The S&P 500 edged up by 0.3% in midday trading, coming off its first winning week in the last six. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 100 points, or 0.2%, as of 12:30 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

Oil prices likewise seesawed between gains and losses amid continued uncertainty about what will happen in the war with Iran and how long it will slow the global flow of oil and natural gas. Iran on Monday rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and instead said it wants a permanent end to the war, though the talks may not have collapsed.

“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”

Fighting is continuing, meanwhile, including an Israeli attack on an Iranian petrochemical plant. And in the background is the clock ticking toward a deadline, which Trump has moved multiple times, where he has threatened to attack Iran's infrastructure if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s oil typically sails through the strait during peacetime.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” Trump said on his social media network over the weekend, threatening Iranian leaders that “you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH!”

Monday also offered the first chance for U.S. stock prices to react to a report from Friday that said U.S. employers hired more workers last month than economists expected. The unemployment rate unexpectedly improved.

They’re encouraging signals for an economy that’s had to absorb painful leaps in costs for gasoline since the war’s beginning. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is nearly $4.12 across the country, according to AAA. It was below $3 a couple days before the United States and Israel launched attacks to begin the war in late February.

For countries that don’t produce as much oil as the United States, the pain has been even worse. That’s because they are more reliant on oil coming from the Middle East, and the war has blocked in much of the crude produced in the Persian Gulf area. That oil typically gets to customers around the world by exiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 0.3% to $111.88 after erasing an earlier modest dip. Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.2% to $109.26 per barrel and remains well above its roughly $70 price from before the war.

On Wall Street, a split performance for the Big Tech stocks that are the U.S. market’s most influential kept things in check. Apple rose 1.2%, and Amazon added 1.4%, but Microsoft fell 0.5%.

Bank stocks were some of the market’s strongest, including a 1.6% rise for JPMorgan Chase.

CEO Jamie Dimon said in his annual letter to shareholders released on Monday that the U.S. economy continues to be resilient, and businesses still look healthy. He, though, also acknowledged that prices for stocks and other assets are high, which could imply “anything less than positive outcomes could have a dramatic impact on global markets.”

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The 10-year Treasury yield was sitting at 4.32%. That's still well above its 3.97% level from before the war.

That rise has pushed up rates for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses, slowing the economy.

A report on Monday also said that finance, transportation and other U.S. businesses in services sectors grew in March for a 21st straight month of expansion. But the growth was slightly slower than economists expected, and a measure of prices accelerated at its fastest pace since 2022 in a potentially discouraging signal for inflation.

In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.5%, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.4%. Many other markets in Europe and Asia were closed for holidays.

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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

The six-hour flyby is the highlight of NASA's first return to the moon since the Apollo era with three Americans and one Canadian — a step toward landing boot prints near the moon's south pole in just two years.

A prize — and bragging rights — awaits Artemis II.

Less than an hour before kicking off the fly-around and intense lunar observations, the four astronauts were set to become the most distant humans in history, surpassing the distance record of 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) set by Apollo 13 in April 1970.

Mission Control expected Artemis II to surpass that record by more than 4,100 miles (6,600 kilometers).

The astronauts woke up to the voice of Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, who recorded the message just two months before his death last August. “Welcome to my old neighborhood,” said Lovell, who also flew on Apollo 8, humanity's first lunar visit. “It's a historic day and I know how busy you'll be, but don't forget to enjoy the view.”

Artemis II is using the same maneuver that Apollo 13 did after its “Houston, we’ve had a problem” oxygen tank explosion wiped out any hope of a moon landing.

Known as a free-return lunar trajectory, this no-stopping-to-land route takes advantage of Earth and the moon’s gravity, reducing the need for fuel. It’s a celestial figure-eight that will put the astronauts on course for home, once they emerge from behind the moon Monday evening.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to pass as close as 4,070 miles (6,550 kilometers) to the moon, as their Orion capsule whips past it, hangs a U-turn and then heads back toward Earth. It will take them four days to get back, with a splashdown in the Pacific concluding their test flight on Friday.

Their expected speed at closest approach to the moon: 3,139 mph (5,052 kph).

Wiseman and his crew spent years studying lunar geography to prepare for the big event, adding solar eclipses to their repertoire during the past few weeks. By launching last Wednesday, they ensured themselves of a total solar eclipse from their vantage point behind the moon, courtesy of the cosmos.

Topping their science target list: Orientale Basin, a sprawling impact basin with three concentric rings, the outermost of which stretches nearly 600 miles (950 kilometers) across.

Other sightseeing goals: the Apollo 12 and 14 landing sites from 1969 and 1971, respectively, as well as fringes of the south polar region, the preferred locale for future touchdowns. Farther afield, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn — not to mention Earth — will be visible.

Their moon mentor, NASA geologist Kelsey Young, expects thousands of pictures.

“People all over the world connect with the moon. This is something that every single person on this planet can understand and connect with,” she said on the eve of the flyby, wearing eclipse earrings.

Artemis II is NASA’s first astronaut moonshot since Apollo 17 in 1972. It sets the stage for next year’s Artemis III, which will see another Orion crew practice docking with lunar landers in orbit around Earth. The culminating moon landing by two astronauts near the moon’s south pole will follow on Artemis IV in 2028.

While Artemis II may be taking Apollo 13’s path, it’s most reminiscent of Apollo 8 and humanity’s first lunar visitors who orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968 and read from the Book of Genesis.

Glover said flying to the moon during Christianity’s Holy Week brought home for him “the beauty of creation.” Earth is an oasis amid “a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe” where humanity exists as one, he observed over the weekend.

“This is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing and that we’ve got to get through this together,” Glover said, clasping hands with his crewmates.

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

Video from TikTok user @pre.k.thug26 is going viral with more than 500,000 views, showing kids on a school bus terrified, screaming, and crying as a train speeds past just feet from the rear of the bus.

The video uses the hashtags #TrainHitMyBus and #SumterCountyFL, and it was posted the same day.

Christina Armstrong said she saw the school bus carrying 29 kids and 2 adults collide with a train in Bushnell, Thursday, near North Main Street and East Central Avenue.

“The train hit the back of the bus, and immediately your heart just starts to go kind of crazy,” Armstrong said.

Sumter County School District Superintendent Logan Brown said the train clipped the back of the bus, and the driver is no longer employed with the district as of Thursday.

“A matter of six inches is the difference in all of this, and it could have been an extremely catastrophic situation,” Brown said in a social media video released on Monday.

Brown said the bus driver, employed with the district since August 2015, was terminated following the incident. He also praised the train conductor’s response, calling him “a hero in this situation.”

Effective immediately, Brown said all district buses will avoid the East Central Avenue crossing and reroute to one of four signal-controlled crossings.

The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the driver was cited the same day of the crash for failing to stop at a railroad crossing.

Armstrong described what she saw in the moments leading up to the collision.

“The bus had stopped before the tracks, and then it started to go. A car had changed into the other lane, by the looks of it. I was grabbing donations from our customers, and I saw the bus pull forward, but not enough,” Armstrong said.

Luckily, no one was injured.

“I wanted to cry. I immediately started to pray afterward because it was a lot,” Armstrong said.

The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office said it plans to have an incident report ready by Monday.

Atlanta also receives the right to swap second-round picks with Chicago in 2028.

The 6-foot-3 Reese averaged 14.1 points and 12.9 rebounds in her two seasons with Chicago, earning All-Star honors each year while finishing as the runner-up for rookie of the year in 2024.

"Angel is a dynamic talent and a perfect fit for what we are building in Atlanta,” general manager Dan Padover said in a statement released by the Dream. “She has already proven herself as one of the most impactful players in the league, and her competitiveness, production and drive to win align seamlessly with our vision. This is an exciting moment for our organization and our fans.”

Reese, 23, was the No. 7 overall pick by Chicago in the 2024 WNBA draft after leading LSU to the 2023 national championship.

The trade comes after Reese expressed frustrations late in last season's 10-34 finish for the Sky. She told the Chicago Tribune that she “might have to move in a different direction and do what’s best for me” if the team didn't improve its outlook. She later apologized to the team for the comments.

“I’m not settling for the same ... we did this year,” Reese told the newspaper. “We have to get good players. We have to get great players. That’s a non-negotiable for me. I’m willing and wanting to play with the best. And however I can help to get the best here, that’s what I’m going to do this offseason.

“So it’s going to be very, very important this offseason to make sure we attract the best of the best because we can’t settle for what we have this year.”

The Sky suspended Reese for half of a game for comments deemed “detrimental to the team.” The team listed her as dealing with a back injury for its final three games, raising speculation about her long-term future in Chicago.

"This trade is designed to achieve roster balance and represents a great opportunity for all parties,” Chicago general manager Jeff Pagliocca said in a statement released by the Sky.

“Angel has achieved many record-breaking milestones in her first two years in the WNBA and has been a competitive force for the Sky. We are thankful for her many important contributions to this league and this game, and we know she will continue to have a big impact on the court and beyond. We wish Angel all the best in her next chapter.”

Reese averaged 14.7 points last season and led the WNBA with 12.6 rebounds per game. She joins an Atlanta roster that boasts other established stars and flourished under the leadership of coach Karl Smesko.

Allisha Gray finished fourth in the MVP voting last season. Rhyne Howard became the fastest player in WNBA history to reach 300 career 3-pointers. Naz Hillmon was named Sixth Player of the Year and Brionna Jones was an All-Star.

“I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity to join the Atlanta Dream organization,” Reese said. “I’m focused on continuing to grow my game, competing at the highest level, connecting with the fans, and giving everything I’ve got to the Dream.”

Atlanta set a franchise record with 30 wins in 2025.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press on Monday.

Also Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel attacked the South Pars petrochemical plant at Asaluyeh in Iran. He made the announcement after Iran said the facility had been attacked. An Israeli attack in March on South Pars facilities sparked major Iranian attacks targeting oil and gas infrastructure across the Gulf Arab states.

Meanwhile, Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Iran, killing more than 25 people. Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.

And U.S. President Donald Trump’s deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz loomed. Trump gave Tehran a deadline that expires Monday night Washington time, saying if no deal was reached to reopen the strait, the U.S. would hit Iran’s power plants and other infrastructure targets and set the country “back to the stone ages.” Following Trump’s expletive-laced threat on Easter Sunday, Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf called the threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure “reckless.”

Here is the latest:

Trump suggests Kurdish groups have held onto guns meant for Iranian protesters

Trump appeared to confirm that the U.S. had intended to arm Iranian protesters after mass demonstrations against the government broke out throughout Iran in late 2025 and continued early into this year.

Thousands of anti-government protesters were killed during the crackdowns by government forces. Fox News reported on Sunday that Trump had told the network’s Trey Yingst in a telephone interview that Kurdish groups who were supposed to be delivering the U.S.-provided weapons held on to them.

“They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against these thugs,” Trump told reporters on Monday about the weapons intended for protesters. “You know what happened? The people that they sent them to kept them because they said, ‘What a beautiful gun. I think I’ll keep it.’ So, I’m very upset with a certain group of people and they’re going to pay a big price for that.”

Trump says he’d prefer to ‘take the oil’

President Trump said that he’d prefer to use U.S military power to take control of Iran’s vast oil reserves, but acknowledged there’s not much appetite for such a move among the American electorate.

“Take the oil because it’s there for the taking,” Trump said. “There’s not a thing they can do about it. Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home. If it were up to me, I’d take the oil. I’d keep the oil. I would make plenty of money.”

Trump warns Iran they’re making a mistake by not capitulating

Shortly after state media reported Iran had rejected a ceasefire proposal, Trump offered a new harsh warning to Iran.

“They just don’t want to say ‘uncle,‘” Trump told reporters as he and first lady Melania Trump hosted the White House Easter Egg Roll. “They don’t want to cry as the expression goes ‘uncle,’ but they will. And if they don’t, They’ll have no bridges. They’ll have no power plants. They’ll have no anything.”

He added another ominous warning, “I won’t go further because there are other things that are worse than those two.”

A regional official involved in the ceasefire talks says the efforts haven’t collapsed

“We are still talking to both sides,” he says, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door diplomacy.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu says petrochemical attack weakens Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

He said Monday’s strike on an Iranian petrochemical facility is part of a systematic campaign aimed at destroying the Guard’s “money machine.”

“We are destroying factories, we are eliminating activists and we continue to eliminate senior figures,” he said in a videotaped statement.

Netanyahu said he also spoke to President Trump about the U.S. rescue of two downed crew members in Iran. He said the president thanked Israel for assisting in the mission.

An Iranian university student asks the world: ‘Stop this war’

A resident of Tehran in his early twenties says U.S.-Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure and Trump’s intensifying threats have “terrified” people.

“Everyone is very anxious and scared that the water, power and gas will be cut,” he said, speaking anonymously for his security.

The student first spoke with The Associated Press on the eve of the war, when he participated in anti-government protests at his Tehran university’s campus. At the time, he described heated disagreements with friends who said they hoped a threatened Israeli-U.S. attack would overthrow the Islamic Republic.

“Those who were supporting the war are no longer supporting it,” he said Monday.

Sunday, he heard the sound of “a lot of explosions” around the city from his home in the Sattar Khan area. He said he’d turned to taking sleeping pills to get through nightly bombardments.

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

Key Federal Reserve official open to possible rate hikes amid gas price spikes

Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press that if inflation remains persistently above the Fed’s 2% target, the central bank should consider lifting its benchmark interest rate.

While Hammack also said the Fed might have to cut its rate if higher gas prices caused the economy to slow and unemployment to rise, a potential rate hike is a noticeable shift for the Fed from before the Iran war, when officials forecast two rate cuts this year. A hike could lift longer-term interest rates for things like mortgages and auto loans.

“My baseline is that we’re on hold for quite some time,” Hammack said, “but I can foresee scenarios where we would need to reduce rates ... if the labor market deteriorates significantly. Or I could see where we might need to raise rates if inflation stays persistently above our target.”

Houthis claim they hit military sites in Israel

The Iran-backed Houthis said they launched a barrage of cruise missiles and drones at several military sites in southern Israel, “successfully achieving its objectives,” according to the group’s military spokesperson.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the military spokesperson for the Houthis, said in a statement Monday that the missiles were launched as part of a joint operation with the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon.

Iranian president lauds role of slain intelligence chief

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian praised Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, intelligence chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, according to Iran’s state media.

Iran’s media reported Pezeshkian lauded Khademi’s intelligence role and security efforts “against all kinds of conspiracies of enemies.”

“His martyrdom speaks to the fact that the security and independence of Islamic Iran is indebted to the sacrifice and selflessness of the brave sons who, in the most difficult circumstances, work tirelessly for the honor and peace of this land,” he said.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency says Tehran has rejected the latest ceasefire proposal

The agency said it had has conveyed its response to the U.S. through Pakistan, a key mediator.

“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press on Monday. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”

The response came ahead of a deadline by President Trump to begin bombing Iranian energy and infrastructure.

Israel to ramp up production of air defense interceptors

Israel’s ministry of defense said Monday that the country’s defense industries would “significantly increase” production and stockpiling of missile interceptors as the war with Iran stretches on.

In a statement, the ministry said production of missile interceptors for the Arrow system, which defends against long-range ballistic missiles, would be sped up. Arrow has been critical in Israeli air defense during the current war, throughout which Israeli authorities have maintained there’s no shortage of interceptor missiles.

Lebanese Christian political leader criticizes government for not confronting Hezbollah

Samir Geagea, who leads the Lebanese Forces political party, made the remarks in statement after an Israeli strike hit an apartment building in the town of Ain Saadeh late Sunday, killing a party official, his wife and a woman visiting them.

The strike heightened existing tensions between host communities and more than a million displaced Lebanese, largely Shia from southern Lebanon, deeply divided over Hezbollah and their position on the war.

“Taking responsibility from the outset would have been better for everyone,” he said, talking about the Lebanese security agencies’ sluggish disarmament process of Hezbollah.

Israel’s military says it struck three Tehran airports overnight

The military says the strikes hit dozens of helicopters and aircraft it said belonged to the Iranian Air Force. It said the strikes targeted Bahram airport, Mehrabad airport and Azmayesh airport.

US-Israeli assault brings ‘destruction and bloodshed’ to Iran’s capital, resident says

A resident of central Tehran has described living with “anxiety and fear” as U.S.-Israeli strikes pummel the capital.

“Constantly, there is the sound of bombs, air defenses, drones,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for her safety.

At least one strike hit near her home, waking her on Wednesday, she said. Rushing into the neighboring street, she saw it “filled with people in pajamas, some of them wrapped in blankets, some of them crying with fear.”

She also described her anger at the popular satellite channel, Iran International, which is based abroad. She said its coverage had amplified exiled Iranian voices supporting strikes on the Islamic Republic. “Some people thought war might bring good things, but war doesn’t bring anything but destruction and bloodshed.”

Iranian authorities have moved to ban any contact with several Persian-language satellite channels based abroad. Many viewers inside Iran say the frequencies are often disrupted.

— Amir-Hussein Radjy

US stocks hold steady while crude oil prices waver ahead of Trump’s Iran deadline

The U.S. stock market is making only hesitant moves, while oil prices are unsettled as mediators try to forge a ceasefire agreement ahead of a deadline President Trump has set to bomb Iranian power plants.

The S&P 500 rose 0.1% in early trading Monday. The index is coming off its first winning week in the last six. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 107 points, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.4%.

Oil prices flipped between gains and losses as uncertainty continued about what will happen in the war with Iran and how long it will slow the flow of oil and natural gas.

▶ Read more

Red Cross president says wartime destruction of essential civilian infrastructure must stop

In a statement released Monday, Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, raised alarm about destruction of civilian infrastructure and nuclear facilities in the Iran war.

“Across the Middle East, our teams are seeing the destruction of infrastructure essential for civilian life,” including hospitals, schools, power plants, water systems and more, Spoljaric wrote.

“Most alarming are potential threats to nuclear facilities. Any miscalculation can cause irreversible consequences for generations to come.”

Turkish and Iranian foreign ministers discuss the war

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, held a telephone conversation Monday, during which they discussed “the state of the war” and other developments, a Turkish official said. The official provided the information on condition of anonymity in line with government rules and did not elaborate.

The call came as two Middle East officials said mediators from Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey sent Washington and Tehran a proposal calling for a 45‑day ceasefire and for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

— Suzan Fraser

Iran confirms communication with mediators

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, has told journalists in Tehran that messages are being exchanged, but “negotiations are entirely incompatible with ultimatums, crimes and threats of war crimes.”

Loud booms and sounds of air defenses heard in Jerusalem

It comes after Israel’s military said Iran had launched missiles toward the country.

Israeli military and Mossad helped rescue downed American airman in Iran, Huckabee says

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee wrote in a social media post on Monday that Israel’s military and Mossad secret service had assisted in the U.S. effort to rescue an airman whose plane was downed by Iran.

Huckabee thanked Israel for helping the U.S. military and intelligence agencies in the post to X.

Israeli officials have said Israel provided support, including intelligence, in the rescue, but troops weren’t actively involved on the ground.

Iranian adviser warns the Mideast will go ‘dark’ if Iran’s power plants are attacked

A former Iranian foreign minister and adviser to the supreme leader called for Arab countries to discourage U.S. President Donald Trump from striking Iran’s power plants.

Ali Akbar Velayati warned the entire region would go “dark” if Trump fulfilled his threat and bombed Iran’s power plants.

“The rulers of #Arab_countries should, in order to prevent the region from going dark, make Trump understand that the #Persian_Gulf is not a place for gambling,” he wrote on social media.

UN watchdog confirms strikes close to Bushehr nuclear facility

The United Nations nuclear watchdog on Monday confirmed recent strikes struck close to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, with one hitting just 75 meters (82 yards) from the facility’s perimeter.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a social media post that its own analysis showed the plant was not damaged as of Sunday.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi called for ceasing such attacks, which cause “a very real danger to nuclear safety.”

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization has reported four attacks close to the facility since the war started Feb. 28. The last strike Saturday killed a security guard and damaged a support building, the organization said.

The Bushehr nuclear power plant uses low-enriched uranium from Russia, along with Russian technicians, to supply about 1,000 megawatts of power for Iran.

Israeli military says 4 people killed in Haifa strike were members of same family

Israel’s military confirmed four people found dead at the site of a missile strike in Haifa were members of the same family.

Search and rescue teams found two bodies underneath the rubble Sunday. After 18 hours digging they found two more “deep under the debris” Monday,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said.

He said the warhead that hit the building had not exploded on impact, complicating rescue efforts and posing a continued threat.

They were found after hours of overnight rescue efforts, the military said.

Israeli military says it killed leader of Quds Force undercover unit

Israel’s military said Monday it killed the leader of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s undercover unit in its expeditionary Quds Force.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesman, confirmed the killing of Asghar Bakeri in a briefing to reporters.

He said Bakeri had planned attacks on Israeli and American targets as well as operations in Israel, Syria and Lebanon.

Israeli strike kills anti-Hezbollah politician in Lebanon

The hilly Christian town of Ain Saadeh, east of Beirut, was in shock Monday after an Israeli missile crashed into an apartment building, killing an anti-Hezbollah politician, his wife and another woman.

Israel said it targeted a Hezbollah militant, but the third-story apartment was empty.

The strike blew out the walls and windows of the floor below, killing Pierre Mouawad, an official in the Lebanese Forces, a Christian political party opposed to the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, and his wife, Flavia Mouawad.

“This is the first time something like this has happened here,” family friend Nadine Naameh said. “We had always felt safe here.”

Neighbors wept outside the collapsed apartments as crews swept away the rubble.

“The people who live here are against violence. They don’t want this war,” according to municipal official Pierre Said.

Israel said it was investigating “reports that several uninvolved individuals were harmed.”

Israel says it attacked South Pars plant at Asaluyeh

Israel’s defense minister said Monday that Israel attacked the South Pars petrochemical plant at Asaluyeh.

Israel Katz made the announcement in a statement after Iran said the facility had been attacked.

Katz said Israel had “just carried out a powerful strike on the largest petrochemical facility in Iran, located in Asaluyeh, a central target responsible for about 50% of the country’s petrochemical production.”

An Israeli attack in March on South Pars facilities sparked major Iranian attacks targeting oil and gas infrastructure across the Gulf Arab states.

When asked about the South Pars strike, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, Israel’s military spokesperson, said only that there would be “no immunity” for Iran as talks progress.

The White House did not immediately respond when asked about the South Pars strike Monday morning.

Iranian media says attacks target South Pars natural gas field

Attacks targeted facilities Monday at Iran’s South Pars natural gas field, Iranian media outlets reported.

The semiofficial Fars news agency and the judicary’s Mizan news agency both reported the attack, blaming the U.S. and Israel.

Neither country immediately claimed any attack at Asaluyeh in Iran’s southern Bushehr province.

Iran condemned the first Israeli strike on South Pars in March, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warning of “uncontrollable consequences” that “could engulf the entire world.” The attack on South Pars saw Iran increasingly target Gulf Arab oil and natural gas sites.

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned of possible attacks on power plants and bridges this week if the Strait of Hormuz is not opened.

After Israel’s earlier attack, Trump said Israel would not attack South Pars again, but warned on social media that if Iran continued striking Qatar’s energy infrastructure, the United States would retaliate and “massively blow up the entirety” of the field.

Iran shares the South Pars field with Qatar, which refers to its part of the massive offshore field as the North Field.

The field is the world’s largest gas field and sits under the waters of the Persian Gulf.

Pakistan foreign minister calls for ‘urgent de-escalation’

Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar spoke with his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi by phone and called for “urgent de-escalation.”

A Pakistan Foreign Ministry statement said Dar “reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to supporting all initiatives aimed at de-escalation and the achievement of lasting peace and stability.”

Motegi appreciated and supported Pakistan’s “constructive role” in facilitating dialogue and diplomacy for regional peace and stability, the ministry said, adding that the leaders agreed to maintain contact.

Israel warns public against new Iranian missile barrage

Israel’s military warned the public Monday morning of another missile barrage coming from Iran, the fifth such alert of the day.

“We won’t merely accept a ceasefire,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran's diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press. “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”

He said Iran no longer trusts the Trump administration after the U.S. bombed the Islamic Republic twice during previous rounds of talks: The “White House assassinated the negotiating table.”

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said Tehran conveyed its response through Pakistan, a key mediator.

And yet a regional official involved in talks said efforts had not collapsed. “We are still talking to both sides,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.

Trump's deadline centers on Tehran opening the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime. Ferdousi Pour said Iranian and Omani officials were working on a mechanism for administrating the shipping chokepoint.

Iran’s grip on the strait has caused oil prices to surge and shaken the world economy. Iran has let some vessels through since the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, but none belong to those countries or ones seen as helping them.

Israel strikes massive gas field, and Trump sets deadline

Iran's rejection came after Israel struck a key petrochemical plant in the South Pars natural gas field and killed two paramilitary Revolutionary Guard commanders.

The gas field attack aimed at eliminating a major source of revenue for Iran, Israel said. The field is shared with Qatar and the world’s largest. It is critical to electricity production, but the strike appeared to be separate from Trump’s threats.

Trump has warned Iran that the U.S. could set the country “back to the stone ages."

Word of Iran's rejection of the ceasefire proposal came while Trump addressed an Easter event on the White House lawn, and it was not clear whether he was aware. But he also was scheduled to hold a news conference later Monday.

“If they don’t cry uncle, no bridges, no power plants, no anything,” Trump said of Iran. “But they will."

He also threatened to go further. "If I had my choice, what would I like to do? Take the oil,” he said, suggesting it could be done easily, but “unfortunately the American people would like to see us come home.”

Asked if Tuesday at 8 p.m. Washington time was his final deadline for Iran, Trump replied simply, “Yeah."

Proposal had called for a 45-day ceasefire

Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators had sent Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff a proposal calling for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the strait, two Mideast officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei earlier told journalists that “negotiations are entirely incompatible with ultimatums, crimes and threats of war crimes.”

Former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayatir urged Arab countries to discourage Trump from striking power plants, warning the entire region would go “dark” if that happens.

Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose to $109 in early Monday spot trading, about 50% higher than when the war started, then wavered. U.S. stocks mostly held steady.

Israel threatens to ‘hunt’ Iranian officials

Meanwhile, explosions boomed in Tehran and low-flying jets could be heard for hours.

Among those killed was the head of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, according to Iranian state media and Israel’s defense minister. Israel said it also killed the leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s undercover unit in its expeditionary Quds Force, Asghar Bakeri.

Israel’s defense minister vowed to keep targeting top-ranking officials. “We will continue to hunt them down one by one," Israel Katz said.

Israel’s military later said it struck three Tehran airports overnight — Bahram, Mehrabad and Azmayesh — hitting dozens of helicopters and aircraft it said belonged to the Iranian Air Force.

A Tehran resident said “constantly there is the sound of bombs, air defenses, drones," speaking on condition of anonymity for her safety. Another resident said he takes sleeping pills to get through nightly bombardments, and said people worry about power, gas and water cuts. “Stop this war,” he said.

Separately, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia activated air defenses to intercept Iranian missiles and drones. Tehran has kept up pressure on Gulf neighbors, which has included strikes against infrastructure like oil fields.

In Israel, Iranian missiles hit the northern city of Haifa, where four people from one family were found dead in the rubble of a residential building.

Airstrikes kill more than 25 across Iran

Smoke rose near Tehran’s Azadi Square after an airstrike hit the grounds of the Sharif University of Technology. Multiple countries have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program.

Iranian media reported damage to buildings and a nearby natural gas distribution site. The university is empty as the war forced schools into online classes.

A strike near Eslamshar, southwest of Tehran, killed at least 15 people, authorities said. Five were killed in a residential area in Qom, and six were killed in strikes on other cities, the state-run IRAN daily newspaper reported. Three people were killed at a home in Tehran, state television reported.

In Lebanon, where Israel has launched air attacks and a ground invasion that it says target the Iran-linked Hezbollah militia, an airstrike hit an apartment in Ain Saadeh, a predominately Christian town east of Beirut. It killed an official in the Lebanese Forces, a Christian political party strongly opposed to Hezbollah, his wife and another woman.

“We had always felt safe here,” family friend Nadine Naameh said.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

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Weissert reported from Washington and Magdy from Cairo. Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Isabel DeBre in Ain Saadeh, Lebanon, Amir-Hussein Radjy in Cairo and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this story.

Around 10:30 p.m., officers responded to the 1000 block of Bethune Drive. Upon arrival, they located the victim, Edwin Collazo, of Orlando, suffering from a gunshot wound, police said.

Collazo was transported to a local hospital, where he later died from his injuries, according to police.

Police have not released information about a suspect or what led up to the shooting. The investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Orlando Police Department.

But on the 12-hour drive south to the capital, Tehran, daily life continued, with only occasional signs of the ongoing war, including a Shiite religious center that officials say was damaged by a recent airstrike.

Associated Press reporters made the journey on Saturday after crossing into Iran from Turkey. They gained a glimpse of the country at the center of a regional war that has jolted the world economy and shows no sign of ending five weeks after Khamenei was killed in the opening U.S. and Israeli salvo.

The Associated Press has been granted permission by the Iranian government to send an additional team into the country for a brief reporting trip. AP already operates in Iran. The visiting team must be accompanied by a media assistant from a government-affiliated company. AP retains full editorial control of its content.

A religious center damaged by an airstrike

The first major sign of the war's destruction came in the northwestern city of Zanjan, about six hours' drive from the border.

Iranian officials say an airstrike hit a religious community center, known as a husseiniyah, killing two people and destroying a clinic and a library. Other parts of the compound, some of which is centuries old, suffered damage, including its golden dome.

When asked about the strike, the Israeli military said it had hit “a military headquarters,” and that it tries to avoid harming civilian facilities, without elaborating.

