The S&P 500 fell 0.7% and is on track for a fourth loss in the five days since setting its all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 661 points, or 1.2%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% lower.

The bond market remains the center of the action after yields charged higher through the summer. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a surprise move Wednesday that brought some temporary relief. His department said it will at least double the size of its planned purchases of longer-term Treasurys from Sept. 9 through Nov. 4.

That helped push yields down after the 10-year Treasury’s yield had hit its highest level in more than a year and the 30-year yield got back to where it was in 2007, before the Great Recession sent yields toward zero worldwide. It’s a big deal because high yields slow the economy by raising interest payments for people, companies and the government, and they can undercut prices for stocks and other investments.

But analysts had cautioned the effect may be short lived, given how small the purchases are relative to the overall size of the Treasury market and how they don't fix the fundamental concerns of investors that had driven up yields. Plus, more signals arrived quickly to keep those concerns high.

The U.S. government’s debt topped $40 trillion on Wednesday, a staggering record that arrived just months after the national debt first blew past the $39 trillion mark in April, because Washington continues to spend far more money than it brings in.

And on Thursday, the price for a barrel of Brent crude climbed 2.4% to $93.78 as uncertainty continues about when the war with Iran will allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf again. President Donald Trump threatened Iran with “the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY” late Wednesday but provided few details.

That helped push the 10-year Treasury yield up to 4.69% from 4.65% late Wednesday. It’s almost back to its 4.71% level from late Tuesday, before the Treasury Department made its announcement.

A couple encouraging reports on the U.S. economy also helped raise longer-term Treasury yields, which move with expectations for the economy and inflation in coming years. One said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected, while another said manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region appears to be much stronger than expected.

On Wall Street, Walmart was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 and fell 9.6% even though it reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors focused instead on how an important underlying measure of revenue growth at its stores slowed again. Its forecast for profit in the current quarter also fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Given its massive size, Walmart offers a look at how shoppers are doing across the United States. A surprisingly weak update on sales at U.S. retailers overall last month had raised worries that shoppers may be succumbing to pressure from high inflation and a job market that may be looking less solid.

Advance Auto Parts tumbled 26.7% toward its worst loss in three years after the retailer reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter, even though its profit topped expectations. CEO Shane O’Kelly said that “tighter household budgets constrained spending more than we anticipated, especially during the last four weeks of the quarter.”

Spending by U.S. consumers is the main engine of the economy, and a pullback by them could exacerbate what's already a slowdown in growth for the economy.

A pullback could also mean a double-whammy for travel companies, which would see fewer bookings when they have to pay higher prices for fuel. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings fell 5.3%, while United Airlines sank 4.1% and American Airlines lost 2.7%.

Helping to keep Wall Street’s losses in check was Deere, which reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It rose 6.8% as the company said order trends indicate the agriculture equipment business looks set to accelerate after this year.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi soared 5.9% for one of the world’s biggest moves after the two tech titans that dominate its market, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, jumped. Such swings have become more common for Seoul's market, which has borne the brunt of rising and falling worries that winning stocks in the artificial-intelligence boom may have shot too high.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

Several of the 300 women, and a few men, said Clancy’s story resonated with them and that they wanted to raise awareness about how the mental health system treats women. Clancy's lawyer does not dispute that she killed the children, but says she should not be held criminally responsible because she was mentally ill.

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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.

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The livestreamed trial has sparked massive discussions online and has brought attention to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness Clancy's attorney Kevin Reddington says she had that is linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth. Reddington said she also has bipolar disorder. After strangling her children, Clancy jumped from a second-story window and remains paralyzed from the waist down.

Reddington says Clancy repeatedly sought help: She turned to multiple outpatient providers, tried various drugs they prescribed, called a suicide hotline, went to an emergency room, and even checked herself into a psychiatric hospital.

Prosecutors say the former labor and delivery nurse planned the Jan. 24, 2023, killings and contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to pick up medicine for one of their children and dinner for the family. They have also questioned the seriousness of her suicide attempt, and witnesses have testified that Clancy wouldn’t always take prescribed medications.

Supporters stood silently for an hour

Thursday's rally was the first time during the nearly monthlong trial that supporters have come out in such large numbers.

“Women are being dismissed, neglected and ignored when we speak up,” said April Vincent, a 52-year-old paralegal from Providence, Rhode Island. “We’re scared because nobody takes us seriously.”

The women stood silently for more than an hour ahead of Thursday's proceedings, where a chaplain called by the defense testified about visiting Clancy in the hospital after the killings.

At the sight of Reddington outside the courthouse, the crowd broke into applause.

Rally organizer Renee Kimball implored the crowd to trust that Reddington “has Lindsay’s fight.”

Toward the end of their rally, supporters formed a circle, said the Lord's Prayer, held up their arms and formed hearts with their hands. Some held flags from different countries to show that the support for Clancy was global.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged from 8 months to 5 years old. Researchers estimate that postpartum psychosis — which is more serious and less common than postpartum depression — afflicts 1 to 2 per 1,000 women after delivery.

Jeanne Zaborski, a 72-year-old retired nurse from Rockland, Massachusetts, said she hopes the case raises awareness about postpartum health. She and many others at the rally said they had been following the trial almost daily.

“It's very sad,” Zaborski said. “I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I have a sister who had problems after birth and it's just very sad. I hope Lindsay gets the care she needs and deserves and other women will come together like we did today.”

Chaplain recalls one of the first things Clancy said to her

In court, Sheila Cavanaugh, a chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, testified that when she first visited Clancy after the killings, she was unconscious. By Jan. 31, 2023, Clancy was conscious and no longer connected to a ventilator, Cavanaugh said, but “her emotional state was very neutral — a flat affect.”

Cavanaugh said she “vividly remembers” one of the first things Clancy said to her.

“She said to me, as I held her hand to comfort her, ‘I’m so glad my children are safe,’” Cavanaugh said. “I replied theologically to Lindsay. I said, ‘Lindsay, your children are safe. They’re safe in heaven with God.’”

“We prayed for them,” said Cavanaugh, who saw Clancy more than 200 times and has visited her at the state mental hospital where she resides.

Cavanaugh said Clancy “alluded to hearing a voice, and the voice, according to Lindsay, told her that if she did not follow the command, neither she nor her children would be safe.”

Prosecutors questioned why Cavanaugh had not documented the disclosure about the voice in notes she made in Clancy’s hospital record.

“I’m not there to evaluate the patient; I’m there to bear witness to their suffering,” Cavanaugh said, noting that she is not medically trained and her notes aren't meant to be verbatim transcripts of conversations.

Their last visit was right before the trial started. She said Clancy “talks frequently about her children.”

“She loves them deeply,” Cavanaugh said. “She carries immense grief.”

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Associated Press journalist Leah Willingham contributed from Boston.

“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center,” Trump said, “I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.”

It's not the kind of message anyone is using in competitive midterm races.

The race to build data centers, which power artificial intelligence and cloud computing, has run aground amid frustration from voters who don't want to live near the massive warehouse campuses. Even the Senate Republicans' campaign arm warned that anger over data centers — some of which dwarf football stadiums and use more energy than small cities — could cost them a seat.

Opposition stretches across the political spectrum because of fears that the behemoths will jack up electricity bills, drain people's water wells, create unhealthy amounts of air and noise pollution and forever change a community's character — all while getting lucrative tax breaks from states competing for their business.

Trump has framed data centers as a necessary component of a top national and economic security priority: winning the AI race against China. However, he also has acknowledged concern over rising electricity bills, previously saying “it’s only fair” for the companies to shoulder their costs.

He also suggested this week that data centers need “a little public relations help.” In recent months, he has gotten tech giants to sign a voluntary pledge to shield U.S. consumers from higher utility bills from data centers, even as he pushes to streamline the process for companies and utilities to build their own power plants.

But building power plants doesn't happen overnight, and the immediate political reality for candidates across the country is far different.

“It is yet another dimension in which the White House appears tone deaf — tone deaf at best and indifferent to the interest of other Republican candidates at worst,” said James Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin, a nonpartisan research organization.

Republican committee issues warning over data centers in Ohio

Statewide candidates from Nevada to Pennsylvania, both Republican and Democratic, are weaponizing data centers against their opponents, and candidates who absorb those attacks are subsequently trying to distance themselves from them.

In Ohio, a data center hot spot with closely contested races for governor and U.S. Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a memo Tuesday that Sen. Jon Husted is vulnerable to losing his seat because of the centers.

Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown is airing attack ads against Husted that call him the “face of data centers in Ohio” as people gather signatures for a statewide referendum to ban their construction.

The Republican memo said it's been a “sleeper issue for the entire election cycle.”

“Brown is using it because it works,” the NRSC said. “More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck. If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one.”

The memo suggested voters may balk at Democratic candidates who want to stop data center construction altogether in favor of a Republican candidate who only wants data centers built if a community approves it in a local vote and it pays for its own power, water and other utilities.

Most registered voters oppose building a data center in their area, according to a July Fox News poll.

Still, the issue falls behind other voter concerns, such as cost of living, as November looms. A Quinnipiac Poll conducted in June asked voters what issues were important in deciding who to vote for in U.S. House elections, and about 4 in 10 mentioned AI data centers.

Trump’s statement already put to use in Nevada race

In Nevada, Democrat Aaron Ford quickly tied Trump’s statement to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, characterizing them as being in “lockstep on data centers.”

In a statement, Ford said Trump and Lombardo are “Nevada data centers’ biggest cheerleaders” who “only care about catering to their ‘billionaire friends’ while Nevadans pay the price.”

Ford this week unveiled a policy platform in which he said he would halt new state tax breaks for data centers — he estimated them at $200 million currently — while auditing existing projects to ensure they are delivering on promises. He also said he would ensure data centers pay for their electricity needs, do not deplete Nevada’s water supply and help local governments negotiate strong benefits agreements with developers.

Texas' governor changed course and got a jab from Trump

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who last November celebrated Google’s announcement of a $40 billion investment there by calling the state “the epicenter of AI development,” is under attack from his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa, over his pursuit of data center development.

Abbott has since changed course by promising tougher action, such as removing the state’s sales tax exemption and holding up projects to review their energy usage.

Trump criticized the shift, saying “I think it's a mistake” in a recent interview with Punchbowl News.

Asked about Trump's support for data centers, Abbott's office said the governor's “top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life and ensure the integrity of our power grid and water supply.”

“Simply put, Texans must come first,” Abbott's office said.

Data centers complicated Wisconsin governor race

While Trump embraces data centers, even some of his allies are using them for political attacks. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, running for Wisconsin governor, released a TV ad this week branding his Democratic opponent as “Data Center David Crowley.”

The ad includes a clip of Crowley saying Wisconsin could become the “AI and data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe.”

Crowley has said local communities must have veto authority while also calling data centers a part of the modern economy that could bring significant economic benefits to the state.

Tiffany, who Trump has endorsed, has also said positive things about data centers. In January, Tiffany called data centers “exciting new technology,” in an interview with PBS Wisconsin. And last December, he voted for a bipartisan bill known as the SPEED Act, which is designed to accelerate construction of new AI infrastructure projects like data centers. It hasn't passed the Senate.

Neither Tiffany nor Crowley support a moratorium on new data center construction.

Tiffany has called for repealing the state tax incentive for data centers, while Crowley has not. They both have called for stricter regulation.

Crowley, at an event Wednesday where he received the endorsement of the environmental group Clean Wisconsin, downplayed the attacks Tiffany has made against his data center position.

“He’s getting very good at saying one thing and doing something different,” Crowley said, pointing to Tiffany’s votes in support of the SPEED Act.

“What Congressman Tom Tiffany’s doing is lying because he’s trying to run away from his record in Congress,” Crowley said.

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Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin, and Levy from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Linley Sanders contributed from Washington.

“Here we go,” Alcaraz posted on his social media pages Thursday, with one picture showing him in front of the U.S. Open logo.

The seven-time Grand Slam champion has been sidelined since April because of a right wrist injury, forcing him to miss both the French Open and Wimbledon.

Alcaraz won his second U.S. Open title last year, beating Jannik Sinner in the final. He then won the Australian Open and his next tournament, part of his 22-3 start to this season.

But after winning his first match in the Barcelona Open, Alcaraz withdrew from the tournament because of the injury. He is still ranked No. 2 despite his absence.

Photos and videos on social media had shown Alcaraz on the practice court, so it appeared he was on the verge of returning during the hard-court swing preceding the U.S. Open before he withdrew from the Cincinnati Open. That tournament is ongoing, and during a match Wednesday night commentators speculated whether Alcaraz would attempt to come back to play a Grand Slam tournament without preparation.

The top-ranked Sinner has also been out of action, not playing since winning the Wimbledon title. He pulled out of the Cincinnati tournament with a right knee injury, saying he would focus on being ready to play in New York.

Their injuries should create more intrigue for the last Grand Slam tournament of the year than there was in 2025, when they had met in the final at both the French Open and Wimbledon, and were widely expected to do so again in New York.

Alcaraz won his first Grand Slam title in the 2022 U.S. Open, a victory that at 19 made him the youngest man to hold the No. 1 spot in the ATP rankings.

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See AP’s full tennis coverage here

Location: Michigan, Florida, or Texas, with a preference for candidates based in the Detroit metropolitan area.

Description

The HR Business Partner serves assigned client groups with trust and understanding of business needs, providing expertise across the full employee lifecycle. This role partners closely with leaders and employees to drive organizational effectiveness, support a high-performance culture, and deliver HR solutions that move the business forward. The HRBP operates as a proactive trusted advisor — analyzing people data to surface insights before problems arise, bringing forward solutions, and equally comfortable navigating complex employee relations matters, coaching managers, facilitating learning experiences, and leading process improvement work that raises the bar for how HR operates.

This role represents an opportunity to help shape and strengthen HR business partnership at GMG as the organization continues to build its HR infrastructure, processes, and vendor support. The HRBP will operate across both strategic and operational areas of HR, with responsibility for supporting the employee lifecycle and ensuring a high-quality experience for leaders and employees. As the HR function and its infrastructure continue to evolve, the scope and balance of responsibilities may also evolve, creating opportunities for this role to contribute to how HR work is structured, delivered, and continuously improved.

Responsibilities

• Build trusted, credible relationships with business leaders and managers within assigned client groups, serving as their primary HR partner
• Analyze people data and workforce trends to proactively identify risks, gaps, and opportunities — bringing forward solutions before issues escalate
• Support and execute employee lifecycle processes, including hiring, onboarding, employee changes, leaves of absence, and offboarding; coordinate with benefits, payroll and recruiting, and other partners to resolve employee and manager needs.
• Build and maintain SOPs for core HR processes, ensuring consistency across a distributed, multi-market workforce
• Partner with the HR Director on workforce planning and change management initiatives
• Use data, analytics, and AI-enabled tools to build a continuous picture of workforce health; translate findings into actionable recommendations without waiting to be asked
• Manage employee relations matters from intake through resolution, including investigations involving policy violations, harassment, discrimination, retaliation, conduct and workplace conflict; document findings and recommend appropriate resolutions in partnership with Director of HR.
• Advise and coach managers on performance management, corrective action, and documentation
• Coach managers on delivering effective feedback, managing performance, and building team capability
• Identify talent gaps and partner with the HR Director on succession planning and development strategies
• Partner with business leaders to understand current and forward-looking talent needs within assigned client groups — headcount planning, role definition, and team composition — translating business strategy into workforce and talent decisions
• Work directly with hiring managers to ensure talent needs within assigned client groups are well understood and supported
• Facilitate HR-related learning experiences, including manager development, policy training, and onboarding programs; partner with the HR Director to identify training needs and ensure learning solutions are aligned with company-wide priorities and standards
• Ensure consistent policy application across assigned client groups and support compliance with federal, state, and local employment regulations across multiple states

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in human resources, business administration, or equivalent work experience
• Minimum of 5 years progressive HR experience; 2 years in an HR Business Partner or other comparable consultative role is strongly preferred
• Working proficiency in Workday (or a comparable HRIS), including comfort executing transactional processes (hiring actions, leave tracking, verifications) alongside strategic work
• Demonstrated experience managing complex employee relations matters end-to-end
• Experience designing and facilitating training or learning programs for adult audiences
• Proven track record of process improvement — building SOPs, redesigning workflows, or leading structured improvement initiatives
• Working knowledge of employment law across multiple states
• Demonstrated use of AI tools to improve HR work — whether for communications, documentation, data analysis, research, or workflow automation
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to influence without authority across a distributed organization
• Comfort operating across both strategic and transactional levels of HR work, with the flexibility to shift focus as the function’s infrastructure matures

Preferred

• Experience in media, broadcasting, or a similarly distributed, multi-site environment
• Exposure to union environments and labor relations
• SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR certification
• SHRM AI & Human Intelligence (AI&HI) credential or equivalent AI-focused professional development
• Six Sigma, Lean, or formal process improvement experience
• Experience with Workday HCM modules beyond core HR (e.g., Time Off/Leave, Recruiting, Benefits)

Applicants can send resumes to careers@grahammedia.com

Graham Media Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer. In addition to complying with the requirements of federal law, GMG will comply with applicable state and local laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Any offer of employment is conditional upon the successful completion of a pre-employment drug screening, investigative background check, employment/education verifications, and reference checks.

The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

Federal agents seized electronic devices from former Rep. Eric Swalwell and searched his Washington home as part of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by the ex-Democratic congressman from California, according to a person familiar with the matter. Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following sexual assault and misconduct allegations, which he has denied.

The Latest:

Trump meets Vance’s baby

The vice president said in an interview on a radio show on Thursday that he took his youngest son, Alec Neel Vance, who was born July 19, to meet Trump.

Vance, speaking on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, said the president loves children and gave his son a challenge coin.

“The baby doesn’t understand that, but he will someday,” Vance said.

Vance said the meeting happened after he and his wife, Usha, had lunch with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and country music star Luke Bryan, who is in town for a show.

Trump keeps embracing data centers even as they become toxic in midterm races

The president has voiced strong support for AI and data centers, emphasizing their economic benefits and importance in the global AI race.

“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center,” Trump said, “I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.”

Candidates in competitive midterm elections, however, are far less accepting.

Data centers have become a contentious issue, with concerns about energy costs and environmental impact. In Ohio, Republican Jon Husted faces attacks over his support for data centers. In Nevada, Democrat Aaron Ford accused Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo of aligning with Trump on the issue.

The debate reflects broader tensions over technology and local impact.

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Ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen is hosting the president on his radio show

Trump is expected to appear on the radio show of his former fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen.

The interview, which will be broadcast later Thursday, will be a dramatic public reunion with the man who once called Trump a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain” and testified against him both in court and before Congress.

Cohen served prison time for what he told a judge were his efforts to cover up Trump’s “dirty deeds.” He has since said he and the president have started to reconcile.

Cohen says Trump’s taped interview will air on his 77 WABC program Thursday evening and Sunday.

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US ramps up Cuba sanctions and detentions of Americans returning from the island

The Trump administration is imposing new sanctions on Cuba targeting its mining and metals sectors and broadening restrictions on Americans’ transactions with government-owned or affiliated businesses. It also accused Havana of using cultural and educational exchanges to radicalize U.S. citizens.

The Treasury and State departments announced sanctions on Thursday against 10 state-owned mining, metals, and construction companies and the leadership of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ICAP is responsible for sponsoring a “subversive network” to “cultivate” Americans, most recently with educational and cultural exchanges around the 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth earlier this month.

The sanctions follow an operation at the Miami airport last weekend in which several American citizens returning to the U.S. from events marking Castro’s birthday in Cuba were briefly detained, some of whom had their cell phones and other personal electronic devices seized for inspection.

Federal agents seize devices from ex-Rep. Eric Swalwell in sexual misconduct probe, AP source says

Federal agents have seized electronic devices from former Rep. Eric Swalwell and searched his Washington home as part of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by the ex-Democratic congressman from California, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Swalwell’s devices were seized at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, and federal agents searched his home a day later.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with an attorney for Swalwell.

Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following sexual assault and misconduct allegations, which he has denied. The AP source wasn’t authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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Bessent says bond buyback operation could be more than $4 billion

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a CNBC interview on Thursday that an accelerated buyback of government debt “could be more than $4 billion per issue.”

His comments followed the Treasury’s Wednesday announcement that it would dramatically expand the amount of U.S. government bonds it will buy back. When asked about the motivation for the move, Bessent said: “We’re trying to signal that this is a thinly traded area of the market, we’re in August and there’s been a lot of corporate issuances.”

“We’re trying to keep the market in equilibrium.”

Melania Trump is set to announce new scholarships for foster children

The first lady is partnering with IndyCar, the sanctioning body for U.S. auto racing, and Indiana and Purdue universities to fund the scholarships, her office says.

Both Indiana-based schools are joining about two dozen other institutions of higher learning to offer scholarships through Melania Trump’s “Fostering the Future” initiative benefiting young people in foster care.

A formal announcement is set for Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden. The first lady will be joined by her husband and representatives from IndyCar and the universities.

The announcement comes just before Sunday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix race in downtown Washington, which was organized by the president to help celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

US approves $4.5 billion sale of military aerial refueling planes to Qatar as Iran conflict lingers

The State Department said Thursday that it had given the green light for Qatar, a key U.S. partner in the Gulf, to buy four KC-46A aircraft along with assorted equipment, including turbofan engines, radar warning devices and countermeasure systems. The sale will also include trucks, training and assorted logistics services.

The sale “will increase Qatar’s capability to meet current and future threats by enhancing its defense capabilities and interoperability with U.S. and allied forces and reinforcing Qatar’s strategic role in regional security,” the department said.

Qatar, which hosts a major U.S. military base, has been a critical part of the war with Iran, including by trying to mediate an end to the conflict.

North Korea fires missile barrage toward the sea after dismissing overture from Trump

The launches come a day after North Korea shrugged off a U.S. decision to scale back military drills with South Korea in an apparent bid to resume diplomacy.

South Korea’s military said the launches of about 10 short-range ballistic missiles happened from North Korea’s capital region Thursday evening. The military said the missiles flew about 300 kilometers each toward North Korea’s eastern waters.

Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises just before they began Monday. The president cited what he said was a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.

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White House legislative affairs director James Braid is leaving his post

Braid was in charge of helping to shepherd Trump’s legislative agenda through a Congress where his Republican Party controlled both chambers.

Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that Braid “played a critical role in all of the administration’s achievements in Congress,” including the sweeping tax and spending legislation approved last summer.

Vance described Braid as “brilliant” and “one of the hardest workers you will ever meet.”

The vice president didn’t provide details of Braid’s next job, saying only that he was “very excited to see what he does next.”

Fresh US aircraft carrier arrives in Middle East

The Asia-based USS George Washington aircraft carrier is now operating in the Middle East, the U.S. military said Thursday.

The Washington is relieving the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln after reports that sailors were facing mental health challenges and supply shortages while supporting the Iran war.

The Lincoln’s deployment has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea. Democratic lawmakers are pressing for accountability from the Pentagon over conditions aboard the carrier, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said were “completely misrepresented.”

The deployment of the Washington to the Middle East has left Asia without an American carrier strike group at a time when China shows more signs of aggression.

Rubio designates US citizen jailed in China as ‘wrongfully detained’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has designated a U.S. citizen scholar jailed in China as “wrongfully detained” as Trump prepares to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House next month.

The State Department said Thursday that Rubio had decided that Min Zin, who was arrested by Chinese authorities in June, is being unjustly held.

“We call on Beijing to release all U.S. citizens arbitrarily detained or exit-banned in China,” the department said.

The designation raises the profile of his case within the U.S. government and in the past has led to additional attention and resources being devoted to securing the release of wrongful detainees.

Min Zin, who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy, was arrested on suspicion of spying. He was a student activist in Myanmar’s 1988 uprising, a student-led movement that the government at the time reacted to with military force. He eventually sought asylum in the U.S.

House Democrats add five new candidates to ‘red to blue’ program

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said the expansion showcases the depth of its candidate bench as they try to wrest majority control of the House.

Chair Suzan DelBene said the candidates are “proven fighters” at a time when voters are “eager for leaders who will always put the well-being of their communities first, not rubber stamp Trump’s failed agenda.”

The candidates include retired Army Brigadier General Leela Gray in Florida, former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo in Kentucky, Maine state auditor Matt Dunlap, former Navy helicopter pilot Nancy Lacore in South Carolina and former Rep. Tom Perriello in Virginia. The “red to blue” program invests in promising candidates with funding and other support.

Democrats narrow their list of 2028 presidential convention sites

Democrats on Thursday narrowed the list of potential host cities for their 2028 presidential convention to Boston, Denver and Philadelphia as their party looks ahead to a wide-open primary to succeed President Trump.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement the cities put forward “incredibly strong bids,” and he promised the convention would be an “inspiring celebration of our party’s future nominee.”

A final decision is expected to be made later this year by party leaders. Republicans have already chosen Houston for the site of their 2028 convention.

The Democratic convention, scheduled for Aug. 7-10, 2028, traditionally gives the party a chance to formally introduce its nominee to the country, rally the base and kick-start the most intense period of campaigning ahead of the general election.

The party didn’t specify why Atlanta and Chicago, which was the site of the 2024 convention, were eliminated. Officials visited all five cities in April and May, considering logistical and fundraising capacity among other factors.

▶ Read more

Trump plays White House tour guide to show off work on his helipad and ballroom

Trump played White House tour guide on Wednesday, showing off the helipad he is building on the lawn before leaning over to autograph a piece of it and bragging about the ballroom he’s rushing to complete despite legal challenges.

Trump gushed for several uninterrupted minutes about granite being laid and said the chopper landing area would leave visiting foreign leaders “very impressed” — including Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is coming next month.

At times, he sounded almost like a construction manager, singing the praises of granite over asphalt in painstaking detail and noting for reporters he brought out for the show that the stone could withstand 35,000 pounds per square inch of pressure.

The president also revealed for the first time that he has replaced the walkway from the White House’s diplomatic entrance along with a portion of the asphalt driveway around the South Lawn with white granite.

▶ Read more

The US national debt now stands at $40 trillion

The national debt surpassed a record $40 trillion Wednesday, a staggering milestone as defense costs, social programs like Social Security and Medicare and interest on the burgeoning deficit make up an enormous share of federal spending.

The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

The unprecedented $40 trillion figure highlights competing administration priorities, from boosting defense spending that the U.S. relies on to carry out President Donald Trump’s almost 6-month-old war in Iran to lowering the cost of gas and groceries.

Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said the Trump administration “has been focused on slashing waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending while accelerating economic growth to get America’s debt-to-GDP ratio trending in the right direction.”

However, experts say the exploding debt and the latest record milestone are already affecting Americans’ pocketbooks by raising borrowing costs for things like mortgages and cars, lowering wages from businesses that have less money available to invest, and creating more expensive goods and services.

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New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows several cruise ships received scores near the bottom of the agency’s 100-point sanitation scale this year.

• RELATED: Here’s how cruise ships out of Galveston scored

The CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program conducts unannounced inspections of cruise ships that call on U.S. ports. Inspectors look at areas including food preparation and dining rooms, medical facilities, drinking water systems, swimming pools and hot tubs, ventilation, housekeeping and child activity centers.

Cruise ships need a score of 86 or higher to pass. A score of 85 or lower is considered unsatisfactory.

The lowest-scoring cruise ships

According to CDC inspection data reviewed by Fox News, these seven ships had the lowest scores among the 2026 inspections:

To find your cruise ship and line’s score, click here.

The Norwegian Dawn was the only ship on the list to receive a failing score. It received an 84 during a March inspection. Norwegian Cruise Line took corrective action and submitted a report to the CDC following the inspection.

Three ships- Carnival Breeze, Kydon and National Geographic Sea Lion- barely passed with scores of 86.

One of the more notable results involved the Carnival Breeze.

The ship previously received a perfect 100 during an inspection earlier this year, but later received an 86. The CDC notes that inspection scores reflect conditions found on the ship at the time of that particular inspection, so scores can change from one inspection to another.

• Facebook Marketplace Post Leads to Recovery of Eight Stolen Tailgates, Two Arrests

A low CDC score does not necessarily mean a cruise ship is unsafe.

Instead, the score reflects how well the ship complied with the CDC’s public health standards during the inspection. The inspections are designed to identify sanitation and public health issues that could affect passengers and crew.

The CDC also publishes ships that receive perfect scores. Its rolling 12-month database currently includes vessels that earned a 100 during their inspections, including Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas and Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Destiny.

For cruise passengers, the CDC’s inspection database can be a useful tool to check a ship’s latest inspection before booking or boarding.

And for Houstonians planning a cruise from nearby Galveston, checking the ship’s most recent score could be one more thing to add to the vacation-planning checklist.

Swalwell’s devices were seized at the San Francisco airport on Saturday and agents executed a search warrant at his home a day later, said the person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with an attorney for Swalwell, who has denied allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. The Daily Mail first reported the seizure of Swalwell's devices on Thursday.

Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following allegations that Swalwell had sexually assaulted a woman twice, including when she worked for him. The San Francisco Chronicle, followed by CNN, first reported the allegations. CNN also reported that three other women alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by Swalwell, including sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.

The seven-term lawmaker had been seen as one of the leading candidates in California’s gubernatorial race before dropping out after the allegations surfaced.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed in April that it was investigating Swalwell after a former staffer told CNN and the Chronicle that Swalwell raped her at a hotel while he was in New York City for a charity gala in 2024. In a statement, Bragg’s office encouraged “survivors and anyone with knowledge of these allegations to contact our Special Victims Division.”

A lawyer representing Lonna Drewes, a California woman who in April said she had been raped in 2018 by Swalwell, said his team was cooperating with all law enforcement agencies investigating the former congressman.

“We are encouraged to learn about the escalation of the FBI’s investigation into the allegations against Eric Swalwell,” attorney Arick Fudali said in a statement.

Drewes spoke of the assault at a news conference days after Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race. She said it occurred at a hotel in Southern California. Swalwell denied that assault.

Swalwell, an Iowa native, was elected in 2012 and represented a House district east of San Francisco. He launched a presidential run in April 2019 but ended it a few months later after failing to catch on with voters.

He was one of Republican President Donald Trump’s top Democratic antagonists in Congress. He was a prominent member of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees during Trump's first term and served as one of several Democratic prosecutors for Trump’s second impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Swalwell was removed from the Intelligence Committee by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in 2023 based on Swalwell's contact with a suspected Chinese spy, Christine Fang.

Fang was reported to have come into contact with Swalwell’s campaign as he was first running for Congress in 2012 and to have participated in fundraising for his 2014 campaign.

Federal investigators alerted Swalwell to their concerns and briefed Congress about Fang in 2015, at which point Swalwell says he cut off contact with her. He was not accused of wrongdoing and a House Ethics Committee investigation that was opened in 2021 closed two years later without any action. ___

Associated Press reporter Michael R. Sisak in New York and Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Doctors Without Borders criticized the decision by Israel's military not to investigate two fatal attacks on the medical humanitarian organization's staff, and in Gaza City, a mass funeral was held for 50 people killed in Israeli airstrikes nearly three years ago but whose remains were just recovered.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Thursday. Full coverage can be found here.

Iran denounces Trump's economic threat

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has rejected the economic threats made against his country, saying that such “failed policies” will stir more hostility among Iranians and “bring more failures.”

Araghchi's comments came a few hours after Trump threatened “crushing economic measures” against Iran. The U.S. president promised “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” but provided few details.

In a social media post, Araghchi maintained that the threats aim to divert the attention of the U.S. public from domestic financial problems, saying that U.S. “economic terrorism threatens the global economy and the national sovereignty of countries around the world.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that Iran will face the “greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world."

In a CNBC interview, Bessent threatened secondary sanctions on nations and companies that conduct business with Iran, saying it's time for U.S. allies to make a decision on where they stand.

China's government and India are major buyers of Iranian oil, though Bessent didn't call them out by name.

Doctors Without Borders condemns Israel's military

Doctors Without Borders said that the decision by Israel's military not to open a criminal investigation into two strikes that killed four people shows the country won't take responsibility for attacking civilians.

The international aid group now wants an impartial investigation into the deaths, but didn't specify who should lead the effort.

Doctors Without Borders asked Israel's military to investigate an attack on a Gaza City convoy in November 2023 and a strike on the organization's shelter in Khan Younis in February 2024. Israel’s announcement on Wednesday said that it wouldn't launch criminal investigations into the two cases, in which troops killed the organization's employees.

The decision by Israel's military shows “there is no prospect of accountability within the Israeli legal system for the killing of our staff, just as there has been no accountability for Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that cited 15 staff and 1,700 healthcare workers killed in Gaza since October 2023.

Israel denies accusations of genocide and war crimes and says it's targeting Hamas after the militant group's attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas, because it operates in populated areas in the tiny, overcrowded Gaza Strip.

UK and others rebuke planned West Bank settlement project

Six European countries along with Canada condemned the latest development in a contentious Israeli settlement project near Jerusalem that would effectively cut the occupied West Bank in two.

Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing issued a tender for constructing several compounds with more than 1,200 homes in total in an open tract of land east of Jerusalem. It’s the latest step in a project under consideration for more than two decades, which critics say would prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state in the territory.

The joint statement from the leaders of the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada said international law is clear the settlement is illegal and noted “unprecedented levels of violence by settlers against civilians.”

“We urge the government of Israel to retract these plans immediately and end its expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Not only will they take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel's international standing,” the countries wrote.

Egypt and Jordan also condemned Israel’s move.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar responded on Thursday by defending “the historic right of the Jewish people to reestablish their national home in the Land of Israel — including in the area in question.” Saar criticized the U.K. government for “blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism.”

Gaza funeral for 50 killed in opening strikes of war

A mass funeral Thursday in Gaza City remembered 50 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the opening months of the Israel-Hamas war, but whose remains were only recently recovered from under rubble.

Dozens of mourners carried the remains, draped in Palestinian flags, through debris-strewn streets before lowering them into graves. Some held portraits and posters with photos of the deceased.

“We were able to recover them after three years of war, after three years of anguish, pain and torture. We were able to recover them, and dignify them in their final resting place. We were able to pray over them and bury them,” said Lina Karam, who lost her father and other members of her family.

The 50 bodies were from three families who were killed in airstrikes in November and December 2023.

The nearly three-year war has killed more than 73,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which was part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and international organizations. It doesn’t distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half of the toll.

Turkey denies delegation had visited air base in Syria

Turkey has denied that a Turkish military delegation had visited an air base in northern Syria that was hit by Israeli airstrikes, and vowed to continue supporting Syria in its efforts to rebuild its military.

The Israeli strikes targeted the Abu Duhur base early on Tuesday, causing damage but no casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that Israel had attacked the base because Syria was “on the verge of breaching” an agreed-upon “status quo in security matters” by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there.

Syrian officials have said that a Turkish delegation visited the base before the Israeli strike to review rehabilitation work underway there.

Syria's top diplomat discusses Middle East in Pakistan

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani arrived in Islamabad for talks expected to focus on regional issues, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The visit comes days after Israeli airstrikes targeted an air base in northern Syria, causing damage but no casualties.

