The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

Federal agents seized electronic devices from former Rep. Eric Swalwell and searched his Washington home as part of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by the ex-Democratic congressman from California, according to a person familiar with the matter. Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following sexual assault and misconduct allegations, which he has denied.

The Latest:

Melania Trump accepts $2 million gift to provide college scholarships

The $2 million donation from IndyCar and Fox Corp. will pay for scholarships at Indiana University and Purdue University through the first lady’s Fostering the Future program for youngsters in foster care.

The Indiana schools are the latest to join a network of more than two dozen colleges and universities nationwide that participate in her program, she said during an event in the White House Rose Garden to announce the gift. Adding, it gives foster care youth the opportunity to get a college education, launch a career and achieve financial independence.

“America’s greatest competitive advantage remains in its own people,” she said.

IndyCar is sponsoring Sunday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix through the streets of downtown Washington in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary.

Treasury extends Lukoil license

The U.S. Treasury has extended a general license that grants permission for certain transactions connected to the potential sale of the foreign assets of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil.

The latest license, which has been renewed several times, expires Sept. 19.

Last October, the Trump administration announced “massive sanctions” against Russia’s oil industry that were aimed at moving Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table and bring an end to Moscow’s brutal war on Ukraine. Those sanctions included punishing measures on Lukoil.

Trump meets Vance’s baby

The vice president said in an interview on a radio show on Thursday that he took his youngest son, Alec Neel Vance, who was born July 19, to meet Trump.

Vance, speaking on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, said the president loves children and gave his son a challenge coin.

“The baby doesn’t understand that, but he will someday,” Vance said.

Vance said the meeting happened after he and his wife, Usha, had lunch with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and country music star Luke Bryan, who is in town for a show.

Trump keeps embracing data centers even as they become toxic in midterm races

The president has voiced strong support for AI and data centers, emphasizing their economic benefits and importance in the global AI race.

“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center,” Trump said, “I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.”

Candidates in competitive midterm elections, however, are far less accepting.

Data centers have become a contentious issue, with concerns about energy costs and environmental impact. In Ohio, Republican Jon Husted faces attacks over his support for data centers. In Nevada, Democrat Aaron Ford accused Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo of aligning with Trump on the issue.

The debate reflects broader tensions over technology and local impact.

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Ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen is hosting the president on his radio show

Trump is expected to appear on the radio show of his former fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen.

The interview, which will be broadcast later Thursday, will be a dramatic public reunion with the man who once called Trump a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain” and testified against him both in court and before Congress.

Cohen served prison time for what he told a judge were his efforts to cover up Trump’s “dirty deeds.” He has since said he and the president have started to reconcile.

Cohen says Trump’s taped interview will air on his 77 WABC program Thursday evening and Sunday.

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US ramps up Cuba sanctions and detentions of Americans returning from the island

The Trump administration is imposing new sanctions on Cuba targeting its mining and metals sectors and broadening restrictions on Americans’ transactions with government-owned or affiliated businesses. It also accused Havana of using cultural and educational exchanges to radicalize U.S. citizens.

The Treasury and State departments announced sanctions on Thursday against 10 state-owned mining, metals, and construction companies and the leadership of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ICAP is responsible for sponsoring a “subversive network” to “cultivate” Americans, most recently with educational and cultural exchanges around the 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth earlier this month.

The sanctions follow an operation at the Miami airport last weekend in which several American citizens returning to the U.S. from events marking Castro’s birthday in Cuba were briefly detained, some of whom had their cell phones and other personal electronic devices seized for inspection.

Federal agents seize devices from ex-Rep. Eric Swalwell in sexual misconduct probe, AP source says

Federal agents have seized electronic devices from former Rep. Eric Swalwell and searched his Washington home as part of an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by the ex-Democratic congressman from California, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Swalwell’s devices were seized at the San Francisco airport on Saturday, and federal agents searched his home a day later.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with an attorney for Swalwell.

Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following sexual assault and misconduct allegations, which he has denied. The AP source wasn’t authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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Bessent says bond buyback operation could be more than $4 billion

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a CNBC interview on Thursday that an accelerated buyback of government debt “could be more than $4 billion per issue.”

His comments followed the Treasury’s Wednesday announcement that it would dramatically expand the amount of U.S. government bonds it will buy back. When asked about the motivation for the move, Bessent said: “We’re trying to signal that this is a thinly traded area of the market, we’re in August and there’s been a lot of corporate issuances.”

“We’re trying to keep the market in equilibrium.”

Melania Trump is set to announce new scholarships for foster children

The first lady is partnering with IndyCar, the sanctioning body for U.S. auto racing, and Indiana and Purdue universities to fund the scholarships, her office says.

Both Indiana-based schools are joining about two dozen other institutions of higher learning to offer scholarships through Melania Trump’s “Fostering the Future” initiative benefiting young people in foster care.

A formal announcement is set for Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden. The first lady will be joined by her husband and representatives from IndyCar and the universities.

The announcement comes just before Sunday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix race in downtown Washington, which was organized by the president to help celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

US approves $4.5 billion sale of military aerial refueling planes to Qatar as Iran conflict lingers

The State Department said Thursday that it had given the green light for Qatar, a key U.S. partner in the Gulf, to buy four KC-46A aircraft along with assorted equipment, including turbofan engines, radar warning devices and countermeasure systems. The sale will also include trucks, training and assorted logistics services.

The sale “will increase Qatar’s capability to meet current and future threats by enhancing its defense capabilities and interoperability with U.S. and allied forces and reinforcing Qatar’s strategic role in regional security,” the department said.

Qatar, which hosts a major U.S. military base, has been a critical part of the war with Iran, including by trying to mediate an end to the conflict.

North Korea fires missile barrage toward the sea after dismissing overture from Trump

The launches come a day after North Korea shrugged off a U.S. decision to scale back military drills with South Korea in an apparent bid to resume diplomacy.

South Korea’s military said the launches of about 10 short-range ballistic missiles happened from North Korea’s capital region Thursday evening. The military said the missiles flew about 300 kilometers each toward North Korea’s eastern waters.

Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises just before they began Monday. The president cited what he said was a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.

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White House legislative affairs director James Braid is leaving his post

Braid was in charge of helping to shepherd Trump’s legislative agenda through a Congress where his Republican Party controlled both chambers.

Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that Braid “played a critical role in all of the administration’s achievements in Congress,” including the sweeping tax and spending legislation approved last summer.

Vance described Braid as “brilliant” and “one of the hardest workers you will ever meet.”

The vice president didn’t provide details of Braid’s next job, saying only that he was “very excited to see what he does next.”

Fresh US aircraft carrier arrives in Middle East

The Asia-based USS George Washington aircraft carrier is now operating in the Middle East, the U.S. military said Thursday.

The Washington is relieving the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln after reports that sailors were facing mental health challenges and supply shortages while supporting the Iran war.

The Lincoln’s deployment has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea. Democratic lawmakers are pressing for accountability from the Pentagon over conditions aboard the carrier, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said were “completely misrepresented.”

The deployment of the Washington to the Middle East has left Asia without an American carrier strike group at a time when China shows more signs of aggression.

Rubio designates US citizen jailed in China as ‘wrongfully detained’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has designated a U.S. citizen scholar jailed in China as “wrongfully detained” as Trump prepares to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House next month.

The State Department said Thursday that Rubio had decided that Min Zin, who was arrested by Chinese authorities in June, is being unjustly held.

“We call on Beijing to release all U.S. citizens arbitrarily detained or exit-banned in China,” the department said.

The designation raises the profile of his case within the U.S. government and in the past has led to additional attention and resources being devoted to securing the release of wrongful detainees.

Min Zin, who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy, was arrested on suspicion of spying. He was a student activist in Myanmar’s 1988 uprising, a student-led movement that the government at the time reacted to with military force. He eventually sought asylum in the U.S.

House Democrats add five new candidates to ‘red to blue’ program

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said the expansion showcases the depth of its candidate bench as they try to wrest majority control of the House.

Chair Suzan DelBene said the candidates are “proven fighters” at a time when voters are “eager for leaders who will always put the well-being of their communities first, not rubber stamp Trump’s failed agenda.”

The candidates include retired Army Brigadier General Leela Gray in Florida, former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo in Kentucky, Maine state auditor Matt Dunlap, former Navy helicopter pilot Nancy Lacore in South Carolina and former Rep. Tom Perriello in Virginia. The “red to blue” program invests in promising candidates with funding and other support.

Democrats narrow their list of 2028 presidential convention sites

Democrats on Thursday narrowed the list of potential host cities for their 2028 presidential convention to Boston, Denver and Philadelphia as their party looks ahead to a wide-open primary to succeed President Trump.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement the cities put forward “incredibly strong bids,” and he promised the convention would be an “inspiring celebration of our party’s future nominee.”

A final decision is expected to be made later this year by party leaders. Republicans have already chosen Houston for the site of their 2028 convention.

The Democratic convention, scheduled for Aug. 7-10, 2028, traditionally gives the party a chance to formally introduce its nominee to the country, rally the base and kick-start the most intense period of campaigning ahead of the general election.

The party didn’t specify why Atlanta and Chicago, which was the site of the 2024 convention, were eliminated. Officials visited all five cities in April and May, considering logistical and fundraising capacity among other factors.

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Trump plays White House tour guide to show off work on his helipad and ballroom

Trump played White House tour guide on Wednesday, showing off the helipad he is building on the lawn before leaning over to autograph a piece of it and bragging about the ballroom he’s rushing to complete despite legal challenges.

Trump gushed for several uninterrupted minutes about granite being laid and said the chopper landing area would leave visiting foreign leaders “very impressed” — including Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is coming next month.

At times, he sounded almost like a construction manager, singing the praises of granite over asphalt in painstaking detail and noting for reporters he brought out for the show that the stone could withstand 35,000 pounds per square inch of pressure.

The president also revealed for the first time that he has replaced the walkway from the White House’s diplomatic entrance along with a portion of the asphalt driveway around the South Lawn with white granite.

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The US national debt now stands at $40 trillion

The national debt surpassed a record $40 trillion Wednesday, a staggering milestone as defense costs, social programs like Social Security and Medicare and interest on the burgeoning deficit make up an enormous share of federal spending.

The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

The unprecedented $40 trillion figure highlights competing administration priorities, from boosting defense spending that the U.S. relies on to carry out President Donald Trump’s almost 6-month-old war in Iran to lowering the cost of gas and groceries.

Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said the Trump administration “has been focused on slashing waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending while accelerating economic growth to get America’s debt-to-GDP ratio trending in the right direction.”

However, experts say the exploding debt and the latest record milestone are already affecting Americans’ pocketbooks by raising borrowing costs for things like mortgages and cars, lowering wages from businesses that have less money available to invest, and creating more expensive goods and services.

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The incident happened Thursday morning near Highland Avenue in Orlando. Crews were doing some construction work when the line was cut.

The cut disrupted the signal system and temporarily suspended train service between Winter Park and Poinciana, including the Orlando area.

One train is now running between the AdventHealth station and the Poinciana station. Service between DeLand and AdventHealth is fully-operational.

SunRail will provide bus transportation to the nine affected stations until the signal outage is over and the system is back up and running.

No other information is available.

Stay with News 6 for updates.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Canada has leverage in the talks even as his province weighs restoring U.S. alcohol sales at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s urging to help secure a deal that would avert threatened 50% U.S. tariffs.

“Everybody knows the American president by now, he’s erratic, he’s irresponsible, and he’s not to be trusted. And this is the person that we were supposed to make a deal with, and we’re going to make additional concessions for it. That’s why I say you can't make a good deal with a bad person, because who’s to say it’s not going to be undone?" Kinew said.

Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, said Thursday the two countries were close to finalizing an agreement after he returned to Washington to meet again with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

“We’re very close. We continue to make progress,” he said, adding that Canadian officials would remain in Washington to keep working on the deal. Trump has called the emerging agreement “very fair” to both sides, while tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian imports have been postponed until 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Neither side has released the full terms.

Despite his criticism of Trump, Kinew said Manitoba may go along with Carney’s request as part of a “Team Canada” approach. But he urged consumers to keep buying Canadian even if U.S. products return to provincial liquor stores. Other provincial leaders, including the premiers of Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, have publicly backed the direction of Carney’s negotiation.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham said all premiers agreed during Wednesday’s call with Carney to return U.S. alcohol to store shelves, although not every premier has publicly confirmed that position.

"I think we should fight. I think Donald Trump is very weak. I think America is weaker around the world today than it was a year ago. He’s about to get slaughtered in the midterms and the cost of living is the number one issue and he’s completely out of touch with the cost of living of Americans,” Kinew said.

“We’ve got the upper hand. They are back on their heels right now. They are coming to us for a deal right now."

Restoring alcohol sales a sticking point

Kinew said he understood Carney’s request to mean that restoring U.S. alcohol sales was effectively necessary to complete the deal. The provincial bans on U.S. alcohol have been a particular irritant for the Trump administration, which has pressed Canada to remove restrictions that sharply reduced American liquor sales.

Provincial governments do not have a veto over the overall Canada-U.S. agreement, but they control measures such as liquor sales and some procurement rules that have become part of the negotiations.

Eight of Canada’s 10 provinces restrict or ban U.S. alcohol — measures imposed in retaliation for Trump’s previous tariffs on Canadian goods and amid anger over his repeated talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state.

Kinew said Carney strongly pressed premiers to restore U.S. alcohol sales while other details of the agreement were still being finalized. “I wouldn’t say that he was begging us, but what is the step before begging?” Kinew said.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, is especially important. Its government-run LCBO, one of the world’s largest alcohol purchasers, sold nearly 1 billion Canadian dollars ($723 million) worth of U.S. products annually before pulling them from shelves last year.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has clashed with Trump before, has not yet commented on the emerging deal.

Kinew said Canadians should not buy American products even if they return.

“When we put the American booze back on the Liquor Mart shelves, Canadians, leave it there. Spend your money on Canadian products that are going to employ people in our country and that have an administration that respects Canada," Kinew said.

Kinew also said Manitoba could agree to remove formal restrictions on U.S. companies and products, including procurement preferences, while continuing to favor Canadian suppliers in its own purchasing.

Kinew said he preferred to keep fighting, noting the U.S. Republican president’s tendency to levy extremely high import taxes and then retreat. He mentioned what’s known as the “TACO” trade, an acronym coined by The Financial Times’ Robert Armstrong that stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out."

“Do we expect that this is going to be the end of Donald Trump?," Kinew said.

Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette, meanwhile, said Carney had answered many of her questions about the emerging agreement but stopped short of endorsing it while the province assesses the economic impact. She said Quebec could restore U.S. alcohol to shelves at the SAQ, the Quebec government corporation that controls most wine and spirits sales in the province, but stressed that the decision would be Quebec’s.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, a key benchmark for mortgage rates, rose back to 4.69% Thursday. That is nearly where it stood early Wednesday before Bessent surprised financial markets by announcing that Treasury would double the size of a bond buyback program starting next month to $4 billion per operation from $2 billion. The buybacks are intended to reduce the supply of 10-year to 30-year bonds and boost their prices. Yields on bonds fall when their prices rise.

Bessent said Thursday on CNBC that the bond repurchase program could be larger than $4 billion.

“We have a big toolkit so we'll see," Bessent said. “We believe that the yields don’t reflect the underlying fundamentals.”

Rising bond yields push up borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, and the Trump administration has set reducing interest rates as a top goal. Home purchases have slumped as mortgage rates have moved higher this year.

President Donald Trump has often demanded that the Federal Reserve lower rates, but the ongoing increases are driven primarily by financial markets. The 30-year bond yield rose to 5.23% Thursday, down only slightly from a 19-year high reached Tuesday.

Treasury's move doesn’t fix the fundamental problems spooking the bond market

Bessent also said the Trump administration would announce a new effort to reduce the government's budget deficit, possibly by Monday. He argued that the deficit will peak this year, in part because it has been driven higher by tariff refunds, a temporary factor.

While the deficit has been huge for years, overall debt topped $40 trillion on Wednesday, a staggering record that arrived just months after the national debt first blew past the $39 trillion mark in April. And the Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this week that the annual gap between government revenue and spending would top $2 trillion this year, a remarkable number outside of recessions.

But Gennadiy Goldberg, head of U.S. rates strategy at TD Securities, said reducing the deficit is mostly up to Congress, rather than the Treasury Department.

“What we are seeing is the market is still a little bit skeptical that Treasury can and will be able to backstop some of these moves,” Goldberg said.

Another factor pushing yields higher is how much debt Big Tech companies are raising to build AI data centers. Their deluge of bond offerings is giving bond investors more to choose from, which lowers prices for bonds and pushes up their yields.

Investors are skeptical of the Fed's willingness to fight inflation

Inflation also remains a threat because oil prices keep climbing on uncertainty about when the war with Iran will let tankers freely exit the Persian Gulf again. They rose again Thursday after Trump threatened Iran with “the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY.” The price of Brent crude oil is near $94 per barrel, compared with roughly $72 before the start of the war.

The Fed typically combats inflation by raising its benchmark interest rate to slow borrowing and spending and cool the economy. Yet new Fed chair Kevin Warsh hasn't signaled whether the Fed will take such a step. At his most recent press conference in late July, he sowed confusion about whether he sees higher rates as the right approach.

He also suggested the Fed could soon switch the gauge it uses to monitor inflation, which it seeks to keep at 2%. Inflation has topped that level for more than five years, and was 3.7% in June, according to the Fed's preferred measure.

Mark Cabana, head of U.S. rates strategy at Bank of America Securities, said that a key reason for higher borrowing costs “is just elevated uncertainty about how the Fed is going to contain inflation” and what it will do “in case things don’t go to plan.”

Yet Warsh has underscored he doesn't want to provide such signals because he wants financial markets to set interest rates based on economic conditions, not on what it expects the Fed to do. Bessent's intervention appears to be at cross-purposes with that goal, since markets are now considering what next steps Treasury might take to contain rates.

The rise in rates has put pressure on Warsh to clarify his approach when he delivers a high-profile speech next Friday at an annual Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

“Now the ball is in the Fed’s court and the ball is really in Kevin Warsh's hands,” Cabana said. “And the market is questioning, will Warsh respond? Will he articulate a better plan?”

Warsh was appointed by Trump after his predecessor, Jerome Powell, finished his term in May. Trump relentlessly attacked Powell for not cutting rates, raising concerns that Warsh is inclined to reduce rates to placate Trump.

Shorter-term bond yields dipped after the Fed’s July 28-29 rates meeting, while longer-term yields rose. It was an unusual reaction to a Fed meeting, according to strategists at BNP Paribas, and could suggest investors believe the Fed wants to keep its benchmark rate lower rather than higher.

Treasury buyback is small compared to the size of the market

While Bessent is talking about billions of dollars in bond buybacks, the Treasury market is so large that even purchases at that scale may not have much impact. Analysts at Macquarie, an investment bank, estimate that the U.S. government will need to issue nearly $550 billion in bonds this quarter to finance its operations.

History also shows that government interventions in the bond market have limited effects. “While such measures can reduce volatility and provide temporary relief, they have not permanently lowered borrowing costs when fiscal, inflation, or supply dynamics remained unfavorable,” according to strategists at UBS Wealth Management, pointing to prior examples from Japan and the United Kingdom.

“We can only do the bare minimum,” WFP acting executive director Carl Skau said Wednesday during a visit to a nutrition center on the outskirts of the capital, Mogadishu. “We’re only providing these nutrition supplies to the children that are really the worst hit.”

The reduced funds, because of cuts in international aid by donors and the redirection of resources to other humanitarian crises, meant that the WFP is unable to expand its assistance in Somalia, Skau said.

Millions of people at risk but far less aid

The WFP projects that 1.9 million children under age 5 in the country will suffer acute malnutrition this year, including nearly 500,000 who will require urgent treatment for severe acute malnutrition. Overall, around 30% of the population faces critical levels of food insecurity, the U.N. has said.

“We had 10 times more resources than now,” Skau said of the 2022 hunger emergency that was caused by a prolonged drought. “We were able to step in, and we prevented a famine here in Somalia."

“We know what’s going on, we have the capacity, we have the experience of dealing with this. We just need the resources now to do it.”

The consequences of the current food shortage, which is also a result of drought, conflict and the displacement of people, are seen at the Feynuus Health Center in Mogadishu’s Kahda district. Dozens of women carrying babies waited beneath a large tree or crowded along the veranda of the corrugated-metal facility seeking help.

Inside, health workers placed children in a blue weighing sling, screened them for malnutrition, and distributed therapeutic food.

One desperate mother tells her story

Halima Mohamed Hassan, a mother of six, had walked nearly 3 kilometers (2 miles) carrying her malnourished 4-year-old child. She is pregnant, but said she hadn't eaten for two days. Her last meal was plain rice.

Health workers treated the child she brought with a special nutrient-dense food, while Hassan said that her other children were also malnourished, but she wasn't able to bring them to the center.

“I could not carry all of them,” she said.

Hassan fled the Lower Shabelle region four months ago after her husband died of malnutrition, she said. Food and water became scarce, and conflict made it increasingly dangerous for the family to stay.

She and her children walked for four nights before reaching a camp for internally displaced people on Mogadishu’s outskirts.

Hassan now shares a makeshift shelter with her widowed mother and her mother's four other children. The two women look for occasional work washing clothes in nearby neighborhoods to feed their household of 12.

A health center tries its best to help

The Feynuus center receives between 250 and 350 patients daily, mainly displaced women and children from regions outside Mogadishu, said Abdirahman Barkhad, program director of Youth Link Somalia, which operates the center.

Barkhad said that about 10 nearby health and nutrition centers had closed because of a reduction in humanitarian funding, increasing pressure on those that remain.

“We have witnessed children collapsing, because their families do not have enough food,” he said.

Mohamud Moallim Abdulle, commissioner of the Somali Disaster Management Agency, described the country’s food situation as “extremely alarming.”

He said that an estimated 1.85 million children are malnourished, while around 6 million people are affected by drought, and 2 million urgently need assistance.

They don’t know where their next meal is

Skau said that mothers he met this week in the town of Burhakaba described drought, insecurity, and also rising food prices as the main drivers of the crisis. Some had lost their crops and fled their homes. Others walked for three or four hours to reach health facilities, because aid workers couldn't reach them.

“I spoke to women with eight to 10 children,” Skau said. “They don’t know where the next meal is going to come from.”

Insecurity, with Somalia battling a 20-year-long insurgency by the al-Shabab militant group, also makes humanitarian operations more expensive. WFP must use aircraft in areas where staff and supplies can't travel safely by road, and some communities are inaccessible, Skau said.

He said that conflict in the Middle East was adding to the pressure by driving up fuel and food prices, limiting agricultural supplies, and drawing funding toward other emergencies.

After her child received some food at the center, Hassan began the walk back to the camp they live in. Her five other children were still waiting and hungry, she said, and she would have to return with them one at a time.

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For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The S&P 500 fell 0.9% for its fourth loss in the five days since setting its all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 703 points, or 1.3%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1%.

The bond market remains the center of the action after yields charged higher through the summer. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a surprise move Wednesday that brought some temporary relief. His department said it will at least double the size of its planned purchases of longer-term Treasurys from Sept. 9 through Nov. 4.

That helped push yields down after the 10-year Treasury’s yield hit its highest level in more than a year and the 30-year yield got back to where it was in 2007. It was a big deal because high yields slow the economy by raising interest payments for people, companies and the government, and they can undercut prices for stocks and other investments.

But analysts had cautioned the effect may be short lived, given how small the purchases are relative to the overall size of the Treasury market and how they don’t fix the fundamental concerns that had driven up yields. Plus, more signals arrived quickly to keep those concerns high.

The U.S. government’s debt topped $40 trillion on Wednesday, a staggering record that arrived just months after the national debt first blew past the $39 trillion mark in April, because Washington continues to spend far more money than it brings in.

And on Thursday, the price for a barrel of Brent crude climbed 2.4% to $93.78 as uncertainty continues about when the war with Iran will allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf again. President Donald Trump threatened Iran with “the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY” late Wednesday but provided few details.

That helped push the 10-year Treasury yield up to 4.70% from 4.65% late Wednesday. It’s almost back to its 4.71% level from late Tuesday, before the Treasury Department made its announcement.

A couple encouraging reports on the U.S. economy also helped raise longer-term Treasury yields, which move with investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation in coming years. One said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected, while another said manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region appears to be much stronger than expected.

On Wall Street, Walmart was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 and fell 9.2% for its worst loss in four years even though it reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors focused instead on an important underlying measure of revenue growth, which slowed again. Its forecast for profit in the current quarter also fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Given its massive size, Walmart offers a look at how shoppers are doing across the United States. A surprisingly weak update on sales at U.S. retailers overall last month had raised worries that shoppers may be succumbing to pressure from high inflation and a job market that may be looking less solid.

Advance Auto Parts tumbled 24.5% for its worst loss in three years after the retailer reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, even though its profit topped expectations. CEO Shane O’Kelly said that “tighter household budgets constrained spending more than we anticipated, especially during the last four weeks of the quarter.”

Spending by U.S. consumers is the main engine of the economy, and a pullback by them could exacerbate what’s already a slowdown in growth for the economy.

A pullback could also mean a double-whammy for travel companies, which would see fewer bookings when they have to pay higher prices for fuel. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings fell 3.4%, while United Airlines sank 3.5% and American Airlines lost 2.5%.

Helping to keep Wall Street’s losses in check was Deere, which reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It rose 6.9% as the company said order trends indicate the agriculture equipment business looks set to accelerate after this year.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 66.82 points to 7,641.16. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 703.84 to 52,759.21, and the Nasdaq composite sank 263.92 to 26,067.17.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi soared 5.9% for one of the world’s biggest moves after the two tech titans that dominate its market, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, jumped. Such swings have become more common for Seoul’s market, which has borne the brunt of rising and falling worries that winning stocks in the artificial-intelligence boom may have shot too high.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

Around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, officers responded to a home on Bethune Avenue. Upon arrival, they found Sharif Simmons, 49, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds in front of the residence.

Simmons was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators said the shooting appears to have been targeted. Simmons and others inside the home had been engaged in a card game prior to the shooting.

No one is in custody. Police said they are actively looking for a suspect.

For neighbors like Yvette Kemp, the sound of gunfire was the first indication something was terribly wrong.

“At first, I thought it was firecrackers, and I was like, ‘Who is shooting firecrackers at this time of night?’”

Kemp later learned the victim was Simmons — someone she says was deeply loved.

“I couldn’t even go to sleep. That’s how loved Sharif was. He was a very loving guy.”

The morning after the shooting, investigators returned to the neighborhood, canvassing the area for surveillance video and witnesses as they worked to determine exactly what happened.

Police say the shooting occurred in front of the residence.

Simmons’ mother also spoke with News 6 over the phone, remembering her son as well-mannered, well-known and, most importantly, loved by the people around him.

Friends and family have also been sharing memories of Simmons on social media, remembering him as a friend, brother, uncle and mentor — and as someone who made a difference in the lives of others.

Kemp says she had seen Simmons just a week before his death.

“I saw him last week. He was with the love of his life, and he was so happy. And at the table, we were joking and having fun.”

Now, those who knew Simmons are left grieving while investigators search for his killer.

Kemp says the violence is especially painful for residents who have seen tragedy strike the neighborhood before.

“It’s too much for Bethune Avenue to keep on having tragedy after tragedy. 10 years ago someone got killed right there, and then 10 years later someone got killed outside the same way. Our neighborhood doesn’t deserve that.”

Kemp says she hopes whoever is responsible is held accountable.

Police say they do not believe there is an ongoing threat to the community. Still, Simmons’ family, friends and neighbors are hoping answers come soon.

Anyone with information about the shooting is urged to contact Winter Garden police.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Kevin Burger at 407-656-3636, ext. 6320, or Sgt. Dave Clarke at 407-656-3636, ext. 4092.

Tips can also be submitted anonymously to Crimeline at 800-423-8477.

More specifically, the study looks at Google Trends throughout 2026 to discover which slang terms Florida residents are searching for most often.

“The most searched slang words of 2026 give insight into the cultural conversations happening in America. Using slang is a social signal,” spokesperson Randoh Sallihall said. “What people search for can tell us something about what they are trying to understand and participate in culturally.”

This year, “6-7″ took the top spot, up from when it placed No. 2 in last year’s ranking.

Below are the top 10 slang terms searched in Florida, according to the report.

1. 6-7 — There is no literal meaning to six seven. Its absurdity is the point, making it a prime example of “brainrot” internet humor where the randomness itself becomes funny. It originates from the song “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla. LaMelo Ball a basketball player created a trending video about being 6 feet, 7 inches tall using the song. Kids and teens scream and chant it often paired with exaggerated hand gestures.
2. Chud- A fool, troll or jerk. Often used to insult internet trolls and describe an obnoxious person who is unlikable or rude.
3. Larping - A synonym to poser, fraud and try-hard. Someone who pretends to be something they are not. Faking a lifestyle. Acting for attention.
4. Foid - Short for “femoid” (a blend of “female” and “humanoid”). A derogatory and misogynistic slang term for women. Used to express resentment, insult women and reduce individuals to objects.
5. Cap - A lie, a fake claim or an exaggeration. Whereas no cap is means the opposite: I’m telling the truth, seriously, no lie.
6. Chopped - This term has become a synonym for something that is ugly, undesirable or unattractive. Looking very rough.
7. Torta - A way to describe an overweight, chubby or curvy woman.
8. Unc - Short for uncle. Used humorously to indicate old age (unc status). Anyone perceived as old, out of touch or past their prime.
9. Bop - A person with many sexual partners(bops around from person to person). Someone who presents oneself online in a way that is thought of as immodest. A derogatory word often used in cyberbullying.
10. Bird - Someone acting foolishly in relationships (like taking back an unfaithful partner). Lacks common sense, has low standards and stays with a man who disrespects her.

“Slang may look like a collection of throwaway jokes from the internet, but psychology suggests it is doing something much more interesting. Using slang helps people navigate identity and belong to a community,” Sallihall continued. “Research highlighted by the American Psychological Association, including the work of psychologist Ryan Boyd, shows that our language choices can act as signals of who we are, who we identify with and how we relate to other people.”

[EXCLUSIVE: Brevard Deputy of the Year caught speeding 111 mph not arrested under ‘Super Speeder’ law]

Meanwhile, the most searched slang words nationwide are as follows:

1. 6-7
2. Chud
3. Rizz - Style, charm or attractiveness. The ability to attract a romantic partner and make others like you.
4. Gooning - Primarily used in certain online communities to describe a prolonged session of self-stimulation. The term has evolved to casually refer to becoming overly obsessed about something. Essentially losing oneself in enthusiasm for an activity or interest.
5. Cap, No Cap - A lie, a fake claim or an exaggeration. Whereas no cap is means the opposite: I’m telling the truth, seriously, no lie.
6. Mogging, Mogged, Mog, Framemog - Outclassing someone else by appearing more attractive, skillful or successful.
7. Bop
8. Larping, Larper - A synonym to poser, fraud and try-hard. Someone who pretends to be something they are not. Faking a lifestyle. Acting for attention.
9. Aura, Aura Points, Aura Farming - A person’s cool factor, swagger or presence. Aura points are essentially coolness points that you can gain or lose by doing cool or cringe worthy actions. Aura farming refers to a behavior (often referencing anime characters) where a person does something for the sake of looking cool.
10. Sigma - Refers to an independent, self-reliant person who operates outside traditional social hierarchies, often described as a “lone wolf.”

Holmes was relieved by Didier Fuentes after the hit, which followed a leadoff walk to Miguel Vargas. The 30-year-old right-hander walked three and struck out three.

Atlanta led 2-0 after seven in a makeup game of a June 11 rainout at Rate Field.

The 30-year-old Holmes retired 18 of the first 20 White Sox hitters. Colson Montgomery walked with two outs in the second and Drew Romo walked with one out in the fifth for Chicago's first two baserunners.

There's been only one no-hitter in the majors this season, a combined effort by three Houston pitchers in a 9-0 win over Texas on May 25. The Braves' last no-hitter was by Kent Mercker in a 6-0 win over the Dodgers at Los Angeles on April 8, 1994.

Holmes has never pitched a complete game in the majors. His longest effort was 7 2/3 innings on April 14, 2025, in an 8-4 win over Toronto.

Holmes spent 10 years in the minors before making his major league debut on June 16, 2024, with the Braves.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Instead, the FHP trooper issued Fultz a civil traffic citation for exceeding the posted speed limit by 9 mph, records show.

“I’m not going to take you to jail, Fultz,” Trooper Joshua Provencher told the deputy, according to a video recording of the traffic stop obtained by News 6. “Obviously you and I are buddies. I’m not trying to show favoritism, either.”

Under Florida’s Dangerous Excessive Speeding Act – commonly known as the “Super Speeder” law – law enforcement can arrest motorists who drive 100 mph or more in a manner that threatens the safety of other persons or property.

First time offenders can face up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine if convicted of the misdemeanor.

The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, which learned about the traffic stop while conducting an unrelated administrative investigation into Fultz, later interviewed the trooper and the deputy.

“Trooper Provencher was aware that Deputy Fultz’s speed, along with the traffic conditions which made his speed a danger to other drivers, met the statutory criminal requirements for the new ‘super speeder law’,” sheriff’s investigators wrote. “Deputy Fultz admitted the speeds at which he was travelling did violate the ‘super speeder’ law.”

The Florida Highway Patrol did not respond to questions from News 6 about the traffic stop.

Fultz, who was recognized as Brevard County’s Deputy of the Year during the sheriff’s annual award ceremony in late March, resigned from the agency two months later as Sheriff Wayne Ivey was poised to fire him for “egregious misconduct”, News 6 previously reported.

The FHP trooper was using speed detection radar on U.S. 192 near Melbourne on February 9 when he stopped Fultz, records show.

Cameras mounted on the FHP vehicle show a motorcycle passing the trooper in the opposite lane at a high rate of speed.

“He’s going to jail,” Provencher can be heard saying to himself as he made a U-turn and began following the motorcycle.

After the trooper activated his patrol car’s emergency lights and siren, the motorcycle pulled off the road.

“What on earth!” Provencher exclaimed as he stepped out of his vehicle and approached the motorcyclist. “111 (mph). And you were increasing. Tell me why I shouldn’t take you to jail?”

The man on the motorcycle apologized and indicated he had a driver license.

“Do I know you?” asked Provencher.

“Yeah. Fultz. Sheriff’s Office,” replied the biker.

“Dude! Bro! I didn’t recognize you!” the trooper said. “C’mon!”

Provencher returned to his patrol car and called an FHP sergeant, the video shows.

“I know this guy. He is a deputy,” the trooper said. “Just clocked him at 111 out here on 192. Any advice?”

The video recording did not capture the supervisor’s comments to the trooper.

“He was passing two other bikes. I clocked those bikes at 80-plus. They were ahead of other vehicles,” Provencher told the sergeant. “But there’s a fairly decent amount of traffic. He was not weaving. He wasn’t doing anything like that. He was in a straight line in the left lane.”

