Temperature records were toppled in several countries on the weekend, wildfires were sparked in Germany and Berlin police used water cannons to cool down the crowds.

Meanwhile, the heat wave slowly moved toward eastern parts of the continent.

Germany marked a new record for the third day in a row with 41.7 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit) in Neißemünde, near the border with Poland, which baked under its new all-time high of 40.5 C (104.9 F). The Czech Republic also experienced its hottest day ever with 41.1 C (106.4 F).

A new study from the World Weather Attribution, a Europe-based collaboration of scientists, reported Friday that the record-breaking heat and humidity in Europe this past week would not have been possible without climate change.

The rapid study found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago, and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago.

France records surge in deaths during heat wave

France reported a surge in deaths last week, including a sharp increase at private homes, especially in the Paris region, the national public health agency said Sunday.

There were more than 1,200 deaths on Wednesday, when France was sweltering under its hottest temperatures, increasing to more than 1,400 deaths on each of the two following days, Public Health France said. In April and May, before the heat wave, France’s rate of deaths was about 900 to 1,000 per day.

The agency concluded that France experienced a total of at least 1,000 additional deaths during those three days alone, an estimate it cautioned is likely to increase as more data is collected, including for deaths at home.

The increase was sharpest in areas under red warnings of extreme heat, it said. Those warnings blanketed about three-quarters of the country at the peak of the heat wave. The agency said that 85% of the deaths involved people aged 65 and above.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent, WHO warns

“Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday on X. “Right now 150 million people are living under extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools are shut, grids are buckling.”

Driven by climate change and global warming, the “once-in-a-generation” heat wave is now occurring nearly every year, Tedros said, adding that more than 1,300 excess deaths have been recorded since June 21 linked to high temperatures in Europe.

“Heat stress is often called the ‘silent killer’ — and European homes, workplaces and schools were not built for these temperatures,” Tedros warned as he called on European countries to implement action plans. He said they should focus on preparedness, prevention and stronger health system responses.

Lightning strikes Swedish theme park

In Sweden, several people were injured when they were hit by lightning at an amusement park, the country's TT news agency reported.

Three adults were taken to the hospital, among them a woman with serious injuries, after the lightning struck the Tosselilla Sommarland park in Tomelilla in the south of the country.

Across Europe, the extreme heat has been followed by severe thunderstorms.

Denmark, which marked new temperature records on Saturday, recorded 1,156 lighting strikes by Sunday morning, according to public broadcaster DR.

Heat sparks wildfires in forests contaminated with WWII ammunition

In Gohrischheide, in eastern Germany, a fire broke out in a large forest that's still contaminated with ammunition from World War II, which made the firefighters' efforts even more complicated.

Similarly, a major firefighting operation was underway in southwest Germany near the village of Traisen, where the heat sparked a forest fire in an area that also contained unexploded ordnance. Firefighters had to be temporarily stop after explosions took place and an ordnance disposal unit was brought in to continuously assess the situation, German news agency dpa reported. Some 650 people in Traisen had to leave their homes Sunday afternoon because the fire continued to spread.

The big cities' fire departments were busy sending out ambulances to people suffering from heat-related illnesses. In Berlin, an additional 500 ambulance dispatches were reported on Saturday, most of them heat-related.

Berlin police use water cannons to cool down locals and tourists

The German capital's police found a way to help suffering Berliners and tourists alike. They put up two huge water cannons — usually used to disperse unruly protesters — in front of the city's iconic Brandenburg Gate and sprayed the cool water across the cheering crowd.

The heat also continued to damage the country's infrastructure, with the concrete surface on countless highways breaking up, and a weekend warning by national rail operator Deutsche Bahn to avoid all unnecessary train travel.

More than 600 passengers had to be evacuated from an overheated train in Brandenburg after a tree fell onto an overhead power line during a storm on Saturday evening. The train, which was on its way from Hamburg to Prague, lost power. The air conditioners stopped working and the doors were locked until emergency responders forced them open. Two people were hospitalized with heat-related problems, dpa reported.

In the eastern city of Leipzig, no trams will be running until early Monday morning due to heat damage to tracks and switches. The Leipzig Public Transportation Authority said that the high temperatures had caused the joint sealant for asphalt and concrete in switches and tracks to run and clump together in many places throughout the city's network.

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Leicester reported from Paris. Associated Press writer Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.

Whether you’re after a small-town street fest, a waterfront view, or a big-city blowout, this county-by-county guide makes it easy to find something close to home.

• Before you go: Times and details can change for all kinds of reasons — including weather — so click each event name to confirm the latest info from the official listing. And if you see a "🎆" in the event title, that means fireworks are part of the celebration.

Houston

Harris County

Austin County

Brazoria County

Chambers County

Fort Bend County

Galveston County

Liberty County

Montgomery County

San Jacinto County

Walker County

Waller County

Wharton County

The sheriff’s office said deputies were called out around 2:39 a.m. after multiple reports of a multi-vehicle wreck on I-45 North near the Woodlands Parkway exit.

Investigators determined the original incident involved suspected impaired driving, and deputies began assisting with the response, including guiding traffic around the scene.

As deputies worked, MCSO said a heavy-duty truck towing a trailer drove into the area, hitting Deputy Erika Serrato as she stood outside her unit directing traffic. The truck also collided with two marked patrol vehicles that had their emergency lights on, according to the agency.

Serrato, 24, was assigned to District 2. She was taken to a hospital but later died, the sheriff’s office said. MCSO said she had worked for the department for six years.

Another deputy was hurt when debris from the collision struck him, authorities said. He was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released.

MCSO identified Ashton Jammer, 34, as one of the drivers involved in the initial wreck. He has been charged with DWI and was expected to be booked into the Montgomery County Jail, the agency said.

The commercial truck driver was also transported to a hospital.

The case remains under investigation.

Community mourns

Montgomery County Sheriff Wesley Doolittle said the agency is grieving the loss and asked the community to keep Serrato’s family and colleagues in their thoughts.

MCSO said funeral and memorial details will be shared later.

Officials and community members alike have shown an outpour of condolences for the loss of Deputy Serrato, including fellow law enforcement agencies around the state and Greater Houston.

Following news of Serrato’s death, Governor Greg Abbott granted Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough’s request to lower flags across Texas to half-staff in honor of the fallen deputy.

“Please continue to keep the men and women of our Sheriff’s Office, along with all of our law enforcement officers, in your prayers during this incredibly difficult time,” Keough said. “Most importantly, please pray for Deputy Serrato’s family, friends, and fellow deputies as they mourn the loss of a true public servant who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to her community.”

After a near-record debut for an animated movie, “Toy Story 5” remained No. 1 at the box office with $70 million in domestic ticket sales and another $89.1 million overseas, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Walt Disney Co. release has in two weeks quickly amassed $585 million globally, making it one of the biggest hits of the year.

“Supergirl,” however, failed to lift off. It opened with $38 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters. It added $30 million in overseas markets.

Craig Gillespie’s superhero spinoff is the second big-screen release from James Gunn and Peter Safran, who were tapped to lead DC Studios in late 2022. Their first release, 2025’s “Superman,” grossed $618 million worldwide, a strong-enough start for Gunn and Safran.

But “Supergirl” flopped with both critics and moviegoers. Reportedly trimmed significantly after test screenings, Gillespie’s film landed poor reviews (56% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and a “B-” CinemaScore from audiences.

The poor opening weekend for “Supergirl” puts it behind the disappointing debuts of DC busts like “The Flash” ($55 million in 2023) and “The Green Lantern” ($53 million in 2011), and only barely ahead of “Joker: Folie à Deux” ($37.7 million in 2024).

David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm FranchiseRe, noted superhero movies no longer drive the box office like they did pre-pandemic. There are fewer yearly releases, and the box office in the genre is down approximately $3.5 billion annually from its highs in 2017-2019.

After huge successes like “Wonder Woman” ($822 million in 2017) and “Captain Marvel” ($1.13 billion in 2019), female-fronted superhero movies have also taken a downturn.

“You’ll hear general explanations like ‘the audience lost interest.’ Yes, they did,” said Gross. “But no one has been able to explain why it happened so suddenly and so completely. Why female superheroes in particular, after their sensational starts? We don’t understand it either.”

The stumble for “Supergirl,” which cost $170 million to make, comes as Warner Bros. Discovery, the film studio’s parent company, is preparing to be acquired by Paramount Skydance. David Ellison, Paramount chief executive, recently met with Gunn and Safran.

The next DC release is “Clayface,” a body horror take on the DC character, to be released in October. Gunn’s “Superman” follow-up, “Man of Tomorrow,” is currently in production. It’s dated for July 2027.

Gunn, who serves as a producer on “Supergirl,” handed directing duties to Gillespie, the filmmaker of “I, Tonya” and “Cruella.” Milly Alcock, who briefly appeared in “Superman,” stars as Supergirl, or Lara Zor-El, a younger cousin to Superman who’s more of a party girl than a world saver.

Paramount Pictures’ “Jackass: Best and Last” was the weekend’s other new wide release. The latest stunt compilation from Johnny Knoxville and company opened with a modest $8.4 million from 2,855 North American theaters. While that’s a good result for a movie that cost just $10 million to make, the 2022 installment, “Jackass Forever,” debuted with $23 million before ultimately grossing $80 million worldwide.

Olivia Wilde’s dinner party comedy “The Invite” notched one of the best per-screen averages of the year. Opening on seven screens in New York and Los Angeles, it debuted with $379,104, good for a per-screen average of $54,158.

Wilde’s third film as director stars herself, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton as a pair of San Francisco couples who meet for an impromptu night together. A24 acquired the film after its buzzy Sundance Film Festival premiere. The indie distributor is hoping “The Invite,” which will expand next week and go nationwide on July 10, can revive the largely dormant summer comedy.

The micro-budget horror phenomenon “Obsession” continued to hold unusually strong. It took third place on the weekend with $9.8 million in its seventh weekend of release. Curry Barker’s film, made for less than $1 million, has now collected $233.9 million domestically for Focus Features, plus $108.9 million internationally.

Such legs, however, haven’t materialized for Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller “Disclosure Day.” In the Universal Pictures’ third weekend of release, it slipped to fifth place with $8.1 million in domestic theaters. Spielberg's UFO tale has grossed $193.7 million globally in three weeks.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

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

1. “Toy Story 5,” $70 million.

2. “Supergirl,” $38 million.

3. “Obsession,” $9.8 million.

4. “Jackass: Best and Last,” $8.4 million.

5. “Disclosure Day,” $8.1 million.

6. “Backrooms,” $4.3 million.

7. “Scary Movie,” $3 million.

8. “Masters of the Universe,” $2.2 million.

9. “Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity," $2 million.

10. “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” $1.6 million.

With supporters' red-and-white St. George's Cross signs circling the field on an afternoon of sporadic rain, Bellingham and Kane scored early in the second half for a 2-0 win over Panama on Saturday. England earned first place in its group and a more favorable knockout phase bracket.

The Three Lions even wore the red jerseys made famous when England beat Germany for its only title in 1966, a sartorial similarity connecting North Jersey and that famous day in north London.

“Amazing support. Crazy white wall behind the goal. Perfect weather to play football for us — warm rain," England coach Thomas Tuchel said.

England finished Group L with two wins and a draw for seven points and plays its round of 32 match Wednesday at Atlanta against Congo. The team that advances faces Mexico or Ecuador in Mexico City.

If the Three Lions had dropped to second, they would have encountered Portugal, with the winner meeting Spain or Austria.

“I know some people have already made plans,” Bellingham said, “so it was nice they don’t have to cancel anything.”

Fans filled the field walls with flags displaying club names that included Tottenham, Watford and Wolves plus less-celebrated clubs such as Crawley Town, Bristol Rovers and Faversham Town.

Panama held the England scoreless through a first half in which Kane had 10 touches, the fewest of any player. Croatia added pressure by taking the lead in the 31st minute against Ghana in simultaneous match in Philadelphia.

“All the lads were ready to go after halftime,” Bellingham said. "We realized we had a couple of more gears to go.”

Bellingham put the Three Lions ahead in the 62nd minute from Bukayo Saka's corner kick. Held in bear hug by Jorge Gutiérrez at the top of the 6-yard box, Bellingham stuck out his left leg and stabbed the ball past goalkeeper Orlando Mosquera for his third World Cup goal, his second this year.

Five minutes later, Bellingham crossed from the left flank and Kane outjumped Andrés Andrade to head in the ball for his 82nd international goal. Kane became England's record World Cup scorer with his 11th goal, one more than Gary Lineker.

Bellingham injured his left hamstring playing for Real Madrid on Feb. 1, didn't return until March 22 and scored just two more goals during the rest of the La Liga season.

“Jude looks fit, looks sharp," Kane said. "It looks like he's got the bit between his teeth to really go out there and prove to the world what type of player he is.”

England reached the knockout rounds for the seventh time in eight World Cups.

“They have great players. They are worth millions and millions," Panama defender José Córdoba said. "We’re talking about English football, which is much more developed than in our country and there’s a huge distance.”

Panama went 0-3 for the second time and was outscored 4-0. It joined Iraq, Haiti, El Salvador, Canada and Mexico — all but one from the CONCACAF region — as teams that lost their first six World Cup matches. José Fajardo put the ball in the net for the Los Canaleros in second-half stoppage time, but was called for offside.

“We can be proud — not of the results, as no one can be proud of a defeat, but all in all I think they gave their everything." Panama coach Thomas Christiansen said. “For the outside world, the image of Panama has been really good.”

Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford played his 15th World Cup match, second among English players to Peter Shilton’s 17.

England's Jarell Quansah, usually a central defender, replaced right back Reece James, sidelined by a hamstring. Quansah twisted his right ankle during a 59th-minute challenge by José Luis Rodríguez and was replaced in the 63rd. England is short on right backs after Trent Alexander-Arnold was not picked for the roster.

“It will be now a very tight race for Quansah, so I’m worried about these two," Tuchel said.

In the glow of victory, supporters celebrated Bellingham by singing the Beatles' “Hey Jude” when he stood on the field for postgame interviews.

“This evening is for sure to take in the energy and take in the atmosphere,” Tuchel said. “From tomorrow we will think about round of 32.”

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AP Sports Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here.

Ukraine has markedly stepped up its long-range attacks on Russian military industries and energy facilities in recent months, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for its invasion — now in its fifth year — and make Russians feel the consequences.

The campaign has choked Russian fuel supplies and military deliveries. According to Western analysts, it has also slowed Moscow’s efforts on the battlefield, heaping pressure on the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table.

“Our ‘long-range sanctions’ reached two oil refineries in Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday. “Each (strike) means a reduction in the resources that fuel the Russian war machine, and another step toward peace.”

Debris from downed Ukrainian drones sparked a blaze at the refinery in Slavyansk-na-Kubani, a town in Russia's Krasnodar region, east of occupied Crimea, according to Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev. The falling debris killed one person in Slavyansk and wounded another in a nearby village, local authorities said.

The Slavyansk site is one of southern Russia’s major refineries, processing close to 4 million tons of crude per year, according to its operator’s website. It is also a key source of petroleum products intended for export through Russia’s Black Sea ports, including fuel oil, naphtha and marine fuel.

Zelenskyy also claimed that a second Russian refinery, in the Yaroslavl region around 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was hit during the nighttime strikes.

There were no immediate reports from Russian authorities about the strike on the Yaroslavl refinery. Local Gov. Mikhail Evraev reported on Sunday morning that some roads between Moscow and the region's capital, Yaroslavl, were temporarily closed due to “an enemy attack by Ukrainian drones.”

Yaroslavl's airport also briefly closed overnight, along with others in southern and western Russia, according to the country's civil aviation agency.

Fuel shortages in Russia as Putin says plans will be ‘adjusted’

For months, Ukraine has been stepping up attacks on energy facilities deep inside Russia. Despite a raft of Western sanctions, Moscow remains among the world's top exporters of oil and natural gas.

More recently, Ukraine has attempted to choke off fuel deliveries to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in early 2014. Last weekend, Kremlin-installed officials in Crimea suspended gasoline sales to civilians, after Kyiv's targeting of supply routes triggered the worst energy crisis there since the annexation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on Sunday that the country was “going through a difficult period,” but insisted that Moscow would “honor all its social obligations” to citizens. He did not directly reference the Ukrainian strikes or fuel shortages.

“Naturally, we are adjusting certain plans in light of the current situation, but all strategically important (domestic) development programs will undoubtedly be implemented in full,” Putin said at a conference of his ruling United Russia party.

“We will continue to build housing and roads, create new, modern, high-paying jobs, and support domestic businesses,” he said. “We are going through a difficult period, but this has taught us a great deal, and allowed us to grasp the very essence of what it means to be a Russian citizen.”

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that Moscow was actively reviewing fuel export agreements to avoid compromising domestic needs.

Fuel sales to civilians were also being restricted in Russia’s Irkutsk region in Siberia, thousands of kilometers (miles) from the Ukrainian border, local Gov. Igor Kobzev announced on Sunday.

Drivers will be barred from buying more than 50 liters (13 gallons) of fuel per vehicle per day at state-run Rosneft gas stations in the province, Kobzev said, adding that other gas stations may set lower limits.

At least two private gas station networks in Siberia — KreisNeft in the Irkutsk region and Elke Auto in the Tomsk region farther west — said earlier this month that they were limiting sales due to supply disruptions.

Drones, bombs and missiles target more regions

Also on Sunday, a Russian aerial bomb killed two people in Zaporizhzhia — a city in southern Ukraine — and injured 16 others, including two children, said regional administration head Ivan Fedorov.

In Russia's border region of Belgorod, Ukrainian drone strikes killed one person and injured another earlier on Sunday, according to acting local Gov. Alexander Shuvayev.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 213 Ukrainian drones during the night, including over Russia, occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine with 142 long-range strike drones and eight missiles overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Of those, 125 drones and seven missiles were struck down, the air force said.

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

The All England club was holding one last wild card entry and the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion — who had already announced she'd play doubles with her sister Venus — had a decision to make.

“I thought I should really take this opportunity. Who knows if I’ll ever make it here again. This could be it,” the 44-year-old Williams said Sunday at a press conference.

“I was like, ‘What’s wrong with me, Serena? What are you thinking? Are you nuts? Like you really should do this,’” she added. “People live to be an athlete. I have this great opportunity to showcase what I do, what I do best, I suppose. Yeah, I think ultimately I was like that is pretty cool, so I should do it.”

Williams’ first match at the grass-court Grand Slam since 2022 will take place on Centre Court on Tuesday evening when she faces 20-year-old Maya Joint of Australia as part of her evolving tennis comeback.

Williams had been away from the sport since her farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open.

Her most-recent appearance at Wimbledon was in 2022 when she lost in the opening round to Harmony Tan, who was then-ranked 115th. The American great walked away from tennis — she described it as “evolving” away — after losing in the third round to Ajla Tomljanovic at Flushing Meadows.

After earlier accepting a wild card in doubles, Williams described the process of making her decision for singles.

“So I think it was on, I had until Monday to decide. I think it was like Sunday. I just wasn’t sure up until then,” she said. “Honestly, I’m still not even sure, but we’ll see.”

Williams is a seven-time Wimbledon singles champion but said Saturday that “in general my expectations are definitely different for the first time in my career.”

Defending champion Iga Swiatek opens play on Centre Court on Tuesday (1:30 p.m. local time), in keeping with tradition, against Taylor Townsend. That's to be followed by Taylor Fritz vs. home favorite Jack Draper — in what is one of the most intriguing men's first-round matchups.

And then Williams-Joint.

“Yeah, actually I know her. I’ve watched some of her videos,” said Williams, who paused for a moment before adding, “I’m sure she knows my game.”

Michigan-born Joint slipped from No. 53 to No. 87 in the WTA rankings updated on Sunday.

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

Racing in a heatwave with a broken drinks system, Russell held off Max Verstappen and his own teammate Kimi Antonelli to turn his controversial pole position into a dominant win.

It's the first win for Russell, excluding sprint races, since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. Russell said it was “incredible to be back on the top step” after a “tricky run of form."

Verstappen took the fight to Mercedes with his upgraded Red Bull car at the team's home race, but couldn't get close enough for a shot at Russell and finished up on the defensive against Antonelli. The top three were separated by just two seconds at the finish.

Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari failed to build on his breakthrough win at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix last time out, fading badly in the race despite qualifying well, with the seven-time champion fifth and teammate Charles Leclerc eighth.

Russell takes back second in the standings from Hamilton with his seventh career win and cuts Antonelli’s lead to 40points.

Russell's smart win

Russell took pole Saturday with a lap time set as a yellow flag was displayed for a crash by Verstappen. Russell argued he’d lifted off enough to be safe and the stewards agreed.

Sunday’s win showed off Russell’s smart approach to racing in a different way as he managed his pace and stayed out of trouble, even as those behind him lost time battling each other for position.

Leclerc had started second, with Hamilton third, but they gradually dropped back through the field on a track where they lacked power compared to Mercedes and also had difficulties with tire wear.

Hamilton didn’t give up without a fight, bringing back memories of his fierce battles with Verstappen in 2021. Hamilton and the Dutch driver fought side by side in the early part of the race and Verstappen complained Hamilton had forced him wide into a gravel trap.

Racing in the heat

The heatwave sweeping Europe made this the first race of the year to be run under F1’s “heat hazard” rules, with drivers required to use cooling vests or carry an equivalent weight in ballast. They lined up for the pre-race Austrian anthem in cooling gear and carrying umbrellas.

Overheating brakes were a hot topic, with Antonelli among those struggling to stop the car. Both Cadillac drivers retired early, with the team’s crew rushing to put out a small fire on Valtteri Bottas’ car before Sergio Perez reported smoke.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

The average NFL career typically comes to a screeching halt after three seasons. To’oTo’o has exceeded that as he heads into the final year of his rookie contract as an established contributor.

To’oTo’o, 25, starting next to Pro Bowl middle linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, has piled up 261 career tackles, 18 for losses, two forced fumbles and one interception with four sacks. He has emerged as a key figure in an elite defense, especially after the season-ending torn quadriceps suffered by third linebacker E.J. Speed. Sometimes, To’oTo’o has to remind himself he’s a veteran counted on for leadership for the younger guys.

“It’s a little weird, like a lot at first, but, man, it’s such a blessing,” To’oTo’o said during teammate Kamari Lassiter’s celebrity softball game. “Not a lot of guys are able to make it this far in your career, like it’s only year four, but not a lot of guys make it that far. Being able to be where I am and helping the younger guys, and whatever knowledge that I have that I gained for these last three years, I try my best to give it to them as much as I can.

“Obviously, I’m still learning, I still pick stuff from Azeez, and I pick his brain still to this day, but it’s pretty cool to see the younger guys ask me questions how I used to, three years ago. Man, it’s just a blessing to be able to help other guys to prolong their career.”

In 46 games and 35 starts, the 6-foot-2, 228-pound former Alabama standout has been striving for a stronger degree of consistency. With the exception of a few games last year he’d like to have back, To’oTo’o is coming off a strong season. He recorded 95 tackles, second-most on the Texans’ top-ranked defense behind Al-Shaair, with a career-high 2 1/2 sacks and nine tackles for losses with four quarterback hits.

The individual statistics are nice, but To’oTo’o and the Texans have built a standard with three consecutive playoff seasons and a much larger goal after three divisional round losses. They’re chasing a championship.

“My main goal is the Super Bowl, if I’m being honest,” To’oTo’o said. “Obviously, I have my own personal goals, but, first and foremost, is to bring home a Super Bowl for the city of Houston. That comes first and obviously all the personal accolades will come by itself.

“My main goal is bringing the city of Houston a Super Bowl. That’s what you play the game for. Every time we put this uniform on and set foot on the grass, if you’re not coming out to win, if you’re not coming out to be a champion, then you’re not doing it for the right reason. I think we all understand that.”

What would To’oTo’o say to himself as a rookie?

“I always think about that,” To’oTo’o said. “I look at myself now and how much I care for the game now, how much I love the game now, how much I understand, how much I study, how much I put into my body, my body has changed tremendously from Year One to Year Four.

“I honestly just tell myself, ‘How much do you really love the game, and how much time are you able to devote to this game?’ Because this game is so short, and there’s only such a small window, so. So ‘younger Henry, how much do you love the game?’”

To’oTo’o led the team with a dozen tackles in a victory over the Los Angeles Chargers. He overcame a tough game against Las Vegas Raiders rookie running back Ashton Jeanty, who had 188 all-purpose yards, including a 60-yard touchdown in single coverage against To’oTo’o and 128 rushing yards. And To’oTo’o rebounded from a missed tackle on quarterback Baker Mayfield on a pivotal fourth down situation in a loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The way that To’oTo’o played against the Chargers, doing an “outstanding job,” in the words of coach DeMeco Ryans, is how he wants to perform every week.

“Man, it meant a lot,” To’o’To’o told KPRC 2 last season. “I feel like that was just a good confidence-builder for me, tackling-wise. I think that was an area that I needed to improve on. And I feel like I’ve been on the upward line as the season went on. That’s what we get paid to do and I’ve been working on that my whole life.”

To’oTo’o has been mentoring rookie linebackers Wade Woodaz and Aiden Fisher, who were drafted this spring.

And he and his wife, Cheyenne, held a community pop-up event recently at Two Tone Coffee in Houston. They held a meet-and-greet to support his charitable foundation via limited edition apparel sales and photos. They personally took orders and served drinks from a crowd of fans.

“Man, it was great,” To’oTo’o said. “Big shout-out to Two Tone, great company, great organization, everybody go try it. When we first put it out, I was like, ‘Damn, ain’t nobody gonna show up. I hope at least 15 people show up,’ and then, like, the whole city of Houston showed up.

“They were wrapped around the block, but it was such a great event. Great people, I love the people, love Houston, and I tell people all the time, it’s been like my second home. It’s been huge for me.”

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

It said the arrests were based on a statement made by former Deputy Minister of Oil Adnan al-Jumaili, who was arrested last month, and “included members of Parliament whose immunity had been lifted.”

Iraqi security forces sealed off all entrances to the capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone early Sunday and carried out raids inside the compound that houses key government institutions and foreign embassies.

The state news agency later reported that 47 people had been arrested in the corruption probe, but it was not clear if all of them were detained Sunday or if some of them had been arrested earlier.

It released the names of 15 arrestees, including 12 current lawmakers, one former legislator, a former advisor to former Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and another high-ranking oil ministry official. Some of the arrested lawmakers came from al-Sudani's Shiite political bloc and others from the Azm Alliance, an influential Sunni party.

The specific accusations against them were not immediately clear.

Al-Sudani’s bloc won the largest share of seats in November’s parliamentary elections, but he ultimately stepped aside amid a deadlock in the Coordination Framework — a coalition of Shiite parties allied with Iran that brought him to power — over their preferred candidate for premier.

Al-Sudani was replaced by Ali al-Zaidi, a businessman and political newcomer, who emerged as a consensus candidate and received the blessing of the United States.

The arrests are likely to have ripple effects across Iraq’s fractured political landscape, where accusations of corruption frequently intersect with rivalries over power and influence.

The agency — created earlier this year to streamline firefighting and fire reduction across public lands — said the firefighters had been part of an interagency response to the Knowles and Gore fires on Saturday.

“The U.S. Wildland Fire Service stands united with the USDA Forest Service in grief and in our unwavering support for the loved ones left behind. Their bravery, dedication, and sacrifice will never be forgotten," it said in a statement on Facebook.

Wildfire activity has intensified across the western United States, as consecutive days of hot, dry and windy weather have fueled flames in Utah, Arizona and elsewhere as new fires popped up across the region.

The largest blaze, the Cottonwood Fire, was burning in rugged terrain in southwest Utah. It ballooned Saturday to more than 144 square miles (373 square kilometers) after marching through canyons and mountainsides, destroying part of a ski resort and other summer cabins along the way.

Authorities in Beaver County began working with fire teams on Saturday to assess the extent of the damage, but no estimates were immediately available. Gov. Spencer Cox in a post on social media called it bleak, but he thanked crews for what he called "several miraculous stops and saves.”

The cliffs and steep slopes have made the job even harder, said Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the fire.

“It's hard to get dozers and other heavy equipment into that. It's hard to get engines into that,” she said. “It doesn't make it impossible to firefight, but it does just kind of slow things down.”

Hundreds of firefighters have been arriving in the arid state to battle new starts as well as those that have been growing because of what forecasters called critical fire weather — dangerously low humidity levels, warm temperatures and gusty winds.

The danger is even higher this year because of Utah's record-low snowpack and its warmest winter on record. Much of the West is grappling with similar conditions, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

From Alaska to Florida, crews worked Saturday to corral dozens of fires, including three dozen that were classified as large and uncontained.

Nationally, nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) have burned since the start of the year. That is more than the 10-year average.

The conditions in Utah were critical enough for Gov. Spencer Cox to declare an emergency earlier this week and clear the way for the state to ban fireworks ahead of the July Fourth holiday. The order comes as Utah is experiencing one of the most severe wildfire seasons in recent history, fueled by historic drought conditions.

State officials said that over the past week, Utah has seen an increase in wildfire starts, with each fire showing unprecedented behavior. These starts have stretched the state’s wildland firefighting capabilities, State Forester Jamie Barnes said.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis also declared an emergency on Saturday, and authorized the use of the National Guard to tackle the fires.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service over recent days have been issuing red flag warnings for a wide swath of the West, from California to Arizona and New Mexico.

South of Grand Canyon National Park, authorities said the flames of a new wildfire were moving away from Grand Canyon Village and the nearby community of Tusayan on Saturday. But about 50 miles (80 kilometers) away, another fire prompted Coconino County officials to issue evacuation orders for those near Kendrick Mountain.

Parts of northern Arizona were without power Saturday as the utility serving the area initiated a safety shut-off in hopes of lessening the wildfire risk.

Power shutoffs have become more common in the West as wildfire risk has expanded. It is usually a last resort after utility forecasters weigh factors like sustained wind and gust speeds, available fuels and topography.

With extreme fire conditions persisting in Utah, Rocky Mountain Power also shut off power lines serving Beaver County and other areas.

___

Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas; Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio; and Ed White in Detroit contributed.

Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without Iran's direct oversight sparked the days of crossfire and have imperiled the talks for a lasting ceasefire. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday it would expand a route near Oman for inbound and outbound traffic, setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran.

The global community has long considered the strait an international passageway, despite its location in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through a route on the Omani side in an evacuation effort backed by a United Nations agency.

Iran insists that it alone must govern the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated the claim on Sunday.

“Any attempt to establish new or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran will only lead to further complications, delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and increase the level of tension,” Araghchi said.

The United States and Iran have been debating the terms of an interim deal, including shipping arrangements on the strait, the removal of a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and sanctions on Iran and the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Under the memorandum of understanding signed this month, they have 60 days to iron out details.

The interim deal is meant to end fighting on all fronts before certain key issues can be discussed. Continued fighting in Lebanon, where an Israeli soldier was killed by Hezbollah fire early Sunday, also threatens the agreement.

Strikes target Gulf states hosting US military

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for the attacks in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Kuwait's military said air defenses intercepted Iranian drones and missiles just after the U.S. strikes in Iran. Kuwait, which hosts a major U.S. military base, said it intercepted two ballistic missiles. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

Bahrain's Interior Ministry said the Iranian strikes damaged a residential building near the international airport and no one was killed. The ministry released photos of an eight-story building, its top floor destroyed and windows blown out.

Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, whose base came under repeated attack during the war. The damaged building was not near the fleet's headquarters.

Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry denounced what it called “a dangerous escalation that reveals that what Tehran is doing is not a passing act, nor an isolated incident, but rather a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression."

Trump accuses Iran of violating ceasefire with ship attack

The U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea Saturday. The Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key mediator between Iran and the U.S.

President Donald Trump on social media accused Iran of violating the ceasefire and warned of a point where the U.S. may no longer be reasonable “and will be forced to militarily complete the job.”

“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump wrote.

The exchanges of fire began when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off Oman on Thursday and the U.S. military retaliated with strikes.

Ship traffic on the strait had increased over the past 72 hours, off both Iran and Oman, the multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, adding that “U.S.-assisted commercial transits continued uninterrupted despite the elevated threat environment.”

It said 89 such transits had been made, still below the historical average of 138 vessels a day.

Iran calls for new ‘conflict control unit’ in Lebanon

Last week, Israel and the Lebanese government signed a framework agreement to end the latest fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, which began two days after the Iran war began when Hezbollah fired at Israel. Israel responded with an invasion that has occupied large swaths of southern Lebanon, and it has said it will not withdraw until Hezbollah is disarmed.

But last week's deal did not include Iran or Hezbollah, which has criticized the deal and rejected calls to disarm.

On Sunday, Araghchi again said the U.S. must force Israel to halt attacks and withdraw. Israel occupies around 600 square kilometers (231 square miles) in southern Lebanon, which it says it needs as a security buffer.

But sporadic clashes have continued, and Hezbollah's leader said Saturday that the group would continue fighting until Israel withdraws from Lebanon.

Key Iranian negotiator and parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Sunday that a meeting of a new “conflict control unit” formed among Iran, the United States and Lebanon should meet as soon as possible, Iran's state broadcaster reported.

The frequency of Israeli strikes in Lebanon has decreased significantly since the Iran-U.S. deal was signed, but two separate strikes hit southern Lebanon on Sunday morning — one in Taybeh town and the other in the Nabatiyeh area, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Overnight, Hezbollah militants killed an Israeli soldier in Deir Siryan village in southern Lebanon, according to Israel's military. Hezbollah did not comment.

“We are prepared to rapidly resume offensive operations in both Lebanon and Iran if required,” said Israel's military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.

___

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.

According to Texas City Emergency Management Coordinator Joe Tumbleson, Nathan Lowery and his 16-year-old brother set off in an inflatable raft about three miles out on the jetty. Around 5:30 a.m., the boys entered the water.

The 16-year-old was rescued by the Texas City Fire Department Marine Unit, but Nathan did not resurface.

Search crews from the U.S. Coast Guard, Galveston Police Marine Division, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and Texas EquuSearch spent the day looking for the teen. Officials said a Coast Guard flight crew later spotted the raft about 15 miles from the dike in Trinity Bay. The official search was suspended around 6:15 p.m. but is expected to resume at first light Sunday.

Nathan was last seen wearing a royal blue T-shirt and dark gray shorts, according to Texas EquuSearch.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the Texas City Police Department at (409) 948-2525 or Texas EquuSearch at (281) 309-9500.

Afternoon highs will generally range from 92 to 96 degrees through much of the week, with overnight lows falling into the upper 70s and lower 80s.

While this won’t be an extreme heat wave by Houston standards, the lack of rainfall combined with several consecutive days of triple-digit heat indices will make for a prolonged stretch of summer heat. Most afternoons will feature heat index values between 104 and 107 degrees, and there may be isolated spots that briefly exceed those numbers.

Saharan Dust Sunday:

We continue to monitor Saharan Dust, a dense plume will move into southeast Texas Sunday night and moves out Tuesday. Expect hazy skies, poor air quality and vivid sunrises and sunsets.

Saharan dust is back! How it will impact traveling, hurricanes, air quality, and sunsets in Texas

Tropical Trouble:

Also, monitoring an area of tropical development off of the Southeast Coast. It has a low chance to form into a named storm.

Read more about it here: Tropical Trouble: Tracking a new area for tropical disturbance near Florida’s coast

10 Day Forecast:

For now, Houston’s weather pattern is firmly locked into summer mode: hot afternoons, warm nights, plenty of humidity, and very few opportunities for cooling rain.

The beginning of July, hit and miss daily showers and storms are possible through 4th of July. Thankfully, no widespread rainfall is expected at this time.

• Montgomery County deputy killed by vehicle on I-45 North near The Woodlands, officials say

Deputies responded to the scene and located the adult male in the vehicle. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, officials said.

Crime scene investigators and homicide detectives were en route to the scene as the investigation got underway.

This is a developing story. Updates will be added as they are made available.

The $30 million salvage operation gets underway as soon as this week with the planned launch of a robotic lifesaver.

NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the Swift Observatory to a higher orbit where it can continue hunting for some of the universe’s biggest explosions. A three-armed spacecraft built by Katalyst will chase after Swift once it takes off from an atoll in the Pacific's Marshall Islands aboard an airplane-launched Pegasus rocket. Liftoff could occur as early as Tuesday.

Scanning the cosmos since its launch in 2004, Swift has been sinking faster and faster because of recent intense solar activity. It needs to get to a higher, more stable orbit as soon as possible to survive.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope — also at risk — could be next.

Like Swift, Hubble is losing altitude as the sun erupts with one flare after another. Katalyst Space CEO Ghonhee Lee said his company's next-generation robot, still in development, could save the day for the much bigger Hubble in a couple years.

Only China has attempted a mission like the upcoming one, successfully boosting a satellite into a higher graveyard orbit four years ago.

“This is the first American space robot to go up and do anything like this,” Lee told The Associated Press. “NASA has all these big senior observatories … all of them can benefit from a service like this. So what we're proving with this mission is this is a new play in the playbook that's available.”

It will take Katalyst's autonomous spacecraft, named Link, about a month to rendezvous with Swift and catch it, and another couple months to raise its orbit from the current 224 miles (360 kilometers) to the desired 373 miles (600 kilometers).

The 1.6-ton (1.4-metric ton) gamma ray observatory must be above 185 miles (300 kilometers) for the rescue to work. It's expected to reach that point of no return in October, according to the latest estimates.

Roughly the size of a small kitchen refrigerator with a 40-foot (12-meter) solar wingspan, Link sports three arms with a reach of just over 3 feet (1 meter). Each arm has two finger-like pinching grippers that resemble the hands of a Lego mini figure.

If all goes well, Swift could be back in business by September, according to Lee.

Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Swift was never designed to be repaired, let alone retrieved by hands — human or otherwise. That's what makes this so challenging, according to company officials, who stress there is no guarantee it will work.

NASA signed a contract with Katalyst last September with only two requests: It has to be a rush job, but please don't make things worse. Nine months later, the company is ready to rumble.

“I have to be honest. No one thought it was going to be possible. No one thought we would get as far as we’ve already gotten today,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA's astrophysics director.

NASA has bought a little more time for Swift, turning off all scientific instruments to slow its descent. Observations ceased in February.

NASA's science mission chief Nicky Fox said it's worth the effort.

“If we let Swift reenter, we would lose that telescope. We would lose a lot of capability,” she said. “We don’t currently have the budget to build another one to replace that.”

While everything cannot be saved in space, Swift is special, said Domagal-Goldman.

True to its name, Swift is designed to pivot quickly to capture late-breaking astronomical events such as gamma ray bursts and exploding stars. With more discoveries expected by the Webb Space Telescope and soon-to-launch Roman Space Telescope, Swift, if saved, would be busier than ever as “NASA's first responder.”

Katalyst sees Swift as the jumping-off point for a new repair business in space. The company's next-generation robotic rescuer, scheduled to fly next year, will tackle satellites as high as 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) up. Lee envisions hundreds of robots in orbit one day, not only fixing and hoisting satellites but also refueling them and building solar farms, data centers and other platforms.

Thirty-six-year-old Hubble, which received repeat servicing by spacewalking astronauts during the shuttle era, could follow in 2028 with a life-extending Katalyst boost.

“It's a national treasure,” Fox said. “People love Hubble.”

___

This story corrects spacecraft name to Link.

___

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

“You're next!” they chanted when an image of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York flashed on the television screens at Valdez's victory party in a renovated Brooklyn warehouse.

The message alarmed Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks, whose district borders the one that Valdez is poised to represent. Jeffries would likely be the first Black speaker of the House if Democrats regain the majority, Meeks said, and “people died to see something like that opportunity.”

The episode reflects the party's dilemma in a populist age.

