More primaries are being held on Tuesday as well. Democrats are banking on a rare chance to regain ground in Iowa, a rural state that has repeatedly eluded them in recent years. Republicans, meanwhile, are grappling with a New Jersey congressman whose unexplained absence could put their already slim majority at risk.

— California: Voters are weighing in on who should lead the nation’s most populous state, where there is no clear leader among candidates vying to advance in the race to succeed Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Plus, U.S. House races are on the ballot, along with the Los Angeles mayor’s race.

— New Mexico: Contests in the state include primaries for congressional seats, a U.S. Senate seat and a long list of statewide offices, but the governor’s race is the main attraction. Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is running for the Democratic nomination, which could put her on a historic path for Native American leaders.

— New Jersey: One of this year’s most closely watched House midterms will take place in the battleground district represented by Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who has drawn public scrutiny and concern after missing more than 100 House votes due to an undisclosed medical issue. Voters are deciding which Democrat will run against him in November.

— Read more about races in Iowa, Montana and South Dakota.

Here's the latest:

Los Angeles searches for its next chapter

Most of the campaign has focused on issues like rebuilding from the Palisades Fire, affordable housing and persistent homelessness. But there are other, more existential concerns as well.

Hollywood jobs have been decamping for years for cheaper filming locations. A downtown renaissance was crushed by extended pandemic closures, and many office buildings remain desperate for tenants.

The city has long struggled to provide basic services, whether paving buckled streets and sidewalks or keeping streetlights on. The restaurant industry has witnessed a long string of high-profile closures. The city’s notorious gridlock continues unabated.

All of this has increased pressure on city leadership as it prepares to host the Olympics in 2028.

Iowa voter is looking for change

Wallace McCracken was taking time during his lunch break as an energy company safety manager to vote in Newton, the seat of Jasper County in central Iowa.

The 43-year-old registered Democrat said the nation is at a turning point in 2026, and that he wanted to be part of the direction it turns.

“We’re at a precipice and a changing point,” he said, declining to say for whom he voted in Iowa’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary. “If people want change to occur, they’ve got to do something about it.”

The married father of a middle-school student described the course of the nation as “struggling,” in part because he believes government is too tied to corporate interests.

“I would like to see a government did not funnel so much money to private corporations and bend over to lobbyists,” he said, “and, instead, do more for the people directly."

2 Democrats hope to replace Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst

Zach Wahls and Josh Turek are both state lawmakers running for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by the retiring Republican Ernst.

They agree on a lot. But they each say they’re the better pick to win a state that’s dominated by Republicans.

Iowa hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Tom Harkin won his last term in 2008.

GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson is endorsed by Trump and Ernst for the Republican nomination. Hinson faces former state Sen. Jim Carlin in the GOP primary.

Another Democratic voter sees Josh Turek as ‘best positioned’ in November

John Smith, 56, said the most important factor in his vote in Iowa’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate was identifying an individual who would be “best positioned in the general.”

Smith voted for Josh Turek over Zach Wahls.

The two state lawmakers campaigned on different visions for how to win statewide in November. Democrats want to flip the seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst. U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who has the backing of Trump and Ernst, is seeking the GOP nomination.

“It feels like there’s more opportunity for Democrats to gain ground this year than in past years,” said Smith, who lives in Des Moines.

California governor candidate Tom Steyer sings ‘I Won’t Back Down’

Steyer kicked off Pride Month and capped off the last full day of his primary campaign for California governor by belting out Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”

A photo he posted on social media shows Steyer, wearing a backward baseball cap, singing karaoke alongside his wife Kat at a bar in the gay enclave of West Hollywood on Monday night.

“I can’t sing,” Steyer wrote Tuesday on X, “but I can wish you a Happy Pride.”

Steyer, a former hedge fund manager turned liberal activist, has spent millions of his own money as he hopes to advance to the November election.

Will Republican-turned-independent congressman survive California primary?

One of California Democrats’ top targets when they redrew the state’s congressional map was Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley. They split his Northern California district in two, tethering each half to more Democratic areas near Sacramento to create two Democratic-leaning seats.

Kiley opted to run in the 6th District, which is crowded with local Democratic candidates. He became an outspoken critic of political gerrymandering and then left the Republican Party to run as an independent. That might be his best shot of survival with the new California map.

Josh Turek’s electability argument resonates with one progressive Iowa voter

Emily MacFarland, a Democrat, said she voted Tuesday feeling concerned about the nation’s democracy and the state of Iowa. She said she’s glad to see more national attention on the once-competitive state. “I’m just hoping that we can become more purple,” the 49-year-old Des Moines, Iowa, resident said. “I think that Donald Trump is helping out all of the Democrats. This is our chance, honestly.” Like other Iowa Democrats, MacFarland said she had a hard time deciding between Josh Turek and Zach Wahls, two state lawmakers competing to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. Being more progressive, she said she normally would’ve voted for Wahls. But ultimately, MacFarland chose Turek, who has said his experience winning a state House race in a red district can translate to success statewide. “I feel that he has a better shot at maybe getting a few Republicans that maybe are not happy with the Republican Party, or lean more independent,” she said.

Republicans vying to take on New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker

The party has been adrift in the Democratic-leaning state since last year when its Trump-backed candidate for governor lost by double digits.

Voters face a four-way race between attorney Justin Murphy, surgeon Robert Lebovics, Army veteran Richard Tabor and former TV reporter Alex Zdan.

The winner will face Booker, the Democrat who is running for a full third term. Republicans have struggled in Senate contests in New Jersey, which they haven’t won in over five decades.

One Iowa Democrat likes that Zach Wahls won’t ‘shy away’ from his positions

Kristen Anderson, 48, and her 21-year-old daughter, Sydney Baratta of Des Moines, Iowa, both voted on Tuesday for Zach Wahls to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. Anderson said it was a “hard call” because there wasn’t anything wrong with Wahls’ competitor, Josh Turek. Many Iowa Democrats felt torn between the two state lawmakers who want to flip retiring Republican Sen. Joni Ernst’s seat in November. “I don’t have strong inclination that one of them is necessarily better than the other,” Anderson said. But Wahls is “not someone whose going to shy away from his stance,” she said. “He just seems like a good guy, just generally.” Baratta said she wants to see a younger person in office and that she’d be happy with either candidate. But Wahls, she said, brings fresh perspective and a vocal record protecting women’s access to abortion and public education, both important issues to her. “I’m really excited and intrigued by the fact that we might have some younger people in office who can portray my perspective a little bit more realistically,” she said.

San Francisco’s congressional seat is open for the first time in decades

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the embodiment of the Democratic establishment for some. So it was perhaps natural that a wealthy former software engineer, Saikat Chakrabarti, announced plans to challenge her in her San Francisco district.

Chakrabarti is the founder of Justice Democrats, a group that launches primaries of fellow Democrats from the left, and he’s used the millions he made in Silicon Valley to fund his campaign. But Pelosi, who has been in office for nearly 40 years, is retiring from her 11th District seat, and it’s not clear Chakrabarti will make it to the November ballot.

He faces state Sen. Scott Wiener, a well-known lawmaker who has served in San Francisco and the state capitol in Sacramento, and San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who has been endorsed by Pelosi.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Pratt says it’s a two-person race between him and Bass

Republican Spencer Pratt is dismissing Nithya Raman’s campaign as “weak” and effectively over. The only real race, he says, is between him and Democratic incumbent Karen Bass.

Raman, a former Bass ally and progressive city council member, is challenging the mayor from the left.

In a social media video posted Monday, Pratt says Raman hasn’t gotten anything done during her six years in city leadership. He calls a vote for Raman a waste.

“At this point, it’s me and Karen,” Pratt says.

Trump and Vance boost California governor candidate Steve Hilton

President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged his followers to vote for Hilton, a former Fox News TV host and British political adviser.

“He will work with me and the Federal Government, the money will flow because I have confidence in him (but not any of the others!), and we will MAKE CALIFORNIA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance called Hilton a “good guy” and encouraged Californians to vote for him.

“California is such a beautiful state--it just needs better political leadership!” Vance wrote on X.

A progressive challenger to Bass in LA mayor’s race

Nithya Raman was once an ally to Bass, but she filed to challenge her as mayor just hours before the filing deadline. Raman described the city as “at a breaking point.”

She has promised to speed up housing construction, bring back entertainment industry jobs and improve services in a city known for dirty streets and buckled pavement.

Raman hasn’t drawn as much national chatter as Pratt, a former reality television star whose supporters have tried to boost his candidacy with AI-generated videos.

Last week, Raman took a shot at that tactic with her own video showing her flanked by supporters. “No AI was used in the making of this video,” it said.

Some California Democrats aren’t sure who to back for governor

The nation’s most populous state is dominated by Democrats, but some are unsure of who to vote for.

“I’m kind of pinching my nose and voting this go-around rather than being excited,” said Colin Culver, a 21-year-old San Diego resident who ultimately voted for Tom Steyer.

It’s been a chaotic campaign, particularly when former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race after being accused of sexual assault.

Paul Mitchell, a Democratic strategist tracking ballot returns, said some voters “are holding onto the ballot because they have seen this kind of topsy-turvy governor’s race,” and “they’re waiting to make sure they’re making the right choice.”

The Democratic primary for New Mexico governor has been combative

Two Democrats are seeking their party’s nomination to replace Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a term-limited Democrat who will leave office at the end of 2026. Sam Bregman, an Albuquerque-based district attorney, is campaigning on his law enforcement record and promises to stand up to the Trump administration.

Former congresswoman and U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has emphasized her ancestral roots in the state and experience working in the nation’s capital.

Haaland leads Bregman in fundraising by a wide margin, but the primary has become increasingly combative. Bregman’s campaign has seized on the fact that Haaland has declined multiple opportunities to debate him. Meanwhile Haaland’s campaign has cast Bregman as out of touch with everyday New Mexicans, highlighting his personal wealth.

Karen Bass wants a second term as Los Angeles mayor

By any measure, Bass’ first term has been challenging. The worst wildfire in city history began while she was traveling with a presidential delegation in Ghana. Homelessness continues to be a challenge.

“I haven’ always got it right,” Bass says.

But now she wants a second term, which would allow her to keep leading the city of 4 million people as it hosts the Olympics in 2028.

Bass is facing challenges from the left and the right. Progressive city council member Nithya Raman and Republican reality television personality Spencer Pratt are among the 14 names on the ballot.

With so many candidates, no one is likely to get a majority of the vote on Tuesday, meaning the election would be settled by a November runoff between the top two.

Battleground contest brewing in New Jersey district

One of the most closely watched House races in this year’s midterms is unfolding in the New Jersey district represented by Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who’s been absent from votes for nearly three months.

Kean is running unopposed in the Republican primary, where he’s has Trump’s support. But his absence because of an undisclosed personal medical issue has generated outsized interest in the contest.

Kean is seeking a third term.

Trump says absent congressman is ‘working tirelessly’

Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is running unopposed in the primary for New Jersey’s 7th congressional district on Tuesday. But he’s facing growing scrutiny for an unexplained medical absence that has stretched for more than three months, causing him to miss more than 100 votes in Congress.

Trump weighed in on social media late Monday, saying Kean was “working tirelessly” to support the MAGA agenda.

Though Kean isn’t facing any GOP competition today, he’s seeking reelection this fall in one of the few genuinely competitive congressional districts left on the map. Several Democrats vying to take him on in the general election have made his absence — and the lack of clarity surrounding it — a central part of their message.

Democrats hope to dislodge GOP incumbent by redrawing his California district

Every two years, the attention of the nation’s political class is riveted on a Democratic-leaning congressional district in California’s Central Valley. Republican Rep. David Valadao has been able to fend off repeated Democratic challengers, except in 2018, when he barely lost. But he ran again two years later and reclaimed the seat.

Democrats redrew the district to make it even tougher for Valadao. They recruited a moderate who represents the area in the state capital, Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains, to run against him. But she’s had to battle a more liberal rival, political science professor and school board member Randy Villegas. The primary will determine Valadao’s next opponent.

California uses a top-2 primary system

That means all candidates are on the same ballot, regardless of their party affiliation. California has used that system for more than a decade.

It’s occasionally resulted in two candidates from the same party competing against each other in a general election. That happened most notably in U.S. Senate races in 2016 and 2018, when two Democrats faced off.

In the governor’s race, though, one Republican and one Democrat have always advanced to November. Democrats had feared a lockout this year given their large field of candidates. But those worries have diminished in the race’s closing weeks.

Republican candidates for governor say California needs a change

A Democrat has held the governor’s office since 2011, when Jerry Brown took over from Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Democrats have also had a firm grip on the state Legislature.

Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco say that means Democrats are to blame for the state’s expensive gas and housing, its homelessness crisis and a slew of other problems. Both have pledged to reduce regulations and taxes.

Hilton has President Donald Trump’s backing. That could help him in the primary but hurt him in the general election in the heavily Democratic state.

Republicans will fight hard to keep the Iowa US Senate seat

Holding on to Iowa is a big part of the GOP’s plan to keep its U.S. Senate majority.

A super PAC affiliated with Senate Republicans has pledged $29 million to help ensure the seat stays in GOP hands.

California uses a top-2 primary system

That means all candidates are on the same ballot, regardless of their party affiliation. California has used that system for more than a decade.

It has occasionally resulted in two candidates from the same party competing against each other in a general election. That happened most notably in U.S. Senate races in 2016 and 2018, when two Democrats faced off.

In the governor’s race, though, one Republican and one Democrat have always advanced to November. Democrats had feared a lockout this year, given their large field of candidates. But those worries have diminished in the race’s closing weeks.

5 Republicans want to be Iowa governor

The candidates are U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, state Rep. Eddie Andrews, businessman and former conservative political director Zach Lahn, former state Rep. Brad Sherman and former director of the state Department of Administrative Services Adam Steen.

If no candidate earns at least 35% of Republican primary voters, the nominee would be selected at a contested state party convention.

Trump endorsed Feenstra on Friday, saying on social media that “Randy is MAGA all the way!”

2 veteran California US House members draw generational challenges

The generational fighting that has been ripping through the Democratic Party continues in California’s primaries.

In the Los Angeles-area’s 32nd District, 42-year-old lawyer Jake Levine is challenging Brad Sherman, 71, a 15-term member of the House of Representatives.

And in the 7th District near Sacramento, 40-year-old city councilwoman Mai Vang is challenging Doris Matsui, 81, who has held the seat since her husband, a congressman himself for decades, died in 2005.

California Democrat’s spending dwarfed his rivals

Tom Steyer, the former hedge fund manager turned climate activist, spent nearly $200 million of his money on advertising alone.

The billionaire’s ad campaign was the most expensive in the country by far this election cycle. The data comes from advertising tracker AdImpact.

Steyer’s rivals in the governor’s race and his critics have accused him of trying to buy the election.

But he’s defended his spending, saying he is fighting against powerful corporate interests that are driving up the price of living in the state. Pacific Gas & Electric, a major California utility, is among the corporations and business interests funding anti-Steyer ads.

“I’m only working for the people of California,” Steyer said last week.

3 Republicans seek party nomination for New Mexico governor

They are former mayor of fast-growing Rio Rancho Gregg Hull, cannabis business owner Duke Rodriguez and public relations professional Doug Turner.

While Hull and Turner have not aligned their campaigns with the MAGA movement, Rodriguez was recently served a cease-and-desist letter from a law firm representing Trump for “deceptive use” of the president’s image in campaign materials. That contest's winner faces an uphill battle to win in a state where a Republican has not been elected to statewide office in 10 years.

Under a deal made public in March, French company TotalEnergies is getting $1 billion — essentially a refund of its leases for offshore wind projects off New York and North Carolina — if it invests the money in fossil fuel projects instead.

State attorneys general from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont joined New York in challenging the cancellation of the lease off of New York, the larger of the two projects and the bulk of the payout. They say it will harm their states’ economies, energy grids and climate goals.

“This administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. "We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she and James will continue to aggressively fight back against President Donald Trump’s “overt and never-ending hostility toward offshore wind." Trump, who often talks about his hatred of wind power, has said his goal is to not let any “windmills” be built.

The complaint filed in District Court for the District of Columbia names administration officials, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, as defendants, and argues that they canceled the lease without following proper procedures. The states are asking a federal judge to vacate the lease cancellation and settlement agreement with TotalEnergies' subsidiary, Attentive Energy.

Separately, a coalition of renewable energy groups filed a complaint in District Court in Oregon on Sunday over Pentagon officials not completing national security reviews for new onshore wind farms on private lands. They say this inaction has brought a total halt to all wind project development. The Pentagon has said its siting clearinghouse is actively evaluating land-based wind energy projects and it's a complex, time-consuming process.

The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday about the New York-led lawsuit, but Burgum defended the deal last month during a hearing at the House Natural Resources Committee.

U.S. Rep. Dave Min, a California Democrat, asked Burgum if it's appropriate for Interior to send $1 billion to a foreign oil company to stop producing energy, while people are dealing with sky-high utility bills.

Burgum said TotalEnergies was simply refunded their money, which they have already invested in other energy projects in the U.S.

“They essentially gave the U.S. government an interest-free loan and their money was refunded to them,” he said.

Min said the cancellation of TotalEnergies’ offshore wind leases is a case study on Interior's “economically illiterate and unlawful energy strategy.”

TotalEnergies purchased the lease off New York and New Jersey, in 2022, for $795 million. This was planned as a larger project, with the potential to generate 3 gigawatts of clean energy to power nearly one million homes. It would have brought $10 billion in savings to ratepayers across New York, with $500 million in savings for low-income households, on electricity bills, according to the complaint filed Tuesday.

TotalEnergies also purchased a lease for its Carolina Long Bay project in 2022 for about $133 million. It aimed to generate more than 1 gigawatt there, enough to power about 300,000 homes.

Burgum has said companies were sold a product that was only viable when propped up by massive taxpayer subsidies when they bid for these offshore wind leases in 2022, under former President Joe Biden.

The Trump administration is spending nearly $2 billion to get energy companies to walk away from U.S. offshore wind projects. It adopted this strategy after federal courts thwarted Trump’s efforts to stop offshore wind development through executive action.

Democrats in Congress are investigating the TotalEnergies agreement, and California is investigating a deal that ended a floating offshore wind project, Golden State Wind, proposed off the state's central coast.

Bluepoint Wind also agreed to end its lease for an offshore wind project in the early stages of development off the coasts of New Jersey and New York. Tuesday's complaint does not challenge this agreement, as the lease has not been canceled yet.

___

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

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans will meet Tuesday to discuss next steps after the Justice Department said it would comply with a court order pausing the implementation of a $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate President Donald Trump’s political allies.

Trump has tapped Federal Housing Finance Director Bill Pulte to be the acting director of national intelligence to replace Tulsi Gabbard. Trump made the surprise announcement Tuesday on Truth Social.

The Latest:

Rubio does not support Netanyahu’s plan of seizing 70% of Gaza

Rep. Rose DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, pressed Rubio on where the U.S. stands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal of seizing 70% of Gaza to defeat the Hamas militant group.

Rubio said Netanyahu’s statement was not part of President Trump’s 20-point plan to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The plan would end Hamas’ rule and rebuild the territory.

“We have a plan — it doesn’t call for that,” Rubio said. “And at the end of the day, we understand that what we want, and I think what the Israelis would ultimately want, is a Gaza that is governed by a non-Hamas” entity.

Testy exchange between Murphy, Mullin kicks off hearing

The budget hearing with DHS Secretary Mullin is already getting heated.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy used his opening statement to lambast Mullin and his department.

Murphy said while Mullin vowed during his confirmation hearing to keep the department out of the news, he’d done the opposite. He slammed Mullin’s threats to pull CBP officers from airports and accused the department of reckless spending.

“Every day, this agency is breaking the law at scale and wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. DHS does not implement the law any longer. It makes up the law,” said Murphy.

Mullin, who until just a few months ago was a senator alongside Murphy, diverted from his prepared remarks to respond to Murphy.

“I do have an opening statement here, but, wow, Senator Murphy, the outlandish claims you made there, it’s just flat wrong,” said Mullin who blamed rhetoric like Murphy’s for a growing number of threats and attacks against his officers.

Democratic lawmaker blasts ‘insidious sledgehammer’ to foreign aid during Rubio’s second hearing

Rep. Lois Frankel, one of the senior Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, said that when Rubio was first confirmed to be America’s top diplomat she was hopeful about what he had presented as his “commitment to democracy and American leadership.”

“And then what happened? DOGE came in with Elon Musk,” the Florida lawmaker said.

She added that Musk and his allies’ time in the administration has had “devastating consequences” that resulted in the dismantling of USAID agency, terminating critical health and development programs, and forcing thousands of experienced public servants out of government.

Rubio faces continued protests during second hearing

When Rubio began his testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday afternoon, a man stood up with a sign and urged the Secretary of State stop supporting Israel and what the man said was “genocide.” The man was quickly led out of the room.

Rubio faced protesters during an earlier hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They raised concerns that sanctions against Cuba were hurting children on the island nation.

This is the first time Rubio is testifying to lawmakers since the Iran war began.

Mullin hearing kicks off in Senate

A Senate budget hearing with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is getting started.

Mullin is at the appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.

The Senate is currently weighing legislation that would fund immigration enforcement agencies through the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

That’s designed to bypass any need for Democratic support. They’ve demanded restraints on ICE and Border Patrol before agreeing to fund the agencies.

But that funding attempt has been caught up in Republican opposition to a $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been politically prosecuted.

Mullin’s likely to face questioning about conduct of immigration enforcement officers, treatment of detainees at an ICE facility in New Jersey and security preparations for the World Cup.

Rubio faces more grilling during second congressional hearing of the day

Rubio is testifying for the second time Tuesday before lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The stated reason is the State Department’s budget, but questions will likely veer into issues concerning the Iran war, the Trump administration’s campaign against drug cartels in Latin America and U.S. support for Taiwan.

The former Republican senator from Florida sat for well over two hours of questioning on Tuesday morning in front the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the afternoon, he’ll be testifying before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations.

Like the Senate hearing, the hallways outside the room included protestors. Some called Rubio a terrorist and told him to stop killing children in Gaza and Iran when he walked into the room.

Mullin faces Senate grilling on DHS budget, immigration crackdown and World Cup worries

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is slated to appear Tuesday in the Senate to answer questions about the agency’s budget, at a time of intense scrutiny about how the Trump administration is carrying out immigration enforcement and preparing for the World Cup.

The Senate is weighing legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies through the end of Trump’s term in a maneuver that would bypass the need for support from Democrats, who have demanded restraints. The attempt has stalled over separate Republican opposition to a $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been politically prosecuted.

Mullin, who was tapped by Trump to lead Homeland Security after his predecessor Kristi Noem was fired, is appearing in the Senate Tuesday for the first time since his confirmation hearing in March. On Wednesday, he’ll testify in the House about the budget.

From festering infections to untreated cancer, ICE detainees across the US describe medical neglect

An investigation by KFF Health News and The Associated Press has found that hundreds of detainees across at least 33 states allege immigration detention facilities are failing to provide adequate medical care.

Detainees allege they didn’t receive medications on time — or at all — for conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, epilepsy, Parkinson’s and HIV. Requests for help went unanswered for weeks. Blood sugars rose. Infections festered. Cancers remained untreated. Detainees collapsed and had seizures.

U.S. jails and immigration detention centers have long struggled to meet the medical needs of the people in their charge. But the system is sagging under an influx of detentions since Trump returned to office: More than 75,000 immigrants were being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as of mid-January, up from around 40,000 a year earlier.

KFF Health News and AP asked the Department of Homeland Security to respond to the findings six days before publication but it did not provide comment.

▶ Read more

Trump keeps getting checkups because ‘he likes the results,’ Oz says

The CMS administrator faced another question about the president’s more-than-annual physicals. The president went for the fourth known checkup of his second term last week.

“I think he likes the results,” Oz responded. “He aces the test every single day, and I do actually believe that he is curious to make sure everything is going in the right direction.”

His getting so many physicals was more of a sign of his “very meticulous” nature, Oz contended, because he “wants to know all the numbers” and stay on top of them.

Oz says he trusts Trump’s judgement, when asked why Pulte is qualified to serve as director of national intelligence

Oz was repeatedly questioned about why Pulte is qualified for the role when he has no known experience with intelligence or national security.

He called Pulte “a great guy” and said, “I know him socially” but had not worked with him in his job.

When pressed, Oz said, “You’re asking me a question that’s not in my lane. I’m so focused on making sure Americans are healthy.”

He later said that he appreciated reporters want an answer but said, “I’m not going to be the one giving it to you.”

Oz says Trump’s health is ‘spectacular’

The CMS administrator, who is a physician by trade, says the almost 80-year-old president has “excellent” health, according to his medical records.

Trump went for another checkup at Walter Reed last week.

“That amount of energy and that amount of mental acuity does not exist in a vacuum,” Oz told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. Referring presumably to Trump’s physical body, Oz said: “you have to have a vessel to carry it.”

Trump appears to dispute state media reports that Iran cuts off talks

Trump in a social media post on Tuesday disputed that Iran has cut off communication with mediators, calling Iranian reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous.”

“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today,” Trump said. “Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal. You’ve been doing this for 47 years, and it cannot be allowed to go on any longer!’”

Fars and Tasnim, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies, reported earlier Tuesday that Iran had stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel.

Oz reveals TrumpRx is adding 160 more drugs

The CMS administrator announced during the White House press briefing that 160 new medications are being added to the government’s discounted drug website TrumpRx.

That brings the total number of drugs on the site to more than 750, Oz said.

The news comes two weeks after the Trump administration unveiled partnerships with various online pharmacies to add some 600 generic drugs to the platform.

Even with generics added, experts said the potential savings heavily depend on a patient’s situation. For the vast majority of Americans who have health insurance, using that coverage to get medications is cheaper than paying cash through TrumpRx.

Rubio Senate hearing ends as House hearing nears

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has wrapped up his hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which was his first before Congress since the Iran war began.

Rubio will face the House Appropriations Committee at 2 p.m.

Lights, camera, press briefing: The Dr. Oz show comes to the White House

Dr. Mehmet Oz is about to be in the spotlight. It’s a place where he’s already comfortable.

The heart surgeon and longtime daytime TV host, now running the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will lead Tuesday’s White House press briefing as the fourth administration official to stand in for press secretary Karoline Leavitt during her maternity leave.

Oz rose to prominence on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show before spinning off his own series, “The Dr. Oz Show,” in 2009. And though he now leads one of the Trump administration’s wonkiest agencies, he’s still found ways to use his camera showmanship to his advantage.

With social media videos and speeches around the country in recent months, he’s become one of the most public promoters of the administration’s efforts to fight healthcare fraud.

Democratic senator calls Rubio absence during US-Iran talks in Pakistan ‘embarrassing’

Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada called out her former senate colleague for being at a party while Vice President J.D. Vance led a delegation to Pakistan in April to meet with their Iranian counterparts.

Rubio was actually cage-side with Trump at a UFC event in Miami as the peace talks with Iran failed on the other side of the world.

“I just feel that’s embarrassing for us and it’s embarrassing for you,” Rosen said. “We confirmed you to be in the negotiations that are happening. And it’s just unthinkable to me that you are not you are missing high stakes negotiations or that you’re not involved. It’s sad.

In one of his more sharp rebukes, Rubio defended his absence.

“I was co-located with the president in the midst of a high stakes negotiation, so that I could immediately inform him about events occurring halfway around the world,” he said. “I was where I needed to be at that moment.”

Republicans offer first takes on Trump’s pick for intelligence chief

Some Republicans are voicing skepticism about the qualifications of President Donald Trump’s choice to serve as the acting director of national intelligence.

“I don’t see any evidence of qualifications for that job, but as you know, the Senate doesn’t have a role to play in acting (appointments,)” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said of Trump’s choice, Bill Pulte.

“I do not know Mr. Pulte at all. I do not know if he has any intelligence or military background. I don’t even know if he has a security clearance. I know nothing about him at all,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Collins said she had not made a firm decision yet “because maybe there’s a lot in his background that is relevant to this important position.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said Pulte “doesn’t seem qualified.”

“Beyond his absence of apparent qualifications, maybe there’s something I don’t know about,” Cassidy said.

‘No one is begging’: Rubio defends US unsteady stance in Iran negotiations

In a tense back-and-forth, Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and Rubio argued over who has the upper-hand in the more than two month war between U.S. and Iran.

The New Jersey lawmaker pointed to the unsteady ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, which has been further tested in recent days by back-and-forth attacks.

“We are the strongest nation on the planet Earth, and we’re in a stalemate with Iran,” Booker said to the secretary. “And now we’re begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed in the first place.”

“There’s no one begging,” Rubio responded, detailing what he called the dire situation of Iran’s economy. “I don’t know where you’re getting this perception that Iran is stronger.”

Rubio says Afghan allies can’t come to US but will try to resettle them elsewhere

The secretary said he could not commit to Democratic Sen. Chris Coons to resettle more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted America’s war effort and relatives of U.S. service members to the U.S. as was promised under the Biden administration.

Rubio said the U.S. is in talks with multiple countries to take a few hundred of them in order to avoid sending them back to the Taliban where they will likely face reprisal.

Those individuals have been stranded at a U.S. base in Doha for the past year as the Trump administration’s immigration actions have left them in a limbo.

The refugees at Camp As-Sayliyah include Afghans who served as interpreters and with Special Operations Forces as well as the immediate families of more than 150 active duty U.S. military members.

Rubio says State Department decided a few weeks ago to reengage in the global vaccine alliance Gavi

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, questioned Rubio over last year’s U.S. withdrawal of funding from the global vaccine alliance Gavi amid the growing Ebola outbreak abroad.

In his response, Rubio said the State Department is taking matters into its own hands after letting Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist before entering office, have his say.

“The president had asked that we allow Secretary Kennedy to play a leading role on the Gavi decision because of his strongly held views with regards to vaccine safety and he wanted them to conduct some reforms,” Rubio said.

“We have certainly allowed him to play a leading role in determining what we’re going to do next but right now we are sort of at a stage where we are going to re-engage. We need to drive this to an outcome.”

Rubio says pressure from China is not holding up Taiwan arms deal

Rubio said a U.S. arms deal to Taiwan is not under review right now because of pressure from China, although he said the Chinese almost always bring up the issue in discussions with the United States and Trump has described it as a great negotiating chip.

“They are constantly talking about Taiwan arms sales, but that in no way is what is holding up our decision making or the White House’s decision making,” Rubio said. “It is something the president will have to decide on the timing of when and how that is executed on. It’s been approved by Congress, it’s been noticed, the money is available.”

Rubio added that the U.S. recently sold arms to Taiwan in December.

“So there are a variety of reasons why these things don’t happen immediately,” Rubio said.

Sen. Van Hollen questions Rubio suggestion of link between Cuba and Hamas

Van Hollen pressed Rubio on whether there’s any evidence to support his suggestion of a continuing link between Cuba and the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups in the Middle East.

Van Hollen noted that a thorough review by the intelligence community under the Biden administration had concluded there was no evidence that Cuba was involved in state-sponsored terrorism.

Rubio pointed to Cuba’s historical support of leftist and Marxist groups in the Western Hemisphere. However, Rubio didn’t answer Van Hollen’s question about whether the current administration had found new evidence of Cuba being a state sponsor of terrorism. “Why would I need new evidence?” he said.

Democratic senator tells Rubio that Trump foreign policy ‘has become a dumpster fire’

In a sharp diatribe against the status of U.S. foreign policy, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen blasted Rubio and his boss, Trump, for the actions taken in the year and a half in office regarding aid and foreign intervention. The Maryland lawmaker specifically took aim at the U.S. and Israeli decision to strike Iran, accusing Trump of entering the war on behalf of Israel.

“Netanyahu said he’s been waiting 40 years to do this. It turns out he finally found a president who was both stupid and reckless enough to join him,” Van Hollen said.

He then detailed the war’s impact, including the death of 14 U.S. service members and thousands of civilians, and the increase in gas prices.

“Let’s face it, Mr. Secretary, the Trump foreign policy has become a dumpster fire,” Van Hollen added.

Trump made the surprise announcement Tuesday on social media that Pulte would be replacing Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii congresswoman who had served as the director of national intelligence. Trump said Pulte will keep his other positions even as he fills in for Gabbard, who resigned last month after revealing her husband’s cancer diagnosis.

The Republican president cited Pulte's work at the FHFA and his role as chair of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as indicating that his real estate work would overlap with the skills needed to coordinate 18 federal agencies tasked with aspects of foreign and domestic security.

“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets," Trump posted on Truth Social.

Trump's choice to elevate Pulte, who would also continue in his post at FHFA, shows how the president is putting a greater priority on loyalty to him, even as the Iran war has damaged Trump politically going into November's midterm elections and raised concerns about the quality of advice that aides are giving to a president who has rewarded flattery.

It’s unclear what national security expertise Pulte brings to bear as the U.S. faces conflict in the Middle East, helps Ukraine defend itself against Russia's assault and manages the emergence of artificial intelligence as a military tool. But Pulte, who's 38 years old, has been a frequent guest on Air Force One as Trump has traveled to Mar-a-Lago, his home and club in Palm Beach, Florida.

On one such flight, the housing finance director stood in a doorway as Trump discussed with reporters the ballroom he’s building at the White House and handed Trump a series of renderings of the project that the president held up.

Questions about Pulte's experience

Several Senate Republicans reacted skeptically to Pulte’s appointment, questioning whether the housing finance director has the experience necessary to oversee the intelligence agency.

“We don’t need a weaponized DNI. We need professionals there," said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota. "I’m trying to get more information about the current state of their thinking about that position. And, again, if he’s somebody they want in that position permanently, he’s got, as you all know, a lengthy road ahead of him.“

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in response to questions about Pulte's national security credentials: “I have no observations on the matter.”

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, all of whom are leaving the chamber after this year's elections, joined the chorus of wariness against Pulte.

“Doesn’t seem qualified,” Cassidy said.

“I don’t see any evidence of qualifications for that job,” said Cornyn, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“When we looked at his background for the current confirmation, I thought most of his experience was in the building industry,” Tillis said. “I didn’t know he had any national security experience.”

Democrats noted that Pulte's major qualification appeared to be his enthusiasm for fulfilling Trump's requests.

“The concern is not only that Mr. Pulte lacks the ‘extensive national security experience’ required by statute for the job, which was created after intelligence failures led to the deaths of thousands of Americans on 9/11," said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in a statement. “It is that he appears to have been selected precisely because the White House believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Pulte has been “abusing his authority” as the federal housing finance director and Trump is now "rewarding his lackey — who has no national security experience — with a perch atop our nation’s intelligence community. What could go wrong?”

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, the liberal consumer rights advocacy group, warned that Pulte was “Trump's hatchet man” who would use the government against those Americans who object to the president's actions.

“Placing Pulte in this post would position him to use the nation’s massive surveillance apparatus and police capacity to harass, intimidate and threaten the many, many people that Trump considers his enemies," Weissman said.

Pulte's attacks on Trump foes

As the grandson of the founder of PulteGroup, one of the country's largest homebuilders, Pulte has cut a combative streak on social media and used his post at the FHFA to attack perceived opponents of the Trump administration.

His time overseeing mortgage finance has been linked with criminal referrals over allegations of mortgage fraud by public officials Trump sought to punish, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat; Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; and Lisa Cook, a board member of the Federal Reserve, who was nominated by a Democratic president, Joe Biden.

The prosecution against James was dismissed in November after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges was illegally appointed. Other referrals made by Pulte, including against Schiff and Cook, have not yielded any criminal charges. Lawyers for both have denied any claims of wrongdoing. But Trump did try to use the possibility of mortgage fraud as grounds for removing Cook from the Fed.

Cook’s lawyer accused Pulte of pursuing mortgage fraud on a partisan basis, focusing on Democrats and refusing to pursue similar allegations against Republicans.

Pulte told reporters at the White House several months ago that he had also made criminal referrals regarding at least one Republican official, but he declined to provide the name.

He has famously gone after then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the central bank’s benchmark interest rates as aggressively as the president wanted. He has also been linked to ideas such as the 50-year mortgage and efforts to lower mortgage rates through the purchase of home loan debt that have not paid off as promised, as mortgage rates began to climb after the Iran war started at the end of February.

Pulte has a reputation for cultivating enemies. In a legal feud pursued by Pulte that involved his family namesake's homebuilding company, he accused his grandfather’s widow of insider trading. He was believed to be the driving force behind a website trashing an aunt as a “fake Christian.” And he publicly blasted another relative as “a fat slob,” “weirdo” and “grifter,” according to court records.

Politico reported in September that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to punch Pulte in the face. The showdown occurred at a private dinner, and the treasury secretary claimed that he had heard Pulte had been badmouthing him to Trump.

If formally nominated, Pulte would need to be confirmed by the Senate to hold the position full-time.

In his first term, Trump at various points had acting officials leading the Justice and Defense departments and in top posts at Homeland Security and the Interior.

___

Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

Despite New Mexico's persistent challenges, the primary election comes at a time of promise for the next governor. Surging oil prices caused by the Iran war have translated into an influx of tax revenue to state coffers. New Mexico is the nation’s second-largest oil-producing state behind Texas, and the industry’s revenue funds an array of progressive social programs that include universal childcare.

For the first time, the primary is open to voters who are independent. The state’s semi-open primary system, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last year, allows the roughly 23% of New Mexico voters who are not affiliated with a political party to request either a Democratic or Republican ballot.

While voters will decide primaries in three congressional seats, a U.S. Senate seat and a long list of statewide offices, the governor's race is the main attraction.

Former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who also served a term in the U.S. House, and Albuquerque-based District Attorney Sam Bregman are seeking the Democratic nomination to replace Lujan Grisham, who reached her term limit.

Haaland, a citizen of Laguna Pueblo, could become the first Native American woman elected governor in the U.S. Her campaign has focused on reducing costs for families, emphasizing her ancestral roots in the state and touting her experience working in the nation's capital.

She was out campaigning Tuesday, making her first stop at San Felipe Pueblo, a Native American community north of Albuquerque.

“Don’t just honk, vote!” Haaland said as she waved a campaign sign and encouraged passing motorists to turn into the voting center parking lot.

She was greeted with hugs by women from the pueblo. Meredith Ansera, a project coordinator with the pueblo, said she worked with Haaland during her tenure as a tribal administrator who helped oversee education and childcare programs.

“She knows what our needs are and she’s been there,” said Ansera, who cast her ballot early last week.

Haaland leads Bregman in fundraising. Her campaign has highlighted Bregman's wealth and cast him as out of touch with everyday New Mexicans. Haaland declined several opportunities to debate Bregman, who has argued that his experience as a prosecutor puts him in the best position for Democrats in a state with high crime rates.

His campaign also criticized Haaland after her name appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files. She flew on a private jet chartered by one of Epstein's companies during her 2014 unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor. That flight to a fundraising meeting in Washington, D.C., was paid for by Gary King, her running mate at the time. King's family had sold Epstein a ranch in New Mexico two decades earlier.

Haaland said she was unaware of Epstein’s role in arranging the flight and never met him.

Bregman, the prosecutor for Bernalillo County and the father of Chicago Cubs All-Star Alex Bregman, has promised to stand up to the Trump administration on issues such as healthcare and immigration.

Three candidates are running in the Republican primary, with the winner facing an uphill battle to claim a state that has trended left in recent years. Democrats have won every statewide elected office since 2017, and it's been decades since a Republican presidential candidate won the state.

