the 9th District, which extends across most of the state’s southern border before curving up to encompass the largely white and affluent Nashville suburbs.

“I think it’s horrible,” said Fowler, who is white. “This isn’t just going to be bad for Black folks in Memphis, but poor whites in these new districts also aren’t going to get services. How are any of these congressmen going to serve all these different counties?”

Part of a national redistricting competition

The redraw was sparked by a ruling from the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court that may be a death knell for congressional representation of majority-Black Southern communities such as Memphis.

For 60 years, a provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act required mapmakers to prove they were not discriminating against racial minorities in how they drew districts, often leading to political boundaries that allowed some minority communities to vote for their preferred representative rather than having their vote diluted by white majorities surrounding them.

The rule had the greatest effect in Southern states, where neighboring Black and white communities remain highly polarized in partisan politics.

On April 29, the justices severely weakened that requirement, ruling that the way courts had handled it improperly injected racial matters into redistricting in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Republicans across the South immediately leaped at the chance to redraw their maps before the November elections to eliminate as many Democratic-held, majority-minority congressional seats as possible.

Tennessee’s legislature was the first in a GOP-controlled state to finalize a new map. But it is one of several Southern states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina among them — engaged in a broader partisan redistricting competition sweeping the country.

Republicans have long complained that the Voting Rights Act prevented them from doing to Democratic, majority-Black districts what Democrats in states they control do to conservative-leaning, white and rural areas — scatter their voters for partisan gain. That is what Tennessee Republicans did in their initial congressional map in 2021 to the state’s other large reservoir of Democrats in Nashville, where they did not have to step gingerly because that city is majority white.

“Tennessee is a conservative state and our congressional delegation should reflect that,” said Republican state Sen. John Stevens, who shepherded the bill for a new map that made all nine congressional districts solidly Republican.

A ‘central place’ in pursuit of racial justice

Wilson, the Memphis musician who is Black, was less distraught by the carving up of his neighborhood for partisan purposes. He saw the move as just another trial facing the city after a surge of federal agents sent by President Donald Trump to combat crime and amid narratives about Memphis' safety from neighboring suburbs and Republican state lawmakers.

“It’s a hustling community. We’re going to make ends meet for our families,” Wilson said. “The legacy of Memphis is music and our civil rights history,” he said, adding the two were intertwined. “Hard times mean you’re going to try and find your gift. That’s what we do here; music in Memphis is a way of life.”

The Memphis district predates the Voting Rights Act. For at least a century, well before Congress acted to protect minority voting rights, Tennessee has believed it made sense for its metropolis on the Mississippi River to have its own U.S. House district. But since that law was passed in 1965, anyone who tried to split up the district for partisan gain could be sued and have the maps thrown out. Now, legal experts say that is not much of a risk.

Nonetheless, Democrats and civil rights groups are suing to block the map. The symbolism is especially sharp as the city is home to the National Civil Rights Museum, built around the motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. When the legislature passed the new maps, Democrats and protesters shouted “hands off Memphis!” and waved signs accusing Republicans of bringing back Jim Crow.

“Memphis is not just any city; it holds a central place in the national story of our quest for racial justice in this country and how, over time, we have increasingly achieved civil, voting, and economic rights for all Americans,” said Eric Holder, a former U.S. attorney general who chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Black citizens protested, marched and died there for the right to vote.”

Contentious relations with the rest of Tennessee

Memphis has faced dual stories in recent years. Billions of dollars in private investment and federal dollars have flooded into the area in recent years, but many local businesses still express concerns about a lagging regional economy.

Residents who spoke with The Associated Press expressed concerns about safety and public services but bristled at stereotypes about rampant crime. The twin stories are often on display in the river city, where pothole-filled streets run from empty storefronts to ornate mansion-filled neighborhoods and leafy college campuses only blocks away.

The city has long had a contentious relationship with the rest of the state, which voted for Trump in 2024 by a roughly 2-1 margin.

The conservative legislature in Nashville has clashed repeatedly with Memphis and accused its leaders of broad mismanagement. The legislature passed a law blocking many police overhaul efforts in Memphis that were put in place after the death of Tyre Nichols, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of city officers in 2023. It passed another measure seizing control of Memphis’ airport board and those of other cities across the state, and gave the state attorney general, also a Republican, the power to remove Memphis' elected district attorney.

“The state legislature is trying to take it over,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, the white Democrat who still represents the city in Congress until the new lines kick in after the midterms. “And that’s absurd. It was all partially because it’s a majority Black city.”

Black Tennesseans deprived of fair representation, expert says

Thomas Goodman, a politics and law professor at Rhodes College in Memphis, notes that the new congressional districts may lead to greater friction over who receives attention — and funding — from lawmakers. Memphis residents will soon share districts with Republican towns with starkly different economies, geographies and demographics. Whoever holds those congressional seats will have an incentive to pay attention to those voters and not to Memphis’ population.

“It would not only deprive Black Tennesseans of proper representation,” Goodman said. “These changes also break up the city of Memphis as an entity into multiple districts, thereby removing a dedicated agent in government who knows the people, who understands their concerns and can speak for them and deliver on behalf of their interests and desires.”

Chris Wiley’s house sits in what was, before this week, a quiet street in Midtown Memphis dotted with duplexes, tidy lawns and sports fields. Now his neighborhood is carved apart at the intersection of three congressional districts. That is not surprising, he said, because “Tennessee is all about the dollar” rather than residents.

“Memphis is majority Black, so if you mess with that, what’s the point of even voting in Tennessee?” said Wiley, a 29-year-old sports stadium worker who is Black. “Whatever the congressional numbers, whatever that is, we don’t count on the scale as high, anyway.”

____

Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and AP videojournalist Sophie Bates contributed to this report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign affairs adviser, both confirmed the agreement.

“I asked and, President Putin agreed. President Zelenskyy agreed -- both readily," Trump said on Friday as he departed the White House to attend a dinner at his Virginia golf club. "And we have a little period of time where they’re not going to be killing people. That’s very good.”

Trump had announced earlier in the day on social media that the ceasefire would run Saturday through Monday. Saturday is Victory Day in Russia, a holiday that commemorates the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

“I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote. “The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II.”

The Republican president said the ceasefire includes a suspension of all kinetic activity and the exchange of 1,000 prisoners by each country.

Russia had announced a ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, but it quickly unraveled, with both sides blaming the other for the continued fighting, just as they had when Ukraine’s own unilateral ceasefire had swiftly collapsed earlier in the week.

Trump said he made his request for the ceasefire “directly” to the two presidents. “Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War," he said.

Trump added that talks continue over ending the war that began in February 2022 “and we are getting closer and closer every day.” Trump has gone back and forth over whether the war will end, at times expressing optimism and at other times saying Russia and Ukraine should be left to fight it out to the bitter end.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the three-day ceasefire and prisoner exchange announcement, according to his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, and reiterated calls for an “unconditional and lasting ceasefire, as a first step toward a just, sustainable and comprehensive peace.”

Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s decision on how to engage with those discussions was shaped in part by the prospect of freeing its prisoners. Ukraine has made the return of prisoners of war a central demand throughout the conflict.

“Red Square matters less to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war who can be brought home,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Red Square is where Russia holds its traditional military parade to celebrate Victory Day, one of the biggest holidays of the year.

After releasing his statement, Zelenskyy issued a formal presidential decree “authorizing” Russia to hold the parade, declaring Red Square off-limits for Ukrainian strikes for the duration of the event. The framing of the decree appeared designed to underscore Kyiv’s claim that it holds effective targeting reach over the Russian capital, while publicly tying Ukrainian restraint to the ceasefire terms.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.”

“We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Zelenskyy said the deal for a ceasefire was reached through a U.S.-mediated process and thanked Trump and the American team for what he called effective diplomatic engagement. He said Ukraine expected Washington to hold Russia to the terms of the agreement.

“We are counting on the United States to ensure that Russia fulfills its commitments,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy said he had instructed his team to prepare everything necessary for the exchange without delay.

Trump's announcement came hours after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a much more somber tone about negotiations to halt Russia’s 4-year-old war in Ukraine, saying U.S. mediation efforts have not led to a “fruitful outcome” so far.

“While we’re prepared to play whatever role we can to bring it to a peaceful diplomatic resolution, unfortunately right now, those efforts have stagnated,” Rubio told reporters at the end of a visit to Rome and the Vatican. “But we always stand ready if those circumstances change.”

___

Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

In the midst of a hantavirus outbreak that involves Americans and is making headlines around the world, the U.S. government's top public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been uncharacteristically missing in action, according to a number of experts.

To President Donald Trump, "We seem to have things under very good control," as he told reporters Friday evening.

To experts, the situation aboard a cruise ship has not spiraled because, unlike COVID-19 or measles or the flu, hantavirus does not spread easily. It has been health experts in other countries, not the United States, who have been dealing primarily with the outbreak in the past week.

“The CDC is not even a player," said Lawrence Gostin, an international public health expert at Georgetown University. “I've never seen that before.”

Not until late Friday did CDC actions accelerate.

Health officials confirmed the deployment of a team to Spain's Canary Islands, where the ship was expected to arrive early Sunday local time, to meet the Americans onboard. They said a second team will go to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska as part of a plan to evacuate American passengers from the ship to a University of Nebraska quarantine center for evaluation and monitoring. Also, the CDC issued its first health alert to U.S. doctors, advising them of the possibility of imported cases.

At their first briefing, held Saturday by telephone only for invited reporters, officials pledged to be transparent in updating the public but said the media could not cite the speakers by name under rules set by aides to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They did not directly answer a question about whether the American passengers could leave the university medical facility when they wanted.

The CDC's diminished role in this outbreak is an indicator the agency is no longer the force in international health or the protector of domestic health that it once was, some experts said.

The hantavirus outbreak is “a sentinel event” that speaks to “how well the country is prepared for a disease threat. And right now, I’m very sorry to say that we are not prepared,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

How the outbreak unfolded

Early last month, a 70-year-old Dutch man developed a feverish illness on a cruise ship traveling from Argentina to Antarctica and some islands in the South Atlantic. He died less than a week later. More people became sick, including the man's wife and a German woman, who both died.

Hantavirus was first identified as a cause of sickness of one of the cases on May 2. The World Health Organization swung into action and by Monday was calling it an outbreak. About two dozen Americans were on the ship, including about seven who disembarked last month and 17 who remained on board.

It's WHO taking center stage

For decades, the CDC partnered with the WHO in such situations. The CDC acted as a mainstay of any international investigation, providing staff and expertise to help unravel any outbreak mystery, develop ways to control it and communicate to the public what they should know and how they should worry.

Such actions were a large reason why the CDC developed a reputation as the world's premier public health agency.

But this time, the WHO has been center stage. It made the risk assessment that has told people the outbreak is not a pandemic threat.

“I don’t think this is a giant threat to the United States,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center. But how this situation has played out “just shows how empty and vapid the CDC is right now,” she said.

Tumult under Trump

The current situation comes after 16 tumultuous months during which the Trump administration withdrew from the WHO, has restricted CDC scientists from talking to international counterparts at times and embarked on a plan to build its own international public health network through one-on-one agreements with individual countries.

The administration has laid off thousands of CDC scientists and public health professionals, including members of the agency's ship sanitation program.

As this was playing out, Kennedy said he was working to “restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency.”

Waiting to hear from the CDC

The CDC has not been completely silent on hantavirus.

The agency on Wednesday issued a short statement that said the risk to the American public is “extremely low,” and described the U.S. government as “the world’s leader in global health security.”

Said Nuzzo: “Not only was that not helpful, it actually does damage because a core principle of public health communications is humility.”

The CDC's acting director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, posted a message on social media that the agency was lending its expertise in coordinating with other federal agencies and international authorities. Arizona officials this week said they learned from the CDC that one of the Americans who left the ship — a person with no symptoms and not considered contagious — had already returned to the state. WHO officials said the CDC has been sharing technical information.

The CDC also is “monitoring the health status and preparing medical support for all of the American passengers on the cruise,” Bhattacharya wrote.

But federal health officials have mostly been tight-lipped, declining interview requests. The first on-camera appearance by a CDC official came Saturday morning, when Bhattacharya appeared on a Fox News program and said, "My message to the American people is please don’t worry.” But he got some details wrong and overstated what was known about the outbreak.

He incorrectly said two passengers in their 80s had died after they had contracted the virus while bird-watching in Argentina. The travelers were a 70-year-old Dutch man and his 69-year-old wife and while Argentine health officials think it is possible they were infected during a bird-watching outing, it has not been established.

COVID-19 comparison

In interviews this week, some experts made a comparison with a 2020 incident involving the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship docked in Japan that became the setting of one of the first large COVID-19 outbreaks outside of China.

The CDC sent personnel to the port, helped evacuate American passengers, ran quarantines, shared genetic data on the virus, coordinated with the WHO and Japan, held public briefings and rapidly published reports “that became the world’s reference data on cruise ship COVID transmission,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former CDC director.

Some aspects of the international response to the Diamond Princess were criticized, and it did not halt the outbreak or stop COVID-19’s spread across the world. But some experts say it was not for the CDC's lack of trying.

“The CDC was right on top of it, very visible, very active in trying to manage and contain it,” Gostin said, while the agency's work now is delayed and subdued.

Instead of working with nearly all of the world's nations through the WHO, the Trump administration has pursued bilateral health agreements with individual nations for information sharing, public health support, and what it describes as “the introduction of innovative American technologies.” Roughly 30 agreements are currently in place.

That's not sufficient, Gostin said. “You can't possibly cover a global health crisis by doing one-on-one deals with countries here and there,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Ali Swenson in New York, Darlene Superville in Washington and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.

___

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.

• Texas Ethics Commission reviews complaint tied to Houston podcast spending

Council Members Edward Pollard, Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, and Tiffany Thomas have signed onto a council item scheduled for discussion next week that would repeal Section 18-37 of Houston’s Code of Ordinances.

Campaign finance records show Pollard loaned his campaign $1 million in 2025 at a 0% interest rate. Records also show Thomas contributed $214 in personal funds to her campaign, while Evans-Shabazz did not report contributing personal funds to hers.

• Houston controller criticized city spending, records show office request $4,000 couch

When KPRC 2 News asked Pollard’s office about the $1 million campaign loan, his office said it had no further comment.

The ordinance currently places caps on how much candidates can reimburse themselves using campaign contributions after personally loaning money to their campaigns.

Under the current city code:

• Mayoral candidates cannot repay themselves more than $75,000 from campaign contributions.
• Candidates for other citywide offices, including controller and at-large council seats, are capped at $15,000.
• District council candidates are limited to $5,000.

The ordinance also states the repayment limits apply whether the personal loans were made before or after the rule was adopted.

The proposal argues the ordinance is no longer legally sustainable following a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate.

In that case, the Supreme Court struck down a federal restriction that limited how much candidates could repay themselves with post-election campaign donations, ruling the restriction violated First Amendment protections.

Pollard said the proposal is intended to align Houston’s ordinance with federal constitutional guidance.

• Texas Ethics Commission reviews complaint tied to Houston podcast spending

“The Prop A item is about bringing Houston’s ordinance in line with federal law,” Pollard told us. “The U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that caps like this raise constitutional concerns and violate the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. Our goal is to make sure the City of Houston isn’t out of step with that guidance.”

KPRC 2 News requested comments from Evans-Shabazz and Thomas but did not receive a response.

The proposal is expected to be discussed during next week’s council meeting.

Another calls for court interventions by the Department of Justice on behalf of Amish parents fighting New York vaccine requirements and Catholic nuns challenging that state’s requirement that they accommodate hospice patients’ gender identities.

And the chair of the Religious Liberty Commission is calling for a federal hotline with this automated recording: “There is no separation of church and state.”

These are just some of the recommendations that members of the advisory panel formed by President Donald Trump last year want to see included in the commission’s final report.

That report is still in the works, but commissioners had an opportunity to describe their wish lists during their most recent meeting in April. There was little dissent as the commissioners, most drawn from Trump’s base of conservative Christian supporters, covered the items they want in the report.

Their ideas reflect the prevailing perspectives on the definition of religious liberty among many conservative Catholic and evangelical activists: increasing avenues for religious expression in public schools; expanding opportunities for faith-based organizations to receive public money; and allowing for religious-based exemptions in areas ranging from labor law to classroom lessons to healthcare mandates.

Such views have also been reflected in Supreme Court decisions issued in recent years by its conservative majority.

Commission criticized for narrow views

Critics of the commission say it embodies a one-sided perspective of Trump’s supporters and is threatening a well-established constitutional separation of church and state, despite the chair's claims.

A lawsuit by a progressive interreligious coalition argues that the commission fails to comply with federal law requiring advisory panels to feature diverse members and viewpoints.

The lawsuit echoes criticism that most commissioners are conservative Christian clerics and commentators; one is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. The coalition says members have asserted that America is specifically a Judeo-Christian or Christian nation and notes that most commission meetings took place at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, an institution with Christian leadership.

The Republican administration is asking a federal court to dismiss the lawsuit. The government is citing legal technicalities and contending the law does not define how a commission should be fairly balanced or whose viewpoints should be represented.

Another entity created by Trump — the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias — issued a report saying Christians faced discrimination under the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden in areas such as education, tax law and prosecution of anti-abortion protesters. Progressive groups said that report failed to document systemic discrimination, focused on causes favored by conservative Christians and amounted to advocacy rather than an investigation.

In a further interlocking of Trump-related initiatives, several members of the Religious Liberty Commission are scheduled to take part in a May 17 prayer event marking the country’s upcoming 250th birthday. Several also participated in a recent Bible-reading marathon staged largely at the Museum of the Bible.

Harmony and tension within the commission

The commission has mostly featured agreement among members, with one dramatic exception. One commissioner, Carrie Prejean Boller, was ousted in February after a contentious hearing on antisemitism.