Provencher then expressed his desire not to arrest the deputy.

“If I can avoid the 10-15, I don’t want to ruin his job,” the trooper said to his supervisor.

10-15 is police terminology for “prisoner in custody”.

Besides speeding, records indicate Fultz did not have an endorsement on his driver license that is required to operate a motorcycle.

Law enforcement officers are authorized to tow and impound motorcycles when operators do not have proof of the endorsement, and violators can face up to 60 days in jail if convicted.

Provencher exited his patrol car and began speaking with Fultz again, the video shows.

“Man, you know you’re making my hands tied,” the trooper said. “I’m trying to figure out what to do because, you know, 111, it’s a horrible speed.”

Provencher informed Fultz he would not be arrested.

“I already spoke to my sergeant, and he’s giving me full leeway on it,” the trooper said. “He’s like, ‘It’s up to you.’”

Records show Provencher issued Fultz a traffic citation for driving 9 mph over the posted speed limit.

“I’m not going to make you go to court,” the trooper told Fultz.

Motorists cited for driving 30 mph or more above the speed limit are required to appear before a judge.

Although Fultz was cited for driving 74 miles per hour in a 65 mile per hour zone, a narrative at the bottom of the ticket stated, “(vehicle) was clocked at 111”.

“If you weren’t doing 111 miles an hour, I wouldn’t write the damn ticket,” Provencher told Fultz. “But my hands are literally tied on me.”

Provencher did not cite Fultz for failing to have a motorcycle endorsement on his driver license, and there is no indication the trooper impounded the motorcycle.

Shortly before turning off his patrol car’s camera system, Provencher gave the deputy a warning.

“Slow it down,” the trooper said. “I don’t feel good about it.”

Fultz later paid the citation’s $155 fine and late fees, court records show.

The Florida Highway Patrol did not respond to questions from News 6 inquiring whether the state agency had conducted an internal review of the traffic stop.

FHP also did not address how it might respond to public concerns that the deputy may have received special treatment.

An investigator with the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office met with the trooper in April while conducting an administrative review of Fultz.

Provencher told the investigator he knew Fultz only in a professional capacity and mentioned they were both present at a few vehicle crash scenes.

“Trooper Provencher stated he initially planned to give Deputy Fultz a verbal or written warning, as is his discretion,” a sheriff’s office report states.

But after deactivating his patrol car camera, Provencher claimed Fultz argued that he deserved a citation.

Fultz told the sheriff’s office investigator a similar story, records show, while admitting that he did not yet have his motorcycle endorsement at the time of the traffic stop.

The deputy also acknowledged FHP and the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office had recently launched a campaign to curtail excessive and unlawful speeding, a report indicates.

“Slow down. Drive responsibly. And if you can’t, these gentlemen behind me are going to help you learn to drive responsibly,” Ivey said in a January Facebook post standing in front of several deputies and troopers as the agencies sought to reduce crashes on I-95.

Fultz failed to report the traffic stop to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office as required by agency policy, a report states.

“Deputy Fultz initially claimed he had informed his supervisor about the traffic stop, but later clarified the statement, advising that word of it got out, and Sargent Taylor Barrett had actually approached him about the incident,” records show.

The report does not indicate when the sergeant may have learned about the February 9 traffic stop, nor does it show any action was taken against Fultz prior to him being named Deputy of the Year on March 13.

Fultz resigned from the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office in May as Ivey was preparing to fire the deputy for what the agency described as ‘‘egregious misconduct” related and unrelated to the traffic stop.

“First and foremost, I want to apologize to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, the men and women I served alongside, my family, and the citizens of Brevard County for the embarrassment and negative attention my actions have caused,” Fultz said in a statement to News 6. “Becoming a deputy was a dream of mine, and I will always be grateful to Sheriff Ivey and BCSO for giving me the opportunity to fulfill that dream.”

Until now, Mexicans deported from the United States were sent almost exclusively back to their country by air and land. Only a handful arrived in other countries.

Some civil organizations believe this change reported in recent days is a way to increase pressure on Mexico, whose government has protested the deaths of 17 Mexicans in immigration custody or during enforcement operations. This also comes as Trump has expanded agreements with allied Latin American countries to conduct joint operations in the region against criminal groups and has increased its security demands to Mexico.

Sent to Central America by plane and Mexico by bus

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo confirmed Wednesday night that, so far this year, 2,284 Mexicans deported from the U.S. have arrived in the country as part of a “transit stopover” before being taken to Mexico as part of an “arrangement” with the Mexican government, and without these individuals being under any refugee or asylum status.

“They are arriving on planes carrying Guatemalan returnees, and what we have done is bring them in transit so that, in coordination with Mexican immigration authorities, we can return them to Mexican territory within 24 hours of their arrival in the country,” he explained at a press conference.

The costs of these operations are covered by the Mexican government or, in some cases, by U.S. funding, he added.

Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) confirmed to The Associated Press in a brief message that Mexicans have been deported by the Trump administration to Guatemala and Honduras, primarily since April, and are then transported by bus to southern Mexico.

“The reason is that the United States wants to prevent them from crossing back into its territory,” the institution said. The INM did not provide figures or further details.

Asked about why the Mexicans were sent to Central America and not their own country, and for more details, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, said in an emailed statement that the administration “is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised.”

“The Mexican government has expressed its opposition to this practice to U.S. authorities and has reiterated that every Mexican citizen has the right to enter the country,” the Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. It added that Mexico is coordinating with the countries involved to ensure the safe return of Mexican citizens.

Third-country deportations raise concerns for Mexican migrants

Historically, Mexico has always been willing to receive its deported citizens.

Since Trump’s first term, it has also accepted deportees from third countries, although the details of immigration agreements with Washington have usually been opaque. In 2025, Mexico received some 12,000 deported foreigners, mostly Cubans and Venezuelans, according to figures provided by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. The government has not updated these figures since December although the practice has continued.

Authorities in Honduras also did not respond to requests for comment, but according to official documents from the country accessed by The Associated Press, 82 Mexicans deported from the United States arrived in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on two flights on August 13 and 15. An additional 35 were scheduled to arrive on Thursday.

Another 165 Mexicans were deported to Honduras between May and mid-July, according to the website Third Country Deportation Watch, run by the NGOs Human Rights First and Refugees International, which track U.S. deportation flights to third countries.

The website does not clarify the source of its nationality figures, but both organizations have expressed concern because these transfers could endanger migrants who possibly sought asylum in the U.S. or have few resources in an unknown country.

The deportation tactic “seems to be to put pressure on the Mexican government,” said Savitri Arvey of Human Rights First. “They really don’t want any Mexicans crossing the border.” Some of those deported arrived in Honduras on U.S. military flights, she added.

A recent change in the deportation pattern

At the beginning of his second term, with immigration control as one of his priorities, Trump reached agreements with Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama to act as “bridge” or destination countries for migrants from third countries expelled from U.S. territory. These agreements gradually expanded to more countries, including some African ones, most recently Liberia.

Until recently, only a handful of Mexicans had been expelled from the U.S. to countries other than Mexico.

Arévalo said on Wednesday that Guatemala received 15 Mexicans in 2025. As of February 2026, Honduras had officially reported the arrival of six. Costa Rica has received 11 Mexicans since Trump’s return to the White House, and according to local immigration authorities, they remain in the country. Presumably, these individuals may have requested not to be returned to Mexico out of fear.

Immigration lawyers believe that the Trump administration is using deportations to third countries as a legal loophole to indirectly force asylum seekers to return to Mexico when the government cannot send them there because it would violate court orders from immigration judges that recognize the dangers. Organizations and politicians both inside and outside the U.S. have also questioned the use of force by U.S. immigration authorities.

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Verza reported from Mexico City and González from Tegucigalpa.

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

Commanders of the 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion based at Fort Stewart, Georgia, believe free time to indulge in the latest entry in the Grand Theft Auto series — in which players commit carjackings, battle police in shootouts and attempt audacious heists — will sway some soldiers to extend their military commitments.

The Nov. 19 release of Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to be one of the year's biggest entertainment events. Game publisher Take-Two Interactive hasn't released sales figures for preorders, but CEO Strauss Zelnick recently called them “unprecedented and astonishing.”

A career counselor with the Army engineer battalion hatched the idea with commanders to tie a retention perk to the game's release, in part to remind soldiers of their approaching reenlistment dates, said Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a Fort Stewart spokesperson.

“The idea was to have a unique incentives program that connects to what soldiers are interested in,” Tomko said Thursday in a statement to The Associated Press.

Battalion commanders wrote in a memo to soldiers that those who sign reenlistment contracts by Nov. 14 would receive “a special 4 day pass.”

“This special pass is specifically designed to coincide with the highly anticipated release of the video game Grand Theft Auto VI,” battalion commander Lt. Col. Ryan Hodgson wrote.

Tomko confirmed the authenticity of the July 28 memo, which was photographed and posted online.

She said at least 20 of 130 eligible soldiers have signed up for the bonus. To qualify, they must commit to serving at least two more years in uniform.

Buzz for Grand Theft Auto VI has been building since 2023, when its first cinematic trailer showed a return to the series’ fictional Vice City — a satirical analogue of Miami — and an expanded swath of Florida-based locales that include gator-infested swamps.

Underscoring the hype, developer Rockstar Games plans to debut gameplay video next week in an extended trailer on Netflix. The rollout was preempted when hackers leaked apparent footage online this week.

The county says the location at 1515 Sarno Road in Melbourne has had continuing issues with the HVAC system for months that have not been fully resolved.

“Given the unprecedented high temperatures, we must prioritize the safety of our employees and customers and close this office. We understand the closure will displace our Melbourne area customers to other locations and will reopen the office when it is safe to do so,” said a notice released by the county.

There are tax collector’s offices in Viera, Palm Bay, Merritt Island and Titusville. The county says extra staff will be brought on to handle any increased volume at those locations.

• Palm Bay—450 Cogan Drive SE, Palm Bay, FL 32909
• Viera—2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Building A108, Viera, FL 32940
• Merritt Island—1605 N Courtenay Parkway, Merritt Island, FL 32953
• Titusville—800 S Park Avenue, Titusville, FL 32780

You can also go to the county tax collector website to make appointments and pay bills online.

Several of the 300 women, and a few men, said Clancy’s story resonated with them and that they wanted to raise awareness about how the mental health system treats women. Clancy's lawyer does not dispute that she killed the children, but says she should not be held criminally responsible because she was mentally ill.

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

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The livestreamed trial has sparked massive discussions online and has brought attention to postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness Clancy's attorney Kevin Reddington says she had that is linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth. Reddington said she also has bipolar disorder. After strangling her children, Clancy jumped from a second-story window and remains paralyzed from the waist down.

Reddington says Clancy repeatedly sought help: She turned to multiple outpatient providers, tried various drugs they prescribed, called a suicide hotline, went to an emergency room, and even checked herself into a psychiatric hospital.

Prosecutors say the former labor and delivery nurse planned the Jan. 24, 2023, killings and contrived to get her husband out of the house by sending him to pick up medicine for one of their children and dinner for the family. They have also questioned the seriousness of her suicide attempt, and witnesses have testified that Clancy wouldn’t always take prescribed medications.

Supporters stood silently for an hour

Thursday's rally was the first time during the nearly monthlong trial that supporters have come out in such large numbers.

“Women are being dismissed, neglected and ignored when we speak up,” said April Vincent, a 52-year-old paralegal from Providence, Rhode Island. “We’re scared because nobody takes us seriously.”

The women stood silently for more than an hour ahead of Thursday's proceedings, where a chaplain called by the defense testified about visiting Clancy in the hospital after the killings.

At the sight of Reddington outside the courthouse, the crowd broke into applause.

Rally organizer Renee Kimball implored the crowd to trust that Reddington “has Lindsay’s fight.”

Toward the end of their rally, supporters formed a circle, said the Lord's Prayer, held up their arms and formed hearts with their hands. Some held flags from different countries to show that the support for Clancy was global.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged from 8 months to 5 years old. Researchers estimate that postpartum psychosis — which is more serious and less common than postpartum depression — afflicts 1 to 2 per 1,000 women after delivery.

Jeanne Zaborski, a 72-year-old retired nurse from Rockland, Massachusetts, said she hopes the case raises awareness about postpartum health. She and many others at the rally said they had been following the trial almost daily.

“It's very sad,” Zaborski said. “I am a mother. I am a grandmother. I have a sister who had problems after birth and it's just very sad. I hope Lindsay gets the care she needs and deserves and other women will come together like we did today.”

Chaplain recalls one of the first things Clancy said to her

In court, Sheila Cavanaugh, a chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, testified that when she first visited Clancy after the killings, she was unconscious. By Jan. 31, 2023, Clancy was conscious and no longer connected to a ventilator, Cavanaugh said, but “her emotional state was very neutral — a flat affect.”

Cavanaugh said she “vividly remembers” one of the first things Clancy said to her.

“She said to me, as I held her hand to comfort her, ‘I’m so glad my children are safe,’” Cavanaugh said. “I replied theologically to Lindsay. I said, ‘Lindsay, your children are safe. They’re safe in heaven with God.’”

“We prayed for them,” said Cavanaugh, who saw Clancy more than 200 times and has visited her at the state mental hospital where she resides.

Cavanaugh said Clancy “alluded to hearing a voice, and the voice, according to Lindsay, told her that if she did not follow the command, neither she nor her children would be safe.”

Prosecutors questioned why Cavanaugh had not documented the disclosure about the voice in notes she made in Clancy’s hospital record.

“I’m not there to evaluate the patient; I’m there to bear witness to their suffering,” Cavanaugh said, noting that she is not medically trained and her notes aren't meant to be verbatim transcripts of conversations.

Their last visit was right before the trial started. She said Clancy “talks frequently about her children.”

“She loves them deeply,” Cavanaugh said. “She carries immense grief.”

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Associated Press journalist Leah Willingham contributed from Boston.

“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center,” Trump said, “I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.”

It's not the kind of message anyone is using in competitive midterm races.

The race to build data centers, which power artificial intelligence and cloud computing, has run aground amid frustration from voters who don't want to live near the massive warehouse campuses. Even the Senate Republicans' campaign arm warned that anger over data centers — some of which dwarf football stadiums and use more energy than small cities — could cost them a seat.

Opposition stretches across the political spectrum because of fears that the behemoths will jack up electricity bills, drain people's water wells, create unhealthy amounts of air and noise pollution and forever change a community's character — all while getting lucrative tax breaks from states competing for their business.

Trump has framed data centers as a necessary component of a top national and economic security priority: winning the AI race against China. However, he also has acknowledged concern over rising electricity bills, previously saying “it’s only fair” for the companies to shoulder their costs.

He also suggested this week that data centers need “a little public relations help.” In recent months, he has gotten tech giants to sign a voluntary pledge to shield U.S. consumers from higher utility bills from data centers, even as he pushes to streamline the process for companies and utilities to build their own power plants.

But building power plants doesn't happen overnight, and the immediate political reality for candidates across the country is far different.

“It is yet another dimension in which the White House appears tone deaf — tone deaf at best and indifferent to the interest of other Republican candidates at worst,” said James Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, Austin, a nonpartisan research organization.

Republican committee issues warning over data centers in Ohio

Statewide candidates from Nevada to Pennsylvania, both Republican and Democratic, are weaponizing data centers against their opponents, and candidates who absorb those attacks are subsequently trying to distance themselves from them.

In Ohio, a data center hot spot with closely contested races for governor and U.S. Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a memo Tuesday that Sen. Jon Husted is vulnerable to losing his seat because of the centers.

Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown is airing attack ads against Husted that call him the “face of data centers in Ohio” as people gather signatures for a statewide referendum to ban their construction.

The Republican memo said it's been a “sleeper issue for the entire election cycle.”

“Brown is using it because it works,” the NRSC said. “More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck. If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one.”

The memo suggested voters may balk at Democratic candidates who want to stop data center construction altogether in favor of a Republican candidate who only wants data centers built if a community approves it in a local vote and it pays for its own power, water and other utilities.

Most registered voters oppose building a data center in their area, according to a July Fox News poll.

Still, the issue falls behind other voter concerns, such as cost of living, as November looms. A Quinnipiac Poll conducted in June asked voters what issues were important in deciding who to vote for in U.S. House elections, and about 4 in 10 mentioned AI data centers.

Trump’s statement already put to use in Nevada race

In Nevada, Democrat Aaron Ford quickly tied Trump’s statement to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, characterizing them as being in “lockstep on data centers.”

In a statement, Ford said Trump and Lombardo are “Nevada data centers’ biggest cheerleaders” who “only care about catering to their ‘billionaire friends’ while Nevadans pay the price.”

Ford this week unveiled a policy platform in which he said he would halt new state tax breaks for data centers — he estimated them at $200 million currently — while auditing existing projects to ensure they are delivering on promises. He also said he would ensure data centers pay for their electricity needs, do not deplete Nevada’s water supply and help local governments negotiate strong benefits agreements with developers.

Texas' governor changed course and got a jab from Trump

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who last November celebrated Google’s announcement of a $40 billion investment there by calling the state “the epicenter of AI development,” is under attack from his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa, over his pursuit of data center development.

Abbott has since changed course by promising tougher action, such as removing the state’s sales tax exemption and holding up projects to review their energy usage.

Trump criticized the shift, saying “I think it's a mistake” in a recent interview with Punchbowl News.

Asked about Trump's support for data centers, Abbott's office said the governor's “top priority is to protect Texans’ safety and quality of life and ensure the integrity of our power grid and water supply.”

“Simply put, Texans must come first,” Abbott's office said.

Data centers complicated Wisconsin governor race

While Trump embraces data centers, even some of his allies are using them for political attacks. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, running for Wisconsin governor, released a TV ad this week branding his Democratic opponent as “Data Center David Crowley.”

The ad includes a clip of Crowley saying Wisconsin could become the “AI and data hub not only for the entire country, but for the entire globe.”

Crowley has said local communities must have veto authority while also calling data centers a part of the modern economy that could bring significant economic benefits to the state.

Tiffany, who Trump has endorsed, has also said positive things about data centers. In January, Tiffany called data centers “exciting new technology,” in an interview with PBS Wisconsin. And last December, he voted for a bipartisan bill known as the SPEED Act, which is designed to accelerate construction of new AI infrastructure projects like data centers. It hasn't passed the Senate.

Neither Tiffany nor Crowley support a moratorium on new data center construction.

Tiffany has called for repealing the state tax incentive for data centers, while Crowley has not. They both have called for stricter regulation.

Crowley, at an event Wednesday where he received the endorsement of the environmental group Clean Wisconsin, downplayed the attacks Tiffany has made against his data center position.

“He’s getting very good at saying one thing and doing something different,” Crowley said, pointing to Tiffany’s votes in support of the SPEED Act.

“What Congressman Tom Tiffany’s doing is lying because he’s trying to run away from his record in Congress,” Crowley said.

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Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin, and Levy from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Linley Sanders contributed from Washington.

In an arrest affidavit, police said the incident happened on the afternoon of Aug. 13 at Turie T. Smalls Elementary, roughly around the period for dismissal.

At the time, the woman — identified as 26-year-old Lynesia Dorsey — was told by the teacher that parents weren’t allowed in the school during the first week due to safety concerns, police explained.

However, Dorsey instead talked over the teacher, trying to push her way into the front office, the affidavit says.

“However, (the teacher) stood ground and refused to allow Dorsey inside,” the affidavit reads. “Dorsey then used her hands and (punched the teacher) several times in the face.”

The principal and a school resource officer soon got involved to restrain Dorsey, investigators added.

Police said they later spoke with Dorsey, who claimed she punched the teacher because “he leaned on her” and her child, a student at the school.

Now, Dorsey faces a charge of battery on a school board employee. She was released later that evening on bond of $5,000.

Davis, 70, was taken into custody on Aug. 17 by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office after a deputy said he ran a stop sign near Raymond Avenue and North Street in Longwood.

When a deputy asked Davis for his driver’s license, Davis allegedly refused.

“The driver advised that he is not providing me with his information due to him not driving,” the deputy wrote. “It should be noted that the driver was the sole occupant in the vehicle and was in the driver’s seat before and after the traffic stop.”

[RELATED: Is this Florida man the world’s most annoying neighbor?]

Davis then called 911 on his cellphone and told a dispatcher he was being “carjacked by an armed officer who seems to be in liberation with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department,” according to the arrest report.

As the deputy attempted to remove Davis from the car and handcuff him, Davis tensed his arms and raised his left arm out of reach, the report states.

Records indicate Davis’s driver’s license was suspended in September 2010 for failure to pay a court financial obligation and was later canceled indefinitely.

Davis was booked into the John E. Polk Correctional Facility and was later released on a $1,500 bond. He faces three charges: driving without ever having obtained a license, misuse of 911 services and resisting an officer without violence.

“I placed the cop that stopped me under ‘citizen’s arrest’ prior to calling 911,” Davis told News 6. “I called 911 to have him picked up.”

Davis is no stranger to confrontations with Seminole County authorities. His property on Alpine Street has been the subject of multiple code enforcement cases since 2000, with fines exceeding $5.4 million as of 2025 — penalties he has made clear he has no intention of paying.

His yard has long been home to scrap metal, junked vehicles, rusted appliances and several large fiberglass sculptures of human buttocks — all part of what Davis calls a First Amendment-protected political protest against the county.

“I pile it up intentionally to aggravate them,” Davis told News 6 in 2025.

His defiance has come at a cost. In 2004, a jury convicted Davis of a third-degree felony for violating Florida’s litter law, resulting in nearly a year in state prison — followed by additional time in custody after he repeatedly violated the terms of his supervised release.

He later pleaded no contest to a separate felony littering charge in 2017 and was sentenced to a year in the county jail after a judge found he had failed to comply with local ordinances.

“I’ve been a renegade all my life,” Davis has said. “I don’t like being told what to do.”

Seminole County officials have said their options remain limited under current state law.

Davis’s property is shielded from seizure by Florida’s constitutional homestead exemption, and his home is not located within a homeowner’s association.

The county has acknowledged community frustration over the decades-long issue, noting it has pursued every legal remedy available under state statutes — including accumulating fines against the property — for more than 25 years. Without changes to state law, officials have said their ability to take further action remains restricted.

Davis remains unapologetic.

“Freedom has a look. This is what it looks like. This is freedom,” he told News 6 in 2025 as he gestured toward his cluttered yard. “If the government can tell you what to do with your property, you don’t have freedom.”

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“Here we go,” Alcaraz posted on his social media pages Thursday, with one picture showing him in front of the U.S. Open logo.

The seven-time Grand Slam champion has been sidelined since April because of a right wrist injury, forcing him to miss both the French Open and Wimbledon.

Alcaraz won his second U.S. Open title last year, beating Jannik Sinner in the final. He then won the Australian Open and his next tournament, part of his 22-3 start to this season.

But after winning his first match in the Barcelona Open, Alcaraz withdrew from the tournament because of the injury. He is still ranked No. 2 despite his absence.

Photos and videos on social media had shown Alcaraz on the practice court, so it appeared he was on the verge of returning during the hard-court swing preceding the U.S. Open before he withdrew from the Cincinnati Open. That tournament is ongoing, and during a match Wednesday night commentators speculated whether Alcaraz would attempt to come back to play a Grand Slam tournament without preparation.

The top-ranked Sinner has also been out of action, not playing since winning the Wimbledon title. He pulled out of the Cincinnati tournament with a right knee injury, saying he would focus on being ready to play in New York.

Their injuries should create more intrigue for the last Grand Slam tournament of the year than there was in 2025, when they had met in the final at both the French Open and Wimbledon, and were widely expected to do so again in New York.

Alcaraz won his first Grand Slam title in the 2022 U.S. Open, a victory that at 19 made him the youngest man to hold the No. 1 spot in the ATP rankings.

___

See AP’s full tennis coverage here

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Location: Michigan, Florida, or Texas, with a preference for candidates based in the Detroit metropolitan area.

Description

The HR Business Partner serves assigned client groups with trust and understanding of business needs, providing expertise across the full employee lifecycle. This role partners closely with leaders and employees to drive organizational effectiveness, support a high-performance culture, and deliver HR solutions that move the business forward. The HRBP operates as a proactive trusted advisor — analyzing people data to surface insights before problems arise, bringing forward solutions, and equally comfortable navigating complex employee relations matters, coaching managers, facilitating learning experiences, and leading process improvement work that raises the bar for how HR operates.

This role represents an opportunity to help shape and strengthen HR business partnership at GMG as the organization continues to build its HR infrastructure, processes, and vendor support. The HRBP will operate across both strategic and operational areas of HR, with responsibility for supporting the employee lifecycle and ensuring a high-quality experience for leaders and employees. As the HR function and its infrastructure continue to evolve, the scope and balance of responsibilities may also evolve, creating opportunities for this role to contribute to how HR work is structured, delivered, and continuously improved.

Responsibilities

• Build trusted, credible relationships with business leaders and managers within assigned client groups, serving as their primary HR partner
• Analyze people data and workforce trends to proactively identify risks, gaps, and opportunities — bringing forward solutions before issues escalate
• Support and execute employee lifecycle processes, including hiring, onboarding, employee changes, leaves of absence, and offboarding; coordinate with benefits, payroll and recruiting, and other partners to resolve employee and manager needs.
• Build and maintain SOPs for core HR processes, ensuring consistency across a distributed, multi-market workforce
• Partner with the HR Director on workforce planning and change management initiatives
• Use data, analytics, and AI-enabled tools to build a continuous picture of workforce health; translate findings into actionable recommendations without waiting to be asked
• Manage employee relations matters from intake through resolution, including investigations involving policy violations, harassment, discrimination, retaliation, conduct and workplace conflict; document findings and recommend appropriate resolutions in partnership with Director of HR.
• Advise and coach managers on performance management, corrective action, and documentation
• Coach managers on delivering effective feedback, managing performance, and building team capability
• Identify talent gaps and partner with the HR Director on succession planning and development strategies
• Partner with business leaders to understand current and forward-looking talent needs within assigned client groups — headcount planning, role definition, and team composition — translating business strategy into workforce and talent decisions
• Work directly with hiring managers to ensure talent needs within assigned client groups are well understood and supported
• Facilitate HR-related learning experiences, including manager development, policy training, and onboarding programs; partner with the HR Director to identify training needs and ensure learning solutions are aligned with company-wide priorities and standards
• Ensure consistent policy application across assigned client groups and support compliance with federal, state, and local employment regulations across multiple states

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in human resources, business administration, or equivalent work experience
• Minimum of 5 years progressive HR experience; 2 years in an HR Business Partner or other comparable consultative role is strongly preferred
• Working proficiency in Workday (or a comparable HRIS), including comfort executing transactional processes (hiring actions, leave tracking, verifications) alongside strategic work
• Demonstrated experience managing complex employee relations matters end-to-end
• Experience designing and facilitating training or learning programs for adult audiences
• Proven track record of process improvement — building SOPs, redesigning workflows, or leading structured improvement initiatives
• Working knowledge of employment law across multiple states
• Demonstrated use of AI tools to improve HR work — whether for communications, documentation, data analysis, research, or workflow automation
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to influence without authority across a distributed organization
• Comfort operating across both strategic and transactional levels of HR work, with the flexibility to shift focus as the function’s infrastructure matures

Preferred

• Experience in media, broadcasting, or a similarly distributed, multi-site environment
• Exposure to union environments and labor relations
• SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR certification
• SHRM AI & Human Intelligence (AI&HI) credential or equivalent AI-focused professional development
• Six Sigma, Lean, or formal process improvement experience
• Experience with Workday HCM modules beyond core HR (e.g., Time Off/Leave, Recruiting, Benefits)

Applicants can send resumes to careers@grahammedia.com

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

Forecast models are picking up on an non-tropical low forming just off their coastline over the next few days. There is a small chance that this low could begin to gain either tropical or subtropical characteristics over the weekend as it spins over the Atlantic. Chances are low as it will be tied up with frontal boundaries that it would need to shake off before gaining more tropical qualities. Once developed, this low will make a northeastern track towards the Spanish coastline. There are no other areas of potential development in the Atlantic Basin as of Thursday afternoon.

Swalwell’s devices were seized at the San Francisco airport on Saturday and agents executed a search warrant at his home a day later, said the person, who was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with an attorney for Swalwell, who has denied allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. The Daily Mail first reported the seizure of Swalwell's devices on Thursday.

Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress in April following allegations that Swalwell had sexually assaulted a woman twice, including when she worked for him. The San Francisco Chronicle, followed by CNN, first reported the allegations. CNN also reported that three other women alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by Swalwell, including sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.

The seven-term lawmaker had been seen as one of the leading candidates in California’s gubernatorial race before dropping out after the allegations surfaced.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed in April that it was investigating Swalwell after a former staffer told CNN and the Chronicle that Swalwell raped her at a hotel while he was in New York City for a charity gala in 2024. In a statement, Bragg’s office encouraged “survivors and anyone with knowledge of these allegations to contact our Special Victims Division.”

A lawyer representing Lonna Drewes, a California woman who in April said she had been raped in 2018 by Swalwell, said his team was cooperating with all law enforcement agencies investigating the former congressman.

“We are encouraged to learn about the escalation of the FBI’s investigation into the allegations against Eric Swalwell,” attorney Arick Fudali said in a statement.

Drewes spoke of the assault at a news conference days after Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race. She said it occurred at a hotel in Southern California. Swalwell denied that assault.

Swalwell, an Iowa native, was elected in 2012 and represented a House district east of San Francisco. He launched a presidential run in April 2019 but ended it a few months later after failing to catch on with voters.

He was one of Republican President Donald Trump’s top Democratic antagonists in Congress. He was a prominent member of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees during Trump's first term and served as one of several Democratic prosecutors for Trump’s second impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Swalwell was removed from the Intelligence Committee by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in 2023 based on Swalwell's contact with a suspected Chinese spy, Christine Fang.

Fang was reported to have come into contact with Swalwell’s campaign as he was first running for Congress in 2012 and to have participated in fundraising for his 2014 campaign.

Federal investigators alerted Swalwell to their concerns and briefed Congress about Fang in 2015, at which point Swalwell says he cut off contact with her. He was not accused of wrongdoing and a House Ethics Committee investigation that was opened in 2021 closed two years later without any action. ___

Associated Press reporter Michael R. Sisak in New York and Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Doctors Without Borders criticized the decision by Israel's military not to investigate two fatal attacks on the medical humanitarian organization's staff, and in Gaza City, a mass funeral was held for 50 people killed in Israeli airstrikes nearly three years ago but whose remains were just recovered.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Thursday. Full coverage can be found here.

Iran denounces Trump's economic threat

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has rejected the economic threats made against his country, saying that such “failed policies” will stir more hostility among Iranians and “bring more failures.”

Araghchi's comments came a few hours after Trump threatened “crushing economic measures” against Iran. The U.S. president promised “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” but provided few details.

In a social media post, Araghchi maintained that the threats aim to divert the attention of the U.S. public from domestic financial problems, saying that U.S. “economic terrorism threatens the global economy and the national sovereignty of countries around the world.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that Iran will face the “greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world."

In a CNBC interview, Bessent threatened secondary sanctions on nations and companies that conduct business with Iran, saying it's time for U.S. allies to make a decision on where they stand.

China's government and India are major buyers of Iranian oil, though Bessent didn't call them out by name.

Doctors Without Borders condemns Israel's military

Doctors Without Borders said that the decision by Israel's military not to open a criminal investigation into two strikes that killed four people shows the country won't take responsibility for attacking civilians.

The international aid group now wants an impartial investigation into the deaths, but didn't specify who should lead the effort.

Doctors Without Borders asked Israel's military to investigate an attack on a Gaza City convoy in November 2023 and a strike on the organization's shelter in Khan Younis in February 2024. Israel’s announcement on Wednesday said that it wouldn't launch criminal investigations into the two cases, in which troops killed the organization's employees.

The decision by Israel's military shows “there is no prospect of accountability within the Israeli legal system for the killing of our staff, just as there has been no accountability for Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that cited 15 staff and 1,700 healthcare workers killed in Gaza since October 2023.

Israel denies accusations of genocide and war crimes and says it's targeting Hamas after the militant group's attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas, because it operates in populated areas in the tiny, overcrowded Gaza Strip.

UK and others rebuke planned West Bank settlement project

Six European countries along with Canada condemned the latest development in a contentious Israeli settlement project near Jerusalem that would effectively cut the occupied West Bank in two.

Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing issued a tender for constructing several compounds with more than 1,200 homes in total in an open tract of land east of Jerusalem. It’s the latest step in a project under consideration for more than two decades, which critics say would prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state in the territory.

The joint statement from the leaders of the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada said international law is clear the settlement is illegal and noted “unprecedented levels of violence by settlers against civilians.”

“We urge the government of Israel to retract these plans immediately and end its expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Not only will they take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel's international standing,” the countries wrote.

Egypt and Jordan also condemned Israel’s move.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar responded on Thursday by defending “the historic right of the Jewish people to reestablish their national home in the Land of Israel — including in the area in question.” Saar criticized the U.K. government for “blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism.”

Gaza funeral for 50 killed in opening strikes of war

A mass funeral Thursday in Gaza City remembered 50 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the opening months of the Israel-Hamas war, but whose remains were only recently recovered from under rubble.

Dozens of mourners carried the remains, draped in Palestinian flags, through debris-strewn streets before lowering them into graves. Some held portraits and posters with photos of the deceased.

“We were able to recover them after three years of war, after three years of anguish, pain and torture. We were able to recover them, and dignify them in their final resting place. We were able to pray over them and bury them,” said Lina Karam, who lost her father and other members of her family.

The 50 bodies were from three families who were killed in airstrikes in November and December 2023.

The nearly three-year war has killed more than 73,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which was part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and international organizations. It doesn’t distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half of the toll.

Turkey denies delegation had visited air base in Syria

Turkey has denied that a Turkish military delegation had visited an air base in northern Syria that was hit by Israeli airstrikes, and vowed to continue supporting Syria in its efforts to rebuild its military.

The Israeli strikes targeted the Abu Duhur base early on Tuesday, causing damage but no casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that Israel had attacked the base because Syria was “on the verge of breaching” an agreed-upon “status quo in security matters” by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there.

Syrian officials have said that a Turkish delegation visited the base before the Israeli strike to review rehabilitation work underway there.

Syria's top diplomat discusses Middle East in Pakistan

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani arrived in Islamabad for talks expected to focus on regional issues, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The visit comes days after Israeli airstrikes targeted an air base in northern Syria, causing damage but no casualties.

Pakistan's officials say the country's political and military leadership remains in contact with both Iran and the United States over efforts to de-escalate tensions and push for the resumption of talks, after a 60-day deadline under a June memorandum of understanding expired. The agreement was brokered by Pakistan with help from regional countries.

Bodies of Pakistani sailors returned after Houthi attack

The bodies of two Pakistanis killed in last week’s Houthi attack on a Tanzanian-flagged commercial vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have been repatriated to Pakistan.

Six Pakistani sailors who were wounded in the attack have also safely returned to the country, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a post on X.

SpaceX said the vehicle and payload remain healthy following a countdown hold at T-28 seconds.