As left-wing insurgents make inroads in New York and elsewhere, their campaigns are confronting legacy institutions led by people of color. For a party that prides itself on diversity, the clashes have exacerbated fierce debates over identity politics and long-standing rifts between progressives and moderates.

The outcome will determine who holds power within the Democratic coalition as it battles for control of Congress and prepares for what is expected to be a sprawling and searing presidential primary in 2028.

Although minority-led organizations have historically been viewed as more radical and antiestablishment, some Democratic leaders now view the left-wing surge as driven by white college graduates. Progressives argue that their agenda remains popular within communities of color.

“It’s complicated," said Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “But these changes are a real opportunity for our communities, and maybe a passing of the baton to a younger generation of leaders.”

Jeffries brushed off a question about whether he could face his own primary challenge.

“When you ask me a serious question, I’ll give you a serious answer," he told a reporter from Fox Business.

A past generation of minority political leaders went from outsiders to insiders

Once the distant dreams of Black and Latino activists, the political machines in many communities of color have become a central part of the Democratic establishment. They were a key driver of the party’s embrace of civil rights and diversity as core values.

Some of the party’s most tenured members and influential dynasties now come from communities of color, and politicians such as Jeffries rose through the ranks of such systems to serve as party leaders.

But such organizations were built in a different era.

“A lot of our communities are anchored in older, more traditional voters, and those older, more traditional voters carry older, more traditional values,” said Dallas Jones, the former Texas political director for Democrat Joe Biden's presidential campaign in 2020. In Democrats' current debates of “people versus elites," Jones said, “you cannot help but find that the Black community is caught up in the middle of it.”

Jones said that yearning for generational change helped topple Texas Rep. Al Green, a progressive seeking his 12th term in Congress, in May. A longtime civil rights activist, Green, 78, was defeated by Christian Menefee, a 38-year-old first-term congressman who is also Black, to represent a majority-Black district anchored by Houston.

The Democratic electorate grew slightly whiter in 2024 as Donald Trump made some gains among Black and Hispanic voters. In addition, white Democrats have become more likely to describe themselves as liberal than are Black and Hispanic Democrats, according to Gallup research from 2022.

Progressives argue that they are challenging longtime lawmakers based on their establishment ties rather than any shift in the party's demographics. They point to progressives recently winning House Democratic primaries for majority-minority districts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as signs of deeper appeal.

“The point of being a senior Democrat is you’re supposed to be able to deliver more and impact the agenda,” said Regina Monge, a strategist who led a political action committee that backed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in last year's race for New York mayor. “People are supposed to feel the benefits of their leadership in the district.”

Senior lawmakers are skeptical that much can be extrapolated nationally from last week's results, where Mamdani successfully pushed a slate of three insurgent candidates.

“Our path to 218” — the number of seats necessary for a House majority — “wasn’t affected by those races that are getting a lot of news,” said Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California, the highest-ranking Latino in Congress. “The mayor made some endorsements, and those individuals won, and I presume that they’re going to come and vote with the Democratic caucus when they get here.”

Generational change clashes with legacy in closely watched primaries

The new style of challenger often rises from outside the traditional civil rights and organizing structures that characterized some communities for decades.

Valdez, who is Latina and Native American, won the primary to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a former chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who was born in Puerto Rico.

The current caucus leader, Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York, lost his primary to Darializa Avila Chevalier, another democratic socialist, in a district that includes parts of Manhattan and the Bronx. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic; Chevalier’s parents are Dominican immigrants.

“We’re really looking at a moment in time where people are anxious about the future of our country," said Katharine Pichardo, who leads Latino Victory.

Pichardo was a senior adviser to Espaillat's first successful run for Congress, in 2016. She said Espaillat's message “needed to focus more on kitchen table issues” and be “forward looking” if he were to ward off Chevalier.

For incumbents to defeat populist and more ideological challengers, she said, they must “give people a sense of security against the very real anxiety over what’s going on in Washington, D.C.”

Basil Smikle, a former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party who now teaches at Columbia University, said insurgent candidates and their voters see institutions as “inherently flawed.” He said party leaders "would do well to turn with the momentum and not against it.”

“This is an opportunity for Hakeem to turn around and say, ‘Look, I’m with you, I’m not going to stand in your way, let's iron out our differences and make me speaker, get us back to power,'" Smikle said. "That would be the best way to bridge this divide.”

On Saturday, Jeffries took a step in that direction by congratulating New York City's Democratic nominees, including Valdez and Chevalier. He did not mention his ideological disagreements with them or his support for their opponents, instead stressing that they would help "crush far-right extremism."

“The path is different but the work is the same," Jeffries said.

_____

Associated Press writer Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed to this report.

The victim was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment and is expected to survive, police said.

• Houston Police: ‘Altercation’ leads to deadly shooting in the Heights

Investigators said two groups arrived at the station in separate vehicles—one stopping near an air pump while the other parked between gas pumps.

A short time later, people from both vehicles got out and exchanged gunfire.

Police have not determined what sparked the confrontation, and everyone involved had left the scene before officers got there.

Anyone with information should contact the Houston Police Department at (713) 884-3131 or Crime Stoppers at (713) 222-TIPS, where you can report anonymously.

The wreck happened around 1:20 a.m. in the 14700 block of Old Humble Road, according to information from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

• Driver dies after car hits stalled 18-wheeler on Loop 610 near Kirby

A witness told investigators the sedan was traveling south at a high rate of speed when it veered across the median into the northbound lanes, where it was struck by an oncoming truck.

After the impact, the sedan spun and came to rest in the roadway, investigators said. The driver of the sedan died at the scene. Deputies believe the victim is an adult woman, but her identity had not been confirmed as of Sunday morning.

The truck’s driver and passengers were not hurt, investigators said.

The crash remains under investigation.

Deputies were called May 8, 2026, to the 18000 block of Cooper Road in Conroe after a report of indecency with a child. Authorities said three adult women later described alleged abuse that stretched back years, with claims dating to the 1990s.

Investigators identified the suspect as 65-year-old Leland Fleming.

• Convicted sex offender arrested again for allegedly possessing child pornography, Harris County Pct. 1 deputies say

Detectives with the Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit said their investigation found Fleming had participated in various religious ministries across Montgomery County and had worked with children’s choirs and homeschool groups.

An arrest warrant was issued May 28, 2026, for indecency with a child.

Fleming was located in Madison County, Arkansas, and taken into custody with help from local authorities, investigators said. He was extradited back to Montgomery County on June 25 and is being held in the Montgomery County Jail without bond. He faces two counts of indecency with a child.

The case remains active. Because of Fleming’s reported involvement with youth-related organizations, the Sheriff’s Office urged anyone with relevant information to contact the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office at 936-538-5900 and reference case number 26A156874.

The award has been presented since 1998 as a way to recognize those who have made significant contributions to humor and commentary in the United States. In announcing the honor in March, the Kennedy Center described Maher as someone who has long influenced American comedy “one politically incorrect joke at a time,” a reference to the late-night show “Politically Incorrect" that he hosted for much of the 1990s and helped lift him to prominence.

Previous winners include Conan O’Brien, Dave Chappelle, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Letterman, Carol Burnett and Tina Fey. Woody Harrelson, Arianna Huffington and Jay Leno are among the celebrities expected to appear at the Sunday night ceremony.

President Donald Trump, who has spent much of his second term reshaping the performing arts venue, is not expected to attend.

The awards come at an awkward moment for the Kennedy Center, long one of the few relatively nonpartisan institutions in Washington. Shortly after Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the Republican president fired much of the center's leadership and installed a board largely composed of allies. It named Trump as chairman and his name was added to the building's iconic facade, prompting a legal battle that became a proxy fight over the extent of the president's power.

Trump later said the Kennedy Center would close in July for a two-year renovation. But U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper upended those plans in May by ruling that Trump's name was illegally added to the building, ordering it removed. The judge also has blocked the closure.

A legal saga that could be fodder for jokes

The legal fight has turned into a saga that could be easy fodder for jokes at the Twain gala.

Trump's name has come down from the building, in compliance with the judge's order. But the part of the building once covered with letters spelling the president's name is now shrouded in a tarp. The full closure is on hold. Lawyers for the Kennedy Center have said they are not planning for now to build out programming.

“The Court’s order did not affirmatively require the Board to reschedule programming that had previously been cancelled or to seek new programming,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing this month.

Cooper has asked for an update next month on how long the tarp will remain on the building. For now, the final event scheduled for the Kennedy Center's well-known Concert Hall is “The Freedom Gathering: A Musical Celebration” on July 3.

Maher and Trump have a fraught relationship

Given Trump's sway over the Kennedy Center, Maher's selection for the award is notable because the two men have long had a fraught relationship.

Before he entered politics, Trump filed a $5 million lawsuit against Maher in 2013 for breach of contract. Appearing on Leno’s “The Tonight Show,” Maher said he would give $5 million to the charity of Trump’s choice if Trump could prove he was not “the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.”

Trump claimed that when he provided his birth certificate, Maher did not pay up, prompting the lawsuit. Trump ended up dropping it.

The Trump-Maher relationship exploded again earlier this year, when the president claimed on social media that he wasted time sitting down for a meal with the comedian last year.

“He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be,” Trump wrote online. “He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself.” Trump said the comedian admitted he was “scared.”

Maher, during his April 11 episode of “Real Time,” described the dinner. He said Trump was “gracious and measured” and not like the “person who plays a crazy person on TV.” Maher said he was not scared.

He took time in his “New Rules” segment to point out the various Trump policies he liked, including the “mass removal of stone cold criminals” and making NATO members pay “their fair share.”

“I may be the last person from the lunatic left that is still an honest broker when it comes to you,” he said.

Maher hosted Vice President JD Vance on his show heading into the weekend. Vance, who is promoting a book, said he watches the show and laughed at Maher's monologue “even though you were making fun of me.” During the interview, Maher pressed Vance on the Iran war, immigration enforcement and election conspiracy theories.

“You guys have two outcomes that an election can be,” Maher told Vance. “Either we win or they cheated. That s—- has to stop.”

Maher's selection for the award was itself the subject of drama.

After The Atlantic reported in March that Maher would win the award, the White House pushed back hard. White House communications director Steven Cheung said on social media that the story was “literally FAKE NEWS.” Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, also called the initial report “fake news” and said Maher “will NOT be getting this award.”

The situation evolved after further conversations between the Kennedy Center and event organizers.

Beyond Maher, other celebrities expected to appear on Sunday have had up-and-down relationships with Trump. The president and Huffington, for instance, have feuded at points for more than a decade.

Stephen A. Smith, the sports analyst who is among those expected to appear at the ceremony, recently knocked Trump for attending the NBA Finals earlier this month in New York. Smith, who has signaled political ambitions of his own, called the move “selfish” and “narcissistic.”

Officers were called to the scene around 2:30 a.m. and located a man in the parking lot with multiple gunshot wounds, according to preliminary information. Houston Fire Department crews responded and pronounced him dead at the scene.

• Man shot and killed by roommate in inner Houston, police say

“The details on what transpired this shooting are very minimal,” HPD Lt. Ali said to media on scene. “What we’re being told right now is that the victim was at the location – in the parking lot of this particular location – when the suspect arrived on scene. They got into some altercation. The suspect, at that point, shot the victim and fled the scene.”

Anyone with information should contact the HPD Homicide Unit at (713) 308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at (713) 222-TIPS, where you can report anonymously.

The images illustrate how the Republican president has dominated daily life since returning to power and, to some, evoke more the style of a monarch than the leader of the world's oldest democracy. But it's also how he has wielded that power that has led to comparisons of an imperial reign.

Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has nominated one of his personal lawyers to serve as attorney general, ordered the Department of Justice to pursue his political enemies, deployed the U.S. Marines to the nation's second largest city and leveraged the presidency to enrich himself and his family.

He has demanded that comedians who mock him be fired, has slapped his name on the Kennedy Center, has pushed to seize control of elections, has filed lawsuits against news organizations whose coverage he disliked and has sued his own government seeking $10 billion in taxpayer money.

With the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding fast approaching, Trump’s own celebrations have overshadowed the bipartisan, congressionally authorized commission that was supposed to coordinate events commemorating the moment. He plans to return to the National Mall on July Fourth for what he calls a “Trump rally.”

The president's actions have led to comparisons with King George III, the British monarch whose rule inspired the American Revolution. It is a parallel Trump himself rejects.

“I’m not a king,” he told CBS' “60 Minutes” earlier this year. “If I was a king, I wouldn’t be dealing with you.”

Past presidents have been branded as imperial, but Trump stands out

There is a long American political traditional of opponents reviling presidents as kings. But Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian, said the label fits differently on Trump.

“It’s more about how he imagines who is he and what the presidency is,” Zelizer said. “We're celebrating founding principles, and that was a driving issue — fears of how a centralized power can be corrupted. And here we are again.”

When King Charles III visited Trump this year, the official White House X account posted an image of the two men with the caption “TWO KINGS.” At the start of his second term, Trump declared he had ended a New York City transportation program and posted: “LONG LIVE THE KING.” The posts also seemed to indicate a willingness to leverage the label and the reaction it provokes in his critics.

It is no coincidence that the main resistance movement in Trump's second term adopted the slogan “No Kings.” Ezra Levin of Indivisible said activists were thinking ahead to 2026 and the America 250 celebration when they chose the label.

“It looks like the same kind of tyranny we were rebelling against 250 years ago, the type of domination of Americans by a secret police force that's murdering people in the streets like in Minneapolis this year and in Boston in 1770,” Levin said, referring to demonstrations against the administration's immigration crackdown that led to the fatal shootings of two protesters this year by federal officers.

When asked for comment, the White House referred to Trump's own statements about his use of executive power. The president has weighed in multiple times about his maximalist approach.

During his first term, he referred to Article II of the Constitution when he told participants in a youth summit, “I have the right to do whatever I want as president," while declaring that it "gives me all of these rights at a level nobody has ever seen before.” He told The New York Times in an interview this year that the only check on his global power was “my own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Yet he also has said that portrayals of his approach as authoritarian were wrong: “I'm not a dictator,” he told reporters last year. In response to a question about whether he was concentrating power in the presidency, Trump told Time in an interview last year, “I don’t think so. I think I’m using it properly, and I’m also using it as per my election.”

Supreme Court's conservative majority has enabled Trump's approach

With a deferential Republican-controlled Congress, courts have become the last check on Trump. The president has harshly criticized judges who have ruled against him, and his administration has sometimes defied their orders.

Yet his quest to expand presidential power has been aided by the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, which has sided with Trump numerous times after lower court rulings hampered him.

In the middle of his 2024 campaign, the high court ruled that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. The decision derailed multiple investigations stemming from Trump's first term, including one focused on his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Trump has argued the courts cannot constrain the president on key issues, including his claims that he has the ability to fire members of independent agencies. The most notorious example was in 2024, when a judge asked during the immunity case whether a president could be prosecuted for ordering the assassination of a political rival. Trump's lawyer, D. John Sauer, answered with a “qualified yes.”

Sauer is now solicitor general, the administration official who oversees arguments before the high court. He has continued to insist that courts cannot review presidential acts.

“Once the President has made a determination … at that point, there’s no work for the reviewing court to do,” Sauer said during Supreme Court arguments in a case over whether Trump could fire Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.

But the Supreme Court has allowed Cook to remain on the board while it considers the case. The majority also slapped down his global tariffs, finding that only Congress had that authority.

Such rulings demonstrate that presidential power does have its limits, said John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“The presidency today, even when colored by President Trump's worst excesses, is not a monarchy,” he said.

Trump uses the presidency to enrich himself and his family

Trump was the richest man to ever become president. During his first term, he was criticized for owning properties where foreign dignitaries and others hoping to curry his favor spent lavishly. The conflicts of interest have escalated in his second term.

Trump launched cryptocurrencies before and after returning to office. By conservative estimates, one has pulled in $320 million this year alone, while another sold $550 million worth of tokens. A third received a $2 billion investment from a foreign wealth fund.

Trump took a new step earlier this year, filing a private $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for the leak of his tax returns during his first term. His Department of Justice directed the IRS to settle the litigation to create a $1.776 billion fund to pay damages to people who claimed the federal government unfairly prosecuted them.

The administration pulled back the settlement amid an outcry from congressional Democrats and Republicans. But Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer for Trump who is now acting attorney general, said at least one provision remains — a ban on the IRS auditing Trump.

Zelizer said Trump’s financial entanglements might be the most monarchical part of his administration.

“We have not seen a person who has a business operation of this scale and scope benefiting directly from the decisions he makes,” Zelizer said.

Trump has used the government to pursue his enemies

The Justice Department's role in the IRS lawsuit is one example of how Trump has decreed that executive branch employees should act as agents of his will.

In breaching what is supposed to be a firewall between the White House and Justice Department, Trump has demanded that federal prosecutors target his foes. In one social media post last year, he called out by name Pam Bondi, who was attorney general at the time, in pushing her to prosecute several of his political opponents: “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Trump wrote.

Indictments followed shortly after, including against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat. The charges against both eventually were dismissed, but the department under Blanche filed new charges against Comey.

The pursuit is not limited to Trump enemies of the past.

For his 80th birthday this month, the president hosted a fight held by UFC — a company he invested in — on the White House lawn. The event was broadcast on a network owned by the son of one of the president’s major donors. The spectacle drew a rebuke from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a persistent critic and potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender.

“The White House was built to serve the American people. Tonight it was used to promote a company the President owns stock in, sell subscriptions, promote corporate sponsors, push Trump crypto, and enrich the President and his family,” Newsom wrote on X. “The founders warned us about kings enriching themselves from public office.”

Days later, Newsom disclosed that Trump’s Department of Justice was investigating him and his wife.

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Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

Officers were called to the 1600 block of Vassar Street at about 11:55 p.m. Saturday. When they arrived, they found a man who had been shot in the chest. Houston Fire Department personnel pronounced him dead at the scene a short time later.

• Victim’s brother charged with murder in deadly southeast Houston shooting

Investigators said preliminary information indicates the victim and the suspected shooter lived together and were friends. Details on what led up to the shooting are unclear, at this time.

“One thing or another transpired tonight to where the suspect took out a firearm and shot the victim in the chest one time,” HPD Lt. Ali said on scene.

Police said the suspect was taken into custody.

The genre traditionalist from Newnan, Georgia, whose career kicked off in the 1980s and exploded shortly thereafter in the oft-cited '90s country wave with heartfelt songs for the working man who'd rather be drinking, or fishing, or ideally both, has sold over 60 million records across his storied career. And on Saturday night at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, he brought his touring career to an end.

The event titled “Last Call: One More for the Road — The Finale" was a triumphant swan song for the performer, a celebration of his life and career with some help from the artists he directly inspired.

Nashville's all-stars came out in droves

It was a concert in two movements.

The first two hours were made up of a marathon run of Jackson covers from some of the biggest names in contemporary country. And each performer had a personal story to share. Carrie Underwood sang “Everything I Love” after revealing that Jackson was her first ever concert, in 1994 at the Tulsa State Fair. Thomas Rhett warmed up the crowd with “Small Town Southern Man,” an appropriate choice for a singer currently living the song's lyrics — he's a father to four girls.

The Texas-born and bred Miranda Lambert performed “Dallas.” Lainey Wilson got the crowd moving with “Tall, Tall Trees.”

“It's almost impossible to pick a favorite Alan Jackson song ... but I had to try,” said Luke Combs before launching into “Hard Hat and a Hammer.”

Each performer played with Jackson's backing band, save for Eric Church, who opted to cover “Someday” with just his voice and an acoustic guitar.

It was an All-Star night for one of country music's most colossal voices. Other guest performers included Luke Bryan, Riley Green, Cody Johnson, Little Big Town, Jake Owen, Jon Pardi, Lee Ann Womack and a slew of super talented members of Jackson's own family: Adam Wright, Big City Brian Wright and Carlisle Wright.

Five years ago, the 67-year-old music giant Jackson shared that he has a degenerative nerve condition that affects his balance called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which he was first diagnosed with a decade prior. He said it was a genetic condition, and its effects on his ability to walk and perform had become more noticeable. One dollar of every ticket sold on Saturday night the CMT Research Foundation, an organization that funds research to find a cure for Charcot-Marie-Tooth.

When it was time for Jackson to hit the stage after 9:35 p.m. — after a storm delay of about an hour — he was met with ear-piercing cheers. The singer appeared stiff as he walked to his microphone, but once he picked up his guitar for the opener “Gone Country,” he was immediately back in action with that smoky baritone and timeless songs, though strumming was kept to a minimum.

“It's overwhelming,” he addressed the crowd before assuring them he would not spend too much time on “that last show stuff … I'm not dead!”

A night to remember

The Country Music Hall of Famer ran through his best-known hits with real ferocity: “I Don’t Even Know Your Name” arrived quickly, as did “Livin' on Love,” “Summertime Blues" and the moody “Midnight in Montgomery,” as the music videos for each played on a giant screen behind them.

He made it a point to walk from side to side of the stage, greeting each section while championing his band and the power of “real country music.”

“If anyone has lived the American dream,” he said later, while seated on a stool, “It's me.”

Anecdotes flowed from there. He talked about writing “I'd Love You All Over Again” for his wife on their 10th wedding anniversary and how the radio from “Chasin' that Neon Rainbow” is currently in the Country Music Hall of Fame museum. And he mentioned that “Drive (For Daddy Gene” was written after his father died.

An hour into his set, Jackson teased the audience by saying he needed some help for the next song. Out emerged George Strait for their collaborations “Designated Drink” and “Murder on Music Row.”

Then came an incredible run of hits: “Little Bitty,” “Country Boy,” “Good Time” and “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” among them, the latter written and recorded following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Blockbuster singles followed: “Don't Rock the Jukebox,” “Remember When,” and “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” the latter recording famously featuring the late “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett.

Fireworks were launched into the sky for “Chattahoochee.”

Alan Jackson's story continues

Just because this is the end of Jackson's touring career doesn't mean it is the end of his music career. On Thursday, two days before the final concert blowout, Jackson released a country cover of Orleans' “Still the One,” to celebrate his 50-year relationship with wife and high school sweetheart Denise Jackson. She was a cheerleader practicing a dance routine to the soft rock classic; he was instantly smitten.

For those who missed Jackson's final bow, the show will be released later in the year as an NBC concert special. But for those who were in the stadium — in the middle of a huge storm — it was an unrepeatable and unmistakable night.

Not anymore. Not after a new generation of players made history by advancing to the knockout stage of the World Cup for the first time and set up a clash with England.

“The weight on our shoulders was hard to bear,” said striker Yoane Wissa, whose two goals helped Congo rally to a 3-1 win against Uzbekistan on Saturday night

Fiston Mayele was also on target in a dramatic second-half comeback as Congo joined Cape Verde as another unexpected qualifier for the round of 32.

“We told ourselves we can’t give up,” Mayele said.

Congo has been one of the surprise stories of this World Cup, with few expecting it to emerge from a group that included Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal and Colombia. And history was hardly on its side.

Congo's previous appearance was when it competed as Zaire in 1974 and lost all three games, including the rout by Yugoslavia.

It's a completely different story now.

After holding Portugal to a 1-1 draw earlier in the tournament, Congo needed a win in its final Group K game to advance as one of the best third-place teams.

It did just that with a breathless fight back after trailing to Eldor Shomurodov's lobbed goal in the 10th minute.

“We’re a team that knows how to respond when we concede a goal; we keep fighting with determination,” coach Sébastien Desabre said.

If the weight of the occasion was evident in Congo's first-half performance, the resilience of its players proved irresistible after the break.

The game was level in the 68th when Wissa was brought down by Abdukodir Khusanov for a penalty.

Wissa picked himself up and sent Uzbekistan goalkeeper Abduvohid Nematov the wrong way, rolling the ball into the bottom corner for the first of a late flurry of goals.

Mayele put Congo ahead 10 minutes later when flicking past Nematov at the near post and was mobbed by teammates and even substitutes, who raced off the bench and across the field to join in the wild celebrations.

There were even more joyous scenes when Wissa put the result beyond doubt in added time with a curling shot into the bottom corner.

Fans continued celebrating long after the final whistle, singing and dancing in the stadium concourses. The memories of 1974 fading fast.

“We’re going to savor this moment because it’s been tough,” said Wissa. “All the guys — the substitutes, those who’ve worn the jersey before, and those who’ll wear it tomorrow — we should be proud. Thank you to all the Congolese people; it’s for moments like these that we do what we do. We did it!”

Congo is one of nine African nations to advance from the group stage at this tournament.

“It’s quite an achievement. We showed a good image of Congo,” said Desabre.

Uzbekistan's debut at the World Cup ended in three straight defeats.

“I hope this tournament will give us big experience. I hope this experience will give us more motivation for the future,” said coach Fabio Cannavaro.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Argentina's superstar did it anyway as a second-half substitute.

Messi made it seven straight while extending the all-time men's World Cup scoring record with his 19th goal in Argentina's 3-1 victory over Jordan in a group stage finale on Saturday night.

In his first match since turning 39 three days earlier, Messi scored on a free kick in the 80th minute after being taken down just outside the penalty area. The low kick barely above the grass surface split two Jordan defenders into the left corner of the net.

It was his 72nd career goal on a free kick, including his 12th for Argentina. Messi now has 123 international goals — second all-time to Cristiano Ronaldo’s 145 — in 202 appearances.

Messi had been one of only three players to score in six consecutive World Cup games along with France striker Just Fontaine and Brazil great Jairzinho.

“What you’re seeing, I’m seeing the same thing,” coach Lionel Scaloni said through a translator. "It’s a little bit of an uncomfortable situation every single time people ask because I no longer know what to say."

Messi also scored on a free kick against Nigeria in the 2014 World Cup and is among six players since records are available dating to 1966 who scored two free kick goals in the World Cup. He joined Pelé, Rivellino, Téofilo Cubillas, Bernard Genghini and David Beckham.

“I am very happy for him, for the moment he is having,” Giovani Lo Celso said in translated remarks after becoming the first Argentine other than Messi to score in this tournament, also on a free kick in the 19th minute. “The truth is that seeing him every day excites, excites and infects a lot. So obviously seeing him like that for us is very important.”

Messi didn't start because Argentina had already clinched first place in Group J, and the game was further meaningless because Jordan was already eliminated from the knockout stage.

Nevertheless, the decidedly pro-Argentina crowd of 70,649 at the home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys was eager to see him.

Fans started chanting Messi's name as soon as the second half started, and cheered loudly when he came off the bench merely to go through warmups.

The roar was louder when he stepped onto the field in the 60th minute, replacing Lautaro Martinez, who scored on a penalty kick in the first half.

For all the accomplishments of the eight-time winner of the Ballon d’Or as the best player in Europe, Messi has never won the golden boot as the top scorer in each World Cup. This is his sixth.

Messi now has six goals in this tournament, two clear of Kylian Mbappé, Vinicius Júnior and Erling Haaland.

Messi had been dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami that slowed him in the lead-up to the World Cup.

The knockout round for Argentina begins Friday in South Florida, and in this expanded 48-team tournament that would be the first of five matches in 17 days if La Albiceleste makes it to the final on July 19.

“Today he could have played 90 minutes,” Scaloni said. “He wanted his teammates to have time on the pitch and to save himself also for what’s coming up now. He doesn’t think so much about the numbers that people are talking about.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

They delivered a thrilling 3-3 draw instead.

In the wildest finish of the group stage, Algeria took the lead in stoppage time only for Austria to answer on the final play of the game, making it a win-win result for those teams and a heartbreaking loss for Iran, which was eliminated from the tournament.

“I've been a coach for about 40 years. I don't remember a game that had such a dramatic course, and such an unexpected trajectory,” Austria coach Ralf Rangnick said, shaking his head. “Even at the beginning of the match, if someone would have said it would be 3-3, nobody would have believed it. Somebody would have won an incredible bet, I guess.”

The game was tied 2-all in the closing minutes, and Algeria looked as if it was content to run out the clock and allow both teams to advance, when Riyad Mahrez scored his second goal of the game. That put Austria on the verge of elimination, only for Sasa Kalajdzic to head in the equalizer a couple of minutes later, rescuing Das Team’s World Cup hopes.

“The locker room is madness,” Rangnick said with a smile. “If Alfred Hitchcock — who had nothing to do with soccer, didn't really like soccer — if he had written such a drama, I would have said he was completely mad.”

Marko Arnautovic and Marcel Sabitzer also had goals for Austria, which finished second behind Argentina in Group J to advance for the first time since 1982. Its reward is a matchup with European champion Spain on Thursday in Los Angeles.

Rafik Belghali also scored for Les Fennecs, who became the ninth of 10 teams from Africa to advance. They finished third in the group but get a potentially easier Round of 32 matchup with Switzerland on Thursday night in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“It’s a feeling of being extremely happy,” Mahrez said. “We’re obviously happy, and it was the objective when we arrived — it was to go beyond the first round. That's what we did, and we're all very happy.”

Iran would've advanced as one of the eight best third-place teams had Austria or Algeria won. But when Kalajdzic scored in stoppage time to tie the game one last time, it meant Team Melli was eliminated in heartbreaking fashion.

“When you have 3-3,” Rangnick said, “nobody can assume that it was an agreement (to tie) or anything like that.”

The first three World Cup matches at Arrowhead Stadium had seen the home of the Kansas City Chiefs flooded in the light blue of Argentina, yellow of Ecuador and highlighter orange of the Netherlands. But in the city's group finale, the Algeria green and red of the Austrians were complemented by thousands of locals just happy to score a less expensive World Cup ticket.

Many of those locals appeared to be rooting for Algeria, though, which has made its training base in nearby Lawrence, Kansas, and has struck up a unique friendship with the small college town home to the University of Kansas.

Few of those new fans of Les Fennecs probably knew about the “Disgrace of Gijón.”

Yet longtime Algeria supporters had been waiting 44 years for some World Cup revenge against Austria. At the 1982 tournament, Austria and West Germany seemingly quit playing after the latter took a 1-0 lead, because that outcome ensured both would advance at the expense of Algeria, which protested to FIFA to no avail and was eliminated from the World Cup.

Some were curious whether the expanded 48-team field would result in a “Disgrace of Kansas City,” since both teams knew by kickoff that a draw would send them through. Instead, a crowd of 69,045 on Saturday night was treated to a dramatic 90-plus minutes.

Austria struck first when Arnautovic perfectly timed a run between two Algerian defenders, found himself one-on-one with goalkeeper Oussama Benbot, and overcame a stumble to score his record-extending 49th career goal for his nation.

Algeria answered just before halftime, when Belghali’s left-footed shot easily beat Austrian goalkeeper Alexander Schlager.

The frenetic pace continued early in the second half on a hot night in Kansas City.

Not content with a 1-1 draw, Austria’s Konrad Laimer sent a sharp pass across the field that Sabitzer finished to regain the lead — and give Iran some hope — only for Algeria to answer minutes later, when Mahrez scored off a perfect cross from Houssem Aouar.

It remained 2-2 down the stretch, and Algeria began to play keep-away as an antsy crowd began to hoot and whistle. But just when it seemed that would be it, Mahrez and Kalajdzic ended the group stage of the World Cup in memorable fashion.

“I think the match was a little crazy. It sort of went beyond the limits of everyone’s endurance,” said Algeria coach Vladimir Petkovic. “Let’s celebrate our promotion, so to speak, let's rest and then we will begin again for the next round.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Iran missed the round of 32 by one spot in heartbreaking fashion.

It finished third in Group G with three points earned with draws against Belgium, New Zealand and Egypt. Iran appeared to have advanced via tiebreakers when Algeria scored a stunning stoppage-time goal to go ahead of Austria 3-2 Saturday night, but Austria tied it back up seconds later on the game's final play. Their draw ensured Iran's elimination.

It was one last painful moment for Iran in a World Cup that's been tumultuous, on and off the pitch.

The Iranians have been playing while Tehran negotiates with Washington on terms of a deal meant to permanently end the war that began earlier this year. Tensions continued Saturday when Iran launched a drone assault targeting Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, in a likely response to overnight airstrikes by the U.S. Hours later, the U.S. said it struck multiple Iranian military targets after it said Iran attacked a ship near the Straight of Hormuz.

During the World Cup, Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei and players complained about numerous complications, including travel restrictions, visa denials for support staff and quick departures from the U.S. after matches.

U.S. officials have said all restrictions were known before the tournament.

The U.S. and Israel began the war on Feb. 28 by attacking Iran, which retaliated with attacks in the region and by asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz.

In March, Iran sought to move its group-stage matches to Mexico, with which it has diplomatic ties. Its request to move its base camp from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana was granted two weeks before the team’s arrival.

After Iran was eliminated Saturday night, the team sent a statement expressing “heartfelt appreciation to the wonderful people of Mexico, especially the beautiful city of Tijuana.”

“Leaving Tijuana is truly difficult for all of us,” the statement said.

At its first match, several hundred Iranian Americans protested outside the stadium, calling for change in Tehran and waving the pre-revolutionary lion-and-sun flag. Thousands more poured into the stadium to watch them play, and the pre-game national anthem was met with a mix of cheers and boos.

For the first two matches, near Los Angeles, the team was not permitted to travel until the day before and had to return to Mexico immediately after each game. The U.S. then eased its restrictions, allowing the squad to travel to Seattle two days before Friday’s match against Egypt. If Iran had advanced, it would have played its next match in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“We were treated very, very badly,” Ghalenoei said after Friday’s draw with Egypt left the Iranians clinging to hope they would get to the next round. “I hope the world becomes aware of these issues.”

“What these young Iranian national team players have done should be recorded in history,” Ghalenoei said. “Why? Because the host treated us in the worst possible way.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Letlow, who was endorsed by Trump, defeated state Treasurer John Fleming in the two-candidate runoff after they finished ahead of Cassidy in the GOP primary May 16.

Letlow pledged her loyalty to Trump in a race where Cassidy, who voted to convict the president on impeachment charges in 2021, spent a year working to keep Trump from going after him. She has promised to work in lockstep with Trump to advance his agenda.

“I am so filled with gratitude for the greatest president this country has every had, Donald J. Trump,” Letlow told supporters at her election night watch party in Baton Rouge. “I am also so incredibly grateful for your endorsement.”

Letlow’s victory caps Trump’s early 2026 effort to back Republican challengers to GOP lawmakers who have disagreed with him and replace them with ones more loyal. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and five Indiana state senators all lost reelection bids last month to GOP challengers he endorsed.

However Trump-backed candidates lost in two June GOP gubernatorial primaries: Rep. Randy Feenstra on June 2 in Iowa, to businessperson Zach Lahn; and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones of Georgia on June 16, to billionaire Rick Jackson. Both winners were outsiders competing with establishment favorites.

Letlow is now the immediate favorite to succeed Cassidy in a state Trump carried in 2024 by 22 percentage points. Letlow would become Louisiana’s first female Republican senator if elected.

Her supporters cheered as she stepped to the stage in Baton Rouge. One attendee let out a shriek a few minutes earlier after seeing on TV that The Associated Press had called the race.

Letlow has been in the House since 2021. Her husband, Luke Letlow, died from COVID-19 complications after being elected to Congress in 2020, and she won a special election to fill the seat.

It was Gov. Jeff Landry, whom Letlow also thanked, who began advocating for her to Trump last year. The president took until January to endorse her, however, making his announcement before she declared her candidacy.

She finished first in last month's voting with nearly 45%, compared with about 28% for Fleming and nearly 25% for Cassidy. Letlow and Fleming advanced to Saturday’s runoff because nobody won a majority that day.

For some voters, Trump's endorsement was all that mattered.

“Trump’s lady all the way,” said Barbara Dufrene, 67, of Marrero. She added that she knew little about Letlow but was counting on the president to lower her healthcare costs and increase her social safety net. “I always vote whatever Trump wants.”

Letlow had spending advantages

Letlow's success on May 16, campaign spending on her behalf and support from prominent Republicans had her well positioned in the runoff. She was also endorsed by Landry and U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

Fleming, a founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus while in Congress, later worked in Trump's first administration. He reminded voters that he did not resign after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

On the campaign trail, he directed his appeals to those who identify most closely with the president's “Make America Great Again” movement, saying his voting record was more conservative than Letlow's. His ads described him as MAGA “long before it was cool.”

Fleming told voters he was blocked from reaching Trump to seek his endorsement by White House allies of Landry. Fleming said he finally got on the phone with Trump and reminded the president who he was.

“I said nobody has been more loyal to you than me,” Fleming recounted during a June campaign stop. “He said, 'You’re fantastic! Why didn't you call?'”

The two campaigns spent comparably on advertising, roughly $1 million each, since the May 16 primary. But a super PAC that supports Letlow led all spending, accounting for $4.1 million in the past six weeks, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Fleming attacked Letlow on DEI, and she criticized him over an AI video

Fleming ads highlighted Letlow's previous public support for diversity, equity and inclusion policy, which Trump has tried to eliminate. Letlow, a former college administrator, said she supported DEI while interviewing for the position of president of the University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020, but said this year she opposes it.

Fleming reposted an AI-generated video on the social platform X this month that purported to show Letlow saying she supported DEI because she “didn't know any better.” The fake image of Letlow also referenced her husband, who died from complications of COVID-19.

Fleming said he did not create the video “but it’s getting passed around Louisiana for a reason.”

Letlow condemned the sharing of the video as “disgraceful and indefensible,” chiefly for its mention of her husband. She thanked her late husband Saturday and also introduced her fiance, Kevin Ainsworth, a Baton Rouge lobbyist. The pair were engaged at the White House in December.

Despite the rancor of the campaign, Letlow thanked Fleming and said they had a pleasant phone conversation after the race was called in her favor.

“The contest for this primary is over, and now it’s on to the general election,” Fleming told his supporters. “And we want to continue to make America strong by sending the best of the best there.”

Letlow emphasized key priorities for social conservatives, notably her support for national legislation barring transgender women and girls from competing in school sports.

Fleming staked much of his campaign on opposition to carbon capture and sequestration, the process for injecting carbon dioxide waste underground to reduce industrial pollution. The technology’s build-out, included planned pipelines, has sparked backlash in rural Louisiana communities and divided the state GOP.

Fleming said such projects infringe on private property rights and federal government subsidies for the technology are wasteful.

Democrats pick Davis as their Senate nominee

In the Democratic primary, Jamie Davis, a northeast Louisiana crop farmer, defeated Gary Crockett, a Navy veteran and business executive. Both promoted addressing the cost of living and protecting social safety nets.

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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

The U.S. will face Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday in Santa Clara, California, while third co-host Mexico returns to its capital city to take on Ecuador on Tuesday. Tournament favorite France goes back to the New York area to play Sweden on Tuesday, with the winner of that game going up against Germany or Paraguay in the round of 16.

Here are the games in the round of 32:

US vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina

, July 1

The Americans had their powerful momentum from two consecutive victories stalled in the loss to Turkey. But in the knockout round, they’ll face Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is 62nd in the FIFA rankings. Bosnia finished third in Group B with four points. U.S. star Christian Pulisic entered as a substitute in the second half against Turkey. He had not played since leaving the opening win over Paraguay at halftime with a calf injury. “We play every game like a knockout game,” said U.S. midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, who scored against Turkey. “You saw that in our intensity and the way we worked. For us, it’s keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

Belgium vs. Senegal, July 1

Belgium scored five times in its group play finale against New Zealand to not only advance but finish first. Up next is no easy task: a matchup against Senegal, which played France and Norway tough and routed Iraq to move on. The U.S.-Bosnia-Herzegovina winner faces the winner of this match.

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Germany vs. Paraguay, June 29

Germany comes into the knockout stage off a similarly low-key late defeat as the U.S., having already clinched its group with little to play for. Germany is a significant favorite against Paraguay, which lost to the U.S. 4-1 in its opener but steadied itself enough to move on.