Gregg Hull was mayor of fast-growing Rio Rancho and has pointed to his leadership there as a blueprint for how he would govern, promising to attract large employers. Duke Rodriguez, former state Cabinet secretary under former Republican Gov. Gary Johnson turned cannabis CEO, has focused on stabilizing the state’s healthcare system, which faces financial troubles and a severe shortage of physicians. Public relations professional Doug Turner has focused on plans to lift the state’s public education system from the bottom of national rankings.

While Hull and Turner have not aligned their campaigns with the MAGA movement, Rodriguez was recently served a cease-and-desist letter from a law firm representing President Donald Trump for “deceptive use” of Trump’s image in campaign materials.

The winner of November's general election will inherit the oil windfall in the state budget that has led to competing ideas on how best to use it — from cutting one-time checks for taxpayers to funding tax credits that would mostly aid low-income residents to eliminating the state's income tax.

The state's reliance on fossil fuels to fund its programs also has proved politically sensitive for Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., pointed to Blanche's expected testimony in a House committee Tuesday afternoon. He told reporters that Blanche “previewed what he was going to say" about the settlement, which is designed to compensate Trump’s political allies and has met with strong pushback from Senate Republicans.

“The conversation I had with him was very definitive," Thune said.

Asked if it was his understanding that the settlement fund was off the table, Thune said “that is correct."

Still, neither Blanche nor Trump have said anything publicly about the future of the fund.

GOP senators who revolted against the settlement before leaving for a Memorial Day recess two weeks ago have said they want more information from the administration about the future of the fund, which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The Justice Department said Monday it would comply with a court order pausing its implementation.

Meanwhile, Trump has been reconsidering whether to move forward with it at all, according to a person familiar with his thinking.

Immigration bill caught in settlement uproar

Caught in the middle is legislation that would fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies for three years. Republicans abruptly left town May 21 without passing it after Democrats said they would offer amendments to scrap or scale back the judgment fund, forcing Republicans to go on the record for or against it and endangering the money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.

“The only way to ensure Trump’s $2 billion, taxpayer-funded giveaway to Trump’s MAGA allies never sees the light of day is to abolish it by law,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.

Returning to Washington on Monday evening, Thune said he wasn’t sure if the immigration spending bill would move this week. “To be determined,” he told reporters.

Republican senators leaving a lunch meeting on Tuesday also said it was still unclear if it would move.

“We'll just have to wait and see,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters. If senators are satisfied with Blanche's testimony, “we'll probably proceed quickly,” he said.

Standoff comes after surprise announcement

The extraordinary standoff comes after Trump announced the fund with no heads up to lawmakers as part of a settlement to resolve his lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns. When word of the settlement broke, the Senate was already navigating tricky passage of the immigration legislation with an added $1 billion in White House security costs — including for Trump’s ballroom project.

Furious, Senate Republicans jettisoned the White House security money from the bill and made clear they would not pass the legislation at all unless the White House made major changes to the settlement.

“I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” Thune told reporters Monday, referring to the fund.

The Justice Department said it would comply with a ruling Friday from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who temporarily halted the fund for two weeks. The judge scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend her order.

The department said in a statement that it strongly disagrees with the ruling but would comply.

Senators say they need more ‘explicit’ commitment

Republican senators weren't satisfied. They have said that they need more detail from the administration on what happens after that deadline before deciding next steps.

“It’s pretty clear that the president has to say very explicitly that there’s not going to be a weaponization fund,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Oklahoma Sen. Jim Lankford said Trump administration officials “need to say what they actually mean.”

“They need to say, we’re setting this whole thing aside,” Lankford said.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that if the settlement is “completely pulled, then I’m satisfied. But I haven’t heard anybody say that.”

Kennedy said the administration already has to abide by the court decision, “that’s in the Constitution. I have to know more about their position.”

“Right now, the reconciliation bill looks like a broken arm with the bones sticking out,” Kennedy said. “It won’t move this week, in my opinion, unless we have some resolution on the weaponization account.”

Republicans issue rare ultimatum to DOJ

The outrage over the fund came to a head last month at a closed-door meeting between senators and Blanche that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas described on a recent episode of his podcast as “one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.”

GOP senators had been discussing several ways that they could curb the fund, including limiting who can receive payouts, changing the makeup of the commission in charge of settlement decisions, adding some sort of judicial review for applicants or scrapping the fund altogether.

Amid the backlash, a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking, said Monday that Trump was reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund. But the president has not said publicly what he intends to do.

Also complicating matters is Trump’s campaign-year push to defeat GOP lawmakers whom he sees as disloyal, including some of Thune’s most reliable Republican votes in the narrow 53-47 Senate. Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas both lost reelection bids in May after Trump endorsed their primary opponents, and it’s unclear how supportive they’ll be of the president’s agenda going forward.

“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” Thune said before the Senate left town.

___

Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

The order establishes a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to a month before their public release. Participation by AI developers would be voluntary, the order says.

“Advanced AI capabilities make our Nation stronger, but also introduce new national security considerations that require coordinated action across executive departments and agencies,” the order says.

It was not immediately clear to what extent the order differed from the one Trump declined to sign on May 21.

The order says the government would have only 30 days to review an AI system, a shorter time frame than some in the industry were expecting. A longer time period might have been seen as too burdensome for a fast-moving and highly competitive industry.

Trump canceled an Oval Office event with tech industry executives last month because he did not like what he saw in the earlier version of the order's text. “We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that lead,” Trump told reporters at the time.

That directive was characterized as a voluntary collaboration with participating U.S.-based tech companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, which are sometimes described as “frontier labs” because they are building the most advanced AI systems. Several companies had been planning to have executives present at the May 21 signing event. Trump ended up signing it without any ceremony.

The White House said in a social media post Tuesday that the executive order "creates a process for frontier labs to voluntarily share cutting-edge cyber models in order to secure critical infrastructure and strengthen the government’s own cyber defenses. We are NOT conducting oversight of all new models, as that level of government overreach would have chilling effects on free speech and innovation."

Juan Londoño, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said the order is imperfect but “a step in the right direction to prepare the nation for the release of advanced AI systems.”

He applauded the White House's characterization of the process as voluntary but said he was concerned about the vagueness of how the government, led by the director of the National Security Agency, will decide which AI models qualify for scrutiny, and how it will decide which “trusted partners” get early access to them.

Londoño said in an interview that giving so much discretion to the NSA director was a “dangerous precedent” that could enable the government to “weaponize” the policy against companies it is clashing with, like Anthropic.

Plans for a new AI cybersecurity directive followed Anthropic's April announcement of its most advanced AI model, called Claude Mythos, in the middle of the company's legal fight with the Trump administration over a contract dispute with the Pentagon.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs, warning them about the risks posed by Mythos' apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software. Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to only a small group of trusted partners, such as big tech companies and banks, though it said Tuesday it has expanded that group by another 150 organizations.

Anthropic didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump's new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.

“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI's chief global affairs officer.

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump's policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”

Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.

Warmer oceans are the starting point

Hurricanes run on heat. The warmer the ocean, the more energy a storm can pull from the water below it. Right now, global sea surface temperatures are running well above average — in 2026, nearly tracking the record-breaking levels we saw in 2024. That sustained ocean warmth is not a seasonal anomaly. It is a trend, and it is loading the atmosphere in favor of stronger storms.

Storms are spinning up faster

One of the most alarming changes scientists are tracking is rapid intensification — when a hurricane’s winds increase by at least 35 miles per hour in a 24-hour window. Data from 1980 through 2024 shows this phenomenon is becoming more frequent. Storms are going from manageable to dangerous with very little warning time.

• What is Saharan Dust? How it travels to Texas and impacts hurricanes, air quality, sunsets and the whales

Houston knows this firsthand. When Hurricane Beryl crossed the Gulf in July 2024, it rapidly intensified fueled by record-warm ocean temperatures and sustained that strength all the way into the metro area. The power outages that followed lasted weeks for some residents. Rapid intensification is not a forecasting problem — it is a climate signal.

A warmer atmosphere means heavier rain

It is not just the winds getting more dangerous. The atmosphere itself is holding more water. For every degree of warming, the air can hold approximately 4% more water vapor. That translates directly into rainfall — storms that might have dropped several inches a generation ago are now capable of dropping significantly more.

• KPRC 2’s 2026 Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide

Here in Houston, that trend shows up in the data. Rainfall intensity has increased 22% since 1970. We are not just getting more rain — we are getting it harder and faster. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 dropped more than 60 inches in some areas, a record that reshaped how meteorologists and engineers think about extreme rainfall. Harvey was not a fluke. It was a preview.

Rising seas make storm surge worse

Storm surge — the wall of ocean water pushed ashore by a hurricane’s winds — is historically the deadliest part of any storm. As global sea levels continue to rise, that surge starts from a higher baseline. Water that once stopped at the shoreline now reaches further inland, threatening neighborhoods that never flooded before.

For a low-lying, flat city like Houston, the math on storm surge is sobering. Infrastructure built to handle the storms of the last century is increasingly being tested by the storms of this one.

What this means for Houston

These are not distant threats. They are showing up in our data, in our streets, and in our power grid. Warmer oceans fuel stronger winds. Rising seas worsen storm surge. A warming atmosphere brings heavier rainfall. For Houston, all three converge at once.

• Living paycheck to paycheck? Here’s how Houston families can build a hurricane kit affordably

No zip code is immune. The question heading into every hurricane season now is not whether these storms are getting more dangerous — the science has answered that. The question is whether we are ready.

The S&P 500 rose 0.1% a day after setting its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 252 points, or 0.5%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise helped lead the market, and its stock soared 17.1% after it reported a profit for the latest quarter that blew past analysts’ expectations. It credited demand from customers building their artificial-intelligence capabilities.

Marvell Technology leaped 29.3% toward its best day in three years after Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, suggested at a conference in Taiwan that Marvell could be “the next trillion-dollar company.” The last company to enter the expanding club of behemoths was Micron Technology, which is likewise riding the AI wave. Nvidia, which slipped 0.8%, has seen its total value explode over $5 trillion.

Generac climbed 6% after saying it signed a deal to provide backup power generators to an unnamed “leading hyperscale data center operator.”

Such “hyperscalers” are spending tremendous amounts of money to build huge AI data centers, which are powering what proponents believe is the next great revolution for the global economy.

Alphabet is one of those hyperscalers, and the parent company of Google said it's raising $80 billion in cash to help pay for its investments by selling shares of its stock. It’s planning to spend as much as $190 billion on equipment and other investments this year.

That’s more than all the stock of The Walt Disney Co. is worth, and Alphabet is forecasting its spending on investments next year will “significantly increase.”

Such huge sums raise the question about whether AI can produce the profits and productivity necessary to make all the investment worth it. Critics have already been talking about the possibility of a bubble in AI investment, and Alphabet's stock fell 3.3%. It was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500.

Analysts have been saying the broad U.S. stock market may be set for a slowdown following an unrelenting streak of nine straight winning weeks for the S&P 500, its longest since 2023. The rally has been largely due to strong profit reports from U.S. companies, as well as hopes that the United States and Iran will reach a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That would allow oil to flow freely again from the Persian Gulf and hopefully lower its price.

In the oil market, prices rose again to claw back more of last week's slump. Brent crude oil, the international standard, climbed 1.1% to settle at $96.00 per barrel, and it's still well above its roughly $70 level from before the war.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were relatively steady.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.45% from 4.47% late Monday. It briefly jumped after a report said that U.S. employers were advertising many more jobs at the end of April than economists expected, a potential signal of continued health for the U.S. labor market. But it quickly pulled back to where it was just before the report's release.

High yields worldwide recently have threatened to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. They have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level in nine months, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the AI data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.

In stock markets abroad indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.5% for one of the world’s biggest moves.

___

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

For the first time in the event’s history, Houston’s largest Pride celebration is being held at the beginning of June rather than later in the month. Organizers moved the event to avoid scheduling conflicts with FIFA World Cup activities coming to Houston later this month.

This year’s theme is “Limitless,” celebrating visibility, inclusion, resilience, and community.

When and where is it happening?

The celebration takes place Saturday, June 6, at Houston City Hall, located at 901 Bagby Street in downtown Houston.

Festival Hours

• Gates open at 11 a.m.
• Festival activities continue throughout the day

Parade

• Step-off begins at approximately 7:30 p.m.
• The nighttime parade will travel through downtown Houston

The parade remains free for spectators and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of attendees.

What can visitors expect?

Festival-goers can enjoy:

• Live entertainment
• National and local performers
• Community vendors
• Food and beverage options
• Interactive activations
• LGBTQ+ organizations and resources
• Family-friendly activities

Organizers say the event transforms downtown Houston into a citywide celebration of Pride, culture, and community.

Big names set to appear

This year’s event will feature performances and appearances from several entertainers, including bounce music icon Big Freedia and singer-songwriter Dawn Richard, according to event organizers.

Plan ahead before you go

With large crowds expected downtown, attendees are encouraged to plan transportation in advance.

Officials recommend:

• Using METRO when possible
• Taking rideshare services
• Arriving early
• Checking street closures before heading downtown

Several roads surrounding Houston City Hall and the parade route will be closed throughout the day and evening.

A Houston tradition

Pride Houston has been celebrating the LGBTQ+ community since 1976 and has grown into one of Houston’s largest annual events. Organizers say the festival and parade continue to serve as a celebration of identity, equality, and community while highlighting the diversity of the Houston region.

Whether you’re attending for the first time or returning for another year, Saturday’s celebration promises a full day of music, culture, and Pride in the heart of downtown Houston

According to a recent study by Action Network examining all 16 North American host cities, Houston ranked highest for overall environmental burden.

• SEE THE FULL STUDY HERE

The ranking was driven by a combination of waste generation, carbon-intensive electricity production, and summer heat conditions.

The findings arrive as excitement builds for the tournament, with NRG Stadium scheduled to host eight matches and attract hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the globe.

ALSO READ: FIFA World Cup 2026: Houston hospitality industry sees disconnect between hype, reality

Calculating projected waste

Large sporting events inevitably create environmental impacts, but researchers argue Houston’s situation is amplified by local conditions.

The study estimates that each sold-out World Cup match could generate enough waste to fill approximately 16 garbage trucks.

Based on Houston’s current recycling performance, the majority of that material would ultimately end up in landfills rather than being recovered through recycling programs.

Over the course of the tournament, researchers project that more than 2.6 million pounds of event-related waste could enter the region’s waste management system.

• Ever heard of ‘typo squatting?’ FBI warns of fake FIFA websites targeting Houston fans ahead of 2026 World Cup

Electricity burden

Electricity consumption represents another major concern.

Researchers estimate that operating NRG Stadium for a single World Cup match requires roughly the same amount of electricity used by 82 Houston households over an entire month.

Because much of Texas’ power supply is still generated through fossil-fuel sources, the environmental cost extends beyond energy demand alone.

Across all eight scheduled matches, emissions tied solely to stadium electricity consumption could exceed 220 metric tons.

• The Ticket Queen’s guide to avoiding scams buying FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets in Houston

Houston heat also plays a role

While stadium operations and waste management present logistical challenges, Houston’s climate may be the most visible issue facing visitors.

The city is no stranger to intense summer conditions, but international fans arriving from cooler regions may encounter temperatures and humidity levels far beyond what they are accustomed to.

Researchers identified Houston as one of the most heat-exposed host locations in the tournament.

Although matches will be played inside a climate-controlled venue, fans, workers, volunteers, and visitors will still spend significant time outdoors while traveling to and from events.

• Houston leaders preparing for ‘multiple Super Bowls at once’ during FIFA World Cup

The rest of the top five

Here are the top five host cities and venues in the study:

1. Houston (NRG Stadium)
2. Dallas/Arlington (AT&T Stadium)
3. Miami/Miami Gardens (Hard Rock Stadium)
4. Guadalupe, Mexico (Estadio BBVA)
5. Kansas City (Arrowhead Stadium)

If you’d like more information, you can read the full study here.

The market in Trujillo was set on fire last June when the women refused to give in to threats. Days later, they marched, demanding protection from authorities. Nothing changed. But that didn’t surprise Saavedra, as police had failed her in August 2024, when her house was attacked with explosives in another extortion attempt.

That level of violence by Peruvian gangs is the main concern for voters who will elect a new president in a runoff election Sunday. Many will leave their homes to vote fearful of becoming crime victims again during their trip to the polls.

“You can’t even stick your head out for fear of being shot,” Saavedra, 49, said.

Illegal gold mining fuels organized crime

The first extortion cases reported in Trujillo took place more than 20 years ago, but the crime has spread throughout Peru in the last five years. During that period, extortion complaints increased fivefold, reaching 28,948 cases last year, while killings doubled, reaching 2,226 in 2025, according to official data.

Police and security experts attribute the expansion of criminal gangs in Trujillo to their involvement in illegal gold mining. They say the gangs initially profited by providing security to illegal gold miners in a nearby town, then used the proceeds to hire hitmen, buy weapons and strengthen their presence in the city.

According to official data, illegal mining generates approximately $7 billion annually, much more than the roughly $1.2 billion generated annually by drug trafficking.

The first victims of extortion were public transportation companies, whose drivers were killed if payment was not made. Transportation workers continue to be targeted, with at least 239 drivers killed last year across the country, according to the independent Observatory of Crime and Violence.

Of those killed, more than half were motorcycle taxi drivers, widely used on the outskirts of cities where roads are often unpaved. But it has been the murders of bus drivers that have triggered transportation strikes and protests.

Experts attribute the increasing power of organized crime in Peru to the profits that decades-old criminal groups are earning from illegal gold mining in the Andes and the Amazon. In 2025, Peru exported 100 tons of illegally mined gold, nearly matching the 109 tons of legally mined gold it exported.

Even schools are crime targets

In a Trujillo neighborhood where a quarter of the country’s footwear is manufactured, union leader Máximo Varas said that around 1,500 small business owners in that industry pay extortionists to be able to work.

“Everyone pays — even I get extorted. No one is safe,” he said.

Across Trujillo, several buses, restaurants, corner stores, nightclubs and even schools have stickers on their facades, including of a puma, a cross and a Batman logo. Police said the stickers indicate that the businesses have paid extortion fees. Authorities sometimes go around Trujillo removing those stickers and replacing them with ones from law enforcement.

For businessman Iván Díaz, 58, violence has increased “unreasonably" in Trujillo. In 2023, he was kidnapped for 11 days by criminals dressed as police officers who dragged him from his office. To obtain a $250,000 ransom, his captors cut off part of two fingers on his right hand and sent videos of the torture to his family to “advance the payment.”

“I had to adapt to reality and keep a cool head,” Díaz said.

In May, the courts sentenced four members of the criminal group Los Pulpos, which emerged in Trujillo in the 1990s and later expanded to neighboring Chile, to life imprisonment for Díaz’s kidnapping.

Authorities have limited resources to fight crime

The Ministry of Economy estimated in July that crime costs Peruvians some $5 billion annually. This figure includes state investment to fund police operations, but also private spending on surveillance cameras and security guards.

Peru’s outlying neighborhoods lack paved roads, potable water and electricity, but above all, they lack a police presence. In contrast, wealthier municipalities like the capital’s San Borja, where the two presidential candidates — the conservative Keiko Fujimori and the progressive Roberto Sánchez — live, have a large number of uniformed officers as well as an additional force of private security agents patrolling their streets.

Security experts maintain that combating crime requires an anti-corruption purge of the national police force, which has some 130,000 officers, and significant funding for investigations.

An agent investigating organized crime groups who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the press told The Associated Press that due to a lack of technology, the police cannot track the phones associated with the digital wallets that criminals use to receive extortion payments.

Harvey Colchado, a congressman-elect and retired police officer, said each of the country’s 70 police investigative units had a monthly budget of $29,000 five years ago, but now, they have no funds as the state allocated the money elsewhere. He added that this is compounded by laws approved in recent years with the support of the parties of Fujimori and Sánchez that make it difficult to prosecute criminals.

The laws Colchado referred to eliminated preliminary detention in certain cases and raised the threshold for seizing criminal assets and carrying out searches.

“This is a cancer," Saavedra said. "(Police) don’t have the resources to trace the calls, to know where the messages are coming from. That’s the only way to stop it."

___

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

Mullin's appearance at the appropriations subcommittee on homeland security comes as the Senate is weighing legislation that would fund immigration enforcement agencies through the end of President Donald Trump’s term in a maneuver that would bypass the need for support from Democrats, who have demanded restraints before agreeing to fund the agencies.

But, the attempt to fund those two agencies for the long term has been stalled over separate Republican opposition to a $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been politically prosecuted.

Mullin, who was tapped by Trump to lead Homeland Security after his predecessor Kristi Noem was fired, is appearing in the Senate Tuesday for the first time since his confirmation hearing in March. On Wednesday, he'll testify in the House about the budget.

The hearing also comes at a time when Mullin, who projected himself as a steadying hand at a department wracked by instability during Noem's tenure, has set the travel industry on edge with threats to withdraw U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in so-called “sanctuary cities."

Such a move could upend international travel at a time when millions of visitors are gearing up to come to the U.S. for the World Cup.

Mullin said during a news conference Monday that if needed, he has a plan to pull CBP officers from airports to help with security at the Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, where demonstrators have been protesting conditions inside. But he said the state is working to provide security there so it’s not needed right now.

New Jersey state police on Friday relieved federal immigration enforcement agents who had been facing off against protesters at the facility for days. The mayor of Newark Sunday also imposed a curfew around the center.

“As long as we continue to have this partnership with local and state law enforcement then there will be no need to do so,” Mullin told reporters during a news conference in Dallas Monday, in response to questions about whether he would be pulling CBP officers from airports.

Mullin can also expect to face questions over a recent announcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that demands that most green card seekers apply for permanent residency from their home country, changing longstanding policy that allowed them to do so from the U.S. and prompting widespread confusion among immigration lawyers and their clients.

The agency announced that its public housing waitlist lottery will open June 22 and remain available through July 6, giving eligible applicants a chance to be placed on waitlists for housing properties across the Houston area.

Officials are encouraging anyone interested to prepare now by creating a RentCafe account before applications officially open.

“Early account setup in RentCafe is strongly recommended because it gives applicants time to resolve any access issues before the application window opens,” said Kelly Haines, senior vice president for asset management at Housing Alliance HTX.

Which housing communities are included?

The waitlist lottery includes the following eight public housing properties:

• Kelly Village
• Lincoln Park
• Long Drive
• Oxford Place
• Bellerive
• Lyerly
• Independence Heights
• Irvinton Village

Housing Alliance HTX says unit availability will vary by property, meaning some locations may have more one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom or four-bedroom units available than others.

Two of the communities, Bellerive and Lyerly, are reserved exclusively for seniors age 62 and older.

How the lottery works

Applicants may select up to three of the eight properties when submitting their application.

Once the application period closes on July 6, Housing Alliance HTX will conduct a random lottery to determine which applicants are placed on the public housing waitlists. Those selected will receive notifications and additional instructions later in July.

People who are already on a public housing waitlist do not need to take any action and will keep their current place in line.

What about Housing Choice Vouchers?

The agency emphasized that this reopening applies only to public housing waitlists.

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, commonly known as Section 8, remains closed and is not accepting new applications at this time.

However, approximately 2,500 individuals and families currently on the HCV waitlist will have the opportunity to be added to the public housing waitlists. Those applicants will receive an email with a consent form and must return it to Housing Alliance HTX.

Unlike new applicants, current HCV waitlist participants who submit the consent form will not enter the lottery. Instead, they will be placed on public housing waitlists based on the date and time their completed forms are received.

Additional preferences available

In addition to housing designated for seniors, some properties offer preferences for applicants experiencing homelessness or living with disabilities, in accordance with program requirements.

How to apply

Creating a RentCafe account now does not automatically enter someone into the lottery.

Applicants must return to the portal between June 22 and July 6 to officially submit their application.

Housing Alliance HTX says assistance will be available throughout the application period for those needing help with the process.

Applicants can call 713-260-0500 for assistance or visit the agency’s office at 2640 Fountain View if they do not have access to a computer.

With affordable housing demand remaining high across the Houston area, officials are urging prospective applicants not to wait until the last minute to create their accounts and prepare for the application window.

According to the U.S. Postal Service, Houston ranked No. 4 in the nation for dog bite and dog-related incidents involving mail carriers in 2025, with 44 reported attacks. Only Los Angeles, Dallas and Denver reported more incidents.

The ranking comes as USPS launches its annual Dog Bite Awareness Campaign throughout June, urging pet owners to take extra precautions to keep mail carriers safe.

Nationwide, more than 5,200 postal employees were attacked by dogs last year. Texas ranked No. 2 among all states, reporting 358 dog-related incidents involving mail carriers.

Why USPS is sounding the alarm

The monthlong campaign, which begins June 1, carries the theme: “Don’t turn your back on dog bite prevention.”

USPS officials say even well-behaved dogs can become aggressive when they perceive a threat or feel protective of their territory.

“Animal behaviors can change in an instant,” said Leeann Theriault, USPS employee safety and health awareness manager. “Proactive awareness from both our carriers and the customers we serve can stop painful injuries before they ever happen.”

How dog owners can help

USPS recommends several steps to prevent attacks during mail delivery:

• Keep dogs in a separate, closed room before opening the front door.
• Make sure doors and gates are securely latched.
• Keep dogs on a leash if they are outside during delivery times.
• Avoid accepting mail directly from a carrier while a dog is present.
• Teach children not to retrieve mail from a carrier when a dog is nearby.

The agency also encourages residents to sign up for USPS Informed Delivery, a free service that allows customers to preview incoming mail digitally. Knowing when mail is expected can give pet owners time to secure their dogs before a carrier arrives.

Dog attacks can carry a hefty price tag

USPS warns that dog owners may face significant financial consequences if their pet attacks a postal worker.

Medical bills, lost work time, replacement uniforms and other damages can add up to thousands of dollars.

San Antonio letter carrier Fiona Hudson knows those dangers firsthand.

According to USPS, Hudson was attacked after a dog jumped a fence and lunged at her while she was delivering mail. She suffered a broken bone, a severe arm sprain and other injuries that required hospitalization.

While she recovered physically, Hudson said the emotional effects remain.

Unsecured dogs can disrupt mail delivery

USPS says carriers can suspend mail delivery if they believe a dog poses a threat.

In some cases, residents may have to pick up their mail at a local post office until the situation is resolved. If safety concerns continue, homeowners could be required to rent a post office box to receive mail.

Top cities for mail carrier dog attacks in 2025

The cities reporting the most dog-related incidents involving mail carriers were:

• Los Angeles: 70 incidents
• Dallas: 50
• Denver: 45
• Houston: 44
• Chicago: 43
• St. Louis: 40
• Indianapolis: 35
• San Diego: 32
• San Antonio: 31
• Cleveland: 30

States with the most incidents

Texas ranked second nationwide with 358 incidents, trailing only California, which reported 673.

The top five states were:

• California: 673
• Texas: 358
• Ohio: 287
• New York: 269
• Pennsylvania: 267

As mail carriers continue making deliveries to millions of homes each day, USPS officials say a few simple precautions can help prevent painful injuries and keep mail service running smoothly.

The agency will continue promoting dog safety awareness throughout June using the hashtag #DogBiteAwareness.

According to a 10-page list of settlement terms, requested by The Texas Tribune, Texas Children’s has 90 days from the effective date of the settlement to set up the detransition clinic. The attorney general announced the settlement two weeks ago but because a final settlement has not been signed there is no effective date agreed upon yet. 

The clinic must provide multiple services including access to endocrinology, surgery, primary care, fertility counseling, psychiatry and psychotherapy. Also, the clinic must provide obstetrics and gynecological services to adults who have undergone gender transitioning procedures, although it’s unclear if all adult transgender people who want to seek these services must do so through the detransition clinic. 

The $10 million settlement, first announced on May 15, is the result of a 2023 investigation by the attorney general’s office into Texas Children’s. That same year, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 14 that bars transgender children from receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapies. Previously, all that was known about the settlement was that the hospital agreed to pay $10 million to the state and permanently revoke the medical privileges of three current doctors and two former ones. 

The settlement terms released Monday are the first details about the unusual agreement between the nation’s largest pediatric hospital and the attorney general that would set up the nation’s first “detransitioning clinic.” Detransitioning is the stopping or reversal of transitioning care by social, medical or legal means, and it is rare for people to regret transitioning after taking hormone therapy and surgical interventions. 

Common reasons for detransitioning include lack of family support, financial barriers and social pressure. 

Per the settlement, Texas Children’s must also create a website for the detransition clinic and create a donate page so those individuals wanting to donate money toward the detransition clinic’s efforts, can do so. The hospital must keep a “Potential GAC Patient List” that includes all diagnostic codes detailed by the AG and conduct an internal review of the list to confirm compliance with state and federal laws and the settlement agreement. 

According to Texas Children’s, they have not been asked to share the list and noted to do so would not be legally permissible. “We abide by HIPAA and protecting patient privacy is one of our top priorities,” the hospital said in a statement. 

The attorney general’s office released to the Tribune a “Settlement Term Sheet” and not the complete settlement document between the two parties, as originally requested because one has not been signed. “We’ve aligned on a term sheet and the next step is to finalize the settlement agreement per standard practice,” Texas Children’s said in a statement. 

Other requirements include the removal of all hospital press releases from the Texas Children’s website related to gender transition services. 

As previously announced, TCH must bar any gender-affirming care procedures, what the Texas attorney general’s office calls “sex-rejecting” procedures in the settlement, defined as pharmaceutical or surgical interventions that “attempt to align an individual’s physical appearance or body … that differs from the individual’s sex.” This includes puberty blockers and hormone treatments. Also previously announced was the permanent revoking of medical privileges to three current doctors and two former ones. 

The hospital previously issued a statement insisting it complied with all laws and decided to settle to close a legal chapter that has been, in their words: “wrought with falsehoods and distractions.”  The hospital also noted earlier that the services demanded as part of the settlement were already offered at the hospital.  Late Monday, they emphasized that fact. “The detransition clinic will formalize the supportive, multidisciplinary services we already deliver to all patients who need our care,” the hospital statement said. “This simply provides structure and a name for the services we currently provide.”  

A 2024 study of private insurance by Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that less than 1% of minors are transgender and received puberty blockers or hormone treatments.

Disclosure: Texas Children’s Hospital 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.

We look at the hurricane forecast and how to get your family, including your children, ready for the next disaster.

You’ll find evacuation zones and routes in case residents are encouraged to leave ahead of a storm.

From insurance coverage to emergency kits to the technology helping us better prepare for storms, KPRC 2’s special “Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide” has everything you need to know for this year’s storm season.

Watch the program featuring the entire KPRC 2 Weather team in the video players below.

You can also view the electronic 2026 Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide below or click on it to access a copy you can download and print.

Be sure to check out these pages to help prepare your children for disaster: Ready.gov games and the National Hurricane Center’s education resources.

We have more resources on the KPRC 2 Hurricane Headquarters page here.

KPRC 2 Investigator Amy Davis is answering your questions, including whether customers can request cash refunds instead of bill credits, whether bad meters were installed at apartment buildings, and whether the city could reimburse customers who paid for plumbing inspections.

Related: Full investigation: Houston water customers billed for water they never used after wrong meters installed.

Q: “Why a credit? Send me the money.” Can I request a refund instead of a credit on my Houston water bill?

A: In some cases, yes.

According to the City of Houston Code of Ordinances, if the water department makes a billing error, it must correct the bill once the incorrect billing is discovered. If the incorrect billing is an overcharge that is more than six times the customer’s average bill, the department must refund the overcharge at the customer’s request.

The ordinance also says that even if the overcharge is not more than six times the customer’s average bill, the department shall refund the overcharge if the customer can show “extreme economic hardship” to the utility official.

If the overcharge is not refunded, the ordinance says the department shall apply the amount as a credit to the customer’s account.

Source: City of Houston Code of Ordinances, Chapter 47, Article II, Division 1, Sec. 47-65 (Billing errors — In general)

Q: Were any of the wrong water meters installed at apartment buildings, or was it only at homes?

A: KPRC 2 Investigates saw at least one small apartment complex on the list of addresses that received the wrong meters.

However, the team has not checked every address on the list.

If you want to confirm whether your property is included, look for your address here.

Q: “Imagine the ones who paid for plumbing inspections just to not find anything. The city should reimburse them for that too.”

Will Houston reimburse customers who hired plumbers because of these high bills?

A: It’s true that Houston water customer service representatives often tell customers with unusually high bills to check for leaks, including hiring a plumber to look for hidden leaks.

We asked Director Randy Macchi if the city will reimburse this group of 637 customers if they hired a plumber to look for a leak that we now know didn’t exist. Macchi said he will talk with the city’s legal department about the claims process for options and guidance on that one. We will follow up and let you know what they say.

Will more addresses be added to the list?

Another viewer wrote, “How can they be sure this list contains all of the wrongly installed meters? It probably doesn’t.”

Macchi said the water department is not aware of others, but this issue has been added to their list of things to check for when they investigate meter issues.

What we know so far about Houston’s wrong-meter problem

• Houston Public Works has said it accidentally installed the wrong meter equipment at hundreds of addresses during a 2024 meter replacement push.
• City emails obtained by KPRC through a public records request indicate the city discovered the problem in January 2026 and crews replaced meters in March 2026.
• The city has said it is calculating overpayments by comparing typical usage before installation with what the faulty equipment recorded, then applying credits for the difference.

Important note for customers

In the investigation, Macchi warned that if a customer closes a water account, it can become difficult for the city to apply a credit. If you believe you may be affected, consider resolving any overpayment issues before closing an account.

How to check if your address is on the wrong-meter list

KPRC 2 Investigates published an interactive list/map of addresses tied to the meter mix-up.

How to check if the wrong water meter was installed at your home

The KPRC 2 Investigates team made an interactive map featuring all 637 addresses with the wrong equipment.

If your address is listed and you have not received notice from the city, contact Houston’s water department.

Houston Public Works Director Randy Macchi said the city is doing all they can to make sure agents have the information necessary to resolve your complaint.

“But if you feel like you’re not being heard, it’s not getting there — you can always escalate that. My contact information, in fact, is very public and accessible. Customers reach out to me and I’m always happy to make sure that our team takes care of those customers’ problems as quickly as we receive them,” Macchi said.

Macchi’s email is randy.macchi@houstontx.gov.

‘DRAINED’ Houston water department Investigation

Led by KPRC 2 Investigator Amy Davis, our investigation spent years shedding light on overbilling, faulty water meters, and mismanagement of city contracts. These discoveries led to the arrest and charges for seven people and an overhaul of how the entire water billing system works.

If you have questions, you can email Amy Davis at ADavis@kprc.com or Producer Andrea Slaydon at ASlaydon@kprc.com.

SEE MORE: Everything you need to know about the ‘DRAINED’ KPRC Investigation

The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, came as tensions flared in Israel’s separate but related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.

Trump says talks ‘going on continuously’

But Trump called reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous.”

“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today,” Trump said in a social media post. "Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal."

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not address the reported cutoff in communications as he testified at a congressional hearing in Washington. Instead, he sounded an optimistic note about the nuclear dimension of the negotiations, while cautioning that there’s no guarantee of reaching “a deal that’s acceptable.”

Iran has been trying to increase pressure on Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it. Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.

The conflicts have increasingly become conjoined, as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.

Israel and the U.S. maintain the fighting in Lebanon is separate from the Iran war talks.

Inflation takes an economic toll on Iran

Meanwhile, year-on-year inflation in Iran reached a level in May unseen since World War II, underlining the economic pain average Iranians are facing. While the U.S. is eager to ease the Islamic Republic's grip on the strait — through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed in peacetime — Iran faces economic challenges as its oil-backed economy remains under a U.S. naval blockade.

Economic pressure touched off nationwide protests in Iran in 2017 into 2018, when rising food prices sparked demonstrations that killed over 20 people and saw hundreds arrested. The next year, an increase in government-subsidized gasoline prices caused protests that saw over 300 people reportedly killed.

Then came the protests over the collapsing value of Iran's currency, the rial, at the start of this year. They were the most intense demonstrations to shake the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution and the chaotic years that followed. Iran's theocracy met January's protests with a crackdown on demonstrators in January that killed over 7,000 people, according to activists' estimates.

Now, even as hard-liners hold gun-handling workshops and organize marriages under the shadow of a ballistic missile to bolster spirits, experts note there could be new demonstrations if people find themselves priced out of feeding their families.

“I have no doubt that if Trump leaves (Iran without a formal peace deal) ... most probably, we will see something like January by the end of summer because of the economic and social situations," analyst Mohsen Jalilvand said in a video published by Iran's Fararu news website.

Prices climb at ‘an unprecedented rate’

Iran's Central Bank said the consumer price index, which measures a basket of goods and services, reached 77.2% in May compared with the year before. The rate is 8.5% higher than in April, the bank added. Inflation in daily and general needs — like medicine, taxi fares, tobacco and communication fees — rose 113.8% from the year before.

A private economic think tank in Iran, the Bamdad Institute of Economic Studies, described the current figures as “an unprecedented rate since World War II.” Iran’s Central Bank did not acknowledge the significance of the figures.

The previous record came in 1942. During the war, the British and Soviets invaded Iran and took over its railway, disrupting food supplies. The lack of food, worsened by a poor harvest, sparked hyperinflation and a famine. Hunger and a typhus outbreak killed many.

Airstrikes this year have greatly damaged Iran's businesses and its oil industry, Meanwhile, the U.S. blockade has been targeting Iranian crude oil shipments trying to reach the international market, a key source of hard revenue. Tax revenues have been depressed by businesses struggling even after the fighting paused.

The rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 in 2015, now trades at over 1.7 million to $1.

“We will definitely have higher prices," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in May. "We are fighting, and we must accept this hardship.”

Tehran-based economist Saeed Leilaz, speaking to the AP, warned that annual inflation in Iran could reach 80%.

"Iran’s society cannot tolerate above 25%” annual inflation, he said.

___

Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.

The video of Shelby Officer Karson Hyder pummeling Cherrie Moore on Friday has circulated widely on social media.

Hyder, 22, turned himself in to the Cleveland County Detention Center Monday morning and was released on a $10,000 secured bond. Court records do not list an attorney for him, and a phone number associated with his name was out of service.

Hyder, who was suspended Friday and fired on Saturday, was responding to a breaking-and-entering call when the scuffle ensued.

According to a warrant, Moore, 34, fled the residence on foot and resisted arrest, assaulting Hyder by “grabbing and ripping (his) uniform.”

A separate warrant filed Monday alleged Hyder “unlawfully and willfully did assault and strike Cherrie Moore” by grabbing Moore “by the arm, pushing her to the ground and striking her in the face with a closed fist, thereby inflicting serious injury possible broken nose and busted lip.”

The State Bureau of Investigation had announced Saturday it had opened an investigation into Hyder.

Moore was initially charged with breaking and entering, resisting arrest and assault on a public officer, but the latter two charges have since been dismissed. She was freed on an unsecured bond. A phone number associated with Moore was disconnected.

Her attorney, Ronald Haynes, told The Associated Press in an email that Moore “is recovering and receiving treatment for her mental health.”

“The heinous actions of former Officer Karson Hyder will forever negatively impact Ms. Cherrie Moore and her family,” Haynes continued. “It’s a small relief that city officials responded so promptly to terminate and charge Mr. Hyder."

The campaign pilgrimage by the two candidates, one from each end of the political spectrum, comes with both men facing concerns they could cost their parties winnable races in the November midterms, with control of the Senate at stake for the final two years of Trump's second presidency.

Paxton's planned meeting with Trump comes after he won the president's coveted endorsement ahead of trouncing Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas runoff last month. The scheduled meeting was confirmed by a person with knowledge of the president's plans but who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Senate Republicans feared that Paxton, the Texas attorney general, would be a weaker candidate against James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, in the fall. Paxton has endured an indictment, an impeachment and public disclosure of martial infidelity.

