The 24-year-old Chwalinska has a chance to match Emma Raducanu’s title run at the 2021 U.S. Open when she plays Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva in Saturday's final at Roland Garros.

According to stats provider Opta, Chwalinska and Raducanu stand alone among men and women in having reached a major singles final from the qualifying rounds since the Open Era began in 1968.

Chwalinska sealed victory on her first match point with a powerful forehand winner down the line, then fell back with both hands on her face. She then sat on her chair and panted heavily, her face buried into a towel.

“Like a dream, honestly I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to say, sorry,” she said during her on-court interview. “Let me enjoy this moment for now.”

Chwalinska's run saw her advance through three qualifying rounds to enter the main draw and play in just her third Grand Slam. Her best result at a major before this was the second round at Wimbledon in 2022. Polish countrywoman Iga Swiatek has won the French Open four times.

The 19-year-old Andreeva reached her first Grand Slam final by beating Marta Kostyuk 6-1, 6-3 earlier Thursday on Court Philippe-Chatrier.

Andreeva had reached the semifinals here two years ago, but this is Chwalinska’s first semifinal anywhere at WTA tour-level.

Remarkable run

Chwalinksa has dropped only one set in her nine matches, including qualifying, and has bulldozed her way past four top-50 players in the main draw. Her ranking will rocket from No. 114 to No. 14 if she wins the tournament, according to the WTA.

Her bank balance will also get a significant boost. Chwalinksa's total prize money heading into Roland Garros was $864,030 and by reaching the final she gets 1.4 million euros about ($1.6 million); and 2.8 million euros ($3.25 million) if she wins on Saturday.

A neat drop shot and lob gave her set point in the tiebreaker, and she clinched the first set when Shnaider’s backhand went wide.

Shnaider had a medical timeout after the seventh game of the second set. She flexed her left leg as she lay on her back, and dropped her serve in the ninth game, giving Chwalinksa a chance to serve for the match.

“All the kudos to Maja. She played amazing," Shnaider said. “She moves incredible on the court, she covers a lot. Even if you think that you won the point, she’s there.”

Fully focused

Andreeva could see even the smallest details on the ball.

“I was seeing the little hairs on the ball when I was tossing or playing (shots),” Andreeva said. “I was really, really focused today.”

Andreeva, who is seeded No. 8, also converted her first match point when serving for the victory.

She clearly feels comfortable at the French Open, which she describes as a “cozy” tournament because she sees familiar faces every year, and enjoys her time in Paris.

“I really like to walk around the city, to go into those little restaurants on the street,” she said. “I also speak a little bit of French, so I try to sometimes talk to people in French.”

Tensions on the court

There was no post-match handshake between Andreeva and Kostyuk — and the Ukrainian walked off quickly, turning only to wave and blow kisses to the crowd.

The atmosphere beforehand was somewhat tense as the players had separate photos taken as they each stood next to two children on their respective side of the net. Usually the players pose for the same photo, standing right next to each other by the net.

Kostyuk and countrywoman Oleksandra Oliynykova have spoken out during the tournament about the impact Russia's invasion of Ukraine is having on their country.

The No. 15-seeded Kostyuk said defeat won't linger given how much support she felt from fans during her matches in Paris.

“I will never forget the ovations I received after my match in quarterfinals. This is something I will carry with me forever,” she said. “I feel like this is the highlight of my tournament."

Andreeva saved three break points at 0-40 in her opening service game, then raced into a 4-0 lead with a flurry of blistering forehand winners. There was a big cheer when Kostyuk held serve in the fifth game, but the Ukrainian then handed Andreeva the first set when her backhand hit the net.

Roof open and then closed

The semifinal began at shortly after 3 p.m. with an open roof, like on Wednesday when beaten quarterfinalists Aryna Sabalenka and Anna Kalinskaya complained of swirling wind on Chatrier and said the roof should have been closed.

It was closed toward the end of the second set of Thursday's semifinal, offering Kostyuk better conditions for her clay-court game. She broke back to trail 4-3 but dropped her next service game and the comeback ended almost as briefly as it began, along with Kostyuk’s 16-match winning streak on clay.

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

Dozens of people lined up to get a seat in the Collin County courtroom. The death last year quickly drew wide attention, in part because of social media posts that amplified the case in racial terms. The accused, Karmelo Anthony, now 19, is Black, while the victim, Austin Metcalf, was white.

Anthony told police he was protecting himself when the two got into a confrontation during a track meet in Frisco, a booming city in Dallas' sprawling north suburbs, according to an arrest report.

But prosecutor Bill Wirskye told jurors it was a “senseless murder" and not a case of self-defense.

“He didn't want a fight,” Wirskye said of Metcalf.

The jury was seated this week under increased security at the courthouse, and a judge has set strict rules over the proceedings, including prohibiting attorneys from discussing the case publicly.

The stabbing happened on a rainy morning in April 2025. Witnesses told police the confrontation began when Anthony sat under a tent belonging to Metcalf's team, according to an arrest report. The teens went to different high schools in Frisco.

When Metcalf told Anthony that he needed to move, Anthony reached inside his bag and allegedly replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” the report said.

In his opening remarks, defense attorney Mike Howard said Metcalf made the first contact.

"In that split second, Melo has a decision to make: how and when to act. Self-defense is useless if you wait too late to defend yourself. ... He reacts in a split second of fear, chaos,” Howard said.

Metcalf was stabbed in the chest. Anthony faces up to life in prison if convicted of murder.

Mark Porter, a forensic video analyst, guided jurors through video recorded at the track meet, including some images that were magnified. He said about 15 minutes elapsed between Metcalf entering the stadium and Anthony's arrest.

The parents of both teens have said they were good students who planned to go to college. Metcalf's father has condemned those who seized on the race of the teenagers after the killing.

“This was not a race thing. This is not a political thing. Please do not comment if you do not know what happened,” Jeff Metcalf said on Fox News' “America Reports.”

“This is a human being thing,” he said. “This person made a bad choice and it affected both his family and my family forever.”

Authorities have also issued warnings about online discussions surrounding the killing. Frisco Police Chief David Shilson has urged people to beware of posts spreading “misinformation, hate, fear, and division."

___

Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed.

The Venice Biennale opened its most chaotic and contested edition in recent memory on May 9, with the prestigious Golden Lion yanked from contention after the jury quit in protest of Israel’s and Russia’s participation. The week of previews leading up to the public opening was characterized by loud protests outside the Israeli and Russian pavilions.

Instead of jury awards, the Biennale announced voting by visitors to the two main venues, the Giardini and the Arsenale, for two awards recognizing the best national pavilion and best participant in the main show, titled “In Minor Keys,” curated according to a plan by the late Koyo Kouoh. The awards are to be made public on the Biennale's closing day, Nov. 22.

The protest letter made public on Wednesday said that the voting process “lacked transparency and accountability,” and complained that the Biennale had not responded to the artists' first request to remove their names, made on May 20. It was also signed by curators and commissioners.

The artists said that they were beginning steps toward legal action.

In response to a request for comment, the Biennale furnished a May 28 letter to the artists, curators and commissioners saying that they would keep all of the names on the ballot “to guarantee all visitors have the freedom of expression,” but said none of the signatories would be considered for the prizes.

The protest letter called the procedure “a waste of time” by asking visitors “to cast votes that cannot be counted.”

The jury in its resignation announcement singled out Russia and Israel, citing investigations by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Signatories seeking to be removed from visitor prize contention include some 70 artists participating in the main show and nearly 40 national pavilions, including those of Iceland, Norway and Denmark, which have led the call to have Russia barred from returning to the Biennale for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They also include Austrian artist Florentina Holzinger, whose exhibition features recycled waste water from portable toilets outside the Austrian Pavilion, has been one of the most popular of the Biennale.

Anthony J. Moore, 53, was driving a route in Aiken County, about 20 miles from the Georgia border, last Friday when a woman ran directly into his path with her hands cuffed behind her back.

The video, which has no sound, shows the drama unfold: The woman passes in front of the truck, and a man in a Cadillac that had been on the side of the road swerves in front of the truck before taking off. The woman then runs down the road, and the man drives off.

“I just see it as a divine assignment from God, because had not I been there with the dashcam ... they probably wouldn’t have caught the footage that needed to be catched,” Moore told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “It was another assignment from God, a special assignment from God. That a life needed to be saved.”

Authorities arrested Jonathan Willard, 39, of New Ellenton, on one count each of kidnapping and impersonation of a law enforcement officer. He was being held Thursday at the Aiken County Detention Center.

According to an incident report from the Aiken County Sheriff's Department, the woman was taking a walk when a man in a green Cadillac "came from behind her and told her he was with the police.” She said he took her phone and Social Security card, put her in handcuffs and placed her in the back seat of the car.

The woman told police that the man pulled over by a gated property and got out. She said she tried to open the rear doors, but they were locked.

As the man rummaged through the trunk, she said, she climbed over the seat and escaped through the open driver's side door.

Moore was driving south of Aiken when he saw the woman running toward him.

“I let my window down and she said, ‘Please help me. He’s trying to kidnap me,’" Moore said.

As the woman swerved, Moore said, the man chasing her pulled up beside him and showed “what looks to be a badge.”

“And he said, ‘I’m with law enforcement, and she jumped out of my car,’" Moore recounted. The man then left in the Cadillac.

Bystanders called 911, helped get the cuffs off the woman and gave her water. Moore said she told him that she had just graduated the day before, and that the man had also taken her diploma.

She asked Moore if he would accompany her back to the spot where she escaped, to see if the man had might have dumped her belongings. He said they found nothing.

The Aiken County Solicitor’s Office said Willard had not yet been assigned a defense attorney and no court dates had been scheduled. The AP called the jail to speak with Willard, but the request was denied.

Moore is pastor of Amazing Grace Ministries in Denmark, South Carolina. Moore is also a 27-year Army veteran, said his wife, Betty, an associate pastor at the church.

“When I learned that he was caught the next day I was relieved of a lot of things that he didn’t get away," he said, "to go try that again someplace else.”

Republicans still face a gauntlet of Democratic amendments before the bill can advance, setting up a daylong test of party unity. More votes on the settlement fund are planned, including proposals from Republicans, and it was unclear if GOP leaders would be able to fend them all off and pass the legislation.

“I can’t predict how it comes out," Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters between discussions with some of the holdouts off the Senate floor.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats plan to force votes on the tax immunity granted to Trump as part of the settlement and a host of other issues — including Trump’s East Wing ballroom project, his tariffs, his war with Iran and his immigration enforcement campaign.

“Amendment after amendment, vote after vote, Republicans are going to have to answer to the American people,” Schumer said.

Settlement fund roils Senate GOP conference

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward, and many GOP senators said Wednesday that they were satisfied with his remarks.

Yet Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, raised new doubts about the settlement’s future on Wednesday afternoon — just after the Senate had voted to start debate on the immigration bill — when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don’t know” whether it is dead or on hold.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.

Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska held out for around three hours on the Democratic amendment banning the settlement amid discussions over whether to vote for it.

Cassidy, who eventually voted against the amendment, lost re-election in a GOP primary two weeks ago after Trump endorsed his opponent. Husted and Sullivan, who voted against it, are both up for re-election in November.

Senators then defeated a second amendment from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina that would also ban the settlement fund but would move the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Department of Justice. Most Democrats voted against the amendment, guaranteeing its defeat, but more than 10 Republicans supported it.

“If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?” Tillis said ahead of the vote. “Otherwise, you’re exposing every one of our members who are in cycle to having to deal with this between today and Election Day, and that makes no sense for something that the DOJ says they’re not moving forward with."

It was unclear how Republicans would vote on additional amendments. Cassidy is also planning to offer an additional attempt to curb the fund, and he appeared to be in conversations with the Senate parliamentarian throughout the morning as he brought her proposals to review.

ICE and Border Patrol money has been long fight

Passage of the roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.

Senate Republicans are using a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it has taken weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security that they eventually scrapped and the fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.

“The thing we’re trying to do here is to keep the focus on funding for ICE and CBP,” Thune said Wednesday evening, after the Senate voted to start debating the legislation.

“This was narrow and targeted from the very beginning and clean, and we’re trying to maintain it that way,” he said.

Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the DHS funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support. But ICE and Border Patrol remained without regular funding, and Republicans launched a new effort to pass three years of funding for those agencies with no Democratic votes.

Security money for Trump’s ballroom dropped

Work on the legislation was also delayed by Republican opposition to $1 billion in security funding for the White House, including for Trump’s new ballroom, that was added to the original bill.

Democrats and some Republicans questioned using taxpayer money for the massive project, and Republicans did not include it in the final bill when it was released on Wednesday.

Republican House leaders said Wednesday they would like to clear the legislation before the end of the week, if the Senate can finish it. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that House leaders were having internal conversations about the schedule.

“We just need to make sure everybody’s there,” Scalise said.

The 49-year-old from Sacramento was wearing a scarf covering his face and latex gloves, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant said in a news release. He also had five cell phones: one with a 15-minute timer set to begin, a second with a message on the screen from another phone number saying, “we will be awaiting your call.”

Evidence photos released by prosecutors show a cardboard tube about the size of a toilet paper roll fitted with a green fuse. Bomb technicians tested the device. The powder and fuse “were determined to be viable and energetic,” Grant said.

If the device had detonated next to a window on a pressurized aircraft flying above 10,000 feet (3 kilometers), Grant said, “it had the potential to damage the aircraft and cause a possible loss of cabin pressure.”

Before the device was removed from the airport, officers put a bomb blast suppression blanket over it and taped off the immediate area, according to the federal complaint against the man.

He was arrested Saturday and appeared in federal court in Sacramento on Wednesday. He is charged with unlawful possession of explosive material in an airport. The complaint also alleges he made “rambling” calls to the FBI in the months beforehand to report he was being threatened and intimidated.

His public defender, Meghan McLoughlin, said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that “there is often more to these cases than the government’s allegations, and that the criminal process will reveal” her client’s story as well.

It wasn't immediately known how extensively the man was searched at the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint. Last year, air travelers in the U.S. were no longer required to take off their shoes during security screenings. Screenings without shoes became a requirement in 2006, several years after “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed 2001 attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami.

Speaking in response to a question from The Associated Press during a meeting with heads of international news agencies, Putin acknowledged the damage from Ukrainian drone attacks.

“To our regret, some of them break through,” Putin said of the drone strikes on his hometown of St. Petersburg. “Russia has an air defense system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.”

The wide-ranging media session came on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, his annual showcase for investment. Hours before the forum opened Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone attack set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and also hit a nearby naval base.

Putin also said that Russia is open for a compromise on Ukraine in line with understandings reached during his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, adding that Ukraine needs to accept them to make a deal.

Putin dismisses mediation by EU

Putin dismissed the idea that European Union countries could act as mediators in Russia-Ukraine peace talks, arguing that they were not neutral parties.

“Mediation assumes neutrality. Where is the neutrality here?" he asked.

He also stressed that potential third-party mediators needed to be trusted by both sides.

“How can Russia trust people who have been harping about the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia for years?” he said.

Commenting on Russia's use of its Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile, Putin said it was fired at targets that allowed it to test its capability and precision before using it against objectives closer to residential areas.

“We hit the area where it was convenient to see the results,” he said. “It was important for making a decision on the future on the full-format use of the Oreshnik on designated targets, including those in populated areas.”

Putin emphasized his push for control of the entire Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, noting that Ukraine controls about 15% of its territory.

Putin declared that “patriotism and will of the Russian people” will ensure the achievement of goals that Moscow set in Ukraine.

“Russian troops are advancing along the entire line of contact,” he said.

Drone attacks cloud St. Petersburg forum

Wednesday's drone attack hit the nearby Kronstadt naval base and an oil terminal, sending a massive plume of black smoke above Russia’s second-largest city. It was another embarrassing blow to his efforts to minimize the impact of the 4-year-old conflict and cast it as a distant event that doesn’t affect Russian daily life.

It also underscored Ukraine’s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia and showed the vulnerability of its cities. Scores of flights were delayed or diverted at St. Petersburg’s airport and authorities cut cellphone internet service to try to prevent drone attacks.

Putin had scaled down Russia’s annual Victory Day parade on May 9, fearing Ukrainian drone strikes. Days later, a massive drone attack on Moscow’s suburbs killed three and showed the capital’s vulnerability.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s forces were putting pressure on Ukraine “to prevent such attacks.” He noted that “systematic” strikes on Kyiv that Russia threatened last week are underway.

On Tuesday, Russia hit Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in deadly strikes.

Russia's version of the Davos summit

Putin has used the forum to showcase his country’s economic advances and encourage foreign investment. Often styled as the Russian version of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, it usually draws tens of thousands of delegates from around the world.

While Western officials and business people have stayed away from the forum after Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russia has sought to attract more guests from other regions to underline its declared goal of promoting a “multipolar world.”

Saudi Arabia, a special guest this year, has sent a large delegation. The presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania and China’s vice president also are attending. A U.S. official, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., head of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, is attending for the first time in years.

Russia’s economic outlook has clouded as the initial boost from massive military spending has fizzled. The government has raised taxes and increased domestic borrowing to keep its budget deficit under control.

Asked at the media session if Russia’s economy was struggling because of the military action, Putin paraphrased Mark Twain by responding that “rumors of my death are highly exaggerated.”

He said the economy was growing but admitted that inflation was a concern.

“We’ve deliberately taken steps to cool the economy,” Putin said of Russia’s Central Bank putting the country’s key interest rate at 14.5%, which he added was “a difficult decision.”

“You can say we’ve cooled off, or you can say we haven’t done everything yet, but these are deliberate steps. We don’t want inflation – hyperinflation -- to reach 60-80%, as it is some countries,” he said. “We’re fighting for the health of the Russian economy as a whole.”

The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a U.N. peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire.

Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, in a written statement read on TV, called the negotiations “absurd, humiliating and insulting.” He said the agreement’s demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.”

“What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal,” he said, underscoring that Hezbollah has not made any commitment to stop fighting. “So long as our villages are not safe and are being bombed and destroyed and our people are killed," he said, northern Israel “will not be safe.”

Sirens sound after Netanyahu visit

Following Kassem’s statement, drone alert sirens sounded in several border communities in northern Israel, including Shlomi, a town where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several ministers had been meeting with local officials, his office said. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu left a short time before the alerts sounded.

The Israeli military later said the sirens were triggered by attempts to intercept several drones that hit near soldiers in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported.

Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, acknowledged Thursday that the ongoing war was straining northern Israeli towns living under the threat of Hezbollah fire. He said Israel’s operations in Iran and Lebanon had “created a new security reality,” by weakening Iran and Hezbollah “to an unprecedented degree.”

Lebanese troops began moving Thursday afternoon into the southern village of Dibbine, in coordination with U.N. peacekeepers, after Israeli forces left the area, which saw intense clashes in recent days, state-run media reported. It was the first time Israeli troops withdrew from an area in southern Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began about three months ago.

The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas. Its closure has jolted the world economy.

Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who faced a rare rebuke from Congress on Wednesday, has sought to downplay the diplomatic deadlock and the failure of declared ceasefires to end the fighting. He told reporters that in the Middle East, "a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

Peacekeeper killed in crossfire

A Serbian peacekeeper was killed and two others were wounded when a mortar struck their location near Marjayoun, a Christian-majority town that has seen intense fighting, according to the U.N. mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, and the Serbian Defense Ministry.

Israel later blamed Hezbollah for the firing that killed the U.N. peacekeeper, without offering evidence. Hezbollah and the U.N. did not immediately comment on who launched the shells.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said a drone strike killed a motorcyclist and wounded four people in the village of Maaroub. The Israeli military said soldiers killed an armed militant and later found a Hezbollah cache of guns, grenades, surface-to-air missiles and other combat gear in the area.

The military also said it conducted strikes near the coastal city of Tyre and around Shaqra, another community in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese news agency reported airstrikes in the south and said a strike on the village of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, killed three people and wounded others.

Israel has warned people not to go into parts of southern Lebanon where it says it is striking Hezbollah facilities.

Fighting has raged despite declared ceasefires

Hezbollah resumed rocket fire days after Israel and the United States launched their surprise Feb. 28 attack on Iran, which backs Hezbollah. Before then, Israel had regularly carried out strikes in Lebanon against what it said were militant targets, often killing civilians, despite an earlier truce reached in 2024.

After Hezbollah's rocket and drone attacks resumed, Israeli troops seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country's south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation.

In the southern city of Sidon, residents reacted to Wednesday's ceasefire announcement with skepticism, saying previous agreements had failed to stop the violence.

“Every few days a ceasefire is announced, but people keep getting killed,” said Mayada Hijazi.

“It’s all talk and no action,” said Salah Nassab. “We keep going back to our homes, and then we get displaced again, back and forth. We’re very tired."

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and over 1.2 million have been displaced. The fighting has killed 27 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.

Latest ceasefire came from ongoing Israeli-Lebanese talks

The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon's government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.

The ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon's armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday called the new agreement "the last chance to enter a final and comprehensive ceasefire.” He said Lebanon was ready to implement the deal once he receives responses from relevant factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The United States — and Trump himself — would determine how and when the deal is implemented, Aoun told journalists.

The agreement terms Hezbollah “an enemy" of Israel, the U.S. and Lebanon and calls for dismantling it. The government has promised to do so in the past but does not have the capabilities to disarm Hezbollah by force.

The latest agreement did not say when Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon but said the U.S. would support the Lebanese army as it works to assert control in areas where Hezbollah has long wielded power.

___ Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Metz from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Malak Harb and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., seeks to cement U.S. assistance for Ukraine by providing more than $1 billion in security and reconstruction aid. It would make another $8 billion available for Ukraine's defense through loans.

The vote could generate the second major foreign policy break this week in the House with President Donald Trump. It comes one day after the House for the first time approved a war powers resolution aimed at halting the U.S. military action against Iran.

Supporters were able to force action on the Ukraine bill by gathering 218 signatures on a discharge petition, a legislative tool that allows a majority of the House to effectively bypass leadership.

Once rarely successful, House members have used the petition tool this Congress to pass bills on releasing the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein and to extend health care subsidies to many of those who get health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, though the latter measure faltered in the Senate.

The first test vote on the Ukraine bill occurred Wednesday evening and supporters were able to advance the measure by a margin of 218-204. Six Republicans and an independent joined with every Democrat in supporting it.

Meeks said the vote is important so that the people of Ukraine know “that the United States of America is not going to turn its back on them, that the people of Ukraine know that we will stand with them against Russia.”

“We can’t let them down,” Meeks said.

Lawmakers want to send a message

Supporters are hopeful that the House's passage of the Ukraine bill would put pressure on the Senate to do the same. But they also know that the Senate likely won't go along unless Trump gives the bill his endorsement.

“It's probably not going to get 60 votes in the Senate, but it's going to hopefully force the Senate to address the issue," said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., who signed the discharge petition and voted to advance the bill. “It's going to send a great message to the soldiers of Ukraine.”

He said the vote would also send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that “we do have a pulse here, that we do care about Ukraine and that we are going to utilize our authority to help them.”

As the war has dragged on, it's gotten more difficult for supporters of Ukraine in Congress to provide additional financial support to help Ukraine defend itself.

The U.S. has approved some $195 billion for the Ukraine response, according to the latest quarterly inspector general report for Operation Atlantic Resolve, with roughly a quarter of that going to replenish weapons stockpiles for the U.S. military. The last major legislation designed to bolster the Ukraine response occurred in April 2024, though modest amounts have since been included in annual appropriations bills.

Republican leaders are trying to stop the bill

Republican leaders have urged their members to oppose the legislation. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said there are good-faith negotiations between members of Congress and the White House to boost Ukraine. He described the negotiations as complicated.

“I think they are going to yield positive results, but you set that back if you pass legislation that doesn't go as far as the negotiations are going,” Scalise said.

The war that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor is more than four years old, with no end in sight. In recent days, both sides have sought an edge by launching long-range missile strikes.

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. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by Trump but Putin refused.

Action in the Senate on Ukraine has revolved around a bill that would impose sweeping tariffs and secondary sanctions on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports, which are crucial to financing Russia’s military. But the bill has languished.

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Associated Press congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Here are some key things to know as Broadway's biggest night approaches, including how to watch, the top nominees, who is poised to make history and what shows secured performance slots.

When are the Tony Awards?

The Tonys will be broadcast to both coasts on Sunday from 8-11 p.m. EDT/5-8 p.m. PDT, live from Radio City Music Hall.

How can I watch them?

On CBS and streaming for Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S.

Who's hosting the Tony Awards?

Pink, a three-time Grammy Award winner, will make her debut as MC. “I just want it to be, first and foremost, just celebratory and fun and entertaining and over-the-top and ridiculous,” she says.

She promises a big, honking opening number — written by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Mark Sonnenblick that ends with some 170 people on stage — lots of costume changes and some wire work, which she has done in her concerts. She has tapped Amber Ruffin, a writer and performer for “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” for help with jokes.

A pre-show will be broadcast on Pluto TV from 6:35-8 p.m. EDT/3:45-5 p.m. PDT. Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess will host that telecast, in which some technical Tonys will be handed out. Viewers can access it on their smart TV, streaming device, mobile app or online by going to Pluto TV and clicking on the “Live Music” channel, found within the Entertainment category on the service.

What performances will there be?

The seven best new musical and best musical revivals — "The Lost Boys," “Schmigadoon!,” “Titanique,” “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York),” “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” “Ragtime” and “The Rocky Horror Show.”

Who are some of the presenters?

The presenters include: Adrien Brody, Annette Bening, Ariana DeBose, Ben Platt, Bernadette Peters, Billy Crystal, Bowen Yang, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Carrie Coon, Cole Escola, Darren Criss, Jack O’Brien, Jeremy Pope, John Leguizamo, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kara Young, Kelli O’Hara, Kristin Chenoweth, Law Roach, Lena Waithe, Lily Rabe, Maya Rudolph, Megan Thee Stallion, Neil Patrick Harris, Nicole Scherzinger, Patrick Wilson, Paul Rudd, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Sarah Paulson and Sting.

How many awards are there?

A total of 26 competitive categories, from lead and featured actors to scenic, costume and lighting design. Some technical award handouts may be pre-taped, and winners won't appear on the live show, only cut down into edited bits sandwiched into the telecast.

What are the top nominees?

There are two top nominees: “The Lost Boys” and “Schmigadoon!” each earned a leading 12 Tony Award nominations. “The Lost Boys” is an adaptation of a 1987 teen movie vampire thriller, and “Schmigadoon!” is an adaptation of an Apple TV series that gently mocks Broadway musicals. They're followed by a revival of “Ragtime,” a big, soaring musical celebrating early 20th-century America, with 11 nominations, and “Death of a Salesman,” Arthur Miller’s masterpiece that looks at the unraveling of the American Dream, starring Nathan Lane, which nabbed nine nods.

Who is vying for best new play and musical?

For new musicals, it's “The Lost Boys," “Schmigadoon!,” “Titaníque” and “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).”

For new plays, it's “The Balusters,” “Giant,” “Liberation” and “Little Bear Ridge Road.”

Can history be made?

History has already been made, in a way. June Squibb became the oldest Tony-nominated actor in history at 96 and could become the oldest Tony winner, surpassing Lois Smith, who was 90 when she won in 2021.

Nathan Lane is hoping for his fourth Tony, which would make him tied as the most-awarded male performer in Tony history, alongside Boyd Gaines and Frank Langella. If he does win for best lead actor in a play for the revival of “Death of a Salesman,” he'd have Tonys in three separate acting categories, previously winning featured actor in a play for “Angels in America” and lead actor in a musical twice for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “The Producers.”

And for the first time since 2002, the contenders for best leading actress in a musical are all first-time nominees: Sara Chase ("Schmigadoon!"), Stephanie Hsu ("The Rocky Horror Show"), Caissie Levy ("Ragtime"), Marla Mindelle ("Titanique") and Christiani Pitts ("Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York").

Will there be other performances?

Other performances include the original lead cast members of “The Book of Mormon” — Josh Gad, Andrew Rannells, Rory O’Malley and Nikki M. James — this year celebrating its 15th anniversary.

Another show celebrating a milestone, “Chicago” now at 30, will have a performance slot featuring Queen Latifah, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Alex Newell, Adrienne Warren, Julianne Hough, Whitney Leavitt, Dylan Mulvaney and Pink. Plus, “A Chorus Line,” which last year celebrated its 50th anniversary, will get a special tribute by Rachel Zegler. Leslie Odom, Jr. will sing “Without You” from “Rent” during the In Memoriam section, in honor of that show’s 30th anniversary.

Broadway’s big season

The 2025-2026 Broadway season set a new box office record for the second year in a row. Over the 52 weeks of the season, Broadway brought in a combined total of $1,910,903,835, a smidge higher than last season’s then-historic total of $1,892,650,959. Last season also had 53 weeks instead of the usual 52, a Broadway accountant trick.

In more gloomy news, attendance was actually down — 14,577,322 versus 14,658,531 from last season. And the average paid admission was $131.09, continuing an ever upward trend.

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For more coverage of the 2026 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards.

Meanwhile, former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information under a deal with the Justice Department that could allow him to avoid prison time, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.

Here's the latest:

House poised to pass Ukraine aid over the objections of Republican leaders

The House is on course to pass legislation that would aid Ukraine and sanction key segments of the Russian economy despite opposition from Republican leaders who warn the bill will undermine negotiations designed to achieve a comparable but stronger result.

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, seeks to cement U.S. assistance for Ukraine by providing more than $1 billion in security and reconstruction aid. It would make another $8 billion available for Ukraine’s defense through loans.

The vote Thursday could generate the House’s second major foreign policy break this week with Trump. It comes one day after the House for the first time approved a war powers resolution aimed at halting the U.S. military action against Iran.

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Some Republican governors are rebranding June with conservative alternatives to Pride

June is widely recognized as Pride Month, but a handful of Republican governors have bestowed alternative titles that both supporters and opponents view as counterprogramming.

Without directly saying the idea was to replace Pride, the governors of Indiana and Tennessee rebranded June as Nuclear Family Month to celebrate units made up of “one husband, one wife and any biological, adopted or fostered children.”

In Alabama, it’s Strong Families Month, intended to coincide with Father’s Day.

The governors of Utah and Arkansas deemed it Fidelity Month, which emphasizes fidelity to faith, country and family — without comment on how those families might be comprised.

Pride organizations say the efforts to rename the month won’t affect their parades and other celebrations. The festivities were born out of protest more than 50 years ago, and organizers say that remains essential to their purpose.

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Trump expected to announce $700 million in new support for struggling coal industry

The president is again seeking to boost the struggling U.S. coal industry, with an announcement expected Thursday to spend nearly $700 million to support coal-fired power plants and coal exports.

A White House official said the administration will use authority under a Cold War-era national defense law to support 13 coal plants across the country and help build coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia.

If built, the plants would be the first new U.S. coal plants since 2013. The money will also help restart a coal-fired power plant in Maryland and support construction of a long-delayed coal export terminal in Oakland, California.

Environmentalists said the plan would “put polluters first” and jeopardize Americans’ health.

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American Airlines temporarily suspends some of its summer routes due to steep jet fuel costs

American Airlines is temporarily suspending some of its routes this summer, as steep jet fuel costs continue to strain carriers’ budgets amid the war with Iran.

In a statement, American said it had adjusted service for “select routes” in August and September — and that affected travelers would be offered alternative arrangements or refunds. The Texas-based airline cited elevated fuel costs, and maintained that these changes were in line with wider industry trends.

American also said that it was not cutting any of its routes indefinitely and that it was proud to “offer an industry-leading network with more flights than any other U.S. airline.”

Still, the summer suspensions could cause more headaches for travelers already facing fewer flights options and higher price tags across their budgets. Airlines around the world have canceled numerous flights or similarly trimmed schedules through the coming months — and many have are also hiking fees or cutting other perks in efforts to save money.

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Supreme Court sides with Trump administration on federal regulation of telecom companies

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration Thursday in a case about the power of federal regulators to enforce data privacy laws on telecommunications companies.

The 8-1 decision upheld one of the Federal Communications Commission’s key tools, though the companies also won a concession from the Republican administration that could shift the regulatory landscape.

The appeal from telecommunications giants Verizon and AT&T challenged a combined $100 million in penalties imposed after the agency determined the companies had failed to safeguard customer location data.

The companies argued that the FCC’s process was unconstitutional because it gave them little opportunity to tell their side of the story in front of a jury.

The administration defended the fines as an essential regulatory tool. But the government also said companies did not have to pay the penalties right away, a regulatory shift in the company’s favor.

The Supreme Court agreed.

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Ex-national security adviser John Bolton will plead guilty in classified information case: AP source

The former Trump administration national security adviser has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information under a deal with the Justice Department that could allow him to avoid prison time, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The deal would resolve a criminal case filed in October that charged Bolton with 18 counts of either retaining or sharing diary-like notes with family members that officials said contained classified information as he was preparing a memoir of his time in government.

Under the agreement, Bolton would also face a $2.25 million fine, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a deal that hadn’t been made public. Any prison sentence would be capped at five years, but the agreement allows for him to avoid time behind bars, though the punishment will ultimately be up to a judge.

