Firefighters responded to a rescue call at Marcario Garcia Drive but was later upgraded to a recovery of a body.

Houston police and officials have secured the scene at Buffalo Bend Nature Park at 2300.

The person’s identity has not been released, and officials are reaching out to the public to reach out if they have a loved one missing. Officials described the victim as a Black man with an average build, between 40 and 50 years old.

In his opening statements for a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Hegseth called Democratic lawmakers “reckless naysayers” and “defeatists from the cheap seats” who have failed to recognize the many successes of the U.S. military against the Islamic Republic.

Hegseth said President Donald Trump has had the courage “unlike other presidents to ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon and that their nuclear blackmail never succeeds. We have the best negotiator in the world driving a great deal.”

Sen. Jack Reed, the committee's ranking Democrat, argued that the war with Iran has left the U.S. in a worse strategic position. The Strait of Hormuz is closed, fuel prices have skyrocketed and 13 American service members have been killed, Reed said. Many others have been injured, and equipment has been destroyed.

“I am concerned that you have been telling the president what he wants to hear instead of what he needs to hear,” Reed said. “Bold assurances of success are a disservice to both the commander in chief and the troops who risked their lives based on them."

Hegseth defends Pentagon firings

Reed also lambasted Hegseth for his firing of top military leaders and suggested the defense secretary had an intense interest in Christianity and nationalism, while failing to recognize the accomplishments of women and people of color in the military. Reed noted that 60% of some two dozen officers fired by Hegseth have been female or Black.

Hegseth said any firing is based on performance and that previous Pentagon leaders "were focused on social engineering, race and gender in ways that we think were unhealthy for the department.”

“Our department allows for a multitude of faiths,” Hegseth said. “I don’t know what you’re suggesting. I’ve heard the likes of things that people like you suggest, to try to smear my character, and I won’t give in to it.”

The Senate committee was convened to discuss the Trump administration’s 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to historic $1.5 trillion. Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, are stressing the need for more drones, missile defense systems and warships.

Republican chairman offers warmer welcome

Hegseth received a warmer welcome Thursday from Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the committee, and other GOP lawmakers. Wicker kicked off the hearing by noting that the U.S. is in the most dangerous security environment since World War II. He also praised Trump's use of the military.

Through the war against Iran, Trump “has worked to remove the regime’s conventional military capabilities and force it back to the table for a permanent solution,” Wicker said.

He also praised Trump's budget proposal for 2027.

“This $1.5 trillion request is chock full of important programs and initiatives that are absolutely necessary to secure American interest in the 21st century,” he said.

Sen. Deb Fischer, a Republican from Nebraska, praised Hegseth's statement on the need for nuclear deterrence as well as the development of Trump's Golden Dome missile defense program.

“For years, this committee has known that we must improve our ability to defend our homeland against a wider variety of threats, and we finally have a partner with the full backing of the department to lead the charge,” Fischer said.

Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, gave Hegseth a chance to talk about the military's efforts to minimize American casualties during the Iran war. Cotton also asked Hegseth whether he ever lied to Trump, pushing back against Reed's claim that Hegesth tells the president what he wants to hear.

“I only tell the truth to the president,” Hegseth said.

Secretary battled Democrats in separate House hearing

A day earlier, Hegseth battled with Democrats during a nearly six-hour House Armed Services Committee hearing, where he faced sharp questioning over the war's costs in dollars, lives and diminishing stockpiles of critical weapons.

Democrats call it a costly war of choice that lacks congressional approval or oversight. But they have failed to pass multiple war powers resolutions that would have required Trump to halt the conflict until Congress authorizes further action.

Under the War Powers Act of 1973, Congress must declare war or authorize use of force within 60 days — a deadline that arrives Friday. The law provides for a potential 30-day extension, but the Republican administration has not indicated publicly whether Trump will seek it.

The administration is in “active conversations” with lawmakers on addressing the 60-day timeline, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Also at Wednesday's hearing, Pentagon officials said the war has cost $25 billion, mostly in munitions. But Hegseth refused to answer questions about how much longer the war would last or how much more it could cost.

Hegseth also said a deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed more than 165 people, including children, remains under investigation. The Associated Press has reported that growing evidence pointed to U.S. culpability for the strike, which hit a school adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard base.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

The resumption of a nonstop commercial flight between the two countries comes months after the U.S. capture of then President Nicolás Maduro in a stunning nighttime raid on his residence in Caracas in early January.

It also comes a month after the U.S. formally reopened its embassy in Caracas following the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Venezuela.

“I'm very excited to go and see the family and I'm looking forward to see the country,” said passenger Lennart Ochoa of Miami shortly before boarding. He said that he was “ready to go" and got his ticket as soon as they were available. “Just to go and see the family on a direct flight from Miami to Caracas is priceless.”

The director of the U.S. National Energy Dominance Council, Jarrod Agen, was among the passengers on the inaugural flight. Agen is scheduled to meet with Venezuelan officials and executives from energy and mining sectors as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to facilitate the entry of U.S. companies into the South American country, reported Venezuelan government.

At Miami International Airport, American Airlines staff handed passengers small Venezuelan flags. Balloons with its colors — yellow, blue and red — adorned the gate door leading to the plane.

Flight AA3599 operated by Envoy Air, a subsidiary of American Airlines, departed Miami at 10:11 a.m. EDT (1411 GMT), five minutes ahead of its scheduled time, according to Miami International Airport flight departure information. The flight is due to arrive around three hours later in the Venezuelan capital, returning to Florida later in the afternoon.

Earlier, the airline said that a second daily flight between Miami and Caracas will start on May 21.

In late January, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he informed Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez that he would open up all commercial airspace over the country, allowing Americans to visit.

“American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there,” Trump said at the time.

The flights mark the resumption of nonstop travel between the U.S. and Venezuela for the first time since diplomatic ties were severed in 2019. For the past seven years, passengers have relied on international airlines and indirect routes through neighboring Latin American countries.

In January, when the airline announced the resumption of flights, it said it would give customers the opportunity to reunite with families and pursue new business opportunities.

American Airlines was the last U.S. airline flying to Venezuela. It suspended flights in 2019 between Miami and Caracas, as well as flights to the oil hub city of Maracaibo. Delta and United Airlines pulled out in 2017 amid a political crisis that forced millions to flee the country.

“Parents will be able to connect with children, grandparents with grandchildren, and entire families with a home that shaped and raised them,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference before boarding started. “Miami-Dade is home to the largest Venezuelan community in the United States.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Cole Thomas Allen did not enter a plea during his brief appearance in federal court days after authorities say he ran through a magnetometer at the Washington Hilton while holding a long gun and disrupted one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital.

Allen was injured during Saturday night's attack but was not shot. A Secret Service officer was shot but was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and survived, officials say. Prosecutors have said they believe Allen fired his shotgun at least once and that a Secret Service agent fired five shots. They have not publicly confirmed that it was Allen’s bullet that struck the agent’s vest.

In court papers pressing for Allen's continued detention, prosecutors wrote Wednesday that Allen took a picture of himself in his hotel room just minutes before the incident, and that he was outfitted with an ammunition bag, a shoulder gun holster and a sheathed knife. In a message that authorities say sheds light on his motive, Allen referred to himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin” and alluded obliquely to grievances over a range of Trump administration actions.

Allen’s lawyers agreed during the brief hearing before U.S. Magistrate Moxila Upadhyaya to keep their client behind bars for now after initially arguing in court papers that Allen should be released.

In a court filing Wednesday, the defense wrote that the government’s case is “based upon inferences drawn about Mr. Allen’s intent that raise more questions than answers" and noted that Allen’s writings never mentioned Trump by name. The defense left the door open to pressing in the future for Allen’s release before trial.

“The government’s evidence of the charged offense –- the attempted assassination of the president –- is thus built entirely upon speculation, even under the most generous reading of its theory,” defense lawyers wrote.

Allen's lawyers alleged that some of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's statements “indicate that the recovered ballistics evidence is inconsistent with aspects of the government’s theory, evidence collected by the government and/or statements made by witnesses.”

The Justice Department, in response, said the evidence shows Allen fired his shotgun at least once in the Secret Service agent's direction. Investigators recovered at least one fragment at the crime scene that is consistent with a buckshot pellet, prosecutors wrote.

"The government is aware of no physical evidence, digital video evidence, or witness statements that are inconsistent with the theory that your client fired his shotgun in the direction" of the officer or that the officer "was indeed shot once in the chest while wearing a ballistic vest," prosecutors wrote.

Allen was charged on Monday with that crime, as well as two additional firearms counts, including discharging a weapon during a crime of violence. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.

Allen, 31, is from Torrance, California. He is a highly educated tutor and amateur video game developer.

Prices rose at the fastest pace in almost three years last month, U.S. economic growth is steady and layoffs fell last week, according to a slew of economic data released Thursday.

The inflation gauge favored by the Federal Reserve — the Commerce Department's Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — rose 0.7% from February to March and 3.5% from a year earlier. The year-over-year gain was the biggest since May 2023.

No secret what was driving the increase: Gasoline prices shot up 21% in March from February after Iran responded to U.S. and Israeli attacks by closing the Strait of Hormuz and creating the biggest disruption of oil supplies in history.

The same data showed that prices outgrew American incomes — wages, business income and government benefits — for the second straight month in March.

The Commerce Department also reported Thursday that U.S. gross domestic product — the output of goods and services — grew at a steady 2% annual pace from January through March, slower than economists expected, but a rebound from lackluster 0.5% growth during the final three months of 2025. In the October-December quarter, the 43-day federal government shutdown had slashed more than a percentage point off growth.

Business investment is surging because of the AI boom. Excluding housing, business investment surged 10.4% in the first quarter, biggest jump in nearly three years.

From January through March, consumer spending — accounting for 70% of U.S. economic activity — expanded at a 1.6% annual pace. Americans were helped by big tax refunds, the result of President Donald Trump's 2025 tax cuts.

But the boost might not last long. “Rising tax refunds were outpacing the increased burden of gasoline spending two to one in March and most of April,” wrote Michael Pearce, the chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. "With tax refund season winding down and gas prices still climbing, the hit to consumer spending will become more evident from May.''

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped another 7 cents overnight to $4.30. The price on this date last year was $3.18. In each of the past three days, gasoline prices have set new multi-year highs.

Forced to spend more on gasoline, consumers are likely to cut back their spending on other goods and services. Economists are already expecting GDP to take a hit as they do. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, a tax and advisory firm, has downgraded his forecast for U.S. economic growth this year to 1.7% from the 2.4% he'd expected earlier.

“A year that was set to benefit from tail winds associated with a large tax cut and boom in artificial intelligence-led investment has been partially derailed by the impact of what as of today is an adverse and growing supply shock caused by the war in Iran,” Brusuelas said. “Unfortunately, war and the supply shock that ensued has altered the probable growth path this year.”

The combination of rising prices — and the threat to economic growth — has put the Fed and other central banks in a bind. Should they cut interest rates to help their economies? Or hold off — or even consider raising rates — to combat the threat of inflation?

So far, they are staying put. The Bank of England kept its main interest rate on hold at 3.75% Thursday and hinted of hikes to come as policymakers assess the war's economic impact. Likewise, the Fed, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank, with all opting for no change as they assess the economic fallout from the conflict.

Still, U.S. workers enjoy considerable job security. The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits — a proxy for layoffs — tumbled last week to the lowest level in more than 50 years.

Companies aren't letting workers go — but they aren't necessarily eager to hire much either. Job growth last year was the weakest outside a recession since 2002. And it's been up and down so far this year — strong in January (160,000 new jobs) and March (178,000) but weak in February when employers slashed 133,000 jobs.

Economists describe “no-hire, no-fire’’ scenario that locks young applicants out of the job market. At the same time, there are growing worries that AI is taking entry-level jobs.

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AP Business Writer Matt Ott in Washington contributed to this story.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6% and is just above its all-time high set earlier this week, as companies keep delivering fatter profits for the start of 2026 than analysts expected, even with very high oil prices and uncertainty about the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 732 points, or 1.5%, as of 12:33 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Alphabet led the way and climbed 7.5% after the owner of Google and YouTube reported profit for the latest quarter that almost doubled analysts’ expectations. Investments in artificial intelligence “are lighting up every part of the business,” CEO Sundar Pichai said.

The steadiness on Wall Street followed manic swings in the oil market, where prices surged overnight on worries that the Iran war will affect the flow of crude for a long time. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, keeping them pent up in the Persian Gulf and away from customers worldwide, while a U.S. Navy blockade is preventing Iran from selling its own oil.

Traders are always buying and selling contracts for different kinds of oil, going out for many months. In the most actively traded part of the market for Brent crude, for delivery in July, the price got as high as $114.70 per barrel overnight. It then fell back toward $107 before sitting at $110.03, down 0.4%.

So far during the war, the peak price for the most actively traded Brent contract is $119.50, which was set last month.

In a less actively traded corner of the Brent market, the price for a barrel to be delivered in June briefly went above $126 overnight before pulling back toward $114.

Brent's price is still much more expensive than the roughly $70 level it was at before the war. But the morning's easing, along with the continuing flood of better-than-expected profit reports from U.S. companies, helped keep Wall Street stable near its records.

Caterpillar, Eli Lilly, and Royal Caribbean all rallied more than 7% after delivering profits for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. That’s big because stock prices tend to follow the track of corporate profits over the long term.

Still, a better-than-expected result isn’t always enough to boost a stock’s price if it’s already shot much higher.

Meta Platforms tumbled 8.9% even though the company behind Facebook and Instagram made more profit last quarter than expected. Investors focused more on Meta’s increased forecast for how much it will spend on data centers and other investments this year as it builds out its AI capabilities, up to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion.

Doubts are still high among some investors about whether all the AI spending by Meta and other companies will produce enough profit and productivity to make it worth it.

Microsoft fell 5.5% after likewise raising its forecast for investments and other capital spending. But analysts also said accelerating trends at its Azure business were encouraging.

Amazon slid 1.4% despite blowing past analysts’ expectations for earnings in the latest quarter.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after oil prices gave up their big overnight gains. Reports also suggested the U.S. economy's growth accelerated by less in the first three months of the year than economists expected, while a measure of inflation worsened in March by about as much as expected.

A separate report said that fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in an indication of fewer layoffs even though companies are announcing large cuts to workforces.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.39% from 4.42% late Wednesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a weaker finish in Asia.

London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.6% after the Bank of England kept its main interest rate on hold. That followed similar decisions by the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday and the Bank of Japan on Tuesday to keep their rates unchanged.

Germany's DAX returned 1.4%, and France's CAC 40 rose 0.5% after the European Central Bank also held its own interest rates steady.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.3%, while stocks added 0.1% in Shanghai after a report said China’s factory activity slowed slightly in April but remained in expansion territory for the second month.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

Hegseth battled with Democrats — and some Republicans — a day earlier during a nearly six-hour House Armed Services Committee hearing, where he faced sharp questioning over the war’s costs in dollars, lives and the diminishing stockpiles of critical weapons.

The Senate Armed Services Committee will hear a similar presentation on the Trump administration’s 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion. Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, will again stress the need for more drones, missile defense systems and warships.

Here's the latest:

Sen. Ernst lists accomplishments of ousted top Army uniformed officer

Saying she was “disappointed” to see Gen. Randy George’s retirement “hastened,” Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa noted that the officer “pulled the Army out of its worst recruiting crisis since the Vietnam era” and trimmed “nonessential” Army positions.

George is one of several top military officers to be dismissed since Trump returned to office. In early April, the Pentagon said George would be “retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately.”

George had held the post of Army chief of staff, which typically runs for four years, since August 2023.

“He had 38 years of honorable service. He achieved the greatest Army recruitment and modernization effort in a generation,” Ernst said. “So I want to thank him for his service.”

Senators question whether the Pentagon has resources to prevent civilian casualties

Senators wanted to know what the Defense Department is doing to prevent deaths of civilians, especially after outdated intelligence contributed to the U.S. striking an elementary school in Iran and killing over 165 people.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand asked Hegseth, “What is your response to targeting that has resulted in the destruction of schools, hospitals, civilian places? Why did you cut by 90% the division that’s supposed to help you not target civilians?”

Hegseth responded that the Pentagon has an “ironclad commitment” to do more than other countries to prevent civilian deaths.

Still, Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, continued Gillibrand’s line of questioning. He asked Hegseth whether the Pentagon still has the resources necessary to protect civilians.

Hegseth said it has “every resource necessary” and that humans are kept in the loop when AI is involved in military decisions.

Democratic senator grills defense officials on release of Ukraine funding

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, pushed Hegseth and other defense officials for details on how the Pentagon plans to use $400 million that Congress has allotted for Ukraine.

Hegseth told lawmakers a day earlier that the funding had been released. His actions came after Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former Senate Republican leader, penned an op-ed slamming the delay in releasing the funds.

But Shaheen pointed out that the Pentagon has not given Congress details on how it plans to spend the money. Hegseth told her that it would also be used as part of a program to sell military equipment first to NATO allies.

Shaheen shot back that it “was not the intent of Congress in providing that $400 million.”

The Defense Department’s current budget request includes no funding for Ukraine.

Top defense official confirms Russian involvement in Iran war

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, told senators Russian President Vladimir Putin has aided Iran’s war effort.

He declined to go into details, citing the public nature of the hearing, but said, ”There’s definitely some action there.”

The chair of the committee, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, agreed, saying “there’s no question that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is taking serious action to undermine our efforts for success in Iran.”

Hegseth again has harsh words for critics

“As I said yesterday, and I’ll say it again today, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” Hegseth said in his opening statement to the Senate panel.

Defending Trump’s budget request, Hegseth said the president “inherited a defense industrial base that had been hollowed out by years of America last policies, resulting in a diminished capacity to project strength.”

Similar to his Wednesday remarks to a House committee, Gen. Dan Caine said it was his duty as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman “to ensure our civilian leadership has a comprehensive range of military options and the associated risks required to make the nation’s hardest and most complex decisions.”

Man accused of trying to kill Trump at correspondents’ gala agrees to remain jailed for now

Cole Thomas Allen did not enter a plea during his brief appearance Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Moxila Upadhyaya.

Prosecutors allege Allen planned his attack for weeks and tracked Trump’s movements online before he ran through a magnetometer at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night while holding a long gun and disrupted one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital.

Allen was injured during the attack but wasn’t shot. A Secret Service officer was shot but was wearing a bullet-resistant vest and survived, officials say. Prosecutors have said they believe Allen fired his shotgun at least once and that a Secret Service agent fired five shots. They have not publicly confirmed that it was Allen’s bullet that struck the agent’s vest.

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Chinese foreign minister speaks with Rubio ahead of Trump’s planned China trip

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on Thursday spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and called leader-level diplomacy the “guiding star” of the China-U.S. relations, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

The call came just about two weeks before President Trump plans to travel to China for the first time since 2017 and hold talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Wang credited the “strategic leadership” by Xi and Trump for the overall stability in China-U.S. relations and said both sides should cherish it and well prepare for “high-level interactions.”

Wang urged the U.S. side to make the “right choice” over the Taiwan issue, which he said is the most risky in China-U.S. relations. Beijing considers the self-governed island part of Chinese territory and vows to seize it by force if necessary, while Washington opposes use of force in the Taiwan Strait.

Anti-war protester disrupts Hegseth hearing

A protester in a pink shirt disrupted Hegseth’s opening statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The man stood, unfurled a hand-written sign and yelled, “Pete Hegseth, you’re a war criminal.”

Within seconds, he was removed by Capitol Police officers. Several other people dressed in similar pink shirts have also left the hearing room.

The committee chair, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, continued the hearing by saying he respected First Amendment rights to free speech, but that anyone who disrupts the hearing would be removed.

Top Democrat on military panel gives sweeping critique of Hegseth’s leadership

Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, did not hold back in his opening statement directed toward Hegseth.

From the war with Iran to Hegseth’s efforts to remake military culture, Reed dressed down the defense secretary’s actions and warned they could do long-term harm.

Reed argued that the war with Iran has left the U.S. in a worse strategic position than when it was started because the Strait of Hormuz is closed and 13 U.S. military members have been killed. Many others have been injured, and equipment has been destroyed.

“The American people’s trust in our military took 250 years to build. You are dismantling it in a fraction of that time,” Reed concluded.

Panel chairman decries ‘axis of aggressors’ in Hegseth Senate hearing

In opening remarks, GOP Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi outlined threats to the United States he said were a “growing alliance” of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, saying the current moment represents “the most dangerous security environment since World War II.”

Saying Chinese President Xi Jinping led a “growing alliance” among the countries, Wicker said they shared a goal ”to oppose America’s interests and the interests of other like minded, democratic countries across the globe.”

“Ties have never been closer among these four dictators,” Wicker said. “Among these four dictatorships, they support each other’s aggressive endeavors.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says he’ll sign redistricting bill when he gets it

The Republican Florida governor told reporters Thursday he would not delay signing the new congressional map the GOP-dominated Legislature passed Wednesday at his and President Trump’s urging.

There had been some speculation that DeSantis could hold the bill for as long as possible — as much as two weeks or so depending on when the Legislature adjourns — to delay when the bill’s critics can file lawsuits challenging the measure.

The new map is intended to help Republicans gain as many as four more U.S. House seats in November, making the GOP advantage in Florida up to 24-4.

DeSantis said Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision curtailing the strength of nonwhite voters in redistricting vindicated his decision to call a special session for what he insists is a “race neutral” map.

Hegseth’s Senate hearing is starting

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is sitting before senators in what’s expected to be another fiery hearing on the Hill.

The defense secretary’s hearing is ostensibly to discuss the Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion budget request to Congress, but it’s the first time that senators will get to publicly question him since the Iran War began nearly two months ago. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, is also seated beside Hegseth.

The defense secretary also appeared for a House hearing Wednesday and he drew a large crowd of anti-war protesters to the hallways of the House office building where the hearing was held.

On Thursday, things feel a bit more low-key in the Senate, although there are a handful of people in the hearing room wearing pink shirts that state “Peace with Iran.”

Top Chinese and US trade officials speak ahead of planned state visit

Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Thursday spoke by video with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, China’s state media reported, ahead of a planned state visit by President Trump to Beijing in mid-May.

The two sides had a “candid, in-depth and constructive” exchange, the state broadcaster China Central Television said. The Chinese side lodged “solemn concerns” over recent restrictive trade measures imposed by the U.S. on China, but the statement didn’t specify the measures.

Last week, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned a China-based oil refinery and 40 shippers involved in transporting Iranian oil. The U.S. Trade Representative Office this week held a hearing on the use of forced labor in foreign goods.

Trump takes another dig at German leader

The president is continuing to pillory German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who’s been increasingly critical of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran.

Trump in a social media post said Merz “should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine” and “fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy” and less time concerning himself with the Iran war.

The latest criticism by Trump of Merz came the day after the U.S. president announced he was reviewing the U.S. military presence in Germany, a NATO ally that hosts several American military installations.

Trump administration appeals order blocking government from cutting vaccine recommendations

U.S. officials are appealing a judge’s order that blocks the government from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every U.S. child.

Government lawyers on Wednesday filed the one-sentence appeal.

It was a delayed response to a March 16 order by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, who blocked an order by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — announced in January — to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV.

Murphy’s order also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee. The stay continues while the appeal is considered.

White House is facing a War Powers Resolution deadline

The Trump administration is constrained by the 1973 law, which requires several notification and approval steps meant to keep a commander-in-chief’s military powers in check.

One of its provisions is that military action authorized by the president must end after 60 days unless Congress has explicitly approved it, or has declared war. That 60-day clock runs out Friday.

One White House official said the administration is in “active conversations” with lawmakers on addressing the deadline, but did not elaborate. The official was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The administration can request a 30-day extension by telling Congress in writing that there’s a continued need for military action. The White House, which has long stressed that the president is working toward a diplomatic option in Iran, hasn’t indicated publicly whether Trump will seek that extension.

— Seung Min Kim

Trump floats a new plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

Under the plan, the United States would continue its blockade on Iranian ports, while coordinating with allies to impose higher costs on Iran’s attempts to subvert the free flow of energy, according to a senior administration official.

Trump is weighing multiple diplomatic and policy options to push Iran to end its chokehold on the waterway, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

— Aamer Madhani

US jobless aid filings fall to 189,000 last week despite multiple economic headwinds and Iran war

U.S. jobless aid applications for the week ending April 25 fell by 26,000 by to 189,000, down from the previous week’s 215,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s well below the 214,000 new applications analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting.

Filings for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

The four-week moving average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, came in at 207,500, about 3,500 lower than the previous week.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending April 18 fell to 1.79 million, a decrease of 23,000.

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US economy grew 2% from January-March, recovering from last fall’s federal shutdown

But the outlook is clouded by the Iran war.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — rebounded from a lackluster 0.5% expansion the last three months of 2025. The federal government’s spending and investment grew at a 9.3% annual rate in the first quarter, adding more than half a percentage point to growth after lopping off 1.16 percentage points in fourth-quarter 2025.

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of U.S. economic activity, slowed to 1.6% in the first quarter from 1.9% at the end of 2025. But business investment, likely driven by investments in artificial intelligence, rose at an 8.7% pace.

Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes. That has driven energy prices higher, fueling inflation and hurting consumers.

▶ Read more

A key inflation gauge jumps in March as Iran war-driven gas prices squeeze budgets

It’s the latest sign that the Iran war is pushing up the cost of living and delaying any interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

An inflation gauge monitored by the Fed rose 0.7% in March from February, up slightly from the previous month. Compared with a year ago, prices rose 3.5%, the biggest increase in almost three years.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation rose 0.3% in March from February, and it was 3.2% higher than a year earlier. The annual figure is above February’s reading of 3%.

Rising gas prices have caused inflation to move further away from the Fed’s 2% target, which has caused the central bank to keep its key short-term interest rate unchanged after cutting it three times last year. The Fed typically keeps rates elevated — or even raises them — to combat higher inflation.

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New ‘bluster’ from Trump? Germany faces new threat about reduced US military presence in Europe

President Trump has again threatened that the United States could reduce its military presence in Germany, a key NATO ally and the European Union’s largest economy. Europeans have heard this before.

Trump’s social media post on Wednesday followed comments by Chancellor Friedrich Merz that the U.S. was being “ humiliated ” by Tehran as it slow-walks its diplomacy over the U.S.-Israel war against Iran.

Trump has mused for years about reducing America’s military presence in Germany, and has recently repeatedly railed against NATO for the its refusal to assist the U.S. in its two-month-old war.

U.S. allies at NATO have been waiting for the Trump administration to pull troops out since just after it came to office, warning that Europe would have to look after its own security, and that of Ukraine, in the future.

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Full federal appeals court won’t rehear $83 million defamation verdict against Trump

A divided federal appeals court said Wednesday it won’t grant a rare meeting of its active judges to hear an appeal of an $83 million verdict against President Donald Trump for defaming a magazine advice columnist over an encounter three decades ago.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to reject a so-called “en banc” hearing comes several months after Trump appealed to the Supreme Court another jury’s decision to grant $5 million the writer, E. Jean Carroll, after concluding he had sexually abused her in a department store dressing room in 1996 and later defamed her. The high court hasn’t yet decided whether to hear the case.

Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement that her client was “eager for this case, originally filed in 2019, to be over so that she can finally obtain justice.”

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Environmental Protection Agency boss backs big budget cuts but Congress will get the final say

Senate Democrats accused the Trump administration of abandoning the Environmental Protection Agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment at a congressional hearing Wednesday, slamming agency leadership over a proposal to cut its budget in half.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s appearance before the Senate environment committee was his last of three budget hearings this week where he argued for sharply reduced funding for the agency, which already has seen its staffing reduced to its lowest level in decades under his leadership. During much of the week, the former Republican congressman from New York took an aggressive approach, responding to Democrats in the House and Senate with his own questions and at times accusing them of being unprepared or failing to care about the EPA’s track record.

Zeldin has eliminated major climate change programs, promoted deregulatory efforts he calls the biggest in American history and canceled billions of dollars in Biden-era environmental justice grants to halt what he calls “EPA’s radical diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.”

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Brent crude surges over $120 a barrel on Iran war worries, while world stocks are mixed

The price of Brent crude oil briefly surged past $126 a barrel early Thursday as stalled U.S.-Iran talks raised doubts over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a permanent end to the Iran war.

Brent crude to be delivered in June jumped 3.3% to $121.90 after briefly soaring past $126 per barrel. Brent to be delivered in July rose 1.4% to $112.02.

Benchmark U.S. crude climbed 1.3% to $108.28 per barrel.

Before the war began in late February, Brent crude was trading around $70 per barrel.

There’s no clear path to an end to the war. The U.S. has continued its blockade of Iranian ports while the Strait of Hormuz is closed, pushing oil prices higher. Reports Thursday suggesting a possible escalation by Trump doused hopes for a quick end to the conflict.

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BET announced Thursday that the 31-year-old comedian and digital creator will lead the ceremony, which airs live June 28 from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Druski surpasses Kevin Hart, who previously held the distinction as the BET Award's youngest host when he emceed in 2011.

“I grew up watching the BET Awards,” Druski said in a statement. “To know the comedic legends that hosted before me set the bar so high, I’m just grateful to be a part of the history. But I’m still bringing my brand of comedy to the stage.”

Best known for his viral sketches and improvisational style, Druski has built a massive following across social media, translating that momentum into sold-out tours and high-profile collaborations with artists including Drake and Snoop Dogg, as well as appearances alongside figures like Tom Brady and Timothée Chalamet.

Druski has been named to Forbes’ Under 30 list and Rolling Stone’s Most Influential Creator list, and in 2025 became the first comedian to cover Billboard’s No. 1s issue.

Now in its 25th year, the BET Awards has long served as a major stage celebrating Black achievement across music, film, television and sports, and is known for its performances, tributes and culturally defining moments.

“As one of the most exciting comedic voices of his generation, Druski brings a unique ability to connect with audiences through humor that feels both fresh and deeply rooted in culture,” said Connie Orlando, BET’s executive vice president of specials, music programming and music strategy.

The show will be produced by Jesse Collins Entertainment, with Jesse Collins,Dionne Harmon and Jeannae Rouzan-Clay serving as executive producers.

The news was also released in a short text message to journalists from the government’s Military Information Team.

It accompanied a photo showing the 80-year-old Suu Kyi sitting on a wooden bench in a skirt and traditional white blouse. She is sitting behind a low table facing two unidentified men, one in a police uniform and the other wearing another kind of uniform.

Suu Kyi has been in detention since Feb. 1, 2021, when the army seized power from her elected government. She has not been seen publicly since then, and the last official photo showing her was released on May 24, 2021, showing her in court.

She was originally sentenced to 33 years in prison in late 2022 for several offenses that her supporters and rights groups described as attempts to discredit her and legitimize the army takeover that removed her from office, as well as to prevent her return to politics.

The message announcing her transfer says she was moved from the main prison in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw to house arrest, with the action taken “made to celebrate Buddha Day, to show humanitarian concern, and to demonstrate the kindness of the state.”

It does not specify her exact location but says that according to the law on designating a place of imprisonment “she will now serve the remainder of her sentence at a specific home instead of in prison.”

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

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military-backed government shortened the prison sentence of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday, a move that came as part of a prisoner pardon tied to a Buddhist religious holiday, according to legal officials and reports in state media.

The amnesty is the second in two weeks, following an earlier one on April 17 when more than 4,500 prisoners were granted amnesty. It was not immediately clear how many people imprisoned for opposing military rule in Myanmar were included in Thursday’s amnesty.

Two legal officials, who insisted on anonymity for fear of being punished by the authorities, said Thursday’s measure would further reduce Suu Kyi’s sentence by one-sixth, but did not specify the exact remaining term. Based on previous reductions, the 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate is expected to have more than 13 years left to serve.

State media said Thursday that in addition to the amnesty granted to 1,519 prisoners, including 11 foreigners, the sentences of remaining convicted prisoners were cut by one-sixth to mark the Full Moon day of “Kason,” known as Buddha’s Birthday and Demise.

The amnesties come after Senior General Min Aung Hlaing was sworn into office as president on April 10 following an election that critics say was neither free nor fair and was orchestrated to maintain the military’s tight grip on power.

In his inauguration speech, he said his government would grant amnesties aimed at promoting social reconciliation, justice and peace.

Suu Kyi was arrested on Feb. 1, 2021 when the army seized power from her elected government.

She was originally sentenced to 33 years in prison in late 2022 for several offenses that her supporters and rights groups described as attempts to discredit her and legitimize the army takeover that removed her from office, as well as to prevent her return to politics.

Her term was reduced to 27 years in August 2023 and then further cut by more than four years on April 17, when prison terms of less than 40 years were cut by one-sixth.

Suu Kyi is serving the prison term at an undisclosed location in the capital Naypyitaw.

There were reports last week that she might be transferred to house arrest as part of the clemency, but there was no confirmation from the government.

Information about her condition remains tightly controlled. Reports in 2024 and 2025 indicated declining health, including low blood pressure, dizziness and heart problems, but these claims could not be independently verified. Her legal team has not been allowed to meet her in person since December 2022.

The 2021 army takeover triggered massive public resistance that was brutally suppressed, triggering a bloody civil war that has killed thousands of people.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization, 22,047 people have been in detention in Myanmar since the army takeover.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar’s martyred independence hero Gen. Aung San, spent almost 15 years as a political prisoner under house arrest between 1989 and 2010.

Her tough stand against military rule in Myanmar turned her into a symbol of nonviolent struggle for democracy, and won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

The U.S. Surface Transportation Board rejected Union Pacific's initial application as incomplete in January because regulators wanted more details about how the deal would affect the competitive balance between the five remaining major freight railroads and the impact on customers. The STB has 30 days to decide whether to accept this application, and then it will move forward into its detailed review of the deal that will likely last more than a year.

Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena said the new application makes an even stronger case for the benefits of the merger that he believes would shave a day or two off the delivery time for many shipments because they would no longer have to be handed off between two railroads in the middle of the country. The Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad projects that the merger could lead to shifting 2.1 million truckloads off the highway onto trains, and doing that could save shippers $3.5 billion because over long distances, rail is cheaper than trucking.

Critics that include some current major rail shippers like chemical companies and agricultural groups and two of the major competing railroads worry that the shipping rates existing customers pay could soar if Union Pacific gains monopoly power all across the country. Competitors BNSF and CPKC railroads joined a new coalition Wednesday to highlight concerns that the deal could hurt shippers and eventually consumers if it leads to higher rates for companies that have few options besides rail to get their raw materials and deliver their products.

But Vena said CSX and BNSF are already improving their operations to ensure they can compete ,and shippers will benefit from that if the deal is approved. Plus, he pointed out that since BNSF is owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway it has the financial resources to do whatever is needed because Berkshire is sitting on nearly $400 billion cash.

“The first few years after this, it’s gonna be like one of those old 15-round boxing fights. Prices are gonna be used, the service is going to be used, everything. And I think the customer’s going to be the winner in all this while we knock down, drag it out, to see who can win and grow their market share,” Vena said.

But the STB established a high bar for major railroad mergers like this one around the turn of the century after past rail mergers snarled freight and led to prolonged disruptions while two railroads worked to integrate their networks. Now Union Pacific has to demonstrate that this deal will enhance competition.

Vena said he's confident the railroads can avoid the integration problems of past mergers because they will take it slow while listening to a new board of customers about the impact. Plus this would be a combination of two successful railroads instead of many deals of the past where one thriving railroad took over another nearly bankrupt one in disrepair.

The deal includes a provision that if the STB requires more than $750 million in concessions Union Pacific can consider walking away, but it won't automatically doom the deal, the railroads disclosed Thursday as they submitted a copy of their merger agreement. Norfolk Southern would be entitled to a $2.5 billion breakup fee if the deal falls apart.

Currently, Norfolk Southern and CSX serve the eastern U.S. while Union Pacific and BNSF serve the west, and the two major Canadian rails compete where they can with their tracks crossing Canada and extending into the United States and Mexico.

A merged Union Pacific would likely control nearly 40% of the nation’s freight, but the railroad said that currently BNSF delivers that much of the nation's freight. So the railroads said the deal would shift which railroad dominates the market but wouldn't dramatically change the competitive balance.

Several trade groups have joined with the unions that represent engineers and track maintenance workers and the other railroads to raise concerns about the deal.

“This did not begin with a customer asking for a UP-NS merger to happen,” BNSF CEO Katie Farmer said. “It’s driven by Wall Street on the promise of a big shareholder payout. It will eliminate competition, raise costs for consumers, and destabilize the supply chain that powers the American economy.”

But the biggest rail union and hundreds of shippers have backed the deal that would cut the number of major freight railroads across America down to five.

Union Pacific has promised that every union employee who has a job with either railroad at the time of the merger will have a job for life although the workforce could still shrink through attrition if the number of shipments slows down. But UP sounded an optimistic note Thursday and predicted that more than 1,200 new jobs will be created by the third year after the deal to handle the increased freight.

Previously, the railroads predicted 900 new jobs. But the new traffic data the railroads analyzed from all the major freight railroads convinced executives that more job growth is likely.

Union Pacific also said it will ensure that the merged railroad will never control more than 50% of the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis after competitors questioned that. Currently, UP owns nearly 43% of that railroad that operates 170 miles of track and two bridges over the Mississippi River, and Norfolk Southern owns more than 14%. Previously, Union Pacific had suggested temporarily becoming the majority owner of that railroad as part of the transition after the merger.

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“Being on the ground is essential. It allows journalists to question official accounts on all sides, to speak directly with civilians and report back what they witness firsthand,” said the statement from the executives, released Thursday. “That is why news organizations send their reporters into the field, often at great personal risk.”

From the AP and the BBC and Sky News to CNN to MS NOW, from Reuters to German news agency dpa to The New York Times and The Washington Post, the top editors of more than two dozen organizations said the Israeli government has so far not responded to their efforts to discuss the situation. They questioned the country's rationales for why the restrictions are still in place.

The letter was released at 5 a.m. ET by the local foreign press association.

Israel had said ban was necessary

Initially, Israel said the ban was necessary because foreign journalists allowed into Gaza could give away the positions of Israeli soldiers and endanger them. Other rationales have included that as an active battle zone, it was too dangerous. The army has occasionally brought foreign reporters in on highly controlled trips, but media outlets want independent access.

An email seeking comment was sent to New York-based representatives of the Israeli government. There was no immediate response.

Currently, “the heaviest fighting is over and there is a ceasefire in place," the editors' statement said. "The hostages have come home. Journalists do not pose a threat to Israeli troops. There is a mechanism in place—however restrictive—that allows aid workers to enter and exit the territory. Why not journalists?”

There have been attempts at legal action to force the issue. The Foreign Press Association, which represents international media in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, has been waiting on a decision from the Israeli Supreme Court on a petition for independent access to Gaza. That action was filed in 2024, but a ruling has been repeatedly delayed, most recently in January.

With foreign journalists kept out of Gaza, coverage of the conditions on the ground there has been possible only for local Palestinian journalists. While covering war would be fraught for any reporter, the Palestinian correspondents have also had to experience it on a personal level — their homes destroyed, their loved ones killed.

Gaza-based reporters face big risks

When access to food became severely restricted last year they also had to deal with hunger, to the point that the Agence France-Presse news agency in July raised an alarm about their Palestinian colleagues' continued survival. That concern was echoed by the AP and Reuters for the reporters in Gaza they work with.

