Graham, 71, died Saturday evening after a tear in his aorta, according to a statement from his office Sunday. The shocking news came as another prominent Republican senator, former Republican leader Mitch McConnell, has been hospitalized for almost a month. McConnell broke a weekslong silence about his health Sunday, saying he was still recovering after suffering from pneumonia and falling in his home.

The continued absence of McConnell, R-Ky., and the surprise death of the South Carolina senator have shaken Republicans who were already at odds with Trump and stalled on several priorities as they return from a two-week recess. And the reduced Republican numbers in the 53-47 Senate are sure to add confusion to what was already expected to be a chaotic and difficult few months before the November midterm elections.

Despite consolidated power in Washington, Republicans have been unable to move much of their legislation forward as the Senate, House and White House have disagreed on legislative priorities and as Trump has criticized Senate Republicans, in particular, for not passing his legislation to require proof of citizenship for voters. Graham, who was one of Trump’s closest friends in the Senate, often served as a pivotal intermediary.

“He was a great — like a gauge, a temperature gauge of the Senate,” Trump said of Graham on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, noting he had talked to Graham on Saturday. “He could go in and get something approved. He would just get people on his side.”

As the Senate convened Monday, Graham's desk was draped in black cloth and held a vase of white roses, as is customary when a senator dies in office. In his opening remarks, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said “it's difficult to count the ways in which Lindsey's friendship made this job richer and its burdens lighter.”

Graham "was as loyal as they come and a trusted adviser,” Thune said.

Republican priorities are stalled

The Senate left town two weeks ago after a rough few weeks for Republicans. Trump blocked senators from confirming one of his own nominees, asked them to fund parts of his White House ballroom project despite opposition and forced them to defend the Iran war even as they questioned the strategy and endgame.

He also refused to sign a bipartisan, election year housing bill that had passed overwhelmingly in both chambers, arguing that they should pass his bill to require proof of citizenship, the SAVE America Act, instead. The housing bill became law Friday at midnight after he declined to sign it but did not veto it.

The alliance between Trump and Senate Republicans has also been weakened after the president endorsed the opponents of two Republican senators who had been reliable votes, John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Cassidy challenged Trump directly on the Iran war in a Capitol meeting between Trump and Republicans just before they left town.

Senate’s agenda is uncertain

Republicans return to a number of important agenda items, including the confirmation of Trump’s pick for attorney general, Todd Blanche, and the confirmation of Jay Clayton, whom Trump selected to be director of national intelligence and later temporarily blocked. Both will testify in confirmation hearings this week.

Senate Republicans also must find a way to navigate Democratic opposition and Trump’s continued ire to keep the government open and prevent a government shutdown when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. Graham was a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, as is McConnell.

Graham also sat on the Judiciary Committee that will consider Blanche’s nomination and is the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, which has been under pressure from House Republicans and Trump to move a budget package with increased defense spending for Iran.

There is also bipartisan legislation to move forward on a package of Russia sanctions that Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut had announced on Friday after an agreement with the Trump administration.

Blumenthal told The Associated Press on Sunday that Graham was “absolutely focused on this moment” as they announced the sanctions package after months of negotiations. He said he hopes Graham’s memory will inspire the Senate to move forward.

“We’ve really reached this moment where all of the stars are aligned and we will be lacking Lindsey’s spectacular advocacy,” Blumenthal said.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also urged passage of the sanctions bill as they spoke about Graham on the Senate floor Monday.

Graham’s death came after a trip to Ukraine

Senate leaders have not announced how they will honor Graham, who died after a tear in the inner wall of the aorta, called an aortic dissection, related to hardening of Graham’s arteries, according to his office. An official cause of death will be disclosed after toxicological and microscopic testing, his office said.

Graham, a prominent South Carolina Republican and former Air Force lawyer who served in Congress for more than three decades, had just returned from a trip to Ukraine. Thune said it was Graham's 10th trip to the country, and he “died with his boots on.”

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday appointed Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, as his temporary replacement in the Senate. She will serve for the remainder of his term, which ends in January.

A special election will be held next month to pick a new Republican nominee in the general election for Graham’s seat. He had been seeking a fifth term this year.

Possible candidates include three Republicans who fell short for the party’s nomination for governor this year — Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Ralph Norman and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette. Also in the mix is Rep. Russell Fry, who was elected to the House in 2022.

McConnell not expected to return immediately

McConnell’s Sunday announcement revealed for the first time that a fall led to his hospitalization, breaking the silence about his condition after weeks of mounting speculation about his health.

The Kentucky Republican, who is retiring in January, said in a statement that he was “briefly unconscious” around the time he was first taken to the hospital in June and has undergone a battery of tests to try to determine what led to his fall. He said he was also treated for mild pneumonia and has been moved to a rehabilitation facility.

“My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages,” McConnell said, adding that he is now “regaining my strength.”

He said he cannot return to the Senate “quite yet.”

Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, has been named as her late brother’s temporary replacement in the U.S. Senate. Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress and an advocate for U.S. military aggression in Iran, died Saturday at 71 after a tear in his aorta.

The Latest:

Trump says memorandum of understanding was “built to test” Iran

“Memorandum of understanding when you’re dealing with sleazebags don’t mean much,” Trump said during an interview with Hugh Hewitt.

Trump said he questioned why the U.S. was entering into a memorandum of understanding to create a ceasefire with Iran rather than moving toward a full deal first. Trump last week declared the ceasefire was “over.”

“They didn’t honor the test,” Trump said.

Trump promises at least two more rounds of strikes on Iran are coming

“We’re going to hit them very hard tonight and we’re going to hit them hard tomorrow — and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “They have nothing. They have nothing going, other than they have big mouths.”

The president did not elaborate but him saying that more strikes were coming previously preceded a new round of U.S. military strikes on targets in Iran.

Darline Graham Nordone, sister of Lindsey Graham, picked to fulfill remainder of his US Senate term

Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, has been named as her late brother’s temporary replacement in the U.S. Senate.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced at a news conference at the Statehouse on Monday that Nordone would serve the remaining months on Graham’s current term, which expires in January. A person familiar with the appointment process but not authorized to speak about it publicly said Nardone would be sworn in Wednesday. She will be the first woman to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.

“It is such an honor,” Nordone said. “Lindsey has always been there for me. And now, I will be there for him.”

Graham died over the weekend at age 71. He never married or had a family of his own, but Nordone was often by her brother’s side for the political touch points of his career, speaking at events and appearing in some of his campaign ads.

Senators deliver emotional tributes to Lindsey Graham after his sudden death

Graham’s desk was covered in black cloth and a vase of white roses as the Senate opened Monday afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune eulogized Graham as a friend and a statesman, saying he “died with his boots on” because he had just returned from his 10th trip to Ukraine.

One day “we will laugh together again,” Thune said, tearing up during his opening remarks.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the seniormost Senate Republican, said he was used to being the butt of Graham’s jokes. He “always brought a smile to your face and levity to the halls of Congress,” Grassley said.

Grassley said the Senate could “show our appreciation” for Graham by passing a bipartisan package of Russian sanctions that Graham introduced on Friday, just before his death on Saturday.

US military’s tally of deaths in the Iran war has risen to 14

That’s after a Navy pilot died in a helicopter crash on July 1 in the Arabian Sea. The Navy initially called it an emergency landing and said there was “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.”

The Pentagon’s war casualty count added one non-hostile death in July. A U.S. Central Command spokesman confirmed it was the pilot.

It’s the first death since 13 service members were killed in two separate incidents in March at the beginning of the war.

A total of 414 service members have been wounded, including a U.S. Air Force member added Monday.

While Iran and the U.S. have resumed strikes, it’s unclear if that’s what led to the injury. U.S. Central Command and the Air Force wouldn’t offer details. Most troops were wounded in March, while 34 were wounded in April and three in June.

Trump to address the nation on Thursday

The president posted on social media that he would be “making a Speech to the Nation” at 9 p.m. EDT on Thursday.

Trump appeared to refer to himself in the third person in the post.

He did not disclose the details of his planned speech, but the announcement comes after Trump said he would block Iran-related ships from traveling through the Strait of Hormuz and that the U.S. would charge a 20% fee on all cargo going through the waterway.

US military to resume Iranian blockade

The U.S. military says it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT.

U.S. Central Command said on social media that it “will enforce the blockade against vessels transiting to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas” and will “support traffic flow through regional waters for all vessels not violating the blockade.”

A notice to mariners released Monday by the U.S. military warned of using force if ships don’t comply. It also said the military will let through humanitarian shipments.

The statement follows Trump declaring that the U.S. would be reinstating the naval blockade and charging a 20% toll on eligible cargo.

Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, would not say whether the military would be collecting tolls as part of the blockade and referred questions on Trump’s post to the White House.

UN maritime organization is against charging fees for passage through international straits

The International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency which oversees safety and security measures in international shipping, said the group was waiting to find out more about Trump’s proposal but said its stance on tolls remains unchanged.

“We have always been consistent on its stance on fees – IMO stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation. There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait,” the organization said in a statement.

Rubio has previously said the US wouldn’t allow tolls in the Strait of Hormuz

Trump’s announcement comes after Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Gulf leaders late last month and said the U.S. would not support Iran charging fees for ships to go through the Strait of Hormuz.

“That’s international waterway. There isn’t a nation on Earth that supports having to pay money to go through the Straits,” Rubio told reporters in Bahrain on June 25.

Rubio also said there was “zero support among the Gulf countries for any sort of toll or fees or anything that charges for the use of international waters. The president’s made it clear that’s not going to happen. It’s not going to be a part of this. It cannot be a part of this.”

Judge blasts Trump’s IRS lawsuit as filed for ‘improper purpose,’ recommends attorney discipline

A federal judge said Monday that Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was filed for an “improper purpose” as she referred attorneys for disciplinary actions.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams amounts to a stinging rebuke of the Republican president’s lawsuit, characterizing it as an exercise in self-dealing in which he sued an entity that is effectively under his control.

The suit concluded in May with a settlement agreement that created a since-abandoned $1.776 billion fund meant to compensate allies of the president, as well as immunity from tax audits.

“This was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law,” the judge wrote.

US military uses drone boats in a first-of-its-kind attack

U.S. Central Command says it used drone ships to hit an Iranian ship maintenance facility and submarine, calling it first.

“Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations,” the command said on social media Monday.

The post featured video of the drone boats approaching a dock that had a submarine sitting on top of it followed by aerial footage of the explosion on Sunday.

The strike comes despite the Trump administration’s claim that it has completely destroyed Iran’s navy.

The Corsair drones also were used to help rescue a pair of Army aviators from the waters off Oman early in June after their Apache helicopter was struck by an Iranian drone.

ICE involved in fatal shooting in Maine, state House speaker says

Democrat Ryan Fecteau posted on Facebook that the shooting Monday in Biddeford, outside Portland, involved U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that the State Police and Maine Department of Public Safety were at the scene, and that he expects the FBI to investigate.

Few details are available. ICE, the FBI and the Maine Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Project Relief, an immigrant rights advocacy group, posted that “a young person” from its community was killed “during an encounter with ICE in Biddeford.” Protesters have already begun gathering at Mechanics Park in Biddeford.

This would be at least the ninth death from an encounter with federal immigration officials since the start of the Trump administration’s mass deportations agenda and the second in a week, following the killing of a Houston man.

EU rallies dozens of nations to pledge $1 billion for recovery fund in Gaza

The European Union coordinated efforts to raise 900 million euros ($1 billion) in aid for Gaza, working with 65 governments and organizations including the White House and the United Nations, the bloc’s top diplomat said Monday.

Kaja Kallas announced the fund after a meeting of the Palestine Donors Group in Brussels.

“The EU is the most credible supporter, for the Palestinian people. We are the largest donor and the strongest backer of the two-state solution,” she said.

The meeting was the second gathering of the Team Gaza Initiative, an effort by the EU to rally support for recovery projects like sanitation and farming in the destitute and war-ravaged coastal enclave of some 2 million people.

Ukraine fears Graham’s death leaves weaker link to Trump

Just days before his death, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was standing in Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Square, giving Ukrainians reason for optimism: He said new hard-hitting bipartisan economic sanctions against Russia were within reach back in Washington.

Now Ukraine’s leaders are devastated. Graham had been one of Kyiv’s closest allies in Washington and a trusted intermediary with Trump, who had a strained relationship with Zelenskyy. They fear that without Graham, Ukraine’s ability to influence could be diminished across a broad range of issues.

“Huge and absolutely unexpected loss,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, a lawmaker with Zelenskyy’s party. “He was the closest link between Ukraine, our president and Trump,” he added. “Our position in Trump’s entourage might be weaker.”

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Ukraine and nine other countries announce a coalition to protect Europe from ballistic missiles

Ukraine and nine other countries have formed a coalition to protect Europe from ballistic missiles. The 10 countries announced the agreement at talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris on Monday, taking advantage of Kyiv’s experience of fighting Russia.

“Our goal is to build a shared ballistic missile defense capability for Europe,” their statement said.

Zelenskyy went to France seeking help against Russia’s ballistic missiles, which have pummeled his country in the more than four years since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion.

Putin was unyielding after Kyiv’s long-range attacks on refineries, tankers and terminals have caused widespread fuel shortages. “Wherever they attempt to strike Russian territory, we will respond in kind, but our strikes will be several times more powerful,” Putin told pro-Kremlin activists.

Trump says all but Iran will have ‘fair and open’ use of strait — after paying US a 20% toll

A fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed through the strait without paying any fees before Iran asserted control over it after the start of the war.

Iran says it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with an interim peace deal reached last month. The U.S. and others dispute that, citing international law on freedom of navigation, and the American military has tried to establish an alternative route outside of Iranian control.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, called for the strait to be open, as it was before the war. “Freedom of navigation has to be respected,” she said.

Trump says Gov. McMaster should appoint Graham’s sister to finish his term

Trump says he’s recommended that Lindsey Graham’s sister be named as his temporary replacement in the U.S. Senate.

Trump posted on social media Monday that Gov. Henry McMaster should appoint Darline Graham Nordone to fulfill the rest of Graham’s term, which expires in January.

Graham died over the weekend at age 71, and McMaster is expected to announce his pick later Monday afternoon.

After their parents died at a young age, Graham was left to raise his sister, whom he later adopted. The pair were very close, and Graham’s sister was by his side as he filed reelection paperwork earlier this year.

The Democratic Party’s direction also is at stake in Michigan and Wisconsin

Following the downfall of Graham Platner in Maine, progressives view the Upper Midwest Senate races as their last chance to shape the Democrats’ Senate caucus and prove their theory of the case in the midterm elections.

In Michigan, Rep. Haley Stevens is running against progressive Abdul El-Sayed for the state’s Democratic Senate nomination in a race Democrats must win to hold the seat held by Sen. Gary Peters, who is retiring and has endorsed Stevens.

In Wisconsin, democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong has surged in the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary against more conventional Democratic lawmakers, including former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and current Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez.

Michigan voters choose nominees on Aug. 4. The primaries in Minnesota and Wisconsin are Aug. 11.

▶ Read more

What happened to Minnesota nice?

In Minnesota, the two leading Senate candidates have clashed over electability, their ties to corporate interests and willingness to fight Trump’s administration.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, backed by progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, says her opponent, Rep. Angie Craig, is backed by “secretive dark money groups.”

“The very folks who are standing in the way of the things that people need to be able to afford their lives, who are Democrats, are funded by these corporate special interests,” Flanagan told The Associated Press.

Craig counters that Flanagan has raised campaign funds from major companies, and that if she becomes the Democratic nominee, Republicans would focus on her ties to an ongoing fraud inquiry into the state’s Medicaid programs. “To stop Donald Trump, we’ve got to win elections,” Craig told the AP.

The next big races between moderates and progressives are in pivotal Midwestern states

Progressives hope to prove economic populism resonates beyond deep blue enclaves. Democratic Party leaders worry progressive candidates could damage their brand and imperil their chances of retaking either chamber of Congress.

August primaries in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota will be another gauge of Democratic voters’ frustration with the establishment. The Upper Midwest is a battleground for progressives and moderates. The outcomes could impact Democrats’ chances in the upcoming midterms and shape their party’s future direction.

How will a special primary work?

South Carolina law requires a one-week filing period beginning July 21, for a special primary to be held on Aug. 11. A runoff if necessary would be held on Aug. 25, leaving the nominee just over two months to campaign for the general election on Nov. 3.

All of this is problematic according to federal law, which requires military and overseas ballots to go out 45 days before any federal election. For the general election primary, that would have been June 27. Federal Election Commission officials didn’t immediately return a message seeking clarity.

Los Angeles City Attorney's Office spokesman Ivor Pine confirmed in a statement to The Associated Press on Monday that Jackson's case has been assigned for a pre-filing diversion available to eligible individuals. The City Attorney Hearing is an alternative to misdemeanor criminal prosecution.

Though charges will not be filed against Jackson at this time, the case remains open and can be re-evaluated if there are more developments.

At the time of the arrest, the Los Angeles Police Department said officers were called to Jackson's home in the West Hills neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley. NBC4 reported that Jackson allegedly attempted to take a phone away from a woman when he thought he was being recorded, and the woman had scratches on her arm.

Jackson has been the Rams’ starting left tackle for the past three seasons, starting 45 regular-season games and six playoff games. The former undrafted free agent re-signed with the Rams on a three-year, $57 million deal in February 2025.

The Rams issued a statement following the arrest saying the team was aware of the incident "and we take these matters very seriously. Due to this being an ongoing legal situation, we cannot comment further at this time.”

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

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced at a news conference at the Statehouse on Monday that Nordone would serve the remaining months on Graham's current term, which expires in January. She's expected to be sworn in this week, making her the first woman to represent the state in the Senate.

“It is such an honor,” Nordone said, as dozens of Graham staffers and campaign advisers stood behind her, some with eyes glassy from welling tears. “Lindsey has always been there for me. And now, I will be there for him.”

Graham died on Saturday night at age 71. He never married or had a family of his own, but Nordone was often by her brother's side for the political touch points of his career, speaking at events and appearing in some of his campaign ads.

After their parents died at a young age, Graham was left to raise his sister, for whom he later became legal guardian. They were very close, and she was there as he filed reelection paperwork earlier this year, along with her children and grandchildren.

“To Lindsey, I miss you more than I can even put into words," Nordone said, emotion rising in her voice. "But I'm going to do this. I got it.”

Introducing Nordone, McMaster said the two had spoken in “in the wee hours of Sunday morning” after Graham's death, and he asked her to serve.

“I had wondered what you would say, and I was humbled by your quickness to see the duty that you had to serve,” McMaster said. He added that President Donald Trump “thought it was a great idea” when he later told him of his pick. Trump announced his support for Nardone to fill the seat earlier Monday.

Nordone has worked as an optician and at various state agencies, including the South Carolina Commission for the Blind and the Department of Employment and Workforce. She lives in Lexington, is a graduate of the College of Charleston and has a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling.

How will a special primary work?

A special election will be held next month to pick a new Republican nominee in the general election for Graham’s seat. He had been seeking a fifth term this year.

The rare open Senate seat has ignited a scramble among South Carolina’s most ambitious conservatives, who have been eager to climb the political ladder.

Republicans just finished a sprawling and bruising contest to figure out their nominee for succeeding McMaster, who is wrapping up his second term. State Attorney General Alan Wilson won the nomination, overcoming a field that included Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman — all of whom are now eyeing Graham’s seat following his death over the weekend.

According to South Carolina law, a one-week filing period for a special primary election begins on the second Tuesday after the candidate’s death, or July 21.

The special primary election would be held on the second Tuesday after that filing period closes, or Aug. 11. Any necessary runoff would follow two weeks after that, or Aug. 25.

From that point, the new nominee would have just over two months to campaign for the general election on Nov. 3.

All of this is problematic according to federal law, which requires military and overseas ballots to go out 45 days before any federal election. For the special election primary, that would have been June 27. Federal Election Commission officials didn’t immediately return a message seeking clarity about the process.

Who could replace Graham?

Graham died on Saturday night, and a preliminary medical examiner report said he suffered a tear in his aorta, known as an aortic dissection.

In the hours after Graham's death was announced, South Carolina’s Republican circles were already swirling with rumors about possible replacements.

Evette, who has served nearly eight years alongside McMaster and received his endorsement in the governor's race, is one possibility. She lost the June 23 runoff to Wilson.

Mace and Norman could run in the special primary as well. Neither of them are running for reelection to their House seats.

But another Republican from the state, Rep. Russell Fry, could be a possibility. The two-term lawmaker represents the growing area around Myrtle Beach, and he's been a top Trump ally.

Businessman Mark Lynch, whom Graham defeated in the primary, may jump into the race. So could Mark Sanford, the state's former governor who served two separate stints in the House.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who lived in South Carolina before joining the Trump administration, has fielded calls about potentially replacing Graham but doesn’t have interest in the role and enjoys working for the president, according to a person who insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.

How does Graham's death affect the general election?

No Democrat has won a Senate seat in South Carolina in decades, and Republicans in recent history typically take statewide seats by double digits. When Graham last ran in 2020, he defeated his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, by a 10 percentage point margin.

So while history suggests that Graham was en route to a fifth term, Republicans are carefully surveying the landscape.

Charleston pediatrician Annie Andrews won the Democratic nomination last month and has raised more than $8 million in the race, and she had just under $3 million cash on hand at the end of May, according to federal filings. Graham had taken in $6 million, with just over $4 million on hand.

In a statement Sunday, Andrews called on South Carolinians to join her “in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude" to Graham for his service.

Harrison, noting that he and Graham “had our share of political disagreements,” wrote on social media that he “always appreciated that even in our fiercest political battles, we could still share a conversation, a laugh, and a mutual respect for South Carolina and the institutions we were both privileged to serve.”

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Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

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Kinnard reported from Charleston, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

“Audiences on every sofa and in every movie (theater) seat would feel the impact of this unlawful merger,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is leading the case, said in a news conference from Los Angeles. He said the deal would result in higher prices, fewer movies and TV shows and lower quality of content overall.

A Paramount-Warner combo would bring together two of Hollywood's last five legacy studios. It would also mean putting Warner's HBO Max, libraries filled with cult-favorite titles like “Harry Potter” and even CNN under the same roof of Paramount-owned CBS and the Paramount+ streaming service.

In Monday's complaint, the states said such a tie-up would also “inflict substantial harm” on movie theatres and basic cable distributors. Bonta's office said the states are asking Warner and Paramount to not close this merger “until after the judicial process concludes." And if the companies do not agree, the coalition would then file a temporary restraining order.

Paramount said Monday's lawsuit “distorts settled antitrust law" and maintained that its merger would instead create a "stronger competitor against dominant streaming and technology platforms who have harmed the market for theatrical exhibition and jobs in the entertainment industry.”

The company, which was bought by Skydance just last year, vowed to “vigorously defend” the transaction.

Warner deferred to Paramount for comment. Beyond California, states joining Monday's lawsuit include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington.

Where Paramount's takeover of Warner stands

Monday's antitrust case arrives at a pivotal time for the Paramount-Warner transaction — which, after months of what became a very public bidding war with Netflix, received shareholders’ stamp of approval in April and then a blessing from President Donald Trump's administration just last month.

The companies have hoped to close their deal sometime in the third quarter of this year, recently signaling an effort to complete the process in the coming weeks. The states’ lawsuit could throw a wrench in those plans, at least for now.

The clock is ticking. Paramount also pledged to give shareholders some compensation if that process isn’t complete by Sept. 30 — in the form of a 25-cent per share “ticking fee” for every quarter past that date. And it’s agreed to a regulatory termination fee of $7 billion.

Beyond the U.S., Paramount has touted additional regulatory clearances it says it’s received in a handful of other countries, including China, Canada and Australia. Meanwhile, other reviews remain in progress, including in the European Union and the U.K. — which has separately suggested it may intervene.

Including debt, Paramount’s proposed purchase of Warner is valued at nearly $111 billion (or $31 per share) based on current outstanding shares.

Critics decry merger

Warner and Paramount argue that merging will be good for growth in the industry and give consumers access to more content, especially if HBO Max and Paramount+ libraries are combined. But critics have decried what further consolidation could mean in an industry already controlled by just a few major players.

Monday's lawsuit from the states pointed to movies that make their way into theaters and the wider TV landscape — noting that a combined Paramount-Warner could control nearly a third of both the theatrical film distribution market as well as basic cable programming.

Such a combination would create “a massive company with unprecedented power and influence over news and entertainment across the globe,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is among those challenging the deal. Beyond consumer impacts, she also said the merger would “put jobs and businesses nationwide at risk.”

Thousands of actors, directors, writers and other industry professionals have already voiced “unequivocal opposition” to the deal. Monday's challenge garnered applause from groups like the Writers Guild of America, who warn that consolidation would result in "fewer jobs, lower wages for entertainment workers, less variety of programming, and higher prices for consumers”

Paramount argued on Monday that delaying the merger “will only harm entertainment workers who have already suffered over recent years as technology has disrupted their livelihood."

The company added that the states' case would “shield” larger streaming rivals like Netflix from meaningful competition.

Political questions

Throughout Paramount's quest for Warner, questions of political influence have also piled up — with criticism falling largely along party lines in Washington. No Republicans signed on to the states’ case on Monday.

Democrats have long expressed skepticism about whether regulators working under Trump would scrutinize the deal as heavily. Several attorneys general joining Monday's lawsuit took aim at the Justice Department's decision to not challenge the deal — pointing in particular to the president's close relationship with the billionaire family of Paramount CEO David Ellison.

“Something happened and perhaps that something had to do with a mega-billionaire named Ellison," Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told reporters on Monday. “We are seeing more and more instances where the Trump DOJ is just rolling over for corporate consolidation," she added.

Last month, DOJ leadership released a lengthy statement in support of the deal — maintaining a Paramount-Warner combo would “increase competition across the media and entertainment ecosystem, with benefits for American consumers and workers.” The Justice Department had maintained that politics would not play a role in its review.

Trump himself previously made public comments about Warner’s future, despite backpedaling on what he once suggested his personal role would be in approving a merger.

Many eyes are on CNN, a network that has long attracted ire from Trump and his allies.

Paramount’s CBS has already seen significant turmoil and shifts in editorial leadership since coming under Skydance ownership last year — and if Warner merger goes through, the reach of that could grow. Several Trump administration officials have also been far from shy from sharing their hopes for CNN under Paramount ownership, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth telling reporters in March that “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

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Mikella Schuettler contributed from Phoenix.

The children’s father — identified as Austin Ritchey — was off duty at the time of the shooting on Friday, and he was cleaning his personal firearm when it discharged a single round, the sheriff’s office explained.

Deputies originally said they responded to the scene around 12:55 p.m., where they found the two children with non-life-threatening injuries. One child had a gunshot wound, while the other was hurt by the shrapnel.

[RELATED: 2 children hurt after off-duty OCSO deputy’s gun accidentally fires]

Both children were taken to the hospital, though the sheriff’s office announced on Monday that the children are now home.

“The investigation remains active and ongoing, so we have no further information to share at this time,” deputies wrote.

Ritchey has been employed with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office since April 2024.

Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed as a 26-year-old native of Colombia.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against officers who were pursuing him for deportation in Biddeford, a coastal city of about 23,000 people roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Portland.

“He was in a vehicle — pulled out in the vehicle, and the term the secretary used was ‘weaponized’ the vehicle and was shot by an ICE agent,” King said.

The Maine attorney general’s office, which is investigating along with the FBI and other agencies, said initial statements suggest the motorist was trying to flee in the direction of the agent. The man was the target of an enforcement operation related to a final order of removal, the office said, and the agent who killed him has been placed on leave.

Messages seeking comment were left for ICE and the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Daniel Boucher said he looked out his third-floor window after hearing a “pop, pop, pop” sound and saw a small car “turned 90 degrees to the curb” with an SUV behind it. The driver was wounded and the car started moving down the street until the SUV hit it again, Boucher said.

“His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said, getting choked up. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop’ — clearly heard him say that.”

Boucher said he saw an ICE officer bring a medical bag to where the man was lying before an ambulance and fire truck arrived. At one point, Boucher said, the agent who shot the man walked close to him.

“I was emotional and I just let him have it, and he looked at me and said, ‘He tried to run me over,’ or something to that effect," Boucher said. "I don’t remember his exact words.”

The man was authorized to work in the US, advocates say

Two advocacy groups, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente!, said the man who was killed was authorized to work in the U.S. and had a Social Security number.

After the shooting, his family contacted the Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, but they aren't ready to speak publicly about the shooting, said the group's executive director, Mufalo Chitam.

Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.

“I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body on the ground,” Hayes told the AP as she held a piece of cardboard with “No ICE Stop ICE” written on it. “I watched a little girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she’s never going to see her father again.”

The Colombian Embassy said it is in contact with U.S. authorities and “working to formally confirm the individual’s identity and nationality.”

Security video but no body-worn camera footage

Cory Poulin, whose family runs a laundromat near the scene, told the AP that security cameras at the business captured footage of the man’s car rolling into the intersection after shots were fired. Other images from the scene showed the car going in circles and bullet holes in its windshield.

He said Maine State Police asked that he not release the footage publicly.

The agents involved in the shooting didn’t have body-worn cameras, King said.

“The question is, what did he do with his vehicle," King said. “Were officers threatened? Were the threats rising to the level that justified deadly force?

"That’s what this investigation is all about and I certainly intend to stay after it to do everything I can to be sure the investigation is as transparent and thorough as possible.”

Anti-ICE protesters gather near the scene

Dozens of demonstrators critical of ICE and President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown gathered in Biddeford within hours of the shooting.

Amy Goodman, who is from nearby Wells, arrived with a sign that said “Stop Killing Us” and directed it toward police working at the scene.

“Sadly, it’s something we’re seeing a whole lot more often lately, and I’m mad about it,” said Goodman, who was wearing a shirt that said “ICE is best when crushed.”

Police blocked access to the shooting scene, which is in a neighborhood of mostly multifamily homes, churches and businesses. Several protesters stood nearby, with some holding signs condemning ICE's presence in the community and state.

“We are grieving, we are furious, and we will not allow his death to be treated as routine or inevitable,” Chitam said. “How much more harm must our communities endure before those with the power to act acknowledge that this has gone too far?”

A recent uptick in Trump's immigration crackdown

Monday’s killing was at least the ninth death from an encounter with federal immigration officials since Trump returned to office 18 months ago.

On July 7, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Salgado Araujo, of Houston, after federal agents driving unmarked vehicles pursued him while he was taking his construction crew to a job site.

The shootings come amid a Trump administration push to carry out its mass deportations agenda. During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people.

The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests are surging. The administration’s enforcement efforts were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.

“More than anything else, I want to know, ‘Why are you in Maine?’" Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said in a video on social media.

Hundreds of Maine ICE arrests since Trump’s return

ICE had a significant presence in Maine earlier this year, which prompted several protests.

The Homeland Security Department named the operation “Catch of the Day,” an apparent play on Maine’s seafood industry, like it did for “Metro Surge” in Minnesota and “Midway Blitz” in Chicago.

Immigration officials said in late January that they had ceased “enhanced operations” in Maine after hundreds of arrests.

A Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that some Maine arrests were of people “convicted of horrific crimes" including aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.”

Court records show that while some had felony convictions, others had unresolved immigration proceedings or had been arrested but never convicted of a crime.

ICE arrested 546 people in Maine between the start of Trump’s second term and March 11, 2026, the most recent data available, according to ICE arrest data provided to the University of California, Berkeley Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the AP.

About 45% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds. During the equivalent 416-day period before Trump took office, roughly 69% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds, the data show.

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This story was updated to correct the spelling of Cory Poulin’s first name.

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Willingham reported from Boston and Brook reported from New Orleans. Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak in New York, Aaron Kessler in Washington and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.

The City Commission took up the question Monday evening during a work session focused on CS/HJR 1-F, a proposed constitutional amendment that could cost Sanford as much as $6 million in fiscal year 2028 and $9.3 million in fiscal year 2029, for a combined two-year hit of $15.3 million.

Our News 6 team spoke one-on-one with Mayor Art Woodruff ahead of the meeting.

“If the amendment passes in November, we’ll have an 18% decrease in revenue over the next two years,” Woodruff said. “Despite lots of people thinking there’s a whole lot of waste in local government, there is not 18% of our budget going to waste.”

The city will face a stark choice: cut services or find new ways to fund them. A fire assessment fee — a flat charge applied to all properties based on use and square footage — is one option.

A fee with a complicated history

The fire assessment fee is not a new idea in Sanford. The city has considered and rejected it twice.

The first attempt came in 2008, when the proposal included an offsetting decrease in the millage rate. On paper, it seemed like a reasonable trade. In practice, it wasn’t. Lower-value homeowners would have seen a net increase in their costs, while businesses would have come out ahead. Commissioners rejected it.

“Homesteaded properties actually would pay more in the fire fee than they paid in property taxes,” Woodruff said. “It evens the cost out equitably. But because of the homestead exemption, homestead properties actually end up paying more than they would if they were paying property taxes.”