A rearraignment, which typically signals a plea agreement, is scheduled for June 26.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

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— Eric Tucker

Senate begins voting on bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol as Democrats try to derail it

The Senate is beginning a long series of votes Thursday on legislation to fund President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, moving toward passage of a three-year fix as Democrats have blocked the money for months in protest.

The roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.

First, though, Republicans must beat back a potential gauntlet of amendments Democrats plan to offer, including to try and permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund for allies who he believes have been politically persecuted. Democrats have said their first amendment Thursday morning will be to eliminate the fund and send the immigration spending bill back to committee.

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US jobless aid filings, a proxy for layoffs, hit highest level since Iran war began in February

The number of Americans filing for jobless aid hit their highest level in four months last week, but layoffs remain historically low despite ongoing economic uncertainty brought on by the war in Iran.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 30 increased by 13,000 to 225,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the most since early February, before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran, but still a historically low level. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 211,000 new applications.

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

Despite historically low layoffs, the labor market seems to be mired in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state. That’s kept the unemployment rate low at 4.3%, but left many of those out of work struggling to find new employment.

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Trump officials went after dozens of colleges. Now they’re rewriting the rules for all of academia

A year ago, the White House was unleashing a blitz on higher education. At one campus after another, Trump officials opened investigations and cut federal funding unless schools fell in line with the Republican president’s political agenda.

Now, after a campaign that put dozens of universities under investigation, Trump’s administration is taking a wider approach, moving to rewrite the federal rules that govern all of higher education. Demands that were being pressed on individual schools are being written into the fine print for thousands of U.S. universities.

“We’re coming over the higher education system and course correcting,” Nicholas Kent, undersecretary for the Education Department, said in an Associated Press interview. Unlike investigations that target individual campuses, he said the new tactic has power “to affect 6,000 institutions.”

The shift comes after federal judges blocked Trump’s administration from making crippling cuts at Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles. It also follows a mass exodus in civil rights lawyers who traditionally guide investigations against universities. Still, Trump hasn’t backed down from his campaign to end what he calls “wokeness” run amok in academia.

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Buffalo named Donald Trump for his golden locks is a sensation at a Bangladesh zoo

With his shock of golden hair and trim 700-kilogram (1,500-pound) build, Donald Trump has been drawing crowds from across Bangladesh since he arrived at the national zoo last week.

The rare albino buffalo became a sensation when a farmer noticed that his blond tuft of hair resembled the distinctive locks of the U.S. president. After a video of the pale horned mammal went viral on social media, large numbers of people started showing up at the farm outside Dhaka to see him for themselves.

The animal was originally meant to be slaughtered for the Muslim festival of sacrifice. But citing security concerns, the government ordered him transferred to the zoo in the capital, where large crowds are now braving sweltering heat to see him.

“There is a resemblance to Donald Trump in its eyes, hairstyle, and skin color,” said Mohammed Nasim, a student in Dhaka. “And just as Donald Trump has a distinctive personality and lifestyle, this buffalo, after going viral, is now living a similar kind of life, enjoying a lot of attention and special treatment.”

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Trump slams the 4 Republicans who voted in favor of war powers resolution

The president says the symbolic House vote approving a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, was “meaningless.”

Still, Trump is livid that four House Republicans joined the Democrats in supporting the resolution.

“The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump said in a post on his social media site. “They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories. The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story - They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refuses to say whether Trump remains exempt from IRS audits

Bessent refused to say Wednesday whether Trump and his family would still get immunity from IRS audits after the administration abandoned plans for a $1.776 billion compensation fund that would have benefited the president’s allies.

“There’s continuing litigation, and I’m unable to comment on ongoing litigation,” Bessent told lawmakers at the Senate Finance Committee hearing.

It was a frustrating answer for Democratic lawmakers looking to get answers from Bessent at a hearing ostensibly focused on the Treasury Department’s budget and came a day after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche seemed to indicate that the portion of the settlement dealing with the IRS audit immunity would still be in effect for the Republican president.

After several failed attempts to get Bessent to answer, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said, “It’s been very clear you’re dodging this and you’re trying to use it as an excuse. It’s just outrageous on behalf of the American public.”

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Trump says he'll nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general

Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, tapping his former personal lawyer who has aggressively pursued the Republican president’s agenda while leading the Justice Department in an acting role.

Trump said at a dinner at the White House that he plans to nominate Blanche formally on Thursday, according to a video of the event posted on social media by a White House aide.

“We are going to make him permanent attorney general,” Trump said at the Rose Garden event.

Blanche was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general and was elevated after Bondi’s ousting over her failed efforts to prosecute Trump’s perceived political opponents. Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent post but made clear through splashy moves since taking the reins his intent on proving his loyalty to Trump.

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Senate begins voting on funding immigration enforcement after Trump’s settlement fund is dropped

The Republican-led Senate is moving forward with legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies after forcing the Trump administration to say it will drop its settlement fund for political allies and stripping a separate proposal for White House security from the bill.

The Senate voted 53-46 on Wednesday to begin debate on the roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. The legislation was delayed for weeks as Republican senators navigated the various obstacles to passage created by President Donald Trump and the White House, but they are now moving quickly to pass it after paring it back to its original form.

“Right now, the goal is to get the base bill across the finish line,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Still, Republicans will need to find enough votes to beat back multiple amendments that Democrats — and some Republicans — say they will offer to permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund.

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With Trump in a holding pattern on Iran war, allies and critics worry he risks getting boxed in

Trump is facing warnings from foes and allies alike that he’s getting boxed in on the Iran war, a conflict he sold as a brief military incursion but that has since settled into a holding pattern.

It’s been nearly a week since U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire in the conflict by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program that required Trump’s sign off.

But Trump has called for unspecified changes to the agreement and Iranian officials — perhaps calculating that he is reluctant to restart the bombardment after burning through key weapons systems — are showing no signs they’ll give in to new demands.

A series of strikes by the U.S. and Iran this week has raised fresh concern that the ceasefire could collapse. Trump on Wednesday downplayed the significance.

There’s growing concern inside the administration and among key advisers and allies that Trump now finds himself in a bind, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations.

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— Aamer Madhani and Matthew Lee

House approves war powers resolution to halt military action against Iran in a rebuke of Trump

The House for the first time Wednesday approved a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, defying Trump, as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the three-month-long conflict that has reordered politics at home and abroad.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had tried to prevent an outcome that would show the mounting opposition to the war, abruptly shutting down floor action two weeks ago when the resolution was on the verge of approval. But displeasure has only grown as the conflict drags on and as Trump struggles to negotiate a plan for peace.

“Enough is enough,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who led the effort.

“It is time for the president to do the right thing,” he said. “The people are tired of suffering because of his war of choice — suffering at the gas pump, suffering at the supermarkets.”

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Scientists say climate change deserves much, but not all, of the blame.

The national smog level dropped by 11% from 2003 to 2015 as strict federal regulations on power plants, cars and diesel engines kicked in. But since then, as wildfires have grown, the nation's average ground level ozone — which is smog — increased by 4%. That means if smoke increases at the current rate, smog will go back up to 2003 levels in 20 years, said study lead author Weizhi Deng, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Iowa.

Thursday's study in the journal Science also estimated an increase in deaths from ozone attacking lungs, using previously established epidemiology studies that compared death rates in clean and dirty air. They calculated an increase of 318 American deaths per year since 2013.

“For the last 20 years, by regulations, we keep decreasing the emissions" for human-caused smog-inducing chemicals, said study co-author Meng Zhou, a University of Iowa wildfire researcher. “However, because of wildfires, that is actually from natural hazards, all those kinds of effort were wiped out.”

Limited smog monitor coverage

The study was novel in the way it estimated the national smog level, compensating for how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a limited number of smog monitors. Those cover only 2% of the nation, mostly in urban areas. So Deng and his colleagues used those observations — along with satellite, pollution and weather data and models — then used artificial intelligence to create a nationwide data set of ozone levels that showed smog count at a resolution slightly higher than half a mile (1 kilometer).

EPA figures show the national ozone level since 2015 has vacillated around the same mark, going up and down a few percentage points, but Deng said, “by considering everywhere in the U.S., we actually found an increase in ozone starting from 2015.”

The method using artificial intelligence is solid because it starts with “massive and reliable datasets,” then uses computer models to fill in the gaps in a sensible way to make an “exceptional” high-resolution picture, said University of Delaware environment professor Cristina Archer, who wasn’t part of the study.

Megafire Action policy director Teresa Feo said “experts have long called for expanding the air pollution monitoring network to improve research on wildfire smoke exposure and provide the data needed to better protect public health.”

For decades, the U.S. tracked six traditional air pollutants, including smog and soot, which are tiny particles. This new study looked only at ozone, while a 2023 study by many of the same team looked at small particle pollution. They found the downward trend in soot levels had similarly reversed. Wildfire smoke increased particle pollution deaths by about 670 per year, the 2023 study found.

How fires trigger health problems

Fires don't produce ozone itself, but they release precursor chemicals that become smog when they interact with sunlight, scientists said.

“Higher daily ozone concentrations can increase asthma attacks, hospital admissions, and mortality,” said University of Washington public health and climate scientist Kristie Ebi. It's not quite as deadly as tiny particles, she said, but it is “still a very important pollutant, which is why it's regulated.”

During the heavy wildfire smoke seasons of 2022, 2023 and 2024, much of the fires were in Canada, but the smoke came south. In the U.S., 43 million people were exposed to smog levels that exceeded the current EPA safety standard, the study found.

And that standard isn't stringent enough, said Dr. Lynn Goldman, former dean of the George Washington University School of Public Health and a former EPA assistant administrator. In 2023, the Biden administration delayed plans to tighten those standards and then the Trump administration changed regulations that consider deaths and health impacts in smog and soot rules.

The biggest increase in ozone levels were in the Northern Rockies, which were near many of the fires, and in the Midwest, where the smoke travelled next, Deng said.

More fires, more smoke

The average amount of U.S. land that wildfires burn each year is now 9% higher than it was from 2003 to 2014, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. But the wildfires in Canada have been particularly bad since 2022, scientists said. They pointed to 2023 when the skies were orange and people in the East were wearing face masks because of the Canadian smoke.

The amount of land burned in 2023 in Canada was not only a record but two times higher than the old record, said atmospheric scientist Brendan Rogers of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. Smoke from that year's Canadian fires killed 82,100 people globally — 33,000 in the United States — because of the particle pollution, a study in 2025 calculated.

Climate change, from the burning of coal, oil and gas, increased the intensity of Canada's 2023 fire season by at least 50% and doubled the chances of the drier, hotter weather conditions that were needed for the fire, a 2023 study found.

“Human-caused climate change is an important contributor, because it increases hot, dry fire-weather conditions in many regions,” said Lixu Jin, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers who wasn't part of the study. “But wildfire emissions also depend on fuels, land management, ignitions, suppression, and year-to-year meteorology.”

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who served in the Obama administration, said it was discouraging to see smog improvements being eroded.

Wildfires cause death and destruction, but the greatest danger may come from smoke and extreme heat increasing the ozone that harms people’s health, she argued,

“So the big question is," she said, “when are we going to stop the nonsense from this administration to burn more and more ‘beautiful’ fossil fuels?”

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

The event is set for 10:30 a.m. at 1619 Saulnier St. in Houston.

Organizers say they will speak about what they describe as long-standing tensions between preservation-focused grassroots organizations and city-backed redevelopment entities working in the area.

Freedmen’s Town, located in Houston’s Fourth Ward, is widely recognized as one of the city’s most historically significant African American neighborhoods, with deep roots dating back to Emancipation. Preservation advocates have long worked to protect its historic brick streets and remaining structures as development pressure continues to grow in surrounding areas.

The Community Development Corporation of Freedmen’s Town, along with other local heritage and housing advocacy groups, is hosting the event. Organizers say they will highlight concerns about transparency in redevelopment projects, displacement risks, and the future of historic landmarks in the district.

They also point to a range of city-affiliated and partner organizations involved in redevelopment planning and funding, arguing that community-led preservation efforts have not received comparable support or resources.

City officials and redevelopment partners have previously maintained that investment in the area is intended to improve infrastructure, support revitalization, and expand public access to cultural and historic sites.

A White House official said the administration will use authority under a Cold War-era national defense law to support 13 coal plants across the country and help build coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia — the first new U.S. coal plants since 2013. The money will also help restart a shuttered coal-fired power plant in Maryland and support construction of a long-delayed coal export terminal in Oakland, California.

Together, the announcements will support or create more than 14,000 jobs in coal, construction, rail and maritime industries, a White House official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details ahead of Trump’s expected announcement later Thursday at the White House.

Trump is expected to be joined Thursday by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. Trump is expected to invoke the Defense Production ⁠Act, a 1950 law that grants presidents wide authority over national security-related industries.

Trump seeks to reverse long-term decline in U.S. coal

The announcement is the latest step by Trump to try to reverse the years-long decline in the U.S. coal industry. The administration said last fall it will open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining and provide $625 million to recommission or modernize coal-fired power plants. Trump issued executive orders soon after retaking office to try to revive coal, a reliable but polluting energy source that’s long been shrinking amid environmental regulations and competition from cheaper natural gas and renewable energy.

Bloomberg News first reported the new funds for coal.

Under Trump’s orders, the Energy Department has required coal-fired power plants in Michigan, Indiana, Colorado and Washington state to keep operating past their retirement dates to meet rising U.S. power demand amid growth in data centers, artificial intelligence and electric cars. The Energy Department has extended short-term orders to allow those efforts to continue, and has ordered oil and gas-fired plants in Maryland and Pennsylvania to run past scheduled retirement dates.

Wright has said the administration's use of emergency orders to keep aging coal-fired plants operating helped prevent major blackouts during brutally frigid weather that gripped most of the country in late January and early February.

Activists call Trump's priorities archaic

Environmental groups denounced the latest effort to boost coal, which comes as the Trump administration has clamped down on renewable energy, including freezing permits for offshore wind projects, ending clean energy tax credits and blocking wind and solar projects on federal lands.

“Propping up coal billionaires with taxpayer money is one more way for the Trump administration to put polluters first and put the rest of us at risk," said Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “What’s next, a taxpayer bailout to build new phone booths?”

Trump's order will result in higher electricity bills and dirtier air, Kennedy and other critics said. “The best thing for the air, the climate and our utility bills is to let these plants retire peacefully," she said.

Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said coal generation helps shield consumers from the impacts of volatile energy prices and supply challenges exacerbated by AI.

Trump's strategy will “ensure that upgrades to existing energy assets are made” domestically, “and at our ports to ensure that U.S. coal can answer the world’s needs,” he said.

Coal once provided more than half of U.S. electricity production, but its share dropped to about 15% in 2024, down from about 45% as recently as 2010. Natural gas provides about 43% of U.S. electricity, with the remainder from nuclear energy and renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower.

U.S. coal exports dropped during the first year of Trump’s second term, largely due to less coal being shipped to China after it imposed reciprocal tariffs on American products last year in response to broad tariffs announced by Trump, according to the Energy Information Administration. Global coal demand rose to record levels in recent years but is expected to flatten or decline in coming years, according the International Energy Agency.

It’s hard for U.S. companies to expand into new markets because there are plentiful reserves of coal around the globe.

Even so, Trump has pushed to revive coal exports on the West Coast. Coal miners have long sought to ship coal from Utah and the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming to markets in Asia.

Developers are fighting the city of Oakland to build an export terminal on the site of a decommissioned Army base. Community members and advocacy groups have voiced concerns over how trains loaded with coal will affect public health, safety and the environment.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana contributed to this report.

Now, after a campaign that put dozens of universities under investigation, President Donald Trump's administration is taking a wider approach, moving to rewrite the federal rules that govern all of higher education. Demands that were being pressed on individual schools are being written into the fine print for thousands of U.S. universities.

“We’re coming over the higher education system and course correcting,” Nicholas Kent, undersecretary for the Education Department, said in an Associated Press interview. Unlike investigations that target individual campuses, he said the new tactic has power “to affect 6,000 institutions.”

The shift comes after federal judges blocked Trump's administration from making crippling cuts at Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles. It also follows a mass exodus in civil rights lawyers who traditionally guide investigations against universities. Still, Trump hasn’t backed down from his campaign to end what he calls “wokeness” run amok in academia.

Through regulation, the administration is going after many of the targets it hammered with investigations — diversity, equity and inclusion policies, transgender athletes, antisemitism and a variety of practices perceived as anti-white discrimination.

Several US agencies propose new rules

One new rule being proposed by the Education Department would overhaul the system that decides which colleges can receive federal money, known as the accreditation process. Among other changes, the proposal would require accreditors to make sure colleges have “intellectual diversity,” a veiled call for more conservative voices.

Many people in higher education are alarmed by a proposal from the Office of Management and Budget that would order agencies to ensure federal grants “advance the President’s policy priorities.” Trump officials would verify that grants aren't used to promote DEI, “anti-American values” or anything denying “the sex binary in humans," according to the proposal issued last week. An OMB spokesperson said the rule aims to promote transparency.

Another proposal from the General Services Administration would require federal grant recipients, including universities and their contractors, to certify they don't have DEI policies deemed unlawful by the administration.

At least 11 new rules have been proposed at the Education Department, including one aimed at “streamlining the process” to cut money for schools that violate the Trump administration's interpretation of civil rights law.

Making federal rules can take months of debate in humdrum bureaucratic processes. But unlike earlier strategies that tested the limits of White House power, the rulemaking process is a widely accepted route to establish federal policy into law — without needing to go through Congress.

Some in higher education welcome the change. Unlike last year's attacks, the new approach opens the door for a conversation, said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents.

“We’re playing a game that has rules and referees, and that’s good,” said Mitchell, a former Education Department official under President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “It gives us an opportunity to talk about where we might agree with the administration. That was impossible to do when these were just straight-on attacks.”

The administration launches fewer new investigations

Meantime, the Education and Justice departments have announced fewer higher-education investigations, issuing news releases on roughly a dozen at U.S. universities so far this year. In the same span last year, they announced more than 70, according to an AP analysis. The exact number of new investigations is unclear — a public database has not been updated since January 2025.

Kent said the Education Department will continue to open investigations as needed, describing it as using a “scalpel to cut out the bad.” But he said colleges have started to come to heel on the administration’s priorities.

“Folks realize that it’s a new day and that we’re paying attention,” Kent said.

The vast majority of the investigations opened last year are still open. The White House struck deals with Columbia, Brown and a handful of other campuses, but most cases are unresolved with no public update in months.

Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said the barrage of investigations amounted to “performance art” that grabbed attention but had little impact. After pushback from schools, she said, the Trump administration is backing off.

“It stopped putting itself in a position to lose,” said Lhamon, who now leads the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Still, some fights have intensified. The White House has doubled down on battles with Harvard and UCLA after federal judges blocked the administration from cutting off research funding from the campuses.

The Justice Department has sued Harvard and UCLA four times since February, alleging that both campuses tolerated antisemitism and that Harvard refused to release admissions data sought by the administration. Leaders of both universities say they have worked to fight antisemitism.

Admissions cases become a top priority

A White House official said the investigative slowdown is also the result of a mounting focus on college admissions. The administration has been building cases against colleges accused of considering race in admissions decisions even after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action. Those investigations can take more time because they require large data collections, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.

Some of those cases are now coming to bear.

The Justice Department recently concluded that medical schools at Yale and UCLA discriminated against white and Asian American students by allegedly favoring Black and Latino applicants. The universities have defended their admissions processes, saying they were rigorous and based on merit.

On Thursday, the Justice Department said it was opening 15 similar investigations at other medical schools, alleging “potential race discrimination” in their admissions processes.

Trump officials are taking a hard-line approach against any use of race in admissions, clashing with colleges that invite students to discuss their race in application essays. In its 2023 decision, the Supreme Court said nothing stops schools from considering how applicants’ race speaks to broader qualities.

“We are making sure," Kent said, “that we are elevating our best and our brightest and that we’re not putting the thumb on the scale because of somebody’s skin color.”

Higher education has already been changed

Facing last year’s blitz, many campuses quietly made changes to avoid scrutiny. Some closed DEI offices. The NCAA moved to limit transgender athletes. Universities from UCLA to Columbia tightened campus protest rules after pro-Palestinian demonstrations were the subject of federal investigations.

Research has been scaled back as top schools face continued funding cuts.

In the classroom, there’s been a chilling effect as professors fear that what they say or teach could attract federal attention, said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.

Still, he’s optimistic the balance of power is shifting in universities' favor. Students and faculty members on several campuses built pressure to reject a White House invitation last fall to sign on to aspects of Trump’s agenda in exchange for favorable access to research funding, he said. The AAUP has brought several lawsuits against the administration, including one that stopped funding cuts at UCLA.

“The sector is getting its feet under it, and it’s only getting stronger,” Wolfson said. “I can promise you that we will fight them tooth and nail.”

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

From neighborhood parks to large aquatic centers, the region offers dozens of free or low-cost options where kids can run through fountains, spray jets and dumping buckets without spending much money.

Here is an updated guide to splash pads and water play spots across the Houston area for summer 2026.

Houston splash pads and spray grounds

The City of Houston operates more than 25 splash grounds across neighborhoods citywide, typically open seasonally from spring through early fall, depending on weather and maintenance schedules.

Popular locations include:

• Emancipation Park, 3018 Emancipation Ave., which features multiple spray areas and interactive water features
• Hermann Park, 6001 Fannin St., home to a long-running spray ground near the playground for all children
• Discovery Green, 1500 McKinney St., featuring the Gateway Fountain, a downtown favorite with timed water jets
• Levy Park, 3801 Eastside St., offering a modern play space with interactive water features and shaded seating
• Ervan Chew Park, 4502 Dunlavy St., a neighborhood spray ground near sports fields and playground areas
• Tony Marron Park, 808 N. York St., a community spray ground with shaded seating and nearby recreation space

Many Houston spray grounds operate on timed systems and are free to the public during park hours.

Harris County splash pads and parks

Harris County Precinct parks also offer several popular splash pads and water play areas across the region.

Notable spots include:

• Gene Green Park, 6500 East Sam Houston Pkwy N., featuring a kiddie spray park, skate park and walking trails
• Nottingham Park, 14205 Kimberley Lane, with a splash pad, playground and sports courts
• Directors Park, 21437 Clay Road, where water features activate with push-button controls during seasonal hours

These parks typically operate splash pads during warmer months, with schedules that may vary by precinct.

Katy, Sugar Land and West Houston water play areas

Families in the western suburbs have several low-cost and free splash options.

• River Park Splash Pad, 5875 Summit Creek, Sugar Land
• Splash Pad at the Plaza, 18111 Lexington Blvd., Sugar Land
• Texas Avenue Park Splash Pad, 17100 Texas Ave., Webster
• Nottingham Park Splash Pad, Katy area
• Directors Park Splash Pad, Katy area

Some locations in Sugar Land operate seasonally from spring through mid-fall, with maintenance closures on select weekdays.

The Woodlands and north Houston spray grounds

The Woodlands Township operates multiple spray grounds across community parks, many of which are free to use during park hours.

Popular locations include:

• Village Green Park, 26400 Kuykendahl Dr.
• Shadowbend Park, 4995 Lake Woodlands Dr.
• Sawmill Park, 2200 Millpark Dr.
• May Valley Park, 11598 May Valley Circle
• Timarron Park, 550 N Greenprint Circle

Nearby, Rob Fleming Aquatic Center offers a larger waterpark experience with slides, a lazy river and interactive play structures for a daily admission fee.

Low-cost waterparks and aquatic centers

For families willing to spend a little more, the Houston region also offers affordable waterpark-style attractions:

• Conroe Waterpark, 1205 Candy Cane Lane, Conroe
• Bellaire Town Square Family Aquatic Center, 7001 5th St., Bellaire
• Quillian Center Noah’s Ark Pool, 10570 Westpark Dr., Houston
• Rob Fleming Aquatic Center, The Woodlands

These facilities typically offer day passes ranging from low to moderate cost depending on residency.

Tips for visiting splash pads in 2026

• Hours vary by park and weather conditions, especially during drought or heat advisories
• Many splash pads are free but may require seasonal activation by local park departments
• Arrive early on hot days, as popular locations can become crowded quickly
• Bring towels, water shoes and sunscreen, as most sites have limited shade

Houston families have dozens of ways to cool off without breaking the budget, and more splash pads continue to open and rotate seasonally across the region.

🏊‍♂️ Where do you go to cool off with your kids? What would you add to this list? Drop your recommendations and insights in the comment section.

The incident occurred midway through the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s game between the Spurs and New York Knicks. The NBA did not disclose what role the second banned person, who did not run onto the court, played in the incident.

“The individual who entered the court area during Game 1 of The Finals was arrested and will be banned for life from all NBA arenas," an NBA spokesman said in a news release. "A second individual will also receive a lifetime ban for his role in the incident.”

The person who was arrested after running onto the court is a juvenile, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because that detail — first reported by the San Antonio Express-News — was not revealed publicly.

That fan appeared to enter the court from the sideline opposite the team benches, starting from behind the play and running into San Antonio's offensive end. The person was quickly pulled from the court by two security guards and it did not appear the person made any physical contact with Wembanyama or any New York players.

Wembanyama did not appear bothered by the incident, either as it was happening or afterward.

“I’ve never been in that situation,” Wembanyama said. “I didn’t know how to act."

He compared the moment to a game in January 2024 when a bat got into the Spurs' arena and flew around the court, stopping a game against Minnesota for a couple of minutes.

Play on Wednesday was stopped for 1 minute and 29 seconds before the game resumed with a jump ball. The fan who entered the play was taken out of the court area through a baseline tunnel.

“I don’t think it was an event at all,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “I thought security got him out of there. I think everybody moved on to the next play.”

Another incident involving fan behavior occurred in the final minute, when New York guard Jalen Brunson — who had a game-high 30 points in the Knicks' come-from-behind win — appeared to be upset by something said to him by a patron in a courtside seat.

A second person, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because the NBA has not discussed the matter publicly, said the league is “looking into what happened” with the fan and what was said to Brunson.

Fan behavior and conduct has been a point of emphasis for the NBA in recent years, and the league sent a memo to all 30 clubs at the start of this season saying it wants “consistent and vigilant enforcement of the NBA Fan Code of Conduct … to deter and address fan misconduct at NBA games and events.”

The NBA, in that October memo, told teams that arena staff “must be trained to identify behavior that violates NBA rules and to respond proactively.” The NBA, like many leagues, also has a video detailing a code of conduct for fans played in every arena before each game.

“It is critical that teams and arenas vigorously enforce the Code of Conduct and not tolerate any misconduct that impacts our players, fans, or otherwise disrupts the game,” the league said.

___

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

The S&P 500 added 0.4% a day after dropping from its all-time high and coming just short of its longest winning streak in three decades. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 812 points, or 1.6%, as of 1:46 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.

A clear majority of stocks on Wall Street climbed, including 2 out of every 3 in the S&P 500. They got a boost from a 3.5% drop for the price of Brent crude oil to $94.43 per barrel. That gave back a chunk of its rise this week caused by the latest flare-ups of fighting between Iran and the United States and its allies.

The expectation on Wall Street seems to be that the United States and Iran will ultimately agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers. That would hopefully improve the flow of crude, lower oil's price and remove some of the upward pressure on inflation that's hurting the world. Such hopes, along with strong profit reports from U.S. companies, helped launch the S&P 500 on a nine-day winning streak that ended Wednesday.

Elanco Animal Health rose 1.5%, and Zoetis, which sells animal vaccines, climbed 2.5% on expectations for stronger profits after the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Wednesday that the New World screwworm fly has reached south Texas. It's the first time in decades that the parasite with flesh-eating larvae has threatened the nation’s cattle industry.

Toro added 1.6% after the seller of mowers and other equipment became the latest U.S. company to deliver better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Richard Olson said Toro saw strong demand across its products, and the company raised its forecasts for revenue and profit over its full fiscal year.

Several other companies also joined the long list of those topping analysts’ profit expectations, but many nevertheless dropped, particularly in the high-flying technology industry.

Broadcom sank 11.8%, even though both profit and revenue for the chip company surpassed analysts’ expectations. CEO Hock Tan said its AI semiconductor revenue more than doubled to $10.8 billion during the quarter and that demand is only getting bigger. He is forecasting AI semiconductor growth to top 200% in the current quarter.

Investors, though, may have been expecting even more after Broadcom’s stock came into the day with a 38.5% surge for the year so far. That towered over the already strong 10.3% rise for the S&P 500 index, and Broadcom has grown to become Wall Street’s sixth-biggest stock and one of its most influential.

Analysts have been saying AI stocks may have run too high, becoming too expensive, and that 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.

Other AI winners likewise gave back some of their big gains. Micron Technology, the latest company to see its total value top $1 trillion because of AI euphoria, fell 5.3%.

CrowdStrike Holdings dropped 4.8% even though the cybersecurity company’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter topped analysts’ expectations. CEO George Kurtz said the latest quarter was when “the worlds of cybersecurity and frontier AI collided,” and the company said it’s splitting its stock to make its share price more affordable.

But its stock came into the day with a 59.5% surge for the year so far. And analysts said it beat forecasts for some financial measures by less than it usually does.

Outside of tech, PVH Corp., the company behind the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, tumbled 23.7% even though it also beat Wall Street’s first-quarter sales and profit targets. CEO Stefan Larsson warned that it’s feeling “the prolonged effects of the Middle East conflict, which is putting pressure on” customers in the region.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased with oil prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.46% from 4.49% late Wednesday. That can lessen the pressure on not only stock prices but also the economy in general.

Easier interest rates can help smaller companies in particular because many need to borrow money to grow. The Russell 2000 index of the smallest U.S. stocks jumped 1.3%

Reports on the U.S. economy, meanwhile, came in mixed. One said that slightly more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, which could indicate a slowdown in the relatively solid U.S. job market. Another report said that productivity for U.S. workers improved by less during the first three months of the year than economists expected.

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

South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.8%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.5% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.4% for some of the larger losses.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

The decision released Thursday marks another setback for Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes as she struggles to push the sprawling case through the courts. Mayes’ office said it will again present the case in its entirety to a grand jury rather than end the prosecution. Her office declined to comment further on the court's decision.

The ruling came after similar cases in Michigan and Georgia were dismissed by the courts and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Cases related to the fake elector scheme remain in Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.

A lower-court judge in Phoenix concluded in May that the case’s first grand jury hadn’t been shown the text of the Electoral Count Act, a 19th century law that governs the certification of presidential contests and was invoked by those charged in defending themselves.

Defense lawyers argued the law allowed for multiple slates of electors to be submitted to Congress in case the results were disputed, though it was amended in 2022 to specify that a state could put forward only one slate of electors and that it was the governor who would sign off. Mark L. Williams, an attorney representing Giuliani, applauded the court’s decision and questioned whether Mayes’ office will carry through on its promise to bring the case back to the grand jury. “In my mind, the whole thing is meritless," Williams said. "Mr. Giuliani has done nothing wrong.” There has been no movement in the Arizona case at the trial court level since mid-May 2025.

Former President Joe Biden won Arizona in 2020 by 10,457 votes.

The state attorney general has faced steep challenges in making her case.

It was filed nearly three and a half years after the 2020 election and levels complicated conspiracy charges against 18 defendants. A dozen dismissal requests filed by defense attorneys have slowed down the case’s pace.

The first judge on the case recused himself in late 2024 after an email surfaced in which he told fellow judges to speak out against attacks on Kamala Harris’ campaign for the presidency. The next judge ordered the case to be sent back to a grand jury.

Of the 18 Arizona defendants, two were former Trump aides, five were lawyers working for Trump and 11 were Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona.

Three defendants have resolved their cases, including one who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

The rest have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges. Some said they signed the certificate in case Trump won court challenges and a new slate of electors was needed urgently before Congress’ Jan. 6 deadline to tally votes.

The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate fell to 6.48% from 6.53% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. The average rate remains below 6.85%, where it was a year ago.

When mortgage rates decline they give homebuyers more purchasing power.

Rates have been mostly trending higher since the war with Iran began, disrupting the passage of tankers ferrying crude oil from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide. That’s sent oil prices sharply higher — a key driver of inflation.

“This conflict is currently the main driver of still-high mortgage rates, as the oil shock ripples inflation fears throughout the global economy,” said Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

Expectations of higher oil prices as the war drags on have kept long-term bond yields elevated, causing mortgage rates to mostly trend higher.

The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note was at 4.47% in midday trading Thursday on the bond market, up from 4.45% a week ago. It was just 3.97% in late February, before the war broke out.

As recently as late February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage had slipped just under 6% for the first time since late 2022. It’s hasn’t fallen below that threshold since. Last week, it surged to its highest level since August 28, when it was 6.56%.

While average long-term mortgage rates remain lower than they were at this time last year, their mostly upward trajectory and uncertainty over how much higher they may go as bond markets react to the economic fallout from the conflict in the Middle East have been a drag on the housing market.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat in April after declining from a year earlier in the first three months of the year, extending a nationwide housing slump that dates back to 2022 when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. The May existing home sales snapshot is due out next week.

Recent mortgage applications data are another sign that the upward trend in mortgage rates has many would-be homebuyers on hold.

Mortgage applications, which include loans to buy a home or refinance an existing mortgage, fell 2.5% last week for the third week in a row, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Applications for loans to buy a home remain modestly higher than last year's levels, but posted their slowest weekly pace since April.