France vs. Sweden, June 30

France came in as the tournament favorite and remains it after winning all three of its group games to set up a matchup against Sweden, which had a 5-1 win, a 5-1 loss and a draw.

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South Africa vs. Canada, June 28

These nations have already made history. It’ll be the first time both are in the knockout stage of the World Cup. Canada advanced as runner-up in Group B with four points — one win, one draw and one loss. South Africa was runner-up in Group A, also with four points, including a surprising win over South Korea.

Netherlands vs. Morocco, June 29

The Netherlands won Group F after a draw with Japan and outscoring Sweden and Tunisia by a combined 8-2. Morocco went unbeaten to finish second in Group C in pursuit of becoming the first African winner of the World Cup. Morocco reached the semifinals four years ago in Qatar.

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Portugal vs. Croatia, July 2

Playing Colombia to a 0-0 tie Saturday night meant a second-place finish in the group for Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal and a tougher path, which could include facing neighbor Spain for a spot in the quarterfinals. Croatia moved into this spot by defeating Ghana hours earlier.

Spain vs. Austria, July 2

Spain bounced back from a surprising 0-0 draw against Cape Verde in its first game to win its group, in the process sending two-time champion Uruguay home. Austria tied it in the final minutes after falling behind earlier in stoppage time to play Algeria to a 3-3 draw Saturday night and set up this matchup.

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Brazil vs. Japan, June 29

Japan advanced as Group F runner-up with a hard fought 1-1 draw against Sweden and the Samurai Blue’s reward is a knockout match against five-time World Cup champion Brazil. It’ll be a full-circle moment for Japan, which brought in Brazilian great Zico in 1991 to professionalize the country’s new domestic league and support Japan’s successful bid to co-host the World Cup in 2002. Now, the Japanese have a chance to show how far they’ve come against a country that has set the standard.

Norway vs. Ivory Coast, June 30

It would have taken beating favored France for Norway to win Group I. Instead, coach Ståle Solbakken opted to rest Erling Haaland and all but one starter. That sets up a matchup against the Ivory Coast at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Tuesday.

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Mexico vs. Ecuador, June 30

Winning all three of its group stage matches for the first time at the World Cup, Mexico goes into the round of 32 also having now allowed a single goal. It has outscored opponents 6-0 and now has the distinct home-field advantage at altitude back at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City against Ecuador, which rallied to beat Germany and advance.

England vs. Congo, July 1

It took Jude Bellingham scoring and setting up Harry Kane's goal to break a tie with Panama, but England got the job done Saturday to finish first in its group. Injuries are a question now, going into a matchup with Congo, which rallied to defeat Uzbekistan and advance.

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Argentina vs. Cape Verde

, July 3

Defending champion Argentina faces the smallest country to qualify for the knockout stage at a World Cup. Unsurprisingly, Cape Verde goes in as a massive underdog.

Australia vs. Egypt, July 3

This may be one of the most evenly matched round of 32 games, after Australia beat Turkey, lost to the U.S and drew with Paraguay. Egypt got through as the second-place team in Group G after a late goal by Iran on Friday night was called back for offside.

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Switzerland vs. Algeria, July 2

This was supposed to be Canada's spot in Vancouver, but Switzerland winning the teams' head-to-head matchup there and finishing ahead in the group gave the Swiss a plum spot. Algeria took a late lead on Austria before allowing the tying goal in the final minutes leading to a 3-3 draw and getting both teams in and eliminating Iran.

Colombia vs. Ghana, July 3

Passing Portugal for first in the group allows Colombia to open the knockout stage against Ghana, which entered with the lowest FIFA ranking at No. 74 but also played England to a scoreless tie.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here.

Pride events often mix celebration and calls to action, reflecting the political winds, cultural climate and news around LGBTQ+ rights.

This month's parades and festivals around the U.S. have unfolded as President Donald Trump works to roll back transgender rights and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Among other moves, the Republican's administration removed a rainbow Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument earlier this year, then ultimately relented amid a lawsuit.

“As LGBTQIA+ events and symbols are being erased, it’s vital that our community have safe spaces to show up and march to make clear: We are here,” Chris Piedmont, a spokesperson for New York parade organizers Heritage of Pride, said in a statement Friday. “We will not be erased.”

Meanwhile, multiple Republican governors have promulgated conservative-friendly designations for June, such as “Nuclear Family Month," sometimes openly describing them as a counter to Pride. Other prominent Republican politicians, including Vice President JD Vance, criticized Major League Baseball 's response to some San Francisco Giants players who added Bible verses to the rainbow-themed Pride Night caps they were issued.

Against that backdrop, the NYC Pride March and the San Francisco Pride Parade are setting out to further their legacies as some of the world's largest and oldest such celebrations.

Both trace their roots to events held in 1970 to commemorate the Stonewall rebellion on June 28, 1969, when patrons of a New York gay bar called the Stonewall Inn resisted a police raid and ended up kindling a wave of activism.

The Stonewall Inn still is a bar; the Stonewall monument centers on a small park across the street, about half a mile (about 0.8 km) from the Pride March route at its closest point.

Also set for Sunday in Manhattan is the newer Queer Liberation March, founded by activists who saw the Pride March as too corporate and official.

This year, some transgender rights activists also pressured Pride organizers to bar some New York City hospitals' contingents from marching because the institutions announced in recent months that they would stop providing transgender youth treatments. The cutoff came amid funding threats from the Trump administration, and at least some of the hospitals also got federal Justice Department subpoenas for transgender patients' medical records. A judge has temporarily blocked the document demand.

Heritage of Pride said it has been talking with the hospitals about the issue. The group also noted the parade contingents are organized by LGBTQ+ employee groups, not by the top administrators responsible for decisions about care.

A message was sent to San Francisco Pride organizers about whether they faced similar questions.

Other cities with Pride parades Sunday include Seattle, where a World Cup soccer match Friday took on a Pride dimension after the countries whose teams involved — Iran and Egypt — triedunsuccessfully to get the celebrations canceled.

What's to be done with that information is a bit open-ended. But the law set to take effect Wednesday is sparking alarm among immigrant advocates, who fear it could become a new tactic to target immigrants in conjunction with President Donald Trump's plan to deport millions of people lacking legal approval to live in the U.S.

The law says the state Department of Public Safety “may use all reasonable lawful investigative means available” to determine the number and identities of all “illegal aliens” in Mississippi. That includes collecting their names, addresses, country of origin and whether they are an adult or minor. It also includes noting any criminal history and the date, location and status of deportation proceedings.

The department is directed to share information on those suspected of violating laws with state and local authorities. The measure neither requires nor prohibits the database from being shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Republican state Sen. Angela Hill, who sponsored the measure, said states have a right and obligation to assist the U.S. government in discouraging illegal immigration, which she said facilitates crimes such as human and drug trafficking.

The new law “seems like commonsense to me,” Hill said. “In order to address the problems caused by illegal immigration, we need to understand the magnitude of the problem. Identifying the number and identity of illegal aliens in Mississippi is a concrete way to better understand the problem.”

Immigration laws are proliferating in states

Nationwide, states already have enacted more than 100 immigration-related laws this year, according to an Associated Press tally.

In Republican-led states, those measures generally have aligned with Trump's agenda by requiring local sheriffs to sign cooperative agreements with ICE, reinforcing eligibility restrictions for public benefits and directing election clerks to check voter rolls against the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system in an attempt to flag noncitizens.

Democratic-led states generally have pushed back against Trump with new laws banning cooperative pacts with ICE, forbidding ICE tactics like wearing masks and restricting immigration enforcement actions in schools, hospitals and other sensitive locations without judicial warrants.

The closest thing to Mississippi's new law appears to be a 2021 executive order by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. That measure directed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to “use all lawful investigative means available” to determine the number and identities of all “illegal aliens” who had been transported from the nation's southwest border to Florida.

The Florida agency did not respond to an AP request for information about the results of the executive order.

Trump's administration, meanwhile, has stepped up enforcement of a decades-old federal law that requires noncitizens to register with the U.S. government.

Some question how the Mississippi law will work

The Mississippi law envisions more than a one-time count. It prescribes an ongoing effort to keep track of immigrants illegally in the state for the next two years. That could get complicated as people overstay visas, apply for new forms of legal status and move into and out the state.

"You can be undocumented today, and then have status tomorrow, and then lose it again next month, and then regain it three months from now,” said Efrén Olivares, vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, a nonprofit that advocates for low-income immigrants.

“It’s practically unworkable, but it’s also very worrisome, because it’s eerily reminiscent of other countries that have created lists of certain groups of people,” Olivares said.

State officials will need to come up with “a credible and fairly foolproof way of correctly determining someone's immigration status,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit think tank that supports restrictions on immigration.

But Vaughan said the law “makes a lot of sense," adding that it "raises the likelihood that someone’s illegal presence is going to come to the attention of federal authorities.”

Advocates say the law could break trust with police

Mississippi has one of the country's smallest percentages of immigrants illegally residing in the state — fewer than 28,000 people, amounting to less than 1% of its population — according to a report by the American Immigration Council, which used 2023 Census Bureau data.

The new law “is very concerning for a bunch of different reasons,” including the potential to redirect law enforcement resources away from protecting the public to investigating people from foreign countries who may be contributing to the economy, said Victoria Francis, deputy director of state and local initiatives for the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of immigrants.

“A mandate like this invites profiling and turning entire communities into targets,” Francis said.

The law could undermine trust between police and residents, said Lydia Grizzell, policy and advocacy manager for the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi.

“That increases the likelihood of individuals not reaching out to law enforcement when it’s needed – and that is opposite of the mission,” she said.

The attack on Kuwait early Sunday was the first since the two sides signed a deal that aimed to halt fighting, and came as a multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the strait to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — likely setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran.

The U.S. military's Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the U.S.

In a social media post, Trump said the U.S. had “struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!” He warned of a point where the U.S. may no longer be able to be reasonable “and will be forced to militarily complete the job."

“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The incident follows a similar back and forth that occurred just days prior when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman on Thursday and the U.S. military retaliated with strikes.

US says strikes were a response to Iranian attack on oil tanker

According to ship tracking websites, the Kiku left a Qatari oil field in the middle of the Persian Gulf earlier in the week and was bound for a port in the United Arab Emirates that sits on the Gulf of Oman, just on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz.

It appeared to be attempting to use a route that was established near the coast of Oman that is serving as an alternative to the route sanctioned by Iran that runs through its own waters.

The U.S. military said that “Iran had a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement” but “elected not to” when its forces attacked the Kiku.

Iran state TV reported explosions in an area just north of the Strait of Hormuz.

After the U.S. strikes early Sunday, Kuwait's military said air defenses intercepted incoming Iranian drones and missiles. It offered no immediate information on any damage. Kuwait is home to a major U.S. Army base.

Bahrain condemns Iran’s drone attack

Earlier on Saturday, a statement from Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry said a “number of Iranian drones” targeted the country. It called the attack “a flagrant threat to the security of citizens and residents.” There were no immediate reports of damage.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard earlier issued a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency saying it had targeted several locations “of the U.S. terrorist army in the region.” It did not name what areas were targeted.

Bahrain has been one of the strongest critics of Iran and is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. It just hosted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s foreign ministers, which ended with a call for an end to Iran’s attacks and for the strait to be completely open.

Overnight into Saturday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it had struck Iranian missile and drone locations and coastal radar sites.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who has led the negotiations with Iran, said on social media Friday night that Iran should “pick up the phone” if there are disagreements about the ceasefire agreement, “but violence will be met with violence.”

The U.S. and Iran are negotiating terms of the deal including issues such as getting ships through the strait that’s vital to global supplies of oil and natural gas and addressing the future of Iran’s nuclear program and stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Under the interim deal, the two sides have 60 days to work out the details. Ending the fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group is a key part of the deal.

Ship comes under attack as strait route expands

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said that a tanker was attacked Saturday in the strait, with the crew safe and no environmental damage reported. No one immediately claimed the strike, but suspicion fell on Iran.

Just after that report, the Joint Maritime Information Center, overseen by the U.S. Navy, said the route near Oman’s shore is expanding to allow for inbound and outbound traffic.

Iran has insisted that ships must obey its orders and warned it will start charging fees for transit through the strait. However, ships have been increasingly trying to leave the Gulf in recent days.

Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, wrote Friday that “the Strait of Hormuz is governed by Iran, so: Respect the rules.”

The U.S. and Gulf Arab states have rejected Iran’s demands. The strait is considered as an international waterway, despite being the territorial waters of Iran and Oman.

The Joint Maritime Information Center warned that the threat to ships was “substantial,” adding that “mariners are advised of the existence of mines and should expect a naval presence as clearance operations continue.”

The International Maritime Organization on Friday halted a new effort to evacuate ships said it won’t resume until there are guarantees that the other ships won’t be attacked. It said about 115 ships have been able to move out of the strait in recent days.

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Toropin reported from Washington, Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

Families reported at least 68,900 people missing Saturday, three days after the one-two punch of 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes devastated the South American nation.

Venezuelans looking for loved ones and neighbors used shovels, heavy equipment, ropes and bare hands atop mounds of toppled concrete throughout La Guaira, one of the hardest-hit states. They were joined by a growing number of international rescue teams who began to climb through the rubble, offering a small glint of hope to anguished families.

Tensions peaked over what many Venezuelans viewed as an inadequate response by the government, whose soldiers, firefighters, police and military cadets were evidently underprepared to respond to the scope of the tragedy. Frustration was amplified by efforts to project the image of a robust state response.

Aid agencies consider the first 48 to 72 hours as crucial for retrieving people alive, though that can be extended if they have access to food and water. Venezuelan officials said 17 flights carrying more than 1,600 rescue team members had touched down by Saturday.

As 72 hours passed since the earthquakes struck, many felt every minute ticking away as they ran out of time to rescue people alive.

“There’s a pile of bodies over there from last night. Newborn babies," said Mileidy Romero, who was among those searching in the seaside town of Caraballeada. "At 8 p.m. (yesterday) there were people alive down there, and they haven’t bothered to rescue them. We’ve located several bodies, and they haven’t helped us recover them either. What are they waiting for?”

Tension mounts during rescue efforts

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said on state television that more than 14,000 members of the military and police are patrolling the area, where access is now blocked and special permits are required to enter. But many in disaster zones said they had seen little of their government.

Some people climbed the remnants of buildings and cried out names, hoping for any proof of life. Dust coated coastal communities. In punishing heat, more people wore masks as the stench of decomposition spread. In other parts of La Guaira, teams loaded stacks of bodies – some in white bags, other naked – onto white trucks from the ground of a dirt hospital parking lot, where they were being identified.

Without hard hats or other gear, rescuers and civilians instead wore motorcycle helmets as they searched piles of debris that were once people's belongings: Eddie Murphy and Nemo DVDs, a kitchen sink, mattresses and shoes.

Some, frustrated by the government's response, blocked an excavator from leaving the site of a collapse and pulled the operator from its cabin shortly after state workers took selfies in front of flattened buildings and left without helping. The ruling party’s officials often take selfies to show participation in government-related events.

A few feet away, at least five bodies wrapped in blankets.

A member of the crowd, Yeison Marcano, said those searching had received some assistance from an investigations unit but neither police nor the National Guard helped.

“They came to eat arepas and take pictures to make it look like they were working," Marcano said. "They didn’t even get their uniforms dirty like we have. We’ve been here for three days."

A minute later, a man tried to grab a firefighter, shouting and cursing. “Silence! Silence!” rescuers shouted as they tried to confirm whether someone was trapped alive.

Meanwhile, an older man was pulled from the rubble of a public housing building. Visibly disoriented, he begged a nurse for water. He fought with personnel who put him into a pickup truck, screaming, “My family! My family!"

Searches mix with uncertainty

The International Organization for Migration said over 6 million people could be affected, some 2 million in the capital, Caracas, alone.

Experts said the destruction was amplified by the quick succession of shallow quakes. For days, smaller aftershocks occasionally shook the capital, Caracas and areas hit by the quakes, including one measuring 4.8 on Saturday.

The disaster poses a huge challenge for Rodríguez, the former vice president who took office in January after the U.S. capture and removal of then-President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela has been facing economic disarray for more than a decade, and many people reject the legitimacy of the political movement Rodríguez represents.

Search teams and foreign aid continued to arrive from Mexico, the U.S., Brazil, El Salvador, France and elsewhere.

On Saturday, Mexican rescue teams climbed over collapsed buildings and pushed their heads into holes in the pancaked concrete to search for signs of life, occasionally hearing movement.

“We're rescuers from the Mexican military, if there's anyone down there still alive, make noise or scream. Now!" one man shouted.

A glimmer of hope

For many, the images of international aid teams arriving and climbing through the rubble alongside them offered a glimmer of hope. Yonahí Regalado has been calling out the names of her sister and 1-year-old nephew and godson since 1 a.m. the day after the earthquakes until aid workers began to arrive.

“It doesn’t matter who it is, whoever, whether it’s family or somebody else. If there is anyone alive, let’s get them out,” she said, as helicopters circled overhead.

Small moments of humanity mixed with grief and terror.

Rescue teams carefully handed down a 18-day-old swaddled in pink blankets from a building after 12 hours of searching for the baby boy and his mother, Telemundo reported. One 69-year-old woman, saved by Salvadoran teams, asked for a Coca-Cola upon being pulled out of the rubble, Salvadoran authorities said.

One video showed a Venezuelan rescuer comforting an elderly woman trapped beneath the rubble, scared that the structure would cave in if she moved.

“The roof won’t cave in. If it falls, I’ll be here with you,” he said.

Simón Bolívar International Airport, which serves Caracas, was badly damaged. One runway was operational as U.S. teams worked to repair the crucial throughway, Jeremy Lewin, a senior State Department official in charge of foreign assistance, told reporters.

Lewin said a U.S. Navy transport ship was docked off the coast, ready to receive airlifted survivors in need of medical attention. Lewin said it is a “race against the clock” to find people injured in the quakes.

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Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press journalists Juan Pablo Arraez and Matías Delacroix in La Guaira, Venezuela, Clara Preve in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Ali Swenson in Washington contributed to this report.

Dong Guangping was aboard a 3.3-meter (10.8-foot) inflatable boat in the waters off a western South Korean island in May when he was detained by South Korea’s coast guard for allegedly violating the country’s immigration law. It was his fourth known attempt to flee China.

At a court hearing in South Korea, he told reporters that he hopes to go to Canada to reunite with his wife and daughter, who have already been resettled there, according to South Korean media.

In a post Saturday on X, his friend Sheng Xue, a Chinese Canadian activist, said Dong had landed in Toronto following an Air Canada flight on Friday.

“He just had a big bowl of noodles with eggs, tomatoes and shrimps," she wrote in the post, adding that she has spent more than 10 years trying to get him out of China.

She attached a photo of Dong in a car with her and another photo of Dong holding a bowl.

Dong, a former police officer in China, has been detained several times for his activism. He lost his job as a police officer in 1999 after he co-signed a letter commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to Amnesty International.

He was imprisoned for three years in 2001 for “inciting subversion of state power” and spent more than eight months behind bars after being arrested in 2014 for participating in a memorial for victims of the Tiananmen crackdown, according to past statements from Amnesty International.

He previously escaped to Thailand and Vietnam, but authorities there deported him back to China. Dong also tried unsuccessfully to swim to a Taiwanese island.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has not immediately commented.

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This article has been updated to reflect that Dong has one daughter in Canada, instead of daughters.

It started when she led Tennessee to two national championships, then continued in the WNBA, where she won three titles and two MVP awards. She also helped the U.S. win two Olympic gold medals.

Parker was inducted Saturday night into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville. She was joined by Elena Delle Donne, Amaya Valdemoro and Isabelle Fijalkowski; coaches Cheryl Reeve and Kim Muhl; television analyst Doris Burke; and posthumous veteran honoree Barbara Kennedy-Dixon.

While accepting the honor, Parker said she had brothers who were eight and 11 years older than her. She spent her life trying to do whatever they did.

“Whenever I struggled when I was young, my mom would whisper ‘can do’ to me,” Parker said, referring to her nickname. “It reminded me to push the doubt away. I was a little girl who dared to dream. I whispered that to myself whenever I was scared.

“Nobody creates in a vacuum. They have influences. We are our ancestor's wildest dreams.”

Chamique Holdsclaw, another Lady Vols legend who presented Parker at the induction, put her career in perspective.

“She knocked down every bar set in front of her,” Holdsclaw said. “She changed the way the game looks. She brought creativity, skill and athletic ability.”

Parker is the 11th player and 17th person with Tennessee ties to be enshrined. Later this summer, Parker and Delle Donne will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Delle Donne originally committed to play her college basketball at UConn but chose instead to stay close to her Wilmington home at the University of Delaware. She was a three-time Colonial Athletic Conference Player of the Year. She was the No. 2 pick in the 2013 WNBA draft. Delle Donne was a two-time WNBA MVP and was part of an Olympic gold medal-winning team.

Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished international players, Valdemoro made her mark in the WNBA. The native of Spain was part of the Houston Comets' run of three straight titles. She also excelled in the EuroLeague.

Fijalkowski was born in France and played college basketball at the University of Colorado. She played in the WNBA’s first two seasons for Cleveland. She became the French national team’s career scoring leader with 2,562 points.

The head coach and executive since 2010 with the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, Reeve has won the league’s Coach of the Year honor four times and Executive of the Year twice. Reeve has led the Lynx to four WNBA titles. She was an assistant coach on two gold medal-winning Olympic teams before leading the U.S. to gold in 2024 as the head coach. Reeve took a break from the busy WNBA season to come to the induction ceremony. Her team plays at Dallas on Sunday.

After 37 years, Muhl announced his retirement as head women’s basketball coach at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He won 1,108 games.

Burke began working as a television analyst for Big East men’s basketball in the early 1990s. By 2017, she was a full-time NBA analyst for ESPN.

Kennedy-Dixon, who died in 2018, was a player and longtime administrator at Clemson.

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This story has been to corrected to delete an erroneous reference to Cleveland making the WNBA Finals.

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

The Cottonwood Fire, burning in rugged terrain in southwest Utah, severely damaged the Eagle Point ski resort and destroyed summer cabins in sparsely populated Beaver County. Authorities conducted damage assessments but did not yet have estimates of how many homes burned.

Gov. Spencer Cox, in a social media post, asked for prayers for firefighters and “the rains we desperately need.”

“It’s as bleak as it’s ever been ... and yet there were several miraculous stops and saves,” Cox said, referring to the work of the hundreds of firefighters assigned to the blaze.

They were among the crews that have poured into Utah as more wildfires in the arid state gained steam thanks to consecutive days of what forecasters called critical fire weather, or dangerously low humidity levels, warm temperatures and gusty winds.

There was little relief from the strong winds Saturday, but crews fighting the Cottonwood Fire were treated to higher humidity levels than the single digits that were expected, said Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the blaze.

“That was good news for us today,” Mason said.

Utah is coming off a record-low snowpack and the warmest winter on record, which has elevated fire danger. Much of the West is grappling with similar conditions, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

From Alaska to Florida, crews worked to corral dozens of fires, including three dozen that were classified as large and uncontained.

Nationally, nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) have burned since the start of the year, pushing the U.S. ahead of the 10-year average.

Firefighters grapple with more wind

Helicopters took to the skies hoping to put a dent in the Cottonwood Fire before afternoon winds kicked up again and grounded them. Air support also was grounded the previous afternoon as conditions deteriorated.

The fire ballooned to more than 144 square miles (373 square kilometers), and roughly 1,300 residents in the towns of Marysvale, Junction and Circleville remained on notice that they should be prepared to leave if conditions worsened.

Cox declared an emergency, and the state has restricted fireworks citing one of the most severe wildfire seasons in recent history and saying the blazes were stretching wildland firefighting capabilities.

“These fires are starting closer to homes and communities,” State Forester Jamie Barnes said. “One human-caused fire is one too many.”

The cause of the Cottonwood Fire has not been determined, but officials said the majority of those sparked so far this year have been human-caused. Forecasters also noted that lightning strikes around the West have resulted in fires.

Elsewhere in Utah, evacuations were in place for several small communities southwest of Salt Lake City, including Eureka, with a population under 1,000, and the Vernon Reservoir area. Highways running through the area were closed.

Two wildfires in that area — the Iron and the Cherry — covered a combined 112 square miles (290 square kilometers), fire officials said.

Visitors undeterred by wildfires

The towering column of smoke from the Cottonwood Fire was visible Friday from miles away, even from Bryce Canyon National Park to the south and Colorado to the east. It was hazy Saturday as the smoke drifted to the northeast, leaving air quality unaffected in places like Bryce and other popular vacation spots to the south.

Bob Miller of Yucaipa, California, who was staying at an RV park in Marysvale, was prepared to evacuate if needed. The evenings especially have been smoky, Miller said, but he and his family have still been able to enjoy the area, where they have vacationed for almost two decades.

“It’s still gorgeous,” Miller said.

“Fires happen around here. When you come every year, you kind of get used to that,” he added.

“After you’ve been through burned areas a few times, you look at it and you understand what nature can do.”

Red flag warnings issued around the West

The warnings stretched from California to Arizona to New Mexico, where firefighters battled several blazes amid windy conditions. That included a new one reported south of Grand Canyon National Park.

Authorities said the flames were moving away from Grand Canyon Village and the nearby community of Tusayan. The area was without power as the utility serving the area initiated a safety shut-off earlier in hopes of lessening the wildfire risk.

Park visitors could still purchase park passes at entrance stations as long as backup power systems remained operational, but officials said people should come prepared. That meant downloading maps before arriving and ensuring that phones and other devices are fully charged.

Power shut-offs have become more common in the West as wildfire risk has expanded. It is usually a last resort after utility forecasters weigh factors like sustained wind and gust speeds, available fuels and topography.

With extreme fire conditions persisting in Utah, Rocky Mountain Power also shut off power lines serving Beaver County and other areas.

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Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas; Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio; and Ed White in Detroit contributed.

According to court documents, he shot and killed Luis Hernandez during a dispute at his home on Craigmont Street near Telephone Road.

Officers responded to a family disturbance call at the location Saturday night around 8 p.m.

Investigators said an argument turned into an altercation in which both brothers produced weapons and struggled over them.

Guillermo Hernandez, Jr. is due in court Monday morning for his preliminary appearance.

He has an extensive criminal history including burglary and assault convictions.

• Mother pleads for answers after son killed in Harris County hit-and-run

A two-shot swing on the 18th hole — Hovland made a 6-foot birdie, Scheffler three-putted from 25 feet on the fringe for bogey — gave the Norwegian star a 6-under 64 and a one-shot lead over the world's No. 1 player.

“Just had a great time,” Hovland said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in this position. To go head-to-head against the best player in the world and pull off some great shots, it was just a lot of fun.”

The pleasant surprise was the support he had in the crowd.

Scheffler is enormously popular and the TPC Highlands had a vocal gallery. Hovland had plenty of support from a Norway contingent that drove over from Boston following a World Cup loss to France. Hovland gave them plenty of opportunity to do the “row” that has become so popular in the stadium and subway stations and wherever they gather.

Hovland knows it well. Oddly enough, it was the first time he had seen it live.

“I mean, we’re Vikings, so it’s kind of in our DNA,” Hovland said. “It’s kind of funny, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen it. I think that’s the first time we’ve ever done it, especially in the World Cup. So yeah, it took us 1,000 years to figure it out. I think it’s pretty cool.”

“Ro, ro, ro!” they chanted as Hovland approached the 18th green. “USA! USA!” came the American chants. It was good banter on a Saturday afternoon in New England, an example why partisan cheering in a World Cup year is far more palatable than a Ryder Cup year.

It was the second straight year Scheffler, whose bogey gave him a 67, fell from the top of the leaderboard going into the weekend at the TPC River Highlands, though this was no cause for alarm. A year ago, he opened with a triple bogey, shot 72 and fell nine shots behind.

This was one hole, and he was only one shot behind as Scheffler tries to win for the first time since the start to his season in the California desert.

Hovland was at 20-under 190 and gets another afternoon with Scheffler on Sunday. The next closest players were Patrick Cantlay (64) and Akshay Bhatia (67), who were five shots behind.

“This is a golf course where you can see some numbers be shot. You know, guys can shoot pretty low,” Scheffler said. “Going into tomorrow just try to execute, have a good round, and see where that puts me.”

Hovland started two shots behind and it took him four holes — three birdies — to catch Scheffler. From there, it was a bit of a pillow fight as they matched mostly pars, two birdies and one bogey to remain tied.

Scheffler regained the lead with a lob wedge to 2 feet on the 14th. Both got up-and-down from the front of the green on the reachable par-4 15th — Scheffler with a nifty chip that floated up the slope and trickled down to the pin — and exchanged pars going to the 18th.

That's where it flipped, giving Hovland the lead.

“The score is nice ... but I'm very process-driven,” Hovland said. "As soon as I find a certain feel that I can trust and it produces a pretty reliable shot shape, I know that I’m going to be able to score pretty well from there. So if I happen to shoot 2 under or 6 under or 9 under, that’s not the most important thing. As soon as I see the shots that I’m trying to hit and execute, that’s what gives me the confidence.

“Then it’s all a bonus on top being able to do it at this stage and in front of that many people.”

There was separation, but this is not a duel given the nature of this course that allows for low scoring and dynamic finishes because of the closing hole.

“The beauty of this golf course is that I think Scottie and I have separated ourselves from the rest of the field, but at the same time, 14 or 15 under is still very much in this thing if they go and shoot a very low score tomorrow,” Hovland said.

“So we still have to go out there and play very similar to what we did today,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re bringing in a lot more guys.”

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

Trump said on his Truth Social platform that his new pick for the immigration enforcement agency is a former U.S. Marine and a “PATRIOT with real operational experience." He called Schroyer a "proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst.”

Schroyer hails from the same home state as the new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former congressman. Earlier this month, Mullin brought Schroyer onstage at a National Sheriffs' Association event, calling him a “good friend of mine" and noting DHS had recently hired him.

On Saturday, Mullin quickly praised Schroyer in a statement highlighting the former trooper's 29-year career and his work with federal and state partners on a U.S. immigration enforcement program.

“President Trump made a great pick, and I’m confident Lance’s strong leadership and firsthand experience will empower the men and women of ICE to deport criminal illegal aliens, secure the homeland, and protect the American people,” Mullin said.

If confirmed, Schroyer will lead ICE at a time when the public mood has soured on Trump’s immigration crackdown, which sent surges of federal immigration officers into American cities to round up immigrants. Those raids sent tensions soaring and prompted clashes between protesters and law enforcement, leading to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Trump returned to the White House on a promise of mass deportations, and ICE has been a central executor of that vision. The agency is undergoing massive growth from a one-time injection of $75 billion last year, which has allowed for the hiring of 12,000 officers and increased detention capacity.

Mullin, who started in his role in March, has promised to keep his department out of the headlines and has indicated a softer tone on immigration, although he is expected to align with the president’s priorities on mass deportations.

Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior ICE official, said prior confirmed ICE directors have often been attorneys, though some state and local law enforcement officials have also been nominated. She said his background in Oklahoma suggests Mullin likely had influence over the pick.

“I think probably given the attention on ICE, he wants to feel like he has somebody he can trust in there,” she said in an interview.

John Torres, another senior ICE official, said Schroyer faces an uphill climb toward Senate confirmation but his experience being at the state and local level instead of the federal level might help.

“He won't have any of that baggage, where they're going to turn around and say, oh, well, he worked for this administration or that,” Torres said.

Schroyer's nomination comes after former ICE director Todd Lyons resigned at the end of May. David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison operator, has been serving as the acting head of the agency. Venturella is expected to stay on as the acting director until Schroyer is Senate confirmed, according to a DHS official speaking on condition of anonymity.

ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration, a result of polarizing politics around the agency and immigration policy.

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

Kittle tied the knot with his girlfriend, Barbara, in Reinsdorf’s suite during Chicago’s 10-run third inning. The White Sox went on to score their most runs since a 22-13 victory at Boston on May 31, 1970.

“He’s so superstitious he might marry somebody today in the bottom of the third,” Kittle, the 1983 AL Rookie of the Year, said Saturday about Reinsdorf.

Harold Baines and Greg Walker, Kittle’s teammates on the 1983 White Sox squad, and their spouses also attended the quick ceremony.

“My better half doesn’t want any notoriety, recognition. She wants to keep it to herself,” Kittle said. “But I invited Harold Baines and his wife and Greg Walker and his wife, and we did it and I was pretty excited. I think Jerry is excited. We’ve become a family over the years.”

The 1983 White Sox, who won the AL West, were honored before Saturday’s game between Chicago and Kansas City.

Kittle said he also is ordained and that he officiated a wedding in the outfield last season on Bill Veeck Day.

“Now I’m the only player to marry someone at the park and get married at the park," Kittle said. “And I’m good.”

Other members of the 1983 team who attended the pregame reunion at Rate Field were Hall of Famer Tony La Russa, who serves as a White Sox special adviser, Richard Dotson and Greg Luzinski.

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

Seemed to be, because Wimbledon then increased its prize money by 20%.

But several players are continuing the protest — by limiting media appearances — this weekend and in the first week of the grass-court Grand Slam, which starts Monday, arguing that they deserve a bigger share of revenues.

“We’re very grateful that Wimbledon has raised the prize money, but again it’s not really answering the questions that we’ve been asking,” Pegula said Saturday, when she limited her time with the press. “I don't know if the point is just not getting across.”

And the No. 4 player is already looking ahead to the last major on the calendar — the U.S. Open.

“We’ll see how it progresses ... after doing this today and over the next week and then going into obviously the next Slam which is the U.S. Open,” the 32-year-old American said. “I think we’ll kind of get a good grasp about where we’re really standing with the Slams and see what we can get out of that with talking to them.”

Wimbledon's total prize money including player per diems will be 64.2 million pounds ($85 million), the biggest annual increase, by sum of money, in the tournament’s history. The increase in 2013 represented a 40% hike over the prior year.

The singles champions at the All England Club will each get 3.6 million pounds ($4.75 million) — which also represents a 20% hike.

The protest began at the French Open, where players complained the total prize money only made up 14.3% of the clay-court tournament’s revenue.

On Wednesday, a statement by an advisory firm representing the players said the “direct action protest” would continue during Wimbledon's first week. The statement said the players’ share of Wimbledon’s projected revenue this year was 14.4%, which would be below the 14.9% share they received 10 years ago.

The All England Club has said it was “surprised and disappointed by this action.”

Not all players support protest

Novak Djokovic has not been a part of it.

“I have no views on that, to be honest. I’m not part of it. Just I’ll stay neutral on that,” the seven-time Wimbledon champion said Saturday

No. 6 Alex de Minaur took part in the Roland Garros protest but not this time, with the Australian saying in quotes reported by the BBC: “I thought that Wimbledon made a big step in the right direction, and something that should be noted. So this is for me to acknowledge their big step.”

Cam Norrie, who at No. 29 is the highest-ranked British men's singles player, noted improved facilities for players and said the prize money increase is “absolutely huge.”

Meanwhile, No. 5 Ben Shelton said “I back the players in this whole process” and rattled off a list of concerns. But he added that he wasn't limiting his time on media day “because Wimbledon is a special place.”

“They’ve always treated me well here,” Shelton said. “I think they have made an effort. I think that showed in the increase that they brought in prize money this year.”

What do the No. 1 singles players say?

Top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka described the 20% increase as a “great start.”

“I really hope we can finally get to the table and really get it done, come to a conclusion that everyone going to be happy with. Hopefully we’ll never have to do it again,” she said. “Once again, I hope we're not going to get to this boycotting again.”

Jannik Sinner limited a media appearance and deflected questions about the protest.

“It's getting better even though we are not at the point where we are 100% happy,” the Italian said.

Sinner said it's “not only about the money,” citing the need for improvements in player welfare. But he declined to engage in a question about Wimbledon's offer to work on creating a player council.

“I just think it's better if we don't discuss here, I don't like to talk about this at the moment,” he said.

The four-time Grand Slam champion also didn't want to address whether the players feel they are closer to a solution or a boycott.

“I think we talked enough about this at the moment. The Grand Slams know what we ask, then we see how it goes,” he said. “Again, I'm here now to talk about tennis.”

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

Some of those companies, called pharmacy benefit managers, also own pharmacies, and one of them, CVS, has spent millions of dollars fighting the regulations.

Affordability is a key issue ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Legislators in at least a dozen states passed laws this year to limit compensation to the companies, set minimum payments from the companies to pharmacists and require the companies to disclose more information to their clients, states and the public.

A Tennessee law will bar pharmacy benefit managers from operating retail pharmacies as of July 1, 2028, though CVS Health Corp. has filed a federal lawsuit to avoid having to close its 136 pharmacies there.

About 6 in 10 U.S. adults said in a poll conducted earlier this year by healthcare research nonprofit KFF that they were at least somewhat worried about being able to afford their prescriptions. About 4 in 10 said costs had led them not to take medications as prescribed within the previous year, either by taking less than the prescribed dose, using over-the-counter substitutes or not filling prescriptions.

Dozens of proposals emerge across the US

Pharmacy benefit managers, particularly CVS and two other large companies, handle most U.S. prescriptions.

Lawmakers in at least 26 states introduced more than 120 bills this year on PBMs, according to an Associated Press search using the bill-tracking software Plural, with about a quarter of the bills clearing at least one chamber.

The companies manage pharmacy claims for health insurers and negotiate with manufacturers over drug prices and what medications will be covered. Critics concede that the size of the top companies gives them leverage that health plans wouldn't have on their own.

The benefit managers argue that they're the only player in the drug supply chain created to help push drug costs down and they claim credit for an increased used of less-expensive generic drugs, now 90% of U.S. prescriptions.

“If PBMs already didn’t exist, you’d need to invent one,” said Prem Shah, president of the CVS Health group overseeing its pharmacy and PBM operations, in a recent interview. “Blaming PBMs for high drug prices is like blaming umbrellas for the rain.”

CVS fights restrictions in Tennessee

Drug companies, PBMs and their allies have spent at least $24 million on opposing broadcast and digital advertising since the start of 2025 to influence public opinion, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. CVS spent $4 million this year on ads opposing Tennessee's new law.

CVS sued Arkansas last year after it enacted similar legislation, and a federal judge blocked its law. CVS also settled three lawsuits in which Louisiana accused it of unfair trade and deceptive practices in lobbying against legislation there last year, agreeing to pay $45 million without acknowledging wrongdoing.

The CVS lawsuit in Tennessee alleges that the company, which operates 9,000 pharmacies nationwide, is facing “naked protectionism” from lawmakers who operate independent pharmacies — including the law's main sponsor, state Sen. Bobby Harshbarger and co-sponsor Sen. Shane Reeves.

Independent pharmacies say they're being squeezed

In Knoxville, Seth White, who manages a CVS pharmacy, will have to find a new job if the Tennessee law stands, and he's also worried about hundreds of its customers having to go elsewhere for their medications.

Some 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) away in Coldwater, Kansas, Lisa Gales is on the opposite side of the debate. She and her husband operate the Main Street Pharmacy, and she said they rely heavily on sales of non-pharmacy items to offset low reimbursements from pharmacy benefit managers.

Gales calculates she lost money on 86% of the prescriptions she filled last year. A new Kansas law will require PBMs to pay a $10.50 dispensing fee per prescription. Gales called it a “great win,” even though, “It’s still way under what it’s costing us.”

A new Louisiana law imposes an $11.81 dispensing fee. Another says PBMs must operate for the benefit of their health-insurer clients and people enrolled in health plans.

Critics deride each mandatory dispensing fee as an extra “pill tax” that will drive up consumers' costs. Backers dispute that, saying the laws also limit what PBMs charge health plans for the cost of medications themselves — so that it's often well below wholesale prices.