The idea returned in 2025, scaled back to cover only the fire department’s capital costs — roughly $2.5 million a year to replace fire engines, rescue squads and equipment. That version also failed to move forward, but for a different reason.

“It was really a matter of timing because we had already adopted our budget and had already adopted the money we needed for that year’s capital,” Woodruff said. “And so, when people asked us, ‘do you absolutely have to have this this year?’ The answer really was no. And we couldn’t honestly say otherwise.”

Why this time is different

What makes the third conversation different is what’s on the horizon. If CS/HJR 1-F passes, the financial pressure will be immediate — and unavoidable.

Woodruff said a fire fee wouldn’t just protect the fire department. It would help stabilize the entire city budget.

“If we adopt the fire fee, that allows us to shift money elsewhere in the budget,” he said. “Saying that we’re doing the fire fee so that we can keep the fire department — yes. But it also would give us funding for other things too. So, it’s replacing the funding we’re losing.”

Without that replacement funding, Woodruff said public safety itself would not be immune.

“I don’t see that we maintain the police and fire departments the way they are without some additional funding,” he said. “It’s easy to say, ‘prioritize them.’ But when you’re cutting funding, you still have to have the money to do it.”

What the city is asking for now

City Manager Norton N. Bonaparte, Jr. and Finance Director Cynthia Lindsay are not asking the Commission to adopt a fire assessment fee — not yet. They are asking for direction on whether staff should begin preparing the groundwork so that agreements could be ready to execute after the November election results are in.

Even if the Commission agrees to explore the fee, Woodruff cautioned that this isn’t something that can happen overnight.

“You can’t just show up next week and vote to have it,” he said. “You have to have the study done. Even though we did it a year ago, we’ll have to have that study redone. And there’s state statute that says exactly the process you have to go through, exactly what the letter has to say that’s sent out to everybody, and what the timing is to do that.

Woodruff said he personally supports getting prepared — but with one important caveat.

“I think I would advocate for being ready, but it sort of depends on what happens in November,” he said. “If taxpayers say, ‘hey, we want to cut services,’ for us to turn around and say, ‘well, we’re going to get the money from you somewhere else’ — doesn’t seem like the right way to go.”

He also noted that the statewide nature of the vote adds complexity to how Sanford should respond.

“It could be Sanford residents; Seminole County residents are opposed to it, but the rest of the state passes it,” Woodruff said. “I think all that goes into the thinking of what we all have to do.”

But through her brother's decades of public service, Nordone has been by his side, supporting him in speeches, appearances and even campaign ads.

Besides being a frequent attendee at Graham's political events, Nordone is woven deeply into her brother's personal and political biography. After both of their parents died in just over a year, Graham, then age 22, became legal guardian for his 13-year-old sister.

Now, after South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster tapped Nordone to serve in Graham's seat until January, Nordone is heading to Washington, tasked with representing the interests for which her brother advocated with passion.

A special primary held next month will sort out what Republican moves forward in the general election to face Democrat Annie Andrews in November.

From brother to legal guardian, Graham raised his sister

While Graham was in his early 20s, his life — and that of his sister — was turned upside down. Their mother died in 1976 after battling Hodgkin's lymphoma. Fifteen months later, his sister, then 13, discovered their father after he suffered a heart attack in his sleep and died.

Graham was just beginning law school at the University of South Carolina. With both parents gone, he pivoted, saying that his chief goal was to ensure his sister was cared for.

“I can remember the day my father passed away, standing in the living room of that house, absolutely scared to death,” Nordone told NPR in 2015. “Lindsey wrapped his arms around me and promised me he would always be there for me and always take care of me.”

Making regular treks from school in Columbia to Seneca, where his sister was being looked after by relatives, Graham kept tabs on his sister from then on and became her legal guardian. After he became a military lawyer in the Air Force, he adopted her, to ensure that she would receive his military benefits.

Graham’s bond with his sister was indelible

Graham, who never married or had children of his own, once joked as he ran for president in 2016 that his sister could be among a “rotating” cast of White House hosts standing in as first lady.

But the bond between the two, aside from being integral to Graham’s own biography, was evident in their public appearances. When Graham filed his candidacy paperwork in March for this year’s election, Nordone was by his side, along with her children and grandchildren.

“What have I learned in this life I’ve led? I take nothing for granted. I count every blessing, every day,” Graham said then, going on to recount how he and his sister forged through life together from that point. “I understand what a blessing my life has been and the only way I can pay you back for the blessings I’ve received is to be the most thoughtful, relevant, aggressive senator.”

Nordone married, had children and ultimately grandchildren and has worked with people with disabilities. Talking to C-SPAN in 2015, Graham said of his own life that his sister's success “is the highlight of it, by far.”

Bob McAlister, a former consultant to Graham on several campaigns, reflected on how the difficulties in their growing up bonded the siblings in a way that most would not understand.

“He grew up with nothing,” McAlister said. “The back of the bar where he and his sister grew up was always kind of top of mind to him. ... And I think the way he and Darline grew up just had an indelible impact on him, and for some reason, it gave him the drive that he had to do what he did.”

“A lot of people have different ideas about Lindsey from what they’ve seen on TV and all that, but everything about him can be traced back to his boyhood, the way he grew up, the way he took care of his sister," McAlister added.

Graham's sister played a political role in his life, too

Graham often talked about his background, and the plight he shared with his sister, in campaign appearances, and she was there for many of them.

She also popped up in a 2014 campaign ad, as Graham sought a third Senate term, saying he brought assurances after their parents' deaths that he would take care of her.

“He never let me down. Never. I don’t see how he did it, to take on the responsibility of raising a little sister,” Nordone said. "That came from within for Lindsey.”

Trump recommended Graham's sister as interim appointee

Hours ahead of McMaster's announcement, President Donald Trump said on social media that he had recommended that the governor pick Nordone, calling the selection “a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!”

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

Voters in Virginia and Nevada — both states where abortion is already legal through at least 24 weeks of pregnancy — are considering state constitutional amendments to create a right to abortion.

And in Missouri, which in 2024 became the first state to use a constitutional amendment to undo an abortion ban, voters are being asked to override that to bring back an abortion ban, with limited exceptions, and to write into the state constitution a ban on some gender-affirming care for minors.

Here's a look at the situation.

One of the most conservative states could undo its ban

The measure put on Idaho's ballot through a volunteer-run petition drive would create a law, not an amendment to the state constitution.

Idahoans United for Women and Families, which is leading the campaign, shared with The Associated Press a letter from state election officials Monday verifying that it has qualified for the ballot.

It would allow abortion until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be somewhere past 21 weeks into a pregnancy, though there’s no fixed time frame. The change would make the state's law similar to what it was before the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to ban abortion.

Idaho now is one of six states where an abortion ban at all stages of pregnancy does not include exceptions for the health of the girl or woman. Like most other bans, it does allow abortion to save the life of the woman or in pregnancies caused by rape or incest.

It also became the first state, in 2023, to make it a crime to help a minor obtain an abortion without the consent of their parents. Despite a court challenge, most parts of that law have remained intact.

David Ripley, the CEO of the anti-abortion group Idaho Chooses Life, is preparing to campaign against the measure.

“This is going to have a profound impact on Idaho,” he said, “and will basically invalidate virtually every pro-life law that the legislature has enacted over the last 30 to 40 years.”

Missouri is considering a turnabout

Whichever way the ballot measure vote goes in Missouri, it's already a state with several firsts after Roe was overturned.

It was the first state to begin enforcing a ban on abortion throughout pregnancy. And in 2024, it became the first state to use a ballot measure to roll back a ban. Even after that, though, abortion access was deeply limited by state regulations until a court ruling in June blocked enforcement of many of them.

In the state, where Republicans dominate the government, there have been legal battles surrounding the language of the constitutional amendment. The one before voters, unlike the previous ban, would allow exceptions in the cases of medical emergencies and fetal anomalies. Like the earlier one, there would be exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.

Two states are considering amendments to preserve the right to abortion

Both Nevada and Virginia currently allow abortion through at least 24 weeks of pregnancy. That means amendments to preserve the right to an abortion would likely not have a major impact on access to abortion in either state.

The amendments could be factors, however, in driving voter turnout in states where both Democrats and Republicans have prevailed in statewide elections in the last five years.

Nevada voters already approved the amendment in 2024 by a nearly 2 to 1 margin. But the state constitution calls for amendments to pass in public votes twice before they take effect.

The measures could be a test for abortion-rights groups

Some groups want to see state laws that go further than Roe v. Wade did and lift restrictions on abortions throughout pregnancy.

In June, the National Abortion Federation, an organization of abortion providers, opposed “rigid legal cutoffs that ban or restrict abortion care at viability or arbitrary gestational lines.” The organization does not raise money for political campaigns, but its positions may indicate what some other groups are thinking.

In 2024, a South Dakota measure called for banning abortions during the third trimester and allowing some restrictions in the second trimester, while protecting the right to them in the first trimester. Voters rejected it.

Most national abortion-rights groups did not support it either. Since Roe was overturned, abortion rights advocates have lost four statewide votes on reproductive rights. Their side has prevailed in 14 referendums over the same period.

Melanie Folwell, executive director of Idahoans United for Women and Families, says national groups that sit out these votes are thinking narrowly.

“I would encourage them to get out of their bubbles of activism and actually begin to engage with the public on where folks are at,” she said.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, climbed 9.6% to $83.30 after the United States and Iran each said the Strait of Hormuz is under its control. Fighting in the region has kept oil tankers from using the strait to deliver crude to customers from the Persian Gulf, which drives up fuel prices worldwide.

The gains for oil prices accelerated immediately after President Donald Trump said he’s reinstating a blockade to prevent tankers carrying Iranian oil from using the strait. He also called for 20% payments on all cargo shipped through it to reimburse the United States for providing protection in the area.

Brent’s price, though, remains well below its wartime peak of nearly $120 per barrel for its most actively traded contract.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.8%, coming off its fourth winning week in the last five. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 138 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.6%.

Chip stocks like Micron Technology helped lead the way lower. Micron fell 4.4%, eating into what had been a stellar rise of 243.1% for the year so far.

Real profits are behind the rise because the AI rush has created surging demand for computer memory and other computing building blocks. But worries are rising that stock prices have shot too high and that the demand may not be sustainable if AI doesn’t deliver as much profit and productivity as expected.

Nvidia fell 3.5%. Because it’s the largest stock on Wall Street by value thanks to the euphoria around AI, it was the single heaviest weight on the S&P 500.

The day’s losses began in Asia, where South Korea’s Kospi index dropped 8.9%. That included a 15.4% plunge for SK Hynix’s stock in Seoul, the worst since it began trading in 1997.

The South Korean tech giant just launched shares of its stock trading in the United States on Friday, raising roughly $26.5 billion. Those shares jumped 13.1% in their first day of trading, but they fell 9.3% Monday.

Other areas of the AI industry held up a bit better, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s shares in Taiwan rose 1%. The chipmaker said its revenue in June soared nearly 68% from a year earlier, bringing its total revenue growth for the first half of the year to 35.6% from a year earlier.

But TSMC’s stock that trades in the United States fell 2.9% later in the day.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 60.06 points to 7,515.34. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 138.37 to 52,498.64, and the Nasdaq composite sank 408.43 to 25,873.18.

Much of Wall Street’s attention this week will be on profit reports from companies saying how much they earned during the spring. On Tuesday alone, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo are all releasing their latest quarterly results.

Analysts are forecasting that companies in the S&P 500 index will deliver overall growth of 23.6% from a year earlier, according to FactSet. If they’re right, it would be the second straight quarter of growth better than 20%.

Companies across industries will need to deliver strong growth to justify the big moves their stock prices have made. Indexes are near records despite their sharp recent swings due to worries around AI stocks.

Companies usually turn in results that top analysts’ expectations, including in 37 of the past 40 quarters, according to FactSet. If they do so again by the usual margin, earnings growth for S&P 500 companies in the latest quarter could end up being the best since 2021.

In the bond market, Treasury yields rose with the price of oil. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.61% from 4.56% late Friday and from just 3.97% before the war with Iran began.

Yields have risen worldwide on worries about expensive oil and high inflation, which could push the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates. Higher rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow the economy and hurt prices for all kinds of investments.

In stock markets abroad, indexes moved modestly in Europe.

In Asia, the swings were sharper, beyond South Korea’s plunge. Stocks fell 2.1% in Shanghai, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.9%

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

The government said it is banning the group behind the attacks, the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, or IMCR, also known as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia.

It also banned Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which it said is a threat to national security. The move makes it illegal to support the groups. Committing sabotage on their behalf will be punishable by up to life imprisonment.

Parliament must approve the bans, which the government expects to take place by the end of the week.

Security Minister Angela Eagle said in a statement that the IMCR has claimed seven attacks in the U.K. The group had said online that it was responsible for a string of arson attacks on Jewish sites in London in recent months, including fires at synagogues and Jewish charity ambulances, as well as a Persian-language media organization critical of Iran’s government. No one was injured in the blazes.

“Sitting behind IMCR were members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, who almost certainly directed IMCR attacks across Europe,” she said. The Quds, or Jerusalem, Force is the Guard’s expeditionary unit.

Britain also imposed sanctions on the IMCR that will allow authorities to freeze any assets it has in the U.K.

The IMCR sprang up online earlier this year and has also claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Law enforcement officials and intelligence experts say Iran-backed proxy groups are behind a growing number of attacks in Europe, most targeting the Jewish community and opponents of Iran’s Islamic government.

They typically work by recruiting members of criminal groups to carry out sabotage and other attacks.

Earlier this month, two Romanian men were given prison sentences over the stabbing of a journalist from a Persian-language television station, an attack the judge said was carried out on behalf of the Iranian state.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said Monday she had summoned the Iranian ambassador to “condemn Iran's malign behavior” and stress Britain's commitment to protecting the Jewish community.

A group under Russian military intelligence also designated as a threat

Authorities said Monday that Britain is also designating the GRU Volunteer Corps, a group controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, as a national security threat. The U.K. says the group conducts foreign intelligence collection and hostile covert operations on behalf of the GRU.

Authorities said the new measures will make it easier for police and intelligence agencies to tackle what they call “thugs for hire," or anyone supporting the proxy groups.

“We have already taken tough action against the Iranian regime and those linked to it, and against Russian operatives and networks targeting our country. These new powers will make it easier to prosecute and lock up anyone carrying out their dirty work here in Britain," Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from Iran. Tehran long has denied orchestrating attacks abroad, despite such cases stretching over the decades since the 1979 revolution.

The U.K. banning the Revolutionary Guard came after it has been declared a terror group by the United States and the European Union.

Britain has resisted following suit, though it has sanctioned people it says are members and supporters of the Guard.

The bans announced Monday are not under counterterror legislation, but under a new law giving the government powers to tackle proxy organizations carrying out hostile activity on behalf of foreign states.

No casualties were reported, but the attacks marked an escalation not seen since a Saudi-led coalition struck Houthi-controlled areas several years ago. Saudi Arabian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the airstrikes in Yemen.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, in a video statement on Telegram, warned airlines against flying through Saudi airspace, saying these warnings should be taken "seriously until the blockade on Sanaa International Airport is lifted.”

The internationally recognized government in Yemen said earlier that the strikes that hit Sanaa International Airport were meant to prevent an Iranian plane from landing.

The Houthis vowed to retaliate for the strike, which marked the first major escalation between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia following a period of relative calm.

The U.N. Security Council, in an emergency meeting on the developments Monday afternoon, officials expressed concern about the risk of a wider escalation.

“Yemen and the wider region cannot afford another cycle of escalation,” U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for political affairs Khaled Khiari told the 15-member council. “We call on all actors to constructively engage in negotiations under UN auspices.”

For years, a Saudi-led coalition based in Yemen’s south has fought the Houthis in the north.

Saree said on Telegram earlier on Monday that Saudi Arabia launched the airstrikes in what he called the end of a period of “de-escalation.” He warned that “this aggression will not go unanswered or unpunished.”

In the latest Telegram update, Saree said the strikes in Sanaa were aimed at “closing it to humanitarian flights carrying patients and stranded individuals to and from Sana’a International Airport.”

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, intervened the following year to try to restore the government to power. Tensions rose earlier this year between U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE as their yearslong partnership in the war in Yemen broke down, leading to the UAE pulling out of Yemen.

The official spokesperson of the Saudi-led Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, said Monday evening on X that air defenses dealt with ballistic missiles launched by the Houthis toward the southern region without providing further details.

The attack on the airport in Sanaa comes after tensions between the two sides flared earlier this month. The Houthis alleged that Saudi planes violated their airspace to try to prevent an Iranian plane from carrying a Houthi delegation to Tehran for the funeral of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Yemen's defense minister, Gen. Taher al-Aqili, said in a post on X that the airport’s runway was struck Monday to stop an Iranian plane transporting the Houthi delegation from returning from the funeral.

In a video statement released shortly before the strikes, al-Aqili warned against infiltrating Yemeni airspace with Iranian aircraft.

“At this moment, we say that our patience has run out. Accordingly, we will respond appropriately to this treacherous and brutal act, and we will confront and deal with the hostile aircraft violating Yemeni airspace and sovereignty by all available means,” he said.

The Houthis said the plane was diverted to Hodeida Airport, where it landed.

Video footage by the Houthi-controlled al-Masirah broadcaster appeared to show a missile striking a runway at Sanaa airport followed by a loud explosion.

A statement from the government in the south said that all airports in Yemen were “closed until further notice, with immediate effect.” The Yemeni defense ministry issued orders to evacuate the airport and surrounding areas.

Rashad al-Alimi, who leads Yemen's ruling Presidential Leadership Council, said Iran had made a request to operate a flight by Iranian airline Mahan Air from Tehran to Sanaa to return the Houthi delegation.

The council, which denied the request, said in a statement Monday that Houthis had insisted on receiving the Iranian flight “outside the legal and sovereign frameworks governing civil aviation.”

Hans Grundberg, the U.N.'s special envoy for Yemen, said in a statement that his office is monitoring Yemeni airspace developments and expressed concern about the risk of wider escalation. He called on involved parties to engage in dialogue that preserves the “relative calm Yemen has experienced since 2022.”

Houthi-controlled areas were last targeted by the Saudi-led coalition before a U.N. brokered truce to cease hostilities came into effect in 2022.

Orlando Health announced it will begin building a Level 2 NICU at South Lake Hospital, with work expected to be completed in 2027.

The facility will be at South Lake Hospital’s Center for Women and Babies in Clermont.

NICUs provide round-the-clock care for babies born prematurely, or those with low birth weights or other medical conditions.

Orlando Health says the facility will be 7,200 square feet in size and have 10 beds. Hospitalists and nursing leaders trained at Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies will also rotate through the hospitals in the Orlando Health network.

In the past, families would have to go outside the county to get neonatal care for these newborns. Currently, the closest NICU facilities in Central Florida are located in Orange, Osceola, or Seminole counties through Orlando Health, AdventHealth, HCA, and Nemours hospitals. The next closest would be in Lakeland, Ocala, or Brooksville.

Orlando Health South Lake Hospital Center for Women and Babies currently offers a Mobile NICU, which can transport infants born at the hospital to Winnie Palmer.

It also has 24-hour emergency services, fetal medical care for high-risk pregnancies, breastfeeding support, and classes and support groups.

Deputies located the truck at a RaceTrac gas station at 301 Palm Coast Parkway Northeast on Thursday.

According to deputies, a caller reported seeing a dog trying to climb out of the back of a moving U-Haul with its roll-up door partially open, describing it as “a terrible sight.”

[RELATED: Watch body-camera footage of the incident below]

When deputies asked the driver, Angel Valdes, 70, whether his dogs were in distress, he said no — claiming they “just needed water.” At the rear of the truck, deputies spotted two large noses pushing through a gap beneath the door, an arrest affidavit states.

When the door was opened, both dogs were found panting heavily, lying in their own urine, and unable to stand under their own power. A 70-pound pit bull mix was struggling to stand, while an 80-pound English bulldog could not stand at all. The apparent outside temperature at the time was 102 degrees, deputies said.

The family said they were moving from Miami to Savannah, Georgia, and put the dogs in the cargo box because their other vehicle felt too crowded. While Animal Control was surveying the area, deputies heard chirping from a sealed storage box with no air holes — inside were two full-grown pigeons, also in distress. All four animals were transported to the hospital for emergency treatment.

Valdes and his son, Roy Valdes Hernandez, 35, were arrested for animal cruelty and later released on bond.

“If you wouldn’t ride in a metal box in 102-degree heat with no air, don’t force an animal to do it,” said Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly. “This family had room to bring their dogs up front, but chose to let them cook in the back of a U-Haul instead. Remember, if it has a heartbeat, don’t leave it unattended in any vehicle, especially in the current heat wave we are having.”

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The progress came as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a motorist in Maine on Monday, and Houston prosecutors complained the administration was still withholding critical information in their investigation into a fatal shooting by an ICE officer last week.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the evidence turned over by federal investigators included previously withheld hard drives containing statements, police body camera video and other materials in the Minnesota killings. They also turned over Good’s badly damaged SUV, she said.

“The wonderful thing now is we have all the evidence,” Moriarty said. “Any time the government is responsible in whatever way of taking the life of a community member we need to have a full and thorough investigation.”

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed in her vehicle while leaving an anti-immigration enforcement protest in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

Her death and that of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse shot and killed by federal officers just weeks later during a Jan. 24 protest, sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement.

The Minneapolis immigration crackdown, dubbed “Operation Metro Surge,” was billed as the largest immigration enforcement operation ever. It ended in February after thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents withdrew from the state.

At least nine people have been killed since the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign began last year. No one has been charged in connection with the deaths, and the federal government has suggested state prosecutors don’t have jurisdiction to investigate federal officers.

Lawyers for Good’s family said the transfer of evidence represented “an important and meaningful step towards justice and accountability.”

Spokespersons for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota, as well as ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment Monday.

Legal wrangling in another ICE-related shooting may have led to evidence release

Moriarty said local investigators have been poring over the evidence after receiving it in recent days, but declined to provide details on what prompted the federal government to turn it over.

Documents recently filed in the lawsuit brought by state and local officials against the Homeland Security and Justice departments, however, suggest the breakthrough came after federal officials asked the state in June for evidence gathered in the investigation of ICE agent Christian Castro.

Castro, 52, was charged with assault and falsely reporting a crime in connection with the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis. Prosecutors say Castro fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh while in pursuit of another man.

State and local prosecutors said they would provide evidence in Castro's case as soon as the federal government agreed to share its evidence in the shootings of Pretti and Good.

Minnesota officials last month sued the administration for access to evidence for investigations into the three shootings.

“We are willing to share evidence with you if the exchange is reciprocal,” Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans wrote in a legal filing to federal officials. “Each of the federal agencies with whom we have discussed sharing evidence in this case has declined to do so thus far. None has provided any substantive reason for its refusal aside from relaying the perspective that these shootings are solely ‘federal’ matters.”

The pressure may have increased on June 18, when Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison amended their lawsuit against the federal government to add details about the federal government’s refusal to share the evidence collected in the fatal shootings.

Just four days later, Ellison and Moriarty asked the federal judge to push back some deadlines in the case, saying the FBI, U.S. Attorney's office and state officials “have recently re-engaged in discussions about the prospect of mutual information sharing.”

Ellison, in a statement Monday, said he remains “deeply troubled” it took more than half a year for federal officials to hand over the materials, despite long standing cooperation between the agencies on major investigations.

“It should never have taken this long,” he said in a statement. “I hope that this is the beginning of a major course correction on the part of the federal government.”

Houston investigators complain feds are leaving them in dark over ICE-related shooting

Prosecutors in Houston, meanwhile, echoed similar concerns about obtaining critical information from federal officials as they look into last week's death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who had lived in the U.S. for decades.

The homeland security department has acknowledged officers stopped Salgado Araujo while looking for someone else, but maintains the homebuilder rammed an ICE vehicle while attempting to leave the scene. The agency says that prompted an officer to open fire in self-defense, though it has yet to provide evidence to back up that claim.

Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said Monday that his office doesn’t even know the identities of the ICE officers involved in the shooting or where they are nearly a week later, which he said is highly unusual when an officer shooting results in a death.

“The federal government has not invited us in," Teare said. "The federal government is not collaborating with us with this investigation.”

Monday's shooting in Maine involved a man from Colombia who federal officers claimed tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against officers pursuing him for deportation. The shooting took place in Biddeford, a coastal city of about 23,000 people roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Portland.

____

Associated Press reporter John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this story.

The aorta is our largest artery, like a highway that arches up from the heart and then curves back down through the abdomen — carrying oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body as other arteries branch off from it.

What doctors call an aortic dissection happens when a tear in its inner lining lets blood rapidly leak between its other layers, according to the American Heart Association. That reduces blood flow to vital organs, and sometimes can lead to a rupture that pours blood into surrounding tissues. It often can be caused by an aortic aneurysm, a weakened spot on the artery that can bulge like a balloon.

Risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol that in turn stiffens arteries — called atherosclerosis — and smoking. It's more common in older people but also can be caused by certain genetic conditions in younger people.

A preliminary medical examiner's report shared by Graham's office said the aortic dissection was related to artery hardening.

Symptoms tend to be sudden, with severe stabbing-like pain, often in the chest or back but sometimes in the neck, jaw or abdomen depending on where in the aorta the tear happened. According to the heart association, people also may suddenly lose consciousness, have clammy or sweaty skin, experience stroke-like symptoms such as sudden weakness on one side of the body, or show signs of shock, including rapid heart rate or confusion.

Fast treatment improves the chances of survival. Depending on where the tear occurred and its extent, surgeons may try to repair it or patch the torn section of the aorta.

—-

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

Officers initially responded to a disturbance at 6292 Palm Vista St. on Sunday morning, where they arrested Owen Kelly, 30.

During the investigation, officers discovered a concealed lab with hazardous chemicals inside the home. The Special Investigations Unit collaborated with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office East Side Narcotics Task Force, the Volusia County Fire/Hazmat Team and the Drug Enforcement Administration to safely address the hazardous chemicals found at the scene, police said.

Kelly was transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail following his arrest. He was charged with illegal touching or striking. As of Monday, no additional criminal charges had been filed in connection with the lab.

The investigation remains ongoing, and updates will be provided as they become available.

Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to contact the Port Orange Police Department at 386-506-5800.

In a statement on Monday morning, the cruise line told News 6 that it was responding to a “situation” involving the crew member aboard Regal Princess in waters off the coast of Cancun.

“The crew member is currently unaccounted for, and an active search and rescue operation is underway,” the statement reads.

But later on Monday afternoon, Princess Cruises confirmed that the crew member had passed away.

“Our heartfelt condolences go out to the crew’s family and friends during this difficult time. Grief support services are being offered to guests and crew members affected by this event,” officials wrote. “Princess Cruises thanks the local maritime authorities and our colleagues from Carnival Jubilee who assisted in search and rescue efforts.”

Regal Princess has since continued its voyage and is expected to arrive in Belize on Wednesday.

Afterward, the ship is scheduled to travel to Cozumel on July 16, and it’s expected to cap off its seven-day journey upon its return to Ft. Lauderdale on July 18.

The National Weather Service is predicting that more than 90 temperature records across the U.S. will be tied or broken this week through Wednesday — and most of those will be overnight heat records.

Health experts say overnight temperatures that fail to cool down are even more dangerous than daytime temperatures that soar.

It has already been a sweltering start to the summer across much of the U.S. due to the long-lasting heat dome expected to blanket much of the country this week. The blistering temperatures over the past few weeks have caused heat-related deaths in New Jersey and helped fuel wildfires in the West.

No relief from the heat at night this week

Temperatures were not forecast to drop below 80 F (27 C) at night in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Miami; Tampa, Florida; Galveston, Texas; and Charleston, South Carolina, the National Weather Service said.

Over the next few days, places in the Midwest and Northeast known for frigid winters will see nighttime temperatures remain above 70 F (21 C), including Fargo, North Dakota; International Falls, Minnesota; and Portland, Maine.

Hot temperatures at night pose a bigger danger

Health experts say that high overnight temperatures are particularly dangerous because there's no time for the body's core temperature to cool down and recover from daytime heat.

“That’s where the health outcomes are amplified, particularly for the elderly and vulnerable communities,” said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd.

Just a few degrees of increased body temperature can lead to heatstroke or put too much strain on the heart.

Dangers of heat can sneak up on you

If temperatures at night don't cool down your body, the health risks more often show up the next day, said Kristie Ebi, a public health and climate scientist at the University of Washington.

“Mortality starts the second or third day" because the body's unable to cool, she said on Monday.

Being proactive is crucial during a heat wave

Early warning signs include heavy sweating, muscle cramps and headache. “It’s hard to know you’re getting in trouble with the heat. This is why we need to be more proactive," Ebi said.

It's important to find a way to cool off, whether stepping into air conditioning or wrapping a cold towel around your neck.

And health experts say don't forget to check in on friends and family members, especially those who are older, pregnant or who have health challenges that might make it more difficult to handle the heat.

How to beat the heat without air conditioning

Even without air conditioning at home, there are ways to find relief.

Stop by a library or a mall. Sit in front of a fan and spray water on your skin. Put your feet in cold water. Soak your clothes in water. And of course, drink plenty of water.

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Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed.

“Our goal is to build a shared ballistic missile defense capability for Europe,” the 10 nations said in a statement in Paris at talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

He was asking two dozen leaders for help in developing measures against Russia's missile attacks that have pummeled his country and made the rest of Europe wary of Moscow’s wider ambitions on the continent.

Zelenskyy and the leaders of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom said they recognized “the growing threat posed by ballistic missiles,” which are harder to stop than cruise missiles or drones.

“We believe that protecting Europe requires a comprehensive solution, in the form of an integrated missile defense architecture, to deter and neutralize future missile threats,” the statement said. “We recognize Ukraine’s unique experience, gained through its defense against the war of aggression waged by Russia.”

The statement gave no time frame for setting up the defense system and said the plan remained open to other countries.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine and its partners could, within the next 12 months, jointly develop a mass-produced, low-cost system with missiles that would let Europe supply itself with new antiballistic capability and provide it to others around the world who need protection.

Putin shows no sign Russia is backing down

Russian President Vladimir Putin was unyielding, vowing Monday emphatic retaliation to Kyiv's recent long-range attacks on refineries, tankers and terminals that have caused widespread fuel shortages.

“Wherever they attempt to strike Russian territory, we will respond in kind, but our strikes will be several times more powerful,” Putin told a meeting with pro-Kremlin activists.

European foreign ministers were meeting separately in Brussels where they discussed Ukraine’s needs and Russia’s threats to the continent.

Zelenskyy is keen to accelerate efforts with European countries to develop its air defenses ahead of winter, when Russia usually intensifies its attacks to deny Ukrainians electricity, heat and water.

Ukrainian officials were in Paris to present a proposed Anti-Ballistic Program and meet with government leaders, national security advisers and defense companies who might take part, Zelenskyy said.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge last week to give Ukraine a license to produce Patriot air defense systems to counter the ballistic missiles could mark a major breakthrough for Kyiv. However, experts and Ukrainian officials warn that turning the idea into reality would probably take years. It was unclear how quickly a European system could be built.

Ukraine wants to push Putin into negotiations

Kyiv and its European backers want to press home Ukraine’s recent successes and compel Putin to negotiate an end to the fighting, although Moscow has shown no willingness to compromise despite peace efforts by the Trump administration.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow will closely follow the Paris meeting but dismissed its aspirations.

“This is a coalition of warmongers,” Peskov said. “They are driven by the profound delusion that it’s possible to inflict a strategic defeat on our country, so this is a coalition of the deluded, a coalition of those who incite the war.”

Ukraine’s advances in drone technology have given it an edge recently, analysts and Western officials say. Its strikes on supply routes behind the front have robbed the Russian army of momentum and made its progress slow and costly, they say.

Ukraine says it hit 105 Russian vessels in 8 days

Ukrainian forces struck 105 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov next to the Crimean Peninsula between July 6-13, said Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

The vessels included tankers, dry cargo ships, a ferry and tugboats, Brovdi said on the Telegram messaging app.

The campaign is part of a broader Ukrainian effort to isolate the Crimean Peninsula, which is enduring its worst fuel crisis since it was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, and disrupt Russian logistics. Crimea is a key rear base for Russian forces occupying parts of southern Ukraine.

It was not possible to independently verify the claims, and Russian officials made no immediate comment.

European leaders demonstrate their commitment to Kyiv

The Paris meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, which brings together more than 30 countries and about 25 heads of state and government, appeared to be a demonstration of a long-term commitment to Ukraine and a warning to Russia, as Moscow tests Europe's resilience.

Zelenskyy’s trip to the French capital followed the death of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters in Washington. Lawmaker Oleksandr Merezhko called Graham "the closest link between Ukraine, our president and Trump.”