The Falcon 9 rocket is set to carry the satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The four-hour launch window runs from 10:57 a.m. to 2:57 p.m.

This marks the 30th flight of the first-stage booster supporting the mission. The booster previously launched Crew-6, SES O3b mPOWER-B, USSF-124, BlueBird 1-5, Nusantara Lima (PSN N5), Starfall Demo, and 23 Starlink missions.

Following stage separation, the first stage is expected to land on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Biya arrived at the international airport in the capital, Yaoundé, aboard a flight from Geneva, Switzerland, after more than 10 weeks away.

The world’s oldest president, who has led Cameroon since 1982, began his eighth term in office in November after winning a widely disputed election in October.

Biya had left the country on June 7 for what his office described as “a brief private stay in Europe,” but it became the longest recorded absence of his presidency.

The health of the president has long been a topic of speculation as he spends significant time in Europe, including France and Switzerland, where he often spends weeks while leaving governance to key party officials and family members.

Cameroon’s constitution does not specifically prohibit a president from leaving the country for months. But without a vice president, an appointment Biya has full control over, the opposition has described the country as being run on “autopilot.”

Biya’s close collaborators were at the airport on Thursday, but he was not shown descending from the plane and held no briefings. He was seen waving to supporters from his vehicle.

The results of Biya's nearly half-century in power have been mixed. Armed insurgencies by Boko Haram in the north and separatists in the west, along with a stagnant economy, have left many young people disillusioned with the leader.

The president’s reelection last year sparked widespread protests that left at least 16 people dead, according to government figures, signaling significant tensions between the mostly young population and its aging leader.

After a 2008 constitutional amendment abolished term limits, Biya has now led Cameroon longer than most of its citizens have been alive: More than 70% of the country’s population of nearly 30 million people is below the age of 35.

In April, Cameroon’s parliament reinstated the vice president’s post, a move criticized by the opposition as a power grab because Biya can appoint and dismiss the deputy at will and determine which powers the office can exercise.

Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rock and left many households without electricity. With thousands of homes and businesses still in the dark Thursday, forecasters warned another tropical cyclone is likely to form southeast of the islands soon.

A depression moving west and northwest could become a tropical storm later Thursday and pass near or south of Hawaii's Big Island over the weekend, according to the U.S. Central Pacific Hurricane Center. That system could dump up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain across the Big Island and trigger life-threatening flooding, mudslides and rip currents, the hurricane center added.

Forecasters said the disturbance was located about 960 miles (1,545 kilometers) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii. But while it is expected to continue strengthening into the weekend, it was still too soon to forecast its exact path or the magnitude of its impacts.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green and other state officials planned a news conference Thursday afternoon to discuss preparations for the approaching system as well as ongoing recovery efforts from Lala, which has been blamed for two deaths.

Residents found the body of a man in his 60s in a pasture Tuesday, a day after authorities recovered the body of May Doi, 93, whom neighbors said was trying to escape from floodwaters in her home. Doi was a beloved former kindergarten teacher who taught generations of residents in a small town on Hawaii’s Big Island.

“She taught grandkids of her students,” said ʻĀina Akamu, a former student of Doi who is now a vice principal at a local school. “She was a fixture in this community.''

Lala's heaviest recorded rainfall, 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), occurred on the northeast coast of the Big Island, the National Weather Service said. Dozens of homes were washed from foundations, bridges were damaged and about 13,200 customers on the Big Island remained without power Thursday.

Efforts to restore power in the hard-hit areas of the Big Island could take at least two weeks, the Hawaiian Electric utility said.

Lala is the first major hurricane of 2026 in the Central Pacific Ocean. Now well west of Hawaii’s main islands, Lala had top sustained winds of 100 mph (155 kph) on Thursday and was spreading hurricane conditions across parts of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument — a remote area at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The first impacts were being felt between Lisianski Island and Maro Reef, authorities said.

Forecasters said Lala would continue to cross waters of the marine national monument for a few days and remain at hurricane strength through the weekend.

Even in that vast and remote area, people were seeking safety. A charter boat carrying a 16-member crew dedicated to removing marine plastics and abandoned fishing nets from the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands got out of Lala’s projected path this week.

Kevin O’Brien, president of the nonprofit Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project, said the vessel left Lisianski Island on Monday and headed hundreds of miles (kilometers) out to sea.

“We were ready for it,” O’Brien said. “We keep on our toes out here during hurricane season.”

___

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writer John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal has not been announced. It includes a player option for the 2028-29 season as well as a trade kicker.

Harden declined his $42.3 million player option for the upcoming season, but he indicated after the Cavaliers were swept in four games by the eventual NBA champion New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals that he would like to return. He also wanted to wait until the Cavaliers were done making a couple moves before his new agreement was in place.

The 36-year-old Harden will be going into his 18th NBA season. He averaged 10.7 points and 1.7 turnovers for the Cavaliers in 26 regular-season games after being acquired from the Los Angeles Clippers for Darius Garland on Feb. 4.

Harden averaged 19.7 points in the postseason, but his turnovers also went up to 4.7 per game, including five or more in 10 of Cleveland’s 18 games. He also struggled on defense.

Cleveland's starting lineup is likely to be Harden, All-Star Donovan Mitchell, 2025 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen and Peyton Watson, who was acquired in a four-team trade Wednesday night.

Harden was arrested on June 13 in Houston on a misdemeanor charge of unlawful carrying of a weapon in a motor vehicle. The charge was dismissed earlier this month in Harris County criminal court after he completed an alternative resolution program.

___

See AP’s full NBA coverage here

Employees at Lagerheads Bar and Grill say that while a major construction project is underway, not only are temporary barricades surrounding the property, but FDOT has also installed a permanent curb that blocks off their main parking lot entirely.

“People just ride past because they think we’re closed,” said Shannon Gutierrez, an employee at Lagerheads.

Despite appearances, Lagerheads employees Shannon Gutierrez and Bri Brannan say the restaurant is open. But the perception of being cut off has already taken a financial toll on their 30 employees and 20 musicians.

“Having to be cut back from 30 to 40 hours a week, people are now getting 18 to 25 a week, and some of our employees are single moms,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez says the restaurant has lost significant parking throughout the project. “We’ve lost probably 30 parking spaces throughout this whole project,” she said.

The restaurant still has about 10 spots in a back parking lot down the hill, but the main lot is gone.

The pedestrian safety project runs along A1A from north of Roberta Road to the Flagler County Line. It started in April and is expected to run through 2027.

News 6 emailed FDOT with several questions about the project and the curb installation. A spokesperson confirmed that Lagerheads’ parking spots are in FDOT’s right-of-way and that parking there “is no longer available.”

But Gutierrez says the outcome was not what the restaurant was led to expect. “They told us a different type of curb — they told us we were going to get a Miami Valley curb where we could still drive over in order for us to still get our parking,” she said.

FDOT said it was in contact with the property owner before construction began, but Gutierrez says this is not what they anticipated.

“We are still open for business, we still want our locals to come but, in the meantime, can we kind of get it revised,” she said.

FDOT said it “will continue to work closely with our contractor and the residents and businesses in this area to maintain access and safety during construction,” but did not indicate it would consider any revision to the curb. In the meantime, employees hope to get the word out that Lagerheads is still open.

Cohen, who served prison time for his role in what he said was covering up Trump’s “dirty deeds,” confirmed that the Republican president will appear in a taped interview airing on his 77 WABC program Thursday evening and Sunday.

The apparent truce with Cohen makes him the latest in a long line of Trump loyalists who have had public falling-outs with the president but found themselves back in his good graces. Other recent examples include Elon Musk and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But the split from Cohen was perhaps the most personal. Cohen once boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump and was by Trump's side during his political rise. After their public breakup, Cohen's testimony in Trump's 2024 criminal hush-money trial instead paved the way for Trump's criminal conviction just as he was trying to make his political comeback.

Cohen has since criticized prosecutors in the case and has said he and Trump have started to reconcile.

The White House did not comment on Cohen’s statements or confirm the appearance, but Trump’s official schedule showed him taping a radio interview Thursday morning.

In a long post on his online newsletter Thursday promoting the interview, Cohen said that although his relationship with Trump became “political blood sport,” there were 15 years of close friendship between them.

“The good times don’t cease to have existed because the bad times came afterward,” Cohen wrote.

Simply, he said: “We forgave.”

Trump has made no warm public statements about Cohen but in a series of social media posts this year linked to some of his former lawyer’s comments saying he felt pressured by prosecutors to testify against Trump in the criminal hush money case and a civil fraud case.

Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes.

The campaign finance charges stemmed from his efforts to arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from making public claims of extramarital affairs with Trump.

In 2024, Cohen testified in the criminal case against Trump about the payment to Daniels, which prosecutors said was an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Cohen testified before Congress in 2019, alleging Trump had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits.

He gave similar testimony in a 2023 civil fraud trial in New York that found Trump and his companies engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. A New York appeals court later threw out a $550 million judgment against Trump in that case. Trump has asked a court to overturn the remaining parts of the case.

In his tell-all memoir in 2020, “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” Cohen was unsparing, calling Trump an “organized crime don” and “master manipulator.”

But, foreshadowing their later rapprochement, Cohen also wrote that he still cared for Trump, writing, “I had and still have a lot of affection for him.”

The 20 deportees arrived at Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia.

Deportees will include African nationals as well as nationals from North America, South America and the Caribbean, according to Liberian Information Minister Jerolinmek Piah. Liberian Justice Minister Natu Oswald Tweh has said they could seek asylum in the West African country if they wished.

The U.S. State Department declined to answer questions about the Liberia agreement, but said that implementing the Trump administration’s immigration policies was a “top priority.” It said it was “unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration and bolster America’s border security.”

The U.S. Homeland Security Department declined to confirm Thursday's deportations “for operational security reasons” and referred additional questions to the State Department.

Third-country agreements are often shrouded in secrecy. Migrants have been deported to countries they have never been to or where they face safety risks and are left with little choice other than to return to the home countries they were fleeing from.

The Trump administration struck agreements with at least 35 countries to deport people who are from other countries, including Liberia and 13 others in Africa, according to Third Country Deportation Watch, a partnership of Refugees International and Human Rights First that relies on public records requests, news reports and other sources. More than 23,000 people have deported to 26 countries under the agreements.

The U.S. State Department previously announced that Liberia agreed to accept deportees who are not from Liberia. But a six-page agreement reached in September 2025 and posted on its website does not say how many or from which countries.

In October 2025, Liberia offered to accept Kilmar Abrego Garcia of El Salvador, who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador. Blocked from sending him to his native country, the Trump administration has vowed to send him to a third county, including Liberia.

Abrego Garcia has said he would agree to be deported to Costa Rica, which has said it will accept him. But the government has so far declined to send him there. Abrego Garcia is fighting deportation to Liberia in a federal lawsuit in Maryland.

Manuel Ernesto Hernandez-Umana, who has a pending federal criminal case in connection with the Aug. 8 crash, lied to a border officer and falsely claimed he was a U.S. citizen when he entered the country in Texas in 2007, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday.

Hernandez-Umana, 46, a citizen of El Salvador, is being held at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, according to online records. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said he will eventually be deported.

Immigration authorities arrested him after he was released on bail in his criminal case, where he is charged with causing the deaths of 5-month old Antonella Garcia and 27-year-old Sara Sanchez through misconduct or neglect.

According to prosecutors, Hernandez-Umana wasn’t licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard, wasn’t aware of basic safety rules and told investigators he’d borrowed his friend’s personal vessel for the New York Harbor excursion. The boat was illegally chartered and overcrowded, prosecutors said.

“Once he faces justice for his crimes, we will make sure that he is swiftly removed from our country,” Mullin said in a statement.

Hernandez-Umana's lawyer, Amy Gallicchio, declined comment.

Hernandez, who had been living in Manville, New Jersey, was not required to enter a plea at his initial court appearance in the criminal case on Aug. 10. He wiped his eyes as he arrived to the courtroom, still wearing the T-shirt, swim trunks and water shoes he’d had on during the voyage. He is due back in court on Sept. 9.

According to Coast Guard investigators, Hernandez was piloting a 21-foot Yamaha AR210 with 14 people aboard — well over its 10 person capacity — when it swamped and sank as it made a U-turn in choppy waters. The tour began around 7 p.m. and the vessel capsized more than three hours into its journey.

The infant wasn’t wearing a life preserver because the boat didn’t have any for small children, prosecutors said. Instead, Hernandez told Sanchez she needed to wear a life vest and hold the infant throughout the hourslong tour, a violation of federal regulations, prosecutors said.

The tour was organized through Zeus Luxury Rental Inc., which advertises its services on social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok. A boat chartered by the company caught fire last year during a birthday cruise on Long Island Sound.

According to his criminal complaint, Hernandez told investigators he had worked for Zeus Luxury on a freelance or contract basis since last year, starting as a limousine driver. He said that twice recently he used his personal boat, a slightly larger Yamaha AR250, but used a friend’s boat on Aug. 8 because his needed repairs, the complaint said.

Messages seeking comment were sent to a phone number and email address listed on Zeus Luxury’s website. The phone number’s voicemail was full, according to an automated recording.

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This story has been updated to correct that Homeland Security announced the arrest Wednesday, not Monday.

The Treasury and State departments announced Thursday that they are leveling new penalties against nine state-owned mining, metal and construction companies along with the leadership of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the institute is responsible for sponsoring “a vast subversive network in the United States aimed at identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing” Americans.

“Just days ago, the regime attempted to use Communist kingpin and despot Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday to reinvigorate this subversive network, ferrying a new brigade of international sympathizers to Havana to network with regime officials,” Rubio said in a statement.

“The Trump Administration will not stand by while a hostile foreign power seeks to exploit our freedoms — none of which are afforded to its people — by misleading and corrupting American citizens with lies, spy tradecraft, and other malfeasance as part of the regime’s raison d’être of exporting Marxism, racial resentment, and Communist violence across the world,” Rubio said.

Trump's Republican administration has steadily ratcheted up pressure on Havana, threatening it with potential military intervention even when mired in a conflict against Iran, while also boosting economic sanctions designed to cut off funding for the Cuban government. An oil blockade that the U.S. imposed on Cuba after the American military raid that ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whose country provided Cuba with free oil, has plunged the already economically crippled island into full-blown crisis.

The Cuban Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new sanctions. Cuba routinely denounces U.S. sanctions and the decadeslong embargo it has imposed on the island, accusing multiple administrations of unfairly targeting a poor nation and its people merely for ideological differences and its proximity to the United States.

The latest sanctions follow an operation at the Miami airport last weekend in which several American citizens returning to the U.S. from Cuba after participating in events marking Castro’s birthday were briefly detained, according to U.S. officials. Some of them had their cellphones and other personal electronic devices seized for inspection, the officials said.

U.S. authorities had been prepared to detain dozens of returning activists for secondary screening, but far fewer were found to meet the criteria for the enhanced questioning by Customs and Border Protection agents, the officials said. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because details of the operation have not been made public, said those detained were eventually released and allowed to enter the U.S.

The officials said anyone detained and released could still face prosecution if it is found they violated U.S. sanctions, which prohibit all transactions with Cuban government-owned entities, including restaurants, hotels and shops. The status of seized cellphones, laptops and tablets, however, was unclear.

The new sanctions that were imposed on the leadership of ICAP target the group’s president, Fernando González Llort, who had been among five Cuban intelligence officers arrested in the U.S. in 1998 but later released in 2014. They also target its first vice president, Noemí Ramona Rabaza Fernández, and its North America director, Leima Martínez Freire.

The metals, mining and construction sector sanctions target a nickel production company, two firms that specialize in the import of heavy industrial products, a mineral resources company, the Cuban Ministry of Construction, a company that provides Cuban workers to foreign entities on the island and two enterprises that import vehicles, automotive parts and construction materials.

The Trump administration also has stepped up a campaign that portrays Cuba as a grave national security threat to the U.S. In a report released last month, the State Department accused the Cuban government of sponsoring or otherwise supporting left-wing and anti-American activism in the United States for the past six decades.

While Cuba has been falling deeper into crisis for around five years, the oil blockade by the Trump administration has thrown the nation into free fall.

The lack of fuel to provide Cubans with electricity has plunged the island into all-out blackouts. Access to public transport has effectively disappeared, shortages of things like medicine have worsened, work hours have been slashed to adapt to the outages, and tourism, the island’s economic lifeline, has evaporated.

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This story has been corrected to show the sanctions are on nine, not 10, companies.

In a meeting on Monday, commissioners will vote to renew the city’s contract with Axon Enterprise for an additional five years at $605,204.97.

The renewal covers 50 body-worn cameras, along with hardware, software, storage, and evidence management tools through fiscal year 2032.

The original contract was approved in 2022 and department officials have said the Axon system has become essential to daily police operations since its launch.

“The Winter Springs Police Department has been extremely pleased with the performance, reliability, and overall value of the Axon body-worn camera system,” according to the department’s renewal request. “The technology has become an integral part of our daily operations and provides our officers with a dependable tool for documentation, accountability, transparency, and evidence collection.”

Officials also cited the ease of use and staff familiarity as key factors in recommending the renewal, noting that continuity with the existing platform reduces the need for additional training.

“Our personnel are familiar with the equipment and associated technology, which minimizes the need for additional training and allows officers to remain focused on their primary responsibilities,” the department noted.

Beyond operational efficiency, department leaders emphasized the program’s broader public safety value.

“The body-worn camera system benefits both our officers and the community we serve,” officials wrote in the renewal recommendation. “It provides an objective record of interactions, enhances accountability, assists with investigations and prosecutions, and can help resolve complaints or questions regarding officer conduct.”

The renewal also maintains continuity of operations across the county, including with the State Attorney’s Office.

Staff has recommended the city commission approve the renewal and authorize the city manager and city attorney to prepare and execute all applicable contract documents.

Commissioners will vote on the contract renewal during a meeting on Monday at 6:30 p.m.

Nguyen Thi Quynh Tam, 24, said she was raped on July 5 and pressured by the man’s family to accept money and not go to police. She said the police also initially urged her to settle the matter privately.

The AP does not usually identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, except if they come forward publicly about the abuse. Tam's candor is unusual for Vietnam, where sexual violence is rarely discussed publicly, but she said she wanted to speak out to help protect other women.

“I’m doing this not just for me. But for everybody else that has been harmed,” said Tam.

Tam’s account was documented in interviews, her police complaint and communications with U.S. and Vietnamese officials. After she sought help from U.S. officials and a U.S. lawmaker, officials confirmed Thursday that they had charged the 23-year-old man.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said authorities had initiated legal proceedings “in accordance with Vietnamese law.” She did not respond to questions about alleged police pressure to settle the case.

The man charged in the case did not respond to AP queries sent via social media.

Tam, whose family moved to the United States when she was 5 years old, returned to Vietnam in May for a banking internship, hoping to reconnect with her family’s homeland. She joined a group of acquaintances on a July 4 trip to a resort in Phu Tho, near Hanoi.

The group stayed up late and when she went to bed, Tam found herself locked out of the room where she expected to sleep. She found another bedroom and fell asleep with the door unlocked, then awoke to the 23-year-old man kissing her neck.

Her complaint says Tam told him not to touch her, but he persisted and climbed on top of her. She pushed and punched him and shouted, “No!” But he pinned both her arms above her head and raped her.

Later that night, she messaged her boyfriend in the U.S. that she had been raped. The AP has seen the messages.

Afterward, she said she blamed herself and struggled mentally. Others in the group they traveled with told her the man was from a wealthy, politically-connected family and she was unsure what to do.

Tam said the man apologized twice on July 9, in a note and during a phone call. The AP has heard a recording of the call and seen the note.

On July 11, Tam and friends of her family met with the man's father in an encounter suggested by members of the group she traveled with. She said he asked how much money she wanted for not involving the police. He called five days later, again offering compensation, she said.

In an email to the The Associated Press, the father said the two had been “intimate,” but he declined to comment further. He said his family had “no intention” of pressuring Tam to drop the case.

Tam said that after she reported the incident to police on July 21, they took her back to the room where she said she was raped and asked her to reenact the assault, leaving her distraught.

“A part of me is gone. And it’s in that room,” she said.

The next day, she said, police urged her to meet with the 23-year-old and to sign a statement saying she had refused a rape kit and a lawyer. She refused. The police again asked her to settle while she was getting mental health care at a Hanoi hospital, she said.

Tam, who is from Houston, Texas, said she got little help at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, where she was told she could report the matter to Vietnamese police, or return home. She said she was discouraged when they cited a previous sexual assault case that dragged on for over a year before being dropped.

After Tam's father contacted their senator, Ted Cruz, the embassy called her to apologize. It told Cruz’s office it had supported Tam and helped her contact authorities. Her father called that “inaccurate,” according to a July 29 email exchange.

The State Department said it was aware of her case, but couldn't comment further because of legal and privacy reasons. It said American “safety and security” was its top priority.

The decision to stop using the gloves in middle and high schools came after The Associated Press first revealed Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to give officers the gloves, which are known as G.L.O.V.E. or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. The deviceshave also been used in recent years by some jails.

Omaha Public Schools Superintendent Matthew Ray requested Tuesday that city police assigned to the schools, known as school resource officers, no longer use the gloves. Ray said in a school board meeting Monday and a letter to the public schools community that he’d only learned about the gloves the previous week. The first day of school was Wednesday.

The Omaha Police Department held a news conference last week in which it demonstrated the glove, saying it quickly achieved compliance and control with little to no force. The gloves were used twice during the 2025-2026 school year, police said.

It was not immediately known if other school districts have used them.

Residents and school board members speak out against the gloves

At the school board meeting, about 30 people spoke out against police using the gloves. Residents and board members alike said they were appalled at the practice. No one spoke in favor of it.

“I can't even imagine walking down the hallway and seeing a peer of mine being electrocuted in a place that is supposed to be a safe space for students,” said Nora Wessel, a senior at Omaha Central High School. “Yet, this is now a very real possibility. These are adults we are supposed to be able to trust, but these weapons create a barrier for our students to turn to resource officers when needed.”

Ray said the district recognized long-standing relationships with law enforcement partners and the important role school resource officers have in promoting school safety. Continued use of the gloves “would be counterproductive to our work together,” Ray said.

Mayor John Ewing Jr. said police have honored the school district's decision to “opt out.” The Omaha Police Department said officers will continue to carry tasers, batons, OC spray and firearms.

Most school resource officers were trained to use the gloves

Most of the Omaha Police Department's 34 school resource officers had been trained and were allowed to use the gloves, the mayor and Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said in a statement.

“We believe it is the safest use-of-force option in the rare times when it is used,” the statement said.

In 2025, the city's police department agreed to pay Compliant Technologies LLC, which manufactures the gloves, about $66,000 for 40 gloves, according to the contract.

Officers were expected to give warning before using the gloves and then touch the person for up to 15 seconds while the electric shock was delivered, the statement said.

The devices activate when an officer presses a button. The gloves must touch someone’s skin directly to produce voltage that causes pain, which is intended to make people compliant if they are resisting. Unlike Tasers, they do not leave burn or contact marks.

In the 2025-2026 school year, an officer used the glove in one case to stop a high school student from another school from trying to escape after fighting with a security guard, according to the statement. In the second case, the glove was used on a student who made verbal threats and threw a chair at a school security guard, striking the guard in the head, the statement said. The student also punched the guard in the head, it said.

Omaha Public Schools is the largest district in Nebraska and serves more than 50,000 students, according to its website. ___ Hallie Golden contributed to this report from Seattle.

The man was arrested on a European warrant in the northern Croatian town of Pula on Wednesday. He was questioned on Thursday by prosecutors who requested the detention pending extradition proceedings, the state HRT television reported.

The man's lawyer, Matija Milos, said that they would appeal the detention order, the HINA news agency reported. It wasn't immediately clear how long the extradition proceedings in Croatia could last.

The German prosecutors have said that the suspect was a “trained scuba diver” who belonged to a group of people who “planted explosives” on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm.

The undersea explosions on Sept. 26, 2022, damaged the pipelines, which had been built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The damage added to tensions over the Russia-Ukraine war as European countries moved to wean themselves off Russian energy sources after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022.

The German prosecutor’s office identified the suspect only as Vladimir Z. A spokesperson, however, confirmed to The Associated Press that it was the same man who was arrested in Poland last year, but was later released when a Polish court refused to extradite him to Germany. Polish authorities identified him as Volodymyr Zhuravlov.

Poland has long opposed the Nord Stream pipelines, viewing them as an attempt by Russia to use its vast energy resources to gain leverage across Europe.

Last month, German federal prosecutors filed charges against a former Ukrainian army officer in connection with the same explosions.

Serhii K. was detained in August 2025 in an Italian village, where officers raided a bungalow where he was staying with his family. He was extradited to Germany in November.

The suspects allegedly used a yacht that set off from the German port of Rostock. The yacht had been rented from a German company using forged IDs and intermediaries.

The explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was Russia’s main natural gas supply route to Germany until Moscow cut off supplies in August 2022. They also damaged Nord Stream 2, which never entered service because Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia’s all-out invasion.

Initially, some officials in the West suspected that Russia might have carried out the explosions. But German investigators later pointed to suspected Ukrainian involvement.

Russia has accused the U.S. of staging the explosions, a charge that Washington has denied. The pipelines were long a target of criticism by the U.S. and some of its allies, which warned that they increased dependence on Russian gas.

Thousands of employers are keeping tabs on the whereabouts, productivity and communications of workers with technology that was adopted widely during the coronavirus pandemic. A vast array of digital tools still are being used to track locations, collect data on task completion rates, and access work-issued smartphone and laptop cameras, raising concerns about how much privacy employees have relinquished, even in their own homes.

Employers have always monitored workers, but recent advances in artificial intelligence and data science enable them to create extensive data sets or “dossiers” that can be used to punish workers or attempt to predict employee behavior, said Wilneida Negrón, director of research and policy at Coworker, a nonprofit that helps workers organize to improve working conditions.

“Oftentimes, the workers with the least amount of power in the labor markets tend to be testing grounds for some of the more intrusive forms of data collection,” Negrón said.

Some of the most common workplace monitoring programs have shared names, email addresses and other personal worker data with hundreds of outside data brokers and technology companies without clearly disclosing the practice, according to an investigation by Vanderbilt University, Northeastern University and the University of California at Berkeley.

Data privacy experts and workers who say they've been closely monitored spoke with The Associated Press about what they see as the risks of employer surveillance and the steps employees can take to protect their personal information.

Team up with like-minded colleagues to advocate for yourself

Pharmacist Lannie Duong's job at a medical clinic involved meeting with patients who had chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. She reviewed their medical histories, blood work and symptoms, and adjusted their medications. She frequently enlisted interpreters to help her communicate with patients who had limited English language skills.

Duong said her employer tracked the length of her phone calls and appointments, and in performance evaluations questioned why she took so long with each patient.

“Everything was counted. How many minutes you’re on the phone. The minutiae of it was ridiculous,” Duong said. “We’re just tasked to do what feels like the impossible.”

Under what she described as unrelenting pressure, Duong felt “not trusted, not appreciated, almost completely hopeless. It was so depressing.” She eventually went on medical leave and began volunteering with other pharmacists to organize a union.

“I spoke up, hoping others would voice their concerns as well, but that didn’t really pan out,” Duong said. She says her employment was terminated after the medical leave.

Many of the employers using surveillance tools do so transparently and engage employee boards in reviewing how the tools are used, Negrón said. But there are also employers tracking, ranking and scoring employees in ways that are not transparent to workers, she said.

“Workers are going to have to come together because the forces of centralizing this kind of tracking and monitoring are moving too fast,” Negrón said.

Find out what kind of data your employer is collecting about you

As awareness about surveillance tools grows, some workers are pushing back on tools that track how long it takes to fulfill tasks, saying such monitoring contributes to injuries, and questioning what personal information is being collected and how it’s being used, said Hayley Tsukayama, director of state affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on digital privacy.

“Unfortunately, if you are on a machine that’s been issued by your workplace, you should expect that there’s some type of monitoring,” Tsukayama said.

Researching data collection and surveillance trends in your industry is a good idea, according to Negrón. Without that knowledge, workers may find themselves unprepared when confronted with information unearthed during surveillance.

While teaching a college writing class, Arianna Anaya discovered that an administrator was reading the papers her students uploaded to the school’s learning management software and the comments Anaya made on the work. The students often wrote about intimate topics, including abuse, eating disorders and family trauma.

“The school essentially used the online learning system to allow administrators and staff to read student work that was often immensely private and personal, something we were specifically told students should not know about,” Anaya said.

A colleague who printed out the comments criticized the casual tone Anaya used with students and accused her of not sticking to the course syllabus. A few months later, Anaya's teaching contract wasn't renewed, although she doesn't know the exact reason.

“It made me quite paranoid,” Anaya said. “It made me feel less safe in the world.”

Check state laws to see what's required of employers

Some states, including New York, Connecticut, Delaware and Maine, require employers to notify workers if they're being monitored. Maine's law goes further, prohibiting visual monitoring in employees' homes or personal vehicles unless that kind of observation is required for the duties of the job, said Edward Halle, a privacy and AI compliance manager.

“The question becomes, what does the law mean by ‘the duties of the job'?” Halle said. "A telehealth nurse needs a camera; the camera is the job. A productivity webcam bolted onto ordinary desk work almost certainly isn’t. Where that line falls is the first thing the Department of Labor will be asked to sort out.”

If you work in a state without a notification requirement, it's difficult to find out if an employer is using technology to monitor your performance.

To raise the issue with managers, Tsukayama suggests coordinating with a union. If that’s not an option and you’re asking managers individually, approach the topic cautiously and take a curious tone, she advised. You could say you’ve noticed something on the computer and have questions, such as “How is this information being used within the company? How might it get out of the company?” Tsukayama said.

One place to start is asking what specific employee data your organization collects, said Aiha Nguyen, director of the Labor Futures Initiative at Data & Society, a nonprofit institute studying the impacts of technology. If your manager doesn’t know, the information technology department may have answers, since the people working there often are the ones turning on the features, Nguyen said.

Some common software programs such as Microsoft Office and Zoom have tools that can be used for tracking worker productivity, but the tracking features aren’t always activated. Knowing whether those tracking features are turned on can be difficult, because they’re built into the programs, Nguyen said.

“It’s automatic. It’s considered something that employers have been able to say, ‘This is necessary for work. You have to use these tools,’” she said.

To help safeguard personal information, don't use work devices to handle family matters or sensitive personal information such as medical conditions, experts advise.

“I think most people know that," Nguyen said. "But it can become tedious to switch between phones, or people don’t really think it’s that harmful. ... You don’t want to potentially put yourself at risk.”

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Share your stories and questions about workplace wellness at cbussewitz@ap.org. Follow AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well

The Bruins are to play two games in Munich, while the Oilers will play two matches in Leon Draisaitl’s native city of Cologne during the 2027-28 NHL season. The opponents have yet to be determined.

“These events represent an important step in our commitment to grow the game in Germany. By bringing more NHL games to one of Europe’s most dynamic hockey markets, we hope to continue to deepen engagement amongst our fans, partners and local communities, while at the same time creating a significant opportunity to grow the game throughout the country,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said.

The Chicago Blackhawks and Ottawa Senators were already slated to play two games in Düsseldorf in December. Those Global Series games are the second and third regular-season games the league has staged in Germany after the Buffalo Sabres and Los Angeles Kings played in Berlin in 2011.

More are to follow with the NHL and NHLPA committed to bringing regular-season games to Germany for at least the next three seasons.

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See AP’s full NHL coverage here

The petition with the hashtag InfantinOut also calls for FIFA "to be rebuilt so that the current debacle can never happen again.”

“The shameful attempt by one individual — the FIFA President himself — to sell off the World Cup to private investors exposed a betrayal football will never forget,” the petition said about Infantino's plan for a commercial spinoff, which he dropped amid a furious backlash.

The fan groups include Football Supporters Europe, Football Supporters Africa and, in North America, the Independent Supporters Council, plus about 40 national fan groups worldwide.

Infantino has resisted calls to leave office despite European soccer body UEFA saying it has no confidence in him. He has also been criticized by the leadership of North America’s CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation.

Some of FIFA's 211 member federations are supporting Infantino, including 2030 World Cup co-host Morocco as well as Qatar, where he lived before the emirate hosted the 2022 World Cup, and Lebanon, which gave him citizenship this year. Saudi Arabia, the 2034 host, has not publicly backed Infantino despite his close political ties to the kingdom.

“Gianni Infantino has demonstrated a profound failure of leadership, incompatible with democratic governance,” the fan petition states. “The concentration of power around the FIFA Presidency, combined with opaque decision-making, personality cult clientelism, and zero accountability has destroyed any remaining trust in the world governing body."

“For the credibility of FIFA — and for the future of the game — he must resign,” the petition adds.

FIFA was approached for comment about the petition.

Fan anger at World Cup ticket prices

The petition also cites Infantino’s past support for projects that outraged fans, including the failed European Super League project, pushing to hold World Cups every two years that was resisted and the “extortionate ticketing policy at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.”

FIFA and Infantino did not consult with fan groups before setting record ticket prices for the 104-game tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico, that provoked anger and led to some tickets being sold for $60 to the most loyal fans of each of the 48 teams.

Football Supporters Europe is the official liaison for fans with UEFA and advises on ticket prices for European Championships and club cup finals like the Champions League.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

The sheriff’s office released an investigative report on Wednesday. Over three months, investigators reviewed facility records, veterinary documentation, FWC inspection records, and diagnostic findings, and conducted more than 20 interviews with state and national experts.

Sloth World, founded by Ben Agresta, was planned as an interactive attraction on International Drive where visitors could meet and hold sloths. It never opened. In total, 55 sloths died after being imported from Guyana and Peru.

Investigators determined the deaths resulted from multiple contributing factors, including disease, transportation stress, copper and nutritional deficiencies, gastrointestinal dysfunction, and pre-existing health conditions. Pathology findings pointed to a widespread infectious disease process, most likely viral.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services inspector confirmed that none of the sloth species were protected under CITES — the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species — or the Endangered Species Act at the time of import. Two sloth species were added to CITES Appendix II on March 5, but the final shipment arrived March 2 — three days before protections took effect.

Thirteen critically ill sloths were transferred to the Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens in Sanford in April. Five later died. Eight remain in the zoo’s care.

Investigators also visited two quarantine facilities used to house the sloths. Both were secured and locked during the May walkthrough, though exterior observations revealed climate control equipment, running water, and wooden animal shipping crates still on site.

The deaths sparked outrage and prompted policy changes. Florida now requires a special permit before sloths can be imported into the state, and Orange County commissioners are exploring a potential ban on using exotic wildlife for commercial entertainment.

The case has been referred to the State Attorney’s Office for the Ninth Judicial Circuit.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, who led news conferences, urged state and criminal investigations, and pushed for immediate policy and permit reforms in response to the sloth deaths, released the following statement.

