He testified that U.S. negotiators have seen signs that Iran’s new supreme leader has been engaged with negotiations despite not being seen publicly.

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

The Latest:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New York sues Trump administration over deal to end offshore wind project

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

State attorneys general from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont joined New York on Tuesday in challenging the cancellation of the lease off of New York and the bulk of the payout.

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

The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

▶ Read more

Rubio sees indications that Iran’s new supreme leader is ‘increasingly engaged’ with US talks

Detailing the fractured Iranian leadership, Rubio says U.S. negotiators have seen signs that Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father to become the country’s new supreme leader, has been engaged with negotiations despite not being seen publicly.

“I would imagine, given what’s happened to multiple leaders in that system, being very public is probably not something that’s recommended for them internally,” he said. “But that said, I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level, although all of his communications have been in writing and through intermediaries.”

Rubio says Iran will not receive sanctions relief for reopening Strait of Hormuz

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy pushed Rubio to see what incentives, if any, Washington is willing to offer Tehran in exchange for a deal.

Rubio said that any sanctions relief would have to come after major concession on the nuclear issue and the enriched uranium.

“Will they receive relief just in exchange for reopening the strait?” Murphy asked.

Rubio responded, “No, that’s not been discussed. That’s not been offered.”

US targeting criteria for alleged drug boats does not include narcotics on boat, Kaine says

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia pressed Rubio on why the U.S. military’s targeting criteria for attacking alleged drug boats in Latin American waters do not include drugs on the boat. Kaine described it as “odd” before adding that he can’t share much more because the targeting criteria are classified.

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

The U.S. military has attacked dozens of boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing roughly 200 people since early September. The Trump administration says the U.S. is at war with drug cartels, while many Democrats have questioned the legality and effectiveness of the strikes.

Senate Majority Leader says acting DNI Pulte would face ‘lengthy road’ to confirmation

Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, says he’s trying to get more insight from the White House about the decision to make Bill Pulte the acting Director of National Intelligence.

“I’m trying to get more information about the current state of their thinking about that position,” Thune told reporters Tuesday.

Thune said if the White House wants to nominate the real estate scion and Trump loyalist to that position permanently, he would have “a lengthy road ahead of him.”

Asked if he has concerns about a weaponized DNI position, Thune said “we don’t need a weaponized DNI, we need professionals there.”

Democrats blast Trump for picking Pulte as director of national intelligence

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Trump’s decision to tap his housing finance director as acting director of national intelligence, saying Bill Pulte is “a partisan thug with no experience in intelligence.”

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a lengthy statement that Pulte was picked because Trump “believes he will provide the narrative it wants, not the intelligence we need.” He warned that a pick like this leaves Americans “vulnerable to a terrorist attack.”

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said “it is critical that Pulte go through a full security clearance process before he walks into the building.”

Pope Leo’s AI manifesto sparks viral reactions: ‘Love my woke pope’

Shortly after Pope Leo XIV issued his sweeping manifesto calling for robust regulation of artificial intelligence, the Instagram meme account Saint Hoax posted this reaction to its more than 3 million followers about the pope’s call to “disarm” AI.

Similar reactions to Leo’s first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), seem driven by a perception among young people that few political or global leaders are taking seriously the ramifications of AI’s rapid rise.

The pontiff reiterates throughout the roughly 42,300-word document that the church must engage in contemporary questions and challenges. For Leo, that has included rebuking certain policies, actions and leaders, including Trump and the ongoing war in Iran. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, invoked the “just war” theory in response. Leo’s encyclical calls this church teaching “outdated.”

“Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness,” Leo wrote.

Rubio says while US is leading on AI, the technology could ‘destabilize societies all over the world’

In a very sober assessment, the secretary of state was clear-eyed about the innovation that artificial intelligence can have on the U.S. and global economy but also acknowledged that the emerging technology will also cause destruction to certain industries and white-collar jobs.

Those jobs will have to be replaced with new jobs or new skills, he said.

“That’s not just an economic issue. That is a political issue, that over time could destabilize societies all over the world. And so we have to start thinking about AI in those terms, as well,” he said.

Rubio won’t commit to not extending waiver on Russian oil sanctions

Shaheen, the committee’s ranking Democrat, pressed Rubio on whether the U.S. will extend a waiver on Russia oil sanctions. The U.S. has issued extensions for countries to import Russian oil that is already in tankers at sea in order to ease oil shortages caused by the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Rubio said the decision will ultimately be made by the U.S. Treasury Department, “but I will tell you, it depends on the circumstances at the time.”

“We would like to end it as soon as we possibly can, because the underlying policy of this country has been to sanction their oil. These are time limited waivers for the purpose of opening up more global supply,” Rubio said.

Rubio to Congress: Iran has ‘agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program’

Pressed by Democrats and Republicans on the status of negotiations with Tehran, Rubio tried to present a more optimistic view on the progress Washington has made with the Iranian regime.

“They have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention,” he said. But he added that it’s “not a guarantee that ultimately it will lead to a deal that’s acceptable” by Congress. He said these negotiations have been made difficult by the instability of Iran’s leadership.

Israel, Lebanon begin new round of political talks in Washington as fighting surges

U.S. and Israeli officials said the talks between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States began on Tuesday at the State Department, as planned, despite intensified fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has thrown the already fragile ceasefire into new uncertainty.

The two days of talks — the fourth round of such direct discussions — follow a security meeting between the two sides that was held on Friday at the Pentagon.

None of the participants in Tuesday’s meetings spoke as they posed for photos before the talks began.

Shaheen lambasts Rubio for ignoring requests for information on Ukraine, Iran and more

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, lambasted Rubio in her opening remarks. She said his office has refused to provide information requested about the Trump administration’s changing troop posture in Europe as well as U.S. operations in Iran and American support for Ukraine.

“When you do notify Congress, it’s to inform us of decisions you have already made,” she said.

She also focused on the U.S. military’s declining stockpile of advanced weapons used in the Iran war.

Rubio set to testify as Senate committee hearing begins

James E. Risch, the Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, kicked off Tuesday’s hearing, the first for the U.S. secretary of state since the Iran war began.

Risch has praised Rubio’s efforts to reduce illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

Rubio to be defiant on status of US foreign policy in first congressional testimony since Iran war

The former Republican senator is set to defend the Trump administration’s bulldozing of American soft power in his opening statement to senators Tuesday as part of an annual budget request hearing.

“The U.S. government is not a charity. We are not here to play social worker,” Rubio’s prepared remarks say.

The written remarks focus mostly on the Western Hemisphere, with no mention of the ongoing, sprawling U.S. operations in the Middle East.

They call the capturing of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro “one of the most extraordinary feats of lethal precision in military history.”

“We have made it clear to every government in this hemisphere that America can either be their greatest friend or their most feared enemy — the choice is theirs,” he added.

Rubio enters Senate briefing room to chants from protesters

Rubio faced chants from protesters who urged him to “stop killing Cubans” when he entered a Senate briefing room Tuesday.

The protesters were quickly pulled from the room. Their chants also included “Let Cuba live!” as well as, “Repent Marco Rubio. God will forgive you for your sins. Stop killing Cubans.”

Rubio is sitting at a table staring into the lenses of media photographers.

Protesters arrested outside Rubio hearing

A small number of protesters who were lined up outside a Senate briefing room where Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to testify before Congress have been arrested.

The group chanted “Rubio lies. People with AIDS die” as well as “One child dies every 30 mins.”

A small number of other protesters, who were not arrested, have found seats in the back of the room where Rubio is to provide testimony at 10 a.m.

Judges and grand juries have rebuffed Pulte’s accusations against Trump rivals

Pulte has used his perch as FHFA director to make a succession of criminal referrals against political opponents of Trump related to allegations of mortgage fraud.

One such referral centered on New York Attorney Letitia James, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing. A prosecution against her was dismissed in November after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges was was illegally appointed. Prosecutors have tried several times since to bring a new case but have been rebuffed by grand juries.

Other referrals made by Pulte, including against Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, have not yielded any criminal charges. Lawyers for both have denied any claims of wrongdoing.

Pulte has raised his profile by attacking Trump’s rivals

Pulte has mainly trained his sights on Trump’s domestic rivals. He targeted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the central bank’s benchmark interest rates as aggressively as the president wanted, and led a protracted campaign against New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who angered Trump by prosecuting him in court.

It’s unclear what national security expertise Pulte has, but the attention-seeking and hyper-online millennial has become a major player in the Trump administration, and a frequent guest on Air Force One as Trump has traveled to Mar-a-Lago, his home and club in Florida.

▶ Read more

Pulte is a loyal Trump aide who lacks intelligence agency experience

The position, which involves overseeing and coordinating the country’s 18 intelligence agencies, is one that requires Senate confirmation.

With the appointment, Trump, who has long the nation’s intelligence agencies with suspicion, is foregoing a director with experience in sensitive intelligence and national security matters and is instead selecting a loyal aide who made a career in the homebuilding industry and cultivated a combative social media presence.

Gabbard was seen as an unconventional pick, but she was a former congresswoman who had served in the military.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Questions about Pulte's experience

Tuesday's announcement quickly drew criticism from Trump administration opponents that Pulte could undermine the credibility and integrity of America's intelligence agencies.

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

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

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

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

Pulte's attacks on Trump foes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Minneapolis-based General Mills said in a statement late Monday that the deal will allow the buyers to exclusively sell the Häagen-Dazs brand in ice cream shops and gifting businesses across mainland China. General Mills will continue to sell Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Chinese retail and food service operations.

Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. The deal is expected to close by the end of this year.

General Mills didn't immediately respond Tuesday when asked how many Häagen-Dazs stores it has in China. In its latest annual report, General Mills said it operated 332 ice cream parlors worldwide.

Ningji operates around 3,000 retail tea outlets in China. It opened its chain of stores in 2021 and has received funding from ByteDance, the Beijing-headquartered creator of TikTok, and Shunwei Capital.

Yaling Jiang, an independent Chinese consumer analyst, said Häagen-Dazs has been charging premium prices in China “without delivering sufficient product value or cultural relevance.”

Its line of products — traditional ice cream with higher fat content — has “passed its peak" in China at a time when low-fat, airy gelato options are becoming more common, she said.

Foreign businesses have also been shifting ownership of their operations toward Chinese investors as Chinese consumer confidence has stagnated and economic growth has slowed.

Starbucks said in November that it would form a joint venture with Chinese private equity firm Boyu Capital in a deal worth about $4 billion that allows Boyu to hold up to a 60% stake in its operations in China.

In February, Toronto-based Restaurant Brands International — the parent of U.S. fast food chain Burger King — said it had formed a joint venture with Chinese investment firm CPE to operate and expand the Burger King restaurant chain in China.

CPE invested about $350 million into the joint venture under the deal terms, and owns approximately 83% of the business.

The governor is expected to speak at 12:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort near Walt Disney World.

He will be joined by Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie, Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, Adjutant General of Florida Major General John D. Haas, and Florida State Guard Executive Director Mark Thieme.

The topic of the news conference is unknown.

News 6 will stream the news conference at the top of the story.

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

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

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

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

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

She leads Bregman in fundraising by a wide margin in a campaign that became increasingly contentious. Haaland’s campaign has highlighted Bregman's personal wealth and cast him as out of touch with everyday New Mexicans. Haaland declined several opportunities to debate Bregman, who has argued that his experience as a prosecutor puts him in the best position for Democrats to chart a new course in a state that has been bedeviled for years by high crime rates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

“Every two minutes, I'd check,” Blair said.

Friday, nothing. Saturday, nothing. Sunday was mostly gone and Blair was driving home from a weekend visit to his parents' home in Virginia. As he pulled into his driveway, he realized that he had missed a phone call.

The caller was Albert Sanders Jr., the executive vice president and head of referee operations for the NBA. Turns out, that call was the email that Blair had waited years to get.

Blair called Sanders back and got the news: For the first time, he'll work a game in the NBA Finals. He's the only first-time selection in this year's group of 12 referees who will officiate the title series that starts Wednesday between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks.

“Very emotional moment, very emotional moment for me, because I’ve been right there on the doorstep for so many years," Blair said. "Yeah, very emotional. This is my 18th year and one thing I had to realize going through this journey is that everybody has their own journey. Everybody has their own timetable. You become a referee, become an umpire, you get to the first round, the second round, third round. You just have to worry about yourself and your journey.”

The league released the full list of selections on Tuesday. Scott Foster was picked to work his 19th finals, the most among current referees. The other selections besides Foster and Blair: Tony Brothers (15th finals), Marc Davis (15th), James Capers (14th), Zach Zarba (13th), John Goble (10th), Josh Tiven (7th), James Williams (6th), Courtney Kirkland (5th), Sean Wright (3rd) and Tyler Ford (2nd).

The league typically reveals the crew that will work each game around 9 a.m. EDT on game day.

“Being selected to work the NBA Finals is the highest honor for an NBA official, and I congratulate them on an outstanding and well-earned achievement,” said Byron Spruell, the NBA's president for league operations. “We are grateful for their unwavering dedication to the game and pursuit of excellence in their craft.”

Blair was a second-round pick by the Houston Rockets in 1992, though never played a regular-season game in the league. He played internationally before starting his referee career and has worked more than 1,000 NBA games since 2008.

Finals referees get special white warm-up jackets, only given to those selected to work the title series. Blair already has two of those from 2021 and 2022 when he was an alternate, but the one he gets this time will have much more meaning.

“This is so funny,” Blair said. "One referee called me and he said, ‘I know you got two other white jackets, but they had an asterisk on it. So, you can throw those away. Now you got a real one.’”

___

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

Thankfully, there are several ways to reduce that stress, according to mental health experts who have helped people who have experienced disasters. One of the most important things to do is have a plan, they say.

“Preparation is always one of the most powerful tools that I can imagine — not just for safety, but also for mental health,” said Ruben Juarez, a health economist at University of Hawaii professor who directed the Maui Wildfires Exposure Study, which looked at health and social impacts of the deadly 2023 fires.

And when the disaster is over, they say, try to restore a sense of normalcy by seeking out support, returning to routines and helping others.

Kevin Westmoreland, who co-owns The Corner Kitchen in Asheville, North Carolina, learned meditation techniques and breathing exercises to deal with the stresses that the restaurant industry can present. When the remnants of Hurricane Helene unleashed torrents of rain on the state two years ago, water and mud poured into the restaurant and “everything was tossed around inside the building as if it was in a blender,” he recalled.

“All you could do to get through it is try to take a breath and move forward, step by step,” he said.

Plan ahead for unpredictable weather

One way to ease anxiety is to prepare as best you can ahead of time, including hashing out a plan for what to do during a disaster.

Making an evacuation plan and putting together an emergency kit can provide a sense of control, said Melissa Brymer, a psychologist and director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

She recommends a step-by-step guide for families at ready.gov/plan. The American Red Cross also has extensive guides for hurricane preparedness. Make sure to consider special preparations for anyone with disabilities, special needs, new mothers and expectant mothers, Brymer advises. Also make sure that pets are included in disaster plans.

Weather is unpredictable, so it helps to accept that there are things you won't be able to control.

Being informed can also give people a sense of control in extreme weather. Focus on facts by gathering information from trusted sources and stay up-to-date on weather watches and warnings.

Share your fears and concerns with friends, relatives, a therapist or others who can give you support, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

How to talk to children about storms without alarming them

Parents should consider talking to children in a matter-of-fact way, explaining that storms are normal. Children might be afraid of storms, but many are interested in learning more about them.

It's OK to acknowledge that it's a stressful time, Brymer said. But adults should limit some conversations to only other adults to avoid overly worrying children.

“Kids kind of register our panic, and then they’re going to panic if we’re starting to panic,” she said. “We don’t want them to start worrying for us."

Keep track of your mental health

One of the Maui wildfires study's findings was that mental health affects rippled through the entire community and were found in many people who weren't in the burned area, Juarez said. It's a reminder to be aware that your mental health could be affected by disasters that strike your community, even if they don't directly affect your home or neighborhood.

Westmoreland said one of things that helped him cope after Helene was to try and put things in perspective.

“We try to look at it like it's just a business and equipment — as long as our employees are safe, those are the important things,” he said.

The restaurant, built around 1895 by American industrialist George Vanderbilt in the Biltmore Village section of Asheville, has since reopened after major renovations and repairs.

The Anxiety and Depression Association has more tips, including:

— Find a positive activity such as donating blood, preparing care packages or volunteering to help others. That can offer a sense of purpose to counteract the feelings of being powerless.

— Seek support from others dealing with the same issues.

— Be aware that if your symptoms persist for several weeks, it may be a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder and you should seek help.

___

Martin is a former Associated Press reporter.

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

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

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

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

From niche experiment to global footprint

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

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

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

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

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

Over 300 movies at Bleak Week 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The S&P 500 rose 0.2% a day after setting its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 140 points, or 0.3%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher. All three indexes erased modest losses from earlier in the morning.

AI chip companies helped drive the market upward. Their growth has skyrocketed because of how hungry customers are for more AI computing power, and Broadcom rose 4.4%, while Nvidia added 0.7%.

Marvell Technology leaped 28.4% toward its best day in three years after Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, suggested at a conference in Taiwan that Marvell could be “the next trillion-dollar company.” The latest entry into the growing club was last week by Micron Technology, which is likewise riding the AI wave. Nvdia's total value, meanwhile, has exploded over $5.8 trillion.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise's stock soared 23.3% after it reported a profit for the latest quarter that blew past analysts’ expectations. It credited demand from customers building their AI capabilities.

Generac climbed 5.7% after saying it signed a deal to provide backup power generators to an unnamed “leading hyperscale data center operator.”

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

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

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

Such huge sums raise the question about whether AI can produce the profits and productivity necessary to make all the investment worth it. Critics have already been talking about the possibility of a bubble in AI investment, and Alphabet's stock fell 1.8%.

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

In the oil market, prices were calmer following Monday’s bounce back. Brent crude oil, the international standard, fell 0.3% to $94.67 per barrel, though that’s still well above the roughly $70 level it was at before the war.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were relatively steady.

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

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

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

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

___

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

Rubio told lawmakers Tuesday in his first public testimony since the Iran war began that the Iranians have agreed to negotiate on nuclear points that they had not been willing to address in the past but would not offer an assessment on what those talks might produce.

“They have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention," Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He did not elaborate.

He added, however, that it’s “not a guarantee that ultimately it will lead to a deal that’s acceptable” and that these negotiations have been made difficult by the instability of Iran’s leadership.

His optimism is running into the revelation that Iran has stopped communicating with mediators after Israel threatened to bomb Beirut as it fights the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported Tuesday. On the same day, the State Department was hosting a new round of political talks between Israel and Lebanon as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified, throwing an already fragile ceasefire into new uncertainty.

Rubio faced a litany of questions from lawmakers about the Trump administration's fragile or stalling diplomatic efforts around the world as he began two days of congressional testimony. He was questioned about foreign aid cuts, strikes on boats accused of trafficking drugs in Latin America and much more.

Rubio grilled on Iran war

The Republican former senator is sitting before House and Senate committees to make the State Department's annual budget request. But the focus shifted quickly to the already unsteady ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, which has been further tested in recent days by back-and-forth attacks.

Cabinet members, including Rubio, have defended President Donald Trump's decision to launch the conflict despite promises over the years not to engage in “forever wars” in the Middle East. That work has been made more difficult by Trump's shifting goals for the conflict.

While Rubio is testifying before Congress for the first time since the Iran war started on Feb. 28, he took part in a classified briefing for lawmakers days after the first U.S. and Israeli strikes. He faced Democrats' anger over the lack of congressional approval but strong support from most Republicans for taking action against one of America's oldest adversaries.

In the two months since the war began, however, a small but growing faction of Republicans have joined Democrats in questioning the astronomical price tag and overall economic consequences of the conflict as they head into midterm elections in the fall. The war has cut tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway through which 20% of the world’s traded oil and natural gas passes in peacetime, spiking gas prices.

Last month, the Senate advanced legislation for the first time that would have forced Trump to withdraw from the conflict after GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — fresh off a primary election loss in which Trump endorsed his opponent — joined Democrats in pushing it forward.

The House also had scheduled a vote on a war powers resolution, but GOP leadership kept it from coming to the floor after it became clear that the majority party would not have the numbers to defeat it.

The actions show the GOP is struggling to maintain political backing for Trump's handling of the war as rank-and-file Republicans are increasingly willing to defy the president over the conflict.

Following his appearances Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Appropriations subcommittee responsible for the State Department, Rubio will return to the Hill on Wednesday to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and equivalent Senate Appropriations subcommittee.

Rubio faces protesters on Cuba

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

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

Despite a series of meetings between U.S. and Cuban officials, Trump and Rubio have renewed threats against the island's government, which take on greater weight after the administration announced criminal charges against former President Raúl Castro. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the indictment as a political stunt that sought only to “justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba.”

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

___

Amiri reported from New York.

___

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

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

The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, come as the conflicts in Iran and Lebanon have increasingly become conjoined. Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon, where Hezbollah remains one of Iran's chief allies in its self-described “axis of resistance” against Israel.

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

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

Inflation takes an economic toll on Iran

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

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

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

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

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

Prices climb at ‘an unprecedented rate’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran. Magdy reported from Cairo.

Space Launch Delta 45 will be providing an update at around 4:15 p.m.

The New Glenn rocket exploded in a dramatic fireball Thursday night during a static fire engine test, which is a standard procedure where engines are ignited while the rocket stays secured to the pad. The rocket was supposed to launch a few days later.

So far, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp says the big support tower at Launch Complex 36 is damaged and will need repairs, but won’t need to be replaced. The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen, and liquefied natural gas tanks are all in good shape, and the water tower is also in good shape.

Some LC-36 updates. Now that we’ve had access to the pad and integration facility we can share a bit of good news. The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG tanks are all in good shape. This is good luck because these are very long lead items. The water tower is also…

— Dave Limp (@davill) June 2, 2026

Meanwhile, Blue Origin says debris from the explosion could begin washing ashore in the days or weeks ahead.

Blue Origin says people should not touch it, warning it could contain hazardous materials or sharp components that could cause injury.

Brevard EOC issued this statement: “If you find suspected Blue Origin anomaly debris, do not call to the Blue Origin Wreckage Management hotline at 321-222-4355 or by email at missionrecovery@blueorigin.com ."

[WATCH: Blue Origin rocket debris could wash ashore after explosion, officials warn]

Tammy Jo Baker was a mother, a grandmother, and a soon-to-be great-grandmother who, according to her family, lived for the beach and the people she loved.

“She was always smiling. She was always happy,” Baker’s granddaughter, Hannah McBride, said.

Baker was working at an access ramp in Daytona Beach Shores when a woman drove into the toll booth Baker was inside before driving into the water. Video taken in the moments after the crash shows the truck submerged in the ocean.

The family said Baker’s connection to that stretch of coastline ran deep.

“She loved the beach,” Baker’s daughter, Luella Harris, said.

“She lived on the beach. So, like just working out here was probably like a plus to it, you know? So, it was very, very difficult for her to want to be away from [the beach],” McBride added.

For Harris, the grief is wrapped in memories of her mother’s humor.

“My mom was good for saying the most inappropriate things, but it always made everybody laugh,” she said.

That humor, her family says, showed up in the most unexpected moments, including one that Harris-Baker cannot help but laugh about even now.

“‘Hotel California’, and she was just singing it, and then all of a sudden, she broke out in like a death metal voice, and like, the whole place was like, what? What is that?” she recalled.

Family members gathered for a vigil at the beach where she was working that day to honor her life. Daytona Beach Shores Mayor Nancy Miller attended the vigil and used the moment to urge drivers to be more careful in the area.

“Slow down, slow down,” Miller said. “You have to know this is a driving beach and please slow down.”

For those who knew and loved Baker, the loss is still raw and difficult to process.

“It’s very shocking. It’s hard to hear, like, people just talking about it and you don’t even know, that was my mom,” Harris said.

As her family prepares to say goodbye, they want the world to know Baker was the force that held them all together.

“She was the glue of the family. So, it’s going to be hard to pick up those pieces. But mainly, we’re really thankful that she had lived a good life,” McBride said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The administration revealed its appeal preparations while objecting to a demand by Judge Richard K. Eaton for CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott to appear in the U.S. Court of International Trade on June 9. The judge said he wants to know how long it would take to repay all 330,000 importers that might be eligible for refunds and whether he should require the government to speed up the process.

Justice Department lawyers asked Eaton to allow Scott's deputies to appear in his place, arguing that as a high-ranking presidential appointee, the CBP chief could not be compelled to testify. They also argued that Eaton exceeded his authority when he determined that the Supreme Court's ruling entitled “all importers of record’’ to refunds.

“For that reason, defendants intend to appeal the court’s universal injunction," the lawyers wrote, adding that CBP would continue to move “as quicky as it can to process refunds in a phased approach” for businesses that filed legal complaints asserting their rights to refunds.

Eaton responded that he needed to hear directly from Scott whether the government would return all of the money it collected between April 2025, when Trump put what he called “reciprocal” tariffs on most countries, the Supreme Court's decision in late February.

“It is undisputed that the remedy for this unlawful collection is for the United States government to refund the unlawfully collected duties," the judge wrote.

Refunds coming in phases

Customs and Border Protection is handling refund claims in phases, focusing first on payments that weren't finalized before the Supreme Court handed down its 6-3 decision. CBP officials said those later, estimated payments were simpler to process because they remained open in its system.

In Friday’s filing, the Justice Department said the agency required technological upgrades to its refund portal and “importer-specific orders” in each lawsuit that businesses filed before it could recalculate the final tax bills for older “liquidated” accounts.

More than 1,000 companies filed lawsuits in the trade court to recoup their tariff costs. It was not immediately clear how many importers that paid the tariffs did not sue and might not receive refunds if an appeal of Eaton's blanket order succeeds.

Ryan Majerus, a partner on the international trade team at law firm King & Spalding, said he thinks "it’s definitely a fraction of the total in terms of folks who paid” the defunct duties. An appeal would likely affect only imported merchandise that was in the U.S. for 314 days, a time when CPB issues its official determination of the duties owed, he said.

“This doesn’t cover everybody, only those really old entries,” Majerus said about a potential appeal.

But filing an appeal could slow the refund process even if the government “already lost the war” before the Supreme Court, according to Barry Appleton, a professor at New York Law School and managing partner of Appleton & Associates International Lawyers.

“If the government can freeze the refund machinery while it litigates, it buys months, and every month of delay is a month the Treasury keeps the money,” Appleton said.

Price cuts promised

Some national retail chains said they planned to use their tariff refunds refunds to lower customer prices on some items. Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told analysts last week that the company would implement price cuts even though the maximum refund it might be eligible for represented less than half of 1% of Walmart’s annual U.S. sales.

Costco intends to return the tariff costs that it passed on to members, CEO Ron Vachris said. How much of its refund the big-box retail chain redistributes, when and in what form, depends on factors such as the size of the refund, when it arrives, and developments in a lawsuit seeking tariff compensation for Costco customers, Vachris told investors Thursday.

Consumers may see refunds first from shipping companies such as FedEx, UPS and DHL, which acted as customs brokers when they delivered products ordered from overseas.

The companies charged either the sellers that shipped the packages or the buyers who received them and submitted the collected tariffs to CBP. All three promised to transmit any refunds they get to the customers that paid the import taxes.

Putting refunds back into the business

The Supreme Court invalidated only the country-by-country tariff rates Trump set by citing the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The president also has moved to introduce new tariffs since the court’s Feb. 20 ruling.

Some smaller companies told The Associated Press that the tariff refunds they’ve received so far would go toward paying remaining or future tariffs or getting back on solid financial footing after more than a year of uncertainty and additional costs.

Jay Foreman, CEO of toy company Basic Fun, said he received about $450,000, or 7% of his total claim, over two consecutive days. He took the repayment as a positive sign but that the pace since then seemed like a “total slow roll.”

“It’s time to release the funds back into the economy, especially given how much we and others need these funds to support our businesses,” Foreman said.

Men’s grooming brand Manscaped has received about 30% of the $12 million in refunds it applied for, President Kevin Datoo said. The San Diego company deferred investments and took on debt to pay tariffs on imports from Indonesia, China and elsewhere in Asia, he said.

“We need to shore up the balance sheet because there’s still a whole second chapter here,” Datoo said.

Melkon Khosrovian, who owns Greenbar Distillery in Los Angeles, said he applied for a tariff refund of about $90,000 for 17 different shipments of herbs, spices and packaging that are hard to find domestically. To date, he said he received $18,000.

Khosrovian invested in automating his bottling system last year to reduce personnel costs while his import expenses grew. He recalled how the White House had argued the tariffs would create more U.S. manufacturing jobs.

The tariffs were “painful,” he said. “Our choices were bad and worse: raise prices and lose customers, or keep prices the same and not make any money.”

___

AP writers Anne D’Innocenzio and Stan Choe in New York, and Lisa Leff in London contributed to this report.

___

This story was first published on May. 30, 2026. It was updated on Jun. 2, 2026 to correct the name of the law firm where Ryan Majerus is a partner. It’s King & Spalding, not King & Spalding.

Left, who was a securities analyst, trader, and guest commentator on television channels including CNBC and Fox Business, was charged in July 2024 with one count of engaging in a securities fraud scheme, 17 counts of securities fraud, and one count of making false statements to federal investigators. As a short seller, Left would make money betting that stocks would fall.

The Justice Department said Tuesday that Left was convicted of one count of participating in a securities fraud scheme and 12 counts of securities fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 31. He faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

“Andrew Left used his expertise to profit at the expense of retail investors, ordinary people who owned the stocks he targeted. He callously boasted that it was like ‘taking candy from a baby,’” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a statement. “Egregious schemes like this strike at the heart of free, fair and open markets, and warrant prosecution when they involve criminal manipulation. Investors should have confidence that U.S. markets are safe and free from the type of deliberate manipulation that Left engaged in to enrich himself at the expense of American investors.”

The Justice Department previously said that Left conducted business under the name Citron Research, which had a website that published investment recommendations. He published research on companies ranging from Tesla and GameStop to Grand Canyon Education and Peloton.

According to the indictment, Left would comment on publicly traded companies and make recommendations on the shares. The commentary often included sensationalized headlines (“Investors Peddling Themselves into Frenzy”) and exaggerated language to maximize the reaction it would get from the stock market. As alleged, Left knowingly exploited his ability to move stock prices by targeting stocks popular with retail investors and posting recommendations on social media to manipulate the market and make fast, easy money.

The indictment further alleged that before Citron would publish its commentary, Left would create long or short positions in a public company on which he was commenting in his trading accounts and prepared to quickly close those positions after Citron’s publication and take profits on the short-term price movement caused by his commentary.

In a post on social media platform X under the Citron Research handle, Left expressed his opposition to the conviction.

“We disagree with the jury and this does not stop here,” the post said. “We will keep fighting for free, honest speech and opportunity, the backbone of this country. This is not over.”

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

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

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

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

Israel says it will keep attacking if Hezbollah does

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

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

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

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

Drone strikes killed two Syrians working at a plant nursery in the village of Jibchit and two people in the nearby village of Toul, the news agency reported. A third strike hit a car near the village of Harouf, killing one person. The Israeli military said it wasn't aware of any Israeli strikes in that area.

NNA also reported that an Israeli airstrike on Monday killed six in the southern village of Marwaniyeh.

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

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

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,433 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people. According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

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

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

___

This version corrects to say Hezbollah fired at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon.

U.S. employers posted 7.6 million job vacancies in April, the Labor Department reported Tuesday, up from 6.9 million in March and most since May 2024. Economists had forecast just 6.8 million openings.