The editors raised that point in the statement Thursday, saying “this has pushed the responsibility for covering this devastating war and its aftermath almost entirely on our Palestinian colleagues ... They should not have to shoulder this burden alone, and they should be protected.”

Their lives have also been put at risk from military actions. Well over 200 journalists and media workers have been killed according to a tally from the Committee to Protect Journalists organization, far more than in conflicts elsewhere like the Russia-Ukraine war.

Among them was Mariam Dagga, a 33-year-old visual journalist who worked as a freelancer for the AP and other news organizations. She and four other journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri and Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance journalist who worked with Reuters, were among those killed last August in an Israeli strike on a medical facility.

The AP's reporting on the strike raised questions about the rationale used by the Israeli government to carry out the action against the hospital, which was known as a place where journalists gathered. AP and Reuters later issued a statement calling on Israel to explain what took place and what steps would be taken to protect reporters. The Israeli military says it is still investigating.

The statement from the editors on Thursday came during Press Freedom Week, which they noted. “Freedom of the press is a basic value in any open society. It is time for the delays to end. Let us into Gaza.”

Coe's wife, Kimberly Hastings Coe, confirmed his death to Rolling Stone on Wednesday.

She described him as one of the best singers and songwriters of our time.

“My husband, my friend, my confidant and my life for many years. I’ll never forget him and I don’t want anyone else to ever forget him either,” she wrote to the publication.

A statement from a Coe representative to People said he died around 5 p.m. Wednesday. The cause of death wasn't disclosed.

Whether he was labeled outlaw or underground, Coe was clearly an outsider in Nashville's music establishment, even throughout his successes as an in-demand songwriter and singer, eventually developing a core following around his raw, often obscene lyrics and a checkered and somewhat mysterious past.

His wife posted on Facebook in September 2021 that he had been hospitalized with COVID-19, and he made few appearances after that.

Coe toured over the years with Willie Nelson, Kid Rock, Neil Young and others. He wrote “Take This Job and Shove It,” a hit by Johnny Paycheck in 1977, and “Would You Lay With Me (in a Field of Stone),” a hit by Tanya Tucker in 1974. He was also the first country singer to record “Tennessee Whiskey,” penned by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, which has since become a genre standard and a hit for both George Jones and Chris Stapleton.

“Spent so much time with David over the years, touring, writing songs and just hanging out,” Kid Rock wrote Thursday on X. “I knew a side of Dave most people never got to see. He was such a deep thinker, kind and about as real as an outlaw can get!”

Coe's own country hit recordings included “You Never Even Call Me by My Name,” written by Steve Goodman and an uncredited John Prine; “The Ride,” and “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile.” Coe also appeared in a handful of movies, including “Stagecoach” and “Take this Job and Shove It,” which was named after his song.

Coe, born in Akron, Ohio, spent time in reformatories as a youngster and served time in an Ohio prison from 1963 to 1967 for possession of burglary tools. He also said he spent time with the Outlaws motorcycle club, but some tales about his prison time and his personal life have been wildly exaggerated over the years.

“I’d have never made it through prison without my music,” he said in a 1983 interview with The Associated Press. “No one could take it (music) away from me. They could put me in the hole with nothing to do, but I could still make up a song in my head.”

He recorded his first album, a blues album called “Penitentiary Blues,” using songs he wrote in prison. He later told reporters that he tried not to lean too heavily on prison as a song topic because of similarities to Merle Haggard's backstory, but that his criminal history was all people seemed interested in.

Coe recorded next for Columbia Records and made the album “The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy,” which became his nickname after he performed in a rhinestone suit while wearing a mask.

During the outlaw movement heyday, Coe placed himself at the center of the scene with songs like “Longhaired Redneck,” which featured lyrics about performing in dive bars, “where bikers stare at cowboys who are laughing at the hippies who are praying they’ll get out of here alive.”

He was featured in the acclaimed documentary about the outlaw country movement called “Heartworn Highways,” in which he performed a concert at a Tennessee prison.

Coe, himself heavily tattooed and sporting long hair, claimed a diverse fan base that included bikers, doctors, lawyers and bankers. His last record, released in 2006, was a collaboration with Dimebag Darrell and other former members of the heavy metal group Pantera.

He released two R-rated albums, 1978′s “Nothing Sacred” and 1982′s “Underground Album,” that he sold via biker magazines. The songs on these albums have been criticized for being racist, homophobic and sexually explicit. He told “Billboard” magazine in 2001 that author and songwriter Shel Silverstein convinced him to record the songs he had written, something he had come to regret.

“Those were meant to be sung around the campfire for bikers, and I still don’t sing those songs in concert,” he said.

In 2016, Coe was ordered to pay the IRS more than $980,000 in restitution for obstructing the tax agency and was sentenced to three years’ probation. Court documents say Coe earned income from at least 100 concerts yearly from 2008 through 2013 and either didn’t file individual income tax returns or pay taxes when he did file.

The Global Sumud Flotilla set sail earlier this month from Barcelona. Organizers have said more than 70 boats and 1,000 people from around the world would be participating, with more vessels joining the original boats as the flotilla sailed east across the Mediterranean.

According to the ships’ tracker published on the activist group’s website, 22 vessels were intercepted in international waters west of the southern Greek island of Crete, while a further 36 were still sailing midday on Thursday.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X that it was taking about 175 activists from more than 20 boats participating in the flotilla to Israel. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar later wrote on X that the activists would be transferred to Greece in coordination with Greek authorities.

“All participants in the provocative flotilla who were taken off the vessels were taken off unharmed,” Saar wrote.

The flotilla condemned Israel’s interception as “a dangerous and unprecedented escalation.”

“The abduction of civilians in the middle of the Mediterranean, over 600 miles from Gaza, in full view of the world,” the group said in a press release.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry condemned the seizure as “an act of piracy” and said Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the raid over the phone with his Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Albares Bueno.

Spain summoned the Israeli charge d’affaires in Madrid “to convey its strongest condemnation of the detention of the flotilla,” which included Spanish citizens, the ministry said in a statement.

Italy and Germany said they were following developments with “great concern” and called for international law to be respected and for “restraint from irresponsible actions."

In a post on Telegram, Hamas also condemned the interception, accusing Israel of committing a crime without accountability and calling for the release of those detained.

Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of a blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, while critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s Palestinian population.

Israel had thwarted previous efforts to break its blockade

The activists' attempt comes less than a year after Israeli authorities foiled a previous effort by the group to reach Gaza. That attempt involved about 50 vessels and around 500 activists, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, and several European lawmakers.

Israel arrested, detained and later deported the participants, who claimed Israeli authorities abused them while in detention. Israeli authorities denied the accusations.

The Israeli action had raised questions about what any nation can legally do to enforce a blockade in international waters. Several world leaders and human rights groups had condemned Israel, saying it violated international law.

Previous efforts to breach the blockade have also failed. In 2010, Israeli commandos raided the Turkish boat Mavi Marmara, which had been participating in an aid flotilla attempting to reach Gaza. Nine Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American on board were killed. The last time an activist boat succeeded in reaching the strip was in 2008.

Activists say Israeli forces boarded and disabled the boats

The Sumud Flotilla described the interception as a “violent raid in international waters.” In a social media post, the group said that “after smashing engines and destroying navigation arrays, the military retreated— intentionally leaving hundreds of civilians stranded on powerless, broken vessels directly in the path of a massive approaching storm.”

It also said the vessels' communications had been jammed, hindering them from signaling for help. Asked about the accusations, the Israeli military declined to comment.

Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oren Marmorstein said that “early action was required in accordance with international law” due to the large number of vessels in the flotilla. “The operation was carried out in international waters peacefully and without any casualties,” he said.

Marmostein accused the Hamas militant group in Gaza of being the “driving force” behind the flotilla, “with the aim of sabotaging (U.S.) President (Donald) Trump’s peace plan transition to its second phase and intended to divert attention from Hamas’ refusal to disarm.”

Activists in Greece said they planned a protest rally Thursday afternoon outside the Greek foreign ministry in Athens, saying Israel's interception of the boats occurred within the maritime zone that falls under Greece's responsibility for search and rescue operations and that the country's coast guard had not reacted.

Flotilla aims to draw attention to the situation in Gaza

A fragile six month-old ceasefire in Gaza has halted the most intense fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas-led militants in the Palestinian enclave. But despite the ceasefire, Israeli attacks have killed more than 790 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Overall, the health ministry says 72,300 Palestinians had been killed since the war in Gaza began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7, 2023.

Around 2 million Gaza residents are still living in ruins with shortages of food and medicine, and only limited aid entering through a single, Israeli-controlled border post.

Flotilla organizers have said they hope their latest attempt to reach Gaza will help highlight the living conditions endured by Palestinians in the territory, particularly as global attention has shifted its focus to the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran.

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Associated Press writers Natalie Melzer in Mitzpe Hila, Israel, Cinar Kiper in Istanbul and Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.

But beneath these panels is lush pasture instead of gravel, enjoyed by a small herd of cattle that spends its days munching grass and resting in the shade.

Silicon Ranch, which owns the 40-acre farm in Christiana, outside of Nashville, believes cattle-grazing is the next frontier in so-called agrivoltaics, which mostly has involved growing crops or grazing sheep beneath the panels.

The solar company debuted the project this week and will spend the next year working to demonstrate to farmers that much larger cattle also can thrive at solar sites. If successful, advocates say, that could jump-start new projects to meet the soaring electricity demand driven by rapidly expanding data centers — without contributing climate-warming carbon emissions — and help cattle producers hold onto their land and livelihoods.

“Solar is one of the most powerful tools we have for cutting emissions and ... is cost-competitive with fossil fuels,” said Taylor Bacon, a doctoral student at Colorado State University who has studied ecological outcomes at solar grazing sites. “I think we’re starting to see enough research that, when you do it well, the land use can be more of an opportunity than a downside."

Making room for cattle

Though there are far more cattle than sheep in the U.S., their size poses challenges at solar sites, where both expensive equipment and the animals, which can weigh more than half a ton, must be protected.

Solar panels often pivot to near-vertical angles to capture the sun’s rays, leaving little room underneath for cattle; simply raising the panels is cost-prohibitive because of the amount of steel required. So Silicon Ranch raised the panels a little but also developed software that workers activate to turn the panels close to horizontal when cattle are grazing, giving them room to wander, said Nick de Vries, the company's chief technology officer.

Workers rotate the cattle — currently 10 cows and their calves — between paddocks every few days so panels on the ungrazed portion of the site operate normally, generating a supply of roughly 5 megawatts of electricity for Middle Tennessee Electric, a rural electric co-op.

The hope is that the technology eventually will be adopted more broadly, company officials said.

“We know it works," said de Vries. "But you need to prove it to other people."

What are the benefits for farmers?

For solar companies, agricultural land is generally easier to develop than other types of sites. But many farmers — and communities — will need to be convinced that solar grazing will benefit them because of past practices that destroyed topsoil and took land out of production permanently.

"For many agricultural stakeholders, it is offensive to see high-quality farmland getting graded and piled when that’s a farm family’s legacy,” said Ethan Winter, national smart solar director at American Farmland Trust.

But he sees potential for solar grazing partnerships to help farmers keep their land in production and earn extra income at a time when it's increasingly difficult to earn money farming and ranching alone.

“Agriculture is in a really tough spot right now" including because of trade wars, climate extremes, increased costs and pressure to sell, Winter said. "So maybe this is our moment where we can be helping states meet their energy needs and do that in a way that’s providing new opportunities for farmers.”

Silicon Ranch this year will have almost 15,000 acres of pasture being grazed — mostly by sheep — since launching five years ago, and is working with ranchers, farmers, university researchers and others to adopt best-practices for keeping soils and animals healthy.

What they're finding is that pasture beneath solar panels retains more moisture, making it more drought tolerant, said Anna Clare Monlezun, a rancher and rangeland ecosystem scientist who's working on the Tennessee project. Grazing in the shade leaves animals less prone to heat stress, enabling them to gain more weight and drink less water.

“There are more win-wins than trade-offs,” she said.

Sheep already have proven to be a good fit for solar sites, with more than 130,000 acres grazed as of 2024, a number that certainly has grown, said Kevin Richardson, senior director of the American Solar Grazing Association.

But for cattle, the industry still has to overcome site-design challenges and be able to scale up operations while also developing appropriate economic incentives for ranchers, Richardson said.

“Once we have that, I think we’ll see more solar sites using cattle or multi-species grazing with sheep and cattle,” he said.

Farmers often earn about $1,000 an acre by leasing their land for solar, easily 10 times more than what they historically earned through traditional agriculture, said Winter, from the Farmland Trust. That can help them to diversify operations, pay down debt and buy more land.

“I think you’ll start to hear more interest from farmers who are up against a serious financial wall right now and looking for income diversification opportunities that keep land in production,” Winter said. “We need and want to grow America’s energy capacity but not at the expense of our best farmland or at the expense of agricultural livelihoods.”

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

The appeal filed Wednesday was a delayed response to a March 16 court order that blocked the decision by President Donald Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV, a respiratory virus.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's order also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee.

The stay continues while the appeal is considered.

The government's one-sentence filing did not say why the block should be lifted. U.S. health officials did not immediately comment on the filing, or respond to a question about why they waited six weeks to file an appeal.

The appeal is the latest development in a lawsuit filed in July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and some other medical groups. The lawsuit in federal court in Boston originally focused on Kennedy’s decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for most children and pregnant women.

The lawsuit was updated as Kennedy took more steps that alarmed medical societies, causing the plaintiffs to ask Murphy to take steps to address those policy changes too.

For example, the plaintiffs amended the lawsuit to stop the scaling back of the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule. They also asked the court to look at Kennedy’s actions concerning the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises public health officials on what vaccines to recommend to doctors and patients.

Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel last year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.

Murphy, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden, said Kennedy’s reconstitution of ACIP likely violated federal law. The judge ordered the appointments — and all decisions made by the reformulated committee — put on hold.

Earlier this month, the Republican administration updated the committee's charter to broadens qualifications for panel members in ways that would allow the inclusion of Kennedy allies. That move did not resolve the legal challenge, according to Richard Hughes IV, a lawyer representing the pediatrics group.

Hughes this week said he was disappointed that the government decided to appeal but said he expected to prevail. He pledged to bring an end to Kennedy's “steady destruction of vaccine policy and public health.”

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

James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. Hitchcock was initially sentenced to death in 1977 after being convicted of first-degree murder in the July 31, 1976, killing of Cynthia Driggers. Following a series of appeals, he was resentenced to death in 1988, 1993 and 1996.

This would be Florida’s sixth execution so far this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.

According to court records, Hitchcock was unemployed and had moved into his brother's Orlando home several weeks before the July 31, 1976, killing of his brother's stepdaughter. He told police after his arrest that after several hours of drinking beer and smoking marijuana with friends, he returned to the home, entered the 13-year-old girl's room and raped her, investigators said.

When the girl told Hitchcock, then 20, that she had been injured and planned to tell her mother, Hitchcock tried to stop her from leaving the room and began choking her, officials said. Hitchcock then took the girl outside, where he beat and choked her until she stopped moving, and left her in some nearby bushes. Hitchcock then took a shower and went to bed.

Hitchcock recanted during his trial, and blamed his brother instead. He testified that his brother had walked into the girl's room shortly after they had consensual sex, and that his brother beat and choked her in a fit of rage. He said she was already dead by the time he pulled his brother off the girl, and said he had initially taken the blame to protect his brother.

The Florida Supreme Court denied an appeal last week to halt Hitchcock's execution. His attorneys had argued that he was innocent and that the state had illegally refused to grant him access to public records related to the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court denied another appeal on Thursday morning.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each.

Also Thursday evening, a man who claims he was not the shooter in a fatal robbery that killed two people nearly 18 years ago and who says prosecutors misused rap lyrics he wrote to secure his death sentence faced execution in Texas.

Another execution is planned in Florida on May 21. Richard Knight, 47, is scheduled to received a lethal injection for his conviction in the fatal stabbing of his cousin's girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection if a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

Annual inflation in the eurozone — the 21 countries that use the shared euro currency — rose to 3% from 2.6% in March, fueled by a 10.9% increase in energy prices, the European Union statistical agency Eurostat reported Thursday. Crude oil is trading above $120 per barrel, up from around $73 before the outbreak of the war on Feb. 28.

Meanwhile, eurozone growth for the first three months of the year disappointed with a marginal increase in economic output of 0.1% over the quarter before.

The war is dealing a huge shock to the global economy because Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which around 20% of the world’s oil formerly passed on its way to customers from producers in the Persian Gulf. The surge in oil prices has been quickly reflected at gas stations and in the price of jet fuel.

Rising inflation has raised concerns it may become built into the economy along with slow or nonexistent growth, a policy conundrum dubbed “stagflation” that leaves central banks like the ECB with few attractive choices. The usual antidote to inflation is for the central bank to raise its benchmark interest rate, but that can slow growth by raising credit costs for buying things.

ECB policymakers left their benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday even though the annual rate of inflation is now clearly above the bank’s target of 2%. The bank’s benchmark rate has been unchanged at 2% since June 2025.

ECB President Christine Lagarde said at a post-decision news conference at the bank's headquarters in Frankfurt that the bank's governing council had debated a rate rise Thursday. She said the council would revisit the bank's stance with new information at the next meeting June 11 without committing to any particular path for rates.

Although some economists have used the term recently, she said the eurozone was not facing stagflation like that afflicting Western economies after the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Lagarde said the situation today was not comparable, with inflation less ingrained and a stronger labor market supporting an economy that is not in recession. She said the term was “something that I park in the '70s... this is not something we're seeing for the moment.”

"We don't apply that flashy term, ‘stagflation,’ to the circumstances that we have.”

Western economies suffered high inflation after twin oil shocks from the 1973 Arab oil embargo against the US and the 1979 Iranian revolution - bad memories revived by the Hormuz closure.

Other central banks are also on pause. The Bank of Japan and the U.S. Federal Reserve both left rates unchanged at meetings this week, and the Bank of England also held steady Thursday.

It's the third time Jessica Mann has had to answer his lawyers' questions in a New York court. But different attorneys are now defending the ex-studio boss whose downfall powered the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. It remains to be seen whether their inquiries will hit the emotional boiling points of Mann's prior cross-examinations.

Weinstein lawyer Teny Geragos began questioning Mann on Wednesday by seizing on her complicated feelings about Weinstein during a knotty relationship that involved some consensual sexual encounters.

Under prosecutors' questioning earlier, Mann said that despite the alleged rape, she loved “a part of him” because he could be kind and encouraging about her personal struggles and professional dreams, and that the two had “some pretty human moments” together.

“What did he do for you that made parts of you really love him?” Geragos asked.

“It was the validation,” Mann said.

When Geragos went on to ask about the “human moments," Mann said she once slapped Weinstein, thinking he was inviting it as sex play, but that he later told her, “Jess, that's not you.”

“So when you were talking about the validation that you received … and the human moments that you shared with Harvey, it was that you slapped him?” Geragos asked.

Mann said she instead was referring to his remark that “that's not you.”

Court ended for the day soon afterward. As it resumed Thursday, Geragos quizzed Mann about her early interactions with Weinstein.

Weinstein, 73, is on trial for the third time on a charge accusing him of raping Mann in a New York hotel in March 2013. He was initially convicted in 2020, but an appeals court overturned that verdict. During his first retrial, the jury couldn't reach a decision on the rape charge.

Mann also alleges that Weinstein raped her again in Beverly Hills, California, in late 2013 or early 2014. He has never been charged with any crime related to that allegation.

“He just treated me like he owned me,” she told jurors this week.

Mann, 40, acknowledges that she accepted his sexual advances at times but said the two rapes happened as she protested and pleaded with him to stop.

Weinstein's lawyers maintain that everything that happened between the two was consensual and part of a supportive, caring relationship. They say Mann benefited from associating with an Oscar-winning producer, only later accusing him amid the #MeToo outcry of 2017 and 2018.

Mann and Weinstein met at a Los Angeles-area party around early 2013. At the time, she was a financially struggling hairstylist and actor aspiring to make it big in show business.

The then-married Weinstein invited her to a bookstore, where he bought her volumes about movies. Not long afterward, he took her to dinner at a hotel in Beverly Hills.

“From your perspective in 2013, going to dinner with another man who’s older than you can imply certain ideas, like a date, correct?” Geragos asked.

Mann said she hadn’t thought of it as a date. His assistant scheduled the dinner, so it seemed “somewhat professional,” she explained.

After the meal, Weinstein asked her up to his hotel suite, where Mann testified that he pressed her to take off her shirt and let him massage her. She said she instead rubbed his back to “de-escalate” the situation.

Geragos suggested Mann simply could have left the room.

“In theory. Because I could have done a lot of things,” Mann replied.

The alleged rape happened weeks after the dinner.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.

Thursday’s Flood Risk (1 out of 4):

Thursday’s flood risk is focused is mainly north of I-10.

Friday, the flood risk increases and includes all counties in southeast Texas. More waves of rain and storms move in along a slow-moving cold front. Watch for street flooding and ponding, and give yourself extra time for morning and evening commutes.

Flooding is the main concern as some areas could pick up to 4 inches of rain. Strong to severe storms are expected to develop on Friday, producing strong winds and hail. Thankfully, the risk is marginal.

If you look down at the list, a marginal risk generally means short-lived but intense storms, but isolated coverage.

Now let’s talk about timing:

There will be isolated to spotty storms and showers Thursday evening; this chance for storms will depend on the atmospheric cap-If the cap can keep energy tamed, storms will be hard to come by, but if we see the cap break, storms will be likely.

Late Thursday through pre-dawn hours on Friday, rounds of rain begin to move in!

The rain becomes more widespread through the morning commute. Watch for high water spots!

Friday afternoon and evening, a break from widespread downpours for communities south of I-10.

Friday night downpours continue, but the final wave moves through before 10 pm. As the rain moves east, southeast Texas will begin to clear before midnight.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that his government “will do everything in our power to stamp this hatred out” after two Jewish men, ages 34 and 76, were seriously injured in a stabbing in Golders Green, an area in north London that is an epicenter of Britain's Jewish community. Both men are in a stable condition.

But some in the community turned their anger on a government, which they say is failing to tackle antisemitism. Starmer was heckled by about 100 protesters holdings signs saying “Keir Starmer, Jew harmer” when he visited Golders Green on Thursday.

The prime minister said in response that “I absolutely understand the high levels of anxiety and concern that there are.”

“Antisemitism is an old, old hatred. History shows that the roots are deep, and if you turn away, it grows back," he said during a televised statement at 10 Downing St. “Yet far too many people in this country diminish it.”

Police have arrested a 45-year-old man on suspicion of attempted murder and labeled the stabbing attack as an act of terrorism. Detectives are working to determine a motive and whether there is any link to Iranian proxies.

The suspect, whose name hasn’t been released, had “a history of serious violence and mental health issues” and may have been involved in an “altercation” in another area of London hours before the Golders Green attack, police said.

In 2020, he was referred to the government’s Prevent program, which tries to steer individuals away from extremism. The police force said that his file was closed later the same year, and didn't disclose the reason for the referral.

Stabbing follows arson attacks

Britain’s Jewish community, which numbers about 300,000 people, has faced growing attacks online and in the streets.

The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has soared since the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust charity.

Last October, an attacker drove his car into people gathered outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and fatally stabbed one person. Another person died during the attack after being inadvertently shot by police.

Since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, there have been a string of arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in London as well as on opponents of the Iranian government.

Police say that 28 people have been arrested over those attacks, which did not cause any injuries. A handful have been charged and one teenager has been convicted after pleading guilty.

Police investigate potential link to Iran proxies

Several arson attacks have been claimed online in the name of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. Israel’s government has described the group, whose name means the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, as a recently founded group with suspected links to “an Iranian proxy” that has also claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

An online post under the same name also claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s stabbing. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said that authorities were investigating whether that claim is credible or “opportunistic.”

Security experts have warned that the name may be a flag of convenience rather than a coherent group, and its claims should be treated with caution.

The U.K. has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to conduct attacks on European soil targeting Iranian opposition media outlets and the Jewish community. Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says that more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots were disrupted in the year ending in October.

Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley said Wednesday that “we know that some individuals are being encouraged, persuaded or paid to commit acts of violence on behalf of foreign organizations and hostile states.”

Government under pressure to tackle antisemitism

Starmer pledged that the attacks would bring a “swift and visible” criminal justice response. Mahmood said that she's treating antisemitism as “an emergency,” describing it as the top security issue she faced.

The government announced 25 million pounds ($34 million) for more police patrols and protection around synagogues, schools and community centers, and Starmer said that the courts would speed up sentencing on antisemitic attacks as a deterrent.

But some Jews and others say the government has allowed an atmosphere of antisemitism to grow. They say pro-Palestinian protests, held regularly since October 2023, have gone beyond criticism of Israel's actions to foster an atmosphere of intimidation and hatred against Jews.

The protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful, but some say chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” incite anti-Jewish hatred. Some protesters have been arrested for displaying support for Hamas, a banned organization in the U.K.

Jonathan Hall, the government’s former reviewer of terrorism legislation, called for pro-Palestinian marches to be temporarily banned, saying they had helped “incubate” antisemitism.

The leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, backed calls for a ban, saying the marches “are used as a cover for violence and intimidation against Jews.”

The government hasn't backed a ban, but Starmer said that protesters who used the phrase “globalize the intifada” — seen by some as a call for attacks on Jews — should be prosecuted.

Starmer said that the government would fast-track powers “to tackle the malign threat posed by states like Iran — because we know for a fact that they want to harm British Jews."

Trump's threats came after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week that the U.S. was being “ humiliated ” by Tehran in negotiations to end the U.S.-Israel war against Iran.

The mercurial U.S. leader has mused for years about reducing America's military presence in Germany, and has railed against NATO for its refusal to assist the U.S. in its two-month-old war.

Trump wrote Wednesday on social media that the U.S. was reviewing possible troop reductions in Germany, with a “determination” to be made soon. On Thursday, he was still thinking about Merz, posting that the German leader should “spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine” and “fixing his broken Country” than concerning himself with Iran.

US military presence in Europe

U.S. allies in NATO have braced for a U.S. troop withdrawal since just after the Trump administration took office, with Washington warning Europe would have to look after its own security, and that of Ukraine, in the future.

Depending on operations, exercises and troop rotations, around 80,000-100,000 U.S. personnel are usually stationed in Europe. NATO allies have expected for more than a year that U.S. troops deployed after Russia launched its war on Ukraine in 2022 would be first to leave.

Germany hosts several U.S. military facilities, including the headquarters of its European and Africa commands, Ramstein Air Base and a medical center in Landstuhl, where casualties from U.S. wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq were treated. U.S. nuclear missiles are also stationed in the country.

Ed Arnold, an expert in European security at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said the U.S. gets a lot out of its presence in Germany — like logistics and support for Middle East combat operations — and was unlikely to withdraw.

Nico Lange from the Center of European Policy Analysis agreed and said there are approximately 36,000 U.S. soldiers in Germany who primarily serve U.S. interests, including “the projection of American power globally,” rather than helping with defense of Germany.

The U.S. has invested “substantial funds” in high-quality infrastructure in Germany which cannot be moved overnight and a different deployment would cost the U.S. a huge amount of money, which would require Trump to get approval from Congress, Lange said.

As early as 2020, Trump announced plan s to withdraw 11,900 U.S. troops from Germany but that didn't happen partly because Congress didn't provide the necessary funds and a withdrawal would have required enormous investments elsewhere.

That's why Trump’s post is most likely “bluster,” Arnold said.

“There is a difference between the military view and the political view,” Arnold said. “The issue with some of these threats is that they are not quite as galling as they were a couple of years ago.”

Merz, visiting troops Thursday at a military training area in Munster, northern Germany, did not directly address Trump’s comments, but alluded to working “shoulder to shoulder for mutual benefit and in deep trans-Atlantic solidarity,” and said his government has “made great efforts to strengthen Germany’s security.”

RUSI’s Arnold said Europe is more concerned about issues like a U.S. redeployment of Patriot missile systems and ammunition from Germany to the Middle East, and notifications to NATO countries such as Estonia and Belgium that orders for American weapons will be delayed as the U.S. government is prioritized.

A senior Western official told The Associated Press they were not aware of any discussions between the U.S. and Germany or other allies regarding the possibility of troop reductions in Germany.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, noted that Europe and Germany, which recently announced its new military strategy, is taking more responsibility for security on the continent.

Last October the U.S. confirmed that it would reduce its troop presence on NATO’s borders with Ukraine. The move to cut 1,500-3,000 troops came on short notice and unsettled ally Romania where the military organization runs an air base.

As Russia looks on, Iran war has had an impact

The U.S. administration informed the allies early last year that it has been reviewing its military “posture” in Europe and elsewhere. The findings of that review had been due to be made public in late 2025 but still have not surfaced.

However, the U.S. did commit to inform its allies in advance about any changes to ensure that no security gap is created at a time when Russia is increasingly confrontational.

The U.S.-Israel war on Iran only made the prospect of a withdrawal more likely, and a flurry of meetings has been held between administration officials, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and European leaders since the conflict started on Feb. 28.

Over the last year, European allies and Canada have understood that they will have to provide Europe’s conventional defenses. The main U.S. contribution to NATO deterrence going forward will be the presence of American nuclear weapons and some troops.

Trump's Greenland fixation

Beyond the uncertainty over U.S. personnel, the allies have gotten used to Trump’s outbursts, having weathered insults as “cowards” or hearing NATO branded as a “paper tiger” by their most powerful ally in recent weeks.

Repeated threats to leave altogether, or over things like defense spending, have inured them to social media posts that Trump might be considering some action or another.

The real damage to NATO unity was done by Trump’s fixation on Greenland, and his intent to annex the island, which is a semiautonomous part of ally Denmark, including sending family members and administration officials there.

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Burrows reported from London and Cook from Brussels. Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

The move now thrusts political newcomer Graham Platner, an oyster farmer almost no one knew a year ago, as the expected Democratic front-runner against longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins, whose seat Democrats are targeting in their effort to win control of the closely divided Senate.

“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else – the fight – to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources," Mills said in a statement. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.”

Mills, a two-term governor and longtime Maine politician, was seen as one of Democrats' top 2026 recruits when she entered the Senate race last year. She had the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and prominent left-leaning advocacy groups hoping to unseat Collins in the chamber, which has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats.

But Mills struggled to outshine first-time candidate Platner, her opponent in the June 9 Democratic primary. Platner has maintained strong popularity despite facing controversy over past comments he made online and a tattoo he had that is widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.

Mills did not endorse Platner in her campaign suspension announcement but instead promised to keep defending the Constitution and democracy while she's governor for the remainder of her term.

Meanwhile, Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, both of New York, said they would work with Platner to defeat Collins.

“Our North Star is winning a Democratic Senate majority, and over the past year, Senate Democrats have carved out multiple paths to do that,” their statement said.

Democrats debate how to win back some power

The contest between Platner and Mills was part of a broader debate within the Democratic Party over how best to defeat Republicans and win back some power in President Donald Trump's Washington, where the GOP controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.

While Schumer backed Mills, his caucus did not fall in line.

Platner is backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, and Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. He said during a Thursday news conference that he hopes to work with Mills to “turn the seat blue again” in November.

“We both got into this race because we knew how critical it is to defeat Susan Collins, and her decision today reflects a commitment to that project,” Platner said.

Mills had tried to convince voters that she was the best candidate to stand up to Trump, repeatedly noting she told the president she would see him in court, a reference to Maine officials' lawsuit against the Trump administration over federal funding and a dispute over transgender athletes in sports.

Yet the message appeared at times drowned out by the popularity Platner attracted on the campaign trail. His events have attracted thousands of supporters as he pitched his populist message and flooded airwaves with his ads. He consistently outraised Mills every step of the way, raising $4 million while Mills raised $2.6 million in the latest fundraising quarter. Collins raised $3.1 million but has $10 million in the bank.

Age also became an issue in the race, as some Democrats want younger candidates to lead the party going forward. Mills is 78, while Plater is 41. Collins is 73.

“I’m sure this was a difficult decision for Governor Mills, and I thank her for her decades of service to the people of Maine,” Collins said in a statement.

So far this year, Democrats have largely avoided messy internal fights in their bid to retake the Senate. The Maine race was an exception, and with Mills’ decision, the Michigan Democratic primary could be the most heated campaign this year. Abdul El-Sayed, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow are locked in a competitive race there ahead of the August primary.

Many political observers initially anticipated that it would be Platner, not Mills, who would be forced to bow out of the race.

Questions about Platner

Platner has been dogged by questions about the skull-and-crossbones tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol that he said he got on his chest during a night of drinking while on military leave in Croatia. He has said the tattoo has been covered to no longer reflect that image. Additionally, there have been lingering questions about inflammatory comments he made in old online postings, which he has since disavowed.

Yet, Platner's willingness to talk about his past mistakes has helped propel his favorability.

Republicans had already begun attacking Platner ahead of Mills' campaign suspension announcement, pointing to his old social media posts that were dismissive of sexual assault. Among the posts, Platner once wrote on Reddit that people shouldn’t get so drunk “they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”

“Now with Chuck Schumer‘s reluctant support, Platner’s attempt at the Senate will be yet another fantasy that will end when Susan Collins grinds this fraudster into dust,” said Alex Latcham, executive director of the Senate Leadership Fund, in a statement.

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Kruesi reported from Providence. R.I. Associated Press writer Steven Sloan contributed from Washington.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that Wednesday’s high court ruling effectively prohibits the state from carrying out the primaries under the current districts. Early voting had been scheduled to begin Saturday in advance of the May 16 primary.

“The State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map," Landry and Murrill said in the statement posted to social media. “We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward.”

The election suspension was denounced by some Democrats.

“This is going to cause mass confusion among voters -- Democrats, Republicans, white, Black, everybody,” said Louisiana state Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Democrat who represents the New Orleans area. “What they’re effectively doing is changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game. It’s rigging the system.”

Louisiana currently is represented in the U.S. House by four Republicans and two Democrats. A revised map could give Republicans a chance to pick up at least one more seat in the November midterm elections — adding to Republican gains elsewhere in an unusual national redistricting battle.

Voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade, after each census. But President Donald Trump last year urged Texas Republicans to redraw House districts to give the GOP an edge in the midterms. California Democrats reciprocated, and redistricting efforts soon cascaded across states.

On Wednesday, Florida became the latest state to redraw its U.S. House districts, adopting a new map backed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that could give the GOP a chance at winning several additional seats.

The Florida vote occurred just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority issued a ruling that significantly weakened minority protections under the federal Voting Rights Act. The court said Louisiana officials had relied too heavily on race when drawing a congressional district that is represented by Democrat Cleo Fields.

After the 2020 census, Louisiana officials had drawn House voting district boundaries that maintained one Black majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black.

A federal judge later struck down the map for violating the Voting Rights Act. And the following year the Supreme Court found that Alabama had to create its own second majority Black congressional district.

In response, Louisiana’s legislature and governor adopted a new House map in 2024 that created a second Black majority district. But that map also was subsequently challenged in court, leading to the most recent Supreme Court ruling.

After the ruling, Landry called U.S. House candidates on Wednesday and told them that primaries would most likely be stalled, according to Misti Cordell, a Republican running in a crowded race to fill U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow’s vacated seat.

“It’s an inconvenience for a candidate for sure, but you know they want to do it right versus having to go through all this again,” Cordell said. She added that she appreciated the heads up before she and other candidates began “spending their war chest” during the final weeks leading up to Election Day.

Delaying an election is unusual but not unprecedented.

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, several states pushed back elections because of health concerns. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who led Louisiana at the time, twice postponed Louisiana's presidential primary — ultimately resetting it from April 4 to July 11.

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Brook reported from New Orleans and Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

The soldiers are members of the 10th Infantry Battalion Guard Security Corps National Reserve on a weekend exercise to hone their skills as the Netherlands bolsters its military with new recruits and volunteers. The Dutch government and top brass have committed to raising military personnel from 80,000 to 120,000 by 2035 — plans that have broad political support.

The recent enlistment by the country's queen and her eldest daughter as reservists look to be helping, with authorities now scrambling to arm and train new recruits.

The recruitment drive in the Netherlands reflects moves across Europe to expand and modernize militaries as leaders warily eye the grinding war launched by Russia against Ukraine and the disenchantment expressed by U.S. President Donald Trump with the NATO alliance that has been the cornerstone of the defense and security architecture of the continent since World War II laid ruin to much of it.

Trump on Wednesday suggested that he could soon reduce the U.S. military presence in Germany as he continues to feud with Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war.

A corporal in the Dutch reserve battalion, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of her service, said that she's seen a shift in priorities as the global security outlook has become more volatile and less predictable.

“When I first joined, there was almost no risk or almost no threat ... and now it’s changing so we are more aware of it," she said. That has meant a mindset shift toward “more what we call ‘green things,’ infantry things.”

She added: “We are here to defend our country and to make sure to keep the threat down.”

The threat is very real, according to European Union and NATO officials, who believe Russian President Vladimir Putin could be ready to launch an attack elsewhere in Europe in three to five years, especially if he wins the war in Ukraine.

New NATO plans aimed at countering that threat require allies to prepare their armies for big battles, focused on more mobile forces that can be quickly deployed.

Getting the House of Orange into military green

Dutch recruitment got a significant boost when Queen Maxima and her eldest daughter and heir to the throne Amalia, Princess of Orange, enlisted as volunteer reservists. Photos of Maxima in training and aiming a pistol on a shooting range were published around the world.

That royal seal of approval, together with recruiting campaigns running everywhere from newspapers and billboards to social media, has proved so successful that the military is now working overtime to arm, train and accommodate all the newcomers.

At the Defense Ministry, it's known as “the Amalia effect.”

“It's really a thing, yes,” State Secretary for Defense Derk Boswijk told The Associated Press. “It’s very inspiring to see how members of our royal family inspired people to join our armed forces.”

Boswijk said that there are about 9,000 reservists in the Netherlands, and recruiters aim to have at least 20,000 in 2030.

“We have more applications than we can handle,” Boswijk said. Now the military has to battle “a lack of training capacity, a lack of housing. You have to give them all uniforms, you have to give them weapons.”

But, he said: “It’s a luxury problem.”

Other nations boost recruitment

German lawmakers are considering a government plan to offers better pay and conditions for people who join up on a short-term basis, along with better training and more flexibility on how long recruits must serve.

The aim is to draw sufficient recruits without reviving conscription, which was suspended for men in 2011. The plan leaves the door open for limited compulsory recruitment, if not enough people volunteer.

Like the Netherlands, France is leaning into voluntary service to boost the military. A program starting in September seeks to recruit 3,000 volunteers from ages 18-25. They will serve in uniform for 10 months in France’s mainland and overseas territories only. The plan seeks to attract up to 50,000 volunteers per year by 2035.

In northern and eastern Europe, where the threat from Russia is felt most keenly, some nations still have some conscription.

Finland has a draft for all males and a voluntary system for women. Sweden reinstated a gender-neutral partial military service in 2017. If not enough people volunteer, a lottery is held to select people for the remain slots. Neighboring Denmark has a similar system, as does Latvia since it revived its draft in 2023 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Netherlands never fully abolished its draft, but call-ups have been suspended since 1997 and there are no immediate plans to reintroduce them. Instead, the Defense Ministry is seeking to make the military more attractive to a broad cross section of society.