“I want to thank the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for the rigor they brought to this investigation and for taking our concerns and the community’s concerns so seriously. Over more than three months, their detectives reviewed facility records, veterinary and diagnostic documentation, and inspection histories, and conducted more than twenty interviews with state and national experts. They did their job thoroughly and professionally, and under current law, I accept that the conclusion they reached.

That is why we need to change the law and rules governing captive wildlife in Florida. Dozens of sloths were captured, shipped across the world, and died, and under Florida law as it exists today, no one is held accountable. That is not a failure of the investigators. It is a failure of our statutes and our rules. When a facility can be in full compliance with every applicable state standard and animals still die by the dozens, the standards themselves are the problem. Compliance is not the same as care.

I will be working with my colleagues in the Legislature, with FWC, and with wildlife and veterinary experts to strengthen Florida’s rules on the importation, permitting, and housing of exotic and highly specialized species, and to close the gaps this case exposed. No animal should be brought into our state to suffer and die because our laws were too weak to stop it. I am grateful to every Central Floridian who refused to let this go. Your voices are why this case was investigated at all, and they are why the law and rules will change.”

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando

The full report can be read in the media player below:

Anthony’s attorney told a newly appointed judge that prosecutors also did not follow through with an off-the-record agreement. Defense attorney Russell Wilson said the case’s original judge allowed a “shadow docket” that kept information out of the trial.

“Everything was done off the record, at an astonishing clip,” said Wilson, who didn't represent Anthony at the criminal trial.

Anthony already won a legal victory on Wednesday when the judge who presided over his trial was removed from the case. Judge Michael Chitty was then assigned to consider the motion from Anthony's attorneys asking for a retrial in the killing of Austin Metcalf.

Anthony, now 19, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in the case.

Prosecutor Bill Wirskye argued Thursday that Anthony had received a fair trial and said that his attorneys had agreed to everything that was done during the trial.

Anthony's attorneys had asked for state District Judge John Roach to be removed in part because of a TV interview in which Roach said jurors “got it right” when they delivered a guilty verdict.

In seeking a new trial, Anthony’s attorneys have argued that the June proceedings were marred by strict courtroom rules and improper jury instructions. They have also said Anthony’s decision to not testify came after a dispute with prosecutors over an agreement to focus the trial on the events leading up to the stabbing.

Jurors in the trial had rejected Anthony’s claims he acted in self-defense during a confrontation with Metcalf in the stadium bleachers last year. Students who took the stand described a heated exchange over Anthony’s refusal on a rainy spring day to leave a tent that belonged to Metcalf’s team.

The case attracted national attention in part because of a flood of social media posts that amplified the killing in racial terms. Anthony is Black; Metcalf was white. Lawyers on both sides, however, told jurors the tragedy had nothing to do with race.

During the recusal hearing Wednesday, Anthony's legal team focused on comments Roach made to a Dallas TV station after the trial had ended. In the interview, which was played as the hearing began, Roach was asked if the jury got “it right.”

“Yeah, they did,” Roach said, adding: “Whatever they say, they got it right.”

During the interview, Roach also defended his courtroom rules and spoke about the onslaught of online postings about the case.

As national attention on the killing intensified last year, the families of both Metcalf and Anthony said they had been targets of harassment.

Several schools were competing at the track event when Anthony sat under the Memorial High School tent that was perched in the bleachers. Metcalf and others had repeatedly told Anthony to leave, witnesses testified, leading to an escalating confrontation.

Prosecutors said Anthony provoked Metcalf, and witnesses testified that Anthony was the aggressor.

Anthony at one point reached inside a bag and replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” according to a police report.

Metcalf pushed Anthony, according to witnesses, who said Anthony then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.

“This is the concertmaster,” Honeck said, “and also my brother.”

Among nine siblings, Manfred and Rainer are making a rare joint appearance in the Salzburg Festival's new production of Richard Strauss' “Ariadne auf Naxos,” which runs through Aug. 28. Director Ersan Mondtag's unconventional staging shifts the setting from Vienna to Mars and is available to stream on Medici.

Otto, the Honecks' father, was a postman in Nenzing, Austria, who played the flugelhorn and zither in his spare time.

“He wanted us to all play an instrument. I’m not sure whether the Trapp family was somehow in his head," Manfred said, referencing the musical clan in Rodgers and Hammerstein's “The Sound of Music.”

Manfred, who turns 68 next month, became the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's music director in 2008-09 and in June agreed to a contract extension through 2032-33 that will move him past William Steinberg (1952-76) as the orchestra's longest-serving head.

Rainer, 65, joined the Vienna State Opera Orchestra in 1981 and was admitted to the Vienna Philharmonic three years later. He has been a concertmaster — the lead violin — since 1992.

A sister, Sibylle, plays cello for the Vienna Volksoper and an older brother, Otto, was a pianist and coach for the Frankfurt Opera. Manfred's son Matthias is a principal second violin in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

Family didn't have much money

Manfred, the seventh sibling, and Rainer, the eighth, both played violin as kids.

“Our father was very consistent. He wanted us to practice every day, and he practiced with us,” Rainer said. “So he played on the piano and that was very important for us to get this routine, to have every day only one hour, but every day a practice.”

A teacher, Grete Urbanek, gave them fruit yogurt at lessons.

“We could not afford to buy yogurt at home. And we had only meat on Sunday. The other seven days we were eating local food, which is called ribel,” Manfred said of a local cornmeal.

Their mother, Frieda, died in 1965 after giving birth to her ninth child. A few years later, their father moved the family to Vienna so the children could access better music teachers.

“If he would not have done this, I think we would not have this profession,” Manfred said during a joint interview with Rainer. “It always reminds me: One human makes a decision and it changes your whole life."

Seven Honeck siblings lived with their father in a 2 1/2-room apartment, while the two oldest sisters worked to help support the family.

Rainer studied with Alfred Staar, a Vienna Philharmonic violinist, and at age 15 he decided to become a professional musician.

“I was not good in Latin. I was behind and there was the decision: Do I repeat the class one more year or do I want to be a violin player?" he said. “That was a decision which many of my family members didn’t agree with but my father did.”

Rainer plays a Stradivarius from 1725 known as “Chaconne.” He joined Manfred and the Pittsburgh orchestra for concerts at their home hall in 2015 and the Aspen Music Festival the following year, for Beethoven’s “Fidelio” with the Vienna Symphony at the Theater an der Wien in 2020.

“He is great in terms of style, of articulation, phrasing," Vienna Philharmonic General Manager Michael Bladerer said. "When he says something to the section it will sound different after.”

Unplanned instrument shift

Manfred made a sudden switch from violin to viola in December 1982 when he learned the Vienna Philharmonic had an upcoming opening.

“The audition was in April and so I thought, OK, I want to do it,” he said, recalling he practiced every day, from morning to midnight.

Manfred won the audition but shifted his focus to conducting in 1987, becoming an assistant to Claudio Abbado at the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. He conducted regularly at the Zurich Opera from 1991-96, was part of a trio of principal conductors at the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1996-99.

He later served as music director of the Norwegian National Opera, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Staatsoper Stuttgart.

Manfred’s Pittsburgh Symphony is the only American orchestra appearing at this summer’s Salzburg Festival, part of a 13-concert European tour through Sept. 10. He’s become the Pittsburgh orchestra’s face.

“We joke sometimes that he probably spends more weeks in Pittsburgh than he does in Altach, his home,” Pittsburgh Symphony CEO Melia Tourangeau said.

Nilsson, the soprano, had never worked with Manfred before “Ariadne.”

“I have learned from him to really trust the colors and to experiment how far can we go in the pianissimi and the softness,” she said.

Kindness from usher to child

Manfred credits an usher at Vienna's Musikverein for sparking his interest in conducting when he was a child in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Manfred wanted to see Willi Boskovsky lead the famous New Year's Day concert and lined up with his father for standing room tickets.

“We could not afford any seat places,” Manfred recalled. “There were 200 people around me and I had no chance to see. He saw me and he picked me out and put me in front of all the people who were standing in line for a whole day to get the best standing places. Hearing and seeing Willi Boskovsky, it seems to me that this was one of the occasions where I felt I really wanted to do this.”

At some institutions, charities did see some gains. In 2021, University of Maryland student athletes receiving NIL payments started serving yearlong mentorships with high school students through a program run by a local nonprofit, the Youth Leadership Foundation, one of the several charities that had relationships with Maryland athletes. About 250 students from colleges in low-income neighborhoods typically participate each year, according to Janaiha Bennett, the nonprofit’s executive director.

“Being able to expose students to role models that care about character and care about conducting themselves well as athletes, that’s been a huge plus,” Bennett said.

Initially, the visits with student athletes and tours of the university’s athletic facilities were organized by the Blueprint Sports Foundation, a nonprofit that managed payments to NIL collectives nationwide.

But the real financial benefits went to college athletes. Five years after the court gave the green light to pay athletes in NCAA v. Alston, payments to quarterbacks, gymnasts, pitchers, and other coveted athletes have reached nearly $2 billion annually. It is unclear how much nonprofits have gained, but any benefits charities receive are minuscule compared with the large sums of cash colleges raise to attract and retain star athletes, according to experts.

The idea that charities would benefit turned out to be short-lived rather than baked in to the system, said Jason Kohout, a lawyer who has represented several NIL collectives.

“It was kind of a blip,” he said.

The rise and fall of NIL collectives

In the Alston case, the Supreme Court officially turned amateur college sports into a big money game for athletes through these NIL payments. For the first time, companies and nonprofits were allowed to pay athletes to appear at events, wear their apparel, and make social media posts.

Shortly after the decision, alumni boosters and businesses rushed to form NIL collectives and registered them as nonprofits. Doing so allowed donations to be tax deductible. But in 2023, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that those collectives did not qualify for a tax-exemption. Their main purpose — compensating students — does not chiefly serve the public, which is typically required to qualify for nonprofit status, the agency found.

“This private benefit is not a byproduct but is rather a fundamental part of a nonprofit NIL collective’s activities,” the agency wrote.

The collectives received another blow following a 2025 settlement in a massive class action case, House v. NCAA, which pitted former student athletes against the college sports organization. The settlement provided for revenue sharing of television contracts and ticket sales among big conference universities, allowing them to direct $20.5 million per college — indexed for inflation — toward student compensation each year.

With colleges able to make payments to students directly, several NIL collectives have since closed, including Student Athlete NIL, whose colleges included Georgia Tech, the University of Oklahoma, and Wake Forest University; an NIL fund associated with Texas A&M’s 12th Man Foundation; and Notre Dame’s FUND Foundation.

“NIL collectives have basically been in shutdown mode because now you can just give the money to the school,” Kohout said.

An opportunity to educate about giving

When the IRS started taking a dim view of NIL collectives seeking tax exemption, the nonprofit Blueprint Sports Foundation, which paid athletes, including University of Maryland players, disbanded.

The university’s in-house NIL program, One Maryland, still works with Blueprint Sports, a related for-profit organization that processes student payments from non-tax-deductible donations. One Maryland did not return calls from the Chronicle.

In its last tax filing, in 2024, the Blueprint Sports Foundation indicated it devoted a total of $844,078 to 90 athletes for charitable activities in partnership with about a half dozen nonprofits near campus. Today, Maryland Terrapin athletes are no longer paid to visit with students through the Youth Leadership Foundation program. But Youth Leadership’s Bennett said student athlete involvement hasn’t subsided and the program is “still going strong.”

However, the connection between college athletes and nonprofits won’t just run on autopilot, some warn. Roy Kessel, founder of the Sports Philanthropy Network, worries that as universities race to raise funds to pay athletes and remain competitive, charity will become an afterthought. Some athletes did create their own foundations after being introduced to giving through collectives. But if students receiving NIL payments aren’t educated about philanthropy, fewer will give to charity in the future and an opportunity will be lost, he said.

In 2022, Kessel launched NIL4Good, a campaign to encourage student athletes to give some of their NIL payments to charity. But raising money for the campaign has been difficult, he said.

One reason it’s been hard, he said, is that paying college athletes was such an immense cultural change that institutional practices, including educating students about money management, haven’t caught up. So far, universities have not made significant investments to help students identify what kind of donations they’d like to make and how to use their place in the spotlight for good, Kessel said.

What student athletes need, he said, is sound advice on the practice of giving and the freedom to choose how to make an impact that comes from the heart. Many of those students, he said, have not yet developed clear boundaries when friends and acquaintances try to seek a cut.

“What we’ve seen evolve over the last few years is that the individual athletes get pulled in a lot of directions,” he said. “Anytime somebody’s got money, that brings more people in.”

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Alex Daniels is a senior reporter at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

To compete in the increasingly commercialized world of college sports, programs of its size might spend more than $40 million a year on talent acquisition, revenue sharing and other costs, according to experts. But just five of Louisville's 23 sports generate any revenue, according to the athletic department. Only football and men’s basketball turn profits.

Louisville, like a growing number of major conferences ′ public universities, is trying to narrow that spending gap and its supporters are trying to help by creating a new organization to oversee everything from third-party multimedia deals to hospitality packages.

This spring, Louisville launched Cardinal Ventures, a nonprofit designed to help the athletic department leverage its brand to generate new revenue streams, all to keep pace with the multibillion-dollar market around compensating athletes for the use of their name, image and likeness.

“We live in a highly, highly competitive environment and industry,” Heird said. “And if there’s anything that anybody can do to try to create even the smallest sort of competitive advantage, then they’re gonna look to do that.”

The University of Kentucky also has a revenue-raising nonprofit. The University of North Carolina is actively discussing a limited liability company. So, too, is Louisiana State University.

There’s “feverish” interest from higher education in these offshoots, according to Clay Grayson, whose South Carolina law firm designed Clemson University’s in-house venture. There’s also scrutiny from Congress. Widespread privatization could further transform universities into profit-driven businesses resembling professional sports franchises, weaning them off fatigued donors and opening the door to private capital.

“Governmental universities don’t do commercial very well,” Grayson said. “Those nonprofits are the ones that kind of can get out into that space.”

Record high gifts underscore the spending spree. Virginia Tech touted an “unprecedented” $75 million commitment intended to “ensure a strong start” for its nonprofit Hokie Ventures. Michigan State bolstered its athletic department with a $401 million contribution that included an investment in its own Spartan Ventures.

Louisville’s Heird said he frequently finds himself discussing these new organizations with peers as they all look to boost their bottom lines.

At his school, he has found some “low-hanging fruit” with concerts. Louisville’s 60,000-seat football stadium largely sits dark outside of home games.

Country music star Zach Bryan recently lit up the field. The rapper Ludacris headlines an upcoming hip-hop billing. Planning is already underway for next year’s shows — each of which could bring seven-figure profits for the hosts.

Athletic directors seek flexibility, control and a ‘commercial engine’

These new efforts may not provide a “silver bullet,” but they do offer new revenue and something many athletic directors may value even more — more control.

The nonprofits and LLCs offer greater flexibility to crack the financing puzzle than the previous system. Bureaucracy can drag decision-making out for months. Key components of the fan experience — tickets, parking, merchandise, concessions— are often outsourced to vendors they don’t fully run.

“There is an unstoppable train that is college sports," said Jason Belzer, a Sequence Equity partner who advises schools on NIL deals. "The reality is that you need to create new platforms and paradigms to be able to successfully operate a business that no longer really sits with the original mission of college athletics -- at least at the higher levels.”

Everything is on the table for Syracuse University. Athletic director Bryan Blair sees an opportunity to corner New York's college sports market. It's the state's only Power Four conference school. And all five ticketed sports play under a 50,000-seat dome that brings what he called a “big state school feel."

The question is how to build a “commercial engine,” Blair said, whether it exists within his department or outside it.

“We’re trying to educate young people, give them a great experience. We’re trying win on whatever day of the week it is for whatever competition it is. We’re trying to be great stewards and ambassadors for our university,” Blair said. “But to do a lot of those things requires more revenue than ever before.”

Nonprofits join growing number of affiliates

Commercial affiliates aren't new to higher education. Some universities use them to monetize drug patents or manage copyright.

Take the University of Kentucky, believed to be the first school to convert its athletic department into a limited-liability holding company. Trustees already managed separate health systems through a not-for-profit that was primed to take ownership of its athletics offshoot.

Athletic director J Batt, who recently joined the Wildcats from Michigan State, expects these formations will become the norm rather than an exception. “And everybody will do the one that’s right for your campus,” he added.

Grayson, the legal architect behind many such models, said he mostly hears from members of the Power Four. Those 67 schools tend to be the only ones with large, competitive enough programs to spend beyond the revenue-sharing cap of $21.3 million this year. His firm has helped create affiliated entities at an estimated one in seven schools competing in the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12.

His model strays from the traditional nonprofit. He proposes smaller, seven-person boards in order to expedite decision-making. Some of the athletic ancillaries even own for-profits that handle taxable activities such as stadium concerts.

Another big difference: they’re not registered to fundraise because their focus is programmatic revenue. He recommends aligning these new ventures with existing fundraising organizations — like “two pedals of a bicycle.”

“If you get them moving in sync, you’ve got a powerful, powerful motor," he said.

Questions about charitable purpose and donor fatigue

It remains to be seen whether these new entities will alleviate donor pressure to bankroll costly football programs. Moreover, they raise the same question that murky NIL collectives did: what is the charitable purpose of an institution whose main goal is to generate more revenue for athletics?

The Internal Revenue Service decided many nonprofit NIL collectives were erroneously given charitable status. They served players, not the public good, so their activities were likely not exempt from taxes.

These affiliates are similar, in the view of an NIL tax consultant who previously worked at the IRS. Thad Madden, who studied NIL compliance issues for the agency, said he doesn't see any “charitable connotation."

“It's to serve the financial interest of the athletes so that they make the most possible money with the goal of putting the best team on the field,” Madden said.

That financial interest has fatigued donors, according to consultants who advise schools on issues of NIL. They're fielding more athletics solicitations even as universities continue fundraising for student scholarships, research projects and other functions.

It used to be that development officers could leverage donor interest in athletics to direct some funds towards academics. That's not so nowadays, according to University of Pennsylvania professor Karen Weaver, a former athletic administrator who studies the evolving college sports landscape.

“Athletics doesn’t have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem," Weaver said. "So, whatever dollar they bring in is gonna be spent on trying to get an advantage in athletics.”

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

Syria’s interior ministry launched an investigation earlier this week into the death of Mohammad Ghamira, and on Thursday announced initial results of the inquiry.

Ghamira, a 29-year-old father of two, was a former volunteer with the White Helmets civil defense organization, which operated in opposition-held areas before the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in December 2024.

Ghamira died in a hospital in Latakia on Sunday after being released from jail. He had been detained days earlier following a theft allegation, according to Latakia’s internal security command.

Family members said they had told police that Ghamira had hemophilia, a condition affecting the blood’s ability to clot, and warned against hitting him.

Ghamira's death sparked widespread outrage in Syria, where it stirred up dark memories of torture and other abuse in detention centers under the Assad dynasty’s decadeslong rule.

Maj. Gen. Ahmed Latouf, head of the committee formed to investigate Ghamira's death, said Thursday that medical experts found that he had died of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Investigators found that a police interrogator had slapped Ghamira in the neck during interrogation, despite Ghamira having told police personnel about his medical condition, Latouf said.

The interrogator was referred to the public prosecution division, and disciplinary investigations into other police personnel are ongoing, he said.

Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab said in a statement that the investigation results showed the ministry’s “commitment to reaching the truth and holding accountable those proven to have overstepped.”

“We rose up against the former tyrant’s regime in rejection of injustice and impunity, and therefore, building a state of law begins with our ability to hold the wrongdoer accountable, to give restitution to the victim, and not to do injustice to anyone who has not been proven responsible” for wrongdoing, he said.

Rights groups have said that abuses in detention centers have persisted under the country’s new authorities. However, one of the groups, Syrians for Truth and Justice, said that it didn't find evidence of a “single centralized system equivalent in structure and direction to the torture apparatus entrenched by the Assad regime.”

Deputies say Enoc Diaz, 48, was last seen in the area of Simpson Road in Kissimmee.

Diaz is about 5′10″ tall, has black hair and brown eyes, and is Hispanic.

If you have any information that could help locate him, please call the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office at 407-348-2222 or dial 911 immediately.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said on social media that the carrier arrived in the region Wednesday. It was not clear when the USS Abraham Lincoln would arrive back in the U.S. or whether it would make a port stop along the way, but the journey takes just over a month.

The Washington arrived as concerns have grown about the Lincoln's lengthy deployment, which has included a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 250 days, and about reports of crew stress and poor mental health, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products.

Several Democratic lawmakers have pressed the Department of Defense for accountability over conditions aboard the Lincoln, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said were “completely misrepresented.”

Hegseth spoke with the Lincoln’s crew last week, and Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, visited this past weekend. In an editorial published Sunday by The Wall Street Journal, Cooper said the crew “delivered a performance for the ages, and now you are going home.”

Extended deployments of carriers wear on service members who are away from home for long periods and increase strain on the ship and its equipment. While renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran calmed in recent weeks, the Navy is enforcing a reimposed blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the war.

Hegseth has said the U.S. can maintain the blockade “indefinitely.”

President Donald Trump this week downplayed reports about conditions on the Lincoln, which left its homeport in San Diego in November and arrived in the Middle East in January. Trump called the nearly nine months at sea that the sailors endured a “good period of time” but added that “over the years, we’ve had them out there much longer.”

Trump told reporters Monday that he spoke with a retired admiral over the weekend who recounted being on ships for “much longer.” Trump said the admiral assured him that the Lincoln is “beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of.” Trump did not name the admiral.

In a statement Sunday after visiting the Lincoln, Cooper praised the carrier's leaders for prioritizing mental health and resilience.

“History will record this deployment as one of the most operationally intense and consequential of the modern era,” Cooper said.

The Washington joins the USS George H.W. Bush in the Middle East, leaving Asia without an American carrier strike group at a time when China has shown more signs of aggression.

The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.

It’s not as big or flashy as bald eagles or ospreys, but it’s just as fascinating.

Here’s what I look for when I’m trying to spot one:

• Dark, hawk‑sized body
• Red eyes
• Orange legs
• Distinct white rump patch at the base of the tail
• A buoyant, hovering flight over shallow water—like an actual kite

When they hunt, snail kites ride the wind over freshwater marshes and the grassy edges of lakes, then hover in place before dropping down on their prey.

Ornithologists went full‑literal with the name: the snail kite really does fly like a kite and really does eat snails.

Built for Eating Apple Snails

Unlike many raptors that eat fish, rodents or small birds, the snail kite is a dietary specialist. It feeds almost exclusively on apple snails, including:

• Native Florida apple snails (Pomacea paludosa)
• Larger invasive apple snails that have spread through many Florida wetlands

The kite’s whole body is built around this diet:

• Long talons to grab snails right at the surface of the water
• A slender, sharply curved bill designed to hook the snail out of its shell
• A hunting style that keeps it low and slow over open water, scanning for snails within inches of the surface

Biologists have even documented snail kites getting larger over time in areas with abundant invasive apple snails—more big snails, more calories, bigger kites.

But this specialization is a double‑edged sword. If the wetlands suffer and snail populations crash, the kite has nowhere else to go.

Why the Florida Snail Kite Is Endangered

The Everglade snail kite in Florida doesn’t migrate out of the state. Instead, it wanders within it, following water levels and food across wetlands, lakes and marshes. You can find snail kites in places like:

• The Everglades
• Lake Okeechobee
• The Kissimmee River valley
• The St. Johns River headwaters
• Shallow freshwater marshes and grassy lake shorelines across peninsular Florida

The No. 1 threat to the Florida snail kite population is loss and degradation of wetland habitat. Over decades, Florida’s wetlands have been:

• Drained and channelized
• Polluted by agricultural and urban runoff
• Overgrown with invasive plants
• Altered in their natural flood‑and‑dry cycles

When water management changes, snails disappear. When snails disappear, snail kites follow. Overgrown vegetation can also let predators reach nests more easily. And human disturbance — especially near nests — can flush adults off the nest, exposing eggs and chicks to predators and heat.

So when you spot a snail kite gliding over shallow water, you’re not just seeing a rare raptor; you’re looking at a live indicator that section of wetland is still (for now) functioning.

Airboat Adventure

My chance to see snail kites up close started with a message from Captain John Ruggeri, better known on Instagram as @airboatphotographer. He runs with Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures and sent me the magic sentence:

“I know exactly where to find snail kites.”

On a very cold Central Florida morning, I bundled up and climbed aboard his airboat. The kind of cold where the wind makes you question every life decision as soon as the boat accelerates.

Within minutes of leaving the dock, John proved he wasn’t exaggerating.

We were surrounded by snail kites.

They were working a shallow area, riding the wind, hovering, and dropping for snails—some passing so close you could literally hear the whoosh of their wings. As a photographer, it was equal parts dream and chaos.

One of Florida’s Fastest Raptors

The problem with photographing snail kites on an airboat isn’t getting close enough — it’s being too close.

A few challenges from that morning:

• Speed: Snail kites are crazy fast when they lock onto a snail.
• Distance: They were so close that framing and tracking them through a long lens felt like trying to photograph a fly with a telescope.
• Action: Multiple birds hunting the same patch of water meant constant mid‑air chases and conflicts.

Any idea of a shot list or careful planning vanished almost instantly. There is no planning here; you just:

• Keep your head on a swivel
• Anticipate where the bird might go
• Accept that you’re going to miss more shots than you nail

I did what every wildlife photographer does in this situation: I held the shutter down and hoped for the best. I walked away with 1,500 images from that one ride. And a pretty good case of, “How am I going to cull all of this?”

By the time we headed back in, I couldn’t feel my fingers. I usually go home from the water with sunburn. That morning, I went home with windburn.

Was It Worth It? Absolutely.

Yes, I got some images I’m genuinely happy with. But as dramatic as the photos are, that’s not really the point for me.

The real payoff was being there:

• Watching an endangered raptor do exactly what it evolved to do
• Seeing that curved bill in action as it pulled snails from shells
• Hearing wings cut through cold air just feet away
• Knowing that this one patch of wetland still supports snails, and therefore kites

Moments like that make the early alarm, the frozen fingers worth it.

How to See Everglade Snail Kites in Florida (Responsibly)

If you’re in Florida and want to try your luck seeing or photographing Everglade snail kites, here are a few tips:

1. Go where the wetlands are

Look for shallow freshwater marshes and grassy lake shorelines, especially in:

• The Everglades and Water Conservation Areas
• Lake Okeechobee
• The Kissimmee River valley
• The St. Johns River headwaters
• Other managed wetlands and wildlife management areas

Guided airboat tours (like those from Boggy Creek Airboat Adventures) can be a great way to reach good habitat without disturbing sensitive areas on foot.

2. Learn the snail kite’s field marks

To pick out a snail kite from other raptors like northern harriers:

• Look for a dark bird with a white rump patch
• Notice the downward‑curved wings in flight (harriers hold theirs in more of a V‑shape)
• Watch for hovering over water followed by quick drops to the surface

Binoculars or a long lens make a big difference, especially if you’re trying to identify females or juveniles, which are browner.

3. Keep your distance and respect the nest

Snail kites are federally endangered, and their nests are especially sensitive:

• Never approach a bird that looks like it’s sitting on a nest or defending a specific area
• Use your binoculars or telephoto lens instead of walking closer
• Follow all posted rules and stay in designated areas

Disturbing a nesting bird can cause it to abandon the nest temporarily, leaving eggs or chicks vulnerable to predators and harsh sun.

4. Support healthy wetlands

If you care about snail kites, you care about wetlands—even if you’ve never set foot in a swamp.

You can help by:

• Supporting organizations and projects that restore Florida wetlands
• Learning more about water management and conservation where you live
• Reducing pollution and runoff in your own backyard

Snail kites, apple snails and clean water are all part of the same story.

Why Getting Outside Is Always Worth It

You don’t have to chase an endangered raptor on an airboat in freezing wind to have a wildlife moment (though I’d recommend it, minus the injury).

Start by paying attention to the so‑called “everyday” birds around you:

• The heron patrolling a retention pond
• The osprey perched on a light pole over I‑4
• The vultures, ibises, anhingas and grackles you’ve trained yourself to ignore

Once you start actually looking, even the most common species stop feeling common.

That’s what that cold morning with the Everglade snail kites reinforced for me:

Get outside and take a closer look at the animals all around you. It’s always worth it.

And if you want to see more snail kite images—and a lot of other incredible Florida wildlife—check out Captain John Ruggeri on Instagram at @airboatphotographer, and dive deeper into Everglade snail kite conservation through wildlife agencies and local conservation groups.

The Hong Kong- and U.S.-listed company, which started out in e-commerce and online retail but is increasingly focused on AI technologies, said that its profit for April-June was at 10.5 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), down from 43.1 billion yuan ($6.4 billion) the same quarter last year.

Quarterly revenue grew 9% to almost 269 billion yuan (nearly $40 billion), with revenue from its AI cloud and compute services up 45% to 48.4 billion yuan ($7.2 billion).

But capital expenditures, including investments in AI infrastructure to meet customer demand, jumped 75% to 67.7 billion yuan (about $10 billion) during the quarter, weighing on profits.

Alibaba attributed the significant increase in spendings to factors including “fluctuations” in procurement cycles, increase in CPU, or central processing unit, compute capacity in anticipation of growing customer adoption of AI “agents” and higher pricing of chip components.

“As we continue to ramp up our supply, our AI and Cloud revenue growth will accelerate further in the coming quarters, alongside continued improvement in profitability,” said Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu in prepared remarks during an earnings conference.

Alibaba’s U.S.-traded shares fell more than 3% Thursday.

Alibaba, one of China’s biggest companies, said last year it planned to invest at least 380 billion yuan (about $56 billion) over three years in cloud computing and AI infrastructure.

It has been making advances with its flagship Qwen AI and has launched “agentic” AI services for commercial customers. In July, it previewed its Qwen3.8-Max AI model which the company said was “second only” to Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.

It has also pledged an ambitious goal of surpassing $100 billion in terms of annual AI and cloud revenue within the next five years.

The announcement of his contract extension ahead of Verstappen’s home Dutch Grand Prix this weekend ends speculation that he could seek a blockbuster move to another team or quit the sport.

It comes despite Red Bull struggling to match the pace of leading team Mercedes this season, and Verstappen's own frustration with how much the 2026 cars rely on electrical power.

“After the first few races (this year), I said to Laurent (Mekies, Red Bull team principal): ‘Don’t come to me with any kind of questions about the future because I don’t even know if I want to stay.’ Honestly, we always kept it very open,” Verstappen said.

He added that talks with F1 and governing body the FIA had persuaded him that “we are slowly working towards something that becomes better and better” with the current cars, while the new contract until 2030 could cover a potential — but not confirmed — return to simpler V8 engines.

“Even if I’m not entirely happy with how the package is, I still love racing, this is still the pinnacle of motorsport, so I still want to be here,” he added.

Asked whether he’d spoken with other teams, he said: “I think I was closer to retiring than changing team.”

The Verstappen-Red Bull pairing could set an F1 record

Seeing out the contract in full would take Verstappen to 15 seasons with Red Bull. It would be the longest-running driver-team pairing in F1 history. It comes with strong support for team principal Mekies after he replaced the team's founding boss Christian Horner last year.

In return, Mekies laid out how the team is built around Verstappen.

“He’s a lot more than the fastest driver in the world for us,” Mekies said. “He’s the central point of the team. He’s one we always refer to for all the strategic decisions we are making, and to know that he’s going to be with us in order to build that next winning cycle is phenomenal.”

Verstappen, already considered one of F1’s all-time greats at the age of 28, has yet to win a race this season. The 71-time race winner hasn’t had a winless season since his rookie year in 2015.

Why there was speculation Verstappen might move

Verstappen’s previous contract ran through 2028 but reportedly included performance-related clauses which could have potentially allowed him to leave earlier and which fueled speculation he might seek to move.

Red Bull backed Verstappen’s career from childhood and brought him into F1 at the age of 17 in 2015 at its second team, then called Toro Rosso. That made him the youngest driver in series history, a record he still holds.

Still, there had been signs of tension in recent years amid the departures of a series of key staff including Horner last year and car design great Adrian Newey.

Verstappen also raised safety concerns this season after two separate faults with the Red Bull car’s rear wing hurled him into high-speed crashes.

Verstappen had been linked with a move to McLaren after reports of a meeting in June between his representatives and McLaren management. McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said at the time the team didn't have an opening for him and would stick with defending champion Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who said Thursday he hadn't been worried for his seat.

Mercedes had also signaled interest in the past.

“Drivers talk with different teams, teams talk with different drivers. Everyone has to just see what their cards are," Mercedes' George Russell said Thursday. "My seat never felt under threat, and I felt 100% security with Toto (Wolff, team principal) and the team. That obviously now continues.”

One driver who had been considered a potential replacement for Verstappen at Red Bull, Carlos Sainz Jr., signed a new contract on Wednesday with Williams.

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See AP’s full auto racing coverage here

Bodeen died Monday after a struggle with cancer and complications from a stroke, his daughter, Ingrid, said Thursday by telephone from Taiwan.

Bodeen, who spoke fluent Mandarin with a proud Taiwan accent, spent much of his career detailing China's rise to an economic, political and military superpower — and the accompanying friction from what critics have long called Beijing’s heavy-handed efforts to establish dominance in Asia and beyond.

“Chris was a reporter who would go anywhere and do anything for the story,” said Charles Hutzler, AP's former bureau chief in Beijing. After a huge quake flattened a swath of Sichuan province in 2008, Bodeen composed his account from one devastated town sentence by sentence over text messages because of damaged telecommunications networks. "It was one of the first eyewitness reports the AP and the world received about one of the worst earthquakes in decades,” Hutzler recalled.

He was an expert on politics and Chinese military issues

From AP bureaus in Shanghai, Beijing and Taipei, Bodeen was for years the news agency's go-to person on Chinese politics and military issues, able to quickly determine the newsworthiness of the government's often abstruse statements.

“A chat with Chris would inevitably turn into a remarkable history lesson," said Emily Wang Fujiyama, former Greater China news director. “He had astounding knowledge of the region and would be writing about China’s military presence in the South China Sea, pivot to Taiwan’s intricate politics, and just as deftly write about the political sensitivities of Tibet, Mongolia and China.”

Bodeen was born in Missouri on Sept. 9, 1970, but he spent parts of his childhood in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia. His father was a foreign service officer and his mother a former diplomat, his daughter, Ingrid, said. Friends and colleagues remembered his love of the Boston Red Sox, esoteric punk rock -- and his contagious enthusiasm for the job of journalism.

"He was the blondest, palest person you’ll ever meet” yet also spoke pitch-perfect Chinese, said Ted Anthony, AP’s former China news editor and news director for Asia. “So when the earthquake in Sichuan happened in 2008, he went out there, put on one of his ever-present ballcaps to cover his hair, and slouched down. He passed as Chinese, started interviewing people and sailed under the scrutiny of the authorities.”

He was 'always ready for adventure’

Bodeen joined the AP in 1996, in Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island China claims as its own, before working as an editor on the agency’s international desk in New York and then joining the AP bureau in Beijing as a correspondent, in 2000. He majored in history and Asian studies at Tufts University, graduating in 1993.