“It has hurt me a lot and distressed me a lot,” said Somayeh Shojaei, a local resident who has attended religious and cultural events at the center. “With these airstrikes, (the U.S. and Israel) are showing their malicious intent to the whole world,” she said.

The strike killed the library's caretaker and a volunteer with the Iranian Red Crescent first responders, according to Jaafar Mohammadi, the provincial director of cultural and Islamic guidance.

He said poor people had received free treatment at the clinic and students had made use of the library that housed more than 35,000 books, including antique manuscripts.

He said he did not know why the complex was targeted.

“Iran wanted to negotiate for peace with (U.S. President Donald) Trump, but Trump responded with war,” Mohammadi said. “He started the war, but we will definitely be the victorious side.”

Life goes on in much of Iran despite fear and uncertainty

The U.S. and Israel have carried out thousands of strikes across the country, and Trump has threatened to bomb Iran “ back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” Over the weekend, he reiterated a Monday deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas.

Iran's surviving leaders have remained defiant and in control, rejecting what they say are unreasonable U.S. peace proposals. Israel has given no indication it plans to let up on its strikes, and has called on Iranians to overthrow their leaders.

Even as the war generates global turmoil — and fear and anxiety within Iran — daily life goes on.

In city after city on the road to Tehran, AP reporters saw normal traffic, businesses open and people walking the streets. A restaurant served Iranian delicacies like grilled lamb and rice, barley soup and saffron drinks as R.E.M.'s “Losing my religion” played on loudspeakers.

Many women could be seen going about their day without wearing the theocracy's mandatory head covering, the enforcement of which has eased in recent years.

The team passed through two checkpoints on the approach to Tehran without being stopped.

Destroyed government buildings and police stations in Tehran

The city was eerily quiet after midnight. There had been heavy airstrikes on the mountains overlooking the capital the previous night.

Tehran is on the front lines, having seen wave after wave of strikes that the U.S. and Israel say are aimed at the military and internal security forces. Authorities in Iran say over 1,900 people have been killed. It's unclear how many were soldiers or civilians.

The AP reporters saw several government buildings and police stations that had been destroyed. They passed a number of checkpoints operated by plainclothes Basij, an internal security force, and uniformed members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

They were stopped once and asked to open the car and show press cards before being waved onward.

Fuel is heavily subsidized, such that a gallon (4 liters) of gasoline costs around 15 U.S. cents. But people are only allowed to purchase around 5 gallons (20 liters) at a time. There were no signs of gas lines.

Back in Zanjan, Mohamoud Maasoumi, a retired soldier, said the conflict with the U.S. — “the world's arrogance” — goes back to a 1953 CIA-backed coup that is seared into the minds of many Iranians. He expressed hope that Iran's leaders would defend the country.

“The enemy sees that we are not ever succumbing,” he said.

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Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed.

Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and members of Parliament during a five-day trip that ended Sunday.

Díaz-Canel wrote on X Monday that upon meeting with Jayapal and Jackson, he “denounced the criminal damage caused by the #blockade, particularly the consequences of the energy embargo imposed by the current US administration and its threats of even more aggressive actions.”

Díaz-Canel added: “I reiterated our government’s willingness to engage in serious and responsible bilateral dialogue and find solutions to our existing differences.”

Both the U.S. and Cuba have acknowledged recently that talks are ongoing at the highest level, but no details have been disclosed.

Jayapal told reporters she believes that recent steps taken by Cuba, such as opening the economy to certain investments by Cuban Americans living abroad; the recent announcement that more than 2,000 prisoners would be pardoned; and the arrival of an FBI team to collaborate in the investigation of a fatal shooting involving a U.S.-flagged boat, “indicate that the moment is here for us to have a real negotiation between the two countries and to reverse the failed U.S. policy of decades, a Cold War remnant that no longer serves the American people or the Cuban people."

Cuba's government has released the pardoned prisoners who were accused of a variety of crimes, although none so far appear to be political prisoners.

In late January, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on any country that would sell or provide oil to Cuba, although he made an exception for a Russian ship that reached the island last week with 730,000 barrels of crude oil. It was the first petroleum shipment in three months to dock in Cuba, which produces only 40% of the oil it needs.

“This is cruel collective punishment — effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country — that has produced permanent damage. It must stop immediately,” Jayapal and Jackson said in a statement released Sunday.

Critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the U.S. attacked the South American country in early January and arrested its leader, Nicolas Maduro.

Cubans already suffering from five years of economic crisis have acutely felt the impact of the fuel shortage: national blackouts, gasoline shortages and rationing, lack of public transport, cuts in working hours, paralyzed hospitals and surgeries, and suspension of flights, among other things.

Russia has promised a second delivery of petroleum, although it’s not clear when it might arrive. Experts have said that the first shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.

Jayapal said that while such shipments are critical, they are only temporary solutions: “We need a longer, permanent solution for the Cuban people and the American people.”

Meanwhile, Jackson compared the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast to the oil blockade in Cuba, adding that the island “is the most sanctioned part of Earth.”

“Our government is fighting to keep the Strait of Hormuz open so there is a free flow of oil around the world. We want, for humanitarian reasons, a free flow of oil, fuel, and energy in our own hemisphere,” he said.

Jackson and Jayapal said they would prepare a report and continue to work on initiatives proposed by fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives to lift sanctions against Cuba to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Two locations are open:

Apopka Community Center, 519 S. Central Ave.

• Now through Sunday, April 12, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office, 119 W. Kaley St., Orlando

• Now through Friday, April 10, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Election Day will be Tuesday, April 14, with two polling places open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.:

• Apopka Community Center, 519 S. Central Ave.
• Northwest Recreation Complex, 3710 Jason Dwelley Parkway

To find out which polling place you are assigned to, go to the supervisor of elections office website.

Also, if you have a vote-by-mail ballot, it must be turned in to the county elections office by 7 p.m. on April 14.

Apopka City Commissioner Nick Nesta is facing Orange County Commissioner Christine Moore in the runoff.

[WATCH: Apopka mayor’s race headed to April runoff]

Moore and Nesta were the top two vote-getters in the three-way election last month. Nesta got 41.6% of the vote, and Moore got 31.85%. Current mayor Bryan Nelson came in third place with 26.55%.

Nelson had sued to get Moore kicked off the ballot, claiming she did not live in the city long enough to meet candidate residency requirements.

However, since the election, Nelson has thrown his support behind Moore for the office.

News 6’s Matt Austin joined the Orlando Sentinel to interview the mayoral candidates last month. You can watch the full interview below.

[WATCH: News 6 anchor Matt Austin interviews Apopka mayoral candidates]

After running through a series of news headlines, Guthrie said that “we are so glad that you started our week with us and it's good to be home.” Her co-host, Craig Melvin said that “it's good to have you back at home.”

She greeted longtime co-worker Al Roker with “Good morning, Sunshine,” when he noted that it was good to see her on the set. At the end of the first 25-minute portion of the show, she offered Melvin a high-five.

Emotions got the better of her before the last half hour, when she joined her colleagues in front of fans gathered at the show's Rockefeller Center studio. She fought back tears when one fan was seen with a “Welcome home Savannah” shirt, and clutched colleague Jenna Bush Hager's arm and thanked people for their support.

Guthrie says it's hard to go forward not knowing what happened

Guthrie, one of morning television's most recognizable faces, has been a “Today” host since 2012. She has acknowledged that she's a changed person and that it's hard to go forward not knowing what happened to Nancy Guthrie, who authorities believe was taken against her will from her Arizona home.

Despite an intense search involving thousands of federal and local officers and volunteers, there has been no sign of the 84-year-old mother of three since she was reported missing Feb. 1.

The “Today” show has followed the story closely for the past two months, but it wasn't mentioned during the first hour of her return on Monday. Bringing things back to normal was clearly intentional: Her return wasn't referenced during interviews with NBC's Gabe Gutierrez at the White House and military analyst Steve Warren on the show's set.

Hoda Kotb, the former anchor who had filled in for Guthrie for much of the past two months and interviewed her former colleague, wasn't on set Monday.

“Today” has seen a ratings boost over the past two months and has even eclipsed ABC's “Good Morning America” as the leader in the morning show ratings. The shows aren't the profit generators they once were for the networks, but the rivalry is still intense.

“Today” averaged 3.1 million viewers for the first three months of the year, up nearly 9% in an era most broadcast programs lose viewers. It's hard to tell how much the Guthrie story had to do with that: NBC also aired the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics in February, and both events tend to help a morning show's ratings.

“Good Morning America” averaged 2.93 million viewers, up 2% over 2025 while “CBS Mornings” plunged 17% to 1.76 million, according to the Nielsen company.

As part of a video message released by her New York church on Easter Sunday, Guthrie spoke about feeling “moments of deep disappointment with God, the feeling of utter abandonment.” But she said the resurrection is not fully celebrated “if we do not acknowledge the feelings of loss, pain, and yes, death.”

In announcing her return to NBC's flagship morning show, Guthrie said she was uncertain whether she'll feel like she still belongs.

“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness,” she said just over a week ago on “Today” during her first interview since the disappearance. “I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back because it’s my family.”

She didn't anticipate faking her way through the show, which is normally light-hearted with a mix of serious, breaking news.

Guthrie's mom had made occasional visits to show's set

There had been a great deal of speculation about whether she would return.

“I want to smile, and when I do it will be real,” she told Hoda Kotb, who came back to “Today” to fill in while Guthrie focused on the search. “Being there is joyful, and when it's not I'll say so.”

Nancy Guthrie made occasional appearances on “Today” over the years, once taking part in a cooking demonstration and surprising her daughter on the set. When Savannah Guthrie returned to her hometown of Tucson in 2025 for a segment recorded for the show, the two visited one of their favorite restaurants and talked about their love of Arizona.

The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the recovery of their mother.

Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will after finding blood near the doorstep of her home in the foothills outside Tucson. The FBI later released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night. Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders in the first weeks after she vanished.

But attention has faded from an investigation that was declared to be a top priority for the FBI and local authorities. Investigators have not released new evidence in weeks and say the number of tips has slowed. The FBI and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department both said late last week that they had no updates.

Early on, some media outlets reported receiving ransom messages tied to the case. Guthrie said she and her siblings responded to two that they believed were real and offered to pay.

Guthrie said her celebrity status might be the reason her mother was taken, but said that possibility was “too much to bear.”

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Associated Press correspondents John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.

The Bruins were a unanimous choice from the 31-member national media panel, ending the season as the top choice for the first time in school history. Their first No. 1 ranking came after they also beat South Carolina in November 2024.

The Gamecocks were second behind the Bruins with Final Four participants UConn and Texas third and fourth, respectively. The Huskies, who have finished in the top 10 of the final poll for 33 straight years, had been the No. 1 team all season until Monday. They had been unbeaten until a loss to South Carolina on Friday.

No. 5 Duke, No. 6 TCU and No. 7 Michigan, which all reached the Elite Eight, followed the Longhorns. LSU was eighth and Notre Dame ninth. The Fighting Irish made the biggest leap in the poll, climbing 13 spots after reaching the regional final with an upset of Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16.. The Commodores were 10th.

Celebrating history

The Bruins are one of only three teams that were in both the first women’s basketball poll 50 years ago and the final Top 25 this season. Maryland and Baylor are the other two. The Terrapins ended the season ranked 20th and the Bears were 23rd.

Ranked Cavaliers

No. 19 Virginia earned its first ranking since 2011 after reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time in 26 years. They also became the first team that played in the First Four to reach the regional semifinals.

Even with their success, the Cavaliers made a coaching change over the weekend, firing Amaka Agugua-Hamilton. The Cavaliers had been a mainstay in the poll until dropping out on Nov. 10, 2011.

Conference supremecy

The SEC and the Big Ten each had eight teams in the final Top 25 of the season. The ACC had five and The Big 12 three. The Big East had one.

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Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball

For the Wolverines to go down as one of college basketball's best ever, they'll have to do it one more time by taking down a UConn program seeking its third national title in four seasons.

The teams meet Monday night in the NCAA championship game, bringing down the curtain on a March Madness full of surprises and fun — and highlighted by two finalists that have been shooting for history in their own distinct ways.

At Michigan, a roster freshly constructed out of last year's transfer portal, has become the first team to score 90-plus points in five straight tournament games in the same season. On the other end, 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara leads a defense that amassed eight or more blocks in the first four games of the tournament — the first time that's happened since blocks became an official stat in the 1980s.

The Wolverines (36-3) had only three swats against Arizona, but that was a 91-73 win in a game that was supposed to be the best of the tournament but turned into something else. Michigan is trying to become the fifth team to win six tournament games by a dozen or more. The last two: the UConn title teams in 2023 and '24.

“We have a team that we think is elite,” coach Dusty May said. “But we also know that means nothing. You still have to do all the things that got you to this point, and you have to weather storms. You have to handle success.”

No program has done that better over the past four years than UConn (34-5) — a feat made more impressive by the landscape it must navigate.

Coach Dan Hurley has used the transfer portal in a more targeted way than Michigan — for instance, he nabbed Tarris Reed Jr. from the Wolverines but also has a UConn lifer in Alex Karaban — to keep the program near the top in an era of quick change.

“We want to have a lot of continuity,” Hurley said. “Our culture is unique. It’s specific. It takes a certain type of player to play for me.”

UConn comes into the game as a 6 1/2-point underdog, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, the third straight game the oddsmakers have picked the Huskies to lose. Bad bet, so far. Braylon Mullins produced the moment of the tournament so far with his 3-pointer to cap UConn's 19-point comeback against Duke to get the Huskies to the Final Four.

If they defy the odds again, they'll become the first program to win three titles in four years since the UCLA dynasty of the 1960s and '70s.

“The last thing we’re thinking about now, as we prepare for one of these teams, is dynasty,” Hurley said after the Arizona win. “We’re gonna go watch this one and go through the preparation and focus on just ... trying to — whoever we play — try to win the game.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

You might be a fighter against book bans, like Valerie Byrd Fort at the University of South Carolina; or a mentor for graduate students researching biomedicine, like Joanne Doucette at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, or transform a dark basement into a gathering space for families, like Mary Anne Russo at the Hubbard Public Library in Ohio.

They are among 10 recipients of the I Love My Librarian Award, which comes with a $5,000 cash prize and a $750 stipend for the American Library Association's annual convention, held this year in Chicago from June 25-29. The winners were selected from a pool of more than 1,300 submissions by library patrons who explain how a “librarian made a difference in your life or gone above and beyond to serve your community.”

“We recognize the remarkable contributions these 10 librarians make for our communities, for learning, for our health and for the public good,” ALA President Sam Helmick said in a statement Monday. “These librarians are people who power possibility in our neighborhoods, our schools, and our places of higher learning. Their leadership, creativity, and innovation strengthen the communities they serve, and we are proud to honor them.”

Other winners include Tracy Fitzmaurice from Jackson County, North Carolina, praised by the ALA as a “transformative leader for rural libraries”; Deb Sica of the Alameda County Library, in Fremont, California, a champion of diversity and intellectual freedom; Zachary Stier, who has worked for years on literacy projects at the Ericson Public Library, in Boone, Iowa; and Christine Szeluga of New Jersey's Cranford High School, where she secured grants for a podcast studio and history archive.

Also cited were Mahasin Ameen, whose initiatives at Indiana University cover everything from health literacy to information literacy; Mia Gittlen, who transformed the shuttered library at California's Milpitas High School; and Jenny Cox of South Carolina's Georgetown Middle School who worked to boost funding for thousands of new books.

The awards, established in 2008, are presented by the ALA, the New York Public Library and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

According to an end of service announcement published on the tech giant's U.S. support website, Samsung Messages will be discontinued in July. Impacted owners of Samsung smartphones and other gadgets are being asked to switch to Google Messages in the meantime, “to maintain a consistent messaging experience on Android.”

All Samsung Galaxy phones run on Google's Android operating system. To switch to Google Messages, Samsung's website gives users instructions to download the app from the Play Store, if not already on their phone, and set it as the default. Some people may also receive an in-app notification to guide them through the process.

Samsung says switching to Google Messages will give users access to updates like the latest artificial intelligence features from Google's Gemini — which includes an experimental feature called “Remix” to generate images during conversations and AI-powered reply suggestions — and the ability to share higher quality photos between Android and Apple iOS devices through RCS-enabled messages.

Users of older Android operating systems (dating back to Android 11 or older) will not be impacted by the end of Samsung Messages, the company noted. To check what Android OS you have on a Samsung device, open the settings app, click on “software information” and scroll to “Android version.”

Meanwhile, owners of Samsung's latest Galaxy 26 lineup and other newer phones cannot download the Samsung Messages app from the Galaxy Store today.

All devices will no longer be able to download Samsung Messages after it's officially discontinued in July, the company noted. Samsung said users can check their app for the exact date for when service will go offline.

Beyond the U.S., Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for further information about whether its guidance for Samsung Messages was the same globally.

The news organization is becoming more focused on visual journalism and developing new revenue sources, particularly through companies investing in artificial intelligence, to cope with the economic collapse of many legacy news outlets. Once the lion’s share of AP’s revenue, big newspaper companies now account for 10% of its income.

“We’re not a newspaper company and we haven’t been for quite some time,” Julie Pace, executive editor and senior vice president of the AP, said in an interview.

Despite changes – the company has doubled the number of video journalists it employs in the United States since 2022 – remnants of a staffing structure built largely to provide stories to newspapers and broadcasters in individual states have remained.

That has its roots well back in American history; the AP was started in the mid-19th century by New York newspapers looking to share the costs of reporting outside their immediate territory.

Exact numbers of staff reduction unclear

The number of AP journalists who will lose jobs is murky, in part intentionally. The AP does not say how many journalists it employs, though it has a large international presence as well as its U.S. staff.

Pace said the AP’s goal is to reduce its global staff by less than 5%. The Marketing and Media Alliance estimated the AP had 3,700 staffers, but it was not clear when that estimate was made.

Since buyouts are being offered now to only U.S. journalists, it stands to reason that the cut among that workforce will be more than 5%. Whether there are layoffs depends on how many people take the offer, Pace said.

Reached on Monday, the News Media Guild, which represents AP journalists, had no immediate comment on the plan.

Over the past four years, the AP’s revenue from newspapers has declined by 25%. Gannett and McClatchy, two of the largest traditional newspaper publishers, dropped AP in 2024.

In recent days, the company learned that Lee Enterprises — publishers of newspapers like The Buffalo News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Richmond Times-Dispatch — is seeking an early exit from a contract due to expire at the end of 2026.

Pace said the buyout plan was in the works before learning about Lee Enterprises. “We made a decision earlier this year that we needed to be bolder in this transformation,” she said.

An even higher focus on the day’s biggest stories

Besides the transition to more video capabilities, the AP is deploying rapid-response teams where staff members, no matter their geographic base, contribute to the day’s big stories, she said. The AP is putting more journalists on beats to break news on topics of known customer interest. But it is committed to maintaining a presence in all 50 states.

“The AP is not in trouble,” Pace said. “We’re making these changes from a position of strength but we’re doing so now to recognize our changing customer base.”

Those customers now are dominated by broadcast, digital and technology companies, an illustration of where people are getting news. The AP has seen 200% growth in revenue from technology companies over the last four years, said Kristin Heitmann, senior vice president and chief revenue officer.

The AP was among the first news outlets to make a deal with an AI company, agreeing in 2023 to lease part of its text archive to OpenAI as it built out its capabilities. The AP launched on Snowflake Marketplace last year to license data directly to enterprises building their own system. It has launched AP Intelligence, a division designed to sell data to financial and advertising sectors, for example.

Google contracted with AP last year to deliver news through the Gemini chatbot, the tech giant’s first deal with a news publisher.

“If you can think of a large technology company,” Heitmann said, “they are a customer of ours.”

Predictions markets now part of the picture for AP

Last month, the AP agreed to sell U.S. elections data to Kalshi, the world’s largest predictions market.

AP’s long tradition in counting and analyzing elections data is another growth area; the company saw a 30% increase in customers between the 2020 and 2024 cycles. It got an additional boost last year when ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN signed on to the service.

The company, traditionally a wholesaler of news to other companies, has also seen growing interest in its direct-to-consumer product, apnews.com, which provides revenue through advertising and donations.

The new business frontiers do not indicate a weakening in the AP’s standards of providing fast, accurate, non-biased news, leaders said. “It anything, it makes it more important that we retain these values as we make the transition,” Pace said.

The AP is trying new forms of fact-checking, including use of video, and more often putting its journalists in public to explain how they got particular stories, she said.

“I think that authenticity, and the fact that you can associate a real person who is often quite experienced and quite deep on their beats … it builds more credibility,” she said. “We’re really trying to embrace that because I do think it’s vital when there is so much misinformation out there.”

Vinícius spoke Monday, less than a week after Yamal criticized the chants by Spanish fans in Spain’s friendly against Egypt last Tuesday. Yamal, who is Muslim, said the chants were disrespectful and intolerable.

Vinícius, a Brazil international, has been often subjected to racist taunts while playing in Europe and is vocal about the fight against racism. He said “it's always complicated” to talk about the subject but “these things happen a lot.”

“Hopefully we can continue with this fight,” he said. “It's important that Lamine speaks about it. It could help others. We are famous, we have money, we can balance these things better, but the poor people and the Blacks who are everywhere, they surely struggle more than we do. So we have to stick together, those who have a stronger voice, the players …”

In a Champions League match last month in Lisbon, Vinícius accused Benfica player Gianluca Prestianni of calling him a monkey after the Brazil forward celebrated in front of the home fans when he scored for Madrid. Benfica fans insulted Vinícius from the stands.

“I'm not saying that Spain or Germany or Portugal are racist countries, but there are racists in these countries, and in Brazil and other countries as well,” Vinícius said. “But if we keep fighting together, I think future players and people in general won't have to go through this again.”

Vinícius spoke on the eve of the first leg between Madrid and Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

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

All times are subject to change.

Here’s a rough schedule of activities:

• 1:56 p.m.: The Artemis II crew is expected to surpass the record previously set by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970 for the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth.
• • The Apollo 13 crew traveled 248,655 miles from Earth; Artemis II will reach a maximum distance of 252,757 miles from Earth, surpassing the record by about 4,102 miles. The crew is expected to make remarks on the milestone around 2:10 p.m.
• 2:45 p.m.: The seven-hour lunar observation period begins. Crew will see both the near and far sides of the Moon as the observation period begins.
• • Because the room at Orion’s windows is limited, the crew will divide into pairs, with two crew members observing for 55 to 85 minutes, while the other pair exercises or works on other tasks.
• 6:47 p.m.: Mission control expects to temporarily lose communication with the crew as Orion passes behind the Moon.
• 7:02 p.m.: Astronauts will make their closest approach to the Moon, reaching its farthest point from Earth at 7:07 p.m.
• • At this distance, the Moon will appear to the astronauts about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length. They also may be the first humans to see some parts of the Moon’s far side with the unaided eye.

• 7:27 p.m.: NASA’s Mission Control Center should re-acquire communication with the astronauts.
• 8:35 p.m.: Orion enters a period with the moon eclipsing the Sun and continues until 9:32 p.m.
• 9:20 p.m.: The flyby observation period wraps, and the crew will begin transferring some of the imagery to the ground. NASA’s science team will review the images and observations overnight and then discuss with the crew the following day, while the experience is still fresh.

Prodded by the Trump administration, the justices threw out an appellate ruling upholding Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

The move frees a trial judge to act on the Republican administration’s pending request to dismiss Bannon’s conviction and indictment “in the interests of justice.”

The dismissal would be largely symbolic. Bannon served a four-month prison term after a jury convicted him of contempt of Congress in 2022. A federal appeals court in Washington had upheld the conviction.

The justices also issued a similar order in the case of former Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, who was pardoned by Trump last year.

Sittenfeld had served 16 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him of bribery and attempted extortion in 2022. The high court order allows a lower court to consider dismissing his indictment.

The Justice Department brought the case against Bannon during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, but it changed course after Trump took office again last year.

Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. But the House panel and the Justice Department contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the Capitol riot.

Bannon separately has pleaded guilty in a New York state court to defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the U.S. southern border, as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail time. That conviction is unaffected by the Supreme Court action.

Trump posted late Sunday on his social media platform Truth Social that he has known Hilton for years and called the conservative commentator “a truly fine man” who could turn around a state beset with notoriously high taxes. California, Trump wrote, “has gone to hell.”

“With Federal help, and a Great Governor, like Steve Hilton, California can be better than ever before!” Trump added.

The endorsement — coming about a month before mail ballots go to voters in advance of the June 2 primary — will help Hilton coalesce conservative support in a race with no clear leader. However, Trump is widely unpopular in heavily Democratic California outside his conservative base and Trump's backing would become a liability if Hilton faces a Democrat in the November election.

With a large field, Democrats have been fearful that a quirk in the state's unusual “top two” primary system could allow only two Republicans to reach the November general election ballot — Hilton and GOP rival Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff. Trump's decision — a strong signal to undecided conservative voters — will make that outcome less likely by helping Hilton lure additional support.

There are more than 50 candidates on the ballot — including eight established Democrats and along with Hilton and Bianco, the two leading Republicans. An all-GOP general election is possible in California, which puts all candidates on one primary ballot and only the top two vote-getters advance to November, regardless of party.

Polling in early February by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found the field had broken into two distinct groups, with Bianco, Hilton and three Democrats — U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter and billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer — in close competition, with other candidates trailing.

The nighttime attack on Odesa heavily damaged an apartment block, killing the women and a 2-year-old child, officials said. Rescuers working under floodlights pulled four people from the rubble.

Eleven people were hospitalized, including a pregnant woman and two children — the youngest less than a year old, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

Russia has pounded civilian areas of Ukraine since it invaded its neighbor just over four years ago, killing more than 15,000 people, according to the United Nations.

Over the past week, Russia has launched at Ukraine more than 2,800 attack drones, nearly 1,350 powerful glide bombs and more than 40 missiles of various types, according to Zelenskyy.

In the southern city of Kherson, Russian shelling killed an elderly woman and three other women, 86, 79 and 44, were hospitalized, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration. The injured women sustained shrapnel wounds, concussion, blast injuries and head trauma, he said.

Seven people were injured by Russian drones and shelling in the southern city of Nikopol, leaving a 62-year-old in critical condition as the strikes damaged a multistory building and a pharmacy.

Drones also hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, injuring three people, according to regional military administration head Oleh Sinehubov.

Russia has taken aim at Ukraine’s power grid, and overnight barrages hit energy infrastructure in Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, Zelenskyy said.

More than 300,000 households were without electricity in northern Chernihiv after distribution facilities were damaged in the attacks, according to the regional power utility.

Zelenskyy expressed concern in a weekend interview with The Associated Press that the war in the Middle East is draining stockpiles of weapons that Ukraine needs to defend itself, especially American-made Patriot air defense systems that can stop missiles.

Zelenskyy said Monday that the country’s partners “need to strengthen air defense together so that the interception rate of drones and missiles continues to increase.”

With U.S.-led peace efforts stalled, Zelenskyy added: “Russia has no intention of stopping” its invasion.

Ukraine has fought back by developing its own long-range drones, which now reach targets some 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) inside Russia.

Ukraine has used them recently to hammer Russian oil facilities as Moscow looks to boost its exports after the Trump administration gave it a temporary waiver from sanctions to ease supply constraints. Kyiv officials complain that Russia will use the additional revenue on new weapons to hit Ukraine harder.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian drones struck the Novorossiysk oil terminal, one of Russia’s largest Black Sea ports, overnight. The attack damaged a pipeline, loading and unloading berths, and set fire to four tanks holding petroleum products.

The strike damaged assets belonging to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium run by U.S. and Kazakhstani companies, it said.

Eight people, including two children, were injured in the Novorossiysk attack that damaged six apartment buildings and two private houses, according to Krasnodar Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev.

Last week, Ukraine’s drones struck oil facilities in the Gulf of Finland, in northwest Russia.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 50 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Ukraine’s armed forces claimed they hit a Russian Black Sea frigate, the Admiral Makarov, and a drilling rig.

Russian officials did not immediately comment on the claim.

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

Detroit will be the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, and 10 other teams know their seasons will come to an end on Sunday. Everything else remains a guessing game.

Some of that guesswork isn't really much of a mystery.

— Oklahoma City and San Antonio will almost certainly be No. 1 and No. 2 in the Western Conference, in that order.

— Boston will probably be No. 2 in the East, with New York No. 3.

— Denver looks like it has the inside track to be No. 3 in the West, especially with the Los Angeles Lakers now missing Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves because of injuries.

— Golden State will be in the 9 vs. 10 play-in game, almost certainly as the road team.

— Minnesota gets the No. 6 seed in the West in nearly every possible remaining scenario, with Phoenix No. 7.

This brings us to the rest of the East, and in an annual tradition of sorts, it's a mess.

Orlando and Miami seem like they're headed to the play-in tournament, but there are scenarios where either club could finish in the top six and earn a guaranteed playoff berth on Sunday. In fact, there are paths — highly, highly improbable paths in some cases, but paths nonetheless — for Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami to all finish in the No. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 spots when the regular season ends.

Who's in and who's out?

Here's what we know so far regarding the NBA playoff field for this season.

— Eastern Conference playoff teams: Detroit has locked up the No. 1 seed and will open the postseason on April 19. Boston, New York, Cleveland are in. At this point, Atlanta and Philadelphia would get the other two guaranteed spots, but those are not clinched.

— East play-in teams: Nobody is locked into the play-in yet, but entering Monday, the four teams headed there are Toronto, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami.

— East eliminated teams: Milwaukee, Chicago, Indiana, Brooklyn and Washington.

