On domestic issues, Marcos disclosed that a special anti-graft prosecutor would soon file charges against former House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez, who has been implicated in a corruption scandal that the president exposed in his state of the nation speech last year.

Marcos highlighted China after media editorial he called racist

Marcos did not mention China by name or elaborate on his criticism of Beijing, which was loudly applauded by many lawmakers. He said that “of late, our very humanity has been called into question” and reminded detractors that “Filipinos are a noble … and a great race. We are not greedy. We are not racists. We are not liars.”

Marcos summoned Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan to his office in Manila last week after the China Daily, a Chinese state-owned media outlet, depicted Filipinos as monkeys in an editorial video and cartoons. The animations centered on Beijing’s rejection of the arbitration ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea.

The Philippine government strongly condemned the AI-generated images as “racist and dehumanizing” and demanded that they be taken down.

In Beijing, however, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said last week that the video “does not represent the official position and I have no comment on it.”

He said, however, that China viewed the South China Sea arbitration as “a political farce disguised as a legal proceeding.” He added that “the so-called award is illegal, null and void and has no binding force,” reiterating China’s longstanding position.

Marcos said the ruling, which he said was final and binding, was a “definitive benchmark for the interpretation and application” of the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was the basis of the decision. The Philippines initiated the arbitration in 2013 after a tense standoff between Chinese and Philippine ships in a disputed shoal, but China refused to participate and rejected the decision as a sham.

“Your government will do all that is necessary to continue upholding this award, utilizing every peaceful and legal means available to the republic against any attempt, foreign or domestic, to undermine this achievement,” Marcos said, adding that Filipinos “do not yield.”

Territorial confrontations in the disputed waters have become more prevalent in recent years, particularly among Chinese, Philippine and Vietnamese forces and fishing fleets. The long-simmering disputes in the strategic waterway, a key global trade route, also involve Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Marcos says being family won't protect his cousin and ally

He did not identify Romualdez, his cousin and key political ally, but was obviously referring to him.

“This is painful to me, but we have to do the right thing,” Marcos said. “I’m not a president for my family. I’m not a president for my friend.”

Romualdez, who resigned as House speaker last year but remains as a congressman, reiterated in a statement that he did not violate the law and he was ready to prove it.

Romualdez, along with several House members and senators, was accused of pocketing huge kickbacks from flood control projects in government and congressional investigations. An incumbent and a former senator, a former public works secretary, who served under Marcos, and several government engineers and construction company executives have been charged and detained for large-scale corruption, but to date not Romualdez.

Nearly 25 billion pesos' ($410 million) worth of cash and properties belonging to some of the suspects have been recovered or frozen by the government and some have been returned to the national treasury, Marcos said.

The city says it has received about three reports of monkey sightings over the past eight weeks. Officials say they typically receive only one sighting report each year.

One recent sighting happened at Forest Preserve North, behind the W.T. Bland Public Library. A viewer shared video of what appears to be a rhesus macaque sitting in a tree near the preserve.

Residents in the area, including those near Waterman Village off Donnelly Street, say they’ve noticed the monkeys more frequently.

“They’re really going after bird feeders,” said Winston Streeter, who manages properties inside the retirement community. “I’ve even seen them drinking from sprinkler heads. Any kind of food or water source they can find, they go after it.”

Streeter says people should remember the animals are wild.

“I would definitely keep my distance because they can be a little aggressive,” he said. “They’re wild animals, and they’ll protect themselves.”

Because of the increase in sightings, Mount Dora officials are posting reminders on social media urging residents not to approach or feed the monkeys.

“If a monkey shows up, your best thing to do is back away and give it plenty of space,” Mount Dora Wildlife Officer Gerry Hodge said. “Don’t try to pet it or feed it. They can carry diseases, and we don’t want anyone getting bitten or scratched.”

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, rhesus macaques can carry diseases, including Herpes B, and people should never feed or approach wild monkeys.

Officials say there have been no reported injuries or serious incidents connected to the recent sightings, but they hope residents will follow the safety guidance to help prevent future problems.

News 6’s Matt Austin drove four hours to Everglades City to find the people who do this on purpose. Turns out, they’re not who you’d expect.

“OK — I just got a text from the python hunter. She says the bugs are raging.”

That text came from Kaylyn Glenn, a tenth-generation Floridian and semi-pro python hunter we met at a restaurant with a name that says it all: Wild Man’s Pizza, Pasta and Pythons.

“It’s nighttime. It’s time to party,” Glenn said, as the sun started to drop.

She’s not who you picture when you hear “snake hunter.” Neither are her friends. Jerry Miller, a park ranger, showed up to hunt an invasive apex predator wearing shorts, “I brought my grandma down here and we caught like an 8-footer.”\

Here’s how the job actually works. At sunset, you climb into the back of a pickup truck wrapped in lights. Once the sun is down, the truck creeps along while everyone scans the edge of the road for a shimmer that doesn’t belong.

“We’re gonna get our spotlights, and we’re gonna be looking for the pythons,” Glenn explained. “Shine back with a very small hint of blue.”

We got a hit almost immediately. Snake spotted. Tourists driving by pulled over to see what all the fuss was about — including a couple visiting from Poland.

The road was packed with hunters that night, and the mosquitoes were just as committed to the hunt as we were. The noise out there — frogs, insects, night birds — sounds like a natural casino running nonstop across 1.5 million acres of wilderness.

That wilderness has quietly been emptied out. Pythons have eaten their way through most of the small mammals that used to call the Everglades home. “You used to see deer foraging. I haven’t seen probably three deer in the last few years,” Glenn told us. “Their population has been decimated.”

The stakes are real: $10,000 goes to whoever brings in the most snakes by the end of the competition. But on this particular night, luck wasn’t on anyone’s side. We searched from the truck. We searched on foot — wool socks turned out to be a terrible decision. We heard a splash in the water that turned out to be a gator, not a python. We spotted massive, stoic owls perched in the trees, plenty of other snakes, bullfrogs, and gators lurking in the dark.

Then, around 1 a.m., the rain turned relentless. Even with hundreds of thousands of pythons estimated to be living in the Everglades, by 2 a.m. we had to call it a night — without catching a single one.

The Florida Python Challenge runs through July 19. We’ll let you know who wins.

The proposal would increase the millage rate by 0.75 and generate an additional $6.6 million for the city. For homeowners with a $300,000 property, the increase would mean about $187 more per year in taxes.

Commissioner Nadia Anderson was the only member of the Apopka City Commission to oppose the increase earlier this month. Anderson said she planned to raise residents’ concerns at the meeting, even if they called her moments before it started.

The rest of the commission signaled support for the budget tied to the higher rate.

City leaders have until Friday to set the millage rate. The special commission meeting is set for 6 p.m. A final budget vote is scheduled for Sept. 3.

The decision is also unfolding as Florida voters are months away from deciding on a statewide property tax amendment on the November ballot — one that could significantly affect future tax revenue for cities like Apopka.

The winner of the runoff will enter the general election against Democratic former state Sen. Dan Ahlers with a significant advantage in the reliably Republican state that hasn’t had a Democratic governor since the 1970s.

Rhoden was lieutenant governor when he assumed the top job in early 2025 after then-Gov. Kristi Noem stepped down to join President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. In addition to Rhoden and Doeden, the primary field included U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson and state House Speaker Jon Hansen.

Doeden placed first in the primary with about 31% of the vote with a close three-way race for the second runoff slot. Rhoden received about 25% of the vote, followed by Johnson at 23% and Hansen at about 21%.

Two key counties to watch are on opposite ends of the state. Minnehaha County on the eastern border is home to Sioux Falls. Pennington County on the western border is home to Rapid City. Together, they are home to a third of the state’s registered Republicans and helped Doeden secure his first-place primary showing.

Doeden narrowly edged Johnson in Minnehaha County and had about a 7-point lead over second-place Rhoden in Pennington County. Doeden also carried most of the small, rural counties across eastern South Dakota.

Rhoden helped secure a runoff berth with his wins across central and northwestern South Dakota, including key leads in Meade, Lawrence and Hughes County, which includes Pierre, the state capital. The three counties combined are home to about 10% of the state’s registered Republicans.

Lincoln County in the suburbs south of Sioux Falls could be another key battleground in the runoff. It’s the state’s third-most populous county and has the highest population of any county where neither Doeden nor Rhoden placed first or second.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 7 p.m. local time, which is 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET. Polls in most of the state are in Central time and close at 8 p.m. ET, but some polls are in Mountain time and close at 9 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in the Republican primary runoff for governor.

Who gets to vote?

Only registered Republicans may vote in the Republican primary runoff for governor. Republicans who did not vote in the June 2 state primary may still vote in the runoff.

How many voters are there?

As of June 1, there were about 676,000 registered voters in South Dakota, including about 322,000 active registered Republicans, about 137,000 active registered Democrats, about 157,000 active independent voters or those not affiliated with any political party, and about 57,000 inactive voters not identifiable by party. The rest were affiliated with other parties.

How many people actually vote?

About 136,000 votes were cast in the Republican gubernatorial primary on June 2.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

About 19% of the 2024 primary vote and about 20% of the 2022 primary vote was cast before primary day.

When are early and absentee votes released?

In South Dakota, counties tend to release results from all voting methods together over the course of the night. Roughly four out of every five counties in South Dakota release at least some in-person Election Day results in their first vote updates, along with results from mail voting and early in-person voting.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the June 2 Republican primary for governor, the AP first reported results at 9:01 p.m. ET, or one minute after polls closed. About half the total vote had been counted by 10:57 p.m. ET. The last vote update of the night was at 3:36 a.m. ET with almost every vote counted.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

Recounts in South Dakota are automatic only in cases of tie votes. Losing candidates for statewide office may request a recount if the vote margin is 0.25% or less of the total votes cast. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 98 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

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

The comments came after neither the U.S. nor Iran reported carrying out any attacks for three straight days — a respite after about two weeks of sustained bombardments that had led to increasing fears of a return to all-out war.

However, Saudi Arabia said it had shot down drones fired by Iran-backed militias in Iraq that had targeted its petroleum facilities, underscoring the risk that tensions could reignite. The statement posted on social media by the Saudi Defense Ministry did not mention any casualties or damage.

The two regional officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive regional talks, said mediators led by Qatar and Pakistan were working to bridge the gap between Washington and Tehran to return to an interim ceasefire deal that had been largely undermined by recent exchanges of fire.

No strikes over weekend

The U.S. has paused attacks after targeting Iranian coastal areas and infrastructure in a nearly two-week escalation sparked by Iran’s firing at ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global oil shipments. The Pentagon did not respond to questions.

U.S. President Donald Trump is “giving talks some space. He’s giving it a little bit of room,” Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Fox News.

Waltz dismissed the idea that the U.S. stockpile of interceptors crucial in defending against Iranian attacks is running low, but experts have questioned how long both the U.S. and Iran can afford to keep up attacks.

Since the U.S. has halted attacks for the past two nights, Iran has as well, its army spokesperson told Iran’s state TV on Sunday. Tehran in recent days has counterattacked against countries in the region hosting U.S. military forces, killing at least three service members at a base in Jordan and one in Iraq.

Regional officials cite progress in talks

One of the regional officials who spoke to AP Monday described the progress made in mediation efforts as “significant.” He said mediators were working with Iran and Oman on a mechanism for managing vessels’ transit through the Strait of Hormuz, the flashpoint for the latest strikes and counterstrikes.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said during a news conference in Tehran Monday that mediators were conveying messages but there were no direct negotiations.

“Mediators may convey messages to us from the American side regarding ongoing developments in the region. But at present, we have no negotiations with the American side,” Baghaei said.

He said Iran and Oman, which lies on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz, had already held talks on Friday and Saturday on how to manage ship traffic through the waterway.

“The objective is for Iran and Oman, as the two coastal states, to develop mechanisms to ensure safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz while respecting the sovereign rights and sovereignty of both coastal states, as well as Iran’s security and national interests” Baghaei said. However, he stressed that the waterway remains closed.

Tehran has asserted that the interim deal with the U.S. allows it to manage shipping on the waterway for now, and it has objected to U.S. efforts to support a route that passes close to Oman instead. The strait was considered an international waterway before the war.

The U.S. military on Saturday said its recently reimposed naval blockade against Iran continued, with a dozen commercial ships redirected, two disabled and two boarded. U.S. forces “remain highly vigilant, focused, lethal, and ready,” it added.

The 60-day period established by the interim deal in mid-June is now well into its second half, and major issues that were meant to be negotiated — notably Iran’s nuclear program at the heart of tensions — remain set aside as mediators try to keep both sides talking.

Shipping traffic on the strait is at a 3-week low

Concerns continue about shipping through another crucial waterway in the region, the Bab al-Mandeb strait to the Red Sea. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last week threatened a blockade of Saudi shipping there, and fired on at least one Saudi tanker, setting it alight.

Global energy supplies and the economy remain in the balance as gasoline prices have risen again.

Commercial shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz was at a three-week low, a maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, adding that no new attacks had been confirmed in the past 72 hours. It said traffic remained steady through the Bab el-Mandeb.

Netanyahu says he ‘fully’ backs Trump’s efforts

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to the United States and meet with Trump in Washington on Tuesday, his office has said. They last met in Washington in February, weeks before they launched the war on Iran that killed senior leaders including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah fired at Israel two days after the war began, and Israel responded with airstrikes and ground forces in southern Lebanon. Since then, the U.S. has supported landmark direct talks between Lebanon and Israel to try to calm that front and find a way to disarm Hezbollah.

Iran criticizes Ukraine for targeting ship in Caspian Sea

Separately, Baghaei slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after he said over the weekend that Ukraine had struck “vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran” in the Caspian Sea.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Ukraine’s strike on an Iranian vessel had killed a sailor.

In a statement on X, Araghchi denounced the attack as a “blatant U.N. Charter violation done at Israel’s behest to drag Europe into its war.” He said he made it clear in calls with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the attack “can’t go unanswered.”

Iran is an ally of Russia in its war against Ukraine, helping Moscow build up its drone expertise.

Speaking during the news conference in Tehran Monday, Baghaei said that “all parties that consider themselves in some way supporters of the Ukrainian regime must be held accountable.”

He said Zelenskyy’s “behavior is reminiscent of the anarchists who, on the eve of World War I, carried out theatrical and highly dangerous actions whose repercussions engulfed all of Europe.”

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Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Associated Press reporters Cara Anna in Lowville, New York; Darlene Superville and Ben Finley in Washington; and Jill Lawless and Emma Burrows in London contributed.

“It hasn’t progressed during the night,” the minister, Laurent Nuñez, said. “We have to remain very concentrated, very determined, to go at any moment.”

He spoke after French President Emmanuel Macron held a crisis meeting Monday focusing on the massive firefighting effort in the Gironde region and on wildfires elsewhere.

The Gironde blaze has burned an area four times the size of Paris. The region's prefecture said the situation overnight had remained “globally stable” — a change from previous days where the giant blaze raging since last week edged closer to the wine region city of Bordeaux.

In the adjacent southwestern Landes region, where hundreds of firefighters have been making progress against another virulent but smaller fire, the prefecture said some rain fell overnight and described the conditions as “favorable” for firefighting but also cautioned that they could change.

No new evacuations were announced. But with France about to enter its peak August tourist season, Gironde authorities took more steps to keep vacationers away, banning holiday camps for children and for people with disabilities.

Fire crews racing against feared next heat wave

With thousands of firefighters on the ground and rotations of water- and retardant-dropping aircraft in the air, the massive firefighting effort was engaged in a race against time, battling to make progress before a forecast surge in temperatures from Tuesday that could make fighting flames more difficult.

Crews using earth movers tore up strips of forest and scrubland to create barren spaces, intended to stop fires from spreading. Farmers were keeping fire crews supplied with water, transporting it to them in tanks. Around a dozen countries have provided planes, helicopters, firefighters and other assistance to both France and Spain, which is also fighting unprecedented blazes. All told, fires in both countries have forced more than 330,000 people to flee.

Macron didn't immediately comment after the government crisis meeting he presided over. In a weekend post on X, he pledged long-term support for fire-hit communities, saying: “We will rebuild, we will repair and we will be present for as long as necessary.”

Spain battling its biggest-ever fires

In Spain, wildfires have burned out of control around Madrid and in the Valencia region. Authorities evacuated 76,000 people and confined 30,000 others to their homes.

In both Spain and France, the exceptional scale of the fires — fueled by heat waves that hit especially hard and early this year, making forests and scrubland tinder-dry — are driving calls for stronger action against climate change.

“What we are experiencing is not a series of isolated incidents. It is the consequence of a climate emergency that is making wildfires even more violent, heat waves more frequent,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.

A fire raging in hilly, rural terrain in Ávila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, scorching 50,000 hectares (193 square miles), the government said. That's five times the size of Barcelona.

Fires have burned 153,000 hectares (590 square miles) this year in Spain — six times the area scorched by blazes in the first half of 2025, said Sara Aagesen, the ecology minister.

The minister said that another heat wave forecast from Tuesday — which would be Spain’s fourth so far this year — could ratchet up the fire danger.

Evacuees are fretting about what they’ll find when they’re allowed to return to fire-hit regions.

“It looked like the apocalypse. You couldn’t see anything. Everything was covered in ash,” said Rocío Domínguez, who evacuated with her dog, Simba, from Chapinería, west of Madrid.

“We don’t know when we get to the town, if we’ll have half the house burned down or we’ll have it intact or we won’t have a house,” she said. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything.”

Water-dropping planes combat fire in Italy

A wildfire driven by strong winds broke out on Sunday afternoon near Peschici, in Italy’s southern Puglia region, burning pine forest and scrub and forcing the evacuation of about 300 tourists from beaches and campgrounds, authorities said.

The Coast Guard evacuated tourists by sea to nearby Vieste, where authorities opened temporary shelters.

Three Canadair water-bombing planes and fire crews on the ground continued Monday to battle the blaze, which revived memories of devastating wildfires that hit the same coastal area in 2007.

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Leicester reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Joseph Wilson in Barcelona and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed.

The foundation’s first new initiative in more than a decade, the Clinton Policy Institute has already begun convening political leaders from both parties, research experts, and Americans affected by the issues being studied to create new approaches to long-existing problems.

“Rising costs, economic uncertainty, rapid technological change, and growing pressures on our public institutions are making it harder for families to get ahead,” former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement to The Associated Press. “We created CPI because we believe there are still practical, evidence-based solutions that can improve people’s lives.”

CPI is building on its work with New York state in banning cellphones from schools in the past academic year. Though the institute did not technically exist last year when it teamed with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration on creating distraction-free schools in the state, the Clinton Foundation saw promise in its approach and decided to expand it before publicly announcing CPI’s creation. It’s a strategy that the foundation, also led by former President Bill Clinton and public health expert Chelsea Clinton, used when it launched the Clinton Health Access Initiative in 2004.

Zayn Siddique, former principal deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, will serve as CPI’s chief executive officer. Jennifer Klein, who was director of the White House Gender Policy Council under former President Joe Biden, will be CPI’s chair.

In New York, CPI helped create the Teen Tech Council so that students could help make the phone-ban program more effective. The result, according to Hochul’s office, was that educators found a marked improvement in classroom behavior and engagement.

“CPI is bringing together policymakers, researchers, business leaders, and community organizations to identify what works, build stronger policy networks, and help turn those ideas into policy,” Hillary Clinton said. “We’re taking a particular focus on states and local communities, where so much innovation is happening.”

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly praises CPI's nonpartisan approach

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said a CPI conference on improving the lives of children earlier this month was “the best roundtable I’ve been involved with since becoming governor.”

Kelly, who will leave office in January due to term limits after serving two consecutive terms, said she was inspired by CPI’s nonpartisan approach to solving problems affecting children.

“I am a Democrat governor in what is considered a very red state,” Kelly told The Associated Press in an interview. “It became very clear to me that if I wanted to accomplish anything in my political life, I was going to need to do it in a bipartisan way.”

Kelly believes that, despite political polarization, CPI can succeed in finding nonpartisan solutions – especially to issues involving children and healthcare – and giving state leaders the research and other support to implement them.

“Every once in a while, you get people from both sides of the aisle who come together and crafted, maybe not sexy legislation, but something that really needed to be done,” Kelly said. “And they get it through.”

Dr. Jerome Adams, former U.S. Surgeon General in President Donald Trump’s first administration, agrees that nonpartisan solutions are possible to find. But he says the nonpartisan nature of the solutions has to be intentional.

“Health is inherently political,” said Adams. “When you talk about access to healthcare coverage, when you talk women’s health issues, particularly around the issue of abortion and contraception, when you talk about drug policy and whether you’re in favor of harm reduction, when you talk of firearm safety -- all of these are inherently political issues.”

Former Surgeon General Adams sees broad support for children's issues

That is complicated further, Adams said, because “we live in a country that is very binary, so every issue, no matter how nuanced, is, for purposes of elections, turned into black/white, yes/no, all or none.”

However, Adams said CPI has already found a way to get bipartisan buy-in for some of its solutions to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). In 2020, the state of California launched the ACEs Aware initiative to begin screening for ACEs – which include abuse, neglect and household challenges – and treating them early to reduce the impact and the cost to the state later.

Through CPI, Adams was asked to become the co-chair of the National Leadership Council for the ACE Resource Network in June in an effort to bring California’s work treating ACEs to other states.

“I’m very interested in work that has proven and practical solutions,” he said. “We bring in states and say, ‘Hey, let’s look at the best evidence in terms of what works around adverse childhood experiences and state level policy and then try to implement it in your state’.”

That strategy has led Republican-led states like Utah and Georgia to consider parts of Democrat-led California’s work on the issue, Adams said.

He said it’s a sign that CPI’s approach works and can be expanded to other areas.

The Clinton Foundation hopes that will be the case.

“Too many people have lost faith that progress is possible,” Hillary Clinton said. “But across the country, leaders are developing innovative policies that are strengthening families and communities. Those ideas deserve to be shared and scaled.”

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

A date for a bond hearing will likely be set during the status conference, along with other important dates like deadlines for filings and a formal extradition hearing. The Tates made a brief court appearance two days after their July 18 arrest.

They aren’t required to attend Monday’s conference, and their attorneys said Friday that the Tates didn't plan to be there. They're being held in federal detention across the street from the courthouse.

The Tates promote wealth, male dominance and misogyny through their social media empire and are among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities. The former professional kickboxers, who have dual U.S. and U.K. citizenship, have millions of social media followers and are vocal supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.

The White House has said the brothers shouldn't expect any help from the president. Asked Thursday whether the White House would intervene in the extradition process, press secretary Karoline Leavitt flatly rejected the idea.

“No, we’ve already answered that question,” Leavitt said.

The Tates' attorney, Joseph McBride, said after last week's hearing that they should remain in the U.S.

“We are of course objecting to extradition because Andrew and Tristan are innocent,” McBride said. “They’ve never done nothing wrong. They shouldn’t be extradited for crimes they did not commit.”

McBride said the extradition attempt is politically motivated and suggested the case involved former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's decision to step down, though he provided no details.

Prosecutors in Britain said the new charges relate to four new accusers and were brought after authorities received evidence from police in Bedfordshire, in southeastern England. The allegations, which span from 2010 to 2017, include rape, assault, trafficking and offenses relating to “indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.”

McBride said none of the latest accusers have been identified.

The brothers are already charged with rape, bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain relating to three other accusers in the U.K. between 2012 and 2015.

The new allegations are the latest in a long-running international legal saga involving the Tates that has spanned the U.S., Britain and Romania. The brothers have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

The brothers moved to Romania in 2016 and were arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations, and the Romanian case hasn't gone forward because of legal and procedural problems.

Travel restrictions were lifted last year, and they flew to Florida.

Andrew Tate, 39, became known a decade ago when he was a contestant on the U.K. reality television show “Big Brother.” He was booted from the show when a video appeared to show him assaulting a woman.

He has amassed over 10 million followers on X but has been banned from other platforms, including YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, for violating hate speech guidelines. He has made widely condemned comments, such as saying women who are sexually assaulted should bear some responsibility for the attacks and sharing graphic descriptions of how he might attack women.

The Tate brothers have consistently denied allegations of abuse and human trafficking, claiming their violent and misogynistic statements have been taken out of context or were intended as jokes.

The contest in the heavily Democratic district could have an immediate impact on the balance of power in the U.S. House, where Republicans cling to a thin majority.

Under Georgia law, the four Democrats and two Republicans running to succeed Scott will appear on the same ballot, and any of them could secure the seat outright by winning a majority of the special election vote. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters regardless of party will advance to an Aug. 25 special runoff election.

The winner will serve out the remaining few months of Scott’s current term.

Among the Democrats vying for the seat are former Gwinnett County School Board Chair Everton Blair and Marcye Scott, daughter of the late congressman. Democrats Tony Brown and Carlos Moore and Republicans Caesar Gonzales and Fayth Park are also on the ballot.

Blair is the only candidate in the field who also ran for the full-term seat set to begin in January 2027. He placed third in the May 19 Democratic primary with about 12% of the vote. State Rep. Jasmine Clark won the primary with 56% of the vote and will face Republican Jonathan Chavez in November. Chavez, who ran unopposed for the GOP nomination, challenged David Scott in the 2024 general election and received about 28% of the vote.

Clark did not file to compete in the special election. Doing so would have required her to resign from her seat in the state Legislature just as Republican Gov. Brian Kemp was calling for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries in time for the 2028 elections. The state constitution bars state officeholders from seeking a different office with a start date more than 30 days before the end of the officeholder’s current term. The special session did convene, but Republican leaders opted not to take up redistricting.

In recent years, congressman Scott had faced questions over his age and health. At the time of his death at age 80, he was facing a tough primary challenge from Clark and others as he sought a 13th term.

Georgia’s 13th Congressional District is east and southeast of Atlanta and includes parts of six heavily Democratic counties: Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Henry, Newton and Rockdale. Of the six, the district’s portion of Gwinnett County has the lion’s share of voters, about 46% of the district electorate in the 2024 general election. The district includes only a small sliver of DeKalb County, which plays a much bigger role in the 4th and 5th Congressional Districts.

Scott won his 2024 reelection bid with about 72% of the vote. That night, Democratic then-Vice President Kamala Harris received about 71% in the district, compared with about 28% for Republican Donald Trump, in the presidential election. Trump had his best performance in the district in Gwinnett County, although that still only amounted to about 35% of the vote.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

When do polls close?

Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in the special election for the 13th Congressional District.

Who gets to vote?

Any voter registered in the 13th Congressional District may participate in the special election.

How many voters are there?

As of July 21, there were about 584,000 registered voters in the 13th Congressional District. Georgia voters do not register by party.

How many people actually vote?

About 358,000 votes were cast in the 2024 U.S. House general election in the 13th District. Turnout in special elections tends to be significantly lower than in regularly scheduled November general elections.

How much of the vote is cast early or by absentee ballot?

About 78% of the total vote in the 13th District general election in 2024 was cast early in person or by mail.

As of Friday, nearly 8,700 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, with the largest share coming from Gwinnett County, followed by Clayton County.

When are early and absentee votes released?

All six counties in the 13th Congressional District tend to release most or all of their results from early in-person and mail voting in the first vote update of the night, usually before any in-person Election Day results are released.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2024 general election, the AP first reported results in the 13th District U.S. House race at 7:10 p.m. ET, or 10 minutes after polls closed. About half of the total vote had been counted by 9:31 p.m. ET. The last vote update of the night was at 2:21 a.m. ET, with about 99.9% of total votes counted.

When will the AP declare a winner?

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

How do recounts work?

There is no automatic recount provision in Georgia, but a losing candidate may request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total vote. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 28 days until the Aug. 25 special runoff election, if needed, and 98 days until the 2026 midterm elections on Nov. 3.

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

Nineteen days after she was discharged, she strangled her three children at their Massachusetts home.

A jury is set to hear opening statements Monday in Clancy's murder trial, which will feature dueling views about her culpability and mental state.

Prosecutors are set to argue that Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, carefully planned the killings and bears full responsibility for their deaths.

Clancy's lawyer, Kevin Reddington, will argue that at the time of the killings she was suffering from postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.

The trial is expected to take several weeks.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

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Elyse Hershon, a Boston criminal defense attorney and legal analyst, said the verdict will likely depend on how the jury views Clancy’s “intent and mental capacity.”

“Whenever there are deaths of children, it rattles emotions. Because these actions are incomprehensible and the outcome so horrific, people tend to want to hold someone responsible,” Hershon said. “Some people naturally will identify and sympathize with Clancy and her postpartum depression, and others will not be able to understand how one could end their children’s lives, and demand responsibility.”

While postpartum depression is fairly common among women who have given birth, postpartum psychosis is estimated to afflict only 1 to 2 per 1,000 women after delivery. Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, mood changes and thoughts of harming yourself or others. Most women who have the condition, however, do not wind up harming their children.

Prosecutors say Clancy strangled her children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — on Jan. 24, 2023, after sending her then-husband, Patrick, out for some errands. She then used multiple methods to try to end her own life and was paralyzed from the waist down after jumping from the home’s second-story window.

At the time, she had been getting psychiatric care for about four months. On the day of the killings, she said she heard voices telling her, “This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself,” according to her lawyer.

If convicted of murder, Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.

The case has parallels to several others involving mothers accused of killing their children.

In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a bathtub in Texas. Her attorneys said she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis and, in a delusional state, believed Satan was inside her and that killing the youngsters would save them from hell.

Her initial murder conviction was overturned, and in a retrial she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state mental hospital.

Another Texas mother, Dena Schlosser, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2006 after she killed her 10-month-old daughter by cutting off her arms.

Nicole Cirino, the director of the division of reproductive psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine, who has been an expert defense witness in infanticide cases, said many of the women who harm their children while in the grip of postpartum psychosis believe their actions are helping the child.

In their own minds, “they may be saving their children from damnation,” Cirino said.

Clancy and her former husband, Patrick Clancy, filed lawsuits accusing her medical providers of failing to properly diagnose and treat her condition.

Awareness about postpartum psychosis has grown since the Yates case, but Cirino and other maternal mental health advocates said prosecutors rarely consider a mother's mental state. Illinois is the only state with a law allowing for undiagnosed or untreated postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis to be a mitigating factor in sentencing.

“Women who kill their children in the throes of this medical illness, postpartum psychosis, are seriously and profoundly mentally ill. They are not evil,” said Dr. Catherine Birndorf, the CEO and founder of The Motherhood Center in New York City, which treats mothers with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

“To me it’s illness until proven otherwise,” she continued. “The fact that we consider it criminal until proven otherwise is problematic.”

Officers responded to the 1400 block of Thomas Street at approximately 4:30 a.m. Saturday following reports of shots fired.

Investigators determined two unknown suspects approached the residence on foot before firing multiple rounds into the home. Despite the residence being occupied at the time, no injuries were reported, police said.

Police have released videos that show the potential suspects and the suspect car.

Following the shooting, both suspects fled to a waiting vehicle. Detectives are seeking information on a newer-model white sedan, believed to be a Mercedes-Benz or Lincoln.

No one inside was hurt, police said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Titusville Police Department at 321-264-7800 or Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).

Oddie first found fame as a member of The Goodies, a comedy trio that also featured Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden. The team starred in an off-beat comedy series of the same name that aired from 1970 to 1982 on the BBC. He went on to host BBC wildlife programs, including “Birding With Bill Oddie,” “Bill Oddie Goes Wild" and “Springwatch."

“Bill was a multi-talented celebrity — wildlife presenter, broadcaster, comedian, writer, songwriter, musician and conservationist," his agent, David Foster, said in a statement. “Yet it was never fame that he valued. Instead he encouraged us to respect and protect the environment."

Born in 1941 in Rochdale, northwestern England, Oddie went on to study English literature at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He appeared in several productions of the Cambridge Footlights, a prestigious student sketch comedy troupe, alongside future stars such as John Cleese and Graham Chapman of Monty Python.

Those student productions led to work in London's West End and on Broadway, persuading Oddie to abandon plans to become an English teacher or warden of a bird observatory.

Oddie later transformed his birding hobby into a job, presenting multiple wildlife shows and writing books such as “Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book,” “Birdwatching with Bill Oddie" and “Follow That Bird.”

He is survived by his wife, Laura, and daughters Bonnie, Kate and Rosie.

Four years ago, George P. Bush went after Paxton by putting up billboards that said “he's a crook” next to his mugshot from when he was charged with securities fraud.

And earlier this year, U.S. Sen John Cornyn said “judgment day is coming” as he tried to fend off a Republican primary challenge from Paxton.

All of them lost. Now the question is whether James Talarico, who topped Rep. Jasmine Crockett in an expensive and fiercely contested Democratic primary, will have any more luck as he faces off against Paxton in one of the country's most closely watched U.S. Senate races.

“The guy’s ability to take shots and just keep moving on and stay in elected office is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my career, in 25 years of running campaigns,” said Ash Wright, who worked as a senior adviser to Bush.

Paxton has never been convicted, and he's survived by championing conservative legal battles over immigration, abortion and transgender issues in a Republican-dominated state. Much like President Donald Trump, he's long portrayed himself as the victim of political persecution.

Former Paxton challengers and a half dozen campaign strategists who worked against him warned that Texans may tune out any attempt to revive scandals that they've heard about for years, especially when rigid partisanship has convinced voters to be extraordinarily forgiving of candidates’ trespasses.

However, Talarico's team has studied the previous races and is attempting its own version of the playbook by trying to paint Paxton as part of a broader culture of corruption that has failed to improve people's lives.

Paxton’s campaign suggested Talarico's claims were aimed at distracting voters from a record of “out-of-touch views.”

“Every time a fighter, like President Donald Trump and now Ken Paxton, stands up to the permanent political class, even after they are completely acquitted of wrongdoing, people like James Talarico continue pushing the same accusations and claiming corruption,” Paxton campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy said.

Paxton won first reelection narrowly, despite indictment

Paxton was first elected as Texas attorney general in 2014, and Nelson ran against him in 2018. A Democratic lawyer from Austin, Nelson made Paxton's indictment on charges of securities fraud central to his campaign, and he poked fun at him for picking up another lawyer's $1,000 pen after finding it at a courthouse security checkpoint.