Threats have expanded from traditional battlefields into cyberspace and the digital world, he said, “so we need all kind of skills, to keep our society, our country, our allies safe. So, yes, we need also people wearing hoodies, having blue hair, who can game perfectly.”

Motivated by Dutch history and modern instability

For some among the new generation of answering their country's call to arms, a bitter lesson from Dutch history is motivating them.

"When I was in primary school, we were taught that in the Second World War it took (German forces) five days to take over Holland," Lisette den Heijer said at a recent information evening run by the Dutch military for reservist volunteers, adding that she doesn't want history to repeat itself.

At the exercise in the eastern Netherlands, a private first class in the reserve battalion who also spoke on condition of anonymity, because he works for a defense-related company, said he too has seen a shift in recent years.

“So where we were just focused on peaceful operations in 2018, we’re now more focusing on protecting vital infrastructure,” he said. That included duty in the massive security operation to guard last year’s NATO summit in The Hague.

A weekend mission accomplished

Reservists in the Netherlands commit to 300 hours of service each year, including regular weekend exercises. Traditionally, they are deployed to secure and guard domestic sites and aren't sent to combat missions overseas. They also can be used in national emergencies, such as piling up sandbags in cases of severe flooding.

Back in the forests of the eastern Netherlands, the reservists suddenly stop and point their weapons at an innocent looking mound of earth covered in dry leaves and wood.

A soldier — a member of their unit — crawls out of the foxhole where he was hiding and surrenders. The volunteers exchange high-fives before preparing to break down their camp and return to their day jobs.

___

Associated Press reporters across Europe contributed to this report.

The Rev. Adam Hamilton enters the race as a potentially formidable candidate, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many of the eight other, lesser-known Democrats who’ve announced for the Aug. 4 primary would drop out. The winner will face incumbent Republican Roger Marshall, who aligned himself closely with President Donald Trump in his first run for the Senate in 2020.

Hamilton, 61, has a national following among mainline Protestants, and he’s built his Church of the Resurrection over the past 35 years in the Kansas City-area with about 22,000 members — giving him a base from which to tap volunteers and donors.

Hamilton weighed an independent run first

He had considered running as an independent candidate, telling his congregation that he could bridge partisan divides in a highly polarized political climate, but many Democrats believed an independent candidacy would simply split the anti-Marshall vote, making it easier for Marshall to win a second term.

“Every week, it seemed there was another news story in the last year where I would find myself shaking my head and thinking, we have to do better,” the self-described fifth-generation Kansan said.

While Democrats and Republicans have traded off the Kansas governor’s office for the past 60 years, Republicans haven’t lost a U.S. Senate race in the state since 1932. Democrats gave Marshall a vigorous challenge in 2020, but he still prevailed by more than 11 percentage points, even as Democrat Joe Biden ousted Trump and his party won control of both houses of Congress.

In some ways, Hamilton’s candidacy would be similar to that of the Democratic nominee in Texas, state Rep. James Talarico, a Presbyterian minister in training who speaks often of his faith and how it guides his positions, though Hamilton, is a generation older.

The Kansas Republican Party quickly signaled that it plans to portray Hamilton as liberal and out of step with the state, however he identifies himself.

“His so-called ‘independent’ exploration was little more than a political marketing strategy to mask a radical left agenda,” its executive director, Rob Fillion, said in a statement.

Hamilton started massive church from nothing

Hamilton, who lives in the town of Stillwell on the edge of the Kansas City metro, has never had trouble attracting followers. After graduating from Oral Roberts University in Tulsa and then Southern Methodist University in Dallas, his denomination tapped him at age 25 to start a church in suburban Kansas City for nonchurchgoers.

Worshippers initially met in the small chapel of a local funeral home and now gather at nine campuses. The main one, on 76 acres in an affluent suburb, resembles a small college. The Christmas Eve offering — devoted to mission work — sometimes tops $2 million.

“I’ve raised a lot money over the years and I’m not afraid to do that,” Hamilton said on the eve of his announcement.

He’s written and published dozens of books and his video-based lessons are popular for Sunday school classes in churches across the country. In 2013, he preached at the National Prayer Service.

His entry comes during what promises to be a challenging midterm election year for Republicans. Polling shows most Americans believe the U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far and voters are more and more worried about Trump’s failure to address affordability issues.

Hamilton’s home of Johnson County is the state’s most populous, with 643,000 people, more than one in every five Kansas residents. Once overwhelming Republican, it has grown increasingly blue, voting against Trump in the last two presidential elections.

The county is a key reason why a state with an overwhelmingly GOP Legislature has a Democratic governor.

Hamilton's views shaped through decades as a pastor

How voters view Hamilton’s politics is a key question, because he’ll need to win over disaffected Republicans as well as unaffiliated voters — the formula for Democrat Laura Kelly’s successful bid for governor in 2018 and narrow reelection win in 2022.

Hamilton’s congregation is a nearly equal mix of Republicans, Democrats and Independents, and he describes himself as “a liberal conservative and a conservative liberal.”

Although Hamilton hasn’t run for public office before, he isn’t a blank slate, with decades of sermons, and more recently podcasts and Facebook videos.

Following a surge of federal law enforcement in Minneapolis, for instance, Hamilton cited an Old Testament verse that commands Israelites to treat foreigners with love and fairness.

On abortion, the father of two married to his high school sweetheart said during the final stop of a listening tour earlier this month that he voted against a state constitutional amendment that would have cleared the way for tougher abortion restrictions or a ban in Kansas.

“I didn’t think that our state legislators should be the ethicists and the spiritual guides for all of the women of the state of Kansas,” he said while tearfully describing that while he has counseled rape victims, his mother considered an abortion when she got pregnant with him as a teenager. “I feel both of these things at the same time.”

His church also applied financial pressure before the United Methodist Church conference struck down longstanding anti-LGBTQ policies. “We’ve lost a thousand people over the years because this was our commitment, and so I want to say that I will take that commitment with me to Washington D.C.," he said during his listening tour.

Hamilton said that if he wins, he would remain pastor but would scale back his preaching to around 12 to 18 times a year.

“Can you imagine a future,” he asked, “where Republicans and Democrats and Independents work together to actually solve problems?”

___ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.

On April 29, officers with the Houston Police Department, including its Gang, Narcotics, and South Gessner divisions, partnered with several agencies to carry out the enforcement effort.

Those agencies included the Federal Bureau of Investigation Houston field office, the Drug Enforcement Administration Houston Division, the Texas Department of Public Safety South Texas Region, and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities said the operation resulted in the removal of 31 firearms, including illegal weapon modifications, along with large quantities of methamphetamine, Xanax, and other narcotics.

Two suspects were arrested and are facing multiple charges.

Officials say the effort is part of an ongoing push to reduce violent crime and drug activity across the Houston area.

Minutes from the Bank of England meeting showed that eight of the nine rate-setters voted to keep rates on hold while one member opted for a quarter-point hike. But there was a clear signal that interest rates could rise in coming months.

“We think this is a reasonable place given the situation of the economy and the unpredictability of events in the Middle East,” said Bank Gov. Andrew Bailey. "Whatever happens, our job is to make sure that inflation gets back to the 2% target after the initial impact of the war on energy prices has passed.”

In an unusual development, the bank published a range of forecasts given the geopolitical uncertainties. It said that in a worst-case scenario where oil and gas prices stay higher for longer, U.K. inflation could rise to as much as 6.2% by early 2027 from 3.3% currently. It also considered several ways that events could unfold with a worst-case scenario leading to multiple rate rises and an increased risk of recession. Before the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, there had been an expectation in financial markets that the Bank of England would cut rates given that inflation was predicted to fall back toward its 2% target during the spring. The war has since upended the bank’s predictions and wider global economic forecasts as the price of oil and other costs have spiked sharply higher. Energy prices have raced up again over the past few days as traders price in a growing expectation that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed for a long time to come. Brent crude, the international standard, briefly jumped to over $126 a barrel at one point Thursday, its highest level since the aftermath of Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

Bank of England policymakers will be keeping an eye on whether the inflation spike starts to spread through the economy, by way of higher wages, for example. They will also monitor how the oil price shock hits the economy and whether it leads to a recession, which would keep a lid on price rises.

Luke Bartholomew, deputy chief economist at asset management firm Aberdeen, said he thinks the recessionary risks will limit any second-round inflation effects.

“But if oil prices continue to move higher, it is hard to see how the Bank avoids having to hike later this year,” he said.

Policymakers will also be alert to any upcoming action from Britain's Labour government to limit the inflation impact on households and businesses. Treasury chief Rachel Reeves, whose hopes over the cost-of-living have been blown off course by the crisis in the Middle East, has said she is ready to provide support when and if needed.

“The war in the Middle East is not our war, but it is one we have to respond to,” said Reeves.

In a statement read by a state television anchor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said the only place Americans belonged in the Persian Gulf is “at the bottom of its waters" and that a “new chapter” was being written in the region's history. Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking over as supreme leader following the killing of his father in the war’s opening airstrikes.

His remarks come as Iran's economy is reeling and its oil industry is being squeezed by a U.S. Navy blockade halting its tankers from getting out to sea. The world economy is also under pressure as Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all crude oil is transported. On Thursday, the global benchmark for oil, Brent crude, traded as high as $126 a barrel.

That shock to oil supplies and prices is putting pressure on Trump, who is floating a new plan to reopen the critical passageway used by the U.S.'s Gulf allies to export their oil and gas.

Under the plan, the U.S. would continue its blockade on Iranian ports, while coordinating with allies to impose higher costs on Iran’s attempts to subvert the free flow of energy, according to a senior administration official.

Trump is weighing multiple diplomatic and policy options to push Iran to end its chokehold, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

The new proposal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is Trump's latest effort to persuade other nations to help reopen the strait.

Ceasefire shaken as strait remains shut

The U.S blockade is designed to prevent Iran from selling its oil, depriving it of crucial revenue while also potentially creating a situation where Tehran has to shut off production because it has nowhere to store oil.

A recent Iranian proposal would push negotiations on the country’s nuclear program to a later date. Trump said one of the major reasons he went to war was to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Iran long has maintained its program is peaceful, though it enriched uranium at near-weapons-grade levels of 60%.

Pakistan on Thursday said it was still facilitating indirect talks between the U.S. and Iran aimed at easing tensions, but Islamabad would also welcome direct communication between the two sides, even by phone.

“If the two parties can engage in real-time conversations, that could ease the sticking points,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tahir Andrabi at a weekly news briefing. He declined to share details of any Iranian or U.S. proposals.

Speaking to mark Persian Gulf Day in Iran, Khamenei's remarks signaled that nuclear issues and Iran's ballistic missile program wouldn't be traded away.

“Ninety million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran’s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities — as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country’s waters, land and airspace,” Khamenei said.

Khamenei referred to America as the “Great Satan,” a long hurled insult by Iranian leaders toward the U.S. since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He said Americans should have no business in the Persian Gulf.

“Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometers away to act with greed and malice there have no place in it — except at the bottom of its waters," said Khamenei, who was reportedly was wounded in the Feb. 28 attack that killed his father, the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei signals strait will remain shut

In his remarks, Khamenei seemed to signal Iran would maintain its control over the waterway, which sits in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. Iran had been charging some ships reportedly $2 million apiece to travel through the strait.

He said that Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz will make the Gulf more secure, and that Tehran's “legal rules and new management” of the strait will benefit all the region’s nations.

However, the world considered the strait an international waterway, open to all without paying tolls. Gulf Arab nations, chief among them the United Arab Emirates, have decried Iran's control of the strait as akin to piracy.

___

Madhani reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

In a humorous video posted Thursday on his Instagram account, Banksy showed snippets of how the sculpture was put up in the dead of night. The sculpture appeared to have been erected in the early hours of Wednesday on a plinth on a traffic island in Waterloo Place, near Buckingham Palace.

Before the artist's post, locals and tourists gathered to inspect the statue on the assumption it was Banksy's work because his signature was scrawled at the base of the plinth.

The statue is situated close to those of King Edward VII, who reigned between 1901 and 1910, and legendary nurse Florence Nightingale, as well as the Crimean War Memorial.

Statues are not what Banksy is primarily known for. He is far more famous for his spray-painting on buildings, with his first creations appearing in the early 1990s in his hometown of Bristol in southwest England. He has since gone global and his paintings and installations have sold for millions of dollars at auction. His street art is often targeted by thieves and vandals.

Banksy, who has never publicly revealed his identity, is part of a tradition of street artists who viewed the undercover act of posting their art in public as a subversive form of expression.

Race officials announced the change Thursday, and trainer Brad Cox told The Associated Press that Fulleffort will undergo surgery and is expected to recover and return to racing. Cox said an X-ray revealed fluid in the ankle and called it an easy decision because Fulleffort showed some lameness.

“That’s part of the game,” Cox said. “It was a problem that needed to be addressed."

Fullefort’s exit means jockey Tyler Gaffalione will have to wait for another chance to win the race for the first time. Cox went into the week with three Derby horses and is now down to two: Commandment and Further Ado.

"I love 'em," Cox said. “Both had a great morning. I’m excited about Saturday.”

With Fulleffort out, Ocelli draws in off the also-entered list. Trainer Whit Beckman found out after the colt galloped at Churchill Downs around 7:15 a.m.

“I kind of had the expectation all along that if you’re within a couple spots that you have a chance,” Beckman said. “Especially in this day and age, it just seems there’s always a lot of changes from the time we draw to the time we run. We were kind of quietly confident that things would go our way.”

Beckman has been training Ocelli all along as though the colt would be participating in the Derby. Ocelli is coming off a third-place finish in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct Race Track on April 4.

“He’s been training great since we got back here from New York after the Wood,” Beckman said. “Around the barn, he’s a very mature, easy-going horse. Sometimes he could be a little quirky on the track, but it seems like we’re getting a little bit close to perfection every time.”

Ocelli follows Great White into the field, who got in Wednesday when Silent Tactic was scratched because of a foot injury. Like Great White's John Ennis, Beckman was unsure if he'd have a horse in the Derby but was unbothered by the situation.

“The certainty of it to me was more stressful because things can only go wrong,” Beckman said. “In this case, when things can only go right and if something did go wrong, well, it didn’t matter: We weren’t in the race anyway. ... Coming in knowing you could — maybe, maybe not — go, you just kind of let the cards fall and let the universe do its thing.”

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

Sanford, 65, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was shuttering his campaign just a month after he launched it, a decision inspired by his desire to focus on combating the national debt and deficit.

“What I hope to do is to indeed build a grassroots organization — start small, but I have a fair size circle of friends and folks with whom I have some degree of influence and contacts,” Sanford told the AP, also noting that, with his first grandchild on the way, he realized as he mounted this campaign that he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family.

The pivot comes after Sanford mounted a bid to reclaim his former seat in South Carolina's 1st District. He entered a primary on the last day of candidate filing, when the race already was chock full of other Republican candidates, many of whom had spent months laying the groundwork for their campaigns.

That territory was familiar to Sanford. An outsider with almost no name recognition when he launched his first congressional campaign for the 1994 contest, the real estate investor finished second in the GOP primary before winning the runoff. He served for six years before his outside run at governor, again pushing his way through a crowded primary, then knocking off the last Democrat to hold the office.

Sanford’s eight years as governor were overshadowed by the Appalachian Trail, which became shorthand for his disappearance to go to Argentina to see his lover. Sanford’s wife, family and staff didn’t know where he was.

Beating back both an impeachment inquiry and calls to resign, Sanford held fast, leaving office on his own terms. His wife at the time, Jenny Sanford, moved out of the governor’s mansion in Columbia, relocated with their four sons into the family’s beachfront home near Charleston and later sued him for divorce.

In a 2013 special election, Sanford won back his old congressional seat, beating 15 other candidates in a primary and runoff. He won two more full terms before falling in 2018 to a GOP challenger who had President Donald Trump’s backing.

A year after his primary loss, Sanford reemerged again, launching a long-shot primary challenge to Trump and offering his determination to bring fiscal restraint into the national conversation as a counterpoint to what he described as Trump’s incendiary rhetoric. Just ahead of the New Hampshire primary, Sanford dropped out of the contest.

Sanford, who had appeared at county GOP meetings and candidate forums, said he had been getting "a warm reception” on his recent campaign. But with the experience of knowing that in Congress he wouldn't be able to singularly focus on debt-related issues, he said he felt he would have more impact from the outside.

“There are no guarantees with life, but I think that this has a better chance of elevating that issue, if I worked earnestly on it, than I was going to with the course that I was on with the campaign," Sanford said.

In setting up the new organization, which he said would be centered in South Carolina, Sanford will be able to utilize the more than $1.3 million that had remained in his federal account since he left Congress in 2019. Depleting those resources, Sanford said, is a signal he’s moving away from running for office himself.

But is he done with politics forever? Maybe — and maybe not.

“Look, if there’s ever a guy who would say, ‘Never say never,’ it’s me,” Sanford said. “But I think, realistically, yeah, and it’s recognition of that being the case."

Sanford's decision was first reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

An inflation gauge monitored by the Fed rose 0.7% in March from February, up sharply from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Compared with a year ago, prices rose 3.5%, the biggest increase in almost three years.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation rose 0.3% in March from February, and it was 3.2% higher than a year earlier. The annual figure is above February’s reading of 3%.

The jump in gas prices has pushed inflation further away from the Fed’s 2% target. Outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled at a news conference Wednesday that the central bank would likely be on hold for months as it evaluates the impact of the Iran war. The Fed has kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged after cutting it three times last year. The central bank typically keeps rates elevated — or even raises them — to combat higher inflation.

At the same time, Thursday's report showed that Americans' incomes — wages, business income, and government benefits — increased 0.6%, a solid increase but slower than the rate of inflation, for the second straight month.

The decline illustrates the other risk created by higher gas prices: The extra costs will likely siphon away spending that would have gone to other products and services, potentially slowing the economy. For now, consumers have been bolstered by healthy tax refunds, which were lifted by last year's tax cut legislation, but much of that benefit is being eaten up by higher prices at the pump.

“A year that was set to benefit from tail winds associated with a large tax cut and boom in artificial intelligence-led investment has been partially derailed by the impact of what as of today is an adverse and growing supply shock caused by the war in Iran,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, a tax and advisory firm. “Unfortunately, war and the supply shock that ensued has altered the probable growth path this year.”

Brusuelas now expects the economy to expand just 1.7% this year, down from an earlier estimate of 2.4%.

Gas prices jumped nearly 21% in March from the previous month, the report said, while grocery prices actually slipped 0.1%. Clothing costs climbed 1% just in March.

The average price of gas nationwide rose to $4.30 a gallon Thursday, according to AAA, up from $2.98 before the war began. U.S. oil prices cooled a bit Thursday morning but still topped $105 a barrel, up from about $67 before the war.

Still, the Fed typically pays more attention to core prices, and how much higher energy costs feed through to core inflation in the coming months will be a major factor in how the central bank decides on its next moves.

“We’re very well aware that people are experiencing higher gas prices all over the country now,” Powell said Wednesday. “And that hurts.”

Thursday’s report also showed that consumer spending soared 0.9% last month, with most of the increase reflecting the sharp jump in prices. But it also indicates Americans lifted their spending a bit even after adjusting for inflation, a sign of consumer resilience.

The economy expanded at a modest 2% annual rate in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department also said Thursday, up from an expansion of just 0.5% in last year’s final quarter, when growth was held back by the six-week government shutdown. Still, consumer spending growth slowed compared with the final three months of last year.

“Every time I get a paycheck, it’s all already spoken for,” said Jones, a 21-year-old who works at a deli and a nonprofit in Springfield, Massachusetts. Being a homeowner is one of Jones’ dreams, and his inability to save for it frustrates him.

Currently, 65% of working-age renters can’t cover their monthly expenses after paying for housing, according to an analysis from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Nearly half of all renters were cost-burdened by rent in 2024, that means they spent more than a third of their income on housing and utilities, which is based on data from the most recent census.

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EDITORS’ NOTE: The Money Happens series explores challenges and anxieties around money and offers helpful tips for dealing with them. Each episode features a case of an individual experiencing a challenging financial problem, whether it’s student loan or credit card debt, and an expert who can help provide strategies for working through these issues. You can listen to all of the episodes here.

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Anxiety about the possibility of never being able to own a house can make some people give up on organizing their finances altogether, said John Hankins, a certified financial therapist.

Sometimes "anxiety becomes kind of a self-perpetuating cycle,” he said.

If you hope to buy a house in the future but don’t know where to start, here are some expert tips for you:

1. Feel comfortable facing your finances

Getting a handle on your finances is the first step towards planning and achieving a financial goal. If you’re looking to buy a home in the future but that goal feels unattainable, start by figuring out how much money you’re bringing in, how much you’re spending, and where you can cut back to start saving.

For Jones, the anxiety of possibly being evicted from his current apartment because he lives paycheck to paycheck has been a barrier to making future plans for homeownership.

“I’d want to come back to this anxiety, this sadness that stopping him from getting his arms around his finances,” Hankins said.

Don’t let your anxieties stop you from facing your finances. The longer you avoid solving a financial worry, the longer it will take to solve it down the road.

2. Avoid debt if you can, but build a credit history

After watching his parents get into large amounts of debt and have to deal with the consequences, Jones has avoided any type of debt, including student loans and credit cards. But he needs to build a credit history to buy a home in the future.

Learning to find a middle ground between building credit and falling into credit card debt is key, Hankins said.

“Once you have a credit card, it’s a dangerous thing," he said. "So let’s be really understanding how you’re going to manage this so that it doesn’t get out of control."

3. Don’t compare yourself to others

Jones often compares his journey to his parents'. They became homeowners in their mid-twenties while working in the restaurant industry. But that type of comparison isn't helpful, Hankins said.

“It’s not a reflection on you that you haven’t been able to achieve what your parents achieved," Hankins said. “They were operating under a whole different set of rules."

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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

The Promise Scholarship will cover in-district tuition, books, and required supplies for eligible full-time students. The award can be used for up to three years, 72 credit hours, or until a student earns their first associate degree, whichever comes first.

Without the scholarship, students taking the minimum 12 credit hours could expect to pay around $3,400 per year.

Who is eligible?

Students must graduate during the current academic year from a high school located within the San Jacinto College taxing district. This includes:

• Channelview ISD
• Deer Park ISD
• Galena Park ISD
• La Porte ISD
• Pasadena ISD
• Sheldon ISD

Students in portions of Clear Creek ISD, Humble ISD, and Pearland ISD may also qualify if they live within the taxing district.

Private and homeschool students are also eligible if they reside in the district at the time of graduation.

Additional requirements

Students must:

• Be enrolled in an eligible high school or live in the district by October 1 of the current school year
• Meet all Promise Scholarship deadlines
• Accept all available financial aid, including Pell Grants and state grants

The scholarship is considered “last-dollar” funding, meaning it covers remaining costs after other financial aid is applied.

Dual credit students included

Students who participated in dual credit programs and graduate between December 1, 2025, and August 15, 2026, may also qualify. Those who have not yet earned a degree, or who completed a certificate, can use the scholarship to pursue an associate degree.

No GPA or income requirement

There are no initial GPA or income requirements to apply, making the program accessible to a broad range of students.

The Promise Scholarship removes one of the biggest barriers to higher education, cost, by offering free tuition and books to eligible students living within the San Jacinto College taxing district.

These drones — used widely in the war in Ukraine — are small, hard to track and lethal. Drones injured at least a dozen soldiers in northern Israel on Thursday, two seriously, and the Israeli military said it had attempted to intercept multiple drones. In the past week, Hezbollah drones killed an Israeli soldier and defense contractor operating in southern Lebanon.

Many drones are susceptible to electronic jamming by air defenses. Jamming can cause a drone to crash or return to its point of origin.

Fiber-optic drones are not piloted via, for example, GPS signals or radio control. They have a thin cable that connects an operator directly to the drone, making it impossible to electronically jam.

The drones are not infallible because the wind — or other drones — can cause the cables to tangle.

But, “if you know what you’re doing, it’s absolutely deadly,” said Robert Tollast, a drone expert and researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, explaining how the drone can fly low and creep up on a target.

Experts say militaries must either intercept the drones, which is difficult due to their small size and short flight path, or find a way to snip the nearly invisible cable.

Hezbollah — the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon — has mostly been using the fiber optic drones on Israeli soldiers operating in southern Lebanon or towns on the border.

Here’s a closer look at these weapons.

A new weapon with a long trail

An Israeli military official told AP the fiber optic drones are a relatively new threat during the latest round of fighting with Hezbollah. Hezbollah seems to have turned to them because Israeli air defenses have been successful against larger and more powerful rockets, missiles and other drones, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military guidelines.

Israel believes the drones are made locally and are easy to produce – requiring little more than an off-the-shelf drone, a small amount of explosives, and transparent wire that is readily available on the consumer market, he said.

He called the drones the biggest threat to troops inside Lebanon but said the Israeli military is working on technological solutions. In the meantime, Israel is taking measures on the ground to defend troops, such as adding nets and cages to military vehicles.

The fiber-optic drones are the latest part of a cat-and-mouse race as Israel’s high-tech defenses race to intercept new threats, especially ones that are less sophisticated.

Ran Kochav, a former head of the Israeli military’s air defense command, said Israel is failing in its attempts to defend against the fiber-optic drones.

“They fly very low and very fast, and they are very small, it’s very difficult to detect them, and even after they’re detected, they are really hard to track,” he said.

Kochav said Israel spent years focusing on strengthening its air defense systems to improve protection against rockets and missiles. But drones were not seen as a top priority.

He said Israel should have been following the advances in fiber-optic drones in the war in Ukraine and assumed that like Russia, other Iranian allies would eventually use them.

A technology race in the war in Ukraine

Throughout the war in Ukraine, Moscow and Kyiv have been engaged in a race to develop new technology.

Russia pummels Ukraine almost nightly with Shahed long-range attack drones — originally from Iran. Although Moscow has made many improvements to the drones, some can still be taken down by electronic jamming.

Fiber-optic drones were developed to get around that problem — although they do not have the same range as a drone that uses a radio link or artificial intelligence to navigate.

In some cases, fiber-optic drones have been recorded with cables extending as far as 31 miles (50 kilometers) said Tollast, the expert in London.

Russia and Ukraine are using many different types of drones “at a phenomenal scale,” he said.

In Ukraine, some fields are coated with drone cables

The fiber-optic drones are in such wide use that footage shows front-line Ukrainian towns coated with shiny, fishing line-like strings, resembling massive spiderwebs shimmering in the sunlight.

Israel has sufficient firepower to intercept drones, but the key is early detection, Kochav said.

He explained that Israel already has suitable technology that tracks changes in light, identifies signals and communications, and can recognize the sound of drone propellers.

But he said these monitoring systems haven’t been widely deployed along the northern border.

Hezbollah has posted videos of the new drone attacks

Over the past weeks, Hezbollah has aired videos through social media platforms and its Al-Manar TV station of attacks with these new drones, especially against Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

These attacks have captured public attention. One attack killed one Israeli soldier and wounded six others, some of them seriously, last weekend. Another attack, on Tuesday, killed an Israeli civilian contractor in southern Lebanon.

In the attack that killed the soldier, Hezbollah issued a video taken by the drone until it exploded in the middle of troops gathering near a vehicle. Another drone was fired at the same location as a military helicopter landed to evacuate the wounded but narrowly missed.

Ali Jezzini, a journalist specializing in security and military affairs who closely follows Hezbollah’s capabilities, estimated that the drones used by the group cost between $300 and $400 each. He added that they appear to be manufactured locally using 3D printing technology, in addition to readily available electronic components typically used for civilian purposes but capable of dual-use applications.

Hezbollah announced that it began using fiber-optic guided drones for the first time during the round of fighting that began March 2, after using other types of drones for years.

Israel also has a fleet of drones that carry out surveillance and attacks, though not necessarily with the fiber-optic cables, to target Hezbollah militants.

At a northern Israel home, a drone left coils of cable in the backyard

Zevik Glidai, a 78-year-old math teacher and volunteer ambulance driver, discovered coils of the translucent fiber-optic cables surrounding a drone that crashed into his backyard in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on April 13.

His house is 2 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the Lebanon border. He was sitting at home when he heard a high-pitched shriek and a small crash. His neighbor yelled that the yard was on fire.

The two of them put out the fire with a garden hose but noticed something new: The destroyed drone was surrounded by loops and curls of a white thread.

“We are very worried about these drones because there's no way to shoot it down, because we can’t detect it,” Glidai said.

He said there was no warning siren before the drone crashed, and the bomb squad that responded called it a miracle that nearly 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of explosives failed to detonate.

“They told me, ‘You have a lot of luck,’” said Glidai, who noted that he's lived through several iterations of Hezbollah weapons in his 48 years in Kiryat Shmona. “They picked up all of the pieces that they could pick up, and they left me a few optical fibers as a keepsake.”

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Mroue reported from Beirut; Burrows from London.

She has undergone eight surgeries after suffering a complex left leg fracture — one that nearly led to a leg amputation — in the women’s downhill skiing race on Feb. 8. She needs at least one more to repair a torn ACL in that same knee.

So if the 41-year-old races again — and she’s not ready to make that decision — a return is at least a year and a half away, Vonn told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday.

“I just don’t want to jump to any conclusions or even speculate on what I might do,” Vonn said. “I may retire. I may never race again and that would be completely fine, but I’m not in a position emotionally to make that decision at this point.”

A return to retirement was an option after a comeback season

Vonn thinks she would have returned to retirement had she been able to complete a comeback season that rivaled one of the best of her career. She ended a six-year absence from the sport largely to race at Cortina, Italy, one of her favorite courses, and the venue for the Milan Cortina Games.

The winner of three Olympic medals, including a downhill gold in 2010, crashed just 13 seconds into the race and suffered a complex tibia fracture, shocking a star-studded crowd and ending a season in which she led the World Cup downhill standings and hadn’t finished worse than fourth in any race.

She’s returned from an assortment of injuries before — she has a titanium implant in her right knee — but this one was different. The pain was different. The eight surgeries are just one shy of the total she had for all the others combined.

“It’s a much different injury in that way, again, like the severity of the injury and understanding that I could have lost my leg and how bad things were,” Vonn said. “I can deal with a lot of pain, but this was so extreme. It’s not even been in the universe of pain with this injury as what I’ve had before.”

Vonn is making progress in and out of the gym, though not as quickly as she would like. She has moved beyond a wheelchair and now is on crutches — she is weary of both — and next week will be able to begin walking short distances.

‘Tell me I can’t and I'll prove you wrong'

She is able to travel again, making a trip to New York this week to discuss her support for the biopharmaceutical company Invivyd's “Antibodies for Any Body” campaign, and she has an upcoming vacation planned.

Beyond that, the future is hard to see.

Vonn said she hasn't spoken to her doctor about what a return to skiing would look like, saying they both prefer to focus on this phase of her recovery.

“Regardless, nothing would really happen until '27-28 because I still have one more surgery left to take out the metal and to replace my ACL. That still needs to happen,” Vonn said. “Once I get my ACL fixed, then that’s another six months, so I have at least I would say a year and a half ahead of me before I could really be back to 100%, even just training in the gym.”

Vonn knows there could be risks in a return, and family members don't want her to take them. It was only a day after her crash, when she was still in the hospital, that her father said her career would be over if it were up to him. Said Vonn: “He means the best. He forgot the cardinal rule with me is that if you don’t want me to do something, you shouldn’t tell me I can’t. Tell me I can’t and I’ll prove you wrong.”

A risk Vonn has ‘always taken happily,’ but she doesn't ‘want a do-over’

Vonn has never shied from taking chances — she raced in the Olympics a little more than a week after tearing her ACL — no matter how they turned out.

“Downhill skiing is one of the most dangerous sports in the world, and that’s a risk that I’ve always taken happily, and this is the result, and I don’t regret it,” said Vonn, who noted she had done all she could to be fully prepped for the race. “I don’t want a do-over.”

But she will at some point decide if she wants to race again.

For now, Vonn said she's focused simply on getting her leg healthy. Only after that's done can she start thinking about a career that may or may not be over.

“I’m still, like I said, in survival mode that I just want to get through this phase and be able to assess where I am in my life,” said Vonn, whose 84 World Cup wins are second-most among women, trailing only teammate Mikaela Shiffrin (110). "And take count of what I’ve done and take count of what could be and make decisions in a much better place than where I am now.

“I don’t want to make a decision now because I think that would be rash and probably too emotional and I don’t want to make a mistake, you know?”

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AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver contributed to this report.

___

AP skiing: https://apnews.com/hub/alpine-skiing

Thursday is one of those hit and miss rain shower days. There will be a few rumbles of thunder with the chance of rain at 40%, with spotty and widely separated storms. Most of the area is likely to stay quiet Thursday morning, with a better chance for rain developing later in the day, although some neighborhoods could stay dry entirely.

Thursday’s street flooding threat is northwest of Houston.

Friday’s Forecast:

Houston can expect significant rainfall on Friday, with storms likely to bring widespread heavy rain and a higher threat of street flooding. Rainfall projections show totals ranging from around 1.5 to as much as 4 inches in some northern spots, with slightly lower amounts closer to the coast. The most intense activity is expected north of I-10, where the potential for street flooding will be higher thanks to the sheer intensity of the rain.

The above slight threat means the flood threat is expected to be more than just isolated. Friday’s rain comes in two waves, one in the morning and another with the cold front. The cold front moves through late Friday.

This series of downpours will add to an already wet April, which saw just over 5 inches of rain, above average. And Friday’s soaking will help further improve drought conditions around the region.

A cool and breezy Saturday with a near perfect Sunday:

Once Friday’s storms clear, things change in a hurry. A cold front is forecast to sweep through Friday night, ushering in noticeably cooler and breezy weather Saturday. Highs to start the weekend are expected to reach 68° with lows dipping into the 50s.

Sunday climbs to the mid 70s under mostly sunny skies.

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

The massive retail chain is breaking out of its no-frills service model by staffing its beauty aisles with trained specialists who can suggest foundation shades to match a shopper's skin tone or knows about a moisturizer trending on TikTok.

The roles were filled at 22 stores in Arkansas and Texas in recent months, and Walmart expects to have them in more than 400 of its 4,600 namesake U.S. stores by year-end.

The addition of “beauty experts” comes as Walmart, rival Target, specialty chains like Sephora and department stores all are vying for a bigger slice of the $129 billion U.S. beauty and personal care market, including by offering customized advice and playful, interactive spaces to encourage consumers to shop in person as well as online.

A year ago, Walmart set up areas in 40 stores where customers could sample makeup and speak with beauty advisors. The pilot “beauty bar” concept is now in hundreds of stores, according to Vinima Shekhar, vice president of beauty merchandising for Walmart’s U.S. division. As part of plans to remodel 650 locations by the end of the year, the company is moving beauty departments to the front of stores and installing displays to showcase products getting attention on social media.

“We’re not trying to be an Ulta or Sephora,” Shekhar told The Associated Press. “We have the breadth of assortment that no one else has. We have convenience that no one else has. What we also then want to do is layer on a level of service for both our associates and our customers: ‘Here’s what trending. Here’s what’s new.’”

The importance of a human touch

Department stores and beauty product chains always have employed people to assist customers with testing and buying cosmetics. Pharmacy chains CVS and Walgreens added beauty experts to many of their locations in the last decade or so. Walmart's decision to join them highlights how retailers with physical stores rely on a human touch to distinguish themselves from online shopping platforms and AI chatbots.

Walmart has added more premium brands to its beauty assortment in the last year, including French pharmacy skin care brand La Roche Posay, Australian natural makeup brand Nude by Nature, and FHI Heat hair tools. They are not cheap. Some La Roche Posay sunscreens cost just under $40 for 1.7 oz.

The beauty refresh is part of a broader Walmart initiative to upgrade its merchandise and ambience as it attracts higher-income shoppers. Customers who buy higher-end products and not only everyday skin and hair staples are looking for inspiration when they shop, Shekhar said.

Target announced in early March that it planned to expand its assortment of upscale beauty products and to deploy staff members with enhanced product expertise this fall in 600 stores. In those stores, a new department called Target Beauty Studio will partly replace in-store Ulta shops. As part of a Target partnership ending in August, Ulta had beauty consultants in Target stores.

Experts providing enhanced customer service may become a feature in other departments of mass market retail stores. Whitney Hunt, vice president of Walmart's U.S. operations, notes there could be other departments like electronics that could benefit from experts.

Target began launching a “baby boutique” experience last month in nearly 200 stores where a concierge helps shoppers find products registries created by expectant parents.

Advice that's in demand

While artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate jobs across industries, online job postings for beauty experts and beauty advisers remained fairly stable between February 2020 and this month, according to Cory Stahle, an economist with the research arm of jobs site Indeed. Online postings for both marketing and software development jobs fell more than 20% in the same period, Indeed said.

The median wage for beauty expert roles was $19.54 per hour in March, roughly $2 more than the hourly wage for all other retail jobs, according to Indeed data. Walmart said its beauty experts can earn $14 to $35 an hour, depending on the store location. That's similar to the hourly range of $14 to $37 for all of Walmart's hourly workers, the company said.

Walmart's beauty advisers undergo a day of training at a company academy and receive ongoing instruction on products, seasonal trends and working with customers. They don't apply products on shoppers or do makeovers, unlike some of the employees at department stores and specialty beauty chains.

Walmart is providing online tools to help the advisers understand the beauty department's top-selling brands and how their store compares with the business generated in other Walmart locations, Hunt said.

Helena Bacon, 21, a University of Arkansas junior studying biology, said the training she had last fall made her feel more empowered to help customers. Before then, she helped out in the area that covers pharmacy, health and personal care items like basic shampoos and toothpaste of a store in Fayetteville and occasionally helped customers find items in the beauty area.

Bacon said she now understands product ingredients, knows how to identify lipstick shades that flatter different customers and is on top of TikTok trends.

“I was kind of everywhere before,” she said. “But now that I’m just in my section, if someone does come up to me and asks for a recommendation for something, ... I could go over with them into that section and say, 'This what I know is good for the problem you’re trying to fix.'”

U.S. jobless aid applications for the week ending April 25 fell by 26,000 to 189,000, down from the previous week’s 215,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s well below the 214,000 new applications analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting.

Filings for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

According to High Frequency Economics, this week’s number for new jobless aid applications was the fewest since September of 1969.

“There is nothing to worry about in this report. YET!,” HFE’s Chief Economist Carl Weinberg wrote in a note to clients. “At some point, elevated energy costs and prices for materials will cause firms to lay off marginal workers to protect profit margins.”

Despite dwindling layoffs shown in government data, the Iran war, now in its ninth week, has injected a large degree of uncertainty about how it will affect the U.S. and global economies even as Iran and the U.S. remain under a ceasefire agreement.

U.S. financial markets have rebounded near record levels and prices for a barrel of U.S. crude oil remain elevated around $104 per barrel. That’s better than the $112 earlier this month, but still 50% higher than before the war began. Gas prices also much higher since the war began — AAA says the national average Thursday was at $4.30 a gallon —- saddling businesses and consumers with higher costs.