— Western Conference playoff teams: Oklahoma City, San Antonio, the Los Angeles Lakers, Denver and Houston are in. Minnesota is likely to grab the sixth and final guaranteed spot.

— West play-in teams: Phoenix is probably going to the play-in tournament. Portland, the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State definitely are.

— West eliminated teams: Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Utah and Sacramento.

Sunday recap

— Celtics 115, Raptors 101: It's looking very much like Boston will end with the No. 2 seed.

— Nets 121, Wizards 115: Brooklyn made six more 3s than Washington, won by six points.

— Suns 120, Bulls 110: Devin Booker scored 30, Phoenix pulled away in the fourth quarter.

— Bucks 131, Grizzlies 115: Memphis' Rayan Rupert 31st player with triple-double this season.

— Cavaliers 117, Pacers 108: Donovan Mitchell scores 38, Cleveland pulls away in the fourth.

— Hornets 122, Timberwolves 108: Charlotte is very much in the race to avoid East play-in.

— Magic 112, Pelicans 108: Orlando's 7th win after trailing by 15, tied for most in NBA (Spurs).

— Thunder 146, Jazz 111: OKC was 25.5-point favorite, top odds in at least a decade, and covered.

— Mavericks 134, Lakers 128, OT: Cooper Flagg, at 19, scored 45. LeBron James, at 41, scored 30.

— Clippers 138, Kings 109: Sacramento's DeMar DeRozan moved into 16th on all-time point list.

— Rockets 117, Warriors 116: Stephen Curry returned, scored 29, nearly won game at the buzzer.

Monday's schedule

— New York at Atlanta: Hawks are 18-2 in their last 20 games, likely No. 5 seed in East. Knicks could make a statement here.

— Detroit at Orlando: Magic have three players who finished at Michigan, Pistons have two. This during the NCAA title game — featuring Michigan — is just wrong.

— Cleveland at Memphis: Cavs could still catch Knicks, with some help. A slipup here wouldn't be ideal.

— Philadelphia at San Antonio: Spurs won’t play another road game until Game 3 of West quarterfinals.

— Portland at Denver: Trail Blazers in extremely close race with Clippers for No. 8 seed in play-in tournament.

Tuesday's schedule

— Timberwolves at Pacers: Wolves still vying to clinch 6 seed, then focus on health before Round 1.

— Heat at Raptors: Miami plays at Toronto twice in a three-day span, huge stakes for both teams.

— Hornets at Celtics: Probably game of the night, which nobody would have predicted in October.

— Kings at Warriors: This week is basically preseason for Golden State and its play-in tune-up plan.

— Thunder at Lakers: Oklahoma City on verge of getting No. 1 overall seed for second straight year.

— Mavericks at Clippers: Dallas' Cooper Flagg’s final-week rookie of the year push tour continues.

— Rockets at Suns: Kevin Durant goes back to Phoenix, one of his former stomping grounds.

— Bulls at Wizards: All about lottery odds.

— Bucks at Nets: All about lottery odds.

— Jazz at Pelicans: For Utah, all about lottery odds. (New Orleans’ pick should convey to Atlanta.)

National TV schedule

Monday on Peacock and NBCSN: New York-Atlanta.

Tuesday on NBC and Peacock: Charlotte-Boston, Houston-Phoenix.

Betting odds

Oklahoma City (+130) is favored to win the NBA title, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, followed by San Antonio (+450), Boston (+550), Denver (+1200), Cleveland (+1200) and New York (+1900). Detroit, the No. 1 seed in the East, is +2500. The Los Angeles Lakers were +2500 before Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves got hurt; they're +50000 now.

Key dates

— Friday: All 30 teams play their 81st games of the season.

— Sunday: All 30 teams play their regular-season finales.

— April 14, 15 and 17: NBA play-in tournament dates.

— April 18 and 19: NBA playoff series openers.

— May 2, 3 or 4: Conference semifinals begin.

— May 10: NBA draft lottery.

— May 10-17: NBA draft combine.

— May 17 or 19: Eastern Conference finals begin on ESPN and ABC.

— May 18 or 20: Western Conference finals begin on NBC and Peacock.

— June 3: Game 1, NBA Finals on ABC. (Other finals dates: June 5, June 8, June 10, June 13, June 16 and June 19).

Numbers watch

The NBA's single-season total points record is set to fall Sunday, the final day of the season. The league's teams are on pace to score a combined 284,300 points or so this season — which would top the record of 282,127 set last season. Teams are averaging 115.6 points per game this season, and that would be the biggest per-game number since 1969-70 (116.7).

Stats of the day

— The Clippers shot 53% from the field, 49% from 3-point range and 95% from the foul line Sunday. It was the 1,000th time NBA regular-season history that a team had 50-40-90 shooting splits in a win.

— Cooper Flagg, 19, scored 45 points and LeBron James, 41, scored 30 points in Dallas’ OT win over the Lakers on Sunday. It was the first time in NBA history that a teen and a 40-something both reached 30 points in the same game.

___

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

A pottery-painting spot for everyone

Studio manager Madison Martinez says All Fired Up is designed for all ages and all kinds of plans. You can walk in or make a reservation by phone, and the studio also hosts everything from kids’ birthday parties and field trips to corporate events and team-building outings. Bonus: it’s BYOB, so you can bring whatever you’d like to sip while you paint.

Even better for first-timers: there are no studio fees. You simply pay for your piece, and then paint as long as you need—aka “unlimited painting” time.

The spring technique to try: lace

During the visit, Maddie demonstrated one of the studio’s more elegant techniques: a lace pattern—perfect for spring entertaining, especially on a plate you can use for desserts or snacks.

Here’s how the lace technique works:

• Paint two coats of your base color.
• Lay the lace on top.
• Add one to two more coats of the same base color using a sponge to help the lace stick and create the pattern.

The result: a soft, detailed design that looks polished and gift-worthy—without being intimidating.

What happens after you paint

Once you finish your piece, the team keeps it for about five days to glaze and fire it. That step makes it food- and drink-safe and gives it that shiny, finished look. You can pick it up after five days (or anytime later), and the studio will hold it for up to two months.

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Why it’s worth a spring visit

If you’re looking for a seasonal activity that doubles as décor, a memory-maker, or a handmade hosting piece, All Fired Up’s spring collection delivers. Cute choices, a welcoming vibe, and a technique like lace that makes your pottery look extra special—this is your sign to stay local and play local.

“Dal Moros has been in the United States since 2021,” President David Caruso said. “The concept was created after a family trip to Italy where me and my father saw different local people making pasta in a fast casual manner.”

Dal Moros follows a build-your-own format: guests pick their pasta shape, sauce and toppings before everything is cooked to order. “Everyone’s used to build your own in the United States right now, whether it’s a burrito bowl, a salad bowl — why not a box of pasta?” Caruso said. “Based on all the combinations that we have, you have over a million different combinations that anyone can choose from.”

At Dal Moros, the pasta show happens right in front of you. Fresh dough made from just semolina flour and water is mixed and pushed through a large extruding machine that turns it into fettuccine, rigatoni, thick spaghetti, and more, all day long. Caruso says they produce a couple of hundred pounds of pasta daily at The Mall at Millenia location alone. He explained they use semolina instead of the bleached white flour you often find in the U.S., because semolina keeps more of the “good stuff” intact and is easier for your body to process, so you don’t get that heavy, lethargic feeling after a big bowl of pasta.

I started with Dal Moros’ homemade pesto, built on fresh semolina pasta. The pesto is made in-house with basil picked off the stem, pine nuts and cheese, then tossed with hot noodles and finished with more cheese and toasted nuts. Just from the aroma, I knew I wanted this first. As soon as it hit my tongue, all that fresh basil came through — so bright and fragrant. I love pesto because it’s so simple but amazing, and here the pasta itself is the star: it’s so soft, with just the right bite, and you can tell it’s made fresh and definitely not from a box.

Next up was a traditional cacio e pepe, served as an alternative to the creamy Alfredo many Americans expect. “A lot of times when you think of a cheese sauce, when you’re thinking of pasta, you’re going to think of Alfredo, which is more Italian-American,” Caruso said. Here, the classic sauce is made with pecorino cheese and black pepper, creating a silky, deeply cheesy coating on the pasta. When I tried it, it was so creamy and good. Italians really do simplicity so well — this is a really simple sauce and a really simple dish, but they do it right. You get that little hint of pepper and a whole lot of cheesy comfort.

The caprese pasta offers a fun twist: a mix of hot and cold elements layered over thick spaghetti that Caruso says translates to “fat spaghetti” in Italian. The bowl starts with Napoletana tomato sauce and bigoli-style noodles, then gets topped with stracciatella-style mozzarella (similar to the creamy center of burrata), fresh basil “liquid” and a drizzle of balsamic reduction. It’s warm, saucy pasta underneath and cool, stretchy cheese on top, with that sweet, tangy balsamic tying it all together. For me, it felt like a Sunday evening spaghetti-and-red-sauce dinner, but so elevated — like a childhood classic, all grown up.

The dish that stole the show for me was the Mama Rosa, Dal Moros’ take on vodka sauce. Caruso describes it as “our version of a vodka sauce” that blends a red tomato base with a creamy white cheese sauce so you “get the tangy acidity of a tomato sauce” and “the creamy cheesiness of a cheese sauce.” My bowl was loaded with chicken, smoky bacon and plenty of cheese over fresh pasta. One bite in and I knew this was the one. This is the Florida Foodie recommendation — when we come here, this is what I’m ordering. The smoky bacon with that creamy sauce is such a perfect combo. It’s already my ideal sauce, and those toppings take it over the edge. The portions are huge, too; this could easily feed you for two meals if you let it, but I was ready to finish it all in one sitting.

Even after all that pasta, there was still room for dessert. Dal Moros finished my tasting with a house-made tiramisu, layered with coffee-soaked ladyfingers and rich, creamy filling. Tiramisu happens to be my favorite dessert, and this one did not disappoint. From the first bite, I knew it was a good tiramisu — the cream is so smooth and luscious, and the balance of flavors is just right with a little chocolate on top. The texture is almost like a pudding-style tiramisu, with those ladyfingers soaked perfectly in coffee. I honestly don’t know how I had room for more, but I found a second stomach, and this cup was on its way to being empty in seconds.

Caruso said The Mall at Millenia was an obvious fit for the brand. “In the mall world, this is one of the premier locations that you can have,” he said. “We felt like we would fit well in a place like this and it will really help us grow our brand.” The open kitchen and pasta extruder draw in curious shoppers, and Dal Moros backs up the show with fresh semolina dough, house-made sauces and hearty, customizable bowls.

.With pesto, cacio e pepe, caprese pasta, Mama Rosa and tiramisu all on my table, Dal Moros proved that a simple box from the food court can be a true “box of happiness” — and a worthy stop on any Orlando foodie’s list. If you want to plan your own perfect combo before you go, you can check out their full lineup and build-your-own options on Dal Moros’ online menu

That all changed when he was 13. A family friend and babysitter came over to his house in Newton, Massachusetts and handed him a binder filled with accessible instructions for building a Middle Eastern palace. The instructions, written in braille, allowed him to complete the set without having to rely on the brightly colored pictures that typically come with Lego sets.

“This was the first time that I was able to build a Lego set on my own,” Shifrin said at his home, surrounded by sets he has built including a Statue of Liberty figurine and NASA's Apollo Saturn V rocket. “It was truly an amazing experience because I was completely in control of the whole building process. I knew where the pieces went and I was able to learn about the world around me.”

Inspired to reach more blind Lego builders

After Shifrin's babysitter died, he wanted to honor her memory. So he set about fine-tuning the instructions the two had posted online to reach other blind builders.

Three years ago, Shifrin launched Bricks for the Blind. The 28-year-old now works with a team of 30 sighted writers and blind testers. His website makes the downloadable instructions available for free to anyone who's blind or visually impaired. They can either print the step-by-step instructions in braille, use braille computers or turn to screen readers, which are software applications that convert the text into speech.

The instructions allow a blind person to build on their own, but Shifrin's website also says a sighted person might be needed to sort Lego bricks. Otherwise, the blind builder could turn to one of several apps that identify bricks using artificial intelligence.

So far, the nonprofit has created instructions for more than 540 Lego sets, ranging from a 100-piece car to a 4,000-piece bridge. About 3,000 builders have used their instructions across the United States and as far away as Australia.

Shifrin also approached the Denmark-based Lego Group in 2017 about making their products more accessible, which inspired the company to create audio and braille instructions for a growing number of Lego sets. That launched in 2019.

Separately, the company also introduced Lego Braille Bricks in 2020, which are available in French, English and Spanish, and feature studs on the bricks that correspond to letters, numbers and symbols. It also has introduced several characters in their sets with vision loss.

Blind parents, children and their families find connection

Shifrin, who also is an actor, composer and opera singer, said he has gotten messages from many people who couldn't build Lego until now.

He's heard from grandparents who are blind and say they're now able to build with their grandkids. “We couldn’t build with our kids. They didn’t want our help, but now we can teach our grandkids about Lego,’” Shifrin said. “Or blind parents who say, ‘My kids are sighted, they don’t want my help, but it’s amazing to really understand what all this hype about Lego is about because now I can build on my own

Daniel Millan, who lost his sight in 2024, turned to Bricks for the Blind after a tumor crushed his optic nerves. The 31-year-old master's student from San Diego, who's studying to be an assisted technology instructor, first completed a Lego ornament set. Then on his anniversary, he completed a Lego rose set with his wife.

“Being able to do it independently, it’s freedom,” he said, adding that his sudden vision loss left him wondering about what he wouldn't be able to do again.

But after building Lego sets, he soon learned that “It’s not about what I can’t do anymore. It’s more about what I can do,” he said.

Building with their children

For Natalie Charbonneau, who is blind, the instructions have allowed her to complete sets without relying on her sighted husband. It's also allowed her to have fun with her 5-year-old son — and build many fire trucks and other vehicles.

“If he has questions, I have the ability to check his work or to follow along instead of saying, ’You have to wait for your dad' or ‘You have to ask your dad.’ It’s something that I can now do with him as well, which is empowering,” she said. Charbonneau, a tester for Bricks for the Blind, is a doctoral student who lives in Bellingham, Washington.

Teri Turgeon, the education director for community programs at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts — where Shifrin went as a baby — said the accessible instructions allow blind children to experience the same pleasure as their sighted peers. It also helps them visualize a wider world and develop “fine motor and tactile skills.”

“He’s created a space around innovation and accessibility that was otherwise not there prior and he’s done so with a toy that children play with every day,” she said.

In the founder's Lego room

Back at his house, Shifrin helped fellow blind builder Minh Ha to build a go-kart. Ha grabbed Lego bricks and elements from two bowls and began to first put together a driver figurine.

“It’s just legs, torso, head, helmet. You’ve built this before. It’s a piece of cake. I believe in you,” Shifrin told her.

“Awesome,” she said with a smile. “All right, I’m gonna put the helmet on the head. And then … put the legs on the body.”

She reflected on a journey that began two years ago when she built a lotus flower.

“A lot of blind people have been left out of this cultural and kind of childhood phenomenon of being able to build Lego, play with Lego,” Ha said. “There is something incredibly satisfying and also relaxing to be able to put together these very intricate, very beautiful and architecturally complex builds.”

As each one takes flight, snapping through the air, more than 1,000 spectators cheer and applaud — families, off-duty soldiers, and bat enthusiasts, a few dressed in Goth outfits.

Hundreds of bats, many rescued from war-torn areas in the east of the country, were released late Saturday at one of multiple events around Ukraine planned to coincide with the arrival of spring.

“This is important for us as an organization because these are on a red list of endangered animals. Preserving them is very important,” said Anastasiia Vovk, a volunteer at the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center, which organized the release.

All 28 bat species in Ukraine are listed as protected animals due to declining populations.

For many attendees, the event offered welcome relief and an excuse for a family outing after a harsh winter marked by subzero temperatures, nightly Russian drone and missile attacks and crippling power cuts.

Late Saturday, children, many wearing bat-themed T-shirts and hats, watched as volunteers fed the animals mealworms with tweezers before letting them go. Some were allowed to wear gloves and handle the bats themselves.

“Life goes on despite the war,” said Oleksii Beliaiev, a 54-year-old Kyiv resident who attended with his family. “The war is the main thing right now, but there has to be something else as well.”

Beliaiev runs a small printing business and spends time volunteering for army projects.

The war has displaced animals as well as people. Buildings destroyed by shelling damage bats’ shelters, and explosions terrify the tiny mammals, experts say.

“In winter, bats hibernate, and if they are disturbed, they can die. They reproduce slowly — one or two offspring per year — so populations recover very slowly,” said Alona Shulenko, who headed Saturday’s release.

“As natural hibernation sites disappear, bats move into cities, into cracks in buildings and balconies. But repairs or destruction of these places can kill entire colonies,” she said.

All Ukrainian bat species are insect-eating and legally protected, while the country lies on an important east European migratory route.

The charity says it has rescued more than 30,000 in total, including 4,000 bats last winter.

“We are all living in wartime, and everyone has their own struggles,” Shulenko said. “But we are doing what we know best. … If we stop what we are doing, thousands of bats will die.”

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Associated Press writers Volodymyr Yurchuk and Dan Bashakov contributed to this report.

Gabriela Jaquez, Lauren Betts and the rest of the UCLA seniors secured the first NCAA women's basketball national championship in school history — a goal that was set after losing in the first Final Four last season.

Jaquez scored 21 points, Betts added 16 and UCLA routed South Carolina 79-51 Sunday in the title game.

“I knew we were going to do it. Coming to UCLA we all set out for a goal, and I imagined this moment,” Jaquez said. "I imagined it so many times, and I am just so, so proud. ... Crying a lot, the confetti, all of the fans being here to support us, my family being here, it just means everything. Celebrating with this group, like ... I’m so happy.”

The near-record lopsided victory completed the Bruins’ journey through this year’s March Madness. The Bruins ran through their opponents this season with their only loss coming in November, to Texas in a Thanksgiving tournament.

“It’s immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams.”

UCLA (37-1) was led by Betts and her fellow seniors and graduate students, like Jaquez — who played all four years with the Bruins. She also had 10 rebounds and five assists in front of her brother Jaime, who plays for the Miami Heat and flew in to attend the game to watch his alma mater win.

The group that coach Close put together through a combination of high school commitments and transfer portal players capped off their stellar careers with a championship, scoring all the points in the title game.

“Connectivity. Attention to detail. You know I looked them in the eyes before in the locker room, before the game, and I said, ‘I’m so proud to be able to say this,” Close said. "Because all year we’ve been saying the talent is our floor, but our character will determine our ceiling.’”

The title is UCLA’s first since winning the 1978 AIAW championship, which was the postseason tournament for women’s basketball before the NCAA took over in 1982.

The championship game loss was the second straight for the Gamecocks, who won the title in 2024. Dawn Staley and her Gamecocks (36-4) will be favored to return to the game’s biggest stage with a talented group of expected returnees, led by Joyce Edwards and Agot Makeer.

Like their 51-44 semifinal win over Texas, the Bruins were locked in defensively, anchored by Betts. She finished with 11 rebounds and exited the game with 3:45 left, giving Close a huge hug. The 6-foot-7 senior earned Most Outstanding Player honors of the Final Four.

“UCLA is a quality team with very experienced players who got a taste of being in the Final Four last year, and you make adjustments,” South Carolina's Staley said. "From last year to this year -- they played determined last year, but they played more determined this year because they were so close.”

Offensively, the Bruins had a much easier time than in the semifinal game that saw the team score only 20 points in the first half. The Bruins surpassed that total in the opening 10 minutes against South Carolina. Kiki’s Rice 3-pointer just before the first-quarter buzzer made it 21-10 as the Bruins got off to a strong start and South Carolina struggled with 17% shooting, it’s poorest quarter of the season.

The Bruins extended the lead to 15 points in the second quarter by clogging up the paint on defense and working the ball inside on offense for a 36-23 lead at the half.

UCLA put the game away in the third quarter, opening the period with a 12-3 run. Jaquez had five points during the spurt. South Carolina never threatened again as the Bruins outscored them 25-9 in the period.

“We just didn’t have it today. We tried, but we just didn’t have it today,” Staley said. "They were the better team.”

South Carolina avoided the most lopsided loss in championship history of 33 points, set in 2013 when UConn defeated Louisville. The Gamecocks also surpassed the title game record low of 44 points by Louisiana Tech in 1987 against Tennessee.

The Gamecocks were trying to cement their name as the premiere program in the sport with a fourth championship and third in the past five seasons. It just wasn’t meant to be Sunday as they had their worst shooting game of the season against a talented UCLA team.

“This is not the ending we wanted, but we got here. No one thought we would, and we did it,” said Tessa Johnson, who led South Carolina with 14 points.

Makeer added 11 for the Gamecocks.

“The score speaks for itself.” said Gamecocks senior Raven Johnson, who played in five Final Fours in her career.

Close has been at UCLA for 15 seasons, but her connections go deeper with the school as she was mentored by the legendary Bruins men’s coach John Wooden, who won 10 national championships at the school.

Their bond began when she was 22 years old and he was 83. She shares the same first name with one of his great-granddaughters. Close visited Wooden bi-weekly, adopting his “Pyramid of Success” and focus on character and its paid off with her team.

“Coach Wooden always said, ‘You got to do it the way you’re wired to do it, not the way anyone else did.’ And I just tried imperfectly to stay true to that," Close said.

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

First-year general manager Mathieu Darche announced the abrupt decision to part ways with Roy and name Peter DeBoer his replacement with four games left in the season. The Islanders have lost four in a row and seven of their past 10 games, going from comfortably in a playoff spot to needing help down the stretch in a competitive Eastern Conference race.

Getting outshot 40-16 and losing 4-3 at division-leading Carolina on Saturday night in another must-win game was the final straw for Darche, who took over last summer and decided at the time to keep Roy behind the bench.

Roy is the second head coach fired over the past eight days. The Vegas Golden Knights fired Bruce Cassidy and hired John Tortorella on an interim basis a week ago.

This is not an interim move. DeBoer is taking the job full time.

The 57-year-old is fresh off serving as an assistant on coach Jon Cooper's Canada's staff at the Milan Cortina Olympics, serving as an advanced scout and helping a talented group reach the final before losing to the U.S. in overtime.

“More of preparation was just when everybody arrived here and you’ve got basically three days to prepare, that a lot of the grunt work is done,” DeBoer said in Milan. “I was involved in the scouting selection process. That was totally different for me and an exciting kind of wrinkle in what we usually normally do as coaches.”

DeBoer has taken two teams to the Stanley Cup Final and most recently coached the Dallas Stars to three consecutive trips to the Western Conference final before being fired last year following their latest exit.

Internationally, DeBoer was an assistant for Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off last year and has filled that role at multiple world championships. He called it a great opportunity for learning and perspective, even if being a head coach suits him better.

“Oh yeah, I’m a head coach,” DeBoer said. “I’m a short-term assistant coach. ... You always come back a better head coach for, I think, doing that.”

Roy, a Hall of Fame goaltender considered one of the best to ever play the position, was hired by former GM Lou Lamoriello in January 2024 as a midseason replacement for fired coach Lane Lambert. Sparked by his arrival, the team made the playoffs that year and lost in the first round to Carolina. Regression has followed since, though players in recent days still had praise for Roy.

“He cares about the guys in the room,” captain Anders Lee said last week. “I think his messaging this season has been on point and he’s been able to read the room in a really good place and done his best to continue us on this journey of an 82-game hockey season.”

Roy did not make it to game No. 82, nor did he have the kind of public outbursts during games that were part of his first NHL gig with Colorado.

“I heard (about) his temper and stuff, or I’ve seen it over the years, like everybody,” said winger Ondrej Palat, who joined New York in a trade from New Jersey in late January. “He seems very calm. On the bench, he could get heated with all the circumstances that happen in a game. But in the room and around the boys, he’s pretty calm and positive.”

Parting ways with Roy comes at crucial point for the organization. Rookie of the year front-runner Matthew Schaefer has been a revelation in his first NHL season at the age of 18, and several other top prospects are on their way.

Roy was in his second job running a team in the league, following a three-year tenure with the Avalanche from 2013-16 that included winning the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year and abruptly resigning in the middle of the summer. They hired Jared Bednar, who then coached them to the Stanley Cup in 2022.

Darche and the Islanders are hoping for the same trajectory after making this change.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

While many know Officer Weisman for his service to the community, what you may not know is his love for recreational hockey, a passion that has helped connect him to something much bigger.

That connection comes to life through the annual Guns N’ Hoses charity hockey event, where law enforcement officers and firefighters trade their uniforms for jerseys and hit the ice, all in the name of giving back.

This event isn’t just about competition. It’s about camaraderie, community and raising money for local charities that directly impact Central Florida families.

Officer Weisman, like many who participate, sees it as an extension of service — just in a different arena.

The event is set for Friday at the Kia Center in Orlando, and it’s shaping up to be a full night of action and purpose. One ticket gets you access to not just one, but two Guns and Hoses matchups, followed by a game featuring the Orlando Solar Bears.

It’s a unique opportunity for the community to come out, support their local heroes and enjoy an exciting night of hockey — all while contributing to meaningful causes.

Spending time with Officer Weisman reminded me that the men and women behind the badge are more than what you see on the job. They bring passion, personality and heart into everything they do — whether that’s protecting our streets or stepping onto the ice for a great cause.

Take a look at the full stream to see how this all comes together and maybe I’ll see you out there at the rink.

We spent the day at the Avian Reconditioning Center (ARC) in Apopka getting up close with birds of prey—and seeing what it takes to rescue, rehab, and (hopefully) release some of the most intense animals in the state.

I also met an owl named Ella, who is very sweet and absolutely would not hesitate to delete a rat from existence.

What is the Avian Reconditioning Center (ARC)?

ARC is a nonprofit raptor rehabilitation and education facility in Central Florida. They take in injured and orphaned birds of prey—hawks, owls, falcons, eagles, the whole “I could carry your small dog away” lineup—and work to get them healthy enough to return to the wild.

And here’s the thing: raptors aren’t just cool. They’re also indicator species. Because they sit at the top of the food chain, when something’s off in the environment, they’re often the first to show it. Basically, they’re Florida’s feathered early-warning system… with knives for fingers.

Why raptors end up in rehab (it’s not always obvious)

One of the biggest takeaways from visiting ARC is that a lot of these injuries don’t look dramatic at first glance.

Some birds arrive with clear trauma—wing injuries, fractures, things you can spot right away. But others are dealing with threats that build up over time, especially poisoning that moves up the food chain. The whole “poison the rat, poison the predator” situation is real, and when it finally shows up in a bird of prey, the damage can be devastating—and it can impact populations in a big way.

It’s one of those problems that’s easy to ignore… until you’re standing a few feet from a raptor that’s paying the price for it.

The rehab process: physical therapy, vet care, and flight conditioning

ARC’s work isn’t just “rest and recover.” Rehab can include:

• Physical therapy
• Medications and ongoing care
• X-rays and veterinary support
• Large flight enclosures where birds can stretch, rebuild strength, and prove they can actually fly well enough to survive outside

Some raptors recover fully and are released. Others can’t return to the wild—and that’s where ARC’s education side becomes a huge deal.

Meet the resident birds: when “can’t be released” still means “can help”

Not every bird can go back out there. If a raptor has an injury that would make survival impossible in the wild, ARC may keep it as a permanent resident.

Those birds become ambassadors—helping people understand raptors up close, and in some cases even helping raise other birds (because a human trying to teach an owl how to be an owl is… adorable, but useless).

And from a photographer’s perspective? Being that close is unreal. You notice details you’d never catch in the field—feather texture, tiny adaptations, the sheer prehistoric vibe of their feet.

At one point, I’m holding a bird, and it hits me: you don’t fully understand how strong these animals are until you feel it through the glove. They’re not just “lightweight birds.” They’re pure muscle with wings and an attitude problem.

Can you visit the Avian Reconditioning Center in Apopka?

Yes—and if you’re in Central Florida, it’s one of the coolest places you can spend a Saturday.

According to ARC, they are:

• Open to the public on Saturdays starting at 10:00 AM (weather permitting)
• Visitor hours vary seasonally:
• • September–May: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM (birds start going home by 3:00 PM)
  • June–July: 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
  • Closed to the public in August
• Address: 323 Lester Road, Apopka, FL 32712
• Phone: (407) 461-1056

They also run heavily on volunteers—so if you want to do more than just visit, ARC is the kind of place where help actually matters.

The best part...

This episode wasn’t just “look at the cool birds.” It was a reminder that wildlife rehab is where the consequences of our environment show up in a very real way—right in your hands.

ARC is doing the unglamorous work: the feeding, the cleaning, the medical care, the rehab, the education… all so these birds have a shot at going back where they belong.

And selfishly? As a photographer? I’m not going to pretend I didn’t love the chance to get creative with my camera without spending six hours being ignored by a squirrel.

If you want to see Central Florida raptors up close and support the people helping them survive, look up the Avian Reconditioning Center in Apopka and go check out a Saturday at ARC.

The quirky stadium with the tilted roof and unique catwalks underwent major repairs after Hurricane Milton swept through downtown St. Petersburg on Oct. 9, 2024, and caused extensive damage.

High wind ripped sections of the original roof, allowing rain to fall into the stadium bowl for months. Water caused mold and damage to electrical, sound and broadcast systems.

There was thought initially the Rays would never play another game at the only ballpark they had called home since the franchise’s debut in 1998. Instead, nearly $60 million was spent to replace the roof and rebuild the Trop.

[WATCH: Renderings show potential new home for Tampa Bay Rays]

While the Rays played their 2025 home games across the bay in Tampa at Steinbrenner Field — the spring training home of the New York Yankees — their stadium got a makeover.