Commission Chair Dan Patrick said Prejean Boller sought to “hijack” the hearing, in which she had sharp exchanges with witnesses about the definition of antisemitism and defended commentator Candace Owens, denying her record of antisemitic statements. Prejean Boller, a Catholic, contended she was wrongly ousted for expressing her beliefs.

In other hearings, witnesses described how they defied workplace regulations that they said conflicted with their conservative religious values on gender, abortion, COVID-19 vaccines and more. Some said they were prevented, at least temporarily, from displaying a religious symbol at work or trying to sing a Christian song at a school talent show.

At the hearing devoted to antisemitism, Jewish witnesses spoke of being harassed and threatened at campus pro-Palestinian protests against Israel. The commission has also heard from some Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and other witnesses.

Even so, critics said the commission mostly focused on conservative Christian and right-leaning political grievances.

The Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president of the progressive Interfaith Alliance, one of the groups suing over the commission’s composition, said the panel’s omissions are as significant as what it focuses on.

He said the commission has failed adequately to address such issues as anti-Muslim efforts in Texas and elsewhere, and also the rise of antisemitism on the right, not just the left.

Separation of church and state debate

Raushenbush said he is especially worried about the commission chair's challenging the very notion of church-state separation.

Patrick, a Republican who is the Texas lieutenant governor, repeatedly denounced a concept that is embedded in Supreme Court precedent.

“We need to say there is no separation of church and state,” Patrick said at the April meeting. “That’s a lie.” He suggested printing “a million bumper stickers” to that effect.

No one at the commission meeting disagreed.

Trump made similar comments at a prayer event at the White House in 2025. “They say separation between church and state,” Trump said. “I said, all right, let’s forget about that for one time.”

While the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution, 20th-century decisions by the Supreme Court cited Thomas Jefferson's description of the First Amendment as creating “a wall of separation between church and state." The court applied the First Amendment's prohibition of any church “establishment” to the states in addition to the federal government, citing the 14th Amendment's ban on states denying citizens’ rights.

Courts have since wrestled with how to balance freedom of religion and freedom from government-sponsored religion.

Concerns touch on schools, vaccines, workplaces and more

Patrick has advocated for prayer and Ten Commandments postings in public schools.

“I don’t have any malice towards anyone that doesn’t believe in any type of faith,” Patrick told fellow commissioners. “That’s fine. That’s what America is about. But these organizations that are pushed by some ideology and pushed by someone’s bank account who wants to remove God from our country? We need to push back.”

On other issues, various commissioners called for requiring schools and workplaces to post notices of the rights of religious expression and exemptions.

Some called for restoring full pay and pension benefits for military service members who were discharged for refusing COVID-19 vaccines.

Bishop Robert Barron of the Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, called for enabling religious groups such as Catholic Charities to receive federal money without compromising on traditional church teachings about the family.

He also said Catholic immigrants in detention should have humane treatment and access to sacraments and that immigration agents should not disrupt worship services in enforcement actions. The administration last year eliminated a policy against immigration enforcement in sanctuaries, which other religious leaders said should not occur at any time.

Kelly Shackelford, president and chief executive officer of the legal organization First Liberty Institute, called for new requirements that governments pay all legal bills if they lose a religious liberty case. He said many individuals lack the money to challenge the government in court.

“That would be a huge shifting of power in favor of citizens,” he said.

___

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 Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said Major Crimes detectives arrested Jeremy Michael Buckner, 35, on Saturday in connection with the crash.

• MORE NEWS: Man accused of indecency with child in Montgomery County case tied to Pine Valley Middle School

Buckner is being held in the Montgomery County Jail and has been charged with collision involving injury or death, a second-degree felony, according to the sheriff’s office.

The investigation began May 7 when the Splendora Police Department responded to the 15000 block of U.S. Highway 59 for a report of a possible deceased man.

Officers and Montgomery County Hospital District personnel determined the man was dead at the scene. Early evidence led investigators to believe the death involved an auto-pedestrian crash, prompting Splendora police to request assistance from the sheriff’s office.

Detectives later identified the victim as Gary Belvin, and investigators said initial findings indicate Belvin was struck by a vehicle that fled the scene.

The sheriff’s office said detectives and crime scene investigators worked to gather evidence, identify the suspect and locate Buckner, leading to the arrest.

“I am incredibly proud to work alongside the dedicated men and women of our Major Crimes Unit. This case reflects the relentless commitment our detectives bring to every investigation. We will not rest until justice is served for victims and their families. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Belvin family as they grieve. We hope this arrest brings them a small amount of peace.”

Montgomery County Sheriff Wesley Doolittle

• Watch “Eat Like a Local with Chris Shepherd” Saturdays at 10 a.m. on KPRC and KPRC 2+

1) J.A.M Viet Kitchen (West Side / Westheimer)

Why it’s on the list: Shepherd says he found dishes at J.A.M Viet Kitchen he hadn’t seen since traveling in Vietnam—plus a Vietnamese-ingredient-driven bar program that’s not typical for most Vietnamese restaurants.

What he eats/drinks in the episode

• Egg coffee (cold version) — whipped egg yolk + sweetened condensed milk foam over Vietnamese coffee.
• Salted caramel coffee — heavy cream whip with powdered sugar + sea salt over the same coffee base.
• Egg coffee martini (espresso martini riff) — Vietnamese coffee + the egg/condensed milk element turned into a cocktail.
• Phở Bắc (pho-based cocktail) — tequila infused with skimmed pho fat for “all the flavors of pho” in drink form.

• Bánh tráng nướng — crispy, egg-seared rice paper “pizza” style snack with sausage; he calls out the quail eggs as the best part.
• Bánh căn — small skillet rice-flour pancakes (Central Vietnam-style), topped with seafood like crab, cuttlefish, shrimp.
• Bánh bột chiên — steamed rice cake with fried egg, Chinese sausage and a soy/vinegar element.
• Cơm tấm (“Saigon oi” broken rice platter) — pork chop + steamed pork cake + pork sausage, plus crispy/rendered bits and shredded pork skin; he mentions you can even add shrimp, bone marrow, or a tomahawk.
• Cao lầu — a Hoi An specialty with roasted pork, herbs, crunch, citrus, and distinctive noodles; Shepherd highlights the noodles’ chew and says to get it “as fast as you can.”

Shepherd’s quick “what to order” recap

• Bánh tráng nướng
• Bánh căn
• Cao lầu 
• Saigon oi / broken rice platter
• Finish with an egg coffee martini (and he also raves about the pho cocktail)

PREVIOUS EPISODE: Chris Shepherd shares two of his favorite Houston-area spots for a great meal with friends

2) Milton’s (Rice Village)

Why it’s on the list: If you want a “classic Italian-American dinner,” Shepherd calls Milton’s the place— especially for a certain comfort-food classic he can’t stop talking about.

What he orders

• Chicken Parmesan — the one he says he “dreams about,” praising the fry, seasoning, moist chicken, melted cheese, and sauce.

Extra notes he drops

• Pasta is made in-house.
• Great-value wine list.
• Cocktails are “fantastic.”
• Mentions Lee’s next door as a nearby spot to nightcap/pre-game.

3) Yiayia’s Greek Kitchen (Richmond)

Why it’s on the list: Shepherd frames YiaYia’s as a must for the “things I really love to go eat” portion of the lightning round—Greek food with a high-end approach, a big bar, and a deep Greek wine selection.

What he drinks

• YiaYia’s tonic — an herb-forward gin & tonic he says is perfectly balanced (with noticeable dill that doesn’t go too far).
• Kokkini Sunset — tequila + mezcal with a bell pepper cordial, named after Kokkini Beach outside Corfu.

What he eats

• Chicken souvlaki — air-chilled chicken thighs, finished with olive oil/garlic/shallots; served with tzatziki, grain salad, charred tomato. He says this is what other souvlaki “want to be.”
• Saganaki (tableside) — seared Kefalograviera (sheep’s milk cheese) flambéed with brandy and topped with a date/pear compote; served with house pita.

Extra notes he drops

• Mentions it’s relatively new and references the space’s prior identity (YiaYia Mary’s).
• Calls out 100+ Greek wines on the list.
• Encourages: get a reservation and go.

4) Tornado Burger (Stafford)

Why it’s on the list: A recommendation-driven stop—he says “Abbas told me” to get the spicy burger, and he’s here specifically for that.

What he orders

• Double Spicy Burger — patties ground with jalapeño, garlic, and onion so the heat/flavor is built in (not just chunks). He notes it’s not overly spicy, and you can add more jalapeños if you want.

Also mentioned (temptations)

• Cheesesteak (including the idea you can do it spicy).
• Onion strings (he sees them and has to get them).

5) Froberg’s Farm (Alvin) — for the fried pies

Why it’s on the list: This is the nostalgia/pilgrimage stop. Shepherd says when he was cooking at Brennan’s, they’d come down to Froberg’s Farm weekly for produce—and it was “mandatory” to come back with fried pies.

What he gets

• Fried pies — he rapid-fires flavors including lemon, pineapple, tart cherry, coconut, chocolate, buttermilk, strawberry, plus a “Sweet Caroline” flavor he describes like banana cream.

Why it works

• He ties it to seasonality and place: seeing strawberries growing nearby and then eating a strawberry fried pie made with preserves that aren’t “out of a big jug.”

The takeaway: a Houston-area hit list with zero rules

If you’re copying Shepherd’s exact “no theme” energy, do it like this:

1. Start with J.A.M Viet Kitchen for Vietnamese snacks + coffee/cocktails.
2. Go classic comfort at Milton’s with chicken parm.
3. Make it a night at Yiayia’s (cocktails + souvlaki + tableside cheese).
4. Detour to Stafford for the Tornado Burger spicy smash.
5. Finish with a drive to Alvin for Froberg Farms fried pies.

“Eat Like a Local with Chris Shepherd” is your guide to the best food in Houston. Watch new episodes Saturdays at 10 a.m. on KPRC 2.

Season 3 of “Eat Like a Local”

• SEASON 3, EPISODE 56: Season 3 of ‘Eat Like a Local’ launches with chefs recognized by the James Beard Awards
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 57: Beer + Bites: Discover two of the Houston-area’s best craft breweries
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 58: Hungry for a short trip? 4 flavorful restaurants to try in Baytown
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 59: Not your typical Chinese takeout! Houston’s regional Chinese restaurants serve up authenticity in every bite
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 60: From tortas to paletas: Generations of Mexican-American flavor in Houston
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 61: Farmed Fresh: Gulf Coast oysters make waves in Houston restaurants
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 62: Houston’s pizza scene is rising: Chris Shepherd explores top spots for every style
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 63: ‘Fine casual’ dining with killer cocktails | Go inside Brennan’s renovated courtyard bar in Houston
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 64: Houston eateries transform healthy dining with vibrant flavors and customizable meals everyone will love
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 65: These Greek family restaurants became Houston icons | Hear the stories behind Christie’s and Cleburne Cafeteria
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 66: Classic dishes are taken to new levels at these Houston restaurants | What to order at State of Grace & Credence
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 67: Discover Houston Asiatown’s unique snacks with Chris Shepherd
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 68: ‘Eat Like a Local’ explores Jūn’s cultural fusion and Latuli’s coastal cuisine in Houston
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 69: Chris Shepherd’s Houston-area burger picks include a hot new spot and a 50-year classic
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 70: MEET THE PITMASTERS 🔥 ‘Eat Like a Local’ gets to know the teams behind CorkScrew BBQ & Ray’s Real Pit BBQ Shack
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 71: Win the Hosting Game! 🏈 Game Day recipes & crowd-pleasers from Chef Chris Shepherd
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 72: These meat markets are a cut above when it comes to quality, flavor, and tradition
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 73: ‘Top Chef’ finalist says this spot has the best corn dogs at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 74: Houston coffee gems (Matcha lovers, this one’s for you)
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 75: Craving Cajun food in Houston? These restaurants deliver big variety and flavor
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 76: Where to eat in Houston’s Heights neighborhood | Chris Shepherd visits 3 top picks
• SEASON 3, EPISODE 77: Chris Shepherd shares two of his favorite Houston-area spots for a great meal with friends
• Watch seasons 1 & 2 of “Eat Like a Local with Chris Shepherd”

The slain hikers were among 20 who set out to ascend the 1,355-meter (4,445-foot) volcano in defiance of safety restrictions and became stranded when Dukono erupted early Friday, spewing a thick ash column that rose about 10 kilometers (6 miles) into the air.

The woman, identified by authorities only as Enjel and known as a local hiker, was located Saturday afternoon, about 50 meters (165 feet) from the rim of the main crater, said Iwan Ramdani, who heads local Search and Rescue Office. The location of the bodies of two Singaporean climbers remains unknown, and rescue teams are continuing operations amid high volcanic activity, he said.

“The rescue efforts went through a situation that required careful calculation and a well-planned evacuation strategy,” Ramdani said, “We took into account the potential escalation of volcanic activity as well as the safety of all personnel.”

Hours after the eruption, 17 climbers had been safely evacuated, including seven Singaporean nationals and two Indonesians who eventually joined the rescue operation and provided information on climbing routes of the victims before the eruption. Ten of those evacuated suffered minor burn injuries.

The search operation that involved more than 100 personnel supported by drones resumed early Saturday, focusing on a 700 square-meter (7,500 square-foot) area where clues were found during earlier searches, despite hazardous terrain and continuing eruptions, according to Ramdani.

He said rescuers were prioritizing safety because Dukono’s volcanic activity remains elevated.

“The main challenge in this search effort is that we are racing against ongoing eruptions,” Ramdani said in a video statement, “When the authorities declare conditions safe, we move closer to the crater area, but when an eruption occurs, we must immediately secure all search personnel from potential danger.”

Indonesia’s volcanology agency reported multiple eruptions from early Saturday through late morning, including ash columns rising as high as 3,000 meters (nearly 10,000 feet) above the crater. Lava bursts were also observed overnight from a monitoring post near the volcano.

Mount Dukono has been on the second-highest alert level status since 2008. Authorities enforced a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) exclusion zone around the active crater in December 2024.

Local authorities formally closed all hiking routes to Mount Dukono in April and reinforced the ban following Friday’s incident. The National Disaster Management Agency warned that entering restricted zones could result in legal sanctions.

The agency urged climbers and tour operators to comply with safety recommendations, noting that similar restrictions apply to dozens of other active volcanoes across the country currently at elevated alert levels.

Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 270 million people, sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is home to more than 120 active volcanoes.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said it obtained an arrest warrant May 7 for Garrett Cross after investigators looked into allegations from the period when Cross worked at Pine Valley Middle School in New Caney ISD.

Detectives later learned Cross is currently employed by Humble ISD. “District officials have since placed Cross on administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation,” the sheriff’s office said.

Cross turned himself in to the sheriff’s office May 8 and remains in custody at the Montgomery County Jail, according to authorities.

The case is being handled by the sheriff’s office Special Victims Unit in coordination with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office Public Integrity Division.

KPRC 2 News has reached out to Humble ISD and New Caney ISD for more information.

• MORE NEWS: Judge forfeits $1 million bond for capital murder suspect who fled to Italy before trial

Anyone with information — or who believes they may have been a victim — is asked to contact the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office at 936-538-5900.

Those wishing to remain anonymous can contact Multi-County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-392-7867.

HPD northeast officers were called around 10 p.m. last night to the Pemex gas station at 747 Kress Street.

Investigators said a father and son got into a verbal dispute that turned physical, and the son pulled out a gun and fired, striking his father. The number of times the father was shot was not immediately known; he was taken to a hospital in critical condition.

• MORE NEWS: Employee finds coworker dead inside Alief business with blunt force trauma; police investigating as homicide

The son, described as being in his late teens or early 20s, was taken into custody. Charges are pending further investigation and will be reviewed by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, police said.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults — and around half of those under 50 — get health information from social media or podcasts.

Researchers also looked at the social media profiles of 6,828 health and wellness influencers with at least 100,000 followers. Only about 4 in 10 list a background as a health professional. About one-third called themselves coaches, about 3 in 10 described themselves as entrepreneurs and about 1 in 10 cited their own life experience, like being a parent.

Despite the wide range of expertise, about half of people who get health and wellness information from influencers said the influencers help them better understand their own health, while about one-third said it hasn't made much difference. About 1 in 10 said it made them more confused.

Experts say a bit of skepticism is key to interacting with posts about fitness, mental health and personal health. Here are their tips on how to be a smarter consumer.

How to vet a health influencer's credentials

Experts said the biggest green flag is when an influencer's credentials are easy to find on their profile. Beware the fill-in-the-blank “coach” who can't prove their training.

Courtney Babilya, a certified medical exercise specialist and personal trainer who has more than 430,000 followers on Instagram, has seen this with maternity content: "Someone has a baby and suddenly they’re a pregnancy coach.”

“We have to be careful with people who have an experience in one thing and suddenly become a ‘coach’ on that,” she said.

Coach is a business model, not a sign of training. Babilya shares her own experience dealing with chronic illness online, but keeps it separate from her professional advice.

"You do have an obligation to make sure that you are not giving someone a false idea or spreading a message that isn’t going to be applicable to everyone," she said.

Don't fall for viral shock factor

If it brings up big emotions, pause. For people who can't access care or feel unheard by their doctors, an offbeat opinion could feel like a long-sought answer. The Pew survey found 53% of uninsured people got health information from social media, compared to 38% of those who were insured.

But people who are trying to share good medical information online are not trying to incite fear or surprise, said Dr. Fatima Daoud Yilmaz, an OB-GYN at Stony Brook Medicine in New York, whose popular “Feminine Aisle” video series rates drug store products.

Even if the person has expertise, ask yourself: Are they speaking outside the scope of their knowledge? Is what they're saying in line with scientific consensus?

“All opinions are not created equal when it comes to something such as health or medicine or science,” said Daoud.