“Chris Bodeen was always ready for adventure. Hiding in the hills of Hainan Island, China, to try to report on the return of an American Air Force plane forced down in 2001, he was the best colleague to be with,” said Raf Wober, a video journalist in the AP's Hong Kong bureau.

In a 2017 story on efforts to burnish the image of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Bodeen described state broadcaster China Central Television leading its evening national news bulletin “with more than four minutes of uninterrupted clapping for Xi as he met with adoring citizens,” and a Russian translator who “was so engrossed with reading a recent speech by Xi, Xinhua (the official news agency) said, that he skipped lunch and dinner just to finish studying it.”

While much of this might have seemed amusing to outsiders, Bodeen was careful to note that “the domination of (Xi’s) image in official propaganda evokes, for some, the painful memories of the upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s, when Mao (Zedong) was accorded the status of a near deity.”

Julie Pace, AP's executive editor, remembered Bodeen as not only an effective China correspondent but as a fellow journalist whose knowledge elevated those around him.

“Chris cared deeply about his work and the value of on-the-ground reporting in such an important region of the world," she said. "His expertise informed AP’s audiences for so many years, but also helped lift up so many colleagues.”

Passion for family and work was his hallmark

Bodeen was deeply proud of his two daughters and loved showing off their artwork and achievements — and creative Halloween costumes — to colleagues. “Every parent thinks their kids are the best, but, hand to God, these girls are both adorable and seriously tough cookies,” he wrote of his children.

“He truly, passionately loved what he did, as much as he loved being a dad," Ingrid Bodeen said. She recalled that when her father spent long stints reporting from Afghanistan during her childhood, “he would always have my mom fax over my spelling lists and homework so we could work on them together. He never missed a spelling test week.”

Bodeen was also beloved by colleagues for his sharp sense of humor, his knowledge of good local food and an encyclopedic knowledge of movie and TV comedies from the ’70s and ’80s.

Kanis Leung, an AP reporter in Hong Kong, said that Bodeen once told her about an old correspondent's description of news reporting as “the art of shoving 50 pounds of oatmeal into a 10-pound sack."

“Except,” Bodeen told Leung, "he didn’t say oatmeal.”

Bodeen is survived by his wife, Yen Ling, daughters Ingrid, 26, and Naomi, 22, his parents and a sister.

Walmart’s second quarter fanned anxiety about the financial well-being of low-income shoppers who are spending cautiously as prices rise at the gas pump and everywhere else.

Company shares tumbled more than 8% Thursday and helped drag the U.S. stock market lower as well.

Walmart’s comparable sales in the U.S., which measure sales at stores open at least a year along with online sales tied to those locations, rose 2.6% in the second quarter. That is down from 4.1% in the first quarter.

Excluding the wellness category that includes Walmart’s pharmacies, comparable sales increased 3.4% in the second quarter. Sales were hit by federal legislation that requires pharmacies to dispense some high-cost Medicare drugs at capped prices, the retailer said. That was still below Wall Street projections of a 3.8% increase, according to FactSet.

Still, Walmart’s quarterly profit, boosted by a $2.9 billion tariff refund, topped expectations, and so did revenue. Walmart says it continues to take market share.

Walmart is using the U.S. tariff refunds to temporarily lower prices on 11,000 items, it said Thursday, particularly on groceries and general merchandise.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this year that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority when he imposed double-digit import taxes, meaning U.S. companies were owed refunds from the government.

Yet Walmart is trying to contain prices as it is squeezed by the same pressures hammering the American consumer, namely rising energy costs due to fighting in Iran. The company expects to book an additional $2 billion in incremental fuel costs this year.

Slowing comparable sales, particularly in Walmart stores, also reflect a strategic shift toward e-commerce, Walmart+ memberships and advertising. Walmart’s domestic e-commerce business, which has become a growth engine for the retailer, rose 24%.

U.S. e-commerce now represents 23% in the overall U.S business., Walmart said, double the share five years ago.

“As these businesses scale, they become a more meaningful part of our mix, and they’re changing the shape of our business,” CEO John Furner said Thursday.

Walmart is considered a barometer of consumer spending given its vast customer base. More than 150 million customers are on its website or in its stores every week, according to Walmart.

Walmart’s trajectory may draw even more attention after U.S. data released Friday showed retail sales were surprisingly weak in July. On the same day, a new read on consumers from the University of Michigan revealed growing pessimism about the economy.

Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said Friday that when gasoline prices rise above $4, the company can feel it.

“There’s a psychological impact to that ... that there are choices that consumers are making,” Rainey said. “June was a little more obvious as we look at the quarter in terms of customers making trade-offs. And it’s why we have leaned so heavily into lower prices.”

The price of a gallon of gasoline ticked higher again overnight, according to AAA, reaching $4.10.

With prices higher, Walmart continues to capture a larger share of wealthier consumers. The biggest gains in market share for Walmart are coming from households with annual incomes over $100,000, the retailer has said.

Walmart’s quarterly net income was $6.37 billion, or 80 cents per share, in the three-month period ended July 31. Adjusted per-share results were 81 cents, easily topping the 74 cents Wall Street had expected, according to FactSet.

Sales rose 5.9% to $187.94 billion. Analysts were predicting $186.62 billion, according to FactSet.

For the third quarter, Walmart expects earnings per share of 62 cents to 64 cents. It projects sales to be up 3% to 3.75%, putting sales in a range of $184.9 billion to $186.23 billion.

For the full year, Walmart now expects earnings per share to be in the range of $2.80 to $2.87, while sales should be up anywhere from 4% to 5%. That would mean a forecast for sales in the range of $741.7 billion to $748.8 billion, according to FactSet.

Analysts expected $2.90 per share and sales of $752.06 billion for the year, according to FactSet.

Located at the corner of Orange Avenue and Pine Street, the 10-story building has been a downtown fixture for more than a century. Built in 1923, the property includes more than 38,000 square feet and blends historic character with modern office space.

First Capital Property Group recently purchased the building. Jere Matheny, the company’s vice president of brokerage services, said the group hopes the project will help spark more redevelopment in downtown Orlando.

“We’re hoping that this is kind of a first step in what we hope will be a wave of rehab and redevelopment and adaptive reuse of our existing stock,” Matheny said.

The company plans to convert the building into modern office suites for small and mid-sized businesses.

Matheny said each floor includes more than 3,500 square feet of space, giving companies the opportunity to occupy an entire floor rather than share hallways and restrooms with other tenants.

“This gives an opportunity for small and midsize firms to have their own fourth floor in the city,” he said.

The building also has a connection to Central Florida history. Walt Disney and his company occupied space in the Metcalf Building in the 1960s, while Disney was acquiring land for what would eventually become Walt Disney World.

The redevelopment comes as downtown businesses continue to face challenges. Several longtime businesses have closed in recent years, including the bar Tanqueray, which shut down in December after 37 years in the Metcalf Building.

Matheny said the building remains fully operational, with several tenants already in place. The new owners are looking to bring in additional businesses while making capital improvements to the property.

“We believe that this is going to be a positive impact,” Matheny said. “We’re hoping that it’s going to show folks that Orlando is open for business, and we’re doubling down.”

UK sources confirmed reports from multiple publications that the couple plan to relocate to Britain within days. Harry and Meghan’s two young children will be enrolled in British schools, sources say.

A move six years in the making

The family’s departure from the UK in 2020 triggered a media firestorm. Tabloids dubbed the relocation “Megxit.” Newspapers and magazines tracked the couple’s every move as they worked to build new business ventures in the United States — including a $20 million Spotify deal and a $100 million Netflix deal that included a documentary about their lives.

Harry’s memoir, Spare, added fuel to the fire, revealing fistfights with his older brother, Prince William, and rifts with other members of the royal family, including his father, King Charles.

“The feeling is this is our decision,” Harry said. “Therefore the consequence was on us.”

A private meeting with King Charles

Earlier this summer, Harry and Meghan flew to Britain and met privately with King Charles, who is battling cancer. UK sources say the king was first made aware of the family’s relocation plans on Sunday and that he welcomes the opportunity to spend more time with them.

Sources also say King Charles has made clear that Harry and Meghan’s status will not change — they will remain private citizens.

What’s ahead for the Sussexes

No word yet on where exactly the family will live in the UK. According to CBS News partner BBC, the former working royals plan to keep their California home and establish a non-royal home base in the United Kingdom.

The project spans approximately 2.09 miles, running from east of U.S. 17-92 to State Road 419. The corridor passes through the cities of Casselberry, Longwood, and Winter Springs.

Beyond repaving the road with a rehabilitated asphalt surface, the project aims to enhance both safety and traffic operations along the corridor. One of the more significant changes involves replacing a portion of the existing two-way center turn lane with a raised median and directional openings between Sheoah Boulevard and Charles Street.

Full median openings would be placed at Sherry Avenue and Hacienda Drive. Directional median openings are proposed at three additional locations: Bombay Avenue, Fairfax Avenue, and Costa Rica Drive.

Pedestrian safety is also a priority in the proposal. The project would reconstruct sidewalk curb ramps to meet current Americans with Disabilities Act standards, restore pedestrian railing at the Sheoah Boulevard intersection, and refresh all crosswalks along the corridor.

Traffic signal upgrades are also on the table. The existing signals at Fountaintree Drive/Sunshadow Drive and at Winter Park Drive would be fully reconstructed and upgraded. Additional signal enhancements are planned at other existing signals throughout the corridor.

Design of the project is expected to be completed in Fall 2027 at a cost of $1.6 million. Construction is estimated to cost $10.4 million and is expected to be funded by early 2028.

FDOT will hold an open house to discuss the project on Thursday from 5:30 - 7 p.m. at the Longwood Community Building, located at 200 W. Warren Ave.

Moscow's forces have in recent months intensified their ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, exploiting Ukraine's chronic shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defense interceptors, the sole weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down the missiles.

Large-scale Russian missile strikes have become a regular occurrence this summer. Just over two weeks ago, a Russian attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people, and nine were killed in the city two days before that. The United Nations said last week that Kyiv was one of the hardest hit cities in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 injured.

At the same time, Ukraine has shifted the war onto Russian soil through long-range drone strikes on oil facilities that have caused fuel shortages across the country. It has also unsettled the Russian public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer.

Zelenskyy repeats his appeals for more air defense

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded for countries to send more Patriot interceptors for defense, but international stockpiles are low amid the Iran war and Kyiv's more than four-year fight against Russia's all-out invasion.

Russia's overnight barrage also included cruise missiles and jet-powered drones that further strain air defenses, Ukraine's air force said.

Explosions boomed across Kyiv in the dark, but the air force said hits were recorded at 28 locations across the country. Emergency services said 15 people were killed in the capital, with another death in the wider Kyiv region. About 40 people were wounded, Zelenskyy said, as air raid warnings lasted until after dawn.

More than 38,000 people, including over 2,000 children, sheltered in Kyiv’s subway stations overnight, the system's operator said.

“It was a massive attack,” Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that Russia “had been preparing (it) for a long time, combining different types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, aiming to cause as much damage as possible to civilian infrastructure."

The Russian Defense Ministry said it struck a Kyiv industrial site manufacturing components for Flamingo cruise missiles. Sites involved in the production and storage of drones, an ammunition depot and a logistics center were also hit, it said.

Russia is able to produce more than 200 cruise and ballistic missiles per month, Ukraine’s intelligence agency told news outlet Ukrainska Pravda in comments published Thursday. It has stockpiled more than 1,100 cruise missiles and about 130 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, as well as hundreds of missiles of other types, the agency was quoted as saying.

It was not possible to independently verify the report, and Russian officials do not routinely answer questions about the country's arsenal.

Ukraine says it struck more Russian oil facilities

Russia and Ukraine have battered each other with drones and missiles as their armies struggle to gain the upper hand on the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, in Russia’s Tatarstan region, starting a fire, and the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal in Volna, in Russia’s Krasnodar region, where there was also a blaze. Ukraine has hit both facilities in recent months as part of its campaign to disrupt Russia’s vital oil industry.

Tatarstan leader Rustam Minnikhanov confirmed there had been a “massive attack” in the region, state news agency Tass reported, citing his press service. Many of the drones targeted Nizhnekamsk’s Zakamsk economic area, disrupting production at industrial sites and damaging residential buildings, Tass quoted him as saying.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 726 drones overnight over a number of Russian regions, annexed Crimea and the Black and Azov seas, in one of Ukraine's biggest aerial attacks of the war.

Ukraine's neighbors are on alert

Russia’s relentless onslaught has spooked other European countries, especially those bordering Ukraine, which fear spreading attacks from Moscow.

Amid the attack on Kyiv, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command activated its military aviation operations, ground-based air defense systems and radar reconnaissance. Polish and other NATO military aircraft were deployed to monitor its airspace, Polish news agency PAP reported.

Romania’s Defense Ministry said an unidentified drone crashed and burned in an uninhabited area near the Ukrainian border. Two Spanish F-18 jets, deployed on a policing mission in Romania, were scrambled overnight to monitor a group of “air targets” near the border, the ministry said.

In addition, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets were deployed to destroy a naval drone seen near a major Black Sea gas project, Romania’s acting Defense Minister Radu Miruta said.

Moldova’s Defense Ministry also said its airspace was breached by at least one drone.

Russia “is increasingly testing the resolve of NATO and its partners, violating the sovereignty of neighboring states and deliberately expanding the risks posed by its war far beyond Ukraine," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saw a broad threat to the European Union. “An escalating campaign of threats is underway, unsettling our citizens and seeking to divide our Union,” she said on X.

Explosions shatter windows and screams fill the air

Russia's overnight strikes hit 12 locations across Kyiv’s Darnytskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts, damaging 30 apartment blocks, a school, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten, Zelenskyy said.

Larysa Bondaruk, 60, sat on the ground, holding her cat, Chanel, which had been rescued by firefighters. With tears in her eyes, she said her neighbor’s grandson had been trapped by the rubble and died. Her apartment was badly damaged.

“A rocket hit the roof. It was incredibly loud. Immediately, debris and doors were blown out. There were columns of smoke, columns of fire, screams, crying and despair,” she said. “Two people were killed in our building, but the rescuers responded quickly and professionally. I am grateful to them for that.”

In Solomianskyi district, the top two floors of a nine-story residential building were destroyed and fires broke out on other floors. People were also trapped in two residential buildings and a school shelter.

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AP reporters Vasilisa Stepanenko and Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, contributed.

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

An analysis by The Associated Press and Reporter Brasil of all National Mining Agency records through June shows that rare earth exploration applications have surged, with more than 86% filed in the past three years, including 268 in the first half of 2026.

The interest is already raising environmental concerns for the Amazon and other areas.

Here are takeaways from the story:

The US and others are seeking alternatives to China

Rare earth minerals are a group of chemicals essential in digital and defense technologies, used in electronics, magnets and batteries. They are also used in wind turbines and electric vehicle motors, critical to the transition away from fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal that cause global warming. The International Energy Agency estimated in 2022 that demand for rare earths could increase at least threefold by 2040.

China has nearly half of the world’s reserves and dominates global processing. Brazil has the second-largest reserves and is becoming increasingly attractive to investors seeking alternatives to China after Beijing restricted exports last year.

By reviewing all National Mining Agency records in Brazil through June, the AP-Reporter Brasil analysis found that foreign investors are driving the growing interest in rare earth exploration, accounting for more than four in 10 applications.

Australian and U.S. firms dominate the interest. Among recent deals was the acquisition of Serra Verde, Brazil’s only commercial rare earth producer, by a U.S.-backed company.

Chinese firms had not filed any rare earth exploration applications in Brazil as of June, but they are positioning themselves in the sector. Last year, state-owned China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group acquired tin producer Mineracao Taboca and announced plans to assess rare earth potential at its Amazon mine. Separately, Shenghe Resources signed an agreement with Brazilian partners WEG Mineracao and Fenrir do Brasil to pursue rare earth projects, including one in Minas Gerais.

New mining push could impact communities and ecosystems

At least a quarter of the applications overlap with or are within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of protected areas and Indigenous territories, including in the Amazon, according to the Energy Transition Observatory, a collaboration among researchers and Reporter Brasil. Experts say mining projects within this buffer zone can cause environmental damage.

Depending on what is mined, toxic chemicals can be released and radioactive waste generated. Other potential impacts include deforestation and polluted water seeping into rivers and lakes, which can poison fish populations, as well as air pollution and noise.

In Goias state, in central Brazil, a small Afro-Brazilian community overlaps with mining claims by the Canadian firm Aclara Resources, which last year secured $5 million in project development financing from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

Aclara in a statement said its project initially overlapped with the community’s territory, but “no mining activities will take place there.” Still, residents fear operations that could start as early as 2028 could affect local springs and wildlife.

Brazil is considering safeguards around foreign influence

“The challenge today is that China dominates processing and refining,” said Brazilian lawmaker Zé Silva, author of pending legislation that would establish a federal policy on critical minerals and rare earths, set investment priorities and create a national council to monitor significant foreign influence in the sector. “Under our proposal, companies are welcome to invest, but they must transfer technology to Brazil, including processing capacity.”

On Monday, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the Senate would move forward with the proposed law, to defend national interests.

“We will not allow anyone from outside to come here and exploit our mineral resources, because we want their processing and transformation to happen here,” Lula said.

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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.

Reporters Without Borders said that filmmakers Gaël Mocaër and Sebastian Perez Pezzani and fixer Fred Vedomey were placed in pretrial detention Monday and charged with making “false declarations” in immigration procedures.

The Paris-based media freedom group, known by its French acronym RSF, called for their immediate release.

Mocaër and Perez Pezzani were filming an episode of a documentary series for a French public television network when police arrested the three on July 27 in Kara, northern Togo, RSF said.

Northern Togo has been plagued in recent years by attacks from armed groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

The detentions come as Togo has moved closer to Russia and to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, three military-led countries that have expelled or sidelined French forces and strengthened relations with Moscow.

Russia and Togo signed a military cooperation agreement last year providing for joint exercises and military training.

Togo has also restricted French media. In June 2025, authorities suspended broadcasts by French international outlets Radio France Internationale and France 24 for three months, accusing them of inaccurate and biased reporting during their coverage of protests against leader Faure Gnassingbé.

RSF said that the filmmakers charged on Monday had applied for work visas and received authorization from Togo’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Arts.

Culture Minister Isaac Tchiakpé rejected RSF’s assertion that the filmmakers had received authorization from his ministry to carry out the documentary shoot.

“They would not have been detained if they had had the proper authorizations and followed the required procedures,” Tchiakpé told The Associated Press.

Togo’s media regulator, the HARC, said it had received no accreditation request from the filmmakers or France Télévisions, and hadn't been informed of their filming in northern Togo.

RSF said that police seized the crew’s equipment and detained the three, briefly releasing them July 30 before rearresting them and transferring them to the capital, Lomé.

RSF called the proceedings “unjustified” and “disproportionate,” and said that Perez Pezzani has serious health problems requiring immediate medical attention.

The Grand Slam Player Advisory Council was announced Thursday by the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. It will begin following the final major of the year, which begins next week in New York.

Players have been seeking a larger share of revenues from the Grand Slams, along with better representation, health options and pensions. Some limited their media appearances at the French Open and Wimbledon as a protest, with top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff among the stars who even threatened a potential boycott of the Slams before play began in Paris if they didn’t start receiving more compensation.

“The Grand Slams are the biggest events of the year and the events that the players prioritize and focus on throughout the season," American Jessica Pegula, the No. 3-ranked woman, said in a statement. "Their impact on a player’s career cannot be overstated, and that is why it is so important that we have a voice in matters at these tournaments."

The Grand Slams said the goal of the council will be to strengthen the partnership between the tournaments and the players, with a focus on player input into sporting matters at the events.

The tournaments and players are currently developing the composition and structure of the council. Interested players will be invited to apply for positions.

Along with matters that affect the Grand Slams collectively, the council will provide a forum for players to discuss things such as prize money and player welfare with each of the tournaments individually.

The Australian Open, French Open and U.S. Open are operated by non-profit governing bodies. Wimbledon is run by the private All England Club.

“We have listened to the players’ desire for a greater voice and this advisory council is an important step toward a stronger relationship between the Grand Slams and the players," said Deborah Jevans, chair of the All England Club. "We look forward to working together to elevate the player experience, further enhance the Grand Slam tournaments and ensure the sport continues to thrive.”

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See AP’s full tennis coverage here

In the latest such instance, the social media giant is fighting allegations in a California federal court that it contributes to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately and stealthily designing features to get children hooked on its platforms Instagram and Facebook. Four states are seeking billions of dollars in damages as well as fundamental changes to how Meta runs those apps.

Children’s mental health, and what they do and see on social media, are all issues “Meta takes seriously and tries to act on,” Paul Schmidt, a lawyer for the tech giant, said in opening statements this week.

Critics say the company's safety record falls short and that many of its protections simply don’t work.

They include Marc Berkman, executive director at the Organization for Social Media Safety, who said Meta introduced safeguards promising to protect children in response to public pressure rather than out of concern.

There’s been a “lack of real institutional willingness to act here,” Berkman said.

Here’s a look at some of the changes Meta has introduced, along with the work advocates say could still be done.

Access to users and content-focused protections

Most of the changes Meta has introduced focus on addressing harassment and offensive content.

Instagram users have always been able to block others — and, along with Meta’s oldest crown jewel, Facebook — the app has gradually added features for reporting problematic accounts and inappropriate content.

In 2016, Instagram users were given the option to delete or filter comments they found offensive, and later added warnings that prompted users to reconsider posting potentially harmful content, as well as options to limit comments and tags on their posts.

Meta also says it prevents adults from starting private chats with teens if they are not already connected, and has increased checks to make sure users under 13 — the minimum age for holding a Facebook or Instagram account — aren't online. Schmidt said in his opening remarks that Meta recognizes some users still sign up using incorrect birthdays but that the company takes enforcement of age limits seriously.

The company says it also posts warnings and resources at the top of Instagram search results related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, and touts its “Teen Accounts,” launched in 2024, as a safe space for teenagers online. It aligns photo and video restrictions for teen accounts with those for a PG-13 movie, unless there’s parental permission otherwise.

Critics complain these changes amount to little more than corporate posturing.

A September 2025 report from former employee and whistleblower Arturo Béjar and four online safety advocacy nonprofits accused Meta of not taking “real steps” to address youth safety, instead opting for “splashy headlines about new tools for parents and Instagram Teen Accounts for underage users.”

“We really found that overall what Meta was marketing under Teen Accounts was very lacking in actual protections,” said Haley Hinkle, policy counsel at Fairplay, which co-authored the report. They evaluated 47 of Meta’s 53 safety features for teens on Instagram and found 60% of them were either not available or didn't work as advertised, Hinkle said.

Meta called the report's findings “misleading” and “dangerously speculative.”

Scrolling and core design

Researchers say Meta's efforts to reduce the risk of children becoming addicted to the scrolling features of social media platforms have been largely unsuccessful.

Ashley Shea, a Ph.D. candidate specializing in social media and online spaces at Cornell University, points to what academics call “attention-capture deceptive designs” that are not exclusive to Meta's platforms. They include infinite scrolling, “casino style” pulls to refresh content, push notifications and algorithmic recommendations. Those features “prey on the cognitive vulnerabilities” of young people with developing brains, in particular the need to feel rewarded.

Meta has taken important steps to address problematic content, cyberbullies and sexual predators, Shea said, but she has not seen the same level of effort to offset the addictive impact of attention-capture deceptive designs.

Nudges and time management controls

“There’s no question that some teens struggle to manage their time with social media,” Schmidt said Tuesday, adding that Meta’s time management tools prove its evolution on the issue. Those tools include parental supervision controls and in-app “nudges” for teen users who repeatedly look at the same type of content or spend too long on Instagram or Facebook late at night.

Hinkle notes the “entirely voluntary” time management tools are not easy to set up, and amount to “far too little too late.”

Béjar, the former Meta employee and whistleblower, agrees. In testimony Wednesday, he said a tool called “Take a Break” is “designed to fail.” Users have to turn the feature on themselves and, he said, very few do.

Across the board, tech companies exist to maximize revenue, said Berkman, and for almost every social media platform today, that means “maximizing children using their features for as long as they can.”

Legal challenges focused on “the fact that these are defective products by design because of their features, not the content per se” is something new, Shea added. And beyond the courtroom, mounting pressure on lawmakers could bring more industrywide changes.

“The momentum only continues to grow,” she said. “Ultimately, these are for-profit companies that respond to economic pressures. And so I think that the more economic pressure they’re confronted with through these litigations, the quicker they will have to adapt.”

“Accountability, integrity and motivating others,” said Quentin McCree, CEO of Pure Pressure Cheer and Dance.

The organization, which began in 2023, serves girls who leaders say are often surrounded by difficult circumstances.

“Pressure makes diamonds,” McCree said.

Martavia Brown, the program’s assistant director, said Pure Pressure provides an outlet for girls who may feel limited by their surroundings.

“At times in this community, we feel captured—imprisoned—to what society has already planned for them,” Brown said. “Us being an outlet gives them a different perspective, a different meaning to life.”

But the program faces pressure of its own. Leaders say they spend thousands of dollars on competitions and already pay out more money than they bring in. They also lack a permanent building for practices, forcing the girls to train in intense heat.

“They pass out,” Brown said. “It has been very difficult.”

As a way to give the girls a break from the heat, the coach and staff tell the girls to hop in the cars they rode in, that are parked nearby where they practice.

Pure Pressure is now working to become a nonprofit. Leaders say that status could help them secure funding, including money to purchase or lease a building.

“To be an impact so they don’t become a statistic of society,” said Brown.

Leaders say the program is already making an impact. They report that participants are earning better grades, and some parents have noticed changes in their children’s confidence and behavior.

“Better grades—even parents are seeing a difference in their kids from when they were enclosed and now they’re opening up,” Brown said.

Twelve-year-old Tija Dansey said she was bullied at school and struggled with insecurity before joining Pure Pressure. She said the program has taught her to encourage herself.

“Look in the mirror, tell yourself you’re good and you can do all you can,” Dansey said.

She also appreciates having a place where she can be herself.

“Everybody doesn’t have this opportunity right in their community. You might have to go somewhere else,” Dansey said. “You can just be you here.”

The team leaders say they want to continue giving Parramore girls a safe space to grow while working toward a permanent home for the program.

Right now, the team is hosting a shoe collection. They’re asking the community to donate new or gently worn men’s and women’s shoes for the young ladies to use in practice.

Shoes can be dropped off on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6 p.m. at Z Riley Park in Parramore, where the girls practice.

In 2022, the federal agency had imposed a ban on imports of sugar and other products made by Central Romana Corporation, Ltd., accusing the company of isolating workers, withholding wages and fostering abusive working and living conditions.

The ban, however, was lifted last year under the Trump administration, sparking an outcry that was revived when the nonprofit Corporate Accountability Lab published a report Tuesday noting that forced labor persists. The report was published following more than three years’ worth of investigations.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, sent a letter Thursday to Customs and Border Protection requesting information behind the reversal of the ban. He accused the agency of appearing “to have abruptly abandoned its own established administrative procedures.”

“Circumventing standard trade enforcement processes for politically connected, billionaire-owned corporations undermines the integrity of U.S. trade policy,” Wyden wrote.

He requested administrative records, final recommendations and other documents related to the case.

The Associated Press sought comment from the agency, which acknowledged the emailed request but had not yet commented.

“Ensuring that U.S. trade enforcement mechanisms are immune from political interference and adhere to statutory requirements is critical to ensuring that forced labor does not illegally enter the supply chain of goods unwittingly bought by American businesses and consumers,” Wyden wrote.

Sheriff’s office investigators obtained images of Fultz placing a gun in his ex-girlfriend’s mouth and pointing it at the back of her head during consensual sex acts, making an inappropriate Facetime call from his patrol car while wearing his uniform, and appearing to perform a “Nazi salute” in a photograph captured shortly before he was hired as a deputy, records show.

Fultz, 24, was also accused of using racially insensitive language and improperly accessing the agency’s Flock camera license plate reader system to look up his ex-girlfriend’s tag number.

When Fultz was pulled over by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper in February for allegedly speeding 111 mph on his motorcycle while off duty, the deputy was issued a civil citation instead of being arrested for a misdemeanor under Florida’s “Super Speeder” law.

After Sheriff Wayne Ivey signed off on an internal investigation in May and expressed his intent to terminate the Deputy of the Year, Fultz resigned.

“First and foremost, I want to apologize to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, the men and women I served alongside, my family, and the citizens of Brevard County for the embarrassment and negative attention my actions have caused,” Fultz wrote in a statement to News 6. “Becoming a deputy was a dream of mine, and I will always be grateful to Sheriff Ivey and BCSO for giving me the opportunity to fulfill that dream.”

The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office hired Fultz as a probationary deputy in September 2024, a spokesperson said.

Seven months later, in April 2025, Fultz fatally shot a suicidal man who charged at him with a knife as the deputy responded to a disturbance at the man’s home, the agency reported at the time.

That incident prompted the sheriff to honor Fultz as the 2025 Deputy of the Year and award him the Medal of Valor during the agency’s annual award ceremony in March.

“Tonight we are proud to recognize an individual who, when faced with an immediate and life-threatening crisis, acted with profound courage and professional poise,” a video shown during the ceremony stated. “Deputy Fultz’s decisive actions, and extraordinary restraint under extreme pressure undoubtedly saved the life of a frightened mother while also protecting himself from grave harm.”

On the same day as the awards ceremony, records show Fultz’s ex-girlfriend sent an email to the sheriff’s office detailing numerous allegations against the deputy.

“My intention in providing this information is not to pursue personal retaliation but to ensure the agency is aware of conduct that, in my understanding, may conflict with departmental policies or professional standards,” the email stated.

The sheriff’s office immediately launched an administrative investigation into Fultz.

While the agency was unable to prove some of the allegations made by Fultz’s ex-girlfriend, records show Fultz acknowledged his involvement in many of the incidents she described.

A photograph, reportedly taken in 2023 before Fultz was hired as a deputy, showed Fultz’s mustache “shaved in what appears to be an attempt to mimic Adolf Hitler, and he appears to be performing a Nazi salute”, investigators wrote.

Fultz admitted to posing for the photo but “denied being racist and stated that the photograph was merely a joke”, records show.

Fultz, who is white, also confirmed the authenticity of text messages provided by the ex-girlfriend showing him repeatedly using the N-word.

“Deputy Fultz stated he grew up in a foster home with black parents and siblings, and the words became normal to use,” investigators wrote. “Deputy Fultz agreed that as a law enforcement officer, he should not use any words or slurs that are derogatory, even if that is not his intention. Deputy Fultz also denied ever hearing any other BCSO deputies use the word or making racially motivated jokes.”

Fultz confirmed images provided by his ex-girlfriend showed him putting a gun in her mouth and pointing it at the back of her head while they were having sex, records show.

Although the ex-girlfriend told investigators the sexual activity was “completely consensual”, the report states she later realized it was “alarming behavior, especially for a deputy sheriff.”

Fultz told investigators the gun used in the sex acts was his personally owned firearm, records show.

But sheriff’s investigators said the weapon resembled the agency-issued handgun assigned to Fultz immediately after the April 2025 fatal shooting.

“Deputy Fultz admitted to ignoring all firearm safety training that he had received,” investigators wrote.

The ex-girlfriend also gave sheriff’s investigators screenshots from a Facetime video call showing Fultz, in uniform, seated in his patrol vehicle.

Although she claimed the images showed Fultz performing a sex act on himself, sheriff’s investigators said the images were not clear enough to definitively conclude what Fultz was doing.

“Deputy Fultz denied ever masturbating on duty and claimed that he was only ‘pretending’ to masturbate while on the video call,” a report states.

Fultz’s ex-girlfriend told investigators that Fultz once discussed “watching her” on the agency’s Flock camera license plate reader system, but she did not know for certain whether he had tracked her vehicle’s location.

When sheriff’s investigators later audited the agency’s Flock system, they determined Fultz had searched his ex-girlfriend’s license plate on one occasion prior to the start of his shift, records show. The Flock search was documented as being for “investigation” purposes.

“Deputy Fultz denied checking her vehicle registration to spy on her or out of revenge but could not provide any reason as to why he queried her vehicle registration tag while off duty,” investigators wrote.

Although some police officers have faced criminal charges for misusing law enforcement databases for personal reasons, there is no indication that Fultz was criminally investigated. When News 6 inquired about it with the sheriff’s office, a spokesperson referred to the administrative investigation report, which does not mention a criminal probe.

Sheriff’s investigators learned Fultz was stopped by other law enforcement agencies on at least four occasions in two months while riding his motorcycle off duty. Fultz then failed to report those traffic stops to supervisors as required by agency policy, records show.

A Florida Highway Patrol trooper said he documented Fultz’s motorcycle speeding 111 mph down U.S. 192 near Melbourne in February, the report states.

News 6 obtained video of the traffic stop, which can be viewed here.

Under Florida’s Dangerous Excessive Speeding Act – commonly known as the “Super Speeder” law – law enforcement can arrest motorists who drive 100 mph or more in a manner that threatens the safety of other persons or property.

Instead of arresting Fultz for a misdemeanor offense, records show FHP issued the deputy a civil traffic citation for travelling 6-9 miles over the speed limit. Fultz later paid a $155 fine.

“Trooper (Joshua) Provencher was aware that Deputy Fultz’s speed, along with the traffic conditions which made his speed a danger to other drivers, met the statutory criminal requirements for the new ‘super speeder law’,” sheriff’s investigators wrote. “Deputy Fultz admitted the speeds at which he was travelling did violate the ‘super speeder’ law, and he was aware that BCSO and FHP were in a current campaign to aggressively curtail excessive and unlawful speeding.”

FHP did not respond to questions from News 6 about the traffic stop.

Fultz was stopped twice by the Melbourne Police Department for having an intentionally concealed license plate on his motorcycle but was not ticketed for it, records show. Fultz claimed the license plate had been hidden for a photo shoot.

After sheriff’s officials ordered Fultz to keep his motorcycle tag visible, records show Fultz was recorded by surveillance cameras leaving the sheriff’s office parking lot with no license plate attached.

Fultz submitted his resignation on May 27, after the administrative investigation was completed.

“The nature and severity of your misconduct has irreparably damaged the trust required to perform the duties of a deputy sheriff, and present an unacceptable risk to you, citizens, operations, reputation, and potential liability for the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office,” Ivey wrote in a memo to Fultz.

A sheriff’s office spokesperson told News 6 there was nothing in Fultz’s job application or background check that the agency should have reviewed further before hiring him.

Fultz provided the following statement to News 6 in response to this story:

Statement Regarding My Resignation from BCSO

First and foremost, I want to apologize to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, the men and women I served alongside, my family, and the citizens of Brevard County for the embarrassment and negative attention my actions have caused.

