On Iran, Trump said Xi told him that China wants to help negotiate an end to the war and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil — and Trump has hoped Xi would use that leverage to prod Iran into a deal on U.S. terms. Trump also said Xi assured him that China wouldn’t provide Iran with military equipment.

In a closed-door meeting, Xi warned Trump that differences over Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own territory, could bring the U.S. and China into clashes or conflict. In December, Trump authorized an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan, but has not yet moved forward with delivery. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later warned that it would be “a terrible mistake” for China to take Taiwan by force.

Trump also hopes to focus talks on trade and deals for China to buy more agricultural products and passenger planes, setting up a board to address their differences and avoid a repeat of the trade war ignited last year after Trump’s tariff hikes.

Meanwhile, Adm. Brad Cooper, a top U.S. military leader in the Middle East, is testifying before the Senate for the first time since the Iran war began.

Here's the latest:

House Democrats call for Lutnick to resign as commerce secretary

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are telling Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign following the release of his interview transcript in the House’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Lutnick was neighbors with Epstein for years in New York City. The commerce secretary has insisted he barely knew Epstein, a wealthy financier who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.

But discrepancies have emerged between an interview that Lutnick gave on a podcast in 2025 and his later admissions that he had actually met up with Epstein twice after a 2005 tour of Epstein’s townhouse that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.

Demanding his resignation, Democratic lawmakers told Lutnick in a letter, “You lied to the American people and attempted to conceal your relationship with Jeffrey Epstein in your public statements.”

Emails show FBI Director Kash Patel’s Hawaii trip included ‘VIP snorkel’ at a Pearl Harbor memorial

Government emails obtained by The Associated Press show that FBI Director Kash Patel went on a “VIP snorkel” session last summer at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor.

The FBI didn’t publicize the excursion or Patel’s return to Hawaii after official visits to Australia and New Zealand.

With few exceptions, snorkeling and diving are off-limits around the USS Arizona. The sunken battleship is now a military cemetery reachable only by boat. It has stood as one of the nation’s most hallowed sites since Japan bombed and sank the ship in 1941. It entombs more than 900 sailors and Marines at Pearl Harbor.

A Navy spokesperson confirms the outing but says the service wasn’t able to track down who initiated it.

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US Border Patrol chief announces his resignation in a Fox News interview

The head of the federal agency that patrols the borders of the United States says he’s resigning.

Michael Banks of the U.S. Border Patrol told Fox News on Thursday that his resignation was effective immediately, saying, “It’s just time.”

In the interview, Banks said he believes he’s improved border security significantly.

“I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure, disastrous, chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection had no immediate comment.

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US announces additional $1.8 billion in funding for UN humanitarian aid

By EDITH M. LEDERER

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made the announcement at a press conference Thursday, saying the money will be earmarked for life-saving aid to victims of natural disasters, famine and “people who are truly in critical need.”

The $1.8 billion, to be allocated over the coming year, is in addition to the $2 billion the Trump administration announced in December.

President Donald Trump shut down the international aid agency USAID, throwing global humanitarian efforts into turmoil.

U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher called his agency “overstretched, under-resourced and literally under attack” and reiterated its 2026 plan to reach 87 million of the world’s most needy at a cost of $23 billion — even though 300 million people need humanitarian help.

Before Waltz’s announcement, he said, the U.N. had raised about $7.4 billion. He said the U.S. is now “the single largest national donor” to the United Nations.

Top Democrat on Senate Foreign Relations Committee criticizes Trump’s China summit

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Trump’s visit to China has so far demonstrated a “lack of a coherent foreign policy” and that the U.S. is in a weakened position as a result of the war with Iran.

Shaheen told reporters that she had wished Trump had taken a stronger stance at his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, especially regarding Taiwan.

Trump in December authorized an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan — the largest weapons sale ever to the island — but has not yet moved forward with delivery.

Shaheen, who led a bipartisan group of senators on a visit to Taiwan in March, said the American president has “missed the fact that strong deterrence is the best way to have a stable relationship with China.”

Interior Secretary releases plans for historic DC golf course

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the design plans for one of Washington’s historic golf courses.

In a posting on the social platform X, Burgum promised local golfers in the National Capital Region would enjoy “championship-quality golf at affordable, highly discounted rates.”

Commenters were overwhelmingly critical, suggesting better uses for taxpayer dollars.

The golf course is the subject of a lawsuit by the nonprofit DC Preservation League. It is challenging the Republican administration’s takeover of the golf course and its use as a dumping ground for debris from the demolition of the East Wing of the White House. Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that is co-representing the league, did not respond to a call for comment.

The suit is one of several legal battles challenging Trump’s efforts to remake public spaces in the city, including plans to build a 250-foot-tall (76-meter-tall) triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial. Preliminary site work began there this week.

Vance talks up Sen. Susan Collins during Maine appearance

Vice President JD Vance used part of a speech in Bangor, Maine, to promote the state’s Republican candidates.

Sen. Susan Collins is in a tough reelection fight this year with progressive activist Graham Platner as the likely Democratic opponent. Vance praised Collins for her independence and lack of partisanship.

“Sometimes I get frustrated with Susan Collins. I almost wish she was more partisan,” Vance said. “If she was as partisan as I wish she was she would not be a good fit for the people of Maine.”

Vance also encouraged attendants to vote for former Gov. Paul LePage, who is seeking election to a congressional seat held by Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who is leaving office.

Senate hearing on Middle East ends with thoughts on disarming Hezbollah

The Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with the top U.S. military leader in the Middle East ended with a focus on the challenge of disarming Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.

Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the committee’s Republican chair, noted how Hezbollah has continually fired rockets into Israel, while Israel had launched a ground offensive into southern Lebanon focused on Hezbollah, displacing a million people.

Wicker asked Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads U.S. Central Command, if the offensive was necessary.

“It is an option among options, of which there are few to deal with the Hezbollah problem,” Cooper said.

Wicker later said, “It would be a tremendous achievement” for Israel, Lebanon and the United States “if Hezbollah could be eliminated.”

Senators approve withholding their own pay during government shutdowns

Senators have unanimously approved a resolution to withhold their pay during government shutdowns. Lawmakers said the measure approved Thursday would discourage future funding standoffs after a series of record-breaking shutdowns.

The proposal requires the secretary of the Senate to hold senators’ salaries during shutdowns and release the money once funding resumes. It’ll take effect the day after the Nov. 3 general election.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy, the bill’s sponsor, says the measure ensures lawmakers share the burden faced by unpaid federal workers.

“This is about putting our money where our mouth is,” said Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, in a floor speech Wednesday.

Two shutdowns in the past year created significant financial hardship for tens of thousands of federal workers, particularly at the Department of Homeland Security. The department reopened last month after a 76-day partial shutdown and a 43-day full government shutdown last year.

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Trump says Xi told him China would not give Iran ‘military equipment’

The U.S. president said that Chinese leader Xi Jinping assured him in their conversations that China would not provide weapons to Iran.

“He said he’s not going to give military equipment. That’s a big statement,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “He said that today. That’s a big statement.”

Trump has previously said that Xi has offered him this same assurance on weapon sales.

But the statement sidestepped questions about China providing Iran with intelligence, electronic components or revenues from the purchase of oil.

Trump said that Xi said China would like to continue buying petroleum from Iran.

“But at the same time, he said, you know, they buy a lot of their oil there and they’d like to keep doing that,” the president said.

Trump says Xi offered to help broker peace with Iran

President Donald Trump said that Chinese leader Xi Jinping told him in meetings that his country “would like to be of help” in negotiating an end to the Iran war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz to oil shipments.

“But he said, ‘I would love to be a help, if I can be of any help whatsoever,’” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “He’d like to see the Hormuz strait open. He said, ‘If I can be of any help whatsoever, I would like to help.’”

Before leaving for the state visit in Beijing, Trump said the U.S. did not need China’s assistance on resolving the conflict.

US commander says reducing civilian deaths is a passion, but admits to job cuts

Adm. Brad Cooper, the top U.S. military leader in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that reducing civilian casualties is a particular passion of his. But he admitted that an office in U.S. Central Command focused on civilian-harm reduction was cut from 10 employees to one.

Cooper said those people are still focused on reducing civilian casualties but are “integrated into other capacities.” The admiral added that dozens if not hundreds of people are focused on reducing civilian deaths.

Under questioning from Democratic lawmakers, he declined to estimate civilians casualties in the Iran war. He said the bombing of a school at the beginning of the war is still under investigation. He said there’s no evidence that corroborates reporting that several schools and hospitals were also bombed.

Elon Musk’s young son accompanies him in Beijing

His 6-year-old son was spotted in a Chinese-style outfit as he walked with his father in the Great Hall of the People, where Trump and Xi met in a high-stakes summit.

Musk is part of the U.S. business delegation that met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday in the same venue.

In a video posted by China’s state media, the boy is seen wearing a blue Chinese-style vest with golden-colored knot buttons on the side, drawing praise on Chinese social media.

Musk posted on his social media site X that the boy is learning Mandarin Chinese.

US commander says Iran can still strike targets in the region

The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East conceded that Iran still maintains a “very moderate if not small capability to continue strikes” in the region amid questions from lawmakers Thursday.

In response to questions from Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Cooper also said the U.S. has the military power to permanently reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

However, when Slotkin pressed on why Cooper hasn’t done so, especially amid rising gas prices rising for Americans, Cooper deferred to policymakers amid ongoing peace negotiations.

American forces battling Iran are adopting tactics from Ukrainians, US commander says

Adm. Brad Cooper told the Senate Armed Services Committee that American forces have learned a lot from the Ukrainian military, which is battle-hardened from its war with Russia.

“We adopted a large number of tactics, techniques and procedures that the Ukrainians have passed us that have helped us defend Americans,” Cooper said.

Ukraine has passed on expertise to the U.S. specifically regarding anti-drone warfare. Iran had launched swarms of drones against U.S. and allied forces, killing some Americans.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard still has ‘significant authority,’ US commander says

Despite the damage and destruction inflicted by the U.S. military on Iranian military forces, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East says Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard is still a major force in running the country.

In response to questions from Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, about who’s in charge in Iran, Adm. Brad Cooper said the Revolutionary Guard is still “exercising significant authority.”

However, Cooper deferred to diplomats and negotiators on whether the paramilitary force is part of the peace negotiations.

Commander says US military reductions in Africa affected ability to retrieve kidnapped missionary

The top U.S. military leader in Africa, Gen. Dagvin Anderson, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. military’s abilities on the continent have been curtailed by force reductions and funding cuts in recent years.

To make his point, Anderson cited the kidnapping of missionary Kevin Rideout last fall in Niger. Anderson said the U.S. military lacked the relationships and access to quickly get Rideout back as the U.S. military has done during previous kidnappings of Americans.

Anderson gave the example after Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa lamented the shrinking footprint of American forces in Africa, which she said is being encroached upon by Russian forces.

US Central Command commander says Iran is still able to impact merchant shipping

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East said that while he believes Iran’s military capabilities are “dramatically degraded,” he noted that Iran’s able to influence shipping with rhetoric alone.

“Their voice is very loud, and the threats are clearly heard by the merchant industry and the insurance industry,” Adm. Brad Cooper told lawmakers Thursday.

Cooper also said the US military has wide range of contingencies and retains the ability to escort shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. However, he deferred to policy makers about the best path forward amid the “time of sensitive negotiations.”

China fetes Trump with one of his favorite songs, The Village People’s ‘Y.M.C.A’

At the state banquet in Beijing, the Chinese military band broke into a tune the president has made his signature walk-off song, the disco hit, “Y.M.C.A.”

The song was played during a private portion of the dinner, a White House official confirmed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details of the private portion of the dinner.

Trump closes his campaign rallies and most official events with the song, which he dances to while throwing slight fist pumps into the air.

In 2017, “The Stars and Stripes Forever” was played when Trump and Xi inspected Chinese honor guards at the welcome ceremony, an unusual choice intended to impress Trump.

— Michelle L. Price and Didi Tang

Military leader in Middle East says US no longer using high-end munitions to take out Iran’s drones

Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that American forces have stopped using high-end munitions to shoot down Iran’s drones.

The nation’s limited stockpiles of expensive weapon systems, including advanced missile interceptors, have become a lightning rod during the Iran war. American forces were using them to defend against Iranian drones. But Cooper says the U.S. military is now using lower-cost munitions.

The admiral said Iran only has 10% of its drones left. Despite a fragile month-long ceasefire, skirmishes have flared between Iranian and American forces.

Congressional leaders begin hearing on military posture in the Middle East and Africa

Senators opened the hearing into the state of forces in the Middle East and Africa by expressing concern about the future of the Iran war and the American presence in Africa.

“We are 75 days into this war with Iran and I am concerned the president does not have a credible strategy to win,” Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Thursday.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the committee, also said Africa has “increasingly become the epicenter of global terrorism” and stressed that he felt U.S. Africa Command should remain an independent combatant command.

Selfie-taking moment between tech CEOs Elon Musk and Lei Jun is going viral on Weibo

The hashtag “Lei Jun and Musk photo together “ drew more than 20 million views on the Chinese social media platform.

Musk is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of the social media platform X, while Lei is CEO of Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi.

Some users said Musk’s wink while taking the picture stole the spotlight, with others saying Lei nailed his celebrity chase.

Discussion of US weapons sales to Taiwan ‘did not feature prominently’ in talks, Rubio says

Rubio said Xi has raised the issue with Trump in the past, however.

Rubio also told NBC that the U.S. laid out its position on Taiwan with “strategic ambiguity” because they won’t want to see a conflict over the island, which China wants to reunify with the mainland. It hasn’t ruled out using force to do so.

“We think it would be a terrible mistake to force that through force or anything of that nature. There would be repercussions for that, globally, not just in the United States. And we kind of leave it there,” Rubio said.

Rubio says Trump won’t let the Iranians use US gasoline prices as ‘leverage’ for ending the war

He tried to clarify Trump’s comments that he wasn’t thinking about gasoline prices and U.S. consumers with regard to the Iran war.

“We’re not going to let Iran use that as leverage,” Rubio told NBC News in an interview. “I think what the president is making clear is, if the Iranians think that they are going to use our domestic politics to pressure him into a bad deal, that’s not going to happen.”

Rubio said the U.S. is taking “extraordinary measures” to keep gasoline prices lower than in other parts of the world.

Rubio says nothing changed in US policy toward Taiwan

He said in an interview with NBC news that China always raises the issue of the self-governing island, but the U.S. stance did not change in Trump’s meeting with Xi.

“U.S. policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today and as of the meeting that we had here today. It was raised. They always raise it on their side. We always make clear our position and we move on to the other topics,” Rubio said.

US treasury secretary says the public will hear from Trump this evening or tomorrow on Taiwan

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked in a CNBC interview about whether China was pushing the U.S. to limit arm sales to Taiwan, the self-governing island China considers to be part of its own territory.

Bessent said he’s confident Trump “understands the issues” and will be “very resolute” in his response.

The treasury secretary did not preview what that response would be as the administration has authorized an $11 billion weapons package for Taiwan.

“I’m not going to get out ahead of the president,” Bessent said. “You’ll be hearing more from him either this evening, tomorrow.”

Aliyah said she has difficulty focusing, and she finds it hard to concentrate when she’s learning from a screen. She’ll watch Netflix in class on her school laptop, hiding her earbuds behind her long, curly hair.

“It’s very hard to get into the mindset of being in school,” Aliyah said.

Aliyah’s mother saw her grades were falling and asked the school to take away her laptop. But she was told that wasn’t possible.

Across the country, parents are voicing concerns about excessive screen time in schools and lobbying educators to go back to pencil and paper. In places like Lower Merion Township, where Aliyah goes to high school, some are taking it even further. Over 600 people in the affluent Philadelphia suburb have signed a petition asking to preserve parents' ability to opt their children out of using digital devices during the school day. The public school district has pushed back, saying it’s not feasible to let hundreds of students opt out of technology that is essential to the curriculum.

Disagreement over how tech is used in the classroom

At a meeting Monday night, school board members said they were considering many ways to respond to parental concerns about technology, but allowing opt-outs was not one of them.

“There is not an option for us to not have technology in schools,” said Lower Merion School Board member Anna Shurak.

The board was meeting to discuss updates to the district’s technology policies, including repealing a policy that allows opt outs. Over 100 people showed up to protest, many wearing buttons that said “Screens Down, Pencils Up.”

Many emphasized they’re not anti-tech — in fact, most parents agree that learning how to responsibly use computers is an essential life skill. They just don’t want tech to dominate the classroom.

“Teaching how to use technology is not the same thing as using technology to teach everything else,” said Sara Sullivan, a parent.

Technology has become inescapable at schools

The debate in Lower Merion raises the question of whether technology has become so intertwined with learning that it’s impossible to opt out. Kids use devices to play educational games, submit their homework, access online resources and write essays — but parents are questioning the value of gamified edtech software.

Subashini Subramanian said the software her second-grade daughter uses for math, DreamBox, incentivizes rushing through levels to gain points. When she encouraged her daughter to think through the problems methodically, the 8-year-old said, “If I go through all the steps, it’s slowing me down. I have to click, click, click.”

At the school board meeting, many parents said they were exhausted from battling their kids over screen time. Adam Washington says his son struggles with screen addiction, so sometimes he takes away his phone or TV — only to find him watching YouTube on the school laptop instead.

“The screen is killing him. It is killing me, and him, together with our relationship,” Washington said.

Another parent at the meeting questioned what students would do instead of using their computers.

“Opting out is not a solution. It’s avoiding the hard work of finding a solution,” Seth Ruderman said.

Parental pushback on edtech has led to change

The pushback on technology in the classroom has gained steam around the country. At least 14 states have proposed laws to limit screen time in schools, according to Ballotpedia, with four states — Alabama, Tennessee, Utah and Iowa — passing such legislation.

In Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school district said it will ban screens until second grade, require daily caps for screen time per grade, ban YouTube and require an audit of all education technology contracts.

In Vermont, proposed legislation would allow not just parents but also teachers to decline to use classroom tech. Democratic State Rep. Angela Arsenault, a bill co-sponsor, said she’s responding to parents' worries about edtech.

“Parents in many districts and states just aren’t being listened to or not being heard when they ask that their students not be forced to use these products,” Arsenault said.

The Lower Merion school district said it’s listening to community concerns and has already made changes, including blocking some problematic websites flagged by parents.

“We have wonderful teachers who have continuously prioritized human interaction and relationships,” Superintendent Frank Ranelli wrote in a letter to parents. He declined to comment to the AP for this story.

The district said it is looking into possible changes, including stronger cellphone restrictions, not allowing the youngest students to take devices home and installing software to monitor students in class.

However, surveillance software can bring its own problems and poses risks to student privacy. In 2010, the Lower Merion School District paid $610,000 to settle lawsuits by two students who alleged the district had spied on them via the webcam on their school-issued laptops.

Kids want ways to hold themselves accountable

High school student Mia Tatar, 16, raised concerns at the board meeting that there’s been an unintended consequence to the anti-tech backlash. The internet filters on school computers are now so strict, she said she’s been blocked while doing research on appropriate topics for school, like breast cancer.

Mia said students need to learn how to responsibly use technology, and adding filters or getting rid of laptops won’t do that.

“It doesn’t teach kids how to hold themselves accountable and how to be responsible for regulating their own screen time once they’re in the world,” Mia said in an interview.

Her friend Elliot Campbell, 15, said there should be strict limits on screen use in the youngest grades, but students should get more freedom as they get older.

“If we lose our laptops or if we lose the partial freedom we have on them, it’s not going to prepare us for college,” Elliot told board members at the hearing.

Fellow high schooler Joaquin Imaizumi takes a different view. He said it’s “completely unfair” to expect children to regulate their usage of devices that even adults find addictive.

“This isn’t about learning to constrain yourself,” he said in an interview. “We don’t give someone drugs and say, ‘OK, now learn how to deal with this.’”

His biggest concern is that devices make it far too tempting to access AI tools like ChatGPT, which he sees eroding his classmates' ability to think for themselves.

“I’ve seen the atrophy of my peers’ thinking, which is existentially concerning,” Joaquin said.

The influence of AI starts early. A second-grader named Lillian Keshet, who got up to speak at the board meeting, said Google Docs will give her “suggestions” about what to write in class.

“I’m a pretty good writer by myself,” Lillian said. “I don’t need your suggestions, Google!”

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Associated Press writer Jocelyn Gecker contributed to this report from San Francisco.

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The Associated Press’ education 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.

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Help save up to three lives with your blood donation by scheduling your appointment at one of the links below. All successful blood donors will receive a “Lone Star Life Saver” t-shirt (in April) or a beach towel (in May) as a thank you gift while supplies last. Donors will also receive a free A1C test to screen their blood for prediabetes.

Tuesday, April 28

Houston Christian University (Donor Coach in front of Brown Administrative Complex) - 7502 Fondren Rd., Houston, TX 77074 | 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

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Thursday, May 14

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If you cannot make it to the blood drives at KPRC 2’s studios or HCU, you can donate at your Neighborhood Donor Center. There’s a critical need for blood donations in our community, especially with donations typically slowing down over the summer months. Your support now is critical in helping patients in the Greater Houston area.

Do you know your blood type? If not, you’ll find out when you donate blood. According to the Gulf Coast Blood, blood type O- is considered to be the universal red cell donor for all patients. To learn more, visit Gulf Coast Blood’s website at giveblood.org. Gulf Coast Blood is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Blood recipients and their families share the impact your blood donation can make:

The KPRC 2 Community Blood Drive is one of our spotlight initiatives in partnership with Energy Transfer and Houston Christian University. KPRC 2 would like to thank our partners at Energy Transfer for hosting a blood drive for their employees in May, too!

Thank you again to HCU for hosting the KPRC 2 Community Blood Drive on campus!

The new U.S. House districts, which still need House approval, would be used for primary elections poised to be postponed from Saturday until November.

The high court's ruling has led to a flurry of redistricting efforts in Southern states as Republicans seek to capitalize on a weakened federal Voting Rights Act. While most of those efforts are voluntary, Louisiana must redraw its U.S. House map in response to the ruling that it had illegally used race to gerrymander a majority-Black district.

The debate over the shape of Louisiana's new districts is playing out as South Carolina's governor ramps up pressure on lawmakers to also redistrict ahead of the midterms. President Donald Trump has encouraged numerous Republican-led states to redraw House voting districts to their advantage in a bid to hold on to control of the closely divided chamber in November.

Republicans think they could win as many as 15 additional House seats in seven states that already have adopted new voting districts. Democrats think they could gain up to six seats from two other states because of new House districts. But there's no guarantee those seats will turn out as expected. Litigation is continuing in some states, and voters will have the ultimate say on who wins.

Louisiana map scraps snaking district

Legislation in Louisiana seeks to address the Supreme Court ruling by scrapping a district that snakes over 200 miles (321 kilometers) northwest from the capital, Baton Rouge, to Shreveport, creating a voting bloc with a majority of Black residents. Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields represents the current 6th District.

Under the new plan, that district would instead be clustered around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana.

The new plan keeps a New Orleans-based, majority-Black district represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter while also adding a portion of Baton Rouge to it.

Fields, a Baton Rouge resident, said he won’t decide whether to seek reelection until the maps are finalized. But he said he won’t challenge Carter in a primary.

The newly proposed House map is similar to one used in 2022 that resulted in five Republicans and one Democrat winning election. Republican state Sen. Jay Morris said the new map packs Democrats into the 2nd District held by Carter to allow Republicans to prevail elsewhere.

“These maps are drawn to maximize Republican advantage for the incumbent Republicans that we have in Congress,” Morris said.

Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins suggested Republicans are “using partisanship as cover for discriminatory practices against a group of people, particularly Black voters and Democrats.”

“If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” Jenkins said.

“It’s not quacking,” Morris said.

“It’s quacking pretty loud, it’s quacking all over the state,” Jenkins replied.

Republican senators defeated an alternative from Democrats that would have kept two Democratic-leaning districts.

A federal judge struck down Louisiana's 2022 map for violating the Voting Rights Act. Then in 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama had to create its own second largely Black congressional district. In light of the Alabama ruling, the Louisiana Legislature passed a revised map, creating a second majority-Black district that was used in the 2024 elections. That map also was challenged, leading to an April 29 Supreme Court ruling that Louisiana’s districts relied too heavily on race.

Louisiana House primary could shift to November

After the Supreme Court ruling, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry postponed Louisiana’s U.S. House primaries, which were scheduled for Saturday.

A bill given final approval Wednesday by the Legislature would shift the election to an open primary on Nov. 3. All U.S. House candidates, regardless of their party affiliation, would be on the ballot for voters in their district. If no one wins a majority outright, the top two vote-getters would enter a run-off on Dec. 12.

A new qualifying period for House candidates would run from Aug. 5-7.

The system is similar to how Louisiana's congressional elections previously occurred. Landry pushed the Legislature to end the state’s unique jungle primary system in 2024. Closed party primaries went into effect this year, and more than 250,000 votes already had been cast, according to the Louisiana secretary of state. The canceled congressional votes would be shielded from public records law.

Rep. Beau Beaullieu, the bill’s Republican sponsor, said that with congressional redistricting, there would not be sufficient time for closed primaries and a primary run-off before the Nov. 3 general election.

A closed primary remains in place for Louisiana's U.S. Senate race, which has not been suspended and pits incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy against Trump-backed challenger U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow.

South Carolina likely to work overtime on redistricting

Leaders in the South Carolina House said they expect to take up a congressional redistricting bill Friday after Republican Gov. Henry McMaster calls them into special session. The regular legislative session is supposed to end Thursday, but McMaster's call would extend it.

It could be next week before the House can finish the redistricting bill, which would also move congressional primaries to August, Republican House Majority Leader Davey Hiott said. All primaries are currently scheduled for June 9. Early voting begins May 26, and that’s likely the deadline to finish redistricting, he said.

The redistricting work “will be long. It will be boring. It will be confrontational,” Hiott told reporters.

If the proposal passes the House, it then heads to a more skeptical Senate, where Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Luke Rankin has said he will “demand the process” without elaborating. During the last regular redistricting at the start of the decade, Rankin’s committee held a month of meetings across the state and encouraged the public to submit its own maps.

Only one of South Carolina's seven U.S. House seats currently is held by a Democrat — longtime U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. Some Republicans worry it is impossible to guarantee seven GOP districts in a state where the Democratic presidential candidate has gotten more than 40% of the vote every election this century. There are also concerns about holding two statewide elections in a little over two months. South Carolina’s elections leader said it may require employees to work 24 hours a day.

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Brook reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Collins from Columbia, South Carolina; and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri.

HPD says the technology can instantly interpret nearly 200 languages using handheld devices and dispatch systems, helping officers, 911 operators, victims, witnesses, and tourists communicate more clearly when every second counts.

Why HPD says this matters

Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the country, with residents and visitors speaking dozens of languages every day.

Police leaders say misunderstandings caused by language barriers can delay emergency response, escalate tense situations, or leave families confused during crises.

With the World Cup expected to bring a global audience to Houston, HPD says the system is part of a larger effort to improve safety and communication citywide.

What the technology will be used for

HPD plans to use the translation system in several real-world scenarios, including:

• Traffic stops
• 911 emergency calls
• Crowd control at major events
• Conversations with victims and witnesses
• Assisting tourists unfamiliar with English

The department says officers and dispatchers will receive training on when and how to use the technology.

Questions the community wants answered

Community advocates say the technology could help build trust, but they also want accountability and proof the system works under pressure.

Key concerns include:

• How accurate translations are in noisy environments
• Whether dialects and slang are interpreted correctly
• What happens if the technology fails
• Whether conversations are recorded or stored
• How quickly officers can access translations during emergencies

Immigrant advocates, neighborhood leaders, and international visitors are also expected to weigh in on whether the system improves confidence in public safety.

A safety upgrade before Houston takes the global stage

HPD says the goal is simple: help officers and residents understand each other faster and more clearly during high-stress situations.

As Houston prepares for one of the world’s biggest sporting events, city leaders say communication could become just as important as security.

“Lamine Yamal chose to incite hate against Israel while our soldiers combat the terrorist organization Hamas, an organization that massacred, raped and burned Jewish children, women and the elderly on Oct. 7, (2023)” minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Thursday.

The 18-year-old Yamal waved a large Palestinian flag from an open-top bus during a victory parade by Barcelona’s team through the city on Monday. The parade drew some 750,000 people to celebrate the league title clinched the previous day, local authorities said.

Yamal, who is Muslim, posted pictures of him holding the flag on his Instagram account.

Spain’s government and a large part of its population have been highly critical of Israel’s military operations that killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza in response to the 2023 Hamas surprise attack.

There has been a global backlash against Israel over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, which has spread to sport and culture. Protests have been seen in soccer, cycling and basketball. Last year's Spanish Vuelta was repeatedly disrupted by protesters angry with the participation of an Israeli-backed cycling team.

Spain is also one of five countries boycotting this year’s Eurovision Song Contest to protest Israel’s inclusion.

Yamal is set to star for Spain at next month’s World Cup to be played in North America.

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

The S&P 500 added 0.8% to its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 383 points, or 0.8%, and is on track to finish the day above 50,000 for the first time since the war with Iran began. The Nasdaq composite was 0.9% higher and adding to its own record, with an hour left to trade.

Cisco helped lead the market after reporting better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The tech giant's stock leaped 13%, and CEO Chuck Robbins said it saw “very strong, broad-based demand for our products.”

Big Tech behemoths in particular are pouring cash into artificial-intelligence technology, and Cisco gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that easily topped analysts' expectations.

Such voracious demand for AI, and the big profits it's producing, have been major reasons the U.S. stock market has set records throughout this year. Cerebras Systems, an AI processor company, raised $5.55 billion after selling its stock in an initial public offering, and its shares surged 72% in their debut on the Nasdaq.

Corporate earnings reported so far this season have “reinforced that this is still an AI-led market, but one where the impact is broadening quickly,” according to Gargi Pal Chaudhuri, chief investment and portfolio strategist at BlackRock.

“What started with a handful of companies is now driving earnings growth across semiconductors, infrastructure, and even parts of the industrial economy,” she said.

Outside of AI, other stocks rallying after delivering better-than-expected profit reports included StubHub Holdings, up 15.3%, Viking Holdings, up 6.4% and Yeti Holdings, up 7%.

All three companies sell products that aren’t day-to-day essentials, such as concert tickets, river cruises and insulated water bottles. Strong results from them could be an indicator that customers are still willing to spend even though U.S. consumers have been telling surveys they're feeling discouraged about the economy.

Whether U.S. households will keep spending and support the economy is a big question because pressure has been rising on them due to high oil prices and inflation created by the Iran war. A report released Thursday said that shoppers overall spent less at U.S. retailers last month than economists expected. But the deceleration after factoring out gasoline and automobile sales wasn’t quite as bad as economists thought it would be.

A separate report, meanwhile, said more U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, which could be an indication of more layoffs. The number, though, remains relatively low compared with history.

Treasury yields flitted up and down in the bond market immediately after the reports, but they largely remained steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained at 4.46%, where it was late Wednesday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1%, while South Korea's Kospi jumped 1.8% to another record thanks to gains for AI-related stocks.

Stocks were virtually flat in Hong Kong and down 1.5% in Shanghai as Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing.

Some investors hope Trump could encourage Xi to use China’s close economic ties with Iran to get it to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The strait’s closure because of the war has kept oil tankers pent up in the Persian Gulf instead of delivering crude to customers worldwide, which has driven up crude prices.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 0.1% to settle at $105.72 Thursday, and it remains well above its price of roughly $70 from before the war.

___

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

Weinstein, who's 74 and has a history of heart trouble and other health woes, looked pale but alert as he was brought into court in the wheelchair he has used for years. He said he felt “good, fine.”

The ex-studio boss was in a courthouse holding area Wednesday when jurors, after a few hours of deliberating, sent a note asking to rehear some of accuser Jessica Mann ’s testimony and to review a lengthy prosecution timeline of emails and other evidence.

After defense lawyers, prosecutors and Judge Curtis Farber convened in court to decide how to respond, Weinstein attorney Marc Agnifilo said court officers had told him Weinstein was experiencing chest pains.

Weinstein wasn't brought into court at that point, and Farber ultimately sent jurors home Wednesday a bit earlier than planned, telling them there were “unforeseen reasons” for the early dismissal.

Jurors got the requested information Thursday, revisiting testimony that Agnifilo had highlighted in his closing argument: a moment when Mann said she was “spacing out” as a defense lawyer asked why she didn’t want a friend to know that anything sexual had happened between her and Weinstein. The defense was trying to suggest that she was worried about her reputation, not an alleged rape that Weinstein says never happened.

Jurors returned to their closed-door discussions. Over the ensuing hours, the jury asked to rehear Mann's testimony about the alleged rape and the lead-up to it, and to go over the judge's instructions on reasonable doubt. That's the legal bar that evidence must clear to justify a conviction.

Mann, 40, has testified that she willingly had some sexual interludes with the then-married producer, but that he subjected her to unwanted sex in a Manhattan hotel room in March 2013 after she repeatedly said no.

Weinstein's lawyers maintain that the encounter was consensual. They have emphasized that Mann subsequently continued seeing Weinstein and expressing warmth toward him. Mann has said she was mired in complicated feelings about him, herself and what had happened.

Her viewpoint changed in 2017, when a series of sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar-winning Weinstein propelled the #MeToo campaign to hold people — especially powerful men — accountable for sexual misbehavior. Weinstein has said he “acted wrongly” but never assaulted anyone.

Some of those accusations generated criminal convictions against Weinstein in New York and California.

An appeals court overturned his 2020 New York conviction on charges that involved Mann and another accuser. At a retrial last year, jurors failed to reach a verdict on Mann's portion of the case, leading to this retrial. Weinstein is charged with one count of rape in the third degree.

The current jury heard nearly three weeks of testimony, five days of it from Mann. Weinstein did not testify.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted. Mann, however, has agreed to be named.

FIFA has announced that, for the first time, the final at the Metlife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19 will include a Super Bowl-style concert.

Soccer's governing body said the show would support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, which is raising $100 million to help children access education and soccer.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino said it would bring together “music and football on the biggest stage in sport for a very special cause.”

“Every child should have the opportunity to dream, and together we can help make that possible,” he posted on Instagram.

The show will be curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin.

The Super Bowl is famed for its halftime show, attracting the world's biggest stars for spectacular performances. This year featured Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny.

Previous headliners included Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Prince, Bruce Springsteen and Rhianna.

But halftime shows are not commonplace in soccer, with events such as the Champions League final featuring a pre-match concert. On May 30, the Killers will headline European club soccer's biggest game between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal in Budapest.

It is not known how long the World Cup halftime show will last, but the interval in soccer is not supposed to go beyond 15 minutes.

FIFA describes it as “a singular moment at the intersection of sport, culture and purpose, broadcast live around the world.”

The World Cup is co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico and runs through June and July.

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

Tyler Brown, 46, who appeared in Cambridge District Court via video from a hospital bed, did not speak and appeared to have his eyes closed for most of the brief hearing. He nodded when the judge said not guilty pleas had been entered on his behalf to charges of armed assault with intent to murder and six other charges, including possessing a gun without a license.

Judge David Frank ordered him to remain in custody, either at the hospital or in jail, pending a hearing on May 21. Brown's attorney, Carolyn McGowan, declined to speak at the hearing other than answering the judge's questions about scheduling matters. The Committee for Public Counsel Services/Public Defender Division, where she is listed as a senior trial counsel, did not respond to a request for comment.

Brown is accused of opening fire Monday afternoon on a heavily traveled road along the Charles River in Cambridge. Panicked drivers abandoned their vehicles or hid under them seeking cover.

One man, who was struck in the back of the head, has since been released from the hospital, while another driver who was shot four times in the leg remains hospitalized, Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Nicole Allain said.

About an hour before the shootings, Brown connected with his parole officer via video conference. Armed with a gun, he said on video that he had relapsed and wanted to end his life. The parole officer called police, who began searching for Brown and found him in Cambridge using phone records.

The complaint describes what led up to the shootings. According to investigators, Brown had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression and had been released Friday from a psychiatric hospital.

According to the complaint, Brown is on parole and probation for offenses including armed assault to murder and other gun-related convictions. His parole was set to end this week, though his probation continued.

Meghan Kelly, a spokesperson for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, said Brown was not licensed to carry a firearm.

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan described Brown’s criminal history going back to 1994, when he was convicted of armed robbery in Michigan. He also was convicted of escape in Michigan in 1997 and drug offenses in New Hampshire in 2007.

In Massachusetts, he has been convicted of multiple assault and gun-related charges, most recently in 2021, when he was convicted of firing at officers.

Prosecutors said then that he should serve at least 10 years in prison, due to the “level of brazen violence” and because he was on probation for a 2014 conviction on assault and witness intimidation charges. A judge instead ordered Brown to serve five to six years in state prison and three years of probation with credit for nearly 18 months spent in custody.

At the time, the judge’s decision sparked outrage and criticism among local officials concerned that violent offenders were not being held accountable — concerns that have resurfaced. “Talk about a ball drop,” said the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association in a statement on social media.

Edward Harold King, who left the bench at the end of last year, and Yechiel “Sam” Sprei, a politically connected real estate developer, were arrested by IRS Criminal Investigation agents on wire fraud conspiracy charges after federal prosecutors say they duped a pair of investors into forking over $6.5 million for a bogus property bid and then failed to return all but a fraction of the money.

The allegations are similar to claims made against King in civil lawsuits and in complaints to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, whose investigation precipitated his resignation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Wang told a judge at the men’s initial court appearance on Wednesday that the transaction described in the criminal case was “one of several schemes that the government has been investigating." Discussing Sprei's finances, the prosecutor said “it’s safe to say many, many millions of dollars” have moved through his bank accounts in the last few years.

King, 72, and Sprei, 37, were released on bail and are scheduled to return to Brooklyn federal court on Monday to finalize their bond arrangements. King and his lawyer, Michael Vitaliano, declined to comment as they left the courthouse. The former judge cut through trees in a nearby park to avoid reporters and photographers. Sprei's lawyer, Ezra Lent, declined to comment.

In court, Wang said that during Sprei’s arrest, the developer lied to federal agents that he had no electronic devices on him other than his cellphone. Agents executing a search warrant seized the phone and then found a second phone while patting Sprei down, Wang said.