Look out for exaggerated or definitive claims, especially in the first few seconds of the video when influencers are trying hard to grab your attention, added Babilya.

Ambivalent wording is a good sign, said Nedra Glover Tawwab, a practicing therapist and author. In her videos on boundaries and mental health, she couches with “maybe,” “sometimes,” “perhaps," rather than diagnosing her 1.8 million followers on Instagram.

If you feel like you've found a diagnosis online, that is your sign to seek out a professional, Tawwab said.

Follow the influencer money

People on social media are making money — for some, it is their livelihood.

“It doesn’t mean that all of the information that they put out is biased, but it should tell consumers of that information to take it with a grain of salt because they do have financial incentive to be pushing information like this,” Daoud said.

Babilya's platform is now a full-time job, and the way she helps support her family. Taking partnerships and brand deals was not an easy decision, but one that makes her work sustainable.

Babilya said she prioritizes being upfront with her audience and making sure her ads are transparently labeled.

Stop being a passive scroller

Experts also recommend pausing to check the video’s sources. Look for gold standard science. Some posts are not well fact-checked, Babilya warned, citing studies that have nothing to do with what the influencer says it does.

Use the same standard as when you’re vetting a purchase online. Look at the larger conversation around the advice as you would reading product reviews, Tawwab said.

Two-thirds of users said they just happen to come across the content rather than seeking it out, according to the Pew survey.

If you want to control your feed, it will take time and ongoing effort, said Ash Milton of the University of Minnesota, who studies how users navigate online mental health information.

“You have to work for it because the algorithm is designed to be passive consumption,” Milton said.

You can use “Hidden Words” on Instagram or “Not Interested” on TikTok to filter out certain content, though Milton notes TikTok might not know exactly what in the video you're not interested in. Use your own reaction as a barometer to limit content by asking yourself: Is the health information actually applicable and helpful to your life, or just relatable?

Find a doctor you trust

Confirm with a trusted health professional before acting on anything you see online.

Influencers can say anything while medical professionals are ethically and legally liable for your care, and “may face professional and personal consequences for the advice that they give you," Daoud said.

“Ultimately, talk to the medical provider who knows you,” she said.

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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 jury limited its action to countries under investigation by the International Criminal Court for human rights abuses, but some say the U.S. should have been included. British artist Anish Kapoor cited “the politics of hate and war and all that that’s been going on now for too long.”

Visitors to the Giardini and Arsenale venues will vote for the best national pavilion, from 100 participants, and best participant in the main curated show, “In Minor Keys,” in Eurovision style. The vote will be anonymous, and by email, the Biennale said Saturday. Winners will be announced closing day, Nov. 22.

Ahead of the opening, protesters objecting to Israel's participation clashed with police on Friday. Earlier in the week, feminist groups from Ukraine and Russia converged on the Russian Pavilion and Palestinians remembered artists killed in Gaza.

Some places to start:

Koyo Kouoh’s ‘In Minor Keys’

A towering red feathered sculpture with beaded embroidery greets visitors to the main curated show. Rooted in New Orleans Black Masking culture born from practices brought by enslaved Africans, the costume-like sculpture signals the show’s focus on minority perspectives.

The first African woman chosen to curate the main Biennale exhibition, the late Koyo Kouoh assembled 110 artists and artistic groups under a title meant to spotlight the overlooked, and five co-curators carried on her legacy after her death a year ago.

“She was someone who thought about making spaces for everyone to shine and we see it in her exhibition, we see it with ourselves,” said co-curator Marie Helene Pereira.

Britain's Lubaina Himid explores life as a newcomer

Lubaina Himid, a Turner Prize winner, explores what it is like to make a home in a new place in her exhibition titled “Predicting History: Testing Translation” for the British Pavilion, featuring brightly hued paintings of couples facing the dilemmas of newcomers.

In one, two architects are trying to decide where to build. “One of them is trying to decide, would we build a building here, that proves that we have contributed to the culture, and the other architect is saying ’No, no, no, no, no. Let’s build something that we can escape in tomorrow,” said Himid, who was born in Zanzibar and has spent more than 70 years in Great Britain.

The Vatican’s Mystic Garden

The Vatican is offering spiritual respite from the world’s turmoil in the Mystic Gardens of Discalced Carmelite order next to Venice’s main train station.

Participants walk among the vineyards and pass a pomegranate tree and beds of herbs, wearing headphones that pick up music by the 12th-Century abbess, mystic and composer, St. Hildegard of Bingen, reinterpreted by artists such as Brian Eno and Patti Smith.

“Music also helps us delve into ourselves and understand, to use a phrase by Hildegard, the symphony that God has placed in our lives,” said Rev. Ermanno Barucco, prior of the Carmelite order.

Austrian Pavilion uses effluent as an artistic medium

A naked woman hangs from a bell outside the Austrian Pavilion, a human clapper making the performance art by Florentina Holzinger one of the hottest appointments in the Giardini. Inside, a nude rider swirls around on a Jet Ski inside a tank — emblematic of Venice’s relegation as an over-touristed amusement park.

A naked woman breathes through a scuba mouthpiece in another huge tank filled with water that has been flushed from nearby toilets and filtered multiple times. The presentation is called “Seaworld Venice.”

Israel: a meditation on love and war

Inside Romanian-born artist Belu-Simion Fainaru's installation, water drips from suspended tubes into a pool, stopping in cycles for just 42 seconds, representing divine creative power in Jewish mysticism. Locks hung around the pavilion, like those placed by lovers on bridges around Europe, are engraved with the commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” in Hebrew, and the hopeful exhortation: “This too shall pass.”

“I am against boycott, I’m for dialogue, and that’s a political statement,” said Fainaru, who called the jury's exclusion of Israel a form of discrimination.

Art as a daily practice in the Estonian Pavilion

Estonian artist Merike Estna will work throughout the Biennale on a huge wall painting inside a community center gymnasium that was once a church — the space's layered history mirroring her practice of spilling paint to build deeply textured surfaces over time. The act of daily painting represents the undervalued quotidian work of women.

Curator Natalia Sielewicz likened it to “the everyday feminism of sustaining life, of sustaining our planet.''

But President Donald Trump might be interested in the role.

Shortly after the United States and Iran exchanged fire on Thursday, Trump made a quick jaunt to the National Mall to review the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that he ordered repainted a color he describes as “American flag blue.”

The project has been on his mind lately. During an hour-plus speech Monday to small-business owners, Trump spent about nine minutes talking about the paint job, detailing the granite floor and boasting that he whittled the renovation's cost to $1.9 million from what he said was an initial $350 million estimate.

Trump's next project might be East Potomac Park, home to an affordable, accessible public golf course with views of the Washington Monument.

The Republican president has talked of transforming it into a posh “U.S. Open-caliber course.” Signs were posted this week warning of a disruption and preservation advocates took the government to court as debris dumped there from the White House East Wing demolition tested positive for lead.

By late Friday, the nonprofit that operates the course said it would continue managing the space until the National Park Service begins a “historic restoration.”

Meanwhile, the White House told a planning agency that it would cost taxpayers at least $7.5 million to follow through on Trump's plan to paint the granite Eisenhower Executive Office Building white.

And that was just this week in Washington's extreme makeover.

All the president's projects

Over the past year, Trump has bulldozed the East Wing to make way for a ballroom. His name was added to the facades of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center, which he plans to close for a two-year renovation. His face adorns a banner at the Department of Justice's headquarters, among others. He is pushing for a triumphal arch near Arlington Cemetery and has closed parks, including Lafayette Square across from the White House, for a rehab.

Trump is guaranteeing himself a lasting imprint on a city where he won just 6.5% of the vote in 2024. He is flexing extraordinary executive power and offering fresh insight into how he spends his time, perhaps a president's most valuable asset.

As the Washington projects unfolded this week, the ceasefire in Iran was at risk of unraveling, motor club AAA said the average price of a gallon of gas surpassed $4.50 and elections provided new evidence of Democratic enthusiasm heading into the November elections.

“It's not a zero-sum game but obviously all presidents have limited amounts of capital they can use and limited amounts of attention that they have to give,” said presidential historian Julian Zelizer of Princeton University. “And he's deciding, in a moment of war, a moment of economic instability, that this is a priority.”

Trump rejects such concerns.

Asked at the Reflecting Pool why he was focused on the project given the U.S. military action in Iran, he said, “Our country is about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people. Not a filthy capital.”

Political considerations for Republicans

For Republicans defending slim congressional majorities, it is not so simple. Many would prefer to talk about policy accomplishments, including tax cuts, rather than multimillion-dollar Washington construction projects.

While few directly criticize Trump, there is an acknowledgment that the party needs to confront economic realities.

“A lot of Americans are very worried about the cost of living and we need to address it,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said recently.

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted in late April found that 52% percent of Americans oppose Trump’s planned arch. That includes about 6 in 10 independents. Some 51% of Republicans favor it.

Americans oppose the ballroom by a 2-to-1 margin, driven largely by Democrats and independents. About 2 in 10 Republicans oppose the project, according to the poll. The poll did not find a notable shift in support of the ballroom after a shooting at last month’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Trump has cited that incident in his push for a secure facility, something he did not mention when he initially ordered the demolition of the East Wing.

Trump is showing no sign of backing away from any of the projects. In a sign of the GOP's loyalty to him, Republican senators added $1 billion in White House security upgrades for the ballroom to an unrelated bill this week. Trump initially said taxpayer money would not be needed.

A dizzying pace of change in Washington

In a city where historic preservation is often sacred, the pace of change has been dizzying.

Rebecca Miller, the executive director of DC Preservation League, has spent 23 years at the organization, which sued to stop the golf course takeover and joined a coalition attempting to force the Kennedy Center to comply with preservation laws. She said her organization has worked with administrations of both parties and called the Trump moves “highly unusual.”

“One of the problems that we have right now is an administration that seems to think that it can just plow ahead without any input,” she said. “These assets are owned by the people of the United States. They're not anybody's personal portfolio.”

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said Trump is “laser-focused on lowering costs for working families, deporting illegal criminals, keeping our cities safe, beautifying our nation’s capital, and protecting our national security by ensuring Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon all at the same time.”

This is not the first time a White House has taken an interest in Washington's appearance.

During Lyndon Johnson's administration, first lady Lady Bird Johnson oversaw beautification efforts that included planting trees and flowers throughout the District of Columbia.

Her efforts were sometimes derided as distractions from other pressing issues, such as the Vietnam War. But she implemented them in coordination with local officials.

“Lady Bird Johnson was trying to bring out the natural beauty of Washington,” said Mark Updegrove, chairman of the LBJ Foundation and a presidential historian. “Donald Trump is trying to remake the nation's capital in his own image.”

Trump's assertion of power over Washington, including the continued deployment of National Guard troops, has animated the city's Democratic primary next month for key local offices, including mayor and delegate to Congress.

The first question at a forum for mayoral candidates this week focused on how to protect the Home Rule Act, the 1973 law that gave the city limited self-government. The candidates said they would stand up to Trump as needed, though one contender, Vincent Orange, noted that national Democrats had also failed the district.

“The two times that we had an opportunity at statehood, it was the Democrats who let us down," he said, referring to failed congressional attempts to make the city a state with full rights of representation.

In an interview, Janeese Lewis George, a D.C. Council member and top candidate in the mayor's race, said city officials need to do a better job of making their case in Congress for statehood. She said Trump's impact on the city is broader than the renovations, as she referred to the troop deployments as a “federal occupation” and noted the fallout from immigration enforcement activity and cuts to the federal workforce.

“The people of our city are afraid,” she said. “It's the mayor's job to really let the nation know that D.C. has uniquely been left vulnerable.”

Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican who often supported the city's autonomy when he was a congressman, said the renovations offer an “opportunity to bring some money into the city and spruce up stuff that you wouldn't have had otherwise.”

“But this is tough,” he said. “This is not a city that is in love with the president."

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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

“My players recognized their mistake, expressed their remorse and asked for forgiveness,” Arbeloa told reporters in Madrid on Saturday in his first public appearance since the fight.

“That is enough for me,” he said. “What I am not going to do is burn them on a pyre in a town square, because they don’t deserve that. It is time to turn the page."

The tussle by the two midfielders when Madrid practiced on Thursday ended with Valverde at the hospital to treat a head wound. Valverde said he had hit his head on a table, calling the incident “a meaningless fight.”

Madrid said both players apologized to one another the next day when they met with club officials investigating the incident. They also apologized to their teammates, coaching staff and fans.

The 15-time European champion, however, found the spat a serious enough breach of team discipline to slap the players with fines that bite even the bank account of a top soccer player.

Arbeloa said he was satisfied with how the club had handled the situation, while also adding that he had seen worse behavior in his playing career as a defender, which included Madrid, Liverpool, West Ham and Spain’s national team.

“I had a teammate that hit another with a golf club,” he said, without giving any more detail. “Situations like this have always happened, but I am not justifying them.”

During Arbeloa's playing days at Liverpool, teammates Craig Bellamy and John Arne Riise were involved in an incident in which Bellamy hit Riise with a golf club prior to a Champions League game at Barcelona in 2007.

Arbeloa’s harshest words were not for Valverde and Tchouaméni, but rather for whoever it was who told the media about the fight. It was first reported by Spanish sports daily Marca.

“That what happens in the changing room ends up being filtered (to the media) for me is a betrayal of Real Madrid,” he said. “These things must stay in the changing room.”

And now a trip to Camp Nou with everything to lose

Madrid is facing a second straight season without a major trophy, despite having France star Kylian Mbappé on the squad.

The 43-year-old Arbeloa has only been in charge since January when he was promoted from Madrid's reserve team to substitute the fired Xabi Alonso. It would be a major shock if he is not replaced after the season given the inconsistent play of his star-studded side.

Arbeloa now has the difficult task of rallying his players for a game at fierce rival Barcelona on Sunday. Only a win by Madrid can stop Barcelona from clinching a second straight La Liga title, and even then it would likely just delay a title celebration by Barcelona with the Catalan club 11 points ahead of Madrid with four games left.

“There is no doubt I have to take the responsibility for the fact that we have not risen to the challenge this season,” Arbeloa said. “It is clear that feelings of frustration and anger can push you into situations that you don’t desire. But now we must focus on (Sunday’s) game.”

Tchouaméni will be in Madrid's squad for the clasico, Arbeloa said, while Valverde is on medical leave recovering from his head injury.

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

"I grabbed three of them,” Baltimore Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said before a 4-3 loss to the Athletics.

Shakur was raised in New York and Baltimore before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s. He lived in Oakland, California, in the early 1990s, which made Friday's matchup between the Orioles and Athletics an appropriate time to honor the rap icon, who was killed in 1996. The familiar riff from “California Love” was played while the starting lineup for the A's — who left Oakland before last season — was being announced.

Albernaz mentioned “Pain” when asked his favorite Tupac song.

“This is back on — I'm dating myself — Napster or LimeWire, trying to download that,” Albernaz said.

He also said “All Eyez On Me” best encapsulates the current Baltimore team.

Everyone on the Orioles' active roster was born in 1989 or later, so it wasn't immedately clear if the players were familiar with Shakur's music.

“I hope so,” Albernaz said. “I probably should ask around about that.”

Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur, Tupac's sister, threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

The game drew 39,311 fans, the most for a Baltimore home game since opening day.

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

Ian Happ extended his on-base streak to 29 games, Michael Busch hit a three-run double and the Cubs clinched their second 10-game winning streak this year with a 7-1 victory over the Texas Rangers on Friday night.

It's the first time since 1935 that Chicago has had two 10-game winning streaks in a season. The only time the Cubs had more was in 1906 with four.

“That means you’re doing something that’s pretty rare, and I think we realize that,” manager Craig Counsell said.

The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers were the previous major league team with two 10-game winning streaks within the first 39 games of a season, according to Sportradar. They did it in their first 24 games.

“Baseball is a game of a ridiculous amount of stats and things to look up, so anytime you have to go that far back, it is obviously a good sign, especially on a positive like that,” Chicago second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “We're just going to keep it rolling.”

These Cubs have done it pretty quickly, too, with a pair of 10-game winning streaks by May 8.

“That’s a crazy sentence,” Hoerner said.

Milwaukee had two winning streaks of at least 10 games last season on the way to winning the NL Central title and finishing five games ahead of Chicago.

The Cubs have the best record in the majors at 27-12 and have won 20 of their last 23 games, with three consecutive losses separating those long win streaks.

“If you break it to small things, it’s just come and play a good game today, and we played a really good game today, a really well-rounded, well-pitched for sure, with some pressure a lot in a bunch of innings," Counsell said. "It's been the recipe for a lot of wins.”

When the Cubs had multiple 10-game winning streaks in 1935, their Hall of Fame catcher Gabby Hartnett was the NL MVP and Charlie Grimm the manager while winning 100 games. The only time they have done that since was their 2016 World Series championship year, when they won 103 games in the regular season.

“Two double-digit winning streaks in a season, that sounds pretty wild to me,” said Ben Brown, who threw four hitless innings in his first start this season after 12 relief appearances.

“That’s kudos to all the guys in the clubhouse, all the coaches, all the trainers, the sports staff,” he added. “That is some goosebumps to think about how talented this team is. It’s special to be a part of, it’s special to witness, it’s special to watch.”

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

The vessel is expected to arrive Sunday at the Spanish island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa, and passengers will be taken to a “completely isolated, cordoned-off area,” said the head of Spain's emergency services, Virginia Barcones.

Both the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to send planes to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ship.

While three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are known to be infected with hantavirus, cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions said Friday there were no people with symptoms of a possible infection on board the Dutch-flagged ship, the MV Hondius.

The World Health Organization considers the risk to the wider public from the outbreak as low.

On Friday, the WHO said a flight attendant on a plane briefly boarded by an infected cruise passenger has tested negative for hantavirus. Her possible infection had raised concerns about the virus’ potential transmissibility.