Pakistan's officials say the country's political and military leadership remains in contact with both Iran and the United States over efforts to de-escalate tensions and push for the resumption of talks, after a 60-day deadline under a June memorandum of understanding expired. The agreement was brokered by Pakistan with help from regional countries.

Bodies of Pakistani sailors returned after Houthi attack

The bodies of two Pakistanis killed in last week’s Houthi attack on a Tanzanian-flagged commercial vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have been repatriated to Pakistan.

Six Pakistani sailors who were wounded in the attack have also safely returned to the country, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a post on X.

Biya arrived at the international airport in the capital, Yaoundé, aboard a flight from Geneva, Switzerland, after more than 10 weeks away.

The world’s oldest president, who has led Cameroon since 1982, began his eighth term in office in November after winning a widely disputed election in October.

Biya had left the country on June 7 for what his office described as “a brief private stay in Europe,” but it became the longest recorded absence of his presidency.

The health of the president has long been a topic of speculation as he spends significant time in Europe, including France and Switzerland, where he often spends weeks while leaving governance to key party officials and family members.

Cameroon’s constitution does not specifically prohibit a president from leaving the country for months. But without a vice president, an appointment Biya has full control over, the opposition has described the country as being run on “autopilot.”

Biya’s close collaborators were at the airport on Thursday, but he was not shown descending from the plane and held no briefings. He was seen waving to supporters from his vehicle.

The results of Biya's nearly half-century in power have been mixed. Armed insurgencies by Boko Haram in the north and separatists in the west, along with a stagnant economy, have left many young people disillusioned with the leader.

The president’s reelection last year sparked widespread protests that left at least 16 people dead, according to government figures, signaling significant tensions between the mostly young population and its aging leader.

After a 2008 constitutional amendment abolished term limits, Biya has now led Cameroon longer than most of its citizens have been alive: More than 70% of the country’s population of nearly 30 million people is below the age of 35.

In April, Cameroon’s parliament reinstated the vice president’s post, a move criticized by the opposition as a power grab because Biya can appoint and dismiss the deputy at will and determine which powers the office can exercise.

The Houston Independent School District said maintenance crews discovered the person and called police before any students could see the scene. Sky 2 aerial footage showed emergency responders at the campus.

The district placed the school on “secure mode” for about 10 minutes while law enforcement responded, HISD said. Apart from that brief period, officials said campus operations were not impacted.

Houston Police Department is investigating the discovery and said there is no known threat to students or staff. Authorities have not released the identity of the person found.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Houston Police Department.

Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rock and left many households without electricity. With thousands of homes and businesses still in the dark Thursday, forecasters warned another tropical cyclone is likely to form southeast of the islands soon.

A depression moving west and northwest could become a tropical storm later Thursday and pass near or south of Hawaii's Big Island over the weekend, according to the U.S. Central Pacific Hurricane Center. That system could dump up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain across the Big Island and trigger life-threatening flooding, mudslides and rip currents, the hurricane center added.

Forecasters said the disturbance was located about 960 miles (1,545 kilometers) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii. But while it is expected to continue strengthening into the weekend, it was still too soon to forecast its exact path or the magnitude of its impacts.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green and other state officials planned a news conference Thursday afternoon to discuss preparations for the approaching system as well as ongoing recovery efforts from Lala, which has been blamed for two deaths.

Residents found the body of a man in his 60s in a pasture Tuesday, a day after authorities recovered the body of May Doi, 93, whom neighbors said was trying to escape from floodwaters in her home. Doi was a beloved former kindergarten teacher who taught generations of residents in a small town on Hawaii’s Big Island.

“She taught grandkids of her students,” said ʻĀina Akamu, a former student of Doi who is now a vice principal at a local school. “She was a fixture in this community.''

Lala's heaviest recorded rainfall, 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), occurred on the northeast coast of the Big Island, the National Weather Service said. Dozens of homes were washed from foundations, bridges were damaged and about 13,200 customers on the Big Island remained without power Thursday.

Efforts to restore power in the hard-hit areas of the Big Island could take at least two weeks, the Hawaiian Electric utility said.

Lala is the first major hurricane of 2026 in the Central Pacific Ocean. Now well west of Hawaii’s main islands, Lala had top sustained winds of 100 mph (155 kph) on Thursday and was spreading hurricane conditions across parts of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument — a remote area at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The first impacts were being felt between Lisianski Island and Maro Reef, authorities said.

Forecasters said Lala would continue to cross waters of the marine national monument for a few days and remain at hurricane strength through the weekend.

Even in that vast and remote area, people were seeking safety. A charter boat carrying a 16-member crew dedicated to removing marine plastics and abandoned fishing nets from the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands got out of Lala’s projected path this week.

Kevin O’Brien, president of the nonprofit Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project, said the vessel left Lisianski Island on Monday and headed hundreds of miles (kilometers) out to sea.

“We were ready for it,” O’Brien said. “We keep on our toes out here during hurricane season.”

___

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writer John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.

Cohen, who served prison time for his role in what he said was covering up Trump’s “dirty deeds,” confirmed that the Republican president will appear in a taped interview airing on his 77 WABC program Thursday evening and Sunday.

The apparent truce with Cohen makes him the latest in a long line of Trump loyalists who have had public falling-outs with the president but found themselves back in his good graces. Other recent examples include Elon Musk and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But the split from Cohen was perhaps the most personal. Cohen once boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump and was by Trump's side during his political rise. After their public breakup, Cohen's testimony in Trump's 2024 criminal hush-money trial instead paved the way for Trump's criminal conviction just as he was trying to make his political comeback.

Cohen has since criticized prosecutors in the case and has said he and Trump have started to reconcile.

The White House did not comment on Cohen’s statements or confirm the appearance, but Trump’s official schedule showed him taping a radio interview Thursday morning.

In a long post on his online newsletter Thursday promoting the interview, Cohen said that although his relationship with Trump became “political blood sport,” there were 15 years of close friendship between them.

“The good times don’t cease to have existed because the bad times came afterward,” Cohen wrote.

Simply, he said: “We forgave.”

Trump has made no warm public statements about Cohen but in a series of social media posts this year linked to some of his former lawyer’s comments saying he felt pressured by prosecutors to testify against Trump in the criminal hush money case and a civil fraud case.

Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes.

The campaign finance charges stemmed from his efforts to arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from making public claims of extramarital affairs with Trump.

In 2024, Cohen testified in the criminal case against Trump about the payment to Daniels, which prosecutors said was an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Cohen testified before Congress in 2019, alleging Trump had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits.

He gave similar testimony in a 2023 civil fraud trial in New York that found Trump and his companies engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. A New York appeals court later threw out a $550 million judgment against Trump in that case. Trump has asked a court to overturn the remaining parts of the case.

In his tell-all memoir in 2020, “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” Cohen was unsparing, calling Trump an “organized crime don” and “master manipulator.”

But, foreshadowing their later rapprochement, Cohen also wrote that he still cared for Trump, writing, “I had and still have a lot of affection for him.”

Why adoption matters

🐶Every year, thousands of pets end up in shelters through no fault of their own. When you adopt, you’re not just bringing home a companion — you’re helping save a life. And every adoption creates space for another animal to be rescued and cared for.

Not ready to adopt? Consider fostering

🏡Even a short-term foster can make a lasting difference. It gives pets a break from the shelter environment, helps them adjust to home life, and supports shelters as they work to care for more animals in need.

How you can help right now

• 🐈Adopt or foster a shelter pet
• 🗣️Spread the word to friends and family
• 📤Share adoptable pet posts from local shelters and rescues

Houston, let’s show up for these animals — because every pet deserves a safe, happy, forever home.

🐾 Find a list of participating shelters and rescue groups at click2houston.com/community.

The 20 deportees arrived at Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia.

Deportees will include African nationals as well as nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean, according to Liberian Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah. Liberian Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh has said they could seek asylum in the West African country if they wished.

The U.S. State Department declined to answer questions about the Liberia agreement, but said that implementing the Trump administration’s immigration policies was a “top priority.” It said it was “unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America’s border security.”

The U.S. Homeland Security Department declined to confirm Thursday's deportations “for operational security reasons” and referred additional questions to the State Department.

Third-country agreements are often shrouded in secrecy. Migrants have been deported to countries they have never been to or where they face safety risks and are left with little choice other than to return to the home countries they were fleeing from.

The Trump administration struck agreements with at least 35 countries to deport people who are from other countries, including Liberia and 13 others in Africa, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a partnership of Refugees International and Human Rights First that relies on public records requests, news reports and other sources. More than 23,000 people have deported to 26 countries under the agreements.

The U.S. State Department previously announced that Liberia agreed to accept deportees who are not from Liberia. But a six-page agreement reached in September 2025 and posted on its website does not say how many or from which countries.

In October 2025, Liberia offered to accept Kilmar Abrego Garcia of El Salvador, who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador. Blocked from sending him to his native country, the Trump administration has vowed to send him to a third county, including Liberia.

Abrego Garcia has said he would agree to be deported to Costa Rica, which has said it will accept him. But the government has so far declined to send him there. Abrego Garcia is fighting deportation to Liberia in a federal lawsuit in Maryland.

Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Umana, who has a pending federal criminal case in connection with the Aug. 8 crash, lied to a border officer and falsely claimed he was a U.S. citizen when he entered the country in Texas in 2007, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.

Hernandez-Umana, 46, a citizen of El Salvador, is being held at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to online records. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he will eventually be deported.

Immigration authorities arrested him after he was released on bail in his criminal case, where he is charged with causing the deaths of 5-month old Antonella Garcia and 27-year-old Sara Sanchez through misconduct or neglect.

According to prosecutors, Hernandez-Umana wasn’t licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard, wasn’t aware of basic safety rules and told investigators he’d borrowed his friend’s personal vessel for the New York Harbor excursion. The boat was illegally chartered and overcrowded, prosecutors said.

“Once he faces justice for his crimes, we will make sure that he is swiftly removed from our country,” Mullin said in a statement.

Hernandez-Umana's lawyer, Amy Gallicchio, declined comment.

Hernandez, who had been living in Manville, New Jersey, was not required to enter a plea at his initial court appearance in the criminal case on Aug. 10. He wiped his eyes as he arrived to the courtroom, still wearing the T-shirt, swim trunks and water shoes he’d had on during the voyage. He is due back in court on Sept. 9.

According to Coast Guard investigators, Hernandez was piloting a 21-foot Yamaha AR210 with 14 people aboard — well over its 10 person capacity — when it swamped and sank as it made a U-turn in choppy waters. The tour began around 7 p.m. and the vessel capsized more than three hours into its journey.

The infant wasn’t wearing a life preserver because the boat didn’t have any for small children, prosecutors said. Instead, Hernandez told Sanchez she needed to wear a life vest and hold the infant throughout the hourslong tour, a violation of federal regulations, prosecutors said.

The tour was organized through Zeus Luxury Rental Inc., which advertises its services on social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok. A boat chartered by the company caught fire last year during a birthday cruise on Long Island Sound.

According to his criminal complaint, Hernandez told investigators he had worked for Zeus Luxury on a freelance or contract basis since last year, starting as a limousine driver. He said that twice recently he used his personal boat, a slightly larger Yamaha AR250, but used a friend’s boat on Aug. 8 because his needed repairs, the complaint said.

Messages seeking comment were sent to a phone number and email address listed on Zeus Luxury’s website. The phone number’s voicemail was full, according to an automated recording.

___

This story has been updated to correct that Homeland Security announced the arrest Wednesday, not Monday.

The combination of heat and humidity will reach dangerous levels Thursday. Once the heat index climbs to 108° or higher across more than just a few isolated areas, a Heat Advisory goes into effect.

The advisory runs through 7 p.m. Friday. Most likely, it will be extended as the heat continues into the weekend.

The actual air temperature will be hot on its own, with Houston expected to reach 100°. And the triple-digit heat could stick around through Tuesday of next week. This is going to be a long stretch of dangerous heat.

No end in sight to this unrelenting heat:

The heat is courtesy of a strong ridge of high pressure. This ridge is bringing sinking air into Houston, and as that air sinks, it gets compressed and heats up.

This pattern shows no signs of letting up through the weekend. While there is a small chance of rain Saturday, it’s not enough of a change in the overall weather pattern to bring temperatures down in any meaningful way.

In other words, the heat is here to stay.

Triple-digit heat:

It’s possible Thursday could mark the start of a five or six-day streak of triple-digit temperatures. And even if we come up a degree or two short of 100°, it won’t make much difference when it comes to how it feels.

The afternoon heat index will still climb into the 108° to 110° range, keeping the heat dangerous regardless of whether the actual temperature reaches 100°.

Tracking the tropics:

We have entered the busiest 45-day stretch of our hurricane season. But because of intense wind shear over the Atlantic Basin, there is no tropical activity expected for the next 7 days!

10 Day Forecast:

We’re in for one of the hottest stretches of the summer.

There is a small chance of rain Saturday, but don’t expect it to provide much relief. The strong ridge of high pressure finally begins to break down in the middle of next week, but temperatures won’t drop dramatically.

The heat may ease a bit, but summer isn’t giving up just yet.

The Treasury and State departments announced Thursday that they are leveling new penalties against nine state-owned mining, metal and construction companies along with the leadership of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the institute is responsible for sponsoring “a vast subversive network in the United States aimed at identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing” Americans.

“Just days ago, the regime attempted to use Communist kingpin and despot Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday to reinvigorate this subversive network, ferrying a new brigade of international sympathizers to Havana to network with regime officials,” Rubio said in a statement.

“The Trump Administration will not stand by while a hostile foreign power seeks to exploit our freedoms — none of which are afforded to its people — by misleading and corrupting American citizens with lies, spy tradecraft, and other malfeasance as part of the regime’s raison d’être of exporting Marxism, racial resentment, and Communist violence across the world,” Rubio said.

Trump's Republican administration has steadily ratcheted up pressure on Havana, threatening it with potential military intervention even when mired in a conflict against Iran, while also boosting economic sanctions designed to cut off funding for the Cuban government. An oil blockade that the U.S. imposed on Cuba after the American military raid that ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whose country provided Cuba with free oil, has plunged the already economically crippled island into full-blown crisis.

The Cuban Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new sanctions. Cuba routinely denounces U.S. sanctions and the decadeslong embargo it has imposed on the island, accusing multiple administrations of unfairly targeting a poor nation and its people merely for ideological differences and its proximity to the United States.

The latest sanctions follow an operation at the Miami airport last weekend in which several American citizens returning to the U.S. from Cuba after participating in events marking Castro’s birthday were briefly detained, according to U.S. officials. Some of them had their cellphones and other personal electronic devices seized for inspection, the officials said.

U.S. authorities had been prepared to detain dozens of returning activists for secondary screening, but far fewer were found to meet the criteria for the enhanced questioning by Customs and Border Protection agents, the officials said. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because details of the operation have not been made public, said those detained were eventually released and allowed to enter the U.S.

The officials said anyone detained and released could still face prosecution if it is found they violated U.S. sanctions, which prohibit all transactions with Cuban government-owned entities, including restaurants, hotels and shops. The status of seized cellphones, laptops and tablets, however, was unclear.

The new sanctions that were imposed on the leadership of ICAP target the group’s president, Fernando González Llort, who had been among five Cuban intelligence officers arrested in the U.S. in 1998 but later released in 2014. They also target its first vice president, Noemí Ramona Rabaza Fernández, and its North America director, Leima Martínez Freire.

The metals, mining and construction sector sanctions target a nickel production company, two firms that specialize in the import of heavy industrial products, a mineral resources company, the Cuban Ministry of Construction, a company that provides Cuban workers to foreign entities on the island and two enterprises that import vehicles, automotive parts and construction materials.

The Trump administration also has stepped up a campaign that portrays Cuba as a grave national security threat to the U.S. In a report released last month, the State Department accused the Cuban government of sponsoring or otherwise supporting left-wing and anti-American activism in the United States for the past six decades.

While Cuba has been falling deeper into crisis for around five years, the oil blockade by the Trump administration has thrown the nation into free fall.

The lack of fuel to provide Cubans with electricity has plunged the island into all-out blackouts. Access to public transport has effectively disappeared, shortages of things like medicine have worsened, work hours have been slashed to adapt to the outages, and tourism, the island’s economic lifeline, has evaporated.

___

This story has been corrected to show the sanctions are on nine, not 10, companies.

TEXARKANA — When Scott Norton became president of the TexAmericas Center, he hoped the industrial park would attract employers that would bring much-needed jobs to North East Texas.

Little did he know the industrial center would sit atop one of the country’s largest and richest lithium deposits, known as the Smackover Formation, and would also become a key location for mineral production in Texas.

“[Lithium production is] a great opportunity not just for the Department of War and Red River Army Depot, but in the entire region when it comes to capital investment and job creation,” Norton said.

Lithium production in East Texas could create high-paying jobs, support local businesses and encourage cities to improve East Texas infrastructure, such as roads or public utility services. But it could also leave landowners struggling with high property values and a community dealing with infrastructure that doesn’t keep pace with rapid growth, leading to a bust that the state has seen before with the oil and gas industry.

Economists at a Texarkana lithium symposium in July warned against vying for a boom, and encouraged leaders instead to seek slow, sustainable growth.

Now, however, local officials and state lawmakers must decide how to manage the industry to ensure that landowners’ rights are respected, that the extraction process remains safe and clean, and that producing this mineral in East Texas is worth the cost.

“We can learn from Arkansas and from some of these other places, but it has to make sense economically for companies,” said Brent Elliott, an economic geologist and mineral resource specialist with the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. “They won’t do it if there’s not some kind of incentive or clarity on the landscape, like ownership, unitization and the production procedure. And then the economics of it at the end of it.”

Next year could prove to be a crucial year for this budding industry, if lawmakers make it a priority in the 2027 legislative session.

Who will manage lithium rules and regulations?

Lithium production is a national issue with wide-reaching implications. Landowners near production facilities have a stake in the game, as do producers such as EnergyX, ExxonMobil and Chevron, local officials and state and national lawmakers.

President Donald Trump and Texas’ congressional delegation are pushing to expand domestic mineral production and reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign countries for critical minerals. Right now, the Environmental Protection Agency oversees federal regulations on mineral extraction.

In Texas, lithium mining regulation is overseen by the Texas Railroad Commission, which also oversees the state’s oil and gas production, use and waste. The agency was given rule-making authority in 2023 and established some guidelines based on the oil and gas industry, and brine production.

Industry players would like to see some clarity on important issues, such as property tax values, royalties and brine injection regulations, either from the commission or from state lawmakers.

Researchers at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas, including Elliott, plan to present lawmakers with findings on the industry, such as water rights and mineral royalties, by the end of the year to help lawmakers form decisions on this emerging industry.

“We’ll try to get to anyone who represents East Texas,” Elliott said. “Anyone who has jurisdiction over the Smackover or anybody who’s on the Natural Resources committees, both in the House and Senate, or the Energy Committees. Those folks would do well to understand the current landscape and the recommendations for making it better.”

This issue also touches on local economic development, which is why the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce hosted its first-ever lithium symposium, at which experts provided more insight on the industry to regional and state leaders. It even brought Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Texas to open the symposium.

Lithium production in Arkansas has grown exponentially over the last few years as companies pull brine from the Smackover Formation, which spans from Florida to Central Texas. Because brine production was already common in Arkansas, lithium production rules and regulations were folded into an already established framework.

Arkansas’ regulations were cited in both the symposium and multiple independent interviews with the Texas Tribune as a solid source for Texas to base its own regulations on.

“They seem to be very happy with the structures in place in Arkansas, and would like to see more structures in the state of Texas,” said Robin Hickerson, president and CEO of the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce.

Economic implications

Texas’ reputation as a business-friendly state could encourage lithium producers to create high-paying jobs for out-of-work oil and gas workers since both industries require similar skillsets. It could also encourage tertiary development, such as retail, restaurants and hotels, in underdeveloped areas.

Before any of that happens, though, the industry needs to hammer out some much-needed details.

Bruce Cutright is the CEO of GeoFrame, an Austin company that wants to build the largest lithium production facility in the U.S. in Mount Vernon, a town about 60 miles north of Tyler. He has been working closely with community leaders in Franklin County to get the lithium project off the ground.

Cutright said the Legislature has several matters to settle next year, including the rights and responsibilities around minerals and brine, the water byproduct of drilling.

The key question lawmakers should ask when deciding water and mineral rights is why the brine is being extracted, said Chris Alex, vice president of U.S. Upstream Asset Development for EnergyX, which is developing a lithium production facility in Texarkana. Is the brine being brought to the surface as a byproduct of oil and gas production, or is it being extracted specifically to recover lithium through direct lithium extraction?

“The state has yet to clarify this in a ruling or statute,” he said.

If the brine is produced as a byproduct of oil and gas operations, Alex said it would belong to the exploration and production company. But if a company extracts the brine specifically to produce lithium, he said state law does not clearly establish who owns those mineral rights.

Other concerns center around the impact lithium production in the area would have on property taxes as well as who ultimately would see the financial gains from mineral production.

Cutright is concerned that, without clear guidance on how property taxes will be affected by lithium production, homeowners near his site may not be able to afford a significant increase in their property valuations.

“I wouldn’t want these beautiful fifth-generation ranches to suddenly be priced out of their property,” Cutright said.

Texas currently leaves it up to landowners and producers to hash out these decisions and they’re made as part of lease agreements, Alex said.

The Mineral Interest Pooling Act, which can dictate royalties for oil and gas rights, could also guide lawmakers, Elliott said.

Environmental implications

Most of the lithium produced around the globe is extracted from salty aquifers and stored in massive evaporation ponds in the arid countries of the Southern Hemisphere. The brine that is left is processed further for lithium extraction. The lithium carbonate, which is left after that extraction process, is then shipped to countries like China to be used in battery components for clean energy technology.

The whole process can take years and can be delayed by a rainier-than-average season. It requires significant amounts of water and has led to water scarcity in countries like Chile, which sits atop the largest known reserve of lithium in the world. And in some cases, the ground and surface water have been contaminated because of lithium extraction processes.

Lithium producers in East Texas, however, are eyeing an extraction process called Direct Lithium Extraction, or DLE, that more closely resembles oil and gas production. And it could work exceptionally well at extracting lithium from the brine in the Smackover Formation thousands of feet below East Texas.

For long-time environmental advocate Neil Carman, a volunteer and former Clean Air Director for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, the idea of lithium production in the state is a scary one. He worries that Texas’ emerging lithium industry won’t truly be regulated in a way that protects the community.

DLE poses similar risks as those of oil and gas production. If something fails in the infrastructure, it could leak into the potable groundwater resources East Texans are currently fighting to protect, and Texas doesn’t have the best reputation for cleaning up those messes, Carman said.

He’d like to see the state outline reporting requirements for operations and a detailed plan for if something goes wrong.

Elliott sees DLE as something akin to what Texas has already done for years with the oil and gas industry. The Railroad Commission already has rules in place for brine production overall, which includes lithium.

Alex of EnergyX believes brine extraction is regulated similar to oil and gas in some ways, but with more stringent requirements in others. EnergyX maintains a strict emergency action plan with the county and has secured its site beyond Railroad Commission requirements, he said.

Cutright is happy with the state’s framework, but he’d like to see the Railroad Commission update its rules regarding reinjection. As it stands, brine pumped from the ground must be reinjected into the same formation. This will dilute the lithium brine source over time, meaning eventually the lithium extractors will have to find a new place to pump, Cutright said.

“There needs to be sort of a side decision loop in the permitting process that asks if there are other, more appropriate zones to inject the spent brine back into the subsurface,” Cutright said.

What comes next

Arkansas is using much of its framework and infrastructure from bromine production, a mineral that can be extracted from brine, which is why some experts have encouraged Texas to see what its northern neighbor is doing.

But Texas is in a position that could set the stage for real industry growth and development that even Arkansas doesn’t have, Elliott said.

“We have the advantage of developing infrastructure that would be better suited for future development without having the previous stuff,” said Elliott.

It could take some time, though. Lithium may have been a priority for lawmakers going into 2027 before state residents began to worry about data centers. Now that data centers and most especially, water and energy usage, are top of mind for many voters, Elliott said he isn’t sure how this new industry will be perceived.

“It was probably higher on the priority list before,” he said. “The data center issues have really kind of moved to the forefront. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing for lithium.”

Meanwhile, in East Texas, companies are setting up test sites and figuring out exactly what the deep-water aquifer has to offer. Texarkana is bracing for investment, as are communities across the region.

GeoFrame’s ground breaking was pushed back from its original goal of 2026 due to financing and project changes, but Cutright is excited for its launch.

The site would produce more than 83,000 metric tons — about the weight of 16,000 large elephants — of battery-grade lithium carbonate annually. This would put a sizable dent in the U.S. domestic needs, if successful.

“Texas is blessed with some of the highest lithium concentrations in the Smackover Formation,” he said. “The part of Texas where we’re working, Franklin County, and that area — that’s really the bullseye for the highest concentrations.”

• PREVIOUS: Food recalls involving lettuce, eggs and jalapeños raise concerns for Texas shoppers

For some Houston-area families, those concerns are changing not only what they buy, but where they buy it.

At Thomas Cattle & Catering, which supplies farm-to-table beef to customers across the Houston area, owner Anthony Thomas says more customers are choosing to bypass the traditional grocery-store meat aisle and purchase beef directly from local cattle producers.

Thomas Cattle & Catering works with Texas ranchers and sells beef in quantities ranging from smaller packages to a quarter, half or entire steer.

The idea is simple: Instead of purchasing a few pounds of ground beef or several steaks during each trip to the grocery store, customers can fill a freezer with enough meat to last several months — or, depending on the size of the household and the amount purchased, potentially an entire year.

But there is a significant upfront cost.

A quarter steer from Thomas Cattle & Catering is currently listed at roughly $1,800 to $1,990, depending on the animal’s weight. A half steer is estimated at approximately $3,035 to $3,240, while an entire steer can cost more than $6,000.

The company says those prices are based on the animal’s hanging weight, meaning the weight of the carcass after processing begins rather than the final weight of packaged meat.

Thomas says customers are increasingly willing to make that upfront investment because they want to know more about the source of the food they are feeding their families.

Recent recalls put food safety in focus

The shift comes as consumers have been confronted with several high-profile recalls involving products distributed or sold in Texas.

One recent beef recall involved nearly 30,000 pounds of raw beef imported from Argentina.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said Corte Argentino USA LLC recalled approximately 29,628 pounds of raw beef products after the meat entered the United States without the required import reinspection.

That distinction is important: the USDA recall did not say the beef was confirmed to be contaminated with bacteria such as E. coli or Salmonella. The recall centered on the fact that the products did not receive the required federal import inspection.

Most meat, poultry and processed egg-product recalls are overseen by the USDA, while the Food and Drug Administration handles recalls involving most other foods.

And FDA records show Texas consumers have had several other recalls to keep track of this summer.

More than 1.5 million dozen eggs recalled

On July 22, Midwest Poultry Services recalled approximately 1.59 million dozen eggs produced in Texas because they had the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis.

• Nearly 1.6M eggs recalled in Texas and nearby states over possible salmonella contamination

The recalled white shell and brown cage-free eggs were produced and distributed from Texas farms between June 6 and July 3 and had sell-by or best-by dates stretching through Aug. 17.

According to the FDA, they were shipped to retailers and food-service customers in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, including Kroger stores in Texas and Louisiana and Brookshire Grocery stores across several states.

At the time the recall was announced, Midwest Poultry Services said it was not aware of any specific illnesses linked to the recalled eggs.

Iceberg lettuce recalled amid Cyclospora outbreak

In July, Taylor Farms de Mexico also voluntarily removed iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market because of possible Cyclospora contamination.

• Taylor Farms recalls lettuce shipped to 27 states over Cyclospora risk

The FDA said the action was connected to a multistate Cyclospora outbreak under investigation.

The affected shredded iceberg lettuce had been distributed in more than two dozen states, including Texas.

Cyclospora is a parasite that can cause an intestinal illness. Symptoms can include frequent diarrhea, stomach cramps, bloating, nausea, fatigue, loss of appetite and weight loss. Symptoms can sometimes last for weeks and may disappear before returning.

Jalapeño recall expands to prepared foods

More recently, a Salmonella outbreak linked to fresh jalapeños prompted a series of additional recalls involving products containing those peppers.

• Jalapeños linked to a US salmonella outbreak are tracked to a Mexican farm and a distributor

The FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been investigating a multistate outbreak linked to fresh jalapeños supplied by Coast Citrus Distributors. According to the FDA, a grower in Sinaloa, Mexico, was identified as the potential source in the investigation.

The recall expanded beyond whole jalapeños because the peppers were used as ingredients in prepared foods sold at major retailers.

Taylor Fresh Foods recalled multiple products distributed in Texas, including:

• Trader Joe’s Fiesta Style Salad with Shrimp
• Kroger Private Selection Spicy Roast Beef Sandwiches
• Taylor Farms pico de gallo sold at Target
• Taylor Farms guacamole sold at Target
• Freshness Guaranteed pico de gallo sold at Walmart
• Several salsa and pico de gallo products sold at Whole Foods

Whole Foods separately recalled multiple prepared dips, salsas, guacamole and other products containing jalapeños because of potential Salmonella contamination.

The products were sold in Texas and several other states.

No illnesses had been reported in connection with the recalled Taylor Fresh Foods or Whole Foods prepared products when those recall announcements were issued, according to the FDA.

Does buying local mean beef is safer?

With that many recalls making headlines, it can be tempting to assume meat purchased directly from a local rancher is automatically safer than meat from a supermarket.

Food-safety experts caution that the answer is not that simple.

Locally raised meat can still become contaminated, and small producers and processors are not immune from recalls or foodborne illness.

When consumers purchase meat from a local cattle producer, they may have the ability to ask directly where the animal was raised, how it was fed, where it was processed and whether the meat came from one animal or was combined with meat from multiple animals.

Thomas says that connection to the source is increasingly important to his customers.

His company says its cattle are raised in Texas and its beef is butchered locally. The company also says customers can choose how their portion of the animal is cut before the beef is vacuum-sealed and frozen.

Is buying beef in bulk actually cheaper?

That depends on how a family normally shops.

Thomas Cattle currently lists a quarter steer at $7.25 per pound based on hanging weight and half and whole steers at approximately $6.75 per pound based on hanging weight.

But shoppers should understand that hanging weight is not the same as the pounds of meat that ultimately end up in the freezer.

Because bones, fat and other portions are removed during processing, consumers receive fewer pounds of packaged beef than the hanging weight they paid for.

That means comparing a bulk-beef price directly with the price-per-pound sticker on a package of supermarket ground beef can be misleading.

The value can also depend heavily on the cuts a family normally purchases.

A bulk order may include premium steaks such as ribeyes, filet mignon and New York strips along with ground beef, roasts and brisket. A household that normally purchases those cuts regularly may calculate the savings differently from a family that primarily buys inexpensive ground beef.

There is also the upfront investment to consider.

Instead of spending $20, $40 or $60 during a grocery trip, a family purchasing a quarter steer could be spending close to $2,000 at once — and may also need to purchase a separate freezer.

Thomas says his customers look at that expense differently: as buying several months of groceries in a single transaction.

What consumers should ask before buying local beef

Buying directly from a rancher can give consumers more opportunities to ask questions, but shoppers should still do their homework.

Before purchasing a quarter, half or whole animal, consumers should ask:

• Where was the animal raised?
• Where will the animal be slaughtered and processed?
• Is the processor federally or state inspected?
• Is the quoted price based on live weight, hanging weight or packaged weight?
• Are processing or butcher fees included?
• Approximately how many pounds of packaged meat will I receive?
• Can I choose which cuts I want?
• How will the meat be packaged?
• How much freezer space will I need?
• What happens if there is a recall or food-safety issue?
• Can the producer trace the meat back to the animal it came from?

Consumers should also remember that buying locally does not eliminate basic food-safety precautions at home.

Raw beef should be refrigerated or frozen promptly, kept separate from ready-to-eat foods and cooked to safe internal temperatures.

A 33-count indictment was unsealed charging Torik M. Blade, 39, of Missouri City; Kendra L. Folkes, 37, of Katy; Rickelle D. Taylor, 38, of Spring; Raven N. Morris, 34, of Houston; and Stephen G. James, 42, of Houston.

The federal grand jury returned the indictment July 22. All five have made their initial appearances before U.S. Magistrate Judge Yvonne Ho.

What investigators say happened

According to the indictment, an unidentified person allegedly deposited a counterfeit Treasury tax refund check for $1,052,615.97 into a business account belonging to Blade.

Blade and the other defendants then allegedly attempted to access the money through a series of financial transactions.

Investigators say the group used some of the fraudulently obtained funds to purchase cashier’s checks, transfer money between financial institutions and make cash withdrawals.

The defendants are facing various charges, including:

• Passing a counterfeit U.S. Treasury check
• Bank fraud
• Conspiracy
• Money laundering

If convicted, the defendants could face significant federal prison sentences and fines.

Blade faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 fine for passing the counterfeit check. He also faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine for each bank fraud count, as well as additional potential prison time and fines for the conspiracy and money laundering charges.

Folkes, Taylor, Morris and James face similar maximum penalties if convicted.

The investigation was conducted by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, IRS Criminal Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John R. Lewis is prosecuting the case.

An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct and is not evidence of guilt. All five defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

Nguyen Thi Quynh Tam, 24, said she was raped on July 5 and pressured by the man’s family to accept money and not go to police. She said the police also initially urged her to settle the matter privately.

The AP does not usually identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, except if they come forward publicly about the abuse. Tam's candor is unusual for Vietnam, where sexual violence is rarely discussed publicly, but she said she wanted to speak out to help protect other women.

“I’m doing this not just for me. But for everybody else that has been harmed,” said Tam.

Tam’s account was documented in interviews, her police complaint and communications with U.S. and Vietnamese officials. After she sought help from U.S. officials and a U.S. lawmaker, officials confirmed Thursday that they had charged the 23-year-old man.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said authorities had initiated legal proceedings “in accordance with Vietnamese law.” She did not respond to questions about alleged police pressure to settle the case.

The man charged in the case did not respond to AP queries sent via social media.

Tam, whose family moved to the United States when she was 5 years old, returned to Vietnam in May for a banking internship, hoping to reconnect with her family’s homeland. She joined a group of acquaintances on a July 4 trip to a resort in Phu Tho, near Hanoi.

The group stayed up late and when she went to bed, Tam found herself locked out of the room where she expected to sleep. She found another bedroom and fell asleep with the door unlocked, then awoke to the 23-year-old man kissing her neck.

Her complaint says Tam told him not to touch her, but he persisted and climbed on top of her. She pushed and punched him and shouted, “No!” But he pinned both her arms above her head and raped her.

Later that night, she messaged her boyfriend in the U.S. that she had been raped. The AP has seen the messages.