Also Thursday, the government reported that a key inflation measure jumped in March as gas prices soared, the latest sign that the Iran war is driving the cost of living sharply higher.

An inflation gauge monitored by the Federal Reserve rose 0.7% in March from February, up sharply from the previous month, the Commerce Department said. Compared with a year ago, prices rose 3.5%, the biggest increase in almost three years.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation also rose.

This comes at a time when U.S. inflation was already above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. On Wednesday, the Fed opted to leave its benchmark rate where it was, citing economic uncertainty caused by instability in the Middle East and persistently high inflation.

Lower interest rates can boost the economy and hiring, but also tend to fuel inflation. Fed officials voted to cut rates three times to close 2025 out of concern for a weakening job market.

More government data released Thursday showed that the U.S. economy expanded at a modest 2% pace from January through March. That’s up from a lackluster 0.5% expansion the last three months of 2025, hampered by the 43-day government shutdown.

The Labor Department reported earlier this month that U.S. employers added an unexpectedly strong 178,000 new jobs in March, nudging the unemployment rate back down to 4.3%. That followed a surprisingly large loss of 92,000 jobs in February. Revisions also have trimmed 69,000 jobs from December and January payrolls, a sign that the labor market remains under strain.

A number of high-profile companies have cut jobs recently, including Morgan Stanley,Block, UPS, Amazon and several other tech companies.

Weekly jobless aid applications have stabilized in a range mostly between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. economy emerged from the pandemic recession. However, hiring began slowing about two years ago and tapered further in 2025 due to President Donald Trump’s erratic tariff rollouts, his purge of the federal workforce and the lingering effects of high interest rates meant to control inflation.

Employers added fewer than 200,000 jobs last year, compared with about 1.5 million in 2024, according to the data firm FactSet.

The American labor market appears stuck in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state that has kept the unemployment rate historically low, but has left those out of work struggling to find a new job. The recent artificial intelligence boom and the investment required to develop it is also making companies reluctant to hire.

The Labor Department’s report Thursday showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, came in at 207,500, about 3,500 lower than the previous week.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending April 18 fell to 1.79 million, a decrease of 23,000.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — rebounded from a lackluster 0.5% expansion the last three months of 2025. The federal government’s spending and investment grew at a 9.3% annual rate in the first quarter, adding more than half a percentage point to growth after lopping off 1.16 percentage points in fourth-quarter 2025.

Growth in consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of U.S. economic activity, slowed to 1.6% in the first quarter from 1.9% at the end of 2025. Spending on goods, including food and clothing fell slightly. Spending on services slowed.

But business investment, likely driven by spending in artificial intelligence, rose at an 8.7% pace. A weak housing market continues to weigh on the economy. Residential investment fell at an 8% annual pace — the fifth straight quarterly drop and the biggest since the end of 2022. Excluding housing, nonresidential investment surged 10.4%, biggest jump in nearly three years.

An uptick in imports, which rose at an annual rate of 21.4% from January-March, slashed more than 2.6 percentage points off first-quarter growth.

“This is a split-screen economy,” Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote. “Companies and investors involved in AI are on fire. Meanwhile, middle and moderate income households are struggling with high gas prices ... Consumption is slowing as people are struggling to manage all their bills and growing more concerned about the future.’’

Still, a category within the GDP data that measures the economy’s underlying strength grew at a solid 2.5% clip, accelerating from 1.8% in fourth-quarter 2025. This category includes consumer spending and private investment, but excludes volatile items like exports, inventories and government spending.

The first quarter included about a month of the clash in Iran. Iran has blocked the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes. That has driven energy prices higher, fueling inflation and hurting consumers. The Federal Reserve, announcing Wednesday that it was keeping its benchmark interest unchanged, cited “a high level of uncertainty″ arising from the conflict.

Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, did not even bother to forecast first-quarter GDP growth. “The truth is that we do not have any defensible basis for trying to project how these indicators will print,” Weinberg wrote in a commentary Monday. President Donald “Trump’s war with Iran has led to a total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. We do not know how to model the impact of that event, as we have never seen anything quite like it.″

Thursday’s report was the first of three Commerce Department estimates.

Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Public Investment Fund governor who was behind the creation of LIV Golf, is no longer listed as chairman of LIV Golf.

LIV announced Gene Davis of Pirinate Consulting Group and Jon Zinman of the strategic advisory firm JZ Advisors are leading a newly created board, with Davis as chairman. The focus is on securing long-term financial partners when Saudi funding ends after this season.

LIV said it was seeking to move toward an investment model involving multiple partners and team franchises. The league has said it expects 10 of its 13 teams to be profitable this year.

“The executive leadership team, along with Jon and I, see a clear opportunity to help the league formalize its structure, attract and secure long-term capital, and position the business for growth while continuing to promote the game across the world,” Davis said in a statement. "We look forward to positioning LIV Golf for future success.”

Sports Business Journal reported Wednesday night Al-Rumayyan has resigned as LIV chairman. There has been no official announcement from PIF on Al-Rumayyan or LIV Golf funding.

Scott O'Neil, the CEO at LIV Golf, had told Britain-based TNT two weeks ago during the Mexico event: “The reality is that you’re funded through the season, and then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going.”

That raised questions whether LIV Golf could keep some of its top players once their lucrative contracts expired. With financial muscle from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, LIV was able to spend $1 billion to land the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Cameron Smith and eventually Jon Rahm, the last big signing at the end of 2023.

The newsletter Money in Sport reported earlier this year that LIV Golf already had spent $5.3 billion since the league launched in 2022, a figure that would be $6 billion by the end of this year.

LIV staff and players have been aware Saudi funding was only through the 2026 season. Thursday's announcement was to outline plans to seek other sources of funding for a league that currently offers $30 million prize funds at each tournament.

Al-Rumayyan is passionate about golf and long wanted a seat at the table with the sport’s leadership. He signed a framework agreement in 2023 with the PGA Tour and European tour and was set to join the PGA Tour Enterprises board if it was approved.

The deal never materialized, except for ending antitrust lawsuits. PGA Tour Enterprises instead got a minority investment from a consortium of North American sports owners.

Al-Rumayyan was at the White House in February 2025 to meet with President Donald Trump along with a PGA Tour team that included Tiger Woods, Adam Scott and Commissioner Jay Monahan. But it was clear LIV and the PGA Tour could not find common ground, mainly because the Saudi league wanted to stick with a team component.

DeChambeau and Rahm — both multiple major champions — are considered LIV's top two players.

DeChambeau said in an interview with the Flushing It social media site that “as long as LIV is here, I would figure out a way for it to make sense.”

“There’s a lot of moving parts like in any business,” DeChambeau said. “It’s a startup, right? And so there’s going to be times where we’re squeezed and punched. This is one of those moments. But I’m going to do everything in my power to make it work and I really see the value in franchise golf.”

LIV Golf earlier this week said it was postponing its June 25-28 event in Louisiana to the fall. The next event is scheduled for May 7-10 in northern Virginia, and O’Neil had said in a memo to staff two weeks ago the season would be uninterrupted and “full throttle.”

Al-Rumayyan was all about team golf when he and former CEO Greg Norman launched the league, even though the team concept was one reason it took more than three years for LIV to get recognized by the Official World Golf Ranking.

Koepka left LIV after last season and the PGA Tour granted him a path back with stipulations that included no access to equity grants for five years, a $5 million charity donation and no bonus money this year.

The tour offered it to three other LIV players who had won majors since 2022 — Rahm, DeChambeau and Smith — and gave them a Feb. 4 deadline to accept. None did.

In an interview earlier this week with The Wall Street Journal, PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said: “We’re interested in having the best players who can help our tour. Not every player can do that.”

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

Oklahoma City and San Antonio, they made quick work of Round 1.

The six other higher-seeded teams, they're in battles. There will be six Game 6s in Round 1 this season, the most the NBA has seen since 2014. A trio of Game 6s await on Thursday, followed by three more Game 6s on Friday.

On Thursday, New York (up 3-2) goes to Atlanta, Boston (up 3-2) visits Philadelphia and Denver (trailing 3-2) plays at Minnesota.

Then on Friday, Detroit (trailing 3-2) plays at Orlando, Cleveland (up 3-2) goes to Toronto and the Los Angeles Lakers (still up 3-2 after losing closeout chances in Games 4 and 5) head to Houston.

Thursday’s games

— Game 6, New York at Atlanta, 7 p.m. EDT (ESPN)

Series: New York, 3-2.

Odds: New York by 2.5.

The Hawks went 2-0 in Games 2 and 3 by a combined two points. The Knicks went 2-0 in Games 4 and 5 by a combined 45 points. Now Atlanta is back home, looking to keep its season alive.

— Game 6, Boston at Philadelphia, 8 p.m. EDT (Peacock/NBCSN)

Series: Boston, 3-2.

Odds: Boston by 5.5.

Philadelphia hasn't gone 0-3 at home in a Round 1 series since 1984, a best-of-five against New Jersey when road teams won all five games. The 76ers need a Thursday win to avoid it here.

— Game 6, Denver at Minnesota, 9:30 p.m. EDT (ESPN)

Series: Minnesota, 3-2.

Odds: Denver by 5.5.

Shorthanded Minnesota gets a home closeout chance in the 18th playoff game between the rivals since 2023. Minnesota is 9-8 in them. Average score of those games: Wolves 106.4, Nuggets 105.9.

Friday's schedule

— Game 6, Detroit at Orlando, 7 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Orlando, 3-2.

Odds: Detroit by 3.5.

Eighth-seeded Orlando let a 3-1 lead slip away against top-seeded Detroit in Round 1 in 2003. The Magic get another chance Friday night to ensure that such a fate won’t happen again this time.

— Game 6, Cleveland at Toronto, 7:30 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Cleveland, 3-2.

Odds: Cleveland by 3.5.

The Raptors pushed Cleveland to the limit in Game 5 even with Brandon Ingram (heel) limited to one point in 11 minutes. The Cavaliers went 18 of 36 from 3-point range to win Game 5 at home.

— Game 6, LA Lakers at Houston, 9:30 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: Lakers, 3-2.

Odds: Houston by 4.5.

The Lakers are 0-2 in closeout chances in this series, and a Rockets team that isn’t lacking for swagger suddenly looks to be brimming with confidence. Lakers do not seem to be panicked, yet.

Wednesday recaps

— Pistons 116, Magic 109 to get within 3-2 in series. The stars put on a show.

— Cavaliers 125, Raptors 120 for a 3-2 series lead. Dennis Schroder came up big.

— Rockets 99, Lakers 93 to get within 3-2 in series. LeBron James is not worried.

Stories of note

— NBA moves closer to lottery changes

— Jones enters guilty plea in gambling case

— Edwards (knee) officially week to week

— NBA going through bids from Europe

— Pat Riley says Heat will be ‘aggressive’

— Some news, notes going into the postseason

— Heat equipment manager needs transplants

Awards watch

DeAndre Jordan of the New Orleans Pelicans is an Olympic gold medalist, an NBA champion — and now, the best teammate in the NBA, too. Jordan was announced Wednesday as the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year, as selected by players around the league.

It was an extremely close vote, with three-time winner Jrue Holiday of Portland finishing second and Jeff Green of Houston finishing third.

On Thursday, the NBA will announce this season's Hustle Award winner.

A breakdown on the awards handed out to this point:

— San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama became the youngest Defensive Player of the Year, and the first to win the award in a unanimous vote.

— Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander nearly became the first unanimous winner of the Clutch Player of the Year award. He got 96 of a possible 100 first-place votes.

— San Antonio's Keldon Johnson topped Miami's Jaime Jaquez Jr. for Sixth Man of the Year, getting 63 first-place votes.

— Boston's Derrick White was revealed as the Sportsmanship Award winner, as selected by the league's players. Indiana's TJ McConnell — who got more first-place votes than anyone else — was second.

— Atlanta now has back-to-back Most Improved Player winners, with Nickeil Alexander-Walker taking that trophy this year. Dyson Daniels won for the Hawks last year.

— Dallas' Cooper Flagg edged fellow former Duke player Kon Knueppel of Charlotte for Rookie of the Year.

— Brad Stevens of the Boston Celtics won the NBA’s Executive of the Year award, his second time receiving that honor in the last three seasons.

Among the announcements still to be scheduled:

— Most Valuable Player, which will be either Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama or Denver's Nikola Jokic.

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

A scoring duel like only one other

Cade Cunningham of Detroit and Paolo Banchero of Orlando both finished with 45 points on Wednesday night, when the Pistons beat the Magic in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference first-round series.

It was just the second time in NBA history that opposing players scored 45 points in the same playoff game. The other was Aug. 23, 2020, in the bubble near Orlando, when Utah's Donovan Mitchell scored 51 and Denver's Jamal Murray scored 50. The Jazz won 129-127.

Betting odds

The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder (-130) are favorites to win the NBA title, according to oddsmakers.

The Thunder are followed by San Antonio (+500), Boston (+525), Cleveland (+1400), New York (+2200), Denver (+3000), the Los Angeles Lakers (+3500) and Detroit (+4000).

Orlando, even with a 3-2 series lead on Detroit, is at +40000. Minnesota, even with a 3-2 series lead on Denver, is also at +40000 after injuries to Donte DiVincenzo and Anthony Edwards.

Key dates

— Saturday, Sunday and/or Monday: Conference semifinals begin.

— May 10: NBA draft lottery.

— May 10-17: NBA draft combine.

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

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

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

— June 23: Round 1, NBA draft

— June 24: Round 2, NBA draft

Quote of the day

“I was going to put Donovan and Evan back in and they said, ‘No, this group’s rolling.’ I was like, ‘What?’ That never happens in the NBA.” — Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson, on how Cavs stars Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley briefly delayed subbing back into the game in the fourth quarter Wednesday night because the unit on the floor at that time was playing so well.

Stats of the day

— There will be at least 45 games needed to complete Round 1, the most since 2018.

— Underdogs have won 41% of games in Round 1, the most since 2014.

— The Lakers lost Games 4 and 5 with a chance to eliminate Houston. This is the second time a LeBron James team has lost two closeout-opportunity games. Cleveland lost Games 6 and 7 to Detroit in the 2006 East semifinals.

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

The tax accountant said he “got the same high” on those platforms that he got from gambling. “That was how I relapsed — with Kalshi and Polymarket. I lost a bunch of money.”

The rapid growth of prediction markets has sparked a high-stakes debate that is playing out in courts and legislatures all over the country. Operators of those companies believe they should be regulated like the stock exchange because of federal law and their customer-to-customer structure, while sportsbooks and state officials think they should be supervised the same way as sports gambling platforms.

While that argument continues with no sign of resolution, the clinicians who treat gambling disorders are more concerned about what they are seeing with their patients. In their spaces, when it comes to sports gambling and prediction markets, the end result is virtually the same.

Two gambling addicts who spoke to The Associated Press — the soccer coach and tax accountant — say they had relapses on prediction markets after they took legal action to protect themselves from the allure of sports betting. They are being identified by their occupations because of the sensitivity of their situations. Their stories reflect what experts say they see with some of their clients.

“There may be real differences in how these products are defined or regulated, but in the therapy room, we are often seeing the same cycle of anticipation, action and reaction play out again and again,” said Dr. Cynthia Grant, the vice president of clinical for Birches Health, which operates a national network of providers for treating gambling addiction.

“I sometimes think of it like different doors into the same room. The label on the door may change, but once someone’s inside, the experience can feel very familiar.”

The road from sportsbooks to prediction markets

Sportsbooks and prediction markets offer a lot of similar options. Wagers on games, individual performances and other possibilities. But the format is different.

Sportsbooks have in-house experts who set odds that dictate payouts for winning bets. It's the house versus the gamblers. Traders on predictions markets swap contracts of yes-or-no questions, and profits and losses are dictated by the market. Win a “yes” holding on an event contract where most of the market guessed “no,” and the payout is bigger. Prediction markets generally make money through fees on contracts.

For addicts, they are two paths to the same result.

The soccer coach who spoke to the AP started gambling when he was 16. Small bets against friends in his New York neighborhood, everything from cards to basketball and tennis. When he turned 18, he started going to casinos and making bets at sportsbooks. Amid mounting losses, he turned to prediction markets.

“I would be in all this debt and get a paycheck for $2,000 on a Friday and it would be gone by Saturday or Sunday,” said the coach, 21. “I wouldn’t have money to fill up my gas tank.”

He was struggling with loans and maxed-out credit cards while working and going to college before he stepped away in January to confront his addiction problems, which also included smoking marijuana.

He joined Gamblers Anonymous, and he was told he had to stop associating with people who gamble.

“For a younger crowd, that’s difficult because it’s everywhere,” the coach said. “My friends from childhood — most of them all gamble."

The coach and the tax accountant had formally self-excluded from sportsbooks before they started trading on prediction markets. Self-exclusion programs provide an opportunity for gamblers to ban themselves from gambling facilities and betting apps. They are offered in many states as part of gambling regulations, but there is no widely adopted national system.

The landscape for self-exclusion programs becomes even more fragmented when predictions markets are included. Kalshi started a voluntary opt-out program when it launched a customer protection hub in March 2025, and it's one of several platforms — including Polymarket — collaborating on a national self-exclusion program for prediction markets. But it's not clear if that program would ever overlap with the systems used by state gambling regulators.

The accountant, 33, said his gambling problems started after New York launched legalized mobile sports betting in January 2022. He had “a boatload of debt” in August 2023 when he told his then-fiancée about what was going on with him.

She married him anyway. Looking to save money after the wedding, they moved into a rental house owned by his parents. He self-excluded from sportsbooks. Then, after the couple lost their first pregnancy, the accountant started day-trading before signing up for Kalshi.

“Prediction markets are the same thing packaged in a different way,” the accountant said. “It’s a dangerous loophole. ... How can you do all that and say you’re not a sportsbook?”

Tennis was his go-to sport — he liked the speed of the matches — before he went to rehab in Virginia last year.

He had a relapse in December when he downloaded Polymarket and made a free $10 wager. He was confronted by his wife, who had his email connected to her phone and reached out to his sponsor.

While there has been no substantive research into the effect of prediction markets on sports gambling addiction, the experiences of the coach and the accountant are not uncommon for treatment experts.

“You’re seeing a lot of the same behaviors, whether it’s a prediction market or it’s gambling,” said Jody Bechtold, the CEO of The Better Institute, a Pennsylvania practice that works with people impacted by gambling disorders. “You’re seeing, you know, wagering more and more. Chasing losses, so ‘Oh, today was a bad day, I have to work tomorrow at the prediction markets to get my money back.’ ... The lies, the secrecy, and that it’s impacting everyday life.”

Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana highlighted its programs for responsible trading — such as trading breaks and self-limits — and said it's working on other measures to further facilitate healthy trading behavior.

Compared to casinos, Diana said, Kalshi is “fairer, more transparent, and less predatory.”

"There is no house that wins when customers lose,” she said. "This means that Kalshi doesn’t hook losers and penalize winners.”

A message was left seeking comment from Polymarket.

Event contracts are increasingly popular on prediction markets

Sports have become a major category for prediction markets. Kalshi had more than $2 billion in total trading volume on this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, according to Diana. Michigan’s 69-63 victory over Connecticut in the championship had $10.6 million in volume on Polymarket.

The U.S. market for sports-focused event contracts could grow to approximately $1.1 trillion in annual volume, according to a Bank of America report.

“A year ago, if you said prediction markets, I mean I don’t know what that is, I don’t see it,” said Dr. Timothy Fong, the co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program. “Now we’re starting to see it more and more in our patients that come into the clinic. And it’s usually not one, it’s multiple platforms they’re betting on, right? ... When you have something that’s available, that’s accessible, that’s anonymous, is super easy to use, multiple times in a day, of course that’s going to raise the risk of addiction for any human on Earth.”

There are multiple ongoing lawsuits involving states and prediction markets, and the ramifications of the legal dispute are being felt on a variety of levels.

Marlene Warner, the CEO of the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health — a private nonprofit health organization that provides educational programs on gambling along with other services — said the situation with prediction markets “feels a bit like the wild, wild west right now.”

“We’re very used to like going to our state regulator or, you know, seeing a process go through where all of a sudden now you’re like, ‘OK, a piece of legislation has outlined what is appropriate for a licensed sports betting operator to do,’" Warner said. “And then you see the regulation come into place. And so you can track it. But right now, nobody knows kind of what the limits are.”

In most states with legal sports gambling, it is limited to ages 21 and older, while prediction markets are open for 18- to 20-year-olds with some exceptions. Prediction markets also have a presence in states where sports betting is illegal, including Texas and California.

“I don’t know enough frankly, we don’t know enough, nothing’s been studied about them, I can’t tell you whether they’re more less or exactly the same in terms of risk level,” Warner said. “But what I do know is they're in a very gray, unregulated space and that alone makes it difficult.”

Prediction markets fall under the jurisdiction of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has a regulation that prohibits an event contract “that involves, relates to, or references terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or an activity that is unlawful under any state or federal law.”

CFTC chairman Michael Selig is backing prediction markets in their legal proceedings against several states, asserting the commission's “exclusive jurisdiction over these markets.”

While that argument continues, the soccer coach and tax accountant are rebuilding their lives — while doing their best to stay vigilant with their addictions.

“You have to face this stuff or it just keeps getting worse,” the coach said.

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

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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

Wednesday's decision clears the way for Republican-led states to redraw U.S. House districts without regard to race, potentially creating many more GOP-friendly seats.

Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters that its members and Democrats would fight the effects of the ruling.

“The Supreme Court has opened the door to a coordinated attack on Black voters across the country,” Clarke said. “This is an outright power grab.”

Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, voters could challenge electoral maps that appeared to dilute the ability of minority communities to elect representatives of their choosing. The expected wave of congressional redistricting by Republican-controlled states after Wednesday's ruling, especially for the 2028 election and beyond, is likely to result in a much smaller Black Caucus.

Changes are coming, but how quickly is unknown

Clarke was joined by over a dozen of the 60 Black Caucus members, including Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Their responses to the court's decision ranged from outrage to defiance to mourning.

It's not clear how many seats will ultimately be affected by the ruling, but redistricting experts predict that more than a dozen now held by minorities could be swept away.

Rep. Troy Carter, one of two Black Democrats from Louisiana, the state at the center of the case, called the ruling “a devastating blow to our democracy, plain and simple.”

Republican leaders in several Southern states already have been discussing how to apply the ruling and create new GOP-friendly congressional maps. In Florida, Republicans wasted no time approving a new U.S. House map, part of which redrew one district created to elect a Black representative.

“I would be surprised if we do not see former slave-holding states moving at lightning speed to target districts that provide Black voters and other voters of color an equal opportunity to elect candidates,” said Kristen Clarke, general counsel for the NAACP and the first Black woman to be assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division.

It's not clear whether state-level voting laws or constitutional prohibitions against racial discrimination will provide any protection, she added.

Republican officials and Black conservatives praised the decision as a victory against race-based mandates. Linda Lee Tarver, of the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, said in a statement civil rights laws were not intended “to institutionalize racial line-drawing as a default feature of our political system.”

Voting Rights Act expanded Black representation

The Congressional Black Caucus was formed in 1971 as court-ordered redistricting under the Voting Rights Act, passed just six years earlier, sent more minorities to Congress.

The number of Black representatives in Congress jumped from nine to 13. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, decided to expand the Democracy Select Committee created in the 1960s by Democratic Rep. Charles Diggs into the more formal Congressional Black Caucus.

The CBC raised its profile in its first year when it boycotted President Richard Nixon's State of the Union address after he refused to meet with the group. Nixon eventually acquiesced. The group created a list of over 60 recommendations to help the Black community, including counteracting racism and building adequate housing. It earned the nickname the “conscience of the Congress.”

“That caucus has had such an important voice in American politics — the things that we’ve been able to achieve together, the creation of equity and access," Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said during a separate news conference Wednesday. “And I’m afraid that with this ruling, we could see that caucus shrink in a hugely significant way.”

What can Black constituents do

The ruling upset Thomas Johnson when he heard about it while visiting Louisiana's Capitol in Baton Rouge. Johnson, who is Black, is from New Orleans and represented by Carter. He fears Republicans could redraw the state’s congressional map in a way that dismantles predominately Black districts.

“I feel like this is an embarrassing attack upon the minorities, particularly the Black community,” Johnson said. “We have very little (voice) in Congress.”

Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist who advises the Black Caucus, said he expects the group will be involved in multiple legal fights for members whose districts will be targeted after the Supreme Court ruling. He also said the ruling makes voter turnout efforts even more important "if we want to change course on some of the things that are likely to happen because of this decision.”

Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama, whose state was at the center of a major Voting Rights Act case decided in favor of Black representation nearly three years ago, agreed that the party now needs to focus on getting voters motivated ahead of this year's midterm elections.

“Now more than ever, we need communities across this nation to mobilize — in state legislatures, in the courts and at the ballot box,” Sewell said. "We need to vote like we’ve never voted before." ___ Associated Press writers Leah Askarinam, Matt Brown and Ali Swenson in Washington and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.

To honor that, he took the unusual step of leaving the Oval Office and going to Capitol Hill for the signing ceremony. It was Aug. 6, 1965, five months after the “Bloody Sunday” attack on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, gave momentum to the bill that became known as the Voting Rights Act.

In the six decades since, it became one of the most consequential laws in the nation's history, preventing discrimination against minorities at the ballot box and helping to elect thousands of Black and Hispanic representatives at all levels of government.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out a major pillar of the law that had protected against racial discrimination in voting and representation. It was a decision that came more than a decade after the court undermined another key tenet of the law and led to restrictive voting laws in a number of states. Voting and civil rights advocates were left fearful of what lies ahead for minority communities.

“It means that you have entire communities that can go without having representation,” said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of the group Black Voters Matter. "It is literally throwing us back to the Jim Crow era unapologetically, and that’s not exaggeration.”

Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington office, said the court’s steady work to erode the Voting Rights Act, culminating in Wednesday’s decision, amounted to “burying it without the funeral.”

Hollowing out America's ‘greatest legislative landmark’

The Supreme Court’s ruling came in a congressional redistricting case out of Louisiana after the state created a district that gave the state its second Black representative to Congress.

It found that map to be an unconstitutional gerrymander because it took race into account to draw the lines. In an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court's conservative majority said the provision of the Voting Rights Act in question, called Section 2, was designed to protect voters from intentional discrimination.

Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent said the bar to show intentional discrimination is “an almost insurmountable barrier for challenges to any voting rights issues to prove discrimination.”

Voting rights experts said the ruling leaves the Voting Rights Act only a shell of what it had been and will provide an open door for political mapmakers at every level — from local school districts to state legislatures to Congress — to undermine minority representation.

“We’re witnessing the evisceration of America’s greatest legislative landmark at the hands of a far right Supreme Court,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York said.

Maria Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, said the decision will allow more aggressive “cracking and packing” of populations to dilute their votes, “not just in congressional districts but also in state legislatures, county commissions, school boards and city councils.”

VRA was the key tool to fight dilution of voting strength

Voting rights experts said there is no doubting the law's impact over the decades.

Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor at Howard University and the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said there were about 1,500 Black elected officials throughout the country in 1970. Today, that stands at more than 10,000.

"And it isn’t because of the goodness of people’s hearts,” she said.

She said that success was a direct result of Black communities, civil rights activists and lawyers having the tools, through the Voting Rights Act, to file challenges to efforts to diminish the voting strength of Black and Hispanic voters. Most of the Section 2 cases have been over representation in local governments.

It’s not just the numbers.

A loss of representation, especially in state legislatures and Congress, will translate into minority communities losing a voice on issues that matter to them, such as healthcare, education and needed public works upgrades, said Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project.

“States can now point to partisan objectives to justify maps that strip voters of color of representation, and federal courts will have little basis to intervene,” she said.

A steady erosion by the court, a future in doubt

The landmark law signed by Johnson 61 years ago had been amended over the years, but the biggest change was in 2013, when the Supreme Court released its ruling in Shelby County v. Holder. That decision essentially ended a provision of the Voting Rights Act mandating the way states and local jurisdictions were included on a list of those needing to get advance approval, or preclearance, for voting-related changes.

That decision paved the way for mostly Republican states to pass a wave of restrictive election legislation, especially after President Donald Trump, a Republican, falsely claimed widespread fraud cost him reelection in 2020 against Democrat Joe Biden.

In a surprise ruling in 2023, the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 in a redistricting case out of Alabama, a ruling that it essentially reversed on Wednesday.

The question now is what comes next, for minority representatives and the communities they represent.

In Louisiana, the decision puts Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields on the endangered list. This isn’t the first time redistricting has complicated Fields’ political plans. He served for two terms in the 1990s before the state redrew his congressional district.

“I’ve been down this road before, you know, 33 years ago,” he said.

Shomari Figures, who won the seat created in Alabama after the court’s 2023 decision, said the decision doesn’t make changes to that state’s current congressional districts, but it has made proving future racial discrimination in redistricting cases significantly tougher.

“It will lead to states, primarily in the South, launching immediate efforts to redraw districts in ways that will dilute the impact of Black voters and drastically reduce the number of realistic opportunities to elect Black members to Congress,” he said.

Shalela Dowdy, an Alabama resident who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit that resulted in the creation of a new district now represented by Figures, said she is worried the decision will lead to the rollback of the district created in 2023, which she said gave Black voters a greater voice.

“Putting it in the hands of the states on this level is dangerous,” Dowdy said. “There’s just been a history of the states not doing the right thing based off their state population.”

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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Ala. Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Joey Cappelletti, Matt Brown and Haya Panjwani in Washington; and Graham Lee Brewer in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien, 18, was charged April 24 and hasn’t entered a plea, the city-state’s largest English-language newspaper, The Straits Times, said. He allegedly committed the offense at a shopping mall on March 12, and his video spread rapidly when it surfaced, the report said.

The teen was granted court permission Wednesday to travel to Manila from May 2-25 for a school trip required for his graduation, the Straits Times said. He is due back in court on May 29.

Mischief carries a penalty of up to two years in prison or a fine, or both, while public nuisance is less severe with up to three months in prison or a fine, or both.

IJooz, the company operating the juice vending machine, filed a police report, and sanitized the dispenser while replacing all 500 straws in the machine. It said it would upgrade its machines to include measures such as individually packaged straws and straw compartments that unlock only after the transaction is completed.

Lawyers for the teen, who is studying in a French business school in Singapore, declined to comment on the case when contacted.

Singapore, a small, densely populated city-state, tightly regulates public behavior and cleanliness. This includes restrictions like limits on chewing gum and strong penalties for littering and vandalism.

James Broadnax was sentenced to death for the 2008 shooting deaths of two men outside a suburban Dallas music studio. Prosecutors say Broadnax and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, fatally shot and robbed Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in the parking lot of Butler’s recording studio in Garland. Cummings was sentenced to life without parole.

Prosecutors say Broadnax, 37, confessed to the shooting, telling reporters during jailhouse interviews that “I pulled the trigger” and that he had no remorse.

Broadnax was scheduled to receive a lethal injection after 6 p.m. CDT at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Houston.

His attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution, filing multiple final appeals after lower courts declined to stop the lethal injection.

His lawyers have focused his final appeals on two issues: Cummings has recently confessed to being the shooter; and Broadnax’s constitutional rights were violated because prosecutors eliminated potential jurors during his trial on the basis of race.

“I’m really gonna tell it like it’s supposed to be told, that it was me, that I was the killer. I shot Matthew Bullard, Steve Swann,” Cummings said recently from prison in a video created as part of the efforts to stop Broadnax’s execution.

Broadnax’s attorneys say in filings with the high court that Cummings’ confession is “corroborated by the fact that his DNA, and not Mr. Broadnax’s, was found on the murder weapon and in the pocket of one of the victims.”

In the video, Broadnax said his confession was false as at the time he didn’t care about his life. Broadnax’s lawyers say he was under the influence of drugs during the television interviews.

He also apologized to the families of Butler and Swan for taking part in the robbery.

“I wish I could show them my soul, so they could see just how sorry I am. I am very much remorseful for everything that happened,” Broadnax said.

His attorneys also allege prosecutors dismissed all seven potential Black jurors on the basis of their race, “utilizing a spreadsheet during jury selection that bolded only the names of every Black juror,” according to court documents. One Black juror was later reinstated to the jury. Broadnax is Black.

In a 1986 ruling known as Batson v. Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that excluding jurors because of their race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Broadnax’s attorneys had argued in an earlier appeal that prosecutors had violated his constitutional rights by using some of the rap lyrics he wrote to portray him as a violent and dangerous person in order to secure a death sentence. A number of A-list rappers, including Travis Scott,T.I. and Killer Mike, had filed briefs at the Supreme Court in support of Broadnax’s appeal.

But the high court rejected that appeal as well as another that focused on how forensic evidence was presented at his trial.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday denied Broadnax’s request for a 180-day reprieve or to commute his death sentence.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has described Cummings’ confession as the shooter as “questionable new evidence.” It also said in court documents that Broadnax’s claims that potential Black jurors were targeted for removal are “entirely meritless” as these jurors were stricken not because of race but because of their answers during questioning, including that some opposed the death penalty.

Theresa Butler, Matthew Butler’s mother, has asked that the execution proceed.

“This so called confession from cummings is just a stall tactic by broadnax’s desperate defense team. Its all a lie,” Butler wrote in a post on social media.

If the execution is carried out, Broadnax would be the third person put to death this year in Texas, which has historically held more executions than any other state.

About an hour before Broadnax's scheduled execution on Thursday, Florida is set to put to death James Ernest Hitchcock, 70, for beating and choking his 13-year-old step-niece to death.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

A national study by the Media Insight Project finds 36% of U.S. adults say they get news from social media at least once a day. But for people ages 13 to 17, that number rises to 57%.

Similarly, 43% of adults say they get information on national issues and events from influencers or independent content creators at least “sometimes," compared with 57% of teenagers. The project is a collaboration among The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the American Press Institute and journalism schools at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland.

The new poll points to the pervasiveness of social media in teenagers’ lives and shows how more teens are consuming their news from these platforms or independent content creators, rather than directly from national or local news sources.

While Americans haven't abandoned traditional journalism, they are reevaluating what sources they trust, said Robyn Tomlin, executive director of the American Press Institute.

“Traditional national and local outlets continue to stand out as a trusted source, but people, especially younger audiences, are also building relationships with younger creators they believe are transparent and authentic,” Tomlin said. “That reality has enormous implications for the future of news.”

More teens turn to social media and search for news

Besides social media, teenagers are also more likely to turn to search engines and artificial intelligence chatbots as they hunt for news.

The survey found that about 4 in 10 teens get news daily from search, while about 2 in 10 say that about AI chatbots.

There's little difference among age groups in people who said they get news from digital sites or apps, and television and streaming, the survey found. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults and a similar share of teenagers are getting news from TV at least once a day, with a similar share tuning into digital news sites.

“The idea that television is going away is a misapprehension,” said Tom Rosenstiel, journalism professor at the University of Maryland who worked on the survey. “Watching news through video is not going away. It's changing. The way you see it on YouTube is different than on the ‘CBS Evening News.’”

Many teens approach AI and influencers with some doubts

Despite the fact that many teenagers are getting news from influencers and AI, many have a healthy dose of skepticism.

Though teens are more likely than adults to say they have “a great deal of confidence” in the information they are getting from AI chatbots, relatively few have high confidence in AI’s output. Just 11% of teenagers have a high level of certainty in the information coming from AI, compared with 4% of adults.

Teens are also more confident in their ability to determine whether something was made by a human or AI. About one-third of teens expressed a high level of confidence in their ability to distinguish AI-generated content from human-generated content, compared with about 2 in 10 adults.

When it comes to influencers, there are similar doubts. Only 12% of teenagers also have “a great deal of confidence” in the information they get from independent creators or influencers, whether that’s coming from TV, social media or other sources. That’s higher than the 6% of U.S. adults who say the same, but still very low.

Teens are more engaged with celebrity and gaming news

Not surprisingly, the survey also found that teenagers are more interested in news about celebrities, music, movies, sports and other entertainment. Adults have more interest in political news, business issues or the economy.

For teenagers and adults alike, there’s a significant news fatigue, particularly around political news, Rosenstiel said. Most U.S. adults and teenagers say they “often” or “sometimes” try to avoid news stories about national government and politics, and about 6 in 10 say they try to sidestep news related to President Donald Trump.

“People are tired of the feeling that things are spinning out of control that they’re very judicious in what they’re spending their time on,” Rosenstiel said.

Rosenstiel said many teens also hunt for news and information in different ways. They are much less likely than adults to say they avoid celebrity news or news that is delivered via social media. It’s possible, Rosenstiel added, that the most important journalism for some people is what helps them live their lives, even if it falls outside conventional news sources.

“Part of the problem for traditional journalism," Rosenstiel said, “is the traditional journalism definition of what is real news.”

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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

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The Media Insight Project survey is an initiative of the American Press Institute, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll of 2,101 Americans included 1,092 U.S. adults ages 18 or older and 1,009 teenagers ages 13 to 17. The poll of adults was conducted Feb. 5-8 and the poll of teens was conducted Feb. 2-16 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points, and the margin of sampling error for teenagers overall is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

According to the Missouri City Police Department, the stop uncovered evidence that led to a large-scale auto chop shop operation. As the investigation expanded, authorities discovered multiple stolen vehicles and vehicle parts tied to theft cases across the region.

MORE FROM MCPD: Missouri City swears in Troy Finner as new police chief; community turnout fills ceremony

Officers responded to a call around noon Tuesday from someone near a local business who reported that a box truck had just dropped off car parts at the location. When officials arrived, they stopped the vehicle in question.

The driver, identified as Francisco Tovar Reyes, was arrested on an outstanding warrant for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and charged with possession of stolen auto parts.

Investigators later returned to the location where the parts had been delivered. After examining VIN numbers, authorities determined that at least six vehicles connected to the parts had been reported stolen.

The business owner, identified as Mohammed Fattoe, was also arrested and charged with possession of stolen property.

Officials say the takedown significantly disrupted the local stolen vehicle market and helped improve public safety in Missouri City and surrounding communities.

Police credited strong interagency partnerships and proactive policing strategies for the success of the investigation. The case remains ongoing, and additional charges or arrests may be forthcoming.

As of Wednesday night, Missouri City police confirm to KPRC 2 News Reporter Corley Peel that investigators have recovered 25 stolen vehicles and parts. This includes vehicle parts, frames and chassis. Many of them were Chevy’s, according to police. The recoveries today were from outside agencies and not Missouri City Police. Detectives say the number could go up when investigators return to the business on Thursday.

Neighbor Maria Sanchez, who lives next door to the business told Corley she knows the owner and had no idea anything illegal was happening.

“They told me they would fix up the cars and sell them in Europe. I saw broken cars all the time, maybe from a crash and a big truck delivering, that’s it,” Sanchez said.

Nipper, a 28-foot (9-meter) tall white dog with black ears has sat conspicuously atop a warehouse for almost seven decades — recreating the famous image of a terrier listening attentively to a phonograph that was long used by electronics and communications company RCA.

Over time, the statue has grown into a source of local pride around this city on the Hudson River. Parents point it out to their kids from the highway. Nipper's image, with his head cocked to one side, appears on items like key chains, ball caps and hoodies.

“When I think of Nipper, I think of Albany. When I think of Albany, I think of Nipper,” said Cody Hitt, who was out with friends recently at a bar right by the statue.