He also is expected to meet with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who backed Cornyn. Senate Republicans’ campaign arm excoriated Paxton during the primary campaign, accusing him of “repulsive and disgusting” behavior and quoting his estranged wife saying she filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.”

Platner will meet with several Democratic senators days after disclosure that he and his wife have had marital difficulties and sought counseling after he reportedly sent sexually explicit text messages to other women.

Both candidates are scheduled to attend fundraisers as well.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, who is set to meet with Platner, said he doesn’t believe Maine voters are focused on Platner’s marriage. Asked if Platner still has a shot in the race, Heinrich said “we’ll have to see" and “I suspect so.”

Platner and Paxton are pressing ahead with few apologies

Platner and his wife have criticized media coverage of their marriage, framing it as a private matter that should not shape the campaign. Still, the latest personal issues added fuel to some Democrats' skittishness about Platner, who already faced scrutiny over online posts that were dismissive of sexual assault and a tattoo that is recognized as a Nazi symbol. Platner has apologized for the posts and covered up the tattoo.

Paxton has offered no apologies for his baggage. He framed his win over Cornyn as a “Texas-sized message to Washington,” and thanked Trump — who himself has endured repeated personal and political scandal to win two national elections — for his support.

Like Paxton, Platner was not the choice of his party's Senate brass, with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backing Maine Gov. Janet Mills. But Platner effectively became the presumptive nominee after Mills suspended her campaign weeks ago because of fundraising difficulties.

Maine's primary is June 9, and Platner would face Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who is running for a sixth term, in November. Defeating Collins is crucial to Democrats' attempts to regain control of the Senate. Democrats have repeatedly tried to unseat Collins, but she has always survived. In 2020, Collins won reelection even though Democrat Joe Biden carried the state over Trump by nine percentage points.

In Texas, some Republicans fear they will need to divert critical resources to boost Paxton over Talarico, who has become a national fundraising phenomenon.

Although Republicans have dominated Texas for decades, prominent party leaders have said the race could be genuinely competitive this time. Eight years ago, during the midterm election of Trump's first presidency, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won reelection over another Democratic fundraising juggernaut, Beto O'Rourke, by less than 3 points.

Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate advantage and earlier in the campaign cycle were heavily favored to maintain their majority. But as Trump's popularity fades and primary fights yield nominees, Democrats have become more confident in their prospects.

Most Democrats and Republicans are taking their usual sides

With control of the Senate on the line, most partisans have generally lined up behind Platner and Paxton, even if begrudgingly because of their political baggage. Tuesday's fundraising events were the latest evidence. The event for Paxton, with a $1,000 minimum donation required, according to the invitation, is being co-hosted by seven senators, including Cruz. The fundraiser for Platner is being co-hosted by former Biden White House chief of staff Ron Klain.

“My priority is to make sure that Republicans control the majority so we can continue the agenda that we're on,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, on Tuesday. “Ken Paxton is absolutely necessary as far as keeping that majority. I have faith that the people of Texas will support him, and he'll get across the finish line."

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive, said her top concern is Platner's prospective constituents.

“I want to hear from him about the economy,” she said ahead of their meeting. “And more about what he talks to the people of Maine about.”

That echoes another leading progressive who, like Warren, has endorsed Platner. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he still supports Platner as part of the left's economic populism.

“Of course,” Sanders told reporters Monday. “Why would I not?”

But not all Democrats are on board, including one who first came to the Senate with an outsider persona. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat who has earned a reputation for speaking and voting against his party, even appeared to relish Platner’s newest controversy, calling him “phustle,” a reference to Platner’s apparent profile uncovered on Kik, a popular, private messaging app.

“So much bizarre and tacky and gross stuff that you lose count. It’s like you need to have a bingo card,” Fetterman said.

The senator stopped stopped short of calling on Platner to drop out, but he echoed some Democrats' private concerns.

“I mean, what’s next?” he said.

He later said, “I’m not going to carry water for that guy.” _____

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Barrow reported from Atlanta.

Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he received the decision “with indignation.” He also blamed the decision by the U.S. administration on his rival in October's elections, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, who visited Washington last week. The senator is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, once nicknamed “the Trump of the Tropics” by his allies.

The announcement late Monday came after an investigation by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, charging Brazil with lax anti-corruption enforcement and unfair tariffs of its own, among other things.

The U.S. has had a goods trade surplus with Brazil for years.

U.S Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that he and President Donald Trump had “constructive’’ meetings with Lula and other Brazilian officials. But he said that “we continue to have substantial differences in resolving the issues identified in this investigation.’’

Lula on Tuesday cited other reasons for the punishing tariff proposal. For the first time he named an American official as a hurdle to his relations with Trump and once again he threatened to retaliate.

“I spoke to President Trump for three hours, and that Marco Rubio guy, the head of the State Department, he is anti-Latin American,” Lula said. “He is a deadly enemy of Cuba, a deadly enemy of many Latin American countries. I already told Trump that he does not like Brazil.”

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond a request for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Brazil’s government said in a statement that its dialogue with American counterparts, which includes “personal involvement of Presidents Lula and Trump,” is being ”sabotaged by merely electoral and family matters” of the Bolsonaros.

It added that it hopes “the recommendations do not become effective tariffs.”

“But we stress we will adopt every measure that is capable of reducing the damage that might be caused to the national economy, to the jobs and the income of Brazilians,” the country's government said.

Last year, Trump had slapped Brazil with a 50% tariff, mainly to protest its prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro for trying to overturn his electoral defeat in 2022. His relationship with Lula seemed to have improved early May, when the Brazilian visited the White House.

But last week, the Trump administration designated two Brazilian gangs as terrorist organizations, after Sen. Bolsonaro's visit. Lula opposes the designation, which analysts say could bolster his political rival.

Greer’s office has scheduled a public hearing July 6 on the proposed tariffs.

Trade lawyer Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding, noted said that the administration’s plan excludes more than half of U.S. imports from Brazil, including aircraft and key minerals.

The Trump administration invoked Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to launch the investigation into Brazil’s trade practices.

Sen. Bolsonaro travelled to meet officials in Washington last week in the wake of a scandal at home in which he admitted receiving funds from a disgraced banker. Another son, former lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, was also present.

On Tuesday, Trump posted a photo of the Bolsonaros in the Oval office on his social media site.

“These sons of Bolsonaro can be worse than him. They are actually sell outs of our country, they went there to ask a foreign nation to meddle in Brazilian affairs,” Lula said in a speech to residents of the city of Catalao, south of capital Brasilia. “They are traitors.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump overstepped his authority by using a different law – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 – to impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners, including Brazil.

However, Section 301 tariffs have survived legal challenges, and the administration is likely to use that authority to impose other tariffs and to recoup some of the tax revenue lost when the Supreme Court rejected the IEEPA tariffs.

Brazil’s president said that during a visit to Washington early May, he handed Trump documents showing that the U.S. has a trade surplus with Brazil.

Documents published by the U.S. Trade Representative show that last year, U.S. exports to Brazil rose nearly 11% to $54.4 billion. Brazilian exports to the U.S. fell 5.7% to $39.9 billion, meaning the U.S. had a trade surplus of more than $14 billion.

The trade imbalance for services is more lopsided in favor of the U.S., with services exports in 2024 reaching $29.6 billion, quadruple the Brazilian services exports to the U.S.

“I am not going to cry about it,” Lula said. “If they (the U.S.) don’t want to buy from us, we will sell to someone else.”

China has been Brazil’s biggest trading partner for about a decade.

____

Mauricio Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.

In his first public testimony since the Iran war began at the end of February, Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Iranians have agreed to negotiate on nuclear points that they had not been willing to address in the past but would not offer an assessment on what those talks might produce.

“They have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention,” Rubio said. He did not elaborate but added that there was no guarantee "it will lead to a deal that’s acceptable” and that negotiations have been made difficult by the instability of Iran’s leadership.

Rubio's optimism ran counter to pessimistic reports from two semiofficial Iranian news agencies that Iran has stopped communicating with mediators after Israel threatened to bomb Beirut as it fights the Hezbollah militant group.

Democrats criticize Trump administration's approach to Iran, and Rubio defends it

Rubio's wide-ranging testimony, which covered the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Asia and beyond, was met with fierce objections from Democrats.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., blasted Rubio and President Donald Trump for actions taken regarding foreign aid cuts and foreign intervention. Van Hollen specifically took aim at the U.S. and Israeli decision to strike Iran, accusing the Republican president of entering the war on behalf of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “said he’s been waiting 40 years to do this," Van Hollen said. "It turns out he finally found a president who was both stupid and reckless enough to join him. Let’s face it, Mr. Secretary, the Trump foreign policy has become a dumpster fire."

Rubio's testimony, which was taking place as Israel and Lebanon began a new round of political talks at the State Department with the situation between Israel and Hezbollah still uncertain, did not provide definitive answers on any of the main questions of the day.

He said Iran is not guaranteed a massive payout for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway for global oil shipments, and would have to commit to further concessions on its nuclear program to get significant sanctions relief.

“The more they give, the more they would get,” he said, later adding, “They’re not going to get it as a signing bonus.”

Rubio also said there are indications that Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is taking a bigger part in the discussions despite not being seen publicly since the war began.

"I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level, although all of his communications have been in writing and through intermediaries,” he said.

Democratic senator says drugs being on boats isn't a targeting criterion for US strikes

On other issues, Rubio dismissed questions about the legality of Pentagon strikes against dozens of alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, which have killed more than 200 people since early September.

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said the military's targeting criteria for those strikes does not include drugs being present on the boat. He called it “odd” but said he could not share much more because the criteria are classified.

Rubio pushed back, saying every strike has a legal officer who makes a determination on whether a strike is legal. He also said the U.S. military has “walked away from strikes” multiple times because they did not meet the targeting criteria.

The Trump administration says the U.S. is at war with drug cartels, while many Democrats have questioned the legality and effectiveness of the strikes.

The Republican former senator faces a second congressional hearing Tuesday and a pair of others Wednesday about the State Department's annual budget request, though questions have mostly focused on top foreign policy issues.

Rubio wades into Taiwan arms sales opposed by China

Rubio acknowledged that the Trump administration is holding up a new potential $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan but said it remained under consideration and would not be canceled. He noted that the U.S. recently sold arms to Taiwan in December worth $11 billion.

He said the deal is not under review because of pressure from China, although he said the Chinese bring up the issue in discussions with the United States. Trump also has described it as a great negotiating chip.

“They are constantly talking about Taiwan arms sales, but that in no way is what is holding up our decision-making or the White House’s decision-making,” Rubio said. “It is something the president will have to decide on the timing of when and how that is executed on.”

Protesters chant at Rubio about Cuba

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, also was questioned about the Trump administration’s escalatory behavior toward Cuba, as Trump has hinted that the small island country could be the next U.S. target after operations in Iran are wrapped up.

He faced chants from protesters who urged him to “stop killing Cubans” when he entered the Senate briefing room. The protesters were quickly pulled from the room. Their chants also included “Let Cuba live!”

Rubio defended the administration's approach to Cuba and said it would remain focused on changing the Cuban government's policies.

"I really don’t believe this system is capable of reform unless new people take over or a new mindset takes hold,” he said.

Despite a series of meetings between U.S. and Cuban officials, Trump and Rubio have renewed threats against the island's government, which take on greater weight after the administration announced criminal charges against former President Raúl Castro.

Over his congressional career and now as America's top diplomat, Rubio has maintained that Cuba is a national security threat because of its ties to U.S. adversaries and that Trump is intent on addressing it.

___

Amiri reported from New York.

___

Follow the AP's coverage of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at https://apnews.com/hub/marco-rubio.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, launched dozens of projectiles and drones toward Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon and Israeli cities and towns in recent days as Israel's airstrikes killed dozens, including women and children, in Lebanon. Hezbollah did not carry out any attacks on Israel after Trump's announcement.

The ongoing hostilities — despite Trump's announcement and a nominal ceasefire that began in April — are deepening displacement for Lebanon's conflict-weary population. They also are a significant sticking point in negotiations to extend a ceasefire in the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, as the Islamic Republic wants any such deal to end fighting in Lebanon, too.

Two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported Tuesday that the country cut off communication with mediators facilitating the ceasefire talks.

Another round of talks between Israel and Lebanon began Tuesday in Washington, where Lebanese negotiators will seek a full ceasefire that will prevent future attacks. The talks began in April and were the first in more than three decades between the countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations. Hezbollah has rejected direct talks, counting on pressure from Iran.

The planned talks come days after Israeli ground troops made their deepest incursion into Lebanon in 26 years and Israel then threatened to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs, causing panic in the Lebanese capital as thousands fled.

Israel says it will keep attacking if Hezbollah does

Trump said Monday he'd spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and had communicated with Hezbollah through mediators, and that no troops would be “going to Beirut." But the intensity of attacks between Israel and Hezbollah continued.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday that Israel previously refrained from attacking Beirut out of deference to negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. But he said Netanyahu informed Trump in a phone call late Monday that Israel will attack Beirut's southern suburbs if Hezbollah continues targeting northern Israel, echoing comments from the prime minister the previous day.

Lebanon's top political authorities insist that the talks must continue, despite Beirut's struggles in stopping the strikes, and the mounting pressure from over 1 million displaced people living in difficult conditions.

“Negotiations is the least costly option on Lebanon and the Lebanese people,” Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said. “It is the shortest road to the occupation and allow our people in the south to return to the cities and villages.”

An Israeli drone strike hit a car on the road linking the southern town of Marjayoun with the city of Nabatiyeh, killing James Karam, a dentist from the nearby Christian town of Qlayaa, along with his daughter and son, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Tuesday.

The Lebanese army said two soldiers were lightly wounded when another drone targeted them on a road outside the city.

Drone strikes killed two Syrians working at a plant nursery in the village of Jibchit and two people in the nearby village of Toul, the news agency reported. A third strike hit a car near the village of Harouf, killing one person.

Two other airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed three people, according to NNA.

The Israeli military said it wasn't aware of any Israeli strikes in the area where Karam and his family members were killed.

NNA also reported that an Israeli airstrike in the southern village of Marwaniyeh on Monday killed six people from the Abdullah family. Hassan and his wife Hanan were killed alongside four children Ali, Ibrahim, Leen and Julia. A third son survived but is undergoing treatment.

Hezbollah said Tuesday its fighters fired anti-tank missiles on Israeli troops who were pushing into the southern village of Hadatha, about 7 kilometers (4 miles) from the Israeli border.

Sirens sounded in several areas in northern Israel, its military said in a statement. It added that “a suspicious aerial target" was identified in the area where Israeli soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon, but that no injuries were reported.

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people. According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

Israel’s military said late Monday that a soldier was killed in southern Lebanon. It added that seven more soldiers were wounded in the incident, three of them severely.

Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fiber-optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond.

___

This story has been corrected to say Hezbollah fired at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.

—

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

David T. Brown, of Beasley, is charged with tampering with a governmental record, a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Records show Brown is out on a $10,000 bond.

According to Precinct 1, Brown advertised blue permanent-disability parking placards for sale on social media and altered them by adding driver’s license numbers and other identifying information to make the permits appear legitimate.

”It’s just terrible because people every day rely on that parking for mobility and to ensure that they can get out and not have to park far away from their location,“ said Harris County Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen. “We have to be more respectful and watch our disabled community and their parking needs."

Investigators determined the placards seized during the investigation were not assigned through the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office.

“These came from a legitimate tax office, not our local tax office. We already checked that,” Rosen said. “But it came from somewhere in the state of Texas.”

Authorities are now working to trace the placards back to their source.

“We’re going to track where these actually came from, and then we’ll notify that local authority to start an investigation,” Rosen said.

While Brown allegedly sold the placards for $150 each, legitimate disabled parking permits are issued free of charge by the State of Texas. Disabled parking placards allow qualified individuals to park in designated accessible spaces and exempt them from certain parking meter fees.

Detectives are also working to identify anyone who may have purchased the fraudulent placards. Rosen warned that buyers could also face criminal charges if they continue using them.

“So if you bought these for $150 and you’re continually using them, you can be arrested and charged with the fraudulent use of a handicap placard,” Rosen said. “There’s criminality on both sides of this. The best thing you can do is go ahead and destroy it or turn it in anonymously.”

The investigation remains active, and Rosen said detectives routinely monitor online marketplaces for similar schemes.

“I want people to know that we’re still on Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp and some of the other commercially available sites looking for stuff like this,” Rosen said. “I want the crooks to know we’re actually looking for stuff like this.”

Rosen also had a warning for anyone considering selling fraudulent placards online.

“You don’t know who you’re selling to,” he said. “When you show up to sell that $150 placard, it could be an investigator with a law enforcement agency.”

Anyone with information about Brown or the investigation is asked to contact Harris County Precinct 1 investigators at (713) 755-5200.

While allergies can strike anywhere across the region, experts say some parts of the Houston area may be more challenging than others thanks to a combination of trees, grass pollen, humidity, flooding and mold.

Houston Methodist reports that Houston’s subtropical climate allows plants to grow for much of the year, creating extended pollen seasons and making mold and dust mites a year-round concern for many residents. The situation can worsen during hurricane season when heavy rains and flooding create ideal conditions for mold growth.

• Mosquitoes have favorites, and you might be one of them

North Houston: A pollen powerhouse

Communities such as Spring, The Woodlands and Kingwood are known for their dense tree canopies and wooded landscapes.

While those towering pines and oaks create beautiful scenery, they can also contribute to higher pollen exposure. Tree pollen remains a major allergy trigger in the Houston area, especially from oak, ash, elm and pecan trees. During the summer months, grass pollen also becomes a significant irritant.

Memorial and West Houston

The Memorial area combines mature trees, extensive green spaces and high humidity, creating another environment where allergy sufferers may struggle.

The abundance of vegetation means pollen can linger, while Houston’s humidity encourages mold growth and dust mites, two allergens that remain active throughout the year.

Meyerland and bayou communities

Neighborhoods located near bayous and flood-prone areas, including Meyerland and Braeburn, face a different allergy challenge.

While rain can temporarily knock pollen out of the air, repeated flooding and standing water can lead to increased mold growth. Mold spores are a common trigger for allergy symptoms and can become especially problematic after major storms or prolonged periods of wet weather.

What’s floating around Houston this summer?

According to pollen tracking data, grass pollen remains one of the primary summer allergens in Houston. Common grasses release large amounts of pollen during warmer months, while mold spores thrive in the city’s heat and humidity.

Houston Methodist says residents can also expect continued exposure to dust mites and mold throughout the year due to the region’s muggy climate.

Why allergies may feel worse this year

Scientists have found that warmer temperatures can lengthen growing seasons and increase pollen production, extending allergy seasons and intensifying symptoms for some sufferers. Houston’s warming climate may be contributing to longer periods of exposure.

How to fight back

Experts recommend monitoring daily pollen forecasts, keeping windows closed on high-pollen days, showering after spending time outdoors and using air conditioning with clean filters. Those with persistent symptoms may benefit from consulting an allergy specialist to identify specific triggers and treatment options.

For many Houstonians, summer means backyard barbecues, pool days and hurricane preparations. Unfortunately, it also means allergy season isn’t taking a break anytime soon.

Her hair covered by a pink bonnet, Basekawike prepares porridge, omelets and bread for breakfast in a shed outside the Evangelical Medical Center in Bunia, the heart of the outbreak in eastern Congo. Lunch and dinner might include fresh fish with fufu, made of mashed plantains, finished off by fruit. She feeds both patients and health workers.

“Even though the patients have this disease, they still feel better when they eat, and the doctors have the energy to treat the sick and give them medication,” Basekawike told The Associated Press as she prepared vegetables and potatoes with goat meat in a large pot. “I’m here for them like a parent, preparing food so they feel comfortable.”

Her contribution may appear like a simple task, but it has become a critical support for the remote region as it grapples with the rapidly spreading Bundibugyo virus, the rare species of Ebola confirmed in May.

As of Tuesday, 321 cases including 48 deaths had been confirmed in the Central African nation’s three eastern provinces of Ituri, North and South Kivu, according to the World Health Organization. WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said the number of suspected cases has dropped to 116 from 906 last weekend as many were ruled out after investigation.

Neighboring Uganda's has had 15 cases and one death confirmed, its health ministry said Tuesday. Uganda closed its border with Congo last week despite WHO guidance not to do so.

Meanwhile, Congolese authorities reopened Bunia’s airport on Tuesday for domestic flights, requiring passengers to undergo temperature checks and respect strict sanitary measures.

The International Organization for Migration on Tuesday urged governments to strengthen cross-border coordination instead, warning that border closures could drive people's movement underground and increase transmission risks.

“Viruses do not stop at borders, and neither should our response,” said Ugochi Daniels, IOM deputy director-general for operations. “When borders close, people often continue moving through informal routes where health screening and surveillance are limited.”

The Congo-Uganda border has numerous footpaths beyond formal border posts.

Before the outbreak, the region already faced one of the world's most severe food crises, because of an ongoing conflict that has displaced millions of people as government forces fight rebels. The United Nations has warned that might complicate efforts to manage the spread of the virus among an already wary population.

“Ebola is an additional crisis on top of a crisis,” said Olivier Nkakudulu, who heads the World Food Program in Ituri province.

WFP is facing a critical choice as aid cuts by the U.S. and other major partners have disrupted operations in the vulnerable region. Efforts to contain the disease, which WHO has deemed a public health emergency of international concern, have been hampered.

Meanwhile, attacks by suspicious residents on health workers and the slow delivery of aid because of the conflict have been challenging.

Responders say they have ensured patients' nutritional demands are met as “comfort food” takes on a more significant meaning.

“Today we need to increase the amount because the number of patients has gone up,” said Esther Bao, a nurse and one of the volunteers. She worried about patients who, because of their health situation, “don't eat just any meal.”

Among the rare signs of optimism, at least five people have recovered in the outbreak, which continues to spread.

More than 400 meals have been served since the food assistance began on Thursday, according to Nkakudulu.

But "without more funding, we might not be able to prioritize every suspected case,” Nkakudulu said. "We might have to focus on some and not have food to give to others."

___

Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria. Geir Moulson in Berlin and Mark Banchereau in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has escalated Moscow’s aerial campaign in recent weeks in an apparent bid to take advantage of Ukraine’s shortage of U.S.-made air defense systems and persuade an increasingly pessimistic audience at home that Moscow is prevailing in the 4-year-old war.

Emergency rescue crews digging through the wreckage of apartment buildings pulled out the bodies of a 3-year-old child as well as those of a woman and her 8-year-old son in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, officials said.

The attack stretched past dawn, with explosions reverberating across cities. Officials said 16 people were killed in Dnipro and six in Kyiv.

Residents of the capital have been on edge for days after Russia warned last week that a massive aerial attack was coming and told foreign diplomats to leave. None appeared to heed the call and no embassies immediately reported damage Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed for more U.S. and European support, describing the massive overnight attack as “an explicit statement by Russia: If Ukraine is not protected from ballistic missiles and other missile strikes, those strikes will continue.”

Putin has stepped up his aerial campaign against Ukraine, with Russian forces recently launching another of their powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missiles. Ukraine's shortage of air defense systems, in part because of depleted U.S. stocks from the Iran war, has left civilians especially vulnerable to ballistic missiles, even as Kyiv's defenses stop most of Moscow's drones.

A mother and daughter shelter in a bathtub

At least 81 people were wounded in the capital, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Iryna Salikova, 37, spent the night lying in a bathtub for protection with her 3-year-old daughter, as blasts reverberated across the city.

“Our window was broken. A cobblestone flew into the children’s room,” Salikova said, although they weren't hurt. “Thank God we’re alive. Today we’re alive, today we’re lucky.”

Russia unleashed 73 missiles and 656 drones across Ukraine, according to the country’s air force, with the main targets including Kyiv, Dnipro and the eastern cities of Poltava, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian air defenses destroyed or suppressed 40 missiles and 602 drones.

Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov proclaimed Wednesday would be a day of mourning for the dead in his city. That announcement came 20 minutes before Filatov said another drone had struck a residential building there about 2:40 p.m.

Putin seeks to change the narrative of the war

Putin is keen to generate some positive news from the conflict that began with Russia’s February 2022 invasion of its neighbor and hasn’t gone according to plan.

Western officials and analysts say Ukrainian drones are pinning down Russian troops on the front line, choking Russian supply lines in occupied regions of Ukraine and disrupting oil facilities deep inside Russia that provide vital revenue for Moscow. That has made the war, which Moscow refers to as a “special military operation,” more visible to Russians and increased pressure on Putin.

U.S.-led peace efforts have fizzled out as the sides made no progress on key differences and after the war in Iran grabbed Washington’s attention. Zelenskyy accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump but Putin refused.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that Tuesday's bombardment struck military-industrial facilities in the Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi and Sumy regions.

Ukraine said residential, energy and civilian infrastructure was hit but did not confirm or comment on damage to any military-related sites.

Putin signaled that Russia won’t let up its attacks. He said Tuesday that Ukraine’s May 22 drone attack on a college dormitory in Starobilsk in the Russia-controlled Luhansk region of Ukraine that killed 21 had given the war “a whole new dimension.”

Ukraine said the attack in Starobilsk hit a Russian drone pilot training center.

Man hurled from Kyiv apartment by blast

Hits of 30 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and 33 drones were recorded in at least 38 locations across Ukraine, according to regional authorities. Debris from destroyed drones fell on 15 locations, the air force said.

Damage was recorded to residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure in eight districts of Kyiv.

Olena Dniprovska, 65, and her husband Yevhen, 64, were wounded in their apartment in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district.

“I went out into the corridor with the phone, and before I understood what happened, everything fell on my head, the glass, and the door blew off,” said Dniprovska, dried blood streaked across her face and a bandage on her chin. “I ran out into the front door and started calling my husband from the room, but he was also blown out by the blast wave.”

“Now I have nowhere to live, the apartment is completely destroyed, no doors, no windows, no balcony. You can step straight from the room out onto the street,” she said.

In Kharkiv, at least 19 people were wounded in residential areas in the past two days — including 11 on Tuesday.

___

Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed.

___

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

Ruto said on Monday that the U.S. had a long-standing partnership with Kenya on health matters and that the quarantine facility at Laikipia Air Base was one of 24 facilities that had been established in the event of an Ebola outbreak in the country.

Some Kenyans have opposed the Laikipia facility after the U.S. last week said no American Ebola patient would be allowed to return home and that patients would instead be quarantined at the facility in Kenya. The U.S. intends to commit $13 million to the partnership with Kenya.

The high court on Tuesday extended orders issued Friday suspending the construction of the facility and the arrival of foreign patients. The case had been filed by the Law Society of Kenya and a constitutional watchdog, Katiba Institute, who cited Kenya's fragile health system as unable to handle foreign patients.

Kenyans took to the streets on Monday and Tuesday to protest a plan to quarantine Americans in the country. Protest organizers said two people were killed during Monday’s demonstrations outside Laikipia Air Base.

Speaking for the first time on the matter, Ruto said he agreed to the establishment of the facility based on existing bilateral relations.

“When President Trump asked the government of Kenya to support them by having a center at Laikipia Air Base, I gave the OK because it was an agreement and a partnership with friends who have worked with Kenya for 30-40 years,” he said.

Ruto said the facilities established across the country under the partnership would also benefit Kenyans in the event of an Ebola outbreak.

“We are a responsible government. We know what we are doing. People should relax. Politicians should avoid reckless, unnecessary talk that doesn’t mean anything,” he said.

Kenya has not recorded any Ebola cases, but neighboring Uganda has reported nine cases and one death confirmed. In Congo, 321 cases and 48 deaths had been confirmed as of Tuesday in the Central African nation’s three eastern provinces of Ituri, North and South Kivu, according to the World Health Organization.

The state’s unusual primary system, in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party, means Democrats have a chance of effectively missing out on a pickup in the San Diego suburbs, where Republican Rep. Darrell Issa's district was redrawn to give it a slight Democratic lean.

Issa retired, and a Republican San Diego County supervisor, Jim Desmond, stepped in to run. So did an avalanche of nine Democrats — so many that some fear the Democratic vote will be split among them, leaving Desmond and the only other GOP candidate, Jim O’Neil, as the top vote-getters. Under that scenario, Democrats would be locked out of the November general election.

“After millions of dollars and a nationwide effort to redraw these districts in response to Texas, Democrats being shut out would be a nightmare,” said Ammar Campa-Najjar, a former Obama administration official who is one of the Democrats running.

California has been the bright spot for Democrats in a redistricting war kicked off by President Donald Trump to help his party retain control of the House. After Texas redrew its map to make as many as five more seats winnable for the GOP, California voters allowed Democrats to suspend their state’s own independent redistricting commission and create a new map in retaliation.

But when Virginia Democrats tried to replicate that, they were blocked by their state Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, letting Republicans eliminate some majority-Black congressional districts in the South.

Campa-Najjar, San Diego City Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert and investor Brandon Riker, who is financing his own campaign, are the most prominent Democrats in the race for the seat vacated by Issa. Many Democrats are optimistic their voters will coalesce around one candidate and set up a competitive election this fall against Desmond, whom Trump endorsed.

The 48th district would not be the only competitive fall race for Democrats.

In the Central Valley, they redrew the seat held by Republican Rep. David Valadao to make it even more Democratic. Valadao is a survivor of several targeted Democratic campaigns and one of two remaining Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

He's expected to make it to the general election, so the primary will determine which Democrat faces him — state Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains, a moderate backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or Randy Villegas, a political science professor at College of the Sequoias and a school board member who represents the party’s liberal wing.

The schism between establishment Democrats and a younger, insurgent progressive wing is a defining characteristic of many of this year's primaries.

In a safe Democratic district in San Francisco, Scott Wiener, a state lawmaker and former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, is considered likely to make the November race to replace retiring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The suspense is over whether he will face Saikat Chakrabarti, a wealthy former technology entrepreneur who supported Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s insurgent primary in 2018, or Supervisor Connie Chan, who was endorsed by Pelosi.

In Sacramento, city council member Mai Vang is challenging 81-year-old Rep. Doris Matsui, who succeeded her late husband after he died in 2005.

Rep. Brad Sherman, whose Southern California district stretches from the San Fernando Valley to Malibu, is being challenged by Democrat Jake Levine, a 42-year-old lawyer who argues that it is time to move on from the 15-term congressman.

And in a redrawn district that stretches from Napa Valley into conservative Northern California farming communities, 14-term Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson has drawn a younger challenger, former venture capitalist Eric Jones.

California's congressional primaries also will determine the fate of Republicans targeted in the Democratic redraw.

In Southern California, sitting Republican Reps. Ken Calvert and Young Kim were drawn into the same conservative district and are battling over their pro-Trump credentials.

In the Sacramento suburbs, Rep. Kevin Kiley, who left the GOP to become an independent and a critic of partisan gerrymandering, hopes to survive in one of the two Democratic-leaning districts where his more conservative district’s voters were scattered.

Meanwhile, in the San Francisco suburbs, six Democrats and two Republicans are running for the seat formerly held by Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned and ended his gubernatorial bid amid sexual harassment allegations. The top two vote-getters advance to the November ballot to fill the seat starting in 2027, while a special election will be held June 18 for the remainder of Swalwell's current term.

___

This story corrects the spelling of the name of a candidate who is running in San Francisco. It is Saikat Chakrabarti, not Saikat Charkrabati.

Programmers at the American Cinematheque, a nonprofit arts group that curates for several historic theaters in Los Angeles, heard the cries for comedies and thought, well, what if they did the opposite? Bleak Week, which would conveniently coincide with the city’s June Gloom, could be the art house version of Shark Week.

“We didn’t know how it was going to go,” said Grant Moninger, the group's artistic director. “People may like this … or people may look at it and somehow be offended.”

In 2022, he and Chris LeMaire programmed wall-to-wall selections of world cinema’s most austere offerings, from Elem Klimov’s anti-war epic “Come and See” to Béla Tarr’s 439-minute “Sátántangó.” LA-based film critic Katie Walsh was one of the early champions of the concept. When it was announced she remembered tweeting the “sickos” meme.

“I was just like, yes, this is for me, this for the sickos,” Walsh said. “We were really enthusiastic about it online. I think that they were like, OK, great, this is like a concept that is going to translate.”

From niche experiment to global footprint

Five years later, Bleak Week has gone global. Across June, there will be Bleak Weeks taking place in 100 theaters in 73 cities spanning eight countries, from the United Kingdom and Canada to Puerto Rico and Latin America. In the United States, it’s not just the biggest cities either: There are versions in Columbia, Missouri (Ragtag Cinema), Pittsburgh (Row House Cinema), Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, (Cinema Art Theatre), Brookline, Massachusetts (Coolidge Corner Theatre) and Albuquerque, New Mexico, (Guild Cinema), to name a few.

“Although Bleak Week sounds depressing, it’s really a celebration of the human experience,” Moninger said. “It’s really what cinema is about: empathy and understanding the world.”

Ennui at the movie theater wasn't niche after all. Those nearly 7 ½-hour showings of “Sátántangó” regularly sell out. It’s not uncommon to see famous people both on the stage and in the audience ( Sean Baker and Mikey Madison were spotted at a screening one year of “In a Glass Cave,” about an ex-Nazi pedophile). Even Tarr, the great Hungarian filmmaker who died earlier this year and once said he’d never come back to the United States, made an exception and attended Bleak Week in year two. Expansion soon followed to The Paris Theatre in New York and The Prince Charles Cinema in London.

“The thing about cinema is that you get to experience all the colors of human experience,” said Walsh, who has both attended and served as a moderator over the years. “Bleak Week offers a chance to kind of like revel in this specific feeling in a lot of ways. I just really love it. I see stuff that I would never ever see elsewhere.”

At the end of the movies, Walsh said, “I usually have to go stare at a wall for like 30 minutes.”

Over 300 movies at Bleak Week 2026

The fifth edition is already underway in Los Angeles at the Egyptian Theatre, the Aero Theatre and the Los Feliz 3. On the schedule are appearances by the likes of Isabelle Huppert, who will do Q&As for several films, including “The Piano Teacher” and “Heaven’s Gate,” filmmaker Ari Aster, showing his director’s cut of “Midsommar” and Denis Villeneuve on behalf of his breakout film “Incendies.”

One of the most liberating aspects about the concept is that there’s no genre stranglehold on the idea of bleak cinema. It can be wartime. It can be interpersonal drama. It can be fantasy. It can even be family friendly. They’ve empowered local programmers to make their own selections; This year there are over 300 movies being shown globally.

“They know their audience. They know what films will resonate,” said LeMaire. “It’s fun for us to see all the different approaches.”

The Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago is focusing on animation, playing movies like Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke,” Martin Rosen’s “Watership Down” and Michael Schaack’s “Felidae.” The Argentina program will include both local films and a retrospective of Aster’s works. At Vancouver’s historic Park Theatre, selections were made by local filmmakers and “friends of the venue.” Actor Finn Wolfhard elected “The Celebration,” “Sinners” cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw chose “The Deer Hunter” and “Anora” producer Samantha Quan picked “The Virgin Suicides.”

The most programmed film this year is Isao Takahata’s animated “Grave of the Fireflies,” about a boy and his sister fighting for survival in post-World War II Japan after losing their parents. One movie they make a point to show every year is “Come and See,” which Moninger said is “the bleakest of the bleak experience.”

The concept is open to interpretation, as long as it’s a narrative film. The one thing it can’t be is a documentary.

“There’s something still yet triumphant about taking horrible experiences or someone’s personal tragedy and being able to turn it into art,” Moninger said. “That’s really one of our only rules is that we just don’t do docs.”

When it’s all said and done, at least in Los Angeles, they make sure to close with something sweet: The three “Paddington” movies. It’s what they like to call a “marmalade chaser.”

Kostyuk won an intense all-Ukraine quarterfinal against Elina Svitolina 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 on Tuesday. That set up Kostyuk against Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva, who thumped Romanian veteran Sorana Cirstea 6-0, 6-3.

In men’s play, up-and-coming Rafael Jodar of Spain was powerless against second-seeded Alexander Zverev, losing 7-6 (3), 6-1, 6-3. The 2024 runner-up from Germany will face Jakub Mensik of the Czech Republic or Joao Fonseca of Brazil for a place in Sunday's final.

Kostyuk leads Andreeva 2-0 on the tour; the second win in the Madrid final a month ago. Kostyuk didn’t shake hands at the net, following protocol for Ukrainians with opponents from Russia and its ally Belarus since the war started four years ago.

“We had a very difficult night again in Ukraine, especially in Kyiv, so many people dead,” Kostyuk said. "I want to give this match to Ukrainian people and to their resilience. Slava Ukraini! (Glory to Ukraine!)”

Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities overnight, killing at least 18 civilians and wounding more than 100 others, authorities said on Tuesday.

“I texted my family if they were OK. This is pretty much all I can do,” Kostyuk said. “The biggest thing I can do is sit here and talk about it so more people can find out about it so they don’t get used to this terrible life.”

Svitolina said friends in Ukraine told her about the attacks just hours before the match.

“Just very sad that we all have to really put up with this heaviness and pain every single day, and scared moments not knowing what’s going to bring the next day,” Svitolina said.

She will leave Roland Garros to look after the daughter she has with French tennis player Gael Monfils, but will be cheering on Kostyuk.

“Hopefully she can get the title,” Svitolina said. “It’s going to be massive for Ukraine.”

No. 7-seeded Svitolina got off to a slow start but worked her way back, matching No. 15 Kostyuk’s power from the baseline. Kostyuk was better on the important points in the decider and improved her impressive 2026 record on clay to 17-0.

She's the first Ukrainian woman to reach the semifinals at Roland Garros in the Open era since 1968. Svitolina has reached the semis at the other three Grand Slams but failed for the sixth time to win a French Open quarterfinal.

Andreeva will appear in her second French Open semifinal, two years after the first. She was asked about the challenges of playing a Ukrainian in wartime.

“Well, for me it doesn’t matter who I play,” Andreeva said. “I really try to play against the ball that is coming at me. Usually it doesn’t matter to me who I’m playing against, so I’m trying to really focus on the game and on the game plan.”

Asked whether she found it frustrating to hear Russian opponents avoiding the issue, Kostyuk said she wished “there was some more clear stance on what’s going on.”

“Especially when your country is killing other people,” she added. “I don’t know how you can sleep at night peacefully when you know that this is going on, and you have nothing to say about it.”

After a week of hot weather, rain arrived in Paris and play started under the closed roof of Court Philippe-Chatrier. Competing in the quarterfinals for the first time in 17 years, Cirstea struggled to find her rhythm against her 19-year-old rival.

The 36-year-old veteran, playing the final season of her career, immediately dropped her serve. She didn't hold serve or win a game until the first game of the second set. Andreeva’s deep, accurate groundstrokes and charges to the net took a toll on 18th-seeded Cirstea, whose attempt to come back was shortlived.

“I felt like it was one of my best matches so far this tournament,” Andreeva said. “Super happy to be back in semis.”

___

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

According to the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate sits at 4.3%, leaving many people actively seeking new employment opportunities. Unfortunately, scammers are increasingly targeting those job hunters.

Data from the Federal Trade Commission shows there were more than 25,000 reports of business and job opportunity scams during the last quarter of 2025 alone. Those scams resulted in total losses of more than $150 million, with the median victim losing about $2,000.

Experts at Ditto Transcripts say scammers often prey on people who are under financial pressure and eager to secure work quickly.

Social media job scams

One of the fastest-growing scams starts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

Victims are contacted by strangers offering high pay for simple tasks such as liking videos, clicking links or boosting engagement online. The jobs often promise easy money with little effort.