The trip also comes amid a major reshuffle of Zelenskyy's government that saw Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko step down Sunday.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he would summon the Russian ambassador to France and impose sanctions against Russian hackers. He told BFMTV-RMC that the issue is about “a vast cyber campaign aimed at sabotage and espionage, carried out by Russia in about 10 European countries.”

Ukraine's neighbors have also felt the war's impact.

In the latest incident, a drone launched during Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine’s Odesa region crashed and exploded on Moldova’s territory, Moldova’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday. It said the incident was “serious and unacceptable.”

Ukraine fires over 300 drones toward Moscow

Ukraine has aimed at targets deep inside Russia with its domestically developed long-range drones and missiles.

Russian air defenses downed 350 Ukrainian drones heading toward Moscow since late Sunday, including 50 near the capital, the capital's Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Moscow regional Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said 81 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight, adding that three people were killed and three were injured by the attack in the Pionersky settlement in the western part of the Moscow region.

The Ukrainian air force, meanwhile, said Russia launched 134 long-range strike drones and three guided aviation missiles at Ukraine.

A strike on port infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region set fire to a docked merchant vessel carrying fertilizer under the flag of Togo, killing five crew members and wounding 10, said regional military administration head Oleh Kiper.

Russia says it thwarted a major Ukraine drone operation

Russia’s Federal Security Service said it had thwarted a Ukrainian plan for a drone attack on the Ukrainka air base in the far eastern Amur region and the Shagol air base in the Chelyabinsk region in the southern Urals.

Small drones were smuggled into Russia’s Bryansk region using air balloons and bigger transport drones, then taken by car near the air bases by Ukrainian agents, who were arrested, the security service said.

A covert Ukrainian operation a year ago, dubbed Operation Spiderweb, destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet with drones carried secretly into Russia, according to Ukrainian officials.

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Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Lorne Cook in Brussels and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed.

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

The shooting came less than a week after a federal immigration officer fatally shot a Houston man after an altercation with agents while he was driving to work.

Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the agent opened fire after the man “weaponized” his vehicle against ICE agents.

Authorities have released few other details about the shooting. The FBI is leading the investigation. Gov. Janet Mills said the Maine State Police are working with the state attorney general’s office, chief medical examiner’s office and federal officials to determine what happened. ICE didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Maine death follows Houston shooting

Department of Homeland Security officials said in a statement that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, ignored commands while trying to evade arrest during an enforcement operation on July 7. The department said he attempted to ram his car into an agent, who opened fire in self-defense.

Araujo's family said he was on his way to work at a construction job. He died on the way to the hospital.

The shooting drew immediate criticism from immigrant rights groups and some Democrats, who called for an independent investigation.

Video footage in several previous shootings has contradicted the accounts of federal officers. No immigration officers have been charged in those fatal encounters.

Man shot during vacation trip traffic stop

A fatal late-night traffic stop in Texas in March 2025 marked the earliest deadly shooting by federal officers during the nationwide immigration crackdown. It took almost a year for records in the fatal shooting of the 23-year-old U.S. citizen to be disclosed.

A Homeland Security Investigations team was conducting an immigration enforcement operation with local police when agents stopped Ruben Ray Martinez on his way from San Antonio to South Padre Island. Family members said he had just turned 23 and was with his best friend on his way to celebrate.

DHS officials said Martinez was told to exit the vehicle, refused and instead “intentionally ran over” an agent. Another agent fired shots through the open driver's window, striking Martinez, who died at a hospital. The HSI agent was treated for an undisclosed knee injury.

Martinez's mother said she was contacted by investigators with the Texas Rangers who told her there was video that contradicted the account given by federal agents. Federal and state authorities have declined to comment on potential discrepancies.

Nurse shot during Minneapolis protest

A Border Patrol officer shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, during a Jan. 24 protest against the Metro Surge immigration operation in Minneapolis.

Federal authorities immediately described Pretti, a U.S. citizen, as an armed agitator who was a threat to officers. But bystander video showed Pretti was on the ground and had been holding a cellphone during the interaction with officers.

The video showed an officer appearing to pull a gun from Pretti's waistband and step away before the first shot was fired by another officer, followed by more shots. Pretti had a permit to possess a firearm.

State and local officials pushed back against the federal officials' initial characterizations of Pretti, with Gov. Tim Walz calling the comments “despicable.”

Driver shot behind the wheel of an SUV

Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, was repeatedly shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Videos show she was turning the wheels of her car away from officer Jonathan Ross when he opened fire. Trump administration officials have repeatedly defended Ross, claiming his life was at risk from the moving vehicle.

Good’s death caused a firestorm across the country. The U.S. Justice Department said it wouldn’t share information on the shooting with state authorities.

State and local officials subsequently sued to try to stop the immigration sweeps. Protesters with whistles trailed officers who, in response, deployed tear gas and other chemical irritants.

Cook from Mexico shot during a traffic stop

ICE agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González during a traffic stop Sept. 12 in suburban Chicago. Relatives said the 38-year-old line cook from Mexico had dropped off a child at daycare that morning.

At the time, DHS officials said agents were pursuing a man with a history of reckless driving who was in the country illegally. They alleged Villegas González evaded arrest and dragged an officer with his vehicle.

Homeland Security said the officer opened fire fearing for his life and was hospitalized with “serious injuries.” However, local police videos showed the agent walking around and dismissing his injuries as “nothing major.”

DHS has said the death remains under investigation.

Farmworker fell from greenhouse roof during ICE raid

Authorities were arresting dozens of farmworkers July 10 at Glass House Farms in southern California when Jaime Alanis fell from the roof of a greenhouse and broke his neck. The 57-year-old laborer from Mexico died at a hospital two days later.

Relatives said Alanis had spent a decade working at the farm in Camarillo, about an hour east of Los Angeles. Officials said he fell about 30 feet (9 meters) from the greenhouse roof.

Homeland Security said Alanis was never in custody and was not being chased by immigration authorities.

Man struck on California freeway after running from officers

A man fleeing from immigration officers outside a Home Depot store in southern California died after being hit by an SUV as he tried to cross a freeway on Aug. 14.

Police in Monrovia, northeast of Los Angeles, said ICE agents were conducting enforcement operations when the man was hit while running across the eastbound lanes of Interstate 210.

The man, identified by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network as Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, 52, of Guatemala, died at a hospital.

Homeland Security said Montoya Valdez wasn’t being pursued by immigration authorities when he ran.

Gardener from Honduras killed on Virginia interstate

A pickup truck fatally struck Josué Castro Rivera on a highway in Norfolk, Virginia, as he tried to escape authorities during a traffic stop on Oct. 23.

Castro Rivera, 24, of Honduras, was heading to a gardening job with three passengers when ICE officers pulled over the vehicle, according to his brother, Henry Castro.

State and federal authorities said Castro Rivera ran away on foot and was hit by a pickup truck on Interstate 264.

Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and that Castro Rivera had “resisted heavily and fled.”

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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia, and Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press reporters Ed White in Detroit; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; Leah Willingham in Boston and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed.

The U.S. had until now said the strait should remain open to all without tolls, as it was before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Any attempt by the U.S. or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and raise tensions, likely causing further economic disruption far beyond the region.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 7.8% to $81.92 a barrel on Monday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war.

Exchanges of fire in recent days, sparked by Iranian attacks on ships, had already cast further doubt on the interim peace deal reached last month. Washington had lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of that deal, which also called for the strait to be fully reopened.

“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Trump said on social media. “All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”

The president said the U.S. would be “reimbursed” by 20% of the value of cargo to help cover “any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security.”

The U.S. military said it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT.

The struggle over the strait is escalating

Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with the interim peace deal. The U.S. has disputed that.

Iran on Monday vowed to fight back against any U.S. interference in the strait. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi mocked Trump on social media and used his support for tolls to legitimize Iran's position.

“POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service,” Araghchi wrote on X. “Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER. 20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”

The International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency overseeing international shipping, said it was waiting to find out more about Trump’s proposal but remained opposed to tolls for passage through international waterways.

“There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait,” it said in a statement.

The U.S. had opposed charging fees in the strait

Meeting with Gulf leaders late last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken forcefully against Iran charging fees for transit through the strait.

“That’s international waterway. There isn’t a nation on Earth that supports having to pay money to go through the straits,” Rubio told reporters in Bahrain on June 25.

Rubio also said there was “zero support among the Gulf countries for any sort of toll or fees or anything that charges for the use of international waters. The president’s made it clear that’s not going to happen.”

A fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed through the strait before Iran effectively shut it down at the start of the war, driving up global prices of energy, fertilizer and other goods. Traffic had picked up after last month's agreement but remained well below prewar levels.

The American military has tried to establish a route through the strait along the coast of Oman that would be outside of Iranian control. Iran has attacked ships using that route, saying the U.S. is violating the interim peace deal. The U.S. has attacked Iran in response, drawing Iranian attacks on U.S.-allied Arab states.

US strikes as allied Arab states report a wave of attacks

The U.S. military said it struck dozens of sites on Monday in response to an Iranian attack on a container ship the day before, including air defense systems, radar sites, missile and drone equipment, and small boats. It said it used drone ships for the first time to hit an Iranian ship maintenance facility and submarine on Sunday.

Missile alert sirens sounded three times Monday in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. There was no immediate word on damage.

Separately, Kuwait's Foreign Ministry said its consulate in Iraq had been attacked. It did not immediately blame anyone for the attack or disclose damages or casualties.

The oil-rich kingdom — home to several U.S. military bases — also condemned Iran and “its factions and militias loyal to it in Iraq” for attacking what it described as “several border points” and a maritime oil drilling platform that belonged to the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.

In Jordan, the kingdom's military said it shot down four Iranian missiles in an incident that “resulted in zero casualties or material damage.” Jordan also hosts U.S. military forces and aircraft.

In Iran, authorities reported attacks in Hormozgan, Khuzestan and Markazi provinces and said at least two people were killed, according to state-run IRNA news agency. Semiofficial Iranian media also reported strikes in the eastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, which is on a coast of the Gulf of Oman.

Iran blames the US for the chaos in the region

The attacks on Iran continued hours after the U.S. ended its strikes — again raising the possibility that Gulf Arab states were retaliating. There were unclaimed attacks on Iran on Thursday.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei blamed Washington for the chaos gripping the region. He said Iran wouldn't agree to visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency to nuclear sites the U.S. bombed in 2025. That's where Tehran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to be entombed.

Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was “over” and the U.S. ended waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in U.S. dollars. But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach a final agreement to end the war.

Iran and the U.S. are nearly halfway through the 60-day period in which they were supposed to negotiate such an agreement, which was also supposed to address Iran's disputed nuclear program.

___

Boak reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mae Anderson in New York, Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Stella Martany in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams accused Trump and his lawyers of having manipulated the court system when he sued a federal agency under his control, bypassing a requirement that parties in a lawsuit must have adverse interests and laying the groundwork for a settlement that granted him immunity from tax audits and created a fund to compensate allies of the president who say they were unjustly persecuted.

The judge stopped short of explicitly voiding the deal shielding Trump from tax scrutiny but said the government cannot claim that the agreement was the result of a legitimate legal process.

“Whether Executive Branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax monies for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this Court,” said Williams, an appointee of President Barack Obama. “The question is whether the Parties could do so by claiming to be adverse and engaging the legitimacy of a court proceeding. The answer is a resounding ‘no.’”

The ruling comes just ahead of a key confirmation hearing

Though the practical impacts of the ruling may be limited since the lawsuit was withdrawn months ago and the administration had already abandoned the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that came out of it, the order nonetheless amounts to a scathing rebuke and tees up a politically uncomfortable line of questioning for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as faces the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law," Williams wrote in her ruling.

She added: “The President may be the functional “dominus litus” of the Executive Branch, but as a party to a civil suit, he, as well as all the parties and lawyers before a court, are bound by the rules. Ensuring that our courts are used only for the express purpose created by the Constitution is the obligation of every judge and an obligation that this Court must discharge in light of the matter before it.”

The suit against the IRS and Treasury Department in January accused the federal agencies of a failure to prevent a leak of the president’s tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020.

In May, however, the administration announced that it was settling the case and creating a fund to compensate people who believe they've been mistreated by the criminal justice system. The fund was quickly shelved amid bipartisan backlash, though the Trump administration has said it intends to proceed with a separate element of the deal affording Trump and family members protection from audits.

From the start, the judge had appeared skeptical of the complaint and assigned a group of attorneys to determine whether there was a conflict in the case since, as sitting president, Trump was suing “entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.”

Even after the settlement was revealed, she directed Trump attorneys to lay out their positions on whether the parties in the case were truly adverse to each other, whether the settlement was premised on fraud and whether the case should be reopened.

She made clear in her ruling that she was not satisfied by the lawyers' answers.

“After a review of the record, and the Parties’ statements, the Court declines to adopt or accept the credulous exercise of divorcing President Trump’s current job title from an understanding of what happened here,” she wrote.

The ruling also raises the possibility of disciplinary actions

The judge referred Trump attorney Alejandro Brito, who filed the case, for possible disciplinary action before the state bar in Florida and said another lawyer, Daniel Epstein, will not be granted permission to file within the Southern District of Florida for up to a year.

A spokesman for the Trump legal team responded to a request seeking comment from Brito with a statement that blamed the IRS for allowing his tax returns to be leaked.

The judge also ordered that her ruling be sent to the state bars in New York and the District of Columbia, where ethics complaints have been filed against Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward.

Williams pointed to Blanche’s congressional testimony in early June in which he revealed that the “anti-weaponization” fund was no longer moving forward. Though nothing had been filed in court, Blanche appeared confident in his testimony that he “could speak for, and bind, both sides of this matter,” Williams said.

“Acting Attorney General Blanche’s apparent capacity to speak for both Plaintiffs and Defendants, sign a ‘settlement’ document on behalf of all Parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case,” the judge wrote.

The judge also raised ethical concerns about Blanche and Woodward’s involvement in the settlement given Blanche’s past representation of Trump as well as Woodward’s previous defense of Jan. 6 defendants and a co-defendant in Trump’s classified documents case.

“Instead of either recusing because of their previous representations or vigorously defending this lawsuit as required to do so by DOJ policies and procedures, these lawyers agreed to a ‘settlement’ involving a staggering amount of money potentially benefitting former clients,” she said.

Blanche denied in a CNN interview last spring that he had come up with the settlement terms, saying, “The president has outside counsel, and their counsel, the Department of Justice, not me."

_____

Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor’s social media page.

His death was “sudden and unexpected,” the statement said, adding that he “remained cancer free” when he died. A cause of death wasn’t specified. “Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,” his family wrote.

Tributes were paid by fellow actors and directors, including Steven Spielberg, who helmed the first “Jurassic Park” movie.

“I adored making all the ‘Jurassic’ movies with him. Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world,” Spielberg said in a statement.

Actor Sharon Lawrence wrote on Instagram: “Condolences and appreciation for the immense joy and mastery Sam Neill brought our industry."

Actor came to world's notice with ‘Dead Calm’ and ‘My Brilliant Career’

Neill was one of a host of actors and directors who achieved international fame after an explosion of Australian films that began in the late 1970s, along with Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. His range was remarkable, playing opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy “Sweet Revenge” to chopping off Hunter’s finger in “The Piano” to poking his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror “Event Horizon.”

He portrayed both saintly and sinner: In “Omen III: The Final Conflict,” he played Damien the Antichrist, and he also played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in “The Tudors.”

The actor first came to the attention of international audiences in Armstrong’s 1979 film “My Brilliant Career,” which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce’s “Dead Calm,” a classy thriller set at sea and co-starring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.

Neill twice co-starred with Meryl Streep, in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s “Plenty” and — again for Schepisi — in “A Cry in the Dark,” a film about the sensationalized aftermath of a dingo killing a baby in the Australian Outback.

He earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries “Merlin” and another as narrator of 2017’s “Wild New Zealand.” Neill also earned three Golden Globe nods — for “Merlin,” “One Against the Wind” and “Reilly: Ace of Spies.”

Richard E. Grant, a longtime friend who co-starred with Neill in 2019’s “Palm Beach,” described him in a post on Instagram as “an officer and a gentleman in the truest sense.” Grant said Neill had “guided and helped me through a very difficult time in my life.”

‘Jurassic Park’ was his best-known film

Perhaps Neill achieved his highest level of fame in “Jurassic Park,” playing paleontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs.

His character was thoughtful and reasonable, a scientist who warned the mastermind of the theme park before the chaos: “Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?”

Grant survived the harrowing events when the creatures get loose, but didn’t return for “The Lost World: Jurassic Park II” in 1997. He came back for the third episode in 2001 and “Jurassic World: Dominion” in 2022.

“It’s probably a little late to learn these things,” he told the New York Daily News in 2001, “but I finally feel I’ve worked out how to be an action hero. I’m happier with Grant this time. He’s gnarly and grizzled, but he looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

Early life in Northern Ireland and New Zealand

Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 7. He was born Nigel Neill, but told interviewers he started to go by Sam because there were too many Nigels at his school.

His family settled in Dunedin on the South Island and he was sent to boarding school in Christchurch. After college, he took the lead in “Sleeping Dogs” in 1977, the first feature made in New Zealand in more than a decade.

Neill’s other film roles included playing a Soviet submarine officer who memorably dreams of a home in Montana in “The Hunt for Red October” and an investigator in director John Carpenter’s “In the Mouth of Madness.”

On the small screen, Neill played the malign Chester Campbell in TV’s “Peaky Blinders” and Thomas Jefferson in the four-hour CBS miniseries, “Sally Hemings: an American Tragedy.” On Apple TV+, he was on “Invasion,” playing Oklahoma Sheriff John Bell Tyson, a man late in his career searching for his purpose. In 2024, he starred opposite Annette Bening in the Peacock series “Apples Never Fall.”

Beloved in New Zealand as an unassuming celebrity

The actor became known in New Zealand as a modest and unassuming person who didn't embrace celebrity. On social media, he often posted images of his farm animals, many of them affectionately named after celebrities and friends, like Laura Dern the chicken, Kylie Minogue the duck and Helena Bonham Carter the cow.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon mourned Neill as “one of the greats” in a statement posted to social media.

“He started out when there was barely a film industry to speak of,” Luxon wrote. “For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today.”

Neill was also a vintner and under his Two Paddocks brand, he produced pinot noir and riesling wines from his winery in the Central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island.

His memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?” came out in March 2023 and he was awarded a knighthood in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to film,” a title approved by the late Queen Elizabeth II.

“I can’t pretend that the last year hasn’t had its dark moments,” Neill told The Guardian in 2023, referring to his cancer diagnosis and treatment. “But those dark moments throw the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every day and immensely grateful for all my friends.”

He is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.

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Kennedy reported from New York.

The Buffalo Bills' franchise player was voted the NFL’s top quarterback by The Associated Press in a preseason survey.

The 2024 AP NFL Most Valuable Player beat out Patrick Mahomes, who earned the top spot each of the three previous seasons.

Allen received five first-place votes from a panel of eight AP pro football writers, who ranked the top five quarterbacks entering the 2026 season. First-place votes were worth 10 points. Second through fifth-place votes were worth 5, 3, 2 and 1 points.

Allen appeared on all eight ballots and also got one second-place vote, one third and one fourth.

Mahomes finished second just ahead of reigning NFL MVP Matthew Stafford. Lamar Jackson came in fourth and Joe Burrow was fifth.

1. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills

Allen followed up his MVP season with another excellent campaign in 2025, but the Bills had their streak of five straight AFC East titles ended by New England and were knocked out of the playoffs in the divisional round against Denver, costing coach Sean McDermott his job.

Allen threw for 3,668 yards, 25 TDs and had 10 picks for a 102.2 passer rating. He ran for 579 yards and 14 scores, making his fourth Pro Bowl and finishing third in MVP voting.

Allen and the Bills are still seeking their first Super Bowl appearance since the 1993 season despite seven straight playoff appearances.

2. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs

Mahomes finished his worst season in the NFL on the sideline after suffering a torn ACL in Week 15. The Chiefs were 6-8 with Mahomes and lost all three games without him.

Still, the three-time Super Bowl MVP — a unanimous choice for No. 1 in this survey in 2023 and 2024 — commands enough respect to earn two first-place votes and finished second behind Allen. He had 3,587 yards passing for 22 TDs with 11 picks before going down with his first significant injury in the NFL. Mahomes is aiming to be ready for Week 1 as Kansas City tries to rebound from its first losing season under Andy Reid.

3. Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams

Stafford earned first-team All-Pro honors for the first time in his 17-year career, and beat out Drake Maye for his first NFL MVP award last season.

He got one first-place vote, two seconds and appeared on all eight ballots in this year's preseason survey. The Rams went 14-6, including a pair of playoff victories and a loss to Seattle in the conference championship.

Stafford led the NFL with 4,707 yards passing and 46 TDs. He threw eight picks and finished second to Maye with a 109.2 passer rating.

4. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens

Jackson, a three-time All-Pro and two-time NFL MVP, had his first losing season as a starter, going 6-7, and the Baltimore Ravens missed the playoffs.

Jackson threw for 2,549 yards, 21 TDs and seven picks, posting a 103.8 passer rating. Jackson had a career-low 349 yards rushing and two scores.

Jackson got two third-place votes and appeared on six ballots.

5. Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals

Burrow played only eight games last season because of a toe injury, leading the Bengals to a 5-3 record. It was the third time he played 10 or fewer games due to injuries.

Burrow bounced back the following season to win the AP Comeback Player of the Year award the previous two times.

The three-time Pro Bowl QB threw for 1,809 yards, 17 TDs and five picks with a passer rating of 100.7. Burrow appeared on five ballots with one third-place vote.

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

Neill achieved his highest level of fame in “Jurassic Park” playing paleontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs. He co-starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.

Neill earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries “Merlin” and another as narrator of 2017’s “Wild New Zealand.” Neill also earned three Golden Globe nods — for “Merlin,” “One Against the Wind” and “Reilly: Ace of Spies.”

Some notable reactions:

Steven Spielberg

“Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him. Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.” — in a statement.

Richard E. Grant, actor

“Knew @samneilltheprop for 3 decades and finally worked with him on ‘PALM BEACH’ in 2018. An officer and a Gentleman in the truest sense. Guided and helped me through a very difficult time in my Life … Sail on, kind Sir. — via Instagram.

Cillian Murphy, actor

“Like everyone who knew and worked with Sam, I admired him and adored him in equal measure. He was one of the kindest, funniest and gentlest people, and one of the finest actors … RIP.” — in a statement.

Nicole Kidman, actor

“Sam was one of the greats, a joy to be around,” she said. “We met when I was just 18 and he took me under his wing and we stayed friends for life. He was charming, kind, funny and intelligent. He will be greatly missed, and my heart goes out to his family.” — in a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Colin Trevorrow, director

“Sam Neill was a deeply soulful and beautiful man. He was a friend and collaborator at a challenging time, and his strength gave us all strength. I’ll remember him for his tranquility, his love of wine, and for the calm assuredness he brought to his characters. It’s not every lifetime you get to befriend a legend. Forever grateful.” — via Instagram.

Christopher Luxon, prime minister of New Zealand

“Sir Sam Neill was one of the greats. He started out when there was barely a film industry in this country to speak of. For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today — one of our greatest cultural exports.” — via X.

Sharon Lawrence, actor

“My condolences and appreciation for the immense joy and mastery Sam Neill brought our industry. Do yourself a favor and find ‘DEAN SPANLEY’ on a streamer- he’s wonderful and it will soothe someplace in your spirit that needs it now. — via Instagram.

Joel Tobeck, actor

“This man made me feel like I could fly. Even when I was all over the place in his presence he made it ok. We loved to talk rugby. RIP my old mate. Sam Neill, a true gentleman.” — via Instagram.

Rachel Griffiths, actor

“Such a shock — loved by so many — I’ll be cracking two paddocks tonight,” referring to wine from the actor’s vineyard, via Instagram.

Kylie Minogue, singer

“Vale Sam,” a Latin term for “farewell” that’s often used in Australia and New Zealand, via Instagram.

Toni Collette, actor

“I love you, dear Sam. You hero. You legend. You sweetheart. Our great friend. You are already missed so very much. Continue in peace wherever you are.” — via Instagram.

Lesley-Ann Brandt, actor

“Sending love and condolences to your family. A remarkable man and artist. NZ loses a giant and one of its greatest gifts.” — via Instagram.

Kate Mulvany, actor

“It was the greatest of honours to shout at Sam onscreen and to laugh ourselves silly offscreen. He was truly the most wondrous human. Not was. Still is. Will always be. Such is his incredible legacy of life, art, advocacy and love.” — via Instagram.

Perhaps even more astonishing? He has only two PGA Tour victories since. He has played in the final group at a major only once.

What hasn't changed is his optimism that he can get back to his best golf, now matter how far away that looks for a player who is No. 51 in the world, who has not been to the Tour Championship the past two years, who has not been in the conversation at a major in five years.

“If you give up on reaching your ceiling, then I don't see a point in playing anymore,” Spieth said Monday. “So for me it's always about I'll do everything I can to be trying to be at the very best in the world, because I know that I can be. I have been. It's nice to have the blueprint.”

The blueprint was nearly a decade ago — the pursuit of the calendar Grand Slam that ended with a bogey on the 17th hole at St. Andrews in 2015, his British Open title two years later, and playing in the final group at Carnoustie in 2018 as he tried to keep possession of the claret jug.

He feels he is on the right track and keeps getting a bad hand. The analogy he used earlier this year was having a bad shoe at the blackjack table, staying put because as soon as he walks away, fortunes surely will turn.

He's still at the table.

“I'm quite frustrated with the results considering I know where my game is at,” Spieth said. "It’s better than it was four or five years ago when I got back to top 10 in the world. It’s without a doubt better than it was then. It’s just not quite showing up in results.

“At the same time, it’s a stay-the-course mentality,” he said. “Sometimes you get rewarded right away, like I did back then maybe in a bit of a lucky fashion, and I understand that sometimes it’s delayed. And that’s how it feels like it is right now. ... So I'm just waiting for that opportunity.”

The return to Royal Birkdale at least allows him to remember how it felt to walk up to the 18th green with victory secure, sitting on the edge of a pot bunker with the claret jug as dozens of photographers captured the image of a 23-year-old often referred to then as “Golden Child.”

What he can't relive is the finish. He lost the lead on the 13th hole even though his bogey felt like stealing a shot — he took a penalty drop from a dune covered in high grass, hit a blind shot from the driving range and limited the damage with a chip-and-putt for bogey, just like always.

Then came the 6-iron he nearly holed on the par-3 14th and the 50-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th hole — “Go get that,” he famously said to caddie Michael Greller — and two more birdies.

“Maybe the best shot and best putt I've ever hit don't exist anymore,” Spieth said with a smile.

The par-3 14th is gone now. The R&A instead wanted the 15th hole to play as No. 14, and it built a new par-3 15th that measures 241 yards and has yet to get many positive reviews.

“Undecided,” Rory McIlroy said last week.

“As is always the case in par 3s, you have to wait until a tournament plays to see how the par 3 plays,” Tommy Fleetwood said on Monday.

Perhaps the biggest change for Spieth are the conditions. It was wet and green and lush in 2017, the wind coming out of the opposite direction. Now it is mostly yellow, brittle and firm, and much of England is coping with a heat wave.

Players were in shorts for the Monday practice round, which followed a “Last Chance Qualifier” that Joe Dean of England won with a 68 to secure his spot in the field.

“It’s going to play quite different than the last time we were here,” Spieth said. “We’ve had an opposite wind, too, the last couple days. ... Holes that are close to being drivable become mid- to long irons, and just with the wind switch, the difference into and down are so dramatic over here that picking a strategy is going to be key.”

A change of scenery might not be the worse thing for Spieth. He arrived over the weekend and relived some of those shots in the closing stretch, at least on the holes still there. But at this stage in his career, it's more about looking forward.

“I'm always comparing myself a bit to myself at my best, but not to try to be the exact player, just more so that I know that I can do it," Spieth said. “I know my ceiling is where that level was, and so I’m going to strive for it with the type of player that I am now.”

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

Detroit Tigers outfielder Riley Greene and two New York Yankees, first baseman Ben Rice and outfielder Cody Bellinger, gained American League starting spots because of injuries.

Rice, third in the major leagues with 29 home runs behind Schwarber (32) and the Houston Astros' Yordan Alvarez (31), starts at first because Toronto's Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is skipping the game to rest a bad back. Guerrero's initial replacement, the Athletics' Nick Kurtz, sprained a thumb.

Bellinger replaced Yankees teammate Aaron Judge, who hasn't played since May 31 because of a fractured rib. Greene took over from Minnesota Twins outfielder Bryon Buxton, sidelined by a hip injury. Bellinger will be in right and Greene in left.

Philadelphia left-hander Cristopher Sánchez and Toronto right-hander Dylan Cease were announced as starting pitchers on Sunday.

Even without Ohtani, NL manager Dave Roberts of the two-time champion Dodgers has three of his players in the starting lineup along with two Phillies and two Braves.

New York Mets left fielder Juan Soto bats second, followed by Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, Washington shortstop CJ Abrams, Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy, Atlanta second baseman Ozzie Albies, Phillies right fielder Brandon Marsh, Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages and Braves catcher Drake Baldwin.

AL manager John Schneider of the Toronto Blue Jays has Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout leading off, followed by Alvarez at designated hitter, Athletics catcher Shea Langeliers, Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., Bellinger, Rice, Green, Rice and Blue Jays second baseman Ernie Clement.

Sánchez will be the 14th pitcher to start an All-Star Game in his home ballpark, the first since the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw in 2022. He will be the Phillies' first All-Star starting pitcher since Roy Halladay in 2011.

Cease will be the Blue Jays' first All-Star starting pitcher since Halladay in 2009.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Troopers, deputies and police officers will be out in force through July 18 to deter dangerous driving behavior. The annual traffic campaign reminds drivers that roadway safety is a shared responsibility.

The coordinated campaign brings together law enforcement from Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee to encourage drivers to respect speed limits and make safer choices behind the wheel.

[WATCH: Florida’s ‘super speeder’ law turns 1: Arrests, consequences pile up in Seminole County]

Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods made clear what drivers can expect.

“We are going to write your ass tickets,” Woods said.

FHP Troop D Commander Maj. Mark Castleberry said excessive speed is a problem well beyond the interstate.

“The reality of it is we see excessive speeds on the interstate, but we also see it on the local roadways, too,” Castleberry said. “Some of our worst crashes that involve speed are not on the interstates. They’re on our local roadways, with families and innocent people just trying to get home or get to the grocery store.”

Castleberry said the goal of the campaign goes beyond issuing citations.

“Any time that you have to give a message to a family that your loved one’s not coming home and they were a victim of something, that’s a difficult match to send, but it’s a difficult message to receive as a family member,” he said.

[WATCH: Here’s how ‘Super Speeder’ cases are resolved after arrests]

The campaign comes just days after Florida’s Super Speeder Law marked its first year in effect. Castleberry said Central Florida troopers arrested 777 drivers for traveling 50 mph or more over the speed limit in 2025.

“So, imagine if that law wasn’t in place,” Castleberry said. “We’re very much part of that law and anything we can do to enforce that, we absolutely will.”

Drivers are encouraged to slow down, remain patient and set a positive example on the road.

How much of the money will be delivered, and when reconstruction of Gaza can begin, is unclear. The ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group that took effect in October is effectively stalled.

European Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica announced the fund after a meeting in Brussels of the Palestine Donors Group, which includes EU and Middle East nations along with international organizations and financial institutions.

“The ceasefire in Gaza remains fragile, and the situation on the ground for civilians is not getting better," Šuica said. She said the money will move through “trusted partners" but didn't give details.

Few places in the Palestinian territory of over 2 million people have been left unscathed, and the United Nations, World Bank and EU estimate that reconstruction will cost $70 billion.

The U.N. has said Gaza has more than 60 million tons of rubble, enough to fill nearly 3,000 container ships. It will take over seven years to clear, with additional time for demining.

The meeting also brought together Nickolay Mladenov, the head of the Board of Peace set up by U.S. President Donald Trump to lead Gaza's reconstruction; Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; Ali Shaath, the head of the new Palestinian committee meant to administer Gaza’s daily affairs but still unable to enter; and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa.

Mladenov has made clear that the next steps in implementing the ceasefire are stalled over the difficult issue of disarming Hamas militants in Gaza.

“We are investing not only in the Palestinian future but also in the regional stability, shared security and just and lasting peace for everyone together,” Mustafa said, calling for “a resilient, sovereign, contiguous and viable Palestinian state" — something Israel's current government has opposed.

The Palestinian Authority seeks a role in Gaza’s reconstruction, but the U.S. 20-point plan only makes a reference to the possibility of a future Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, EU ministers discuss the West Bank

Separately, top diplomats from the 27-nation EU debated how to respond to increased Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

The bloc's executive, the European Commission, has tabled options including cutting off trade with Israeli settlements in the territory.

Nations like Ireland and Spain are calling for forceful action. The Czech Republic, Germany and others alongside the commission are more cautious, seeking to apply incremental pressure. Some nations have signaled they would veto sanctions.