The flight attendant’s negative result should ease concerns among the public, said Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesman. “The risk remains absolutely low,” he said. “This is not a new COVID.”

Hantavirus is usually spread by the inhalation of contaminated rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Health authorities across four continents were tracking down and monitoring more than two dozen passengers who disembarked the ship before the deadly outbreak was detected. They were also scrambling to trace others who may have come into contact with them.

Passengers on the ship worry about how people will treat them

In interviews with The Associated Press, two Spanish passengers — speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears they’ll be ostracized once on land — said that despite the outbreak, their days aboard have passed with relative tranquility. Some people are bird-watching, and others are gathering in common areas to read or attend talks, while wearing masks and social distancing. Both passengers told AP they’re worried about how they’ll be treated in Spain and once home.

“We’re scared by all the news that’s coming out, by how people are going to receive us, by how people see us,” one said. “We’re just normal people. We’ve heard that this is a millionaires’ cruise, and it’s the complete opposite of reality. And we’re scared by this.”

Officials sought to reassure the public in the Canary Islands about possible exposure to the virus among the general population.

Once the ship reaches Tenerife, passengers will be evacuated in small boats to buses only after their repatriation flights are ready to take them, Spanish officials said Friday. Passengers will be transported in isolated and guarded vehicles, officials said, adding that the parts of the airport they travel through will be cordoned off.

Countries scramble to track passengers who disembarked

On April 24, nearly two weeks after the first passenger had died on board, more than two dozen people from at least 12 different countries left the ship without contact tracing, Dutch officials and the ship's operator said Thursday.

It wasn’t until May 2 that health authorities first confirmed hantavirus in a ship passenger, the WHO said.

The KLM flight attendant who tested negative for the virus was working on a flight headed from Johannesburg to Amsterdam on April 25, and had later fallen ill.

The cruise passenger briefly aboard that flight — a Dutch woman whose husband died on the ship — was too ill to stay on the international flight to Europe and was taken off the plane in Johannesburg, where she died.

The Dutch public health service is undertaking contact tracing on passengers who had contact with the ill woman before she left the plane.

On Friday, U.K. health authorities said a third British national who had been a passenger on the ship is suspected of being infected with hantavirus. The U.K. Health Security Agency said the person is on the island of Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory in the south Atlantic where the ship stopped in April. There was no word on the condition of the person.

Spanish health officials said Friday a woman in the southeastern Spanish province of Alicante has symptoms consistent with ‌a hantavirus infection and is being tested.

She was a passenger on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after traveling on the cruise ship, Secretary of ⁠State for Health Javier Padilla told reporters.

Two other Britons who were on the ship have been confirmed to have the virus. One is hospitalized in the Netherlands and the other in South Africa.

Authorities in South Africa are working to trace contacts of any passengers who previously got off the ship. They have focused mainly on an April 25 flight from the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic to Johannesburg, the day after some passengers disembarked on the island.

Some state officials across the U.S. said they are monitoring a small number of residents who were on the ship and already went home, as well as people who may have come into contact with ship passengers. None has symptoms.

Health officials in the US detail plans for American passengers

The U.S. agreed to send a plane to repatriate about 17 Americans who are still on the ship. Those passengers will be quarantined at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine, the hospital said Friday. None have symptoms.

Doctors will determine how long the quarantine will last after assessing the passengers.

The dedicated biocontainment and quarantine unit in Omaha previously was used to treat Ebola patients and some of the first COVID-19 patients. Nebraska Medicine is one of a handful of hospitals in the U.S. with specialized treatment units for people with highly dangerous infectious diseases.

“We are prepared for situations exactly like this,” Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement.

The British government said it will charter a plane to evacuate the nearly two dozen British nationals onboard.

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Associated Press writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, Stefanie Dazio in Berlin, David Biller in Rome and Molly Quell in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

The data were released just days ahead of a planned meeting next week between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.

That beat analysts’ estimates and was a significant improvement from March’s 2.5% year-on-year expansion. Exports to the U.S. rose 11.3% from the year before, up from a 26.5% drop in March.

Imports climbed 25.3%, slower than the 27.8% growth in March but still robust.

The Trump-Xi summit comes at a time when relations are beset by multiple issues, with efforts to end the war in Iran eclipsing the usual sources of friction.

“We’re expecting that overall external demand will remain a solid driver of growth this year,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at Dutch bank ING, likely led by China’s exports of semiconductors and autos.

In March, Chinese leaders set an annual economic growth target of 4.5% to 5%, slightly lower than last year’s 5% expansion and the lowest target since 1991. Export growth is expected to continue to power its wider economy, especially as shipments increased from China to Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa over the past months.

China’s exports to the U.S. have fallen for most of the months since Trump imposed steeper tariffs and harsher controls on sharing of technology after he took office last year. But trade with the U.S. is likely improving this year, said Song, particularly because of the base effects of sharp declines caused by Trump’s tariff hikes in 2025.

Apart from efforts to broker a peace agreement to end the Iran war, trade and export controls, including rare earths and U.S. tech restrictions on China, will likely be on the agenda during the Trump-Xi summit, following a yearlong U.S.-China trade truce reached late last year when the two leaders last met in South Korea.

Major breakthroughs on export controls are unlikely, but the leaders’ upcoming meeting may bring “incremental” steps to troubleshoot trade friction, HSBC economists said in a recent research note.

“On balance, China looks to have more leverage,” wrote Leah Fahy, senior China economist of Capital Economics, in a note. “But higher tariffs haven’t stopped China’s exports from continuing to surge over the past year, and Beijing has showed that it is prepared to wait out U.S. pressure.”

For China, oil and fuel price hikes caused by the war in Iran are also feeding higher manufacturing and logistics costs across its many factories, said Wei Li, head of multi-asset investments at BNP Paribas Securities (China), while higher global inflation could dampen consumer purchasing power in China’s overseas markets.

Still, China’s overall economy has remained resilient compared with other countries, owing to its large oil reserves and more diversified energy sources.

ING’s Song said China’s trade surplus, which reached an all-time high of almost $1.2 trillion last year, could narrow for the whole of this year. Imports so far have been stronger in 2026, though China is still recovering from a prolonged property slump that has dragged on consumption and investment.

Shea Theodore had a goal and an assist and Brayden McNabb scored a short-handed goal as the Golden Knights stormed to a 5-0 lead after two periods, silencing a sellout crowd in Orange County and erasing memories of their rough offensive outing in Game 2.

“Our desperation level definitely got higher,” Marner said. “I just like the way that we came out and started. The first 10 minutes really, we just played our game and got to it, and that's something we were missing the first two games.”

Carter Hart made 30 saves as Vegas moved halfway to the Western Conference finals while sending the upstart Ducks to the worst loss of their first postseason in eight years.

Game 4 is Sunday night in Anaheim.

Marner got his natural hat trick in the first two periods, giving him six goals in the past four games of his first playoff run with his new team. The longtime Maple Leafs forward delivered Vegas’ first four-point playoff performance since 2019 and prompted a few hats to be thrown onto the ice when he slipped his third goal under Ville Husso with 2:04 left in the second.

“I think (Marner) is very confident in what he brings," Vegas coach John Tortorella said. "People give him (grief) all the time about playoffs, and this and that, and I don’t think it bothers him a lick. He just plays. He’s a hockey player, and I’m glad he’s doing some things for us.”

Marner's three goals were more than he scored in last spring's entire 13-game playoff run with Toronto, where the Ontario native frequently got criticism for not delivering in the postseason.

“It's always nice to try to contribute, but at the end of the day, you just want to win games,” Marner said. “There's been a lot of different moments so far in this playoffs that people have stepped up and made big plays. Tonight, (there were) a lot of great plays by people around me to set me up in a spot where I could succeed.”

Beckett Sennecke and Chris Kreider scored in the third period for the Ducks, who got embarrassed in their team’s first home game in the second round since 2017. Kreider's goal was the 50th of his playoff career.

“I thought they played well, but I don't think we brought our best,” Ducks forward Alex Killorn said. “Maybe a little bit comfortable, in all honesty. They're a great team. We just have to have a little bit of a better start and effort.”

Lukas Dostal gave up three goals on eight shots in a rough first period before Husso replaced him. Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville said he wasn't sure whether Dostal would start Game 4.

“They were desperate. They were hungrier,” Quenneville said after his team’s first home playoff loss of the spring. “I think there’s a lesson to take out of today’s game, and it’s only going to get harder every single game. ... They play like they’re an experienced bunch and they know what is necessary as you progress in a series. They got our attention.”

Vegas captain Mark Stone didn't play in the third period after apparently incurring a lower-body injury in the first period. Tortorella declined to give details.

Theodore, Anaheim's first-round draft pick in 2013, put Vegas ahead 66 seconds after the opening faceoff with his 20th postseason goal.

The 35-year-old McNabb then scored the third short-handed goal of his 14-year NHL career, and Marner capped the Knights' stellar first period with his fourth playoff goal on a power play. Marner tapped in a pass from Theodore midway through the second.

Brett Howden put his sixth playoff goal into an empty net with 1:56 left.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL

Wembanyama went 13 of 18 from the floor and 10 of 12 from the line, adding five blocks and a full night of paint deterrence as the Spurs won their second straight game after dropping the opener at home.

“It was like holding the ship together. We had a lead. We didn’t need to rush. We needed to be consistent,” Wembanyama said.

De'Aaron Fox scored 17 points, and Stephon Castle had 13 points and 12 assists with a team-high plus-17 rating.

Anthony Edwards had 32 points and 14 rebounds and Naz Reid added 18 points and nine rebounds for the Wolves, whose defense kept them alive after a woeful start but allowed the Spurs to shoot 6 for 10 from 3-point range in the pivotal third quarter.

Minnesota will host Game 4 on Sunday night. The series shifts back to San Antonio for Game 5 on Tuesday.

Jaden McDaniels drew Wembanyama's fifth foul with 6:18 left and brought the Wolves within 99-98 on pair of free throws, but the Spurs never trailed in the second half despite never leading by double digits. Wembanyama sat for about a minute before coach Mitch Johnson sent him back in.

“We were going to not leave any bullets in the chamber in terms of keeping him on the bench," Johnson said. "We were going to play him, and then if he fouled out, we deal with that.”

Wembanyama didn't flinch despite the foul risk, finishing with 16 points in the fourth quarter. His 3-pointer that answered Reid's pushed San Antonio's lead to six with 3:06 to go. Reid tried another one near the end of the shot clock on the next possession that hit the rim and Wembanyama snagged for another rebound.

Edwards, who showed Minnesota yet again his swift healing ability by returning from a deep bone bruise in his hyperextended left knee after just one week to make the start of the series, had 22 points in the first half to help them snap back from an early 18-3 deficit.

“He needed that. We needed that,” coach Chris Finch said. “He’s battling back to find a game like this, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the result that went along with it.”

The Wolves missed their first 12 shots and didn't get a basket to go down until Rudy Gobert's putback with 6:52 had elapsed, but unlike in the 133-95 drubbing they took in Game 2 on Wednesday they had the defensive intelligence and tenacity at the ready to make up for the long shooting lulls.

Edwards hit a buzzer-beating 31-footer at the end of the first quarter, and McDaniels swished a 3-pointer from the wing to end the first half with a 51-all tie.

McDaniels and Julius Randle were the most affected by Wembanyama's presence, unable to get their short-range and rim-attacking game going. They shot a combined 8 for 34 from the floor.

“I went in the locker room and told the guys we had a bunch of great looks,” Edwards said. “If we make our shots, we win this game.”

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McDonald was determined to make his first NFL practice count during the Texans’ three-day rookie minicaamp, and establish a gold standard.

It was obvious how much McDonald is putting into his rookie season. And the former Ohio State consensus All-American defensive tackle, the Big Ten Conference Defensive Lineman of the Year, should bolster the top-ranked defense in the league.

Once projected as a first-round draft pick and selected in the second round with the 36th overall selection, McDonald has set his ambitions on the kind of banner first season that would make history.

“Win a Super Bowl, Rookie of the Year, All-Pro first year,” McDonald said in response to a question from KPRC 2 on his goal-setting. “These are realistic for me. I wrote those down and I’m blessed to be here and I’ve got a chance.”

McDonald doesn’t shy away from high expectations.

After meeting formally with the Texans at the NFL scouting combine, he visited them along with the New England Patriots, Baltimore Ravens, Miami Dolphins, Washington Commanders, Chicago Bears and the Cincinnati Bengals. McDonald had a special feeling about the Texans throughout the draft process.

“Yes, sir. I thought it all the way through,” McDonald said. “Texans, they made it clear who the best defensive tackle was. It’s a blessing to be here. I’m ready for the opportunity.”

The Texans needed a young, athletic defensive tackle to work in tandem with Sheldon Rankins, Tommy Togiai and Logan Hall and play inside opposite Pro Bowl defensive ends Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter.

McDonald, a Texarkana native who grew up in Suwanee, Georgia, provides a dominant inside presence at 6-foot-2 1/8, 326 pounds and operates with outstanding leverage and pad level. The first-team All-Big Ten Conference selection recorded 65 tackles last season for the Buckeyes with three sacks, two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.

Yes, McDonald rivaled his Buckeyes teammates, Washington Commanders first-round linebacker Sonny Styles and Dallas Cowboys safety Caleb Downs, for the first hit throughout the season. He was simply that active.

“What I like about Kayden and his tape at Ohio State is the physicality, it shows up,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. “When he’s across the line from an offensive lineman, no matter who it was, he was knocking those guys back in the backfield. That translates to Houston Texans defense.

“We want to knock guys back. He does that. He’s still a very young player who has so much room to grow, so much room to ascend. It starts right here today. You see him in his individual drills. He has the power. We can win with that type of power.”

And confidence, too.

McDonald has stated multiple times he’s the best defensive tackle in the draft. The fact that he wasn’t the first defensive lineman selected bothers him to this day. And it provides significant motivational fuel.

“Being blessed, staying in the moment,” McDonald said. “You can’t take this for granted. I’m walking out here today, and it’s like: ‘This is your first day in the NFL.’ It’s not a game no more. It’s a job, and you got to take it serious. ..

“Just getting out there with my teammates for rookie minicamp. We’ve all got energy and enthusiasm. It’s a great opportunity. At the end of the day, we want to get to L.A. and win a Super Bowl.”

The way that McDonald can complement the pass rushers and edge-setters that headline the Texans’ front seven and keep blocks off of Pro Bowl middle linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair can make him a tone-setter for defensive line coach-run game coordinator Rod Wright.

“He’s one of the best in the league, he wants everything his way and we’ve got to follow that,” McDonald said. “You’ve got to stay on that $50 million, $40 million line. You’ve got Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter, those are two All-Pro guys. You just follow that plan and all things are going to work out.”

McDonald was in the green room during the first round of the draft. When he got passed over, McDonald was convinced by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to return for the second night of the draft. That led up to an emotional moment where McDonald got the life-changing call from the Texans after they traded up two spots to land him.

“Roger, he told me I’m going to be a special guy,” McDonald said. “He got a lot of respect for me and I’ve got a lot of respect for him. It meant a lot to me to come back on Day 2 and walk that stage.”

McDonald is already making fast friends with Anderson and is happy to reunite with former Ohio State players like quarterback C.J. Stroud and tight end Cade Stover. McDonald met Anderson at the Rockets’ playoff game against the Los Angeles Lakers.

“My teammates, it’s like a brotherhood here,” McDonald said. “Staff, training staff, even the dieticians, people that cook the food, it’s been a warm welcome.

“Got to help out the defensive ends, get them to second-and-long, get them to third-and-long, let Will and Danielle Hunter and all the other guys get off the edge. It’s going to work out. Three-and-out, get off the field, give it back to C.J. and go score.”

The Texans’ defense, under the leadership of coach DeMeco Ryans and defensive coordinator Matt Burke is formidable.

“It’s going to be tough to score on us,” McDonald said. “We already got the pieces on defense. Adding me, it’s gonna be special.”

The Texans traded the 38th overall pick and 117th overall selection of the fourth round in exchange for the Raiders’ original 36th overall pick and the 91st overall selection in the third round.

“We felt McDonald was probably the best run defender in the draft,” Texans general manager Nick Caserio said. “Matt Patricia did a really good job with him, got the most out of him. He’ll be a good fit for our program. We like the player. The player falls, we can’t control any of that.

“We brought him in the building, had a good visit with him. Did a lot of work on him. We felt like he was the best run-stopping defensive tackle in the draft. So, let’s add him to the team.”

One of the top defensive players in the draft, McDonald is determined to prove the Texans made a great decision to pick him.

“Everybody that went before me, that’s what fuels me,” McDonald said. “There’s not one player better than me in this class. I’m gonna show it.”

TRYOUT CENTRAL

The Texans worked out multiple players during their rookie minicamp, including former University of Houston quarterback Clayton Tune.

Tune has played for the Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers.

The Texans also worked out Connecticut kicker Chris Freeman, Texas A&M long snapper Jacob Graham, a Memorial High graduate, Connecticut tight end Louis Hansen, Washington quarterback Kai Horton, former Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers and Northwestern running back Evan Hull, Lenoir-Rhyne defensive tackle ANdre Jefferson and Marshall wide receiver Demarcus Lacey.

Rookie running back Jordan Whittington, an undrafted player from Oregon, participated in the drills despite not being fully recovered from offseason toe surgery, per a league source.

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

Embiid — as he has done throughout his career — resolutely returned to the floor, this time with a sprained right ankle and a sore right hip that cost him one game to try and make the Eastern Conference semifinals with the New York Knicks into a competitive series.

Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George all fell short in crunch time with the series back at home.

Embiid scored 18 points and was the only one of the Sixers' vaunted Big Three to shoot a free throw while Jalen Brunson led the Knicks to a 108-94 win on Friday night for a 3-0 series lead.

Game 4 is Sunday in Philadelphia.