At first, users may receive small rewards or see group chats filled with supposed proof of earnings from other participants. Eventually, scammers ask victims to pay fees to unlock larger earnings or withdraw money they’ve already earned.

Once payment is sent, the scammer either disappears or continues requesting additional fees.

Fake background check scams

Another common tactic involves fake employers requesting money for a background check before hiring.

Scammers may direct applicants to fraudulent websites where they’re asked to submit payment and personal information.

While some legitimate employers may require screening costs, experts say it’s unusual for companies to demand immediate upfront payment. In many legitimate cases, fees are deducted from a future paycheck rather than paid directly by applicants.

Job seekers are encouraged to research companies through trusted sources such as the Better Business Bureau and verify that any screening company is legitimate.

Work-from-home equipment scams

Remote work opportunities remain popular, making them a frequent target for scammers.

In these schemes, victims receive a job offer and are told they must purchase equipment such as a laptop or computer before starting work. The company promises reimbursement later.

The scammer may request a bank transfer or send applicants to a fake purchasing website.

Since computer equipment can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, victims often suffer significant financial losses.

Experts say legitimate employers rarely ask workers to pay upfront for company equipment.

Identity theft disguised as onboarding

Some scams aren’t after your money, they’re after your identity.

Fraudsters may create fake companies or impersonate real businesses, conduct brief interviews and quickly extend job offers. Once applicants accept, they’re asked to provide sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, bank account details and copies of identification documents.

That information can then be used to commit fraud, open accounts in the victim’s name or gain access to existing financial accounts.

Because legitimate employers also request similar documents during the hiring process, these scams can be especially difficult to spot.

Red flags job seekers should watch for

Ben Walker, CEO of Ditto Transcripts, says there are several warning signs applicants should pay attention to:

• Recruiters using free email services such as Gmail instead of company email addresses.
• Numerous spelling and grammar mistakes in communications.
• Hiring processes that move unusually fast.
• Interviews conducted solely through email or messaging apps.
• Pressure to submit documents immediately.
• Requests for upfront payments.
• Job offers that seem too good to be true.

What to do if you think you’ve been scammed

If you believe you’ve fallen victim to a recruitment scam, experts recommend acting quickly.

Anyone who provided banking information should contact their bank or credit card company immediately and monitor accounts for suspicious activity. Those who shared personal information such as a Social Security number should closely watch their credit and financial accounts.

Victims can also report incidents through the Federal Trade Commission’s IdentityTheft.gov website and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

As job scams continue to evolve, experts say one of the best defenses is sticking to trusted job-search platforms and carefully verifying employers before sharing money or personal information.

Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in 1997 for the death a year earlier of 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw.

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

According to court records, Lukehart was watching his girlfriend's baby in February 1996 while his girlfriend was caring for her older daughter, who had been ill. At some point, the girlfriend said Lukehart drove away from their Jacksonville home, and she couldn't find baby Gabrielle. Lukehart called his girlfriend about 30 minutes later and told her to call police because the baby had been kidnapped and he was chasing the kidnapper.

Later that evening, Lukehart was found in a neighboring county after driving his car off the road. During questioning the next day, Lukehart told investigators that Gabrielle died after he dropped the baby on her head and then shook her. He told police that he panicked and threw the baby in a pond. Law enforcement officers searched the pond and found the child's body.

The Florida Supreme Court denied Lukehart's appeals last week. His attorneys had claimed that medication he was taking for kidney disease could have a negative reaction with the lethal injection drugs. They also argued that having only a month between the signing of Lukehart's death warrant and the execution deprived him of his due process.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Lukehart’s final appeal on Monday.

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

Another execution is planned in Florida later this month. Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992.

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

The process could grind to a halt, however, after the Trump administration said Friday that it intended to appeal a federal judge’s order to allow all companies that paid the invalidated duties to seek refunds, not just the ones that filed lawsuits.

Until the Department of Justice informed the judge of its planned appeal, the refund system overseen by U.S. Customs and Border Protection had worked fairly smoothly. Refunds reached the bank accounts of the first successful applicants on May 12, about three weeks after importers and their customs brokers could start submitting claims, according to CBP.

Applications for refunds totaling $85 billion — more than half of the $166 billion the agency estimated the government owes to companies that paid the tariffs on imported goods — were accepted for processing as of May 22, CBP reported in a legal filing earlier in the week. It said it had so far directed the Treasury Department to issue $20.6 billion in refunds.

The administration revealed its appeal preparations while objecting to a demand by Judge Richard K. Eaton for CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott to appear in the U.S. Court of International Trade on June 9. The judge said he wants to know how long it would take to repay all 330,000 importers that might be eligible for refunds and whether he should require the government to speed up the process.

Justice Department lawyers asked Eaton to allow Scott's deputies to appear in his place, arguing that as a high-ranking presidential appointee, the CBP chief could not be compelled to testify. They also argued that Eaton exceeded his authority when he determined that the Supreme Court's ruling entitled “all importers of record’’ to refunds.

“For that reason, defendants intend to appeal the court’s universal injunction," the lawyers wrote, adding that CBP would continue to move “as quicky as it can to process refunds in a phased approach” for businesses that filed legal complaints asserting their rights to refunds.

Eaton responded that he needed to hear directly from Scott whether the government would return all of the money it collected between April 2025, when Trump put what he called “reciprocal” tariffs on most countries, the Supreme Court's decision in late February.

“It is undisputed that the remedy for this unlawful collection is for the United States government to refund the unlawfully collected duties," the judge wrote.

Refunds coming in phases

Customs and Border Protection is handling refund claims in phases, focusing first on payments that weren't finalized before the Supreme Court handed down its 6-3 decision. CBP officials said those later, estimated payments were simpler to process because they remained open in its system.

In Friday’s filing, the Justice Department said the agency required technological upgrades to its refund portal and “importer-specific orders” in each lawsuit that businesses filed before it could recalculate the final tax bills for older “liquidated” accounts.

More than 1,000 companies filed lawsuits in the trade court to recoup their tariff costs. It was not immediately clear how many importers that paid the tariffs did not sue and might not receive refunds if an appeal of Eaton's blanket order succeeds.

Ryan Majerus, a partner on the international trade team at law firm King & Spalding, said he thinks "it’s definitely a fraction of the total in terms of folks who paid” the defunct duties. An appeal would likely affect only imported merchandise that was in the U.S. for 314 days, a time when CPB issues its official determination of the duties owed, he said.

“This doesn’t cover everybody, only those really old entries,” Majerus said about a potential appeal.

But filing an appeal could slow the refund process even if the government “already lost the war” before the Supreme Court, according to Barry Appleton, a professor at New York Law School and managing partner of Appleton & Associates International Lawyers.

“If the government can freeze the refund machinery while it litigates, it buys months, and every month of delay is a month the Treasury keeps the money,” Appleton said.

Price cuts promised

Some national retail chains said they planned to use their tariff refunds refunds to lower customer prices on some items. Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told analysts last week that the company would implement price cuts even though the maximum refund it might be eligible for represented less than half of 1% of Walmart’s annual U.S. sales.

Costco intends to return the tariff costs that it passed on to members, CEO Ron Vachris said. How much of its refund the big-box retail chain redistributes, when and in what form, depends on factors such as the size of the refund, when it arrives, and developments in a lawsuit seeking tariff compensation for Costco customers, Vachris told investors Thursday.

Consumers may see refunds first from shipping companies such as FedEx, UPS and DHL, which acted as customs brokers when they delivered products ordered from overseas.

The companies charged either the sellers that shipped the packages or the buyers who received them and submitted the collected tariffs to CBP. All three promised to transmit any refunds they get to the customers that paid the import taxes.

Putting refunds back into the business

The Supreme Court invalidated only the country-by-country tariff rates Trump set by citing the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The president also has moved to introduce new tariffs since the court’s Feb. 20 ruling.

Some smaller companies told The Associated Press that the tariff refunds they’ve received so far would go toward paying remaining or future tariffs or getting back on solid financial footing after more than a year of uncertainty and additional costs.

Jay Foreman, CEO of toy company Basic Fun, said he received about $450,000, or 7% of his total claim, over two consecutive days. He took the repayment as a positive sign but that the pace since then seemed like a “total slow roll.”

“It’s time to release the funds back into the economy, especially given how much we and others need these funds to support our businesses,” Foreman said.

Men’s grooming brand Manscaped has received about 30% of the $12 million in refunds it applied for, President Kevin Datoo said. The San Diego company deferred investments and took on debt to pay tariffs on imports from Indonesia, China and elsewhere in Asia, he said.

“We need to shore up the balance sheet because there’s still a whole second chapter here,” Datoo said.

Melkon Khosrovian, who owns Greenbar Distillery in Los Angeles, said he applied for a tariff refund of about $90,000 for 17 different shipments of herbs, spices and packaging that are hard to find domestically. To date, he said he received $18,000.

Khosrovian invested in automating his bottling system last year to reduce personnel costs while his import expenses grew. He recalled how the White House had argued the tariffs would create more U.S. manufacturing jobs.

The tariffs were “painful,” he said. “Our choices were bad and worse: raise prices and lose customers, or keep prices the same and not make any money.”

___

AP writers Anne D’Innocenzio and Stan Choe in New York, and Lisa Leff in London contributed to this report.

___

This story was first published on May. 30, 2026. It was updated on Jun. 2, 2026 to correct the name of the law firm where Ryan Majerus is a partner. It’s King & Spalding, not King & Spalding.

U.S. employers posted 7.6 million job vacancies in April, the Labor Department reported Tuesday, up from 6.9 million in March and most since May 2024. Economists had forecast just 6.8 million openings.

The department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that layoffs fell but so did the number of Americans quitting their jobs - a sign of confidence in their prospects. And the report's measure of gross hiring also dropped in April, suggesting that companies remain reluctant to add new workers even as they hold on to the ones they have.

The American job market has been recovering from a dismal 2025. Last year, companies, nonprofits and government agencies added fewer than 10,000 jobs a month, least outside a recession since 2002.

This year has been better — job growth averaged 76,000 a month from January through April. Big tax refunds — the product of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cut bill last year — have given the economy a lift this year, offsetting the impact of sharply higher energy prices since the United States and Israel attacked Iran Feb. 28. But the refunds have mostly been paid out and are fading as an economic booster.

The United States also doesn’t need as many new jobs as it used to. Trump’s immigration crackdown and Baby Boomer retirements mean that fewer people are competing for work. As a result, the so-called break-even point — the number of new jobs needed every month to keep the unemployment rate stable — has dropped to near zero from 155,000 a month two or three years ago, according to an April report by Federal Reserve economists Seth Murray and Ivan Vidangos.

On Friday, the Labor Department will issue its job report for May. The numbers are expected to show that employers added 100,000 jobs last month, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. The unemployment rate is expected to have stayed at a low 4.3%.

“He transcended boxing into every space you can imagine,” she told The Associated Press this week ahead of the 10-year anniversary of Ali’s death on June 3, 2016, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

“Muhammad lived by this mantra: service to others is the rent we pay for our room here on earth," Lonnie Ali said during an interview at The Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky. “He showed up every day with kindness and empathy in his heart for people who are in need."

Ali, known as the “Louisville Lip” in his hometown, rose to prominence as a trash-talking world champion boxer in the 1960s and began speaking about civil rights issues as his star was rising. He is widely regarded as the most famous and influential boxer of all time, winning the heavyweight title three times.

The Ali Center is sponsoring a “Day of Compassion” on Wednesday, the 10th anniversary of his death, to promote acts of service and caring. Lonnie Ali, who serves as the center's lifetime director, said the hope is an expanding annual event to highlight works of service and volunteering.

The day will focus on one of "the core values that made up Muhammad Ali” in an increasingly divided country, she said.

“Today, we are in a place where we are losing touch with our humanity and with each other,” she said. “It’s causing rifts, not just in families and communities, but in this nation. We’re becoming increasingly polarized and separated, and sort of retreating to people who think like us, look like us, and not really reaching out.”

She also challenged political leaders to lead with compassion, noting the recent weakening of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court.

“We should always be thinking about how we can uplift a community, not how we can make it harder for them,” Lonnie Ali said. “We want equal representation in this country. You can’t have equal representation when you’re denying people voting rights, you can’t do that.”

But there is hope, she said, and she saw that when the city of Louisville came together for a weeklong celebration of Ali's life in 2016. The week was capped by a funeral procession through the city and past her late husband's modest childhood home near downtown Louisville. Former President Bill Clinton and actor Billy Crystal spoke at his funeral, and Will Smith, who portrayed Ali in a 2001 movie, was a pallbearer.

The outpouring of love for Ali at his hometown funeral service was livestreamed to millions around the world. A decade later, Ali’s face graced a U.S. Postal Service stamp for the first time, showing his enduring influence.

“We’re talking about people who traveled thousands of miles to come here, who had never met the man, never laid eyes on him personally, but wanted to ... give their last respects to him: kings, princes, presidents, heads of state, celebrities, sports figures,” Lonnie Ali said.

Filling up with contaminated gas can bring your car to a halt almost immediately — and leave you with a repair bill in the thousands. Knowing what to do next could make all the difference.

Bad gas stops drivers in their tracks

KPRC 2’s Amy Davis has seen this before. She talked with Hahleemah Wright whose car stalled just feet from the gas pump.

“I had not gotten maybe a thousand feet,” Wright said. “And it just completely stopped. I tried to turn it on again. It wouldn’t turn on.”

When Wright had her BMW towed to a mechanic, the technician drained the tank and found gas mixed with water. The damage from the contaminated fuel cost her $1,329 to repair.

“To be hit with a $1,400 bill in the blink of an eye at no fault of myself is a huge inconvenience and is unjustified,” Wright said.

Wright returned to the station right away, hoping to prevent other drivers from pumping the same bad fuel. On the Nextdoor app, other drivers shared similar stories, posting photos of bad gas from the same station along with high repair bills.

SEE MORE: Amy tracks down gas station owner

Under state law, Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation can fine a station anywhere from $500 to $3,000 and can revoke its license.

What to do if you get bad gas

If you fill up with contaminated fuel, experts say time is critical. Here’s what to do:

• File a complaint with TDLR immediately. Visit TDLR’s website and select “Fuel Metering & Quality” from the dropdown menu. The sooner you report it, the better — if the station receives a new fuel delivery before an investigation, contaminated fuel can be diluted or completely dispensed, making it harder to prove.
• Include as much detail as possible. When filing, provide fuel receipts, fuel type, octane rating, pump number and any information about damage to your vehicle.
• Alert gas station management or chain headquarters. Many stations or parent companies will act quickly to stop selling suspect fuel and may voluntarily reimburse customers for repairs. Others may deny there’s a problem — which is exactly why filing with TDLR quickly is so important.
• Always save your receipt. Every time you fill up, hold onto that receipt. If you end up with bad gas, it’s one of your most important pieces of evidence.

Once TDLR receives a complaint, the department reviews the information and may dispatch an investigator to take a fuel sample for lab testing. If contamination is confirmed, TDLR will take action based on how the station responds.

Even with the right steps, though, there are no guarantees that station owners will do the right thing.

RELATED: Warning signs you put bad gasoline in your tank

HOOD COUNTY — Brian Crawford points to the top of a hill northwest of his family’s home garden, just past their gently sloping yard dotted with live oaks beginning to flower.

“All of this would be buildings,” said his wife, Laura Crawford.

“A slab of concrete,” Brian added.

Their property is a 118-acre paradise along the Paluxy River Valley where the couple care for a menagerie of animals including their two enormous donkeys, Little Joe and Hoss, chickens and a herd of African antelope that they inherited when they bought the property nine years ago.

Instead of green, about 600 yards away from their garden, they could soon be looking at 2,100 acres of warehouse-like structures filled with computing servers that process the digital world, flattening their scenic view into something industrial. The site plan calls for a campus that spans almost six times the size of University of Texas at Austin’s main campus. Its Florida-based developer refers to it as the Comanche Circle project, but the eventual company that will run the data center has not been publicly revealed.

This is just the beginning of the data center revolution in Hood County, a rural community of 62,000 people about an hour southwest of Fort Worth. Developers have proposed eight data centers spanning over 7,600 acres, or 12 square miles. While it’s unclear how much power all of the facilities would require, the Comanche Circle data center, plus two other smaller projects from the same developer, could use up to 3 gigawatts of electricity at full capacity, according to its developer — enough to power about 3 million homes. Some of the power could be generated by a new on-site gas plant, and some will likely come from the state’s power grid, according to the project’s concept plan.

Comanche Circle will need an initial one-time “flush and fill” starting next year of 95 million gallons of water for its seven-year buildout, and then 150,000 gallons per day — equivalent to the average use of 500 U.S. households, according to the minutes of the local water district board meeting where the developer made its request. In an email to The Texas Tribune, the developer said that the number submitted to the district board was incorrect and his three data centers combined would use “less than 50,000 gallons per day of groundwater” at full build out.

Hood County locals are relentless in their fight against the data centers, packing county meetings and town halls and voicing their fierce opposition to the facilities threatening to transform their charming, small-town community.

But, county officials say their hands are tied in their ability to stop or slow development. Two efforts by Hood County commissioners to pass a moratorium on data centers failed, as a state lawmaker warned they were acting outside of their authority. And the county has been sued twice by developers — after the commission rejected one data center’s concept plan, citing a lack of information about critical considerations like where they’d get their water from, and then tabled a vote on another.

“I was elected by the people to represent their opinion,” Kevin Andrews, a Hood County commissioner who has lived in the county for two decades, said in an interview. “But I also have to follow the law … and not get the county sued.”

Data center developers are more frequently choosing rural, unincorporated areas like Hood County because it’s an easier path to build, experts say. In Texas, counties typically don’t have the power to block development — unlike city officials who wield zoning authority.

“Texas has always viewed counties as rural toddlers that can’t be trusted with full powers,” said Robert Paterson, a professor at UT-Austin who specializes in land use and environmental planning.

Nearly half of the planned data centers in Texas are set to be built in unincorporated areas, free of city regulations, according to an analysis by the Tribune. This marks a shift as most existing data centers are clustered in cities and only 12% are currently in unincorporated areas.

At least one county, which appears to be the first in Texas, recently placed a one-year pause on data center construction, moving ahead despite the legal risks. The action has already prompted a lawsuit against Hill County and its three commissioners by a data center developer seeking $100 million in damages.

Today, Hood County has the sixth most planned data centers among Texas counties; per square mile, it ranks third. It’s been a magnet for developers because of the cheap land, available power, fiber lines and, importantly, its lack of local business restrictions.

“We love liberty and love a lack of regulation,” said Greg Harrell, chair of the Hood County GOP, at a town hall earlier this year. “Data centers are taking advantage of it… They saw an opportunity.”

The surge of development here mirrors a data center gold rush across Texas over the past year that is outpacing the speed of regulation. A Tribune analysis found the state has 335 existing data centers, with more than 248 in the works. Only Texas and Virginia, which has been the top state for data centers for the past few years, had more than 100 active projects under way as of March, according to Aterio, a company that tracks industrial development.

Massive data centers are also flooding the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s main grid operator, with requests for power. As of May, ERCOT reported that large projects requesting to connect to the grid totaled 439 gigawatts of power capacity — five times larger than the all-time peak demand on the state’s grid. Of those projects, about 89% are data centers, though energy experts say it’s unlikely that all of them will be built.

The view from a Pecan Plantation resident’s backyard in Hood County where, across the Brazos River, 862 acres are proposed to be developed into the Fort Spunky data center.

The explosion of development is driven by the newest wave of data centers, known as “hyperscalers,” designed to support artificial intelligence computing facilities with thousands of servers, which are much bigger than current data centers that were largely built for cloud storage. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Open AI are behind planned projects in West Texas and Central Texas.

“Texas is a great state to do business. All of that really has come together to help make Texas, again, one of the national leaders in digital infrastructure,” said Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy with the Data Center Coalition.

Data center developers say their projects will bring billions of dollars of new property on the tax rolls, work training opportunities, job creation and private investment in communities. One company told Hood County commissioners it could potentially increase the county’s tax base anywhere from $5 billion to $20 billion.

However, some commissioners and residents remain skeptical, saying the benefits are uneven, and data centers create few permanent jobs after their labor-intensive construction is finished. For example, one Hood County data center proposal shows a peak construction workforce of 2,000 dropping to a permanent workforce of 220, according to the project’s concept plan.

Hood County Commissioner Dave Eagle said there are “too many unanswered questions” about data centers, and they’re being asked to greenlight plans with incomplete information about their impact on the community.The Tribune reviewed hundreds of pages of concept plans, lawsuits and reviewed hours of testimony from commissioners court meetings to piece together information about the projects. All but one of the seven data center proposals submitted to Hood County omitted estimates for power use; only four noted a potential power source. Just five of the concept plans included projections for water consumption and six listed options for where they would get their water. The eighth project was annexed into the City of Granbury, which had not received any development plans, according to a spokesperson.

Despite the backlash from residents, some Hood County commissioners are increasingly convinced there’s little they can do to stop data centers as more proposals roll in.

“[Data centers] snuck up on us,” Eagle said at a town hall meeting in February. “We don’t understand it and we need more information.”

Brian and Laura Crawford, with their dog Belle, in their backyard across the Hood County line in Somervell County. Brian and Laura have had to commit a significant amount of their time to their activism against the proposed data centers, with Laura working around the clock with Protect The Paluxy Valley.

The Crawfords placed signs outside their property opposing the construction of data centers in the area.

A Mysterious Project

In July 2025, Hood County officials first got wind of a secretive economic development pitch called “Project Patriot,” described on the commissioners’ meeting agenda as “a proposed large capital investment” that came with the creation of 60 “high-wage permanent” jobs.

County Judge Ron Massingill asked the commissioners to take a nonbinding vote signaling the officials wanted the business and would be willing to waive its property taxes.

But at the meeting, commissioners were given virtually no information about the business. It was never referred to as a data center. An economic development official for the city of Granbury, which later annexed the project into its city limits, told commissioners that she was under a nondisclosure agreement and could not answer their questions about the company.

Massingill, who did not respond to interview requests, argued to commissioners that the county had little oversight authority over business anyway, and negotiating a local tax exemption might be the only leverage they would ever have. The county, he said, could ask for “beautification of the building site” and minimize impact to neighbors.

The court voted 3-1 in favor of the letter of support, with Commissioner Nannette Samuelson dissenting. At the meeting she said, “we are setting ourselves up for big industry, losing that small town feel.”

Weeks later, Eagle, a lawyer by trade who’s been a commissioner for eight years, was invited to meet privately with a handful of data center representatives from a different project. Marketing representatives and engineers came to “razzle and dazzle” him, he said, pitching something big and transformative that would bring significant tax revenue to the county. Then, they made the same ask: a property tax waiver.

Eagle grew suspicious. The private meetings, the coded language, the missing details.

“They were trying to take advantage of country bumpkins,” he said in an interview.

He told the industry representatives he wouldn’t support their tax waiver. For Eagle, who loves the comfort and stability of the county, its French Empire-style courthouse and nearby lake, this was ringing alarm bells. What worried him was the unknown scale of data centers.

Other commissioners were contacted privately, too.

In October, Commissioner Jack Wilson placed the tax break on the agenda, but it was pulled before the court could take a vote. Wilson didn’t respond to interview requests.

The proposals kept coming. Three data center plans were submitted that December, and then four more between February and April of this year. They came with playful code names like “Fort Spunky” and “Project Panther,” masking the names of the tech companies that would operate them.

Developers said prosperity would follow. Ryan Hughes, a managing partner and founder of Sailfish Investors, the company developing the Comanche Circle data center, and two others, said in an email to the Tribune their project will bring “substantial private investment, significant tax base growth, and long-term economic benefits to the region.”

But the community would not be so easily convinced.

“Gut Punched”

Downtown Granbury on May 28, 2026. Hood County residents started building information networks as fears of data centers coming to their community were confirmed.

That October, a white sign went up on a barbed wired fence near the Crawford’s home. It was a notice from an energy company seeking a state air permit to build a power plant. The Crawfords worried this was connected to rumors they’d heard about a data center nearby.

Their fears were soon confirmed. The Comanche Circle project was attempting to locate next to their property.

“It’s not just a rumor,” said Laura Crawford. “We felt gut punched. … How can this even be?”

A photo of the sign went up on Facebook. Ranchers, retirees, and longtime residents built an information network almost overnight. Neighbors knocked on doors and warned people about industrial buildings and massive electricity and water demands nobody could quantify.

They flooded Facebook groups with comments and huge banners that read: “Don’t data center my Hood County” at their property fencelines.

The online group quickly evolved into a nonprofit called Protect the Paluxy Valley. The Crawfords began hosting meetings in their backyard. Laura Crawford, who is a retired accountant, said she works around the clock most days researching data center proposals and organizing local opposition. She asks residents to call their commissioners.

In January, the group flooded the county commissioners’ chambers at a meeting to consider the concept plan for the Comanche Circle project.

Residents feared the project would strain the electrical grid and drain their local aquifer. In an email to the Tribune in June, Hughes said the concerns about water use are overblown, noting two nearby golf courses are using more water per acre than his three data center proposals combined.

“It’s like 112 Walmarts on a piece of property,” said Brian Crawford at the meeting. He said there was not enough information from the developer for commissioners to make an “intelligent decision.”

Impatience filled the chambers. Many residents had already been dealing with persistent noise from nearby cryptocurrency mining operations, another industrial project the county had approved. They urged commissioners to not repeat the same mistake and to deny the project’s plan until they have more details on the data center’s impact on traffic, roads, public safety, the watershed, and noise.

At that same meeting, county commissioners reviewed a recommendation by the development commission, a citizen advisory group, to pause data center projects while they studied their impacts and their accompanying power plants. At the time, two other data center proposals had been submitted.

“I’d rather deal with a lawsuit, than destruction of our land,” said Matt Long, a member of the development commission, during the public hearing. Long lives with his wife and nine children in Pecan Plantation, a community that could neighbor one of the county’s proposed data centers. “You were elected to make hard decisions,” he added.

Matt Long in his backyard, which sits along the Brazos River, in the Pecan Plantation neighborhood of Hood County on May 28, 2026. The Pecan Plantation is across the Brazos from the planned Fort Spunky data center.

A butterfly sits on top a Texas thistle on the bank of the Brazos River at Sandy Beach park in the Pecan Plantation neighborhood of Hood County.

But when the vote came, the Commissioners Court tabled the temporary moratorium discussion and voted to grant Comanche Circle a conditional approval, requiring more detailed plans later.

This time, Eagle was the lone dissenting vote.

A State Lawmaker’s threat

By February, Eagle was desperate and feeling the immense pressure from his constituents.

“The people who voted me in. They demand that me, as their elected official, do what I can to slow this down,” he said.

He proposed a six-month moratorium on new industrial development, including data center projects. He and Samuelson believed the county needed time to better understand the scope of what was coming.

The day of the vote, it was standing room only — residents lined the walls and some who couldn’t fit were listening from outside the doors. The meeting dragged on for eight hours.

Commissioner Andrews and Massingill, the county judge, repeated that Texas counties had little authority to restrict development, warning that a moratorium could trigger lawsuits the county could not afford to fight.

“I’m going to encourage you to be brave and stand firm for the people of this county,” one resident told the commissioners.

Eagle argued that Hood County had unique legal authority to act. He pointed to a 1999 state law granting Hood County’ special powers to protect the watershed feeding Lake Granbury and the Brazos River in unincorporated areas. It’s why the commissioners reviewed concept plans to begin with. If industrial projects threaten the watershed, he argued, the county could use this tool to intervene.

The Hood County Commissioners bow their heads in prayer at the beginning of a Hood County Commissioners Court meeting in Granbury on Feb. 24, 2026. The meeting included a vote on a moratorium that would pause construction of proposed data centers.

Texans from Hood County, Round Rock, Waco and Taylor call for Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a special session to address data center regulations, outside the Texas Capitol on Feb. 23, 2026. Leila Saidane for The Texas Tribune

Before the commissioners cast their votes, the county attorney revealed a threat from a lawmaker more than 250 miles away.

Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican, sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that same day asking him to “investigate” any counties seeking to implement moratoriums and “explore any necessary legal actions.”

Eagle said the timing of Bettencourt’s letter wasn’t a coincidence. Samuelson urged her colleagues to stand strong: “There are times when you need courage; stand on principle even if you stand alone.”

Bettencourt, chair of the Senate Committee on Local Government, later defended the letter in an interview, arguing Texas could not allow counties to block growth with “a crazy patchwork quilt” of regulations.

“The point is simply that counties don’t have the constitutional authority to issue building moratoriums,” he said in a social media post about Hood County.

Inside the Commissioners Court, Bettencourt’s message landed hard; momentum vanished instantly.

“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am,” Eagle said before the vote. “You’ve got to wonder what kind of backroom stuff is going on.”

Commissioners killed the moratorium 3-2, with Eagle and Samuelson voting for it.

Data Center Sue

In February, the citizen group packed a town hall of about 50 people.

“There is a fence around us on what we get to do. We are working with a severe handicap,” Eagle told the group, referring to the Legislature.

The next weekend members of the group, including the Crawfords, boarded a bus before sunrise and rode three hours to Austin carrying signs that read, “Support real intelligence not AI” and “Low regulations bring big data centers.” They rallied outside the Capitol, demanding a statewide moratorium, then drove back that same day — arriving home at after sunset so they could attend Commissioner’s Court the next day when the data center moratorium would be back on the agenda.

The second moratorium vote failed exactly like the first.

But in that meeting, commissioners passed a resolution asking Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special legislative session to address the concerns about the industry’s massive electricity and water demands. They also directed staff to ask Paxton to clarify whether Hood County has the legal authority to temporarily halt development under its watershed protection law.

Abbott did not respond to questions about a special session, but spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said, “Meeting the water and energy needs of Texans remains the Governor’s top priority, and these facilities are required to bring their own water and to disconnect if Texans don’t have what they need. Governor Abbott will continue to work with the Legislature to protect Texans and ensure their voices are heard.” Paxton did not respond to requests for comment.

The commissioners started testing their limits.

Mark Lowery gives public comment and addresses Commissioner Kevin Andrews on a moratorium that would pause construction of data centers in the county during a Hood County Commissioners Court meeting in Granbury on Feb. 24, 2026. The pause would have allowed for the county to assess water and power usage of the proposed data centers in the county.

Beth Macmanee wears a “No Data Centers” sticker during the commissioners court meeting in Granbury. Macmanee had never been to commissioners court meetings before, but has attended every one concerning this issue.

Meeting attendees stand during a 10 minute break. The meeting lasted about 6 hours due to dozens of residents giving public comment on a moratorium that would pause construction of data centers in the county.

In March, commissioners voted unanimously to amend their development regulations, adding stricter requirements for large industrial projects, including data centers.

They expanded the requirements needed in concept plans, including detailed disclosures on water sourcing, energy use and infrastructure, environmental and drainage impacts. They also shrunk the footprint of a new development: buildings, parking lots and other structures could only cover 10% of a property, down from 50%.

Long, who helped craft the rules in his role on the development commission, admitted that the strategy was to make the rules strict enough “so none of them come, no more come in.”

The changes had immediate consequences.

“Fort Spunky,” an 862-acre campus that has requested to pull 100 megawatts from the grid and requires up to 20,000 gallons of water per day, had previously had its concept plan approved by the commissioners. But the plan was brought back to the floor after a local water utility board denied the developer’s request for water. Commissioners argued that without a guaranteed water source the project needed to be reconsidered.

“The fears … are all detached from reality,” said Kevin Pratt, an executive with the developer Pacifico Energy, at the meeting. “The court, through political pressure, keeps moving those goal posts over and over.”

Commissioners revoked the previously approved concept plan, 3-2.

While the decision was met with cheers from the crowd, Massingill warned, “we’re all in for litigation.”

About three weeks later, the lawsuit was filed.

The company claimed the county lacked legal power to deny the project based on concerns about water.

The law firm Husch Blackwell, representing Pacifico, stated in the lawsuit that the commissioners’ decision was “unlawful and premature.” The company asked the court to block the county’s actions, and is seeking monetary relief of no less than $250,000.

More developers came after Hood.

Commissioners twice delayed voting on two other projects, dubbed “Project Red and Project Yellow,” that together would cover 677 acres neighboring two existing power plants.

The commissioners demanded more transparency from developers about their operations and required them to comply with the county’s new development regulations before they would vote.

They were hit with another lawsuit, accusing the county of illegally delaying the data centers. The lawsuit claimed that the two projects would increase the county’s tax revenue by $3 billion and create 60,000 jobs.

On April 6, Hughes, whose Comanche Circle data center had already received conditional approval, joined the chorus of legal threats to send a letter arguing that they should have never been forced to submit a proposal for review to begin. Texas counties only possess powers explicitly granted by the Legislature, he wrote, and Hood County did not even have powers to require a concept plan.

“Political opposition to data centers does not create new county powers,” said Hughes in an email to the Tribune. The lawsuits remain pending.

Purgatory

A billboard lights up with the message “Don’t data center my Hood County” in Granbury on May 28, 2026. The county is facing a lawsuit from a data center developer after the county voted to add stricter requirements for large industrial projects, including data centers.

Last month, more than 160 people filled a ballroom in Hood County overlooking the Brazos River for another town hall, hosted by Mark Lowery, a Republican running for county judge — the official who leads the commissioners court. He is running unopposed and describes himself as “a solid no” for data centers, unlike Massingill, who chose not to seek reelection.

The ballroom’s seats quickly filled. Residents aren’t giving up. They still want to fight. After speaker introductions, the brainstorming began to “right this ship,” as one person said, and to keep exploring ways to stop data centers.

For now, counties like Hood remain stuck in purgatory, watching rapid development overwhelm their communities while waiting for state policy to catch up. Many believe change won’t come until at least 2027, when lawmakers reconvene in Austin. Some state officials have expressed interest in expanding counties’ regulatory authority over data centers. In the interim, lawmakers have been charged with studying the development of data centers and examining the total water usage of data centers in the state.

The development commission has recommended reviving the Hood County data center moratorium proposal, but those efforts have so far been unsuccessful in being added to the commissioners’ agenda.

But on May 12, nearby Hill County approved a one-year pause on the construction of new data centers in unincorporated areas, citing public safety and public health concerns, a vote that commissioners took despite the same risks Hood County officials are facing.

“The data center folks have found a sweet spot in the state that has limited regulations,” said Hill County Commissioner Jim Holcomb. “I think it’s imperative … that we tap the brakes and we get our arms around what we’re faced with.”

Christine Leftwich, the Hood County clerk, said her county’s failure to do the same has “been the biggest disappointment.”

“Hood County should have been the tip of the spear,” she added.

Alex Ford, Apurva Mahajan, Emily Foxhall and Taylor Goldenstein contributed to this report.

Disclosure: Facebook, Google, Microsoft 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.

The forecasts and skies may still be quiet, but for many residents, the memory of 2024 lingers. It’s not just the storms they remember. It’s the darkness that followed.

RELATED: Should hurricanes be rated differently?

In July 2024, Hurricane Beryl swept into Texas and left more than two million homes and businesses without power. Days later, over a million were still waiting in the heat, frustrated and searching for answers. The outage didn’t just disrupt daily life—it sparked outrage. Residents demanded accountability from CenterPoint Energy, the region’s main power provider.

After that, the company promised things would change. And now it’s showing KPRC2 and you just how how they did that.

“We will be ready for hurricane season,” said Nathan Brownwell, Vice President of Resilience and Capital Delivery.

Rebuilding After the Backlash

In the aftermath of Beryl, CenterPoint Energy pledged to improve. The plan: strengthen the grid, communicate better, and reduce the scale of outages when the next storm inevitably arrives.

RELATED: Looking for a job? Houston-area company hiring 300+ workers to strengthen power grid after Beryl

The company calls the plan the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative—a sweeping effort to reinforce critical infrastructure across the region. It includes four pillars: trimming trees, installing new poles and equipment, adding automation and intelligence devices, and placing more underground power lines.

Reinforcing the Grid from the Ground Up

One of the most substantial upgrades lies beneath the surface.

CenterPoint has installed more than 585 miles of underground power lines, targeting areas where above-ground lines are especially vulnerable. In neighborhoods dense with trees or near critical facilities like hospitals, burying lines offers protection that trimming alone can’t guarantee.

Above ground, automation is playing a growing role. More than 500 grid-switching devices—known internally as automation devices—have been installed. These systems are designed to detect problems and reroute electricity in real time, isolating outages and restoring power faster, sometimes within seconds.

Then there’s the ongoing battle with one of the grid’s oldest enemies: trees.

The company says it has cleared more than 10,000 miles of vegetation that could interfere with power lines. It’s a preventative measure that often goes unnoticed—until a storm sends branches crashing down.

But perhaps the most visible change stands tall along streets and neighborhoods across Houston: utility poles.

Stronger Poles, Stronger Promises

More than 68,000 new “hardened” utility poles have been installed throughout the region. Some are made of fiberglass, others are reinforced wood—but all are built to endure stronger winds than their predecessors.

The fiberglass poles are engineered to withstand gusts up to 130 miles per hour—well beyond the strength of a Category 1 storm like Hurricane Beryl.

For Brownwell, the numbers reflect more than progress—they signal a shift in urgency.

Traditionally, the company replaced about 25,000 poles per year. Recently, that number has surged to more than 40,000 annually, part of an accelerated effort to fortify the system.

Still, the scale of the challenge is enormous. With more than 1.2 million poles across the network, full transformation will take years.

Earning Back Trust

According to Brownwell, the initiative is here to stay. He describes it as a multi-year effort, one that will continue well beyond the current hurricane season.

But even as upgrades continue, there’s an undeniable reality: infrastructure improvements move on a human timeline. Storms do not.

The Unanswered Question

As another hurricane season begins, Houston once again finds itself in a waiting game.

The grid is stronger than it was a year ago. There are more safeguards, more technology, more preparation.

But whether it’s enough remains uncertain.

CenterPoint Energy says yes. The systems are in place. The work is underway. The company insists it is ready.

For residents who lived through days without power, readiness will be measured differently. Not in miles of lines or numbers of poles—but in whether the lights stay on when the next storm arrives.

You can see some of the improvement projects that CenterPoint Energy has completed in your area, by clicking here.

And KPRC2 will continue to get answers for you. If you have questions email Stephania at sjimenez@kprc.com.

The lineup for the event, which will take place Sept. 18-19 at the T-Mobile Arena, also includes Weezer, Goo Goo Dolls and Kenny Chesney. More artists will be announced at a later date.

Ryan Seacrest will once again host, and fans can hear it all on iHeartMedia radio stations or watch it streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

The general public can buy tickets on AXS.com starting at 2 p.m. EDT/11 a.m. PDT on June 12. Capital One cardholders will be able to access a presale beginning at 1 p.m. EDT/10 a.m. PDT on June 10.

“The iHeartRadio Music Festival is all about bringing together the biggest artists across every genre for two unforgettable nights, and this year’s lineup truly reflects the incredible diversity of music today,” Tom Poleman, chief programming officer, and John Sykes, president of entertainment enterprises of iHeartMedia, said in a joint statement.

Earlier this year, BTS made a triumphant return after a nearly four-year musical hiatus. “ARIRANG,” the 14-track, fifth studio album from the septet is huge; an ambitious reunion and the band’s first original full-length release since the seven members completed South Korea’s mandatory military service. Not that it has been all quiet at team BTS: The band staggered their enlistments, giving ample time for its members to focus on solo projects while the group was on a break.

They've returned to the stage since then, and iHeartRadio Music Festival is another victory lap.