Now that pride is tempered with concern for Nipper's future. After years of litigation, the unused four-story warehouse on which Nipper sits was recently marked by a red placard with white slash — a warning to firefighters and other first responders to use caution when entering.

“It’s definitely not a good thing for Nipper. He is attached to that building, so if something happens to it, it’s going to be kind of hard to take him off,” said Cara Macri, director of preservation services for the Historic Albany Foundation.

The history of Nipper

The flesh-and-blood Nipper lived in late 19th century England and earned his name after trying to bite people's ankles. His owner's brother, Francis Barraud, immortalized the dog posthumously in the painting “His Master’s Voice,” which shows Nipper intrigued by the recorded sound coming from a phonograph horn.

The Gramophone Company in London purchased a version of the image in 1899 and it was registered soon after for use in the United States. The “His Master’s Voice” trademark was acquired in 1929 by the company that became RCA.

Albany's Nipper, with a composite body over a steel frame, was placed by a crane atop the building in the late 1950s to advertise the location of an RCA appliance distributor.

There were many Nipper statues made during his heyday, including a 1958 Nipper statue now at the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore that's 14 feet (4 meters) high and paired with a larger-than-life phonograph.

But Albany’s is bigger. It stands out in a skyline otherwise notable for a modernist state government complex adjacent to the state Capitol, which features a 44-story office tower and theater shaped like a giant egg.

The beloved dog appears on socks, caps, stickers and shot glasses for sale downtown at the Fort Orange General Store, where store owner Erica Cubello said the items are bestsellers.

“He is kind of like our unofficial mascot here at Fort Orange, as well as the city of Albany,” said Cubello, who was wearing a Nipper hoodie.

The dog statue in Albany

Nipper still looks fresh after all these years. But the building below him has sat unused for at least a decade, with paint chipped off the front exterior.

Nothing ever became of plans announced a decade ago to develop apartments and retail space in the newly purchased building. Foreclosure litigation has been going on for years and city tax documents show an attorney acting as a receiver.

Lawyers involved in the litigation didn't immediately respond to calls for comment.

By 2024, the Historic Albany Foundation put the building on its list of places in peril. In March, the city put the red-and-white caution placard up on the building's entrance. Times-Union columnist Chris Churchill soon after sounded the alarm in a piece headlined: “Nipper has our love, but needs more protection.”

Albany Mayor Dorcey Applyrs' office said she is working to add Nipper to the city’s list of historic landmarks, which could help protect the dog and the building from damaging changes. Separately, a state board last month nominated the warehouse district that includes Nipper's building for state and national historic registers. That would make the building eligible for state and federal historic preservation tax credits.

There is no serious talk of moving Nipper from his forever home, which would be logistically challenging and expensive.

Besides, where would the roughly four ton (3,600 kilogram) statue go?

“There’s a whole redevelopment downtown. You could put him there. You could put him on the riverfront,” Macri said. “But he’s a big dog.”

York launched his stick and watched it soar like the Schwarbombs routinely hit across the street, only no one was really sure in the moment where it landed.

“I hope everyone's OK,” York said with a laugh. “Definitely don't want a lawsuit. Just honestly blacked out. I didn't know what to do. I was so excited.”

How does one celebrate a Flyers' playoff series victory?

York roared back like he was going to fling a boomerang. Flyers fans blew horns and whistles around the concourse and belted out on repeat the opening “oh oh oh” of the White Stripes' “Seven Nation Army.” Flyers forward Christian Dvorak's celebration hit a little too hard — a cut busted open above his right eye during the victorious on-ice party and blood streamed down his cheek.

Like he went a few rounds in a fight.

More like six grueling games with Sidney Crosby and a Penguins team that has hoisted Stanley Cups and kicked their cross-state rival to the curb so many times over the last 15-plus years that the matchups often felt less like a heated rivalry and the Flyers treated more like a pesky speed bump in a long regular season.

Not this season. Not in Philadelphia.

Not even when the resurgent Penguins threatened to make a run at playoff history and storm back from a 3-0 series deficit and crush the spirit of a Flyers' team that became the NHL’s first to make the playoffs after being 10 points out of contention with 22 or fewer games remaining.

York and goalie Dan Vladar and his 42 saves had other plans.

The Flyers' 1-0 Game 6 overtime victory over the Penguins on Wednesday night served as early validation that general manager Danny Briere was astute in orchestrating an overdue rebuild and the payoff was a first playoff series win in a full NHL season since 2012. The Flyers accelerated their postseason timeline — in large part due to the late-season arrival of teen sensation Porter Martone — and are essentially playing with house money as they gear up for a second-round series with the top-seeded Carolina Hurricanes.

“We played a great series,” Flyers forward Travis Konecny said. “Now we get a chance to play again.”

Flyers coach Rick Tocchet and the rest of the players said to a man when they held a 3-0 series lead that Crosby and the veteran Penguins were too good, too playoff-tested to go down without a fight. Crosby was everywhere in Pittsburgh’s 3-2 victory in Game 5 and had the Penguins believing that, yes, they could become just the fifth team in NHL history to win a series after trailing 3-0.

Vladar, a journeyman turned Olympian voted the team's MVP this season, turned away everything the Penguins threw at him in much of the series. He had his first shutout of the season (with 27 saves) in Game 2, shook off an unspecified arm injury in Game 3 and put the Flyers on his back in Game 6 — getting the better of a fantastic Arturs Silovs — to steady a position long an albatross for the franchise since the Stanley Cup championship days of Bernie Parent.

All Vladar did was shut out the NHL’s third-highest scoring team during the regular season.

“There was never a doubt,” Vladar said. “Good things happen to good people, and we are good people here.”

Vladar also gave a nod to the odds the Flyers faced just to reach this point of the season and pointed out teammates wearing their good-luck gear.

The Flyers celebrated wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Parent's 1970s mask with sleeves that had “3.8 percent” printed on them as a nod to their slim postseason chances a couple months ago.

Vladar — the fifth goalie in franchise history with a series-clinching shutout — also made the fourth-most saves in a series-clinching shutout win over the past 70 years. The only goaltenders with more are Patrick Roy (63 in Game 4 of 1996 Stanley Cup Final), Andrei Vasilevskiy and Carey Price.

“danvladar you are a BAADDDDD man!!” former Phillies World Series champion Jimmy Rollins wrote on social media.

The Flyers were still feeling sky high well after the final horn.

As for York's stick? Well, it did stick the landing and was gleefully grabbed by a man wearing a white Flyers sweatshirt.

He high-fived fans around him and boasted one heck of a postseason souvenir.

The Flyers can only hope there's so much more fun to come in May.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Here is a timeline of some significant events in the hostilities between the two:

1982: Israel invades Lebanon in an offensive against the Palestine Liberation Organization and allied groups. Hezbollah is formed, with Iranian backing and based on the Iran's Islamic Revolution model, to fight Israel’s ensuing occupation of southern Lebanon. It launches a guerrilla war against Israel.

1992: Hezbollah leader Abbas Mousawi is killed by an Israeli helicopter attack. His successor is Hassan Nasrallah, who will lead the group for the next three decades.

1996: Israel launches an offensive aiming to push Hezbollah north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border. Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana kills at least 100 civilians and wounds scores more.

2000: After a long war of attrition, Israel withdraws its forces from southern Lebanon, which is heralded around the Arab world as a major victory for Hezbollah.

2006: Hezbollah fighters ambush an Israeli patrol, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking two hostage in a cross-border raid, sparking a monthlong war between Hezbollah and Israel that ends in a draw. Israeli bombardment razes villages and residential blocks in southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs, a scorched-earth approach that is dubbed the “Dahiyeh Doctrine.”

2008: Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military chief, is killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded in Damascus. The assassination is blamed on Israel.

2012: Hezbollah enters the Syrian civil war in support of then-President Bashar Assad. In the years that follow, Israel begins periodically carrying out airstrikes in Syria targeting Iranian and Hezbollah facilities and officials or weapons shipments that it said were bound for Hezbollah. Israel still avoided carrying out strikes on Hezbollah on Lebanese territory during this period.

OCT. 8, 2023: One day after the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel sparks the war in Gaza, Hezbollah fires missiles across the border. Israel responds with airstrikes and shelling and the two enter into a low-level conflict that initially remains mainly confined to the border area.

SEPT. 17, 2024: Israel launches an attack in Lebanon using remotely-triggered explosive-laden pagers issued to Hezbollah fighters and civilian employees. A day later, a similar attack targets walkie-talkies. The attacks kill dozens of people and maim thousands, most of them Hezbollah members but also including women and children.

SEPT. 27, 2024: Hassan Nasrallah is killed in a series of massive airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs.

NOV. 27, 2024: A U.S.-brokered ceasefire nominally ends the Israel-Hezbollah war. Israel continues to carry out regular strikes in Lebanon that it says aim to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding.

MARCH 2, 2026: Two days after Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran, triggering a wide-reaching war in the Middle East, Hezbollah launches missiles toward Israel. It says the salvo is in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and for “repeated Israeli aggressions” in Lebanon.

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This story was first published on Apr. 9, 2026. It was updated on Apr. 30, 2026, to correct the date of the start of the most recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. It is March 2, 2026, not March 2, 2025.

The 6-3 ruling effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act's requirement that districts be drawn to give minority voters a chance to elect representatives of their choosing. One practical effect of that requirement was the protection of reliably Democratic-voting majority-minority districts, even in solidly red states where lawmakers could otherwise favor the GOP.

With that mandate now largely gone, Republican lawmakers across the country — and especially in the South — have a freer hand to eliminate Democratic-leaning districts and pad the total number of seats they can win to hold the U.S. House. There are more than a dozen such seats in Republican-controlled states.

Shortly after the ruling, Republicans were urging a review of their congressional maps in Louisiana, Tennessee and elsewhere.

Their immediate challenge is that the ruling came down well after filing deadlines for this year's primary elections — and in some cases, after those primary elections have been held. That means ballots are set and in some states early and absentee voting has already begun.

‘No time to waste’

The timing makes it difficult to tear up maps and draw new ones. In Louisiana, where the mandate to draw a second, Democratic-leaning majority-Black House district led to Tuesday's decision, the primary election for federal offices is set for May 16 — and early voting is scheduled to begin Saturday. Nevertheless, the state's governor, attorney general and legislative leaders were meeting to discuss how the state would respond.

Republicans have been scrambling to comply with President Donald Trump's directive to redraw maps to add more winnable House seats to stave off losses in the midterms. In a sign of the pressure for Republicans to take advantage of the opportunity, multiple hopefuls running for governor in GOP primaries called for immediate redraws.

“There is no time to waste," Rick Jackson, a businessman and GOP governor candidate in Georgia, said in urging a redraw there even as voting is underway for the May 19 primary. "Georgia must act now to ensure secure elections in Georgia and counter the Democrats’ national assault on our elections.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, running for the GOP nomination for governor in Tennessee, called for redrawing that state's congressional map to replace its lone, majority-Black Democratic congressional seat with one more winnable for Republicans — even though that state's deadline for candidates to get on the ballot was March 10.

In a social media post, Trump praised the opinion by “brilliant Justice Samuel Alito” for returning “the Voting Rights Act to its Original Intent, which was to protect against intentional Racial Discrimination.”

Primary calendar is the main obstacle to redrawing maps

Democrats have managed to largely counter Republicans' push to draw more winnable seats in the round of mid-decade redistricting that started last year, but there is no clear way they could match the GOP's potential gains from the effective loss of the Voting Rights Act.

“It should not be lost on anyone that the Roberts court makes this decision at a time when Republican leaders across the country are foaming at the mouth to draw the American people out of a meaningful say in our elections,” former Attorney General Eric Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement, referring to the court's Republican-nominated chief justice, John Roberts. "They want to retain illegitimately obtained power through the use of, among other things, now Supreme Court-sanctioned racial and partisan gerrymandering.”

Only one Republican state has a relatively clear path to gaining seats from the decision in time for the midterms — Florida. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis has called a special session to adopt his map that could give his party four new winnable House seats. DeSantis had been counting on the Supreme Court ruling as it did Wednesday, and his state's primary is not until August.

The Florida Legislature approved the new congressional map Wednesday.

Other states have to confront the unprecedented possibility of revising maps even as voters are casting ballots or the legal process of declaring intent to run for office has concluded.

“I don’t know what the implications are going be for the fall. It's pretty late,” said Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

He said any redistricting decisions in the weeks ahead would be up to governors and legislatures.

Voting Rights Act ‘essentially dead’

In the longer term, the ruling clears the way for a drastic reshaping of the nation's political geography, at least by the time of the next presidential election year in 2028.

“The Voting Rights Act as a means to protect minority voters from vote dilution is essentially dead,” said Jonathan Cervas, a political scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who has worked as the court-appointed special master and mapmaker in multiple Voting Rights Act cases. “It's hard to imagine how this decision does not lead to additional GOP districts into the future.”

Cervas noted the Voting Rights Act isn't necessarily a partisan benefit for Democrats. Its most frequent use comes in local, nonpartisan races for offices such as school board or city council. But Republicans have long complained that Democrats have used the law to get winnable districts for their Black voters in red states that Republican-leaning white voters could never receive in blue states.

“For decades the left has spent hundreds of millions of dollars seeking to divide Americans along racial lines in a cynical pursuit of partisan power masquerading as civil rights,” Adam Kincaid, the National Republican Redistricting Trust’s executive director, said in a statement. “Today’s decision rebukes that divisive and unconstitutional effort.”

Democratic states might want to preserve minority districts

While the Voting Rights Act has helped preserve Democratic-leaning districts, those voters don't vanish just because of Wednesday's ruling. Republicans in some states cannot just eliminate all those districts without spreading enough Democratic voters around to jeopardize their own incumbents.

Likewise, the requirement that Democratic-leaning minority voters be concentrated in certain districts has occasionally hurt Democrats in states such as Michigan, lowering the number of swing districts they might win. The party could partly counter Republican gains by spreading minority voters wider in states it controls.

But there will be political pressure against that from some Black and Hispanic Democrats who want to ensure their communities still command the majority in certain districts. Democratic-controlled states also are more likely to have nonpartisan redistricting commissions that make their congressional maps less partisan and increasingly have adopted state-level versions of the Voting Rights Act to protect sometimes marginalized communities.

That will take time, but it all points to a far less regulated environment for mapmaking in the years to come.

That worries Thomas Johnson, a Black voter in New Orleans who was at the state Capitol to lobby on unrelated legislation Wednesday when the Supreme Court ruling came down. The majority-Black congressional district in which he lives can now be diced up by that state's Republican legislature.

“We are going to do all we can and continue fighting so our voices are heard,” Johnson said. “That’s all we want, to be heard.”

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Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Lisa Mascaro in Washington, Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.

A dyslexic teenager from a working-class background, Welch struggled with his college entry exams and took a job installing tires after leaving school at age 15. When he lost that gig, he lined up at the Liverpool job center. The job board featured a funeral director's listing — a “great career," he's sure, but “pretty grim" — and an advertisement for a charity event where entrepreneurs could win business grants.

Welch took that one and, less than 24 hours later, found himself inside a church filled with vintage furniture and friendly grandparents. It looked nothing like ABC's “Shark Tank," but he recalls feeling very much like one of the reality show's contestants as he described his proposal to sell cheaper tires to niche customers like his friends who drove souped-up cars.

That was Welch's first interaction with the then-Prince's Trust, which became known as The King's Trust when King Charles III became Britain's ruling monarch in 2023. “It wasn’t a well thought out plan, really,” said Welch, who is now based in Florida. “But they backed me. And they backed my enthusiasm. And they gave me a chance.”

Generations of Brits can tell stories similar to Welch, thanks to The Prince's Trust and The King's Trust, which have been supporting young people launch their careers since 1976, when then-Prince Charles took his Royal Navy severance pay and established the charity at a time of great economic distress for the United Kingdom. In the past 50 years, the King's Trust says it has reached more than 1.3 million young Brits through its education and employment initiatives, creating numerous success stories including those of celebrated actor Idris Elba and noted fashion designer Ozwald Boateng.

As Charles and Queen Camilla continued their first state visit to the U.S. since he became king, they nodded to The King's Trust with a gala Wednesday in New York, as the charity works to deepen its impact in more than two dozen countries including the United States. Attendees included Anna Wintour, Charlotte Tilbury, Donatella Versace, Lionel Richie and Martha Stewart.

At the event, Charles emphasized that “potential and latent talent truly knows no bounds once you help develop it.”

“I won't see the long-distance future,” he told attendees. "But I'm enormously grateful to you all for what you can all do as supporters to help this vital endeavor, to champion the next generation, ensuring their talent and ambition continue to strengthen our societies for many years to come.”

Members of the British Royal Family have traditionally served as patrons of charities, boosting awareness and fundraising for existing organizations in the areas where they rule as nobles. Observers say Charles' lasting interest in young people's employment is evident as he continues lending his title to its expanding work.

Giving young people an opportunity

The trust's programs reach young people through schools and established nonprofit partners. They include Get Hired, which helps young people land their first jobs, and the Development Awards, a grant that helps them afford purchases to advance their careers such as a laptop or professional clothing.

The Enterprise Challenge is an afterschool program where students develop businesses that address a problem in their community.

“What we see every time is that young people want to be helped. They want to be taken seriously,” said Jeremy Green, a trustee of the King’s Trust Group Company and chair of the King’s Trust USA. "And it’s not just giving them money. It’s giving them opportunity.”

LaKenya Sharpe, principal of The Collins Academy High School in the Chicago neighborhood of North Lawndale, said being taken seriously by such an organization has meant the world to her students. They won the King's Trust US' Enterprise Challenge for launching a business that grows and sells fresh vegetables to stores in their area, which lacked access to stores that sold produce.

The “babies” in her community often feel as if no one pays attention to them, she said.

“This shows that they can achieve anything," Sharpe added. "Their belief now is ‘Oh, other people are watching. Other people are seeing this.’ And they ask ‘How far can this go?’ My answer is, 'It can go as far as you guys take it. Don’t let anything limit you.'”

Highlighting philanthropic ties between the US and UK

Wednesday's gala arrived at a moment of unusual tension between the elected leaders of the two longstanding allies. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s refusal to support the United States’ war in Iran has angered President Donald Trump.

Charles noted the “wonderful opportunity” to celebrate “the enduring cultural bond” between the two countries, whose relationship he said is “rooted in shared creativity, enterprise and values.”

“Reminding us we are truly greater together. That's the point,” Charles told attendees.

The trust’s leaders emphasized they'd been planning anniversary celebrations long before the recent rift. But Charles' emphasis on the country’s deep philanthropic ties could serve as a reminder of their shared interests, said JP Tribe, a senior lecturer in law at the University of Liverpool who has written about royal patronages.

Tribe hoped the gala showed “that both countries have and can continue to engage in very positive public benefit activity that helps the most disadvantaged in our society.”

Expanding in the United States

The King's Trust US has set a goal to reach 1,000 young people in the United States this year.

Their biggest partner in that effort is City Year, the education nonprofit that introduced The Collins Academy to The King’s Trust and sends young adults to help teach in schools nationwide. AmeriCorps members are helping them pilot a version of the “Get Hired” program. They're also relying on the nonprofit Per Scholas and Maryland school districts to test some other programs.

Gore said student participants tend to be very focused on their immediate communities. The goal is to show them they can have an impact where they live.

"Keeping employment in communities and keeping people in communities is actually the key to everyone’s success," Gore said.

Welch said it doesn't require giant investments to make an impact. He received a 500 pound ($677) grant and, perhaps more importantly, a mentor who provided office space for the nascent company that he’d eventually sell for 50 million pounds ($68 million) to Michelin.

He said the blueprint for The King's Trust's expansion to succeed already exists. It's just a matter of building relationships with on-the-ground partners who can reach the people with the most need.

“What we see in Chicago, what we see in Orlando, is really no different -- with obvious local nuances," said Welch, who launched his latest venture the Anglo Atlantic advisory and investment firm. "But it’s not very different to what we see in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester.”

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

The Golden Knights take a 3-2 lead into their best-of-seven NHL playoffs series on Friday night in Salt Lake City.

Vegas' Pavel Dorofeyev's six-on-five goal with 52.7 seconds left in regulation forced overtime and gave him the sixth playoff hat trick in franchise history. Dorofeyev had two goals in 13 career playoff games before this one.

“That was a huge game by him,” Golden Knights center Jack Eichel said. “He's a huge part of our team, and it was awesome to see him find the back of the net a few times. It seems like he's been playing pretty well these last few nights and it's great to see him get rewarded.”

Neither team scored in the first overtime, the first time this series either side failed in a period to hit the back of the net.

“I think that was a hell of a game,” Mammoth coach André Tourigny said. “I think both teams played really hard. We were really close. Unfortunately, we gave that six-on-five goal and could not get it done in overtime, but I'm really proud of the way the guys played.”

Also for the Golden Knights, Shea Theodore has a goal and assist and Eichel had two assists. Carter Hart stopped 34 shots.

John Marino, Lawson Crouse and Dylan Guenther scored for the Mammoth and Clayton Keller had two assists. Karel Vejmelka made 31 saves.

Utah rallied in the third period when Guenther tied it at 5:54 on a rush play and Michael Carcone on a two-on-one with 7:18 left.

Both teams have continued to struggle on the power play, combining to go 1 for 10. Vegas ended a scoring drought of 13 power plays when Dorofeyev scored from the right circle to make it 1-1 with 40.2 seconds left in the first period. But the Golden Knights are just 3 for 18 for the series, which is better than Utah's 1-for-14 showing.

Vegas also has two short-handed goals this series, both from Howden that included his shot from the slot to win Game 5. The Golden Knights forced the action that resulted in a faceoff in Utah's zone. Vegas won the faceoff, Mitch Marner dug the puck from the boards and fed Howden for the winner.

“(Marner) did a good job of getting the stick in there and interrupting play,” Howden said. “It just kind of popped out and I just tried to get a shot. After that, just kind of blacked out.”

The Golden Knights twice rallied in the first two periods, and goals 1:38 apart by Dorofeyev and Theodore late in the second put them ahead 3-2. It's the first time Vegas took the lead into the third period in this series, but the Golden Knights were the NHL's best third-period team in the regular season with a plus-47 goal differential.

But both teams have been resilient — and physical.

They combined for 86 hits, each side determined to assert itself. But those also sometimes resulted in unnecessary penalties, with the Mammoth taking three in the first period on an open-ice interference by Nick Schmaltz, a clothesline takedown of Ivan Barbashev by Logan Cooley officially called holding and a boarding minor on Mikhail Sergachev.

The Golden Knights were hardly blameless. Cole Smith picked up a double-minor high-sticking penalty just 11 seconds into third period, but Vegas killed off the four minutes.

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

On Thursday, he was awarded $61,000 and a car by the president.

Sawe, the first person to officially break the two-hour barrier in an marathon, was welcomed home by his parents and Sports Minister Salim Mvurya, who hailed the runner's accomplishment at the London Marathon as “a win for Kenya.”

President William Ruto held a more formal welcoming ceremony Thursday, where he described Sawe's win as “a defining moment in the history of human endurance.”

Sawe gave President Ruto an autographed Adidas Adizero shoe worn during Sunday’s marathon. He also autographed a photo of the moment he broke the world record.

Sawe made history on Sunday when he won in a time of 1 hour, 59 minutes, 30 seconds. He bettered the previous men’s world record by 65 seconds.

On arrival Wednesday at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Sawe told The Associated Press he was proud to have “made a great achievement in life” and was planning to “try and lower the record further.”

He was adorned with a traditional wreath made from twigs to symbolize victory.

Traditional dancers sang his praises as he then climbed into a luxury government vehicle as part of the “heroic welcome” hailed by the sports minister.

Sawe's parents told The AP they knew their son was destined for greatness even as a child. His mother recounted how he sprinted during bath time.

“He would run too fast. So, I would say to myself, this boy will shine for me one day,” Emily Sawe said.

His father recounted some tension watching Sunday’s marathon because of the television lacked a clear signal.

“The moment my son pulled in front, I walked out and didn’t see him finish the race. I watched the replay afterwards. I was so happy, extremely happy. We screamed so much that now it is hard to swallow anything,” Simion Kiplagat Sawe said.

Sabastian Sawe was introduced to professional running by his uncle, Abraham Chepkirwok, who ran the 800 meters for Uganda at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Sawe won the Valencia Marathon in 2024, clocking 2:02:05. He went into Sunday's race in London as the defending champion.

His father says Sawe is disciplined and determined: “Even now, he still says that record was not enough; he wants to lower it further."

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

“I worry these attacks are battering this institution and putting at risk the things that really matter to the public,” Powell said in remarks at a press conference after the Fed announced its decision to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged.

Powell’s decision to stay — the first time a Fed chair will remain on the board as a governor since 1948 — denies President Donald Trump a chance to fill a seat on the central bank’s seven-member governing board with his own appointee. The Senate Banking Committee earlier approved Powell’s successor as chair, Trump appointee Kevin Warsh, on a party-line vote. Powell will continue as a Fed governor, possibly until January 2028. Warsh, if confirmed, will take a seat currently held by Stephen Miran, a previous Trump appointee, whose term ended in January.

Powell's move could make it a bit harder for Warsh to engineer the rate cuts that Trump has demanded, and Warsh advocated for last year, economists say.

“It probably means it will take Warsh a little bit longer to build the consensus he is trying to build,” said David Seif, chief economist for developed markets at Nomura, an investment bank.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said on X Friday that her office was ending its probe into the Fed’s extensive building renovations because the Fed’s inspector general would scrutinize them instead. But she added that her office could reopen the investigation if “the facts warrant doing so.” And Pirro had said previously that she would appeal a court ruling that threw out subpoenas her office had issued.

Powell said Wednesday he had been assured by the Justice Department that the appeal wouldn't result in a reopening of the probe unless a separate investigation by the Fed's inspector general finds evidence of criminal activity.

Apparently, that didn't bring Powell the closure he felt is needed.

“I’m waiting for the investigation to be well and truly over with finality and transparency," he said. "I’m waiting for that and I will leave when I think it appropriate to do so.”

The Fed Wednesday left its benchmark interest rate unchanged for the third straight meeting but signaled it could still cut rates in the coming months, moves that attracted the most dissents since October 1992. Three officials dissented in favor of removing the reference to a future cut, while a fourth, Miran, dissented in favor of an immediate rate cut.

The dissents underscore the level of division on the Fed's 12-member rate-setting committee ahead of the end of Powell's term as chair on May 15.

“Developments in the Middle East are contributing to a high level of uncertainty about the economic outlook,” the Fed said in a statement after its two-day meeting. “Inflation is elevated, in part reflecting the recent increase in global energy prices.”

Trump responded to Powell's decision late Wednesday on his social media website: “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell wants to stay at the Fed because he can’t get a job anywhere else — Nobody wants him,” Trump posted, using his nickname for the Fed chair.

Warsh has promised “regime change” at the central bank and may make sweeping changes to its economic models, communications strategies, and balance sheet. He has argued in favor of rate cuts, as Trump has demanded, but he will likely find it harder to implement them with inflation topping 3%, above the Fed’s target of 2%.

When asked if he believed Warsh would stand up to political pressure from Trump, Powell answered, “He testified very strongly at his hearing, and I take him at his word.”

The three officials who dissented against hinting that the Fed may reduce borrowing costs were Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland; Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Fed; and Lorie Logan, president of the Dallas Fed. The regional Fed bank presidents have historically been more likely to dissent, while the Washington-based governors more often support the chair.

The dissents could renew tension between the Trump administration and the bank presidents, who White House officials have previously criticized.

Beth Ann Bovino, chief economist at US Bank, said the dissents demonstrated that Fed policymakers are “very independent" and will likely be on hold for months longer. She has forecast a rate cut in December but now isn't sure. Wall Street investors on average don't expect a reduction until well into next year, according to futures pricing.

Powell's decision to stay on could worsen tensions with the Trump administration and would create what some analysts refer to as a “two Popes” scenario, with a chair and former chair both on the Fed’s board. In that case, divisions among policymakers could increase, if some decided to follow Powell's lead rather than Warsh's.

Powell dismissed the notion that his staying on could cause dissension, saying, “My intention is not to interfere," later adding that, “I’m not looking to be a high profile dissident or anything like that."

Still, Powell said he remained concerned about the Fed's independence from the White House, which he said is essential to its ability to set rates to benefit the public, rather than in response to political pressure. When the Fed raises or cuts its short-term rate, over time it affects the cost of mortgages, auto loans, and business borrowing.

Fed independence remains “at risk,” he said. "We’re having to resort to the courts to enforce our ... ability to make monetary policy without political considerations. We’ve had to do that and we’ve been successful so far, but that’s not over, none of that has concluded yet.”

The unusual situation comes while the economic picture remains unusually murky, putting the Fed in a difficult spot. Inflation has jumped to 3.3%, a two-year high, as the war has sharply raised gas prices. That makes it harder for the central bank to reduce rates. The Fed typically leaves rates unchanged, or even raises them, if inflation is worsening.

At the same time, hiring has ground almost to a halt, leaving those without jobs frustrated by the difficulty of finding new ones. Typically, the Fed cuts rates when the job market is weak, to spur more spending and job gains.

But layoffs also remain low, as employers appear to be following a “ low-hire, low-fire ” strategy. Many Fed officials have suggested that as long as the unemployment rate is low, the central bank doesn't need to cut rates to spur more spending and hiring. Unemployment declined to 4.3% in March, from 4.4%.

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AP Writer Alex Veiga contributed to this report.

It will be the first time in nearly two decades — and in Russia’s 4-year-old war in Ukraine — that no military equipment will rumble through Moscow’s Red Square on May 9, the day Russia celebrates its most important secular holiday. The Kremlin has used it to showcase its military might and global clout, and it is a source of patriotic pride.

Victory Day parades on Red Square have involved military equipment and various weaponry every year since 2008. Smaller parades are held elsewhere across the country, including in cities like St. Petersburg.

The ministry cited the “current operational situation” as a reason for excluding military equipment, as well as cadets, from this year’s parade on the 81st anniversary of the victory. Ukraine has launched drone attacks deep inside Russia to counter Moscow’s more than 4-year-old invasion.

While the ministry did not elaborate, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday blamed Ukraine, accusing it of “terrorist activity,” in an apparent reference to the drone strikes. In recent months, attacks have reached locations deep inside Russia, like the Baltic port of Ust-Luga to the north of Moscow, the Samara region near the border with Kazakhstan, and the Perm region in the Ural mountains.

“All measures are being taken to minimize the danger,” he told reporters.

The parade will feature “servicemen from higher military educational institutions of all kinds and certain service branches of the Russian Armed Forces” and a traditional military aircraft flyover, the ministry said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. President Donald Trump in a phone call later Wednesday that he was ready to declare a ceasefire with Ukraine for the Victory Day holiday, according to presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov.

Ushakov said the Trump had supported the idea as the holiday marked “our common victory over fascism” in World War II.

Boosting national pride

World War II remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule, and the Kremlin has leveraged that sentiment to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power.

The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in what it calls the Great Patriotic War in 1941-45, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche.

President Vladimir Putin, who has ruled Russia for over 25 years, has turned Victory Day into a key pillar of his tenure and has tried to use it to justify the war in Ukraine.

“Traditionally, the parade of tanks, missile systems and other military hardware across Red Square has been central to these celebrations, providing powerful optics and reinforcing Russia’s image as the heir to Soviet victory in World War II," said Natia Seskuria, associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute.

"Removing this important element weakens the propaganda value of the event, particularly for domestic audiences, as it reduces one of the most visible symbols of Russian power and military prestige,” she told The Associated Press.

Security concerns are the most likely explanation, Seskuria said.

But there also could be practical military considerations, "including the need to preserve equipment, avoid highlighting battlefield losses, and reduce the exposure of valuable military assets,” she said,

"This decision signals a degree of vulnerability rather than strength, because even last year, Russia demonstrated a range of new tanks and drones in front of invited world leaders,” Seskuria added.

An 80th anniversary drew dignitaries

Last year’s parade on the 80th anniversary was the largest since Russia sent troops into Ukraine, and drew the most global leaders to Moscow in a decade, including high-profile guests like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Fico will attend this year, too, along with other foreign dignitaries, Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said Wednesday.

It featured over 11,500 troops and more than 180 military vehicles, including tanks, armored infantry vehicles and artillery used on the battlefield in Ukraine, as well as huge Yars nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles as well as drones carried on military trucks. Fighter jets flew over Red Square, too.

Putin had declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire starting May 7, 2025, and authorities blocked cellphone internet in Moscow for several days to avert Ukrainian drone attacks.

In 2023, the parade was scaled down, with fewer troops and military equipment on display and no flyover.

In the Soviet era, the first Red Square parade marking the defeat of Nazi Germany took place on June 24, 1945. Then it was held on May 9 several times after that, with the last Soviet-era parade taking place in 1990.

After the USSR collapsed, the parades resumed in 1995. That year, troops and veterans marched through Red Square, and a separate parade of military equipment took place at the sprawling Poklonnaya Gora World War II memorial. After that, parades were held every year. In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities moved the parade to a later date, and it was held on June 24.

Alperen Sengun had 14 points, nine rebounds and eight assists for the fifth-seeded Rockets, who sent the series back to Houston for Game 6 on Friday night with a gritty performance to overcome Austin Reaves' return to the Lakers.

Houston has won two straight even without top scorer Kevin Durant, who has missed four of the series' five games with injuries.

“We put ourselves in a bad position, but we can still make history and come back one game at a time,” Sengun said. “Play at home, come back here, just do the same thing we're doing.”

No team has ever recovered from an 0-3 deficit to win an NBA playoff series, but the Rockets are halfway. Only four of the 159 teams to start a series down 0-3 have ever even forced a Game 7.

LeBron James scored 17 of his 25 points in the second half and added seven assists, but Los Angeles lost its second straight after stealing Game 3 with an improbable rally in the final seconds of regulation.

James’ teams have never blown a 2-0 series lead in his entire 23-year NBA career.

“Listen, it’s one game,” James said. “You give credit where credit is due. They played well the last two games, exceptionally well, and we’ve got to answer the call.”

Reaves had 22 points and six assists in his return from a nine-game injury absence for the Lakers, but they committed 15 mostly atrocious turnovers in their worst performance of the series and only their second loss in 16 home games since February.

Los Angeles awoke for a late 11-1 run and trimmed Houston’s lead to 88-85 on a driving layup by James, but Reed Sheppard hit a jumper before ripping the ball away from James for a dunk with 2:20 to play. The moment looked like redemption for Sheppard, who committed a turnover forced by James that led to the Lakers' last-minute comeback to tie Game 3.

"After what happened in Game 3, we could have very easily shut it down and pouted and quit," said Sheppard, who was ill with congestion and a headache during the day. “That's not what we did. We watched it and we learned from it. We keep fighting and keep giving ourselves a chance to win.”

Deandre Ayton had 18 points and 17 rebounds for Los Angeles, which is still without Luka Doncic. The NBA scoring champion doesn't appear to be close to a return from a strained hamstring.

Strained oblique muscles had sidelined Reaves since April 2, but he had 11 points and six assists in the first half of Game 5. Yet the Rockets coolly carried an advantage into the second half and led 87-74 with 5:55 to play.

Ayton's putback dunk made it 96-93 after James and Reaves both missed open 3-pointers. But Thompson hit one of two free throws, and James badly missed another 3-point attempt that allowed Houston to ice it.

The Rockets shot particularly poorly while losing the series' first two games in Los Angeles, but they've rediscovered their collective touch while running a balanced offense in Durant's absence. Houston has played with the confidence exemplified Tuesday by Smith, who claimed the Rockets were “obviously the better team” despite their 3-1 series deficit.

The Rockets' resilience is also good news for the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, who are resting and awaiting the series winner after sweeping Phoenix.

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

Danylo Tsvok said AI is already helping Ukraine hold territory, while reducing risks to its soldiers as it faces a larger, better-resourced adversary.

“We need to be faster than the enemy in decision-making,” he told The Associated Press, adding that AI is “not only a competitive advantage. It’s about our survival.”

Tsvok, 35, leads the Defense Artificial Intelligence Center, which was established last month by the Defense Ministry. He previously served in the government’s top civilian AI role.

Ukraine and Russia are locked in an intensifying race to deploy increasingly automated systems — from aerial drones to ground and maritime platforms. At the center of that race is the ability to maintain operations under heavy electronic warfare.

Many newer systems are designed to shift toward autonomous functionality, maintaining target focus even under hostile jamming.

Ukraine’s rapidly expanding domestic arms sector now includes more than 2,000 manufacturers and military technology firms. Developers are testing tools that enable coordinated drone swarms, aiming to boost efficiency while easing the burden on human operators.

“We need to understand that the future belongs to autonomous systems,” Tsvok said. “AI makes it possible to automate parts of the kill chain.”

In its more mature form, he said, AI could underpin a networked battlefield in which smart weapons operate in coordination under a unified assessment platform.

“That could happen within three to five years,” he said. “Within that time frame, front lines could be secured by tightly integrated hardware and software systems.”

In the nearer term, he pointed to wider deployment of autonomous interceptors, expanded use of ground-based robotic systems, and an escalation in electronic warfare capabilities.

Some elements are already in place. Unmanned ground platforms are increasingly used in logistics, evacuation and combat roles.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently said land drones supported more than 20,000 battlefield missions — including medical evacuations, supply runs and direct combat — over a three-month period this year. Among them, he said, was a successful attack carried out without any human soldiers.

Tsvok insisted the objective is not fully autonomous ‘killer robots,’ but a more coordinated system that accelerates decision-making and integrates more closely with Western partners.

“It’s not about reaching 100% autonomy, it’s about being efficient on the battlefield,” he said.

Ukraine is deepening partnerships with Western allies and Gulf states to secure funding, scale production and embed itself in security alliances, while also opening access to its extensive battlefield data.

Tsvok’s department receives financial support from the U.K. Ministry of Defence — the type of relationship he described as both militarily and politically significant.

“Democracies must develop strong defensive capabilities,” he said. “Without AI, they cannot effectively protect peace. This is not only about Ukraine. It’s about global security.”

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Volodymyr Yurchuk and Vasilisa Stepanenko in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed.

The Rockets became just the 16th team, after trailing 3-0 in a series, to bounce back and force a 6th game.

All-time no NBA team has ever won a series after trailing 3-0. Teams overall are 0-160 in that scenario with only four teams coming back to force a game 7.

“We have a resilient group that plays hard every night, that’s our DNA,” Head Coach Ime Udoka said after the win Wednesday night. “We’ll battle and there have been plenty of positives to look at in this series.”

Kevin Durant once again sat out Wednesday’s game and he has now missed 4 of the first 5 games in the series. Durant is not expected to be ready to play in Game 6 but the Rockets have yet to make any official announcement.

Leading the way for the Rockets, who led by as many as 13 points early in the 4th quarter, were Jabari Smith Jr ( 22 points), Tari Eason (18 points), and Alperen Sengun (14 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists).

Bench production had been limited early in the series but Wednesday the Rockets got a boost from Dorian Finney-Smith ( 6 points, 11 minutes), Aaron Holiday (5 points, 13 minutes) and Josh Okogie ( 7 points, 18 minutes).

Houston finished with 14 three-pointers on 40 attempts with seven different Rockets players hitting from distance.