Do sanctions “have a meaningful impact or not? What role could they play as a political message, and would this be escalatory in a wrong direction?” said Bulgarian Foreign Minister Velislava Petrova-Chamova.

The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the European Council's legal service had found that severing trade ties with Israeli settlements in the West Bank — not technically sanctions — would require a majority vote and not total unanimity from bloc members.

Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel said a clear majority in the EU agrees on severing commercial ties with the settlements. He dismissed arguments that tough action would boost Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances in an election in October: “I hope that now it’s time for decisions.”

“Surgery. Prehab. Return to martial arts practice. Go again. Final fight of the contract. Please God!” McGregor wrote on Instagram on Monday.

McGregor’s first fight in five years lasted only 1 minute, 9 seconds because of a knee injury sustained while attempting an opening roundhouse kick on Saturday.

McGregor’s return to the octagon was highly anticipated but ended in disappointment when he awkwardly landed on his right knee in the opening seconds. McGregor went to the mat two more times in failed attempts to continue before the scheduled five-round match was halted by the referee.

On Sunday, McGregor's manager, John Kavanagh, said his client did not have a previous knee injury.

“That opening jump switch kick was drilled daily for months, multiple times in warmup. Never an issue,” Kavanagh wrote on Facebook. “Knee went when he (threw) the very first kick. Doesn’t get any worse than this.”

Following the fight, McGregor also said he had no previous injury.

“I was throwing kicks, planted and jumping, all throughout camp as well as backstage before the fight,” McGregor said on X. “I had no injury / injuries going into the fight."

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AP MMA: https://apnews.com/hub/mixed-martial-arts

The series of executions, due to be carried out by the end of this month, highlights the nation’s aging death-row population. One of Florida's prisoners scheduled to die in July, a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents in 1986, is 80 years old and would be only the second known octogenarian to be executed in the U.S.

For some, it renews questions about the humanity of administering capital punishment to inmates who might soon die from natural causes. For others, it illustrates how lengthy appeals designed to ensure constitutional protections and prevent innocent people from being executed can also delay justice.

“Is this intentional, as though to say, we’re not going to let a natural death help you escape executions?” asked the Rev. Dustin Feddon, a Catholic priest who has been ministering to Florida death row inmates since 2013. Noting the church's opposition to capital punishment, he added: "To execute those that are the most frail and elderly is even more cruel and unusual.”

Marilyn Gifford, whose sister's killer is set to die Tuesday, doesn't see it that way.

“I’m just happy it’s ever happening in our lifetime,” she said. “I wish my mother was alive to see it.”

Death warrants follow decades on death row

On June 25, Dusty Ray Spencer, who was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992, became the oldest person executed in Florida in modern history. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the 74-year-old's appeal that his liver disease rendered him susceptible to excruciating pain from lethal injection.

Dennis Sochor, convicted of killing 18-year-old Patricia Gifford just hours into 1982 after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party, would be just a week older if his execution is carried out on Tuesday. Marilyn Gifford said she and her family plan to be there.

Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, has spent nearly four decades on death row after being sentenced in the murders of his ex-girlfriend's parents. He is scheduled to die July 28 and would become the second oldest prisoner known to be put to death in the U.S., after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr. Moody was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney.

There are three inmates older than Occhicone on Florida’s death row.

The scheduling of executions is up to the governor

It's unclear why Florida set the executions for the three prisoners consecutively. Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noted that in Florida, the governor has practically sole discretion when it comes to the scheduling of executions. In many other death penalty states, the scheduling is up to the courts.

About half of Florida’s 242 death row inmates have exhausted their appeals and could see their death warrant issued at any time. The family of Michael Sheridan spent a year calling and writing to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, requesting he sign a death warrant, before Sheridan's killer was executed earlier this year.

DeSantis' office did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment. He oversaw a record 19 executions in 2025, more in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The state has executed nine inmates so far this year.

DeSantis said last year his goal is to bring justice to victims’ families who have waited for decades.

“Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” the governor said last year. “Justice delayed is justice denied."

Death row gets older

The average age of inmates executed in the U.S. has crept up from the 30s to the 50s over the past half-century, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. While some inmates committed capital offenses later in life, lengthy appeals and mandatory reviews have resulted in many spending decades on death row, sometimes developing medical conditions that can complicate efforts to execute them.

Occhicone has several age-related ailments, including kidney and prostate problems, according to his attorneys. He needs help getting in and out of the shower, they noted.

Under Supreme Court precedent, those who were under 18 when they committed their crimes cannot be put to death. But advanced age alone doesn't provide a legal case for avoiding execution, said Gerod Hooper, an attorney with Florida’s Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, a state agency that provides post-conviction legal representation.

“You’d have to say it’s unconstitutional to execute this 80-year-old because he’s mentally deficient, he doesn’t have capacity to be executed," Hooper said. "Or because of some underlying medical condition, the drug cocktail they inject would cause undue pain and suffering.”

Death row inmates with dementia in Utah and Alabama have avoided execution and later died of apparent natural causes. An inmate in Idaho received at least one stay of execution because of cancer and other health problems, but state officials continue to push for his death.

‘He could live another 20 years’

At the time of Gifford’s disappearance, Sochor was free on probation from a 1980 rape conviction.

“I knew him as a child, and he was a bully,” said Frank Frandel, who grew up as a family friend in Portland, Michigan. “I could believe he could be violent like that.”

Frandel offered no sympathy for Sochor's advanced age, pointing out that Sochor’s father will turn 99 this year.

“He could live another 20 years,” Frandel said. “So no, I don’t feel sorry for him being at that age.”

The 18-year-old, who once found classes boring and put in only enough effort to pass, found renewed purpose to come to school everyday.

“It motivates me. I like making connections with the kids, I like helping them,” Dillon said.

It began in his junior year when he enrolled in career training courses. Soon, Dillon said, his grades improved. He graduated in June from Chief Leschi Schools in Washington and is now considering going to college for a teaching degree.

Administrators at the school say a shift in focus to technical training and career readiness is paying off, with more students not only staying in school but graduating on time.

Those gains are emblematic of progress across the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, which oversees 183 primary and secondary schools serving over 40,000 students. In 2015, just over half of high schoolers at BIE schools graduated within four years. That number soared to a record high of 79% by 2025.

Some BIE educators attribute that surge to local innovations. Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Billy Kirkland says they reflect the Trump administration’s commitment to Native American students, including efforts to strengthen teacher training. In addition, the way graduation rates are reported across BIE schools was changed to address flawed data collection that previously depressed the numbers.

But concerns loom that changes reshaping the BIE under the Trump administration — including the planned dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education and continued fallout from cuts instituted by DOGE — could undermine progress and prevent struggling schools from improving.

Reporting standards net more accurate data

The surge in graduation rates reflects, in part, more accurate reporting rather than a sudden leap in student academic improvement, according to agency officials.

For years, school administrators across the system used flawed methods to track graduation rates, often counting students who had transferred to other schools as dropouts.

“We had to come to a consensus and set an accountability framework for our schools,” said Carmelia Becenti, the agency’s chief academic officer.

Beginning in 2018, BIE began standardizing data collection methods. In the years since, Becenti said, the data has painted a more accurate and encouraging picture.

An AP analysis of BIE data found that graduation rates across the system are up 55% since new reporting standards began rolling out, with nine of its secondary schools reporting 100% growth or higher.

New approaches help students connect

Less than one-third of BIE schools are operated by the agency itself. The rest are run by tribes and receive federal funding. At some of those, educators say data collection is only part of the story.

Don Brummett, superintendent of Chief Leschi Schools, said his staff has been working to correct a “disconnect” between the high school's previous laser focus on getting students ready for college and many students’ goals of finding a job upon graduation.

“We devalued the trades. That was a mistake,” Brummett said.

The school launched its career and technical curriculum in 2020 with funding from the Puyallup Tribal Council. Since then, Brummett has seen students who might otherwise have dropped out instead enter health sciences, education and fisheries management and find new motivation to stay in school.

Dillon, the recent graduate, said hands-on job training was a better match for his learning style.

“It was kind of the first time I felt excited to go to school,” said Dillon, reflecting on his time helping second graders practice reading skills and learn the life cycle of a frog.

Between 2019 and 2025, Chief Leschi Schools reported four-year graduation rates rose from 53% to 87%.

A focus on trades is just one of the ways tribal-controlled BIE schools have innovated to keep students on track. At Choctaw Central High School, a BIE school operated by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw, administrators said a COVID-era experiment in virtual learning contributed to a surge in graduation rates from roughly 70% to 93%.

“For certain kids that have more responsibilities at home, kids that need to work, we saw that (virtual learning) gave them a flexible schedule and an opportunity to earn their diploma,” said principal Alaric Keams.

When pandemic lockdowns lifted, the district maintained a virtual learning option for all high schoolers.

But not all tribal governments have the resources to pay for these kinds of programs or take over management of BIE schools.

Peter Lengkeek, chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, says the BIE-operated high school serving his community is chronically understaffed and crumbling under a backlog of deferred maintenance, including a gymnasium with sinking walls and a rodent infestation. It has reported graduating fewer than 60% of students on time in recent years.

“If we were able to, we would step in and try to remedy a lot of these things,” said Lengkeek. “We have to rely on the government to fulfill its treaty promise.”

Tribal leaders push back against education changes

From the dismantling of the federal Department of Education to DOGE reductions that swept out longtime staffers, as well as repeated threats of deep funding cuts, tribal leaders fear the progress that has been made could be undermined.

In November 2025, the Department of Education began handing off oversight of dozens of programs that serve Native students to BIE.

At a tribal consultation session in February in Washington, D.C., dozens of tribal leaders spoke in opposition, saying the transition could overwhelm the already understaffed and stretched BIE with additional responsibilities. Several accused the department of ignoring its legal responsibility to seek their input before moving forward.

“We are here too late,” said Herschel Gorham, lieutenant governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. “The ink was dry on the agreements before the tribes were ever notified. That should never, ever happen.”

Jason Dropik, executive director of the National Indian Education Association, said turmoil at the agency's Washington office trickles down to schools, pointing to a Trump administration executive order that aimed to turn the BIE into a school choice system but was scaled back after an outcry from tribes.

“That caused some delays and disruptions to services,” Dropik said. “When drastic changes go into motion without tribal consultation, there can be unintended consequences for our students.”

Lengkeek worries the BIE could be consumed by political upheaval while schools like the one serving his community continue to underperform.

“This system holds the future of our nations in its hands,” Lengkeek said. “We need stability. We need increased funding. We need infrastructure.”

——

This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.

Lawyers for Robert Tulloch, now 43, and prosecutors reached an agreement, avoiding a three-day planned resentencing hearing. In court Monday, a shackled Tulloch held his head down and appeared to breathe heavily as the horrific details of the stabbings were recounted.

Tulloch was automatically sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the 2001 stabbing deaths of Half and Susanne Zantop. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that mandatory sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles, and later applied that decision retroactively.

The rulings gave hundreds of juvenile lifers a shot at freedom, including five men serving life sentences in New Hampshire for murders they committed as teenagers. Tulloch’s resentencing hearing, the last of the five, would have begun Monday in Grafton County Superior Court in North Haverhill, New Hampshire.

A daughter of the victims requests the longest possible sentence

Tulloch apologized to one of the professors’ two daughters, Veronika Zantop, who joined the hearing remotely, and talked about how she and her family were affected by the death of her parents.

A psychiatrist with two sons, one of them the same age Tulloch was when he committed his crimes, she said she can appreciate that brain functioning can change over time. But she does not believe it's true for Tulloch, saying he meticulously planned the killings and followed through in a cold, predatory manner.

“This wasn't a crime of passion or retribution,” she said. “He wasn't using substances, he wasn't psychotic. There was just sheer depravity.” She urged that he stay in prison “for the longest possible sentence.”

Tulloch abandoned his prepared statement.

“After listening to that, I feel disgusted by even thinking I could say anything that would mean anything,” he said.

Tulloch's lawyers asked for a 30-to-40-year minimum sentence

In a court filing last week, Tulloch’s lawyers argued that a minimum sentence in the range of 30 to 40 years is appropriate, based on a review of other murders committed by juveniles in New Hampshire and cases nationwide that were affected by the Supreme Court rulings.

Judge Lawrence MacLeod resentenced Tulloch to a minimum of 45 years to life. He could be considered for parole in 2046 when he's 62 years old, the same age Half Zantop was when he was killed.

MacLeod said he reviewed the applicable law, the circumstances of Tulloch's offenses, his conduct while in prison, the outcomes of the other New Hampshire cases and Veronika Zantop's statement.

“The agreed upon sentence provides certainty that Tulloch will remain incarcerated for a substantial period of time, allows Tulloch to pursue some measure of rehabilitation, and it secures important protections for the community,” New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said in a statement.

Attorneys Richard Guerriero and Oliver Bloom said Tulloch’s prison records show he has matured, and that after some initial misconduct early on, he’s had no major infractions since 2012 and no minor infractions since 2017.

Quoting from Tulloch’s therapy records, they said he has expressed “significant remorse” for what he sees as a heinous and unforgivable crime, his “warped youthful thinking,” and his “good capacity for empathy.”

The teens came up with a plan to kill, steal money and live overseas

According to Tulloch’s friend, James Parker, the teens were bored with their lives in Chelsea, Vermont, when they concocted a plan to kill strangers, steal their money and move to Australia. For several months, they knocked on doors in New Hampshire and Vermont pretending to be conducting a survey on the environment before being let in by the Zantops. Susanne Zantop, 55, was head of Dartmouth’s German studies department and her husband, Half Zantop taught Earth sciences.

Parker, who was 16 at the time, told prosecutors Tulloch stabbed Half Zantop and then directed Parker to attack Susanne Zantop. Tulloch also stabbed her. Fingerprints on a knife sheath and a bloody boot print linked the teens to the crime, but after being questioned by police, they fled Vermont and hitchhiked west. They were arrested at an Indiana truck stop weeks later.

Parker, who cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to being an accomplice to second-degree murder, was released from prison on parole in 2024 at age 40, having served nearly the minimum term of his 25-years-to-life sentence.

“I think it’s unimaginably horrible,” Parker said during his parole hearing when asked by a board member what he thought of what he did. “I know there’s not an amount of time or things that I can do to change it, or alleviate any pain that I’ve caused.”

Many states have banned life sentences for juveniles

The Supreme Court rulings addressed only mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles, leaving the U.S. the only country that allows discretionary life sentences for minors. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have banned the practice, while another five states allow it but have no one serving such a sentence, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.

New Hampshire lawmakers have rejected attempts to end life sentences for juveniles, but Tulloch's case could bolster future attempts. After Tulloch argued in 2018 that sentencing juveniles to life without parole violated the state constitution, the judge asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in, but it declined. Last July, MacLeod agreed with Tulloch, finding that the constitution categorically prohibits such sentences as “cruel or unusual” punishment.

Among the juvenile lifers nationwide who have been resentenced after the U.S. Supreme Court rulings, more than 75% have received sentences of less than 40 years, according to a study published in 2024 in the Journal of Criminal Justice.

In New Hampshire, one man was resentenced to life without parole after refusing to attend his hearing or authorize his attorneys to argue for a lesser sentence. Others received sentences of 25-, 40- and 45-years-to-life.

Congo since May has been battling the outbreak of a type of Ebola with no approved treatment or vaccine. Last week, the Congolese health minister, Roger Kamba, said the virus had spread to two more provinces.

The striking staff at Rwampara General Hospital in Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak, includes epidemiologists, case investigators, drivers and gravediggers who say they have not been paid by Congolese authorities. The protesting staff shut the hospital and blocked the road leading to it, even burning a tire outside.

“We don’t know how it is possible to not have been paid for two months,” Bahati Claude, a health worker at the hospital told The Associated Press. “We don’t want to give up the job.”

The treatment center is different from the one in Ituri where a study of two badly needed treatments began earlier this month.

Congolese authorities declared the Ebola outbreak on May 15, after the disease had been transmitting for weeks without official detection, according to the World Health Organization. The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, and the delay in confirming the outbreak came in part because tests were done for a more common type of Ebola.

During a visit to Ituri last week, Congo's health minister said the government is verifying a list of those working to control the outbreak, as some unrelated names have been added to the payroll.

“We must ensure that these payments reach the right people,” Kamba said. “We have faced a few challenges, notably changes to the lists, which have led to complaints from people saying they are not being paid even though they are working. We have the means to sort this out.”

There are 1,926 confirmed cases in the country, including 702 deaths, according to Congolese authorities.

Meanwhile, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted Monday on X that a second U.S. citizen, a humanitarian worker in eastern Congo who had contracted Ebola, was transferred to Germany. The first American to test positive for the virus was a doctor working in Congo during the early weeks of the outbreak.

“Operation Silver Spur” was a joint crackdown involving the sheriff’s office, the U.S. Marshals Service and FDLE.

Sheriff Chris Blackmon led the news conference alongside members of the U.S. Marshals Service and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins.

Blackmon said many of the violations involved offenders failing to register vehicles, cell phones and social media accounts.

“Those are not minor paperwork violations,” Blackmon said. “Unreported phones or hidden online accounts can become tools to locate and exploit new victims. We will not tolerate in Osceola County."

The operation took place throughout the month of June.

People designated as sex offenders and predators are required to register with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and update their registration if anything changes.

All registrants are listed on the state’s website. The registry is searchable by city, county, and ZIP code. There is also a neighborhood search, where you can search for sex offenders in your area.

Mariano Rajoy, a member of Spain’s conservative Popular Party, made the comment in a column for Spanish outlet El Debate ahead of Tuesday’s World Cup semifinal between the European neighbors.

“They’ve won every match they’ve played at this World Cup and are currently top of the FIFA rankings. They also have an exceptionally strong squad. That said, one thing they don’t have is any French players," Rajoy wrote on July 10.

On Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told French broadcaster BFM TV that “France has no skin color. Any contrary claim stems from stupidity, racism or a combination of the two."

A day earlier, French Football Federation President Philippe Diallo wrote on X that “Mariano Rajoy’s remarks about the French team carry intolerable whiffs of racism,” adding that “they also raise questions about the deplorable climate that gives rise to such sentiments. Our players do not need a certificate of nationality from a former Spanish prime minister.”

A spokesperson from Rajoy's Popular Party on Monday said the remarks were sarcastic and made without malice.

“These columns are written without ill intent,” said spokesperson Borja Sémper. “This expression is used without ill intent.”

Spain's ruling Socialist government swiftly condemned the remarks by Rajoy, who was prime minister from 2011 to 2018.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez referenced the comments without naming his predecessor, writing on X: “There are those who still measure belonging by surname, place of birth, or skin color. Others measure it by our roots in a country and our will to contribute to it. Playing soccer. Caring for our elders. Or opening businesses. France, we’ll see you in the semifinals. May the best one win and may racism lose."

France will face Spain on Tuesday in Dallas.

Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares also spoke out Monday, saying the Popular Party's leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, needed to disavow the remarks.

It's not the first time France's team has faced racism during this World Cup.

Earlier this month, French captain and star player Kylian Mbappécondemned a Paraguayan senator over remarks she made following Paraguay’s loss to France in the round of 16.

Celeste Amarilla, a senator from Paraguay’s Liberal Radical Party, posted a series of comments on X mocking the French player’s origins, upbringing, education and appearance after France won on July 4 with a penalty by Mbappé.

The team announced bullpen coach Dan Hubbs will serve as interim pitching coach for the remainder of the season.

Sunday's 9-1 loss at the Chicago White Sox left the Athletics with a nine-game losing streak entering the All-Star break. The Athletics' 5.21 ERA ranks next to last in the major leagues, ahead of only Colorado's 5.44.

At 41-55, the Athletics are fourth in the AL West.

Emerson joined the Athletics in 2014 as bullpen coach and was promoted to pitching coach in 2017.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Dean was clinging to a one-shot lead when he hit into a pot bunker on the 18th hole and splashed out to 3 feet. The massive grandstands on both sides of the green were about two-thirds full, and they offered applause for the winning putt that Dean would love to hear on the weekend.

At least the 32-year-old Dean, who once delivered groceries to pay the bills, now has a chance.

He finished one shot ahead of Andrew Wilson. Aldrich Potgieter, who made bogey on the final hole to finish two shots behind, got into the Open later Monday when Louis Oosthuizen withdrew because of a back injury.

The R&A created this final qualifier to give 12 players a last chance to make the field, and to give the spectators at Royal Birkdale something more to watch than players chipping and putting during a long practice round.

“To see the amount of people out here today, it's been great,” said Dean, who will be playing in his third British Open, his first since Royal Troon in 2024. “We stopped at a local Premier Inn and we had a few people ask if we were playing in the qualifier today, which obviously you don't usually get. Yeah, I think it has drawn a lot more people.”

The top two alternates — Potgieter and Matti Schmid — were required to play to keep their status on the reserve list. They were joined by a collection of players who narrowly missed various qualifying opportunities. They remained the top two alternates when the competition ended, and the list was filled out by order of finish from Monday’s competition.

Dean lost out on a 3-for-1 qualifier at West Lancashire two weeks ago and was invited to compete. It paid off most handsomely on the back nine. He was tied for the lead when he hit 6-iron for his second shot on the par-5 14th hole that rode the wind and bounced along the firm turf to 4 feet.

“Probably the best 6-iron I've ever hit,” Dean said.

He made his British Open debut at Royal Birkdale in 2017 and tied for 70th. Dean is No. 268 in the world and currently 67th in the Race to Dubai on the European tour. This was a good addition to the schedule as the final major of the year. Plus, he's getting married on Tuesday.

“It was cheaper,” he said, referring to the unusual day of the week to exchange vows.

Dean also is the only player at Royal Birkdale to spend time delivering groceries, a part-time job he started during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and kept for nearly four years to help fund his career when he didn't have a card and was mostly playing one-day events.

“I had a great time doing it,” Dean said. “Met some really good friends and grounded me really well.”

Wilson birdied the par-5 17th to give himself a chance but had to settle for a par on the 18th.

The last chance to win came down to Potgieter, but his flip wedge to the 17th went some 20 feet long and he made par, and his drive on the 18th landed near the spectator railing. His approach from the rough was one pace from clearing a pot bunker, instead bouncing back into the sand. By the end of the day, it didn't matter.

Schmid moved up to first alternate.

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

Blaney drove like NASCAR's King while ruling the Cup Series race from qualifying through every stage in a weather-delayed victory which left the Team Penske Ford driver in contention for the points championship.

Blaney won every stage after starting on the pole and led 171 laps in his win. The race was delayed 3 hours, 9 minutes by rain and lightning and ended at 1:45 a.m. on Monday.

The 171 laps led are the most at a drafting-style track since Petty led 184 of 200 laps for his first Daytona 500 win in 1964.

As a result, Blaney is third in the NASCAR points race, only 65 behind leader Denny Hamlin. Tyler Reddick is second.

Even Blaney was shocked to learn he is in the thick of the championship race heading into Sunday's race at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

“Really?” Blaney asked when told he is only 65 points out of the lead. “Wow! Wow!”

It was a race to remember for Blaney and Team Penske. Blaney's dominance began when he won the pole while joined by Team Penske teammate Joey Logano on the front row. He then survived the long weather delay to answer every challenge while winning Stage 1, Stage 2 and then surviving a three-wide battle on the final lap.

“I couldn’t ask for a better weekend,” Blaney said. "Sat on the pole, won both stages and won the race.

“My car was incredibly fast, leading. I could defend moves without having to throw, like, low-percentage blocks. I just never really did that.”

Blaney knew he had the speed to recover if he briefly lost the lead.

“Some moves are kind of unbeatable to defend as the leader,” he said. “I would just let people get to my inside. If they passed me, great, I think I can probably develop a run to get them back.”

Blaney's crew chief, Jonathan Hassler, made the crucial decision to keep the No. 12 Ford on the track after Blaney brushed the wall with 29 laps remaining. Blaney worried he felt a “terrible” vibration following the contact with the wall but Hassler was able to quickly determine there was no serious damage.

“We were able to get some pictures really quick, see that the damage wasn’t too bad,” Hassler said. “Obviously we saw there was a little bit. ... We looked at it, there were 30 cars on the lead lap, not a lot of laps left. Our chance to win was to stay out, take a little bit of a risk. Fortunately it worked out for us.”

Blaney fought off challenges from Bubba Wallace and Christopher Hill, who finished second, on the final lap. Carson Hocevar and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top four. Wallace was penalized for passing below the double yellow lines and finished 29th instead of second.

Blaney said he didn't have the best-handling car but enjoyed being able to rely on his superior speed with the race on the line.

“That was kind of a fun dynamic of my car is really fast, handles a little worse than theirs,” Blaney said. “Their car handles better but isn’t quite as quick down the straightaway. Fun how all that played out.”

Now Blaney will continue to chase the Toyotas of Hamlin and Reddick for the points lead. Blaney's strategy is simple: "Just keep doing what we’re doing."

Asked if he can win the championship, Blaney said “I don’t think it’s out of the question.

"We just have to keep doing what we’re doing. That surprises me we’re that close. I think before San Diego I was like 160 out. It shows you how quick things can kind of ebb and flow. ... Never know when we can get there or not."

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Deputies responded to the 2600 block of Scrapbook Street in Kissimmee just before 4 p.m. Sunday.

In a news conference on Monday, Osceola County Sheriff Chris Blackmon said deputies located a 2-year-old boy upon arrival with a gunshot wound. Emergency personnel provided lifesaving measures before the child was transported to the hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

Blackmon said the 4-year-old located an unsecured firearm inside a vehicle and discharged it, striking the 2-year-old, who was also inside the vehicle at the time. The two children were unsupervised in the car when the shooting occurred.

The sheriff said the family had just arrived in the area from Georgia and were on a Disney vacation.

When asked if there could be charges, Blackmon said, “We’re just in the beginning of the investigation. We actually have a meeting today with the state attorney to discuss the case as well. So there’s further discussion there."

The statement released Monday was signed by top economists, along with computer scientists and some executives at tech companies including Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.

“AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years,” says the letter organized by Stanford University's digital economy lab. “This could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame. It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.”

The letter, which has only four sentences, says leaders must “build the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.”

The Stanford lab says the letter has so far been signed by more than 200 economists and AI researchers, including 16 winners of a Nobel Prize.

Computer scientist and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio was among the signatories and said in a separate statement that based on the trajectory of AI development, “it is highly plausible that AI will drastically transform our economies.”

“We must be intentional and make collective, democratic choices, rather than letting market forces play out and risking leaving most citizens behind,” wrote Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal.

After the long holdup, Jay-Z started the show at 12:17 a.m. Monday and told the audience that “somebody rushed the door” and that he didn't want to start performing and have “people get trampled” on their way in.

“Really sorry for the inconvenience, but I had to make sure everybody was OK,” he told the crowd before thanking them for their patience and promising a “good time tonight.”

In a statement, the Yankees, Jay-Z's Roc Nation and Live Nation said hundreds of people in large groups without tickets “stormed over peaceful ticketholders, and in some cases, breached security" and the stadium had to shutter entrances for an extended period of time before being able to cautiously reopen.

Video from outside the stadium showed a large crowd of people standing around an entrance. A different video from inside the stadium showed people rushing inside through an open door before several security guards were able to stop additional people from entering.

A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said it did not have information about arrests at the stadium over the incident.

In early trading, U.S. crude climbed nearly $2.50 per barrel, about a 3 percent increase from Friday’s closing price of $71.41 per barrel. The rise reflects uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global oil shipments.

“Concerns about potential fuel supply disruptions have nudged oil prices higher,” said Mark Jenkins, spokesman for AAA — The Auto Club Group. “With tensions in the Middle East adding uncertainty to the global oil market, gas prices could remain volatile in the coming weeks.”

Florida prices

• State average: $3.82 per gallon (Sunday)
• Change vs. last week: up 5 cents
• Change vs. one month ago: down 8 cents
• Change vs. one year ago: up 86 cents

Regional metro averages (regular unleaded)

• Most expensive: West Palm Beach–Boca Raton, $3.98; Naples, $3.91; Fort Lauderdale, $3.88
• Least expensive: Pensacola, $3.57; Panama City, $3.58; Crestview–Fort Walton Beach, $3.63

National and state averages (regular unleaded)

• National (Sunday): $3.88; Saturday: $3.88; week ago: $3.80; month ago: $4.11; one year ago: $3.16
• Florida (Sunday): $3.82; Saturday: $3.84; week ago: $3.77; month ago: $3.90; one year ago: $2.96
• Georgia (Sunday): $3.58; Saturday: $3.58; week ago: $3.54; month ago: $3.78; one year ago: $2.91

How to conserve gasoline

• Combine errands to reduce driving time.
• Drive conservatively; avoid aggressive acceleration and speeding.
• Remove excess weight; every 100 pounds can lower fuel economy 1–2 percent.
• Shop for the best local prices using the AAA mobile app.
• Pay with cash when possible; some retailers charge more per gallon for credit card payments.

AAA driver resources

• Find local lowest gas prices with the free AAA mobile app and at GasPrices.AAA.com.
• Use AAA’s Gas Cost Calculator to estimate trip fuel costs.
• AAA members who enroll in Shell’s Fuel Rewards program can save on fuel — see AAA for details.
• Keep vehicles maintained to optimize fuel economy; visit AAA.com/AutoRepair to find certified repair shops.

The blaze at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao bar was the city’s deadliest in 17 years. It broke out late Sunday in a northern part of the Thai capital, and firefighters needed half an hour to bring it under control. The fire left 25 people hospitalized in critical condition, city officials said.

Bangkok Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said most of the deaths were caused by smoke inhalation.

By daybreak Monday, the site had been cordoned off as dozens of forensic officers sought clues about what caused the fire. The bar's street-facing windows were blown out, and debris littered the sidewalk, including charred television sets, speakers and an electric guitar. Associated Press journalists looking through the shattered windows could see empty beer bottles still sitting atop burned tables.

The bar, which in Thai calls itself a brewery or beer hall, claimed to accommodate as many as 600 customers. It was not clear how many were present Sunday night.

According to Bangkok’s Erawan emergency services center, 73 people were hurt. The Bangkok city government said there were 28 dead, one more than Erawan’s tally.

The dead were trapped in bathrooms

National Police Chief Kittharath Punpetch said most of the dead were found trapped in windowless bathrooms near one of the rear exits, where they may have sought shelter from the flames.

He said the exit was not used, and people may have been blocked from reaching it by a table set up in a hall to sell candy, or because it was too dark to find the way out.

Access to another exit near the kitchen might also have been narrowed by shelving units and lockers, said Kittharath, who visited the scene Monday. There were signs that at least some of the exit doors might have been locked, he added.

Investigators focused on the ceiling above a performance stage, where they found materials that may have been used as decorative elements, he said. Police will examine whether flammable materials were used in the interior and how electrical wiring was installed across the ceiling.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters that a musician who was performing at the bar told him he saw smoke coming out of a circuit breaker near the stage before the power went out. Then an explosion was heard, and thick smoke quickly filled the place.

Video posted on social media showed people fleeing as flames shot out of the single-story building and black smoke billowed into the sky.

Buddhist monks prayed for the dead

Several Buddhist monks visited the site Monday to pray for the victims, while nurses handed out face masks to help protect people from lingering smoke and fumes from the building.

A registration site was set up to gather information from relatives looking for loved ones.

Singer Sukanya Wongwongwai said she was performing nearby when she heard about the fire and rushed to the scene because several of her bandmates were performing at the bar. She said one of them died, three were hospitalized and one had not been located. Her band later announced on Facebook that the missing member was also found hospitalized.

“From what I heard from people who were inside when the fire started, everything went dark. The power was out, and there was smoke everywhere, so they couldn’t locate other people,” she said.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the bar offered apologies and condolences and said it was cooperating with investigators. It said the bar’s owner suffered serious injuries and was in an intensive care unit.

Mourning family members identify the dead at a morgue

Family members gathered at Bangkok's Institute of Forensic Medicine to identify the dead.

Keo Oudone Poungpany, 24, was at the institute to identify his younger brother's body. Both of the brothers, migrant workers from neighboring Laos, were working as bar employees when the fire broke out.

Poungpany said he was using a restroom outside the bar when the fire began.

He described walking back toward the bar and encountering dozens of people running away from the flames and hearing loud noises.

From the outside the bar, he began shouting for his brother. “The heat was unbearable, I couldn’t get back in,” he said.

“For now, I want to bring my younger brother’s body back home,” Poungpany said. “I want to bring him home to my parents. My parents are waiting for their kids to come back together, but now one is gone.”

In 2022, 14 people were killed by a fire at a music bar in the eastern part of the country. And more than a decade before that, 67 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a fire during a Jan. 1, 2009, New Year’s Eve celebration at the Santika nightclub in Thailand's capital. That blaze was apparently sparked by an indoor fireworks display.

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This report corrects the total number of dead from the 2009 fire at Bangkok's Santika nightclub to 67. The number 66 in previous versions was based on an earlier story that had not been updated.

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Sahatthaya Kraikhunthot contributed to this report.

Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, who worked at the global electronics company Analog Devices, was accused of helping an Iranian business associate get around American export control laws. U.S. prosecutors say the business associate’s Tehran-based company makes navigation systems for the military drone program of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Authorities say the scheme included the creation of a front company in Switzerland.

The second defendant, Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, called Abedini in court documents, was not on trial. He is believed to be in Iran after an apparent prisoner exchange for an Italian journalist.

Sadeghi was found guilty on three of the five charges. He showed no visible reaction to the verdict, which came early in the fourth day of jury deliberations. He and his lawyers did not comment as they left court, and he will remain free until sentencing Oct. 13.

Sadeghi, a 43-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, chose not to testify. A father of two, he lost his job at Analog Devices due to the charges. Although he was arrested in December 2024, long before the current war with Iran, his trial has unfolded during the conflict.

“At its core, this case is straightforward. You cannot send goods, especially the goods at issue in this case, to Iran. Period. Full stop,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alathea Porter told the jury. “The defendant knew that, and conspired with Mr. Abedini to do that.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Dolan, in his closing remarks, said documents, text messages and photos proved that the illegal acts were the “fruits of this relationship” between Sadeghi and Abedini.

“The evidence established that he knew what Abedini was doing because he told him in writing,” Dolan said. “He helped him anyway.”

Sadeghi's attorney, William Fick, told jurors that the scheme laid out by the prosecution “makes no sense” and was full of holes. He said Sadeghi was only offering advice to a longtime friend about how to get business with the semiconductor company, and wasn’t responsible for procuring the parts for Abedini.

Fick said there was no proof the parts ended up in Iran, and he disputed that the Swiss company was a front.

“If you look at the world through dirty glasses, everything looks dirty,” Fick said. “That is fundamentally what the prosecution is asking you to do here.”

Fick also said prosecutors hadn't shown Sadeghi gained anything from the alleged plan — although the prosecution pointed out that they didn't need to prove a motive.

“He had nothing to gain and everything to lose,” Fick said. “He has lived in the country for decades. He was a well-regarded, respected employee on his way up in the company.”

Prosecutors had hoped to introduce evidence during the trial related to an Iranian drone used in a 2024 attack that killed three U.S. troops at a remote base in Jordan.

However, before the trial, defense attorneys sought to exclude any evidence related to Abedini’s role in drone manufacturing or attacks on American troops.

The judge agreed, ruling that prosecutors could only give general evidence about Abedini’s Iranian company and how its technology had potential military applications, including for drones. During a hearing in February, prosecutors acknowledged they didn’t have evidence that Sadeghi “knew anything” about the technology he was accused of exporting was allegedly used on the drone involved in the Jordan attack.

Both defendants have been charged with export control violations. Abedini is separately charged with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization that resulted in the deaths of three service members.

Abedini was arrested at an airport in Italy on a U.S. warrant in December 2024, but was released a month later and returned to Iran. Three days after his arrest, Italian journalist Cecilia Sala was detained while reporting in Iran. Sala, who was believed held as a bargaining chip for Abedini’s release, returned home in January 2025.

It was among several wildfires in western Europe as the region bakes under its third red-alert heat wave this year.

In Spain, 10 people were still unaccounted for Monday from a fire that ripped through a remote southern expatriate community last week, killing 13 people in one of the country's deadliest blazes.

The Fontainebleau forest fire is unusual for its proximity to the French capital — about 70 kilometers (42 miles). The region hosts the Fontainebleau Chateau favored by Napoleon and is popular with visitors from Paris and beyond.

French President Emmanuel Macron said all necessary means were being deployed to fight the fire of ″exceptional scale.”

Two water-dumping planes were deployed over the area along with hundreds of firefighters, regional fire service spokesperson Paul Laurain told public broadcaster France-Info.

The head of the regional administration, Pierre Ory, told French media that an investigation is underway and that arson was being considered a possibility.

A new fire has broken out in another section of the forest, Ory said. The initial fire is still not contained and was continuing to spread at a moderate rate.

“Winds are turning, which is significantly complicating the work of the firefighters," he said.

Trains to and from the bustling Gare de Lyon train station were disrupted late Sunday but were returning to normal Monday morning. A section of the busy A6 highway leading southeast of Paris was shut down because of fire risk.

Large fires in southern France have already scorched thousands of hectares (acres) since last week, disrupting the Tour de France cycling race and stretching firefighting resources.

France is experiencing the peak of its third heat wave of the summer, with temperatures surpassing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across western and central areas and around 37 C (98 F) in Paris.

Spain reeling from deadly wildfire

A 93-year-old British national died Sunday in a hospital from injuries sustained in the Los Gallardos wildfire, elevating the death toll to 13.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was expected to visit the site of the fire on Monday. Regional authorities said the blaze was contained Sunday after affecting some 70 square kilometers (27 square miles) of forest and farmland — larger than the size of Manhattan.

Spain is experiencing extreme heat, which combined with wind and little rainfall is creating the ideal conditions for small wildfires to grow unchecked.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Homes evacuated in UK due to fires

In the U.K., people were evacuated from several dozen rural homes in north Wales after a wildfire broke out across a mountainside on Sunday, British media reported.

Wildfires also burned in several locations across England as another heat wave — the third this year — brought hot, sunny and dry conditions.

The Met Office said record heat waves since May have led to 2026 becoming the first year to record temperatures of 35 C (95 F) or higher on six separate days. That broke the previous record set in 1976 and 2020, when five days were recorded with such temperatures.

Natural England’s fire severity index has put much of England at “very high” risk of wildfires, with some areas in southern England and the Midlands at “exceptional” risk.

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Naishadham reported from Madrid. Eva Van Dam in Paris and Sylvia Hui in London contributed.

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A previous version corrected the age of a British national who died Sunday.

She did it in “Furiosa” and the upcoming “Dune: Part Three.” Now she's under the blazing California sun for “Lucky,” a propulsive Apple TV crime thriller that has her trading blows with goons, bloodying her otherworldly face.

“Listen, I’ve been to the desert so many times at this point it’s kind of unreal. I don’t look like a desert creature, and yet I’m always there and I love it,” says the actor. “People like to see me struggle, and they like me to survive. And, luckily, I enjoy doing it, too, so it works out.”

Taylor-Joy plays the title character in an adaptation of Marissa Stapley's novel about a con artist who wakes up in a hotel room and realizes she's been betrayed by a close ally and is forced on the run.

Lucky is soon pursued by both the FBI and a ruthless crime boss over a missing $10 million. Her widowed father isn't much help: He raised her to be a criminal but is now behind bars, only helping from a phone call.

“She’s at an inflection point when we meet her in the book and in the show where she’s got to chart her own course. She’s got to take things into her own hands, and she’s got to really decide how she wants to live her life,” says Lauren Neustadter, an executive producer.

A character evolves

The seven-episode series premieres Wednesday, and even in the first episode, Lucky has to fight her way out the closed trunk of a car and slam a screwdriver into the neck of a bad guy, finding herself alone in the desert. “How can someone so small cause so much trouble?” a goon asks.

“We see this character evolve from beginning to end. She starts off being all about the con, and the question is, ‘Where will that go? How will she evolve and who will she become?’ And I think that it’s one of the things that makes this show so special,” says Neustadter.

The series co-stars Annette Bening, Drew Starkey and Timothy Olyphant, with a female-centric soundtrack that includes a stirring theme song by Fiona Apple and tunes by Sleater-Kinney and Siouxsie Sioux.

Bening plays a cold-blooded mob leader who gets stuck between trying to save her son and tangling with her brutal boss and former lover. She's as likely to order a killing as be executed herself.

“She is an abused woman and she’s an abuser,” Bening says. “So, she’s so intriguing. I thought the writing was really good. And I did want to play this kind of borderline sociopathic woman.”

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine media company approached Taylor-Joy with the book, asking her to not just consider leading the series as an actor but also offering to make her debut as an executive producer.

“I remember crossing my fingers and thinking, ‘God, I really hope I like this book.’ And then I did and I fell in love with Lucky and I felt that I had something to contribute in this space, which I think if you’re coming on as an executive producer is the feeling that you want to have,” says Taylor-Joy.

The show — created by Jonathan Tropper and written and showrun alongside Cassie Pappas — is a crime thriller but with a family drama at its heart, one that prompts Lucky to wonder if there's another way to live.

“Thematically, that’s what Jonathan and I were really drawn to, is this idea of how much does family affect who you are versus how much can you break that path and write yourself a new one,” says Pappas.

Lucky leans into grifting skills to survive

Lucky has grown up grifting with her dad, stealing money-filled envelopes at birthday parties and faking injuries to get free hotel rooms. Now on the run, she leans into those skills to survive but also yearns for a better life.

“We all struggle against sort of the restraints of our past and the baggage we were given by even good parents and getting to a point where we can figure out who we are,” says Tropper. “Hers just has much higher stakes because the act of her trying to figure that out could get her killed.”

For Taylor-Joy, in addition to leaping off trucks, dodging killers and stealing cars onscreen, she got to make casting decisions and advise on the look and sound of the show behind the camera.

“I think we had a wonderful time making it, and I think you can feel that on the screen, despite the screwdrivers through the head,” she says with a laugh.

On Monday, a group of financial regulators is set to issue guidance intended to remind banks and other financial institutions of their know-your-customer requirements with respect to credit risk management, particularly as it relates to borrowers who are not authorized to work in the U.S.

The newest warning is one of several measures the Trump administration has taken to discourage people in the U.S. illegally from interacting with the larger U.S. financial system. The measures, over the last nine months, are designed to strongly encourage banks to remove them as customers while not expressly mandating that the banks do so.

The joint announcement is planned from three of the nation's bank regulators: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the National Credit Union Association. The agencies said that banks should take into account that people in the U.S. illegally may not be able to repay a loan because of deportation. In short, they say, people working in the U.S. illegally pose overall risk to the financial system.

There is limited data on how many people in the U.S. illegally have bank accounts and have loans through the banks.

This comes as part of President Donald Trump’s executive order signed in May that requires banks and other financial institutions to take a closer look at the citizenship of their customers. That order started the most recent wave of banking regulation changes, ordering bank regulators and government departments to look for signs that people without legal status are opening accounts or obtaining loans or credit cards.

Among other things, the guidance being issued Monday advises financial institutions to “identify, measure, monitor, and control these risks through safe and sound underwriting practices that assess a borrower’s willingness and capacity to repay according to the terms of the credit obligation” according to a news release.

In May, Treasury’s financial crimes arm — also known a FinCEN — issued an advisory to banks telling them to watch out for identity theft, payroll tax fraud, and money laundering schemes tied to hiring people who are not authorized to work in the U.S.

The advisory calls on financial institutions to be alert for more than a dozen red flags that indicate an individual is in the U.S. illegally.

The White House has also taken other measures to discourage people in the U.S. illegally from using the financial system. The Treasury last November announced that it would reclassify certain refundable tax credits as “federal public benefits,” which bars some immigrant taxpayers from receiving them, even if they file and pay taxes and would otherwise qualify.

Tax experts said immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as children, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, recipients, and immigrants with Temporary Protected Status would be affected by the planned change.

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Sweet contributed from New York.

Astronomers have detected a type of sugar in space that's also found in raspberries and self-tanners. The sugar, called erythrulose, lurks in what's called the interstellar medium: thin clouds of gas and dust littered between stars.

Sugar does more than sweeten tea and powder doughnuts. Different varieties fuel our cells and even make up DNA. Scientists are itching to know how sugars form because they're a key ingredient for life as we know it.

Using two dish-shaped radio telescopes in Spain, researchers collected data from a large gas cloud near the center of the Milky Way. They identified the sugar in gas form by comparing telescope signals to samples in the lab. It's the latest kind of sugar detected in space — in a region crossed by NASA's twin Voyager, the farthest spacecraft to ever travel from Earth.

The results were published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Scientists have found interesting chemistry in our galaxy, including building blocks for genetic material and parts of the cell. They spotted a cousin to table sugar near the center of the Milky Way about 25 years ago, and black grains from asteroid Bennu retrieved by NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft yielded other sugars, including a key DNA ingredient.

The latest sugar isn’t essential for life, but can easily convert to a form that’s thought to be crucial to kick-starting life on Earth. And it’s one of the most complex sugars spotted so far, said astrophysicist Erika Hamden with the University of Arizona.

It's “a pristine example of the stuff that’s just floating out in the galaxy,” said Hamden, who had no role in the new research.

These interstellar investigations are all about understanding how life got started. Did faraway comets or space rocks deliver the essential ingredients to us? Or were the essential components already here that eventually gave rise to our solar system?

The new sugar lends evidence to the latter theory. Researchers want to look for more sugars in space and learn about how they convert to different forms.

Finding them in one spot means they're likely also hiding in distant corners of the galaxy along with other important bits, said study author Izaskun Jiménez-Serra, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrobiology in Spain.

“The key ingredients for the origin of life could be present in other regions across the galaxy, opening the possibility for life to develop elsewhere in the universe,” Jiménez-Serra said.

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

Growing awareness of the dangers social media poses for young, developing brains has shown up in a wave of new restrictions globally. Australia, the U.K., Turkey, Indonesia and others have passed bans on kids under 16 or 15 from using platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

Laying out a list of her concerns about the use of social media by kids, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — a doctor by training — said that children under 3 should have no exposure to screens at all.

“I believe we need to consider phased and gradual access for different age ranges because childhood won’t wait and once it’s gone, we can never give it back,” von der Leyen told reporters.

“Just as we don’t give our children keys to the car before they have their license, or we do not let them buy alcohol until they are legally allowed. We need to set the age at which they can, the children can, legally access social media,” she said.

Von der Leyen noted infinite scrolling as one of the “addictive” traits that tech companies must address.

The commission has also been targeting tech companies through other means, and last week used its sweeping Digital Safety Act to warn Meta that it needs to disable addictive design features such as infinite scrolling or risk a hefty fine.

Von der Leyen said there should “phased and gradual access for different age ranges” to social media. Children under 13 should only have “time-limited” access under the supervision of parents, teachers or other caregivers, she told reporters.

Teenagers should be given gradual access to platforms that can prove they are “age appropriate” and safe for them, she said.

While she didn't go into further detail, she and the European Commission — the EU’s powerful executive branch — are likely to come up with a proposal for the 27 member countries to weigh in the near future. Von der Leyen’s policy proposals carry great influence with EU member countries.

A special panel set up to study child safety online delivered its report to the EU chief on Monday. The report said that when it comes to safety, “the burden of proof needs to be on providers, not regulators, parents and children.”

“Until they demonstrate that their services are safe by design, social media and other digital services providers should have restricted access to children under the age of 13 in the EU,” said the report, which is likely to influence von der Leyen's thinking.

It recommended that “further precautionary age restrictions” should be considered by EU countries for children over 13.

Many social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok already prohibit anyone under the age of 13 from signing up for an account. But those restrictions have been criticized for being too easy to get around and the EU's digital regulators accused Instagram's parent Meta Platforms earlier this year of failing to keep underage users of the site.

The European Commission is working on its own age verification app that will let users prove their age while keeping their identity anonymous.

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Chan reported from Toronto.

The Orlando Soccer Celebration runs now through July 19, transforming Pointe Orlando into a festival-style destination for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Organizers say the event will feature live viewings of all 104 matches, plus an immersive fan experience with live music and entertainment, global food and beverage offerings, appearances by Orlando City and Orlando Pride players, club legends and the team mascot, Kingston, along with an official pop-up store.

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The primary, “always-on” hub for match viewing will be Sports & Social – Live! at Pointe Orlando, located on the venue’s second floor. In addition, organizers say a minimum of five larger-scale events will take place in Pointe Orlando’s outdoor plazas, featuring live entertainment, interactive areas, giveaways and marquee match viewings.

Pointe Orlando, an open-air entertainment complex in the heart of Orlando’s Convention District, spans 17 acres and includes more than 20 restaurants, bars, lounges and entertainment concepts across three main plazas, with over 2,500 parking spaces on site.

Fan Zone dates

A centrally located Fan Zone between the two main viewing areas on the first floor will “come alive” on five marquee dates with interactive experiences, prizes and giveaways, according to the club:

• June 25
• June 27
• July 19 (Final)

How to get more information

For the latest schedule, RSVP information and event details, visit Orlando City’s official page.

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Latest EURO tropical model continues to pick up weak signals that an area of low pressure may try to form along a stalled front in the Gulf between around the weekend (July18/19th).

At this point, not all forecast models show development, but there is enough agreement to keep a close eye on the area over the next few days.

The National Hurricane Center has not yet highlighted this zone for development, but that could change if forecast confidence increases.

If a tropical storm were to form, the next name on the Atlantic list would be Bertha.

Conditions in the northeastern Gulf are a bit of a mixed bag. While ocean temperatures remain warmer than average to help fuel development, there is also plenty of Saharan dust to keep the development limited.

It remains far too early to know whether a system will develop, how strong it could become, or where it might track.

Make sure to stay updated with News6 as we continue to get a clearer picture over the upcoming days.

The fire broke out on the second floor of the complex at 2994 S. Rio Grande Ave. Crews knocked it down and had it fully extinguished. No injuries were reported.

Entire building condemned after blaze

Code Enforcement condemned the entire building following the fire — not just the units directly affected by the flames.

So far, nine adults and one minor are confirmed displaced. But Orlando Fire said not all occupants have been notified yet, meaning that number could climb.

Red Cross working to find temporary housing

Orlando Fire Department, property management, and the Red Cross are working together to determine the total number of displaced residents and find appropriate temporary housing.

Anyone displaced by the fire is encouraged to contact the Red Cross for assistance.

The two leading candidates, U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, have clashed over electability, their ties to corporate interests and willingness to fight Republican President Donald Trump's administration in Washington. Millions of dollars in political ads have blanketed televisions and phone screens for a race that has become emblematic of Democrats' deeper divides.

The increasingly bitter contest will be among the next races where progressive candidates are facing more moderate rivals. August primaries in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota will be another gauge of Democratic voters’ frustration with the establishment. The races across the Upper Midwest may also offer another test of the electability of hard-left candidates.

After notable progressive successes so far this year, party leaders worry these candidates could damage Democrats' brand and imperil their chances of retaking either chamber of Congress this fall or maintaining the governor's mansion in a battleground state ahead of the 2028 presidential election. The progressive left says recent results prove their message is the party's path to victory.

Flanagan, who is backed by progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, last week convened a press conference to condemn “secretive dark money groups and special interests” she says are at work in the Minnesota race. She argued the groups are working to elect Craig, a more conventional Democrat backed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and other senior Democratic leaders.

“What we are facing right now in our party,” Flanagan told The Associated Press, “is the very folks who are standing in the way of the things that people need to be able to afford their lives, who are Democrats, are funded by these corporate special interests. That is the choice I think that we have, and people are onto it.”

Craig counters that Flanagan raised campaign funds from major companies while chair of the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association. She says that if Flanagan becomes the Democratic nominee, Republicans would focus on her ties to an ongoing fraud inquiry into the state's Medicaid programs.

“The coalition we’re building is people in Minnesota who understand that in order to stop Donald Trump, we’ve got to win elections,” Craig told the AP. She warned that Minnesota is often underappreciated as “the very definition of a swing state, and we simply can’t take this U.S. Senate seat for granted.”

Craig argued that it was important that Democrats do not reject corporate funding while Republicans continue to embrace backing from wealthy donors. She also said she supports major campaign finance reforms restricting the role of money in politics.

“But until we get to that day, it’s naive to think that we’re not going to need resources,” Craig said.

Upper Midwest becomes next theater in Democrats' progressive vs. moderate fight

The Minnesota primary, in which Flanagan and Craig are vying for the seat vacated by Democratic Sen. Tina Smith, is Aug. 11. Wisconsin also holds its primary that day — one week after voters will choose nominees in Michigan on Aug. 4.

In Michigan, Rep. Haley Stevens is running against progressive Abdul El-Sayed for the state's Democratic Senate nomination in a race Democrats must win to hold the seat held by Sen. Gary Peters, who is retiring and has endorsed Stevens. And in Wisconsin, democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong has surged in the state's Democratic gubernatorial primary against more conventional Democratic lawmakers, including former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and current Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez.

In each case, progressives hope to prove that an economically populist message resonates with voters beyond deep blue enclaves where they have had recent success, like New York City and Denver. But Democratic leaders fear that the insurgent candidates risk blowing winnable races for Democrats with messages considered too radical for most voters.

Craig also criticized progressives for gambling with Democrats' chances to retake the Senate due to poor campaigning and vetting of candidates. She noted the recent downfall of Graham Platner, who easily won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Maine in June but dropped out of the race last week after facing an allegation of sexual assault, which he denies.

“We just saw one of our best Senate opportunities go down in flames in Maine, potentially, with that same coalition,” Craig said.

“And many of the same people are working on the lieutenant governor’s campaign as Graham Platner’s campaign," Craig added. "My coalition is statewide. I’m going everywhere. I’m talking to everyone. I’m working to bring people back to the (Democratic Party).”

Following the fallout from the Platner scandal, progressives view the Upper Midwest Senate races as their last chance to shape the Democrats' Senate caucus and prove their theory of the case in the midterm elections.

“Abdul El-Sayed was already the most important primary candidate in the nation, and this underscores the importance of that race, both in the primary and the general,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a political action committee that backs Flanagan and El-Sayed.

The organization views this year's Senate races in Michigan and Maine as key tests of whether progressives’ message and organizing strategies could prove effective in competitive races. The high-stakes strategy was meant to assuage potential concerns among Democratic voters that progressives are unelectable in competitive races ahead of the party’s 2028 presidential primary.

“Our hope is to not have an outlier but a pattern of shake-up-the-system economic fighters who win tough swing state elections," Green said.

A long populist history in the Midwest

The Upper Midwest has populist traditions going back decades, including by electing progressive and conservative populists, said Steven Schier, a political science professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The region was often a model for the Progressive Era’s reform-minded policies, but it also elected some of the most stridently conservative Cold War voices like Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.

“What’s interesting about the Upper Midwest is that you get well-developed and articulated left populism, and well-developed and articulated right populism in competition and combat. It produces some very lively election seasons,” Schier said.

More recently, the Great Lakes region has been the nation's marquee political battleground, with state legislatures and the presidential winner swinging between Democratic and Republican candidates for the last decade. No matter who wins, the results of the midterm primaries in the region will have major ripple effects in national politics.

“This culture will take broad concerns that populists bring up and trumpet them throughout the electoral system, and that’s true on both the right and the left up here," Schier said.

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

The EU decision affects nine people and four entities accused of links to an online spying network that the bloc said has targeted governments and carried out sabotage operations against critical infrastructure like heating and power plants since 2010. Britain slapped sanctions on 24 people and entities.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said those hit by the sanctions “contribute to Russia’s efforts to destabilize the EU, its member states and international partners.”

France, Germany, Poland, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Romania and Finland, “among others,” have fallen prey to the network, she said in a statement.

Germany summoned Russia's ambassador, and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Paris intends to call in Russia's envoy in the coming days. He told French BFM television that the aim of the cyberactivities is “either to capture information, or sabotage the operation, for example, of railway infrastructures, as it was the case in Poland.”

The EU focused its sanctions, which are mostly asset freezes and travel bans, on the 16th Center of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. Kallas said the FSB has been “controlling a variety of cyberthreat groups,” and said it “has conducted a wide range of malicious cyberactivities with growing severity.”

Some countries have accused Russia of using cyberattacks and propaganda to interfere with elections.

In April, Sweden said a pro-Russian group with links to Russia’s security and intelligence services was behind a cyberattack on a heating plant last year. The announcement followed warnings from officials in Poland, Norway, Denmark and Latvia that Russia is attacking critical infrastructure across Europe.

With its sanctions, the EU notably targeted a member of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, Yevgeny Bashev, and a company it says he runs, Impuls.

“The company provides technical and material support to cyberattacks and attempted cyberattacks conducted by GRU Unit 29155,” the sanctions notification said. It said the actions of Impuls “constitute an external threat” to EU member countries and have had “a significant effect” on an unnamed country outside the bloc.

Britain said Impuls recruited hackers and cyber specialists from Russian universities and academies. It slapped sanctions on Bashev as well as three other senior GRU officials “for their role in directing GRU cyber and hybrid threat operations.”

Britain believes Russian intelligence agencies “have tasked cybercriminals to collect intelligence to support Russia’s military and foreign policy objectives, threatening security across Europe.”

Conversation about adaptations often revolves around how closely they follow a source text. But in a country where Homer’s story is taught and retold at all schools, many point to how the epic has been kept alive for nearly 3,000 years: not despite reinvention, but because of it.

“What we want children to understand is that every new creation is exactly that — a new creation,” Filippos Mantzaris, who teaches “The Odyssey” to seventh graders, told The Associated Press.

The film, starring Matt Damon as King Odysseus and a number of Hollywood stars, follows Homer’s outline: the king's 10-year journey home from war during which he battles gods and monsters to find a palace overrun by rivals.

Students grow up interpreting Homer

In seventh grade, “The Odyssey” is taught in all Greek classrooms.

In Mantzaris’ class, students eagerly debate Odysseus’ encounters with monsters and other adventures. They are taught to compare the hero’s intelligence with his strength, ask whether revenge is moral, whether the battle-hardened king is truly a role model, and whether his killing of his wife’s suitors is justified. Role-playing exercises encourage children to imagine what they would do in Odysseus’ place.

“It’s an amazing literary text, with which children can identify, perhaps see Odysseus in themselves, but also see their own homeland,” Mantzaris said.

Kyriakos Agapiou, 12, said reading the poem in Mantzaris’ class taught him that “everything is possible and we should never give up.”

Farm scientist Nikos Varelas attended a stage adaptation with his 4-year-old son, after the pair read youth versions of both “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” together.

“It is our duty as parents, as Greeks,” Varelas said.

Interpreting the story as theater, said actor Manos Pintzis, who portrayed Odysseus in the local production, helps children discover mythology in a way books alone cannot.

“You don’t tell a child, ‘Just read the story because you have to,’ because the child will resist when something is forced on them,” Pintzis said. “When the child sees all of this unfolding before their eyes — that becomes a valuable step toward learning, to willingly learn what they’re expected to study.”

Greeks are used to foreigners playing their heroes

In conservative circles in the U.S., much of the attention has focused on Nolan’s casting choices rather than his adaptation of Homer’s story.

Elon Musk claimed Nolan had desecrated “The Odyssey” after Black actor Lupita Nyong’o was picked as Helen of Troy — despite not having seen the movie. Conservative commentators including Matt Walsh argued the film prioritized identity politics, echoing past fan criticisms of sci-fi and fantasy reboots that cast Black and Latino actors as beloved characters of a different race or ethnicity.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Nolan said backlash “comes with the territory,” adding “these conversations that happen before people see the film — they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.”

Nolan told the AP he wanted to make the film accessible and relatable, and “not look back to sort of past Hollywood versions of how to take on the ancient world.”

“You want to question people’s assumptions about how things should be portrayed in movies and what those are based on,” he said of his overall approach to the film. “There’s a challenge to that and a risk to that. But my hope is that by creating a cohesive world, people understand the world as they watch the movie and they feel they understand it.”

The controversy hasn't found much purchase in Greece, where people are used to foreigners playing ancient Greeks.

Scotsman Gerard Butler bellowed “This is Sparta!” as King Leonidas in “300.” Oklahoma-born Brad Pitt played Achilles in “Troy.” Ireland’s Colin Farrell starred as Alexander the Great alongside Angelina Jolie as his mother.

Anthony Quinn’s performance in “Zorba the Greek” way back in 1964 remains one of Greece’s most beloved screen portrayals of a Greek character.

Nolan’s version continues the tradition with a star-filled cast including Nyong’o, Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya and Charlize Theron, with narration from rapper Travis Scott.

In Greece, the small nationalist party Niki objected to the casting and a Greek government decision to provide roughly 6 million euros ($6.9 million) in subsidies to support local production. The party said Greek taxpayers were funding an imposition of “woke-type ideology” on Greek history and cultural identity, citing Musk.

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni offered a blunt rebuttal.

“It is not the state’s role to dictate to a creator how they should artistically interpret a work or a myth,” she told the Greek popular culture magazine, Lifo. “Can we seriously be having a conversation about whether the state should censor Christopher Nolan?”

History’s great stories survive through retelling

Christos Tsagalis, professor of ancient Greek literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, said it's ultimately up to moviegoers to judge whether the latest interpretation of “The Odyssey” works. What matters, he said, is whether it captures something fundamental about one of history’s great stories.

Homer’s works — retold and reinterpreted across generations — have endured by becoming universal, he said.

“I think it’s wonderful that something that is created at a specific point in time by a given people is shared by so many people across the globe. It’s shared culture,” Tsagalis said.

“It’s a fascinating story,” he said. “It is like a movie.”

Footage shared online by first responders shows a huge blaze raging and plumes coming out of the front door of the Na Ladprao beer hall in the northern part of the Thai capital. People are seen trying to flee as thick black smoke billows into the sky.

Authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire, but Bangkok Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said investigators would examine the ceiling materials and whether any emergency exits may have been obstructed, potentially making it more difficult for people to evacuate.

The Bangkok city government said the fire broke out shortly before midnight Sunday.

By Monday morning, the site had been cordoned off as dozens of Thai forensic officers combed through the burned remains for clues about what caused the fire.

The building's street-facing windows had been blown out and debris littered the sidewalk, including charred television sets, speakers and an electric guitar. From outside, the scale of the devastation was visible through the shattered windows, where burned-out tables, some still holding empty beer bottles, remained inside.

Some Buddhist monks visited the site Monday morning to pray for the victims, while nurses handed out face masks to people nearby to help protect them from smoke and lingering fumes from the burned-out building.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters at the scene that 27 people died.

Anutin said a musician who was performing at the bar told him that he saw smoke coming out of a circuit breaker near the stage before the power went out, then an explosion was heard and thick smoke quickly filled the place.

Many of victims were found at the restrooms at the back of the bar, Anutin added.

Bangkok Gov. said 63 people were taken to the hospital, 22 of them in critical conditions. He said authorities are working on identifying victims as many did not carry an ID or were unconscious.

Firefighters took about half an hour to bring the fire under control. Photos of the aftermath show charred tables and chairs, and the damaged interior of the bar.

A registration spot was set up to gather information from relatives coming at the scene looking for their loved ones.

Singer Sukanya Wongwongwai said she was performing nearby when she heard news of the fire and rushed to the scene because several of her bandmates were performing at the bar. She said one of them died, three were hospitalized, and one hasn't been located.

“From what I heard from people who were inside, when the fire started everything went dark. The power was out and there was smoke everywhere, so they couldn’t locate other people,” she said.

In 2022, 14 people were killed by a fire at a music bar in the eastern part of the country. And more than a decade before that, 67 people were killed and more than 200 injured in a fire during a Jan. 1, 2009 New Year’s Eve celebration at the Santika nightclub in Thailand's capital. That blaze was apparently sparked by an indoor fireworks display.

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This story has been updated to correct the death toll from the 2009 fire to 67.

Downtown Maitland has become a major congestion point, especially during rush hour — with safety concerns for drivers, cyclists and people on foot.

“It gets very hectic… packed up, especially during rush hour.”— Daniel Perez, Downtown Maitland resident

A new multimodal transportation study (cars, bikes, pedestrians) highlights problem areas and crash history.

Crash data shows that from 2018 to 2022, Maitland Avenue (Orlando Avenue to Sandspur) recorded 138 crashes, including one fatal crash.

The report recommends multiple changes, including intersection reconstruction

“I see accidents all the time,” said Perez.

A key concern: crossing George Avenue at Maitland Avenue.

The report proposed constructing a crosswalk.

“Would you feel comfortable crossing Maitland Avenue without a crosswalk?” asked News 6’s Amy Russo.

“Unfortunately, I do it. But no, you’re always making sure that you’re not getting run over,” replied Perez.

Another hotspot: Packwood Avenue at Orlando Avenue / US 17-92.

The report suggests creating one lane each for right, left and through traffic.

City leaders are expected to discuss the study on Monday. The report contains additional recommendations for downtown Maitland.

Downtown Maitland Traffic Study by Christie Zizo

Orlando’s City Council is holding a workshop to examine what property tax reform could mean for the city’s budget. The session will also include a budget proposal update.

The proposed constitutional amendment, which needs 60% voter approval to pass, would exempt the first $150,000 of a homestead property’s value from taxation. That threshold would rise to $250,000 in 2028.

For municipalities across Central Florida, the stakes are high.

Sanford’s mayor said the city would lose $15 vin tax revenue if the amendment passes. Ocoee officials project a $4.1 million loss in the first year, growing to as much as $8 million by 2028.

Some cities, like Ocoee, are already weighing whether to raise other rates to offset the lost revenue.

Orlando resident Shelley Davis said she supports lowering property taxes, but not if it means higher fees elsewhere.

“Well, I think that if lowering the property taxes or reforming them is going to mean we pay more fees for firefighters or for emergency services, that’s not a good thing,” Davis said.