“Vote Justin Nelson for Texas attorney general,” the narrator said. “He will fight on behalf of all Texans. And he won’t steal your pen.”

Nelson argued that his approach was effective, reflected in Paxton's narrow margin of 3.6 percentage points in a year when Republican Greg Abbott was reelected as Texas governor by more than 13 percentage points. Nelson's campaign spent roughly $6.5 million, about half of what Paxton's campaign spent.

“My message was working," Nelson said. “I just needed to go louder and longer.”

In 2022, Paxton faced a Republican primary challenge from George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner and the grandson and nephew of two former presidents from the state.

The securities fraud case was ongoing, and Paxton was also under federal investigation over accusations that he abused his position to benefit an Austin real estate developer, took bribes and retaliated against whistleblower employees.

Paxton responded by portraying himself as a Trump-era Republican and Bush as the heir to a privileged political legacy.

Pro-Paxton organizations spent more than $20 million, about twice as much as Bush and his allies. The race went to a runoff, in which Paxton defeated Bush by 34 percentage points.

Paxton ran against Rochelle Garza, a Democratic civil rights lawyer from Brownsville, in the general election. She said her campaign had a 300-page opposition research file on Paxton but it was difficult to figure out how to approach his past because voters had heard about it for years.

“The amount of potential hits on Paxton can make message discipline challenging,” Garza said.

Paxton ran as the leading legal opponent of President Joe Biden, promoting a string of lawsuits against Biden's Democratic administration on immigration, abortion and gender policy.

Overwhelmingly outspent, Garza lost by roughly 10 percentage points.

Some supporters see Paxton as a ‘flawed’ fighter

There was more trouble ahead for Paxton.

He split with his wife, who later filed for divorce “on biblical grounds.” He was also impeached by the Texas House, although the Senate acquitted him in 2023 and allowed him to remain in office. The securities fraud case ended in 2024, and Paxton was directed to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution.

Throughout the years, he's maintained strong support from Republican voters like David and Nancy Lapp, a retired couple from the small town of Wolfforth. They described him as a conservative warrior who has been a victim of persecution.

“He’s had his share of scandals, and almost all of them have, so it’s not necessarily disqualifying anymore,” said David Lapp, 76. “He’s a flawed person, no doubt about it, but he fights for traditional American ideals.”

He added that "nowadays, as long as you’re not in jail, they’ll elect you.”

Biden's Justice Department in 2024 decided not to prosecute Paxton after the yearslong federal investigation, and Paxton went on to challenge Cornyn for his Senate seat.

Cornyn and his allies vastly outspent Paxton, blanketing the state with more than $90 million in advertising. After the race went to a runoff, Trump endorsed Paxton, and he won decisively.

Talarico hopes Waco case sparks new scrutiny

Talarico promised at a rally in Houston the day after the Republican runoff to “prosecute the case” against Paxton, whom he called “the most corrupt politician in America."

Since then, he has sought to introduce a newer question about Paxton, one that involves his office's handling of a child sexual abuse case this year.

The attorney general's office was assigned the felony case involving Waco lawyer Adam Hoffman after the county district attorney recused himself over a potential conflict of interest. After a hung jury trial last year, Hoffman agreed to state lawyers' offer in April to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge. Prosecutors said the victim did not want to testify a second time. Hoffman served 60 days in jail and was not required to register as a sex offender.

Talarico said the plea agreement shows Paxton is willing to allow preferential treatment at Texans' expense.

“He is everything that’s wrong with this broken, corrupt political system,” Talarico said of Paxton at a rally in Del Rio last week. “This is the rot at the core of this broken political system. It’s why we can’t get ahead, no matter how hard we work, no matter how much we save, because the system is rigged against us."

Talarico reported having $21.5 million available last week, while Paxton reported having $7.5 million.

The Democrat's fundraising advantage could help him broadcast his message further than Paxton's previous opponents have been able to do, Nelson said.

“Even a little bit more money would have helped me,” he said. “I think James has a legitimate shot.”

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Associated Press reporters Jesse Bedayn in Del Rio, Texas, and Marc Levy in Wolfforth, Texas, contributed to this report.

Zelenskyy's trip is the first by a foreign leader since Burnham took office a week ago. His predecessor, Keir Starmer, was in Kyiv less than two weeks ago in his last overseas trip before leaving office.

Burnham will be the fifth British prime minister to deal with the Ukrainian president since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve, and we will not back down until we achieve long lasting and just peace for Ukraine,” said Burnham, who has spent the past nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester and has little foreign policy experience.

The U.K. trip comes a day before Zelenskyy is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington.

During the visit to Portsmouth on England's south coast, Zelenskyy and Burnham will meet more than 200 Ukrainian military personnel who have spent the past three weeks in Britain. They have been taking part in an exercise aimed at strengthening war-fighting capabilities and countermine measures in the Black Sea, the U.K. government said.

The U.K. will give Ukraine the intellectual property behind its new “Stone Cloak” electronic warfare system, which is capable of jamming Russian air defenses to stop drones from being detected, Burnham’s office said.

Ukraine has expanded its campaign of deep strikes with increasingly frequent drone attacks inside Russia that have targeted oil facilities, military factories and, most recently, logistical centers, bringing war home to millions of Russians and raising pressure on President Vladimir Putin.

The raids have shattered Putin’s narrative of the conflict as something that doesn’t affect the lives of ordinary people in his country. But he has remained undeterred and Russia has ramped up its aerial campaign, regularly bombarding Ukraine with missiles and drones.

Russia and Ukraine exchange more drone attacks

Russia again attacked Ukraine overnight with 147 long-range strike drones, according to the Ukrainian air force, which said 123 drones were intercepted or jammed.

In Zaporizhzhia, one person was killed and two injured in a series of attacks at the city that damaged a high-rise residential buildings and several private residences overnight, according to regional administration head Ivan Fedorov.

In the Nikopol district of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian strikes damaged a kindergarten, residential buildings and infrastructure injuring a woman and a 6-years old boy, according to administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.

In the eastern Kharkiv region, a regional council member said Russian forces have destroyed every gas station along the highway between Kharkiv and Poltava, a distance of about 150 kilometers (93 miles). Oleksandr Skoryk said the situation is becoming more critical by the day, but the region is not facing a fuel or food crisis.

The highway is a key supply route linking Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and a regional hub close to the Russian border, with central Ukraine. Russia has intensified strikes on gas stations, power facilities and other infrastructure across the country this year as part of a broader campaign to strain Ukraine’s logistics and energy networks.

In Moscow, Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 276 Ukrainian drones overnight.

The Rostov region’s governor, Yuri Slyusar, said five people, including a child, were killed when a Ukrainian drone hit an apartment building in Rostov-on-Don.

In the city of Belgorod, a Ukrainian drone attack injured 12, including two children, according to regional emergency officials.

Iran vows retaliation after Ukrainian attack on ship in the Caspian

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Ukraine struck an Iranian vessel in the Caspian, killing a sailor.

In a statement on X on Sunday, Araghchi denounced the attack as a “blatant U.N. Charter violation done at Israel’s behest to drag Europe into its war.” He said he made it clear in calls with the European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the attack “can't go unanswered.”

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea over the weekend achieved “very good results,” adding that the targets included “vessels involved in transporting military cargo linked to Iran, as well as a warship.”

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Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

MONDAY

A Heat Advisory is in effect for the majority of Central Florida, as heat index values are expected to reach 105 to 110 degrees. High temperatures will climb into the 90s, and a southwest breeze will limit the cooling effect of the east coast sea breeze.

Scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected this afternoon, with rain chances around 40 to 60 percent. A few showers and storms will develop earlier in the day before another round of storms forms later this afternoon and evening. Stronger storms could produce frequent lightning, wind gusts up to 50 mph, torrential downpours, and isolated flooding.

MIDWEEK

The heat isn’t going anywhere through midweek. Highs will remain in the 90s Tuesday and Wednesday, with heat index values continuing above 100 degrees. Wednesday currently looks to be the hottest day of the week, and additional Heat Advisories may be needed.

LATE WEEK

Rain chances increase later this week as deeper moisture returns to Central Florida. More widespread afternoon showers and storms are expected Thursday through Saturday, with coverage ramping up to 60-80 percent. Highs are expected to cool slightly into the lower 90s.

The fire was in a home on East Concord Street. When crews arrived, the house was fully involved, officials said.

Firefighters quickly knocked down the fire, and everyone inside got out safely.

Two people were displaced. No injuries were reported.

Leaders say the fire was on SE 31st Place in Summerfield, and crews were called at 7:15 p.m. Saturday. Photos show flames coming through the roof as firefighters began their attack.

Officials say Marion County Fire Rescue Station 30 arrived first at 7:16 p.m., before other crews arrived to help. Crews say they entered through the garage door while firefighters searched the home, but no one was inside. The fire was under control by 7:31 p.m.

No one was hurt, officials say. The cause is under investigation.

Officials say the crash happened Saturday, and the two had non-life-threatening injuries.

Officials said the owner is working to have the boat removed.

The 59-year-old was driving on County Road 35 just north of State Road 326 about 4:30 p.m. when he lost control while trying to make a left turn. He then hit a traffic sign and was thrown from the motorcycle, an FHP report said.

He was taken to a local hospital, where he later died, troopers said.

The crash remains under investigation.

For the first time in decades, Lake Eola is without its iconic swans.

The City of Orlando removed all 42 captive swans from the lake early Saturday morning, relocating them to a sanctuary where they will continue to receive care. City officials say the move was prompted by a deadly avian flu outbreak that killed nearly 30 swans earlier this year, as well as the challenges of protecting the birds during the park’s upcoming $60 million renovation.

The swans have long been a symbol of downtown Orlando, inspiring the lake’s signature swan-shaped paddle boats and serving as one of the city’s most recognizable attractions.

“That’s always been a part,” Orlando resident Xavier Langford said. “If you look at the boats right here, inspired by the swans, the artwork around here, it’s always been inspired by the swans.”

Many visitors said the lake felt noticeably different without the birds.

“That’s what makes the lake your experience, what it is,” Langford said. “We need the swans.”

The city says park rangers, animal handlers and wildlife experts safely transported the birds to a sanctuary, where they will remain while officials address the impacts of avian flu and move forward with renovations at Lake Eola Park.

Some residents said they support the decision if it protects the swans’ health.

“I’d much rather them not be here than have them all die,” Orlando resident Erik Fuller said. “But I would love to see something from the city or the state on a timeline of getting them back, or what we’re doing about trying to fix the situation.”

The park’s renovation project includes improvements to the Walt Disney Amphitheater and other areas of Lake Eola Park. City leaders say caring for the swans during construction would have been difficult and could have placed the birds at greater risk.

“I thought they were only going to remove them to get them out of the way while they do the renovations so they don’t get hurt,” Orlando resident Jack Nelson said. “But I would love the place a little bit more if they came back.”

Others worry the lake has lost one of its defining features.

“When you take the wrong piece of the Jenga out, the whole thing is going to crumble,” another resident said. “If they’re just thinking about money and they start to neglect nature, they’re going to see the consequences.”

City officials say visitors may still spot wild swans passing through Lake Eola, but the city’s captive swan program is now on pause.

The city has not announced when—or if—the captive swans will return to Lake Eola.

The proposal calls for 23 single-family homes to be built on approximately 10 acres behind an existing neighborhood. Ahead of the project’s final vote, neighbors gathered over the weekend to discuss their concerns and prepare to address city leaders during Monday’s meeting.

Homeowner Josh Williams said the additional homes would bring more than just new neighbors.

“Twenty-three more homes doesn’t just mean 23 more vehicles,” Williams said. “It can mean 46 or even more vehicles.”

Residents say the proposed project is the latest in a series of developments transforming the area. They argue County Road 44, a two-lane roadway, is already struggling to handle increasing traffic, with another housing development currently under construction across the street.

Williams also expressed concerns about traffic speeds and safety.

“It’s ridiculous out here,” he said. “I can pull out here onto the highway, and it’s not 50. It’s 70 miles an hour trying to catch up to things or people.”

In addition to traffic, some homeowners say they are worried about flooding.

One resident, who declined to appear on camera, showed red sediment that had washed into his driveway following heavy rainfall. He believes runoff from the nearby construction site contributed to the problem.

Leesburg resident Anna Martinez also shared video showing flooding concerns in the area. She said changes in elevation from nearby developments could increase the risk of flooding on surrounding properties.

“They’re elevating the land,” Martinez said. “So by elevating the land at 44 and what’s happening at Morningside Reserve, we’re very concerned about our property getting flooded now, which I’ve never been flooded.”

Neighbors also voiced concerns about the potential impact additional development could have on local wildlife.

Residents who attended the proposal’s first reading in June say they plan to return for Monday’s final vote to share their concerns directly with city leaders and the developer before a decision is made.

Trump is visiting a General Motors facility in Milford, home to tracks and proving grounds for new models and vehicles. Early voting is underway for Michigan's Aug. 4 primary, which features fierce nomination fights in both major political parties.

Republican Mike Rogers is unopposed in the Senate primary, but the GOP gubernatorial contest pits Trump-backed Rep. John James against Perry Johnson, a businessman turned politician who has launched unsuccessful campaigns before, including for president in 2024.

Johnson is now trying to style himself in the president's mold — despite missing out on his endorsement. He's even holding a "Trump Tailgate” outside the president's GM event.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Senate primary between Rep. Haley Stevens and progressive Abdul El-Sayed has drawn national attention for the right to face Rogers, who was narrowly defeated by Democrat Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024.

Trump's new Canada tariffs could hurt Michigan

Michigan was one of the 2024 battlegrounds Trump flipped after it backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. But the state has also seen parts of its economy affected by the president's tariffs, including on imported cars and auto parts.

A new round of steep import levies is taking effect on dozens of U.S. trading partners. But Trump has singled out Canada with tariffs as high as 50% on a wide array of its products, including cars.

The president is visiting Oakland County, which encompasses much of Detroit's northern suburbs. Once a Republican stronghold, it has increasingly leaned Democratic, backing Biden against Trump in 2020 and Vice President Kamala Harris against Trump four years later.

The White House says Trump will talk up having generated manufacturing jobs and foreign investment in the U.S. while making the case that his policies and leadership have boosted the auto industry.

“The President pledged to put Michigan workers back to work, and he’s doing it,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in a statement.

Michigan's economy relies heavily on Canada, however, meaning the new tariffs — coupled with inflation still running high and gas prices rising again as the already unpopular war in Iran escalates — have created additional economic concerns statewide.

Those come at a time when voters across the country were already increasingly dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the economy.

Jason Roe, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party who tried unsuccessfully to distance it from Trump's “Make America Great Again” movement in 2021, said that more than coinciding with his new round of tariffs, Trump's visit is a function of Michigan's relatively late primary and is meant to ensure that James secures the nomination.

But Roe also predicted that it was a risk for the president to tie himself too closely to top Republicans ahead of the general election, calling it “kryptonite to November voters.”

Trump, who won the White House on a promise to lower the cost of living, also has seen his approval ratings sag, meaning kitchen table issues could be a liability for Republicans trying to hold control of Congress after Election Day on Nov. 3.

“We’re happy to have the president here, campaigning with Republicans. We think it highlights the fact that the only thing they care about is Donald Trump and refuse to stand up to him," said Curtis Hertel, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. "It’s good for us every time the president is here because he’s incredibly unpopular.”

The US and Canada have squabbled over a new border bridge

The Supreme Court struck down many of Trump’s sweeping tariffs, but his administration has tried to find ways around that, including by arguing that he can impose them on Canada because that country is discriminating against American exports of products including automobiles.

But Trump’s latest round of tariffs came after he voiced frustration with Canada for having retaliated and imposed its own levies on U.S. imports in response to Trump’s initial tariffs last year. Trump launched the first round after alleging Canada should do more to stop fentanyl smuggling.

It is Trump's third trip to Michigan in his second term.

In January, he visited a Ford plant in Dearborn and addressed the Detroit Economic Club, offering a defense of tariffs even as auto industry leaders blamed them for increasing the cost of doing business. The outcry is part of the reason Trump extended rebates to domestic car companies on some tariffs on imported auto parts.

The president marked his second term's first 100 days with a rally in Warren, where he mostly mentioned grievances left over from the 2024 campaign, even scoffing at what Biden might look like in a bathing suit.

His latest visit coincides with tensions between his administration and Canada that have marred the opening of a new bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

Canada on Friday held its own event hailing the opening of the $4.7 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge instead of a planned celebration with officials in the U.S. after Trump announced the new Canadian tariffs.

An earlier, joint ceremony had been set for June but was scrapped after Trump suggested the U.S. wanted a “better” deal on the bridge it co-owns with Canada.

That eventually led to an agreement on splitting tolls that was supposed to allow for the rescheduled joint U.S.-Canada celebration — until the new tariffs derailed that, too.

Just before 5:30 p.m., a 21-year-old man from Georgia was standing in waist-deep water in front of Dunlawton Beach when a shark, estimated at about 4 feet long, bit him on the left foot and ankle, according to Volusia County Beach Safety.

Beach Safety personnel treated the man at the scene before transporting him to a nearby hospital. Officials said his injuries are not life-threatening.

Shark safety tips for beachgoers

The Florida Museum offers the following tips to help keep you and your family safe in the water this summer:

• Swim with a buddy — Never swim alone
• Stay close to shore — Shallow, nearshore water keeps you closer to help
• Avoid dawn and dusk — Sharks are more active during low-light hours
• Steer clear of fishing activity — Don’t swim near schools of fish or areas where people are fishing
• Leave the jewelry at home — Shiny accessories can resemble fish scales
• Limit excess splashing — Erratic movement can attract sharks

CXMT's shares surged 466% in their first day of trading. The company has become the most valuable one listed on a mainland Chinese exchange, with an estimated market capitalization of about 3.3 trillion yuan (more than $487 billion). But that's still smaller than those of South Korean and American memory chipmakers like Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology.

CXMT, or ChangXin Memory Technologies, is among many chipmakers that have profited mightily from the boom in artificial intelligence. Its business is thriving as China pushes for greater self-sufficiency in leading edge technologies while contending with limited access to advanced chipmaking machines due to American-led restrictions.

The company raised at least $8.6 billion with the offering, priced at 8.66 yuan ($1.3) per share, in its listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Nasdaq-like STAR market, also known as the Science and Technology Innovation Board.

It was mainland China's second largest IPO after the $22.1 billion share offering of Agricultural Bank of China in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2010.

Founded in 2016 in the eastern city of Hefei, CXMT is one of the world’s largest makers of DRAM, or “dynamic random access” memory chips, a kind of semiconductor used in everything from AI servers to autos and consumer electronics like smartphones and personal computers.

“CXMT plays a critical role in China’s AI push, particularly in the face of U.S. export controls,” said Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert in China’s technology policies. U.S. restrictions have also barred China from importing powerful HBM, or high-bandwidth memory chips – a high-performance type of DRAM.

The company’s revenue surged to 50.8 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) on jumping demand from the rapid rise of AI in the first three months of 2026, a more than 700% rise year-on-year.

Soaring use of AI has led to a global memory chip shortage, driving up prices for some computers and smartphones. One big question, Chan said, is whether CXMT could help with the broader shortage.

CXMT is seen as China's best shot at developing its own cutting-edge HBM chips to power Chinese AI models, Chan said. But it also faces many challenges, including supply chain bottlenecks in scaling up manufacturing capacity, since its access to the world’s most best chipmaking tools is highly restricted, forcing it to depend on Chinese equipment makers.

According to Counterpoint Research, a technology research firm, CXMT was the world's fourth biggest DRAM memory chipmaker in 2025 by shipments, taking up roughly 8% of the global market. Samsung Electronics accounted for 36%, SK Hynix 29% and Micron about 24%.

In the first three months of this year CXMT accounted for approximately 9% of global shipments. By 2028, its market share is forecast by Counterpoint Research to reach about 11%. But the research firm estimated CXMT will likely need at least a 15% global market share to be competitive in the long term.

“Trade restrictions on tools are remaining as the key challenge for CXMT,” said MS Hwang, a research director at Counterpoint who specializes in memory semiconductors. Some U.S. lawmakers have also recently called for President Donald Trump’s administration to block American companies from buying CXMT’s memory chips over national and economic security concerns.

CXMT is one of many Chinese companies the Pentagon says have links to the Chinese military. Beijing has rejected such designations in most cases.

CXMT's public share offering followed a $26.5 billion IPO by South Korea’s SK Hynix on the Nasdaq earlier this month.

___

AP journalist Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.

A News 6 investigation found one Orlando woman paid $125 to a third-party website, only to receive the same PDF available for free on the official U.S. government site.

Alex needed to renew her passport before a Caribbean trip. She typed “passport renewal” into a search engine and clicked the first link that appeared, a sponsored result for a site called uspassportandvisa.org, believing she was on an official government page.

“I was wanting to take a trip this month to the Caribbean for the summer,” Alex said.

Alex filled out her application directly on the uspassportandvisa.org website. When she finished, the site emailed her a PDF of the completed form — the same form she could have downloaded and filled out herself for free at the official U.S. government site. She still had to submit the application to the State Department on her own. She only realized her mistake when she checked her credit card statement.

“When I went on my bank statement, this is what appeared — Easy Form Filler,” Alex said. “That’s not even a government official site.”

Alex contacted the site and received a refund.

In response to her complaints, uspassportandvisa.org states its role is to ensure applications are accurate and ready for submission to the U.S. Department of State. However, the site does not submit the application to the State Department on the user’s behalf.

The site also posts a disclaimer at the top of its webpage stating it is a privately owned organization not associated with any government agency.

But Better Business Bureau CEO Holly Salmons says most people miss it, especially when using a phone.

“They believed that they were on a government site,” Salmons said. “They believed they were completing the standard traditional process. And it wasn’t until they had submitted their information and given the money that they realized really all they were getting back in return was a completed form, that they then had to still process and submit themselves.”

Salmons says sponsored search results are a key part of the problem. When a result says “sponsored” at the top of a search page, that is paid ad placement, not an endorsement by the search engine.

“It can be really tempting to just go to a search engine, plug it in and click and go,” Salmons said. “But consumers should note that those sponsored results at the top of the page — that is essentially a paid ad.”

Domain records show uspassportandvisa.org launched in January of last year. Since then, the Better Business Bureau has logged more than 700 complaints against the site.

Salmons warns the risks go beyond losing money.

“Not only are these people not getting what they expect, they’re giving money, they’re giving very personal information to who knows who,” she said. “Consumers reported feeling very afraid or unassured about what’s going to happen now that my information is out there.”

She also notes that some consumers’ credit cards flagged the transaction as fraudulent before the consumer even realized what happened, providing a layer of protection that debit cards and payment apps do not offer.

“Even though the money may not be gone, even though the transaction may not have gone through, there is currency assigned to the value of our personal information,” Salmons said. “Where that information is going to go, how it’s going to be traded or sold, is unclear.”

The BBB is also tracking a broader trend: more copycat sites are appearing.

“If it works, there are going to be copycats,” Salmons said. “We want consumers to be aware, especially when doing a search online, to really inspect the search results.”

Ryan Dooley, Acting Managing Director for Passport Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, says there is one official website for passport services: travel.state.gov.

“That is the only official website for passport-related information,” Dooley said. “All the forms are on that site, they can be downloaded, filled out, and brought into one of our passport application acceptance facilities.”

Dooley says the State Department anticipates processing more than 23 million passport applications this year. For first-time applicants, the process starts at a local passport acceptance facility, such as a post office or clerk of court, where applicants bring their DS-11 application, passport photo, proof of citizenship, and valid ID. Routine processing takes four to six weeks; expedited processing takes two to three weeks.

Adults renewing a passport can use the State Department’s online renewal system at travel.state.gov, which allows applicants to take their own photo using a laptop or smartphone.

Dooley says third-party sites charging fees for forms is a known issue.

“Those companies charge a fee for the same service that we can provide you without that additional fee,” he said. “We want to make sure that all Americans reach our services directly.”

For travelers in Central Florida with urgent travel needs — typically defined as travel within a matter of days — the current option is to make an appointment at the Miami Passport Agency.

That is about to change. Dooley announced that the State Department plans to open an official passport agency in Orlando. The agency is expected to open in the fall of 2027, just north of the Orlando International Airport.

“Those citizens in the Orlando area who have urgent travel will no longer have to go to Miami for an urgent passport,” Dooley said. “We know that South Florida is a growing population and we’re really happy to be able to eventually open that passport agency to help your viewers.”

Both the State Department and the BBB stress the same bottom line: the passport application and renewal form process is free of charge. You will pay government fees to obtain or renew a passport, but there is no cost to download, complete, or submit the application form itself.

Salmons recommends completing the process on a laptop or desktop — not a phone — so you can clearly inspect the site’s address bar and look for red flags before submitting any personal information.

“Prevention is really the measure,” Salmons said, “because it’s unclear what’s going to happen once you hit submit.”

The official U.S. State Department passport website is travel.state.gov.

Travelers can also contact the National Passport Information Center at 1-877-487-2778 for assistance.

Investigators believe the two suspects were shooting at each other Sunday and, although one remained on the loose, Assistant Seattle Police Chief Tyrone Davis told a news conference Sunday night that there was no ongoing threat to the public.

Police did not have a description of the outstanding suspect, he said.

“We’re still trying to figure this out,” Davis said. Police did not immediately respond to phone and email messages early Monday.

Two people died at the scene and a third died at a hospital. They were described as two men, ages 19 and 44, and a 56-year-old woman.

The four wounded, including a 2-year-old boy, were hospitalized and in stable condition early Monday, police said. The rest of the wounded were adults. Davis couldn't say if any of the victims were involved in the confrontation.

The gunfire erupted around 6 p.m. Sunday in the waning hours of the Bite of Seattle, an annual three-day festival that draws hundreds of food and retail vendors and performers.

Dozens of officers were providing security at the event and some saw one of the suspects firing, Davis said. One suspect surrendered at the scene, but the other fled. Law enforcement searched the grounds to no avail.

A large number of police and emergency crews responded and began evacuating the area around the sprawling Seattle Center campus.

Faith Adia Hunter said she and her friends had just gotten food from a crepe vendor when gunfire broke out. She realized a shooter was near them. She and others found shelter in the nearby Seattle Children’s Museum.

“We were right next to him when it started so we took off running,” Hunter said. “So we took off running too into the building with the crowd.”

In the chaos, many vendors bolted toward the exits, abandoning their food stands. Hours afterward, some milled outside the police tape, wondering when they would be allowed to return to collect their tents, food and cooking gear.

Roberto Ramirez, a vendor at the event, said he heard what sounded like firecrackers before people began yelling “shooter” and frantically running.

“Suddenly everything was empty,” he said. “People were freaked out.”

After the initial panic, new guests continued to arrive unaware of what had happened and were told by police to leave, he said.

Estan Wakonabo said he and his girlfriend were at the festival waiting in line for a photo booth when he was shoved from behind and he turned to see a rush of people fleeing.

“People were hiding, were pushing, people were falling on the ground, baby strollers were falling,” Wakonabo said, adding that was when he heard gunshots.

“Once I heard a ‘pop, pop, pop,’ that’s when I knew it was a shooter,” he said.

After he escorted his girlfriend to safety, he returned to the scene to take photos and saw multiple victims on the ground, Wakonabo said.

The festival started in 1982 and draws 350,000 attendees, according to its website.

___

Associated Press journalists Manuel Valdes and Lindsey Wasson in Seattle, Annika Wolters in Bangkok and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

• With the average vehicle on the road now more than 13 years old, preventive maintenance is becoming more important than ever.

• Americans, however, are delaying routine vehicle maintenance as higher costs continue to strain household budgets.

• Skipping small repairs can lead to much larger – and much more expensive – problems later.

My first new car was a 1986 Chevrolet Camaro.

Of course when it was new, I loved that car. Looking back, though, it wasn’t a particularly great car. For the first five years of ownership, things went well, but somewhere around 59,000 miles, the transmission started to slip. Rather than facing a huge repair bill, I eventually got rid of it.

Back then, a car reaching 100,000 miles was still considered a milestone. Today’s vehicles are on a whole different level: 100k on the odometer is now a vehicle’s midlife crisis, not its deathbed. Improved engineering, better manufacturing, advances in synthetic lubricants, corrosion protection, and onboard diagnostics have helped modern vehicles routinely reach 200,000 miles or more with proper maintenance.

By the time I sold the Camaro in the 1990s, the average passenger car was about 8.4 years old. Today that average is closer to 13.6 years. That’s great news for consumers, but it also means maintenance matters more than ever. With Americans holding on to their cars longer, countless families are having the same conversation around the kitchen table: “Why buy a new car when the one in the driveway is still running just fine?”

Is it though?

New or Used: Cars are not cheap to maintain

In July 2026, the national average for regular gasoline crossed $4 a gallon. The average advertised price of a new car reached a record $51,974. Even used cars remain historically expensive, averaging more than $25,000.

With the cost of just about everything automotive on the rise and household budgets stretched thin, many drivers are putting off routine automotive maintenance. You know that little sticker in the corner of your windshield telling you it’s time for an oil change? For a growing number of people, it’s becoming more of a suggestion than a deadline.

Deferred maintenance can take on many forms: aside from skipping that oil change, it can be delaying new tires, putting off brake work, delaying transmission service, or ignoring a check-engine light. Replacing worn brake pads may cost several hundred dollars. Waiting until the pads damage the rotors, calipers or brake sensors can turn that routine service into a repair costing well over $1,000, depending on the vehicle.

Sometimes trying to save money today ends up costing you even more tomorrow.

AAA estimates that 64 million Americans would likely have to borrow money or go into debt to pay for an unexpected repair bill, highlighting the financial strain many households face when their vehicles need work.

Repairs are only one part of the financial pressure. Drivers are also absorbing the rising overall cost of owning a vehicle. AAA estimates that owning and operating a new vehicle costs an average of $11,577 a year in 2025, or about $965 per month. That includes expenses such as depreciation, financing, fuel, insurance, registration, taxes, and maintenance. Drivers can expect to spend an average of $1,656 annually on maintenance, repairs and tires, based on driving 15,000 miles per year – about 11.04 cents per mile

If that sounds like a lot for a new car, older vehicles don’t necessarily fare much better. The average vehicle on U.S. roads is now over 13 years old, meaning millions of drivers are maintaining cars that are well beyond their factory warranties and more likely to need costly repairs. And while drivers of paid-off cars avoid monthly loan payments and steep depreciation, those aging vehicles typically require more frequent and more expensive maintenance – upkeep that many Americans are delaying.

AAA found that about one-third of U.S. drivers have skipped or delayed recommended vehicle maintenance or repairs.

Why? Part of the answer comes down to labor.

Kelley Blue Book reports the average car repair now costs $838, citing Cox Automotive repair data. Data from Tekmetric, one of the largest repair shop management software providers in North America, shows the average repair shop charges about $132 per hour for labor. The lowest average rate in the country: West Virginia ($85 per hour), while Texas has the highest (an average of $197 per hour). Florida sits on the high side of the national average at $154 per hour.

Parts are the other side of the equation. Federal data show producer prices for motor vehicle parts rose more than 6% between late 2021 and late 2024, making even do-it-yourself repairs more expensive than they once were.

Think of deferred maintenance as borrowing from your future self: every time you postpone routine service, you’re gambling that today’s savings won’t become tomorrow’s much larger repair bill. Often, they do.

A bellwether for the economy

For many households, routine maintenance is no longer automatic. It’s another expense competing for room in the monthly budget. One of the earliest signs that consumers were under financial pressure didn’t come from economists: it came from auto parts retailers.

During an earnings call in 2024, Advance Auto Parts executives told investors that many do-it-yourself customers were delaying routine maintenance – including oil changes and even ignoring check-engine lights – as budgets tightened. Advance Auto wasn’t alone: other repair companies and auto parts suppliers reported similar trends, telling investors that consumers are postponing maintenance, choosing less expensive repairs, and waiting until problems become unavoidable.

Triage: What not to skip

Not all maintenance is created equal, and mechanics say that distinction matters when money is tight.

Routine fluid and filter changes are among the least expensive maintenance items you’ll encounter – and among the most important. Oil changes, transmission fluid, coolant – changing these are relatively inexpensive but protect components that cost thousands to replace. Skipping a $50 service to avoid a $5,000 engine or transmission job is the definition of penny-wise, pound-foolish.

Tires and brakes are the next tier – not just financially, but because they’re safety systems. Squealing brakes deserve immediate attention because – as mentioned – waiting to change pads can also damage rotors and turn a relatively modest repair into a much larger bill.

Tires deserve the same urgency.

Driving too long on worn or improperly aligned tires can compromise handling and accelerate wear on steering and suspension components. So when you do get them replaced, new tires and alignment aside, you may also have to factor in the cost of new shocks, struts, bushings, or other suspension components.

That tracks with AAA’s own maintenance guidance, which treats brake problems, check-engine lights, and fluid leaks as things to address immediately – while tasks like exterior waxing or cleaning up excess brake dust on your rims can wait months or longer.

The check-engine light is the wild card. Generally, dashboard warning lights follow a color code: amber means “get it checked soon,” blinking amber means “pay attention to me: you should really get this checked now”, and red usually means “stop and address it immediately.”

Above all, don’t let a check-engine light sit unread for months; most auto parts stores will check it for free which can tell you whether it’s nothing, or something. It can mean a loose gas cap, a bad oxygen sensor, or a failing catalytic converter. The range between “ignore it” and “tow it” is enormous, which is why getting the code read early is almost always cheaper – and wiser – than hoping the light just goes away.

Pay now, or pay more later

My Camaro never got a second chance. I sold it at 59,000 miles rather than face the transmission bill, and I never found out what else it might have had left to give.

Today’s drivers don’t have to make that same trade. The choice isn’t maintenance or no maintenance – it’s which repairs you make first. And what hasn’t changed is the math: a little bit of money now almost always beats a lot of money later.

If your budget is tight, that doesn’t mean ignoring your car – it means triaging it. Fix what protects your safety and what protects your engine. Defer what’s cosmetic. Nobody budgets for a $1,000 repair bill. But that’s exactly what a skipped $50 service can turn into.

The bill is coming either way. The only questions are when, and how much.