The department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that layoffs fell but so did the number of Americans quitting their jobs - a sign of confidence in their prospects. And the report's measure of gross hiring also dropped in April, suggesting that companies remain reluctant to add new workers even as they hold on to the ones they have.

The American job market has been recovering from a dismal 2025. Last year, companies, nonprofits and government agencies added fewer than 10,000 jobs a month, least outside a recession since 2002.

This year has been better — job growth averaged 76,000 a month from January through April. Big tax refunds — the product of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax cut bill last year — have given the economy a lift this year, offsetting the impact of sharply higher energy prices since the United States and Israel attacked Iran Feb. 28. But the refunds have mostly been paid out and are fading as an economic booster.

The United States also doesn’t need as many new jobs as it used to. Trump’s immigration crackdown and Baby Boomer retirements mean that fewer people are competing for work. As a result, the so-called break-even point — the number of new jobs needed every month to keep the unemployment rate stable — has dropped to near zero from 155,000 a month two or three years ago, according to an April report by Federal Reserve economists Seth Murray and Ivan Vidangos.

On Friday, the Labor Department will issue its job report for May. The numbers are expected to show that employers added 100,000 jobs last month, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. The unemployment rate is expected to have stayed at a low 4.3%.

Critical to NASA's Artemis moon program, the company's massive New Glenn rocket blew up during an engine-firing test at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. A lightning tower and the transporter-erector used to move and hoist the rocket were destroyed in the blast that sent shock waves across the state.

CEO Dave Limp said the methane, hydrogen and oxygen tanks look to be in good shape. The water tank is also fine and the support tower that's still standing can be repaired in place. A booster and other rocket parts housed nearby were not damaged.

Overall, this was “a bit of good news,” Limp said in an X update, adding: “We will fly again before the end of this year.”

The cause is still under investigation.

Just two days before the accident, NASA awarded a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Blue Origin, choosing New Glenn rockets to launch a pair of rovers to the moon ahead of the arrival of the first Artemis moonwalkers who will drive them. New Glenn also is needed to launch the company's Blue Moon lander that will be used to get astronauts to the lunar surface in the coming years.

NASA is aiming for as early as 2028 for the first moon landing by astronauts since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The space agency will “do all we can” to get the pad back in action as soon as possible “while staying extremely focused on progressing the lander,” Administrator Jared Isaacman said via X.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn line of reusable rockets — named after John Glenn, the first American in orbit — has launched only three times. It’s not nearly as big as SpaceX’s Starship that is making test flights to the fringes of space from Texas. NASA has ordered up Starships, in addition to Blue Moon landers, to get Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface in the years ahead.

___

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's the latest:

Trump says absent congressman is ‘working tirelessly’

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

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

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

Democrats hope to dislodge GOP incumbent by redrawing his California district

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

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

California uses a top-2 primary system

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

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

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

Republicans will fight hard to keep the Iowa US Senate seat

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

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

Republican candidates for governor say California needs a change

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

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

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

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

Republicans will fight hard to keep the Iowa US Senate seat

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

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

California uses a top-2 primary system

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

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

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

5 Republicans want to be Iowa governor

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

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

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

2 veteran California US House members draw generational challenges

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

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

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

California Democrat’s spending dwarfed his rivals

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

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

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

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

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

3 Republicans seek party nomination for New Mexico governor

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

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

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

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

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

As of Tuesday, 321 cases and 48 deaths had been confirmed in the Central African nation’s three eastern provinces of Ituri, North and South Kivu, according to the World Health Organization. Neighboring Uganda has had nine cases and one death confirmed, prompting Uganda to close its border with Congo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

“He transcended boxing into every space you can imagine,” she told The Associated Press this week ahead of the 10-year anniversary of Ali’s death on June 3, 2016, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

“Muhammad lived by this mantra: service to others is the rent we pay for our room here on earth," Lonnie Ali said during an interview at The Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky. “He showed up every day with kindness and empathy in his heart for people who are in need."

Ali, known as the “Louisville Lip” in his hometown, rose to prominence as a trash-talking world champion boxer in the 1960s and began speaking about civil rights issues as his star was rising. He is widely regarded as the most famous and influential boxer of all time, winning the heavyweight title three times.

The Ali Center is sponsoring a “Day of Compassion” on Wednesday, the 10th anniversary of his death, to promote acts of service and caring. Lonnie Ali, who serves as the center's lifetime director, said the hope is an expanding annual event to highlight works of service and volunteering.

The day will focus on one of "the core values that made up Muhammad Ali” in an increasingly divided country, she said.

“Today, we are in a place where we are losing touch with our humanity and with each other,” she said. “It’s causing rifts, not just in families and communities, but in this nation. We’re becoming increasingly polarized and separated, and sort of retreating to people who think like us, look like us, and not really reaching out.”

She also challenged political leaders to lead with compassion, noting the recent weakening of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court.

“We should always be thinking about how we can uplift a community, not how we can make it harder for them,” Lonnie Ali said. “We want equal representation in this country. You can’t have equal representation when you’re denying people voting rights, you can’t do that.”

But there is hope, she said, and she saw that when the city of Louisville came together for a weeklong celebration of Ali's life in 2016. The week was capped by a funeral procession through the city and past her late husband's modest childhood home near downtown Louisville. Former President Bill Clinton and actor Billy Crystal spoke at his funeral, and Will Smith, who portrayed Ali in a 2001 movie, was a pallbearer.

The outpouring of love for Ali at his hometown funeral service was livestreamed to millions around the world. A decade later, Ali’s face graced a U.S. Postal Service stamp for the first time, showing his enduring influence.

“We’re talking about people who traveled thousands of miles to come here, who had never met the man, never laid eyes on him personally, but wanted to ... give their last respects to him: kings, princes, presidents, heads of state, celebrities, sports figures,” Lonnie Ali said.

Officials warned debris from the explosion could begin washing ashore in the coming days or weeks as ocean conditions shift.

In the days after the explosion, crews have been monitoring the area for debris while beachgoers say they are also watching the shoreline closely.

“I’m curious to see if anything washes up. I walk the beach all the time,” one beachgoer said.

While much of the debris is expected to remain offshore, experts say ocean currents can carry floating materials long distances over time.

“When you go watch a movie, you can see those little pressure vessels that they pressurized oxygen gases with float streaking across the sky in that fireball. So it’s like you might be able to find something,” another beachgoer said.

Officials with Blue Origin say if debris does wash ashore, people should not touch it, warning it could contain hazardous materials or sharp components that could cause injury.

“Don’t touch, just call, because it could be hazardous there,” one beachgoer said. “If it’s carbon fiber, you could touch it. You could get splinters and stuff. So it’s like, very cool, very cool to see. But just going to kind of just leave it.”

For many residents, rocket launches and occasional mishaps are part of everyday life along the Space Coast.

“Crazy place to live. We have the cruises right here. We got the rockets right here. Submarines come in and out. It’s an amazing place to live. We love it here,” one resident said.

Still, others say the possibility of finding space-related debris is intriguing.

“But if we were to catch something, I feel like it’d be pretty cool, especially if it’s related to the rocket,” a beachgoer said.

Officials continue to urge anyone who encounters suspected debris not to touch or move it, but to report it immediately to authorities at the phone number 321-222-4355 or email missionrecovery@blueorigin.com

On Friday evening, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket successfully launched, marking the second successful launch from the Cape since Thursday night’s explosion. Earlier Friday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket also lifted off without incident.

[BELOW: SpaceX launches Starlink mission hours after New Glenn explosion]

The back-to-back launches came as many visitors and residents were still processing the dramatic explosion that lit up the sky over Cape Canaveral the night before.

“One word, awesome,” said a spectator while watching the Atlas V launch from Space View Park in Titusville.

“Every time there is a launch, everyone is really excited,” he said. “When it goes up, it’s just like watching someone kick a field goal.”

Another spectator, said the excitement surrounding launches remains strong regardless of recent setbacks.

Many launch watchers said they were surprised operations resumed so quickly following the explosion.

[RELATED: Footage shows Blue Origin rocket’s explosion along Central Florida coast]

“It’s amazing. Absolutely amazing,” said another visitor. “We just assumed when one blew up on the launch pad, it would be canceled for days or weeks. So, it’s amazing they can carry on so quickly.”

Katie Egli, who was visiting from Kansas City with her family, said they had concerns after hearing about the explosion but were relieved to witness a successful launch.

“We heard about the explosion and how that went down and were worried about that, but glad we were able to see a launch today,” Egli said.

She added that the continued pace of launches demonstrates the resilience of the space industry.

“I think it’s amazing, the resilience of all these space programs and that they are continuing to try to explore and make these things happen,” she said.

Others pointed to the size and capabilities of the Cape’s launch infrastructure.

“Technology is just incredible right now,” said a spectator.

For 10-year-old Bryleigh Bradley, the launches serve as inspiration for her own future ambitions.

“I want to be an astronaut,” she said. “Because it’s cool. Most people are down here and then you’re up in space.”

Bryleigh said Thursday’s explosion also reminded her of the Apollo 1 tragedy, which claimed the lives of three astronauts during a ground test in 1967.

“That’s what I thought about honestly,” she said, adding she was thankful no one was injured in Thursday’s mishap.

Among the crowds gathered Friday evening, many shared that sentiment, expressing gratitude that the explosion did not result in injuries while celebrating another successful day of launches along the Space Coast.

“We came out on the balcony and saw the flames,” one resident said.

[RELATED: Watch Spaceflight Now’s footage of the Blue Origin rocket explosion]

The sky filled with smoke in the moments after the explosion, though some residents said the plumes looked more like clouds from a distance. Despite the dramatic scene, most people in the area say they are not worried about air quality or debris reaching local beaches.

“I think everything’s fine. We didn’t smell anything or I haven’t really seen anything, so I think everybody is OK,” one resident said.

What was in that smoke?

Greg Autry, associate provost for Space Commercialization and Strategy at the University of Central Florida, says residents have little reason to worry about what they breathed in.

“This is methane and liquid oxygen. And what you get out of that is CO2 and water. So that’s not a dangerous mix of chemicals,” Autry said.

Debris is the bigger concern

While the air appears safe, Autry says the real environmental worry is what ends up in the water.

“There’s going to be a mess to clean up, and that’s an environmental concern. You don’t want any of that washing into the lagoon,” he said.

Blue Origin posted on X that debris from the explosion could wash ashore within the next few days and weeks. The company is asking anyone who spots debris not to touch it — but to report it immediately.

To report debris:

• Call: 321-222-4355
• Email: missionrecovery@blueorigin.com

The explosion happened during a static fire engine test — a standard procedure where engines are ignited while the rocket stays secured to the pad — ahead of a launch planned for the following week. Residents captured videos of the fireball on their cell phones and shared them widely.

Bezos, CEO React

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos addressed the incident in a statement posted to X.

“All personnel are accounted for and safe,” Bezos wrote. “It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.”

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp posted a follow-up update on X the following Saturday.

“We have regained some access to Launch Complex 36 and are actively investigating the hotfire anomaly,” Limp wrote. “We will start clearing the pad soon and have a good rebuild plan in place. The booster and GS2’s in the integration facility appear healthy from quick looks.”

[RELATED: Watch Spaceflight Now’s footage of the Blue Origin rocket explosion]

What Witnesses Saw

CBS News Senior Space Consultant Bill Harwood described the chain of events and the scale of the destruction.

“The fire began — it appeared anyway — at the base of the rocket as they were firing the engines for a hot fire test,” Harwood said. “It quickly engulfed the rocket. The vehicle appeared to begin collapsing. All of that liquid methane and oxygen was then released, and it exploded in a fireball, the likes of which I think few of us have ever seen before.”

Harwood said the blast destroyed the rocket entirely and took out at least one of the lightning towers at the pad. He added that a full damage assessment is still ongoing.

Debris Warning

Debris from the explosion could begin washing ashore in the coming days or weeks as ocean conditions shift.

Blue Origin says people should not touch it, warning it could contain hazardous materials or sharp components that could cause injury.

Brevard EOC issued this statement; “If you find suspected Blue Origin anomaly debris, do not call to the Blue Origin Wreckage Management hotline at 321-222-4355 or by email at missionrecovery@blueorigin.com ."

A Setback With Broader Consequences

The destruction of the rocket is only part of the problem. New Glenn has just one launch pad — Launch Complex 36 — meaning Blue Origin cannot fly again until the pad is repaired and the cause of the explosion is determined.

For context, Harwood pointed to a similar incident: In 2016, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 exploded on the launch pad during a hot fire test. SpaceX resumed flights in roughly three and a half months — but had two other launch pads available at the time, including one at Kennedy Space Center and another at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

“In the case of SpaceX and pad 40, it took them more than a year to return that pad to service,” Harwood said. “So it’s unclear — we don’t know simply how long it’s going to take to get the New Glenn pad going again.”

Harwood cautioned against drawing early conclusions about the cause, but noted the implications could extend beyond Blue Origin.

“If it’s an engine problem, you’ve got to remember — those same engines are used by United Launch Alliance and their new Vulcan rocket,” Harwood said. “So obviously, a major problem with the engines would affect not just Blue Origin, but also United Launch Alliance.”

He added: “We can say with no question at all — it’s going to be many months before we see a Blue Origin New Glenn flying again.”

Congress Takes Notice

U.S. Rep. Mike Haridopolos, who chairs the House Space Committee, called the explosion unlike anything he has seen in his years following the space program.

“This is a big deal, and we want to get to the bottom of it,” Haridopolos said.

He confirmed he had already been in contact with Blue Origin and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who was set to visit the damaged launch pad Friday. Haridopolos also pointed to the national security stakes of getting the pad back online.

“We’re relying on Blue Origin,” Haridopolos said. “They, along with SpaceX, are going to be the landers that we put on the moon. They have two different concepts of what they’re building. But we were relying on this New Glenn rocket to put that lander up in space.”

Despite the severity of the damage, Haridopolos expressed confidence in Blue Origin’s ability to recover, noting the company recently hired 600 additional employees on the Space Coast.

“I have full confidence that they’re going to rebuild, come back stronger, and we’re going to win the space race,” he said.

[RELATED: Florida congressman reacts to Blue Origin rocket explosion]

Space Coast Resilience

Space Florida CEO Robert Long said the explosion should not be seen as a broader blow to the aerospace industry — pointing to another launch that took place the very morning after the blast as evidence.

“These things are going to happen from time to time,” Long said. “It’s part of the normal course of business. But at the same time, things continue.”

“When you look at the bigger picture, I think we just saw a launch this morning, right? So when you talk about the space port as a whole, I think it shows the level of resilience that the system has,” Long added.

While Sheriff Wayne Ivey said there have not been any reported injuries thus far, News 6 has begun to gather images and videos of the explosion from a variety of sources.

[RELATED: Here’s what we know so far about the Blue Origin rocket explosion on Florida’s coast]

You can check those out below:

• SPACEFLIGHT NOW

• CAPE CANAVERAL COMMUNITY CENTER

• CAPE CANAVERAL MAYOR WES MORRISON

• VIDEO FROM GARRETT FISCHER

• PHOTO FROM AMBERLE PLATTS

• PHOTOS FROM JOHN HEID

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lineup for the event, which will take place Sept. 18-19 at the T-Mobile Arena, also includes Weezer, Goo Goo Dolls and Kenny Chesney. More artists will be announced at a later date.

Ryan Seacrest will once again host, and fans can hear it all on iHeartMedia radio stations or watch it streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

The general public can buy tickets on AXS.com starting at 2 p.m. EDT/11 a.m. PDT on June 12. Capital One cardholders will be able to access a presale beginning at 1 p.m. EDT/10 a.m. PDT on June 10.

“The iHeartRadio Music Festival is all about bringing together the biggest artists across every genre for two unforgettable nights, and this year’s lineup truly reflects the incredible diversity of music today,” Tom Poleman, chief programming officer, and John Sykes, president of entertainment enterprises of iHeartMedia, said in a joint statement.

Earlier this year, BTS made a triumphant return after a nearly four-year musical hiatus. “ARIRANG,” the 14-track, fifth studio album from the septet is huge; an ambitious reunion and the band’s first original full-length release since the seven members completed South Korea’s mandatory military service. Not that it has been all quiet at team BTS: The band staggered their enlistments, giving ample time for its members to focus on solo projects while the group was on a break.

They've returned to the stage since then, and iHeartRadio Music Festival is another victory lap.

Since the 1990s, forecast track errors have been cut by more than half, while intensity forecasting has steadily improved. This is giving meteorologists a much clearer picture of where storms are headed and how strong they could become several days in advance.

That accuracy was on display during the 2025 hurricane season with Hurricane Melissa, when forecasters made the aggressive call nearly three days ahead of landfall that the storm would rapidly intensify from a Category 1 hurricane into a powerful Category 5 before striking Jamaica.

Much of that improvement is being driven by better data, including information collected from areas inside of hurricanes that was impossible to safely reach just a few years ago.

National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan says new uncrewed aircraft systems are now helping forecasters gather data just feet above the ocean surface inside hurricanes.

“The small UAS ... can fly down near the ocean surface within just a few feet of the ocean surface where you can’t take a crew aircraft,” Brennan explained. “It’s not safe to fly down that far.”

That information helps scientists better understand the structure and intensity of storms in real time.

Forecast technology is also expanding outside the storm itself.

Brennan says NOAA is preparing to launch new tools and aircraft that will improve data collection around hurricanes.

“There’s always new tools coming on board,” Brennan said. “NOAA has new aircraft that will be coming online later this year ... that’ll help us gather data around and ahead of the storm.”

Artificial intelligence is also becoming part of the forecasting process. In 2025, AI based hurricane models ranked as one of the most accurate guidance tools available to forecasters.

But Brennan says AI is just one piece of the forecasting toolbox.

“AI models are another part of that toolbox,” Brennan said. “If they are all pointing in the same direction, that’s going to help us be more confident to make the more aggressive forecasts.”

Even with rapidly improving technology, Brennan says the final forecast still depends heavily on human expertise.

“There’s a lot of care and a lot of thought and consideration that goes into every aspect of that forecast,” he said.

It’s that combination of cutting edge technology and experienced forecasters that continues to improve hurricane predictions, giving people more confidence in the forecast and, most importantly, more time to prepare.

Four meters (13 feet) beneath them, a team of archaeologists is digging the other way — straight down and back in time, to Roman Paris 2,000 years ago.

In 2019, fire brought Notre Dame’s spire crashing down as the world watched. The cathedral was rebuilt and reopened in late 2024, and now Paris wants to soften the hot, bare square in front of it with trees and shade.

But in a city this old, the soil cannot be turned until what lies beneath it is excavated, in case it is damaged during works.

So a slice of Notre Dame’s forecourt has become an excavation site — an open pit ringed by barriers and crossed by a wooden walkway, a few steps from the line-up.

A modern Da Vinci Code

French media have dubbed it the “dig of the century.”

“It’s a rare opportunity for us to work on something that’s tangibly going to make a difference to the history of Paris,” Lucie Altenburg, a conservator with the Paris archaeology unit, told The Associated Press.

Among the hundreds of objects already found: a fourth-century coin stamped with the face of the Emperor Constantine, and shards of medieval pottery painted on the inside with marks no expert has yet deciphered — like a modern Da Vinci Code.

“It makes Notre Dame feel alive again,” said Emily Carter, 34, a tourist from Manchester waiting in line with her two children. “You come to see the cathedral, then realize there’s another city under your feet. That’s almost more moving.”

The first traces appear 50 centimeters (20 inches) down; 4 meters (13 feet) lower, the team is still pulling up the past. Some days they fill 15 crates — from ground that has lain untouched for decades.

Ancient cities have archaeologists monitoring digs

This is the bargain in every old city: The past is not in a museum down the street — it is under the street.

Cities rise. Each age builds on the rubble of the last, and the ground climbs with it; in Rome, it has risen about 9 meters (30 feet) since the empire fell in the fifth century AD.

When Athens built its metro for the 2004 Olympics, it set off the largest excavation in Greek history and turned up tens of thousands of objects, now shown in the stations themselves. Paris is no different.

It all comes from the island in the Seine, the Ile de la Cite, where Paris began.

Centuries later, Notre Dame rose on the same ground.

At the cathedral's birth in 1163, the entire square was packed with medieval houses, split by a single street, said Camille Colonna, the archaeologist leading the dig.

Digging down, her team has reached their cellars — and therefore also the time in history they represent.

Below them lie Merovingian and Carolingian grain pits, from the sixth to the 10th centuries; below those, darker and deeper still, a dense Roman quarter from the fourth and fifth centuries.

Twenty centuries are stacked in 4 meters (13 feet) of earth — or about the height of two-and-a-half Napoleon Bonapartes standing on top of one another.

“Here you can see the layers — medieval Paris, Roman Paris, maybe even before that,” said Yasmine Benali, 22, an archaeology student watching from behind the barriers. “It makes the city feel less like a postcard and more like something still being discovered.”

Coins, ceramics and mysterious markings

The richest finds here come from the foulest place: the deep pits beneath the medieval houses, old latrines that doubled as rubbish dumps.

Out of them the team keeps lifting whole jugs and cups — thrown away centuries ago, yet still intact — among the broken plates and animal bones.

It’s “rare to find complete ceramics,” said Valentine Breloux, an archaeologist with the unit.

Here the soft waste cushioned them, and centuries later they miraculously came up whole.

Then some other objects came that confounded experts. As conservators cleaned what looked like ordinary medieval pottery, they found faint reddish writing painted on the inside — the same mysterious markings on shard after shard.

What they mean has yet to be deciphered.

Of everything she has cleaned from Notre Dame, Breloux said, these are the most “astonishing.”

Coins can help date the layers

The coins came up as black discs, eaten by rust. But under an X-ray, a face returned: it was Constantine, the Roman emperor who ruled in the early 300s AD.

Such objects also "can be invaluable in giving us the date of the (underground) layer,” Altenburg said.

The Roman finds are the ones the archaeologists value most — the deepest, oldest and least understood. In Roman times, the town was called Lutetia, and its center lay across the river, on the Left Bank.

As the Roman empire collapsed, people pulled back to the Ile de la Cite, where Notre Dame would later rise, and fortified the island with walls of stone taken from earlier buildings.

Colonna’s team found some proof: a Roman doorstep found in the dig, taken from a much bigger building, carried over, turned upside down, and laid in a road as paving.

Paris houses thousands of finds in an archaeology center

Every find leaves the pit and travels north, to the city’s archaeology center — what Colonna calls “a huge archaeological store," a treasure house of Paris.

For archaeologists, the cathedral dig is a rare treat. In France, like elsewhere, they work only where building work is about to begin — a bit like how industrial quarry workers end up unearthing dinosaur remains.

"This only happens because the city of Paris decided it wanted to beautify the area," Altenburg said.

The new square should be mostly finished by 2028: a kind of woodland clearing, with 160 new trees and a thin film of water sliding over the stone to cool it in summer — part of how Paris is bracing for ever hotter summers induced by global warming.

The tourists who now wait in the bare sun beneath the gargoyles will, in a few summers, line up in the shade.

The old underground parking lot will reopen as a visitor center looking onto the Seine.

Until then, the Notre Dame team wants to go deeper still — past the Romans, toward whoever came before them, the Gauls who gave the city its first name.

“The hope is that we are able to go back in time even further than we’ve ever been before,” Altenburg said.

___

Nicolas Garriga in Paris contributed.

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

Here are some things to watch as voters in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota cast ballots.

California's low-wattage race for governor

Ronald Reagan. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jerry Brown. Gavin Newsom.

The governor's office in California typically attracts some of the highest-wattage names in politics, but not this year.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla took a pass on the race. And with Newsom barred from seeking a third term, the campaign to succeed him turned into a sprawling, often messy contest.

In the final stretch, much of the attention has focused on Democrats Xavier Becerra, the former congressman and state attorney general who was also health secretary under President Joe Biden, and Tom Steyer, a billionaire known for his climate activism. Republican Steve Hilton is campaigning with President Donald Trump's endorsement.

Under California's primary system, all candidates appear on a single ballot and the top two finishers advance to the November general election, regardless of party. The absence of a front-runner incentivized virtually anyone with political ambition and a modicum of organization to join the race, leaving Democrats worried that their candidates would divide the vote and ultimately be shut out of the fall campaign. But those fears have eased in the primary's closing weeks, with the party now expecting to secure at least one slot on the November ballot.

The results could offer insight about how voters are feeling in a state where Democrats have dominated statewide elections for two decades.

Los Angeles mayor seeks to fend off reality star challenger

In a city still recovering from the most destructive wildfire in its history, Mayor Karen Bass is in a tough fight for reelection.

The mayor, who is a frequent target of Trump's criticism, was in Ghana as part of a presidential delegation when the blaze began. She has acknowledged mistakes but has centered her campaign around a message of recovery and progress.

Bass is facing a spirited challenge from reality television personality Spencer Pratt, who has blamed Bass for presiding over destruction that claimed his own home. Pratt, who rose to fame on “The Hills,” has shared videos created by artificial intelligence that show him taking on a superhero persona to battle street criminals and Democratic politicians.

The race is officially nonpartisan, but Bass is a Democrat, as is progressive city council member Nithya Raman, who made a last-minute decision to challenge her one-time ally. Pratt is a registered Republican who has received a nod of approval — if not an outright endorsement — from Trump.

Unless a candidate receives a majority of the vote in the primary, the top two will advance to a general election in November.

Los Angeles hasn't elected a Republican mayor since Richard Riordan won his second term in 1997, and the results will be closely watched for signs of dissatisfaction with liberal urban governance. The winner will emerge as a national and global figure as the city prepares to host the Olympics in 2028.

Democrats look to Iowa to rebuild in the heartland

Iowa wasn't always a Republican stronghold.

Before Trump reshaped American politics, this was the state the lifted the political career of Barack Obama and sent Tom Harkin to the Senate for five terms.

The party is particularly excited about Rob Sand, who is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor. A native of Decorah, Iowa, he has the rural roots that have become rare among Democrats. Perhaps most importantly, he's a proven winner in a Republican-leaning state, having been elected twice as auditor.

Republicans head into the primary with five candidates. Trump jumped in last week to endorse Rep. Randy Feenstra.

This is the first open contest for the governor's seat since 2006. Democrats are hoping that a combination of the economic fallout from Trump's tariff policies, rising gas prices stemming from the Iran war and the lack of a Republican incumbent could give them their best opportunity in years. Sand also has a fundraising advantage over the Republicans, including Feenstra.

State Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls are competing in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by incumbent Republican Joni Ernst. The race has divided in part along questions of who should lead the party in Washington, with Wahls openly criticizing Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. Republicans have largely coalesced behind U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson as their candidate for the Senate seat.

An unexplained absence puts crucial GOP seat at risk

In the final frenzied days before an election, voters can sometimes grow tired of hearing from candidates so much. But in New Jersey's 7th congressional district, they're not hearing from one candidate at all.

Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. is running unopposed in Tuesday's primary. But he's facing growing scrutiny for an unexplained medical absence that has stretched for three months, causing him to miss more than 100 votes in Congress.

That's not an ideal statistic for any lawmaker, but it's especially problematic for someone running in one of the few genuinely competitive congressional districts. While gerrymandering has yielded most U.S. House seats reliably Democratic or Republican, Kean's district has flipped between the parties in each of the last two midterm elections. Republican Leonard Lance lost to Democrat Tom Malinowski in 2018. Malinowski lost to Kean in 2022.

As they cling to a narrow majority in the House, Republicans can't afford to lose a district like Kean's. Several Democrats vying to take on Kean in the fall have made his absence — and the lack of clarity surrounding it — a central part of their message.

In a social media post late Monday, Trump said Kean was “working tirelessly” to support the MAGA agenda.

New Jersey was one of the first places that voter pushback to Trump became apparent last year when Democrat Mikie Sherrill won the governor's race by more than 14 percentage points. The turnout in the 7th district on Tuesday could provide clues about whether that Democratic enthusiasm remains in place.

Democrats pin their hopes on independent candidates in some states

Democrats are hopeful they can mount a serious challenge against Republican Senate candidates in deep-red South Dakota and Montana this fall. But their best hope may not be the Democrats featured on Tuesday’s primary ballot.

Both states feature higher-profile independent candidates, who, because they’re not running to represent a political party, do not have to compete in primary elections.

In Montana, there are five Democrats competing for the party’s Senate nomination. But independent Seth Bodnar, the former University of Montana president, has raised more money than all of them combined. He’s even significantly out-raised Trump-backed Republican candidate Kurt Alme.

In South Dakota, three-term incumbent Republican Mike Rounds is expected to cruise to his party’s nomination on Tuesday. He’ll face Democrat Julian Beaudion, a former highway patrol trooper and small business owner, on the November ballot. But it’s a former Democrat now running as an independent, Brian Bengs, a military veteran, who may be the tougher challenger.

The U.K. has a legally binding target, set in 2008, of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. By law, the government must legislate for emissions caps for future five-yearly budgets on a strict timetable.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said that the government will accept the advice of its independent Climate Change Committee of an 87% target for the next budget, covering the years 2038 to 2042.

The government argues that moving to clean energy will reduce the country's exposure to fuel-price shocks like those seen from the Russia-Ukraine war and the conflict in the Middle East.

“As Britain faces the second fossil fuel shock of the decade, the only way to protect family and business finances is to drive for clean homegrown power that we control,” Miliband said.

Scientists said that the goal puts the U.K. on course to meet its 2050 net zero target, though Tuesday's announcement doesn't include details of how it will be achieved.

“I think this is very good news as a milestone to net zero at 2050. But, alongside the ambition, we need both a coherent joined-up plan to achieve it and a delivery board — independent of government, politics and the (Climate Change Committee) — tasked with making it happen," said Martin Siegert, professor of geosciences at the University of Exeter.

The opposition Conservative and Reform UK parties argue that the government should water down renewable energy targets, and extract more oil and gas from the North Sea to reduce Britain’s dependence on imported energy.

Conservative Party energy spokeswoman Claire Coutinho said that the emissions target “will make us weaker, poorer and send everyone’s energy bills even higher.”

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

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

The attack stretched past dawn, with explosions reverberating across cities. Officials said 12 people were killed in Dnipro and six in Kyiv.

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

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

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

Kyiv mother and daughter shelter in a bathtub

At least 79 people were wounded in the capital, emergency services said. Iryna Salikova, 37, spent the night lying in a bathtub for protection with her 3-year-old daughter, as blasts reverberated across the city.

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

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

Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov proclaimed Wednesday would be a day of mourning for the 12 dead in his city. That announcement came 20 minutes before Filatov said another drone had struck a residential building there about 2:40 p.m.

Putin seeks to change the narrative of the war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Man hurled from Kyiv apartment by blast

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

At least four people were killed in Kyiv and 79 people were injured, including three children, Ukraine's state emergency service said. Residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure were damaged in eight Kyiv districts.

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

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

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

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

___

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

___

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

The hearing before the House Appropriations Committee was scheduled for discussion of the Justice Department's budget, but lawmakers will almost certainly focus their questioning on the creation of a fund that has provoked outrage over the mere possibility that violent pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could be eligible for payouts.

The Republican president is now reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund established to resolve his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, according to a person familiar with the matter, in the face of Republican backlash and legal setbacks. The person insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking on Monday. The Justice Department also said Monday it would comply with a Virginia court temporarily blocking the administration's “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” effectively agreeing to pause the plan for at least two weeks.

Another judge in Florida raised the prospect of reopening the IRS lawsuit because of “grievous allegations” of improper dealing made against the administration by settlement critics.

The Trump administration has defended the fund as an appropriate measure to make up for what officials insist was a weaponized Justice Department during President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, a claim the Biden administration strongly denied. Though some Trump supporters, including participants in the Capitol riot, have celebrated the announcement, the reaction among Republicans in Congress has been decidedly more hostile, forcing Blanche to try to assuage a GOP constituency that generally operates in close alignment with the administration.