Meanwhile, home loan refinancing applications softened as many homeowners eager to refinance hold out for lower rates.

Still, those homeowners also got some relief this week. Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also eased. That average rate fell to 5.79% from 5.87% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.99%, Freddie Mac said.

Home shoppers who are undeterred by elevated mortgage rates are benefiting from buyer-friendly trends in many markets, including more properties for sale than a year ago and data showing that home listing prices have started falling.

The median price of U.S. homes listed for sale fell 2.4% last month from a year earlier, the steepest decline on data going back to 2017, according to Realtor.com.

The deal would resolve a criminal case filed in October that charged Bolton with 18 counts of either retaining or disseminating classified information, including diary-like notes from his time in government that officials say he shared with his family members as he was preparing a memoir about his time in office.

Under the agreement, Bolton would also face a $2.25 million fine, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a deal that had not been made public. Any prison sentence would be capped at five years, but the agreement allows for him to avoid time behind bars, though the punishment will ultimately be up to a judge.

The case against Bolton, filed weeks after prosecutors secured indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, unfolded against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department was using its law enforcement powers to pursue perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump. The investigation burst into public view last August when FBI agents served search warrants at his Maryland hone and Washington office, but it had been well underway by the time Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

Wrote book critical of Trump

Bolton is a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power. He served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being fired in 2019 and publishing a critical book that portrayed the Republican president as deeply misinformed and painted an unflattering portrait of his leadership and decision-making.

Trump's administration fought unsuccessfully to block the publication of “The Room Where it Happened” on the grounds that the book risked disclosing classified information. The plea deal that Bolton will enter covers the notes he shared with relatives as opposed to information published in the tell-all book.

A rearraignment, which typically signals a plea agreement, is scheduled for June 26 in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The indictment's 18 counts carried a threat of a substantial prison sentence in the event of conviction.

Accused of sharing classified material with family members

Court documents alleged that he shared with two family members “diary-like” entries with information classified as high as top secret that he had learned from meetings with other U.S. government officials, from intelligence briefings or talks with foreign leaders. After sending one document, Bolton wrote in a message to his relatives, “None of which we talk about!!!” In response, one of his relatives wrote, “Shhhhh,” prosecutors said.

The indictment said that among the material shared was information about foreign adversaries that in some cases revealed details about sources and methods used by the U.S. government to collect intelligence. One document related to a foreign adversary’s plans for a missile launch, while another detailed U.S. government plans for covert action and included intelligence blaming an adversary for an attack, court papers say.

In a statement released after his indictment, Bolton described the charges as part of an “intensive effort” by Trump to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct."

Bolton also served in the Department of Justice during President Ronald Reagan’s administration and was a State Department point person on arms control during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Bolton was nominated by Bush to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but the strong supporter of the Iraq War was unable to win Senate confirmation. He resigned after serving 17 months through a recess appointment that allowed him to hold the job on a temporary basis without Senate approval.

Fired after foreign policy clashes with Trump

In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump’s third national security adviser. His brief tenure was characterized by disputes with the president over North Korea, Iran and Ukraine.

Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton’s departure, with Trump announcing on social media in September 2019 that he had accepted Bolton’s resignation.

Bolton subsequently criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government in his book, including by alleging that Trump directly tied providing military aid to Ukraine to that country’s willingness to conduct investigations into Joe Biden, who was soon to be Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential election, and members of the Biden family.

Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a “washed-up guy” and a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.”

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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

No official casualty figures were immediately available from the clashes that prompted calls for restraint from the United Nations and the United States as the government and opposition traded blame for the violence.

Residents reported heavy gunfire and explosions as fighting broke out in several neighborhoods Wednesday.

“We heard heavy weapons fire, and people were fleeing their homes,” said Abdullahi Mohamed, who lives in the city's Howlwadaag district. “Many families left the area looking for safer places.”

The clashes underscore growing political tensions as disputes over Somalia's elections and the constitution have increasingly strained relations between the government and opposition leaders. Somalia is also fighting al-Shabab militants while seeking to strengthen state institutions with support from international partners.

Several buildings were hit by heavy gunfire and mortar shells during the clashes, with some catching fire.

Gunfire subsided on Thursday afternoon following mediation efforts led by the director of the National Intelligence and Security Agency, who visited the area and held talks with former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire. The discussions reportedly led to an agreement to halt the fighting.

Khaire was later seen leaving his house alongside the intelligence chief. During a briefing with journalists, Benadir Regional Police Commissioner Mahdi Omar said that an arms recovery operation at Khaire’s residence had uncovered heavy machine guns. He added that the operation resulted in casualties but did not provide details on the number of people killed or injured.

Opposition figures say the rally planned for later Thursday was intended to protest what they call constitutional violations and efforts by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to extend his tenure. The government has rejected those allegations.

On Thursday morning, there were signs of mobilization on the streets, but a heavy security presence remained in place with police patrolling major roads.

Mogadishu police said the violence stemmed from “organized attacks” carried out by armed militias.

“The incidents were not the organization of peaceful public demonstrations, but rather coordinated armed acts that directly threatened the security, order and stability of the capital,” the police said in a statement.

State security forces repelled attacks on their positions and launched investigations to identify those responsible for organizing, financing and carrying out the violence, police said.

Opposition leaders accused security forces of attacking residences linked to former Prime Minister Khaire and former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

“We are under attack,” Khaire said in a statement. “For the second time in less than 24 hours, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has directed armed forces against our peaceful gatherings.”

Traditional elders, politicians, and community leaders were meeting at Khaire's residence when the attack occurred, he said. The government disputed that account.

The U.N. expressed alarm over the clashes. Secretary-General António Guterres said the violence resulted in deaths, injuries to civilians, and damage to critical infrastructure.

“The Secretary-General strongly condemns all acts of violence and incitement to violence undertaken for political advantage,” he said in a statement. Guterres also called on all parties to exercise restraint, protect civilians and resolve political differences through dialogue.

The U.S. also voiced concern over the fighting. The U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu described the violence as “reckless” and urged Somali leaders to seek a peaceful resolution.

“Somali leaders on all sides have a responsibility to preserve stability and resolve differences through peaceful means,” the embassy said. “Actions taken in the coming hours and days may have lasting consequences for Somalia’s security, unity, and future.”

Khaire accused Mohamud of deploying state security forces against political opponents and alleged that troops trained and equipped by international partners to fight the al-Shabab extremist group had been used against opposition figures.

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

The events are designed to commemorate Juneteenth, the day on June 19, 1865, when enslaved African Americans in Texas learned they were free, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

For generations, Juneteenth has been celebrated within Black communities as a day of remembrance, reflection, and joy. The holiday gained national recognition when it became a federal holiday in 2021.

Briones said the events will provide opportunities for families to come together, learn about history, celebrate culture, and build community connections.

Houston and Harris County have deep ties to Juneteenth history. The announcement of freedom in Texas came after Union troops arrived in Galveston in June 1865, making the state the birthplace of the Juneteenth tradition.

Precinct 4 Juneteenth events

P4 Juneteenth Family Reunion

Weekley Community Center

June 6, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Residents can enjoy live music, food, food trucks, health screenings, children’s crafts, community resources, and card games. Organizers say the event is designed to capture the spirit of a family reunion while bringing neighbors together.

Juneteenth Mosaic

Burnett Bayland Community Center

June 12, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Participants will work together to create a large community mosaic celebrating culture, history, and unity. Staff members will guide attendees through the collaborative art project.

Taste of Freedom: Honoring Juneteenth

Glazier Senior Education Center

June 18, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

This potluck-style gathering will celebrate freedom, heritage, and community. Attendees are encouraged to bring a favorite dish to share while enjoying contributions from the Wise Women of Glazier and connecting with neighbors.

Juneteenth Celebration

Tracy Gee Community Center

June 18, noon to 2 p.m.

Community members will create artwork inspired by themes of freedom, resilience, and hope while watching a documentary exploring the history and significance of Juneteenth.

With Juneteenth approaching, Precinct 4 leaders hope the events will offer meaningful opportunities for residents to honor the past while celebrating the progress and contributions of African Americans throughout Texas and the nation.

All events are free and open to the public. Organizers encourage families, seniors, and community members of all ages to participate.

Thursday’s Forecast:

Similar to Wednesday, there will be more afternoon thunderstorms. We’ll wake up in the 70s with a high in the mid-80s. We’ll keep a close eye on radar as we get into the afternoon.

Tracking tropical moisture at the end of the week:

There is a large, disorganized area of tropical moisture in the Gulf. It shouldn’t form into a tropical storm or depression, but it will bring more organized heavy rain to the Gulf Coast. There is a 60% chance of moisture here on Friday and Saturday. Both of these days we have a street flooding threat.

Your extended forecast:

After these next several stormy days, things are expected to trend drier as we get to the start of next week. Have your plans ready for changing weather, keep the Storm Tracker 2 radar handy, and check back for the latest local updates.

Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown 37 years ago, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.

Relatives from a group called Tiananmen Mothers visited the graves for more than 30 years, reading memorial statements while police kept watch, Amnesty International said.

Hundreds of people, and possibly thousands, were killed in 1989 as troops advanced through crowds that were trying to stop the military from reaching the protesters on Tiananmen Square, a vast plaza in the center of the Chinese capital. The decision by the Communist Party leadership to send in the military was a pivotal moment in China's modern history, determining that the market reform that transformed the country into the world's second largest economy would not be coupled with political liberalization.

Rubio says censorship can't erase the past

In Hong Kong, police stepped up security Thursday at or near a park where a massive candlelight vigil lit up the night every year until a clampdown following major anti-government protests in 2019. A handful of people showed up in the evening. Officers allowed some to go freely — including a man holding flowers and an activist who said she bowed 37 times.

Police said in a statement that seven people were stopped and searched on suspicion of being disorderly in public as of 11:30 p.m. They were taken away for further investigation before being allowed to leave, police said, without naming them.

Activist Chan Po-ying, who held a yellow paper flower, was among those taken away by police vans as journalists watched.

The U.S., the EU and Britain posted messages on social media marking the anniversary. “No amount of censorship can erase the past,” a statement from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio read. “Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday.” Rows of electronic candles lit up the windows of the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed Rubio's words as a smear on her nation’s political system. “We urge the U.S. side to ... stop using so-called democracy and human rights as a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” she said.

The chairs of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China also issued a statement, saying the Chinese Communist Party “can censor history; it cannot silence memory.”

On Thursday, a number of U.S. lawmakers, former student leaders from the 1989 movement and their supporters gathered on the U.S. Capitol Hill to commemorate the anniversary. Among them was Arthur Liu, father of the Olympic figure skating champion Alysa Liu and a former student leader. He urged the public to remember the movement and not to forget those who are still in jail for their pro-democracy activism stemming from the Tiananmen days.

Tiananmen Mothers calls crackdown a crime

Tiananmen Mothers issued an annual appeal for justice ahead of this year's anniversary. The statement, signed by 107 people, demanded full disclosure of what happened, compensation for the victims and their families and the pursuit of legal accountability for those responsible.

“The sacrifice of our family members is an indelible pain etched in our hearts. Our tears have run dry, grief is buried deep within, what remains is eternal remembrance of our family members and hatred for the crime of massacring the people,” Zhang Xianling, a member of the group, said in a video message posted on Facebook — which is blocked in China.

Amnesty said it is deeply troubling that China's suppression of the commemoration appears to be escalating. “Banning the relatives of people killed in the Tiananmen crackdown from visiting their loved ones’ graves is a heartless act by the Chinese authorities," Sarah Brooks, the organization's deputy director for Asia, said in a statement.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Hong Kong has banned an annual vigil

Authorities in Hong Kong have banned the vigil since 2020, at first citing the COVID-19 pandemic. Simon Ng, a past participant, walked around the nearby Causeway Bay shopping district to mark the anniversary. “There are some things I can neither forget nor let go, so I have to come and take a walk,” he said.

Three of the organizers of the vigil have been charged under a 2020 national security law. One pleaded guilty, which may result in a lesser sentence. The other two have been tried and are awaiting a verdict.

One of them, lawyer Chow Hang-tung, said in an online post published last weekend that she would go on a 37-hour hunger strike in prison. “Behind the glitter of power and dictatorship lies the blood and broken dreams of ordinary people. For in amnesia lies the demise of democracy,” she wrote.

Derek Chu, a former district councilor, said on Instagram that he visited Chow on Thursday and told her he would also stop eating for 37 hours in support. He added that a shop he runs is giving out LED candles that can be used to remember the victims.

An annual vigil was held in Taiwan, but a driving thunderstorm reduced turnout to about 200 people. China, which claims the self-governing island as its territory, sanctioned four New Zealand lawmakers on Thursday to protest their recent visit to Taiwan.

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Leung reported from Hong Kong. AP video journalist Taijing Wu in Taipei, Taiwan and reporter Didi Tang in Washington D.C. contributed to this report.

No, the most unpleasant part of descending into New York City's vast sewer system, according to former urban explorer Steve Duncan, was the cockroaches.

“They’re all over the place, crawling on walls, dropping down on you,” Duncan recalled this week. “They were the worst.”

Duncan, 48, who now lives in Maryland, reflected on his years documenting the muck-filled tunnels running under New York after surveillance videos captured small groups of people mysteriously entering and exiting the sewer system in Brooklyn and Queens in recent days.

Police say they’re still investigating the three incidents but don’t believe there’s any threat to the public. Officials stress that it is both illegal and dangerous to enter the city’s 7,400 miles (12,000 kilometers) of sewer pipes.

Duncan believes the groups were likely explorers like him, traversing the large, 19th century sewer mains that run underneath parts of the city.

These relatively cavernous spaces can exceed 6 feet (1.8 meters) in diameter — tall enough for most people to comfortably walk upright — and can feature handmade bricks and elegant arches, he said.

A number, including one near where one of the groups was spotted, trace the paths of naturally occurring waterways that once sustained New York, before industrialization fouled them and forced city builders to convert them to sewers, Duncan said.

“These old streams, they get put underground as cities grow up around them,” he explained. “It’s amazing how much this old natural environment is part of the city today.”

Going underground requires planning

The videos suggest that some of the groups spent up to three hours underground, a length of time that may seem unimaginable, but Duncan said passes quickly as sewer journeys require navigating slippery, humid environments and flowing water that could be a foot (30 centimeters) or deeper in places.

Duncan credits the groups with picking an optimal time for their excursions.

Heavy rainfall days earlier would have mostly cleared the system, and venturing into the tunnels in the early morning hours would mean waste flow would be noticeably less than during peak daytime hours.

“They did their research,” Duncan said.

But invisible dangers lurk in these pathogen-rich environments, he said, recounting how he'd landed in the hospital with badly infected extremities on two separate occasions, which eventually pushed him to retire.

Seasoned explorers will generally bring gas meters to check for dangerous levels of fumes, including potentially flammable hydrogen sulfide, which is produced by decomposition, Duncan said.

As to the smell of all that effluent, it’s not as overpowering as you’d think, Duncan said.

“If it’s a well-functioning sewer, it’s more like a barnyard, or compost pile smell,” he said. “But when it’s bad, it can smell like death.”

Subterranean explorers' motivation raises questions

Some residents have worried the mysterious explorers captured on video were up to something nefarious. Many were dressed in waterproof hip waders and equipped with headlamps and what appeared to be shovels and other tools.

“Sewers can serve as entry or exit points to buildings, and we have all seen movies in which criminals escape jail through a sewer,” offered Magued Iskander, an engineering professor at New York University. “There must be a reason beyond mere thrill to enter a dirty place like a sewer.”

Others have noted that police have nabbed underground treasure seekers from time to time.

Three men were charged just last year with burglary and other counts after they went searching for gold, jewelry and other valuables in a Brooklyn sewer. A decade earlier, police caught three others as they emerged from a maintenance hole, including a worker with the city Department of Environmental Protection, which manages the sewer system.

If anything, the viral videos underscore just how vulnerable some of the city’s vital infrastructure is, said David Sarni, a retired New York Police Department detective and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

“Is this something that could be exploited by people who look to do harm?” he said. “You have to really take nothing for granted and always think, unfortunately, on that negative side.”

Duncan, who now works in real estate, said neither riches nor malice motivated him and many others of his generation of urban explorers.

On his trips into underground passages in New York, London, Paris and elsewhere during the early 2000s, he rarely found anything of value, save for the odd credit card or tattered wallet.

“These are terrifying places that take a lot of planning and dedication to explore safety,” Duncan said. “You don’t do all of these things for the tiny chance of finding a diamond earring.”

“The real reason is to see something new, or experience the city in a different way,” he continued. “That’s the real lure.”

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Associated Press video journalist Joseph Frederick in New York contributed to this story.

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Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS) announced Wednesday that the parasite was found in a calf in Zavala County, located in South Texas near the Mexican border. The agency says it is already working with state and local officials to contain the infestation and prevent it from spreading.

What is the New World screwworm?

Despite its name, the New World screwworm is not actually a worm. It is the larval stage of a fly that lays eggs in open wounds or body openings of warm-blooded animals.

Once the eggs hatch, the larvae burrow into living tissue and feed on flesh, causing painful and potentially deadly infections if left untreated. The pest can affect livestock, pets, wildlife, birds and, in rare cases, humans.

The parasite was eradicated from the United States in the 1960s through a large-scale sterile fly program, although a small outbreak occurred in Florida in 2016 and was quickly eliminated.

Why Texans should care

Texas has the largest cattle industry in the nation, and experts warn that a widespread outbreak could have significant economic consequences for ranchers and consumers alike.

Federal officials have already established quarantine zones, increased surveillance efforts, and begun releasing sterile flies to stop the pest from becoming established in the United States.

The discovery comes after the parasite steadily moved north through Central America and Mexico over the past several years, prompting growing concern among agriculture officials.

What about Houston?

There have been no reported screwworm cases in the Houston area, and officials stress that the current detection is limited to a single calf in South Texas.

Still, Houston’s large population of pet owners, horse owners, and backyard animal enthusiasts may want to stay informed as state and federal agencies monitor the situation.

Experts recommend checking animals for unusual wounds that appear to be getting larger, draining excessively, or attracting flies. Pet owners and livestock producers should contact a veterinarian immediately if they suspect an infestation.

Is the food supply at risk?

USDA officials say the parasite does not contaminate meat or other food products. The primary concern is animal health and the potential economic impact if the pest spreads among livestock populations.

For now, officials are emphasizing rapid response measures and say there is no evidence of widespread infestation in Texas. Surveillance and containment efforts remain underway.

A flesh-eating parasite that was eliminated from the U.S. decades ago has been detected in a Texas calf, prompting an aggressive federal response. While there is no immediate threat to Houston residents, officials are urging Texans, especially livestock and pet owners, to remain vigilant as crews work to prevent the New World screwworm from gaining a foothold in the state.

Celsius Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Alani Nutrition, is at the center of the investigation.

The case will focus on whether Celsius and its Alani Nu brand have misled consumers about the safety of their products for young people and whether the company’s marketing practices have violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

ALSO READ: The truth about energy drinks: What you need to know about caffeine and your heart

Alani Nu energy drinks have gained popularity among young adults and are widely recognized for their colorful cans and strong social media presence. Critics argue the products do not provide sufficient warnings about potential health risks beyond listing caffeine content on the label.

Each 12-ounce can contains 200 milligrams of caffeine, an amount many medical professionals warn may be unsafe for children and adolescents. Health experts, including the National Institutes of Health, have long advised against energy drink consumption by minors.

The investigation comes amid growing scrutiny of highly caffeinated beverages following reports of adverse health effects among young consumers nationwide.

Paxton cited the death of a 17-year-old girl from Weslaco, Texas, whose family alleges excessive consumption of highly caffeinated beverages contributed to her death. The girl’s family has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Alani Nu’s distributors.

“Texas families deserve to know that the products marketed to their children are safe and not filled with dangerous levels of certain ingredients,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the investigation.

Studies have linked excessive caffeine intake in young people to increased heart rate, heart palpitations, elevated blood pressure, anxiety, and dehydration.

The Attorney General’s Office has not announced a timeline for the investigation or indicated whether any enforcement action will follow.

KPRC 2 has contacted Celsius Holdings, Inc. for comment regarding the investigation.

Without directly saying the idea was to replace Pride, the governors of Indiana and Tennessee rebranded June as Nuclear Family Month to celebrate units made up of “one husband, one wife and any biological, adopted or fostered children.”

In Alabama, it's Strong Families Month, intended to coincide with Father's Day. Gov. Kay Ivey's proclamation says fathers are “the head of the household” and “homes led by a father and mother provide children with the structure and discipline necessary to succeed throughout life.”

The governors of Utah and Arkansas deemed it Fidelity Month, which emphasizes fidelity to faith, country and family — without comment on how those families might be comprised.

Last week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' X account posted a link to an article about her proclamation that declared, “Another Red State is Counter-Programming Pride Month.”

She and the other governors haven’t answered questions from The Associated Press about why their proclamations are all set in June.

The family focus for June has come on strong this year

Republican lawmakers in at least four other GOP-controlled states have introduced legislation this year calling for June to be Fidelity Month.

An organization pushing that concept was founded by Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence who has long been a leader on conservative thought. His group did not respond to interview requests.

He told the National Catholic Register about the idea in 2023, saying “nobody gets a monopoly on a particular day or a particular month.”

June Pride celebrations, which often include parade, festivals and performances, began in 1970 to mark the first anniversary of the violent police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar, and have since expanded to cities worldwide.

“You can call it whatever you want, but one thing you’re not going to do is take away our pride or take away our joy," said Jordan Braxton co-president of USA Prides.

Every Democratic president since Bill Clinton in 1999 has signed a Pride proclamation each year — and no Republican president has.

One of the few GOP governors who has proclaimed Pride is Utah's Spencer Cox, who did so in 2021, 2022 and 2023. In 2024, he deemed June a “Month of Bridge Building” before switching to Fidelity Month this year.

A poll released this week found that a two decade-long increase in acceptance of same-sex marriages and relationships has flattened — largely because more Republicans oppose them.

Conservatives say they're ‘reclaiming the culture’

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, introduced a resolution to make June Family Month — and to unrecognize Pride Month, saying “Americans are inundated with perverse Pride Month displays and events throughout the month of June that denigrate the nuclear family.” It never got a vote.

Some backers view the state measures as an opportunity for a cultural reset.

Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said in an interview that it's good to have the conservative recognitions because Pride celebrations “were going so far as to make it difficult to celebrate traditional marriage."

The resolution approved by Tennessee’s Legislature and governor does not mention Pride Month specifically, while saying the “nuclear family is under attack in our beloved State and nation.”

But Lakie Derrick, a conservative activist who authored the measure with a friend, said she did indeed target it to June to counter Pride Month, which she said “goes against” American values.

“We’re just reclaiming the culture, and there’s no better month to do that than in a month where the culture says we’re gonna celebrate something so opposite to what we know to be right,” Derrick said.

Marina Lowe, who leads legal and legislative affairs for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Utah, said that Pride Month is not the antithesis of other values-based recognitions. Many LGBTQ+ people also value faith and family, she said, so “I don’t think that these positions need to be in conflict with one another.”

In Wenatchee, Washington, a school’s Turning Point USA chapter was able to get Family Month banners posted on light poles that in the past had displayed rainbow flags during June. A local gay rights group, Out NCW, struck back by buying two billboards and passing out yard signs supporting Pride, its president, AJ Soto, said.

For some, this is why Pride Month exists

Josh Coleman, president of Central Alabama Pride, which has 42 events planned over two weeks, said the celebrations, which culminate with a parade on June 13 and festival June 14, won't be affected by the proclamation.

“It's not lost upon LGBTQ people when elected leaders don't recognize or value the visibility of the community,” he said. “That's why Pride started in the first place — to make sure the community had a community.”

Alex Richardson, chair of the board of directors at Indy Pride in Indianapolis, said he sees the governor's proclamation there as a “swipe.” But he also believes the events there this month are celebrating some of the things the governor supports.

“Sure, the governor's right, the nuclear family is worth celebrating,” Richardson said. “But I think so is the grandmother who raises her grandchildren, or the chosen family that shows up when a blended family can't, or won't, ... or the weird blended households that are held together by love and effort.”

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Mulvihill from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries. But tens of thousands of people — friends and family of museum staff, students and journalists — have already been offered a sneak peek of the nearly 20-acre campus as crews finish final art installations and landscaping.

The roughly $850 million project covers the political and personal realms of the nation’s first Black president. Campaign memorabilia and presidential artifacts are displayed in the admission-based museum tower while public spaces of the sprawling campus feature other things important to Obama: a new library, basketball court and picnic area with grills.

“This is a safe space for people to come and, yes, reflect on the historic moments of this presidency and the campaigns, but also to come together as a community to think about what change you can bring to your own neighborhood,” Josh Harris, the Obama Foundation’s vice president of public engagement, said during a recent tour with The Associated Press.

Here’s a closer look at the top attractions of the campus that is expected to draw as many as 1 million visitors annually.

President for a day

Obama's presidential museum will be the first fully digital museum of its kind. There will be no official papers on display. Instead, visitors will experience high-tech and hands-on exhibits spanning the campaigns, key moments of Obama's presidency and life at the White House.

One of the largest attractions is a life-sized replica of the Oval Office.

On a recent day, a stream of visitors, including schoolchildren, walked through the circular room, stopping to sit behind the desk and pose for pictures. The top drawer holds a copy of a handwritten letter from his predecessor, President George W. Bush, and Obama’s beloved BlackBerry phone.

“We want to make sure that people from all walks of life have the opportunity to sit behind the Resolute Desk,” said Harris. “You think about the possibilities that if a young organizer from the South Side of Chicago can be president, you can be president too."

Other sections of the museum detail the Affordable Care Act, immigration policies, and smaller moments such as when Obama unexpectedly sang during a 2015 eulogy for those killed in a South Carolina church shooting. A large television screen plays a clip of Obama singing “Amazing Grace.”

Peppered throughout are areas for personal reflection, which museum organizers say is key.

“We're passing that baton and inviting people to bring change home, however change may be defined, both small or large,” said Louise Bernard, the museum's director.

Touching iconic ballgowns

When Obama touted the museum’s contents at its groundbreaking in 2021, he predicted one of the top draws.

“We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research,” Obama joked at the site. “It won’t just be a collection of campaign memorabilia or Michelle’s ballgowns, although I know everybody will come see those.”

Roughly a dozen outfits on mannequins are behind glass, including a black and red dress designed by Narciso Rodriguez that the former first lady wore on Election Night in 2008 in Chicago.

Visitors will also get a chance to touch swatches of the fabrics, including the rose gold chain mail Atelier Versace evening gown she wore at her final state dinner in 2016.

Obama’s personal touches

The museum’s location is near where Barack Obama started his political career, taught law at the University of Chicago and where the family lived. Michelle Obama also grew up on the South Side.

A lifelong basketball lover, Obama requested a glass-paneled, professional grade basketball court to be used for community programs.

The former first lady designed a garden, where lettuce and strawberry plants are sprouting. There are also charcoal grills available for public use — an element that Obama envisioned when he pitched the plan in community meetings nearly a decade ago.

“President Obama always talked about his feelings of being in Chicago and one of his memorable moments was grilling in the park,” Harris said.

The Obamas' design tastes and love of history are also evident.

The museum campus features dozens of commissioned works of art while different parts of the campus are named after prominent figures. The central “John Lewis Plaza,” named for the late congressman and Civil Rights leader, is designed as a public gathering spot.

Inside a new Chicago Public Library branch, a 70-foot (21-meter) mural depicts literary figures, including Walt Whitman and James Baldwin. At the center, Toni Morrison reads to a boy wearing an orange shirt, representing a young Obama.

The presidential reading room features thousands of books chosen by the Obamas, ranging from presidential biographies to best-selling fiction. One of Obama's favorite parts are two high-backed chairs with blue, yellow and black stripes. They were selected by the former president as top-notch reading chairs similar to ones he has at home.

Pricey admission with free options

Tickets are $30, the highest of any U.S. presidential museum or library. Next on the list is the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, where tickets are $29.

Obama Foundation leaders say the prices are justified for the state-of-the-art facility.

Tickets at the adjacent Griffin Museum of Science and Industry are $25.95. In downstate Illinois, tickets to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield cost $15.

Along with free days and discounts for Illinois residents, Obama Foundation officials also argue that most of the campus is free, with only four floors of the museum tower requiring tickets.

Anyone can walk the campus, use the playground, library, sledding hill or grilling area. The tower's top floor, which feature panoramic views of the nation's third-largest city, is also free.

“The idea behind this institution, this campus, was to make it accessible to as many people as possible,” Harris said.

The suit filed Thursday in Bristol County Superior Court argues that Read's acquittal last June revealed “an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot at the very core of both organizations.” It alleges that the town and the police department were negligent in the hiring, training and supervision of officers and seeks damages for legal fees, lost income, emotional distress and reputational harm, among other claims.

The complaint devotes dozens of pages to former state trooper Michael Proctor and former Canton police Sgt. Sean Goode, citing texts, recordings and other communications that it says demonstrate racist, sexist and other derogatory remarks. Read's lawyers argue that those materials show both men were unfit to participate in the investigation and that their conduct reflected broader failures in oversight by state and local law enforcement.

In a statement on Thursday, State Police Superintendent Col. Geoffrey Noble called Proctor’s messages “racist, sexist and abhorrent” and said they supported his decision to fire the former trooper. Noble said the comments did not reflect the values of the department and pointed to changes that have been made since he became superintendent. He also noted that the investigation predated his tenure.

“These disturbing messages are entirely inconsistent with any basic standard of decency and certainly with the expectations of a Massachusetts State Trooper," Noble said, adding that agency officials are, "keenly aware of the ways in which this misconduct harmed the public trust on which our mission depends.”

The town of Canton and the Canton Police Department did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

Read walked out of court a free woman about a year ago after more than three years and two trials over the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, who was found on the suburban lawn of a fellow officer’s home after a night of heavy drinking during a snowstorm.

Prosecutors said Read hit O’Keefe with her SUV on the January 2022 night of a party, leaving him to die in a blizzard. Read faced charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene. The jury acquitted her of those charges, but convicted her of a lesser charge for drunken driving.

Her lawyers successfully defended her, painting a sinister picture of police misconduct and theorizing that O’Keefe was in fact killed by colleagues who then covered it up.

The trial centered in part on lead investigator Michael Proctor, whom defense attorneys described as biased against Read from the beginning. The Massachusetts State Police trial board found Proctor guilty of sending crude and defamatory text messages about Read while leading the investigation into her. He was fired and became a central figure for Read supporters who believe the investigation was tainted.

Goode was placed on leave in November 2025 when the town was notified about allegations of misconduct. He resigned earlier this week, according to news outlets.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 30 increased by 13,000 to 225,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the most since early February, before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran, but still a historically low level. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 211,000 new applications.

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

Despite historically low layoffs, the labor market seems to be mired in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state. That’s kept the unemployment rate low at 4.3%, but left many of those out of work struggling to find new employment.

Though U.S. employers delivered a surprising 115,000 new jobs in April, the Iran war has injected a large degree of uncertainty about the broader U.S. economy and labor market.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which travels one-fifth of the world’s oil, remains closed. Since the beginning of the war in late February, oil prices have spiked about 50% and the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. is now $4.24, up from less than $3 in late February. Besides hitting consumers’ pocketbooks, those higher costs can make businesses reluctant to hire.

Data from the U.S. government showed that inflation at the consumer level rose 3.8% from April 2025, the biggest jump in three years. Food prices are also up, but may not yet fully reflect rising energy costs due to the Iran war, analysts say.

Another recent report showed that wholesale prices shot up 6% from a year ago, the highest point in more than three years.

This comes at a time when U.S. inflation is already above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The Fed opted to leave its benchmark rate alone at its last meeting, citing economic uncertainty caused by instability in the Middle East and still-elevated inflation. Most analysts don’t expect the Fed to cut rates any time soon.

Lower interest rates can boost the economy and hiring, but also tend to stoke inflation, leading a number of Fed policymakers to say they are actually willing to consider an interest rate hike this year.

On top of that, the recent artificial intelligence boom and the investment required to develop it could alter or even replace some jobs.

Among the companies that have cut jobs recently are Verizon, UPS, Amazon, Disney, Starbucks and Walmart.

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

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

The government issues its May jobs report on Friday.

The Labor Department’s report Thursday showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which softens some of the weekly volatility, rose by 6,500 to 214,750.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending May 23 fell by 8,000 to 1.78 million, in line with analyst forecasts.

An infestation of the flesh-eating flies has been confirmed in South Texas, setting off alarm bells for the state’s cattle industry.

A sample from a 3-week-old calf from La Pryor in Zavala County tested positive for the country’s first case of New World screwworm, the U.S Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said during a June 3 news conference about the case.

There have been no other detections so far.

The USDA said in a social media post earlier that it had already activated personnel on the ground and were working with local partners. The federal agency also said that issues with screwworms shouldn’t immediately cause food supply chain issues, as screwworms do not infect meat, fruits or vegetables.

However, an outbreak of screwworm threatens to do $1.8 billion in damage to Texas’ economy alone, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture estimate. This potential fly pandemic could also increase already record-high beef prices nationwide, given the state’s importance to the cattle industry.

Here is a breakdown of why the cattle industry and government leaders are concerned about a parasitic fly:

What is the New World screwworm?