• Will CenterPoint keep the lights on this hurricane season?

The company calls the plan the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative—a sweeping effort to reinforce critical infrastructure across the region. It includes four pillars: trimming trees, installing new poles and equipment, adding automation and intelligence devices, and placing more underground power lines.

68,000 stronger poles, major upgrades underway

Since 2024, CenterPoint says it has installed more than 68,000 stronger, storm-resilient poles across the Greater Houston area.

CenterPoint says it has also been clearing higher-risk vegetation, undergrounding power lines and deploying advanced technology to improve system reliability year-round. The company projects these efforts will prevent 150 million customer outage minutes by the end of 2026.

Want to track CenterPoint’s work in your neighborhood?

For customers who want to follow along, CenterPoint has introduced a new online Community Progress Tracker. The company says it allows residents to monitor GHRI upgrades and enhancements in their area.

The company also opened a new Emergency Operations Center, which it says will support year-round situational awareness and coordination with emergency response partners, local and state officials, and media during major weather events.

• Louisiana rapper Boosie Badazz charged in Harris County after allegedly hitting security guard with glass hookah

Weather monitoring, workforce expansion

CenterPoint says it has also added 150 new advanced weather stations and state-of-the-art forecasting models to help with storm preparedness.

When a major storm does hit, the company says it will now be able to expand its frontline workforce by up to 20 times through mutual assistance and partnerships.

Staff training

CenterPoint says more than 800 employees have completed more than 25,000 hours of FEMA training.

Storms are ranked from Category 1 to Category 5 based on their wind speeds using the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

The scale was developed in the early 1970s by engineer Herbert Saffir and National Hurricane Center director Robert Simpson.

At the time, there wasn’t a simple way to communicate the damage potential from hurricane-force winds, so they created a system that focused specifically on wind intensity and the type of damage those winds could cause.

But there’s a problem with how hurricanes are categorized.

The current scale only measures wind.

It doesn’t account for storm surge, inland flooding, or rainfall, even though storm surge is the deadliest part of a hurricane.

That’s why researchers in South Florida are proposing the idea of an “Enhanced Hurricane Scale.” The goal would be to rate hurricanes not just on wind speed, but also on storm surge and rainfall impacts.

The idea is similar to the Enhanced Fujita Scale used for tornadoes. Instead of focusing on just one factor, the scale would combine wind, storm surge, and rainfall into a single impact rating.

For example, imagine a storm with relatively modest winds, but catastrophic storm surge and historic flooding rainfall totals. Under this proposed system, that storm could receive a much higher rating because of its overall impact.

What you are looking at in the above graphic is how Harvey would have been rated for Houston.

Harvey made landfall near Corpus Christi as a Category 4 hurricane. But by the time it stalled over Southeast Texas, it had weakened significantly in terms of wind speed. It was not classified as a hurricane in Houston.

Yet we all know what happened next.

Historic flooding devastated Houston and changed countless lives. Under an enhanced scale focused on total impact, Harvey would have been categorized as a Category 5 in Houston before the storm ever made landfall.

But does an enhanced hurricane scale make sense?

There are definitely benefits. It would help communicate the full danger of a storm, not just the wind threat. It could better highlight flooding rain and storm surge, which are bigger, life-threatening hazards.

But there are also challenges.

Unlike wind speed, rainfall and storm surge impacts can vary dramatically from one location to another depending on the track and movement of the storm. One community could experience catastrophic flooding while another nearby sees far less impact. That could make the ratings more confusing for the public.

And for now, this idea is still just a proposal. Changing the scale isn’t being considered by NOAA, the people in charge.

So, what’s the most important takeaway?

Never focus only on the category number.

Whether it’s a tropical storm, a Category 1 hurricane, or a major hurricane, the real question should always be:

What are the impacts where you live?

That’s what helps families make the best decisions to stay safe, no matter the category.

To help get you prepared for this hurricane season, the KPRC 2 Weather Team is presenting our Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide on Wednesday night at 8:00. You can watch on TV, click2houston.com or KPRC 2+. Hope you can tune in.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has launched the Trump Accounts app, marking a major step forward in what officials are calling one of the most significant financial programs for American families in decades.

The app is now available on all major mobile app stores, including the Apple App Store and Google Play, and will serve as the primary way families manage their children’s Trump Accounts.

“The Trump Administration is taking another step forward in expanding opportunity for American families. The Trump Accounts app delivers a simple, secure way for households to begin engaging with a program designed to build long-term financial strength from day one,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

“By putting easy access to Trump Accounts directly in the hands of parents and young Americans, we are helping to ensure that America’s youth are included in this new era of economic participation,” Bessent said.

What to expect if you’ve already signed up

Parents and legal guardians who have already submitted IRS Form 4547 to enroll their children should begin watching their inboxes. As of May 28, families will start receiving emails with instructions to complete the account setup process.

Treasury says activation emails will be sent in phases between now and the program’s official launch on July 4, 2026.

Here’s what enrolled families can expect:

• Activation email: Look for an email confirming your child’s Trump Account election was processed, along with prompts to complete account activation.
• Official email address: During the initial rollout, activation emails will come only from no-reply@TrumpAccounts.Treasury.gov.
• How to activate: Follow the instructions in the email and complete activation through the Trump Accounts app or by visiting TrumpAccounts.gov.
• Contributions begin July 4: Starting July 4, 2026, the account will be able to accept contributions from parents, family members, employers and other eligible contributors, subject to annual limits.
• $1,000 pilot deposit: Also beginning July 4, 2026, eligible children will receive a $1,000 pilot program contribution deposited directly into their Trump Account by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Beware of scams

As account activation gets underway, Treasury is urging families to stay alert. We’ve seen this before - scammers often use these types of things to target people.

Here’s how to protect yourself:

• Email only: Legitimate Trump Account activation communications will come only by email from no-reply@TrumpAccounts.Treasury.gov.
• No calls or texts: Treasury will not contact families by phone or text message about Trump Account activation. If you receive a call or text, do not respond — it is likely a scam.
• Use official channels only: Always access your child’s account through the official Trump Accounts app or by typing TrumpAccounts.gov directly into your browser. Do not use phone numbers found through internet search results.
• Customer support: Support is available only through secure, in-app or online callback requests.

When in doubt, visit TrumpAccounts.gov for the latest information.

Haven’t signed up yet? Here’s how

It’s not too late to enroll. Parents, guardians and other authorized individuals can open an account at any time by submitting IRS Form 4547, Trump Account Election(s), which also includes enrollment in the pilot program.

An account can be opened for any eligible child at any time during the year before the child turns 18. There is no cost to open an account.

Employers, charitable organizations and governments can also contribute to Trump Accounts — but only if an account has been opened. Visit TrumpAccounts.gov to learn more and get started.

Of course, there are other savings options, like 529 college savings plans or other accounts that may offer better tax advantages or flexibility.

The biggest benefit of the Trump account is the free $1,000 from the government.

Adelman, the father of Denver Nuggets coach David Adelman, was 79. The cause of his death was not immediately announced.

“The Denver Nuggets were extremely saddened to learn of the passing of Hall of Fame Head Coach Rick Adelman,” the Nuggets said Monday night. “Our thoughts are with head coach David Adelman, the entire Adelman family and the many friends and loved ones that were lucky enough to know Rick.”

Rick Adelman won 1,042 games as an NBA coach, 10th-most in league history. Only four other coaches — Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, Jerry Sloan and George Karl — coached more games and had a better winning percentage than Adelman, who took the Portland Trail Blazers to the NBA Finals twice and also was head coach in Sacramento, Houston, Minnesota and Golden State.

“Adelman will be remembered not only as a coach and a player, but also as a mentor to so many in the basketball community,” read a statement from the coaches’ association, which honored Adelman with its Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.

“Rick Adelman’s NBA coaching career has been highlighted by innovation, integrity and excellence,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said when the NBCA presented that award three years ago. “His teams always played to their strengths, and Rick always found subtle ways to reinvent NBA basketball to help his players thrive. His quiet, unassuming nature belies his impact as one of the great NBA coaches of all time.”

Adelman also played in the NBA from 1969 through 1975 as a point guard for five different teams — but found his calling as a coach.

The Kings, in paying tribute, said Adelman “will be remembered for the way he inspired those around him — with humility, integrity, kindness, and an unwavering belief in the power of teamwork."

Adelman’s path to the NBA, as a coach, was unintentional.

He thought he would become a high school coach, though his lack of experience was a deterrent. He then started his coaching career at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon.

“We had great success there,” Adelman said in his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech. “The one thing I did not realize is Jack Ramsey was following my team.”

Ramsey was coaching the Portland Trail Blazers, and invited Adelman to interview when a position opened on his staff. Adelman worked under Ramsey for three seasons and Mike Schuler for 2 1/2 more, then took over as interim coach with 35 games left in the 1988-89 season.

“We had a team that was ready to win,” Adelman said in 2021.

Blazers owner Paul Allen told Adelman he could coach the 1989-90 season. The rest is history. Portland won 59 games that season with Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey and Buck Williams leading the way, getting to the NBA Finals and falling to Detroit.

Adelman was off and running. He took the Blazers back to the NBA Finals two years later, falling then to Chicago. After his Portland era, Adelman coached two years at Golden State and then went to Sacramento — where he had eight winning seasons in an eight-year stint, with players like Vlade Divac, Peja Stojaković, Mike Bibby, Chris Webber, Jason Williams, Bobby Jackson and current Kings coach Doug Christie. And in those Sacramento years, Adelman was widely credited for running some types of offenses that the league had never seen.

“He was a brilliant strategist and teacher of the game, and an even better person,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.

Adelman had 210 players appear in at least one NBA game for him.

“He actually challenged me and poured into trusting me,” 20-year guard Kyle Lowry said Monday night. “That was important for me. He didn’t have to. He could have done everything else, he could have played other players, but he believed in me. ... He just trusted his players. He just wanted to win. And if it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what career I would have. It’s a sad day.”

Among Adelman’s accomplishments: He engineered a 22-game winning streak with Houston in 2008, a run that is the fourth-longest in NBA history.

“Coach Adelman guided the Rockets with professionalism, integrity, and a deep commitment to the game,” the Rockets said in a release. “His role in leading the team during the 22-game winning streak in 2008 remains one of the most remarkable achievements in franchise history and will always be remembered by Rockets fans.”

The Blazers noted that not only did Adelman lead the team to the finals twice, but he was a player on the inaugural Portland team in 1970.

“Rick was one of the most influential figures in franchise history,” the Blazers said.

___

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

But doctors say regularly falling short of that recommendation could have serious long-term consequences for brain health.

Experts at Memorial Hermann say growing research continues to show a strong connection between chronic sleep deprivation and cognitive decline, including an increased risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

According to neurologist Dr. Sudha Tallavajhula, the body’s ability to withstand sleep deprivation declines as people enter their 40s and 50s.

“Sleep deprivation is something that is very individual,” Tallavajhula said. “There are people who can get away with six hours of sleep and still do fine maybe. But others need their absolute eight.”

Doctors say poor sleep doesn’t just affect memory and concentration. It can also become a major public safety concern.

Drowsy driving remains one of the leading causes of crashes nationwide. Tallavajhula says roughly one in every 20 drivers on the road is struggling to stay awake behind the wheel.

The long-term effects on the brain can be even more concerning.

“When I talk to people who present a dementia-like syndrome who have been sleep deprived for years, you basically have to pay the bank back,” Tallavajhula said. “All those hours of sleep deprivation, you have to pay them back.”

She warns that prolonged sleep deprivation can eventually lead to the loss of brain cells, which cannot be replaced. However, some cognitive functions can be recovered if sleep problems are addressed early.

The good news is that experts say the brain can heal from sleep deprivation, although recovery may take weeks or even months, depending on the severity of the problem.

For people struggling with sleep disorders, doctors encourage seeking professional help rather than trying to manage the issue alone.

“Sleep therapy is actually a very robust way of intervention where you can actually talk through what their issues are with sleep and train their brain to fall asleep again,” Tallavajhula said.

Specialists also note there are treatment options available for a variety of sleep disorders, including narcolepsy and chronic insomnia.

If you have a family history of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, doctors say protecting your sleep should be considered an important part of maintaining long-term brain health.

“We have a host of options now for treatment for narcolepsy,” Tallavajhula said. “Depending on your sleep problem, there are many options that can be done. You just have to seek attention.”

Four meters (13 feet) beneath them, a team of archaeologists is digging the other way — straight down and back in time, to Roman Paris 2,000 years ago.

In 2019, fire brought Notre Dame’s spire crashing down as the world watched. The cathedral was rebuilt and reopened in late 2024, and now Paris wants to soften the hot, bare square in front of it with trees and shade.

But in a city this old, the soil cannot be turned until what lies beneath it is excavated, in case it is damaged during works.

So a slice of Notre Dame’s forecourt has become an excavation site — an open pit ringed by barriers and crossed by a wooden walkway, a few steps from the line-up.

A modern Da Vinci Code

French media have dubbed it the “dig of the century.”

“It’s a rare opportunity for us to work on something that’s tangibly going to make a difference to the history of Paris,” Lucie Altenburg, a conservator with the Paris archaeology unit, told The Associated Press.

Among the hundreds of objects already found: a fourth-century coin stamped with the face of the Emperor Constantine, and shards of medieval pottery painted on the inside with marks no expert has yet deciphered — like a modern Da Vinci Code.

“It makes Notre Dame feel alive again,” said Emily Carter, 34, a tourist from Manchester waiting in line with her two children. “You come to see the cathedral, then realize there’s another city under your feet. That’s almost more moving.”

The first traces appear 50 centimeters (20 inches) down; 4 meters (13 feet) lower, the team is still pulling up the past. Some days they fill 15 crates — from ground that has lain untouched for decades.

Ancient cities have archaeologists monitoring digs

This is the bargain in every old city: The past is not in a museum down the street — it is under the street.

Cities rise. Each age builds on the rubble of the last, and the ground climbs with it; in Rome, it has risen about 9 meters (30 feet) since the empire fell in the fifth century AD.

When Athens built its metro for the 2004 Olympics, it set off the largest excavation in Greek history and turned up tens of thousands of objects, now shown in the stations themselves. Paris is no different.

It all comes from the island in the Seine, the Ile de la Cite, where Paris began.

Centuries later, Notre Dame rose on the same ground.

At the cathedral's birth in 1163, the entire square was packed with medieval houses, split by a single street, said Camille Colonna, the archaeologist leading the dig.

Digging down, her team has reached their cellars — and therefore also the time in history they represent.

Below them lie Merovingian and Carolingian grain pits, from the sixth to the 10th centuries; below those, darker and deeper still, a dense Roman quarter from the fourth and fifth centuries.

Twenty centuries are stacked in 4 meters (13 feet) of earth — or about the height of two-and-a-half Napoleon Bonapartes standing on top of one another.

“Here you can see the layers — medieval Paris, Roman Paris, maybe even before that,” said Yasmine Benali, 22, an archaeology student watching from behind the barriers. “It makes the city feel less like a postcard and more like something still being discovered.”

Coins, ceramics and mysterious markings

The richest finds here come from the foulest place: the deep pits beneath the medieval houses, old latrines that doubled as rubbish dumps.

Out of them the team keeps lifting whole jugs and cups — thrown away centuries ago, yet still intact — among the broken plates and animal bones.

It’s “rare to find complete ceramics,” said Valentine Breloux, an archaeologist with the unit.

Here the soft waste cushioned them, and centuries later they miraculously came up whole.

Then some other objects came that confounded experts. As conservators cleaned what looked like ordinary medieval pottery, they found faint reddish writing painted on the inside — the same mysterious markings on shard after shard.

What they mean has yet to be deciphered.

Of everything she has cleaned from Notre Dame, Breloux said, these are the most “astonishing.”

Coins can help date the layers

The coins came up as black discs, eaten by rust. But under an X-ray, a face returned: it was Constantine, the Roman emperor who ruled in the early 300s AD.

Such objects also "can be invaluable in giving us the date of the (underground) layer,” Altenburg said.

The Roman finds are the ones the archaeologists value most — the deepest, oldest and least understood. In Roman times, the town was called Lutetia, and its center lay across the river, on the Left Bank.

As the Roman empire collapsed, people pulled back to the Ile de la Cite, where Notre Dame would later rise, and fortified the island with walls of stone taken from earlier buildings.

Colonna’s team found some proof: a Roman doorstep found in the dig, taken from a much bigger building, carried over, turned upside down, and laid in a road as paving.

Paris houses thousands of finds in an archaeology center

Every find leaves the pit and travels north, to the city’s archaeology center — what Colonna calls “a huge archaeological store," a treasure house of Paris.

For archaeologists, the cathedral dig is a rare treat. In France, like elsewhere, they work only where building work is about to begin — a bit like how industrial quarry workers end up unearthing dinosaur remains.

"This only happens because the city of Paris decided it wanted to beautify the area," Altenburg said.

The new square should be mostly finished by 2028: a kind of woodland clearing, with 160 new trees and a thin film of water sliding over the stone to cool it in summer — part of how Paris is bracing for ever hotter summers induced by global warming.

The tourists who now wait in the bare sun beneath the gargoyles will, in a few summers, line up in the shade.

The old underground parking lot will reopen as a visitor center looking onto the Seine.

Until then, the Notre Dame team wants to go deeper still — past the Romans, toward whoever came before them, the Gauls who gave the city its first name.

“The hope is that we are able to go back in time even further than we’ve ever been before,” Altenburg said.

___

Nicolas Garriga in Paris contributed.

More primaries are being held on Tuesday as well. Democrats are banking on a rare chance to regain ground in Iowa, a rural state that has repeatedly eluded them in recent years. Republicans, meanwhile, are grappling with a New Jersey congressman whose unexplained absence could put their already slim majority at risk.

Here are some things to watch as voters in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota cast ballots.

California's low-wattage race for governor

Ronald Reagan. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jerry Brown. Gavin Newsom.

The governor's office in California typically attracts some of the highest-wattage names in politics, but not this year.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla took a pass on the race. And with Newsom barred from seeking a third term, the campaign to succeed him turned into a sprawling, often messy contest.

In the final stretch, much of the attention has focused on Democrats Xavier Becerra, the former congressman and state attorney general who was also health secretary under President Joe Biden, and Tom Steyer, a billionaire known for his climate activism. Republican Steve Hilton is campaigning with President Donald Trump's endorsement.

Under California's primary system, all candidates appear on a single ballot and the top two finishers advance to the November general election, regardless of party. The absence of a front-runner incentivized virtually anyone with political ambition and a modicum of organization to join the race, leaving Democrats worried that their candidates would divide the vote and ultimately be shut out of the fall campaign. But those fears have eased in the primary's closing weeks, with the party now expecting to secure at least one slot on the November ballot.

The results could offer insight about how voters are feeling in a state where Democrats have dominated statewide elections for two decades.

Los Angeles mayor seeks to fend off reality star challenger

In a city still recovering from the most destructive wildfire in its history, Mayor Karen Bass is in a tough fight for reelection.

The mayor, who is a frequent target of Trump's criticism, was in Ghana as part of a presidential delegation when the blaze began. She has acknowledged mistakes but has centered her campaign around a message of recovery and progress.

Bass is facing a spirited challenge from reality television personality Spencer Pratt, who has blamed Bass for presiding over destruction that claimed his own home. Pratt, who rose to fame on “The Hills,” has shared videos created by artificial intelligence that show him taking on a superhero persona to battle street criminals and Democratic politicians.

The race is officially nonpartisan, but Bass is a Democrat, as is progressive city council member Nithya Raman, who made a last-minute decision to challenge her one-time ally. Pratt is a registered Republican who has received a nod of approval — if not an outright endorsement — from Trump.

Unless a candidate receives a majority of the vote in the primary, the top two will advance to a general election in November.

Los Angeles hasn't elected a Republican mayor since Richard Riordan won his second term in 1997, and the results will be closely watched for signs of dissatisfaction with liberal urban governance. The winner will emerge as a national and global figure as the city prepares to host the Olympics in 2028.

Democrats look to Iowa to rebuild in the heartland

Iowa wasn't always a Republican stronghold.

Before Trump reshaped American politics, this was the state the lifted the political career of Barack Obama and sent Tom Harkin to the Senate for five terms.

The party is particularly excited about Rob Sand, who is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor. A native of Decorah, Iowa, he has the rural roots that have become rare among Democrats. Perhaps most importantly, he's a proven winner in a Republican-leaning state, having been elected twice as auditor.

Republicans head into the primary with five candidates. Trump jumped in last week to endorse Rep. Randy Feenstra.

This is the first open contest for the governor's seat since 2006. Democrats are hoping that a combination of the economic fallout from Trump's tariff policies, rising gas prices stemming from the Iran war and the lack of a Republican incumbent could give them their best opportunity in years. Sand also has a fundraising advantage over the Republicans, including Feenstra.

State Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls are competing in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by incumbent Republican Joni Ernst. The race has divided in part along questions of who should lead the party in Washington, with Wahls openly criticizing Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. Republicans have largely coalesced behind U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson as their candidate for the Senate seat.

An unexplained absence puts crucial GOP seat at risk

In the final frenzied days before an election, voters can sometimes grow tired of hearing from candidates so much. But in New Jersey's 7th congressional district, they're not hearing from one candidate at all.

Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is running unopposed in Tuesday's primary. But he's facing growing scrutiny for an unexplained medical absence that has stretched for three months, causing him to miss more than 100 votes in Congress.

That's not an ideal statistic for any lawmaker, but it's especially problematic for someone running in one of the few genuinely competitive congressional districts. While gerrymandering has yielded most U.S. House seats reliably Democratic or Republican, Kean's district has flipped between the parties in each of the last two midterm elections. Republican Leonard Lance lost to Democrat Tom Malinowski in 2018. Malinowski lost to Kean in 2022.

As they cling to a narrow majority in the House, Republicans can't afford to lose a district like Kean's. Several Democrats vying to take on Kean in the fall have made his absence — and the lack of clarity surrounding it — a central part of their message.

In a social media post late Monday, Trump said Kean was “working tirelessly” to support the MAGA agenda.

New Jersey was one of the first places that voter pushback to Trump became apparent last year when Democrat Mikie Sherrill won the governor's race by more than 14 percentage points. The turnout in the 7th district on Tuesday could provide clues about whether that Democratic enthusiasm remains in place.

Democrats pin their hopes on independent candidates in some states

Democrats are hopeful they can mount a serious challenge against Republican Senate candidates in deep-red South Dakota and Montana this fall. But their best hope may not be the Democrats featured on Tuesday’s primary ballot.

Both states feature higher-profile independent candidates, who, because they’re not running to represent a political party, do not have to compete in primary elections.

In Montana, there are five Democrats competing for the party’s Senate nomination. But independent Seth Bodnar, the former University of Montana president, has raised more money than all of them combined. He’s even significantly out-raised Trump-backed Republican candidate Kurt Alme.

In South Dakota, three-term incumbent Republican Mike Rounds is expected to cruise to his party’s nomination on Tuesday. He’ll face Democrat Julian Beaudion, a former highway patrol trooper and small business owner, on the November ballot. But it’s a former Democrat now running as an independent, Brian Bengs, a military veteran, who may be the tougher challenger.

NASA says five research aircraft will be conducting low-altitude flights around Houston from June 3 through June 13 as part of its Student Airborne Research Program (SARP), an internship program that gives undergraduate students hands-on experience in scientific field research.

The flights will operate out of Ellington Field and will primarily take place over the Houston area, with some missions extending over the Gulf of Mexico. During the research campaign, pilots will fly in systematic back-and-forth patterns while collecting atmospheric and environmental data.

According to NASA, the aircraft will help researchers study the movement of gases and particles in Earth’s atmosphere, changes occurring near the coastline, and other environmental processes affecting land and water in the region.

While many of the aircraft will operate at higher altitudes, one plane — NOAA’s WP-3D Orion hurricane hunter aircraft — is expected to conduct maneuvers as low as 1,000 feet above ground level. The aircraft is equipped with scientific instruments used to collect atmospheric and environmental measurements.

Other aircraft participating in the mission include NASA’s Gulfstream V, Gulfstream C-20A, Gulfstream III, and a King Air B200 contracted by the agency.

Residents who spot low-flying planes over Houston may be seeing these research flights as scientists and students gather data throughout the mission period. NASA says the aircraft can be tracked in real time through its Airborne Science Program Tracker.

The hearing before the House Appropriations Committee was scheduled for discussion of the Justice Department's budget, but lawmakers will almost certainly focus their questioning on the creation of a fund that has provoked outrage over the mere possibility that violent pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could be eligible for payouts.

The Republican president is now reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund established to resolve his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, according to a person familiar with the matter, in the face of Republican backlash and legal setbacks. The person insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking on Monday. The Justice Department also said Monday it would comply with a Virginia court temporarily blocking the administration's “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” effectively agreeing to pause the plan for at least two weeks.

Another judge in Florida raised the prospect of reopening the IRS lawsuit because of “grievous allegations” of improper dealing made against the administration by settlement critics.

The Trump administration has defended the fund as an appropriate measure to make up for what officials insist was a weaponized Justice Department during President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, a claim the Biden administration strongly denied. Though some Trump supporters, including participants in the Capitol riot, have celebrated the announcement, the reaction among Republicans in Congress has been decidedly more hostile, forcing Blanche to try to assuage a GOP constituency that generally operates in close alignment with the administration.

The furor has especially complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies. Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the fund. Many have pushed the administration to impose limits or scrap the idea altogether.

At a Senate budget hearing last month, Blanche refused to rule out the possibility that those who carried out violence on Jan. 6 could be eligible for payouts and has repeatedly said in interviews that anyone who feels persecuted by the criminal justice system is free to apply. Payouts will be decided by a five-member commission appointed by Blanche.

But he has apparently struck a more conciliatory tone in private when confronted by Republican anger.

Blanche encountered a groundswell of opposition last month at a tense private meeting with GOP senators, with more than half raising concerns, including by shouting at the Justice Department's top official, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in a recent episode of his podcast.

“There were fireworks at an epic level — and I've got to say, it's one of the roughest meetings I've seen in my entire time in the Senate," Cruz said.

Behind closed doors, Blanche was “adamant” that no one who assaulted police at the Capitol would receive compensation, according to Cruz.

“He said not just ‘no,’ but ‘hell no,’” the senator recalled.

By green-lighting controversial “return hubs” outside the 27-nation EU, the regulation represents the EU’s hardest line on migration so far and has drawn sharp criticism from opponents who warn it will endanger migrants and undermine human rights from Spain to Romania.

“The new regulation will speed up the return process and increase returns of persons who have no legal right to stay in the EU,” said Nicholas Ioannides, deputy migration minister for Cyprus, which holds the rotating presidency of the 27-nation bloc.

The deal was struck between the EU's three main institutions — the European Commission, the European Council and European Parliament — during a so-called “trilogue” Monday evening.

“Europe cannot afford another period of standstill,” said Dutch lawmaker Malik Azmani, who shepherded the regulation through the European Parliament.

“There is an urgent need for an effective return policy with higher return rates," he said, adding that only 28% of rejected asylum seekers return to their country of origin, with the majority staying put in the EU. “This situation is deeply concerning. It undermines public confidence in our common migration policies.”

Critics compared the regulation to the immigration policies of the Trump administration, which has struck a series of secretive agreements with nations around the world to deport thousands of people to countries that are not their own. The United Kingdom also planned to deport migrants to Rwanda, but the plan was bogged down in legal red tape and was dropped when a new government came to power in July 2024.

Several EU governments are already in talks with third countries

“Across the Atlantic, we see the violence and fear created by ICE’s brutal immigration enforcement," said Silvia Carter, spokesperson for the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Europe should be learning from the harms of that model, not building its own version of it.”

Law enforcement officers across the bloc no longer need warrants from judges to raid private residences or public institutions like hospitals, she said. “The regulation is going to create a draconian detention and deportation machine."

The provisional agreement will now head to the EU lawmakers and governments, where approval will likely be swift.

“These new rules will ensure swifter, simpler, and more effective procedures across the European Union for returning non-EU nationals who have no right to stay, in full respect of international law and fundamental rights,” said Henna Virkkunen, EU commissioner for technology.

EU member nations will soon be able to set up bilateral deals with countries outside the bloc to build deportation centers. At least five EU nations — Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece — are already in talks with third countries, mostly in Africa, to host “return hubs” on the model of Italy's detention deal with Albania.

“We are delivering the member states tools in their hands to make those agreements and arrangements with third countries,” Azmani said.

Mélissa Camara, a lawmaker from the French Green party, said the deal was “a historic setback” for human rights in the bloc.

“The legalization of return hubs outside the European Union, the green light for the detention of minors, home visits inspired by ICE practices: the legal arsenal serving a xenophobic ideology is now complete,” she said.

EU migration policy has steadily shifted to the right

The EU has continually tightened migration policies after right-wing parties secured the majority of votes in some countries in the 2024 elections to the European Parliament. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, from the center-right European People’s Party coalition, has said that the new measures will prevent a repeat of the 2015 crisis caused by Syria’s civil war, when about 1 million people arrived to seek asylum.

Fueled by people fleeing conflict and poverty across Africa and the Middle East, the 2015 refugee crisis and successive years of irregular migration to Europe drove a rightward shift in the bloc's politics not unlike the anti-immigrant sentiment that buoyed a “ red wave ” in the 2024 election in the United States.

After successfully campaigning on tougher migration policies, the winners of that election, the European People’s Party, the largest political group in the EU, began negotiating migration reform with centrist and left parties only to eventually sidestep them by allying instead with the far right, said Carter, the asylum rights activist. “There was quite an unprecedented shift in the European Parliament."

Advocacy groups warned the regulation would cut deep into the protections granted by the EU fundamental charter on human rights and expose people to risks outside the bloc.

“This deal will give governments much broader powers to detain and deport people," said Marta Welander, a spokesperson for the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization. "It looks set to normalize immigration raids, expand the use of detention in prison-like facilities outside EU territory that are essentially legal black holes, and increase the risk of people being deported to countries where they could face persecution, torture or worse.”

——

Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Japan's Environment Ministry said a record 13 people were killed in more than 230 attacks by bears in 2025.

Police and fire department officials rushed to the Sasakino district of Fukushima in northeastern Japan after receiving an emergency call from the Fukushima Steel Works reporting bear attacks on two employees.

Security camera footage shows a black bear appearing and chasing an employee near the entrance. As the man in his 20s tries to flee, the bear throws him to the ground. It then moves into the compound and injures a second male employee in his 60s.

The bear later injured a third person, a male employee in his 60s at separate company. A woman in her 80s who lives in the neighborhood also was attacked and injured, the Fukushima City Fire Department said.

The three men sustained minor injuries and the woman had moderate injuries but none were considered life-threatening, the fire department said.

The bear had not been caught as of Tuesday afternoon and was believed to be inside the second company compound, which was surrounded by uniformed police carrying long sticks.

Two nearby schools were closed, including Noda Elementary School, which held classes online and put a warning on its website to “avoid non-essential outings and stay safe.”

The bear attack has rekindled last year's nationwide fear that led to Japan's army being dispatched to the northern prefecture of Akita where more than 60 people were attacked by bears, with four killed.

The encroachment by a growing bear population has occurred in a region with a rapidly aging and declining human population that has few people trained to hunt the animals, experts say.

The Japanese government in March estimated the overall bear population at around 57,800. Officials have adopted a road map of bear population management, calling for systematic culling. Under the plan, the number of municipal bear control staff will triple to 2,500 within five years, while the number of bear traps will double.

Bear sightings were reported recently in Tokyo's western suburbs, including the hiking area of Okutama. Park officials have set up additional traps and launched bear alerts on social media.

The government has stepped up a public awareness campaign, urging hikers and mushroom hunters to check notifications about bear sightings and avoid outdoor activity in the early morning and evening when bears are active.

An environment ministry manual advises that anyone encountering a bear should not panic, move slowly and avoid turning around and running. As a last resort, the manual says anyone attacked should turn face down, ball up and cover their neck.

“The point is to save yourself from a fatal wound," according to the manual.

The Cleveland Browns traded the two-time AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year to the Los Angeles Rams for pass rusher Jared Verse and three draft picks in a blockbuster deal on Monday.

Garrett was the unanimous choice for Defensive Player of the Year last season after he had 23 sacks and broke the NFL single-season record. He is expected to report to the Rams' facility on Tuesday and have a news conference to discuss the trade.

Garrett's addition marks the first time the reigning AP NFL MVP and Defensive Player of the Year will be teammates. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford won his first MVP award last season.

General manager Andrew Berry was able to make a deal after the Browns and Garrett agreed to modify the contract and defer option payments over the 2026-28 seasons in March. The first payment of around $10 million was due on March 28, but was moved to near the start of the regular season.

Garrett demanded a trade at the end of the 2024 season, but signed a four-year contract extension last March with a total value of $204.8 million that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history. The contract also included a no-trade clause.

Berry had long said that Garrett would play his entire career in Cleveland, but Garrett's lingering frustrations over the franchise's direction and the chance to start anew meant it was time to move on.

Cleveland is 8-26 the past two years after making the playoffs in 2023.

“As discussions intensified we were stuck at a legitimate crossroads: do we hold on to a truly generational player who has become the identity of our team, or do we make the difficult decision that we think is best for the organization over the long run?," Berry said after the trade was announced.

The Browns get Verse — the 2024 AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year — a 2027 first-round selection, a second-round pick in 2028 and a 2029 third-round selection.

Owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam said in a statement that they met with Garrett on Saturday to discuss the trade.

“Trading Myles was never our intent, but we also recognize that certain opportunities demand serious consideration, and we believe this is the right move for our team. Adding a young defensive star like Jared Verse, along with valuable draft assets, are necessary to strengthen a talented young core and align with the youth of our team,” the Haslams said.

Garrett was not seen at the Browns' facility during offseason workouts even though he made a couple of visits to Cleveland during the Cavaliers' NBA playoff run. Garrett has a minority stake in the Cavaliers.

Coach Todd Monken said two weeks ago he had not had a face-to-face meeting with Garrett since being hired in late January. Defensive coordinator Mike Rutenberg said last week he had some conversations over the phone with Garrett about the direction of the defense.

Garrett supported defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz being promoted to head coach before ownership opted for Monken. Schwartz ended up resigning after three years in Cleveland.

The 30-year old Garrett is the first player in NFL history with at least 12 sacks in six consecutive seasons (2020-25) and the only player with double-digit sacks each of the past eight years. His 125½ career sacks are tied for 20th on the league list.

Garrett, who was part of five double-digit losing seasons during his nine years in Cleveland, finally gets a chance to contend for a Super Bowl title.

“Nine years. It’s hard to put into words what that really means when so much of your life has been shaped in one place, around one team, and with one community behind you ... Cleveland made me tougher. You challenged me. You taught me about perseverance, about showing up even when things aren’t easy, and what loyalty really looks like. Through the highs, lows, setbacks, injuries, expectations, inclement weather, and difficult seasons, you all kept showing up. I never took that for granted,” Garrett said in a social media post Monday night addressed “To Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, and every Browns fan.”

The Browns have the sixth-lowest win percentage since 2017 and are 58-90-1. By comparison, the Rams have the fifth-best record over that span at 92-57, including seven playoff appearances and a Super Bowl title in 2021.

The trade also elevated the Rams to Super Bowl favorites.

Another huge trade by Rams

The trade is yet another blockbuster deal swung by Rams general manager Les Snead, whose eagerness to use his draft picks in trades for star veterans has kept the Rams among the NFL’s top teams during coach Sean McVay’s decade on the sideline.

Snead notably acquired star cornerback Jalen Ramsey from Jacksonville in 2019 in a deal that included two first-round picks, securing the cornerstone of the secondary for a team that won a Super Bowl. But the Rams only won it all after they acquired Matthew Stafford in early 2021 in an even bigger trade for Jared Goff and two first-round picks.

Just a couple of months ago, Snead acquired star cornerback Trent McDuffie from Kansas City in a deal for four draft picks, including a first-rounder, to rebuild the secondary that was the weak link of last season’s team.

Before Snead shocked the NFL by picking quarterback Ty Simpson this spring, the Rams had made only one first-round selection over the previous nine years. That pick was Verse, who quickly became a star during his two seasons as the anchor of the Rams’ rebuilt pass rush in the wake of Aaron Donald’s retirement.

Verse had 4½ sacks while being selected as the NFL’s top defensive rookie in 2024, and he had 7½ sacks last season along with three forced fumbles. Byron Young led the Rams with 12 sacks and interior lineman Kobie Turner contributed seven sacks, and both young stars are heading into the final year of their rookie contracts.

With his Rams in title contention in November 2021, Snead acquired vaunted pass rusher Von Miller from Denver in a trade for LA’s second- and third-round picks. Miller contributed nine sacks in 12 games, providing exactly what they needed alongside Donald to win it all.

The current Rams are among the preseason Super Bowl favorites after winning 12 games and reaching the NFC championship game last season. Stafford, the reigning league MVP, is returning at the head of the NFL’s most potent offense last season along with a retooled defense featuring McDuffie and fellow ex-Kansas City star Jaylen Watson as its new cornerbacks — and now they’ve added the most feared pass rusher in the league.

The Rams’ roster in 2026 now includes last season’s NFL leads in yards passing, TD passes, total receptions (Puka Nacua), receiving touchdowns (Davante Adams) and sacks (Garrett).

After the Rams won the Super Bowl in February 2022 and then crashed out of the playoff picture in an injury-filled 2022-23 season, Snead briefly discarded his usual draft philosophy. He rebuilt his roster through a series of key selections in 2023 and 2024, drafting an entirely new defensive line with Verse, Young, Turner and Braden Fiske — along with All-Pro receiver Nacua.

With his rebuilt roster looming as a Super Bowl favorite again, Snead used his depth on the defensive line to make it even better.

Verse's acquisition gives the Browns the past two AP Defensive Rookies of the Year. Carson Schwesinger won last season after leading NFL rookies with 156 tackles and 11 tackles for loss.

“We receive a young, elite player at a premium position who will only continue to improve in his third NFL season. Jared’s passion and relentless style of play will be embraced by our fans. He will fit right in with the established identity of our defense,” Berry said.

___

AP Pro Football writer Rob Maaddi also contributed to this story.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Summer travel often means crowded airports, packed attractions, and close contact with people from around the world, all of which can increase exposure to germs and illness.

Doctors say travelers can encounter viruses and bacteria they may not encounter in their everyday routines. Common travel-related illnesses include respiratory infections, stomach viruses, and diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks.

Health experts recommend practicing good hygiene throughout your trip to reduce the risk of illness. Frequent handwashing with soap and water remains one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of germs. When soap and water aren’t available, travelers should use hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol.

Experts also advise avoiding touching your eyes, nose, and mouth, which can allow germs to enter the body.

For those planning outdoor activities, insect protection is another important step. Travelers should use insect repellent to help prevent mosquito bites and check themselves, children, and pets for ticks after spending time in wooded or grassy areas.

In addition to protecting against illness, health professionals recommend staying hydrated, getting enough sleep, and keeping routine vaccinations up to date before traveling.

With a few simple precautions, experts say travelers can reduce their risk of illness and focus on enjoying their summer adventures.

Organizers say the event is about more than remembrance. They hope the gathering will help keep public attention focused on an investigation that remains active as detectives work to determine the circumstances surrounding Conway’s death.

• RELATED: HPD homicide detectives investigating after body found in Brays Bayou

According to Houston police, people walking along Brays Bayou discovered Conway’s body on the morning of May 25. Authorities have released few details since the discovery and have not announced any arrests.