Pharmacy benefit managers push drugmakers to give big discounts on those wholesale prices but face criticism for keeping any portion of them. Some states now require PBMs to pass along all discounts.

Patients are watching the debate

It all worries consumers, particularly in small towns, who fear it could become harder to get their medications if PBMs squeeze independent pharmacies on reimbursements to the point of endangering their businesses.

In southeastern Kansas, Faith Sanders, a 79-year-old retired nursing home administrator, said the pharmacy in her hometown of Cedar Vale is important because without it people would have to drive 35 miles (56 kilometers) “to go out of town to get anything.”

For her many elderly neighbors, she said, “We get to the point where it’s hard for us to get out of town.”

Meanwhile, even some PBM critics question whether states can effectively regulate them. In Tennessee, state Rep. Robert Stevens, a Nashville-area Republican, told colleagues during a debate that cracking down on PBMs “needs to be done by Congress and not by us.”

Congress did pass new PBM regulations in February. One law will prevent PBMs from keeping any rebates they’ve negotiated on drug prices for health plans that supplement federal Medicare coverage for Americans over 64.

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This story has been updated to correct the name of CVS executive Prem Shah, not Prem Shaw.

St. Louis sent the Nos. 73 and 76 picks to Toronto for the 29-year-old defenseman.

Carlo lasted just 88 games with the Leafs after they sent a first-round pick, a fourth-rounder and highly regarded forward prospect Fraser Minten to Boston for him at the deadline in March 2025. That was with the previous regime in charge, and general manager Brad Treliving was fired two months ago and replaced weeks later by John Chayka, and they only got to keep the pick this year because they won the lottery for the No. 1 overall pick.

This is the third trade of the week for the Blues, who are also in transition as GM-in-waiting Alexander Steen is set to take over for seasoned executive Doug Armstrong next week. Armstrong in his final days at the helm has been plenty busy.

On Tuesday, he traded Jordan Kyrou to Washington for fellow forward Connor McMichael, prospect Milton Gastrin and the No. 16 pick, accumulating a league-high four in the first round. On Friday night, he sent two of them to Anaheim for 23-year-old Mason McTavish, who is signed through 2031.

Carlo provides some dependable veteran stability on the right side on defense, especially if the Blues decide to trade Colton Parayko or Justin Faulk as part of their summer overhaul. He is going into the final year of his contract at a salary cap hit of just under $3.5 million.

“We’re excited (Carlo has) got his size and length, his ability to kill plays, his experience,” Armstrong told reporters in Centene, Missouri. “Getting stronger up front and having strong goaltending, we think we’re going to be more competitive than we were last year.”

Toronto used the third-round picks on Canadian winger Zach Olsen and Swedish defenseman Mans Gudmundsson.

Hurricanes get John Carlson's rights

The reigning Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes jumped the queue to talk to John Carlson before the 36-year-old defenseman can become an unrestricted free agent on Wednesday. They sent the 192nd pick and the rights to pending restricted free agent forward Kyle Masters to Anaheim to get an exclusive negotiating window with Carlson.

Traded to the Ducks by the Capitals less than 13 hours before the deadline in March, Carlson is believed to want to get back on the East Coast for family reasons. He spent his first 16-plus NHL seasons with Washington and helped the team win the Cup in 2018.

More trades at the NHL draft

New Nashville president of hockey operations and GM Chris MacFarland spent his first few weeks on the job largely adding players he was familiar with from his time in Colorado. On Saturday, he added fresh blood from the East by acquiring big, Swedish winger Adam Edstrom in a trade with the New York Rangers.

The Predators sent the 148th pick in the draft (a fifth-rounder) and the rights to minor leaguer Massimo Rizzo to New York. The Rangers, who also traded Brett Berard to Montreal on Friday, are not expected to tender Rizzo a qualifying offer and would make him an unrestricted free agent.

The Avalanche traded Ivan Ivan to the Bruins for Fabian Lysell in a swap of young forwards.

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

The agreement signed Friday in Washington links Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon to Hezbollah's disarmament, something the group rejects.

Several previous ceasefire agreements that Lebanon has negotiated with Israel since the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war were never implemented on the ground. More than 4,000 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes since March, when Hezbollah fired at Israel two days after the Iran war began.

In a statement Saturday, Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said his group will keep fighting until Israel is forced to leave Lebanon. The group's supporters protested in the streets of Beirut following the announcement of the agreement.

Despite the deal, the Lebanese state news agency reported an Israeli drone strike near the southern city of Nabatiyeh. It also reported that Israel's military released three Lebanese and three Syrian workers who were taken near the southern village of Ain Arab on Friday.

Deal calls on Israel to withdraw but only if Hezbollah disarms

The talks between Israel and Lebanon were separate from the interim deal signed earlier this month by the U.S. and Iran.

Details of the deal that the U.S. State Department released Saturday say Lebanon and Israel aim to eventually end the state of war between them that began when Israel was created in 1948.

The deal says Israel will withdraw from Lebanon, provided Hezbollah disarms.

It calls for Israel to initially withdraw from two small areas, called pilot zones. It did not say where they will be. The Lebanese army will gradually assume full security responsibility over those areas. The countries will agree to future pilot zones for Israel's withdrawal in the future, the agreement says.

The deal has a security annex that includes details of the deployment of the Lebanese army and redeployments of Israeli troops. The security annex was not made public.

As part of the deal, Israel stresses that Hezbollah's disarmament throughout Lebanon and additional security measures to be agreed upon between the countries will eliminate any future need for the Israeli army’s military action or presence in Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement said Israeli forces will remain in southern Lebanon “until Hezbollah and the rest of the terrorist organizations are disarmed, and until no further threat to Israel is posed from Lebanon.”

Netanyahu said the two agreed-upon zones will have a “pilot program for disarming Hezbollah and transferring the territory to the control of the Lebanese army.” He said Israel's military already withdrew from one.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military has been instructed “to prepare for an extended stay.”

Hezbollah's leader rejects the deal as ‘a humiliation’

From Hezbollah’s point of view, the deal is nonexistent, Kassem said.

He called the agreement a “humiliation,” adding that linking Israel’s withdrawal to Hezbollah’s disarmament as a “very dangerous suggestion.”

The deal prompted one of the group’s officials, Hassan Fadlallah, to warn that it could result in civil war because Hezbollah won't give up its weapons and will resist any measures taken by the Lebanese army.

Judge Ahmed Rami al-Hajj, Lebanon's top public prosecutor, on Saturday told the heads of the country’s security agencies to take measures to prevent riots.

Some Israelis and Lebanese doubt the deal will last

The deal says both Lebanon and Israel recognize that the restoration of security in southern Lebanon through the deployment of the Lebanese army, the safe return of its civilian population and the security of Israel’s northern communities are essential to long-term stability and peace.

“Personally, I don’t think it will be lasting because the Lebanese military cannot really stand a chance against Hezbollah,” said Israeli citizen Ronit Belson while visiting the town of Metula along the border.

In Lebanon, people were divided.

“People just want to rest for good. I support the Lebanese authorities in the decision” taken, said Rabie Sammour, a resident of the southern city of Sidon.

Another Sidon resident, Khaled Ghannoum, said the deal “legitimized Israel’s occupation.”

In an apparent reference to Iran, which has sent billions of dollars in cash to Hezbollah over the past four decades, the deal says Lebanon and the U.S. commit to preventing funds from flowing to any entity, organization or individual affiliated with non-state armed groups.

The deal states that the Lebanese government explicitly commits to prevent reconstruction funds from flowing to non-state armed groups and connected entities.

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Mor reported from Metula, Israel. Associated Press journalist Ibrahim Hazboun contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

This is the Great American State Fair.

The fair kicked off this week and is a run by Freedom 250, an organization created by President Donald Trump to run his administration's official events. Its creation caused tension with America250, a congressionally created group that was designed to plan the nation's 250th anniversary. The event on the National Mall will run into July.

Crowds came in small numbers early Friday, spending little time at security. The entryway led straight to a 110-foot tall Ferris wheel, the lone ride at the fair, and a smaller arch, similar to the ones that the Republican president has used to adorn other events.

The consensus among people who were interviewed was that the fair was a great idea — and perhaps an opportunity missed.

A fair for America that highlights divisions for some

Familiar to anyone who has ever attended a fair were the goats, sheep and a calf whose mooing could be heard across the Mall, all courtesy of the Washington High School Future Farmers of America from Jefferson County, West Virginia. Baby chicks, resplendent in all of their downy softness, were a huge draw, and there was the promise of a cowboy performance with bucking broncos to highlight the rise of the American cowboy.

Visitors were united by their enthusiasm for states to come together and show off their unique characters, famous natives, industries and history and geographical diversity. They were also drawn by a desire for a nonpartisan celebration of American unity.

“There’s nice people, nice events, nice family events,” said Sharyn Bovat, who said she lived in Florida but has remained in the Washington area since having a heart attack this year. “Half the country is divided with the other half. I wish they would create a USA 250 for all the people. I’m tired of the politics.”

She said the arch was the main thing that gave the event a political overtone. “It makes me think of Germany,” she said.

The fair booths, all inside structures that resembled the neoclassical architecture of the nearby National Gallery of Art, offered snippets of Americana to visitors.

The varying aspects of America on display

Among the items representing Montana was a gigantic rib cage, a scaled-up version of apatosaurus, which is a cousin to the better-known brontosaurus.

Virginia's booth offered a journey through the state's role in American history. For the District of Columbia, there was a huge banner for visitors to sign, along with a tree filled with cherry blossoms. South Carolina invited people to enjoy a putting green.

Texas included a space capsule, a facade of the Alamo and a statue — Big Tex. The one place where there was a line outside was for Arizona's exhibit, which had an interactive that allowed visitors to put themselves in terrain from the state.

Visitors to New Jersey's booth saw an ornate sandcastle made from 7,000 pounds of sand brought from the Jersey Shore and built over the course of four days by an artist.

Andy Walters and his wife, Kirsten, were there with their three children from Wapakoneta, Ohio, the boyhood hometown of Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong. “I think it's nice. I wish all the states were participating,” Andy Walters said. “It's a little underwhelming but it's a great idea.”

Kirsten Walters said she wished something similar would be held more often, without the overtones. “We’re excited to be here and participate,” she said.

Not all states participated or staffed their booths

Most states participated, treating the fair almost like a tourism opportunity. But there was not full representation.

Maine, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania opted to not send delegations, citing costs, scheduling or politicization concerns. Pennsylvania's senators John Fetterman, a Democrat, and Dave McCormick, a Republican, said Saturday they had gotten together with several business trade organizations to “make sure the Keystone State would have a showcase worthy of its singular place in our nation’s history.”

Some booths, including those for Hawaii and Alaska, were unstaffed. Hawaii's did feature a couple of rocking chairs, which tired visitors put to good use.

Alonzo Lewis Jr. and Kelly Domizio, from Rome, New York, took advantage to take a load off.

“This was really pretty cool,” she said. “Been going to all the different states.”

But her husband had a different view.

“Was it necessary, I don't think so,” Lewis said. “It feels forced. There's so much separation.”

Domizio said she remembered the bicentennial in 1976.

“There was a sense of pride” and togetherness she said. “We are enjoying the day but it feels forced.”

But some of the most emphatic applause he received during his remarks came when he acknowledged the Democratic Party’s “troubling history of taking Black voters for granted.”

“Let’s just be very honest,” Talarico said Friday to a room in Corpus Christi packed full of Black Democrats from around the state. “I am committing to you to not make those mistakes. I am committed to working with the members of this caucus to show up for, invest in and fight for the votes of every Black Texan.”

Nearly four months after defeating U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas — one of the state’s most prominent Black politicians — for the U.S. Senate nomination, Talarico’s quest to coalesce Black Democrats behind his candidacy was still ongoing among the party’s rank-and-file activists at a convention where Texas Democrats were looking to present a forceful show of unity.

The unease about Talarico’s standing with Black Texans stems from a primary in which polls consistently showed the Austin Democrat with meager support — sometimes under 10% — from Black voters. The rest went to Crockett, forming the basis of her 46% vote share in the March primary. She endorsed Talarico the day after her loss and urged Democrats to “rally around” their nominees.

More recently, however, Crockett has cast doubt on whether Black voters have unified behind Talarico and the broader statewide ticket. Ahead of this week’s convention, which she skipped, Crockett also declined to commit to campaigning for Talarico, telling the Dallas Morning News she was “more focused on down-ballot races.”

Energizing the Black voters core to the Democratic base will be critical for Talarico’s chances in November, when he’ll need a surge in turnout among left-leaning voters, even as he also works to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans — namely those repelled by the legal and ethical scandals and hard-right politics of Republican U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton, the attorney general.

“I don’t have to tell this caucus, though, that there is no way to win this race without Black Texans — no way at all,” Talarico said. “This is not going to be easy. This is a big state, and we don’t have a lot of time. But I am looking forward to being your partner in this fight, because we have to win.”

Talarico — who also stopped by several other caucuses Friday, including the Latino, labor and Stonewall Democrats’ meetings — was well received at the Black caucus, with a notable portion of the room jumping to their feet when he appeared.

Still, Black elected officials and local activists at the convention said the Austin Democrat, along with the broader statewide ticket and state party, had more work to do to engage and mobilize Black Democrats across the state, while noting that there was still time to do so before November.

“The feeling overall is they’re not” doing enough, state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, said in an interview at the convention. “A lot of Black Texans are angry. They feel disenfranchised, and they feel that the party has taken them and their votes for granted. So I am worried that folks will sit out, folks won’t vote.”

Gervin-Hawkins was among a handful of Black elected Democrats in the Legislature, in addition to local Black community leaders, who signed on to a recent letter to Talarico relaying concerns about the level of his campaign’s outreach to Black voters and asking for a clearer picture of his strategy in the coming months.

“Our intent is not to criticize but to collaborate,” a draft of the letter, obtained by The Texas Tribune, reads. “We want to ensure that Black communities are viewed as essential partners in this campaign and that the concerns, priorities and leadership of Black Texans are reflected in the path forward.”

State Sen. Royce West of Dallas, one of the state’s longest-tenured Black officials, said he was heartened by Talarico’s efforts so far to connect with Black communities. But, echoing the letter’s signatories, he said the candidate’s plan for Black outreach had yet to fully manifest.

“We’re still writing the story,” West, who has endorsed Talarico, said. “We’re not there yet. But I can tell you, I’m pleased by the steps that I’ve seen thus far.”

West, who lost the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in 2020 to a white opponent, MJ Hegar, whose Black outreach he later criticized, continued, “I see good faith — but I’ve seen good faith before that ended up being not fully realized. But this time around, I think it’s going to be different.”

Asked if he thought Talarico and the broader ticket was doing enough to earn Black voters’ trust, state Rep. Venton Jones of Dallas said, “no,” but that the next few months ahead of Labor Day — the unofficial kickoff of election season — would be the time for that organizing.

“Right now we’re waiting to see what happens. There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said, while acknowledging that Democrats’ insufficient efforts to mobilize Black voters predates the campaigns of Talarico and other 2026 nominees.

Since clinching the nomination, Talarico has worked to build his support among Black voters by visiting Black churches and universities, meeting with local Black leaders around the state and outlining a policy plan to combat maternal mortality, which disproportionately affects Black women. He has also scooped up endorsements from influential Black Democrats who backed Crockett in the primary, like Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, along with groups such as Omega Network for Action, a national organization affiliated with the major Black fraternity Omega Psi Phi.

“James is doing everything he can do to figure out how to engage with the Black community,” state Rep. Aicha Davis of Dallas, a Talarico campaign surrogate, said. “He’s being in uncomfortable spaces, he’s hearing criticism, he’s taking it back and he’s planning to not just to win Black votes, but to improve Black communities.”

Some of those efforts have revealed the fledgling state of Talarico’s mission to win over Black voters. When Talarico visited Prairie View A&M University, the oldest historically Black public university in Texas, in April, just a couple hundred students attended his town hall out of a population of over 10,000, said Waller County Democratic Party Chair Denise Mattox.

“It’s not that they’re against him, or they don’t believe in him, or they don’t want to go for him,” Mattox said. But “he’s not an entity for them right now.”

Still, she said she appreciated his address to the Black caucus in Corpus Christi Friday. “That was the most important message to Black voters you can tell them: ‘You are not invisible, I am going to represent you,’” she said.

During the primary, Talarico repeatedly praised Crockett’s leadership and urged his supporters to remain respectful. But the contest was nevertheless fraught with racial tensions, with some of Crockett’s supporters accusing Talarico’s campaign of racism, based on the case many of his backers made that the Dallas congresswoman, a partisan firebrand, would be less electable in a general election. The primary was also thrown for a loop when former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, after dropping out of the race just before Crockett’s entry, later amplified a content creator’s accusation that Talarico referred to him as a “mediocre Black man,” a charge Talarico disputes.

Some of the bad blood has spilled beyond the primary, as a scattering of the social media influencers who boosted Crockett have defended her muted support for Talarico, while accusing his supporters of alienating Black Democrats by acting entitled. Those posts, in turn, have received a flood of backlash from other Democrats replying that the discourse from Crockett stalwarts is stoking intraparty divisions. Republicans have taken notice of the lingering tensions online, with several, including Gregg Keller, a spokesperson for a pro-Paxton super PAC, fanning the flames on X.

State Rep. Ron Reynolds, who backed Crockett in the primary, said Talarico “has to work extra hard to build that trust” and win over Crockett’s coalition of Black supporters, some of whom still have “hard feelings” after their candidate came up short.

But Reynolds added that Talarico’s campaign was “working diligently to earn the African American vote” and had committed to him to continuing to invest in outreach to Black communities.

“He understands that that’s probably one of his biggest hurdles right now, and he is not ignoring it,” Reynolds said. “It hasn’t materialized fully yet, obviously, but I do believe that the convention is a way to kick it off and level set it. I believe when they leave here, they’ll be going across the state.”

Recent public polling found that two-thirds of Black voters planned to support Talarico in November, with around 12% unsure either way. At this point in their respective election cycles in 2018 and 2024, Democratic U.S. Senate nominees Beto O’Rourke and Allred both polled below 50% among Black voters — and both ultimately won roughly 90% of the group.

Still, Democrats are concerned less with the prospect of Black voters defecting to Paxton, and more so with the potential that too many will stay home or skip the Senate race on their ballots.

“With Congresswoman Crockett’s loss, there are no — zero, zilch, nada — Black statewide candidates for the midterms. Black Texans are hurt, angry and discouraged,” state Rep. Jolanda Jones of Houston said on stage at the convention Saturday. “But there is good news: We can earn the Black vote — not assume it, not expect it, but earn it.”

In a nod to Texas’ history of Black leadership, Talarico opened his speech to the full convention Friday night with a quote from Barbara Jordan, the trailblazing Houston Democrat who became the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South.

“Barbara Jordan said: ‘I get from the soil and spirit of Texas the feeling that I, as an individual, can accomplish whatever I want to,’” Talarico said. “Barbara Jordan felt that spirit of Texas in her bones. It was the spirit that propelled her from the hells of Jim Crow to the halls of power. I feel that spirit tonight in this room.”

Disclosure: Prairie View A&M University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The activists demanded the closure of the only federal family detention center, described by a Japanese internment survivor as inhumane and a tragic “repetition of American history.”

Free Families, a national coalition of organizations advocating for immigrant families, organized the pilgrimage with Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministries, Grassroots Leadership and Tsuru for Solidarity, a group of Japanese American concentration camp survivors and descendants who work to end detention. The goal of the pilgrimage was “to shut down Dilley, end family detention in its entirety, and stop family separation caused by ICE targeting and detention.”

Action was a central theme of the pilgrimage. “Join us everywhere,” said Mike Ishii, executive director and co-founder of Tsuru for Solidarity. “March in solidarity, walk in spiritual faith and strength, just as we are doing today.”

“Together, as a country, we will transform the violence, and we will open the future to a new path,” he said.

The pilgrimage began Wednesday morning at the Crystal City Concentration Camp, where Japanese American families were imprisoned in Texas during World War II.

Walking up to 12 miles each morning, the group arrived at Dilley’s South Texas Family Residential Center around 10 a.m. Saturday.

Interfaith leaders and activists prayed, delivered a meditative chant and tied chains of multicolored origami cranes to the facility’s 10-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire.

The paper cranes were folded by Japanese American concentration camp survivors and their descendants.

“We bring [these cranes] on their behalf and in solidarity with the children and the families being subjected to violence inside of Dilley and in every detention site across the country,” Ishii said. “The message from us is this must stop.”

“We will transform the violence,” Ishii said as 16-wheelers barreled down the nearby highway. “We will open the future to a new path.”

The Dilley facility is the nation’s only immigrant detention center that imprisons parents with their children. About 70 miles southwest of San Antonio, the facility has held children ranging from infants to teenagers.

The South Texas Family Residential Center opened in 2014, becoming the Department of Homeland Security’s largest immigrant family detention center. It can hold 2,400 people and was designed to accommodate women and children.

The facility has been the site of intense protests, with critics saying it is inhumane to detain young children and mothers as criminals when they pose no security risk.

Criticism led to the closure of Dilley’s facility during the Biden administration. In March 2025, the Trump administration reopened the facility with CoreCivic, a private prison corporation. Under the Trump administration, the daily number of children detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement increased over sixfold, with Dilley’s facility as the primary detention center for children.

This year, Dilley has made national headlines. After photos of immigration agents detaining 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in Minnesota went viral, protesters clashed with authorities outside the facility, where he was transferred. During a January protest at the center’s gates, authorities used tear gas and pepper ball grenades on hundreds of faith leaders, advocates and residents. Two people were arrested.

A few days later, the Dilley facility reported two cases of measles. Those incarcerated at the facility have reported moldy, worm-ridden food and neglectful medical care. Ms. Rachel, a popular children’s entertainer, recently called Dilley’s detainment of children “child abuse.”

For survivors of Japanese internment, Dilley’s family detention facility hearken to the U.S. concentration camps that shuttered 80 years ago.

In 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, nearly all persons of Japanese ancestry in the mainland U.S. were forced into internment camps for the remainder of World War II. More than 120,000 people were incarcerated, over two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens. Still alive today are several survivors who were incarcerated as children.

Standing outside the Dilley detention center’s fence, Rev. Kenji Akaposhi, a retired Buddhist minister and survivor of Japanese internment, told pilgrims, “I was 2 weeks old when my family was incarcerated. Because of that trauma that I suffered — that has been with me my entire life — I am here to help those, especially the children, whose lives are being affected as we speak.”

Satsuki Ina, 82, was born inside Crystal City camp, where her family was held for more than four years. Saturday marked Ina’s second pilgrimage to Dilley’s detention facility, and she was accompanied by other survivors, including Chizu Omori, 96, who was also returning to Dilley for the second time.

“It’s heartbreaking to know we are back here again,” Ina said.

“We might be old, we might be here with our canes and our hearing aids and our walkers and our dentures, but we’re mad,” she said.

Ina was accompanied by her 22-year-old granddaughter, Skyla Tomine, who is the national organizing fellow for Tsuru for Solidarity and a descendant of relatives from three different internment camps.

“I am heartbroken again that she has to even be here,” Ina said. “What is happening today is a repetition of American history, over and over and over again.”

Pastor Dianne Garcia, who leads a Mennonite community, opened the ceremony with a faith-based reflection.

“We know that God cries out for justice with us, as we have cried out for justice,” she said.

Garcia’s 12-year-old daughter, Clara, led the group in a song that was produced in collaboration with children inside Dilley’s detention facility.

“I sing from here, and you sing from there. Together we’ll sing down the walls everywhere. Love in our hearts like the waves of the sea. Together we’ll sing until everyone’s free,” she sang.

The ceremony closed with Ishii leading a chant frequently recited in Japanese internment camps. “Kodomo no tame ni. There are children, set them free,” the group shouted.

This story is published through a collaboration between The Texas Tribune and Religion News Service.

Serena Williams is the star, though, at Wimbledon.

The 44-year-old Williams' presence has been emanating throughout SW19 — the famous post code of Wimbledon — as she prepares to play her first singles match at the event in four years Tuesday when she faces No. 53 Maya Joint in the first round.

Mirra Andreeva, who just won the French Open, was basically crossing her fingers when the Wimbledon draw was announced.

“I was watching like this because I don’t think anyone in the draw would have wanted to play against Serena," the smiling Russian teenager said Saturday. “I’m going to speak for myself. I wouldn’t want to play against Serena. I would be just very nervous.”

Williams had been away from the sport since her farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open but she accepted a wild-card entry to play women’s doubles with her sister Venus, who is 46. And then she accepted another to play singles.

Williams’ most-recent appearance at Wimbledon was in 2022 when she lost in the opening round to Harmony Tan, who was then-ranked 115th. The American great walked away from tennis — she described it as “evolving” away — after losing in the third round to Ajla Tomljanovic at Flushing Meadows. Her second daughter was born in 2023.

Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon singles title winner, could meet Swiatek in the third round.

Venus provides some motivation

Serena Williams officially returned to tennis earlier this month in a doubles match with 19-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko at the Queen’s Club grass-court tournament.

“Unexpectedly, before her first match she asked me did I have any motivational quotes I use for myself,” Venus Williams said Saturday. “I told her what I was using at the time. I don’t know if that helped or not. She did win the match.”

The Williams sisters will play their first-round doubles match against Colombia’s Camila Osorio and Solana Sierra of Argentina.

Serena and Venus have won 14 Grand Slam titles together in doubles, including six at Wimbledon. Their first two doubles titles at the All England Club, in 2000 and 2002, came as wild cards.

“For us it was about the titles, we wanted the Grand Slam titles. We just wanted to bring them home,” Venus said. “We did pretty good.”

Djokovic inspired by Serena

Novak Djokovic calls Serena Williams' tennis comeback “inspirational” and “epic.”

“That’s what I told her,” Djokovic said Saturday.

“I see her in the gym more than I have, I think, seen her when she was at her prime,” Djokovic, a 24-time major champion, said of Williams, a 23-time major winner in singles. “It tells me that she really wants this to work out the best way possible.”

Djokovic added: “I always admired her career, her journey, her story. Of course, Venus’, as well.”

Gauff and Sabalenka too

Coco Gauff, the No. 7 seed at Wimbledon, said Serena and Venus were the “biggest” inspiration on her.

“I played the sport because of them, believed that I could do things because of them. I look up to them a lot,” she said.

Sabalenka added: “It’s amazing what she’s doing. Also it’s Serena Williams, everyone was talking about that. She’s bringing more eyes on tennis. It’s a good thing for tennis. I’m really excited to see her play.”

___

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

Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews’ ruling overturns a June 15 decision by Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher to disqualify the challenger and keep him off the primary ballot. Matthews’ ruling can be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Attorneys for the state have said Tuesday is the deadline for a final ruling so that ballots for the Aug. 18 primary can be printed.

The judge ruled that the division’s decision to exclude Dan J. Sullivan because his candidacy was not “in good faith” was not based on the Constitution, Alaska law or the division’s own regulations. The retired teacher from the small fishing community of Petersburg filed to challenge the incumbent.

“Instead, the decision was based upon a new, previously unstated, ‘good faith’ criteria,” the judge wrote.

The division is appealing the decision, Sam Curtis, a spokesperson with the state Department of Law, said by email Saturday. Jeffrey Robinson, an attorney for Dan J. Sullivan, said in an email he expected the division to appeal and couldn't comment until the Alaska Supreme Court rules on the case.

The controversy over the two Dan Sullivans has underscored the stakes involved in the incumbent’s reelection campaign. The Alaska race is one of about half a dozen U.S. Senate races expected to be highly competitive in the fall, and the seat is one Democrats are trying to flip in their efforts to try to regain the majority.

The senator and allies, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have condemned the challenger’s efforts to join the race, arguing his presence could confuse voters. Under Alaska’s election system, the top four candidates from the primary, regardless of party, move on to the ranked-choice November general election.

The senator has accused the challenger Sullivan of working with Democrats and the campaign of Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola — who is considered the senator’s main opponent — to cause confusion and boost Peltola’s chances. Peltola’s campaign and state Democrats have denied the allegation, as has the challenger.

Sen. Sullivan and Peltola are the highest-profile candidates in the crowded race and the only ones to report raising any money.

Beecher has said she determined the challenger Sullivan is not eligible to run because his candidacy was not filed in good faith and instead was done with an intent to confuse voters. She said he had registered to vote as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and, in conjunction with his candidacy, changed his party affiliation to Republican. She also cited similarities between his campaign website and the senator’s, and his work with a consultant whose clients have included some Democrats. She did not mention finding any evidence of alleged coordination.

In arguing to keep the challenger disqualified, attorneys for the state pushed back on suggestions the ballot could be designed in a way to reduce voter confusion over two candidates with the same name and party running for the same office.

“The Constitution does not require States to place a sham candidate on the ballot and then attempt to mitigate the damage through design choices,” attorney Rachel Witty, with the Alaska Department of Law, and outside attorneys Christopher Murray and Michael Francisco wrote in court filings.

Attorneys for the challenger Sullivan argued that the Constitution lays out three exclusive qualifications for the Senate, addressing only age, citizenship and residency. They said Beecher lacked the legal authority to boot their client off the ballot.

The challenger Sullivan has said that sharing a name and party affiliation with the incumbent gave him “an instant megaphone.” But the 69-year-old retired teacher and former U.S. Forest Service employee said he had considered a run for some time and had grown frustrated with the senator.

He initially was certified on the state’s candidate list as Dan J. Sullivan, with the senator listed as Dan S. Sullivan and identified as the incumbent.

———

This story has been updated to correct the surname of Dan J. Sullivan's attorney: it is Robinson, not Robertson.

The strike targeted tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in the sprawling camp of Muwasi, killing 15-year-old Islam Moussa and her 30-year-old brother, Abdullah Moussa.

The Israeli military acknowledged it had struck the area of Muwasi, saying it had targeted a Hamas militant but did not immediately provide more information.

In the hospital's courtyard, relatives wept over the bodies covered in white burial shrouds.

Also on Saturday, Palestinians reported hearing a loud boom in Gaza City.

The Israeli military struck a tent sheltering displaced Palestinians in western Gaza City, wounding at least 12 people, according to Shifa hospital. The ambulance service of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said two people were critically wounded and the majority of those hurt were women.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas militant and that it was not aware of uninvolved civilians being harmed.

Strikes continued Saturday evening in central Gaza, with no immediate word of casualties. Israel's military said it was checking on the reports.

Despite a fragile ceasefire reached in October that paused the heaviest fighting between Israel and the Hamas militant group, Israel continues to carry out near-daily strikes and shelling across the coastal enclave. Israel and Hamas continue to trade accusations of violating the ceasefire. Israel says it is targeting Hamas and other militants who pose a threat and in response to ceasefire violations.

Since the ceasefire went into effect, Israel has killed more than 1,030 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-led government. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

The ministry last week said Israel has killed over 250 children in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect.

A team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations has accused Israel of deliberately shooting children in Gaza, and repeated an accusation that Israel has committed genocide in the territory. Israel denies the claim that it committed genocide in Gaza during the two-year war.

The Israel-Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, with a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,050 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

Unusually high temperatures were recorded even in the Nordic countries not known for sweltering summers. Denmark's Meteorological Institute reported a record 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in Ødum north of Aarhus — the warmest day since records there began in 1874.

In Switzerland, a record 38.8 C (101.8 F) was set in the city of Basel.

Germany's famous Autobahn was overwhelmed, too, as temperatures were expected to hit 40 C (104 F). In two places outside Berlin, the concrete of the A2 burst due to the high temperatures and the highway had to be closed. Other highway damage was reported across the country, according to the German daily Bild.

Train operator Deutsche Bahn and other rail companies advised against all nonessential train travel this weekend.

“Germany’s transportation infrastructure is being severely affected by the record-breaking heat this weekend,” Deutsche Bahn said in a statement.

The Czech Republic also saw its hottest day on record, with 40.8 C (105.4 F) in the northern town of Doksany. Forecasters said it may still rise.

Residents evacuated from German nursing home

In the western German city of Dormagen, dozens of residents of a nursing home were evacuated for medical care due to dangerous heat conditions in the building.

The local fire department reported that temperatures inside the home had reached 35 C (95 F). Air conditioning is not widespread in Germany and many countries in Europe because the continent is largely unused to such oppressive heat.

A resident at the home died overnight, but it was not yet clear whether the heat was the cause, a city spokesperson told German news agency dpa.

Hospitals under intense pressure in France

In France, multiple towns in the east of the country saw their highest-ever temperatures Saturday, with some above 40 C (104 F) even though the worst of the heat wave was starting to pass in some regions.

Paris and 36 other regions, stretching from the center to the east and northeast, remained in the extreme-heat red zone on Saturday, down from a peak on Thursday of 72 regions that were under such warnings. The capital continued to see unrelenting pressure on its hospitals, with a second consecutive day of nearly 3,000 people seeking care in public hospital emergency rooms, about a third more than normal.

The Paris public hospital authority, AP-HP, said it activated its emergency response plan across all 38 hospitals to cope. Phone calls to its medical dispatch centers were up nearly 80% compared with the same period in 2025, it said.

Concerns that hospitals could be overwhelmed prompted the postponement of the Paris Pride march for LGBTQ+ rights on Saturday, and a three-day music festival was canceled.

The temperatures this week have been higher than those during a historic 2003 heat wave that was blamed for 15,000 heat-related deaths, many of them older people. The AP-HP’s director, Nicolas Revel, said he doesn’t expect as many deaths this time, at least in Paris hospitals, in part because treatment for overheating has since improved.

During another exceptionally hot summer last year, more than 5,700 deaths were attributed to heat, according to France’s public health authority.

“I think we’ll be situated, clearly, between 2025 and without necessarily reaching the catastrophic level of 2003. But we have to expect that there will still be many deaths,” he said.

UK temperatures easing after 3 record heat days

In the U.K., sweltering conditions are expected to gradually ease this weekend though an amber warning — one step down from red — remained in place until Saturday night.

Britons struggled to cope this week as the record June temperature was smashed three days in a row. Friday was confirmed as the country's hottest June day on record, with a provisional temperature of 37.3 C (99 F) recorded in eastern England.

It was more than 1 C hotter than the long-standing record for June heat in the U.K., set in the summer of 1976.

On Saturday, police said the bodies of a 22-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy were recovered from a lake and a river. The deaths bring the total number of U.K. heat-related fatalities this week to four.

Authorities in the U.K. have warned people to take extra care when swimming in unsupervised areas following the deaths of around 40 people in France over the past week.

Tourists wilting in Rome as red heat alert remains active

In Italy's capital, which remains under a red heat alert, tourists tried to cool off seeking shade near buildings and dunking their heads under public fountains. Street vendors were doing a brisk business selling bottled water, hats and sun umbrellas.

Some turned to Italian classics for relief.

“Gelato, pasta, because it’s tradition, but also fresh fruit, and ice cold drinks, that’s the best for this temperature,” said Isabella Dold, a tourist from Kempten, Germany.

On Saturday, Italy’s health ministry said 18 cities — including the most popular tourism hubs like Venice, Florence, Bologna and Milan — were on red alert due to danger posed by the high temperatures.

Record heat focuses attention on climate change

A new study from the World Weather Attribution, a Europe-based collaboration of scientists, reported Friday that the record-breaking heat and humidity in Europe this week would not have been possible without climate change.

The rapid study found that the heat would have been virtually impossible just five decades ago, and is 200 times more likely today than it would have been 20 years ago.

André Corrêa do Lago, the president of the U.N. climate talks known as COP30, said the heat wave has "helped strengthen the perception of urgency of fighting climate change.”

“The fact that we are living with this amazing heat in London is a strong argument, we need to agree, that we have to take action as soon as possible,” do Lago told The Associated Press.

___

Hui reported from London and Leicester from Paris. Associated Press journalists Trisha Thomas in Rome, Suman Naishadham in Madrid and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.

Russell came through the second-to-last corner seconds after Max Verstappen went spinning off the track toward the barrier, causing a yellow flag which means drivers must slow down.

Russell was warned of the yellow flag ahead of time by Mercedes over the radio and argued he lifted off the accelerator earlier than usual for the corner and that the rest of his lap was still enough for first place.

It was still “an amazing lap,” he said.

The stewards agreed and deemed the incident needed “no further investigation”, keeping Russell on pole ahead of the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton for Sunday's “heat hazard” race. “I was glad common sense prevailed,” Russell said.

With a margin of .236 of a second over Leclerc despite lifting off, Russell seemed to have plenty more pace available and will be a clear favorite to win for the first time since the season-opener in Australia, especially with standings leader Kimi Antonelli down in fourth.

Why Russell's lap stood

The key factor keeping Russell's lap on the board was that it was a single, not double, yellow flag at the corner.

A single yellow means drivers need to be able to show they slowed down noticeably. A double signifies more immediate danger, and in qualifying means drivers should abandon any attempt at setting a competitive lap time.

Russell argued it was the right call because Verstappen's car was on the other side of a gravel runoff area and slowing down meant he didn't risk losing control and potentially hitting the wreckage.

“I didn’t even see the car because the runoff is so far and I think in that instance a single yellow was correct because a double yellow is immediate danger," he said.

"I think I did everything right to be very much under control, and it’s a very different story to a double."

Russell's teammate Antonelli backed off his last qualifying run, believing wrongly it was a double yellow.

It's the fourth pole position for Russell this season, not counting sprint races, and puts him level with Antonelli.

Antonelli’s lead is set to shrink

By the time Russell crossed the line to take pole, fans and broadcasters assumed Ferrari's Leclerc and Hamilton were set to end Mercedes' run of pole position in each grand prix this season.

They both bested Antonelli's time by less than a tenth of a second shortly before Verstappen went off. Verstappen also looked like a contender for pole with his upgraded Red Bull car and was set to improve on his previous time.

Leclerc is set to start Sunday's race second, and Hamilton third after his win for Ferrari last time out. Antonelli was fourth in his lowest qualifying result of the season.

That makes it likely his lead — 41 points over Hamilton, 50 over Russell — is set to shrink for the second race running. Antonelli's car broke down in the last race, the Barcelona-Catalunya GP, as Hamilton won and Russell was second.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff told Sky Sport Germany it was “a matter of experience” that Antonelli abandoned his lap after Verstappen's crash while Russell was “super clever”.

Verstappen's earlier time was still good enough for fifth ahead of the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Blyth died Wednesday of “natural causes” at her home in Rancho Santa Fe, California, according to her daughter, Eileen McNulty. Blyth's family was at her side.

One of the last surviving actors from the Hollywood studio system, Blyth appeared in youth movies as well as dramas such as "Another Part of the Forest," and her co-stars included Bing Crosby, Tyrone Power, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Blyth had stopped appearing in films by the end of the 1950s when she chose to spend more time with her children. But she would work in TV musicals and dramas and tour in concerts and musicals from "Show Boat" to "The Sound of Music."

She was acting and singing from an early age and her first big break came at 13 when she was cast as Paul Lukas's daughter in Lillian Hellman's anti-Nazi play, "Watch on the Rhine," which also starred Bette Davis. She stayed with the play for almost a year on Broadway and a year on the road.

When "Watch on the Rhine" appeared in Los Angeles, Universal Studio signed her to a term contract starting at $175 a week. A dark-haired actor with a melodic singing voice, she appeared with a young Donald O'Connor in low-budget musicals such as "Chip Off the Old Block" and "Bowery to Broadway." The loan-out to Warner Bros. for "Mildred Pierce" elevated Blyth's career and led to grown-up roles.