The New World screwworm is a type of blowfly that lays its eggs in the flesh of living animals rather than dead ones. Cuts as small as a tick bite may attract a female fly to lay her eggs. One female can lay 200 – 300 eggs at a time and may lay up to 3,000 eggs during her 10- to 30-day lifespan.

The eggs hatch into maggots that burrow into the wound to feed on the living flesh. The larvae in their final stage develop little hooks and dig deeper into the flesh, hence the name screwworm. After feeding for about seven days, larvae drop to the ground, burrow into the soil, and emerge as adult screwworm flies, repeating the cycle of infestations.

Multiple infestations are common with multiple stages of larva in one wound, sometimes leading to a “feeding frenzy” resulting in rapid tissue damage.

Most screwworm infestations occur in mammals, like cattle, pets, and wildlife, but they can also occur in people.

New World screwworm is typically found in South America and parts of the Caribbean. However, the fly has steadily moved northward from South America, through every country in Central America, and into Mexico, since 2023. Federal and Texas officials started monitoring cases the following year.

Why are ranchers and agriculture leaders so concerned?

Screwworm in the flesh of an infested animal will cause a lot of damage to the wound, as flies repeat a cycle of flying into the wound, laying eggs, and making the wound bigger, leading to illness and death.

Even if the animal survives, there’s usually extensive damage to the hide and to the health of the animal.

Cattle are particularly susceptible to screwworm due to their inability to protect an open wound, and their large frame can allow eggs to develop in multiple locations from a single cut.

“Texas livestock producers and all Texans must now be vigilant in their efforts to manage and combat the invasive pest,” Farm Bureau President Russell Boening said in a statement after screwworm had been confirmed in Texas.

Though screwworm was eradicated in the 1960s, the U.S. experienced a resurgence of the pest from 1972 to 1976. A screwworm outbreak in the U.S. infested tens of thousands of cattle across six states, cost tens of millions of dollars to contain, and was only defeated after a massive eradication effort.

U.S. producers have not treated livestock for screwworm in more than 40 years, putting the future of the industry on shaky ground.

Texas leads the U.S. in cattle production, bringing in $15 billion a year to the state

How do you stop these flies?

In an effort to prevent its spread, the USDA shut down the southern border to live animal imports in May 2025, preventing cattle from Mexico from entering the U.S. and limiting the supply of cattle in Texas.

The federal government has also invested $100 million into research, traps, and mounted patrol officers known as tick riders at the border.

U.S. officials are working with officials in Mexico and Panama to eradicate the screwworm again, using the sterile fly method. This practice consists of producing male sterile flies to have them reproduce unviable eggs with female flies who can only mate once in their lifetime.

At the time of their spread from Central America into Mexico, there was only one sterile fly production facility, located in Panama. Since then, U.S. officials have helped launch another in Metapa, Mexico, which is expected to open later this month, and are building another in Edinburg, Texas, which Rollins said is slated to open in fall 2027.

They’ve also launched two fly dispersal facilities, which help distribute sterile flies in needed areas, in Tampico, Mexico, and Edinburg. The USDA has already been dispersing sterile flies in South Texas, within 50 miles north of the border.

In response to the first confirmed case, the USDA implemented a quarantine zone, controlling the movement and surveillance of animals in the area.

Officials are also increasing trapping and surveillance for screwworm along the border, just outside the 50-mile dispersal area, and are ramping up surveillance and monitoring of wildlife.

What to look out for?

Animal experts say continual and regular monitoring and evaluation of all livestock is important during a screwworm outbreak.

Cattle producers and pet owners should be alert for a foul-smelling wound with visible maggots, animals biting or licking at wounds, lesions, and unusual restlessness or lethargy.

The best way to identify screwworm larvae is by the spikes that protrude from the body and wrap around them.

The USDA said residents near the affected areas should check their pets for signs of screwworm infection, which include infected wounds and screwworm eggs or larvae.

Treatment for screwworm often involves the manual removal of larvae, cleaning and dressing the wound and prescribed pesticides by a veterinarian.

Those who potentially see a screwworm infestation are recommended to report it to a local veterinarian or wildlife biologist.

“If we all work together and follow the animal treatment protocols and movement restriction guidance, there is no reason to believe that this incursion will result in an establishment of the pest in our country,” Rollins said.

The 8-1 decision preserved one of the Federal Communications Commission's key tools, though the companies also won a concession from the Republican administration that could shift the regulatory landscape.

The appeal from telecommunications giants Verizon and AT&T challenged a combined $100 million in penalties imposed after the agency determined that the companies had failed to safeguard customer location data.

The companies argued that the FCC's process was unconstitutional because it gave them little opportunity to tell their side of the story in front of a jury.

The administration defended the fines are an essential regulatory tool. But the government also said companies did not have to pay the penalties right away, a regulatory shift in the companies' favor.

The Supreme Court agreed, affirming the FCC's power to order fines when challenges are still available.

“The orders at issue did not settle the carriers’ legal obligations because, stated simply, they did not create an obligation to pay,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone dissenter, said he would have given the companies a clearer path to recouping the fines they already paid.

Other agencies use similar enforcement methods, so a sweeping victory for AT&T and Verizon could have had widespread effects, advocates said.

The environmental group Earthjustice applauded the ruling, saying it has direct implications for other agencies and a key energy-efficiency case.

“By rejecting this unsupported attack on agency authority, the Court’s decision safeguards the government’s ability to enforce laws that protect people, communities, and the environment," said Caroline Flynn, the group's Supreme Court counsel.

The libertarian-leaning New Civil Liberties Alliance was disappointed by the decision, but expected it to help other companies in the future. “In fact, it may even buttress their willingness to challenge future agency orders in federal court before paying any penalties,” said the alliance's president, Mark Chenoweth.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has sided against federal agencies and limited their power before. That includes overturning a decades-old decision that had given regulators an advantage in court and stripping another agency of a major tool in fighting securities fraud.

Location: Remote in one of GMG’s markets Detroit, MI; Houston or San Antonio TX; Jacksonville or Orlando, FL.

About the Role

Graham Media Group is seeking a detail-oriented and proactive Accounts Payable Specialist to join our centralized team. This role is responsible for managing accounts payable processes for multiple properties, including seven TV stations, Social News Desk, and corporate offices. Reporting directly to the VP/CFO, the ideal candidate will ensure timely and accurate payables processing while identifying opportunities for cost savings and operational efficiencies.

Key Responsibilities

• Vendor Management: Create and maintain vendor files, including foreign vendors.
• Invoice Processing: Assemble, review, verify, code, and submit invoices for approval. Resolve discrepancies and issues promptly.
• Purchase Card Management: Ensure charges are properly approved, coded, and supported by receipts.
• Credit Card Assistance: Support credit card processing and reconciliation.
• Communication: Address payables discrepancies with Finance Directors and Department Heads.
• General Ledger Transactions: Post transactions and assist with month-end close accruals.
• Expense Analysis: Analyze expenses to identify cost-saving opportunities across the group.
• Audit Support: Prepare supporting documentation for audits and maintain accurate historical records.
• Process Improvements: Review and enhance standard operating procedures, integrations, and workflows for greater efficiency.
• Special Projects: Contribute to key initiatives as assigned by leadership.
• Year-End Procedures: Prepare and issue 1099s.
• Back up Accounts Receivable functions as needed.

What You Bring

Experience:

• 5+ years in accounts payable or a similar role.

Technical Skills:

• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Outlook, and Word.
• Familiarity with Oracle is highly desirable.

Key Traits:

• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Exceptional organizational and problem-solving abilities.
• High attention to detail and ability to meet deadlines.
• Capacity to work independently with minimal supervision.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, Business, or equivalent experience.
• Experience in media or related industries is a plus.

Contact: Kim Parker, VP/Chief Financial Officer

kparker@grahammedia.com

Additional Information

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

According to the latest AAA Texas Weekend Gas Watch, the statewide average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has fallen to $3.72 per gallon, marking a 20-cent drop from last week. This is the second consecutive week of significant declines in gas prices across Texas and nationwide.

For Houston-area drivers planning summer road trips, vacations, or daily commutes, the lower prices could translate into meaningful savings over the coming weeks.

Why Texans should care

Gas prices remain one of the biggest expenses for many families, especially during the busy summer driving season when millions hit the road for vacations and holiday travel.

For a typical vehicle with a 15-gallon tank, the recent 20-cent decline means drivers are saving about $3 per fill-up compared to last week. While that may not seem like much, the savings can add up quickly for families taking long-distance road trips or commuting regularly.

Texas drivers are also benefiting from prices that remain well below the national average.

The national average currently sits at $4.24 per gallon, meaning Texans are paying about 52 cents less per gallon than the average U.S. driver.

How Texas compares

Texas is now one of 17 states with statewide average gas prices below $4 per gallon, according to AAA.

Among the state’s major metropolitan areas:

• El Paso has the highest average gas price at $4.05 per gallon
• McAllen has the lowest average at $3.44 per gallon

While Houston-specific figures were not included in the latest report, drivers across the region are seeing prices trend downward as oil costs remain below $100 per barrel.

Will gas prices keep falling?

AAA says there is still uncertainty ahead.

Oil prices have remained slightly below $100 per barrel, helping ease pressure on fuel costs. However, global factors continue to influence prices.

“With constantly fluctuating gas prices at the start of the summer road trip season, it’s hard for drivers to know the best prices for gasoline as they hit the road,” said AAA Texas Corporate Communications Manager Doug Shupe.

Shupe recommends drivers use tools such as the AAA mobile app or other gas price-tracking services to compare prices and find the cheapest fuel nearby.

What Houston drivers can expect

While recent declines are encouraging, experts warn that gas prices could remain volatile throughout the summer due to ongoing geopolitical tensions and global oil market uncertainty.

For now, though, Houston-area drivers heading out for weekend getaways, beach trips to Galveston, or longer summer vacations can take advantage of some of the lowest gas prices Texas has seen in weeks.

Gas prices are moving in the right direction just as summer travel ramps up, giving Texans a little extra room in their budgets during one of the busiest driving seasons of the year.

It's been nearly a week since U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire in the conflict by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program that required Trump's signoff.

But Trump has called for unspecified changes to the agreement and Iranian officials — perhaps calculating that the Republican president is reluctant to restart the bombardment after burning through key weapons systems — are showing no signs they'll give in to new demands.

A series of strikes by the U.S. and Iran this week has raised fresh concern the ceasefire could collapse. Trump on Wednesday downplayed the significance.

“It’s a different part of the world," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "You know, I’d say in that part of the world, a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

The shaky moment follows repeated claims by Trump since a 14-day ceasefire was agreed to on April 7 — following 38 days of U.S. and Israel bombing of Iran — that a deal is just days away and the Iranian side is begging to come to a settlement. Trump on Wednesday said it was possible something could come together “over the weekend.”

Without an interim settlement in place to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, global energy prices remain elevated and are adding to anxieties around the world about the impact of rising costs spurred by the 3-month-old conflict on the cost of food, fuel and other goods.

After a string of reports this week that Iran was shutting down talks, Trump told CNBC he "couldn't care less” if the negotiations had bogged down and even mused they had become “boring.”

There's anxiety Trump is getting boxed in

There's growing concern inside the administration and among key advisers and allies that Trump now finds himself in a bind, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations, both of whom spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

He's buffeted by Democrats seizing on oil prices and warnings from hawkish members of his base that an early exit from the conflict would amount to capitulation.

Trump is privately hearing from other Republican lawmakers as well as Pentagon officials and Gulf allies that a return to the bombing campaign is a bad idea.

Those advising against returning to military action note the U.S. has burned through munitions at too fast a rate. It could take three years to replenish some key weapons systems.

Meanwhile, Gulf allies are worried Iran will retaliate against them and their critical infrastructure and energy interests and further set back their economies.

At the same time, Trump has bristled at the idea of accepting a deal that resembles the 2015 nuclear agreement brokered by Democrat Barack Obama's administration, which restricted Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting international economic sanctions.

Trump during his first term abandoned the pact, which he said had failed to permanently stop Iran’s nuclear program, ignored Iran’s ballistic-missile development and did not penalize Iran for supporting militant proxy groups across the Middle East.

Now, Trump, according to those familiar with internal deliberations, has made clear he feels strongly he can't make “a bad deal” and is acutely aware he's at risk of tarnishing his legacy if he missteps.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly dismissed the notion Trump has been boxed in or there's any concern within the administration about the pace of talks.

Trump resisted Israel push for Lebanon bombings

Israeli and hawkish allies in Washington have made the case to Trump that a deal at this point would amount to unconditional surrender, urging him to ratchet up economic pressure on Iran and back Israel's assault on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.

But Trump earlier this week in a heated call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded Israel stand down, and on Wednesday, Israel and Lebanon said they agreed to renew a ceasefire. Hezbollah was not part of the Israel-Lebanon talks, which have been held at the ambassadorial level in Washington since the beginning of last month, and the militant group has denounced the agreement.

Remaining in the current status quo with Tehran — neither a full resumption of hostilities nor sealing an interim agreement to restart nuclear talks — is a situation Iran appears better poised to exploit, argued Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the hawkish Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Despite being the weaker party, Iran appears to be calculating that the longer the holding pattern lasts, the better the chances are it can “box in” Trump, he added.

“Either way, Tehran appears more resolute than ever to not provide Trump with a victory image, hence why it isn’t budging on the battlefield or negotiating table,” Taleblu said.

Holding pattern isn't helpful for Republicans on the ballot

At the same time, Democrats are trying to capitalize on Trump's handling of the unpopular war ahead of November's midterm elections. The House of Representatives on Wednesday for the first time passed a symbolic resolution calling for a halt in military action against Iran, with four Republican lawmakers joining Democrats in the rebuke of Trump’s war.

The president has dismissed the House vote as “meaningless."

“The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump fumed in a social media post. “The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story - They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”

During hours of hearings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Democrats laced into Trump for discounting the economic impact of the conflict on Americans and for failing to anticipate Iran would shutter the Strait.

In one tense exchange, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker pointed to the unsteady ceasefire as a sign Iran has the upper hand.

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

Rubio dismissed the criticism, underscoring that Iran has been placed on its heels with the strikes, which have taken out multiple layers of senior leadership and left Iran's economy in shambles.

“There’s no one begging,” Rubio responded. “I don’t know where you’re getting this perception that Iran is stronger.”

Another Democrat, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, homed in on Trump's comments last month that voter anxiety about the cost of living was “not even a little bit” of a motivating factor for him to reach a deal to end the war.

The president continues to downplay the rising costs for Americans at the pump and predict that gas prices would fall sharply after the conflict ends.

Christopher Borick, the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania, said that Democrats running in swing districts around the country are already zeroing in on Trump's rhetoric on the war's impact on Americans' pocketbooks.

“There's significant risk in having this thing drag on for Republicans,” Borick said. “But for Republicans in some of these tough swing districts, there's a case to be made to rip the bandage off now, get some easing in the oil markets and hope there's enough time for voters to turn the page.”

___

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri in New York and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the case was in a 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, Texas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Mexico border. Texas State Veterinarian Bud Dinges said he has established a 12-mile (20-kilometer) quarantine zone, prohibiting the movement of any warm-blooded animal — including pets — outside that zone without an inspection.

Rollins said there have been no other detections of the fly in the U.S., and officials were quick to say that while the fly’s larvae are a threat to livestock production, they don’t infest food. Properly treated, even the infested calf should recover, Rollins said.

Rollins, U.S. and Texas agriculture officials, and cattle industry leaders have been sounding public alarms about the fly’s movement across Mexico for more than a year, spurred on by memories of it causing tens of millions of dollars of losses — potentially billions in today’s dollars — before its eradication in the 1970s.

It is the first case confirmed in Texas since 1966, Rollins said.

The months of effort to keep the fly out of the U.S. have included dropping millions of sterile screwworm flies in the area to mate with wild females — the same method used successfully before the fly was eradicated. Rollins said the USDA is confident enough in its preparations that it believes “there is no threat of mass infestation.”

“There is no reason to believe this incursion will result in establishment of the pest in our country," Rollins said.

The announcement of the suspected case comes only a day after Rollins had an online news conference to highlight the nearness of the threat, with cases been confirmed in Mexico as close as 25 miles (40 km) from the border — and to outline the USDA's efforts to combat it.

The New World Screwworm fly is a tropical species that decades ago infested cattle in warm weather across the southern United States, but it was contained in Panama until late in 2024.

The female fly lays its eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes and they hatch into larvae that eat flesh — making them unlike most fly species — and can infest livestock, wild mammals, household pets and even humans. Infestations can lead to death if left untreated.

In August 2025, federal health officials confirmed a case in a Maryland resident who had traveled to El Salvador, but the victim recovered and officials found no transmission of the parasite. Before that, the last outbreak was in the Florida Keys in September 2016, mostly among wild deer, and it was contained early the next year without spreading further.

The female flies mate once in their monthslong lives, and if they do so with a sterile fly, their eggs would not hatch — and the population would die out over time. Past eradication efforts were so successful that the U.S. shut down facilities for breeding sterile flies, leaving only one in Panama for decades.

That is changing. The USDA dedicated $21 million to convert a fruit-fly breeding facility in southern Mexico into one for breeding screwworm flies, opened a new center for dispersing sterile flies bred elsewhere in southern Texas and has started construction on a $750 million screwworm fly factory there. The breeding facility in Mexico should be operating next month, Rollins said.

Officials also deployed 8,000 fly traps along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Rollins said the USDA has tested more than 58,000 fly samples, along with 19,000 wild animals.

Rollins also closed the U.S.-Mexico border last year to livestock imports from Mexico, a decision she defended during her news conference Tuesday. The fly also can travel with people and their pets and with wild animals, officials noted, but Rollins stressed Wednesday evening that it doesn't fly great distances on its own.

Dinges said ranchers and pet owners need to understand that it's important to respect the quarantine zone.

“Please help us prevent any further movement of this pest by staying put,” he said.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the case was in a 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, Texas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Mexico border. Texas State Veterinarian Bud Dinges said he has established a 12-mile (20-kilometer) quarantine zone, prohibiting the movement of any warm-blooded animal — including pets — outside that zone without an inspection.

Rollins said there have been no other detections of the fly in the U.S., and officials were quick to say that while the fly’s larvae are a threat to livestock production, they don’t infest food. Properly treated, even the infested calf should recover, Rollins said.

Rollins, U.S. and Texas agriculture officials, and cattle industry leaders have been sounding public alarms about the fly’s movement across Mexico for more than a year, spurred on by memories of it causing tens of millions of dollars of losses — potentially billions in today’s dollars — before its eradication in the 1970s.

It is the first case confirmed in Texas since 1966, Rollins said.

The months of effort to keep the fly out of the U.S. have included dropping millions of sterile screwworm flies in the area to mate with wild females — the same method used successfully before the fly was eradicated. Rollins said the USDA is confident enough in its preparations that it believes “there is no threat of mass infestation.”

“There is no reason to believe this incursion will result in establishment of the pest in our country," Rollins said.

The announcement of the suspected case comes only a day after Rollins had an online news conference to highlight the nearness of the threat, with cases been confirmed in Mexico as close as 25 miles (40 km) from the border — and to outline the USDA's efforts to combat it.

The New World Screwworm fly is a tropical species that decades ago infested cattle in warm weather across the southern United States, but it was contained in Panama until late in 2024.

The female fly lays its eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes and they hatch into larvae that eat flesh — making them unlike most fly species — and can infest livestock, wild mammals, household pets and even humans. Infestations can lead to death if left untreated.

In August 2025, federal health officials confirmed a case in a Maryland resident who had traveled to El Salvador, but the victim recovered and officials found no transmission of the parasite. Before that, the last outbreak was in the Florida Keys in September 2016, mostly among wild deer, and it was contained early the next year without spreading further.

The female flies mate once in their monthslong lives, and if they do so with a sterile fly, their eggs would not hatch — and the population would die out over time. Past eradication efforts were so successful that the U.S. shut down facilities for breeding sterile flies, leaving only one in Panama for decades.

That is changing. The USDA dedicated $21 million to convert a fruit-fly breeding facility in southern Mexico into one for breeding screwworm flies, opened a new center for dispersing sterile flies bred elsewhere in southern Texas and has started construction on a $750 million screwworm fly factory there. The breeding facility in Mexico should be operating next month, Rollins said.

Officials also deployed 8,000 fly traps along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Rollins said the USDA has tested more than 58,000 fly samples, along with 19,000 wild animals.

Rollins also closed the U.S.-Mexico border last year to livestock imports from Mexico, a decision she defended during her news conference Tuesday. The fly also can travel with people and their pets and with wild animals, officials noted, but Rollins stressed Wednesday evening that it doesn't fly great distances on its own.

Dinges said ranchers and pet owners need to understand that it's important to respect the quarantine zone.

“Please help us prevent any further movement of this pest by staying put,” he said.

The new funding announced Thursday pushes French Gates’ donations for women’s health over $600 million in the past two years.

French Gates told The Associated Press in an interview that women’s health is the cornerstone of the work she does through Pivotal, the group of organizations she founded to handle her philanthropy and investments. “It’s just blaringly obvious that women’s health is fundamental — she has to be well to do well in life,” French Gates said.

Since 2024, when she stepped away from The Gates Foundation, which she founded with her now ex-husband Bill Gates and built into one of the world’s largest private funders of health care, French Gates has honed her approach to supporting women.

This latest round of funding reflects an increasingly strategic approach to areas she feels are underfunded. It includes a $40 million donation to Co-Impact for an initiative that embeds mental health support into maternal and primary care, especially in Africa. And French Gates hopes her $10 million donation to the Menopause Society to improve menopause care in the United States, by educating healthcare practitioners and expanding outreach in areas where care is limited, will encourage other funders to begin working on the issue.

According to the World Economic Forum, even though women make up half the population, the health issues that specifically affect them only get 2% of private healthcare funds. The lack of funding has resulted in a lack of products and services dedicated to treating them.

“The role of philanthropy, in my opinion, is to look at some of these societal problems that have been left behind, and shine light on them, show ways of making progress so you can then crowd in other donors and ultimately crowd in government funding,” she said. “Part of what I’m doing here, I hope, is sending a signal to say, ‘This is really important. Let’s do something about it.’ And my hope is that I’ll be able to get others who will join me.”

Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director of The Menopause Society and director of The Mayo Clinic’s Center for Women’s Health, said the United States currently has about 6,000 counties where patients have critically low access to menopause-competent clinicians. She said the donation will allow The Menopause Society to offer its educational resources to more areas of the country that need them.

“Menopause remains one of the most overlooked and underserved areas in medicine, and The Menopause Society believes women deserve better,” Faubion said. “We’re ready to make those changes with the support of donors like Pivotal.”

Research into menopause treatments was already underfunded, even before recent medical research cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration went into effect.

“I think philanthropy is going to fill a greater role than it ever has in the past because we are just not going to have the same type of government funding that we’ve had before,” she said. “Funding is hard to come by these days – much, much harder than it was before. And the need hasn’t gone away. We still have to do the research somehow.”

Faubion said the substantial size of French Gates’ gift is important, but the attention it brings may be even more crucial.

“It shows that somebody like Melinda Gates and Pivotal feel that this is an important issue,” Faubion said. “It will illuminate the gaps that are still there… and it makes people not only aware, but maybe motivated to take some action.”

For French Gates, bringing more attention to these women’s issues is nearly as important as increasing the funding for them.

“I want women’s health issues to not be invisible,” she said. “I don’t want the default to be that women are expected to deal with pain and suffering. I want them to be seen for what they’re going through, their real life experiences, and have those issues addressed so they can live their very best lives."

______

The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage of women in the workforce and in statehouses from Melinda French Gates’ organization, Pivotal.

_______

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

The justices ruled unanimously against Ongkaruck Sripetch, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to selling unregistered securities as part of a scheme involving high-risk penny stocks. The Los Angeles resident had challenged a court order of disgorgement, to repay more than $3 million, including interest.

The issue in the case was whether the SEC had to prove that individual investors lost money as a result of buying the stocks. The Supreme Court ruled it did not.

It was enough to show that Sriptech turned a profit from illegal transactions and that “an investor may qualify as a victim of an offender's wrongdoing entitled to compensation,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.

Sripetch took part in fraudulent schemes involving at least 20 penny stock companies, Gorsuch wrote, citing court records. Some of those were “pump and dump" operations, in which Sripetch and others bought stocks, promoted them so that their share price rose and then promptly sold them, Gorsuch wrote.

Under federal law and prior Supreme Court rulings, the SEC may order disgorgement limited to the amount of illegally obtained profits in fraud cases. The money ordinarily must be returned to investors, when feasible.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at https://apnews.com/hub/us-securities-and-exchange-commission.

Robert Mitchum played Cady in 1962 and Robert De Niro portrayed him in a chilling 1991 remake. Now it's time for Javier Bardem to slip into the menacing shoes of the cold-blooded murderer for a version on Apple TV. It debuts Friday with the first two episodes.

“It’s a great classic thriller, but each version so far is different in a way that reflects its time,” says showrunner Nick Antosca. “I wanted to do a new version that honored the classics that I love, but also is a nightmare for today.”

The 10-part series stars Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson as well-to-do lawyers in Savannah, Georgia, whose family gets upended by Bardem's revenge-seeking missile.

Exonerated after 17 years in prison in the killing of his pregnant wife, Cady infiltrates the couple's lives and those of their daughter and son. “You deserve a good life. I had a good life,” he tells them, menacingly. Each member of the family has a very exploitative secret.

Javier Bardem as Max

The American Film Institute ranks Max among the among the Top 50 greatest villains of all time, higher than Count Dracula, Freddy Krueger and Travis Bickle from “Taxi Driver,” another De Niro nightmare.

“This is a man who has lost it all and, so far, he has nothing else to lose," says Bardem. "He has all the time in the world to enjoy the revenge. He doesn’t seem to care about any external approval of anything or any kind. So he's unleashed.”

Antosca had the blessing of Martin Scorsese, who directed 1991’s “Cape Fear” and executive produces the Apple TV series alongside Steven Spielberg. “He was very generous and encouraging and like, ‘Try this. Try that. Don’t be afraid to get crazy,’” Antosca says of Scorsese.

Antosca looks forward and back, rooting his “Cape Fear” in 2026 — with TikTok, true crime podcasts, microdosing — but leaning on the instantly recognizable theme music from the 1962 movie by Bernard Herrmann and the 1991 version by Elmer Bernstein. There's even a cameo or two from one cast member from 1991.

“We think of the show sometimes as like a nightmare remix," Antosca says. “When I do an adaptation, I want it to feel like you watched the original and then you went to sleep and had a nightmare about it. So there’s new unexpected stuff that comes to it. There’s the visceral energy of the original that’s preserved, but maybe they’re in a different order or context and seen in a new light. So we had fun with it.”

So fans will return to key scenes in the 1991 film — like the psychological seduction of the daughter, or Max Cady doing pushups in the prison gym revealing his tattoos or him behaving badly in a movie theater — but they're made different.

“We also wanted to capture but not exactly copy some of the feverish energy that Scorsese brought cinematically. So there are a lot of camera moves and kinetic camera work, and we really gave ourselves permission to go nuts a little when the action gets heightened.”

Two movies and ‘The Simpsons’

It is a franchise that refuses to die, so to speak, with two movies and a TV show, not to mention being parodied on “The Simpsons” — the "Cape Feare” episode is a classic — and “Family Guy.”

Ten or so hours of plot runway gave Antosca a chance to slowly increase the tension on the family, as opposed to the movies, which are like two-hour runaway trains of terror.

“I wanted to pull back on some of the kind of brute force aspect of it and explore the creeping paranoia and sense of devastation of a family being picked apart," says Antosca. "That, to me, is the scariest thing.”

Wilson, who plays a dad fighting to stay connected to his rebellious teenage children and his spinning-out wife while also battling his own demons, says the longer running time means a deeper experience.

“Your family in turmoil — that’s really, I think, something that’s completely universal. And that’s the benefit of having 10 episodes to tell it and adding other characters and other storylines and seeing the kids' own storylines,” he says.

Setting it in 2026 also gave the series makers plenty of ways for Max to infiltrate his prey in ways he couldn't decades ago — cloned smartphones, drones, artificial intelligence and high-tech surveillance.

“Max is using surveillance in a much more highly technical and much more invasive way,” says Adams. “But that feeling of being watched, I think that’s a very timeless terror.”

Dominique Dawes, a three-time Olympian and Olympic gold medalist, is opening the first Texas location of her Dominique Dawes Academy in Jersey Village on May 30, 2026. The new facility will offer the Academy’s signature gymnastics and ninja-style training programs for children as young as 18 months through high school age.

A milestone for Texas families

The Jersey Village opening marks a significant expansion for the brand, which has set a goal of reaching 50 academy locations nationwide within the next five years. A second Houston-area location in Spring, Texas, is already slated to open in late summer 2026.

• Flood Zone Maps

“Jersey Village is a very family-centered community,” said Dawes, founder of Dominique Dawes Academy. “We are so excited to open our doors here and create a space where kids feel encouraged, supported, and inspired to grow.”

More than gymnastics

The Academy’s programs are designed with more than athletics in mind. Certified coaches and an experienced management team will lead classes focused on skill development, confidence-building and character development — meeting children at every level, from first-timers to more advanced young athletes.

“Our goal is to create spaces where kids feel safe to take risks, learn from setbacks, and ultimately find their own success,” said Adam Zeitsiff, CEO of Dominique Dawes Academy. “Opening in Jersey Village allows us to become part of a close-knit community while offering families a high-quality, values-driven option for youth fitness.”

• 8 riders rescued from stuck roller coaster at Galveston’s Pleasure Pier

Early registration perks

Families don’t have to wait until opening day to secure their spot. Early registration is now open at a limited-time fee of $10 — a significant discount from the regular $75 registration fee. Early registrants will receive:

• Priority access to class schedules and enrollment
• Invitations to private pre-opening classes
• A VIP pass to the Grand Opening Celebration, where families can meet Dominique Dawes in person
• An opportunity to join a live virtual meet-and-greet with Dawes

Spots are limited, and the Academy encourages families to register early to be among the first to experience its programs in the Houston area.

The fire started late Wednesday at the home in Anguruwatota town. Fifty-one residents were rescued, police spokesman Fredrick Wootler said. He said people with mental illnesses were also housed there.

The director of the home was arrested on suspicion of causing deaths through negligence. He appeared before a court and was ordered to be detained for a week while an investigation is underway.

Associated Press footage showed the building gutted with its charred furniture and equipment. Bodies lay nearby.

Local television channel Hiru showed image of firefighters, police and residents trying to contain the raging fire. Those rescued were assisted by police and soldiers in boarding buses to a safe location.

Chathura Mihudum, director of the National Secretariat for Elders, said the facility was not registered as a nursing home and had been warned to follow laws and guidelines.

He said it was overcrowded with beds for just about 15 people in a space where 71 people were living.

Government officials had previously visited the institution and had instructed the management to follow laws, he said, without elaborating.

Victoria Mboko, the 19-year-old Canadian ranked No. 9, revealed Thursday she would have the “honor” of playing with the 44-year-old Williams as wild-card entries at the Queen’s Club next week.

They practiced on the grass courts in west London on Thursday, with Williams seen hitting balls in a purple top and white pants.

“The Queen is back,” Mboko wrote in a post on Instagram alongside a picture of her standing next to Williams.

“An honor to share the court with one of the greatest athletes of all time this week,” Mboko added. “Even more excited to play doubles together! Tennis is pretty special.”

Speaking at the French Open last week, Mboko said of Williams: “I really look up to her. I mean, the fact that she even knows me is very exciting.”

Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, stepped away from tennis in 2022. She has yet to say whether she plans to play at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open in 2026.

___

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

Dr. Julia Kovalenko, a pediatric psychologist with Texas Children’s Hospital, says summer can be a positive time for children to rest and recharge, but parents should also be mindful of maintaining healthy habits and structure.

Why structure still matters during summer

One of the biggest adjustments children face when school ends is the sudden loss of a daily routine.

Experts recommend that families establish a flexible summer schedule that includes regular wake-up times, meals, physical activity, social interaction and bedtime routines.

Maintaining some level of structure can help children feel secure and reduce stress, anxiety and behavioral issues that can arise when days become unpredictable.

Mental health concerns can increase during summer

While summer is often associated with fun and relaxation, some children and teens may struggle with loneliness, boredom or social isolation.

Without the daily interactions that come with school, some young people may feel disconnected from friends and classmates. Others may experience increased anxiety about social situations, family stressors or the upcoming school year.

Mental health professionals say parents should pay attention to significant changes in mood, behavior or routines.

Managing screen time

With more free time comes more opportunities to spend hours on phones, tablets and video games.

Experts recommend creating healthy boundaries around screen use while encouraging activities that promote physical movement, creativity and face-to-face interaction.

Parents can help by setting device-free times during the day, encouraging outdoor activities and modeling healthy technology habits themselves.

Signs your child may be struggling

Parents should watch for warning signs that may indicate a child or teen is experiencing mental health concerns, including:

• Persistent sadness or irritability
• Withdrawal from friends and family
• Changes in sleeping or eating habits
• Loss of interest in activities they previously enjoyed
• Increased anxiety or excessive worry
• Declining self-esteem
• Excessive screen use or social media dependence

Experts say early conversations can make a significant difference when children are struggling emotionally.