Afterward, she said she blamed herself and struggled mentally. Others in the group they traveled with told her the man was from a wealthy, politically-connected family and she was unsure what to do.

Tam said the man apologized twice on July 9, in a note and during a phone call. The AP has heard a recording of the call and seen the note.

On July 11, Tam and friends of her family met with the man's father in an encounter suggested by members of the group she traveled with. She said he asked how much money she wanted for not involving the police. He called five days later, again offering compensation, she said.

In an email to the The Associated Press, the father said the two had been “intimate,” but he declined to comment further. He said his family had “no intention” of pressuring Tam to drop the case.

Tam said that after she reported the incident to police on July 21, they took her back to the room where she said she was raped and asked her to reenact the assault, leaving her distraught.

“A part of me is gone. And it’s in that room,” she said.

The next day, she said, police urged her to meet with the 23-year-old and to sign a statement saying she had refused a rape kit and a lawyer. She refused. The police again asked her to settle while she was getting mental health care at a Hanoi hospital, she said.

Tam, who is from Houston, Texas, said she got little help at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, where she was told she could report the matter to Vietnamese police, or return home. She said she was discouraged when they cited a previous sexual assault case that dragged on for over a year before being dropped.

After Tam's father contacted their senator, Ted Cruz, the embassy called her to apologize. It told Cruz’s office it had supported Tam and helped her contact authorities. Her father called that “inaccurate,” according to a July 29 email exchange.

The State Department said it was aware of her case, but couldn't comment further because of legal and privacy reasons. It said American “safety and security” was its top priority.

The decision to stop using the gloves in middle and high schools came after The Associated Press first revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to give officers the gloves, which are known as G.L.O.V.E. or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. The deviceshave also been used in recent years by some jails.

Omaha Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Ray requested Tuesday that city police assigned to the schools, known as school resource officers, no longer use the gloves. Ray said in a school board meeting Monday and a letter to the public schools community that he’d only learned about the gloves the previous week. The first day of school was Wednesday.

The Omaha Police Department held a news conference last week in which it demonstrated the glove, saying it quickly achieved compliance and control with little to no force. The gloves were used twice during the 2025-2026 school year, police said.

It was not immediately known if other school districts have used them.

Residents and school board members speak out against the gloves

At the school board meeting, about 30 people spoke out against police using the gloves. Residents and board members alike said they were appalled at the practice. No one spoke in favor of it.

“I can't even imagine walking down the hallway and seeing a peer of mine being electrocuted in a place that is supposed to be a safe space for students,” said Nora Wessel, a senior at Omaha Central High School. “Yet, this is now a very real possibility. These are adults we are supposed to be able to trust, but these weapons create a barrier for our students to turn to resource officers when needed.”

Ray said the district recognized long-standing relationships with law enforcement partners and the important role school resource officers have in promoting school safety. Continued use of the gloves “would be counterproductive to our work together,” Ray said.

Mayor John Ewing Jr. said police have honored the school district's decision to “opt out.” The Omaha Police Department said officers will continue to carry tasers, batons, OC spray and firearms.

Most school resource officers were trained to use the gloves

Most of the Omaha Police Department's 34 school resource officers had been trained and were allowed to use the gloves, the mayor and Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said in a statement.

“We believe it is the safest use-of-force option in the rare times when it is used,” the statement said.

In 2025, the city's police department agreed to pay Compliant Technologies LLC, which manufactures the gloves, about $66,000 for 40 gloves, according to the contract.

Officers were expected to give warning before using the gloves and then touch the person for up to 15 seconds while the electric shock was delivered, the statement said.

The devices activate when an officer presses a button. The gloves must touch someone’s skin directly to produce voltage that causes pain, which is intended to make people compliant if they are resisting. Unlike Tasers, they do not leave burn or contact marks.

In the 2025-2026 school year, an officer used the glove in one case to stop a high school student from another school from trying to escape after fighting with a security guard, according to the statement. In the second case, the glove was used on a student who made verbal threats and threw a chair at a school security guard, striking the guard in the head, the statement said. The student also punched the guard in the head, it said.

Omaha Public Schools is the largest district in Nebraska and serves more than 50,000 students, according to its website. ___ Hallie Golden contributed to this report from Seattle.

• PREVIOUS: Houston renters will soon have a right to working A/C under new city rules

KPRC 2 is working to get your questions answered.

The council approved the measure 12-2. The new law goes into effect Dec. 17.

Readers respond

The comments have been rolling in on Click2Houston.com since the story broke. Landlords, in particular, have raised concerns about cost, responsibility and fairness.

One reader questioned what protections landlords have when a tenant misuses equipment.

“As a landlord, what protections do I have from this when the tenant sets the A/C to its lowest setting and the unit gets fried?” one reader wrote.

Another raised concerns about how the ordinance could affect existing rental agreements.

“Only two of my rentals have window units. I always made them responsible for furnishing their own window units, just like other appliances. They own the window units and the appliances they purchased. My rent and deposit are based off these things. The minute I’m forced to repair or supply a new window unit, the rent is going up at the first opportunity,” another reader wrote.

A third commenter acknowledged the need for air conditioning in Houston’s brutal heat but pushed back on the financial burden the ordinance places on property owners.

“I’m of the opinion that working AC is a bit of a non-negotiable in Houston, but that having or providing it is not inexpensive must be acknowledged as well. Landlords must be able to raise rents to cover the extra cost,” the commenter wrote.

We’re working on answers

These are important questions — and we’re working to get answers. We’ve reached out to the city and will have more for you soon.

In the meantime, keep the comments coming on Click2Houston.com. Are you a tenant or landlord affected by this new ordinance? We want to hear from you.

Commanders of the 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion based at Fort Stewart, Georgia, believe free time to indulge in the latest entry in the Grand Theft Auto series — in which players commit carjackings, battle police in shootouts and attempt audacious heists — will sway some soldiers to extend their military commitments.

The Nov. 19 release of Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to be one of the year's biggest entertainment events. Game publisher Take-Two Interactive hasn't released sales figures for preorders, but CEO Strauss Zelnick recently called them “unprecedented and astonishing.”

A career counselor with the Army engineer battalion hatched the idea with commanders to tie a retention perk to the game's release, in part to remind soldiers of their approaching reenlistment dates, said Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a Fort Stewart spokesperson.

“The idea was to have a unique incentives program that connects to what soldiers are interested in,” Tomko said Thursday in a statement to The Associated Press.

Battalion commanders wrote in a memo to soldiers that those who sign reenlistment contracts by Nov. 14 would receive “a special 4 day pass.”

“This special pass is specifically designed to coincide with the highly anticipated release of the video game Grand Theft Auto VI,” battalion commander Lt. Col. Ryan Hodgson wrote.

Tomko confirmed the authenticity of the July 28 memo, which was photographed and posted online.

She said at least 20 of 130 eligible soldiers have signed up for the bonus. To qualify, they must commit to serving at least two more years in uniform.

Buzz for Grand Theft Auto VI has been building since 2023, when its first cinematic trailer showed a return to the series’ fictional Vice City — a satirical analogue of Miami — and an expanded swath of Florida-based locales that include gator-infested swamps.

Underscoring the hype, developer Rockstar Games plans to debut gameplay video next week in an extended trailer on Netflix. The rollout was preempted when hackers leaked apparent footage online this week.

The suspect, Bernandino Bautista, 55, has been charged with criminally negligent homicide. The victim was a 62-year-old man.

The crash was reported at 7:40 a.m. at the intersection of Moline Street and Telephone Road.

• Cy-Fair firefighters battle 2 neighboring house fires

Investigators learned the driver of a black Toyota Solara was traveling eastbound in the 7300 block of Moline Street when he approached an intersection with a stop sign. The driver, identified as Bautista, reportedly failed to stop before entering the crosswalk and struck the victim, who was crossing the street within the crosswalk.

Bautista reportedly told police he was blinded by the sun when he pulled toward the intersection and hit the man.

Houston Fire Department paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene.

Bautista was arrested and charged.

The investigation is continuing.

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Fréchette had said a day earlier that negotiations were “far from over" and that Quebec alone would decide whether U.S. alcohol returns to shelves at the SAQ, the Quebec government corporation that controls most wine and spirits sales in the province.

Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, returned to Washington on Thursday to meet again with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as the two sides continued work to finalize an agreement.

Fréchette said Carney provided answers to many of her questions during a lengthy call Thursday, though Quebec was still awaiting some information.

“I got a number of the answers that I was looking for,” Fréchette said in French, adding that the province would analyze the potential economic impact before taking a position.

Fréchette said Quebec could restore U.S. alcohol to SAQ shelves if its analysis finds the overall agreement is positive for the province.

Canada and the United States moved closer to finalizing a trade agreement that would avert threatened 50% U.S. tariffs. U.S. President Donald Trump has called the emerging agreement “very fair” to both sides and predicted U.S. farmers and manufacturers would benefit. Tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian imports have been postponed until 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

Neither Canadian nor U.S. officials have released the full terms of the emerging agreement.

Quebec does not have a veto over a Canada-U.S. trade agreement, but it controls provincial measures such as whether U.S. alcohol is sold through the SAQ.

Carney asked provincial premiers during a briefing Wednesday to return U.S. alcohol to store shelves, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said, a step aimed at addressing one of the Trump administration’s key trade complaints.

The White House has said the emerging deal includes a Canadian commitment to address restrictions on U.S. alcohol. But Carney cannot order provinces to restore sales.

Fréchette’s Coalition Avenir Québec faces voters in an October provincial election, adding political pressure as she assesses changes that could affect Quebec's dairy and forestry sectors.

Houston and two other premiers voiced support for the direction of the talks, though Houston said whether Canadians would actually buy U.S. alcohol again “is a whole other discussion.”

Eight of Canada’s 10 provinces restrict or ban U.S. alcohol — measures imposed in retaliation for Trump’s previous tariffs on Canadian goods and amid anger over his repeated talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, is especially important. Its government-run LCBO, one of the world’s largest alcohol purchasers, sold nearly 1 billion Canadian dollars ($723 million) worth of U.S. products annually before pulling them from shelves last year.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has clashed with Trump before, has not yet commented on the emerging deal.

While details of the emerging agreement remain vague, Trump has claimed Canada agreed to end tariffs on U.S. agricultural products.

Canada currently allows a set amount of dairy imports at low tariffs. Once imports exceed that limit, much higher tariffs apply. The U.S. says Canada’s supply-management system makes it harder for American dairy producers to gain full access to the Canadian market.

LeBlanc has said Canada’s “agriculture sector will be well protected and we have maintained our tough line.”

Deputies responded to an in-progress call with a life in danger at 12323 Dona Ln. this morning. Upon arrival, they observed a pregnant woman with injuries to her face and arms.

• Blue Bell brings back fan-favorite Homemade in the Shade ice cream for a limited time

According to authorities, the victim had been invited to the home to visit with the suspect. During the visit, the suspect had a knife concealed. When the victim spotted the knife, the suspect reached for it — and a struggle for possession followed.

“The suspect then began striking the victim’s face with the knife,” according to the Precinct 3 media release.

The victim sustained stab wounds to her face, arms and hands. EMS has transported her with non-life-threatening injuries.

The suspect is now in custody, facing a charge of aggravated assault. Records show the suspect was previously arrested in 2025 for assault on a pregnant person — a charge that was ultimately dismissed.

Authorities say the victim and suspect know each other through church and that no romantic or domestic relationship exists between the two.

The Bruins are to play two games in Munich, while the Oilers will play two matches in Leon Draisaitl’s native city of Cologne during the 2027-28 NHL season. The opponents have yet to be determined.

“These events represent an important step in our commitment to grow the game in Germany. By bringing more NHL games to one of Europe’s most dynamic hockey markets, we hope to continue to deepen engagement amongst our fans, partners and local communities, while at the same time creating a significant opportunity to grow the game throughout the country,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said.

The Chicago Blackhawks and Ottawa Senators were already slated to play two games in Düsseldorf in December. Those Global Series games are the second and third regular-season games the league has staged in Germany after the Buffalo Sabres and Los Angeles Kings played in Berlin in 2011.

More are to follow with the NHL and NHLPA committed to bringing regular-season games to Germany for at least the next three seasons.

___

See AP’s full NHL coverage here

KPRC 2 is examining the recent crashes and the conditions along the roadway, including traffic volume, pedestrian access and the distance between sidewalks and moving vehicles. At some points, sidewalks appear to be about a foot and a half from the roadway, leaving a little separation between walking and passing traffic.

On Wednesday, Aug. 19, a man using a walker was fatally struck at Moline Street and Telephone Road, according to Houston police. The driver, identified later as Bernandino Bautista, 55, told police he was blinded by the sun. He was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide, police said. The victim’s identity had not been released.

• RELATED: Man with walker struck and killed by vehicle in southeast Houston; driver arrested

On Aug. 8, police said a man in a wheelchair was struck while crossing in a marked crosswalk near Westover Street and Telephone Road. The driver continued without stopping, and the man later died at a hospital. Police described the suspect vehicle as a small white sedan.

• RELATED: Man in wheelchair killed in crosswalk; Houston police searching for hit-and-run driver

Hours later, a woman in her 20s died in a separate crash at Telephone Road and Reveille Street, police said. Investigators said she was driving south on Reveille at a high rate of speed, ran two red lights and struck another vehicle. The other driver suffered injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening.

• RELATED: Woman killed in high-speed crash after running red lights in southeast Houston, police say

The crashes happened amid heavy traffic through the area, where drivers, pedestrians and people using wheelchairs or walkers share a busy corridor. Residents have also described the area as dangerous. After the Aug. 8 crash, Lashanda Simmons told KPRC 2 she had seen multiple dangerous incidents nearby and urged drivers to watch for others.

KPRC 2 has reached out to the Texas Department of Transportation to ask what safety measures are in place along Telephone Road, whether the agency has reviewed the recent crashes and whether any improvements are planned. This story will be updated if TxDOT responds.

Drivers should use caution, watch for pedestrians in crosswalks and obey traffic signals. Anyone with information about the Aug. 8 hit-and-run is asked to contact the Houston Police Department Vehicular Crime Division at 713-247-4072 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

This is a developing story. Details may change as investigators release more information.

The petition with the hashtag InfantinOut also calls for FIFA "to be rebuilt so that the current debacle can never happen again.”

“The shameful attempt by one individual — the FIFA President himself — to sell off the World Cup to private investors exposed a betrayal football will never forget,” the petition said about Infantino's plan for a commercial spinoff, which he dropped amid a furious backlash.

The fan groups include Football Supporters Europe, Football Supporters Africa and, in North America, the Independent Supporters Council, plus about 40 national fan groups worldwide.

Infantino has resisted calls to leave office despite European soccer body UEFA saying it has no confidence in him. He has also been criticized by the leadership of North America’s CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation.

Some of FIFA's 211 member federations are supporting Infantino, including 2030 World Cup co-host Morocco as well as Qatar, where he lived before the emirate hosted the 2022 World Cup, and Lebanon, which gave him citizenship this year. Saudi Arabia, the 2034 host, has not publicly backed Infantino despite his close political ties to the kingdom.

“Gianni Infantino has demonstrated a profound failure of leadership, incompatible with democratic governance,” the fan petition states. “The concentration of power around the FIFA Presidency, combined with opaque decision-making, personality cult clientelism, and zero accountability has destroyed any remaining trust in the world governing body."

“For the credibility of FIFA — and for the future of the game — he must resign,” the petition adds.

FIFA was approached for comment about the petition.

Fan anger at World Cup ticket prices

The petition also cites Infantino’s past support for projects that outraged fans, including the failed European Super League project, pushing to hold World Cups every two years that was resisted and the “extortionate ticketing policy at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”

FIFA and Infantino did not consult with fan groups before setting record ticket prices for the 104-game tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico, that provoked anger and led to some tickets being sold for $60 to the most loyal fans of each of the 48 teams.

Football Supporters Europe is the official liaison for fans with UEFA and advises on ticket prices for European Championships and club cup finals like the Champions League.

___

See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Anthony’s attorney told a newly appointed judge that prosecutors also did not follow through with an off-the-record agreement. Defense attorney Russell Wilson said the case’s original judge allowed a “shadow docket” that kept information out of the trial.

“Everything was done off the record, at an astonishing clip,” said Wilson, who didn't represent Anthony at the criminal trial.

Anthony already won a legal victory on Wednesday when the judge who presided over his trial was removed from the case. Judge Michael Chitty was then assigned to consider the motion from Anthony's attorneys asking for a retrial in the killing of Austin Metcalf.

Anthony, now 19, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in the case.

Prosecutor Bill Wirskye argued Thursday that Anthony had received a fair trial and said that his attorneys had agreed to everything that was done during the trial.

Anthony's attorneys had asked for state District Judge John Roach to be removed in part because of a TV interview in which Roach said jurors “got it right” when they delivered a guilty verdict.

In seeking a new trial, Anthony’s attorneys have argued that the June proceedings were marred by strict courtroom rules and improper jury instructions. They have also said Anthony’s decision to not testify came after a dispute with prosecutors over an agreement to focus the trial on the events leading up to the stabbing.

Jurors in the trial had rejected Anthony’s claims he acted in self-defense during a confrontation with Metcalf in the stadium bleachers last year. Students who took the stand described a heated exchange over Anthony’s refusal on a rainy spring day to leave a tent that belonged to Metcalf’s team.

The case attracted national attention in part because of a flood of social media posts that amplified the killing in racial terms. Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white. Lawyers on both sides, however, told jurors the tragedy had nothing to do with race.

During the recusal hearing Wednesday, Anthony's legal team focused on comments Roach made to a Dallas TV station after the trial had ended. In the interview, which was played as the hearing began, Roach was asked if the jury got “it right.”

“Yeah, they did,” Roach said, adding: “Whatever they say, they got it right.”

During the interview, Roach also defended his courtroom rules and spoke about the onslaught of online postings about the case.

As national attention on the killing intensified last year, the families of both Metcalf and Anthony said they had been targets of harassment.

Several schools were competing at the track event when Anthony sat under the Memorial High School tent that was perched in the bleachers. Metcalf and others had repeatedly told Anthony to leave, witnesses testified, leading to an escalating confrontation.

Prosecutors said Anthony provoked Metcalf, and witnesses testified that Anthony was the aggressor.

Anthony at one point reached inside a bag and replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” according to a police report.

Metcalf pushed Anthony, according to witnesses, who said Anthony then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.

To compete in the increasingly commercialized world of college sports, programs of its size might spend more than $40 million a year on talent acquisition, revenue sharing and other costs, according to experts. But just five of Louisville's 23 sports generate any revenue, according to the athletic department. Only football and men’s basketball turn profits.

Louisville, like a growing number of major conferences ′ public universities, is trying to narrow that spending gap and its supporters are trying to help by creating a new organization to oversee everything from third-party multimedia deals to hospitality packages.

This spring, Louisville launched Cardinal Ventures, a nonprofit designed to help the athletic department leverage its brand to generate new revenue streams, all to keep pace with the multibillion-dollar market around compensating athletes for the use of their name, image and likeness.

“We live in a highly, highly competitive environment and industry,” Heird said. “And if there’s anything that anybody can do to try to create even the smallest sort of competitive advantage, then they’re gonna look to do that.”

The University of Kentucky also has a revenue-raising nonprofit. The University of North Carolina is actively discussing a limited liability company. So, too, is Louisiana State University.

There’s “feverish” interest from higher education in these offshoots, according to Clay Grayson, whose South Carolina law firm designed Clemson University’s in-house venture. There’s also scrutiny from Congress. Widespread privatization could further transform universities into profit-driven businesses resembling professional sports franchises, weaning them off fatigued donors and opening the door to private capital.

“Governmental universities don’t do commercial very well,” Grayson said. “Those nonprofits are the ones that kind of can get out into that space.”

Record high gifts underscore the spending spree. Virginia Tech touted an “unprecedented” $75 million commitment intended to “ensure a strong start” for its nonprofit Hokie Ventures. Michigan State bolstered its athletic department with a $401 million contribution that included an investment in its own Spartan Ventures.

Louisville’s Heird said he frequently finds himself discussing these new organizations with peers as they all look to boost their bottom lines.

At his school, he has found some “low-hanging fruit” with concerts. Louisville’s 60,000-seat football stadium largely sits dark outside of home games.

Country music star Zach Bryan recently lit up the field. The rapper Ludacris headlines an upcoming hip-hop billing. Planning is already underway for next year’s shows — each of which could bring seven-figure profits for the hosts.

Athletic directors seek flexibility, control and a ‘commercial engine’

These new efforts may not provide a “silver bullet,” but they do offer new revenue and something many athletic directors may value even more — more control.

The nonprofits and LLCs offer greater flexibility to crack the financing puzzle than the previous system. Bureaucracy can drag decision-making out for months. Key components of the fan experience — tickets, parking, merchandise, concessions— are often outsourced to vendors they don’t fully run.

“There is an unstoppable train that is college sports," said Jason Belzer, a Sequence Equity partner who advises schools on NIL deals. "The reality is that you need to create new platforms and paradigms to be able to successfully operate a business that no longer really sits with the original mission of college athletics -- at least at the higher levels.”

Everything is on the table for Syracuse University. Athletic director Bryan Blair sees an opportunity to corner New York's college sports market. It's the state's only Power Four conference school. And all five ticketed sports play under a 50,000-seat dome that brings what he called a “big state school feel."

The question is how to build a “commercial engine,” Blair said, whether it exists within his department or outside it.

“We’re trying to educate young people, give them a great experience. We’re trying win on whatever day of the week it is for whatever competition it is. We’re trying to be great stewards and ambassadors for our university,” Blair said. “But to do a lot of those things requires more revenue than ever before.”

Nonprofits join growing number of affiliates

Commercial affiliates aren't new to higher education. Some universities use them to monetize drug patents or manage copyright.

Take the University of Kentucky, believed to be the first school to convert its athletic department into a limited-liability holding company. Trustees already managed separate health systems through a not-for-profit that was primed to take ownership of its athletics offshoot.

Athletic director J Batt, who recently joined the Wildcats from Michigan State, expects these formations will become the norm rather than an exception. “And everybody will do the one that’s right for your campus,” he added.

Grayson, the legal architect behind many such models, said he mostly hears from members of the Power Four. Those 67 schools tend to be the only ones with large, competitive enough programs to spend beyond the revenue-sharing cap of $21.3 million this year. His firm has helped create affiliated entities at an estimated one in seven schools competing in the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12.

His model strays from the traditional nonprofit. He proposes smaller, seven-person boards in order to expedite decision-making. Some of the athletic ancillaries even own for-profits that handle taxable activities such as stadium concerts.

Another big difference: they’re not registered to fundraise because their focus is programmatic revenue. He recommends aligning these new ventures with existing fundraising organizations — like “two pedals of a bicycle.”

“If you get them moving in sync, you’ve got a powerful, powerful motor," he said.

Questions about charitable purpose and donor fatigue

It remains to be seen whether these new entities will alleviate donor pressure to bankroll costly football programs. Moreover, they raise the same question that murky NIL collectives did: what is the charitable purpose of an institution whose main goal is to generate more revenue for athletics?

The Internal Revenue Service decided many nonprofit NIL collectives were erroneously given charitable status. They served players, not the public good, so their activities were likely not exempt from taxes.

These affiliates are similar, in the view of an NIL tax consultant who previously worked at the IRS. Thad Madden, who studied NIL compliance issues for the agency, said he doesn't see any “charitable connotation."

“It's to serve the financial interest of the athletes so that they make the most possible money with the goal of putting the best team on the field,” Madden said.

That financial interest has fatigued donors, according to consultants who advise schools on issues of NIL. They're fielding more athletics solicitations even as universities continue fundraising for student scholarships, research projects and other functions.

It used to be that development officers could leverage donor interest in athletics to direct some funds towards academics. That's not so nowadays, according to University of Pennsylvania professor Karen Weaver, a former athletic administrator who studies the evolving college sports landscape.

“Athletics doesn’t have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem," Weaver said. "So, whatever dollar they bring in is gonna be spent on trying to get an advantage in athletics.”

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

According to Deloitte’s 2026 Back-to-School Survey, the average cost of a packed school lunch is now about $6.33.

That compares with a national average of roughly $3 to $3.25 for a school cafeteria lunch, about half the cost of a lunch packed at home.

The survey comes as millions of children across the country qualify for free or reduced-price school meals based on their family’s income.

KPRC 2 spoke with 15 Houston-area parents about how they feed their children during the school year.

All 15 said they pack lunches at home rather than having their children buy lunch at school.

For some parents, the decision comes down to more than cost.

One mother said she packs her daughter’s lunch because she is a picky eater and would not eat the school lunch.

Another parent said packing lunch is a better option because their children don’t like the food served at school.

Other parents said they believe packing lunch at home is cheaper and gives them more control over what their children eat.

What does school lunch cost in Houston?

The price varies depending on the school district and whether a campus participates in the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP.

At Houston ISD, lunch at non-CEP campuses costs $4 per meal. Families may qualify for free or reduced-price meals based on their income.

In Katy ISD, lunch at elementary schools at non-CEP campuses costs $2.75 per meal. Students may also qualify for free or reduced-price meals based on household income.

At $2.75 per lunch, buying school lunch five days a week would cost a family about $13.75 per child before any free or reduced-price meal benefits.

At $4 per lunch, the weekly cost would be about $20 per child.

What does it cost to pack lunch?

To see how much it can cost to make lunches at home, KPRC 2’s Bill Spencer went grocery shopping and purchased enough food to make one week’s worth of school lunches.

He chose store-brand products and looked for the least expensive options available.

The total came to $65.47 for the groceries.

Of course, that grocery haul includes items that can be used for multiple lunches and meals, so the cost of an individual packed lunch can vary widely depending on what a family buys and how much food is used for each meal.

Still, Deloitte’s national estimate shows just how much the cost of individual ingredients can add up.

Is school lunch really cheaper?

On a national level, the answer appears to be yes, at least based on Deloitte’s estimates.

But for Houston families, the calculation depends on the school district, whether a child qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, what parents purchase for packed lunches and how much of those groceries are used beyond one week’s worth of lunches.

For many Houston parents, however, the decision isn’t simply about price.

Taste, picky eaters, nutrition and what their children will actually eat can all play a role.

And for families who qualify, free or reduced-price school meals can make buying lunch at school significantly less expensive.

As the new school year gets underway, parents are once again faced with the same question nearly every morning: pack it or buy it?

Mattel is turning the classic card game into a competitive sport with the launch of the UNO Championship Series, giving players a chance to compete for a $50,000 grand prize and the title of the first UNO Championship Series tournament champion.

The championship is set for Nov. 11 in Los Angeles and will stream live on Twitch.

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Think you have what it takes to go from family game-night champion to professional UNO player?

There will be several ways to qualify for the tournament.

Mattel has announced in-person qualifying events in three U.S. cities:

• Orlando: Oct. 3
• Chicago: Oct. 10
• Los Angeles: Oct. 17

Players will also have the opportunity to qualify digitally through the UNO! Mobile app, while UNO fans around the world will have opportunities to compete for a spot.

The winner of the championship will walk away with $50,000.

The championship is part of Mattel’s effort to take UNO beyond the traditional kitchen-table game and turn it into a live entertainment experience.

The company is also releasing a line of UNO Championship Series products, including tournament-style gameplay, an official championship belt and a card shuffler.

• Pumpkin spice is already here, but is Houston celebrating fall too early?

The live championship will feature top players competing in front of an audience, with the event streamed on Twitch.

So those years of arguing over whether you remembered to yell “UNO” might finally pay off.

The qualifying events begin Oct. 3 in Orlando, followed by Chicago on Oct. 10 and Los Angeles on Oct. 17.

The $50,000 championship event will take place Nov. 11 in Los Angeles.

For anyone who has ever claimed they are unbeatable at UNO, there’s now an official way to put that claim to the test — and potentially make $50,000 doing it.

The announcement of his contract extension ahead of Verstappen’s home Dutch Grand Prix this weekend ends speculation that he could seek a blockbuster move to another team or quit the sport.

It comes despite Red Bull struggling to match the pace of leading team Mercedes this season, and Verstappen's own frustration with how much the 2026 cars rely on electrical power.

“After the first few races (this year), I said to Laurent (Mekies, Red Bull team principal): ‘Don’t come to me with any kind of questions about the future because I don’t even know if I want to stay.’ Honestly, we always kept it very open,” Verstappen said.

He added that talks with F1 and governing body the FIA had persuaded him that “we are slowly working towards something that becomes better and better” with the current cars, while the new contract until 2030 could cover a potential — but not confirmed — return to simpler V8 engines.

“Even if I’m not entirely happy with how the package is, I still love racing, this is still the pinnacle of motorsport, so I still want to be here,” he added.

Asked whether he’d spoken with other teams, he said: “I think I was closer to retiring than changing team.”

The Verstappen-Red Bull pairing could set an F1 record

Seeing out the contract in full would take Verstappen to 15 seasons with Red Bull. It would be the longest-running driver-team pairing in F1 history. It comes with strong support for team principal Mekies after he replaced the team's founding boss Christian Horner last year.

In return, Mekies laid out how the team is built around Verstappen.

“He’s a lot more than the fastest driver in the world for us,” Mekies said. “He’s the central point of the team. He’s one we always refer to for all the strategic decisions we are making, and to know that he’s going to be with us in order to build that next winning cycle is phenomenal.”

Verstappen, already considered one of F1’s all-time greats at the age of 28, has yet to win a race this season. The 71-time race winner hasn’t had a winless season since his rookie year in 2015.

Why there was speculation Verstappen might move

Verstappen’s previous contract ran through 2028 but reportedly included performance-related clauses which could have potentially allowed him to leave earlier and which fueled speculation he might seek to move.

Red Bull backed Verstappen’s career from childhood and brought him into F1 at the age of 17 in 2015 at its second team, then called Toro Rosso. That made him the youngest driver in series history, a record he still holds.

Still, there had been signs of tension in recent years amid the departures of a series of key staff including Horner last year and car design great Adrian Newey.

Verstappen also raised safety concerns this season after two separate faults with the Red Bull car’s rear wing hurled him into high-speed crashes.

Verstappen had been linked with a move to McLaren after reports of a meeting in June between his representatives and McLaren management. McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said at the time the team didn't have an opening for him and would stick with defending champion Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who said Thursday he hadn't been worried for his seat.

Mercedes had also signaled interest in the past.

“Drivers talk with different teams, teams talk with different drivers. Everyone has to just see what their cards are," Mercedes' George Russell said Thursday. "My seat never felt under threat, and I felt 100% security with Toto (Wolff, team principal) and the team. That obviously now continues.”

One driver who had been considered a potential replacement for Verstappen at Red Bull, Carlos Sainz Jr., signed a new contract on Wednesday with Williams.

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See AP’s full auto racing coverage here

Bodeen died Monday after a struggle with cancer and complications from a stroke, his daughter, Ingrid, said Thursday by telephone from Taiwan.

Bodeen, who spoke fluent Mandarin with a proud Taiwan accent, spent much of his career detailing China's rise to an economic, political and military superpower — and the accompanying friction from what critics have long called Beijing’s heavy-handed efforts to establish dominance in Asia and beyond.

“Chris was a reporter who would go anywhere and do anything for the story,” said Charles Hutzler, AP's former bureau chief in Beijing. After a huge quake flattened a swath of Sichuan province in 2008, Bodeen composed his account from one devastated town sentence by sentence over text messages because of damaged telecommunications networks. "It was one of the first eyewitness reports the AP and the world received about one of the worst earthquakes in decades,” Hutzler recalled.

He was an expert on politics and Chinese military issues

From AP bureaus in Shanghai, Beijing and Taipei, Bodeen was for years the news agency's go-to person on Chinese politics and military issues, able to quickly determine the newsworthiness of the government's often abstruse statements.

“A chat with Chris would inevitably turn into a remarkable history lesson," said Emily Wang Fujiyama, former Greater China news director. “He had astounding knowledge of the region and would be writing about China’s military presence in the South China Sea, pivot to Taiwan’s intricate politics, and just as deftly write about the political sensitivities of Tibet, Mongolia and China.”

Bodeen was born in Missouri on Sept. 9, 1970, but he spent parts of his childhood in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia. His father was a foreign service officer and his mother a former diplomat, his daughter, Ingrid, said. Friends and colleagues remembered his love of the Boston Red Sox, esoteric punk rock -- and his contagious enthusiasm for the job of journalism.

"He was the blondest, palest person you’ll ever meet” yet also spoke pitch-perfect Chinese, said Ted Anthony, AP’s former China news editor and news director for Asia. “So when the earthquake in Sichuan happened in 2008, he went out there, put on one of his ever-present ballcaps to cover his hair, and slouched down. He passed as Chinese, started interviewing people and sailed under the scrutiny of the authorities.”

He was 'always ready for adventure’

Bodeen joined the AP in 1996, in Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island China claims as its own, before working as an editor on the agency’s international desk in New York and then joining the AP bureau in Beijing as a correspondent, in 2000. He majored in history and Asian studies at Tufts University, graduating in 1993.

“Chris Bodeen was always ready for adventure. Hiding in the hills of Hainan Island, China, to try to report on the return of an American Air Force plane forced down in 2001, he was the best colleague to be with,” said Raf Wober, a video journalist in the AP's Hong Kong bureau.

In a 2017 story on efforts to burnish the image of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Bodeen described state broadcaster China Central Television leading its evening national news bulletin “with more than four minutes of uninterrupted clapping for Xi as he met with adoring citizens,” and a Russian translator who “was so engrossed with reading a recent speech by Xi, Xinhua (the official news agency) said, that he skipped lunch and dinner just to finish studying it.”

While much of this might have seemed amusing to outsiders, Bodeen was careful to note that “the domination of (Xi’s) image in official propaganda evokes, for some, the painful memories of the upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s, when Mao (Zedong) was accorded the status of a near deity.”

Julie Pace, AP's executive editor, remembered Bodeen as not only an effective China correspondent but as a fellow journalist whose knowledge elevated those around him.

“Chris cared deeply about his work and the value of on-the-ground reporting in such an important region of the world," she said. "His expertise informed AP’s audiences for so many years, but also helped lift up so many colleagues.”

Passion for family and work was his hallmark

Bodeen was deeply proud of his two daughters and loved showing off their artwork and achievements — and creative Halloween costumes — to colleagues. “Every parent thinks their kids are the best, but, hand to God, these girls are both adorable and seriously tough cookies,” he wrote of his children.

“He truly, passionately loved what he did, as much as he loved being a dad," Ingrid Bodeen said. She recalled that when her father spent long stints reporting from Afghanistan during her childhood, “he would always have my mom fax over my spelling lists and homework so we could work on them together. He never missed a spelling test week.”

Bodeen was also beloved by colleagues for his sharp sense of humor, his knowledge of good local food and an encyclopedic knowledge of movie and TV comedies from the ’70s and ’80s.

Kanis Leung, an AP reporter in Hong Kong, said that Bodeen once told her about an old correspondent's description of news reporting as “the art of shoving 50 pounds of oatmeal into a 10-pound sack."