Becoming a deputy was a dream of mine, and I will always be grateful to Sheriff Ivey and BCSO for giving me the opportunity to fulfill that dream. Serving the citizens of Brevard County was something I took tremendous pride in. I worked alongside people I have an incredible amount of respect for, and I will always be thankful for the experiences and opportunities I was given. Receiving the Medal of Valor and being named Deputy of the Year are honors I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

I also have to own my mistakes. I was young, made some stupid decisions, and exercised poor judgment in areas of my personal and professional life. There are things I said and decisions I made that I am embarrassed by today and would handle completely differently. I take responsibility for the actions that were mine, and I sincerely apologize to the people I disappointed.

At the same time, I do not agree with every allegation or conclusion contained in the administrative investigation. The investigation originated from a complaint involving a former girlfriend following the end of our relationship, and not every allegation made during that process was substantiated. There is significantly more context surrounding the circumstances that led to the complaint than can be conveyed through an investigative report or news story.

Even after my resignation and departure from law enforcement, aspects of this situation have continued publicly, including comments about the effect the complaint and investigation had on my life and career. Some of those comments have been difficult to see, particularly when consequences that fundamentally changed my life have been treated lightly or as entertainment. I believe those statements and actions speak for themselves.

I could respond by publicly releasing private communications, screenshots, and other details or by making accusations of my own. I am choosing not to do that. I am not interested in turning this into an ongoing public dispute. My responsibility is to answer for my own actions, not anyone else’s.

None of that excuses the mistakes that were mine. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the original complaint, I was responsible for my own decisions. The investigation reached its conclusions, my career with BCSO ended, and I accept that outcome.

I deeply regret that my time with BCSO ended the way it did, but I will never regret serving there. I remain proud of the good I was able to do, particularly during the critical incident that ultimately resulted in my receiving the Medal of Valor and being named Deputy of the Year.

This experience has humbled me and taught me lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I cannot change my mistakes or the outcome of the investigation. What I can do is take responsibility for what was mine, learn from it, make better decisions, and move forward with my life.

I genuinely wish Sheriff Ivey, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, and the men and women who continue serving Brevard County nothing but success. I will always be grateful for the opportunity I was given to serve the citizens of Brevard County, and I am now focused on moving forward with the next chapter of my life.

Michael Fultz

At this year’s D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, Imagineers have traded big reveals for bigger details, offering a closer look at some of the projects underway at Disney World as well as some surprise announcements.

Here’s a breakdown of the big Disney World announcements in the Disney Experiences Showcase.

Magic Kingdom

Villains Land

During Destination D23 2025 at Walt Disney World, the only update fans received on the highly anticipated Villains Land was that Imagineers had traveled to Europe for architectural inspiration.

Now, the picture is getting a little more clearer.

At D23 2026, Walt Disney Imagineering officially confirmed the name: Villains Land.

The land’s storyline centers on a corrupted Wishing Well deep in a foreboding forest, where Disney’s most iconic villains have gathered to claim its dark magic and build their own sinister lairs.

Two headline attractions were detailed. The first is a roller coaster set around Maleficent’s mountaintop fortress, promising elements Imagineers say they’ve never attempted before.

The second is a dark ride hosted by the Magic Mirror, transporting guests into a mystical “Mirror Realm” filled with classic Disney Villains brought to life through special effects and physical set pieces.

Imagineers compared Villains Land’s size and scale to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Piston Peak

Walt Disney Imagineers pulled back the curtain on two new attractions coming to Piston Peak National Park in Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland: Cars Ridge Run Rally and Miss Fritter’s Daredevil Spin-Along.

The level of detail packed into the land is staggering — from snow-capped mountain peaks and roaring geyser fields to rugged mud flats and tree-covered trails, every inch of Piston Peak is designed to immerse guests in the world of Disney and Pixar’s “Cars”.

Imagineers are even using “Parkitecture,” an architectural style developed by the National Park Service, to ensure the land’s buildings blend seamlessly into the surrounding landscape.

Cars Ridge Run Rally will also debut a completely new ride vehicle designed to actually drive over terrain, so guests will feel every bump, drop, and rock along the course.

Carousel of Progress

Walt Disney World’s Carousel of Progress is getting its most significant update in decades, and it’s coming with some star power.

Disney Legend Jamie Lee Curtis and Emmy-winning actor Bryan Cranston will take on the iconic roles of mom and dad as the beloved Magic Kingdom attraction is updated for a new generation.

Cranston and Curtis join a refreshed version of the show that will feature all-new time periods, a new scene set in the 1980s and an Audio-Animatronic version of Walt Disney himself.

The updated attraction is set to debut in late spring 2027.

Disney Legend Jamie Lee Curtis and Emmy-winning actor Bryan Cranston will voice Mom and Dad in Carousel of Progress at Magic Kingdom 🏰 #D23 #WaltDisneyWorld pic.twitter.com/1MZvwhiUxZ

— Disney Parks (@DisneyParks) August 16, 2026

EPCOT

Spaceship Earth

EPCOT’s iconic Spaceship Earth is getting its first update in nearly 20 years.

Disney Imagineer Ali Rubinstein revealed at D23 that the reimagined attraction will shift its focus from human communication to the broader theme of human connection, bringing the geodesic sphere into the internet age and beyond.

Reimagination, Reimagination

As a surprise finale to the Disney Experiences Showcase, Disney saved one of its most anticipated announcements for last, teasing a reimagined version of Journey Into Imagination With Figment and promising the long-awaited return of Dreamfinder alongside the iconic purple dragon.

The current version of the attraction has been running for 24 years, outlasting the original Journey Into Imagination, which ran for 15 years after opening in 1983.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Monstropolis

Disney revealed that parts of Monstropolis at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will open to guests in 2027, giving fans their first look at the highly anticipated land inspired by Disney and Pixar’s “Monsters, Inc”.

The new land will feature a show called “Welcome to Monstropolis” at the Glob Theater, hosted by Mike and Sulley, along with dining at the iconic Harryhausen’s restaurant — complete with a sushi chef Audio-Animatronics figure — and Archie’s Scare Pig Pizza.

The land’s headlining door coaster will lift guests 40 feet in the air in just four seconds before launching them directly into the iconic door vault, and Disney Legend Randy Newman composed an original song for the land, marking the first time he has written a song specifically for a Disney theme park.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Yeti alert

In what might be considered a surprise announcement at D23, Disney revealed the Yeti Audio-Animatronic is coming back to life inside Expedition Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

The beloved creature, which anchors the finale of the high-speed mountain ride, has long been out of commission — leaving guests with little more than a strobe light effect in place of the iconic beast.

Tropical Americas

Why did it have to be snakes? Why not?!

Disney Imagineers announced the name of the upcoming Indiana Jones attraction at Animal Kingdom: Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent.

Set in the new Tropical Americas land, the ride will take guests on a thrilling journey through ancient Maya ruins — complete with monstrous bats, oversized scorpions, and plenty of snakes.

Disney Legend Harrison Ford is also serving as the model for the attraction’s Audio-Animatronics figure, marking the first time his likeness will appear on a Disney attraction anywhere in the world.

For the new Pueblo Esperanza land, Disney Imagineers revealed the official name of the upcoming Encanto attraction: Antonio’s Fiesta de Encanto.

The ride celebrates Antonio’s magical gift of communicating with animals — a fitting nod to Animal Kingdom’s dedication to the animal world — and invites guests into Casita as part of a joyful celebration of his gift day.

The Ervebo vaccine is licensed for use against Ebola virus, one of the viruses that cause Ebola disease, but not for Bundibugyo virus, which is responsible for the current outbreak which has so far killed 2,476 people out of the 5,208 confirmed cases

WHO said in a statement that while it’s not known whether Ervebo may protect against the Bundibugyo virus, “early laboratory and animal data suggest it may provide some protection.”

The allocation includes 20,000 doses for a Phase 3 clinical trial to understand the impact of the vaccine on the Bundibugyo virus, the agency said. The remaining 50,000 doses will be used for front-line and health workers as recommended by WHO experts.

The outbreak raging in six provinces in eastern Congo has infected and killed more people at a greater speed than any other Ebola outbreak in history, and is spreading about three times faster compared to the 2014-2016 outbreak across West Africa — the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record with more than 11,000 deaths.

The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision, which includes WHO and other partners, said the doses will be released immediately following a request from Congo’s government.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the approval “an important example of global solidarity in action.” He said the agency and its partners remain committed to supporting strengthened surveillance, rapid detection, quality care, community engagement and vaccination efforts to bring the outbreak under control.

The lack of approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus has been a major issue for responders. Most new cases have been reported outside of the people being monitored, showing the virus continues to spread faster than efforts to track it. That has been a key contributor to the recorded deaths.

The case fatality rate so far is 47.5% although it is far worse in some places where response efforts are more challenging, such as in North Kivu province where the fatality rate is up to 70%.

Experts believe the virus began spreading from the mining town of Mongbwalu as early as February, months before authorities declared the outbreak on May 15.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims dropped to 206,000 last week from a revised 212,000 the week before. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week ups and downs, ticked up to 204,000 last week from 199,750.

Claims for jobless benefits are a proxy for layoffs, and economists watch them because they can be a harbinger for where the job market is headed. For the past year, claims have been at a historically low range of around 200,000 to 230,000 a week.

“The labor market has yet to show any sign of wear and tear from the surge in oil prices since the start of the war with Iran and the global energy supply shock,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a commentary.

The number of people collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended Aug. 8 rose to 1.8 million from 1.78 million the week before.

The U.S. unemployment rate is low at 4.1%, partly because the economy has proved resilient in the face of higher energy prices. But it’s also because President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and the ongoing retirement of baby boomers mean that fewer people are competing for jobs: More than 1.3 million people have dropped out of the U.S. labor force over the past year.

The job market is tough for those looking for their first job and for those who lost their jobs and are looking for new work. At the same time, companies, remembering the worker shortages that followed the end of COVID-19 lockups, are still reluctant to let go of staff; but they aren’t eager to take on new workers. Economists regularly refer to a “no hire, no fire″ job market.

In July, companies, government agencies and nonprofits together cut 23,000 jobs. So far this year, employers are adding 61,000 jobs a month. That is an improvement on the 9,700 they averaged last year — the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002. The lingering effects of high interest rates and Trump’s erratic trade policies discouraged companies from hiring in 2025.

Hiring this year remains well below the 166,00 monthly jobs created, on average, in 2023 and 2024, let alone the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed pandemic lockdowns.

The couple's children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, have already enrolled at British schools and will start classes in September, according to a person close to the Sussexes who was not authorized to speak publicly. The family plans to live at a private, non-royal residence outside of London, but plans to maintain their home in Montecito, California, and their vacation property in Portugal.

The Daily Telegraph first reported the story. When asked to discuss the reports by the AP at a roundtable event with U.S. veterans in Washington Wednesday night, Harry replied, "Nothing to say.”

Harry and Meghan gave up their royal duties and moved to California more than six years ago to earn their living through lucrative contracts with Netflix and Spotify. Although relations with the rest of the royal family have soured since then, Harry has recently expressed an interest in reconciliation so he could spend more time with his father, King Charles III, who is being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer.

Charles was informed of the couple's plans on Sunday. Harry and Meghan visited the U.K. last month.

Buckingham Palace has a policy of not commenting on speculation about non-working members of the royal family. A representative for Harry and Meghan declined to comment.

According to a source close to the Sussexes, Meghan will continue heading her As Ever company from the U.K., while Harry can spend more time working with his U.K.-based charities.

Harry and Meghan have had a stormy relationship with the royal family ever since they decamped to a mansion in the exclusive Southern California enclave of Montecito.

In a series of interviews and Harry's memoir “Spare,” the couple said they left Britain to escape the restrictions of royal life and criticized palace officials for being insensitive to Meghan's mental health while alleging that at least one member of the royal family had expressed racist views when she was pregnant with their first child. Meghan describes herself as biracial.

Those tensions were exacerbated by Harry's long-running legal battle with Britain's tabloid newspapers, which he alleges illegally hacked his phones and invaded his privacy when he was younger.

The prince recently lost a lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail, though he won a 2023 judgment that condemned the publisher of the Daily Mirror for phone hacking. He also reached a settlement with the publisher of the Sun, which apologized for intruding on his life and agreed to pay substantial damages.

The latest trial has left Harry facing a potential bill for millions of pounds after the court ruled he and other plaintiffs in the case were liable for the publisher's legal fees. Associated Newspapers has filed documents showing that its legal costs amounted to 34.5 million pounds ($47 million).

Harry has also been embroiled in a legal wrangle with the British government after a government committee refused to authorize police protection for the prince and his family when they are in the U.K. The prince says he and his family need armed police protection because they are at risk simply because they are members of the royal family, regardless of whether they are working royals.

After losing a court battle over the security issue last year, Harry said he hoped to rebuild relations with his family.

“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore,” Harry told the BBC. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

Last month, Harry returned to the U.K. for a series of charity engagements. Meghan and the children joined Harry for part of the visit and they spent time with the king at his Highgrove estate in western England. It was the first time Archie and Lilibet had seen their grandfather since the late Queen Elizabeth II's platinum jubilee in 2022.

While Harry has recently met with his father, there are no signs of a warming of relations with his brother, Prince William, the heir to the throne.

Peter Hunt, a former BBC royal correspondent, said the surprise announcement would make William “apoplectic.”

“In the short term, Harry will be able to deepen his rapprochement with his father," Hunt told Britain's Press Association. “And his presence back home will make it harder for his brother to duck a reconciliation."

___

Pollard reported from Washington.

Fletcher spoke to The Associated Press in an interview after a visit to the southern city of Kherson, where he witnessed how communities there are coping while living under the constant threat of Russian drones. Fletcher described the visit to Kherson, split by the Dnipro River, which acts as an active front line, as “quite chilling."

Russian forces occupy the eastern bank, while Ukrainian forces hold the western bank. From across the water, surveillance and exploding drones routinely hunt and attack civilians, vehicles and public transit.

“It really gives us an insight into the dangers ahead of us,” he said.

The threat is also making it harder for humanitarian organizations to reach people who need assistance.

Fletcher spoke after attending a commemoration for two humanitarian workers who had died while doing their jobs.

“Drones are a real threat to not just civilians but the humanitarians who are here to protect them,” Fletcher said.

He said that aid workers are protected under international humanitarian law and yet marked humanitarian vehicles have still been hit. “So that does restrict what we can do," he said.

Local organizations are particularly exposed. More than two-thirds of operations funded through Ukraine's humanitarian fund are carried out by local organizations, according to Fletcher.

“They’re the ones who are saying most loudly to us, we’re not protected,” he said.

Fletcher said the U.N. needs more than $2 billion for its prioritized humanitarian response in Ukraine this year, with winter among his biggest concerns. Damage to civilian infrastructure, including electricity, water and gas systems, could once again leave millions vulnerable during the harsh winter months, raising fears of a repeat of last winter’s severe conditions.

The U.N. has sharply narrowed its humanitarian priorities all over the world as donor funding has fallen. Fletcher said the organization initially identified 87 million people facing the most severe humanitarian needs, but that figure has since risen to about 92 million with the onslaught of Ebola in Africa, the earthquake in Venezuela and other conflicts.

The U.N. is seeking $23 billion to provide life-saving assistance to those people and had raised about $11 billion, said Fletcher.

Ukraine is relatively well funded compared with many other crises, he added, with roughly 70%–75% of its hyper-prioritized funding requirement covered. But even full funding of the humanitarian plan would address only part of Ukraine’s needs.

Fletcher also admitted that raising money for humanitarian operations has become more difficult as governments have increasingly redirected spending toward defense and domestic priorities.

“We’re in a more transactional world, I would say a more selfish world,” he said.

Fletcher said the U.N. now has to demonstrate that it is using limited taxpayer money efficiently and strategically.

“We have to show governments that we are spending their taxpayers’ money sensibly, wisely, in a prioritized way,” he said.

In a stark new assessment released on Wednesday, the U.N. warned that 907 aid workers were victims of violence last year and over 1,000 have been killed in three years. Fletcher said he could not reassure colleagues that those responsible would be held accountable based on how the international community has reacted.

He said accountability should extend beyond identifying the person who physically carried out an attack.

“I want to see investigations into the people who fired the weapon or flew the drone,” he said.

The decision marks a milestone in Evergrande's saga after it defaulted on more than $300 billion in liabilities when Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing in the real estate industry in 2020. That triggered a crunch among many developers and brought on a downturn in the property market that has weighed on the broader economy ever since.

The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court said Thursday it convicted 67-year-old Hui, who founded Evergrande, of engaging in large-scale financial fraud in inflating the group’s assets and concealing its liabilities.

In a statement, the court said Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, abused his position in orchestrating fraud and misappropriating company assets.

Evergrande group was fined 8.82 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) and Evergrande Real Estate Group was fined 7 billion yuan ($1.04 billion), the court said.

“The amount involved is exceptionally large, the circumstances are particularly egregious, and extraordinarily heavy economic losses have been caused,” the statement said. “The harm to society is extremely serious. Therefore, severe punishment should be given in accordance with the law.”

Hui’s sons, Xu Tenghe and Xu Zhijian, were also sentenced alongside senior Evergrande executives and others linked to the group on charges including illegally taking public deposits, fundraising fraud and the illegal use of funds, China's official Xinhua News Agency said. A total of more than 50 individuals got prison terms of between 22 months and 18 years, it said without providing a breakdown of sentencing details.

A photo of Hui's courtroom appearance released by the Shenzhen court on Thursday showed an aged Hui, who used to be a high-profile figure but had long been out of public view, wearing a navy blue shirt standing between two uniformed officers behind a sign that read “defendant” in Chinese.

Hui pleaded guilty in April to various charges including illegal absorption of public deposits, fraud and bribery after he was detained in China.

China Evergrande was founded in 1996 as China's housing boom was taking off. It defaulted on its debts in 2021 and was ordered to liquidate its assets. The broader downturn in China's massive property sector that ensued has pulled home prices down 20% or more since 2021.

Authorities in Hong Kong and mainland China earlier said their investigations found Evergrande had manipulated its financial data using tactics such as prematurely booking revenue from property sales before completion and delivery of the apartments to buyers. Revenues were overstated by roughly $80 billion over 2019 and 2020, they said.

Hui was fined 47 million yuan ($6.5 million) in 2024 and banned from China's securities markets for life by the China Securities Regulatory Commission over inflating company financial results, among other issues.

Once reported to be China’s richest man, Hui used to own the football club Guangzhou Evergrande. At one point, he and his companies were involved in investing in and building theme parks and electric vehicles.

His story was one of rags-to-riches. Born in 1958 into a rural family in central China's Henan province, he worked in the steel industry in the 1980s before establishing Evergrande, which then prospered during China's housing market boom. He was one of many businessmen who have also gained political influence by joining a major advisory organization, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

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Associated Press writer Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launches of about 10 short-range ballistic missiles happened from North Korea’s capital region around 5 p.m. (0800 GMT) on Thursday. The military said the missiles flew about 300 kilometers (185 miles) each toward North Korea’s eastern waters.

The military said South Korea has bolstered its surveillance posture and was closely coordinating information on the launches with the U.S. and Japan. South Korea’s presidential national security council issued a statement urging North Korea to halt ballistic missile launches.

The Japanese prime minister's office had earlier said that it detected a suspected missile launch.

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, just before they began Monday. Trump cited what he said was a good relationship with Kim and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.

On Wednesday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries confirmed they shortened the 11-day drills by shortening their duration by about half and canceling some field training exercises. The reduction of the exercises raised worries about the allies’ joint defense posture.

Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed Trump’s overture later Wednesday, saying “the provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”

“If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get the desired answer,” she said in a statement.

She denied Trump’s claim that Kim Jong Un had responded to his request for a conversation.

Kim Yo Jong still refrained from the typical North Korean reaction of fiery rhetoric and said personal relations between her brother and Trump are “still excellent.” That signals North Korea would want to wait for Trump to make bigger concessions before returning to talks.

When asked by reporters Wednesday if he would be meeting with Kim Jong Un this year, Trump said that “Yeah, I will be.” He wouldn’t answer a question about whether he is exchanging letters with Kim but said he gets along with him.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield is one of the main military exercises conducted by the U.S. and South Korea annually to enhance their ability to cope with potential North Korean aggression. Washington and Seoul say their drills are defensive in nature, but North Korea calls them an invasion rehearsal and often reacts with weapons tests.

Before this month's drills started, North Korea accused the U.S. and South Korea of plotting more provocative exercises this summer and vowed to respond with "a new level of a deterrent.” Days before the drills' start, North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in its first such launches since late June.

Trump's earlier diplomacy with Kim Jong Un collapsed in 2019 due to disputes over how much sanctions relief North Korea should be given in return for dismantling its main nuclear complex, a limited denuclearization step. Kim has since shunned any talks with the U.S., pushed to modernize weapons arsenals and expanded cooperation with Russia.

Kim has said he won’t place his nuclear program back on the negotiating table. Experts say Kim has more leverage than when he first held talks with Trump in 2018 and 2019. They say Kim likely hopes to eventually win international recognition as a nuclear state and extensive sanctions relief in exchange for only limited steps toward denuclearization.

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

The school board unanimously selected Deputy Superintendent Chad Farnsworth as the district’s next superintendent.

Farnsworth served seven years as assistant superintendent and chief of staff before being named deputy superintendent in 2024. Before joining Lake County, he was elected superintendent of Bradford County Schools in 2012, a role he held for four years. According to his resume, he raised the district’s grade, improved the graduation rate, and pulled the district out of a critical financial crisis.

Farnsworth plans to outline his vision for the district at an event next week.

Farnsworth takes over for Diane Kornegay, who announced her retirement at the end of the 2026-27 school year after more than 35 years in public education — including a decade as superintendent. Kornegay is the longest-serving appointed superintendent in Florida and was named Florida’s 2026 Superintendent of the Year by the Florida Association of District School Superintendents.

The recalled products may be contaminated with E. coli, a bacteria that can cause severe stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting. In serious cases, infection can lead to hemolytic uremic syndrome, a potentially life-threatening condition that may cause kidney failure.

Publix announced the recall July 29 for four GreenWise organic frozen fruit products. The items were sold at Publix stores in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The recalled products include:

• GreenWise Organic Whole Blueberries, 10-ounce packages
• GreenWise Organic Whole Blueberries, 48-ounce packages
• GreenWise Organic Whole Mixed Berries, 10-ounce packages
• GreenWise Organic Whole Mixed Berries, 48-ounce packages

Consumers should check their freezers for the affected products. All recalled items have expiration dates before Feb. 9, 2028, and can be identified by their UPC codes:

• Blueberries, 10 ounces: 41415-06453
• Blueberries, 48 ounces: 41415-12053
• Mixed berries, 10 ounces: 41415-06753
• Mixed berries, 48 ounces: 41415-12153

The FDA’s Class 1 designation means there is a reasonable probability that consuming or being exposed to the recalled products could cause serious health consequences or death.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12 people in two states have been infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli. No deaths have been reported in connection with the outbreak.

Anyone with a recalled product should not eat it. The FDA advises consumers to throw it away or return it to Publix for a full refund. People who develop severe diarrhea, vomiting or stomach cramps after eating the product should contact a health care provider.

In Waldorf, in the southwestern state of Rhineland-Palatinate, a woman was struck by a falling tree and fatally injured, the German news agency dpa reported Thursday. Another woman suffered serious injuries in the accident, police said.

The women, 58 and 47, were walking together when a storm rolled in and they sought shelter under a covered seating area. Both women were struck when a tree was uprooted and fell onto the seating area. The 58-year-old died at the scene, a police spokesperson said. The 47-year-old was taken to a hospital.

A tornado struck the town of Fürstenwalde, 78 kilometers (49 miles) southeast of Berlin. Roofs were torn off and several cars were damaged by falling trees, and one person was injured, according to dpa.

In Höhr-Grenzhausen in the Westerwald district in western Germany, a storm tore walls from buildings. At least two homes were affected, according to dpa. Falling pieces of building facades and flying debris caused additional damage, and several trees were uprooted. A widespread power outage also hit the area, while strong gusts of wind overturned a truck on the A61 highway.

There were also numerous weather-related emergency calls overnight in Hesse, Thuringia and Bavaria.

A village festival in Kronach, Bavaria, was partially evacuated due to severe storms. About 3,500 guests had to leave the outdoor area of the festival grounds late Wednesday evening, local police said. They were able to continue celebrating inside the beer halls.

In Wetzlar, in Hesse, the storm damaged about 60 houses, according to the fire department. In some cases, pieces of roofing were blown as far as 100 meters (110 yards) away, dpa reported.

The German Weather Service warned that further severe storms could occur later in the day, particularly in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria in southern Germany.

While the storms in Germany were accompanied by cooler temperatures, high temperatures continued to be recorded in southeastern Europe, and fires raged in some parts of the region.

Firefighters are battling wildfires in the Balkans

In Serbia, a Russian firefighting plane joined efforts in Serbia on Thursday to fight wildfires that devastated a nature reserve in the northeast as the Balkan country faces a fresh heat wave in the coming days.

The Il-76 plane landed in Serbia on Wednesday evening, also illustrating continued friendly relations between the two countries despite Belgrade’s proclaimed intention to join the European Union.

The fire in Deliblatska Pescara, or Deliblato Sands, first erupted a month ago, but was under control until early August when it started spreading swiftly, engulfing thousands of acres of pine forests and shrubbery.

Several other big fires also have been raging in other parts of the country, as well as throughout the region in the past weeks. An extremely hot and dry summer this year has fueled wildfires throughout Europe, from Belgium to Greece.

Croatian firefighters from the popular tourism hot spot of Dubrovnik on Thursday joined a struggle to contain a fire across the border in Bosnia to prevent it from spreading toward the medieval walled city that is a UNESCO protected heritage site.

“It was a hard night,” regional firefighting unit commander Stjepan Simović told the Hina news agency. "The fire is huge and in an inaccessible terrain, so we have to be vigilant.”

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Gec reported from Belgrade, Serbia.

If you love fried chicken but are always looking for a new way to eat it, Saucy! by KFC is leaning into the flavor experience with its new Flavor Playground.

Ahead of Saucy! Fest on Thursday, Aug. 20, at the Waterford location, I got an early preview of the brand’s upcoming menu launches. The one-night community event will feature interactive experiences, live DJ entertainment, sauce flights and opportunities for guests to be among the first to try Saucy!’s newest combinations.

I recently spoke with Zachary Phillips, the store manager at the Winter Park location, and he explained that Saucy!’s biggest differentiator is the combination of KFC’s classic 11 herbs and spices with 12 different sauces. The idea is to give customers the familiar flavor of KFC chicken while letting them choose a sauce that creates an entirely different experience.

That variety is at the center of Saucy!’s new Flavor Playground, which also includes an innovative menu and competitive prices.

The new Sauc!es Combo comes with three tenders, fries, a medium drink and four signature dipping sauces inspired by the brand’s new Sauc!es characters: DJ Saucy!, Creole Capone, K-Ferno and Teri Yappi.

Those sauces include Saucy! Sauce, Creole Honey Mustard, Korean Sweet Heat and Sweet Teriyaki. But the brand offers 12 sauces in total, giving customers plenty of room to mix, match and find a favorite.

I tried all 12 sauces, including the new options, and my favorite by far was the Creole Honey Mustard. It had just the right sweetness, balanced by Creole spices that gave it more depth and personality. It was easily the sauce I kept going back to.

The Korean Sweet Heat was also amazing. It reminded me of Korean barbecue, with umami-rich soy notes layered into the sweetness and heat. I think it would pair especially well with one of Saucy!’s rice bowls, where the rice could give the sauce a hearty base and let those flavors really stand out.

One of the upcoming menu items I previewed was the Nashville Hot Tendies, which officially launch Aug. 25.

The tenders were super well-seasoned, with enough Nashville Hot flavor to make the dish exciting without becoming too spicy to enjoy. They also were not overly greasy, which can sometimes be an issue with hot chicken-style items.

For me, the balance was the biggest success. The Nashville Hot Tendies delivered the spice and flavor I wanted without overwhelming the chicken itself.

Saucy! is also launching a new Sauce of the Month program in September. Phillips told me the first featured sauce will be called Golden Jam, a mango-based sauce.

That rotating sauce gives customers another reason to come back and try something new, especially if they enjoy experimenting with different flavor combinations. It also adds another layer to a menu built around customization and discovery.

The brand’s new Dirty Sodas, part of its Beverage Remix Bar, are scheduled to launch Sept. 1. Together with the new tenders, sauce lineup and rotating monthly flavors, the additions give Saucy! a menu that feels designed for people who want more options than a standard chicken meal.

Saucy! Fest will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at 12195 East Colonial Drive. The first 200 guests will receive complimentary sauce flights, and the event will also feature Sauce Roulette, with a chance to win exclusive Saucy! merchandise.

In a market filled with fast-food options for fried chicken, it is refreshing to see a place keeping things fresh and new. With 12 different sauces, no two bites have to taste the same, making the experience feel like an adventure for your taste buds and a way to step outside the mundane.

That kind of creativity is what we need in the food industry: brands that never stop innovating, pushing boundaries and finding new ways to keep things fun for customers. Whether you prefer a sweet and savory sauce like Creole Honey Mustard, something with umami-rich soy notes like Korean Sweet Heat or a spicier tender like Nashville Hot, the new Flavor Playground gives you plenty of ways to find your own favorite combination.

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Authorities identify the suspect as 65-year-old Michael Knight. The arrest happened along West Colonial Drive, a little more than a mile from Ocoee Elementary, according to information provided in the report and reviewed by News 6.

The new case comes while Knight was out on bond for an April case, prompting concerns from parents about why he was released and whether repeat offenders should face tougher consequences.

“I don’t want to be outside where there is a risk of that happening to me and my family,” said Orange County parent Katy Torres.

News 6 reviewed Knight’s criminal history with attorney Raymond Traendly, managing partner of TK Law.

“When you have these serial offenders who are not rehabilitated from their long or short stints in jail, there needs to be some additional action,” he said. “Whether that’s the legislature figuring out a way to impose stricter penalties for these crimes, or whether it’s the judicial system taking a deeper look at what the ultimate cause is.”

Records show Knight was found guilty of indecent exposure in Orange County in 1986.

A 2002 Volusia County case placed him on the sex offender registry, involving a victim under 16, according to court records.

Arrest records also show a 2012 incident at a Maitland park in which a woman reported Knight ran up to her and said, “I’m about to get naked.” The State Attorney’s office ultimately dropped those charges, claiming it did not have enough evidence to move forward.

The next year, Knight was found guilty of felony indecent exposure again. Records show a responding deputy asked whether Knight knew what he did was wrong, and he replied, “Yes, sir.”

In 2022, records show Knight was arrested near a Burger King about three miles from the Popeyes location, where witnesses claimed he exposed himself outside. Prosecutors later dropped those charges, but the arrest remains on his record.

Knight remains in the Orange County Jail, and his bond was revoked on the April charge. News 6 requested a response from the State Attorney’s Office and had not received one as of publication.

“When the 2027 school year starts we will need to have a Superintendent,” one speaker said during Monday’s meeting.

District Communications Officer Sherri Owens confirmed Kornegay’s retirement announcement, telling the board, “Diane Kornegay recently announced she’s retiring.”

Kornegay has served in the role for just under a decade, and the board on Monday approved revisions to the superintendent job description. Board members said they want a candidate with deep experience in Florida schools.

They’re “looking for someone who has at least 10 years experience in Florida Schools,” including “at least five” years at a senior leadership level, a speaker said.

The board said it hopes to select a new superintendent by the end of October.

Another major topic at the meeting: updated plans for two new schools, including a proposed high school on Wellness Way.

Executive Director of Facilities and Growth Planning Kelly Randall said the district is moving forward with a required step tied to the state’s review process: “The capital plan the Board approved in September of 2025, reformatted for submittal to D.O.E.”

District leaders described Monday’s action as a “check-the-box” move for the Florida Department of Education.

Board members said the proposed Wellness Way high school could help families whose students currently travel about 15 miles to attend East Ridge High School, easing commuting stress.

For residents worried about congestion in the area surrounding the planned high school and elementary school, the board said additional road projects are expected before the schools open.

“There is a lot of road network to be built in that area. Lake County has been spearheading that,” one speaker said, adding that the high school is likely 5 - 7 years away, giving time for road improvements intended to relieve congestion.

News 6 will continue tracking this story as more details are released.

“Pulitzer on the Road: Prize — Winning Works That Inform, Empower & Inspire” will launch in October at the Chicago Public Library and the Dallas Public Library and continue through May 2028, with stops at public libraries everywhere from Reading, Pennsylvania, to San Jose, California.

The exhibit will highlight more than a century of Pulitzer winners, whether such groundbreaking news reporting as the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal, iconic photographs such as the AP's “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima,” poems by Sylvia Plath and Robert Frost, plays by Arthur Miller and Lin-Manuel Miranda or fiction by Toni Morrison and John Steinbeck.

Kingsolver, Everett and Kraus, all Pulitzer-winning novelists, will be making appearances, along with composer Gabriela Frank and photojournalist Jon Cherry among others.

“Pulitzer on the Road was created to bring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism and storytelling to communities across the country, showcasing the exceptional work that has been honored since the prizes were first awarded in 1917,” Marjorie Miller, administrator of the Pulitzers, said in a statement Thursday.

Maria McCauley, president of the American Library Association, said in a statement that the exhibit would create "opportunities for visitors to connect with the excellent prize-winning works that drive curiosity, conversation and civic engagement.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued the order on Tuesday, which suspends Caruso from his position effective immediately.

Per that order, 67-year-old Caruso is accused of sexually abusing his grandson, who is less than 12 years old and lives in Orange County with the rest of his family.

“During the period charged, Caruso enjoyed regular and unsupervised access to (the) victim by virtue of his position as a family member, including periods alone with the child in Orange County, in Palm Beach County, and aboard a family vacation in August 2025,” the order reads.

Investigators said that in October, the victim’s father learned from the boy that Caruso had showered and performed apparent sexual acts with him during a family cruise in August 2025.

“During the voyage, while in international waters, Caruso separated the victim from his parents under the stated pretext of taking the child to obtain ice cream,” the investigative report states. “Victim was away from his parents in Caruso’s company for at least an hour and was not taken to get ice cream.”

The victim later identified to law enforcement another occasion around Thanksgiving 2024 where Caruso had abused him, the report says.

By December, Caruso was confronted about the allegations, though he denied sexually abusing the boy. Instead, he asked whether his former spouse had interacted with the child, characterizing her as “evil” and having potentially made up the allegations “in an effort to poison the child against him,” investigators said.

Another conversation about what happened cropped up in February 2026, this time recorded at the request of law enforcement, the report says.

“Caruso asserted that the allegations were impossible because, in substance, sexual deviation is directed toward only one sex rather than two, and because he is attracted to women, he could not be a sex offender,” the report continues. “Caruso further stated, in substance: ‘If you report this to the authorities, there won’t be any of me left, I can tell you that.’”

Furthermore, the report claims that Caruso’s daughter had made previous accusations against him of “sexually inappropriate behavior,” including sexual battery.

As a result of the allegations involving his grandson, Caruso was arrested and now faces the following charges:

• Kidnapping
• Lewd or lascivious molestation
• Lewd or lascivious exhibition
• Luring or enticing a child
• Child abuse (mental injury)

Caruso is held in Palm Beach County, though he is expected to be transported to Orange County.