The new roof was installed last August, and the final panel was put in place Nov. 21. Luxury suites and the stadium video board were upgraded. The stadium has new artificial turf, home-plate club seats, clubhouse carpet and lockers, and new flooring on the outfield deck.

“I think guys are excited, and rightfully so,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said about the team’s return home. “Our organization has worked incredibly hard and the city and the county, to get it back up to speed. I briefly walked through there, couldn’t be more impressed with the way it looks, and excited to see our fans. I think our guys are going to appreciate just having our fans in the building, cheering us on for our opening day.”

It’ll be the 20th consecutive season the Rays have sold out their home opener, excluding 2020 when fans weren’t allowed inside the stadium because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m just really excited to get back in the Trop,” said reliever Griffin Jax, who joined the team last July. “I always enjoy going there as a visitor. It’ll be cool to see all the new renovations and upgrades they made along the way. We’ve seen it a handful of times walking through and seeing pictures and stuff. It looks great. It’ll be good to be back in our home.”

After spending a season playing in a minor league ballpark, the Rays are looking forward to going back to big league amenities.

“It was difficult,” Jax said about playing at Steinbrenner Field. “I don’t think anybody expects to play in a situation like that. It’s just one of those things you have to make any adjustment you can and get ready to play because there is still baseball to be played that night. The situation isn’t great. The environment wasn’t awesome, but it’s still baseball. You just have to roll with it. I was only there for two months. Shout out to all these guys who were there for an entire year because it was not ideal.”

Tropicana Field may not be home for the Rays for much longer. The Rays are under lease to play there through at least the 2028 season, but the team’s new ownership group is pursuing a new ballpark that would be built in Tampa, in the shadows of the Yankees’ spring training complex and across the street from Raymond James Stadium, home to the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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

At a meeting on Monday, council members will vote to approve funding for modular vehicle barriers.

The 72-unit system would be manufactured by Advanced Security Technologies and has the capability of closing up to 10 lanes of traffic.

The barriers are a long-time request of the Oviedo Police Department and are able to stop a 16,500-pound vehicle.

“People using vehicles in ways that could harm people,” Mayor Megan Sladek said. “It makes some sense to just be proactive and say ‘We’re going to secure this perimeter.’”

Sladek said the Oviedo Police Foundation agreed to pay $25,000 toward the barrier system, although the city would still be responsible for contributing $168,818.

Jim Marks is a homeowner in Oviedo and had concerns about the city overspending taxpayer money on the project.

“I think if the old way of doing things worked, they should just continue to do it that way,” Marks said.

Currently, Oviedo borrows barricades from other jurisdictions or uses city-owned vehicles to block streets during outdoor events.

According to the city, the current method is labor-intensive and often requires specially trained staff depending on the type of equipment used.

Sladek said the use of city-owned vehicles could also interfere with response to emergencies.

“When we use public safety vehicles to block traffic, if they have to get out of there quickly and the crowd is milling about really close to the edge of the festival, it creates some challenges getting out quickly,” Sladek said.

The Oviedo City Council will vote on the purchase of the modular vehicle barrier system during a meeting on Monday at 6:30 p.m.

The city’s Accelerate Orlando program, launched in 2022, has invested tens of millions of dollars into affordable housing, expanded shelter space, and support services designed to reduce homelessness across the region.

City commissioners are set to receive an update on the program during a workshop on Monday. Officials are expected to discuss progress so far, including shelter expansion efforts, and evaluate whether the initiative is meeting its intended goals.

[RELATED: Stories about homelessness in Central Florida]

Orlando leaders say they are building on existing partnerships with organizations already working in the space, including the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida and the nonprofit Social Outreach Orlando.

However, homelessness remains a widespread issue that extends beyond downtown.

In Orange County, officials are considering a new site for a 150-bed homeless shelter near Goldenrod Road, a proposal that has drawn mixed reactions from nearby residents.

Robin Person, who lives close to the potential site, said she supports efforts to help people experiencing homelessness but wants to see a clear plan in place.

[RELATED: Debunking 8 myths about homelessness in Central Florida]

“They’re bringing 150 people from somewhere else into the area,” Person said.

She also questioned how the county would determine who would be served at the shelter and whether those already living in nearby encampments would be prioritized.

“Are they going to interview the homeless that are currently in the area?” Person said. “Because there are a lot — there’s different homeless camps all through the area, all the way up to past Dean Road and back toward 50.”

The outcome of Monday’s workshop could help shape the next phase of Orlando’s strategy to address homelessness, as city leaders weigh both progress and community concerns.

Deputies responded just before 5 p.m. Sunday to 2730 Semicolon Avenue after reports of a child drowning.

The boy, visiting the area with his family from Georgia, became separated from them before bystanders pulled him from the water and performed CPR until emergency medical services arrived. He was transported to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, according to the sheriff’s office.

The incident remains under investigation.

Deputies were called about 5 a.m. on Saturday to reports of shots fired and an aggravated battery on Fortune Road, where they met with a 27-year-old woman who reported an altercation with her ex-boyfriend, the sheriff’s office said.

Investigators said Josue Emmanuel Figueroa Jr., 27, first confronted the victim at a bar around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, physically attacked her and continued to harass her by phone after leaving.

According to the sheriff’s office, Figueroa later confronted the victim in a parking lot off Fortune Road while she was in her vehicle and fired multiple rounds into the car.

Deputies said Figueroa also battered the victim, stole her cellphone, and fled in a vehicle with his 4-year-old daughter in the back seat.

Detectives located the suspect at his residence on Saturday around 1:15 p.m., deputies said. The sheriff’s office said the suspect fled on a motorcycle at a high rate of speed before abandoning it and running into a wooded area near Cricket Cradle Drive.

Deputies contacted the suspect’s mother, who convinced him to surrender, the sheriff’s office said. Figueroa was arrested and taken to the Osceola County Jail, where he is being held with his bond set at $22,500.

Figueroa Jr. faces several charges, including attempted murder, aggravated battery, discharging a firearm in public, armed burglary, child neglect, grand theft, criminal mischief, and robbery with a weapon, deputies said.

The tensions played a prominent role during last year's elections in Georgia, New Jersey and Virginia, and now they're sweeping through Arizona and Alabama, where once-sleepy contests are becoming political brawls.

Even national groups like Turning Point Action — better known for its role mobilizing young conservatives behind President Donald Trump — are getting involved by knocking on doors and texting campaign messages. The organization wants to curb environmentalists' influence over the Phoenix-area Salt River Project, the largest public utility in the country, in a Tuesday election.

The skirmishes are a preview for more campaigns later this year, when at least a half-dozen states will hold elections for utility regulators. That includes Georgia, where a second-straight hotly contested campaign is anticipated.

The burst of attention is dragging the behind-the-scenes politics of elected utility commissioners — long dominated by power brokers or monopolistic companies, critics say — into an intensely national debate over how to power artificial intelligence without driving up electricity costs.

"And that means suddenly there’s all this pressure,” said Dave Pomerantz of the Energy and Policy Institute, which pushes utilities to keep rates low and use renewable energy sources.

Arizona race draws massive players

In Tuesday's election that will determine control of Salt River Project, more than three times as many people requested early ballots than two years ago. Yard signs pepper street corners and ratepayers — they must own land to vote — are getting text messages, fliers and door-knockers.

The utility has already been under pressure to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels like coal and natural gas that emit planet-warming greenhouse gases. But now campaign organizations are converging on the race as the fast-growing Phoenix area becomes a destination for data centers and semiconductor factories. The utility projects that it will need to double its power capacity within a decade.

Two rival slates are vying for the board's majority. One is backed by Turning Point Action, which wants to stop “radical environmentalists.” The other is supported by the Jane Fonda Climate PAC, which is opposing “oil-loving candidates.” Also involved are local chapters of progressive groups, energy interests, construction firms and data center developers.

“If they want to just overnight switch us to solar, there’s a reliability issue, there’s a cost issue there, and we just can’t keep up," said Jimmy Lindblom, a construction executive who formed the business-backed Arizonans for Responsible Growth. “We’d have blackouts. And so these things are really important to the growth of Arizona.”

Turning Point Action is putting its muscle behind the Arizonans for Responsible Growth slate. They're also using the election to build momentum ahead of this year's midterms in the battleground state.

The slate running as the “clean energy” team said Salt River Project's current majority is too eager to hook up to natural gas, raise rates and embrace data centers. They also said the board is too dismissive of clean energy technologies to meet spiking demand and offers no incentives to install solar panels.

“It’s insane, especially now,” said Randy Miller, a clean energy advocate on SRP's board.

About a dozen supporters gathered around picnic tables last week at a park in Tempe, arriving as the sun set to canvass for voters who had requested ballots but not returned them. After a brief pep talk, they fanned out.

Some voters were bothered by Turning Point's involvement.

“Very, very, very troublesome,” said Laura Kajfez, a 66-year-old retiree from Tempe. “We don’t need that intervention in our local politics. We have enough problems as it is."

In the last two elections, an average of 7,500 ballots were turned in. As of Thursday, with five days of voting remaining, turnout had already topped 22,000, according to SRP.

Campaigning for the Salt River Project board is a complex puzzle. The utility has more than 2 million power and water customers and is governed by byzantine rules. Votes for most positions are weighted by acreage, so large landowners carry outsized sway.

Rising bills fuels push to reshape Alabama commission

In the heavily Republican state of Alabama, anxiety over rising power bills is spilling into the statehouse and onto the campaign trail, fueling a push to reshape the Alabama Public Service Commission. Alabama has some of the highest power rates in the South, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

State lawmakers this week voted to overhaul the commission, effectively shifting more authority to the governor. Supporters described it as a way to address affordability. But it comes ahead of this year's elections, which some candidates are seeking to make a referendum on electricity prices — similar to how Georgia Democrats won blowout victories in two races for their state's commission in 2025.

Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, who is a Democratic candidate for Alabama governor, called the bill a “first-rate con job” on voters.

“Republicans in the Alabama Legislature want to completely revamp the PSC because all of the sudden after two wins in Georgia, they realize that maybe the people don't like what's going on with the PSC,” Jones said on social media.

The legislation, which was signed by Gov. Kay Ivey, will expand the three-member commission to seven elected members. The four new members will be initially appointed by the governor. In addition, utilities will be forbidden from raising retail base rates until 2029.

Republican legislative leaders said the bill was a significant step forward for consumer protection.

“The Alabama Legislature passed HB475 to put a freeze on electric rates and to give the people of Alabama broader representation on the Public Service Commission," Ivey said. House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter and Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger said in a joint statement that lawmakers “stood united to reform how utilities are regulated and demand an unprecedented amount of accountability for consumers across the state.”

Two of the current three seats on the commission are up for election this year, and Republican incumbents face both primary challengers and Democratic opponents running on the message of affordability.

Democrats are pointing to Georgia’s election as a model for how the party can be successful, even in a GOP-dominated state like Alabama.

“What happened in Georgia could happen in Alabama,” said Tabitha Isner, vice chair of the Alabama Democratic Party. “That’s why the alarm bells are going off and so much money is being poured into maintaining the status quo.”

___

Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pa., and Chandler from Montgomery, Ala.

With that front interacting with the sea breeze, showers and thunderstorms will become widespread, beginning to develop by noon.

Some of these storms could produce heavy downpours, and there’s already about a 40% chance that parts of the Orlando metro could see more than 3 inches of rain by Monday evening.

This is just the beginning of a wetter pattern that will stick with us through at least Thursday.

Rain chances stay elevated through midweek as a stalled front and deep tropical moisture linger over the state.

Several rounds of rain are expected, with the heaviest totals likely along the coast. By the time this system winds down, most inland areas could pick up 1 to 3 inches of rain, while coastal communities could see 2 to 4 inches, with isolated spots even higher.

While this rainfall will help with ongoing drought conditions, it could also lead to localized flooding, especially in urban and poorly drained areas, if heavy rain falls in a short amount of time.

In addition to the rain, winds will become a big story.

Starting Tuesday, strong northeast winds will ramp up across the area, frequently gusting between 25 and 35 mph. Along the coast, there’s even a chance for gusts over 40 mph, with a few spots possibly nearing 50 mph. These winds could bring down small branches and lead to isolated power outages, so it’s a good idea to secure any loose outdoor items.

Those strong onshore winds will also create dangerous conditions at the beaches.

From Tuesday through Thursday, large waves building between 8 and 12 feet are expected along Central Florida’s Atlantic coastline. This will lead to rough surf, beach erosion around high tide, and numerous life-threatening rip currents. It is strongly discouraged to enter the ocean during this time.

Temperatures will take a bit of a dip as this unsettled pattern settles in. After highs in the 80s on Monday, many areas will only reach the low to mid 70s through midweek, with a few spots north of Orlando struggling to hit 70 degrees on Tuesday.

Looking ahead, we’ll gradually start to dry out heading into the weekend.

Rain chances decrease by Friday and into Saturday, with more sunshine returning by Sunday. Temperatures will also begin to warm back into the upper 70s and low 80s.

The contests are among the notable highlights of Wisconsin’s spring election, where races for judicial, municipal, educational and other traditionally nonpartisan offices will be decided beyond the din of the more explicitly partisan November elections.

In the race for the high court, state Appeals Court judges Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar are running to replace retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley from the court’s conservative bloc. Taylor is a former Democratic state representative who has endorsements from the court’s four sitting liberal justices. Lazar served as assistant state attorney general under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker. She is endorsed by conservative Justice Annette Ziegler, who announced in March she will not seek a third term in 2027.

This year’s contest has not generated the same level of attention as recent Wisconsin Supreme Court races, since the ideological balance of the bench is not at stake. But the winner will be a part of a panel that could be at the center of a political firestorm if there are any disputes related to either the 2028 presidential election or the next round of congressional redistricting in the early 2030s. Justices are elected to 10-year terms.

Liberals are looking for their fourth consecutive state Supreme Court victory. Liberal justices gained a 4-3 majority on the court in 2023 for the first time in 15 years after Justice Janet Protasiewicz won a seat previously held by a conservative. In 2025, Justice Susan Crawford joined the court and preserved the liberal majority after a campaign where Elon Musk and groups associated with him spent millions in support of a conservative candidate.

In any statewide election in Wisconsin, Democrats tend to win by large margins in the populous counties of Milwaukee and Dane (home to Madison), while Republicans win by wide margins in the smaller, more rural counties that stretch across most of the state. Republican candidates also tend to rely on strong showings in the “WOW” counties — Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington in suburban Milwaukee — which help counter Democratic advantages in urban areas. Victory is determined by how big those margins are in the respective party strongholds, as well as which side can win over the more competitive swing areas.

In the 2024 presidential election, then-Vice President Kamala Harris won Milwaukee County with 68% of the vote and Dane County with 75%, while narrowly losing statewide. In comparison, Protasiewicz and Crawford in their successful state Supreme Court races received 73% and 75% of the vote in Milwaukee County and 82% of the vote in Dane County. They both won statewide with double-digit margins of victory.

Protasiewicz and Crawford each also won more than 10 swing counties that voted for Trump in 2024, most notably in Brown County, home to Green Bay, which Trump carried in all three of his White House campaigns.

In the race for Waukesha mayor, Common Council President Alicia Halvensleben and state Rep. Scott Allen are running to replace Mayor Shawn Reilly, who is not seeking a fourth term. Allen has been one of the most conservative Republicans in the Legislature since his election in 2014. Halvensleben is the preferred candidate of the Waukesha County Democratic Party.

Reilly is an independent who left the Republican Party after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He has endorsed Halvensleben.

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

Recounts are not automatic in Wisconsin, but a trailing candidate may request one if the winning vote margin is less than a percentage point. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

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

When do polls close?

Polls close at 8 p.m. local time, which is 9 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in the races for state Supreme Court and Waukesha mayor.

Who gets to vote?

Any registered voter in Wisconsin may participate in the spring election.

What do turnout and advance vote look like?

As of April 1, there were about 3.6 million active registered voters in Wisconsin out of about 4.5 million eligible voting-age adults. Voters in the state do not register by party.

Nearly 2.4 million votes were cast in the 2025 spring election for state Supreme Court, which was about 62% of registered voters. About 29% of voters cast their ballots before election day.

As of Friday, nearly 281,000 ballots had already been cast.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the 2025 spring election, the AP first reported results in the race for state Supreme Court at 9:09 p.m. ET, or nine minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 2:12 a.m. ET with about 99% of total votes counted. The race was called at 10:16 p.m. ET.

When are early and absentee votes released?

In previous Wisconsin elections, counties varied in terms of when and how they released results from early and absentee voting. In the 2024 general election, roughly a third of the counties released all or most of their early and absentee voting results in the first vote update, while the rest released them throughout the night along with results from in-person Election Day voting.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 210 days until the 2026 midterm elections.

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

Tuesday’s special congressional runoff marks the second time in less than a month that voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District cast ballots for their representative in Washington. None of the 17 contenders in a March 10 special election received a majority of the vote, triggering Tuesday’s contest between the top two vote-getters.

The outcome will almost immediately affect the fragile balance of power in the closely divided U.S. House, where Republicans cling to a 217-214 majority. An additional seat is held by a former Republican who became an independent in March, while twoseats remain vacant.

Democrat Shawn Harris received the most votes in the Georgia special election, where all candidates ran on the same ballot regardless of party affiliation. Harris edged Republican Clay Fuller by about 2 percentage points, aided in part by the fact that the district’s sizable Republican vote was split among a dozen Republican candidates.

Harris is a retired Army brigadier general who lost to Greene in the 2024 general election. Fuller is a district attorney who has Trump’s endorsement. Both are also seeking their parties’ nominations for a full term in the May 19 primary ahead of the November midterm elections.

The district has a history of heavily favoring Republican candidates in general elections. Trump carried the district in 2024 with 68% of the vote. The 37% Harris received in March was slightly better than the roughly 36% of the vote he notched in his head-to-head matchup with Greene in 2024.

Harris modestly improved his vote share in nine of the district’s 10 counties since 2024. He also outperformed former Vice President Kamala Harris' 2024 presidential vote share in all 10 counties. But to win the seat, he needs to far surpass the overall mid-30% range that Democrats have received in the district in recent general elections.

His best performances in the special election were in Cobb and Paulding counties, two metro Atlanta counties that are the two most populous in the northwest Georgia district. But Greene still carried every county in the election that year.

Harris, who did not face major Democratic opposition in the special election, raised a total of $6.4 million for his campaign, compared to about $1.3 million for Fuller. As of March 18, Harris had about $745,000 in the bank, while Fuller had about $53,000.

Trump’s endorsement should be a boost for Fuller, considering the president outperformed Greene districtwide. But turnout in special elections is typically much lower than in presidential elections, and turnout for runoffs tends to be even lower.

Elsewhere in Georgia on Tuesday, runoffs will also be held in state Senate District 53 and state House District 94. Republicans control both chambers of the General Assembly, and the outcome of the two special runoffs will not threaten their majorities.

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

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

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

When do polls close?

Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

What’s on the ballot?

The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in the special runoff elections for the 14th Congressional District, state Senate District 53 and state House District 94.

Who gets to vote?

Any registered voter may participate in the special runoff election in their district, regardless of whether they voted in the March 10 special election.

What do turnout and advance vote look like?

As of Friday, there were about 571,000 total registered voters in the 14th Congressional District, including about 524,000 active voters. Georgia voters do not register by party.

About 116,000 votes were cast in the March 10 U.S. House special election, roughly 52% of which was cast before Election Day.

Nearly 47,000 ballots had already been cast in the U.S. House special runoff election as of Friday.

How long does vote-counting usually take?

In the March 10 special election, the AP first reported results in the 14th Congressional District at 7:05 p.m. ET, or five minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was from Paulding County at 9:51 p.m. ET with about 99.9% of total votes counted.

When are early and absentee votes released?

All 10 counties in the 14th Congressional District tend to release some or all of their absentee voting results in the first vote update of the night. Four counties, including the two largest, Paulding and Cobb, also tend to include all of their results from early voting in the first vote update. Since the 2020 election, Democrats have been more likely to cast their votes early or by mail. In jurisdictions that release mail and early vote results at the start of the night, this could result in the Democratic candidate taking an initial lead in the vote count until votes from in-person Election Day ballots are tallied.

Are we there yet?

As of Tuesday, there will be 210 days until this seat is up again in the 2026 midterm elections.

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

It may sound hard to swallow, but it’s a real possibility that one Central Florida city is now talking about taking off the table. Edgewater leaders are considering a ban on so-called “toilet-to-tap,” and residents are split.

Do you think this should be a part of your drinking water? City leaders in Edgewater will be considering a ban to stop that from ever happening. We spoke with some residents about ‘toilet-to-tap’ water—and whether they think the option should be banned forever or remain a possibility.

“It’s called ‘toilet-to-tap,’ and while there are no plans right now, it could be part of Edgewater’s future. We’re talking about treated blackwater—yes, water that starts in your toilet—being cleaned and potentially turned into drinking water.”

For some, like Edgewater resident Jim Towers, that’s a hard no. Jim Towers. “When you hear about toilet-to-tap water, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? I don’t like it.” He added, “It’s kind of crazy. I don’t know why anyone would do that.”

But other residents, like Jon Foulds, don’t see the problem. Jon Foulds: “If it’s safe, effective, and doesn’t taste bad, then I don’t understand why not.”

Under Florida law, the city has to stop sending treated wastewater into lakes, rivers, or other surface waters by 2032—unless there’s a real benefit to doing so.” That means the city will have to use it somewhere else.

Edgewater is now considering a proposal that would permanently ban using—specifically—toilet water as drinking water. If they ban it, the city will have to look at more expensive solutions.

Towers said, “That’s fine to me—because you don’t want people to get sick.” Foulds said using some for drinking water wouldn’t hurt: “Water is a precious commodity, like everything else. Gas is almost six bucks a gallon, so you can’t really be choosy.”

Daytona Beach passed a similar measure last month, and Volusia County commissioners rejected two ban proposals in February.

City leaders in Edgewater are set to discuss the ban on Monday.

Since it’s a charter change, it doesn’t just stop at City Council. Voters would get the final say in November 2026.

The crash happened on Thursday, according to the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office.

Sumter County School District Superintendent Logan Brown said the train clipped the back of the bus, and the driver is no longer employed with the district as of Thursday.

The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the driver was cited the same day of the crash for failing to stop at a railroad crossing.

Students described a chaotic and terrifying moment as the train approached.

“I hear someone yell ‘train,’” said 14-year-old Isabelle Sinibaldi, who was seated near the back of the bus. “I felt scared.”

Another student said, “I felt scared, terrified, because I could see the train hitting the bus.”

Despite the collision, no injuries were reported — something parents said could have easily been much worse.

“There was a fear — it could have been way worse than what it was,” said Ashley Pharis, a parent.

Sinibaldi said she struggled to unlatch her seatbelt in the moments before impact.

“I tried to press on my seat belt — it wouldn’t unlatch. I covered my head, I closed my eyes as hard as I can and hoped nothing bad happened,” she said.

Parents are now calling for stricter safety measures and stronger requirements for school bus drivers.

“I am hoping for more stricter guidelines with the bus routes and bus transportation,” Pharis said. “I think there should be stricter qualifications in order to be a bus driver.”

While no physical injuries were reported, some families say the emotional impact remains.

“There’s a lot of mental injury,” Pharis said.

Several students said they are now hesitant and afraid to ride the bus again.

Authorities said the investigation is ongoing, and additional details are expected to be released on Monday.

But it turns out that there may be a solution to this perennial problem: snails.

That’s according to researchers with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), who recently published a study examining the phenomenon.

In a release, UF/IFAS officials said that nitrate levels in waterways have been the primary source of blame for why algae blooms have popped off so often in Florida’s natural springs.

However, the study posits that a declining population of algae grazers — particularly freshwater snails called “Elimia” — and lower dissolved oxygen levels could be bigger reasons behind these blooms.

“We had done surveys across eight springs, repeated over a year, that showed a strong negative relationship between the snails and filamentous algae blooms, meaning that there were generally low algae amounts in areas with high snail populations,” researcher Dina Liebowitz said.

Per Liebowitz, in environments with low amounts of algae and healthy oxygen levels, these snails can help to balance the ecosystem.

As such, when it comes to keeping algae at manageable levels, factors like the Elimia snail population and the condition of dissolved oxygen need more consideration by environmental management groups.

“Depleted dissolved oxygen supplies can make the snails lose vigor for foraging activity and, even though there’s still plenty of algae to be eaten, their survivability plummets, or they can slink off somewhere else,” the release reads.

In all, researchers say the overall success of snail control of algae blooms depends on three factors:

• The amount of algae initially present
• The size of the snail population
• The levels of dissolved oxygen

“When you have these balanced ecosystems and the snails are doing what they do, they’re little janitors,” Liebowitz continued. “They keep the springs beautiful for us, they provide an ecosystem service, and we don’t have to do anything.”

[BELOW: Researchers look at community of invasive chameleons in Central Florida]

Thinh Vu said his family signed a contract after hail damaged their roof.

The deal was with Nationwide Roofing, which later became Blackstone Builders, for $20,000 to replace the roof, according to Vu.

“To be honest, it’s been stressful,” Vu said. “And nothing has been fixed.”The check

Check was allegedly forged

After the insurance company issued a $20,000 check, made payable to Van Vu, his wife, Nationwide Roofing, and the mortgage company, Vu said the family never saw it.

“We never signed the check, we never received it either,” Vu said.

The insurance company confirmed the check was cashed.

The Vu family filed a report with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office accusing the roofing contractor of forging the check.

“He felt angry, stressed, and he wanted to warn the community,” Vu said referring to his father.

Contractor could not be reached

News 6 attempted to reach company owner Ricardo Prieto by phone before trying to locate him in person.

According to the company’s license details on file with the state, the business address is listed as 450 S. Orange Ave. - but upon arrival, News 6 was told the company is no longer located there.

A second address led to a home in Hunters Creek, where no one answered the door.

News 6 left a business card at the residence.

Prieto did not respond to requests for comment.

Warning for homeowners

Vu said the company solicited his family, and he now has a direct message for the public.

“If someone comes knocking on your door offering a roofing or any kind of service, you shouldn’t deal with them,” Vu said. “It’s better to say no, because it could be a scam.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office said detectives are still investigating.

Then an insurance check is issued - even if a contract has already been signed and the insurance company requires the contractor’s name to be included - homeowners should ensure the check comes directly to them.

At a weekend food drive in West Orlando, boxes that appeared to be filled with bananas instead held a mix of groceries and household essentials, from cereal and coffee to sparkling water, all intended for families struggling to make ends meet.

The distribution was organized by Southeastern Food Bank, a nonprofit focused on reaching some of the region’s most vulnerable residents.

“We actually find the neediest mobile home parks, apartments and streets,” said Mark Anthony, the organization’s CEO and founder. “We deliver to their door groceries and also toiletries.”

Anthony and his team hosted the event Saturday morning at West Orlando Baptist, but unlike traditional food drives, this effort relies on volunteers to bring supplies directly to families.

With rising fuel and food costs creating additional barriers, Anthony said the goal is to reach people who may not be able to travel for help.

“I imagine some of these boxes are worth about $100 in groceries,” he said. “It really gives them a lift, especially seniors on fixed incomes.”

Anthony said the need has grown in recent weeks, as higher prices continue to strain household budgets. He recalled an emotional message from one recipient.

“I actually had somebody call me and leave a message for over a minute crying, saying how much she needed it,” he said. “It really rocked me.”

Volunteers like Leon and Sherri Johnson spent the morning loading their vehicles with boxes — sometimes fitting up to 15 at a time — before heading out to deliver them across the community.

“It doesn’t matter what the gas prices are,” Sherri Johnson said. “If we can afford it, then why not come out and help people who maybe can’t afford to get out to get a meal?”

By 11 a.m., organizers said they had helped more than 700 families.

Even with some boxes left over, Anthony said the food will not go to waste. The organization plans to distribute the remaining supplies to more families later this month.

Shohei Ohtani hadn't driven in a run until Friday, then homered in that game and again Sunday. He and Aaron Judge each have three straight multihit games.

Judge hasn't needed to carry the Yankees, who are 7-2. They had allowed a paltry 15 runs on the season before a 7-6 loss to Miami on Sunday. Cam Schlittler has made two scoreless starts and New York ran wild against the Marlins — with even Giancarlo Stanton stealing a base.

It wasn't a great first week for the Dodgers' quartet of sluggers — Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman — but then they broke out in a big way as Los Angeles posted 31 runs in three games at Washington. The Dodgers are 7-2 with Andy Pages off to a 16-for-34 start at the plate, so they can afford to be patient with their stars.

That includes Betts, who went on the injured list with an oblique strain.

Los Angeles now heads to Toronto for a three-game series — the first meeting between the teams since the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays in Game 7 of the World Series in Canada last year.

Battling Bucs

On the topic of teams succeeding while waiting for stars to get untracked, Pittsburgh swept three straight from Baltimore to improve to 6-3. The Pirates have won five straight, although Paul Skenes has allowed six runs in 5 2/3 innings through his first two starts.

They haven't needed much from top prospect Konnor Griffin either. The infielder is 1 for 9 since being called up, but he has yet to play in a loss. The Pirates have 10 of their next 13 games at home, with Skenes expected to take the mound Tuesday when they host San Diego.

Trivia time

When is the last time the NCAA men's basketball champion and baseball's World Series champion came from the same state in a given year?

Performance of the week

Jo Adell went 1 for 3 at the plate Saturday, but it's what he did defensively that made a real impact. The Angels' outfielder made three home run-robbing catches to help Los Angeles to a 1-0 win over Seattle.

Adell made spectacular catch while crashing into the seats when J.P. Crawford led off the ninth with a drive to right. Adell also denied Cal Raleigh what would have been the catcher's first homer of the season.