Helping teens avoid doomscrolling and social media comparisons

Mental health professionals say social media can contribute to feelings of inadequacy when teens compare themselves to carefully curated images and posts.

Parents can help by encouraging open conversations about social media, discussing how online content often presents unrealistic versions of people’s lives and promoting activities that build confidence outside of the digital world.

Setting limits on screen time and encouraging breaks from social media can also help reduce unhealthy comparisons.

Addressing boredom and loneliness

Experts say boredom isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, unstructured time can encourage creativity, problem-solving and independence.

However, prolonged loneliness can negatively affect mental health.

Parents can help by encouraging children to participate in summer camps, sports, volunteer opportunities, hobbies, family activities and social events that allow them to stay connected with peers.

Key takeaways for parents

As families settle into summer routines, experts say the most important things parents can do are maintain structure, encourage healthy sleep habits, monitor screen time and stay engaged in their children’s emotional well-being.

By creating opportunities for connection, physical activity and meaningful experiences, parents can help ensure their children enjoy a healthy and productive summer break.

“Her passing marks the loss of a leading figure of French culture and an artist devoted to freedom, whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international acclaim,” the French presidency said in a statement.

President Emmanuel Macron and his wife “pay tribute to a remarkable artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable,” the statement said.

News broadcaster BFM TV and other French media reported Satrapi has “died of sadness” a little over a year after the death of her husband, Swedish film producer and actor Mattias Ripa, according to a statement from people close to the artist.

The French Academy of Fine Arts, of which she was a member, expressed its deep sadness in a social media statement, paying tribute to “a passionate advocate for cinema and film education” who earlier this year created a foundation to help international students come to Paris to study film.

Satrapi is best-known for her monochrome autobiographical comic book and film “Persepolis,” a coming-of-age tale set against the Islamic Revolution in her native Iran.

“Persepolis” won the Film Critics Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival in 2007 and the César Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2008, in addition to being nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2008 Oscars.

The film, which details her life in Tehran as the willful daughter of intellectual Marxists, is a reminder that Iranians are just like everyone else, Satrapi told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview in Cannes.

“What we wanted to say is, if these people scare you, look closer: They have parents, they have lovers, they have hope, they have stories," she said.

Iranian authorities at the time protested the movie’s inclusion at Cannes, sending a letter to the French Embassy in Tehran.

Satrapi was born on Nov. 22, 1969, in Rasht, Iran, but her parents sent her to Vienna, Austria, in 1983 to finish her studies because of the extremism in their country following the 1979 Revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power.

But Satrapi, who found Austria hostile and who desperately missed her parents, returned to Iran in 1989 to attend Tehran University, where she earned a degree in visual communications.

By the time she graduated, Satrapi decided she finally was ready to leave Iran and accept the opportunities her parents had been so desperate to give her a decade before. In 1994 she moved to France. She studied in Strasbourg and later moved to Paris.

Her graphic novels also include “Broderies” (“Embroideries”) and “Poulet aux prunes” (“Chicken with plums”), which also was adapted into a film. As a filmmaker, she has directed several works including “La Bande des Jotas” (“The Gang of Jotas”) and “Radioactive” (“Madame Curie”), a biography about the Polish physicist Marie Curie.

Satrapi in 2023 coordinated the book “Femme, vie, liberté” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) together with a group of artists and academics to illustrate the revolts that occurred in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 at the hands of the so-called “morality police.” The work denounces the repression and lack of human rights that Iranian society, especially women, suffers at the hands of the Iranian regime, the foundation said.

Satrapi was elected member of the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2024. She also was offered France's highest award, the Legion of Honor, that same year but declined it, arguing France was not doing enough to support Iranian people fighting for democracy.

“Supporting the women’s revolution in Iran cannot be reduced to photos or speeches,” she wrote in a January 2025 letter to French authorities. “When people are fighting for democracy, we should support them.”

In 2024, Satrapi won the Princess of Asturias Foundation award in Spain for communication and humanities. The organization said she was “an essential voice in the defense of human rights and freedom.” The judges described her as “a symbol of civic engagement led by women."

Satrapi's husband died in April 2025 at 53. On her Instagram page, only one message was left in a series of posts: “Because I have lost the love of my life.”

The rare albino buffalo became a sensation when a farmer noticed that his blond tuft of hair resembled the distinctive locks of the U.S. president. After a video of the pale horned mammal went viral on social media, large numbers of people started showing up at the farm outside Dhaka to see him for themselves.

The animal was originally meant to be slaughtered for the Muslim festival of sacrifice. But citing security concerns, the government ordered him transferred to the zoo in the capital, where large crowds are now braving sweltering heat to see him.

On Tuesday, visitors pressed against the fence of the buffalo's enclosure, filming with their phones as some fathers hoisted small children on their shoulders for a better view.

A zoo worker pampered the animal, brushing his hair to one side and hosing him down with water to keep him cool as fans blew on him.

“There is a resemblance to Donald Trump in its eyes, hairstyle, and skin color,” said Mohammed Nasim, a student in Dhaka. “And just as Donald Trump has a distinctive personality and lifestyle, this buffalo, after going viral, is now living a similar kind of life, enjoying a lot of attention and special treatment.”

Local media reported that the exhibit initially included a sign that said “Donald Trump,” which has since been removed. The zoo curator was fired Saturday, though no official cause was given for the dismissal.

Some clearly found the naming in poor taste.

“Giving a farm animal the name of one of the world’s most influential leaders was certainly the wrong thing to do," said Dhaka resident Mohammad Joynal Adedin, who visited the zoo to see the buffalo anyway. “It seems disrespectful. I think the farmer who did this made a poor decision.”

The buffalo was sold ahead of Eid al-Adha, the “Feast of Sacrifice.” When Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed ordered police to take the animal into custody, the authorities refunded the buyer.

"Since before Eid, I had been seeing posts on Facebook saying that ‘Donald Trump’ would be sacrificed. Later, I heard that instead of being sacrificed, it had been placed in a zoo,” said Mohammad Habibur Rahman, a visitor to the zoo from the southwestern Bangladeshi city of Jashore.

“So, I thought I would come to the zoo and see ‘Donald Trump’ for myself," he said.

After confirming that yellow would return to the team’s primary jerseys and branding, the Rockets finally showed the basketball world their new look.

One giant leap for new threads. pic.twitter.com/Aj0OmxTsnw

— Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) June 4, 2026

The jerseys blend the team’s classic style with a modern aesthetic. They retain the primary red and white home and road colorways, featuring space-inspired numbers while introducing a more traditional lettering font.

The Rockets also returned to black for their City Edition alternate uniforms, unveiling a jersey with red lettering and white numbers.

The project, known as “Debug,” would involve releasing up to 64 million specially bred male mosquitoes into targeted areas. While the idea may sound alarming, researchers say the insects are designed to help reduce mosquito populations, not increase them.

The mosquitoes are developed by Google’s life sciences company, Verily, and are infected with a naturally occurring bacterium called Wolbachia.

When the Wolbachia-carrying male mosquitoes mate with wild female mosquitoes, the resulting eggs fail to hatch. Over time, that can significantly reduce the local mosquito population and limit the spread of diseases carried by the insects.

Researchers emphasize that only female mosquitoes bite humans and transmit diseases. The mosquitoes being released through the program are males, meaning they do not bite people.

“There are a few different programs around the world, and there is very strong evidence that using Wolbachia can reduce dengue transmission risk,” said Eric Caragata, an associate professor and mosquito expert at the University of Florida.

Scientists say the approach has been studied for years and has already been used in several locations around the world to help suppress populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the species responsible for spreading diseases including dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever.

The Debug project also relies heavily on technology. Verily uses artificial intelligence, robotics and automated sorting systems to breed, identify and separate male mosquitoes from females before they are released into the environment.

Supporters say the technology offers a more targeted alternative to widespread pesticide use and could become another tool for controlling disease-carrying mosquito populations.

The proposal is currently under review, but if approved, the releases would take place in parts of California and Florida.

Researchers hope the program could eventually expand to other states as communities look for new ways to combat mosquito-borne illnesses.

According to public health experts, climate change, urbanization and increased global travel have contributed to the growing threat of diseases such as dengue fever, making mosquito-control efforts increasingly important.

While the thought of releasing millions of mosquitoes may raise eyebrows, scientists stress that the goal is fewer mosquitoes in the long run — and fewer opportunities for disease to spread.

The nine people were killed in at least four separate strikes in Gaza City, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies. The hospital said the victims included two women and two children.

Footage of one of the strikes showed a massive hole in an upper floor in what appeared to be a residential apartment building. The blast blew holes through interior walls and scattered blood-stained belongings across the room and into the street.

“They say the war has stopped, but the war has not stopped,” said Walid Shbeir, the uncle of one of the men killed in the strikes, as family members sobbed over the bodies of the victims at the hospital. “Every night there is killing, and we have martyrs. Every night, in the morning, in the evening, and at night, this killing is continuous for us.”

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes. Last week, Israel killed the top Hamas military leader, two weeks after strikes that killed his predecessor.

More than 900 Palestinians killed since ceasefire began

The fatalities were the latest in the coastal enclave since an October ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and the Palestinian militant Hamas group in Gaza. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the shaky ceasefire has seen almost daily Israeli fire.

Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently opened fire on Palestinians near military-held zones, killing more than 936 since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, is generally seen as reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.

Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to violations of the truce or threats to its troops. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas' October 2023 attack that killed some 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

Flotilla says 11 activists detained in Libya

At least 11 international activists attempting to bring attention to Israel's blockade of Gaza have been detained in Libya for more than a week while trying to reach the territory by land, according to the Global Sumud Flotilla.

According to the Libyan media, the activists were detained in connection with illegal entry and lack of permits. The Global Sumud organizers said the participants all had valid visas.

The organization also ran a maritime flotilla earlier this spring consisting of dozens of boats, which was intercepted before reaching Gaza. Hundreds of activists were deported via Israel and Greece. Israel accused the flotilla of being a “PR stunt” carrying very little amounts of aid.

More than 200 health workers and activists have been attempting a separate route overland to reach Gaza started in Mauritania on May 15 and had been heading towards Egypt to enter Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

According to the organization, a Tunisian national was arrested on May 19, around 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Libya-Tunisia border while returning home. Another 10 people were detained on May 24 while trying to negotiate safe passage for their convoy at a checkpoint near Sitre, Libya, along the Mediterranean coast less than halfway between Tunisia and Egypt.

The organization said Libyan authorities first announced the detention of the activists, who hail from Tunisia, Argentina, Portugal, Italy, the US, Uruguay, Poland, and Spain, on May 25, and that the detention was extended another 10 days on Tuesday. The organization condemned the detentions as “unlawful” and “arbitrary.” __ Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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The statement marked the first time the sheriff has spoken publicly since the fatal shooting early Monday morning.

Just after midnight on June 1, a deputy followed Mendoza Jr. into his father’s garage after an attempted traffic stop led to a pursuit.

The deputy fired a single shot that dispatch communications later described as an accidental discharge.

RELATED: Surveillance video shows seconds before Brazoria County deputy shot and killed Texas State student

“Our limited public comments should not be interpreted as a lack of concern, urgency, or recognition of the seriousness of this incident,” Sheriff Stallman wrote.

He said his office is committed to full cooperation with the investigation “no matter the results,” but cited the ongoing nature of the probe as the reason he cannot address specific facts publicly.

The deputy involved has not been identified by law enforcement. The case is being investigated by the Texas Rangers and the Brazoria County District Attorney’s Office.

The reason for the original attempted traffic stop has not been disclosed. The deputy remains on paid administrative leave.

“Please continue to keep the family, our community and all those affected by this tragedy in your prayers as our community grieves,” the sheriff added.

The statement comes after surveillance footage obtained exclusively by KPRC 2 News and shared by family attorney Charles Adams showed Mendoza Jr. pulling into his father’s driveway just after midnight Monday. Within eight seconds of the deputy’s sirens stopping, a shot is heard.

In the video, no audible commands from the deputy can be heard before the shot was fired.

RELATED: ‘Life will never be the same’: Father grieves as questions remain in teen’s shooting death by deputy in Lake Jackson

More than 30 seconds after the shooting, scanner traffic appears to capture the deputy reporting an accidental discharge. The first ambulance arrived roughly 10 minutes after the shot was fired.

Mendoza Jr. had just completed his freshman year at Texas State University, where he played football. His father described him as a dedicated student and athlete.

Adams said Mendoza Jr. had spent the evening at a park with childhood friends, all of whom were unarmed.

“My son was murdered in his garage, and this just isn’t right,” John Mendoza Sr. said. “This is a senseless situation that could have been avoided.”

District Attorney Tom Selleck issues statement

Brazoria County District Attorney Tom Selleck also issued his first public statement Wednesday, saying the findings of the investigation will be presented to a grand jury for review.

According to prosecutors, investigators are conducting a “thorough and comprehensive investigation” that will include forensic testing and other evidence analysis.

Officials said those investigative steps could take several months to complete.

Once finished, investigators will present the case “in its entirety” to a grand jury for review and possible action.

“Our office extends its deepest sympathy, our thoughts and our prayers to all parties involved. We thank the community for its cooperation, understanding, and patience as we move through this process,” Selleck wrote.

The District Attorney’s Office also said no additional public comments will be made while the matter remains under grand jury consideration.

FULL STATEMENTS

Sheriff Bo Stallman:

I know there are many questions surrounding the recent officer-involved shooting that resulted in the tragic loss of a young man.

This is a serious matter, and I hear the concerns and emotions expressed throughout our community. I also understand why people are seeking answers. I assure you, we seek those same answers. Our limited public comments should not be interpreted as a lack of concern, urgency, or recognition of the seriousness of this incident.

From the outset, I requested an independent investigation of the shooting and the events that led up to it. This investigation is being conducted by the Texas Rangers and the Brazoria County Criminal District Attorney’s Office. One of my responsibilities as your Sheriff is to ensure that this investigation proceeds objectively and without interference. The Sheriff’s Office is committed to full cooperation with the investigation, no matter the results.

Because this investigation is ongoing, I am unable to comment on specific matters and facts related to the active investigation.

Please continue to keep the family, our community and all those affected by this tragedy in your prayers as our community grieves.

Respectfully,

Sheriff Bo Stallman

District Attorney Tom Selleck

The District Attorney’s Office provides this statement concerning an officer involved shooting that occurred on June 1, 2026, in Lake Jackson.

It is the policy of the District Attorney’s Office to request that the Texas Rangers investigate all officer-involved shootings concerning the law enforcement agencies within Brazoria County.

Accordingly, this matter is currently being investigated by the Texas Rangers with the assistance of this office.

A thorough and comprehensive investigation is being conducted and this matter will be presented, in its entirety, to the grand jury for their review and action. It is anticipated that necessary investigative tasks, such as forensics and other testing, may take several months to complete. In accordance with the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and other applicable law and rules, this office, the Texas Rangers, and the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office will not publicly discuss any aspect of the ongoing investigation or proceedings at this time.

Our office extends its deepest sympathy, our thoughts and our prayers to all parties involved. We thank the community for its cooperation, understanding, and patience as we move through this process.

No further comment will be provided by this office while the matter is pending before the grand jury.

Researchers found that 19.2% of Americans ages 12 to 21, representing an estimated 8.2 million people nationwide, reported using AI chatbots for mental health advice in 2025.

Among those users, nearly two-thirds said they had not disclosed their chatbot use to anyone.

The findings come as the United States continues to grapple with a youth mental health crisis and as AI tools become increasingly common in young people’s daily lives.

Researchers said the results suggest AI chatbots have become a common source of mental health advice for adolescents and young adults.

AI Chatbot Use and Disclosure for Mental Health Among US Adolescents and Young Adults by Gage Goulding

The study, led by researchers from RAND, Harvard Medical School, MIT Media Lab and several other institutions, surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,009 adolescents and young adults in November 2025.

The weighted sample represented approximately 42.8 million U.S. youths.

“In this nationally representative survey, we estimated that roughly 1 in 5 adolescents and young adults in the U.S., representing approximately 8 million individuals, have ever used an AI chatbot for mental health advice as of 2025,” the authors wrote.

Use increased from the previous year

The study found chatbot use for mental health advice has grown since a similar survey conducted by the research team in 2024.

Researchers noted that 13.1% of adolescents and young adults reported using generative AI for mental health advice in the earlier survey, compared with 19.2% in the current study.

The researchers highlighted the increase in the study’s key findings, noting that chatbot use for mental health advice had increased by nearly half in a single year.

Participants were asked whether they had sought advice from AI chatbots when feeling sad, angry, nervous or stressed. Examples of chatbots provided in the survey included ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Snapchat’s My AI, Character.AI and Meta AI.

Researchers also noted that the share of young people using AI chatbots for mental health advice was similar in magnitude to the 19.8% of adolescents receiving counseling from a mental health professional, though the study emphasized the two measures are not directly comparable.

Many users return regularly

Among those who reported using AI chatbots for mental health advice, researchers found that 42.8% sought that advice at least monthly.

That included 26.3% who used chatbots at least once a month, 10.8% who used them at least weekly and 5.8% who used them daily or almost daily.

Researchers said the frequency of use may indicate that AI chatbots are filling a gap in psychological or emotional support for some young people.

“On the one hand, the level of engagement among a subset of users, 1 in 12 respondents reported using AI chatbots for mental health advice monthly or more often, suggests that AI chatbots may be filling a gap in emotional or psychological support,” the authors wrote.

Most users found the advice helpful

The study found that 91.7% of users rated chatbot advice as either somewhat helpful or very helpful.

About 25% of users said the advice was very helpful, while 66.7% described it as somewhat helpful.

Just 8.3% said the advice was not helpful.

Researchers cautioned, however, that perceived helpfulness does not necessarily mean the advice was clinically appropriate.

“Perceived helpfulness may reflect AI chatbots’ tendencies toward sycophancy and overflattery, rather than the quality of advice they provide,” the authors wrote.

The study also noted concerns among clinical experts that some users with significant mental health needs could rely on chatbot guidance in place of care from trained professionals.

Most young people told no one

Researchers found that 63.3% of adolescents and young adults who used AI chatbots for mental health advice said they had not told anyone.

Among users, 28% said they had told a friend about their chatbot use, while 16.4% said they had told a trusted adult such as a parent, teacher or physician.

The authors said the lack of disclosure could limit opportunities for parents, clinicians and educators to provide guidance about the strengths and limitations of AI-generated advice.

“Without disclosure by young people on the role of AI in providing mental health advice, clinicians may also be unaware of potentially influential or inaccurate advice provided by these tools to their patients,” the researchers wrote.

Who was most likely to use AI chatbots?

The study found several demographic differences among users.

Females were more than twice as likely as males to report using AI chatbots for mental health advice, according to the study’s adjusted analysis.

Older adolescents and young adults were also more likely to use the technology. Participants ages 18 to 21 were significantly more likely to report chatbot use than those ages 12 to 14.

Researchers also found higher use among respondents who had spoken with a physician about their mental health during the previous six months.

Among users, Black respondents were more likely than White respondents to seek mental health advice from chatbots at least monthly.

Researchers cautioned that the sample size for that analysis was relatively small and warrants additional study.

Researchers call for more discussion about chatbot use

The authors concluded that AI chatbots are already playing a substantial role in how young people seek mental health advice and information.

“AI chatbots are already embedded in many youths’ mental health information ecosystem, underscoring the need for parents and clinicians to proactively discuss chatbot use to promote safety, appropriate expectations, and linkages to evidence-based care,” the researchers wrote.

The study’s authors said understanding that role is becoming increasingly urgent as AI tools become more integrated into the daily lives of adolescents and young adults.

“The finding of this nationally representative survey that almost 1 in 5 adolescents in the U.S. reported use of AI chatbots for mental health advice, with over 40% of users doing so monthly or more often, underscores the urgency of understanding and shaping the evolving role of AI chatbots in youth mental health care,” the authors wrote.

The fast-food chain announced it is launching FIFA World Cup 26-themed meals at participating restaurants across the United States and around the world as excitement builds ahead of the tournament, which kicks off June 11.

• Houston ranks first in environmental pollution among FIFA World Cup host cities, study claims

Starting June 4, customers can order the FIFA World Cup 26 Meal, which includes a choice of a Big Mac or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets paired with a limited-edition gold-packaged Big Mac Sauce. Breakfast options are also available and include a Sausage McMuffin with Egg or a Sausage Egg Biscuit served with hash browns.

Each meal comes with one of nine collectible cups featuring soccer stars and fan favorites, including Christian Pulisic, David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Son Heung-min, Lamine Yamal, Alphonso Davies, Santiago Giménez and McDonald’s mascot Grimace.

Younger fans will get their turn beginning June 9 when McDonald’s launches its FIFA World Cup 26 Happy Meal. Each Happy Meal will include one of 23 collectible Squishmallows plush toys dressed in soccer-inspired jerseys. The collection includes characters representing the tournament’s three host countries — the United States, Canada and Mexico.

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

The Happy Meals will also feature special packaging and a scannable code that unlocks a digital game online.

McDonald’s says the promotion is part of its global partnership with FIFA and is designed to bring fans together during one of the world’s biggest sporting events. The company has been involved with the World Cup for more than 30 years.

The FIFA World Cup 26 Meal and Happy Meal will be available for a limited time while supplies last at participating McDonald’s locations.

Officers conducted the traffic stop around 8 p.m. on Monday, June 1, after observing traffic violations.

The driver, identified as Wendy Meyers, was arrested on outstanding warrants from multiple counties, including a warrant for possession of identifying information out of Montgomery County, credit card abuse out of Harris County, and fraud out of Guadalupe County.

The passenger, identified as Joel Johnson, was arrested on outstanding warrants out of Harris County for burglary of a habitation, felony criminal mischief, and aggravated assault of a family member. Authorities said Johnson also faces a failure to identify/fugitive from justice charge out of Bellaire.

During their investigation, officers discovered documents and records containing personal identifying information belonging to approximately 250 individuals inside the vehicle.

According to investigators, the information included names, dates of birth, home addresses, Social Security numbers, and other sensitive personal data commonly used in identity theft and fraud schemes.

Authorities said night shift officers have already identified 128 of the potential victims.

Investigators also determined the vehicle involved in the traffic stop had allegedly been purchased using the identity of one of the victims.

Officials described the discovery as a significant identity theft investigation and credited officers’ attention to detail with uncovering the operation.

Police said the investigation remains ongoing as detectives work to identify additional victims and determine the full scope of the alleged fraud.

Anyone who believes they may be a victim of identity theft is encouraged to regularly monitor their credit reports, review financial statements for suspicious activity, and report fraudulent activity to law enforcement.

The annual Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report projects that the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2032. If that happens and Congress does not intervene, benefits would automatically be reduced because incoming payroll tax revenue would only cover a portion of scheduled payments.

According to an analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, encouraged to stay informed about

For the average Social Security recipient, that could mean losing about $500 per month.

The impact would be felt nationwide, including in Texas.

The report estimates the average Social Security beneficiary in Texas would see monthly benefits reduced by approximately $489 if automatic cuts take effect. In other states, the reductions could be even larger. Retirees in New Jersey could lose an average of $554 per month, while beneficiaries in Washington state and Michigan could see cuts of $531 and $523, respectively.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that every state would be affected if the trust fund becomes insolvent.

Social Security provides retirement, disability and survivor benefits to tens of millions of Americans and serves as a primary source of income for many older adults.

Financial experts say beneficiaries can begin preparing now by evaluating how a potential reduction in income could affect their household budgets.

One recommendation is to calculate what a 24% reduction would mean for current benefits. For example, retirees can multiply their monthly Social Security payment by 0.76 to estimate what they would receive if the projected cuts take effect.

Experts also suggest separating expenses into two categories: essential costs, such as housing, utilities, food, transportation and insurance, and discretionary spending, such as streaming services, subscriptions and dining out.

While the projections are concerning, researchers note that the cuts are not inevitable.

The report assumes that no legislative action will be taken before the trust fund is depleted. Historically, Congress has acted to address Social Security funding challenges, and lawmakers still have several years to implement changes that could extend the program’s solvency and prevent automatic benefit reductions.

The Social Security Administration and budget experts continue to urge lawmakers to address the issue before the projected depletion date in 2032.

For now, beneficiaries are encouraged to stay informed about how potential changes could affect their retirement income in the years ahead.

For parents living in these areas, the shortage can mean longer commutes to find care, fewer affordable options, and lengthy waitlists that can impact their ability to work.

“For many families, finding safe and affordable child care doesn’t take a break, even in the summer,” said Santrice Jones-Hare, director of the Strong Start Alliance at Children at Risk.

The organization has been tracking child care deserts in Texas for the past decade. According to Children at Risk, a child care desert is a ZIP code where the number of young children with working parents is more than three times the licensed capacity of available child care providers.

The problem becomes even more severe for families who rely on financial assistance to pay for child care.

Locally, Children at Risk identified some of the biggest challenges in Harris, Chambers and Liberty counties.

In Harris and Chambers counties, more families are applying for child care subsidies, often referred to as scholarships, but funding and available openings have not kept pace with demand.

Meanwhile, Liberty County has seen a decline in access as some child care centers have closed, according to the report.

“Very often when we’re thinking about education, the littles, as I like to call them, are the last to be thought about when they’re the first to enter into the world,” Jones-Hare said.

While cost remains a significant barrier for many families, advocates say availability is often just as challenging.

In many communities, parents may find a provider near their home or workplace only to discover there is a waitlist for enrollment. Some families are then forced to seek care farther away, reduce work hours, or leave the workforce altogether.

“Families have to make that hard decision whether or not they’re going to continue working or provide child care for their child,” Jones-Hare said.

Children at Risk says families looking for child care should begin researching options as early as possible, particularly if they anticipate needing financial assistance.

The organization recommends parents identify providers near both home and work, compare available programs, and apply for subsidy programs as soon as their child is born if they believe they may qualify.

Advocates are also encouraging parents to share their experiences with state leaders and participate in public discussions about child care funding and access.

Children at Risk says addressing child care deserts will require additional investment in providers, expanded access to subsidies, and policies that help ensure families can find affordable, quality care close to where they live and work.

Dawa Sherpa was last seen around May 29 descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled.

Dawa was located by a cleaning crew Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search.

He was quickly carried down to safety and given food and water. A rescue helicopter flew him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who already had begun funeral rituals for him, were waiting.

"We first heard that he was still alive on the local news and from a person we know who called with the news that ... he is being brought down," said his wife, Damu Sherpa.

Though Dawa had been missing since last week, there was a delay in organizing a search team. No reasons were given for the delay, but when helicopters were finally sent to look for him, they could not find him.

His family had given up hope. Dawa’s teenage daughter, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, said they were on the second day of a funeral ritual, which lasts for several days.

“When we first heard about it (the rescue), we could not be sure if that person was indeed our father,” Mendo Lhamu said. “So to be certain we asked for photos to be sent and then only we were sure and very happy.”

The team that spotted him was part of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which lays the ladders and ropes on the route at the start of each climbing season and then removes the equipment and cleans up the site after climbers have left.

Dawa was last seen at spot called Yellow Band above the Camp 3, which is located at 7,200 meters (23,622 feet). The base camp is at 5,300 meters (17,388 feet).

Dawa, 52, works for a small Kathmandu-based company called Himalayan Traverse, and he was guiding a Polish climber. He comes from the town of Okhaldhunga, south of Everest.

Nepal's mountaineering community has hailed Dawa's survival as miraculous.

“This is nothing short of a miracle surviving so many days on the mountains facing such harsh condition,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a leading figure in the community.

“Sherpas are built tough growing up in the mountains,” Ang Tshering said. “If there was someone else in his place they might not have survived.”

Members of the Sherpa community were mostly yak herders and traders living deep within the Himalayas until Nepal opened its borders in the 1950s. Their stamina and familiarity with the mountains quickly made them sought-after guides and porters, eventually allowing them to dominate the Himalyan climbing business.

More than 1,000 climbers and their guides scaled Everest this May, which was the busiest climbing season ever on the world's highest mountain. It began late because of a massive ice block on the route just above the base camp that took about two weeks to clear.

The 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) high peak was first climbed on May 29, 1953, by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay.

Happy one day closer to Friday HA!

I have a few surprises for you today, so make sure you read all the way to the end for a special edition of today’s newsletter!!!

Jumping straight into what you need to know this morning, if you’re an early sleeper like me, you may have missed our Hurricane and Flood special. But no worries. If you missed this, I got you!

As you know, Houston weather can change in the drop of a dime, so we must always be prepared for severe weather during hurricane season. If you need some tips or want to watch the special from last night, you know what to do.

To read more, click here.

➡️ Love our morning newsletter? Share it with your family and friends!

YOUR MORNING FORECAST ☀️

TODAY:84° TONIGHT: 75°

KPRC 2 Meteorologist says:

“Similar to Wednesday, there will be more afternoon thunderstorms. We’ll wake up in the 70s with a high in the mid-80s. We’ll keep a close eye on the radar as we get into the afternoon. ”

Get your forecast details here.

TOP STORIES

3 injured in drive-by shooting outside north Houston convenience store

Two people have been hospitalized, and another was grazed with a bullet after a drive-by shooting at a convenience store on Wednesday night. Police said someone in a red vehicle drove by the store and started shooting. It’s not clear what prompted the shooting or if it was targeted.

TEA launches public dashboard showing over 13,000 educator misconduct cases

The Texas Education Agency has launched a new public dashboard that reveals the agency has received more than 13,000 reports of educator misconduct, giving parents and taxpayers an unprecedented look into investigations involving Texas school employees.

The newly launched Educator Misconduct Dashboard shows that as of May 2026, the agency had received 13,390 misconduct reports, averaging approximately 1,674 reports per month. The online tool allows the public to view misconduct reports submitted to TEA, active investigations, disciplinary actions by the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC), and placements on the state’s Do Not Hire Registry.

3 arrested after mother hears intruders breaking into home while child is inside

Three suspects were arrested Thursday morning after a mother said she heard intruders inside her home where her child slept. Deputies responded, located the suspects and arrested them

ARE YOU A KPRC 2 INSIDER? HERE’S SOME EXCLUSIVES

SUMMER SWEEPSTAKES: Enter to win 3 weeks of free airport parking from The Parking Spot

HoustonMoms+KPRC 2

Friday on KPRC 2+ Morning News: The team behind Houston Moms is joining us to talk about the resources, events, and family-friendly guides that help Houston parents stay connected and informed. Houston Moms is a community-driven platform created by local moms, for local moms, covering everything from parenting tips to things to do around town. Tune in Friday morning to meet the team and learn more about what they offer Houston families.

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!

In exclusive interviews with The Associated Press during a team camp in Turkey, two members of Iran’s squad described how the conflict is affecting its World Cup preparations.

“Well, to be honest, it’s not easy,” said Saeid Ezatolahi, a 29-year-old midfielder who also played for Iran in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

“That’s going to be my third World Cup. So for me and some of the other players, it might be easier to manage these kind of things,” he said in English on the sidelines of a training session on Wednesday. “But at the end ... it is going to be difficult for us because at the same time, we are following the news in our country and the political things, of course, can affect the mind of the players and the people."

The Iran team has spent more than two weeks in Turkey, mostly practicing at the coastal resort Antalya, and some went to the capital Ankara to submit visa applications at the U.S. embassy. Media access to their World Cup preparations has been limited, and the players rarely speak to international journalists.

Iran will be based in Mexico during the World Cup

The team is set to travel to Mexico this weekend after receiving visas from the Mexican embassy in Ankara. The team said Thursday that the process of obtaining entry permits had been finalized for all members of the squad. Problems with visa processing meant Iran's World Cup training base was moved from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, on Mexico's border with California.

Iran will play its first two games near Los Angeles, which has a large Iranian community, many of whom oppose the current government.

“So for sure, we are expecting to have a lot fans during our games at the stadium," Ezatolahi said. "And this is going to be a lot pressure for us because the expectation is going be high. I just wish we can make them proud and show them that Iranians, they are prepared for every hard job in the world,” he said.

Mohammad Ghorbani, 24, is going to his first World Cup for Iran.

“It’s true that we are facing special circumstances right now but we are football players and we have to play, practice, and prepare ourselves for the competitions we have ahead,” the Abu Dhabi-based player told the AP in Farsi.

“On the other hand, we know that our people have been going through a lot of difficulties throughout the war, and we are going there for them, to get the best results for their joy and the joy of the people of our country.”

The U.S. and Israel launched its war against Iran on Feb. 28, killing its supreme leader and other top officials. Iran responded with strikes targeting Israel, U.S. forces and the Gulf Arab states. It also has maintained a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, imperiling global energy supplies.

Despite a nominal ceasefire being in place, Iran and the U.S. have yet to negotiate a permanent end to the war and attacks continue in the region.

Iran is in Group G with New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt

Iran's team is not required to enter the United States until June 14, one day before its first match against New Zealand at the Los Angeles Rams’ stadium in Inglewood.

Iran returns to Inglewood to face Belgium on June 21 and completes Group G in Seattle, against Egypt on June 26.

"I’m really proud to be part of my national team,” said Ezatolahi, whose career has taken him to play for clubs in Spain, Russia, England, Belgium, Denmark, Qatar and now Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

“We need to clear up our minds and be fresh because our target and our duty is to fight for our people, to represent our country and to show how good we are,” he said.