In the days following the discovery, community members have shared messages of support online and organized the vigil to celebrate Conway’s life while calling for answers.

Organizers say the event will include remarks from advocates, a moment of reflection, and an appeal for anyone with information about the case to come forward.

People who knew Conway, along with some community advocates, have described the circumstances surrounding her death as suspicious. While investigators continue their work, organizers say they want to create a space for healing while also raising awareness about the case.

Community leaders say the vigil is intended to bring people together in solidarity, honor Conway’s memory, and encourage anyone with knowledge of the case to speak with investigators.

Houston police continue to investigate. Anyone with information related to the case is urged to contact investigators.

As for temperatures this week, the heat isn’t going anywhere. Thanks to the humidity, our “feels-like” temps will hit triple-digits. So make sure to hydrate, hydrate. Hydrate this week.

Today’s Forecast:

And if you thought this weekend was hot, which it was, take a look at our “feels-like” temperatures for areas like Livingston, 105 today.

We are, however, tracking the chance of rain for a select few, but not all, as we get into the afternoon and evening drive home.

Watch: Building a hurricane kit without breaking the bank

Hurricane season officially begins June 1. Are you ready? Many Houstonians, regardless of income level, are continuing to keep a close eye on their budgets. To help you prepare before the season ramps up, be sure to tune in to our KPRC 2 Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide next Wednesday at 8 p.m. We’ll cover everything you need to know as we head into the 2026 hurricane season.

View this post on Instagram

In the meantime, check out our list of 2026 hurricane names and learn about the history behind how hurricanes are named.

10-DAY FORECAST:

We’re starting Hurricane season off with rain and more rain on the way. Make sure to carry your umbrella!

The FBI is warning Americans about AI-powered “voice cloning” scams, in which criminals use artificial intelligence to mimic the voices of family members and trick victims into sending money.

The scam often begins with a frantic phone call that appears to come from a loved one. The caller may claim they have been kidnapped, arrested, or are in some other emergency situation and urgently need financial help.

• New utility scheme targets Houston-area residents, tries to gain home access

Using just a few seconds of audio taken from social media videos or other online sources, scammers can create a remarkably realistic imitation of a person’s voice.

One victim, Deborah Del Mastro, said she received a terrifying call from a man claiming he had kidnapped her daughter and was demanding $20,000 for her release.

The situation became even more convincing when she heard what sounded exactly like her daughter’s voice pleading for help.

Believing her daughter was in danger, Del Mastro sent the scammers $5,000 before realizing she had been targeted by a fraud scheme. The money was never recovered.

• Work at home job scams: How they work and how to spot one

Consumer protection experts say there are several warning signs people should watch for when receiving an unexpected emergency call.

Red flags include unusual pauses or fluctuations in a loved one’s voice, demands to act immediately without verifying the situation, and requests to send money through wire transfers, Venmo, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or other difficult-to-trace payment methods.

Authorities recommend hanging up and independently contacting the family member or friend using a known phone number before sending money or sharing personal information.

The FBI says AI-generated scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated and difficult to detect. According to the agency, Americans lost more than $893 million to AI-related scams last year.

As artificial intelligence technology continues to evolve, experts say awareness and verification remain the best defenses against becoming a victim.

Happy one day closer to Friday HA!

Anyways, let’s jump into what’s happening this week. Houston is always full of news, and this week is no different.

Our huge story of the day is one that is not only sad but tragic. An 18-year-old college student was shot and killed by a deputy Monday morning, and now, his family is demanding answers. The boy’s family said he had only been home for summer break from college for two weeks when the incident happened.

Now, although we don’t have all of the details, what we do know is that a Brazoria County Deputy attempted to make a traffic stop on the teen’s vehicle, but the teen refused to stop, leading the deputy on a chase to his father’s house. When the teen arrived at his father’s house, the video shows the deputy approaching the vehicle and the gunshots; it’s not clear what happened between that time. An investigation is underway, and the boy’s parents are demanding to see the bodycam video.

To read more, click here.

➡️ Love our morning newsletter? Share it with your family and friends!

YOUR MORNING FORECAST ☀️

TODAY: 90° TONIGHT: 75°

KPRC 2 Meteorologist says:

“We’re tracking the chance for rain and thunderstorms not only today but every single day this week, thanks to the tropical moisture and the sea breeze moving inland from the Gulf. As for temperatures this week, the heat isn’t going anywhere. Thanks to the humidity, our “feels-like” temps will hit triple-digits. So make sure to hydrate, hydrate. hydrate this week.”

Get your forecast details here.

TOP STORIES

Nearly 2,000 sign petitions opposing Spring Valley Village’s Bingle Road Project

A controversial traffic project in Spring Valley Village is drawing criticism from some residents and business owners who say changes to Bingle Road have created congestion and safety concerns rather than solving them. Two online petitions opposing the city’s so-called “Bingle Road Diet” have gathered nearly 2,000 signatures.

Pride Month 2026 has begun. Here’s what to expect for the LGBTQ+ celebrations

Pride month has begun across the U.S., bringing parades and parties to big cities and small towns to celebrate LGBTQ+ people.

The rainbow-filled festivities this year come as President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing policies to roll back the rights of transgender people and curtail recognition of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Man dead from self-inflicted gunshot after barricade situation at Katy-area apartment; woman also found dead inside

Authorities say a man who barricaded himself inside an apartment in the Katy-area is dead after shooting himself during a standoff with SWAT. A woman was also found dead inside the apartment.

ARE YOU A KPRC 2 INSIDER? HERE’S SOME EXCLUSIVES

Crunch Time: Three Houston spots serving fried food done right

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!

The organization is recruiting volunteers of all ages to sort, process and box food and other necessities into Disaster Boxes that can be deployed immediately when disaster hits. Individuals, families, church groups, company teams and networking groups are all welcome to sign up.

What goes inside a Disaster Box

Each Disaster Box is packed with nonperishable, ready-to-eat items designed to sustain families in the immediate aftermath of a storm. Contents include three canned vegetables, two canned fruits, three protein items — such as tuna, canned chicken, beef stew, chili or peanut butter — two snack items like granola bars or breakfast bars and two waters.

Boxes also include critical cleaning supplies such as mop buckets, mops, brooms, Clorox wipes, bleach, garbage bags and bug spray — essentials for families returning home after flooding or storm damage.

Volunteers are also encouraged to bring nonperishable food donations when they come in for their shift. Pull-top cans are especially needed for the convenience of recipients.

When, where and how to sign up

Volunteer shifts are available at Houston Food Bank’s main warehouse facility at 535 Portwall St. in Houston. Shifts run seven days a week, with three options to fit nearly any schedule:

Morning: Monday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to noon

Afternoon: Monday through Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m.

Evening: Tuesday through Friday, 6 to 9 p.m.

Registration is quick and easy online at HoustonFoodBank.org/volunteer.

Additional volunteer locations available

Volunteers can also sign up at two additional Houston Food Bank facilities. The Trinity River Community Resource Center, located at 1768 County Road 3558 in Cleveland, Texas, offers shifts Tuesday through Saturday. The North Branch location at 146 Knobcrest welcomes individuals and small groups of up to 10 people.

About Houston Food Bank

Houston Food Bank has served Houston and southeast Texas since 1982. The organization provides access to 143 million nutritious meals across 18 counties through a network of 1,600 community partners, including food pantries, soup kitchens, social service providers and schools. Houston Food Bank holds a four-star rating from Charity Navigator for the 14th consecutive year and is a certified member of Feeding America, the nation’s food bank network.

Happy one day closer to Friday HA!

Anyways, let’s jump into what’s happening this week. Houston is always full of news, and this week is no different.

Our huge story of the day is one that is not only sad but tragic. An 18-year-old college student was shot and killed by a deputy Monday morning, and now, his family is demanding answers. The boy’s family said he had only been home for summer break from college for two weeks when the incident happened.

Now, although we don’t have all of the details, what we do know is that a Brazoria County Deputy attempted to make a traffic stop on the teen’s vehicle, but the teen refused to stop, leading the deputy on a chase to his father’s house. When the teen arrived at his father’s house, the video shows the deputy approaching the vehicle and the gunshots; it’s not clear what happened between that time. An investigation is underway, and the boy’s parents are demanding to see the bodycam video.

To read more, click here.

➡️ Love our morning newsletter? Share it with your family and friends!

YOUR MORNING FORECAST ☀️

TODAY: 90° TONIGHT: 75°

KPRC 2 Meteorologist says:

“We’re tracking the chance for rain and thunderstorms not only today but every single day this week, thanks to the tropical moisture and the sea breeze moving inland from the Gulf. As for temperatures this week, the heat isn’t going anywhere. Thanks to the humidity, our “feels-like” temps will hit triple-digits. So make sure to hydrate, hydrate. hydrate this week.”

Get your forecast details here.

TOP STORIES

Nearly 2,000 sign petitions opposing Spring Valley Village’s Bingle Road Project

A controversial traffic project in Spring Valley Village is drawing criticism from some residents and business owners who say changes to Bingle Road have created congestion and safety concerns rather than solving them. Two online petitions opposing the city’s so-called “Bingle Road Diet” have gathered nearly 2,000 signatures.

Pride Month 2026 has begun. Here’s what to expect for the LGBTQ+ celebrations

Pride month has begun across the U.S., bringing parades and parties to big cities and small towns to celebrate LGBTQ+ people.

The rainbow-filled festivities this year come as President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing policies to roll back the rights of transgender people and curtail recognition of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Man dead from self-inflicted gunshot after barricade situation at Katy-area apartment; woman also found dead inside

Authorities say a man who barricaded himself inside an apartment in the Katy-area is dead after shooting himself during a standoff with SWAT. A woman was also found dead inside the apartment.

ARE YOU A KPRC 2 INSIDER? HERE’S SOME EXCLUSIVES

Crunch Time: Three Houston spots serving fried food done right

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!

Resilient Structures, based in Humble, manufactures poles designed to withstand winds topping 140 mph — the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane. The company is now hiring for a range of full-time positions, and a college degree isn’t required for all of them.

Beryl exposed weaknesses in Houston’s power grid

When Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas as a Category 1 storm in 2024, it knocked out power to millions across the Greater Houston area. Downed utility poles were a significant factor in leaving some neighborhoods without electricity for days.

Alisa Madrid, a buyer at Resilient Structures, remembers it well.

“I was here. I was fortunate that I only lost power for 12 hours, but I did have family members who lost power 10 days,” Madrid said.

The storm exposed just how vulnerable the region’s power infrastructure was. Since then, CenterPoint Energy has been replacing thousands of wooden poles with stronger fiberglass ones — many of which are being manufactured at the Humble facility.

Inside production floor

On the production floor, dozens of workers are already busy building the poles. The facility is loud — and according to Resilient Structures, it’s only going to get louder as production scales up.

Rob Krotee, executive vice president of Sales & Marketing at Resilient Structures, says the company is still in the early stages of its hiring push.

“We’ll be hiring at full scale. We’ll probably be over 300 people. So we still have hundreds more jobs that we’ll be hiring here for our Houston facility,” Krotee said.

The open positions span a variety of skill sets.

“A number of different skilled kind of work, whether it’s equipment operators, there’s some technical skilled work in our filament lining, which is unique to our composite poles. So they’re great full-time career opportunities with quite a bit of a runway as we continue to build and grow in support of the utility industry,” Krotee said.

More than just a job

For Madrid, who has worked at Resilient Structures for a few months, the role carries a deeper sense of purpose. She says knowing the poles her team builds could help keep other families powered during future storms makes the work meaningful.

“I think that’s what makes Resilient Structures so special — I’m able to see the direct impact now. And I’m reminded of that daily,” Madrid said.

Job openings are currently available at Resilient Structures’ Humble facility.

Previously one of President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters, Greene resigned from Congress in late 2025 after a significant public break with the president. A 28-year congressional veteran, Sessions is a Republican insider bringing deep institutional knowledge to a rapidly moving Washington. As America marks its 250th anniversary, renowned historian Gordon-Reed explores the nation’s founding contradiction with her new book, “Jefferson on Race: A Reader.” And Webb, one of the nation’s leading quantitative futurists, helps us understand the technological forces reshaping nearly every aspect of our lives.  

Other newly announced speakers joining us in September include San Antonio mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, who leads one of the country’s fastest-growing cities and is one of the most prominent leaders pushing back on federal immigration actions in Texas; Jennifer Cowley, president of the University of Texas at Arlington leading the institution at a time of incredible transformation for higher education; content creator and activist Carlos Eduardo Espina, who has built an audience of more than 20 million by telling migrant stories outside of traditional media; and NPR’s critic-at-large Eric Deggans, who will help us consider how a fragmented media landscape is reshaping what it means to be a journalist today. 

Each day brings more for Texans to wrestle with and talk about with one another, and TribFest will be here before you know it.

Get your tickets now to join us in Austin this September.

Disclosure: University of Texas – Arlington 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.

Two online petitions opposing the city’s so-called “Bingle Road Diet” have gathered nearly 2,000 signatures.

The project reduced a half-mile stretch of Bingle Road from four lanes to three between Westview Drive and West Memorial Park Drive. The redesign added a center turn lane, a bike lane, and expanded space for pedestrians.

City officials say the changes are intended to improve safety for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

But some who live and work along the corridor disagree.

“Their engineering report said it would produce better traffic flow, which to me is like saying lap band surgery produces more food in your stomach,” said George Zoes, owner of Ruby’s Wigs. “It makes no sense.”

Zoes’ business serves women battling cancer and others experiencing medical-related hair loss. He says Bingle Road is more than a neighborhood street and should be treated as a major transportation route.

“Bingle Road is part of a 30-mile stretch of road which goes north to south Houston,” Zoes said. “It’s not just a neighborhood street inside Spring Valley. It’s a major thoroughfare.”

Critics of the project say the lane reduction has increased traffic congestion, pushed vehicles into nearby neighborhoods and led to near crashes.

Some are now calling on city leaders to reverse course.

“Maybe it’s time to say, ‘Hey, we tried it, it didn’t work. Let’s go back to what was,’” Zoes said. “‘No fault, no harm, no foul.’”

Despite the criticism, Spring Valley Village officials say they have also received positive feedback about the project.

The city’s administrator told KPRC 2 that officials are continuing to monitor traffic conditions and make adjustments aimed at improving the road’s efficiency while evaluating the long-term impact of the redesign.

For now, the debate over the future of Bingle Road continues as residents, business owners and city leaders weigh the balance between traffic flow and safety.

The incident occurred around 10 p.m. near the 6700 block of Fondren Road, where a driver traveling northbound in an Infiniti struck an elderly woman who was using a walker to cross the street. The woman was not in a marked crosswalk at the time of the collision.

Houston Fire Department personnel responded to the scene and pronounced the woman deceased. Authorities say the woman lived in the surrounding neighborhood.

The driver, described as a young woman, remained on the scene following the crash.

Investigators with the Houston Police Department’s Vehicular Crimes Division say the driver showed no signs of impairment and had no prior history of reckless driving.

The HPD Vehicular Crimes Division is handling the investigation. No charges had been announced as of this report.

Speed partially tore his quadriceps muscle, and fully tore his quadriceps tendon while performing a one-legged, split squat during the Texans’ offseason workout program. The initial prognosis was a partial tear of the quadriceps tendon, which would have allowed Speed to return at some point during the season, perhaps in the October to November range. Now, that is not the case.

The surgery was performed by Dallas Cowboys team doctor and renowned orthopedic surgeon Dan Cooper.

There is a slim, outside chance Speed could get healthy enough to be ready to return for the playoffs, but that is not currently the expectation, per a source.

With Speed out on a long-term basis, the Texans will lean heavily on Pro Bowl middle linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair and Henry To’oTo’o. They have veterans Jake Hansen, Jamal Hill, Marte Mapu and Jake Hummel on the roster along with rookie draft picks Wade Woodaz and Aiden Fisher.

“The competition is high at every position,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said last week. “Unfortunately, we won’t have E.J. for some time, but we’ll see how that recovery process goes. I’m hopeful that we’ll get E.J. back at some point this year.”

Speed, a key linebacker and special-teams contributor, signed a two-year $13 million maximum value contract rather than head to free agency after his original one-year, $5 million contract expired.

Speed received a $4 million signing bonus and $7.5 million of the deal is guaranteed, with base salaries of $1.75 million (fully guaranteed), another $250,000 total available through per game active roster bonuses and an additional $1.5 million in incentives.

His total first-year payout has a base value of $5.75 million and a max value of $7.5 million. In the second year, he has a $3.75 million base salary with $1.75 million of that guaranteed and identical playtime per game and incentives as this season.

Speed emerged as an important part of the defense, recording 62 tackles, three for losses, two quarterback hits and one pass defensed in 16 games with nine starts for a playoff squad. He played 44 percent of the defensive snaps and 52 percent of the special teams snaps last season.

The Texans traded for former New England Patriots linebacker and safety Marte Mapu this offseason.

The Patriots receive a sixth-round pick and the Texans receive a seventh-round selection as well as Mapu.

Mapu (6-foot-3, 230 pounds) is a former Patriots third-round draft picks from Sacramento State who had been informed he would be released. Instead, he has a fresh start with the Texans.

“Marte, what I like about him, he’s a very smart linebacker,” Ryans said. “Smart, he’s long, fast guy. But Marte does a really good job of being where he’s supposed to be in position. He’s communicating. We’re moving him around. He’s taking some reps at the Mike linebacker spot.

“He does a really good job of communicating. He’s also taking some spots at the, some reps at the Will linebacker. He’s a smart guy who you’re able to move around at multiple spots. He’s done a really good job on special teams as well. He’s a very versatile athletic linebacker.

A former Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year, Mapu is in the final year of a $5.563 million rookie contract. He’s due a $1.508 million base salary.

He played in every game last season and recorded 25 tackles, one forced fumble, one interception and five pass deflections. He has also started at safety.

Mapu played 12 percent of the overall defensive snaps, primarily in sub packages. Twelve of his tackles were on special teams.

He recorded 89 tackles, three interceptions and a half-sack for New England in 44 games with 10 starts.

“Still a young player,” Ryans said. “Young player who’s played in three or four different schemes already to be so young in his career. Hoping he just settles in to what we’re being able to teach him. Coach Bill Davis has done an outstanding job of working with him this offseason.

“Marte is the type of guy, he’s always in the building. We have to kick him out. He’s always doing the extras, the film, the recovery, body maintenance. He’s a true worker. I’m proud to see how he transitions and how he looks during training camp.”

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

The rainbow-filled festivities this year come as President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing policies to roll back the rights of transgender people and curtail recognition of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Jordan Braxton, co-president of USA Prides, a organization of Pride groups, says the events have always been rooted in protest.

“A festival is a time to celebrate,” she said. “Those are acts of resistance, too.”

The first Pride celebrations came in protest

The event has its roots in the violent police raid of New York’s Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, on June 28, 1969.

The raid sparked a series of public protests and catalyzed the gay rights movement at a time when many LGBTQ+ people kept their identities to themselves.

To mark the first anniversary in June 1970, there were marches in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Now, events take place in big cities, suburbs and small towns around the world.

President Bill Clinton proclaimed June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in the U.S. with an executive order in 1999. Since then, Democratic presidents have signed similar orders each year they’ve been in office. Republican presidents, including Trump, have not.

Now, many are celebrations with a dose of defiance

Parades and street fairs headline Pride celebrations. But there’s more to them than that.

San Francisco Pride includes a golf tournament and a human right summit. Twin Cities Pride in Minneapolis has a bar crawl, and Central Alabama Pride in Birmingham features a singing competition.

This year’s celebrations include main events in Los Angeles on June 14, Chicago on June 20 and 21, San Francisco on June 27 and New York on June 28. There are events this month in international cities including Paris, Rome, Sao Paulo and Tokyo.

While those events have been around for more than 50 years, this year marks just the sixth edition of a formal Pride celebration in Haddon Township, New Jersey, a Philadelphia suburb. A parade is scheduled for Thursday, and a community night is Friday.

Isis Petrie Williams, president of Haddon Township Pride, said that the 2,000 to 3,000 people in the parade will include local high school marching bands, youth sports teams and many people passing out candy.

“We decided to have a radical expression of joy, acceptance and love, centered on exposure and community connection,” she said.

Some policy changes have not been LGBTQ-friendly

For years, policies across the U.S. were generally becoming more welcoming to LGBTQ+ people, including in June 2015 when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalized same-sex marriage nationally.

In recent years, several policies have swung the other way.

The Supreme Court in March ruled against a ban on “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ kids in Colorado, saying it violated free speech protections.

During Pride Month last year, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for transgender kids.

This decade, most Republican-controlled state governments have passed similar restrictions on gender-affirming care, barred transgender women and girls from female sports competitions, and restricted which restrooms transgender people can use in schools — and, in some cases, other public places.

Trump has signed executive orders seeking some of the same policies on a federal level.

On Monday, one of those policies suffered a blow when a court ruled that the military illegally banned transgender troops.

Some sponsors have pulled out of the celebrations

Last year, some big corporations stopped contributing to Pride events.

Braxton said she’s noticed some investment firms pulling back this year, following companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Walmart last year.

“It’s all because of Trump’s DEI policies. Corporations are afraid that if they sponsor a Pride event, they are going to get scrutinized from this administration, which is completely sad,” she said.

But she said that smaller events have seen local businesses boost sponsorships.

That’s been true for New Jersey’s Haddon Township Pride. Williams said the Coast Guard is the only major national sponsor that’s abandoned the event in recent years.

Meanwhile, local hospitals, restaurants, law firms, coffee shops and other businesses are contributing.

With no candidate taking an outright majority of the vote, the election will head to a second round in June.

But Cepeda and Petro sowed doubt in the results of the first round, claiming without evidence that hundreds of thousands of votes were manipulated and that foreign actors manipulated the results of the election.

Cepeda said he was waiting for electoral authorities to scrutinize the results before accepting the election.

“Only when the vote-counting commissions have fully clarified what happened will we comment on tonight’s results,” Cepeda said, though he acknowledged the vote was likely going to a second round.

Cepeda won 41% of the vote, while de la Espriella won 44% of the votes, with 99.98% of the results counted by electoral authorities.

Cepeda is a progressive senator who has promised to carry on a fraught plan to achieve “total peace" by negotiating peace pacts with guerrillas and criminal gangs. He was consistently leading polls in the run up to the Sunday vote, but in the weeks leading up to the election de la Espriella rapidly gained support with a promise that he would crack down on armed groups.

The neck-and-neck results likely spell trouble for Cepeda in the run-off election, as de la Espriella is expected to scoop up support from voters who threw their support behind another conservative candidate in the first round.

De la Espriella — a newcomer known as El Tigre, or “The Tiger” — has sought to portray himself as a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Let the United States of America and democratic parties monitor this runoff election. I will lead this battle; I will be Colombia’s best warrior," de la Espriella said in an impassioned speech Sunday night, pounding his chest behind bullet-proof glass in front of supporters.

Colombian voters are weighing peace deals or a crackdown

Voters across Latin America are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict, such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption. Instead, voters have increasingly turned to candidates promising heavy-handed security crackdowns.

The polarized vote comes as the Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, placing mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador to crack down on crime.

The election has also underscored two sharply diverging visions for the future of peace in a country marked by years of conflict.

On one side, Cepeda has promised to continue Petro’s progressive agenda and a largely failed effort to negotiate peace pacts with armed groups, following a plan that’s likely to sharply contrast with Trump’s vision for Latin America.

On the other side, de la Espriella has promised to fiercely crack down on criminal groups and build 10 mega-prisons, echoing the war on gangs policy of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, which has driven down homicide rates but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.

“Today’s election isn’t just important for us, it’s important for all of Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out of a voting station in Colombia’s capital on Sunday morning. “Whoever wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will continue or if things are going to return to the right.”

Vote is seen as a referendum on Petro

The election — 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — as seen as a referendum on Petro’s policies.

The deal a decade ago had offered hope to break the nation’s vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government. But violence has since roared back, in part because armed groups have taken advantage of peace negotiations with Petro's government to make territorial gains.

That came to a head in the lead-up to the election. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have plagued the race and last June, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally. Still, Cepeda and Petro have maintained strong support among many because of progressive policies pushed forward under Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.

Both de la Espriella and Valencia have touted their affinity for Trump, though Valencia’s electoral loss dealt another blow to a once powerful political current known as Uribismo.

Colombians are divided on the way forward

Maria Eugenia, a 57-year-old seamstress on Friday in downtown Bogotá, Colombia's capital, said she welcomed an all-out offensive on an expanding slate of criminal groups, regardless of the human cost.

While she approved of Petro’s pushes to improve the country's medical infrastructure, she said she was voting for de la Espriella because violence in rural areas of the country has gotten out of hand. She said negotiating peace pacts was effectively rewarding armed groups.

“Of course, whenever you come down with a heavy hand, there’s always going to be debate,” she said. “But some people are going to have to fall to clean up what needs to be cleaned up.”

Others, like Acevedo, the sociologist, said a security crackdown such as the one promoted by de la Espriella meant a return to past military campaigns that he said only reinforced Colombia's cycle of violence.

He said he supports Cepeda, adding that while the government hasn't done a perfect job — failing to pass ambitious reforms and follow through on promises to reduce violence — it was better to continue pushing forward with their political coalition's efforts to take a different approach in addressing the country's violence.

He added that his main critique of Petro's administration was the power grabs made by criminal groups as they negotiated with the government. He said he hoped that if Cepeda won, he would strike a better balance between negotiating peace and maintaining control over those groups.

“We're a country that has lived through 60 years of conflict,” Acevedo said. “The danger here is that we return to the times where everyone is saying that the only way to solve our problems is with bullets and more war.”

___

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

___

This story was first published on May 31, 2026. It was updated on Jun. 2, 2026 to correct the first name of the candidate to Abelardo instead of Aberaldo.

A two-time NL Cy Young Award winner, the 37-year-old deGrom (4-4) allowed four hits and struck out eight in his fourth attempt at the milestone victory. The right-hander went 1-3 with a 5.72 ERA in five May starts and has not won this season when allowing multiple runs.

Jacob Latz pitched a perfect ninth for his eighth save to help the Rangers win their fourth straight game.

Michael McGreevy (3-5) gave up two runs on five hits and two walks in six innings after yielding eight runs in nine innings over his previous two starts.

Masyn Winn lined his second home run of the season down the left-field line off reliever Peyton Gray to cut Texas’ lead to 2-1 in the sixth.

Joc Pederson hit an RBI single up the middle to drive in Danny Jansen after Jansen walked, stole second base and advanced to third on Nicky Lopez's single in the fifth to make it 2-0.

Duran lined an RBI double to the left-field wall to drive in Brandon Nimmo and give Texas a 1-0 advantage in the fourth.

Up next

Rangers RHP Nathan Eovaldi (5-6, 3.93 ERA) will face Cardinals RHP Dustin May (3-6, 4.57) in the middle game of the series Tuesday night.

___

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

The jury returned the verdict for Chikei Rick Chow. Chow, 61, who is Asian, shot Cyrus Carmack-Belton in the back after chasing him from his convenience store in Columbia. He maintained he acted to defend his son.

The killing sent waves of anguish and grief through the African American community in Richland County, where nearly half the population is Black.

After the verdict was read, sobs and cries of distress could be heard coming from Carmack-Belton’s family seated in the gallery. Chow sat silently frozen before slowly bowing his head onto his interlocked hands.

Defense lawyer Jack Swerling said they're very pleased with the verdict but also feel for Carmack-Belton's family.

“My heart goes out to them, but 14-year-old kid should not be roaming the streets of Columbia or South Carolina with semiautomatic pistol loaded and ready to fire,” he said.

Todd Rutherford, an attorney and representative in the South Carolina Legislature, stood next to Carmack-Belton’s father as he told reporters that they don't agree with the verdict.

“This makes us feel as if our children don't matter and they do,” he said. "This makes us feel like Cyrus' life didn't matter and it did."

Rutherford announced they will pursue a civil lawsuit.

“I've been practicing law for almost 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. I don't understand it,” he said.

Prosecutors and a defense lawyer in closing arguments painted different pictures of the 2023 shooting. Prosecutors said Chow acted in anger because he wrongly thought the teen had stolen four bottles of water from the store. A defense lawyer said Chow fired to defend his son only after the teen pointed a gun at him.

“This case is not about a shoplifter. This case is about a father who sees a gun pointed at his son and had to make a decision,” defense attorney Shaun Kent told jurors during closing arguments, noting that Andy Chow testified Carmack-Belton pointed a gun at him.

Prosecutors acknowledged Carmack-Belton had a semiautomatic pistol, but they say it fell on the ground during the chase, and he never threatened anyone with it. Prosecutors said Chow chased the teen more than 130 yards (119 meters) from the store.

Gipson told jurors that Chow “chased a kid down, shot him in the back.”

During closing arguments, Gipson placed a bottle of water before jurors. Gipson said Chow “at the end of the day, believed that a human is not more than that.”

Gipson said multiple witnesses testified that they didn’t see anything in Carmack-Belton’s hands and didn’t see him point a gun as he ran from the store.

“Nobody testified that happened that doesn’t have the last name Chow,” Gipson said.

The fatal shooting prompted vigils and protests outside the store. Empty water bottles were arranged to spell out “Cyrus” at one 2023 vigil.

“I am Lady Sarsaparilla Ovabyte, of the Coventry Ovabytes,” she said. “We are purveyors of fine cordials.”

Her companion peered through glasses made from fused-together forks.

“Captain Bob McSpoon, inventrepreneur,” he said.

On a Victorian-era street in rural Ōamaru, New Zealand, Ovabyte and McSpoon, who usually go by Juliet and Greg Thorn, weren’t the only ones wearing goggles or forks, or emitting steam. They were in the small town to attend the annual steampunk festival, a four-day love letter to being as odd as possible, which draws thousands of visitors from around the country and abroad.

Steampunk fuses Victorian aesthetics and mechanics with a science fiction twist to create a parallel universe imagining what the age of steam might have produced if it had continued to the present day. The genre is limited only by imagination, and the weirder the better.

Steampunks pride themselves on a knack for recycling and DIY, honing skills in sewing, metalworking, hat-trimming and steam mechanics as they dream up fantastical personas with outfits to match. During the year, attendees are bricklayers, engineers, artists and farmers, with many describing themselves as normally shy or reserved. But they had come to the festival to be seen.

“The first time you dress up and go out in public is really scary and then people get such a buzz out of it,” Juliet Thorn said. “It’s so cool that you take on a different personality.”

Teapot racing and parasol dueling are steampunk sports

In its 17th year, whole traditions and sporting codes have sprung up around the steampunk festival, which is among the world’s best-known.

Hundreds crowded into upstairs rooms and old community halls for steampunk-themed contests. They raced to dunk cookies in cups of tea and cram the soggy results into their mouths before their competitors. A parasol-dueling contest looked like competitive vogueing judged on speed and style.

Michele Cotten won a fashion show displaying wild and upcycled outfits that participants spent months finessing. Cotten fused steampunk with the Star Trek universe to create a hooped dress made in the style of a navy Starfleet uniform. It was rigged with Christmas lights to evoke a galaxy and Cotten, a crowd favorite, strutted and posed to whoops from onlookers.

Then there was the teapot racing, in which competitors sent remote-controlled vehicles mounted with teapots around a fiendish obstacle course to the gasps and groans of a watching crowd.

“If you go out of bounds, that’s a disqualification,” said Ross McKay, one of the sport’s creators, who dreamed it up with his late wife and a friend. He has since introduced teapot racing to other steampunk events worldwide.

“It’s lots of fun and the judges will take bribes,” he added.

When McKay’s wife showed him pictures of steampunks, he recalled thinking, “What a bunch of weirdos," but the self-confessed “history geek and science fiction nerd” found plenty to love about the genre. The retired banker was soon enrolled in night classes for sewing.

Now he is Captain Roscoe Dangerfield, Inspector of Nuisances to Her Majesty Queen Victoria III, which combines the historical element of a real Victorian job with the fiction of a monarch who never lived.

The steampunk community had become his tribe, he said.

Small town is an unlikely steampunk capital

Ōamaru is the placid home to 14,000 people and 3,000 endangered native penguins, the latter of which live at the far end of town in a colony so pungent it can be smelled from the hill above. The town on New Zealand’s South Island doesn’t feature the sweeping vistas popularized by the Lord of the Rings films, which bring tourists to nearby regions, and for years was mostly seen as a stopping point between the cities of Christchurch and Dunedin.

An architectural quirk has put Ōamaru on the map as what locals call the steampunk capital of the world. The town features a completely preserved Victorian street by the harbor, a legacy from the 19th century days when Ōamaru was a commercial and mercantile powerhouse as a departure point for meat, wool and grain exports from New Zealand to Britain.

The cream-colored stone buildings now form the backdrop for the festival's steampunk adventures. Later in the year the town also hosts a Victorian festival celebrating a historically accurate version of the era, with the events coexisting peacefully after the steampunks and Victorians decided the town was big enough for everyone.

Anything goes in a no-rules genre

Steampunk, a term coined in the 1980s, gives participants an opportunity to rewrite Victorian-era social conventions on the basis that if you are flying on a magic carpet or traveling through time, it doesn’t matter if you make the rest up.

“We’re an equal opportunity society,” said Iain Clark, who co-founded the festival and is widely known in the community as Agent Darling. “Women, unlike in Victorian times, can be anything. We have female engineers, captains of industry, captains of airships, adventurers, explorers, scientists.”

Sometimes all in the same week. Bringing a different outfit for each day of the event is common and fitting rooms at the festival’s headquarters allow for quick changes, with nothing strange enough to raise eyebrows.

In the street, a Star Wars trooper trudged past, followed by a pack of wolves. A French tourist nervously adjusting his crocheted and leather gloves was introduced to steampunk only three days earlier and immediately fell in love with the genre.

“You can be creative and you can be somebody else and no one cares,” said John Syben, who was attending his fourth festival.

His partner, Chris Sinclair, said the pair previously had been “far too tame, so we’ve gotten more and more outrageous every year.”

“There’s always someone who’s more nuts than you," she said.

Arnette completed a remarkable comeback last year, returning to the NFL with the Texans after a standout year with the Houston Roughnecks in the United Football League.

After being out of football for years due to a past history of off-field issues, Arnette changed his life with improved maturity. And the former Las Vegas Raiders first-round draft pick from Ohio State emphasized that he has maintained the sobriety he achieved in the past few years.

Arnette, released in late December by the Texans, wanted to play football so badly that he returned to the UFL as he ran it back with the Gamblers and contributed significantly on defense

Now, Arnette is hungry to play more football. He’s training every day as he works diligently for his next NFL opportunity.

“I’m ready, I’ve been ready to go,” Arnette told KPRC 2. “When and where, all I need is a helmet. With my talent level, being able to compete with the best of the best, I just really need an opportunity and somebody willing to give me a shot to prove what I can do.

“Being a leader is something that I’ve been more adamant about and it means more to me. Being around guys like Derek Stingley and Kamari Lassiter, they reminded me a lot of who I was, what I meant to them. It really made me look in the mirror and see more positives. Being able to walk in that light again, it would be a blessing.”

Arnette, 29, finished the Gamblers season with 16 tackles, recording one for a loss and one pass breakup in nine games for coach Kevin Sumlin.

He had 17 tackles and one interception last year for the Roughnecks, returning it for a touchdown.

“Coach Sumlin, he’s a great coach,” Arnette said. “He really cared about about all of his players, you know. He was patient with me. That meant a lot to me. He believes in me a lot, he’s confident in my ability, and I’m always appreciative of somebody who was willing to give me a chance.

With the Texans, Arnette was on the practice squad after intercepting a pass during the preseason against the Carolina Panthers. He played in two games and recorded three tackles for the season. At the end of the season, he dealt with an ankle injury and the flu and was released.

The experience for Arnette was life-changing, especially playing for Texans coach DeMeco Ryans, defensive coordinator Matt Burke and cornerbacks coach Dino Vasso.

“That whole Texans environment, it was breath-taking,” Arnette said. “It reminded me a lot of the Ohio State atmosphere, just to be part of something special like that and to say I was coached by DeMeco. He’s a great man, same with coach Dino. Everybody made sure that I was good and adjusting well and I learned a lot.

“It kind of felt like my real first year in the league, with a clear mind, all about ball, no distractions. Being around great guys like Stingley, Kamari, Jalen Pitre, Calen Bullock, those guys really showed me what the standard was for the NFL, to be the best. Top-tier players, even better humans. We have a great relationship to this day.”

The Texans have the top-ranked defense returning from last year.

If Arnette should get the call to rejoin them, he would be overjoyed.

“That would be a dream come true, just to be on another NFL team, and to be on the best team in the NFL, the best defense, the best defense I was ever a part of,” Arnette said. “It reminded me of Ohio State, and I have nothing but great memories from college. I like to think that history repeats itself.”

Arnette hit rock bottom during his time with the Raiders as multiple legal and personal issues derailed his career. He had brief stints with the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs, before spending three years out of football prior to being signed by the Roughnecks last year.

The Texans gave Arnette a second chance after he relaunched his career with the Roughnecks, signing him after a successful tryout.

Elevated from the practice squad against the Baltimore Ravens, Arnette recorded two tackles on special teams and had a couple plays on defense. Those 22 combined snaps were extremely significant to Arnette, considering the tough road he’s walked and the growth he has strived for and found off the field.

His last NFL game before a 44-10 blowout victory at M&T Bank Stadium: Oct. 4, 2021 against the Los Angeles Chargers.

Arnette reordered his life by making significant changes to his behavior and attitude.

Vasso made it a point to remind Arnette about how far he’s come from his darkest moments.

“I’ve been living in my sobriety,” Arnette said. “Darren Waller helped me so much. I found my sobriety and my purpose and it changed my life.”

The guidance that Arnette has received from Jon Gruden, his former coach in Las Vegas, has been extremely meaningful to him.

“He’s got a whole new identity,” Gruden told KPRC 2. “He doesn’t look the same. He doesn’t act the same. He’s not the same. He has changed his identity. He changed the circle of people in his life, in a good way. He’s focused. He’s determined. I’m really proud of him.I see a guy who has reinvented himself. He has done it very impressively. I hope he continues to do that. We’ll all be able to pull for him.

“Some of the best stories I’ve been involved in with coaching is seeing guys turn it around from adversity. Darren Waller is a great example. He had problems and fixed himself. So did Maxx Crosby. Damon Arnette can do that.”

'I think Damon is doing the right things. We're inclined when we deem it appropriate to give someone a second chance' #Texans GM Nick Caserio on signing Damon Arnette Jr. @KPRC2 pic.twitter.com/LiJZ130wAL

— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) July 23, 2025

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

Adelman, who was 79, served as Head Coach of five different NBA teams including the Rockets.

He led Houston for four seasons beginning in 2007 through the 2011 campaign and finished with a 193-135 record.

Adelman was known for his long and successful run with the Trailblazers before a short stop with the Warriors and Kings before landing the Rockets job.

After Houston he finished his career with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Adelman retired in 2014 and closed out his career with 1,042 wins before being named to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021.

The scene unfolded in the 1000 block of Katy Gap Road.

@HCSOSWAT and deputies are at a complex at the 1000 block of Katy Gap Rd. An adult man allegedly shot his girlfriend. The man is barricaded in the unit. The woman is critically wounded. #HouNews pic.twitter.com/saS7yLPedO

— Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) June 1, 2026

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says the man allegedly shot his girlfriend, critically wounding her, before barricading himself inside the apartment.

Authorities say it started at 1:52 p.m. when the man called authorities and said he had accidentally shot his girlfriend. Authorities say he was frantic while on the phone.