“Except,” Bodeen told Leung, "he didn’t say oatmeal.”

Bodeen is survived by his wife, Yen Ling, daughters Ingrid, 26, and Naomi, 22, his parents and a sister.

Walmart’s second quarter fanned anxiety about the financial well-being of low-income shoppers who are spending cautiously as prices rise at the gas pump and everywhere else.

Company shares tumbled more than 8% Thursday and helped drag the U.S. stock market lower as well.

Walmart’s comparable sales in the U.S., which measure sales at stores open at least a year along with online sales tied to those locations, rose 2.6% in the second quarter. That is down from 4.1% in the first quarter.

Excluding the wellness category that includes Walmart’s pharmacies, comparable sales increased 3.4% in the second quarter. Sales were hit by federal legislation that requires pharmacies to dispense some high-cost Medicare drugs at capped prices, the retailer said. That was still below Wall Street projections of a 3.8% increase, according to FactSet.

Still, Walmart’s quarterly profit, boosted by a $2.9 billion tariff refund, topped expectations, and so did revenue. Walmart says it continues to take market share.

Walmart is using the U.S. tariff refunds to temporarily lower prices on 11,000 items, it said Thursday, particularly on groceries and general merchandise.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this year that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority when he imposed double-digit import taxes, meaning U.S. companies were owed refunds from the government.

Yet Walmart is trying to contain prices as it is squeezed by the same pressures hammering the American consumer, namely rising energy costs due to fighting in Iran. The company expects to book an additional $2 billion in incremental fuel costs this year.

Slowing comparable sales, particularly in Walmart stores, also reflect a strategic shift toward e-commerce, Walmart+ memberships and advertising. Walmart’s domestic e-commerce business, which has become a growth engine for the retailer, rose 24%.

U.S. e-commerce now represents 23% in the overall U.S business., Walmart said, double the share five years ago.

“As these businesses scale, they become a more meaningful part of our mix, and they’re changing the shape of our business,” CEO John Furner said Thursday.

Walmart is considered a barometer of consumer spending given its vast customer base. More than 150 million customers are on its website or in its stores every week, according to Walmart.

Walmart’s trajectory may draw even more attention after U.S. data released Friday showed retail sales were surprisingly weak in July. On the same day, a new read on consumers from the University of Michigan revealed growing pessimism about the economy.

Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said Friday that when gasoline prices rise above $4, the company can feel it.

“There’s a psychological impact to that ... that there are choices that consumers are making,” Rainey said. “June was a little more obvious as we look at the quarter in terms of customers making trade-offs. And it’s why we have leaned so heavily into lower prices.”

The price of a gallon of gasoline ticked higher again overnight, according to AAA, reaching $4.10.

With prices higher, Walmart continues to capture a larger share of wealthier consumers. The biggest gains in market share for Walmart are coming from households with annual incomes over $100,000, the retailer has said.

Walmart’s quarterly net income was $6.37 billion, or 80 cents per share, in the three-month period ended July 31. Adjusted per-share results were 81 cents, easily topping the 74 cents Wall Street had expected, according to FactSet.

Sales rose 5.9% to $187.94 billion. Analysts were predicting $186.62 billion, according to FactSet.

For the third quarter, Walmart expects earnings per share of 62 cents to 64 cents. It projects sales to be up 3% to 3.75%, putting sales in a range of $184.9 billion to $186.23 billion.

For the full year, Walmart now expects earnings per share to be in the range of $2.80 to $2.87, while sales should be up anywhere from 4% to 5%. That would mean a forecast for sales in the range of $741.7 billion to $748.8 billion, according to FactSet.

Analysts expected $2.90 per share and sales of $752.06 billion for the year, according to FactSet.

Moscow's forces have in recent months intensified their ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, exploiting Ukraine's chronic shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defense interceptors, the sole weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down the missiles.

Large-scale Russian missile strikes have become a regular occurrence this summer. Just over two weeks ago, a Russian attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people, and nine were killed in the city two days before that. The United Nations said last week that Kyiv was one of the hardest hit cities in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 injured.

At the same time, Ukraine has shifted the war onto Russian soil through long-range drone strikes on oil facilities that have caused fuel shortages across the country. It has also unsettled the Russian public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer.

Zelenskyy repeats his appeals for more air defense

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded for countries to send more Patriot interceptors for defense, but international stockpiles are low amid the Iran war and Kyiv's more than four-year fight against Russia's all-out invasion.

Russia's overnight barrage also included cruise missiles and jet-powered drones that further strain air defenses, Ukraine's air force said.

Explosions boomed across Kyiv in the dark, but the air force said hits were recorded at 28 locations across the country. Emergency services said 15 people were killed in the capital, with another death in the wider Kyiv region. About 40 people were wounded, Zelenskyy said, as air raid warnings lasted until after dawn.

More than 38,000 people, including over 2,000 children, sheltered in Kyiv’s subway stations overnight, the system's operator said.

“It was a massive attack,” Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that Russia “had been preparing (it) for a long time, combining different types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, aiming to cause as much damage as possible to civilian infrastructure."

The Russian Defense Ministry said it struck a Kyiv industrial site manufacturing components for Flamingo cruise missiles. Sites involved in the production and storage of drones, an ammunition depot and a logistics center were also hit, it said.

Russia is able to produce more than 200 cruise and ballistic missiles per month, Ukraine’s intelligence agency told news outlet Ukrainska Pravda in comments published Thursday. It has stockpiled more than 1,100 cruise missiles and about 130 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, as well as hundreds of missiles of other types, the agency was quoted as saying.

It was not possible to independently verify the report, and Russian officials do not routinely answer questions about the country's arsenal.

Ukraine says it struck more Russian oil facilities

Russia and Ukraine have battered each other with drones and missiles as their armies struggle to gain the upper hand on the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, in Russia’s Tatarstan region, starting a fire, and the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal in Volna, in Russia’s Krasnodar region, where there was also a blaze. Ukraine has hit both facilities in recent months as part of its campaign to disrupt Russia’s vital oil industry.

Tatarstan leader Rustam Minnikhanov confirmed there had been a “massive attack” in the region, state news agency Tass reported, citing his press service. Many of the drones targeted Nizhnekamsk’s Zakamsk economic area, disrupting production at industrial sites and damaging residential buildings, Tass quoted him as saying.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 726 drones overnight over a number of Russian regions, annexed Crimea and the Black and Azov seas, in one of Ukraine's biggest aerial attacks of the war.

Ukraine's neighbors are on alert

Russia’s relentless onslaught has spooked other European countries, especially those bordering Ukraine, which fear spreading attacks from Moscow.

Amid the attack on Kyiv, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command activated its military aviation operations, ground-based air defense systems and radar reconnaissance. Polish and other NATO military aircraft were deployed to monitor its airspace, Polish news agency PAP reported.

Romania’s Defense Ministry said an unidentified drone crashed and burned in an uninhabited area near the Ukrainian border. Two Spanish F-18 jets, deployed on a policing mission in Romania, were scrambled overnight to monitor a group of “air targets” near the border, the ministry said.

In addition, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets were deployed to destroy a naval drone seen near a major Black Sea gas project, Romania’s acting Defense Minister Radu Miruta said.

Moldova’s Defense Ministry also said its airspace was breached by at least one drone.

Russia “is increasingly testing the resolve of NATO and its partners, violating the sovereignty of neighboring states and deliberately expanding the risks posed by its war far beyond Ukraine," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saw a broad threat to the European Union. “An escalating campaign of threats is underway, unsettling our citizens and seeking to divide our Union,” she said on X.

Explosions shatter windows and screams fill the air

Russia's overnight strikes hit 12 locations across Kyiv’s Darnytskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts, damaging 30 apartment blocks, a school, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten, Zelenskyy said.

Larysa Bondaruk, 60, sat on the ground, holding her cat, Chanel, which had been rescued by firefighters. With tears in her eyes, she said her neighbor’s grandson had been trapped by the rubble and died. Her apartment was badly damaged.

“A rocket hit the roof. It was incredibly loud. Immediately, debris and doors were blown out. There were columns of smoke, columns of fire, screams, crying and despair,” she said. “Two people were killed in our building, but the rescuers responded quickly and professionally. I am grateful to them for that.”

In Solomianskyi district, the top two floors of a nine-story residential building were destroyed and fires broke out on other floors. People were also trapped in two residential buildings and a school shelter.

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AP reporters Vasilisa Stepanenko and Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, contributed.

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

An analysis by The Associated Press and Reporter Brasil of all National Mining Agency records through June shows that rare earth exploration applications have surged, with more than 86% filed in the past three years, including 268 in the first half of 2026.

The interest is already raising environmental concerns for the Amazon and other areas.

Here are takeaways from the story:

The US and others are seeking alternatives to China

Rare earth minerals are a group of chemicals essential in digital and defense technologies, used in electronics, magnets and batteries. They are also used in wind turbines and electric vehicle motors, critical to the transition away from fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal that cause global warming. The International Energy Agency estimated in 2022 that demand for rare earths could increase at least threefold by 2040.

China has nearly half of the world’s reserves and dominates global processing. Brazil has the second-largest reserves and is becoming increasingly attractive to investors seeking alternatives to China after Beijing restricted exports last year.

By reviewing all National Mining Agency records in Brazil through June, the AP-Reporter Brasil analysis found that foreign investors are driving the growing interest in rare earth exploration, accounting for more than four in 10 applications.

Australian and U.S. firms dominate the interest. Among recent deals was the acquisition of Serra Verde, Brazil’s only commercial rare earth producer, by a U.S.-backed company.

Chinese firms had not filed any rare earth exploration applications in Brazil as of June, but they are positioning themselves in the sector. Last year, state-owned China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group acquired tin producer Mineracao Taboca and announced plans to assess rare earth potential at its Amazon mine. Separately, Shenghe Resources signed an agreement with Brazilian partners WEG Mineracao and Fenrir do Brasil to pursue rare earth projects, including one in Minas Gerais.

New mining push could impact communities and ecosystems

At least a quarter of the applications overlap with or are within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of protected areas and Indigenous territories, including in the Amazon, according to the Energy Transition Observatory, a collaboration among researchers and Reporter Brasil. Experts say mining projects within this buffer zone can cause environmental damage.

Depending on what is mined, toxic chemicals can be released and radioactive waste generated. Other potential impacts include deforestation and polluted water seeping into rivers and lakes, which can poison fish populations, as well as air pollution and noise.

In Goias state, in central Brazil, a small Afro-Brazilian community overlaps with mining claims by the Canadian firm Aclara Resources, which last year secured $5 million in project development financing from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

Aclara in a statement said its project initially overlapped with the community’s territory, but “no mining activities will take place there.” Still, residents fear operations that could start as early as 2028 could affect local springs and wildlife.

Brazil is considering safeguards around foreign influence

“The challenge today is that China dominates processing and refining,” said Brazilian lawmaker Zé Silva, author of pending legislation that would establish a federal policy on critical minerals and rare earths, set investment priorities and create a national council to monitor significant foreign influence in the sector. “Under our proposal, companies are welcome to invest, but they must transfer technology to Brazil, including processing capacity.”

On Monday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the Senate would move forward with the proposed law, to defend national interests.

“We will not allow anyone from outside to come here and exploit our mineral resources, because we want their processing and transformation to happen here,” Lula said.

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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.

Bowen, a resident of the Watkins-Logan Texas State Veterans Home, is taking part in the Veterans Land Board’s “100 for 100” program, which brings communities together to honor veterans reaching their centennial birthdays.

Born in Luling, Bowen joined the U.S. Marine Corps after high school on Aug. 3, 1945. He completed basic training and later served at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, during the final months of World War II.

• Blue Bell brings back fan-favorite Homemade in the Shade ice cream for a limited time

Bowen was honorably discharged in August 1946. His military honors include the Good Conduct Medal and Expert Rifleman recognition.

Now, as he prepares to mark a remarkable milestone, the Tyler community and Texans statewide are being encouraged to send him a birthday greeting — a small gesture that could bring a great deal of joy to a veteran who dedicated part of his life to serving his country.

Cards can be mailed to:

Mr. Weldon Bowen

c/o Watkins-Logan Texas State Veterans Home

11466 Honor Lane

Tyler, TX 75708

The Ervebo vaccine is licensed for use against Ebola virus, one of the viruses that cause Ebola disease, but not for Bundibugyo virus, which is responsible for the current outbreak which has so far killed 2,476 people out of the 5,208 confirmed cases

WHO said in a statement that while it’s not known whether Ervebo may protect against the Bundibugyo virus, “early laboratory and animal data suggest it may provide some protection.”

The allocation includes 20,000 doses for a Phase 3 clinical trial to understand the impact of the vaccine on the Bundibugyo virus, the agency said. The remaining 50,000 doses will be used for front-line and health workers as recommended by WHO experts.

The outbreak raging in six provinces in eastern Congo has infected and killed more people at a greater speed than any other Ebola outbreak in history, and is spreading about three times faster compared to the 2014-2016 outbreak across West Africa — the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record with more than 11,000 deaths.

The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision, which includes WHO and other partners, said the doses will be released immediately following a request from Congo’s government.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the approval “an important example of global solidarity in action.” He said the agency and its partners remain committed to supporting strengthened surveillance, rapid detection, quality care, community engagement and vaccination efforts to bring the outbreak under control.

The lack of approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus has been a major issue for responders. Most new cases have been reported outside of the people being monitored, showing the virus continues to spread faster than efforts to track it. That has been a key contributor to the recorded deaths.

The case fatality rate so far is 47.5% although it is far worse in some places where response efforts are more challenging, such as in North Kivu province where the fatality rate is up to 70%.

Experts believe the virus began spreading from the mining town of Mongbwalu as early as February, months before authorities declared the outbreak on May 15.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims dropped to 206,000 last week from a revised 212,000 the week before. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week ups and downs, ticked up to 204,000 last week from 199,750.

Claims for jobless benefits are a proxy for layoffs, and economists watch them because they can be a harbinger for where the job market is headed. For the past year, claims have been at a historically low range of around 200,000 to 230,000 a week.

“The labor market has yet to show any sign of wear and tear from the surge in oil prices since the start of the war with Iran and the global energy supply shock,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a commentary.

The number of people collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended Aug. 8 rose to 1.8 million from 1.78 million the week before.

The U.S. unemployment rate is low at 4.1%, partly because the economy has proved resilient in the face of higher energy prices. But it’s also because President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and the ongoing retirement of baby boomers mean that fewer people are competing for jobs: More than 1.3 million people have dropped out of the U.S. labor force over the past year.

The job market is tough for those looking for their first job and for those who lost their jobs and are looking for new work. At the same time, companies, remembering the worker shortages that followed the end of COVID-19 lockups, are still reluctant to let go of staff; but they aren’t eager to take on new workers. Economists regularly refer to a “no hire, no fire″ job market.

In July, companies, government agencies and nonprofits together cut 23,000 jobs. So far this year, employers are adding 61,000 jobs a month. That is an improvement on the 9,700 they averaged last year — the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002. The lingering effects of high interest rates and Trump’s erratic trade policies discouraged companies from hiring in 2025.

Hiring this year remains well below the 166,00 monthly jobs created, on average, in 2023 and 2024, let alone the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed pandemic lockdowns.

The couple's children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, have already enrolled at British schools and will start classes in September, according to a person close to the Sussexes who was not authorized to speak publicly. The family plans to live at a private, non-royal residence outside of London, but plans to maintain their home in Montecito, California, and their vacation property in Portugal.

The Daily Telegraph first reported the story. When asked to discuss the reports by the AP at a roundtable event with U.S. veterans in Washington Wednesday night, Harry replied, "Nothing to say.”

Harry and Meghan gave up their royal duties and moved to California more than six years ago to earn their living through lucrative contracts with Netflix and Spotify. Although relations with the rest of the royal family have soured since then, Harry has recently expressed an interest in reconciliation so he could spend more time with his father, King Charles III, who is being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer.

Charles was informed of the couple's plans on Sunday. Harry and Meghan visited the U.K. last month.

Buckingham Palace has a policy of not commenting on speculation about non-working members of the royal family. A representative for Harry and Meghan declined to comment.

According to a source close to the Sussexes, Meghan will continue heading her As Ever company from the U.K., while Harry can spend more time working with his U.K.-based charities.

Harry and Meghan have had a stormy relationship with the royal family ever since they decamped to a mansion in the exclusive Southern California enclave of Montecito.

In a series of interviews and Harry's memoir “Spare,” the couple said they left Britain to escape the restrictions of royal life and criticized palace officials for being insensitive to Meghan's mental health while alleging that at least one member of the royal family had expressed racist views when she was pregnant with their first child. Meghan describes herself as biracial.

Those tensions were exacerbated by Harry's long-running legal battle with Britain's tabloid newspapers, which he alleges illegally hacked his phones and invaded his privacy when he was younger.

The prince recently lost a lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail, though he won a 2023 judgment that condemned the publisher of the Daily Mirror for phone hacking. He also reached a settlement with the publisher of the Sun, which apologized for intruding on his life and agreed to pay substantial damages.

The latest trial has left Harry facing a potential bill for millions of pounds after the court ruled he and other plaintiffs in the case were liable for the publisher's legal fees. Associated Newspapers has filed documents showing that its legal costs amounted to 34.5 million pounds ($47 million).

Harry has also been embroiled in a legal wrangle with the British government after a government committee refused to authorize police protection for the prince and his family when they are in the U.K. The prince says he and his family need armed police protection because they are at risk simply because they are members of the royal family, regardless of whether they are working royals.

After losing a court battle over the security issue last year, Harry said he hoped to rebuild relations with his family.

“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry told the BBC. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

Last month, Harry returned to the U.K. for a series of charity engagements. Meghan and the children joined Harry for part of the visit and they spent time with the king at his Highgrove estate in western England. It was the first time Archie and Lilibet had seen their grandfather since the late Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee in 2022.

While Harry has recently met with his father, there are no signs of a warming of relations with his brother, Prince William, the heir to the throne.

Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, said the surprise announcement would make William “apoplectic.”

“In the short term, Harry will be able to deepen his rapprochement with his father," Hunt told Britain's Press Association. “And his presence back home will make it harder for his brother to duck a reconciliation."

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Pollard reported from Washington.

Fletcher spoke to The Associated Press in an interview after a visit to the southern city of Kherson, where he witnessed how communities there are coping while living under the constant threat of Russian drones. Fletcher described the visit to Kherson, split by the Dnipro River, which acts as an active front line, as “quite chilling."

Russian forces occupy the eastern bank, while Ukrainian forces hold the western bank. From across the water, surveillance and exploding drones routinely hunt and attack civilians, vehicles and public transit.

“It really gives us an insight into the dangers ahead of us,” he said.

The threat is also making it harder for humanitarian organizations to reach people who need assistance.

Fletcher spoke after attending a commemoration for two humanitarian workers who had died while doing their jobs.

“Drones are a real threat to not just civilians but the humanitarians who are here to protect them,” Fletcher said.

He said that aid workers are protected under international humanitarian law and yet marked humanitarian vehicles have still been hit. “So that does restrict what we can do," he said.

Local organizations are particularly exposed. More than two-thirds of operations funded through Ukraine's humanitarian fund are carried out by local organizations, according to Fletcher.

“They’re the ones who are saying most loudly to us, we’re not protected,” he said.

Fletcher said the U.N. needs more than $2 billion for its prioritized humanitarian response in Ukraine this year, with winter among his biggest concerns. Damage to civilian infrastructure, including electricity, water and gas systems, could once again leave millions vulnerable during the harsh winter months, raising fears of a repeat of last winter’s severe conditions.

The U.N. has sharply narrowed its humanitarian priorities all over the world as donor funding has fallen. Fletcher said the organization initially identified 87 million people facing the most severe humanitarian needs, but that figure has since risen to about 92 million with the onslaught of Ebola in Africa, the earthquake in Venezuela and other conflicts.

The U.N. is seeking $23 billion to provide life-saving assistance to those people and had raised about $11 billion, said Fletcher.

Ukraine is relatively well funded compared with many other crises, he added, with roughly 70%–75% of its hyper-prioritized funding requirement covered. But even full funding of the humanitarian plan would address only part of Ukraine’s needs.

Fletcher also admitted that raising money for humanitarian operations has become more difficult as governments have increasingly redirected spending toward defense and domestic priorities.

“We’re in a more transactional world, I would say a more selfish world,” he said.

Fletcher said the U.N. now has to demonstrate that it is using limited taxpayer money efficiently and strategically.

“We have to show governments that we are spending their taxpayers’ money sensibly, wisely, in a prioritized way,” he said.

In a stark new assessment released on Wednesday, the U.N. warned that 907 aid workers were victims of violence last year and over 1,000 have been killed in three years. Fletcher said he could not reassure colleagues that those responsible would be held accountable based on how the international community has reacted.

He said accountability should extend beyond identifying the person who physically carried out an attack.

“I want to see investigations into the people who fired the weapon or flew the drone,” he said.

The decision marks a milestone in Evergrande's saga after it defaulted on more than $300 billion in liabilities when Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing in the real estate industry in 2020. That triggered a crunch among many developers and brought on a downturn in the property market that has weighed on the broader economy ever since.

The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court said Thursday it convicted 67-year-old Hui, who founded Evergrande, of engaging in large-scale financial fraud in inflating the group’s assets and concealing its liabilities.

In a statement, the court said Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, abused his position in orchestrating fraud and misappropriating company assets.

Evergrande group was fined 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) and Evergrande Real Estate Group was fined 7 billion yuan ($1.04 billion), the court said.

“The amount involved is exceptionally large, the circumstances are particularly egregious, and extraordinarily heavy economic losses have been caused,” the statement said. “The harm to society is extremely serious. Therefore, severe punishment should be given in accordance with the law.”

Hui’s sons, Xu Tenghe and Xu Zhijian, were also sentenced alongside senior Evergrande executives and others linked to the group on charges including illegally taking public deposits, fundraising fraud and the illegal use of funds, China's official Xinhua News Agency said. A total of more than 50 individuals got prison terms of between 22 months and 18 years, it said without providing a breakdown of sentencing details.

A photo of Hui's courtroom appearance released by the Shenzhen court on Thursday showed an aged Hui, who used to be a high-profile figure but had long been out of public view, wearing a navy blue shirt standing between two uniformed officers behind a sign that read “defendant” in Chinese.

Hui pleaded guilty in April to various charges including illegal absorption of public deposits, fraud and bribery after he was detained in China.

China Evergrande was founded in 1996 as China's housing boom was taking off. It defaulted on its debts in 2021 and was ordered to liquidate its assets. The broader downturn in China's massive property sector that ensued has pulled home prices down 20% or more since 2021.

Authorities in Hong Kong and mainland China earlier said their investigations found Evergrande had manipulated its financial data using tactics such as prematurely booking revenue from property sales before completion and delivery of the apartments to buyers. Revenues were overstated by roughly $80 billion over 2019 and 2020, they said.

Hui was fined 47 million yuan ($6.5 million) in 2024 and banned from China's securities markets for life by the China Securities Regulatory Commission over inflating company financial results, among other issues.

Once reported to be China’s richest man, Hui used to own the football club Guangzhou Evergrande. At one point, he and his companies were involved in investing in and building theme parks and electric vehicles.

His story was one of rags-to-riches. Born in 1958 into a rural family in central China's Henan province, he worked in the steel industry in the 1980s before establishing Evergrande, which then prospered during China's housing market boom. He was one of many businessmen who have also gained political influence by joining a major advisory organization, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

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Associated Press writer Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launches of about 10 short-range ballistic missiles happened from North Korea’s capital region around 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Thursday. The military said the missiles flew about 300 kilometers (185 miles) each toward North Korea’s eastern waters.

The military said South Korea has bolstered its surveillance posture and was closely coordinating information on the launches with the U.S. and Japan. South Korea’s presidential national security council issued a statement urging North Korea to halt ballistic missile launches.

The Japanese prime minister's office had earlier said that it detected a suspected missile launch.

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, just before they began Monday. Trump cited what he said was a good relationship with Kim and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.

On Wednesday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries confirmed they shortened the 11-day drills by shortening their duration by about half and canceling some field training exercises. The reduction of the exercises raised worries about the allies’ joint defense posture.

Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed Trump’s overture later Wednesday, saying “the provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”

“If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get the desired answer,” she said in a statement.

She denied Trump’s claim that Kim Jong Un had responded to his request for a conversation.

Kim Yo Jong still refrained from the typical North Korean reaction of fiery rhetoric and said personal relations between her brother and Trump are “still excellent.” That signals North Korea would want to wait for Trump to make bigger concessions before returning to talks.

When asked by reporters Wednesday if he would be meeting with Kim Jong Un this year, Trump said that “Yeah, I will be.” He wouldn’t answer a question about whether he is exchanging letters with Kim but said he gets along with him.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield is one of the main military exercises conducted by the U.S. and South Korea annually to enhance their ability to cope with potential North Korean aggression. Washington and Seoul say their drills are defensive in nature, but North Korea calls them an invasion rehearsal and often reacts with weapons tests.

Before this month's drills started, North Korea accused the U.S. and South Korea of plotting more provocative exercises this summer and vowed to respond with "a new level of a deterrent.” Days before the drills' start, North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in its first such launches since late June.

Trump's earlier diplomacy with Kim Jong Un collapsed in 2019 due to disputes over how much sanctions relief North Korea should be given in return for dismantling its main nuclear complex, a limited denuclearization step. Kim has since shunned any talks with the U.S., pushed to modernize weapons arsenals and expanded cooperation with Russia.

Kim has said he won’t place his nuclear program back on the negotiating table. Experts say Kim has more leverage than when he first held talks with Trump in 2018 and 2019. They say Kim likely hopes to eventually win international recognition as a nuclear state and extensive sanctions relief in exchange for only limited steps toward denuclearization.

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

In Waldorf, in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate, a woman was struck by a falling tree and fatally injured, the German news agency dpa reported Thursday. Another woman suffered serious injuries in the accident, police said.

The women, 58 and 47, were walking together when a storm rolled in and they sought shelter under a covered seating area. Both women were struck when a tree was uprooted and fell onto the seating area. The 58-year-old died at the scene, a police spokesperson said. The 47-year-old was taken to a hospital.

A tornado struck the town of Fürstenwalde, 78 kilometers (49 miles) southeast of Berlin. Roofs were torn off and several cars were damaged by falling trees, and one person was injured, according to dpa.

In Höhr-Grenzhausen in the Westerwald district in western Germany, a storm tore walls from buildings. At least two homes were affected, according to dpa. Falling pieces of building facades and flying debris caused additional damage, and several trees were uprooted. A widespread power outage also hit the area, while strong gusts of wind overturned a truck on the A61 highway.

There were also numerous weather-related emergency calls overnight in Hesse, Thuringia and Bavaria.

A village festival in Kronach, Bavaria, was partially evacuated due to severe storms. About 3,500 guests had to leave the outdoor area of the festival grounds late Wednesday evening, local police said. They were able to continue celebrating inside the beer halls.

In Wetzlar, in Hesse, the storm damaged about 60 houses, according to the fire department. In some cases, pieces of roofing were blown as far as 100 meters (110 yards) away, dpa reported.

The German Weather Service warned that further severe storms could occur later in the day, particularly in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria in southern Germany.

While the storms in Germany were accompanied by cooler temperatures, high temperatures continued to be recorded in southeastern Europe, and fires raged in some parts of the region.

Firefighters are battling wildfires in the Balkans

In Serbia, a Russian firefighting plane joined efforts in Serbia on Thursday to fight wildfires that devastated a nature reserve in the northeast as the Balkan country faces a fresh heat wave in the coming days.

The Il-76 plane landed in Serbia on Wednesday evening, also illustrating continued friendly relations between the two countries despite Belgrade’s proclaimed intention to join the European Union.

The fire in Deliblatska Pescara, or Deliblato Sands, first erupted a month ago, but was under control until early August when it started spreading swiftly, engulfing thousands of acres of pine forests and shrubbery.

Several other big fires also have been raging in other parts of the country, as well as throughout the region in the past weeks. An extremely hot and dry summer this year has fueled wildfires throughout Europe, from Belgium to Greece.

Croatian firefighters from the popular tourism hot spot of Dubrovnik on Thursday joined a struggle to contain a fire across the border in Bosnia to prevent it from spreading toward the medieval walled city that is a UNESCO protected heritage site.

“It was a hard night,” regional firefighting unit commander Stjepan Simović told the Hina news agency. "The fire is huge and in an inaccessible terrain, so we have to be vigilant.”

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Gec reported from Belgrade, Serbia.

The Texas-based ice cream company is bringing back Homemade in the Shade, a fan-favorite flavor that returned to shelves last summer after a decade-long absence.

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According to the Houston Chronicle, the limited-time flavor is now back in stores as summer heat continues across Texas.

Homemade in the Shade combines Blue Bell’s signature Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream with a swirl of rich chocolate fudge sauce. It is available in both pint and half-gallon containers.

Homemade in the Shade originally disappeared from store shelves for about 10 years before Blue Bell brought it back in July 2025 to celebrate National Ice Cream Month.

The company said at the time that the flavor would only be available for a limited time.

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Now, fans have another opportunity to pick it up.

Blue Bell, which was founded in Brenham in 1907, has continued bringing back popular flavors for limited runs while introducing new options throughout the year.

Earlier this summer, the company released Chocolate Lava Cake Ice Cream, while other recent offerings include Black Raspberry Fudge and the patriotic Red, White & Blue Bell.

Blue Bell has not announced a specific end date for the latest run, but the company lists Homemade in the Shade among its featured limited-time flavors.

• Viral TikTok has Ninja Creami users checking their ice cream makers for maggots

So if this is one of your favorites, it may be worth grabbing a carton while it’s back on shelves.

After all, summer in Texas is a little easier with a bowl of vanilla ice cream and chocolate fudge waiting in the freezer.

A viral TikTok is prompting some Creami owners to inspect their machines after a woman claimed to have found what appeared to be maggots inside the lid of her ice cream maker.

According to TODAY, the woman said she discovered something resembling a maggot after eating ice cream she had made in her Creami. She and her partner checked the ingredients she had used, including milk, almond milk and protein powder, but said they couldn’t find the source.

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They eventually turned their attention to the machine.

The woman said she cleans her Creami regularly but was shocked to find what appeared to be maggots in an area of the appliance that she said was difficult to access and clean.

The video quickly went viral, prompting other Creami owners to share their own concerns about buildup inside parts of the machine.

Some social media users said they had found mold or other residue on their Creami lids, while others pushed back on the viral claims and suggested the issue could be due to improper cleaning or food left inside the appliance.

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The viral posts prompted Ninja to remind Creami owners about proper cleaning procedures.

According to TODAY, Ninja recommends thoroughly cleaning the machine after use, including the paddle, pint, outer bowl and lids.

The company also recommends running warm water through the lid’s paddle-release lever and drain holes and removing and cleaning the gray rubber seal underneath the lid.

Ninja also recommends wiping the spindle underneath the control panel after every use.

The company told media outlets that product quality and safety are its top priorities and that it reached out directly to the consumer involved to better understand what happened and review proper cleaning instructions.

• Think you’re really good at UNO? You could win $50,000

The company encourages Creami owners with questions to contact customer service.

The viral video does not establish that Ninja Creami machines are generally infested with maggots, and there is no indication that the appliance itself causes maggots to form.

Still, the incident is a reminder to thoroughly clean and dry kitchen appliances, particularly areas where food or moisture can become trapped.

For Creami owners, that could mean taking a few extra minutes after each use to clean the removable parts and pay attention to areas that aren’t immediately visible.

Because nobody wants their homemade ice cream to come with an unexpected protein boost.

It’s a new week, and unfortunately, it’s going to be hot for the rest of the week and into the weekend. We will reach 100 degrees in some areas, so if you’re headed outside today at any time, make sure you are well prepared for the heat. Stay hydrated, and try your best to stay cool.

As always, follow us for the latest on Click2Houston.com and watch us live on KPRC 2+.

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Weather ⛅

HIGH: 98° LOW: 81°

The KPRC 2 Weather Team says:

“The combination of heat and humidity will reach dangerous levels Thursday. Once the heat index climbs to 108° or higher across more than just a few isolated areas, a Heat Advisory goes into effect. The advisory begins at noon Thursday and runs through 7 p.m. Friday. Most likely, it will be extended as the heat continues. The actual air temperature will be hot on its own, with Houston expected to reach 100°. And the triple-digit heat could stick around through Tuesday of next week. This is going to be a long stretch of dangerous heat.”

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Houston’s Top Headlines 📰

The US national debt now stands at $40 trillion

The national debt surpassed a record $40 trillion on Wednesday, a staggering milestone as defense costs, social programs like Social Security and Medicare and interest on the burgeoning deficit make up an enormous share of federal spending. The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

Taking a cruise from Galveston? Here’s how local ships scored on their latest CDC sanitation inspections

If you’re planning to set sail from Galveston, you may want to take a look at your ship’s latest sanitation inspection score before you go.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducts unannounced inspections of cruise ships that call on U.S. ports, grading them on a 100-point scale. A score of 86 or higher is considered satisfactory, while 85 or lower is considered unsatisfactory.

These cruise ships had the worst CDC sanitation scores in 2026

Thinking about booking a cruise? You may want to check the ship’s latest sanitation inspection score before you set sail.

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows several cruise ships received scores near the bottom of the agency’s 100-point sanitation scale this year.

Dickinson ISD teacher arrested, accused of improper relationship with 16-year-old student

Dickinson ISD says a district employee assigned to the Galveston County Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP) has been arrested in connection to allegations involving a student.

The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office later confirmed 46-year-old Kristi Hanks was arrested and charged after allegations she had an improper relationship with a 16-year-old student.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducts unannounced inspections of cruise ships that call on U.S. ports, grading them on a 100-point scale. A score of 86 or higher is considered satisfactory, while 85 or lower is considered unsatisfactory.

• ORIGINAL STORY: These cruise ships had the worst CDC sanitation scores in 2026

Several cruise lines currently sail from the Port of Galveston, including Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean International, Disney Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, and MSC Cruises.

Here’s how the Galveston-based ships that have received CDC inspections so far in 2026 scored:

Carnival Cruise Line

Carnival Jubilee — 100

The Carnival Jubilee received a perfect score during its March inspection. CDC inspectors still noted more than two dozen violations involving areas such as hand washing, food labeling, and food temperatures, but none were considered significant enough to lower the score.

Carnival Breeze — 86

The Carnival Breeze had the lowest score among the Galveston ships inspected so far this year, but it still passed.

The ship received an 86 during its May inspection, the lowest possible passing score. Inspectors found about three dozen violations, including multiple food-safety issues and improper bromine levels that resulted in a whirlpool spa being closed.

The ship corrected the violations within 10 days, according to a follow-up report.

What’s notable: The Carnival Breeze had received a perfect 100 in January, just months before its 86.

Carnival Dream — 98

The Carnival Dream received a 98 during its January inspection. The ship lost points over issues involving soil and disrepair on counters, hot plates, decks, and a cold well.