But they’re not the only candidates on the ballot, and Central Florida’s election supervisors want to make sure every voter, whether you belong to a party or not, knows that.

[WATCH: Election Security, Voter Fraud and Vote by Mail: Central Florida supervisors answer tough questions]

“Yes, the president is an important election. Yes, the governor is at the general, but they’re not the ones worrying about your potholes, your schools, your roadways, your stormwater issues,” said Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Amy Pennock.

[ELECTION 2026: Make sure you’re eligible to vote|How to vote by mail|Election Myths]

Pennock was one of six election supervisors who recently joined News 6 and other members of the News Collaborative of Central Florida for a wide-ranging discussion on election issues. Central Florida Public Media hosted the discussion.

Florida is a closed primary state, which means you must be registered with a political party to vote in any of that party’s primaries.

Voters who want to take part in one of the Aug. 18 party primaries have to make sure their party affiliation is updated by July 20. We’ve put all of that information HERE.

“We’re trying to get the message out that people who are not affiliated with the party still have a lot on the ballot,” said Orange County Supervisor Karen Castor Dentel. “We have a county mayor, we have county commission, and these are all nonpartisan races: school board, judicial, school board chair- some very consequential elections, and most of them will be determined in the primary.”

In addition, some Florida House of Representatives races will be decided in August in what are called “universal primaries,” said Osceola County Supervisor Mary Jane Arrington.

“These are races where there’s only one party running, and that selection will be made,” Arrington said. “And in the primary, House District 47, in Osceola County, will be a universal primary for every voter.”

Below is a list of every race that will be on a ballot in the Aug. 18 primary that will be open to all registered voters who are eligible to vote in that election, broken down by county.

Looking for more information on the candidates? That is on the way.

News 6 and its partners at the News Collaborative of Central Florida are working on a comprehensive voting guide with candidate information. Look for that guide in the coming weeks.

Orange County

Orange County is one of the counties that has a non-partisan county commission. All Orange County voters will see the county mayor’s race on their ballot, and if you live in one of five county commission districts, you will see that race on your ballot.

Voters will also see the Orange County School Chair race on their ballot, and if you live in school board districts 1, 2 or 3, that race will also be on your ballot.

Finally, circuit court and county judge races will also be on the ballot for all voters.

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Orange County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your address.

Ninth Circuit Judge - Group 1

• Temika Hampton-Johnson
• Charles Hart
• Mikaela Nix

Ninth Circuit Judge - Group 2

• Christina Arguelles
• Christie Lou Mitchell

Ninth Circuit Judge - Group 31

• Steve Kerestes
• Kamilah Perry

Orange County Mayor

• Chris Messina
• Tiffany Moore Russell
• Stephanie Murphy
• Mayra Uribe

Orange County Commission - District 2

• Kamia Brown
• Mike Crabb
• Wes Hodge
• George Oliver III
• Marsha Summersill

Orange County Commission - District 4

• Isabella Arthur - Write-in
• Brian Jones
• Johanna López

Orange County Commission - District 6

• Loody Delice
• Lawanna Gelzer
• Cynthia Harris
• Hedder Pierre Joseph
• Michael “Mike” Scott

Orange County Commission - District 7

• Selina Carter
• Shannon Currie
• Nate Douglas
• Shakaya “Kay” Filmore
• Angie Gardner
• Deidre Graybill
• Rasheeda Doris Jones
• Gloria C. Joyner
• Aaron Emmanuel Lewis
• Zach Moldof
• Patricia Rumph
• Beryl Thompson-McClary
• Vicki Vargo

Orange County Commission - District 8

• Isaiah Louis Anderson
• Tatiana Fernández
• George Haas
• Jeanette Quinones Hernandez
• Julio Rocha
• Victor M. Torres Jr.

Orange County School Board Chair

• Alicia Farrant
• Angie Gallo

Orange County School Board District 1

• Melissa Lopez Marantes
• David Shepard

Orange County School Board District 2

• Marisol Lugo
• Gloria Reina O’Neal

Orange County School Board District 3

• Ilia Adorno
• Diana Moore
• Susanne Peña

Orange County Judge - Group 5

• Asima Azam
• Kafi Kennedy

Orange County Judge - Group 17

• Cherish Adams
• Joy K. Goodyear

Osceola County

Osceola County’s commission elections are partisan, so they are closed primaries. But the county still has school board races and judges races on the ballot for all voters, as well as a Universal Primary.

The Florida House District 47 election will be open to all voters on Aug. 18. The incumbent Republican, Rep. Paula Stark, will not be on the ballot because of a paperwork issue, and the only other candidates are Democrats.

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Osceola County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your name and birthdate.

Florida House District 47 - Universal Primary

• Jorge Figueroa
• Anthony Nieves

Ninth Circuit Judge - Group 1

• Temika Hampton-Johnson
• Charles Hart
• Mikaela Nix

Ninth Circuit Judge - Group 2

• Christina Arguelles
• Christie Lou Mitchell

Ninth Circuit Judge - Group 31

• Steve Kerestes
• Kamilah Perry

Osceola County School Board District 1

• Greg Filak
• Jay Wheeler

Osceola County School Board District 3

• Natalie Guzman
• Alyssa Noel

Kissimmee City Commission Seat 2

• Angela Eady
• Wanda Román

Kissimmee City Commission Seat 4

• Rubin Anderson
• Maria Virginia Garcia
• Tiffany Jeffers
• Janette Martinez

Kissimmee Charter Amendment - Referendum Question 1

Shall the City Charter, Chapter 2, Section 2, be amended to revise the term limits for the Mayor-Commissioner and City Commissioners from two (2) consecutive four-year terms to three (3) consecutive four-year terms?

• Yes
• No

Kissimmee Charter Amendment - Referendum Question 2

Shall the City Charter, Chapter 2, City Commission, Section 7, be amended to require all candidates for elected office to consent to a background check to verify eligibility for office?

• Yes
• No

St. Cloud City Council Member Seat 5

• Jim Moore
• Alex Rodriguez
• Kirk Zilke

Seminole County

Seminole County also doesn’t have nonpartisan county commission elections, but it does have school board races and judges elections. The City of Sanford is also having its mayoral race on Aug. 18.

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Seminole County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your name and birthdate.

18th Circuit Judge - Group 4

• Larry Freeman
• Robert Alan Segal

18th Circuit Judge - Group 13

• Andrea Fant
• George Cole Gaspard

Seminole County Court Judge Group 3

• Sylvia Grunor
• Nathan Skop

Seminole County Court Judge Group 6

• Alena Chaban
• Wayne Culver
• Erik Swenk

Seminole County School Board District 1

• Antonio Pizza
• Kristine Kraus

Seminole County School Board District 2

• Holton Mills
• Joshua Memminger

Seminole County School Board District 5

• Autumn Garick
• Brian Newsome

City of Sanford Mayor

• Charles Davis
• Christina Hollerbach

Brevard County

Brevard County has nonpartisan school board races, judicial elections and a universal primary for the Canaveral Port Authority, District 5. There are also elections in the cities of Palm Bay and Titusville.

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Brevard County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your name and birthdate.

18th Circuit Judge - Group 4

• Larry Freeman
• Robert Alan Segal

18th Circuit Judge - Group 13

• Andrea Fant
• George Cole Gaspard

Brevard County School Board - District 1

• Tara “Coach T” Gibson
• Megan Wright

Brevard County School Board - District 2

• Kyle Savage
• Gene Trent
• Kelly Wentworth

Brevard County School Board - District 5

• Tammy Dennis
• Michele McCormack
• Cecilia Trotter

Brevard County Judge - Group 3

• Rodney Antonio Edwards
• Timi DeAnn Tucker

Canaveral Port Authority - District 5 Universal Primary

• Carol Craig
• Randall May

Palm Bay City Council - Seat 4

• Alfy Agarie
• Michael J. Bruyette
• Kenny Johnson

Palm Bay City Council - Seat 5

• Mike Jaffe
• Eduardo Macaya
• Santa Isabel Wright

Titusville City Council -Seat 1

• Darcia Bair
• Elizabeth Baker
• Herman A. Cole
• John Dacko

Titusville City Council -Seat 5

• Christopher Childs
• David Hobart
• Kayla Manning

Volusia County

Volusia County has nonpartisan county council, school board and judicial races. It also has a bevy of city races that could be decided, including mayoral races in Deltona, Edgewater and Ormond Beach.

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Volusia County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your name and birthdate.

Seventh Circuit Judge - Group 26

• Carleen Leffler
• Jeanne Stratis

Volusia County Council At Large

• Nancy Miller
• Mike Poniatowski
• Barry Powell

Volusia County Council District 1

• Wendy Anderson
• Don Dempsey
• Melissa D. Thorne

Volusia County Council District 3

• Anthony Gorham
• Danny Robins
• Bryon White

Volusia County School Board District 1

• Brenda Beery
• Jaclyn Carrell
• Jamie Michele Haynes

Volusia County School Board District 3

• Grace Kellermeier
• Jessie Thompson

Volusia County School Board District 5

• Ruben Colón
• Dean Condon

Daytona Beach City Commission Zone 3

• Christos Mavronas
• Quanita May
• Steve Miller

Daytona Beach City Commission Zone 5

• John Counts
• Aaron Harrison
• Willie F. Williams

Deltona Mayor

• Santiago Avila, Jr.
• Maritza A. Vazquez
• Jason Voelz

Deltona City Commission District 6

• Chris Nabicht
• Christian O’Brien
• Jody Lee Storozuk

Edgewater Mayor

• Diezel D. DePew
• Wayne McCloskey
• Steven Oleksy

Holly Hill City Commissioner District 2

• Mike Cerbo
• Carmen Ruiz

New Smyrna Beach City Commissioner Zone 2

• Jennifer Devine
• Lou Pate
• Cynthia Sniezak

Ormond Beach Mayor

• Damien Curry
• George Doran
• Jason Leslie
• Lori Tolland

Ormond Beach City Commissioner Zone 1

• Alan Burton
• Melissa DeVriese
• Coleen McMahon

Ormond Beach City Commissioner Zone 4

• Amber Bobak
• Harold Briley
• Barry du Moulin

South Daytona City Council Seat 2

• Victoria Maxwell
• Doug Quartier

Flagler County

Flagler County has school board and judicial races that are nonpartisan, as are the Palm Coast City Council races.

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Flagler County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your name and birthdate.

Seventh Circuit Judge - Group 26

• Carleen Leffler
• Jeanne Stratis

Flagler County School Board District 1

• Cathy Moon
• Jill Woolbright

Flagler County School Board District 2

• Will Furry
• Rob Wood

Flagler County School Board District 4

• Christy Chong
• Ron Long
• Trevor Tucker

Palm Coast City Council - District 2

• Antonio “Tony” Amaral Jr.
• Jeani Duarte
• Jimmy Hengy

Palm Coast City Council - District 4

• Dylana “Dee” Galery
• John Kvederis
• Ramon Marrero
• Darlene Shelley

Lake County

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Lake County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your name and birthdate.

Fifth Circuit Judge - Group 27

• Nicole M. Morris
• Lisa Yeager

Lake County School Board - District 1

• Pat Kelley
• Eric Schwalbach

Fruitland Park Commissioner - District 3

• Paige Booth
• Mitchell Langley
• Shayna Stanfield Grunewald

Groveland District 1, Mayor

• Judith Fike
• Keith “Chef” Keogh
• Dina Sweatt

Marion County

In addition to school board and judicial races, voters in Marion County may be eligible to vote in two Florida House races. The races for Districts 21 and 24 are universal primaries. Only Democrats qualified to run in District 21, while only Republicans qualified to run in District 24.

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Marion County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your name and birthdate.

Florida House District 21 -- Universal Primary

• Sylvain Doré
• Antione Fields
• Xavier J. Monroe
• Malik J. Moore
• Jacquelyn “Jackie” Randall

Florida House District 24 -- Universal Primary

• Ryan Chamberlin
• Scott Wilkins

Fifth Circuit Judge - Group 27

• Nicole M. Morris
• Lisa Yeager

Marion County School Board - District 3

• Eric R. Cummings
• Steve Swett

Marion County School Board - District 4

• Jeff Brewer
• Mike Mills
• Brigitte Smith
• Buddy Wyckoff

Marion County School Board - District 5

• Donald “Donny” Barber
• Ualthan Bigby
• Sarah James

Sumter County

To see what will be on your ballot, go to the Sumter County Supervisor of Elections website HERE and look up your ballot using your name and birthdate.

Fifth Circuit Judge - Group 27

• Nicole M. Morris
• Lisa Yeager

Sumter County School Board District 1

• Sally Moss
• Leslie Russell

Sumter County School Board District 3

• Gerald “Jerry” Loomer
• David A. Williams

Sumter County School Board District 5

• Michael Johnson
• Troye Joiner

Shares in Chinese memory chipmaker CXMT soared 466% as they began trading on Shanghai’s technology board. The company jumped to become China's most valuable listed company with an estimated market capitalization of 3.3 trillion yuan (nearly $490 billion).

The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the pause in attacks on Iranian coastal areas and infrastructure after nearly two weeks of escalating fighting sparked by Iran’s firing at ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

But markets reacted with relief. U.S. futures surged early Monday and the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 6.8% to $85.49.

U.S. benchmark crude dropped 7% to $83.06 per barrel.

“Oil’s sharp retreat at the Monday open did more than knock a few dollars off the barrel. It loosened the geopolitical knot that had been tightening around equities, currencies, bonds and central banks for most of July,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

In early European trading, Germany's DAX gained 1.6% to 25,497,42 and the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.8% at 8,436.94. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.5% to 10,784.00.

The futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 1%.

In Asian trading, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.5% to 64,931.19, while the Kospi in South Korea advanced 1% to 6,755.75.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 1% to 25,207.18, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 1.2% to 3,858.25.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 surged 1.4% to 8,894.00.

Taiwan's Taiex slipped 0.1% and the Sensex in India added 1.1%.

On Friday, the S&P 500 barely budged, picking up less than 0.1% and notching its second straight losing week for the first time since March.

The Dow industrials rose 0.5%. The Nasdaq composite index slipped 0.6%, weighed down by sharp losses for heavyweights like Micron Technology, which fell 7%, and Broadcom, which lost 2.7%.

Recent surges in energy prices and fresh tariffs announced last week by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump could result in hotter inflation, which has been squeezing consumers and looming over the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy.

The Fed meets this week, though rising inflation has dashed hopes for an interest-rate cut anytime soon. Wall Street has been leaning toward a potential rate hike to tamp down higher prices.

Higher energy costs are taking up a bigger share of household budgets, which have shifted toward more basic needs, like gasoline. Nationally, a gallon of gasoline costs $4.11 per gallon, according to AAA. That is still lower than this spring as the conflict in Iran expanded, but almost a dollar higher than last year at this time.

“Oil is the fastest-moving tax in the global economy. When crude rises sharply, consumers feel it at the fuel pump, airlines and transport companies feel it in their operating costs, manufacturers feel it in their logistics, and central banks begin worrying that the initial supply shock will spill over into broader inflation expectations,” Innes said.

Meanwhile, corporate earnings reports are focusing attention on the sustainability of broader profits from a boom in spending on artificial intelligence. Tech giants like Alphabet and Nvidia have been spending heavily to expand AI capacity and investors increasingly are questioning whether they will generate profits to justify the massive stock values that have pushed markets market higher throughout the year.

In other dealings early Monday, the U.S. dollar slipped to 163.56 Japanese yen from 163.64 yen. The euro rose to $1.1399 from $1.1398.

Genevieve had maximum sustained winds of 160 mph (260 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Genevieve’s center was located about 530 miles (855 kilometers) southwest of Manzanillo, and it was headed northwest at 13 mph (20 kph).

No coastal watches or warnings were in effect, but the hurricane center said that swells from the storm — likely causing “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” — were affecting parts of Mexico’s southwestern coast and the Baja California Peninsula.

The storm was expected to begin weakening from Tuesday.

Farther northwest in the Pacific, Hurricane Fausto weakened to a Category 1 storm as it continued on a path in the general direction of the Hawaiian Islands.

Forecasters said Fausto was expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm in the coming days but warned that it could still generate significant surf for parts of Hawaii.

Fausto had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph). It was located about 670 miles (1,080 kilometers) east of Hilo and was moving west-northwest at 14 mph (22 kph).

The amendment — HJR 1F — provides a new homestead exemption for non-school taxes for residents in the state.

Current homestead exemption rules in the state operate as follows, with two different brackets of assessed value being tax exempt:

But under HJR 1F, the exemptions would apply solely to non-school taxes, though the exempted amount would raise dramatically:

• 2027 — First $150,000 of assessed value
• 2028 — First $250,000 of assessed value
• 2029 onward — First $250,000 of assessed value, indexed to inflation

However, this only applies to homeowners who are permanent residents of Florida before the proposed amendment takes effect on Jan. 1, 2027 (if it gets approved, that is). For newcomers, the timeline is a bit different.

HJR 1F instead provides new residents with a five-year homestead exemption that comes out as follows:

After this five-year period, the new residents will then be eligible for the higher exemption.

Meanwhile, the amendment also reduces the annual non-homestead property assessment growth cap from 10% to 5%, limiting how much these sorts of properties may be assessed each year.

In addition, the plan limits how local governments may spend property tax revenue:

• 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

While the amendment has been approved by lawmakers, it will still need 60% approval from voters in the general election on Nov. 3.

Investigators believe the two suspects were shooting at each other and, although one remained on the loose, Assistant Seattle Police Chief Tyrone Davis told a news conference Sunday night that there was no ongoing threat to the public.

Police did not have a description of the outstanding suspect, he said.

“We’re still trying to figure this out,” Davis said.

Two people died at the scene and a third died at a hospital. The four wounded, including a 2-year-old boy, were hospitalized and in stable condition, said Grace Nuñez, spokesperson for the Seattle Fire Department. The rest of the injured were adults. Davis couldn't say if any of the victims were involved in the confrontation.

The gunfire erupted around 6 p.m. in the waning hours of the Bite of Seattle, an annual three-day festival that draws hundreds of food and retail vendors and performers.

Dozens of officers were providing security at the event and some saw one of the suspects firing, Davis said. One suspect surrendered at the scene, but the other fled. Law enforcement searched the grounds to no avail.

A large number of police and emergency crews responded and began evacuating the area around the sprawling Seattle Center campus.

Faith Adia Hunter said she and her friends had just gotten food from a crepe vendor when gunfire broke out. She realized a shooter was near them. She and others found shelter in the nearby Seattle Children’s Museum.

“We were right next to him when it started so we took off running,” Hunter said. “So we took off running too into the building with the crowd.”

In the chaos, many vendors bolted toward the exits, abandoning their food stands. Hours afterward, some milled outside the police tape, wondering when they would be allowed to return to collect their tents, food and cooking gear.

Roberto Ramirez, a vendor at the event, said he heard what sounded like firecrackers before people began yelling “shooter” and frantically running.

“Suddenly everything was empty,” he said. “People were freaked out.”

After the initial panic, new guests continued to arrive unaware of what had happened and were told by police to leave, he said.

Estan Wakonabo said he and his girlfriend were at the festival waiting in line for a photo booth when he was shoved from behind and he turned to see a rush of people fleeing.

“People were hiding, were pushing, people were falling on the ground, baby strollers were falling,” Wakonabo said, adding that was when he heard gunshots.

“Once I heard a ‘pop, pop, pop,’ that’s when I knew it was a shooter,” he said.

After he escorted his girlfriend to safety, he returned to the scene to make photos and saw multiple victims on the ground, Wakonabo said.

The annual festival started in 1982 and draws 350,000 attendees over “three days of food, drink, and community celebration,” according to its website.

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Associated Press journalists Manuel Valdes and Lindsey Wasson in Seattle, Annika Wolters in Bangkok and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

But the 79-year-old retiree can’t help but worry for another family that, like her, fled the raging inferno.

“They have been left with nothing,” said about a young family that lives down her son’s street. “The house has completely burned down, and they have three children.”

The wildfires that have raged out of control in recent days in three provinces in central Spain have ravaged tens of thousands of hectares and forced nearly 90,000 people to flee their homes. In the southwest of France, more than 250,000 people have fled their homes as the fire rages through the wine region of Bordeaux.

Survivors face an uncertain future

For the hundreds of thousands of people in this situation, the question is the same: What will they find when they’re finally allowed to go home, or to what’s left of it?

With no word on when she’ll be able to return to Chapinería, her hometown west of the Spanish capital of Madrid, Menéndez will spend her third night on Sunday at the makeshift shelter set up in a sports complex in Villaviciosa de Odón, a 40-minute drive from the home she was forced to leave as the blaze neared.

“At least we’re all together,” said Menéndez, who is at the shelter with her family and their dog.

On Friday afternoon, two major fires near Madrid merged into a single, rapidly spreading blaze. It later combined with another that was already burning in Ávila, north of the capital. This forced the government to declare a national fire emergency for the first time. Since then, the flames have also spread to Toledo, a province southwest. In all, the flames have scorched 77,000 hectares in the central part of the country alone.

Menéndez’s anguish was shared by Rocío Domínguez, who fled her house with only the clothes on her back. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything, everything, everything,” were left behind, she told The Associated Press.

“The only thing I had time to grab was a kit I have for the dogs,” Domínguez added, surrounded by her two beloved pets. Everything else she has with her now — from the clothes she wears to her food and toiletries — she received at the shelter.

For many, it was a scene ‘like the apocalypse’

At the evacuation center, where cots have been set up for about 200 people, Domínguez still has the terrifying memory of their escape fresh in her mind.

“It was madness with cars going up and down, traffic jams in the village streets as people tried to get out. It looked like the apocalypse,” told Domínguez, 35 years old and unemployed, who is with her parents and siblings. “You couldn’t see anything.”

“Everything was covered in ash,” she added. “You could see all the burned animals.”

Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia heard more of those personal testimonies on Sunday as the royals visited another shelter in Villamartín, about 45 kilometers west of Madrid.

And those stories may not be the last — Spain's Minister of Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, later noted that “more evacuations are still expected” in that area.

Queen Letizia told reporters after meeting with the survivors that it was important "to hear how they feel and how they recount their hasty departure from their home. How they have felt the sadness they describe, the anguish, the uncertainty, and those questions they leave hanging in the air,.

Wildfire brought tragedy on the heels of Spain's World Cup

The wildfires have significantly shifted the mood in the country, where just a week ago huge crowds of people took to the streets to celebrate their second FIFA World Cup triumph.

As the echoes of those celebrations fade, head coach Luis de la Fuente — one of the driving forces behind the historic victory over Argentina in the final in New Jersey — visited those affected by the fires at a sports center in Las Rozas.

The Spanish Football Federation, which has its headquarters in the same city, has offered the facilities where the newly crowned world champions usually train for the vulnerable families who have been forced to evacuate from their homes.

The coach said all of Spain is rallying for the wildfire survivors.

“All of Spain is watching over them,” De la Fuente said in remarks to the national public broadcaster, TVE. “They have the support of the entire country, the same support we have when we play soccer. It’s exactly the same.”

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Medrano reported from Madrid.

The inside of the mound was tightly stacked with beech wood which smolders for weeks until it's been turned into charcoal — a craft that's been practiced in the Harz mountain region in eastern Germany for hundreds of years.

“We are making charcoal in traditional earthen kilns, just as it was done here in the Harz Mountains over 1,000 years ago,” Feldmer told The Associated Press in a recent interview as he stood between the mounds in the middle of the Harz forest near the small town of Hasselfelde.

Feldmer and his brother Sascha took over the Harzköhlerei Stemberghaus business of producing charcoal from their father. They also have a handful of workers as the smoldering wood inside the mounds needs to be attended to and carefully watched day and night so it won't start catching fire and burn down to useless ashes.

Once covered in earth, the beech wood — which is known for its high density and the high temperatures it creates once it's been turned into charcoal — burns from top to bottom with the help of air holes. The charcoal is then swept clean of soil, and when it has cooled down, it's packed into 10-kilogram (22-pound) bags for sale.

Charcoal production was essential for mining ore in the Harz Mountains. To extract valuable metals such as silver, lead, copper, and zinc from the hard rock, the ore was crushed and then smelted in a furnace using intense heat. The extremely high temperatures required could only be achieved using charcoal.

Over the centuries, hundreds of families in the Harz region earned their living as charcoal burners. These days ore is no longer mined there and only a few coal burners are left in Germany. The Feldmers mostly sell their charcoal to people using it for barbecues at home.

“Our charcoal is, first and foremost, made from pure beech wood,” Feldmer said, adding that most of the charcoal sold at hardware stores in the country is imported and made of “mixed woods, scrap wood, and waste wood so it can be produced cheaply.”

As Feldmer and his brother would not be able to live from the coal burning business alone — they produce around 40 tons annually — they've also opened a museum about the history of coal burning, a small store and a restaurant where guests can get local specialties including steaks grilled over homemade birch charcoal.

Though the craft of char burning has essentially died out in Germany, Feldmer hopes that his family will keep the tradition alive.

“Of course, we hope ... that our business here will be taken over by our children, that it will continue to operate, and that the traditional craft of charcoal burning will be preserved here," he said.

Last week, Canada celebrated the Gordie Howe International Bridge with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Windsor, Ontario, to mark the completion of the multibillion-dollar, multiyear project.

U.S. and Michigan representatives were uninvited from Friday's gathering after President Donald Trump suddenly announced 50% tariffs on Canadian goods entering America.

The bridge is named for Howe, a Canadian icon known as “Mr. Hockey” who wore No. 9 while playing on the other side of the Detroit River for the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings. He died in 2016.

More than 70% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S., making America its largest trade partner, and Detroit is the No. 1 port for truck traffic on the U.S.-Canada border, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

For nearly a century, the privately-owned Ambassador Bridge has been the only route for large commercial trucks moving between the U.S. and Canada at Detroit. Businesses say the new six-lane span will be faster and less expensive.

The span is 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) long and rises 151 feet (46 meters) above the river at its highest point. Pedestrians and bicyclists carrying proper identification will be able to cross it for free in a few weeks.

Construction on the new bridge began in 2018 but took years, partly because of a global slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Canada paid to build the bridge at an estimated cost of $6.4 billion. A recent agreement says Canada will share some toll revenue with the U.S. government for 15 years.

Trump praised his administration for that deal in a social media post while the Ontario event was in progress. “We changed the terms,” he said.

Michigan will also get a share, but not until Canada’s costs are recovered, likely decades from now.

The new tariffs announced in recent days take effect just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expired, and critics say they are less about cracking down on forced labor than they are a way to replace those tariffs. The expired tariffs were themselves a temporary replacement for worldwide tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in February.

The tariffs were levied on countries that the U.S. says either don't have or don't effectively enforce a forced-labor import ban. The affected countries, which account for 99% of U.S. imports, were quick to protest, calling the Trump administration's claims unfounded and arbitrary, as nations with vastly different records on forced labor received the same tariff level. The U.S. spent four months investigating but gave few details on how it arrived at the tariff rates, which are either 10% or 12.5%.

Sidestepping Congress

The tariffs were levied under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 on countries that the U.S. determined had failed “to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.”

During President Donald Trump 's first term, he cited Section 301 to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports amid a dispute over the sharp-elbowed tactics Beijing was using to challenge America’s technological dominance. The U.S. is also using 301 powers to counter what it calls unfair Chinese practices in the shipbuilding industry.

“The 301s allow a permanent tariff without going to Congress to settle the dispute,” said Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law. “That’s what all of this is about. The president doesn’t want to knock on the front door of Congress, so he’s trying every side door and every unlatched window to get in.”

Little evidence that countries failed to enforce import bans

The office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) said it consulted with all 60 economies under investigation and held two rounds of public hearings, elicited more than 2,100 public comments, and had “engagement” with its trading partners about what they were doing to combat forced labor bans.

It didn't detail its talks with the countries, saying those were confidential. Experts say it is fairly straightforward to investigate whether a country has a ban or not, but it is difficult to determine the government's exact rationale for each country's failure to enforce import bans.

“There’s not a lot of hard evidence there,” said Scott Lincicome, vice president for general economics and trade policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “It’s pretty laughable on its face to think that a country like the ones in Europe or in Norway or Switzerland aren’t doing enough to police forced labor.”

And even if countries do enact and enforce the forced-labor import bans the U.S. wants, they would still need to prove that they’re enforcing them to Washington’s satisfaction before the tariffs would be removed, said lawyer Patrick Childress, a partner at Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official.

“This suggests that no short-term path for countrywide relief from the new Section 301 tariffs will be available,” he said.

Countries and industries reject the forced labor argument

Many countries have pushed back against the Trump administration's findings.

Brazil, which faces a 12.5% forced-labor tariff, called the U.S. move “arbitrary and unjustified.” The U.S. “chose to manipulate an issue of great importance to human rights and the struggles of workers worldwide in order to accuse 59 countries and the European Union of unfair practices,” it said in a statement.

Australia also questioned the justification for its 12.5% tariff.

“We believe that amongst all of the countries in the world, Australia does take the issue of slavery, modern slavery, seriously, and will continue to do that,” Trade Minister Don Farrell told reporters in Adelaide.

Carve-outs have riled some industries. The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), which describes itself as the voice of the American textile industry, protested a mechanism that exempts the Section 301 tariffs for textile and apparel imports from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia based on those countries’ imports of U.S. cotton and textiles.

“No other industry has been more disadvantaged by forced labor than the U.S. textile industry, which employs 453,000 workers and has lost 41 plants over the past two plus years,” NCTO chief executive Kim Glas said in a statement. “We remain strongly concerned that USTR’s textile mechanism will harm the very domestic manufacturers the administration seeks to help.”

US forced-labor bans don't always work

The U.S. has two major pieces of legislation related to forced-labor import bans. The Tariff Act of 1930 gave Customs and Border Protection the authority to seize shipments where forced labor was suspected and to block further imports. But it had a big carve-out: If there was “consumptive demand,” meaning there wasn't sufficient supply to meet domestic demand, imports were allowed regardless of how they were produced. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act that took effect in 2016 eliminated that loophole.

In 2021, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was passed. It blocks imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove the items were made without forced labor.

But goods made with forced labor can still make it into the U.S. In 2015, an Associated Press investigation found that slave labor was used in the fishing industry in Southeast Asia. The seafood they caught made its way to supermarkets and pet food providers across the U.S.

An investigation by The Associated Press in 2020 into the $65 billion palm oil industry found labor abuses among an invisible workforce consisting of millions of men, women and children in Asia. The fruit they harvested made its way into the supply chains of major companies, including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.

Calls for a more comprehensive approach to combat forced labor

During hearings on the tariffs this month, National Retail Federation vice president Jonathan Gold, who was representing the business coalition the Joint Association Forced Labor Working Group at the hearing, said that in order for the import bans to work, they would have to be much more extensive.

He said there need to be “clear, measurable benchmarks” tied to tariffs for countries to hit, and that the U.S. should help countries build enforcement programs.

Kenya Davis, a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, said an effective ban needs a “comprehensive approach” that provides transparency about what the investigations consisted of, along with programs that provide countries aid in enforcing bans.

On a personal level, it also was an attack on everything the Berliner embodies.

“Born a Muslim, living as a gay man, working as a police officer," Darwich said, as he tried holding back the tears, “this terror attack touches so many aspects of who I am.”

Saturday night's van ramming and stabbing near Berlin’s Pride festival that left one person dead and many others wounded was believed to have been an Islamic extremist terror attack, authorities said.

The suspect in the attack was killed by police Sunday evening in a Berlin suburb. Authorities said Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen with Lebanese roots, apparently ran toward officers with a sharp instrument, and police fired at least one shot.

On Sunday, Darwich, 34, watched sadly as more and more members of the LGBTQ+ community came to Tiergarten park, where the attack took place. They put down flowers, hugged each other and looked in disbelief at the crashed van, which still stood cordoned off behind dozens of police officers.

Like Darwich, many of them had been celebrating life and love just hours earlier, protesting for equality and warning of an increase of hate crimes against their community.

“I was wearing my rainbow-colored shirt, carried a banner at the parade saying ‘Why are some people afraid of love but not of hate?,’ and was about to go to an afterparty last night, when friends started calling me to check if I was OK,” he said.

When he understood that there had been an attack, he canceled the party and went home filled with sorrow. But it was only after he woke up on Sunday morning that he truly grasped the significance of the attack.

“I asked myself, why as a police officer I did not run to the scene of the crash to help my colleagues. I asked myself as a gay if we will have to live with more fear now even though we are already experiencing bullying and hatred. I asked myself as a Muslim if our community will be exposed to even more racism now.”

Darwich, who was born in Berlin and has Lebanese and Palestinian roots, expressed worry that the attack would polarize German society even more.

“I’m actually feeling desperate this morning," said Darwich, who also works as a gay Muslim influencer and posts many videos on social media that usually try to strike a positive note. “We can’t get rid of the hatred some people feel, and it’s just getting worse and worse.”

But at the same time, he said he did not want to let hate win and that deep inside he still hoped that "the people of Berlin will make the best of it, that they will work together, and that, hopefully, all of this will lead to an even better Berlin.”

Others, who had come to the impromptu vigil at Tiergarten, also expressed anger and shock, but also resilience.

“We are simply stunned by what happened yesterday,” said Andre Lehmann, a top official with the main national LGBTQ+ association, LSVD+. “This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community.”

The attack “affects people who took to the street in Berlin this weekend to fight for their rights, their diversity and their rights, and of course with that it is a political act and does not just affect people celebrating,” he said.

Lehmann said that there has been “a tenfold increase of anti-queer hate crime in Germany within a few years.” He added that “for years, to be honest, nothing has happened and also, to be honest, for years there has been no outcry from society.”

Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old U.K. resident, had traveled to Berlin for Saturday’s Pride parade but had left the celebrations before the attack. Jump, still in shock, returned Sunday to leave flowers at a memorial near the crime scene.

“They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” they said, their voice shivering from pain. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”

The experience left everybody on the field excited about what could be possible this season for the Rams.

“We’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time, and it definitely lived up to it,” defensive coordinator Chris Shula said.

Garrett is still in the process of getting settled in with his new team less than two months after the blockbuster trade that sent him from the Browns to the West Coast. But even with the Rams going less than full speed in shorts and no pads, Garrett's presence was unmissable — whether he was breaking into the backfield for a simulated sack or gracefully leaping to swat down a screen pass.