Good at being bad

Like "Double Indemnity," adapted for the screen by Billy Wilder in 1944, "Mildred Pierce" was a James M. Cain thriller about vengeance and calculation. Crawford won the 1945 Oscar as a waitress who rises to own a string of Los Angeles restaurants. Blyth was nominated in the supporting role as Mildred's spoiled daughter, Veda, who seduces her mother's second husband (Zachary Scott), then riddles him with bullets in a jealous rage.

Directed by Michael Curtiz of “Casablanca” fame, "Mildred Pierce" was a memorable piece of film noir that took place mostly at night. For Blyth it was a major change from the cheery musicals she had been known for. It was also a stretch for an actor who was the subject of magazine articles entitled "Incorruptible!", "Angelic Annie" and "Ann Blyth: Success Without an Enemy."

In 1946, Blyth broke her back in a toboggan accident, and it appeared her career might be over. She spent seven months in a body cast and another seven months in a wheelchair, relying on her Roman Catholic faith for courage.

"The busy, exciting world I had known faded away, and my life slowed down to little things," she later told The Associated Press. "But even here I found myself blessed, for a new sense of prayer began to unfold to me."

Once recovered, she appeared as the love interest for Sonny Tufts in "Swell Guy," Howard Duff in "Brute Force" and Mickey Rooney in a prizefight movie, "Killer McCoy." She displayed her dramatic skill as the young woman in love with a suspected wife-killer, Charles Boyer, in "A Woman's Vengeance."

Her strongest role after "Mildred Pierce" came with "Another Part of the Forest," Hellman's prequel to her stage and film drama "The Little Foxes." Blythe appeared as the young Regina Hubbard, created as an adult on Broadway by Tallulah Bankhead and in the film by Bette Davis.

Add a little music

Blyth's career made a turn in 1951 when she starred with Mario Lanza in "The Great Caruso." Her lilting soprano made an ideal match for his tenor, and they were cast in "The Student Prince." But the temperamental Lanza dropped out after recording his songs, and British actor Edmund Purdom acted his role and mouthed the songs. Blyth co-starred with Howard Keel in "Rose Marie" and "Kismet."

Her other films included "Top o' the Morning" with Crosby, "The World in His Arms" (Peck) and a reunion with O'Connor, "The Buster Keaton Story." Her last film was in 1957, “The Helen Morgan Story,” which co-starred Paul Newman.

Born in 1928 in Mount Kisco, New York, to an Irish mother and English valet father, she grew up in New York City. After the father left the family, Nan Blyth supported herself and two daughters by washing clothes and working in beauty parlors.

She had high hopes for daughter Ann's future as an actress, and at 5 the girl began appearing on a New York radio show. She continued as a radio performer and spent three years studying and performing with the San Carlo Opera Company.

After becoming a movie star, Blyth admitted of her early career: "I'd become blue and despondent when I failed to get a job, and my mother's encouraging words made me want to try again." Before the actress's breakout performance in "Mildred Pierce," her mother died of cancer.

In 1953, Blyth married Dr. James McNulty, brother of tenor-comedian Dennis Day. They had five children and remained married until McNulty’s death, in 2007. A few weeks before son Timothy was born in 1954, she made television history of a sort performing the song "Secret Love" at the Oscars — visibly pregnant as she sang, "Once I had a secret love ... and my secret love's no secret anymore."

_____

Thomas, a former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent who died in 2014, was the primary writer of this obituary.

The epicenter was in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at magnitude 6.1.

Tremors were felt in Islamabad, as well as in the eastern province of Punjab and the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which borders Afghanistan. It was also felt in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Emergency services in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said district administrations were placed on alert.

Anwar Shahzad, a spokesperson for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, said that initial assessments had found no reports of casualties or damage.

In Afghanistan, the quake jolted Kabul and other parts of the country, the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority said.

Pakistan lies along an active seismic zone and is frequently affected by earthquakes. A magnitude 7.6 earthquake in 2005 killed tens of thousands of people in Pakistan and Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region divided between Pakistan and India and claimed by both countries.

Afghanistan has also suffered repeated quakes in recent years that have claimed thousands of lives.

This area of concern is due to a low-pressure system developing along a stalling front. This is not a home run for this disturbance to upgrade to a tropical storm or hurricane; it has to overcome dry air and wind shear.

Regardless of whether this disturbance develops into a tropical storm or hurricane, it has the potential to bring higher rain chances along the Gulf Coast by mid-week as it moves westward with the flow of a high-pressure system.

We’ll have to wait and see just how much rain comes from this.

If this disturbance get its act together, it would be named Bertha.

Commissioner Adrian Garcia is expected to join community partners for the event, scheduled from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Harris County Constable Precinct 6 station at 5900 Canal Street.

What is accepted

The public can drop off heavy trash at no cost, including items such as:

• Furniture
• Tires without rims
• Yard or tree debris
• Large household items

What is NOT accepted

Event organizers said they are not taking the following:

• Paint, oil, fuel or hazardous chemicals
• Household trash or bagged waste
• Appliances, electronics, light bulbs, fluorescent bulbs or batteries
• Concrete or bricks
• Commercial or business waste

In addition to the drop-off, volunteers are being asked to help remove litter and target illegal dumping sites across the area. If you’re interested in volunteering, organizers say you will be provided food, and you can register at their sign-up link.

They are a relatively small group of people, scattered across different states, but they share a common bond that stretches back decades: Each had a family member die violently in the struggle for voting and civil rights, victims on a long and difficult path marked by blood that ended when the country seemed to mature into the nation of its creed.

But 61 years later, and as the country approaches its 250th anniversary, those sacrifices are in question. In a series of decisions over the past dozen years, including one in April, the Supreme Court has effectively dismantled the law that their family members died to see enacted, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“My mother’s blood is on that bill. We were always proud of that, and now it’s gone,” said Anthony Liuzzo, whose mother, Viola Liuzzo, died on an Alabama highway between Selma and Montgomery while driving marchers in 1965.

Critics of the law argue that times have changed, a point Chief Justice John Roberts made in a 2013 decision that was the first major step in rolling back the law.

Survivors of lost loved ones disagree, pointing to the speed with which Republican-led state legislatureseliminated majority-Black congressional districts after the court's April ruling, which severely weakened a section of the law that had protected voting rights for minority communities. They feel anger and sadness that a milestone political victory decades ago has been reversed, but they are committed to keep fighting.

A church bombing and a chunk of concrete

Lisa McNair was born Sept. 19, 1964. Her older sister, Denise, died in the Sept 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The church had been a central organizing point for civil rights protest.

The explosion killed Denise McNair, 11, Addie Mae Collins, 14, Carole Robertson, 14, and Cynthia Morris Wesley, 14. Nearly two dozen others were injured. Three Klansmen were convicted years later.

One of Lisa McNair's early memories of her sister was of the box that their grandmother kept from the funeral home. It included Denise McNair's shoes, a purse and a rock-sized piece of concrete that had been embedded in her skull.

The crime brought the civil rights struggle onto the national stage and outraged Democratic President John F. Kennedy.

The times were tumultuous, McNair said, but it seemed the nation was heading in the right direction. Most of her life, “I’ve seen advances” on television, in commercials, with interracial marriages, civil rights and voting rights, “a plethora of rights that we got over the greater part of my lifetime.” But that has changed, she said.

McNair, 61, said she is “physically sick” about the Supreme Court decision and subsequent actions by lower courts and legislatures.

“I am constantly working to pray my way through it, so I can get up and go to work in the morning and do what I need to do. But I just want to ask every white person I see, What more do you want?" she said. “Why do you hate us so?”

They left for Freedom Summer and never came home

Michael Schwerner, known as Mickey, came from a family in which human rights activism and challenging social norms were expected. He was in Mississippi in 1964 as part of Freedom Summer when he, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney vanished one day in June while investigating a bombing at a Black church.

Their bodies were found weeks later, buried in an earthen dam in a rural area of Neshoba County. Schwerner, 24, and Goodman, 20, were white; Chaney, 21, was Black.

Stephen Schwerner, who died earlier this year and was a social activist in his own right, told The Associated Press in a 2023 interview that as soon as the family heard his younger brother and the other men were missing, they knew they were dead.

“Our family was very out front in the media that the only reason there was international attention was two of the young men were white," said Stephen’s daughter, Cassie Schwerner. "Had all three of those young men been Black, they would have ended up absent from our history and our narrative.”

The executive director of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, Cassie Schwerner, said her family has followed voting rights through their ups and downs. That includes the 2013 Supreme Court decision that allowed states and counties with a history of discriminatory voting rules to make changes without prior approval from the Department of Justice.

The court's April decision, she said, brought rage “and a good deal of sadness — not for me and my family, but for this country.” There is, she said, work to be done on multiple fronts.

Rights paid for in blood turned out to be fragile

Tamara Orange said among her many thoughts when she heard of the Supreme Court decision in this year's Voting Rights Act case, there was relief — "relief that my dad is not here to see that; that Jimmie Lee Jackson is not here to see it; that Viola Liuzzo is not here to see it,” she said. “I’m relieved for them because to me, it’s as though the sacrifices that were made were done in vain.”

Her father, James Orange, was working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize voting rights protests in Marion and Perry County, Alabama, in 1965. When juveniles joined the effort, he was arrested for contributing to the delinquency of minors. Concern arose that Orange was going to be taken out of the jail and lynched.

A protest to intervene ended with Jackson, a 26-year-old Black church deacon, being shot in the stomach by a state trooper while Jackson tried to shield his mother and grandfather.

His death was the catalyst for what became the Selma to Montgomery march and “Bloody Sunday.”

Orange stayed in the movement all his life and died in 2008, Tamara Orange said. But even after the Voting Rights Act passed, "He would say, be careful or we're going to lose it.”

‘We got bad news for you’

Anthony Liuzzo had just turned 10 when his mother, 39, left their middle-class neighborhood in Michigan and headed for Selma, Alabama. She had cried as she watched scenes from “Bloody Sunday” on television.

Viola Liuzzo participated in a portion of the second march and then helped drive other civil rights protesters around the Black Belt region of the state. On March 25, 1965, she was driving one protester between Selma and Montgomery when a vehicle pulled alongside and fired into the car.

The phone call came around midnight. Anthony Liuzzo remembers the caller asking his dad, “Is your wife Viola? We got bad news for you. She’s been shot.” When his father asked whether she was all right, the caller said “No, she’s dead," and then hung up.

An informant for the FBI quickly identified members of the Ku Klux Klan as her killers. The three men charged would escape conviction on state charges but be convicted in federal court.

Anthony Liuzzo and his siblings lived with the lost birthdays and other missed milestones. His comfort was that the voting rights she had died for had become a reality. But the April ruling by the Supreme Court and the subsequent rush by Republican-led legislatures in several Southern states to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black lawmakers left him angry and distraught.

Even so, he said he is still proud his mother had the courage to go to Selma "when others sat in their pretty little houses.”

One morning, the Klan returned

The inscription at the bottom of Vernon Dahmer Sr.'s tombstone reads simply: "If you don't vote, you don't count.”

It is a message that embodies his life's work and the story behind his death.

Even after Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, not every state was eager to implement the new law. In Mississippi, it came with a “poll tax.” The amount was $2, but in a world where a farmworker's wages might only be $5 a day, that was substantial, said Dahmer's son, Dennis Dahmer Sr.

The elder Dahmer, 57 at the time of his death, was a successful businessman who owned a store, sawmill and farm near Hattiesburg. He also was a civil rights leader and NAACP president in Ford County. He offered to pay the $2 for Black residents who wanted to register to vote.

He had already been under scrutiny by the local Ku Klux Klan. There was harassment and there were threatening phone calls. The windows were shot out of his store, but no one challenged him directly because his sons were always present and armed.

That seemed to trail off after Johnson signed the law.

“The Klan quit calling," Dennis Dahmer said. "They quit shooting out the windows, so my family thought that all of this was behind us.”

That changed in the early hours of Jan. 10, 1966, when two carloads of Klansmen showed up. They firebombed the house and adjacent grocery store and began shooting at the house. The elder Dahmer shot back, using his ample arsenal to fight off the attack.

His wife and the three children who were home survived, but he suffered severe injuries from inhaling the smoke and fumes from the flames. He died later that day.

Dennis Dahmer was 12 as he stood next to his dad's hospital bed. He wondered why some people wanted his father dead just for trying to help Black people vote.

A former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Sam Bowers, was convicted in 1998 for the attack and sentenced to life.

Like the families of other survivors, Dennis Dahmer's family has witnessed the methodical dismantling of the Voting Rights Act.

"Finally, they basically turned it into a relic,” he said.

His plan now is activism, to speak out and promote the need for a massive voter turnout. He also wants to remind people of the price that certain families paid for everyone to have the right to vote and be represented by someone of their choosing.

“We’re living in a time when America has a lot of the same characteristics of the 1960s that I grew up in,” he said. "People say, are we going back? Hell, we’re already there.”

Murky. Peaceful. Stinky. The backdrop for protests, vigils, celebrations and stunning sunrise photos. Beset by gnats and algae. Scenery for a run. A key part of the capital's carefully designed monumental core. The location of an iconic scene in “Forrest Gump.”

One thing it's generally not: a strictly enforced police zone.

Entering the pool has always been illegal, but, in general, the most someone wading into the water might expect is a direction from a police officer to get out.

But that has changed since President Donald Trump insisted last weekend, without providing evidence, that vandals were responsible for damage to the pool's liner, undermining his renovation efforts after he blamed previous presidents for ignoring deterioration. Court documents filed this week show that the National Park Service reported to the U.S. Park Police a June 9 incident in which a sharp knife or razor cut the pool’s new liner.

National Guard members and Park Police have patrolled the deck around the pool. The Associated Press verified that one man was arrested after touching the already-peeling paint. He said he wanted to examine the new coating, briefly touching a still-attached chunk, then letting go shortly after a park worker told him to. At one point this week, crews were seen adding fencing near the area, which the administration attributed to preparations for July Fourth celebrations.

Here’s a look at photos of how people have interacted with the Reflecting Pool over the years.

The scrutiny belies the fact that the Reflecting Pool has always been enticing to visitors.

During the Poor People's Campaign in 1968, the pool offered relief from the summer heat.

And during the bitter cold of winter, it has become an unlikely urban skating rink.

Now, it is home to mobile surveillance towers and increased law enforcement foot patrols, while the hum of nanobubblers punctuates the June air.

When officers got to the scene, they found an adult man suffering from a gunshot wound to the head, authorities said. He was taken to a nearby hospital and was believed to be in critical condition.

• Brother fatally shot during family disturbance in southeast Houston, police say

Police said it’s not yet clear what led up to the shooting.

Investigators are working to gather information, including reviewing surveillance footage, as they try to determine what happened. The suspect or suspects left the area before officers arrived.

Ukraine has stepped up its long-range aerial attacks on Russian military industries and energy facilities, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for the war and make Russians feel the consequences of the invasion, now in its fifth year.

The campaign, which Zelenskyy has said aims to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, has choked Russian fuel supplies and military deliveries, stalling Moscow’s efforts on the battlefield and heaping pressure on Putin, Western officials and analysts say.

Writing on X, Zelenskyy said that FP-5 Flamingo missiles hit the Titan-Barrikady facility in Volgograd in southwestern Russia, describing it as a “major industrial complex” where Russia “produces artillery systems and specialized military equipment, including components for missile launch systems.”

According to Ukraine’s General Staff, the facility manufactures equipment for missile systems, including self-propelled launchers and transport-loading vehicles for the Iskander-M missile system, which it said is “the same system Russia regularly uses to strike Ukrainian cities.”

Volgograd Gov. Andrei Bocharov confirmed an attack on a business in the region’s Krasnooktyabrsky district, saying 10 people had been wounded and taken to a hospital. He said production facilities at the site were damaged but did not identify the company.

Ukraine's state security service said Saturday morning that Ukrainian forces also struck an oil pumping facility in Russia’s Vladimir region that supplies fuel to Moscow, for the second time this month.

The attacks came a day after Ukraine launched what appeared to be one of Kyiv's biggest drone assaults since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion more than four years ago. The major nighttime attack targeted a dozen Russian regions, Russian-held Crimea and the surrounding seas, Moscow’s Defense Ministry said Friday, noting that Russian air defenses intercepted 660 Ukrainian drones.

Zelenskyy said Thursday he had ordered “a 40-day influence operation,” believed to mean an escalation of attacks, aimed at “compelling (Russia) to end the war” after U.S. peace efforts over the past year yielded no breakthrough.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine’s Sumy region, a 66-year-old man was killed in a Russian drone strike on a private residence in the region, regional head Oleh Hryhorov said Saturday.

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

Frenzied speculation surrounding the superstar singer and football player's upcoming wedding has spiked over the past few days as reports swirl that the two are getting married the first week in July at one of New York's iconic landmarks.

Yet nearly a year after Kelce and Swift announced their engagement with the caption “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” they have disclosed little about their plans.

Here's what we know and don't know.

The wedding date is unconfirmed, but reports say early July

Nothing has been publicly confirmed by the couple, despite The Associated Press' multiple requests to Swift’s representative for comment.

Citing an entertainment industry executive and another person with knowledge of the matter, The New York Times reported that the couple were planning a gathering of 100 people at Madison Square Garden — an arena that seats up to 19,500 people — on July 2 followed by a second event at the arena for about 1,000 guests on July 3.

The Associated Press has been unable to independently confirm those details, but there are no public events planned at the Garden from June 29 until a Bon Jovi concert on July 7.

Public records show that the city issued a permit for loading and unloading theatrical materials at the arena from June 29 to July 4. Winick Productions, a company that has produced red carpet events for the Grammy and Tony award shows and movie premieres, also applied for a permit to set up a canopy or tent outside the Garden for an event involving up to 999 people.

Meanwhile, just a few weeks prior, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani jokingly referenced the reports of Swift and Kelce’s wedding during a press conference. Mamdani was answering questions about safety during the World Cup when he said, “We know it coincides with July Fourth, America 250, Taylor Swift’s wedding all happening at the same time, and we are so excited to welcome the world here.”

Mamdani, however, said he was not invited to the wedding.

“I wish them a lovely wedding. I’ll listen to ‘Only the Young’ at home on my own,” he said, referencing one of Swift's songs.

MSG is a fortress, but has hosted weddings before

Madison Square Garden may not scream “bridal,” but the venue is available for private rentals, advertising a banquet capacity for 1,250 — or 2,000 if you are only serving cocktails. And it has hosted weddings before. Sly Stone got married to Kathy Silva there in 1974 before thousands of fans. And more than 2,000 couples were wed in a mass ceremony at the Garden officiated by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1982.

Located above Penn Station, the busiest rail hub in the U.S., the Garden doesn't scream “privacy" either.

But it does have guarded entrances, a secure garage and a lack of windows, which would allow Kelce, Swift and celebrity guests to stay out of sight of photographers or camera-equipped drones.

That need for privacy popped up earlier in June when a large tent appeared next door to Swift’s Watch Hill estate in Rhode Island. Despite organizers denying the event was for Swift, a wave of speculation bubbled up online as photographers and some Swifties headed to the town to see if they could catch a glimpse of a possible wedding.

Yet others have theorized that the MSG buzz could be an elaborate smoke screen to throw off attention to the couple's real wedding plans. Swift did once write, “No, you can’t come to the wedding,” in her song “But Daddy I Love Him," which some fans have been reupping lately as a reminder that the wedding isn't supposed to be a public spectacle.

Friends, family, and plenty of celebrities expected to attend

Swift joked in October that “anyone I've ever talked to” would be invited to the wedding, telling Graham Norton that she believed “the only stressful weddings” are those that are small and force people to make aggressive cuts to the guest list.

Yet just who exactly will show up is to be determined. Aside from family, Kelce's Kansas City Chiefs teammate Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany Mahomes, will likely be in attendance. For Swift, close friends like Selena Gomez, Abigail Anderson Berard, the Haim sisters, Emma Stone and Gigi Hadid will all likely attend.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid said he couldn't talk about it when asked by The Associated Press if he was going to the wedding.

“If it’s like when I got married, my wife did everything, so I just kind of followed her lead on it, showed up, right? Maybe he’s doing more but he looks like he’s pretty focused in on this job here, too,” Reid said in early June.

Swift has a history of Fourth of July parties

Perhaps another clue why the week of the Fourth of July makes sense for Swift and Kelce's wedding is that the popstar has long been known for throwing elaborate parties over the American holiday.

It wasn't too long ago that fans dubbed her Fourth of July events as “Taymerica,” where celebrities showed up at her Rhode Island estate wearing red, white and blue swimsuits, waving American flags and eventually shared some social media photos with the public.

The timing also works with Kelce's football schedule, given the tight end once joked on his “New Heights” podcast, “Don’t make my friends have to choose whether or not they have to sell their tickets that week.”

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Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre and Maria Sherman in New York and David Skretta in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed reporting.

Investigators said a vehicle struck the back of a stalled 18-wheeler in the westbound lanes. The woman driving the car was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

Police said she was the only person inside the vehicle. The 18-wheeler driver was not hurt, officers confirmed.

• Woman fatally run over by coworker she was dating after argument in southwest Houston, police say

The woman’s identity has not been released as authorities work to notify her next of kin.

But the charismatic Burnham may have difficulty — at least initially — distancing himself from policies set in motion by his predecessor.

Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester who was sworn into Parliament hours after Starmer announced his resignation on Monday, will be constrained by the platform the center-left Labour Party was elected on that decisively ended 14 years of Conservative rule in 2024.

It's not entirely clear how he'll navigate those limits and bring his unique brand of politics to the revolving-door post that would make him the 7th prime minister in a decade. He’ll lay out his economic vision in a speech next week.

“At the moment, Andy Burnham is being almost hailed and held up as a folk hero that will save British politics,” said Matthew Flinders, politics professor at University of Sheffield. “The tide is changing and the big issue for Andy Burnham is that when the world suddenly moves against him and he becomes a folk devil, will he sustain the pressure?”

Next PM will seek to boost a sluggish economy and ease cost of living

Burnham is currently the only contestant for the job of leading the Labour Party and the country, and will likely take over July 17 if no one else enters the race. His return to the House of Commons follows a decade leading the region around the U.K.’s third-largest city, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, which has enjoyed an economic revival during his tenure.

His main challenge will be to overcome Starmer's inability to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living.

Burnham highlighted those issues — along with housing and creating opportunities for young people — in a post on social media after Starmer said he was quitting.

“The country expects stability, seriousness and a continued focus on the issues that matter most and that is what it will get,” he said on X.

Burnham, who is widely regarded as sitting to the left of Starmer in the party, has said he'll revive a sluggish economy without going beyond the current government’s spending and borrowing plans. That pledge has helped reassure markets traumatized in 2022 after Prime Minister Liz Truss announced unfunded tax cuts and then withdrew them, leading to her 49-day record as Britain's shortest-serving leader.

“If you are a Labour prime minister from the soft left of the party, the markets don’t need that much invitation to panic,” said Mark Goodwin, a politics lecturer at Coventry University. “They will start from a position of skepticism. So he’d have to be very, very careful."

He said Burnham will face a challenge “to convince people that this is something different, without the markets reading that as ‘This is too different.’"

Burnham faces big questions over budget priorities

Burnham promotes what has been called “Manchesterism,” a business-friendly socialist approach that involves harnessing private investment for major projects and decentralizing government to give communities more control of housing, utilities, transportation and education.

In a possible preview of how he would move power from the capital, he is reportedly planning to move some of the prime minister’s operation closer to home, about 200 miles north of 10 Downing St., the London office and home of the U.K.’s leader.

He has said he would not raise taxes on workers — sticking to a Starmer pledge — and suggested policies that include easing the tax burden on businesses, and possibly reversing an increase in a tax employers pay to fund pensions, public health care and welfare.

The big question is how he will fund programs, if he'll scrap existing priorities, and how he'll meet demands for higher defense spending, said Jill Rutter, senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank.

Starmer's government pledged to meet a NATO target of spending 3.5% of GDP on the military by 2035. But John Healey stepped down as defense secretary this month after complaining that Starmer was not moving fast enough to meet the target.

Burnham more comfortable with domestic issues

Burnham's lack of experience on the world stage could present a challenge improving the so-called special relationship with the U.S. after President Donald Trump turned on Starmer.

Trump described Burnham this week as a “town” mayor and said he heard he was “extremely liberal” and probably wouldn't expand North Sea oil drilling — one of his frequent gripes about Starmer.

Starmer made a priority of forging cordial ties with Trump despite their political differences, and was rewarded with a U.S.-U.K. trade deal. But it came at the cost of angering some in Labour's liberal voter base, and the president soured on Starmer after the British leader criticized his designs on Greenland and declined to enter the Iran war.

Burnham has not always said nice things about Trump. After Trump's followers stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Burnham posted on X that "any politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now.”

Starmer won praise from many for his international role, especially in bolstering European support for Ukraine. But he was criticized by some for being distracted by foreign affairs, Rutter said. She doesn't expect the same from Burnham and he could farm out some of those duties by choosing an experienced hand as foreign secretary, the U.K.'s top diplomat.

"I don’t think Andy Burnham will want to be ‘never-here Andy’ in succession to ‘never-here Keir,’” Rutter said in reference to Starmer's globetrotting moniker.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Wednesday that she spoke with Burnham about policy issues and said “he’s 100% behind our unwavering support for Ukraine” and ”is a fundamental believer in NATO and in our shared deterrence and in the multilateral partnerships that we have."

Playing it safe at first could allow radical reshaping

An early priority for Burnham will be something Starmer struggled with: crafting a clear and convincing narrative that people understand about the direction he wants to take the country, Flinders said.

That plays to Burnham's communications skills and the popularity he has achieved by presenting himself as an amiable northern everyman who favors T-shirts over suits and ties, plays soccer for kicks and is known for spinning 1990s tunes during DJ battles.

So far, he has played it safe and tried not to raise public expectations too high. But if he can prove himself to be a competent leader and win public support to survive the remaining three years before a general election must be held, he can lay out a bolder vision for another term in his own manifesto.

Burnham has spoken of reshaping the political system, such as replacing the House of Lords with an elected senate and introducing proportional representation in voting. He also said he'd like to see the U.K. rejoin the European Union in his lifetime, though he backed away from that during his campaign in a constituency that voted 2-to-1 in favor of Brexit.

“My sense is that he will take some time, sensibly, to build up his team, his narrative, his story and his connections in order to then try to secure a public mandate and the next general election to then approach the more radical phase that he wants to deliver, which is exactly what Margaret Thatcher did in the '80s,” Flinders said.

Shoja Khalilzadeh ripped his jersey off before being mobbed by the entire Iran team after he fired a shot past Egypt goalie Mostafa Shobeir in the 93rd minute to seemingly give his side a 2-1 lead on Friday night.

For a few joyous moments, Iran was convinced it had advanced to the knockout round at the World Cup for the first time in the expanded 48-team pool at this year’s tournament.

The potential late winning goal was called back due to an offside, though, and Egypt advanced past the group stage.

Iran, meanwhile, will have to wait one day to find out its fate after the two teams played to a 1-1 draw. Egypt will play Australia in the round of 32.

Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei lamented what was the third goal by his side waved off by video review in the tournament.

“Technology is justice,” Ghalenoei said in Farsi, “But, I'm upset about our bad luck.”

At the conclusion of what was promoted as a “Pride Match” in Seattle, one which neither Iran nor Egypt wanted any part in, the Pharaohs finished in second place in Group G. Belgium, which played to a 1-1 draw against Egypt on June 15, beat New Zealand 5-1 in Vancouver, British Columbia to win the group outright.

Egypt coach Hossam Hassan was grateful his team didn't slide to third in the group, which would have been the case had Khalilzadeh's goal held up.

“We knew we had qualified already, we were sitting at the top of the group," Hossan said. "I thank God for everything. After this goal was ruled offside, I was very happy.”

Iran, meanwhile, could still advance to the knockout round for the first time in the expanded 48-team pool at this year’s tournament. But, they no longer controls their own destiny after Friday’s game.

“We’re here to make our history, too,” said midfielder Rouzbeh Cheshmi. “(Saturday), if our dream comes true, thank God. If not, we are proud of our game and our players because of how we did the game. The last three games, we held up, so let’s see what happens."

Egypt took an early lead on a goal by Mahmoud Saber in the fifth minute. Former Liverpool star Mohamed Salah provided some strong play in the box before Saber fired a shot between the legs of Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand.

Iran was denied an equalizer in the 11th minute when Egypt goalkeeper Mostafa Shobeir saved a penalty kick, but tied the game in the 14th minute on a goal by Ramin Rezaeian.

After Iran came up just short, its players aired their grievances about numerous complications off the field. The team has endured travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in light of the war in Iran.

In March, Iran sought to move its group-stage matches to Mexico, with which it has diplomatic ties. Its request to move its base camp from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana was granted two weeks before the team’s arrival.

Ghalenoei said members of the team have been limited to their hotels and training facilities, and not explored Tijuana in any capacity. Several team officials and members of the support staff have been barred from traveling into the U.S. with the team.

“We don’t have recovery, we don’t have any logistic people here to help us. We always complain about these things, but no one helps us – no one,” said Roozbeh Cheshmi. “As you know, recovery is an important thing. Small details affect the football."

For the first two matches, near Los Angeles, the team was not permitted to travel until the day before and had to return to Mexico immediately after each game. The U.S. then eased its restrictions, allowing the squad to travel to Seattle two days before Friday’s match.

Ghalenoei said the team again had to immediately fly back to Tijuana after Friday's game.

“We were treated very, very badly,” Ghalenoei said. “I hope the world becomes aware of these issues.”

If only for a short stint of time, though, Iran's disdain was tabled in the aftermath of Khalilzadeh's near-goal. Iran did not finish Friday's game with a storybook ending, but it is still alive in the tournament — at least for another 24 hours.

“What these young Iranian national team players have done should be recorded in history,” Ghalenoei said. “Why? Because the host treated us in the worst possible way.”

___

AP freelancer Mark Moschetti contributed to this report.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

The authorities of the Chaoyang district, a vibrant business area, said a two-seat light sport aircraft collided with a high-rise building near the East Third Ring Road at 5:55 p.m. on Friday and caused the casualties.

The short statement on WeChat did not identify the building or the pilot, who the authorities said was the only person on the craft.

The global flight-tracking service provider Flightradar24 on Friday said the plane crashed into the CITIC Tower, also known as China Zun, which rises more than 1,700 feet (528 meters), just east of a major ring road in a cluster of skyscrapers.

The 108-story CITIC tower, shaped like an ancient Chinese wine vessel, is one of the most recognizable skyscrapers in Beijing and is the tallest building in the city.

Flightradar24 posted on social media the path of the plane, a Sunward SA 60L Aurora, which took off from an airport about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Beijing. It headed westward and ended just east of the East Third Ring Road.

Associated Press photos showed on Saturday apparent marks of the crash on the glass facade on one side of the CITIC Tower. A hole there had been covered up.

It was not immediately known what caused the crash in a city with strict airspace controls, including a recent ban on drones. An investigation is underway into the situation, the authorities said.

It was also unclear whether the injured were in the building or were hit by debris, but the statement said they were receiving treatment.

The CITIC tower is just a roughly 20-minute drive from Zhongnanhai, a former imperial garden that now serves as headquarters of China’s top leadership, and a 15-minute drive from the Forbidden City, a popular tourist attraction.

Social media posts about the crash were scrubbed from China’s walled-off internet on Friday, though footage has made its way outside of China’s firewall and is circulating on overseas sites such as X.com. A report by financial news platform Caixin about the crash's casualties soon became inaccessible on Saturday. Chinese authorities consider such incidents to be a sensitive matter.

Images and videos shared on social media appeared to show debris from a small aircraft near the skyscraper. While the images were consistent with the location, it was not possible to independently confirm their authenticity. One image of the wreckage shows a partial registration number of “B-12.” The full registration number of the aircraft is B-12PP.

According to Flightradar24, the aircraft was operated by Shuangyue General Aviation, an apparent reference to Dongshi Shuangyue (Beijing) General Aviation, whose website was not accessible on Saturday. The firm provides services ranging from private pilot training to aerial sightseeing tours, said an online platform citing official data.

SA 60L is a product of Starair Aircraft, based in China's central Hunan province. According to Starair's website, the single-engine aircraft accounts for more than 70% of China’s light sports aircraft market and has been exported to Australia and the United States.

Its maximum cruise speed is 220 kilometers (137 miles) per hour and its maximum takeoff weight is 600 kilograms (1,322 pounds), the website said.

“We are small,” he said. “But we have big hearts and we are fighters.”

Cape Verde completed an improbable run through the group stage with a third straight World Cup draw, a 0-0 draw against Saudi Arabia on Friday night to advance in the tournament.

The small island nation off the western coast of Africa, which is making its debut on soccer’s grandest stage, already held 2010 champion Spain to a 0-0 draw and then came from behind to get a 2-2 result against Uruguay.

“The team was very eager to show this to the whole world,” Cape Verde coach Bubista said while draped in his country's flag. “We are proud of having arrived at this stage. We have shown that we are a small country, but that we fight for the things that we want to achieve.”

Cape Verde’s three points put the team in second place behind Spain, which beat Uruguay on Friday night and won the group.

Cape Verde will play reigning World Cup champion Argentina in Miami on July 3.

Drawing all three group matches doesn't guarantee advancement at major soccer tournaments. But several teams have done it in the past, including Wales in 1958, Ireland and the Netherlands in 1990, and Chile in 1998. New Zealand, however, also got three draws at the 2010 World Cup and was eliminated.

On the eve of the match, Bubista mused, “everyone is entitled to dream and nothing is impossible.”

The Blue Sharks proved him right, overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds as this country of just more than 500,000 reached the round of 32.

A woman, her face painted with a flag of the archipelago, held a sign that read: “Small Islands, Big Dreams.”

A dream that these underdogs have made reality as they continue their charmed run on the world stage.

They did it with another strong game from Vozinha, whose tournament success has helped him amass more than 16 million Instagram followers.

He had a save in first half stoppage time, grabbing a header from Mohamed Kanno to keep Saudi Arabia scoreless. Another save came in the 66th minute when he leaped to deflect a shot from Mohammed Abu Al-Shamat.

A third came in the 92nd minute when he stopped a shot by Abdullah Al-Hamdan.

“There is a lot of quality in our national team,” Vozinha said. “Maybe for many of you, you think the Cape Verdean player is not good enough. But we came here to show that we have a lot of quality and we are here to compete and our players can play everywhere in the big competition, in the big leagues.”

A group of shirtless men in the crowd each painted one letter of his name on their chests as they cheered Cape Verde.

But Vozinha had a much bigger fan among the crowd of 68,278 as his mother Ana Candida Evora watched from a luxury suite, waving a tiny Cape Verde flag. It was her second match of the tournament after missing Vozinha’s epic seven-save performance against Spain because of visa issues.

Cape Verde had a chance to score in the 50th minute, but Kevin Pina's shot from distance was just above the crossbar. Another chance came in the 74th minute when Laros Duarte’s shot from the middle of the box was stopped by goalkeeper Mohammed Al-Owais.

A last chance to score came in the final seconds when Nuno da Costa sent a shot from the middle of the box wide left.

But it didn’t matter because a couple of minutes after the final whistle, Spain completed its victory over Uruguay and set off a joyous celebration among Cape Verde's players and fans, many of whom cried as they rejoiced.

Having led his squad to new heights, Bubista was asked if he could have imagined such a run entering the tournament.

“I’ve always said that sooner or later Cape Verde would be on such a stage,” he said. “Of course it’s hard to have such a forecast, but I always knew.”

Saudi Arabia was eliminated after finishing with two points in the group stage.

“We were very poor in terms of creating things, controlling the game and creating actions,” coach Georgios Donis said. “And one cannot win a game this way. It would be very difficult.”

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

It was just a coincidence that the city’s “Pride Match” ended up as a high-stakes matchup between Iran and Egypt — ultimately a 1-1 draw — and it came with plenty of pushback from both countries. But Seattle officials and its soccer community say the distinctive pairing was an opportunity to showcase the city’s inclusivity as well as the common ground that can be found at the World Cup.

Some milled about the stadium with Pride Match scarves, while others had painted their faces with rainbows or clutched free flags handed out by a human rights organization. One man toted a large sign that spelled out PRIDE as an acronym: “Proud, Respectful, Inclusive, Diverse, Egyptian.”

Stacy Harbour works for an LGBTQ+ nonprofit invited by the local organizing committee and brought 20 young people to the match. Harbour said she’s glad these two countries were the ones competing.

“There are groups of folks that live here in Seattle that are of Egyptian, Iranian descent. This is their opportunity to represent their intersectional identities,” she said. “This is an opportunity to show the world what Seattle is. And Seattle is an inclusive city. We always have been, we always will be.”

Pride celebrations are low-key inside the stadium

Same-sex relations are illegal in Iran, where gay men have been executed on sodomy charges, while Egypt has prosecuted gay and lesbian people and suppressed outward expressions of gay pride, including rainbow flags. The countries had complained to FIFA about the “Pride Match” and asked that the celebrations be canceled. In a statement earlier Friday, Iran's federation said it had made its position clear to FIFA in multiple letters and meetings and was assured “that no ceremonies or promotional activities related to this issue will take place inside the stadium or as part of the official match programme.”

“Iran and Egypt are two Muslim countries with deep cultural and religious commonalities, and the views expressed by both federations reflect the shared values and beliefs of the people of the two nations,” Iran's federation said.

The pre-match festivities on the field did not include any references to Pride, and by halftime, some fans said they were disappointed by the lack of Pride-related celebrations.

“I don’t expect a lot from FIFA, so I am not that surprised, but it’s a little disappointing,” said Hunter Schafer, of Seattle, wearing a rainbow headband.

The Associated Press sent requests for comment on how the Pride Match unfurled to the Iranian and Egyptian federations, as well as the organizing committee, on Friday night. Hana Tadesse, a spokesperson for Seattle’s World Cup organizing committee, said before the match that FIFA treats the rainbow flag as a statement of human rights and would allow fans to wave it inside the stadium.

British activist Peter Tatchell brought a protest placard that read, “Iran & Egypt ban gay footballers. It's against FIFA rules.” He said in a statement that officials at the stadium tried to confiscate the poster, but he refused to hand it over and was ultimately told he couldn't leave his seat. A separate request for comment on the incident was sent to the organizing committee.

“I don’t have any idea about that,” Iran player Ramin Rezaeian said when asked about the match's Pride designation after the game.

Egyptian player Mahmoud Saber responded similarly, saying in Arabic, “Yeah, it’s not my business. I am not commenting on these things.”

The ‘Pride Match’ makes fans feel seen

Anthony Vega, 50, stood outside the stadium more than three hours before kickoff, waving a large rainbow flag he planned to bring inside. At his first World Cup match after winning the ticket lottery, he said he thought more people would be outside with Pride flags.

“If one or two kids in Iran or Egypt see who we really are as Americans and how we are accepting, especially here in my home, that could change the lives for a lot of people, or them,” said Vega, who celebrated his first Pride in 1991.

Paul Kahl, a West Seattle native who wore a purple shirt in support of Pride, said he didn't experience any issues getting into the stadium.

“I think there’s a difference between the fans of a country versus the government of a country. And, their government’s not here,” he said. “Their fans are here to see the game. It’s the World Cup. You leave your politics at the door.”

The match coincided with Seattle’s annual celebration of the LGBTQ+ community, including its popular Pride parade planned for the weekend.

Ilona Lohrey, president and CEO of the Greater Seattle Business Association, an LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce, described Seattle as one of the most inclusive cities in the country.

“I think it gives us an opportunity to showcase who we are as a city, who we are as a people and how diversity makes us stronger,” Lohrey said in an interview Thursday.

Sara Bunn, who identifies as pansexual, started to tear up, standing outside the stadium with a Pride flag wrapped around her shoulders and a shirt that read, “Trans People Belong.”