The furor has especially complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies. Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the fund. Many have pushed the administration to impose limits or scrap the idea altogether.

At a Senate budget hearing last month, Blanche refused to rule out the possibility that those who carried out violence on Jan. 6 could be eligible for payouts and has repeatedly said in interviews that anyone who feels persecuted by the criminal justice system is free to apply. Payouts will be decided by a five-member commission appointed by Blanche.

But he has apparently struck a more conciliatory tone in private when confronted by Republican anger.

Blanche encountered a groundswell of opposition last month at a tense private meeting with GOP senators, with more than half raising concerns, including by shouting at the Justice Department's top official, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in a recent episode of his podcast.

“There were fireworks at an epic level — and I've got to say, it's one of the roughest meetings I've seen in my entire time in the Senate," Cruz said.

Behind closed doors, Blanche was “adamant” that no one who assaulted police at the Capitol would receive compensation, according to Cruz.

“He said not just ‘no,’ but ‘hell no,’” the senator recalled.

For the second year in a row, the North Shore at Lake Hart HOA has “postponed” its annual board elections as the association appeals a court order requiring it to comply with the arbitrator’s ruling.

“It’s just really unsettling and frustrating as a homeowner,” Tonja Niemi told News 6. “I love where I live, but we need to have an election.”

In 2023, homeowner Miriam Burtoff filed a petition with the state agency that oversees HOA election disputes, Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation, or DBPR.

Miriam Burtoff is the wife of Bruce Burtoff, an attorney who has been jailed for contempt since March as part of a separate legal dispute with the North Shore at Lake Hart HOA.

Miriam Burtoff alleged that the HOA board had illegally amended the association’s by-laws in 2021 to disqualify people from being board candidates if they were involved in litigation with the HOA.

DBPR assigned the dispute to an arbitrator who held a two-day hearing to hear witness testimony and review documents.

Arbitrator Keith Hope issued a final order in December 2023 ordering the HOA to hold a new election for all five of its board seats.

Besides finding that the HOA had improperly precluded homeowners from seeking election to the board, the arbitrator determined that the HOA had a “history” of “improper conduct of elections and board meetings”.

An Orange County circuit court judge confirmed the arbitrator’s order in April 2024.

Seven months later, the HOA appealed.

“DBPR Arbitrator Hope exceeded his power and authority in ordering a new five-seat election,” an HOA attorney wrote in its petition to the 6^th District Court of Appeal. “Although there was only one director seat up for election at the May 2, 2023 annual meeting, DBPR Arbitrator Hope took the bait cast by Burtoff and clearly looked back at previously unchallenged elections in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, found that they were somehow flawed, and then created a remedy for what he perceived as election problems.”

The 6^th District Court of Appeal has not indicated when it might rule on the HOA’s petition.

Until the appeals court issues a ruling, the HOA has indicated that it will not hold new elections, leaving the current board in place.

“The election is being deferred until the case makes its way through the courts,” a spokesperson for the HOA’s management company told News 6 in response to questions about the election.

“The homeowners just want to have a fair election with fair rules,” said Miriam Burtoff. “They’ve put every hurdle up known to man.”

News 6 gave all five members of the North Shore at Lake Hart HOA board an opportunity to comment on this story.

Only two board members, who said they are typically outvoted on HOA matters by the majority, provided statements.

“Homeowners want an election,” board member Kurt Kuhl told News 6. “They are suffering from fatigue fighting this Association and litigation. If an election is announced, in my opinion there would be over 20 candidates if not more.”

Gregory Mathison, another board member, said he concurred with Kuhl’s comments while also referencing the lawyer who remains incarcerated for contempt.

“Thank you for drawing attention to the facts of how homeowners have been abused, threatened, sued multiple times, and – to make all that even worse and, in my opinion, dangerous – having a 78-year-old neighbor, physician and attorney jailed,” said Mathison.

Despite the HOA announcing that elections were again being “postponed” this year and would not take place during the association’s annual meeting, dozens of homeowners attended anyway.

The meeting was quickly adjourned due to lack of quorum.

“They have done nothing but put off elections,” said homeowner Tom DeFreest. “It has created a hostile environment if you don’t have a voice in any kind of government and they’re controlling the scenario and they are spending your money.”

Dolores Petropulos, a retired Orlando police officer who has lived in the community for more than 20 years, said many of her neighbors worry they could be sued if they publicly criticize the HOA board.

“It pits one neighbor against another,” Petropulos said. “A lot of them are afraid.”

Homeowner Mike Drew said he originally tried to stay quiet about HOA matters but has recently become more vocal.

“We can’t make effective changes,” Drew said. “This community has kind of lost its spirit. We need to bring that spirit back.”

More than half of 2025’s sales were “mega-deals” valued at $100 million or more, the ministry said, adding that sales have more than doubled in the last five years, despite widespread criticism of Israel’s conduct in its wars in Gaza, with Hezbollah and with Iran.

It did not identify any of the buyers.

Countries that have vowed to shun Israeli weapons makers are nonetheless quietly placing orders, according to industry officials. Experts say governments look to Israel because its weapons are battle-tested and they're able to see in real time that the munitions and systems work.

“There is a clear and unmistakable thread connecting the (army's) battlefield achievements across all fronts, the extraordinary capabilities of Israel’s defense industries, and the success of Israeli defense exports around the world,” said Defense Minister Israel Katz. He said the growing figures reinforce Israel's position as a leading defense technology power and carry a responsibility to keep innovating.

One area Israel’s Defense Ministry says will be a future priority for innovation is taking down drones, which has proven challenging during the war with Iran. Drones are hard to pinpoint on radar systems calibrated for spotting high-speed missiles and can be mistaken for birds or planes.

This year’s Defense Tech Expo in Tel Aviv reflected the growing international interest in Israeli weapons, with manufacturers promoting arms and other equipment shaped by the country’s recent conflicts. But it also highlighted the tension between showcasing the military technology and the political debate surrounding its use, with event protesters decrying the widespread destruction of Gaza as a testing lab for Israeli weapons.

Israel’s Defense Ministry says it uses its equipment to defend the country and its people, and denies that it uses battlefields as testing grounds.

More than a quarter of the sales last year were missile, rocket, and air defense systems, as in the year prior, said the defense ministry. There was also a surge in observation and optronics systems, it said. Optronics is a branch of electronics dealing with optical, infrared or ultraviolet radiation, and is used in applications such as rifle sights.

A March report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said that for the first time, Israel has surpassed the United Kingdom in its share of global arms exports, making it the world’s seventh-biggest supplier.

At issue is territory claimed by both that is believed to contain large, exploitable amounts of natural gas and other hydrocarbons.

The decision to take the matter to the the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, comes after Thailand last month terminated a 25-year-old memorandum of understanding with Cambodia meant to resolve overlapping maritime claims.

Thailand unilaterally revoked the agreement in May after relations between the countries worsened last year after major armed clashes over their land border.

Last year’s fighting with Cambodia spurred nationalistic fervor, putting political pressure on Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul to abrogate the pact.

In a live broadcast on TVK state television, Hun Manet said that his government had delivered formal notice to Thailand and to the U.N. secretary-general to begin compulsory conciliation proceedings under UNCLOS rules.

“Cambodia has never violated the sovereignty of other states," he said.

"At the same time, we are unwaveringly determined to defend Cambodia’s sovereignty. Today, we continue to honor that responsibility, not through force, but through international law; not through unilateral action, but through peaceful engagement.”

It wasn't immediately clear when the claim might be adjudicated.

Anutin responded to the announcement by telling reporters that Cambodia's action wasn't a problem. He had previously said that Thailand would continue to pursue a resolution of the maritime border issue according to UNCLOS guidelines, but didn't agree with Cambodia's intention to force conciliation.

Any UNCLOS ruling isn't binding on the parties involved, even though both countries are signatories to the international pact.

Thailand has been averse to having territorial issues decided by third parties rather than handled bilaterally. It has long felt that a 1962 ruling by the International Court of Justice awarding Cambodia the hilltop Preah Vihear temple along their border to be unfair, which has contributed to ongoing tensions between the neighbors.

By green-lighting controversial “return hubs” outside the 27-nation EU, the regulation represents the EU’s hardest line on migration so far and has drawn sharp criticism from opponents who warn it will endanger migrants and undermine human rights from Spain to Romania.

“The new regulation will speed up the return process and increase returns of persons who have no legal right to stay in the EU,” said Nicholas Ioannides, deputy migration minister for Cyprus, which holds the rotating presidency of the 27-nation bloc.

The deal was struck between the EU's three main institutions — the European Commission, the European Council and European Parliament — during a so-called “trilogue” Monday evening.

“Europe cannot afford another period of standstill,” said Dutch lawmaker Malik Azmani, who shepherded the regulation through the European Parliament.

“There is an urgent need for an effective return policy with higher return rates," he said, adding that only 28% of rejected asylum seekers return to their country of origin, with the majority staying put in the EU. “This situation is deeply concerning. It undermines public confidence in our common migration policies.”

Critics compared the regulation to the immigration policies of the Trump administration, which has struck a series of secretive agreements with nations around the world to deport thousands of people to countries that are not their own. The United Kingdom also planned to deport migrants to Rwanda, but the plan was bogged down in legal red tape and was dropped when a new government came to power in July 2024.

Several EU governments are already in talks with third countries

“Across the Atlantic, we see the violence and fear created by ICE’s brutal immigration enforcement," said Silvia Carter, spokesperson for the Brussels-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Europe should be learning from the harms of that model, not building its own version of it.”

Law enforcement officers across the bloc no longer need warrants from judges to raid private residences or public institutions like hospitals, she said. “The regulation is going to create a draconian detention and deportation machine."

The provisional agreement will now head to the EU lawmakers and governments, where approval will likely be swift.

“These new rules will ensure swifter, simpler, and more effective procedures across the European Union for returning non-EU nationals who have no right to stay, in full respect of international law and fundamental rights,” said Henna Virkkunen, EU commissioner for technology.

EU member nations will soon be able to set up bilateral deals with countries outside the bloc to build deportation centers. At least five EU nations — Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece — are already in talks with third countries, mostly in Africa, to host “return hubs” on the model of Italy's detention deal with Albania.

“We are delivering the member states tools in their hands to make those agreements and arrangements with third countries,” Azmani said.

Mélissa Camara, a lawmaker from the French Green party, said the deal was “a historic setback” for human rights in the bloc.

“The legalization of return hubs outside the European Union, the green light for the detention of minors, home visits inspired by ICE practices: the legal arsenal serving a xenophobic ideology is now complete,” she said.

EU migration policy has steadily shifted to the right

The EU has continually tightened migration policies after right-wing parties secured the majority of votes in some countries in the 2024 elections to the European Parliament. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, from the center-right European People’s Party coalition, has said that the new measures will prevent a repeat of the 2015 crisis caused by Syria’s civil war, when about 1 million people arrived to seek asylum.

Fueled by people fleeing conflict and poverty across Africa and the Middle East, the 2015 refugee crisis and successive years of irregular migration to Europe drove a rightward shift in the bloc's politics not unlike the anti-immigrant sentiment that buoyed a “ red wave ” in the 2024 election in the United States.

After successfully campaigning on tougher migration policies, the winners of that election, the European People’s Party, the largest political group in the EU, began negotiating migration reform with centrist and left parties only to eventually sidestep them by allying instead with the far right, said Carter, the asylum rights activist. “There was quite an unprecedented shift in the European Parliament."

Advocacy groups warned the regulation would cut deep into the protections granted by the EU fundamental charter on human rights and expose people to risks outside the bloc.

“This deal will give governments much broader powers to detain and deport people," said Marta Welander, a spokesperson for the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization. "It looks set to normalize immigration raids, expand the use of detention in prison-like facilities outside EU territory that are essentially legal black holes, and increase the risk of people being deported to countries where they could face persecution, torture or worse.”

——

Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Japan's Environment Ministry said a record 13 people were killed in more than 230 attacks by bears in 2025.

Police and fire department officials rushed to the Sasakino district of Fukushima in northeastern Japan after receiving an emergency call from the Fukushima Steel Works reporting bear attacks on two employees.

Security camera footage shows a black bear appearing and chasing an employee near the entrance. As the man in his 20s tries to flee, the bear throws him to the ground. It then moves into the compound and injures a second male employee in his 60s.

The bear later injured a third person, a male employee in his 60s at separate company. A woman in her 80s who lives in the neighborhood also was attacked and injured, the Fukushima City Fire Department said.

The three men sustained minor injuries and the woman had moderate injuries but none were considered life-threatening, the fire department said.

The bear had not been caught as of Tuesday afternoon and was believed to be inside the second company compound, which was surrounded by uniformed police carrying long sticks.

Two nearby schools were closed, including Noda Elementary School, which held classes online and put a warning on its website to “avoid non-essential outings and stay safe.”

The bear attack has rekindled last year's nationwide fear that led to Japan's army being dispatched to the northern prefecture of Akita where more than 60 people were attacked by bears, with four killed.

The encroachment by a growing bear population has occurred in a region with a rapidly aging and declining human population that has few people trained to hunt the animals, experts say.

The Japanese government in March estimated the overall bear population at around 57,800. Officials have adopted a road map of bear population management, calling for systematic culling. Under the plan, the number of municipal bear control staff will triple to 2,500 within five years, while the number of bear traps will double.

Bear sightings were reported recently in Tokyo's western suburbs, including the hiking area of Okutama. Park officials have set up additional traps and launched bear alerts on social media.

The government has stepped up a public awareness campaign, urging hikers and mushroom hunters to check notifications about bear sightings and avoid outdoor activity in the early morning and evening when bears are active.

An environment ministry manual advises that anyone encountering a bear should not panic, move slowly and avoid turning around and running. As a last resort, the manual says anyone attacked should turn face down, ball up and cover their neck.

“The point is to save yourself from a fatal wound," according to the manual.

The Cleveland Browns traded the two-time AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year to the Los Angeles Rams for pass rusher Jared Verse and three draft picks in a blockbuster deal on Monday.

Garrett was the unanimous choice for Defensive Player of the Year last season after he had 23 sacks and broke the NFL single-season record. He is expected to report to the Rams' facility on Tuesday and have a news conference to discuss the trade.

Garrett's addition marks the first time the reigning AP NFL MVP and Defensive Player of the Year will be teammates. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford won his first MVP award last season.

General manager Andrew Berry was able to make a deal after the Browns and Garrett agreed to modify the contract and defer option payments over the 2026-28 seasons in March. The first payment of around $10 million was due on March 28, but was moved to near the start of the regular season.

Garrett demanded a trade at the end of the 2024 season, but signed a four-year contract extension last March with a total value of $204.8 million that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history. The contract also included a no-trade clause.

Berry had long said that Garrett would play his entire career in Cleveland, but Garrett's lingering frustrations over the franchise's direction and the chance to start anew meant it was time to move on.

Cleveland is 8-26 the past two years after making the playoffs in 2023.

“As discussions intensified we were stuck at a legitimate crossroads: do we hold on to a truly generational player who has become the identity of our team, or do we make the difficult decision that we think is best for the organization over the long run?," Berry said after the trade was announced.

The Browns get Verse — the 2024 AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year — a 2027 first-round selection, a second-round pick in 2028 and a 2029 third-round selection.

Owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam said in a statement that they met with Garrett on Saturday to discuss the trade.

“Trading Myles was never our intent, but we also recognize that certain opportunities demand serious consideration, and we believe this is the right move for our team. Adding a young defensive star like Jared Verse, along with valuable draft assets, are necessary to strengthen a talented young core and align with the youth of our team,” the Haslams said.

Garrett was not seen at the Browns' facility during offseason workouts even though he made a couple of visits to Cleveland during the Cavaliers' NBA playoff run. Garrett has a minority stake in the Cavaliers.

Coach Todd Monken said two weeks ago he had not had a face-to-face meeting with Garrett since being hired in late January. Defensive coordinator Mike Rutenberg said last week he had some conversations over the phone with Garrett about the direction of the defense.

Garrett supported defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz being promoted to head coach before ownership opted for Monken. Schwartz ended up resigning after three years in Cleveland.

The 30-year old Garrett is the first player in NFL history with at least 12 sacks in six consecutive seasons (2020-25) and the only player with double-digit sacks each of the past eight years. His 125½ career sacks are tied for 20th on the league list.

Garrett, who was part of five double-digit losing seasons during his nine years in Cleveland, finally gets a chance to contend for a Super Bowl title.

“Nine years. It’s hard to put into words what that really means when so much of your life has been shaped in one place, around one team, and with one community behind you ... Cleveland made me tougher. You challenged me. You taught me about perseverance, about showing up even when things aren’t easy, and what loyalty really looks like. Through the highs, lows, setbacks, injuries, expectations, inclement weather, and difficult seasons, you all kept showing up. I never took that for granted,” Garrett said in a social media post Monday night addressed “To Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, and every Browns fan.”

The Browns have the sixth-lowest win percentage since 2017 and are 58-90-1. By comparison, the Rams have the fifth-best record over that span at 92-57, including seven playoff appearances and a Super Bowl title in 2021.

The trade also elevated the Rams to Super Bowl favorites.

Another huge trade by Rams

The trade is yet another blockbuster deal swung by Rams general manager Les Snead, whose eagerness to use his draft picks in trades for star veterans has kept the Rams among the NFL’s top teams during coach Sean McVay’s decade on the sideline.

Snead notably acquired star cornerback Jalen Ramsey from Jacksonville in 2019 in a deal that included two first-round picks, securing the cornerstone of the secondary for a team that won a Super Bowl. But the Rams only won it all after they acquired Matthew Stafford in early 2021 in an even bigger trade for Jared Goff and two first-round picks.

Just a couple of months ago, Snead acquired star cornerback Trent McDuffie from Kansas City in a deal for four draft picks, including a first-rounder, to rebuild the secondary that was the weak link of last season’s team.

Before Snead shocked the NFL by picking quarterback Ty Simpson this spring, the Rams had made only one first-round selection over the previous nine years. That pick was Verse, who quickly became a star during his two seasons as the anchor of the Rams’ rebuilt pass rush in the wake of Aaron Donald’s retirement.

Verse had 4½ sacks while being selected as the NFL’s top defensive rookie in 2024, and he had 7½ sacks last season along with three forced fumbles. Byron Young led the Rams with 12 sacks and interior lineman Kobie Turner contributed seven sacks, and both young stars are heading into the final year of their rookie contracts.

With his Rams in title contention in November 2021, Snead acquired vaunted pass rusher Von Miller from Denver in a trade for LA’s second- and third-round picks. Miller contributed nine sacks in 12 games, providing exactly what they needed alongside Donald to win it all.

The current Rams are among the preseason Super Bowl favorites after winning 12 games and reaching the NFC championship game last season. Stafford, the reigning league MVP, is returning at the head of the NFL’s most potent offense last season along with a retooled defense featuring McDuffie and fellow ex-Kansas City star Jaylen Watson as its new cornerbacks — and now they’ve added the most feared pass rusher in the league.

The Rams’ roster in 2026 now includes last season’s NFL leads in yards passing, TD passes, total receptions (Puka Nacua), receiving touchdowns (Davante Adams) and sacks (Garrett).

After the Rams won the Super Bowl in February 2022 and then crashed out of the playoff picture in an injury-filled 2022-23 season, Snead briefly discarded his usual draft philosophy. He rebuilt his roster through a series of key selections in 2023 and 2024, drafting an entirely new defensive line with Verse, Young, Turner and Braden Fiske — along with All-Pro receiver Nacua.

With his rebuilt roster looming as a Super Bowl favorite again, Snead used his depth on the defensive line to make it even better.

Verse's acquisition gives the Browns the past two AP Defensive Rookies of the Year. Carson Schwesinger won last season after leading NFL rookies with 156 tackles and 11 tackles for loss.

“We receive a young, elite player at a premium position who will only continue to improve in his third NFL season. Jared’s passion and relentless style of play will be embraced by our fans. He will fit right in with the established identity of our defense,” Berry said.

___

AP Pro Football writer Rob Maaddi also contributed to this story.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the commissioner on Monday requesting his appearance at a hearing on June 10 examining the league's TV deals and their compliance with the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.

The 65-year-old law grants professional sports leagues limited antitrust immunity, allowing them to pool their media rights and negotiate as a single entity while protecting them from antitrust lawsuits.

The law applies only to broadcast networks. Courts have ruled in the past that it does not apply to other media, including cable, satellite and streaming. There has been bipartisan sentiment in favor of updating the law, and president Donald Trump has been among the critics of the NFL's embrace of streaming.

According to Jordan's letter, the hearing next week will “examine the extent to which the antitrust exemption created by the SBA has been used by the professional sports leagues to harm consumers and whether potential legislative remedies may be needed to address that harm.”

An NFL spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

The move by Congress comes as the Justice Department is investigating the NFL for potential anticompetitive practices. Speaking in April when the probe was disclosed, a government official, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name, said it was “about affordability for consumers and creating an even playing field for providers.”

In March, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission urging them to review whether the NFL’s distribution methods comply with the 1961 law. The FTC has sought comments from the public on the shift of live sports from broadcast channels to streaming services.

The NFL has said 87% of its games are available on free television, and games aired exclusively on cable or streaming services remain available over the air in the home markets of the competing teams.

The league has broadcast or streaming deals with CBS/Paramount+, NBC/Peacock, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+, Fox, NFL Network, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube TV. Thursday night games moved to Prime Video in 2022, and the league has since moved a wild-card playoff game, Christmas Day games and a Black Friday game to streamers.

This season, Netflix will stream an opening-week game between the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne, Australia, and a Green Bay Packers-Rams game the day before Thanksgiving.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

In another viral post, one X user referenced a common meme in response to the encyclical, writing: “The atheism leaving my body the moment the pope starts talking about how AI is an affront to God and the new Tower of Babel."

That kind of reaction to Leo’s first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), has been prevalent online since its release last week. That enthusiasm is driven in part by a perception, especially among young people, that few political or global leaders grasp or take seriously the known and potential ramifications of AI’s rapid rise. Leaders often have worked to accommodate the tech industry, citing the need for economic growth — and along the way, critics say, cozying up to wealthy CEOs.

“People have really been looking for a response to AI,” said Isabel Thurston, a 27-year-old comedian from Boston. “This was the first — at least in my sphere of the world — world leader to make an announcement to this magnitude.”

History’s first U.S.-born pope has demonstrated a willingness to embrace aspects of contemporary culture. He was recently spotted wearing Nike sneakers under his vestments, and in his encyclical, Leo quoted the wise wizard Gandalf from the “Lord of the Rings," a series by Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien.

“It’s clear that this is written by an American pope. There’s a spirit breathing through this document of an emphasis on individual freedom, on human happiness and human dignity," Robert Orsi, a professor of religious studies and history at Northwestern University, said of Leo's encyclical. “At times, I thought the language really resonates with the Declaration of Independence.”

This specific kind of cultural fluency may help explain some of his viral moments as the leader of the ancient faith.

Just weeks earlier, a group of youths visiting the Vatican coaxed the 70-year-old pontiff to do a viral hand gesture on camera known as the 6-7 meme — a meaningless “brain rot” joke among young people. Though it’s clear in the video that the pope, like most adults, doesn’t understand what they’re asking him to do or its significance, he does it anyway and is met with enthusiastic cheers. A week later, he did it again while smiling and waving to crowds from the popemobile.

The portrait that has emerged from these instances is one of playfulness, but also intentionality. The pontiff reiterates throughout “Magnifica Humanitas” that it is the church’s responsibility to engage contemporary questions and challenges.

“Her mission has a historical scope and entails a responsibility for the way in which social relations are built,” Leo wrote about the Catholic Church. “She cannot consider herself a stranger to the forces shaping society. On the contrary, the Church actively participates in the processes by which society grows and is organized.”

Since his election last year, Leo has made a point to directly converse with — and sometimes critique — various aspects of society, ranging from politics to entertainment and sports.

Pope Francis, Vatican II and other preludes

Orsi studies the relationship between Catholicism and modernity, which he says have often historically been at odds with one another. He said Leo’s encyclical and his broader papacy, like that of his predecessor Pope Francis, is informed heavily by the still-polarizing Second Vatican Council, which brought modernizing reforms to the church more than 60 years ago.

“It’s speaking with a Vatican II voice to the modern world. So, it’s not a voice of condemnation, but it’s a voice of respect,” Orsi said of Leo’s encyclical. “Pope Francis, in a sense, was the necessary prelude to this kind of encyclical. I think Francis gave a really strong encouragement to take a clear critical voice on these urgent questions.”

That’s not to say there haven’t been detractors to Leo's approach. Some criticized his decision to present his encyclical alongside Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah. The Vatican decided to involve the tech company as part of its decade-long effort to engage Silicon Valley in dialogue over the human cost of AI.

In the roughly 42,300-word document, the pontiff exhorts all “men and women of goodwill” to not be afraid to get their “hands dirty on the ‘construction site’ of our time.”

That willingness has sometimes led to measured but very public rebukes of policies, actions and leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump and the ongoing war in Iran. Some conservatives including Vice President JD Vance, who is a Catholic convert, have invoked the concept of “just war” theory in response to Leo’s critiques.

Church teaching has long allowed for “just wars” — the use of force to stop an unjust aggression — as long as certain conditions are met. But Leo directly addressed this doctrine in his encyclical, calling it “outdated.” “Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness,” he wrote.

Hollywood to baseball: American culture at the Vatican

Last November, the pontiff hosted a “World of Cinema” day at the Vatican with actors and filmmakers including Cate Blanchett, Viggo Mortensen, Gus Van Sant and Spike Lee, who gifted Leo a custom New York Knicks jersey with the number 14 and the name Pope Leo on the back.

“Cultural facilities, such as cinemas and theaters, are the beating hearts of our communities because they contribute to making them more human,” Leo told his Hollywood audience. “The logic of algorithms tends to repeat what ‘works,’ but art opens up what is possible.”

He has also not been shy about his love of the Chicago White Sox, sometimes sporting baseball caps or posing with bats — the latter inspiring a kind of subgenre of Leo memes. “POV: you’re a priest who just asked ChatGPT to write your Sunday homily,” the Rev. Harrison Ayre posted on X with a photo of Leo holding a bat and smiling.

Shortly after “Magnifica Humanitas” was released, Thurston, who is Catholic, posted a video of her and a friend drinking margaritas while meticulously studying and discussing printed pages of the encyclical. It has racked up more than 3 million views on Instagram.

“An aspect that made the video going viral really joyful for me was to represent all of the Catholics or lapsed Catholics or adjacent interested parties as really celebrating what Pope Leo is saying in his encyclical,” she said.

Orsi said this strategy is coming at a crucial time for the Catholic Church following years of reckoning with its legacy of clergy sexual abuse. “I think a lot of people who moved away from the church are now saying, ‘Wait, maybe the church does have something to say to the modern world,’” he said.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

TUESDAY

Scattered to numerous storms are expected to develop this afternoon and evening as the front approaches from the north and interacts with warm, humid air already in place across the region.

Some storms could become strong to severe, producing damaging wind gusts over 60 mph, hail up to the size of quarters, frequent lightning, torrential rainfall (1-2 inches), and an isolated tornado.

While temperatures will still climb into the upper 80s and lower 90s today, the front will usher in cooler air by Wednesday. Highs are forecast to fall back into the low 80s, running 7 to 10 degrees below normal for early June.

Temperatures will climb into the upper 80s and lower 90s before storms develop, with heat index values approaching 100 degrees.

Even after storms begin to wind down this evening, additional showers and isolated thunderstorms may develop overnight, especially closer to the coast as the front inches southward.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY

The same front responsible for Tuesday’s storms will move through Central Florida on Wednesday, bringing a noticeable break from the heat.

Clouds, breezy northeast winds, and additional early morning scattered showers will keep afternoon temperatures mostly in the lower 80s, roughly 7 to 10 degrees below normal for early June.

Thursday remains cooler than recent days, with highs staying in the 80s.

WEEKEND

By Friday, high pressure builds back across the Southeast, bringing a stretch of drier weather to much of Central Florida.

While an isolated coastal shower cannot be ruled out, most locations will enjoy more sunshine and fewer storms through the weekend. Temperatures will gradually warm each day, climbing back into the upper 80s and lower 90s by Sunday.

• Bank of America has recently made a change to how they are handling online and mobile banking disputes.
• The company is steering many future disputes out of the court system and into private arbitration.
• Customer enrollment is automatic, but you have 60 days to opt out. 

If you are a customer of Bank of America, listen up: America’s second-largest bank has made a change to how it handles disputes connected to online banking – a change that could significantly affect customers’ legal rights.

Effective May 18, Bank of America says a new arbitration provision in its Online Banking Service Agreement will go into effect. The clause, applicable to many customers with personal banking accounts, governs how future disputes will be resolved.

In a nutshell, here’s what customers should know:

• If you have a disagreement related to your online or mobile bank account at Bank of America, the bank can now require the dispute to go through arbitration instead of through the traditional court system.
• Because of this change, customers generally waive the right to:
• • Sue in regular court
  • Have a jury trial
  • Participate in a class action lawsuit
• Unless customers actively opt out, the clause automatically becomes part of their service agreement with Bank of America.

Bank of America’s full arbitration document can be found here.

Why This Matters

Legal experts say arbitration can significantly limit a customer’s options if they have a dispute with their bank.

Unlike traditional lawsuits, arbitration proceedings are typically handled privately by a third-party arbitrator instead of a judge or jury.

Also, decisions often remain confidential, and customers generally cannot join together in class-action lawsuits.

“By participating in arbitration, you’re generally waiving your right to in-court hearings, which means no judge and no jury,” says Morgan Cardinal, Director of Advocacy at the Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida. “They advertise these things as moving quicker than the justice system, which by and large is probably true, but the benefit of our justice system is that it’s out in the open and everybody can see what has gone on and everybody benefits from that decision going forward.”

Consumer advocates say the policy becomes especially significant when disputes involve relatively small amounts of money (i.e. overdraft fees, duplicate ATM charges, or disputed banking fees), because individual customers may be less likely to pursue claims on their own.

Also, one of the biggest differences between arbitration and traditional litigation is transparency. Court filings, hearings, and rulings generally become part of the public record, while arbitration proceedings are often conducted privately.

“Because it’s a private opportunity at resolution, it’s hard to know how systemic issues or repeated issues are being addressed in a private resolution,” Cardinal added. “Whereas in the court system, it’s all public, so we can see if those fees are deemed illegal or inappropriate by the court.”

In a letter to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, a coalition of 25 consumer advocacy and public interest organizations called the bank’s decision to force arbitration on its customers “rigged” and urged Bank of America to “reinstate customers’ right to choose to go to court when disputes arise.”

“Bank of America should immediately remove the arbitration clause from any of its contracts with consumers,” said Patrick Crotty, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

When we reached out to Bank of America, the company declined to comment on this story.

What you need to know

On its website, Bank of America states customers will primarily be notified of the changes by email, messages inside the online banking mobile app inboxes, or through updated account agreement disclosures.

Bank of America has also stated on its website that customers can opt out of the modified agreement within “60 days of first delivery of this Arbitration provision.” Some customers may have already received their notice – one arbitration/change of terms email reviewed by WKMG had a send date of March 25, 2026, while another was dated March 31, 2026.

Customers have two options to opt out:

• Click here (you’ll need your online banking ID and password). Once there, it is as simple as clicking the “Submit” button.
• Call Bank of America at 800-238-8875.
• Customers who are logged into Bank of America’s online banking portal will NOT find the opt-out option page when searching inside “Help & Support”.