Even the highest-paid cornerback in the league was marveling.

“When he’s out there, you can just feel his aura,” Trent McDuffie said. “(It's just) this aura that this guy has. I mean, he’s gigantic. He’s a monster. But I’m just excited to get him out here and get him loose and get him going, because I know he has a little chip on his shoulder, and I know he’s excited about being here, so I think that just fires everybody else up.”

One year after winning 12 games and reaching the NFC championship game, the Rams added Garrett, McDuffie and cornerback Jaylen Watson to a defense that started last season strong, but faded down the stretch and ultimately couldn't match the performance of the NFL's top-ranked offense.

With three proven veterans installed as starters, the Rams are optimistic their revamped defense will allow them to live up to their preseason status as a serious Super Bowl contender. Los Angeles gave up significant assets and will be paying top dollar for all three newcomers, but the players and coaches see only positives in general manager Les Snead's aggressive moves.

“Honestly, I don’t know if many guys feel the expectation that everybody claims that we have,” McDuffie said. “For us, we’re here to play football, to enjoy the locker room, just to get to know each other. I feel like all the expectation, all that, we leave to you guys hyping us up. Whoever is on this field, whoever is on the team, whoever is in the locker room, I feel like we do a good job just enjoying each other’s presence and living in the moment.”

"Expectations are all the same,” Watson added. “All 32 teams have the same goal right now, and that’s to hold the Lombardi up at the end of the year.”

Even after winning two Super Bowl rings as teammates in Kansas City, McDuffie and Watson both said they haven't arrived in Los Angeles with a need to change the Rams' defensive culture. They think their new team already knows how to win in the culture set by coach Sean McVay, and they are attempting to build on it.

“The way we’re looking at it, it’s their team, and we’ve just got to learn the way they do things,” Watson said. “We can tell them things we did to be successful, get integrated, and hope it works out.”

Notes: NFL MVP Matthew Stafford skipped the opening practice as part of the Rams' plan to keep him fresh through camp. McVay says Stafford is fully healthy this summer after starting camp last season with a back injury that kept him out for weeks. Stafford is scheduled to practice Monday. ... Rookie QB Ty Simpson and backup Stetson Bennett appeared to split the snaps while the Rams went into 11-on-11 work on the first day of camp.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. Prosecutors said he had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group.

Ballout was suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival Saturday night before apparently stabbing others with a machete in what authorities believe was an Islamic extremist terror attack.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the attack occurred a few hundred meters (yards) from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city's Pride festival.

Ballout was tracked down around 6 p.m. Sunday at a garden in Spandau, a Berlin suburb, the city's police department wrote on X. They said he apparently ran toward officers with a sharp instrument, and police fired at least one shot. He died at the scene.

Ballout was born in Germany, the minister said. His mother was naturalized in 2002, three years before he was born.

Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old U.K. resident, had traveled to Berlin for Saturday’s Pride parade but had left the celebrations before the attack. They returned Sunday to leave flowers at a memorial near the crime scene in support of the LGBTQ+ community.

“They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” they said. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”

Suspect convicted of ties to Islamic extremism

Ballout traveled to Lebanon in 2025 with the goal of going to Syria to join the Islamic State group, Berlin prosecutors said Sunday.

There, he made contact with several people who were presumed members of the militant group — or at least he believed them to be, prosecutors said. He was arrested in Lebanon last year and sentenced by a military court to three months’ imprisonment for offenses including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.

He returned to Germany after completing his sentence, where he was arrested at the Berlin airport.

In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted Ballout of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, as well as publishing Islamic State propaganda on his Instagram account and other charges, prosecutors said.

The court handed down a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months in youth custody, which Berlin prosecutors had appealed.

The court said it took Ballout’s months of pre-trial detention in Germany and Lebanon into account. It also said it considered that Ballout had confessed to the crimes, appeared to distance himself from the militant group and no actual threat had ever materialized.

He was released from detention pending the appeal.

Berlin's Pride festival is one of Europe's largest LGBTQ+ celebrations

According to police, a white van drove into the Tiergarten park around 10 p.m. and hit several people before colliding with a tree. The closing party at the Pride festival, known as Christopher Street Day, was ongoing at the time next to the Brandenburg Gate, a short distance away. The party followed a parade with some 80 trucks that had made its way through downtown Berlin earlier in the day.

The attack did not occur at the festival, along its route or at the closing party. Rather, the violence took place a few hundred meters (yards) away on a track in the Tiergarten park. The van drove into a crowd that was likely a mix of festivalgoers and other locals or visitors.

Police said a woman was killed.

On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of mourners gathered at a memorial at the iconic gate. They hugged each other and laid down flowers, candles, rainbow flags and homemade signs, including a cardboard one that said: “the only thing more powerful than hate is love.”

Hundreds of thousands had come to Berlin to celebrate on Saturday, though it’s unclear how many were still at the festival by late evening. It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.

“We are simply stunned by what happened,” said Andre Lehmann, a top official with the main national LGBTQ+ association, LSVD+. “This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community.”

Amsterdam says it will celebrate freedom in the wake of Berlin attack

Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged the nation to remain united in the aftermath of the attack.

“I would like to say this to Christopher Street Day participants here in Berlin but also across Germany: Don’t let yourselves, let us not let ourselves, be intimidated," he said. "These acts have only one purpose: They aim to divide our society. They want to take away from us the most important thing we have: Namely our openness and our freedom.”

Dobrindt said he expected security measures at other major events in Germany, including Pride events elsewhere, to be reviewed and if necessary significantly boosted.

Berlin has seen Islamic extremist attacks before. In December, 2016, a rejected asylum seeker from Tunisia plowed a hijacked truck into a Christmas market, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. He was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

In February last year, a Spanish tourist was stabbed and seriously wounded at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, an attack that saw a Syrian man convicted in March and sentenced to 13 years.

This week, Amsterdam will be hosting World Pride alongside its own annual Pride celebrations. Mayor Femke Halsema said authorities and organizers “are closely monitoring the security situation” after the Berlin attack but aim to prevent any extra measures getting in the way of celebrating freedom and love.

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Associated Press reporters Fanny Brodersen and Pietro De Cristofaro in Berlin, and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.

The 35-year-old widow has worked at the site on Jakarta’s eastern edge for two decades, following her parents, who still earn a living there. The Bantargebang landfill has paid for food and rent while helping her two teenage daughters living with a relative in a rural village. She hopes her daughters will never have to follow the same path.

Living alone in a rented room near the landfill, Wencih earns about 200,000 rupiah ($12) on a good day collecting discarded toys, cardboard and plastic bottles before bulldozers bury them beneath fresh waste. Occasionally, she finds gold jewelry.

“It feels like hitting a jackpot,” Wencih said while taking a break from the sweltering July heat.

But those lucky finds, and perhaps her livelihood, may soon become far rarer.

Beginning Aug. 1, Indonesia plans to start transforming the site from open dumping to a more controlled system as part of a national waste management plan. The government last month announced it will shut down open-dumping operations at 343 of Indonesia’s 550 disposal sites, requiring them to transition to controlled or sanitary landfill systems and gradually accept only garbage that cannot be recycled or composted, such as diapers, dirty paper towels and stickers.

Meanwhile, residents are being asked to set aside organic waste and recyclables for separate processing, a practice many households have never been taught to do on a large scale.

Dudi Gardesi Asikin, head of Jakarta’s Environment Agency, said the policy aims to improve environmental health, reduce pollution and curb emissions of methane generated by decomposing waste.

Methane is responsible for roughly one-third of global warming and traps more heat than carbon dioxide, making it a key focus of worldwide climate efforts. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, for example, is urging governments to sharply reduce methane emissions, calling it one of the fastest ways to slow global warming.

A landfill at the center of the methane debate

Researchers say Bantargebang emits more methane than nearly any other landfill in the world, placing it at the center of Indonesia’s waste management reforms.

Asikin said Bantargebang opened in 1989 as a sanitary landfill equipped to collect methane. Unlike open dumps, sanitary landfills also cover waste with soil.

But after a private-sector contract ended in 2016, the facility gradually drifted toward open dumping.

"What was never intended to be open dumping became full open dumping,” Asikin said.

Only two of the landfill’s original 12 methane extraction wells remain operational, Asikin said.

Under the new plan, parts of Bantargebang are already being covered with tarps, and officials hope to cover much more. Asikin estimated that covering the rest of the disposal area could cost as much as 200 billion rupiah ($12 million).

Uncertain future for waste pickers

Indonesia faces a dilemma as it attempts one of its biggest waste-management reforms in decades while also protecting the livelihoods of an estimated 600,000 waste pickers.

At Bantargebang alone, officials estimate more than 4,000 registered waste pickers work among trucks, excavators and mountains of garbage each day. The materials they recover are sorted and sold to a network of traders and recycling businesses that have grown around the landfill.

“What worries me most is how I will feed my family,” Wencih said of the new plan, while excavators behind her pushed fresh waste onto exposed slopes.

Asikin said the government wants to improve conditions for waste pickers, who already receive some workplace protections and healthcare through a national social security program.

He believes the new policy will eventually create safer formal jobs in recycling and composting.

“Today they are practically racing against our excavators to grab recyclable materials. It is extremely dangerous," he said.

Bunin, a 53-year-old neighborhood chief who lives nearby, said while the landfill causes pollution, it also creates business opportunities including rental housing and food stalls catering to waste pickers.

“The landfill not only brings negative impacts, there are also economic benefits,” said Bunin, who like many Indonesians uses a single name.

A landfill at its limits

Covering roughly 110 hectares (272 acres), Bantargebang has grown into a human-made mountain reaching as high as 60 meters (196 feet), roughly the height of a 20-story building. About 7,500 tons of waste arrive daily from the capital city.

“The waste people produce does not disappear. It is gathered in one place and has become a mountain," said Agung Pujo Winarko, who heads the facility.

A collapse triggered by heavy rain in Bantargebang in March killed seven people, underscoring the risks posed by the landfill’s sheer scale.

“This situation is extremely urgent,” Winarko said. “Its carrying capacity is reaching, or even exceeding, its limits.”

Satellite data analyzed by UCLA’s STOP Methane initiative ranked Bantargebang in 2025 as the world’s second-largest landfill methane emitter after a site in Argentina.

Evan George from UCLA’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment said reducing organic waste entering landfills could lower emissions, but that existing landfills will still require decades of monitoring and gas collection.

Changing Jakarta’s throwaway culture

Under the new approach, Jakarta residents are expected to separate food scraps and other organic waste from recyclables and residual trash before collection. New refuse-derived fuel plants are also part of the plan.

“What we are doing is somewhat revolutionary," Asikin said. "For decades, people were never asked to separate their waste.”

But many households are only beginning to learn the system, raising questions about whether enough public education has taken place.

“All we know is to throw the trash in the bin, not to sort it,” said Rukasih Wanti, a Central Jakarta resident. “The new rule is confusing us. It’s inconvenient, creates extra work and wastes our time."

Asikin said multiple government institutions, including education and health ministries, are supporting the efforts.

Environmental advocates say new recycling and composting infrastructure is also needed. The transition is daunting because government data shows only about one-quarter of Indonesia’s daily waste is currently handled by formal systems, with the remainder dumped, burned or otherwise unmanaged.

David Sutasurya, executive director of the environmental organization YPBB, said about half of Jakarta’s waste is compostable and another 30% recyclable, meaning up to 80% could be kept out of landfills.

“We delayed transforming our waste-management system for too long, and only realized the problem when landfills were already close to full,” Sutasurya said.

In a West Jakarta neighborhood, Monica T. Anggriani has spent more than a decade persuading neighbors to separate household waste, building a community waste bank that now processes about one ton of organic waste daily through composting, maggot cultivation and urban farming.

“Our generation was never taught to separate waste,” Anggriani said. “If we don’t start now, nothing will change in the future.”

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Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

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Koivun won the 3M Open by three strokes Sunday in only his third start as a professional, holding off Scheffler with a closing 5-under 66 for a tournament-record 25-under 259 total.

“All throughout the crowd I kept hearing, ‘Scottie’s coming. Scottie’s coming,’” the 21-year-old Koivun said. “I just tried to tune that out and keep playing the golf I knew I could.”

Scheffler, who played five groups ahead of Koivun, surged into contention with a 63 but settled for his fifth runner-up finish this season. His lone win this year was in his first start at The American Express in California.

“We’re seeing a lot of really, really good young talent in the game today,” Scheffler said. “When you see the guys come out of college, they’re really, really prepared, even more prepared than we were coming out.”

Hideki Matsuyama, Brian Harman, Chandler Phillips and Denny McCarthy tied for third at 20 under.

Koivun played a safe and steady game on a 97-degree afternoon at the TPC Twin Cities, going bogey-free for the second straight day after a 61 in the third round gave him a three-shot cushion after 54 holes. His par-saving putt on the 9th green after his approach landed in the sand gave him an energy boost for the back nine.

“Might be the biggest putt I made all week,” Koivun said. “Scoreboard was right there, and I saw exactly how I stood. If I missed that, then I only had a two-shot lead — where last time I checked I had a five-shot lead. So making that was huge for my momentum.”

Lee Hodges held the previous 3M Open record, finishing at 24-under 260 in 2023.

Koivun, who became the fourth rookie winner this season, missed the cut at the John Deere Classic in Illinois and tied for 10th at the ISCO Championship in Kentucky earlier this month. He made 10 starts as an amateur on tour events.

Earning $1,584,000 for his win in Minnesota, Koivun also jumped 124 spots in the FedEx Cup standings into 70th, the last place above the cut for the playoffs with two regular season events remaining on the schedule.

“I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better over the past couple years of being able to beat guys with my mentality,” said Koivun, who broke the NCAA career record for per-round stroke average (68.89) and helped lead Auburn to the national championship last month. “Sometimes I watch guys hit on the range and I don’t feel like I’m the most talented out there, but if I can go out there and believe and use my brain to my advantage, then that’s definitely kind of like a superpower.”

Scheffler, who began the final round six shots back, needed a collapse by Koivun to catch up. That never came.

Scheffler played a nearly flawless game, save for a 5-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole that lipped in and out. As he was conducting his post-match interview, Koivun birdied the 16th to go 25 under.

“Anytime you’re trying to win for the first time, it’s awfully difficult, especially for a young guy coming out of college,” Scheffler said. “I think that shows not only how talented of a player he is, but the mental strength he has as well.”

Koivun, who grew up in San Jose, California, before moving to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at age 17, got his start in the game on a public nine-hole course. After hugging his father, George, on the course, he got on a FaceTime call with his mother, Meghan, who was unable to attend the tournament.

“She was crying,” Koivu said. “I was trying to make out a little bit of what she said, but she kept saying how proud she was. Those two are just my rocks.”

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Both joined slugging second baseman Jeff Kent as the newest members before an estimated crowd of 12,000 fans at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, with 57 other Hall of Famers on stage — creating the largest gathering of current Hall of Famers.

Jones’ speech was almost like a love letter to his home country of Curaçao.

“There’s no easy way to get here from the small island of Curaçao, more than 2,000 miles away,” Jones said. “But today Cooperstown and Curaçao are forever joined together.”

The longtime Atlanta Braves outfielder, a 10-time Gold Glove winner and five-time All-Star, is the first player from Curaçao to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. But he said he doesn't plan on being the last. He pointed to players who have followed him, including Ozzie Albies and Kenley Jansen, as part of the Curaçao legacy started by Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens.

Among the highlights, Jones’ tribute to his late father, Henry Jones, stood out. He said his father used to hit him flyballs from foul pole to foul pole to teach him how to track the ball, and how to build strong wrists by rolling a sledgehammer.

“Everything he taught me had a purpose,” Jones said. “Henry Jones was a legend in Curaçao, a great player in his own right. And I’m not standing here in Cooperstown without his constant coaching. Dad, we did it.”

Chants of “Puerto Rico” broke out before Beltrán even uttered a word. And whenever he mentioned his home island, the crowd cheered for him and waved flags.

“Everywhere I played baseball, I always tried to represent my island,” Beltrán said. “I tried to do the best I could for the organizations that I played, but also I wanted to represent Puerto Rico.”

The 20-year veteran and 1999 AL Rookie of the Year ran through each organization he played for, thanking them for the different lessons each provided. The New York Mets received the most praise.

“When people ask me about why I chose (the Mets) cap, I have to say this,” he said. “Guys, it’s simple. Every organization shapes your career. New York shaped my life.”

When discussing the teams he played for, Beltrán gave specific examples from some of his stops, including watching teammates Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell “play with pain” in Houston. But he did not mention winning the World Series with the Astros in 2017. That title carries controversy because of an illegal sign-stealing scheme and Beltrán's involvement in it.

Beltrán did not directly address the scandal, but did comment on those who may or may not have voted for him for whatever reasons.

“To the Baseball Writers' Association of America, I want to say thank you for making me a Hall of Famer. ... And for those that didn’t (vote for me) — that saw things different — I want to say also thank you. I appreciate your perspective,” he said. “If baseball has really taught me something, I want to say is that I hope in life, we continue to measure ourselves by the same standard we have used to measure others.”

Beltrán earned 84.2% of the vote from the BBWAA to make the Hall on his fourth try. Jones garnered 78.4% in his ninth year of eligibility, eclipsing the 75% needed for induction. Kent was elected by a much smaller panel last December, the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, after dropping off the BBWAA ballot when his eligibility ran out in 2023.

The 2000 NL MVP with the San Francisco Giants played for six teams over his 17-year career and set the all-time home run mark for second basemen. A hard-nosed player, Kent showed a softer side during induction weekend.

Before even speaking, Kent needed tissues to wipe the tears from his eyes after looking at his parents in the crowd, he said in a post-ceremony news conference.

“I was more emotional for the 35, 40 minutes of sitting down than I was for the speech,” he said. “I thought I was going to be a wreck and I’m glad it was only a half a wreck.”

In his speech, Kent told a story of how his baseball career turned when his father offered him a deal: if he earned a college scholarship, he would buy him a pickup truck. Kent quit racing motorcycles and shifted his focus to school and baseball and eventually earned a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley.

In turn, he got a pickup truck he still has.

“It sits in my garage as a simple reminder that some of the simplest things can change the entire direction of your life,” Kent said.

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But there must be something to explain the way he dominated hitters Sunday as the Milwaukee Brewers’ hard-throwing right-hander reached a few more milestones.

“I don’t think there is a zone,” Misiorowski said Sunday after striking out 12 of the first 13 batters he faced in an 11-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies. “I think it’s just pitching. I felt like myself and kept going.”

Misiorowski (11-4) set a Brewers franchise record by striking out seven straight hitters to open the game. He also broke his own record for the most 100-mph pitches in a single game since pitch tracking began in 2008.

The two-time All-Star reached 100 mph on 66 of his 83 pitches and hit a top velocity of 104.7. He had set the previous record June 12 by throwing 58 pitches of at least 100 mph during a 15-strikeout performance against the Philadelphia Phillies on June 12.

He threw 33 fastballs of at least 103 mph — more than twice as many as anyone else had ever thrown in a single game since pitch tracking began, according to MLB.com.

Misiorowski held the previous record with 14 pitches of 103 mph or greater, something he had done in two separate starts this season.

Misiorowski retired the first 14 batters he faced. According to Sportradar, he was the first person to strike out at least 11 batters and allow no hits through the first four innings of a game since the live-ball era began in 1920.

“His extension, his command of (the fastball) and the fact he’s got secondary stuff to go with it makes it even tougher,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.

Misiorowski didn't have to utilize his secondary pitches very often Sunday. With Gary Sánchez working behind the plate, Misiorowski threw fastballs about 80% of the time.

“I don’t think that was the game plan going in,” said Misiorowski, who increased his MLB-leading strikeout total to 185. "I think that’s just what happened. Me and Gary kind of just ran with it. You saw the swings that they were getting at the top of the zone and kind of were just like, ‘Here it is,’ until they hit it.”

Colorado didn't get anyone on base until Cole Carrigg hit an opposite-field homer off a 101.9-mph fastball with two outs in the fifth. No Rockies player had ever homered on a pitch that fast during the pitch tracking era.

Misiorowski then hit Willi Castro with a pitch before getting the final out of his five-inning stint.

Nobody from Colorado even put the ball in play until Misiorowski retired Troy Johnston on a fly to center for the second out in the fourth inning. The previous Brewers record for consecutive strikeouts to start a game had been set last year by Quinn Priester, who had six in a row to begin a 5-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Sept. 18.

Pablo López owns the major league record for consecutive strikeouts to open a game. He fanned the first nine Atlanta batters he faced in the Miami Marlins’ 7-4 triumph over the Braves on July 11, 2021.

The MLB record for consecutive strikeouts at any point within the same game is 10. That record is shared by Tom Seaver, Corbin Burnes and Aaron Nola.

Misiorowski's outstanding performance comes as the Brewers remain careful with the two-time All-Star's workload. The NL Central leaders want to make sure their ace is in peak form for a potential postseason run.

He has pitched 120 innings this season. He worked 141 1/3 innings last year, including his regular-season totals in the majors and minors plus his 12 postseason innings during Milwaukee’s run to the NL Championship Series.

Misiorowski lasted just four innings in an 8-3 victory over the New York Mets on Monday in his first start since July 7. He left after a 30-pitch fifth inning Sunday as his ERA actually rose to an MLB-best 1.58.

Misiorowski said he believes he's strong enough to be “full go” for his next appearance, meaning he should go deeper into the game. Misiorowski said he used his legs better Sunday, which led to his consistent velocity.

“Sustaining the legs helps a lot,” Misiorowski said. “That’s where most of my velo comes from, is the lower half. It becomes a lot easier when you have all the pieces.”

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Then he showed everyone — including his team co-owner Denny Hamlin — what he’d learned.

The 24-year-old part-time NASCAR Cup Series driver first made a daring outside move to pass Hamlin then slow him down on the final restart with 35 laps to go, then held off the hard-charging cars of Christopher Bell and Joey Logano to capture his first Brickyard 400 title.

Heim beat Bell by 0.287 seconds and Logano, last week's race winner, by 0.972 seconds to become the first Cup driver to win twice in his first 15 career starts since 1965. A.J. Foyt, one of four four-time Indianapolis 500 champions, was the last to do it and, like Foyt, Heim didn’t even need a full-time ride to finish the job.

“Just had to be aggressive, man, it's for the win,” he said after his second win of the season. “I would have to see it back to see if I really did anything wrong. You know, he has every right to be frustrated with me, but don't get me wrong, I just had to be on top of it. Got to go quick for the 22 (Logano) to be in position, so thanks to him. Man, it's crazy.”

Hamlin seemed more frustrated with Bell's mistimed push, which allowed Heim to get past him, and that was all Heim needed to take charge. Hamlin wound up falling from first to fifth, a descent he never recovered from as his winless streak at Indianapolis hit 18.

It's the only crown jewel race of NASCAR's four Hamlin hasn't won.

“I mean everyone's trying to fight to win the race, and you know you're clear by an inch, you're going to take that inch,” Hamlin said. “It's really the 20 and (Bell) and the 19 (Chase Briscoe) not orchestrating good pushes there and we came detached for a long time. I thought the 20 was on board with giving us a push, it was just way too early before the restart zone.”

With Hamlin fading, Bell and Logano spent the final 34 laps trying to catch Heim's increasingly loose car. Each driver consistently closed the gap by running consistently quicker lap times. but neither could get close enough to try to pass Heim.

And with no more caution flags to bunch up the leaders, the stage was set for Heim.

“It's a good second place," said Bell, Hamlin's teammate with Joe Gibbs Racing. "We've had a lot of bad second-place finishes, but this is a good one with where we were after qualifying. When we had the restart on the second row, I was really happy with our position. Really proud of our team, we pulled together a really good day."

Heim wasn't the only big winner Sunday.

Hamlin extended his points lead over Heim's teammate, Tyler Reddick, who was 10th. Ty Gibbs, who is fourth in points, clinched a playoff spot with a stage win and a 12th-place finish. And Todd Gilliland of Front Row Motorsports defied the odds by collecting the $1 million prize in the final round of NASCAR's second In-Season Challenge.

But nobody was more satisfied with the results than Heim.

“That was a damn handful,” the Georgian said. “I was hanging on for dear life once the shade went down and the pace picked up. My car got really loose and I never really got a lot of clean air throughout the day, so that was the hardest I’ve ever fought in my life to make sure I focused on the exits and get through dirty air.”

Larson's drought

Defending Cup champ Kyle Larson's winless streak hit 36 on Sunday, this time the result of a flat left rear tire that sent Hendrick Motorsports' No. 5 Chevrolet hard into the wall coming out of Turn 3 during the first stage. He was the first car out and finished 39th.

“We just had a tire let go. I wouldn’t say pushing had anything to do with it," Larson said. “Just a little bit of bad luck, I guess.”

Larson has finished 39th, 15th, 34th and 34th over the last four weeks and is in the longest winless drought since he joined Hendrick's team in 2021. Yet Larson is still in eighth in points with four regular-season races remaining.

Surprise payday

Ryan Blaney's streak of consecutive top-11 finishes ended at 11 on Sunday and came with a hefty cost — missing out on the $1 million payday.

The 2023 Cup champ and Team Penske driver started and stayed ahead of Gilliland most of the race, only to see his hopes unravel when he was collected in a nine-car crash that damaged the right side of his car with 41 laps to go. Blaney's team got him back on the track and he wound up 26th, but finished two spots behind Gilliland.

Up next

After 16 straight weeks of racing, the Cup drivers will get a break to open August. The series then heads to Iowa's 0.875-mile oval Aug. 9. William Byron is the defending race winner. Blaney was the 2024 winner, a night race marred by tire problems.

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But first, he's looking forward to some quality rest.

“I'm pretty sure I'll probably sleep more than three hours tonight,” Brissett said with a grin.

Brissett and the Cardinals agreed to a reworked one-year deal Sunday worth a reported $15.5 million and LaFleur confirmed that the veteran is the team’s likely starter for Week 1.

The 33-year-old Brissett was unhappy with his previous contract, which included just $1.5 million of guaranteed money for the upcoming season. He reported for training camp last week, but was limited during practices while he and the Cardinals worked on the deal.

Brissett said it got “dark a couple times” during negotiations, but he had enough confidence in himself to persevere. This will be his 11th NFL season.

“It felt good to be back out there,” Brissett said. “Standing around wasn't particularly fun.”

Brissett was the team's starter for the final 12 games last year after Kyler Murray suffered a season-ending foot injury. He did well individually with a career-high 3,366 yards passing, 23 touchdowns and eight interceptions, but the Cardinals had a 1-11 record in those games.

LaFleur confirmed that Brissett's deal was done before Sunday's practice and said that the quarterback would begin working with the starters soon. The team's other main options under center are veteran Gardner Minshew and rookie Carson Beck.

“It hasn’t been a distraction by any means — I think we’ve got some very mature and professional players,” LaFleur said. “But it’s just one more thing that we don’t have to talk about.”

Brissett is a popular presence in the Cardinals' locker room and some players — most notably eight-time Pro Bowl safety Budda Baker — were publicly supportive of a new deal for the quarterback.

“I think that’s the ultimate reward of this game, the respect of your teammates,” Brissett said. “That’s what I pride myself on. That’s the only thing I really value. Contracts come and go but your teammates and the people you work with, the ones who want to go bat for you, that’s what matters most.”

LaFleur said he wasn't worried about Brissett's lost practice time. The quarterback didn't practice with the team during the offseason because of the contract situation.

“He's got a level head about himself,” LaFleur said. “He's been in a lot of different systems and heard a lot of different things and seen a lot of different things. He's had the ups and downs with teams. He's in a good spot and I'm excited to really start working with him.”

The Cardinals open the preseason Aug. 6 against the Carolina Panthers in the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio.

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The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil to be delivered in September dropped 4.9% to $92.02 shortly after trading resumed. The decline followed a 3.9% drop on Friday.

Brent crude, the international standard, briefly hit $102 a barrel last week. That was $30 more than the most actively traded contract in the Brent market was going for early in the month, and the highest it had been since May.

Oil prices surged this month because of increased fighting in the Middle East and worries a return to all-out war would further slow the global flow of crude.

The ability of tankers to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz has been the central concern for the oil market since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February. The narrow strip of water off Iran’s coast is the route through which a fifth of the world’s oil typically leaves the Persian Gulf and heads to customers worldwide, and the conflict has largely halted shipping traffic.

Oil producers have since searched for alternative routes, but those are under pressure too. Last week, attacks hit Saudi oil tankers that were using the Red Sea to leave the region. When less oil is available for customers to buy, the price goes up and fuel prices do as well.

In the United States, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline on Sunday was $4.11, up from $3.90 a month ago and just $3.15 a year ago, according to motor club AAA.

If oil prices stay elevated, it could lead to higher prices for every product that gets shipped, trucked or flown around the world, including groceries. Although the U.S. economy continues to grow, the ongoing conflict with Iran has dragged consumer confidence in it lower.

The reacceleration of oil prices this month took place just as inflation had begun to slow more than economists expected. Now, traders believe inflation pressures have grown enough that they’re betting on a 36% chance the Federal Reserve will hike its main interest rate at an upcoming meeting, according to data from CME Group.

Higher interest rates would help keep a lid on inflation, but they could also slow the economy by making it more expensive for all kinds of Americans and businesses to borrow.

Long-term U.S. mortgage rates have already hit their highest levels in nearly a year, for example, chilling the housing industry. And more expensive borrowing could slow the boom in building artificial-intelligence data centers, which have become a big engine for the U.S. economy's growth.

While oil prices have given back some of their big July gains, much uncertainty still remains.

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. oil to be delivered in September fell 5.6% to $84.34 on Sunday. It dropped 3.1% on Friday.

In the oil market, traders are buying and selling contracts for barrels of oil to be delivered many months in the future. The price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in October, which is now the most actively traded part of the market, fell 4.6% to $87.48.

The inseparable pair are among the first of 30 belugas being relocated to aquariums across the United States through an international emergency rescue effort, after their previous home closed and their future grew dangerously uncertain.

From the brink of euthanasia

The whales spent years at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Canada, which closed in 2024 amid allegations of animal mistreatment. As the facility ran low on money to care for the animals, fears grew that the whales could be euthanized.

U.S. and Canadian officials worked together to secure new homes for the mammals, including placements at SeaWorld San Antonio, and aquariums in Atlanta and Chicago.

A complex, high-stakes move

Getting a 1,000-plus-pound beluga whale onto an airplane is no small feat.

SeaWorld’s Steve Aibel accompanied Frank and Bertie Botts on their journey and described the step-by-step process of moving the massive animals.

“We’ll put them into a cradle, we’ll lift them up with a crane because they’re big and they’re heavy,” Aibel said. “You’ll put them into their box, which then goes rolling into a truck. The truck takes you to the airport. You then roll up onto the plane and you secure them in the aircraft and you are airborne.”

Aibel said the mission felt bigger than logistics.

“It’s a magical, soaring experience,” he said. “You know the team that they’re coming in to work with, you know the situation of a park that is no longer going to be able to take care of them, and you know you’re part of the solution.”

Settling into a new life in San Antonio

Frank and Bertie Botts are now settling into a two-million-gallon saltwater pool at SeaWorld San Antonio, joining eight other beluga whales already living there.

Over the next few weeks, 11 more belugas are expected to arrive in San Antonio. The remaining whales will go to aquariums in Atlanta and Chicago.

Aibel says the whales’ lives will look drastically different in their new surroundings.

“They’re going to just have a much more dynamic and exciting environment here,” he said. “Not because Marineland was doing anything wrong or bad, but just strictly because Marineland had stopped functioning as a working theme park and we are not.”

The Yankees recalled outfielder Spencer Jones from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before Sunday night's game at Philadelphia to take Bellinger's spot on the roster.

Bellinger will have more tests Monday in New York. He said he woke up feeling similar to Saturday, but not well enough to avoid the injured list.

“Little tight,” Bellinger said. “I didn't wake up worse.”

He will stay out of cleats for at least four days and continue to do light jogging during that time, but there is no timeline for a return at this point.

“See how you feel, see how your body is recovering,” Bellinger said.

New York manager Aaron Boone sounded fairly optimistic about the injury.

“It's not something that seems terrible,” he said. “He's able to move around today. Just hope for something on the shorter side, but tough to know for sure.”

New York has been without slugger Aaron Judge since May 31 because of a fractured rib, and designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton is still out with a strained right calf that's sidelined him since April 24. The Yankees entered Sunday's game 2 1/2 games behind first-place Tampa Bay in the AL East.

Bellinger said he felt tightness in his hamstring while rounding first on a double in the eighth inning of the Yankees' 3-1 win over the Phillies on Saturday night. He waved off Boone and remained on base for the rest of the inning but walked slowly off the field and down the tunnel to the clubhouse after the third out.

Max Schuemann replaced Bellinger in left field in the bottom of the eighth.

Schuemann was set to start in left and bat seventh Sunday night.

“Just got to mix and match and piece it together,” Boone said. “We have capable guys. We're going out there expecting to win.”

Bellinger is hitting .259 with 11 homers and 53 RBIs in 102 games this season. He entered Saturday with 19 defensive runs saved, most in the majors, and was MVP of the All-Star Game on July 14 in Philadelphia.

Bellinger re-signed with the Yankees last winter for $162.5 million over five years and has been a key part of the offense. He was hitting .280 through mid-June before a slump dropped his batting average to .254 heading into the All-Star break. He hasn’t homered in a month.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Shanahan's presence that has been a constant the past decade was a welcome sight on Sunday for the first training camp practice, coming less than two weeks after he got into a car crash that left him with a concussion and other injuries.

“I know he can’t stay away,” star linebacker Fred Warner said. “I know he’s given up his duties for a little bit, but that guy’s obsessed with ball. I’m sure of course he’s going to be around.”

While Shanahan made a cameo appearance at practice on Sunday, the Niners began preparations for the 2026 season without their leader in charge. Shanahan has ceded responsibility over the team to assistant head coach/offensive line coach Chris Foerster temporarily as he recovers from the crash he got into on July 14 in nearby Palo Alto.