The 76ers went 13 of 16 from the line while the Knicks made 23 of 32, the kind of discrepancy that opened some eyes in the locker room. Maxey, George and their combined $400-plus million contracts failed to get to the line. Embiid was just 4 of 6.

“I guess it’s good when New York wins,” Embiid said.

Embiid struggled through a short night in the Knicks’ 137-98 romp in Game 1, scoring 14 points on 3-for-11 shooting before the starters were benched with the game out of reach.

Embiid had been listed as probable to play in that game and the Knicks repeatedly took advantage of his lack of mobility to create open shots.

He had been expected to play Game 2 but was ruled out hours beforehand.

Embiid had an appendectomy late in the regular season. He returned during Game 4 of Philadelphia’s first-round series against Boston and helped the 76ers overcome a 3-1 deficit to eliminate the Celtics.

Embiid and the Sixers have a more treacherous path as they try to win four straight games against the Knicks.

“We can't back down,” Embiid said. “You know, 3-1, this is tougher. Just going with the understanding we can't get it all back in one game. One win, focus on the next one, win the next one, that should be the mentality. That's the mentality we had last week.”

As for his plea that Sixers fans keep their tickets and refuse to sell them on the open market, Embiid said he was too focused on trying to win the game, rather than pay attention to a decidedly split fan group until the waning moments, when “Let's go Knicks!” chants boomed throughout the arena.

“I wasn't really paying attention,” Embiid said.

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Game 4 is Sunday in Philadelphia.

Brunson shook off a 2-of-8 start from the floor and finished 11 of 22 in 38 minutes to send the Knicks to their sixth straight postseason victory.

“I'm Linus. Jalen's my blanket,” first-year Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “He helps me relax at a lot of different times during the course of the game."

With 2016 and 2018 Villanova national championship banners hanging in the rafters, the so-called Nova Knicks all took turns taking the fight out of the Sixers in the fourth quarter, turning a four-point lead into another double-digit victory.

Josh Hart had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Mikal Bridges added 23 points, pushing the Knicks within one victory of their second straight conference finals appearance.

When Brown took the job after Tom Thibodeau was fired, the veteran coach said he wouldn't know what kind of team he really had until he got “into the trenches with them.”

Brown now sees the makings of a championship team.

“Yeah, OK, we might have a chance at this,” he said.

The Knicks have the luxury not to rush back forward OG Anunoby, who's averaging 21.4 points per game in the postseason. He sat out with a strained right hamstring and remains day to day.

Joel Embiid scored 18 points for the Sixers in his return after he missed Game 2 with a sprained right ankle and a sore right hip.

"I thought he gave us everything he could," coach Nick Nurse said.

Embiid's return from an appendectomy helped spur the Sixers' rally from a 3-1 deficit in the opening round to stun the Celtics.

Beating the Knicks four straight times — including twice in New York — seems like a much harder hill to climb for Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and the Sixers.

Kelly Oubre Jr. scored 22 points and Maxey added 17. Paul George scored 15 points in the first quarter, then went scoreless and missed all nine shots the rest of the game as the Sixers blew a 12-point lead.

George and Maxey each failed to shoot a single free throw.

The 76ers went 13 of 16 from the line while the Knicks made 23 of 32.

“I guess it's good when New York wins,” Embiid said.

The 76ers gamely tried to make it a series. Quintin Grimes hit his first two 3s of the game early in the fourth to trim the lead to 88-84.

The familiar faces in Philly — Brunson, Hart and Bridges all played for Villanova — seized control of the game.

Hart and Bridges made consecutive baskets that pushed the lead to 92-84. Brunson, the stone-cold shooter built for these moments, buried a 3 from the top of the arc that made it 95-86 during a 9-0 Knicks run, to the delight of the visiting fans.

Embiid openly pleaded with fans ahead of the series not to sell their tickets to New Yorkers.

Celebrity Row regulars at Madison Square Garden, Spike Lee, Timothée Chalamet, Tracy Morgan and Ben Stiller all made the trip to Philadelphia, along with thousands of less famous Knicks fans — and the split crowd erupted in cheers, boos and the occasional middle finger on just about every basket.

Chalamet rose from his seat and applauded when Landry Shamet buried a late 3 in the third that stretched the lead to 85-76. Shamet had 14 points this entire postseason before he scored 15 in Game 3.

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The Marlins sure hope that will become a new norm for their No. 2 pitching prospect, who made his MLB debut Friday against the Washington Nationals after being called up from Triple-A Jacksonville.

“It's pretty surreal,” Snelling said in Miami's clubhouse Thursday before walking over to the dugout where fans yelled for his signature. “Still trying to just kind of soak it in and get acclimated with all the guys again that I was around in spring and really take it all in and not let the moment get too big.”

Snelling gave up three runs and six hits over five innings in a 3-2 loss Friday night. He also walked four and struck out two.

“I don’t think there’s any way that you can really prepare yourself for something you haven’t even experienced," Snelling said. “A lot of adrenaline, a lot of emotions out on the mound. I did my best to not let that show externally.”

Washington scored three against Snelling in the first on CJ Abrams' RBI single and Jacob Young's two-run homer to left.

“Obviously, having runners on base as much as I did tonight, it’s not what starting pitchers want," Snelling said. "But being able to continue to attack the zone every hitter that stepped to the box, I’m proud of myself about that.”

The 23-year-old was acquired by Miami from San Diego for reliever Tanner Scott in July 2024. Snelling ascended through the Marlins farm system and became the organization’s second-rated pitching prospect before the club promoted him from Triple-A Jacksonville.

Snelling did not make the Marlins' opening-day roster despite impressing coaches during spring training. He called that both frustrating and motivating.

“I was upset and not necessarily at anybody in general,” Snelling said. "Just being told that you’re not going to get to do what you really had wanted to do as early as you wanted to do is a tough pill to swallow.

“But then you kind of come back down to earth and realize, ‘Alright, what do I need to do to get to that point where I want to be?’”

So he worked on lowering his walks, in part by improving his first-pitch strike rate. In six starts with Triple-A Jacksonville this season, Snelling went 3-1 with the second-best ERA (1.86) among qualified pitchers. He walked more than three batters only twice in those six starts.

“For him to really navigate himself through five – not maybe the cleanest innings – he really grinded," said Marlins manager Clayton McCullough. "He showed a lot of moxie today.”

A spot opened up in the Marlins' rotation after struggling pitcher Chris Paddack was designated for assignment on Tuesday.

There were other experienced options Miami could have inserted there but Snelling's recent performance showed the team he was ready for the opportunity.

“Coming into it we were certainly very high on Robby," McCullough said. “He performed incredibly well last year. This spring, he came into it in competition potentially for a spot in our rotation. Robby’s done well down there and continued to perform.”

The Jumbo Shrimp were coming off a walk-off win on Wednesday when Snelling got the news he was called up. He was summoned to manager David Carpenter's office afterward, where he was praised for his focus throughout the week with the uncertainty on whether his major league shot would come.

“I was like, 'Man, it’s really hard to keep my sanity knowing that potentially it was an option for me to go up,’” Snelling recalled telling Carpenter, who responded with a rather nonchalant question.

“He’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re still good to go on Friday right?'” Carpenter said, referring to Snelling's scheduled Triple-A start. "I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, 'Well, you’re going to be throwing in Miami.'"

Snelling described the past couple of days as a sort of reunion with players he became close with during the spring, including catcher Joe Mack, another highly-rated prospect who was called up this week. Mack scored the winning run on a throwing error in the ninth inning of the Marlins' win over Baltimore on Thursday.

It has also made Snelling grateful for the journey that brought him here.

“It was always fun competing with those guys (in the minors)," he said. “It didn’t really matter where I was in my mind. Obviously this is the goal — being up here and staying up here is the goal.”

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AP freelance writer Santos Perez contributed to this report.

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

Mike Matheson, Alexandre Carrier and Nick Suzuki, with an empty-netter, also scored for the Canadiens. Rookie goalie Jakub Dobes made 27 saves, and Montreal extended its trend of alternating wins and losses after doing so in a seven-game first-round series win over Tampa Bay.

Montreal advanced to the second round on Newhook's game-winner 11:07 into the third period of a 2-1 series-clinching win on Sunday. Meantime, the Canadiens' top offensive threats continue to struggle. Cole Caufield extended his point drought to five games, while Juraj Slafkovsky has one assist in his past eight outings.

“I think as a group we knew we needed a big effort tonight, a bounce-back, a bounce-forward game,” said Newhook, who gave the team a pregame boost with an energetic reading of the starting lineup. “When you get the lineup read you just try to supply some energy there early and just try and carry that into the game.”

Zach Benson scored for Buffalo, but Alex Lyon allowed four goals on 27 shots. He previously allowed seven goals in six-plus appearances since replacing Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who was was pulled after two periods in a 4-2 loss to Boston in Game 2 of their first-round series.

The series shifts to Montreal for Game 3 on Sunday night.

It’ll be the Canadiens' first trip home after being on the road since traveling to Tampa Bay last weekend. The team stayed in Florida for two days before flying directly to Buffalo on Tuesday.

The Sabres dropped to 2-3 at home this postseason, but they won all three games — including the Game 6 series clincher — at Boston.

After falling behind 2-0 in the first period of Game 1, Montreal flipped the script.

Peyton Krebs’ turnover in Buffalo’s zone led to Newhook scoring at 1:36 by sneaking a shot under Lyon’s blocker arm. Matheson scored 2:51 later by floating in a shot from the left point that beat Lyon over his right shoulder.

“Awful game. Not acceptable,” Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin said. “They wanted to compete the first 10 (minutes), and then that’s what kind of set the tone for the whole game. It’s hard to come back, especially in the playoffs, when an opponent is up two. So, can’t happen.”

Dobes said the difference between Games 1 and 2 was the Canadiens' ability to adjust to a much faster opponent in Buffalo after a grueling, tight-checking series against the defensive-minded Lightning.

“You play Game 7, I feel like we didn’t have much chance to prepare and kind of settle everything together and reset our minds,” he said. “I feel like we adjusted today really well. And yeah, I feel we catch a breath in the series. And I feel that we are ready to play our hockey and compete against the team for the rest of the series.”

Buffalo’s power play came up empty on five chances after going 2 for 3 in Game 1. The Sabres have converted just three of 32 power-play opportunities this postseason.

Newhook’s second goal, scored 4:47 into the second period, came four seconds after the Sabres' power play failed to register a shot with Carrier off for hooking.

Carrier’s goal 3:54 into the third was emblematic of Buffalo's evening. With the Sabres buzzing the Montreal net, Tage Thompson kept the puck in at the right point only to lose his balance and spin down to the ice. Carrier picked up the loose puck and scored to put Montreal up 4-1.

Benson whiffed on a tip-in chance two minutes later. In the first period, Buffalo’s Alex Tuch had the puck roll off his stick while attempting a shot breaking up the right wing, and Jack Quinn shot over the top of the net after being set up alone in the slot.

“Trying to chase the game, try and force plays that aren’t there, and just wasn’t executing,” Thompson said. “I think everything I touched turned into disaster tonight. So, tough one. Got to be better. It’s as simple as just flush that one, move on.”

Thompson then gave a blunt response when asked if he was playing with an injury by saying: “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

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The Alabama legislation, which was signed quickly into law by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, is part of an effort by Republicans in Southern states to capitalize on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that significantly weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minorities.

At the Alabama Statehouse, a chaotic scene erupted as one protester was dragged from the packed House gallery by security officers. Republican lawmakers in Louisiana and South Carolina also faced staunch opposition from civil rights activists and Democrats as they presented plans Friday to redraw their congressional districts.

The action came just a day after Tennessee enacted new congressional districts that carve up a Democratic-held, Black-majority district in Memphis. The state Democratic Party sued on Friday, seeking to prevent the districts from being used until after this year's elections because of the tight time frame

Even before last week's Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case, Republicans and Democrats already were engaged in a fierce redistricting battle, each seeking an edge in the midterm elections that will determine control of the closely divided House. That battle tilted further toward Republicans when the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday that Democratic lawmakers had violated constitutional requirements when placing a redistricting amendment on the ballot.

Since President Donald Trump prodded Texas to redraw its congressional districts last summer, Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from new districts in several states while Democrats think they could gain up to six seats. But the parties may not get everything they sought, because the gerrymandering could backfire in some highly competitive districts.

Alabama primaries could be in flux

Demonstrators outside the Alabama Statehouse on Friday shouted “fight for democracy” and “down with white supremacy.”

“I was out there in 1965 marching for the right to vote, and now we are back here in 2026 doing the same thing,” Betty White Boynton said.

During debate inside the statehouse, Black lawmakers said the Republican legislation harks back to the state’s shameful Jim Crow history. The new law would ignore the May 19 primary results for some congressional seats and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under revised districts, if a court allows it. Lawmakers also approved a similar bill related to state Senate districts.

“What happened here today is that we were set back as a people to the days of Reconstruction,” Democratic state Sen. Rodger Smitherman said after the vote.

Senate Democrats shouted “hell no” and “stop the steal” as senators voted.

The special primary would happen only if the courts agree to lift an injunction that put a court-selected map in place until after the 2030 census. That order required a second district where Black voters are the majority or close to it, resulting in the 2024 election of Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, who is Black. If a court lifts the injunction, Republican officials want to put in place a map lawmakers drew in 2023 — which was rejected by a federal court — that could allow them to reclaim Figures’ district.

“With this special session successfully behind us, Alabama now stands ready to quickly act, should the courts issue favorable rulings in our ongoing redistricting cases,” Ivey said in a statement.

On Friday evening, however, a three-judge panel rejected Alabama’s request to lift their injunction and pave the way for changing maps. The request remains pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Virginia ruling centered on timing of election

Democrats had hoped to gain as many as four additional U.S. House seats under new districts narrowly approved by voters in April. But the state Supreme Court invalidated the measure because it said the Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements.

To place a constitutional amendment before voters, the Virginia Constitution requires lawmakers to approve it in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between. The legislature’s initial approval of the redistricting amendment occurred last October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded for the general election. The legislature’s second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January.

The state Supreme Court said the initial legislative approval came too late, noting that more than 1.3 million ballots already had been cast, about 40% of the total votes ultimately cast.

Louisiana lawmakers look at map options

A Louisiana Senate committee considered several redistricting options Friday from Republican state Sen. John “Jay” Morris that would eliminate either both or one of the current Black-majority U.S. House districts.

“Every one of these maps reduces Black voting power in every one of the districts. And I think that’s a problem,” Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris.

Morris denied that the proposed redistricting maps were racially discriminatory. He said his goal was to be “respectful of the traditional boundaries” of the state’s six congressional districts.

“I don’t think we should care that much about race,” Morris said.

The only four Black congressmen who have represented Louisiana since the end of the Reconstruction era appealed to state senators to keep two majority-Black districts in a state where one-third of voters are Black.

Leona Tate said she was escorted as a 6-year-old girl by federal marshals through a racist white mob trying to prevent her from desegregating a New Orleans elementary school. She told lawmakers she felt they were taking a step backward in time by reducing Black political power.

“You have a choice in front of you: You can draw a map that reflects what Louisiana actually is -- a state where Black voices belong in the halls of Congress,” said Tate, 71. “Or you can draw a map that tells my grandchildren that their votes don’t count, that their faces don’t matter and that the progress I helped build with my own two feet as a 6-year-old can be erased at will.”

South Carolina considers a House map

South Carolina lawmakers held a rare Friday meeting to discuss a proposed new congressional map intended to allow Republicans a clean sweep of the state’s seven U.S. House seats.

The House hearing was the first step in redistricting. But its future remains murky. The state Senate has yet to agree to consider new districts later this month, an action that requires a two-thirds vote.

The new map has some Republicans nervous. Breaking up the 6th District, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, makes the other six districts less Republican.

At Friday’s subcommittee meeting, lawmakers heard hours of testimony, almost all against the new map. The hearing included a consultant who reviewed the map, saying it appeared to be legal under the Supreme Court's decision in the Louisiana case.

“I agree if the law allows us to do it, then we can do It,” Democratic state Rep. Justin Bamberg said. “But I can slap somebody’s mama and it’s not the right thing to do.”

Some absentee ballots already have been returned for the state's June 9 primary elections. The legislative subcommittee advanced a plan to delay the congressional primary to August and reopen a candidate filing period, if a new map is approved.

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Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina; Brook from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. AP reporter Travis Loller contributed from Nashville, Tennessee.

• ‘Don’t move kids’: HISD parents push back against proposed special education overhaul

According to a federal announcement released Friday, investigators will examine whether the district violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act by potentially separating students with disabilities from their nondisabled peers.

Federal officials say the investigation centers around allegations that HISD plans to move some students receiving special education services into designated specialty campuses beginning in the 2026-27 school year.

The Office for Civil Rights said parents raised concerns that the proposed changes could isolate students with disabilities from general education classrooms where they benefit socially and academically alongside other students.

Parents also reportedly voiced concerns about longer bus rides and transportation challenges for children with medical or behavioral needs.

“Schools cannot exclude students with disabilities simply because of their disability status. Placement decisions must be made individually, based on each student’s needs, rather than by blanket policies that segregate students by disability category,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement.

“The allegations described here are alarming. The Trump Administration will fully investigate this situation and fight to ensure every child with a disability receives the education and support guaranteed under the law,” Richey added.

Federal law requires public schools to educate students with disabilities alongside nondisabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate and to follow specific procedures when determining student placements.

As of Friday evening, HISD released the following statement:

Houston ISD is aware of the investigation opened by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.

Any review will show that all special education updates for the 2026–27 school year focus on increasing access to services in the least restrictive environment, strengthening systems to improve the quality of instruction, and improving student outcomes.

HISD serves over 21,000 students receiving special education services. Over 15,000 students are served in inclusive settings, and there are no changes to their current campus or services. For the ~5,000 students primarily served in self-contained settings, families can expect small class sizes, low adult-to-student ratios to support specialized instruction, and placement with similar-age peers. These programs will be available on more than half of HISD campuses to improve access for families, and transportation will continue to be provided for any student whose IEP requires it.