THURSDAY

A stalled front to the north and an upper-level low overhead will help fuel showers and storms across the region Thursday. The east coast sea breeze is expected to develop around 2 p.m. and become the main trigger for storms.

Rain and storm chances sit around 50 to 60 percent, with activity developing along the sea breeze before pushing inland. Storm movement will be slow and erratic at times, allowing storms and their outflow boundaries to collide and potentially spark additional development.

A few storms could become strong, producing wind gusts of 50 to 55 mph, with isolated higher gusts possible. Frequent lightning, small hail and locally heavy rainfall will also be possible. Storms could linger over the interior through the evening before gradually fading by around midnight.

Before storms arrive, temperatures will climb into the lower to mid 90s, with humidity pushing heat index values between 108 and 110 degrees.

Another heat advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Increased clouds and storm coverage should help bring some relief by early evening, but conditions will remain warm and muggy overnight.

WEEKEND

The overall weather pattern changes little through the weekend. Expect 40 to 60 percent chances for afternoon and evening showers and storms Friday through Sunday, with strong wind gusts continuing to be the primary concern.

Some slightly drier air moving in this weekend may help lower humidity enough to end the recent streak of widespread advisory-level heat.

NEXT WEEK

A subtle pattern change next week should help temperatures moderate into the lower 90s, though humidity will remain high.

Daily afternoon storms will continue, with the highest coverage shifting farther inland as southerly winds help push the east coast sea breeze deeper into Central Florida.

Heat index values will still reach 100 to 105 degrees, but are currently expected to stay below heat advisory criteria.

With universities competing to pay athletes millions of dollars, some states now are propping up their strained sports budgets in ways not previously seen. The state dollars aren’t going directly to star athletes. But by funding facilities and administrative costs normally borne by the schools, states are freeing universities to use their own dollars for other purposes.

The athletics program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for the first time, is receiving $3 million earmarked from state sports betting taxes. Wisconsin lawmakers approved $15 million for athletic costs at the University of Wisconsin. And Connecticut and Louisiana also are using tax dollars to support college athletics. Even more states have considered it.

Sports business analysts see an emerging trend.

“Once one state provides that kind of assistance, schools in competing states can argue that they are being placed at a competitive disadvantage, which could create additional pressure on legislatures to respond,” said Daniel McIntosh, faculty director of the sports business program at Arizona State University.

Legal cases have accelerated spending on college athletes

NCAA rules long barred college athletes from getting paid by schools and boosters. But under pressure from lawsuits and states, the NCAA cleared the way in 2021 for athletes to receive money from private entities for the use of their name, image or likeness (NIL). Then a legal settlement last year allowed higher education institutions to directly pay athletes a total of about $20.5 million annually — on top of any scholarships and other NIL deals they receive.

That cap rose to $21.3 million for this school year, and is set to rise again the following year.

Many mid-level programs cannot afford that much. But almost all NCAA Division I athletic programs are trying to generate more money to pay athletes in a bid to remain competitive with their peers. At the same time, schools have been incurring greater costs for facilities, coaches’ salaries and travel amid conference realignments that discarded old geographic-based rivalries.

Over the past four years, athletic operating expenses at public Division I institutions shot up by nearly a third — notably outpacing revenue and running up deficits, according to an Associated Press analysis using the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database.

Federal legislation could drive athletic costs even higher

The Protect College Sports Act, pending in the U.S. Senate, has been promoted as a way to put guardrails on college sports spending. But it could potentially allow even greater spending by schools.

The latest version would allow institutions to pay up to an additional $27.5 million annually to retain players on their rosters, pushing the overall athlete payment cap close to $50 million. The higher ceiling could reduce the demand for third-party NIL deals.

But the legislation contains no provision restraining increases in state and institutional funding for athletics, said Amy Privette Perko, CEO of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.

“Without some restraint on the underlying spending competition, additional public funding could simply finance the next stage of the arms race,” McIntosh said.

States are routing money to schools in creative ways

When North Carolina launched online sports wagering in 2024, it earmarked part of the tax revenue for athletic departments at 13 public universities. But the two largest institutions — the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University — were excluded.

That changed in July under a new state budget that raises the sports betting tax. Those two schools now are projected to receive $3 million each this year and $5.8 million next year.

In the meantime, Louisiana also hiked its sports wagering tax and earmarked about $2.2 million to each of its 11 public universities in conferences with Division I football programs.

Seeking to drum up athletic revenue, Connecticut lawmakers authorized the University of Connecticut to issue vouchers for state tax credits equal to half the amount of donations, sponsorships and licensing endorsements. The program generated $1.7 million in its first four months, according to a university report.

New Jersey’s new budget allots $5 million for “events attraction and marketing” at Rutgers’ flagship campus. A university spokesperson declined to say if the money would be used for athletic programs.

Though not providing new state money, the governing board for Florida’s universities last year authorized institutions to transfer up to $22.5 million to athletics. Florida State University did so almost immediately, and other schools have since followed.

Lawmaker says a bad football team is bad for the state

The Wisconsin budget provides $14.6 million for athletic facility debt payments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and $200,000 each for the Milwaukee and Green Bay campuses.

“None of that state funds technically would go toward student athletes,” said Republican state Rep. Alex Dallman, who sponsored the legislation.

But with the state covering facility debt, the university could use its own funds “for other things, such as NIL, or just trying to compete,” said Dallman, who typically attends a couple Wisconsin football games each year.

“Having a bad football team, having uncompetitive college sports in general, would not be beneficial to our state, both culturally or economically,” Dallman said. “So we decided as a state we’d help out.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement the cities put forward “incredibly strong bids," and he promised the convention would be an “inspiring celebration of our party's future nominee.”

A final decision is expected to be made later this year by party leaders. Republicans have already chosen Houston for the site of their 2028 convention.

The Democratic convention, scheduled for Aug. 7-10, 2028, traditionally gives the party a chance to formally introduce its nominee to the country, rally the base and kick-start the most intense period of campaigning ahead of the general election.

The party didn't specify why Atlanta and Chicago, which was the site of the 2024 convention, were eliminated. Officials visited all five cities in April and May, considering logistical and fundraising capacity among other factors.

The three finalists are liberal strongholds surrounded by the type of suburban areas that have become increasingly important to the party in recent elections. They also provide access to fundraising and key demographic and interest groups, like labor unions.

While Colorado and Massachusetts have gone Democratic in recent presidential elections, Pennsylvania has been among the biggest battlegrounds. Trump, a Republican, won Pennsylvania in 2024.

Philadelphia last hosted the convention in 2016, Denver in 2008 and Boston in 2004.

Before the presidential primary gets into gear, Democrats are looking at this year's midterm elections as an opportunity to flip the narrowly divided Republican-led House and maybe take back control of the Senate.

Democrats face fundraising disadvantages compared with Republicans, along with financial debt, and Martin has confronted criticism over his stewardship of the party.

During a recent DNC meeting in Texas, Martin downplayed the critics and called for the party to unite as it tries to win the midterms and look ahead to 2028 and the end of Trump's second term.

Using a pair of hand tools, Shijin carefully inspected the sheet made from the papyrus plant, proceeding with the utmost care. After all, it most likely hadn’t been handled in a century — nor read for thousands of years.

The Papyrus Conservation Summer Seminar at the University of Michigan is the only one of its kind in the Americas, according to the university. And it's one of the few in the world designed to convey the best practices for conserving papyrus manuscripts, ancient texts written on rolls or sheets made from the papyrus plant.

“If you touch this papyrus, you can feel the history,” said Shijin, a native of China who was among nine scholars from across the globe, including Ireland, Italy and the U.S., who took the 10-day course.

Michigan’s Papyrology Collection covers texts and documents from 1000 B.C.E. to 1000 C.E. No institution on this side of the world has more of them, the Ann Arbor school said, giving the researchers access to a vast collection of ancient papyri. There are portions of the Homer epics, “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad,” writings by the philosopher Epicurus and the oldest-known copy of the Epistles of Paul.

“Carrying on this tradition is an incredible responsibility, but it also is incredibly fun and rewarding, because there’s nothing I love more than getting people together from all over the world, sharing ideas, learning from each other,” said Marieka Kaye, who manages library preservation services for physical collections at the University of Michigan Library.

Kaye said she tried to make “things comfortable and not scary, because a lot of people just feel terrified working on these ancient things.”

The seminar introduced the papyrologists and conservators to techniques in the treatment, storage and care of the ancient texts, as well as documentation practices. Papyrus and its ink can crumble, smear or break, so Kaye encouraged the students to carefully remove dirt, sand, salt and debris; use controlled moisture to soften folds and realign fibers; and dry the papyrus slowly under light weight to prevent curling.

The first seminar was held in 2012, and they have been held every two years since, except for the 2020 pandemic year. About 50 students total have taken part.

“If we don’t train the next generations of conservators, this is a craft that is going to be lost,” said Giuliano Sidro, curator of Michigan's Papyrology Collection.

Michigan has so many papyrus manuscripts on hand that its researchers haven’t gone through them all. Some of the items were acquired, while others were excavated, during university expeditions to the ancient site of Karanis, Egypt, from 1924-35. Francis Willey Kelsey, a Latin professor who died in 1927, was the driving force behind the establishment of the Papyrology Collection. He believed Michigan students studying the ancient world needed access not only to books, but to the tangible remains of antiquity. Today, the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology is a fixture on the Michigan campus. Its collection represents one of the finest compilations of daily-life objects from Greco-Roman Egypt located outside of Cairo.

“This is a place where you make discoveries, potentially every day, if you just go into the vault, pick out a box and open something up, and you start reading,” Sidro said.

Of course, to make sense of it, one needs to be able to decipher Arabic, ancient Greek or Latin, and even Egyptian, one of the earliest known written languages that is now extinct. A few of the seminar participants were able to read the papyri, including Arzak Mohamed, who reads Arabic, and Mauro Castiello, a papyrology doctoral student in Milan, who can translate ancient Greek and Latin.

Kaye said she always tries to include a student from Egypt among the seminar participants.

Mohamed, a postdoctoral fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney, had heard about the papyrus seminar for years and always wanted to attend. The 42-year-old mother of three is from Fayoum, Egypt, not far from Karanis.

“Now, I can transfer this information from Michigan to Egypt and even in Australia,” she said. “I will be like the chain, connecting between the three countries.”

“By saving this information, we can transfer the knowledge to the next generation,” she added.

The military said it would not probe three other attacks that killed aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders. It said it had completed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct in Gaza and made decisions on the five cases.

Chef José Andrés, founder of U.S.-based World Central Kitchen, condemned the decision on X as “wrong and painful.”

The investigations involve killings that drew a heavy international outcry. Hind was trapped in a vehicle with her slain relatives, pleading for help by phone before she too was killed in February 2024. After the shooting of the 15 medics in March 2025, troops bulldozed their bodies into a mass grave.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 people, including tens of thousands of women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Rights groups and U.N. commissions have said the campaign amounts to genocide and that Israeli forces have committed a litany of war crimes, including indiscriminate use of force and deliberate killings of civilians.

Israel denies accusations of genocide and war crimes and says it is targeting Hamas after its October 2023 attack on southern Israel. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militant group operates in populated areas in the tiny, overcrowded strip.

Israeli officials contend the country's justice system can address any violations by its troops, but rights groups say soldiers are almost never held accountable.

Wednesday's statement did not mention many other high-profile killings that Israel has pledged to investigate, such as its strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza that killed five journalists in August 2025, including Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who freelanced for The Associated Press and other news organizations.

The 5-year-old was the last alive in a stranded car

Hind's grandmother, also named Hind Rajab, told the AP by phone that the Israeli investigation into her killing is not enough.

“An international investigation is required to uncover the truth and hold all those responsible accountable,” she said. “We call for justice, not only for Hind, but for all Gaza children.”

The military in Wednesday's statement admitted to firing at the car carrying the 5-year-old, four of her cousins and her aunt and uncle as they fled an Israeli invasion of Gaza City.

As gunfire sprayed around them, the girl's cousin, 15-year-old Layan Hamada, called the Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic center, telling staff there her family had been killed. Seconds later, more gunshots were heard, and Layan’s screaming stopped, according to the Red Crescent recording of the call.

Palestinian paramedics dispatched an ambulance to rescue Hind and stayed on the line with her until contact was lost. Hind, her five relatives and two medics from the ambulance were found dead 12 days later.

The military admitted Wednesday that troops had fired toward that ambulance, killing the two medics.

Dyab Abou Jahjah, director of the Belgium-based Hind Rajab foundation, told Al-Jazeera he considered the military investigations a “charade meant to whitewash the culprits instead of convicting them.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent also insists on an international investigation, according to Raed al-Nims, a spokesman for the organization in Gaza. “Israeli measures are not enough,” he told the AP.

A movie docudrama about Hind's death, “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” won international awards and was nominated for an Oscar.

The 15 medics had been trying to reach casualties

In the killing of the paramedics, Israeli troops fired on an ambulance driving to retrieve casualties from an Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah, then fired on other emergency vehicles that came looking for the first one, according to phone footage and the sole survivor of the shootings. Fifteen medics and emergency responders from the Red Crescent and Gaza's Civil Defense were killed.

Troops then bulldozed over the bodies and vehicles, burying them in a mass grave. U.N. and rescue workers were only able to reach the site a week later to dig out the bodies.

The Israeli military initially said it opened fire because the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” on troops without headlights or emergency signals. But it backtracked after the footage emerged, showing the teams driving slowly with their emergency lights flashing and logos visible. A deputy commander was directed to step down over the killings.

“We are not obligated to prove the truth because it is already proven to the whole world,” Eid Azizi, a Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson, told the AP in a phone call. “We shouldn’t have reached this point if they respected and followed international humanitarian law.”

Israel will not criminally probe World Central Kitchen strike

The military said it had decided against a criminal investigation into April 2024 airstrikes that hit a convoy of World Central Kitchen vehicles, killing seven staffers.

The aid group, which distributes food in Gaza, said at the time it had coordinated with the military over the convoy's movement. The vehicles, which had the group’s logo on their roofs visible from the air, were left incinerated and mangled.

Wednesday's military statement said individuals in the vehicles were mistakenly identified as armed Hamas operatives. But it concluded that the commanders' decisions "did not raise reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct.” At the time, two officers were removed from their positions and three others reprimanded.

World Central Kitchen responded in a statement saying the military’s account of the strike was untrue, “conflates different timelines and events, muddies the story and shifts the blame.” It called for an independent investigation.

Australia's foreign minister Penny Wong expressed “outrage” at the outcome Thursday, saying the removals and reprimands of officers weren't sufficient accountability for the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom. Wong said unanswered questions remained and her government would continue to pursue the matter.

The military also decided not to take criminal action over the killings of four staffers from Doctors Without Borders in two separate instances in November 2023 and February 2024.

What happens next?

Military investigators will now take up the probes and present their findings to military prosecutors. The military advocate general can then decide to keep investigating, indict any soldiers involved or decline to charge them.

Any action will take a long time, if it comes at all, said Tal Steiner, head of the Israeli rights group HaMoked.

Indictments are very uncommon and convictions even more so, she said, recalling only one soldier who had spent time behind bars since Oct. 7, 2023, for alleged abuse of Palestinian prisoners. That soldier was imprisoned for seven months under a June 2025 plea bargain.

“It’s very rare that soldiers accused of harming Palestinians even go to court ... and even rarer that they get a severe punishment,” Steiner said.

Just 0.17% of all military investigations launched during three Gaza operations from 2014 to 2022 led to prosecution, according to an analysis by Israeli rights group Yesh Din.

The war's toll keeps growing

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in southern Israel and abducted 251 others.

Israeli strikes have continued in Gaza since a ceasefire deal came into effect in October, killing at least 1,270 people, according to the Health Ministry.

The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children constitute about half of the dead. ___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Erin Cunningham in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Meanwhile, France announced it will expel two Iranian diplomats in response to the expulsion of French diplomats from the Islamic Republic this week. And the Iranian parliament speaker and chief negotiator landed in neighboring Iraq for a three-day visit.

Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Wednesday. Full coverage can be found here.

Israel's military plans criminal investigation into Gaza attacks

The Israeli military said it would investigate the killings of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family members in February 2024, and the killing of 15 Palestinian medics in March 2025. Both drew international attention.

The announcement followed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct during the war in Gaza. The military said it would not launch criminal investigations into three other attacks that killed aid workers from World Central Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders.

Rajab was killed when Israeli troops opened fire on a vehicle that also was carrying her aunt, uncle and four cousins as they tried to flee Gaza City amid an Israeli offensive.

The 15 paramedics were killed when Israeli troops opened fire on their vehicles in the southern city of Rafah, then bulldozed over the bodies and buried them in a mass grave. Troops first shot at an ambulance that was driving to retrieve casualties from an Israeli offensive, then fired on several other emergency vehicles that went out to look for the first one, according to phone footage and the sole survivor.

Australian official angered by move not to probe aid worker’s death

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressed “outrage” on Thursday at Israel’s decision not to pursue criminal charges over strikes that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including Australian woman Zomi Frankcom.

Wong said her government was informed of the decision moments before it was announced, leaving officials no time to inform Frankcom’s family before it became public.

“There are still many unanswered questions,” Wong said.

They included why the convoy was struck three times in a humanitarian fire control zone and why a senior brigade officer involved in the strikes was a signatory to a letter urging the restriction of aid to Gaza, Wong added. Australia had yet to receive drone recordings from the attack, despite seeking them multiple times, she said.

“The Australian government does not believe that the removal of two officers from their positions and three officers being reprimanded is sufficient accountability for the deaths of seven people, including an Australian citizen,” Wong said.

The minister hours earlier summoned Israel’s envoy to Canberra Hillel Newman for a meeting. However, she wouldn’t expel the ambassador, she said, citing a need to continue engaging diplomatically with Israel.

Newman told reporters after the meeting that he was “very sorry” for Frankcom’s family, but did not apologize for her killing.

“One cannot attack findings of a court if the findings are not suitable to one’s political agenda,” Newman said. He added that the finding of no criminal liability came “after two years of independent research.”

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza kill 10 as ceasefire is in doubt

At least 10 people were killed Wednesday in two airstrikes in Gaza, according to local hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The attacks cast further doubt on whether new U.S. efforts can advance a tenuous ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.

Just two days after U.S. negotiators reportedly asked Israel to draw down attacks in Gaza, Israeli troops also crossed the ceasefire line in southern Gaza and detained a Hamas police colonel at dawn, two witnesses and a Hamas official said. They spoke on condition of anonymity for their safety.

— Samy Magdy and Wafaa Shurafa

Iran's parliament speaker and top negotiator visits Iraq

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf arrived in Iraq for a three-day visit where he will meet with Iraqi officials and leaders of an Iran-backed political coalition.

Iran-backed Iraqi militias have launched drone attacks on U.S. military and diplomatic targets both within Iraq and abroad, piling pressure on Baghdad, which for years has delicately tried to maintain strong ties with both Washington and Tehran.

Qalibaf praised the country’s Tehran-backed militias, which he called the “resistance in Iraq," describing them as a “key component of the country’s national power.”

His comments came even as the Iraqi government has been trying to disarm the militias that have long operated on their own even though they were nominally under state command.

Iraq is asking Iran to grant special status to Iraqi oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz because the country has been affected greatly by Iran's war with the U.S. and needs to guard its economic interests, according to a statement from Iraqi Parliament Speaker Haibet al-Halbousi.

Iraq relies on oil revenues for roughly 90% of its budget, and most of its oil is exported through the strait. Since the war erupted and Iran asserted control over the strait, halting most shipping traffic, Iraq has turned to alternate routes, including sending oil over land to Syria, which is less efficient and more expensive.

France and Iran expel diplomats

France announced it will expel two staff members of the Iranian Embassy in France, in response to what the French Foreign Ministry described as an assault by Iranian security forces against two French diplomatic staff in the Islamic Republic last month.

Iran accused the French pair of taking part in a secret meeting with “suspects in a major case involving foreign infiltration and interference,” Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The French diplomats were expelled on Monday.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot slammed the Iranian authorities for not investigating what he called a “premeditated and deliberate attack.” He called the allegations fabricated and said the two Iranians will leave Paris in the coming days.

___

Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

On the hillsides of Hautvillers, teams of grape pickers start work at 6:30 a.m. among rows of vines that were recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015.

For Alexandre Gobillard, production director at the Gobillard & Fils Champagne house, beginning the harvest in mid-August was once almost unthinkable.

“It’s historic in Champagne,” he said. “I’ve been working at the estate for 30 years, and when I started, my father used to tell me: ‘On Aug. 15, go on vacation.’ Today, it’s Aug. 18 and we’re in full harvest. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

At 50, Gobillard represents the fourth generation to work the family vineyards. Gobillard & Fils grows 40 hectares (about 100 acres) of vines and produces about 1.5 million bottles a year.

A changing climate brings an earlier harvest

Champagne’s official harvest opened between Aug. 12 and Aug. 17 this year, depending on the area and grape variety — roughly a month earlier than what was once common in the region.

A late-March frost hit vines after mild temperatures triggered early budburst, reducing the potential crop. It was followed by four heat waves, which never happened before, Gobillard said.

Sun-scorched grapes turned partially brown, something Gobillard said he had rarely seen. He explained that losing roughly 10% of the grapes would mean a loss in volume rather than affect the quality of the wine.

Earlier harvests have become increasingly common in Champagne and other French wine regions as temperatures rise. In neighboring Italy, extreme heat has also prompted sparkling-wine producers to harvest sooner and pick grapes at night.

David Chatillon, president of the Union of Champagne Houses, acknowledged weather conditions this year will lead to a clear decrease in yields.

“But it’s not just because of the drought,” he said. “We lost 43% of the potential production to the spring frosts, and the drought has clearly made the problem of lower yields even worse.”

Chatillon said climate change has been a focus of the industry for the past 25 years, prompting investment in research and innovation to adapt to evolving conditions, including developing grape varieties that are more disease-resistant and ripen later.

Heat speeds grape ripening

Gobillard has seen the shift unfold across generations of his family.

“My grandfather’s generation harvested 100 days after flowering, my father’s 90 days, and today we’re down to 80,” he said. “We’re going to have to change our habits.”

This summer’s record temperatures compressed the ripening period even further. In June, temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of Champagne.

“The vine needs water to live,” Gobillard said. “The water was drawn out of the grapes to keep the vine alive, and as a result we had a much higher concentration of sugar. That’s why it happened so much faster.”

As his daughter operated the wine press, Gobillard watched the year's first juice flow with a mix of excitement and anxiety.

He quickly took a sample to measure its sugar level — a key indicator of potential alcohol content and of whether the grapes have been picked at the right moment. “Champagne shouldn’t be too alcoholic. ... We’re looking for delicacy," he said.

An early harvest tests Champagne’s traditions

The early harvest also poses logistical challenges in a region where grapes are traditionally picked by hand, with some workers still on summer vacation and others facing transportation delays.

Gobillard hopes to complete the harvest at the estate in about nine days, a job requiring around 120 workers recruited mostly from across France and Poland.

“It really changes how we look at Champagne’s traditional methods,” said Geoffrey Bonnet-Gobillard, 30, commercial director of the family Champagne house. “Hand harvesting comes with a lot of constraints — housing people, feeding them, recruiting them. It’s very difficult, especially with early harvests in August.”

Those pressures could eventually force producers to reconsider some long-established practices as agricultural machinery becomes more sophisticated, he said.

The house sells most of its Champagne in European markets, including Britain, Belgium, Italy and Spain, as well as in West Africa, with smaller volumes going to the United States and Asia, Bonnet-Gobillard said.

High stakes for a global industry

According to Comité Champagne’s 2026 industry report, 266.1 million bottles of Champagne were shipped in France and abroad last year, generating 5.7 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in sales. Exports accounted for 56.5% of shipments. Champagne represented about 8% of global sparkling wine consumption by volume but 31% by value.

The sector supports around 30,000 direct jobs and requires roughly 100,000 seasonal workers for the harvest, according to Comité Champagne.

Despite this year’s difficult conditions, Gobillard said the grapes he inspected were encouraging.

“I’m very happy with what I’m seeing,” he said. “We were worried that the drought would leave us with very light bunches, but in these plots we’re really pleased. The quantity should be sufficient and the quality will be there.”

But there is little time to spare. “It’s time to cut them. We’re going to have to move quickly,” he said.

Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials, which were obtained by the National Iranian American Council and made public Tuesday, offer the most transparent play by play yet of how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three separate immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.

The emails show that Iranian officials had some influence over which Iranian immigrants in the U.S. were sent back to their home country, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials apparently heeded some last-minute changes to deportation lists at the request of Iran.

“Per request from the Iran Embassy I added a few cases," one unnamed ICE official wrote in late August, a month before the first deportation flight in September. Just over a week later, someone with the same job title moved to make another, unspecified change to the deportation list after they said they met with the “Director at the Iranian Embassy.”

“Iran has requested that I amend the previous manifest and expedite the removal process,” the official wrote.

In a Sept. 26 email, just three days before the deportation flight left U.S. soil, an ICE official said in an email that the Iranian Embassy was still making requests for three additional Iranians on the flight. It's not clear who ended up on the flight, which ended up being much smaller than initially planned. Iranian officials were still making requests the day the flight departed, although one official wrote that those requests were denied.

Coordination of the flights remained a high priority even as ICE officials acknowledged internally that Iranians were fleeing Iran amid the deadly 12-day war with the U.S. and Israel in June 2025, emails show. The flights departed just months after the U.S. and Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Iran.

The new emails highlight a clear departure from a decades-long practice by the U.S. of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Islamic Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.

The deportation of Iranians to a country whose government has a pattern of violent persecution against women, religious minorities and political dissidents has drawn significant criticism from human rights activists.

The Department of Homeland Security did not offer comment in response to an emailed request sent Tuesday afternoon.

Some deportees were handpicked by Iranian officials, emails show

Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as 400 Iranians could be returned under an agreement with the Trump administration. They said most of the Iranians had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

It is not clear from the emails how frequently U.S. immigration officials had direct contact with the Iranian government. Sometimes messages were conveyed through Qatari officials, who helped charter the deportation flights through Doha, but other times officials reference regular meetings with the “Iranian delegation," the “Director at the Iranian Embassy” and other unnamed Iranian officials.

It is not clear whether the people Iran put on the list had volunteered to repatriate or if they were forced. Previous reporting from The New York Times revealed that asylum-seekers were among those deported to Iran, while others said they were deported against their will.

At least one person was deported who wasn't supposed to be, emails showed.

“An Iranian not included on the final manifest we sent to the Qatari MOI was boarded on the flight,” an unnamed U.S. official wrote.

In response, another unnamed U.S. official wrote, “I have no idea how the case/person got through on the plane.”

US prioritized deportation efforts during war

Emails suggest that pressure to carry out the Iranian deportations came from the highest levels of the Trump administration, even when U.S. and Israel were exchanging strikes with Iran in a 12-day conflict between June 13 and June 24, 2025.

Just days after Trump's June 16 warning on social media that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” the former acting director of ICE, Todd Lyons, called the repatriation of Iranian immigrants a “priority" in an email sent to the agency’s head of removal operations Marcos Charles and a number of unnamed staff.

Shortly after Lyon's email, Charles forwarded the message to a group of officials whose names are redacted. An unnamed ICE official responded, warning that “removal will prove difficult” amid the ongoing conflict because Iran wasn't issuing the travel documents for Iranians eligible for deportation. On top of that, the Iranian airspace was closed to all flights during the bombings and Iranians were fleeing the country.

Charles was unfazed, telling staff in a subsequent email to make a plan to deport 58 Iranians with final removal orders in ICE custody at the time.

“We need a plan forward ASAP,” Charles wrote. Another official, who name was redacted, urged colleagues to “identify a solution for this White House priority.”

Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said the emails undermine Trump’s assertions that the U.S. is at war with Iran to save ordinary Iranians from a repressive regime.

“It demonstrates that the top priority here was to kick out as many people as possible by whatever means necessary,” Abdi said.

Iranian officials had access to immigration detainees

On several occasions, the emails show ICE officials arranging for Iranian officials to meet for unspecified reasons with people detained in the U.S., echoing testimony from Iranian asylum-seekers in an unrelated lawsuit filed by an unaffiliated Iranian interest group in July.

Eleven Iranians in immigration detention said they were forced to meet with Iranian government officials while in ICE detention. Those Iranian authorities knew intimate details about their asylum claims, according to the sworn declarations filed in a Washington, D.C., court in July.

The lawsuit alleges that U.S. immigration agencies have been illegally sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum-seekers with the Iranian government.

The U.S. government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics. However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the person getting deported applied for asylum.

DHS vehemently disputed the lawsuit's allegations.

“These allegations that ICE shared asylum application records with the Iranian government are FALSE,” DHS said in a statement in July.

CK Hutchison said in the statement that it had begun new arbitration proceedings against Panama and alleged that the Central American country had breached an investment protection treaty through “sovereign acts that targeted a decades-old ports concession” in a “state attack campaign” on the company’s assets in the Central American country.

Panama’s government in February seized the Balboa and Cristobal ports, located on each end of the Panama Canal, after its Supreme Court that a concession held by CK Hutchison’s subsidiary to run the two ports was unconstitutional.

The two ports at each end of the Panama Canal became part of U.S.-China tensions since Donald Trump’s return to the White House last year after he alleged China of “running” the canal.

The Panama Canal is managed and owned by Panama. But CK Hutchison’s subsidiary Panama Ports Company had run the two ports on the canal from 1997 and had renewed its concession for 25 years in 2021.

Beijing and Hong Kong had hit back at Panama over its takeover of the ports.

CK Hutchison, controlled by the family of Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing, last year announced an initial $23 billion deal to sell its global ports business, including the two Panama ports, to a consortium involving U.S. investment firm BlackRock. But the deal had made little progress under geopolitical tensions and legal challenges among China, the U.S. and Panama.

In March, Panama Ports Company had separately sought at least $2 billion in compensation from Panama over its takeover of the ports which it said was unlawful under international arbitration proceedings. CK Hutchison said the actions were making progress.

CK Hutchison added that Thursday's new proceedings were focused on its treaty rights, which were distinct from Panama Ports Company’s contract rights in the earlier arbitration proceedings.

In April, the subsidiary also launched arbitration proceedings against Danish shipping and logistics group Maersk after it took over some of its port operations in Panama. Maersk said at the time that it did not believe it was liable for the claims.

“I don’t think we’ve played great,” the two-time reigning NL manager of the year said Wednesday. “We haven’t really jelled. We haven’t really come together."

The Brewers’ results tell a different story.

Milwaukee appears well on its way to earning its eighth playoff berth in the last nine seasons as it chases a fourth consecutive NL Central title. The Brewers won three of four from the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers last weekend and trounced Seattle 22-0 on Tuesday before their four-game winning streak ended with a 7-5 loss to the Mariners on Wednesday.

“There’s so much that I see that needs to improve, yet you look up and everybody’s saying, ‘Wow, I love the way you play,’ “ Murphy said before Wednesday's game. “And I look funny and I look behind me, and I see if they’re talking to someone else. Really? Maybe I’m too critical. Maybe I’m missing something. I don’t know. I do trust the team.”

They’ve been rewarding that trust.

Surviving a 17-day grind

The Brewers just completed a 17-day run that included no days off, one complete West Coast trip and part of another. They went 10-7 during that stretch.

After losing three straight games at San Diego last week, the Brewers responded by winning a series with the Dodgers, who swept them out of the NL Championship Series last year. After finally getting a day off Monday, the Brewers delivered their 22-0 blowout of Seattle that matched the most one-sided shutout in modern MLB history.

“I think it says we’re a good baseball team,” first baseman Jake Bauers said. “I think in tough times it can be easy to lose sight of that, but we have the right people around to bounce back when things get tough, and we have the right people around to continue to play winning baseball.”

Milwaukee has needed to stay hot to remain ahead of the Chicago Cubs, who have won 11 of their last 16 games and are 4 1/2 behind Milwaukee in the NL Central standings. The Brewers and Cubs face off in a four-game series Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at Wrigley Field before meeting again for three games in Milwaukee from Sept. 7-9.

During that grueling 17-day run, the Brewers encountered some criticism for their inability to acquire two-time AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. The Brewers made a strong push to land Skubal, only to see the Detroit Tigers send him to the Dodgers instead.

Having NL Cy Young Award front-runner Jacob Misiorowski and Skubal fronting a starting rotation in a playoff series would have given the Brewers perhaps their best shot at making the postseason breakthrough that has eluded them during the franchise’s longest run of sustained success. The Brewers haven’t reached a World Series since 1982 and have never won it all.

Continuing to win without adding Skubal

Logan Henderson, an outstanding rookie pitcher the Brewers chose to keep rather than including in a trade last month, outdueled Skubal in Sunday’s series finale at Los Angeles. The 6-2 victory improved Henderson’s record to 7-2 with a 2.70 ERA.

The Brewers pivoted after the Skubal trade by acquiring former St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Dustin May, who is seeking to become the latest in a growing list of starting pitchers to improve after joining the Brewers. Left-hander Kyle Harrison, who also is thriving in his first year in Milwaukee, attributes that trend to Milwaukee’s pitching coaching staff of Chris Hook, Jim Henderson and Juan Sandoval.

“They’re so good at just knowing who you are as an individual and knowing what you need,” Harrison said. “Shoot, yeah, they’ve been doing it for a while now, too, so it’s pretty cool to have those guys you can trust and rely on.”

The Brewers believe they have the makings of a quality playoff rotation with Misiorowski, Henderson, Harrison and May. Milwaukee has withstood injuries that knocked two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff out for the season and prevented Quinn Priester from pitching at all this year.

Milwaukee’s lineup has produced the fewest homers in the big leagues, yet the Brewers remain among the top five teams in scoring. Bauers’ breakthrough season has helped the Brewers overcome down years from 2018 NL MVP Christian Yelich and three-time All-Star William Contreras.

Without naming names, Murphy said: “I watch some of our leaders that might not be getting the results, but the way they handle everybody else is pretty impressive.” Murphy added that might be one of the keys to this team’s success.

Another is simply the ability to continue competing even when things aren’t going smoothly.

“Maybe that’s the secret,” Murphy said. “Maybe this team still plays well enough to be close when they’re not at their best.”

___

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

Ogden lives in Sorrento and says she travels the road about three times a week. When traffic is at its worst, she said she has learned to plan around it.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I try to time it so that I come during late morning or early afternoon to avoid the heavy traffic,” Ogden told News 6.

She described dealing with the traffic as “a nerve-wracking experience.”

The City of Apopka has been working toward widening West Kelly Park Road as development continues around the State Road 429 interchange.

But now the road project has reached a different kind of crossroads: how to pay for it.

Apopka city commissioners have the Kelly Park Road Pioneering Agreement on the agenda for a City Commission discussion workshop Wednesday, Aug. 19. The city’s posted meeting materials include a presentation on the agreement, an outline from the city attorney and documents tied to the roadway funding agreement.