Comeback of the week

Arizona trailed Detroit by four Tuesday night before scoring six times in the bottom of the eighth to win 7-5. The Tigers had a win probability of 96.4% after seven, according to Baseball Savant.

Corbin Carroll hit a bases-loaded double that scored two runs, and Jose Fernandez added a three-run homer. It was the second home run of the game for Fernandez, who was making his major league debut.

Trivia answer

In 1973, UCLA won the national title and the Oakland Athletics won the World Series. That pairing also won in 1972.

There was a recent near-miss in 2021 when Baylor won the NCAA Tournament and the Houston Astros lost to the Atlanta Braves in the World Series. The only way this double can happen this year is if Michigan wins in basketball and the Tigers prevail in baseball.

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

Three sloppy basketball games later, it feels like another missed opportunity. Much like last year's lopsided title game. The sport is on the rise but the last two Final Fours have featured blowouts, long-distance shooting struggles and point-blank misses.

That's not to take anything away from UCLA, which understandably thought Sunday's result was beautiful after beating South Carolina 79-51 for its first NCAA tournament title and first overall since an AIAW championship in 1978.

“I want to grow the game so bad, I felt guilty walking off the floor because it was not pretty in any way, shape or form,” UCLA coach Cori Close acknowledged Friday after her team’s 51-44 win over Texas in the semifinals wasn’t very easy on the eyes.

In that game, Texas All-America selection Madison Booker, one of game's best mid-range shooters, was 3 of 23 from the field, missing 17 straight shots at one point.

“The reality is, too, it’s really all about toughness at this point and finding a way to make a winning play,” Close added, "even if it’s a winning play you wouldn’t have predicted or chosen.”

The UCLA-Texas game wasn’t the only one that wasn’t aesthetically pleasing. South Carolina beat previously undefeated UConn 62-48 in the first semifinal game, holding the Huskies to just 31.1% shooting and a season low in points.

The lasting memory from this year's Final Four likely won't be a basketball moment. UConn coach Geno Auriemma angrily confronted South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, leading to a tense moment between two of the game's top coaches.

The clunky basketball continued into the final.

UCLA — led by Final Four MOP Lauren Betts and Gabriela Jaquez — played well. South Carolina did not. The Gamecocks shot just 29% from the field and made only 2 of 15 3-point attempts.

The lack of execution the past two years was somewhat surprising, considering the pedigree of the four programs. UConn, South Carolina, Texas and UCLA are accustomed to the bright lights and were all back in the Final Four for a second straight season.

“Sometimes in this moment things happen,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “We came out of a timeout on two different occasions and people are in the wrong place. So sometimes it happens like that.”

Double-digit outcomes happen often in women's title games. Over the last 20 years, only six women's championship games have been decided by single digits — the last one was in 2021, Stanford beat Arizona 54-53.

One factor for the elite teams is that often the don't face much competition in the NCAA Tournament until the final weekend. Through the first two weeks, UConn won its tournament games by an average of 32.5 points while Texas (35.5), South Carolina (40.3) and UCLA (27) also cruised with huge margins of victory.

Once the elite teams have to face each other, the contrast in talent can be shocking.

“You could tell. Shots were short,” Staley said after the title game loss. “I thought we didn’t really do a good job at making extra passes, like the things we were doing probably worked for other teams, but other teams didn’t have a (Betts). You have to navigate differently.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

They lose their top six players to graduation after putting on one of the most dominant performances in championship history to win their first NCAA title and second overall, routing South Carolina by 28 points Sunday.

But with the transfer portal open now, the UCLA coach can build a new team quickly. Close has said that the school will be very active, looking to add five players.

“Transfer portal just got easier,” Close said smiling.

Challenging the Bruins will be the runner-up Gamecocks and coach Dawn Staley. They look to get over the loss and reach a seventh consecutive Final Four next season and win a fourth national championship. With young stars Joyce Edwards and Agot Makeer returning along with a strong complementary crew they will be one of the favorites for the title when the Final Four moves to Columbus, Ohio.

Joining them should be other Final Four participants UConn and Texas, who have two of the best players in the country with Sarah Strong and Madison Booker. Each will have to replace a key player with Azzi Fudd for UConn and Rori Harmon for Texas gone to the WNBA.

After the four Final Four teams, it could be interesting to see who the women's basketball powers will be in 2027.

So much can change through the transfer portal. Over the past few years so many big name players have changed their schools by entering it. TCU, which reached the Elite Eight the last two seasons has added a half dozen players each of the past two years.

Michigan and Duke also reached the regional final this year and each has potentially a strong nucleus of players coming back.

A few teams have already been hit hard by the portal with many players announcing on social media they were transferring.

Iowa State has lost most of its top players, including the nation's second-leading scorer in Audi Crooks.

Stanford and Tennessee, which had been two of the women's basketball staples in the sport over the past 40 years have been hit hard already with so many of their players announcing on social media that they will enter the portal.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

So the 6-foot-11, 265-pound St. Louis native stayed in the transfer portal, found a school willing to give him a fresh start and a coach committed to helping him turn raw talent into real productivity.

On Monday, two years after giving up a starting job at Michigan to become a backup for a UConn team seeking a third straight national title, Reed's journey will complete his college career against the university he called home for his first two college seasons in the championship game.

“We're just chopping it up and talking a little bit, but like I said it's the national championship on the line,” Reed said Sunday, referring to the two former Michigan teammates still on the Wolverines' roster. “It's not personal. We know it's just competing for the best outcome of our team."

The era of college players facing former teams in March Madness is becoming more routine in a college sports world where players often use their freedom to transfer to find more NIL money and more playing time with coaches and systems that better their natural skills.

Forward Nimari Burnett, Reed's former teammate at Michigan, logged 17 minutes in a Sweet 16 matchup against his former team, Alabama. And Illinois guard Kylan Boswell could have faced his former team, Arizona, Monday night — if Saturday's semifinal results had been reversed.

The reasons for finding new schools vary, and in Reed's case it was all about opportunity.

“Tarris had heard that Vlad (Goldin) was probably going to be coming with us,” May said, explaining Reed's decision. "So he came in, and I talked to his parents, and I talked to everyone around him and he basically said, ‘Coach, I know Vlad is coming with you. Do you think you can make that work?’ I said, ‘Tarris, you both are really good; it won’t be easy. We haven’t played like that before. But I’m very confident that because of both your skill sets and talent we can figure it out.’”

Then Danny Wolf decided to transfer to Michigan and suddenly Reed felt he was out of a job.

Goldin and Wolf are, in fact, no longer at Michigan either, replaced by newcomers such as Big Ten Player of the Year Yaxel Lendeborg and 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara.

Yet Reed, a two-time all-state selection in Missouri thought he'd found the perfect landing spot at UConn.

While his 2024-25 stats improved slightly from his final season at Michigan — 9.6 points and 7.3 rebounds in 35 games as a backup on an NCAA Tournament team compared with 9.0 points and 7.2 rebounds as a full-time starter on an 8-24 squad. — the transition didn't always go smoothly.

Hurley acknowledged their relationship was sometimes strained because of his demands. Still, Reed tried to epitomize the rugged, gritty nature of the Huskies culture on the court, though behind the scenes Reed sometimes struggled.

“There were days where, after that season, I’m in my room just crying, ‘What the heck do I do?’ I’m writing in my journal, and I’m trying to think, ‘Do I stay? Do I go?’ When I started writing in my journal, it was obvious I had to stay at UConn," said the Big East's 2024-25 Sixth Man Award winner. “Coach was coaching me so hard that there was a point where we were about to split ways after the season, after my junior year,”

Instead, Reed returned stronger both physically and emotionally, more committed to proving he was the right fit in Storrs, and his final college season couldn't have gone any better.

He blossomed into a first team all-Big East selection, teamed up with the likes of Alex Karaban and Braylon Mullins to lead the Huskies (34-5) to their third national championship game in four years. A win Monday night would give UConn its seventh title — all since 1999.

In tourney play, nobody has fared better. Reed registered 31 points and 27 rebounds, both career highs, in an 82-71 first-round win over Furman. He was named the East Region's Most Outstanding Player after averaging 21.7 points and 13.5 rebounds in four wins and then he added 17 points and 11 rebounds in Saturday's 71-62 victory over Illinois.

Even his relationship with Hurley changed.

“It’s really improved since he’s been on a tear. Now we’re best friends,” Hurley said Sunday with a laugh. “But I’ve been saying that, go back six weeks, go back two months, go back three months, our season is going to be determined by what Tarris Reed does, which Tarris Reed we get, does the light switch go on for Tarris Reed.”

Burnett, for one, couldn't be happier to see Reed excel.

“He’s always been just a happy person, someone who is always joyful of the moment and just a joyful teammate even during that time, that year where things weren’t as happy (at Michigan), he brought joy,” Burnett said. “He brought enthusiasm. He’s just a great person, and we also have similar beliefs and faith. So I have a good connection with him."

If Burnett wasn't playing Reed on Monday, Burnett might even be cheering for his friend.

But this a game that goes beyond friendship. The winner will forever be called a national champion forever, and the runner-up will likely be relegated to the history books.

Regardless of the outcome, Reed insists he'll have no regrets helping UConn finish what he started at Michigan.

"I started my career at Michigan and now I’m about to play them in my final game of college basketball. I never would have thought that would happen in a million years,” he said. “It's the national championship game, so I feel like they’re going to be coming at my neck, we’re going to be coming at their neck, so it’s going to be a great, fun bloodbath and just a competitive game.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

“They know,” Tocchet said. “They see the standings.”

The standings in the Eastern Conference look a lot different than they did in late March. For one thing, Tocchet's Flyers have crashed the party and are in a playoff spot for the first time since Jan. 12.

Way ahead of them, the Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins and Montreal Canadiens have solidified their positions, while the Detroit Red Wings have dropped from what was once a comfortable lead to the outside looking in. Things went so sideways for the New York Islanders that they fired coach Patrick Roy, and the Washington Capitals look to be running out of time to give Alex Ovechkin possibly one more postseason appearance at age 40.

"It’s just frustrating," Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said after an 8-1 loss at the New York Rangers. “It’s frustrating because we fought as hard as we have to get back into this spot where we’re within striking distance.”

Race turns upside down

Before play began on March 26, only four points separated the Canadiens (88), Columbus Blue Jackets (87), Penguins and Bruins (86), Ottawa Senators and Islanders (86) and Red Wings (84). With the Flyers all the way back at 80, it looked like seven teams vying for five spots.

Montreal reeled off six consecutive victories and clinched Sunday before its eight-game winning streak that began March 21 came to an end at night. Pittsburgh won five of seven, and Boston went 4-2-1 to erase any doubt of postseason hockey in those markets this spring.

“With where the league’s at, our division, there’s pressure every night on every team,” said Canadiens winger Cole Caufield, who's on the verge of being the franchise's first 50-goal scorer since 1990. "That’s what makes this thing so fun. It’s just the guys in this group, in this room that are pushing each other and the staff that we have is unreal. We’re just going to keep this thing going.”

Philadelphia beating the Bruins in overtime Sunday on top prospect Porter Martone's first NHL goal leapfrogged the Flyers over the Islanders into third place in the Metropolitan Division. Long before Martone arrived following the completion of his college season at Michigan State, the Flyers were 13th out of 16 teams in the East out of the Olympic break and have since won 14 of 21 games to burst into contention.

“These past 10 or so games, they’ve been playoff games and we’ve been playing the right way,” forward Noah Cates said. "It’s been the simple things, the little things that just kind of get us over the hump and in the win column.”

Red Wings and Blue Jackets are falling

Detroit led the Atlantic Division and was tied for the most points in the East on Jan. 15. The cushion ahead of the conference's ninth-placed team was 12 points.

After falling behind by three goals, rallying to tie it and losing 5-4 in regulation to Minnesota on Sunday, the Red Wings have gone 8-9-3 since that point and sit two points out with five games left to play.

“Obviously, we would have loved to be in a playoff spot, but that’s not the case,” forward Lucas Raymond said after a dud of a 4-1 loss at the Rangers on Saturday. “We’ve got a great opportunity here. We’ve got these games left here to really do something special with this team. The faith is high in here. We have a lot of faith in ourselves, in our team, so it’s just about going out there and getting it done.”

Raymond and his teammates have failed to score in the first period in 43 of 77 games, the most in the league.

“I wish I had the answer,” coach Todd McLellan said. “We can get out of the gate quicker: don’t dip our toe in the water.”

Columbus made a coaching change from Dean Evason to Rick Bowness in mid-January and won 19 of 27 games to surge to second in the division. The Blue Jackets have lost seven in a row since.

Islanders and Capitals running out of gas

Since March 18 when it looked like they'd cruise into the playoffs in Matthew Schaefer's magical rookie year, the Islanders have lost seven of 10 games, including four in a row. First-year general manager Mathieu Darche dismissed Roy and hired Peter DeBoer on Sunday with four games left, hoping the new-coach bump could get his team in.

The Capitals are not contemplating any such change with Carbery, the reigning Jack Adams Award winner who should see them through the post-Ovechkin transition, whenever that is. Veteran defenseman John Carlson and depth center Nic Dowd got traded at the deadline with a youth movement afoot, but going 8-3-2 from March 9 through Saturday made the playoffs seem possible.

Getting blown out by the already-eliminated Rangers unearthed some of the defensive issues Carbery thought were there for the past dozen games or so that were covered up by strong goaltending, outscoring the problems and getting lucky. Washington needs a lot of that, plus some help, now three points out with four games remaining.

“It’s tough we put ourselves in this spot,” forward Aliaksei Protas said. “But those big games, I feel like they can really show who we are as a team and where we’re at as a team.”

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AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

The study examines over 180 of America’s most populated cities to determine which cities score best on factors like diets and fitness.

“Staying healthy is a personal responsibility, and everyone should strive to eat nutritious food, exercise regularly and look after their mental health,” says Chip Lupo, an analyst for WalletHub. “However, where people live can have a big influence on how successful they are at staying in good health.”

[BELOW: Florida’s fattest city is closer than you might think]

At the top of WalletHub’s ranking is San Francisco (No. 1 again), San Diego (No. 2), and Seattle (No. 3).

In Florida, though, the highest-ranked place is the City Beautiful itself: Orlando at No. 24.

In particular, Orlando scored highly in terms of its dietary and fitness access, though it lagged a bit in terms of its “green space.”

[BELOW: This is Florida’s most mispronounced word, report claims]

On the opposite side of the spectrum sits Cape Coral, ranked all the way down at No. 150.

While the Lee County city lagged in nearly every category, it fared especially poorly in terms of its green space and healthcare services.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Florida ranking is as follows:

However, 24 bills have already been approved by the governor as of Friday, with many of these new laws set to take effect later this year.

You can find the full list below. Be sure to check back, as News 6 will update this list as more laws are signed.

HB 91 — Candidate Qualification

House Bill 91 requires that someone who wants to run for office must affirm that he/she hasn’t changed his/her name in the year prior to qualification, with few exceptions.

DATE OF EFFECT: April 1

SB 212 — Sex Offenders

Senate Bill 212 amends state statutes regarding sexual offenders and predators in the state.

Under this law, those convicted of certain sex offenses against children 16 years of age or younger may not live within 1,000 feet of a public swimming pool.

[BELOW: Florida attorney general unveils Sanford ‘house of horrors’]

Current law already prohibits these sorts of sex offenders from living near schools, childcare facilities, parks and playgrounds, though this bill cracks down even harder via the following rules:

• Contacting Children: Such offenders may be arrested without a warrant if they knowingly contact a minor at any park, playground or public swimming pool.
• School Grounds: Such offenders may be arrested without a warrant if they’re purposefully present in any pre-K-12 school while the school is still in operation, with few exceptions.
• Prowling Offenders: The bill increases the restricted distance for loitering and prowling by such sex offenders from 300 feet to 500 feet of places where children congregate.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

HB 245 — Child Pornography

House Bill 245 replaces the term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse material” under state law.

This shift does not change any other elements of the law, including offenses related to child pornography.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

HB 249 — State Flagship

House Bill 249 redesignates the official state flagship.

More specifically, the law replaces the current state flagship (the schooner Western Union) with the S.S. American Victory.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

[BELOW: New Florida bill could change meaning of ‘criminal gang member’]

SB 288 — Electric Cooperatives

Senate Bill 288 revises a state statute that prohibits certain bylaws, tariffs and policies from being used by rural electric cooperatives.

Under this law, the statute is limited to only those cooperatives that sell electricity at retail.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

SB 290 — FDACS

Senate Bill 290 makes a number of changes to state law related to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS).

Some of these changes include a prohibition on local governments from banning gas-powered landscape equipment, and criminal penalties for those receiving unauthorized help on a CDL exam.

You can read a list of more changes here.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

SB 302 — Coastal Resiliency

Senate Bill 302 prohibits any dredging or filling of submerged lands at the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve, with some exceptions provided for public safety and environmental protection.

This law is also expected to streamline the permitting process for nature-based methods aimed at improving coastal resiliency, helping to accelerate restoration timelines.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

SB 386 — Farm Equipment

Senate Bill 386 sets up a process for consumers and manufacturers to remedy defective farm equipment.

If farm equipment is defective, this law lets buyers report the defect to the manufacturer during the warranty period or the one-year period after the original delivery date of the farm equipment.

The law also requires the manufacturer to either replace or refund any defective farm equipment.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

HB 399 — Development Regulations

House Bill 399 requires application fees for development permits to be reasonably related to the costs associated with processing the application and prohibits fees based on a percentage of project costs.

The legislation also mandates that each local government’s land development regulations must include factors for assessing compatibility of residential uses.

DATE OF EFFECT: March 27

HB 445 — Dangerous Crimes

House Bill 445 adds certain offenses dealing with child exploitation and certain kinds of computer porn to the list of dangerous crimes under Florida law.

This means that someone arrested for one of these offenses can’t be given nonmonetary pretrial release at a first appearance hearing.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

HB 569 — Forensic Client Services

House Bill 569 allows the Agency for Persons with Disabilities to house non-forensic clients and forensic clients within the same wards in secure APD facilities.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

SB 572 — Public Ethics

Senate Bill 572 revises the term “relative” in the Code of Ethics for Public Officers and Employees to include foster parents and foster children.

DATE OF EFFECT: April 1

HB 697 — Drug Prices

House Bill 697 makes it unlawful for a PBM to force a pharmacy to take a loss when dispensing a drug or to reimburse a nonaffiliated pharmacy less than an affiliated pharmacy.

Furthermore, the law requires PBMs to allow in-network pharmacies to submit consolidated appeals comprised of multiple adjudicated claims featuring identical drugs, day supplies, and dates of service.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

SB 844 — Sickle Cell Disease

Senate Bill 844 requires that the standard continuing education course on prescribing controlled substances include information regarding the treatment of pain for patients with sickle cell disease.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

HB 919 — Donald Trump Airport

House Bill 919 preempts to the state the ability to name major commercial service airports.

More specifically, the bill renames the Palm Beach International Airport as the “President Donald J. Trump International Airport.”

All other major airports, including the Orlando International Airport, may keep their current names for now.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

[BELOW: New Florida law could let lawmakers rename Orlando airport]

HB 991 — Elections

House Bill 991 makes several revisions to the Florida Election Code, including:

• Driver’s License: Requires the state to include a person’s legal status on any new, replacement or renewal driver’s licenses and ID cards
• Voter Oath: Voter registration applicants must affirm that they are U.S. citizens and may face criminal penalties for perjury if that is not the case
• Forms of ID: Debit/credit cards, student IDs, retirement center IDs, neighborhood association IDs, and public assistance IDs are no longer acceptable forms of identification for voters
• Campaign Contributions: Political parties and candidates may not willfully accept a contribution from a foreign national in connection with any election held in the state.
• Federal Courts: Requires the state to provide voter registration lists to federal courts to aid in their jury selection process, and requires those courts to provide the state with information about voters being ineligible due to convictions, death, or being a non-U.S. citizen
• Statute of Limitations: Creates a five-year statute of limitations for the prosecution of a felony under the Election Code
• New Penalties: Provides new fines and penalties for those who violate the law of involvement of foreign nationals in state elections
• Early Voting: Election supervisors must use local time when uploading the results of all early voting and vote-by-mail ballots by 7 p.m. the day before the election

DATE OF EFFECT: Jan. 1, 2027

HB 1153 — Juvenile Justice

House Bill 1153 includes “juvenile detention officers” and “juvenile probation officers” in multiple state statutes related to correctional officers.

This allows such positions to be eligible for a Medal of Heroism or Valor, as well as subjects a person to first-degree aggravated manslaughter if he/she causes such an officer to die through culpable negligence.

DATE OF EFFECT: March 30

HB 1159 — Sexual Offenses

House Bill 1159 sets up harsher penalties for various sexual offenses. These changes include:

• CSAM: Replacing the term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse material” in Florida statutes
• Harsher Penalties: Increases penalties for use of a child in a sexual performance; possession and transmission of child porn; creation of generated child porn; possession of a child-like doll; and certain sex acts involving animals
• Mandatory Sentencing: Adults must receive a mandatory minimum sentence for certain offenses related to using children in sexual performances and transmitting child porn
• Repeat Offenders: Raises mandatory minimum sentences for certain repeat sex offenders
• Life Felony: Creates a life felony for aggravated use of a child under 12 years old in a sexual performance
• Generated Child Porn: Creates a second-degree felony for transmitting generated child pornography
• No Pets: Prohibits anyone convicted of certain sex offenses involving animals from owning or working with animals for at least five years

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

HB 1417 — Department of Environmental Protection

House Bill 1417 repeals the Environmental Regulation Commission, which is expected to streamline rulemaking for environmental protection.

This law also requires erosion and sediment control plans for the construction of solar facilities to include stormwater best management practices.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

HB 1443 — Parkinson’s Disease Registry

House Bill 1443 requires the Florida Institute for Parkinson’s Disease at USF to set up a statewide Parkinson’s disease registry.

Under this legislation, physicians who diagnose a patient with Parkinson’s disease must report nationally recognized performance measures to the registry beginning on Jan. 1, 2027.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

[BELOW: Here’s what to know about Florida’s ‘license plate’ law]

HB 1445 — Public Records (Parkinson’s Disease Registry)

House Bill 1445 creates a public record exemption for patient-identifying information held in the Parkinson’s disease registry set up by HB 1443.

The exemption will be repealed on Oct. 2, 2031, unless reenacted by lawmakers.

DATE OF EFFECT: July 1

SB 7006 — Public Records (Florida PSC)

Senate Bill 7006 continues a public records exemption for for portions of hearings conducted by the Florida Public Service Commission.

More specifically, this exemption extends to proprietary confidential business information that is already exempt under state law.

DATE OF EFFECT: April 1

HB 7011 — Public Records (Aquaculture)

House Bill 7011 continues a public records exemption for certain aquaculture records held by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

That exemption refers to the following:

• Shellfish receiving and production records generated by licensed shellfish processing facilities
• Audit records and supporting documentation required for submerged land leases
• Aquaculture production records and receipts generated by certified aquaculture facilities

DATE OF EFFECT: March 27

SB 7016 — Public Records (Loan Programs)

Senate Bill 7016 continues a public records exemption for certain details held by an economic development agency pursuant to the administration of a state/federally funded small business loan program.

More specifically, the exemption protects tax returns, financial information and credit information.

DATE OF EFFECT: April 1

LeBron James woke up from a nap to find out about the prognosis on Reaves' strained left oblique. He had gone to sleep knowing the outlook on a strained left hamstring for Doncic, the NBA scoring leader.

“It was a shot to the heart and to the chest and the main frame with Luka, and we got that news kind of quick,” James said after the Lakers' 134-128 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night. “And (Reaves), he's kind of dealing with the pain, we're saying, ‘OK, whatever the case may be.’

“I woke up from my nap yesterday and then saw that news, I was like ... (expletive),” James said, pausing for several seconds before punctuating his thought.

For now, the playoff-bound Lakers will lean on James as their primary scorer and floor leader, while keeping in mind the 41-year-old is wrapping up his record 23rd NBA season.

Sure enough, James had 30 points and 15 assists against the Mavericks, but did struggle in the fourth quarter after sparking a rally in the second. He was 2 of 7 from the field in the final 12 minutes, and missed both free throws when the deficit was eight with 3:50 remaining.

“I think we have to be mindful of that. I think that’s a valid question,” coach JJ Redick said before the game. “For all our guys, him included, we want to put them in positions to be successful. Certain guys are gonna be tasked with doing stuff they haven’t done a lot of this year.”

Doncic and Reaves, LA's No. 2 scorer, both were injured in a blowout loss to Oklahoma City on Thursday night.

Of course, Doncic is the centerpiece of that conversation as an MVP candidate who will finish the season one game short of the 65 required to be eligible for that and other postseason awards.

“I just know that he’s gonna do everything he can to try to be back,” Redick said. “I talked to him Friday, I talked him again (Saturday), I talked with him again (Sunday) morning. He’s gonna go through all the necessary things to be back at some point, and it’s our job again to extend the season so that both those guys can get back.”

On Sunday, ESPN reported that Doncic will go to Europe to seek specialized treatment on his hamstring, citing agent Bill Duffy of WME Basketball.

Redick spoke of point guard by committee, an approach made necessary by another absence in Marcus Smart, who has a right ankle injury. Redick included James' son, Bronny James, in that mix along with Luke Kennard, Nick Smith Jr. and the seldom-used Kobe Bufkin.

Kennard had his first career triple-double with 15 points, a career-high 16 rebounds and 11 assists, but had a rough shooting nigh against the Mavericks, going 5 of 17. Among the others mentioned by Redick, only Bronny James played more than five minutes, scoring five points in nine minutes.

“I think simplicity wins,” Redick said. “It’s nothing too crazy. But it’s just being really simple with the menu and hopefully over the next five games, we can really figure out what works for this group. And that’s obviously trial and error.”

James had a triple-double with 21 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists in a victory over Washington last week when Doncic was serving a one-game suspension for receiving his 16th technical foul this season.

The loss to Dallas dropped the Lakers into a third-place tie with Denver in the Western Conference. Fifth-place Houston could end up chasing home-court advantage in the first round as well, particularly with the Lakers so wounded.

Rui Hachimura scored 12 of his 21 points in the first quarter against the Mavericks, who built a 22-point lead before halftime and held on despite James' strong showing and 23 points from backup center Jaxson Hayes.

The Lakers shot 52% with 36 assists, two off their season high, but let the Mavs match that 52%. Dallas, one of the NBA's worst teams from 3-point range, made 14 of 32 (44%).

“We’ve got a week left of the regular season and then a week to prepare and we’ve gotta have the commitment to do it on both ends,” Redick said after the game. “That’s the reason that we’ve put ourselves in the position to be in the playoffs is because we became a really good offensive team and a really good defensive team. So it’s gotta be the commitment to both ends.”

___

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

He was looking to do the same on the last possession with Golden State down a point, but missed a long, straightaway 3-pointer.

No matter the result, Curry is back and healthy at long last for the Warriors after a right knee injury, and everyone at Chase Center celebrated right along with him in Golden State’s 117-116 loss to the Houston Rockets on Sunday night.

With Curry back, the Warriors hope to make it out of the play-in tournament.

"There were a lot of nerves all day, my family supporting me at home when I was a nervous wreck trying to pass the hours before I got to the arena but once you get back into your routine I've been doing it so long muscle memory takes over and the adrenalin takes over," Curry said. "I appreciate the fans and the reception and just the buzz that was in the arena because you know at a certain point you won't be able to tap into that. So very grateful, it was a beautiful day and now I can kind of settle in to how we're going to finish the year.”

Coming off the bench in the regular season for the first time in 14 years, Curry was greeted by a warm standing ovation and greetings on the big screen — he also expressed his gratitude on video — when he entered with 4:54 left in the opening quarter.

He immediately passed off for an assist on a dunk by Charles Bassey, who just signed with Golden State earlier in the day. Curry made a 3-pointer with 34 seconds remaining in the period.

“You can just feel it, we're back in the mix, we're back in the fight with Steph,” coach Steve Kerr said.

Curry finished with 29 points on 11-for-21 shooting and became the 26th player in NBA history with 9,000 field goals. He was 5 of 10 on 3s, playing 26 minutes.

Fans chanted “We want Steph! We want Steph!” during the fourth quarter, seemingly unaware of his minutes restriction.

This marked the first time he has come off the bench in a regular-season game since March 7, 2012, against Memphis. He last was a reserve in Game 4 of the first round of the 2022 playoffs during the Warriors’ last championship run.

Curry's pregame warmup is always a must-see show long before the main event, and the cheers were extra loud for his latest session now that he's finally back on the floor.

He was cheered before tipoff, too, and was supposed to play 24 minutes following a two-plus-month absence and 27 straight games sidelined because of a right knee injury.

He signed a few autographs after his shooting routine then missed his full-court heave before disappearing into the tunnel.

“He's one of the most beloved players in league history, Bay Area history in any sport and I think a long absence like this reminds everybody how lucky we are to see him, to watch him, to coach him, to play with him,” Kerr said. “So tonight's a special night because we're reminded of how lucky we've been and how lucky we still are.”

Kerr said before the game that it's still unclear how many of the remaining games Curry will play given Golden State has five contests in eight days with a back-to-back the rest of the way — and the expectation is he wouldn't play on consecutive nights.

The schedule will be determined by how Curry feels and input from Vice President of Player Health and Performance Rick Celebrini.

Soon, Curry will be starting again.

Rockets coach Ime Udoka knew Houston would have its hands full with No. 30 back.

“One of the best movers in the game,” Udoka said. "... Obviously, we’ve seen him enough and know some things that have hurt us in the past.”