As always, the district remains committed to ensuring students with disabilities receive the services and supports outlined in their Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and that placement decisions are made individually through the ARD process in accordance with applicable law.

Because this is an active investigation, the district cannot comment further on specific allegations or matters under review.

Africa imported 44,358 electric vehicles from China in 2025, according to data from China’s Commerce Ministry, up from 19,386 in 2024. The shipments, valued at over $200 million, highlight growing demand, especially in Ethiopia after it banned new imports of gas and diesel-powered vehicles in 2024.

More than 115,000 EVs are now on Ethiopia's roads, accounting for about 8% of the national fleet. In 2025, it imported a third of Africa’s imports from China, ahead of other major markets in South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria.

As the Iran war drags on, Ethiopia’s fuel shortages are rippling through transport systems and daily life, reinforcing its effort to cut costly imports of oil and gas and strengthen its energy security. However that trend is raising questions about charging infrastructure and affordability.

Ethiopia’s spends about $4.2 billion on fuel imports annually, straining its foreign currency reserves.

Its minister of Trade and Regional Integration, Kassahun Gofe, said in a statement that the country also is spending up to $128 million monthly on fuel subsidies, while shipments fell short by more than 180,000 metric tons as the imports are disrupted by Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping route for about a fifth of oil from the Gulf region before the war.

The government has redoubled its campaign for quicker EV adoption, framing it as a critical buffer against external supply shocks.

“From a general perspective, it is sustainable,” said Hiten Parmar, executive director of South African- based The Electric Mission. “By replacing imported fuel with domestically generated electricity, Ethiopia is strengthening its energy security position.”

Ethiopia has an edge

Ethiopia has a special advantage in that more than 90% of its electricity comes from renewable sources, mainly hydro and solar. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa's largest hydroelectric project, is expected to double its power generation, though the facility and has fueled a decade-long dispute over water supplies with downstream Egypt and Sudan.

“That scale of generation creates a foundation for electrified transport,” Parmar said. “It allows EVs to be powered by locally produced clean energy, rather than costly imports.”

“By gradually adopting EVs, that intensive fuel import expenditure can be reduced and redirected into other critical development needs,” Parmar said.

Globally, the International Energy Agency estimates electric vehicles displaced more than 1 million barrels of oil consumption per day in 2024.

Countries across Africa are pushing for more EVs

Egypt, South Africa and Morocco also are pursuing a transition to EV use, adopting a mix of policy incentives, investing in manufacturing capacity and in clean energy.

“That transition is beginning to ease pressure on fuel demand,” said Bob Wesonga, policy and investments lead at the Africa E-Mobility Alliance.

“That’s over 100,000 vehicle owners who are no longer directly exposed to pump price shocks,” he said. “In the medium to long term, this creates a buffer against global oil volatility.”

For those who have switched, the savings are significant.

“A private EV owner now spends roughly $4 a month on charging compared to about $27 previously spent on fuel,” Wesonga said. “For public transport operators, the difference is even more striking.”

Charging stations and other infrastructure are still lacking

The transition to EVs faces some daunting structural hurdles, Parmar notes.

“The technology is already mature, the challenge is building it out fast enough,” he said.

Ethiopia is deploying ultra-fast charging hubs in its capital Addis Ababa, but scaling them nationwide will take time and investment.

“The biggest hurdle is the last-mile power distribution,” Wesonga said. “While Ethiopia has a surplus of generation, getting that power reliably to where it’s needed, especially outside Addis Ababa, remains a challenge.”

Frequent blackouts and delays in connecting high-capacity charging stations have slowed construction of needed infrastructure, even as demand for electric vehicles rises.

“Charging infrastructure is still heavily concentrated in the capital and along a few corridors,” Wesonga said. “That limits e-mobility to specific areas and creates a bottleneck as adoption grows.”

Plans to assemble EVs raise question of affordability

Ethiopia is one of several countries in Africa looking to build their own EV industries. Official data show 17 electric vehicle assembly plants are in the pipeline in Ethiopia, with plans to raise that number to 60 by 2030. It's part of a broader strategy to localize production and reduce costs.

Affordability, however, remains a major constraint. While operating costs are lower, prices of electric vehicles remain high relative to average incomes.

“The purchase price is still out of reach for many,” Wesonga said. “At the same time, restrictions on fossil fuel vehicles have pushed up the cost of used cars, creating additional barriers.”

That dynamic could have unintended social impacts if not managed carefully.

“A national fleet transition is always gradual,” Parmar said. “Existing combustion vehicles will remain in use for some time, and the transition needs to account for livelihoods tied to that system.”

Even so, both experts say the long-term trajectory remains clear. Lower operating and maintenance costs for electric vehicles could reduce transport costs over time, easing the price of goods and improving access to economic opportunities.

Ethiopia is also looking to lessons from countries such as China and Norway, where policy support, infrastructure investment and consumer incentives have driven rapid adoption.

“This is not just about transport,” Wesonga said. “It’s about reshaping how the country uses energy, and who benefits from that shift.”

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

Ben Stiller attracted a crowd at halftime, and Tracy Morgan cheered for another Knicks win, too.

No this wasn't Celebrity Row at Madison Square Garden.

The Hollywood A-listers — and yes, just your average Knicks fans — crashed Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Friday night to watch New York beat the 76ers 108-94.

Oh, it wasn't all orange and blue and well-heeled celebrities in Philadelphia.

The Sixers still boasted the bulk of the fans — though there was a sizable contingent of Knicks supporters — and the spirited crowd included fans who received tickets donated by the franchise to community groups in the Sixers' latest attempt to keep more of their own fans in the building and avoid a New York takeover.

Lee gleefully reminisced about the time he saw the Knicks win their first NBA championship on May 8, 1970 — exactly 56 years earlier.

Most of the Knicks fans were just happy to get a chance to travel roughly 90 miles south of MSG to Xfinity Mobile Arena — no matter how hard the Sixers tried to shoo them away.

The Sixers had already tried to ward off Knicks fans in this playoff series through Ticketmaster by geographically restricting sales to fans in the greater Philadelphia area.

Knicks fan Lenny Rakhmanov of Brooklyn had a workaround to the geo-fencing barrier.

He phoned a friend.

“I bought my tickets off Ticketmaster,” he said. “I did have trouble. I have a friend in Philly and he got the tickets for me and sent them to me through Ticketmaster. They told me while I was trying to make the purchase from my office in New York, you had to be a Philly resident to purchase the tickets.”

Rakhmanov said he spent $800 per ticket for three seats in Section 123, and brought his 11- and 8-year-old sons.

“I can't even believe that they're trying to keep fans out,” he said. “It's part of sports. If their team was on the road, and they were up in the series, and they wanted their fans in the building, why would they want to stop that?”

The Sixers said 250 medical workers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine and 250 local educators selected by Learn Fresh, Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia, the Philadelphia school district and Camden, New Jersey, school district would attend Game 3 on Friday night.

The 76ers plan to host 500 mothers and children selected by Uplift Center for Grieving Children, Boys and Girls Club of Philadelphia, La Liga del Barrio and Apologues for Sunday's Game 4.

The Knicks lead the series 3-0 and can advance to the conference finals by winning Game 4 on Sunday.

Mikal Bridges, a Philadelphia native who starred at Villanova, scored 23 points for the Knicks in front of a loud cheering section.

“I spent a lot of money,” Bridges said. “I think my friends and family are pretty grateful.”

When the teams met two years ago in the first round, Knicks fans swarmed Philadelphia, and Sixers All-Star center Joel Embiid pleaded with fans ahead of this series not to let it happen again.

“Last time we played the Knicks it felt like this was Madison Square Garden East. So we’re going to need the support,” Embiid said. “Don’t sell your tickets. This is bigger than you. We need you guys. The atmosphere we’ve had the last couple games in Philly, especially the last one pushing it to Game 7, I mean, we need all of it.”

Embiid was booed when he went to the free-throw line in the first half, and Knicks fans roared when he missed the shot.

Moments later, Jalen Brunson went to the free-throw line and “MVP!” chants were quickly muffled by Sixers fans who booed the former Villanova standout.

It was that kind of night.

On the resale market, SeatGeek said buyers from New York and Pennsylvania were nearly even, with 27% of tickets sold to New York billing addresses and 26% to Pennsylvania buyers. Another 21% were from New Jersey, suggesting that Knicks fans were slightly more motivated to get to the game.

For Sunday’s Game 4, the New York share ticks up a bit further: 33% for New York vs. 17% for Pennsylvania.

Former Sixers standout Marc Jackson visited Camden’s Pride Elementary School ahead of the game and surprised teachers with Game 3 tickets.

That seemed like a big win, no matter which team fans rooted for in Philly.

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

Three forensic document examiners who reviewed the notes at the request of The Associated Press concluded that they have or appear to have common authorship, with shared characteristics such as the same spacing, letter shapes, usage of capital letters and unique punctuation.

In the first note, made public this week, the writer states: “They investigated me for month — found nothing!!!” and talks about being able to choose the “time to say goodbye.” The other note, which has been public for years, is a list of grievances about conditions at the jail, including the showers, food and “Giant Bugs.”

While no one has definitively said Epstein wrote the notes, they point to his grim outlook before his death and echo some frustrations he conveyed to jail personnel about being confined in the crumbling Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan after living in luxury for decades. They also contain phrases he had used in the past.

Both notes, written in pen on notepad paper, include the underlined phrase “NO FUN” and end with double exclamation points — the first of which is bowed slightly with similar curvature. The first few words of each note are larger than the rest and each successive line slants away from the left margin.

“These are the kinds of things that would suggest that we're dealing with the same writer,” said Thomas Vastrick, the president of the American Society of Questioned Document Examiners.

“They are written by the same person,” said Bart Baggett, who founded the forensic analysis firm Handwriting Experts Inc. and has testified in court as an expert witness more than 130 times.

“Both of those documents have the same author,” said Grace Warmbier, who worked for a decade for the New York City Police Department performing document examinations and handwriting analysis.

None of the experts were able to say definitively that Epstein wrote the notes, in part because there are few if any confirmed examples of his handwriting in the millions of pages of records the Justice Department recently released on the late financier.

In addition to the two jail notes, Warmbier and Vastrick also reviewed writing samples from the former cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, including part of a note he sent to the New York Daily News in 2019 in which he denied any involvement in Epstein's death.

Warmbier ruled out Tartaglione as the author, finding “significant dissimilarities between his handwriting and the handwriting in question.”

Vastrick said Tartaglione's writing samples had “a wide range of variation from one to another” and that there were at least some similarities that require further examination.

“At this point, I certainly would not eliminate him as a potential writer,” Vastrick said. “I don’t at the same time want to suggest that he is the writer.”

For years, only a few people known about the note that Tartaglione claimed he found. Then, last summer, he mentioned it on writer Jessica Reed Kraus’ podcast. That piqued the interest of writers at The New York Times, who convinced a judge on Wednesday to release the note, which had been sealed in an unrelated case.

Tartaglione, an ex-police officer serving a life sentence for killing four people, said he discovered the note in a book in his cell after Epstein was found on July 23, 2019, on the floor with a strip of bedsheet around his neck. Epstein was placed on suicide watch and moved to a different cell. He had no cellmate when he was found dead on Aug. 10, 2019.

Epstein and Tartaglione shared a cell for about two weeks, beginning soon after Epstein’s July 6, 2019, arrest on sex trafficking charges and ending with the suspected suicide attempt. Both men were awaiting trials.

According to a chronology in the Justice Department's files on Epstein, Tartaglione told his lawyer about the note four days after the suspected July 23 attempt. There is no indication that anyone alerted jail officials or Epstein's representatives.

The note was later submitted as evidence in Tartaglione’s criminal case and placed under seal amid a dispute over his legal representation. It wasn’t mentioned in government reports examining the circumstances of Epstein’s death, nor did it surface in the Justice Department’s files. The other note, found after Epstein's death, was shown on CBS' “60 Minutes” in 2020 and is in the files.

Beyond handwriting analysis, the phrasing of the notes could give clues to their authorship. The note Tartaglione said he found contains the line: “Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!”

Epstein previously referenced that line, mimicking dialogue from a 1931 “Little Rascals” film, in three emails that were included in the Justice Department's files, including one he sent to his brother four months before going to jail.

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Associated Press videojournalist David R. Martin contributed.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org

Watch the “Houston Life” special program “Gallery of Wonder” in the video player above.

The 9,500 gallery features five immersive exhibits:

• Tot*Spot - This space has been reimagined with an oversized garden, buzzing beehive, meandering path and lots of soft surfaces and rounded corners that provide a safe place for the youngest children to learn.
• Into the Woods - Climb up into a tree and slide down to a sweet little campsite! This mini forest of imagination is perfect for energetic little ones.
• Under the Waves - Explore tunnels and find sea creatures hiding in nooks in this special area designed with calming, sensory-friendly lights, sounds and water displays.
• Viva Village - Calling all little helpers! Viva Village encourages children to learn through play as they groom toy pets, cook in the the play kitchen and run errands at the market. Kids can imagine themselves running a household and even their own business.
• Treetop Terrace - Opening soon! We can’t wait to see this breezy outdoor space where children can drive little cars and run around with new friends!

Children’s Museum Houston also offers nearly two dozen early learning programs where children learn through music, movement, experiments and more. Check out the museum’s full calendar of events here.

In addition to GAESA and its leader, the sanctions announced Thursday include Moa Nickel, a Cuban joint venture with Canada's Sherritt International, which immediately announced it would withdraw from the business, ending a 32-year presence on the island.

The May 1 executive order and the new designations announced May 7 significantly expand the legal authority through which the U.S. government can levy sanctions on third-country nationals and firms, explained Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute’s Global South program, a Washington think tank.

“Not only are they subject to having their assets frozen but their U.S. accounts as well as their travel to the U.S., that of their shareholders, investors or employees,” said Schlenker. “This is bound to have an extremely significant impact of the presence of foreign companies” in Cuba.

Economist Pavel Vidal, a Cuba expert at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, told The Associated Press that the measures are “very concerning” for an economy already “practically paralyzed.” The U.S. has blocked fuel shipments to Cuba since January, further escalating the island's yearslong economic crisis. Vidal noted that the new sanctions would likely deter GAESA’s remaining partners, saying that “very few will risk defying them.”

The new measures amount to “total isolation,” said Vidal, driven by the fear they instill in international banks, insurers and corporations.

As an expert who has analyzed GAESA’s internal documents, Vidal noted that the conglomerate’s deep reach into nearly every sector of the Cuban economy makes any connection to the island a potential liability under the new U.S. rules.

According to Vidal, GAESA commands nearly 40% of Cuba’s gross domestic product. As of early 2024, the conglomerate held $14.5 billion in liquid reserves, with annual revenues triple the size of the entire Cuban state budget.

Family ties with the Castros

Established in the 1990s under military control, GAESA was the Cuban Armed Forces’ strategic response to the economic collapse that followed the Soviet Union’s fall and the tightening of U.S. sanctions in place at the time.

Despite being state-owned, GAESA’s accounts are exempt from audits by the Office of the Comptroller General. Gladys Bejerano, the entity’s director, admitted to this lack of oversight in a 2024 interview; shortly thereafter, she retired.

For years, until his death in July 2022, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja served as GAESA's general manager. As the son-in-law of former President Raúl Castro, he was a pillar of the family — a legacy continued by his son, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro. While the younger Castro officially serves as his grandfather’s chief bodyguard, he has recently emerged as a pivotal intermediary in sensitive discussions with the U.S.

This week's sanctions also added Ania Guillermina Lastres to the U.S. blacklist. As the successor to López-Calleja, she currently serves as GAESA’s executive president, overseeing the conglomerate’s vast international financial interests.

Based on the limited information available, GAESA oversees dozens of retail outlets — selling everything from food and clothing to home appliances — as well as a sprawling service network that includes car rentals and travel agencies. Notably, it also manages Cuba’s financial institutions, currency exchange bureaus, and the administration of the country’s major hotels.

In remarks to the press Friday, Rubio said the sanctions were not on the Cuban people and he referred to GAESA as a company that “is taking anything that makes money in Cuba and illegally putting it into the pockets of a few regime insiders.”

Cuban authorities maintain that the sanctions constitute “collective punishment” designed to strangle the island’s economy, arguing the Trump administration’s policies show a disregard for the welfare of the Cuban people in favor of political leverage.

The new sanctions on Havana come under the weight of a U.S. energy blockade that has caused sweeping water and power outages along with severe gas and water shortages.

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

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said the Trump administration was no longer planning to construct the wall within the national park following pushback from residents, the Examiner reported this week.

“Big Bend National Park has some just, like, unbelievably huge granite cliffs. It would be kind of silly to put like a 30-foot border wall on top of a 90-foot granite cliff,” Scott said in an interview with the Examiner. “So what we’re trying to convey is that we are going to have meaningful border security in that entire area.”

Scott’s comments only referenced the national park and did not detail whether CBP’s withdrawal from wall construction also included the nearby Big Bend Ranch State Park or private property in the region.

CBP officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about updated plans.

Instead of a wall, federal officials will pave roads along the border in the national park and make use of drones and other digital surveillance equipment, Scott said. News of the cancellation comes after weeks of upheaval in Texas as elected officials from both political parties and residents asserted that construction in the park would be a waste of resources.

In February, Trump administration officials waived over two dozen environmental laws to clear the way for a 150-mile-long border barrier through West Texas, including Big Bend National Park.

Then in early April, an interactive map on the CBP website showed the agency planned to instead install “virtual wall” technology in the region that would alert Border Patrol agents when people cross the border. CBP officials took down the map in late April, and it is not currently available on the agency’s website.