Ghorbani agreed, saying the team wants to bring joy to Iranians.

“The best message I can give right now is that the Iranian team is showing what it means to be a team,” he said. “We are showing that we are one team under one flag that can bring joy to our whole country, and to show the power of Iranian players and Iranian people to the world.”

___

AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.

___

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

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.

If you read our newsletter yesterday morning, then you saw I led with a tragic story... the shooting death of an 18-year-old college student by a Brazoria County deputy. There are still so many questions surrounding what led the deputy to open fire and kill the teen, but now, the family may have a few more answers due to surveillance video exclusively obtained by KPRC 2 News.

The video shows what happened moments before the deputy shot and killed 18-year-old John Mendoza Jr. According to investigators, the teen led the deputy on a chase before pulling into his father’s driveway, and that’s when the shooting happened.

To read more, click here.

➡️ Love our morning newsletter? Share it with your family and friends!

YOUR MORNING FORECAST ☀️

TODAY: 85° TONIGHT: 75°

KPRC 2 Meteorologist says:

“More afternoon thunderstorms are expected on Wednesday afternoon. With the heat and instability, any storm that forms can turn severe. There is a large, disorganized area of tropical moisture in the Gulf. It shouldn’t form into a tropical storm or depression, but it will bring more organized heavy rain to the Gulf Coast. There is a 60% chance of moisture here on Friday and Saturday. Both of these days we have a street flooding threat. ”

Get your forecast details here.

TOP STORIES

Teen critically injured, two adults found dead at northwest Harris County home, deputies say

A teenager is fighting for his life after a shooting at a northwest Harris County home where deputies also discovered two adults dead Wednesday, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies responded to a residence in the 10700 block of Spring Brook Pass and learned that an 18-year-old man may have unintentionally shot a 16-year-old boy, authorities said.

Investigators seeking information after 81-year-old man found shot dead inside Montgomery County home

Investigators in Montgomery County are asking the public for assistance after a 81-year-old man was found dead with a gunshot wound inside a home on Monday. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said it happened at a home in the 19200 block of Trails End Road around 8 a.m. They responded to a report that someone was dead at the home.

Houston-area public housing waitlists reopening for first time in nearly 3 years: Here’s what applicants need to know

For the first time since 2023, thousands of Houstonians seeking affordable housing will have an opportunity to apply for public housing as Housing Alliance HTX prepares to reopen waitlists for eight public housing communities later this month.

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.

ARE YOU A KPRC 2 INSIDER? HERE’S SOME EXCLUSIVES

SUMMER SWEEPSTAKES: Enter to win 3 weeks of free airport parking from The Parking Spot

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!

County leaders are encouraging residents to start building emergency plans and disaster supply kits now, before shelves begin to empty and demand surges ahead of a potential storm.

• KPRC 2’s 2026 Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide

“The message is simple: don’t wait for a forecast cone to show up on your phone,” emergency managers said.

Officials with Harris County Homeland Security & Emergency Management say hurricane preparedness is about more than just tropical systems. Residents in the Houston area face a variety of weather threats throughout the year, including flooding, severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, winter weather, and hurricanes.

As part of their preparedness recommendations, officials say every household should have enough food, water, medications, and pet supplies to last between seven and 10 days.

• Hurricane evacuation routes: Know before you go

Rather than making a last-minute trip to the store when a storm threatens the area, emergency managers recommend purchasing supplies gradually throughout the season.

“One of the easiest ways to prepare is to buy a few extra emergency items each time you go shopping,” officials said.

Residents are also encouraged to determine whether they live in a hurricane evacuation zone and to have a plan in place if they need to leave their homes quickly.

At the Harris County Emergency Operations Center, officials monitor weather threats year-round and coordinate response efforts before, during, and after disasters. Emergency managers say the planning process begins long before a storm develops in the Gulf.

Brian Murray, deputy director of Harris County Homeland Security & Emergency Management, said preparedness starts with simple steps that can make a major difference when severe weather strikes.

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

Officials say one of the biggest mistakes residents make is waiting until a storm is approaching to begin preparing.

By that point, stores are often crowded, supplies can be limited, and families may not have enough time to gather what they need.

Emergency managers encourage residents to review emergency plans with family members, update important documents, sign up for weather alerts, and assemble disaster kits now rather than later.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.

Jess Asato, a legislator with the governing Labour Party, says someone used Grok to create fake images of her in a bikini without her consent in January after she criticized the spread of deepfake pornography online.

She filed a claim Wednesday at the High Court in London, citing misuse of private information under the Data Protection Act.

She is seeking damages and says she wants to create a precedent that companies can be held liable for the design of their AI systems.

“Nobody would be able to walk up to me in the street and strip me and put me in a bikini, and I don’t see why anybody should be able to do that to me online, because the feeling, while it is not quite the same, is very similar,” she said. “It is like somebody has digitally stripped me without my consent.”

Asato said she hopes others will join the claim.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he supports Asato's legal action "100%.”

“Jess Asato is absolutely right in the action that she is taking," Starmer told reporters. “Disgusting images were created in her particular case by Grok.”

Following an international outcry against deepfake pornography, Musk’s company said in January it would no longer allow Grok users to edit images of real people to remove their clothing.

A law passed last year in the U.K. made it illegal to create or request a non-consensual deepfake image of an adult. But Asato says xAI should be held accountable for harm that has already been done.

“Once the damage is done, the damage is done,” she said. “If you think about any other products, like a car, for example, that might have been manufactured with a fault, it doesn’t matter if, you know, the cars get recalled and the faults are fixed and no more harm is done.”

In January, American writer Ashley St. Clair, mother of Musk’s son Romulus, filed a lawsuit against xAI in New York. She alleges that explicit images of her were generated by AI chatbot Grok, including one in which she was underage.

xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

According to the Houston Police Department, officers responded around 11:40 p.m. to reports of a shooting at a convenience store located in the 800 block of West Little York Road.

When officers arrived, they found three victims, all between the ages of 18 and 20, suffering from gunshot wounds.

Police said the victims were standing outside the store when a red vehicle, possibly a Kia, drove by and someone inside started shooting.

Two people were hit in the leg and transported to a local hospital. A third person was grazed by a bullet, treated at the scene, and released. All three are expected to recover.

Surveillance video obtained from the store appears to show the red vehicle driving past as gunfire erupts. Muzzle flashes can be seen coming from the vehicle while the victims scramble for cover. One person falls to the ground as shots ring out, while another is seen running to avoid being hit.

Overnight, the store’s parking lot remained an active crime scene as investigators marked evidence and collected shell casings scattered across the area.

Detectives said they recovered shell casings from at least two different calibers of firearms. Investigators are working to determine whether more than one shooter was inside the vehicle when the shots were fired.

Police have not released a motive and are still investigating whether the victims were specifically targeted.

Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to contact the Houston Police Department or Crime Stoppers.

The newly launched Educator Misconduct Dashboard shows that as of May 2026, the agency had received 13,390 misconduct reports, averaging approximately 1,674 reports per month. The online tool allows the public to view misconduct reports submitted to TEA, active investigations, disciplinary actions by the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC), and placements on the state’s Do Not Hire Registry.

According to the dashboard, violence in schools represents the largest category of reported misconduct, accounting for more than 5,000 reports. Cases involving inappropriate educator-student relationships account for fewer than 1,500 reports.

The dashboard was launched on Tuesday, June 2, as part of TEA’s new Student Protection Resource Center, a centralized online hub that provides information on student safety, educator accountability, reporting requirements, disciplinary actions, and resources for recognizing signs of abuse and misconduct.

“Transparency and public trust in our education system are central to ensuring our schools can accomplish their core mission of educating the next generation,” Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said in a statement announcing the new tools.

Data on the dashboard also shows more than 5,100 cases remain in preliminary review, while 2,643 investigations are active and 537 investigations have been completed. Since September 2024, the State Board for Educator Certification has imposed 1,768 sanctions against educators, including certificate revocations, suspensions, reprimands, and voluntary surrenders. More than 75% of those sanctions involved teachers.

The dashboard further shows that 485 individuals have been added to the Do Not Hire Registry since September 2025. The registry prohibits certain individuals from working in Texas public schools because of serious misconduct or criminal history.

TEA officials said the dashboard was created under Senate Bill 571 and is intended to provide greater transparency into how educator misconduct cases are reported, investigated, and resolved. The dashboard is updated regularly and includes information on reports received, investigations underway, disciplinary actions, and registry placements.

The Student Protection Resource Center also includes access to the Do Not Hire Registry, educator certificate lookup tools, reporting resources, and guidance for parents, educators, and school administrators on protecting students and reporting misconduct.

Deputies with Constable Mark Herman’s Office responded to a residence in the 18800 block of Timber Spring Drive after a homeowner reported hearing suspects breaking into her home.

Authorities said the mother and her child were inside the residence when the attempted break-in occurred.

Deputies quickly arrived at the scene, secured the home, and began searching the surrounding area for the suspects.

During the investigation, deputies located evidence and gathered information that led to the identification of three suspects believed to be involved in the incident.

Officials also recovered stolen property, including a PlayStation 5.

All three suspects were taken into custody and are facing charges related to the burglary investigation. Authorities have not yet released the identities of the suspects or additional details about the charges they may face.

“All three suspects were taken into custody. Great work by Constable Deputies protecting our community!” Constable Mark Herman said in a statement.

The investigation remains ongoing.

China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory.

Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing.

Beijing views visits to Taiwan as threats to sovereignty

The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.

Beijing says Taipei has no right to conduct foreign relations and views visits by foreign lawmakers to the island as defying China’s claims of sovereignty over it. Taiwan, in practice, is self-ruled.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Thursday confirmed the sanctions.

“We urge the relevant people to sincerely respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and strictly abide by the One China principle,” Mao said during a regular briefing in Beijing. “Anyone who crosses the red line on the Taiwan question must pay the price.”

China had a particularly forceful response to a visit to Taiwan by former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022. Beijing had banned her from visiting China, and also launched large-scale live-fire military exercises around Taiwan.

Peters' spokesperson said the officials' visit was “not inconsistent with New Zealand’s One China policy," which includes acknowledgment of Beijing's claim that Taiwan is a province of China. New Zealand is not among the 12 nations worldwide that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan's government.

4 New Zealand officials banned for a year

Emails sent to the lawmakers by New Zealand's Parliamentary Service, and seen by the AP, said that Beijing's embassy in Wellington had asked for a message to be conveyed to the four officials that they were banned from China, Macau and Hong Kong for one year.

The ban might be rescinded if the lawmakers in question apologized for visiting Taiwan, the email said.

“China has consistently opposed visits to China’s Taiwan region by members of the legislatures of countries that have established diplomatic relations with China, including New Zealand, and this case is no exception," a spokesperson for China's embassy in Wellington said in a statement posted to its website Thursday. “The New Zealand side should not be surprised.”

New Zealand officials in Beijing and Wellington would discuss the matter with China “in order to express concern at this departure from past practice and to better understand it,” Peters' spokesperson said. Lawmakers in New Zealand decide individually whether to join delegations traveling abroad and such visits usually include representatives from multiple political parties.

Lawmaker Laura McClure from the libertarian ACT party said that the “demand” for an apology was “frankly insulting” and she wouldn't give one.

Duncan Webb, from the center-left Labour Party, said New Zealand valued democratic institutions and the right to engage with partners abroad.

“If the cost of doing that is to be excluded from China for a year, I will pay that price,” Webb said in an email.

New Zealand and China have generally had good relations

Relations between Wellington and Beijing have in recent years been largely positive. China is New Zealand's largest trading partner and was the first Western country to sign a free trade deal with Beijing.

In New Zealand's nearest neighboring country, Australia, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Thursday that her government too would express concerns about the lawmakers' bans to Beijing and to China's mission in Canberra.

“We agree with the principle expressed by New Zealand that members of parliament, including the Australian Parliament, are free to make their own decisions about their travel independent of government,” she told a Senate committee in Canberra on Thursday.

“Placing pressure on parliamentarians is not appropriate,” she added.

___

Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing, Huizhong Wu in Bangkok and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne contributed to this story.

Marco Balich, fresh off the Olympics opening ceremony, which included a parade of athletes spread across four venues, said he was up to the challenge of producing three shows in three cities, with teams numbering 260 to 300 people in each city.

The ceremonies' unifying theme will be “the celebration of sports, the passion for soccer, symbolized by the cup itself,” Balich said. “The idea is to narrate with three points of view and languages,” using design aesthetics representative of each culture.

In Canada, a mosaic will represent its multicultural identity. Mexico's motif will be the traditional paper cutouts called papel picado, while the United States will have “a super shiny, glowing cup,” said Balich, who also produced the opening ceremony for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Balich called it a “very good sign” that Canada, Mexico and the U.S. were working together to host “a peaceful World Cup.”

"I think it’s very important that we stress the fact that the three nations are working together to host a very important and relevant championship, especially in this moment where there is so much controversy on the political side,’’ said Balich, founder of Balich Wonder Studios. “But the people are people, and they will get together and enjoy.”

Each ceremony will feature top artistic performances that tap into the national identity, but Balich said spectators shouldn’t expect a Super Bowl-style halftime extravaganza. Instead, the ceremonies will combine welcoming speeches, a parade of flags, the presentation of the match ball and about 30 minutes of musical entertainment.

“It's a celebration of football, FIFA and the fact that, thanks to soccer, people get together in peace and harmony," Balich said.

Each ceremony will be held about 90 minutes before game time, following a 25-minute player warm-up that organizers hope will prompt spectators to arrive early.

While the Super Bowl celebrates “a game that is only famous in the U.S., the rest of the world plays soccer, and has a passion that is shared,’’ Balich said.

The festivities launch on June 11 in Mexico City, ahead of the Mexico City-South Africa match, with a show featuring Latin rock band Maná, Colombian singer J Balvin and South African pop star Tyla.

They continue June 12 in Toronto ahead of the Canada-Bosnia and Herzegovina game, with Alanis Morissette and Michael Bublé headlining, before heading to Los Angeles Stadium later that day for the U.S.-Paraguay opener.

International stars will take the stage at Los Angeles Stadium, including Katy Perry, global pop star LISA, Nigerian Afrobeats star Rema, Brazilian pop artist Anitta, and hip-hop artist Future.

The Italian producer is enjoying the distinction of producing the two biggest sports ceremonies in the world this year — the 2026 Winter Games opening ceremony and 2026 World Cup — even as Italy sits out its third straight World Cup.

“It is very encouraging, actually, to compensate the sad news that Italy is not there this time,” Balich said, adding that Italy's absence “which is a disaster for us, has also enabled us to be very impartial” in celebrating each country “in a similar way.”

___

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

Some three years later, Howe is nearly caught up, Walker said.

But last month, Howe got a letter from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton: because the city’s behind on its audits, the attorney general had effectively frozen the city’s property tax rate for the foreseeable future. That’s owing to a new state law that forbids cities from raising property taxes if they’re not up-to-date on their financial audits — a law that appears to be falling disproportionately on smaller Texas towns as cities everywhere face tightening budgets.

Howe wasn’t the only one. Last month, Paxton told more than 130 Texas cities, most with fewer than 10,000 residents, to freeze their property taxes because they’re breaking that law.

That determination leaves Howe in a bind, Walker said — looking for funds in an already slim city budget to pay for multiple audits while the state tells the town it can’t seek more revenue.

“It’s kind of a Catch-22,” Walker said.

Howe is on a new front in Texas Republicans’ war to rein in the state’s high property taxes: cities and towns that haven’t kept their books up to date.

State law requires cities to audit their finances each year, requiring an independent reviewer to go over cities’ financial records to make sure its monies are accounted for. Cities must also meet a deadline to release a financial statement based on that audit to the public. Before last year, there was no direct penalty for cities that didn’t follow the law. Then, Texas legislators quietly passed a new law barring cities from raising more in property taxes than they did the previous year if they don’t perform an audit.

“You’ve got a reasonable amount of time to get your audit in,” said state Sen. Robert Nichols, an East Texas Republican who carried the bill. “You shouldn’t be raising taxes on people unless you understand your numbers and you feel very comfortable with your numbers.”

City officials interviewed by The Texas Tribune agree: they should have their books in order, and they’re working to get current, but the new cap on their taxes puts them under further financial strain. The cost of performing an audit can be high relative to a small city’s budget. For Howe, an audit costs about $40,000 against a $7 million operating budget, Walker said.

Already, being late on their audits makes cities ineligible for state grants and federal funds for needed infrastructure projects. Howe lost out on a $10 million state water grant because their audits aren’t complete, Walker said.

The restriction on collecting more in taxes could threaten services and delay getting up-to-date on their audits — though cities won’t know exactly how much of a disadvantage for a few months. Appraisal districts will calculate the size of the cities’ tax bases over the summer, after which those cities will calculate the property tax rate that will allow them to collect the same amount of tax revenue as they did the previous year.

Manvel, a fast growing town of about 20,000 about half an hour south of Houston, would have lost about $485,000, about 3.5% of the city’s expected property tax revenue in its current budget, had the attorney general’s order been in effect in time for this year’s budget, Mayor Dan Davis said. That would’ve likely meant fewer law enforcement hires, less money for drainage and road work, and other delayed improvements the city has been trying to make, he said.

“This is not just a political talking point,” Davis said. “This has a real life impact on essential services for cities like Manvel that are still very much rapid growth cities.”

Officials representing cities whose taxes the attorney general froze faced circumstances unique to smaller towns that put them behind on their audits, making it difficult to meet the new requirements of the law, they said.

Like Howe, some cities have seen staffing churn and difficulty courting qualified finance staff to move to a small town to replace them. In a small town, it can be difficult to find a replacement if a key executive like a city manager or finance director leaves, officials said. Alpine, a West Texas town about 25 miles east of Marfa, was two years behind on its audits when Henry Arredondo became city manager in January, he said. Alpine’s last city manager had previously been the finance director, so when they left last year, they took their know-how of the city’s books with them, Arredondo said.

Arredondo saw something similar when he worked as Dilley’s city manager. That city advertised for a finance director for four years but could never hire one, he said.

“You don’t have layers of knowledge,” Arredondo said. “You have the finance director, you have the city administrator [or] the city manager, and when those two positions turn over, then the next level people are clerks.”

Manvel has been on-time with its audits in the past, Davis said. This year, officials discovered that past audits failed to add new infrastructure, spurred by the city’s growth, to the city’s balance sheets, he said. That put them behind on the city’s current audit, which Davis anticipates the Manvel City Council will adopt sometime this summer. After that, the hope is to ask the attorney general’s office to repeal their decision, Davis said.

Nichols said that’s not allowed. The attorney general’s office did not return a request for comment.

Other cities wound up on Paxton’s list for other reasons. Officials in Cuero, a town of about 8,300 some 90 miles southeast of San Antonio, completed their audit just days after a late March deadline to publish the audit that triggered the attorney general’s order, City Manager Wayne Berger said. Port Lavaca completed its audit on time but wound up on the attorney general’s list owing to a miscommunication between the city and the attorney general’s office, City Manager Joanna Weaver said. Port Lavaca officials intend to appeal the decision, Weaver said.

Nichols says confusion comes with any law’s initial implementation. It wouldn’t make sense to carve out every special situation a city might face, or risk weakening the law, said Nichols, who did not seek reelection and will leave office next year. Now that these cities know they face penalties for not getting their audits done, they’ll make sure they’re done on time, he said.

“We’re not making them do an audit that they’re not already required to do,” Nichols said. “We’re just trying to say, ‘hey, you need some kind of a nudge to get your business straight and to get the audit done.’”

Davis, the Manvel mayor, sees the law as the latest in a long series of moves by state lawmakers to target local governments.

“There should be consequences, there should be ramifications, but the way that I parent my kids is through discussion and dialogue,” Davis said. “We don’t just come down and just constantly punish them, because that creates resentment, that creates distrust. And unfortunately, that’s what we continue to see from the state.”

The law allowed certain students who attended and graduated from high school in Texas to pay in-state tuition, even if they lacked legal immigration status. The measure was blocked exactly one year ago after the Trump administration sued the state, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed not to defend the law.

Now, Students for Affordable Tuition, La Unión del Pueblo Entero, Austin Community College and student Oscar Silva want a chance to defend the law themselves. Paxton’s office and Justice Department lawyers say the case shouldn’t be reopened because the Texas law conflicts with federal immigration law.

The background

Texas was the first state to let certain undocumented students pay in-state tuition after lawmakers passed the Texas Dream Act in 2001 with little debate and broad, bipartisan support.

The law, signed by the Republican former Gov. Rick Perry, allowed certain students without legal status to qualify if they graduated from a Texas high school or earned an equivalent diploma here, lived in the state for at least three years before graduating and signed an affidavit saying they would seek permanent residency as soon as they were eligible.

Supporters said Texas benefited from students educated in its K-12 schools by making college more affordable and moving them into the workforce. But as Republican politics shifted on immigration, the law became a target.

After another failed effort by some state lawmakers last year, U.S. Justice Department lawyers sued Texas. Paxton’s office quickly agreed the law conflicted with federal immigration law and asked a judge to block it. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor approved the agreement and blocked the law the same day.

Students for Affordable Tuition is a group of students who say they were harmed by the ruling. La Unión del Pueblo Entero, or LUPE, is an immigrant-rights group. They asked to intervene along with Austin Community College and Silva, a University of North Texas graduate student who qualified for in-state tuition under the Texas Dream Act.

O’Connor, a President George W. Bush appointee who sits in the Northern District of Texas’ Wichita Falls division, rejected their request, so they appealed to the 5th Circuit.

What the fight is about

Justice Department lawyers sued Texas, saying the Texas Dream Act violated a 1996 federal immigration law.

That law says states cannot give people who are not lawfully present a higher education benefit based on residency unless U.S. citizens can get the same benefit, no matter where they live. Justice Department lawyers argue Texas gave some undocumented students a lower tuition rate that U.S. citizens from other states could not get.

Paxton’s office agreed. The Texas Dream Act so clearly conflicted with federal immigration law that defending it or letting others defend it would be futile, state lawyers said. In their brief, they argued private parties “cannot hijack the State’s defense of its statutes.”

Students for Affordable Tuition, LUPE, ACC and Silva argue that O’Connor got ahead of himself. They say he should have first decided whether they met the legal requirements to intervene, not whether their defense of the Texas Dream Act would ultimately succeed.

“The people of Texas are entitled to genuine litigation before a federal court invalidates their democratically enacted statute,” lawyers for LUPE, ACC and Silva wrote in their brief.

The groups argue the Texas Dream Act did not conflict with federal law because eligibility was not based solely on residency.

Students also had to graduate from a Texas high school or earn an equivalent diploma here, live in the state for at least three years before graduating and sign an affidavit saying they would seek permanent residency as soon as they were eligible.

Students for Affordable Tuition say the stakes are concrete for its members, who “face significant increases in their higher education costs, putting college out of reach for many of them, some of whom have already spent years in college and will not be able to complete their specific program.”

Broader impact

The Texas Dream Act opened higher education to more than 57,000 students, lawyers for LUPE, ACC and Silva told the court. They argued that ending the law could cost Texas hundreds of millions of dollars a year through reduced wages, earnings and consumer spending, and said ACC expected revenue losses, administrative burdens and negative effects on programs and services if the ruling remained in place.

Since O’Connor blocked the Texas Dream Act last year, students and colleges across the state faced confusion over who still qualifies for in-state tuition.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board told colleges to identify and reclassify students who are not lawfully present as nonresidents but did not tell schools how to determine lawful presence or what documents to accept. That uncertainty led at least one student with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, to be initially charged out-of-state tuition, The Texas Tribune previously reported.

Students for Affordable Tuition told the 5th Circuit that several Texas colleges had charged DACA recipients out-of-state rates, even though Texas lawyers said they should still qualify for in-state tuition.

What happens next

Judges Jerry E. Smith, Don R. Willett and Irma Carrillo Ramirez will hear the case.

Smith was appointed by President Ronald Reagan; Willett by President Donald Trump; and Ramirez by President Joe Biden.

The 5th Circuit does not have to rule Wednesday. A decision could come weeks or months later.

If the court sides with the groups, the case could return to the district court, where they would have a chance to defend the law.

If the court sides with Paxton’s office and Justice Department lawyers, the judgment blocking the law would remain in place.

Last month, along with nine other young boys, he flew to Mexico to represent Brazil in the Street Child World Cup, a tournament with teams from 30 countries composed of boys from impoverished backgrounds, organized ahead of this year’s FIFA World Cup.

“I never could have imagined that one day this would happen, that I would represent my country, doing what I most love — playing soccer — in another country,” said Gonçalves, who is 18. The Brazil team went undefeated and won the tournament, enhancing the thrill of the experience.

Like many Brazilians, Gonçalves and his teammates grew up kicking a ball around and closely following members of the Seleção, Brazil’s national soccer team. They dream of one day becoming professional soccer players like their heroes.

The project has already changed their lives, they say.

Beyond being the gateway to climatic moments, the Street Child United Brazil project in the Penha complex of favelas allows participants to at least momentarily escape from everyday life marked by deprivation and violence, fostering a sense of safety, belonging and hope.

The initiative began in 2014, when Brazil hosted the FIFA World Cup. Today, some 100 youths take part in the year-round training sessions that take place four days a week. The project welcomes girls and boys aged 6 and above.

Playing soccer represents “love, passion, the realization of dreams,” said Ryan Mercedes, a 17-year-old who also went to Mexico. “When we enter the field, it’s time for us to have fun and be happy.”

But soccer enthusiast Rafael Gomes says that the reality of life in the favela has sometimes caught up with them. The soccer fans have had to at least once interrupt a game due to a police operation in the favela.

“We were training when all of a sudden there were shots, we had to run and stay in the corners,” said Gomes.

Last year, more than 120 people died in a deadly police operation in Penha and the neighboring Alemao complex of favelas targeting members of the criminal group Red Command.

The drug-trafficking group — which the Trump administration recently decided to classify as a foreign terrorist organization — controls parts of the favela. It represents a temptation for minors who might be drawn to crime as a quick way of making cash.

Drica Santos, a coordinator for the project, says that the organization aims to offer an alternative to that way of life.

“If the project didn’t exist, we would have lost a lot of lives,” said Santos. “We’re not going to save everyone, but the greatest number of children that we manage to save — that don’t get involved in drug-trafficking — that will already be our victory.”

Carlos Cassiano da Silva, a community leader in the favela, says that parents are grateful for the project because they know that their children will be occupied for a certain amount of time and stay out of trouble.

The initiative also casts Penha in a good light, da Silva added. “Many people aren’t used to seeing Penha in a positive manner, they don’t know of the good things we have here too,” he said.

As the World Cup approaches, Gonçalves said he hoped that the Seleção would follow in his teammates' footsteps and bring back the trophy.

“We did our part. Now it’s up to the Brazilian national team,” Gonçalves said.

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

Jalen Brunson scored 30 points, Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds, and the Knicks erased a 14-point second-half deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs 105-95 in Game 1 of the finals on Wednesday night.

OG Anunoby had 17 points for New York — which has won 12 consecutive playoff games, the seventh team to have such a streak in NBA history, and is the third to do it in a single season. Brunson scored 13 points in the fourth, only six fewer than San Antonio managed as a team in that quarter, and sealed it with a spinning jumper while falling to the court with 38 seconds left.

“He's a gamer, man,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “In the biggest moments, he shows up. That's what MVPs are supposed to do.”

And the Knicks, who finished on an 11-0 run, made a little more history. They became the first team to beat San Antonio in a Game 1 of the title series — the Spurs were 6-0 in those — and this is also the first time the Spurs have trailed a finals before the finish.

As far as single-season playoff winning streaks — Golden State won 15 straight games in the 2017 postseason on its way to the title. San Antonio won 12 straight in 1999 on its way to the title. And now New York has won 12 in a row, with its title status to be determined.

“I think we know what we have to do,” Brunson said. “I think we're a pretty together group.”

Victor Wembanyama had 26 points and 12 rebounds for the Spurs, but he shot 6 for 21 from the field in his finals debut. Stephon Castle scored 17, while Julian Champagnie and Dylan Harper each had 16 for San Antonio.

“I was bad tonight,” Wembanyama said. “It's not more complicated than that.”

Game 2 is Friday in San Antonio.

Former San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich was at the game, as he’s been for every finals game in Spurs history, albeit watching from a suite and not stomping the San Antonio sideline. The Spurs legends — David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Bruce Bowen and more — were there, too.

So were Knicks great Patrick Ewing and the world’s most recognizable New York fans: Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Ben Stiller, Fat Joe, Timothée Chalamet and more. Plenty of non-celeb Knicks fans made the trip as well; Tommy Sherlock, a auto sales manager from Brooklyn, said it cost less for two Game 1 tickets in San Antonio, with hotel and airfare, than Game 3 tickets in New York would have set him back.

“First-class air, too,” Sherlock said. “By a lot.”

The Knicks led 14-7 early, the Spurs answered with a 20-13 run to go up by 10, the Knicks rallied and the second quarter saw six lead changes before San Antonio took a 55-48 lead into the break.

San Antonio pushed the lead to 14 midway through the third quarter before the Knicks stormed back, finishing the period on a 22-9 run and sending the game into the fourth tied at 76.

New York's lead was eight midway through the final period. Wembanyama made a pair of free throws with 2:16 left to put San Antonio up 95-94, but Brunson made a corner 3 on the next possession to put the Knicks on top for good.

“I think we let that one go,” Wembanyama said.

San Antonio's run of never trailing the finals had some close calls over the years. The Spurs were tied twice with New Jersey in 2003 finals, tied with Detroit twice in 2005, tied with Miami three times in 2013 — they lost that series in seven games, so they only trailed when it was over — and then were tied with the Heat once more in 2014.

It's only 1-0. But the Knicks are only three wins away from their first title in 53 years, and they just took home-court advantage away from San Antonio.

“We have a long way to go,” Brunson said.

___

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

Hill has been participating in the Texans’ organized team activities as he works his way back to full strength. He’s expected to make a complete recovery by training camp. Hill has put on some muscle this offseason and has participated in the Texans’ workout program for months while rehabbing from the surgery.

Hill is part of the Texans’ competition at linebacker with veteran E.J. Speed out for the entire regular season with a fully torn quadriceps tendon and a partially torn quadriceps muscle.

Hill is competing with several linebackers, including veterans Jake Hansen, Marte Mapu and Jake Hummel and rookies Wade Woodaz and Aiden Fisher. Fisher missed time this week due to a leg injury.

Hill, a former Texans sixth-round draft pick from Oregon, recorded six tackles in 12 games and forced a fumble last season on special teams for the Texans against the Arizona Cardinals.

He has 10 tackles in 20 career games. He played 75 percent of the special teams snaps last season.

He played safety and linebacker at Oregon and has run the 40-yard dash in 4.41 seconds.

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

The government says the development on the Adriatic coast would be transformational for the former communist nation as it seeks to enter the high-end tourism market and pushes for European Union membership.

But the venture, spanning an abandoned island and a nearby stretch of seafront on Albania’s southern coast, has drawn opposition from environmental campaigners and critics of long-time Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Kushner and Ivanka Trump found the site on a barefoot hike

The luxury project has two components: a coastal development in the Narta Lagoon area, which is a wildlife reserve, and a smaller resort on the nearby uninhabited island of Sazan, a communist-era military base.

The planned development of hotels, apartments, villas and a marina is linked to Kushner and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump.

In an interview this week with U.S. podcaster David Senra, Ivanka Trump said they discovered the site by accident.

“We were on a friend’s boat, and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it,” she said. “We swam to the island. We went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated.”

An investment firm linked to Kushner has been granted special investor status by Albanian authorities.

Harsh rule, pristine beaches

Albania has 450 kilometers (280 miles) of coast that remained largely underdeveloped during decades of harsh communist rule.

Protest groups fear the sections of that pristine coastline could be snapped up by powerful investors. And public anger grew after video showed an activist being dragged by a private security guard while demonstrating at the site.

The development is planned within a nature reserve and one of Albania’s most valuable biodiversity areas, a key stopover for migratory birds along the Adriatic coast.

Protesters have carried cardboard cut-outs of pink flamingos, one of the protected migratory bird species, at rallies in the capital Tirana.

Since late May, excavators and other heavy machinery have entered the area, opening access routes, digging into the sand, clearing land among pine trees and installing fencing.

Environmental groups from Albania and elsewhere in Europe condemned the work, with one prominent local group charging that long-protected habitats are being "irreversibly destroyed.”

A multi-billion dollar bonanza?

Albania’s state anti-corruption agency has confirmed it opened an investigation related to the project but has not disclosed details.

The government says the land earmarked for the project is privately owned. But competing claims have emerged questioning the privatization — a common type of legal dispute.

Rama has committed to the venture, saying it would align with Albania’s ambition to become a major global tourism destination.

“Albania should not be a country that fears an extraordinary project like this one, where exceptional partners have come together to invest 4 billion euros ($4.6 billion),” Rama said.

He added: “There is no chance for this investment to stop as long as I am here.”

However, the demise of a similar project in Serbia offers a cautionary tale. In November, Serbia's Parliament passed a special law to enable the building of a luxury complex in the capital, Belgrade, to be financed by an investment company linked to Kushner.