MSC Cruises

MSC Seascape — 100

The MSC Seascape received a perfect 100 during its March inspection.

Inspectors did find 18 violations, but none were serious enough to result in a point deduction.

Royal Caribbean International

Mariner of the Seas — 99

The Mariner of the Seas received a 99 during its January inspection.

The ship lost one point over surfaces that were in disrepair, including refrigerator doors and chipped or peeling service trays.

Symphony of the Seas — 98

The Symphony of the Seas received a 98 during its February inspection. Dishwasher issues kept the ship from receiving a perfect score.

What about other ships sailing from Galveston?

The Port of Galveston currently lists Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Disney, Norwegian, Princess and MSC among the cruise lines sailing from the port.

Not every ship currently sailing from Galveston has a 2026 CDC inspection score available in the data reviewed for this story, so travelers should check the CDC’s database for the most recent score for their specific ship.

The Port of Galveston also recommends checking its cruise schedule because arrival and departure information can change.

What do the scores actually mean?

The CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program looks at much more than whether a passenger’s cabin is clean.

Inspectors examine areas including food preparation and dining spaces, drinking water systems, pools and whirlpools, medical facilities, ventilation, housekeeping, cabins and children’s activity areas.

And a lower score doesn’t necessarily mean a ship is currently unsafe.

The score is a snapshot of what inspectors found during that particular inspection, and ships can improve their scores by correcting violations.

The Carnival Breeze is a good example: It went from a perfect 100 in January to an 86 in May after inspectors identified numerous violations, then corrected those issues.

So if you’re cruising out of Galveston, it’s worth checking the CDC’s inspection database before you book, and again before you sail, to see the latest information for your ship.

Check your cruise ship’s latest CDC inspection score: CDC Vessel Sanitation Program inspection database

Check upcoming Galveston cruise departures: Port of Galveston cruise schedule

With universities competing to pay athletes millions of dollars, some states now are propping up their strained sports budgets in ways not previously seen. The state dollars aren’t going directly to star athletes. But by funding facilities and administrative costs normally borne by the schools, states are freeing universities to use their own dollars for other purposes.

The athletics program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for the first time, is receiving $3 million earmarked from state sports betting taxes. Wisconsin lawmakers approved $15 million for athletic costs at the University of Wisconsin. And Connecticut and Louisiana also are using tax dollars to support college athletics. Even more states have considered it.

Sports business analysts see an emerging trend.

“Once one state provides that kind of assistance, schools in competing states can argue that they are being placed at a competitive disadvantage, which could create additional pressure on legislatures to respond,” said Daniel McIntosh, faculty director of the sports business program at Arizona State University.

Legal cases have accelerated spending on college athletes

NCAA rules long barred college athletes from getting paid by schools and boosters. But under pressure from lawsuits and states, the NCAA cleared the way in 2021 for athletes to receive money from private entities for the use of their name, image or likeness (NIL). Then a legal settlement last year allowed higher education institutions to directly pay athletes a total of about $20.5 million annually — on top of any scholarships and other NIL deals they receive.

That cap rose to $21.3 million for this school year, and is set to rise again the following year.

Many mid-level programs cannot afford that much. But almost all NCAA Division I athletic programs are trying to generate more money to pay athletes in a bid to remain competitive with their peers. At the same time, schools have been incurring greater costs for facilities, coaches’ salaries and travel amid conference realignments that discarded old geographic-based rivalries.

Over the past four years, athletic operating expenses at public Division I institutions shot up by nearly a third — notably outpacing revenue and running up deficits, according to an Associated Press analysis using the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database.

Federal legislation could drive athletic costs even higher

The Protect College Sports Act, pending in the U.S. Senate, has been promoted as a way to put guardrails on college sports spending. But it could potentially allow even greater spending by schools.

The latest version would allow institutions to pay up to an additional $27.5 million annually to retain players on their rosters, pushing the overall athlete payment cap close to $50 million. The higher ceiling could reduce the demand for third-party NIL deals.

But the legislation contains no provision restraining increases in state and institutional funding for athletics, said Amy Privette Perko, CEO of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

“Without some restraint on the underlying spending competition, additional public funding could simply finance the next stage of the arms race,” McIntosh said.

States are routing money to schools in creative ways

When North Carolina launched online sports wagering in 2024, it earmarked part of the tax revenue for athletic departments at 13 public universities. But the two largest institutions — the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University — were excluded.

That changed in July under a new state budget that raises the sports betting tax. Those two schools now are projected to receive $3 million each this year and $5.8 million next year.

In the meantime, Louisiana also hiked its sports wagering tax and earmarked about $2.2 million to each of its 11 public universities in conferences with Division I football programs.

Seeking to drum up athletic revenue, Connecticut lawmakers authorized the University of Connecticut to issue vouchers for state tax credits equal to half the amount of donations, sponsorships and licensing endorsements. The program generated $1.7 million in its first four months, according to a university report.

New Jersey’s new budget allots $5 million for “events attraction and marketing” at Rutgers’ flagship campus. A university spokesperson declined to say if the money would be used for athletic programs.

Though not providing new state money, the governing board for Florida’s universities last year authorized institutions to transfer up to $22.5 million to athletics. Florida State University did so almost immediately, and other schools have since followed.

Lawmaker says a bad football team is bad for the state

The Wisconsin budget provides $14.6 million for athletic facility debt payments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and $200,000 each for the Milwaukee and Green Bay campuses.

“None of that state funds technically would go toward student athletes,” said Republican state Rep. Alex Dallman, who sponsored the legislation.

But with the state covering facility debt, the university could use its own funds “for other things, such as NIL, or just trying to compete,” said Dallman, who typically attends a couple Wisconsin football games each year.

“Having a bad football team, having uncompetitive college sports in general, would not be beneficial to our state, both culturally or economically,” Dallman said. “So we decided as a state we’d help out.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement the cities put forward “incredibly strong bids," and he promised the convention would be an “inspiring celebration of our party's future nominee.”

A final decision is expected to be made later this year by party leaders. Republicans have already chosen Houston for the site of their 2028 convention.

The Democratic convention, scheduled for Aug. 7-10, 2028, traditionally gives the party a chance to formally introduce its nominee to the country, rally the base and kick-start the most intense period of campaigning ahead of the general election.

The party didn't specify why Atlanta and Chicago, which was the site of the 2024 convention, were eliminated. Officials visited all five cities in April and May, considering logistical and fundraising capacity among other factors.

The three finalists are liberal strongholds surrounded by the type of suburban areas that have become increasingly important to the party in recent elections. They also provide access to fundraising and key demographic and interest groups, like labor unions.

While Colorado and Massachusetts have gone Democratic in recent presidential elections, Pennsylvania has been among the biggest battlegrounds. Trump, a Republican, won Pennsylvania in 2024.

Philadelphia last hosted the convention in 2016, Denver in 2008 and Boston in 2004.

Before the presidential primary gets into gear, Democrats are looking at this year's midterm elections as an opportunity to flip the narrowly divided Republican-led House and maybe take back control of the Senate.

Democrats face fundraising disadvantages compared with Republicans, along with financial debt, and Martin has confronted criticism over his stewardship of the party.

During a recent DNC meeting in Texas, Martin downplayed the critics and called for the party to unite as it tries to win the midterms and look ahead to 2028 and the end of Trump's second term.

But on television, Texans have only seen one of them.

Talarico, an Austin state representative, has spent over $25 million on advertising since the general election began in late May, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact — with nearly $10.7 million deployed on broadcast and an additional $8.4 million on streaming devices. (The rest has gone to a combination of cable, digital, radio and satellite.)

Texans turning on their TVs this summer have seen Talarico talk about the importance of loving God and neighbor in a spot featuring his grandfather. They’ve seen the Democrat lamenting high costs in a grocery store and while driving a truck, and heard about his record in a World Cup-themed Spanish language ad.

Over that same time period, the Paxton campaign has spent $119,000 — nearly all of it on digital advertising — meaning that Talarico has essentially had the airwaves to himself. Over that time, he’s built a narrow polling lead, pulling ahead in numerous surveys within the margin of error.

In television interviews, Paxton has noted this disparity and appealed to donors for help. On Fox News recently, the Republican nominee laid out his timeline for campaign spending, saying he expects that litigating Talarico’s record will cement the Democrat’s loss — but that he needs resources to do it.

“As we’re raising money, we’re working our way back into October, which is where we can spend money, and we’re trying to work our way back to September,” Paxton said. “But we need help now, because James Talarico’s been spending $3 or $4 million a week on TV for the last month. So, I want to compete.”

The Paxton campaign has also touted that while he was outraised by Talarico in the second quarter, Paxton still raised more money — over $9 million — than any non-incumbent GOP Senate candidate in the country. And Paxton has noted that the expensive primary runoff left his coffers more depleted than those of Talarico, who could afford to spend the spring stockpiling his war chest after winning his March primary.

Conventional election wisdom states that most voters don’t start paying attention until after Labor Day, and that Republicans can still win while being outspent on ads — which Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, did in both his narrow victory in 2018 and comfortable win in 2024. Republican strategists expect the cavalry to come for Paxton, with well-heeled outside players helping narrow the spending gap.

But as September approaches, they’re eyeing the calendar.

“I do think Paxton needs to define Talarico, and he needs to do it soon,” John Wittman, an unaffiliated Republican consultant and former adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott, said in an interview. “We’re about three months out from Election Day. So it’s important for Republicans to combat this Democrat aggression, that they do start to spend and start to define Talarico for the crazy liberal he is.”

Republican strategists caution that Democrats’ polling is typically strongest in the summer, and that they expect those numbers to shift once Paxton or his allies begin attacking Talarico on television. A Republican group called Protecting America’s Future, seeded by longtime Paxton ally and West Texas billionaire Tim Dunn, became the first GOP group to run an anti-Talarico ad, attacking him in two spots on China policy and crime in a $120,000 ad spend airing mostly in the Corpus Christi media market this week.

By comparison, Talarico’s campaign has spent over $7.3 million on ads over the past couple weeks, over 36 times the amount dropped by Republicans.

In 2024, when Cruz beat Democrat Colin Allred by an 8.5-point margin, he was also outspent over the summer — though Cruz was spending more on a week-by-week basis than Paxton is now. Cruz started spending six figures a week on advertising in late July 2024, according to AdImpact data, and ramped up to a weekly seven-figure spend by late September. When combined with outside spending, Republicans were dropping at least $2 million on ads each week by the end of August two years ago.

Paxton, by contrast, has spent no more than $20,000 on ads in any week of the general election thus far. AdImpact has tracked over $72,000 in Republican spending this week, the party’s high-water mark since the runoff.

In total, Democrats outspent Republicans by a margin of $119.7 million to $82.6 million in Texas’ 2024 Senate race after the primaries. Cruz’s campaign was aided by tens of millions in outside ad support and coordinated spending, the bulk of which did not come until late September.

And Cruz, of course, was an incumbent senator who had six years to build his war chest, while this is Paxton’s first federal race.

“GOP donors need to get off their asses”

Beyond Paxton’s campaign itself, well-heeled groups including Senate Leadership Fund, the national PAC aligned with Senate GOP leadership, and MAGA Inc., the massive campaign super PAC aligned with Trump, could even the field in Texas — though both groups are operating with a national map bigger than Texas. The question animating Republicans in Texas remains: When will the money come?

Paxton has acknowledged that Talarico’s superior spending has affected the standing of the race. Polls have put the race essentially tied, with Talarico narrowly leading in recent polls that put him within the margin of error — an unprecedented situation for the top-of-the-ticket race in Texas since Republicans solidified control of the state.

“He’s got money,” Paxton told GOP radio host Dana Loesch. “He’s been on TV for about four or five weeks. And it’s helped him a little bit in the polls — that’s why the polls have gotten closer.”

But the current lack of future ad reservations — from Paxton or allies — has some Republicans offering warnings to the outside groups that have yet to spend money. After the Paxton interview, Loesch, whose show is broadcast from Dallas, told her listeners that Republican groups were “leaving you to hang” and questioned, “Where’s the GOP in this race?”

“This is a winnable race,” Loesch said. “All these big money GOP donors need to get off their asses and make a decision. Because I guaran-damn-tee you, if their inaction results in us having somebody like James Talarico, dear God in heaven, my rage will be limitless.”

Karl Rove, a longtime Republican strategist who supported Sen. John Cornyn in the primary against Paxton, put it even more starkly. Rove said Texas is a Republican state, but that the disparate fundraising dynamics have made the race unusual.

“He’s not going to change as a fundraiser,” Rove said on Fox, referring to Paxton’s past performances. “So this is going to be one that is going to depend mightily upon the decision of President Trump to spend or not spend the half a billion plus dollars that he has in his two super PACs — MAGA Inc. and Never Surrender. If he does spend, then he can sort of even it up. If he doesn’t spend, this could be a really bad night for Republicans in Texas.”

Texas Bullpen reported that MAGA Inc. fielded a message testing poll in Texas with possible attacks against Talarico this month, portending potential future spending.

In the Fox News interview, Paxton said Republican leadership is “planning on spending money here, is my understanding,” but he noted that he can’t coordinate with them.

“We haven’t yet, but we’re very hopeful that that’s coming soon,” Paxton told Loesch when she asked if he was getting adequate funding from GOP groups. “We’ve been told September.”

Across the Republican spending landscape, Texas stands out for the lack of future TV ad reservations. GOP candidates and their allies have booked at least $10 million from Sept. 1 onward in eight battleground states, according to AdImpact. In the five other competitive states where Republicans are playing defense — Alaska, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio — the GOP has outspent Democrats in its fall bookings.

Democrats have not booked any ad reservations in Texas past Sept. 1 either. That includes Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aligned with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, which has bought ad time in other battleground states.

A few factors could explain why both parties are waiting to get involved in Texas.

In smaller states with fewer media markets, ad rates can rise quickly, especially when there are competitive governor and House races also competing for airtime. In those cases, early reservations can be critical. Meanwhile, Texas has 20 different media markets, placing less pressure on outside groups to commit money early and lock in rates, one national GOP strategist told the Tribune. That’s why campaigns and groups often buy ad time on a week-to-week basis here.

Super PACs can also make a difference. But on that front, Democrats also had an advantage at last count.

Lone Star Liberty PAC, the pro-Paxton super PAC that dropped $5.7 million throughout the primary, has yet to spend any money on television since the runoff. That’s expected to change at some point, but the group went into July with major reloading to do after an expensive second quarter taken up by the primary runoff. The PAC only had $35,000 in its war chest at the end of June, according to federal records.

Meanwhile, Lone Star Rising PAC, which supports Talarico, had nearly $12.7 million on hand.

Outside of the Senate race, Republicans’ cash advantage in other statewide contests — especially the governor’s race — could serve to benefit Paxton as well, when an expected deluge of pro-Republican, anti-Democrat messaging hits the airwaves this fall.

The next round of federal campaign fundraising data will not be available until mid-October, just before early voting begins.

The military said it would not probe three other attacks that killed aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders. It said it had completed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct in Gaza and made decisions on the five cases.

Chef José Andrés, founder of U.S.-based World Central Kitchen, condemned the decision on X as “wrong and painful.”

The investigations involve killings that drew a heavy international outcry. Hind was trapped in a vehicle with her slain relatives, pleading for help by phone before she too was killed in February 2024. After the shooting of the 15 medics in March 2025, troops bulldozed their bodies into a mass grave.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 people, including tens of thousands of women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Rights groups and U.N. commissions have said the campaign amounts to genocide and that Israeli forces have committed a litany of war crimes, including indiscriminate use of force and deliberate killings of civilians.

Israel denies accusations of genocide and war crimes and says it is targeting Hamas after its October 2023 attack on southern Israel. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militant group operates in populated areas in the tiny, overcrowded strip.

Israeli officials contend the country's justice system can address any violations by its troops, but rights groups say soldiers are almost never held accountable.

Wednesday's statement did not mention many other high-profile killings that Israel has pledged to investigate, such as its strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza that killed five journalists in August 2025, including Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who freelanced for The Associated Press and other news organizations.

The 5-year-old was the last alive in a stranded car

Hind's grandmother, also named Hind Rajab, told the AP by phone that the Israeli investigation into her killing is not enough.

“An international investigation is required to uncover the truth and hold all those responsible accountable,” she said. “We call for justice, not only for Hind, but for all Gaza children.”

The military in Wednesday's statement admitted to firing at the car carrying the 5-year-old, four of her cousins and her aunt and uncle as they fled an Israeli invasion of Gaza City.

As gunfire sprayed around them, the girl's cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamada, called the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic center, telling staff there her family had been killed. Seconds later, more gunshots were heard, and Layan’s screaming stopped, according to the Red Crescent recording of the call.

Palestinian paramedics dispatched an ambulance to rescue Hind and stayed on the line with her until contact was lost. Hind, her five relatives and two medics from the ambulance were found dead 12 days later.

The military admitted Wednesday that troops had fired toward that ambulance, killing the two medics.

Dyab Abou Jahjah, director of the Belgium-based Hind Rajab foundation, told Al-Jazeera he considered the military investigations a “charade meant to whitewash the culprits instead of convicting them.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent also insists on an international investigation, according to Raed al-Nims, a spokesman for the organization in Gaza. “Israeli measures are not enough,” he told the AP.

A movie docudrama about Hind's death, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” won international awards and was nominated for an Oscar.

The 15 medics had been trying to reach casualties

In the killing of the paramedics, Israeli troops fired on an ambulance driving to retrieve casualties from an Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah, then fired on other emergency vehicles that came looking for the first one, according to phone footage and the sole survivor of the shootings. Fifteen medics and emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Gaza's Civil Defense were killed.

Troops then bulldozed over the bodies and vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.

The Israeli military initially said it opened fire because the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” on troops without headlights or emergency signals. But it backtracked after the footage emerged, showing the teams driving slowly with their emergency lights flashing and logos visible. A deputy commander was directed to step down over the killings.

“We are not obligated to prove the truth because it is already proven to the whole world,” Eid Azizi, a Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson, told the AP in a phone call. “We shouldn’t have reached this point if they respected and followed international humanitarian law.”

Israel will not criminally probe World Central Kitchen strike

The military said it had decided against a criminal investigation into April 2024 airstrikes that hit a convoy of World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven staffers.

The aid group, which distributes food in Gaza, said at the time it had coordinated with the military over the convoy's movement. The vehicles, which had the group’s logo on their roofs visible from the air, were left incinerated and mangled.

Wednesday's military statement said individuals in the vehicles were mistakenly identified as armed Hamas operatives. But it concluded that the commanders' decisions "did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.” At the time, two officers were removed from their positions and three others reprimanded.

World Central Kitchen responded in a statement saying the military’s account of the strike was untrue, “conflates different timelines and events, muddies the story and shifts the blame.” It called for an independent investigation.

Australia's foreign minister Penny Wong expressed “outrage” at the outcome Thursday, saying the removals and reprimands of officers weren't sufficient accountability for the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom. Wong said unanswered questions remained and her government would continue to pursue the matter.

The military also decided not to take criminal action over the killings of four staffers from Doctors Without Borders in two separate instances in November 2023 and February 2024.

What happens next?

Military investigators will now take up the probes and present their findings to military prosecutors. The military advocate general can then decide to keep investigating, indict any soldiers involved or decline to charge them.

Any action will take a long time, if it comes at all, said Tal Steiner, head of the Israeli rights group HaMoked.

Indictments are very uncommon and convictions even more so, she said, recalling only one soldier who had spent time behind bars since Oct. 7, 2023, for alleged abuse of Palestinian prisoners. That soldier was imprisoned for seven months under a June 2025 plea bargain.

“It’s very rare that soldiers accused of harming Palestinians even go to court ... and even rarer that they get a severe punishment,” Steiner said.

Just 0.17% of all military investigations launched during three Gaza operations from 2014 to 2022 led to prosecution, according to an analysis by Israeli rights group Yesh Din.

The war's toll keeps growing

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and abducted 251 others.

Israeli strikes have continued in Gaza since a ceasefire deal came into effect in October, killing at least 1,270 people, according to the Health Ministry.

The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children constitute about half of the dead. ___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Erin Cunningham in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Meanwhile, France announced it will expel two Iranian diplomats in response to the expulsion of French diplomats from the Islamic Republic this week. And the Iranian parliament speaker and chief negotiator landed in neighboring Iraq for a three-day visit.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Wednesday. Full coverage can be found here.

Israel's military plans criminal investigation into Gaza attacks

The Israeli military said it would investigate the killings of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family members in February 2024, and the killing of 15 Palestinian medics in March 2025. Both drew international attention.

The announcement followed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct during the war in Gaza. The military said it would not launch criminal investigations into three other attacks that killed aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders.

Rajab was killed when Israeli troops opened fire on a vehicle that also was carrying her aunt, uncle and four cousins as they tried to flee Gaza City amid an Israeli offensive.

The 15 paramedics were killed when Israeli troops opened fire on their vehicles in the southern city of Rafah, then bulldozed over the bodies and buried them in a mass grave. Troops first shot at an ambulance that was driving to retrieve casualties from an Israeli offensive, then fired on several other emergency vehicles that went out to look for the first one, according to phone footage and the sole survivor.

Australian official angered by move not to probe aid worker’s death

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressed “outrage” on Thursday at Israel’s decision not to pursue criminal charges over strikes that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including Australian woman Zomi Frankcom.

Wong said her government was informed of the decision moments before it was announced, leaving officials no time to inform Frankcom’s family before it became public.

“There are still many unanswered questions,” Wong said.

They included why the convoy was struck three times in a humanitarian fire control zone and why a senior brigade officer involved in the strikes was a signatory to a letter urging the restriction of aid to Gaza, Wong added. Australia had yet to receive drone recordings from the attack, despite seeking them multiple times, she said.

“The Australian government does not believe that the removal of two officers from their positions and three officers being reprimanded is sufficient accountability for the deaths of seven people, including an Australian citizen,” Wong said.

The minister hours earlier summoned Israel’s envoy to Canberra Hillel Newman for a meeting. However, she wouldn’t expel the ambassador, she said, citing a need to continue engaging diplomatically with Israel.

Newman told reporters after the meeting that he was “very sorry” for Frankcom’s family, but did not apologize for her killing.

“One cannot attack findings of a court if the findings are not suitable to one’s political agenda,” Newman said. He added that the finding of no criminal liability came “after two years of independent research.”

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza kill 10 as ceasefire is in doubt

At least 10 people were killed Wednesday in two airstrikes in Gaza, according to local hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The attacks cast further doubt on whether new U.S. efforts can advance a tenuous ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.

Just two days after U.S. negotiators reportedly asked Israel to draw down attacks in Gaza, Israeli troops also crossed the ceasefire line in southern Gaza and detained a Hamas police colonel at dawn, two witnesses and a Hamas official said. They spoke on condition of anonymity for their safety.

— Samy Magdy and Wafaa Shurafa

Iran's parliament speaker and top negotiator visits Iraq

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf arrived in Iraq for a three-day visit where he will meet with Iraqi officials and leaders of an Iran-backed political coalition.

Iran-backed Iraqi militias have launched drone attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic targets both within Iraq and abroad, piling pressure on Baghdad, which for years has delicately tried to maintain strong ties with both Washington and Tehran.

Qalibaf praised the country’s Tehran-backed militias, which he called the “resistance in Iraq," describing them as a “key component of the country’s national power.”

His comments came even as the Iraqi government has been trying to disarm the militias that have long operated on their own even though they were nominally under state command.

Iraq is asking Iran to grant special status to Iraqi oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz because the country has been affected greatly by Iran's war with the U.S. and needs to guard its economic interests, according to a statement from Iraqi Parliament Speaker Haibet al-Halbousi.

Iraq relies on oil revenues for roughly 90% of its budget, and most of its oil is exported through the strait. Since the war erupted and Iran asserted control over the strait, halting most shipping traffic, Iraq has turned to alternate routes, including sending oil over land to Syria, which is less efficient and more expensive.

France and Iran expel diplomats

France announced it will expel two staff members of the Iranian Embassy in France, in response to what the French Foreign Ministry described as an assault by Iranian security forces against two French diplomatic staff in the Islamic Republic last month.

Iran accused the French pair of taking part in a secret meeting with “suspects in a major case involving foreign infiltration and interference,” Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The French diplomats were expelled on Monday.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot slammed the Iranian authorities for not investigating what he called a “premeditated and deliberate attack.” He called the allegations fabricated and said the two Iranians will leave Paris in the coming days.

___

Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials, which were obtained by the National Iranian American Council and made public Tuesday, offer the most transparent play by play yet of how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three separate immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.

The emails show that Iranian officials had some influence over which Iranian immigrants in the U.S. were sent back to their home country, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials apparently heeded some last-minute changes to deportation lists at the request of Iran.

“Per request from the Iran Embassy I added a few cases," one unnamed ICE official wrote in late August, a month before the first deportation flight in September. Just over a week later, someone with the same job title moved to make another, unspecified change to the deportation list after they said they met with the “Director at the Iranian Embassy.”

“Iran has requested that I amend the previous manifest and expedite the removal process,” the official wrote.

In a Sept. 26 email, just three days before the deportation flight left U.S. soil, an ICE official said in an email that the Iranian Embassy was still making requests for three additional Iranians on the flight. It's not clear who ended up on the flight, which ended up being much smaller than initially planned. Iranian officials were still making requests the day the flight departed, although one official wrote that those requests were denied.

Coordination of the flights remained a high priority even as ICE officials acknowledged internally that Iranians were fleeing Iran amid the deadly 12-day war with the U.S. and Israel in June 2025, emails show. The flights departed just months after the U.S. and Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran.

The new emails highlight a clear departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.

The deportation of Iranians to a country whose government has a pattern of violent persecution against women, religious minorities and political dissidents has drawn significant criticism from human rights activists.

The Department of Homeland Security did not offer comment in response to an emailed request sent Tuesday afternoon.

Some deportees were handpicked by Iranian officials, emails show

Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as 400 Iranians could be returned under an agreement with the Trump administration. They said most of the Iranians had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

It is not clear from the emails how frequently U.S. immigration officials had direct contact with the Iranian government. Sometimes messages were conveyed through Qatari officials, who helped charter the deportation flights through Doha, but other times officials reference regular meetings with the “Iranian delegation," the “Director at the Iranian Embassy” and other unnamed Iranian officials.

It is not clear whether the people Iran put on the list had volunteered to repatriate or if they were forced. Previous reporting from The New York Times revealed that asylum-seekers were among those deported to Iran, while others said they were deported against their will.

At least one person was deported who wasn't supposed to be, emails showed.

“An Iranian not included on the final manifest we sent to the Qatari MOI was boarded on the flight,” an unnamed U.S. official wrote.

In response, another unnamed U.S. official wrote, “I have no idea how the case/person got through on the plane.”

US prioritized deportation efforts during war

Emails suggest that pressure to carry out the Iranian deportations came from the highest levels of the Trump administration, even when U.S. and Israel were exchanging strikes with Iran in a 12-day conflict between June 13 and June 24, 2025.

Just days after Trump's June 16 warning on social media that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” the former acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, called the repatriation of Iranian immigrants a “priority" in an email sent to the agency’s head of removal operations Marcos Charles and a number of unnamed staff.

Shortly after Lyon's email, Charles forwarded the message to a group of officials whose names are redacted. An unnamed ICE official responded, warning that “removal will prove difficult” amid the ongoing conflict because Iran wasn't issuing the travel documents for Iranians eligible for deportation. On top of that, the Iranian airspace was closed to all flights during the bombings and Iranians were fleeing the country.

Charles was unfazed, telling staff in a subsequent email to make a plan to deport 58 Iranians with final removal orders in ICE custody at the time.

“We need a plan forward ASAP,” Charles wrote. Another official, who name was redacted, urged colleagues to “identify a solution for this White House priority.”

Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said the emails undermine Trump’s assertions that the U.S. is at war with Iran to save ordinary Iranians from a repressive regime.

“It demonstrates that the top priority here was to kick out as many people as possible by whatever means necessary,” Abdi said.

Iranian officials had access to immigration detainees

On several occasions, the emails show ICE officials arranging for Iranian officials to meet for unspecified reasons with people detained in the U.S., echoing testimony from Iranian asylum-seekers in an unrelated lawsuit filed by an unaffiliated Iranian interest group in July.

Eleven Iranians in immigration detention said they were forced to meet with Iranian government officials while in ICE detention. Those Iranian authorities knew intimate details about their asylum claims, according to the sworn declarations filed in a Washington, D.C., court in July.

The lawsuit alleges that U.S. immigration agencies have been illegally sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum-seekers with the Iranian government.

The U.S. government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics. However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the person getting deported applied for asylum.

DHS vehemently disputed the lawsuit's allegations.

“These allegations that ICE shared asylum application records with the Iranian government are FALSE,” DHS said in a statement in July.

“I don’t think we’ve played great,” the two-time reigning NL manager of the year said Wednesday. “We haven’t really jelled. We haven’t really come together."

The Brewers’ results tell a different story.

Milwaukee appears well on its way to earning its eighth playoff berth in the last nine seasons as it chases a fourth consecutive NL Central title. The Brewers won three of four from the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers last weekend and trounced Seattle 22-0 on Tuesday before their four-game winning streak ended with a 7-5 loss to the Mariners on Wednesday.

“There’s so much that I see that needs to improve, yet you look up and everybody’s saying, ‘Wow, I love the way you play,’ “ Murphy said before Wednesday's game. “And I look funny and I look behind me, and I see if they’re talking to someone else. Really? Maybe I’m too critical. Maybe I’m missing something. I don’t know. I do trust the team.”

They’ve been rewarding that trust.

Surviving a 17-day grind

The Brewers just completed a 17-day run that included no days off, one complete West Coast trip and part of another. They went 10-7 during that stretch.

After losing three straight games at San Diego last week, the Brewers responded by winning a series with the Dodgers, who swept them out of the NL Championship Series last year. After finally getting a day off Monday, the Brewers delivered their 22-0 blowout of Seattle that matched the most one-sided shutout in modern MLB history.

“I think it says we’re a good baseball team,” first baseman Jake Bauers said. “I think in tough times it can be easy to lose sight of that, but we have the right people around to bounce back when things get tough, and we have the right people around to continue to play winning baseball.”

Milwaukee has needed to stay hot to remain ahead of the Chicago Cubs, who have won 11 of their last 16 games and are 4 1/2 behind Milwaukee in the NL Central standings. The Brewers and Cubs face off in a four-game series Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at Wrigley Field before meeting again for three games in Milwaukee from Sept. 7-9.

During that grueling 17-day run, the Brewers encountered some criticism for their inability to acquire two-time AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. The Brewers made a strong push to land Skubal, only to see the Detroit Tigers send him to the Dodgers instead.

Having NL Cy Young Award front-runner Jacob Misiorowski and Skubal fronting a starting rotation in a playoff series would have given the Brewers perhaps their best shot at making the postseason breakthrough that has eluded them during the franchise’s longest run of sustained success. The Brewers haven’t reached a World Series since 1982 and have never won it all.

Continuing to win without adding Skubal

Logan Henderson, an outstanding rookie pitcher the Brewers chose to keep rather than including in a trade last month, outdueled Skubal in Sunday’s series finale at Los Angeles. The 6-2 victory improved Henderson’s record to 7-2 with a 2.70 ERA.

The Brewers pivoted after the Skubal trade by acquiring former St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Dustin May, who is seeking to become the latest in a growing list of starting pitchers to improve after joining the Brewers. Left-hander Kyle Harrison, who also is thriving in his first year in Milwaukee, attributes that trend to Milwaukee’s pitching coaching staff of Chris Hook, Jim Henderson and Juan Sandoval.

“They’re so good at just knowing who you are as an individual and knowing what you need,” Harrison said. “Shoot, yeah, they’ve been doing it for a while now, too, so it’s pretty cool to have those guys you can trust and rely on.”

The Brewers believe they have the makings of a quality playoff rotation with Misiorowski, Henderson, Harrison and May. Milwaukee has withstood injuries that knocked two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff out for the season and prevented Quinn Priester from pitching at all this year.

Milwaukee’s lineup has produced the fewest homers in the big leagues, yet the Brewers remain among the top five teams in scoring. Bauers’ breakthrough season has helped the Brewers overcome down years from 2018 NL MVP Christian Yelich and three-time All-Star William Contreras.

Without naming names, Murphy said: “I watch some of our leaders that might not be getting the results, but the way they handle everybody else is pretty impressive.” Murphy added that might be one of the keys to this team’s success.

Another is simply the ability to continue competing even when things aren’t going smoothly.

“Maybe that’s the secret,” Murphy said. “Maybe this team still plays well enough to be close when they’re not at their best.”

___

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

The Panthers know they didn’t finish the way they wanted to, which has led to this year’s motto.

“They understood what moment that was; they understood what happened,” said Panthers Head Coach Tremaine Jackson. “We understood as a staff, and our mantra is ‘finish the fight’ this year because we know we did not finish in the way we wanted to finish.”

“Finish the fight, that’s our goal, so we’re gonna come in, we’re gonna start a fight, and we’re gonna finish it at the end of the day; that’s our biggest thing,” said senior linebacker Malachi Williams.

The Panthers open the season on August 29th at 8 p.m. visiting Tarleton State.

May Doi, 93, was found dead Monday after she was reported missing, police said. Neighbors think she was escaping floodwaters in her home and trying to get to a nearby shelter, said ʻĀina Akamu, a former student of Doi's who is now a vice principal at a local school.

She taught for so long at Naalehu Elementary on the island's southern tip that “Mrs. Doi was my dad's kindergarten teacher,” Akamu said Wednesday.

“She taught grandkids of her students,” he said. “She was a fixture in this community.”

Akamu often saw her taking walks around the small, rural, sugar plantation-era town: “She was so strong.”

He recalled how everyone looked forward to having Mrs. Doi as a teacher because she sometimes allowed students to have sleepovers in her classroom. Her deceased husband was a math teacher, Akamu said.

The body of a man in his 60s was located by residents in a pasture on Tuesday, a day after police were asked to conduct a welfare check, police said. Authorities said it was the second death attributed to the storm and have not yet released his identity.

Residents were struggling to clean up after Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rock and left many households without electricity for days. On top of all that, forecasters warned of the likelihood of another tropical cyclone forming southeast of the islands.

‘We just ask the ancestors to protect us’

Akamu also lamented the destruction of two cemeteries, including one where Akamu’s ancestors have been buried since 1850. Caskets were sticking out of the ground through the town, home to about 800 people, and headstones littered the roadway, he said.

“Our graveyard is now scattered all over the community and how do we heal from that?” he said.

He worries crews working to clear roads could inadvertently run over remains.

“Don't clear the road, my grandma could be in there,” he said. "That's what makes me most emotional, it's like you lost them again."

Akamu was trying to focus on helping his community recover by setting up a hub where residents can get donated items. They are in most need of generators, gasoline and propane, he said.

“We just ask the ancestors to protect us,” Akamu said of the threat of an another storm.