“This is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Bunn said, “and it’s really cool to be able to be a part of it and be a part of history of us being able to be represented.”

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AP Sports Writer Andrew Destin and Owen Cameros, a student in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State, contributed to this report.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

U.S. President Donald Trump said the drone attack violated the ceasefire. The strikes came shortly after Trump told reporters, “You’ll find out,” whether the U.S. would respond.

U.S. Central Command said the military struck missile and drone locations and coastal radar sites in Iran.

“I don’t like the fact that they took a shot yesterday, actually four of them,” Trump said at the White House shortly before the U.S. struck back. When asked why there would be strikes when Trump has insisted talks with Tehran are going well, Trump said of Iran: “They’re a little bit different.”

He then abruptly cut off questions and reporters were ushered out of his office.

Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, responded to Trump on social media earlier Friday, saying, “the Strait of Hormuz is governed by Iran, so: Respect the rules” and to “not mistake control for escalation.”

“This is not a violation of the ceasefire; it is ceasefire management,” Azizi wrote.

Friday evening, Vice President JD Vance said on social media that Iran should “pick up the phone” if there are disagreements about the ceasefire agreement.

“But violence will be met with violence,” Vance said.

Strikes conclude an hour later

The U.S. strikes on Iran concluded about an hour after U.S. Central Command announced the military action on social media, a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing military operation.

The British military said on Thursday that a container ship was hit by a projectile off the coast of Oman, coming hours after Iran threatened vessels to stop using the route. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said no injuries were reported.

The development came during a fragile time for the U.S. and Iran as they work to negotiate a permanent end to the war. Iran has increasingly challenged the region and the U.S. over its control of the Strait of Hormuz, even with the current interim deal it reached with the U.S. last week.

The attack on the cargo ship happened while a United Nations maritime agency was beginning an operation to move stranded ships out of the strait this week, using an alternative route, hugging the shores of Oman rather than sailing through the central part of the strait.

The International Maritime Organization halted the evacuations after the attack and said on Friday they won’t resume until there are guarantees that the other ships won’t be attacked.

About 115 ships were able to move out of the strait in recent days, leaving about 500 still in the area, said Arsenio Dominguez, the agency’s secretary-general.

The opening of the alternative passage through the strait was expected to relieve pressure on the world economy and remove Iran’s main source of leverage in ongoing peace talks with the U.S.

The U.S. and Iran are still negotiating terms of the deal, including issues such as getting ships through the key strait and addressing the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Under the interim deal, the two sides have 60 days to work out the details.

Cargo ship attack poses a test for shipping

Shipping analysts said the drone strike cast a shadow over what had been a growing stream of trapped vessels finally leaving the Gulf and an increasing flow of tankers carrying crude oil.

“A week of widening commercial confidence in the Strait of Hormuz has hit its first significant test,” said marine data company Windward on X. It said that while the strait remains operationally open with 43 transits recorded after the incident, “the pace of normalization has slowed.”

On Wednesday before Thursday’s drone strike, 78 vessels transited the strait, the highest since the war began, although below the prewar averages of 130 or more per day.

At least two tankers reversed course while attempting to transit the strait on the U.N.-backed route near Oman after Iran insisted vessels use only the Teheran-approved routes, according to marine data and analytic firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

More than two dozen ships were still transiting the strait's southern route after the attack, Lloyd's said Friday.

Lebanon and Israel make a step toward peace

Ambassadors from Israel and Lebanon announced an agreement Friday described as a step toward peace following months of conflict between Israeli troops and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Nada Hamadeh, Lebanon's ambassador to the U.S., called the framework a move toward "enabling our people to go back to their land and allowing all Lebanese to live in peace, security, and prosperity.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the plan was a “great achievement” for Israel.

“The most important thing, first and foremost, is that Israel will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon,” he said, adding that they will stay until Hezbollah is disarmed and no longer poses a threat to Israel.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Ben Finley, Michelle L. Price and Josh Boak in Washington, David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.

“He was looking at me and I kind of was thinking, maybe,” McKenna said with a laugh. “Crazy. Just crazy what’s going on right now.”

With most of Yukon watching and a loud presence of Maple Leafs fans in the stands, Toronto chose the Penn State left winger, validating longstanding projections of McKenna being his age group’s top prospect. The 18-year-old from Yukon’s capital of Whitehorse has been a prolific scorer on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.

And if Bieber’s appearance and taking the stage to the artist's song “Yukon” wasn’t enough, McKenna was welcomed to the Maple Leafs with a video message from Toronto captain Auston Matthews.

“Obviously he’s on the first line. I’m going to have to prove myself to be able to play with a player like that. But that’s my goal,” McKenna said about Matthews, who was chosen No. 1 by Toronto in the 2016 draft, which also happened to be held in Buffalo. “My game’s obviously a playmaker, he’s a shooter, so I think we could complement each other pretty well.”

McKenna represents a major plank in in a rebuilding process for a team in transition under new general manager John Chayka. Toronto finished last in the Atlantic Division last season and missed the playoffs for the first time since Matthews’ arrival.

Canucks select coach's son, Caleb Malhotra

The draft featured dueling cheers — and boos — between large contingents of Maple Leafs and Sabres fans, several surprises, nine trades and a poignant father-son moment when Vancouver selected center Caleb Malhotra with the No. 3 pick, joining a team coached by dad Manny Malhotra.

“I hugged him right after, and we were happy,” said Caleb, who is from British Columbia and finished second among OHL rookies with 84 points with Brantford last season. “It’s the best feeling in the world. I’ve never felt anything like this. And that embrace was so comforting, and I’m so glad he’s here with me as dad.”

Malhotra said his dad was not aware of the Canucks’ draft plans. And he now has bragging rights on his father in being selected four spots higher, after Manny went No. 7 to the New York Rangers in 1998.

Run on defensemen

After forwards went with the first three picks, including Sweden’s Ivar Stenberg second to San Jose, the expected run on defensemen began with five selected over the next six picks, and 10 overall.

Buffalo selected Prince Albert blue-liner Daxon Rudolph at No. 4, followed by Latvia’s Alberts Smits going fifth to the Rangers. Chase Reid, who is from Michigan, went seventh to Seattle as the first American-born player selected.

Smits split last season playing professionally in Finland and Germany, while also representing Latvia at the Milan Cortina Olympics. He became the highest drafted Latvian.

Trades and more trades

This was a much more active first round with picks traded for NHL players than the previous couple of years. The Rangers got Pavel Dorofeyev from Vegas for picks 26 and 92, and a 2028 first-rounder. Boston acquired JJ Peterka from Utah for a pair of first-rounders. And St. Louis traded two of its picks to Anaheim for Mason McTavish.

The selections featured an international flavor with 10 Canadians, a first-round-record seven Swedes and seven Americans chosen. The first round ended with Ottawa selecting forward Jaxon Cover, who was born in Miami, raised on Grand Cayman where he played roller hockey, and developed his hockey skills in Toronto.

And Bieber wasn't the only music star to make a pick, with country music's Luke Bryan on hand to announce Nashville's selection of Wyatt Cullen before performing a concert a few blocks away.

Rudolph was wowed watching his good friend McKenna being welcomed to the stage.

“To see him be selected first and with Justin Bieber and everything, it was amazing,” Rudolph said. “I just remember talking to my mom and saying. ‘Wow, this is so cool,’ as I’m sitting there on the couch waiting to be picked.”

McKenna accustomed to the spotlight

McKenna is accustomed to the spotlight. He combined for 79 goals and 244 points in 133 games with Medicine Hat in the WHL. As a freshman at Penn State, he finished with 51 points, tied for fourth in the nation, last season.

He became just the fifth NCAA player to go first, and third in six years, since Michigan defenseman Owen Power went No. 1 to Buffalo in 2021.

McKenna also became the fifth Yukon-born player to be selected in the draft, and first to go No. 1. He now heads to a metropolis that is nearly 100 times larger than Whitehorse’s population of about 39,000.

This was the NHL’s second straight decentralized draft, with teams making selections from their respective headquarters.

Decentralized draft Part II

Lacking in the new format is each draft pick joining his new team’s front office on stage. Last year, the NHL attempted to rectify that by having teams welcome their prospects by video conference call on stage at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. The interviews were widely panned for being awkward and glitchy, and contributing to the draft lasting nearly 4 1/2 hours.

This year the NHL had the top prospects seated with their families in what resembled a lounge area, featuring plush couches, directly in front of the stage. After being selected, each player was interviewed on a couch on stage, with the backdrop representing the team in a first round that took about four hours to complete.

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AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno and AP freelance writer Denis Gorman contributed to this report.

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

She's only the second WNBA coach to enter the Hall of Fame, joining former Houston Comets coach Van Chancellor, who was inducted in 2001.

“(I appreciate) the magnitude of this recognition of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and the great work that has gone into this institution,” Reeve said. “To walk around and see the history of how much has been done years before I could ever have this opportunity to coach. Grateful to the WNBA because I think there was some consideration given schedule wise.”

Reeve will be joined by WNBA greats Candace Parker and Elena Delle Donne in this year's class. Parker and Delle Donne also will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame later this year. Other inductees include ESPN broadcaster Doris Burke, Kirkwood Community College coach Kim Muhl, Spanish star Amaya Valdemoro, French great Isabelle Fijalkowski and Clemson's all-time leading scorer and rebounder, Barbara Kennedy-Dixon.

Parker and Delle Donne were shocked to learn that Reeve was only the second WNBA coach to be honored.

“When you look at Cheryl’s career and what she’s done and all the winning and all the Hall of Famers she’s coached and then you look at her and she’s not ancient, like, that’s rare,” Delle Donne said. “That’s just how good she is and how long she’s been winning and doing it at a young age. Cheryl’s phenomenal. She made life really hard when we were playing against her.”

Reeve has won four WNBA championships with the Minnesota Lynx, whom she has coached since 2010. She also led the U.S. women's Olympic team to an eighth consecutive gold medal at the 2024 Paris Games. Reeve has 378 victories and is one win behind Mike Thibault for the most all-time in WNBA history.

She has a chance to match Thibault on Sunday when the Lynx play the Dallas Wings.

Parker won three titles in the WNBA playing with three different teams: Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas. She is the only player in league history to win both the MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season (2008).

She also won two titles while playing in college for Tennessee under Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt, plus two Olympic gold medals and a second WNBA MVP award (2013).

“I'm super humbled to be going in with Elena and with the other inductees in the 2026 class,” Parker said.

Delle Donne won two league MVP awards in 2015 and 2019, the second of which came when she led the Washington Mystics to their lone WNBA championship. Delle Donne became the first player in league history to shoot more than 50% from the field, 40% from behind the 3-point line and 90% from the foul line.

Burke has covered basketball for ESPN since 1991 and in 2024 became the first woman to call the NBA Finals as a TV analyst. She was also the lead voice for the network in women's college basketball for many years. Burke played college basketball at Providence, scoring 1,372 points.

Valdemoro starred for the Spanish national team while playing on the 2004 and 2008 Olympic teams. She also was a member of the Houston Comets, winning three WNBA titles with the organization.

Muhl won 1,108 games and nine national titles at Kirkwood Community College. He had 37 consecutive 20-win seasons before retiring this past April.

Fijalkowski was a five-time French League champion and two-time EuroLeague winner. She was the French national team's all-time leading scorer with 2,562 points in 204 games.

Kennedy-Dixon had 3,113 points and 1,252 rebounds for Clemson. She was one of just eight players to have at least 3,000 points and 1,000 rebounds since the NCAA began sponsoring women's sports. She played professionally in Italy, and then played for the Virginia Wave in 1989 in the Women’s American Basketball Association before the league folded the same year.

Kennedy-Dixon died in 2018.

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

That's right: There's a beef about beef between two of the top cattle-raising areas of the world, where steak is deeply ingrained in diet and culture. Texas ranks No. 1 in the United States in beef production and the U.S. is second only to Brazil globally, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Argentina ranks sixth.

It's a high-steaks question: Who does do it best?

The case for Argentine beef

“Argentine beef is simply unbeatable. The savory texture, the style of the cut — there is no competing with it,” said Carlos Eduardo Barahona, 64, an Argentine chef who's lived in Texas since 1998.

From the cheapest cuts to the most expensive, Argentina is tops, asserts Barahona, who has worked in restaurants across Argentina, Uruguay, and Texas.

“You can make an (Argentine) asado with the cheapest cut in our country and you will enjoy it. Here, you can use the best meat, like tenderloin, and depending on its source, it can turn out tough, inedible or tender. But our beef has a completely different flavor profile,” Barahona said.

Argentine beef cattle is mostly grass-fed on open pastures, taking longer to reach the point it is ready for market. The result is leaner meat with intense earthy flavors.

The case for Texan beef

Predominantly grain-fed beef in Texas and the U.S. will have more marbling — the streaks of intramuscular fat that act as internal baster and make the meat juicy and tender — and a sweeter flavor.

“There’s no better beef than U.S. beef, particularly Texas beef,” said Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

But Argentine beef is very good too, Miller said. Thanks to Texas.

Miller said his agency opened a marketing office more than a decade ago to connect Texas' cattle raisers with ranchers in South America, notably in Argentina.

“I don’t want to disparage our friends in Argentina, but we have helped them improve,” he said.

“Their genetics were lacking. We do have them up to pretty high quality. We sold them a lot of semen, embryos, and breeding stock,” Miller added.

Miller congratulated Argentine farmers on improving the quality of their cows.

“Their herds have American genetics in them, so they should be good,” Miller said.

The verdict is in the eye of the beefholder

Argentine fan Gonzalo Herrera browsed packaged meat at a Walmart in Arlington, Texas, after watching Messi score two goals in a win over Austria. He shrugged at the whose-beef-is-better debate.

“Honestly, I don’t see a massive difference,” Herrera said as he packed four T-bone steaks into his shopping cart.

“The key is knowing exactly which cuts to buy and finding the equivalent of what we eat in Argentina,” he said, shaking his head at the $45 price.

“Prices are higher here,” Herrera said.

The beef banter just as easily boils down to recipes and preferences in style and thickness of cuts. It's a matter of taste, quite literally, when it comes to seasoning, searing, smoking, butter, pepper, sauces and so forth.

At Corrientes 348 Argentinian Steakhouse in Dallas, steaks are prepared with just salt and mesquite charcoal, said assistant manager Emmanuel Tobon.

“There's a big difference. Texans use a lot of pepper, they use butter, they use a little barbecue (sauce),” Tobon said. “(Argentines) like to bring all the flavor of the steak by only using salt.”

Argentina still has at least one more match to play in Dallas, on Saturday. Fans of the Albiceleste have been packing the restaurant, seeking a quick taste of home during the World Cup.

“They have been enjoying the Texas culture,” Tobon said. “(But) it has been a great pleasure to have all of them, to make them feel like home.”

Argentines are fiercely proud of their steak culture, recipes that have been passed down for generations, and the “sacred” work of the grill master at large family meals, he said.

For Fernando Garcia Morillo, an Argentine from Buenos Aires who now lives near Miami, the meat from both countries is great. But he longs for the traditions of home whenever he orders steak in the U.S.

“I order just salt, no pepper, just plain,” Morillo said. “Sometimes they use a lot of sauce.”

He dismissed any notion of a beef between the U.S and Argentina.

“Maybe there's a rivalry as usual against Brazil, our neighbor,” he said. “I love the U.S. meat.”

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Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Dembélé scored a first-half hat trick, including one off a feed from Mbappé, to help France beat Norway 4-1 at the World Cup on Friday.

Dembélé's goals came in the seventh, 20th and 32nd minutes. It was the first first-half hat trick at the World Cup since Russia forward Oleg Salenko scored three of his five goals in the opening 45 minutes against Cameroon at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

“It is a unique moment,” Dembélé said. “But the most important was to finish first of the group in the group stage, and we are focused on the round of 32, which is the most important.”

France, which won the World Cup in 2018 and lost in the final four years ago, had already secured its place in the knockout round before Friday’s match. Norway was also assured of a spot in the round of 32 and ended up in second place in the group.

Désiré Doué scored France's final goal in second-half injury time.

Dembélé said changing their approach in the final group match was never a consideration. France has 10 goals through three games.

“We want to win all our matches, but we remain focused,” Dembélé said.

The fastest World Cup hat trick took only 7 minutes, 42 seconds. Hungary striker Laszlo Kiss, who had come on as a substitute, managed that feat late in the match against El Salvador at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

The quickest World Cup hat trick from the start of the match occurred at the 1954 tournament in Switzerland when Austria striker Erich Probst scored his three goals in the opening 24 minutes against Czechoslovakia.

Dembélé, who won Ballon d’Or as Europe’s top player in 2025 and has now scored four goals at this year's World Cup, left the game in the 65th minute. He was replaced by Bradley Barcola.

Thelo Aasgaard got Norway on the scoreboard after Dembélé’s second goal, finding the back of the net only 14 seconds after the restart. But Dembélé added his third goal less than nine minutes later to push the lead back to two.

Dembélé increased his international goal total to eight while Mbappe now has 16 goals and four assists in 17 World Cup matches. He scored two goals in each of France’s wins over Senegal and Iraq.

Erling Haaland was among 10 regular starters absent from Norway’s starting lineup, presumably to rest. The wholesale changes included Egil Selvik starting in goal in place of Orjan Nyland.

Norway coach Ståle Solbakken said resting so many players was an easy decision for him.

“The break that we had from the last game to this game was the shortest of any team. ... So it's a no-brainer,” he said. “The fans around Norway and also in the arena would have like to see Erling. But that is not really the issue. We want to proceed as long as we can in the tournament.”

The Norwegians will next face Ivory Coast in the round of 32 on Tuesday in Arlington, Texas. France will play the same day against one of the eight best third-place finishers in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Mbappé nearly got France on the scoreboard only 21 seconds into the game. He sprinted up the right side and sent a hard shot that hit the crossbar beyond the outstretched arm of Selvik.

Dembélé was operating in space for his first goal when he took took a pass from Mbappé and blasted a right-footed shot across Selvik.

On the Paris Saint-Germain player’s second goal, Dembélé found space between three defenders at the top of the box and fired in a left-footer beyond Selvik’s diving save attempt.

Norway had a chance to close the gap back to one goal in the 49th when France defender Theo Hernandez was whistled for tripping Oscar Bobb in the box. But Jorgen Strand Larsen’s penalty shot toward the right corner was batted away by France goalkeeper Mike Maignan.

Before the game, French fans in attendance displayed a banner reading “AVEC TOI DIDIER” (With you Didier), acknowledging France coach Didier Deschamps' mother, Ginette Deschamps, who died this week. The coach missed the match against Norway on Friday because he was in France with family, leaving assistant Guy Stéphan in charge.

Stéphan said Deschamps would rejoin the team for its next training session on Saturday.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Uruguay, a two-time champion, will go home without any victories in its three Group H games. Spain, the European champion, won the group with seven points and will face the second-place team from Group J — either Austria or Algeria — on Thursday in Inglewood, California.

Álex Baena scored in the 42nd minute after Muslera couldn’t fully swat away his shot from inside the area. It was the third blunder of the tournament by the 40-year-old Muslera, who asked coach Marcelo Bielsa to substitute him at halftime. Sergio Rochet came in to start the second half.

“He is the one who decided to leave,” Bielsa said.

The veteran Argentine coach said he feels like Uruguay deserved better luck considering its performances, and should have earned seven points instead of two from its group matches. But he took full responsibility for the team's failure.

“No one wants to listen to explanations now,” Bielsa said. “The blame is on me, I’m the one responsible for the disappointing work that I did. I had a group of quality players.”

At 19th in the FIFA rankings, Uruguay is the highest-ranked team to be eliminated so far.

“Every match is different and you have to win every type of match,” Spain coach Luis de la Fuente said. “This was a game with maximum difficulty.”

De la Fuente said midfielder Yéremy Pino likely suffered a broken collarbone that would sideline him for the rest of the tournament. Pino, who entered the match in the 66th minute, stayed on until the end despite the injury because Spain had already made all five substitutions.

Cape Verde, which played Saudi Arabia to a 0-0 draw in the other group game on Friday, finished second in the group with three points, one more than both Uruguay and Saudi Arabia. Uruguay finished third but without enough points to be among the best eight third-place teams that will advance.

A few Uruguay players cried on the field after the final whistle. Many fans booed the team as it left.

The match was one of the most anticipated of the group stage, but it featured few significant scoring chances by either team.

“I'm very proud of all the work that we have done,” Baena said. “We competed very well.”

Uruguay players loudly advocated for a penalty in the final minutes after Federico Viñas went down inside the area.

There was some tension near the end. Uruguay’s Agustín Canobbio was sent off in stoppage time for a tackle on Spain defender Paul Cubarsi. His teammates had to escort him off the field, and after the final whistle he returned to try to talk to the referee.

Uruguay, the World Cup winner in 1930 and 1950, came into the final group match in turmoil after draws against Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde. Uruguayan media said there were reports of players not being happy with Bielsa.

Spain, seeking its second World Cup title, opened with a shocking 0-0 draw against Cape Verde but was coming off a 4-0 win over Saudi Arabia. La Roja haven’t made it past the round of 16 since winning their lone title in 2010.

Spain striker Lamine Yamal, who entered the tournament nursing a left hamstring injury, had a lackluster outing and again didn’t play the entire match, being replaced by Ferran Torres in the 76th minute. The 18-year-old Yamal was replaced at halftime against Saudi Arabia and came off the bench in the second half against Cape Verde.

Uruguay midfielder Manuel Ugarte had to replaced because of an apparent knee injury near the end of the first half. He was on the ground seeking medical assistance when Spain opened the scoring, and was eventually taken off the field on a stretcher.

King Felipe VI of Spain was among the crowd of 45,065 at Estadio Akron.

A moment of silence was observed before the match in memory of those who died when back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela late Wednesday.

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Associated Press writer Maria Verza contributed to this report.

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

The Rangers acquired Dorofeyev from Vegas for the Nos. 26 and 92 picks this year, plus a conditional first-rounder in 2028. The 25-year-old is coming off scoring 12 goals on the Golden Knights' run to the Stanley Cup Final.

On their way there, they defeated the Utah Mammoth, who also made a big subtraction by sending a winger to the Eastern Conference. JJ Peterka is going to the Boston Bruins for the No. 23 pick and Florida's top-10-protected '28 first-rounder.

Peterka is changing places for a second consecutive offseason following his move from Buffalo just over a year to the day ago. The 24-year-old from Germany now gets to play for the league's only German coach, Marco Sturm.

“I would like to thank JJ for his commitment to our organization,” Utah general manager Bill Armstrong said. “JJ is a great person and will be a dynamic player for Boston.”

Midway through the first round, the St. Louis Blues acquired forward Mason McTavish from Anaheim for the Nos. 15 and 29 picks, getting a player entering his prime at 23 who's signed through 2031 at a salary cap hit of $7 million.

The Mammoth flipped the 23rd pick to Detroit for 23-year-old restricted free agent goaltender Sebastian Cossa.

Pre-draft trades aplenty

Getting Dorofeyev was New York GM Chris Drury 's second move of the day after sending forward Brett Berard to Montreal for defenseman William Trudeau, who has been in the minors and is still awaiting his NHL debut.

Also Friday, Buffalo got defenseman Olen Zellweger, who also needs a new contract, from Anaheim for the 45th pick and forward prospect Anton Wahlberg. Zellweger, who turns 23 in September, replenishes depth for the Sabres after they traded Bowen Byram to Chicago earlier in the week.

Chicago sent winger Andre Burakovsky to Ottawa for a 2027 sixth-round pick. Burakovsky joins the Senators more than three decades since his dad, Robert, played 23 games for them in the 1993-94 season.

The Blackhawks clear his $5.5 million salary cap hit off the books for next season, while the Senators get a 31-year-old winger who has twice won the Stanley Cup.

General manager Steve Staios said the Senators were happy to add a player of Burakovsky’s pedigree because he “adds skill and playmaking ability to our forward group.”

Staios was busy in the hours before adding Burakovsky, acquiring the rights to goaltender Samuel Ersson and re-signing another pending restricted free agent, defenseman Jordan Spence. Ottawa sent a 2027 fifth-rounder to rival Toronto for Ersson, whom the Maple Leafs got along with Emil Andrae in a cap space-clearing trade with Philadelphia for Joseph Woll and Simon Benoit.

Spence, 25, signed a four-year, $20 million contract. He was a big part of the team enduring injuries at the position and still making the playoffs, scoring a career-high seven goals and finishing with 31 points while skating an average of nearly 19 minutes over 73 games.

“Jordan was an excellent addition to our hockey club and proved to be a valuable asset on our blue line and stepped up when it counted last season,” Staios said. “We’re excited to have him as part of our core group.”

Teams take care of in-house business

Colorado re-signed defensemen Brent Burns and Brett Kulak, fresh off winning the Presidents’ Trophy and losing in the conference final to Vegas.

Burns, 41, signed for next season, his 23rd in the league, at the veteran minimum of $850,000 and can make up to $3 million in incentives, according to a person familiar with the deal. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because financial terms were not disclosed.

Burns has skated in 1,007 consecutive regular-season games and is 58 away from passing Phil Kessel for the longest ironman streak in NHL history.

Kulak got a five-year contract from the Avalanche worth a reported $22.5 million. President of hockey operations and franchise great Joe Sakic is reshaping the roster after reclaiming GM duties when Chris MacFarland left for Nashville.

The Islanders re-signed defenseman Tony DeAngelo to a two-year contract worth $9 million. He will count $4.5 million against the salary cap through the 2027-28 season.

DeAngelo, 30, is returning to the Islanders for a second full season after joining them upon returning to the NHL from a stint in the Russia-based KHL in January 2025.

“Tony has been great since he’s been here," GM Mathieu Darche said on a video call with reporters after the draft. “It’s tough to find puck-moving defensemen, never mind a right-shot puck-moving defenseman, so Tony’s a big part of our team. We’re excited to have him back.”

Los Angeles re-signed defenseman Brandt Clarke for $37 million over the next five years.

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

A three-judge panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal unanimously issued the decision, saying his trial judge did not violate the former movie magnate's constitutional rights.

“We reject his attempts to disturb the jury’s guilty verdicts,” the judges wrote in their opinion.

Weinstein spokesperson Juda Engelmayer said in an email that “We are disappointed by today’s decision and respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeal’s conclusions regarding the fairness of Mr. Weinstein’s trial. At the same time, the court correctly recognized that his sentence cannot stand.”

The decision came a day after prosecutors in New York decided Weinstein would not face a fourth trial there, dropping the #MeToo-era case after the accuser said she could not bear to testify again.

The California panel said that resentencing was necessary because the judge that sentenced him considered New York convictions that were later thrown out as an aggravating factor. California's attorney general agreed.

Weinstein, 74, still stands convicted of another sexual felony in New York, and he remains behind bars awaiting a September sentencing there. Prosecutors there are seeking a 20-year prison term.

In California, Weinstein was convicted in December 2022 of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against an Italian model and actor known during the trial as Jane Doe 1. He would serve his new sentence there only after his New York term is complete.

After the trial, Jane Doe 1 came forward under her name, Evgeniya Chernyshova, when she sued Weinstein in civil court.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Chernyshova did. Her attorney also said she consented to being named.

Chernyshova testified that Weinstein arrived uninvited to her hotel room during the 2013 LA Italia Film Festival and assaulted her.

Weinstein’s defense argued that Weinstein deserved a new trial because Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench wrongly prevented his trial lawyers from asking about Facebook messages between Chernyshova and festival head Pascal Vicedomini that would have shown they had a sexual relationship.

The questioning would have demonstrated that she perjured herself when she said she and Vicedomini were just friends and colleagues, the defense said. And the lawyers argued it would have bolstered their assertion that she was not even in her room on the night of the alleged assault.

“The lower court all but gutted Mr. Weinstein’s defense,” attorney Jennifer Bonjean told the appeals judges at April 23 oral arguments.

But the appeals court said in its ruling that Weinstein did make the arguments he wanted during the trial based on other evidence, including another set of Facebook messages that Lench allowed.

“Thus, there was no denial of Weinstein’s constitutional right to present a defense,” the panel wrote in its opinion.

The three judges also found that Weinstein's lawyers failed to adhere to California's rape shield law prohibiting evidence of an accuser's sexual history when they tried to introduce the messages. Weinstein's lawyers had argued that the shield law was not pertinent because they wanted to use the messages only to impeach the witness's credibility.

And the appeals judges said testimony from accusers describing sexual assaults Weinstein was not charged with was appropriate, and allowed under state law.

Before his sentencing, Weinstein told the judge that this was a “made-up story” from a woman he had never met.

The Los Angeles jury acquitted Weinstein of the sexual battery of a massage therapist and failed to reach verdicts on counts involving two other women.

“This is not the end of the appellate process,” Engelmayer said in his email Friday. “We intend to seek review in the California Supreme Court because we continue to believe significant legal errors affected the proceedings and warrant further review.”

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said it would not have comment on the decision until the office reviewed it.

Chernyshova’s lawyer David Ring said in an email Friday that she “has persevered for years to reach this point against the man who raped her” and thanks the prosecutors and appellate lawyers “for putting Harvey Weinstein away for good.”

“My transition out of the active duty military was traumatic in itself,” Fahey recalled. “I felt unprepared, I felt unworthy, felt unloved.”

Saturday, June 27th is National PTSD Awareness Day designed to shed light on post-traumatic stress disorder and erase mental health stigmas. While the day highlights the struggles of all PTSD patients, a bulk of the research has focused on helping military veterans heal and recover.

• 4 Houston-area residents face federal charges, accused of flying drones in FIFA World Cup no-drone zone

Chris Fahey said he struggled with a high level of hyper vigilance -- even after returning from war. After seeking counseling he knew more was wrong when he lost connection to the feelings of love and trust for family and close friends. That is when, with the help of the PTSD Clinical team at DeBakey VA Hospital, he realized he was struggling with PTSD.

Dr. Deleene Menefee, a psychologist, is the team’s program director. She says advances have been made in PTSD treatment as the nation has become more aware. New methods keep in mind that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach.

“Some are time intensive. They require practice outside of the session,” said Menefee. “Some of them require people to be able to write and not everyone wants to do that. So we’re going to tailor it to meet the needs of that individual.”

Fahey says it was multiple methods, and the guidance of his specific counselor that made the difference. It came down to answering a question asked by his counselor -- during each session.

“‘Okay Chris, but what’s next? Okay Chris, I get where you’re at but what’s next,’” Fahey recalled his counselor asking. He said he would also ask, “‘What are we doing next, because we’re not giving up today? Today’s not the day we give up.’”

• Katy’s Venezuelan community rallies after deadly earthquakes

Fahey said he has restored all of the relationships that were damaged during the most intense days of his struggle. He has since earned a degree in psychology and is now working on a master’s. Most importantly, he has rediscovered purpose and hope.

“There’s one fundamental truth that I’ve learned,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter what we’re experiencing as the course of our mental health issues that you can recover. There’s absolutely nothing we can’t recover from.”

If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, regardless of veteran status, you can call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline any time, day or night, by dialing 988. If you are a veteran in crisis dial 988 and then press 1.

According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the crash occurred on April 7th at 2:08 am in the 18700 block of the North Freeway in the southbound main lanes. Clark was in the number three lane of traffic when they were struck by an unknown vehicle traveling southbound. The impact threw Clark from the number three lane into the adjacent number four southbound lane. The driver of the vehicle did not stop and left the scene. Investigators say several additional vehicles also hit Clark, but none of the drivers stopped to render aid or call 911.

For his mother, Felicia Clark, the tragedy is almost impossible to comprehend.

“It’s so tragic,” she said. “I don’t understand how someone could leave my baby out there like that. I just don’t understand.”

• Convicted sex offender arrested again for allegedly possessing child pornography, Harris County Pct. 1 deputies say

Authorities have not said where Clark was coming from or where he was headed before the crash. More than two months later, no arrests have been made, leaving his family searching for answers.

The injuries Clark suffered were so severe that his family was advised not to view him before his funeral.

“They said it wasn’t a good idea for me to see him,” his mother recalled.

The loss is especially heartbreaking because it is the second time Felicia Clark has lost a son in a hit-and-run crash. In 2023, her older son, Robert Jones, a postal worker and Kevon’s older brother, was also killed in a hit-and-run. Clark says the two brothers shared a close bond, and Kevon looked up to his older sibling.

Despite enduring unimaginable grief, Clark says her faith has helped her continue moving forward.

“It’s very hard, and the only thing that keeps me going is by the grace of God,” she said. “I have my moments, I have my days, but I refuse to give up.”

Family members describe Kevon Clark as outgoing, compassionate and always willing to help others. He also leaves behind a 2-year-old daughter, whose future will now be shaped without her father.

• 4 Houston-area residents face federal charges, accused of flying drones in FIFA World Cup no-drone zone

Now, Clark hopes someone who witnessed the crash or knows what happened will come forward.

“I hope someone has a heart and just comes forward and speaks up to give me and my son and my family peace,” she said.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate the deadly hit-and-run. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Sheriff’s Office or Crime Stoppers. Even the smallest detail could help investigators identify those responsible and bring long-awaited answers to Clark’s family.

And on Friday, manager Carlos Mendoza took the fall.

Halfway through a wretched season, Mendoza was fired as skipper of the underperforming Mets and replaced by former San Diego Padres manager Andy Green, who was already working in the organization.

Last-place New York was 34-47 at the season's midpoint, 15 games behind NL East-leading Atlanta and 9 1/2 back of the final NL wild-card berth.

Mets owner Steve Cohen had high expectations for a team without a World Series title since 1986. New York opened the season with baseball’s highest payroll at $358 million and was projected to pay an additional $124 million in luxury tax.

“There is no sugar-coating it: This season has been a disappointment and our fans deserve better than what we’ve delivered,” Cohen said in a statement.

Although in some ways Mendoza had been on the hot seat for months, in others it was a stunningly swift decline for a skipper viewed as a rising star in 2024, when he earned high praise and was a Manager of the Year finalist after taking the Mets on a surprising playoff run in his debut season.

At a Citi Field news conference before Friday night's 2-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, president of baseball operations David Stearns thanked Mendoza for his contributions and called it “a very difficult day.”

“Despite all of our effors, Mendy’s included, we haven’t been able to get this going this year. And I take responsibility for that," Stearns said. "I also have a responsibility to push us forward, to look for solutions and to make difficult decisions and change when I think it's needed."

Slowed by injuries to Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Clay Holmes, Francisco Alvarez, Luis Robert Jr. and Jorge Polanco, the Mets (34-48) are a season-worst 14 games under .500 after dropping their seventh in a row. Friday night marked only the 10th time all year — and first since April 22 — that Lindor and Soto were both in the starting lineup. On two of those occasions, one left early because of a calf strain.

New York traded pitcher David Peterson, who had been the team's longest-tenured player, to the Chicago Cubs on Thursday and could pivot to a selloff this summer and retooling for the future.

“I understand we have an uphill battle ahead of us this year, but we're not turning the page,” Stearns said. “I think sometimes a new voice, a new perspective, a new view, helps. And sometimes it's really difficult to explain why or how. But at this point, it was time to try.”

Stearns said he informed Mendoza of the decision when they met Friday morning, and the Mets held a team meeting Friday afternoon.

“At the end of the day, this is not on him. It’s more on us, the players, that we didn’t perform to our capabilities,” Lindor said.

The 46-year-old Mendoza spent 15 seasons working for the New York Yankees, the last four as bench coach, before the Mets hired him to replace Buck Showalter after the 2023 season. They reached the National League Championship Series in 2024 but missed the playoffs last year and are among baseball's biggest disappointments this season.

“If we were playing better, he’d still be here. It’s just unfortunate he had to take the fall,” infielder Bo Bichette said.

Since starting 2025 a major league-best 45-24 through June 12, the Mets are 72-103. The team went 206-199 under Mendoza, who was in the final guaranteed season of a three-year contract. He was hired by the Mets a month after Stearns arrived.

After signing Soto to a record $765 million, 15-year contract before the 2025 season, Stearns made major changes last offseason. He overhauled Mendoza's coaching staff and allowed fan favorites Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz to leave as free agents. Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil were traded, and Stearns brought in Bichette, Polanco, Robert, Freddy Peralta and Marcus Semien.

None of it has worked.

New York had a 12-game losing streak in April, its longest since 2002, and made six errors in the nightcap of Wednesday's doubleheader loss to the Chicago Cubs, the team's most in a game since 2014.

The 48-year-old Green, a former major league infielder, joined the Mets in 2023 as senior vice president of baseball development and had been running their farm system. He was given the title of interim manager for the rest of the season and will wear uniform No. 70.

“Tough. I don't think anybody dreams of sitting in this seat this way,” Green said.

Green managed San Diego to a 274-366 record from 2016-19, finishing with losing records in all four seasons.

Stearns said Green will return to a front-office role after this season and the Mets will conduct a full search for a new manager. Green said he loves the player-development job he had and chose it largely to be able to spend more time with his three daughters.

“This wasn't something I was running to,” Green said. “This felt more like a responsibility than an opportunity.”

Green played four games for the Mets in 2009, his final big league appearances as a player. He became the team's fourth manager since Cohen bought the club from the Wilpon and Katz families after the 2020 season, following Luis Rojas, Showalter and Mendoza.

Mendoza is the third major league manager to lose his job since the season started. Boston's Alex Cora was replaced by Chad Tracy and Philadelphia's Rob Thomson by Don Mattingly, with both of those changes coming in late April.

Roster shuffle

In other moves, the Mets reinstated outfielder Tyrone Taylor (right hip flexor strain) from the 10-day injured list and recalled left-hander Zach Thornton from Triple-A Syracuse to make his second big league start Friday night against Philadelphia. The club optioned outfielder MJ Melendez and right-hander Daniel Duarte to Syracuse following Thursday night's 10-inning loss to the Cubs.

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AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum and AP freelancer Jerry Beach contributed to this report.

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

It's not the kind of reaction most veteran artists receive. “And I’m thinking, you know, 20 years is a long time to work for something. But when you see that … What’s the next 20 years look like?” he asks.

The rancher, rodeo competitor and onetime prison guard started his two-decade career playing honky tonks and dive bars. That led to slow and steady growth for the country traditionalist, but in the last few years, something has shifted. He landed his fifth career No. 1 song with “The Fall.” He was named entertainer of the year at the 2026 Academy of Country Music Awards, the show's highest honor. That was a month after he headlined Stagecoach Music Festival. For an artist with legions of fans, it looked like he was accessing new heights.

“I feel like I’m closing a book and I’m opening another one and it’s all blank pages,” he says of this period. “Let's get to the next chapter."

On Friday, that new era began with the release of his album “Banks of the Trinity.”

Traveling to the ‘Banks of the Trinity’

It hasn't been an easy road. Last fall, Johnson had to cancel a bunch of tour dates after upper respiratory and sinus infections caused a burst eardrum that required surgery — an intimidating medical procedure for anyone, but especially nerve-wracking for a musician. “I was scared,” he said simply. But “in a roundabout way, it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

It forced him to take three months off, which allowed him to be home during the birth of his son. It also rejuvenated his approach in the studio. Before the incident, he thought the album was complete. It was not: The additional time resulted in the inclusion of a few songs that now feel inextricable from the record: “Thank Somebody Country,” “Take Me Back (Leave Me There),” “Cricket on a Hook,” and the resilient “I Have” among them.

“What a blessing to have that kind of song fall in your lap when you’re kind of up against the ropes,” he says of the latter. “I mean, we thought we had the record done. It wasn’t done.”

A title track with real resonance

At the heart of “Banks of the Trinity” is its title track, which recalls Eagles' cover of “Seven Bridges Road” meets bluegrass and Southern gospel. Lyrically, it's an ode to Johnson's childhood. “I grew up on the banks of the Trinity (River.) Fishing for catfish, not so much out of pleasure or sport but for necessity to put food in the freezer. Deer season for me was not a trophy thing,” he said.