Curry scrimmaged several times this past week to test his injured right knee, and he said Saturday it was never a consideration to shut it down for the rest of the season. Kerr hoped to have Curry and younger brother Seth finally play together.

At the 6:19 mark of the second quarter, they did — the first time brothers played together in Warriors franchise history, according to Elias. Seth Curry also has been injured much of the season.

Seth Curry did appear in six preseason games for Golden State in 2013 then played for the team’s G League Santa Cruz Warriors that year — with the brothers playing all of 100 seconds together during the fourth quarter of two games during that ’13 preseason.

“That was special,” Curry said. “We both had very difficult years, honestly him more than me with injuries. I was joking calling us the rehab brothers. It's been like that all year but to have that moment coming out of a timeout, talking about our matchups, I was having flashbacks to Charlotte Christian in high school my senior year, his sophomore year was the last time in an actual game. ... That was a dream come true to be honest, it hasn't really sunk in yet.”

Their mother, Sonya, was in the stands for the moment.

Curry warmed up in Kevin Durant's “Scoring Title” Nike KD 4s with former teammate Durant playing for the Rockets.

After Saturday's practice, Curry said dealing with the pain is part of his “new normal” and the offseason will require a significant reset.

The 38-year-old Curry initially expected to be playing right after the All-Star break, but the recovery was prolonged by some difficult moments when he would feel good, push hard then pay for it the following day.

The Warriors (36-42) lost their fourth straight game. They were 13-25 this season without Curry — including 9-18 during the recent stretch with him sidelined by patellofemoral pain syndrome.

Curry was thrilled to battle Durant again — knowing these moments won't last forever. The feeling was mutual.

“Amazing,” Durant said about Curry’s comeback night.

___

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

More open conversations about menopause and the period leading up to it — called perimenopause — are happening at the same time that marketing has been supercharged by social media. Women are being confronted by lotions and serums and light masks that promise to rejuvenate their faces and necks, dietary supplements claiming to do everything from boost moods to ease hot flashes and gadgets promising to help with symptoms.

“The marketing has gotten very, very aggressive. It's pervasive," said Dr. Nanette Santoro, an OB-GYN professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz.

Santoro and other physicians say that before spending lots of money on products that make big promises, it's important for women to talk to their doctors about what has actually been proven to help — and what could be harmful.

“It really pays to be very, very, very skeptical,” Santoro said.

A flood of marketing

As menstruation winds down, women's levels of estrogen and progesterone drop. In some women, the symptoms can include hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes, vaginal dryness and sleep problems.

Dr. Angela Angel, an OB-GYN with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, said that in the past, doctors would ask women around the age of 50 during their yearly exam if they were noticing any symptoms. But now, she said, patients are making separate appointments and initiating the conversations.

And at those appointments, she said, many patients tell her they've already tried something. "They’re coming to see me because it’s not effective or because it’s caused some other side effect,” Angel said.

Her hospital has recently started a menopause support group led by doctors and, at the request of participants, an upcoming session will focus on helping women navigate through the marketing onslaught.

Products aimed at women in that stage of life include everything from bracelets and rings claiming to help ease hot flashes to cooling blankets and bedding.

Santoro said her advice to patients is to “balance what you’re going to spend over whether this might help you.”

“If it’s a bracelet that’s going to cost you $20, it’s not a big expenditure. It might provide some improvement," Santoro said. "Things that are not well tested might still work but if you want something that works — come back, I’m not going anywhere and I’ll give you evidence based treatment.”

Santoro said dietary supplements have not been proven in multiple, well-done studies to alleviate hot flashes, but many are low cost with a low potential for harm. She said if a patient wants to try something they see online, it’s important to at least tell their doctor so they can be monitored while taking it — or warned off.

Doctors note that most of the time over-the-counter products like dietary supplements, shampoos or skin care that are advertised for menopausal women aren't different from regular products for that purpose ingredient-wise.

And some products could have side effects.

Advice from doctors

Dr. Monica Christmas, director of the menopause program at the University of Chicago Medicine, said there’s not one symptom everyone gets. Some women get few or none, she said, while others are extremely impacted by a variety of symptoms. What’s most important, she said, is seeking medical help.

Doctors say that hormone therapy prescribed by a doctor can help with symptoms, as can prescriptions for nonhormonal medication. Some women are advised to avoid hormone therapy because they have had certain medical issues.

“Not everybody needs hormone therapy, not everyone is a candidate for hormone therapy, not everybody should be on hormone therapy,” Angel said.

Regular exercise and a healthy diet can help a lot, doctors say. That can help with weight loss, which is associated with reducing hot flashes and night sweats.

And Santoro notes that avoiding alcohol is a good step for someone with hot flashes since it can make them worse.

“Many of the symptoms actually get better over time, so sometimes it really is just a matter of lifestyle modifications and self-care and getting through this most tumultuous time frame,” Christmas said.

For Brandi McGruder, a 49-year-old school librarian from Dallas, it clicked that she was in perimenopause last year when she went out to dinner for her birthday. When she and her friends entered the steakhouse, she was freezing cold. About 20 minutes later, she was burning up.

She said she made an appointment with her doctor, who prescribed an estrogen patch, which helped. McGruder said she’s seen the advertisements for products aimed at women her age, but her first stop was her doctor.

McGruder said that while she doesn’t like the way the symptoms have driven home that she’s getting older, she’s also embracing this time in her life. Her advice: “Laugh. It’s OK. Reach out to others experiencing what you are going through, don’t take it so serious.”

Concerns about skin

There are changes with skin that come both with time as one ages, and during menopause as skin gets less thick because of a loss of collagen and some of the hyaluronic acid that supports skin, said Dr. Melissa Mauskar, a dermatologist and associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Mauskar said using a prescribed retinoid or an over-the-counter retinol can help. Both assist with the production of collagen and reduce the appearance of wrinkles.

She said good over-the-counter moisturizers can be found at drugstores. Her advice is to look for ones with ceramides, which help keep skin hydrated.

“But you don’t want to have anything that has too many additive ingredients — just because it’s natural and a botanical does not mean it’s better,” Mauskar said. “A lot of those actually are contact allergens that can make people more sensitive.”

Ingestible collagen is among the products being marketed to women, but she warns that studies are mixed and ingesting it “doesn’t mean that it’s going to make its way to your skin and plump up your face” — even though products claim it will. Light masks, she said, won’t hurt and some studies show they could help, but they won’t make a difference overnight. She said seeing any improvements from them would likely take daily use for many years.

She said sun damage is one of the biggest reasons patients have more wrinkles, so consistent use of sunscreen is a must for all ages.

“I think there's a lot of new fancy things coming out and targeted to perimenopause, menopause patients," Mauskar said, "but sometimes the tried and true things that we at least have the science for I think still are my kind of gold standard for my patients.”

Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Country hitmaker Ella Langley releasing her sophomore album, Nintendo dropping the monster combat game Pokémon Champions and “Malcolm in the Middle” fans getting a four-episode revival with Frankie Muniz, Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek.

New movies to stream from April 6-12

— Sydney Sweeney stars as real-life boxing legend Christy Martin in David Michôd’s “Christy” (HBO Max, Friday, April 10). The film, which Sweeney also produced, drew some of her best reviews. Her distinctly unglamorous performance spans Martin’s small-town West Virginia beginnings to a professional career shadowed by her abusive manager-turned-husband (Ben Foster). In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote that Sweeney “imbues her no-holds-barred portrayal of Martin with both sweetness and rage, with brio and real vulnerability.”

— One of the highlights of last year, Akinola Davies Jr.’s tender father-son drama, “My Father’s Shadow,” begins streaming Friday, April 10, on MUBI. The film, penned by Davis and his brother, Wale, is loosely autobiographical. Their father died when they were young. But in “My Father’s Shadow,” two Nigerian boys have unexpected day with their father ( Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù ) in Lagos, at a pivotal time for the country. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr called it “a gem, a deeply felt memory piece and vibrant portrait of Nigeria in 1993.”

— Jonah Hill made his directorial debut with the coming-of-age skate film “Mid90s.” He returns to directing in “Outcome,” a Hollywood satire starring Keanu Reeves as a movie star named Reef Hawk who fears a video could destroy his reputation. Hill, who co-wrote the movie, also co-stars as Reef’s crisis-management lawyer. It debuts Friday, April 10, on Apple TV.

— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

New music to stream from April 6-12

— A chart-topping country hitmaker preps her sophomore album: Ella Langley — known for such radio mainstays like the throwback “You Look Like You Love Me” with Riley Green and the George Strait-referencing No. 1 “Choosin’ Texas,” co-written with Miranda Lambert — will release a new record on Friday, April 10. If the whole of “Dandelion” is anything like those songs, she’s got a long career ahead of her.

— The English disco-pop singer Jessie Ware will release “Superbloom,” also on Friday, April 10. She’s as ready to soundtrack a late night on the dance floor as she's ever been — like on the single “Ride,” which interpolates the theme from the 1966 spaghetti Western film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and melts into her sequined synths. “Come be my cowboy, baby, come, let’s ride,” she sings, more discotheque than honky-tonk. “You know I want you, I need you tonight, tonight.”

— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

New series to stream from April 6-12

— “The Boys” launches its fifth and final season Wednesday on Prime Video. The critically acclaimed series is based on comic books and follows villainous superheroes and the crew trying to thwart them. Series regulars Jack Quaid, Karl Urban, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty and Jessie T. Usher and Chace Crawford are all returning, as are more recent additions played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jensen Ackles. “Hamilton” star Daveed Diggs also joins the cast.

— Hulu’s sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” called “The Testaments,” also premieres on Wednesday. Ann Dowd reprises her Aunt Lydia character from the original and is now in charge of a school for girls that basically prepares them for adulthood, marriage and babies. These young women have never known anything other than Gilead. It stars Chase Infiniti and Lucy Halliday and is also based on a novel by Margaret Atwood.

— Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen lead a new sci-fi comedy, “The Miniature Wife,” for Peacock. They play a couple working on their marriage when their lives are further complicated after an unusual accident. It premieres Thursday.

— Another series launching its fifth and final season is “Hacks” on HBO. The show, debuting Thursday, follows the love-hate relationship between a legendary comedian (Jean Smart) and a talented writer played by Hannah Einbinder. The series has racked up a lot of hardware, including an Emmy for outstanding comedy series. Smart has won four consecutive Emmys for the show while Einbinder has taken home one.

— Do you ever wonder how your favorite former TV stars would fare in the present day? “Malcolm in the Middle” fans are getting their wish. Twenty years after their show went off the air, Frankie Muniz, Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek return to TV for a revival where Muniz’s character is now a dad to a teenage girl. The four episodes of “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” premiere on Friday, April 10, on both Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

— Alicia Rancilio

New video games to play from April 6-12

— Nintendo is pulling out all the stops to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pokémon. Just a month after releasing the cozy community-builder Pokémon Pokopia, it’s dropping the considerably less comfortable Pokémon Champions. This time it’s all about the combat, as you recruit and train monsters before pushing them into the arena to fight other trainers’ creatures. You can compete in ranked events with players from around the world, or enjoy casual or private battles that won’t affect your ranking. It’s a free-to-start challenge, but you may want to set some cash aside for in-app purchases. The fight club opens Wednesday on Switch and Switch 2, with iOS and Android versions coming later in 2026.

— Annapurna Interactive’s People of Note tells the tale of a pop singer named Cadence who decides she wants to start a band. That means she’ll need to trek across the world of Note, where each city is defined by its own style of music. In her travels, though, Cadence learns that a Harmonic Convergence is disrupting music itself, and she and her bandmates will have to solve puzzles, explore dungeons and fight tone-deaf villains to stop Note from going silent. Los Angeles-based Iridium Studios promises that “each battle is an interactive musical performance,” and you can pump up the volume Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

— Lou Kesten

Trump punctuated his threat with profanity in a social media post Sunday, saying that Tuesday will be “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.”

He also offered details of the rescue of a “seriously wounded and really brave” U.S. service member he identified as a “respected colonel” who was missing since Iran shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle on Friday.

The U.S. president said the rescue was a rarely attempted type of operation because of the potential dangers. A second crew member was rescued earlier in “broad daylight” after seven hours over Iran.

The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.

Here is the latest:

Strikes in Iran kill at least 9 people

From Sunday into Monday across Iran, local media and activists reported strikes on Ahvaz, Bandar Lengeh, Karaj and Shiraz.

The strikes in Bandar Lengeh and Kong killed at least six people and wounded 17 others, the state-run IRAN newspaper said.

Another airstrike in southeastern Tehran hit a home, killing at least three people, Iranian state TV reported.

Iranian strikes hit Haifa

Israel’s Magen David Adom and Fire and Rescue services said early Monday that there are two reported sites of Iranian missile hits in the northern city of Haifa.

Video footage provided by Magen David Adom of the affected sites show active fire and bombed cars in what appears to be a residential area.

It is still unclear whether those were direct hits or damage from falling shrapnel from interceptions.

The missile strikes comes a day after another attack from Iran also hit a Haifa residential area, killing two people and injuring others.

Two people were still trapped in the rubble caused by the Sunday attack and their fate is unknown.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military warned the public Monday morning of another missile barrage coming from Iran, the third-such alert of the day.

Airstrike on Iranian city of Eslamshar kills at least 13

An airstrike early Monday struck a residential building in a city southwest of Iran’s capital, Tehran, killing at least 13 people, Iranian media reported.

The semiofficial Fars news agency and Nour News reported the strike near Eslamshar.

It wasn’t clear why the building had been struck.

Neither Israel nor the United States claimed the strikes early Monday, but they came after Trump issued a profanity-laced threat to Iran that it must reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Airstrikes hit Tehran university linked to weapons work

Airstrikes early Monday morning on Iran’s capital targeted the Sharif University of Technology.

Iranian media reported the strikes and damage to buildings there, as well as a natural gas distribution site next to the campus.

It wasn’t immediately clear what had been targeted on the grounds of the university, which is empty of students as the war has forced all schools in the country into online classes.

However, multiple countries over the years have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is controlled by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Meanwhile, the Guard and other security forces have been using secondary sites as rally points as their bases have come under repeated attack during the war.

Airstrike in the Irani city of Qom kills at least 5

The state-run IRAN daily newspaper said in an online message that an airstrike in a residential area of Qom killed at least five people. Qom is a holy Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

It wasn’t unclear what the target of the strike was.

Iran has not provided overall casualty figures from the war in days. It also hasn’t discussed its materiel losses.

Airstrikes hit Iran's capital

Before dawn Monday, a series of airstrikes hit Iran’s capital, Tehran. Explosions rang out into the night, though it wasn’t immediately clear what had been struck. The sound of low-flying fighter jets could be heard off and on for hours.

In Israel, authorities sounded one missile alert. In Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, two such alerts went off with air defenses firing, but it wasn’t immediately clear what had been targeted by Iran. Kuwait also said its air defenses worked multiple times overnight to intercept incoming.

Crude oil prices jump in early trading after Trump threats

Crude oil prices jumped sharply in early trading Sunday after U.S. President Donald Trump issued fresh, heightened threats against Iran and its infrastructure.

The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose more than 2% to $111.25. U.S. crude oil prices were up nearly 3% to $114.54 a barrel.

The last time front-month prices for U.S. crude oil prices were above $115 a barrel was the summer of 2022, in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and during a period of high inflation across the globe.

Trump on social media vowed to hit Iran’s power plants and bridges and said the country would be “living in Hell” if the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global trade, isn’t opened by Tuesday.

Official with Lebanese Christian party killed in Israeli strike

Pierre Mouawad, an official with the Lebanese Forces party, was killed along with his wife in an Israeli strike Sunday on an apartment building in the village of Ain Saadeh in the mountains east of Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Another woman was killed and three women were wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

The Israeli military has made no statement about the strike, and its intended target remains unclear.

The Lebanese Forces party is opposed to Hezbollah and has blamed the Shiite militant group for dragging Lebanon into a new war with Israel.

Israeli strikes in Christian-majority areas have led to sectarian tensions, with local residents fearing that Hezbollah members may be hiding among displaced Shiite civilians taking refuge there.

Doctors Without Borders condemns Israeli strike in Beirut neighborhood

The international aid group, known by its French acronym MSF, said the strike in Beirut’s Jnah neighborhood on Sunday hit “a densely populated residential area … only meters from Rafik Hariri Public Hospital.”

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the strike, which came without a warning, killed four people and wounded 39.

“We are seeing elderly people and adolescents arriving with critical injuries to the head, chest, and abdomen, including shrapnel wounds,” Luna Hammad, MSF medical coordinator working in the hospital, said in a statement. “When strikes hit crowded residential areas without warning, the consequences are severe, both in human casualties and in hospitals’ capacity to respond.”

MSF said that “strikes this close to a hospital spread fear and can stop people from seeking lifesaving care.”

The Israeli military has not named the intended target of the strike, which comes five weeks into the renewed Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon.

Iran says US bombarded its own aircraft, personnel

Iran’s joint military command spokesperson said Sunday that the U.S. had to bombard its own military aircraft and personnel that were struck and downed by Iranian fighters to “prevent embarrassment for President Trump and the hollow image of its military.”

Ebrahim Zolfaghari added that several U.S. military aircraft entered Iranian airspace to carry out a rescue operation for the pilot of a downed U.S. fighter jet, but said Iranian fighters and air defense systems struck the aircraft and forced them to make an emergency landing in an area south of Isfahan.

A regional intelligence official, who was briefed on the covert mission and who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss it, said the U.S. military blew up two transport planes due to a technical malfunction that forced them to bring in additional aircraft to complete the rescue.

Over the weekend, the United States pulled off a daring rescue of two aviators whose fighter jet was shot down by Iran, plucking the pilot from behind enemy lines before setting off a complicated extraction of the second service member who hid deep in the mountains as Tehran called for Iranians to help capture him.

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— Associated Press reporter Toqa Ezzidin contributed to this report.

Bahrain’s foreign minister urges action on Strait of Hormuz

Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani wrote in a statement Sunday that Iran’s weekslong chokehold on the critical waterway has created an “escalating crisis that threatens global stability, food security, and the foundational principles of international law.”

He urged action by the United Nations Security Council on a Bahrain draft proposal, which has faced crucial opposition from Russia, China and France over several issues, including language authorizing the use of force to open the strait. All three countries wield veto power over any resolution in the 15-member council.

The vote on the heavily revised and watered-down draft was scheduled to take place last week, but has been postponed due to lack of consensus.

Al-Zayani noted that the “window of opportunity is narrowing day by day” and failure by the international community to act “sends a dangerous message that vital arteries of the global economy can be threatened without consequence.”

Iranian negotiators have ‘immunity from death,’ Trump says

The U.S. president made the comments during an off-camera interview with Fox News.

“We’ve given them immunity from death. And we’ve told the people that we’re dealing with, who are the top people,” the president said.

Trump contended that the Iranians had already conceded on having a nuclear weapon.

“They’re not even negotiating that point, it’s so easy,” Trump told Fox News. “That’s already been conceded. Most of the points are conceded.”

4 wounded in fire at UAE’s Khor Fakkan port

The United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah government said that one Nepali and three Pakistani nationals were wounded Sunday in a fire caused by falling debris from an intercepted Iranian projectile at Khor Fakkan port, according to a statement posted on the social platform X.

One individual was severely wounded and had to be hospitalized, while the others suffered mild and moderate injuries, the statement said.

The statement did not specify whether the intercepted projectile was a missile or a drone.

3 missing in Haifa apartment building strike

Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority said Sunday they were searching for three people in the northern Israeli city of Haifa after an Iranian missile strike.

Paramedics said they rushed to the scene and searched through the rubble to dig out the injured, finding an older man in serious condition. They added that three other people were mildly injured, including a baby.

Associated Press video filmed at the scene showed much of the multistory building reduced to rubble.

The rescuers described the damage as resulting from a direct hit, but it was not immediately clear if the building had been struck by a missile or shrapnel from an interception.

Israeli fire kills 1 Palestinian in Gaza City, health officials say

The strike on a group of people also wounded others, according to health officials at the Shifa hospital, where the casualties arrived.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Gaza Strip has seen near-daily Israeli fire and strikes since a fragile ceasefire was reached in October, and more than 700 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.

The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. But it does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

Since the Iran war began over a month ago, Gaza militants have sat out the conflict and haven’t claimed any attacks against Israel.

Iran’s head of parliament lashes back at Trump

In a social media post on Sunday, Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf dismissed Trump’s recent threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure as “reckless.”

“You won’t gain anything through war crimes,” Qalibaf wrote on X. “The only real solution is respecting the rights of the Iranian people and ending this dangerous game.”

Top Iranian official threatens closure of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait

A former foreign minister and adviser to the supreme leader warned Sunday that “the resistance front” could target the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Red Sea, through which about 12% of the world’s trade typically passes.

“If the White House thinks of repeating its stupid mistakes, it will quickly realize that the flow of global energy and trade can be disrupted with a single signal,” Ali Akbar Velayati said on social media, signaling possible closure of the vital waterway if the U.S. escalates attacks.

Iran leads the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” which includes armed groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, where Houthi rebels had in the past cut off transit through Bab el-Mandeb with attacks on vessels.

Iran has effectively stopped cargo traffic through the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict, leading to higher oil and gas prices globally.

Iran floats a new condition for Strait of Hormuz reopening

Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaei, a presidential spokesperson, wrote Sunday on the social platform X that the reopening of the vital waterway can only happen if transit revenues are partially earmarked to compensate Iran for war damages.

There has been growing alarm over Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, critical for shipments of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf to Europe and Asia. Trump has threatened to attack Iran’s infrastructure if it fails to reopen the strait by Monday.

Oil-producing countries decide on symbolic output increase

Eight countries from the OPEC+ oil cartel say they will increase production again in May to ensure stability on the oil market — a decision overshadowed by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic due to the Iran war.

The countries said in a statement carried Sunday on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries website that production would be increased by 206,000 barrels per day.

That, however, remains largely on paper due to the loss of an estimated 12 million barrels a day from Persian Gulf producers due to the Hormuz closure.

The countries — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman — warned that damage from attacks on oil infrastructure will take “a long time” to repair and return supply to previous levels.

Such attacks, as well as disruption of navigation, undermine efforts to support stable prices “for the benefit of producers, consumers and the global economy,” they said.

Iranian government minister dismisses Trump threat in AP interview

Iran’s culture minister has dismissed President Donald Trump’s latest threats, calling the U.S. leader an “unstable, delusional figure.”

“Iranian society generally does not pay attention to his statements, as it believes he lacks personal, behavioral and verbal balance, and constantly shifts between contradictory positions,” Sayed Reza Salihi-Amiri told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday.

Trump on Sunday said he would strike Iran’s power plants and bridges this Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to marine traffic. In an expletive-laden post, Trump promised the Iranians would be “living in Hell” if the waterway isn’t opened.

“It seems Trump has become a phenomenon that neither Iranians nor Americans are able to fully analyze,” said Salihi-Amiri.

He said the Strait of Hormuz is “open to the world but closed to Iran’s enemies.”

Latest attack from Iran hits Haifa apartment building, Israel’s rescue services say

Paramedics say they rushed to the scene and searched through the rubble to dig out the injured, finding an older man in serious condition. They say three other people were mildly injured, including a baby.

Photos and video showed much of the multistory building reduced to rubble.

The rescuers described the damage as resulting from a direct hit. It was not immediately clear if the building had been struck by an Iranian missile or shrapnel from a missile interception.

2 Black Hawk helicopters were hit during the rescue, but got to safety

The two helicopters were able to navigate to safe airspace, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

It was not clear where the Black Hawks landed or if their crew members were injured.

Iran’s joint military command has claimed it struck two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters.

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— Associated Press reporter Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Kuwait and Qatar report further aerial attacks

The Kuwaiti army said Sunday that Iran had fired a total of nine ballistic missiles, four cruise missiles and 31 drones at Kuwaiti territory over the past 24 hours.

That brings the total number of projectiles that have targeted Kuwait since the war erupted to 740 drones, 336 ballistic missiles and 13 cruise missiles, according to an official statement posted on the social platform X.

Also, the Qatari army reported that it had on Sunday intercepted several drones and two cruise missiles fired by Iran, according to another statement on X.

Muslim civil rights group accuses Trump of mocking Islam

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, assailed Trump for invoking Allah in his Truth Social post threatening Iran.

“President Trump’s deranged mocking of Islam and his threats to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran are reckless, dangerous, and indicative of a mindset that shows indifference to human life and contempt for religious beliefs,” CAIR said in a statement.

Trump, in his post on Easter Sunday, demanded that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday, “or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

“The casual use of ‘Praise be to Allah’ in the context of violent threats reflects a disturbing willingness to weaponize religious language while simultaneously denigrating Islam and its followers,” CAIR said.

Iranians say Trump’s threats to strike infrastructure is ‘intent to commit war crime’

Hours after Trump’s expletive-laden post promising Iran will be “living in Hell” over the Strait of Hormuz closure, Tehran’s mission to the U.N. called the open threats to target civilian infrastructure “a direct and public incitement to terrorise civilians and clear evidence of intent to commit war crime.”

“The international community and all States have legal obligations to prevent such atrocious acts of war crimes,” the mission said in a post on the social platform X. “They must act now. Tomorrow is too late.”

Iran says Ahvaz Shahid Soleimani airport hit

Iran state-run television IRIB quoted a security official as saying that so far, no casualties were reported in the aftermath of a US-Israeli strike on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, the United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah government said that Khor Fakkan port was targeted and that no casualties were reported so far, according to a post on the social platform X by the government’s media office.

Earlier, UKMTO said that a captain had witnessed multiple splashes from unknown projectiles near his vessel while conducting loading operations at the same port.

Border crossing between Lebanon and Syria awaits threatened Israeli strikes

The main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria was closed Sunday after the Israeli military warned of plans to strike it the night before, alleging that Hezbollah was using it to smuggle military equipment.

Samir Abdelkhaleq from the Lebanese border town of Majdal Anjar said the closure is an economic blow to many.

“These are real losses for people and for business owners,” he said. “Everyone is just waiting for the strike to be over.”

Syrian authorities, who have a hostile relationship with Hezbollah, have denied that the crossing is being used for smuggling. In recent days, Syria announced the discovery and closure of several tunnels they said were being used by Hezbollah for smuggling.

More than 200,000 people have crossed from Lebanon into Syria in the five weeks since the outbreak of renewed war between Israel and Hezbollah.

US official says CIA launched ‘deception campaign’ to find second crew member

Details about the rescue of a second U.S. crew member in Iran, who was a weapons systems officer, are trickling out hours after Trump’s announcement.

A senior U.S. administration official said Sunday that before locating the crew member, the CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had already found him and were moving him on the ground for exfiltration.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public, said the campaign managed to confuse Iranian officials while the agency conducted its search-and-rescue operations.

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— Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Over 1,400 people in Lebanon have been killed in war between Israel and Hezbollah militant group

Among the 1,461 killed are 97 women, 129 children, and 54 paramedics, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

4,430 people have been wounded since the latest fighting began on March 2.

After Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel, the Israeli military launched an intense military operation with daily strikes across the country and a ground invasion into southern Lebanon.

Top satellite imagery provider says US asked it to suspend access to Mideast imagery

The U.S. government has asked top providers of satellite imagery to stop publishing photos from parts of the Middle East because of the Iran war, says the company Planet Labs.

Planet Labs and companies like it provide near-daily imagery crucial to reporting on regions where on-the-ground access for journalists is impossible, limited or unsafe. That has made it an especially key tool for reporting on the Iran war, which has impacted nearly all Middle Eastern countries.

In a Saturday email to users, including the AP, Planet Labs said it was complying with the U.S. government’s requests and would indefinitely delay publication of imagery taken after March 9, 2026. It said it would release new imagery on a “case-by-case basis and for urgent, mission-critical requirements or in the public interest.”

The company said the new measures would be in place until the end of the conflict.

A defiant Iran struck infrastructure targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries and threatened to restrict another heavily used waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Arabian Peninsula.

Trump on social media vowed to hit Iran’s power plants and bridges and said the country would be “living in Hell” if the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global trade, isn’t opened. He ended with “Praise be to Allah.”

Trump has issued such deadlines before but extended them when mediators have claimed progress toward ending the war, which has killed thousands, shaken global markets and spiked fuel prices in just over five weeks.

“It seems Trump has become a phenomenon that neither Iranians nor Americans are able to fully analyze,” Iranian Culture Minister Sayed Reza Salihi-Amiri told visiting Associated Press journalists in an interview in Tehran, adding that the U.S. president “constantly shifts between contradictory positions.”

Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets like oil fields and desalination plants that provide drinking water. Iran’s U.N. mission called Trump’s threat “clear evidence of intent to commit war crime.”

Iran’s joint military command warned of stepped-up attacks on regional oil and civilian infrastructure if the U.S. and Israel attack such targets there, according to state television.

The laws of armed conflict allow attacks on civilian infrastructure only if the military advantage outweighs the civilian harm, legal scholars say. It’s considered a high bar to clear, and causing excessive suffering to civilians can constitute a war crime.

The US describes a dramatic rescue

An intense search followed Friday's crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle, while Iran promised a reward for the “enemy pilot.” It was the first known American aircraft to crash in Iranian territory since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.

Trump said that the service member was “seriously wounded and really brave” and rescued from “deep inside the mountains" in an operation involving dozens of armed aircraft. He said a second crew member was rescued in “broad daylight” within hours of the crash.

A senior U.S. administration official said that before locating the second aviator, the CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had found him and were moving him out, creating confusion for Iranians. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

Iran also shot down another U.S. military plane Friday, demonstrating the perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of Iran's degraded military to hit back. Neither the status of the A-10 attack aircraft's crew nor where it crashed is known.