Now well west of Hawaii's main islands, Lala has reached major Category 3 strength with top sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) on Wednesday in what the National Hurricane Center called the first major hurricane of 2026 in the Central Pacific Ocean. But Hawaii residents were put on notice for another storm system, located far to the east-southeast.

The hurricane center said conditions appeared conducive for a tropical depression to form within days.

It's too early to tell the exact location or potential wind, rain and storm surge impacts. However, “interests in the Hawaiian Islands should closely monitor the progress of this system,” the hurricane center said, adding it could be a hurricane when it moves near or over the islands by the weekend.

Power repairs could take weeks

Work continued to clear away tons of mud and debris left behind by a torrent of water that inundated buildings, some of whose roofs were sheared off by the winds. Dozens of homes were washed from foundations, bridges were damaged and a collapsed section of a two-lane road had cut off access to the community of Pahala.

The U.S. Department of Transportation approved an initial $6 million in emergency relief to help repair transportation infrastructure damaged by Lala, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said.

The heaviest recorded rainfall, 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), occurred in Laupahoehoe on the northeast coast of the Big Island, the National Weather Service said.

About 17,000 customers on the Big Island remained without power on Wednesday, the Hawaiian Electric utility said. Some customers on the islands of Oahu and Maui were still in the dark. Repairs in the heavily damaged areas of the Big Island, including the southern end, could take at least two weeks, the utility said.

Lala was moving to the northwest at 10 mph (17 kph) and was expected to turn toward the north early Thursday. It was bearing down on a remote area at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. Hurricane warnings were posted for portions of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument from Lisianski Island to Maro Reef.

The weather service said the storm was forecast to veer east of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. The population in one of the most remote places on Earth consists entirely of a few dozen U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff, volunteers and contractors. Forecasters said there were no tropical-related advisories for the Midway Atoll and any impact might include some elevated surf with a limited amount of rain.

___

Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia.

Jersey Village, home to fewer than 8,000 residents, approved the use of Flock Safety cameras in 2018. Today, Jersey Village Police Chief Danny Keele says there are 58 Flock cameras throughout the city.

• RELATED: Flock Safety CEO addresses backlash over misuse concerns, cites safeguards to prevent abuse

Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley told our sister station WDIV that Jersey Village was an important early example of the company’s expansion beyond residential neighborhoods and into law enforcement.

Langley said the technology was initially being used in neighborhoods when Jersey Village asked to expand them.

“Can we buy it for the major intersections of the city?” Langley recalled the city asking. “And we said, sure.”

Since then, Langley said, the technology has “become quite prolific.”

58 cameras in a city of fewer than 8,000 residents

The number of cameras stands out when compared with some larger Houston-area cities.

Jersey Village has 58 cameras, according to Chief Keele — around the same number being used in Conroe and League City, cities with populations close to 120,000.

Chief Keele said the city’s residential population, however, does not tell the full story.

Jersey Village sits along heavily traveled roads in northwest Harris County. Chief Keele said traffic counts along Jones Road can exceed 140,000 vehicles a day, bringing a much larger transient population through the city.

• RELATED: Deer Park police officer suspended after using license plate cameras for personal use

Chief Keele said the cameras have become an important investigative tool for his officers, particularly when trying to identify vehicles connected to crimes or locate stolen vehicles.

Flock cameras are automated license plate readers that capture information from passing vehicles that law enforcement can search during investigations.

Chief Keele said the technology also works alongside other investigative tools, such as surveillance video from businesses and residents, to help officers identify vehicles associated with crimes.

Residents divided over privacy

As the technology has expanded, so have questions about how much information law enforcement should be able to collect about drivers.

People KPRC 2 spoke with in Jersey Village expressed mixed opinions.

William Bludworth, a Jersey Village resident, said he sees the potential public safety benefits but is uncomfortable with the growth of surveillance technology.

“It’s good to be able to have data to be able to solve crimes and so forth,” Bludworth said. “But on the other hand, Big Brother just keeps creeping in.”

Vanessa Melton, who lives in Houston but regularly visits Jersey Village, had stronger concerns.

“I think it is a violation of our privacy,” Melton said. “It’s totally taking away more of our rights.”

Chief says Jersey Village has not experienced misuse

Questions surrounding access to license plate reader databases have taken on greater significance as several Houston-area law enforcement agencies have faced allegations of officers improperly using the technology.

Chief Keele said Jersey Village has not experienced similar problems during the years its police department has used Flock.

The chief said any technology that gives law enforcement access to sensitive information needs safeguards and oversight.

• RELATED: 3 Harris County deputies have access to Flock system suspended; Deer Park Police Department disciplines officer

Keele pointed to department policies, officer training and audits of the system as safeguards intended to ensure officers are using the technology for legitimate law enforcement purposes.

He said Flock data in Jersey Village is retained for 30 days.

“We’re not using it to track people,” Chief Keele told KPRC 2.

Chief Keele said the technology has helped officers identify suspects and take people accused of serious crimes off the streets more quickly.

But he also acknowledged that departments have a responsibility to ensure officers use powerful technology appropriately.

The order comes a day after Minnesota leaders sued Abbott to force the extradition of 52-year-old Christian Castro, who faces four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime, having also been accused of lying about the circumstance leading up to the shooting.

The federal lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of Texas, is the latest step in a monthslong effort by Minnesota officials to take custody of Castro.

Federal law requires states to cooperate on extradition requests, according to the lawsuit.  

“Abbott’s refusal to extradite Castro is unconstitutional and violates federal law and Texas law,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement. “I will not stand for that, so I’m taking Abbott to court.”

Wednesday’s order from U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez requires Abbott to file a response to Minnesota’s request for a restraining order by Aug. 24. A hearing on the order was also scheduled for Aug. 25. Castro could be released on Aug. 26 if the order is not granted, Minnesota’s request warned.

Abbott’s office initially declined to comment on “pending extradition matters.” But when asked about the lawsuit during an unrelated news conference on Tuesday, the governor was dismissive. 

“While they’re making demands, I got a demand of my own and that is: It’s time for Minnesota to step up and repay the United States of America and Americans for all the fraud that they have committed in their state under federal programs,” Abbott said. “I will not respond to them at all until they step up and do what’s right, and they acknowledge their fault in the fraud that took place, and they fully repay the United States of America for the fraud they committed.”  

The Trump administration also justified Operation Metro Surge, a major immigration enforcement crackdown that began in Minnesota in late 2025, by connecting it to a welfare fraud scandal in the state’s social programs. The operation led to several shootings by immigration agents, including two that killed U.S. citizens. 

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced the charges against Castro on May 18, about four months after he allegedly fired into an occupied home during Operation Metro Surge and hit Julio Sosa-Celis in the leg. Castro told federal investigators that Sosa-Celis and another man had attacked him with a shovel and a broom, but surveillance camera footage contradicted the ICE agent’s account, according to court documents. 

The Texas Rangers helped arrest Castro in Cameron County in late May, prompting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to send the extradition request to his Texas counterpart.

Abbott has on average signed a rendition warrant agreeing to Minnesota’s requests in around 30 days but has not done so in this case, Minnesota officials said.

Last week, Ellison sent a letter asking Abbott to sign the legal document for Castro’s extradition by Monday afternoon or face legal action.

“The duty to extradite is ministerial and non-discretionary,” Ellison added in the letter. “Federal courts have the power to enforce a governor’s duty to extradite a fugitive, and a governor ‘has no power to refuse to extradite a fugitive based on the merits of the fugitive’s case.’”

In Tuesday’s lawsuit, the Minnesota attorney general called the decision to not sign the paperwork in Castro’s case “unusual and inconsistent” with typically prompt cooperation between the two states. Ellison said Abbott’s office complied with extradition requests from Minnesota for several other unrelated defendants — including a person with the same charge as Castro — in recent months.

The need for action is growing, the lawsuit said, because Texas cannot hold someone awaiting extradition for longer than 90 days. The lawsuit also named Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Trevino to prevent the South Texas sheriff’s office from releasing Castro before he is turned over to Minnesota’s custody. 

“If Defendants are permitted to release Castro from custody before turning him over to agents of Minnesota for extradition, there is a substantial risk that Castro will flee and avoid prosecution in Minnesota,” the lawsuit said.

Trevino didn’t immediately respond to a comment request.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, blasted Abbott’s refusal to act on Castro’s case. 

“Abbott is more interested in burnishing his well-known anti-immigrant credentials than following the law,” he said Wednesday. 

Doggett also was part of a letter state congressional Democrats sent to the governor last week urging his “swift review and signature on the extradition paperwork.”

This was not the first time Minnesota officials have filed a legal challenge related to their efforts to prosecute the shooting of Sosa-Celis. 

In March, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and the state of Minnesota sued the federal government for access to evidence related to Sosa-Celis’ case as well as the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers in January. 

In addition, when Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare launched an investigation into the July fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by an ICE agent in Houston, he said he contacted Hennepin County prosecutors. 

“No one is more familiar with these kinds of situations than them,” Teare said last month.

Ramon received the honor Aug. 12 during Fire-Rescue International in Kansas City, Missouri. The award recognizes one career chief and one volunteer chief nationwide for leadership, innovation, integrity and contributions to the fire service.

Ramon began her career as a volunteer firefighter with Cy-Fair in 1990 and was hired as fire chief in July 2014 after a national search. She has since overseen the department’s expansion to around-the-clock staffing at all 13 stations, according to the department.

• The women who helped build Houston’s history take center stage at Heritage Society event

In May of 2025, many members of the Cy-Fair community rallied around Chief Ramon when the Harris County Emergency Services District No. 9 Board had an item on their agenda which pertained to reviewing and potentially acting on a complaint against an officer or employee — widely understood to involve Chief Ramon.

Supporters packed the board meeting room, including local senators, members of the League of Women Voters, the Cy-Fair Chamber of Commerce, and concerned residents. Many spoke out to praise Ramon’s leadership and demand transparency from the board.

The board never talked about the issue and it was dropped.

Supporters of Ramon described the board’s handling of the issue as part of a “political agenda” and called for the removal of partisan influence in public safety decisions.

“This should be about public service, not politics,” one attendee said.

This all happened one year after Chief Ramon was named 2024 Fire Chief of the Year by the Texas Fire Chiefs Association.

Supporters of Chief Ramon’s newest award cited her management of the department’s $102 million operating budget and $38 million capital budget, as well as her focus on financial transparency and firefighter wellness. The department said she helped establish a mental health program for firefighters and their families and implemented cancer-screening initiatives.

• Houston renters will soon have a right to working A/C under new city rules

Ramon also serves in leadership roles with the Harris County Fire Chiefs Association and Texas Fire Chiefs Association. Her peers named her Texas Fire Chief of the Year in 2024.

“This recognition belongs to every member of this department who shows up and does the work every day,” Ramon said.

The department will hold a celebration reception for Ramon at 6 p.m. Aug. 27 at its administration office at 10710 Telge Road in Houston.

The Montgomery County Narcotics Enforcement Team, Homeland Security Investigations and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Crime Reduction Unit executed the warrant Tuesday at Exotic Kings Smoke & Vape, which the Sheriff’s Office says is located next to a child daycare center.

Investigators said the search followed multiple tips about suspected illegal activity.

Mohamed Elwaseem, 25, was arrested and charged with manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance. He was booked into the Montgomery County Jail and is being held on a $50,000 bond.

Tips can be reported to Multi-County Crime Stoppers at 800-392-7867.

The combination of heat and humidity will reach dangerous levels Thursday. Once the heat index climbs to 108° or higher across more than just a few isolated areas, a Heat Advisory goes into effect.

The advisory begins at noon Thursday and runs through 7 p.m. Friday. Most likely, it will be extended as the heat continues.

The actual air temperature will be hot on its own, with Houston expected to reach 100°. And the triple-digit heat could stick around through Tuesday of next week. This is going to be a long stretch of dangerous heat.

No end in sight to this unrelenting heat:

The heat is courtesy of a strong ridge of high pressure. This ridge is bringing sinking air into Houston, and as that air sinks, it gets compressed and heats up.

This pattern shows no signs of letting up through the weekend. While there is a small chance of rain Saturday, it’s not enough of a change in the overall weather pattern to bring temperatures down in any meaningful way.

In other words, the heat is here to stay.

Triple digit heat:

It’s possible Thursday could mark the start of a five or six-day streak of triple-digit temperatures. And even if we come up a degree or two short of 100°, it won’t make much difference when it comes to how it feels.

The afternoon heat index will still climb into the 108° to 110° range, keeping the heat dangerous regardless of whether the actual temperature reaches 100°.

Tracking the tropics:

We have entered the busiest 45 day stretch of our hurricane season. But because of intense wind shear over the Atlantic Basin there in no tropical activity expected for the next 7 days!

10 Day Forecast:

We’re in for one of the hottest stretches of the summer.

There is a small chance of rain Saturday, but don’t expect it to provide much relief. The strong ridge of high pressure finally begins to break down in the middle of next week, but temperatures won’t drop dramatically.

The heat may ease a bit, but summer isn’t giving up just yet.

The stunning developments came a day after Ukraine’s recently fired defense minister demanded national elections, despite Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion.

Although Zelenskyy was not implicated in the graft investigation, it threatened to pull him into another political crisis and provide another test of his resilience.

Investigators gave few details of the probe. It has identified a group of people alleged to have laundered 150 million hryvnias ($3.4 million) to pay bail for a defendant in a major graft case last year, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau said.

That case, involving the state-owned nuclear power company, brought the resignations of Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers.

The latest suspects include a former lawmaker, the chairperson of a state bank’s board and the head of the bank’s supervisory board, as well as a deputy head of the presidential office, the agency said.

Zelenskyy made no public comment on the investigation but issued a decree dismissing Iryna Mudra as deputy head of the Office of the President. Investigators have not named her as a suspect.

Investigators searched Mudra’s office Wednesday, said lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko.

Zelenskyy remains dogged by high-level graft investigations, although he has never been named as a suspect even as the probes have engulfed officials close to him. Last year, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak resigned and later was named as a suspect in a major graft probe involving a luxury construction project in the biggest threat to Zelenskyy’s government since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

The European Union has identified deep-seated corruption as one of the major hurdles to Ukraine's desired membership in the bloc.

Zelenskyy's former aide wants a wartime election

Zelenskyy is already under pressure over his firing last month of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, one of the longest-standing members of his team and a close ally since helping him win the 2019 presidential election.

Zelenskyy, seeking to reconcile tensions between the Defense Ministry's young and tech-savvy innovators and Ukraine's seasoned, Soviet-trained battlefield leaders, risked angering both sides by reshuffling his wartime leadership. He ousted both Fedorov, whose changes to military procurement aimed to stamp out corruption, and commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.

That sparked sustained street protests supporting Fedorov. For Zelenskyy, it was the second time in a year that a move triggered a strong public backlash, after he tried to curb the powers of anti-corruption agencies in 2025.

Fedorov, in an address posted to YouTube late Tuesday, called for elections — appearing to directly confront Zelenskyy, whose term expired in 2024. Ukraine's constitution prohibits such a vote under martial law.

“We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war,” Fedorov said.

He said Ukraine faces a crisis in how it is governed, arguing the current system is oriented toward protecting itself and resisting change. He also condemned corruption among officials without naming anyone, saying it had weakened Ukraine’s ability to fight.

Zelenskyy’s office did not immediately comment on Fedorov’s address. It was not immediately clear whether Fedorov's appeal would resonate with Ukrainians.

Also on Wednesday, lawmakers approved Zelenskyy's candidate, Maj. Gen. Yevhenii Khmara, as the new defense minister, a move that effectively closes the door to Fedorov’s return to the post, which he has sought, anytime soon.

Lawmakers also gave their consent for Andrii Sybiha to stay on as foreign minister after serving in an interim role.

Political disarray follows Ukrainian wartime successes

The political disarray follows recent successes for Ukraine in the war. Using innovative drone technology, it has repeatedly hit Russian oil facilities, causing fuel shortages. It has also shocked the Russian public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, the country's biggest online retailer, and stalled front-line advances by Moscow's bigger army.

But Zelenskyy has been unable to get traction in U.S.-led peace efforts, and Ukraine is at the mercy of Russia's ballistic missiles because more U.S.-made Patriot interceptors aren't available due to low international stockpiles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has balked at negotiating a peace deal directly with Zelenskyy.

In its latest attack, a Ukrainian drone hit an oil refinery in Ufa in Russia's Bashkortostan, its Gov. Radiy Khabirov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. There are three oil refineries in Ufa, and all have been attacked.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight intercepted 453 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions, as well as Russian-held Crimea and the Black Sea.

It said Russian forces on Tuesday hit a bulk carrier in the Black Sea, southeast of Odesa, that was carrying military equipment. On Wednesday, the Russian military struck what it said were fuel and lubricant storage tanks for the Ukrainian armed forces in the southern port of Chornomorsk.

A Russian drone struck a minibus in Kherson in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing four people, said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration, adding that four women were wounded. Another Russian drone struck a civilian car in the regional capital, killing a woman, he said.

Amid the fighting, Russia and Ukraine swapped 103 prisoners of war, according to Zelenskyy and the Russian Defense Ministry.

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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.

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

Graham, a political novice, was asked whether the U.S. has a national security interest in Taiwan and the South China Sea — a longstanding contention of both Democratic and Republican administrations. She struggled to answer before admitting, “National security is not my thing.”

“I’m not that informed on national security,” she added.

Her rival in next week's runoff for the GOP nomination, Rep. Ralph Norman, suggested the answer showed Graham was unqualified for the role.

“By her choice, she’s running for the United States Senate. It’s a six-year term,” Norman said. “You need to get fully versed in what issues you’re going to be dealing with. This isn’t a get training on the job, you can’t do that.”

It was a moment that drew a stark contrast to Graham’s brother, Lindsey, who died unexpectedly on July 11. It also gave Norman, an established conservative politician, a fresh avenue of attack as he tries to overcome President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Graham in her first campaign. The Republican president is set to visit South Carolina on Friday to campaign for her.

During his decades in the Senate, Lindsey Graham was known for his foreign policy involvement, making countless foreign trips, sometimes as part of a group of U.S. lawmakers meeting with international leaders and observing contentious areas firsthand.

There were multiple trips to Taiwan, including in 2022, when he led a delegation for a two-day visit that included meetings with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the island’s defense minister.

Darline Graham had been asked, “Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States and if so, why or how?”

Graham avoided a direct response and instead mentioned her brother's wealth of experience and her desire to lead differently.

“My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military,” said Graham, who often read from a legal pad on which she had notes, its pages draped over the front of her lectern. “My dad was in the Army. I’m not a polished politician up here; national security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military.”

Candidates were not allowed to bring notes into the debate, but Graham spent several minutes before the broadcast began copiously writing on her legal pad. Norman wrote down a few things but not as extensively.

As interim senator, Graham is surrounded by many of her brother's Capitol Hill staff, many of whom worked with him for years on issues foreign and domestic. She's repeatedly thanked them for getting her up to speed on legislative issues and has pointed to her several weeks on the job as a productive time in which she's gotten legislation passed, including a Russia sanctions bill named for her brother.

In the wake of her brother’s death, Graham has been asked multiple times about how she would either further or shift away from his intense focus on national security, an attitude that was at the essence of his Senate portfolio.

Asked after the debate by reporters if she wanted another crack at her answer to moderators' question, she doubled down, saying she was more focused on South Carolinians' everyday concerns.

“They’re worried about their pocketbooks more than they’re worried about the South China Sea, quite honestly,” Graham said. “So that’s going to be my biggest focus.”

Graham added that she had spoken multiple times during the debate about the overall national security threat posed by China.

“I realize national security is very important,” Graham said. “I probably said 10 times up there tonight how bad China is, how they’re a national threat to us.”

Speaking with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, Graham acknowledged her flub but said that she had spoken with voters since the debate who said they appreciated her honesty in expressing her lack of foreign policy expertise.

“I tripped up on one question last night regarding Taiwan, but you know, I’ve said many times, I’m not a politician, certainly not a career politician. I don’t speak politician,” Graham said. “You know, I was just honest, and I think that’s kind of a foreign concept.”

Taiwan has often been a flashpoint for aggression from China and international efforts to support its right to self-rule. The U.S. maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity over whether it would defend Taiwan militarily if the mainland invaded, but has committed to bolstering the island's defense for generations.

Claimed by China as part of its territory, Taiwan sits along a South China Sea global trade route, virtually all of which China claims despite a 2016 arbitration ruling based on the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea that invalidated Beijing’s expansive claims.

During a visit to Manila this week, Adm. Frank Bradley, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said that American special operations forces are ready to step up warfighting-readiness exercises with counterparts in the Philippines and other countries in Asia to further strengthen a security alliance and help deter a major conflict in the region.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

Just two days after U.S. negotiators reportedly asked Israel to draw down attacks in the Gaza Strip, at least 10 people were killed Wednesday in two strikes, according to local hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Israeli troops also crossed the ceasefire line in southern Gaza and detained a Hamas police colonel at dawn Wednesday, two witnesses and a Hamas official said.

Israel's military said one of the strikes on Wednesday, in the area of Nuseirat refugee camp, struck a Hamas commander who had participated in the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 abducted. A second strike in the Tuffah area of Gaza City struck four Hamas militants gathering in a police station, the military said, claiming they were planning to carry out attacks against Israeli troops.

Israel's military said a strike the day before targeted a meeting of four Hamas commanders and additional militants.

The commanders killed included Muhammad Hamdi Ahmad Al-Masri, Muhammad Attar and Muhammad Fathi Hussein Nasser, all accused of carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli troops, and Samed Samir Harb Abu Habal, who infiltrated Israeli territory during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, according to a statement from Israel's military.

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the Wednesday Gaza City strike on the police station killed eight police officers and a 13-year-old girl. Two officers were women, it said. One person was killed in Nuseirat. On Tuesday evening, an Israeli strike on a busy seaside cafe killed seven Palestinians, including a child, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Jared Kushner, a U.S. negotiator and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, held a marathon meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, in which he asked Israel's leader to draw down attacks on Gaza, a person familiar with the meeting said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief journalists.

Also on Wednesday, Israel's military said it had completed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct during the war in Gaza and would launch criminal investigations into the 2024 killings of a 5-year-old girl and her family, as well as of 15 Palestinian paramedics in 2025.

At least 17 killed in Israeli strikes

The deadly strikes in Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday exacted more casualties even as a ceasefire that’s been in place since October has significantly diminished the fighting in the tiny enclave where more than 2 million Palestinians live. Since the ceasefire, Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,273 people, according to health officials in Gaza.

The nearly three-year Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 73,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, which was part of the recently dissolved Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and international organizations. It doesn't distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half of the toll.

In the early hours of Wednesday, at least 15 Israeli troops entered the Muwasi coastal area, west of the city of Khan Younis, two residents and a Hamas official said.

Accompanied by armed men, the troops stormed the tent of Sabri Abdel-All, a colonel for the Hamas-led Blue Police in Khan Younis. They also detained another resident identified as Nashat Ezzat Zaarab, they said.

The two residents and the Hamas official spoke on condition of anonymity for their safety.

Latest ceasefire negotiations offer few concrete commitments

On the diplomatic front, the ceasefire also appears stalled. Trump's initial ceasefire plan laid out a broad vision for ending Hamas’ rule in Gaza and rebuilding the territory, much of which was reduced to rubble during the war.

But since last fall, major sticking points have emerged on the conditions of Hamas' disarmament and Israel's withdrawal — and which should come first.

Earlier this month, Trump announced that Hamas had agreed to disarm. But Hamas said it would begin to disarm if Israel halts strikes and withdraws, adding that laying down its heavy weapons would come later and be contingent on the creation of a Palestinian state — something Israel’s government rejects.

Netanyahu also pushed back on the deal, saying Israel won't withdraw from its current lines in Gaza until Hamas has completely disarmed.

After Wednesday's strikes, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem lashed out at the Board of Peace — the body Trump established to oversee the ceasefire — saying it has provided a "cover” for Israel to escalate its attacks in Gaza instead of pressuring it to abide by the ceasefire agreement.

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Associated Press journalists Julia Frankel and Giovanna Dell'Orto in Jerusalem; Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made the comments Wednesday night in her country’s first reaction to Trump’s moves to drastically cut back the annual U.S.-South Korean military drills.

“We think it’s not worth making comments on that and we have no interest in it at all,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media. “The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”

She also cited a series of other military drills carried out by the U.S. and South Korea earlier this year and South Korea’s push to introduce nuclear-powered submarines.

Kim Yo Jong denied that there are any communications between Trump and Kim. Earlier this week, pressed by reporters on whether he had a conversation with Kim Jong Un, Trump said that Kim had responded to his request for a conversation.

Kim Yo Jong's statement did not contain North Korea’s typically harsh rhetoric. She briefly said relations between her brother and Trump are “still excellent," mentioning her brother’s past comments that he still has “good memories” of Trump. This suggests North Korea may be trying to manage relations with Trump, while seeking bigger concessions to restart talks.

When asked by reporters Wednesday if he will meet with Kim Jong Un this year, Trump said that “Yeah, I will be.” He wouldn’t answer a question about whether he is exchanging letters with Kim but said he gets along with him.

US and South Korea confirm drastic slashing of drills

Kim Yo Jong's statement came hours after the South Korean and U.S. militaries confirmed they were scaling back their 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises. Trump earlier ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the exercises, citing what he said was a good relationship with Kim and South Korea’s refusal to support him over Iran.

South Korean officials said Trump’s announcement came without prior notice, baffling many people in the Asian country and raising concerns about joint defense readiness.

South Korea’s military said the allies agreed to adjust the duration and scale of the exercises at the request of the U.S. It said the ongoing drills would end Friday, not Aug. 27 as initially planned. It added that the allies also agreed to downsize some joint field training exercises.

The Pentagon said that it was “continuing training that enhances tactical capability” but certain events have been canceled or converted to simulations. “These adjustments preserve essential readiness and training objectives. There will be no degradation to U.S. training objectives,” a Pentagon statement said.

Ulchi Freedom Shield is largely a computer-simulated command post exercise meant to hone the allies’ ability to deal with potential North Korean aggression. The two countries usually hold a set of field training exercises during the command post exercise period.

The drills are a central pillar of the U.S.-South Korea alliance, which dates to the 1950-53 Korean War. But they also are a long-running source of animosities with North Korea, which has denounced the exercises as a rehearsal for an invasion and responded with provocative missile tests. Days before this month's drills began, North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the sea.

This month's drills were initially supposed to be held in two phases in simulation of North Korean attacks — the first part until this Friday on defensive operations and the second part until Aug. 27 on counteroffensive operations. North Korea is extremely sensitive to counteroffensive drills, according to South Korean media.

Prospects for Trump-Kim summit unclear

Earlier Wednesday, North Korea's state news agency, KCNA, published a commentary slamming the U.S.-South Korean military drills as “frantic” and “extremely dangerous” and vowing to completely frustrate its rivals’ hostilities.

Many experts said Kim, now emboldened by his advancing nuclear program and expanding military cooperation with Russia, won't likely embrace Trump's overture and return to talks anytime soon unless he's promised bigger concessions. Kim suggested last year that he could only return to talks if the U.S. drops its demand for North Korean denuclearization as a precondition for diplomacy.

Trump claimed Wednesday that North Korea has 57 nuclear weapons. Some experts put the size of the North’s arsenal at more than 100 warheads.

South Korea’s intelligence service estimated last year that North Korea sent about 15,000 troops to support Russia's war against Ukraine. Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said North Korea was preparing to send more troops to Russia. But in her Wednesday statement, Kim Yo Jong flatly denied that, calling it “an ungrounded farce."

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung hailed Trump's decision, saying in his X message Wednesday that he hopes it would lead to reopening dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang and promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula. Lee is a liberal who wants better ties with North Korea.

South Korea's main opposition conservative party earlier accused Lee's government of prioritizing the resumption of Kim-Trump diplomacy over security concerns caused by Trump's move.

Trump and Kim met three times from 2018-2019 but their high-stakes diplomacy eventually fell apart over wrangling over a North Korean demand for extensive sanctions relief in return for limited denuclearization steps.

Trump's move may focus on South Korea over Iran

In his social media post, Trump said the drills are not only costly but “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” during his time in the White House. Trump said he asked Lee if South Korea would join the U.S. in the “denuclearization” of Iran, “and they said, ‘No thanks!’”

At separate parliamentary hearings Wednesday, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said neither South Korean nor U.S. officials were informed of Trump's move before his social media post. Cho said the alliance remains strong, while Ahn said South Korean and U.S. defense officials were maintaining close consultations.

Some experts say Trump's cut of the drills was more likely designed to apply pressure on South Korea to give him substantial support over the Iran war than to reach out to North Korea.

“Trump's message is that if you don’t cooperate with us on Iran, we’re not cooperating with you” on the drills either, said Yang Uk, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “It's like he's asking South Korea to show it's helping him over Iran” by taking steps like sending warships or reinforcing missile defenses in some areas.

South Korean officials said South Korea and the U.S. are closely discussing practical and military contributions that South Korea can make to help restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

It wasn't the first time that the U.S. and South Korea have scaled back or canceled their drills.

In 2018, Trump abruptly announced the cancellation of a major war game with South Korea, after his first summit with Kim. The U.S. and South Korea have since canceled or reduced other joint drills to support diplomacy with North Korea and cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said crews were working nonstop to fix the outages, but 75,000 customers still lacked electricity by late afternoon, mostly in Lake County next to the Illinois border.

They included more than 20,000 customers in Gary, where residents lined up again at community centers for hot meals and a place to charge phones.

The latest news for Gary wasn't good: Full restoration is not expected there until Aug. 25, NIPSCO said.

Roughly 300 poles and 44 power transmission poles need to be repaired or replaced in Gary as a result of the storm, which carried winds of 99 mph (159 kilometers per hour), said Melody Birmingham, an executive at NIPSCO's parent company.

Birmingham acknowledged the “real burden” of losing perishable food and people living for days without air conditioning after a “historic storm” that initially left 300,000 customers in the dark.

“These aren't simple repairs,” Birmingham said at a news conference. “These are systems that are being rebuilt.”

Utility says low-income residents are not ignored

Jeremy Spurrier, 51, said he's fortunate to have a generator at his Portage home, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. But the generator is expensive — it goes through about $75 of gas a day — and Spurrier said his family is relying on nonperishable food like soup. He drives to Illinois to get ice to chill his insulin.

"If I run out of ice, that’s several hundred dollars of insulin just ruined,” he said.

Gary, a majority-Black city, has been especially hit hard, with some residents voicing frustration that they're being ignored. Birmingham denied that low-income residents were being overlooked and blamed posts on social media.

“We have areas that are probably affluent where we still have customers out as well. ... This has nothing to do with race or any type of division,” said Birmingham, who is Black. “It's really a matter of where the storm hit.”

Gary Mayor Eddie Melton acknowledged that locals were “frustrated and exhausted” but said more than 600 linemen were working to restore power in the city.

"I want to reiterate this is clearly not just a Gary situation. It is a northwest Indiana situation,” Melton said.

No storm damage — but no power

A 4-year-old boy, three men and three women were among those who had died since the storms began Aug. 11, said Liz Woods, a spokesperson for the state Department of Homeland Security.

In Whiting, Myra Carden, 74, said her home wasn’t damaged by the storm — “not even a chair was blown over in the yard.” But she was in her second blackout Wednesday.

Carden, her son and three dogs lost power for more than two days last week. Then the electricity went out again Tuesday.

“More than once I have put in an outage report,” she said. ”All I get back is, ‘You already put in a report.’ Well, what do you want me to do? ... This doesn’t make sense. Of course I’m not a lineman; I’m a paralegal.”

Carden uses a generator to keep the refrigerator humming but only when someone’s home to monitor it.

“We have a deep freeze in the garage packed full with beef and chicken. I’m sure everything will be thrown away,” she said.

The color — displayed on bandanas, pins, shirts and dresses — has become the symbol of a grassroots movement dedicated to blocking the buildout of 765-kilovolt transmission lines across the state. A coalition of those groups gathered on the steps of the Capitol building in the morning as testimony got underway for the House Committee on State Affairs’ interim meeting dedicated to the backlash against the transmission lines and data centers.

At the protest and nine-hour hearing that followed, lawmakers heard a variety of recommendations, including from local officials arguing for more local control of data center proposals and more time to reform the process behind approving transmission lines across Texas. Though discussed in separate hearings, landowners and protesters said the issues are connected.

“Data centers need energy … and the fact that there have been so many proposed throughout the state, I think these issues go hand in hand,” said Jada Jo Smith, founder and president of Hill Country Preservation Coalition, the grassroots organization that organized Wednesday’s protest.

The bipartisan coalition made up of Republican legislators, Democratic statewide candidates, landowners from rural Texas and environmentalists is starting to break through on both fronts.

Following a July Senate Business and Commerce Committee interim hearing on both topics, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and committee chair Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, called on the Public Utility Commission to scrap the 765 kv project entirely. Days later, Gov. Greg Abbott announced a pause on approvals for data centers to connect to the electric grid until an audit of data centers seeking to connect was completed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state grid operator.

While neither action spells an end to the debate around either issue — nor a halt to the transmission plans altogether — activists said they believe the tide has turned in their favor.

Mia Sarot, founder of the Hill Country Land and Legacy Alliance, sported a yellow button and bandana tied to her wrist as she spoke to the crowd of 40 people outside the Capitol, lamenting the need for the groups to have organized in the first place while celebrating their impact on the policy decisions made by state officials.

“Yellow means we’re paying attention,” Sarot said. “It isn’t a threat, it isn’t a political party, it doesn’t belong to any one organization and you don’t need anyone’s permission to wear it. It simply says, ‘I’m here, I’m paying attention, I’m asking questions and I’m participating.”

Inside the Capitol, lawmakers on the legislative panel spent hours deliberating the transmission lines, particularly three first-of-their-kind 765-kilovolt lines that would slice through tens of thousands of acres of private property.

For months, landowners have questioned the 180-day administrative window regulators have to approve or reject the proposal, arguing it was not enough time for residents to contest the plans. Most pleaded with lawmakers to halt the plan entirely and give lawmakers more time to reform the administrative process.

Lawmakers appeared receptive.

“When (the transmission plan) was brought to me, the 180 days was suggested, and it was suggested based on the Permian Basin Reliability Plan,” said state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo. “Not y’all deciding that we’ve got to run lines all the way across the state. So that’s where the 180 days came from, and I agree. I think we need to relook at that.”

State Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, questioned transmission service providers, such as Oncor and AEP, about whether the proposed routes were the correct solution. He said most of the opposition stemmed from issues with the routes.

“We’re talking about really a routing issue, and I think everybody in this room is upset about the routes,” King said. “When we’re figuring out if we’re not going to do … 765s, what’s the alternative for transmission?”

Representatives from Oncor, AEP and CPS Energy, which would be tasked with deploying the build-out of the lines, said that if approved, they would work with landowners whose properties are along the proposed routes to make modifications and diminish the impact to the land.