Multiple searches conducted by WKMG of Bank of America’s online banking support tools – including searches for “arbitration” and “opt-out” –  did not immediately surface information explaining how customers could review or reject the new policy. A search of the word arbitration also turned up no results on the bank’s site map page.

Bank of America’s 32-page web-based Online Banking Service Agreement addresses the new arbitration clause at the top of the document, but doesn’t address how a customer can opt out until page 30.

Again, customers who do not opt out within the deadline window will automatically be considered enrolled in the new policy.

Back to the future

Bank of America had previously stepped back from mandatory arbitration provisions following legal and political scrutiny that started more than two decades ago.

In the 1990s, banks aggressively embraced arbitration, especially in the areas of credit cards, checking accounts, overdraft agreements, and (in the very early days of) online banking services. Their argument: arbitration was faster, cheaper, and more efficient than litigation in the courts.

Things, however, changed dramatically during the first decade of the 2000s when there was a surge of public scrutiny over foreclosure practices and deceptive disclosures. A major turning point came in 2005, when many of the biggest names in banking were named in a federal antitrust lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, the banks – including Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank, Discover, HSBC, and JPMorgan Chase – were accused of colluding to adopt mandatory arbitration clauses that blocked consumers from joining class-action lawsuits.

In 2010, Bank of America, Capital One, HSBC, and JPMorgan Chase reached an early settlement and agreed to stop enforcing arbitration clauses and class-action bans for certain consumer and small business credit card customers. Discover was later settled in 2011; Citibank was settled in 2012.  

But the broader fight over arbitration did not end there.

Following years of study after the financial crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau concluded that many consumers were effectively blocked from pursuing claims because arbitration clauses often prevented class-action lawsuits. Class-action lawsuits allow groups of consumers with relatively small individual claims to combine cases into a single larger lawsuit.

On July 10, 2017, the CFPB issued a final rule regulating arbitration agreements in specific consumer financial contracts. The CFPB’s lengthy 775-page rule stated that although financial companies could require arbitration, they could no longer use arbitration clauses to block consumers from participating in class-action lawsuits.

The final rule wasn’t final for very long.

Shortly after the new CFPB publication, Congress voted to overturn the rule. On November 1, 2017, President Donald Trump signed off on repealing the CFPB guidelines, effectively preserving banks’ ability to use arbitration clauses that restrict class-action lawsuits.

Bank of America’s updated policy may not represent a new industry trend so much as the bank catching up with competitors that had already returned to arbitration agreements years earlier. JPMorgan Chase, for example, reintroduced mandatory arbitration clauses in certain consumer agreements back in 2019 after previously abandoning them following the banking industry’s arbitration controversy more than a decade earlier.

Arbitration clauses remain widespread throughout the financial industry. One 2023 study examining the nation’s 20 largest credit card issuers found roughly 85% used forced arbitration clauses in their customer agreements. The study found only three major issuers – Capital One, TD Bank, and Bank of America –  did not include forced arbitration clauses in their terms of service at the time.

Arbitration is a private legal process used to resolve disputes outside the traditional court system. Supporters say it can be faster and less expensive than litigation, while critics argue it can limit consumers’ legal options.

Consumer advocates say customers should carefully read the updated terms and understand how the changes could affect their legal rights before deciding whether to remain enrolled. Legal experts note that arbitration can sometimes resolve disputes more quickly than traditional litigation, though critics argue consumers may give up important legal protections in the process.

For now, the most important thing for Bank of America customers may simply be awareness. Some customers may welcome a fast-track arbitration process – some may want to keep options open to settle disputes through the courts.

Unless customers actively opt out within the required timeframe, the arbitration clause will generally become part of their online banking agreement automatically.

Bryant Otero Villegas, 18, and a 16-year-old boy were arrested after investigators connected them to two separate shooting incidents in the Winter Springs and Oviedo areas, court documents show.

The first incident occurred Monday, May 18, 2026. According to an arrest report obtained by News 6, a woman and her husband were walking westbound on the sidewalk along Red Bug Lake Road near Dovera Drive in Oviedo, between approximately 8:18 and 8:22 p.m., when they were struck by projectiles fired from a passing vehicle.

The couple told investigators they saw a green car with dark-tinted windows traveling westbound. The front passenger window was down, and a red barrel was sticking out. They heard what they described as automatic gunfire. The female victim was struck multiple times on her left side, arm and back, leaving visible welts and marks. Investigators say the suspects were laughing as they drove away.

Two days later, on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, Winter Springs police responded to a similar incident near State Road 434 and Bennett Street. An arrest report for that case states a woman was walking westbound on the north sidewalk of S.R. 434 when she felt sharp pains in the back of her neck and was struck approximately three times in rapid succession. She told officers she believed she had been shot with a pellet gun and described the suspect vehicle as a green, older-model Toyota Corolla.

Investigators tracked the car down using the Flock License Plate Reader system and traced it to the parking lot of Winter Springs High School.

On May 22, 2026, officers from the Winter Springs Police Department located the vehicle at the school and conducted a traffic stop after the car failed to stop at a stop sign and was found to have illegal window tint, according to the arrest reports. An officer identified the driver as the 16-year-old co-defendant. They searched the vehicle and found one X-SHOT Gel Blaster (HPG-700) and several gel BB projectiles, the report states.

After being read his Miranda rights, the 16-year-old driver — who is not being named because he is a minor — reportedly admitted that he and Otero Villegas had been driving down Red Bug Lake Road after Ju Jitsu training in Oviedo when they spotted two people walking near the YMCA, Target and Chili’s. The arrest report says he told investigators both of them fired their gel blasters at the couple from the moving car.

The report also says he told investigators that on May 20, Otero Villegas fired at a pedestrian along S.R. 434 near a Planet Fitness shopping center in Winter Springs while he drove. During questioning, the teen asked investigators whether “the girl was OK.”

Detectives with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office went to Otero Villegas’s Casselberry home, where they say he admitted to his role in both incidents and retrieved his gel blaster from his bedroom.

The arrest reports state that both teens turned themselves in to the Winter Springs Police Department last week and are facing battery charges.

News 6 has reported on several warnings from law enforcement in recent years about the “Orbeez Challenge” — which involves shooting water-soaked gel pellets at unsuspecting strangers.

In 2022, the Volusia Sheriff’s Office said an Amazon driver and a family near Deltona were struck by Orbeez fired from an airsoft gun. The same year, a 16-year-old in Ocala was also arrested after police say he acted as a getaway driver for two separate Orbeez Challenge attacks.

With no candidate taking an outright majority of the vote, the election will head to a second round in June.

But Cepeda and Petro sowed doubt in the results of the first round, claiming without evidence that hundreds of thousands of votes were manipulated and that foreign actors manipulated the results of the election.

Cepeda said he was waiting for electoral authorities to scrutinize the results before accepting the election.

“Only when the vote-counting commissions have fully clarified what happened will we comment on tonight’s results,” Cepeda said, though he acknowledged the vote was likely going to a second round.

Cepeda won 41% of the vote, while de la Espriella won 44% of the votes, with 99.98% of the results counted by electoral authorities.

Cepeda is a progressive senator who has promised to carry on a fraught plan to achieve “total peace" by negotiating peace pacts with guerrillas and criminal gangs. He was consistently leading polls in the run up to the Sunday vote, but in the weeks leading up to the election de la Espriella rapidly gained support with a promise that he would crack down on armed groups.

The neck-and-neck results likely spell trouble for Cepeda in the run-off election, as de la Espriella is expected to scoop up support from voters who threw their support behind another conservative candidate in the first round.

De la Espriella — a newcomer known as El Tigre, or “The Tiger” — has sought to portray himself as a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Let the United States of America and democratic parties monitor this runoff election. I will lead this battle; I will be Colombia’s best warrior," de la Espriella said in an impassioned speech Sunday night, pounding his chest behind bullet-proof glass in front of supporters.

Colombian voters are weighing peace deals or a crackdown

Voters across Latin America are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict, such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption. Instead, voters have increasingly turned to candidates promising heavy-handed security crackdowns.

The polarized vote comes as the Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, placing mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador to crack down on crime.

The election has also underscored two sharply diverging visions for the future of peace in a country marked by years of conflict.

On one side, Cepeda has promised to continue Petro’s progressive agenda and a largely failed effort to negotiate peace pacts with armed groups, following a plan that’s likely to sharply contrast with Trump’s vision for Latin America.

On the other side, de la Espriella has promised to fiercely crack down on criminal groups and build 10 mega-prisons, echoing the war on gangs policy of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, which has driven down homicide rates but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.

“Today’s election isn’t just important for us, it’s important for all of Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out of a voting station in Colombia’s capital on Sunday morning. “Whoever wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will continue or if things are going to return to the right.”

Vote is seen as a referendum on Petro

The election — 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — as seen as a referendum on Petro’s policies.

The deal a decade ago had offered hope to break the nation’s vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government. But violence has since roared back, in part because armed groups have taken advantage of peace negotiations with Petro's government to make territorial gains.

That came to a head in the lead-up to the election. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have plagued the race and last June, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally. Still, Cepeda and Petro have maintained strong support among many because of progressive policies pushed forward under Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.

Both de la Espriella and Valencia have touted their affinity for Trump, though Valencia’s electoral loss dealt another blow to a once powerful political current known as Uribismo.

Colombians are divided on the way forward

Maria Eugenia, a 57-year-old seamstress on Friday in downtown Bogotá, Colombia's capital, said she welcomed an all-out offensive on an expanding slate of criminal groups, regardless of the human cost.

While she approved of Petro’s pushes to improve the country's medical infrastructure, she said she was voting for de la Espriella because violence in rural areas of the country has gotten out of hand. She said negotiating peace pacts was effectively rewarding armed groups.

“Of course, whenever you come down with a heavy hand, there’s always going to be debate,” she said. “But some people are going to have to fall to clean up what needs to be cleaned up.”

Others, like Acevedo, the sociologist, said a security crackdown such as the one promoted by de la Espriella meant a return to past military campaigns that he said only reinforced Colombia's cycle of violence.

He said he supports Cepeda, adding that while the government hasn't done a perfect job — failing to pass ambitious reforms and follow through on promises to reduce violence — it was better to continue pushing forward with their political coalition's efforts to take a different approach in addressing the country's violence.

He added that his main critique of Petro's administration was the power grabs made by criminal groups as they negotiated with the government. He said he hoped that if Cepeda won, he would strike a better balance between negotiating peace and maintaining control over those groups.

“We're a country that has lived through 60 years of conflict,” Acevedo said. “The danger here is that we return to the times where everyone is saying that the only way to solve our problems is with bullets and more war.”

___

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

___

This story was first published on May 31, 2026. It was updated on Jun. 2, 2026 to correct the first name of the candidate to Abelardo instead of Aberaldo.

Through their own determination and courage, and with family support, Yousufi and others like Mona Amini had been able to study, to play soccer for clubs and for the Afghanistan women’s team. But when the Taliban returned to power in 2021 it shut down all women’s sports, and the players of the Afghan team went into hiding.

After a frantic evacation, 13 of the players settled in Australia where for five years they lived, played and trained in the hope of once again being allowed to represent their country.

The Afghanistan soccer federation doesn’t recognize the women’s team. But in April, soccer’s world governing body granted the Afghan women’s team eligibility for international competition.

This week, 23 members of the Afghan Women United program are in a training camp in Auckland, New Zealand and will play games against a team from the Cook Islands.

“It was a special day that we heard that Afghanistan can represent again our flag in international tournaments," Amini, a midfielder, told The Associated Press in a Zoom call Tuesday. “This is the result of hard work that we did in the past four or five years.”

Seven months ago, the Afghan women played in the so-called “Unite” tournament in which they achieved a win over Libya.

“It was a very special moment because we played in an international friendly tournament, and after three years we heard our anthem,” Amini said. “That was amazing for me.”

A better future

FIFA’s subsequent recognition was another important milestone on a long and perilous journey.

Yousufi, a Melbourne-based goalkeeper, remembers her reaction vividly.

“We’re going to have the national team! That’s the greatest thing ever that could have happened to the team," she said. “It was super important to us, especially thinking of the time when we arrived in Australia and we had lost everything: family, our childhood memories and that national team.”

Yousufi said she left home with one backpack, “to be safe and to continue to be alive.”

“When we came here the most important part of our life was to be a soccer player and to be a soccer team,” she said. "When we we saw we could not be (officially) a national team and we could not represent our country ... it was like I lost the game.”

While many ended up in Australia, there are Afghan players spread across Europe and some in the United States. Coach Pauline Hamill holds talent identification camps and helps pull the squad together for games.

Memories of their darkest days remain a strong part of the team’s motivation to succeed, and to represent women and girls still in their homeland. The Afghan women’s team played its last official competitive match in 2018.

“We couldn’t play freely in Afghanistan," Amini said. “Going out from home was tough because there was the risk of the Taliban seeing us and finding that we were playing soccer. "It was a very tough time and I’m pretty sure every one of the girls, every single one of us, fought hard to create this team and we are very happy right now to stay with each other.”

A student and an athlete

Yousufi was a student and a soccer player, and she said it was difficult even before the Taliban returned to power “for a girl to play football in Afghanistan with such difficulties as family barriers and difficulties of the society to accept a woman in sport.”

“We were thinking of any other outcomes like the danger we were facing, everyday dangers in Afghanistan like bomb explosions. Considering all those things — and it was the same for the other girls — we took all those risks to be part of the national team and to be a football player.”

Then life became even more difficult.

“The only thing humans want is freedom, and the Taliban took our freedom,” Amini said. “It is really difficult that you cannot educate, you cannot play sport, you cannot go outside or you cannot do what you love ... (or) follow your dreams.”

Role models

Amini said the refugee players now were determined to represent all women and girls in Afghanistan.

“We are here and we are going to be trying our best to do something for them, to be the voice of them so that we could have a new generation for the future for the Afghanistan women’s national team,” she said.

Yousufi said she was among a group of players “adopted by the Australian government,” and “we’re now living our life and continuing our journey with football, with our education and also being a voice for all those girls who are in Afghanistan.”

“Our team might be the one to change the way the people think and also the way that things are happening towards the girls and women in Afghanistan," she said. “We're all trying our best show that women and girls can be part of the society and can be someone who is in education or in sport, that women also have the right to do that.”

___

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

“We want to be aggressive off the ice,” the GM said. “When you have a chance to add really high-end players, we never want to miss out on it.”

While the Golden Knights under Kelly McCrimmon have deservedly earned their reputation for going after every high-end player available, that sentiment came from Carolina's Eric Tulsky, whose team has generally been considered far more selective.

The Hurricanes have taken bigger leaps since Tulsky took over two years ago, but his challenge has been finding particular players who fit coach Rod Brind'Amour's demanding style. The Golden Knights have added one big star after another, in the name of trying to win it all for a second time in less than a decade of existence.

One approach will end with hoisting the Cup.

“It probably should be more fun than we appreciate in the moment,” McCrimmon said. “We have made a lot of big decisions over our time in the league — very bold. I always say that to be big or bold is one thing. You’ve got to make good decisions, and I think that we’ve collectively through our hockey ops have done a good job of that. It’s exhilarating to win.”

Building the Hurricanes

Six Carolina players were drafted and developed, including No. 1 defenseman Jaccob Slavin, top-line forwards Seth Jarvis, Sebastien Aho and Andrei Svechnikov, and young building-block winger Jackson Blake.

Starting goaltender Frederik Andersen was a free-agent signing, and second-liners Taylor Hall and Logan Stankoven were acquired in trades. Tulsky, a Harvard graduate with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, worked under previous GM Don Waddell and pieced the rest of the puzzle together himself.

McCrimmon pointed to Waddell as a positive influence and complimented his counterpart for smart draft picks and trades.

“They’ve consistently been building their team, and they’ve done it different ways,” McCrimmon said. “Looking at it from the outside, they’ve been aggressive in their way of doing that. They have an idea what they want it to look like, the type of players that their organization will make good use of and they go out and get those guys.”

Sometimes those guys do not fit. One of the big gambles Tulsky made came in January 2025 when he gave up young forwards Martin Necas and Jack Drury in a three-way trade that landed the Hurricanes big winger Mikko Rantanen and veteran Taylor Hall.

Rantanen was not interested in re-signing, so Tulsky explored options and flipped him to Dallas for young Logan Stankoven and picks.

“Sometimes it doesn’t go the way you hoped, and you’ve got to be ready to figure out how you’re going to move forward from there,” Tulsky said. “One of the strengths of our organization is we’re not afraid to take those swings, but we’re confident that if we just keep staying aggressive, some will work out, some won’t (and) we’ll end up ahead of where we would be if we just stayed passive the whole time.”

Stankoven, free-agent signing Nikolaj Ehlers and other additions like Eric Robinson and Mark Jankowski have fit Brind'Amour's mold like a glove. Tulsky was a hockey blogger before moving into management and he thinks analytically but also credits his staff for talent evaluation to play for this coach.

“We’ve really focused on finding people who fit the way we want to play,” Tulsky said. “We ask players to play a very distinctive style, and our scouts have done a great job finding players who can come in and look their best playing the way Rod needs them to play.”

Building the Golden Knights

From the start, Vegas was built to win. Original GM George McPhee aced the expansion draft, from picking players from the other 30 teams in the league to making side deals that brought even more talent into the fold.

The initial bunch delivered an unexpected trip to the final during the club's inaugural season in 2017-18, with goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury the backbone of a group that included forwards William Karlsson and Reilly Smith and defensemen Shea Theodore and Brayden McNabb. Karlsson, Theodore and McNabb have been around the entire time, and Smith returned after a brief absence.

Along the way, McPhee and McCrimmon never shied away from making big moves. They made trades for Mark Stone, Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl and Noah Hanifin, signed Alex Pietrangelo and made a sign-and-trade for Mitch Marner.

“We appreciate how George and Kelly operate,” McNabb said. “They’re always trying to build a winning team, and they’ve done a great job for the nine years.”

The Golden Knights have made the playoffs in eight of them, won the Cup in 2023 and consistently been championship contenders.

"It’s a privilege," McCrimmon said. "We don’t take it for granted. We work real hard. You have to get lucky along the way at times, also. That’s kind of been our objective right from the opening season."

McNabb said McCrimmon is doing his job. There are no complaints from players about Vegas going big-game shopping all the time.

“I don’t know if he’s in on every player, but he’s trying to make the team better and that’s what you want and you appreciate,” McNabb said. “You want to be on a team that’s trying to get better and have the best team going into playoffs and performing in playoffs.”

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

After drawing outcry in Congress and the courts, however, the White House is reconsidering the fund. That potentially means the suit — and the possibility that the president could still cash in — might be back on.

Trump hasn’t been shy about turning the presidency into a major source of personal benefit, involving everything from merchandising deals to crypto ventures to high-dollar political and official events at his properties.

Asked about possible self-dealing by the president, the White House called such suggestions “the same, tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family, and his administration for a decade.”

"President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media," spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement. “There are no conflicts of interest.”

Here are some key ways Trump has reaped rewards for himself, his children and allies in his second term:

Suing his government and deals favoring his family

Last year, the president submitted a claim seeking $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for a FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of an investigation into whether he took classified records from the White House.

In January this year, Trump, his two eldest sons and the family's business, the Trump Organization, filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury Department after a former IRS contractor illegally leaked Trump's tax returns.

In an attempt to resolve those cases, Trump's government agreed that $1.776 billion in taxpayer funds be distributed to people who believe they were targeted by past administrations for prosecution for political purposes — including the Trump supporters imprisoned for attacking police while overrunning the U.S. Capitol in 2021.

After blowback from even some congressional Republicans, the Justice Department now says it will comply with a ruling temporarily blocking the fund.

But there was less clamor about another part of the deal allowing the government to drop pending IRS audits into Trump and his relatives.

Separately, the Air Force has agreed to purchase interceptor drones from Powerus, a Florida-based company linked to Trump’s family. And ProPublica reported that direct intervention from the White House preceded the Pentagon agreeing to loan $620 million to Vulcan Elements, a North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr.

Trump Organization spokesperson Kimberly Benza denied any ethical conflicts between the White House and the family business.

“The Trump Organization operates completely separate from the presidency and is in full compliance with all ethics and conflict-of-interest laws,” Benza said in a statement.

As for Powerus, Benza said Eric Trump was “a passive investor in a vehicle that, among many others, holds an interest” in the company, but wasn't involved in its decision-making or management.

Trading in financial markets he can help move

Trump has traded stocks and bonds in unprecedented ways for a sitting U.S. president.

Office of Government Ethics filings show Trump made more than 3,600 stock trades in the first quarter of 2026 alone — transactions far exceeding $100 million in value.

Many of those trades involved sizable purchases of shares of technology and artificial intelligence giants like Nvidia, Dell, Oracle and Palantir before Trump's administration took policy actions favoring those firms.

Similar disclosures last year show that Trump bought up more than $300 million in bonds issued by companies, states and municipalities even as he repeatedly pressed the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates — a move that could help drive up the value of his holdings.

Crypto ventures

Trump's family has raked in big profits in the crypto sector since he was reelected. A key driver has been the $TRUMP meme coin, announced the day before Trump took office. Some 220 of the top investors were invited to a subsequent, private reception with the president.

Trump's family also has a controlling stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm co-founded with the president's special envoy Steve Witkoff and run by his son Zach. It has its own stablecoin, USD1, and got a major boost when, just before Trump took office, an investment fund linked to the United Arab Emirates bought a large stake in it.

An Abu Dhabi state-backed investment firm, MGX, subsequently pledged to use $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — a move that further bolstered World Liberty Financial.

Trump-branded bonanza

Beyond the digital realm, scores of companies pay to license the president's name for physical products, from Bibles, guitars and sneakers to watches, fragrances and a gold-hued cellphone.

Trump has promoted many such goods on social media, particularly during his 2024 campaign, but they've also made conspicuous appearances at the White House.

When French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited last summer, Trump showed them a merchandise room off the Oval Office stocked with goods for sale on his website. A few months later, video emerged of Trump at the White House spraying Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa with bottles of his “Victory 47” cologne and perfume, which he gave him as a gift.

The president displayed hats emblazoned with “Trump 2028” on the Resolute Desk while meeting with congressional Democrats last year. And, during a televised Cabinet meeting in May, at every seat was a red hat commemorating America's 250th anniversary.

Each hat sells for $55 on Trump's website.

Paydays for the president's properties

The Republican National Committee and various political groups associated with Trump and the GOP have held fundraisers and political events at Mar-a-Lago, as well as Trump's estate in Bedminster, New Jersey, and his golf clubs in Doral, Florida, and Sterling, Virginia.

The LIV Golf league, controlled by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is helmed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has held events at Doral. Trump will host the G20 summit there in November.

That means world leaders, support staff, business executives, journalists and the bevies of others involved will be paying the Trump Organization, which purchased Doral in 2012, to attend. The president has already tried to head off criticism of self-dealing around the summit, saying that government attendees will be billed “at-cost" and “We will not make any money on it."

Meanwhile, conservative groups and Republican committees have spent at least $26 million at Trump properties since 2015. The actual figure is likely higher since some groups don’t have to detail their spending.

Renovation and construction projects

Qatar gave Trump a $400 million jet that he intends to employ as Air Force One, then store at his presidential library after he leaves office. The gift has undergone extensive taxpayer-funded rebuilding and security upgrades that lawmakers estimate may exceed $1 billion.

Trump has also ordered up scores of renovation projects meant to leave his mark on Washington while passing on the costs to taxpayers.

He long insisted that wealthy donors would pay for the $400 million ballroom he demolished the White House's East Wing to build — only to seek $1 billion in federal funding for security upgrades he says the military and Secret Service have sought as part of the project.

At least $15 million in public funds is going for the ceremonial arch Trump wants built at an entrance to the nation’s capital. The National Park Service is also paying a contractor $13.1 million to carry out the Trump-directed renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

If you’re in the market for a new home in Florida, property taxes may be one factor in what you buy. If it is, be warned: the price you see on real estate websites like Zillow or Realtor.com is not necessarily the price you’ll pay.

The reason? Florida’s homestead exemption laws.

“How many people realize the homestead exemption exists? Because folks are coming from everywhere, all over the world,” said Orange County Property Appraiser Amy Mercado. “Homestead doesn’t exist in certain jurisdictions, right, in countries, and so it is a constant educational process for our office; all of our outreach always includes some level of homestead education because they don’t realize it even exists. Even from, you know, state to state, they don’t handle it the same way. They don’t offer the same things.”

Florida’s homestead rules exempt portions of a residential property’s value, which in turn reduces the tax bill.

Say a house has an assessed value of $100,000. In Florida, the property is taxed like this:

1. First $25,000 – tax-exempt (first exemption)
2. $25,000-$50,000 – taxed
3. $50,000-$75,000 - exempt from all ad valorem taxes except school taxes (second exemption)
4. $75,000-$100,000 - taxed

All property values after that $100,000 would also be taxed unless you qualify for another exemption. There are exemptions for active duty military members and veterans, for people 65 and older, for people with certain disabilities, and for surviving spouses of a first responder who died in the line of duty. You can find all the exemptions on the Florida Department of Revenue website HERE.

Florida also has a homestead exemption rule known as Save Our Homes. This caps a property appraiser’s assessment of a home at a 3% increase in value, or the percent change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less.

It also allows people who have lived in a home for a long time and want to move to take the savings from the homestead exemption with them to a new home, allowing them to lower their tax assessment.

What happens to the taxes on the house you’re leaving? They get reset to current-day market value, according to Mercado.

“So, for example, if you live in your home for 10 years, you bought it for $100,000, you then live in it for the 10 years, and it’s worth $300,000,” Mercado said. “The savings between your market and your assessed value for those 10 years, you have the opportunity to take with you. The person that buys your home doesn’t pay the (tax) rate that you’re paying. You may be at $1,000… a year in taxes because of the years you’ve been in it. You bought it at $100,000, and it slowly progressed. That person is going to pay on the $300,000 mark because it resets as soon as you sell."

Let’s head to Zillow.com and break this down.

A home near News 6, on Lake Orlando Parkway, sold in 2025 for $535,000.

According to Zillow, the home’s property taxes in 2024 were $4,108. This matches the publicly available data on this house on the Orange County Property Appraiser’s website, indicating the person who bought the house had a homestead exemption from a previous property.

However, if you were to buy that house now, without a homestead exemption that you are transferring from another house? Your property taxes would be way more.

According to the Tax Estimator Tool on the property appraiser’s website, if you were to buy this same property today for $535,000 and apply for a new homestead exemption, your total tax bill is estimated to be $8,225.96 to $9,194.46.

Try it for yourself HERE. It’s free.

“What (the seller is) getting in their documentation, and it’s being disclosed appropriately, is based on the persons that are living in the property. So it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison,” Mercado said.

But that leads to a shock for a new homeowner, and a lot of frustration often directed at the property appraiser’s office.

“When they receive their first tax bill after the sale, with their reset rate, it’s at the current market value. And it could be a significant jump, right? It can be thousands of dollars that you’re not expecting, that you are not budgeting for,” she said.

Mercado says anyone looking to buy in Florida needs to find the property appraiser’s website for the property’s county. Every website has the same tax estimator tool that Orange County has.

Florida’s Department of Revenue website has a tool to help you find the right property appraiser HERE.

A bill in the Florida Legislature set out to address this issue. SB 856 would have prohibited online listing sites from using a current owner’s tax information, instead requiring the sites to calculate estimated property taxes with other methods.

The bill passed in the Florida Senate but never made it through the Florida House.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has championed this sort of legislation for a while now, arguing that property taxes are unfairly being levied against many homeowners in the state.

[BELOW: Could Florida eliminate property taxes after all?]

Property taxes are a local issue in Florida, so any changes that lawmakers want to effect would require an amendment to the state’s Constitution.

Furthermore, state lawmakers can’t just pass these sorts of proposals on their own. If they approve an amendment to cut down on property taxes, it will still need to garner at least 60% of support from voters in November.

[RELATED: Here are all the new laws in Florida this year]

On Monday, lawmakers discussed a proposed amendment entitled “Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes,” which would implement the property tax cuts that DeSantis has called for.

Today in Tampa, I outlined the Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes plan that will eliminate taxes on homesteads.

Property tax revenue collected by local governments has nearly doubled in the past seven years (from $32 billion to $60 billion) and is expected to reach an… pic.twitter.com/3ZcexD9L7X

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) May 27, 2026

Per legislative analysts, an overview of that proposal — as well as a linked bill — is below:

HJR 1F — Save Our Homes

This amendment proposes several changes to the state Constitution, primarily to set up a new homestead exemption for Florida residents.

The new provisions are as follows:

• Homestead Exemptions: Homesteads will be exempted for the first $150,000 of assessed value in 2027. This grows to $250,000 in 2028 and thereafter.
• Residency Rules: Homesteads of owners who aren’t permanent Florida residents get an exemption on the first $50,000 of assessed value. These owners receive the same exemption as permanent residents after five years, though.
• Property Assessments: Reduces the non-homestead property assessment increase limitation from 10% to 5% per year.
• Spending Limitations: Limits the use of ad valorem revenue by local governments to the following:
• • Public safety, including law enforcement, EMS and fire services
  • Education and public schools
  • Infrastructure, including roads, bridges and stormwater controls
  • Natural resource projects, including flood control measures
  • Issue local bonds for approved uses or to make debt service payments
  • Meet obligations and retirement benefits of local government employees
  • Fund the operations and administration of county officers and commissioners

That said, lawmakers tweaked the proposal on Monday evening, so the property tax exemptions won’t apply to school district levies.

Meanwhile, a similar version has also been filed in the Senate.

If approved, HJR 1F takes effect on Jan. 1, 2027

HB 3F — Tax Administration

House Bill 3F jumps off of the proposed amendment, implementing a suite of new rules if HJR 1F (or similar legislation) is approved by lawmakers for consideration by voters later this year.

More specifically, these rules are as follows:

• Requires the state to provide a public website, allowing taxpayers to estimate the ad valorem tax savings that could result from the amendment
• Requires property appraisers to send a notice (along with the TRIM notice in August) to property owners to inform them about the proposed amendment
• Provides an exception to the existing 75-word limit for specified ballot summary statements

If approved, HB 3F takes effect immediately.

Jacob Baker, 36, who is charged with murder in the deaths of two 69-year-old men and one 79-year-old man, appeared in court Monday where a judge granted a defense request for Baker to undergo a mental fitness examination.

According to a criminal complaint, the killings were of “exceptional depravity.”

Robert Shine, 69, was found dead last week submerged in a cement pond, according to police. The body of a 79-year-old man was discovered a day later a few hundred feet away.

And later that day, police found 69-year-old John Carse dead at a property 19 miles (31 kilometers) from where the other two bodies were located.

Police hadn't released the name of the 79-year-old man, but prosecutors identified him in the criminal complaint as Frederick Morse. Friends said they knew him as “Chitta.”

If convicted and if a jury agrees that Baker knew the victims were older men, or that the killings were especially heinous, he would face a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility for parole. Without the enhancement, parole would be possible.

Police apprehended Baker last week, following a manhunt of the vast island, where the three victims were found in the remote and mostly rural Puna community known for its jungle-like landscape and free-spirited residents.

The killings left residents on edge in the community set amid lush jungle and barren lava fields where people seeking to live off-grid commonly trade work for lodging.

Disturbing details of the investigation are detailed in a probable cause document, including that Morse was found dead in his bed with several severed fingers. Shine was found with fractured ribs and other injuries and had been strangled before he was put in a concrete fishpond, where he was found face-down in water. Carse was found face-down in dirt under corrugated roofing material and an autopsy found cuts to his face, severed neck muscles, a broken jaw and other injuries, the document said.