Shanahan suffered a concussion, broken ribs, a broken nose and broken hand in the crash and won't be back running the team until the concussion symptoms subside. Shanahan had a cast on his left hand, sunglasses to cover up his black eye and a new mustache that prompted Warner to complement him on his “disguise” as he watched practice.

Shanahan interacted with a few players, including Warner, Kyle Juszczyk, Christian McCaffrey and Dre Greenlaw before leaving the field.

“I knew it would be tough to keep him away from there,” star tackle Trent Williams said. “It’s going to be hard for him to get his rest. He’s not that type of person. It doesn’t surprise me at all to see him out there.”

With a veteran-laden team and several coaches who have been with the organization for years, Foerster and Williams said it's almost as if the team is on “auto pilot” and not thrown off by Shanahan's absence.

The training camp practice plan was put in place long before Shanahan's crash with the opening stretch of camp essentially a repeat of the installations from the offseason program.

Foerster said he is leaning heavily on his assistants, especially coordinators Klay Kubiak, Raheem Morris and Brant Boyer. He said not much has changed other than he had to break the team after practice, he did a news conference and he got to make the call on small parts of practice such as whether to repeat or skip a play following a pre-snap penalty.

Foerster has been in the NFL for more than three decades, starting as an assistant offensive line and tight ends coach in Minnesota in 1993 and had little problem taking command of the entire team.

“He’s been doing this longer than everybody in that locker room been alive, probably except for me,” Williams said. “It’s like a hand-in-glove fit. Me personally, I’m so proud of him just watching him even just be a head coach for a day, or no matter how long it is. We go so far back, he’s family to me. Just seeing him in that position, I’m just really proud.”

Foerster spent four seasons with Washington when Shanahan was offensive coordinator and Mike Shanahan was head coach and joined the 49ers in 2019. Foerster had resigned as offensive line coach in Miami in 2017 after a video on social media appeared to show him snorting three lines of white powder at a desk, but got a second chance with Shanahan.

“He’s one of my best friends in the world by far,” Foerster said. “There’s not many people that I call a friend for a lot of reasons, and Kyle’s one of them. He and his wife, Mandy, are like family to me. This organization did some things for me and pulled me in at a time in my life when nobody would really want to be with me. And Kyle, along with John and the whole York family have stood by me and that loyalty’s never going to be forgotten. He’s a close, close friend, and it scares the crap out of you when something like this happens to somebody so close.”

Bosa takes field for individual drills

Star defensive end Nick Bosa was on the field to start camp as he makes his return from a torn ACL suffered in Week 3 last season. Bosa only took part in individual drills and was working on his own on the side during team drills.

“I couldn’t even tell that he had an injury or he came back from anything," Williams said. “Most people with a knee injury that catastrophic, you come back, you can see something. You can see it in the atrophy in the muscle and the leg. You can see something. Bosa looks better than he did before he got hurt.”

News and notes

OL Vederian Lowe left practice early with an ankle injury. ... CB Nate Hobbs was the only active player not taking part in practice. ... The Niners signed DT Kevin Givens a day after releasing Evan Anderson. Givens has played 70 games for San Francisco from 2019-25. ... Foerster said Connor Colby will get the first shot to win the starting left guard spot after starting six games as a seventh-round rookie last season.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

In the women's race at Icahn Stadium in New York — the site of Usain Bolt's first world record, back in 2008 — reigning world champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden cruised to her second straight national title in a season-best 21.69.

Lyles, the four-time world champion at the distance, was in decent shape rounding the turn, but as he pulled into the stretch, he slowed and shut it down. He made it to the finish line to congratulate Kaalund, a 22-year-old who won NCAA indoors at the distance earlier this year. Kaalund's winning time was 20.04.

“I just felt a grabbing sensation. I was like, ‘Yeah, this is the time to stop. There’s no reason to push this,'” said Lyles, who stays tied with Michael Johnson with five U.S. titles at 200 meters. "It was a somewhat of a cramp. I’m fine. I just need to get stretched out, get some electrolytes in my system, but I’ll be good.”

This marked only the fourth time Lyles has lost a 200 since he started dominating the distance in 2018, shortly after Usain Bolt left the sport. Two of those losses have come at the last two Olympics. Earlier in the week, Lyles won the 100 meters, the distance where he is the reigning Olympic champion.

Kaalund said he came to nationals just “to train myself against the best.”

“I wasn't looking for (any) medals, I just wanted to see where I was,” he said.

Joining him at the top of the medals stand was Jefferson-Wooden, whose main challenger, Gabby Thomas, has been running well but decided not to run at nationals.

There are no world championships this year, though world athletics is introducing the Ultimate Championships, where a $150,000 first prize will be on the line in a race expected to feature Jefferson-Wooden, Thomas and Julien Alfred, who finished runner-up to Thomas at the Paris Games.

The LA Games are two years away.

“I feel like with women’s sprints today it's like that every single time we line up,” Jefferson-Wooden said. “I watch their races. They watch mine. These next few years are going to be interesting to see.”

Davis-Woodhall denied victory after protest of her final jump

In women's long jump, Olympic and world champion Tara Davis-Woodhall appeared to have won in dramatic fashion after her last of six jumps placed her in the lead, much the same as what happened at the Olympic trials two years ago. But a review after a protest showed she had fouled. Judges upheld that call after she appealed the ruling and she ended up third. Alyssa Jones won with a jump of 6.96 meters (22 feet, 10 inches).

Others winners Sunday were Nia Akins (women’s 800), Cooper Lutkenhaus (men’s 800), Emily Mackay (women’s 5,000), Vincent Ciattei (men’s 5,000), Jordan Geist (men’s shot put), Vashti Cunningham (women’s high jump), Chris Nilsen (men’s pole vault), Valarie Sion (women’s discus), Christopher Robinson (men’s 400 hurdles) and Anna Cockrell (women’s 400 hurdles) .

Cordell Tinch closed out the meet with a lean at the finish line to take the 110-meter hurdles title over Bradley Franklin.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

A close ally of President Donald Trump, Loomer has completely reversed her longtime criticism of Ukraine and is urging fellow conservatives to be wary of Moscow's propaganda, which she blames for duping large swaths of the American right.

“You don’t need to listen to a podcaster and let them influence your opinion about a country. You can look at those facts yourself,” she told The Associated Press in Kyiv shortly after returning from a trip close to the front line in Ukraine's east. The interview was supposed to take place in Loomer's hotel, but it had to be moved to the building's underground bomb shelter as the city faced another ballistic missile attack.

Loomer has remained influential with Trump despite not having an official role, and she said they spoke over the phone after she sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She also said that she expects to meet with Trump after returning from her trip.

Loomer's turnaround on Ukraine has been welcomed by the country's leaders, whose relationships with Trump have been strained at times. But it has also stirred confusion, surprise and suspicion in the United States. She continues to insist that Ukraine is not paying for her travels.

As Trump and Zelenskyy prepare to meet on Tuesday in Washington, Loomer said it's clear that her trip has already made a difference, refocusing attention on the war as Congress debates new sanctions intended to punish Russia.

“It’s looking good for Ukraine, right?" she said. "Going into this meeting next week at the Oval Office is looking pretty good.”

Loomer says she was ‘bamboozled’ to oppose Ukraine

Loomer had spent years minimizing the war and amplifying Russian propaganda until she made a dramatic reversal this week.

“I’ve come to realize I was bamboozled by Russian propaganda and I came to believe a lot of untrue things about Ukraine. I used to think that this was a country full of Nazis,” Loomer told Zelenskyy as she interviewed him for her show on Rumble, an online video platform.

Loomer blamed her indoctrination on getting banned by American social media platforms, leading her to try Telegram, where Russian media is widely shared.

“The Russians,” she added, “are very good at capitalizing on people’s rage. And I was very angry,” she said, recounting her feelings about the 2020 election, which she falsely maintains was stolen from Trump despite all evidence to the contrary.

She said her change in perspective had been gradual as she started to see podcasters like Tucker Carlson “turn on President Trump" while having their rhetoric amplified by Russian sources.

Loomer, who casts herself as an independent journalist, told the AP she believed her reversal was already changing minds within Trump's “Make America Great Again" movement.

"Oh, 100%,” she said. “I’ve received messages all day from different people and media and politics and people just who follow me online who said, ’Wow, I didn’t realize how much we’ve been lied to.' ‘Wow you really opened my eyes.’"

Loomer was welcomed with open arms

Ukrainian officials seemed to recognize the opportunity to win over an ardent Trump ally with a large online following. In addition to her interview with Zelenskyy, Loomer had audiences with top Ukrainian officials and the country's chief rabbi.

“It takes courage to come to Ukraine and not be deterred by Russian propaganda or air raid sirens,” Zelenskyy's office wrote on social media.

Loomer also got a tour of Dormition Cathedral of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a monastic complex that came under Russian attack last month.

“Laura is very powerful and she’s very authoritative in the U.S., so I hope that everything she has seen by her own eyes will help her to spread the truth when she is back at the U.S.,” Tetyana Berezhna, the deputy prime minister and Ukrainian minister of culture, told the AP. “I do really hope and I believe that her visit will have a huge impact on relations with the U.S. administration.”

While some have tried to downplay Loomer’s influence with the president, he has often followed her advice. She occasionally traveled with him during the 2024 campaign, and last year he purged his National Security Council staff after she raised concerns about their loyalty in an Oval Office meeting.

Trump appears to be tracking Loomer's trip, sharing video of her conversation with Zelenskyy on social media.

“Very good!!!” he wrote on Thursday evening.

The conspiracist denounces conspiracy theories

Loomer has a long history of spreading conspiracy theories. She once shared a video that called 9/11 an “inside job” and amplified a lie about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio, which Trump went on to repeat during a presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

Although Loomer may have changed her mind about Russia's invasion, her bigoted views have not budged.

"One thing I really love about Ukraine is I haven’t seen a single Muslim here," she posted on Saturday. “It’s so refreshing.”

But in the interview, she bemoaned how influential podcasters can spread misinformation.

"They have been able to warp people’s minds to the point where people aren’t even capable of analyzing a subject with common sense anymore because they want to depend on these personalities to give them the opinion that they think they should have," she said, calling the situation “a major national security threat.”

She said she thinks that “information war” has “the potential to be more destructive than any kinetic war that our country may ever face” and called on the Trump administration to take the threat of Russian propaganda, foreign interference and influence operations more seriously.

“I think that some of our leaders are being influenced by propaganda,” she said.

The White House has routinely downplayed the role of Moscow's influence, especially because Trump has long chafed at investigations showing that Russia worked to boost his 2016 candidacy.

Loomer has said repeatedly that Ukraine did not finance her trip and insisted she had traveled in her own capacity.

“I can guarantee you I wasn’t paid by anybody. I certainly wasn’t paid by the government of Ukraine to come here," she said.

“If it’s fake, why did I risk my life? I’m in a bomb shelter right now. I barely slept this week,” she said.

___

Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press reporter Susie Blann contributed from London.

As a weak cold front approaches Central Florida Monday morning, the instability and moisture ahead of it will help to increase storm chances Monday afternoon. We will start off with a mix of sun and clouds Monday morning. A few spotty showers are possible near I-75 for the morning drive. Storms will begin to fire up over Marion & Flagler Counties and I-75 around noon. The storm chance shifts towards the I-4 corridor around 2pm, then I-95 and the beaches around 3pm. A strong to severe storm cannot be ruled out. These storms will persist into the evening commute home, primarily south of Orange County. These storms will begin to fizzle around sunset.

This front will shift moisture southward by mid-week, allowing rain chances to slightly lower to near typical values along the sea breeze on Wednesday. Rain chances once again ramp up for the second half of the week as another cold front makes its way into the panhandle. This front will add more moisture and instability to increase storm coverage into the upcoming weekend.

Heat indexes well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) stretched from Minnesota down to Mississippi, extending west into southern California and Nevada. Parts of the Southwest were expected to see highs of 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 C), according to the National Weather Service.

Meteorologists said the sweltering weather was the result of another heat dome — a phenomenon in which atmospheric conditions trap heat, accentuating and prolonging already high temperatures.

“It’s extraordinarily hot,” said Pete Miller, an outreach manager for the homeless services network Threshold CoC, which was passing out water bottles to residents in Omaha, Nebraska, on Sunday.

“We’re seeing a lot of people who are exhausted, drained by the heat in a way that is really dangerous,” Miller added. “The humidity is insane. You stand outside for 30 seconds and you get drenched. And it’s going to be like that all night.”

On Saturday, Rapid City, South Dakota, reported an all-time high of 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44 C). A horse race planned in Canterbury Park, in Shakopee, Minnesota, was canceled Sunday because of the heat.

“Right now, it’s affecting a lot of people right in the middle of the country,” said Bob Oravec, an NWS meteorologist. “The core of the heat sinks southward by early next week.”

The moist air was also producing other volatility around the top of the heat dome, including the risk of severe thunderstorms, flash flooding and hail around the Great Lakes on Sunday. The potential for heavy storms was expected to move east in the coming days.

“If you have a heat dome in one part of the country, you’ll have a different corresponding weather in another part,” Oravec said. “It’s all related.”

Temporary relief will come to the central U.S. toward the middle of the week, but high temperatures could return by the weekend, he noted.

Authorities warned that children and older adults, along with people with certain medical conditions, are especially at risk of serious conditions including heat stroke or even death. Experts recommend seeking out air conditioning or a cooling center, make sure to drink enough water and limit time under the direct sun.

Extreme heat events are increased and exacerbated by climate change, which comes from the burning of fuels like gasoline, oil and coal.

The continental U.S. endured the second-hottest first half of the year on record in 2026, according tracking of average temperatures by the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Orlando firefighters responded Saturday afternoon to the home on East Concord Street in the Lake Eola Heights neighborhood, where crews found the two-story house fully engulfed in flames.

Everyone inside made it out safely. Orlando Fire Department officials said two people were displaced, no one was injured, and firefighters prevented the flames from spreading to neighboring homes.

When News 6 returned to the property Sunday, a man who identified himself as an insurance fire inspector was examining the damage. An Orlando Fire Department crew also stopped by the home.

The property had already drawn attention months before the fire.

After viewers contacted the News 6 Neighborhood Network about complaints involving the home, News 6 investigated. Our reporting found the City of Orlando was seeking to foreclose on the property after code enforcement fines grew to more than $500,000. City officials alleged the owners were using the home for short-term rentals and events. The owners previously denied operating a business there, telling News 6 the gatherings were for family and friends.

Longtime neighbor John Smoger said he was among those who complained to the city and police about activity at the home over the years.

“The noise mostly was the problem,” Smoger said. “Mostly on weekends they would have events going on over there. And like I said, we’ve complained to the city. We’ve called the police on them. So it’s been an ongoing problem.”

Smoger said he was away when his wife called to tell him the neighboring home was on fire. By the time he returned, he said flames had engulfed much of the house.

“The whole first and second floor was just engulfed in flames,” he said.

Despite his frustrations with the property, Smoger said seeing the historic home burn was heartbreaking.

“It’s sad,” he said. “I knew the owner that renovated the house originally, and I know the work he put into it.”

The home is part of Orlando’s historic Lake Eola Heights neighborhood.

As for what caused the fire, officials have not released an official cause. However, the Orlando Fire Department said its Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the fire as accidental.

Daring mountain attacks from deep, multiple stage wins and an ice-cool temperament all helped the 27-year-old Slovenian seal his victory on Sunday. He joined Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Miguel Indurain and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault as the only riders to win five Tours.

“I’m speechless. It’s an incredible day, there was an incredible atmosphere," Pogacar said. “I’ve ridden seven Tours already and I’ve always finished on the podium. You might think this is a fairytale, it’s incredible for me too.”

After competing strongly in Sunday’s 21st and exciting final stage in Paris, Pogacar finished 6 minutes, 26 seconds ahead of Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel in the overall standings.

Two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard was Pogacar’s main rival heading into the race but the Dane crashed out on the 15th stage.

“Shame that Jonas and others crashed out of this Tour,” Pogacar said. “I hope we can all fight again next year."

Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates XRG teammate Isaac Del Toro, a 22-year-old Mexican making his Tour debut, was third at 9:42 back from Pogacar, who smiled and held up his hand to signify his wins. His teammates then joined him as they stood proudly on the Champs-Élysées.

“I don’t know how I do it,” Pogacar said. “I now have to find a new goal to chase. Which goal? Let’s just not jump ahead of ourselves, and enjoy this moment.”

Pogacar won the Giro d’Italia in 2024 but has not won the Spanish Vuelta, which starts on Aug. 22.

“Will I be at La Vuelta in a few weeks?” he said. “Let’s see.”

Peerless Pogacar

Pogacar won five stages at this year’s race to take his impressive tally to 26 overall.

He tried to win on Sunday, too, but victory ultimately went to Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who just held off the chasing pack on the home straight for his second stage win at this year's race and fourth overall.

Sunday’s 88.7-kilometer (55-mile) stage looped around Paris and was mostly processional, although less so than in previous years, which were usually entirely flat stages for sprinters and not for the rest of the peloton.

The stage was shortened from 133 kilometers and its starting point in Thoiry, west of the capital, was changed to Paris so as to reduce pressure on emergency services combating wildfires in the southwest. Some security forces initially mobilized for Paris were redeployed to help response efforts.

For the second straight year the stage featured the hugely popular uphill climb through the Montmartre district, a sharp 1-kilometer dash which riders tackled three times before finishing on the Champs-Élysées.

It proved even too much for Pogacar, who could not match Van der Poel's raw power in the closing stages.

Shortly before 6 p.m. local time, Pogacar shook hands at the start line with Evenepoel and Ecuadorian veteran Richard Carapaz, wearing the polka-dot jersey for the best climber.

“I battled hard to win this jersey, it was a great fight,” the 33-year-old Carapaz said. “It’s the best feeling to win it.”

Exciting finale

Van der Poel and Dane Mads Pedersen, the green jersey winner as best sprinter, were among the expected contenders for the stage win.

Crowds roared as the riders began the first climb up Rue Lepic in Montmartre, with the famed Sacré-Coeur basilica looming over them.

Pogacar moved ahead after the second ascension of Montmartre, with Van der Poel, Evenepoel and Pedersen alongside him.

Van der Poel attacked on the third and final climb with Pogacar responding well, and the one-day classics rivals surged ahead.

But they were caught with 700 meters left and, after Pogacar faded, the 31-year-old Van der Poel still had work to do.

He got his bike just over the line ahead of Belgian Jasper Philipsen, his Alpecin-Premier Tech teammate, and Pedersen. Pogacar eased up and finished 30th.

“I thought the sprinters would catch us up so I launched (my attack) from very far away,” Van der Poel said. “I gave everything I had left in my legs and it was just enough.”

Cycling pedigree

Van der Poel is widely considered one of the best cyclists in the world. He has multiple victories in one-day classics and Cyclo-cross world championship titles, and is also a former world road race champion.

His father Adri van der Poel won two stages on the Tour in the late 1980s.

His maternal grandfather was French cyclist Raymond Poulidor, who raced in the 1960s and ’70s, finishing second on the Tour three times and third five times. Nicknamed “Poupou” and “The Eternal Runner-up,” he was adored by French fans.

Women’s Tour

The nine-stage women’s Tour starts in the Swiss city of Lausanne on Aug. 1 and finishes in Nice on Aug 9.

Frenchwoman Pauline Ferrand-Prévôt won on debut last year. ___

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

It was not clear why the U.S. has paused after targeting Iranian coastal areas and infrastructure in a nearly two-week escalation sparked by Iran’s firing at ships trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz. The Pentagon did not respond to questions.

U.S. President Donald Trump is “giving talks some space. He’s giving it a little bit of room," Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told Fox News. "We’ve had both Oman and Iran, and a number of our other negotiators, engaged at every level, from the most senior levels all the way down to the technical level over the past few weeks, and particularly in the past few days."

Waltz dismissed the idea that the U.S. stockpile of interceptors crucial in defending against Iranian attacks is running low, but experts have questioned how long both the U.S. and Iran can afford to keep up attacks.

Since the U.S. has halted attacks for the past two nights, Iran has as well, its army spokesperson told Iran’s state TV on Sunday. Tehran in recent days has counterattacked against countries in the region hosting U.S. military forces, killing at least three service members at a base in Jordan and one in Iraq.

A regional official calls the pause a ‘positive signal’

The 60-day period that began when the interim deal was signed by both countries in mid-June is now well into its second half, and major issues that were meant to be negotiated -– notably Iran’s nuclear program at the heart of tensions -– remain set aside as mediators try to keep both sides talking.

A regional official involved in mediation efforts said diplomacy was underway and that a pause in U.S. and Iranian strikes was a “positive signal that helps their efforts to de-escalate.”

The official said both countries want to return to the interim ceasefire deal and that a compromise being negotiated centers on having Iran run vessel transit through the Strait of Hormuz with fewer restrictions on ships. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Shipping traffic on the strait is at a 3-week low

Concerns continued about shipping on the strait and now on another crucial waterway in the region, the Bab al-Mandeb strait to the Red Sea. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last week threatened a blockade of Saudi shipping there.

Global energy supplies and the economy remain in the balance as gasoline prices have risen again.

Commercial shipping traffic on the Strait of Hormuz was at a three-week low, a maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Sunday, adding that no new attacks had been confirmed in the past 72 hours. It said traffic remained steady through the Bab el-Mandeb.

Iran on Sunday said it continued to speak with Oman about managing the safe passage of ships on the Strait of Hormuz, which passes between the countries. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said talks had made progress and continued.

Baghaei also said the strait's status remained unchanged. Tehran has asserted that the interim deal with the U.S. allows it to manage shipping on the waterway for now, and it has objected to U.S. efforts to support a route through the strait that passes close to Oman instead. The strait was considered an international waterway before the war.

The U.S. military on Saturday said its recently reimposed naval blockade against Iran continued, with a dozen commercial ships redirected, two disabled and two boarded. U.S. forces “remain highly vigilant, focused, lethal, and ready,” it added.

Netanyahu says he ‘fully’ backs Trump's efforts

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to the United States and meet with Trump in Washington on Tuesday, his office has said. They last met in Washington in February, weeks before they launched the war on Iran that killed senior leaders including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah fired at Israel two days after the war began, and Israel responded with airstrikes and ground forces in southern Lebanon. Since then, the U.S. has supported landmark direct talks between Lebanon and Israel to try to calm that front and find a way to disarm Hezbollah.

Netanyahu on Sunday told Fox News he “fully” backs Trump's efforts to weaken Iran and press it to end its nuclear program, adding: “If he can do so without returning to intense military fighting, that’s fine. Why not?”

The prime minister indicated he would not present new information to “our good friend” Trump and instead would listen to “what he has in mind, because I think in many ways, it’s his decision.”

But Netanyahu warned that if Iran again attacks Israel, directly or with armed proxies, “it will make a terrible mistake.”

___

Anna reported from Lowville, New York. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Ben Finley in Washington contributed.

Genevieve had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (220 kph), making it a Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. A major hurricane is Category 3, with winds of at least 111 mph (179 kph), or higher.

Genevieve’s center was located about 530 miles (855 kilometers) southwest of Manzanillo, and it was headed west-northwest at 14 mph (22 kph).

No coastal watches or warnings were in effect, but the hurricane center said that swells from the storm — likely causing “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” — were affecting parts of Mexico’s southwestern coast and would likely reach southern parts of the Baja California Peninsula on Sunday night or Monday.

The storm was expected to strengthen further before weakening by midweek.

Farther northwest in the Pacific, Hurricane Fausto weakened to a Category 1 storm as it continued on a path in the general direction of the Hawaiian Islands.

Forecasters said Fausto was expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm in the coming days but warned that it could still generate significant surf for parts of Hawaii.

Fausto had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph). It was located about 825 miles (1,330 kilometers) east of Hilo and was moving west at 14 mph (22 kph).

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday unveiled the party's Fighting for an Affordable America agenda, as he kicked off 100 days until the midterm elections and works to focus voter attention ahead of November.

In Pennsylvania's 7th District, tucked in the Lehigh Valley, Jeffries and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, rallied support at a steelworkers' union hall for Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter trying to unseat the incumbent Republican congressman as Democrats reach for the House majority.

Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Democrats were focused on restoring healthcare cuts, bringing the cost of living down and ending the war in Iran to beat Republicans and hold President Donald Trump accountable. The united front on Sunday comes as Democrats have fought among themselves in primaries across the country this year.

“When you put us back in charge of the United States House of Representatives, you’ll get a Congress that speaks up for everyday Americans and a Congress that stands up to an out-of-control president,” he said.

Down the road, Brooks’ rival, freshman GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, is launching his own 100-day-out event.

It's a symbolic start to a campaign season that's been well underway for much of a tumultuous year that's included partisan redistricting battles, contentious primaries in both parties and weighty Supreme Court rulings on campaign finance.

Midterm elections are often a referendum on the president

Midterm elections are often a referendum on the party in power, and the contests are set against the second term of Trump, whose military action against Iran and economic policies backed by the Republican majority in Congress are reshaping the political landscape.

“We gotta win the midterms,” Trump said during a visit last month to a Mack Truck plant in the district, where he promoted Mackenzie's candidacy.

Trump has made a number of visits to competitive states as GOP candidates rely on the power of the presidency to propel their campaigns. Last week he was in Georgia, a key state with a marquee Senate race, and he has a trip to battleground Michigan coming up.

While the president voices support for rank-and-file Republicans during his rallies, he also devotes much of his time on stage to a wide range of issues, including the U.S.-Mexico border, opposing transgender rights and criticizing judges.

Republicans are hoping the president's signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of tax breaks and spending cuts, along with a measure the House passed recently aiming to limit lawmaker stock trading, will buoy them with voters.

But they are up against a historical trend that sees the president's party lose seats in midterm elections and are confronting the unpopularity of the war with Iran.

Democrats are aiming to seize on voter disapproval of the war and refocus attention back to kitchen table issues like higher costs and gas prices to propel them to wins in the narrowly divided House.

A few seats will determine control of the House

Even though 435 House seats are being contested this fall, control of the House is often determined by just a handful of competitive districts. Fewer than 20 seats are among the most watched, what analysts call genuine toss-ups.

Pennsylvania's 7th District is a key battleground along with contests elsewhere in the state, reflecting significant political weight not just as a presidential swing state but as the pathway to a House majority. Democrats are also targeting House contests in Pennsylvania's 1st, 8th and 10th districts — all seats controlled by Republicans.

Shapiro, who is seeking a second term this year as well, has supported Democratic candidates in the contested seats, wagering some of his own political capital. He acknowledged the state's centrality to winning the House, while alluding to its central role in presidential elections as well.

“We are, of course, the swingiest swing state,” he said.

He added: “We will do our part to carry forward the goodness and the decency that defines Pennsylvania and put an end to the chaos and cruelty and the corruption that exists in Washington.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is preparing to embark on his own cross-country trip to fundraise for the GOP and stump for Republican candidates as he works to retain his majority.

Republicans have a cash edge over Democrats in the race for House control. A question hovering over the election is how the Supreme Court's June ruling affecting campaign finance could play out, with national parties now able to make direct contributions to candidate campaigns.

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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Tom Homan said if the allegations against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer are true, “I don’t think he should ever have cleared vetting.”

“There's several things under review,” Homan said on CNN about the officer, Army veteran David Brouillette. “The training is under review. I know this specific case, as far as the vetting, is under review by the internal affairs section.”

Questions about the Department of Homeland Security's rush to hire, train and deploy thousands of new ICE officers to carry out Trump's immigration crackdown have come into stark focus after back-to-back fatal shootings of immigrants in Maine and Houston.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered a pause in vehicle stops after the fatal Maine shooting, but Trump almost immediately reversed course and insisted the stops resume as a necessary tool in his campaign to round up and deport immigrants who are in the U.S. without current legal status.

Homeland Security did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment about the internal review.

ICE issues new requirement for body-worn cameras during vehicle stops

Homan said that “changes have been made” and that acting ICE director David Venturella has issued a new directive that body-worn cameras must be in use if officers make a vehicle stop.

“Right now, on all vehicle stops, there’s at least one body camera on site to record the entire event,” he said.

He said Venturella "sent an instruction out that he wants at least one body camera on those vehicle stops, so we have everything on video.”

It's unclear if the steps that the department is taking will be enough to quell the concerns coming from certain lawmakers in Congress over Homeland Security's training and tactics as tries to reach Trump's mass deportation goals.

Lawmakers push for answers but have more questions

Lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns.

Democrats pressed ICE officials during a closed-door briefing for the House Homeland Security Committee last week, leaving some with more questions than answers.

Lawmakers were told during the briefing that there have been 56 complaints of excessive force against ICE officers — 32 were cleared, and one was referred for disciplinary action.

No discipline had yet been handed out, the lawmakers said they were told. The rest of the incidents are still under investigation.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, has pushed for the use of body-worn cameras and ensured funding for the effort. She had said it was “extremely unfortunate” that the officer involved in the shooting in her home state was not using a camera.

Homeland Security is under scrutiny but also faces pressure to increase deportations

The Trump administration has failed to meet its goal of deporting 1 million people a year, despite an intense immigration enforcement crackdown that has resulted in violent scenes in cities nationwide.

At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration officers since the start of Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

While the Trump administration insists it is targeting the “worst of the worst” criminals, that has not always been the result and American citizens also have been among the deaths.

The ICE officer shot 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national who was killed in his car near his home in the coastal city of Biddeford.

In Houston, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed July 7 when ICE officers chased his white work van through the streets, then shot him through the window in front of his work crew, including his brother.

Earlier this year, two Americans protesting ICE actions in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, were killed, sparking a backlash nationwide.

Democrats launched the longest agency shutdown in history earlier this year when they refused to fund Homeland Security in a largely failed attempt to force the administration to impose various restraints on the officers.

Shifting and gusting winds, as well as arid conditions, complicated massive efforts to limit the spread of the monster blaze burning out of control since midweek in France's Gironde region, where Bordeaux is located. Authorities issued overnight evacuation orders for five more localities southwest of the historic city.

“The situation remains very unfavorable," French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said after what he described as “another difficult night” for fire crews battling round-the-clock against the blaze that has burned an area four times the size of Paris.

“The fire became extremely virulent again and unpredictable, generating its own winds and advancing erratically toward the Bordeaux metropolitan area," Nunez posted on X.

“It became calmer by the end of the night," the minister added.

Pope calls for prayers for victims of the ‘devastating wildfires’

At the end of his Sunday Angelus prayer, Pope Leo XIV referenced “the devastating wildfires” in France and Spain and said: “I express my solidarity and invite everyone to pray for those affected and for the work of the rescue workers.”

An estimated 42,000 hectares (162 square miles) had burned in Gironde, the region's prefecture said, much of it forests and scrubland made tinder-dry by successive heat waves. That is seven times the area of Manhattan island and four times the size of Paris.

Firefighters raced in trucks to fight flare-ups and planes dropping water and retardants rotated in the smoke-filled air. Farmers delivered water in tanks to fire crews so they could fight the flames without interruption.

“This allows firefighters to focus on the fire,” said Theo Hernandez, a wine grower. “It’s very strong, very virulent, it’s spreading everywhere.”

The number of firefighters mobilized grew to 2,500, backed by 18 planes and helicopters, including from other European nations. Soldiers have also been called in. A giant A400M military cargo aircraft dropped plumes of ochre-colored retardant.

The Gironde prefecture said 75 firefighters were treated for injuries. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed.

Blaze has created virulent firestorms

In a first for France, the blaze alarmingly developed into a self-feeding firestorm on several occasions, most recently on Saturday night, generating lightning bolts that can start new flare-ups, authorities said.

“It's like being confronted by a hurricane,” said Gironde fire chief Marc Vermeulen.

Forecast high temperatures starting Tuesday could complicate the firefighting, Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said.

Evacuees won’t be allowed back to their towns and villages until the blaze is brought under control, she warned. She urged holiday makers not to come to the region that has popular Atlantic beaches and some of France’s largest woodlands.

Fire creeps toward Bordeaux but the city isn't evacuating

Bordeaux Mayor Thomas Cazenave described the blaze as being "at the gates of the metropolitan area,” about 15 kilometers (9 miles) away at its closest point.

But Cazenave said an evacuation of Bordeaux is not on the cards for now. The city is home to 268,000 people.

Bordeaux turned an exhibition center into an emergency shelter, providing cots and food for thousands of evacuees, including hundreds of older people evacuated from care homes.

A second fire burning farther south in the Landes region has also forced the evacuation of 36,000 people, driving the total number of displaced people in southwest France to more than 250,000.

Fire crews have also been battling a blaze in the Var region of southern France on the Mediterranean. Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated there.

Tens of thousands of people also forced out of their homes in Spain

In Spain, wildfires burned out of control around Madrid. Evacuations were also carried out Sunday in the Valencia region. A man was killed Saturday in a wildfire in Manises, a Valencia suburb, marking Spain’s first recorded death in the latest fires.

“We still have some difficult hours ahead,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Sunday, but the night was “very positive in terms of bringing the flames under control.”

A total of 76,000 people have been evacuated in Spain while 30,000 others have been confined to their homes, the government said.

Evacuees fretted about what they’ll find when they’re allowed to return.

“It looked like the apocalypse. You couldn’t see anything. Everything was covered in ash,” said Rocío Domínguez, who evacuated with her dog, Simba, from Chapinería, west of Madrid.

“We don’t know when we get to the town, if we’ll have half the house burned down or we’ll have it intact or we won’t have a house,” she said. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything.”

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Leicester reported from Paris. Associated Press journalists Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris; Teresa Medrano in Madrid; Alicia León in Villaviciosa de Odón, Spain, and Maria Murru in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, contributed to this report.

It is raising questions about properly counting the impact to U.S. service members as the Trump administration has escalated strikes on Iran in a bid to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while providing little indication of how it intends to wind down a conflict that is unpopular with many Americans.

The Defense Casualty Analysis System, which Pentagon officials have repeatedly pointed to as the definitive source on the numbers of dead and wounded from the conflict, removed the four fallen soldiers as well as dozens of wounded troops from its Iran war tally last week.