When deputies arrived and made contact with the man, deputies say the man refused to obey their commands and threatened to kill himself. He then barricaded himself inside the apartment.

• Brazoria County deputy shoots, kills 18-year-old Texas State student after chase ends at Lake Jackson home

Crises negotiators attempted to talk and get the man to surrender, but the man refused.

Investigators used drones to check on the condition of the 20-year-old woman inside the apartment.

“Our drones were able to capture pictures of her where it showed she didn’t have any signs of life,” Dean said.

Neighbors described the chaos that unfolded as SWAT teams and deputies flooded the complex.

“I did hear a gunshot,” said neighbor Aunica Horn.

Witness Naomi Morris said she heard “a lot of screams and the cops talking to him.”

As deputies worked to resolve the situation, gas was used to try and get the man to come out and surrender. Instead, the man went out onto the balcony, suffered a self-inflicted gunshot and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Update:

As deputies worked to resolve the situation, an adult male sustained an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and was pronounced deceased at the scene. Deputies also located a deceased adult female inside the unit. No deputies discharged their weapons during the… https://t.co/3D7zUnNl2Q

— Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) June 2, 2026

Authorities say the girlfriend was also found dead inside the apartment.

No deputies discharged their weapons during the incident. The circumstances surrounding both deaths remain under investigation.

Officials say no one else was inside the apartment at the time of the incident.

Deputies confirmed they had previously been called to the apartment for a disturbance, but specific details about that prior call were not available.

For Horn, the incident has shaken her sense of safety.

“As a woman, it’s scary,” she said. “I just feel like with kids, I don’t think this is where I want to raise my kids anymore.”

The investigation is ongoing.

Abel also hinted that he may depart from Warren Buffett 's longtime hands-off operating model by consolidating Taylor Morrison with Berkshire's existing site-built homebuilding operations that are part of its Clayton Homes subsidiary. For six decades under Buffett, Berkshire promised to largely leave companies alone after it acquired them and allow the executives to keep running the day-to-day operations the same way.

“Over time, we expect to unify our site-built homebuilding operations into a combined platform,” Abel said in a statement about his first big acquisition on Sunday, “enabling us to deliver the dream of homeownership to more Americans.”

In addition to Clayton, which specializes in manufactured homes but also has a site-built unit, Berkshire owns several other housing related businesses including Benjamin Moore paint and Shaw Floors.

Berkshire's new investment in Alphabet will expand the stake that Buffett's company started to build last fall. By the end of March, Berkshire's Alphabet investment had tripled to include nearly 58 million Alphabet shares worth almost $17 billion.

Alphabet said Monday that Berkshire has agreed to buy $5 billion of Class A common stock and another $5 billion of Class C stock as part of a broader plan to raise $80 billion to pay for the computing infrastructure needed to power its AI offerings.

It's not clear how much consolidating Abel might do among the dozens of companies Berkshire owns. Those holdings include an assortment of insurers like Geico, major manufacturers such as Precision Castparts and a slew of retail and service companies like NetJets, Dairy Queen and Helzberg Diamonds. But Abel is known as a much more active manager than Buffett ever was.

“Given Greg’s strength as an operator it will be interesting to see if he does consolidate these units to get some greater scale and efficiencies,” said CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert.

Abel has been overseeing all of Berkshire's non-insurance businesses since 2018, and he hasn't made any major changes in operations though he has encouraged the company's subsidiaries to cooperate more when it makes sense. Abel became CEO in January, but Buffett remains chairman and Berkshire's largest shareholder.

“Under Greg, where it makes sense for efficiencies or scale, we'll likely see more consolidation than we saw under Buffett when Berkshire was smaller and the acquired company's founders were still in place,” said investor Steven Check, who is president of Check Capital Management.

Berkshire shareholders will likely be excited just to see Abel making deals, given that the Omaha-based company is currently sitting on nearly $400 billion cash. This deal by itself isn't likely to make a meaningful impact on Berkshire's bottom line because the conglomerate is so big, but dealmaking and investing are the areas of Abel's resume that investors had the most questions about.

Buffett praised Abel in an interview with CNBC on Monday morning.

“Greg did that faster than I could have done it, smoother than I could have done it, and I never talked to the CEO. He has launched,” Buffett told CNBC.

Abel has led acquisitions before while leading Berkshire's massive utility division, but obviously Buffett would have signed off on those. Now Abel is making the decisions with advice from Buffett and the rest of the board.

“I think investors will cheer Greg’s foray into M&A as CEO. The purchase price seems rich given the current interest rate/macro environment,” Seifert said.

Berkshire agreed to pay Taylor Morrison investors $72.50 per share in the all-cash deal. That represents a 24% premium over the company's previous closing price of $58.50. Shares of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based homebuilder jumped up near that purchase price on Monday while Berkshire's shares slipped 1%.

But Raymond James analyst Buck Horne said in a research note that it's possible Berkshire could face some competition from private equity firms or other potential buyers who might be willing to pay more for Taylor Morrison before its shareholders can vote on whether to accept this offer.

“We would not be shocked if other players and/or private equity began to sharpen their pencils before the ink on this agreement is fully dry,” Horne said.

Graham, a 6-foot-4, 314-pound left tackle, played for Texans offensive line coach and run game Coordinator Cole Popovich at Troy University before transferring to Texas A&M and then finishing his collegiate career at Tulane.

The Texans released former New England Patriots offensive guard Sidy Sow on Monday.

At Tulane, he was a first-team all-conference selection.

His father, Derrick Graham Sr., played nine seasons in the NFL for the Raiders, Seattle Seahawks and Kansas City Chiefs.

A true freshman starter at Troy as a right tackle, Graham allowed just two sacks in 432 pass blocking situations for the fourth-fewest nationally by a freshman. He graded out a 74.3 percent as a pass blocker, per Pro Football Focus.

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

While Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia has already been massively successful in supplying high-end chips for data centers riding the worldwide AI demand boom, it is plotting different plans to expand its presence across AI systems and products.

Jensen Huang, the Taiwanese American founder and CEO of Nvidia, made the announcement in Taipei at the annual Nvidia GTC event. Microsoft and Nvidia “are going to reinvent the PC (personal computer),” he said in his keynote speech.

“This is going to be the new PC,” Huang said as he unveiled Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchip — which combines CPU, or central processing unit, and GPU, or graphics processing unit, capabilities — that would power new Windows laptop and desktop computer models in what the company called “AI personal computers,” expected to debut in the fall of this year.

Nvidia is already the world’s most valuable company, ahead of Apple, Google’s parent Alphabet and Microsoft. Its new superchips for PCs will challenge chipmaking rivals including Intel and AMD. Nvidia's shares were up nearly 4% in early U.S. trading, while Intel and AMD both fell more than 3%.

The company said it will be “reinventing the personal computer” for creating and gaming. “When it has an autonomous (AI) agent, an agent that’s helping you, that understands you, you could talk to it. It could look at you. You could ask it to read files, go help you do some research. It could do a lot more,” Huang said.

Microsoft said in a separate statement that the personal computers running on Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchips would be able to support “highly capable AI models” and complex workloads. With the new superchips, these personal computers can run AI agents locally, Nvidia said.

“This is the first across the lineup of PC reinvention for 40 years,” said Huang.

Nvidia’s move is significant at a time when demand is growing for the use of personal AI agents, said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at the technology research and advisory group Omdia.

“For consumers, it means more choices, which is always a good thing,” Su said.

Neil Shah, analyst and co-founder of Counterpoint Research, described Nvidia’s announcement as a move that’s “revolutionizing how PCs would look like in the next 10 years.”

The new laptops and desktop computers “will drive agentic AI applications in every home,” Shah said, with an aim of having an “AI supercomputer” in each household.

Also during Monday’s speech, Nvidia’s Huang said its new Vera CPUs for data centers are in full production and are “going to be our new major growth driver” on the boom of AI agents, with early customers including Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceXAI.

Huang also revealed a humanoid robot reference design that could act as a blueprint for future research, especially within the higher education sector. Nvidia said its “Isaac GR00T” stands nearly six feet tall and has the humanoid chassis of Chinese robot maker Unitree’s H2. It is equipped with five-fingered dexterous hands, made by Singapore-based robotics startup Sharpa, that are capable of finely controlled movements.

___

Chan reported from Hong Kong.

Second-place finisher, progressive Sen. Iván Cepeda, and his ally, President Gustavo Petro, have questioned the election results, without providing evidence.

Cepeda on Monday called on de la Espriella to debate him ahead of their June 21 runoff. De la Espriella replied on X: “Are you ready, coward? … First, acknowledge the election results and let’s debate right now.”

De la Espriella rapidly gained traction ahead of Sunday’s election and won nearly 44% of the vote. Cepeda, who had consistently led polling, won less than 41%.

In the runoff, De la Espriella is expected to scoop up additional votes from Colombians who supported other conservative candidates in the first round.

Cepeda will face an uphill battle, said Sergio Guzmán, a political analyst. De la Espriella's win is "a shift in public opinion that is very difficult to overcome. So now Abelardo is emerging as the likely favorite to win.”

Markets in Colombia and the Colombian peso jumped on Monday, likely a product of de la Espriella’s proposal to roll back regulations on businesses and willingness to open the country to fracking — a sharp turn from Petro’s environmental agenda.

Miroslav Jenca, head of the United Nations verification mission in Colombia, said Monday that his team observed firsthand the commitment of Colombian security and electoral authorities to ensure an orderly vote.

“I call for a peaceful election campaign, without resorting to any violence,” Jenca said. “I encourage all parties to address their differences through institutional mechanisms.”

A political shift in the Americas continues

The 47-year-old De la Espriella, known as “El Tigre” or “The Tiger,” has never held office in Colombia and prided himself on living a luxurious life in Italy before deciding to run for president.

He pitched himself as an outsider who would cozy up to U.S. President Donald Trump and follow El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's war on gangs, which has driven down homicide rates but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.

“I will wipe out narcoterrorism and those who I've declared a military target like cockroaches, like rats. I will unleash upon them the wrath of God never seen before,” de la Espriella said in an interview with The Associated Press in the final stretch of the campaign, where he promised to open 10 mega-prisons to fight crime.

He joins a growing number of leaders across Latin America, from Chile to Honduras, seeking to latch onto the “Bukele model” as voters across Latin America are ditching leaders who pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption.

De la Espriella's supporters come from a wide range of backgrounds. Yolanda Peréz, a 64-year-old woman serving coffee in Colombia's capital, Bogotá, said with a wink the day before the election: “I'm thinking of voting for El Tigre.”

Miguel Maheca, a 20-year-old first-time voter, flashed his ballot to his mother as he strolled out of the polling station on Sunday, saying with a grin, “Love isn't what's going to make us safe in Colombia."

But experts say El Salvador's security successes will be nearly impossible to replicate in a country like Colombia, which is more than 50 times larger than the Central American nation and has many more armed groups fighting for territory.

The Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, putting mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador to crack down on crime.

De la Espriella made a name for himself as a lawyer defending high-profile clients such as former President Álvaro Uribe as well as controversial figures like Alex Saab, a close ally of Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolás Maduro who faces legal issues in the U.S.

Cepeda had vowed to carry on peace efforts

The progressive Cepeda has promised to carry on his ally Petro's fraught plan to achieve “total peace” by negotiating peace pacts with guerrillas and criminal gangs.

Their political movement was born from a rejection by many Colombians of a militarized offensive by Uribe in decades past to beat back guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Thousands of civilians were killed by Colombian forces in a scandal known as “false positives.”

De la Espriella “represents a return to the paramilitary politics and drug-trafficking — a mafia-run, plutocratic and corrupt past that the country experienced during Álvaro Uribe’s two administrations,” Cepeda said on Sunday.

Petro, a former rebel, won Colombia's presidency in 2022, ending decades of domination by leaders from Uribe's political movement. He gained massive support from rural-dwelling, Indigenous and poorer Colombians who felt they had never been directly spoken to by the country's leaders.

Now that movement is backed into a corner.

“This is de la Espriella’s election to lose,” wrote Renata Segura, director of International Crisis Group's Latin America and the Caribbean Program. “Cepeda thought he could win appealing squarely to the left, and that proved to be a massive mistake. How he pivots in the next month will determine if he has any chance to win.”

___

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

Social media platforms with at least 8 million users in Malaysia, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, must implement age-verification systems and block users under 16 from creating accounts.

Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission said age verification for existing users will be rolled out over the next six months. Users identified as under 16 will have a month to download or transfer data, including photos and videos, before restrictions or other actions are applied.

Companies that fail to comply could face penalties of up to 10 million ringgit ($2.5 million). Parents whose children manage to bypass the law will not be penalized.

The government said the measures are aimed at protecting children from harmful content, cyberbullying and platform features designed to encourage excessive use.

Countries including Australia,Brazil and Indonesia have introduced or announced age-based restrictions or requirements for children’s access to social media. Others including Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand and South Korea are studying or developing similar approaches.

Malaysia's regulator said the rules are not intended to prevent children from accessing digital technology. Platforms are required to improve user safety, discourage excessive use and take action against underage accounts and harmful content.

Technology companies have yet to describe how they will comply.

Clara Koh, Meta’s director of public policy for Southeast Asia, has cautioned that Malaysia's under-16 ban could backfire by driving teenagers away from protected apps and into unregulated corners of the internet.

Governments around the world face pressure to address concerns about social media’s impact on children’s mental health and online safety. In March, a U.S. jury ordered Meta and YouTube to pay millions of dollars in damages in a case alleging that platform design features contributed to harm suffered by a young user.

Malaysian families have varying views

In Kuala Lumpur, Saravanan Ganasan and Jayaradha Veerasamy, whose children are 12 and 15, said they approve of the changes. They already had banned their kids from using social media, believing minors lack the psychological capacity to cope with it.

Devices are kept out of bedrooms, screen time is limited to common areas and their son is not allowed to lock his phone with a password.

“Exposure is what we fear,” Saravanan said. “The wrong kind of exposure will do damage to the mind.”

Aadhavan Saravanan, 15, said he believes he would be addicted to social media if allowed full freedom. “Social media is, like, a luxury and it’s not a necessity,” he said.

The couple said the restrictions have forced their children to develop offline life skills. Aadhavan reads books in a backyard mango tree and repairs broken household appliances, while their daughter cooks and does crafts.

“A lot of parents are very scared that children get bored,” Jayaradha said. “But boredom is actually very good because they start thinking out of the box.”

But Shaun Hew, in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Cheras, said the new restrictions go too far.

Hew believes social media allow his kids to spend time productively, as long as there is proper adult oversight. His 11-year-old son uses platforms to learn cooking and his daughter, 14, uses YouTube for exam preparation.

He worries a sudden cutoff could cause teenagers to rebel and find unregulated ways to bypass internet blocks.

Some express concerns over privacy and safety

Some critics said Malaysia’s decision could increase the risks of data privacy breaches and expand state surveillance.

“It is very much following the trend, but in a way that is raising alarms due to requiring a government ID for age verification,” said Benjamin Loh, social science lecturer at Monash University in Malaysia. He said social media companies could end up storing sensitive personal data without sufficient safeguards.

Loh said the decision also could unintentionally affect stateless individuals, undocumented residents and members of marginalized communities including LGBTQ+ people who rely on anonymity online for safety.

Without penalties on parents, families can easily bypass the law by creating accounts for their children, he added.

“This is a major gap that, unless regulators are willing to fix, will result in the law having little effect in stopping children from using social media,” he said.

The potential retreat is a nod to the legal setbacks the fund has encountered since it was announced two weeks ago and a recognition of the mounting political backlash from Republicans concerned by a lack of oversight of the money disbursement and the possibility of payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The Trump administration had defended the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” established to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, as an appropriate corrective measure for what officials insist was weaponized law enforcement during the Biden administration.

But while some Trump supporters — including participants in the Capitol riot — celebrated the announcement of the fund, the reaction among Republicans in Congress has been decidedly more hostile. The outrage came to a head last month at a closed-door meeting between senators and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas described on a recent episode of his podcast as “one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.”

The furor has especially complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies after Democrats said they would offer amendments to scrap or scale back the judgement fund.

Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the fund. Many have pushed the administration to impose limits or cancel the idea altogether.

Amid the backlash, a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking, said Monday that Trump was reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund. The Justice Department separately said Monday that it would comply with a judge's order from Friday that temporarily halted implementation of the fund pending additional arguments later in the month.

But Republicans said they were still seeking a more explicit commitment that the fund would be pulled back.

“They need to say what they actually mean,” said Republican Sen. Jim Lankford. "They need to say, 'We’re setting this whole thing aside.'”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday that he hoped the White House would move to drop the fund. He said he wasn’t sure if the immigration spending bill would move this week.

“I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” Thune told reporters.

He said any additional statements from the administration would be helpful, but: “I think the statement they made effectively shuts it down. We’ll find out.”

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that if the settlement is “completely pulled, then I’m satisfied. But I haven’t heard anybody say that.”

It was not immediately clear whether the retreat being signaled on the fund Monday indicated that the administration would also backtrack on another element of the IRS settlement — a commitment by the government to abandon any probes of Trump, his family and other associates over whether they’ve paid their fair share of taxes.

The fund was dealt a pair of legal blows on Friday, including an order by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema that temporarily barred it from being implemented. The judge scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend her order. The Justice Department statement did not say whether the government intended to continue to make legal arguments for the fund.

“This Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise,” the statement said. "The Department will abide by the Court’s ruling.

Separately, the federal judge in Florida overseeing Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS ordered Trump’s attorneys on Friday to respond to “grievous allegations” by settlement critics that the president abandoned his claims to avoid the court’s scrutiny of an illegal deal. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams gave them until June 12 to respond in writing to allegations of collusion and whether the case should be reopened because the court was the “victim of a fraud.”

_____

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

It happened just after midnight on Indian Warrior Trial after the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office said a deputy tried to pull over a driver near FM 2004 and This Way Street but the driver wouldn’t stop.

“He was my heart,” Mendoza’s father told KPRC 2 News. “He had such a bright future ahead of him.”

Mendoza had just finished his freshman year at Texas State University and had been home for about two weeks for summer break, according to family members.

• RELATED: Brazoria County deputy shoots, kills 18-year-old Texas State student after chase ends at Lake Jackson home

He comes from a family that has a law enforcement background, was a Lake Jackson-area high school football star, and didn’t have a history of trouble, according to the family attorney Charles Adams.

“It is my understanding that all three young men had raised their hands. There was no effort to flee. There is no further movement, but there also was no instruction heard by the young men, right? It’s just an immediate walk-up execution," Adams said. “It is my understanding that the deputy immediately stated that he messed up, possibly using some other language.”

Initial scanner traffic in Brazoria County indicated it was an “accidental discharge,” and the teen had been shot in the shoulder, “through the heart while seated in his car,” according to Adams.

According to BCSO, Mendoza fled from the deputy who attempted to pull him over. The department hasn’t said what specifically initiated the traffic stop, and it hasn’t provided the deputy’s identity.

When Mendoza arrived in his father’s garage, which is just a few minutes away from where BCSO says the traffic stop attempt started, Adams said the deputy shot him through a rolled-up driver-side window.

• Man dead from self-inflicted gunshot after barricade situation at Katy-area apartment; woman also found dead inside

Prior to the stop, Adams said Mendoza had been at a park with friends playing basketball and walking a track. His family said Mendoza had known the friends since kindergarten.

At the park, Adams said a deputy pulled up and started watching them.

“They felt like they were being stalked so they decided to leave. They got in his vehicle and began driving away. Shortly thereafter, the officer chirped his lights behind them. It’s my understanding Mr. Mendoza got scared and wanted to just get home to his father,” Adams said.

The Texas Rangers are now investigating for possible criminal charges, and a Texas DPS spokesperson said all findings will be presented to the Brazoria County District Attorney’s Office.

DA Tom Selleck didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday.

CLEAT, a state law enforcement union, had an attorney assisting the deputy on Monday, according to a post on X, but the association didn’t issue a statement about the incident.

“Right now, my only function here is to try to steward this for the family to ensure that there is accountability for what is a murder,” Adams, a former police officer, said. “Failing to yield and pull over for police is a crime. It is not a crime for which you can be murdered for. And I don’t use that lightly.”

The deputy has been placed on administrative leave, which is standard practice, according to BCSO.

“We want justice. We just want to know what happened. No kid is perfect, but nobody deserves this,” Mendoza’s great aunt Glenda said. “He’s a good kid, he was raised well in a good neighborhood. He was surrounded by love and a lot of advice, and we can’t comprehend why this happened.”

The explosion occurred at midday Sunday in Kaungtup village, Namhkam township in Shan state near the Chinese border.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the ethnic rebel group that controls the area, said in a statement Monday evening that the death toll from the blast has reached 43, including seven children. Previous estimates from rescue workers had ranged from 38 to 45. Determining the exact toll has been complicated because bodies were blown apart by the force of the explosion.

The group said 112 people, including 25 children, were injured, with 37 in critical condition, raising concerns that the number of fatalities could increase.

“Rescue operations and the compilation of casualty figures were still underway,” said the statement.

Many of Myanmar’s resource-rich areas, where most mining operations have been largely unregulated, are controlled by different armed militias engaged in sporadic fighting against the central government to seek greater autonomy. Accidents, such as deadly landslides, are fairly common.

TNLA said Sunday's blast involved gelignite used in local mining and stone quarrying. Although gelignite is commonly used, it becomes highly unstable over time when improperly stored.

Residents of the 200-household village reported that they were never told explosives were being kept there.

An investigation into the specific cause of the explosion is underway, the TNLA said.

The incident has cast a spotlight on Myanmar’s lucrative but largely unregulated mineral industry and Chinese investment in the country's extractive industries.

Two local residents told The Associated Press on Monday that mines producing raw materials for silicon metal — a key industrial substance used in semiconductors, solar panels, and aluminum alloys — are located in mountainous areas about 15 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Namhkam town.

The residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their safety, said the mines are operated jointly by the TNLA and Chinese businessmen and are inaccessible to most residents. The claim couldn’t be independently verified by the AP.

Myanmar’s mining industry is a major global provider of rare earth elements, copper, tin, and precious gems, especially jade and rubies, and is the main supplier to China, where the extracted materials are processed and refined.

China maintains a complex role as a top ally to Myanmar’s military-backed government while also fostering relations with the ethnic minority groups.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian in Beijing expressed deep condolences and confirmed that a Chinese national injured in the blast is receiving medical treatment. Beijing has pledged assistance in handling the aftermath.

The TNLA, part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, seized control of the Namhkam area in late 2023 during a major offensive against the military government. This conflict is part of the broader turmoil following the February 2021 military coup, which ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggered widespread armed resistance.

While the TNLA signed a China-mediated ceasefire with the military in late 2023, peace in the region is shaky and extraction of minerals and gemstones provides critical income for both the central government and the rebel groups fighting against it.

___

Associated Press writers Anton Delgado in Bangkok and E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing contributed to this report.

Search crews found Joshua’s body two days after he was swept away while swimming with his family and youth football team during Memorial Day weekend. Since then, an online petition calling for lifeguards at Surfside Beach has gathered more than 435 signatures.

For residents like Jerry Bass, the solution seems straightforward.

“I think it’s a great idea. It’ll create jobs and hopefully save people,” Bass said of the lifeguard petition.

But city leaders say the biggest obstacle is money — and funding a full lifeguard program would be no small feat.

• Body of missing 11-year-old boy swept under by wave at Surfside Beach discovered by fisherman

“Anything that people want to talk about, I’m willing to put on the agenda, and finding a funding mechanism and getting approval for something like that requires consensus. It may be really hard for us to come up with funding for a full-fledged lifeguard program, but we are working on several things,” said Jonathan Gerber, Alderman at large for Surfside Beach.

One of those things is a new agreement with TEXSAR or Texas Search and Rescue.

“For this month’s agenda, I’m asking we discuss and take action on an agreement with TEXSAR, a first responder organization composed of professionally trained volunteers, as a force multiplier for event support. This would be at no cost. It would be through an interlocal agreement — they would be activated by first responders on the scene,” Gerber said.

The city also approved funding in April for a new messaging tool designed to help Surfside coordinate faster with Texas Aqua Search and Rescue.

• Recovery efforts underway at Surfside Beach after 11-year-old boy from Richmond swept under water by wave Sunday evening

Jeff Denicola, director of Texas Aqua Search, explained how the program works.

“Texas Aqua Search is a program that we launched here in Surfside Beach, and it is designed to align police, fire and EMS with the local surfers that have equipment. They’re super knowledgeable about all the conditions, the rip currents and the tides and dangers that are presented to swimmers here,” DeNicola said.

The goal is simple — get the right people in the water as fast as possible, especially as summer brings more visitors to the beach.

Surfside Beach Police Chief Philip Hester is also launching a new community safety initiative called “Community Floats Together.” Donated life jackets will be placed at beach entrances for anyone to use for free. When finished, beachgoers simply return the life jacket to the same spot for the next person.

The program has not yet launched but is coming soon.

For the Surfside Beach community, the memory of last week’s search is still fresh — and the push to make sure it doesn’t happen again is only getting louder.

Marner was nearing the end of his contract with Toronto, and all signs pointed to him not re-signing. Carolina had just acquired fellow pending free agent Mikko Rantanen from Colorado in a three-way trade in late January, and after several weeks it was also clear that would not be a long-term relationship.

The Maple Leafs and Hurricanes discussed the possibility of a Marner-for-Rantanen swap. Marner held the keys with his full no-movement clause, and he preferred staying put and seeing out one more run with the team that drafted him, then went on to choose Vegas, going to the Golden Knights in a sign and trade in late June before hitting the open market.

Marner's decision caused a domino effect that led Vegas and Carolina to this stage, where they'll now meet in the Stanley Cup Final beginning Tuesday night. The Hurricanes pivoted to sending Rantanen to Dallas for Logan Stankoven — one of their best players during this run — along with a pick they then used to trade for K'Andre Miller last summer, in the process saving the salary cap space needed to sign top free agent Nikolaj Ehlers.

The Golden Knights got Marner, who leads all scorers in the playoffs and left no doubt why the Hurricanes were interested. Asked what the team liked, general manager Eric Tulsky declined comment because Marner is under contract with another team.

"I can answer that one," coach Rod Brind'Amour said. “What don’t you like about him?”

‘What if?’ is not on Marner's mind

When speculation was building last spring about Marner potentially being involved in a trade for Rantanen, it wasn't just a question of hockey. Marner's wife, Stephanie, was pregnant with the couple's first child. Marner is from the Toronto area.

The Leafs reached the second round before blowing a 2-0 series lead to defending and eventual back-to-back champion Florida. The Hurricanes lost in five games to the Panthers in the East final, still missing something.

This season, Marner was a point-a-game player. He has seven goals and 14 assists for a playoff-high 21 points.

“Mitch is playing with tremendous confidence,” GM Kelly McCrimmon said. “I think he’s really savoring the moment.”

Marner credited the coaching staff for putting him in positions to succeed and teammates for finishing scoring chances. Wearing a Vegas hoodie on Cup final media day, he insists he's not thinking about the alternate reality of playing for Carolina instead.

“No, I’m not a guy that lives in the past,” Marner said. “I’m in the present. I’m here in the moment.”

The Hurricanes pivoted perfectly

Tulsky was referring to Rantanen when he said of taking chances, “Sometimes it doesn’t go the way you hoped, and you’ve got to be ready to figure out how you’re going to move forward from there.” Trading Martin Necas to the Avalanche for Rantanen did not work out, though getting veteran winger Taylor Hall from Chicago in the same deal certainly has.

The pursuit of Marner fits in the same category, but plan B worked out swimmingly. Stankoven has been a difference-maker for Carolina centering the second line of Hall and Jackson Blake and is showing why he was the centerpiece of the return from the Stars for Rantanen.

Had Marner wanted to go to Carolina, Stankoven could still be with Dallas. Instead, he had to grapple with the strange feeling of getting traded.

“I didn’t see it coming,” Stankoven said. “Everything kind of happens for a reason. Obviously, Dallas got their player, and I just want to become the best version of myself here in Carolina. Just how welcoming everyone has been here, the fans, my teammates, I absolutely love the city and couldn’t be happier that I was able to sign long term here.”

The same day Stankoven signed an eight-year, $48 million contract, Tulsky used one of the first-round picks from the Rantanen trade to acquire Miller from the New York Rangers and sign him long term. By the end of the week, Ehlers chose Carolina among several intriguing suitors.

Miller has thrived with the change of scenery, and Ehlers has, along with Stankoven, given the Hurricanes the offensive finish they lacked in several playoff runs that ended before the final.

“(Ehlers) adds things to it that aren’t what we would ask a lot of players to do,” Tulsky said. “Having that kind of ability on the team — someone who could just create scoring chances out of thin air — it always makes you more dangerous.”

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Trump announced the development in a social media post following a call with Netanyahu. Israeli forces recently made their deepest incursion into Lebanon in more than a quarter century. Trump said there would be no Israeli troops “going to Beirut” and that those on their way "have already been turned back.”

He said Hezbollah had "agreed that all shooting will stop — That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”

Netanyahu confirmed the conversation but cast it less as restraint and more as a warning, saying he told Trump that Israel would strike targets in Beirut, Lebanon's capital, if Hezbollah’s attacks do not stop. The Israeli military will continue “to operate as planned” in southern Lebanon, Netanyahu added.

There was no immediate word from Hezbollah.

The two sides have been under a ceasefire since mid-April, but Hezbollah resumed attacks after Israeli strikes in Lebanon that Israel characterized as self-defense. The fighting also presents a major obstacle in the emerging deal to extend the ceasefire in the Iran war. Tehran wants any agreement to include Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities secured Hezbollah’s approval of a proposal by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Israel would not strike Beirut's southern suburbs, and Hezbollah would not attack northern Israel, according to a statement issued by the Lebanese Embassy to the U.S.

Moments after Trump’s message, Israel detected missile launches from Lebanon and warned Israelis in part of northern Israel to take cover.

Talks between Israel and Lebanon are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, where Lebanese negotiators hope to widen the scope of areas that will not be attacked in the country as they seek a complete ceasefire.

Israel orders strikes on Beirut suburbs

Trump's comments emerged after Israel’s government ordered strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut and as Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel, including the outskirts of the coastal city of Haifa.

A joint statement by Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the orders followed what they called repeated violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah and “attacks against our cities and citizens.”

The Israeli military's Arabic spokesman later posted on X that residents should leave the suburbs, adding that if Hezbollah continues attacking Israeli communities, Israel will launch attacks on the Beirut area of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah enjoys wide support.

After Monday's warning, large numbers of people were seen fleeing Dahiyeh, jamming roads leading out of the area.

Mohammed Farhat, 23, fled with his brother and parents from Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik and was heading with his mother on a motorcycle to stay with relatives in another neighborhood.

“We are worried. I am used to it but left for my parents,” the university student said.

Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire overnight

Israeli airstrikes overnight on southern Lebanon left six people dead, including a Syrian citizen in a village near the city of Nabatiyeh, the state-run National News Agency said. Israel struck other towns and villages near the major city, close to the strategic Beaufort Castle and other towns the Israeli military captured in recent days.

An airstrike Monday afternoon in the port city of Tyre caused heavy damage to the Jabal Amel Hospital, the Health Ministry said. A video released by the ministry showed shaken women and children inside the hospital, where windows were blown out.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, said its air force had intercepted two projectiles launched from Lebanon toward Israeli territory, as well as a suspicious aerial target in the area where Israeli soldiers operate in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported, the military said.

Hezbollah said early Monday that it attacked Israeli troops in Zawtar al-Sharqieh, just north of the Litani River, and struck what they said was Israeli military infrastructure in Tiberius, a few dozen miles south of the border.

Israel and Lebanon set to hold talks in Washington

The latest attacks happened just before the next round of direct Israel-Lebanon talks in the U.S. capital. Hezbollah has rejected direct talks, counting on pressure from Iran, which has demanded an end to the war in Lebanon in its talks with the United States.

The Israel-Lebanon talks that began in April in Washington were the first in more than three decades between the countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations.

Beirut is still committed to holding talks to end the conflict despite the boiling tensions, said a Lebanese diplomatic official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asserted Monday that any ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran is a “ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon."

“Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts," Iran's top diplomat said in a post on X.

The Lebanese capital has been mostly spared since the ceasefire

Beirut has been mostly spared from airstrikes since the ceasefire went into effect, apart from two targeted attacks on the city's southern suburbs in May.

Saudi Arabia condemned Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, saying it “categorically rejects” Israel’s movement into the small Mediterranean nation. The Saudi Foreign Ministry called on the international community to prevent Israel from going deeper into Lebanon.

Lebanese parliament chief Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, said in a statement Sunday that he could guarantee the militant group’s “full, comprehensive and immediate commitment to a ceasefire.” Berri added: “But who will force Israel to stop its aggression?”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Monday that his government continues work to end “the suffering of the Lebanese in general and the southerners in particular.” Later, he issued a statement reiterating Beirut's commitment to negotiations, saying they are “safer” than war."

At the United Nations, Assistant Secretary-General Martha Pobee told an emergency meeting of the Security Council that Israel’s push into Lebanon violates Lebanon’s territorial integrity and the 2006 council resolution requiring Israel to withdraw to south of the U.N.-drawn border with Lebanon.

She also accused Hezbollah of violating the resolution that requires the militant group to disarm.

U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz said a deescalation and peace will come quickly “if Hezbollah immediately ceases its attacks, as apparently it’s promised, and the government of Lebanon asserts its fully sovereignty, rebuilds, and brings its people home.”

Lebanon's U.N. Ambassador Ahmad Arafa commended the Trump administration for “constructive efforts aimed at giving diplomacy a chance” and Trump's latest push.

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,433 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people.

Israel’s military said a soldier was killed in southern Lebanon overnight in a drone attack by Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fiber-optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 26 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

___

Mroue and Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

The incident happened just after midnight near FM 2004 and This Way Street.

According to the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office, a deputy attempted to initiate a traffic stop on a vehicle around 12:09 a.m. on Monday, June 1.

Investigators say the driver, who has been identified as 18-year-old John Gabriel Mendoza Jr., a sophomore at Texas State University, failed to stop and led deputies on a pursuit.

Authorities said the chase ended when Mendoza Jr. pulled into an attached garage of a home in the 100 block of Indian Warrior Trail in Lake Jackson.

Officials have not released many details about what happened next, but investigators say the deputy encountered Mendoza and discharged his firearm, hitting him.

Mendoza was transported to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

Detectives remained at the scene for hours on Monday morning, collecting evidence as the investigation continued.

The Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office has requested assistance from the Texas Rangers, who will lead the investigation alongside the Brazoria County District Attorney’s Office.

In accordance with department policy, the deputy involved has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

KPRC 2 spoke with Mendoza’s family, who said he had been playing football since he was 5 years old. The family says they are heartbroken.

In September, Texas halted commercial drivers licenses for many immigrants, including refugees, people with asylum and DACA recipients. The change on Monday will allow those with H-2A visas, designed for temporary agriculture workers, to again hold valid CDLs in Texas. Those eligible who have current CDLs may continue to use them until their expiration date, and those with expired licenses can file to renew them, according to a DPS press release.

DPS indicated the shift was made in line with a new federal guideline from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration published in mid-March, which permits H-2A workers to hold CDLs alongside H-2B and E-2 visa holders, which are temporary non-agricultural workers and treaty investors, respectively. 

Under the new federal guidelines, Texas has only been approved to grant H-2A visa holders commercial drivers licenses for now, the DPS release said. Eligibility for H-2B and E-2 visa holders in Texas “will be announced at a later date,” according to the release.

The limitation to the three types of visas was implemented to prevent “dangerous foreign drivers” from being given licenses, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a February statement, claiming that bad actors had previously been abusing access to commercial drivers licenses.  

The reinstatement came hours after DPS announced it would offer CDL license and permit knowledge tests only in English, removing the Spanish option previously offered, according to a DPS press release announcing the change. 

The hands-on CDL skills test, which includes the driving and controls test, has always been conducted exclusively in English. Interpreters were previously barred from the skills portion of the test, and applicants were required to “be able to understand and respond to verbal commands and instructions in English by a skills test examiner,” according to a previous version of DPS’ website prior to Monday’s change.

Gov. Greg Abbott directed DPS in September to “strictly enforce” the federal government’s new English requirements and ordered the agency to conduct English Language Proficiency reviews for all commercial license operators. The changes are also designed to align Texas’ testing requirements with the FMCSA like the changes to CDl eligibility, the release said. The federal agency had its guidance on English language tests altered in May 2025 by Duffy. 

“The issue is simple: We’re not putting up signs in any other language than English. We’re requiring drivers speak and read English as a bare minimum requirement,” Duffy said in an op-ed in Breitbart previewing the 2025 changes.

In late April, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced investigations into five trucking schools for allegedly disregarding English language requirements when administering CDL tests.

Texas’ Department of Motor Vehicles also introduced photo identification requirements for vehicle registrations and renewals in November aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from legally owning vehicles. Auto industry representatives and some county officials pushed back against the changes, citing safety and economic concerns for those affected.

Major League Baseball proposed a salary cap last week and appears set to start a lockout after the current labor contract expires Dec. 1.

“Our union has never been broken and never will be,” interim executive director Bruce Meyer said Monday during an online news question-and-answer session with reporters. “Our players have what they have, including being the only sport that doesn’t have this ultimate restriction, the salary cap, because our players have always been the most unified and that’s going to continue.”

Baseball has had nine work stoppages since 1972, the last a 99-day lockout that slightly delayed the 2022 season. Regular-season games have not been lost since a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95, the last time MLB proposed a cap.

The NFL has had a cap since 1994, the NBA since 1984-85 and the NHL since 2005-06.

“The unions in the other sports didn’t agree to salary-cap systems because they thought it was a good thing for players. That’s not what happened,” Meyer said. “In one way or the other, they were not able to fight the way that our union has and, not criticizing anybody, it’s just a fact. Our union has always been the most solid, and that’s why our union has the best system.”

Negotiators have not scheduled the next bargaining session. The union last week proposed expanded free agency and salary arbitration rights along with almost doubling the major league minimum and increasing revenue sharing.

MLB’s proposal last Thursday would cap team spending in 2027 at $245.3 million, using figures for luxury tax payrolls that include $20.1 million for benefits and the pre-arbitration bonus pool. It also would establish a payroll floor of $171.2 million, forcing some teams to spend more. The Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball’s biggest spenders, had a $415.2 million payroll on opening day this year — around $170 million over the proposed cap.

“Our salary cap and floor proposal addresses our fans’ concerns by leveling the playing field while sharing baseball revenue with the players 50/50 like the other leagues," MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. “Under our proposal, major league players will receive more compensation in year one of the system than in 2026.”

Los Angeles shattered MLB’s spending record with a combined $515 million in payroll and luxury tax last year en route to its second straight World Series title. Los Angeles’ total was seven times the $68.7 million payroll of Miami, the lowest-spending team, and more than the payrolls of the bottom six clubs combined.

Meyer likened a cap to “Big Brother” telling a team it can't sign a player it wants to.

"At a time of exploding popularity, growth and interest, the owners’ goal is more money in the pockets of owners," he said. “Don’t blame them for that, but that’s what it is. Whether it’s more in profits because they’re holding down labor costs or growing their franchise values.”

Meyer dismissed MLB's contention that payroll disparity causes fans of lower-spending teams to lose hope. No small-market team has won the World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals.

“We do not accept the premise that there’s some existential crisis going on,” he said. “People are still lining up to buy these teams, to get in whether as a minority investor or otherwise, and that’s because the sport is extremely healthy.”