And while they were receptive to a delay, they said that decision would come with a number of ramifications, including disrupting construction schedules already in discussion and the ability to secure necessary equipment on time. Adrian Rodriguez, chief operating officer and president of AEP Texas, said they buy themselves a slot for when equipment becomes available, adding that losing that place in line could result in higher costs.

“If we lose our place in those lines, given the 765 kV transmission line build that is occurring in other grids in this country, there is a high demand for these slots,” he said. “We have the potential to lose those slots, or that equipment could then be utilized for another part of the country … with the current demand that the country is facing for transmission build, those would likely be at a higher cost than we were able to originally procure those.”

Industry leaders rejected the notion that only data centers would benefit from the transmission lines, and that several industries could suffer if regulators decide to halt the proposal.

“We are concerned that putting a halt to these projects will not only affect oil and gas operations, but it’s going to affect new generation currently being built and threaten many planned projects,” said Walt Baum, president of Powering Texans. “We do support future changes to transmission planning to improve transparency and address specific siting and landowner concerns that y’all have heard about today.”

Katie Coleman, representing the Texas Association of Manufacturers, said transmission needs for the business community have not been met for 10 years, and further delays could hinder growth.

“This is not about data centers,” Coleman said. “It is about our planning process systematically under-planning for industrial growth for more than 10 years. We are in a catch-up phase because of extreme restrictions that were put on forecasting of industrial growth.”

The testimony on data centers, which lawmakers cut short to allow time for the transmission line discussion, lasted six hours.

Also at the meeting, ERCOT officials reported on how they intend to carry out Abbott’s ordered audit of data centers, a process CEO Pablo Vegas said he expects to go through in about December.

Abbott ordered ERCOT and the PUC to ensure data center developers provide information on tax breaks they will receive; power use and generation; water use and cooling operations; efforts to reduce impacts on local communities; and ownership of the facility. Any projects that fail should be denied connection to the grid, the governor said.

The audit has scrambled the grid operator’s efforts to organize the queue of facilities seeking energization, roughly 90% of which are data centers. Prior to Abbott’s request, ERCOT expected to complete its study by April, when the first batch of data centers would receive approval to connect to the grid.

Vegas said they hope to not delay the entire schedule for connecting projects, but they hadn’t yet determined exactly how long the overall process delay would be. Vegas acknowledged that some of the roughly 250 projects eligible for the first batch of approvals may drop out because of the new timeline.

ERCOT is also surveying all data centers with an electricity demand of 25 megawatts or greater on their impact on the community, as directed by Abbott, Vegas said. PUC Chairman Thomas Gleeson equated it to “a fact-finding mission.”

Regulators have already been working through a new way to decide how much of the cost of building new transmission lines needs to be paid for by individuals and how much needs to be paid for by companies such as data centers. Experts said they believe the new system will lower the burden on residential consumers relative to the industrial groups.

Costs for new infrastructure have long been shared because it provides an arguable public benefit, Vegas said. Economic and population growth also contribute to transmission needs.

“Well, it seems like the citizens don’t have a choice in this,” said Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston. “Data centers are being pushed upon them, and they don’t have a choice to say no. But they’ve got to pay. I think that’s unfair. It’s undemocratic.”

Representatives on the committee also mulled potential regulation for the data center industry they’d like to pass in the 2027 session.

Several county officials testified that they need additional authority to manage the buildout of data centers in unincorporated areas of counties. In Texas, counties typically don’t have the power to block development — unlike city officials who wield zoning authority — and a majority of the hundreds of data centers planned for the state are set to be built in unincorporated areas.

King expressed some trepidation that giving counties more authority over data center projects could result in overriding private citizens’ rights.

“I hear a lot about local control and giving the counties or the local elected officials more control over this, but a lot of the ideas that are proposed to me kind of erode private property rights,” King said.

“The intersection is the fundamental issue we’re talking about is it not?” Leon County Commissioner Kyle Workman responded. “I think as a public policy matter, the state of Texas and local communities should be able to work together to establish that line.”

The committee did appear committed to repeal the state sales tax exemption for data centers, which has ballooned in recent years as more data centers are built and apply for the tax break. The exemption totaled an estimated $5.4 million in value during its first year of existence in 2014. In 2026, the Comptroller’s Office estimated the state is forgoing $1.3 billion in uncollected sales taxes.

“It’s a huge number,” said Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth. “I passed the bill to get it done. I’m going to probably carry the one to repeal it. Realistically, that’s going to go away.”

Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, reiterated a call he made earlier this year for the governor to call a special session to address the issues surrounding data centers immediately.

Still, Abbott’s order for ERCOT to audit the data centers in the electric grid connection pipeline represents the strongest action to date that state officials have taken to slow the buildout of data centers in Texas.

Activists have also been skeptical of the audits, urging the governor instead to call a special session of the Legislature to allow their senators and representatives to quickly pass new regulations for the rapidly expanding industry. They also say a special session is needed to rework the approval process for transmission lines, which was shortened in 2023 by the Legislature.

After the protest concluded in the morning, the activists gathered for a photo.

“Special session on three,” Smith said to the other activists gathered in front of the camera. “One, two, three: special session!”

Staff reporter Emily Foxhall contributed to this report.

Disclosure: CPS Energy and Oncor have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The State Department announced Tuesday that it had hit ICC president Tomoko Akane, a Japanese national, and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who is from Senegal, with sanctions that freeze any assets they have in U.S. jurisdictions or come into contact with the U.S. financial system.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the move “very unfortunate” when asked about the sanctions by a reporter. “Japan will respond as we continue to maintain communication with related countries including the United States,” she added.

The Trump administration has now slapped sanctions on nine of the ICC's 18 judges, both of its deputy prosecutors, its former chief prosecutor and one other prosecution office staffer, the court said. The U.S. accuses the court of overstepping its mandate by investigating and seeking to prosecute senior military and political officials from countries, such as Israel and the United States, that are not members of the court.

In a statement, the court said that when “judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk.” It said the court “will continue to fully discharge its mandate with independence and impartiality.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday branded the ICC “a corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate.”

The move came weeks after Rubio announced that the U.S. was launching a “sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty.”

Rubio said he will pressure the court’s 125 member states to withdraw from the institution, sanction organizations that work with the court and ban staff from traveling to the United States.

Since then, Venezuela and Chad have announced they plan to leave the court, bringing the number of countries to pull out of the court in the past year to five. It takes a year for a country's decision to quit the court to be formalized.

The sanctions can impact the daily lives of court officials. They prevent the ICC officials and their families from entering the United States, block their access to even basic financial services making even going to a grocery store difficult.

Canadian judge Kimberly Prost, who was sanctioned last year, lost access to her credit cards, and Amazon’s Alexa stopped responding to her. “Your whole world is restricted,” she told The Associated Press after she was targeted.

The court's oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties, called the sanctions an “escalation” that “risks undermining ongoing investigations and impeding global efforts” to ensure justice reaches victims of global atrocities.

While Japan calls its alliance with the United States the cornerstone of its postwar foreign and security policies, Tokyo has had difficulty managing the relationship under Trump’s trade and security policies. Takaichi has been portrayed as weak for avoiding any criticism of Trump as her administration navigates weakened U.S. commitment in the region and deteriorating ties with China.

Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the Japanese opposition Democratic Party for the People, wrote on X that Trump’s sanctions were “outrageous and intolerable.” He urged Takaichi’s government to show its support for the ICC and reach out to the U.S. government to “have it retract this unjust sanction.”

ICC host nation the Netherlands and European powerhouse Germany both threw their weight behind the court.

German foreign office spokesman Martin Giese told reporters in Berlin that the ICC is “fulfilling its mission exactly as intended,” by holding to account perpetrators of grave crimes. Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen said he had invited Akane for talks “to discuss our continued support.”

Balkees Jarrah, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, called the sanctions “the latest example of the Trump administration’s utter contempt for international law and a naked attempt to shield American and Israeli officials implicated in serious crimes from justice.”

Human Rights Watch and three other advocacy groups sued the Trump administration in a New York court last week to challenge its campaign against the ICC.

___

Associated Press journalists Matthew Lee in Washington, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

Wednesday, August 19

• Frequency Salon
• Mambo Seafood
• Fariha Nasir Pennies for a Fortune

Tuesday, August 18

• Good Reason Houston
• Follow UH Mariachi Pumas on Instagram
• Houston Theater Week Presented by Huntington Bank
• Kim Alexis
• Clear the Shelters is back: Houston pets are ready for homes
• Next Level Urgent Care

Monday, August 17

• For one Katy grandfather, an 11,000-mile motorcycle ride is about more than the road
• • Do What You Love to End ALZ program
  • Follow Scott “Sugar Bear” Brown on YouTube
• Houston hip-hop legend Willie D is inviting everyone to his big 60th birthday party
• • The Roast of Willie D: Cooked by Legends Tickets
• Personalized Dental Implants: Dr. Michel Azer on restoring smiles in Houston
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, August 14

• Enter to win a getaway for two from The Fredericksburg Convention and Visitor Bureau
• With love, from Fredericksburg! How the visitor bureau can help plan your stay
• • Visit Fredericksburg
• History, wine and Texas Charm at Das Peach Haus in Fredericksburg
• • Das Peach Haus
  • Dietz Distillery
  • Fischer & Wieser
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area
• Step inside history at Fredericksburg’s National Museum of the Pacific War
• • National Museum of the Pacific War
• Make the most of your trip to Texas Hill Country with the Fredericksburg Food & Wine Fest
• • Fredericksburg Food & Wine Festival
  • K Estate Winery & Vineyards
• Dot’s Bakery
• Albert Hotel

Thursday, August 13

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• Disco, roller skates and 1980s fun: The Garden Theatre brings the musical world of ‘Xanadu’ to the stage
• • The Garden Theatre’s “Xanadu”
• Melanie Lynskey chats new Netflix film ‘Don’t Say Good Luck’
• • Netflix’s Don’t Say Good Luck
• Houston Dynamo FC celebrates 20 years of its 2006 MLS Cup Championship
• • Houston Dynamo FC
• Next Level Urgent Care

Wednesday, August 12

• Get ready for mystery: ‘The Girl on the Train’ now on stage at Alley Theatre
• • Alley Theatre’s “The Girl on the Train” tickets
• Water heater warning signs Houston homeowners shouldn’t ignore
• • Mission AC & Plumbing
• Humble’s Cris Sosa advances to AGT live shows after hilarious cereal comedy set
• • Comedian Cris Sosa
  • NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”
• Kenny and Ziggy’s owner Ziggy Gruber whips up traditional Jewish kugel for National Deli Month
• • Kenny & Ziggy’s

Tuesday, August 11

• Houston Theater Week is almost here! Here’s how to snag BOGO tickets to 400+ shows
• • Houston Theater Week Presented by Huntington Bank
• Back-to-School Anxiety: What Parents Need to Know
• • Houston Christian University
• How the DiIorio family is celebrating 70 years of family, farming and community
• • DiIorio Farms
• Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly talk love, loyalty and drama of ‘Ransom Canyon’ Season 2
• • Ransom Canyon on Netflix

Monday, August 10

• Clear the Shelters is back: Houston pets are ready for homes
• Eclipse cruises take off: The Travel Mom on why astro‑tourism is booming with Princess Cruises
• • The Travel Mom
  • Princess Cruises
• Bear Grylls takes the cast of ‘The Chosen’ Into the Wild in new Prime Video series
• • Prime Video’s “The Chosen in the Wild with Bear Grylls”
• Next Level Urgent Care
• These women athletes from Afghanistan escaped Taliban rule. Now the players of Houston Shine FC find joy in soccer again
• • Houston Shine FC

Friday, August 7

• Houston’s Pink Phurree dragon boat team heads to France to celebrate breast cancer survivorship
• • Pink Phurree Dragon Boat Team
• Now playing: Queensbury Theatre’s brand new production of Mean Girls The Musical
• • Queensbury Theatre’s ‘Mean Girls The Musical’
• 12-year-old Houston golfer Alaina Villarreal makes her debut on Stephen Curry’s UNDERRATED Golf Tour
• • UNDERRATED Golf Tour
  • Alaina Villareal
• Protein-packed rice for easy weeknight meals with SunRice Protein+
• • SunRice

Thursday, August 6

• Kenny and Ziggy’s owner Ziggy Gruber whips up traditional Jewish kugel for National Deli Month
• • Kenny & Ziggy’s
• Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey brings ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’ to Houston
• • Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® Presents The Greatest Show On Earth
• Houston City College Is Where Art Meets Innovation
• • Houston City College
• Find Calm at the Coast: Travel Mom Emily Kaufman Celebrates ‘Spa Weekend’ at Terranea Resort
• • The Travel Mom
  • Travel Guard’s Spa Weekend Getaway Sweepstakes

Wednesday, August 5

• It’s National Sandwich Month: Husband-wife duo behind Yuma brings Brazilian flavor to a Cuban classic
• • Yuma
• WWE Superstar Trick Williams previews Survivor Series: WarGames coming to Houston
• • WWE Survivor Series: Wargames
• Ready to dance? Houston Rockets Clutch City Dancers to hold open auditions
• • Clutch City Dancers open Auditions
• Next Level Urgent Care

Tuesday, August 4

• Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly talk love, loyalty and drama of ‘Ransom Canyon’ Season 2
• • Ransom Canyon on Netflix
• Houston’s own Cris Sosa competes on NBC’s ‘America’s Got Talent’ Season 21
• • Comedian Cris Sosa
  • NBC’s “America’s Got Talent”
• Gexa Energy marks 25 Years by volunteering with Meals on Wheels, The Beacon and Houston Habitat for Humanity ReStore
• • Gexa Energy
• Brassica Shares the vegan secret behind its signature chocolate chip cookie
• • Brassica
• Master P Brings Hip-Hop History to Houston With Cash Money and No Limit Reunion Tour
• • Cash Money & No Limit Tour

Monday, August 3

• Houston students and teachers share their work beyond the classroom in new exhibition “The Sequence Is Yours”
• • Contemporary Arts Museum Houston‘s ‘The Sequence Is Yours’ Exhibition
• Sip, savor and celebrate Labor Day Weekend at the Galveston Island Wine Festival
• • Celebrity Chef Brian Duffy serves up a preview of the Galveston Island Wine Festival
  • Moody Gardens Galveston Island Wine Festival
• Modern dental implants give Houston patients natural, comfortable smiles
• • Texas Dental Implant Center

Friday, July 31

• HL Rhythm Energy Question of the Week
• ‘Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live: Glow-N-Fire’ brings high-octane family fun to Houston
• • Hot Wheels Monster Truck Live Glow-N-Fire at Toyota Center
• There’s a story behind every building: Take a tour of Downtown Houston with Preservation Houston
• • Preservation Houston

Thursday, July 30

• Meet the twin sisters who turned their cheesecake passion into a successful business
• • KK Cheesecakes
• How HCU’s high-tech simulation lab is preparing nursing students for in-demand jobs
• • Houston Christian University Linda R. Dunham School of Nursing
• Gexa Energy marks 25 Years by volunteering with Meals on Wheels and The Beacon
• • Gexa Energy
• Garbage Girlfriend

Wednesday, July 29

• Houston Shakespeare Festival is back at Miller Outdoor Theatre with a reimagined lead in “The Tempest”
• • Houston Shakespeare Festival
• In the CLASSROOM with Kroger: How they’re helping parents and kids start the school year happy, healthy, and prepared
• • KPRC 2 INSIDERS: Enter for your chance to win a $250 Kroger gift card!
  • Kroger
• Happy National Lipstick Day! Here’s the lowdown on choosing a matte, glossy, or satin pigment 💄
• • Makeup Artist Darcie Teasley
• Tony Danza is coming to Houston this week, here is where to see him
• • Doc’s Houston Presents Tony Danza - “Standards and Stories”

Monday, July 27

• Back-to-school safety: What kids should know and what parents should watch for in case of a school emergency
• • CPR and Safety Lady Gail Gould
  • Back to School Safety Webinar with CPR and Safety Lady Gail Gould
• Anaheim: The Urban Basecamp You Didn’t Know You Needed In Southern California
• • Gabe Saglie The Travel Guy
• Houston students turn thousands of plastic bags into an award-winning business
• • Plastic Free July
  • Next Use
• Allied Outdoor Solutions

Friday, July 24

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

Thursday, July 23

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

Wednesday, July 22

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

Tuesday, July 21

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

Monday, July 20

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

Friday, July 17

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

Thursday, July 16

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

Wednesday, July 15

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

Tuesday, July 14

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

Monday, July 13

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

Friday, July 10

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

Thursday, July 9

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

Wednesday, July 8

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

Tuesday, July 7

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

Monday, July 6

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

Thursday, July 2

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

Wednesday, July 1

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

Tuesday, June 30

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

Monday, June 29

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

Friday, June 26

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

Thursday, June 25

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

Wednesday, June 24

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

Tuesday, June 23

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

Monday, June 22

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

Thursday, June 18

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

Wednesday, June 17

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

Tuesday, June 16

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

Monday, June 15

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

Friday, June 12

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

Thursday, June 11

• FIFA Fan Festival™ Houston

Wednesday, June 10

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

Tuesday, June 9

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

Monday, June 8

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

Friday, June 5

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

Thursday, June 4

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

Wednesday, June 3

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

Tuesday, June 2

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

Monday, June 1

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

Friday, May 29

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

Thursday, May 28

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

Wednesday, May 27

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

Tuesday, May 26

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

Friday, May 22

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

Thursday, May 21

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

Wednesday, May 20

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

Tuesday, May 19

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

Monday, May 18

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

Friday, May 15

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

Thursday, May 14

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

Wednesday, May 13

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

Tuesday, May 12

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

Monday, May 11

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

Friday, May 8

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

Thursday, May 7

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

Wednesday, May 6

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

Tuesday, May 5

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

Monday, May 4

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

Friday, May 1

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

Thursday, April 30

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

Wednesday, April 29

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

Tuesday, April 28

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

Monday, April 27

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

Friday, April 24

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

Thursday, April 23

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

Wednesday, April 22

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

Tuesday, April 21

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

Monday, April 20

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

Friday, April 17

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

Thursday, April 16

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

Wednesday, April 15

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

Tuesday, April 14

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

Monday, April 13

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

Friday, April 10

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

Thursday, April 9

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

Wednesday, April 8

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

Tuesday, April 7

• Grand Marshals Kam Franklin & Brian Ching preview the 39th annual Art Car Parade
• • Houston Art Car Parade
• This Texas artist is turning Titanic artifacts into art
• • Souls of the Titanic
• In Houston, Your Windows May Not Last as Long—Here’s What to Know (and What to Do About It)
• • Pella Windows and Doors
• Houston’s Trillest Chef bringing bold flavors of H-Town the national stage
• • Follow Chef Machete on Instagram
• Texas Dental Implant Center

Monday, April 6

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

Friday, April 3

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

Thursday, April 2

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

Wednesday, April 1

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

Tuesday, March 31

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

Monday, March 30

• How Autism Moms of Houston became a lifeline for families raising children who are neurodivergent
• • Autism Moms of Houston
  • Autism Awareness Festival
• An offer fit for a new you! Grab the Alloy Personal Training Houston Life Deal
• • Alloy Personal Training Houston
  • Houston Life Deals
• Who’s responsible when a child is hurt at daycare?
• • Bivona Law
• At just 19, Jalyn Hall is stepping into his moment
• • NBC’s “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins”

Friday, March 27

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

Wednesday, March 25

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

Tuesday, March 24

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

Monday, March 23

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

Thursday, March 19

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

Wednesday, March 18

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

Tuesday, March 17

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

Monday, March 16

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

Friday, March 13

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

Thursday, March 12

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

Tuesday, March 10

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

Monday, March 9

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

Friday, March 6

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

Thursday, March 5

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

Wednesday, March 4

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

Tuesday, March 3

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

Monday, March 2

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

Friday, February 27

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

Thursday, February 26

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

Wednesday, February 25

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

Tuesday, February 24

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

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

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

February 6 - 20

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

Thursday, February 5

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

Wednesday, February 4

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

Tuesday, February 3

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

Monday, February 2

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

Friday, January 30

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

Thursday, January 29

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

Wednesday, January 28

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

Tuesday, January 27

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

Monday, January 26

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

Friday, January 23

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

Thursday, January 22

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

Wednesday, January 21

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

Friday, January 16

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

Thursday, January 15

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

Wednesday, January 14

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

Tuesday, January 13

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

Monday, January 12

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

Friday, January 9

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

Thursday, January 8

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

Wednesday, January 7

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

Tuesday, January 6

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

Monday, January 5

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

Friday, January 2

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

Thursday, January 1

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

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Maj. Gen. Adel Issa is the first military officer to be turned over by Lebanon since Assad’s fall in late 2024.

Lebanon’s judicial authorities decided on Tuesday to deliver Issa to Syria, after questioning him over crimes he allegedly committed during the country’s conflict.

Syria’s Interior Ministry said it had asked authorities in Lebanon to hand over Issa to Syria over alleged crimes including intentional killing of more than two persons, the crime of torture resulting in death, and acts of aggression aimed at inciting civil war and sectarian strife.

The ministry added that Issa was the commander of the Syrian army’s 17th Division and the commander of ground forces in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour until 2016. The ministry posted a photo of Issa wearing a prison uniform.

Officials in Beirut said on Tuesday that Issa was turned over to Syria in accordance with a 1951 agreement between the countries that calls for delivering suspected criminals to face justice.

After Syrian fighters opposed to Assad marched into Damascus to end the Assad family’s five-decade rule in December 2024, a number of military and security officers fled to Lebanon, where some remain.

Dozens of other former members of his security agencies accused of atrocities have been arrested and put on trial in Syria.

Last week, a Syrian court sentenced Assad and his younger brother Maher to death in absentia while their maternal cousin, Brig. Gen. Atef Najib, became the most senior security official to be sentenced to death while in custody. The Assad brothers fled to Russia during the ouster.

Issa was detained on Aug. 8 when he went to the Syrian Embassy in Beirut for some paperwork. Embassy officials contacted Lebanon’s prosecutor’s office to tell them that Issa was wanted in Syria.

Issa had fled to Lebanon by crossing illegally after Assad’s fall, the officials said.

Syria’s conflict, which began with anti-government protests in March 2011 before turning into a civil war, left 500,000 people dead and over 1 million wounded.

The fires were reported in the 5000 block of Walnut Cove Dr. in the Deerfield Subdivision.

Residents in the Deerfield subdivision are currently without power due to the fire.

Power has been shut off to a large part of the subdivision due to the fire. Residents are being asked to not call their power provider.

The cause of the fires are unknown at this time.

A woman told KPRC 2’s Re’Chelle Turner she was home with her dog and an HVAC crew. She said the crew was inside the attic and saw flames coming out of the roof. They quickly ran outside and a neighbor called 911.

Officials said no one was hurt and crews have been on scene putting out the hot spots.

The homeowner who lives in the second house told KPRC 2 he rushed out to his home from work and even saw flames driving along the highway.

He said he’s still trying to process everything.

Officials said his home is a total loss but crews were able to recover a few belongings from inside.

The officer, Brandon Williams, has since been reassigned to community services, according to the Deer Park Police Department.

Police Lieutenant Bryan Miller said the department discovered the alleged misuse during its own review and launched an investigation. He said Williams ran license plates 165 times using license plate.

“Since then, we put up safeguards,” Miller said.

The department says it has also taken steps to provide the public with more information about how technology is used. Deer Park recently released a transparency portal on the Flock website that explains the system and outlines the department’s use of the cameras.

The portal includes the total number of license plate reader cameras operated by the department, the number of plates scanned and information about people or vehicles officers are tracking in criminal investigations.

Miller said photos connected to license plate scans are deleted after 30 days. Though Flock recently started recommending a seven-day retention period.

“They’ve created what’s known as evidence mode. So, say you come across a vehicle, or there’s some type of criminal activity, and you need more than seven days. You can put your search and some of the things you located into evidence mode, and it will hold it longer than seven days.”

Still, Miller says they are not abiding by those recommendations, citing they may need to reference license plate data that’s older than seven days during open investigations.

“After 30 days, the photo of your license plate in your vehicle gets deleted,” Miller said.

Police say the cameras have helped solve several serious crimes, including cases involving child abductions, Amber Alerts and Silver Alerts.

But some residents said they remain concerned about who can access the system and how the information is used.

“I think they could just have a little bit more tightening it up on who has access to it,” one community member said.

Another resident said the technology has already been misused multiple times and expressed concern that misuse could continue.

Miller acknowledged the incident could affect public confidence in the department’s use of the cameras.

“There’s going to be a little bit of doubt, which I hate,” Miller said.

Some residents have also questioned whether Flock sells license plate data to artificial intelligence companies or other outside organizations. Miller said that, as far as he knows, Flock does not do that.

The technology also has facial recognition capabilities, but Miller said the images captured by the cameras generally do not allow officers to identify a driver’s face.

“I’ve gone through tons and tons of Flock pictures, and I’ve never been able to make out whether it’s male, female, the face of someone when they’re driving,” Miller said. “You cannot do it.”

Miller said he conducts an internal audit of the system daily.

The department says the new safeguards and transparency portal are intended to increase accountability while allowing officers to continue using the cameras to investigate crimes.

Prosecutors also called into question Comey's account that he had found the seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47” while walking on a beach in North Carolina and suggested that his May 2025 post on Instagram was an effort to generate attention for a forthcoming novel about a social media personality whose words inspire his fans to attack his foes.

The arguments in motions late Tuesday represent the government's most detailed explanation of its indictment and were filed in response to wide-ranging defense efforts to dismiss the case on grounds including that it constitutes a vindictive prosecution and that Comey's post did not amount to a true threat. Comey's lawyers contend that investigators in the case misled judges, submitted documents containing false statements, withheld key facts and repeatedly came up empty in their efforts to prove that Comey intended a physical threat or knew that the number 86 could suggest violence.

The entry for “86” from Merriam-Webster, the dictionary used by The Associated Press, says its meaning is “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” Trump, a Republican, is the 47th president.

The Justice Department maintains that the post constituted a real threat

Federal prosecutors maintain that the photo of the seashells, which Comey said he found on the beach, constituted a threat against Trump. Comey deleted the post shortly after he put it up, saying he did not know that anyone interpreted the numbers as a call to violence. His lawyers have said that the slogan has long meant to “get rid of” or “eject” and has been featured on thousands of items sold online and regularly displayed at protests.

But the department sought in its filings to place the post against the backdrop of assassination plots or attempts against Trump in the months before and after Comey's post. Prosecutors say that two minutes before the post was made, Comey's wife texted him a screenshot of a definition of “86” that said "to get rid of or refuse service.”

"There is no serious dispute that an objective viewer of Comey’s post could read it to mean ‘Kill President Trump,’” prosecutors wrote.

The photo was posted days before Comey was set to release a novel he wrote titled “FDR Drive,” in which a prosecutor pursues a far-right social media personality who has called out his adversaries by name and inspired violence against them by his fans, the department said.

After the Instagram post provoked an outcry, according to the government's filings, Comey's publishing agent observed in a text message to him that he had “gone viral.” Comey responded that that was “not my intention, but I’ll be OK if it sells books.” The agent replied, ”Music to an agent's ears."

Prosecutors also asserted there was “reason to doubt” Comey’s account of having come upon the seashells while on a walk, saying they were located 4 miles (6 kilometers) “down from the beach from beachfront property where Comey was staying, in an area separated from the ocean by a sand dune.” They said there was "no evidence that anyone else arranged, photographed, or even saw the shells.”

Comey has called the case vindictive, but prosecutors deny that

Comey's lawyers have called the indictment, which was filed months after an earlier and unrelated case against him was dismissed, part of a Trump retribution campaign targeting one of the president’s vocal critics. Trump fired Comey as head of the FBI in 2017 as Comey was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. Trump since then has called for him and other perceived adversaries to be jailed.

But the Justice Department denied allegations of vindictiveness, saying the decision to indict Comey was made by the U.S. attorney in the area and did not stem from a directive from the president or the attorney general.

To bolster their claims that Comey was unjustly targeted, the defense team argued that investigators struggled to develop compelling evidence from witnesses that Comey had intended the post as a threat, but they concealed that from federal magistrates as they applied for warrants to search digital accounts associated with Comey and his wife

For instance, defense lawyers have said that the FBI searched an internal database of information about open and closed investigations for any indication of an association between Comey and the term “86” but found inconclusive results. An FBI agent also requested a review of the FBI file for the case against reputed mobster John Gambino, which Comey worked on as a young prosecutor, but found no references to the term “86.”

Investigators also interviewed a key government cooperator in the case, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, who said he did not recall ever discussing the term “86” with Comey or hearing it in connection with the trial.

The latest filings made clear that the administration was standing behind the premise of the case.

“No Government theory was disproved at that time, or now. No intentionally false omission exists, much less one made with reckless disregard for the truth,” prosecutors wrote.

“The evidence still supports that Defendant acted at least recklessly by consciously disregarding a substantial risk that his coded message of ‘8647’ that he sent to his 200,000 or so Instagram followers, and the millions of secondary social media users who would view this as threatening violence against the President of the United States," they added.

The ruling Wednesday by Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green is a victory for Republicans seeking to hold onto their slim majority in the U.S. House. But the case is likely to end up in the state Supreme Court.

Missouri’s new districts already were used in the August primaries. On that same day, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected a petition with thousands of signatures seeking to force a November referendum on the map. Hoskins asserted that Missouri’s Constitution doesn’t allow a referendum on congressional redistricting.

The judge agreed with Hoskins and other Republicans, who joined in defense of the new map.

“The Missouri Constitution does not supply any statement — let alone a clear one — reallocating authority over congressional redistricting away from the General Assembly to a referendum process,” Green wrote in the ruling.

Opponents of the redistricting plan quickly announced an appeal.

“Everyone knows that Cole County is not the final decision here,” said Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians, who sued to try to place the new map on the ballot. “After months of delay, we are pleased to be moving forward to the Missouri Supreme Court to enforce our constitutional rights.”

Missouri’s redistricting targeted Democratic congressman

Missouri's current U.S. House delegation is made up of six Republicans and two Democrats who were elected from districts with boundaries drawn after the 2020 census.

But Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe called the Legislature into a special session on redistricting last year after Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw congressional boundaries to their advantage ahead of the midterms.

Missouri's revised map is designed to help Republicans defeat Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. It reassigns portions of Kansas City to two neighboring districts represented by Republicans and stretches the remainder of Cleaver’s 5th Congressional District far eastward into Republican-heavy rural areas. About 59% of its voters are new to the 5th District, according to an Associated Press estimate.

State Sen. Rick Brattin won a Republican primary in the reshaped district in early August. Cleaver was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Republicans had argued that the new districts should be used in the November elections even if a voter referendum on the map was allowed to occur at the same time.

Lawsuit highlights dispute about referendum rights

The Missouri Constitution does not specifically say that a referendum can be used to decide congressional redistricting, nor does it forbid it, which is why the issue ended up in court.

Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office, which represented the secretary of state in court, argued that congressional redistricting is a legislative duty not subject to referendum without specific constitutional permission.

The attorney general and the Republican Party also argued it was too late to switch district boundaries before the November election. Changing districts after the primary would cause “widespread voter confusion” and an “erosion in confidence in the integrity of the state’s elections,” said John Gore, an attorney for national, congressional and state Republican committees.

The judge agreed, ruling that a district swap after the primary would violate federal law.

It’s been more than 100 years since a Missouri redistricting plan faced a referendum. In 1922, voters rejected a new congressional map passed by the Republican-led Legislature. The legitimacy of that referendum petition was not challenged in court.

Redistricting battle spread to numerous states

Missouri’s mid-decade redistricting effort has been among the most litigated nationally, triggering about a dozen lawsuits over the past year.

The Republican-led state was the second, after Texas, to respond to Trump’s call to redraw congressional districts. Several other states followed. All told, Republicans hope to win as many as 16 additional seats from new House maps enacted in eight states: Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats, whose counterattack faced several setbacks, think they could win up to six additional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

It remains to be seen whether the redistricting works as intended for Republicans. The president’s party historically has lost congressional seats in the midterms, and Trump’s poor approval ratings could provide an extra hurdle for Republican candidates.

___

Associated Press journalist Hannah Recht contributed from Washington.

If confirmed by the Senate, Overton will have to balance a raft of competing priorities, including Trump’s fixations, the anti-regulatory interests of traditional Republicans and the anti-corporate posture of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Those challenges dogged the tenure of the previous FDA head, Dr. Marty Makary, who resigned in May.

Trump said he’s delaying the 50% U.S. tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports. The countries reached a deal less than two hours before the sanctions were to go into effect on Tuesday, buying time for more negotiations and avoiding, for now, another strain in already tense relations.

The Latest:

International Criminal Court criticizes US sanctions on senior staffers

The ICC called the latest sanctions a “flagrant attack” on its independence and vowed to continue seeking justice for atrocities around the world.

The ICC said in a statement that when “judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk.” It said it “will continue to fully discharge its mandate with independence and impartiality.”

The State Department announced Tuesday that it hit ICC president Tomoko Akane and ICC senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye with sanctions that freeze any assets that they have in U.S. jurisdictions or come into contact with the U.S. financial system.

The Trump administration has now sanctioned nine of the ICC’s 18 judges, both its deputy prosecutors, its former chief prosecutor and one other staffer, the court said. The U.S. accuses it of overstepping its mandate by investigating and seeking to prosecute military and political officials from countries, such as Israel and the United States, that are not members.

▶ Read more

FTC proposal would require retailers to be transparent about personalized pricing

Companies that secretly vary prices based on how much they think individual customers will pay could face federal charges under a proposed policy released Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission.

“When consumers see a listed price, they expect it to be (the) same price that everyone else sees, not the retailer’s estimate of how much they are willing to pay based on their personal data,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement.

The FTC has had its eye on personalized pricing for several years. In a preliminary report filed in January 2025, the agency found that grocers, clothing companies and others were using third-party companies to help them individualize online prices based on shoppers’ locations, browsing histories and other factors, including how long they left items in their virtual shopping carts.

▶ Read more

Trump announces ‘MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER’ on Iran

On his social media site, the president promised “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale” but provided few details.

He said other countries that allow their “financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences.”

It was not immediately clear what that meant for major economies with close ties to Iran, including China.

But Trump said his prohibitions would include things like oil smuggling, cash transfers and cooperation through exchange houses and ship registries and front companies.

“It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are,” Trump said, imploring U.S. allies “to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat.”

Canada and the US move closer to finalizing a trade agreement

The agreement would avert threatened 50% U.S. tariffs, and a senior Canadian official called the emerging terms “a very good deal for Canada” while cautioning that negotiations were not complete.

The official said it would provide greater certainty, protect Canada’s dairy sector and jobs threatened by the new tariffs, and preserve what Ottawa considers favorable trade terms with the United States.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiations publicly before an agreement is finalized.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked provincial premiers to return U.S. alcohol to store shelves, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said, a step aimed at addressing one of the Trump administration’s key trade complaints.