Davis said she believes more work needs to be done before voters are asked to make such a significant decision.

“I definitely encourage them to come up with something better. Something better for everybody. I don’t think it’s been researched enough or thought enough to just put a vote to the people at this point,” she said.

Fellow Orlando resident Don Combs shares her concern. He said meaningful reform is necessary, but the current proposal goes too far.

“Well, we need some reform, but we don’t need it to disappear,” Combs said.

Combs said residents should not have to choose between property tax relief and funding for essential services.

“I mean, you have to pay for services and pay for, police, fire and everything else. But it has gotten a little ridiculous,” he said. “When school teachers and even police and firemen retire and they’re on a fixed income and their taxes go up 30%, 40%, where does that come from?”

The workshop is today at 10 a.m.

The 25-year-old Adams died two weeks after helping South Africa reach the knockout stage of a World Cup for the first time.

Authorities have not released a cause of death.

"Cape Town central police registered an inquest for investigation following the discovery of the body of a 25-year-old male on Saturday," police said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. “Circumstances surrounding this incident are under investigation.”

Police said the body was discovered at a property in the Cape Town neighborhood of Schotsche Kloof at around 11 a.m. on Saturday, but gave no more details.

Adams' father, Juanito Adams, told South African TV news station eNCA on Sunday that the family were waiting for the results of an autopsy and had not yet made any funeral plans.

“As you all know, it was an untimely death. The family is struggling to process it,” Juanito Adams said. “It won't be easy to carry on. People say it will become easier, but it won't. You just learn to live with it.”

Adams played in all three of South Africa's group games as it produced its best performance at the World Cup. He did not feature in the 1-0 loss to Canada in the round of 32 on June 28.

South Africa Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie said Adams had played in his team's group game against Czech Republic hours after learning that his grandmother had died. McKenzie asked the public and media to “exercise restraint and compassion” and not speculate on the cause of Adams' death while authorities conduct an investigation.

There were moments of silence and tributes for Adams at the England vs. Norway and Argentina vs. Switzerland World Cup quarterfinal games on Saturday.

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

That suggests the generational divide on Israel’s actions since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war in Gaza extends beyond politics to religious identity.

“I pray for people in the land of Israel. I don’t need to pray for the state,” said Cameron Bernstein, a 27-year-old medical student in New Orleans. She was raised with strong ties to Israel, where she celebrated her bat mitzvah, but said that now “it doesn’t play a role in my life, more than another country with people I love.”

The survey of 1,022 Jewish adults from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that this split on support for Israel is particularly apparent among adults like her who identify as religiously Jewish. Jewish adults who are religiously unaffiliated but identify as Jewish in other ways tend to have less of an emotional connection to Israel in general.

Among the religiously Jewish adults — who make up 68% of Jewish adults overall — about 6 in 10 say that being Jewish is “extremely” or “very” important in their life, regardless of their age.

But about half of older religious Jewish adults say that supporting Israel is “extremely” or “very” important for their Jewish identity, similar to the percentage who say that about celebrating Jewish holidays. By contrast, only about 4 in 10 younger religious Jewish adults emphasize support for Israel, while about 7 in 10 say celebrating Jewish holidays is highly important.

Susan Boyer, 72, from Southern California, equates supporting Israel with supporting the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland in the Middle East.

Like many other Jewish Americans, the retiree believes Israel is an essential refuge against the possible repetition of large-scale massacres of Jewish people, like the Holocaust, especially as concern about antisemitism rises among Jewish adults.

“I’ve been defending myself as a Jew since I was a child ... getting mugged by girls in my classes for being a Jew,” Boyer said. “It’s invasive into your daily living that you have to constantly, constantly be defending yourself as a Jew, constantly making sure that nobody is redefining you or nobody is like insulting your land.”

To Ari Pollack, a 30-year-old arts fundraiser in Wisconsin, Israel’s military operations — especially in the last few years — provide fodder for antisemitism and thus make everywhere less safe for Jews.

“I’m personally pretty opposed to basically everything Israel’s doing these days,” said Pollack, who grew up attending religious school. “A source of a lot of frustration that I have for the Jewish establishment is that sort of dogmatic teaching of pro-Israel ideas that I’ve had to unlearn as an adult. And it’s part of what’s kept me away from, you know, attending regular synagogue services.”

Like about 3 in 10 religious Jewish adults under 45, Pollack says that Israel has committed genocide during the war in Gaza, a charge that Israel has vehemently denied. That’s compared with about 2 in 10 Jewish adults ages 45 and older.

The poll suggests that other elements of Judaism remain important to many younger Jewish adults. Americans under 45 who identify as religiously Jewish are more likely than older Jewish adults to say that marking or celebrating Shabbat or avoiding certain foods, like pork or shellfish, are highly important to their Jewish identity.

Phoebe Wapnitsky, a 32-year-old in Connecticut, also strongly opposes Israel’s military actions, which she perceives as unaligned with Jewish values.

“Standing against oppression, promoting social justice — those are the roles that Judaism plays in my life,” she said, adding that she felt disconnected from Israel even before the Oct. 7 attack.

Brian Ebarb, a 47-year-old attorney in Louisiana, also says his Jewish identity was about “action and community” — but those include supporting Israel.

“When the government makes mistakes, it should be criticized,” he said, but added that shouldn’t become an excuse for attacking an entire people. “The existence of the state of Israel is so precarious that we have to be careful and not allow criticism of Israel to become criticism of Jews worldwide.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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The AP-NORC poll of 3,040 adults was conducted June 11-17 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The poll included interviews with 1,022 Jewish adults. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points and the margin of sampling error for Jewish adults is plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The escaped animals, which include some exotic and non-native species requiring state licenses to possess, slipped away from enclosures located in homes, businesses, wildlife sanctuaries and accredited zoos.

One notable case includes a white rhinoceros at Wild Florida in Osceola County in 2022. The rhino was supposed to be part of a new exhibit at the park, but it escaped its enclosure and, in the end, was killed.

[WATCH: Rhino shot and killed at Wild Florida Safari Park (from 2023)]

The USDA determined the park violated the federal Animal Welfare Act in that case.

Another case involved a kangaroo in Volusia County that escaped its enclosure after a bear damaged it in 2024. The kangaroo was eventually found and the owner was fined.

[WATCH: Kangaroo on the loose in Florida community of Pierson after bear scare (from 2024)]

Only certain species of captive animals must be reported to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission when they escape. The state agency believes those escapes are under-reported due to the owners’ apprehension and fear of enforcement action.

According to FWC records, escaped animals in the Central Florida area since 2022 include:

• Argentine black and white tegu — Titusville (Brevard County), Jan 2022; escaped from a screened patio enclosure during cage maintenance, traps were set and it was recaptured, then moved to locked indoor enclosures; sanctions: verbal warning.
• Asian water monitor — Orange City (Volusia County), Apr 2022; tried to get into a screened porch, then was captured by an invasive-wildlife volunteer who was allowed to keep it; no sanctions noted.
• Siamang — Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista (Orange County), July 2022; fell from a rope outside a moat but stayed inside the public barrier, staff secured it and sent it to the vet; no sanctions noted.
• Savannah monitor — Merritt Island (Brevard County), Sep 2022; slipped out through a doggy door and was later trapped nearby; sanctions: warning.
• White rhinoceros — Wild Florida, Kenansville (Osceola County), Sep 2022; escaped from primary and secondary enclosures, fatally shot by staff; paid $9,000 fine issued by USDA without admitting or denying any violation of Animal Welfare Act
• Giant river otter — Brevard Zoo, Melbourne (Brevard County), Oct 2022; likely tunneled under enclosure fencing at the zoo and got stuck under the boardwalk, then was anesthetized with a pole syringe and recaptured, and the enclosure perimeter was reinforced; no sanctions noted.
• Howler monkey — Brevard Zoo, Melbourne (Brevard County), Jan 2023; escaped through a door gap during a water-bowl change, was chemically sedated and returned to quarantine, and staff tightened safety-entrance procedures; no sanctions noted.
• Lanner falcon — Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament, Kissimmee (Osceola County), Jan 2023; flew off after being improperly leashed and spooked by a guest, disappeared with the leash still attached, and the facility handled it with internal discipline; no sanctions noted.
• Red-tailed boa constrictor — Ocoee (Orange County), Jun 2023; about 5 feet long, found behind a water heater in an unfinished new-construction home, no microchip, captured and rehomed; no sanctions noted.
• Burmese python — Oviedo (Seminole County), Jul 2023; about 8 feet long and found under a vehicle, owner unknown, the python was slated for hold/transfer then euthanasia per the report; no sanctions noted
• Argentine black-and-white tegu — Orlando (Orange County), Jul 2023; escaped from a wire dog-kennel on a pool lanai, neighbors reported traps/trail cams were set, but it was still missing at the time of the report; no sanctions noted.
• Kangaroo — Fort McCoy (Marion County), Sep 2023; got out when a bungee cord on a dog-kennel door failed during cleaning, was recaptured: citation for no license plus three written warnings
• Asian water monitor — Ocala (Marion County), May 2024; a roughly 3‑foot lizard found roaming in a yard, transferred to a licensed facility; no sanctions noted.
• Red tegu — Orlando (Orange County), May 2024; initially hid under a porch during a neighbor’s attempt to catch it, turned over for placement at a permitted facility; sanctions: owner fined $273 after pleading no contest to possessing non-native lizard without a permit
• American alligator — Sanford (Seminole County), Jun 2024; a 5–6‑foot female slipped out of an open-top zoo pen after a chain-link tie broke, was spotted behind exhibits and coaxed back with voice commands, and the pen was reinforced; no sanctions noted.
• Reticulated python — Casselberry (Seminole County), Aug 2024; about 7 feet long, found on a sidewalk at dusk, captured by a resident and turned over to FWC, owner unknown; no sanctions noted
• Lesser yellow-headed vulture — Universal Studios, Orlando (Orange County), Sep 2024; overshot a stage perch and flew out an open-backed theater during a show, captured about 2,100 feet away by volunteer with Audubon Center for Birds of Prey; sanctions: verbal warning.
• Asian water monitor — Lady Lake (Lake County), Oct 2024; 40-inch lizard was caught on a leash after a neighborhood sighting and returned the next day, and a follow-up found it got out through rusted/light-gauge wire in a homemade cage; sanctions: two written warnings for escape and improper cage materials.
• Kangaroo — Pierson (Volusia County), Oct 2024; a bear damaged the kangaroo’s paddock, witnesses recorded video of it hopping on rural roads, was later located in a pasture and chemically immobilized; sanctions: owner fined $400 after pleading no contest to possessing kangaroo with expired license
• Bennett’s Wallaby — Howey-in-the-Hills (Lake County), Dec 2024; jumped a 4′6″ stall gate, escaped once and was recovered, then escaped again and was still missing at report time; sanctions: owner fined $450 and sentenced to 6 months of probation
• Kangaroo — St. Cloud (Osceola County), May 2025; reported loose off Hickory Tree Road, held up in thick vegetation with a crowd nearby, darted and trailered to a permitted facility, then held pending enclosure fixes; sanctions: two citations and two warnings
• Albino African crested porcupines (2) — Citra (Marion County), Jul 2025; a storm dropped a tree that crushed their enclosure and the back of the house, neighbors were alerted, and both animals later returned on their own and were recaptured; no sanctions noted.
• Burmese python — Port Orange (Volusia County), Dec 2025; found by a landscaper near a retention pond and contained by deputies/FWC, owner unknown, placed in an FWC facility enclosure; no sanctions noted

District leaders are expected to review a master plan during a 6 p.m. meeting. The proposal includes a new high school projected to cost about $214 million, with the district aiming to acquire land and secure funding by 2028.

Clermont resident Megan Tobon, a mother of four who moved to the area three years ago, said the possibility of more schools nearby factored into her family’s decision to relocate.

“I’m excited. It’s one of the main reasons we moved here,” Tobon said. “We knew there was a possibility they would build more schools around here.”

Some parents said a new high school is overdue, noting many families currently drive 15 to 20 minutes to get children to school.

Tobon said schools serving the area are spread out, including Sawgrass Bay Elementary, Windy Hill Middle and East Ridge High.

“Knowing they could all be close to each other, and close to home, is exciting,” she said.

Others raised concerns about traffic — especially along Schofield Road, which some residents said is already congested during morning and evening commutes.

“On Schofield, if you get caught there around 5:00, you’re going to be backed up for a long time,” Clermont resident Alanis Tatum said.

The district said the Wellness Way area is among the fastest-growing parts of South Lake County. A 2025 report cited by the district shows the growth is adding pressure on nearby schools, and leaders say a new high school would help relieve overcrowding as the area continues to expand.

Parents like Tobon said reducing class sizes would be a benefit.

“That’s something I would appreciate as well, if my kids were not one of 40 students in a classroom,” she said.

The master plan also includes adding an elementary school in the same area, estimated at about $47 million.

Residents in several neighborhoods reported trees crashing into homes, power lines and roadways, causing outages for thousands. On Sunday, some people were still without electricity as crews worked to restore power.

Daysha Harris, who lives near 15th Avenue, said lightning struck a tree in her yard, sending it down and bringing power lines with it.

“It was just a lot of hail and water. I just started noticing all the branches falling, then this tree fell,” Harris said. “You can see where the lightning struck the ground.”

Harris said the outage has been especially difficult in the heat.

“It’s so hot. I know the food is about to go bad,” she said. “We’re thinking about getting a hotel room because the kids can’t be in the heat.”

Ocala Fire Rescue said the storm left downed trees, blocked roads and damage across the northeast part of the city.

Neighbors described some areas as looking like a “war zone,” with debris scattered across streets and multiple homes damaged by fallen trees.

Michelle Flanagan said a tree from a neighboring property crashed into her home, damaging her garage.

“There it is. It damaged my garage. You can see daylight through the garage,” Flanagan said. “All the insulation, everything, is down, and the wiring.”

Ocala Electric Utility said only a small number of customers remained without power Saturday night, but some outages could take longer to restore because multiple transmission poles were damaged.

News 6 reached out to Ocala Fire Rescue for more details on how many homes were damaged and which areas were hit the hardest. We’ll update this story when we hear back.

A delicate drop shot which made Alexander Zverev change direction so suddenly that the German player over-extended his right knee at a crucial point of the third set.

Sure, there were plenty of the usual whizzing, missile-like baseline winners from Jannik Sinner in his four-set victory over Zverev in the Wimbledon final. He also showed off the new variety of his game, though — which came in handy when Zverev unleashed more power than he had used before against the top-ranked player.

The variety of shots were what Sinner’s two coaches, Darren Cahill and Simone Vagnozzi, appreciated most from their player in Sunday's match.

Just like the Big Three and Big Four before them — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray — Sinner, Zverev and Carlos Alcaraz (who is out injured) are continually evolving their games, Cahill noted.

“Alexander is now playing a different style of tennis against Jannik,” Cahill said. “We know Jannik is going to have to improve in certain areas to handle that type of game. Carlos is going to come back really strong, as well — as we all hope … You need to keep adding things to his game.

“We saw a lot of the stuff he doesn’t normally like doing, even in the final today: sliced backhands, a couple lobs, couple drop shots. Really stepping up when he needed to in the big moments.”

Deficit to Alcaraz in Slams count reduced

Sinner’s second consecutive Wimbledon victory matched the two titles that Alcaraz won before him at the All England Club and raised his overall tally to five Grand Slams — narrowing the gap to Alcaraz’s seven.

Alcaraz missed the French Open and Wimbledon this year due to a right wrist injury and it remains unclear if he’ll return in time for the year’s final Grand Slam at the U.S. Open.

Zverev’s performance in London leapfrogged him ahead of Alcaraz into the No. 2 spot when the new rankings were released Monday.

Zverev’s run on the grass followed his first major title at the French Open last month – after Sinner’s stunning second-round meltdown in Paris.

“Big, big respect to Sascha, because he’s doing something amazing. His game is growing and growing,” Sinner said, using Zverev’s nickname. “You have always someone who is pushing you to the limit. We hope that Carlos is coming back, as well, because tennis needs him.

“Having Novak still around, having all the young players coming, it’s really, really nice,” added Sinner, who beat the 39-year-old Djokovic in the semifinals. “At the same time, you always need to work hard.”

Sinner's mom couldn't watch on Centre Court

Sinner twice had to come back from a set down in a five-set marathon against Miomir Kecmanovic in the first round — when he also had to deal with blood seeping through his shoe due to a toenail issue.

He didn’t lose another set until Zverev unleashed a barrage of serves at up to 139 mph (224 kph) and backed those up with huge forehands to the corners.

Sinner knew he had a challenge to face when the first-set tiebreaker was decided by an inside-out forehand winner from Zverev.

So did Sinner’s mom, Siglinde, who couldn’t bare to watch some of the more tense moments on Centre Court.

“My mom, I see her, she left the stadium a couple of times,” Sinner said on court during his victory speech, glancing over after she had returned in time for the trophy ceremony. “It’s not easy.”

Chasing the sun

Amid stifling heat and humidity in Paris in late May, Sinner had his 30-match winning streak ended after coming within one game of a straight-set victory over Juan Manuel Cerundolo, who was ranked No. 56.

Sinner went in for medical exams in Milan after the Paris defeat and acknowledged during Wimbledon that doctors discovered what was bothering him — without revealing the details.

“His medical records are his medical records. We won’t speak about any of that,” Cahill said. “But it’s up to us to make some changes, to do some little things differently.”

Sinner now leaves the court often between sets to refresh himself, change his shirt and get a moment of air-conditioning. During another heat wave the week before Wimbledon began, he used an ice vest to cool down.

“Look, he’s a redhead that lives in the north of Italy, that grew up in the snow and the Alps. Hot weather is a little bit different for him than it is for most people,” Cahill said.

“The more time he spends in the heat, the better he’s going to be at it,” Cahill added. “We might even make some changes to the preseason, chasing the sun a little bit more, getting him more acclimatized to playing in these types of conditions.”

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

The department says two children, ages 5 and 9, and a companion adult, 37-year-old Jenna Denton have been located.

The shooting happened Saturday near West 14th Street and Bell Avenue. Multiple law enforcement vehicles were at the scene, and police said the victim had life-threatening injuries.

The investigation is ongoing. Check back for updates.

Jeremy Mason, 29, was arrested on Friday after troopers responded to a “Be On the Lookout” alert for a white Chevrolet Silverado traveling westbound on State Road 400. Dispatchers reported a woman inside the vehicle was yelling that she had been kidnapped.

According to the arrest report, troopers said Mason picked up his girlfriend from her residence, and a verbal argument broke out while the two were in the truck. The victim told authorities Mason refused to let her leave and held her against her will through Volusia, Seminole, Orange, Osceola and Polk counties.

The victim told troopers Mason struck her in the face with a coffee cup and punched her in the arm during a stop at a drive-through. At a 7-Eleven in Orange County, she said she tried to get help — but Mason physically grabbed her, shoved her back into the truck and locked the windows. She said she was struck approximately four to five times and feared for her life after Mason told her, “I want to kill you”, the arrest report states.

A trooper stopped the vehicle near mile marker 8 on State Road 570 in Polk County. Officers observed blood on the victim’s face and bruising on her left arm. The inside of the truck had coffee splattered across the ceiling and door panels.

Mason was charged with kidnapping, battery — domestic violence and aggravated assault. He was transported to the Polk County Jail without incident.

Crews responded to a home along Macdonough Avenue off Lancaster Road.

According to firefighters, crews performed life-saving measures at the scene.

OCFR says the child was transported to Arnold Palmer Hospital. Details on the condition of the child were not given.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The gusher of investment in data centers — likely topping $700 billion this year — to power artificial intelligence has made memory chips, computer processors and other equipment, as well as electricity, more expensive. Economists expect it will continue to push up inflation at least through the end of this year.

While it won't be as large a spike as occurred in 2021-2023, when inflation peaked at 9.1%, massive AI spending is likely to keep prices rising more quickly than the Federal Reserve would like. Such increases could lead the central bank to lift its key interest rate later this year to cool spending and bring down inflation. Higher rates from the Fed often boost borrowing costs for auto loans, mortgages, and business loans.

Fed officials will closely watch June's inflation report, to be released Tuesday, for further signs of AI's impact on prices. Inflation last month likely cooled as gasoline prices have fallen after a ceasefire was reached between the U.S. and Iran, though whether that trend continues is now unclear as the U.S. and Iran have resumed fighting.

AI spending is lifting prices for consumer electronics

Just four large tech companies — Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft — are expected to invest $720 billion this year, mostly on data centers.

Those data centers use a lot of semiconductors, and chip supplies have run low. As a result, economists at JPMorgan Chase estimate that the cost of some computer memory chips will have soared by as much as 400% between 2024 and the end of this year.

Americans are already seeing higher prices for a range of consumer electronics, including laptops, smartphones, video game consoles, and computers. Electricity prices are also jumping as data centers absorb a growing share of new electrical capacity.

In a high-profile announcement last month, Apple announced it was boosting prices for laptops and iPads by about 15% to 25%. A topline MacBook will now cost $1,999, up from $1,699.

Many analysts expect price hikes will come for iPhones next.

“The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage," Apple said in a statement. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”

On the same day, Microsoft announced that the price of its Xbox video game console will increase $100 by Aug. 1, citing higher prices for memory chips. Sony is also charging more for the PlayStation, while Dell Computer and HP have raised prices for their laptops.

A “wave of AI-related cost pressures spilling over into consumer prices is still in the early stages of building,” analysts at investment bank Evercore ISI recently wrote.

It's the latest in a series of waves that have boosted inflation

The impact on broader measures of inflation may be relatively modest, with many economists forecasting that AI investment will boost core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy, by roughly a half-percentage point by the end of this year.

Still, that could be enough to offset declining prices elsewhere, as the impact of President Donald Trump's tariffs continues to fade and as rental costs cool. Core inflation, according to the Fed's preferred measure, was 3.4% in May and some economists now expect it may decline only slightly by the end of the year, remaining well above the Fed's 2% target.

The boost from AI may prove temporary, but it follows previous waves of higher prices stemming from tariffs and the gas price spike resulting from the Iran war. The Fed typically “looks through,” or ignores, temporary price increases, rather than boosting rates to fight them, but an ongoing series of temporary price shocks could threaten to create more sustained inflation, which has already been above the Fed's target for more than five years.

“In isolation one or two such shocks is perhaps transitory, something they’re willing to live with,” said Abiel Reinhart, an economist at J.P. Morgan. "A sustained series of shocks, or a wider range of shocks, becomes more concerning to them.”

Federal Reserve officials have increasingly focused on AI

Fed policymakers are increasingly focused on AI's inflationary impact. Kevin Warsh, who took over as chair May 22, has said he believes that over time AI will make the U.S. economy more efficient, which should reduce inflation even as growth accelerates.

He acknowledged in remarks July 1, however, that AI investment is now boosting demand, but declined to speculate on how inflationary the impact would be.

Yet many Fed officials worry that demand for AI-related gear will continue to outstrip available supply, a recipe for persistent price increases.

“If this creates a sustained impulse to demand relative to supply in inflation, I do think that’s the kind of situation where you don’t look through this,” John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said Thursday. Williams is also vice chair of the Fed's rate-setting committee. Williams has supported keeping rates unchanged, but his comment suggests that under some scenarios he could support a hike.

According to the minutes of the Fed's June 16-17 policy meeting, released Wednesday, many other officials share Williams' concerns.

Another channel through which AI could raise inflation is through its huge demand for electricity, which has caused many utilities to raise prices. Power companies throughout the U.S. are adding more capacity, an expensive step that can also boost electricity costs.

According to the government's consumer price index, electricity prices rose 5.9% in May compared with a year earlier, a bigger increase than overall inflation, which was 4.2%. After a pandemic spike, electricity price gains had dropped back to about 2% annually in early 2025.

While prices for computer chips could peak this year and then decline, experts expect electricity demand from AI will push up utility costs into 2028 or even beyond. In February, economists at Goldman Sachs forecast that electricity prices will rise 6% this year and next, and an above-average 3% in 2028.

“We do know what effect AI is having on inflation now, and it is inflationary, not deflationary,” Dario Perkins, an economist at TSLombard, wrote this week.

Photos show trees on some homes and sprawled across roads.

Fire officials said there were road blockages and that while the damage appears structural, the risk remains of hard-to-see power lines across roads.

They’re warning people to stay indoors and off roads in the impacted area as first responders and utility workers move through.

MONDAY & TUESDAY

Scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected to develop Monday afternoon and evening, with rain chances around 50 to 60 percent before decreasing slightly on Tuesday (30-40%).

Tuesday’s storms may begin a little earlier than usual across northern portions of Central Florida before expanding south through the afternoon and evening hours.

A few stronger storms could produce wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph, frequent lightning, small hail, and locally heavy rainfall of 1 to 3 inches.

Temperatures will climb into the low to mid 90s Monday afternoon, with heat index values reaching 102 to 107 degrees during the hottest part of the day.

MIDWEEK

Saharan dust will continue filtering into Florida through the middle of the week, helping to suppress storm development while creating hazy skies and more vibrant sunrises and sunsets. The dust may also contribute to moderate air quality levels at times, particularly for those sensitive to air pollution.

As rain chances decrease Wednesday and Thursday, temperatures are expected to climb back into the mid-90s across much of Central Florida.

Combined with the humidity, heat index values will once again push into the 102 to 107 degree range during the afternoon, bringing another round of widespread moderate to major heat impacts before a more typical summertime storm pattern returns heading into next weekend.

The crash happened around 1:30 a.m. near the State Road 44 exit in New Smyrna Beach. A stretch of the road was shut down but has since reopened.

According to FHP, a 2017 Lincoln Continental and a 2014 Kia Soul were both traveling northbound in the center lane when the Lincoln rear-ended the Kia. The impact sent the Lincoln off the roadway onto the right shoulder and pushed the Kia into the median.

The driver of the Kia Soul, an 85-year-old woman from Daytona Beach, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Lincoln Continental, a 42-year-old man from Edgewater, was transported to the hospital with serious injuries.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Yes, both those teams are currently in first place.

Pro drafts — even those with lotteries — generally start with some of the weakest teams from the previous season. But because baseball doesn't conduct its draft until the middle of the ensuing season, sometimes the teams picking at the top have already made impressive strides. The White Sox lost 102 games last year and Tampa Bay dropped 85. Now they're in contention — and adding possible help for the future via the draft.

Here are a few teams that actually reached 90 wins the same year they had the top pick:

2008 RAYS (97-65)

This was Tampa Bay's fourth No. 1 pick in a 10-year span, and the Rays haven't had one since. Starting in that 2008 season, which ended with a World Series appearance, Tampa Bay became a lot more successful. The Rays didn't take full advantage of that final No. 1 pick, selecting infielder Tim Beckham when Eric Hosmer and Buster Posey went later in the top five.

2024 GUARDIANS (92-69)

Cleveland won the draft lottery, then proceeded to win the AL Central. The Guardians drafted Travis Bazzana, who made his big league debut earlier this season.

1984 METS (90-72)

The Mets began their mid-1980s rise in '84, finishing 6 1/2 games out of first place in the NL East with Dwight Gooden winning Rookie of the Year honors. New York would peak two years later with a World Series title, but this draft pick — outfielder Shawn Abner — never played for them.

1977 WHITE SOX (90-72)

Chicago's rise in 1977 — from 64 wins to 90 — was short lived. But the White Sox drafted a keeper that year in Hall of Famer Harold Baines. He'd go on to play more than two decades in the major leagues and was part of division champions in Chicago in 1983 and toward the end of his career in 2000.

Trivia time

Cholowsky, of UCLA, became the school's first No. 1 overall draft pick since Gerrit Cole in 2011. But there was another UCLA star, drafted in the first round, who has been worth even more wins above replacement than Cole. Who was it?

Comeback of the week

The Mets led 9-4 and, according to Baseball Savant, had a 94.2% win probability after Juan Soto's three-run homer in the bottom of the fourth against Kansas City on Tuesday night. The lead didn't even last until New York's next at-bat.

The Royals scored five runs in the fifth, then added seven more in the seventh on their way to a 16-12 victory.

Then on Sunday, the Mets blew a two-run lead in the ninth and lost to Boston 3-2 in 10 innings. Meanwhile, the rival Yankees swept three straight in Washington, coming from behind in the eighth inning or later in each game.

Performance of the week

Toronto's Dylan Cease had a no-hit bid broken up in the ninth inning of a 10-0 win over San Francisco on Wednesday. He finished with 11 strikeouts and one hit allowed in eight-plus innings.

Honorable mention: Kansas City's Tyler Tolbert went 5 for 6 with a homer in that big comeback victory over the Mets. He tied a major league record with hits in 12 straight plate appearances.

Trivia answer

Chase Utley, drafted with the 15th overall pick in 2000, was worth 64.6 WAR according to Baseball Reference.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

“You watch a Triple-A game, most everybody that’s coming out of the bullpen left-handed or right-handed is throwing 95-plus,” the Boston Red Sox manager said. “Back in the day, it was you'd get a lead and you'd get to the lower part of a bullpen and you’d see some guys coming out throwing 88.”

Heading into the All-Star break, velocity is on track to set a record for the sixth straight season.

Four-seam fastballs averaged 94.7 mph through Saturday, up from 94.5 mph last year, 93.7 mph in 2021 and 91.9 mph when Major League Baseball first started tracking in 2008. The average was 94.4 mph for the first half of 2025, and this year's final figure could increase by a tick.

“Definitely expecting anybody you’ve never heard of to throw a 95-plus,” said the New York Mets' Marcus Semien, a three-time All-Star who made his major league debut in 2013, when four-seamers averaged 92.7 mph. “Before you'd know who the guys were who were throwing 98. Now, you just expect that this new guy is probably throwing 98. So that shows how everybody’s trained.”

Expectations have changed. In David Auburn's “Proof,” which won the 2001 Pulitzer Price for Drama, a mathematical research work is described as “streamlined: no wasted moves, like a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. It’s just ... elegant.”

That figure no longer is notable.

Right-handed pitchers are averaging 95.2 mph in 2026, up from 95.0 mph last year. Right-handed relievers are averaging 95.6 mph.

The Triple-A average of 93.6 mph is up from 92.7 mph when tracking started at that level in 2022.

“People are learning the biomechanics of the body a lot better and it’s easier to figure out why people are throwing hard,” said Athletics pitcher Hogan Harris, whose four-seam average has increased from 92.6 mph as a rookie in 2023 to 95.0 mph this year. “There’s so many young kids throwing hard now and then you see a lot younger people in the big leagues, so my thought is they see a guy that’s throwing 100 when he’s 22 and, boy, he’s not going to throw 100 when it’s 30, so let’s get in there now.”

Six pitchers are at 100 mph in average four-seam velocity led by a pair of relievers, the Athletics' Mason Miller (101.3 mph) and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Edgardo Henriquez (100.6 mph).

Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski, a 24-year-old starter, is averaging 100.5 mph, up from 99.3 mph as a rookie last year. He has thrown a big-league high of 670 pitches at 100 mph or higher. The Brewers skipped his start Sunday because of arm fatigue.

As velocity increases, so does pitch mix among fastball types.

Four-seamers are 30.4% of pitches this season, down from 31.8% last year and 35.8% in 2019.

Sinkers increased from 15.5% last year to 16.6% and cutters from 7.5% to 7.8%. Offspeed pitches rose from 13.6% to 14.3%.

“It is exponentially harder to hit and I hit .200 in my career, so that should show you how well I would do in the game today. The thing that I think gets me when I watch games is it’s not just one fastball anymore," said New York Mets interim manager Andy Green, whose last big league season with extensive playing time was in 2006. “It’s easy for us that played a couple of decades ago to malign the offensive players for not hitting from a batting average perspective what used to be hit, but there’s so much to contend with, so much information, so much awareness of what hitter handles what fastball shape. The game’s gotten harder, there’s no doubt about it."

Big league batters are hitting .244, just below last year’s .245 and above the .243 in 2024.

"At the end of the day, us as hitters have to find a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it," Chicago Cubs star Alex Bregman said.

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AP Baseball Writers Jay Cohen and Janie McCauley contributed to this report.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Peters, who is retiring after 12 years in the Senate, said Stevens “will be ready on day one to fight for Michigan.” The endorsement, which was announced Monday, marks a reversal for Peters, who told The Associated Press in late May that he intended to stay neutral in the race.

But since then, Democratic leaders have increasingly rallied behind Stevens as the Aug. 4 primary approaches and concerns grow that El-Sayed is too far left to succeed in November. Holding the Michigan seat is viewed as critical to Democrats’ hopes of reclaiming the Senate majority.

Stevens, a four-term House member, has campaigned as a more moderate Democrat focused on manufacturing issues in the critical battleground state. El-Sayed, who has never held elected office, is running on a more progressive platform that includes Medicare for All and campaign finance reform. He's also been outspoken about the war in Gaza, which has been a fault line within the party.