If convicted, King and Sprei could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

“As alleged, the defendants stole millions of dollars from investors by cynically leveraging King’s position as a sitting judge to lend false legitimacy to supposed investment opportunities,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said in a statement.

King resigned on Dec. 31, 2025, just three years after becoming a judge, after the Commission on Judicial Conduct informed him that it was investigating complaints mirrored in his criminal case.

Among the complaints, the commission said, were that King was involved in a scheme to defraud real estate investors and that he continued to act as a lawyer — including by accepting funds into his own attorney escrow accounts — despite rules barring full-time judges from practicing law, acting as fiduciaries or engaging in business activities. King denied the allegations.

According to federal prosecutors, King and Sprei pitched investors on fictitious investment opportunities with false promises that their money would be kept safe in attorney escrow accounts and returned on demand if the investors decided to end their involvement.

In November 2024, prosecutors said, Sprei and King offered two investors an opportunity to buy commercial real estate in Freehold, New Jersey, through a bankruptcy auction. In order to proceed, Sprei told them, all bidders first needed to show “proof of liquidity” and that they could do so by depositing $6.5 million in King’s escrow account, prosecutors said. Sprei told the investors that King was both an independent escrow agent and a judge, according to prosecutors.

The investors wired the money to King's account, where they were told it would be left untouched and not spent or transferred without their permission, prosecutors said. Within days, prosecutors said, King and Sprei transferred several million dollars to a bank account in Sprei’s name.

Later, when the investors exercised their right to have the money back, King offered up excuses and alternatives, at one point saying he would have his lawyer deposit the funds with an unspecified court, prosecutors said. King and Sprei eventually returned $1.5 million to the investors, but have yet to cough up the rest, prosecutors said.

King became a judge in 2023. He won a seat on the New York City Civil Court in Brooklyn and was appointed to the state’s main trial court in June 2024.

Prior to that he was in private practice and, according to news articles about his campaign, was appointed by courts to manage assets in real estate disputes. He also served as an administrative law judge for the city's Parking Violations Bureau and as legal counsel to the state assembly.

When the state commission accepted King's resignation, its administrator Robert Tembeckjian called the allegations "so egregious as to warrant his permanent departure from the bench.”

Records show Judge Chad D. Bradshaw imposed sanctions against attorney Micheal Phillips after finding he used “a racial slur numerous times in court in a derisive manner.”

The court sentenced Phillips to three days in jail and issued a $500 fine, but both punishments were suspended on the condition that he file a written apology to the court and a separate written apology to attorney Brenda DeRouen by June 30, 2026.

• RELATED: Brazoria County attorney held in contempt after repeating racial slur during custody trial

The contempt finding comes from a custody modification trial held earlier this month in Brazoria County Family Court.

Previous court records stated that, outside the presence of the jury and while arguments were being made on the record, Phillips “repeated a racial slur several times,” prompting the judge to find him in direct contempt of court.

The courtroom exchange drew strong reactions from attorneys involved in the case.

DeRouen previously described the conduct as “deeply disturbing,” saying the repeated use of the slur “had no legitimate evidentiary purpose” and appeared “demeaning” and “taunting rather than advocacy.”

“As a Black woman attorney practicing in Texas family courts, attorneys should be able to advocate fiercely for their clients without being subjected to racially charged conduct that undermines professionalism and dignity in the courtroom,” DeRouen said in an earlier statement to KPRC 2 News.

Phillips disputes accusations that he used the slur in a derogatory way. In a previous statement, he said the comments happened during an evidentiary argument outside the jury’s presence while objecting to testimony and language he said had repeatedly been introduced during trial proceedings.

Phillips also said he apologized immediately after the exchange.

The money will be allocated over the coming year and adds to the $2 billion that the Trump administration pledged in December. Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said at a press conference that the new funding is just “the latest step.”

The new contribution brings total U.S. support for UN humanitarian programs to $3.8 billion across 21 countries, according to the State Department, which said the money would be prioritized for locally run projects that assist the most vulnerable populations.

The department said the initial contribution had been “a resounding success, delivering life-saving assistance to 21.1 million people more quickly, more efficiently, and with greater focus on those facing the most acute humanitarian needs in less than four months.”

Still, the money is a fraction of what the U.S. has contributed in the past and reflects what President Donald Trump's administration believes is still a generous amount that will maintain America’s status as the world’s largest humanitarian donor.

The Trump administration has cut billions in U.S. foreign aid, prompting U.N. agencies to slash spending, aid projects and thousands of jobs. Other traditional U.N. donors like Britain, France, Germany and Japan also have reduced aid allocations.

U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher called his agency “overstretched, underresourced and literally under attack” and reiterated its 2026 plan to reach 87 million of the world’s most needy at a cost of $23 billion — even though 300 million people need humanitarian help.

Before Waltz’s announcement, he said, the U.N. had raised about $7.4 billion. He called the United States “the single largest national donor” to the United Nations.

Waltz slammed what he called a narrative in the media that the U.S. has walked away from helping people in need, saying it's "absolutely false.”

Under Trump, the U.S. has been taking an à la carte approach to paying dues to the United Nations, picking which operations and agencies it believes align with Trump’s agenda and avoiding those that no longer serve U.S. interests. The State Department has said that “individual U.N. agencies will need to adapt, shrink, or die.”

Critics say the Western aid cutbacks have been shortsighted, driven millions toward hunger, displacement or disease, and harmed U.S. soft power around the world.

Newsom is eager to safeguard programs that have defined his tenure as the leader of the nation’s most populous state and one of the world’s largest economies. As he gears up for a possible presidential run in 2028, Newsom is promoting the budget as fiscally responsible because it protects California's progressive programs while also builds up the state's rainy day funds — a pointed rebuke to critics who say the state spends more than it has. The state’s spending has grown more than $100 billion since 2020, according to the legislative budget analysts.

“We’re cutting deficits. But we’re not cutting corners,” Newsom said.

Newsom can’t seek a third term and will leave office in January.

Revenues, driven mostly by the booming stock market and artificial intelligence industry, are $16.5 billion higher than projections in January, according to Newsom's office. That will help the state avoid a $2.9 billion deficit Newsom projected in January, guarantee no budget hole next year and cut the shortfall the following year in half, his office said.

It is a welcoming change for the state where revenues have not kept up with spending. California faced tens of billions in budget deficits several years in a row, forcing painful cuts last year such as a rollback on a promise to provide free health to low-income immigrants without legal status. Nonpartisan budget analysts projected the state will see budget holes upward of $20 billion each year in the next few years.

Still, Democrats are bracing for federal funding cuts and new costs for the state in healthcare and the impacts of high costs on everything from gas to energy because of the war in Iran. State officials repeatedly said California can't backfill all the federal monies.

Newsom used his presentation to blast President Donald Trump and his policies. Trump “doesn’t particularly give a damn about the financial situation of the average American," Newsom said.

The May budget proposal will officially kick off the final stretch of negotiations between Newsom and Democrats in the Legislature, who have to pass a spending plan by the end of June.

State lawmakers this year have pitched several proposals to increase taxes on corporations to help with budget problems, but Newsom has largely opposed the idea, arguing such proposals could drive businesses and wealthy people away. He has instead proposed to cut fees for new small businesses and limit some tax credits that could generate $850 million a year starting 2027. He is against a ballot initiative for a one-time tax on billionaires that will likely go before voters in November.

He also proposed to increase the monthly premiums for adult patients without legal status in the state-funded healthcare program, up to $50 from $30. The premiums were part of last year budget set to take effect July 2027 for adults under 60 years old. Newsom estimated the change would save the state $427 million in the first year of implementation. But Democratic lawmakers will likely fight against it.

California has a progressive tax system that relies on rich people, meaning it gets about half its revenues from just 1% of the population. When the economy is good, rich people pay more in taxes and revenues can soar quickly. When the economy is bad, they pay less and revenues can drop just as fast.

The state could also see a revenue boost from expected upcoming initial public offerings by several major AI companies, which are expected to be the largest IPOs in history. But legislative budget experts warned last year of a potential AI bubble that could worsen the state's finances.

Newsom’s Thursday proposal also includes a $300 million plan to backfill some of the loss of government-sponsored health subsidies, a $5 billion education grant for teacher training and $100 million to help Los Angeles-area homeowners rebuild after the devastating wildfires last year.

On May 14, 2026, KPRC 2 News confirmed that the charges against the woman were dropped.

The lawsuit represents a direct challenge to the authority of the office that enforces ethics standards for attorneys in the nation’s capital. where several high-profile investigations of Trump-allied lawyers are playing out.

“The D.C. Bar will no longer be permitted to probe sensitive executive branch deliberations and target executive branch officials with whom they happen to politically disagree, and federal attorneys will once again be free to share their candid legal advice with their bosses and colleagues,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, a top Justice Department official, said in a statement.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington. An email seeking comment to the D.C. Bar's Board on Professional Responsibility, among the defendants named in the complaint, did not receive an immediate response.

The complaint chiefly concerns the ethics case against Jeffrey Clark, a senior lawyer in the first Trump administration Justice Department who was deeply engaged in legal efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election that President Donald Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

A disciplinary panel hasrecommended that Clark be stripped of his law license, but the lawsuit seeks to bring an end to those proceedings, calling them “unlawful” and tainted by politicization.

Clark, who has denied any wrongdoing, applauded the lawsuit on X on Wednesday evening, saying, “This is an important step to vindicate the separation of powers.”

In an attempt to bolster its claims of bias in the disciplinary process, the Justice Department asserted that bar authorities had treated Clark more harshly than a former FBI lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty to doctoring an email during the investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The lawsuit also backs Ed Martin, an ardent Trump loyalist who now serves as the Justice Department's pardon attorney. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel accused Martin in March of professional misconduct for a threatening letter that he sent to Georgetown Law School’s dean last year, when Martin was the top federal prosecutor for Washington.

Martin was the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia when he warned the Georgetown dean that his office wouldn’t hire the private school’s students if it didn’t eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“The Office of Disciplinary Counsel and the Board on Professional Responsibility, as D.C. institutions, have no authority to decide whether a federal government attorney — no less the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia — is upholding his oath of office or whether his official acts comport with the Constitution," the lawsuit states.

The Justice Department last week filed what's known as a statement of interest in support of Martin, who had earlier complained about “uneven behavior” by the disciplinary counsel who filed the ethics charges against him.

The WNBA and NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved the sale and relocation of the Connecticut Sun to Houston beginning with the 2027 season, officially reviving the Comets franchise.

The team will be owned and operated by Fertitta Entertainment, the company owned by Houston Rockets owner Tilman J. Fertitta.

The Comets will play their home games at Toyota Center starting in 2027. The Sun will remain in Connecticut through the end of the 2026 season.

REATED: WNBA returning to Houston, Comets make a return in 2027

“This is a historic and proud day for our organization and the City of Houston as we officially welcome the Houston Comets back home,” said Patrick Fertitta, Vice Chairman of the Houston Rockets and Comets.

The return marks the first time Houston will have a WNBA team since the original Comets folded in 2008. One of the league’s original eight franchises, the Comets became the WNBA’s first dynasty, winning the league’s first four championships.

The franchise featured Hall of Fame stars including Cynthia Cooper, Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson and coach Van Chancellor. Team officials said the Comets’ history and records will carry forward into the new era of basketball in Houston.

“The Comets helped shape the foundation of the WNBA and created a championship legacy that still resonates today,” Patrick Fertitta continued.

The announcement also comes as the WNBA continues a major expansion push, with the league planning to grow to 18 teams by 2030.

Team officials said the returning Comets will benefit from major upgrades already underway at Toyota Center as part of the “Toyota Center Reimagined” project.

READ MORE: ‘Reimagined’: Harris County officials approve $180M Toyota Center renovation ahead of return of Houston Comets

The new indictment is identical to the previous one, court records show, and alleges Grief misused his office to defraud the state during the Lotto Texas drawing on April 22, 2023, a first-degree felony. A court summons was also issued Wednesday.

The 2023 Lotto drawing drew scrutiny after a group led by an international gambler used several lottery ticket printers to buy almost all of the 25 million possible ticket combinations to win the $95 million jackpot, a Houston Chronicle investigation revealed. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the jackpot was “stolen” from Texans, investigations followed and the Texas Lottery Commission was ultimately dissolved, its duties transferred to another state agency.

In a written statement to the Houston Chronicle, Sam Bassett, Grief’s attorney, called the indictment “the product of politics, not facts demonstrating a crime.”

“Gary cooperated with the Texas Ranger investigation but neither he nor his counsel had input with the Grand Jury. The Rangers had their direction from politicians searching for a scapegoat,” Bassett said. “When all facts are revealed in court, the public will see that Gary’s leadership at the Lottery Commission generated millions of dollars for Texas schools and veterans and there was no crime.”

The Travis County district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Grief resigned from the lottery in February 2024 before scrutiny over the jackpot had mounted.

The decision clears the way for Glossip, 63, to leave a lockup for the first time since his arrest nearly 30 years ago. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out his conviction, and his longstanding claims of innocence have drawn support from Kim Kardashian and other prominent figures.

Judge Natalie Mai issued an order setting bond at $500,000. Glossip must wear an electronic monitoring device and will not be allowed to travel outside Oklahoma. He also must not contact any witnesses in the case, or consume any drugs or alcohol.

It was unclear Thursday when Glossip would be released. He will have to post only 10%, or $50,000, and the process could take two or three days, said his attorney Donald Knight.

Knight also suggested Glossip is counting on contributions to raise the money.

“Mr. Glossip has many supporters and we are hopeful those supporters can afford the bail,” Knight said.

Glossip had been sentenced to death over the 1997 killing in Oklahoma City of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, in what prosecutors have alleged was a murder-for-hire scheme.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that prosecutors’ decision to allow a key witness to give testimony they knew to be false violated Glossip’s constitutional right to a fair trial.

Glossip has remained behind bars after Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced the state would seek to retry him on a murder charge but not pursue the death penalty again.

“The court fully expects that the state will rigorously prosecute its case going forward and the defense will provide robust representation for Glossip,” the judge wrote in the order. “The court hopes that a new trial, free of error, will provided all interested parties and the citizens of Oklahoma, the closure they deserve.”

During his time on death row, courts in Oklahoma set nine different execution dates for Glossip, and he came so close to being put to death that he ate three separate last meals. In 2015, he was even held in a cell next to Oklahoma’s execution chamber, waiting to be strapped to a gurney and die by lethal injection.

But the scheduled time for his execution came and went. Behind the walls of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, prison officials were scrambling after learning one of the lethal drugs they received to carry out the procedure didn’t match the execution protocols. The drug mix-up ultimately led to a nearly seven-year moratorium on executions in Oklahoma.

“Mr. Glossip now has the chance to taste freedom while his defense team continues to pursue justice on his behalf against a system that the United States Supreme Court has found to be guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors," Knight said.

Glossip’s case attracted international attention after actress Susan Sarandon — who won an Academy Award for her portrayal of death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean’s fight to save a man on Louisiana’s death row in the 1995 movie “Dead Man Walking” — took up his cause in real life. Glossip's case also was featured in the 2017 documentary film titled “Killing Richard Glossip."

“Both Richard and I are grateful for the court's decision,” Glossip's wife, Lea, said in a text to The Associated Press. “We have been praying for this day.”

Musk, the world's richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, which started as a nonprofit in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After Musk invested $38 million in its first years, his lawsuit filed in 2024 accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back.

The trial’s outcome could sway the balance of power in AI — breakthrough technology that is increasingly feared as a threat to humanity’s survival. Scrutiny of Altman’s leadership comes at a crucial time for the company and its competitors, Musk’s own AI firm and Anthropic, formed by a group of seven ex-OpenAI leaders.

All three firms are moving toward planned initial public offerings that are expected to be among the largest ever. In addition to damages, Musk is seeking Altman’s ouster from OpenAI’s board. If Musk wins, it could derail OpenAI’s IPO plans.

Timing of lawsuit is key question

One of the jury’s tasks is to decide if Musk filed his lawsuit in time. Much of the testimony has centered on OpenAI’s early years after its 2015 founding, but there’s a relatively short timeline to allege the claims Musk is making of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment.

OpenAI has argued that Musk waited too long and cannot claim harms that occurred before August 2021.

The judge wrote in a court filing last month that “if the jury finds that Musk failed to file his action within the statute of limitations, it is highly likely” that she will “accept that finding and direct verdict to the defendants.”

If the jury decides that the lawsuit was filed in time, they then have to decide if OpenAI had a “charitable trust” and that OpenAI and its executives broke that trust. Musk's other claim means jurors must determine whether Altman, Greg Brockman — co-founder and president — and OpenAI unjustly enriched themselves at Musk's expense.

For Microsoft, a co-defendant in the trial, the jury has to decide whether the company aided and abetted that breach.

Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, told jurors Thursday morning that the Tesla CEO is “sorry he could not be here.”

Musk is in China with President Donald Trump and other prominent tech executives.

Musk lawyer focuses on Altman's credibility

Molo began making his case doubling down on claims of Altman's untrustworthiness, pointing to testimony from five witnesses who called the OpenAI CEO a “liar.”

"I confronted Sam Altman with the fact that five witnesses in this trial, all people that he’s known for years and worked with, called him a liar under oath. Liar’s a very powerful word in a courtroom.”

Those five people were Musk and another co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who was OpenAI’s chief scientist, as well as OpenAI’s former chief technology officer Mira Murati and two ex-board members, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley.

“Sam Altman’s credibility is directly at issue in this case. He’s the defendants' main witness. The defendants absolutely need you to believe Sam Altman. If you cannot trust him, if you don’t believe him, they cannot win. It’s that simple,” he said.

Because Musk, Altman and Brockman never signed an actual contract that could show they had a charitable trust that OpenAI then broke, Musk's side has made the case that jurors should consider emails and other communication between them — along with everything from OpenAI's website to press interviews — that constituted such a trust.

“The evidence proves Elon donated those funds for a specific charitable purpose,” he said, adding that this purpose was to create a nonprofit for the development of safe AI that would be open-source when applicable.

A question of money

In a terse exchange while jurors were out of the room, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers sharply criticized Musk’s attorney for suggesting to jurors in his closing arguments that Musk wasn’t seeking any money in the lawsuit.

While Musk, before the trial, abandoned a bid for damages for himself, he is still seeking an unspecified amount of money to be paid to fund the altruistic efforts of OpenAI’s charitable arm.

Musk is seeking “billions of dollars of disgorgement,” the judge said, ordering Molo to either retract his statement or “drop your claim for billions of dollars.” They later agreed that the judge would correct the statement to jurors.

___

O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

Michael Banks' decision, announced in a Fox News interview and later confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security, is the latest leadership shake-up of officials implementing President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown and comes as the Republican administration appears to be recalibrating its approach.

“It’s just time,” Banks was quoted as saying in a report on the Fox News website. “I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure disastrous chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen,” he said.

In a statement, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, Rodney Scott, thanked Banks for his service “during one of the most challenging periods for border security.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was not immediately clear who will replace Banks. He led an agency at the forefront of Trump's high-profile immigration enforcement efforts but kept a lower profile than some other officials such as Gregory Bovino, a now-retired commander who became a public face of the city operations.

CBP is one of the federal agencies that participated since last year in a series of immigration enforcement operations, carried out primarily in cities governed by Democrats —an effort that triggered a spike in arrests and led to the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis this year at the hands of federal immigration officers.

Banks' resignation takes place two months after Markwayne Mullin, a former Republican senator from Oklahoma, became homeland security secretary. DHS oversees CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE.

Banks is stepping down at the same time that ICE is also going through a leadership transition. Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director, is leaving later this month and will be replaced by David Venturella, who worked for years for private contractors before returning to government service.

CBP was established in 2003 and handles customs, immigration, and agricultural regulations to secure U.S. borders.

Banks returned to the Border Patrol last year after a long agency career that had never landed him in its senior ranks. His star had risen as border czar to Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, during a period when illegal crossings reached record highs and the state launched a multibillion-dollar enforcement surge that led to turf battles with the Biden administration.

Banks kept a relatively low public profile as arrests for illegal crossings that have plunged to their lowest levels since the mid-1960s, a trend that began toward the end of that Democratic administration.

Banks did not appear publicly at the Border Security Expo this month in Phoenix, an annual conference at which government officials update contractors on the state of the border. Scott, who was Banks’ supervisor, is a close ally of Trump border czar Tom Homan and has acted more as the agency’s public face.

In the interview with Fox News, Banks said that after 37 years, “it’s time to enjoy the family and life.”

WACO — In the move-fast-and-break-things world of high tech, a global investment firm and small Central Texas town have joined a global race to build a hyperscale data center — in two years.

But that race may put them on a collision course with neighboring Waco, which holds power over infrastructure needed for the $10 billion project pushed by Infrakey and Lacy Lakeview.

Top Lacy Lakeview officials say there’s good reason for the haste.

Potential investors don’t want to wait. And city officials don’t want to lose the chance to lasso $50 million a year in tax revenue for this suburb of 8,000 just north of Waco.

That urgency is creating sparks with Waco officials, who say they have been kept in the dark about the project. It has also fueled the flames of opposition in the Ross area, where the 520-acre data center is proposed.

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And on May 2, Lacy Lakeview voters sent a message of their own, electing a data center opponent to the city council.

Layering onto those challenges are technical roadblocks that could stall the project before it starts – and that would need Waco’s help to resolve.

Lacy Lakeview would need to annex not only the data center property, but also a three-mile corridor 1,000 feet wide through a mosaic of private property. Those owners would have to agree to be annexed.

Infrakey would need to build miles of new sewer mains and repurpose existing lines to push wastewater uphill to the site. The company would have to build a sewer plant capable of treating up to 2 million gallons of wastewater a day to reuse as cooling water.

Building the elaborate infrastructure for the project would require close collaboration with Waco, which owns the regional sewer system and holds the water service rights to the Infrakey site.

Waco officials are increasingly vocal in their skepticism about the project’s benefits beyond Lacy Lakeview, which stands to benefit from up to $10 billion in new tax base. Their questions come amid a growing state and nationwide backlash against the data center industry, and as state lawmakers discuss regulations to rein them in.

Waco City Manager Ryan Holt learned about the project from a Waco Bridge article in November. Lacy Lakeview officials didn’t meet with his team until January. It was April 22 before engineers met to discuss technical details, and Waco officials say they still are lacking basic information about the project.

“If this is so urgent, wouldn’t you think engineers would have been in the same room by now?” Holt said in an April 8 interview.

Some Waco officials are deadset against the project.

Waco Council Member Darius Ewing said he would have considered a good-faith discussion between Waco and Lacy Lakeview about cooperating on the project. Instead, he said the small city’s approach has been “almost oppositional.”

Ewing is not convinced that data centers pay off for communities in general and said this one seems like a bad bet.

“Even if they had an airtight way to make sure that it was not a drain on resources and they were recycling everything correctly, it was minimally invasive, I think it would still be a poison pill,” Ewing said.

Lacy Lakeview Mayor Chuck Wilson said his city is just now firming up technical details to discuss with Waco.

“I think Waco was brought into the project at about the right time,” Wilson said. “I know that may not seem that way to them, but we brought them in when we were asked to do so.

“I’m very pleased with the effort we have made to include other elected officials. I can’t think of anybody who needs to be informed that hasn’t had several phone calls or lunches. This has been very well coordinated.”

Opposition expands

Rural residents around Ross and Elm Mott in northern McLennan County began organizing to fight the data center almost immediately after learning about it in November.

Now critics of the project are emerging in nearly every quarter of local politics.

Many share the usual concerns about data centers, including their impact on water, electricity and land use. But many are especially critical of the approach Lacy Lakeview and Infrakey are taking.

State Rep. Pat Curry, R-Waco, is open to data centers but deeply critical of the Infrakey proposal. He frequently speaks at Sunday strategy meetings that data center opponents host at the Ross Volunteer Fire Department.

“It’s not the right deal in the right place, with the right use of resources,” Curry said in an interview with the Bridge. “Without the City of Waco agreeing to it, Lacy Lakeview can’t do anything out there and neither can Infrakey. … Those guys don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”

He plans to support legislation creating guardrails on the industry, including local land use powers allowing cities and counties to turn down a bad deal. Many data centers are being developed outside of city limits, and counties have no zoning powers in Texas.

Sujeeth Draksharam, Infrakey spokesperson and engineer, dismissed the legislative threat to the project.

“If the Legislature wants to take us to the Stone Age and try to put zoning or something to pander to the political stuff? Come on,” Draksharam said. “This is Texas, where property rights prevail over anything.”

The data center project became a unifying issue in the March primary elections in McLennan County. All three candidates for Texas Senate District 22, which includes this county, pointed to Infrakey’s project as an example of residents being overpowered and left in the dark.

State Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield, won the primary and is favored in the November election to win the heavily Republican district, which has several data center flashpoints. He has said he wants to allow limited local control over data centers, possibly including special permits that allow public input for approval.

Meanwhile, Rick Tullis, who is unopposed in the November election for county judge, said he would oppose tax abatements for the Infrakey project. As the top county official, he said he would only support data center projects that involve robust communication, and would prefer them to be placed in industrial parks.

In the May 2 local elections, Lacy Lakeview voters elected Amy Gage, a data center opponent, to the council with a strong margin. Richard Lednicky, a council incumbent and the only candidate to come out in support of the Infrakey development, lost his seat.

Gage described the results as a referendum on the project and its city backers.

“It’s reassuring but also worrisome that other leaders are experiencing the same level of frustration that residents and community members are feeling when trying to get straight answers from the leadership of Lacy Lakeview,” Gage said on election day.

Power of the pipe

Lacy Lakeview Mayor Wilson said he hoped to reach an understanding with Waco on the issue of recycling wastewater in a matter of weeks. The fate of the Infrakey data center may depend on it.

Infrakey hopes to separate itself from the pack of hyperscale developers by sourcing nearly 100% of the water to cool the data center from sewage flows in Lacy Lakeview and the Waco area.

The “sewer mining” approach could sidestep the usual red-hot debates about the data center industry’s thirst for water. But the planning, infrastructure and intercity partnerships required to build the system by 2027 are substantial.

The project’s first phase would require about 300,000 gallons of wastewater per day, but Lacy Lakeview produces only about 250,000 gallons per day, said Draksharam, the Infrakey spokesperson and engineer. Ultimately, the project would need some 2 million gallons per day, he estimated.

For reference, Waco is spending $78 million to expand the Bull Hide Creek wastewater treatment plant’s capacity from 1.5 million to 4 million gallons a day.

To solve the sewage shortfall, Lacy Lakeview wants to tap into Waco’s sewer flows and pump the wastewater miles north to a yet-to-be constructed treatment plant, all of which Infrakey promises to pay for.

“We’re not asking for a dime from Waco,” Wilson said. “Waco gets some deferral of capital expenditure. They get some relief on their existing (sewer) infrastructure, and they don’t have to pay anything for it, (while) Infrakey gets the effluent that they would like to have to cool their plant.”

But basic questions about the plan have not been answered yet, including how the two city’s wastewater systems would connect, how many miles of new pipeline and pumping infrastructure have to be built or what the work would cost.

Environmental Systems Group, or ESG, the engineering company Infrakey tapped for the job, has not completed its feasibility study of the sewer mining project yet. ESG’s engineers only began meeting with Waco engineering staff in late April, months after Waco officials found out about the project.

Water questions

Draksharam, the Infrakey engineer, acknowledged the communication gap in an interview.

“I do take the criticism that we haven’t been engaged,” Draksharam responded in a comment to the Bridge. “That’s a fair comment.”

Infrakey’s site is located in Waco’s water and wastewater service jurisdiction; under maps approved by the state. Waco must provide those services but has power to set the price. Also, it is under no obligation to pump wastewater to a customer, only to take it away.

Waco also owns the regional wastewater system of which Lacy Lakeview is a member. Lacy Lakeview’s 50-page wastewater contract with Waco does not specifically address how a sewer mining operation would be approved.

Additionally, Waco officials believe the filtration technology at the core of the proposal is excessively expensive, raising questions about who would pay to keep the plant operating if Infrakey pulled out.

At full buildout, the sewer mining plant would cost an estimated $1.3 million a year to run, according to an ESG project brief sent to Waco and obtained by the Bridge through an open records request.

If the wastewater reuse plan falls through, the Plan B for supplying water by 2027 is unclear. One option listed in the project brief is a proposed reallocation of Lake Whitney water previously reserved for hydropower.

But the reallocation proposal is still in its study phase, sponsored by the Brazos River Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A BRA spokesperson said that if the recommendations are approved, obtaining state water permits for users would take three to five years.

To list Lake Whitney water as a contingency source for the data center “would have been done without the BRA’s knowledge and without a contract guarantee,” the BRA spokesperson said in a statement to the Bridge.

ESG also lists well water as a contingency option. But any new use of groundwater in McLennan County would have to be approved by the Southern Trinity Groundwater District, and Infrakey officials say they are not pursuing groundwater.

Annexation hurdle

Lacy Lakeview will have to annex Infrakey’s 520-acre site to reap the property tax benefits that prompted its partnership with the data center company.

Under state law, the newly annexed area would have to be connected to the remainder of the city by a corridor at least 1,000 feet wide.

Rep. Curry expressed doubt about how easily Lacy Lakeview could annex a distant property.

“You can’t just jump out there and go, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do this. And the land doesn’t even touch our city limits. It doesn’t touch anything we have,” Curry said.

Taking all the challenges into account, Hodde returned to the financial realities facing the city if the data center never materializes.

He said Lacy Lakeview would be staring at a backlog of maintenance and infrastructure problems, with little tax revenue to address them.

“If the data center doesn’t happen, we still have to be able to upgrade our capital improvements where we need to,” he said.

Lebanese officials are hoping that the two-day negotiations will yield a new ceasefire deal and pave the way for tackling a series of thorny issues, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

The Trump administration has been pushing for a breakthrough between the two neighbors that have been officially in a state of war since Israel was created in 1948.

Hezbollah, however, is not part of those talks and has been vocally opposed to Lebanon engaging in direct negotiations with Israel.

Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group have continued to trade near-constant fire across the border despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire on April 17. Initially a 10-day truce, it was then extended for another three weeks.

Talks move to a higher level

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who attended the first Israel-Lebanon meetings in Washington in April, was with President Donald Trump on a visit to China and did not attend Thursday's session.

The current round of talks represents a step toward more serious negotiations, with higher-level envoys from Lebanon and Israel taking part after the initial preparatory sessions were headed by the ambassadors of the two countries to Washington.

Lebanon's envoy heading up Thursday's talks, Simon Karam, is an attorney and well-connected former Lebanese ambassador to the U.S. who recently represented Lebanon in indirect talks with Israel over implementation of the ceasefire that preceded the latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hezbollah. On the Israeli side, Deputy National Security Adviser Yossi Draznin was set to attend.

There are still large gaps in what the two sides want from the direct talks. Israeli officials have focused on disarming Hezbollah and described the negotiations as a precursor to a potential normalization of diplomatic relations. Lebanese officials have said they are seeking a security agreement or armistice that would stop short of normalization.

Trump has publicly called for a meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Aoun has declined to meet or speak directly with Netanyahu at this stage — a move that would likely generate blowback in Lebanon.

Lebanon hopes for ceasefire

A senior Lebanese official familiar with the negotiations in Washington said Thursday Lebanon wants a complete ceasefire first and then would negotiate withdrawal of Israeli forces. The issue of Hezbollah’s weapons would be dealt with politically in Lebanon after that, he said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to speak frankly about the talks.

He said Lebanon is “relying heavily on the U.S. administration” to provide it with leverage in the negotiations with Israel and believes that Trump is “sincere” in his desire to help Lebanon.

The official said that when Trump and Aoun spoke recently, Trump did not pressure Aoun to meet or speak with Netanyahu and was understanding when Aoun explained his reasons for declining. According to the official, Aoun told Trump that if he went to Washington and shook hands with Netanyahu and the talks later fell apart, it could have internal repercussions in Lebanon and discredit Trump.

Aoun told Trump that if the two countries are able to reach a security deal, he would come to the White House and “inaugurate” it and Trump responded by saying “I like that,” the official said.

If Israel agrees to a ceasefire and withdraws from the territory it is occupying in southern Lebanon, the official said, he believes Hezbollah would agree to an arrangement under which it would hand over its weapons to the Lebanese army, which could keep some of them and destroy others. Under this plan, Lebanon could consider allowing individual Hezbollah fighters to join the Lebanese army if they meet eligibility requirements, he said.

Meanwhile, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter in an interview with Israeli news site Walla News Thursday said Israel aims “to negotiate for full peace as if Hezbollah does not exist — borders, embassies, visas, tourism, everything.” Despite Lebanese officials’ assertions that diplomatic normalization is not currently on the table, he said he believes “it is possible to reach such an agreement within a few months.” But, he added, “it would be conditioned on the success of the second track — dismantling Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah and Israel trade fire

Thursday’s talks opened hours after a Hezbollah drone exploded inside Israel, injuring three civilians, two of them severely, according to the Israeli military and hospitals. It was the first instance of civilians injured by Hezbollah projectiles since the ceasefire, according to reports from Israel’s rescue service, Magen David Adom.

Israel has struggled to halt frequent Hezbollah drone attacks on Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and over the border in northern Israel.

Israel has also continued to carry out strikes in Lebanon. On Wednesday, Israel struck seven vehicles in Lebanon — three of them on the main highway just south of Beirut — killing 12 people including a woman and her two children, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Later strikes in southern Lebanon killed another 10 people, including six children, the ministry said.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says that since the war began on March 2, 2,896 people have been killed — including around 400 since the nominal ceasefire was implemented — and 8,824 wounded. Eighteen Israeli soldiers, two Israeli civilians inside Israel and a defense contractor working in southern Lebanon have been killed on the Israeli side.

U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon have also been caught in the crossfire and six have been killed.

___

Associated Press writer Joseph Federman in Jerusalem contributed.

The new inductees into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress include Swift’s blockbuster 2014 pop album “1989,” Beyoncé’s era-defining 2008 anthem “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” Khan’s genre-blending hit “I Feel for You,” Vince Gill’s emotional ballad “Go Rest High on That Mountain” and The Go-Go’s groundbreaking debut album “Beauty and the Beat.”

They were among the 25 recordings entering the archive in the class of 2026, acting Librarian of Congress Robert Newlen announced Thursday. The selections were chosen for their “cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage.”

“Music and recorded sound are essential, wonderful parts of our daily lives and our national heritage,” Newlen said in a statement. “The National Recording Registry works to preserve our national playlist for generations to come.”

Other recordings entering the registry include Ray Charles’ groundbreaking country crossover album “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music,” Reba McEntire’s “Rumor Has It,” Rosanne Cash’s “The Wheel” and Weezer’s self-titled debut known as “The Blue Album.”

Classic singles from Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Byrds, José Feliciano and Paul Anka also earned inclusion.

Among the more unconventional selections are the soundtrack to the influential 1993 video game "Doom" and the radio broadcast of “The Fight of the Century,” the legendary 1971 heavyweight boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

The oldest recording in this year’s class is Spike Jones and His City Slickers’ 1944 single “Cocktails for Two.” The newest is Swift’s “1989.”

This year also marks the first recordings by Swift and Beyoncé selected for the registry. The Library of Congress said more than 3,000 public nominations were submitted for consideration this year.

With under two weeks to go until the May 26 runoff, an array of political action committees — some powered by untraceable dark money — has spent close to $6 million since the March 3 primary across seven of Texas’ most meaningful congressional runoffs.

They range from perennial players, like the Democratic centrist Blue Dog PAC and the conservative Club for Growth, to well-heeled PACs supporting the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industries. And one mysterious group seemingly aligned with the GOP is boosting a candidate with a history of antisemitic comments in a San Antonio-area Democratic primary, suggesting an effort to line up a candidate the party sees as more easily beatable.

Voters from Abilene to Dallas to Houston to Lubbock are being blitzed with ads, mailers and texts from these groups. And while overall House ad spending on television, digital and radio lags prior cycles, the share covered by outside sources has skyrocketed, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.

Of the nearly $4.6 million shelled out for TV, digital and radio ads in Texas’ congressional runoffs, 89% has come from PACs, super PACs and nonprofits operating independently from the candidates. That’s up from 29% in 2020; 50% in 2022; and 68% last cycle, per AdImpact.

Some of the phenomenon can be traced to last year’s GOP redistricting, which yielded a wave of competitive primaries by forcing Democrats into overlapping districts and creating free-for-alls for newly drawn seats where there is no incumbent. It is also a sign of the political stakes in Congress’ lower chamber, with party leaders and other insiders keen to put forward the most competitive nominees for a general election that will decide control of a closely divided House.

With limited budgets of their own, candidates may also be relying on more deep-pocketed outside groups to break through the noise of the pricey U.S. Senate and attorney general runoffs, which have otherwise dominated the airwaves.

The influence of outside spending is perhaps most notable in the 35th Congressional District, where a pop-up PAC apparently linked to the GOP is spending to boost a fringe candidate in the Democratic runoff. The district is among the five seats targeted by Republicans’ new redistricting map.

Maureen Galindo, a progressive sex therapist who has raised little money, finished first in the Democratic primary with 29.2% of the vote. Galindo has trafficked in antisemitic conspiracies, saying Jews run Hollywood and referring to the “synagogue of Satan.”

She is running against Bexar County sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia, who finished second in March with 27% of the vote and is backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — House Democrats’ main campaign arm — and the centrist Blue Dog PAC. The runoff is highly consequential to both parties, given that the Texas Legislature redrew the San Antonio-area seat last summer to favor Republicans. The district would have voted for Donald Trump by a 10-point margin in 2024; it is majority-Hispanic, fueling Democratic hopes of overcoming the gerrymander if they can make up lost ground with Hispanic voters.

Galindo first received outside support on May 6, when a shadowy group called Lead Left PAC spent over $40,000 on pro-Galindo mailers touting her progressive credentials. The group, which registered as a PAC in late April, will not have to report its donors until after the runoff. But the metadata of its website included links to Republican fundraising platform WinRed.

Lead Left PAC has since placed an $80,000 ad buy, according to AdImpact, and dropped additional mailers, bringing its total spend to over $340,000.

“This has now become an all-out arms race,” Garcia said. “Republicans are frightened for me to make it out of the runoff.”

In the wake of Democratic outrage over Galindo’s comments and Republican meddling, Garcia received the endorsement of Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, the Congressional Progressive Caucus chair whose district was redrawn to form the one Garcia is running for. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries…

Galindo, for her part, said over text that she doesn’t believe Republicans are behind the spending, because, “I don’t trust anything in the establishment political and media world.” She said she’s the strongest candidate in the general election and that the recent focus on the race, including being accused of antisemitism, has increased her reach.