Rookie Jakub Dobes stopped 38 shots to help Montreal move within a victory of advancing for the first time since losing to the Lightning in the Stanley Cup Finals in 2021.

Brendan Gallagher got his first goal in his first game this series and Kirby Dach also scored for the Canadiens.

“It's obviously exciting,” said Gallagher, who was a healthy scratch the first four games. “It's been a fun series to watch. I tried to follow their lead and find a way to contribute and I did that.”

Game 6 is Friday night in Montreal, where the teams split Games 3 and 4. All five games have been decided by one goal, including overtime in the first three.

Dominic James scored his first career playoff goal and Jake Guentzel also connected for the Lightning. They are one loss from being eliminated in the first round for the fourth straight season.

Tampa Bay has lost 10 of its last 12 home games in the postseason despite 460 consecutive sellouts.

“We got no choice now. We got to show up or we're out,” Lightning forward Brayden Point said.

Texier took a long pass from Lane Hutson, skated into the left circle and ripped a shot that bounced off Andrei Vasilevskiy’s glove and into the net for a 3-2 lead early in the third.

“I'm not a 50-goal scorer,” Texier said. “When I have a chance, I just try to put it on net and sometimes you're lucky it's in and sometimes not.”

The Canadiens jumped ahead three minutes into the game when Gallagher wristed in a rebound after Vasilevskiy kicked away Alex Newhook’s backhander. Gallagher, the 14-year veteran, spent time the first four games giving the young players advice.

“I was happy for him and happy for us,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said about Gallagher. “Really happy the way he's handled everything and not surprised the way he played.”

Seconds after James blasted a slap shot past Dobes on a 2-on-1 breakaway, the Canadiens regained the lead. Dach skated down the left side, went around a defender, lost the puck, kicked it from his skate to his stick in front of the net and put it in.

Dach deactivated his Instagram account after receiving online criticism because his defensive lapse led to the winning goal in overtime in Game 2. He had a goal and an assist in Montreal’s 3-2 overtime win the next game.

Guentzel fired a slap shot between Dobes’ legs on another 2-on-1 breakaway to tie it at 2 late in the second. Guentzel has the best playoff goal-scoring ratio among American-born players in NHL history with 43 goals in 79 games.

The Lightning killed off a four-minute disadvantage after Ryan McDonagh’s double minor for high-sticking in the first period. The Canadiens managed just one shot on net during the power play.

Montreal had better scoring chances on two of Tampa Bay’s power plays in the second period. Vasilevskiy stopped Jake Evans on a short-handed breakaway on one of them. ___

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Some officials were members of Mexico's progressive ruling party, Morena, posing a political conundrum for Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as she seeks to offset mounting pressures from the Trump administration. Some of those politicians called the indictment a political attack on their party.

U.S. federal officials announced the charges in a news release. None of the defendants were in custody, but Mexico's government said shortly afterward that it had received multiple extradition requests from the U.S. without identifying those requested. It did not say how it would respond.

Morena party members indicted

The 10 people charged in Manhattan federal court are current and former government or law enforcement officials in Sinaloa, including Rubén Rocha Moya, 76, who has been governor of Mexico's Sinaloa state since November 2021.

Charges against Moya included narcotics importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices, along with another conspiracy count. If convicted, he could face life in prison or a mandatory minimum of 40 years behind bars.

Rocha was a staunch ally of Sheinbaum's mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The governor enthusiastically backed the ex-president's “Hugs, Not Bullets” policy, which involved avoiding direct confrontation with powerful drug cartels. López Obrador built a political platform by railing against endemic corruption plaguing Mexican politics.

Rocha, the highest profile official charged, said he “categorically and completely rejects” the accusations as baseless and called them an “attack” on Mexico’s ruling party and its leaders.

“It is part of a perverse strategy to violate (Mexico’s) constitutional order, specifically on national sovereignty, ” he wrote in a post on X on Wednesday afternoon. “We will show them that this slander doesn’t have any sort of foundation.”

Later in the day, he told reporters that he planned to stay in Sinaloa and wasn’t worried.

Ties to Sinaloa Cartel

Some of those named, according to the indictment, have themselves participated in the Sinaloa Cartel's campaign of violence and retribution.

Those charged included a Mexican senator, a Sinaloa state deputy attorney general, a former Sinaloa secretary of public security, a former deputy director of the Sinaloa State Police and the mayor of Culiacan.

According to the indictment, the defendants shielded cartel leaders from investigation, arrest, and prosecution, fed the cartel with sensitive law enforcement and military information, directed members of state and local law enforcement agencies to protect drug loads and let the cartel commit brutal drug-related violence without consequence. In return, it said, the defendants received millions of dollars in drug money.

The indictment alleged that they were closely aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel faction known as “Los Chapitos,” which is run by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the ex-cartel leader now serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.

Authorities said the defendants played critical roles in helping the cartel ship fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico into the U.S. The Sinaloa Cartel is among eight Latin American crime groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

“As the indictment lays bare, the Sinaloa Cartel, and other drug trafficking organizations like it, would not operate as freely or successfully without corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials on their payroll,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a release.

The indictment of Rocha, who was born in the same town as “El Chapo,” was particularly notable because the governor was embroiled in a scandal in 2024 involving the Sinaloa Cartel. His name was published in a letter written by a then-Sinaloa Cartel capo who was kidnapped by leaders of a rival faction of the cartel and handed off to law enforcement in the U.S. In the letter, the capo said that when he was kidnapped he believed he was on his way to meet with Rocha.

In the years since, the cartel's two warring factions have ravaged the northern Mexican state in their struggle for territorial control.

Among those indicted, at least three officials — Rocha, the mayor of Sinaloa’s capital, and a senator — were affiliated with Sheinbaum’s party, Morena. A number of other officials held positions unaffiliated with Mexican parties.

It's not the first time the U.S. has brought drug trafficking charges against ranking Mexican officials. Genaro García Luna — a former Mexican public security secretary under former President Felipe Calderón — was convicted by a U.S. court and sentenced to 38 years in prison after he was accused of taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. He denied the allegations and is appealing his conviction.

Another balancing act for Sheinbaum

The indictment unsealed Wednesday come after U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson last week said that the U.S. administration would launch an anti-corruption campaign targeting Mexican officials he said were linked to organized crime.

"Corruption not only hinders progress, it distorts it. It increases costs, weakens competition, and erodes the trust upon which markets depend. It is not a problem without victims,” Johnson said.

Sheinbaum responded Monday by saying her government has not seen “any evidence” of the charges of corruption.

“Any investigation in the United States against any person in Mexico must have evidence reviewed by the (Mexican) Attorney General’s Office,” Sheinbaum said.

Sheinbaum’s government has already detained several local officials across Mexico in its ongoing crackdown against the cartels, fueled by pressure by the Trump administration.

The indictment has once again forced the Mexican leader to walk a political tightrope, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution who specializes in organized crime.

If Sheinbaum doesn’t go after Rocha, it will put strain on relations with the U.S. ahead of renegotiations of a free-trade agreement with the U.S. crucial to the Mexican economy, the analyst said. If she does arrest him, “it carries tremendous consequences for her politically” ahead of next year’s midterm elections in Mexico.

“Is she going to move to arrest Gov. Rocha and the other eight indicted politicians and attempt to extradite him to the United States? This is certainly what the United States wants,” Felbab-Brown said.

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This story has been corrected to show the scandal that embroiled Rocha was in 2024, not 2023.

Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press writers María Verza and Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed.

In the eighth minute, Dynamo winger Duane Holmes was taken down in the box, earning a penalty. Jack McGlynn was making his first start since returning from injury and stepped up to the spot and fired, but the shot was saved onto the post to keep the score level at 0-0.

The score would remain level for the first forty-five minutes, with both teams coming close but unable to capitalize on promising first half attacks.

Louisville would break the deadlock in the 67th minute, as Ray Serrano tapped home first time, assisted by Chris Donovan on the break.

The lead would remain until the 89th minute. A terrific curling ball found a streaking Erik Sviatchenko at the back post. Houston’s #16 dove to connect with a header just past the outstretched arm of Lou City goalkeeper Collin Haus to equalize in the dying moments.

Sviatchenko’s late equalizer sent the match to extra time, and the Dynamo would take advantage of the extra time. Ezequiel Ponce fired home on the quick turn at the top of the box after a great low feed from Herrera to give la Naranja the lead in the extra frame.

With the win, Houston advances to the US Open Cup Quarterfinal, set to take place in three weeks (May 19-20). The draw for quarterfinal matchups and hosting priority will be held tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

In MLS play, the Dynamo next host the Colorado Rapids on Saturday, May 2, for a Western Conference matchup, with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT at Shell Energy Stadium.

The government established the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion after father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram allegedly opened fire with legally-owned guns at the celebration at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14., 2025. Authorities say their attack was inspired by the Islamic State group.

Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell made 14 recommendations on Thursday in her first interim report, five of which were not made public because they were classified as confidential for national security reasons.

The report also noted there had been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia since the war between Israel and Hamas began on Oct. 7, 2023.

The United States and Israel’s attack on Iran in February was “likely to have increased the risk of attacks directed at the Australian Jewish community,” it said.

Report proposes new limits on gun ownership and follow-up on gun licenses

The recommendations included that the federal and state governments prioritize implementing nationally consistent gun laws and a gun buyback.

Sajid Naveed was shot dead by police at the crime scene. He was a licensed shooter who legally owned the guns used.

Under new restrictions proposed by the federal government, the Indian-born Australian permanent resident would have been banned from holding a gun license because he was not an Australian citizen.

His son was wounded but survived. Naveed Akram has been charged with committing a terrorist act, 15 counts of murder and 40 counts of attempted murder. He has entered no pleas.

The government has also proposed limiting the number of guns someone can own to as few as four and implementing periodic reviews of existing gun licenses.

The new restrictions would be accompanied with a gun buyback scheme to compensate gun owners who must hand in weapons. The government has proposed sharing the cost of the buyback with the six states and two territories. But some states have said they won’t pay.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government had agreed to implement all the recommendations that were relevant to federal authorities.

Albanese said he hoped the recommended gun reforms were implemented.

“I certainly hope that that occurs and would continue to engage constructively with state and territory governments to say that this is reform which is necessary,” Albanese told reporters.

Albanese noted that Australia commemorated on Tuesday the 30th anniversary of Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in modern times.

A landmark national firearms agreement virtually banned rapid-fire rifles after a gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state on April 28, 1996.

“The nation is safer because of that,” Albanese said.

Government moves to increase protection of Jewish sites

Albanese noted that despite concluding that risks to Australian Jews were rising, the report found that no urgent changes were required to keep Australians safe.

“There has been a rise in antisemitism. That is a global phenomenon,” Albanese said.

“That is something that has happened right around the world. Governments need to respond to it. We are responding to it,” he added.

The report noted that the government had allocated 102 million Australian dollars ($73 million) to increase security at Jewish sites including synagogues and schools.

The money is administered by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the community’s peak organization.

The council’s co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin said the report was an important part in the process of making Jewish Australians feel safe again.

“We need to get to a point where Jewish Australians at Hanukkah this year … feel safe, that we can gather again, that we won’t be targeted,” Ryvchin told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“It’s going to be a long process to get us to that point. There’s a deep sense of trauma in the community and … a lot of unanswered questions, bit this is an important step in the process,” he added.

Public hearings in the inquiry begin on Monday next week.

The panel of three judges dismissed Brenton Tarrant’s claim that harsh prison conditions prompted him to make an involuntarily admission to terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges. His bid to withdraw his guilty pleas and seek a trial was “utterly devoid of merit," they wrote.

The Australian man, who is now 35, killed 51 worshippers and injured dozens more in March 2019 when he drove to two Christchurch mosques and opened fire with semiautomatic weapons during Friday prayers. Tarrant’s guilty pleas in March 2020 brought relief to bereaved families and survivors of the attack, who feared he would use a public trial to air his hateful views.

The dismissal of his appeal appears to end the possibility of Tarrant ever facing a trial, a prospect that lawyers representing some of his victims — who included men, women and children as young as three — said in a statement Thursday had been “unimaginably traumatic.”

The court noted the gunman's bid was made 505 days after the legal deadline for it to be filed. Tarrant had “failed by a considerable margin to adequately explain the extraordinarily long delay” in seeking an appeal, the judgment said.

His claim of mental illness was rejected

At the court's five-day hearing in February, the attacker argued his admissions of guilt were provoked by “irrationality” induced by poor mental health, which led him to desert his racist views for a time. The judges concluded, however, that his claims of mental illness weren’t supported by prison staff, mental health professionals or lawyers who had earlier represented him.

The court added that Tarrant also didn't meet the legal definition of unfitness to plead guilty, a point he had admitted.

“He was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity which rendered him unable to voluntarily change his pleas to guilty,” the judges wrote in Thursday's ruling. “He endeavoured to mislead us about his state of mind in a weak attempt to advance an appeal in circumstances where all other evidence demonstrated that he made an informed and totally rational decision to plead guilty.”

The court's decision also revealed that Tarrant sought to abandon his appeal shortly after making his case at the hearing in February. The judges rejected that bid too, writing that the case was “of significant public interest and should be finally determined.”

They suggested that Tarrant “began to form the opinion that the hearing was not proceeding in his favour, and as a result decided to file a notice of abandonment after the hearing concluded.” New Zealand law doesn’t automatically allow an appellant to quit an appeal bid once it’s underway.

Judges say his pleas weren't forced

The shooter's complaints about his prison conditions included that he was kept away from other prisoners without anything to do and was constantly surveilled. The judges, however, said his solitary confinement was necessary because Tarrant was at risk for suicide or self-harm.

“He was monitored because of concerns about his welfare and not to torment him or treat him cruelly,” they wrote.

The shooter “was not coerced or pressured in any way” to plead guilty, the judges said. In fact, they added, Tarrant rejected his lawyers' offer to attempt to negotiate away the terrorism charge because he wanted to be known as a terrorist.

He will remain in jail for life

Tarrant, who has fired the lawyers who were acting for him in February, remains in Auckland Prison, where he was sentenced in August 2020 to spend life in prison without the chance of parole. The judges allowed him to abandon his appeal of that sentence, which was scheduled to be heard later in 2026.

The killer was radicalized online and moved to New Zealand in 2017 with a plan to commit a mass shooting. He amassed a cache of weapons and made a reconnaissance trip to the sites of his planned crimes before the attack.

His previous lawyers told the appeals court in February that Tarrant, an immigrant from Australia, had wanted to argue during a trial that he had been defending New Zealand from immigrants. Such a defense is not available under New Zealand law, a fact that the judges suggested Thursday had influenced his decision to plead guilty.

They wrote that Tarrant hadn't disputed the facts of the case against him, which they described as “overwhelming” and “beyond dispute," or identified any legitimate defense he would have offered at a trial. Evidence included footage of the attack that the gunman filmed himself and livestreamed on the internet, in which he showed his own face, and a document outlining his racist views that he published online before the attacks under his real name.

Cleveland leads the series 3-2. Game 6 is Friday night in Toronto.

James Harden scored 23 points and Donovan Mitchell added 19 for the Cavaliers.

“This was a step for us from a mental toughness point of view. I thought we showed good poise and resiliency,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. “When you could have let your guard down, our guys kept with it.”

RJ Barrett led Toronto with 25 points while Ja’Kobe Walter added 20 and Jamal Shead had 18 off the bench.

The Raptors led 74-67 at halftime and scored the first five points of the third quarter. The Cavaliers slowly rallied but trailed 103-100 going into the final 12 minutes.

Cleveland seized control by scoring the first eight points of the fourth quarter. Jaylon Tyson hit a step-back 3-pointer to tie it at 103-all, and a 3 by Mobley gave the Cavaliers a 106-103 lead.

“He’s ready for those moments. He wants those moments. He works relentlessly on the 3-ball. Those were big shots for us for sure,” Mitchell said of Mobley.

Toronto missed its first 11 shots and was 7 of 28 from the field in the fourth while Cleveland made 7 of its first 11 and was 9 of 19.

“I would not just blame the fourth quarter. We cannot allow this team to score 125 points,” coach Darko Rajakovic said.

The Raptors were hobbled in the final period. Forward Brandon Ingram left the game in the second quarter with right heel inflammation. Fellow All-Star Scottie Barnes also was not at full strength after getting kneed in the quadriceps by Thomas Bryant while driving to the basket in the first half.

Barnes scored just 3 of his 17 points in the second half.

“For the most part, I thought we had this game. We played good enough to win. Just in the fourth quarter, they played a little better,” Barrett said. “What can you do? It’s the playoffs. Now, it’s do or die. Give them credit. We’ll be ready Friday.”

The Cavaliers won despite committing 15 turnovers that resulted in 28 Toronto points. They had 10 in the first half which the Raptors converted into 23 points.

“In the second half, I think ball-handling and Dennis helped relieve some of the pressure off (Mitchell) and (Harden) so I think that was part of it. If we are going to win on the road, we've got to find a way to clean that up,” Atkinson said.

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

In a 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative majority found that the Louisiana district represented by Democrat Cleo Fields relied too heavily on race. Chief Justice John Roberts had described the 6th Congressional District as a “snake” that stretches more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) to link parts of Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

“That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the six conservatives.

The effect of the ruling may be felt more strongly in 2028 because most filing deadlines for this year's congressional races have passed. Louisiana, though, may have to change its redistricting plan to comply with the decision.

It is unclear how much of the provision — known as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — remains.

When he signed the bill —the main way to challenge racially discriminatory election practices —into law more than 60 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson called it “a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory on any battlefield.”

In her dissent for the three liberal justices, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the court's “gutting of Section 2 puts that achievement in peril.”

Her sentiment was shared by former President Barack Obama, who said the decision showed “how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy.”

In a statement, Fields said the decision's "practical effect is to make it far harder for minority communities to challenge redistricting maps that dilute their political voice.”

Potential political fallout

The voting rights law succeeded in opening the ballot box to Black Americans and reducing persistent discrimination in voting. Nearly 70 of the 435 congressional districts are protected by Section 2, election law expert Nicholas Stephanopoulos has estimated.

Alito wrote that "allowing race to play any part in government decisionmaking represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context.” He said Section 2 is effectively limited to instances of intentional discrimination, a very high standard.

Kagan said the upshot of the decision is that states "can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.”

Reaction to the decision broke along partisan lines.

“This is a complete and total victory for American voters. The color of one’s skin should not dictate which congressional district you belong in. We commend the court for putting an end to the unconstitutional abuse of the Voting Rights Act and protecting civil rights,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote in an email.

The chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called the decision “appalling.” Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state said it was the latest in a long line of attacks by President Donald Trump and the conservative court “against the fundamental right of every American citizen to vote.”

She said Democrats remained poised to regain the House majority in November “despite this corrupt and targeted assault on the voting rights of Black and Brown Americans from the Supreme Court.”

A ruling Trump likes

Trump had touched off a nationwide redistricting competition this year to boost Republican chances of preserving their House edge. The president said some states should redraw their maps and he called the decision the "kind of ruling I like.”

Legislatures already are free to draw extremely partisan districts because of a 2019 Supreme Court decision.

Wednesday's ruling came out as Florida legislators debated a proposed redrawing of the state’s congressional lines, submitted by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and intended to give the GOP a chance to pick up as many as four seats in the state’s U.S. House delegation.

Democrats in the Florida Senate urged the Republican supermajority to delay debate, at least long enough to allow lawmakers to read the decision and consult lawyers about how it might affect DeSantis’ proposal. Republicans refused and the Legislature approved the new map.

In the Supreme Court's Louisiana ruling, the justices did an about-face from a decision in a similar case from Alabama less than three years ago that led to a new congressional map for the state that sent two Black Democrats to Congress.

The Alabama decision also prompted Louisiana lawmakers to add a second majority Black district. About a third of Louisianans are Black and they now form majorities in two of the state’s six congressional districts. Alabama has a separate appeal pending at the Supreme Court

Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberals to form a majority in the Alabama case, the same term in which the conservative-dominated court ended affirmative action in college admissions. Both joined Alito's opinion Wednesday.

Roberts has long eyed Voting Rights Act

The chief justice has been at the center of the effort to limit the use of race in public life. He has had the Voting Rights Act in his sights since his time as a young lawyer in the Reagan-era Justice Department.

“It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race,” Roberts wrote in a dissenting opinion in 2006 in his first major voting rights case as chief justice.

In 2013, Roberts wrote for the majority in gutting the law’s requirement that states and local governments with a history of discrimination, mostly in the South, get approval before making any election-related changes.

“Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote.

Barring extraordinary action, the broader impact probably will be felt in 2028, when Republicans potentially can replace more than a dozen Democratic-held House districts that were previously protected under the Voting Rights Act.

“The Voting Rights Act as a means to protect minority voters from vote dilution is essentially dead,” said Jonathan Cervas, a political scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who has served as an outside legal expert in multiple Voting Rights Act cases.

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Associated Press writers Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, La., Nicholas Riccardi in Denver, Bill Barrow in Tallahassee, Fla., and Lisa Mascaro and Seung Ming Kim contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

It was a period of painful rejection that is familiar to exonerees. Some see their own struggles reflected in Calvin Duncan, who won elected office in New Orleans after clearing his name but likely won't serve. Louisiana lawmakers sent a bill to the governor's desk Wednesday abolishing his job.

“We’re still kind of like looked at as an inmate that did a particular crime. It further deteriorates our ability to believe that the system can heal itself,” said Miles, who eventually found a job through a minister at his church. “When cases like in Louisiana occur, it just shows us that the system is not healing itself.”

The fight in Louisiana has touched a nerve among exonerees in the U.S. who see Duncan's plight as reflective of the biases and stigmas they have to confront as they try to rebuild their lives.

Duncan served nearly 30 years in prison before his murder conviction was vacated in 2021 after evidence emerged that police officers had lied in court. He was elected to become the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court in November, vowing to fix the system that failed him. He had been set to take office May 4.

Louisiana Republicans who want to dissolve the office say it isn't about Duncan's past but a necessary step toward government efficiency.

“Even if they are seen as somebody who is exonerated, there is still a stigma as somebody who has been in prison,” said Jon Eldan, the founder and executive director of After Innocence, a California-based nonprofit.

Nonprofits and others offer help to exonerees

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, more than 3,800 people have been exonerated in the U.S. since 1989.

But unlike those released on parole or probation, exonerees don’t have access to government-provided services such as employment or housing assistance and mental health services.

“I was turned down by many prisoner reentry organizations because they said, ‘Look, you’re not on parole, you’re not on probation,'” said Jeffrey Deskovic, who was wrongly convicted of rape and murder in Peekskill, New York, and spent 16 years in prison before being freed in 2006.

Thirty-eight states have laws that compensate wrongfully convicted people. But it can be years before they receive that money.

After Innocence works to connect exonerees with organizations that help with job training, housing, medical and dental care. It also tries to clean up their records to accurately represent what happened in their criminal cases, Eldan said.

Miles, who spent more than 14 years in prison, now runs Miles of Freedom, a nonprofit in Dallas that helps formerly incarcerated individuals, including exonerees, rebuild their lives.

The challenges Miles faced as an exoneree looking for employment — including a lack of work history, viable skills and training — are not unusual, but it also appears some employers simply don't want someone who has been behind bars on their workforce.

There are no government statistics that track the employment rate of exonerees. Multiple studies have shown the unemployment rate for people who were in prison is much higher than the national rate. A 2018 study from the Prison Policy Initiative found that formerly incarcerated people are unemployed at a rate of over 27%. A 2021 Bureau of Justice Statistics study found that 33% of federal prisoners released in 2010 did not find employment for four years. Nationally, the unemployment rate in March was 4.3%.

Finding employment remains a challenge

Deskovic used the compensation he received five years after his 2006 release from prison to start the Deskovic Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit that helps free wrongfully convicted people. He later got a law degree so he could represent them in court.

Exonerees tell Deskovic little has changed since the years following his release when he applied for jobs, including as a doughnut shop worker and a weekly newspaper reporter, but could never find consistent work.

Supporters of exonerees point to Duncan as someone who has rebuilt his life and won elected office but still faces pushback about his innocence and post-incarceration accomplishments.

“If he wasn’t an exoneree, would they be doing this to him? I’m sure that they would not,” Deskovic said.

Groups push for legislative help for exonerees

Eldan's organization worked with a state senator to help write and pass a law in Delaware that provides compensation for wrongful imprisonment, as well as a stipend and help with housing, food benefits, and health and dental insurance. It also provides exonerees with a certificate from the state saying they were wrongly incarcerated and found innocent.

Eldan said his group is working with several other states, including California and New Mexico, to get laws passed to provide similar innocence certificates and update exonerees' criminal records.

More states should fund programs to help exonerees after their release, Eldan and Miles said.

“But it’s hard to write into a statute, something that actually translates into real benefit for these people,” Eldan said. “It's not because the state is bad, but because the state just is not particularly good at delivering those services.”

Ben Spencer spent 34 years in prison for a murder in Dallas he didn’t commit before being exonerated and released in 2021. He applied for jobs at an Amazon warehouse and as an airport baggage loader but failed to secure a position.

Eventually, someone who had taken an interest in his case helped get him a job as a facilities engineer, doing repairs for a company. He’s worked there five years.

“I think I’m kind of settling in a little more now. I’m still trying to figure out the cellphone and computers,” Spencer said. “When I walked out of the jail, it was like waking up out of a coma or a bad dream. And of course, I still had to try to get some financial stability. I guess I won’t say I’m there now, but I’m closer to where I wanna be now than I was.”

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

York snapped the tension and a scoreless tie with the goal of the former first-round pick's career, burying the winner 17:32 into overtime that ignited a wild celebration and sent the Philadelphia Flyers into the second round for the first time in six years with a 1-0 Game 6 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night.

The Flyers are set for a second-round showdown against Carolina.

“Just tried to put it there,” York said. “We knew that it was going to be a greasy one. It felt really good to see that one go in.”

Dan Vladar was again sensational in the net and stopped all 42 shots and prevented the Penguins from playing for a shot at playoff history.

Sidney Crosby and the Penguins tried to become just the fifth team in NHL history to win a series after trailing 3-0. They won two straight to force Game 6.

It is the Flyers who are moving on in coach Rick Tocchet's first season.

“It's been a long time,” Tocchet said. “I know there's been a lot of frustration.”

Arturs Silovs made 31 saves. Crosby skated over and consoled Silovs on the ice as the Flyers' theme song — Olivia Dean's “Man I Need” — blasted throughout the arena.

“We were a shot away from going back to Pittsburgh for Game 7,” Crosby said. "It comes down to bounces sometimes. Putting yourself in that position is tough. I think we all had a lot of belief we could dig ourselves out of it. It's just unfortunate we got behind early in the series.”

The last playoff game to head to overtime scoreless was Winnipeg and Edmonton in a 2021 first-round series. The Jets won 1-0 in the first OT.

The Flyers are in the playoffs for the first time since 2020, when they last reached the second round in the bubble season. They are in the second round in a full NHL season for the first time since 2012.

“So happy for the guys in that room,” York said. “We battled all year long for this position.”

Silovs, who allowed about four goals per game over his last 10 starts of the regular season, steadied the Penguins in place of the ineffective Stuart Skinner with wins in Games 4 and 5 and about played like a Vezina Trophy winner in Game 6.

Matvei Michkov, the Flyer's leading scorer after the Olympic break, was scratched in Game 5. He returned to the lineup determined to be a postseason difference-maker. He had a great chance in the second period on a breakaway but was stopped. The Flyers kept the puck in the offensive zone and Michkov swooped in and tried to poke the puck into the corner of the net, only for Silovs to again clamp down and deny the goal.

The Flyers, the last team in the Eastern Conference to clinch a playoff spot, had 10 giveaways in the first period and made it six straight games in the series without a goal in the first period.

They can try to end that streak against a Hurricanes team that just swept the Ottawa Senators.

Kris Letang dropped Travis Konecny with a right hand as the second period ended and the long-time Penguin started the third in the penalty box. No matter. The Flyers came up empty with the man advantage — Michkov was wide on a one-timer — and they fell at that point to 2 for 17 on the power play in the series.

Vladar played like the team MVP he was in the regular season, willing the Flyers to the second round. Crosby early in the third flicked the puck from behind the net at Vladar. Perhaps auditioning for a spot in the World Cup, Vladar headed it like a soccer star over the back of the net and the game remained scoreless.

That was just one sign the night belonged to the Flyers.

“It's a lot right now,” Penguins coach Dan Muse said. “At no point am I expecting the season to end today.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Records obtained by KPRC 2 show Nathan Gene Alexander III listed his occupation as “lawyer” on his campaign application.

However, when we checked State Bar of Texas records, Alexander was not listed.

An assistant with Alexander’s campaign confirmed with KPRC 2 he is not licensed with the bar but said he is not in any “legal jeopardy.”

When asked for further clarification, the campaign declined to answer additional questions and directed inquiries to be submitted formally via email.

Under Texas law, individuals must pass the state bar exam to be licensed to practice law and to be considered an attorney by the State Bar of Texas.

On Alexander’s campaign website, it states, “he is not a licensed Attorney" and is “currently preparing to sit the July 2026 Texas Bar Exam.”

However, in his campaign video he states he is a former Prairie View City Council Member, a lawyer and a community advocate.

Under Texas Penal Code Section 38.122, it is a crime to falsely hold oneself out as a lawyer unless licensed to practice law in the state.

KPRC 2 shared the recorded phone call with Prairie View Mayor Ron Leverett, who said he is confident the voice of the so-called “assistant” is actually Alexander himself.

“100 percent. This is Mr. Alexander,” Mayor Leverett said.

Mayor Leverett, who said he previously worked with Alexander during his time as a Prairie View city council member, said the situation raises concerns about how the candidate is presenting himself to voters.

“It’s really concerning to me because first of all I remember him being the on the City Council and I remember when he was walking out,” said Mayor Leverett.

Leverett added that decisions like this could have long-term consequences—especially for someone trying to build a career in the legal field.

“I would hate for him to represent me in court,” he said.

Questions about background and residency

Leverett also raised broader concerns about Alexander’s background and ties to the city.

According to Leverett, Alexander previously served on city council but had a controversial tenure, at times walking out of meetings and contributing to disruptions in city business.

KPRC 2 also visited the address listed on Alexander’s campaign application. A neighbor told us no one has lived in the unit since 2020.

Mayor Leverett said he is unsure where Alexander currently lives.

“This young man doesn’t have any property in the city of Prairie View. He doesn’t pay school taxes. He doesn’t pay county taxes,” said Mayor Leverett.

The general election is on May 2.

Reaves had been out since April 2 with strained oblique muscles, missing the final five games of the Lakers' regular season and the first four games of the postseason. But Reaves returned to practice last week, and he warmed up for the previous two games in the series in Houston before being ruled out.

Reaves came off the bench for the Lakers in Game 5, who kept the same starting lineup that had taken them to a 3-1 series lead. Reaves immediately made an impact when he checked in midway through the first quarter, making a 3-pointer from 30 feet away on his first shot.

Reaves finished the first half with 11 points and six assists, sharing the Lakers' scoring lead with Marcus Smart. But Los Angeles trailed Houston 51-47 after committing nine turnovers.

Reaves was injured in the same game in which NBA scoring champion Luka Doncic strained his right hamstrings. Doncic doesn't yet appear to be close to a return.

The Lakers won the first three games of the series without their top two scorers, but the Rockets took Game 4 to push the series back to Los Angeles.

Reaves averaged 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds this season, but played in just 51 games thanks to the oblique injury and a strained left calf that sidelined him for 19 straight games from Christmas to February.

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

According to initial information, hazardous materials teams were dispatched to the scene shortly after 4 p.m. following the incident, prompting a large emergency response.

• ALSO READ: Industrial worker killed in reported ‘heavy machinery’ accident in Sugar Land

Units from the Houston Fire Department’s Hazmat team have arrived on scene and are assisting alongside City of South Houston responders. The Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office Hazmat team responded to the scene as well.

Officials say a tank carrying 50,000 gallons of asphalt ruptured and spilled.

One person was unaccounted for after the spill and believed to be buried under three feet of asphalt. Fire crews were able to locate the person’s body, but it took some time to recover it. The Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office later confirmed crews were able to recover the person’s body.

Authorities don’t yet know what caused the tank to rupture and it is still under investigation.

Martin Asphalt released the following statement:

Martin Asphalt confirms with deep regret that an employee involved in a recent incident at our South Houston, Texas asphalt terminal has died. Due to conditions at the site, access to the affected area has been limited and the employee has not yet been recovered. Emergency response procedures were initiated and local emergency responders were notified and responded to the site. This is a tragic situation, and we are treating it with the utmost seriousness at every level of our company.

Our deepest sympathies are with the employee’s family during this difficult time. We are focused on supporting those affected, including providing appropriate resources to our workforce.

Safety is a fundamental priority for our company. We maintain established safety procedures and emergency response protocols across our operations, and those protocols were activated. We have commenced a comprehensive internal review of the incident and are in the process of gathering and evaluating all relevant facts and information. We are also cooperating with appropriate governmental authorities in connection with their reviews.

At this time, the cause of the incident has not been determined. It would be inappropriate to speculate prior to the completion of the review processes. Our focus is on ensuring a thorough, objective, and methodical evaluation of the circumstances.

Out of respect for the individual and their family, and to preserve the integrity of the ongoing review processes, we are not providing additional details at this time. We appreciate the public’s understanding as we work through this matter carefully and responsibly.

This statement reflects information currently available to the company. We will continue to evaluate information as it develops and will provide updates if and when appropriate.

House Republicans adopted a budget resolution on a largely party-line vote, 215-211. The action doesn't automatically fund the department — it's focused on eventually providing $70 billion for immigration enforcement and deportations for the remainder of President Donald Trump's time in office, which Democrats oppose.

But launching the GOP budget process, which will play out over weeks to come, has been what Speaker Mike Johnson needed to unlock a broader bipartisan bill for TSA agents and others that has languished during the longest-ever agency shutdown in history. That bill is expected to come to a vote Thursday to fund much of the agency.

“It takes time,” Johnson, R-La., said after another day of start-stop action in the chamber that dragged for hours into the evening. “We will get there.”

The House's narrow Republican majority has repeatedly stalled out under Johnson's gavel, with his own party tangled in internal disputes on a range of pending issues, including the Homeland Security funding.

Democrats refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol without changes to those operations after the deaths of Americans protesting Trump’s deportation agenda. Republicans refused the broader Democratic-backed bill to fund TSA and the other aspects of Homeland Security without the money for ICE and Border Patrol.

But the White House urged Congress this week to act, warning the money Trump tapped to temporarily pay TSA and other workers through executive actions is drying up.

“DHS will soon run out of critical operating funds, placing essential personnel and operations at risk,” said a memo from the Office of Management and Budget.

Homeland Security shutdown is longest ever

Homeland Security has been operating without regular funds for more than two months, since Feb. 14, in a broader dispute over Trump’s immigration agenda.

In the memo late Tuesday to lawmakers, the White House called on the House to quickly approve the budget resolution that GOP senators had approved in an all-night session last week to kickstart the process.

“Restoring funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has never been more urgent, as demonstrated by recent events,” the White House memo said, a nod to the situation over the weekend when a man armed with guns and knives tried to storm the annual White House correspondents’ dinner that Trump, the vice president and top Cabinet officials were attending.

But the day wore on as Johnson huddled privately with lawmakers sorting out other issues that stalled voting.

Next steps are expected Thursday when the House is likely to consider the Democratic-backed bill to fund the department, minus the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement funds, which are expected to come later this summer in the budget resolution process.

Immigration enforcement operations central to the debate

While immigration enforcement workers have largely been paid through the flush of new cash — some $170 billion — that Congress approved as part of Trump's tax cuts bill last year, others, including TSA, have had to rely on Trump’s intervention through executive action to ensure their paychecks.

But with salaries topping $1.6 billion every two weeks, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said recently, those funds are drying up.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the chairman of the Budget Committee, argued that the Democrats are making “ridiculous and even dangerous demands” as they push for changes to immigration operations.

But Democrats have held firm in the aftermath of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the budget panel's top Democrat, said, “We know there are reforms that need to happen with ICE and CPB in order to rein in the abuses we have seen.”

More than 1,000 TSA officers have quit since the shutdown began, according to Airlines for America, the U.S. airlines trade group that called Wednesday on Congress to fully fund the agency.

“The urgency to provide predictable and stable funding for TSA is growing stronger by the day,” the group said in a statement. “Time and time again, our nation’s aviation workers and customers have been the victim of Congress’ failure to do their jobs.”

Complicated budget strategy ahead

House and Senate Republicans have embarked on a go-it-alone strategy, attempting to approve funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for the remainder of Trump's term to ensure no further interruptions from Democrats.

It's a cumbersome process, the same that was used last year to approve Trump's tax cuts bill, and it will play out over several weeks.

With the budget resolution now adopted by the House and Senate, lawmakers will next draft the actual $70 billion ICE and Border Patrol funding bill, with voting expected in May. Trump has said he wants it on his desk by June 1.

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Associated Press writer Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at https://apnews.com/hub/us-department-of-homeland-security.

Orlando leads the series 3-2 and will get a second chance to advance at home on Friday night.

The Magic fell to 0-10 in franchise history on the road in a Game 5.

Detroit never trailed and went ahead by 15 early in the final quarter. The Magic made one more run, pulling within three points on Paolo Banchero's sixth 3-pointer with 1:09 left. Banchero matched Cunningham with 45 points, also a playoff career high — but he missed 7 of 12 free throws.

The Pistons are hoping to bounce back from the brink of elimination as they did against the Magic two-plus decades ago.

Detroit’s comeback in 2003 as a No. 1 seed against eighth-seeded Orlando was the first of seven times NBA teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit this century. The Denver Nuggets were the last team to pull off the feat in 2020, when they became the first franchise in the league to do it twice in one postseason.

Magic forward Franz Wagner was sidelined with a strained right calf. He had 19 points in two-plus quarters before he departed late in the third quarter on Monday night and averaged nearly 17 points and 5.5 rebounds over the first four games of the series.

Cunningham was 13 of 23 from the field, making a playoff career-high five 3-pointers, and was 14 of 14 at the line in what proved to be the difference in a duel with Banchero, also a former No. 1 overall pick.

Tobias Harris scored 23 points for the Pistons, All-Star center Jalen Duren snapped out of a slump with 12 points and nine rebounds, and Duncan Robinson also scored 12.

Anthony Black had a playoff career-high 19 points, Desmond Bane scored 18 points and Jalen Suggs added 10 for the Magic.

The Pistons played with a sense of urgency at the start after being rusty or flat early in previous games.

Detroit led by 17 in the second quarter, but the Magic cut the deficit to six points by halftime. Orlando pulled within two points early in the third and Cunningham’s fifth 3-pointer late in the quarter helped the Pistons take an 89-79 lead into the fourth.

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

Thursday is one of those hit and miss rain shower days. There will be a few rumbles of thunder with the chance of rain at 40%, with spotty and widely separated storms. Most of the area is likely to stay quiet Thursday morning, with a better chance for rain developing later in the day, although some neighborhoods could stay dry entirely.

Thursday’s street flooding threat is northwest of Houston.