On Sunday, Iran’s state television aired a video showing what it claimed were parts of U.S. aircraft — a transport plane and two helicopters — shot down by Iranian forces during the rescue operation.

However, a regional intelligence official briefed on the mission told the AP that the U.S. military blew up two transport planes because of a technical malfunction and brought in additional aircraft to complete the rescue. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the covert mission.

Iran’s joint military command later said the U.S. bombarded its own aircraft to “prevent embarrassment for President Trump."

Two Black Hawk helicopters were hit but navigated to safe airspace, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

Diplomatic efforts continue

Trump's deadline centers on alarm over Iran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz, critical for global shipments of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf as well as humanitarian supplies. Some ships have paid Iran for passage.

An Iranian presidential spokesperson, Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaei, said on social media that the strait can reopen only if some transit revenues compensate Iran for war damages.

A top Iranian adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, warned on social media that Tehran also could disrupt trade on the Bab el-Mandeb, a key chokepoint to and from the Red Sea.

Diplomatic efforts continued. Oman's Foreign Ministry said that deputy foreign ministers and experts from Iran and Oman met to discuss proposals to ensure “smooth transit” through the strait.

Egypt said that Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had spoken with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and with Turkish and Pakistani counterparts. Russia said that Araghchi also spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Bahrain urged the U.N. Security Council to act on its draft proposal with language authorizing defensive action to ensure safe passage through the strait.

Airstrikes hit Iran

An airstrike early Monday struck a residential building near Eslamshar, southwest of Tehran, killing at least 13 people, the semiofficial Fars news agency and Nour News reported.

Airstrikes also damaged buildings at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran as well as a natural gas distribution site next to the campus, Iranian media reported. It wasn’t immediately clear what was targeted at the university campus, which has switched to online classes because of the war.

Elsewhere in Iran, an airstrike killed at least five people in a residential area of Qom, the state-run IRAN daily newspaper said in an online message. Qom is a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

It wasn't clear why the buildings were struck. Neither Israel nor the United States claimed the strikes early Monday

In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said one Nepali and three Pakistanis were hurt in fires caused by debris from the interception of an Iranian projectile at Khor Fakkan port, and interception debris caused fires at a petrochemical plant in Ruwais, halting operations.

In Kuwait, Iranian drone attacks caused significant damage to power plants and a petrochemical plant. They also put a water desalination station out of service, according to the Ministry of Electricity.

In Bahrain, a drone attack caused a fire at a national oil company storage facility and a state-run petrochemical plant, the kingdom’s official news agency said.

In Israel, rescue authorities searched for three people in the northern city of Haifa after an apartment building was hit. It wasn't immediately clear what struck it.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but its government has not updated the toll for days.

In Lebanon, whose health ministry said an Israeli strike without warning killed four people in Beirut, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there while targeting Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

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Lee and Toropin reported from Washington, Metz from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Lisa Mascaro and Seung Min Kim in Washington; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

LeBron James had 30 points and 15 assists for the playoff-bound Lakers, who led for just 13 seconds in the opening minutes of their first game since injuries sidelined Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves for the rest of the regular season.

Doncic, the NBA scoring leader, has a left hamstring strain, and Reaves, LA's No. 2 scorer, is out with a left oblique strain. Both were injured in a blowout loss at Oklahoma City on Thursday.

Flagg, who had nine assists and eight rebounds, recorded consecutive 40-point games for the first time two nights after the 19-year-old rookie No. 1 pick scored 51 to become the first NBA teenager with a 50-point outing. Flagg is the first rookie with back-to-back games scoring at least 40 points since Allen Iverson (1996-97 season).

Luke Kennard had his first career triple-double with 15 points, a career-high 16 rebounds and 11 assists for the Lakers, who dropped into a tie for third in the Western Conference with Denver, although LA holds the tiebreaker on the Nuggets. Houston has a chance to get into the third-place mix in the final week of the regular season.

P.J. Washington Jr. scored 13 of his 15 points after halftime for the Mavericks, whose home skid was their longest at 25-year-old American Airlines Center. They lost the first 19 games of the 1993-94 season at since-demolished Reunion Arena.

James scored 16 points in the second quarter, when the Lakers cut a 22-point deficit to six at halftime.

The 41-year-old in his record 23rd season had back-to-back dunks before the break, then a soaring alley-oop slam from Kennard to get the Lakers within 72-70 early in the third quarter. But LA never got closer.

Up next

Lakers: Host Oklahoma City on Tuesday.

Mavericks: Visit the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday.

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

She rolled to a five-shot win over Nelly Korda and the rest of the star-studded field for her first win in two years.

Coughlin shot an even-par 72 for a 7-under total, earning the 33-year-old from Virginia $600,000. She won her third LPGA Tour title and first in the United States, after winning in Canada and Scotland in 2024.

“I think it just means more because after 2024 and not winning is hard,” Coughlin said. “I didn’t get it done earlier in the year last year when I had a couple chances and that really bothered me. I was like, ‘What if I don’t ever get to do it again? What if that’s the best golf I every played in 2024?’ Those thoughts were hard not to think last year.”

Korda was runner-up yet again after shooting a 75 and finishing at 2 under. She made her one birdie on the par-5 18th, avoiding going without one in a round for the first time since the first day of The ANNIKA last November in the Tampa Bay area.

This was her third consecutive second-place finish after opening her season by winning in Orlando, Florida, moving Korda up a spot to No. 1 in the world ranking.

“I’m just going to stick to what I’m doing,” Korda said. “I’m really happy with the way that my game is trending, and sometimes when you work too hard and you exhaust yourself, you can go the other way.”

Leona Maguire (71) also finished at 2 under, and the only other player with an under-par score was Miyu Yamashita (74) at 1 under.

Korda wasn’t the only tough competitor for Coughlin to overcome. The $4 million prize money in the event organized by Golf Saudi and co-sanctioned by the LPGA and Ladies European Tour drew 38 of the top 40 players. It’s the first such event in the United States, and more appear to be coming to North America.

Players compared this tournament to a major because Shadow Creek because birdies were so difficult to come by. Only four players wound up under par for the tournament.

Coughlin, the former two-time Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year at Virginia, showed why she feels comfortable at Shadow Creek, even though the format for this year's tournament switched from match to stroke play. She made the final pairing last year before a 1-up loss to Madelene Sagstrom.

“It left a sour taste in my mouth,” Coughlin said. “Second is a good consolation, but winning is really fun.”

Her comfort was evident all four days around the 6,765-yard tract that makes players pay dearly for putting the ball in poor locations. Coughlin was in a three-way tie for the lead after the first round and never relinquished that position as others fell off.

She came close to turning the tournament into a laugher at times Friday and Saturday, but going into the final round, Coughlin enjoyed just a two-shot margin over Korda, the 2024 LPGA Tour Player of the Year. Korda ended the third round with back-to-back birdies and an apparent message she wasn't going anywhere.

But then the final round began, and it became clear fairly quickly which direction the tournament was heading. Coughlin began to pull away and all but ensured at the eighth green she would be the one to place her hands on the trophy.

Coughlin rolled in a downhill right-to-left 45-footer for birdie on the par 3. Korda then preceded to three-putt, including missing a 2-footer for par.

Suddenly, Coughlin was at 9 under and Korda at 3 under — and the rest of the round all but a formality. Korda got within four shots when Coughlin opened the back nine by bogeying the 10th and 12th holes, but Korda did the same on Nos. 13 and 15 to again make it a six-shot difference.

“Not even just bogeys, but you can make a lot of big numbers out there,” Coughlin said. “So I was sticking to my game plan and trying to focus on staying in my routine as much as I could and make as many pars as I possibly could.”

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

Teams will have two days to send qualifying offers to players who they have reserved rights for. Teams will also have a chance to offer a franchise tag to one player who is eligible to be cored.

Then, starting Wednesday, teams can begin meeting with unrestricted free agents, with the ability to offer them contracts starting Saturday.

More than 80% of the league’s players are free agents this year, as players had signed deals that expired at the end of last season.

There are only two veteran players who aren’t under rookie contracts that are signed for this season — Seattle's Lexie Brown and Phoenix's Kalani Brown.

Usually teams have a few weeks to court free agents to join their franchise. There’s a chance that many players may just re-sign with their current teams for a year and revisit free agency after the season.

Players could also go after the money and accept a bigger contract from a team they might not know as much about.

The college draft is scheduled for April 13 in New York.

The WNBA and its players’ union agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement last month. The new seven-year CBA, which begins this season and runs through 2032, represents a transformational landmark labor deal for the league. The deal was unanimously ratified by the WNBA Board of Governors and approved through a players’ vote.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Spaun won for the second time at the TPC San Antonio, with one big difference. His victory four years ago got him into the Masters. Now he is the U.S. Open champion who already had his spot at Augusta National secured. But this was an important win.

He had yet to finish in the top 20 in seven starts this year — his best was a tie for 24th in The Players Championship — and now the 35-year-old Californian has a validating win in tough conditions as he heads into the first major of the year.

“It’s just — this game is so crazy,” Spaun said. “I haven’t been feeling at the form I wanted to be based on last season, and just trying to take each day as it comes, and accepting what I have."

“There’s just so much that comes with winning big events like that, a U.S. Open or any other major," he said. "I put a lot of pressure on me to start the year, a lot of expectations. I went into the last few weeks starting at the Players trying to be freed up, and put less pressure on myself, and it’s been trying. But sticking to that mantra has really helped me.”

Robert MacIntyre, who had led for so much of the tournament, completed 12 holes Sunday morning in the storm-delayed tournament for an even-par 72 to stay ahead by one shot going into the final round. The groups didn't change for the final round in a bid to finish amid more rain — but no lightning that caused any delays.

Spaun was in the mix with a dozen other players when he hit his tee shot to 3 feet on the par-3 16th for birdie, and then drove the green on the 306-yard 17th hole to 10 feet for eagle.

He finished with a par to set the target at 17-under 271, finishing about an hour before MacIntyre and the final group. He was on the range when MacIntyre, three shots behind with two to play, drove the 17th and holed an eagle putt just outside 15 feet to get within one shot.

But the Scot hooked his second shot from a wet fairway on the 609-yard closing hole — a par 5 that yielded only 10 birdies in the final round — and even after getting relief from temporary immovable obstructions, MacIntyre could only hit wedge to 30 feet.

His birdie putt to force a playoff was short all the way. MacIntyre closed with a 70 to share second place with Matt Wallace (68) and Michael Kim (69).

He won for the third time on the PGA Tour, two of them at the Texas Open.

Ludvig Aberg had his third straight top 10 — including The Players Championship where he gave up the lead on the back nine — going into the Masters. He closed with a 70 and tied for fifth with Andrew Putnam, who needed birdie on the 18th to force a playoff and hit wedge into a back bunker, making bogey for a 70.

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

The two-time All-American did her homework following a season-low points in UCLA's only loss of the season, applying what she gleaned from the game film to help take down Texas in the rematch.

Betts opened up about her mental health issues, the honesty taking a weight off her shoulders while, hopefully, helping others facing their own darkness.

This life of hers has been a pursuit of perfection — or at least the best version of herself — and Betts capped the college basketball portion of it by reaching the pinnacle of her sport with one final dominating performance.

UCLA won its first NCAA national championship with a 79-51 blowout of South Carolina on Sunday and Betts, as she’s been throughout her career, was the catalyst at both ends of the floor.

“I showed up with zero confidence and wasn’t sure if I wanted to really play basketball for that much longer,” Betts said. "Coach Cori (Close) really believed in me and wanted to see me accomplish everything that I’d ever dreamed of. They wanted me to see myself the way they all see me and and I feel like now at this point I can finally, truly do that.”

The 6-foot-7 senior shook off a first-half coughing fit — the dry desert air got to her — to finish with 14 points, 11 rebounds and two blocked shots. She altered and prevented even the thought of several others at the rim to give UCLA its first national championship since taking the 1978 AIAW title.

“She’s a very dominant player,” South Carolina's Tessa Johnson said. “She's consistent and effective. It's hard to scout that.”

Betts had a similar impact in UCLA's 51-44 shutdown of Texas in the national semifinals, a 16-point, 11-rebound, three-block performance that set the stage for her to be selected as the Final Four's most outstanding player.

So what if there wasn't a trophy at the announcement.

Betts got to share a national championship with her younger sister, Sienna, a freshman on the team, along with friends and family in the stands.

“They were crying more than I was because they’ve seen me since my sophomore year, just how I matured and it has been really special for them,” Betts said. "They mean so much to me.”

The closing flourish capped a rocky-at-times career.

Betts was the nation's No. 1 high school recruit out of Grandview High School, in Aurora, Colorado, and chose to play at perennial powerhouse Stanford. She had a solid freshman season, but the building mental health issues she had been struggling with began to bubble closer to the surface even after she transferred to UCLA.

Betts opened up about her struggles last year and expounded upon it in a recent first-person story, in which she detailed the brutal hospital conditions and the epiphany once she got out — that she wanted to be here.

“I just feel like for me, basketball and this platform that I’ve been given, I was put on this earth to do more than play basketball,” Betts said. “I think the journey I’ve had, the hardships I’ve went through are to help other people.”

Betts dedicated herself to getting better, on and off the court, and became one of the nation's best college basketball players.

She was UCLA's first Associated Press All-American a year ago and backed that up with another All-American nod after averaging 18.5 points and 7.6 rebounds while shooting 60.1% from the field and leading the Bruins with 71 blocked shots.

With Betts anchoring the middle, the Bruins (37-1) one-upped the program's first trip the Final Four last year with the best season in history.

UCLA reeled off a school-record 31 straight wins following the 76-65 loss to Texas, including the payback win in the national semifinals. The Bruins then erased memories of last year's blowout Final Four loss to UConn with its first NCAA national championship.

Betts, as usual, was at the center of it all, the best version of herself leading to the greatest moment of her and her teammates' lives.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Scheffler, who tends to keep his golf separate from his home life, had not shared any information since withdrawing from the Houston Open two weeks ago because of the impending birth of his second child. He said wife Meredith gave birth to a boy on March 27. They named him Remy.

“We just liked it,” Scheffler said about the name. His first son, Bennett, was born in 2024 before the PGA Championship. "We didn’t have very many good boy names, to be honest with you.”

There he was, in a stroller Meredith was pushing under the famous oak tree by the clubhouse, 9 days old and already at his first Masters.

It added to the sights rarely seen anywhere else on the Sunday before a major. That holds true with so much about the Masters.

Defending champion Rory McIlroy has been at the club all weekend, watching the Augusta National Women's Amateur on Saturday and handing out trophies to a group of boys in the annual Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals on Sunday.

McIlroy has talked about how much he looked forward to returning as the Masters champion and enjoying all the perks that go with it. He was in his green jacket during the Drive, Chip and Putt, and posed with Maria Jose Marin, the ANWA winner and first Colombian to join the roll call of Augusta National winners.

Then he headed out to the golf course with his father, Gerry, and Augusta member Jimmy Dunne. Next up is the Masters Club dinner Tuesday and the elaborate menu he has put together.

“It is the most exclusive dinner club in all of sport, and I think we should all feel very fortunate that we are there,” he told Golf Channel after his part in the trophy presentation Sunday. “But we’re there because of the hard work and the good play that we’ve been able to produce.”

He also mentioned two players who won't be at the dinner — Tiger Woods, arrested and briefly jailed for suspicion of driving under the influence during a March 27 car crash, and Phil Mickelson, who is tending to a personal health matter at home.

“Unfortunately, there will be a couple of guys that won’t be in that room, which is a shame, but I want to make sure that they’re acknowledged as well,” McIlroy said. "They’ve been two of the greatest champions that the Masters has ever seen. But it’s going to be a really cool night. I can’t wait. I hope everyone enjoys the dinner and enjoys everything that I’ve selected.”

Bryson DeChambeau also was at Augusta National on Saturday for the end of the ANWA, consoling Asterisk Talley after the 17-year-old hit two shots into Rae's Creek for a quadruple-bogey 7 on the par-3 12th hole that cost her a chance to win.

DeChambeau grew up about 45 minutes away from where Talley lives in the central valley of California. They know each other well.

“Obviously, I’ve had difficult moments in my career, and if there’s anything I can do to support her, that’s what I’m here for. That’s why I’m here to support,” DeChambeau told reporters Saturday.

He teed off Sunday by himself after the DC&P was over, walking to slap hands and pose for photos with kids and spectators some 100 yards down the right side of the tee. “I've got to go play,” he told them before running to catch up with his caddie. There are exceptions for running at Augusta National.

Also there was Gary Player, the three-time Masters champion who will be hitting the honorary tee shot on Thursday. The Black Knight was on the putting green as the Boys 7-9 division was preparing for its putting competition on the 18th green.

There was 8-year-old Landyn Kelly from Henderson, Nevada, rapping 40-foot putts toward the hole with 90-year-old Player watching with amazement.

“What a touch! What a touch he has, man!” Player exclaimed.

Scheffler took this Sunday to play with Blake Smith, his longtime manager, who had never played Augusta National. Scheffler and McIlroy are fighting some history this week. Adam Scott in 2013 is the last player to win the Masters after having three weeks off.

“I've been practicing,” Scheffler said. “I've been able to do a good amount at home.”

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

Mateus Fernandes and Axel Disasi struck in the 93rd and 96th minutes as West Ham leveled the score at 2-2 at London Stadium and forced extra time — where two goals for West Ham were chalked off for offside — before Leeds won the quarterfinal shootout 4-2. West Ham debutant Finlay Herrick saved a penalty from Joel Piroe but Leeds eventually prevailed with Pascal Struijk scoring the winning penalty.

“At least I’m old enough that I was already born when there was the last semifinal for Leeds United in the FA Cup in the '80s," Leeds manager Daniel Farke said. “It was a crazy game."

The thousands of West Ham fans who had left early were trying, and failing, to get back in when Taty Castellanos thought he had put the Hammers ahead in the opening seconds of extra time after a bad error from Leeds goalkeeper Lucas Perri, only for VAR to rule Castellanos offside.

Then Jarrod Bowen crashed a shot against the crossbar, with Pablo offside when he rolled in the rebound.

The 20-year-old Herrick came on as a replacement for Alphonse Areola, who left the field to receive treatment with five minutes of extra time remaining.

Ao Tanaka and Dominic Calvert-Lewin's penalty had previously built a 2-0 lead for Leeds in a classic FA Cup game between two relegation-threatened teams in the Premier League.

FA Cup semifinal draw

Leeds will play Chelsea in the semifinals in a repeat of the 1970 FA Cup final, which Chelsea won after a replay.

Manchester City and second-tier Southampton meet in the other semifinal match with games to be played April 25-26 at Wembley.

The draw was held after Leeds’ victory.

Penalty shootout controversy

West Ham averted some controversy after it backed down on a decision, reportedly taken by the safety officer before the match, that a penalty shootout would not be taken in front of the end housing 9,000 Leeds fans because of “safety concerns.”

As it was, the coin toss went West Ham’s way.

Farke said: “You could imagine what I think about such a situation."

Absent fans

Stoppage time, extra time and the shootout were played in front of a half-empty stadium after the exodus of home fans.

“What I saw on the pitch was more important than anything,” West Ham manager Nuno Espirito Santo said.

“What I saw was a group of players, a group of boys that didn’t give up. This is the major lesson that we have to take from today.”

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

The whale was discovered Saturday near Raymond, Washington, in the Willapa River, which feeds into the ocean at Willapa Bay. A number of gray whales are currently in the bay on their 5,000-mile (8,000-kilometer) spring migration from birthing grounds in Baja California, Mexico, north to feeding grounds in Alaska.

The larger issue that the population of gray whales in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean has faced since 2019 is reduced food availability in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas off Alaska’s coast, John Calambokidis, a research biologist with the Cascadia Research Collective, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

“Gray whales are facing a major crisis and the heart of it does seem to be feeding on their prey in the Arctic,” he said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries agency declared an unusual mortality event for eastern gray whales — meaning those in the eastern Pacific — from late 2018 to late 2023. It involved 690 gray whale strandings during that time, stretching from Alaska to Mexico.

NOAA Fisheries investigators concluded the preliminary cause was “localized ecosystem changes in the whales’ sub-Arctic and Arctic feeding areas that led to changes in food, malnutrition, decreased birth rates and increased mortality.”

Officials believed the population was rebounding, but the most recent count from 2025 instead showed a continuing decline. The federal agency estimated there were about 13,000 gray whales, the lowest count since the 1970s.

“A lot of these gray whales are looking very emaciated, very thin,” Calambokidis said.

Their migration north is typically the most challenging period for gray whales, the longest they’ve gone without eating, forcing the animals to use up their nutritional reserves.

“When that happens, you often see gray whales in a more desperate search for new areas to feed,” Calambokidis said. "That’s the most likely context for this whale.”

Researchers will attempt to examine the whale, possibly as soon as Monday.

It entered the north fork of the Willapa River on Wednesday, via a bay about 185 miles (298 kilometers) southwest of Seattle. Residents gathered on bridges along the river just to catch glimpses of the massive mammal and flooded social media with photos and video of it expelling air through its blowhole.

While the gray whale appeared thin, it was behaving normally and didn’t appear to have any injuries, the nonprofit Cascadia Research Collective said in a Facebook post.

The organization was giving the whale time and space to leave the river on its own, but when researchers attempted to find it Friday, the animal had traveled further upriver into waters that were unnavigable by boat, Calambokidis said.

The UCLA great and women's basketball pioneer smiled as she was honored with other members of the 1976 U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team at Sunday’s national championship game.

They all wore matching bright red Team USA shirts. But when Meyers Drysdale was introduced, she waved to the crowd at Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, and then lifted up her red shirt to reveal a blue UCLA top celebrating the team she won a national championship with as a player.

That title was nearly 50 years ago in the now dissolved AIAW — the postseason tournament for women's college basketball before the NCAA took over in 1982 — but Meyers Drysdale was filled with the same joy watching UCLA defeat South Carolina for its first NCAA-era title on Sunday.

“You know, there’s so much pride wearing USA across your jersey,” Meyers Drysdale said. "There’s no question that I am once a Bruin, aways a Bruin. And there’s no way I was not going to wear a UCLA shirt under my USA shirt, just to show the fans that all of us are so supportive of this team.”

Meyers Drysdale was the first woman to receive a full athletic scholarship at UCLA and helped the Bruins beat Maryland in the 1978 AIAW national championship game.

A lot has changed besides the sport’s governing body in the five decades since she and her teammates hoisted that trophy, but Meyers Drysdale's presence within the Bruins program has remained the same.

She has often been a guiding voice, always making herself available to players and coaches for advice and encouragement.

“It’s been spectacular to have Annie. I got a text from her last night,” UCLA coach Cori Close said Saturday afternoon. “I’ve known Annie a long time. She’s never wavered in terms of what she’s been to me, as a young coach all the way through to my being a head coach at UCLA. I am just so grateful for that.”

Close has said that sharing a UCLA championship with Meyers Drysdale and other pioneers who paved the way for her program would be special.

During UCLA's title run, Close often corrected anyone who mentioned the Bruins were chasing their first national championship — making sure no one forgets that 1978 team.

“She is also giving these young women the history of the game themselves,” said Meyers Drysdale, now a basketball analyst and vice president with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, “because they are part of history. This is their win. This is their game. This is their championship. And we are just part of the history of it.”

UCLA used its size, shooting, and the experience and chemistry of its six starting seniors — including 6-foot-7 star Lauren Betts — to completely shut down South Carolina in the national championship game and complete a yearslong climb to the top.

After losing to UConn in their first Final Four appearance last year, the Bruins ran through their opponents this season, with their only loss coming to Texas in a November tournament.

“Just pride, pride,” Meyers Drysdale said of her emotions, one quarter before the Bruins' title became official, "and knowing the journey they’ve been on, not just the last two years, but before that.

“Cori with the players that she’s brought in and the seniors and grad seniors on this team. ... We all love UCLA.”

For Close, who has a deep connection with UCLA, the support of pioneers like Meyers Drysdale is especially meaningful.

Close has coached the Bruins for 15 seasons, but before that she was mentored by Bruins men’s coach John Wooden, who won 10 national championships at the school. Close visited Wooden bi-weekly, adopting his “Pyramid of Success” and focus on character.

It paid off with her team.

“Cori Close and her staff have done such a terrific job," Meyers Drysdale said, ”preaching competitive greatness and being your best when the best is needed. You love the joy that they play with, and they sacrifice for each other. They don’t care who scores. They don’t care who gets what recognition. They’re just all about winning.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

By Monday morning, conditions begin to shift as a strong cold front approaches. Rain chances increase significantly to around 60–70%, especially during the afternoon as the sea breeze interacts with the front, triggering scattered to numerous showers and storms.

Heavy rain expected to become widespread after 2 p.m.

Some storms may again become strong, producing heavy rain, gusty winds, lightning, and small hail. There is also a marginal risk for isolated flooding, particularly in low-lying or flood-prone areas.

The front will move into Central Florida and is expected to stall across the region through midweek, keeping rain chances elevated into Thursday.

Multiple rounds of heavy rain are possible, models are showing with forecast totals generally ranging from 2–4 inches along the coast, locally up to 5–7 inches possible, and about 1–3 inches inland with isolated higher amounts.

The heaviest rainfall is expected during the overnight hours, and while this will help ease drought conditions, excessive rainfall in a short time could lead to localized flooding, especially where heavier bands persist.

In addition, strong onshore winds will create hazardous coastal conditions, including rough surf and a high risk of dangerous rip currents lasting into Thursday or Friday.

Temperatures will trend cooler behind the front, with daytime highs mainly in the 70s for several days. Overall, the unsettled pattern is expected to continue, with periods of rain and storms through much of the week.

Even so, the monster program that Dawn Staley has built over the past 15 years doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

“Obviously, we got smacked today,” Staley said. “We got to figure out how we smack back and put ourselves in the position where we’re hoisting the trophy at the end of the day."

South Carolina should be one of the top contenders to make a seventh straight Final Four in 2027 and will have plenty of motivation after Sunday's miserable performance. The Gamecocks shot just 29% from the field and the 28-point margin was among the biggest in championship game history.

It's the second straight year South Carolina has fallen flat in the title game. The Gamecocks lost 82-59 to UConn in the 2025 final.

“To get here is hard,” Staley said. “To win here is harder, right? We just have to keep getting here and make adjustments when we don’t win.”

Staley will undoubtedly stew over this loss for a while, but once she focuses on next season, there are lots of reasons for optimism. Leading scorer Joyce Edwards and Tessa Johnson are expected to return, while Madina Okot is seeking a fifth year of eligibility from the NCAA.

Veteran forward Chloe Kitts has said she’ll be back after missing this year with a torn ACL. There’s also the possibility that forward Ashlyn Watkins could return after recovering from a knee injury and taking a year away from the program to focus on personal growth.

On top of that, there's a group of promising young players who were reserves on this year's team and a highly-rated recruiting class that includes guard Jerzy Robinson.

Staley will still have work to do. The Gamecocks have to identify a new leader to replace Raven Johnson, who excelled as a floor general during his five-year career.

“Raven was the last of the core group of players that had been together that actually had taken our program to the very top,” Staley said. “I just think we just need players who are committed to team, committed to getting better as individuals, creating pro habits so when they are challenged to perform at a high level, it won’t be something that they wrestle with. It is a norm.”

Johnson had a dream career with the Gamecocks — even if it ended with a loss — never missing a Final Four and winning a pair of national championships.

She was sidelined most of the 2022 title run after tearing her ACL early in the season but was an important part of South Carolina's undefeated title in 2024, when the Gamecocks topped Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the championship game.

Johnson became more of an offensive threat this season, averaging 10 points, but it's her leadership and defense that made her an indispensable part of this Gamecocks title run. In the semifinals, the 5-foot-8 guard matched up with UConn's 6-foot-2 Sarah Strong, stifling the AP Player of the Year for most of the night.

Now, the Gamecocks have to move on without her.

If recent history is any indication, as long as Staley is in charge, South Carolina will be well-equipped for the challenge.

“There’s going to be a lot of highs and a lot of lows, but believe in Coach Staley,” Johnson said. “She wants the best for you. You might not get what you want in that moment, but you just believe in the process and trust the process, everything will turn out good.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Just how big of a Wolverines fan? He named his oldest son after star Michigan receiver Braylon Edwards.

Now, UConn's breakout star, Braylon Mullins, will try to take down the family's favorite program with the national title on the line Monday night. But there's no doubt where the family's allegiance lies.

“It's UConn all the way,” Josh Mullins told The Associated Press, who was seated near the front row with his wife and twin sons for Friday's open practice. “I tried to get all of them to buy in on (Michigan). When I was growing up, you know, the Fab Five. I was a huge football fan, that's why I like Brady.”

The eldest member of the Mullins family has been in high demand this week from both sides of this March Madness finale.

He did a podcast this week with Edwards, though he’s never met the ex-receiver in person, and was hopeful of meeting Jalen Rose, Chris Webber and the rest while they were in Indianapolis doing some TV work over the weekend.

UConn (34-5) fans are excited to meet him, too, since the Huskies likely wouldn't be here without the sensational play of his oldest son.

Braylon Mullins made the long 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left to take down Duke, the tourney's top seed, in the East Region final, then made another crucial 3 with 52 seconds left Saturday to beat Illinois 71-62.

It was his only basket of the second half, setting up the clash — and potential family feud — against Michigan.

"In my household, growing up, it was Michigan football, Michigan basketball,” Braylon Mullins said Sunday. “That's what my family and friends were watching. So having people around me who are probably going to be rooting for Michigan means a little more in this game, just to be fun. But at the end of the day, it's just another game.”