And while that track inspires a feeling of nostalgia within the listener, he doesn't consider this album a throwback collection. He says it's about showcasing his evolving sonic diversity. “The rest of the album for me is a musical journey from track one to track 16,” he said. “There’s a little bit of a flavor for everybody. It does kind of hit Motown. It does kind of hit Bluegrass. It does hit progressive country. It does it old country. It does a little rock here and there.”

It's the result of a new kind of freedom, one that is at least partially due to his recent accomplishments, including taking home the top prize at the ACM Awards. “I just did the thing that I’ve aspired to do in my career my entire life,” he says. “A really good place is a really good way to describe where I am.”

And now that the album is out, he's ready to take a breather. “I will be shirtless with no shoes on a beach at an undisclosed location,” he jokes about the days after record release. “'Cause I have already done all the prep work. I've been working on this album for two years. I’ve done all of the interviews. I’ve shook all the hands. Me and my wife and kids are gonna disappear for 10 days and I’m gonna become, I guess, every Kenny Chesney song ever.”

It's not a bad place to be.

Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones is reminding families that free, accessible healthcare is available to young people in need.

“It’s called the Baylor teen health clinic, and they’re here for anyone age 13 to 24, that’s the only qualifying factor,” said Precinct Four Chief Operations Officer, Daniel Rodriguez. “They’re open five days a week, Monday through Friday, 8am to 4:30pm by appointment. They take walk-ins as well if they have space available, and even if they don’t, they’ll connect you with one of the precinct four social workers to make sure you get the care you need.”

• Katy’s Venezuelan community rallies after deadly earthquakes

Briones’ office partnered with Baylor College of Medicine to open its most recent teen clinic location in 2024. Officing next to the Bayland Community Center, it serves the Gulfton neighborhood, an area in which 36% of residents are uninsured.

“Commissioner Briones is committed to making sure that everyone has access to affordable, high-quality healthcare,” said Rodriguez.

With a total of seven teen clinics across the county, teens and young adults can find free preventive healthcare, reproductive healthcare and mental health services. There are no residency requirements, but minors must have parental consent.

“I was (a patient) from 17 to 24,” said Elsa Perla, who says Baylor teen health clinics gave her care she wouldn’t have been able to access elsewhere. “It was great. If I had any questions, they were there for me, and it was completely free.”

Longtime patient Kayla Mendiola agrees.

“I come from a family that is low-income, so to have that opportunity to have something completely free, something I don’t have to stress about, it was incredibly important and special.”

• 4 Houston-area residents face federal charges, accused of flying drones in FIFA World Cup no-drone zone

But that’s not all these clinics provide. In addition to free healthcare, patients with a high school diploma or GED who want to pursue a health care profession are connected to ascend, a privately-funded program that pays the tuition for community college certification courses, removing financial barriers to post-secondary education.

You can learn more about Baylor’s teen health clinics, including locations and services provided, here.

Find information on the ascend program here.

Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said Friday, two days after Messi's 39th birthday, that the team's captain will begin the match on the bench, but also indicated through an interpreter that he “will come in a little bit later.”

Scaloni didn't say when Messi might substitute in to the game, or what his lineup would be against first-time World Cup participant Jordan, which lost its first two matches.

Messi scored all five goals for Argentina in the first two group matches, and now has 18 goals overall in his six World Cups. He had his first-ever hat trick in the tournament in a 3-0 win over Algeria to tie the career scoring record at 16 goals that had been held by Miroslav Klose of Germany. He broke that mark with the goals in a 2-0 win over Austria on Monday at the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys — where the group finale will be played.

Klose played in 24 World Cup matches for Germany, which wrapped up his fourth tournament by winning the 2014 final 1-0 in extra time over Messi and Argentina. Kylian Mbappé matched Klose at 16 with two goals in France’s 3-0 win over Iraq later Monday. Mbappé, who has four goals in the tournament, didn't score in a 4-1 win over Norway on Friday in his final group match.

Considered by many to be the greatest player of all time, Messi has made 201 international appearances for Argentina, including a FIFA-record 28 World Cup matches. He has scored in six consecutive World Cup games, joining France striker Just Fontaine and Brazil great Jairzinho as only players to do that.

Messi had been dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami of Major League Soccer that slowed him in the lead-up to the World Cup.

While there have been no indications of any issues since, Argentina has a lot of games left if it is going to get to another World Cup final. The knockout round for La Albiceleste begins next Friday in South Florida, and in this expanded 48-team tournament that would be the first of five matches in 17 days if they make it to the final on July 19.

Even with Argentina trying to go undefeated in group play for the fifth time, and first since 2014, Messi isn't the only starter expected to get a break.

Goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez could be the only regular starter in a lineup that could feature several new faces. Nicolás Paz, who made his World Cup debut subbing in for Messi late in the opener against Algeria, is now expected to start in his place.

“The hope is that the team will play the same way. That’s what we’re going to try to do,” Scaloni said. “Jordan is a good opponent, and we’re not taking anything for granted. We’ll try to tweak some aspects of the last match, but with the same intention of controlling the ball and dominating the opponent.”

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Associated Press writer Débora Rey contributed to this report.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Citizens digging through the rubble of their homes said they have seen few state rescue teams in the areas hit hardest by the devastating 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes that struck late Wednesday, despite authorities projecting an image of a robust government response.

The lack of help compounded families' desperation as the pressure to find buried survivors increased with each passing hour. The South American nation on Friday marked nearly two days since the disaster. Aid agencies consider the first 48 to 72 hours to be a crucial time frame to retrieve people alive, though that period can be extended if they have access to food and water.

On Friday night, Venezuelan authorities announced they would block off access to La Guaira, the epicenter of the destruction, as chaos and and traffic began to affect search efforts. Government officials said that those who wanted to enter would now have to seek official permits, but provided few details of who would be allowed to enter.

Meanwhile, a broad international aid effort accelerated, with dozens of rescue teams from around the globe arriving in Venezuela or due to arrive there soon.

“Each person saved is a miracle,” said Jorge Rodríguez, the president of the country’s National Assembly. “We are not going to hide absolutely anything about the magnitude of this tragedy."

Anxious families wait to see if their relatives survived

Families across northern Venezuela searched in the ruins of buildings for relatives and whatever remained of their lives.

Nazareth Jimenez sobbed into the shoulder of a loved one as she watched neighbors try to cut through slabs of concrete with hammers and power tools in a building reduced to a mountain of debris. “My God, how are we going to get them out of there?" she murmured.

She was in the northern state of La Guaira, just north of the capital of Caracas, where some of the worst destruction unfolded. Jimenez was wracked with anxiety as she waited to see if her siblings, nephews, nieces and friends would emerge from the debris alive.

“We're making a call for help to the government and countries across the world,” she said, pleading for machines that would be capable of moving collapsed structures. "There are still people alive in there.”

Government forces distributed food and water to survivors in La Guaira as acting President Delcy Rodríguez said her government was mounting a full response during these “critical hours for rescuing people alive.” She welcomed the arrival of rescuers and humanitarian aid from all over the world. She said La Guaira had been militarized and that more help was on the way, even as residents said it was just a fraction of the aid they needed.

The disaster poses a huge challenge for Rodríguez, the former vice president who took office in January after the capture and removal of then-President Nicolás Maduro by the United States. Venezuela has been facing economic disarray for more than a decade, and many people reject the legitimacy of the political movement Rodríguez represents.

The number of dead was expected to climb, and civilians reported tens of thousands of people missing on independent digital databases. The number of missing likely includes those who have been incommunicado due to the lack of cellphone signals in disaster zones. Some reports may be duplicates created when multiple loved ones are searching for the same person.

The number of injured climbed to more than 3,300 as of midday Friday, and authorities said they had rescued 243 people.

Quakes leave millions of people reeling

The International Organization for Migration said that up to 6.76 million people in Venezuela could be affected by the quakes, some 2 million of them in Caracas alone. Destruction was amplified by the one-two punch of the successive shallow quakes, experts said. Loyce Pace, the International Red Cross’ regional director for the Americas, said “people are still terrified to reenter what were their homes.”

Desperation started to sink in Friday as many families still had not found missing loved ones, continued to sleep on the street or grieved relatives killed in the disaster.

“I’ve been left alone in this life,” said Omar Reyes, who walked through the rubble where two of his children were buried. He said around 20 family members died in the disaster.

In the city of Maiquetía, people lined up outside convenience and grocery stores and pharmacies as the businesses served customers one by one behind closed doors. At one point, a woman in a crowd desperate to keep a package of diapers threw herself to the ground to protect the package with her body.

Traffic and throngs of motorcyclists at times also disrupted search efforts. Mexican soldiers and volunteers repeatedly had to ask for silence to try to hear signs of life under the ruble, but bikers — civilian and uniformed — often ignored the requests honking horns and revved their engines to the frustration of first responders.

In Catia La Mar, a community adjacent to the country's main airport, throngs of people began to loot basic goods such as toilet paper and food from stores. Others swarmed a civilian pickup truck that was giving out loaves of bread and water, until a soldier intervened. People turned the parking lot of a pharmacy into makeshift shelter by setting up tarps, hammocks and tents.

A few miles away, Yuleidy Cadenas stood across the street from a collapsed public housing building watching fellow Venezuelans and recently arrived foreign and local emergency crews work on the rubble. She hoped her son, mother and brother would be pulled out alive.

She fled, barefoot, from a collapsing nearby building Wednesday and found her mother’s 12th-floor apartment tower had pancaked. Cadenas, 28, sobbed as she recalled that Friday was her son’s 12th birthday.

“I got on top of the rubble and told them to yell back, and nobody did, not my brother, nor my son or my mother,” Cadenas said. “I’m just here waiting for them.”

A few minutes later, a body was pulled from the rubble. It was not her mother’s.

International aid is on the way

Venezuela authorities said Friday that 861 international volunteers from Mexico, the U.S., El Salvador, Switzerland, Colombia and beyond were working in Venezuela. Many more from other countries were expected in the coming hours and days. The U.N. said 1,000 emergency responders in 25 search-and-rescue teams from across the globe were on their way.

Acting president Rodríguez said she spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday afternoon, and that they reaffirmed their commitment to sending rescue teams and aid equipment.

On the country’s main highway, caravans of state forces, emergency personnel, dump trucks and heavy machinery moved in the direction of the tragedy. A civilian pickup truck carrying thin mattresses had its windows marked with “Help from Trujillo.”

___

Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press journalists Clara Preve in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Julie Watson in San Diego; Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; and Teresa Medrano in Madrid contributed to this report.

Whether Brazilian or Japanese, or simply looking for a place to celebrate at places that feel like home with fans who share your vibe, Houston is bringing it.

Here’s a list of the top places to watch.

Brazil

Empório Brazilian Grill & Green

12288 Westheimer Rd. #210A, Houston, TX 77077

Hours: Monday 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Tuesday-Saturday 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

Empório is one of the longtime favorite spots for Brazilians to find community in H-Town, and this place is going all out for the World Cup. The venue will feature fresh, made-from-scratch Brazilian dishes, drink specials, appetizers and live music. Menu items represent cuisine from every part of Brazil. It will be a hot spot, and reservations are required with a 170-person capacity limit.

Fabian’s Latin Flavors

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301 Main St., Houston, TX 77002

Hours: 11 a.m.-2 a.m. every match day.

Fans can expect this place to get pumping very quickly. The live match screenings, Brazilian dancers, music, vendors and an energetic after-party make it a destination spot to have some fun. The venue has multiple viewing areas, including some indoor and outdoor spaces featuring a large courtyard. Food specials for FIFA will be available, as well as bottle service specials.

Tourão Brazilian Churrascaria

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4412 Montrose Blvd., Houston, TX 77006

Hours: Mon.-Thu.: 11 a.m.-3 p.m., 5 p.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat.: 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun.: 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

At this spot, you can fill up like a balloon while watching these games, as Tourão is offering a $44.95 all-you-can-eat World Cup special during Monday’s matches. The food comes fresh off the fire with a variety of great Brazilian meats.

Japan

Damn Good Game

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1919 N. Shepherd Dr., Houston, TX 77008

Hours: Sunday-Thursday 11:30 a.m.-midnight; Friday-Saturday 11:30 a.m.-1 a.m.

This retro-inspired sports bar is teaming up with TokyoX to bring the biggest Japanese party to Houston. The bar brings the flavor to life with endless special options from the West and East, with flavors like Japanese curry flatbread and edamame. Fans can also enjoy the matches with drink specials that include Japanese whisky and other alcoholic beverages.

Know of another World Cup Japan vs. Brazil watch party?

Let us know, and we will add it to this continuously updated list of all the FIFA fun happening in Houston

The Republican-led board passed the mandated Christian stories in public school lessons on a 9-4 vote along party lines, with two members not present for the vote. The revamped social studies lessons, which required separate votes for each grade, also passed. The board postponed changes to four high school courses, which members will vote on at a future meeting. 

This week’s meetings ran as late as 2 a.m., with the members meticulously parsing through changes to lessons in each grade.

Some of the nearly 500 speakers who addressed the board exchanged heated words about Christianity’s role in the development of the country, and at least one person with a Confederate flag was deemed out of order by the board chair and escorted from the room for verbally interrupting the meeting. 

The statewide reading list requires, among other literary works, that schools teach Bible material to children as young as 6 years old up to young adults preparing to receive their diplomas. That includes Christian stories about Adam and Eve, the eight Beatitudes and the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

Students, educators and progressive activists spoke out in opposition to the lack of racial, ethnic and gender inclusion in the debated books and lessons, as well as the state’s Christian focus over other religions. 

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized the reading list adoption in a statement Friday, saying Texas should not force public schools to learn the Bible. 

“This policy is part of a broader movement,” Laser said, “to misuse public schools to impose one narrow set of religious beliefs and indoctrinate a new generation of Americans in the lie that America is a Christian country.” 

English teachers stressed during the meeting that many of the books on the proposed reading list do not align with what Texas requires them to teach, despite taking up most of roughly 36 weeks of instructional time in an academic year.   

The reading lists will take effect during the 2030-31 school year. The board voted Friday to phase in the reading and social studies changes over multiple years rather than introduce them at once. 

“When we teach classical literature and social studies with biblical foundations, we are not simply preserving great books,” said Dawn Hatley, a Lubbock resident who testified earlier in the week. “We’re helping raise young men and women who love truth, pursue wisdom and recognize God’s hand throughout history and human experience.”

Texas parents can opt their children out of any instruction, but state education officials acknowledged earlier this year that those students could still be tested on it.

During the week, the board members — led by Republican Tom Maynard — debated whether they should prohibit teachers from assigning non-state-mandated books without the educators first posting them online for parental review. However, some expressed concerns about micromanaging teachers, while others noted that state law already imposes strict requirements on reading material in schools. 

The members considered whether to grant charter schools flexibility in which grades they introduce the required readings, an attempt to appease charter leaders who said they wanted to assign more rigorous books to children in lower grades. But some members said doing so might create the opposite effect, allowing lower-performing campuses to lessen rigor for students in higher grades. 

Neither of those passed.

Reframing history

Along with mandatory Bible stories in reading, the social studies proposal features a dramatic transformation in how Texas schools have long administered lessons on history, geography, economics and government. It eliminates the current sixth-grade world cultures course, deemphasizes world history outside of European tradition and dedicates more focus to Texas and the United States.

Democrats suggested changes they hoped would make lessons more accurate and inclusive of historically underserved groups — most notably people of color — even if they ultimately did not favor the overall plan. 

The board approved changes to K-8 and some high school courses but it postponed rewrites to U.S. history, world history, geography and government. 

Republicans blamed cherry-picking over what students should learn for the delay. 

“We wasted many hours late into the morning,” Republican board member Brandon Hall said. “We have worn out and exhausted our staff on trifling amendments coming from people who had no intention of ever working with us or ever actually approving something they wanted to pass.” 

Conservative leaders and activists champion the new lessons, which they view as “the final battle” in a push to rid Texas schools of instruction they say paints America in a negative light and trains students to hate the country. 

Sociology classes, for example, currently require students to understand “the impact of race and ethnicity on society” and “analyze the varying treatment patterns of minority groups.” But that standard was eliminated in the newly proposed social studies plan. 

For months, educators, Democrats and public education advocates criticized Texas’ social studies revamp as rushed. Conservative advocates and Republican board members insisted on pushing the process forward. But board chair Aaron Kinsey expressed doubts Thursday about having enough time to cut down the number of lessons packed into each course. That led to the group delaying changes to the four high school classes.

“This is a conundrum we’ve created of our own doing,” Democratic member Marisa B. Pérez-Díaz said. “And I’m very frustrated by it.”

Kinsey rejected an assertion from Pérez-Díaz that he rushed the process and said he was willing to continue working. But he also said board members made mistakes when they pushed through changes during late hours. For example, they eliminated a requirement that students learn about the American Revolution in high school U.S. history before reinserting it Thursday.

Educators criticized how the social studies proposal prioritizes memorization over critical thinking and simplification over accuracy. Historians called attention to factual errors, saying the new standards would set children up for failure post-graduation. 

One lesson, for example, had described the forced relocation and imprisonment of Japanese families during World War II as one of the “contributions” to America’s military effort. Another proposal noted that high school students should know the significance of leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, specifying Thurgood Marshall, Barbara Jordan and Hector P. Garcia — but not Martin Luther King Jr. 

The standards initially approved this week reflect slightly different suggestions, instead describing Japanese incarceration as one of the “changes” during the war and adding King to the list of Civil Rights leaders. 

But Democratic board members said the minor tweaks will not fix what they see as a whitewashed social studies plan and a politically influenced approval process. 

A panel of nine advisers guided the social studies overhaul, almost all of whom hold no Texas K-12 classroom experience and several of whom are either conservative activists or closely affiliated with them. Educators have described it as a major reversal of previous years when teachers led the way, while Democrats have said they do not feel fairly included in decision-making. 

“Our voices are being left off constantly,” Democratic board member Tiffany Clark said. 

Republicans clarified that advisers only provide recommendations. Elected members maintain final say in the social studies overhaul, they noted. The GOP members argued that it is Democrats’ own responsibility to ensure they are included in the rewrite. 

“I, as well as several of my colleagues, have been in direct contact with our content advisers,” Republican member Audrey Young said. “I have been communicating through my content adviser this entire time.”

But some of the appointed experts also expressed frustrations. Yolanda Chávez Leyva, a historian at the University of Texas at El Paso helping guide the board, said she “didn’t feel that every adviser’s input was treated equally.” 

Kate Rogers, a social studies adviser who previously led the Alamo Trust before publicly clashing with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, said the group remained professional but its recommendations did not represent all participants. 

For instance, the advisory panel proposed changing a lesson that originally called on students to “identify domestic challenges for the United States following World War I related to racial violence and intolerance, including the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the Tulsa Race Massacre.”

They instead suggested that students learn about the Klan’s “intolerance” of Catholics, Jews and immigrants but did not specify Black Americans. They also changed the “Tulsa Race Massacre” to the “Tulsa Race Riots.” During the 1921 massacre in Oklahoma, a white mob killed Black residents, destroyed their homes and looted their businesses after a Black teenager was falsely accused of trying to assault a white girl in an elevator.   

The appointed group also removed standards that defined racial segregation as “keeping people apart based on the color of their skin” and specified that Africans endured slavery in the U.S. because of their race. 

“I want to make it clear to the board members that we did not discuss every item on this document,” Rogers said. “Some of the changes were not reviewed by all of the content advisers.”

Board members adopted many changes proposed by the advisory group but reinserted several others, including how Nat Turner’s Rebellion “heightened sectional tensions and deepened disagreements over slavery” and how the expansion of slavery was the central cause of the Civil War. They also clarified that the Klan sought to intimidate and “limit the rights of African Americans in Texas during Reconstruction.” 

Some members initiated changes that would expose students to more positive aspects of Black history, including Republican Keven Ellis’ suggestion that schools teach about Bessie Coleman, a Texan who became the first African American and Native American woman to obtain an international pilot’s license. 

On the contrary, Republicans eliminated a standard specifying that students should consider “the perspectives of groups whose voices are less represented in traditional historical accounts.” They removed a mandate that students learn about Henry O. Flipper, the first Black graduate of West Point. 

They added another requirement that introduces the biblical story of Moses alongside the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman — who was nicknamed “Moses” because, similar to the biblical prophet, she helped people escape slavery. 

Republican leaders across the state, meanwhile, often depict Islam as a violent religion they view as incompatible with their conservative Christian American values. During the board’s April meetings, the board eliminated a social studies standard that would have required students to learn about Muslim contributions to algebra and astronomy.

They approved a lesson this week that requires students to learn about the Prophet Muhammad in the context of “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.” 

“These proposed standards actually defy the Constitution and highlight only one group of Americans as the founders who built this country to the exclusion of others — both in the past and in the present,” Ruth Nasrullah, a Muslim speaker, told the board members this week.

“Let me be very clear: Islam is not a religion,” state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, testified before the education board Monday. “It is a totalitarian theocracy, not unlike totalitarian systems of communism, Nazism and globalism.”

Asked if he had ever visited a Muslim-majority country, the senator responded no. 

Elizabeth Jensen, who identified herself as a Texas school board trustee but did not specify the district, told the education panel that she believes “slavery was and still is fundamental to Sharia,” referring to the set of moral codes and principles that Muslims follow. Sharia does not have a uniform meaning, as Muslims interpret and act upon it differently. 

Muslims have spent months denouncing such Islamophobia at State Board of Education meetings, calling it misinformation and harmful to the hundreds of thousands of Texans who practice the faith. 

Prior to debating high school social studies, a handful of Republicans on the elected board unsuccessfully attempted to block amendments from members who did not meet an earlier deadline to submit proposed changes. 

If successful, the move effectively would have stopped Democrats from proposing on-the-spot tweaks, which was notable because the rule had not been enforced when the board discussed elementary and middle school lessons.

Members could take up the remaining high school courses at its next scheduled meeting in September, or the chair could schedule a special meeting before then.

Disclosure: The University of Texas at El Paso has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Yoon, who shot a record 63 in the first round at Hazeltine National Golf Club, had two bogeys with one birdie on the back nine to reach 12 under. The 23-year-old is seeking her first LPGA Tour victory.

“The remaining two days will obviously be nerve-racking, but being nervous is human nature, and I think I want to embrace that and focus on what I can in my shots,” said Yoon, who missed the cut at the U.S. Women's Open this month after tying for fourth at the first major of the season at The Chevron Championship.

Nasa Hataoka, Brooke Henderson, A Lin Kim and Hae Ran Ryu were tied for second. Ryu shot a 64 for the best score of the day, three strokes better than Hataoka. Henderson finished with three straight birdies for a 68. Kim shot a 70. They all left the course in good spirits, yet trying to figure out how to make up five strokes.

“It’s halfway done. She had a great first half, so hopefully I can just have a great second half to try to make up the difference,” said Henderson, the Canadian who won the Women's PGA Championship at age 18 in 2016 at Sahalee Country Club in Washington. “I feel like overall the way I’ve been playing the course has been really solid, so just hopefully I make a few more birdies and climb the board.”

LPGA Tour leader Nelly Korda, who opened her bid for a third straight major title this year with a quiet 70, had a 68 to climb into a tie for sixth place with Dongeun Lee at 6 under.

After rallying from a slow start to win the U.S. Women's Open at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, Korda put herself in a viable position.

“It is hard to have a big lead going into the weekend. I was there at Chevron and you do feel a little bit more pressure, like everyone is hunting you down. I’m just going to focus on, as boring as it is, one shot at a time and see where that takes me,” Korda said. “I know the wind will be higher this weekend so it’s going to play probably a little bit more difficult, and I’m sure that the pins will be tricked up.”

Yoon, Kim, Ryu and Lee gave South Korean four of the top seven at the midpoint of a tournament that has so far enjoyed calm, dry and comfortable conditions with high temperatures in the mid-70s. The 36-hole average score is the lowest for this event since 2008 at Bulle Rock in Maryland.

“I think I like this kind of grass, and the course fit my eye as well," Yoon said. “Yeah, I think I like this course.”

Yoon became the fourth player in the history of the Women's PGA Championship, which dates to 1955, to lead by five or more strokes through 36 holes, following Mickey Wright (eight, 1958), In Gee Chun (six, 2022) and Cristie Kerr (five, 2010).

Korda again had hundreds of fans following her every shot, streaming from hole to hole as she traversed the lengthy 6,700-yard course in suburban Minneapolis.

After birdies on four of her first nine holes, Korda faded a bit down the stretch and finished with six straight pars as she fought a hook with her tee shots. She hit into the rough along the treeline to begin her back nine before two-putting for bogey on the first hole.

Projecting confidence and humility as the sport's most dominant and popular player at the moment, Korda couldn't help but laugh with caddie Jason McDede at the difference in layouts from the last major to this one.

“At Riv it’s a dead right and now it’s left,” Korda said. “I would’ve killed for this shot at Riv. But, yeah, it’s just golf. It’s funny, right? It always kind of humbles you, and you’re always kind of scratching your head a little bit in some ways.”

___

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

Its chief rival, Anthropic, announced hours later that the Trump administration has approved a limited release of its strongest cybersecurity model, two weeks after the U.S. Commerce Department effectively banned it.

Both companies said their newest models would be available to small groups of trusted partners. OpenAI said its new AI product, called GPT-5.6 Sol, would be accessible only to customers approved by the Trump administration.

“We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default,” OpenAI said in a statement. The company said it viewed the testing period as a temporary step on the “path to broader availability in the coming weeks.”

OpenAI's staggered release of a powerful new AI system follows actions the government took earlier this month against Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot. Anthropic took offline two new AI models, known as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, just days after unveiling them to comply with a Trump directive blocking their use by foreign nationals. The government on Friday lifted restrictions on one of those models, Mythos 5, enabling it to be “redeployed to a small group of cyber defenders and infrastructure providers,” Anthropic said.

The White House said Friday it continues to collaborate with frontier AI labs on addressing the challenges of scaling the fast-growing technology.

Officials have grown increasingly concerned since Anthropic warned earlier this year that its Mythos model was adept at finding software flaws in a way that could be weaponized by malicious hackers and threaten critical computer networks around the world.

New, powerful AI models have drawn White House scrutiny

Trump earlier in June signed an executive order on AI oversight that established a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to 30 days before their public release. The order described participation by AI developers as voluntary but the framework has not yet been fully developed.

Some of Trump’s allies have laid blame on San Francisco-based Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei for the need for heightened government scrutiny.

“Dario came to Washington a few months ago, back in April, and basically said that he had created a cyber weapon called Mythos,” said investor David Sacks, who co-leads Trump’s council of technology and science advisers, on a recent podcast. “And he spiked the cortisol level, got everyone really worried. And there was some truth to it in terms of the sense that this model had advanced cyber capabilities.”

OpenAI, also based in San Francisco, said its new Sol model (pronounced ‘SOHL’ like the Spanish word for sun) “is better at helping people find and fix vulnerabilities” than it is at carrying out cyberattacks and does not cross the company’s own risk threshold. But it acknowledged there could be unforeseen risks especially if its model is combined with other tools.

“That uncertainty, along with the model’s broader step change in capabilities, is why we are pairing the model’s increased capabilities with stronger safeguards and a phased release,” the company said Friday.

OpenAI hasn't named any of the roughly 20 customers that have been approved to use the new model so far.

Critics warn that unpredictable government intervention can hold back US companies

U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, a Massachusetts Democrat and co-author of a bipartisan bill that would regulate AI, said in a statement that she is concerned “the Trump administration is deciding company by company who gets access to the newest AI model. No law. No process. No oversight. Just appointees in Washington deciding who’s in and who’s out.”

A broad group of technology experts has also criticized the government's actions that led Anthropic to shut down Fable, which the company had pitched as a safer version of Mythos. It's now been unavailable for two weeks, even after the government lifted restrictions Friday on the more powerful Mythos.

“I just want to say that pretty much nobody in the cybersecurity industry believes that there’s any factual basis for this action,” Stanford University cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos said on a call with reporters earlier this week.

Stamos, the chief product officer at AI security company Corridor and a former chief security officer at Facebook parent Meta, said he reviewed an analysis of research on Fable by Anthropic's primary cloud computing backer, Amazon, and didn't find any risks that aren't present with other publicly available AI models, including those made in China.

"If the administration is honest about wanting the United States to beat China in this race, then this is about the dumbest thing they could possibly do,” Stamos said.

Oversight ramps up as the AI companies move toward IPOs

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about the model release Wednesday, part of a series of negotiations in recent weeks between AI industry executives and Trump officials.

Anthropic has also been part of those talks, but Amodei has had a more contentious relationship with the Trump administration. The Pentagon designated Anthropic as a national security risk for raising ethical and safety concerns about AI usage in war, and Trump himself ordered federal agencies to stop using Claude. Anthropic responded with a lawsuit that is still working its way through federal courts.

Anthropic said Friday it was “pleased” by the partial release of Mythos late Friday and will “continue to work with the government to expand access” and make Fable available again to general users. Lutnick told Anthropic in a letter dated Friday that its work to address the government's concerns “yielded significant progress.”

The government's heightened AI oversight adds another complication to exploratory moves by OpenAI as well as Anthropic to take their companies public on Wall Street, following SpaceX’s record-setting June 12 initial public offering.

Trump has floated the possibility of the U.S. government owning a stake in leading AI companies, describing a concept where “pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies.”

—-

Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper contributed to this report.

Someone alerted authorities about the trailer in August 2022 after seeing small fingers reaching through gaps in the doors. Police stopped Samuel Bateman's vehicle as he was driving through Flagstaff and found three girls inside, who were ages 11 to 14 at the time. The trailer was enclosed with a makeshift toilet, a sofa and camping chairs.

In the federal case, Bateman was convicted of coercing girls as young as 9 to submit to sex acts with him and other young adults, and for scheming to kidnap girls from protective custody, the story of which is the focus of a Netflix series, “Trust Me: The False Prophet.”

Bateman previously claimed to have more than 20 "spiritual wives," including 10 girls under the age of 18. He testified in his own defense in the state case, telling jurors he would never harm the people he loves. He acknowledged during cross-examination that he knew the girls were in a hot trailer for hours and the ventilation wasn't good, but downplayed the conditions.

“I just trusted myself as a driver,” he said. “I asked God to bless me every time we hopped in that vehicle.”

He claimed he thought the girls had gotten out when they stopped. He said he was as “shocked as could possibly be” when he learned that they were still inside when he was pulled over.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Eric Ruchensky told jurors, “It’s common sense that you don’t carry people in a trailer designed for cargo on a hot day with no ventilation."

Jurors in the state case weren't supposed to hear about Bateman's conviction in federal court. The judge barred the evidence from being introduced. But Bateman brought it up several times as he represented himself, leading the judge to strike the comments from the record.

The jury delivered the verdict Friday in about 40 minutes, convicting him on all three counts of child abuse. . Each count carries a mandatory sentence, between four and eight years. The judge has discretion to run the counts consecutively or concurrently. A sentencing hearing is scheduled Aug. 25.

The Associated Press left a voice mail and email messages Friday for Bateman’s appointed advisory counsel.

Federal authorities said Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet, traveled extensively between Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska as he built an offshoot network of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which historically has been based in the neighboring communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah.

He and his followers practiced polygamy, a legacy of the early teachings of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it.

Bateman was one of the trusted followers of Warren Jeffs, who previously led the sect and is serving a life sentence in Texas for sexual assault of children.

The influence of the polygamous sect has waned significantly over time in the towns where the sect has historically been based. In 2017, a court order placed the towns under supervision, excising the church from their governments and shared police department.

But the area has since transformed so quickly that they were released from court-ordered supervision last summer, almost two years earlier than expected. Practicing sect members are now believed to account for only a small percentage of the towns’ populations.

The National Weather Service issued a rare “Particularly Dangerous Situation” warning as dry, windy conditions provided fuel for more fires across the western U.S.

The Cottonwood Fire in a sparsely populated area of southern Utah started Monday. It ballooned to more than 112 square miles (290 square kilometers) by Friday, burning unchecked as strong winds grounded air support, forestry officials said. One of six large wildfires burning in Utah, it severely damaged the Eagle Point ski resort in Beaver County, forcing mandatory evacuations.

“We have the 35 miles-per-hour (56 km/h) sustained winds that they predicted, and we definitely have the 45 miles-per-hour (72 km/h) gusts,” said Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the fire. “So there has been a great increase in the fire activity. We are seeing extreme fire behavior out there with some crown runs and definitely some spotting.”

The smoke has been pushing to the east and northeast, meaning air quality at popular vacation spots like Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks — located far south of the flames — hasn’t been significantly affected beyond some haze in the Bryce area. Still, visitors to Bryce have posted videos on social media showing the giant plume in the distance.

The smoke could be seen for hundreds of miles, all the way to Colorado, as authorities put roughly 1,300 residents in the towns of Marysvale, Junction and Circleville on notice that they should be prepared to leave if conditions worsen and the fire pushes further. In Marysvale, ash fell from the sky and thick smoke blocked the sun on Friday, making the sky dark as night.

State forester Jamie Barnes had said Thursday that it's like nothing seen in recent memory. She said fires are spreading farther and faster “under conditions that defy historical expectations.”

Bruce Brown, 76, accompanied the sheriff on Thursday to find that his cabin and others in the area were gone. He found a burned out moonscape with power poles tipped over along the canyon.

Alyssa Olsen, 27, said her family’s cabin also burned. It was the last place they gathered for family photos with her grandmother before she died of cancer. Her brother was planning to get married there in two months.

“That stuff you can’t just build back,” Olsen said.

Fireworks will be limited in Utah through July 5

Gov. Spencer Cox set the temporary fireworks restrictions through July 5 as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, saying “this year is different.”

The weather service in Salt Lake City, for the first time in the office's history, issued a “ Particularly Dangerous Situation ” warning for five Utah counties, including the area of the Cottonwood Fire. The rare alert was first used to warn of tornado conditions. A red flag warning also was issued for most of the state.

“Prepare now for rapid fire growth,” it said.

A similar “dangerous situation” warning had been issued for the 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles. A federal judge declared a mistrial Friday in the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of sparking that fire. The jury said it couldn't agree on a verdict.

While the Cottonwood Fire's cause was unknown, Cox’s order noted that humans have been the cause of most fires in the state so far this year.

The governor’s order gives Barnes power to restrict or prohibit fireworks displays in Utah’s cities and towns, instead of leaving those decisions to the communities.

With extreme fire conditions persisting, Rocky Mountain Power issued a public safety power shut-off watch/warning for areas of central, southern and eastern Utah through the weekend.

Crews also were battling the Iron Fire southwest of Salt Lake City. The flames on Thursday forced the temporary evacuation of Eureka, population 1,000.

Wildfire danger prompts concern throughout the West

Red flag warnings, which mean conditions such as low humidity, warm temperatures and strong winds can create an extreme wildfire risk, were in effect Friday and stretched from Idaho to southern Arizona and New Mexico.

The warnings extended into Saturday, with forecasters predicting winds of 25 to 35 miles an hour (40 km/h to 56 km/h) and very low humidity levels. The worst conditions were expected from northern Arizona into central and southern Utah.

Much of Utah already is experiencing severe to extreme drought, while parts of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico are experiencing severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Tim Brown, a research professor and director of the Western Regional Climate Center, said the potential for extreme fire behavior will remain as long as it's hot, dry and windy.

“I would not be surprised to see a lot of restrictions come out as we get closer to the July Fourth weekend,” he said. “People really need to be aware of their surroundings if they’re going to be out in the forested campground areas and grassland areas.”

Even in Florida, where there have been multiple brush fires, authorities are urging people to skip the personal fireworks and instead leave the pyrotechnics to professionals putting on carefully planned shows.

In Utah, federal land managers have closed public lands near the Cottonwood Fire as a precaution, and in New Mexico, forest officials closed campgrounds and trails near a wildfire burning in the Jemez Mountains.

Nationally, nearly 3 million acres have burned since the start of the year, pushing the U.S. ahead of the 10-year average. The National Interagency Fire Center said firefighters are making progress on containing fires from Alaska to Florida.

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Associated Press reporter Sudhin Thanawala contributed to this story.

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This story has been corrected; the state forester's first name is spelled Jamie, not Jaime.

Thousands of people have been reported missing. Some of the heaviest damage and casualties were in La Guaira, a coastal region north of the capital, Caracas.

Here’s what to know about the earthquakes and the search for survivors:

2 earthquakes in less than one minute

The powerful 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes struck 39 seconds apart along the San Sebastian fault on Venezuela’s northern coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

They were among the strongest in the South American nation in more than a century.

The first earthquake, a 7.2-magnitude foreshock, hit west of Morón on the Caribbean coast, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) west of Caracas, with a depth of 22 kilometers (about 14 miles).

The second, a 7.5-magnitude mainshock, was centered 16 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Morón, with a depth of 10 kilometers (about 6 miles).

The back-to-back earthquakes — known as a doublet because of their similarities in magnitude, time and proximity — resulted from shallow strike-slip faulting near the complex plate boundary between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Many people are dead, injured, homeless or missing

The death toll in Venezuela is likely to climb as rescue crews comb through buildings toppled by the earthquakes. Thousands of Venezuelans left suddenly homeless have since poured into parks, plazas and even along the shoulders of blocked highways, looking for a place to sleep.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said authorities have deployed rescue teams from other parts of the country to La Guaira, where dozens of buildings have collapsed.

The city, about 165 kilometers (103 miles) east of the 7.5-magnitude quake’s epicenter, is a “disaster zone,” she said.

Civilians and authorities pulled survivors out of concrete rubble, some of them covered in dust and blood. Families sobbed in front of destroyed homes.

Families began posting missing-person flyers with photos of loved ones, while others shared handwritten lists of names as they searched for those still unaccounted for.

Photos show rescue efforts across earthquake-ravaged Venezuela.

Significant damage in Caracas and beyond

Images shared by relatives in Venezuela and abroad showed desperate searches for missing loved ones following the earthquakes.

The earthquakes destroyed buildings in Caracas and led to evacuations as far away as Brazil’s Amazon, about 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles) away.

In downtown Caracas, hundreds of people spent the night huddled in parks, parking lots and other open spaces.

Parts of the city lost power and cellphone service. Venezuela’s main airport in Caracas was damaged and closed, subway service was suspended and natural gas was shut off.

Classes will also be canceled for several days as schools are used as shelters and donation centers.

In Guaira — the hardest hit state just north of Caracas — families placed sheets on a dusty baseball field to claim their space, their belongings stuffed into plastic bags. Others sought shelter under palm trees.

Rodríguez said the government was creating a $200 million reconstruction fund for hospitals and homes damaged by the earthquakes.

International aid pours into Venezuela

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, IFRC, has launched an Emergency Appeal for 50 million Swiss francs ($61 million) to assist its operations in Venezuela. The first 17 metric tons of humanitarian supplies left the IFRC’s regional humanitarian hub in Panama for Venezuela on Friday.

The Red Cross is also providing mental health and psychosocial support, safe water and sanitation services, the distribution of essential relief items and cash assistance, and family reunification and protection services. National Red Cross Societies in 10 Latin American countries have activated family links services to help locate missing relatives or obtain information about them.

The United States is sending $150 million in aid moving through the United Nations and nonprofit partners on the ground. It is also deploying two urban search-and-rescue teams with dozens of people, search dogs and search equipment. Military airlift, logistics and lifesaving support will also be sent.

The European Union said Friday that Czechia, Spain, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands are sending 520 responders to support Venezuela through the bloc’s civil protection mechanism. The EU also activated its Copernicus satellite service to provide Venezuelans with satellite imagery and other geospatial data.