The following month, Serbia's prosecutor for organized crime charged four people, including a government minister, with abuse of office and falsifying of documents to help pave the way for the development.

Kushner later withdrew from the planned multi-million investment that would have replaced a sprawling bombed-out military complex, a designated heritage zone whose legal protection was lifted by the former officials now on trial.

The amount of money involved in building and maintaining artificial intelligence models, the pursuit of artificial general intelligence that can surpass humans at many tasks, and widespread AI adoption all have led to an air of excitement around the technology that has helped lift the stock market to record highs.

“These companies are now burning through cash to win the AI race, and public equity is the cheapest source available, particularly in a rising interest rate environment,” said Michael Field, chief equity analyst at Morningstar.

But amid the billions — even trillions — at stake, worries about an AI bubble are looming in the background. Some experts fear tech companies and venture capitalists are pouring too much money into a still-nascent and unproven technology.

For now, though, the market shows no signs of a slowdown. Here's a look at some of the biggest AI-focused companies.

SpaceX

Elon Musk’s SpaceX was valued at $800 billion last year, but its value grew to $1.25 trillion after the space exploration company merged in February with Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI. Now, SpaceX plans an IPO that could become one of the biggest stock sales ever — even though the company is currently losing billions of dollars a year. SpaceX lost $2.6 billion from operations last year on $18.7 billion in revenue, according to a May regulatory filing, and the losses kept piling up at the start of this year. xAI, which features the Grok chatbot, lost $6.4 billion in operations last year, according to a company document.

Musk got SpaceX to buy xAI earlier this year despite protests from some SpaceX investors that it was a bailout and unethical given that he was a controlling shareholder in both.

SpaceX said on Wednesday it plans to raise up to $75 billion when it goes public this month, setting the stage for the largest-ever stock market debut and putting Musk on course to becoming the world’s first trillionaire. An offering of that size would easily break the record for the largest IPO, which was set by Saudi Aramco in 2019 when the oil giant went public and raised $26 billion.

Anthropic

Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, was formed in 2021 by ex-OpenAI leaders. It was recently valued at $965 billion, making it one of the world’s most valuable startups. It has been a meteoric rise for what was once a little-known research laboratory. The San Francisco-based company is moving toward going public on Wall Street, announcing June 1 that it has submitted a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO.

Anthropic has said it is making annualized revenue of $47 billion from selling its technology to people and organizations using Claude to write code and do other work and personal tasks on their behalf.

OpenAI

The maker of ChatGPT began in 2015 as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the common good. It is now a company valued at $852 billion planning an IPO as soon as this fall.

While OpenAI may have helped set off the current AI boom, Anthropic’s meteoric rise and Claude’s growing popularity have left the ChatGPT maker playing catch-up.

In an unsuccessful lawsuit against OpenAI and its top executives, Elon Musk, an OpenAI co-founder, claimed the company diverted from its founding mission to make more money. OpenAI had countered that Musk was simply seeking a bigger slice of the company. OpenAI has not yet reported filing initial IPO paperwork with the SEC.

Several AI heavyweights are already public companies

Google designed the Gemini AI assistant in response to a competitive threat posed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which came out in late 2022. Gemini AI models are integrated into Google search and other products such as Maps. The market value of Alphabet, Google's Mountain View, California-based parent company, was $4.54 trillion at the beginning of June, up from $2.3 trillion a year earlier. That growth is a sign that Alphabet’s spending spree on AI is producing dividends so far, despite investor worries about some of its peers' massive AI investments.

Meta's AI push has meant integrating its assistant, Llama, into all aspects of its business, including advertising and consumer-facing tools such as a digital assistant that can help with daily tasks, as well as image and video creation. Unlike many rival models, Llama is open source, meaning it is largely available to the public and to developers. Meta AI is available as a standalone app and it is integrated into the Menlo Park, California-based company's smart glasses. Meta's market value as of early June was $1.55 trillion, down from $1.76 trillion a year earlier amid investor concerns about the company's massive AI spending.

Microsoft, which went public 40 years ago, likely would have been running behind in the AI race were it not for a timely multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI. Microsoft provided the computing power and financial backing that helped OpenAI build ChatGPT. In turn, Microsoft was able to use the same technical foundation to power its own AI assistant, now called Copilot. The once-exclusive partnership has since evolved as both companies look to other partners to advance their AI ambitions.

Lee's Democratic Party had been widely expected to claim more contests than its main rival, the conservative People Power Party which remains in disarray after President Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office and sentenced to life in prison over his martial law debacle in late 2024.

But experts said, given the favorable political landscape, the Democratic Party should have won the most crucial race, the one for Seoul mayor, to claim an outright victory in the elections.

With almost all votes counted by Thursday morning, the Democratic Party won 12 of the 16 mayoral and provincial gubernatorial posts up for grabs. The PPP won four, including the Seoul mayoral race.

Democratic Party leader Jung Chung-rae told reporters his party's defeat in the Seoul race was “painful” though he thanked voters for the wins in other races.

Local leadership posts are important for Lee

Thursday marked one year in office for Lee, who won a snap election triggered after Yoon’s ouster. Lee’s approval ratings still exceed 60%. He’s been credited with what he calls “pragmatic diplomacy” that eased concerns his presidency would hurt ties with the U.S. and Japan. His popularity has also been attributed to a booming stock market and efforts to be more transparent about government decision-making procedures.

Lee’s foreign policy agenda will likely remain unchanged. The Democratic Party also boosted its parliamentary majority by winning nine of the 14 parliamentary byelections Wednesday.

But having more allies at mayoral and gubernatorial posts will be essential to Lee's governance as well, especially since the PPP holds 14 of the 16 regional leadership posts currently.

Lee could pursue regional policies more easily and effectively, and that will help his party's preparations for the 2028 parliamentary elections, said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership.

Much attention is focused on Seoul’s mayoral race

Exit polls and early results had shown Democratic Party candidate Chong Won-o ahead of current Mayor Oh Se-hoon in the Seoul race. But the PPP's Oh dramatically overtook Chong by Thursday morning as more votes were counted.

“Seoul’s future has become brighter,” Oh said in an acceptance speech. ”Our citizens ensured that the Republic of Korea does not tilt excessively toward one direction and preserved Seoul as democracy’s last safeguard.”

In a separate news conference, Chong conceded defeat, saying he “heavily and humbly” accepts the result.

Their race triggered brief, severe disputes Wednesday night after the election commission announced a shortage of ballot papers in some polling stations in Seoul caused a temporary suspension of voting there.

PPP leader Jang Dong-hyeok said the incident seriously hurt voters’ rights to cast their ballots, demanding authorities hold a new election depending on investigation results. The Democratic Party flatly rejected the PPP’s demands, saying they were “not even worth considering.”

Election results are crucial for the conservative opposition

The PPP is still struggling with internal feuding between reformists who joined the Democratic Party-led push to impeach Yoon and his loyalists who attempted to protect the embattled leader.

Among the candidates who won the parliamentary by-elections was Han Dong-hoon, leader of the reformist faction who was eventually expelled from the PPP. Han, now an independent, beat the Democratic Party’s Ha Jung-woo, a former Lee adviser on artificial intelligence, in Busan, the country’s second biggest city.

“I'll rebuild the conservatives, rein in the Lee Jae Myung government's overreach and restore balance in the Republic of Korea,” Han said in a victory speech.

Jeong Han-Wool, director of the Korean People Research Institute, said that a Han victory could help anti-Yoon reformists regroup and emerge as a new force among the struggling conservatives in South Korea. But Choi, the institute head, said Han’s win could worsen a divide in the conservatives because Yoon loyalists would feel a sense of crisis and close ranks further.

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Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

Texans rookie tight end Marlin Klein missed practice Tuesday. When asked if he had an update on Klein, Texans coach DeMeco Ryans replied: “No.”

Hansen played collegiately at the University of Connecticut, catching 20 passes for 194 yards last season.

A Michigan transfer, Hansen caught a career-high 24 passes for 236 yards and four touchdowns two seasons ago. He played in three games in two seasons at Michigan and was an academic All-Big Ten selection.

Hansen played in the Hula Bowl.

Hansen (6-foot-5, 249 pounds) has run the 40-yard dash in 4.75 seconds and bench pressed 225 pounds 22 times with a 33-inch vertical leap.

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

James Blount, known to many as “Mr. Jim,” was discovered shot in his home off Trails End Road on Monday after a family member called 911. When deputies arrived, they found Blount with a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office says Blount was targeted, but investigators have not yet identified any suspects and the motive remains unclear.

KPRC 2 News reporter Corley Peel spoke with Blount’s friend, Linda Young, about the man the community has lost.

• RELATED: Investigators seeking information after 81-year-old man found shot dead inside Montgomery County home

Blount was a devoted horseman and a respected figure in the trail riding community. Young says she met him in the 1990s while both worked as mounted patrol and livestock officers for the Precinct 2 Constable’s Office.

“This is truly a remarkable man that we lost,” Young said.

She described Blount as a generous and kind person whose death has deeply shaken those who knew him.

“Jim was one of the nicest people you would ever meet. He would give you the shirt off his back. To have this kind of insanity done to him is just shocking,” Young said.

Young is urging anyone with information to come forward and help bring justice for her friend.

“Please, if you hear anything, know anything, please leave no stone unturned. This needs to be taken care of and they need to be held accountable,” she said.

Anyone with information about James Blount’s murder is urged to contact the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.

But even as the U.S. president conceded the tensions in an interview released Wednesday, he insisted that his relationship with Netanyahu was solid and that they connected, in part, because they are both “wartime” leaders.

“We’ve worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One.”

In an interview on the American business-news channel CNBC, Netanyahu responded that he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements” but have “common goals” and “agree on the main things.”

“He respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences,” the prime minister said.

The president's comments about the Monday call offered a sign of the growing pressure he faces to resolve the Iran war as higher energy prices and economic uncertainty threaten Republican prospects in the midterm elections and hamper global commerce.

Talks have dragged on for weeks and have been strained by Israel’s broadening war with the Iranian-backed militia group in Lebanon. The conflicts have become increasingly intertwined as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.

Israel, Lebanon renew ceasefire

Israel and Lebanon agreed Wednesday to renew their fragile ceasefire and create a number of “pilot” security zones inside Lebanon from which Hezbollah militants would be banned.

In a joint statement released after a fourth round of U.S.-mediated talks at the State Department, the two sides said the ceasefire “is contingent on a complete cessation of Hezbollah fire and the evacuation of all Hezbollah operatives” from areas south of the Litani River, which is roughly 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the northern Israel-Lebanon border. It was not immediately clear how the security zones would be established but the agreement calls for the Lebanese army to take full control of those areas.

“These steps will enable progress towards a comprehensive peace and security agreement,” the statement said. “All countries reaffirmed that the future of the relationship between Israel and Lebanon must be decided by the two sovereign governments. They rejected any attempt, by any state or non-state actor, to hold Lebanon’s future hostage.”

Hezbollah is not part of the Israel-Lebanon talks, which have been held at the ambassadorial level in Washington since the beginning of last month.

“All parties condemned Iran’s attacks on countries in the region, and ongoing activities that undermine stability throughout the Middle East, whether through support for proxies and all other acts of aggression,” the statement said.

A new round of discussions will be held during the week of June 22 with an eye toward “reaching a comprehensive agreement.”

Trump does not commit to timeline for ending Iran war

Trump remained noncommittal about a timeline for settling the Iran conflict, saying the Strait of Hormuz might stay blocked through the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 7. He has insisted that Iran stop any efforts that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that the strait be reopened for shipments of oil and natural gas.

“I don’t know. I mean, I think it could be (closed through Labor Day), but I think it’s unlikely. I think that we’ll have it. I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly,” Trump said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his late father, is “involved” in peace talks, Trump added.

“They have a lot of respect for him,” the president said in the interview.

Trump said that Khamenei is not doing well due to wounds sustained in an airstrike, but “they say he’s giving approval because that’s the way it has been for a long, long time." Khamenei's father was killed in an airstrike when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.

Meanwhile, the U.S. House for the first time approved a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, defying Trump as a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to end the conflict.

The roll call Wednesday was 215-208, but the next steps are uncertain. Trump would likely reject any measure from Congress to limit his commander-in-chief authority.

Path to a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon is obscured by new strikes

The path toward a lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah remained unclear as hostilities continued in Lebanon.

An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a car on a busy highway just south of Beirut. The strike in Khaldeh came without warning, and it was not immediately clear if the person targeted was killed.

Israel and Lebanon on Monday reached a U.S.-brokered agreement in which Israel would not strike Beirut's southern suburbs and Hezbollah would end its attacks on northern Israel.

The agreement was made hours after Israel announced that it was going to launch strikes across the sprawling urban neighborhoods near the Lebanese capital in what would have been the most intense strikes since a nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17.

Lebanon hopes to widen the scope of the ceasefire so it becomes comprehensive across the country. Israel wants to disarm Hezbollah immediately before the Israeli military ends its operations in Lebanon and withdraws its troops from dozens of villages and towns.

Israeli military warning rattles coastal city

Israeli strikes over southern Lebanon continued, especially in and around the battered cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh. Two overnight strikes near Tyre, a coastal city, killed four Syrians and two Palestinians.

Israel warned the Christian neighborhoods in Tyre that Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas in recent days because they were spared from the aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast.

After the warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area.

Israel launched an invasion of southern Lebanon days after the latest war was sparked on March 2, when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israeli troops have pushed deeper into Lebanon over the past week, as Hezbollah continues to claim rocket and drone attacks.

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 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.

Strike on village kills most of a family

Many residents of southern Lebanon remained in villages near the hostilities or returned to areas where strikes occurred after evacuation warnings.

The Al-Abdallah family returned to their home in Marwaniyeh, which they left because they thought the village was unsafe following earlier strikes. A day later, two rockets hit the home, bringing down the three-story building and killing six family members, said the brother of Hassan Al-Abdallah, who was killed.

Ahmed Al-Abdallah, 13, was thrown away from the building by the force of the blasts and was the only member of his family to survive. His uncle, Eissa Al-Abdallah, said the boy has two broken legs and shrapnel wounds all over his body.

“What good is talking now? They are gone, and nothing will bring them back,” the uncle told The Associated Press in a phone call Tuesday. “This land costs blood.”

___

Boak and Lee reported from Washington.

___

This version has been updated to correct that the Iran war began at the end of February, not March.

Trump said at a dinner at the White House that he plans to nominate Blanche formally on Thursday, according to a video of the event posted on social media by a White House aide.

“We are going to make him permanent attorney general,” Trump said at the Rose Garden event.

Blanche sought quickly to position himself as the favorite for the permanent job after Pam Bondi’s firing in April, accelerating investigations into Trump foes and announcing a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate the president’s allies for alleged political persecution. The proposed fund created a bipartisan firestorm that forced the Justice Department to scrap the idea earlier this week in an extraordinary about-face.

Blanche was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general and was elevated after Bondi’s ousting over her failed efforts to prosecute Trump’s perceived political opponents. Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent post but made clear through splashy moves since taking the reins his intent on proving his loyalty to Trump.

Blanche’s actions have outraged Democrats and other critics who accuse him of still acting like Trump’s personal lawyer to carry out the president’s campaign of retribution. The $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” also prompted backlash from Republicans in the Senate whose support Blanche will now need in order to be confirmed as attorney general.

While Blanche has maintained he feels no pressure from the president, the Justice Department under his watch has advanced its pursuits of longtime Trump foes. Blanche has strongly rejected accusations that the Trump administration has politicized the Justice Department and has said he is focused on correcting what he contends were past abuses by the Biden administration.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted in April over a social media photo of seashells arranged on a beach that officials said constituted a threat the president. Comey, who has slammed the case as politically motivated, has said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Justice Department pursues additional indictments against him.

Blanche separately appointed Joseph diGenova, an 81-year-old former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump.

He came under intense scrutiny last month over the proposed “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which the administration said was meant to compensate people who feel they’ve been unjustly investigated and prosecuted under past administrations. The fund sparked outrage over the possibility that violent offenders who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot could be considered for payments — which Blanche refused to publicly rule out.

Blanche told lawmakers on Tuesday the Justice Department would not move forward with the plan after the political blowback stalled legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche came to public prominence for his lead role on Trump’s defense team, including during the Republican’s hush money trial in New York. That perch afforded him, he has said, a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

After needing a change in head coaches earlier this season, bringing in Head Football Coach Brooks Haack to lead the program, and restructuring their needs and goals, the Mustangs will play in their first-ever state championship game on Saturday.

Memorial will face Tomball, a powerhouse program looking for its third state championship and playing in its third straight state title game. The Mustangs are looking forward to the challenge and are proud to represent their community, which has helped support the team through this unusual season.

Tomball and Memorial class for the 6A Division 2 State Championship at 4 p.m. on Saturday at Dell Diamond.

The strike reinforced the risks to residents and travelers in Gulf countries that had considered themselves relative havens before the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Iran denied causing the damage.

Talks have dragged on for weeks as mediators seek a more enduring truce in the war, now in its fourth month. They are increasingly strained by Israel’s broadening war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

A regional official said Iran wanted a separate ceasefire in Lebanon enforced before returning to talks. President Donald Trump said negotiations continue to extend the Iran ceasefire, even as the U.S. launched strikes against military sites on an Iranian island.

“We’ve been hitting them pretty hard,” Trump said when asked by reporters on Wednesday if the ceasefire remains in place. “I’d say in that part of the world a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

The fighting in Lebanon has exposed a rift between Israel and the U.S., which is pushing its ally for restraint. In a measure of the friction, Trump acknowledged that he'd called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “crazy” during a phone call earlier this week. Nonetheless, both men say their rapport is solid.

Iran maintains its hold on the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial waterway for the world’s oil and natural gas and related products like fertilizer — and the U.S. continues its blockade of Iranian ports. Global fuel prices remain high, and the effects of the conflict are felt well beyond the region.

In Washington, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he, Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio huddled for three hours at the White House Monday as Trump worked on “that final piece” of getting commerce flowing. Rubio, meanwhile, faced grilling in Congress over the war and its economic fallout.

An Indian national is killed at Kuwait's main airport

A spokesperson for Kuwait's Defense Ministry, Brig. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi, said “a number of hostile drones” targeted a passenger building at Kuwait International Airport. It had opened only Monday after a monthslong closure because of the war, which began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it didn't fire at the airport, instead claiming without providing any evidence that the terminal was damaged by a U.S.-made interceptor that failed to hit Iranian missiles. U.S. Central Command called the claim false and said on X that Iranian drones made a “deliberate, calculated and unjustified attack” on the airport.

Surveillance footage later released by Kuwait's Directorate General of Civil Aviation showed the moment of impact from several angles. In the footage, what appears to be a triangle-shaped, delta-wing drone slams directly into the terminal. Iran long has used such drones in combat, particularly its Shahed drones, which are also used by Russia in its war on Ukraine.

Another photograph from the scene showed a Kuwaiti soldier carrying what appeared to be a small aircraft engine consistent with those used by Iranian drones.

India’s Embassy in Kuwait said the person killed was an Indian national. Authorities said 63 were wounded, including passengers and workers, and some suffered serious injuries.

Kuwait's Defense Ministry said it destroyed over a dozen missiles and a similar number of drones from Iran.

The airport partially reopened later, with Kuwait Airways flights resuming at a different terminal, according to civil aviation authorities. No other flights were operating.

The Foreign Ministry said Kuwait will “neither accept nor tolerate” the attacks and was kicking out two Iranian diplomats. Such expulsions are an established means of communicating international ire.

US and Iran say they are retaliating for earlier attacks

The U.S. military said two Iranian missiles fell apart en route to Kuwait and that it “downed multiple drones” targeting American forces in the country.

The military also said U.S. and Bahraini forces intercepted missiles aimed at the Gulf kingdom, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet. Bahrain’s Defense Ministry said its military intercepted and destroyed three missiles and a number of drones fired by Iran.

The Revolutionary Guard acknowledged that it targeted the headquarters of the 5th Fleet and U.S. military facilities in another country.

Both the U.S. and Iran said they were retaliating for earlier attacks or attempted ones.

Netanyahu told the American business-news channel CNBC that Iran was “playing with fire,” but he said any decision about whether to scale up a military response would rest with Trump. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared on X that “any hostile act will be met with an immediate, decisive response.”

The U.S. military said it launched strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's Foreign Ministry said a telecommunications tower was struck. It called this attack, and others, "acts of aggression” that it said violated the ceasefire.

The war is increasingly tied to Israel’s fight in Lebanon

Israeli forces have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter-century, while Hezbollah has launched rocket and drone attacks. The declared ceasefire in Lebanon is officially in place, and no side has formally withdrawn or declared it over even as attacks continue.

Iran insists that any larger potential truce must quell the fighting in Lebanon. Netanyahu wants to keep the issues separate and is under domestic pressure to strike Hezbollah as he prepares for elections this fall.

In a podcast interview released Wednesday, Trump confirmed a report that he had called Netanyahu “crazy” Monday in a phone conversation peppered with an expletive. Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One” that he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s fight with Hezbollah was holding back talks with Iran.

Still, Trump said his relationship with Netanyahu was good, and “we’ve worked very well together.”

Netanyahu responded on CNBC that he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements” but have “common goals” and “agree on the main things.”

“We always find a way to work out our differences,” the prime minister said.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece; Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi; Sam Mednick in Jerusalem, Jennifer Peltz in New York; and Lisa Mascaro, Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said it happened at a home in the 19200 block of Trails End Road around 8 a.m. They responded to a report that there was someone dead at the home.

When they arrived, they found 81-year-old James Blount dead with an apparent gunshot wound.

• Houston firefighter accused of sending sexually suggestive messages to children in child grooming case

Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Detectives and Crime Scene Investigators responded to the scene to begin the initial investigation. The investigation remains active and is continuing with assistance from the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office and the Montgomery County Fire Marshal’s Office.

Investigators are asking anyone who may have information related to this case to contact the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office at 936-538-5900. Individuals wishing to remain anonymous may contact Multi-County Crime Stoppers at 800-392-7867. Crime Stoppers offers cash rewards for information leading to the arrest of suspects in felony cases.

That was the case even though it wasn't a novel germ that the world had never seen before, like the virus that caused the coronavirus pandemic. It was a hantavirus, one of a family of viruses that have been known for decades and are thought to exist around the world.

Teams of researchers, including in Chile, Argentina and the United States, have long been trying to find and develop drugs and vaccines. But because the viruses are relatively rare and don't spread easily between people, there hasn't been enough sustained investment by governments, global health groups, or drug companies to pay for the extensive safety and efficacy testing needed to make them available.

Still, there have been some promising developments. Researchers on Wednesday published a hint that a drug used for an autoimmune disease may help hantavirus patients fight off the most deadly symptoms.

They and others hope the attention that the cruise ship outbreak brought to the virus — and concern that hantavirus infections could become more common as a changing climate is expected to increase contact between people and rodents — may bring new momentum to the hunt.

“I hope this situation will help us continue our research and strengthen the collaboration between healthcare workers, the community, and the necessary resources," said Dr. Fernando Tortosa of the National University of Río Negro in Patagonia, Argentina, the study's lead author.

Different species of hantavirus cause different symptoms

Hantaviruses usually spread when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings. But there are unique species of hantavirus found in different parts of the world that have their own characteristics and can cause different symptoms.

The Andes virus, the germ behind the cruise ship outbreak, is a particular focus of researchers because it is the only hantavirus thought to be able to spread between people in some cases. And while hantavirus infections are rare, they can be extremely deadly.

“That is why it is a public health problem,” said María Inés Barría, a virologist at the Universidad San Sebastián in Chile who studies hantaviruses.

Three of the 13 likely cases among cruise ship passengers ended in death. Separately, in Chile, the Ministry of Health has confirmed 15 deaths and 42 cases of hantavirus so far this year. Authorities in Argentina have reported 32 deaths and 102 cases since June 2025. In the U.S., 35% of the hantavirus cases since tracking began in 1993 have resulted in death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The search for treatments to fight the worst symptoms

In Argentina, researchers are testing whether a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis might help fight hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a severe infection caused by both the Andes virus and the Sin Nombre virus, a type of hantavirus found in North America.

The drug tocilizumab tamps down a molecule called IL-6 that triggers damaging inflammation in some autoimmune and other diseases. IL-6 also is a suspect in the inflammatory reaction to the infection, which can rapidly cause lungs to fill with fluid and fail.

Four of five patients in an Argentinian hospital survived after receiving tocilizumab in addition to traditional supportive care for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, the research team reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The report is unusual, tracking the first people to receive tocilizumab in an ongoing “compassionate use” study — meaning doctors can use it in patients they deem eligible. Another five who were deemed eligible for tocilizumab but didn’t get it and instead received only standard care died. Two worsened too quickly and the hospital lacked supply for the others, the researchers reported.

The research team cautioned that the five patients who didn’t receive the drug were sicker and older than those who did. Still, they said tocilizumab warrants further investigation.

Efforts to stop hantavirus have also shown promise

Barría's team, which includes Chilean scientists, researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratories and the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, is working on another approach — using cloned antibodies from hantavirus survivors to fend off infections. The team published research in 2018 showing the approach worked in animals, but they were not able to get funding to continue with human trials, in part because resources were diverted to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are truly at the forefront, at a very important stage of moving to the next phase," Barría said.

Several other groups, including at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Vanderbilt Center for Antibody Therapeutics, are also working on antibody treatments.

Vaccines against so-called Old World hantaviruses have been developed and used, though the World Health Organization says there are no current licensed hantavirus vaccines. But there are new vaccines in the works, including ones aimed to fight the Andes virus. A team lead by Jay Hooper of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, is working on a vaccine that has successfully generated antibodies against the virus in early-stage human trials, according to a study the team published in 2020.

Hantavirus treatments and vaccines have many hurdles still to clear

Dr. Paul Bollyky, an infectious disease doctor and researcher at Stanford Medical Center in California, said attracting and sustaining the support needed to produce vaccines and treatments is extremely difficult for rare diseases like hantavirus.

For one, labs typically don't have what Bollyky calls the necessary machinery they need to test and validate vaccines and treatments for rare infections. Also, because hantavirus outbreaks are so sporadic and unpredictable, that virus is much harder to study compared with a common germ that regularly circulates, such as the flu.

“That also makes clinical trials in this space super difficult because of the number of people you would have to immunize to protect against one infection,” he said. “It's just impractical.”

And it means there might not be a large or steady market for a vaccine or treatment, because it would be hard to know who is going to be exposed, and when.

Still, it frustrates researchers and doctors who know there are potential treatments that, with enough sustained investment, could be helping people now.

“What happened was a tragedy, but it can happen not only with this but also other diseases,” Tortosa said, referring to the cruise ship outbreak.

___

Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this story.

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

Authorities stormed the building in downtown Bakersfield overnight, ending a nearly 16-hour standoff during which the suspect tied up half the hostages, police said.

The hostages — employees of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools — were found unharmed inside the building that also houses a bank, Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Blakemore said.

“Throughout the night, their families questioned whether or not they would be seen again but we are very grateful for the outcome,” Blakemore said during a news conference Wednesday.

Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, 41, was shot and killed around 4:20 a.m., according to Sid Patel, special agent in charge in the FBI’s Sacramento office. Authorities said he was an Army veteran who was dishonorably discharged, had a history of trouble with law enforcement and was a registered sex offender.

Searles-Harris was armed with explosives and barricaded himself within the second floor of the building, where the county's superintendent of schools’ office is located, according to law enforcement. Authorities were testing the devices Wednesday, but Patel said they do not appear to be a concern.

One of the hostages was able to communicate with law enforcement using her phone until her battery died, Patel said. She was diabetic and didn’t have her medicine so officials knew she was at risk, he said.

“I’m sure there’ll be mental scars that they’re living with, and we’ll have our victim specialist to help them,” Patel said.

While authorities declined to discuss details about how they ended the standoff or the motive behind it, Blakemore said some of the demands Searles-Harris made involved asking for materials from an earlier case.

"He had concerns related to how his previous case had been handled and what the aftermath of that was, the sentencing and those kinds of things,” Blakemore said, without specifying details.

California Department of Justice and court records show Searles-Harris was on the state’s sex offender registry due to convictions in 2014 for sexual crimes related to a child under 14 years of age. Those records show he was released from prison in 2018.

Defense attorney Arturo Revelo said he represented Searles-Harris in that case and described him as a disturbed man who believed the government was out to get him.

He said police asked him to help Tuesday during the hostage situation, but he was never allowed to talk to Searles-Harris and instead had to make two videos saying he was there with the case’s documents and would assist him in anyway he could.

Revelo said he was told that Searles-Harris would let the hostages go in exchange for the documents but he did not see that happen while he was there.

FBI officials said Searles-Harris served about a year in the Army before being dishonorably discharged in 2007 for going AWOL.

Court records in Kern County, California, show Searles-Harris filed a petition to prevent domestic violence, and was involved in divorce proceedings that began in 2009 and note a young child, as well as a fight for guardianship years later in which he was listed as an objector.

During the news conference, Blakemore said he was aware of videos Searles-Harris had apparently posted criticizing the sheriff’s office and claiming he was innocent of his previous sex crimes convictions. He said the videos were being reviewed, but the department had no plans to investigate the claims of innocence.

It wasn't clear why Searles-Harris targeted the school district office.

“What unfolded was undoubtedly a terribly frightening and unsettling experience, and the composure our employees demonstrated throughout the 16-hour ordeal was extraordinary,” John Mendiburu, the county schools superintendent, said in a statement.

The standoff began early Tuesday afternoon, when officers responded to a call of a bomb threat at the Chase Bank building, a four-story office building with dark-tinted glass windows in Bakersfield, a city of about 380,000 residents about 100 miles (160 kms) northeast of Los Angeles.

The police department’s crisis negotiation team talked with Searles-Harris by phone, and he released two hostages Tuesday.

Authorities evacuated buildings nearby, including City Hall and the police headquarters that are just a block away.

More than 100 FBI personnel assisted, including two SWAT teams, bomb technicians and crisis negotiation teams, Patel said. A hostage rescue team was deployed from its headquarters on the East Coast, he said.

___

Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed.

After a run scored against the left-hander for the first time since late April, more than 40,000 fans at Citizens Bank Park stood and gave him an ovation that lasted more than a minute. Yes, those Phillies fans were cheering after a run was scored against the home team.

Sánchez held his stern demeanor for as long as he could, wanting to throw the next pitch. Finally, he cracked a smile. He raised his cap, wiped his forehead and Phillies fans and his teammates kept applauding Sánchez, celebrating a rare milestone in baseball history.

“It was a big moment, a huge moment for me,” Sánchez said through an interpreter. “I think that I just had to do something for the fans and react to the love that they brought it.”

Sánchez pushed his consecutive shutout innings streak to just short of 51 innings Wednesday night before allowing a two-out RBI single to San Diego’s Jackson Merrill in the seventh and earned the win after J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber homered in the seventh inning, leading the Phillies to a 3-2 victory over the Padres.

“It's something I never imagined in my life that I would do,” Sánchez said.

Sánchez's streak ranked as the third-best overall dating to the start of the Live Ball Era in 1920 behind the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser, with a record 59 straight scoreless innings in 1988, and Don Drysdale with 58 in 1968. He struck out San Diego's Fernando Tatis Jr. and set the Padres down in order in the first to pass Carl Hubbell at 45 1/3 innings and become the career leader among left-handers.

Sánchez breezed through six scoreless innings before Ty France doubled with two out in the seventh. Lefty-swinging Merrill then punched a single to left that accounted for the only run allowed by Sánchez in more than a month.

“I know my vocabulary is probably not good enough for him right now,” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said. “You could feel it every inning, they knew exactly what was going on."

Sánchez also passed Sal Maglie, Zack Greinke, and Bob Gibson on the shutout streak list since 1920. He surpassed Gibson's 47 consecutive shutout innings in the same 1968 season as Drysdale, dubbed the year of the pitcher.

Sánchez — throwing a changeup that averages 86.5 mph and holding hitters to a .153 average — hadn't been in any serious jeopardy of allowing a run since permitting two runs in the first inning of a 3-2 Phillies win over the Giants on April 30.

He worked seven shutout innings in his last start against the Padres to eclipse the Phillies' franchise record of 41 innings, set in 1911 by Grover Cleveland Alexander.

“You don’t get to see things like this very often,” Mattingly said. “It’s one of those things that’s not happened very often. It’s hard to categorize it. I don’t know if I’ve seen anything that’s really been better than this.”

Sánchez, who had had thrown at least seven shutout innings in five straight starts, struck out eight. He improved to 7-2 and lowered his ERA to an MLB-best 1.46.

Sánchez was named NL pitcher of the month for May earlier Wednesday. He went 4-0 and struck out 45 — with only three walks — over 39 innings in the month.

“It’s pretty cool what he’s doing,” Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper said. “Lot of punch-outs, as well, so that helps us on defense.”

Sánchez also set a Citizens Bank Park scoreless streak record at 34 2/3 innings, topping Cliff Lee (29 innings) and Roy Halladay (33) and he became the second pitcher this season to reach 100 strikeouts.