“Even after this recent smear campaign claiming I’m antisemitic for being anti-Zionist has boosted my broad support,” she said. “We know what we see WITH OUR EYES and are sick of politicians and media trying to gaslight us. Zionists are the anti-semities.”

Beyond suspected GOP spending in the 35th District, outside groups are deploying millions in safe districts where the primary is the true contest.

The most expensive House runoff in Texas is the contest between two sitting members of Congress, Houston Democratic Reps. Al Green and Christian Menefee, in the 18th Congressional District. Fittingly, it includes the single biggest spender — Protect Progress, a pro-crypto super PAC powered by the blockchain industry.

Protect Progress has spent $1.8 million on the airwaves and over $350,000 on mail pieces supporting Menefee in the runoff. One of the group’s TV ads praises Menefee’s record and calls for voters to “pass the torch” to the new congressman, who is 40 years younger than Green. Another features Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, who endorsed Menefee. Cryptocurrency is never mentioned.

“Democrats used to be the party of the future, but lately, we’ve been running on the past — and losing,” the ad’s narrator says. “It’s time to pass the torch — and Democrat Christian Menefee is ready to continue the fight.”

Similarly, in Texas’ 19th Congressional District, where Lubbock agriculture lobbyist Tom Sell is facing conservative activist Abraham Enriquez, a pro-AI super PAC is the biggest runoff spender. American Mission, a Republican group connected to OpenAI’s political network that favors light-touch AI regulation, has spent nearly $600,000 airing a biographical ad about Sell that never mentions AI.

The Sell campaign, by contrast, has spent under $200,000 on ads, per AdImpact. Enriquez has spent less than $5,000.

The AI industry is playing in the 9th Congressional District as well — through a rival group. Defending Our Values PAC, which is affiliated with an Anthropic-backed effort to install candidates favoring heavier industry guardrails, has spent over $400,000 backing Alex Mealer and opposing her GOP runoff opponent, state Rep. Briscoe Cain.

The PAC has also spent over $560,000 supporting Carlos De La Cruz in the Republican runoff in the 35th District, running ads touting his Trump endorsement that also do not mention AI.

Seven different conservative groups have spent money in the 9th District Republican runoff, a contest that pits Mealer, a Trump-backed veteran, against the Abbott-backed Cain. Nearly all are working to get Mealer, who finished first in the primary, over the hump in the runoff.

The Club for Growth, an influential conservative group with significant fundraising prowess, endorsed Mealer. Between the group’s action fund and an outside group tied to CFG called Win It Back PAC, they’ve spent over $1.1 million to boost Mealer and oppose Cain. Their investment has included everything from a door-to-door field program to mailers to text messaging to ads.

On the airwaves, Win It Back PAC spent over $280,000 on an anti-Cain ad attacking the state lawmaker for receiving past campaign contributions from the developers of the controversial Colony Ridge project. The development, located in the Liberty County territory newly added to the 9th District, came under Republican scrutiny for selling land to undocumented immigrants.

“Briscoe Cain said Colony Ridge represented the American Dream,” the ad’s narrator says over spooky visuals. “So out of touch, it’s scary.”

There’s been over $650,000 in TV, digital and radio ad spending alone in the 9th District runoff — more than 99% of which comes from outside groups backing Mealer. Conservatives for American Excellence, a super PAC funded by GOP megadonors that has intervened in past Republican primaries against prospective Freedom Caucus hardliners, has put over $370,000 into an ad bashing Cain as a “liberal lightweight.”

The same group has also spent over $40,000 on pro-Sell mail in the 19th District.

Cain, a Republican from Deer Park, has routinely been among the most conservative lawmakers at the Capitol over nearly a decade in the state House. But he has come under fire from Mealer for supporting the lower chamber’s impeachment push against Paxton in 2023.

The only outside group supporting Cain in the runoff is a group called Building a Strong America, which received all of its funding from a dark money group that does not need to disclose its donors. The group has funded over $85,000 in anti-Mealer texts and digital ads.

The justices ruled unanimously in favor of Shawn Montgomery, whose parked vehicle was hit by a speeding truck driver on an Illinois highway in 2017. He wants to sue C.H. Robinson, the country’s largest freight broker by size, over its role in putting the driver on the road despite what he called “serious red flags.”

The decision does not mean Montgomery will necessarily win the lawsuit, which the company is contesting. But the ruling opens the door to increased liability for freight brokers, a key part of the industry.

The Trump administration and companies such as Amazon had argued that letting the suit go forward would expose logistics companies to liability under a “patchwork” of state laws.

The Transportation Intermediaries Association, an industry group, said the decision was “deeply disappointing.”

“This is like asking travel agents to evaluate the safety of a given airline despite the fact that the airline has been licensed to fly by the federal government,” said Chris Burroughs, the group's president and CEO. “We are working with our members to assess potential next steps to mitigate the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision."

Montgomery's lawyers say the trucker had been cited for careless driving in another crash months earlier and that the carrier he worked for had been involved with at least three crashes in a span of about five months. Montgomery's lawsuit said C.H. Robinson should share liability because it hired the carrier despite those problems.

Montgomery's appeal was backed by more than two dozen states. They said a win for him would help bolster safety in an industry that moves billions of tons of goods across billions of miles every year.

The company argued the suit, filed under state law, must be tossed out because brokers rely on the federal government to regulate carriers and federal law trumps state law.

But in an opinion by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court disagreed. The justices found Montgomery's claims can move forward because they fall under an exception for safety regulations. The high court overturned a lower-court ruling in the company's favor.

The decision could increase insurance costs for freight brokers that eventually “cascade through the economy" and result in higher prices for consumers, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a concurrence joined by Justice Samuel Alito.

Still, “truck safety is a matter of life and death," Kavanaugh wrote.

C.H. Robinson, which is based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, pointed to another part of his concurrence, where he said the decision does not mean brokers will be “routinely subject” to lawsuits.

“We will keep working with policymakers, advocates, carriers, our customers, and others across the industry to strengthen the national safety system and advance practices that reduce accidents on America’s roads," said Dorothy Capers, the company's chief legal officer.

The ruling could have far reaching effects if brokers can be held liable for the actions of the trucking companies they hire, said Brian Watt, who runs a freight logistics company in Florida.

Brokers will now have to focus more on the safety records of the truckers they contract with to haul all kinds of goods, including hazardous materials, instead of just looking for the cheapest and fastest option.

“More than 28,000 federally licensed brokers currently operate in the United States with virtually no meaningful federal safety oversight regarding how they select carriers,” Watt said in a post on LinkedIn. He said there are tougher standards for brokers that arrange shipments out of ports and on railroads, but that highway shipments face fewer restrictions.

The Transportation Department has been cracking down on the trucking industry over the past year by trying to force unqualified drivers, trucking companies and schools out of the industry.

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Associated Press writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.

The bipartisan support for the measure comes at a time when federal closures have become longer and more frequent, frustrating lawmakers who say there should be punishment when Congress fails at its most basic legislative duty.

Under the resolution, senators’ pay would be withheld by the secretary of the Senate whenever a government shutdown affects one or more agencies, then released once funding is restored. It will take effect the day after the Nov. 3 general election and does not apply to the House.

“Shutting down government should not be our default solution to our refusal to work out our issues and our differences,” said Sen. John Kennedy, the bill’s sponsor, in a floor speech Wednesday.

“This is about putting our money where our mouth is,” said Kennedy, R-La.

Two shutdowns in the past year created significant financial hardship for tens of thousands of federal workers, particularly at the Department of Homeland Security. The department reopened last month after a 76-day partial shutdown, the longest agency funding lapse in history.

The DHS shutdown came just a few months after a 43-day lapse of the entire federal government, which was the longest such closure on record.

The Constitution stipulates that lawmakers must be paid so they have received salaries during shutdowns even as federal workers went without paychecks. When the full government shutdown began in October amid a dispute over health care subsidies, Sen. Lindsey Graham proposed a constitutional amendment to require members to forfeit their paychecks when the government is closed.

“If members of Congress had to forfeit their pay during government shutdowns, there would be fewer shutdowns and they would end quicker,” Graham, R-S.C., said at the time.

Graham said his legislation was the most “constitutionally sound” way to deal with the problem, but the process would have been much more laborious as three-fourths of states must ratify an amendment.

Lawmakers in previous shutdowns have often pledged to forgo their paychecks while federal workers went unpaid. Senators earn an annual salary of $174,000, but many are independently wealthy.

Kennedy told reporters Wednesday that he pushed his measure to ensure there is “shared sacrifice” during shutdowns. He added that it does not go as far as he would like, but that it’s a start.

Asked why it does not extend to the other chamber of Congress, Kennedy said “the House’s business is the House’s business” while also touching on the tensions between the Senate and House.

“There’s a very strong undercurrent of animosity among some of my friends in the House,” Kennedy said.

“It’s quickly becoming like two kids fighting in the back of a minivan,” he said.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting became the first senior minister to quit Thursday in what was seen as a precursor to challenging Starmer's leadership. He said he had lost confidence in Starmer, who should not serve out the rest of his term.

“You have shown courage and statesmanship on the world stage — not least in keeping Britain out of the war in Iran,” Streeting wrote in an excoriating resignation letter. “But where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift.”

But Streeting stopped short of saying he was the best candidate to lead the party at the next election due by 2029, suggesting Starmer should step aside to allow a “broad” field of candidates to debate the future of the party.

Starmer is under growing pressure to step down after disastrous results for his Labour Party last week in local and regional elections. The election drubbing cemented doubts among many party members about Starmer’s judgment, vision and leadership ability — a brutal indictment on a leader who returned Labour to power in July 2024 after 14 years in opposition.

Starmer responded in a generous letter to Streeting, saying he was “truly sorry” to see him leave the government and praised his stewardship of the state-run National Health Service.

Making no reference to Streeting's criticisms, Starmer laid out his hope the two “can work together to show that Labour in power can address the problems our opponents exploit, can install hope where they want despair, and can bring people together where they want division.”

If Starmer doesn't step down, any challenger would need support from a fifth of Labour lawmakers, or 81, to trigger a leadership contest.

For days, Streeting had been expected to launch a bid Thursday, but the wording of his statement has stoked speculation he doesn't have enough votes yet, or that he is giving Starmer a chance to announce his resignation on his own terms.

Another likely challenger, former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, said Thursday that she had reached an agreement with authorities to clear up questions about her taxes that forced her to leave the Cabinet last September. Rayner told the Guardian newspaper that Starmer should “reflect on” his position, adding that she was ready to “play my part” in any leadership election if Streeting triggered a contest.

A third rival, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, is ineligible for the leadership because he doesn't have a seat in Parliament, but on Thursday afternoon a Labour lawmaker said he would step aside to make room and Burnham said he would seek permission from party to enter a special election. He could then mount a leadership challenge if elected.

“I grew up in this area and have lived here for 25 years,” Burnham said on X. “I care deeply about it and its people. I know they have been let down by national politics.”

Race to unseat Starmer heats up

Pressure for Starmer to step aside has intensified since Labour suffered heavy losses in local and regional elections last week, underscoring voter frustration with a government that has failed to deliver on pledges to boost economic growth and improve living standards for working people.

A stagnant economy and stubbornly high inflation have made it difficult for Starmer’s government to deliver on the promises it made when winning a landslide election victory less than two years ago.

Starmer has vowed to remain in office, warning lawmakers that any leadership contest would destabilize the government when it should be focused on issues like the cost of living crisis and war in the Middle East.

The leadership wrangles overshadowed some positive news for the government.

Official figures showed the British economy grew 0.6% in the first three months of the year — more than had been anticipated and larger than the previous quarter, despite the negative impact from the Iran war. More growth means more tax revenues to fund Labour’s priorities and potentially lower borrowing.

Treasury chief Rachel Reeves said the figures showed her policies were working and the party shouldn't put hard-won economic stability at risk “by plunging the country in chaos at a time when there is conflict in the world.”

Streeting himself hailed figures showing that waiting lines for NHS appointments — one of his signature priorities — fell for the fifth straight month, an achievement he is likely to point to if he runs for leader.

Streeting comes from a faction of the left-leaning Labour Party that sees itself as the modernizing wing, as does Starmer. Rayner is a favorite of members who think the party has strayed too far from its working-class roots and those who want the party to do more to boost the minimum wage and raise taxes on the rich.

Efforts to depose a Labour leader are relatively rare

Unlike the Conservative Party, Labour has never ousted a prime minister in midterm.

“They don’t do ruthless on their leader,’’ said Jonathan Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool. “They don’t tend to depose their leader. The Conservatives, they readily do ruthless.’’

Even if Starmer survives this current bout of jitters, he will likely face another challenge in a few months given the level of fragmentation in British politics, he added.

“He’s got a huge parliamentary majority, he’s got more than 400 MPs, and yet his prime ministership may be on the brink of disintegration,” Tonge said.

Imagine what that can do to a human body. Now, imagine that it’s almost completely exempt from gun regulations.

How can that be? Well, under federal and most state laws, many antique or replica guns aren’t technically considered firearms. In most places, even convicted felons can own them.

“I suspect the average judge would be surprised to find that out,” says Second Amendment scholar and gun-rights attorney Dave Hardy, himself the proud owner of two Civil War-era long guns.

During a National Rifle Association event back in 2000, the late actor Charlton Heston famously hoisted a flintlock — the single-shot weapon that won the Revolution and was still in wide use a half century after Congress debated the Second Amendment — into the air and said the Democrats would have to take it “from my cold, dead hands.”

He needn’t have worried.

A blast from the past

During debate over the Gun Control Act of 1968, Sen. John Goodwin Tower argued that flintlocks and many other antique or replica guns should be exempt from regulation.

The Texas Republican said it was needed “to relieve an unnecessarily burdensome problem for serious collectors of antique firearms and for historians and museums.” Treating all weapons the same, he argued, would unfairly target collector items “which have little, if any, practical use as a firearm in the modern connotation.”

The provision defines an antique as any weapon “with a matchlock, flintlock, percussion cap, or similar type of ignition system” manufactured “in or before 1898” — as long as it hasn't been modified to fire modern ammunition. This generally means muzzleloaders that use black powder or a black powder substitute, though some early cartridge guns are included.

You can even own and fire a cannon.

Don't go off half cocked

Most states have adopted that language either verbatim or by direct reference to the federal provision. But, as military historian Patrick Luther says, “it’s a patchwork.”

“I live in NY (New York) and bought a civil war musket,” Luther, a Marine veteran with the website milsurpia.com, said in an email. “It was very similar to buying a regular firearm. Buying the blackpowder for the rifle felt not much different than buying a T-shirt.”

At least three states — Hawaii, Ohio and North Dakota — treat a smoothbore musket the same as an AK-47 or AR-15. Reenactor Jason Monhollen, an officer in the U.S. Army, says that’s “comparing apples and oranges.”

“It seems silly to put restriction on something that would be such a terrible weapon if you wanted to, you know, kill people,” says Monhollen, who portrays a private and carries a French Charleville musket in the 2nd North Carolina Regiment. “There’s just much better things. You can kill more people quickly with a car than you can with a musket.”

But these weapons are still deadly.

Not just a toy

Maryland changed its law after a convicted sex offender killed his ex-girlfriend with a six-shot, .44-caliber cap and ball revolver purchased on the internet.

“It may have loaded like an 1851 weapon, but it fired like a 2017 manufactured modern handgun that was capable of lethal force,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy told reporters at the time.

Shadé's Law, passed in 2019, now prohibits people convicted of certain violent crimes from buying or possessing such weapons. But many states allow convicted felons to have these weapons; West Virginia makes an exception for people under an active protective order.

Some states’ laws are confusing or vague.

Montana law mentions “antique or replica arms” in a code regulating firearms and ammunition manufactured in the state. But nowhere in the code are those weapons defined.

Wisconsin uses the federal definition, but the only reference comes in a law regarding “look-alike” firearms.

And, of course, many local ordinances, like the one in Wake County, North Carolina, prohibit the firing of any “barreled weapon capable of discharging projectiles.” In many jurisdictions, it’s illegal to brandish even a toy gun at someone.

“Federal law does not exclude antique firearms from location-based restrictions,” Austin Gunderson, counsel for the North Dakota Legislative Council, said in an email.

Stray bullets

Sometimes, attempts to strengthen gun laws have had unintended consequences.

The attorney general of New Jersey, one of the 13 original states, recently had to offer guidance when a new law targeting ghost guns seemed to require all firearms — including antiques and even air guns — to have serial numbers.

When New York toughened its gun laws in 2022, it required background checks for transfers and purchases of antique guns, and barred firearms of any kind from certain “sensitive places” like parks and museum sites — just the kinds of places reenactors appear most.

An exemption was later carved out for people “lawfully engaged in historical reenactments, educational programming involving historical weapons of warfare, or motion picture or theatrical productions.” But that hasn’t stopped out-of-state reenactors from worrying their muskets will be confiscated at the George Washington Bridge, says Justin Costantino, adjutant of the Long Island Companies of the 3rd New York Regiment.

“If the New York State Police department wants to charge me with weapons possession while I’m wearing a cocked hat and carrying around a Charleville ’66,” says Costantino, a graduate student in history, “then please, don’t call my lawyer. Call the New York Post!”

Then again, Costantino hates to hear a mother at a reenactment tell her child, “Oh, no. Don’t worry, sweetie. It’s not real.”

“It’s not really loaded, but it is really a weapon,” he says. “It’s really gunpowder. And if you stand close to it, you’ll feel the kind of breath of hot air ... They’re still things that we have to take very seriously, and you have to be safe with.”

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AP Writer Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this report.

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy's Wednesday ruling is the latest setback for the U.S. Department of Justice, where at least seven other federal courts have agreed to quash or limit the expansive civil subpoenas sent to more than 20 doctors and hospitals last summer.

McElroy's decision also echoed similar concerns raised by judges surrounding the expansive scope of the subpoenas, describing the Justice Department as having “immense prosecutorial authority and discretion” but no longer trustworthy it will enforce its power fairly and honestly.

“DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case,” McElroy wrote.

A DOJ spokesperson said Thursday that they would appeal and continue with their investigations.

“The Rhode Island court’s attack on the professionalism and integrity of DOJ attorneys is outrageous and unjustified,” the department said.

According to the subpoenas, the DOJ had demanded Rhode Island Hospital hand over the birth dates, Social Security numbers and addresses of every patient who received transgender care over the past five years. It also included instructions to provide all documents detailing adverse side effects in minor patients who received gender-related care, assessments that formed the basis for prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy, as well as patient intake forms and guardian authorization.

The Justice Department has repeatedly argued that the information sought in the subpoenas is needed to investigate possible fraud or unlawful off-label promotion of drugs. Most recently during a hearing in Rhode Island, the DOJ said that the investigation was taking place in the Northern District of Texas, where the court's chief judge ordered Rhode Island Hospital to comply with the subpoena before McElroy's decision voided the subpoena.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brantley Mayers told McElroy during the hearing that the DOJ is investigating potential “misbranding” of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, such as puberty blockers for young people. While off-label prescribing is legal, Mayers said that the DOJ is concerned that pharmaceutical companies are providing “financial incentives” to Rhode Island doctors to prescribe the drugs.

The subpoenas were crucial in getting the names of children and their families so the DOJ could interview them.

McElroy rejected that argument.

"The administration has publicly characterized gender-affirming care for minors as abuse, directed the DOJ to bring its practice to an end, and celebrated when hospitals curtailed such programs as a result of this subpoena campaign," McElroy wrote.

The Rhode Island decision is the latest development in the fight over transgender youth health records. Earlier this week, 11 families filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to block the DOJ from obtaining the documents. The lawsuit, filed in Maryland’s federal court, is backed by families with transgender children who have received care from hospitals across the U.S.

And separately, a New York hospital announced that it received a grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors in Texas seeking information about children who received gender-affirming care and the medical providers who administered it.

NYU Langone is the first hospital system to publicly acknowledge receiving a subpoena for such records as part of a federal criminal investigation. But the institution said in its statement Tuesday it was one of several that received a subpoena out of the Northern District of Texas on May 7. It said it was deciding on how to respond.

“The government cannot use its subpoena power to intimidate families out of seeking lawful medical care. To trans and gender-diverse children and their families, we want you to know that you are valued, you are not alone,” Kevin Love Hubbard, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee of Rhode Island, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement.

Gender-affirming care includes a range of medical and mental health services to support a person’s gender identity, including when it’s different from the sex they were assigned at birth. It may include counseling, medications that block puberty, hormone therapy to produce physical changes or surgeries to transform chests and genitals, although those are rare for minors.

Most major medical groups say access to the treatment is important for those with gender dysphoria and see gender as existing along a spectrum.

At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care for minors, while several others have adopted laws or policies protecting access to transgender health care.

The vice president, who was tapped by Trump to chair an anti-fraud task force, said misuse of government social programs is not a victimless crime, but instead a harm to every American taxpayer.

“You are the first victim of fraud,” Vance told the crowd, as signs hung nearby that read “PROTECTING TAXPAYER DOLLARS” and “FIGHTING FRAUDSTERS.”

The vice president, who is seen as a potential GOP candidate for president in 2028, has been promoting the work of the task force as he has campaigned for Republican candidates in recent months.

But Thursday's visit was the first that has been expressly billed as a stop to talk about the fraud-fighting efforts rather than the economic-focused message he's delivered in other visits.

Vance's pitch on President Donald Trump's economic policies has become tougher in the wake of the Iran war, which has driven up costs of gas and other goods, including food.

The visit to Maine comes after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said earlier in the year that he was calling for corrective action on alleged fraud in government health programs in Maine, a request characterized by the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, as a “political attack.” It also comes as Maine residents begin voting ahead of the state’s primary elections on June 9, when they will be selecting candidates for governor, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House.

Mills, who is prevented by term limit laws from running for a third term, recently dropped out of the Democratic primary race to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins, effectively ceding the nomination to progressive activist and oyster farmer Graham Platner. The seat is considered one of the most competitive in the nation and critical to Democratic hopes of reclaiming control of the chamber.

Republicans are bullish about their chances of taking back the 2nd Congressional District, which encompasses Bangor, after Democratic Rep. Jared Golden announced he wouldn’t be seeking reelection to the seat. Former Gov. Paul LePage, a Trump ally looking to make a political comeback, is the sole Republican vying for the nomination.

Vance portrayed LePage as a partner-in-arms with his anti-fraud effort, and told the crowd Thursday that: “Fraud has festered in Maine because this guy is no longer the governor of Maine."

He also praised Collins for her independence and lack of partisanship.

“Sometimes I get frustrated with Susan Collins. I almost wish she was more partisan,” Vance said. “If she was as partisan as I wish she was, she would not be a good fit for the people of Maine.”

LePage appeared at Thursday's event, while Collins was scheduled to be in Washington.

Before Vance arrived, LePage told the crowd that if elected to represent Maine's 2nd Congressional District, he would work with the Trump administration to crack down on fraud in social safety programs, which he characterized as rampant in his state.

“The American people are done being taken for a ride. It’s time for the Maine people and the Maine taxpayer to be put front and center,” he told a crowd of a few hundred at Bangor International Airport.

In the governor's race, seven Republicans and five Democrats are vying to replace Mills, who has sparred with the Trump administration over the issue of transgender athletes in high school sports.

Some Maine Democrats have used Vance’s appearance as an opportunity to boost their own campaign messages. Progressive groups were planning a demonstration in Bangor at the time of the appearance, and Maine Secretary of State and governor candidate Shenna Bellows said she planned to speak at it.

Nirav Shah, the former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director who is now running for governor, said in an email to supporters and media that Vance is visiting Maine when costs of necessities such as heating oil and gas are surging in the state.

“That is the record JD Vance is bringing to Maine on Thursday. That is the record the Maine Republicans hosting him are ‘honored’ to celebrate,” Shah said.

Maine is a largely Democratic state, but Trump has proven popular in rural areas, and he has won the 2nd District in three consecutive elections. Mills had made her opposition to Trump a focus of her Senate run against Collins until she suspended her campaign in late April, clearing a path for Platner to take the nomination.

Vance paid a visit to northern New England in March 2025, when he went to Vermont on a family vacation. The appearance attracted protests near a ski resort.

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Price reported from Washington.

The Michelin-starred restaurant is known for its innovative flavors and its approach to cultural storytelling, extending beyond food and into its beverage program. At the bar, ingredients are treated with the same level of detail and creativity as the kitchen, resulting in cocktails that highlight both technique and local sourcing.

Launched in late 2024, the “Beekeeper” cocktail program transforms locally sourced honey into a menu of drinks inspired by Houston neighborhoods. Each cocktail is named after the area where its honey is collected, including Montrose, Bellaire, West University, Meyerland, Third Ward and Gulfton. The concept connects each drink to a specific part of the city.

The restaurant works with beekeepers located within about 6.5 miles of the restaurant to source honey used in the program. That hyperlocal approach is designed to support sustainable practices while emphasizing the role of pollinators and seasonal sourcing.

Ahead of World Bee Day, observed by the United Nations to raise awareness about bees and biodiversity, head bartender and 2026 Truffle Masters Cocktail Competition winner Aniket Bhingare joins “Houston Life” to share three signature cocktails from the menu.

Watch him make the drinks live at 1 p.m. in the video player above.

The featured drinks include:

• Montrose: Pisco, rhubarb blend, cherry bitters and Montrose honey
• Bellaire: Casamigos Reposado, peach and grapefruit bitters and Bellaire honey
• University West: Brugal 1888 rum, black walnut bitters and West U honey

To learn more about Musaafer’s Beekeeper cocktail program and seasonal menu, visit www.musaaferhouston.com.

The exchange at a highly anticipated summit in Beijing underscored just how far apart Trump and Xi still are on thorny issues, including the war in Iran, trade disputes and Washington's relations with Taiwan, which is self-ruled but which China claims as part of its territory.

It also suggested that Trump’s three-day visit to China is likely to be longer on pageantry and symbolism than substantive political or economic breakthroughs.

The pair met for about two hours behind closed doors at the Great Hall of the People after an elaborate welcome ceremony featuring booming cannons, a band playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and China’s national anthem, and hundreds of schoolchildren jumping and waving flowers and American and Chinese flags.

According to a post on X by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, Xi told Trump that “the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations.”

"If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy,” she wrote.

That comment followed a brief public exchange before the meeting began in which Trump told Xi: “You’re a great leader. Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway, because it’s true.”

“It’s an honor to be your friend,” Trump said before promising that the U.S.-China relationship "is going to be better than ever before.”

Trump later told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an interview that Xi said during their conversations that he “would like to be of help” in negotiating an end to the Iran war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz to oil shipments.

Xi was far more stark in his opening public remarks, expressing hope that the U.S. and China could avoid conflict and asking “whether the two countries can transcend the ‘Thucydides Trap’ and forge a new model for relations between major powers.”

That's a term, popular in foreign policy studies, referring to the idea that when a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the result is often war. Xi has used the term for years, but using it as Trump offered optimism was noteworthy and foreshadowed his closed-door comments on Taiwan.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said U.S. policy toward Taiwan was “unchanged” but warned that it would be “a terrible mistake” for China to take Taiwan by force.

“They always raise it on their side. We always make clear our position, and we move on to the other topics,” Rubio, who is traveling with the president, said in an interview with NBC News.

Both emphasized the importance of China-US relations

After their meeting, Xi took Trump on a tour of the Temple of Heaven, then hosted a state banquet for him. The Chinese leader used his evening toast to note that he and Trump had kept U.S.-China relations “generally stable” in a turbulent world.

“Achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can go hand in hand,” Xi said, referring to Trump’s political movement. “We can help each other succeed and advance the well-being of the whole world.”

In his toast, Trump said his visit had been “a great honor” punctuated by a “fantastic" day. He said matters “all good for the United States and China” were discussed.

Trump also said Xi would make a reciprocal visit to the White House on Sept. 24 — a date not previously announced.

The positive tone was reflected in the White House assessment of the earlier meetings, which said both leaders had touched on ways to enhance economic cooperation, including expanding market access for American businesses in China and increasing Chinese investment into U.S. industries.

The White House readout did not mention Taiwan directly, but, in relation to Iran, said both sides had agreed that the strait must remain open. The strait’s closure has stranded tankers and caused energy prices to spike, threatening global economic growth.

The war is dominating Trump's domestic agenda and stoking fears about the prospect of a weakening U.S. economy as November’s midterm elections — when Republicans hope to maintain control of Congress — approach.

China is the largest purchaser of Iranian oil, and Rubio said in an interview with Fox News that Trump would make the case for Beijing to exert its influence on Iran, noting that administration officials would underscore that “economies are melting down because of this crisis,” which means consumers are “buying less Chinese product.”

It's not clear if Trump persuaded Xi to wield his influence. The White House instead said Xi opposed any implementation of tolls on vessels crossing the strait — as Iran has proposed — and expressed interest in China potentially purchasing more U.S. oil to reduce Chinese dependence on Gulf oil in the future.

When asked Thursday at a congressional hearing whether China is providing intelligence to Iran to help it target U.S. forces, Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, would not discuss intelligence but said the Iranian military "is largely made up of Russian and Chinese equipment.”

Taiwan issues remain contentious

Xi's warning about Taiwan reflects China's displeasure with a U.S. plan to sell weapons to the island. The Trump administration has approved an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan, but has yet to begin fulfilling it.

The U.S. has a longstanding commitment to help the island defend itself if attacked, but Trump has shown greater ambivalence toward Taiwan, fueling speculation about whether the president could be persuaded to dial back American support.

Taiwan said after the Xi-Trump meeting that it was grateful for Washington's “long-term support.”

“The government views all actions that contribute to regional stability and the management of potential risks from authoritarian expansion positively,” Michelle Lee, a spokesperson for Taiwan’s premier, told reporters. She added that the U.S. “has also repeatedly reiterated its firm and clear position of support for Taiwan.”

US still hopes to secure trade wins

The White House has insisted that Trump would not be making the trip without an eye toward securing concrete results, suggesting there could be coming announcements on trade.

That likely includes a Chinese commitment to buy U.S. soybeans, beef and aircraft. Trump told Fox News that Xi had indicated a commitment to buying 200 jets from Boeing.

Trump administration officials also want to work toward establishing a board of trade with China to address commercial differences between the countries.

Trump and Xi discussed trade on Thursday, with Xi saying that China’s door of opportunity will open wider. Xi also met with a collection of U.S. business leaders who accompanied Trump.

The U.S. and China reached a trade truce last year that calmed each side’s threats to impose steep tariffs on the other. The White House says there have been ongoing discussions and mutual interest in extending the agreement.

The leaders also discussed further stemming the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States and increasing Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural products, according to the White House.

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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Darlene Superville and Michelle L. Price in Washington, Simina Mistreanu in Bangkok and Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

Potgieter had six birdies in his round of 3-under 67. His name was atop the leaderboard because he was in the first group to tee off. More than anything, it was an early indication that Aronimink could yield birdies — even a hole-out eagle from fairway by Jon Rahm — but wasn't giving up much.

Among the early starters, Bryson DeChambeau already was 4 over as he headed toward the final five holes. Stephan Jaeger was the first player to reach 4 under, later joined by Min Woo Lee, as both were nearing the end of their rounds.

The damp air gave way to clearing skies by mid-morning. Some overnight rain didn't provide enough moisture to take some of the firmness out of severely contoured greens. Rory McIlroy hit one approach on the 15th that shot forward some 20 feet on its second hop.

“I think I hit it on the right spots on the golf course, especially on the greens,” Potgieter said. “I didn’t feel like I had to putt over some of these big slopes we had. So I definitely left myself in really good positions on the green.”

Ryan Gerard dropped only one shot in his round of 69.

Garrick Higgo had the worst start imaginable — a late one. The South African was late getting to the first tee, a two-shot penalty before he even hit his opening drive. His par became a double bogey on the first hole, and he finished with two big putts for a 69.

Braden Shattuck, one of 20 club pros in the field from nearby Rolling Green Golf Club who was given the honor of the first tee shot, wound up hitting two of them. He feared the first one went so far left it was out-of-bounds, so he had to hit a provisional.

The first one was next to a fence, he took a one-shot penalty to move it and made double bogey. Shattuck opened with an 81.

McIlroy was at even par playing in the same group with Jordan Spieth, who was at 1 under midway through their second nine.

Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, played in the afternoon.

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

Houston police say the incident happened around 9 p.m. in the 8600 block of Broadway.

Investigators said the suspect appears to be in her 40s.

The woman first started a disturbance at a convenience store near the apartment complex. Police say she pulled out a knife and began chasing a man. He was able to get away unharmed.

But officers say the woman then walked into the nearby apartment complex, where witnesses say people were already running from her before anyone was stabbed.

According to investigators, the woman approached a mother and her 7-year-old child and threatened to stab them. The two made it safely back inside their apartment without injury.

Moments later, police say the woman encountered a group of four people outside the complex.

Two people managed to escape.

But investigators say a 42-year-old woman was stabbed three times in the stomach, and her 69-year-old husband was stabbed twice in the stomach and once in the back.

Despite their injuries, both victims were able to make it upstairs to their apartment before family members called 911.

The woman was later taken into custody without further incident.

Police say investigators are still trying to determine whether the woman was experiencing a mental health crisis. Authorities said she mentioned that she had been taking seizure medication.

The victims’ conditions have not yet been released.

Editor’s Note: This story has been corrected to reflect the suspect is an adult female, not a teenager as initially reported.

Raymond Johnson, 52, was pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. Thursday following a three-drug injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, prison officials said.

He was sentenced to death for killing 24-year-old Brooke Whitaker and her 7-month-old daughter, Kya, in June 2007.

“To Brooke and Kya and your family, I want to apologize for my actions and the pain I caused you,” Johnson said while strapped to a gurney inside the death chamber. “I hope people can speak your names without my name attached to it. I hurt you. One day, I hope you can forgive me.”

Johnson's spiritual advisor, Kurt Borgmann, read Scripture in the chamber during the execution, which lasted about 11 minutes. A tear rolled out of Johnson’s left eye as Borgmann began to speak. A doctor entered the room and declared Johnson unconscious about six minutes after the first drugs began to flow.

Oklahoma uses the sedative midazolam, followed by vecuronium bromide to halt breathing and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

Angie Short, one of Whitaker's aunt, criticized the delays in an execution originally scheduled for May 2024, saying Whitaker's mom died about five months after that.

“Because of the delays, my sister didn't get to witness justice,” Short said. “This couldn't bring them back. But we'll no longer have to see his face on TV. He's no longer associated with Brooke and Kya. Now I think we can finally begin to heal after 20 years.”

Prosecutors said Johnson and Whitaker had been arguing at her home in Tulsa before he repeatedly hit her over the head with a metal claw hammer. Whitaker’s skull was fractured and she had more than 20 lacerations on her face and scalp. But she was still conscious and begged Johnson to spare her and Kya, who was sleeping in a bedroom, prosecutors said in documents prepared for Johnson’s clemency hearing in April.

“She begged him to call 911. She begged him to let her mom come get baby Kya. She begged him to think of her children,” the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said. Whitaker had three other children.

Johnson retrieved a gas can from a tool shed in the backyard, doused Whitaker and the house with gasoline, lit a dish towel on fire, threw it at Whitaker and left, the attorney general’s office said. Whitaker died from head injuries and smoke inhalation while her daughter died from severe burns.

“I pray that Brooke’s and Kya’s family find some measure of peace today after enduring unimaginable pain and grief for nearly two decades,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement.

Johnson’s attorneys did not file a last-minute appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution. His attorneys unsuccessfully argued in earlier appeals that Johnson’s arrest was illegal, police coerced his confession from him and that his trial lawyer conceded his guilt in Whitaker’s death without his permission.

In April, Oklahoma’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board voted unanimously to deny Johnson clemency. During that clemency hearing, Johnson apologized to the victims’ family and asked for forgiveness, saying he was a changed person.

“I apologize. No excuses, no justifications, a sincere apology. And to know that it’s sincere, look at my actions. Look at my life. Look how I’ve changed. I’m living a remorseful life. I’m living it,” Johnson said in an interview with Death Penalty Action, a national anti-death penalty group.

Whitaker’s family members asked for the lethal injection to proceed.

“Executing him will not give me my mom or sister back, it will not take away almost 20 years of pain. What it will do is finally stop him from continuing to hurt us,” Logan Kleck, Whitaker’s oldest daughter, said in a letter to the board. Kleck did not witness the execution.

In addition to his first-degree murder conviction, Johnson also served nine years of a 20-year sentence after being convicted of manslaughter in 1996.

Johnson was the second person put to death this year in Oklahoma and the 11th in the country.

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Lozano reported from Houston. Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70

Named Psyche like the asteroid it’s after, the robotic explorer will slingshot past the red planet at 12,333 mph (19,848 kph) on Friday.

It will be an especially close flyby, with Psyche passing within 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) of Mars, equivalent to the distance between the U.S. east and west coasts. Then it will barrel toward the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that is home to its enticing target.

All of the spacecraft’s science instruments will be on for the Mars pass. NASA’s two Mars rovers along with a small fleet of U.S. and European orbiters will make surface and atmospheric observations at the same time for comparison.

Psyche's cameras already are photographing Mars, appearing as a crescent on approach and a nearly full sphere once it’s in the rearview mirror. The different views will serve double duty, allowing operators to fine-tune their instruments while providing “just plain beautiful photos,” Arizona State University’s Jim Bell, the imaging team leader, said in a statement.

While the asteroid belt is swarming with millions of objects, most are made of rock or ice. Only a small percentage are thought to be metal-rich like Psyche, a potato-shaped asteroid roughly 173 miles long and 144 miles wide (278 kilometers by 232 kilometers).

Scientists suspect the asteroid may be the exposed nickel and iron core of a fledgling planet that was stripped down by cosmic collisions. Studying such an object up close can yield information about the dawn of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago, and why and how Earth spawned life.

Launched in 2023, the spacecraft is midway through its six-year roundabout journey to Psyche in the outer fringes of the asteroid belt, three times farther from the sun than Earth. It should arrive in 2029, slipping into orbit around the asteroid for two years of study. The van-sized spacecraft runs on solar electric propulsion, using xenon gas thrusters.