Concerns about Michigan have only intensified after Democrats’ attempt to flip a Senate seat in Maine was thrown into turmoil when nominee Graham Platner withdrew from the race following a sexual assault allegation last week. Democrats there must now choose a new nominee to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

Peters’ endorsement also comes after state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of Michigan’s Democratic primary earlier this month, transforming the race into a head-to-head contest between Stevens and El-Sayed.

“Senator Peters knows what it takes to win in Michigan, and he knows what Michigan needs from our next U.S. Senator: grit, effectiveness, hard work, and Michigan common sense,” Stevens said in a statement. “I am honored to have his support.”

Peters won two Senate races in Michigan and led Senate Democrats’ campaign arm during the 2022 and 2024 election cycles.

His endorsement adds to Stevens’ growing support from the Democratic establishment, with the race being viewed nationally as a broader fight over the party’s direction.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York has also backed Stevens, along with Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. El-Sayed has support from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and, more recently, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

The campaign has grown increasingly contentious in recent weeks.

El-Sayed has attacked Stevens over tens of millions of dollars in outside spending supporting her campaign, including by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Stevens has criticized El-Sayed for not disclosing his personal financial records.

During a July 7 debate, each accused the other of running a negative campaign.

“Abdul has spent this entire campaign attacking me,” Stevens said.

The Democratic winner will likely face Republican Mike Rogers, a former member of the U.S. House running uncontested for his party's nomination, in what is expected to be one of the country’s most expensive and closely watched Senate races.

The tear in the inner wall of the aorta, called an aortic dissection, was related to the hardening of Graham's arteries. An official cause of death will be disclosed after toxicological and microscopic testing.

Graham, a prominent South Carolina Republican and former Air Force lawyer who served in Congress for more than three decades, had turned 71 years old just two days before dying on Saturday night. His office had originally said he had suffered from a “brief and sudden illness."

Trump, who talked to Graham frequently, said he was “like a member of the family. It’s very tough.” He said on NBC’s ”Meet the Press" that Graham had called him on Saturday night after returning from a trip to Ukraine and “sounded a little bit tired, but perfect.” The president ordered that flags across the country be flown at half-staff until next Saturday evening.

A noted foreign policy hawk, Graham was one of the most influential figures in Washington on international affairs and he advised Trump on matters such as the Iran war and Russia. On Friday, Graham had announced an agreement with the Trump administration to move forward on a package of Russia sanctions.

As chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Graham also had a central role during Trump’s second term as Republicans pushed major legislation on party-line votes while holding a narrow 53-47 majority in the chamber.

Under South Carolina law, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster will appoint a temporary replacement for Graham, who was seeking a fifth term in November. A new nominee will be selected in a special primary, which is required to be held within weeks of a vacancy. The winner of November's general election will start a full six-year term in January.

Graham had a close, complicated relationship with Trump

Graham, elected to the Senate in 2002 after serving in the House, long promoted a policy of robust U.S. military interventionism and strong national defense that in later years would put him at odds with the growing isolationist wing of his party.

Over time, Graham became well-known for his close ties with Trump, whom the senator briefly ran against for the presidential nomination in 2016.

Their relationship would begin on a rough note, with Graham calling the then-New York businessman “unfit for office.” Graham used a profanity to describe Trump after Trump made disparaging comments about Arizona Republican John McCain, Graham's best friend in the Senate and a Vietnam War veteran. McCain and Graham, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., were known as the “Three Amigos” and frequently traveled together to promote their foreign policy views around the globe.

During a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump read out Graham’s personal cellphone number and continued to belittle him throughout the 2016 race as Graham made it clear he would not support Trump.

Graham, however, shifted significantly once Trump won the White House and emerged as one of Trump's top allies — speaking with him frequently and becoming a regular presence on the golf course alongside the president — even as McCain remained a critic.

In a 2018 interview with The Associated Press, Graham explained his pivot by saying McCain taught him that the country must move forward after elections and that meant “you have an obligation” to help the president. McCain ran twice for the White House.

“And I’ve tried to be helpful where I could because I think he needs all the help he can get,” Graham said of Trump. “You can be a better critic when people understand that you’re trying to help them be successful.”

Graham was a prominent defender of Trump during the president's two first-term impeachments — a reversal from Graham's role as a House prosecutor during Democratic President Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998, when he urged senators not to make up their minds before listening to all of the arguments. Both Trump and Clinton were eventually acquitted.

Graham appeared to break with Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, saying in a dramatic speech on the Senate floor that night, “Count me out. Enough is enough." But the senator soon returned to Trump's side and the two remained close during Trump's second term.

Foreign policy was a focus for Graham

Graham had just been in Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said the senator visited his country 10 times during the years since Russia invaded in February 2022. “Lindsey was a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer,” Zelenskyy said.

He was also one of the chief backers of Trump's war in Iran, having advocated for years for direct confrontation between Washington and Tehran. Graham continued to defend Trump this summer even as many of his fellow Republicans questioned a tentative June ceasefire agreement that they worried could send billions of dollars to Iran.

“I’d rather try diplomacy than take it off the table,” Graham said of Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Tehran.

Graham's travels made him a familiar face to dozens of world leaders.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Graham understood that the security of Israel and the United States was inseparable.

“Israel has lost one of its greatest friends. America has lost a great patriot. I have lost a beloved friend,” Netanyahu said.

Graham led both the Senate Budget and Judiciary committees

As Budget Committee chairman, Graham helped oversee a Senate procedure that allowed Republicans to pass significant policies such as last year’s tax law without the threat of a Democratic filibuster.

He had previously led the Senate Judiciary Committee when Republicans confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in 2020. The senator was in line to regain that gavel if the party kept its majority after the midterm elections and had pledged to confirm "as many conservative judges as possible.”

Graham was a key player in the Senate’s efforts to craft a massive immigration overhaul in 2013 as a member of a bipartisan group. The legislation passed the Senate with 68 votes but was never taken up by the House, so it did not become law.

Graham’s views on immigration, particularly an endorsement of a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. without legal status, put him at odds with some Republican factions.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat who was his ally on that issue, said Graham was “part of every important policy issue and an indispensable player” in bipartisan negotiations.

An ‘irreplaceable’ force in the Senate

Graham often worked across the aisle, even as he remained fiercely loyal to Trump. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, said in a statement that “personal relationships often mattered more to him than the political disagreements of the day."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Graham was “over the moon” with the Russian sanctions deal announced Friday. “The last thing in the world I would have guessed was that he was sick or ill or in any way vulnerable,” Blumenthal said.

Jaime Harrison, a former national and state Democratic Party chairman who unsuccessfully ran against Graham in 2020, said that even during their “fiercest political battles” the two men "could still share a conversation, a laugh, and a mutual respect for South Carolina.”

Graham was unique in the Senate for his influence not only on Trump, but also with his fellow Republicans who were aware of his ability to sometimes move the president’s thinking. He was also known for his sense of humor, often deployed to defuse tensions.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the second-ranking Republican, said Graham will be missed for his “quick wit and infectious laughter.”

McMaster said in a statement that Graham was “irreplaceable.” Former Republican President George W. Bush said Graham “understood how the world works” and “was a kind and funny man who loved our country and loved serving it.”

Graham often spoke about his humble roots, growing up in the back of a South Carolina bar and helping to raise his sister, Darline, after his parents died at a young age. Graham was not married and did not have children.

Special election to replace Graham could be within weeks

Graham won 57% of the GOP vote in South Carolina's primary in June and was up against Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, and several minor party and independent candidates in November.

His death will likely prompt a scramble to fill a rare open Senate seat.

A number of Republican names began circulating as possible replacements to serve out the rest of Graham’s term, including three candidates who fell short for the party's nomination for governor this year — Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Ralph Norman and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette.

Also in the mix is Rep. Russell Fry, who was elected to the House in 2022.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C. Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Will Weissert in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Brian P. D. Hannon in Bangkok and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

But the U.S. government has no way to create an automatic, preauthorized “dead man’s switch” that would prompt immediate retaliation.

Instead, if Trump were killed, the transfer of power to his successor is governed by the 25th Amendment and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. Vice President JD Vance instantaneously would become commander in chief and have authority for any retaliation.

Under such a scenario, Vance could do exactly what Trump called for, though there also is a chance he could decide not to follow his predecessor's orders — or offer a direct response in a different way.

“The U.S. has, for a whole variety of reasons, never utilized a technical ‘dead man’s switch,'” said Garrett M. Graff, author of “Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself -- While the Rest of Us Die.”

The United States does have extensive contingency plans for continuity of government in the event of a nuclear attack or other major catastrophe that wipes out most or all of Washington. But those plans also do not allow for immediately launching retaliatory strikes upon the death of a president, even if that president had demanded that the military be ready to do so.

Trump nonetheless posted on his social media website Saturday that Iran had made threats “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him and he said 1,000 “missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat.”

Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said hours later that Iranians would continue to avenge the killing of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The elder Khamenei died in the initial U.S. and Israeli strikes that started the war in late February, and he was mourned in funeral events throughout Iran this week. His son said retaliation “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out.”

“We pledge to take revenge for the pure blood of you and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraceful killers," he said in remarks aired on state television. "This revenge is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out.”

The White House on Saturday did not immediately answer questions about what would become of Trump's military orders should he be killed.

During those recent funeral events, mourners repeatedly held posters or banners calling for Trump to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Israel alerted U.S. officials to fresh Iranian plots to kill Trump. The White House has refused to comment, but Trump appeared to reference such threats in comments during this week's NATO summit in Turkey, saying, “They want to take out the U.S. leader — me.”

Sabrina Singh, former Biden administration deputy Pentagon press secretary, said “Iran wanting to target senior American leaders is something that we know is happening."

“You have to take these as credible threats,” Singh said.

US retaliations would almost certainly come, just not automatically

Trump was targeted in two domestic assassination attempts during the 2024 presidential campaign and saw a gunman storm the White House Correspondents' Association dinner he was attending in April.

The president flew part of the way back to Washington from Turkey this week aboard an older Air Force One jet rather than a new Qatari-gifted aircraft, raising fresh security questions about the newer plane. Images of the jet, which was retrofitted at an estimated cost of $400 million, show it is not equipped with some of the same missile detection and countermeasure systems as earlier versions.

The swap occurred as the U.S. and Iran once again began trading strikes, jeopardizing last month's initial deal to end the war. Asked about Iranian threats, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I’m No. 1 on their list."

Graff said the U.S. prepared years of plans for how nuclear launch authority would devolve in the event of a surprise attack. That included, during 30 years of the Cold War, the country keeping fleets of airborne command posts flying 24 hours a day with a general aboard one of them who could take over nuclear launch orders in the event Washington was lost.

“What I believe Trump is saying is that he’s left standing orders to attack if he’s killed, e.g., that the Pentagon should proceed with standard launch protocols,” Graff said. “There’s a lot of reason to doubt the legality of such standing orders, since in the event of a president’s death, the nuclear launch authority would immediately pass to the vice president or designated successor — and ultimately it would be up to him or her to determine whether to proceed.”

Trump’s post only refers to firing missiles at Iran, which the U.S. has done scores of times since its war with Iran began. He did not expressly threaten involving nuclear weapons.

Graff said that, in addition to leaving standing orders in case of his death, Trump also might say “something to Vance like, ‘If I’m killed, nuke Iran,'" and that would make ”more sense and would be absolutely legal.”

Biden administration once warned Iran about Trump, too

Washington receiving credible threats against the president and top U.S. leaders from Iran and other foreign adversaries is not uncommon and is often disclosed via national security briefings or other classified means. But far less common is Trump declaring publicly that he personally has been targeted by Iran.

Still, this is not the first time Washington has threatened Iran over threats against Trump.

In 2022, the Biden administration warned Iran against attacking U.S. citizens after the Justice Department's disclosure that a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had planned to assassinate John Bolton, Trump's first-term national security adviser. Now a Trump critic, Bolton last month pleaded guilty to illegally retaining classified documents in a case led by Trump’s Justice Department.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in 2022 that “should Iran attack any of our citizens, to include those who continue to serve the United States or those who formerly served, Iran will face severe consequences.”

Two years later, in the heat of Trump’s campaign against Democrat Kamala Harris, Biden's vice president, the Biden administration again quietly warned Iran. This time, officials made clear that an attack on Trump would be considered an act of war.

The decision paid off with a dominant victory.

Blaney emerged from a three-wide battle on the final lap of overtime in the weather-delayed NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta early Monday.

Blaney won every stage of the race and led 171 laps after starting on the pole, but the Team Penske Ford driver had to fight off challenges from Bubba Wallace and Christopher Hill, who finished second, on the final lap. Carson Hocevar and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top four.

Wallace was penalized for passing below the double yellow lines and finished 29th instead of second.

There was a delay of 3 hours, 9 minutes because of rain and lightning. The raced ended at 1:45 a.m. at EchoPark Speedway.

Blaney won the first two stages but brushed the wall with 29 laps remaining, causing possible damage on his right side, after he was cut off by Wallace. Blaney remained on the track despite telling his crew he felt a “terrible” vibration.

“I tried to make a move and just got loose and hit the fence,” Blaney said. “You know I think it’s just concrete in the wheels and paint and stuff like that but luckily it still drove really decent. ... It wasn’t too bad. Luckily it wasn’t enough damage we couldn’t keep running.”

Blaney's crew chief Jonathan Hassler said his team was able to view photos of the right side of the car and determine the best chance to win was to remain on the track.

“There were 30 cars on the lead lap at that point and not a lot of laps left,' Hassler said. ”Our best chance to win was to stay out there."

Multiple drivers, including Kyle Larson, Chase Briscoe and Riley Herbst, were involved in a wreck with five laps remaining to set up the overtime.

There had been concern about approaching rain before lighting within eight miles of the 1.54-mile oval track near Atlanta led NASCAR officials to order cars off the track and advise fans to exit the grandstand. Rain began soon after the race was delayed. Following some caution laps and pit stops, the race went back to green at 12:02 a.m.

Blaney said he “took a nap and ate a little food” during the delay. Larson said the resumption of the race a few minutes before midnight “is definitely past my bedtime.”

Blaney won the pole and his Team Penske teammate Joey Logano joined him on the front row. A third Team Penske driver, Austin Cindric, moved up to third early in the race for an early strong showing for the Fords.

Cup Series points leader Denny Hamlin, who qualified 28th, finished 12th. Tyler Reddick was eighth.

Reddick, who won at EchoPark Speedway in February as part of his string of five wins in the season's first nine races, qualified only 31st on Saturday. By the 35th lap he already had moved up to fourth, proving early that he again would be a factor in Atlanta.

Clean start

The weather delay was the first caution for cause in the race, a dramatic departure from the weekend’s first race.

There were a track-record 13 cautions in Saturday night’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race won by Justin Allgaier. That total included four red flag incidents, creating an ominous preview for the Cup Series race.

The first caution for an incident on the track in the Cup Series race came when AJ Allmendinger lost control of his Chevrolet with 67 laps remaining. Allmendinger blew a tire and hit the wall with 25 laps remaining to cause another caution.

Design to drive

This was Chase Elliott’s 10th year of his Design to Drive program with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. He gave credit to the baseball-themed design of his No. 9 Chevrolet to two patients, 8-year-old Maximus Peace and 9-year-old Noelle Springer.

The program raised $545,500 for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in its first nine years. Elliott finished 13th.

Another strong start for Team Penske

Blaney’s Stage 1 win gave Team Penske Fords yet another strong start in Atlanta. Team Penske drivers have won Stage 1 in six of the last eight races at the track.

Blaney held off Reddick, who finished second in the first stage after qualifying 31st.

Up next

The Cup Series moves to North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, next weekend. Christopher Bell edged Joey Logano at North Wilkesboro Speedway in the NASCAR All-Star Race on May 18, 2025.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

The state-run Qatar News Agency reported his death. It offered no cause.

Sheikh Hamad, who stepped down in June 2013 after 18 years as emir, was the architect of energy-rich Qatar’s stunning ambitions that turned it from a backwater into an international crossroads in less than a generation. Qatar owns the Harrod’s department store in London and founded the powerful Al Jazeera satellite news network.

Qatar’s political reach today stretches from North Africa to Afghanistan and it hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the world’s most-watched soccer event. Sheikh Hamad, though long out of power, received thunderous applause from Qataris attending its opening match.

But Qatar’s rise under Sheikh Hamad also rankled regional and Western allies with its independent-minded policymaking, including its close ties to Shiite powerhouse Iran, the Palestinian militant Hamas group and Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Al Jazeera’s blunt reporting, though a much-praised departure from the traditionally deferential habits of Arab media, also was criticized and accused of slanting coverage to suit the views of Qatar’s rulers.

“The future lies ahead of you, the children of this homeland, as you usher into a new era where young leadership hoists the banner,” Sheikh Hamad said as he announced his abdication and the carefully crafted transition to his son, the British-educated crown prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who was then 33.

Sheikh Hamad handed over power to his son

The peaceful, voluntary transfer of power was rare in a region where such change usually results from death or overthrow. Sheikh Hamad himself seized control after deposing his father, Sheikh Khalifa, in a bloodless palace coup in 1995.

His abdication was seen as Qatar’s attempt to stay ahead of Arab Spring-inspired calls for reforms and leadership more attuned to the region’s large and powerful young population. Qatar, a peninsula half the size of New Jersey, is believed to have around 300,000 citizens.

At the time, Sheikh Hamad also was thought to have been in poor health for years. In December 2015, Qatari officials said he was flown to Switzerland for surgery after breaking a leg while on holiday.

Sheikh Hamad attended Britain’s military academy, Sandhurst, and became commander of Qatar’s armed forces and defense minister. He was named crown prince in the late 1970s and gradually broadened his duties to include planning for Qatar’s vast oil and gas reserves.

Sheikh Hamad created Al Jazeera, a powerful voice in Arab media

After seizing power from his father, who then lived in exile for nearly a decade, Sheikh Hamad quickly moved to open an inward-looking nation to outside influences, epitomized by Al Jazeera, which became a major force in global media.

Its reporting not only angered other Arab leaders, sometimes to the point of diplomatic rupture, it also riled Washington. Al Jazeera aired statements from the terror network al-Qaida, even as Qatar hosted one of the key Pentagon logistical hubs following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sheikh Hamad, meanwhile, aggressively sought international prestige through sports, an effort crowned by Qatar’s successful bid to host the World Cup, though marred by accusations that it used its huge wealth to woo poor countries’ support.

Qatar’s brand is also prominent across the sporting world from sponsorship deals with the Spanish football giant Barcelona to a majority stake in the football club Paris Saint-Germain.

Sheikh Hamad also pushed Qatar Airways to expand into a major international carrier, trying to rival neighboring carrier Emirates. The country’s international airport in Doha, Qatar’s capital, which cost at least $15 billion to construct, also bears his name.

Qatar became a powerhouse for diplomacy

Sheikh Hamad had wide-ranging visions for Qatar’s role as a diplomatic broker. Over the years, its mediation was brought to bear on the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region, Lebanese factional feuding and the rift between the Palestinians’ Hamas and Fatah factions.

In October 2012, Sheikh Hamad became the first head of state to visit the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized control five years previously, promising a total of $400 million in projects and investments. During the visit, Gaza radio stations played a song entitled “Thank you, Qatar.”

Qatar also reached out to Hamas’ main foe, Israel. Sheikh Hamad met in 2007 with Israel’s then-foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, at the United Nations General Assembly. Qatar allowed an Israeli trade office to operate in Doha until it was ordered closed in response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza in late 2008.

While neighboring Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates diplomatically recognized Israel in 2020, Qatar maintained its distance. Israelis at the World Cup also faced a multitude of Palestinian flags and anger over its occupation of lands Palestinians claim for their future state.

During the Arab Spring, Qatar sent warplanes to the NATO-led missions in Libya against Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and provided key military and financial aid to the successful Libyan rebels. In Syria, Qatar was a main political sponsor of the opposition to then-President Bashar Assad and led calls to increase the flow of weapons to the Syrian rebels.

However, its backing of Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood has caused rifts with other nations in the region. Those tensions culminated under Sheikh Tamim, when Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched a yearslong boycott of Qatar, in part over the policies of his father that continued during his rule.

In one of the last initiatives before Sheikh Hamad’s abdication, Qatar formally opened an office for Afghanistan’s Taliban, which set the stage for talks between the United States and the Taliban that ultimately led to NATO and America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

The technique, known as “straw checkerboards,” is a simple yet widely used method to stabilize sand dunes against the wind and help plants take root by using water supplied through an irrigation system.

The widespread lattice it created across the sand has become the iconic image of China’s decades-long campaign against the spreading of desert conditions, known as the Three-North Protective Forest Program or the Green Great Wall.

The generations of work have yielded measurable progress, but scientists caution that preserving the gains will require decades of continued effort.

For a long time, drought, overgrazing and farming removed vegetation, harmed the soil and made areas vulnerable to wind and sandstorms. That kind of degradation of the land over time is known as desertification. The area of desertified land in northern China peaked in 2000, and it has been reduced by over 1,000 square kilometers (400 square miles) each year since then, according to data published by state media.

The Chinese government said the initiative launched in 1978 has played a crucial role in transforming vast regions covering nearly half of China from “the desertification advancing and people retreating” to “greenery advancing and the desertification retreating." Forests planted by the program now cover a cumulative 500,000 square kilometers (200,000 square miles) .

“The broad significance of the Three-North Program is not only the scale of restoration, but the long-term political commitment behind it,” said Barron Joseph Orr, chief scientist for the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification. In a response to The Associated Press, he wrote that reversing desertification is possible when it becomes part of long-term development strategies.

Elsewhere, efforts to combat desertification have included a project launched in Africa in 2007 to plant trees across a number of countries to hold back the Sahara Desert.

Measuring the success of the Green Great Wall

The progress is the result of the efforts of frontline sand-control workers, along with top-level planning and substantial state investment, said Zhu Jiaojun, a scientist at the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has long been dedicated to the construction and management of the program. He added that increased rainfall in recent years in some areas has made vegetation restoration easier.

“The achievement of desertification combat is due to people’s hard work and a bit of luck with climate,” he said.

According to long-term monitoring data by Zhu's team, China’s desertified land has shrunk by around 10% overall since 2000, and areas of severely or extremely desertified land have decreased by more than 40%. Forest cover in the program area has risen from around 5% in 1978 to 14% in 2022.

In a recent government-organized media tour to a corner of Kubuqi Desert, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the west of Beijing, 60-year-old Yin Yuzhen recounted her early days of being a sand-control worker as “very lonely.” Working alongside her husband near her hometown in the neighboring Mu Us desert, she said that it felt delightful to encounter any other creature.

"Even the passing of a bird across the sky made me happy,” she said.

Four decades ago, she recalled, the sand often blew so thick that it made it hard to see a short distance.

“But now we can see the sun. We can see the green in the distance. We can see the road,” said Yin.

She and her husband now work from dawn to noon every day, attending to trees and fixing or replacing checkerboards. They are joined by their children and sometimes local volunteers.

Zhu, the scientist, estimated that over 300 million rural laborers have been involved in the program, mostly on a paid, part-time basis.

Sustaining both land and livelihood

Orr said restored ecosystems in drylands can become increasingly self-sustaining over time, but they still require careful management and long-term monitoring, with success depending on factors such as water availability and soil health.

The environmental advocacy group Green Camel Bell in Gansu province works to explain desertification and its risks to farmers and herders, plant trees with them in dryland areas, and help restore and sustain vegetation.

“Efforts to combat desertification and restore forests should be linked to local livelihoods, so communities do not see economic development and ecological protection as an either-or choice,” said its founder Zhao Zhong.

Orr agreed that restoration efforts have a much greater chance of succeeding if they're structured to help communities benefit economically.

Zhu said that a key question for the project is how conservation can be sustained if the scale of human intervention and investment is reduced.

"This is what we are very concerned with and this is also the biggest challenge,” he said.

Yin hopes the younger generation will continue her work.

“We need to teach young people to love this Earth. If we love it with all our hearts, nature will love us in return,” she said.

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Video producer Olivia Zhang contributed to this story.

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

Missile alert sirens sounded at dawn Monday in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. There was no immediate word on damage.

Iranian state media acknowledged the latest attacks on its soil early Monday, describing explosions in several locations with at least one person being killed.

Iranian attacks on Sunday stretched Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and even Oman — whose territorial waters with Iran make up the strait. The narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, which once saw a fifth of all oil and natural gas pass through it, has become the key issue challenging an interim deal between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran and the U.S. are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of that deal, which was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war. Instead, it has devolved into a series of attacks over the strait and its future, worrying world leaders the Iran war could resume.

“A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.

Fighting focuses on the status of the strait

The U.S. military earlier Sunday said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps, communication equipment and other sites — a far-heavier set of attacks than in two previous rounds of strikes in the last week.

“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” President Donald Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting U.S. military forces, while insisting it alone must control the strait and potentially charge vessels for traveling through it.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged in a statement early Monday it had begun a new round of strikes across the Middle East.

“The era of one-sided deals is OVER,” Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and a main negotiator, wrote. “We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking.”

Iran described the strait as being closed, while the U.S. military and Trump asserted that the strait remained open. Iran since the war began back on Feb. 28 with the killing of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has used attacks on vessels in the region to intimidate shippers into not traveling through the waterway.

Iran's chokehold on the strait, however, has loosened as the U.S. military provided support to vessels moving along a southern route hugging the coastline of Oman. That new route has angered Iran, which launched repeated attacks on ships using it.

Iran’s grip on the strait led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.

Attacks followed more diplomatic talks about the strait

Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was “over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach a final agreement to end the war.

A regional official involved in mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone with Iran’s top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, unseen since the war began, on Saturday vowed in his first statement since the funeral of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Iranians would avenge his killing.

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Weissert and Toropin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

The storm's intensity continued to weaken as it moved northwestward across eastern China into the province of Anhui on Sunday afternoon, according to China’s national weather center.

Strong winds and heavy rain are expected to impact many eastern and northeastern Chinese cities on Sunday and Monday, the National Meteorological Center said, adding that heavy to torrential rain was recorded Sunday afternoon in provinces, including Anhui.

In Zhejiang province, more than 2.2 million people were evacuated due to Bavi, according to state media. The city of Shanghai, in Zhejiang, evacuated over 290,000 people from at-risk areas, while Fujian province evacuated more than 180,000 people.

In the coastal city of Yueqing, also in Zhejiang province, more than 1,300 trees were toppled, including at least 700 uprooted, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao International Airport were expected to cancel around 653 inbound and outbound flights due to Bavi, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Bavi passed north of Taiwan on Saturday but did not make a direct landfall. Taiwan’s fire department said at least 134 people across the island were injured, some sustaining injuries while riding motorcycles or bicycles in strong winds or due to slippery road surfaces.

Tonight

Showers and storms worked over out atmosphere a little earlier than usual with strong intensity. This has helped to stabilize our atmosphere. The strongest of the storms is now behind us. We will keep the light, stratiform rainfall scattered around Central Florida until sunset. After 9pm, rain chances fall off and we will enjoy a dry overnight with temperatures in the mid-upper 70s.

Monday

Lingering moisture will prevail over the entering Saharan Dust to once again give us a decent shot of showers and thunderstorms from west to east in the afternoon. Rain chances become more favorable the farther north you go as the dust continues to flow in from the south, beginning to eat away at the moisture we have. We will still see about a 40-50% chance of storms. Due to the onset of more dust, coverage will be a little lower than Sunday afternoon’s deluge. Highs will hit the low 90s before cooling storms fill our skies.

Mid-Week

Saharan Dust shows out in full force by mid-week, alongside a ridge of high pressure building over the state in the upper levels of the atmosphere.

This pair together spells a drier and hotter pattern for Central Florida. Temperatures return to the mid-upper 90s with lower rain chances. Air quality will also be on the downward trend as this plume of dust is noticeably thicker than previous spells.

Graham — who died unexpectedly at 71 on Saturday night — was a rare bridge between President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and the traditional Washington consensus prioritizing alliances with Europe and Israel, one falling out of favor with many in both political parties.

With that idea of the U.S., Graham remained a staunch defender of Ukraine to the end, even as Trump’s commitment wavered.

Graham represented South Carolina in the House and Senate for more than three decades. He died after what a preliminary report from the Washington, D.C., medical examiner’s office said was a tear in his aorta. The senator's death triggered praise from leaders and diplomats around the world and condemnation from Iran and other countries where he’d agitated for military action.

“In an increasingly isolationist America, Sen. Graham was one of the last titans of the Senate who favored a muscular and engaged U.S. foreign policy,” said Paul Foldi, a former diplomat and top Republican staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He is irreplaceable.”

Trump, whom Graham opposed, then embraced, won the White House partly by harnessing voters' disgust with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — both of which were championed by Graham's wing of the Republican Party.

Graham tied himself to Trump

When Trump returned for a second term, Graham cheered his aggressive approach to Iran but was largely silent as the president dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, questioned the value of NATO, suggested using military force against allies to seize Greenland and praised dictators like Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“His moral flexibility over the last few years has been disappointing to many who saw him as a principled patriot,” Dan Baer, a former State Department official under President Barack Obama who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

Matthew Kroenig, a vice president at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., said Graham once told him there was no point in trying to defy Trump.

“As a good politician, he recognized Trump commanded the Republican Party and the Republican base and if you tried to work against him you'd get nothing done,” Kroenig said.

He argued Graham's approach has paid off in Trump's second term as the president hasn't abandoned Ukraine while also green lighting interventions in Iran and Venezuela that the senator advocated.

“Look at Trump's foreign policy — it's more of a Lindsey Graham foreign policy than a Tucker Carlson foreign policy,” Kroenig said, referring to the conservative commentator who is a prominent opponent of American intervention overseas.

Hailed as a friend of Ukraine

On Friday, shortly after returning from a trip to Kyiv, Graham announced an agreement with the Trump administration to move forward on a package of sanctions against Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Graham, whom he met twice in the past week, had visited Ukraine 10 times since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, and “was here with our people when it was most needed.” He said that “Lindsey was a true defender of freedom and the values that make our world safer.”

Graham also drew tributes for his longtime commitment to NATO and trans-Atlantic friendship at a time when those ties have been under severe strain.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Graham was “a powerful advocate for America who believed strongly in the NATO Alliance and was actively working to bring an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.” Rutte's predecessor, Jens Stoltenberg, lauded the South Carolina senator's “tireless commitment” to NATO and the trans-Atlantic bond, and his “staunch support” for Ukraine.

Graham commanded respect on NATO's eastern edge, where Russia's intentions are viewed with deep concern.

Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said that “Estonia will remember him as a steadfast friend, a strong supporter of NATO’s eastern flank, and an unwavering advocate for Ukraine.” Latvian counterpart Baiba Braže said that he was “among the strongest supporters of NATO and trans-Atlantic relations (and) assistance to Ukraine in countering Russian aggression.”

Advocated attacking Iran

Baer, the former State Department official under Obama, said that Graham deserved credit for helping push Trump to retain at least some support for Ukraine. But he noted the South Carolina senator also advocated for the president to attack Iran, sparking an ongoing conflict that Baer argues the U.S. is losing.

“I don't think the historic record of Lindsey Graham's foreign policy record will be black and white,” Baer said.

Graham long backed policies aimed at isolating Iran and limiting its missile and nuclear programs, cheered Trump's decision to strike nuclear sites last year and was a supporter of the latest conflict there.

At one point, Graham advocated using ground troops to seize Kharg Island, a crucial site for Iranian oil processing.

"We did Iwo Jima, we can do this," he told Fox News in March.

Iranian state television announced Graham’s death during a live broadcast in openly hostile terms.

“I congratulate the great nation of Iran on Lindsey Graham, the warmongering and anti-Iranian U.S. senator, having gone to hell,” the anchor said.

A strong ally of Israel's

While Graham was admired in Israel, his position toward the war in Gaza in particular angered many in the Middle East, including U.S. allies who advocated a diplomatic solution.

He was outspoken in supporting Israel’s devastating military operations in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants.

In May 2024, after Washington paused some military aid to Israel, Graham urged then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to “give Israel what they need to fight the war.” He likened the threat Israel faced to “Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids.” He posted on social media later that year that “the Palestinians in Gaza are the most radicalized population on the planet who are taught to hate Jews from birth.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called him “a great friend of Israel” and “a cherished friend of mine.”

Netanyahu said Graham understood that the security of Israel and the United States are inseparable and the prime minister said that Graham devoted his life to defending America, strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance and standing up for the free world.

“Israel has lost one of its greatest friends. America has lost a great patriot. I have lost a beloved friend,” Netanyahu said.

But the Gaza war has also helped trigger a shift against Israel among American voters, with 58% of Democrats saying in a recent AP-NORC poll that the U.S. gives Israelis too much support.

In addition, younger Republicans are more likely than their older counterparts to say the U.S. is too supportive of Israelis, raising the possibility of a generational shift.

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Riccardi reported from Denver, Colorado. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

A former military lawyer who reached the rank of colonel in the Air Force, the wisecracking Graham was known for his Southern drawl, political flexibility and reliably hawkish stance on foreign policy. He ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 as a determined opponent of Donald Trump, then became one of the new president's staunchest allies.