Friday’s Forecast:

Houston can expect significant rainfall on Friday, with storms likely to bring widespread heavy rain and a higher threat of street flooding. Rainfall projections show totals ranging from around 1.5 to as much as 4 inches in some northern spots, with slightly lower amounts closer to the coast. The most intense activity is expected north of I-10, where the potential for street flooding will be higher thanks to the sheer intensity of the rain.

The above slight threat means the flood threat is expected to be more than just isolated. Friday’s rain comes in two waves, one in the morning and another with the cold front. The cold front moves through late Friday.

This series of downpours will add to an already wet April, which saw just over 5 inches of rain, above average. And Friday’s soaking will help further improve drought conditions around the region.

A cool and breezy Saturday with a near perfect Sunday:

Once Friday’s storms clear, things change in a hurry. A cold front is forecast to sweep through Friday night, ushering in noticeably cooler and breezy weather Saturday. Highs to start the weekend are expected to reach 68° with lows dipping into the 50s.

Sunday climbs to the mid 70s under mostly sunny skies.

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

A large group of Democrats joined most Republicans in passing the bill by a 235-191 vote. The law's renewal still faces an uncertain path to passage, with a sign-off needed from the Senate and President Donald Trump.

While the Senate could eventually be amenable to oversight measures added by the House, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said late Wednesday that another short-term extension will likely be needed ahead of the Friday deadline. House leaders added separate legislation banning a central bank digital currency to win more votes, and Thune said that part of the bill is “dead on arrival” in the Senate.

Still, the passage in the House was a breakthrough for Republican leaders after Speaker Mike Johnson earlier in the day secured the support of several Republican holdouts to advance the bill to a final vote. The chamber had been unable to pass a long-term extension since Republican leaders earlier this month staged a hectic late-night effort to extend the surveillance program, only to see multiple bills fail on the floor.

“Two-thirds of the president’s daily national security briefing comes from intelligence collected by that statute,” Johnson said about the program. “We cannot allow it to go dark.”

Warrants remain central to the fight

The debate centers on a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that allows the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and other agencies to collect and analyze communications from foreign targets without a warrant. In doing so, the agencies can incidentally sweep up communications involving Americans who interact with foreign targets, an element of the program many lawmakers find unacceptable.

“The intel community always just comes in and says, ‘People will die if you do this,’” Republican Rep. Chip Roy said Tuesday, arguing in favor of a warrant requirement. “Well, I’m sorry. A lot of Americans died to give us and protect that Fourth Amendment right that we don’t have government looking at our stuff.”

The House bill does not include the warrant requirement. Instead, it would impose new oversight measures, including a monthly civil liberties review of U.S. person queries by an official within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with any violations referred to the Intelligence Community’s inspector general.

The bill would also create criminal penalties for officials who knowingly misuse the system or falsify compliance, order a government audit of targeting practices and require new procedures to expand congressional access to FISA court proceedings.

House Democrats took turns criticizing the extension on the floor ahead of Wednesday evening’s planned final vote. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, derided the measure as a “three-year blank check” that comes “without any meaningful guardrails.”

“Under this bill, FBI agents will still collect, search and review Americans' communications without any review from a judge,” said Raskin.

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, spoke in favor of the extension, calling the program “without question, the most important foreign intelligence tool." Himes, who voted for the extension, said the bill makes guardrails on the program "marginally and modestly stronger.”

There are hurdles ahead in the Senate

Both chambers are expected to scramble Thursday to pass a short-term extension of the law ahead of the Friday deadline — even as they continue to negotiate the longer-term renewal.

Thune said Wednesday afternoon that the Senate would try to quickly pass a 45-day extension. But any one senator can hold that up, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has already indicated he won't go along. Wyden, who has long pushed to reform the law, will instead seek to pass a three-week extension with some additional provisions, according to his office.

Another obstacle in the Senate is that the House linked the surveillance renewal with the separate digital currency legislation — a proposal Thune has said would be “very, very hard to pass."

Senators from both parties said they were committed, though, to ensuring that the law doesn't expire.

“There is clear consensus in the Senate as to how important it is,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

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Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

The review was conducted as part of the Food and Drug Administration’s Operation Stork Speed project — billed as the “largest and most rigorous” to date. It found that the infant formula supply is safe, agency officials and outside experts said.

“There’s no reason not to use any available formula” in the U.S., said Dr. Steven Abrams, a pediatrics professor at the University of Texas at Austin who reviewed the findings.

FDA officials tested more than 300 samples of commercial infant formula between 2023 and 2025 for heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury. They also tested for pesticides, chemicals found in plastics known as phthalates, and PFAS, also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, sometimes called “forever chemicals.”

Levels of all the contaminants were undetectable or very low, the agency reported. The heavy metals detected were well below U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limits for drinking water, the agency reported. No pesticides were detected in 99% of samples. The FDA found no detections for 25 of the 30 PFAS compounds tested.

Outside experts generally agreed with the government’s assessment, noting that small amounts of substances such as heavy metals are naturally occurring in the environment. But others, such as phthalates and PFAS, are not.

“These chemicals are completely synthetic,” said Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, a pediatrics professor at UW Medicine and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute. “The detection of some of these compounds at all is concerning.”

It points to the need for further monitoring of formula — and of the larger U.S. food supply, she added.

The Trump administration launched Operation Stork Speed in March 2025, promising to review safety and quality standards for infant formula in the U.S. for the first time in decades.

It built on previous FDA efforts to review substances like heavy metals in infant foods, which can cause problems with brain development, learning and behavior in children, Abrams said.

To date, the FDA does not have enforceable limits for heavy metals in infant formulas, unlike the European Union, Canada and Australia.

Some consumer advocacy groups have called on the FDA for years to establish firm limits for contaminants. Last year, Consumer Reports published an analysis of 41 U.S. infant formulas with results suggesting that many had worrisome levels of heavy metals and other contaminants.

However, that analysis used its own level of concern, setting it far below European Union standards. That report garnered wide public attention and prompted some parents to stop using commercial formula, even when it was necessary, Abrams noted.

Abrams called for the FDA to continue monitoring infant formula for contaminants and to share the results.

Abbott, one of the nation's largest formula makers, urged the FDA to set scientific standards for contaminants in infant formula.

“We believe that producing infant formula at scale in the U.S. is a matter of national security,” Abbott spokesman John Koval said in an email. “These results affirm the safety of our current domestic supply.”

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

The allegations in the disturbing case stretch back to 2023 — just a year after the singer's first single made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The 21-year-old has pleaded not guilty and his attorneys have said he did not cause her death.

Here's a look at the timeline of the investigation, the allegations and the career of D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke.

2022: Burke's music goes viral

Burke, a content creator who began making his own music to accompany the video game montages he would post online, goes viral on TikTok for his song “Romantic Homicide.” The song ultimately peaks at No. 4 on Billboard's Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, and Burke signs with Darkroom and Interscope Records.

November, 2023: Prosecutors say the abuse begins

Burke allegedly begins to sexually abuse Rivas Hernandez, who was 13, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. She was described by authorities as a runaway, and court documents say she lived with Burke in Los Angeles.

Feb. 17, 2024: Investigators first contact Burke about Rivas Hernandez

Investigators have said Rivas Hernandez was reported missing from her home in Lake Elsinore, a town about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, several times before her death. According to prosecutors, Riverside County authorities contacted Burke about her during one disappearance. He told authorities he was unaware she was a minor and had last had contact with her a few days earlier. Los Angeles sheriff's deputies checked out Burke's house looking for Rivas Hernandez and also informed him she was 13.

She returned home two days later, prosecutors say, and her parents took her phone away. They allege that Burke paid $1,000 to a junior high classmate of Rivas Hernandez to give her a phone so he could keep in contact with her.

April 5, 2024: Rivas Hernandez is reported missing

Rivas Hernandez's family reports the seventh grader missing from her home in Lake Elsinore, for the last time.

Prosecutors allege that in the months that followed, she spent lots of time with the singer and traveled with him to Las Vegas, London and Texas to meet his family.

November 2024: The two break up

Burke and Rivas Hernandez “broke up” but continued to have contact, according to prosecutors. She returned to her home in Lake Elsinore at some point.

April 11, 2025: Burke makes his Coachella debut

Burke performs at the music festival Coachella and goes viral again — this time for face-planting hard on the stage during a failed backflip attempt. In an interview with The Associated Press during the festival, Burke talked about using social media feedback from fans to refine his set lists. “I am my fans and my fans are me. And we work in tandem with each other and it's such a beautiful poetic kind of thing that we have,” he said.

April 22, 2025: Rivas Hernandez and Burke argue in text messages

“The messages reveal the victim’s jealousy over defendant’s relationships with other women, as defendant led her to believe they had a future together,” prosecutors said in a document outlining evidence in the case.

April 23, 2025: Rivas Hernandez is last known to be alive

Prosecutors say they believe Burke stabbed Rivas Hernandez to death “on or about” April 23, the day they say she was last heard from. Prosecutors say Burke killed Rivas Hernandez because she threatened to expose their inappropriate relationship and posed a threat to his career.

Burke sent a rideshare car to pick up Rivas Hernandez from her Lake Elsinore home and drop her off at his Hollywood Hills home at around 10:10 p.m. that night.

Prosecutors allege Burke sent text messages beginning at 10:30 p.m. asking Rivas Hernandez where she was to conceal that he had killed her.

At 11:30 p.m., he texted Rivas Hernandez's cell again asking where she was and drove away from his home to a remote area of Santa Barbara County.

April 24, 2025: Burke ordered a shovel online

Prosecutors say Burke used the Postmates delivery app to have a shovel delivered to his home.

April 25, 2025: Burke releases debut album, ‘Withered'

Burke releases his first album, “Withered.” In social media posts and media interviews, he describes using a recurring motif in his music and videos — an alter ego character he calls “IT4MI,” after “itami,” a Japanese word for pain. “He's basically like the evil version of me," Burke said in a YouTube interview with the “Tape Notes” podcast published May 2025. Burke's videos sometimes depict the character blindfolded, in a shirt that appears covered in blood.

May 1, 2025: More tools are ordered

Burke ordered two chainsaws to be delivered to his home, according to prosecutors. They were ordered using a fake name.

May 5, 2025: Authorities say Rivas Hernandez's remains are mutilated

One of the felony charges against Burke is “unlawful mutilation of human remains." Prosecutors say Rivas Hernandez's arms and legs were severed from her body on or around May 5.

In a subsequent filing, prosecutors allege Burke cut up Rivas Hernandez in an inflatable pool in his garage. DNA evidence that matched hers was later found in the area.

Burke returned to the remote part of Santa Barbara County two more times, and Rivas Hernandez's passport was found in the area in January 2026, according to a prosecution filing.

They also allege that Burke kept the girl's body in the front trunk of his Tesla. “He lied to his friends, business associates, and others who noticed the strong smell of decay in and around his home and vehicle," prosecutors said in a filing.

In late July, before embarking on a tour, Burke parked the car around the corner from his home.

Aug. 5, 2025: Burke launches tour

Burke's tour for the album “Withered,” begins with a show in Del Mar, California. He also released an official Fortnite anthem, “Locked & Loaded,” on Sept. 3. The collaboration with video game creator Epic Games echoed his start in the music world, when he would create and post Fortnite montages online.

Sept. 8, 2025: Celeste Rivas Hernandez's body is discovered

One day after she would have turned 15, Rivas Hernandez's badly decomposed remains are discovered in body bags inside the trunk of a Tesla registered to Burke, prosecutors say. The 2023 Tesla Model Y had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned. Police searching the vehicle found a cadaver bag covered in bugs with Rivas Hernandez's head and torso inside. A second bag containing her arms and legs was found underneath the first, according to court documents.

Sept. 17, 2025: Burke's home searched

Authorities searched Burke's home and found blood evidence that matched Rivas Hernandez's DNA. They also found the inflatable pool that they say was used to dismember her, with several cut marks in it, according to a court filing.

Sept. 19, 2025: Burke’s remaining tour dates are canceled

The remaining dates of Burke's tour, which had been scheduled to wrap up Nov. 4 in Warsaw, Poland, are canceled. The AP confirmed that he was also dropped by his label, Interscope Records, at some point in 2025.

Oct. 6, 2025: A funeral service is held for Rivas Hernandez

Multiple news outlets reported that Rivas Hernandez's family held a funeral service for her on at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery and Mortuary in Rowland Heights, California.

Nov. 24, 2025: Police block release of coroner's report

In an unusual move, police block the release of the coroner's report on Rivas Hernandez's death. The medical examiner's office said in a statement that it had received a “court order, initiated by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), to place a security hold” on the case. The order said no records or details, including the cause and manner of death, could be released until further notice.

February 2026: Burke revealed as the target of a secret grand jury probe

The grand jury investigation into the case was kept under seal, as is standard in grand jury proceedings. But some documents were made public by an appeal of subpoenas by Burke's mother, father and brother that was filed in Texas. The court filings said the Tesla was registered in Burke's name at the address of his subpoenaed family members, and that the “target may be involved in having committed the following criminal offenses against the laws of the State of California, to wit: One count of murder.”

April 16, 2026: Burke is arrested

Burke is arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with Rivas Hernandez's death and is held without bail. The Los Angeles Police Department announces the arrest on social media pages, posting photos of several officers wearing tactical gear and holding weapons approaching a home.

April 20, 2025: Burke is charged with murder

Burke is formally charged with murder, lewd and lascivious acts with a person under 14 and mutilating a body. The charging documents also allege several factors connected to the crimes that could lead to a harsher sentence if Burke is convicted. Those circumstances include allegations that Burke was “lying in wait” for Rivas Hernandez, who entered his home and was never seen again; that she was a witness to an investigation into the lewd and lascivious acts committed against her; and that Burke allegedly killed her for financial gain.

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Boone reported from Boise. AP Music Writer Maria Sherman and journalist Liam McEwan contributed.

One of the biggest changes in the law involves what camps must include in an emergency plan. These plans outline how camps deal with everything from fires, to floods, to serious injury.

The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) licenses and inspects youth camps. Officials with DSHS tell 2 Investigates most camps’ plans submitted under the new law have been sent back for revision.

• Camp Mystic director issues apology to victims’ families at investigative hearing

There are 363 camps listed on DSHS’s “Active Youth Camp Roster,” as of Apr. 24. Three of those camps show licenses approved through Mar. 2027, 277 camps shows as “Application Pending” and the remaining camps have licenses expiring within the next couple of months.

Prior to the new camp laws, DSHS inspectors did not evaluate a camp’s emergency plan, just checked to make sure there was a plan. This year, DSHS is using National EMR out of Schertz, Tx. to help review camps’ emergency plans.

“National EMR’s role is limited to administrative review and helps DSHS determine whether plans contain the required components. National EMR does not make final determinations related to camp emergency plan compliance, regulate camps, enforce compliance, or make licensing decisions. Those responsibilities remain solely with DSHS,” DSHS’s Lara Anton wrote in a statement to 2 Investigates.

The new law also calls for the creation of a multidisciplinary team to create best practices and standards for youth camp emergency plans. However, the law reads that team does not have to meet until Sept. 1. Officials with DSHS said they are still in the process of putting this team together.

• Camp Mystic relied on teen counselors with no emergency training before flood, investigator says

2 Investigates also met with the director of Mt. Lebanon Camp and Conference Center in Cedar Hill, one of the largest camps in the state.

Eddie Walker is the executive director of Mt. Lebanon and president of the Texas section of the Christian Camp and Conference Association.

“How different is it now from what you’ve had to do in the past?” 2 Investigates Robert Arnold asked.

“I think once the preparations are made, it won’t be a whole lot different. There’s some notifications to parents that are different, the ability for parents to respond, and obviously parents want to know when their child comes to camp, are they safe? And you want to communicate that,” said Walker.

“When the first campers arrive this year, what is going to be different for them and their parents from when they arrived this time last year?” asked Arnold.

“We will have training when campers arrive,” said Walker. “Parents will have access to our emergency action plan. If they have questions about camp, they’ll be able to go and see what the plan is.”

Mt. Lebanon has been in operation since 1945 and serves approximately 12,000 campers every summer. Walker said the camp’s emergency plan already included much of what the new law requires, but the state sent it back for revision.

“Some of it was semantics, some of it was just language that we will do something, they want it to be present tense that it has been done at the point we’re writing it. We’re still putting these processes all into place,” said Walker. “We’re just getting hit with some new things, like we put in emergency PA speakers across our camp, and they want to know, well, ‘how would a deaf camper, how is that going to help them, or what are the accommodations for that?’”

Walker said the camp has already submitted a revised emergency plan. Mt. Lebanon’s experience is indicative of a learning curve camps are facing when implementing Texas’ new camp laws.

“Typically when we gather camp leaders here, we’ll invite DSHS to come in and say what are the new pool rules, what are new playground rules,” said Walker. “we were scheduled to have them here in February to address 400 camp leaders who gathered here for Christian Camp Conference Association and they pulled their speakers for that question and answer.”

Walker said he was told DSHS was not attending for “legal reasons.” DSHS is being sued by several families who lost children at Camp Mystic during the flood. The lawsuit accuses state regulators of not ensuring Camp Mystic had a written flood evacuation plan.

More than a dozen camps are also suing the state over the new requirement to install fiber optic internet. This new mandate was to help ensure camps had reliable communication during emergencies since many are in remote areas with spotty cell and internet service.

However, 19 camps that are part of the lawsuit contend the new rule is overly burdensome and too costly since fiber line is not available in all areas. The lawsuit argues the cost to bring fiber line to certain remote areas is far more than the camps can afford and may force the businesses to shut down.

At the end of March, Camp Oak Haven near Columbus, Tx. announced it was permanently closing because of the new requirement. Former director Riley Watkins told KPRC the cost to bring fiber line to the camp was $280,000, which was 3-times the camp’s annual budget.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office shared what they said the evidence in the case would show in a court filing that provided the first detailed allegations of the killing and efforts to cut apart Rivas Hernandez's body and get rid of evidence.

The court filing said D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, met Rivas Hernandez when she was 11, began sexually abusing her when she was 13 and he was 18, and killed her when she threatened to reveal their inappropriate relationship.

“Knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,” the filing said.

Burke has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other counts. His lawyers have said he is innocent and did not cause Rivas Hernandez’s death.

Her body was found decomposing in a Tesla towed from the Hollywood Hills in September of last year.

Prosecutors said they had obtained text messages that showed their sexual relationship, including child sexual abuse images of her on his phone.

“The messages reveal the victim’s jealousy over defendant’s relationships with other women, as defendant led her to believe they had a future together,” the document says. “She became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with defendant to end his career and destroy his life.”

The filing said he sent a rideshare car to pick her up on the night of April 23, 2025, from her hometown of Lake Elsinore some 80 miles (129 km) outside of Los Angeles. The two exchanged messages until she arrived at his Hollywood home, after which her phone went silent permanently.

They allege he sent her a late-night message asking where she was in an attempt to cover up the killing.

The court filing is intended to outline the evidence that prosecutors plan to present at a preliminary evidentiary hearing beginning May 26, when a judge will determine whether there is probable cause to go to trial. The defense has not publicly provided its version of events.

The document says Burke bought two chain saws online used them to cut apart her body in an inflatable pool in his garage, where the girl's DNA was later found.

“Defendant took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim’s body,” prosecutors said in the brief.

Burke drove to Lake Cachuma in Santa Barbara County about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northwest of his home to get rid of evidence three times, the document alleges. Her passport was found there in January.

On April 24, the day after her death, he gave a radio interview and had a record-release party promoting his debut full-length album, “Withered,” which was released the following day, prosecutors said in the filing.

Prosecutors allege he kept her body in his Tesla, and lied to friends and business associates who asked about the smell.

The body of Rivas Hernandez had so degraded that examiners couldn’t even determine her eye color. She had braces at the time of her death, and a tattoo that read “Shhh ....” on the inside of a finger as well as his name, according to the report. Two fingers were missing — as were parts of her arms and legs.

Prosecutors had not previously described how they believed Rivas Hernandez was killed or given details on their relationship. An autopsy report said she was killed by penetrating wounds.

Prosecutors said the parents of Rivas Hernandez reported her missing from her home in Lake Elsinore in February 2024. After the February report, Riverside County Sheriff’s detectives contacted Burke, but he told them he had only met her once and did not know she was a minor.

After she returned home that February, her parents took away her cellphone but Burke drove to her hometown and paid a friend of Rivas Hernandez $1,000 to give her a phone so they could communicate.

She was reported missing again in April 2024. The document said that year, she spent much of her time at Burke’s home in the Hollywood Hills and traveled with him to Las Vegas, London, and Texas to meet his family.

The defense attorneys asked Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo at a hearing Wednesday to seal the document, but she declined. They had no comment outside court.

Burke was arrested on April 16 and pleaded to first-degree murder, lewd and lascivious acts with a person under 14 and mutilating a dead body. He is eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors said they have not decided whether to seek it.

The singer began making music for YouTube videos he created of the video game Fortnite when he was a teenager.

The songs he wrote and recorded on his phone were a blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. The music made him a phenomenon on TikTok, Instagram, Soundcloud and Spotify, where his top songs, including his 2022 breakthrough “Romantic Homicide,” have more than a billion plays. In 2023, he released two EPs and opened for SZA on tour.

He performed at last year's Coachella music festival just a few weeks before prosecutors said Rivas Hernandez was killed and his album was released. He was on tour promoting it in September when the body was discovered and his name became publicly attached to the case. It would be seven months before he was arrested.

Trump made the threat after Merz earlier this week said that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by the Iranian leadership and criticized Washington’s lack of strategy in the war. Trump has also repeatedly railed against NATO for the alliance's refusal to assist the U.S. in its two-month-old war.

“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” Trump said in a social media post.

Merz had said earlier Wednesday that his personal relationship with Trump remained “as good as ever,” but he had “had doubts from the very beginning about what was started there with the war in Iran.”

During his first term in the White House, Trump also moved to cut U.S. troops in Germany because he said the country spent too little on defense.

In June 2020, Trump announced he was going to pull out about 9,500 of the roughly 34,500 U.S. troops who were then stationed in Germany, but the process never actually started. Democratic President Joe Biden formally stopped the planned withdrawal soon after taking office in 2021.

The U.S. has several major military facilities in the country, including the headquarters for U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command, Ramstein Air Base and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American hospital outside the United States.

Merz met with Trump at the White House in March, just days after the U.S. and Israel began their bombardment of Iran. At the time, Merz told Trump that Germany was eager to work with the U.S. on a strategy for when the current Iranian government no longer exists. Merz also expressed concern that an extended conflict could do great damage to the global economy.

His concern, like many other European leaders, has only grown as the U.S. and Iran have yet to come to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway through which about 20% of the world global oil supply had flowed prior to the start of the war. It has been effectively closed since the conflict began on Feb. 28.

“We are suffering considerably in Germany and in Europe from the consequences of, for example, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” Merz said Wednesday, hours before Trump posted his threat on social media. “And in that regard, I urge that this conflict be resolved.”

Merz added that his government was "on good speaking terms" with the Trump administration.

Trump, for his part, has hardly been containing his frustration with Merz.

On Tuesday, he wrote: “The Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” Trump added that it was no surprise “that Germany is doing so poorly, both economically and in other respects!”

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AP writer Pietro De Cristofaro reported from Berlin.

The Metropolitan Police said the attack in the Golders Green area left two men, ages 34 and 76, hospitalized with knife wounds.

Counterterrorism police are investigating whether the stabbings are linked to recent arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in the British capital. Detectives are investigating a potential Iranian link to those attacks, but police said that it's too soon to say whether Wednesday's stabbing is connected.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a meeting of the government's emergency committee and vowed to “deal with the roots of antisemitism and extremism.” Buckingham Palace said that King Charles III was “deeply concerned.”

Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley said that it was “another horrendous act of violence directed against our Jewish communities.”

But some British Jews expressed anger at authorities' failure to keep them safe. Rowley faced shouts of “shame on you” and “resign” from bystanders when he made a statement to media at the scene of the stabbings.

Attacker immobilized by police

The security organization Shomrim said that a suspect “was seen running along Golders Green Road armed with a knife and attempting to stab Jewish members of the public." It said that the suspect was detained by Shomrim members and arrested by police, who used a stun gun on him.

Surveillance camera footage showed a man beside a bus stop donning a kippah, or traditional skullcap, before a passerby with a knife lunges at him.

Rowley said the suspect, whose name hasn't been released, had “a history of serious violence and mental health issues.”

Arson attacks in recent weeks targeted Jewish sites in London, including a charity's ambulances in Golders Green and a synagogue a few miles away.

“Today is somewhat worse because it’s a physical attack against two human beings,” resident Anthony Silber said. “It’s shocking to hear, shocking to listen to, shocking to watch for those that saw, but it’s not a surprise.”

Britain’s Jewish community is long established, but tiny as a percentage of the population, numbering about 300,000. The northwest London suburb of Golders Green is one of its epicenters, home to kosher restaurants, Jewish schools and several dozen synagogues, as well as large Asian and Middle Eastern communities.

The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has soared since the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust charity. The group recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.

In October 2025, an attacker drove his car into people gathered outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and fatally stabbed one person. Another person died during the attack after being inadvertently shot by police.

Iran link to arson attacks under investigation

Since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, there have been a string of arson attacks on Jewish sites and opponents of the Iranian government. Several people, ranging in age from teens to people in their 40s, have been arrested and charged over the arsons, which haven't caused injuries.

Counterterrorism officers are investigating whether the arson attacks were the work of Iranian proxies. Several have been claimed online in the name of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. Israel's government has described the group, whose name means the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, as a recently founded group with suspected links to “an Iranian proxy” that has also claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

An online claim in the same name also took responsibility for Wednesday's stabbing. But security experts say the name may be a flag of convenience rather than a coherent group, and its claims should be treated with caution.

However, the U.K. has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to conduct attacks on European soil targeting Iranian opposition media outlets and the Jewish community. Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says that more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots were disrupted in the year ending in October.

Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said that Jews face a campaign of violence and intimidation and that words of condemnation are no longer sufficient.

“This must be a moment that demands meaningful action from every institution, every community, every leader and every decent person in our country," he said. “This is a hatred that we must face down together."

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that the world must “wake up” to a rising wave of anti-Jewish hatred.

“In one of the great capital cities of the West, it has become dangerous to openly walk the streets as a Jew,” Herzog posted on X. “This is an unacceptable situation.”

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Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this story.

Charles laid flowers at the National 9/11 Memorial and the royal couple spoke with victims' relatives, first responders and local dignitaries before traveling to other events midway through a four-day diplomatic trip to the U.S. to mark 250 years of American independence.

The royal couple capped their whirlwind day in the city with an appearance at an early evening reception for one of the king’s charities, the King's Trust, where Charles spoke of the enduring cultural bond between the people of the U.K. and U.S. as one “rooted in shared creativity, enterprise, and values.

“Reminding us that we are truly greater together, that’s the point,” he said.

The four-day trip is Charles’ first state visit to the U.S. since he became king. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, made four state visits to the U.S. Her last visit to New York was in 2010.

Honoring victims at the 9/11 memorial

Charles and Camilla began their public schedule in the city by paying tribute to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including 67 British nationals.

They were greeted at the National 9/11 memorial plaza in Lower Manhattan by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then walked to one of the memorial’s two pools, where parapets bear the names of the victims of the attacks. Charles placed an arrangement of flowers on a parapet before the couple silently bowed their heads in a moment of reflection.

The king and queen then shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with a group of attack survivors, first responders and victims’ relatives, some of whom held photos of their lost loved ones. The gathering came ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks.

The visit to the memorial took place under the usual security precautions New York affords visiting world leaders and heads of state. Police snipers perched on rooftops. Heavy trucks were used as blockers to close off intersections. The memorial plaza and streets surrounding it were closed to the public.

Meeting New York's mayor

Among the crowd at the memorial were New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, all Democrats.

Mamdani — who was born in Uganda to parents from India, both former parts of the British Empire — shook hands with the king, and the two appeared to greet each other warmly. They spoke only for a few seconds.

Earlier in the day, Mamdani said he hoped to keep the event’s focus on 9/11 victims and not pursue a political conversation. But pressed by a reporter, Mamdani had said that if he were to speak with Charles under different circumstances, “I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond.”

The gem, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, is part of the Crown Jewels. Seized by the East India Co. after the Second Anglo-Sikh War of 1849, it was given to Queen Victoria and is on display in the Tower of London. Countries including India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan have claimed ownership.

Spending time with 9/11 victims' loved ones

Anthoula Katsimatides was among the Sept. 11 victims' relatives who spoke with the royal couple. Her brother, John Katsimatides, died at the World Trade Center.

“I found it extremely sweet that I was allowed to hug the queen,” she said. “She was quite endearing, as was the king. I also told him that I thought he was adorable.”

Katsimatides said the queen asked her if she came to the memorial often.

“I said that I do because I find it to be a place of peace and calm and also remembrance,” Katsimatides said.

King visits an urban farm, queen goes to the library

The king also toured an after-school, urban farming effort in Harlem that works with young people affected by food insecurity.

At Harlem Grown’s 134th Street Farm, he planted lavender and mustard seeds with children, saw a chicken coop and watched a live food demonstration that educated children about food and nutrition.

“I like your hair,” a student told the king, who replied, “Do you? Good.”

Later, the king attended a gathering of business leaders at Rockefeller Center, including executives from top American companies, including Google, OpenAI, JPMorgan Chase, and Comcast.

The queen, meanwhile, visited the New York Public Library, where she chatted with actress Sarah Jessica Parker during a walk through the building as a crowd of onlookers watched from across Fifth Avenue.

Camilla delivered a new Roo doll to add to the library’s famed collection of Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed animals, as the beloved children’s character turns 100 this year.

The five dolls currently on display — Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore and Kanga — were the inspiration for the characters in A.A. Milne’s children’s books. They were owned by the English author’s son, the real-life Christopher Robin, in the 1920s. The dolls were donated to the library in 1987 and are a centerpiece of the library’s collection of children’s literature. Roo, in the books, was a small brown kangaroo and the son of Kanga.

A charity gala

Earlier in the week, the king and queen joined President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump for events at the White House. The king delivered a rare speech before Congress -- the first by a British monarch since his late mother in 1991 -- followed by a formal state dinner at the White House.

The monarchs are expected to make stops in Virginia before wrapping up their U.S. visit back at the White House on Thursday with a formal farewell from Trump. Charles then travels solo to Bermuda on his first visit as king to a British overseas territory.

In their last public event of the day in New York on Wednesday, the king and queen attended a gala reception at Rockefeller Center.

Singer and songwriter Lionel Richie, who has worked with the King's Trust for four decades, introduced the royal. Also present were Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, lifestyle icon Martha Stewart and fashion designer Donatella Versace.

The king closed his brief remarks in a packed wing of the gallery space by joking that he was disappointed he wouldn’t get to hear Richie sing.

“I don’t know how he does it. He must gargle with port or something.”

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Collins reported from Hartford, Conn.

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Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

The war has cost $25 billion so far, according to Pentagon numbers presented to the House Armed Services Committee during a contentious hearing ostensibly focused on the administration’s 2027 military budget proposal. It would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion.

While Republicans focused on the details of military budgeting and voiced support for the Iran operation, Democrats grilled Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the ballooning costs of the war, the huge drawdown of critical U.S. munitions and the bombing of a school that killed children. Some lawmakers also questioned President Donald Trump's dealings with allies and his shifting justification for the conflict.

Hegseth dismissed the criticism as political and rebuked lawmakers who pushed him for answers.

“The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” Hegseth said.

Democrats press Hegseth over reasons for war

Wednesday's hearing stretched nearly six hours as Democrats and some Republicans questioned Hegseth over the war and his ouster of several top military leaders.

In one tense exchange, Hegseth told Democratic Rep. Adam Smith that Iran’s nuclear facilities were obliterated in 2025 strikes by the U.S., prompting Smith to question the Trump administration’s reasoning for starting the Iran war less than a year later.

“We had to start this war, you just said 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat,” said Smith, the ranking Democrat on the committee. “Now you’re saying that it was completely obliterated?”

Hegseth responded that Iran “had not given up their nuclear ambitions” and still had thousands of missiles.

Smith said the war “left us at exactly the same place we were before.”

Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping corridor for the world’s oil, has sent fuel prices skyrocketing and posed problems for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections. The U.S. has imposed a naval blockade of Iranian shipping and three American aircraft carriers are in the Middle East for the first time in more than 20 years.

Democrats accused Hegseth of misleading Americans about the reasons for the conflict and said rising gas prices are now threatening the pocketbooks of millions of people in the U.S.

“Secretary Hegseth, you have been lying to the American public about this war from day one and so has the president,” said Rep. John Garamendi of California, who called the war “a geopolitical calamity," a “strategic blunder" and a "self-inflicted wound to America."

Hegseth blasted Garamendi's remarks.

“Who are you cheering for here?” he asked the lawmaker. ”Your hatred for President Trump blinds you” to the success of the war.

Hegseth defends firings of top military officers

The defense secretary faced intense questions from Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Pennsylvania Democrat, about his decision to oust the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George, one of several top military officers to be dismissed since Trump took office again.

Houlahan said George was deeply respected by members of the military and Congress and asked why Hegseth fired him. Hegseth's response that “new leadership” was needed failed to satisfy Houlahan.

“You have no way of explaining why you fired one of the most decorated and remarkable men,” Houlahan began, before Hegseth interrupted her. “We needed new leadership,” he repeated.

The Pentagon also announced this month that Navy Secretary John Phelan was stepping down. Hegseth previously removed Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Jim Slife, the Air Force's No. 2 leader and others, while Trump fired Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said that while Hegseth is empowered to make personnel changes, he shared what he called “bipartisan concern” about the firings.

“We had a huge bipartisan majority here that had confidence in the Army chief of staff and the secretary of the navy,” Bacon said. “And I would just point out it may be constitutionally right ... but it doesn’t make it right or wise.”

Hegseth has said the changes are part of building a “warrior culture” at the Pentagon.

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina defended Hegseth's personnel moves, saying he is “trying to innovate and trying to change the way we do business.”

“I’m glad that you’re firing people," Mace said. “There are people there that are getting in your way. They need to go.”

Democrats ask about war's cost, while Republicans back Trump on Iran

Hegseth detailed plans to increase pay for service members and upgrade munitions while also announcing that, as of Tuesday, the Pentagon had released $400 million in previously appropriated military aid for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.

But the Iran war dominated the debate.

While a fragile ceasefire is in place, the U.S. and Israel launched the war Feb. 28 without congressional oversight. House and Senate Democrats have failed to pass multiple war power resolutions that would have required Trump to halt the conflict until Congress authorizes further action.

Republicans say they back Trump’s wartime leadership for now, citing Iran’s nuclear program, the potential for talks to resume and the high stakes of withdrawal. Still, GOP lawmakers are eager for the conflict to end, and some are eyeing future votes that could become an important test for the president if the war drags on.

Democrats questioned Hegseth over the war's economic impact and rising gasoline costs, noting Trump's promise to lower consumer costs. Hegseth responded by citing the threat posed by Iran.

“What is the cost of Iran having a nuclear weapon that they wield?” he said.

The U.S. and Iran appear locked in a stalemate. Trump told Axios on Wednesday that he is rejecting Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting the U.S. blockade.

The “explosion of emotions inside” came after the 56th-ranked Potapova beat Karolina Pliskova 6-1, 6-7 (4), 6-3 on Wednesday at the Madrid Open to become the first “lucky loser” to reach the semifinals of a WTA 1000 event.

She almost gave up the victory, squandering three match points in the second set and having to come back from 3-1 down in the third against the former No. 1-ranked player. It's been an impressive run considering Potapova lost in the qualifying tournament and only got a place in the main draw as a so-called lucky loser following the withdrawal of another player.

“I (had) a few match points in the second set, on serve, but I couldn't manage my nerves at that time,” she said. “It seems that this tournament keeps giving me second chances and I keep using them. So yeah, supper happy.”

Russia-born Potapova said she got a boost when her boyfriend, Dutch player Tallon Griekspoor, arrived to watch.

“I was a little bit gone mentally in the third set. I didn’t believe in myself at that moment,” she said. “But big respect to my boyfriend who came just on time. He kept telling me, ‘You can do this, we are all together here, just keep going.’”

Potapova said Griekspoor is “not scared” of telling her anything.

“I just played, and mentally he kept me there,” she said. “It just happened at the such important moment, and it gave me a lot of energy. Mentally, I think he got this match. I did it physically. He did it mentally.”

She next will face Marta Kostyuk, who defeated Linda Noskova 7-6 (1), 6-0.

The women's tour said Potapova was the first lucky loser to reach a WTA 1000 or Tier I semifinal since the format’s inception in 1990. She has won four straight matches, including against world No. 2 Elena Rybakina in the round of 16.

“I didn’t expect myself being in the draw again because at first they didn’t take my name as a lucky loser,” she said. “And then the days kept on going and nobody was injured or pulling out. Then the last moment I got the information, literally 30 minutes before the (first-round) match, that I was given a chance to step on court here again.”

She said she had been just enjoying “some nice days” in the Spanish capital, with no expectations.

“Maybe that’s the key. You don’t need to be always so zoomed in and so locked in on the tournament,” Potapova said. “Maybe it’s just a matter of sometimes just enjoy yourself and enjoy the journey.”

She said it feels like “a miracle” to have advanced so far.

“It’s pretty rare when you get the second chance and that you go almost all the way,” Potapova said. “But ... I always say, if you got it, maybe you deserved it. I’m happy that I didn’t waste it, and I was able to convert it and to be here now.”

___

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

Thomasz Szabo, 27, was a prolific participant in a dangerous form of online harassment that has become an increasingly common occupational hazard for public officials across the American political spectrum.

Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of nearly five years for Szabo, who pleaded guilty last June to conspiracy and threats charges. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C., also sentenced him to three years of supervised release after his four-year prison term, according to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office.

“This administration will not tolerate attacks on the institutions and individuals who serve this country,” Pirro said in a statement.

Szabo gets credit for the roughly 20 months he already has served in jail.

In 2018, from Romania, Szabo began creating chat servers for him and like-minded users to engage in internet trolling. By late 2020, he had expanded his online activities to include swatting, which involves making hoax threats to provoke emergency police responses at targets' homes. Others joined him in making the bogus threats.

“Despite (or because of) the fact that they resulted in far greater harm to the victim and society, these activities offered much more entertainment value to the defendant and his followers, since swatting and bomb threats often resulted in an observable real-world impact,” prosecutors wrote.

Szabo was charged with Nemanja Radovanovic, of Serbia, whose case hasn't been resolved.

Another Szabo associate was charged separately in Florida. Alan Filion was sentenced at age 18 in February 2025 to four years in prison after pleading guilty to making approximately 375 swatting calls between August 2022 and January 2024. Filion was a juvenile at the time of his criminal conduct but pleaded guilty as an adult.

In December 2023, Szabo told Radovanovic that they should pick targets from both the Republican and Democratic parties because “we are not on any side,” their indictment says. A day later, Radovanovic and Filion embarked on a swatting spree targeting at least 25 members of Congress or their relatives and dozens more state and federal government officials, according to prosecutors.

“Over and over, police departments and other first responders were hijacked by the defendant and deployed to fictitious emergencies,” prosecutors wrote. “As a result, fewer personnel and resources were available to respond to real emergencies.