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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 district’s latest groundwater report shows measurable land subsidence...the gradual sinking of land caused by groundwater withdrawal... across parts of Katy, Fulshear, Cypress, Spring, Tomball and The Woodlands.

One monitoring station in Katy recorded more than 14 inches of subsidence between 2007 and 2025, according to the report.

“It is alarming at first,” said Casey Hughes with the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District. “But your water providers are working very hard on a plan.”

Subsidence happens when too much groundwater is removed from underground aquifers, causing layers of clay, sand and silt beneath the surface to compact. Once the ground sinks, experts say you can’t fix it.

“Once it happens, it’s permanent. It’s irreversible,” Hughes said.

Historically, Houston relied heavily on groundwater pulled from wells beneath the region. But as suburban development expanded west and north of Houston, demand for water grew rapidly in communities still transitioning to surface water systems.

The district said subsidence is not happening evenly across the region. Instead, it occurs in localized pockets depending on groundwater use, development patterns, and geology.

In Fulshear, homeowner Alisha Moore said she has noticed visible changes around her property over time.

“When we moved in, the ground level was even with the curb,” Moore said. “It’s now several inches below where it was.”

Officials caution that not every foundation issue is directly tied to subsidence. Many homes in the Houston area also experience movement caused by shifting clay soils and drainage problems, especially in neighborhoods built over former rice fields.

Still, the district warns subsidence can also be a contributing impact and worsen flood vulnerability over time by lowering elevation and disrupting drainage patterns in a region already prone to hurricanes and extreme rainfall.

Houston has seen severe subsidence before. In Baytown, decades of groundwater pumping caused parts of a waterfront neighborhood to sink nearly 9 feet over four decades starting in the 1940’s. The neighborhood was abandoned, and much of that area is now part of the Baytown Nature Center.

The Harris-Galveston Subsidence District was created in 1975 to regulate groundwater pumping and help reduce future sinking. Officials say stricter rules near the coast have helped slow subsidence in some areas.

The district is now pushing communities in Regulatory Area 3, which includes much of north and west Harris County, to cut groundwater reliance from about 40% today to 20% by 2035 through expanded surface water use and conservation efforts.

“Everybody has a role to play,” Hughes said.

Officials say large-scale infrastructure projects are already underway to help reduce dependence on groundwater. One example is the expanded Northeast Water Purification Plant in Humble, which now provides up to 400 million gallons of drinking water a day to the Houston region, up from about 80 million gallons just a few years ago.

The district also encourages residents to conserve water at home and stay informed about where their water supply comes from as the region continues to grow.

Scientists with the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences say they’ve identified a biological pathway that may explain why coffee has long been linked to longer life and lower risks of diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

The research, recently published in Nutrients, focuses on a receptor in the body known as NR4A1, described by researchers as an “aging protective gene” that helps the body respond to stress and damage.

“We think we linked how coffee might work and that wasn’t known before,” said Stephen Safe, distinguished professor and Sid Kyle Endowed Chair in Veterinary Toxicology. “Coffee can work on many different mechanisms and we think we’ve identified a major mechanism.”

Researchers found compounds in coffee, particularly polyphenols and caffeic acid, can activate the NR4A1 receptor. According to the study, that activation may help reduce cellular damage and slow cancer cell growth in laboratory models.

“If you damage almost any tissue, NR4A1 responds to bring that damage down,” Safe explained. “If you take that receptor away, the damage is worse.”

Scientists say the findings may help explain why coffee has consistently been associated with lower risks of neurological disorders, metabolic disease and some cancers in population studies.

The study also suggests caffeine itself may not be the main reason coffee provides health benefits.

“Caffeine binds the receptor, but it doesn’t do much in our models,” Safe said. “The polyhydroxy and polyphenolic compounds are much more active.”

That could explain why both regular and decaffeinated coffee have shown similar health benefits in previous studies.

Researchers emphasized the study does not prove coffee alone prevents disease, but it does provide a stronger scientific explanation for coffee’s long-observed health effects.

Safe says one future goal is to create a coffee-based nutraceutical, essentially a capsule that could deliver coffee’s beneficial compounds without the acidity.

“Coffee is a very complex mixture of compounds,” Safe said. “It’s a very potent combination.”

It wasn't immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country’s claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the U.S.

The turmoil in the strait, which a fifth of the world’s oil passed through before the war, has been a sticking point for weeks in talks between the U.S. and Iran to end the conflict. Iran's grip on the vital waterway has jolted the world economy and spiked fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.

The ongoing instability in the region comes as U.S. President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing. The White House said both sides had agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open.

Just last week, tensions flared in the strai t when U.S. forces fired on and disabled Iranian oil tankers that it said were trying to breach its blockade of Iran’s ports.

Seizures and attacks in Hormuz ongoing

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said it received reports that the ship seized Thursday was taken by unauthorized personnel while anchored 38 nautical miles (70 kilometers, 44 miles) northeast of the UAE port of Fujairah, an important oil export terminal that has been repeatedly attacked during the war with Iran.

The U.K. maritime center did not name the ship seized Thursday and said it is investigating. The British military said the vessel is heading toward Iranian waters.

Indian authorities said Thursday that an Indian-flagged cargo ship sank off the coast of Oman after an attack sparked a fire aboard the vessel while it was en route from Somalia to Sharjah, another UAE port. They did not say who attacked the ship.

The attack on the Indian-flagged cargo ship Haji Ali occurred Wednesday, according to Mukesh Mangal, a senior official in India’s shipping ministry. He said all 14 Indian crew members were rescued by Oman’s coast guard and were safe.

India’s foreign ministry called the incident “unacceptable” and condemned continued attacks on commercial shipping and civilian mariners. The ministry did not identify who carried out the attack.

Seizures come at tense diplomatic moment

Iranian semiofficial news agencies reported that Chinese ships began passing through the strait Wednesday night under new Iranian protocols. According to the reports, Tehran agreed to facilitate the passage of several Chinese vessels after requests from China’s foreign minister and Beijing’s ambassador to Iran. The ships began their passage as Trump arrived in China.

The seizure of a ship off the coast of the UAE happened hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he had quietly visited the country during the Israeli-U.S. war with Iran, though the UAE swiftly denied it.

The Gulf nation normalized relations with Israel in 2020. Iran has criticized that agreement and has repeatedly suggested over the years that Israel maintained a military and intelligence presence in the UAE.

Netanyahu’s decision to go public with the sensitive meeting was likely an effort to drum up support for his flagging party ahead of Israeli elections, said Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“It’s amazing, it’s the deepest cooperation we’ve ever had … that during a war, Israel is defending an Arab state against Iran. It shows how complicated the Middle East is,” he said.

The UAE is trying to highlight its cooperation with Israel but not with Netanyahu and his government, Guzansky said, because many in the UAE are against Israel’s policies in Gaza.

“They’re trying to differentiate between security cooperation and cooperating with this government,” said Guzansky, who previously worked for the national security council within the Israeli prime minister's office.

Iran sets demands for new talks

Iran said it will not enter more talks with the United States unless five conditions are met, including paying reparations for the war and accepting Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency reported, citing an informed source.

The White House is again unlikely to accept those demands, which would essentially formalize Iran's control over a waterway that was open to international traffic before the war.

Iran’s senior vice president, Mohammadreza Aref, said Thursday that the strait belongs to Iran and that Tehran would not give it up “at any price,” state TV reported. “It has always been our property,” Aref said.

Iran defends right to seize ships

Iran’s judiciary spokesperson told the state-owned Iran Daily newspaper on Thursday that Iran has the legal and judicial right to seize oil tankers in the strait that are connected to the U.S. because the U.S. has violated international maritime laws and committed piracy. The spokesperson, Asghar Jahangir, did not explicitly refer to the tanker seized on Thursday.

Iran seized a number of ships, including a tanker identified as the Ocean Koi, last week, saying it was attempting to disrupt oil exports and Iranian interests, according to the official IRNA news agency. It said the tanker was seized in the Gulf of Oman and carrying Iranian oil when it was taken to Iran’s southern coast.

The U.S. sanctioned the Ocean Koi in February as part of a “shadow fleet” transporting Iranian oil.

Top US military leader says Iran's threats impact shipping

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East said Thursday he believes Iran’s military capabilities have been “dramatically degraded,” but its leaders are impacting shipping in the strait with rhetoric alone.

“Their voice is very loud, and the threats are clearly heard by the merchant industry and the insurance industry,” Adm. Brad Cooper told lawmakers in Congress.

He said the U.S. has the military power to permanently reopen the strait and escort ships. But he deferred to policymakers about the best path forward amid a “time of sensitive negotiations.”

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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

Researchers and supporters of the change said the old name, often shortened to PCOS, is inaccurate. It reduced a complex hormonal or endocrine disorder to a misunderstanding about cysts and a focus on ovaries, contributing to missed diagnoses and inadequate treatment, said the Endocrine Society, a global group of physicians and scientists.

“The thought behind that is that one, there’s no cysts in the ovary, so it’s very confusing,” said Dr. Melanie Cree, one of the authors of the Lancet article and a pediatric endocrinology expert at the University of Colorado Anschutz. “The hope was that with a more comprehensive and accurate name change, that it would start to enable and push better care.”

The name change – made after 14 years of collaboration between experts and patients – was published in The Lancet on Tuesday.

Now PCOS is called PMOS

The condition is characterized by fluctuations in hormones that can affect weight, metabolic and mental health, the reproductive system and the skin.

It is associated with metabolic syndrome, a group of health conditions that increases your risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke, Dr. Sarah Hutto with the University of Minnesota Medical School said in an online article put out by the university.

No one knows exactly what causes the condition, but there’s evidence that genetics and obesity play roles, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

What are the symptoms of PMOS?

Symptoms vary, which can make it tough for doctors to diagnose.

It is associated with irregular menstrual cycles and excess production of a group of hormones known as androgens, which can cause acne and hair growth or thinning. It may also cause follicles on the ovaries, although not abnormal cysts. But not all of these findings are required for the diagnosis.

To make the diagnosis in teens, Cree said, the patient has to have both irregular periods and signs of high androgens. This can include high blood levels of the hormones or symptoms such as severe acne or chest hair.

PMOS is associated with infertility problems

Cleveland Clinic experts say it is the most common cause of female infertility, because not ovulating frequently can result in not being able to conceive.

Having the condition may also increase your risk of certain pregnancy complications, such as gestational diabetes or preterm birth. Still, most people with the condition can successfully carry a pregnancy.

How PMOS can be treated

Cree says the No. 1 treatment is lifestyle changes, such as eating less processed food, exercising and getting a good night’s sleep.

“We’re not trying to be judgmental. There is science to back this up,” she said. “So in PMOS, there is too much of the hormone insulin in many women, and that insulin confuses the ovary to make too much testosterone. And it’s the high testosterone that is causing all the symptoms.”

Other treatments include insulin-sensitizing medicines such as Metformin, medications that block androgens and hormonal birth control.

But Hutto stresses that management of the condition should be individualized to address specific symptoms and concerns. For example, those who plan to get pregnant may want to focus on fertility treatments while others may be more interested in options like hormonal birth control.

How will the name change help?

Researchers and doctors are spreading the word about the name change to their peers at meetings and through medical societies and other means. They hope it raises awareness about the reality of the condition and how they can best help patients.

“I’m very excited about the name change,” Cree said, “as are the majority of my colleagues.”

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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.

Celina, Princeton, Melissa and Anna — all part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex — were the Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5 fastest-growing U.S. cities with populations of 20,000 residents or more from mid-2024 to mid-2025, according to population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Fulshear, in metro Houston, was the second-fastest growing U.S. city. The five Texas cities' year-over-year growth rates ranged from almost 15% to almost 25%.

In pure numbers, Celina, with only 64,000 people, grew by more residents — 12,700 — than Seattle and Houston, cities that are 12 times and 37 times larger respectively.

Small- to medium-sized cities hit a sweet spot between the largest U.S. cities, which were most impacted by the loss of immigrants from the crackdown started last year during the second Trump administration, and anemic growth in small towns, according to Matt Erickson, a Census Bureau statistician.

Texas cities dominate

Nine out of 10 of the largest population gainers in pure numbers were cities in the South because of a healthy job market and its comparative affordability. The biggest numeric gainers were Charlotte, North Carolina; Fort Worth, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; and Celina.

Fort Worth leaped over Jacksonville last year as the 10th most populous U.S. city, putting four Texas cities in the nation's top 10 most populous, with the other cities being Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.

Austin skipped over San Jose for the 12th most populous spot, as Texas’ capital city surpassed 1 million residents for the first time. It is now one of a dozen U.S. cities with 1 million residents or more.

Seattle makes a comeback

Seattle was the only non-Southern city to crack the top 10 in numeric population gains last year, at the No. 5 spot.

Like many large cities, particularly on the coasts, Seattle lost population during the height of the pandemic a half-decade ago. But recent construction of new housing has helped ease the city's affordability, making it more attractive for residents to stay in the core city rather than move to farther out suburbs in the metro area, according to the Washington State Office of Financial Management.

The growth was driven by immigrants, particularly from China and India. International migration accounted for almost three-quarters of the area's population gains, according to county-level population estimates released in March.

Tight housing market and natural disasters drive population losses

The two cities with the greatest rates of population loss last year — Twentynine Palms, California, by Joshua Tree National Park and Key West at the southern tip of Florida — were in places with tight housing markets. Their losses ranged from -2.4% to -2.9%.

In Twentynine Palms, a large chunk of the housing stock has been converted into short-term rentals for tourists heading to the national park. Just under 40% of its housing is occupied by its owners, compared with the national average of 65%, according to Census Bureau figures.

Hemmed in on all sides by water, the limited housing stock in Key West, as well as some of the highest home insurance rates in the U.S., have driven up housing costs for the Conch Republic. The median price for a home in Key West was $1.3 million at the start of this year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Other cities that had some of the biggest rates of population loss last year were hit by natural disasters.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck Florida’s Gulf Coast within weeks of each other in late 2024. Remnants of Helene blew through western North Carolina, leaving behind damaging tornadoes and flooding. Among the cities with the greatest rates of loss were Asheville, North Carolina, and several cities on Florida’s Gulf Coast, including Pinellas Park, Dunedin, Largo and Clearwater.

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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.

The 41-year-old man slipped unnoticed past motion detectors in a remote corner of Denver International Airport, which sprawls across open plains and covers an area twice the size of Manhattan. He quickly scaled an 8-foot perimeter fence topped with barbed wire, then walked unobstructed onto the runway where he was fatally struck by a Frontier Airlines jet as it attempted to take off late Friday night.

Surveillance video showed the man getting pulled into an aircraft engine that instantly burst into flames, forcing the pilot to abort the takeoff and evacuate the 224 passengers and seven crewmembers. Twelve people had minor injuries.

Aviation and risk experts said the Denver runway collision represents a clear security failure. They noted it could've been far worse if the pilot didn't safely stop the aircraft that was traveling 150 miles per hour (241 kph).

“People ought to be concerned. This was really an unprecedented risk. But now there is precedent,” said Eric Chaffee a law professor at Case Western Reserve University and an expert on risk, including in the aviation industry.

“The individual ended up with a bad result. But having somebody basically damage a plane is really quite concerning because of all those lives aboard any given aircraft,” Chaffee added. “There ought to be new measures put into place to prevent this type of tragedy."

15 seconds to scale the fence

Some aviation experts disagreed new regulations were needed. They said installing blanket surveillance or impregnable defenses around airports was cost prohibitive, given the relative rarity of dangerous events like Friday's collision.

The Denver medical examiner ruled the intruder's death a suicide.

Officials from the city-owned airport promised a review of their protocols defended their perimeter security program. During a Tuesday press conference Denver airport CEO Phillip Washington said the airport received “perfect scores” following federal inspections of airfield safety and perimeter integrity.

Airport officials said in response to questions from The Associated Press that annual inspections by the Federal Aviation Administration found two discrepancies over the past decade, both from 2019. One was a response vehicle that got delayed 20 seconds during an aircraft rescue firefighting drill, and the other was a problem with driver training records.

The airport did not answer questions about inspections of the perimeter fence and whether any problems have been found. Those fences are under oversight from a separate federal agency, the Transportation Security Administration.

The FAA referred questions about the perimeter security to TSA. The AP sent emails to TSA seeking comment on Denver’s inspection results and documents detailing its security protocols.

“Safety is something we take very, very seriously,” Washington told reporters Tuesday. He added that making the perimeter fence taller or topping it with razor wire wouldn’t necessarily have made a difference, because someone who was motivated could still find a way in.

During Friday's breach, an alarm from a ground detection sensor was triggered shortly before the intruder entered the airport along its eastern boundary, about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the terminal. An airport worker watching video surveillance cameras attributed the alarm to a herd of deer — and missed the intruder.

It took the man about 15 seconds to scale the fence and two minutes more to reach the runway, Washington said. Airport officials didn't know he was on the runway until the pilot notified the control tower that the plane hit somebody.

Airport perimeter breaches are a regular problem, with perhaps dozens annually nationwide, said security expert Jeff Price, who managed security at the Denver airport in the 1990s. Denver International Airport is surrounded by about 36 miles (58 kilometers) of fence, which officials say is patrolled by security workers and continuously inspected.

The vast majority of airport trespassers don’t pose a real threat to others, according to Price and other experts. A man died at the Austin airport in 2020 after a Southwest Airlines jet struck him on a runway. Police later ruled it was a suicide.

Worries about copycats

Two law firms notified Denver officials Tuesday that they intend to sue on behalf of the Frontier passengers, seeking in excess of $10 million in damages. The firms alleged “multiple failures” in the airport perimeter security system, but did not provide specifics.

Steven Wallace, former director of accidents investigations at the Federal Aviation Administration, described the Denver fatality as a “one-off event” that would not justify costly improvements to airport perimeter security programs nationwide.

Wallace acknowledged that some perimeter fences can easily be breached. There are no set rules for their construction, and their primary role is to keep out wildlife that could interfere with flight operations, he said.

“I just don’t see how you’re going to think of and deal with every possible way a human could get into an airport,” he said.

Jim Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, suggested there is now a higher likelihood for a repeat of Friday's collision given the potential for copycats. Hall said Denver should consider adding more personnel and surveillance to properly monitor its fence.

“With the amount of cameras and technology that is available, they need to address the problem,” he said. “They've had a failure and they don’t need to have another one."

Still, economists worry that spending will fall off more dramatically in the coming months as benefits from the refunds dissipate, and shoppers continue to grapple with the cumulative impact of rising gas prices at the pump.

Retail sales rose 0.5% in April, a slowdown from the revised growth level of 1.6% in March, according to Commerce Department data released Thursday. March marked the largest one-month increase in retail spending in more than three years, largely because gas prices spiked higher rapidly.

Excluding sales at gas stations, retail sales in April were up 0.3%. That's a slowdown from the 0.7% pace, excluding business from gas stations, in March.

Elsewhere, shopping was uneven.

Sales at department stores fell 3.2%, while sales at furniture and home furnishings stores slipped 2%. Business at building material and garden equipment had a modest 0.1% increase. But online retailers and electronics and appliance stores both posted solid sales gains.

The snapshot offers only a partial look at consumer spending and doesn’t include things like travel and hotel stays. The lone services category – restaurants – registered a solid 0.6% increase.

The so-called control group—which excludes food services, autos, building materials and gas station sales and is used to calculate economic growth—rose 0.5%. That offered a good sign of solid spending by consumers, economists said.

The Iran war that began in late February has led to the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off one-fifth of the world’s daily oil supply. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline rose again overnight to $4.53 on Thursday. That’s $1.35 more than it cost a year ago, according to motor club AAA.

Economists had believed that larger tax refunds from President Donald Trump's tax cut legislation would kick start spending at the start of the year. But soaring gas prices are taking a bigger slice out of American paychecks, leaving less for things like dining out, new clothes or other treats.

Oliver Allen, senior economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, estimated in a report published Thursday that individual income tax refunds in April were $22 billion higher than in the same month in 2025, equivalent to around 3% of monthly retail sales and slightly bigger than the hit to households from the jump in gas prices over the same period.

“Some of this money will have been saved, but much of it has been spent,” he wrote. “But the flow of refunds will taper dramatically in May, leaving consumers far more exposed to the surge in fuel costs. ”

Allen expects a “meaningful pullback” in discretionary spending in the second half of the second quarter.

Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, estimates that higher tax refunds have offset the impact of gas prices by a ratio of around 2 to 1.

“With refund season behind us and gas prices still creeping higher, that will flip in the months ahead, putting downward pressure on spending growth,” he wrote Thursday.

Still, U.S. employers have so far defied the economic shock from the war and last month added a surprisingly strong 115,000 jobs. And Thursday the Labor Department reported weekly applications for unemployment benefits of 211,000, within a historically low range.

But concerning data about rising prices has arrived in waves this week.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that the U.S. producer price index — which tracks inflation before it hits consumers — shot up 1.4% in April, the biggest monthly gain in more than four years. A day before that, the closely watched consumer price index jumped 3.8% from April 2025 — the biggest year-over-year increase in more than three years. Those price hikes, again, largely do to soaring energy prices, have begun to show up in everything from plane tickets and baggage fees, to soap and toothpaste.

A clearer picture of how inflation is impacting Americans may arrive next week when major U.S. retailers like Walmart and Target begin to release quarterly financial results.

Some companies are already seeing warning signs.

Coulter Lewis is the co-founder of Sunday Lawn and Garden, a Boulder, Colorado-based vendor of lawn care products like fertilizer. Lewis noted that from January through the end of April sales soared 70% compared to a year ago. But underneath that growth, he’s seeing growing financial strain from customers dealing with higher prices from the gas pump and elsewhere.

Its wholesale business is faring well, but shoppers are leaning away from committing to the company’s subscriptions, which cost $300 a year. At the same time, Sunday Lawn and Garden is benefiting from shoppers trading down from professional lawn services, which could cost $1,000 a year, to its products and services for do-it-yourself projects.

“They’re spending more money on fewer things,” he said. “That trade-down from pro service is like, ‘okay, well we’ve got to make room for these other increases in our life, and so I’m going to try to do this myself.’”

As dawn broke on a clear day in Kyiv, a scene of devastation came into focus in the capital’s leafy Darnytsia neighborhood, located between a suburban forest and the Dnieper River.

Wisps of smoke rose from the collapsed nine-story apartment block, where emergency workers dug under concrete slabs and took people away on stretchers. The building's entrance was smashed in the strike, preventing residents from escaping.

All 18 apartments in the building were destroyed, officials said. Among the dead was a 12-year-old girl, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Nine people were killed, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. About 20 were people believed to be missing.

Klitschko declared Friday to be a day of mourning for the victims.

Ukrainian officials noted that the attack coincided with U.S. President Donald Trump’s trip to China. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have sufficient leverage to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his 4-year-old invasion of Ukraine.

“At the very time when leaders of the most powerful countries are meeting in Beijing, and the world hopes for peace, predictability and cooperation, Putin launched hundreds of drones, ballistic and cruise missiles at the capital of Ukraine,” Sybiha wrote on X.

“Only pressure on Moscow can make him stop,” Sybiha said of Putin.

Massive aerial assaults on Ukraine this week

Russia fired ballistic and cruise missiles in the attack, Zelenskyy said, adding that Moscow had launched more than 1,560 drones against Ukrainian population centers since Wednesday. In all, some 180 sites across the country were damaged, including more than 50 residential buildings, he said.

British Defense Secretary John Healey called Thursday's attack “shocking” and said he had accelerated U.K. deliveries of air defenses.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the military aimed at Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, including air bases and fuel and transport facilities, claiming it hit all its targets. Among the weapons deployed, it said, were Kinzhal missiles, which Moscow says can fly 10 times the speed of sound.

Russia has hammered Ukraine with large-scale aerial attacks following a May 9-11 ceasefire that Trump said he asked Zelenskyy and Putin to heed. Fighting continued over those 72 hours, although reportedly at a reduced intensity.

The attacks undercut recent suggestions from Trump and Putin that the war, which began with Moscow's all-out invasion of its neighbor in 2022, is nearing its end.

Residents describe '

a terrible night’

More than 30 people were injured in the apartment building collapse, while emergency workers rescued 28 residents, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Lyudmila Hlushko, 78, said she heard explosions and the sound of rockets about 3 a.m. “Then the house shook violently and there was a loud bang, breaking the glass in my house,” she told The Associated Press.

The blast shattered windows throughout the neighborhood.

“It was a terrible night,” said another resident, Nadiia Lobanova. “We’re used to this. Well, it’s impossible to get used to this, but somehow we held on.”

Damage was reported in six districts of the capital, Tkachenko said.

The Kyiv office of defense contractor Skyeton, specializing in reconnaissance drones, was destroyed in the overnight attack, although the company said it had anticipated such a development and had relocated its production.

Russian drones also struck a vehicle carrying U.N. staff who were delivering aid to residents of Kherson in southern Ukraine, Sybiha said. The vehicle was marked and was attacked twice, in two different locations, but nobody was hurt, he said.

Russia's biggest attacks since its full-scale invasion

The Ukrainian cities of Kremenchuk, Bila Tserkva, Kharkiv, Sumy and Odesa also were bombarded, officials said.

“We are now experiencing the largest strikes since the start of the full-scale invasion,” air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne.

Ukraine’s air defense forces are under severe strain, he said. Even so, the interception rate of drones and missiles was over 93%, Zelenskyy said.

Air defenses shot down or jammed 693 Russian targets overnight, including 41 missiles and 652 drones of various types nationwide, the air force said.

Fifteen missiles and 23 drones scored direct hits across 24 locations, it said. Debris from downed drones fell in another 18 locations.

Strikes on energy infrastructure left customers in Kyiv and 11 other regions temporarily without power, national grid operator Ukrenergo said.

On Wednesday, a rare daytime attack on Kyiv killed at least six people, Zelenskyy said. That assault, which involved 800 drones, struck about 20 regions and was among the longest such attacks of the war.

In other developments Thursday:

— The Hungarian government summoned the Russian ambassador over a drone attack near Hungary’s border with Ukraine. The step marked a stark shift in tone by new Prime Minister Péter Magyar toward Moscow after years of cozy relations with the Kremlin under former leader Viktor Orbán.

— Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned after her government’s coalition partner withdrew its support and left her without a majority. The government has been under pressure over its handling of multiple incidents involving stray drones suspected to be from Ukraine crossing into Latvian territory.

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Associated Press journalists Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed.

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

The singer, songwriter and actress also performed the anthem before the 2015 and 2024 races. This year's “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” is scheduled for May 24.

“Jordin knows how important the national anthem performance is to the pre-race ceremonies of the Indianapolis 500, and we have been moved by her two previous renditions,” Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles said in a statement released by track officials. "This year’s performance will be a special moment as we mark the 250th birthday of our nation and prepare for another incredible edition of the world’s greatest race.”

Boles announced Wednesday that reserved seats for the race have been sold out, though there are still general admission tickets available. Although race officials do not announce attendance figures, the grandstand capacity is estimated to be 275,000 and the world's largest single-day spectator sporting event typically has an estimated 350,000 fans in attendance.

Sparks became the youngest winner of “American Idol” in the television show's sixth season. Since then, her singles have generated more than 10 million digital tracks sales in the U.S. Sparks also co-wrote Ariana Grande’s smash single, “The Way.”

She has toured with superstars such as Britney Spears, Alicia Keys, The Jonas Brothers, New Kids on The Block and Backstreet Boys in addition to headlining her own tours. Sparks owns two BET Awards, one American Music Award and one People’s Choice Award and was twice nominated for Grammys.

Sparks also has performed on Broadway, made her film debut by paying the lead role in the film “Sparkle,” opposite the late Whitney Houston, and has most recently worked on network news programs.

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

New Mexico produces more oil than any other state besides Texas, and the state's revenue from taxes, royalties and lease sales helps cover the cost of college tuition, all school meals, health insurance and a new initiative for free universal child care.

Now that oil prices are surging from the conflict with Iran, money is flooding into the state treasury and creating an uncomfortable situation for Democrats who oppose the war and would rather reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

“It’s hard for people to think about, ‘Oh great, we have this windfall,’ and children are getting killed on the other side of the world,” said Deb Haaland, the former U.S. Interior Department secretary running for governor.

Haaland is one of two Democrats running to succeed Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is wrapping up her second term in office. A former congresswoman and state party chair, Haaland worked to limit unfettered oil and gas exploration while serving in President Joe Biden's Cabinet.

Now she wants to use money amid the energy boom to increase New Mexico's child tax credit and boost the refundable working families tax credit, payouts that would most benefit people with low incomes.

“We have obligations to try to have a better world overall," said Haaland, a tribal member of Laguna Pueblo who could become the first female Native American governor in the U.S. “I think we can do that.”

Her rival for the Democratic nomination, Albuquerque-based District Attorney Sam Bregman, said he wants to offset inflation with one-time $500 checks from the state to residents making less than $200,000 a year. He also wants to waive personal income taxes on residents 65 and older.

“It is the resources of the people that’s generating that revenue,” he said. “We ought to give it back to the people."

For every $1 fluctuation in the average annual price of oil, New Mexico sees a roughly $59 million swing in state government income.

That means the state is likely to see a $850 million surge in annual state government income for the budget year ending in June alone based on war-time price changes — equivalent to 12% of annual general fund spending, according to the state Legislature’s budget and accountability office.

New Mexico sends much of its relatively heavy crude oil from its patch of the Permian Basin to Texas distribution hubs and refineries along the Gulf Coast. Prices could remain high with no end in sight for the war despite a fragile ceasefire.

A nest egg that moderates dependence on oil

In New Mexico, surges in oil income automatically flow into a series of trust accounts designed to gradually reduce the state’s reliance on fossil fuels, helping the state generate investment income to underwrite Medicaid, early childhood education, infrastructure projects and an expansion of mental healthcare.

The strategy has tempered discomfort among many Democrats with dependence on oil income, in a state with entrenched swaths of extreme poverty and the nation’s highest enrollment rate in Medicaid.

“For New Mexico and New Mexicans and especially the progressive left — which sort of controls the state — it’s always something they really don’t want to admit or talk about or get angry about,” said Lonna Atkeson, a political science professor who has analyzed voting behavior in New Mexico and directs the LeRoy Collins Institute at Florida State University. “Like, ‘We should not be funding our stuff with that money.’ I’ve heard those arguments."

The winner of this year's governor's race will take the helm of a state investment council overseeing a roughly $68 billion state nest egg, including investments that defray costs for K-12 public education.

New Mexico is not alone in reaping the financial benefits of the war. In Alaska, the state forecast an additional $1.05 billion for the current fiscal year and the one beginning July 1.

“It really is this small group of energy-reliant states like North Dakota, Alaska, New Mexico and Wyoming that are going be affected most directly,” said Justin Theal, who researches state fiscal trends as a senior officer for The Pew Charitable Trusts. He described the situation as “a double-edged sword.”

“It raises costs for households and businesses which can potentially dampen consumer spending and reduce sales taxes that almost every state relies on as well,” Theal said.

Wartime oil prices hold silver lining for New Mexico

Three contenders for the Republican nomination are advocating for even more aggressive tax relief while oil prices are riding high.

“Republicans are using the ‘e-word' — eliminate income taxes,” said Albuquerque-based pollster Brian Sanderoff, president of Research and Polling Inc. A Republican last won election to statewide office in 2016.

At the same time, they're questioning whether universal childcare will be financially sustainable.

The program is coming under direct fire in a lawsuit from cannabis entrepreneur and Republican candidate for governor Duke Rodriguez. He previously served as human service secretary under former Gov. Gary Johnson, a crusader for limited government who unsuccessfully ran for president as a Libertarian.

The lawsuit alleges the childcare program was implemented in November by Lujan Grisham without required authorization from the Legislature — though supporting legislation was passed this year. A court has ordered the administration to respond within 30 days.

Reflecting on the state’s oil income, Rodriguez says, “We don’t have a resource problem, what we have is a real results problem. We just spend and spend and spend with no accountability.”

Republican businessman Doug Turner describes wartime oil prices as an opportunity to overhaul the state tax code and wants means testing for childcare benefits. He lost the 2010 Republican primary to then-district attorney Susana Martinez, who went on to serve two terms as governor.

Gregg Hull, a former three-term mayor of Rio Rancho on the outskirts of Albuquerque, wants New Mexico to join the ranks of states with no personal income tax like Texas and Wyoming. Personal income taxes account for about $2.2 billion in annual state government income, offsetting about a fifth of annual general fund obligations.

Hull said he wants to double down on the oil economy by funneling budget surpluses to infrastructure projects in the state's main oil-production zone.

“This morning, when I was looking at a price of a barrel of oil, I said, ‘Well, that’s not great for consumers, but it’s awesome for New Mexico,'” Hull said.

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Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.

The collection is a partnership between Swiss luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet and Swatch.

KPRC 2 crews stopped by the Galleria Wednesday night and found dozens of chairs lined up outside the store as people camped out waiting for the release.

Some people in line said they had already been there since Monday in hopes of securing one of the limited-edition timepieces.

The watches are being marketed as a “three-in-one” accessory and can be worn as a pocket watch, necklace or attached to a wristband.

According to reports, the watches will retail between $400 and $420.

But many people waiting in line said they are hoping to resell the watches because traditional Audemars Piguet watches can often cost tens of thousands of dollars on the luxury market.

Houston’s Galleria is one of only 19 stores in the United States selected to carry the release.

The watches are scheduled to officially go on sale Saturday.

French authorities had initially ordered over 1,700 passengers and crew on The Ambition cruise ship to remain on board, but then decided late Wednesday to let those unaffected disembark. One passenger was spotted raising his arms in triumph while leaving the vessel.

It was not immediately clear how many left the ship, but the British operator of the ship said Thursday that passengers are able to disembark “with all scheduled shore excursions operating as planned today.” As of Thursday morning, 60 passengers and four crew members were experiencing gastrointestinal illness, according to Ambassador Cruise Line.

French authorities said there is no link to a deadly hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch vessel that has put European health authorities on alert in recent weeks.

The Ambition was midway through a 14-night cruise from Belfast and Liverpool, with scheduled stops in northern Spain and along France’s Atlantic coast. It reached Bordeaux on Tuesday evening.

The boat will remain in Bordeaux overnight before continuing its journey on a revised itinerary from Friday to avoid bad weather.

“This will allow the ship to avoid forecast unsettled weather conditions in the Bay of Biscay this evening which would be less than ideal for guests and crew recovering from gastrointestinal illness while also providing valuable additional time for crew who have worked exceptionally hard in challenging circumstances over recent days,” Ambassador Cruise Line said.

Samples analyzed at Bordeaux University Hospital confirmed an outbreak of norovirus. Local authorities said at this stage no serious cases have been reported and that sick passengers were cared for onboard by the ship’s medical team.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks outbreaks on voyages that call on U.S. and foreign ports, recorded 23 gastrointestinal outbreaks on cruise ships last year. Most were caused by norovirus, including a new strain.

Ambassador Cruise Line, a British operator catering to passengers over 50, was founded in 2021.

The operator said a 92-year-old male passenger died on Sunday but did not report any symptoms consistent with gastrointestinal illness.

David Northern, who resigned as president and CEO of the Houston Housing Authority amid an investigation into his spending, was hired as CEO of the Flint, Michigan Housing Commission — putting him back in charge of the same type of federal dollars he had been accused of misusing in Houston.

SEE MORE: KPRC 2 Investigation into the Houston Housing Authority

A familiar name helped him land the job

The person who helped bring Northern to Flint appears to have had a prior financial relationship with him in Houston.

Damon Duncan served as interim CEO of the Flint Housing Commission and announced on LinkedIn that his company helped recruit Northern for the role.

Records obtained through an open records request show that just seven months before Northern’s hire in Flint, Northern signed a Houston Housing Authority check paying Duncan nearly $13,000. The memo line on the check noted the payment was for “technical assistance at a Cuney Homes on-site visit.”

Duncan did not return calls for comment.

Northern did not respond either.

Neither did the mayor of Flint.

Houston’s mayor weighs in

Houston Mayor John Whitmire does not oversee the Houston Housing Authority directly. The agency is funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is governed by an independent board — one the mayor appoints.

“I think everybody should be held accountable. But I just can’t speak to Flint. HUD has all of our records. We’re pretty clear that we think they should review them carefully,” Whitmire said.

The mayor was quick to note that the board members who hired Northern in 2022 were appointed by his predecessor.

“One thing, when I watch your reports, I always will say, come on, Amy (Davis). Emphasize this was all before I got here,” Whitmire said.

When Whitmire took office in January 2024, one of his first actions was replacing the Housing Authority board members. That new board launched the investigation into Northern that ultimately led to his resignation.

“I got him off his position, the CEO of the board as quick as possible, replaced it with some fine Houstonians,” Whitmire said.

When asked whether Northern was fit to lead a housing authority in another city, Whitmire didn’t hold back.

“Flint, Michigan, I can’t speak for them, if they would have done their due diligence and been above board, I don’t believe Mr. Northern would be fit for that job. Based on his record here,” the mayor said.

Federal investigators and a frustrating silence

The FBI and HUD’s Office of Inspector General were among the agencies examining the Houston Housing Authority’s records.

“The FBI was there, OIG of HUD. I would assume it gets all the way up to the top, the secretary,” Whitmire said, when asked specifically which law enforcement agencies were investigating Northern’s actions at HHA.

When asked whether HUD’s inspector general was tracking Northern’s move to Flint, the agency responded: “It is the policy of the HUD OIG to neither confirm nor deny any investigative actions that may or may not be underway.”

For Whitmire, the lack of communication from federal agencies has been its own source of frustration.

“We send the files, and then nothing. You know what’s even frustrating? How about just a report? What if they said, we don’t like what we see, but it hadn’t reached a certain level?” Whitmire said.

“They just leave you in limbo, but I do my job and then I move on to the next challenge,” he added.

The Flint Housing Commission has since developed its own financial scandal.

Signs of progress in Houston

The newly restructured Houston Housing Authority — now rebranded as Housing Alliance HTX — has passed new rules governing credit card purchases and financial oversight. Spending on those cards is down 58% since Northern’s departure.

At Cuney Homes, Larry Grisby said the new administration eventually installed missing tables and benches at the pocket park Northern’s contractor had left unfinished.

“Yeah, I sit out here every morning. I used to clean it. I ain’t got no rags,” Grisby said with a laugh.

At Kelly Village, some windows remain boarded up — but residents say crews have been slowly replacing the windows the previous contractors removed.

Grisby said he never expected Northern to resurface in another housing role.