A woman told police she had driven Baker to a store in Hilo, east Hawaii's biggest town, before the men were found, and while driving back, he showed her a newly purchased knife and said he would “shank all the rapists in Pahoa and anyone who messed with him,” according to the document. Baker "reportedly spoke about the island being full of rapists and pedophiles and stated that he wanted to ‘chop them up with machetes.’”

She described him as erratic, aggressive and hyperverbal, police said, and that he referred to himself using the Spanish word for hitman. Police said they determined he also purchased two brass knuckles.

She then took him to a tattoo shop, where police said Baker got a tattoo under his left eye.

Baker is ordered held without bail. A report on his mental fitness examination is due Aug 4. A court hearing is scheduled Aug. 11.

A two-time NL Cy Young Award winner, the 37-year-old deGrom (4-4) allowed four hits and struck out eight in his fourth attempt at the milestone victory. The right-hander went 1-3 with a 5.72 ERA in five May starts and has not won this season when allowing multiple runs.

Jacob Latz pitched a perfect ninth for his eighth save to help the Rangers win their fourth straight game.

Michael McGreevy (3-5) gave up two runs on five hits and two walks in six innings after yielding eight runs in nine innings over his previous two starts.

Masyn Winn lined his second home run of the season down the left-field line off reliever Peyton Gray to cut Texas’ lead to 2-1 in the sixth.

Joc Pederson hit an RBI single up the middle to drive in Danny Jansen after Jansen walked, stole second base and advanced to third on Nicky Lopez's single in the fifth to make it 2-0.

Duran lined an RBI double to the left-field wall to drive in Brandon Nimmo and give Texas a 1-0 advantage in the fourth.

Up next

Rangers RHP Nathan Eovaldi (5-6, 3.93 ERA) will face Cardinals RHP Dustin May (3-6, 4.57) in the middle game of the series Tuesday night.

___

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

The jury returned the verdict for Chikei Rick Chow. Chow, 61, who is Asian, shot Cyrus Carmack-Belton in the back after chasing him from his convenience store in Columbia. He maintained he acted to defend his son.

The killing sent waves of anguish and grief through the African American community in Richland County, where nearly half the population is Black.

After the verdict was read, sobs and cries of distress could be heard coming from Carmack-Belton’s family seated in the gallery. Chow sat silently frozen before slowly bowing his head onto his interlocked hands.

Defense lawyer Jack Swerling said they're very pleased with the verdict but also feel for Carmack-Belton's family.

“My heart goes out to them, but 14-year-old kid should not be roaming the streets of Columbia or South Carolina with semiautomatic pistol loaded and ready to fire,” he said.

Todd Rutherford, an attorney and representative in the South Carolina Legislature, stood next to Carmack-Belton’s father as he told reporters that they don't agree with the verdict.

“This makes us feel as if our children don't matter and they do,” he said. "This makes us feel like Cyrus' life didn't matter and it did."

Rutherford announced they will pursue a civil lawsuit.

“I've been practicing law for almost 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. I don't understand it,” he said.

Prosecutors and a defense lawyer in closing arguments painted different pictures of the 2023 shooting. Prosecutors said Chow acted in anger because he wrongly thought the teen had stolen four bottles of water from the store. A defense lawyer said Chow fired to defend his son only after the teen pointed a gun at him.

“This case is not about a shoplifter. This case is about a father who sees a gun pointed at his son and had to make a decision,” defense attorney Shaun Kent told jurors during closing arguments, noting that Andy Chow testified Carmack-Belton pointed a gun at him.

Prosecutors acknowledged Carmack-Belton had a semiautomatic pistol, but they say it fell on the ground during the chase, and he never threatened anyone with it. Prosecutors said Chow chased the teen more than 130 yards (119 meters) from the store.

Gipson told jurors that Chow “chased a kid down, shot him in the back.”

During closing arguments, Gipson placed a bottle of water before jurors. Gipson said Chow “at the end of the day, believed that a human is not more than that.”

Gipson said multiple witnesses testified that they didn’t see anything in Carmack-Belton’s hands and didn’t see him point a gun as he ran from the store.

“Nobody testified that happened that doesn’t have the last name Chow,” Gipson said.

The fatal shooting prompted vigils and protests outside the store. Empty water bottles were arranged to spell out “Cyrus” at one 2023 vigil.

“I am Lady Sarsaparilla Ovabyte, of the Coventry Ovabytes,” she said. “We are purveyors of fine cordials.”

Her companion peered through glasses made from fused-together forks.

“Captain Bob McSpoon, inventrepreneur,” he said.

On a Victorian-era street in rural Ōamaru, New Zealand, Ovabyte and McSpoon, who usually go by Juliet and Greg Thorn, weren’t the only ones wearing goggles or forks, or emitting steam. They were in the small town to attend the annual steampunk festival, a four-day love letter to being as odd as possible, which draws thousands of visitors from around the country and abroad.

Steampunk fuses Victorian aesthetics and mechanics with a science fiction twist to create a parallel universe imagining what the age of steam might have produced if it had continued to the present day. The genre is limited only by imagination, and the weirder the better.

Steampunks pride themselves on a knack for recycling and DIY, honing skills in sewing, metalworking, hat-trimming and steam mechanics as they dream up fantastical personas with outfits to match. During the year, attendees are bricklayers, engineers, artists and farmers, with many describing themselves as normally shy or reserved. But they had come to the festival to be seen.

“The first time you dress up and go out in public is really scary and then people get such a buzz out of it,” Juliet Thorn said. “It’s so cool that you take on a different personality.”

Teapot racing and parasol dueling are steampunk sports

In its 17th year, whole traditions and sporting codes have sprung up around the steampunk festival, which is among the world’s best-known.

Hundreds crowded into upstairs rooms and old community halls for steampunk-themed contests. They raced to dunk cookies in cups of tea and cram the soggy results into their mouths before their competitors. A parasol-dueling contest looked like competitive vogueing judged on speed and style.

Michele Cotten won a fashion show displaying wild and upcycled outfits that participants spent months finessing. Cotten fused steampunk with the Star Trek universe to create a hooped dress made in the style of a navy Starfleet uniform. It was rigged with Christmas lights to evoke a galaxy and Cotten, a crowd favorite, strutted and posed to whoops from onlookers.

Then there was the teapot racing, in which competitors sent remote-controlled vehicles mounted with teapots around a fiendish obstacle course to the gasps and groans of a watching crowd.

“If you go out of bounds, that’s a disqualification,” said Ross McKay, one of the sport’s creators, who dreamed it up with his late wife and a friend. He has since introduced teapot racing to other steampunk events worldwide.

“It’s lots of fun and the judges will take bribes,” he added.

When McKay’s wife showed him pictures of steampunks, he recalled thinking, “What a bunch of weirdos," but the self-confessed “history geek and science fiction nerd” found plenty to love about the genre. The retired banker was soon enrolled in night classes for sewing.

Now he is Captain Roscoe Dangerfield, Inspector of Nuisances to Her Majesty Queen Victoria III, which combines the historical element of a real Victorian job with the fiction of a monarch who never lived.

The steampunk community had become his tribe, he said.

Small town is an unlikely steampunk capital

Ōamaru is the placid home to 14,000 people and 3,000 endangered native penguins, the latter of which live at the far end of town in a colony so pungent it can be smelled from the hill above. The town on New Zealand’s South Island doesn’t feature the sweeping vistas popularized by the Lord of the Rings films, which bring tourists to nearby regions, and for years was mostly seen as a stopping point between the cities of Christchurch and Dunedin.

An architectural quirk has put Ōamaru on the map as what locals call the steampunk capital of the world. The town features a completely preserved Victorian street by the harbor, a legacy from the 19th century days when Ōamaru was a commercial and mercantile powerhouse as a departure point for meat, wool and grain exports from New Zealand to Britain.

The cream-colored stone buildings now form the backdrop for the festival's steampunk adventures. Later in the year the town also hosts a Victorian festival celebrating a historically accurate version of the era, with the events coexisting peacefully after the steampunks and Victorians decided the town was big enough for everyone.

Anything goes in a no-rules genre

Steampunk, a term coined in the 1980s, gives participants an opportunity to rewrite Victorian-era social conventions on the basis that if you are flying on a magic carpet or traveling through time, it doesn’t matter if you make the rest up.

“We’re an equal opportunity society,” said Iain Clark, who co-founded the festival and is widely known in the community as Agent Darling. “Women, unlike in Victorian times, can be anything. We have female engineers, captains of industry, captains of airships, adventurers, explorers, scientists.”

Sometimes all in the same week. Bringing a different outfit for each day of the event is common and fitting rooms at the festival’s headquarters allow for quick changes, with nothing strange enough to raise eyebrows.

In the street, a Star Wars trooper trudged past, followed by a pack of wolves. A French tourist nervously adjusting his crocheted and leather gloves was introduced to steampunk only three days earlier and immediately fell in love with the genre.

“You can be creative and you can be somebody else and no one cares,” said John Syben, who was attending his fourth festival.

His partner, Chris Sinclair, said the pair previously had been “far too tame, so we’ve gotten more and more outrageous every year.”

“There’s always someone who’s more nuts than you," she said.

The two-time Cy Young Award winner tossed five scoreless innings to earn his 100th career win as the Texas Rangers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 on Monday night.

“It’s really cool,” deGrom said. “As a kid, your goal is to just play major league baseball and for it to become a reality and win 100 games in the major leagues, it’s kind of crazy to think about. Today was Nolan’s third birthday, so I’ll always remember that being my 100th night on his third birthday.”

The right-hander notched his 99th victory May 10 when he threw seven scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs.

In his first three attempts at reaching the century mark, the 37-year-old deGrom (4-4) went 0-2 while allowing 12 runs over 15 innings. He finished 1-3 with a 5.72 ERA in five May starts, but Monday night was different after the calendar flipped to June. He yielded just four hits and struck out eight to help the Rangers win their fourth straight game.

“I was trying not to do too much,” deGrom said. “Having the meeting, talking to (catcher) Danny (Jansen) I was like, `Hey, tonight we’re hitting the glove as many times as we can. Mechanics are what they are. We’re throwing everything else out the window. We’re going back to how I used to pitch.'"

Selected in the ninth round of the 2010 amateur draft, deGrom debuted for the New York Mets in 2014 and was the NL Rookie of the Year.

Despite going 100-69 with a 2.61 ERA in 260 career starts, deGrom has only made 30 starts five times in his first 12 big league seasons, and 2025 was his first time making 30 starts since 2019.

“He’s never really felt 100%,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “I’ve said it before, he should be a Hall of Famer. I think he’s going to be a Hall of Famer. That’s how dominant he’s been throughout his career, and he’s still got a couple of years left in him, too.”

DeGrom is the 16th active pitcher to reach 100 career wins after Texas teammate Nathan Eovaldi became the 15th on July 30, 2025, against the Los Angeles Angels.

___

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

GOP senators who revolted against the settlement before leaving for a Memorial Day recess two weeks ago say they want more information from the administration about the future of the fund, which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Meanwhile, Trump is reconsidering whether to move forward with it at all, according to a person familiar with his thinking.

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

Returning to Washington on Monday evening, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wasn’t sure if the immigration spending bill would move this week.

“To be determined,” he told reporters.

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

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

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

He said Republicans will have a better idea of how to proceed after they meet for their weekly conference lunch on Tuesday.

Senators say they need more ‘explicit’ commitment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Senators issue ultimatum to Justice Department

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

The end of the voting period, which began in early May, concludes a chaotic contest without a clear front-runner. Candidates tried to elbow each other out in the final stretch as each sought to convince voters that they were best prepared to lead the most populous state and one of the world's largest economies.

California puts all candidates on a single primary ballot regardless of party, and the top two finishers advance to the November general election. About 60 candidates were on the ballot, most of them largely unknown to the state’s roughly 23 million voters.

On the Democratic side, top contenders include Xavier Becerra, a former state attorney general and U.S. health secretary; Tom Steyer, a billionaire climate activist; Katie Porter, a former member of Congress; and Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose.

The two most prominent Republicans are conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

The Democrats campaigned on fighting Trump administration attacks on the state’s liberal policies, while Republicans vowed to bring change after more than 15 years of Democratic leadership in Sacramento. But the through line of the race was how to tackle the state's notoriously high cost of living.

Drivers were paying $6.08 per gallon at the pump as of the end of May, $1.65 higher than the national average, according to AAA. Meanwhile the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has estimated that the typical home is about $775,000, more than double the national average. And Californians pay the second-highest residential electricity rates behind Hawaii, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Some candidates proposed suspending the state’s gas taxes, which total roughly 70 cents a gallon, while others floated subsidizing in-state tuition at public colleges. A few of the Democrats said they would eliminate private health insurance in favor of a government-run system with no premiums, while the Republicans vowed to increase oil and gas production and reduce regulations.

“The truth is that we’ve gone off track — we’ve got one-party rule,” Hilton said at a debate in May. “The results have been such a disappointment. It is time for some balance.”

Primary system creates uncertainty

Earlier in the race, Democrats worried about possibly being locked out of the general election even though they count 45% of the state's registered voters compared to Republicans' 25%.

The concern was that their relatively crowded field of candidates could split the Democratic vote enough for the two Republicans to advance under the single primary system, which was first used at the statewide level in 2014.

Two candidates from the same party have never made the general election in a California governor's race, though it happened twice for U.S. Senate elections in 2016 and 2018.

Recent developments, however, have diminished Democrats’ fears as a few candidates emerged as leading contenders. In the race's final days it was Hilton warning that Republicans could be locked out if they failed to coalesce behind him.

Candidates squabbled over their records

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s resignation and withdrawal from the race after sexual assault allegations were made against him left an opening for Becerra, who previously had struggled to gain traction.

Highlighting his long political resume, Becerra started raising more money and won the endorsements of powerful labor groups and Latino legislative leaders.

But that momentum also made him a target, and his rivals criticized his leadership as health secretary including his handling of an influx of unaccompanied migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021, when Becerra's Department of Health and Human Services was responsible for shelters where they were housed. Some of them were criticized as having inadequate living conditions, and there were also concerns about authorities failing to thoroughly vet sponsors with whom some children were placed.

“The secretary has never met a crisis that he couldn't ignore,” Mahan said at a debate in April.

Steyer's campaign spent or booked more than $203 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio, according to tracker AdImpact. On the campaign trail, he was attacked over past investments in fossil fuels and private prisons at a hedge-fund he founded in the 1980s and left more than a decade ago. And some accused him of trying to buy the election.

“This race will come down to those who’ve earned it versus those who are trying to buy it,” Becerra told CNN in April.

Republicans, for their part, never coalesced behind a strategy to send both Hilton and Bianco to the general election, and the two fought to consolidate support. President Donald Trump’s endorsement in April of Hilton, a former political adviser to a conservative British prime minister, likely boosted him among GOP voters and diminished Bianco's chances of advancing.

Trump on Monday evening again urged people to vote for Hilton, saying Democrats have done an “absolutely horrendous job” running the state.

“Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so!” Trump posted on his social media platform.

A final result could take a while

All California voters receive a mail ballot, and election officials count those that are received up to a week after Election Day so long as they are postmarked by then. That often results in a drawn-out count, with no winners declared until days or even weeks later.

It is the first time in over two decades that there has not been a political superstar in the governor’s race. In 2003, A-list actor and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger rocketed into office in a recall election that ousted then-Gov. Gray Davis; in 2010, former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown cemented a political comeback by winning nearly three decades after his first two terms; and in 2018, Newsom had already established a national profile after stints as lieutenant governor and San Francisco mayor and won easily.

“I get probably at least five or six messages a year saying I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to have chickens,” says Mayor Diezel Depew.

On Monday, Police Chief Charles Geiger updated the City Council as members considered rules for when and how chickens can be kept in residential neighborhoods.

“You would be issued a notice of violation with that your permit would be suspended until it’s fixed and you’d have to reapply... There are a lot of safeguards in place,” says Chief Geiger.

Under the proposed rules, only female chickens (hens) would be allowed as household pets for personal egg harvesting. The ordinance would also prohibit commercial use of any kind and ban roosters.

Some residents raised concerns about potential noise.

“Chickens crow, too. I mean, not just the roosters, and they’re very loud.”

But Chief Geiger told council members he hears more complaints about coop conditions and waste than chicken noise.

Other residents worried about unintended consequences if the city doesn’t set clear limits.

“We have a 48-unit complex and we don’t wanna end up like Key West and have a bunch of roosters.”

If approved, the ordinance would allow:

• Up to five hens on lots smaller than a half-acre
• Up to seven hens on lots a half-acre or larger

Monday’s vote was a first reading only, and the ordinance passed unanimously. A second reading will be scheduled for a later date.

Momcilovic announced his decision on Instagram on Monday, less than a week after pulling his name out of the NBA draft.

A 6-foot-8 forward, Momcilovic led the nation in 3-point shooting at shooting 48.7% on 7.5 attempts per game last season and was fifth nationally in 3-pointers made. He made at least five 3-pointers in a game 10 times in 2025-26, including eight in a last-second loss to Arizona in the Big 12 tournament.

Momcilovic averaged 16.9 points and 3.1 rebounds per game while leading Iowa State to the Sweet 16 for the third time in five years. He shot 43% from 3 in three seasons with the Cyclones.

Momcilovic announced in April he planned to enter the transfer portal and test the NBA waters before pulling out just before the deadline last Wednesday.

___

AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball

The crash happened around 12:40 p.m. at the Dunlawton Avenue beach access ramp.

[BELOW: Volusia County sheriff discusses fatal crash]

According to deputies, the pickup was traveling eastbound on Dunlawton Avenue when it struck the occupied toll booth. The truck then continued onto the beach and into the ocean.

The toll attendant inside the booth, 63-year-old Tammie Jo Baker, was killed.

“I think she was probably close to being killed on impact,” Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood said. “That booth isn’t made of anything, if you look at it. And you hit that thing at 40 miles an hour; there’s really nowhere to go. And it flipped the booth around, the force of that.”

The driver, identified as 36-year-old Deanna Harrell of Ormond Beach, has been detained while investigators conduct a thorough crash investigation, according to the sheriff’s office.

Chitwood says witnesses saw Harrell drive the truck into the ocean and then try to drive south on the beach before the vehicle got stuck in the sand.

Later Monday evening, deputies said that Harrell had been taken into custody under Florida’s Baker Act as the homicide continues.

Court records show that Harrell was placed under a temporary risk protection order after allegedly threatening to end her own life last year. That order was apparently set to expire in July.

[BELOW: Woman arrested after allegedly driving truck into beach toll booth, killing worker]

Harrell is also being tested for alcohol intoxication.

“I can just tell you, being up at the truck, there’s a heavy odor — for me — a heavy odor of alcohol you can smell from the passenger side of the vehicle," Chitwood stated. “We’ll see how that works out.”

Additional details from the investigation will be released as they become available.

The Dunlawton beach access ramp will remain closed until further notice.

“If it’s about the money, then I can just pack it in and not go out there and give my best effort. But I plan to be the best leader possible as well as dominating on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays,” Garrett said last March.

That is why Garrett’s nine seasons with the Cleveland Browns ended on Monday when he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams, less than 15 months after signing a $204.8 million, four-year contract extension with $122.8 million guaranteed.

The Browns dealt the two-time AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year to the Rams for pass rusher Jared Verse and three draft picks.

Garrett demanded a trade last year during Super Bowl week, but agreed to an extension one month later that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time.

General manager Andrew Berry was adamant that Garrett would spend his entire career in Cleveland and enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame wearing orange and brown. But repeated quarterback missteps, organizational dysfunction, and a disastrous trade for Deshaun Watson have kept the Browns in a near-constant state of rebuilding.

“We were sincere in that desire as we entered this offseason and did not envision a world where Myles was not a Cleveland Brown,” Berry said on Monday. “However, as we embark on a new era of Browns football with a young core and a replenished asset base, we felt this move was important to our transition.”

Berry was able to make a deal after the Browns and Garrett agreed to modify the contract and defer option payments over the 2026-28 seasons in March. The first payment of around $10 million was due on March 28, but was moved to near the start of the regular season.

Cleveland will still have a cap hit of $15.53 million this year and $25.56 million next year for the trade.

Trade set in motion early

The second honeymoon between Garrett and the Browns after signing the extension was short lived.

“To lose the same way every time, it’s frustrating as hell,” Garrett said on Oct. 12 after a 23-9 loss at Pittsburgh, where the Browns failed to score a touchdown on offense.

Rookie Dillon Gabriel was making his second start at quarterback after replacing veteran Joe Flacco, who was traded to AFC North rival Cincinnati.

After the Steelers’ loss, Garrett had at least a half-sack in nine straight games. He set a team record with five at New England in Week 8, had four against Baltimore in Week 11, and three the following week at Las Vegas. He broke the single-season mark of 22½ sacks set by Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan and Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt during the fourth quarter of his final game for the Browns in the season finale at Cincinnati.

After Kevin Stefanski was fired many on the defense lobbied for coordinator Jim Schwartz to be promoted to head coach.

“I’m committed to winning, and as long as the team (and) organization are doing so and they’re committed to that same thing, then I’m all on board. But if we’re thinking anything other than winning — tanking or rebuilding, that’s not me,” Garrett said on Jan. 2.

Schwartz was bypassed as the organization selected Todd Monken in late January. One week later, Schwartz resigned after three years in Cleveland.

Monken said two weeks ago he had not met Garrett face-to-face since being hired.

Garrett — who has a minority stake in the Cavaliers — visited Cleveland a couple of times during the NBA playoffs, but did not make a stop at the Browns' complex.

Garrett’s time in Cleveland

Garrett was the Browns’ first overall pick in 2017. He was part of the NFL’s second 0-16 team his rookie year, the first of five double-digit losing seasons he endured.

Garrett helped lead Cleveland to its first playoff win since the 1994 season, defeating Pittsburgh 48-37 in an AFC wild-card matchup during his fourth year in 2020. The Browns returned to the playoffs in 2023, losing to Houston in the first round, but went 8-26 over the past two seasons.

Cleveland has the league’s sixth-worst record since 2017 at 58-90-1.

The 30-year-old Garrett — a five-time All-Pro — is the first player in NFL history with at least 12 sacks in six consecutive seasons (2020-25) and the only player with double-digit sacks each of the past eight years. His 125½ career sacks are tied for 20th on the league list.

“What I can say with complete honesty is this; I gave this city everything I had. I suited up and wore those colors with pride, and I don’t regret a second of being part of this storied franchise. Every Sunday. Every offseason. Every play, Every down. Every moment. You gave me more in return than I can ever repay,” Garrett said in a social media post addressed to Browns fans. "The best days for this franchise are ahead, Thank you for letting me grow here. Thank you for believing in me.

“Loving you is easy, leaving you is the hard part. Thank you for nine unforgettable years.”

Different seasons, same dysfunction

The Browns have had 42 quarterbacks make at least one start since their 1999 return, including 15 the past nine seasons.

The revolving door at quarterback is a major reason why the Browns have had just four winning seasons since their return and why Monken is the seventh coach hired by Jimmy and Dee Haslam since they bought the franchise in 2012.

Jimmy Haslam said last year the Browns “took a big swing and miss” when they sent three first-round picks to Houston for Watson in 2022 and signed him to a fully guaranteed, five-year, $230 million deal that remains the worst in NFL history.

However, guess who is favored to start Week 1 at Jacksonville? Watson, who has not played since Week 7 of the 2024 season after two Achilles tendon injuries. Watson is vying with Shedeur Sanders, who started the final seven games as a rookie last season, going 3-4 with seven touchdown passes, 10 interceptions, and a 68.1 passer rating.

If the Browns struggle again at quarterback, they will have two first-round picks in 2027.

What does Verse add?

Garrett’s trade did not bring three first-round picks, but it did add a young pass rusher in Verse. Besides the 2027 first-rounder, the Browns received a second-round pick in 2028 and a third-rounder in 2029.

Verse’s acquisition gives the Browns the past two AP Defensive Rookies of the Year. Carson Schwesinger won last season after leading NFL rookies with 156 tackles and 11 tackles for loss.

Verse, the 19th overall pick in the 2024 draft, had 4½ sacks as a rookie and 7½ sacks last season, along with three forced fumbles.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Abel also hinted that he may depart from Warren Buffett 's longtime hands-off operating model by consolidating Taylor Morrison with Berkshire's existing site-built homebuilding operations that are part of its Clayton Homes subsidiary. For six decades under Buffett, Berkshire promised to largely leave companies alone after it acquired them and allow the executives to keep running the day-to-day operations the same way.

“Over time, we expect to unify our site-built homebuilding operations into a combined platform,” Abel said in a statement about his first big acquisition on Sunday, “enabling us to deliver the dream of homeownership to more Americans.”

In addition to Clayton, which specializes in manufactured homes but also has a site-built unit, Berkshire owns several other housing related businesses including Benjamin Moore paint and Shaw Floors.

Berkshire's new investment in Alphabet will expand the stake that Buffett's company started to build last fall. By the end of March, Berkshire's Alphabet investment had tripled to include nearly 58 million Alphabet shares worth almost $17 billion.

Alphabet said Monday that Berkshire has agreed to buy $5 billion of Class A common stock and another $5 billion of Class C stock as part of a broader plan to raise $80 billion to pay for the computing infrastructure needed to power its AI offerings.

It's not clear how much consolidating Abel might do among the dozens of companies Berkshire owns. Those holdings include an assortment of insurers like Geico, major manufacturers such as Precision Castparts and a slew of retail and service companies like NetJets, Dairy Queen and Helzberg Diamonds. But Abel is known as a much more active manager than Buffett ever was.

“Given Greg’s strength as an operator it will be interesting to see if he does consolidate these units to get some greater scale and efficiencies,” said CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert.

Abel has been overseeing all of Berkshire's non-insurance businesses since 2018, and he hasn't made any major changes in operations though he has encouraged the company's subsidiaries to cooperate more when it makes sense. Abel became CEO in January, but Buffett remains chairman and Berkshire's largest shareholder.

“Under Greg, where it makes sense for efficiencies or scale, we'll likely see more consolidation than we saw under Buffett when Berkshire was smaller and the acquired company's founders were still in place,” said investor Steven Check, who is president of Check Capital Management.

Berkshire shareholders will likely be excited just to see Abel making deals, given that the Omaha-based company is currently sitting on nearly $400 billion cash. This deal by itself isn't likely to make a meaningful impact on Berkshire's bottom line because the conglomerate is so big, but dealmaking and investing are the areas of Abel's resume that investors had the most questions about.

Buffett praised Abel in an interview with CNBC on Monday morning.

“Greg did that faster than I could have done it, smoother than I could have done it, and I never talked to the CEO. He has launched,” Buffett told CNBC.

Abel has led acquisitions before while leading Berkshire's massive utility division, but obviously Buffett would have signed off on those. Now Abel is making the decisions with advice from Buffett and the rest of the board.

“I think investors will cheer Greg’s foray into M&A as CEO. The purchase price seems rich given the current interest rate/macro environment,” Seifert said.

Berkshire agreed to pay Taylor Morrison investors $72.50 per share in the all-cash deal. That represents a 24% premium over the company's previous closing price of $58.50. Shares of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based homebuilder jumped up near that purchase price on Monday while Berkshire's shares slipped 1%.

But Raymond James analyst Buck Horne said in a research note that it's possible Berkshire could face some competition from private equity firms or other potential buyers who might be willing to pay more for Taylor Morrison before its shareholders can vote on whether to accept this offer.

“We would not be shocked if other players and/or private equity began to sharpen their pencils before the ink on this agreement is fully dry,” Horne said.

While Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia has already been massively successful in supplying high-end chips for data centers riding the worldwide AI demand boom, it is plotting different plans to expand its presence across AI systems and products.

Jensen Huang, the Taiwanese American founder and CEO of Nvidia, made the announcement in Taipei at the annual Nvidia GTC event. Microsoft and Nvidia “are going to reinvent the PC (personal computer),” he said in his keynote speech.

“This is going to be the new PC,” Huang said as he unveiled Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchip — which combines CPU, or central processing unit, and GPU, or graphics processing unit, capabilities — that would power new Windows laptop and desktop computer models in what the company called “AI personal computers,” expected to debut in the fall of this year.

Nvidia is already the world’s most valuable company, ahead of Apple, Google’s parent Alphabet and Microsoft. Its new superchips for PCs will challenge chipmaking rivals including Intel and AMD. Nvidia's shares were up nearly 4% in early U.S. trading, while Intel and AMD both fell more than 3%.

The company said it will be “reinventing the personal computer” for creating and gaming. “When it has an autonomous (AI) agent, an agent that’s helping you, that understands you, you could talk to it. It could look at you. You could ask it to read files, go help you do some research. It could do a lot more,” Huang said.

Microsoft said in a separate statement that the personal computers running on Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchips would be able to support “highly capable AI models” and complex workloads. With the new superchips, these personal computers can run AI agents locally, Nvidia said.

“This is the first across the lineup of PC reinvention for 40 years,” said Huang.

Nvidia’s move is significant at a time when demand is growing for the use of personal AI agents, said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at the technology research and advisory group Omdia.

“For consumers, it means more choices, which is always a good thing,” Su said.

Neil Shah, analyst and co-founder of Counterpoint Research, described Nvidia’s announcement as a move that’s “revolutionizing how PCs would look like in the next 10 years.”

The new laptops and desktop computers “will drive agentic AI applications in every home,” Shah said, with an aim of having an “AI supercomputer” in each household.

Also during Monday’s speech, Nvidia’s Huang said its new Vera CPUs for data centers are in full production and are “going to be our new major growth driver” on the boom of AI agents, with early customers including Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceXAI.

Huang also revealed a humanoid robot reference design that could act as a blueprint for future research, especially within the higher education sector. Nvidia said its “Isaac GR00T” stands nearly six feet tall and has the humanoid chassis of Chinese robot maker Unitree’s H2. It is equipped with five-fingered dexterous hands, made by Singapore-based robotics startup Sharpa, that are capable of finely controlled movements.

___

Chan reported from Hong Kong.

Second-place finisher, progressive Sen. Iván Cepeda, and his ally, President Gustavo Petro, have questioned the election results, without providing evidence.

Cepeda on Monday called on de la Espriella to debate him ahead of their June 21 runoff. De la Espriella replied on X: “Are you ready, coward? … First, acknowledge the election results and let’s debate right now.”

De la Espriella rapidly gained traction ahead of Sunday’s election and won nearly 44% of the vote. Cepeda, who had consistently led polling, won less than 41%.

In the runoff, De la Espriella is expected to scoop up additional votes from Colombians who supported other conservative candidates in the first round.

Cepeda will face an uphill battle, said Sergio Guzmán, a political analyst. De la Espriella's win is "a shift in public opinion that is very difficult to overcome. So now Abelardo is emerging as the likely favorite to win.”

Markets in Colombia and the Colombian peso jumped on Monday, likely a product of de la Espriella’s proposal to roll back regulations on businesses and willingness to open the country to fracking — a sharp turn from Petro’s environmental agenda.

Miroslav Jenca, head of the United Nations verification mission in Colombia, said Monday that his team observed firsthand the commitment of Colombian security and electoral authorities to ensure an orderly vote.

“I call for a peaceful election campaign, without resorting to any violence,” Jenca said. “I encourage all parties to address their differences through institutional mechanisms.”

A political shift in the Americas continues

The 47-year-old De la Espriella, known as “El Tigre” or “The Tiger,” has never held office in Colombia and prided himself on living a luxurious life in Italy before deciding to run for president.

He pitched himself as an outsider who would cozy up to U.S. President Donald Trump and follow El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's war on gangs, which has driven down homicide rates but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.