In his typical high-energy manner, Graham had just returned to Washington from a trip to Ukraine, having announced a deal with the Trump administration for a new package of sanctions against Russia. He was due to appear on NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday to discuss it. Trump appeared in the senator's place.

“I just can’t believe it,” Trump said. “He was like a member of the family.”

Graham died Saturday night after what a preliminary report from the Washington, D.C., medical examiner's office said was a tear in his aorta stemming from the hardening of his arteries. He was 71.

His death brought encomiums from world leaders and, closer to home, Republicans and Democrats alike, a mark of his influence and his ability to befriend colleagues of different political persuasions. In an outpouring of tributes, lawmakers expressed their shock and remembered his good humor, kindness and zest for the political arena.

“He is the quintessential boy makes good story,” said Bob McAlister, a communications consultant who long worked with Graham. “I don’t know of anybody who, or know very few people who, started out with less and gained as much from life as he did. I guess that may be my epitaph for him.”

Graham transformed from Trump critic to ally

Graham was part of the “Never Trump” movement during his 2016 run and feuded heatedly with his reality television star rival during the campaign. He was especially upset at Trump for “slandering” his close friend and political brother-in-arms, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. “You know, run for president, but don’t be the world’s biggest jackass,” Graham said.

In response, Trump announced Graham's cellphone number during a campaign rally, leading Graham to muse about whether he should get an Android or iPhone to replace it.

By coming around to Trump, particularly in the years after McCain's death in 2018, Graham amassed influence as an intermediary to the White House. Graham and Trump enjoyed a close relationship and became frequent golfing partners, though their relationship ruptured for a time after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Still, a year later, Graham was urging Republicans to rally behind Trump again rather than side with critics calling for his political exile.

“Can I just say to my Republican colleagues — can we move forward without President Trump?" Graham said on Fox News in 2022. “The answer is no,” he said, adding “we can't grow without him.”

His journey from the pool hall to Congress

Graham was born to Millie and Florence James Graham of Central, South Carolina on July 19, 1955. The couple owned a restaurant, bar and pool hall in the town. Graham, his parents and younger sister all lived in one room in the back of the building.

“It was one room, where we all slept, we all ate, we watched TV, the sofa, everything was in one room,” his sister Darline recalled in 2015.

As a child, Graham had free reign of the Sanitary Cafe, where he occasionally would sneak a swig of beer or a puff on a customer's cigarette, he wrote in an autobiography. The patrons, who would take him hunting and fishing as if he were their own son, called him “Stinkball.”

“It was a good life,” Graham recalled to The Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina. “I could go grab a Coke any time I wanted to. In my world, I was as rich as I could be.”

Like many institutions at the time, the Sanitary Cafe was segregated, Graham wrote. Black patrons had to take their alcohol to drink outside the establishment until the 1970s. But Graham said his father, known to all as “Dude,” would not tolerate his white customers using slurs against Black people.

Only a C student in high school, Graham still became the first member of his family to attend college at the University of South Carolina. While he was at college, his mother died of Hodgkin lymphoma. Months later, his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer and died of a heart attack as Graham started his first semester of law school.

Graham, a lifelong bachelor who never had children, became the guardian for his younger sister after his parents' death, and later in life often extolled the benefits of Social Security that helped keep them financially afloat.

After earning his law degree, Graham served as a judge advocate general in the Air Force, starting as a defense attorney for accused troops and eventually rising to the Air Force's chief prosecutor in Europe, based in Germany. He returned home in 1989 but remained a reserve or National Guard member for decades.

Even in the Senate, Graham briefly switched back to active status to help advise the Air Force during the Iraq War and was awarded the Bronze Star medal for service in 2014 before formally retiring as a colonel in 2015.

Graham had a lead role in Bill Clinton's impeachment

Upon returning to South Carolina, Graham soon dove into politics. He won a statehouse seat in 1992 and then a U.S. House seat in 1994. He became one of a group of young, combative Republican lawmakers who pushed to oust then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich for cutting too many deals with the Democratic president, Bill Clinton.

Graham took on a prominent role in Clinton's impeachment for an affair with a White House intern. “Is this Watergate or Peyton Place?" Graham asked at one House hearing. After the GOP-controlled House impeached Clinton, Graham became one of the managers of the case in the Senate, which voted to acquit the Democrat.

In 2002, when Strom Thurmond, South Carolina's senior senator, decided to retire at 99, Graham ran for his seat and won. He quickly took to the Senate and its emphasis on relationships, starting some mornings by eating alone in the stately Senate dining room, then throwing himself into the day’s bubbling political fights.

Vice President JD Vance recalled experiencing Graham’s approach to politics up close when Vance was first elected to the Senate.

“I remember getting into a shouting match with Lindsey about a Ukraine funding bill at lunch and then learning the very next day that he was pushing rail legislation I really cared about behind the scenes,” Vance said. “That was Lindsey Graham. He fought like hell for the things he believed in, and he was just as willing to go to bat for you when it counted.”

Graham had a gang of ‘Three Amigos’ in the Senate

Much of Graham's career was defined in large measure by his close relationship with McCain and Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who later became an independent. Calling themselves “The Three Amigos,” the senators traveled the world and pushed for U.S. intervention in several places, particularly the Middle East after the 9/11 attacks.

When McCain died in 2018, Graham broke down in tears on the Senate floor as he memorialized his friend.

“He failed a lot, but he never quit,” Graham said. “And the reason we’re talking about him today and the reason I’m crying is because he was successful in spite of his failures.”

In the latter part his career Graham leaned on his legal background to take a key role in judicial appointments, especially to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2018, when Trump's nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, faced accusations of sexual misconduct, Graham helped turn the tide with an impassioned defense of the federal judge.

“Boy, y’all want power. Boy, I hope you never get it,” Graham said, accusing Democrats of setting up Kavanaugh and breaking trust in the nomination process. "I hope the American people can see through this sham.”

Still, Graham's partisan side was usually tamped down as he positioned himself as a dealmaker. Almost any bipartisan “gang” in the Senate always has had him as a member.

“He was a fierce Republican partisan one day and a key bipartisan ally the next,” recalled Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who worked with him on immigration legislation.

Kevin Bishop, who worked for Graham for 27 years and later ran for Congress himself, said the senator inspired fierce loyalty in his staff.

“He was incredibly fun to be around,” Bishop said. People would walk into his office with “pitchforks” and Graham would turn them around, he said.

“He was willing to accept a lot of criticism to move the ball forward,” Bishop said.

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Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Lisa Mascaro, Seung Min Kim and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

McConnell, 84, said in a statement that he was “briefly unconscious” around the time he was first taken to the hospital and has undergone a battery of tests to try and determine what led to his fall. He said he was also treated for mild pneumonia and has been moved to a rehabilitation facility.

“My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages,” McConnell said, adding that he is now “regaining my strength.”

McConnell’s statement came on the heels of the unexpected death of his fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. McConnell said he cannot return to the Senate “quite yet.”

Coupled with Graham’s passing, that will temporarily whittle the GOP majority in that chamber down by two, to 51-47, as Republicans try to increase military funding, advance President Donald Trump’s agenda and confirm Trump's nominees.

McConnell explained the four-week silence about his condition by saying that “folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older.”

“Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct — I can’t help it,” he said.

McConnell said he will continue to work with his staff on Senate business. His statement included a smiling picture of the senator with his wife Elaine Chao, a tacit response to speculation online that McConnell had died or was incapacitated.

McConnnell's disclosure comes after growing pressure

McConnell had provided little information since his hospitalization on June 14, his office insisting only that he was “receiving excellent care” and recovering. Speculation about his condition grew so intense that Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear took the extraordinary step last week of issuing a public letter asking McConnell to update the public in a “transparent manner.”

McConnell is retiring at the end of January after one of the most consequential careers in modern politics. Republicans have nominated U.S. Rep. Andy Barr to replace him, while Democrats have nominated former state lawmaker Charles Booker. He said he is determined to finish out his term.

“I still have unfinished business to complete on your behalf,” McConnell wrote in the statement addressed to Kentuckians, “and I have every intention of finishing the job you elected me to do.”

McConnell has a history of health problems

McConnell had polio in his early childhood and has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult in walking and climbing stairs.

The physician’s office in Congress in the statement Sunday said McConnell has “experienced several falls through the year” due to his “post-polio condition.” The office said his physical therapy is aimed at reducing the risk of him falling again.

“A comprehensive evaluation by a multidisciplinary team determined that he had no fractures, cardiac abnormalities, stroke, tumor, or hemorrhage," the physician's office said.

McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and was the Republican leader from 2007 until last year, serving as both majority and minority leader during that period. He has remained active as a rank-and-file senator, showing up for work when the chamber is in session, often using a wheelchair to get around.

But the senator’s physical condition has visibly declined in recent years.

He was hospitalized with a concussion in March 2023 and missed several weeks of work after falling in a Washington hotel. He twice froze up during news conferences after he returned, staring vacantly ahead before colleagues and staff. A year later, he fell and sprained his wrist while walking out of a GOP luncheon.

McGregor's first fight in five years lasted just 1:09 due to a knee injury sustained while attempting an opening roundhouse kick.

“That opening jump switch kick was drilled daily for months, multiple times in warmup. Never an issue,” John Kavanagh wrote on Facebook. “Knee went when he (threw) the very first kick. Doesn’t get any worse than this.”

McGregor's highly-anticipated return to the octagon ended in disappointment when he awkwardly landed on his right knee in the opening seconds of Saturday's fight. McGregor tried to continue, but went to the mat twice more before the scheduled five-round match was halted by the referee.

McGregor and UFC President Dana White both said after the fight there was no pre-existing injury to the knee.

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AP MMA: https://apnews.com/hub/mixed-martial-arts

Kate is the patron of the All England Club and presented the trophy to winner Jannik Sinner after his match against Alexander Zverev. She also handed out the trophy to women's winner Linda Noskova on Saturday, but was not joined by any family members.

The couple's two eldest children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, also attended Sunday's match. All four were on hand to watch Sinner beat Carlos Alcaraz in last year's final as well. After the win over Zverev, the royals had an extended chat with Sinner in a room inside the tournament’s main stadium as he clutched the golden trophy.

“Fantastic achievement,” Kate told Sinner. “It's really inspiring to the children to see tennis at that level.”

Sinner then asked the young royals how often they play tennis themselves.

“Not every day, but weekends,” George said.

Sinner had a similar conversation with the four royals after last year's final.

“You can really see that they love the sport,” Sinner said Sunday. “This is exactly how we feel as players on court when we see them watching tennis. Staying there for four hours under the sun with the heat, it’s really nice. ... Having the whole Royal Box there, as well, the whole people staying for a match like this for four-ish hours, it’s amazing. That’s also the reason why we love to play tennis.”

Other dignitaries in the Royal Box included German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italy's sports minister Andrea Abodi.

Former Wimbledon champions Stefan Edberg, Lleyton Hewitt, Richard Krajicek, Jan Kodes and Stan Smith were also in attendance.

Other Hollywood celebrities in the crowd for the match included Jennifer Lopez, Tom Hiddleston and Andrew Garfield.

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

After following up his French Open title with a run to his first Wimbledon final, he's hoping to be more than that in the future.

Despite losing to Jannik Sinner on Centre Court on Sunday, the 29-year-old Zverev thinks he is closer than ever to challenging the top-ranked Italian and his main rival Carlos Alcaraz and giving tennis a Big Three again.

Sinner and Alcaraz had won the last nine Grand Slam tournaments between them before Zverev won his first major at Roland Garros this year.

“There was always this conversation, ‘who will be the third guy?’” Zverev said. “I’ve always been the third guy, but I was just far away from those two. But I’ve always been No. 3 in a way. So if I get closer to them ... it would be great.”

Alcaraz missed this year's French Open — and Wimbledon — with a wrist injury, and Sinner was eliminated in the second round in Paris after wilting in the heat. Zverev lost in five sets to Alcaraz in the semifinals at the Australian Open this year and lost 6-7 (7), 7-6 (2), 6-3, 6-4 to Sinner on Sunday after overextending his knee in the third set.

“I think I’ve been pushing those guys,” Zverev said. “I haven’t beaten them this year, but I’ve pushed them to the limits, I would say.”

He may have been able to push Sinner even more had it not been for a slip during the third set, on Zverev's only break point of the match. The German fell to the ground and clutched his right knee in pain, with Sinner coming over to check on his opponent before helping Zverev up off the grass.

Zverev said he overextended his knee and that it hampered his serve — his biggest weapon — after that.

“I was struggling to push off on the serve a little bit. So my serve speed went down,” he said. “But everything else went fine. I was moving fine from the baseline and playing from the baseline fine.”

Despite the loss, Zverev will shed the “third guy” moniker in at least one way — he will overtake Alcaraz as No. 2 in the rankings on Monday.

Zverev had never been past the fourth round at Wimbledon before this year, but seems to have finally figured out how to play on grass.

“I’m 29 years old and this is the first time I actually believe I can win this trophy,” Zverev told the Centre Court crowd after his defeat.

Sinner seems to share that belief.

“Today you were so, so close. If you play like this, I'm very, very sure you're going to have this (trophy) at home as well," Sinner told his opponent. "I know the goal is for you to become the No. 1 in the world. You're very, very close. So we have to be very careful now.”

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

This year it was about demonstrating that he still has the physical toughness to win a major after a debilitating second-round meltdown at Roland Garros in a Paris heat wave

Whatever gets thrown Jannik Sinner's way in the French capital — it seems lately — only makes him stronger across the Channel in London.

For the second straight year, Sinner responded to adversity in Paris with a title at Wimbledon.

The top-ranked Sinner beat Alexander Zverev 6-7 (7), 7-6 (2), 6-3, 6-4 on Sunday for his second consecutive title at the All England Club after his German opponent appeared bothered by a knee issue following a slip to the grass on a key point in the third set.

When Sinner ripped a forehand winner up the line on his first match point, the Italian dropped to the grass on his back in an unusually dramatic celebration for the normally low-key Italian.

“This one means a lot because (it) was a tough one after Paris again,” Sinner said. “I’m proud of myself and my team, which continues to push me in the right direction.”

Amid stifling heat and humidity in Paris in late May, Sinner had his 30-match winning streak ended after coming within one game of a straight-set victory over Juan Manuel Cerundolo, who was ranked No. 56.

Sinner went in for medical exams in Milan after the Paris defeat and didn’t play an official match again until he arrived at Wimbledon, where he twice had to come back from a set down in a five-set marathon against Miomir Kecmanovic in the first round.

Sinner then didn’t drop a set the rest of the way until the final, having dominated against Novak Djokovic in the semifinals.

“It goes to show the maturity of the player that we’re working with,” said Darren Cahill, one of Sinner’s coaches. “That he can take a kick in the guts like that.

“What makes us the most proud of him and working with him is the way he comes back from those," Cahill added. "It doesn’t put him down for too long.”

It was Sinner’s fifth Grand Slam title.

“I don’t think this one was any more important than any of the others that he’s played," Cahill said. “But it felt damn special, that’s for sure.”

It was Sinner's 10th straight victory over Zverev, who was coming off his first Grand Slam title at the French Open.

Zverev’s previous best performance at Wimbledon was reaching the fourth round three times.

“I’m 29 years old and this is the first time I actually believe I can win this trophy,” Zverev said.

Prince William joined his wife Kate and two of their children for the final in a star-studded Royal Box that also included actors Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman and Ben Stiller.

“There’s no better place to play tennis,” Sinner said during the trophy ceremony.

Linda Noskova beat Karolina Muchova in an all-Czech women’s final on Saturday for her first Grand Slam title.

Zverev slips

The top two seeds appeared perfectly matched until Zverev earned his only break point of the match at 3-3 in the third set -- 2 hours and 42 minutes in. Sinner produced a drop shot and Zverev slipped and appeared to hyper-extend his right knee as he attempted to change directions behind the baseline.

Zverev grasped his knee in apparent discomfort and Sinner went around the net and helped his opponent up off the grass. Zverev quickly resumed playing but he appeared slightly hampered and slung his racket across the baseline in frustration when he missed a forehand and handed Sinner the first break of the match and a 5-3 lead in the third. Sinner then served it out.

Zverev had also lost 14 straight sets to Sinner and when he claimed the opening set of the final with a forehand winner up the line to conclude a tight tiebreaker, he let out a loud roar toward his box as he bent over in celebration.

Zverev continually cranked out serves at up to 139 mph (224 kph), while Sinner produced a series of well-placed aces at a slightly lower speed.

But Sinner began to read Zverev’s serve better in the second-set tiebreaker and Zverev started to miss forehands.

“He showed once again," Zverev said, “why he’s the best player in the world.”

Sinner produced 58 winners to Zverev’s 49 and had only 25 unforced errors to Zverev’s 45.

Zverev led 17-15 in aces.

Sinner became the first player to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon without conceding a service game in either the semifinals (against Novak Djokovic) or the final since Roger Federer did it in 2003 against Andy Roddick and Mark Philippoussis, respectively, en route to the first of his record eight titles.

Sinner conceded one break point in both the semifinals and final and saved both of them.

Despite the defeat, Zverev will leapfrog Alcaraz into the No. 2 spot in the rankings on Monday.

Alcaraz missed both the French Open and Wimbledon this year due to a right wrist injury.

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Associated Press writer Mattias Karén contributed.

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

The sending off of Switzerland's Breel Embolo in Saturday's quarterfinal game against Argentina was the latest call that may have left fans scratching their heads, not least because of the confusing name of the newly implemented law that swung the match.

It is called the “mistaken identity” rule. Yet, technically, Embolo was not shown a second yellow card — resulting in a red — for a case of mistaken identity. It was because the referee Joao Pinheiro did not see in real time that the forward had simulated a foul under a challenge from Argentina's Leandro Paredes.

Paredes was initially shown a yellow card, which is a key factor. Under FIFA rules, because Paredes was shown a card, the video assistant referee (VAR) can intervene and recommend that the onfield official reviews the sideline monitor.

After review the referee deemed Embolo to have committed a “clear simulation” and showed him a second yellow card and sent him off.

The rules state that the VAR can assist when the referee penalizes the “wrong team for an offense that results in a red or yellow card being shown to the wrong player.”

It was a pivotal point in the match, coming five minutes after Switzerland had made it 1-1. Argentina won 3-1 after extra time.

“The referee made the wrong decision,” Switzerland coach Murat Yakin said. “I know they will protect their referee but this rule destroyed our game today, and it’s very painful, and to be eliminated in that way hurts a lot.”

It is not the first time at this World Cup that teams have hit out against new rules or technology.

Germany infuriated by disallowed goal

Newly tightened regulations contributed to Germany's shock elimination in the round of 32.

Defender Jonathan Tah’s potentially game-winning goal in extra time against Paraguay was ruled out after VAR review for a foul on goalkeeper Orlando Gill.

Replays showed Germany’s Waldemar Anton push Gill to the ground, but the minimal contact led to criticism of the decision. FIFA’s referees chief Pierluigi Collina said officials had been told to punish incidents when players try to block opponents and make no attempt to play the ball, especially where goalkeepers are concerned.

Germany went on to lose the game in a penalty shootout, with Tah firing a decisive spot kick over the bar.

Elimination could have a seismic effect on German soccer, with coach Julian Nagelsmann resigning and Jurgen Klopp expected to take over.

High tech ball costs Croatia

The words “connected ball technology” will likely haunt Luka Modric and Croatia for years to come.

The high-tech soccer ball fitted with “advanced sensors” used at this World Cup cost Croatia a dramatic late equalizer against Portugal in the round of 32.

Josko Gvardiol thought he'd scored in added time to make it 2-2, but the goal was ruled offside after VAR review because the in-ball sensors picked up the slightest of touches from Croatia's Igor Mantanovic in the buildup that was undetectable to the naked eye or even video replays.

FIFA said the in-ball sensors, which capture data 500 times per second, were so finely tuned to be “capable of determining any slight contact ... allowing officials an unprecedented level of data to make fast, accurate decisions.”

Croatia coach Zlatko Dalić, who has since stepped down, was not impressed.

“All these decisions take the joy out of football,” he said.

Egypt heartbroken against Argentina

It was shaping up to be one of the great World Cup upsets. Egypt led 2-0 against defending champion Argentina in the round of 16 and might have been 3-0 up if not for VAR.

With the score at 1-0 in the second half, Egypt's Mostafa Zico finished off a sweeping attack. But wild celebrations were cut short when a foul on Argentina's Lisandro Martinez earlier in the move was confirmed on video review and the goal was disallowed.

Argentina staged a spectacular late comeback to win 3-2.

Egypt coach Hossam Hassan launched a furious tirade.

"We have suffered injustice,” he said.

The Egyptian soccer federation went further.

“Several key incidents raised serious concerns and left profound questions about the consistency and fairness of decisions that directly influenced the course of the game,” it said.

Questions were raised about the amount time between the foul on Martinez, which happened deep in Egypt's half, and the goal at the other end of the field.

FIFA referees chief Collina responded to criticism to say there was "no defined limit regarding either the distance from goal or the amount of time between the incident and the goal.”

“Nobody can question the integrity of the FIFA World Cup match officials,” he added.

A double blow for Norway against England

The high tech sensor was called into action again as England beat Norway 2-1 in the quarterfinals.

Norway's players and staff were adamant the ball hit a cable that suspends overhead cameras in the buildup to Jude Bellingham's equalizing goal in the first half. If it had, play would have been stopped.

But FIFA insisted there was no contact, saying the sensor “showed no peak in the ‘heartbeat of the ball’ when in the air, and therefore no evidence that the ball touched the overhead wire.”

Norway also had a goal disallowed when the score was 1-1 after VAR spotted a foul by Erling Haaland on England's Elliot Anderson. The infringement came before the corner was taken and, under new rules to try to limit fouls by attacking teams during corner routines, VAR is allowed to intervene regarding incidents that happen even before the ball is kicked.

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James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Footage circulating on social media from a residential security camera appears to capture the moment the car plunges into the stalls, while other videos show the driver being rushed to a nearby police car, as angry bystanders run after him shouting.

“The accident resulted in the deaths of several people and left others with injuries of varying severity,” the navy said, adding that it was cooperating with authorities to establish the circumstances surrounding the crash.

The navy statement did not provide an exact number of fatalities, but local media reported at least six deaths.

Officials at Gustavo Fricke Hospital said five injured people — including two babies — were admitted with various traumatic injuries that were not in life-threatening. Police, firefighters and paramedics treated numerous people at the scene. Two other injured people were discharged.

“At this stage of the evaluation, they are stable and out of life-threatening danger, but of course they are still awaiting the completion of all the examinations required in these cases,” Denise Cataldo, the hospital’s deputy director, said.

The off-duty member of the navy - the only person detained in connection with the incident - tested negative in a breathalyzer test, Interior Undersecretary Máximo Pavez said.

Col. Jorge Guaita, police prefect for Vina del Mar, told reporters the driver says he doesn’t remember anything and that the cause for the incident is yet to be determined.

“Witness statements from people who saw the crash indicate that the vehicle was traveling in the correct direction of traffic, at high speed,” Guaita said, adding that when the vehicle mounted the sidewalk, it spun around.

“Fortunately, the bus stop brought it to a halt. Otherwise, it might have continued forward and caused even more damage,” Guaita added.

Witnesses told local media the driver may have lost control of the vehicle after a collision.

Chilean President José Antonio Kast said on X that the incident had plunged “the entire country in mourning.”

“All state institutions are working to assist those affected and to establish with complete clarity the responsibilities for this painful event,” Kast said.

The Caupolican market is held every Thursday and Sunday in the upper part of Vina del Mar. It comprises more than 1,000 stalls, in addition to informal vendors in the surrounding area, and is typically visited by large crowds.

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The Blue Jays announced Sunday that Cease will be the American League's starter. Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who is managing the NL, said Sanchez is his starter.

“I think he deserves it. He’s the hometown ballplayer and I think the city of Philly will enjoy watching him and supporting him,” Roberts said. “I had a conversation with him this morning. ... He was very grateful. In a time when guys are not wanting to participate, this guy in the Midsummer Classic for fans, I think this is a good thing. He’s very excited about pitching.”

Also Sunday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said New York's Cam Schlittler was not planning to pitch in the All-Star Game, then hours later said the right-hander could be available after all.

With less than 72 hours left before the game, there was no replacement planned for the AL roster if Schlittler wasn't going to pitch.

“The staff's had a lot of injuries this year ... I don't want to put that risk in there of kind of letting the team down,” Schlittler said after New York's win at Washington. “I'm on the roster, and if they need me I'll throw. That's a conversation I'll have within the next day or two.”

Schlittler was a candidate to start, boasting an AL-leading ERA of 2.05. He pitched for the Yankees on Saturday.

Sanchez is 11-4 with a 2.62 ERA this season. He's third in the major leagues with 144 strikeouts. The left-hander's streak of 50 2/3 scoreless innings was a highlight of the major league season so far.

Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski, who leads the majors in ERA (1.62), WHIP (0.76) and strikeouts (167), was replaced on the All-Star team earlier in the week, when it appeared he would be starting for the Brewers on Sunday. Then Milwaukee scratched him from that start because of arm fatigue.

Cease is 6-4 with a 2.56 ERA for the Blue Jays. He nearly threw his second career no-hitter Wednesday against San Francisco, but it was broken up in the ninth inning.

Cease is the first Toronto pitcher to start the All-Star Game since Roy Halladay in 2009.

Cease got the word from his manager, John Schneider, who will skipper the AL squad, during a team meeting before Sunday’s series finale at San Diego.

“It’s pretty surreal. I didn’t know what to say. Everyone’s saying, ‘Give a speech,’ and I’m like, I was pretty speechless, so it was just a really cool experience,” Cease said.

“It’s really cool how all of these things have lined up, you know, even being able to pitch in it and having a good enough first half to be in the running for it and all that. And the fact that pretty much our entire staff is going, it’s really a really great recipe," Cease added.

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AP freelance writers Bernie Wilson in San Diego and Doug Padilla in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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The agreement would resolve allegations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Kansas that South Bow, based in Canada, violated U.S. and state clean water laws. The rupture dumped nearly 13,000 barrels of heavy crude oil into a creek running through a rural pasture in Washington County, Kansas, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City.

The accident was the largest onshore crude pipeline spill in the U.S. in nine years and surpassed all 22 previous ones on the same pipeline system combined, according to a 2021 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The total amount of oil spilled would have nearly filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

South Bow also would pay Kansas more than $3 million for environmental restoration projects under a proposed decree filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas. A judge would have to approve the proposed decree after a 30-day public comment period.

“The oil spill blanketed land and water, rendering the waterway lifeless and useless and requiring extensive cleanup and remediation,” Jeffrey Hall, the EPA's assistant administrator for its enforcement office, said in a statement. “The substantial penalty reflects the seriousness of the environmental harm.”

South Bow spokesperson Sara Hunter said in an emailed statement Sunday that the company “proactively” launched its response to the spill before receiving formal directives from government officials, including “comprehensive environmental remediation” completed in February 2024. She also said that since the spill, the company has done more than 12,000 miles (19,312 kilometers) of pipeline inspections and 400 excavations to examine pipe and make repairs where necessary.

“This work reflects our ongoing commitment to the safe, reliable operation of our pipeline system and to continuously strengthening pipeline integrity,” she said.

The company that built the pipeline, TC Energy, spun off South Bow as a separate firm in 2024, after the Kansas cleanup was done.

No pipeline workers or area residents were injured in the spill, and officials said public water supplies weren't affected. However, a complaint filed Friday by the U.S. government along with the proposed settlement said more than 2,700 animals were harmed or killed. The area is home to an endangered species, the long-eared bat.

In a May 2023 report for the U.S. government, an engineering consulting firm said that a bend in the Keystone system where the spill occurred had been “overstressed” since its installation in December 2010 — likely because construction activity itself altered the land around the pipe. The complaint filed Friday in court said soil under the pipe had been “improperly compacted” and that while the company re-excavated the site in 2013, it did not replace that section of pipe.

The 2,689-mile (4,327-kilometer) Keystone system carries thick, Canadian tar sands oil to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas.

In April, President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead for South Bow and another company to build a second pipeline from Canada to Wyoming, a smaller version of a massive $8 billion pipeline project known as Keystone XL blocked by former President Joe Biden's administration in 2021 over environmental concerns.

Alexandra Rickham, director of sustainability at World Sailing, said this first-of-a-kind life cycle assessment project will give the organization the evidence it needs to make smarter choices and shape the future of Olympic equipment.

“Sailing naturally has a close relationship with nature, with the environment. It's seen very much as this clean, green sport using the wind,” she said. “But the reality is that our equipment has an impact. It goes through some major industrial processes.”

Rickham said the project could be useful not just for Olympic sailing but for the broader sailing community and potentially other sports.

Competitive sailing, an Olympic sport since 1900, involves racing boats powered by only the wind and the waves. In the 2024 Olympics, one- and two-person crews sailed boats with hulls measuring as long as 17 feet (5 meters) around a course marked by buoys in the Bay of Marseille.

Outside the Olympics, competitive sailors race throughout the year in local events and larger regattas.

The boats are commonly made of carbon fiber, fiberglass and PVC foam, which take a lot of energy to produce in processes that emit carbon pollution. These materials don't decompose and are challenging to recycle. So when elite sailors are done with them, the boats would need to be sold, passed onto junior sailors or sent for specialized recycling to avoid landfills.

As part of World Sailing's initiative, the sustainability consultancy Marine Futures is collecting data from boat builders about their operations and surveying athletes about how many boats, sails, masts and other gear they use, how often they replace their equipment and how they travel with their vessels.

By the end of this year, the goal is to capture the environmental impact of a four-year Olympic cycle and identify which interventions by World Sailing could make the most difference, said Ollie Taylor, director of Marine Futures. Taylor said those could include encouraging builders to incorporate reusable materials, redesigning boats, shifting competition schedules to minimize travel and boat transport, or taking steps to ensure equipment is reused.

The goal is to remove guesswork and put data behind every decision, Taylor said.

Michelle Carnevale, president of the environmental organization 11th Hour Racing, said the effort shows how much progress has been made in recent years. Sustainability wasn’t talked about much in the sailing world a decade ago, and now environmental monitoring and benchmarking could become embedded into the rules of the sport, said Carnevale, whose organization sponsored the development of software being used in the project.

Walker Ross, an expert on sport ecology and sustainability at the University of Edinburgh, said he loves World Sailing's leadership on sustainability and wishes more sports organizations were as thoughtful.

“Many sports have specialized equipment that can be quite resource intensive to produce and which are therefore difficult to recycle at the end of their useful lives,” he wrote in an email Wednesday.

Stuart Parkinson, executive director of Scientists for Global Responsibility, commended World Sailing for tackling the environmental impacts of boat construction. But Parkinson, whose organization calculates the environmental impact of major sporting events, said the biggest impacts of international sports come from travel, especially air travel by spectators.

Sailors want to be better stewards of the environment

At the Olympic level, sailors often buy equipment in multiples to pick out the best one in the hopes of gaining a competitive edge. That can add up to more waste, said Olympian Dave Hughes, who competed and coached for the U.S. team.

“There is a certain amount of competition to always have the best equipment and that can create a variety of opportunities for places where we can save on waste,” said Hughes, chair of the committee representing athletes at World Sailing.

Hughes said that if World Sailing can work with manufacturers to create higher standards, there would be less variation and less incentive to source multiple options for a given piece of equipment such as masts, foils or sails. That would help the environment and lower teams' costs, said Hughes.

“Our connection to the ocean environment is daily, so therefore our experience of how the planet is changing is also daily,” Hughes said.

Santiago Sampaio, chief technical officer of the International Laser Class Association, which oversees a type of single-handed racing dinghy used in the Olympics, said he thinks it is possible to reduce the amount of equipment used by sailors annually and to use building materials that don't harm the environment. The association is testing whether high-density PVC foam on the ILCA sailboat could be replaced with environmentally friendly recycled PET plastic.

Sampaio said it will be important to consider whether any change would impact a boat's performance or longevity, render thousands of other boats already in use obsolete, or make it unaffordable for some teams to compete.

“We don't want to make a boat that is too expensive. It’s great for the environment, but then we don’t have people in Fiji or in Ghana or Angola that can actually buy this environmentally sustainable boat, and then we lose those people.”

World Sailing hopes to inspire broader changes

Rickham said that ideally any changes or new regulations based on the project's findings will be in place for the 2032 Olympics, if not earlier. The data could be used for selecting some equipment suppliers for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Starting in 2032, Olympic sailing classes will be required to provide an independently verified life cycle assessment.

Rickham said World Sailing hopes the wider sailing community and other sports organizations will follow its lead.

“That’s where our biggest area of impact is: the ripple effect that we can drive across Olympic sports and the industry of boating and recreational boating going forward,” she said.

Madeleine Orr, assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto, thinks that could happen. World Sailing will have the data needed to push its suppliers to adopt more sustainable materials and circular options, and those suppliers' other clients span the whole boating sector, Orr said.

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