Houston and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, both conservatives, voiced support for the direction of the talks, though Houston said whether Canadians would actually buy U.S. alcohol again “is a whole other discussion.”

▶ Read more

— Rob Gillies, Paul Wiseman and Seung Min Kim

Longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes to retire, citing differences with Pentagon leadership

Max D. Lederer Jr. is ending a decades-long career with the military newspaper as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon moves to exert editorial control and eliminate what it asserts are “woke distractions.”

Lederer made the announcement in a memo to staff and an interview with Stars and Stripes. In the memo, seen by AP, he said it had “become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction the leadership of the Department of Defense has for the organization.”

The announcement comes less than four months after the Pentagon fired the paper’s ombudsman, whose job was to safeguard editorial independence. The news outlet is partly funded by the Defense Department but has a legacy of independence from military and government leadership.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Stars and Stripes has recently been at the forefront of some reporting on conditions for sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln and concerns for their mental health during its long deployment — concerns that Trump has downplayed.

▶ Read more

Missouri court allows new Trump-backed US House districts be used in November election

A Missouri judge has allowed new U.S. House districts backed by the president to be used in the November elections, rejecting a bid to put the Republican-friendly districts to a statewide vote.

Wednesday’s ruling by Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green is a victory for Republicans seeking to hold on to their slim majority in the House, but the court decision is likely to be appealed.

Missouri’s new districts already were used in the August primaries. That same day Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected a petition with thousands of signatures seeking to force a November referendum on the map. Hoskins asserted that Missouri’s Constitution does not allow a referendum on congressional redistricting.

The judge agreed with Hoskins.

▶ Read more

Trump says he will attend GOP’s national midterm convention

In a social media post, the president said he plans to attend the Republicans’ first-ever national convention ahead of the midterm elections, an unusual event aimed at boosting turnout in races.

“I will be with you both nights, and rarin’ to go,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

Trump used his characteristic hyperbole to build hype around the event, which will be hosted in Dallas on Sept. 9 and 10. He teased it as “THE GREATEST RALLY OF THEM ALL.”

“It will be like nothing else,” he said. “The Music, Excitement, and Importance of this Evening will be at levels never seen at a Convention or Political Event.”

US national debt hits $40 trillion

The national debt surpassed a record $40 trillion on Wednesday, a staggering milestone as defense costs, social programs like Social Security and Medicare and interest on the burgeoning deficit make up an enormous share of federal spending.

The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

The unprecedented $40 trillion figure highlights competing administration priorities, from boosting the defense spending that the U.S. relies on to carry out Trump’s almost-6-month-old Iran war to lowering the cost of gas and groceries.

▶ Read more

New CDC director acknowledges agency troubles, including ‘zombie’ programs

Dr. Erica Schwartz, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is promising to advocate for the agency while addressing staff burnout and understaffing issues.

In her remarks to staff, Schwartz referenced an AP story this week about CDC programs that have congressional appropriations but functionally are dead or nearly dead because the CDC staffers who did the work were laid off by Trump’s administration or remain on leave.

She did not say exactly what she will do about these dead, or “zombie,” programs and about staffers who feel exhausted and overloaded but said she will meet with CDC staffers to learn more about the situation and what can be done.

Trump tells Congress to pass pro-crypto law — but isn’t waiting to act

At a White House crypto conference Wednesday, Trump urged passage of the Clarity Act before yielding the floor to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Mike Selig, who vowed to “use every tool available” to advance Trump’s agenda.

Selig’s comments came ahead of a CFTC meeting Thursday examining ways the agency can use its existing authority to ease crypto rules. A day earlier, other securities regulators proposed rules, making it easier for crypto to raise money from the public.

Since the self-styled “crypto president” was reelected last year, his administration has also disbanded a Justice Department crypto enforcement unit and pulled back from prosecutions.

The shift comes as Trump’s latest financial disclosure reported he took in more than $1.4 billion in crypto-related income last year.

Trump said he’d welcome a data center. Many Americans aren’t so sure

“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center,” the president told reporters in the White House. “I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid are just enormous.”

Trump’s review is more optimistic than many Americans, who have pushed back against data centers in their backyard over concerns with the buildings’ use of water, electricity or hefty tax breaks for tech companies. The large edifices — often used for artificial intelligence and cloud computing — have stirred a bipartisan resentment, which Trump nodded toward Wednesday.

“Maybe it can use a little public relations help,” he said, adding that a solution is for companies to produce their own electricity.

US to spend more than $19M to counter Chinese seabed mining, fishing in international waters

The Trump administration has notified Congress of its plans to spend more than $19 million to assist Pacific Island and other countries in countering Chinese attempts to dominate seabed mineral mining as well as crack down on unregulated Chinese fishing in waters far from China.

The State Department told lawmakers this week in separate notices that $14 million would fund ocean mapping and seabed exploration to push back against “aggressive and corrupt practices” by China in 12 Pacific island nations. Another $5.2 million will assist seven countries in boosting inspections of Chinese-flagged fishing vessels that frequently use their ports.

The notices, dated Monday, were obtained by The Associated Press.

The programs are part of a broader effort by the administration to counter China’s growing global influence and power projection.

Trump complains rates are ‘artificially high’

The president criticized a recent spike in borrowing costs and said the U.S. should have lower rates because the economy is doing well, contradicting financial analysts who say steady growth is a reason rates are rising.

“We have interest rates that are artificial — they’re actually artificially high,” Trump said. “When our country is strong, interest rates should go down. When our country is weak, frankly, they should go up.”

Interest rates on long-term Treasury debt have risen steadily for weeks to multiyear highs, lifting mortgage rates and other borrowing costs. The Treasury Department announced steps Wednesday to push rates lower.

Wall Street analysts say borrowing costs have advanced because of expectations that steady economic growth will keep inflation elevated. Most economists also blame ongoing large budget deficits and heavy borrowing by leading tech companies to build AI infrastructure.

Trump reduced joint US-South Korea military exercises

Trump also said he gave the order because he wasn’t happy with South Korea’s refusal to support him over Iran and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

“I didn’t like the fact that we were doing these massive military exercises really against North Korea,” Trump said. He added that “I’m friendly with him,” meaning North Korean leader Kim.

Trump said he hadn’t seen anything happening from North Korea “for certainly two and a half years.” The country appears to have slowed its pace of test firing rockets and ballistic missiles in the region in recent years.

“So, I felt that to do a massive, we were doing a massive war exercise, I thought that was very insulting to somebody that, frankly, has been, during my term at least, very well behaved,” Trump said.

Trump says ‘we have things we could sanction’ on Iran

“We have very draconian sanctions and we’ll see what happens,” the president said, without providing details.

Trump also said, “A lot of boats are coming through” the Strait of Hormuz while also acknowledging, “That may slow down a little bit at some point.”

Attempting to shrug off oil prices that have remained high, the president said they’d not reached $350 a barrel. He didn’t say who had suggested they might reach such a catastrophically high price.

Instead, Trump said that ongoing disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz had left the world looking for alternatives. He even offered, “I think the Hormuz Strait’s not going to be as important as it was in the past.”

Before the war, a fifth of the world’s traded oil typically flowed through the strait every day.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer-turned-enemy, says the president will appear on his radio show

Cohen and 77 WABC, the radio network where he hosts a new talk show, confirmed Wednesday that Trump will appear as a guest on the program this week after MS NOW first reported it.

Cohen, Trump’s longtime attorney who later testified against him in a hush money case, seems to have mended fences with the president recently.

Cohen has since criticized prosecutors in the case and said the two have begun to reconcile.

He said in a post on the social platform X that the interview would air during the evening on Thursday and Sunday.

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

Trump hosts crypto leaders

The president is holding court on Wednesday with several cryptocurrency and finance leaders for an event on digital assets.

The meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House coincides with one held by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Innovation Advisory Committee, which focuses on matters of technology and finance.

The president kicked off the meeting by listing his administration’s accomplishments on the issue.

“We’re ensuring that America remains the undisputed leader, not only in Bitcoin and crypto but also technologies like prediction markets, artificial intelligence, and much more,” Trump said.

An alarmed bond market gets the Trump administration to act again

Normally quiet, the bond market can occasionally send warning signals loud enough to hit stock markets worldwide and even grab the attention of U.S. presidents and other world leaders.

After the bond market’s alarm bells rose in volume throughout the summer in the form of higher yields, the Trump administration announced on Wednesday a move that could help calm it down.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it will more than double the amount of U.S. government bonds it will buy back. And the move worked to lower longer-term yields, for now at least.

The stakes are high because high yields drag on economies and bring downward pressure on stock markets.

▶ Read more

Trump’s White House renovations don’t stop at driveway’s edge

Trump’s construction tour also revealed that he has replaced the walkway from the diplomatic entrance to the White House and a connecting portion of the asphalt driveway around the South Lawn with white granite.

He asserted that asphalt is “not appropriate for a great house, or a great place like the White House.”

“One thing I know how to do is build,” Trump said.

Clinton’s birthday expands the octogenarian president’s club

Clinton was the last of three baby boomer presidents born within 66 days of each other in 1946. But he was the first to reach the Oval Office, elected in 1992 at the age of 46.

Trump turned 80 on June 14, followed by George W. Bush on July 6. Joe Biden, the only president from the Silent Generation, is 83.

It’s the oldest group of living U.S. presidents ever, with Barack Obama as the only one under 80 — and even the 44th president has reached Medicare eligibility age. He turned 65 earlier this month.

Clinton has slowed down in recent years, more than a decade after major heart surgery that led him to adopt a mostly vegan diet.

At the 2024 Democratic convention, he told delegates, “I have no idea how many more of these I’ll be able to come to.”

Bill Clinton gets birthday wishes as he turns 80

The 42nd president is celebrating a milestone birthday Wednesday.

Hillary Clinton, the former presidential nominee, secretary of state and first lady, led birthday greetings for her husband.

“Happy birthday, dear Bill. Eighty years in to your extraordinary life, I feel very lucky to have spent over 50 of them with you,” she posted on social media. “Here’s to more dancing, talking, and laughing together in the years to come.”

The George and Barbara Bush Foundation noted Clinton and former President George H.W. Bush’s “meaningful friendship … built after their time in office — a friendship grounded in mutual respect, service and a shared commitment to helping others.”

Clinton defeated the elder Bush in 1992 but came to see him as a mentor and sort of father figure. Bush died in 2018.

‘No serious dispute’ that Comey’s seashell post could be read as a Trump threat, prosecutors say

The Justice Department is defending its prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey and says there’s “no serious dispute” that a social media post of seashells he made could be understood as a threat against Trump.

Prosecutors also called into question late Tuesday Comey’s account that he found the seashells in the numerical arrangement “86 47” while walking on a North Carolina beach. Trump is the 47th president.

Prosecutors say Comey intended a physical threat or knew that the number 86 could suggest violence. Comey’s legal team calls it a vindictive prosecution and says Comey’s post didn’t amount to a true threat.

▶ Read more

Trump picks Dr. Heidi Overton, a top White House aide, to lead FDA

Overton is a deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and a trusted figure in the administration. She has worked on several of Trump’s health initiatives.

But the new Food and Drug Administration commissioner will face challenges balancing Trump’s priorities, traditional Republican interests, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-corporate stance. Overton will need Senate confirmation and face questions from the Senate health committee.

The previous FDA head, Dr. Marty Makary, resigned in May, leaving unfinished projects like work on ultra-processed foods, antidepressants, and COVID-19 shots.

Referring to a “Dr. Heidi” in a Truth Social post, Trump called Overton a smart and respected “rockstar” who would deliver on his priorities of faster cures, innovation, lower drug prices and more wins for Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.

▶ Read more

Trump walks and waxes on white granite and grass

It was planned as a private event, but the president decided otherwise. He wanted the reporters to see him sign a massive stone, which would become part of the new helipad under construction.

So, a gaggle of reporters tailed Trump outside the White House as he noted the prior state of disrepair and now, “look at the columns, how perfect they are.” As for the grass, which he said, “has life like humans have life,” it will now “look so beautiful.” And the white granite, which is a “powerful stone” that “you’ll never see a crack in.”

Trump came to a stop, flanked by construction workers in hi-vis vests, hard hats, and sunglasses, who stood silently as the president complimented them and answered a few questions from reporters about the day’s news. The president signed the stone in sweeping strokes.

“I hope you liked it,” he told the assembled reporters.

Trump says underground portion of ballroom will be 5 stories deep

Trump complained that the lawsuit against his White House ballroom was “very unfortunate” because the filings in the case have made public details that might have been kept secret.

But Trump has also been talking about components of the portion of the ballroom that will be underground. And he has taken to referring to the structure as a “military complex” instead of a ballroom.

Trump said during the press tour that the part of the ballroom will be five stories deep underground. The precise depth of some structures, like the ballroom, is usually treated as a closely guarded secret.

Trump said he may reopen negotiations with Iran ‘at some point’

When asked by a reporter at the White House on Wednesday when he would plan to resume talks with Iran, Trump said, “Right now, I think the situation is so good, but maybe at some point.”

He reiterated that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon but didn’t offer any other details on his thinking.

Austin Lewis, known online as Captain Crunch Boats, has built a following of more than 34,000 subscribers and 312 videos documenting boaters launching or loading their boats at local ramps. It’s content that draws plenty of fans — but also, apparently, some enemies.

Lewis says Sunday started like any other day at the dock. Then everything changed.

• Loved ones identify League City stabbing victim as Luz Mary Pelaez

“I was having a conversation — the boater was yelling from across the parking lot after they pulled out,” Lewis said. “As I was standing there arguing with him, somebody said, ‘Look out’ from behind me. I turned, and as I turned, that’s when I saw the guy behind me with the knife.”

Lewis was stabbed. When he got a look at his attacker, the details stood out immediately.

“I realized he was fully masked up — he had a full balaclava on,” Lewis said. “All I could see was his eyes. He had a black long-sleeve shirt to cover the top of his hands, black pants and brown boots.”

The level of concealment wasn’t lost on Lewis. He believes the attack was premeditated — possibly by someone he had previously featured on his channel.

“It’s very possible,” Lewis said. “I wouldn’t rule it out at all. They were obviously watching the channel, in my opinion.”

This isn’t the first time Lewis has faced danger doing what he loves. He says he has encountered numerous physical and verbal altercations over the years — and this wasn’t even the first time someone pulled a knife on him at a boat ramp.

“This is the second time this has ever happened,” Lewis said. “First time I’ve ever been stabbed.”

The attack has his family on edge — and has Lewis rethinking how he operates going forward.

“My family has a lot of concern for my safety at the moment,” he said. “For right now, I’m not going to be going back down there and doing videos. Whenever I do go back, I’m definitely going to be more cautious about livestreaming. I’ll still go take static recordings, but livestreaming is going to be a hard one.”

The incident raises a broader question for the growing world of content creators — when does filming strangers in public cross into a safety risk, and how do you protect yourself?

According to YouTube’s own safety guidance, creators can take several steps to reduce their risk while streaming. Experts recommend reviewing chat logs for suspicious messages and blocking or reporting offenders, avoiding revealing personal identifiers such as names and locations during streams, using privacy settings to limit who can see your profile and past streams and limiting who can join your stream and view recordings.

Lewis says the attack has changed his perspective — and hopes other creators take note before something similar happens to them.

Authorities are still searching for the attacker. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Harris County Sheriff’s office.

Cardboard cut-outs of desert animals with slogans like “Don’t fence us in” and “No wall, no wire, no way” lined the walkway leading to TPWD headquarters, mirroring chants from the crowd –– all hoping that the agency that oversees the state park system would finally respond to months of public outcry about the possibility of large-scale federal border wall construction on public land.

Videos of bulldozers tearing into Big Bend National Park have sparked headlines around the world, to the point that Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott personally paused construction until he could conduct an on-the-ground visit to the region.

But the federal government’s plans in neighboring Big Bend Ranch State Park and Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, both Texas Parks and Wildlife properties, are still up in the air. Customs and Border Protection has released little information to the public about its plans for border barrier construction on state land beyond an online map that has changed numerous times without warning.

Despite being one of the most pressing issues facing the agency, border barriers were not included in the agenda for the board’s quarterly meeting. The commission only holds one forum for in-person public comment per year, so organizers seized on the opportunity to speak to commissioners directly.

Mike Davidson, a river guide on the Rio Grande since 1977, said that in all of his years in the backcountry in Big Bend, he’d never once felt threatened by crime on the border. “We don’t see people trying to cross the river while we’re paddling,” he said.

David Long, a longtime TPWD employee and former superintendent of the Barton Warnock Center at Big Bend Ranch State Park, talked about the joys of teaching his grandsons how to safely navigate the river and the harsh Chihuahuan Desert backcountry.

“What is the legacy that we want to leave our future generations?” he asked the crowd. “Memories of how we coexist with nature and protect it –– or a scarred landscape?”

Ninety-nine people signed up to speak at Wednesday’s public hearing and the vast majority wanted to talk about border barriers, including a large contingency from the Big Bend region.

Hillary Pierce, an organizer for No Big Bend Wall, a group dedicated to stopping the construction of border barriers in Customs and Border Protection’s largest and least busy sector, said the pre-meeting tailgate was an attempt to make the gathering feel more like a celebration of Texas parks than a tense confrontation between the public and the commission.

“A lot of people don’t realize that the commission consists of people who are appointed directly by Gov. Abbott himself,” she explained. “In many cases, they are some of his biggest supporters, some of his biggest donors, and have a direct line to him. We’re hoping that they’ll advocate for us and amplify our voices in his ear.”

Former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who has been trying to rally fellow Republicans to the cause, said opposing federal barriers in far West Texas has become a bipartisan cause. “I have yet to encounter anybody in the Big Bend area who does not oppose a wall,” he said

Jake Walker, a board member of the Texas chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said that federal border projects could affect 20% of all publicly available hunting land in the state. “Any changes in the landscape could have an impact on our access to that wildlife,” he said.

While most of the commenters were concerned with TPWD holdings in Presidio and Brewster Counties, they are not the only properties that could be affected by the barrier project. Seminole Canyon State Park — home to the Lower Pecos style of rock art –– preserves a storytelling and design tradition thousands of years old.

There are 80 recorded archeological sites in the park spanning 10,000 years of human history, earning it a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

Amanda Castañeda, archeology director at Shumla, a nonprofit aimed at preserving the Lower Pecos rock art tradition, explained that CBP’s current plan would effectively cut the park in half with a six-foot fence that would cut off hiking trails and interpretive sites.

“This park contains a deep and varied history that Texans are proud of,” Castañeda said.

Though the TPWD commission is not obligated to respond to public comments, Chair Paul Foster did address the volume of comments related to border barriers.

“I think we agree with most of you, and are working with the governor’s office and the federal government,” he said. “Our goal is to minimize damage to the ecosystem and the natural beauty of not only the parks, but the whole area.”

Disclosure: Paul L. Foster has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The removal was a legal victory for Anthony, now 19, whose attorneys wanted the judge off the case following the June trial, in part because of a TV interview in which the judge said jurors “got it right” when they delivered a guilty verdict in the killing of Austin Metcalf.

Anthony, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison, wore a green prison jumpsuit in a suburban Dallas courtroom when a visiting judge ordered state District Judge John Roach's recusal. Judge Michael Chitty was later assigned to the case.

Outside the courtroom in McKinney, cheers erupted in the hallway while some Anthony supporters chanted “Free Karmelo!” in the parking lot.

“Today’s ruling answers a fundamental question: whether a reasonable fully informed observer would see Judge Roach’s conduct and believe that he could fairly and impartially consider a motion for new trial,” Anthony’s lawyers said in a statement.

On Thursday, Anthony was expected back in court for a hearing that will determine whether a retrial is warranted.

Jurors this summer had rejected Anthony's claims of self-defense during a confrontation with Metcalf in the stadium bleachers last year. Anthony did not testify during the trial. Other students who took the stand described a heated exchange over Anthony’s refusal on a rainy spring day to leave a tent that belonged to Metcalf’s team.

The case attracted national attention in part because of a flood of social media posts that amplified the killing in racial terms. Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white. Lawyers on both sides, however, told jurors the tragedy had nothing to do with race.

Anthony’s legal team has argued that a retrial is needed, in part, because Roach enforced strict courtroom rules that they said limited the public's access to the proceedings. They also zeroed in Wednesday on comments Roach made to a Dallas TV station after the trial ended.

In the interview, which was played as the hearing began, Roach was asked if the jury got “it right.”

“Yeah, they did,” Roach said, adding: “Whatever they say, they got it right.”

During the interview, Roach also defended his courtroom rules and spoke about the onslaught of online postings about the case.

Visiting Judge Sid Harle said he did not know Roach and he believed Roach would be fair in a hearing for a retrial, but was granting the defense's request for a recusal because of how it might look to others. In his written order, Harle said the evidence was such that the judge's “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” and ordered another judge to “preside over all further proceedings.”

Roach did not immediately respond to a request for comment following the ruling.

Prosecutor Bill Wirskye had urged the court to keep Roach. He said the judge “didn’t do anything wrong” and that his courtroom rules were meant to protect the integrity of the trial, which brought demonstrators outside the courthouse. Wirskye did not immediately respond to a request for comment following the ruling.

As national attention on the killing intensified last year, the families of both Metcalf and Anthony said they had been targets of harassment.

“We were all getting death threats,” Wirskye said.

Several schools were competing when Anthony sat under the Memorial High School tent that was perched in the bleachers. Metcalf and others had repeatedly told Anthony to leave, witnesses testified, leading to an escalating confrontation.

Prosecutors said Anthony provoked Metcalf, and witnesses testified that Anthony was the aggressor.

Anthony at one point reached inside a bag and replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” according to a police report.

Metcalf pushed Anthony, according to witnesses, who said Anthony then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Vertuno contributed to this report from Austin.

• PREVIOUS: Houston City Council to vote on ‘Right to A/C’ ordinance as council member launches free A/C giveaway

The ordinance amends Section 10-363, Division 4, Article IX, Chapter 10 of the Code of Ordinances, Houston, Texas, establishing working air conditioning as a basic health and safety standard for all Houston rental housing. Landlords will not be required to retrofit older buildings with central air. A window unit or portable air conditioner in each habitable space will satisfy the new requirement.

Under previous Houston law, a landlord could legally avoid providing air conditioning as long as a rental property had window screens. On a 109-degree day — the hottest temperature ever recorded in Houston — a landlord would only be required to maintain an interior temperature of 89 degrees. That loophole is now closed.

The new law goes into effect in 120 days.

• These cruise ships have the worst DCD sanitation scores in 2026

Council members weigh in

Several council members spoke passionately in support of the ordinance. District A Council Member Amy Peck argued the ordinance addresses a critical public health need.

“Affordability cannot be at the expense of public health,” Peck said.

District C Council Member Joe Panzarella echoed that sentiment, saying the ordinance is asking for the bare minimum of accountability from landlords.

• Cy-Fair firefighters battle 2 neighboring house fires

At-Large Position 1 Council Member Julian Ramirez said he thinks of seniors and children across the city living without air conditioning and proper ventilation, noting the broad public support for the proposal.

“While we have received so much comment and support of this proposal, I have not seen anyone opposing this ordinance,” Ramirez said.

Ramirez acknowledged the difficulty of the decision but was clear about where he stands.

“While it is not an easy choice, because I’m inclined to let the market decide.... but this is one of those areas that is not decided by the market, ... it’s a health concern,” Ramirez said.

• Minnesota sues Abbott to force extradition of ICE agent

District H Council Member Mario Castillo framed the vote in terms of basic human safety.

“In Houston, heat impacts health, impacts vulnerable populations the most. Codes and regulations designed primarily to keep people safe — this is raising the bar at the minimum, not a screen but a cooling unit,” Castillo said.

District J Council Member Edward Pollard did not mince words about the severity of the situation.

“The heat in this city is sometimes unbearable... imagine people who have to live like that every single day,” Pollard said.

Pollard went even further, making his position on the ordinance crystal clear.

“To live in this city with no A/C should be criminal,” Pollard said.

Pollard summed up his feelings with a rallying cry for the city’s identity.

“We cannot be a world class city and some people are living with no A/C... that’s not Houston,” Pollard said.

• These cruise ships had the worst CDC sanitation scores in 2026

The two dissenting votes came from council members who raised concerns about the financial impact on renters. At-Large Position 2 Council Member Willie Davis raised questions about who would be responsible for enforcing the new requirements and how that enforcement would work in practice.

At-Large Position 3 Council Member Twila Carter voted no, citing concerns about the financial burden the change could place on renters.

“People will not be able to afford electric bills,” Carter said.

In a release, Carter said in the meeting her concern is for the people that “this policy is intended to protect. They will ultimately bear the greatest burden. This is an unfunded mandate with no meaningful guardrails for the tenants. The costs don’t disappear.”

Read full statement below:

“This particular topic is very personal to me. And I’m going to speak from a real personal level, not from research, not from Google, not from AI, but from a personal level. As a child, over a seven-year period, I changed schools ten times. What that meant was every time the rent came due, we moved. Most of the time, we moved, and for a very short time, we had electricity until, of course, we didn’t. Some of the places we lived… apartments, houses, air conditioning, no air conditioning, window units, watercoolers, attic fans, no fans, screens, no screens… I could go on and on.

To say that to provide the option to turn the air conditioner on, I’m also familiar with that option. You have an air conditioner, it’s hot. You turn it on, the bill comes, and not only do you turn that off, you turn everything else off. And the higher the bill, the longer it takes to pay the bill and to get the electricity turned back on. So I speak from lived experience for the community on the receiving end of this—the electricity bills, the pass-through costs—it’s very real. And again, when resources are finite, is reassurance enough to say, ‘We’re gonna help you’? And, no doubt, this measure has the votes to pass without my vote, but passing it doesn’t make it right.

My concern is really for the people that this policy is intended to protect. They will ultimately bear the greatest burden. This is an unfunded mandate with no meaningful guardrails for the tenants. The costs don’t disappear. Landlords aren’t going to say,‘ Let’s put in A/C. Let’s do this, and let’s let me absorb it.’ They will pass it through. They don’t just disappear because government imposes them. At the same time, tenants are already facing high cost of living, electricity bills, and water bills. And they can’t make ends meet. We have to ask the question, when the resources are so finite, what is the relief? And while it’s all good intended—of course I want everyone to have air conditioning—good intentions aren’t enough. Policies designed to help working families shouldn’t unintentionally make housing less affordable, costs higher, and place financial burdens on already burdened citizens—the very people that we are intending to protect. Before we celebrate what looks good on paper, let’s make sure that we confront the cost in real life. What are the real-life costs? Because this comes at a heavy cost. And it will put people on the streets. The people that we represent don’t pay for policies with good intentions. They pay with their hard-earned dollars.”

District E Council Member Fred Flickinger also voted no, warning the ordinance could have serious consequences for Houston renters.

“Some people will end up facing homelessness if ordinance passes as it is,” Flickinger said.

• Concerns about the New World screwworm have put Texas pet adoptions on hold

A loophole with life-or-death consequences

According to 2023 U.S. Census data, more than 20,000 renters in the greater Houston area live in single-family and multi-family rental units without any air conditioning — neither central air nor window units. Seniors, young children, and disabled residents face the greatest risk.

Between 2019 and 2023, the city says Harris County Public Health reported more than 7,600 cases of heat-related illness, with indoor spaces lacking air conditioning identified as a major risk factor. At least 279 people died due to heat in Texas in 2022, and Houston’s first heat-related death of 2023 was a man living in a home without air conditioning.

Extreme heat and limited access to air conditioning disproportionately impact Black and Latino neighborhoods, where residents face higher heat exposure, fewer cooling resources, and greater health risks when rental housing lacks adequate cooling.

How Houston compares to other Texas cities

Houston joins Dallas, Denton, and Austin in adopting air conditioning requirements for rental properties with no window screen exemptions. No implementation date has been announced for the new ordinance.

Dane Beito, owner of Gulf Coast Honey Bee Farms, manages between 200 and 400 bee boxes each year. He told 2 Helps You that he has lost 96 hives in 2026.

A typical hive can contain between 60,000 and 80,000 bees, meaning the losses could represent millions of bees according to Beito, “They do what is called nuisance spraying and it is wiping out bees.”

The loss equates well into six-figures for not only the boxes and bees, but also future operations.

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Beito contacted 2 Helps You asking for us to help secure better transparency for the residents of Brazoria County, “What I need is for the county to post these labels, to get the information out to the people with what they are being sprayed with,” Beito said.

2 Helps You spoke with other beekeepers who also questioned Brazoria County Mosquito Control’s spraying operations in recent years. One of the central questions raised is what exactly the county is spraying.

The issue also came up during a recent Pearland City Council meeting, where a council member questioned what chemicals are being used, “I really am curious about the chemicals used being accessible?” one council member asked.

Beito said he has asked the county to make information about the products being used more readily available.

“The county flat out refuses to post these labels to their website,” Beito said, then added, “They don’t want people knowing what they are being sprayed with.”

• Abandoned home plaguing Southeast Houston neighborhood for years, finally demolished after 2 Helps You report

Brazoria County’s website does not list the chemical labels for its mosquito-control operations, according to a review by 2 Helps You. Neighboring counties, including Harris and Fort Bend counties, provide information about mosquito-control products on their websites.

Beito said greater transparency would allow residents and beekeepers to better understand what is being applied in their communities.

The concerns come as Brazoria County’s mosquito-control operations are being investigated by the state.

Beito said he and others have filed complaints and have spoken with inspectors and investigators.

2 Helps You reached out to the Texas Department of Agriculture who has been asking questions to determine where the investigation stands.

The state’s investigator and Brazoria County Mosquito Control would not comment on the investigation.

2 Helps You will continue pressing Brazoria County for more transparency as well as for updates on the state’s investigation.

The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office later confirmed 46-year-old Kristi Hanks was arrested and charged after allegations she had an improper relationship with a 16-year-old student.

The sheriff’s office said Hanks had worked at the JJAEP over the summer.

“The investigation ultimately led to the collection of material evidence, interviews of multiple individuals, and admissions made by Hanks. The findings indicated that Hanks maintained frequent contact with the student outside of an academic setting and engaged in an improper relationship,” the sheriff’s office said.

She was taken into custody on Wednesday, according to the sheriff’s office. She was booked into the Galveston County Jail and is being held on a $100,000 bond.

Dickinson ISD released a statement saying the employee had already been placed on administrative leave as the investigation was pending.

“The District took this action immediately after receiving information regarding the allegations and before learning that an arrest had been made,” the statement reads in part.

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The district said the matter has been referred to the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office. They say they will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement and all appropriate authorities through the investigative process.

“The safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority. Dickinson ISD takes allegations involving student safety and employee conduct extremely seriously. When concerns involving the safety of a student are brought to our attention, the District acts promptly and takes appropriate measures while law enforcement conducts its investigation,” the district said.

Full statement below:

“On the morning of August 19, 2026, Dickinson ISD was notified that an employee assigned to the Galveston County Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP) had been arrested in connection with allegations involving a student.

Prior to being notified of the arrest, Dickinson ISD had already placed the employee on administrative leave while the investigation was pending. The District took this action immediately after receiving information regarding the allegations and before learning that an arrest had been made.

The matter has been referred to the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office.

The safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority. Dickinson ISD takes allegations involving student safety and employee conduct extremely seriously. When concerns involving the safety of a student are brought to our attention, the District acts promptly and takes appropriate measures while law enforcement conducts its investigation.

Dickinson ISD will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement and all appropriate authorities throughout the investigative process. Because this is an active matter involving a student and personnel, the District will respect the confidentiality and integrity of the investigation while continuing to take all appropriate steps to protect and support our students."

According to a statement from the mayor’s office provided to KPRC 2 News, Jackson informed Shoenbein of his decision Tuesday.

• Former Pasadena police chief says disciplinary records were changed after his retirement

Jackson’s retirement follows continued scrutiny of the Pasadena Police Department over alleged officer conduct, the handling of an internal investigation involving a former sergeant and conflicting accounts about disciplinary records from the administration.

In a statement, Jackson thanked the department and city leadership for the opportunities he had during his career.

“The Pasadena Police Department has provided me with opportunities for education, training, and personal enrichment which were beyond my expectations. The department members have provided me with a sense of belonging and camaraderie which exceeded any of my prior relationships,” the statement said. “Please know that I appreciate your confidence in my character and abilities and to have served as Chief of Police under your Command.”

• Pasadena police sergeant surrenders Texas law enforcement license after internal investigation closes

Assistant Chief Raul Granados will serve as interim chief. Granados has spent more than two decades with Pasadena police. According to the city, he joined the department in October 2001 and has worked in patrol, narcotics, the Special Response Group and media relations. He became an assistant chief in August 2025.

Jackson’s retirement comes after a series of KPRC 2 News reports involving former Pasadena Sgt. Michael Palitz, who resigned from the department and surrendered his Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) peace officer license following an internal investigation into allegations that he misused Flock cameras.

KPRC 2 News obtained Palitz’s personnel record, which showed that in 2025, the previous police chief recommended an indefinite suspension on a separate matter.

Jackson questioned about Palitz records

During Tuesday’s Pasadena City Council meeting, KPRC 2 News’ Rilwan Balogun approached Jackson about allegations someone in the department altered the previous chief’s files, after the department released a statement questioning KPRC 2 News’ report.

Balogun asked Jackson whether the department would release an arbitration report involving Palitz.

Rilwan Balogun: “The department released a statement last week sort of insinuating our reporting with the former chief was inaccurate. Just checking to see would you all be willing to release the arbitration report on Palitz?”

Chief M.P. Jackson: “There is no arbitration report.”

Balogun then asked whether the matter had been sent back to the civil service commission, the body that oversees police policy and enforcement.

Jackson responded that there had been an agreement but said questions about the agreement should be directed to the city attorney.

The city attorney did not speak with Balogun during the meeting or respond to an email sent Wednesday morning.

When Balogun asked when the agreement was made, Jackson said he did not have the date with him but believed it was sometime in the summer or early fall.

The exchange comes after KPRC 2 News reported conflicting accounts about what happened to the former chief’s original disciplinary recommendation.

Former chief says document recommended indefinite suspension

Former Chief Jerry Wright says he recommended an indefinite suspension for Palitz in March 2025 in connection with an internal investigation over allegations of insubordination and harassment. Wright claims a version of the document later provided by Pasadena police instead reflected a suspension of just 30 days.

“My document indicated clearly an indefinite suspension for the individual and what I saw was it altered to reflect [a] 30-day suspension,” Wright previously told KPRC 2 News. “Without question, that was not the document that I submitted.”

The department argues the disciplinary action was modified through the established legal process after Palitz appealed the original March 2025 discipline.

Wright did not accuse a specific person of changing the document and said he could not say whether the discrepancy was intentional or unintentional.

The Pasadena Police Department has rejected the suggestion that the records were improperly altered.

Conflicting accounts over Civil Service Commission

The handling of the disciplinary record has also produced conflicting accounts about whether Wright’s indefinite suspension recommendation ever reached the civil service commission.