City: Current committed funding is not enough

The issue became public in a May 6 Notice of Funding Deficiency sent by the City of Apopka to the project’s co-developers.

In it, the city wrote that the current developer caps and existing committed funding were “insufficient to complete the Kelly Park Road widening improvements contemplated by the Agreement.”

The notice was sent to Kelly Park VB Development LLC, Golden Gem Investments LLC and Galvin-Harris Land Services LLC, which the document collectively identifies as the project’s co-developers.

The numbers in the notice show why the funding issue is more complicated than one simple shortfall.

According to the May document:

• The co-developers’ estimated remaining project cost was $23,326,100.89, excluding a 10% contingency.
• $15 million in developer-cap funding had been deposited into escrow.
• $5,368,685.80 had already been spent on the widening project as of April 13, including engineering and design costs.
• The co-developer budget listed $9,821,312.90 in collected impact fees, although the city said those fees had not yet been confirmed as allowable funding for the project.
• Based on those figures, the notice listed an estimated funding deficiency of $13,694,786.69.

So is the shortage $13.7 million or $1.05 million?

The city provided additional clarification to News 6 Wednesday afternoon.

City officials said that at the time the May notice was issued, the shortfall in the developers’ capped funding obligation was $1,051,090.93.

That figure is different from the $13.69 million estimated funding deficiency displayed earlier in the notice.

The distinction is important.

The $13.69 million figure represents the broader estimated deficiency shown in the city’s funding calculation based on money deposited, money already spent and the estimated amount still required to complete West Kelly Park Road.

The $1.05 million figure, according to the city, represents the shortfall specifically against the developers’ funding cap of up to $20 million.

The May notice itself identifies that $1,051,090.93 amount as a “shortfall in the Developer’s Cap Funding up to $20,000,000.”

In other words, the documents identify a much larger overall project-funding need, while the developers’ contractual contribution has a ceiling.

And what happens once that ceiling is reached is now a central question for city leaders.

Who pays if the project costs more than $20 million?

News 6 asked the city whether taxpayers could ultimately become responsible for part of the funding problem.

The city said the existing agreement gives Apopka two options if there is a shortfall beyond the $20 million developer cap:

Find another source of funding — or cancel the agreement.

The city did not say in its response Wednesday that developers are required to absorb every dollar above the $20 million cap.

Instead, officials said the agreement caps the pioneers’ contribution at $20 million.

That means one of the most important questions moving forward is what, if any, alternative source the city could use if project costs ultimately exceed the money available under the agreement.

Why did the cost increase?

The city said its review of the developers’ project budget found that there was not an appropriate amount of money remaining for project contingency — money typically reserved for unexpected costs, changes or problems that arise during construction.

The May notice also points to higher market prices for roadway construction materials, labor and equipment as one factor behind the updated estimates.

But that is only part of the potential additional cost.

The city provided News 6 with a list of other issues that could affect the final price:

Nine slope easements remain outstanding

The project still requires nine construction slope easements, according to the city.

Those easements allow crews to work beyond the permanent roadway right-of-way where necessary to properly grade the sides of the road.

If the city cannot secure them, the May notice says retaining walls could instead be required in those areas.

The estimated cost: $2 million to $3 million.

One right-of-way acquisition remains

The city told News 6 there is also one remaining property where right-of-way still needs to be acquired.

The May notice separately identifies the proposed right-of-way acquisition involving Kelly Park Self Storage, saying that cost could rise to $235,000 or more.

Impact-fee money could change

The city also identified a potential $1,275,904 reduction in traffic impact fees collected from Oaks at Kelly Park, a development east of Plymouth Sorrento Road.

The May notice says those impact fees were among the potential funding sources being considered for the widening, but the document also cautioned that collected impact fees had not yet been confirmed as allowable funding to cover project costs.

Construction administration may add roughly $500,000

According to the city, construction administration costs do not appear to have been included in the project budget.

Officials estimate those services could cost approximately $500,000.

The city also identified several other possible expenses, including:

• additional design and engineering;
• permitting;
• drainage work;
• utility relocation;
• signalization;
• possible Round Lake Road improvements required under the agreement;
• changes in roadway scope or construction sequencing; and
• inflation since the previous cost estimate.

The notice says the construction estimate was approximately $16.43 million and that the project would need a standard 10% construction contingency of about $1.64 million for possible change orders and unknown costs.

Residents say development has already changed the road

For the people using Kelly Park Road now, the funding calculations are competing with a much simpler concern: traffic.

Ogden said she has watched homes, apartments and businesses go up around the corridor.

“They’ve already put the houses, the neighborhoods, the apartments. They have the commercial buildings in place,” Ogden said. “They need to widen the roads for us.”

Bradley Naylor told News 6 he has lived in Apopka since 1964 and now travels the Kelly Park Road area several times a week.

His reaction to the funding problem was straightforward.

“They need to find the money,” Naylor said. “I’m surprised it hadn’t been widened already since they put 429 in.”

What happens next?

The May notice gave the co-developers 30 days after receiving it to respond in writing.

Under the agreement, they could either agree to the increased estimate and funding obligation or object to the accuracy or completeness of the information the city used to support the increased estimate.

Now, the Kelly Park Road Pioneering Agreement is back before city commissioners for discussion.

The issue before them goes beyond one number.

They have to determine how much money is actually available, how much more could be needed as property acquisition and construction details are resolved, and what the city is willing — or legally able — to do once the developers reach their contractual funding cap.

For drivers such as Ogden and Naylor, the question is much easier to define: When does the plan finally turn into pavement?

“The world needs more heroes,” he told the roundtable. “And it’s not about creating more heroes because they already live among us. It’s about being able to really value their expertise, their experiences.”

The Duke of Sussex, who served 10 years in the British Army, hinted that he’d soon launch a “commercial” solution that “really values those who served rather than expect them to volunteer.”

He held the discussion with veterans, defense officials, military spouses and nonprofit leaders at a hotel ballroom in Washington, D.C. The conversation — which was organized by The Independence Fund, a nonprofit that helps critically wounded service members — lasted more than 80 minutes.

Veterans’ services and mental health have become cornerstones of Harry and his wife Meghan’s philanthropy through their Archewell Foundation. The Duke of Sussex founded the Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style international competition for wounded service members, in 2014. His advocacy also includes visits with wounded military personnel, like last year’s stop at a Ukrainian clinic that rehabilitates victims of war.

Harry’s British military service included two tours in Afghanistan. He has credited his experience witnessing fellow soldiers’ battlefield injuries with inspiring him to help injured veterans lead healthy lives. In a 2023 Netflix series, he spoke openly about lacking the necessary emotional support upon his return from combat.

Harry told the roundtable that it has been refreshing to hear the latest generation of veterans express an interest in “purpose" and “service after service” —- no matter their branch or country of service. He extolled their communication skills, moral leadership and ability to work in high stress environments.

But, he said in an interview with The Associated Press, that those skills are “not being transitioned over within the civilian world."

In between jokes about each other’s hair and their alma maters, wounded veterans emphasized the importance of exercise in their rehabilitation. Garrett J. Carnes, a retired marine corporal who lost both legs, said inactivity is difficult when they’ve spent so long priding themselves on their physical fitness. “I give all glory to Jesus Christ,” he said, “but man I am so thankful that he invented Jiu-Jitsu.”

Others highlighted the need to improve the quality of veterans’ health centers in smaller towns and bolster mental health services at overworked Veterans Affairs offices.

Jason Wheeler, a U.S. Navy and Army veteran, said it's “not right” that he was unable to get his military benefits to cover a recent surgery. Sitting in a wheelchair, he teared up as he recalled the “humiliating” time he had to crawl off a commercial airplane with his service dog.

He was told he would never walk again, he said, but has since walked over 1,000 feet.

“I will not stop the fight. I will not quit,” he said. “We don’t have it in us.”

Harry’s earlier stops Wednesday included Arlington National Cemetery, where he laid a wreath, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He did not mention reports of his decision to return to the United Kingdom for an extended stay with Meghan and their children. He declined to comment when asked to discuss the move.

Sarah Verardo, the CEO of The Independence Fund, noted Harry’s impact on the patients at Walter Reed. A few veterans who told Harry they were too injured to participate in his Invictus Games left their interactions standing “taller and stronger” after he told them there’s “no such thing,” according to Verardo.

Jane Horton, a senior defense adviser in the Trump administration and Gold Star wife, appreciated that Harry is using his platform to unite veterans.

“To see someone that has turned pain into purpose in such a beautiful way such as Prince Harry — not only turn pain into purpose, but pain into service — resonated with the whole community and means a lot to us all,” she told AP.

In an interview with AP, Harry spoke more broadly about the need to elevate “moral leadership.” He expressed concern that a “very, very small group of people are making decisions that are impacting the entire world” around politics and technology.

“What we need,” he said, “is the younger generation coming into leadership who perhaps see the world slightly differently. And I think a little less testosterone might do as well.”

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

Is it time for something similar around the foul poles?

The Baltimore Orioles certainly felt aggrieved Wednesday night against the New York Yankees after Pete Alonso's deep fly to left field in the seventh inning was ruled foul — and the call was upheld on a review.

The play occurred with the game tied at 3. New York then scored twice in top of the eighth and went on to win 5-3.

“I think a simple fix is like football, you have the pylon camera with the plane, where it shoots right across the goal line,” Alonso said. “And I feel like, for us, we could easily have a laser or a camera that shoots straight up.”

Manager Craig Albernaz shared Alonso's frustration.

“On the dugout iPads there’s ball-tracking data with the field that the players see, so it’s really tough to have that (call) come back as ‘stands’ and have that visual in the dugout as well. It’s 2026,” Albernaz said. “There are teams using AI on the iPads and other sports use ball-tracking data for challengeable calls. Don’t understand why we don’t do it.”

At least one replay seemed to show the ball on the fair side of the pole, but it wasn’t clear what angle that shot was from.

“What I was told is in order to overturn a call, you need to have two camera angles to confirm it,” Alonso said. “But the best view, the only view that shows the ball fair or foul is the one down the line, but no other camera angle is available. So video room rules it foul, umpire obviously called it foul initially. It is what it is.”

It might have been easier for the umpire — and the replay room — to make the call if Alonso's hit hadn't been so high. It appeared to tower above the foul pole at one point.

“That we don’t have the technology in place to actually say, ‘Hey, this was fair or foul,’ is literally crazy in 2026. It’s crazy,” said Chris Bassitt, Baltimore's starting pitcher Wednesday.

Bassitt then blamed financial considerations for why such technology isn't used.

“Because it would cost money,” he said. “That’s it. I mean, that’s literally it.”

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

May Doi, 93, was found dead Monday after she was reported missing, police said. Neighbors think she was escaping floodwaters in her home and trying to get to a nearby shelter, said ʻĀina Akamu, a former student of Doi's who is now a vice principal at a local school.

She taught for so long at Naalehu Elementary on the island's southern tip that “Mrs. Doi was my dad's kindergarten teacher,” Akamu said Wednesday.

“She taught grandkids of her students,” he said. “She was a fixture in this community.”

Akamu often saw her taking walks around the small, rural, sugar plantation-era town: “She was so strong.”

He recalled how everyone looked forward to having Mrs. Doi as a teacher because she sometimes allowed students to have sleepovers in her classroom. Her deceased husband was a math teacher, Akamu said.

The body of a man in his 60s was located by residents in a pasture on Tuesday, a day after police were asked to conduct a welfare check, police said. Authorities said it was the second death attributed to the storm and have not yet released his identity.

Residents were struggling to clean up after Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rock and left many households without electricity for days. On top of all that, forecasters warned of the likelihood of another tropical cyclone forming southeast of the islands.

‘We just ask the ancestors to protect us’

Akamu also lamented the destruction of two cemeteries, including one where Akamu’s ancestors have been buried since 1850. Caskets were sticking out of the ground through the town, home to about 800 people, and headstones littered the roadway, he said.

“Our graveyard is now scattered all over the community and how do we heal from that?” he said.

He worries crews working to clear roads could inadvertently run over remains.

“Don't clear the road, my grandma could be in there,” he said. "That's what makes me most emotional, it's like you lost them again."

Akamu was trying to focus on helping his community recover by setting up a hub where residents can get donated items. They are in most need of generators, gasoline and propane, he said.

“We just ask the ancestors to protect us,” Akamu said of the threat of an another storm.

Now well west of Hawaii's main islands, Lala has reached major Category 3 strength with top sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) on Wednesday in what the National Hurricane Center called the first major hurricane of 2026 in the Central Pacific Ocean. But Hawaii residents were put on notice for another storm system, located far to the east-southeast.

The hurricane center said conditions appeared conducive for a tropical depression to form within days.

It's too early to tell the exact location or potential wind, rain and storm surge impacts. However, “interests in the Hawaiian Islands should closely monitor the progress of this system,” the hurricane center said, adding it could be a hurricane when it moves near or over the islands by the weekend.

Power repairs could take weeks

Work continued to clear away tons of mud and debris left behind by a torrent of water that inundated buildings, some of whose roofs were sheared off by the winds. Dozens of homes were washed from foundations, bridges were damaged and a collapsed section of a two-lane road had cut off access to the community of Pahala.

The U.S. Department of Transportation approved an initial $6 million in emergency relief to help repair transportation infrastructure damaged by Lala, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said.

The heaviest recorded rainfall, 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), occurred in Laupahoehoe on the northeast coast of the Big Island, the National Weather Service said.

About 17,000 customers on the Big Island remained without power on Wednesday, the Hawaiian Electric utility said. Some customers on the islands of Oahu and Maui were still in the dark. Repairs in the heavily damaged areas of the Big Island, including the southern end, could take at least two weeks, the utility said.

Lala was moving to the northwest at 10 mph (17 kph) and was expected to turn toward the north early Thursday. It was bearing down on a remote area at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. Hurricane warnings were posted for portions of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument from Lisianski Island to Maro Reef.

The weather service said the storm was forecast to veer east of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. The population in one of the most remote places on Earth consists entirely of a few dozen U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff, volunteers and contractors. Forecasters said there were no tropical-related advisories for the Midway Atoll and any impact might include some elevated surf with a limited amount of rain.

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Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia.

A person familiar with the trade said Wednesday night that Watson, a restricted free agent who spent his first four NBA seasons with the Nuggets, will sign a four-year contract with the Cavaliers worth $88 million that includes a player option and trade kicker.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the trade had not been announced.

Cleveland will send to Denver an unprotected 2031 first-round pick and a 2032 second-round selection from the Sacramento Kings that it got after making a trade in June’s NBA draft. The Nuggets will also acquire Julian Reese from Washington.

The Cavaliers are getting a 2027 second-round pick from the Clippers, but that will be sent to the Wizards.

The 23-year-old Watson started a career-high 40 games last season and averaged career bests in points (14.6), rebounds (4.9) and assists (2.1). He gives the Cavaliers the wing player they were looking for after LeBron James signed with Philadelphia instead of returning to Cleveland for a third stint.

Besides Watson, the Cavaliers were also looking at free agents DeMar DeRozan and Jonathan Kuminga.

Strus and Dean Wade were the primary starters at small forward last season. Wade signed with Philadelphia during free agency.

Strus missed the first 67 games last season due to a broken left foot, but had some big baskets and steals during the playoffs as Cleveland reached the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2018. The Cavaliers were swept in that series by the New York Knicks.

Cleveland laid the groundwork for a move last week when it traded Dennis Schroder to Charlotte for Tre Mann to gain salary cap space. Mann's time in Cleveland won't last long; he's headed to Washington for Cam Whitmore.

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See AP’s full NBA coverage here

The dogs are undergoing medical evaluations right now. The shelter is looking for rescue organizations that can help care for the dogs, especially groups that can take 10 or more small dogs.

The shelter says it’s the largest amount of dogs they’ve ever taken in.

These dogs are not up for adoption, but the shelter has other dogs that are and need homes. The shelter says it has 423 animals in its care right now.

Rescue organizations can contact the shelter by email: animalrescue@lakecountyfl.gov.

If you want to help the shelter in other ways, go to its website at LakeCountyFL.gov/Animal-Shelter.

The stunning developments came a day after Ukraine’s recently fired defense minister demanded national elections, despite Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion.

Although Zelenskyy was not implicated in the graft investigation, it threatened to pull him into another political crisis and provide another test of his resilience.

Investigators gave few details of the probe. It has identified a group of people alleged to have laundered 150 million hryvnias ($3.4 million) to pay bail for a defendant in a major graft case last year, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau said.

That case, involving the state-owned nuclear power company, brought the resignations of Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers.

The latest suspects include a former lawmaker, the chairperson of a state bank’s board and the head of the bank’s supervisory board, as well as a deputy head of the presidential office, the agency said.

Zelenskyy made no public comment on the investigation but issued a decree dismissing Iryna Mudra as deputy head of the Office of the President. Investigators have not named her as a suspect.

Investigators searched Mudra’s office Wednesday, said lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko.

Zelenskyy remains dogged by high-level graft investigations, although he has never been named as a suspect even as the probes have engulfed officials close to him. Last year, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak resigned and later was named as a suspect in a major graft probe involving a luxury construction project in the biggest threat to Zelenskyy’s government since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

The European Union has identified deep-seated corruption as one of the major hurdles to Ukraine's desired membership in the bloc.

Zelenskyy's former aide wants a wartime election

Zelenskyy is already under pressure over his firing last month of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, one of the longest-standing members of his team and a close ally since helping him win the 2019 presidential election.

Zelenskyy, seeking to reconcile tensions between the Defense Ministry's young and tech-savvy innovators and Ukraine's seasoned, Soviet-trained battlefield leaders, risked angering both sides by reshuffling his wartime leadership. He ousted both Fedorov, whose changes to military procurement aimed to stamp out corruption, and commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.

That sparked sustained street protests supporting Fedorov. For Zelenskyy, it was the second time in a year that a move triggered a strong public backlash, after he tried to curb the powers of anti-corruption agencies in 2025.

Fedorov, in an address posted to YouTube late Tuesday, called for elections — appearing to directly confront Zelenskyy, whose term expired in 2024. Ukraine's constitution prohibits such a vote under martial law.

“We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war,” Fedorov said.

He said Ukraine faces a crisis in how it is governed, arguing the current system is oriented toward protecting itself and resisting change. He also condemned corruption among officials without naming anyone, saying it had weakened Ukraine’s ability to fight.

Zelenskyy’s office did not immediately comment on Fedorov’s address. It was not immediately clear whether Fedorov's appeal would resonate with Ukrainians.

Also on Wednesday, lawmakers approved Zelenskyy's candidate, Maj. Gen. Yevhenii Khmara, as the new defense minister, a move that effectively closes the door to Fedorov’s return to the post, which he has sought, anytime soon.

Lawmakers also gave their consent for Andrii Sybiha to stay on as foreign minister after serving in an interim role.

Political disarray follows Ukrainian wartime successes

The political disarray follows recent successes for Ukraine in the war. Using innovative drone technology, it has repeatedly hit Russian oil facilities, causing fuel shortages. It has also shocked the Russian public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, the country's biggest online retailer, and stalled front-line advances by Moscow's bigger army.

But Zelenskyy has been unable to get traction in U.S.-led peace efforts, and Ukraine is at the mercy of Russia's ballistic missiles because more U.S.-made Patriot interceptors aren't available due to low international stockpiles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has balked at negotiating a peace deal directly with Zelenskyy.

In its latest attack, a Ukrainian drone hit an oil refinery in Ufa in Russia's Bashkortostan, its Gov. Radiy Khabirov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. There are three oil refineries in Ufa, and all have been attacked.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight intercepted 453 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions, as well as Russian-held Crimea and the Black Sea.

It said Russian forces on Tuesday hit a bulk carrier in the Black Sea, southeast of Odesa, that was carrying military equipment. On Wednesday, the Russian military struck what it said were fuel and lubricant storage tanks for the Ukrainian armed forces in the southern port of Chornomorsk.

A Russian drone struck a minibus in Kherson in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing four people, said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration, adding that four women were wounded. Another Russian drone struck a civilian car in the regional capital, killing a woman, he said.

Amid the fighting, Russia and Ukraine swapped 103 prisoners of war, according to Zelenskyy and the Russian Defense Ministry.

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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.

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

Graham, a political novice, was asked whether the U.S. has a national security interest in Taiwan and the South China Sea — a longstanding contention of both Democratic and Republican administrations. She struggled to answer before admitting, “National security is not my thing.”

“I’m not that informed on national security,” she added.

Her rival in next week's runoff for the GOP nomination, Rep. Ralph Norman, suggested the answer showed Graham was unqualified for the role.

“By her choice, she’s running for the United States Senate. It’s a six-year term,” Norman said. “You need to get fully versed in what issues you’re going to be dealing with. This isn’t a get training on the job, you can’t do that.”

It was a moment that drew a stark contrast to Graham’s brother, Lindsey, who died unexpectedly on July 11. It also gave Norman, an established conservative politician, a fresh avenue of attack as he tries to overcome President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Graham in her first campaign. The Republican president is set to visit South Carolina on Friday to campaign for her.

During his decades in the Senate, Lindsey Graham was known for his foreign policy involvement, making countless foreign trips, sometimes as part of a group of U.S. lawmakers meeting with international leaders and observing contentious areas firsthand.

There were multiple trips to Taiwan, including in 2022, when he led a delegation for a two-day visit that included meetings with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the island’s defense minister.

Darline Graham had been asked, “Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States and if so, why or how?”

Graham avoided a direct response and instead mentioned her brother's wealth of experience and her desire to lead differently.

“My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military,” said Graham, who often read from a legal pad on which she had notes, its pages draped over the front of her lectern. “My dad was in the Army. I’m not a polished politician up here; national security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military.”

Candidates were not allowed to bring notes into the debate, but Graham spent several minutes before the broadcast began copiously writing on her legal pad. Norman wrote down a few things but not as extensively.

As interim senator, Graham is surrounded by many of her brother's Capitol Hill staff, many of whom worked with him for years on issues foreign and domestic. She's repeatedly thanked them for getting her up to speed on legislative issues and has pointed to her several weeks on the job as a productive time in which she's gotten legislation passed, including a Russia sanctions bill named for her brother.

In the wake of her brother’s death, Graham has been asked multiple times about how she would either further or shift away from his intense focus on national security, an attitude that was at the essence of his Senate portfolio.

Asked after the debate by reporters if she wanted another crack at her answer to moderators' question, she doubled down, saying she was more focused on South Carolinians' everyday concerns.

“They’re worried about their pocketbooks more than they’re worried about the South China Sea, quite honestly,” Graham said. “So that’s going to be my biggest focus.”

Graham added that she had spoken multiple times during the debate about the overall national security threat posed by China.

“I realize national security is very important,” Graham said. “I probably said 10 times up there tonight how bad China is, how they’re a national threat to us.”

Speaking with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, Graham acknowledged her flub but said that she had spoken with voters since the debate who said they appreciated her honesty in expressing her lack of foreign policy expertise.

“I tripped up on one question last night regarding Taiwan, but you know, I’ve said many times, I’m not a politician, certainly not a career politician. I don’t speak politician,” Graham said. “You know, I was just honest, and I think that’s kind of a foreign concept.”

Taiwan has often been a flashpoint for aggression from China and international efforts to support its right to self-rule. The U.S. maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity over whether it would defend Taiwan militarily if the mainland invaded, but has committed to bolstering the island's defense for generations.

Claimed by China as part of its territory, Taiwan sits along a South China Sea global trade route, virtually all of which China claims despite a 2016 arbitration ruling based on the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea that invalidated Beijing’s expansive claims.

During a visit to Manila this week, Adm. Frank Bradley, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, said that American special operations forces are ready to step up warfighting-readiness exercises with counterparts in the Philippines and other countries in Asia to further strengthen a security alliance and help deter a major conflict in the region.

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

Just two days after U.S. negotiators reportedly asked Israel to draw down attacks in the Gaza Strip, at least 10 people were killed Wednesday in two strikes, according to local hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. Israeli troops also crossed the ceasefire line in southern Gaza and detained a Hamas police colonel at dawn Wednesday, two witnesses and a Hamas official said.

Israel's military said one of the strikes on Wednesday, in the area of Nuseirat refugee camp, struck a Hamas commander who had participated in the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 251 abducted. A second strike in the Tuffah area of Gaza City struck four Hamas militants gathering in a police station, the military said, claiming they were planning to carry out attacks against Israeli troops.

Israel's military said a strike the day before targeted a meeting of four Hamas commanders and additional militants.

The commanders killed included Muhammad Hamdi Ahmad Al-Masri, Muhammad Attar and Muhammad Fathi Hussein Nasser, all accused of carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli troops, and Samed Samir Harb Abu Habal, who infiltrated Israeli territory during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, according to a statement from Israel's military.

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the Wednesday Gaza City strike on the police station killed eight police officers and a 13-year-old girl. Two officers were women, it said. One person was killed in Nuseirat. On Tuesday evening, an Israeli strike on a busy seaside cafe killed seven Palestinians, including a child, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Jared Kushner, a U.S. negotiator and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, held a marathon meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, in which he asked Israel's leader to draw down attacks on Gaza, a person familiar with the meeting said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to brief journalists.

Also on Wednesday, Israel's military said it had completed reviews of 150 incidents of troop conduct during the war in Gaza and would launch criminal investigations into the 2024 killings of a 5-year-old girl and her family, as well as of 15 Palestinian paramedics in 2025.

At least 17 killed in Israeli strikes

The deadly strikes in Gaza on Tuesday and Wednesday exacted more casualties even as a ceasefire that’s been in place since October has significantly diminished the fighting in the tiny enclave where more than 2 million Palestinians live. Since the ceasefire, Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,273 people, according to health officials in Gaza.

The nearly three-year Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 73,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, which was part of the recently dissolved Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and international organizations. It doesn't distinguish between civilians and militants, but says women and children make up around half of the toll.

In the early hours of Wednesday, at least 15 Israeli troops entered the Muwasi coastal area, west of the city of Khan Younis, two residents and a Hamas official said.

Accompanied by armed men, the troops stormed the tent of Sabri Abdel-All, a colonel for the Hamas-led Blue Police in Khan Younis. They also detained another resident identified as Nashat Ezzat Zaarab, they said.

The two residents and the Hamas official spoke on condition of anonymity for their safety.

Latest ceasefire negotiations offer few concrete commitments

On the diplomatic front, the ceasefire also appears stalled. Trump's initial ceasefire plan laid out a broad vision for ending Hamas’ rule in Gaza and rebuilding the territory, much of which was reduced to rubble during the war.

But since last fall, major sticking points have emerged on the conditions of Hamas' disarmament and Israel's withdrawal — and which should come first.

Earlier this month, Trump announced that Hamas had agreed to disarm. But Hamas said it would begin to disarm if Israel halts strikes and withdraws, adding that laying down its heavy weapons would come later and be contingent on the creation of a Palestinian state — something Israel’s government rejects.

Netanyahu also pushed back on the deal, saying Israel won't withdraw from its current lines in Gaza until Hamas has completely disarmed.

After Wednesday's strikes, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem lashed out at the Board of Peace — the body Trump established to oversee the ceasefire — saying it has provided a "cover” for Israel to escalate its attacks in Gaza instead of pressuring it to abide by the ceasefire agreement.

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Associated Press journalists Julia Frankel and Giovanna Dell'Orto in Jerusalem; Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made the comments Wednesday night in her country’s first reaction to Trump’s moves to drastically cut back the annual U.S.-South Korean military drills.

“We think it’s not worth making comments on that and we have no interest in it at all,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media. “The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”

She also cited a series of other military drills carried out by the U.S. and South Korea earlier this year and South Korea’s push to introduce nuclear-powered submarines.

Kim Yo Jong denied that there are any communications between Trump and Kim. Earlier this week, pressed by reporters on whether he had a conversation with Kim Jong Un, Trump said that Kim had responded to his request for a conversation.

Kim Yo Jong's statement did not contain North Korea’s typically harsh rhetoric. She briefly said relations between her brother and Trump are “still excellent," mentioning her brother’s past comments that he still has “good memories” of Trump. This suggests North Korea may be trying to manage relations with Trump, while seeking bigger concessions to restart talks.

When asked by reporters Wednesday if he will meet with Kim Jong Un this year, Trump said that “Yeah, I will be.” He wouldn’t answer a question about whether he is exchanging letters with Kim but said he gets along with him.

US and South Korea confirm drastic slashing of drills

Kim Yo Jong's statement came hours after the South Korean and U.S. militaries confirmed they were scaling back their 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises. Trump earlier ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the exercises, citing what he said was a good relationship with Kim and South Korea’s refusal to support him over Iran.

South Korean officials said Trump’s announcement came without prior notice, baffling many people in the Asian country and raising concerns about joint defense readiness.

South Korea’s military said the allies agreed to adjust the duration and scale of the exercises at the request of the U.S. It said the ongoing drills would end Friday, not Aug. 27 as initially planned. It added that the allies also agreed to downsize some joint field training exercises.

The Pentagon said that it was “continuing training that enhances tactical capability” but certain events have been canceled or converted to simulations. “These adjustments preserve essential readiness and training objectives. There will be no degradation to U.S. training objectives,” a Pentagon statement said.

Ulchi Freedom Shield is largely a computer-simulated command post exercise meant to hone the allies’ ability to deal with potential North Korean aggression. The two countries usually hold a set of field training exercises during the command post exercise period.

The drills are a central pillar of the U.S.-South Korea alliance, which dates to the 1950-53 Korean War. But they also are a long-running source of animosities with North Korea, which has denounced the exercises as a rehearsal for an invasion and responded with provocative missile tests. Days before this month's drills began, North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the sea.

This month's drills were initially supposed to be held in two phases in simulation of North Korean attacks — the first part until this Friday on defensive operations and the second part until Aug. 27 on counteroffensive operations. North Korea is extremely sensitive to counteroffensive drills, according to South Korean media.

Prospects for Trump-Kim summit unclear

Earlier Wednesday, North Korea's state news agency, KCNA, published a commentary slamming the U.S.-South Korean military drills as “frantic” and “extremely dangerous” and vowing to completely frustrate its rivals’ hostilities.

Many experts said Kim, now emboldened by his advancing nuclear program and expanding military cooperation with Russia, won't likely embrace Trump's overture and return to talks anytime soon unless he's promised bigger concessions. Kim suggested last year that he could only return to talks if the U.S. drops its demand for North Korean denuclearization as a precondition for diplomacy.

Trump claimed Wednesday that North Korea has 57 nuclear weapons. Some experts put the size of the North’s arsenal at more than 100 warheads.

South Korea’s intelligence service estimated last year that North Korea sent about 15,000 troops to support Russia's war against Ukraine. Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said North Korea was preparing to send more troops to Russia. But in her Wednesday statement, Kim Yo Jong flatly denied that, calling it “an ungrounded farce."

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung hailed Trump's decision, saying in his X message Wednesday that he hopes it would lead to reopening dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang and promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula. Lee is a liberal who wants better ties with North Korea.

South Korea's main opposition conservative party earlier accused Lee's government of prioritizing the resumption of Kim-Trump diplomacy over security concerns caused by Trump's move.

Trump and Kim met three times from 2018-2019 but their high-stakes diplomacy eventually fell apart over wrangling over a North Korean demand for extensive sanctions relief in return for limited denuclearization steps.

Trump's move may focus on South Korea over Iran

In his social media post, Trump said the drills are not only costly but “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” during his time in the White House. Trump said he asked Lee if South Korea would join the U.S. in the “denuclearization” of Iran, “and they said, ‘No thanks!’”

At separate parliamentary hearings Wednesday, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said neither South Korean nor U.S. officials were informed of Trump's move before his social media post. Cho said the alliance remains strong, while Ahn said South Korean and U.S. defense officials were maintaining close consultations.

Some experts say Trump's cut of the drills was more likely designed to apply pressure on South Korea to give him substantial support over the Iran war than to reach out to North Korea.

“Trump's message is that if you don’t cooperate with us on Iran, we’re not cooperating with you” on the drills either, said Yang Uk, an analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “It's like he's asking South Korea to show it's helping him over Iran” by taking steps like sending warships or reinforcing missile defenses in some areas.

South Korean officials said South Korea and the U.S. are closely discussing practical and military contributions that South Korea can make to help restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

It wasn't the first time that the U.S. and South Korea have scaled back or canceled their drills.

In 2018, Trump abruptly announced the cancellation of a major war game with South Korea, after his first summit with Kim. The U.S. and South Korea have since canceled or reduced other joint drills to support diplomacy with North Korea and cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said crews were working nonstop to fix the outages, but 75,000 customers still lacked electricity by late afternoon, mostly in Lake County next to the Illinois border.

They included more than 20,000 customers in Gary, where residents lined up again at community centers for hot meals and a place to charge phones.

The latest news for Gary wasn't good: Full restoration is not expected there until Aug. 25, NIPSCO said.

Roughly 300 poles and 44 power transmission poles need to be repaired or replaced in Gary as a result of the storm, which carried winds of 99 mph (159 kilometers per hour), said Melody Birmingham, an executive at NIPSCO's parent company.

Birmingham acknowledged the “real burden” of losing perishable food and people living for days without air conditioning after a “historic storm” that initially left 300,000 customers in the dark.

“These aren't simple repairs,” Birmingham said at a news conference. “These are systems that are being rebuilt.”

Utility says low-income residents are not ignored

Jeremy Spurrier, 51, said he's fortunate to have a generator at his Portage home, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. But the generator is expensive — it goes through about $75 of gas a day — and Spurrier said his family is relying on nonperishable food like soup. He drives to Illinois to get ice to chill his insulin.

"If I run out of ice, that’s several hundred dollars of insulin just ruined,” he said.

Gary, a majority-Black city, has been especially hit hard, with some residents voicing frustration that they're being ignored. Birmingham denied that low-income residents were being overlooked and blamed posts on social media.

“We have areas that are probably affluent where we still have customers out as well. ... This has nothing to do with race or any type of division,” said Birmingham, who is Black. “It's really a matter of where the storm hit.”

Gary Mayor Eddie Melton acknowledged that locals were “frustrated and exhausted” but said more than 600 linemen were working to restore power in the city.

"I want to reiterate this is clearly not just a Gary situation. It is a northwest Indiana situation,” Melton said.

No storm damage — but no power

A 4-year-old boy, three men and three women were among those who had died since the storms began Aug. 11, said Liz Woods, a spokesperson for the state Department of Homeland Security.

In Whiting, Myra Carden, 74, said her home wasn’t damaged by the storm — “not even a chair was blown over in the yard.” But she was in her second blackout Wednesday.

Carden, her son and three dogs lost power for more than two days last week. Then the electricity went out again Tuesday.

“More than once I have put in an outage report,” she said. ”All I get back is, ‘You already put in a report.’ Well, what do you want me to do? ... This doesn’t make sense. Of course I’m not a lineman; I’m a paralegal.”

Carden uses a generator to keep the refrigerator humming but only when someone’s home to monitor it.

“We have a deep freeze in the garage packed full with beef and chicken. I’m sure everything will be thrown away,” she said.