Local residents near Big Bend sued the Trump administration in mid-April, arguing that federal officials waived the regulations illegally in pursuit of the construction project.

Funds acquired through the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” President Donald Trump’s key spending package, direct CBP to construct a multifaceted barrier system, or a “Smart Wall,” across the southern border with Mexico. The proposed barriers would include bollard walls and patrol roads, as well as surveillance technology and floating buoys placed in the Rio Grande.

The Hurricanes and the Avalanche have put on a clinic for how to start the race.

The top two teams in the NHL during the regular season, seemingly on a collision course to meet in the Stanley Cup Final, have been performing on the ice with a force to match their natural-disaster-themed nicknames. Neither the Canes nor the Avs have lost a game in these playoffs.

With a 4-1 win at Philadelphia on Thursday to take a 3-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series, the Hurricanes became the 13th team in NHL history to start a postseason with seven straight wins. Eight of the first 12 won the Stanley Cup.

The Hurricanes will send sizzling goalie Frederik Andersen out for Game 4 on Saturday to try to finish off the Flyers, seeking a sweep that would give them the league's first 8-0 start in the playoffs since 1985.

“I would anticipate we’re going to give it our best, because we’re going to need to,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We’re not going to win if we don’t put our best foot forward.”

Only three teams in NHL history have overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series, but plenty of teams have managed to at least force a fifth game.

“The fourth one is the hardest one to win. No one wants to go home,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. “It's going to be a brand-new challenge.”

Only two teams have started the playoffs 7-0 in the last three decades. Colorado, which has already scored 14 goals on Minnesota in their Western Conference semifinal series, would make it two in the same year by winning Game 3 on Saturday night. The NHL gave the Avalanche and Wild three days between games to sync up the schedules of the four ongoing series.

“For our team, the energy and pace that we want to play with on a nightly basis that helps us have success, it doesn’t hurt,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “It doesn’t hurt to be rested and recovered and still get a little practice time in to go out and feel good about your puck touches and your systems and everything. Meetings don’t have to get crammed in. You can take your time and get feedback from the guys."

The Hurricanes, who have made the playoffs in each of eight seasons under Brind’Amour, lost to eventual champion Florida in the Eastern Conference finals last year. They would tie for the 10th-longest winning streak in a single NHL postseason by beating the Flyers on Saturday. Twenty-three teams in league history have won eight or more consecutive playoff games in the same year, and 18 of them won the Stanley Cup.

One of the five that came up short was the 1992 Chicago Blackhawks, who matched the all-time record with 11 straight playoff wins. The Pittsburgh Penguins also staked claim to the record that spring, finishing with a four-game sweep in the Stanley Cup Final.

The Avalanche are aiming to emulate the way the Canes powered through the Philadelphia crowd noise to win a feisty Game 3. Minnesota has not hosted a game this late in the postseason since 2015.

“It will be a rockin’ environment,” Avs goalie Scott Wedgewood said. “That’s what makes playoff so fun, right?”

Carolina Hurricanes at Philadelphia Flyers

When/Where to Watch: Game 4, Saturday, 6 p.m. EDT (TNT, truTV, HBO Max).

Series: Hurricanes lead 3-0.

The Flyers have been unable to solve Carolina's stifling defense, with just three goals in three games. Their league-worst power play during the regular season has carried over, with just one goal in 12 opportunities in this series and a 3-for-29 showing in nine playoff games.

Colorado Avalanche at Minnesota Wild

When/Where to Watch: Game 4, Saturday, 9 p.m. EDT (TNT, truTV, HBO Max).

Series: Avalanche lead 2-0.

The Wild have spent the extra time off trying to shore up their penalty kill, which has been dearly missing center Joel Eriksson Ek and defenseman Jonas Brodin. But after dominating Dallas at even strength in the first round they've also struggled to contain Colorado's high-octane forwards in 5-on-5 situations. Minnesota might go back to rookie goalie Jesper Wallstedt after giving Filip Gustavsson the net for a 5-2 loss in Game 2.

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AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston in Philadelphia and Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Video posted on social media by U.S. Southern Command shows a black, boat-shaped image before what appears to be an explosion, followed by a column of fire rising from the ocean.

Southern Command said it “immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivor.”

The White House announced Wednesday that President Donald Trump has signed off on a new U.S. counterterrorism strategy that sets eliminating drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere as the administration’s highest priority.

The Trump administration’s campaign of blowing up alleged drug-trafficking vessels in Latin American waters, including the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, has gone on since early September and killed at least 193 people in total. The military has not provided evidence that any of the vessels were carrying drugs. The strikes have ramped up again in recent weeks.

At the same time, Trump has sought to press regional leaders to work more closely with the U.S. to target cartels and take military action themselves against drug traffickers and transnational gangs that he says pose an “unacceptable threat” to the hemisphere’s national security.

Critics, meanwhile, have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes.

The two-time Cy Young Award winner is set to rejoin the rotation sooner than anticipated after teammate Tyler Glasnow left a start early this week because of back trouble. Glasnow was placed on the 15-day injured list Friday with low back spasms, and Los Angeles recalled right-hander Paul Gervase from Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Snell missed most of the 2025 regular season because of a lingering shoulder injury, making just 11 starts after signing a $182 million, five-year contract in November 2024. But the left-hander went 3-2 in six postseason games to help the Dodgers win their second consecutive World Series title.

Snell has been on the IL since late March with left shoulder fatigue. He had been scheduled to make one more minor league rehabilitation start for Class A Ontario on Saturday, but instead will face the Braves at Dodger Stadium.

Glasnow exited after one inning against the Houston Astros on Wednesday. He had an MRI that showed “nothing really significant,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday before the opener of a three-game series against Atlanta.

The 32-year-old Glasnow is 3-0 with a 2.72 ERA in seven outings this season.

The 6-foot-10 Gervase, 25, is 2-0 with a 3.65 ERA in nine games for Oklahoma City this year. He made one appearance for the Dodgers last season, striking out two batters in two innings. He also pitched in five games for Tampa Bay, compiling a 4.26 ERA.

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

It happened at 10515 Bellaire Blvd at Tropical Tea.

According to police, an employee came to check on an overnight employee because they had not heard from him all morning. The employee entered the business and found the other employee dead in the kitchen area. The victim reportedly had obvious blunt force trauma.

Police say the front door of the business was locked, but the rear was unlocked when officers began investigating. They also say the victim’s vehicle appeared to be missing.

Anyone with any information is urged to contact the Houston Police Department.

However, in the Middle East, the shaky ceasefire in the U.S. war with Iran is being strained even further.

The U.S. said it thwarted attacks on three Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliated against Iranian military facilities. Hours later, U.S. Central Command said its forces disabled two more Iranian tankers that were trying to breach an American blockade on Iran’s ports.

Washington, meanwhile, awaits a response from Tehran in negotiations to end the war.

And in U.S. politics, Republicans are moving quickly to try to capitalize on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that significantly weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. Alabama lawmakers passed a plan Friday for new congressional primaries if courts allow different districts this year, while Virginia’s top court struck down Democrats’ redrawn U.S. House maps, giving Republicans a win.

Here's the latest:

Justice Department sues to block ban on local immigrant detention agreements in New Mexico

The lawsuit says termination of a county agreement for the Otero County Processing Center would drastically limit the state’s capacity “to detain illegal immigrants.”

The county-owned facility — one of three privately operated immigrant detention centers in New Mexico — includes four immigration courtrooms and space for more than 1,000 detainees.

Federal prosecutors said the state and city laws infringe on federal authority by trying to regulate immigration policy and preventing longstanding cooperation between local and federal officials.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the Legislature was within its right in responding to “inadequate medical care, deaths in custody, and conditions that fell well below acceptable standards” at immigration detention facilities.

The Department of Justice has filed similar lawsuits targeting state or city policies seen as interfering with immigration enforcement, including those in Los Angeles, New York City, and Minnesota and cities there.

UN chief calls on all parties to abide by the ceasefire

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern at the reported exchange of fire between Iran and the United States in the Strait of Hormuz, his spokesperson said.

“He underscores that this is a critical moment for de-escalation and urges all sides to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday.

Guterres calls on all parts to refrain from action “that could lead to renewed escalation or undermine ongoing diplomatic efforts,” Dujarric said.

Iran’s envoy urges UN to ‘condemn unequivocally’ the US blockade and attacks on 2 Iranian oil tankers

Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said the “unlawful” U.S. actions “constitute a grave and dangerous escalation that further destabilizes an already fragile region and poses a serious threat to international peace and security.”

The Iranian envoy warned in letters Friday to the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the consequences of U.S. actions in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz “could be catastrophic” and extend far beyond the Middle East.

The U.S. “would bear full responsibility,” Iravani said. The U.S. military said Friday that its forces had disabled two Iranian tankers that were trying to breach an American blockade of Iran’s ports, part of U.S. efforts to get Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz.

He called on the secretary-general and Security Council to urge the U.S. “to comply with its obligations under international law and refrain from further provocative actions.”

Global food prices hit highest level in three years due to Iran war, UN says

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday its food price index was up 2% in April from the prior year, hitting its highest level since 2023. The index tracks international prices for commodities like grain, rice and sugar.

The FAO said vegetable oil saw the biggest increase. Higher crude oil prices are increasing demand from the biofuel industry for seed oils. Concerns about lower production in Southeast Asia is also raising prices, the FAO said.

Wheat prices were up 0.8% due to concerns about drought in the U.S. and Australia as well as high fertilizer prices tied to the war. The FAO said farmers may shift from wheat to less fertilizer-intensive crops this year, which would tighten wheat supplies and raise prices.

Qatar’s top diplomat and the US vice president discuss Mideast negotiations

The tiny, gas-rich Gulf Arab state of Qatar — which hosts the biggest U.S. military base in the Middle East — has a long track record as a mediator between Iran and its regional adversaries.

In March, the kingdom said it was not directly mediating between the U.S. and Iran, however it voiced support for all diplomatic channels to end the war.

In Friday’s meeting in Washington with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who is both Qatar’s prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, expressed the need for all parties to engage with the ongoing mediation efforts that would eventually lead to a “comprehensive agreement that achieves lasting peace” in the region.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Al Thani and Vance reviewed Pakistani mediation efforts aimed at de-escalation, without providing further details.

Vance’s office did not immediately comment on the meeting.

US won’t say whether Iran oil spill was caused by airstrikes

The Pentagon declined to comment Friday on whether there had been recent strikes on Kharg Island, Iran’s main crude export terminal.

Based on the imagery taken earlier this week, the spill occurred before the most recent round of U.S. strikes in the region. Kharg Island is on the other end of the Gulf from the Strait of Hormuz, hundreds of miles away.

Satellite images show oil is still spilling from an Iranian terminal

Satellite images taken Friday show an apparent oil spill covering about 71 square kilometers (27 square miles) off Kharg Island, Iran’s main crude export terminal, said Ami Daniel, CEO of maritime intelligence firm Windward AI.

The slick was first spotted on satellite images Tuesday.

Although the spill’s origin is unknown, cleanup efforts will probably not be launched in waters where the U.S. and Iran have been trading fire, Daniel said.

Nina Noelle, an international crisis operations expert with Greenpeace Germany, said it appears unlikely the spill will impact land, though it could still possibly affect some sensitive marine habitats.

Trump administration appeals court ruling against new global tariffs it imposed after a stinging Supreme Court loss

On Thursday, a split three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade in New York found that Trump’s 10% global tariffs were illegal after small businesses sued.

In a filing Friday, the Justice Department said it would appeal the 2-1 decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The trade court had ruled that the tariffs are “invalid’’ and “unauthorized by law.’’

At issue are temporary 10% worldwide tariffs the Trump administration imposed after the Supreme Court in February struck down bigger double-digit tariffs the president had imposed last year on almost every country on Earth. The new tariffs, invoked under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, are set to expire July 24.

Trump’s Greenland envoy is expected to make his first visit to Arctic island this month

Later this month, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who is doubling as the president’s special envoy to Greenland, is expected to make his first visit the Danish territory that Trump has said the United States must take over for national security reasons, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Landry is scheduled to attend Future Greenland, a business conference, in the capital city of Nuuk, but did not provide any further details about the governor’s itinerary.

Trump announced earlier this year he was levying new tariffs against eight European nations to press for U.S. control over Greenland. But he quickly backed off the threat after global markets tanked.

The president has paid scant attention, at least publicly, to Greenland in recent months as he’s focused on the Iran war, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Greenlandic media outlet Sermitsiaq first reported on Landry’s expected visit.

—By Aamer Madhani in Washington

Alabama lawmakers pass plan for new US House primary if courts allow different districts

Republican state senators gave final approval to the legislation on Friday, sending it to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.

The action in Alabama came on the same day that the Virginia Supreme Court dealt a major setback to Democrats by overturning a redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win as many as four additional House seats.

The Alabama bill could set aside the results of the May 19 primaries, if courts lift an injunction requiring it to use a map with two districts that have large Black populations.

Trump says Russia and Ukraine have agreed to his request for a 3-day ceasefire and a prisoner swap

The U.S. president said Friday that such a halt to hostilities could be the “beginning of the end” of the long war between the two nations.

Trump announced on social media that the ceasefire would run Saturday through Monday. Saturday is Victory Day in Russia, a holiday that commemorates its victory over Nazi Germany 81 years ago in World War II.

Trump says he’s “pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE.” The Republican president said the ceasefire includes a suspension of all kinetic activity and the exchange of 1,000 prisoners by each country.

Democrats had hoped to win as many as 4 additional US House seats under Virginia’s redrawn map

Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said Democrats respect the court’s opinion while noting the voters of the state had approved of the new congressional map.

“We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear,” he said in a statement. “They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi criticizes recent US military actions against Iran

He said “every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the U.S. opts for a reckless military adventure.”

In a post on X, Araghchi said “Iranians never bow to pressure” and questioned whether the U.S. actions were a crude pressure tactic or the result of “a spoiler once again duping POTUS.”

Araghchi also boasted that Iran’s missile inventory and launch capacity was at “120%” of prewar levels, attaching a screenshot from a U.S. newspaper report that said the CIA had found Iran managed to retain more of its weaponry after the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign than previously thought.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the US strikes were a ‘clear violation’ of the ceasefire

The violence came as Washington awaited a response from Tehran in negotiations to end the war. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters he expects to hear from Iran later Friday.

“I hope it’s a serious offer,” Rubio told reporters. “I really do.”

US military shows smoking oil freighters in latest confrontation with Iran

The U.S. military posted video of two Iranian oil tankers as their smokestacks were struck by an American fighter jet Friday, marking the latest confrontation between the U.S. and Iran.

Both countries exchanged fire off Iran’s coast on Thursday as U.S. Navy warships passed through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. also disabled another Iranian ship earlier this week.

“U.S. forces in the Middle East remain committed to full enforcement of the blockade of vessels entering or leaving Iran,” Adm. Brad Cooper, the leader of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement.

Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Democrats’ redistricting plan, dimming party’s midterm hopes

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down the voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year’s midterm elections.

The court ruled the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court’s ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.

“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” the court said in its opinion.

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US forces disabled two more Iranian tankers that were trying to breach an American blockade

That’s according to U.S. Central Command in a social media post.

In the social media post on Friday, it says a U.S. Navy fighter jet fired into the smokestacks of ships in the Gulf of Oman after they tried to pull into an Iranian port.

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The newly unveiled website housing documents on UFOs has a decidedly retro feel

It features black-and-white military imagery of flying objects displayed prominently on the page, with statements displayed in typewriter-like font.

The first release includes 162 files, such as old State Department cables, FBI documents and transcripts from NASA of crewed flights into space.

One document details an FBI interview with someone identified as a drone pilot who, in September 2023, reported seeing a “linear object” with a light bright enough to “see bands within the light” in the sky.

“The object was visible for five to ten seconds and then the light went out and the object vanished,” according to the FBI interview.

Another file is a NASA photograph from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, showing three dots in a triangular formation. The Pentagon says in an accompanying caption that “there is no consensus about the nature of the anomaly” but that a new, preliminary analysis indicated that it could be a “physical object.”

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Rubio defended Trump after weeks of his criticisms of the pope

And Rubio said the U.S. believed it could still have a “productive and fruitful and important relationship” with the Catholic Church.

Rubio spoke to reporters in Rome, a day after his meeting with Pope Leo XIV during a fence-mending visit to Italy and the Vatican.

He was asked if he would recommend that Trump stop criticizing Leo’s position on the Iran war.

“The president will always speak clearly about how he feels about the U.S. and U.S. policy,” Rubio said. “The president of the United States is always going to act in what’s in the best interest of the United States.”

Rubio came to Rome after Trump repeatedly criticized Leo’s calls for peace and dialogue. The back and forth that ensued riled Italian leaders who came to Leo’s defense.

“The president’s perspective is clear. He thinks that Iran is a threat, and it needs to be addressed. And that position remains unchanged,” Rubio said.

US employers added a surprising 115,000 jobs last month despite economic shock from the Iran war

Hiring was better than the 65,000 forecasters had expected, though it decelerated from the 185,000 jobs created in March. The unemployment rate remained at a low 4.3%.

The Iran war has caused the biggest disruption of global oil supplies in history and sent average U.S. gasoline prices surging past $4.50 a gallon this week. But the conflict hasn’t done much damage to the American job market so far.

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Pentagon begins releasing new files on UFOs and says the public can draw its own conclusions

In addition to the Pentagon, the effort is led by the White House, the director of national intelligence, the Energy Department, NASA and the FBI.

The Pentagon said Friday in a post on X that while past administrations sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, Trump “is focused on providing maximum transparency to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files.”

The Pentagon says additional documents will be released on a rolling basis.

▶ Read more

Rubio says Iran’s reported plan to create an agency to control Strait of Hormuz is ‘unacceptable’

And he warned that if Tehran attacks U.S. Navy ships “they’re going to get blown up.”