“I was saying to myself, ‘He’ll never work for housing no more. Never,’” Grisby said. “Cause what he did, you know. Things that he did.”

The original investigation: What KPRC 2 uncovered

More than a quarter of renters in Harris County spend over half their income on housing. For thousands of Houstonians on waiting lists for federal rental assistance, every dollar counts — which is what made the findings so striking.

The original KPRC 2 investigation found Northern spent millions of federal dollars on expenses that had nothing to do with helping families.

Housing Authority credit card statements showed Northern’s senior policy advisor, Na’Shon Edwards, spent more than $9,400 dining out — including at least six visits to Steak 48. Nearly $100,000 was spent on travel. Northern himself charged more than $2,300 for workout equipment and another $2,300 for chair massages for employees at work.

“It means a lot. It means almost a few months of rent paying,” said Janet Hoffart, who relies on housing subsidies and receives about $1,600 a month in disability and Social Security payments.

“I am one illness away from losing everything. I am one disability check from losing everything,” said Jessica, who was waiting on a housing voucher at the time of the investigation.

A cooling project that left residents in the cold

One project meant to help public housing residents beat the Houston heat ended up making their homes less safe.

Northern hired contractors to install window air conditioning units in every apartment at Kelly Village, Cuney Homes and Irvington Village — Houston’s three public housing communities. The investigation found Northern went more than $3 million over budget, hiring inexperienced contractors who blocked fire escapes during installation.

“I thought it was a good thing, until you know, everything transpired,” said Shamica Killings, who worked at Kelly Village during the project.

To fix the fire hazards, crews had to remove the newly installed units — but the original windows had already been discarded. Workers boarded them up and moved on.

Northern hired 22 different companies to install the units. One supervisor, who made $75 an hour working for one of those companies, started his own company just four months later. Northern then awarded that new company more than $1 million to fix the fire hazard issues the original project had created.

One of the companies hired for the AC installation was a clothing company based in Chicago — connected to a Housing Authority employee Northern had recently brought on from Chicago.

“That’s odd because you would expect to want to hire companies that had the experience to do the job, and you would want to go local,” said Houston City Council member Julian Ramirez. “Houston’s a huge city. We have plenty of companies that can do good AC work, so why would you have to go to Illinois?”

Incomplete park, silenced employees, a growing tab

Here’s more on the park project mentioned above. Residents at Cuney Homes were also left with an incomplete pocket park — missing tables, benches and lighting — even after records showed Northern approved paying the contractor more than $766,000.

“There’s supposed to be two benches. Supposed to have been a bench here and a bench right here. And there’s supposed to have been a table right here,” said Larry Grisby, a Cuney Homes resident.

The spending didn’t stop there.

Northern paid out $289,133 in settlements to housing executives he dismissed — always keeping payouts just under the $100,000 threshold that would have required board approval. Every employee who received a settlement signed a non-disclosure agreement.

In February 2024, Northern announced that funding for housing vouchers for low-income families had run out. Around the same time, he distributed more than $166,000 in raises to five employees in a single round of increases.

When the investigation added it all up, the total tied to mismanagement, waste or questionable decisions surpassed $4 million.

Suspension, resignation — and six-figure payouts

Within six weeks of the investigation’s publication, the Housing Authority board voted to suspend Northern with pay while it conducted its own review. Northern ultimately resigned. The board also eliminated the position held by Edwards.

Both left Texas — each with six-figure payouts. Northern received $210,252. Edwards received $27,692.

The total connected to Northern’s tenure, including those payouts: more than $4.2 million.

KPRC 2 will continue to follow this story as federal investigators review the Houston Housing Authority’s records. Until those answers come, the team will keep pressing — because for the thousands of Houstonians still waiting on housing assistance, accountability isn’t optional. If you have a tip or question, email Investigator Amy Davis at ADavis@kprc.com.

Knoblauch coached the Oilers to the playoffs three times since taking over as a midseason replacement when Jay Woodcroft was fired following a bad start in November 2023. They won 166 of their 286 total games behind the bench, and Knoblauch's .623 regular-season points percentage ranks sixth among active NHL coaches.

The Oilers are now set for their sixth coach since Connor McDavid entered the NHL in 2015 and became the best player in the world, skating alongside fellow MVP Leon Draisaitl. The two still have not won a championship, now going into their 12th season together.

Moving on from Knoblauch comes in the aftermath of a report earlier this week that Edmonton had sought and were denied permission from the Vegas Golden Knights to speak to Bruce Cassidy, whom they fired as coach in late March but is still under contract. Teams making offseason changes typically wait until there is a vacancy before reaching out about prospective candidates.

General manager Stan Bowman getting to make this move seems to indicate he will keep his job, along with president of hockey operations Jeff Jackson, who joined the organization in August 2023. Jackson took over control of hockey operations following the team’s first trip to the final in 2024 and hired Bowman as GM that summer. Assistant coach Mark Stuart was also fired.

“Following a thorough review of this past season, we believe these changes are needed,” Bowman said. “We are grateful for the contributions both Kris and Mark have made to our organization and we wish them the best moving forward.”

The Oilers fell behind 3-0 in their first final matchup against Florida before pushing the Panthers to a Game 7 and losing by a goal. They made it back the following year and had home-ice advantage but seemed to regress in a six-game series defeat that could be blamed on poor defense and goaltending.

Those problems continued this season, before and after Bowman made a goalie swap to get Tristan Jarry and send Stuart Skinner to Pittsburgh. It made the situation worse, as Edmonton ranked 29th out of 32 teams in the league in save percentage at .883.

McDavid late in the season heaped praise upon Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper after the Lightning beat the Oilers 5-2. Even if it was not meant as criticism of Knoblauch, it stood out from a player who usually speaks more about taking responsibility for losses.

Edmonton was eliminated by the less-experienced Anaheim Ducks, when he was unable to find someone to stop the puck between Jarry and backup-turned-starter Connor Ingram. They combined for an .880 save percentage, worst in the playoffs, and the Oilers’ 4.33 goals allowed also ranked last.

The three-year contract extension the Oilers signed Knoblauch to in October kicks in next season and runs through 2028-29. They are obligated to pay him until another team hires him and would be on the hook for any differential in salary over that time.

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

Police said the attack happened around 6:47 a.m. on Monday inside Garage 1 at the Houston Methodist campus, where the victim — a Houston Methodist employee — was stabbed in the upper body on Level 5.

PREVIOUS REPORT: Photo released of man accused of stabbing Houston Methodist nurse in Texas Medical Center parking garage

She was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital, and hospital officials later told employees she was expected to be released the same day.

Officers with the HPD Major Assaults unit, the South Central Crime Suppression Team, and Houston METRO Police arrested Green on Wednesday, police said.

Authorities previously said the incident did not appear to be a targeted attack. Houston Methodist also temporarily placed some buildings on lockdown after the stabbing and announced increased patrols and security visibility across the Texas Medical Center area.

But some critics call the Rededicate 250 event an effort to “hijack” U.S. history with a false, Christian nationalist narrative — one they say fuses American and Christian identities and threatens a constitutional separation of church and state.

The daylong program is being organized by a nonprofit called Freedom 250. Its website describes it as a public-private partnership “leading the presidential programming for America's 250th anniversary,” which culminates with the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4.

Congressional Democrats have questioned the organization's structure and finances, which they see as a Trump-controlled end run around a separate commission charted by Congress a decade ago to prepare semiquincentennial events.

Top Republican officials promote event

Organizers expect thousands of people to attend Rededicate 250, which will include worship music, prayers and speeches from Cabinet heads and other Republican officials, along with religious leaders and others. Trump and several other speakers are addressing the crowd by video, while others will speak in person. The scheduled participants include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

"Our founders knew two simple truths," Hegseth said in a promotional video for the event featuring a montage of Cabinet secretaries.

"Our rights don’t come from government, they come from God. And a nation is only as strong as its faith,” added Hegseth, whose use of Christian rhetoric to justify the U.S. and Israel's war against Iran and in other official settings has drawn scrutiny.

Another promotional video for Rededicate 250 blends various Christian and American imagery — scenes of a cross laid on an American flag, a robed choir, people raising their hands in worship — along with a brief scene of a man praying while wearing a Jewish skullcap. Voices of prominent preachers are heard, one proclaiming, “Faith in God is the value that most shaped America.”

Religious leaders on the Rededicate 250 program include several longtime Christian supporters of Trump, among them evangelist Franklin Graham and pastors Paula White-Cain, who heads the White House Faith Office; Robert Jeffress; and Samuel Rodriguez. Also scheduled are Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron and Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, the only faith leader on the program representing a non-Christian faith.

Musicians on the program include Grammy-winning contemporary Christian artist Chris Tomlin.

Some leading participants portray Rededicate 250 as a Christian gathering.

“I believe it’s a moment when the Body of Christ, the church, comes together and will boldly declare that America still needs God,” said Georgia pastor Jentezen Franklin in a social media video posted on X. “This is an opportunity for believers to stand together as one nation under God. ... I’m honored that they’ve asked me to speak and share the Gospel.”

Johnson noted that the event comes 250 years after Congress declared May 17, 1776, a “day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” on behalf of the Revolutionary cause.

Critics say event 'hijacked’ by Christian nationalism

Critics say Rededicate 250 is shaping up to promote Christian nationalism — whose adherents typically believe that the United States was founded as and should be a Christian nation.

“What should be a broadly unifying celebration has been politically hijacked and wrapped up in this MAGA narrative that tries to rewrite our history and promote the president’s agenda,” said U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

Huffman said the movement erases the diversity of America’s religious and nonreligious populations throughout its history and threatens the constitutional protections against government-established religion.

The event "would have the founders rolling in their graves,” said Huffman, a California Democrat. He co-chairs the Congressional Freethought Caucus, which emphasizes separation of church and state.

“They have narrowly defined what it means both to be American and to be Christian, and they are wrapping that in the official sanction of the U.S. government," Huffman said.

He said it's a movement that doesn't speak for all Christians, noting Trump's recent sparring with Pope Leo XIV.

Conservative Christians cheer multiple Trump initiatives

The Rededicate 250 event is occurring in tandem with other White House initiatives appealing to Trump’s loyal base of conservative Christians, particularly white evangelical Protestants.

Several participants — including Graham, White-Cain, Dolan, Barron and Soloveichik — also serve on the Religious Liberty Commission. That Trump-appointed panel is preparing a report on its findings after a year of hearings, many of which were focused on conservative Christian and right-leaning political grievances. Its chair, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, repeatedly denies that the Constitution establishes a separation of church and state.

Several participants in Rededicate 250 joined with Trump himself in a Bible-reading marathon.

And a separate Trump administration task force recently alleged discrimination against Christians under Democratic President Joe Biden — a report criticized by progressive groups as “advocacy dressed up as investigation.”

That report alleged that such a bias resulted in heavy fines imposed on two Christian colleges — Grand Canyon University for allegedly deceiving thousands of students over program costs, a decision later reversed, and Liberty University for its handling of crime statistics and sexual assault cases. Choirs from both colleges are performing at Rededicate 250.

Beliefs about Christian nationhood

About 2 in 10 U.S. adults and about one-quarter of Republicans, said the federal government should declare Christianity the official religion of the nation, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April.

Some 43% said the government should not do so, but should promote Christian values, while 38% said it should do neither. The report said 13% of U.S. adults and 18% of Republicans said the government should stop enforcing the separation of church and state.

Historians generally agree that the founders’ religious beliefs varied, that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t establish an official religion and that it was significantly influenced by Enlightenment thinkers.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates a strict separation of church and state, hopes to stage a demonstration elsewhere in Washington on the day of the rally.

“This is the government putting on a Christian nationalist event,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, the foundation's co-president. “Even if it is accepting private money for it, it’s still putting it on. It’s outrageous.”

Brian Kaylor, a Baptist pastor and president and editor-in-chief of Word&Way, a progressive site covering faith and politics, said that while the Continental Congress did call for a day of prayer, the founders crafted the Constitution to prevent the establishment of religion. Two early presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, thought such official events were harmful to religion, he wrote.

The event "simply doesn’t represent what type of nation the founders later decided to create,” Kaylor wrote.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Some of the other ripples, though, aren't as obvious. They're the ones we carry inside us — grief over lost loved ones, chronic health conditions, the sense of lives interrupted. And in recent days, another one has made itself known in the wake of a rare hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship: the fear, despite official reassurances, that it might be happening again.

But the flourishing of fear, whether on a personal or societal level, can also be an indicator that something else is missing. Perhaps there's no post-pandemic reality more entrenched than the damage done, in the U.S. and globally, to the bonds that in the before times, many would have considered secure — science, government, information itself.

“COVID undermined our trust in what most of us used to trust,” said Elisa Jayne Bienenstock, a research professor and sociologist at Arizona State University. “When general trust goes down, when there’s a lot of cynicism, who are people looking to, to explain what to do and how the world works?”

What it used to be and what it is now

Before 2020, the outbreak of some illness somewhere didn't usually cause massive concern outside of the specific areas impacted, even as some epidemics caused significant numbers of deaths.

Some of that was complacency in the face of a world where widespread travel wasn't as accessible to the masses as it has become, which was a key part of COVID-19's spread.

In fact, there have been outbreaks of the current strain of hantavirus in some South American countries through the decades, like one in 1997 in Chile. Other countries have had epidemics of a range of illnesses from cholera to dengue to SARS, and the U.S. has seen West Nile, Legionnaire's and more.

But in a post-COVID-19 world, it didn't take long before questions and concerns surfaced about disease spread in the days immediately following the first reports that three people had died from hantavirus on the ship. Since then, there have been reports of 11 hantavirus cases around the world linked to the cruise, according to the World Health Organization, and that includes the deaths. Lab testing has confirmed eight of the cases.

Health experts have repeatedly emphasized that even though the virus can cause serious illness in those infected, the risk of spread in the general public is low. Despite that, when ship passengers were taken to the Spanish island of Tenerife to disembark, residents like Samantha Aguero were concerned.

“We feel a bit unsafe. We don’t feel as there are 100% security measures in place to welcome it," she said. “This is a virus, after all, and we have lived this during the pandemic.”

Institutions are diminished for many

Bienenstock points to three institutions that have suffered from the public's loss of trust: government, media and science itself. But government officials and journalists were dealing with issues of public mistrust well before the pandemic.

The mistrust of science got ammunition not because scientists were making mistakes in their processes but because nonscientists didn't have the same understanding, she said.

“Most people don’t think of science as a process. In their mind, science is an answer, it’s a fact. And so when those facts showed that they weren’t 100% reliable and assured, it started undermining trust in the science,” she said.

“One of the problems with COVID is it undermined that confidence in science for people who don’t understand how science works. It showed the process. And it showed that scientists don’t always have the answer,” Bienenstock said. “A lot of people in crisis, when they fear things, don’t care what the answer is, as long as there’s a definitive answer. And science doesn’t provide that when it doesn’t know."

Now what?

It's not just about the issue at the forefront of people's attention at the moment. There are ripple effects as well.

“COVID ... didn’t just heighten people’s sensitivity to health threats. It did so unevenly, in ways often disconnected from actual risk,” said Michele Gelfand, professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “As trust in institutions has weakened, people have lost a key way to navigate uncertainty together. Without trust, people rely more on rumor, fear, and emotion, which can lead them to overreact to small risks and underreact to serious ones.”

Karlynn Morgan, a 76-year-old retired nurse-anesthetist in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has seen that heightened attention, with more people without a medical or science background talking about health issues than before the pandemic.

She has also been disturbed by the increase in what looks to her like a lack of trust in science, as seen in falling vaccination rates and rising instances of diseases like measles.

“I think people are far less trusting because people used to take their children and just get the vaccine," she said. "When I was a kid, there was no question you were going to go get your shot.”

If trust is going to be rebuilt, Gelfand said in an email, then leaders have to get involved.

“They set the threat signal. They determine whether people get accurate information about the level of danger or distorted information that serves a political agenda. When leaders send clear, honest signals, people can calibrate in the face of threat. When leaders manipulate threat for their own purposes, norms erode and and trust collapses,” Gelfand said.

“Strong, reliable institutions have historically been our superpower as a society. They’re what allow millions of people to coordinate under uncertainty without knowing each other personally," she said. "Without that institutional backbone, we lose the very capacity for collective action that has helped human groups survive for millennia.”

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Follow the AP's coverage of the hantavirus outbreak at https://apnews.com/hub/hantavirus.

No games were scheduled for Thursday — the league's first day with no games in a month — meaning the playoffs will resume Friday with two games.

Detroit, trying to keep its season alive, will play in Cleveland. And Minnesota, trying to keep its season alive, will play host to San Antonio.

The Cavaliers and Spurs hold 3-2 leads in those series. If Game 7s are needed, they would be Sunday in Detroit and San Antonio.

Thursday's schedule

— No games scheduled.

Friday's schedule

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

Series: Cleveland leads 3-2.

Odds: Cleveland by 3.5.

The Pistons are already 3-0 when facing elimination in these playoffs, with one of those wins coming on the road — the one where they rallied from 24 points down in the second half to beat Orlando in Game 6 of Round 1.

— Game 6, San Antonio at Minnesota, 9:30 p.m. EDT (Prime)

Series: San Antonio leads 3-2.

Odds: San Antonio by 4.5.

Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs are one game away from a showdown with Oklahoma City. Minnesota let Game 5 get away in a hurry in the second half, but remains alive in the chase for what would be its third consecutive appearance in the Western Conference finals.

Wednesday's recap

— Cavaliers 117, Pistons 113, OT for a 3-2 series lead. The Pistons are in trouble.

Conference finals schedule

The NBA Finals will start on June 3. And there is a chance that we won't know where Game 1 of that series is going to be until June 1.

Conference finals schedules are out, with start dates contingent on Friday's results. Here are the scenarios:

— If Detroit-Cleveland ends in six games, then the Cleveland-New York series (with the Knicks having home-court) would be played May 17, 19, 23, 25, 27, 29 and 31.

— If Detroit-Cleveland ends in seven games, then the Cavs/Pistons winner-New York series (with either the Pistons or the Knicks having home-court) would be played May 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29 and 31.

— If San Antonio-Minnesota ends in six games, then the San Antonio-Oklahoma City series (with the Thunder having home-court) would be played May 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, and 30.

— If San Antonio-Minnesota ends in seven games, then the Timberwolves/Spurs winner-Oklahoma City series (with the Thunder having home-court) would be played May 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, and June 1.

Awards watch

A breakdown of this season's NBA awards:

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

— Hustle Award: Moussa Diabaté, Charlotte.

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

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

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

— Sportsmanship Award: Derrick White, Boston.

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

— Rookie of the Year: Cooper Flagg, Dallas.

— Executive of the Year: Brad Stevens, Boston.

Among the announcements still to come:

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

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

Betting odds

Defending champion Oklahoma City (-165) is favored to win the NBA title, according to oddsmakers.

The Thunder are followed by San Antonio (+320), New York (+550), Cleveland (+4000), Detroit (+5000) and Minnesota (+12500).

Key dates

— Through Sunday: NBA draft combine.

— Sunday or Tuesday: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.

— Monday or Wednesday: 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

“It was preparing for moments like this. I knew that I was going to come back this season. I knew that this team was good enough to make a run and I was just preparing myself, preparing my body, preparing my mind for these moments, to be the best player that I can be to help us win.” — Cleveland's Max Strus, on how he handled missing 70 regular-season games but was ready for the playoffs.

Stats of the day

— Cleveland's James Harden is up to 4,144 career playoff points, three away from tying Golden State's Stephen Curry for 10th on the all-time playoff list. Harden would move into third among active players if he passes Curry, behind only LeBron James (8,521) and Kevin Durant (5,008).

— San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama is up to 14 3-pointers and 38 blocks so far in these playoffs. Every other player with that many 3s and blocks in a single postseason — Rasheed Wallace in 2004 and 2005, Draymond Green in 2016 and Myles Turner and Chet Holmgren last year — saw their teams reach the NBA Finals. (Wembanyama is the first player to have that many 3s and blocks in just the first two rounds of the playoffs.)

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

Previous statements doubting Venezuela’s sovereignty over the past 25 years have been met with immediate derision from senior government officials, including the president. The ruling party even organized demonstrations in the capital, Caracas, as recently as Jan. 3, hours after then-President Nicolás Maduro was captured by the U.S., that included chants of “Gringo go home.” This time around, however, the government has mostly kept quiet, save for a brief statement to reporters Monday from acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

The approach demonstrates the balance Rodríguez must strike between external and internal politics following the January U.S. military attack in Caracas. The Trump administration has since implemented a phased plan to try to turn around the crisis-wrecked country and has forced Rodríguez’s political movement, Chavismo, to abandon the anti-U.S. sentiment that long accompanied its teachings.

“This is probably the most public and sharp manifestation of the government’s transactional, self-survival approach above everything else right now, above even that sort of basic tenet of Chavismo,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at the London-based Chatham House think tank. “It’s better that they hold their tongue, not offend the U.S. right now. Why overreact to a ridiculous claim by Donald Trump?”

Rodríguez on Monday told journalists that Venezuela had no plans to become the 51st U.S. state, but her comments were much more reserved than past presidential addresses deriding these types of U.S remarks. They came after Trump said he was “seriously considering” the move. Trump has made similar comments about Canada.

“We will continue to defend our integrity, our sovereignty, our independence, our history,” Rodríguez said. Venezuela, she added, is “not a colony, but a free country.”

The Trump administration stunned Venezuelans by choosing to work with Rodríguez, instead of the country’s political opposition, following Maduro's ouster. She has since led cooperation with the administration’s phased plan, pitching her oil-rich nation to international investors and opening its energy sector to private capital and international arbitration. Rodríguez has also replaced senior officials, including Maduro’s faithful defense minister and attorney general.

Trump has praised her work, and his administration has lifted economic sanctions against her personally and eased sanctions against the country, though some still remain in place. The U.S. now also recognizes her as the “sole” head of state of Venezuela.

The U.S. stopped recognizing Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate leader in 2019, the year after he claimed reelection victory in a contest widely considered a sham as opposition parties and candidates were barred from participating.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges after their Jan. 3 capture. Both have pleaded not guilty and remain jailed at a Brooklyn detention center.

In Caracas, some residents on Wednesday viewed the government’s response as submitting to Trump, but they also acknowledged that Rodríguez is not in a position to unleash Chavismo’s characteristic anti-U.S. propaganda.

“She knows that it’s wise not to engage in direct confrontation because she knows she’s bound to lose,” college student Adonai Osoria said. “Now, are there some who disagree, who don’t like it? Well, yes, of course. But I consider her reaction right now to be a common, understandable reaction.”

Government supporters last showed their inflammatory attitude against the U.S. in the days after Maduro was captured, burning U.S. flags and carrying signs that read “Gringo go home.”

Among the government’s strongest supporters across the country are the armed groups known as colectivos. The groups are a staple of pro-ruling party demonstrations. Local leader Jorge Navas characterized Trump’s comments as “irresponsible acts of provocation” and praised Rodríguez for her diplomatic response.

“We are bending, strategically, but we will not break,” Navas said of Chavismo’s current approach to U.S. pressure. “We continue to resist, that is, realistically, given the country’s economic situation.”

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Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

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

Leo’s speech at Rome’s La Sapienza University marked the first time a pope has visited the campus since Pope Benedict XVI called off a planned speech there in 2008 in the face of protests from faculty and students.

The American pope was warmly welcomed on Thursday, including by some of Sapienza’s newest students: Young Palestinians who arrived in Italy this week on a “humanitarian corridor” from Gaza to continue their studies at the university. The Italian government, working with Catholic organizations, has brought hundreds of Palestinians to study and receive medical care in Italy since the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza began in 2023.

Leo met some of the Gaza students during a brief greeting at the campus chapel, and again after his speech in the main lecture hall of the university, which was founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303.

In his speech, Leo denounced how military spending had increased dramatically this year, especially in Europe, at the expense of education and healthcare, while “enriching elites who care nothing for the common good.”

He called for better monitoring of how AI was being developed and used in military and civilian contexts “so that it does not absolve humans of responsibility for their choices and does not exacerbate the tragedy of conflicts.”

“What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation,” he said.

The pope said education and research must move instead in the opposite direction that values life “the lives of peoples who cry out for peace and justice!”

Leo has identified AI as one of the most critical matters facing humanity, especially its application in warfare and everyday life. They are themes he’s expected to explore more fully in his first encyclical, due to be released in the coming weeks.

Nada Rahim Jouda, 19, was one of the Gazans who met Leo, just two days after she arrived in Italy. She was still marveling at her new life studying business science in Rome, a city that she said was “like heaven for me.”

“Everything here is green and it’s not gray and troubles everywhere and miserable people in the streets,” she said.

But Jouda remains concerned for the family she left behind: her mother, recovering from leukemia, and younger sisters aged 17 and 13. Over the course of the war in Gaza, the family was forced to move four times, and her mother was unable to receive care or check-ups for her cancer.

“They all rely on me. I’m the only hope that they have,” she said.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Uthmeier, who threatened possible enforcement actions against the league in March if it didn’t suspend the 23-year-old rule, sent the subpoena along with a letter to NFL executive vice president and attorney Ted Ullyot on Wednesday.

The subpoena commands the league to appear at the attorney general’s office in Tallahassee, Florida, on June 12. It asks the league to produce extensive documents, including “all diversity reports, coaching census data, or demographic surveys that reflect the race and sex of coaching staffs of the teams from 2017 to the present.”

"All in all, the Rooney Rule and the NFL’s related ‘inclusive hiring’ policies — and the NFL’s representations about these policies — continue to raise significant concerns under Florida law,” Uthmeier wrote in the letter.

The Rooney Rule requires teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for head coach, general manager and coordinator positions. At least one minority candidate must be interviewed for the quarterbacks coach position.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, speaking at the league meetings in Phoenix in March, acknowledged the changing political landscape for diversity initiatives in the U.S., but added that he didn’t believe there should be any legal issues with the league’s policy. “The Rooney Rule has been around a long time,” Goodell said then. “We’ve evolved it, changed it. We’ll continue to do that.”

The NFL didn't comment Wednesday on the subpoena.

But in a letter to Uthmeier on May 1, the league said: “The NFL’s pursuit of top-tier talent led to the adoption of the Rooney Rule in 2003. Importantly, the Rooney Rule does not impose any hiring quotas or mandates, and it does not license clubs to consider race or sex in making hiring decisions. Hiring decisions for NFL teams are made by the individual clubs — not the League — and those decisions are based on merit. The Rooney Rule neither requires, nor permits, any team to make a hiring decision on the basis of race, sex, or any other protected characteristic. To do so would be an express violation of League policy.”

Uthmeier commended the league for altering the Rooney Rule language on its website after receiving his initial warning letter in March but added the revisions raise more questions.

The updated terminology on the NFL site says: “The Rooney Rule establishes best practices designed to expand opportunity and strengthen the NFL’s talent pipeline across leadership roles. It is part of a broader effort to develop a deep and sustainable talent pipeline across all levels of the NFL. The policy is intended to ensure that qualified candidates from a wide range of backgrounds are identified and considered for leadership roles.”

The website previously stated the Rooney Rule aims to “increase the number of minorities hired” in leadership positions and said that diversity “enriches the game and creates a more effective, quality organization.”

“We appreciate how quickly the NFL changed its website in response to our letter and capitulated on some of their discriminatory hiring quotas,” Uthmeier said. “But their response raises more questions about the Rooney Rule, and we look forward to their cooperation with the investigative subpoena we issued them today.”

In the May 1 letter, the league had told Uthmeier: “We appreciate that your letter has brought to our attention some outdated information on the NFL’s website regarding these programs. This information is in the process of being updated to accurately reflect the NFL’s current programs and policies.”

Uthmeier sent his first letter to Goodell in March, saying the Rooney Rule amounts to “blatant race and sex discrimination.”

The subpoena expands the focus beyond the Rooney Rule and includes other NFL diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including a discontinued mandate that required teams to hire a minority offensive assistant; the diversity accelerator program; the Mackie development program for college officials; and the resolution that awards teams draft picks if one of its minority assistant coaches or executives is hired to be the coach or general manager of another team.

The NFL's front office and coach accelerator program will be held next week in Orlando after it was paused in 2025. The program was created as an extension of the Rooney Rule in 2022 to increase diversity among coaches and front office executives. It will now include nonminority participants.

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

Yet the area’s greatest contribution to the game may have come a few miles away in West Philadelphia, where a rebirth is taking place at Cobbs Creek Golf Club.

While Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Gary Player were competing for titles and trophies at the venerable Main Line layouts, Cobbs Creek offered something more tangible: inclusion and opportunity.

Opened in 1916, Cobbs Creek welcomed golfers of all backgrounds. Women could play at Cobbs Creek before they were eligible to vote. And, while very few golf courses were open to Blacks, there was no segregation at the course.

Hall of Famer Charlie Sifford took advantage of the course's open-door policy. He claimed it as his home and honed his skills there on the way to breaking golf’s color barrier in 1961 as the first Black member of the PGA and among its first Black winners.

Sifford’s success and connection to the course helped spark a groundswell of support for the Cobbs Creek Foundation and its effort to restore the long-neglected 350-acre parcel that also touches Delaware and Montgomery counties. The effort got a significant boost with backing from Tiger Woods.

A place for golf where everyone feels welcome

The relationship between Woods and Sifford is well-documented. Woods credits Sifford for helping pave the way for his success and referred to him as “the grandfather I never had.” He even named his son, Charlie, after Sifford.

That connection led Woods to get involved with the Cobbs Creek project, opening his foundation’s second TGR Learning Lab there in 2025. The educational facility with golf-related activities for youth in underserved areas is one of the cornerstones of the revitalization efforts and has been an immediate success.

Woods says the renovation is as much about education and giving back to the community as golf.

“Coming here, to a place he (Sifford) played, he grew up, he called home, and for me to have the support of the entire community, to be able to build something,” Woods said. "A home, a safe place, innovation. ... I didn’t start the foundation to produce golfers that hit golf balls. I started the foundation to produce the greatest humans possible.”

The learning lab also has a junior practice putting green, built with a $250,000 donation from the foundation of three-time major champion Jordan Spieth. Also on property is a 68-bay driving range and a short course designed by Woods’ company. All the elements play a role in the bigger project: the championship course restoration.

“There’s a lot of new ways that people are picking up the game now, and you’ll have all of that available here,” Spieth said at the opening of the putting green. “The accessibility for anybody, of any age, to come. Do golf however you want to do golf.”

The grand plan is to restore the course to the original design by Hugh Wilson, the golf course architect responsible for crafting nearby Merion. The rebuild has been made more daunting by near-constant flooding and decades of disrepair that led to the course closing in 2020.

The hope is to eventually host a PGA Tour event at the site. For now, golf is just piece of the puzzle.

“We knew we were going to restore this golf course and it was going to be for the good of the public,” said Cobbs Creek Foundation COO Enrique Hervada.

“Golf is very exclusive in many ways. This is extremely inclusive. Everybody is welcome here. It was always that way, too.”

For decades, Cobbs Creek delivered on its promise

Philadelphia-owned Cobbs Creek was established to serve those unable to golf at private clubs.

Wilson is credited with the design of Cobbs Creek’s “Olde Course,” with an assist from noted golf course architects George Crump (Pine Valley), A.W. Tillinghast (Winged Foot), George Thomas (Riviera) and William Flynn (Shinnecock Hills).

The layout hosted the USGA’s Amateur Public Links in 1928. A nine-hole layout, the Karakung Course, was established in 1929. In 1947, Cobbs Creek was the site of the Negro National Open, with heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis as the first-round leader. It became one of only a handful of courses in the National Black Golf Hall of Fame in 2021.

Sifford and Howard “Buth” Wheeler, a pioneer among Black golfers and multi-time United Golf Association national champion, were notable players at Cobbs Creek. Sifford was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2014. He died in 2015.

In the 1950s, the original layout was tweaked to make room for four missile silos and barracks as part of the U.S. air defense system. The original layout was reconfigured and the course continued to deal with flooding. Conditions also deteriorated while under the control of different management companies.

The renovation comes with a $180 million price tag. There have been numerous stops and starts during the rebuild while awaiting permitting and other hurdles. Fundraising is a near-daily endeavor for Hervada.

Golf architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, who led the restoration of Aronimink, are refurbishing the “Olde Course.” The drainage issues have been dealt with and the plan includes restoring three miles of creek and creating more than 20 acres of wetlands.

“The people involved knew it was going to be a herculean effort,” Hervada said. “We’re really close, but we have a long way to go. We’re building this for the next 100 years."

Profits from much of the golf will drive the TGR Learning Lab

The 30,000-square foot educational facility for grades 1-12 was the first building to open on the Cobbs Creek campus, in April 2025. It is the second TGR lab, after the first in Anaheim, California, opened in 2006. Others are planned for Georgia and California.

The plan is for the profits from the golf operations to help fund the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) after-school and weekend programs.

The learning lab got off to a fast start, thanks to Woods’ TGR Foundation.

Meredith Foote, the lab's executive director, said when the facility first opened, schools within a mile and a half radius were the targets. Now, all are welcome, and Foote says that 7,000 students have been served.

“We exist to open up doors and opportunities,” Foote said. “And when the right doors to educational enrichment open, there is no limit for our students. It’s really expose, expose, expose."

Corrine Schultz, 18, of Upper Darby, was excited about joining the learning lab from the moment she saw what was offered. The homeschooled high school senior is on a robotics team at TGR.

“Opportunity,” Schultz said of what was offered. “To be part of a competitive team with the robotics. I had never been a part of a competitive team.”

Schultz will continue her education in the fall at Drexel University and plans to return to the lab.

“I’m a student here,” she said. “But whatever future career I decide, I want to give back to the community, to people in general.”

And that is exactly what Foote wants the learning lab to instill in its participants.

“The legacy of this program is the kids who come in and are trying to find their passion and going on to do amazing things in life because of the opportunities they received here at the TGR Learning Lab,” Foote said. “We’re using golf as a driver to lift up this entire community.”

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

It's all added up to being the first team in the big leagues to 30 victories.

The Braves improved MLB's top record to 30-13 with another thrilling triumph Wednesday night, scoring three runs in the eighth inning to beat the Chicago Cubs 4-1.

Mike Yastrzemski came off the bench to contribute a pinch-hit double that drove in the tie-breaking run, and jack-of-all-trades Mauricio Dubón followed with a two-run homer into the Chicago bullpen that finished off the Cubs.

Throw in another stout performance by the Atlanta bullpen, which got one scoreless inning apiece from four relievers, and this team is threatening to run away with the NL East before the calendar turns to summer.

The Braves are up by nine games on second-place Washington and have a double-figure margin over everyone else in the division.

“There's no egos here,” said Yastrzemski, who contributed his first homer of the season the previous night in a 5-2 victory over the Cubs. “Nobody feels like they own any piece of this team. We're all pulling on the same rope together, the same direction. Whatever opportunities come for you that day, that's good enough.”

While stars such as Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin, Chris Sale and Ozzie Albies are having big years, some lesser-known players are also having a significant impact.

That includes Dubón, who was acquired from Houston over the winter for journeyman Nick Allen and has filled in wherever needed.

Dubón started the season at shortstop while Ha-Seong Kim recovered from an injury but now is largely playing the outfield, even taking the leadoff role in the lineup while former NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. is on the injured list.

The clinching homer showed how much faith the Braves and their first-year manager, Walt Weiss, have in their utility ace.

“In years past for me, I would've gotten pinch-hit right there and they wouldn't let me hit,” Dubón said. “But I ended up putting up a two-run homer. I think it's that confidence he gives you when you're playing."

Dubón is still motivated by being picked in the 26th round — the 773rd choice overall — of the 2013 draft.

“I'm trying to prove people wrong,” he said, breaking into a satisfied smile. "I've been doing that for a while now.”

Weiss, who took over when long-time manager Brian Snitker retired after a disappointing 2025 campaign, has the Braves solidly on track for a return to the postseason.

He's not looking at the big picture by any stretch, but he can't help but be satisfied at the way his managerial tenure has started.

"I'm so engrossed with the day to day," Weiss said. “You want to attack each day the best you can, and these guys are doing that. They confront every challenge that comes our way.”

Yastrzemski, like everyone else on the roster, is eager to step up whenever he's called upon.

“Some days your role is going to be a cheerleader. Keep everyone in a good mood, pull for the guys, bring somebody a water when they're thirsty," he said. "Those things, it’s real. When you see that happening with other guys, you can't help but do it yourself.”

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

The announcement was made Wednesday.

The task force, which originally launched in Houston, is a joint operation involving federal, state and local agencies focused on identifying and arresting repeat offenders accused of violent crimes.

According to the governor’s office, Abbott is now ordering DPS to expand the initiative into the Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin regions.

Officials say the Houston-area operation has already resulted in hundreds of arrests and multiple drug, weapons and stolen vehicle seizures since its launch last year.

Abbott said the goal is to disrupt what he called a “revolving door” of violent offenders and improve public safety across Texas.

The task force works alongside local police departments and federal partners as part of coordinated enforcement operations.

The expansion takes immediate effect, according to the governor’s announcement.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits for the the week ending May 9 rose by 12,000 to 211,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s slightly more than the 207,000 new applications analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet had forecast.

Weekly 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.

Despite relatively few layoffs, the labor market appears to be stuck in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state. That has kept the unemployment rate low at 4.3%, but left many of those out of work struggling to find new employment.

Though U.S. employers delivered a surprising 115,000 new jobs in April, the Iran war has injected a large degree of uncertainty about the broader U.S. economy and labor market.

The Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil travels through, remains closed. Since the beginning of the war in late February, oil prices have spiked more than 50% and the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. has climbed to $4.53 from less than $3. Besides hitting consumers’ pocketbooks, those higher costs can discourage businesses from hiring.

Data from the U.S. government this week revealed that inflation at the consumer level rose 3.8% from April 2025, the biggest jump in three years. Food prices are also up, but may not yet fully reflect rising energy costs due to the Iran war, analysts say.

Another report this week showed that wholesale prices shot up 6% from a year ago, the highest point in more than three years. The Labor Department’s producer price index — which tracks inflation before it hits consumers — shot up 1.4% from March to April, the biggest monthly gain in more than four years.

This comes at a time when U.S. inflation is already above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal. Two weeks ago, the Fed opted to leave its benchmark rate alone, citing economic uncertainty caused by instability in the Middle East and still-elevated inflation.