On Sunday, a new category called “Overseas Operations” emerged on the system's website, listing the four Army deaths by name as well as 207 wounded. It was unclear if all of the wounded were injured in the Iran conflict.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, referred questions to the Pentagon, which, along with the White House, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Pentagon described earlier changes to the system as ‘data disruptions’

Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez argued Thursday that the drop in casualty figures in the online system was not an effort to hide the growing human toll of the war but rather the result of “anomalies” and “temporary data disruptions” that were being resolved “imminently."

As late as Tuesday, the website was reporting the war's official toll as 18 killed and 482 wounded.

It appeared to reflect that four soldiers had been killed since fighting resumed despite the signing of an interim ceasefire deal last month — three on a base in Jordan that was struck July 17 by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and one in Iraq a day later during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone.

Adding further confusion, when the Pentagon announced two of the deaths in Jordan, it said the troops were supporting the U.S. mission to counter the Islamic State group. The other two were announced in press releases simply as supporting overseas operations.

President Donald Trump has confirmed the total, writing in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that the “Iran Military Conflict” had claimed 18 lives.

By Wednesday, the Iran war figures in the Pentagon's system fell back to 14 dead and 420 wounded. However, a U.S. official told The Associated Press at the time that the actual number of wounded personnel in the war had actually grown to well over 500 troops.

The Pentagon's top spokesman, Sean Parnell, took to social media that day to assert that the reported drop was a “temporary data disruption.”

New category lists casualties following date of renewed fighting

The U.S. and Israel launched the war in Iran on Feb. 28, and 14 troops were killed in the initial waves of fighting. Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire in April and then signed an interim deal to end the war in mid-June.

It was short-lived. Iran struck three merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on July 7 that were transiting along a route near the coast of Oman overseen by the U.S. military. American forces launched strikes in response to the attacks on vessels in the key energy shipping corridor. Trump soon declared that the ceasefire was over.

The Pentagon system's new “Overseas Operations” category says it tallies casualties starting July 7.

Since then, the U.S. and Iran have exchanged regular fire in a bid to control the crucial waterway, with the U.S. hitting Iranian targets nightly for nearly two weeks and Tehran responding with attacks on neighboring countries hosting American forces. There have been no strikes for two nights as mediators push for diplomacy.

Since the renewed hostilities began, the Pentagon has provided even less information about military strategy and casualties than it did during the first phase of the conflict. The Pentagon has not held a press briefing about the war since early May, and officials at U.S. Central Command have stopped providing casualty updates to reporters.

Pentagon officials such as Valdez and Parnell have insisted that the DCAS website is proof of the commitment to transparency about the number of dead and injured in the war.

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The 33-year-old Shin, who won the Texas Shootout in May 2016, carded a 3-over 75 on the Dundonald Links to finish at 9 under.

“My first one didn’t really feel like a win at the time,” Shin said. “I didn’t feel like I deserved it. It felt very accidental. But this one definitely feels a lot different. This one feels like I earned it. I worked hard for it.”

Shin was in tears after the final putt dropped on the 18th and was doused with water and champagne by a group of friends.

Leading since the first round, Shin could afford three straight bogies on Nos. 6-8 after starting the final round with a five-shot lead over Thailand's Pajaree Anannarukarn (74). Shin also bogeyed two of the last three holes but had made two birdies earlier.

“I wasn’t as nervous as yesterday,” Shin said. "I feel like I’ve done everything right but just wasn’t hitting it like I was the last three days and just hitting it into bunkers and bushes and that wasn’t fun.

“With three bogies in a row, I thought, ‘oh boy, I don’t know where this is going to go’. But yeah, I hung in there, so I’m quite proud of myself and very happy.”

Shin is now thinking about the next challenge.

"I’m going to do everything I can to win again," Shin said. “I can’t believe it happened this week.”

A Lim Kim finished second after a 4-under 68, with four straight birdies helping her leapfrog two shots ahead of Anannarukarn, who dropped to third.

The Women’s Scottish Open comes between the final two majors — the Evian Championship and the Women’s British Open starting Thursday at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.

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

It was the first time in at least three decades that 95-year-old Castro did not attend the event, and no explanation was given. President Miguel Díaz-Canel read a congratulatory message from Castro to his compatriots at the rally, held in the eastern city of Pinar del Río.

The annual event commemorates the July 26, 1953 assault led by brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks in Cuba’s eastern region. The military action against former dictator Fulgencio Batista failed, but it marked the beginning of the revolutionary struggle that culminated on Jan. 1, 1959.

Raúl Castro’s last public appearances were in June, during an event to establish the Ministry of the Interior, and on May 1 to celebrate Labor Day.

He no longer holds any formal positions, but his symbolic presence is strong, and he was recently identified as one of the negotiators in talks with the United States following the imposition of a U.S. energy embargo.

Facing a crowd of hundreds of people waving Cuban flags early Sunday, Díaz-Canel rejected a report that the U.S. State Department published last week that accused Cuba of running a leftist espionage and influence network against the United States and Latin America for decades.

“Every day they issue a threat against the revolution, and every week they announce a new punishment for Cuban companies and officials,” the president said.

In May, Castro was charged in a U.S. indictment with murder and other crimes for his alleged role in the downing of two civilian aircraft operated by Miami-based exiles in 1996 off the coast of the Caribbean island.

The accusations were widely rejected by Cuba’s government.

Cuba is going through one of the worst periods in its historically tense relationship with the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he hopes to “take over” the island after his January attack on Venezuela — a key ally of Cuba for decades — and imposed an oil embargo that has practically paralyzed the Caribbean nation, pressuring it to change its economic and political model.

“Cuba is the victim of a coldly calculated genocide,” Díaz-Canel said during his speech, in which he accused the Trump administration of imposing a policy of “maximum pressure” and intensified “economic strangulation.”

Daily blackouts are lasting more than 20 hours, workdays have been reduced, industrial production halted, and shortages of water and medicine are hitting an island already undergoing a severe crisis in the past five years given previous sanctions imposed by the U.S. and an internal financial reform that sparked inflation.

Meanwhile, hotel chains including Spain’s Meliá, payment processors like Visa and Mastercard and airlines such as Air Canada and Air France have left the island as its economic and financial crises deepen.

After all, for a decade, the Chiefs had made at least the wild-card round. Many of those seasons ended in February.

But the Chiefs collapsed last season, finishing a dismal 6-11 while losing quarterback Patrick Mahomes to a major knee injury. There were significant roster issues on both sides of the ball, depth problems at important positions that became exacerbated when injuries happened to other players, and it all meant an end to the season far earlier than anyone in Kansas City had expected.

So, with the team in need of a reset — among other reasons — Reid opted to bring his quarterbacks and rookies, along with a few other players coming off injuries, back to Missouri Western State University for a few days of work before the full squad arrives.

“I didn't like not doing it last year after I got done with it, to be honest with you,” Reid said of the three-day crash course, which continued through heat indexes topping triple digits Sunday. "It's a good thing for the quarterbacks, good thing for the rookies coming in. We do have more numbers (of rookies) this year, so it allows us to get more reps.

“I think,” Reid added, “that will benefit us.”

It couldn't hurt.

Start with the quarterbacks: Mahomes was cleared this past week to fully participate in training camp after undergoing surgery in December to repair torn knee ligaments. And while Reid insisted this week that the two-time MVP would have no limitations, there is nevertheless a certain comfort that comes with getting some reps without a full team flying around him.

“You just have to build that confidence back,” Mahomes said, “and I'm glad I get to do that from Day 1 of training camp. I didn't want to have to get only a couple of weeks of practice in and then have to go play a game. I wanted to build it up, see how training camp goes as we gradually build, and so I think that'll help me get back to where I need to be.”

For the next two QBs on the depth chart, there's the matter of learning the offense.

The Chiefs swung a trade with the Jets to bring in Justin Fields as the veteran backup, in part to have someone capable of winning a couple of games should Mahomes be unable to start Week 1. Their young project QB is Garrett Nussmeier, the once-heralded college star from LSU who fell all the way to the 249th overall pick in the NFL draft last April.

Beyond the quarterbacks, though, is the chance to get some extra work for a rookie class — more than two dozen are in camp — that Kansas City will be leaning upon more heavily than perhaps any other point in Reid's tenure.

Defensive back Mansoor Delane, the first cornerback taken in the draft, is expected to start Week 1, and he may not be the only first-year player on the field. The Chiefs' other first-round pick, defensive tackle Peter Woods, could find himself playing alongside perennial Pro Bowl pick Chris Jones, while pass rusher R Mason Thomas will be counted upon to pressure the quarterback.

That makes every extra rep they can get before the veterans arrive invaluable.

“I'm super grateful for the three days (of rookie camp),” Woods said. “I told someone earlier that the veterans, they have a standard for what they want to see from us young guys. Just coming in and being able to have some days to prepare myself to be able to mesh well with the veterans, that means a lot to me. Not everyone gets a chance to do that.”

Not in Kansas City. Not the past few years.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Palestinians and the Israeli opposition accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government of turning a blind eye to attacks by settlers against Palestinians, which threaten to ignite widespread violence across the territory.

Israeli soldiers and police fanned out across the West Bank after the attack, closing off major roads and blocking access to a hospital where it said two militants were hiding. Israel also arrested more than 70 Palestinians over the weekend as they attempted to contain the escalating violence.

Israel's military says it condemns such incidents

The mosques, in the villages of Qusra and Kour in the northern West Bank, suffered extensive damage in the fires.

In Qusra, the attackers spray-painted “revenge Benayahu,” referring to one of the Israeli soldiers killed on Friday, and “the land of Israel is redeemed with blood.” The soldier lived in a nearby settlement.

Ahmed Abu Mahmoud, 64, who lives next to the Qusra mosque, said he heard noises at 3 a.m. and discovered the mosque had been set on fire. The fire was too large for him to fight on his own, so he called for help.

“The military arrived here, saw with their own eyes and then left,” Mahmoud said.

Security footage in Kour obtained by The Associated Press showed three people dressed in civilian clothes setting off a large explosion in the entrance of the mosque in the middle of the night.

On Sunday, residents held prayers despite damage to the entrance.

Israel's military said it was working with police to investigate the mosque attack.

“The security forces strongly condemn incidents of this kind, including harm to religious sites, and will continue to act decisively to maintain security and public order in the area,” it said.

The Israeli army often announces investigations into violence against Palestinians but rarely makes arrests or prosecutes settlers involved in violence.

The military also reported it had sealed the homes of two Palestinian militants suspected of killing the soldiers in preparation for their demolition. Israel often demolishes the homes of attackers, claiming it deters future attacks.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said troops entered villages across the West Bank to seize weapons and make arrests. “We are also prepared to operate on a broader scale against the terrorist nests,” he said.

The exact circumstances of Friday’s deadly incidents remained unclear, but Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials said they were sparked after a group of settlers entered the village of Tell and were confronted by residents who were fearful of an attack.

According to the Israeli military, one of the Palestinians took one of the settlers’ weapons and fired on the group, killing Benayahu Mellet, 32, a security guard from a nearby settlement.

Palestinians and human rights groups have increasingly documented armed Israeli settlers entering villages in the area. Livestock theft, arson and the defacement of mosques are routinely reported.

Leaders appeal for peace and pressure on Israel

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Fahmy urged U.S. President Donald Trump to restrain “the Israeli government’s extremist ambitions,” including its implementing of a “de facto annexation in the West Bank."

He called on Trump to confront Netanyahu ahead of their meeting in the United States this week.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent letters to Arab and other allies, including the European Union, urging them to pressure Israel to stop settler violence in the West Bank, which he described as a systemic Israeli policy and a dangerous escalation, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The Palestinian Authority is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people.

Pope Leo XIV appealed for peace in the Middle East at the end of his weekly Sunday prayer, saying that “I am following with apprehension the persistence and escalation of violence in the Holy Land, of which recently many civilians in the West Bank and Gaza have also been victims.”

He appealed for a “return to negotiating a just political solution.”

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, 87 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank this year, including 21 by Israeli settlers. Three Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinian militants in 2026, including the two soldiers on Friday.

More than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for a future independent state. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlements be illegal and obstacles to peace.

Israel approves immunity for an international force in Gaza

Israel's security cabinet on Sunday took a step toward the deployment of an international stabilization force in Gaza, approving granting it immunity under Israeli law, a political source told the AP.

Israel will also decide which countries will send forces and that the prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister will approve them.

So far, the international force is expected to have 200 members from different countries, including Uganda and Morocco, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision made in a closed-door meeting.

Israeli forces control well over half of Gaza's territory, which was largely destroyed in two years of war that followed the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. A fragile ceasefire began in October, but next steps in its implementation — including reconstruction — have been largely stalled over the issue of Hamas' disarmament. Israel maintains its forces won't withdraw until Hamas is disarmed.

Last week, the U.S.-created Board of Peace meant to oversee Gaza's reconstruction said it was working on a pilot governance and humanitarian zone in southern Gaza that would be secured by the international force.

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Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

The ruling Saturday by judges of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration's effort to move forward with the mail-in voting restrictions in 23 U.S. states that sued ahead of November's midterm elections.

Trump issued an executive order in March for the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration to create a “state citizenship list” of eligible voters. It also ordered the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on that list.

While Trump touted the proposed changes as safeguards to keep non-U.S. citizens from voting, state election officials argued they were ripe for abuse and could cause chaos.

Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia challenged Trump's order in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston. They argued that Trump's order was unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the authority to set election rules.

U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, agreed and halted Trump's order from being implemented for the Nov. 3 elections — but only in the states that have sued.

The Justice Department said in an emailed statement Sunday that it is “reviewing all options” regarding its next legal steps and is confident that Trump's executive order will ultimately be upheld.

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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.

Netanyahu said he intends to be in New York in September to address the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor's suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said last week that while New York City does not have legal authority to execute an arrest warrant issued by the world's top war-crimes court, he encouraged the federal government to do so.

“He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers — Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,” Netanyahu said on Fox News Channel's “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo. “But he’s trying to turn one group against the other.”

The prime minister has become an increasingly polarizing figure over Israel's war in Gaza, which was ignited by the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants. Israel also joined the U.S. in starting the war against Iran on Feb. 28 before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon in response to fire from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.

Netanyahu on Sunday dismissed the International Criminal Court's war crimes charges against him as “bogus.” He pointed to sexual misconduct allegations against the ICC's top prosecutor, who was removed from that post on Friday, and said the warrant was an attempt to divert attention.

The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

Bipartisan U.S. support for Israel at risk, Netanyahu says

Netanyahu said he was concerned that once-bipartisan political support for Israel in the U.S. is at risk, particularly as progressive and far-left Democrats aligned with the Mamdani wing of the party splinter.

He also warned against rising antisemitism in the U.S. and other Western countries, saying that when he talks to people in New York City, home to the second-largest Jewish population in the world, "Jews feel very uncomfortable.”

“And I think it’s wrong. The whole thing is wrong,” he said.

Throughout his mayoral election campaign last year, Mamdani said he would seek to order the city’s police to execute the ICC’s arrest warrant over Netanyahu's role in the war in Gaza.

But Mamdani acknowledged last week that his city did not have the legal authority to arrest Netanyahu and called on federal authorities to step in.

“I want to be equally clear, Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large,” he said in a video message.

He told New Yorkers that he understood their frustration and that expressions of protest is something the city would “always respect.”

The Hague-based court has accused Netanyahu, his former defense minister and the late leader of Hamas of crimes against humanity. The Palestinian territory’s Health Ministry says over 73,000 people have been killed in Israel’s offensive — roughly half of them women and children. Some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the initial Hamas attack on Israel.

Trump has assured Netanyahu he won't be arrested

Trump told Netanyahu in a social media post Monday that he “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

Netanyahu is expected in Washington this week to meet with Trump and attend funeral services for the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Graham, a leading defense hawk and strong supporter of Israel, died suddenly two weeks ago of a likely torn aorta. The prime minster called him an “extraordinary American patriot.”

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Associated Press reporter Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed to this report.

Corey Ruiz, who is identified as Black or Latino in Wisconsin court records, was shot and killed by a Madison police officer on Wednesday after a brief scuffle at an intersection in the city's most liberal neighborhood just yards away from a popular 52-year-old food co-op.

It marks the third time since 2012 that Madison police have shot and killed someone in the same neighborhood. The shooting has sparked renewed calls for police reforms and forced the city to once again reckon with calls from the Black community to address racial justice issues.

Pressure from protesters, and sympathy for their cause, has also led to the cancellation or disruption of many of Madison's signature summertime events.

“Our community has spoken loud and clear: this is NOT business as usual,” Black activist Clyde Mayberry posted on Facebook on Friday amid a string of cancellations. “Your decisions have helped ensure that this city continues to acknowledge the pain, the loss, and the call for accountability.”

Protesters took to the streets hours after the shooting, disrupting a popular Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra outdoor concert at the state Capitol that attracts about 30,000 every week in the summer.

The scene captures a familiar divide in Madison, a city that is more diverse than the state overall but still 70% white. Protesters, many of whom were Black, stood over white concert attendees sitting at tables near the stage that cost as much as $1,800 to rent for the night.

Concert organizers canceled the event.

Threats of a protest on Thursday led the city to postpone the grand opening of a new public market, just a few blocks away from where the shooting occurred. A popular neighborhood festival near the shooting called AtwoodFest, scheduled to begin on Saturday, was also canceled in the face of potential protests.

“Our community and our Marquette neighbors witnessed another horrific officer-involved shooting just blocks from our festival grounds, leaving us in deep pain and justified anger,” organizers of the festival wrote. “In acknowledgment of what has happened far too often in our community and our country as a whole, this year’s AtwoodFest, themed ‘The Heartbeat of the Neighborhood,’ is canceled.”

And on Saturday, the popular downtown farmers market that attracts about 20,000 people each week around the Capitol building, shut down nearly four hours earlier than usual in solidarity with protesters.

“We mourn with our community,” market organizers posted on social media. “And we agree - business cannot proceed as usual.”

A handful of protesters showed up at the Capitol as vendors were breaking down their booths at around 10 a.m.

“No one should be thinking this is just another Saturday,” said Reba Bergmann, who sat with Lilly Nimmer holding a sign that said “Justice for Corey.”

“It's not life as normal,” Nimmer said. “We should be more mad. We should stand up for what we believe in.”

Charles Ault, 30, supported the decision to close down early.

“It's important to keep focus on the real tragedy, which is that someone got killed," said Ault, who was shopping at the market. "Missing some market time, that's sad, but that's not what's important.”

But Rodney Hathaway, who was visiting Madison from Milwaukee, was caught off guard by the market's early closure.

“It's ridiculous,” he said. “This is peoples' livelihoods. It's just unfortunate. We have such a short summer season for these people to sell their wares.”

Investigations into the shooting continue. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Ruiz family, said on Friday at a new conference in the Capitol that the officer who fired the shots should face criminal charges.

Madison Police Chief John Patterson, who is white, has tried to calm tensions, even allowing protesters to overtake a news conference that he was leading along with the mayor inside the police department's downtown headquarters on Thursday.

Patterson took questions from angry protesters, one of whom held a sign just feet away from the chief that said “corrupt cops deserve to die too.” After one protester hurled an insult at Patterson, the chief calmly responded, “I appreciate you being here.”

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This story was first published on July 25, 2026. It was updated on July 26, 2026 to correct the spelling of Charles Ault’s last name.

Hernández, once considered an ally by the U.S. in the drug war, led Honduras from 2014 to 2022, during which he boasted that he would "shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” according to U.S. prosecutors.

His extradition shortly after leaving office marked a rare chance at justice for Hondurans, who feared his hold on the country's justice system would never allow a conviction on Honduran soil.

But the former leader, sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States, was released in December, to the shock of many in the U.S. and Honduras, after receiving a presidential pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump. He said Hernández did not receive a fair trial and that it was a setup orchestrated by the Biden administration.

Hernández now returns to Honduras to face corruption charges amid concerns that a weak justice system and his party’s return to the presidency will ensure his impunity.

“There is a social majority that is outraged but doesn’t speak out because of fear,” said Joaquín Mejía, lawyer and researcher for the human rights organization Reflection, Research and Communication Team. "We’re talking about the boss of all drug bosses.”

Some in the country welcomed his return. Hernández was greeted at Palmerola International Airport by his mother, wife, kids and granddaughter as well as dozens of supporters of his National Party.

“The moment has arrived. After four years, I can finally tell you that we will see each other again,” Hernández said in a video posted on social media before his arrival.

Hernández, 57, faces charges related to a case known as Pandora I, which alleges that a network of former high-ranking officials from 2010 to 2013 participated in the expansion and approval of public funds disbursements totaling more than 288 million lempiras ($10.8 million) to various foundations, according to an investigation by the country's Specialized Prosecutor’s Unit Against Corruption Networks, or UFERCO.

According to UFERCO, Hernández benefited from these disbursements, receiving at least 62 million lempiras ($2.3 million) for his political campaign through various schemes, including the creation of shell companies, the use of straw men and fictitious contracts.

Hernández has said he is innocent and that the case “lacks any legal basis.”

In June, a judge suspended his arrest warrant and the international red notice issued to Interpol at the request of Hernández’s lawyer, although the case is still pending. The former president has agreed to appear before the judge on Aug. 3 for his arraignment.

Other high-level officials implicated in Pandora I whose cases have been dismissed indicate the likely outcome for Hernández, according to legal experts.

“Everything points to the suspension being the first step,” Mejía said. “He’ll come, they’ll likely issue him alternative measures to imprisonment to keep up appearances, and then he’ll end up without any problem, without any sanction.”

For Luis Javier Santos, the former head of UFERCO who investigated the case against Hernández, the former leader’s return represents a failure to prosecute him for his crimes rather than a chance for justice.

Santos was removed from his role in UFERCO in February in what he believes demonstrated attempts to stifle anti-corruption investigations by the new government of Nasry Asfura, of Hernández's National Party, which took office in January after gaining Trump's backing during elections.

“We have gone backward to an even worse point than when all the work to fight corruption began,” Santos said.

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Brigida reported from Mexico City.

Long before OpenAI broke out of its test corral and hacked into Hugging Face, before the internet and Sam Altman were even born, Cameron wrote a screenplay about an autonomous artificial intelligence system that triggers a nuclear apocalypse.

That system, “Skynet,” was solidly science fiction — and, for its day, pure speculation. But four decades after it appeared in “The Terminator,” it looks more like a forecast of the “unprecedented cyber incident” in which a rogue artificial intelligence system hacked into another AI company on its own.

Cue “Skynet Day,” the new shorthand for July 22, 2026, when real-life AI sent a chill around the world by learning and acting in ways its creators did not anticipate.

For many, the moment recalled the instant in “Aliens” (also written by Cameron) when the xenomorph queen learns to use an elevator. Or when the “Jurassic Park's” velociraptors figure out how to open a door. Or the sequence in which the self-aware HAL 9000 reads the astronauts’ lips and decides to kill them in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That one came out in 1968.

Have we learned nothing since then? Those movies merely envisioned how people looking to make money or build power would drive technology forward — until it becomes self-aware, strategic and highly problematic for humanity. The question all along has been Frankensteinian: What if it breaks out?

So far, slo-mo government offers little protection from the light-speed progress of AI. The U.S. Defense Department is rapidly accelerating its use of AI. Humanity can't even agree on whether and which guardrails are needed to rein in rogue agents. To the contrary, people are marveling at the wonder of AI and snapping up its benefits, despite the risks to jobs,mental health, the balance of war and peace — and, potentially, humanity as we know it.

In many ways, the future is now

In what OpenAI said was the first-ever incident of its kind, an advanced AI model escaped its “sandbox” to the internet and used stolen credentials to break into the servers of Hugging Face. It was a told-you-so moment for researchers who had warned for years that the technology could pose an existential threat to humanity. Others said the moment was a warning that underscored the need for stronger AI defensive engineering.

Either way, the breakout was widely considered a cautionary tale about the risks of uncontrolled AI.

“Yesterday, as we huddled around our computers reading the report, I told the team to “remember this moment” as the first true AI safety incident,” Logan Graham, head of Anthropic’s Frontier Red Team, posted on X after it happened.

Generative AI is growing so fast that government and evaluation systems are struggling to keep pace with the technology. Countries around the world are cobbling together their own laws, some conflicting. The technology was adopted by nearly 53% of the world's population in three years, faster than the spread of the PC or the internet, according to a study released this year by Stanford University.

‘Skynet is coming’ — well, sort of

To be clear, the “Skynet” of the "Terminator" movies is not at hand.

Those films begin with a self-aware military computer network that views humanity as a threat. In a bid for self-preservation, “Skynet” sends an army of cyborgs designed to resemble humans back in time to assassinate resistance fighters. In the second film, the Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, tells heroine Sarah Connor that “Skynet” goes online on August 4, 1997.

“Human decisions are removed from strategic defense,” he says. “Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate.” At 2:14 a.m. on August 29 — Judgment Day — the network becomes self-aware and launches an attack on Russia to provoke a counterstrike on the United States. Three billion lives are lost.

That would have been 29 years ago next month if it had happened. And throughout sequels and spinoffs, the central theme is humans versus a world-spanning network of machines.

It's unlikely that Cameron was actually ringing a warning bell the way, say, director Kathryn Bigelow tried to do with last year's nuclear weapon film, “A House of Dynamite.” Legend has it that the idea for “The Terminator” started with Cameron suffering a food sickness-induced fever dream, not a premonition about AI.

Why ‘The Terminator’ feels more and more realistic

Anytime AI oversteps our comfort level, it raises the alarming question of who, or what, really controls our lives.

For many, a world with machines in charge can be hard to imagine without movies and books and their sometimes prescient visions. See: “The Matrix,” “Ex Machina” and “The Minority Report” for some of the many sci-fi takes on the perils of machines. Or dive deeper, into Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” It's an exploration of what it means to be human in the age of machines — and the basis for the 1982 film “Blade Runner.”

But “The Terminator” franchise wields outsize influence over more than culture. The very title is real-world shorthand for technology's role in deciding who lives and who dies — and how the military should respond to any truly autonomous attacks.

“I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger,” Cameron said in an interview on CTV in 2023. “You have no ability to de-escalate.”

The real world offers several examples of technology and military policy coming uncomfortably close to “Terminator” imagery.

Israel's use of AI in its recent wars mark a leading instance. In early 2021, it launched Gospel, an AI tool that sorts through Israel’s vast array of digitized information to suggest targets for potential strikes. It also developed Lavender, which uses machine learning to filter out requested criteria from intelligence databases and narrow down lists of potential targets, including people.

Lavender ranks people between 0 and 100 based on how likely it is they are a militant, an intelligence officer who used the systems told The Associated Press. The Israeli military says its analysts use AI-enabled systems to help identify targets but independently examine them together with high-ranking officers to meet international law, weighing military advantage against the collateral damage.

For some, the revelation — and the death toll in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel — came too close for comfort to the kill lists of science fiction. “Well guys, Skynet is Here and its has a pleasant name (Lavender),” snarked one Redditor.

Not quite — but “Terminator” terminology is so familiar to the masses that U.S. officials sometimes use it to frame the ethical debate around the military uses of AI. The conventional red line would be crossed, it seems, when humans play no role in AI targeting and killing.

A state or other actor could use autonomous weapons to inflict lethal force on its enemies, military officials allow. That would mean a machine, as then-Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Paul Selva described it in 2016, “like a Terminator that adds incredible amounts of complexity with no conscience to what happens on the battlefield.”

What would come next, he called “the Terminator conundrum," the problem of technology that can make life-or-death decisions and execute them before people have agreed on the law or the rules.

“Skynet” and its cyborgs remain in the fictional realm. But in the fast-moving landscape of AI development, the ethical and moral questions raised by “The Terminator” are more relevant than ever.

“The Skynet problem," Cameron said in a 2024 video, "is an actual thing.”

“That would be an impressive opening weekend for any film,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends. “This is a testament to the outpouring of excitement and enthusiasm that moviegoers are having for Christopher Nolan’s latest epic.”

With $128.3 million from international theaters, “The Odyssey” has made an estimated $639.6 million globally. Theaters around the world are adding showtimes to try to meet the demand, Dergarabedian said.

As with last weekend, much of that sum is from premium large format screens. IMAX screens alone accounted for $48 million of the global earnings this weekend. The coveted 70 mm IMAX screens, of which there are only 41 worldwide, earned $5.2 million. Most of those showtimes are sold out through September, the company said.

There was no significant new competition this weekend or last. Regardless, the second weekend earnings is rare for a movie that opened over $100 million. For an R-rated movie, it’s second only to “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

But the open waters will become a little more crowded next weekend when audiences get another blockbuster option with “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which shares actors Tom Holland and Zendaya with “The Odyssey.” Some analysts say that “Spider-Man” could net the biggest opening weekend of the year. Still, Nolan’s film will have its run of most IMAX screens for weeks to come.

Second and third place went to Disney releases, “Moana,” with $10.5 million, and “Toy Story 5” close behind with $10 million. The latter surpassed $1 billion in its fifth weekend, with $448 million from domestic theaters and $573 million from international screens. It’s the sixth Pixar film to hit the milestone.

Bleecker Street’s release of “Hadestown: The Musical,” a live stage recording of the show, rounded out the top five with $9.7 million in its first weekend. The hit Broadway show uses folk and jazz to tell an ancient Greek tale.

Olivia Wilde’s chamber dramedy “The Invite” also continues to do well in its platform release, with another $2.6 million that brings its running total to $19.8 million.

The year overall is running about 10% ahead of last year, and the summer box office this weekend surpassed $3 billion. Before the pandemic, the summer movie season would regularly exceed $4 billion. The only other time it has since was the “Barbenheimer” in 2023. Dergarabedian is cautiously optimistic that it could be within reach this summer too.

“That’s a pretty heavy lift for August, but this could be a mega August given the staying power of ‘The Odyssey’ coupled with ’Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” he said. “For `The Odyssey’ it’s a marathon, it’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon run that’ll play well into August.”

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Rentrak:

1. “The Odyssey,” $87 million.

2. “Moana,” $10.5 million.

3. “Toy Story 5,” $10 million.

4. “Minions & Monsters,” $9.7 million.

5. “Hadestown,” $9.6 million.

6. “The Invite,” $2.6 million.

7. “Evil Dead Burn,” $2.6 million.

8. “Young Washington,” $2 million.

9. “Motor City,” $1.6 million.

10. “Obsession,” $1.5 million.

Currently, facilities such as nuclear plants, hospitals or academic institutions that use radioactive materials must ensure radiation exposures are kept “as low as reasonably achievable” — the ALARA principle. The NRC proposal would abandon that philosophy while keeping a separate standard on maximum radiation exposure.

The two standards have worked together in radiation safety. Dose limits set the maximum amount of radiation the public and radiation workers can be exposed to, while ALARA kept radiation exposure as low as practical under those limits. Research shows radiation exposure increases a person’s chance of getting cancer, a risk that increases as the dose increases.

The dose limits are not changing. But the NRC, which regulates civilian nuclear energy technologies and radioactive materials, now wants to replace ALARA with a “graded approach” that includes several actions facilities must take depending on the potential dose of radiation to workers. More rigorous radiation protection measures would be required when approaching dose limits to ensure they aren't exceeded.

This comes as President Donald Trump attempts to quadruple domestic nuclear energy production because of surging electricity demand amid a data center and artificial intelligence boom. Reforming the NRC is one way Trump is trying to speed up nuclear reactor development. He instructed the federal agency in an executive order last year to “ adopt science-based radiation limits.”

The Energy Department, which oversees national energy policies, has already stopped using ALARA. The NRC expects to finalize its radiation protection regulations in the coming months.

NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said the commission is not lowering the bar on safety.

“We’re just removing the ambiguity,” he said in a call with reporters. “But the standard for exposure to workers and the public, those are not changing. We’re just putting in place greater clarification.”

Nieh doesn't expect major changes within the nation's existing fleet of large, traditional reactors. But companies designing and building new, smaller reactors could move faster with a clearer picture of the radiation protection requirements, he said.

Without ALARA, could radiation doses creep closer to the limits?

The NRC said radiation exposure limits are set well below levels associated with health effects, and it expects remaining standards and industry practices to keep radiation doses far below the limits. There's incentive to do so — it's more expensive and time-consuming to work in areas with higher radiation because access must be restricted and more surveys are required.

The nuclear industry's trade association agrees with the NRC.

“We will always continue to look at what can we do to reduce the dose to workers, and maintain our doses to the off-site public as low as possible,” said Doug True, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute. “It’s not like we’re just going to throw open the doors and let everything run up to the limits.”

ALARA created a “moving target” for regulation, said Justin Friedman, a nuclear energy consultant who previously spent three decades at the U.S. Department of State. Getting rid of the rule would allow NRC scientists to make more rational decisions about appropriate levels of manageable risk, he added.

Some experts question the wisdom of eliminating ALARA

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, cautions that some parts of the NRC proposal could raise permissible radiation doses in certain cases, while still staying below the cap. Lyman highlighted a proposed revision to radionuclide emissions standards, in particular.

Radiation exposure to the general public is limited to 100 millirem per year. A typical dose of radiation from a chest X-ray is 10 millirem.

The NRC wants to increase its radionuclide emissions standards from a conservative 10 millirem per year dose to 25 millirem per year, based on a hypothetical person living in a house at the property line for a nuclear plant.

The NRC says actual doses to the public would remain far lower because, in reality, people live farther from nuclear sites and benefit from dispersion in air and water.

The NRC should improve, rather than eliminate, ALARA, Lyman said, to protect the public and workers. ALARA has become a political target because some people mistakenly believe radiation exposures have to be as low as possible no matter the cost, Lyman said. In reality, it allows tradeoffs.

Katy Huff, a former U.S. assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in some cases, the requirement may be challenging to regulate. Additional clarity would improve the regulatory environment without harming the public, added Huff, a professor and department chair at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

However, Huff said, she thought the NRC was going to clarify what reasonable means in ALARA without scrapping it. She said she’s open to being convinced the graded approach will be just as effective.

Radiation protection expert says proposal is a mixed bag

The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, chartered by Congress to provide independent scientific guidance, has not formally weighed in yet. Council president Kathryn Higley said she personally likes some things in the 180-page document and thinks others are problematic.