“I will wipe out narcoterrorism and those who I've declared a military target like cockroaches, like rats. I will unleash upon them the wrath of God never seen before,” de la Espriella said in an interview with The Associated Press in the final stretch of the campaign, where he promised to open 10 mega-prisons to fight crime.

He joins a growing number of leaders across Latin America, from Chile to Honduras, seeking to latch onto the “Bukele model” as voters across Latin America are ditching leaders who pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption.

De la Espriella's supporters come from a wide range of backgrounds. Yolanda Peréz, a 64-year-old woman serving coffee in Colombia's capital, Bogotá, said with a wink the day before the election: “I'm thinking of voting for El Tigre.”

Miguel Maheca, a 20-year-old first-time voter, flashed his ballot to his mother as he strolled out of the polling station on Sunday, saying with a grin, “Love isn't what's going to make us safe in Colombia."

But experts say El Salvador's security successes will be nearly impossible to replicate in a country like Colombia, which is more than 50 times larger than the Central American nation and has many more armed groups fighting for territory.

The Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, putting mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador to crack down on crime.

De la Espriella made a name for himself as a lawyer defending high-profile clients such as former President Álvaro Uribe as well as controversial figures like Alex Saab, a close ally of Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolás Maduro who faces legal issues in the U.S.

Cepeda had vowed to carry on peace efforts

The progressive Cepeda has promised to carry on his ally Petro's fraught plan to achieve “total peace” by negotiating peace pacts with guerrillas and criminal gangs.

Their political movement was born from a rejection by many Colombians of a militarized offensive by Uribe in decades past to beat back guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Thousands of civilians were killed by Colombian forces in a scandal known as “false positives.”

De la Espriella “represents a return to the paramilitary politics and drug-trafficking — a mafia-run, plutocratic and corrupt past that the country experienced during Álvaro Uribe’s two administrations,” Cepeda said on Sunday.

Petro, a former rebel, won Colombia's presidency in 2022, ending decades of domination by leaders from Uribe's political movement. He gained massive support from rural-dwelling, Indigenous and poorer Colombians who felt they had never been directly spoken to by the country's leaders.

Now that movement is backed into a corner.

“This is de la Espriella’s election to lose,” wrote Renata Segura, director of International Crisis Group's Latin America and the Caribbean Program. “Cepeda thought he could win appealing squarely to the left, and that proved to be a massive mistake. How he pivots in the next month will determine if he has any chance to win.”

___

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

Social media platforms with at least 8 million users in Malaysia, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, must implement age-verification systems and block users under 16 from creating accounts.

Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission said age verification for existing users will be rolled out over the next six months. Users identified as under 16 will have a month to download or transfer data, including photos and videos, before restrictions or other actions are applied.

Companies that fail to comply could face penalties of up to 10 million ringgit ($2.5 million). Parents whose children manage to bypass the law will not be penalized.

The government said the measures are aimed at protecting children from harmful content, cyberbullying and platform features designed to encourage excessive use.

Countries including Australia,Brazil and Indonesia have introduced or announced age-based restrictions or requirements for children’s access to social media. Others including Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand and South Korea are studying or developing similar approaches.

Malaysia's regulator said the rules are not intended to prevent children from accessing digital technology. Platforms are required to improve user safety, discourage excessive use and take action against underage accounts and harmful content.

Technology companies have yet to describe how they will comply.

Clara Koh, Meta’s director of public policy for Southeast Asia, has cautioned that Malaysia's under-16 ban could backfire by driving teenagers away from protected apps and into unregulated corners of the internet.

Governments around the world face pressure to address concerns about social media’s impact on children’s mental health and online safety. In March, a U.S. jury ordered Meta and YouTube to pay millions of dollars in damages in a case alleging that platform design features contributed to harm suffered by a young user.

Malaysian families have varying views

In Kuala Lumpur, Saravanan Ganasan and Jayaradha Veerasamy, whose children are 12 and 15, said they approve of the changes. They already had banned their kids from using social media, believing minors lack the psychological capacity to cope with it.

Devices are kept out of bedrooms, screen time is limited to common areas and their son is not allowed to lock his phone with a password.

“Exposure is what we fear,” Saravanan said. “The wrong kind of exposure will do damage to the mind.”

Aadhavan Saravanan, 15, said he believes he would be addicted to social media if allowed full freedom. “Social media is, like, a luxury and it’s not a necessity,” he said.

The couple said the restrictions have forced their children to develop offline life skills. Aadhavan reads books in a backyard mango tree and repairs broken household appliances, while their daughter cooks and does crafts.

“A lot of parents are very scared that children get bored,” Jayaradha said. “But boredom is actually very good because they start thinking out of the box.”

But Shaun Hew, in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Cheras, said the new restrictions go too far.

Hew believes social media allow his kids to spend time productively, as long as there is proper adult oversight. His 11-year-old son uses platforms to learn cooking and his daughter, 14, uses YouTube for exam preparation.

He worries a sudden cutoff could cause teenagers to rebel and find unregulated ways to bypass internet blocks.

Some express concerns over privacy and safety

Some critics said Malaysia’s decision could increase the risks of data privacy breaches and expand state surveillance.

“It is very much following the trend, but in a way that is raising alarms due to requiring a government ID for age verification,” said Benjamin Loh, social science lecturer at Monash University in Malaysia. He said social media companies could end up storing sensitive personal data without sufficient safeguards.

Loh said the decision also could unintentionally affect stateless individuals, undocumented residents and members of marginalized communities including LGBTQ+ people who rely on anonymity online for safety.

Without penalties on parents, families can easily bypass the law by creating accounts for their children, he added.

“This is a major gap that, unless regulators are willing to fix, will result in the law having little effect in stopping children from using social media,” he said.

The potential retreat is a nod to the legal setbacks the fund has encountered since it was announced two weeks ago and a recognition of the mounting political backlash from Republicans concerned by a lack of oversight of the money disbursement and the possibility of payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The Trump administration had defended the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” established to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, as an appropriate corrective measure for what officials insist was weaponized law enforcement during the Biden administration.

But while some Trump supporters — including participants in the Capitol riot — celebrated the announcement of the fund, the reaction among Republicans in Congress has been decidedly more hostile. The outrage came to a head last month at a closed-door meeting between senators and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas described on a recent episode of his podcast as “one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate.”

The furor has especially complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies after Democrats said they would offer amendments to scrap or scale back the judgement fund.

Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the fund. Many have pushed the administration to impose limits or cancel the idea altogether.

Amid the backlash, a person familiar with the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking, said Monday that Trump was reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund. The Justice Department separately said Monday that it would comply with a judge's order from Friday that temporarily halted implementation of the fund pending additional arguments later in the month.

But Republicans said they were still seeking a more explicit commitment that the fund would be pulled back.

“They need to say what they actually mean,” said Republican Sen. Jim Lankford. "They need to say, 'We’re setting this whole thing aside.'”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday that he hoped the White House would move to drop the fund. He said he wasn’t sure if the immigration spending bill would move this week.

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

He said any additional statements from the administration would be helpful, but: “I think the statement they made effectively shuts it down. We’ll find out.”

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

It was not immediately clear whether the retreat being signaled on the fund Monday indicated that the administration would also backtrack on another element of the IRS settlement — a commitment by the government to abandon any probes of Trump, his family and other associates over whether they’ve paid their fair share of taxes.

The fund was dealt a pair of legal blows on Friday, including an order by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema that temporarily barred it from being implemented. The judge scheduled a June 12 hearing for arguments on whether to extend her order. The Justice Department statement did not say whether the government intended to continue to make legal arguments for the fund.

“This Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise,” the statement said. "The Department will abide by the Court’s ruling.

Separately, the federal judge in Florida overseeing Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS ordered Trump’s attorneys on Friday to respond to “grievous allegations” by settlement critics that the president abandoned his claims to avoid the court’s scrutiny of an illegal deal. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams gave them until June 12 to respond in writing to allegations of collusion and whether the case should be reopened because the court was the “victim of a fraud.”

_____

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

The explosion occurred at midday Sunday in Kaungtup village, Namhkam township in Shan state near the Chinese border.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the ethnic rebel group that controls the area, said in a statement Monday evening that the death toll from the blast has reached 43, including seven children. Previous estimates from rescue workers had ranged from 38 to 45. Determining the exact toll has been complicated because bodies were blown apart by the force of the explosion.

The group said 112 people, including 25 children, were injured, with 37 in critical condition, raising concerns that the number of fatalities could increase.

“Rescue operations and the compilation of casualty figures were still underway,” said the statement.

Many of Myanmar’s resource-rich areas, where most mining operations have been largely unregulated, are controlled by different armed militias engaged in sporadic fighting against the central government to seek greater autonomy. Accidents, such as deadly landslides, are fairly common.

TNLA said Sunday's blast involved gelignite used in local mining and stone quarrying. Although gelignite is commonly used, it becomes highly unstable over time when improperly stored.

Residents of the 200-household village reported that they were never told explosives were being kept there.

An investigation into the specific cause of the explosion is underway, the TNLA said.

The incident has cast a spotlight on Myanmar’s lucrative but largely unregulated mineral industry and Chinese investment in the country's extractive industries.

Two local residents told The Associated Press on Monday that mines producing raw materials for silicon metal — a key industrial substance used in semiconductors, solar panels, and aluminum alloys — are located in mountainous areas about 15 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Namhkam town.

The residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their safety, said the mines are operated jointly by the TNLA and Chinese businessmen and are inaccessible to most residents. The claim couldn’t be independently verified by the AP.

Myanmar’s mining industry is a major global provider of rare earth elements, copper, tin, and precious gems, especially jade and rubies, and is the main supplier to China, where the extracted materials are processed and refined.

China maintains a complex role as a top ally to Myanmar’s military-backed government while also fostering relations with the ethnic minority groups.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian in Beijing expressed deep condolences and confirmed that a Chinese national injured in the blast is receiving medical treatment. Beijing has pledged assistance in handling the aftermath.

The TNLA, part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, seized control of the Namhkam area in late 2023 during a major offensive against the military government. This conflict is part of the broader turmoil following the February 2021 military coup, which ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggered widespread armed resistance.

While the TNLA signed a China-mediated ceasefire with the military in late 2023, peace in the region is shaky and extraction of minerals and gemstones provides critical income for both the central government and the rebel groups fighting against it.

___

Associated Press writers Anton Delgado in Bangkok and E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing contributed to this report.

Marner was nearing the end of his contract with Toronto, and all signs pointed to him not re-signing. Carolina had just acquired fellow pending free agent Mikko Rantanen from Colorado in a three-way trade in late January, and after several weeks it was also clear that would not be a long-term relationship.

The Maple Leafs and Hurricanes discussed the possibility of a Marner-for-Rantanen swap. Marner held the keys with his full no-movement clause, and he preferred staying put and seeing out one more run with the team that drafted him, then went on to choose Vegas, going to the Golden Knights in a sign and trade in late June before hitting the open market.

Marner's decision caused a domino effect that led Vegas and Carolina to this stage, where they'll now meet in the Stanley Cup Final beginning Tuesday night. The Hurricanes pivoted to sending Rantanen to Dallas for Logan Stankoven — one of their best players during this run — along with a pick they then used to trade for K'Andre Miller last summer, in the process saving the salary cap space needed to sign top free agent Nikolaj Ehlers.

The Golden Knights got Marner, who leads all scorers in the playoffs and left no doubt why the Hurricanes were interested. Asked what the team liked, general manager Eric Tulsky declined comment because Marner is under contract with another team.

"I can answer that one," coach Rod Brind'Amour said. “What don’t you like about him?”

‘What if?’ is not on Marner's mind

When speculation was building last spring about Marner potentially being involved in a trade for Rantanen, it wasn't just a question of hockey. Marner's wife, Stephanie, was pregnant with the couple's first child. Marner is from the Toronto area.

The Leafs reached the second round before blowing a 2-0 series lead to defending and eventual back-to-back champion Florida. The Hurricanes lost in five games to the Panthers in the East final, still missing something.

This season, Marner was a point-a-game player. He has seven goals and 14 assists for a playoff-high 21 points.

“Mitch is playing with tremendous confidence,” GM Kelly McCrimmon said. “I think he’s really savoring the moment.”

Marner credited the coaching staff for putting him in positions to succeed and teammates for finishing scoring chances. Wearing a Vegas hoodie on Cup final media day, he insists he's not thinking about the alternate reality of playing for Carolina instead.

“No, I’m not a guy that lives in the past,” Marner said. “I’m in the present. I’m here in the moment.”

The Hurricanes pivoted perfectly

Tulsky was referring to Rantanen when he said of taking chances, “Sometimes it doesn’t go the way you hoped, and you’ve got to be ready to figure out how you’re going to move forward from there.” Trading Martin Necas to the Avalanche for Rantanen did not work out, though getting veteran winger Taylor Hall from Chicago in the same deal certainly has.

The pursuit of Marner fits in the same category, but plan B worked out swimmingly. Stankoven has been a difference-maker for Carolina centering the second line of Hall and Jackson Blake and is showing why he was the centerpiece of the return from the Stars for Rantanen.

Had Marner wanted to go to Carolina, Stankoven could still be with Dallas. Instead, he had to grapple with the strange feeling of getting traded.

“I didn’t see it coming,” Stankoven said. “Everything kind of happens for a reason. Obviously, Dallas got their player, and I just want to become the best version of myself here in Carolina. Just how welcoming everyone has been here, the fans, my teammates, I absolutely love the city and couldn’t be happier that I was able to sign long term here.”

The same day Stankoven signed an eight-year, $48 million contract, Tulsky used one of the first-round picks from the Rantanen trade to acquire Miller from the New York Rangers and sign him long term. By the end of the week, Ehlers chose Carolina among several intriguing suitors.

Miller has thrived with the change of scenery, and Ehlers has, along with Stankoven, given the Hurricanes the offensive finish they lacked in several playoff runs that ended before the final.

“(Ehlers) adds things to it that aren’t what we would ask a lot of players to do,” Tulsky said. “Having that kind of ability on the team — someone who could just create scoring chances out of thin air — it always makes you more dangerous.”

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Adelman, the father of Denver Nuggets coach David Adelman, was 79. The cause of his death was not immediately announced.

“The Denver Nuggets were extremely saddened to learn of the passing of Hall of Fame Head Coach Rick Adelman,” the Nuggets said Monday night. “Our thoughts are with head coach David Adelman, the entire Adelman family and the many friends and loved ones that were lucky enough to know Rick.”

Rick Adelman won 1,042 games as an NBA coach, 10th-most in league history. Only four other coaches — Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, Jerry Sloan and George Karl — coached more games and had a better winning percentage than Adelman, who took the Portland Trail Blazers to the NBA Finals twice and also was head coach in Sacramento, Houston, Minnesota and Golden State.

“Adelman will be remembered not only as a coach and a player, but also as a mentor to so many in the basketball community,” read a statement from the coaches' association, which honored Adelman with its Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.

“Rick Adelman’s NBA coaching career has been highlighted by innovation, integrity and excellence,” Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said when the NBCA presented that award three years ago. “His teams always played to their strengths, and Rick always found subtle ways to reinvent NBA basketball to help his players thrive. His quiet, unassuming nature belies his impact as one of the great NBA coaches of all time.”

Adelman also played in the NBA from 1969 through 1975 as a point guard for five different teams — but found his calling as a coach.

The Kings, in paying tribute, said Adelman “will be remembered for the way he inspired those around him — with humility, integrity, kindness, and an unwavering belief in the power of teamwork."

Adelman's path to the NBA, as a coach, was unintentional.

He thought he would become a high school coach, though his lack of experience was a deterrent. He then started his coaching career at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon.

“We had great success there,” Adelman said in his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech. “The one thing I did not realize is Jack Ramsey was following my team.”

Ramsey was coaching the Portland Trail Blazers, and invited Adelman to interview when a position opened on his staff. Adelman worked under Ramsey for three seasons and Mike Schuler for 2 1/2 more, then took over as interim coach with 35 games left in the 1988-89 season.

“We had a team that was ready to win,” Adelman said in 2021.

Blazers owner Paul Allen told Adelman he could coach the 1989-90 season. The rest is history. Portland won 59 games that season with Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey and Buck Williams leading the way, getting to the NBA Finals and falling to Detroit.

Adelman was off and running. He took the Blazers back to the NBA Finals two years later, falling then to Chicago. After his Portland era, Adelman coached two years at Golden State and then went to Sacramento — where he had eight winning seasons in an eight-year stint, with players like Vlade Divac, Peja Stojaković, Mike Bibby, Chris Webber, Jason Williams, Bobby Jackson and current Kings coach Doug Christie. And in those Sacramento years, Adelman was widely credited for running some types of offenses that the league had never seen.

“He was a brilliant strategist and teacher of the game, and an even better person,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.

Adelman had 210 players appear in at least one NBA game for him.

“He actually challenged me and poured into trusting me," 20-year guard Kyle Lowry said Monday night. “That was important for me. He didn’t have to. He could have done everything else, he could have played other players, but he believed in me. ... He just trusted his players. He just wanted to win. And if it wasn't for him, I don't know what career I would have. It's a sad day.”

Among Adelman’s accomplishments: He engineered a 22-game winning streak with Houston in 2008, a run that is the fourth-longest in NBA history.

“Coach Adelman guided the Rockets with professionalism, integrity, and a deep commitment to the game,” the Rockets said in a release. “His role in leading the team during the 22-game winning streak in 2008 remains one of the most remarkable achievements in franchise history and will always be remembered by Rockets fans.”

The Blazers noted that not only did Adelman lead the team to the finals twice, but he was a player on the inaugural Portland team in 1970.

"Rick was one of the most influential figures in franchise history," the Blazers said.

___

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

Trump announced the development in a social media post following a call with Netanyahu. Israeli forces recently made their deepest incursion into Lebanon in more than a quarter century. Trump said there would be no Israeli troops “going to Beirut” and that those on their way "have already been turned back.”

He said Hezbollah had "agreed that all shooting will stop — That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”

Netanyahu confirmed the conversation but cast it less as restraint and more as a warning, saying he told Trump that Israel would strike targets in Beirut, Lebanon's capital, if Hezbollah’s attacks do not stop. The Israeli military will continue “to operate as planned” in southern Lebanon, Netanyahu added.

There was no immediate word from Hezbollah.

The two sides have been under a ceasefire since mid-April, but Hezbollah resumed attacks after Israeli strikes in Lebanon that Israel characterized as self-defense. The fighting also presents a major obstacle in the emerging deal to extend the ceasefire in the Iran war. Tehran wants any agreement to include Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities secured Hezbollah’s approval of a proposal by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Israel would not strike Beirut's southern suburbs, and Hezbollah would not attack northern Israel, according to a statement issued by the Lebanese Embassy to the U.S.

Moments after Trump’s message, Israel detected missile launches from Lebanon and warned Israelis in part of northern Israel to take cover.

Talks between Israel and Lebanon are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, where Lebanese negotiators hope to widen the scope of areas that will not be attacked in the country as they seek a complete ceasefire.

Israel orders strikes on Beirut suburbs

Trump's comments emerged after Israel’s government ordered strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut and as Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel, including the outskirts of the coastal city of Haifa.

A joint statement by Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the orders followed what they called repeated violations of the ceasefire by Hezbollah and “attacks against our cities and citizens.”

The Israeli military's Arabic spokesman later posted on X that residents should leave the suburbs, adding that if Hezbollah continues attacking Israeli communities, Israel will launch attacks on the Beirut area of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah enjoys wide support.

After Monday's warning, large numbers of people were seen fleeing Dahiyeh, jamming roads leading out of the area.

Mohammed Farhat, 23, fled with his brother and parents from Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik and was heading with his mother on a motorcycle to stay with relatives in another neighborhood.

“We are worried. I am used to it but left for my parents,” the university student said.

Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire overnight

Israeli airstrikes overnight on southern Lebanon left six people dead, including a Syrian citizen in a village near the city of Nabatiyeh, the state-run National News Agency said. Israel struck other towns and villages near the major city, close to the strategic Beaufort Castle and other towns the Israeli military captured in recent days.

An airstrike Monday afternoon in the port city of Tyre caused heavy damage to the Jabal Amel Hospital, the Health Ministry said. A video released by the ministry showed shaken women and children inside the hospital, where windows were blown out.

The Israeli military, meanwhile, said its air force had intercepted two projectiles launched from Lebanon toward Israeli territory, as well as a suspicious aerial target in the area where Israeli soldiers operate in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported, the military said.

Hezbollah said early Monday that it attacked Israeli troops in Zawtar al-Sharqieh, just north of the Litani River, and struck what they said was Israeli military infrastructure in Tiberius, a few dozen miles south of the border.

Israel and Lebanon set to hold talks in Washington

The latest attacks happened just before the next round of direct Israel-Lebanon talks in the U.S. capital. Hezbollah has rejected direct talks, counting on pressure from Iran, which has demanded an end to the war in Lebanon in its talks with the United States.

The Israel-Lebanon talks that began in April in Washington were the first in more than three decades between the countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations.

Beirut is still committed to holding talks to end the conflict despite the boiling tensions, said a Lebanese diplomatic official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asserted Monday that any ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran is a “ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon."

“Its violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts," Iran's top diplomat said in a post on X.

The Lebanese capital has been mostly spared since the ceasefire

Beirut has been mostly spared from airstrikes since the ceasefire went into effect, apart from two targeted attacks on the city's southern suburbs in May.

Saudi Arabia condemned Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, saying it “categorically rejects” Israel’s movement into the small Mediterranean nation. The Saudi Foreign Ministry called on the international community to prevent Israel from going deeper into Lebanon.

Lebanese parliament chief Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, said in a statement Sunday that he could guarantee the militant group’s “full, comprehensive and immediate commitment to a ceasefire.” Berri added: “But who will force Israel to stop its aggression?”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Monday that his government continues work to end “the suffering of the Lebanese in general and the southerners in particular.” Later, he issued a statement reiterating Beirut's commitment to negotiations, saying they are “safer” than war."

At the United Nations, Assistant Secretary-General Martha Pobee told an emergency meeting of the Security Council that Israel’s push into Lebanon violates Lebanon’s territorial integrity and the 2006 council resolution requiring Israel to withdraw to south of the U.N.-drawn border with Lebanon.

She also accused Hezbollah of violating the resolution that requires the militant group to disarm.

U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz said a deescalation and peace will come quickly “if Hezbollah immediately ceases its attacks, as apparently it’s promised, and the government of Lebanon asserts its fully sovereignty, rebuilds, and brings its people home.”

Lebanon's U.N. Ambassador Ahmad Arafa commended the Trump administration for “constructive efforts aimed at giving diplomacy a chance” and Trump's latest push.

The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,433 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1 million people.

Israel’s military said a soldier was killed in southern Lebanon overnight in a drone attack by Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s use of hard-to-detect fiber-optic drones has been deadly for the Israeli military, which is struggling to respond.

According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 26 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.

___

Mroue and Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

“Did anyone else hear that boom?”

“Anyone feel that?”

NASA let people know over the weekend that the cause of the commotion was a meteor, but on Monday they revealed even more stunning details.

The fireball was as heavy as an elephant and 5 feet (1.52 meter) wide and was going 42,000 mph (67,592.5 kph) when it entered Earth’s atmosphere. It broke up miles above New England on Saturday and the energy released was equivalent to about 230 tons of TNT, the agency estimated, accounting for the booms.

NASA revealed the jaw-dropping details in a social media post Monday along with other statistics.

The meteor was made up of natural material — not a satellite or space debris — and traveled through the atmosphere for about 26 miles (41.8 kilometers), according to NASA, before falling into Cape Cod Bay, which sits along southeastern Massachusetts.

The agency was quick to point out that meteors are very common, but typically don't have as big of an audience as this one.

“They often occur over the ocean or unpopulated areas with no witnesses, or during the daytime, making them difficult to spot,” according to NASA.

The event prompted widespread speculation initially.

The rattling boom had some people in Massachusetts and Rhode Island thinking there had been an earthquake or that a tree had fallen. Others posted that their dogs were freaking out. At least one person posed the possibility of aliens.

A man in Peabody, Massachusetts, posted that it had been a windy day, so he thought a large tree had hit his house. When he came outside, he said, he found most of his neighbors in the street asking the same questions.

Several people filed reports with the U.S. Geological Survey, registering the shaking they felt with the National Earthquake Information Center, Steve Sobie, an agency spokesman, confirmed.

The agency opened an event page, based on the number of “Did you feel it?” reports it received on its website. But Sobie said there was no event registered on the agency’s seismographs. meaning the shaking was not due to an earthquake.

The American Meteor Society received dozens of reports from Delaware to Montreal with people either hearing the double boom, feeling the ground shake or seeing the fireball, its program monitor, Robert Lunsford, said.

Jing Sheng Dong, 48, of Staten Island, New York, initially was charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter after the crash early Friday morning on Interstate 95. On Monday, a grand jury indicted him on three additional charges of involuntary manslaughter and one count of reckless driving, according to a statement from the Stafford County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.

Authorities said Dong was driving a motorcoach from New York to North Carolina when he struck a line of vehicles that had slowed down in a work zone. A family of four from Greenfield, Massachusetts, on their way to a wedding were killed, as was a 25-year-old woman from Worcester, Massachusetts.

Dong, who remained hospitalized Monday, previously was accused of speeding in Colonial Heights, Virginia, in November 2024 and in Annapolis, Maryland, in March, according to online court records. In the latter case, he is accused of driving a motorcoach 72 mph (116 kph) in a 50 mph (80 kph) zone.

In the Virginia case, Dong was convicted of driving 73 mph (117 kph) in a 55 mph (89 kph) zone and paid $219 in fines and court costs. He also has a pending case in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, where he was accused of trespassing in July.

The bus involved in Friday's crash was operated by E&P Travel Inc., based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash, a board member said.

Court documents related to the bus crash do not list an attorney for Dong. Neither the attorney representing him in the trespassing case nor the lawyer representing him in Maryland responded to emails seeking comment Monday.

Prosecutor Eric Olsen said Dong will be transported to jail upon his release from the hospital.

____

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

Major League Baseball proposed a salary cap last week and appears set to start a lockout after the current labor contract expires Dec. 1.

“Our union has never been broken and never will be,” interim executive director Bruce Meyer said Monday during an online news question-and-answer session with reporters. “Our players have what they have, including being the only sport that doesn’t have this ultimate restriction, the salary cap, because our players have always been the most unified and that’s going to continue.”

Baseball has had nine work stoppages since 1972, the last a 99-day lockout that slightly delayed the 2022 season. Regular-season games have not been lost since a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95, the last time MLB proposed a cap.

The NFL has had a cap since 1994, the NBA since 1984-85 and the NHL since 2005-06.

“The unions in the other sports didn’t agree to salary-cap systems because they thought it was a good thing for players. That’s not what happened,” Meyer said. “In one way or the other, they were not able to fight the way that our union has and, not criticizing anybody, it’s just a fact. Our union has always been the most solid, and that’s why our union has the best system.”

Negotiators have not scheduled the next bargaining session. The union last week proposed expanded free agency and salary arbitration rights along with almost doubling the major league minimum and increasing revenue sharing.

MLB’s proposal last Thursday would cap team spending in 2027 at $245.3 million, using figures for luxury tax payrolls that include $20.1 million for benefits and the pre-arbitration bonus pool. It also would establish a payroll floor of $171.2 million, forcing some teams to spend more. The Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball’s biggest spenders, had a $415.2 million payroll on opening day this year — around $170 million over the proposed cap.

“Our salary cap and floor proposal addresses our fans’ concerns by leveling the playing field while sharing baseball revenue with the players 50/50 like the other leagues," MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. “Under our proposal, major league players will receive more compensation in year one of the system than in 2026.”

Los Angeles shattered MLB’s spending record with a combined $515 million in payroll and luxury tax last year en route to its second straight World Series title. Los Angeles’ total was seven times the $68.7 million payroll of Miami, the lowest-spending team, and more than the payrolls of the bottom six clubs combined.

Meyer likened a cap to “Big Brother” telling a team it can't sign a player it wants to.

"At a time of exploding popularity, growth and interest, the owners’ goal is more money in the pockets of owners," he said. “Don’t blame them for that, but that’s what it is. Whether it’s more in profits because they’re holding down labor costs or growing their franchise values.”

Meyer dismissed MLB's contention that payroll disparity causes fans of lower-spending teams to lose hope. No small-market team has won the World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals.

“We do not accept the premise that there’s some existential crisis going on,” he said. “People are still lining up to buy these teams, to get in whether as a minority investor or otherwise, and that’s because the sport is extremely healthy.”

He pointed out lower-payroll teams do reach the 12-team playoffs and Cincinnati got in last year while the New York Mets did not. Six postseason teams had payrolls above $200 million last year, and MLB emphasizes high-spending teams usually dominate the later rounds.

“We don’t want money to be taken away from teams that want to spend it and give it to teams that don’t want to spend it,” Meyer said. “We want to encourage more San Diegos. San Diego is a small-market team that went out, decided to compete, signed a lot of players, turned around their franchise.”

MLB's proposal calls for a 50-50 split with players of defined revenue, including for player spending on signing bonuses for players from high school and college, and international amateurs agreeing to initial contracts.

“It's not even a real 50%. It’s taking billions of dollars off the top before they’re proposing to even share any of that,” Meyer said. "Players' share under their proposal would go down. Players' share for this season, 2026, is projected to be well over 50%. ... Had MLB’s proposal been in place in 2026, players would, we estimate — would lose over half a billion dollars.”

He faulted MLB for how it defined revenue and spending.

“Their proposal of course excludes things like expansion fees, franchise values, the place where they make their most money,” he said. "Their proposal deducts billions of dollars in expenses ... so it’s not even a real 50%.”

“They’ve effectively managed to cobble together the worst system for players in any of the major sports, and not even close,” Meyer added.

Player contracts this year, using average annual values and including benefits and the pre-arbitration bonus pool, total $6.14 billion, according to MLB's opening-day figures. Slot values for signing bonuses in this year's amateur draft come to about $359 million and international signing bonus pools to $208 million.

Under MLB's proposal, there would be an escrow system in which players would have money withheld in the event their share of revenue rises above the specified amount. They would get more money if their share falls short.

“If revenues are soft or they go down, then that means players at the end of the day won’t get the guaranteed money,” he said.

Meyer also said some teams heighten disparity by not spending on players.

“Every team now has the ability to put a competitive team on the field, every single team,” he said. “One of the things that I find kind of ironic in a perverse way, if team X decides we’re not going to spend money on players, well that increases the disparity in payroll.”

___

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

The majority opinion by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit upholds a March 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C. Reyes concluded that President Donald Trump’s executive order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.

Meanwhile, the energy price spike triggered by the Iran war has seeped into the price of bonds that help fund the U.S. government, causing interest rates to climb in ways that are worsening affordability pressures, hampering economic growth and creating a new risk for Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

Also, the United States said Monday that it bombed radar and drone sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American drone over the weekend. Iran then said it launched a strike of its own, and Kuwait reported incoming fire.

The nominal ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. has been repeatedly tested with such back-and-forth attacks, even as officials from both countries try to negotiate an end to the war.

Here's the latest:

Asked if Vance would be a great president, second lady says he’d be great at anything

The second lady told ABC News of her husband: “I think he would make a great anything he’d like to be.”

She said she’d been asked a couple of times about misconceptions of the vice president, and said, “I think people don’t understand what a fundamentally gentle person he is.”

Second lady won’t say if she wants vice president to seek the White House in 2028

Asked during an interview with ABC News if she’d like to see Vice President JD Vance run for president, second lady Usha Vance offered a careful dodge.