Lower interest rates can boost the economy and hiring, but also tend to stoke inflation, leading a number of Federal Reserve policymakers to say they are willing to consider an interest rate hike this year.

On top of that, the recent artificial intelligence boom and the investment required to develop it could alter or even replace some jobs.

A number of high-profile companies have cut jobs recently, including Verizon, UPS, Amazon, Disney and Walmart.

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 Labor Department's report Thursday showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week gyrations, inched up by 750 to 203,750.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending May 2 jumped by 24,000 to 1.78 million, in line with analyst forecasts.

Houston police say the shooting happened near the 9600 block of Tidwell.

Investigators say officers were originally called to the area for reports of a suspicious person inside a newer housing development where residents have reportedly dealt with ongoing trespassing problems for weeks.

According to police, the man who was later shot was homeless and had repeatedly been seen walking through backyards and entering homes that were still under construction.

Investigators say several homeowners had previously reported the man.

Police say the homeowner involved in Wednesday’s shooting spotted the man in his backyard earlier in the day. Another witness also reportedly saw the man near their property.

According to investigators, the homeowner confronted the man outside a vacant home and attempted to get him to leave the neighborhood.

Police say the man initially left the area but later returned through a wooded section near Tidwell that leads into the subdivision.

That’s where investigators say the confrontation turned physical.

According to police, the homeowner told officers the man attacked him during the encounter. The homeowner then pulled out a pistol and fired at the man.

Investigators say the man ran off after being shot.

The homeowner later went looking for him because he was unsure whether he had actually hit him.

When officers arrived on the scene, they searched the area and found the man dead inside a ditch near a playground.

The deceased man has only been described as a man in his 30s.

Police say the homeowner has been cooperative with investigators. No charges have been announced as the investigation remains ongoing.

Let’s jump straight into the news of the morning.

The heat is back, and it looks like it’s here to stay, well, at least for the rest of the week. For the first time in six weeks, we will have a rain-free weekend. Yaaay! This is good news, so I hope you grab the swimsuit and BBQ pits and make the best of it.

But, something to keep note of, air quality. Today, we’re tracking an air quality alert for the Houston, Galveston, and Brazoria areas.High pressure aloft and plenty of sunshine is creating an air quality issue for most of metro Houston today, and likely for the remainder of the week.

To read more, click here.

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YOUR MORNING FORECAST ☀️

TODAY: 90° TONIGHT: 69°

KPRC 2 Meteorologist says:

“This morning you will be waking up in the upper 60s, but then the heat will continue to build fast, and by the afternoon, highs will reach the low 90s. The heat will start to feel different as a stronger pull off the Gulf for the remainder of the week, so expect to see temps moving back up to near 90.”

Get your forecast details here.

TOP STORIES

What is Saharan Dust? How it travels to Texas and impacts hurricanes, air quality, sunsets and the whales

Saharan dust is something we talk about almost every summer in the Houston forecast, but it’s often misunderstood. Each year, plumes of dust from the Sahara Desert travel thousands of miles across the Atlantic and sometimes reach the Gulf Coast. While it can create hazy skies and lower air quality, Saharan dust also plays a surprising role in our weather, from hurricane activity to vibrant sunsets and even ocean ecosystems. Let’s break down how it works.

Husband, wife stabbed multiple times by woman outside SE Houston apartment complex

Two people were stabbed, and several others narrowly escaped after a woman allegedly went on a violent rampage Wednesday night at an apartment complex in southeast Houston, according to police.

Houston police say the incident happened around 9 p.m. in the 8600 block of Broadway.

Investigators say the suspect, a 40-year-old woman, first caused a disturbance at a convenience store near the apartment complex. Police say she pulled out a knife and began chasing a man. He was able to get away unharmed.

Homeless man shot, killed by homeowner after trespassing in NE Houston neighborhood

A homeless man is dead after a homeowner shot him during a confrontation in a northeast Houston neighborhood Wednesday, according to police.

Houston police say the shooting happened near the 9600 block of Tidwell.

ARE YOU A KPRC 2 INSIDER? HERE’S SOME EXCLUSIVES

Children’s Museum Houston and Houston Life present a first look inside the ‘Gallery of Wonder’ on KPRC 2

CLICK2PINS: SHOW US WHAT YA GOT 📷

See a news story in your neighborhood? Capture a great weather moment? Just want to share a photo of your pet? Send your photos and videos to Click2Pins, and you may see them on air and online!

High pressure aloft and plenty of sunshine is creating an air quality issue for most of metro Houston today, and likely for the remainder of the week.

Heating Up:

Thursday morning waking up in the upper 60s, the heat continue to build fast. By the afternoon highs reach the low 90s.

The heat will start to feel different as a stronger pull off of the Gulf for the remainder of the week, so expect to see temps moving back up to near 90.

Your 10 Day Forecast:

Next week high pressure gets shoved out as multiple disturbances move through. This will increase rain chances next week.

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

Let’s jump straight into the news of the morning.

A lot is going on this morning. Our biggest story is the Klein ISD coach who is being investigated for an alleged inappropriate relationship with a Tomball High School student. Although the incident seemed to have happened years ago, the investigation is still ongoing.

On Tuesday, our reporter, Bryce Newberry, learned that Nick Codutti, who currently serves as the head football coach at Klein High School, was asked to step away from the campus as the investigation continues.

According to HCSO, the female student attended Tomball High School from 2016 to 2020 and reported the alleged relationship earlier this month.

Law enforcement officials said the investigation remains in its early stages and that no charges have been filed at this time.

To read more, click here.

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YOUR MORNING FORECAST ☀️

TODAY: 89° TONIGHT: 67°

KPRC 2 Meteorologist says:

“It’s going to be a nice and sunny day today, with temperatures nearly reaching the 90s.”

Get your forecast details here.

TOP STORIES

Woman found dead inside Harris County apartment after family reports not being able to reach her for several days

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office says a woman was found dead inside an apartment in the northern part of the county after her family reported to apartment management that they hadn’t been able to make contact with her for several days.

Man found shot to death inside vehicle near Katy; investigators say 2 men drove victim to house after shooting

Deputies with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office says a man, believed to be in his mid-20s, died after being shot and then driven to a home in the Katy-area Tuesday.

It happened in the 500 block of Everington Drive, near Kingsland Blvd. and the Grand Parkway.

Corpus Christi moves toward mandatory 25% cut in water use if emergency is declared

Corpus Christi residents and businesses — including one of the nation’s largest petrochemical corridors — may be required to cut water use by 25% during a water emergency that city leaders expect to hit by September unless a devastating drought eases.

The City Council voted 7-2 Tuesday to give initial approval to a water curtailment plan that would set water limits for different customers, ranging from residents and local businesses to large oil companies. The council is expected to take a final vote adopting the curtailment plan on May 19.

ARE YOU A KPRC 2 INSIDER? HERE’S SOME EXCLUSIVES

Children’s Museum Houston and Houston Life present a first look inside the ‘Gallery of Wonder’ on KPRC 2

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In a lawsuit filed in Harris County district court, Heady Brewing Company, LLC, doing business as 8th Wonder Brewery, alleges Macey Family Properties, Ltd. is attempting to terminate the brewery’s lease in EaDo and reclaim control of land surrounding the brewery near downtown Houston.

The brewery argues the timing is tied to the economic potential surrounding FIFA-related events expected in Houston next year.

What is the dispute about?

According to the lawsuit, 8th Wonder has leased and operated on the property at 2200 Polk St. for years, including outdoor event space and parking areas around the brewery.

The company claims it continuously paid rent, did not violate the lease and legally controls the disputed property through at least August 2027, according to the lawsuit.

8th Wonder Brewery Lawsuit by Gage Goulding

Court documents show the dispute centers on “Block 464,” an area totaling roughly 47,500 square feet.

8th Wonder alleges the landlord began issuing notices of alleged lease violations in early 2026 as Houston prepared for the World Cup, which is expected to bring large crowds, events and increased parking demand near downtown entertainment districts.

Why does the FIFA World Cup matter?

The brewery argues the property’s value increased dramatically because of Houston’s role as a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

According to the lawsuit, the location near downtown could become highly profitable during the tournament because of fan activity, concerts and special events, increased foot traffic and parking demand.

8th Wonder claims the landlord is attempting to regain control of the property ahead of those events because of its growing value.

What lease violations does the landlord claim occurred?

According to the lawsuit, Macey Family Properties accused the brewery of multiple lease violations over time, including:

• unauthorized assignment
• transfer of control
• improper subleasing
• use of allegedly “Non-Leased Areas”
• unpaid late fees

One notice referenced in the lawsuit allegedly accused the brewery of occupying approximately 10,000 square feet outside the leased premises and threatened eviction from that area.

8th Wonder disputes those claims and argues the contested property has long been included within the lease boundaries and openly used for years without objection.

What is 8th Wonder asking the court to do?

The brewery is seeking declaratory relief, damages and court orders preventing eviction or interference with its operations.

Specifically, the company wants the court to declare:

• the lease remains valid
• no default occurred
• the landlord cannot terminate the lease
• the disputed property is part of the leased premises
• 8th Wonder retains the right to operate on the property

What has the judge ruled so far?

A Harris County judge granted a temporary restraining order in favor of 8th Wonder.

In the order, the court found 8th Wonder demonstrated “a probable right to relief” and stated the lease “remains in effect and was not terminated.”

The judge also found there was evidence that:

• “No default has occurred under the Lease”
• Macey “does not have the right or ability to terminate the Lease”
• 8th Wonder is entitled to possession of Block 464 

The restraining order temporarily blocks Macey Family Properties from attempting to evict 8th Wonder and interfering with brewery operations on the property.

The ruling does not mean 8th Wonder has won the case. The order simply preserves the status quo while the lawsuit moves forward.

What role does the property ownership transfer play?

Court exhibits include records showing the property transferred to Macey Family Properties in 2022.

8th Wonder argues the new ownership inherited the existing lease obligations and cannot terminate the agreement simply because the property became more valuable.

Houston is one of the host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with large-scale fan events, tourism and downtown activity expected throughout the tournament.

KPRC 2 has reached out to representatives for 8th Wonder Brewery and Macey Family Properties for comment.

The CEO of the brewery, Ryan Soroka, spoke with KPRC 2’s Gage Goulding on the phone, but declined to comment. A representative of Macey Family Properties also declined to speak when asked at their Houston office.

The storms also injured more than 50 people as they swept across several districts late Wednesday in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.

Officials said some deaths were caused by falling trees, collapsing structures and lightning. Police and disaster response teams used chainsaws and cranes to clear fallen trees from roads and railway tracks in several districts.

Storms are common in northern India during the hot season from March to June, before the annual monsoon rains arrive.

Narendra N. Srivastava, an administrative official, said emergency teams were deployed across the affected areas and that homes, crops and power infrastructure were widely damaged, particularly in rural districts.

In Prayagraj district, residents described panic as strong winds tore through neighborhoods.

“The storm came suddenly and the sky turned completely dark within minutes,” Ram Kishore said. “Tin roofs were flying and people ran indoors. We could hear trees falling throughout the evening.”

In neighboring Bhadohi district, Savitri Devi said her family narrowly escaped after strong winds damaged their mud house.

“We rushed outside when the walls started shaking because of the wind. Our roof collapsed moments later. We spent the night at a relative’s house," she said.

Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered officials to complete relief operations within 24 hours and directed authorities to provide compensation and emergency aid to affected families.

Celina, a city about an hour north from downtown Dallas, was the fastest growing city in the country last year, according to census data released Thursday. The city grew by 24.6%, adding more than 12,710 residents between July 2024 and July 2025.

Eight of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. are in Texas — primarily suburbs in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, the state’s largest urban area. Meanwhile, some of the state’s biggest cities like Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth are still adding tens of thousands of residents — despite a slowdown in international migration to the United States and lower birth rates.

Other places in Texas are struggling, including some of its biggest cities. Out of the state’s 15 largest cities, six lost residents: Dallas, El Paso, Arlington, Plano, Irving and Garland.

Texas remains a high-growth state, and the economy is still growing. But the Trump administration’s immigration slowdown has played a significant role in slowing that growth. As a border community, El Paso’s population decline likely stems from that slowdown, said Lloyd Potter, the state demographer. International migration to El Paso County slowed significantly in 2025 as thousands of residents moved out.

Other factors are weighing on the state’s population growth. Fewer Texans are being born as the number of deaths is rising, Potter said. It’s likely that economic uncertainty has made people less eager to move, he said. When they do, they move to places seen as more affordable and with better job opportunities than where they currently live, Potter said.

“Texas is still growing more than any other state,” Potter said. “I don’t really think that we’re going to all of a sudden make a turnaround and Texas is going to start losing population or [that growth] is going to slow really dramatically.”

Celina is among a set of Dallas’ outer-ring suburbs that have boomed since the start of the decade, more than doubling their population over the past five years. Celina has almost quadrupled in size since 2020, adding more than 46,000 residents. Among U.S. cities with more than 20,000 residents, Celina ranked fourth-highest in terms of raw numerical growth.

Celina Mayor Ryan Tubbs, 36, and his wife moved to Celina from Allen in 2017, seeking a quieter, family-oriented neighborhood with good schools and a slower pace, Tubbs told The Texas Tribune. Since then, it’s drawn young families in search of the same thing, as well as a perception of strong public safety and proximity to major suburban job centers in Frisco and McKinney. The typical home value in Celina is north of $500,000, according to the latest Zillow data, but that’s cheaper than Frisco and McKinney, Tubbs noted.

“It attracts a lot of like-minded young families that want to be in new communities,” Tubbs said.

Tubbs wants Celina to be more than a bedroom community, though: he said Celina aims to enter the highly competitive arms race among Dallas suburbs for major employers.

Celina’s not alone. Among the 15 fastest growing cities last year, six were in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs: Celina, Princeton, Melissa, Anna, Forney and Greenville.

Fulshear and Hutto — about 45 minutes from downtown Houston and Austin, respectively — also were among the country’s fastest growing cities.

While Dallas’ farflung suburbs are booming, the region’s core cities aren’t faring as well. Dallas remains the country’s ninth largest city and the state’s third largest. But the city lost more than 1,800 residents in 2025 after mostly gaining them this decade. Four other big cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth region — Irving, Garland, Carrollton and Arlington — lost more than 1,000 residents.

The fast-growing suburbs tend to have relatively more affordable housing options than the core cities and greater proximity to newer schools, parks and trails and modern commercial areas, said Cullum Clark, director of the George W. Bush Institute’s Economic Growth Initiative at Southern Methodist University. A perception of better public safety in the suburbs also makes them attractive, he said. Meanwhile, more established places like Dallas, Arlington, Plano and Irving aren’t adding homes or redeveloping as quickly — if at all.

“The newness is the attraction,” Clark said.

It’s not all doom and gloom in the urban core. Fort Worth, which surpassed 1 million residents in 2024, became the nation’s 10th largest city in 2025, surpassing Jacksonville, Fla. Cowtown also saw the greatest numeric population increase in the state — 19,512. It was second overall in the nation, behind Charlotte, N.C., which added 20,731 people.

San Antonio added the third-highest numerical growth in the country with 14,359 new residents.

Houston and Fulshear each added about 11,000 residents while McKinney added about 8,500.

Meanwhile, Austin passed 1 million residents — surpassing San Jose, Calif.

Some 65 cities added at least 1,000 residents between 2024 and 2025, most of them in the Texas Triangle — a term used to describe the area that includes the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Austin regions.

Disclosure: George W. Bush Institute and Southern Methodist University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

At the heart of this message is Talarico’s avowed support for curbing the political influence of billionaire donors. He has sworn off corporate PAC donations, proposed measures to crack down on “billionaire tax loopholes” to ensure they “pay their fair share,” and advocated for outlawing super PACs.

But the cast of contributors bankrolling Lone Star Rising PAC, a super PAC in his corner, features several billionaires, many of whom are prolific Democratic donors, and dark money nonprofit groups that do not have to disclose their funders.

While donors are capped at giving $3,500 per election to individual candidates, no such contribution limits exist for super PACs, which can spend unlimited funds supporting or opposing candidates, including through advertising, voter mobilization efforts and polling, as long as they don’t coordinate with a candidate’s campaign.

Lone Star Rising raised just under $9 million from its inception in September through the end of March, and spent almost all of it on ads supporting Talarico and attacking U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, his primary foe. The group’s treasurer is Alexander Clark, who overlapped with Talarico when both taught in public schools in San Antonio through Teach for America.

Super PACs like Lone Star Rising have been key players in Texas’ Senate race — U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and his Republican primary runoff opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, both have such groups supporting them, as did Crockett. At the same time, dark money has surged in federal races, with Cornyn in particular benefiting from tens of millions in ad spending from a constellation of super PACs and nonprofit groups.

Both issues are thornier for Democrats, some of whom, like Talarico, have made getting big money out of politics central to their platforms. Ahead of the March primary, Crockett called him “a man that seemingly doesn’t practice what he preaches,” saying he had “welcomed and embraced these billionaires and their dark money support.”

Talarico’s campaign argues that 97% of contributions to his campaign account — which has raised over $40 million since he launched his campaign last fall — have come from small-dollar donors.

“The only way to stop super PACs like these is to vote out politicians like John Cornyn and Ken Paxton who want corporations and billionaires to decide our elections, not Texans,” Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement.

When previously asked about the support he receives from billionaire donors and super PACs, Talarico has said he will not “unilaterally disarm while Republicans play by their own rules,” and that he welcomes billionaire supporters who believe they should be taxed more and see their political influence limited.

Garry Jones, the director of Lone Star Rising PAC, said the group was “explicit” to donors that it supports much the same goals.

“Unfortunately we live in a political system in which, if you don’t use all the rules to your advantage, you’re left behind, and by being left behind, your ideas and principles and policy goals are left behind,” Jones, a longtime Democratic operative, said. “You can’t approach the current political climate with your hands tied behind your back.”

Here’s a look at the donors backing the pro-Talarico Lone Star Rising PAC.

Reid Hoffman

Amount donated to LSR: $1.5 million

Hoffman is the cofounder of LinkedIn and a billionaire venture capitalist, AI investor and Democratic megadonor. Since 2016, Hoffman has given roughly $77 million to numerous Democratic groups and campaigns in contributions reported to the FEC, including $10.3 million to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ main super PAC, Future Forward PAC.

This cycle, Hoffman’s largest collective contribution so far has gone to Lone Star Rising PAC. He has also donated to other Democratic U.S. Senate candidates, including former Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina, former Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia.

Hoffman recently drew scrutiny for his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — the sex abuser and financier who died in jail in 2019 — upon the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files. The documents show Hoffman was communicating and meeting with Epstein well after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 for soliciting a minor for prostitution and was registered as a sex offender. Hoffman visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island in 2014, gifted him a statue and offered to help with publicity after Epstein was accused of sex trafficking in 2014.

Crockett nodded at the connection in the leadup to the March election, saying, “If one of the individuals who donated publicly is someone in the Epstein files, imagine who else has given anonymously” — a reference to Lone Star Rising’s dark money support.

Talarico has advocated for the full release of the Epstein files and justice for the victims of Epstein’s circle. Most Republicans in Congress, including Cornyn, opposed releasing the files last fall before reversing and approving their disclosure.

Hoffman said on social media that he went to Epstein’s island to help fundraise for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said the FBI under the Trump administration found no indication of wrongdoing, adding, “I regret ever interacting with Epstein.”

The Bench

Amount donated to LSR: $500,000

The Bench is an organization that launched in January to develop the “next generation of Democratic leaders” — specifically, up and coming candidates with unusual political profiles that, in the eyes of the group’s leaders, reflect the states and districts they aim to represent. Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist who worked on Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, serves as a senior adviser to The Bench. Andrew Mamo, a consultant for Talarico’s campaign, is a spokesperson for the group.

“Our candidates are community-rooted, values-driven, and ready to connect with voters across party lines,” the group’s website states .

This cycle, The Bench has also endorsed Tejano music star Bobby Pulido in Texas’ 15th Congressional District and sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia in the 35th Congressional District. Its roster of Senate candidates also includes former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola in Alaska and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow in Michigan.

In the first three months of this year, The Bench received major donations including $2 million from billionaire hedge fund manager and Democratic donor Stephen Mandel; $500,000 from Better World Civic Trust ; $395,000 from billionaire Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings; and $250,000 from billionaire crypto CEO and investor Michael Novogratz.

Adam Pritzker

Amount donated to LSR: $180,000

Adam Pritzker is a scion of the billionaire family that derives much of its wealth from the Hyatt hotel empire. He is a cousin of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and a prolific Democratic donor , giving $926,000 to Kamala Harris’ campaign in 2024.

Pritzker is a major supporter of state level Democrats around the country, contributing to state Democratic parties and cofounding and serving as president of PAC for America’s Future , formerly known as Future Now Fund. The group’s purpose, according to IRS filings, is to “elect the next generation of American leaders with a focus on state legislatures.” PAC for America’s Future helps fund the States Project , a group Pritzker cofounded that focuses on winning and defending blue majorities in state legislatures.

PAC for America’s Future also maintains a Texas committee, which in 2024 received $2 million from investor Jonathan Soros, the son of billionaire financier and Democratic megadonor George Soros.

Dark money groups

Government That Works PAC

Amount donated to LSR: $3.75 million

Government That Works PAC is by far the biggest donor to Lone Star Rising PAC, but that money largely came from undisclosed sources. The group, according to its donation page , was “established to defeat ineffective and extreme incumbent candidates.”

The group received $4 million from Sixteen Thirty Fund in January, around the time it gave $3.75 million to the pro-Talarico super PAC. Sixteen Thirty Fund is a top Democratic dark money hub that does not have to report its donors. It has previously been associated with Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss and Democratic megadonor George Soros.

Government That Works PAC previously received $2.9 million from Contours Inc. , which was recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit in October 2025, meaning it does not have to disclose its donors. Contours Inc., according to its website, “educates voters and advocates for changes that give greater voice and choice to voters from coast to coast.”

Government That Works PAC also received $300,000 from America Votes and $250,000 from Global Impact Social Welfare Fund — both of which are also dark money groups.

Lone Star Forward Fund Inc.

Amount donated to LSR: $250,000

Lone Star Forward Fund Inc., according to its website , is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. The group calls itself a “Texas policy advocacy organization dedicated to educating, engaging and mobilizing communities in support of progressive policies.”

Finance

Stephen Mandel

Amount donated to LSR: $500,000

Mandel is a Connecticut billionaire hedge fund manager and major Democratic donor. He sits on the board of directors for Teach for America — through which Talarico taught middle school in San Antonio for two years — and is a supporter of charter schools . Mandel previously sat on the board of trustees of the Environmental Defense Fund. He established the Zoom Foundation in 2001, a nonprofit that funds environmental, education and democracy-based causes.

Mark Jacobsen

Amount donated to LSR: $100,000

Jacobsen is the Maryland-based cofounder and CEO of the financial services firm IntraFi . He previously served as the chief of staff at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. He has contributed to a number of Democrats running for Congress.

Mark Heising

Amount donated to LSR: $100,000

Heising is the founder of Medley Partners , a San Francisco-based private investment firm. A major Democratic donor , Heising holds six U.S. patents in cryptography, compression and data communications.

Heising serves as chair of the Environmental Defense Fund and as a board member of the Heising-Simons Foundation , which works to “advance sustainable solutions in climate and clean energy, enable groundbreaking research in science, enhance the education of our youngest learners, and support human rights for all people,” according to its website.

Heising and his wife, Liz Simons, pledged to commit most of their wealth to philanthropy in 2016. According to their pledge letter, Heising worked as a chip designer before entering finance.

David Gochman

Amount donated to LSR: $100,000

Gochman is the president and founder of Inclenberg Investments , a private investment firm focused on real estate with offices in Florida and Texas. Gochman previously led Academy Sports & Outdoors, a sporting goods company his grandfather founded in San Antonio in 1938. Based in Florida, he has contributed to numerous Democratic campaigns, groups and state parties in recent election cycles.

Philanthropists/Democratic donors

Lisa Primus

Amount donated to LSR: $500,000

Primus is a New York physician, philanthropist and active Democratic donor who has given $7.7 million largely to Democratic groups and candidates over the years. She funds the Livelihood Impact Fund , which “invests funding and expertise into data driven early stage organizations that strive to meaningfully and durably improve the lives of the global poor,” and served on the boards of the Center for Voter Information, the League of Conservation Voters and the Pipeline Initiative, which recruits and supports progressive political candidates.

Simone Coxe

Amount donated to LSR: $500,000

Coxe is an Austin philanthropist married to Tench Coxe, a billionaire venture capitalist and longtime board member of Nvidia. Simone Coxe cofounded a public relations firm for the tech industry, and she was the cofounder of CalMatters, a nonprofit news site covering California politics and policy. The couple donated $100 million to the University of Texas at Austin’s academic medical center this year. They are part owners of Austin FC.

Don Henley

Amount donated to LSR: $150,000

Henley is a Grammy award-winning musician and founding member of The Eagles, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. He is an East Texas native who has supported numerous Democratic groups and candidates this cycle. Henley founded the Walden Woods Project in 1990, which “preserves the land, literature and legacy of Henry David Thoreau to foster an ethic of environmental stewardship and social responsibility,” and the Caddo Lake Institute in East Texas, which focuses on protecting the wetlands area that straddles the Texas-Louisiana border.

Susan Sarofim

Amount donated to LSR: $100,000

Sarofim is a Houston businesswoman, philanthropist and widow of billionaire investment manager Fayez Sarofim. She founded a temp agency in 1989, owns New Orleans Auction Galleries, and cofounded To Educate All Children, a nonprofit that offers class management programming to Houston and Aldine Independent School District educators.

Disclosure: Environmental Defense Fund and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

That financial disparity has persisted in the runoff after neither Cornyn nor Paxton broke 50% of the vote in round one. Through Wednesday, pro-Cornyn forces had outspent the Paxton side more than four to one, according to media tracking firm AdImpact, allowing the incumbent senator’s allies to dominate the airwaves with ads attacking Paxton, a warrior of the far right, as incompetent, corrupt and adulterous.

Lackluster fundraising on Paxton’s side, meanwhile, has handicapped his ability to counter that messaging on TV, though he has ramped up his airtime in the week ahead of early voting, which begins Monday. Paxton’s spots in the runoff have tagged Cornyn as a generational relic, weak on red-meat issues and an ally to Democrats.

The spending gap, while still large, has narrowed since the first round, when pro-Cornyn groups — including Senate Republican leadership, which has been quieter on the airwaves in the runoff — spent $69 million, roughly 17 times as much as Paxton and his allies. Some of that paid for attack ads against U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston, who placed a distant third in the March 3 primary after coming under fire from both sides.

“We were never going to be at dollar-for-dollar parity against the Washington, D.C. establishment and someone like John Cornyn, who’s got so many industries and corporations in his back pocket,” said Gregg Keller, a spokesperson for the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC. “But the fact that we’ve been able to close the gap by such a huge margin — I think you’re going to see the results of that on election night.”

Even with the lopsided spending, Paxton has shown no signs of receding, according to a mix of limited public surveys and ample internal polling from both sides, which, taken together, point to a close finish. Pollsters have also captured a mostly calcified electorate, with one recent survey finding that just 7% of voters were undecided and more than 90% planned to stick with their pick from round one.

Ad spending does not go as far in runoff elections, which tend to draw the most motivated and engaged voters, said John Thomas, a Dallas-based Republican strategist who is not involved in the race.

Voters in the overtime round “probably have strong opinions to care that much to go turn out, meaning paid advertising has less of an effect on them,” Thomas said, adding that it’s particularly hard to move the needle when both candidates are as well known as Cornyn and Paxton.

The messaging has taken an almost entirely negative turn, an especially pronounced shift for Cornyn’s side after his allied groups focused more on promoting his MAGA bona fides ahead of March 3. The pivot, Thomas said, indicates that “the campaigns have determined they can’t move their own numbers, but perhaps they can disqualify the other.”

“Senator Cornyn has said that character is on the ballot in this runoff and we are educating Texas GOP voters about Ken Paxton’s mismanagement of his office, his personal enrichment, his indefensible behavior and his disqualifying judgment in child sex abuse cases,” Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said in a statement. “Ken Paxton has no one to blame but himself.”

The specter of November

The continued drain on GOP coffers is exactly what some Republicans saw hope of avoiding just after the March 3 election, when President Donald Trump teased an endorsement that early reports said would go to Cornyn. Trump appeared to be motivated by that very concern, saying he’d expect the candidate who he didn’t endorse to drop out for “the good of the Party,” adding, “We must win in November!!!”

But instead of dealing what could have been a mortal wound to either candidate’s campaign, Trump has stayed on the sidelines. He told reporters last week he would make a decision about an endorsement “maybe relatively soon,” adding, “I like them both.”

That has left the two GOP heavyweights to duke it out on their own in a brutal contest that has delighted Texas Democrats, who are hoping to win statewide for the first time since 1994 by capitalizing on Republican infighting and the favorable political climate generated by Trump’s slumping approval rating.

Paxton’s weaker fundraising is another factor adding to Democrats’ tentative optimism as they head into the fall with a fundraising juggernaut in James Talarico, the Austin state lawmaker who locked up the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in March.

After seeing his fundraising taper off in each successive quarter of 2025, Paxton brought in his largest haul yet over the first three months of the year — $2.2 million across his main campaign account and a joint fundraising committee. Meanwhile, Cornyn raised about $9 million between the accounts affiliated with his campaign, and Talarico took in a record-breaking $27 million.

Cornyn and his allies have argued throughout the primary that Paxton, if chosen to lead the ticket, would alienate swing voters and sink down-ballot Republicans in November. The main pro-Cornyn super PAC, Texans for a Conservative Majority, made that case even more explicitly this month when it rolled out data showing a down-ballot wipeout with Paxton as the nominee.

“The strategy speaks for itself: Ken Paxton is a bad guy, an attorney general who broke the law, who has serious personal issues and flaws that I think most Texans find repulsive,” said Aaron Whitehead, executive director of Texans for a Conservative Majority. “The issues that we’re talking about — Republican runoff voters by and large agree with.”

Scorched earth down the homestretch

Paxton’s side, meanwhile, has released internal polling that puts the attorney general up 11 percentage points over Cornyn. A survey fielded a few weeks ago by the University of Houston found Paxton ahead by three points.

Early in the runoff, Lone Star Liberty, the pro-Paxton super PAC, spent almost $10,000 on airtime in West Palm Beach, where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is located, for an ad aimed at an audience of one.

“John Cornyn betrayed President Trump, and he doesn’t deserve our trust,” the ad says after running through Cornyn’s past praise for prosecutors and lawyers who investigated Trump.

Other pro-Paxton spots have hit Cornyn on his past criticism of Trump’s southern border wall; the senator’s work on a bipartisan gun safety bill after the Uvalde school massacre; and his lengthy tenure in public office, seizing on a broader anti-incumbent mood prevalent among voters of all political stripes.

“After 42 years in office, can you name a single thing career politician John Cornyn has done for you?” one ad run by the Paxton campaign asks while depicting Cornyn next to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders. “Not one, unless you’re a Democrat. Trump’s right: Cornyn is ‘weak, ineffective and very bad for the Republican Party.’”

Paxton’s most recent ad, first aired Wednesday, dubs the senior senator “Caliphate Cornyn,” casting him as weak on combating immigration and Sharia law — a recent fixation of the right, which has embraced anti-Muslim and anti-Indian rhetoric under the banner of fighting “radical Islam” and curtailing H-1B visas.

Cornyn, meanwhile, has offered the sole positive ad of the runoff, touting his efforts to strengthen border security and his endorsements from law enforcement groups, including the National Border Patrol Council.

Other spots, pushed by allied groups, portray Paxton as an adulterer “distracted” on the job as attorney general. One ad, run by Texans for a Conservative Majority, accuses Paxton of funneling public grant dollars to left-wing boogeymen, including “trans activists who fund gender transition surgery recovery” and “groups that fight [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], teaching illegals how to avoid being deported.”

More recently, pro-Cornyn ads have homed in on how Paxton’s office has handled specific child sex abuse cases.

“Arrested for trafficking young girls — sold, abused — facing life in prison, but Ken Paxton cut him a deal: no prison, no sex offender registry, no justice for the victims,” says the narrator in an ad that Texans for a Conservative Majority spent $4.5 million to run all over the state for the past two weeks.

Cornyn Lonestar Victory Fund, one of the senator’s joint fundraising committees, booked $2.1 million in airtime for another ad featuring mugshots of alleged child sex offenders as a narrator warns that, “while predators hunted children, Paxton hunted for burner phones to hide his affairs.”

“Texas law enforcement knows Ken Paxton,” the ad says. “That’s why Texas law enforcement has endorsed John Cornyn.”

Disclosure: University of Houston has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Sen. Ronald dela Rosa ’s exit from the heavily guarded Senate came after volleys of gunshots were fired Wednesday night by the building's security personnel during an argument with a government agent, sparking chaos that apparently helped the senator to slip out.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made a late-night TV statement to ask the public to remain calm. A police investigation was underway, including into suspicions that the incident was instigated to provide dela Rosa a cover to escape.

“There is no obstruction of justice,” Senate President Alan Cayetano said of dela Rosa’s escape while in the Senate’s protective custody.

He told a news briefing that he did not see any ICC warrant of arrest against dela Rosa and the senator was free to leave the premises.

Critics, however, said Cayetano and the Senate's security chief should be held responsible for dela Rosa's escape.

Dela Rosa, 64, served as the former national police chief of Rodrigo Duterte, who was president from 2016 to 2022. Duterte was arrested in March last year on a ICC warrant for alleged crimes against humanity in connection with deadly anti-drugs crackdowns he launched and for which he is now facing a trial in The Hague.

A warrant unsealed Monday by the ICC charges dela Rosa with the crime against humanity of murder of “no less than 32 persons” between July 2016 and the end of April 2018, when he led the national police force under Duterte and enforced his bloody crackdowns.

Dela Rosa and Duterte have separately denied authorizing extrajudicial killings although the former president has openly threatened drug suspects with death while he was in office.

Dela Rosa’s legal predicament came as political disputes escalated between the Duterte family and Marcos. Vice President Sara Duterte, the former president’s daughter, has blamed Marcos for what she said was the “kidnapping” of her father and handover to a foreign court.

The disputes reflect the deep divisions that have long plagued the rambunctious Asian democracy.

On Monday, Sara Duterte was impeached by the House of Representatives, which is dominated by Marcos’ allies, over alleged unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and a public threat to have Marcos, his wife and the House speaker assassinated if she herself was killed in their intensifying conflict.

She has denied any wrongdoing but has refused to answer specific allegations in detail.

The Senate will convene into an impeachment court on Monday at the earliest to prepare for the trial of the vice president, Cayetano said.

Cayetano, a key ally of Rodrigo Duterte, wrested the presidency of the Senate Monday after he got the support of 13 of 24 senators. He gained the majority after dela Rosa, who has been absent for months due to fears of his possible arrest, suddenly showed up in the Senate Monday, arriving in Cayetano’s car.

National Bureau of Investigation agents tried to serve the ICC arrest warrant, but dela Rosa darted toward a narrow stairway into the Senate plenary hall and sought the help of allied senators, who took him into protective custody.

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Associated Press journalist Joeal Calupitan contributed to this report.

The net tally of seats gained and lost was essentially a wash.

“F— around and find out,” said Jeffries after the election victory.

But in a matter of days, the race for control of the House — and the speaker’s gavel — was dramatically reset by back-to-back court rulings that wiped out the Democratic gains in Virginia and now threaten to erode Black representation by Democrats in the Deep South.

The shifting political prospects have been a wake-up call for Democrats, who have been favored to win back the House this November, riding the wave of President Donald Trump’s dipping approval ratings, and a test for Jeffries as the party faces an enlarging map of Republican-friendly seats.

The leader's aligned outside group has spent some $60 million, much of it on Virginia alone, a hit to the Democrats' resources as they confront Trump's Republicans.

“It sort of crystallizes the election is now a contest between one side that has the money and the maps, and the other that has the voters and the candidates,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist and former deputy director of the House Democrats' campaign arm.

Jeffries would make history as the first Black speaker of the House

Jeffries, who is in line to make history as America’s first Black speaker of the House, acknowledged the Democrats may need to flip twice as many Republican seats — a total gain of six rather than just three — to win the majority in the aftermath of the redistricting fights.

But he insisted that Democrats were on track to pick up seats, as they did in 2018 during Trump's first term, because Republicans are relying on redistricting — rather than policy solutions — to win elections.

Trump Republicans “don't give a damn” about Americans' financial struggles, Jeffries said, paraphrasing the president's own remarks.

During a closed-door meeting on Wednesday with House Democrats, Jeffries described the work ahead in almost existential terms for the country.

He said the court rulings against the Voting Rights Act and the Virginia measure were “disgusting.” And he warned his colleagues that Republicans would proceed with “diabolical intensity” in their campaigns to regain control of the House, which Democrats will not only have to match but “we have to exceed it with righteous intensity at all times.”

“Failure is not an option,” he told the Democrats, according to a person in the room granted anonymity to disclose the private remarks. “We have to win, and we are going to win.”

Path to power depends on a handful of House seats

Never easy, the race to the House majority was also not expected to be this complicated. Republicans hold a slim majority, among the most narrow in modern House history, and midterm elections tend to favor the party out of power, as a check on the White House.

But when Trump said last summer that Republicans were “entitled” to five more GOP seats from Texas, it sparked a redistricting crusade that led Jeffries to respond in kind.

Rather than take what they call the high road, Democrats said they decided to fight back, believing they could not fully count on the nation’s institutions — in this case, the courts — to provide a check on the GOP power play.

Jeffries flew to Austin to join the Texas Democrats fighting the redistricting plan in their state and stood with those same lawmakers in Chicago where they fled to deny statehouse Republicans a quorum. He joined the private meetings of California Democrats as they launched their counter attack, a voter initiative that put five more seats in the Democratic column. The Democrats picked up a seat in Utah.

And on it went.

“We had to very quickly make a decision, set a course and take a risk,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., recalling the closed-door talks last summer. “There was no guarantee this was going to work out.”

The Virginia measure became a turning point, Jeffries' biggest swing yet, putting Democrats essentially at parity, if not a potential upper hand in the number of seats gained, and shifting Old Dominion more securely into the party’s column.

He rallied some 1,000 churchgoers in Richmond ahead of Election Day as voters headed to the polls.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday called the Democratic play for Virginia a “crazy overreach” that was rightly rejected by the state’s high court.