He pointed out lower-payroll teams do reach the 12-team playoffs and Cincinnati got in last year while the New York Mets did not. Six postseason teams had payrolls above $200 million last year, and MLB emphasizes high-spending teams usually dominate the later rounds.

“We don’t want money to be taken away from teams that want to spend it and give it to teams that don’t want to spend it,” Meyer said. “We want to encourage more San Diegos. San Diego is a small-market team that went out, decided to compete, signed a lot of players, turned around their franchise.”

MLB's proposal calls for a 50-50 split with players of defined revenue, including for player spending on signing bonuses for players from high school and college, and international amateurs agreeing to initial contracts.

“It's not even a real 50%. It’s taking billions of dollars off the top before they’re proposing to even share any of that,” Meyer said. "Players' share under their proposal would go down. Players' share for this season, 2026, is projected to be well over 50%. ... Had MLB’s proposal been in place in 2026, players would, we estimate — would lose over half a billion dollars.”

He faulted MLB for how it defined revenue and spending.

“Their proposal of course excludes things like expansion fees, franchise values, the place where they make their most money,” he said. "Their proposal deducts billions of dollars in expenses ... so it’s not even a real 50%.”

“They’ve effectively managed to cobble together the worst system for players in any of the major sports, and not even close,” Meyer added.

Player contracts this year, using average annual values and including benefits and the pre-arbitration bonus pool, total $6.14 billion, according to MLB's opening-day figures. Slot values for signing bonuses in this year's amateur draft come to about $359 million and international signing bonus pools to $208 million.

Under MLB's proposal, there would be an escrow system in which players would have money withheld in the event their share of revenue rises above the specified amount. They would get more money if their share falls short.

“If revenues are soft or they go down, then that means players at the end of the day won’t get the guaranteed money,” he said.

Meyer also said some teams heighten disparity by not spending on players.

“Every team now has the ability to put a competitive team on the field, every single team,” he said. “One of the things that I find kind of ironic in a perverse way, if team X decides we’re not going to spend money on players, well that increases the disparity in payroll.”

___

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

The majority opinion by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit upholds a March 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C. Reyes concluded that President Donald Trump’s executive order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.

Meanwhile, the energy price spike triggered by the Iran war has seeped into the price of bonds that help fund the U.S. government, causing interest rates to climb in ways that are worsening affordability pressures, hampering economic growth and creating a new risk for Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

Also, the United States said Monday that it bombed radar and drone sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American drone over the weekend. Iran then said it launched a strike of its own, and Kuwait reported incoming fire.

The nominal ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. has been repeatedly tested with such back-and-forth attacks, even as officials from both countries try to negotiate an end to the war.

Here's the latest:

Asked if Vance would be a great president, second lady says he’d be great at anything

The second lady told ABC News of her husband: “I think he would make a great anything he’d like to be.”

She said she’d been asked a couple of times about misconceptions of the vice president, and said, “I think people don’t understand what a fundamentally gentle person he is.”

Second lady won’t say if she wants vice president to seek the White House in 2028

Asked during an interview with ABC News if she’d like to see Vice President JD Vance run for president, second lady Usha Vance offered a careful dodge.

“I’m not a particularly ambitious person,” she said, after a pause. “I would like to see him happy.”

The second lady added of her husband, “I would like to see him making contributions that matter. And whatever form that takes is a form that I’ll be supportive of.”

Trump reconsidering pursuing $1.8B fund meant to compensate his allies

That’s according to a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking.

The potential retreat is a recognition of the legal setbacks the fund has encountered since it was announced two weeks ago, as well as a mounting political backlash from Republicans concerned by a perceived lack of oversight of the money disbursement and the potential for payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The Justice Department has said it would temporarily pause its implementation to comply with a court order.

___

— By Seung Min Kim

Trump administration shares more information about new Medicaid work rules

The Trump administration on Monday provided more details for how Americans on Medicaid will be able to claim exemptions from new work mandates.

A new rule reveals that starting in 2028, if health or government data doesn’t prove exemptions, some Medicaid enrollees will need to prove they are eligible with documentation.

The rule also puts forth a stricter-than-expected definition for who can qualify for exemptions based on being “medically frail.” To meet that qualification, a person’s health condition must significantly impair their ability to comply with the work requirements, according to the text of the rule.

The work requirements were part of a 2025 law. Starting in 2027, they’ll require some working-age Medicaid participants to work or do community service at least 80 hours a month, or be enrolled in school at least half the time.

States have warned implementing the changes will be expensive and time consuming. Advocates say they’ll cause millions to lose their health insurance.

Monday’s rule will be open to public comment before it is finalized.

Trump to head to Wisconsin on Friday

The White House says the president will head to Chippewa County, located in the northwest part of the state.

The trip will highlight the administration’s efforts to benefit farmers, particularly on taxes and trade.

“Wisconsin families put their faith in President Trump in 2024, and he has spent every single day since taking office fighting and delivering for them,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said.

The visit is part of a series of trips that are intended for Trump to promote his economic agenda and achievements.

Trump administration says it will comply with court order that temporarily paused $1.8 billion compensation fund

The Trump administration said Monday it will comply with a court ruling temporarily blocking a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate allies of the president, effectively agreeing to pause the plan for at least two weeks after setbacks in the courts and a fierce backlash from Republicans who objected to potential payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The announcement from the Justice Department comes in response to a Friday court ruling by a federal judge in Virginia who ordered plans for the fund halted pending additional arguments later this month. The department said in a statement that it “disagrees strongly” with the ruling but would abide by it.

The Trump administration had defended the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” established to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, as an appropriate corrective measure to make up for what officials insist was a weaponized law enforcement during the Biden administration.

Thune says Trump dropping anti-weaponization fund is ‘best way to handle’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday he was hopeful the White House would move to drop the $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies.

“I do think the best way to handle it is if the administration decides to shut it down themselves,” Thune told reporters.

The fund had caused a standoff between the White House and the Senate after Republican senators defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies. The Senate returns today.

US to drastically slash the number of embassies in Africa that can process visas

The State Department plans to drastically slash the number of U.S. embassies and consulates in Africa that can process visas for foreigners seeking to come to the United States.

The almost 50 U.S. embassies and consulates that are processing visa applications will be reduced to 20 in the coming weeks, according to three U.S. officials and an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. There is not yet a set date for the change, but it is expected in June, according to the officials, who were not authorized to comment to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The move is part of the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on issuing both immigrant and non-immigrant visas as part of its broader aim to limit immigration to the U.S. and clamp down on those who travel on temporary visas but then overstay them. The administration also has scaled back personnel at embassies and consulates around the world.

▶ Read more

Trump says Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to dial back fighting

President Donald Trump said Monday that Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to dial back fighting after he held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and communicated with the Lebanon-militant group through mediators.

Trump announced the development in a social media post following his call with Netanyahu.

▶ Read more

Pentagon policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, appeals court panel rules

A Trump administration policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, a divided panel of federal appeal court judges ruled on Monday.

The majority opinion by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit upholds a March 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C. Reyes concluded that President Donald Trump’s executive order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.

The administration appealed after Reyes issued a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys for six transgender people who are active-duty service members and two others seeking to join the military. The appeal court’s majority decided that the injunction should be narrowed to the plaintiffs currently serving in the military but not those seeking to join.

▶ Read more

Colorado elections clerk released from prison after governor commutes sentence

Tina Peters, the former clerk convicted of participating in a scheme to chase election conspiracy theories promulgated by President Trump, was released from prison Monday after the president successfully pressured Colorado’s Democratic governor into commuting her sentence.

Peters’ release was confirmed by the Colorado Department of Corrections. The state agency said it would have no more information about the 70-year-old inmate. Her sentence was shortened by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis last month after Trump waged a lengthy pressure campaign against the governor and his state.

Colorado elections clerk set to be released from prison based on her sentence commutation

Former Colorado elections clerk and conspiracy theorist Tina Peters is scheduled to be released from prison Monday after serving less than a quarter of a nine-year sentence for her role in a scheme to copy her county’s election system.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted Peters’ sentence last month following pressure from President Trump.

The Colorado Department of Corrections would not confirm the time of Peters’ release, and a representative for her attorney said Peters would not speak to the media when she’s freed.

Peters was the first local election official to be charged with breaching security after the 2020 election. She snuck in an outside computer expert affiliated with My Pillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell — who himself denied that Trump lost the White House in 2020 — and the person copied the county’s Dominion Voting Systems computer server as it was updated in 2021.

▶ Read more

Crude oil prices rise after latest US-Iran fighting, and US stocks slip

Oil prices are rising following the latest fighting to threaten the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, but Wall Street isn’t very worried.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% early Monday, falling a bit below the record it set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 166 points, and the Nasdaq composite was little changed.

Brent crude climbed 4.7%, and Treasury yields moved higher in the bond market. Tech stocks held up better than the rest of the market.

Science Applications International Corp. soared after becoming the latest U.S. company to report bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

▶ Read more

Tensions linger between Republicans and White House over the ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

A standoff between the White House and the Senate remains unresolved after Republican senators defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Senate Republicans who are returning to Washington on Monday say they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the new $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies. But Trump has shown little interest in doing so, even after a judge temporarily halted any payouts.

It’s unclear how they’ll settle the dispute.

▶ Read more

Jerome Powell uses JFK award speech to warn against political pressure on Fed, courts and schools

Former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell used one of his first major public appearances since leaving office to defend independent institutions while accepting an award Sunday honoring his efforts to preserve the central bank’s independence.

Speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library overlooking Boston Harbor, Powell called universities, courts, Congress and the central bank “the foundation and the embodiment of our democracy” and argued that the Fed’s independence was a “priceless asset” that must be protected.

It was one of his most direct defenses of Fed independence, warning that a single administration’s decision to remove bank officials over policy differences would open the way for future elected officials to follow suit, ultimately undermining the credibility that the Fed has spent decades building.

Powell, who frequently clashed with Trump during his eight years as chair, stepped down as his term expired in May. He was succeeded by Kevin Warsh, whom Trump selected to lead the central bank.

▶ Read more

Trump vents about judge who blocked the Kennedy Center renovation and fumes over his legal setbacks

Trump on Saturday branded the federal judge who blocked his renovation of the Kennedy Center as “an anti Trump Hater” and predicted that the nation’s premier performing arts center, which he wanted to shutter for a two-year overhaul, will “soon be closed, probably never to open again.”

In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump fumed about the Friday decision from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who also ordered Trump’s name removed from the center. Clearly angered by his latest legal setback, he said it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” tying Cooper’s ruling to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of his sweeping tariffs.

His post aimed to make the case for the project even as he says he’s giving up on it. Hours after Cooper’s decision, Trump said he was backing away from the renovations and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress of what, until the Republican president’s second term, had been known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

▶ Read more

Trump set to headline ‘Great American State Fair’ for nation’s 250th anniversary after artists drop out

An upcoming celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, “The Great American State Fair,” recently had several musical guests back out partly over the event’s ties to President Trump. Now, Trump himself is slated to headline the festivities, the organizers said Saturday.

“I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance,” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social Saturday, adding that he was thinking of bringing “the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists.’”

The group organizing the June fair on Washington’s National Mall, Freedom 250, confirmed the billing in a statement, writing, “We are excited to announce that President Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wednesday, June 24.”

Freedom 250 is billed as nonpartisan, but was launched last year by Trump and is led by a former State Department appointee from Trump’s first term. Several artists, including Bret Michaels, the Commodores and Martina McBride dropped out last week.

▶ Read more

US bombs Iranian military sites and Kuwait is hit by drone and missile fire

The United States said Monday that it bombed radar and drone sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American drone over the weekend. Iran then said it launched a strike of its own, and Kuwait reported incoming fire.

The nominal ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. has been repeatedly tested with such back-and-forth attacks, even as officials from both countries try to negotiate an end to the war. It’s not clear how close they are to a deal — and there is always the risk that an attack could derail those talks.

In the meantime, Iran has maintained its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies and driving up the price of fuel around the world, with far-reaching consequences.

Fighting has also escalated between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, despite their nominal ceasefire. Israel has extended its occupation deep into Lebanon, and Hezbollah — which joined the war in support of its main backer, Iran — continues to launch drones into Israel.

▶ Read more

Trump is facing a new inflation warning from the bond market, adding to his midterm challenges

The world is getting more uptight about lending money to President Donald Trump’s government — causing interest rates to climb in ways that are worsening affordability pressures, hampering economic growth and creating a new risk for Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

The energy price spike triggered by the Iran war has seeped into the price of bonds that help fund the U.S. government. Interest rates on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note are topping 4.44%, up from 3.95% before the war started at the end of February. Average mortgage rates have climbed to their highest levels in nine months, while auto sales are slumping.

The challenge is global in scale, as interest rates have risen for multiple countries as the world has been adjusting to the prospect of higher inflation, mounting questions about the sustainability of government debt and a dramatic surge in investment in artificial intelligence.

▶ Read more

The five people will complete their monitoring at home after remaining symptom-free and meeting criteria for monitoring outside the quarantine unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

They are leaving Omaha about three weeks after they and the 13 other Americans arrived in Nebraska following a deadly outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship traveling in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Hantaviruses usually spread when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings, but the hantavirus that has caused the current outbreak, called the Andes virus, may be able to spread between people in rare cases.

A total of 13 confirmed or probable hantavirus cases, including three deaths, have been linked to the ship, according to the World Health Organization.

No Andes virus cases have been confirmed in the U.S., and the risk to the public remains low, health officials said.

None of the U.S. passengers has shown any symptoms, a spokesperson for Nebraska Medicine said Monday.

Symptoms of hantavirus have taken as long as 42 days to appear in previous outbreaks, but some medical experts say most people who develop symptoms do so within 21 days.

The doctors in Omaha monitoring the passengers had said previously that they would work with each person individually to determine if it was appropriate for them to go home to finish their recommended 42-day quarantine period.

Federal officials arranged travel for the five people going home, in coordination with state and local authorities. Officials said the travel was not to be on commercial flights, with appropriate biocontainment measures in place. State health departments will continue daily symptom monitoring, maintain 24/7 oversight and provide guidance.

Two of the people returning to their homes live outside New York City, said city Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin.

One of the remaining passengers, Jake Rosmarin, posted on his blog Sunday that he plans to stay at the Omaha unit for his final three weeks of quarantine because he would have immediate access to care if he gets sick and he doesn’t want to risk unnecessarily exposing anyone else.

Rosmarin, who posts daily updates about his experience, said he’s not judging anyone who decided to go home.

“For me personally, this experience has been incredibly traumatic," Rosmarin said. “I don’t think I’ve fully processed everything yet, and right now I don’t want to leave until I know there is no risk of me getting sick or putting my family, friends, or the general public at risk.”

Not everyone quarantined in Nebraska has been happy about it. About a week after the 18 arrived, U.S. health officials issued quarantine orders forcing two passengers who wanted to leave to stay there.

___

Stobbe reported from New York.

___

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.

Sources say Jason Gaines was arrested by Austin County deputies at HFD Station 90.

He was taken to the Austin County Jail and is charged with child grooming.

• Louisiana rapper Boosie Badazz charged in Harris County after allegedly hitting security guard with glass hookah

HFD says it is aware of Gaines arrest and says he has been suspended with pay pending the investigation.

Details on the accusations against Gaines are unclear at this time.

KPRC 2 is working to gather more information on what led up to Gaines arrest.

Platner, a Democrat, posted a video over the weekend taken by his wife, Amy Gertner, who reportedly told his campaign of the text messages last year. In the video, Gertner decried coverage of the issue as “gossip” and said “being married is hard.”

Sanders, a critical early backer of Platner, told The Associated Press on Monday that he still supports the oyster farmer and combat veteran, who hopes to unseat veteran Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

“People can't afford healthcare. Can't afford groceries. Can't afford to put gas in their cars. And I think it might be a good idea if we focused on the important issues facing the working families of Maine and this country,” Sanders said.

Pressed later by reporters on whether he still backed Platner, Sanders was unequivocal.

“Of course,” he said. “Why would I not?”

The independent senator added that he was scheduled to meet with Platner while he's in Washington this week and feels the nation should “focus on issues more important than the Platner marriage.”

During the Washington trip, which a campaign official said has been in the works for weeks, Platner is expected to meet with other senators and attend a fundraiser co-hosted by Ron Klain, the former chief of staff to President Joe Biden.

Democratic senators returned from a 10-day recess to a barrage of questions about Platner. Many who have previously backed him stood by their support, while others avoided weighing in. California Sen. Adam Schiff said he would need to “follow up to find out the scoop on that before” he could comment.

Platner is seeking the Democratic nomination for one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country as Democrats hope to defeat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins and regain control of the chamber. The Maine primary is June 9, and Platner's primary rival for the nomination, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, already suspended her campaign in April.

Platner is scheduled to appear in Bar Harbor Friday evening with progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California and a pair of Democratic Maine candidates. It’s billed as a “get out the vote” rally and it’s taking place at a historic theater in the coastal resort town.

___

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

School leaders across Texas have already had to eliminate jobs and close campuses because of financial pressure. The El Paso district, for example, faces a nearly $53 million budget shortfall and may soon declare a financial emergency, while the Crystal City district in South Texas recently told families that it has less than $500 in its bank account. 

At a House Public Education Committee hearing on Monday, school officials said they were still plagued by financial pressure even after the Legislature provided schools with new money for teacher pay, educator training and special education in the largest one-time public education investment in recent memory. 

As part of House Bill 2, school districts like Navarro ISD saw an increase in their base funding, or basic allotment, by just $55 per student. Paul Neuhoff, chief financial officer at Navarro ISD, urged state lawmakers to grow that pot of money, which the district counts on to keep up with the cost of school facilities, staff benefits and transportation. The nearly $300,00 the Navarro ISD received in total base funding fell short, Neuhoff said.   

“This is an essential help that we need,” Neuhoff told lawmakers. “Our utilities have increased close to 60% since 2019, [teacher retirement] payments have gone up 62% since 2021. … The average cost per mile operating our buses was $3.90 a mile, and that’s before the now-spike that we have in diesel prices.”

HB 2 also increased teacher pay based on years of experience and districts’ enrollment, and it expanded Texas’ pay-for-performance system, allowing more teachers to qualify for raises. 

Alejos Salazar Jr., superintendent of Lasara ISD, said he has tried to get extra pay into the pockets of support staff like librarians and school nurses by scheduling them to teach part-time. 

“The librarian, for example, we make sure that she’s got classes scheduled half the day, so we can make sure that we can tap into that money for her,” Salazar said. “Because if we don’t … then other people, other sectors of your employment group are left out … and we value all of them.” 

Even with the financial investments from HB 2, school leaders are struggling to keep their staff employed. Salazar said Monday he can’t find money to fix issues as small as scoreboards on baseball and football fields.

“I can’t sit here and say that with the certain funding that we receive, we’re doing great, because we aren’t,” Salazar said. “We live, figuratively speaking, paycheck to paycheck.”

On her second to last day of school, Rachel Preston was notified by her school principal that Austin ISD could only afford to keep her part timeFrench teacher. The district is eliminating hundreds of jobs as it faces a $181 million budget shortfall.  Preston wanted to stay on but had to find a second job to make it work. 

“This funding deficit is the final straw for me, and it will be for countless other educators across the state who must leave or who lose their jobs as class sizes rise, enrollment in public schools drop, and neighborhood schools close,” said Preston, who broke down explaining her situation to her students.

The financial crises school districts are facing are in large part due to declining enrollment,  triggered by low birth rates, more schooling options and fears regarding immigration enforcement. Public schools receive funding based on attendance, meaning they receive less money if fewer students show up to class. Experts expect those enrollment numbers to continue to decline after lawmakers greenlit education savings accounts, often called vouchers, that allow families to use taxpayer funds for private school or home schooling. Inconsistent funding from the Legislature has also played a role. Prior to the passage of HB 2, Texas students endured six years without their schools receiving comprehensive funding increases.  

Also on Monday, TEA officials testified that the agency recently updated its hold-harmless calculations to prevent duplicate payments for the same revenue loss. The change resulted in an estimated $28 million decrease in funding across seven school districts, including Houston and Dallas ISDs, challenging districts that had already planned their budgets around earlier projections.

The comprehensive school funding package also included a clause requiring that districts phase out uncertified educators and provided financial incentives for teachers who go through high-quality training programs.

Lawmakers also approved significant changes to how Texas pays for special education. Starting next school year, districts will receive money for students with disabilities based on the needs of each child, as opposed to the classroom setting the school assigns them to. 

The state now must reimburse districts $1,000 for each evaluation of a child suspected of having a disability, which can cost between $1,000 and $5,000 or more to complete. Districts completed about 178,000 evaluations last year, which means TEA is estimated to disperse about $178 million a year.

Public schools must also conduct and pay for the special education evaluations of families wanting to participate in the new voucher program if they request one. 

Kami Finger, an assistant superintendent with Lubbock ISD, urged lawmakers Monday to reconsider the requirement to conduct evaluations for families interested in vouchers because of the additional workload it produces, especially to support children already in private school.  Lubbock ISD taps its general fund to make up a $3.5 million shortfall in state special education funding, Finger said. 

Texas’ voucher program launches next school year, which could result in additional funding losses if students leave their campuses for other options, public school officials have noted.

Legislative budget experts estimated that about 24,500 public school students would initially leave for private schools due to limited space. Of almost 96,000 students recently invited to join the voucher program, 57% previously attended a private school or home-school.

Sow started one game against the Jacksonville Jaguars last season, but was quickly replaced in the lineup after struggling mightily in run blocking and pass blocking matchups.

The Texans have several interior offensive linemen, including Wyatt Teller, Jake Andrews, Keylan Rutledge, Ed Ingram, Evan Brown, Febechi Nwaiwu and Jarrett Patterson.

Sow was signed to a reserve-future deal this offseason.

He has played in 28 career games.

The Canada native is a former Patriots fourth-round draft pick from Eastern Michigan where he was an All-Mid-American Conference selection.

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

Sabalenka beat Osaka 7-5, 6-3 on Monday to reach the French Open quarterfinals and move one step closer to finally winning the clay-court Grand Slam, where she lost last year's final to Coco Gauff.

It was the first women’s night match at Roland Garros in three years and Osaka entered the court wearing a golden bomber jacket over her gold sequin playing dress, trailing a tiered train with puffs of tulle.

Sabalenka wore more standard tennis attire: A slightly sheer black flared tennis dress with a red underlayer; plus diamond necklaces.

In the matchup of four-time Grand Slam champions, Sabalenka improved to 3-1 in her career against Osaka, who was playing in the fourth round at Roland Garros for the first time.

Sabalenka overpowered Osaka from the baseline, and produced a huge forehand return winner on her first match point that Osaka barely got her racket on.

Tournament organizers had been criticized for not scheduling more women's matches at night, with Roland Garros officials responding that women's best-of-three set matches don't occupy enough time for TV broadcasters. The men play best-of-five set matches.

Sabalenka won in 1 hour, 27 minutes.

“The atmosphere and the attention that this match brought (is) going to show them that probably for the future they should consider putting at least sometimes women matches at night,” Sabalenka said.

Sabalenka's quarterfinal opponent will be Diana Shnaider, who beat Madison Keys — the last American woman remaining in contention — 6-3, 3-6, 6-0.

French hopes were dashed following Diane Parry’s 6-3, 6-2 loss to 114th-ranked Maja Chwalinska of Poland.

Chwalinska had never been beyond the second round of any major, and her run is even more impressive considering she came through three qualifying rounds.

Chwalinska's quarterfinal opponent will be Anna Kalinskaya, who surprised even herself by reaching the last eight after defeating Anastasia Potapova 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (10-7).

“Thinking two weeks ago that I will be here, I wouldn’t believe it,” Kalinskaya said. “I would probably laugh with my team.”

Many top women's players were already eliminated, including auff, four-time winner Iga Swiatek and No. 2-ranked Elena Rybakina.

Sinner's out but Italians move on

Despite top-ranked Jannik Sinner losing in the second round, Italian fans will have at least two men in the quarterfinals.

Tenth-seeded Flavio Cobolli advanced to his second Grand Slam quarterfinal — and his first here — after beating American Zachary Svajda 6-2, 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (5).

“It’s for sure my favorite Grand Slam to play,” Cobolli said after winning on Court Philippe-Chatrier. “We have the best feeling with the surface as Italians.”

A little while after his win, Cobolli — a former youth soccer player at Italian club Roma — joined players from the Paris Saint-Germain team as they paraded the Champions League trophy on Court Philippe-Chatrier. PSG beat Arsenal in the final on Saturday.

Cobolli's next faces No. 4 Felix Auger-Aliassime, who beat Alejandro Tabilo 6-3, 7-5, 6-1 to complete a career set of reaching the last eight at all four majors. The Canadian has never been beyond a Grand Slam semifinal, though.

“Not having Sinner in the semifinals is another opportunity, but you need to be there,” Auger-Aliassime said.

Big-serving Matteo Berrettini joined Cobolli in the quarterfinals after beating Juan Manuel Cerundolo 6-3, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (6). Berrettini last reached the quarterfinals here in 2021 — but hadn't been back to the tournament since then because of a series of injuries and physical issues.

Matteo Arnaldi made it three Italians in last eight when he beat Frances Tiafoe — the last American man in the draw — 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 in a match that lasted 5 hours, 26 minutes and ended after 1 a.m.

Berrettini and Arnaldi face each other in the quarterfinals, ensuring that at least one Italian man will advance to the semifinals.

___

AP Sports Writer Samuel Petrequin, and AP Fashion Writer Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

___

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

A few minutes later, White said she also appreciates coaching Clark.

Two days after cameras caught the Indiana star and the Fever coach engaged in what appeared to be a brief sideline spat, Clark and White explained the confrontation was not the result of some deep-seeded dispute but rather the result of two highly competitive women fighting to win a game.

“I think a lot of those things happen all the time,” Clark said Monday. “I know there's a camera on me and that's how it's going to be, but there are a lot of people out there in the media or on TV that think they know a lot of things and they're just blatantly wrong about a lot of things. I ride with Steph, I ride for these girls. Steph has my back more than anybody.”

What fans saw Saturday, though, was White appearing to confront Clark who responded by putting her arms in the air. White then pulled Clark and plugged in rookie guard Raven Johnson for Clark. White has since said she was merely challenging a player to perform at a higher level.

But on social media, the fierce postgame reaction focused largely on whether the incident may have exposed a rift between the two and whether White might be fired. They spent Monday taking turns passionately expressing their unhappiness over how the exchange — and their relationship — were characterized by outsiders.

“As far as we were concerned, the moment died right then,” White said. “We can’t control the outside narrative. We can’t control where people choose to take a snippet of an instance in a game or whatever it might be and run with it. We know that people are always going to have an opinion about what we’re doing in here, people are always going to have an opinion about Caitlin. It’s the reality of the world we live in, the reality of the job we have. But it’s not the reality of what the relationship is like.”

It's been an understandably frustrating start for the Fever and Clark, who missed 31 games last season with an assortment of injuries. Rather than starting this season as the title contenders many expected to see, the Fever fell to 4-4 with Saturday's 100-84 loss at expansion Portland.

Clark, the former Iowa star and the NCAA's career scoring leader, has struggled in her comeback, too. She's made just 39.3% of her shots and only 33.3% of her 3-pointers this season and last week's West Coast trip wasn't any better.

She finished Saturday's game 1 of 7 from the field with six points and no 3s while trying to play through foul trouble. Clark went 4 of 19 from the field in last week's two games, finishing with 22 points, 12 assists and six turnovers. Her defensive play also has come under fire.

Indiana hosts Atlanta and Angel Reese on Thursday.

Off the court, Clark has been dealing with a sore back, which kept her out of the first matchup against Portland, May 20, and prompted league officials to warn the Fever about not listing Clark on the team's injury list before the game.

Yet White has continued to defend one of the league's most popular players, and Clark said she appreciates the support she's received from the 2023 WNBA Coach of the Year.

“When I got hurt at the Connecticut game last year, like I bawled in Steph's arms,” Clark said. “That's somebody I will ride for for the rest of my life. Those are moments that people don't see. People just sit on their phones all day, they don't see those moments. They don't see the moments where we come into work, they don't see the moments that absolutely suck that people have your back. They think they know everything when in reality they don't have a clue.”

___

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

First up for the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion is the doubles tournament at Queen’s Club. But Wimbledon and the U.S. Open could be next.

“It seems like she’s trying to work her way up maybe to the U.S. Open, and those fans would be so ready to see her back on a singles court there,” former No. 1 Lindsay Davenport said at the French Open after the WTA Tour announced Monday that Williams has accepted a wild-card invitation to play doubles at next week’s grass-court tournament in London.

Williams won seven Wimbledon titles and six at the U.S. Open before stepping away from the game in 2022. In doubles, she won six titles at Wimbledon and two at the U.S. Open — all with her older sister Venus Williams.

“She’s a legend. It’s inspiring to see,” top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka said. “I’m excited to see her play and probably face her. ... It’s very good news for tennis.”

John McEnroe suggested Williams could compete in singles at Wimbledon, which starts June 28.

“She’s not getting any younger but she’s Serena Williams so I bet you she would tell me about wanting to win the whole damn thing,” McEnroe said in Paris.

The Queen’s Club tournament starts next Monday and the WTA said Williams will play “with a partner to be announced in due course.”

“Queen’s Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter,” Williams said in a statement. “Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career and I’m excited to be back competing on one of the sport’s most iconic stages.”

Williams has not competed since bidding farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open. At the time, Williams said she didn’t want to use the word “retiring” and instead declared that she was “evolving” away from tennis.

Davenport said some current women’s players went down to Florida to practice with Williams recently.

“I don’t think anyone’s admitted to that, but I do know that some of them were,” Davenport said. “So I think she has kind of a handle on where the level is. But I don’t know if she’s been playing a two-hour singles match, right? We’ll have to see how she can handle that physically.”

Williams, who has won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles overall in her storied career, became eligible to compete in February after re-registering with tennis’ mandatory anti-doping program six months earlier — which is the first step toward a comeback.

Djokovic is competitive at 39

Davenport noted how Novak Djokovic is still competitive at 39 — having recently pushed 19-year-old Joao Fonseca to five sets before getting beaten in the third round in Paris.

"It’s not going to be easy. If anyone could do it, certainly it could be her," Davenport said of Williams. “We’re seeing kind of an unprecedented time with players and how they train now, being able to play better longer, play at a level that we never expected.

“She always looks in incredible shape; and better shape than arguably when she left.”

While Williams' big serve automatically gives her an advantage on grass, it's a surface that also presents unique challenges because of the speed of play and low bounces.

“Grass is a tough surface to start on," Davenport said. "It goes very quick, very low, very physical, not as much running as clay, but a lot of bending. ... She wouldn’t come back unless she knew she could play at such a high level. But we’ve got to be a little graceful in the time we give her until she hits her feet.”

Williams sisters were role models for Osaka

Four-time major champion Naomi Osaka, who beat Williams in the 2018 U.S. Open final for her first major title, was excited at the prospect.

“It will bring people to watch tennis,” Osaka said Thursday. “I’m going to be tuned into the first match, for sure. I think a lot of people are. Everyone knows Serena and Venus were my role models growing up, so it’s going to be cool to see her on the grounds again.”

Williams recently posted a video on Instagram showing herself training on a hard court with her daughter: “Rumor has it…I got a new trainer,” Williams said in the post.

Williams’ second daughter was born in 2023.

Venus Williams, who also had a stint at No. 1 in the rankings and is a five-time Wimbledon champion, is still playing occasionally at 45.

McEnroe played doubles at 47

McEnroe was 47 when he returned after 12 years of retirement and won a tour-level doubles tournament with partner Jonas Bjorkman.

“Physically I still had it for doubles, so she definitely could still have it for doubles, there’s no question about that. She could win anything (in doubles),” McEnroe said. “The singles is more difficult. ... I’m not really sure what the plan is. She hasn’t called me to tell me the plan.”

Gauff never got to play Williams

“One of my biggest regrets was not being able to play her,” defending French Open champion Coco Gauff said.

Added fellow American player Madison Keys: “Serena Williams playing tennis is only good for tennis. Let’s be real. We all want to watch Serena play tennis.

“I mean, you literally get to watch history every single time she takes the court,” Keys added. “So why not watch more?”

Women returned to Queen's after more than 50 years

A women’s tournament rejoined the men’s competition at Queen’s last year after an absence of more than 50 years, meaning Williams will be making her debut at the historic grass-court tournament.

“And now,” said Queen’s tournament director Laura Robson, "we have an icon of the game stepping back on to court at this prestigious venue."

___

AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report.

___

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

On X, acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez confirmed the move, saying there was “nothing controversial” about it and that it came because speechwriters, who use classified material, were now occupying the space.

“The Pentagon Press Office has been redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility due to speechwriters from the Office of the Secretary of War sharing the facility,” Valdez wrote.

“These speechwriters routinely handle classified material … as a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space. There’s nothing controversial about that.”

The latest move, first reported by The Washington Post, took place against a backdrop of escalating tensions between the U.S. media and the second Trump administration, which has played out both in the public arena and at times in the courts.

For many years, Pentagon reporters had credentials granting them wide movement in the building as they sought to interact with press officials there. But last October, most news outlets turned in access badges and walked out of the Pentagon rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work,

The New York Times sued the Defense Department on May 18 for the second time in five months, arguing that a requirement that journalists be escorted while on Pentagon grounds violates the First Amendment and is “an unconstitutional attempt by the Pentagon to prevent independent reporting on military affairs.”

The paper said it had filed the additional lawsuit after first suing the Pentagon in December over new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to challenge an interim policy “that the Pentagon hastily put into place after a federal judge ruled in The Times’s favor in its original lawsuit.” The new policy included the requirement that journalists be accompanied by escorts at all times while in the Pentagon.

The policy was implemented in March following a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman that had struck down earlier restrictions. The following month, the judge ruled that the interim policy violated his March order. But the escort policy remained in place when an appeals court stayed part of Friedman’s ruling while the government appeals. The appeals process is ongoing.

At around 5:30 p.m., authorities announced that the package has been made safe, and an all-clear signal was announced.

According to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, deputies are working alongside the Montgomery County Fire Marshal’s Office and the Conroe Police Department in response to the incident at the Lee G. Allworth Building in the 200 block of Phillips Street.

Law enforcement officials said the affected area has been secured while investigators determine the nature of the package.

As a precaution, nearby buildings are being evacuated and several streets in the downtown area remain closed to traffic.

Officials are urging the public to avoid the area while the investigation remains active.

No additional details about the package or any potential threat level have been released at this time.

Just a month ago, the two announced a settlement that avoided a trial over Lively's claims that Baldoni led a campaign to smear her reputation after she accused him of sexually harassing her on the set of their 2024 film “It Ends With Us.”

But on Monday, lawyers for Lively were back in court, trying to get a judge to make Baldoni pay her legal bills plus other penalties. They said she's entitled to the money under a California law because Baldoni's countersuit, which claimed she had defamed and extorted him, was thrown out last year by a judge.

Neither actor was present for the hearing before U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman in New York.

Baldoni and his lawyer, Ellyn Garofalo, accused Lively of trying to do “an end run" around a trial that was canceled when the two agreed to settle. While the financial terms of the settlement weren't announced publicly, Garofalo told the court it was resolved without Baldoni and his production company “paying a cent of the $300 million in damages she was demanding.”

“Reopening this for basically what is an alternative trial would involve reopening discovery, new experts, new expert depositions,” she said.

Lively's lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, asserts that the lawsuit Baldoni brought against Lively was the very kind of litigation the California law was designed to stop. The law is intended to protect survivors of sexual harassment from protracted and damaging legal fights.

Liman did not immediately rule after hearing more than an hour of arguments.

The two actors have been fighting in court since late 2024 over the fraught filming of “It Ends With Us."

Lively had claimed that during filming, Baldoni made inappropriate comments about her appearance, violated physical boundaries while filming a love scene, and pushed for nudity — against Lively’s wishes — during a scene in which her character was giving birth.

Lively also accused Baldoni and his production company of then orchestrating an effort to damage her public reputation and her credibility, in case she went public with her complaints.

Baldoni, who directed the dark romantic drama and starred in it with Lively, denied harassing her or orchestrating a smear campaign. He claimed the complaints about his behavior were made up by Lively as part of an effort to seize creative control of the movie. He countersued, accusing Lively and her husband, “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds, of defamation and extortion.

The judge ultimately dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims, ruling that she couldn’t pursue them under federal law because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee on the movie set. The retaliation claim had been headed for trial when the two sides settled.

In a joint statement after the deal was reached, the two sides said they agreed Lively’s concerns “deserved to be heard” and that they ”remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments.”

“It Ends With Us,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel about a relationship devolving into domestic violence, was released in August 2024 and exceeded box office expectations.

Lively appeared in the 2005 film “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and the TV series “Gossip Girl” from 2007 to 2012 before starring in films including “The Town” and “The Shallows.”

Baldoni starred in the TV comedy “Jane the Virgin,” directed the 2019 film “Five Feet Apart” and wrote “Man Enough,” a book challenging traditional notions of masculinity.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a temporary injunction issued by a federal district judge in Austin, who wrote in December that the restrictions in Texas’ law likely violated the First Amendment. The 5th Circuit panel did not explain its reasoning for issuing the decision, which can still be reversed by the appeals court in the future. 

Senate Bill 2420, which was supposed to activate on Jan. 1, establishes age verification requirements and mandates parental consent before a person under the age of 18 is allowed to download or make purchases within apps. The law also requires app developers to say whether their apps are appropriate for people in four categories: children under 13, teens aged 13-15, older teens aged 16-17 or adults 18 or older. 

Its supporters say the law is needed to protect children as they navigate social media and online spaces, while critics say it would violate free speech rights. Louisiana and Utah have passed similar laws that have not yet gone into effect. 

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, a tech trade group, and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, an advocacy group, filed separate lawsuits in October challenging the law, both arguing it violates the First Amendment. 

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman sided with the plaintiffs in December, finding the law likely violates the First Amendment and issuing the temporary injunction blocking the law while the full case plays out in the district court.

“The Act is akin to a law that would require every bookstore to verify the age of every customer at the door and, for minors, require parental consent before the child or teen could enter and again when they try to purchase a book,” Pitman wrote in a 20-page ruling at the time. 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed the temporary injunction in late December.

Paxton earlier this month urged the appeals court to allow enforcement of the law, arguing the state has the right to regulate transactions between minors and app marketplaces that take place in the state, according to court filings. 

In a Monday statement reacting to the stay, Paxton wrote that the age verification law was necessary to protect children online.

“Texas has not only the right, but the duty, to protect children from the harms of our modern digital space,” Paxton wrote. “Parents deserve to know what their children are downloading and to have the ability to stop them from accessing harmful or inappropriate content.”

The plaintiffs earlier this week urged the court to uphold Pitman’s injunction, arguing SB 2420 “restricts an enormous amount of online speech” in violation of the First Amendment. 

Students Engaged in Advancing Texas in a statement Thursday noted its members use app marketplaces to access apps used to communicate and learn, and the organization itself uses apps to engage with its members and the public.

“Students have just as much a right to access information as adults, and this law denies them that access,” Cameron Samuels, co-founder and executive director of SEAT, wrote in a statement.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association said they were confident the law would ultimately be blocked, despite the setback.

“Texas’s App Store law threatens the First Amendment rights of app stores, app developers, parents and younger internet users,” CCIA Litigation Center Director Burke Kappler wrote in a statement.

Thursday’s ruling is only an administrative stay, temporarily blocking the lower court’s injunction of the law until a further review by the 5th Circuit.  

Disclosure: Apple and Google 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.