On Jan. 19, 2024, Secret Service agents questioned Szabo after Romanian authorities searched his home. He was extradited from Romania to the U.S. in November 2024, officials said.

Thursday’s Flood Risk (1 out of 4):

Thursday’s flood risk is focused is mainly north of I-10.

Friday, the flood risk increases and includes all counties in southeast Texas. More waves of rain and storms move in along a slow-moving cold front. Watch for street flooding and ponding, and give yourself extra time for morning and evening commutes.

Flooding is the main concern as some areas could pick up to 3 inches of rain. Strong to severe storms are expected to develop on Friday, producing strong winds and hail. Thankfully, the risk is marginal.

If you look down at the list, a marginal risk generally means short-lived but intense storms, but isolated coverage.

Now let’s talk about timing:

There will be non-severe storms and scattered rain starting as early as 8 AM and moving north through the afternoon.

The rain chance winds down briefly before more waves of rain return late Thursday night into Friday.

By the evening, Houston sees a slight lull before more rain and storm activity fires overnight into Friday. By Friday morning, widespread rain continues, but notice some bright purple and black colors in the middle of some storms on the maps below. Those are the clusters that likely will have a lot of lightning and hail if it forms. Some of the hail could turn severe, reaching a quarter-size or larger.

Friday afternoon storm continue but focused north of I-10.

Check back for adjustments to the timeline impacts. We are still monitoring the cold front’s position and speed, which is triggering this unsettled pattern.

Airfare is up. Checked bag fees are climbing. Some overseas airlines have reduced flights, leaving fewer options for international travelers. And with ongoing conflict in the Middle East and concerns about jet fuel supplies in parts of Europe and Asia, the question on a lot of travelers’ minds is simple: Do you book now, or wait and see?

According to Rey Alton, general manager at Almeda Travel, who has spent 49 years guiding clients through wars, financial crises and a global pandemic, the answer is clear: Book now.

“You have to be smart, you have to plan. You can’t wait because prices are steadily rising,” Alton said.

• 1 person dead after asphalt tank failure leads to spill in South Houston

He puts a number on just how much prices have moved.

“Prices are rising, I would say an average of 10 to 15%,” Alton said.

But the base ticket price is only part of the story. Fees for extras like checked bags and seat assignments are stacking up fast, and catching travelers off guard.

“The initial price that you may see is not what you’re going to pay,” Alton said. “You’re seeing those compound on your price and you’re seeing more and more of that.”

The average checked bag fee domestically is now $50 per bag, and can run even higher on international routes, according to Alton.

Before booking any ticket, especially internationally, Alton says every traveler should make one stop first.

“Our first step is always to go to the State Department’s website and see what area you’re traveling to, what the travel warnings are. So that’s the first thing,” Alton said.

If the warning level feels manageable, he says don’t hesitate.

“If you feel that, hey, it’s comfortable and the warning’s not high enough, go ahead and book just for it because prices are just going to go up,” Alton said.

• Industrial worker killed in reported ‘heavy machinery’ accident in Sugar Land

His advice extends well beyond summer. Alton recommends locking in fall and winter holiday travel now as well.

“Summer travel, also fall travel, and also winter holiday. I would book now. The sooner the better,” Alton said.

Travel insurance can offer peace of mind — but Alton warns that many travelers don’t fully understand what their policy actually covers, and that gap can be costly. A sample United Airlines travel insurance policy reviewed for this story was priced at $400. But buried in the fine print of many policies are exclusions that often catch travelers off guard — including wars, geopolitical events, government actions and travel bans such as pandemics.

Current global tensions make that fine print even more critical.

“With this conflict with Iran, right, if something was to happen, some of these travel insurance companies don’t cover cancellations of flights or something like that because of it?” Alton was asked. “Correct. Depending on the insurance that you have, most insurance won’t cover war. And so most people don’t realize that. And in those cases, people are out, you know, thousands of dollars,” he said.

His advice? Don’t try to sort through the fine print alone.

“My best advice is to contact a travel professional,” Alton said.

The ripple effects of rising fuel costs don’t stop at the airport, either. Alton says tours and excursions booked at travel destinations have also gotten more expensive, particularly any that involve transportation or fuel costs.

Despite all of it, his bottom line stays the same: If you can travel, do it, and do it soon. Prices, he says, seem to only be going one direction.

According to the 2026 report, human remains are still buried beneath Lockwood Drive, an area long believed to overlap with the Evergreen Negro Cemetery. The cemetery served as the final resting place for formerly enslaved individuals, Buffalo Soldiers, and some of the city’s earliest Black residents.

Advocates and researchers say the findings confirm what many had suspected for years: the burial ground was never fully cleared before the roadway was constructed.

Earlier excavation only scratched the surface

During a previous METRO rapid transit project—later canceled—archaeologists were called in to investigate concerns about the site. That effort uncovered 33 sets of remains in the roadway’s median.

But experts now say that work only addressed the top layer.

• Missouri City traffic stop uncovers major chop shop tied to stolen vehicles nationwide

“They just came and kind of scraped and got the top layer,” said Zanitra Wells, conservator of the cemetery.

Further analysis indicates that graves exist at multiple depths, suggesting that many more remains were left undisturbed.

Hundreds potentially still underground

The updated report documents 37 recovered remains so far, but estimates that the true number could be significantly higher—possibly in the hundreds.

Many of the graves are unmarked, leading researchers to believe they belong to the cemetery’s “Strangers Rest” section. This area was historically used for individuals who were estranged from their families or unable to afford formal burial services.

“There were other layers of remains that are still there,” said Lisa Jedkins, who works with Project RESPECT and the Why Not Legacy and Heritage Foundations.

Calls for accountability and next steps

The discovery is now prompting urgent questions about how the city should respond.

“Now it’s up to the city to make a decision,” said advocate Juliana Dearman.

• Industrial worker killed in reported ‘heavy machinery’ accident in Sugar Land

Community leaders are calling for transparency and action, including efforts to identify the remains and notify possible descendants.

“We want to make sure that people know what has happened to their loved ones,” Jedkins said.

Community members urged to come forward

Advocates are encouraging families who believe they may have relatives buried at Evergreen to come forward. Their goal is to help identify those interred and ensure they are properly accounted for and respected.

Historic recognition adds urgency

The issue takes on added significance as the cemetery is set to receive a historic marker from the state of Texas this August. Under state law, designated historic cemeteries cannot be disturbed—raising further concerns about the presence of human remains beneath an active roadway.

As the city considers its next steps, the findings are renewing focus on preserving history, honoring the dead, and addressing long-standing concerns from the community.

The area has repeatedly flooded after rainfall, at times reaching significant water levels and forcing drivers to avoid the roadway.

The city first told KPRC 2 on April 21 that a contractor would be on site Thursday, April 24, to begin inspections and plan repairs. According to city updates, a consultant team was on site April 24, 25, and 26.

• RELATED: Persistent flooding in some neighborhoods prompts calls for Houston to address drainage problems

Work included CCTV inspections, pipe cleaning, surveying, and railroad flag support due to active train operations in the area.

On April 28, officials said the project is a high priority but noted that a timeline for completion is not yet available. In an update on April 29, officials said the investigation is ongoing and expected to take “a few weeks.”

Officials said the system involves a storm sewer installed around 1936 that runs approximately 25 to 40 feet underground within a railroad right of way. Access points are narrow and constrained due to the age and location of the infrastructure.

Crews are working to determine the alignment of the storm sewer system and identify potential damage or puncture points. Officials also said the system connects to drainage leading toward Buffalo Bayou and may be impacted when water levels rise.

Once the investigation is complete, the next steps will include designing repairs followed by construction. No timeline has been provided for those phases.

In the meantime, crews have been pumping out water after rainfall and adding barricades to restrict access during flooding. Officials also said there are four locked swing gates at the underpass, with Houston police assisting in opening and closing them for safety.

The East End District is also working to install two cameras to help monitor conditions at the site.

Crews are scheduled to return Monday, May 4, to continue the investigation after recent weather delays.

Drivers are urged to avoid flooded roadways and follow safety guidance: Turn around, don’t drown.

The company earned $26.77 billion, or $10.44 per share, in the January-March period, up about 61% from $16.64 billion, or $6.43 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose 33% from last year to $56.31 billion. Meta was expected to earn $6.67 per share on revenue of $55.6 billion, per the estimates of analysts surveyed by FactSet Research.

“We had a milestone quarter with strong momentum across our apps and the release of our first model from Meta Superintelligence Labs,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We’re on track to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people.”

About 3.56 billion people used at least one of Meta's apps on a daily basis in March, which declined slightly from December. That decline is due to internet disruptions in Iran and the restriction on access to WhatsApp in Russia, company leaders said in a post-earnings call.

Meta expects total revenue for the second and current quarter to be in the range of $58 billion to $61 billion, compared with the average analyst estimate of $59.48 billion.

The company also updated its projected capital expenditures for the year to be in the range of $125 billion to $145 billion, increased from the previously announced range of $115 billion to 4135 billion. Meta said the change reflects its expectations of higher component pricing and, “to a lesser extent,” additional data center costs.

Meta’s stock price was down more than 6% in extended trading after the numbers came out.

When Meta posted its initial forecast for 2026 spending at the close of last year, it said the year-over-year growth was driven by increased investment to support Meta Superintelligence Labs efforts. Since then, the company has said it is laying off about 10% of its workforce, or about 8,000 workers, as it continues to ramp up spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure and highly paid AI-expert hires.

“Investments in data centers are part of a massive gamble by Big Tech firms to win the AI race, to develop artificial general intelligence and to drive massive revenue and profits in the future," said J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, in a statement. “But the risks associated with alienating the top-tier human workforce that took years to build too often goes unnoticed.”

Meta ended March with nearly 78,000 workers, up 1% year over year.

While speaking on a post-earnings call about AI agents and AI-powered products Meta is developing, Zuckerberg said he doesn't believe AI will replace people, as many workers fear. “Instead, I think that AI is going to amplify people’s ability to do what you want, whether that’s to improve your health, your learning, your relationships, your ability to achieve your personal career goals and more,” he said.

Susan Li, Meta’s CFO, said on the same call that the first quarter showed strong execution across its core ads and engagement initiative, but also noted that legal and regulatory matters, could make a dent in progress moving forward.

The company is monitoring “ headwinds in the EU and the US that could significantly impact our business and financial results,” Li said as she noted that there has been increased scrutiny as of late on “youth-related issues.”

The jury in a landmark social media addiction trial in Los Angeles recently found the company liable for harms to a young woman who began using Meta’s platforms — as well as Alphabet's YouTube — as a child. Additional trials scheduled for this year and beyond “may ultimately result in a material loss,” Li said.

Trump, meanwhile, told Axios that he’s rejecting Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a lift of the U.S. blockade — a plan that would postpone discussions of Iran’s nuclear program.

Until now, Hegseth has avoided public questioning from lawmakers about the war, although he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine have held televised Pentagon briefings. Hegseth has mostly taken questions from conservative journalists, while citing Bible passages to castigate mainstream outlets.

Democrats quickly pivoted to the ballooning costs of the Iran war, the huge drawdown of critical U.S. munitions and the bombing of an elementary school that killed children. Some lawmakers have also questioned how prepared the military was to shoot down swarms of Iranian drones, some of which penetrated U.S. defenses and killed or injured American troops.

Republicans have said they will keep faith in Trump’s wartime leadership, for now, citing Iran’s nuclear program, the potential for talks to resume and the high stakes of withdrawal. Still, GOP lawmakers are eager for the conflict to end, and some are eyeing future votes that could become an important test for the president if the war drags on.

Here's the Latest:

USS Ford aircraft carrier heading home after record-breaking deployment, AP sources say

The world’s largest aircraft carrier had been at sea for more than 300 days, including participating in the war against Iran and capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The Ford will be leaving the Middle East in the coming days and returning to its home port in Virginia in mid-May, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail sensitive military movements.

The ship broke the U.S. record this month for the longest post-Vietnam War deployment, a nearly 10-month span after leaving Naval Station Norfolk in June.

— Konstantin Toropin and Ben Finley

Trump says US is weighing reducing American troop presence in Germany

The president leveled the new threat that he may reduce the U.S. military presence in Germany as tensions grow with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war.

“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” Trump said in a social media post.

Merz on Monday said the U.S. was being “humiliated” by the Iranian leadership and criticized Washington’s lack of strategy in the war. Trump attacked Merz in a social media post Tuesday, saying the German chancellor “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon” and “doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”

In his first term, Trump also moved to cut U.S. troops in Germany because he said it spent too little on defense.

Araghchi works the phones

In the absence of substantive negotiations, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been busy shoring up moral and rhetorical support in his country’s staring contest with America and Israel.

He spent Wednesday conducting a string of phone calls with the foreign ministers of India, Kenya and Poland, along with the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric and Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament.

Official reports of these chats contained few details, but the Iranian government account of the meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said Araghchi “informed his Indian counterpart about the situation in the region and the consequences of the continued illegal actions of the United States in threatening the freedom of international navigation, as well as the latest developments related to the negotiations to end the imposed war against Iran.”

Earlier this week, Araghchi conducted a whirlwind diplomatic tour, visiting Oman and Pakistan on Sunday then Moscow on Monday for a sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vance acknowledges he’s questioned missile stockpiles in the wake of the Iran war

The vice president, in an interview airing Wednesday on Fox News Channel, was responding to a report in The Atlantic that said he, in private, has repeatedly questioned the Pentagon’s depiction of the war and the depletion of U.S. missile stockpiles.

Vance was dismissive of the reporting but said, “Of course I’m concerned about, you know, our readiness because that’s my job to be concerned.”

He praised the military, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, but said, “It’s of course my job to ask these questions. It’s of course my job to make sure that we’re on top of every issue.”

Hegseth hearing c

oncludes after nearly six hours

Hegseth is exiting the House Armed Services Committee after a nearly six-hour hearing.

The hearing showed the partisan divide on Capitol Hill over the war with Iran. As Democrats questioned him on the economic costs and strategy of the war, Hegseth fired back that lawmakers were being “feckless” in their questioning. Republicans mostly stood behind the defense secretary, although a few questioned his reasoning for removing several top officials.

“At the end of the day, the Iran war is the biggest issue that we face,” said Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the committee.

Hegseth will be back on Capitol Hill tomorrow for a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Hegseth says he ordered officers removed from promotion list

Hegseth told lawmakers that he ordered the names of two female and two Black officers from a promotion list.

Hegseth was asked the question because Army Secretary Dan Driscoll previously testified before a congressional committee that he refused to strike the officers’ names because of their exemplary service.

Hegseth, who has been criticized for the firings of top military leaders, said that he did it.

“Every officer serves at the pleasure of the president,” Hegseth said. “And when they need to be removed in order to ensure we have the right leadership in those services, I will make those calls, regardless of what you might say from the dais.”

Hegseth says Pentagon released Ukraine aid funds

Hegseth told lawmakers that, as of yesterday, the Pentagon is allowing $400 million of Ukraine aid to be spent after months of delay.

The admission comes a day after Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell called out the Pentagon for withholding the funds in an editorial with the Washington Post.

“The Ukraine aid we passed months ago is now collecting dust at the Pentagon,” McConnell wrote in the Post.

Jay Hurst, the Pentagon comptroller, told lawmakers the funds can now be spent, but when the aid will actually reach Ukraine “depends on what they buy with the money.”

“We’re going to take the advice of the (European Command) commander” on how to use the funds best, Hurst added.

Iran–India diplomatic call follows Araghchi’s Russia visit

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held a telephone conversation discussing rising regional tensions and diplomatic efforts, Araghchi’s official Telegram channel said in a post.

Araghchi said insecurity in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz stems from what he described as aggressive actions by the United States and Israel, adding they should be held accountable for global security and economic consequences. He also warned of the impact of U.S. actions on freedom of international navigation.

During his recent Moscow visit, Araghchi said Washington was seeking talks after failing to achieve its objectives. His regional tour included Pakistan and Oman, amid attempts to revive stalled negotiations between Tehran and Washington.

2 people killed in a clash with police in Iran

An armed group in the Gach Berin area in the city of Iranshahr opened fire upon encountering a police patrol, prompting officers to respond with heavy gunfire that stopped the group’s vehicle and killed two people, according to provincial police, as reported by the semi-official news agencies, Tasnim News Agency and Fars News Agency. Both Iranian outlets are close to state institutions.

Two others were wounded in the exchange, the police said.

The police added that a Kalashnikov rifle and ammunition were recovered from the vehicle after it was searched.

Iranshahr is in southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan. The province has been the site of occasional deadly clashes involving militant groups, armed drug smugglers and Iranian security forces. It is one of the least developed provinces of Iran.

Hegseth deflects questions on cost of gas by pointing to California

Americans saw the largest monthly jump in gas prices in six decades during the war with Iran. Yet, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to engage on that issue and instead pointed to typically higher gas prices in California.

Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee have asked Hegseth several times about the rise in gas prices. When Rep. Maggie Goodlander asked whether Hegseth knew the current nationwide average price for a gallon of gas, he responded that it’s “much higher in California.”

Republicans routinely lambast California’s higher gas prices that result from higher state taxes and environmental regulations in the Democratic-led state.

Goodlander responded that the current average is $4.23 a gallon and argued the defense secretary is ignoring the “impacts of this war on the American taxpayer.”

Trump cheers UAE plan to exit OPEC as ‘great’

The president said the oil-rich nation’s decision to leave OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1 could help calm the volatile oil market shaken by the Iran war.

“I think ultimately it’s a good thing for getting the price of gas down, getting oil down, getting everything down,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump says Putin offered to help US handle Iran’s enriched uranium as part of potential nuclear deal

Trump said Putin, during a phone call Wednesday, renewed his offer for Russia to serve as a third country that could deal with Iran’s 970 pounds of enriched uranium that the U.S. leader is demanding Tehran must surrender.

“He told me he’d like to be involved with the enrichment — if he can help us get it,” Trump said Putin told him. “I said, ‘I’d much rather have you be involved with ending the war with Ukraine.’ To me, that would be more important.”

Top military advisor for Trump says troops should always follow lawful orders

The House Armed Services Committee hearing touched on a debate over how U.S. military members should evaluate whether orders they have received are lawful and should be followed under military protocol, especially as the military has carried out strikes on boats allegedly carrying narcotics.

The question, which came as the hearing reached over four hours, was asked by Rep. Chris Deluzio, a Democrat who was part of a group of lawmakers investigated by the FBI last year after releasing a video reminding U.S. military members to defy illegal orders. Deluzio asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff what commanding officers should do if an enemy is trying to surrender.

Caine declined to discuss the issue in detail, saying that it would take him into a “partisan place,” but added that “officers and enlisted service members always follow lawful orders. There’s a checklist for them to do that.”

Life of imprisoned Iranian human rights activist in ‘imminent danger,’ foundation says

Dangerously high blood pressure and losing about 44 pounds (20 kilograms) rapidly have placed Narges Mohammadi’s life in “imminent danger,” according to a report by her foundation.

Mohammadi, an Iranian human rights activist and Nobel laureate, has been imprisoned for several periods since 2016 over her opposition to the death penalty and compulsory veiling. She is back in prison after being sentenced on Feb. 8 to 7 1/2 years on charges including collusion against state security and propaganda. The foundation said she suffers from persistent chest pain. She also experienced high blood pressure over the past three days, without responding to medication.

Despite confirmation from Iran’s medical examiner that she needs at least one month of specialized cardiac care, Tehran prosecutors have refused to grant a temporary suspension of her sentence, the report said. It added that her legal team, after a recent visit, said her condition has reached a critical point.

Congressman blasts Hegseth over troop deaths, says secretary should resign

Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan criticized Hegseth over the deaths of six American soldiers who were stationed in Kuwait and killed by an Iranian drone.

Ryan pressed Hegseth on whether intelligence showed the location was high on Iran’s target list and was indefensible from aerial attack.

“Yet you sent our soldiers from the 103d Sustainment Command there anyway. Is that true or false?” Ryan asked.

Hegseth said the military took proactive measures to protect American forces and that the soldiers who died are remembered every day.

Ryan quoted survivors of the attack who told CBS that they weren’t prepared to defend against a drone attack. The congressman also accused Hegseth of downplaying what happened and said he should resign.

Ultra-orthodox protests against draft law ripple across Israel

Ultra-orthodox Jews are protesting Israel’s draft law throughout Israel this week, including in Jerusalem, where police used stun grenades to disperse demonstrations on Wednesday.

The draft remains a political powder keg in Israel. The Ultra-Orthodox make up 13% of the population and oppose enlistment because they believe studying full-time in seminaries is their most important duty. Courts have demanded the government enforce a law mandating conscription. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — facing elections this year — relies on ultra-Orthodox parties to maintain his coalition.

The arrest of yeshiva students accused of draft dodging kindled this week’s demonstrations, including in Ashkelon, where ultra-Orthodox protesters broke into a military commander’s yard Tuesday, prompting condemnation from Netanyahu.

“It is unacceptable what they are doing to yeshiva students as if they were the worst criminals,” protestor Menahem Adri said in Jerusalem. “All we want is to sit and study Torah.”

Kremlin warns of ‘dire consequences’ if hostilities against Iran resume

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Iran war in a phone call with Trump on Wednesday, with the Kremlin stressing the “dire consequences” if hostilities resumed.

Speaking to journalists, presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov said that Putin had told the U.S. president that a ground operation on Iranian territory would be completely “unacceptable and dangerous.”

Hegseth refuses to say why Army general was fired in tense exchange

Houlahan pressed Hegseth on why he fired the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George.

Hegseth refused to answer and didn’t deny the Democratic representative’s suggestion that he fired George via text.

Hegseth said he wouldn’t talk about the removal out of respect.

“However, I will note it’s very difficult to change the culture of a department that’s been destroyed by the wrong perspectives,” Hegseth said.

“So, Gen. George destroyed a culture?” Houlahan asked.

Hegseth said the department “needed new leadership.”

The congresswoman responded: “You have no way of explaining why you fired one of the most decorated and remarkable men who’s ever served this nation?”

“We needed new leadership,” Hegseth said. “That’s my answer.”

“And so your answer is a very immature way of responding to my request,” Houlahan said.

Hegseth hearing takes a 10-minute break

The testimony before the House Armed Services Committee has been going on for about three hours.

Democrats who urged troops to defy illegal orders face Hegseth

Four House Democrats are getting their first opportunity to publicly question Hegseth after they were part of a group of Democratic lawmakers who the FBI investigated after releasing a social media video last year that urged U.S. service members to follow military protocol and defy any illegal orders.

Reps. Chrissy Houlahan, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio and Maggie Goodlander, who all previously served in the military or intelligence agencies, now sit on the House Armed Services Committee.

Houlahan, who was the first Democrat in the group to question Hegseth, reminded the defense secretary that “Democrats, even Democrats in Congress, are patriots as well” and “admire and love our uniformed services.”

Still, they confronted Hegseth with tough questions about how long the U.S. would be at war with Iran and how he has led the Pentagon.

Hegseth refuses to say how much longer the Iran war could last or cost

Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan asked Hegseth, “How many more months, just by order of magnitude, do you think that you’re going to need to be able to conclude operations successfully? And how many more billions of dollars do you think you’re going to ask this body for?”

Hegseth refused to answer the question, saying that the U.S. military would never tip its hand to an adversary about how long it would be committed to the mission.

Trump says he’s rejecting Iran’s latest proposal, keeping blockade in place

The president told Axios on Wednesday that he’s rejecting Iran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a lift of the U.S. blockade. Iran’s proposal, shared with U.S. leaders this week, sought to postpone discussions around Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump told Axios he doesn’t want to lift the blockade until Iran addresses its nuclear ambitions.

“The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing,” Trump said. “And it is going to be worse for them. They can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hegseth faces criticism over firings of US military leaders

Republican Congressman Don Bacon criticized the defense secretary over his ousting of admirals, generals and other top Pentagon officials. They’ve included Navy Secretary John Phelan and the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George, and several others.

“We had a huge bipartisan majority in here that had confidence in the Army chief of staff and the Secretary of Navy,” Bacon said. “And I would just point out … you may have the constitutional right to do these things, but it doesn’t make it right or wise.”

Deadly Iran school strike still under investigation

Hegseth says that two months after a deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school killed more than 165 people, including many children, the incident remains under investigation.

That answer came after California Democrat Ro Khanna pressed the defense secretary on the costs associated with the strike.

Hegseth replied that “that unfortunate situation remains under investigation” but that he “wouldn’t tie a cost to that.”

Hegseth told reporters last month that the military assigned a general from outside of U.S. Central Command to investigate the strike. Still, he refused questions about what led to it while arguing that the U.S. does not target civilians.

Those comments came just days after The Associated Press reported that there was growing evidence that pointed to U.S. culpability for the Feb. 28 strike, which hit a school adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard base in Minab, Iran.

Hegseth responds to economic costs of war with Iran

The defense secretary faced intense questions from Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, about what American households would have to pay due to the economic repercussions of the war with Iran.

“Do you know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of the Iran war?” Khanna asked.

Pete Hegseth retorted, “I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb.”

Khanna then accused Hegseth and the Trump administration of failing to live up to the president’s campaign promises of lowering the cost of living for Americans. He argued that Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would cause American households to pay thousands more dollars for gas and food.

“I’m sad for all the people who voted for Trump. I’m sad for them because you betrayed them,” Khanna said.

Hegseth says it’s unfair to call Iran war a quagmire

The defense secretary pushed back on Democratic criticisms that the Trump administration has led Americans into a “quagmire,” pointing out that the conflict is only two months old and asserting it has had great success against the Islamic Republic. The U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on for years, he said.

Trump said in early March that operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that.”

The U.S. and Iran do appear to be locked in a stalemate. Trump seems unlikely to accept Tehran’s latest offer to reopen the strait if the U.S. ends the war, lifts its sea blockade and postpones nuclear talks. The Iranians seem unwilling to give up their nuclear ambitions before ending the conflict.

Hegseth says US military considered that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz

He said the Pentagon “looked at all aspects” of the risk that Iran would blockade the strait. The claim came after Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, asked Hegseth if he considered “Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz winning.”

“I would say the blockade that we hold that doesn’t allow anything to come in or out of Iranian ports,” Hegseth replied.

So “we’ve blockaded their blockade,” Moulton said — that’s “like saying tag, you’re it.”

Caine declined to say if the risk of Iran closing the critical waterway was considered, but said the military always offers “a full range of military options that are carefully considered with the associated risks.”

The heated exchange was the latest between Hegseth and Democrats who have used the hearing to ask broader questions on the strategy behind the war in Iran and the Trump administration’s use of the military. Meanwhile, House Republicans have largely used their time asking very specific or detailed questions about the Pentagon’s budget and spending.

As TotalEnergies reports huge profits, protesters call for windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies

Climate activists protested outside a TotalEnergies petrol station in Paris on Wednesday after the French energy giant reported $5.4 billion in adjusted first-quarter profit, up 29% from a year earlier, as it “captured higher prices” despite production challenges due to the war in Iran.

The 350.org group said about 30 activists from several environmental organizations unfurled a banner reading, “TotalEnergies profits, we foot the bill.”

The group said war-related price spikes have cost French consumers and businesses more than $2.3 billion so far, urging the French government to “show political courage” by permanently taxing excess fossil fuel profits.

“While families watch their bills skyrocket, TotalEnergies posts some of its best financial results without even paying its fair share of taxes,” 350.org country manager Fanny Petitbon said in a statement. “We are witnessing an obscene transfer of wealth: the war enriches shareholders as it impoverishes citizens.”

Hegseth claims Americans support Iran war despite polling

The hearing has resumed, with a heated exchange between Democratic Rep. John Garamendi and Hegseth.

The secretary said the American people have supported the war’s mission of depriving Iran of a nuclear weapon, “despite your loose talk and words like quagmire.”

While an AP-NORC poll from March found that about two-thirds of U.S. adults said it’s “extremely” or “very” important to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, other polling suggests that most Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling the issue of Iran more broadly.

Garamendi had lambasted Hegseth and Trump for the Iran war, calling it “a political and economic disaster at every level.”

1.24 million projected to face acute insecurity in Lebanon, UN report says

That’s nearly one in four of the population analyzed, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis released by Lebanon’s Agriculture Ministry with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program.

The figures are projections and it remains unclear how the estimates were reached. The report notes that the current crisis follows seven years of compounded economic collapse and conflict.

“Compounded shocks are undermining agricultural livelihoods and impacting food security, highlighting the urgent need for emergency agricultural assistance to support farmers,” said Nora Ourabah Haddad, FAO Representative in Lebanon.

The e-commerce and technology company said that sales in its cloud computing unit were up 28% in the January-March period, the fastest increase in 15 quarters. Amazon Web Services had 24% sales growth in the fourth quarter, which followed the division's 20% growth in the third quarter.

The Seattle-based company also offered a bullish outlook for net sales in the current quarter, surpassing analysts' estimates. However, shares slid nearly 2% in after-hours trading before rising about 3%.

Investors were closely watching Amazon’s quarterly earnings to see if the company’s $200 billion investment in artificial intelligence, robots, semiconductors and satellites is starting to pay off. The planned expenditure for the year marked a 60% increase from Amazon’s $128 billion in capital spending last year and spooked investors, sending the stock down 11% in after-hours trading when it was announced in February.

CEO Andy Jassy defended the spending during the previous quarterly earnings call, saying Amazon expected long-term returns on its invested capital.

The results from the latest quarter underscored that demand keeps growing for Amazon's services and technology.

“We’re in the middle of some of the biggest inflections of our lifetime, we’re well positioned to lead, and I’m very optimistic about what’s ahead for our customers and Amazon,” Jassy said in a release Wednesday.

Amazon came out with its first-quarter earnings the same day as three other tech giants — Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet — were reporting theirs, giving investors a read on AI spending and cloud growth across the industry.

Big deals that Amazon signed with OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta this month gave the company solid momentum.

Amazon announced what it called a “major expansion” of its partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI on Tuesday, a day after the artificial intelligence company said it was loosening its ties to longtime backer Microsoft.

Last week, Anthropic agreed to commit more than $100 billion to Amazon’s AWS cloud platform over the next 10 years to train and run the artificial intelligence company’s Claude chatbot. The partnership will allow Anthropic to secure up to 5 gigawatts of Amazon’s Trainium chips to train and power their artificial intelligence models, Amazon said.

Also last week, Amazon said that Meta, which owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, signed an agreement to power agentic AI on AWS’ Graviton chips.

Like other retailers, however, Amazon is experiencing higher tariff costs because of President Donald Trump’s foreign trade policies. Rising shipping costs as the Iran war affects oil and fuel prices also could cut into the company's e-commerce revenue.

Amazon this month said it would impose a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on some third-party sellers using its platform. The temporary charge was effective April 17 for many of the sellers that use Amazon’s fulfillment services, the company confirmed to The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Amazon has been speeding up order delivery times through a combination of robotics, AI technology and more efficient warehousing. In fact, speedier delivery helped Amazon dethrone Walmart in February from its status as the nation’s largest company by revenue, according to Fortune, which compiles a ranking of the top 500 U.S. corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years.

A new ultra-fast service called Amazon Now offers deliveries of orders from a selection of thousands of items in 30 minutes or less. The service is now available in various cities in India, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates and is being tested in several communities in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, the company said in February.

The company said on Wednesday that the service has expanded to parts of Tokyo and eight major cities in Brazil, bringing the total availability of Amazon Now to tens of millions of customers across nine countries. It plans to continue expanding the service in the U.S. and around the world this year, Amazon noted.

Amazon reported earnings of $30.3 billion, or $2.78 per share, for the three-month period ended March 31. That compared with $17.1 billion, or $1.59 per share, in the year-ago period.

Net sales rose 17% to $181.5 billion in the quarter, compared with $155.7 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts were expecting $1.63 per share on sales of $177.28 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue from Amazon Web Services reached $37.58 billion. Analysts were expecting $36.6 billion, according to FactSet.

For the current quarter, Amazon said it expected net sales will be in the range of $194 billion to $199 billion.

That would mean an increase of between 16% to 19% from the year-ago quarter. Analysts were expecting $188.96 billion in the current period, according to FactSet.

Military Moms and Wives of Brazoria County says postage has climbed to about $24.80 per care package, making it harder to keep pace with demand for shipments overseas.

Despite the challenge, the organization is marking 23 years of service while continuing its latest campaign, Operation Epic Fury.

Volunteers say more than 800 care packages are currently prepared, with nearly 500 expected to be shipped in the coming week. In recent years, the group says it has reached thousands of troops, including about 3,000 service members last year alone.

Organizers say requests from deployed troops continue to come in, but limited funding could impact future shipments, including those typically sent during the holidays.

Supporters can help sustain the effort by donating through Venmo or PayPal, contributing items through the group’s Amazon wish list, or mailing donations to P.O. Box 2345 in Angleton, Texas, 77516.

Organizers say even a single $24.80 donation can cover the cost to ship one care package to a deployed service member.

At several of their Houston-area locations, floral experts say they work with customers to create something special for mom, no matter the budget. You can grab a pre-arranged bouquet or work with staff to build a custom look on the spot, adding greenery, extra blooms, or even balloons and keepsakes. The goal is simple. Make it personal without making it complicated.

Convenience is also a big part of the experience this year. Customers can order flowers, gifts, and even balloons through delivery services like DoorDash, making it easy to send something thoughtful without leaving home. And for those who want to go the extra mile, sweet treats like chocolate-covered strawberries can be added to complete the gift.

Floral experts also say it’s not just about buying the bouquet, it’s about how you present it. Simple tips like trimming stems, removing lower leaves, and combining arrangements can elevate even a budget-friendly option into something that feels high-end.

With Mother’s Day, graduations, and wedding season all around the corner, the message is clear. A beautiful arrangement does not have to be complicated or expensive. It just needs a thoughtful touch.

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That message is at the heart of the movement. “Clothing is never consent,” a phrase advocates continue to repeat as they work to shift the focus away from victims and toward accountability.

Josh Brown CEO of the Fort Bend Women’s Center, and board member Michele Fisher joined the show to talk about why these conversations are still so important. Denim Day itself began after a controversial court ruling blamed a survivor based on her clothing, sparking outrage and a global response that continues today.

The discussion also highlighted a difficult reality. Many cases of sexual violence go unreported, often due to fear, shame, or concern about not being believed. In many situations, survivors know the person responsible, which can make coming forward even more complicated.

That’s where the Fort Bend Women’s Center steps in. The organization provides 24/7 crisis support, emergency shelter, counseling, and legal advocacy. But their work goes beyond immediate safety. They help survivors create a path forward, whether that means safety planning, finding resources, or rebuilding their lives over time.

For those who may not be ready to speak openly, the center offers anonymous ways to reach out, including a 24-hour hotline and online chat. The goal is simple: no one should have to navigate these situations alone.

Denim Day also serves as a reminder that support can start with awareness. Wearing denim, starting conversations, and sharing accurate information are all small ways to make a big impact.

As advocates emphasize, healing is possible. And with the right support, survivors can move from crisis to independence, surrounded by a community that sees them, believes them, and stands with them.

The lawsuit targets De’Ai Postpartum Care Center, alleging the company unlawfully facilitated travel for Chinese nationals whose primary purpose was to give birth in the United States and secure so-called birthright citizenship. According to the Attorney General’s office, the operation violated multiple Texas laws, including provisions of the Texas Penal Code and the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

• Industrial worker killed in reported accident in Sugar Land

Authorities say the operation spanned several properties across the Houston area, including locations in Sugar Land, Houston, Richmond, and Rosenberg. The lawsuit alleges that multiple families were housed at these properties simultaneously, with the business facilitating a high volume of births.

Court filings claim the business has operated for nearly two decades, during which it allegedly facilitated the births of more than 1,000 children in the United States. The lawsuit contends that the Center promoted its services primarily through Chinese social media platforms and websites, targeting expectant mothers abroad.

• Missouri City traffic stop uncovers major chop shop tied to stolen vehicles nationwide

The lawsuit states the state is seeking to shut down the operation. The lawsuit also requests financial damages exceeding $1 million.

In the filing, the state describes the operation as an “illegal, dangerous, and dishonest” enterprise that undermines immigration laws and constitutes a public nuisance.

The report was filed after the child’s grandmother went to police regarding what the family describes as a humiliating situation at a Fuel Depot on Bellfort Avenue.

The case is now being reviewed by the Houston Police Department’s Crimes Against Children unit, according to the family.

The situation came to light after the boy, a middle school student, refused to return to school.

Family members later learned other students had been teasing him after a video began circulating.

According to the family, the child stopped at the gas station after school and asked to use the restroom but was told it was out of service. He then went behind the building, where surveillance cameras captured the incident.

This story, originally shared by KPRC 2’s Community News Partner Grizzy’s Hood News, has been seen hundreds of thousands of times.

The family alleges images from that footage were later printed and placed on a store door. They also say a clerk showed the video to students, who recorded and shared it.

The video has since spread among students at Attucks Middle School and Alcott Elementary School, the family said, leading to ongoing bullying.

Family members say the child is now struggling emotionally and no longer wants to attend school.

Police have not confirmed details of the allegations or whether any charges have been filed.

• MORE NEWS: Houston City Council to vote on making speed cushions permanent across dozens of neighborhoods

No federal requirement for public restroom access

While the situation has raised questions about access to restrooms, federal law does not require private businesses to provide restrooms to the public.

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that restrooms be accessible if they are offered, but it does not require a business to provide one in the first place.

Similarly, Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules require restroom access for employees, not customers.

The result is a narrow standard: if a restroom exists, it must meet accessibility guidelines, but businesses can still limit access to customers or employees.

Texas law allows businesses to restrict access

Texas law does not require private businesses to allow public use of restrooms.

State regulations focus primarily on accessibility and building standards. If a restroom is provided, it must comply with accessibility rules, but businesses can restrict access based on their own policies.

In many cases, businesses can legally deny restroom access if a person is not a customer, if the restroom is designated for employees only, or if there are safety or security concerns.

• MORE NEWS: Texas report finds rising mental health struggles among teen girls, few getting help

No “Ally’s Law” in Texas

Some states have passed what is commonly known as “Ally’s Law,” which requires certain businesses to allow restroom access for people with qualifying medical conditions if no public restroom is available.

Texas has not adopted that law as of 2026.

That means there is no statewide requirement in Texas that guarantees restroom access, even in urgent or medical situations.

Where legal concerns can arise

Although businesses can generally deny restroom access, there are situations where that decision could raise legal questions.

Those include cases involving potential disability discrimination, if someone with a documented medical condition is denied access, or broader civil rights concerns if access is denied selectively.

Local ordinances may also require restrooms in certain types of businesses, such as restaurants or bars, though those facilities are often limited to customers.

Houston Police now investigating

The case remains under investigation, and authorities have not released additional details.

Because the situation involves a minor, officials typically handle such cases with heightened privacy considerations.

The family says they are seeking accountability as the investigation moves forward.

KPRC 2 requested details on the case from the Houston Police Department.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The incident occurred at the McKaskle Industrial Complex, located in the 15200 block of McKaskle Road.

Officials say emergency crews responded to the scene after receiving reports of an accident on the property.

When first responders arrived, one individual was pronounced dead at the scene. Wednesday afternoon, officials with Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the accident involved “operation of heavy machinery.”

It is unclear at this time what type of accident occurred or whether any workplace safety factors may have contributed.