“Fortunately, the plan failed spectacularly,” Johnson said.

Redistricting battles push into 2028

While Democrats said they expected the Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act, the Virginia Supreme Court's decision to toss last month's election results blindsided many of them.

Jeffries joined a call with furious Virginia Democrats over the weekend who said they were more determined than ever to win the Republican seats outright, regardless of their loss over the map changes.

The overall tally after nearly a year of redistricting battles is still shifting as Republican legislatures in the South rush to redraw their maps in the aftermath of the ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, many of them preparing to eliminate districts held by some of the most senior Black lawmakers in Congress.

Rep. James Clyburn, the veteran Democratic legislator from South Carolina whose own seat is at risk, blamed the justices, not Jeffries, for the outcome in Virginia and elsewhere.

“What the hell, he can't control the courts,” Clyburn said, vowing to run for reelection regardless of where his district is drawn. “Don’t put that on Jeffries. We won the vote.”

Jeffries acknowledged that this year's maps are almost set, and pivoted to 2028 when he said Democrats will redouble their efforts to confront the GOP redistricting battle ahead of the next election.

“We know this unprecedented assault on Black political representation, the likes of which we have not seen since the Jim Crow era, the ghost of the Confederacy” will continue, he said. “The challenge that is in front of us is ensuring that there is a decisive and overwhelming response in advance of 2028.”

The meeting brings together diplomats from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa along with newer member countries. It comes as the war in Iran has disrupted global energy supplies and driven up oil prices and coincides with U.S. President Donald Trump's meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Russia’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov are attending. China is represented by Ambassador Xu Feihong while Foreign Minister Wang Yi remains in the Chinese capital during Trump’s visit.

India Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the talks would focus on global and regional challenges and ways to deepen cooperation among member nations.

In opening remarks, Jaishankar said BRICS could help developing countries more effectively respond to the health and financing challenges they face as well as high prices for energy, food and fertilizer.

“We meet at a time of considerable flux in international relations,” he said, adding that emerging and developing countries increasingly expect BRICS to play a “constructive and stabilizing role.”

Iran urges BRICS to condemn U.S. and Israel

At the meeting, Araghchi urged BRICS nations to condemn the U.S. and Israel over what he called their “unlawful aggression” against Tehran. He called on the bloc members and other countries to “take practical steps to stop warmongering” and end what he described as impunity for violations of the U.N. Charter.

Araghchi also urged the bloc members to stop what he called the politicization of international institutions. He said Iran appreciated the support shown by BRICS countries but called for stronger action.

“It is necessary for all of us to intensify our efforts to end this sense of superiority and impunity on the part of the United States — a notion that has no place in today’s world,” he said.

BRICS has sought to expand its influence

Founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China, BRICS was formed as a grouping of major emerging economies seen as a counterbalance to Western-led institutions such as the G7. South Africa joined in 2010 and the bloc expanded further in 2024 with the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Indonesia became a full member in 2025.

The group has sought to expand its influence by pushing for a bigger role in a global order long dominated by the United States and its Western allies. It has gained support across parts of the Global South, where many countries have criticized Western-led financial institutions.

But BRICS nations remain divided on key issues.

India and China continue to compete for regional influence, while member countries often differ in their ties with the West. Russia’s war in Ukraine has further exposed those differences.

New divisions test global ambitions

The bloc’s expansion also has added strains. Competing regional interests have increased the difficulty of presenting a unified position.

Divisions have sharpened further during the growing conflict in the Middle East. Iran and the UAE are BRICS members despite pursuing competing interests in the region.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister said Wednesday that disagreements within BRICS over the conflict had prevented the bloc from reaching a unified position.

Kazem Gharibabadi told news agency Press Trust of India that “one member country” had pushed for language condemning Iran, complicating efforts to build consensus within the grouping.

“We want India’s BRICS chairship to be successful. It is not a good approach to send a signal to the world that the BRICS is divided. One country is insisting on condemning Iran,” Gharibabadi said.

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Associated Press journalist Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran contributed to this report.

Netanyahu met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in a gathering that “resulted in a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,” according to the Israeli statement. The Gulf nation normalized relations with Israel in 2020.

The UAE’s official WAM news agency later posted an article denying “reports circulating” about a Netanyahu visit. According to WAM, the country’s relations with Israel “are public and conducted within the framework of the well-known and officially declared Abraham Accords, and are not based on non-transparent or unofficial arrangements.”

The Emirati report also denied any Israeli military delegation was received in the UAE.

Israel's announcement came a day after U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee revealed that Israel had sent Iron Dome air-defense weapons and personnel to operate them to the UAE.

The UAE has faced Iranian missile and drone fire even after the ceasefire was reached last month. It has been trying to signal to nervous investors that it remains open for business and safe.

Last week, WAM reported that Netanyahu was among the leaders who called the Emirati president to condemn Iranian attacks and express their solidarity with the Gulf federation.

It was rare public acknowledgment of direct talks between the countries that normalized relations in the 2020 Abraham Accords and have strengthened their ties during the Iran war.

Iran has criticized that agreement and has repeatedly suggested over the years that Israel maintained a military and intelligence presence in the Emirates.

Israeli leaders have made occasional visits to the UAE in recent years after normalizing relations.

Iran demands Kuwait release detainees

Iran’s foreign minister accused Kuwait of attempting to “sow discord” by detaining four Iranians that the Gulf Arab country accuses of being Revolutionary Guard operatives.

In a post Wednesday on X, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi demanded the Iranians’ immediate release and said Iran reserved the right to respond.

“This illegal act took place near an island used by the U.S. to attack Iran,” Araghchi wrote.

A day earlier, Kuwait said four men were detained and two escaped while trying to infiltrate Bubiyan Island in the northwest corner of the Persian Gulf on May 1.

Bubiyan Island is home to Mubarak Al Kabeer Port, which is under construction as part of a Chinese plan to build infrastructure across the world. It also came under Iranian attack during the war.

Iranian human rights lawyer released

Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been released from prison more than a month after being detained, a rights group and her daughter said Wednesday.

Sotoudeh, who is known for defending activists, opposition politicians and women prosecuted for removing their headscarves, was detained by Iranian intelligence agents at her house in Tehran in April.

Her release comes as U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in China for a long-anticipated visit that is expected to touch on the war in Iran.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which closely tracks developments in Iran, said that Sotoudeh was released on bail from Tehran’s Evin Prison.

Her daughter, Mehraveh Khandan, posted on social media that Sotoudeh was released on temporary custody. Iran’s semiofficial ISNA news agency also reported Sotoudeh release.

Sotoudeh has been imprisoned multiple times. Her activist husband, Reza Khandan, has been imprisoned in the same prison as his wife.

Nobel Peace laureate needs long-term care

Doctors who examined Nobel Peace laureate and activist Narges Mohammadi more than a week after she collapsed at a prison in Iran said she needs months of treatment, according to her foundation.

Mohammadi, 53, was urgently transferred from prison to a hospital in northwestern Iran on May 1 after she fell unconscious. She was released on bail nearly 10 days later and transferred to a hospital in Tehran where her specialists examined her.

The doctors said her vascular disease has worsened since she was last checked in 2024 and recommended eight months of treatment.

She was awarded the Nobel in 2023 while in prison and has been jailed repeatedly throughout her career. Her latest imprisonment began in December when she was arrested in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad.

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Schreck reported from Dubai. Associated Press reporter John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.

Kouri Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing her husband Eric Richins’ cocktail with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Valentine’s Day with a fentanyl-laced sandwich.

Judge Richard Mrazik said Richins is “simply too dangerous to ever be free” when handing down the sentence on the day that her husband would have turned 44.

Her attorneys said they will appeal the conviction and sentence. Richins has been adamant in maintaining she is innocent, saying Wednesday that the verdict was “an absolute lie.”

Richins stood at the podium in a lime-green jail uniform as she asked her sons, who were not present in court, “Please just don’t give up on me.” She encouraged them to always “be like your dad.”

Prosecutors said Richins, a 36-year-old real estate agent with a house-flipping business, was millions in debt and planning a future with another man. She had opened numerous life insurance policies on her husband without his knowledge and falsely believed she would inherit his estate worth more than $4 million after he died.

Eric Richins’ father, Eugene Richins, had urged the judge to impose a life sentence without parole to protect his grandsons, who were ages 9, 7 and 5 when their father died.

“This sentence is important so Eric’s three sons never have to live with the fear that the person responsible for taking their father could ever harm them again,” he said.

The case captivated true-crime enthusiasts when Richins was arrested in 2023 while promoting her children’s book about a boy coping with the death of his father.

Sons say they're afraid of their mother

Richins' sons “are not props for some twisted children’s book about grief and loss, and yet that is what they’ve been reduced to by Kouri,” said her sister-in-law Katie Richins-Benson, who now has the boys in her care.

Social workers read letters from the sons, who all said they would feel unsafe if their mother was ever released from prison. The children said Richins threatened to kill their animals and showed them videos of famished children in war zones when they refused to eat undercooked food.

“You took away my dad for no reason other than greed, and you only cared about yourself and your stupid boyfriends,” said the middle son, now 11. He described having to “be a parent” to his younger brother because his mother did not watch over them. Richins made the boy paranoid about sitting on his dad's side of the bed, saying he might die, too, he alleged.

The oldest son, now 13, said he also felt like he had to take care of his siblings and noted that his mother often would lock him inside his room while she drank.

“I will and have always prioritized your safety,” Richins said in court after hearing her sons’ statements.

Greg Hall, a friend and business associate of Richins, told reporters he was disappointed by the sentence and urged people to “have an open mind” about her.

Trial cut short by defense

The trial was scheduled for five weeks but ended early when Richins waived her right to testify, and her legal team rested its case without calling any witnesses. Her attorneys said they were confident that prosecutors had not produced enough evidence to convict her of murder.

The jury deliberated for just under three hours before finding her guilty of all counts.

During the trial, prosecutors showed the jury text messages between Richins and her lover in which she fantasized about leaving her husband and gaining millions in a divorce. Prosecutors also displayed the internet search history from Richins’ phone, which included queries about the lethal dose of fentanyl, luxury prisons and how poisoning is marked on a death certificate.

The defense argued that Eric Richins was addicted to painkillers. Prosecutors countered by showing police body camera footage from the night of his death in which Kouri Richins tells an officer that her husband had no history of illicit drug use.

Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Richins also faces more than two dozen money-related criminal charges in a separate case that has not yet gone to trial.

The Colorado defenseman scored 3:52 into overtime after Nathan MacKinnon tied it late in regulation and the Avalanche advanced to the Western Conference final with a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild in Game 5 on Wednesday night.

Kulak capped a wild comeback for the Avalanche, who trailed 3-0 midway through the second period. Colorado moves on to the conference final for an eighth time since relocating to Denver in 1995-96.

“You always like to dream about it,” Kulak said. “The player I am, I’m not the guy everyone’s looking down the bench, like, ‘All right, get out there, go win it for us.’”

The Avalanche will face the Vegas-Anaheim winner. Vegas leads that series 3-2.

With Minnesota up 3-1, Jack Drury scored with 3:33 remaining to set the stage for MacKinnon’s goal with 1:23 left with the Colorado goal empty. The star forward sent a shot from the left side past Jesper Wallstedt and into a small space in the top left corner.

In overtime, Martin Necas took the puck, glided behind the net and back out front, where he found an open Kulak. Without missing a stride, Kulak lined it past Wallstedt.

Kulak was one of several late additions this season as he joined the Avalanche on Feb. 24 as part of a deal that sent Samuel Girard to Pittsburgh. Kulak became the 16th Avalanche player to score in the Minnesota series.

He also was an unlikely OT hero. This was his first goal since Jan. 19 when he was with the Penguins, which also was his only goal of the regular season.

“For us to play the way we did and get the job done, and just for me, a special goal in my career, for sure,” said Kulak, who started the season with Edmonton before being dealt to Pittsburgh in December. “We just clawed back into it and got the job done.”

It was a rare series-ending win at home for Colorado, too. The last time the Avalanche won a series on home ice was 2008 against the Wild, when the team had Hall of Famers Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg.

“That was fun,” MacKinnon said. “A lot of fun.”

Marcus Johansson scored 34 seconds into the game and Nick Foligno added two goals to give the Wild a 3-0 after the first period. It led Colorado to take out Mackenzie Blackwood after the first and insert Scott Wedgewood, who made seven saves.

Late in the game, Cale Makar collided with Mats Zuccarello and was grabbing his right arm. Makar went down the tunnel before returning to the ice.

The Avalanche overcame a three-goal deficit to win a playoff game for just the third time in 53 tries since moving to Denver. The Wild had been 21-0 when leading a playoff game by at least three goals before the elimination loss.

“Just anger and frustration,” Minnesota defenseman Brock Faber said. “You work all year for one thing, and just feels like it closes like that. It’s just done.”

Wallstedt stopped 30 shots for the Wild. Matt Boldy and Nico Sturm each had two assists for a banged-up Wild team that was missing center Joel Eriksson Ek and defenseman Jonas Brodin all series.

“When you go after something like this, there’s going to be two sides of the coin,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “One is you’re going to win, which is a great feeling. And when you lose, it’s an empty feeling.”

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The Pistons led by 15 points in the first half and 103-94 with two-plus minutes left. The Cavs rallied and pulled into a 103-all tie on Evan Mobley’s free throws with 45.2 seconds left.

“That stretch right there says a lot about our progress — mental performance progress and mental toughness progress,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson said.

Just before the buzzer, Cleveland's Jarrett Allen and Detroit's Ausar Thompson got tangled up and no call was made.

“He fouled Ausar — clearly,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “He tripped him when he was going for a loose ball.”

Cleveland went on a 13-0 run and held Detroit scoreless for five minutes from late in fourth quarter to midway through overtime. The Cavs went ahead by seven with 2:39 left in OT on Mitchell's 3-pointer.

Cade Cunningham, who had 39 points and nine assists, made a jumper to pull the Pistons within two points with 25 seconds left.

Harden made one free throw on the ensuing possession and rebounded his missed second attempt. He made another free throw to help seal the win.

Game 6 is Friday night in Cleveland, where the fourth-seeded Cavs will get the first of two chances to advance to face the New York Knicks in the East finals.

If the top-seeded Pistons win, they will host Game 7 on Sunday.

Cleveland won the first road game of the series — and its first as a visitor this postseason.

The Pistons had won four straight games at home since Orlando put them on the brink of elimination in Game 5 of the first round.

Harden had eight rebounds and six assists. Max Strus made six 3-pointers and scored 20 points for the Cavs, Mobley added 19 points and Jarrett Allen had 16 points and 10 rebounds.

“It wasn’t our best night offensively, but I think that’s what speaks volumes to getting this win was we found a way” Strus said.

Starting in place of the injured Duncan Robinson, Daniss Jenkins scored 19 points for the Pistons. Tobias Harris missed 13 of 19 shots and scored 13 points, and Jalen Duren was limited to nine points and five rebounds.

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

When officials announced a list of “Eurofan Cafes" — Vienna coffee shops offering food and music from competing countries — Israel was initially left out.

MQ Kantine, a modern café in the city’s arty museums quarter, offered to step in. Now it has falafel, bagels with lox and kosher wine on the menu, a string of small Israeli flags hanging from the ceiling — and a police officer outside the door.

Security is tight across Vienna during the international music contest, whose “United by Music” slogan rings sightly hollow this year. Five countries are boycotting because Israel is taking part. Pro-Palestinian activists are planning a protest concert — one of several Eurovision alternatives across Europe — and an anti-Israel march before Saturday’s grand final.

At MQ Kantine, volunteers take turns to monitor for potential trouble. But so far the mood has been supportive, said Daniel Kapp, a PR consultant and pro-Israel campaigner.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, as people drank coffee and beer on the café terrace in the spring sunshine, though he noted that the police officer on duty showed that all is “not entirely normal.”

“My feeling is that Austria to a certain degree has learned from its history," Kapp said, referring to the deadly antisemitism under the Nazis before and during World War II. “Which is why the support for Israel is a lot more normal than it is in other countries.”

Israel has competed in Eurovision for more than 50 years, and won four times. But its participation has been contested since it launched a war in Gaza after 1,200 people were killed in a Hamas-led cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023. More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government and whose detailed records are viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

Israel’s government has repeatedly defended its campaign as a response to the Oct. 7 attack. But a number of experts, including those commissioned by a United Nations body, have said that Israel’s offensive in Gaza amounts to genocide. Israel, home to many Holocaust survivors and their relatives, has vigorously denied the claim.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon and the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran have driven tensions still higher.

The 2024 Eurovision contest in Malmo, Sweden, and last year’s event in Basel, Switzerland, saw pro-Palestinian protests that called for Israel to be expelled. Five countries — Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain — pulled out of the 2026 contest after organizers allowed Israel to compete.

Partying amid tight security

The tensions have produced a Eurovision of two halves. An upbeat party atmosphere prevails inside the Wiener Stadthalle arena and in the separate Eurovision Village fan zone. But getting in means passing through a ring of steel, with searches, scanners and a ban on all bags inside the arena. Armed police are a very visible presence on the streets.

Awareness of risk from terror plots is high in the city after a 21-year-old Austrian man accused of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group pleaded guilty to plotting to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024.

Israeli singer Noam Bettan told Israeli media that, like last year’s Israeli competitor Yuval Raphael, he practiced performing while being booed. There were scattered shouts amid the cheers when he performed in the first Eurovision semifinal on Tuesday. He secured a spot in Saturday’s final by being one of the top 10 finishers in voting by viewers and national juries.

Organizers said four people were removed from the 10,000-strong audience for disruptive behavior.

Austrian Eurovision fan Ivo Herzl, who attended the semifinal, said “the vibe was incredibly positive.” He is showing support for Israel by making and selling Mazel Lov T-shirts — a play on “mazel tov,” a Hebrew and Yiddish phrase of congratulations.

“Vienna has always been a city of tolerance,” Herzl said. “It’s the city of music and we’ll always do everything possible for everyone to enjoy a musical event.”

Some Israeli fans said they were reassured by the tight security. Oz Yona, attending his first Eurovision, said he had experienced “no hate” and felt Austria took antisemitism seriously.

He came with friends to cheer for Israel, though he was not optimistic about Bettan’s chances — for musical rather than political reasons.

“I don’t think he will win,” Yona said. “Finland is better this year. Greece is better this year. We have a good song, but not a winning song.”

Birgitta Peterson and Kristina Nilsson, who wear matching pink bomber jackets and call themselves The Swedish Ladies, love to explore new cities and meet up each year with their “Eurovision family” of fellow fans. They plan to wave Israeli flags at Saturday’s final, after Swedish contestant Felicia said earlier this year that she didn’t think Israel should be in the contest.

They say tensions over Israel have divided a fan community long known for its friendliness and embrace of diversity.

“The wounds are very deep at the moment,” Nilsson said.

“This event should really be about ‘united by music’ and happiness,” she added. “That’s what Eurovision is all about.”

Dalton Eatherly, 28, and an unidentified man were involved in a confrontation that resulted in gunfire, District Attorney Robert J. Nash said in a statement. But Nash wouldn’t say why Eatherly was at that courthouse in Clarksville, what he was doing or what prompted the confrontation.

Police didn’t provide the race of the other man. However, a witness who said she saw him loaded into an ambulance described him as Black.

Both men were transported to hospitals for medical treatment and were stable, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said.

Eatherly was being held at the Montgomery County jail until bond can be set at an arraignment hearing, the county sheriff’s office said. Eatherly was also charged with employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, the sheriff's office said.

Jacob Fendley, an attorney listed in court records as representing Eatherly in a separate harassment case from November, did not immediately return a phone message.

Claire Martin, who works in an attorney’s office across the street from the courthouse, said Eatherly is “well known in Clarksville for antagonizing people to see what he can get them to do.” She said he “yells racial slurs” at people while filming them. “He’s not a contributing member of society,” she said.

Martin did not see the altercation but saw the aftermath. The other man “waved at us as he got in the ambulance,” she said.

‘Did I shoot myself ... ?’

In a video posted on the website Pump.fun on Wednesday, Eatherly said he shot a man in self-defense after the person starting hitting him. Eatherly speaks with paramedics in the clip, one of whom takes note of a wound's entry and exit point.

“Did I shoot myself or did it graze it?” Eatherly asked.

Eatherly had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning in Clarksville, located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Nashville, over a $3,300 debt allegedly owed to a credit company, according to Montgomery County court records. The civil case was filed in February on behalf of Midland Credit Management.

Court records didn’t indicate whether Eatherly showed up for the status hearing. Online records list the case as open.

Eatherly, a white man, livestreams confrontations to social media where he can be seen and heard making racially derogatory statements to Black people in public.

In one video taken in a market, he says to a passing Black man, “You chimpin’ out," a reference to chimpanzees. He then uses the N-word a number of times.

The Black man is seen using a cellphone to record the confrontation, telling Eatherly, “Don’t touch me.”

A clerk tells Eatherly he’s not allowed to say that word. He responds “America is free speech. Tell me I can’t say something again. This is (expletive) America."

Racists in the United States and other countries historically have compared Black people to monkeys or apes. In February, President Donald Trump posted a racist social media post featuring former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle. It was deleted after both Republicans and Democrats criticized the video as offensive.

Steakhouse theft and disorderly conduct charges

In addition to the credit debt case, Eatherly faces a separate criminal case in which he is accused of becoming unruly at a Nashville steakhouse on Saturday and refusing to pay the nearly $400 bill.

According to an affidavit in the case, the restaurant had asked him not to stream inside the business, but he did anyway. When they asked him to stop, he began yelling and screaming and “started making racial statements.”

He was arrested and charged on Sunday with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and released on $5,000 bond. His next appearance in this case was scheduled for July 17 in Davidson County criminal court.

Clarksville resident Larry Quillen said he's seen videos in which Eatherly carries a gun and mace “and goes around and starts things.”

“I was just kind of like it’s a matter of time. I mean, because what he’s doing is hate. It’s not even freedom of speech and that’s what he claims to do,” Quillen said.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said one of the two men involved in Wednesday's shooting was taken to Vanderbilt of Clarksville Hospital for treatment. A message left with the hospital wasn’t immediately returned.

The other was transported by Lifeflight to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, the sheriff's office said. A spokesperson for the hospital, Craig Boerner, said medical privacy laws prohibited the disclosure of information about victims of violence.

___

This story has been updated to correct that Clarksville is northwest of Nashville, not northeast.

___

Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee, and McAvoy from Honolulu. Associated Press writers Corey Williams in Detroit and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed.

U.S.-based advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and shipping industry observers say waters near Malaysia’s southern Johor state have become a key hub for ship-to-ship transfers involving Iran’s “shadow fleet” — aging tankers that often operate with disabled tracking systems, false identities and opaque ownership structures to conceal the origins of crude bound largely for China.

The area, known as the Eastern Outer Port Limits, or EOPL, in the South China Sea is about 70 kilometers (45 miles) off Johor. It lies along one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes and is about halfway between Iran and China, which buys about 90% of Iranian oil.

U.S. officials have previously said Iranian oil exports rely heavily on service providers and ship-to-ship transfers operating near Malaysian waters.

UANI says there have been 42 ship-to-ship transfers of Iranian oil conducted in the EOPL area since Feb. 28, when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, starting a war in the Middle East. UANI used satellite imagery to observe the operations.

“Because of Malaysia’s inaction, it is facilitating this business model by Iran and China and dark fleet actors,” senior UANI adviser Charlie Brown said, warning Malaysia is becoming “a facilitator rather than merely a transit point” for illicit activity.

Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Director-General Mohamad Rosli Abdullah said the transfers are often done outside the country's territorial waters and in remote areas beyond radar coverage, especially in locations near maritime boundaries or international shipping routes.

"The selection of such locations is intended to exploit jurisdictional gaps and limit direct enforcement action by local authorities,” he told The Associated Press.

The UANI allegations "do not align with the actual situation on the ground and do not reflect the operational realities of maritime enforcement conducted by the MMEA,” he said, adding that the lack of real-time intelligence-sharing among domestic and international agencies also hampers effective action.

Iranian oil flows despite a US blockade

Clandestine high-seas transfers from Iranian-linked tankers have persisted for years, allowing Tehran to sell its crude while offering buyers plausible deniability about the oil’s source.

While not illegal, Malaysia discourages unsanctioned transfers outside designated areas, where such operations can be supervised, as they greatly increase the likelihood of a spill, involve aging vessels and are carried out far from ports where mistakes could be more easily contained.

Despite a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports that started in mid-April, UANI said it has tracked Iranian-linked tankers still operating, though it is not clear how many are now getting through.

Neither the Iranian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur nor the Iranian mission to the U.N. answered requests for comment. The U.S. State Department declined to comment.

As of Tuesday, two dozen Iranian-linked tankers tracked by UANI were anchored or loitering near the EOPL area used for transfers off Johor, though it was not clear how many had sailed before the blockade began.

“It’s business as usual,” UANI's Brown told the AP.

UANI maintains that Malaysia could enforce environmental regulations for advance notification of ship-to-ship transfers, prevent Malaysian companies from providing support to ships involved and require all ships to carry adequate insurance against accidents and oil spills, among other things.

The MMEA director general said enforcement is conducted strictly under Malaysian law and relevant international conventions, and authorities have “never compromised nor provided any special treatment or privileges to any country.”

Indonesia reviews border oil transfers

Though the area where the oil transfers are taking place is widely regarded as part of Malaysia’s broader economic zone, it borders the Riau Archipelago, which is Indonesian territory.

Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry said authorities were reviewing the situation to determine the legality of the activity. “Indonesia does not permit its territory or maritime zones to be used for unlawful activities,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yvonne Mewengkang.

Indonesia upholds legitimate navigational rights under international law governing the seas including the right of innocent passage, transit passage and the right of passage through Indonesian maritime zones," she added.

The MMEA director general noted that Malaysia earlier this year seized two vessels, one stateless and the other flagged to Cameroon, involved in the transfer of 2 million barrels of crude oil in Malaysian territorial waters.

The vessels were later released on bond for conducting unauthorized oil transfers. UANI’s Brown said one of the vessels was spotted earlier this month conducting a ship-to-ship transfer of suspected Iranian oil in the waters off Johor.

Malaysian authorities “will continue to strengthen monitoring and enhance strategic cooperation with relevant agencies to ensure that the nation’s maritime domain’s safety and sovereignty are consistently safeguarded,” the MMEA director general said.

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AP journalists David Rising in Bangkok and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

The franchise isn’t abandoning NRG Stadium on game days, but nearly everything else — headquarters, practice, community engagement — is heading to a new 83-acre development in unincorporated Harris County called the Toro District.

The project, a public-private partnership between the Texans, the Howard Hughes Holdings and Harris County, promises restaurants, shopping, hotels, healthcare facilities, parks, county offices, youth sports fields and residences, all wrapped around a shiny new team headquarters and practice facility.

“It will reshape the way we engage with fans, youth, partners, and the greater community,” said Texans owner Cal McNair at a recent press conference announcing the project.

It sounds like a patch of heaven. The question is how much that patch of heaven will cost — and who’s really paying for it.

The other big question is how disruptive the project and added traffic will be for neighbors, many of whom moved to the area for “peaceful living”.

“Just concerned about getting out of this section, in particular,” Alaina Hamzah, a Bridgeland homeowner, said.

From dirt to district — but not anytime soon

Right now, the future Texans headquarters is just that — dirt.

“We’ve been talking about wanting to build a new headquarters and training facility for years and it’s finally here,” McNair said.

Well, almost. Construction isn’t expected to be complete until at least 2029, meaning the grand vision is still years away from becoming a reality.

• What exactly is a TIRZ?

When it does arrive, the Toro District will be roughly a quarter of the size of the current NRG complex — though 83 acres is still large enough to fit nearly nine Astrodomes. NRG Stadium itself won’t go away; it will simply be for game days only.

The new home of the Texans sits in one of the fastest-growing corners of the country. Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey made that point plainly.

“Those zip codes are probably the fastest-growing zip codes in America,” Ramsey said.

The public-private partnership — and your role in it

Here’s where things get a little less exciting and a lot more expensive.

The Toro District is structured as a public-private partnership, which means Harris County taxpayers are partners in the deal — whether they signed up for it or not.

According to the initial Memorandum of Understanding between the Houston Texans, Howard Hughes Holdings and Harris County, the county will contribute $150 million in borrowed funds — just for parking spots, most likely parking garages.

Public money will also be used to fund new roads and bridges in and around the district. The full scope of those infrastructure costs has not yet been disclosed.

When asked directly whether the total public expenditure would exceed the $150 million figure, Ramsey didn’t dispute it.

“Our role is infrastructure — that’s what the county role is anyway,” Ramsey said. “A lot of people don’t necessarily understand there’s more people that live in unincorporated Harris County than in the city of Houston. So the biggest part of our population lives in unincorporated Harris County — that’s the area that’s growing the fastest.”

His argument: the infrastructure needs upgrading regardless, and the growth in the area demands public investment.

• TORO District: Who pays for it?

But how costs will ultimately be divided between the county, the Texans and Howard Hughes Corporation remains unclear to the public. When pressed on a specific total, Ramsey held back.

“We’re still working through those details, and I’m not gonna start throwing numbers out in terms of what it could be,” he said.

The Star in Frisco: a working model — with caveats

If you want a preview of what the Toro District could become, you don’t have to imagine it. You just have to drive about four hours north.

The Star in Frisco, Texas — the Dallas Cowboys’ headquarters and practice facility — has been operating for nearly a decade and offers a real-world look at what Houston is going for.

It’s a mixed-use development featuring team facilities alongside restaurants, retail, a hotel and wide-open public spaces, and it drew close to five million visitors in 2025, according to Visit Frisco.

“This is 365-day revenue versus just stadium day revenue or event day revenue,” said Josh Dill, Director of Sports & Events for Visit Frisco.

The Cowboys also headquarter and practice roughly 40 miles from their stadium — the same general model the Texans are pursuing. The facilities at The Star are, to put it plainly, are impressive.

A film room. Italian leather chairs — 154 of them. Immaculate practice fields. And a public park, that includes a turf football field, accessible to anyone.

Frisco has leaned into the identity so fully it now markets itself as “Sports City USA.”

“I do know that people are attracted to living here, working here because these developments exist,” Dill said.

Still, a Wednesday afternoon visit during the offseason told a different story — the area, while upscale and well-manicured, was quiet. A local resident said he’d visited The Star about five times since it opened, mostly for youth football events.

“Been to a high school football game, little league football game. The kids really enjoy it,” said Jeff Coleman, a Dallas-area resident.

The Cowboys comparison — and where it breaks down

The Star is also considered a public-private partnership. In Frisco’s case, the city contributed the land. In Harris County’s case, Howard Hughes Corporation owns the raw land — a key structural difference.

There’s also the matter of fan draw. The Cowboys are one of the most recognizable sports franchises on the planet. The Texans, with zero Super Bowl appearances, don’t carry nearly the same international brand weight.

That gap in star power is hard to ignore, even if its ultimate impact on the Toro District’s success is unclear.

Dill acknowledged the tension between public investment and private gain is something Frisco has had to navigate carefully.

“Yeah, I mean that’s always a concern. We definitely don’t want to be perceived as just lining someone else’s pockets. That’s why the partnership is so key. You know, the Jones family was committed to not just doing what was best for them, but what was best for the kids in the area,” Dill said.

Youth sports, promises — and nervous neighbors

The Texans and Harris County have made significant commitments to youth sports as part of the Toro District pitch. The project promises dedicated fields for school district football games and a broader focus on youth athletic programming — a feature that mirrors what The Star offers in Frisco.

But not everyone in the surrounding community is celebrating.

Residents who moved to this part of Harris County for its relative quiet and open space are now facing a very different future: years of construction, increased traffic and major questions about whether existing roads can handle the load.

One neighbor expressed her concerns directly.

“I’m mainly concerned for this section in particular because there’s no way to exit other than getting on Peak Road. So that’s my main concern,” said Alaina Hamza, a nearby resident.

Hamza said she and her neighbors weren’t given advance notice about the Texans’ involvement specifically.

“Early on? Yeah, that’s always been the plan — that that would be shopping and businesses. But never the Texans facility,” she said. “Oh, a little bit more [than I bargained for].”

Home values in the area will likely rise because of the Toro District — but that’s a double-edged sword. Higher property values mean higher property tax bills, a reality that could pressure long-term residents on fixed incomes.

Key details still in limbo

So where does this all stand? In a word: limbo.

The big-picture vision is set. The details — especially the financial specs — are still being hammered out behind closed doors.

One key mechanism under consideration is the creation of a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, or TIRZ.

TIRZs are designed to fund development by earmarking tax revenue generated within a designated area specifically for that project, rather than directing those dollars to the general fund where most tax revenue goes.

Critics argue that structure benefits private developers at the expense of broader public services. Supporters say it’s a proven tool for spurring growth in underdeveloped areas.

The total public cost of the Toro District remains one of the biggest unanswered questions — and until a final agreement is signed, Harris County taxpayers may not know exactly what they’re on the hook for.

High pressure aloft and plenty of sunshine is creating an air quality issue for most of metro Houston today, and likely for the remainder of the week.

Heating Up:

Thursday morning waking up in the upper 60s, the heat continue to build fast. By the afternoon highs reach the low 90s.

The heat will start to feel different as a stronger pull off of the Gulf for the remainder of the week, so expect to see temps moving back up to near 90.

Your 10 Day Forecast:

Next week high pressure gets shoved out as multiple disturbances move through. This will increase rain chances next week.

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

Authorities identified the woman as Kaitlyn Graves.

Deputies with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office responded to the apartment complex at 905 Cypress Station Drive near Hollow Tree Lane around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday for a welfare check.

Sgt. Jason Brown with the sheriff’s office homicide division said family members had contacted the apartment management after they had not been able to reach Graves for several days.

“Deputies came to the location after management made entry into the apartment and discovered a deceased female inside the apartment,” Brown said.

• RELATED: Woman found dead inside Harris County apartment after family reports not being able to reach her for several days

Brown said Graves had suffered “pretty severe trauma” and investigators are treating the case as a homicide.

Investigators said there were no signs of forced entry into the apartment. Brown said detectives are reviewing surveillance video from inside and outside the complex and speaking with neighbors.

Brown said investigators do not have any obvious suspects at this time. He said detectives are still speaking with family members to learn more about who Graves had been in contact with.

Graves’ mother, Laronda Angelo, declined a recorded interview but told KPRC 2 over the phone that her daughter was a kind person who collected water bottles and umbrellas every week to give to people experiencing homelessness.

A neighbor, Rondell Woodson, said he had interacted with Graves at least once before.

“She was out there feeding cats,” Woodson said.

Woodson said he was shocked to learn Graves had been killed.

“Life is short and I guess you gotta watch out for people,” he said.

Woodson said he was in the process of moving out of the complex because of what he described as rising crime in the area.

“It got worse,” Woodson said. “It’s a lot of crimes.”

In February 2025, KPRC 2 reported a shooting in the same area at another apartment complex that left a woman and a man dead.

“I think we need more security over here, because we only got one security, and he got to patrol other complex,” Woodson said.

Woodson said the fact that no suspect has been announced is concerning.

“There’s a lot of eyes, a lot of cameras,” Woodson said.

Anyone with information in Graves’ death is asked to call the Harris County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit at 713-274-9100 or contact Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-TIPS (8477).

The National Transportation Safety Board said the pilots who safely landed that plane back in New Orleans told investigators the situation was far more challenging than anything they had ever experienced in training.

“If such an event occurred at night or in instrument meteorological conditions, the consequences could be catastrophic,” the NTSB determined.

The Federal Aviation Administration receives reports of smoke in the cockpit almost daily, but the NTSB said the agency still doesn't require airlines to conduct realistic smoke-in-cockpit simulations. Instead, the training usually just consists of a discussion of what to do in that situation. The FAA didn't immediately respond to the new recommendation on Wednesday.

The Southwest pilots at the controls during this incident in December 2023 said they had trouble seeing their instruments and checklists. They quickly donned oxygen masks and followed emergency procedures to land. None of the 139 people aboard were hurt. In a separate incident nine months earlier involving another Southwest 737 Max, smoke filled the cabin after a bird strike after takeoff in Havana, Cuba.

Aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo, who was a pilot for United Airlines, said it is crucial that pilots are prepared to deal with smoke and quickly shut off the valve letting it into the cockpit, so he supports the recommendation. He said it would be good for pilots to experience dealing with smoke every time they go back for refresher training every nine months, so they’ll have the “muscle memory” to respond.

“Smoke in the cockpit is a very serious and time-critical emergency,” Arroyo said. “And I think creating the pilot awareness through real-life training is essential to reducing this potential safety threat.”

Southwest spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the airline is reviewing the new recommendation, but it is committed to ensuring its pilots can handle these kinds of emergencies and seeing that the underlying flaw in the engines on the 737 Max is fixed.

“Southwest routinely evaluates and enhances pilot training as part of its robust Safety Management System. As part of that effort, Southwest notified its Flight Crews about the effects of certain malfunctions following the two events in 2023 and reiterated the importance of following established safety procedures that are part of the company’s pilot training program,” Lunsford said in a statement.

The Airlines for America trade group said the airlines work closely with the NTSB and FAA “with a continual focus on maintaining safety as the highest priority.”

Last year, the NTSB urged Boeing and engine maker CFM International to quickly develop a software fix for the engines on the 737 Max to help prevent smoke from filling the cockpit or cabin after a safety feature is activated following a bird strike.

Spokesman for the engine and plane makers said the software fix for the engines is still being developed.

Air from the left engine on a 737 Max flows directly into the cockpit, while air from the right engine flows into the passenger cabin.

A safety device CFM added to these engines to help limit damage after a bird strike had the unintended consequence of contributing to smoke inside the plane. The device releases oil after a bird strike, which generates a significant amount of smoke.

Both Boeing and CFM have said they are committed to addressing the engine issue, and the FAA said last year that the repair will be required as soon as it is ready.

But the disgraced lawyer won’t be leaving prison anytime soon.

Prosecutors say they plan to retry Murdaugh, which likely means there will be another lengthy trial for the case that because of the combination of money, power, Southern accents and treachery has become a true crime sensation with several streaming miniseries, best selling books and dozens of true crime podcasts.

Murdaugh, 57, will remain in prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing around $12 million from his clients and currently is serving a 40-year federal sentence at the same time as a 27-year state sentence for his financial crimes.