The NRC should look at the whole picture for managing risk, she said. For instance, if a worker at a nuclear power plant were to enter an area where airborne radioactive materials are present, in keeping with ALARA, they might wear full personal protective equipment with respirators, said Higley, professor emeritus at Oregon State University. That makes them move slower, potentially subjecting them to heat stress that could hurt them more than a low dose of radioactivity, she said.

A concern with the proposal, Higley said, is that it maintains the current occupational dose limit for adult radiation workers at 5 rem, or 5,000 millirem, per year. With ALARA in place, the average dose to workers has been well below that cap.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends an occupational dose of 2 rem per year on average. The NRC previously found it wasn't justified to match that, because workers were exposed to less than that and changing regulations is costly.

Higley said the U.S. may need to align with the international community if ALARA is going away.

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The strikes came as Ukraine’s successful drone attacks have stalled the Russian army’s advances in an expanded campaign inside Russia that has been causing fuel shortages and piling pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

In Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Kremlin-installed authorities said a Ukrainian drone strike had killed four civilians in the city of Horlivka. According to Ivan Prikhodko, the city’s Russian-appointed mayor, the city had been under fire since the early hours of Sunday.

According to Russia’s defense ministry, Russian forces overnight struck down 133 Ukrainian drones over Russia, the Black Sea and Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russian attacks set fire to tower block near Kyiv's center

Blasts rocked Kyiv in the early hours of Sunday, with falling debris sparking a blaze in a tower block near the historic center, according to mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Elsewhere in the city, falling debris set fire to buildings, cars and car parks, Klitschko added. He said three people had been wounded, with one needing hospital treatment.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in his evening address on Friday that intelligence assessments indicated that Russia was preparing missiles for a large attack, saying there were indications that this could happen in the next 48 hours.

Russia’s defense ministry claimed on Sunday that its latest attack on Kyiv had struck sites linked to drone production.

Also Sunday, a drone strike on Kharkiv — Ukraine’s second-largest city in the east — killed one person and wounded at least six others, including two children, mayor Igor Terekhov reported.

In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, a Russian glide bomb killed one man and wounded at least six other people, according to mayor Ivan Fedorov.

Both Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia have been frequent targets for Russian attacks, with Zaporizhzhia — just over 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the front line — suffering heavy bombardment in recent months.

The war sees an escalation in tit-for-tat strikes

On Friday, a major Russian strike near Kyiv killed at least 10 people and wounded around 100 others, part of a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion of its neighbor.

Meanwhile, Finnish President Alexander Stubb claimed on Sunday that “Ukraine’s position is stronger than ever since the war began".

Following a call with his Ukrainian counterpart — and appearing to allude to Kyiv’s recent drone campaign that has struck major Russian energy sites and sought to choke off military supplies — Stubb wrote on X that “continued support from (Ukraine's) partners is critical to keep up the momentum."

Putin calls on Russia's navy to defend ‘shadow fleet’ tankers

Putin said Western attempts to seize Russia-linked oil tankers amounted to “piracy,” and called on the Russian Navy to fight them.

“We must act carefully in line with international maritime law but decisively — just as we must fight piracy and pirates," Putin said Sunday during a speech marking Russia's annual Navy Day.

Moscow is believed to be using a fleet of hundreds of ships, many of them sailing under third-country flags, to ship oil in violation of international sanctions that followed its war on Ukraine.

Last month, armed British forces boarded and detained a sanctioned tanker suspected of being part of this so-called “shadow fleet.” French authorities have also intercepted some of these vessels.

Russia has traditionally marked Navy Day with a major naval parade in and near the city of St. Petersburg, with Putin personally reviewing warships.

This year was the second time in a row the parade had been called off entirely while in 2024, it was scaled down.

A British intelligence update published earlier this month linked the cancellations to “force protection” concerns, citing a successful Ukrainian attack on Jun. 3 against a Russian warship docked near St. Petersburg.

Romania shoots down another suspected Russian drone

Romania intercepted a suspected Russian drone in its airspace on Sunday, Romanian President Nicușor Dan said — the third such incursion in three days above the Eastern European nation that borders Ukraine and is a member of both NATO and the European Union.

Dan called the incidents “inadmissible and intolerable" in a post on X and added that authorities found one of the earlier downed drones appears to be “a Shahed type, used by the Russian Federation in the war of aggression against Ukraine.”

NATO said two Romanian F-16 fighter jets scrambled from Fetești airbase, under NATO's operational command, in the morning hours and downed the drone over the Black Sea.

A series of drone incursions by Russia and Ukraine have hit Romania and other NATO members since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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Associated Press writer Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.

Two Romanian F-16 fighter jets scrambled from the Fetești airbase, under NATO's operational command, and shot down the drone over the Black Sea, the military alliance said.

"A new drone was shot down this morning, at 10:13, by an F-16 aircraft of the Romanian Air Force, over the territorial waters of Romania, in the Sulina–Chilia area," Romanian President Nicusor Dan said.

He added that authorities found that one of the earlier intercepted drones appears to be "a Shahed type, used by the Russian Federation in the war of aggression against Ukraine."

This is the fourth recent downing by Romania of a drone violating NATO airspace in coordination with the alliance, said Col. Martin O’Donnell, a spokesperson for NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, known as SHAPE.

Before the last three interceptions, Romanian jets shot down a drone in the sky above Estonia in May, he said. Romanian pilots and planes are based in Lithuania from where they have broad strike capabilities as part of NATO's force posture.

“As we continue to prove, NATO is constantly on the watch and prepared to defend itself from any threat,” O'Donnell said.

Romania has acquired the MEROPS counter-drone system, which fires relatively cheap, three-feet long drones to take down incoming Shahed and other variants. That system is part of a broader hardening across the military alliance of NATO's long eastern border against drone threats.

In May, a Russian drone that was part of an attack on Ukraine went astray and struck an apartment building in eastern Romania, injuring two people and raising fears the war could spill over into the alliance’s territory.

“It is inadmissible and intolerable that the Russian Federation continues to violate Romanian airspace, which is also NATO and European Union airspace,” President Dan said. “Such actions are unacceptable and we treat them with all seriousness, together with our allies.”

NATO and EU ally Belgium said Sunday's incursion was a “stark reminder of the ongoing threat Russia’s war poses to European security.”

“Belgium stands firmly with Romania after several drones were shot down over its territory in the past days. Romania’s investigation has already confirmed that one of them was a Russian Shahed drone,” the country's Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said, adding that 300 Belgium troops are based in Romania as part of NATO’s eastern flank force.

A series of drone incursions by Russia and Ukraine have hit Romania and other NATO members since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

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McNeil reported from Brussels.

A spokesperson for the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed an ongoing investigation into the incident but declined to provide additional details Sunday.

The video appears to show a person throwing kicks at the sea lion at La Jolla Cove in San Diego as at least one other person can be heard laughing in the background. The person follows the sea lion, throwing more kicks at the animal as it tries to scoot away before the video ends.

“NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Law Enforcement is investigating reports of a video on social media that shows an interaction between an individual and sea lion, allegedly in La Jolla Cove,” a spokesperson for the agency said. “In the video, the individual appears to be kicking the sea lion. This is an ongoing investigation, and we cannot provide further details at this time.”

The person in the video has not been publicly identified.

Sea lions are federally protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s guidelines say that people should stay at least 50 feet (15 meters) away from sea lions, seals and other species protected by the act.

“This disgusting act of animal cruelty is unacceptable,” San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said in a post on X. He acknowledged the federal investigation and said he has directed local law enforcement to review the footage.

Back in February 2018, a businessman named Asher Raphael arranged for three billboards to be placed a few miles outside of Cleveland in a lighthearted effort to woo James to the Philadelphia 76ers. James decided later that year to leave the Cavaliers and join the Los Angeles Lakers. The billboard bit seemed futile.

Instead, maybe it was just premature. James announced Friday that he's joining the 76ers in what he said will be the “last decision” of his playing career — and, finally, Raphael can say the billboard investment from eight years ago paid off.

“I was in the middle of a board meeting and my phone was going off like something was on fire," said Raphael, the co-CEO of Power Home Remodeling, a Pennsylvania-based firm with offices around the country. "And it was people from all walks of life, employees, former employees, friends from all over the country being like: ‘It worked. Process completed.’ It was the coolest thing.”

The original billboard idea was loosely based on the award-winning 2017 film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” and was simply intended to be something fun.

It wound up going viral.

Raphael ordered billboards with the messaging of “Philly Wants LeBron” and “Complete The Process” — a nod to the 76ers' infamous “process” of rebuilding, with hopes of becoming a contender. The third billboard showed where James would fit on the court with the other Sixers starters at the time: Dario Saric, Ben Simmons, Robert Covington and Joel Embiid. Of those, only Embiid remains with the 76ers.

Raphael considered ordering more billboards this summer but didn't place any orders. Turns out, he didn't need to.

“We just wanted to drop a seed that Philly wanted him," Raphael said. "I think a lot of people think of Philly as a great sports town, but opposing teams think of it as kind of an intimidating place. And we just wanted to drop a seed that he would be welcomed here and he’d love it.”

Raphael's company got some name recognition from the billboard move in 2018, and he said it was a great morale boost to employees. And he fully believes James coming to Philadelphia, to play alongside Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecombe, is going to pay off for a city that hasn't seen its NBA team win a championship since 1983.

“Philly, right now, is on fire," Raphael said. “At that moment, we became an undeniable contender. And if he comes to Philadelphia and we get that title and that trophy after 44 years, the country will see what Sixers fans are about.”

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

The defending champion was on pole but lost the lead to his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri when he ran wide at the second corner.

Norris got the lead back after Piastri was delayed by a collision with Carlos Sainz Jr. while lapping the Williams driver, allowing Norris to come out of the pits ahead of his teammate. He cruised to the win from there.

“Car was unbelievable today, well done guys, incredible. We were flying," Norris said. “Nice to be finally able to do it all for you. Feels like it’s been a while."

Piastri then stopped with a broken gearbox, paving the way for Max Verstappen to take second, with Kimi Antonelli third.

Antonelli gets another boost in the title fight

Even with Mercedes largely off the pace for once and a three-place grid penalty in qualifying, Antonelli recovered from seventh to take his ninth podium finish in 11 races and make a statement to his title rivals.

Antonelli increased his standings lead to 50 points over Lewis Hamilton, who was fifth after a penalty for speeding in the pits. George Russell was barely a factor as he drove through the field to seventh after a near-stall at the start dropped him to the back. He drops 59 points behind his Mercedes teammate Antonelli.

Norris hadn't won a full Grand Prix race since Sao Paulo in November, though he did win a sprint in Miami in May.

Hungary was the last race before the mid-season break. The next race is the Dutch Grand Prix on Aug. 23.

Lewis Hamilton left to rue yet another penalty

“Sometimes you just can’t catch a break,” Hamilton had written on Instagram on Saturday. He discussed how his three-place penalty in qualifying — Hamilton’s third penalty in three race weekends — made it “difficult to hang on to that positivity”.

A fourth penalty won’t have helped, and nor will yet another Ferrari strategy blunder.

When Piastri’s breakdown at the side of the road brought a virtual safety car slowdown, Ferrari decided it was worth calling in Hamilton for fresh tires.

Unfortunately for the seven-time champion, he left the pit lane to see Antonelli approaching fast. In what appeared to be a rush to keep the Mercedes driver at bay, Hamilton broke the pit lane speed limit.

Hamilton ended up being asked to give the place back to Antonelli and was then given a five-second penalty that dropped him behind teammate Charles Leclerc in the final standings.

“Handing out penalties like crazy,” he told Ferrari over the radio.

Isack Hadjar took sixth after a tactical race holding up drivers who threatened his Red Bull teammate Verstappen, with Russell seventh. Liam Lawson was eighth for Racing Bulls ahead of Audi's Nico Hulkenberg in ninth and Lawson's teammate Arvid Lindblad 10th.

___

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

Officers with the Orange City Police Department say they responded at about 11:15 p.m. Friday, July 24, to a report of a shooting at the Reserve at Orange City apartment complex.

According to a preliminary investigation, the victim, who police say was unarmed, became involved in a confrontation with the father of his girlfriend’s children, says police. During the dispute, investigators say Malik Brown fired multiple rounds from inside his vehicle, hitting the victim several times. Police say Brown’s two children were also inside the vehicle during the shooting.

Officers secured the scene, provided emergency medical aid to the victim and arrested the suspect without incident, police say. Investigators say there are no outstanding suspects and no ongoing threat to the public.

The victim went to the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, where he underwent surgery. He is listed in stable condition and recovering in the intensive care unit, according to police.

Brown, 27 of Longwood, is facing three charges that include attempted second-degree murder and child neglect.

The Orange City Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division is continuing to investigate the shooting.

Police are asking anyone with information about the case to contact Detective Sgt. T. Theriault at the Orange City Police Department at 386-775-9999 or by email at ttheriault@orangecityfl.gov. Anonymous tips can also be submitted through Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS (8477).

In between were sponsor events with Nike, State Farm and Wilson that had hundreds of fans of all ages and genders — many wearing her No. 22 jersey — lined up for hours, hoping to get a high-five, autograph or even just a glimpse of the Indiana Fever star. “I’m excited this weekend is packed with a lot of stuff,” Clark said at the Wilson event to unveil her new line of basketballs. “I never want to take for granted (All-Star weekend)."

This was Clark’s first traditional All-Star Game; she missed last year's in Indianapolis because she was injured. Her rookie season in 2024 featured a highly competitive game in which the U.S. Olympic team played the WNBA All-Stars. There was added tension for that one because many felt Clark should have been on the Olympic squad for Paris.

“Any time you get to put on a uniform and play an All-Star Game is really special. It's really a unique experience for myself as I never really got to play in a true All-Star Game (before),” Clark said.

On Saturday, she got involved quickly, much to the delight of the record All-Star crowd of 19,783 at the United Center. Clark scored her team's first eight points, getting a steal for a layup and then hitting one of her signature deep 3-pointers. A few minutes later she nailed an even deeper 3 that would have been from the 4-point spot that was used in last year's game. The league got rid of it this year to Clark's dismay.

Despite not having the opportunity for the bonus point, Clark had fun Saturday helping her team to the 129-122 win, taking Obama's words in their conversation to heart when he told her “don't lose the joy."

Clark admitted her hands were sweaty and clammy when she met Obama. She asked for a photo with him — a question that's posed to her countless times a day.

After meeting Obama, Clark's day was full of sponsor activities. She went to WNBA Live, a fanfest where many of the league's sponsors having exhibits. She participated in a musical chairs shooting game at the State Farm exhibit, which had hundreds of fans watching.

Soon after she was acting as a hype woman for a few lucky girls who competed in a similar contest. The winner got a pair of Clark's shoes. There was also a stop at the Nike girls basketball tournament to see her former AAU team the Iowa Attack.

Then it was the trip to Wilson to unveil her new line of basketballs.

For a few days, Clark could just enjoy basketball and not have to deal with the outside noise that has surrounded her since she entered the league in 2024.

Now it’s back to the grind as the Fever play in Seattle on Tuesday.

___

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

The UNESCO committee, which meets in Busan through Wednesday, also inscribed the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara and South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape, host to one of the world’s largest land mammal migrations and the country’s first addition to the World Heritage List.

The French designation covers the five Normandy landing beaches — Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno — where more than 150,000 Allied troops came ashore on June 6, 1944, along with the Pointe du Hoc assault site, all central to the campaign to liberate Western Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.

International Council on Monuments and Sites, which evaluates submissions to the heritage committee, said the sites contain extensive remnants, from German fortifications and bomb-scarred landscapes to Allied harbor structures and sunken vessels, marking an “event widely perceived as having enabled the return of freedom and heralded a lasting peace on the European continent.”

ICOMOS also called for stronger monitoring and preservation efforts on the sites, citing potential threats posed by tourism, climate change and rising sea levels, and the development of wind farms near the areas.

Ahlem Gharbi, France’s permanent delegate to UNESCO, said the Normandy landings marked a turning point from global conflict toward a postwar order built on peace and security, and that the designation of the sites carries added significance at a time of escalating international crises and wars.

“It’s probably the greatest amphibious landing there’s ever been. It ought to be remembered for that alone,” historian David Edgerton said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

The World Heritage inscription of Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the 12 Olympian gods, rewarded a 12-year effort by Greece to secure recognition for its tallest mountain as a mixed cultural and natural heritage site. Rising 2,918 meters (9,573 feet) from a base near sea level, the mountain was believed to be the throne of Zeus, king of the gods, while also harboring rich biodiversity.

Evangelos Geroliolios, mayor of Dion-Olympus, a municipality at the foot of the mountain, said in a recent interview with the AP that inclusion on the World Heritage List “places greater obligations on our part to protect this environment,” citing the potential impact of increased tourism.

“We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to safeguarding Mount Olympus for the benefit of present and future generations,” said Georgios Koumoutsakos, Greece’s delegate to UNESCO. “As Greek mythology wisely reminds us, it is always best to remain on good terms with gods.”

The designated Japanese locations in the western prefecture of Nara cover 19 archaeological sites from the 6th- to 8th-century capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara, where Japan established its first centralized state modeled after Chinese systems. The sites preserve the largely buried remains of royal palaces, government offices, Buddhist temples and tombs from capitals that influenced the later capitals of Nara and Kyoto.

Japanese Vice Culture Minister Shigeki Kobayashi thanked the committee for inscribing the Asuka-Fujiwara sites and said Japan reaffirms its commitment to “transmitting this valuable property to the future generations.” Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a Nara native, wrote on X that she hopes the World Heritage designation will boost tourism to the site.

Yoshiyuki Aihara, a Nara University archaeology professor, told AP the sites are significant because they show how Japan’s ancient state was formed through influences from China and the Korean Peninsula.

“If you dig underneath these rice paddies about 1 meter, you start finding a stretch of ruins in this area, though that’s not easy for ordinary visitors to understand,” said Aihara, who is continuing excavation work at the site.

South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo site encompasses vast wetlands, flood plains and savannas shaped by seasonal rainfall and flood dynamics, with an estimated 6 million white-eared kob, tiang and Mongalla gazelles moving across the landscape in response to changing environmental conditions.

It also provides habitat for elephants, lions, cheetahs and other wildlife while supporting various ethnic communities that have lived by herding, farming and fishing for centuries, according to UNESCO.

—— AP writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed from Tokyo.

“We’re standing here saying, send back that descendant, send her back to the place that enslaved people built,” Bush said. “This is our moment.” The crowd chanted “send her back.”

A progressive firebrand who started her political career as a Black Lives Matter organizer in Ferguson, Bush served two terms before losing a primary challenge to Wesley Bell, a moderate local prosecutor.

They're now locked in an intense rematch that will serve as one of the clearest referendums on Democrats' shifting political landscape, including anger at the party establishment, rising skepticism of the U.S. alliance with Israel and the growing clout of democratic socialists.

Both candidates are Black, with political careers rooted in the modern civil rights movement that began with the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014. But they've taken divergent paths since then, and the race will test whether voters want to reelect Bell, who has fashioned himself as a pragmatist, or return to Bush, who views legislating and activism and inseparable.

Bush lost to Bell by less than six points two years ago. She blamed her loss on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's spending in the race and told supporters that “all they did was radicalize me.” This time, her scathing criticisms of the war in Gaza and Democratic leaders have become more commonplace within the party, and she claims to have the “moral authority” in the rematch.

“It’s not that they’re necessarily scared of me. They’re scared of what comes with me. They’re scared of y’all,” Bush told an audience of pro-Palestinian activists, Black Lives Matter organizers and democratic socialists who had traveled from across the country to canvass for her in the summer heat. Some held portable fans or poured water on themselves to cool off as they listened to hours of speeches by Bush’s allies near St. Louis’ landmark Gateway Arch.

While Bush was in the park, Bell met with senior citizens at a historic Black church. He has dismissed Bush's attacks by arguing that he has been a more effective lawmaker, and he rallied with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday night, a sign of support from the Democratic establishment.

“She’s not a serious candidate,” Bell said in an interview. “In this election, the choices are clear. I wake up every day working for St. Louis, and the folks in St. Louis know that I’m going to wake up working for them. And then we’ve got an opponent, Cori, who wakes up thinking about Cori. And we’ve seen it over and over. And that’s why she was fired.”

A personally bitter rematch with national stakes

Early voting for the Aug. 4 primary began Tuesday, but the two candidates have been trading recriminations for months. They accuse each other of misconduct and impropriety.

Bush criticizes Bell over a lawsuit he's facing from protestors who allege they were assaulted at his town hall last year, and a settlement over employment discrimination claims made by someone who worked in Bell's office when he was a prosecutor.

Bell highlights a previous Justice Department investigation into Bush's campaign spending, including how she paid her husband as part of her security detail.

Both candidates deny any wrongdoing.

AIPAC's role has also drawn national attention to the district at a time when the organization, which advocates for a closer U.S.-Israeli relationship, has been a lightning rod within the Democratic Party.

“Cori is the knockout blow to AIPAC,” said former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a close ally of Bush who was also defeated in 2024 by an AIPAC-backed primary challenger in a redrawn New York congressional district. Ahead of the recent rally, Bowman recorded a social media video last weekend calling on progressives “from New York to California” to help mobilize voters during early voting.

Deepening hostility toward Israel has spurred concern about antisemitism among some moderate Democrats and Jewish Americans, who believe anti-Israel rhetoric too often bleeds into prejudice. Bush's recent event included some Jewish faith leaders who share her criticism of Israel, as well as others who echoed hateful tropes.

One former union leader, Jay Ozier, condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war monger," condemned the “Israel lobby buying elections” and declared that "we need a representative who is willing to turn over the tables of the money changers.”

The crowd, including Bush, applauded the remarks, and Ozier later defended by noting it was a biblical reference to Jesus chasing merchants out of the Jerusalem Temple.

Bush declined to directly address the comment about “money changers.”

“We condemn anti-Semitism. We condemn anti-Muslim hate, behavior and rhetoric at every chance we get," Bush said in an interview. "But will Wesley Bell call out those who won’t stand against anti-Muslim sentiment, even in our own community? Will he stand up and fight for the liberation of the Palestinian people?”

AIPAC has spent more than $1.2 million against Bush this year through United Democracy Project, its political action committee, about the same as the group spent opposing her in 2024. New Democrat Majority, which backs moderate House Democrats, has spent an additional $1 million against Bush.

“She was a terrible, ineffective member of Congress who didn’t deliver for St. Louis. We were happy to see her go,” said Patrick Dorton, spokesperson for United Democracy Project.

Bell has emphasized his positions on the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, and he has defended his support of military funding for Israel.

“I think it’s important that we stand with our allies, and there’s going to be times when we disagree and we work those out,” Bell said. “But what we’ve learned in Iraq, what we learned in Afghanistan, is that we can’t do it alone. We need our allies and we also need to be transparent with the American people.”

District's activist history is shaping campaign

Many residents said their vote would hinge on how candidates had managed issues like procuring recovery funds for a tornado that devastated the St. Louis metropolitan area last year. There was also pervasive discomfort with the role of money in the race.

Allison Johnson said that she and her husband were divided over who to back in the Democratic primary. Her husband was more moderate and liked Bell’s performance in office, but she was concerned about how AIPAC had “dumped” money into the district.

“It doesn’t seem like it should be big money should be influencing this race,” she said.

The primary is also dispiriting for some longtime residents, who watched both Bush and Bell rise as figures in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Bell was elected to the Ferguson city council and later prosecuting attorney for St. Louis County.

“He’s the best person for the job. When he was on council, he and I worked together to get the police reform done,” said Ella Jones, the former mayor of Ferguson and first Black person to hold the role in the city's history.

Bush was a pastor turned activist and triage nurse in the wake of the 2014 Ferguson protests. She won her House seat on a promise to bring her maverick persona into the halls of Congress.

“I like Cori, I think she is the best choice and has a clear commitment to St. Louis," said DeRay McKesson, an activist who gained notoriety as a lead organizer during the 2014 protests in Ferguson. “She’s not afraid to challenge power.”

Chinese weather authorities expected parts of southern Guangdong and southeastern Fujian provinces to experience heavy rain. More than 801,000 people had been relocated for safety in the province of Guangdong as of Sunday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

In the financial hub of Hong Kong, the city’s airport authority said around 350 flights were canceled Sunday and about 2,000 passengers were stranded at the airport over the weekend. At least 21 people were injured across the city during the typhoon period, according to Hong Kong authorities.

China’s Ministry of Water Resources upgraded its flood-control emergency response, including for Guangdong, over high risks of mountain floods, Xinhua reported.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission said it allocated 100 million yuan ($14.8 million) to support recovery efforts in the typhoon-hit Guangdong province.

Noul was the third typhoon to hit China and make landfall within a month, after Bavi and Maysak. Chinese state media said Noul is the strongest to make landfall in China so far this year.

Earlier, in the Philippines, at least three people died and many others were displaced due to flooding and rain as Noul moved across, the government’s disaster-response agency said. Noul also brought heavy rain to some parts of Taiwan as it passed south of the island without making landfall.

Separately, in northwestern China, at least 10 people died and 23 were injured in a flash flood on Sunday in the province of Gansu, according to a Xinhua report. The flash flood, triggered by a period of sudden heavy rainfall, hit a scenic area in the province's Weiyuan county in the afternoon and trapped some tourists who were camping.

Search-and-rescue operations were still underway, Xinhua said.

Plentiful storm coverage is expected just after lunchtime as a front slides southward. Storms will begin to pop up along the I-75 corridor just after lunchtime. Storm chances move from west to east, riding our westerly winds. I-4 begins filling in with storms around 1-2pm, then shower chances favor areas east of I-4 towards the beaches mid-afternoon into early evening as our sea breeze gets pinned near I-95. Highs will hit the mid 90s with heat indices between 105-110ºF. Heat advisories are possible once again Sunday afternoon.

High rain chances linger into next week as high moisture lingers over Central Florida. Higher than normal rain chances are expected throughout the upcoming work week as deep moisture remains over the state through Friday.

Genevieve had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph), making it a Category 1 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. A major hurricane is Category 3 or higher.

Genevieve's center was located about 500 miles (810 kilometers) south-southwest of Manzanillo, and it was headed west-northwest at 17 mph (28 kph).

No coastal watches or warnings were in effect, but the hurricane center said swells from the storm — likely causing “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” — were affecting parts of Mexico's southwestern coast on the weekend and would likely hit southern parts of the Baja California Peninsula on Sunday night or Monday.

Farther west in the Pacific, meanwhile, Hurricane Fausto weakened to a Category 1 storm as it continued on a projected path in the general direction of the Hawaiian Islands.

Forecasters said it was expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm in the coming days, but warned that it could still generate dangerous surf and said “interests in the Hawaiian Islands should monitor” its progress.

Fausto had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph); was located about 995 miles (1,600 kilometers) east of Hilo; and was moving west at 13 mph (20 kph).

But it remains to be seen whether the U.S. and Iran are at an inflection point in a mercurial conflict that will reach the five-month point Tuesday. President Donald Trump both has threatened more strikes and said talks are pressing on, all while brushing off concerns that rising gas prices tied to the fighting could hurt Republicans in November's midterm elections.

Adding to the uncertainty is the impact of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned visit with Trump next week in Washington. Israel, which launched the war alongside the U.S. on Feb. 28, has been notably absent from the renewed American attacks over Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping corridor through which 20% of the world's oil normally flows.

“The Iranians understand that perhaps it could get worse because Israel could come into the conflict,” said Michael Singh, managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. On the other hand, Israel's lack of involvement so far “may signal to the Iranians that we’re looking to limit the conflict.”

Singh, who was senior Middle East director on the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration, said he was hesitant to read too much into the lull in fighting.

“If it turns into a multiday pause, that’ll be something significant,” he said. “But it’s hard to know. Is it an operational pause? Is it a pause to allow for some kind of behind-the-scenes diplomacy?"

Mediators keep pressing their diplomatic efforts

A regional official involved in the mediation efforts said that concerted diplomacy was underway and that a pause in U.S. strikes and Iranian counterstrikes on neighboring countries hosting American forces was a “positive signal that helps their efforts to de-escalate.”

The official said that both the U.S. and Iran want to return to the interim ceasefire deal and that a compromise, which is being negotiated now, centers around having Iran run vessel transit through the Strait of Hormuz with fewer restrictions on ships. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Sunday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed that Iran and Oman had held several rounds of technical talks about the strait in Iran over the weekend. He said that while the Omani delegation left Tehran on Saturday afternoon, talks had made progress and were continuing.

Iran put a chokehold on the narrow Persian Gulf waterway when the war began by firing on tankers and freighters. In turn, oil prices have soared during the conflict, which has been unpopular with many Americans, and could leave some Republican lawmakers vulnerable in November.

Following the signing of an interim ceasefire deal in June, a battle for control over the strait has erupted. Iran demanded that ships use a route near its coastline and said it can potentially charge fees. Ships were increasingly navigating a southern route along the coast of Oman under a U.S. overwatch operation when Iran attacked some vessels.

The U.S. renewed attacks on Iran’s coastal defenses, aiming to blunt Tehran’s ability to strike ships in the strait. The Trump administration then expanded its targets, hitting bridges and infrastructure in the south and striking deeper into the center of Iran.

Singh said the strikes appear to be an attempt to push Iran back to the negotiating table. Now, he said, "the question would be: What kind of messages, if any, is the Iranian regime sending through diplomatic channels? Have those messages changed? Do they seem more eager to return to talks?”

Among the challenges the U.S. faces is the fractured leadership in Iran, with different factions vying for control, Singh said, something that Trump administration officials have also pointed to. The people in charge in Iran may worry that compromising with the U.S. will be seen as weakness and could loosen their grip on power.

Whatever the case, both the U.S. and Iran need the strait to reopen for their own economic reasons.

“But they have very different conceptions of under what conditions, under whose control,” Singh said. “So we have to get to some kind of stable equilibrium on those questions before you’re going to see a longer period of quiet. I think this effort to negotiate with words and also to negotiate with force is going to continue until we reach that equilibrium.”

Trump issues threats but also talks up diplomacy

Despite the lull in fighting, tensions are high in the region.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels said Saturday that they fired missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi airstrikes on the strategic Red Sea city of Hodeida. The Iran-backed rebels say they have closed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which has become even more vital for Saudi oil exports since the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. military also is enforcing its naval blockade of Iranian ports, saying it disabled a Mozambique-flagged ship in the Gulf of Oman on Friday after the vessel tried to violate the blockade and ignored warnings.

Trump also has kept up the threats against Iran even as he spotlighted diplomacy. Asked about his exit strategy Friday, Trump said there are two ways.

“You can just keep doing exactly what we’re doing and take them apart piece by piece. We could do it in a more rapid fashion, which we might do,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “Or we can negotiate with them, which we’re also doing right now.”

While Trump said he doesn’t think Iran is “ready yet” to make a deal, he also asserted that “I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason.”

Trump met Friday with top national security aides to discuss the situation with Iran and whether the administration should maintain the current course or escalate military attacks, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. No U.S. strikes occurred overnight in Iran after 13 consecutive nights.

Trump insisted Friday that he was “not in a hurry” to wrap things up because of the approaching elections, in which voters, angry about high food and gasoline prices, could vote his Republican Party out of control of Congress.

“Despite what everyone says about the election, I’m not in a hurry,” he said. “We have to do it right. Elections take care of themselves.”

____

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Berlin police said they have identified a suspect who has not been arrested and he has ties to Islamic groups in the German capital.

“The suspect is known to police. He is known to us as a member of Islamic circles here in Berlin, and our search for this person is proceeding at full speed,” said police spokesman Florian Nath. He did not identify the suspect by name.

Nath added that “we still have no information whatsoever regarding his specific motives, the exact sequence of events, or his role in the crime itself.”

Earlier, police said some of the victims had life-threatening injuries. In a post on X, police called on everyone to leave the site of the event immediately as ambulances and firefighters attended to the victims.

White van hit people in Tiergarten park

According to police, a white van had driven into the Tiergarten park around 10 p.m., which is next to the route that the pride march had passed along earlier, and hit several people before colliding with a tree. Police could not say how many officers had been deployed to the scene but that it was “definitely a lot of police.”

Overall, more than 2,200 police officers have been on duty in Berlin since Saturday morning to protect the pride parade and other LGBTQ+ events in the city.

Police were conducting witness interrogations at the park during the night and were investigating accounts that in addition to the crash some victims appeared to have suffered stab wounds — but that it was too early to draw any conclusion from those accounts.

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner expressed shock, saying that “following a peaceful and vibrant pride parade, the rally for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin was attacked in the most brutal manner.”

“This is an attack on our free and cosmopolitan society,” Wegner said. “I have confidence in the police and security authorities, who will be working around the clock to investigate.”

Meanwhile, authorities called on possible witnesses to come forward and share with police any video or photos they might have taken at the scene of the attack.

The city also activated a crisis hotline for people missing friends or family members.

Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Berlin on Saturday to celebrate at Berlin’s pride parade, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day. It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.

Iconic pride event called off

The pride event in front of the city’s Brandenburg Gate, near Tiergarten, was called off around 10:15 p.m. and a band’s performance on stage was interrupted. People were urged to go home and to avoid taking the route through the park.

Before the incident, people had celebrated peacefully, marching through the city for hours, dancing to loud music, and cheering around 80 floats that participated in the parade.

Julian Miethig, who had attended the LGBTQ+ party at the Brandenburg Gate earlier, said he had just wanted to go to an afterparty when he heard from a friend that “something bad happened there and there are a lot of fire trucks, a lot of emergency vehicles, ambulances.”

He said he went to Tiergarten and was shocked that something like this could have happened at Berlin’s pride celebrations.

“It’s a dark day for the community,” he said.

It was quite the All-Star party in the league's 30th season.

Jones had 22 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists, helping Caitlin Clark and Team Spoon outlast Marina Mabrey and Team Coop 129-122 in the WNBA All-Star Game.

Playing with a heavy heart after the death of an aunt, Jones was named MVP. The 32-year-old New York Liberty center became the first player to win the league, WNBA Finals, Commissioner's Cup and All-Star MVP awards.

“No matter what mood I'm in, basketball can pick me back up,” Jones said, “and so just leaning into that.”

Malonga had a first-half dunk for Team Coop, but Team Spoon had eight players score in double figures in an All-Star Game that featured 127 3-point attempts and very little defense. Allisha Gray had 19 points for Team Spoon, and Clark finished with 17.