Sánchez was the NL Cy Young Award runner-up in 2025 when he went 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA and struck out 212 in 202 innings. He signed with the Tampa Bay Rays as an international free agent in 2013 and was traded to the Phillies six years later for infielder Curtis Mead in a little-noticed offseason transaction. He made his big-league debut in 2021.

“I remember they were talking about releasing him in 2020,” Harper said. “I’ve seen it from the jump, just kind of the way he approaches it. Just super special.”

Drysdale threw a major-league record six straight shutouts as part of his streak from May 14- June 8, 1968. Hershiser pitched six scoreless starts in September 1988 as part of his record-breaking streak. Hershiser, now a broadcaster for the Dodgers, said last week he was fine if Sánchez broke his record.

“I’m pulling for anybody to have a life-changing moment,” said Hershiser, who still holds the record.

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

Now, some are bringing something else: absolutely no shirts.

A growing fan phenomenon known as “Tarps Off” is sweeping through Major League Baseball, transforming sections of stadiums into seas of shirtless fans twirling T-shirts overhead like helicopter blades.

What began as a small gathering in the right-field stands at Busch Stadium in St. Louis has quickly become one of baseball’s most unexpected traditions of the 2026 season.

The trend has spread to ballparks across the country, including Houston, where fans joined the movement during the Astros’ recent series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

At first glance, the scene looks more like a college football student section than a Major League Baseball game.

One fan removes his shirt.

A few others follow.

Soon dozens are standing shoulder-to-shoulder, bare-chested and spinning shirts over their heads with every big moment.

In St. Louis, the movement has become something of a good-luck charm.

The Cardinals entered the season expected by many to be rebuilding. Instead, they opened with a surprising 29-18 record fueled by breakout performances from Jordan Walker and JJ Wetherholt.

Then came Tarps Off.

According to MLB.com, the trend first appeared during a Cardinals game against the Kansas City Royals. A small group of fans in the right-field stands removed their shirts and began waving them around. As the game continued, more spectators joined until much of the section was participating.

The Cardinals won that game on a walk-off hit.

The origins of the movement trace back to members of the Stephen F. Austin club baseball team, who attended the game and helped launch the trend.

The following day, Cardinals manager Oli Marmol embraced the phenomenon, purchasing tickets in the section and inviting the students into the clubhouse.

Days later, Tarps Off gained even more momentum.

With the Cardinals facing the Pittsburgh Pirates in extra innings, catcher Iván Herrera crushed a walk-off three-run home run in the 10th inning. As he rounded the bases, Herrera acknowledged the shirtless section. After crossing home plate, he removed his jersey and twirled it in celebration.

By then, Tarps Off had become more than a quirky fan moment.

It had become baseball’s newest movement.

The trend has since appeared at games involving the Tampa Bay Rays, Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies.

Social media videos have helped fuel its growth, introducing the concept to fans hundreds of miles from St. Louis.

@rays

Tarps off let’s goooo #mlb #fyp #raysup #tampabayrays #tarpsoff

♬ original sound - TAMPA BAY RAYS

While the current baseball craze feels new, the roots of shirtless sports fandom run much deeper.

According to reporting by The Athletic cited by MLB.com, a modern version of the movement gained traction during the 2025 college football season at Oklahoma State. A fan reportedly accepted a $10 bet from his sister to stand shirtless in an otherwise empty section and wave his shirt overhead during a difficult season for the Cowboys.

Other fans soon joined him.

The tradition spread throughout college football, appearing at games involving teams ranging from struggling programs to eventual national champion Indiana.

The movement even surfaced during an outdoor hockey game at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium in January temperatures that would make most fans reach for an extra jacket, not remove one.

Baseball, however, may have provided the perfect stage.

The sport’s long season, relaxed atmosphere and communal nature make it easy for fans to join in. Unlike organized chants or coordinated traditions that require participation from an entire stadium, Tarps Off needs only a few willing volunteers to get started.

The Cardinals are already treating the trend as more than a passing fad.

The club announced the upper right-field bleachers at Busch Stadium will become a dedicated high-energy fan section open to fans regardless of where their original seats are located.

And yes, shirts remain optional.

Whether Tarps Off becomes baseball’s next enduring tradition or fades as quickly as it appeared remains to be seen.

For now, though, one thing is clear. Some of baseball’s loudest fans aren’t waving rally towels anymore. They’re wearing them.

Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989. Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go.

Hong Kong was for decades the only place in China where a large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown was held. The massive annual vigils were banned in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public acts to mark the Tiananmen Square killings have become increasingly sensitive in the city in recent years.

Chen said his thread was 6.4 meters (about 21 feet) long, an apparent reference to the June 4 crackdown date.

Chen told reporters after the encounter that his act was meant to express his condolences for those who died.

“When you are trying to say or do something and you are being monitored, that is a very abnormal situation,” he said.

Chen has been detained at least twice in recent years

In 2024, Chen was briefly detained on June 3 after appearing to write the Chinese characters of “eight nine six four” — a set of numbers referencing the date of the crackdown — with his hand in the air.

The year before, he was also detained on the same date in the same neighborhood, where he chanted “Hong Kongers, do not be afraid. Don’t forget, tomorrow is June 4.”

As night fell on Wednesday, another artist, Chan Mei-tung, stood outside a nearby department store holding up a question-mark-shaped balloon. Police officers also stopped her quickly and escorted her back to a subway station as journalists watched.

Police said officers had encountered a man and a woman lingering on the street at locations matching the artists, but did not name them. The officers approached each to learn more and the two people subsequently left on their own, police said.

The statement added that any police action is handled in accordance with the law and the force will make appropriate deployments based on threats to national security, public safety and public order.

Authorities banned vigils and arrested organizers

In 1989, under then-leader Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese military was sent to Tiananmen Square to end weeks of student-led protests on the night of June 3-4. Soldiers fired live rounds. Hundreds and possibly thousands of people were killed, including dozens of soldiers.

Annual vigils in Hong Kong's Victoria Park used to attract tens of thousands each year until the event was banned in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

That same year, Beijing imposed a national security law in the city following massive anti-government protests in 2019. Since then, authorities have increasingly silenced dissent. Many leading activists have been arrested and some vocal media outlets shut down. Dozens of civil society groups have been disbanded, including the one that organized the vigils.

Three former vigil organizers were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under the national security law. Two of them have gone on trial and are waiting a verdict, possibly in July. If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The third organizer entered a guilty plea, which can typically result in a sentence reduction.

The Hong Kong and Beijing governments say the security law is crucial for the city’s stability. Hong Kong authorities say the law stipulates that human rights shall be respected and protected in safeguarding national security.

A carnival is now held at the former vigil site

After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the former vigil site became the location of a yearly carnival organized by pro-China groups.

Over the past three years, some people who tried to commemorate the Tiananmen Square killings on the crackdown’s anniversary, have been detained there.

This year's carnival began on Wednesday. Later in the day near the site, Tang Ngok-kwan, who was also a vigil organizer in the past, bowed in commemoration. He told reporters he read the list of the victims in a low voice and criticized that the event name contains the word “carnival,” which carries a festive vibe.

The action by Tang and similar muted expressions in Hong Kong underlined the decline in civil liberties promised by Beijing when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

But even as public commemoration faded in Hong Kong, overseas communities keep the memories alive by hosting vigils and rallies in places like London and Canada.

Wu’er Kaixi, who was a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, told reporters in Tokyo that the democracy movement in China “is still there.”

“We are managing to survive, (it’s) not easy, but we are surviving, because just like 37 years ago, we were driven to the square, to the streets of Beijing by one thing — hope,” he said.

___

Associated Press video journalists Alice Fung in Hong Kong and Mayuko Ono in Tokyo contributed to the report.

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.

The school has fought lawsuits in federal court since 2018 brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss. Strauss worked at the school from 1978 to 1998 and also ran an off-campus clinic. He died in 2005.

During a meeting Wednesday, the school's Board of Trustees approved a preliminary agreement with all but one of the 280 survivors with claims still involved in pending litigation. Once finalized, the settlement could mark the end of a lengthy legal battle and close a painful chapter in the school's history.

“The survivors of the Strauss abuse are all Buckeyes, will always be a part of our family and our community, and I firmly believe that,” the school's president, Ravi Bellamkonda, said during the meeting. “We continue to be very grateful to them for their courage in coming forward, and reaching a final resolution is very important to us and is an important step forward.”

Years ago, an independent report had concluded that scores of Ohio State personnel knew of complaints about Strauss’ conduct as early as 1979 but failed for years to investigate or take meaningful action.

In a joint statement Wednesday, the university and plaintiffs thanked mediators and said they were working to finalize the details of the settlements.

Ohio State already had settled with 317 survivors for more than $61 million, the school had said. Many former student athletes signed sealed agreements that kept their names a secret. Some former NFL players were among the victims, according to a lawyer in one of the lawsuits.

The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 207 since the administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.

As with most of the military’s statements on strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. A video posted on X showed a boat speeding through the water before bursting into flames.

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and fatal overdoses claiming American lives. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The strikes have drawn intense scrutiny from some Democratic lawmakers and military legal scholars. The U.S. military’s first strike in early September drew particular concern from some lawmakers and those who study military law.

Two men on the boat initially survived the attack that killed nine others, and they were clinging to the wreckage when the vessel was struck again, killing them. The White House confirmed the follow-up strike, insisting it was done “in self-defense” to ensure the boat was destroyed and in accordance with the laws of armed conflict. But some legal scholars said a second strike killing survivors would have been illegal under any circumstance, armed conflict or not.

The Pentagon’s watchdog said in May that it plans to look into whether the U.S. military followed an established targeting framework when carrying out the strikes. However, the evaluation is focused specifically on what’s known as the six-phase Joint Targeting Cycle and not on the legality of the strikes, the inspector general’s office said.

Data from the National Flood Insurance Program shows more than 45,000 flood insurance policies were canceled across Texas over the past 12 months, a decline of roughly 7.2%, according to figures reviewed by KPRC 2. Nationwide, flood insurance policies also declined, but at a significantly lower rate.

The trend comes despite repeated flood disasters across Texas in recent years and as many homeowners continue to face rising housing, insurance and living costs.

“We know it’s raining more. We know it’s raining more intensely and that rain is more unpredictable now than ever,” said Emily Woodell, chief external affairs officer for the Harris County Flood Control District. “That’s why flood insurance is more important now than perhaps ever before.”

A state built around flood risk

Flooding has long been one of Texas’ most persistent natural hazards.

Houston alone has experienced numerous major flood events, including Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, the Tax Day Flood of 2016 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The region’s extensive network of bayous was designed to move water away from homes and businesses, but flood officials say no system can eliminate flood risk entirely.

“If you live in the Houston area, you are at risk of flooding,” Woodell said.

She said flood control projects completed since Harvey have significantly reduced risk for many residents.

“If that were to happen today, hundreds of thousands of homes would be in a better position than they were then,” Woodell said, referring to Harvey. “However, that risk still exists.”

• KPRC 2’s 2026 Hurricane & Flood Survival Guide

Woodell said periods without major flooding can lead some residents to become less focused on the threat.

“Unless you’ve been hit recently, you’re right. You become complacent and it becomes much more of a comfortable issue versus one that you think you need to take action on,” she said.

Still, she believes flood insurance remains essential for families across Harris County.

“Most homeowners would not have an insurance policy that doesn’t cover fire,” Woodell said. “But in Harris County, you’re at a much greater risk of flooding than you are for a fire destroying your home.”

Rising costs squeeze household budgets

Researchers say the decline in flood insurance coverage is likely tied more to affordability challenges than to residents forgetting about flood risk.

Daniel Potter, director of the Houston Population Research Center at Rice University’s Kinder Institute, said housing affordability has become one of the biggest financial pressures facing Texans.

“Across the board affordability challenges are going on,” Potter said. “People are going to look for ways to save money.”

Potter said Houston’s median home prices have risen dramatically over the past decade while wages have not kept pace.

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

He noted that home prices that once ranged between roughly $160,000 and $180,000 are now above $320,000 in many cases. At the same time, residents are dealing with higher rents, insurance premiums, grocery bills, utility costs and child care expenses.

“You’ve got to keep a roof over my head. I’ve got to get food on my table. I’ve got to get back and forth from work,” Potter said. “All of a sudden you start to have to go and look at things like flood insurance.”

Unlike homeowners insurance required by mortgage lenders in many cases, flood insurance is often optional for homeowners outside designated flood zones.

That makes it a target for budget cuts when finances become strained.

“Insurance is one of those things that, especially with flood insurance, I don’t necessarily need to have it,” Potter said. “People are going to look to make cuts there.”

One homeowner’s dilemma

Suzanne Bennett faced that decision firsthand.

The Oak Forest homeowner said she intentionally purchased a home that had never flooded and was not located in a flood zone. Even so, she decided to purchase flood insurance.

“It’s Houston, Texas,” Bennett said. “I thought if I flood and get two feet of water in my home, I’ll lose everything.”

When she first purchased coverage, Bennett said her annual premium was $817.

By last year, that cost had increased to approximately $1,300.

“Every year that I get it, I just take a big gulp,” Bennett said. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it again this year.”

After losing her job, Bennett said canceling the policy became a serious consideration.

“It was absolutely on the table because I lost my job and money was difficult,” she said.

Ultimately, she decided to keep the coverage after recalling stories from people she knew who experienced devastating flood losses.

“I don’t think I could afford not to get the flood insurance,” Bennett said.

Instead, she said she reduced coverage in other areas to keep her flood policy active.

Flood insurance premiums climbing

Potter said rising premiums may also be contributing to policy cancellations.

He shared his own experience as a homeowner whose flood insurance costs have more than doubled since moving to Houston in 2017.

At the time, he paid about $500 annually for coverage. Today, he said, his premium exceeds $1,100 despite not being located in a newly designated FEMA floodplain.

“It’s more than doubled in its cost,” Potter said.

As costs continue increasing, many homeowners are forced to weigh flood protection against other necessities.

“When you’ve got these types of pressures on people’s wallets and pocketbooks the way that you do right now, I’m not saying it’s the right choice, but I think there’s a degree to which it’s an understandable choice that people are making,” Potter said.

Complacency or financial necessity?

While some experts believe homeowners may become less concerned about flooding after years without a major disaster, Potter said survey data suggests affordability is likely the larger factor.

Following Hurricane Harvey, support for stricter flood-related development policies was strong among Houston-area residents. While that support dipped in the years immediately afterward, Potter said more recent surveys show concern about flooding remains high.

“I don’t know that it’s an out-of-sight, out-of-mind issue for Houston area residents,” Potter said.

Instead, he believes many residents understand the risk but are struggling to afford protection.

“It does look to be more reflective of an affordability challenge as opposed to a psychological challenge,” he said.

Bennett agreed.

“I think it’s more false hope, not necessarily comfortability,” she said. “It hasn’t happened. I can’t afford it. I’m just going to grit my teeth and keep my fingers crossed.”

Then she added a warning for others considering dropping coverage.

“Hope isn’t a strategy.”

No easy solution

Potter said there may not be an immediate answer to the growing affordability challenge surrounding flood insurance.

As flood risk expands beyond traditionally vulnerable areas and insurance costs continue climbing, he said policymakers may eventually need to explore new approaches to maintaining coverage.

“We do need to find ways that don’t require people to gamble with their wealth, their well-being, their lives in some cases,” Potter said.

For now, flood officials continue urging residents not to underestimate the threat.

At the Harris County Flood Control District, Woodell said flooding remains one of the most significant risks facing local families.

“Flood risk continues to be the most pressing issue facing families in Harris County,” she said. “Flood insurance is part of the equation.

McALLEN — The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday confirmed the country’s first case of New World screwworm — the parasitic fly poised to harm the state’s $15 billion cattle industry — in South Texas.

The USDA tested a sample from La Pryor in Zavala County at the USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, lowa, confirming the infestation, Secretary Brooke Rollins said during a press conference about the case. The infested animal is a three-week old calf, and there have been no other detections so far.

The USDA said in a social media post earlier Wednesday that it was testing a suspected screwworm sample and that it had already activated personnel on the ground and were working with local partners.

The confirmation comes one day after Rollins debunked the claims of a state lawmaker that the screwworm was less than 1 mile from the U.S.-Mexico border.

State and federal officials had been bracing for the arrival of screwworm for months, fearing its potential impact to livestock and the agriculture industry at-large.

The parasitic fly targets the live flesh of warm mammals including cattle, pets, wildlife and humans. Screwworm infects them by embedding their larvae in open wounds. The larvae feed off the flesh, causing severe wounds or death.

Rollins said residents near affected areas should check their pets for signs of screwworm infection, which include infected wounds and screwworm eggs or larvae. She also said that issues with screwworms should not cause food supply chain issues, as screwworms do not infest meat, fruits, or vegetables.

Screwworm had been eradicated in the U.S. since the 1960s when the pest was pushed back into Central America. However, cases began springing up in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras. In 2024, Mexico reported its first case.

Since early 2025, the U.S. has deployed more than 8,000 traps capable of detecting screwworm, Rollins said, resulting in 58,000 samples and 19,000 wildlife tested — all of which tested negative, until today’s case.

Rollins blamed the spread of screwworm toward the U.S.-Mexico border on “the open-border policies of the last administration and the resulting illicit cattle movement” in a separate social media post an hour before Wednesday’s press conference. She also said that she met virtually with Texas’ Animal Health Commission and about 50 cattle ranchers, and has been in contact with Gov Greg Abbott and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows.

In an effort to prevent its spread, the USDA shut down the southern border to live animal imports in May 2025, preventing cattle from Mexico from entering the U.S. and limiting the supply of cattle in Texas.

U.S. officials are also working with officials in Mexico and Panama to try to eradicate the screwworm again using the sterile fly method. This practice consists of producing male sterile flies to have them reproduce unviable eggs with female flies who can only reproduce once in their lifetime.

At the time of their spread from Central America into Mexico, there was only one sterile fly production facility, located in Panama. Since then, U.S. officials have helped launch another in Metapa, Mexico and are building another in Edinburg, Texas, which Rollins said is slated to open in fall 2027.

They’ve also launched two fly dispersal facilities, which help distribute sterile flies in needed areas, in Tampico, Mexico and Edinburg.

On Monday, state Rep. Don McLaughlin, a Uvalde Republican, claimed the fly was just one mile away from Texas. Rollins dismissed those claims Tuesday at a news conference, calling McLaughlin “well-intentioned” but wrong. 

“Well … maybe we should listen to our state representatives,” McLaughlin tweeted after the USDA announced the suspected case Wednesday. 

“If this case is confirmed I will stand lockstep with every local, state and federal agency to work together and fight this horror,” he said. “As we gather more information and work with different agencies we will keep South Texas informed and protected.”

Texas Agriculture Sid Miller criticized the federal government’s response to screwworm as “slow, bureaucratic, and [an] incomplete response” in a press release on Wednesday shortly before the case was confirmed. He also asked President Donald Trump to approve deployment of the Screwworm Adult Suppression System, which was tested by the U.S. in the late 1970s to eradicate screwworms using bait and insecticides. 

In an interview with The Texas Tribune on Tuesday before the Texas screwworm case was confirmed, Miller said he was frustrated with the current response and that the SWASS system could quickly solve a potential outbreak.

“It’s the most frustrating thing I’ve run up against in my 12 years as Ag Commissioner,” Miller said. “We have the ability to shut that and eradicate that screwworm. We can do it in about 60 days. USDA has the tools and the knowledge to do it.”

In February, Florida officials detected screwworm larvae in an imported horse from Argentina as the animal made its way through the required import process. However, officials assured no case of screwworm had been detected outside of the quarantine area or in any Florida-based animal.

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Owners last week made their first cap proposal since 1994, when a 7 1/2-month strike caused the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Manfred was a junior lawyer on the owners' bargaining team in those negotiations.

Players have vowed to fight a cap as long as it takes. Asked whether he is concerned the events of 1994-95 will be repeated, Manfred responded: “Of course I do.”

“We’re open to whatever ideas people have, but we need a realistic framework that addresses the fans' concerns about competitive balance and you just can’t ignore that financial penalties have not gotten it done for us,” he said Wednesday at a news conference during an owners’ meeting.

Baseball owners and players started the current luxury tax system for the 2003 season and in subsequent agreements have increased tax rates while adding surcharges.

“We have tried mightily over several rounds of bargaining to use a competitive balance tax to address competitive concerns and sometimes you got to admit you failed,” Manfred said.

More teams have been willing to exceed tax thresholds in recent years, with a record nine teams paying the penalty in both 2024 and 2025, when the Dodgers were hit with a $169.4 million bill. Total tax rose from $78.5 million in 2022 to $222.8 million the following year, $311.3 million in 2024 and $402.6 million last year.

“We never thought about the CBT as a revenue-generating device," Manfred said. “And when you see more and more tax getting paid, you realize that it is not the kind of speed bump that would help on the issue of competitive balance.”

Baseball's five-year collective bargaining agreement, agreed to in March 2022 after a 99-day lockout, expires on Dec. 1. Management is expected to impose a lockout, which would bring free-agent signings and trades to a halt.

Manfred wouldn’t publicly say whether management thought a stoppage would be worth the cost to obtain a cap.

“I’m not going to speculate about work stoppages,” he said. “I think that the proposal we’ve made is grounds for constructive dialogue and back and forth with the MLBPA about how we can address the number one concern of our fans and that is a lack of competitive balance in the game.”

MLB would limit spending in 2027 to $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 Dodgers had a $415.2 million payroll on opening day this year while the lowest payroll was Miami at $81.8 million.

“The players are smart people," Manfred said. "I think they understand that payroll is a significant advantage for certain clubs and that high-payroll clubs win more than low-payroll clubs.”

No small-market team has won the World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals.

“Teams that go through periods, particularly longer periods, of non-competitiveness not only have lower revenues, but they are slower to recover once they become competitive," Manfred said.

MLB proposed a 50-50 split with players of defined revenue and an escrow system in which portions of salaries would be withheld for payback to the league in the event the players' share in a year is above 50%.

“If their proposal would have been in place in 2026 with current amateur entry figures, players would have lost more than half a billion dollars,” union head Bruce Meyer said in a statement.

Manfred said MLB has not made a proposal yet on players signing initial professional contracts.

Players asked for expanded free agency and salary arbitration rights, increasing luxury tax thresholds and almost doubling the major league minimum and increasing revenue sharing.

Baseball has had nine work stoppages since 1972, the last the 99-day lockout that slightly delayed the 2022 season.

The NFL has had a cap since 1994, the NBA since 1984-85 and the NHL since 2005-06.

Expansion

MLB won’t consider the possible addition of two teams until there is a new CBA. Among those expressing interest have been groups from Charlotte, North Carolina; Montreal; Nashville, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon; Sacramento, California; and Salt Lake City.

“We’ve made clear to all of the cities that have expressed an interest to say a post-labor topic,” Manfred said.

Olympics

Manfred hopes the union will agree to a decision on whether major leaguers will go to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics earlier than reaching a labor deal.

”It is my impression that they’re thinking about on a separate track,” he said. “I hope that’s the case because we can’t wait until we have a collective bargaining agreement to make a commitment on that one.”

Union head Bruce Meyer says a work stoppage that cancels regular-season games could disrupt Olympic plans.

Local broadcast media

MLB's proposal would pool and evenly distribute local broadcast revenue, tied to agreement to a salary cap. MLB plans to negotiate new national broadcast contracts for the 2029 season.

“Certainly there are going to be more national games. It’s our number one priority in terms of reach going forward,” Manfred said. “How the inventory after those national games is monetized is going to depend on the market.”

With the decline of regional sports networks, MLB is producing and distributing local broadcasts of 14 teams this season. Local media revenue is “down significantly," according to Manfred.

“Certainly the form of revenue sharing in the proposal was influenced by developments in the media market and where we think we need to be in order to extract the maximum revenue from the media environment as it exists today,” Manfred said. “You need more control over rights.”

Padres sale

Owners have yet to approve the proposed sale of the San Diego Padres from the Seidler family to an investor group led by Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano. The deal was announced on May 2. The sale has an enterprise value of a baseball-record $3.9 billion, with some investors remaining in the ownership group.

“Not ready for a vote today,” Manfred said. “It will probably be at some point this summer.”

Rays ballpark

Manfred is pleased with the Rays’ efforts to gain government approvals for a new ballpark in Tampa, near the spring training stadium of the New York Yankees.

“They need to get to definitive documents. My understanding is they’re on a mid-July-ish timeline on that,” he said. “We’re hopeful they get over the next hurdle.”

___

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

The teen, identified as John Mendoza Jr., had just pulled into his father’s driveway when the shooting happened. Within eight seconds of arriving home, after the deputy’s sirens stopped, a shot can be heard on the video.

What the video shows

The footage, shared exclusively with KPRC 2’s Bryce Newberry by family attorney Charles Adams, captures sirens and gunfire — but no audible commands from the deputy appear to be heard before the shot was fired.

• RELATED: ‘Life will never be the same’: Father grieves as questions remain in teen’s shooting death by deputy in Lake Jackson

More than 30 seconds after the shooting, audio from the video appears to capture the deputy calling it an accidental discharge over the scanner. About 10 minutes after the deputy opened fire, time stamps on the video show the first ambulance arriving on scene.

Mendoza Jr. was taken to a hospital, where he later died. He had just finished his freshman year at Texas State University.

Retired detective analysis on the video

Mark Stephens, a retired Houston Police Department detective, analyzed the video Wednesday.

“It’s very quick and it’s not unusual,” Stephens said. “One side is going to claim it’s the officer’s fault, others are going to claim it is the young man’s fault. The truth is probably going to fall somewhere in between.”

Stephens said fleeing from law enforcement in a vehicle is considered a felony, and since Mendoza pulled into the garage, he said that justifies the deputy pulling a weapon because it may have been for his own safety.

“The fact that it happened so quickly and that there were no commands before the shot was fired, and the fact that there’s allegedly a recording saying it was an accidental discharge, then that’s a good indication that’s exactly what happened,” Stephens said, also pointing to the family’s allegation that the bullet went through a rolled-up driver side window, hitting Mendoza while he remained seated in the vehicle.

“The weapon itself needs to be investigated ... and then you go from the weapon itself to the officer’s actions ... was there a justification for the officer to handle the weapon in the manner that he did,” Stephens said, adding that it’s too soon to rush to any sort of judgement.

He said the situation could be a good reminder for young people to stop when an officer tries to pull them over.

Family says son was unarmed, coming home from a park

According to the family, Mendoza Jr. had been spending time at a park with childhood friends before the shooting. A deputy began watching the group, the family said, and the friends grew uncomfortable and drove home — but the deputy followed, leading to the attempted traffic stop.

Family attorney Charles Adams says all of the people in the car were unarmed.

• RELATED:‘He was my heart’: Family demands answers in fatal shooting of teen by Brazoria County deputy

Mendoza Jr.’s father, John Mendoza Sr., is demanding accountability.

“This is a senseless situation that could have been avoided,” Mendoza Sr. said. “My son was murdered in his garage and this just isn’t right.”

Investigation underway; key questions unanswered

The Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office has not released the name of the deputy involved, how long the deputy has been with the department, or the reason for the attempted traffic stop. The deputy is currently on administrative leave.

• RELATED: Brazoria County deputy shoots, kills 18-year-old Texas State student after chase ends at Lake Jackson home

The Texas Rangers are investigating the shooting.

Brazoria County District Attorney Tom Selleck released a statement Wednesday, indicating it could be months before the investigation is over and the findings will be presented to a grand jury.

“Our office extends its deepest sympathy, our thoughts and our prayers to all parties involved. We thank the community for its cooperation, understanding, and patience as we move through this process,” Selleck wrote.

The crash occurred at the crossing of a state highway and the Iowa Interstate Railroad in a rural area about 70 miles (113 kilometers) east of Des Moines, according to Poweshiek County Sheriff Matt Maschmann.

One person in the semi-truck died and another was transported with “serious injuries,” Maschmann said in a statement.

Seventeen train cars and two power engines derailed after the crash and caused "significant damage" to the railroad, he said. Images of the scene showed a massive heap of railcars with billowing smoke.

No hazardous material was spilled, according to Iowa State Patrol spokesman Sgt. Alex Dinkla.

Whether it be fans surrounding the team's upscale hotel near downtown Kansas City, or their first training session opened to media Wednesday that drew hundreds of reporters to the facilities of Major League Soccer club Sporting Kansas City, there are few places that Lionel Messi and the rest of La Albiceleste are not the center of attention as the tournament draws near.

They begin their title defense against Algeria at Arrowhead Stadium on June 16.

Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni revealed his 26-man World Cup roster last week. It is headlined by Messi, who turns 39 in less than a month, and features 17 players that were on the team that triumphed four years ago against France in the final in Qatar.

Messi has been dealing with muscle fatigue and a mild strain in his left hamstring. The team has said his recovery time will depend on “his clinical and functional progress,” though it seems unlikely that he will participate in its upcoming friendlies.

He came to the practice field after the rest of the team on Wednesday and did some conditioning work off to the side.

Argentina did not make any players or coaches available to speak to reporters. The team will continue training in Kansas City until it departs for the first of two World Cup tune-up matches against Honduras on Saturday in College Station, Texas.

The team plays Iceland in Auburn, Alabama, three days later before resuming its training in Kansas City.

Most of the players arrived at the team's home base Sunday aboard a charter from Buenos Aires designed to pay homage to the nation's rich World Cup history. The flight number 1978 was a nod to the year it beat the Netherlands to win the title, and the A330 was trimmed with special livery that included the national team colors and Messi’s No. 10 on the tail.

Messi joined the team on a separate charter from Florida a few hours later.

The entire roster got a dose of Midwestern hospitality from hundreds of fans who waited outside the Origin Hotel to greet them, then they got a big taste of summer life in tornado alley when sirens sounded after midnight and a heavy storm rolled through.

High winds and lashing rain knocked over several tents and fences that had been put up for security.

“When they pick you as their training site for defending the World Cup, and this is where they are for the next — you know, hopefully through the end of the tournament — it's surreal,” said Jake Reid, the president and CEO of Sporting Kansas City, who watched the open training session with a series of dignitaries that included Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas.

“When they landed on Sunday," Reid said, "it started to get real for sure.”

Weather notwithstanding, the central location of Kansas City has made it a favorable destination for World Cup base camps.

England had hoped to use the home of Sporting KC for training, but Argentina was given preference as defending champion and scooped it up. The Three Lions stuck with their plans to make Kansas City their base, but when they arrive next week, they will be practicing at Sporting KC's old primary facility at the Swope Soccer Village.

The Netherlands, which also will arrive next week, will be training at the home of the Kansas City Current, one of the top teams in the National Women's Soccer League. Algeria is making its base at the University of Kansas, about 30 minutes west of the Kansas City metro area, where one of Africa's top teams will have the use of its new soccer facilities.

As for Argentina, the team has been practicing in the evening to avoid the heat and humidity of Midwestern summers. The weather has been mild so far, with temperatures in the low 80s, but the heat index typically pushes triple digits this time of year.

The six matches at Arrowhead Stadium — four in the group stage, two in the knockout — will be played at night for the same reason.

“I mean, we’ve had a helicopter flying ever since (Argentina) got here. That should tell you this is a big deal, right? ” Reid said. “I think for Kansas City to have Argentina here — and we’re not even talking about the other teams that are going to be here in the next couple of weeks — it's a massive deal." ___

AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup

The program delivered on a campaign promise of President Prabowo Subianto and aimed to fight malnutrition by feeding nearly 90 million children and pregnant women. But it has come under steep criticism due to high costs and cases of food poisoning among schoolchildren who consumed the meals.

Prabowo fired Dadan Hindayana on Tuesday and replaced him with the agency's deputy chief. Investigators searched the agency’s offices early Wednesday.

Before Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office made Wednesday’s arrest announcement, Hindaya could be seen being led out in handcuffs, wearing a detainee red vest and a black shirt, and escorted into a green prison van.

Prosecutors also arrested two other suspects, Sony Sonjaya, the Deputy Head of the Nutrition Provision Division and Lodewyk Pusung, the Deputy Head of the Organizational Development and Institutional Relations Division. Both were fired on Tuesday. Prosecutors only published their initials, but the Minister of the State Secretariat, Prasetyo Hadi, shared their names with reporters.

Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, AGO’s Director of Investigation, told reporters that based on the “examination ... and two pieces of sufficient evidence,” the three were named as suspects “in the criminal investigation of corruption related to the management of the Free Nutritious Meal program at the National Nutrition Agency for the 2025–2026 period.”

The Free Nutritious Meal program is implemented through foundations operating in schools. Investigators allege these foundations were used to facilitate criminal activities and were linked to agency officials and employees. Despite failing to meet the eligibility requirements to become program partners, they were allegedly approved by manipulating the agency’s partner verification system, with the suspects' help, Nahdi said.

“These foundations receive incentives worth billions of rupiah every day,” he said, adding that investigators are still calculating the damage to state coffers.

Hadi said Tuesday the three suspects were dismissed for failing to adhere to "standard operating procedure ... implementing governance, including maintaining food quality."

Hadi stressed the government's continuing commitment to the free meals program. “Services to the public must not be disrupted in any way,” he told reporters.

The meals program is expected to cost $28 billion through 2029.

One of Prabowo's goals was to fight malnutrition and help farmers by purchasing their harvests, but critics had questioned whether the program was affordable and logistically possible in a vast archipelago of more than 282 million people.