“I’m not a particularly ambitious person,” she said, after a pause. “I would like to see him happy.”

The second lady added of her husband, “I would like to see him making contributions that matter. And whatever form that takes is a form that I’ll be supportive of.”

Trump reconsidering pursuing $1.8B fund meant to compensate his allies

That’s according to a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking.

The potential retreat is a recognition of the legal setbacks the fund has encountered since it was announced two weeks ago, as well as a mounting political backlash from Republicans concerned by a perceived lack of oversight of the money disbursement and the potential for payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The Justice Department has said it would temporarily pause its implementation to comply with a court order.

___

— By Seung Min Kim

Trump administration shares more information about new Medicaid work rules

The Trump administration on Monday provided more details for how Americans on Medicaid will be able to claim exemptions from new work mandates.

A new rule reveals that starting in 2028, if health or government data doesn’t prove exemptions, some Medicaid enrollees will need to prove they are eligible with documentation.

The rule also puts forth a stricter-than-expected definition for who can qualify for exemptions based on being “medically frail.” To meet that qualification, a person’s health condition must significantly impair their ability to comply with the work requirements, according to the text of the rule.

The work requirements were part of a 2025 law. Starting in 2027, they’ll require some working-age Medicaid participants to work or do community service at least 80 hours a month, or be enrolled in school at least half the time.

States have warned implementing the changes will be expensive and time consuming. Advocates say they’ll cause millions to lose their health insurance.

Monday’s rule will be open to public comment before it is finalized.

Trump to head to Wisconsin on Friday

The White House says the president will head to Chippewa County, located in the northwest part of the state.

The trip will highlight the administration’s efforts to benefit farmers, particularly on taxes and trade.

“Wisconsin families put their faith in President Trump in 2024, and he has spent every single day since taking office fighting and delivering for them,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said.

The visit is part of a series of trips that are intended for Trump to promote his economic agenda and achievements.

Trump administration says it will comply with court order that temporarily paused $1.8 billion compensation fund

The Trump administration said Monday it will comply with a court ruling temporarily blocking a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate allies of the president, effectively agreeing to pause the plan for at least two weeks after setbacks in the courts and a fierce backlash from Republicans who objected to potential payouts to participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The announcement from the Justice Department comes in response to a Friday court ruling by a federal judge in Virginia who ordered plans for the fund halted pending additional arguments later this month. The department said in a statement that it “disagrees strongly” with the ruling but would abide by it.

The Trump administration had defended the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” established to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns, as an appropriate corrective measure to make up for what officials insist was a weaponized law enforcement during the Biden administration.

Thune says Trump dropping anti-weaponization fund is ‘best way to handle’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated Monday he was hopeful the White House would move to drop the $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies.

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

The fund had caused a standoff between the White House and the Senate after Republican senators defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies. The Senate returns today.

US to drastically slash the number of embassies in Africa that can process visas

The State Department plans to drastically slash the number of U.S. embassies and consulates in Africa that can process visas for foreigners seeking to come to the United States.

The almost 50 U.S. embassies and consulates that are processing visa applications will be reduced to 20 in the coming weeks, according to three U.S. officials and an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. There is not yet a set date for the change, but it is expected in June, according to the officials, who were not authorized to comment to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The move is part of the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on issuing both immigrant and non-immigrant visas as part of its broader aim to limit immigration to the U.S. and clamp down on those who travel on temporary visas but then overstay them. The administration also has scaled back personnel at embassies and consulates around the world.

▶ Read more

Trump says Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to dial back fighting

President Donald Trump said Monday that Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to dial back fighting after he held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and communicated with the Lebanon-militant group through mediators.

Trump announced the development in a social media post following his call with Netanyahu.

▶ Read more

Pentagon policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, appeals court panel rules

A Trump administration policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, a divided panel of federal appeal court judges ruled on Monday.

The majority opinion by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit upholds a March 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C. Reyes concluded that President Donald Trump’s executive order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.

The administration appealed after Reyes issued a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys for six transgender people who are active-duty service members and two others seeking to join the military. The appeal court’s majority decided that the injunction should be narrowed to the plaintiffs currently serving in the military but not those seeking to join.

▶ Read more

Colorado elections clerk released from prison after governor commutes sentence

Tina Peters, the former clerk convicted of participating in a scheme to chase election conspiracy theories promulgated by President Trump, was released from prison Monday after the president successfully pressured Colorado’s Democratic governor into commuting her sentence.

Peters’ release was confirmed by the Colorado Department of Corrections. The state agency said it would have no more information about the 70-year-old inmate. Her sentence was shortened by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis last month after Trump waged a lengthy pressure campaign against the governor and his state.

Colorado elections clerk set to be released from prison based on her sentence commutation

Former Colorado elections clerk and conspiracy theorist Tina Peters is scheduled to be released from prison Monday after serving less than a quarter of a nine-year sentence for her role in a scheme to copy her county’s election system.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted Peters’ sentence last month following pressure from President Trump.

The Colorado Department of Corrections would not confirm the time of Peters’ release, and a representative for her attorney said Peters would not speak to the media when she’s freed.

Peters was the first local election official to be charged with breaching security after the 2020 election. She snuck in an outside computer expert affiliated with My Pillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell — who himself denied that Trump lost the White House in 2020 — and the person copied the county’s Dominion Voting Systems computer server as it was updated in 2021.

▶ Read more

Crude oil prices rise after latest US-Iran fighting, and US stocks slip

Oil prices are rising following the latest fighting to threaten the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, but Wall Street isn’t very worried.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% early Monday, falling a bit below the record it set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 166 points, and the Nasdaq composite was little changed.

Brent crude climbed 4.7%, and Treasury yields moved higher in the bond market. Tech stocks held up better than the rest of the market.

Science Applications International Corp. soared after becoming the latest U.S. company to report bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

▶ Read more

Tensions linger between Republicans and White House over the ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

A standoff between the White House and the Senate remains unresolved after Republican senators defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Senate Republicans who are returning to Washington on Monday say they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the new $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies. But Trump has shown little interest in doing so, even after a judge temporarily halted any payouts.

It’s unclear how they’ll settle the dispute.

▶ Read more

Jerome Powell uses JFK award speech to warn against political pressure on Fed, courts and schools

Former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell used one of his first major public appearances since leaving office to defend independent institutions while accepting an award Sunday honoring his efforts to preserve the central bank’s independence.

Speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library overlooking Boston Harbor, Powell called universities, courts, Congress and the central bank “the foundation and the embodiment of our democracy” and argued that the Fed’s independence was a “priceless asset” that must be protected.

It was one of his most direct defenses of Fed independence, warning that a single administration’s decision to remove bank officials over policy differences would open the way for future elected officials to follow suit, ultimately undermining the credibility that the Fed has spent decades building.

Powell, who frequently clashed with Trump during his eight years as chair, stepped down as his term expired in May. He was succeeded by Kevin Warsh, whom Trump selected to lead the central bank.

▶ Read more

Trump vents about judge who blocked the Kennedy Center renovation and fumes over his legal setbacks

Trump on Saturday branded the federal judge who blocked his renovation of the Kennedy Center as “an anti Trump Hater” and predicted that the nation’s premier performing arts center, which he wanted to shutter for a two-year overhaul, will “soon be closed, probably never to open again.”

In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump fumed about the Friday decision from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who also ordered Trump’s name removed from the center. Clearly angered by his latest legal setback, he said it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” tying Cooper’s ruling to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of his sweeping tariffs.

His post aimed to make the case for the project even as he says he’s giving up on it. Hours after Cooper’s decision, Trump said he was backing away from the renovations and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress of what, until the Republican president’s second term, had been known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

▶ Read more

Trump set to headline ‘Great American State Fair’ for nation’s 250th anniversary after artists drop out

An upcoming celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, “The Great American State Fair,” recently had several musical guests back out partly over the event’s ties to President Trump. Now, Trump himself is slated to headline the festivities, the organizers said Saturday.

“I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance,” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social Saturday, adding that he was thinking of bringing “the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists.’”

The group organizing the June fair on Washington’s National Mall, Freedom 250, confirmed the billing in a statement, writing, “We are excited to announce that President Trump will personally kick off this historic celebration on Wednesday, June 24.”

Freedom 250 is billed as nonpartisan, but was launched last year by Trump and is led by a former State Department appointee from Trump’s first term. Several artists, including Bret Michaels, the Commodores and Martina McBride dropped out last week.

▶ Read more

US bombs Iranian military sites and Kuwait is hit by drone and missile fire

The United States said Monday that it bombed radar and drone sites in Iran after Tehran shot down an American drone over the weekend. Iran then said it launched a strike of its own, and Kuwait reported incoming fire.

The nominal ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. has been repeatedly tested with such back-and-forth attacks, even as officials from both countries try to negotiate an end to the war. It’s not clear how close they are to a deal — and there is always the risk that an attack could derail those talks.

In the meantime, Iran has maintained its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies and driving up the price of fuel around the world, with far-reaching consequences.

Fighting has also escalated between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, despite their nominal ceasefire. Israel has extended its occupation deep into Lebanon, and Hezbollah — which joined the war in support of its main backer, Iran — continues to launch drones into Israel.

▶ Read more

Trump is facing a new inflation warning from the bond market, adding to his midterm challenges

The world is getting more uptight about lending money to President Donald Trump’s government — causing interest rates to climb in ways that are worsening affordability pressures, hampering economic growth and creating a new risk for Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

The energy price spike triggered by the Iran war has seeped into the price of bonds that help fund the U.S. government. Interest rates on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note are topping 4.44%, up from 3.95% before the war started at the end of February. Average mortgage rates have climbed to their highest levels in nine months, while auto sales are slumping.

The challenge is global in scale, as interest rates have risen for multiple countries as the world has been adjusting to the prospect of higher inflation, mounting questions about the sustainability of government debt and a dramatic surge in investment in artificial intelligence.

▶ Read more

The five people will complete their monitoring at home after remaining symptom-free and meeting criteria for monitoring outside the quarantine unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

They are leaving Omaha about three weeks after they and the 13 other Americans arrived in Nebraska following a deadly outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship traveling in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Hantaviruses usually spread when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings, but the hantavirus that has caused the current outbreak, called the Andes virus, may be able to spread between people in rare cases.

A total of 13 confirmed or probable hantavirus cases, including three deaths, have been linked to the ship, according to the World Health Organization.

No Andes virus cases have been confirmed in the U.S., and the risk to the public remains low, health officials said.

None of the U.S. passengers has shown any symptoms, a spokesperson for Nebraska Medicine said Monday.

Symptoms of hantavirus have taken as long as 42 days to appear in previous outbreaks, but some medical experts say most people who develop symptoms do so within 21 days.

The doctors in Omaha monitoring the passengers had said previously that they would work with each person individually to determine if it was appropriate for them to go home to finish their recommended 42-day quarantine period.

Federal officials arranged travel for the five people going home, in coordination with state and local authorities. Officials said the travel was not to be on commercial flights, with appropriate biocontainment measures in place. State health departments will continue daily symptom monitoring, maintain 24/7 oversight and provide guidance.

Two of the people returning to their homes live outside New York City, said city Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin.

One of the remaining passengers, Jake Rosmarin, posted on his blog Sunday that he plans to stay at the Omaha unit for his final three weeks of quarantine because he would have immediate access to care if he gets sick and he doesn’t want to risk unnecessarily exposing anyone else.

Rosmarin, who posts daily updates about his experience, said he’s not judging anyone who decided to go home.

“For me personally, this experience has been incredibly traumatic," Rosmarin said. “I don’t think I’ve fully processed everything yet, and right now I don’t want to leave until I know there is no risk of me getting sick or putting my family, friends, or the general public at risk.”

Not everyone quarantined in Nebraska has been happy about it. About a week after the 18 arrived, U.S. health officials issued quarantine orders forcing two passengers who wanted to leave to stay there.

___

Stobbe reported from New York.

___

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

Platner, a Democrat, posted a video over the weekend taken by his wife, Amy Gertner, who reportedly told his campaign of the text messages last year. In the video, Gertner decried coverage of the issue as “gossip” and said “being married is hard.”

Sanders, a critical early backer of Platner, told The Associated Press on Monday that he still supports the oyster farmer and combat veteran, who hopes to unseat veteran Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

“People can't afford healthcare. Can't afford groceries. Can't afford to put gas in their cars. And I think it might be a good idea if we focused on the important issues facing the working families of Maine and this country,” Sanders said.

Pressed later by reporters on whether he still backed Platner, Sanders was unequivocal.

“Of course,” he said. “Why would I not?”

The independent senator added that he was scheduled to meet with Platner while he's in Washington this week and feels the nation should “focus on issues more important than the Platner marriage.”

During the Washington trip, which a campaign official said has been in the works for weeks, Platner is expected to meet with other senators and attend a fundraiser co-hosted by Ron Klain, the former chief of staff to President Joe Biden.

Democratic senators returned from a 10-day recess to a barrage of questions about Platner. Many who have previously backed him stood by their support, while others avoided weighing in. California Sen. Adam Schiff said he would need to “follow up to find out the scoop on that before” he could comment.

Platner is seeking the Democratic nomination for one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country as Democrats hope to defeat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins and regain control of the chamber. The Maine primary is June 9, and Platner's primary rival for the nomination, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, already suspended her campaign in April.

Platner is scheduled to appear in Bar Harbor Friday evening with progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California and a pair of Democratic Maine candidates. It’s billed as a “get out the vote” rally and it’s taking place at a historic theater in the coastal resort town.

___

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

Sabalenka beat Osaka 7-5, 6-3 on Monday to reach the French Open quarterfinals and move one step closer to finally winning the clay-court Grand Slam, where she lost last year's final to Coco Gauff.

It was the first women’s night match at Roland Garros in three years and Osaka entered the court wearing a golden bomber jacket over her gold sequin playing dress, trailing a tiered train with puffs of tulle.

Sabalenka wore more standard tennis attire: A slightly sheer black flared tennis dress with a red underlayer; plus diamond necklaces.

In the matchup of four-time Grand Slam champions, Sabalenka improved to 3-1 in her career against Osaka, who was playing in the fourth round at Roland Garros for the first time.

Sabalenka overpowered Osaka from the baseline, and produced a huge forehand return winner on her first match point that Osaka barely got her racket on.

Tournament organizers had been criticized for not scheduling more women's matches at night, with Roland Garros officials responding that women's best-of-three set matches don't occupy enough time for TV broadcasters. The men play best-of-five set matches.

Sabalenka won in 1 hour, 27 minutes.

“The atmosphere and the attention that this match brought (is) going to show them that probably for the future they should consider putting at least sometimes women matches at night,” Sabalenka said.

Sabalenka's quarterfinal opponent will be Diana Shnaider, who beat Madison Keys — the last American woman remaining in contention — 6-3, 3-6, 6-0.

French hopes were dashed following Diane Parry’s 6-3, 6-2 loss to 114th-ranked Maja Chwalinska of Poland.

Chwalinska had never been beyond the second round of any major, and her run is even more impressive considering she came through three qualifying rounds.

Chwalinska's quarterfinal opponent will be Anna Kalinskaya, who surprised even herself by reaching the last eight after defeating Anastasia Potapova 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (10-7).

“Thinking two weeks ago that I will be here, I wouldn’t believe it,” Kalinskaya said. “I would probably laugh with my team.”

Many top women's players were already eliminated, including auff, four-time winner Iga Swiatek and No. 2-ranked Elena Rybakina.

Sinner's out but Italians move on

Despite top-ranked Jannik Sinner losing in the second round, Italian fans will have at least two men in the quarterfinals.

Tenth-seeded Flavio Cobolli advanced to his second Grand Slam quarterfinal — and his first here — after beating American Zachary Svajda 6-2, 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (5).

“It’s for sure my favorite Grand Slam to play,” Cobolli said after winning on Court Philippe-Chatrier. “We have the best feeling with the surface as Italians.”

A little while after his win, Cobolli — a former youth soccer player at Italian club Roma — joined players from the Paris Saint-Germain team as they paraded the Champions League trophy on Court Philippe-Chatrier. PSG beat Arsenal in the final on Saturday.

Cobolli's next faces No. 4 Felix Auger-Aliassime, who beat Alejandro Tabilo 6-3, 7-5, 6-1 to complete a career set of reaching the last eight at all four majors. The Canadian has never been beyond a Grand Slam semifinal, though.

“Not having Sinner in the semifinals is another opportunity, but you need to be there,” Auger-Aliassime said.

Big-serving Matteo Berrettini joined Cobolli in the quarterfinals after beating Juan Manuel Cerundolo 6-3, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (6). Berrettini last reached the quarterfinals here in 2021 — but hadn't been back to the tournament since then because of a series of injuries and physical issues.

Matteo Arnaldi made it three Italians in last eight when he beat Frances Tiafoe — the last American man in the draw — 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 in a match that lasted 5 hours, 26 minutes and ended after 1 a.m.

Berrettini and Arnaldi face each other in the quarterfinals, ensuring that at least one Italian man will advance to the semifinals.

___

AP Sports Writer Samuel Petrequin, and AP Fashion Writer Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

___

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

A few minutes later, White said she also appreciates coaching Clark.

Two days after cameras caught the Indiana star and the Fever coach engaged in what appeared to be a brief sideline spat, Clark and White explained the confrontation was not the result of some deep-seeded dispute but rather the result of two highly competitive women fighting to win a game.

“I think a lot of those things happen all the time,” Clark said Monday. “I know there's a camera on me and that's how it's going to be, but there are a lot of people out there in the media or on TV that think they know a lot of things and they're just blatantly wrong about a lot of things. I ride with Steph, I ride for these girls. Steph has my back more than anybody.”

What fans saw Saturday, though, was White appearing to confront Clark who responded by putting her arms in the air. White then pulled Clark and plugged in rookie guard Raven Johnson for Clark. White has since said she was merely challenging a player to perform at a higher level.

But on social media, the fierce postgame reaction focused largely on whether the incident may have exposed a rift between the two and whether White might be fired. They spent Monday taking turns passionately expressing their unhappiness over how the exchange — and their relationship — were characterized by outsiders.

“As far as we were concerned, the moment died right then,” White said. “We can’t control the outside narrative. We can’t control where people choose to take a snippet of an instance in a game or whatever it might be and run with it. We know that people are always going to have an opinion about what we’re doing in here, people are always going to have an opinion about Caitlin. It’s the reality of the world we live in, the reality of the job we have. But it’s not the reality of what the relationship is like.”

It's been an understandably frustrating start for the Fever and Clark, who missed 31 games last season with an assortment of injuries. Rather than starting this season as the title contenders many expected to see, the Fever fell to 4-4 with Saturday's 100-84 loss at expansion Portland.

Clark, the former Iowa star and the NCAA's career scoring leader, has struggled in her comeback, too. She's made just 39.3% of her shots and only 33.3% of her 3-pointers this season and last week's West Coast trip wasn't any better.

She finished Saturday's game 1 of 7 from the field with six points and no 3s while trying to play through foul trouble. Clark went 4 of 19 from the field in last week's two games, finishing with 22 points, 12 assists and six turnovers. Her defensive play also has come under fire.

Indiana hosts Atlanta and Angel Reese on Thursday.

Off the court, Clark has been dealing with a sore back, which kept her out of the first matchup against Portland, May 20, and prompted league officials to warn the Fever about not listing Clark on the team's injury list before the game.

Yet White has continued to defend one of the league's most popular players, and Clark said she appreciates the support she's received from the 2023 WNBA Coach of the Year.

“When I got hurt at the Connecticut game last year, like I bawled in Steph's arms,” Clark said. “That's somebody I will ride for for the rest of my life. Those are moments that people don't see. People just sit on their phones all day, they don't see those moments. They don't see the moments where we come into work, they don't see the moments that absolutely suck that people have your back. They think they know everything when in reality they don't have a clue.”

___

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

A caller dialed 911 to report that the child was unresponsive inside a vehicle parked in a parking lot on New York Avenue. A witness had already begun CPR by the time police and Volusia County Fire Rescue arrived on scene.

[RELATED: Body-camera footage shows mom’s arrest]

Mother arrested after plasma donation visit

A preliminary investigation revealed that 27-year-old Latana Williams had left the child in her vehicle for approximately two hours while visiting a nearby plasma donation center, according to a statement from DeLand Police.

Officers took Williams into custody. She was charged with child neglect, a first-degree felony. Williams denied any wrongdoing.

Child’s outlook described as positive

Captain P. Dice, who responded to the scene, said the child’s outlook appeared positive.

“Please take this as a reminder to always check your back seats,” Dice said.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the DeLand Police Department at 386-626-7400.

First up for the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion is the doubles tournament at Queen’s Club. But Wimbledon and the U.S. Open could be next.

“It seems like she’s trying to work her way up maybe to the U.S. Open, and those fans would be so ready to see her back on a singles court there,” former No. 1 Lindsay Davenport said at the French Open after the WTA Tour announced Monday that Williams has accepted a wild-card invitation to play doubles at next week’s grass-court tournament in London.

Williams won seven Wimbledon titles and six at the U.S. Open before stepping away from the game in 2022. In doubles, she won six titles at Wimbledon and two at the U.S. Open — all with her older sister Venus Williams.

“She’s a legend. It’s inspiring to see,” top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka said. “I’m excited to see her play and probably face her. ... It’s very good news for tennis.”

John McEnroe suggested Williams could compete in singles at Wimbledon, which starts June 28.

“She’s not getting any younger but she’s Serena Williams so I bet you she would tell me about wanting to win the whole damn thing,” McEnroe said in Paris.

The Queen’s Club tournament starts next Monday and the WTA said Williams will play “with a partner to be announced in due course.”

“Queen’s Club feels like the perfect place to begin this next chapter,” Williams said in a statement. “Grass has given me some of the most meaningful moments of my career and I’m excited to be back competing on one of the sport’s most iconic stages.”

Williams has not competed since bidding farewell at the 2022 U.S. Open. At the time, Williams said she didn’t want to use the word “retiring” and instead declared that she was “evolving” away from tennis.

Davenport said some current women’s players went down to Florida to practice with Williams recently.

“I don’t think anyone’s admitted to that, but I do know that some of them were,” Davenport said. “So I think she has kind of a handle on where the level is. But I don’t know if she’s been playing a two-hour singles match, right? We’ll have to see how she can handle that physically.”

Williams, who has won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles overall in her storied career, became eligible to compete in February after re-registering with tennis’ mandatory anti-doping program six months earlier — which is the first step toward a comeback.

Djokovic is competitive at 39

Davenport noted how Novak Djokovic is still competitive at 39 — having recently pushed 19-year-old Joao Fonseca to five sets before getting beaten in the third round in Paris.

"It’s not going to be easy. If anyone could do it, certainly it could be her," Davenport said of Williams. “We’re seeing kind of an unprecedented time with players and how they train now, being able to play better longer, play at a level that we never expected.

“She always looks in incredible shape; and better shape than arguably when she left.”

While Williams' big serve automatically gives her an advantage on grass, it's a surface that also presents unique challenges because of the speed of play and low bounces.

“Grass is a tough surface to start on," Davenport said. "It goes very quick, very low, very physical, not as much running as clay, but a lot of bending. ... She wouldn’t come back unless she knew she could play at such a high level. But we’ve got to be a little graceful in the time we give her until she hits her feet.”

Williams sisters were role models for Osaka

Four-time major champion Naomi Osaka, who beat Williams in the 2018 U.S. Open final for her first major title, was excited at the prospect.

“It will bring people to watch tennis,” Osaka said Thursday. “I’m going to be tuned into the first match, for sure. I think a lot of people are. Everyone knows Serena and Venus were my role models growing up, so it’s going to be cool to see her on the grounds again.”

Williams recently posted a video on Instagram showing herself training on a hard court with her daughter: “Rumor has it…I got a new trainer,” Williams said in the post.

Williams’ second daughter was born in 2023.

Venus Williams, who also had a stint at No. 1 in the rankings and is a five-time Wimbledon champion, is still playing occasionally at 45.

McEnroe played doubles at 47

McEnroe was 47 when he returned after 12 years of retirement and won a tour-level doubles tournament with partner Jonas Bjorkman.

“Physically I still had it for doubles, so she definitely could still have it for doubles, there’s no question about that. She could win anything (in doubles),” McEnroe said. “The singles is more difficult. ... I’m not really sure what the plan is. She hasn’t called me to tell me the plan.”

Gauff never got to play Williams

“One of my biggest regrets was not being able to play her,” defending French Open champion Coco Gauff said.

Added fellow American player Madison Keys: “Serena Williams playing tennis is only good for tennis. Let’s be real. We all want to watch Serena play tennis.

“I mean, you literally get to watch history every single time she takes the court,” Keys added. “So why not watch more?”

Women returned to Queen's after more than 50 years

A women’s tournament rejoined the men’s competition at Queen’s last year after an absence of more than 50 years, meaning Williams will be making her debut at the historic grass-court tournament.

“And now,” said Queen’s tournament director Laura Robson, "we have an icon of the game stepping back on to court at this prestigious venue."

___

AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report.

___

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

On X, acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez confirmed the move, saying there was “nothing controversial” about it and that it came because speechwriters, who use classified material, were now occupying the space.

“The Pentagon Press Office has been redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility due to speechwriters from the Office of the Secretary of War sharing the facility,” Valdez wrote.

“These speechwriters routinely handle classified material … as a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space. There’s nothing controversial about that.”

The latest move, first reported by The Washington Post, took place against a backdrop of escalating tensions between the U.S. media and the second Trump administration, which has played out both in the public arena and at times in the courts.

For many years, Pentagon reporters had credentials granting them wide movement in the building as they sought to interact with press officials there. But last October, most news outlets turned in access badges and walked out of the Pentagon rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work,

The New York Times sued the Defense Department on May 18 for the second time in five months, arguing that a requirement that journalists be escorted while on Pentagon grounds violates the First Amendment and is “an unconstitutional attempt by the Pentagon to prevent independent reporting on military affairs.”

The paper said it had filed the additional lawsuit after first suing the Pentagon in December over new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to challenge an interim policy “that the Pentagon hastily put into place after a federal judge ruled in The Times’s favor in its original lawsuit.” The new policy included the requirement that journalists be accompanied by escorts at all times while in the Pentagon.

The policy was implemented in March following a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman that had struck down earlier restrictions. The following month, the judge ruled that the interim policy violated his March order. But the escort policy remained in place when an appeals court stayed part of Friedman’s ruling while the government appeals. The appeals process is ongoing.

Just a month ago, the two announced a settlement that avoided a trial over Lively's claims that Baldoni led a campaign to smear her reputation after she accused him of sexually harassing her on the set of their 2024 film “It Ends With Us.”

But on Monday, lawyers for Lively were back in court, trying to get a judge to make Baldoni pay her legal bills plus other penalties. They said she's entitled to the money under a California law because Baldoni's countersuit, which claimed she had defamed and extorted him, was thrown out last year by a judge.

Neither actor was present for the hearing before U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman in New York.

Baldoni and his lawyer, Ellyn Garofalo, accused Lively of trying to do “an end run" around a trial that was canceled when the two agreed to settle. While the financial terms of the settlement weren't announced publicly, Garofalo told the court it was resolved without Baldoni and his production company “paying a cent of the $300 million in damages she was demanding.”

“Reopening this for basically what is an alternative trial would involve reopening discovery, new experts, new expert depositions,” she said.

Lively's lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, asserts that the lawsuit Baldoni brought against Lively was the very kind of litigation the California law was designed to stop. The law is intended to protect survivors of sexual harassment from protracted and damaging legal fights.

Liman did not immediately rule after hearing more than an hour of arguments.

The two actors have been fighting in court since late 2024 over the fraught filming of “It Ends With Us."

Lively had claimed that during filming, Baldoni made inappropriate comments about her appearance, violated physical boundaries while filming a love scene, and pushed for nudity — against Lively’s wishes — during a scene in which her character was giving birth.

Lively also accused Baldoni and his production company of then orchestrating an effort to damage her public reputation and her credibility, in case she went public with her complaints.

Baldoni, who directed the dark romantic drama and starred in it with Lively, denied harassing her or orchestrating a smear campaign. He claimed the complaints about his behavior were made up by Lively as part of an effort to seize creative control of the movie. He countersued, accusing Lively and her husband, “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds, of defamation and extortion.

The judge ultimately dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims, ruling that she couldn’t pursue them under federal law because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee on the movie set. The retaliation claim had been headed for trial when the two sides settled.

In a joint statement after the deal was reached, the two sides said they agreed Lively’s concerns “deserved to be heard” and that they ”remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments.”

“It Ends With Us,” an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel about a relationship devolving into domestic violence, was released in August 2024 and exceeded box office expectations.

Lively appeared in the 2005 film “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and the TV series “Gossip Girl” from 2007 to 2012 before starring in films including “The Town” and “The Shallows.”

Baldoni starred in the TV comedy “Jane the Virgin,” directed the 2019 film “Five Feet Apart” and wrote “Man Enough,” a book challenging traditional notions of masculinity.

“We’re just hoping that sound minds prevail,” Seminole County Tax Collector J.R. Kroll said.

Kroll said he’s “not a big fan” of Governor Ron DeSantis’ property tax cut ‘Save Our Homes’ proposal, which would increase the homestead exemption to $150,000 beginning in 2027 and then $250,000 in 2028.

“If this proposal passes, I think the counties and the cities and the school board are going to have to figure out some other taxing mechanism,” said David Johnson, the Seminole County Property Appraiser.

Data that Johnson shared with News 6 show that the governor’s proposal would lead to a reduction in $409 million in revenue over two years.

Local governments rely on property tax revenue to fund essential services, such as police and fire.

In Seminole County, 40% of the taxable value is attributable to homesteaded properties, according to Johnson’s data.

“We’re a bedroom community of Orlando,” Kroll said, stressing the importance of property tax revenue generated from homestead properties. “So we are the suburbs. We have mostly residential homes.”

Kroll suggested that if the governor’s proposal passes, local governments might be forced to increase a sales tax or a non-ad valorem tax in order to make up for the lost revenue.

He also said governments may opt to cut spending.

“We have secondary things like the Lynx buses, the Scout (rideshare service), veteran services,” Kroll noted. “Anything that you would have in Seminole County that’s currently being paid by with those taxes would now have to be put possibly on the chopping block.”

DeSantis’ proposal does include the establishment of a trust fund that local communities could use to pay for critical services.

“What this means is that they’re going to have to go to the state every year to fund basic services,” said Jeff Brandes.

Brandes, a former Republican state senator and the president of the Florida Policy Project, has been a vocal critic of the property tax plan.

“The fact that we’re going to fundamentally rewrite Florida’s property tax system in a 72 hour special session with no data, modeling, or experts telling us that this is the right thing to do is the height of insanity of Florida politics,” Brandes said.

Brandes said if a proposal does pass the legislature, he hopes it includes a sunset provision.

“You don’t know how this is gonna play out,” Brandes said. “It needs a fail safe mechanism in case this thing turns out to be a burning dumpster fire, which is my concern.”

DeSantis, meanwhile, has continued to tout ‘Save Our Homes,’ taking to X several times over the weekend and into Monday to champion the proposal. In one post, he argued that local governments’ revenue have ballooned in recent years.

“Local governments took $32 billion in property taxes in 2019,” DeSantis wrote. “Today, they are taking $60 billion. Meanwhile, at the state level, Florida has reduced spending four years in a row--even though we’ve had both inflation and population growth. Exempting homesteads can be done. And it will help millions of Floridians.”

A long-anticipated deal was completed Monday when the Eagles traded Brown to the AFC champion New England Patriots for two draft picks, ending the tenure of perhaps the greatest receiver in franchise history.