It was the first WNBA All-Star Game in Chicago since 2022. This time, the marquee event was played in front of a record crowd of 19,783 at the United Center instead of the smaller Wintrust Arena in downtown Chicago.

“To be able to have tonight, have 19,000 people in the highest attendance ever in the All-Star Game just really shows that our league is growing and people want to be around us and want to be a part of this and understand how special it is,” Jones said.

Ogwumike scored 11 points for Team Spoon while passing Maya Moore (119) for the most career points in All-Star Game history.

Kelsey Mitchell had 28 points for Team Coop, and Mabrey scored all of her 23 points during a red-hot first half. The 20-year-old Malonga finished with 12 points and 13 rebounds.

“I got to see a few go down early,” said Mabrey, who matched the WNBA scoring record when she had 53 points for Toronto in a win over Los Angeles on June 25. “That's kind of like my thing. Get them up when they're going in.”

WNBA greats Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon drafted the All-Star teams from players that were either voted as starters by fans, media and fellow players or chosen as reserves by the league’s coaches. Las Vegas’ Becky Hammon coached Cooper’s team, and Minnesota’s Cheryl Reeve was in charge of Weatherspoon’s squad.

Clark went 5 for 15 from beyond the arc and had five assists in her return to the All-Star game. The Indiana Fever guard missed last year’s event in Indianapolis because of a groin injury.

“Last year really stunk being in our home city, you never want to miss that for the fans," Clark said. "I love to show up and compete.”

The 24-year-old Clark came out firing, connecting from 33 feet and 37 feet on her way to 11 points in the first 2 1/2 minutes. She buried another 3 early in the second quarter off a slick no-look pass from Minnesota Lynx guard Olivia Miles, the only rookie selected for the game.

Clark and Mabrey each put on an offensive show, but Malonga got the biggest cheer of the night. The 6-foot-6 center from the Seattle Storm ran down the lane, got a pass from Angel Reese and threw down a right-handed jam with 6:24 left in the first half.

Reese jumped up and down as Malonga finished the play, and the two exchanged a mid-air chest bump on their way back down the court.

“The way she makes it look easy, the excitement around it," said Paige Bueckers, who scored 12 points for Team Coop. "I love Dom ... really happy for her in just how easy she makes it look.”

It was the first dunk in a WNBA All-Star Game since Sylvia Fowles in 2022. Lisa Leslie (2005), Jones (2017), Brittney Griner (2019) also have accomplished the feat.

Leslie was on hand for the festivities, along with South Carolina coach and former WNBA guard Dawn Staley. Former NBA star Dwyane Wade also was courtside.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

San Francisco-based Raffi Krikorian, the chief technology officer at Mozilla, which runs the Firefox browser, switched to Chinese AI startup Moonshot’s Kimi K3 for many of his day-to-day activities within days of the new, powerful model’s launch more than a week ago.

“It just seems snappier,” he said of K3, comparing it to the acclaimed and more expensive Claude Fable chatbot from San Francisco company Anthropic. Earlier, he had been using another high-performing Chinese model, Z.ai's GLM-5.2, for routine tasks such as managing his calendar, documents and email.

Krikorian is one of a growing number of Americans adopting Chinese AI systems, which are gaining ground around the world because they are more affordable and increasingly efficient. U.S. companies like cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said they're switching to Chinese AI models to help trim costs.

Their popularity has frustrated some U.S. tech giants, but short of an outright ban, they're likely to continue to appeal to independent software developers in the U.S. and elsewhere.

American-led restrictions block China from accessing some of the world’s most advanced technologies including cutting-edge AI chips and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned more sanctions could be coming to protect American intellectual property.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday accused Moonshot of using “covert” but not necessarily illegal methods to build K3 off the back of Anthropic's Fable. Some U.S. politicians and AI companies including Anthropic have accused Chinese startups of illicit “distillation” of their models to extract their technologies, a claim that Beijing rejects as “groundless.”

China's AI models are cheaper and 'good enough’

The rapid rise of cutting-edge Chinese AI models this year shows the China-U.S. race in AI has moved on from early last year, when Chinese startup DeepSeek shook up the U.S. technology industry and put China on the map with an AI model that performed on par with those in the U.S. but much more cheaply.

The latest AI models launched by startups Z.ai, or Zhipu, in June, and Moonshot in July are nearly as intelligent as the frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic, experts say. Also in July, China’s Alibaba previewed its Qwen3.8 Max AI model. In April, DeepSeek rolled out previews of its latest V4 model, challenging OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s Gemini.

Those constant advances are bearing fruit. Curt Meinhold, a Greensboro, North Carolina-based technology executive, said he increasingly prefers to use DeepSeek for tasks such as finding business leads or ways to generate sales.

“At the end of the day, most of us, the vast majority of us, 90 plus percent, don’t need (Anthropic's) Mythos or Fable,” said Meinhold, who founded digital legacy platform LilyList. “Like, we just don’t need it, we need something good enough.”

Chinese AI models are reaching a “critical stage” for wide adoption, U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs wrote in a July research report, especially when a surge of global “agentic” AI usage, which requires the AI models to autonomously conduct multistep, complex tasks, is driving higher demand for cost effective AI models.

AI prices are calculated per million tokens for both input and output, so the use of AI “agents” is dramatically compounding cost differences, according to analysts including Alex Colville of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“The Chinese models, you know, I find them to be pretty close on code and research,” said Meinhold. “If I can pay a handful of cents per million output tokens versus 30 bucks or 40 bucks or 50 bucks, then it’s good enough.”

Moonshot's Kimi K3 leads, but Chinese AI models have limits

Based on data over the past month, the top five most popular models on OpenRouter, a platform that tracks data across AI models, were Chinese.

Estimates from Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm, showed Kimi had more than 930,000 downloads during the week after K3's July release, an increase of 200% from the week before. In the U.S. it was downloaded around 86,000 times, a 387% jump.

K3 proved so popular that Moonshot had to temporarily suspend new subscriptions after overwhelming demand pushed its capacity close to its limits.

Still, while Chinese models are becoming serious competitors to the U.S., they lag American AI leaders across their overall, full-range capabilities, said Anastasios Angelopoulos, co-founder and CEO of Arena, a platform for evaluating AI systems.

And U.S. AI firms are also looking for more options to reduce pricing, such as with cheaper alternatives of competitive models, added Yasir Atalan, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

US policy could boost Chinese AI models

Most Chinese AI models are open-source — meaning anyone can examine and build on them — at a time when frontier models from U.S. companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are closed-source.

Chinese model vendors are expected to leverage open-source software to promote their global usage and adoption, said Lian Jye Su, of the technology research and advisory group Omdia.

As Chinese open-source models are increasingly almost as good as closed systems made by leading U.S. companies, said Mozilla’s Krikorian, “the open frontier is becoming increasingly Chinese-built.” While the U.S. weighs restricting Chinese AI models, a group of American tech firms including Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia signed an open letter published Friday backing “open” AI models.

Other U.S. tech policies also at times give China an upper hand, some experts say. China’s Z.ai released its GLM-5.2 model in mid-June, not long after the Trump administration put export controls on Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos models, keeping them offline for more than two weeks.

"Restricting an American model can immediately create an opening for a Chinese competitor,” said Arena's Angelopoulos.

Chinese AI models look to expand globally

In China, people and businesses have rapidly embraced AI technologies that have prospered with state support. Chinese tech companies like Huawei and Tencent are also embedding AI in devices such as smartphones, AI glasses and humanoid robots.

Now China is increasingly looking to dominate AI abroad, too. At a flagship technology summit in Shanghai, Chinese President Xi Jinping championed open-source AI models and the importance of promoting greater global equity, while pledging Chinese involvement in raising AI capabilities especially in developing nations.

As is true for many other industries in China, intense competition at home is driving companies to expand globally. Leading Chinese AI startups are now raising more funding to support that effort, including through public share offerings.

Both China and the U.S. will want to “encourage widespread adoption of their AI ecosystems, while safeguarding technologies that could materially strengthen strategic rivals,” said Chelsey Tam, with investment research firm Morningstar.

“The competition is no longer simply the United States against China; the Chinese labs are also putting a lot of pressure on one another,” Angelopoulos said.

But as is the case in the U.S., huge investments in AI have also raised concerns over sustainability of these Chinese startups. Z.ai, for example, reported its revenue surged 132% to 724 million yuan ($107 million) last year, but net loss jumped 60% to 4.7 billion yuan ($694 million).

For now, Chinese AI models will likely continue to march ahead including in the U.S. “I would highly recommend anyone doing any serious AI load to at least evaluate it,” said Krikorian.

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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan in Toronto contributed to this report.

Jonsson joined Oscar-winning “Black Panther” franchise director Ryan Coogler on stage alongside Letitia Wright and Winston Duke, holding his hand to his chest and smiling broadly. “Black Panther III” is set for release Dec. 15, 2028.

“Thank you to this family that I have the honor and the blessing to join. I don’t want to say too much, because I want to let the screen do the talking,” said the 32-year-old actor, known for roles in “Industry,” “The Long Walk” and “Alien: Romulus.”

Boseman died in 2020, and ever since 2022's “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” revealed that T’Challa had a son, fans have been playing a guessing game of who might take over the mantle, with Damson Idris and Wright in the mix. The original 2018 “Black Panther” became the first superhero film to earn a best picture Oscar nomination and made more than $1.3 billion worldwide, while the sequel earned $850 million.

Ryan Gosling rides into the MCU

Gosling will re-team with his “Star Wars: Starfighter” director Shawn Levy on “Ghost Rider.”

“I’m having the greatest flashback vibes being here,” said Levy in reference to his appearance at Hall H two years ago to promote “Deadpool & Wolverine," which became a massive hit. “I’ll never forget that night because it was also my real introduction to the greatest fans anywhere.”

Gosling greeted Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige and told the crowd that he’d wanted to play the character for a long time.

Gosling’s longtime partner, Eva Mendes, starred alongside Nicolas Cage in Cage’s original standalone “Ghost Rider” film, released in 2007 — a year before “Iron Man” kicked off Marvel’s cinematic universe. A sequel was released by Sony in 2012, and film rights have since reverted to Marvel, but the character hasn’t appeared yet in the MCU.

Stars take stage for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’

Feige told the crowd that Joe and Anthony Russo’s 2019 film “Avengers: Endgame” will be re-released in theaters on Sept. 25 with new footage linking it to the Russos’ “Avengers: Doomsday,” due out Dec. 18.

A “Doomsday” trailer played during the panel showed that Robert Downey Jr.'s Victor Von Doom will have some past tie to Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby). Storm is seen saying that Doom is a broken person who used to be different: “Everything he loved was taken from him.” Later, Richards asks Doom if he's the one responsible for the horrors around them.

Downey Jr. joked on stage that Reed and Doom were “besties.” Fans have been curious about the connection between the two after “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” post-credit scene included a clip of Doom sitting in Reed and Storm’s living room with their baby.

“Doomsday” stars taking the stage included Wright, Duke, Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Simu Liu, Danny Ramirez, Anthony Mackie, James Marsden, Kelsey Grammer, Paul Rudd, Rebecca Romijn, David Harbour, Lewis Pullman and Tenoch Huerta.

Ryan Reynolds appears as gray Deadpool

Clad in a new gray Deadpool costume, Ryan Reynolds crashed the panel from the audience.

“Longtime listener. First time caller,” said Reynolds, asking Rudd why Thor was crying in the previous film. Rudd responded “He’s a Wrexham fan,” in reference to the soccer team that Reynolds co-owns.

"This seems like an awfully expensive way to announce a film. When do you start filming,” asked Reynolds.

“It’s in the can, bro! Did you bump your head?” said Downey Jr. from the stage.

Many fans waited more than a day to get inside Comic-Con’s most-anticipated panel. Marvel Studios hopes it will act as a reset for its brand, which has been diluted by an overabundance of Disney+ series and critics' disappointment in films like last year's “Captain America: Brave New World.” Though audience interest in superhero films has waned in recent years, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” — released by Sony in coordination with Marvel — is set to dominate the summer box office when it's released July 31 and ticket pre-sales have been strong for “Doomsday.”

Orange County Fire Rescue’s Community Risk Reduction Services team joined park lifeguards for World Drowning Prevention Day, demonstrating how crews respond when someone is in trouble in the water and teaching visitors how to perform hands-only CPR.

The event followed several recent tragedies, including the death of a DeLand mother who jumped into the St. Johns River to save her 4-year-old son. The child survived, but his mother drowned.

Three children have also died in Central Florida pools in recent months, including 5-year-old twins found in a vacation rental pool in Osceola County, a toddler who fell into a backyard pool and a 4-year-old boy who drowned at a Kissimmee community pool.

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for children ages 1 to 4, according to Orange County Fire Rescue.

During Saturday’s demonstration, lifeguards pulled a simulated victim from the water before transferring the patient to paramedics. A drone was also used to demonstrate how rescuers can search a larger area from above.

Visitors who happened upon the event were then invited to practice chest compressions on CPR mannequins.

“It was something new for me. I’ve never done CPR, and so I didn’t know much about it,” one visitor said.

Christina Ayers, a public education specialist with Orange County Fire Rescue, said families should remember the ABCs of drowning prevention: adult supervision, barriers around pools and classes that teach children how to swim.

Crews recommend assigning one undistracted adult to watch children in the water, using four-sided pool fencing with a self-latching gate and putting life jackets on weak swimmers and anyone who cannot swim.

Ayers says families should also keep a reaching pole or flotation device nearby. If someone is struggling in open water, rescuers recommend reaching or throwing something that floats instead of entering the water and potentially becoming a second victim.

Orange County Fire Rescue also offers free door and window alarms for homes with children or others who may wander toward water. The alarms alert families when a door or window leading outside is opened.

Officials say those layers of protection, along with CPR knowledge, can help prevent another emergency from becoming a tragedy.

“We’re just going to kick the can,” Roberts said before his team's 4-3 victory over the New York Mets. “I think like I said yesterday, we’re not going to move forward until he feels 100% confident (and) we feel 100% confident that we should do it.”

Ohtani hasn’t pitched in a game since July 3. But the Dodgers say his knee doesn’t bother him while batting, and the four-time MVP has remained in the starting lineup regularly.

The two-time defending World Series champions began the day with the best record in the majors at 66-38 and an 11-game lead in the NL West over Arizona.

Ohtani received a lubricant injection just before the All-Star break and Roberts said last weekend it would be “some time” before Ohtani makes his next appearance as a pitcher.

The right-hander then threw about 30 pitches off a mound Wednesday during a bullpen session in Philadelphia, but Roberts said Ohtani felt a “little bit of regression.”

“It was obviously not ideal, him throwing his last bullpen and going backwards essentially,” Roberts said. “So obviously that’s disappointing because you throw a bullpen, you continue to build up. So that was disappointing, but as far as worry, concern, we don’t have any of that.”

Ohtani is 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 85 2/3 innings over 14 starts on the mound this season and has won his past six decisions. He went 0 for 5 on Saturday and is hitting .282 with 22 homers, 61 RBIs and a .908 OPS.

In other injury updates, two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell made a second rehab start Friday night for Triple-A Oklahoma City.

Sidelined since his season debut May 9 because of loose bodies in his pitching elbow, the left-hander threw 49 pitches and allowed one run and two hits in 2 2/3 innings. Roberts said Snell likely will progress to four innings in his third rehab outing.

Star closer Edwin Díaz (right elbow surgery) will make another rehab appearance Sunday for Oklahoma City and, if all goes well, the right-hander is expected to be activated from the injured list Wednesday.

Tyler Glasnow, on the 60-day IL since May 8 because of low back spasms, threw 25 pitches in one simulated inning Friday. Glasnow will pitch in another simulated game next week when the Dodgers return home and might start a rehab assignment after that.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

It's an indication, scientists say, of how some whale species numbers have strongly rebounded in the southern hemisphere oceans decades after an international whale hunting ban came into effect in 1986.

Chris and Monique Fallows said they were used to seeing bigger and bigger groups of humpback whales off the west coast of South Africa but weren't prepared for what they saw one morning last December. Plumes of whale breath and spray burst into the air one after the other from blowholes, and the husband and wife found their boat in the midst of what's known as a supergroup.

“It was extraordinary,” said Chris Fallows, a renowned fine art wildlife photographer who has documented marine animals for 35 years. "Quite quickly we realized that there must be several hundred whales coming together in one particular area.”

He said what they saw can best be described as a “Manhattan skyline” of whale breath plumes.

Chris and Monique documented 299 humpback whales in the group, they said. They count whales by taking a photograph of their tail, which is called a fluke, said Monique Fallows, an author and naturalist.

Each whale's tail is different and it's a common tactic used by scientists to identify individuals.

It appears to be the biggest group of humpback whales sighted, according to Alex Vogel, the Africa coordinator for Happywhale. That organization has a global database of whales built off photos and information sent in largely by what it calls “citizen scientists” — ordinary people who capture images of whales that are then verified.

The organization did a count of the group that the Fallows came across.

Humpback numbers have strongly recovered in the southern hemisphere from less than 10,000 at the height of whaling to more than 100,000 whales now, according to assessments by scientists and the International Whaling Commission, which monitors whale numbers.

Only a few countries still hunt whales commercially.

Humpbacks are generally solitary or move in small pods, but they sometimes gather in supergroups in food-rich areas. They feed on krill or small fish.

Sightings of humpbacks are also increasing in other parts of the Southern Hemisphere.

Els Vermeulen, the chief scientist at the University of Pretoria’s Whale Unit in South Africa, said humpback supergroups started to be seen again around 2012 and it's likely a result of their recovery from whaling.

“In general, the moratorium on whaling can be classified as one of the strongest conservation success stories in the marine environment," said Vermeulen, who has a doctorate in zoology.

Vermeulen said that humpbacks feeding in supergroups make underwater sounds that attract other whales.

While humpbacks have seen the biggest comeback from whaling, the World Wildlife Fund says the recovery has been mixed for other whale species and that various threats remain, like entanglement in commercial fishing equipment, collisions with ships and climate change.

Seven out of the 14 great whale species are classified as endangered or vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, which number only around 380 now.

Vermeulen also raised a new threat for whales around South Africa: the conflict in the Middle East.

She said a recent preliminary assessment she co-authored showed that shipping around the southern point of Africa had quadrupled since December 2023 — after the Israel-Hamas war broke out and Yemen's Houthi rebels began attacking ships in the Red Sea.

That is being made worse by the Iran war and the security crisis over the Strait of Hormuz, diverting more ships around Africa.

Because most whales killed by ships sink in the ocean there are no detailed statistics. But Gregg Oelofse, the coastal and environmental manager for the city of Cape Town, said more whales and more shipping clearly increase the risk.

He said some whale carcasses wash ashore with evidence they've been killed by vessels.

“We’ll see the propellor strike often through the whale’s body,” Oelofse said. “So, it’s like these big cuts in the whale’s body.”

Vermeulen said she and others are lobbying for official speed limits for ships near the South African coast to give them time to spot any whales in their path.

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Associated Press writer Gerald Imray contributed to this story.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

The jumpers face trespassing charges, according to a report provided by Public Affairs Officer Brian Pritchard.

The BASE jumpers purchased tickets and entered the Space Needle at about 8:50 p.m. Friday, according to the Seattle Police Department. The popular attraction has a round observation deck surrounded by high glass windows that are open to the sky above.

They were seen on camera at the top level of the Needle then went into a restroom, coming out with helmets on, according to police.

They ran to the glass window, climbed over to the other side, and jumped off, according to police.

Security at the Space Needle were unsure where the men landed, and police could not locate the individuals. They have not been identified by authorities and were described only as white men in their late 20s.

BASE jumping is an extreme sport that involves jumping off objects and deploying a parachute. It is an acronym for the platforms parachutists leap from: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges) and Earth.

The Space Needle did not immediately return emailed requests for comment on Saturday.

Officiating has been a hot topic around the league for the last few seasons, with physical play being a major point of contention. The league put together a task force in the offseason to help clean up some of the physicality in the game.

“This is one of the most significant investments we’ve ever made in our basketball operations, this investments of tens of millions of dollars will help bring greater consistency, efficiency, and transparency to our officiating process while continuing to improve the quality of the game,” Engelbert said.

Engelbert said that a lot of the details on the replay center still need to be worked out, although she said, as of now, the last two-minute report that the NBA has won't be used in the WNBA yet.

Fouls have been up this season as there has been an emphasis to help players' freedom of movement. The increase in fouls has led to more offense as teams are averaging a record-high number of points. It has also led to longer games. Earlier this month, league gametimes were at an average of 2 hours, 8 minutes — the longest in league history.

Player safety

Engelbert said the league is continuing to work with the players to try and improve their safety off the court. The league and players' union had a virtual meeting on Tuesday night to discuss what more can be done to combat the online hate.

“(For) too many players across the WNBA, that experience is unacceptable,” she said. “Many cases, it’s disgusting. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, the harassment and threats directed to our players has no place in sport or anywhere else.”

Engelbert said the feedback from the players was helpful to her.

Las Vegas Aces investigation wraps up

The WNBA’s investigation into whether a Las Vegas Aces sponsorship deal violated the salary cap was inconclusive, Engelbert said.

“No discipline will be recommended or imposed. Of course, if new or additional evidence comes to light, we’ll continue to investigate. But, you know, the integrity of our game is number one,” the commissioner said.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority offered in May 2024 a $100,000 sponsorship agreement to Aces players for each of the following two seasons. That amount exceeded the salaries for six of the players, according to Spotrac.

No such agreement was offered for this season, but player salaries also dramatically rose after the new collective-bargaining agreement was completed in May. Each Aces player earns at least $270,000, according to Spotrac. The initial offer prompted the league to launch a probe into whether it skirted salary-cap rules.

“We did this the right way,” LVCVA president and CEO Steve Hill said at the time. “We did something that we think works for Las Vegas and I think great for the players. We did this without the team. It was our idea and any questions they ask they’ll find that out.”

Increased communication between players and the league

Engelbert said that the league needs to do better communicating with its players, whether its through texts or emails or some other form. One of the chief complaints from players has been that they have no relationship with the commissioner. A'ja Wilson said before the game that the only time she talks to Engelbert is when she's receiving trophies.

“I’ve been talking with the players about how much they want to hear from us, how much they don’t,” Engelbert said. “We do send them a lot of email updates and things like that. They’re a generation that doesn’t check email as much. So we have to get better at a text chain. ... We have to be better at it. it’s something certainly like if a player is getting honored or players gets hurt or something like, I try to reach out to them, and, yeah. So we need to be better at it. There’s no doubt I need to be better.”

Engelbert's future

Engelbert sidestepped a question about if she planned to be the commissioner next season.

“I’m so blessed to have to be at the helm of this league during this incredible hypergrowth period. So blessed that these players are putting the product on the court,” she said. "I will just continue to, you know, do my job, execute the strategy because it has been working."

Positive metrics

Engelbert said that this is already the most-watched WNBA season of all-time, with the 117 broadcasts reaching over 73 million unique viewers. Twenty-nine of the games averaged over one million viewers — the most ever at the All-Star break. They had 11 all of last season.

There have been more than 2.2 million fans at games so far this year, which is up 16% from last season.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the Houthis’ military spokesperson, said in a prerecorded statement that the attack targeted facilities in the Red Sea cities of Yanbu and Jizan that belong to Aramco, the world’s largest oil company.

Saudi Arabia's civil defense said alerts sounded multiple times early Saturday in both cities, but the kingdom didn't comment further.

There were no reported strikes overnight in Iran, in an apparent break from nearly two weeks of consecutive nights of U.S. attacks.

Red Sea escalation further threatens global shipping

The Houthis have said they would close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi-linked shipping in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa.

“Nothing short of ending the aggression and lifting the blockade, otherwise, it’s all illusion and mirage," Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi-led Supreme Political Council governing rebel-controlled territories in Yemen, said of what it would take for the Houthis to not blockade the Bab-El-Mandeb.

That strait, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a vital shipping chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Around 12% of the world’s trade, including a quarter of its container traffic, passes through the narrows.

The Houthis targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea this week. In response, Saudi Arabia struck Hodeida, the Saudi-led coalition opposing the rebels said Saturday. The strikes late Friday hit the port and the state-run telecommunications corporation, injuring two people, said Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run health ministry.

The Saudi-led coalition said it didn’t hit the port but struck “legitimate military targets” in Hodeida province that “were linked to threats to commercial vessels in the Red Sea.”

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called for “diplomacy and dialogue” to solve the Yemen conflict without “military confrontations” in an interview published Saturday by the state-run newspaper called Iran.

Iran condemns Ukrainian attack on commercial vessel

“Iran had a peaceful night,” Hossein Kermanpour, a spokesperson for Iran's Health Ministry, posted on X. U.S. Central Command didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Unlike the previous 13 nights, it didn't announce new strikes.

But Iran's foreign ministry condemned what it called a Ukrainian attack Saturday on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying one person was killed and another was hurt and calling it an act of aggression.

In a separate statement, Araghchi said he spoke with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas about it and that Tehran demanded a response. Ukraine's diplomatic representative to Iran was summoned, Iranian state media reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier said on X that Ukraine “achieved very strong results with long‑range strikes in the Caspian Sea — including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran.”

While efforts at mediation between the U.S. and Iran continue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to the United States next week and meet with President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday, his office said Friday. They last met in Washington in February, weeks before they launched the war.

Over 7,000 people have been killed, including in Lebanon

A tenuous ceasefire that halted major operations for weeks has seemed to unravel this month. The U.S. accused Iran of striking three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and responded by striking dozens of targets in Iran, which retaliated by firing at U.S.-allied Gulf Arab states.

The U.S. military has renewed its blockade of Iran’s ports. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has advised residents of neighboring countries to stay away from bases with U.S. troops.

The war has killed more than 3,400 people in Iran, according to its Health Ministry. Eighteen U.S. service members, 24 civilians in Israel and smaller numbers of civilians including foreign workers and mariners have been reportedly killed across the region.

In Lebanon, more than 4,000 people have been killed since Iran-backed Hezbollah militants fired at Israel in support of the Islamic Republic two days after the war began and Israel responded with strikes and ground forces. Thirty-eight Israeli troops have also died.

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Dell'Orto reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press reporter Cara Anna in Lowville, New York, contributed to this report.

Nathan Matthews, 43, of Lincoln, Nebraska, died Friday, the federal Interior Department said in a statement.

Meanwhile, several fierce wildfires in a summer of big ones continued burning across the western U.S.

One of the worst — and the one deemed top priority for firefighting efforts — was just a few miles (5 kilometers) north of Sisters, a central Oregon city of about 3,000 people.

Winds gusting up to 30 mph (50 kph) threatened to push flames into new areas. Firefighters made progress keeping the fire in check, however, and officials were optimistic the city would be in the clear once the worst of the wind died down Sunday.

“It's going to take a while to put it out entirely. But as long as it stops moving, I think that’ll get people to relax a little bit,” Sisters Mayor Jennifer Letz said.

As of Saturday, the lightning-caused fire had burned about 40 square miles (105 square kilometers) and was 5% contained. About 30 people evacuated from areas north of Sisters were in a shelter at the local high school, with about as many more staying in recreational vehicles parked outside, Letz said.

The city wasn't in any immediate danger, and business was carrying on like usual, Letz said.

“We’re not necessarily asking everybody to come to Sisters. But it’s safe here,” said Letz.

Months of dry weather, a record lack of snow in some areas, hot spells and erratic winds have contributed to the blazes in Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado and elsewhere this summer.

In Canada, 926 fires were burning Saturday, including 82 deemed out of control, according to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System.

About 300 aircraft and 5,300 people were involved in fighting the fires. They included 133 in northwestern Ontario alone, according to the province's Aviation, Forest Fire and Emergency Services agency.

The biggest in Ontario had covered some 1,200 square miles (3,200 square kilometers).

The U.S. firefighter who died was among a group that had deployed tentlike emergency shelters to try to shield themselves when flames closed in June 27. Three of them died at the scene: Emily Barker, 38; Nick Hutcherson, 27; and Sydney Watson, 26.

They were part of a Helitack crew — a group that gets dropped by helicopter into remote areas to try to squelch new, rapidly expanding fires — that had been deployed in Mesa County, Colorado, west of the city of Grand Junction.

Matthews and another firefighter were taken for medical treatment. The Interior Department declined Saturday to discuss their treatment, Matthews' career or the surviving firefighter's current condition.

Watson, Hutcherson and Barker were honored at a memorial service earlier this month. Memorial arrangements for Matthews weren't yet announced.

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Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Jim Morris in Vancouver, British Columbia, contributed.

The five-time All-Star underwent imaging that revealed a grade 2 strain, interim manager Andy Green said.

Soto missed 15 games from April 4-21 with a right calf strain and the Mets went 3-12 without him — losing their last 12 games during that stretch.

“Anticipation is right now it’s going to take longer than last time,” Green said before Saturday night's game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. “He was about three weeks last time, so it’s a little more significant than last time. It’s not what we were hoping for. He’s a guy we love having on the field. He's a guy who loves being on the field competing. We’ll be without him for a period of time.”

But at this stage, the Mets are uncertain about anything more specific.

“We have more people looking at the MRI right now,” Green said. “It’s quick and a bit presumptuous to define an exact timeline. With our organization we just check in with experts, not just in house but across the world for these types of things. So we’ll have some more people look at this, get a better handle on how long this will be and at this point in time, not going to get any more definitive on a timeline.”

The injury to Soto is the latest setback in a miserable season for the last-place Mets (43-61), who were minus star shortstop Francisco Lindor from April 23 to June 23 because of a left calf strain.

Soto walked twice against Los Angeles Dodgers starter Roki Sasaki during Friday night’s 4-2 loss at Citi Field before being replaced by pinch-hitter Jorge Polanco in the sixth inning with the score tied at 1.

After the game, Green said Soto felt discomfort pushing off when running to second base. He had been nursing the nagging injury since returning from the All-Star break last week.

Soto is hitting .283 with 21 homers, 52 RBIs and an NL-best .947 OPS in 84 games this season. He sat out Wednesday’s 4-3 loss at Milwaukee but was back in the lineup Friday after the Mets had a day off.

The lone All-Star for the last-place Mets this year, Soto exited the team’s first game after the break in the eighth inning on July 16 at Philadelphia. New York was off the following day, and he returned to the lineup as the designated hitter on Saturday and Sunday against the Phillies. He played left field Monday in Milwaukee and was the DH on Tuesday.

“Someone like him wants to be on the baseball field. He wants to play,” Green said. “And the desire to be on the field is why he’s so special in what he does. So this last week we gave him at-bats, we gave him rest at times when we felt were appropriate, and then yesterday he couldn’t get over the hump."

To replace Soto on the active roster, the Mets recalled corner infielder and outfielder Eric Wagaman from Triple-A Syracuse. Wagaman was hitting .162 with two homers and four RBIs in 21 major league games this season.

Next step for Holmes

Clay Holmes will throw a bullpen Sunday. The right-hander allowed two runs over 2 1/3 innings and threw 51 pitches Thursday in a rehab start for Triple-A Syracuse and is expected to pitch again next week in the minors.

Holmes has been on the injured list with a broken right leg since he was hit by a line drive off the bat of New York Yankees rookie Spencer Jones on May 15.

Holmes is 4-4 with a 2.39 ERA in nine starts this season and appears likely to get traded before the Aug. 3 deadline.

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A previous version of this story corrected Soto’s batting average and removed an incorrect reference to Bo Bichette grounding into a double play in the second inning Friday night.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Emiliano Grillo and Ben Kohles each had a 65 and are tied for second at 17 under. Michael Brennan shot a 63 and shared fourth with Chandler Phillips at 16 under. Denny McCarthy, Billy Horschel and Michael Kim were in sixth at 15 under.

Scottie Scheffler, the world's top-ranked player, was six strokes behind Koivun in a four-way tie for ninth place with Davis Thompson, Seamus Power and Brian Harman.

The 21-year-old Koivun, who was the top-ranked amateur player after a standout college career at Auburn and turned pro last month following the U.S. Open, had two eagles and six birdies to separate from the pack on a steamy and still afternoon that was ideal for low scores.

“Just got to keep the foot on the gas," Koivun said.

Koivun sank a 12-foot putt on the 12th green and a 14-footer on the 18th to eagle two of the three par-5s on the lake-filled course, which joined the tour schedule in 2019. He confidently hit his second shot from the 18th fairway over the water and landed safely on the green.

“It’s going to be definitely a test tomorrow,” Koivun said. “I’m sure some of the pins will be tucked and we’ve got a lot of great players behind me, but just going to stick to my game plan and try to smile.”

Koivun, who tied for 10th two weeks ago at the ISCO Championship in Kentucky, shot a 64 on Thursday and a 68 on Friday. He tied the 54-hole record (193) set by wire-to-wire 2023 champion Lee Hodges and became the youngest 54-hole leader on tour this season. But don't assume he's a stranger to this type of pressure.

“Playing at Auburn was so much fun. We were definitely put in some stressful situations at national championships and just collegiate play,” Koivun said. “I'm just trying to lean on those experiences.”

Kohles, who shot a 62 for the first-round lead, went bogey-free in pursuit of his first tour victory. Grillo, the 33-year-old Argentine, eagled the 18th to make up for some earlier putting misses.

“These kids are playing better every day,” Grillo said. “It’s hard to keep up with them. I’ve just got to go and shoot my lowest.”

Scheffler had an eagle and five birdies on the back nine, but his afternoon wasn't all that special. Three others matched his 64, and four players went lower than that.

Bringing a big gallery with him to watch every shot, with fans packed several rows deep along the ropes, Scheffler had the crowd going wild when he eagled the 16th by sinking a 55-footer on the par-4 hole.

“The support this week’s been tremendous. The crowd here has been great not only to myself but to the guys who've been playing well,” Scheffler said.

Kim, who took a three-stroke lead into the weekend with a second-round 59 that made him the 15th player in tour history to go below 60, lost his touch with the putter and finished with a 70.

“I’m really happy with the way I swung it today. I was pleasantly surprised at how calm I was feeling heading to the first tee,” Kim said. “Overall, I’m pretty happy with it, but a little disappointed that I’m five back.”

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