Prosecutors promise a retrial that the court says will look different

Prosecutors haven't closed the door on appealing the ruling, but said Wednesday they are concentrating on aggressively seek to try Murdaugh again on the murder charges preferably sometime in 2026. State Attorney General Alan Wilson saying he respected the court's decision but no one is above the law.

Murdaugh's lawyers pointed out that trial will look a lot different, as the justices also ruled days of evidence at the murder trial about how Murdaugh stole from clients, many of them in dire straits, shouldn't be allowed next time.

Still, the ruling is a win for Murdaugh, who admits to being a thief, liar, insurance cheat and bad lawyer, but has adamantly denied killing his wife Maggie and younger son Paul since he found their bodies outside their home in 2021.

“Alex has said from day one that he did not kill his wife and son. We look forward to a new trial,” Murdaugh’s lawyers Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin said in a joint statement.

The defense has detailed the lack of physical evidence — no DNA or blood was found splattered on Murdaugh or any of his clothes, even though the killings were at close range with powerful weapons that were never found.

Prosecutors argued that the clerk’s comments were fleeting and the evidence against Murdaugh was overwhelming.

Murdaugh told investigators for months he hadn’t seen his wife and son for about an hour before they were killed. But investigators eventually cracked the passcode on Paul Murdaugh’s phone and found a video with a barking dog and Alex Murdaugh’s voice admonishing it five minutes before the young man stopped using his phone.

Investigators said Murdaugh was addicted to opioids and his complex schemes to steal money from clients and his family’s law firm were starting to unravel so he killed his wife and son to divert attention and buy time to find a way out of his problems.

Court said clerk attacked Murdaugh's credibility with jurors

In their unanimous ruling Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court said the conduct by Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility” by suggesting to jurors his testimony could not be trusted.

A few jurors said Hill, assigned to oversee the evidence and the jury during the trial, told them to watch Murdaugh's body language when he testified in his own defense and to not be fooled, confused or thrown off by what he might say.

“By urging the jurors not to be fooled or convinced by Murdaugh’s defense, Hill essentially implored the jurors to find him guilty, the ultimate issue in the case,” the justices wrote, adding that the comments insinuated there was something unusual and suspicious about his decision to testify.

Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury,” the justices wrote. “Our justice system provides — indeed demands — that every person is entitled to a fair trial."

Justices say Hill was looking for celebrity

The court said Hill's motivation was the “siren call of celebrity” and her goal was to increase sales of her book on the trial called “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders.” It was pulled from publication after plagiarism allegations were made.

“As her book’s title suggests, it turns out Hill was quite busy behind the doors of justice, thwarting the integrity of the justice system she was sworn to protect and uphold,” the justices wrote in an unsigned 27-page ruling.

Hill’s attorney in her criminal case didn’t return a phone call or email seeking comment.

Hill has pleaded guilty to lying about what she said and did during the Murdaugh trial, including showing graphic crime scene photos to several media members. The journalists were not named and the photos were not described at her December hearing.

“The court rightly described her conduct as "‘breathtaking,’ ‘disgraceful,’ and ‘unprecedented in South Carolina,' ” Murdaugh's lawyers said.

Justices say financial crime evidence also improperly used

The justices also had a warning for the next judge to try the murder case — be cautious on how much evidence of Murdaugh's thefts from his law firm and clients to allow those jurors to hear.

Some brief evidence of how Murdaugh stole is fine and how it might connect to him killing his wife and son. But the court said details like how some of the people Murdaugh stole from were disabled or vulnerable could unfairly turn against him jurors who should be focused just on whether he killed his family.

The chief prosecutor in the case said he doesn't regret piling on all the financial crime evidence he could in the initial trial because if the jury finds Murdaugh not guilty, they can't try him again,

“You don’t hit a home run if you’re afraid to strike out,” prosecutor Creighton Waters said at a Wednesday news conference.

Wilson is a Republican running for South Carolina's open governor's seat this year. He said politics won't play into any of his decisions on this case and it is the employees of the office, not its elected leader who will the backbone of the prosecution.

“The decision on whether to nor to purse this case is not going to be built on who the next occupant of my office” is, Wilson said. "It’s going to be built on should we seek justice or not.”

McCarthy charged in on a sinking line drive from Bryan Reynolds, catching the ball on a full sprint for the second out of the first inning.

Pittsburgh's Oneil Cruz — who started on second base — was near third when McCarthy made the catch, so the 28-year-old continued to jog toward the infield, stepping on second for the final out.

It was the first unassisted double play by a left fielder since Jonny Gomes on July 31, 2013, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

The Rockies won the game 10-4.

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

In March, a judge approved DFPS’ request to take over foster care case management authority from EMPOWER, the private contractor after two children died under its care and the company failed to correct persistent deficiencies. That temporary state receivership was to expire June 16. It will now extend to mid-August. 

But late Wednesday, the state agency and EMPOWER asked for a 60-day extension to allow for a more comprehensive assessment to determine what next steps going forward are needed by the $188 million state nonprofit contractor before it can be released from state receivership.

“While progress has been made, the conditions that gave rise to the receivership have not been fully resolved,” the petition filed in Dallas County district court stated. 

Additional time is needed to determine if the state agency’s corrective measures can be sustained and further risk to children can be reduced, the petition explained. In a separate filing, DFPS and EMPOWER want the court to seal the state agency’s 60-day report — expected on May 18 —  from the public’s view on EMPOWER’s progress, insisting that by doing so would not “have an adverse effect on public health and safety.”

The two argue that keeping it public would potentially include case histories of children and details about caregivers that could “undermine long-standing confidentiality protections” and the information “could be misused to identify or target facilities, foster homes, or programs, or to infer the locations of especially vulnerable children.”

Since March 1, 2024, EMPOWER and its parent, Texas Family Initiative, have been managing foster care children’s placements and care in nine counties: Dallas, Collin, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Hunt, Rockwall, Kaufman and Navarro.

The state has made clear to the court that EMPOWER has “struggled to maintain proper caseloads for its case workers” due to worker turnover and failed to follow state procedures. There have been 17 improvement notices known as “continuous quality improvement plans” sent to EMPOWER since it took over all case management of foster care children in the Dallas region. Those notices detail persistent deficiencies in employee training and case management protocols.

EMPOWER issued a statement.

“EMPOWER remains committed to working closely with DFPS and the local community to strengthen services and ensure children and families receive safe, stable and high‑quality care,” EMPOWER said in an issued statement on Wednesday. “As always, our number one priority is the safety and well‑being of the children and families we serve.”

A state audit of EMPOWER released in late March also detailed problems with adequately documenting each child’s case progress. “Recently, DFPS conducted a sample review of 178 Empower cases, including 83 cases where the children were placed back into the parents’ home with court oversight. Empower inadequately addressed or documented safety concerns for these children,” this new court petition stated. Because of that, it was difficult to assess what resources were needed for the child and the family. 

As a result of DFPS’ move to place EMPOWER under state management, District Judge Monica Purdy approved George Cannata, a Child Protective Services regional director in North Texas, to oversee case management and executive operations for EMPOWER, a nonprofit foster care service provider.

In court documents, the agency said Cannata’s appointment was necessary because EMPOWER’s “systemic failures” placed foster care children in imminent danger, including a newborn who died after the foster care agency did not create a plan for care despite allegations of abuse with the family’s previous child. According to court records, another baby died after being reunited with its parents without proper safeguards.

EMPOWER, which oversees the Dallas region community-based foster care system, was placed under receivership, in which a court-approved third party takes control of and manages a business or entity.

“The goal of the receivership is to stabilize operations and ensure that children and families receive safe and consistent services without interruption. DFPS remains committed to strong partnerships with the many organizations that support children and families across the state,” said Marissa Gonzales, a DFPS spokesperson.

A spokesperson for EMPOWER said that throughout the receivership process, the organization will retain its state contract and continue to work cooperatively and transparently with the state.

“We are committed to continuing to strengthen services for our local communities. As always, our number one priority is the safety and well-being of the children and families we serve,” said Taylor Forrest, a spokesperson for EMPOWER.

Three years ago, DFPS awarded EMPOWER a contract to oversee foster case management for children in the Metroplex East Community-Based Care region, which includes Dallas, Collin and seven surrounding counties, until 2028. Since being awarded that contract, the foster care organization has repeatedly failed to improve despite state interventions, with issues including untimely reporting, unsafe transport, unmet measures, contract breaches, caseload failures and undocumented visits, DFPS stated in a petition to the court.

State Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, said he approved of the change in case management

“I have personally worked with DFPS and local judges to ensure EMPOWER’s caseworkers were showing up for court prepared and ready to proceed, because local judges reached out to me and raised concerns about EMPOWER caseworkers showing up unprepared,” West told The Texas Tribune.

Texas lawmakers in 2017 passed a package of sweeping measures aimed at addressing a crisis in the state’s child welfare system, including a bill that shifted foster care to a “community-based care” model by allowing contracted organizations to monitor children in foster care and adoptive homes to provide relief for the low-resourced state system.

DFPS reports that about a quarter of the children in state custody are in community-based care, and the agency expects to expand this to the entire population by 2029.

EMPOWER, part of the collaborative under Texas Family Initiative, is a key component of this model, covering some of the state’s most populous regions, but the recent petition calls into question the organization’s ability to adhere to the proposed community care model.

“The Department of Family and Protective Services has worked closely with EMPOWER over the last two years to help them overcome a variety of challenges,” West said. “However, following recent developments, it became clear that EMPOWER is no longer in a place where it can safely manage its caseload on its own, and asking the Court to allow for a Receiver has become necessary.”

The Omaha-area district, where Republican U.S. Rep. Don Bacon is retiring, is one of Democrats' biggest targets this midterm season. It’s also a national focus every four years in presidential contests because Nebraska is one of just two states that splits its electoral votes. The 2nd District has gone to Democratic presidential candidates three out of five times since 2008 — a “blue dot” in an otherwise sea of red.

Powell, a political activist, defeated state Sen. John Cavanaugh and several other candidates in the Democratic primary. She and Cavanaugh were in a tight race that could not be called Tuesday.

Powell will face Brinker Harding, an Omaha City Council member endorsed by President Donald Trump. He ran unopposed in Tuesday’s GOP primary.

“This country and Nebraska are worth fighting for — and I’m ready to spend the next six months working for every vote and sharing my vision for Nebraska so we can finally have a representative in Congress who will serve us,” Powell said in a statement. “It’s time to be brave.”

Powell led Cavanaugh by 2.1 percentage points, or 1,080 votes, out of more than 51,000 votes counted.

AP called the race after Douglas County election officials said there were only 5,125 outstanding mail-in ballots in the Democratic primary, and a total of 830 provisional ballots from all political parties. Even if all those ballots are counted in the Democratic primary, Cavanaugh would have to win them by about 18 percentage points over Powell to close the gap, a margin he didn’t come close to achieving in any of the five vote updates provided by Douglas County so far. Cavanaugh trailed in all three counties in the district, though Douglas accounted for about 93% of the votes.

The matchup between Powell and Harding is expected to be among this fall’s most competitive House races, as Democrats try to win control of the chamber for the second half of Trump's term.

The 2nd District is one of just three districts in the country that supported Democrat Kamala Harris for president in 2024 while also electing a Republican representative. Trump won the district in 2016, and the retiring Bacon, who has clashed with Trump, has held the House seat for five terms.

The Nebraska GOP said in a statement Wednesday that Republicans are ready to fight back against a "radical left” that has poured money into the state.

“The left wants Nebraska, and we are going to make sure they don't get it,” said NEGOP Chairman Mary Jane Truemper.

Powell, who is Latina, co-founded Women Who Run Nebraska, a political action committee that supports progressive female candidates, and she has a decade of Democratic political activism. She had the backing of EMILY's List and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' campaign operation.

Powell has never held office but said her deep connections have helped her with independents and third-party voters, who make up nearly 30% of the district’s electorate.

Some Democratic critics argued that a Cavanaugh primary victory would have jeopardized the district’s “blue dot” status because he’d be leaving his valuable state legislative seat, making it easier for Republicans in the Nebraska Legislature to change the law that allows the state to split its electoral votes.

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Peoples reported from New York.

Darderi wasted two match points in the second set but the Italian went on to prevail 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-0.

The match was delayed for nearly 20 minutes toward the end of the first set as smoke wafted in from fireworks that had been set off in the soccer stadium next door Wednesday after Inter Milan won the Italian Cup final.

Darderi was complaining that he couldn’t see anything and the smoke was also affecting the cameras for the electronic line-calling system, which had to be reset.

When play resumed, Darderi held serve to take the set to a tiebreaker, where he found himself 5-2 down before rallying.

The 24-year-old Darderi, who on at least a couple of occasions was drinking coffee during changeovers, broke immediately in the second set. Jodar managed to break back and then fend off two match points before leveling the match.

Darderi dominated the decider, and sealed the result when Jodar hit a forehand into the net.

“It was really a battle,” Darderi said. "After the second set, I never thought I’d win, but I just tried to take it game by game, ball by ball. I pushed a little bit more in the third set, and physically I won it there.

“We played really late, it was difficult at a certain point, but I’m happy. The crowd helped me a lot today. It’s really a dream to be in the semifinal.”

The 19-year-old Jodar was only the second teenager after Rafael Nadal (in 2005) to reach the Madrid and Rome quarterfinals in the same season.

Lengthy delay

Darderi reached his first Masters 1000 semifinal and will play Casper Ruud, who earlier overcame 13th-ranked Karen Khachanov 6-1, 1-6, 6-2.

The match was suspended for more than two hours at the start of the second set because of rain, and Khachanov seemed to have dealt better with the enforced break.

The 23rd-ranked Ruud broke Khachanov’s serve twice at the start of the third set and then again to take the match on the second of three match points.

Swiatek back to her best

In the women's tournament, three-time champion Iga Swiatek beat Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-2 Wednesday to advance to the Italian Open semifinals.

The fourth-ranked Swiatek’s impressive form bodes well for the upcoming French Open, which she has won four times.

“I’m happy that I can spend some time on the court and play really solid matches against the best girls,” Swiatek said. “For sure it’s giving me confidence because you can practice as much as possible, but if you don’t test it out on the court, play matches and face pressure or something, you’re going to still feel the little bit rusty when it comes.

“Now I’m happy I played couple matches. I’ll play hopefully two more here.”

Swiatek next faces another former Rome champion in Elina Svitolina, who rallied to beat second-seeded Elena Rybakina 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.

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

The attack began in midmorning and lasted for hours in the capital of Kyiv, the western city of Lviv near Poland, and the port of Odesa on the Black Sea, among other population centers, Zelanskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.

“Our soldiers are defending Ukraine, but Russia’s obvious goal is to overload air defenses,” Zelenskyy said, as the bombardment stretched into the late afternoon. He cautioned that a cruise and ballistic missile attack could follow the drone barrage.

It was “one of the longest, massive Russian attacks against Ukraine,” he said on social media.

It also rattled neighbors. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said his new government has summoned the Russian ambassador over a drone attack near Hungary’s border, in a significant shift from his predecessor Viktor Orbán's friendly relations with Moscow.

“The Hungarian government strongly condemns the Russian attack on Transcarpathia,” Magyar told journalists, adding that Foreign Minister Anita Orbán will speak with the ambassador Thursday morning.

The foreign minister will ask “when Russia and Vladimir Putin plan to finally end this bloody war,” Magyar added.

“Thank you for your compassion and strong position!” Zelenskyy said on X after Magyar’s comments.

Three people are killed in a region near Kyiv

Drone debris fell in an open area in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi district with no casualties, city officials said, as air defense systems engaged Russian drones over the capital. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said emergency services responded to the scene. Explosions were heard across the city earlier Wednesday.

Three people were killed in a drone attack in the Rivne region west of Kyiv, according to Oleksandr Koval, head of the regional military administration.

Moscow’s attacks are unrelenting, even as Ukraine is emboldened by its recent military accomplishments and as U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin said — without providing evidence — that the war could be approaching an end.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy said, 14 Ukrainian regions came under attack, followed by overnight strikes on Ukraine’s residential, energy and railway infrastructure.

“It is important to support Ukraine and not remain silent about Russia’s war. Every time the war disappears from the top of the news, it encourages Russia to become even more savage,” Zelenskyy said, apparently referring to the world's attention being focused on the Iran war.

Trump and Putin talk of a possible end to the war

Trump said Tuesday said he believes Moscow and Kyiv will soon reach a deal to end fighting.

“The end of the war in Ukraine I really think is getting very close,” Trump said as he left the White House for a summit in Beijing. “Believe it or not, it’s getting closer.”

Putin said in a speech last weekend that his invasion of Ukraine is possibly “coming to an end.”

Neither leader elaborated on what persuaded them about the possibility of peace in Europe’s longest conflict since World War II. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts over the past year to end the war have fizzled after making no progress on key issues, such as whether Russia gets to keep Ukrainian land it has seized and what can be done to deter Moscow from invading again.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated Wednesday that Moscow’s fundamental terms are unchanged, with Putin insisting that Ukraine pull its troops from the four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022 but hasn't fully captured.

“At that point, a ceasefire will be established, and the parties can calmly engage in negotiations, which, incidentally, will inevitably be very complex and involve a lot of important details,” Peskov said.

Zelenskyy vowed to keep pressure on Moscow to make concessions in talks.

“We’re not giving up on diplomatic efforts, and we hope that pressure on Russia, together with negotiations in different formats, will help bring peace,” he said in a speech Wednesday in Bucharest, Romania, to representatives of countries on NATO's eastern flank.

“Sanctions are working, our long-range (drone and missile) capabilities are working, and every form of pressure is working,” he said.

Meanwhile, European governments are assessing the merits of opening talks with Putin. Europe has for years tried to isolate the Russian leader and punished his country with international sanctions.

Fighting appears to shift in Ukraine's favor

The correlation of forces in the war has shifted in recent months. Ukraine has gone from pleading for international help with its defense to offering foreign countries its expertise on how to counter attacks, thanks to its domestically developed drone technology.

Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile attacks have disrupted energy facilities and manufacturing deep inside Russia, with three regions reporting strikes Wednesday. The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces intercepted and destroyed 286 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula, the Azov Sea and the Black Sea.

On the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line, the advance of Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army has been slowing every month since October, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Russia’s spring offensive has floundered, with Russian forces recording a net loss of territory last month for the first time since 2024, the Washington-based think tank said.

“Not only are Ukrainian defensive lines holding, but Ukrainian forces have managed to contest the tactical initiative in several areas of the front line even as Russia continues to lose disproportionate amounts of manpower to achieve minimal gains,” the ISW said Tuesday.

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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Sam McNeil in Brussels and Bela Szandelzsky in Budapest, Hungary, contributed,

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

Dr. Stephen Kornfeld of Bend, Oregon, was among more than 120 passengers and crew evacuated from the ship and flown to different countries to enter quarantine. Kornfeld was brought to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha with 15 other Americans, but he was the only one taken to an isolated biocontainment unit after a nasal swab he took on the ship produced inconclusive results about whether he had the virus.

On Wednesday, the hospital announced that Kornfeld will now join the 15 other Americans who were taken for monitoring at the National Quarantine Unit, instead of the biocontainment unit, according to hospital spokesperson Kayla Thomas.

Kornfeld appeared on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” on a video call from his hospital room Tuesday, saying, “I feel wonderful, 100%."

He said there was a period on the ship when he came down with flu-like symptoms including night sweats, chills and fatigue but he said he has no symptoms now.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that a total of 11 hantavirus cases linked to the cruise have been reported worldwide, including three deaths. Eight cases have been confirmed by laboratory tests.

Kornfeld said a nasal swab he took on the ship was later tested twice in the Netherlands. One result came back negative, the other positive. Earlier this week, he was awaiting results from a new test taken when he returned to the U.S.

“The initial test that we received was from abroad and it was inconclusive in its results,” Dr. David Fitter of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters Wednesday.

In addition to the passengers taken to Nebraska, two other Americans are being monitored at the serious communicable disease unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Health authorities say it is the first hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship. While there is no cure or vaccine for hantavirus, the WHO says early detection and treatment improves survival rates.

Public health officials say the risk to the general public from the cruise ship outbreak is low. Hantavirus usually spreads from rodent droppings and is not easily transmitted between people, though the Andes virus detected on the Hondius may be able to spread between people in rare cases.

The WHO is recommending that passengers and crew from the cruise ship stay in quarantine, either at home or other facilities, for 42 days.

Kornfeld described his quarters at the biocontainment unit in Nebraska as a hospital room with a comfortable bed.

“It’s a little weird being in here by myself,” he said before he was cleared to leave. “But the nurses come in, the doctors come in. I’m on WhatsApp all the time. It’s really amazing how quickly time flies.”

On a day when the British government's legislative plans were presented by no less than King Charles III himself, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was fighting to remain in power following rising discontent within his Labour Party.

The traditional pomp and pageantry associated with the state opening of Parliament was overshadowed by the political intrigue, specifically the mounting speculation that Health Secretary Wes Streeting was planning to quit Starmer's government and launch a leadership bid as soon as Thursday.

The embattled prime minister has been urged to set a timetable for his departure by more than a fifth of the Labour Party’s lawmakers in the House of Commons. Some junior ministers have quit the government in protest, but no one has yet challenged Starmer directly.

“It is absolutely preposterous that the government is here laying out a program as its ministers are resigning and a large proportion of the party is saying that the prime minister needs to go," Kemi Badenoch, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, told lawmakers as they began a debate over the government's agenda.

On the ropes

Starmer's premiership has been imperiled by the huge losses Labour suffered in local and regional elections last week. If those results were repeated in a national election that has to be held by 2029, the party would be overwhelmingly ejected from power.

Labour was squeezed from the right and the left, losing votes to both anti-immigrant Reform UK and the Green Party, as well as nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales.

Labour secured a landslide election victory in 2024, driving the Conservatives from power after 14 years, but since then the party’s popularity has plunged and Starmer is getting much of the blame. The reasons include a series of policy missteps, a struggling British economy, a perceived lack of vision on the prime minister’s part and questions over his judgment. Starmer’s choice of Peter Mandelson as U.K. ambassador to Washington despite ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has continued to haunt him.

Streeting is expected to launch a leadership bid as early as Thursday, according to some media reports. Streeting, who has long been known to harbor ambitions to become prime minister, met with Starmer earlier Wednesday for less than 20 minutes. Neither have discussed what was said, but Starmer’s office insisted that the health secretary retains the prime minister’s full support.

Starmer, who says he has no intention to stand down, has his supporters within the party. More than 100 lawmakers have signed a letter saying it's “no time” for a leadership contest.

“We should let him get on with doing his job, because he is a serious politician and these are very, very serious times,” Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn told Sky News.

King offers Starmer some respite

In a speech to lawmakers outlining the government's legislative program for the coming year or so that was written by the government itself, the king said that the U.K.’s economic, energy and national security would be tested as it deals with the fallout from the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Planned measures include controlling the cost of living, strengthening ties with the European Union and making it easier to build new energy infrastructure.

And pledging action on antisemitism following a run of attacks on the Jewish community in recent months, Charles said that the government would “defend the British values” of decency and tolerance.

The monarch, who made the short journey from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament in a horse-drawn carriage, also said the government will “defend the British values of decency, tolerance and respect for difference under our common flag,” and said that urgent action would be taken to tackle antisemitism.

The real question is whether Starmer will be around to implement the measures in the speech and, even if he remains in office, whether he will have the authority to push his proposals through.

In his speech advocating his policy agenda, Starmer gave no indication that he wouldn't be around to push the planned bills through.

“This King’s Speech sets a different course, a more hopeful course, a course that sees the conflict in Iran, a war on two fronts, not as something to wring our hands about, but as an opportunity we must take to shape our country’s future, to end the status quo that has failed working people, to build a stronger, fairer Britain,” he said.

Historic power collides with modern reality

The King’s Speech merges the historic power and grandeur of Britain with the reality of the modern United Kingdom, a midsized country with an underfunded military, rising debt and waning international influence.

The speech is the focal point of a day of ceremony and tradition that has been followed since 1852, with elements of the program dating to the 16th century. The state opening of Parliament uses carefully choreographed pageantry to showcase Britain’s evolution from an absolute monarchy to a parliamentary democracy where real power is vested in the elected House of Commons.

The royal paraphernalia

During his speech, which he delivered seated next to Queen Camilla, the king donned the Imperial State Crown and robe of state.

Once they were seated, a Lords official called Black Rod, named for the ebony rod he or she carries, went to the House of Commons to summon the chamber’s members. The doors to the Commons chamber were slammed in Black Rod’s face to symbolize the chamber’s independence from the monarchy, and they aren’t opened until Black Rod strikes the doors three times.

Once members of the Commons crowded into the Lords’ chamber, the king delivered the speech.

After the speech was read, the royal couple left and the two houses of Parliament begin several days of debate on its contents.

The push by Senate Democrats on Wednesday was a maneuver to force vulnerable GOP senators to take politically difficult votes in an election year as Democrats try to hammer Republicans on the economy. The Senate rejected three Democratic resolutions, largely along party lines.

The votes were tied to rule or regulatory changes made by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since the Trump administration took over the bureau in February 2025. The bureau has rescinded 67 policies under its acting director, Russell Vought, who is also President Donald Trump’s budget director. Vought has publicly said that his goal is to effectively dismantle the agency.

“The Trump Administration is hell-bent on destroying the agency,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and the top defender of the bureau in Congress.

Warren added that the changes at the bureau signal that “the Trump Administration has abandoned consumers and is making life more expensive for them.”

The Democrats offered more than a dozen other resolutions by voice vote to roll back the administration's CFPB policies, but Republicans blocked each one.

The votes could be used as ammunition against vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection this year, including Susan Collins of Maine, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and John Cornyn of Texas. Collins voted with Democrats on two of the three resolutions.

One vote Democrats sought was for the CFPB’s policy change on overdraft fees. The Biden Administration issued guidance in 2024 requiring banks to obtain their customers’ affirmative consent before charging an overdraft fee. That guidance was repealed under President Trump, which Democrats argue will lead to more Americans paying overdraft fees. The Senate voted down the resolution 47-53.

“When they got rid of this rule, it showed that (President Trump) didn’t care about Americans living paycheck to paycheck,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

Congress created the CFPB in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, designed to operate as an independent financial regulator with broad enforcement authority over consumer financial products and services. The bureau estimated in 2024 that it had returned $17.5 billion to American consumers and had imposed $4 billion in fines and penalties against financial companies.

But since February 2025, the CFPB has largely been inoperable. The bulk of the bureau’s staff remains under orders not to work, and much of the CFPB’s business these days is to unwind previous work the bureau did under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and in Trump’s first term. The bureau’s operating budget is expected to shrink as well after Trump’s big tax and spending cuts law reduced the amount of money the bureau receives from the Federal Reserve.

“Russell Vought is unilaterally defacing this agency and taking it apart,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island.

Republicans have defended President Trump's changes at the bureau. Republicans largely see the CFPB as an agency with too much centralized power and unaccountable to Congress, and they have repeatedly attempted to diminish it since its creation.

“I can’t think of a worse way to govern than the Biden administration’s approach to the CFPB and the playbook that they used time and time again, putting onerous pressure on small businesses,” said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Democrats used the Congressional Review Act, a law allows Congress an opportunity to overturn rules issued by federal agencies once those rules are finalized. The 1996 law was used sparingly in its first two decades, but its use increased during Trump’s first term, when a Republican-controlled Congress overturned more than a dozen rules finalized during President Barack Obama’s Democratic administration. Democrats, in turn, used the law in 2021 to overturn several Trump-era policies.

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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report from Washington.

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An earlier version of this article included a reference to a March poll conducted by the Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting. That reference has been removed.

For the Democratic Republic of Congo, they’re going to be in Houston for the majority of their downtime, making the Houston SaberCats Stadium their home base and training facility during the tournament.

When speaking with representatives of the Houston Host Committee, they shared what they’re most looking forward to when having the Congolese team in South Houston.

• FBI previews World Cup security hub in Houston: Drones, cyber threats and real-time intel sharing

“It means their needs, it’s primarily a training site, they’re not necessarily here for recreation or for sightseeing, they’re here to train and prepare for the World Cup so to have a nice private secluded facility with a brand new pitch I don’t think you could ask for much more really,” said John Robbins, VP of Operations for FIFA World Cup 26 Houston. “I want them to have a fantastic time in Houston and at this facility and feel like the support they receive from the Houston training center, the staff, residents, anyone who engages with their team, their players, their fans, while in Houston was the best it could be.”

D.R. Congo will open up its World Cup schedule against Portugal on June 17th at Houston Stadium at Noon.

The department imposed the bond requirement last year for countries that it said had high rates of people overstaying their visas and other security issues as part of the Republican administration’s broader crackdown on immigration.

Travelers to the United States from 50 countries are required to pay the new bond, and five of those countries have qualified for the World Cup — Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tunisia.

Citizens from those five countries who have purchased tickets from FIFA are now exempt from the visa bond requirement. World Cup team players, coaches and some staff already had been exempt from the bond requirement as part of the administration’s orders to prioritize the processing of visas for the tournament.

“The United States is excited to organize the biggest and best FIFA World Cup in history," Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar said. “We are waiving visa bonds for qualified fans who bought World Cup tickets" and opted in to the FIFA Pass system that allows expedited visa appointments as of April 15.

In its own statement, FIFA said the announcement shows “our ongoing collaboration with the U.S. government and the White House task force for the FIFA World Cup to deliver a successful, record-breaking and unforgettable global event” and thanked the administration for the partnership.

The waiver is a rare loosening of immigration requirements under the administration and will ease travel burdens for at least some visitors to the U.S. for the World Cup, which begins June 11 and is co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The administration has taken dramatic steps to restrict immigration in ways critics say are incongruous with the unifying message a global sporting event such as the World Cup is supposed to project.

For instance, the administration has barred travelers from Iran and Haiti, though World Cup players, coaches and other support personnel are exempt. Travelers from the Ivory Coast and Senegal face partial restrictions under an expanded version of that travel ban, even without the visa bond exemption.

Foreign travelers also had faced potential new requirements to submit their social media histories, although that policy from U.S. Customs and Border Protection had not gone into effect. Also, the administration had deployed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at airports recently when Transportation Security Administration personnel were not being paid during a partial federal shutdown.

Those measures prompted Amnesty International and dozens of U.S. civil and human rights groups to issue a “World Cup travel advisory" that warns travelers about the climate in the U.S.

In a report this month, the main advocacy group for U.S. hotels blamed visa barriers and other geopolitical issues for “significantly suppressing international demand,” leading to hotel bookings for the soccer tournament that are far below what had initially been anticipated.

The American Hotel & Lodging Association said travelers are concerned about potentially lengthy visa wait times and increased fees, along with uncertainty about how they're being processed to enter the U.S.

The bond requirements are part of the administration’s larger effort to clamp down on migrants who travel to the U.S. on temporary visas but then overstay them. Visa applicants from the affected countries are required to pay $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 in bonds, which will be refunded if the traveler complies with the terms of the visa or if the visa application is denied.

As of early April, the number of World Cup fans affected by the bond requirement was believed to be relatively small, perhaps only about 250 people, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. But they said that number was changing rapidly as more people buy tickets and some with tickets opt against traveling.

FIFA had requested the waiver, which had to be approved by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, and was the topic of discussion at multiple meetings at the White House and elsewhere in Washington for several months, the officials said.

The 81-year-old opened his conservative talk show, “The Rudy Giuliani Show,” with assurances to his audience that he was on the mend — though not yet fully recovered. In early May, Giuliani was in critical condition and placed on a ventilator at a hospital in Palm Beach, Florida.

Reports of his illness were met with an outpouring of support and well-wishes from a range of high profile politicians across the political spectrum.

“I have to thank everyone who sent me prayers and good will," he said. He specifically mentioned his gratitude to his family, the medical staff that tended to him and U.S. President Donald Trump, who Giuliani said called him after he became sick.

“It feels good to be back,” Giuliani said before cutting to his first break.

Giuliani was previously hospitalized last September after suffering a fractured vertebra and other injuries in a car crash in New Hampshire.

After Giuliani's eight-year tenure as mayor, which was punctuated by the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the longtime Republican politician ran unsuccessfully for president in 2008 and eventually became a personal attorney and adviser to Trump.

Giuliani was a vocal proponent of the president’s allegations of fraud in the 2020 election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden. Trump and his backers lost dozens of lawsuits claiming fraud, and numerous recounts, reviews and audits of the election results turned up no signs of significant wrongdoing or error.

Two former Georgia election workers later won a $148 million defamation judgment against Giuliani. As they sought to collect the judgment, the former federal prosecutor was found in contempt of court and faced a trial this winter over the ownership of some of his assets.

Giuliani ultimately struck a deal that let him keep his homes and various belongings, including prized World Series rings, in exchange for unspecified compensation and a promise to stop speaking ill of the ex-election workers.

Last year, Trump said he was awarding Giuliani the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

KPRC 2 News got an inside look inside the room at FBI headquarters in Houston that will become the region’s World Cup security hub starting next month.

The goal: collect, analyze and share intelligence in real time as hundreds of thousands of fans are expected to pour into the city.

“We like to think of it as seven Super Bowls over the course of a few weeks,” said Jason Hudson, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Houston. “The preparation that goes into one Super Bowl is enormous, so if you can imagine planning for seven of those in a row is very sizable and very significant.”

Focus on prevention — and stopping violence before it happens

Hudson said the top priority is prevention, with planning stretching back roughly a year and a half. He said the FBI’s mission is to keep the event safe by identifying and disrupting threats before they reach any venue.

“Our primary focus is keeping FIFA safe,” Hudson said. “We want ensure that anyone that wants to carry out a violent act, that we’re doing everything we can to prevent that, whether it be a lone offender, whether it’s someone that’s tied to a nation state or a foreign terrorist organization.”

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Officials said the stadium will have a secure perimeter, and federal law enforcement has been running drills and sharing intelligence with partner agencies to prepare.

Watching the skies: drone detection and takeover technology

One concern investigators are tracking is the use of drones near venues — whether for disruption, surveillance, or worse.

“The usage of drones is a concern here during FIFA,” Hudson said. “We want to make sure that any operators are doing that within the scope and based on the regulations. In the event that folks are flying drones in a no-fly area, we will detect those drones.”

The Texas Department of Public Safety is spending millions on technology designed to spot — and even take over — unauthorized drones near World Cup venues, according to officials.

Cyber threats, scams and big money at stake

Authorities are also preparing for cyber threats as the World Cup’s global spotlight and huge financial impact draw criminals looking for opportunities online.

With an estimated half a million fans expected and about $1.5 billion projected to flow into Houston, officials say the event creates an enticing target.

“And that is very enticing for someone that is a cyber criminal actor that can take advantage,” Hudson said.

Law enforcement is also warning fans about ticket and rental scams — urging people to only buy tickets or book accommodations through reputable sources online.

Inside the command post: faster info sharing with local police and emergency managers

The command post is designed for speed, with agencies sitting in the same space to share information instantly. Senior Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Isis Jones said the setup allows any threat-related information coming into the FBI to be immediately passed to partners on the ground.

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“We will seamlessly share information over the course of 42 days in support of the World Cup games,” Jones said.

Jones said the planning also includes preparing for severe weather — including the possibility of a hurricane — and ensuring there’s a clear, coordinated plan to keep fans informed and safe during an emergency.

What officials want from the public

Even with technology and intelligence resources ramping up, officials emphasized a familiar message: public awareness still matters.

If you see something, say something.

The deadline to submit a property tax protest is Friday, May 15, or within 30 days of receiving your appraisal notice, whichever is later. Homeowners are not protesting the tax rate itself, but rather the appraised value assigned to their property.

If you believe your home was valued too high by the appraisal district, filing a protest could reduce the amount you owe in property taxes.

Property owners can strengthen their case by gathering evidence such as recent home purchase documents, comparable home sales in the area, photos showing damage or needed repairs, and contractor estimates for deferred maintenance issues like roofing, foundation work or plumbing repairs.

Experts say even a modest reduction in appraised value can lead to noticeable savings. For example, lowering a home’s appraised value by $20,000 on a $400,000 home could potentially save a homeowner several hundred dollars annually in property taxes.

Many homeowners choose to protest every year to help keep their property valuation from climbing too quickly over time. A lower valuation this year can also impact future appraisals and potentially reduce long-term tax costs.

Homeowners can file protests themselves through their local appraisal district or hire a professional property tax consulting firm to handle the process. Some are also turning to artificial intelligence tools to help analyze comparable sales data, organize evidence and prepare protest arguments.

No matter the approach, property owners are encouraged to act quickly before the filing deadline passes.

“People are wondering, this hantavirus, is it going to become another pandemic?” reporter Deven Clarke asked Kaplan.

“I really don’t think people need to worry about this virus becoming a pandemic,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan said he also does not believe the virus will spread significantly beyond those directly exposed in the recent cruise ship outbreak tied to the Andes strain of hantavirus.

“I don’t think people need to worry about this virus … or really it spreading too far outside the people that were exposed on the cruise ship,” he said.

Kaplan explained there are different forms of hantavirus, including one already known in parts of the United States.

“I think this particular cruise ship outbreak is an isolated situation with a special virus that’s Andes version of the hantavirus,” Kaplan said. “We have a hantavirus version in the United States in the four corners area that’s associated with rats and rodents but we don’t see it outside of those four corner areas.”

KPRC 2 also asked whether some people may face higher risks if exposed to the virus.

“That’s a very good question,” Kaplan said. “I would suspect anybody with an underlying condition especially people who have lung conditions or heart conditions may be at increased risk for getting a really severe form of this type of infection but for the general population I don’t think it’s anything to be too worried about.”

The online conversation has also sparked questions about cleaning and prevention.

“There’s some people out there who just want to be on the super safe side — should they go around spraying alcohol or Lysol on their countertops?” Clarke asked.

“I think just do your normal cleaning in your home, washing your hands like you ordinarily would and that’s my advice,” Kaplan responded.

Kaplan also addressed questions about vaccines.

“As far as I know there’s no vaccine that’s available,” he said. “There’s probably people working on hantavirus vaccines somewhere in the world, not because of this outbreak but because of hantavirus in general.”

When asked how long hantavirus has existed, Kaplan said: “Oh yeah probably, thousands of years.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hantaviruses are primarily spread through contact with infected rodents or their droppings. More information can be found on the CDC’s hantavirus information page.