Also, one of the more complicated ones.

Brown's relationship with the franchise, notably Super Bowl MVP QB Jalen Hurts, soured as much as his production in 2025 and the clock ticked toward a June 1 deadline for a deal when his contract would no longer be such an albatross on the salary cap. The Eagles will save up to $133 million overall in cash.

It still stings a bit.

The Eagles can now spread $43.4 million in dead money over the 2026 and 2027 seasons.

Sounds great — along with the 2028 first-rounder and a 2027 fifth-rounder acquired from the Patriots — on paper.

On the field, the Eagles will surely miss Brown, who had 339 catches for 5,034 yards receiving with 32 touchdowns in four seasons with the franchise. Brown, who turns 29 later this month, was acquired in a trade with the Tennessee Titans during the 2022 draft and was signed to a four-year deal worth $100 million.

Brown had 106 catches for 1,456 yards receiving in 2023 after he had 88 catches for 1,496 yards in 2022 in his first season with the Eagles and was rewarded with one of the richest contracts in team history.

He agreed to a three-year contract extension in April 2024 that included $84 million in guaranteed money.

The Eagles would win the Super Bowl in the 2024 season — Brown was caught reading an inspirational self-help book on the sideline during the postseason run — but the good vibes wouldn't last much longer.

Brown is not only the Eagles' No. 1 wide receiver, he was also one of the top receivers in franchise history. He topped 1,000 yards receiving all four seasons with the Eagles — including consecutive 1,400-plus-yard seasons — and was a crucial member of two teams that played in the Super Bowl.

“It is hard to find great players in the NFL and A.J.’s a great player,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said at the end of the season.

Brown thanked the Eagles, staff and fans in a social media post and wrote, “Playing for this city has been an honor. And I'm thankful for every moment in midnight green.”

Yet, Brown was unhappy last season as the Eagles offense stagnated, leading to a change at offensive coordinator.

Brown and Eagles coach Nick Sirianni bickered on the sideline during a wild-card loss to the 49ers, forcing chief security officer Dom DiSandro to intervene. Brown ripped off his helmet in frustration and yelled more in Sirianni’s direction.

Brown had nothing to say after the game, continuing a pattern where he declined to speak to the media over the final weeks of the season.

Brown had been irked about his production — rather, his lack of it — last season and wasn't shy about voicing his need for a bigger role in the offense.

He would post cryptically on social media, including a September post that said: “If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”

Brown is on his way to New England, where he will be reunited with coach Mike Vrabel, his former coach in Tennessee.

The Eagles signaled the end of Brown's tenure during the April draft when they selected Southern California wide receiver Makai Lemon in the first round. Lemon won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver after catching 79 passes for 1,156 yards — tops in the Power Four conferences — and 11 touchdowns for the Trojans.

Philadelphia had already added receivers Dontayvion Wicks, “Hollywood” Brown and Elijah Moore to potentially pair with No. 1 receiver DeVonta Smith.

Brown never got to meet the new guys inside the locker room after he skipped last week's voluntary organized team activities.

“For us, we’re focused on learning the offense,” Hurts said last week. “It really doesn’t change in terms of our approach to improve.”

Hurts and Brown had reported cracks in their relationship in 2024 when Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham said “ things have changed ” in their dynamic. Both players downplayed any tension, but questions lingered about their relationship all the way until last week's organized team activities.

The 51st pick overall out of Mississippi in 2019, Brown had been the best receiver drafted by the Titans since the organization moved to Tennessee in 1997. He was named to the Pro Bowl in 2020 and had 185 career catches for 2,995 yards and 24 touchdowns before he was dealt to the Eagles for a first-rounder in the 2022 draft.

Brown hopes he can find the happiness, catches and cash in New England that he failed to find in his two previous stops.

“It’s going to be a hard time for me to say anything bad about A.J. Brown,” Eagles running back Saquon Barkley said at OTAs. “I’m a big fan of A.J. Brown, one of my really good friends, one of my favorite teammates I’ve ever been around, just respect him as a man. But this is the business.”

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi finally was persuaded to sit down in Manhattan federal court as two marshals approached him at a judge's urging. One marshal put his hand on his shoulder to guide him into his seat.

Al-Saadi did not appear to be trying to be disruptive as he commented beyond his response to the charges. The charges say he conspired to provide material support to Kata’ib Hizballah, an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militant group, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“I'm not guilty in a war situation,” Al-Saadi responded, before adding through an Arabic translator: “I'm a prisoner of war. I'm not a threat. Children and women are being killed by your rockets.”

Judge Colleen McMahon responded by saying: “The defendant will be seated please,” which prompted the marshals behind Al-Saadi to move up to where he was seated.

Both Kata’ib Hizballah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. have been designated by the U.S. government as foreign terrorist organizations. U.S. prosecutors say Al-Saadi was a Kata’ib Hizballah commander.

But his lawyer, Andrew Dalack, told the judge that his client worked for the Iraqi government, though he did not specify what position.

The lawyer said Al-Saadi was held at an underground Turkish prison for two weeks before he was turned over to the FBI.

“I'm sure it was unpleasant, to say the least,” the judge said.

Dalack said Al-Saadi has been held in solitary confinement at a federal lockup in Brooklyn but was hoping to communicate with a diplomatic counsel from Iraq and his mother and siblings, although he expects the U.S. government to severely limit his communications.

Last month when the charges against Al-Saadi were announced, Dalack told reporters that his client believed he was being persecuted for his relationship with Qasem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020.

Among the 18 attacks in Europe, Al-Saadi is charged in the firebombing of a bank in Amsterdam and with stabbing Jewish men in London.

Federal authorities also said in court papers that he sought to attack a New York City synagogue last month and provided an undercover law enforcement officer with photos and maps of Jewish centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona, that he planned to target.

Al-Saadi is also accused of involvement in two recent attacks in Canada: an attack on a synagogue and a shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto in March. U.S. prosecutors said he directed and urged other people to attack U.S. and Israeli interests, including by killing Americans and Jews.

Al-Saadi posted about the attacks on Snapchat and Telegram and spoke about them in phone calls recorded by an FBI informant whose help he solicited in planning attacks in the U.S., according to court papers.

Pelley made his accusations in an introductory meeting Monday between the newsmagazine’s staff and Nick Bilton, the new executive producer named by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website, which said it had heard a recording of the meeting. Weiss herself was not present, according to the report. Status specializes in media news and analysis.

Status reported that Pelley, the longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent, began grilling Bilton at the 10 a.m. meeting about the firings last week of Bilton's predecessor, Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Status also reported that Pelley told Bilton, a former technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, that his qualifications for the position were “slender."

Pelley also charged, according to Status, that Weiss herself had “no qualifications for her job,” and said the changes she had made to “CBS Evening News,” which Pelley once anchored, “have been catastrophic.”

It added that Bilton insisted that “Bari loves this institution” and “she loves ’60 Minutes'" — to which Pelley countered, “She’s murdering ‘60 minutes.’ She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and she’s doing exactly that.”

CBS says leaders tried to reach out to Pelley

Two spokespeople for CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But a person close to CBS News leadership, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that both Weiss and Bilton had tried to reach out to Pelley late last week when the changes rocked the 57-year-old show to tell him that he was an integral part of “60 Minutes” and wanted him to remain so.

The person said Weiss and Bilton felt it was disappointing that Pelley's accusations were being aired publicly despite efforts to engage with him privately.

The New York Times, which also reported that it had listened to a recording of Monday's meeting, noted that Pelley's “newscaster's baritone” was shaking during the exchange. The newspaper also quoted an unnamed executive at the meeting as saying Weiss had been prepared to come, but “we asked her not to.”

Argument comes after memo touting ‘new approach’

Reports about the contentious meeting came four days after Weiss, who has become a polarizing figure in the media world since taking the reins at CBS last October, told staff in a memo that it was time for a “new approach” at the top-rated newsmagazine.

In the memo, Weiss and CBS News president Tom Cibrowski said their goal was “building a show that thrives in the 21st century.”

“That requires a new approach,” they wrote, defining that approach as “expanding ‘60 Minutes’ beyond a one-hour television broadcast, deepening its role across CBS News, and holding everything we produce to the ambition, fairness, and fearlessness that have defined ‘60 Minutes’ at its best.”

Bilton, they said, “embodies the energy and ambition that animated the founders of the show. We cannot imagine a better fit.”

The Status report noted that Pelley was applauded multiple times by other staffers during the meeting. It said Pelley focused on the firings last week, calling them cruel.

Bilton reportedly replied that he was not intimidated. “I have been a journalist for 25 years, Scott," Status quoted him as saying. "I have sat and talked with incredibly powerful people like you have. None of it intimidates me, OK? So you are not going to intimidate me in front of this group of people.”

The majority opinion — by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit — held that the Trump administration's policy was designed to exclude people from the military based on their gender identity.

The ban remains in effect. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Pentagon to start enforcing it last year, as litigation continues to plays out.

The panel's new ruling would keep the military from kicking out current service members named in the lawsuit, but wouldn't allow new transgender recruits to join. The judges put their decision on hold, though, to let the administration seek further review.

The appeals court panel's 2-1 decision partially upholds a March 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C. Reyes concluded that Trump’s executive order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.

The administration appealed after Reyes issued a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys for several transgender people who are active-duty service members and others seeking to join the military. The appeals court's majority decided that the injunction should be narrowed to the plaintiffs currently serving in the military but not those trying to enlist.

Another lawsuit challenging the ban was filed in Washington state and led to a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs challenging the policy in that case, though it's been blocked by the Supreme Court.

In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order that claims the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness.

In response to the order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy that presumptively disqualifies people with gender dysphoria from military service. Gender dysphoria is the distress that a person feels because their assigned gender and gender identity don’t match. The medical condition has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts.

The policy “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender,” Judge Robert Wilkins wrote for the majority. Wilkins was nominated to the court by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law, applauded the ruling.

“Today’s decision is a powerful vindication of the plaintiffs’ extraordinary courage and unwavering commitment to their country,” Levi said.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicated that an appeal was forthcoming in a social media post that used an abbreviation for the Supreme Court: “See you at SCOTUS.”

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Justin Walker said judges lack the power to second-guess the decision to exclude transgender troops.

“We have neither the expertise nor the authority to decide whether the military can exclude the plaintiffs from its ranks. The Constitution assigns that authority to Congress and the Commander in Chief,” wrote Walker, who was nominated by Trump, a Republican.

Judge Judith Rogers, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, joined Wilkins' majority opinion but also partially dissented. Rogers wrote that she would also have allowed new transgender recruits named in the lawsuit to join.

___

Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.

The Eagles traded the star receiver to the Patriots on Monday, putting a cap on the long-rumored deal.

The Eagles said they will receive a first-round pick in 2028 and a fifth-round pick in 2027 for the three-time Pro Bowler.

The trade comes after a frustrating 2025 season for Brown in Philadelphia, in which he had grown dispirited with an Eagles offense that played uninspired football at times while the team failed to defend its Super Bowl title.

Still, he posted a message on Instagram shortly after the trade became official Monday of him in an Eagles jersey with his hands making the “heart” symbol. He also posted a few other photos of himself as a kid wearing a Tom Brady Patriots jersey.

Brown played under Vrabel for three seasons after being drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2019.

Brown, 28, quickly rose to the top receiving option in Philadelphia after being traded by Tennessee to the Eagles in 2022.

He had back-to-back Pro Bowl seasons his first two seasons with the Eagles, catching 88 passes for 1,496 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2022 and 106 passes for 1,456 yards and seven TDs in 2023.

He earned a Super Bowl ring during the 2024 season, but began to grow unhappy last season as the Eagles offense stagnated — leading to a change at offensive coordinator following a wild-card playoff loss to San Francisco last season.

It led to an increase in chatter about the potential for a trade heading into this offseason. It didn’t happen during April’s NFL draft likely because the Eagles would have had about $43 million in dead cap money for 2026 compared to about $16 million this year and $27 million next year if traded after June 1.

Ultimately a high draft pick proved to be enough to persuade them to deal a player of Brown’s caliber.

The Patriots have been viewed as a possible landing spot for Brown since they released receiver Stefon Diggs in March. Diggs led New England with 85 receptions and 1,013 yards receiving with four touchdowns in his only season in New England in 2025, helping the Patriots reach the Super Bowl, where they lost to the Seattle Seahawks.

Diggs’ exit made finding a No. 1 receiving option for quarterback Drake Maye a priority. The Patriots did add former Green Bay Packers receiver Romeo Doubs in free agency. But he doesn’t instantly change an offense the way Brown’s addition could.

Maye acknowledged last week that he was aware of the Brown-to-New England rumors.

“If he ends up being on our team, great. What a great player. And if he doesn’t, we’ve still got to work these guys here,” Maye said. “It’s a tough balance, but I know he’s a phenomenal player.”

Patriots defensive tackle Milton Williams, who was on the Eagles 2024 Super Bowl-winning team with Brown, said the receiver would be a big addition.

“He can definitely help our team,” Williams said. “Great dude. Monster on the field, great in the locker room, holding guys accountable and holding himself accountable. That’s everything you want in a player of his caliber.”

Brown leaves Philadelphia as one of the top receivers in franchise history. He topped 1,000 yards receiving all four seasons with the Eagles. He totaled 339 total receptions and 32 touchdowns and was a crucial member of the two Eagles teams that played in the Super Bowl during his tenure.

Vrabel was entering his second season as coach of the Titans when the team selected Brown in the second round of the 2019 draft.

Brown caught 185 passes for 2,995 yards and 24 touchdowns over the next three years, peaking with a 2020 season in which he earned a Pro Bowl selection after pulling in 70 receptions for 1,075 yards and 11 touchdowns.

But the Titans wound up trading Brown to Philadelphia on the second day of the 2022 draft that April despite having a season left on his rookie deal. The team was adamant that it wasn’t its preference to trade him but felt his asking price for an extension was too high.

Vrabel stated multiple times during that offseason that Brown would be on the roster as long as he was the coach, but the realities of the situation changed things.

“Unfortunately, we understand that if we’re going to be here awhile we’re not going to be able to keep every single player that we draft and develop,” Vrabel said at the time.

Four years later, he’ll get to coach him again.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

Renegade drew post position No. 4 and is set to be ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr. The Todd Pletcher-trained horse is coming off finishing second by a neck in the Derby to Cherie DeVaux-trained Golden Tempo, who opened as the 9-2 third choice. Golden Tempo will start on the outside Saturday after drawing the No. 9 post in the nine-horse field.

DeVaux made history as the first woman to train a Derby winner. She returns to Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she was born and spent some of her early career looking to win two Triple Crown races in the same year.

Golden Tempo, with Jose Ortiz set to be aboard, is running for the first time after DeVaux and owners decided not to run him in the Preakness Stakes.

“The field can go out ahead of him, and he’ll just find himself in the back of the pack early in the race,” DeVaux said.

Bill Mott’s Chief Wallabee was the second choice at 3-1 after being fourth in the Derby and will start the race out of the No. 3 post. Mott won the Derby and the Belmont with Sovereignty last year. Jockey Junior Alvarado will look to bring Mott another Belmont win.

“Our horse seems to be doing well,” Mott said. “He doesn’t seem to have taken a step backwards since the Derby. It seems like he’s been on an upwards progression.”

The rematch of Golden Tempo and Renegade highlights the third and final Belmont at Saratoga. It has taken place at the historic track in upstate New York while Belmont Park is undergoing a full reconstruction.

New York-based trainer Chad Brown has the most horses entered in the race, headlined by Derby 10th-place finisher Emerging Market, who opened at 6-1 with Flavien Prat lined up to ride. Brown, who has never won the Belmont, also has Ottinho (20-1) and Growth Equity (12-1).

“He hasn’t taken a step back from the Derby,” Brown said on Emerging Market. “It was kind of a rough race for him. He came out of there in one piece, and we got him up here a few days after and he’s been doing really well.”

The rest of the nine-horse field includes Brad Cox’s Commandment (6-1), Doug O’Neill’s longshot Vitruvian Man (30-1), and Pletcher’s second horse, Powershift (12-1).

This year’s field doesn’t include any horses that ran in the Preakness, including winner Napoleon Solo.

___

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

The computer science student was on track to earn his degree in 2025 after years of balancing work, school and financial challenges.

“It felt like everything was right there in the palm of my hands,” Vallejos said.

But the future he envisioned changed abruptly after he was detained by immigration authorities following an arrest. Although the arrest charges were later dropped, Vallejos said an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold remained in place, leading to nearly two months in detention.

Vallejos is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a federal program that provides temporary protection from deportation and work authorization for certain undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

“I spent some days there waiting for them to drop the charges, but then I still had that ICE hold on me,” Vallejos said.

The 26-year-old said he was first taken to a holding facility before being transferred to the Krome Detention Center in South Florida and later to a detention facility in Arizona.

Throughout the process, Vallejos said uncertainty became a constant part of daily life.

“Throughout this whole thing, there’s no communication. We don’t know what’s happening to us,” he said.

Vallejos described overcrowded conditions and limited access to basic necessities during his time in detention.

“We spent the whole night on the bus waiting to go inside the building. When we finally did, we sat in a small room. The 50 of us were in a small room with just one toilet,” he said.

According to Vallejos, the experience took a physical toll as well.

“I lost 30 pounds on just that month of everything,” he said.

He said one of the few things that kept him going was the opportunity to briefly hear the voices of loved ones.

“Towards the end, they did give us a two-minute phone call. That’s all I got, to just be able to hear my girlfriend at the time and my brother’s voice. And that’s kind of what gave me a lot of hope,” Vallejos said.

When he was released, Vallejos said his focus immediately returned to finishing his degree.

“The first thing I did was just grab my brother’s laptop and find out how am I going to finish school,” he said.

However, Vallejos said the circumstances he returned to were far different than the ones he left behind.

“I found out they took away in-state tuition. I lost my scholarship. I was dropped from all four classes. So everything changed immediately after that,” he said.

Without the financial assistance he previously relied on, Vallejos said each class now costs him roughly $3,000.

To help cover expenses and continue his education, his brother launched a GoFundMe campaign.

Vallejos said the support he has received from the community has allowed him to continue pursuing his degree, and he now expects to graduate in May 2027.

“The support means so much to finally coming out about the real struggle of how this is affecting me, what’s really happened,” Vallejos said. “The support I got is honestly the reason why I’m actually even able to continue.”

Now speaking publicly about his experience for the first time, Vallejos said he hopes sharing his story will help other DACA recipients and immigrants facing similar challenges.

“I can’t just sit there and not try to do something,” he said. “I really want to find what to do to help.”

In the governor's race, former Fox News TV host and British political adviser Steve Hilton is urging Republicans to unite behind him as he fights for one of two spots in the November election alongside two Democrats, billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer and former state attorney general Xavier Becerra.

In the Los Angeles race for mayor, reality TV personality Spencer Pratt is hoping to turn his insurgent campaign into a surprise upset of Democratic Mayor Karen Bass. The two are tightly clustered with Nithya Raman, a progressive member of the City Council running to Bass' political left.

“We can't give up on LA,” Pratt told applauding supporters at a block party Sunday. “We've got to fight.”

Democrats once feared that the party’s large field of gubernatorial candidates could open a path for two Republicans to advance to November. But in the campaign’s closing days, Hilton warned the opposite could happen — what he called a “doomsday scenario” in which only Democrats advance.

Hilton is pleading with his chief Republican rival, county Sheriff Chad Bianco, to pull out of the contest, fearing an all-Democratic ticket would dampen GOP turnout across the state and reorder races for Congress and the Legislature.

Becerra and Steyer locking out a Republican from the November ballot would be “a disaster for California, it means no change. It’s a disaster for everyone who’s running as a Republican up and down the ballot,” Hilton said on the social platform X.

Bianco said he wasn't backing down.

“It's clear that Steve Hilton supporters should unite and support me,” he posted late Sunday, adding that supporters of the Democratic candidates should vote for him too.

Mail voting began in early May, but just 15% of voters had returned their ballots as of Sunday. That's left the candidates seeing room for a last-minute shake-up in the race's closing days.

A vulnerable mayor looks for a second term in LA

In heavily Democratic Los Angeles, Bass' shaky first term has left her vulnerable. She points to a drop in homelessness, though encampments and rows of rusting RVs remain a common sight in many neighborhoods. Meanwhile, she's still trying to overcome lingering fallout from the 2025 Palisades Fire, the most destructive in Los Angeles history. Bass was in Ghana as part of a presidential delegation when the flames ignited. Pratt lost his home in the blaze and has made the fire and the city's recovery a foundation of his campaign.

At Pratt's block party, Vivian Escalante, a historian who lives in the heavily Hispanic Boyle Heights neighborhood adjacent to downtown, said the quality of life has been sliding for years — dirtier streets, more homeless encampments and a lack of pride in the neighborhood she's called home all her life.

“It's gotten completely worse,” Escalante said, with a Pratt cap perched on her head. The Democratic Party, she said, has “completely abandoned us.”

The LA race is officially nonpartisan, but Bass is a Democrat, as is Raman, who made a last-minute decision to challenge her one-time ally and is among the top group of contenders.

Pratt, who rose to fame alongside his wife, Heidi Montag, on “The Hills,” is a registered Republican who has received a nod of approval — if not an outright formal endorsement — from President Donald Trump. He has sought to distance himself from national politics, saying his concerns are strictly within city limits.

A University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by The Los Angeles Times, found Bass tightly clustered with Raman and Pratt, with other candidates trailing. The poll of 1,351 likely voters conducted between May 19 and May 24 gave no candidate a statistically significant edge.

The city is at a difficult juncture.

Hollywood jobs have been decamping for years for cheaper filming locations. A downtown renaissance was crushed by extended pandemic closures and many office buildings remain desperate for tenants. The city has long struggled to provide basic services, whether paving buckled streets and fixing sidewalks or keeping streetlights on.

A crowded governor's race with no clear leader

The governor's race has been the most wide open in a generation. More than 50 names are on the ballot.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is banned by law from seeking a third term. Other candidates seeking to replace him include former Democratic U.S. Rep. Katie Porter,Democrat Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, and Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff.

Rebecca Katz, a strategist with Steyer’s campaign, said Sunday that they are “feeling pretty good” but emphasized how close the race was with a sporting reference, “It’s three candidates for two spots, every possession counts.”

Steyer, a former hedge fund manager turned liberal activist, has set spending records hoping to advance to the November contest. Hilton, a former Fox News host who has been endorsed by Trump, has promised to bring down costs in a state with some of the nation's highest gas prices, utility costs and taxes.

Becerra has been stressing his experience in arguing he's best prepared to lead the nation's most populous state, having served as the Biden administration's health secretary, a former U.S. House member and state attorney general.

He said when people talk about a plan, he responds with: "Show me how you’ve implemented it."

“Because I can show you any number of budgets that I have managed and balanced that are bigger than the budgets of the state of California," he said at a campaign event in Sacramento on Monday.

Stephanie Ocampo, a Fresno native and a legislative staffer for the Democratic caucus in Sacramento, is supporting Becerra in part because he and his wife have ties to the state’s farm-rich Central Valley.

“He has shown up for the Central Valley more than any other candidates running,” she said at the event.

Broadly, Republicans in the race are promising drastic change after years of Democratic governance — Democrats haven't lost a statewide race in two decades and Republicans last elected a Los Angeles mayor in 1997. Democrats, though in charge for years, are promising to bring down costs and continue to fend off the Trump administration in its numerous conflicts with Democratic California.

___

Associated Press writer Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to show California is the nation’s most populous state, not the second most populous.

The shocking deal Monday for Garrett came about nine months after another stunner involving a star pass rusher with Micah Parsons being dealt from Dallas to Green Bay just before the start of last season.

The Rams will send 2024 AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-rounder and a 2029 third-rounder to the Browns in the deal that is still pending a physical.

Garrett wasn't the only star player traded Monday, with Philadelphia dealing receiver A.J. Brown to New England for a 2028 first-round pick and 2027 fifth-rounder.

The Packers had to give up two first-round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark last August when they acquired Parsons from the Cowboys. Parsons had 12 1/2 sacks in 14 games with Green Bay before going down with a season-ending knee injury that derailed the Packers' season.

The Cowboys used the initial first-rounder to drop three spots in the draft in April, picking defensive end Malachi Lawrence in the first round, and cornerback Devin Moore and defensive end LT Overton in the fourth.

Here’s a look at some other NFL stars who were traded in their primes:

Khalil Mack

Just before the start of the 2018 season, the Raiders and Chicago Bears made a deal very similar to the Parsons trade. Oakland shipped two-time All-Pro and one-time Defensive Player of the Year winner Mack to Chicago for two first-round picks after failed contract extension talks.

That 2018 trade didn’t ultimately work out for either team. Mack was highly productive in Chicago, earning All-Pro honors his first year, but couldn’t do enough to help the Bears win a playoff game in his four seasons before being traded to the Chargers.

The Raiders used the first pick on running back Josh Jacobs, who was very productive before leaving as a free agent following the 2023 season. The second first-rounder was wasted on cornerback Damon Arnette, who was cut halfway through his second season.

Herschel Walker

The most famous trade in Dallas history came in Jerry Jones’ first season as owner in 1989 when the Cowboys dealt Herschel Walker to Minnesota for a package that ultimately led to eight draft picks, including three first-rounders. Dallas used those picks to help draft Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith and key contributors to three Super Bowl wins like Darren Woodson, Kevin Smith and Russell Maryland.

The Vikings didn’t win a playoff game in two-plus seasons with Walker.

Charles Haley

Jones has another famous deal that helped fuel Dallas’ 1990s dynasty when he acquired the pass rusher from San Francisco for second- and third-round picks in 1992. Haley was the final piece on defense that the Cowboys needed to win three Super Bowls in his first four seasons, eliminating the 49ers in the NFC title game on the way to the first two titles.

Randy Moss

Moss was a three-time All-Pro and the most dominant deep threat in the league when Minnesota traded him to Oakland in 2005 for a package that included the No. 7 overall pick in the draft. The deal helped neither team as the Vikings used the pick on Troy Williamson, who caught 79 passes in three seasons, and the Raiders won six games in two seasons.

Moss was then traded again in 2007 to New England and set an NFL record with 23 TD catches in his first season as the Patriots became the only team to go 16-0 in the regular season.

Fran Tarkenton

Six years after being traded by Minnesota to the New York Giants, Tarkenton returned to the Vikings in 1972 after making four Pro Bowls in six seasons in New York. Tarkenton led Minnesota to the Super Bowl three times in seven seasons in his second stint — losing every time — and was the NFL MVP in 1975.

Eric Dickerson

The disgruntled Dickerson was traded from the Los Angeles Rams to Indianapolis in 1987 in a blockbuster deal that also sent Cornelius Bennett to Buffalo. Dickerson helped the Colts make the playoffs for the first time in 10 years in his first season and then led the NFL in rushing in 1988.

Marshall Faulk

Faulk led the NFL with 2,227 yards from scrimmage in 1998 when Indianapolis made the surprising decision to deal him to St. Louis. The Colts went on to draft Hall of Famer Edgerrin James in the first round as Faulk’s replacement but the Rams really won the deal.

Faulk helped form the “Greatest Show on Turf” offense as St. Louis won the Super Bowl his first season. Faulk had nearly 1,500 more yards from scrimmage and 18 more TDs than any other player from 1999-2001 as he won AP Offensive Player of the Year all three seasons and MVP in 2000.

Christian McCaffrey

McCaffrey helped transform San Francisco’s offense when he was acquired from Carolina during the 2022 season for a package of four picks. McCaffrey gained 3,233 yards and scored 31 TDs in his first 27 regular-season games for the Niners before being hampered by injuries last season.

He won AP Offensive Player of the Year in 2023 when he helped San Francisco reach the Super Bowl.

Fred Dean

Dean was coming off an All-Pro season in 1980 when he was traded the following year to San Francisco for a package that included a first-round pick. His addition helped fuel the start of the 49ers dynasty. He was an All-Pro in 1981 when San Francisco won its first of five titles in a 14-season span and had a 17 1/2-sack season in 1983 before ending up in the Hall of Fame.

Champ Bailey

In one of the biggest star-for-star trades, Denver acquired Bailey from Washington for star running back Clinton Portis. Portis had four 1,000-yard rushing seasons with Washington but the Broncos were the biggest winner.

Bailey played 10 more seasons, earning All-Pro honors his first three seasons, leading the league with 10 interceptions in 2006 and getting into the Hall of Fame.

Paul Warfield

Warfield had made back-to-back Pro Bowls for Cleveland when Don Shula acquired him in his first season as Miami’s head coach. Warfield provided a needed deep threat for the Dolphins, making the Pro Bowl in five straight seasons. Warfield was an All-Pro twice and helped Miami win back-to-back Super Bowls, including the perfect 17-0 season in 1972.

___

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

Anthropic said Monday it has submitted a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock.

“This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review,” Anthropic said in a brief statement. “The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors.”

The company said it hasn't decided on the number or price of shares to be offered.

Anthropic said last week it had raised $65 billion in private funding that will push its valuation to $965 billion, a whopping number that makes the five-year-old maker of the Claude chatbot one of the world’s most valuable startups.

Anthropic now has vaulted ahead of its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, not only in market value and reported revenue but also on the path to becoming a publicly traded company.

“I think we were all expecting OpenAI to go first, so it was a little bit surprising,” said Patrick Corrigan, a law professor at Notre Dame University who studies IPOs. “Public investors are going to be comparing them roughly around the same time, and so there seems to be a bit of a first movers’ advantage here.”

Anthropic said it’s now 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.

Anthropic was formed in 2021 by ex-OpenAI leaders and now both AI firms, along with Elon Musk’s rocket and AI company SpaceX, are all expected to become publicly traded. All three have been losing more money than they make, fueling concerns of an AI bubble.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said Anthropic’s move marks a major step for the company to get ahead of OpenAI and "an opening of the floodgates for the IPO market, which has been relatively dormant for a few years, with these three major conglomerates set to go public later this year.”

Corrigan said the race between Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX resembles in some ways the rush by startups to go public in the early internet era. Some of those companies — like Amazon — did well, and others infamously failed during the dot-com crash but still left new technology that changed society and work life.

“Whenever there is speculation, there’s also usually substance and fundamentals,” Corrigan said. “The question here is whether the price investors are going to end up paying is going to match up to the substance and fundamentals of what AI is really going to do in the real economy and as a business.”

Claude’s growing popularity has left OpenAI playing catch-up despite its early lead in making ChatGPT a household name that sparked a commercial AI boom. Anthropic also last week launched its newest AI model, called Claude Opus 4.8, boasting that it is even better at coding and other professional work than previous models.

OpenAI last reported in March it was heading toward a $852 billion valuation after a $122 billion fundraising round. It has not yet reported filing initial IPO paperwork with the SEC.

SpaceX was valued at $800 billion last year, but its value grew to $1.25 trillion after the space exploration company merged with Musk’s xAI in February. Musk recently announced plans for one of the biggest stock sales ever and will be able to pitch the offering to investors as soon as this week.

IDC analyst Tim Law said it will be a “healthy thing” for the AI industry when these companies are required to provide quarterly earnings reports and disclose some of their technology investments.

“We think of these as very mature organizations, but they’ve had to mature in a very short period,” he said.

As for bubble concerns, Law, who rode the dot-com IPO wave while working for internet company VerticalNet in the early part of the century, said there's evidence from these AI startups' existing products to show they are on a path not just to profitability but to artificial general intelligence, technology that does work as well as or better than humans.

“There are some skeptics around demand. I thoroughly believe the demand is there and will grow,” Law said. “I think this funding round may be the thing that enables us to complete the final sprint toward AGI.”