Caritas, a global confederation of over 160 Roman Catholic organizations, said on Friday it is setting up a collection center at the headquarters of the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference in the city of Montalbán, where donations of drinking water, nonperishable food and essential medicines will be accepted. Caritas also said more collection centers will be organized nationwide in partnership with the national private sector.

British Prime-Minister Keir Starmer said Friday evening his government has sent 2 million pounds ($2.6 million) in humanitarian aid to Venezuela, along with a search-and-rescue team with 68 members, including six specialist search dogs. Britain also sent an Air Force Voyager aircraft as well as drones to help assess structural collapses safely, identify hazards and direct rescue teams.

A spokesperson of China’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that the Chinese government and the Red Cross Society of China will provide emergency humanitarian aid to Venezuela. Guo Jiakun added that the government will provide further support to Venezuela whenever requested.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that he was sending his defense minister to Venezuela to assist needs on the ground. Earlier Friday, a KC-390 plane departed from Sao Paulo’s international airport with dozens of firefighters and other support personnel, chiefly telecommunications specialists. A second plane is scheduled to depart Saturday with equipment to assemble an open hospital, 100 solar-powered water purifiers, medicines and medical supplies.

India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that two Indian Air Force C-17 Globemaster aircrafts departed Friday morning for Venezuela, carrying humanitarian relief supplies and a 41-member search-and-rescue team. The deployment includes a medical task force, an army field hospital unit, 30 tons of relief supplies, 6 tons of medicines and medical equipment and two portable hospitals.

Italy said Friday that an Air Force aircraft would depart later that day carrying medical personnel and members of the national fire service. The government said it was also preparing a package of humanitarian assistance, including possible support through Italian civil society organizations already operating in Venezuela.

Turkey is sending two military A400M transport aircraft to Venezuela on Friday. One will carry a 38-member search-and-rescue team and equipment, while the other will transport a 22-member humanitarian aid team.

Venezuelans in the U.S. are rushing to organize donation drives. More than 770,000 Venezuelans live in the U.S., with large communities in Florida, Texas and Utah.

Another challenge for Venezuela’s leader

The earthquakes are yet another crisis for Rodríguez, the former vice president who took office in January after the U.S. captured former President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are jailed in New York City while awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges.

Rodríguez inherited a country that has been in economic turmoil for more than a decade.

Many Venezuelans reject the legitimacy of her political movement, while some loyalists have criticized her leadership and warming relationship with the U.S.

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

Paigelynne Gonyea said the confrontation happened Tuesday while she was working at a polling place in Syracuse. Two officers gave Gonyea a written notice stating that she might be in violation of federal laws that prevent publicly posting personal information about federal officers, she said.

Gonyea said the warning stemmed from a post she made on social media in January in which she posted a picture of Jonathan Ross, an ICE officer who shot and killed Good in Minneapolis during anti-ICE demonstrations that month. In the post, Gonyea wrote: “I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted.”

Gonyea's post — which she made after Ross had already been identified by the news media — is still up. She said she has no intention of taking it down.

“I plan on using this experience to defend and support our First Amendment right,” Gonyea said. “Our first amendment rights definitely need to be protected now more than ever.”

Homeland Security considered post ‘doxxing’

Gonyea “committed a federal crime by posting the address of an ICE law enforcement officer online” and “if you doxx our officers, we will investigate you, and you will be brought to justice," said Lauren Bis, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland security, in a statement.

Bis shared a different social media post from the same one of Gonyea's accounts in which she said Gonyea shared Ross's address. Part of the post was redacted.

“Doxxing federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime that puts their lives and their families in serious danger,” the statement said. “This danger is not hypothetical. Our law enforcement officers are on the frontlines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists.”

Fellow poll worker recorded encounter

Another worker at the polls Tuesday recorded the encounter on her phone. The video shows two uniformed people coming into the polling place and talking briefly with Gonyea, who refuses to sign a warning letter.

Gonyea later posted the letter on social media. The unsigned letter states that it's from ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility, whose primary mission is investigating allegations of misconduct by ICE personnel and contractors.

The poll worker who shot the video, Sheilia Milledge, said workers were shaken by the incident. No voters were present at the time of the confrontation, Gonyea said.

“I felt like it was a scare tactic that they were using,” Milledge said.

Attorney General's Office is reviewing

A representative for the New York Attorney General's Office said the office is aware of the situation and is reviewing it, while a representative for the governor's office said the office had not heard of other similar incidents in the state.

The incident “did not disrupt voting and was not related to the election process,” said Kathleen McGrath, a spokesperson for the New York State Board of Elections. Onondaga County Democratic Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny said he responded to the polling place shortly after the incident, spoke with poll workers, made sure voting wasn't disrupted and "connected Paige to resources."

Gonyea said she initially missed a call from officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, who wanted to meet with her.

A DHS agent left a voicemail saying they were calling “in reference to a post that we believe you made on Instagram where you doxxed an ICE agent back in January,” according a recording of the message she shared on social media.

"We just wanted to talk to you about it. You’re not in any type of trouble,” the agent said, according to a recording provided by Gonyea.

Gonyea said she returned the call to ask the officers to come into the polling place because she felt it would be safer to meet with them inside.

Advocates consider encounter intimidating

It appears to be incidental that the federal officers served Gonyea with the warning while she was working at the polling place, but their presence could still be intimidating to voters and poll workers, said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights and elections program at Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning public policy institute.

Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said if officers are giving residents "a formal complaint about their protected speech, we’re in trouble.”

Rep. John Mannion, a Democrat who represents the area in Congress, also sent a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin calling for the department to review the incident and “put a stop to any ICE activities that target protected speech."

“ICE should not be broadly targeting online speech or actively monitoring social media accounts without cause and without proper judicial protections,” Mannion's letter stated.

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This story has been corrected to say that the Homeland Security official used the word agent, not officer, in the voicemail to Gonyea.

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Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in New York City and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

The company said Friday that the new entity will be called Exemplar Luxury Group, and with an improved balance sheet, including a nearly 75% debt reduction and $500 million in extra financing. Its CEO, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, said the New York-based company is ready for its next chapter after navigating several tumultuous years.

“Today is really a brand new day for the organization and a new day where these three iconic banners have the right funding, the right equity and a bright future ahead of them,” van Raemdonck told The Associated Press on Friday during a phone interview.

Van Raemdonck said that the new name signifies the company's focus on having an exemplary shopping experience — the best merchandise, and better personalized service with customers, with help from its sales associates and the treasure trove of data it has on its customers. The company employs more than 1,500 sales associates who have sold more than $1 million of goods each, he said.

Saks Global had filed for bankruptcy protection in January of this year, buffeted by rising competition and the massive debt it took on to buy its rival in the luxury sector, Neiman Marcus, in July 2024.

Before the bankruptcy, there were 33 Saks stores and 36 Neiman Marcus locations, according to the company, as well as its Bergdorf Goodman store on Fifth Avenue and roughly 70 Saks Off 5th discount stores.

Now, there are a total of 49 stores — 15 Saks Fifth Avenue stores, 33 Neiman Marcus stores and its Bergdorf Goodman store. The company shuttered most of its Saks Off Fifth discount stores, and it now has 12 outlets, the company said.

Exemplar Luxury Group said it has been teaming up with Pentwater Capital Management and Bracebridge Capital throughout its restructuring process. Both firms will have two representatives on the seven-person board. In addition, van Raemdonck as well as former Ulta Beauty CEO Dave Kimbell and Philippe Schaus, who most recently served as Global CEO of Moët Hennessy, will serve on the board, the company said.

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Roughly 50 pallets packed with food, clothing and water are staged and ready to ship to Venezuela after two devastating earthquakes — a 7.2 and a 7.5 magnitude — struck the country late Wednesday, killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands more injured, authorities said.

Community steps up

Metabox Cargo, located at 19308 Morton Road, Suite 106, in Katy, has become a hub for relief efforts, with volunteers sorting through a steady stream of donations pouring in from the community.

Mercedes Perez, a representative with Metabox Cargo, says the need in Venezuela goes far beyond the earthquakes.

• RELATED: Venezuelans take search for the missing into their own hands as earthquake death toll climbs

“In our daily life, without any catastrophic disaster, we have issues — electricity, lack of food — we have a difficult life there,” Perez said. “Can you imagine how hard it could be in that life with two earthquakes, back to back?”

What’s needed now

Organizers say the location is currently accepting the following items:

• Non-perishable food items
• Baby formula
• Sterile gloves
• Sterile gauze
• Sterile syringes
• Thermometers
• Blood pressure monitors

Note: The location is not accepting water, Powerade or clothing until Saturday.

Dr. Cristina Perez Viso, a general surgeon, is urging those in the medical community to get involved.

“Anything that sounds basic to you, we probably don’t have it,” Perez Viso said. “If you are within the medical field, you can help us by maybe contacting your organizations and seeing if any of these supplies can be brought here.”

How to help

Metabox Cargo, at 19308 Morton Road, Suite 106, Katy, TX 77449, is open today until 6 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The first shipment to Venezuela is set to go out Monday.

The sixth-grade teacher from Toronto and her cousin had planned a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Houston to watch their homeland, Cabo Verde, compete in the FIFA Club World Cup.

Then, only days before Cabo Verde’s match with Saudi Arabia, everything unraveled.

After purchasing tickets through StubHub, Lisa received a demoralizing email informing her the order had been canceled and directing her to find replacement tickets through its platform.

“They said they had to cancel our tickets and to find replacement tickets,” Lisa recalled. “But when you clicked the replacement button, there were none available.”

StubHub advertises “Every order is 100% guaranteed” that promises replacement tickets or a refund if something goes wrong. In Lisa’s case, replacement seats simply weren’t available.

The company offered a refund, “No, I don’t want a refund. I want to go to this game,” said Lisa.

Determined not to give up, Lisa spent hours trying to resolve the issue.

• Texas family says World Cup dream was crushed after StubHub tickets fell through hours before match

She estimates she spoke with a dozen or so different customer service representatives, escalating the issue again and again without success.

Eventually, she emailed StubHub’s executive team and copied numerous media outlets in hopes someone would listen.

One journalist did, “I have to give credit because you were the only one who responded to my story,” Lisa said to 2 Helps You.

After learning of Lisa’s situation, I reached out to StubHub on her behalf, asking the company to review her case.

The effort didn’t produce immediate results, but it did get the company’s attention. I also provided her order number and contact information in a follow-up email.

“It took a while and some pushing,” Lisa said. “Within about an hour, StubHub called me and said they were going to get us new tickets.”

Game on!

On Friday morning, less than 24 hours after emailing StubHub, Lisa and I enjoyed an emotional introduction at George Bush Intercontinental Airport after landing from Toronto.

She greeted me with a hug, watery eyes and a heart full of gratitude.

• World Cup ticket buyers are left stranded as resale purchases fall through

Her cousin Maria also weighed in on what the tickets meant to them, “Thank you. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. God bless you.”

Lisa then reflected on the entire experience, “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here,” she said. “It’s your passion, your heart, your thoughtfulness. That’s why my cousin and I are here.”

A few hours later, Lisa walked into NRG Stadium with her Canadian flag, took to her seats in Section 130 and started making memories of a lifetime by cheering on Cabo Verde.

A goal scored.

What to do if your event tickets are canceled

Now what should you do if you have problems with a third-party ticket vendor?

• Document with a paper trail, save every email and receipt connected to your purchase.
• Contact the company immediately and ask for replacement tickets if they’re part of the seller’s guarantee and take a screenshot of your call.
• Escalate the issue if standard support isn’t resolving the problem.
• If the company fails to deliver, file a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office for the State of Texas as they have consumer protection office and hotline. They also have the power to legally hold companies doing business accountable.

Statement from StubHub to 2 Helps You

“The issues fans have experienced at this World Cup are largely transfer problems, not ticket problems. The event organizer’s own ticketing infrastructure, including a new app launched right before the tournament began, has had significant performance issues that have affected transfers across all resale platforms. We’ve responded by standing up a dedicated World Cup support team and expanding our capacity to source replacement tickets for affected customers. Every order is backed by our FanProtect Guarantee, and getting fans to their matches remains our top priority for the rest of this tournament.”

The curriculum, developed by the Texas Education Agency, includes references to stories and figures from the Bible as part of lessons designed to teach students about literature, history and culture. State officials have said the curriculum is intended to teach about the Bible’s historical and cultural influence—not religion.

During Thursday night’s board meeting, several parents urged trustees to reject the curriculum, arguing the district had not provided enough transparency or opportunities for public input before the vote.

One parent told trustees:

“Forcing Bluebonnet on the district without transparency, clarity or community involvement is unacceptable. It is too soon and the stakes are too high.”

Another parent argued public schools should remain focused on secular education.

“Public education should unite our community by focusing on shared secular knowledge and civic values, not by disproportionately highlighting one religion or religious textbook.”

Why HISD says it adopted Bluebonnet

District leaders said three factors drove this year’s recommendation:

• The State Board of Education’s approved reading list and vocabulary, which are expected to be reflected on future state assessments.
• State law requiring instruction about religious literature and its impact on history and literature.
• Approximately $3.3 million in additional state funding available to districts that adopt the curriculum.

In a statement to KPRC 2, HISD said:

“The adoption for the 2026-27 school year ensures Houston ISD remains aligned with Texas state standards while maintaining the District’s evidence-based approach to literacy instruction. Houston ISD remains focused on ensuring students receive high-quality literacy instruction that aligns with state requirements, prepares them for future assessments, and helps more students read on grade level.”

What will change in classrooms?

District leaders emphasized that Bluebonnet will not replace HISD’s instructional model.

Instead, the district plans to replace some of its reading texts and vocabulary with the state-approved Bluebonnet materials while continuing to use HISD-developed lesson plans and classroom activities already in place through Superintendent Mike Miles’ New Education System (NES).

Deputy Superintendent Kristen Hole told trustees teachers will continue receiving lesson plans in the same format they already use and said replacing reading texts is something teachers have routinely done over the years.

Superintendent Mike Miles also sought to reassure parents that the change would not dramatically alter classroom instruction.

“While it sounds like a massive change, it isn’t. It’s a significant change. There’s no question some of the text will be different, but a lot of it will be the same. Our estimate is about 40% is different. Sixty percent is the same.”

District leaders also told trustees they wanted the board to vote before the school year begins so teachers would have enough time to prepare instructional materials ahead of the first day of class.

Questions remain about parent options

KPRC 2 asked HISD what options parents have if they do not want their children participating in the Bluebonnet curriculum.

The district said it is working to provide a response.

KPRC 2 also contacted TEA, about the funding. The agency directed us to the Bluebonnet Learning FAQs resource page on the website.

https://tea.texas.gov/curriculum-and-instruction/instructional-materials/house-bill-1605/oer-imra-faqs-6.pdf

The curriculum is expected to be implemented during the upcoming school year.

The state-mandated list of assigned reading — which includes Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” and excerpts from the New Testament — appeared to be among the first of its kind of the nation and will take effect starting in 2030.

The State Board of Education, which is controlled by Republicans, approved the list on a 9-5 vote following weeks of contentious debate that again put Texas at the center of wrangling over the role of religion in public schools. Last year, Texas became the largest state to require teachers to hang the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

The board this week was also considering new social studies curriculum that draws lines between Bible stories and American history.

Beyond objections over Bible readings, the mandate drew backlash from teachers who criticized losing the ability to decide what their students will read, although they are still allowed to assign additional books during the school year.

“I don’t have a problem reading about David and Goliath because I believe in those stories,” said Alyse Dent, a high school English teacher in the Dallas area. "But if I’m reading to one of my students — they’re Muslim or they’re atheist — I can say all day long, ‘Well, we’re teaching a theme, we’re teaching symbolism,’ but they’re hearing, ‘This is a Bible story. We’re talking about God.’”

Supporters of the changes have argued that Judeo-Christian traditions were fundamental to the nation’s founding and that should be reflected in the public school curriculum.

“These timeless works, including biblical passages, have shaped American culture and history, and have influenced generations of thinkers, leaders, and citizens, and they continue to offer valuable lessons about human nature, virtue, liberty, and civic responsibility," said Mandy Drogin, a senior fellow at Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Texas has brought more religion into classrooms

Texas, which educates roughly 1 in 10 of the nation’s public school students, has been at the forefront of a charge by conservatives to incorporate more religion into classrooms. The state also allows public schools to hire chaplains to counsel students and has approved an optional Bible-infused curriculum.

Brooke Mazel, a retiree from Lubbock, was among a large crowd that packed a meeting of the education board this week in Austin, saying her children and grandchildren grew up with “strong faith and family values” and backed the required titles.

“America should celebrate our 250 years that started as a nation of unwavering Christian values,” Mazel said.

A state law passed in 2023 required a mandatory list of at least one literary work be taught in each grade level. The new list contains around 200 texts, including Bible passages, essays and books, far in excess of that requirement.

Antero Garcia, president of the National Council of Teachers of English and a Stanford University professor, said he doesn’t know of any other state with a mandatory reading list that includes religious texts. Educators at the district and school level usually choose the texts their students will read, Garcia said.

Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, agreed the move was “unique” to Texas.

Popular literary works are also on Texas' required list

Picture-book stories for elementary students including “David and Goliath” and “Daniel and the Lion’s Den” are on the required reading list. By fourth grade, students will encounter passages about Jesus in the New Testament. E.B. White's “Charlotte's Web” would be assigned to third-graders.

In middle school, students will be expected to read passages about Jesus, including his most famous sermon and another where he instructs people to cast aside earthly anxiety and seek the kingdom of God.

For high schoolers, the list requires the reading of specific Bible passages as supportive materials for literary works, including works by Dickens and Jane Austen's “Pride and Prejudice."

Texas law does let parents remove a child from a class or activity that conflicts with their religious or moral beliefs.

Critics say list isn't diverse enough

The list mandates that students reading Shakespeare's “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar" also read a eulogy for President Ronald Reagan written by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a staunch conservative.

Chanea Bond, who teaches college and advanced high school English courses in Fort Worth, said having a state reading list can close the gap between what students learn in different areas. Although the list for high schoolers is “pretty solid” for a study of classics, she said, the list is “very old and very white.”

“It is very narrow and does not represent what classrooms in Texas look like,” she said. “Going through most of high school without ever having much value put into voices that sound like yours kind of sends a message that your voices aren’t valuable.”

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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Associated Press reporter Jim Vertuno contributed to this report from Austin, Texas.

Our weekend’s forecast:

Afternoon highs will generally range from 92 to 96 degrees through much of the week, with overnight lows falling into the upper 70s and lower 80s.

While this won’t be an extreme heat wave by Houston standards, the lack of rainfall combined with several consecutive days of triple-digit heat indices will make for a prolonged stretch of summer heat. Most afternoons will feature heat index values between 102 and 106 degrees, and there may be isolated spots that briefly exceed those numbers.

Staying safe in the heat:

Wear loose-fitting, light-colored clothing if you do head outside, seek shade when possible, and check on elderly neighbors, young children, and pets. And never, under any circumstances, leave a person or animal alone in a closed car.

Plus, as our temperatures hit the 90s, it’s a good reminder of how hot it gets inside your car - reaching life-threatening temperatures quickly. According to Stanford researchers, on a 90-degree day a parked car’s interior can reach 109 in just 10 minutes and 133 in 60 minutes. Cracking the windows make no significant difference in the rate of temperature rise, it can still be life-threatening.

10 Day Forecast:

Looking ahead, the forecast remains remarkably consistent. High temperatures stay in the low-to-mid 90s through the beginning of July, while overnight lows remain in the upper 70s. Rain chances remain very limited for most locations through the weekend and into next week.

A few isolated showers may return around the middle of next week, but widespread rainfall is not expected at this time.

For now, Houston’s weather pattern is firmly locked into summer mode: hot afternoons, warm nights, plenty of humidity, and very few opportunities for cooling rain.

The British military said Thursday that a vessel was hit by a projectile off Oman. This comes at a fragile time for the U.S. and Iranian negotiations over interim peace deal.

Trump also threatened a 100% tariff on imports from any nation that taxes digital services from U.S. companies, specifically singling out Europe. His post on social media said those nations are considering “imminent” taxes, and that the tariff would override any previously negotiated trade agreements.

Here's the latest:

Vance warns Iran ‘violence will be met with violence’

The vice president said on social media that Iran should “pick up the phone” if there are disagreements about the ceasefire agreement.

“But violence will be met with violence,” Vance said on X after the U.S. strikes.

US retaliatory strikes in Iran have concluded, official says

The U.S. strikes on Iran in response to a drone attack on a cargo ship have concluded, a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press.

The confirmation comes about an hour after U.S. Central Command announced the military action on social media.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss an ongoing military operation.

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By Konstantin Toropin

US strikes against Iran are ongoing, official says

The American strikes in response to a drone attack on a cargo ship are still ongoing, even as U.S. Central Command released a statement confirming the action, a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss an ongoing military operation.

___ By Konstantin Toropin

Soot pollution rule stays in effect as court blocks Trump EPA effort to scrap it

A federal appeals court has rejected the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to abandon a Biden-era rule that sets tough standards for deadly soot pollution.

The unanimous ruling Friday by a three-judge panel is a setback for Trump’s deregulatory agenda.

The decision by the Washington-based U.S. Court of Appeals leaves intact a tighter standard set in 2024 on pollution from coal-fired power plants, factories and other industrial sources.

The EPA had asked the appeals court to invalidate the 2024 rule, arguing that the agency under previous leaders had exceeded its statutory authority and did not consider costs to businesses.

The appeals court denied the request, saying the EPA’s arguments “lack merit.”

▶ Read more

Trump won’t say whether Iran will face consequences for attacks

Asked if Iran would face consequences for a recent drone attack on a ship, Trump said: “Well, you’ll find out.”

The president did not lay out options on how he could respond, or the status of technical talks between the United States and Iran on trying to end the war.

“I don’t like the fact that they took a shot yesterday,” Trump said.

The president did not answer a direct question about whether he thought the ceasefire was still in place.

Bible stories are approved as required reading in Texas public schools

The required reading list approved Friday by the Texas State Board of Education widens conservative efforts to bring more Christian teachings into U.S. classrooms.

The push in Texas has been closely followed by education observers, who say the required reading list appears to be the first of its kind in the nation.

The mandate required more than 5 million public school students in Texas must read traditional literary works such as E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web.” Also on the list are Bible stories, including passages from the New Testament and excerpts from the Book of Job.

The Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by Republicans, approved the list of over critics who argued the titles lacked diversity and and blurs the separation of church and state.

Supporters say Judeo-Christian traditions were fundamental to the nation’s founding and that should be reflected in the public school curriculum.

Trump panel calls for bridges, not a wall, between church and state

The assertion — challenging a longstanding concept in American law — comes amid a raft of recommendations in a draft report of the Religious Liberty Commission, released Friday afternoon.

The advisory body was created by Trump last year and was filled almost entirely by conservative Christians. The report recommends a stronger role for religion in government, schools and the public square.

The report calls for eliminating the “ Johnson Amendment,” which forbids political activities by tax-exempt religious groups. It calls for compensating military service members who were discharged for refusing COVID-19 vaccines on religious grounds.

Trump says Venezuelans are now ‘dancing in the streets’

The president celebrated the U.S. military mission he ordered to capture Venezuelan leaderNicolás Maduro.

He brought up the South American nation happily before interrupting himself to reference the back-to-back earthquakes that have devastated Caracas.

“By the way, we’re helping Venezuela” after the “tremendous” natural disaster, Trump said, before resuming his original thought on U.S. actions there.

“We’ve had a great relationship” since the mission to depose Maduro, he said. “Was a one-day war.”

He said oil processed since the action has “paid for the war many times over” and boosted Venezuela’s economy.

Trump said the earthquake “was terrible” but that, otherwise, “the people are happy; they’re dancing in the streets.”

Trump says ‘nobody saw’ drone that hit cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz

Describing the U.S. response to a drone strike that Trump blamed on Iran, the president said one got through unnoticed and struck a ship on Thursday.

“We knocked down three of them. One of them, I guess — we didn’t miss it. Nobody saw it coming,” Trump said on Friday.

He made the comment after remarking that Iran still has “some capability, not much.”

“You can’t do that stuff,” he added. Earlier on Friday he called the strike a violation of the ceasefire agreement between Iran and the United States.

Trump says Zohran Mamdani’s housing efforts will tank New York City

The New York City mayor “seems like a nice guy” but his push to make rent more affordable will backfire, the president insists.

“These buildings will soon turn into ghettos and slums,” Trump says, suggesting landlords won’t get enough revenue to take care of their properties. Trump argued, “It will be third world.”

Trump was referring to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board approving a citywide rent freeze for certain lease renewals beginning this fall. It affects nearly a million rent-stabilized apartments and helps fulfill one of Mamdani’s signature campaign promises to make housing more affordable.

Trump warns that the left’s election victories is a movement that ‘isn’t stopping with New York’

The president said the election results this week show that “the Democrat Party is in big trouble.”

He also described the winners as not “social democrats” but “hardcore, godless communists.”

Trump bashes Alaska Sen. Murkowski for opposing his bill to create stricter ID standards for voters

The president used his speech to the Faith & Freedom Coalition to attack a Republican lawmaker who has opposed his SAVE America Act.

“We have a few Republicans that are fighting it — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,” Trump said. “You should call her and tell her to get on the ball. She’ll never win another election. I can tell you.”

The crowd, in support of Trump, booed the mention of Murkowski’s name.

Murkowski has said that the bill being championed by Trump could undermine state oversight of elections. She said the required proof of U.S. citizenship could deny legitimate voters the chance to cast their ballots or mandate states to change their driver’s licenses to conform to Trump’s interests.

Trump credits his presidencies with returning God to America

The president claimed that “religion is back in our country, bigger and stronger than it has been in many, many years.”

He referred generally to “all of these reports” he’s read suggesting religious practice is “going up.”

He ticked through steps his administration has taken, including establishing a White House Faith Office and ending what he described as persecution of Christians by the government. He also took credit for restoring Christmas.

And he insisted none of that would have happened if the 2016 and 2024 elections were won by Democrats. He described Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration as “so bad” and “so evil.”

Biden is a practicing Catholic who regular attended Mass while in office. Trump does not regularly attended services.

Israel and Lebanon sign framework agreement with US in ‘first step’ toward peace, Rubio says

Secretary of State Marco Rubio along with ambassadors from Israel and Lebanon announced a framework agreement Friday that was described as a first step toward peace following months of conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The officials did not share details on the agreement that was signed by Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, and Nada Hamadeh, ambassador of Lebanon to the United States.

Evangelical group founder touts Trump’s conservative record

In introducing Trump at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, founder Ralph Reed sought to remind the audience of the president’s conservative track record.

“This is a man who, alone among all the leaders that we have had, gave us the most conservative Supreme Court in over a century,” Reed said.

He also noted Trump’s efforts to lower taxes and move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Evangelicals are a crucial part of Trump’s political coalition. Reed noted that the president has spoken to the group 10 times.

“I want to thank Ralph for the introduction,” Trump said as he took the stage. “Thank you to all of the true American patriots of Faith and Freedom Coalition. You’ve been with me from the beginning.”

Trump returns to hotel where correspondents’ dinner was held

The president on Friday appeared at an event at the Washington Hilton, where two months earlier he was rushed from the hotel when a gunman charged at the ballroom during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Trump was speaking on Friday to a gathering of Christian conservatives at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference, where he’s made previous appearances.

Security at the event was tighter than in the past, including officers in tactical gear stationed right outside the ballroom doors.

Trump says communism is ‘the most serious threat to our Country since its existence’ but says ‘I’d be the Greatest Communist in History’

The president wrote in a post on social media that his speech Friday afternoon to conservative Christians would include a warning about communism.

Trump and Republicans have been seizing on election wins by candidates endorsed by New York City’s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“Communism is very easy to sell. I’d be the Greatest Communist in History. I’d give free rent, free houses, free food, everything is free,” Trump wrote in his lengthy post.

But, he said, after a few years, the country “would fail.”

Man is charged with obstruction of justice in connection with White House UFC attack plot

An eighth person has been arrested in connection with what authorities say was a planned attack on Trump’s UFC cage-fighting show at the White House earlier this month.

Law enforcement disrupted the plan a few days before the June 14 event, officials say.

Authorities say Alexander Iniguez Mercado of Chicago was an administrator of Signal messaging groups with members who are accused of plotting the attack. When an FBI agent called Mercado on June 13 and asked whether he planned to travel to Washington D.C. to help with an attack, Mercado denied it, the indictment says. He then deleted the Signal app from his phone, prosecutors allege.

Mercado, 20, is charged with obstruction of justice. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could comment on his behalf and phone numbers for relatives could not immediately be located.

Trump threatens a 100% tax on European imports if countries tax digital services

Trump took aim at European countries that he said are discussing “imminent” implementation of taxes on American companies.

“Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America,” Trump wrote in a post Friday on social media.

He added that the new tax would supersede any previously negotiated trade deals. Trump said the penalty would apply to any country that moves forward with such a tax, but he singled out European nations in his post.

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Trump blames Iran for a drone strike on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz

The president called the alleged strike a “foolish violation” of the ceasefire agreement with the U.S.

Trump said one drone hit the upper deck of the ship and “damage was done,” but the ship was able to proceed. He added that the U.S. shot down three other drones.

His post on social media did not identify the ship or the time of the strike, but on Thursday the British military said a vessel was hit by a projectile off the coast of Oman.

It comes during a fragile time for the U.S. and Iran as they work to negotiate a permanent end to the war.

Bolton also agreed to pay a fine of $2.25 million

He can withdraw his guilty plea if the judge imposes a longer prison sentence or a larger fine.

Bolton must pay half of the fine within five days of his plea and the balance within 90 days. He agreed to forfeit his retirement pay for his federal service. The plea deal also requires him to submit to a debriefing with federal intelligence officials and perform up to 100 hours of community service.

After a prosecutor read aloud a summary of his offenses, Bolton agreed it was accurate.

“I’m sorry for it,” he told the judge.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said Bolton “did what real leaders do” by pleading guilty.

Other Trump adversaries have been charged with federal crimes during his second term

While some of those cases have collapsed under judicial scrutiny and amid claims of political retribution, Bolton didn’t mount a vigorous defense against his charges before cutting a deal.

FBI agents searched Bolton’s Maryland home and Washington, D.C., office last August, but the investigation began before Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

Bolton was charged with 18 counts of either retaining or disseminating classified information

That included diary-like notes he shared with relatives as he wrote a memoir about his career in government.

Bolton served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before getting pushed out in 2019. He later published a book called “The Room Where It Happened” that presented an unflattering portrait of Trump’s leadership.

The Trump administration fought unsuccessfully to block the book’s release, claiming it contained classified information that could jeopardize national security. Trump derided Bolton as a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.”

Bolton’s indictment focused on notes he shared with his wife and daughter rather than the contents of his book. After sending one document, Bolton wrote in a message to his relatives, “None of which we talk about!!!” In response, one of his relatives wrote, “Shhhhh,” prosecutors said.

Ex-national security adviser John Bolton pleads guilty to illegally retaining classified information

Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty Friday to illegally retaining classified information, sealing a deal with federal prosecutors that could allow him to avoid a prison term.

Bolton, who became an outspoken critic of Trump after serving in the Republican’s first administration, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 28 by U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Bolton pleaded guilty to a single count of illegally retaining classified information. His plea agreement with the Justice Department may enable him to avoid time behind bars, but the judge ultimately will decide his punishment.

The plea agreement recommends capping any prison sentence at five years but the judge isn’t bound by that part of the deal.

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DNC plans weekend of events to focus on affordability concerns

The Democratic National Committee is organizing hundreds of community events across the country this weekend in hopes of harnessing the same concerns about affordability that Trump capitalized on to return to the White House.

The events include school supply giveaways, food bank drives, neighborhood door knockings and organizer trainings.

“Everything costs too damn much under Donald Trump and the Republicans,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a statement.

Martin said party members planned “to reach, engage, register, and mobilize voters who will make the difference in races up and down the ballot.”

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Touring Trump’s Washington: How the president is putting his imprint on the nation’s capital

The United States is celebrating its 250th year. And what better way to mark that anniversary than with an American summer staple — a trip to the nation’s capital.

But visitors to Washington will find that the city is undergoing tremendous change, courtesy of Trump’s takeover makeover.

Since returning to office 17 months ago, Trump has demonstrated a continuing fixation with the District of Columbia. The Republican president has slapped his image and name on buildings, torn down storied structures, altered others, started massive construction projects and deployed armed military personnel.

The traditional tourist sights remain. But with slight detours, an open mind and a critical eye, the ambitious walker can see all the ways the president has pushed to remake the capital.

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988’s LGBTQ+ hotline to relaunch this year. But the group that helped start it might be excluded

The Trump administration is moving to restart the specialized LGBTQ+ option for youth who contact the 988 crisis intervention hotline, but the group that helped pioneer the idea is being shut out.

The Trevor Project, the leading nonprofit for suicide prevention in LGBTQ+ young people, may not be allowed to offer the service it had helped develop for the 988 Lifeline just a few years ago.

The 988 hotline, which has been dubbed the 911 for mental health emergencies, is credited with reducing teen and young adult suicide deaths. It offers specialized options for certain groups, such as veterans and Spanish speakers, but in July the Trump administration stopped offering the “press 3” option for LGBTQ+ youth with a month’s notice.

The administration said it ended the service because the funding ran out. It’s now working to bring it back by the end of the year because Congress directed officials to allocate $33 million toward LGBTQ+-specific interventions for youth.

However, The Trevor Project might not be allowed to offer the services it developed and specializes in.

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Supreme Court’s ruling to end protections for Haitian, Syrian immigrants could have broader impact

The reach of the Supreme Court’s decision allowing Trump’s administration to end temporary legal protections for Haitian and Syrian immigrants may extend to many other countries.

Thursday´s decision directly applies to about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, but may be a sign of what´s in store for nearly 1.3 million people from 17 countries on Temporary Protected Status. Many have lived and worked in the United States for decades and have American children.

The decision exposes TPS holders from Haiti and Syria to potential detention and deportation. It could also pave the way for hundreds of thousands of other beneficiaries with pending asylum claims or other immigration relief to be forced to leave the country.

People of all nationalities whose TPS was ended by the Trump administration have filed dozens of lawsuits. Many of these cases are still ongoing, and judges will closely examine the Supreme Court’s decision.

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Reflecting Pool liner was cut with a sharp knife or razor, National Park Service says

A liner along the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was cut with a sharp knife or razor this month, causing damage to the foam sealant installed as part of a $16 million rehabilitation project, a top official at the National Park Service says.

The U.S. Park Police responded June 9 to a complaint by the park service, said Frank Lands, deputy director of operations for the park service. Lands made the statement in a court document filed late Wednesday as part of a lawsuit filed by a nonprofit organization to halt the Trump administration’s work on the project.

His statement does not say when exactly the damage occurred or whether it was a suspected case of vandalism and does not identify anyone who might have been involved.

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Vance, an admirer of Richard Nixon, says Watergate would be ‘a 12-hour news story’ today

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday said the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon would have been a blip in today’s news cycle, and he drew parallels between Nixon and President Donald Trump — arguing that both were targeted by “deep state” forces.

Vance described his admiration for Nixon during a conversation at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California. Widely expected to be a presidential contender in 2028, Vance spoke at the library while promoting his new book, “Communion.”

After talking about the book and his faith journey, Vance shifted to Nixon, saying the legacy of the 37th president is “enjoying a bit of a renaissance.”

“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” Vance said.

He went on: “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”

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Federal judge halts Trump’s election executive order seeking to create a federal voter list

A federal judge on Thursday halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani sided with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the Republican president’s order in granting a summary judgment. Her ruling applies to this year’s midterm election cycle.

Plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits, both filed in federal court in Boston, that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules.

It was the second ruling in as many days against executive orders Trump has signed seeking oversight of the nation’s elections. A separate ruling Wednesday prohibited an executive order he had signed last year that would have required people to show documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote.

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It’s who finishes third.

Teams that are first and second in their groups move on automatically to the Round of 32. The United States, Canada and Mexico, co-hosts of the tournament, have all advanced, along with France, Germany, Brazil, Norway and others.

The U.S. will face Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday in Santa Clara, California, while Canada heads to Southern California to face South Africa on Sunday. Other marquee matchups are set, including Morocco versus the Netherlands, Japan versus Brazil and Norway versus Ivory Coast.

Third place is no guarantee. The eight best third-place teams also get in, with ties broken by goal differential and goals scored, if necessary.

Teams with four points — a win, a draw and a loss — almost certainly will make the Round of 32. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sweden and Ecuador already advanced that way, and Paraguay is poised to join that group, which would mean four qualifiers left.

That leaves eight other third-place teams for the final four spots, including Senegal, which routed Iraq 5-0. Others with three points are also hoping for the best.

“I personally didn’t want to end up in this kind of situation, where we have to wait and see if we will reach the knockouts,” South Korea forward Son Heung-min said. “It’s disappointing that we didn’t get the outcome we deserved, considering the amount of hard work we’ve done, but it’s out of our hands now and we will have to accept our fate, whatever it will be.”

Some matches to watch closely Friday night on the third-place front:

Group G

Egypt (four points) vs. Iran (two points): Egypt would likely be a third-place qualifier even with a loss, provided that loss isn’t by a ton of goals. Iran would be heavily favored to advance as a third-place team with a draw. (Belgium and New Zealand each has a mathematically possible chance of finishing third in Group G.)

Group H

Cape Verde (two points) vs. Saudi Arabia (one point): Cape Verde will advance (as a first- or second-place team) with a win. The Saudis need a win to advance, as well.

Uruguay (two points) vs. Spain (four points): Uruguay would likely qualify as a third-place team with a draw. If it loses, it goes home.

Here are the Round of 32 matchups already set:

US vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina, July 1

The Americans had their powerful momentum from two consecutive victories stalled in the loss to Turkey. But in the knockout round, they’ll face a Bosnia-Herzegovina team that is 62nd in the FIFA rankings — the lowest-ranked World Cup qualifier from Europe. Bosnia finished third in Group B with four points. U.S. star Christian Pulisic entered as a substitute in the second half against Turkey. He had not played since leaving an opening win over Paraguay at halftime with a calf injury. “We play every game like a knockout game,” said U.S. midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, who scored against Turkey. “You saw that in our intensity and the way we worked. For us, it’s keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

South Africa vs. Canada, June 28

These nations have already made history. It'll be the first time both are in the knockout stage of the World Cup. Co-host Canada advanced as runner-up in Group B with four points — one win, one draw and one loss. South Africa was runner-up in Group A, also with four points, including a surprising win over South Korea.

Brazil vs. Japan, June 29

Japan advanced as Group F runner-up with a hard fought 1-1 draw against Sweden and the Samurai Blue's reward is a knockout match against five-time World Cup champion Brazil. It'll be a full-circle moment for Japan, which welcomed Brazilian soccer legend Zico in 1991. He was brought in to professionalize the country's new domestic league and support Japan's successful bid to co-host the World Cup in 2002. Now, the Japanese have a chance to show how far they've come against a country that has set the standard.

Netherlands vs. Morocco, June 29

The Netherlands won Group F after a draw with Japan and outscoring Sweden and Tunisia by a combined 8-2. Morocco went unbeaten to finish second in Group C in pursuit of becoming the first African winner of the World Cup. Morocco reached the semifinals four years ago in Qatar.

Norway vs. Ivory Coast, June 30

It would have taken beating favored France for Norway to win Group I. Instead, coach Ståle Solbakken opted to rest Erling Haaland and all but one starter. That sets up a matchup against the Ivory Coast at the Dallas Cowboys' stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Tuesday.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here.