Rubio fielded questions at the end of a two-day fence-mending visit to Rome and the Vatican after sharp disagreements over the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and President Donald Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV.

He was asked about reports from a shipping data company that said Iran has created a government agency to vet and tax vessels seeking passage through the strait.

“Is the world going to accept that Iran now controls an international waterway?” Rubio asked. “What is the world prepared to do about it?”

He also warned Tehran against attacking American maritime assets in the region. The U.S. said it thwarted attacks on three Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

“The red line is clear. They threaten Americans, they are going to be blown up,” he said.

Rubio says US expecting Iran response Friday

The secretary of state, traveling in Italy, said the U.S. is anticipating a response from Iran on the ongoing diplomatic discussions sometime later Friday.

“We should know something today,” Rubio, who doubles as the White House national security adviser, told reporters.

He added: “I hope it’s a serious offer. I really do.”

Judge rules Trump administration’s cancellation of humanities grants was unconstitutional

The Trump administration’s cancellation of more than $100 million in humanities grants to scholars, writers, research groups and other organizations was unconstitutional, and the Department of Government Efficiency had no authority to end the funding, a federal judge in New York ruled on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan sided with The Authors Guild, several other groups and several people who had their grants canceled and sued DOGE and the National Endowment for the Humanities. McMahon permanently barred the administration from terminating the grants and criticized DOGE’s use of artificial intelligence in nixing the funding.

Government lawyers had argued that the cuts of more than 1,400 grants of congressionally approved funds were legal moves to implement President Donald Trump’s directives, eliminate grants associated with diversion, equity and inclusion and reduce discretionary spending under the administration’s priorities.

The White House and Department of Justice, which defended against the lawsuit, did not immediately return emails seeking comment Thursday evening. It was not immediately clear if an appeal was planned.

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Federal court rules against new global tariffs Trump imposed after loss at the Supreme Court

A federal court ruled Thursday against the new global tariffs that Trump imposed after a stinging loss at the Supreme Court.

A split three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade in New York found the 10% global tariffs were illegal after small businesses sued.

The court ruled 2-1 that Trump overstepped the tariff power that Congress had allowed the president under the law. The tariffs are “invalid″ and “unauthorized by law,” the majority wrote.

The third judge on the panel found the law allows the president more leeway on tariffs.

If the administration appeals Thursday’s decision, as expected, it would first turn to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, based in Washington, and then, potentially, the Supreme Court.

At issue are temporary 10% worldwide tariffs the Trump administration imposed after the Supreme Court in February struck down even broader tariffs the president had imposed last year on almost every country on Earth. The new tariffs were set to expire July 24.

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Trump drives across Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to inspect new blue coating he’s putting on it

Trump on Thursday went on an unannounced trip to the Lincoln Memorial to see the Reflecting Pool after he had it coated in a color he calls “American flag blue.”

The Republican president was driven across the new coating before he got out of his SUV to make a statement and answer questions from reporters who had been taken there to await his arrival before the sun set.

The new blue coating will hide the pool’s gray stone, a color Trump said was “never good.” The project cost nearly $2 million, he said.

“It never had the color people wanted, but now it’s going to have the great color,” he said, standing in the pool surrounded by some of his Cabinet secretaries, including Doug Burgum of Interior and Markwayne Mullin of Homeland Security.

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The point of contention: The popular show “The View," and whether it's subject to equal time rules.

ABC’s filing to the Federal Communications Commission, made public Friday, came in a dispute involving one ABC station in Houston, KTRK-TV. But the wording indicated the network was embarking on a broader battle with the administration.

“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” said the filing on behalf of both KTRK-TV and ABC.

The commission replied, in a statement emailed to The Associated Press, that equal time law “encourages more speech and empowers voters to decide the outcome of elections. The FCC will review Disney’s assertion that ‘The View’ is a ‘bona fide news program’ and thus exempt from the political equal time rules.”

The ABC filing appeared to be the latest volley inside and outside the legal arena between the U.S. media and the Trump White House over what journalists perceive as the president’s attack on free speech and the media’s ability to do its job. Trump has been critical of media outlets whose journalism runs counter to his agenda and sensibilities.

Among legal battles in the courts: a dispute between the Pentagon and The New York Times over access; a battle between the White House and The Associated Press over how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico; and Trump’s anger at The Wall Street Journal over reporting about Jeffrey Epstein.

The dispute concerns content on “The View,” ABC’s long-running morning talk show, which combines entertainment and political interviews and often features commentary critical of Trump. The filing referenced the FCC’s revisiting, with legal action, the question of whether “The View” should fall under equal time rules. The rules require granting equal airtime to competing candidates for office.

At issue: Whether ‘The View’ is subject to equal time rules

News programs are exempt from the rules. Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, has indicated he intends to argue that “The View” is not a so-called “bona fide news program.” The issue could affect other shows that similarly combine entertainment and politics.

In its filing, ABC argued that “‘The View’ has been broadcasting under a bona fide news exemption granted to it more than twenty years ago, consistent with longstanding Commission interpretations designed to minimize the serious First Amendment problems inherent in the equal time regime.”

The network also argued that the decades-old equal time doctrine was not attuned to the realities of the present day, when “the broadcast airwaves account for a slice of the numerous media options through which Americans get their political information. Indeed, the marketplace of ideas has never been more robust, and people can hear virtually any brand of political commentary by listening to a podcast, watching cable, scrolling social media, or streaming on a phone, computer or connected TV. The free flow of ideas flourishes on these non-broadcast platforms even though the equal opportunities rule does not apply there.”

ABC argues that free political discourse is needed now more than ever

Narrowing the FCC’s longtime approach to so-called “bona fide news exemptions,” it said, “would risk restricting political discourse exactly when it is needed most.”

The administration’s criticism of “The View” echoes its displeasure with late-night news hosts who criticize Trump – especially ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel.

Donald and Melania Trump recently both called for ABC to fire Kimmel for a joke in which the comic described the first lady as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”

The joke came two nights before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which was cut short when a man armed with guns and knives tried to enter the Washington ballroom where the Trumps were gathered along with much of the nation’s leadership and Washington media. Kimmel said the joke was a light roast about the couple’s age difference — and certainly not a reference to assassination.

In a footnote, ABC noted that “The View” has long featured a panel including women of different backgrounds to discuss issues of the day.

“Although the lineup of the co-hosts has changed over the years, ‘The View’ has consistently prioritized having a panel of women from different backgrounds in order to facilitate interesting discourse and the exchange of divergent perspectives,” it said.

It happened at a home near the 16500 block of Courtland Circle.

The constable’s office says there is no threat to the public and the bomb squad has taken possession of the device and will safely destroy it.

“We appreciate the public’s patience and cooperation while deputies and specialized units worked to secure the area safely,” the constable’s office said.

Inside the stadium, crews have been working for just over a week, but officials say the planning behind this moment stretches back nearly seven years—well before Houston’s World Cup bid was even secured.

A field years in the making

From logistics to engineering, every detail of the temporary pitch has been carefully mapped out.

One official described the effort as more critical than travel, training sites, or matchups.

• World Cup in Houston is soon, but many fans say they can’t afford tickets

“The tickets, the flights, training sites, teams, matchups. All of that’s important. This is the most important part of what we’re doing here.”

The goal: turn an indoor NFL stadium into one of the most closely monitored and high-performance playing surfaces in the world.

An accelerated build timeline

Under normal conditions, installing a professional natural grass pitch can take up to 13 weeks. In Houston, that timeline is being compressed into just over a month.

“Without this elite-level playing surface, there is no World Cup in Houston.”

To make it happen, crews are building the field from the ground up in carefully engineered layers designed for drainage, stability, and temperature control. The finished surface will support roughly 81,000 square feet of Kentucky bluegrass.

Grass grown in Colorado, delivered by truck

The grass itself isn’t local—it’s been grown for the past 18 months in Colorado.

“Our sod has been grown in the Denver, Colorado area for the past 18 months.”

• From listings to liability: What the World Cup means for Houston hosts and neighbors

Once ready, the sod will travel roughly 18 hours in refrigerated trucks before arriving in Houston, where it will be laid piece by piece and stitched into a seamless hybrid playing surface.

A hybrid pitch built for performance

Because NRG Stadium is a domed venue, maintaining natural grass requires additional technology. Giant LED grow lights—shipped from the Netherlands—will be installed to help sustain the field between matches.

Organizers describe the system as highly technical and tightly controlled, combining natural turf with reinforced structural layers underneath.

“This is essentially one big science experiment.”

After the World Cup: A rapid removal

Once the tournament concludes, the transformation will be reversed just as quickly as it was built. The entire grass field is expected to be removed in under two weeks, allowing the stadium to transition back to NFL use.

That means the full cycle—from installation to removal—will span only a few weeks.

From soccer showcase back to football

In total, the process reflects a rare overlap of global sport and local infrastructure: a temporary world-class soccer pitch built inside a football stadium, then dismantled almost immediately afterward.

For Houston, it’s a short-term transformation with long-term global visibility as the city prepares to host matches for one of the biggest sporting events in the world.

Raymond Epps, a former Marine, was falsely accused by Fox of being a government agent causing trouble near the Capitol that day so that it would be blamed on Trump fans. He said he and his wife sold an Arizona ranch where they lived and moved into a recreational vehicle because of the harassment they faced after Fox's reports.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Hall in Delaware granted Fox's motion to dismiss the case, finding Epps failed to show enough evidence to prove that Fox knew its statements were false.

The judge previously dismissed the case in 2024 but gave Epps a second chance to file his case. Her Friday ruling said he still fell short.

Epps had named Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox in April 2023, as being the most active promoter of the conspiracy theory. At the time, Carlson hosted Fox’s most popular show. Epps was featured in more than two dozen segments on Carlson’s prime-time show, the lawsuit said.

“In the aftermath of the events of January 6th, Fox News searched for a scapegoat to blame other than Donald Trump or the Republican Party," lawyers for Epps wrote in their lawsuit. "Eventually, they turned on one of their own.”

In a statement Friday night, Fox News said it was "pleased with the federal court’s ruling, further preserving the press freedoms of the First Amendment.”

Epps pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge related to the Jan. 6 riot and was sentenced to a year of probation. He was later pardoned by Trump alongside 1,500 others who received clemency for their roles in the insurrection.

Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’ vehement denials that he was a government plant or FBI operative. They say Epps has never been a government employee or agent beyond serving in the U.S. Marines from 1979 to 1983.

The incident happened Tuesday, May 5 during a jury trial in Brazoria County Family Court involving a custody modification case.

A court docket entry states attorneys Brenda DeRouen and Michael Phillips appeared during a modifying custody case.

• New details: 2 Houston residents among those exposed during Atlantic cruise ship Hantavirus incident

The docket entry then states:

“Outside the presence of the jury, and on the record, during arguments [attorney Michael] Phillips repeated a racial slur several times and Court found the conduct to be an act of direct contempt.”

Court proceedings recessed shortly afterward and resumed the next morning.

Brenda DeRouen, one of the attorneys present during the exchange, described the incident as “deeply disturbing” in a statement provided to KPRC 2 News.

“I was deeply disturbed by conduct that occurred during the proceedings when opposing counsel repeatedly used a racial slur in open court under the guise of ‘evidence,’ despite the manner and context in which it was presented having no legitimate evidentiary purpose,” DeRouen said. “The comments were unnecessary, demeaning, and came across as taunting rather than advocacy.”

DeRouen, who identified herself as a Black woman attorney practicing in Texas family courts, said the moment underscored broader concerns about professionalism and respect in courtrooms.

“Attorneys should be able to advocate fiercely for their clients without being subjected to racially charged conduct that undermines professionalism and dignity in the courtroom,” she said.

Despite the incident, DeRouen said the jury ultimately returned a verdict in favor of her client.

“We remain proud that the focus ultimately stayed where it belonged: the evidence, the law, and the best interest of the child,” she said.

She also said attorneys across Brazoria County had offered support following the courtroom exchange.

“We respect the Court’s decision to hold opposing counsel in contempt,” DeRouen said. “This moment is bigger than one case. Courtrooms should be places where justice is pursued with professionalism, not intimidation.”

Phillips disputed the characterization of the incident in a statement sent to KPRC 2 News saying the comments occurred during a late-evening evidentiary hearing outside the jury’s presence while he was objecting to evidence, he described as inflammatory.

“Despite my consistent objection, virtually every single day of the three week trial, opposing counsel repeatedly used the n-word with a hard r in the jury’s presence,” Phillips said. “A statement was made in which the word was recited to the Judge, about the repeated use of the inappropriate word, NOT a derogatory statement made towards opposing counsel in any way.”

Phillips said he apologized immediately afterward.

“An immediate full and sincere apology was announced at the first opportunity to everyone present when the n-word statement was made,” he said.

He also accused opposing counsel of using media attention to damage his reputation.

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“It is unfortunate that opposing counsel has strategically attracted the media to slander our reputation in an attempt to hold us accountable for a standard to which she does not hold herself,” Phillips said. “Racial slurs have no place in our court system, regardless of your race.”

Court records reviewed by KPRC 2 News do not yet indicate whether sanctions beyond the contempt finding have been imposed.

Michael Phillips’ full statement:

“This incident occurred at approximately 5:00 PM, Tuesday, May 5^th, 2026, at a time in which the front doors of the courthouse are locked, and the jury was not present in the Courtroom. We were having a hearing over admitting a piece of inflammatory evidence to which I was actively objecting.

Despite my consistent objection, virtually every single day of the three week trial, opposing counsel repeatedly used the n-word with a hard r in the jury’s presence. A statement was made in which the word was recited to the Judge, about the repeated use of the inappropriate word, NOT a derogatory statement made towards opposing counsel in any way.

An immediate full and sincere apology was announced at the first opportunity to everyone present when the n-word statement was made. It is unfortunate that opposing counsel has strategically attracted the media to slander our reputation in an attempt to hold us accountable for a standard to which she does not hold herself. Racial Slurs have no place in our court system, regardless of your race.”

Brenda Derouen’s full statement:

“I was deeply disturbed by conduct that occurred during the proceedings when opposing counsel repeatedly used a racial slur in open court under the guise of “evidence,” despite the manner and context in which it was presented having no legitimate evidentiary purpose. The comments were unnecessary, demeaning, and came across as taunting rather than advocacy.

As a Black woman attorney practicing in Texas family courts, I am acutely aware of how isolating these moments can feel. Black women make up only a very small percentage of attorneys in this country, and even fewer are lead trial counsel in high-conflict jury trials involving custody litigation. Attorneys should be able to advocate fiercely for their clients without being subjected to racially charged conduct that undermines professionalism and dignity in the courtroom.

Despite those challenges, the jury returned a verdict in favor of our client. We remain proud that the focus ultimately stayed where it belonged: the evidence, the law, and the best interest of the child.

We also want to acknowledge the overwhelming support we have received from attorneys throughout Brazoria County. Members of the legal community, from different backgrounds and practices, have reached out privately and publicly to stand in solidarity with us and to reaffirm that professionalism, respect, and dignity still matter in the practice of law. That support has meant more than words can express.

We respect the Court’s decision to hold opposing counsel in contempt, and while no further action has occurred at this time, we believe in the integrity of the justice system and trust that the Court will continue taking the necessary steps to ensure litigants, witnesses, jurors, and attorneys feel safe, respected, and protected inside our courtrooms.

This moment is bigger than one case. Courtrooms should be places where justice is pursued with professionalism, not intimidation. Advocacy does not require humiliation, and justice should never come at the expense of human dignity."

Some students with disabilities will be required to move campuses next school year where they will learn in a “contained” setting, Houston ISD Deputy Superintendent Kristen Hole announced earlier this week. It is part of an effort to centralize special education services, so programs spread across several campuses could be consolidated into one site. The majority of special education students will not be affected.

Hole said the changes will mean better instruction for children with disabilities with more small-group settings for individualized attention.

However, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is examining whether the move runs directly counter to the federal law that says students with disabilities should learn alongside classmates who do not have disabilities as much as possible.

“Schools cannot exclude students with disabilities simply because of their disability status. Placement decisions must be made individually, based on each student’s needs, rather than by blanket policies that segregate students by disability category,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey wrote in a statement. “The allegations described here are alarming.”

Houston ISD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the investigation. The district’s website notes that student services will still closely follow individualized education plans, or IEPs, which is a written plan of each students’ needs.

Federal officials cited concerns from Houston families that their children will lose out on a chance to improve their social skills in general education classrooms. Parents also worry that longer transportation times to these alternative campuses will be challenging for children with medical and behavioral needs.

Houston ISD previously has struggled to provide supports to the more than 20,000 students who qualify for special education services. In 2020, special investigators with the Texas Education Agency found HISD in “systemic and widespread” noncompliance with special education law.

About a decade ago, federal officials found Texas failed to properly educate many students with disabilities.The state had quietly capped the percentage of students that schools could identify as in need of special education services.

Houston ISD has been under state control since June 2023 due to chronic poor academic performance. For the district to regain local control, Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has said, in addition to improving academic outcomes, HISD must get its special education programs in compliance with state and federal law.

There is a 30% chance of rain Saturday. We have the same issue as Friday. A lot of rich tropical moisture sits on top of us, but we’re out of the main storm track. Please keep in mind, if storms do form over Houston, they will be strong. Below is the noon futurecast.

Mother’s Day Sunday:

Sunday, Mother’s Day, starts great! But Sunday night a cold front moves through. This front will bring a line rain and thunderstorms. Our northern cities have a chance of hail and strong winds. The storms will weaken the closer they get to the coast.

10 Day Forecast:

Looking ahead into next week, expect a drier weather pattern but the mugginess will stick around with temperatures forecast to range between 84 to 88 degrees. Next chance of rain is Sunday May 17th.

Have you captured a dramatic rain photo or video? Share your weather moments with the KPRC 2 community through Click2Pins at Click2Houston.com/pins.