Cadeau and the art of missing on purpose

Michigan guard Elliot Cadeau controlled a lot of Saturday night's win over Arizona despite shooting only 5 for 17. Coach Dusty May says those shot stats aren't as bad as they look because, at least once, Cadeau was missing on purpose.

In a twist of coaching genius, May instructed Cadeau to bounce the ball high off the backboard as a way to get it to 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara, who was dealing with Arizona's 7-4 Motiejus Krivas for much of the evening.

“When you look at the stat sheet it says a missed shot and a put-back,” May said of his guard's stats line, which also included 10 assists, five rebounds and four steals.

Cadeau confirmed this. On Michigan's first possession, he drove to the hoop and Krivas came over to try to stop him, so Cadeau threw the ball high off the glass to set up an easy put-back for a then-wide-open Aday. The center finished with a career-high 26 points.

“You've got to learn new tricks and stuff to get the ball,” Cadeau said. “It's pretty hard. Something I've never done before, never been taught before, but I think me and Aday got established connections on those type of passes now.”

A Big Ten drought could come to an end

Michigan could end a Big Ten drought without the national title that dates to 2000, when Michigan State's "Flintstones” team — led by Mateen Cleaves out of Flint — beat Florida to win the championship.

The Wolverines, of course, are more focused on bringing the second title back to campus — the first since 1989.

But May said he's well aware of what a win would mean to the conference, which has ballooned from 11 to 18 teams since it last cut down the nets at the Final Four — as good a sign as any about the changes that have enveloped college sports over the last quarter century.

“We’re competing against the SEC, the Big 12, the Big East, all these other leagues,” May said. “The better we can do as a group, as a league, and it also helps financially as TV contracts are renegotiated and things like that. So, we have to do well for us and for the Big Ten if we want to continue to be on the cutting edge and hopefully be in the premier basketball league in the country.”

The Big Ten has won the last three national titles in football.

Michigan's May learned from Bob Knight

This marks the 50th anniversary of the last undefeated team in college basketball — Bob Knight's 1975-76 team at Indiana.

Some two decades after that Hoosiers team made history, May served as a student manager for Knight in Bloomington.

The Michigan coach said there was a planning-and-preparation aspect to Knight's work that he has tried to emulate.

“You’re figuring out solutions or contingencies in advance, and if those become a problem you’re ready, as opposed to just always being shocked at what’s in front of you,” he said.

Part of the equation, May said, is related to an emotion commonly associated with Knight.

“Obviously there’s a fear element and a fear of disappointing him, that you wanted to be thinking ahead, you wanted to be on your toes,” May said. “You’re always anticipating what’s next.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

In Texas, a man fleeing from police died Sunday. In Alabama, four people died when a car being pursued by a state trooper went off a road and hit a tree Friday. And in California, three people were killed in vehicle crashes during police pursuits in separate incidents last week.

The deadly incidents are among the hundreds of fatalities that occur during police chases each year.

In 2023, a report from the Police Executive Research Forum, a national think tank on policing standards, called for police to put the brakes on car chases unless a violent crime has been committed and the suspect poses an imminent threat. The report noted a spike in fatalities and an increase in pursuits by some departments, including in Houston and New York City.

In the case in Alabama, a driver was trying to elude the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's highway patrol on a rural road in southeast Alabama's Pike County when the crash occurred late Friday night, agency spokeswoman Amanda Wasden said in an email Sunday. No other vehicles were involved.

The driver and two passengers, one of them a 17-year-old, were not wearing seat belts and were thrown from the sedan. A third passenger was not ejected, but all four were pronounced dead at the scene.

Wasden said the crash was under investigation, and no additional information was available. Her email did not say what prompted the pursuit.

In Fort Worth, Texas, police had been pursuing a car which had been driving without headlights on Interstate 35 when the car hit multiple other vehicles and eventually crashed, killing the driver, according to the Fort Worth Police Department.

In southern California, the Pomona Police Department said in a statement that its officers were pursuing a fleeing domestic violence suspect Wednesday when his car hit another vehicle, killing the couple inside. The two were days away from the birth of their child, according to KCBS-TV.

In another case, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said that deputies had attempted to stop a stolen U-Haul truck before it slammed into an SUV, killing the SUV's driver and critically injuring her three passengers.

“He is risen,” declared the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

The Defense Department shared a post on X from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: “The tomb is empty. The promise is fulfilled. Through His sacrifice, we are redeemed. We stand firm in faith, courage, and truth.”

The Justice Department also chimed in on X.

“Today, as millions of Christians gather in their churches across the nation to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, this Department —- is proud to protect and defend religious liberty,” it said.

The posts drew thousands of comments. Some people expressed joy at the departments’ open embrace of Christianity; others were outraged, saying government agencies should not be promoting the doctrine of a particular faith.

Hegseth frequently invokes his evangelical faith as head of the armed forces, depicting a Christian nation trying to vanquish its foes with military might.

Last week, Hegseth hosted his first monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the Iran war began.

“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation,” Hegseth prayed during the livestreamed service. “Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

Trump, in a statement issued on Good Friday, evoked the Iran war only indirectly.

“From the Christian patriots who won and secured our liberty on the battlefield and every generation since, the love of Christ has unfailingly guided our Nation through calm waters and dark storms,” he said.

On Easter Sunday morning, his tone was harsher. In a profanity-laced post on Truth Social, he demanded that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday, “or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, responded by assailing Trump's “deranged mocking of Islam.”

Statements of faith are common in American public life, across political parties and religious traditions. Pentagon aides and Hegseth’s defenders cite examples from history, such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s support for issuing Bibles to troops.

But the overall tradition, widely adhered to over the decades, has been for presidents and their administrations to honor the constitutional separation of church and state, and avoid a clearcut favoring of one faith over others.

Past presidents had various tones in their Easter messages. Republican George W. Bush, in 2003, explicitly celebrated the resurrection of Christ. Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Barack Obama sometimes issued messages recognizing both Easter and Passover.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Brown, who won 12 games with a 2.43 ERA in 2025, pitched six strong innings to lead Houston to a 9-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night. He earned the win by allowing only one hit with two walks and eight strikeouts.

Brown reported shoulder discomfort during a routine throwing session on Friday, according to manager Joe Espada. Brown then flew to Houston to be examined by team doctors.

Espada told MLB.com a timetable for Brown's return is pending further examinations.

The Astros recalled right-hander Christian Roa from Triple-A Sugar Land in a corresponding roster move before Sunday's game against the Athletics. The move with Brown was made retroactive to Thursday.

Brown, 27, has won 11 or more games in three consecutive seasons and has a 3.44 career ERA in 102 games, including 94 starts, over five seasons.

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

Two days ago in a March Madness Final Four game, UConn's Geno Auriemma confronted South Carolina's Dawn Staley over what he viewed was a failure to properly follow pregame handshake protocol. The moment blew up on social media as two of the faces of women's college basketball got into a brief heated exchange in the closing seconds of the Gamecocks' win over the Huskies.

Before UCLA and South Carolina tipped off for Sunday's title game, Staley embraced and shook hands with UCLA coach Cori Close, and the two chatted briefly. Staley also shook hands with other Bruins assistants. She then turned to the crowd and lifted her hands — with a smirk on her face, as if making sure everyone in attendance documented the moment.

That was before pregame introductions, and neither coach walked to halfcourt to shake hands again after lineups were announced.

According to the NCAA’s policy in its operations manual for the tournament, after starting lineups are announced for both teams, the two coaches typically meet at midcourt and shake hands. Staley and Auriemma shook hands earlier in the pregame on Friday, but not after introductions.

That frustrated Auriemma, and he called out Staley after the game.

“For 41 years I’ve been coaching and, I don’t know, 25 Final Fours,” Auriemma said in his postgame press conference Friday. “The protocol is before the game you meet at halfcourt. Anybody see that before? Two coaches meet at halfcourt and they shake hands, correct? Ever see it? They announce it on the loudspeaker.

“I waited there for like three minutes. So it is what it is.”

He later issued an apology, but Staley said she was disappointed the drama gained so much traction during her team's quest for a third national title in five seasons.

“That’s a little disheartening," she said. "This is sports, sometimes things like this happen. Continue to focus on my team and ability to advance in this tournament and hopefully win another national championship.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

That was the praise Hunter heaped on the Los Angeles Angels' Jo Adell after the right fielder made three home run-robbing catches, the last a spectacular leaping grab while crashing into the seats near the right-field foul pole in the ninth inning of a 1-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night.

“I’ve never seen three home run robberies in one game, and I’ve never seen a guy on the third one fall into the stands, catch the ball and keep his feet in like he’s a wide receiver,” said the 50-year-old Hunter, a special assistant to the general manager who watched the game from the bench. “I was jumping up and down. I almost passed out.”

Adell, who struggled on defense for several years before transforming into a Gold Glove finalist in 2024, leaped high above the yellow line on the wall in straight-way right field to deny Cal Raleigh of a solo homer in the first inning, and he made a nearly identical catch to deny Josh Naylor in the eighth.

J.P. Crawford then led off the ninth with a drive toward the right-field corner, where Adell raced toward the ball, leaped to glove it, flipped over the low wall and fell into the first row of seats before holding his glove up to present the catch, which was upheld after a replay review.

“After the first one, I was pretty fired up,” Adell said. “When I got to the second one, which looked identical to the first, I thought, ‘Wow, my routes are on point tonight.’ The third one was just grit. Top of the ninth, you have to get it done. It was crazy.

“You just get there, then it’s decision-making. The ball was hit high enough to where I could get there. I watched it (into my glove), fell over and ended up in somebody’s lap. I don’t know who it was, but it was a softer landing than I expected. The fans were as fired up as me.”

According to Inside Edge, Adell has 10 home run robberies since 2020, tied with Kyle Tucker of the Dodgers for the most in the big leagues. The outfielders with the most home run robberies in the entire 2025 season were Jacob Young of the Nationals and Fernando Tatis of the Padres, both of whom had four.

Adell was the first player in baseball history to rob three homers in one game since tracking began in 2004, according to Sports Info Solutions.

“It was like a movie scene,” Hunter said about Adell’s third catch. “It was like the music was playing, then he caught the ball, then he went down and we didn’t see him anymore. The music paused, he came up and said, ‘Yeah!’ I started cheering and almost blacked out.”

Hunter, the former Minnesota Twins, Angels and Detroit Tigers star, has worked extensively with Adell on defense during the past few years. Adell famously had a ball squirt out of his glove and over the fence for a home run in Texas as a rookie in 2020.

“His impact has been huge,” Adell said of Hunter. “It’s mental when you’re out there — it’s a mindset of going to get the baseball, being aggressive. Early, I was caught in between on some plays, and sometimes that happens.

“When you err on the side of being aggressive and trying to make the plays, you’d be surprised at how many plays you make. That’s the mindset Torii had all those years, winning all those Gold Gloves.”

The Mariners were so impressed with Adell's glove work that someone scrawled this message on a whiteboard in their Angel Stadium clubhouse before Sunday's series finale: “Game plan — Don't hit the ball to Joseph Adell.”

Adell's birth name is actually Jordon, but point taken.

“You know, we’re still very, very early in the season," Mariners manager Dan Wilson said, when asked about the importance of keeping a light touch before such a frustrating loss. "We’ve got a long way to go, and that was something that’s probably never been done in a game before. So move on, and you flush it, and come back today.”

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

The 6-foot-9, 250-pound forward said Sunday he sustained “a couple of fractures” during the Blue Devils' loss in the Elite Eight.

Boozer, who on Friday became only the fifth freshman named as The Associated Press men's national player of the year, was hurt in the first half last Sunday when he went up for a shot against 7-foot-1 center Eric Reibe. Reibe's left elbow struck Boozer near his right eye as Reibe contested the shot, leading to significant swelling around and under the eye.

The swelling around his right eye was down Sunday, though the white part was still bright red. Boozer said he opted against having surgery in favor of giving it time to heal.

“I have a couple of fractures, but I’m all good,” Boozer said during Sunday’s award presentation for winning the AP national honor, along with another from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. “Just going through the healing process.”

Boozer fought through the injury the rest of the way and finished with 27 points, including a tough spinning basket into the paint against traffic with Duke leading by just one in the final minute. It was one of multiple examples this season of Boozer playing through bumps, blows and hard fouls, such as a late-season win at N.C. State in which Boozer had gnarly long scratches near his right shoulder after being scratched by a Wolfpack defender.

The Huskies went on to win on Braylon Mullins' last-second 3-pointer to complete a stunning comeback from 19 down. Boozer's twin brother, Cayden, received torrents of online abuse after committing Duke's last turnover before Mullins' winner.

Cameron pointed out that “that one play isn't the reason we lost.”

“There’s not really that much I can say to make him feel better," Boozer said. "We're all hurting as a team, but we’re going to get through it together. We're a super-connected group.

"It's definitely a hard moment. But he’s a tough guy. We're all tough, it’s going to make us so much better going forward. It's something you’ve got to take on the chin and learn and grow from.”

UConn went on to beat Illinois in Saturday's national semifinal and will face a Michigan team that has rolled through the tournament, scoring 90-plus points in every game and winning each by at least 13 points. Duke, the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, was one of three teams to beat Michigan all year.

Boozer’s award presentation came on the same stage where UConn and Michigan were holding news conferences ahead of playing Monday for the national title.

“It’s a lot of emotions going into it,” Boozer said of being at Lucas Oil Stadium. “But yeah, it’s definitely tough being here for sure.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Just one day before the teams meet in Monday night's national championship game, the big question for both was the health of two key playmakers.

Neither was expected to practice Sunday as they focused instead on getting as much treatment as possible, even as teammates and the players themselves insisted the stars would play Monday night. The coaches, Dan Hurley and Dusty May, also tried to lighten the mood before college basketball's biggest game of the season.

“I’m sure he’ll give it a go tomorrow, but that will be entirely up to him and the medical staff,” May said as he updated the playing status of Lendeborg, a first team All-American. “He’ll tell me if he can go and we were laughing because he played the second half, but he played the second half like a 38-year-old at the YMCA — a really good 38-year-old at the YMCA. So whatever version we get of Yaxel we get, it’s going to be somebody that helps us play better basketball.”

Lendeborg played just five minutes of the first half before getting hurt in Saturday's 91-73 victory over Arizona, which sent Michigan (36-3) to its first title game since 2018. He finished with 11 points and three rebounds in 15 minutes and made two 3-pointers in the second half.

But he hardly resembled the guy who was named the Big Ten's Player of the Year.

When Lendeborg was asked whether missing Monday night's game was a possibility, Lendeborg emphatically told reporters in the locker room, “absolutely not.” He reinjured the ankle he initially hurt in the Big Ten Tournament championship game. The knee injury was a new one and Lendeborg said, at worst, he was told it was a sprained medial collateral ligament. May said MRI results came back clean Sunday.

Still, the combination prevented him from doing the traditional between-games media circuit.

While everyone saw Lendeborg's injury Saturday's, Ball's injury seemed to surprise everyone including Hurley, who said he saw Ball in a walking boot before being told what happened.

Ball has played a key role in helping UConn (34-5) reach its third title game in four years, averaging 12.9 points and starting all 38 games he appeared in this season.

He scored 10 of his 13 points in the second half of Saturday’s 91-72 victory over Illinois — after getting hurt in the first half — and told reporters played through the injury on pure adrenaline. The injury occurred when Ball and teammate Tarris Reed Jr. got tangled.

“I've just been doing everything I can to take care of it,” Ball said Sunday. “It's just a bump in the road, so you've got to keep moving forward. Pain is temporary. People say it pushes you through your toughest performance, so it's only what you're made of. This is the championship game.”

Hurley had other questions, though, as UConn attempts to win its third national championship in four years and the seventh in school history. The Huskies are tied with North Carolina for the third-highest total of national championships, behind UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight).

UConn has won all six of its titles since 1999 and remains hopeful Ball will be a go on Monday.

“I think we’ll see whether this turns into — it’s going to be tough to get an MRI on Easter, on a Sunday,” Hurley said. “I don’t know what the hospitals are like in Indiana. Hospitals stay open.”

Michigan, apparently, had already resolved that issue.

But the Wolverines don't expect Lendeborg's injury to change their mission, snapping a four-game losing streak in NCAA Tournament title games and capturing the school's first national title since 1989 and the second in program history. Nor do they expect it to change their game plan.

“I'll still play the four outs,” Michigan forward Morez Johnson Jr. said. “And Yax is fine.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Deputies were initially dispatched April 5 to a home in the 4500 block of Sunnyside Drive after reports that a person threatened a neighbor with a firearm, the sheriff’s office said.

The Lake County Crisis Negotiations Team made contact with the suspect, identified as Alexander Barrios Ozorio Walfre, and he surrendered, officials said. Deputies arrested him without incident.

The sheriff’s office said Alexander’s brother, Walter Emanuel Berrios Ozorio, was also inside the residence and was arrested on a resisting charge.

This story is developing. Check back for updates...

Pepsi already has withdrawn its lead sponsorship role of the Wireless Festival at Finsbury Park in north London between July 10-12. Other sponsors of the event, including Budweiser and PayPal, are being urged to follow suit.

Pepsi didn't provide an explicit reason for its decision to pull out of the event, even though publicity for the festival promoted the event under the branding “Pepsi presents Wireless.”

“Pepsi has decided to withdraw its sponsorship of Wireless Festival," the company said in a statement Sunday.

Ye was booked perform in front of around 150,000 revellers over the course of the festival’s three nights.

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, changed his name in 2021, and he has drawn widespread controversy in recent years for a series of antisemitic remarks, and has voiced admiration for Adolf Hitler. Last year, he released a song called “Heil Hitler” — a few months after advertising a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website.

The 48-year-old musician apologized in January for his antisemitic remarks in a letter published as a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

Fans of his at a sold-out concert Friday at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, his first major U.S. performance in nearly five years, appeared to separate his personal beliefs and public statements from his music — and were ready to forgive after his January apology letter.

However, Starmer said it was “deeply concerning” that the rapper was booked to perform at the long-established festival,

“Antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted clearly and firmly wherever it appears," he said in remarks published by The Sun on Sunday newspaper. "Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe and secure.”

Ye's scheduled appearance follows signs of growing antisemitism in the U.K.

Two men and a 17-year-old boy were ordered to remain in custody on Saturday on charges of torching four ambulances run by a Jewish community-service in northwest London. And last October, two men died in an attack on a Manchester synagogue.

Phil Rosenberg, president of the board of deputies of British Jews, said it was “absolutely the wrong decision” to allow Ye to play.

Wireless Festival didn't immediately comment when contacted.

Share that with any of the 91 players in the field, and some explaining is required.

The hole was 340 yards and had no bunkers, only a gully in front of the green. Alister MacKenzie wanted it be similar to the “Valley of Sin” on the 18th hole at St. Andrews, so the best approach would be to run shots up to the green.

That shot by Nelson changed everything.

Horton Smith, who won two of the first three Masters, suggested the green be elevated and moved some 20 yards back and to the right, with several deep bunkers guarding the front. Augusta National's co-founders, Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, agreed. They hired Perry Maxwell, renowned for his work at Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes, to do the work at a cost of $2,500.

Trees were planted on the left side to along along with those on the right, creating a tight drive. And then in a span of five Masters from 2002 to 2006, the tees twice were moved back some 40 yards. That puts it at 450 yards on the scorecard now.

Nelson wouldn't recognize it.

“You have to hit it in the fairway,” two-time Masters champion Scottie Scheffler said. When it was suggested that such strategy would hold true on many holes at Augusta National, he stopped walking to emphasize his point.

“No,” he said. “There's certain holes you don't have to be in the fairway. If you hit a really good tee shot (on No. 7), it's not a difficult hole. But if you miss the fairway, you can't hit it on the green.”

The par-4 seventh is called “Pampas" for the grass bush native to Argentina that grows just left of the members' tee box. No. 7 was never a favorite of Roberts and Jones. Roberts once referred to it as “the only weak hole of the 18."

It was inspired by the 18th on the Old Course, a short hole with a boomerang-shaped green that gave players the option to run the ball through the gully in front. Nelson drove the seventh at Augusta in 1937. Players still drive onto the 18th at St. Andrews, most recently Cameron Young.

With the first change, it became a tight drive that was typically a 2-iron and a wedge. That led Jack Nicklaus to once call the seventh "a beautiful little hole — a little, short par 4. You got to be pretty precise with your tee shot. Then it’s a very demanding little second shot. It’s very difficult to recover from if you get off track.”

Throw in an additional 100 yards, and it's no longer a hole where players can build some scoring momentum. Par is more than acceptable. The all-time scoring average is 4.156, the 10th-toughest hole at Augusta National.

“You're not licking your chops unless you're in the fairway,” Xander Schauffele said. “Even then, you're conceding a 20-foot putt as a really good golf shot. Maybe even before I was on tour, you could think, ‘If I birdie this, I get some momentum.’ Now it's, ‘Oh boy, I need to hit a good drive or I’m going to have to make a tough par.'”

It's not as simple as hitting a straight drive on a straight hole. The fairway cants to the right. And the trees have grown, so a tee shot too far to the right means the approach is blocked by trees.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only 20% of players have hit the seventh green after missing the fairway in the last five years. Only No. 5 and No. 11 have a lower percentage. It can be done.

There have been some remarkable recoveries from the trees. Jon Rahm once holed out after chipping out from the trees. Joaquin Niemann once threaded a running shot through two bunkers. Those shots are rare.

“If you get out of position, it's like No. 10 at Riviera — you're trying to put it in a spot to get the next one on the green,” Harris English said. “You can get in some bad spots. But if you hit a good tee shot, it could be a birdie hole.”

Still fresh was Rory McIlroy in the left trees last year, hitting a 9-iron because of a tiny gap he saw.

His caddie, Harry Diamond, wasn't seeing it.

“He wasn't for it at all, but I just kept seeing this gap up in the trees,” McIlroy said, referring to the shot as “achievable.”

“That's when Harry does a great job and says, ‘Look, if you feel like you can see it, go ahead and hit it,’” McIlroy said. “My mindset was this is the final round of the Masters, and I have a chance to win the only tournament that ... I've wanted to win for such a long time. If that isn't the time to take a risk, I don't know when the time is.”

It doesn't decide the tournament being on the front nine. But it's no longer the “beautiful little hole” Nicklaus once described.

“Missing it left is no good. Missing it right is no good,” Brooks Koepka said. “If you get slightly out of position, it becomes a scramble for par. If I hit the fairway, I’m pretty excited about it.”

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

Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, emphasized Easter’s message of hope as a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection after being crucified.

“Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!” the pope implored.

With the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in its second month and Russia’s ongoing campaign in Ukraine, Leo acknowledged a sense of indifference “to the deaths of thousands of people ... to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow … to the economic and social consequences they produce.’’

Without mentioning the wars by name, Leo quoted his predecessor, Pope Francis, who during his last public appearance from the same loggia last Easter reminded the faithful of the “great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day.’’

Francis, weakened by a long illness, died the next day on Easter Monday.

The Urbi et Orbi blessing, Latin for “to the city and the world,’’ has traditionally included a litany of the world’s woes. Leo followed that formula during his Christmas blessing. There was no immediate explanation for the shift.

Earlier, Leo addressed some 50,000 faithful from an open-air altar in St. Peter’s Square flanked with white roses, while the steps leading down to the piazza where the faithful gathered were filled with spring perennials, symbolically resonating with the pope’s words.

He implored the faithful in his homily to keep their hope in the face of death, which lurks "in the abuses that crush the weakest among us, because of the idolatry of profit that plunders the earth’s resources, because of the violence of war that kills and destroys.’’

Speaking from the loggia, the pope announced a prayer vigil for peace April 11 in the basilica.

Small shifts in traditions

Leo greeted the global faithful in 10 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Latin, reviving a practice that his predecessor Pope Francis had let lapse.

Before retreating into the basilica, Leo stepped forward out of the loggia’s shadow and waved to the cheering crowd below. He later greeted people in the piazza from the popemobile that took him all the way down Via della Conciliazione toward the Tiber River and back.

During the marathon that is Holy Week, Leo also reclaimed the tradition of washing priests’ feet on Holy Thursday, a gesture of encouragement toward clergy, after Francis had chosen a more inclusive path, traveling to prisons and homes for the disabled to wash the feet of women, non-Christians and prisoners.

The 70-year-old pontiff also became the first pope in decades to carry the light wooden cross for the entire 14 stations during the Way of the Cross on Good Friday.

Christians in the Holy Land mark a subdued Easter

Traditional ceremonies at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered by Christians as the traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, were scaled back under an agreement with Israeli police. Authorities have put limits on the sizes of public gatherings due to ongoing missile attacks.

The restrictions also dampened the recent Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr holiday, as well as the current weeklong Jewish festival of Passover. On Sunday, the Jewish priestly blessing at the Western Wall — normally attended by tens of thousands — was limited to just 50 people.

The restrictions have strained relations between Israeli authorities and Christian leaders. Police last week prevented two of the church’s top religious leaders, including Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, from celebrating Palm Sunday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Gaza’s tiny Palestinian Christian community celebrates first Easter since ceasefire

At the Holy Family church in Gaza City, Catholics young and old gathered for a traditional Easter Mass. Singing, they formed a queue in the aisle, waiting for their chance to kiss a sketch of Jesus held by a member of the clergy who wiped the glass frame between turns.

“There is great joy, especially after the ceasefire and after nearly three years of suffering and being unable to celebrate all the holy holidays,” said George Anton from Gaza City. “People are somewhat relieved and more stable.”

Armenian Christians try to show normalcy by celebrating in Iran

Armenian Christians observed Easter at a church in Iran’s capital on Sunday, striving to maintain a sense of normalcy five weeks into the war.

Families embraced and children exchanged painted eggs at the St. Sarkis Cathedral in central Tehran. Iran’s capital has been targeted by daily airstrikes since the United States and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.

“Whether we like it or not, we have young children who do not understand what’s going on,” said Juanita Arakel, 40, an English language teacher. “They just need to feel normal.”

The Islamic Republic, with a population of around 90 million, is home to some 300,000 Christians, mostly Armenians, and three seats in parliament are reserved for Christians.

“Our calls and prayers are that we will be able to end this war,” said Sepuh Sargsyan, the archbishop of the Armenian Diocese of Tehran. “Our calls and prayers are that we will be able to end this war.”

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Barry reported from Milan. Associated Press journalists Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Bassem Mroue in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

New York's 9-7 win Saturday night lasted 3 hours, 49 minutes, the longest nine-inning game since the pitch clock was instituted for the 2023 season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

MLB had not had a nine-inning game that long since Boston's 13-9 with over Baltimore went 3:57 on Sept. 27, 2022, according to Elias.

The previous high for a nine-inning game since the pitch clock started in 2023 was 3:45 for the Oakland Athletics' 7-6 win at the New York Mets on Aug. 15, 2024.

New York and Miami combined for 379 pitches by 13 pitchers, and Marlins pitchers walked 10, increasing their total to 21 in the first two games of the series. There were 21 runners left on base, including 12 by Miami.

MLB's average time of a nine-inning game dropped from 3:04 in 2022 to 2:40 the following year when the clock was instituted and decreased to 2:36 in 2024, its lowest since 1984’s 2:35. It rose to 2:38 last year.

The average game time passed 3 hours for the first time in 2016. It reached a record 3:10 in 2021 before the introduction of the PitchCom electronic pitch-calling device helped bring it down to 3:04 in 2022.

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

The Writers Guild of America West said on X that its negotiating committee unanimously approved a tentative agreement with The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios. The alliance confirmed the deal in a separate statement on its website Saturday.

“We look forward to building on this progress as we continue working toward agreements that support long-term industry stability,” read the alliance statement.

The precise terms of the deals were not immediately announced, but it is expected to include several writers’ priorities such as better health care plans and more protections against artificial intelligence. The union said on X that the deal protects the writers’ health plan builds on gains from 2023 and “helps address free work challenges.”

The contract agreement, a year longer than a typical three-year deal, must be approved by the guild’s board and members before it is ratified.

The surprise agreement came within weeks of negotiation — a stark contrast to the contentious contract negotiation three years ago when Hollywood writers went on a historic strike that partially brought the industry to a standstill.

The screenwriters voted almost unanimously to approve that agreement, which provided them with more compensation, length of employment and control of artificial intelligence. The current contract was set to expire in May.

The studios were also working on new deals with union leaders representing actors and directors, whose contracts are set to expire at the end of June. Sean Astin, president of the SAG-AFTRA, said in a February interview with The Associated Press that he has seen signs that the studios want “to work as partners again.” Hollywood actors also walked out of their jobs for months in 2023 demanding for a better contract.

The writers' tentative deal with studios came as the Writers Guild of America West faces an ongoing strike by its own staff union that started in February. More than 100 people working in legal, events and residuals departments went on strike over allegations of unfair labor practice, according to the Los Angeles Times.

It is not clear how, or whether, the weekslong strike would have an impact on the tentative deal with the studios. The union announced last month it canceled its annual award ceremony because of the staff union strike.

Troopers said the rider was traveling southbound on I-95 near mile marker 176 when a witness reported the motorcycle veered off the roadway to the left and struck a light pole.

The rider was taken to Palm Bay Hospital, where the person was pronounced dead, troopers said.

The crash remains under investigation.

Universal Pictures released the sequel globally on Wednesday, capitalizing on kids’ spring break vacations in the week leading up to the Easter holiday. With an estimated $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets, the film is looking at an astronomical $372.5 million debut — the latest hit for the PG rating. Mexico is leading the international bunch with $29.1 million from 5,136 screens, followed by the U.K. and Ireland with $19.7 million.

The animated sequel, Illumination CEO Christopher Meledandri's 16th movie in 16 years, is the industry’s biggest debut since “Avatar: Fire and Ash” launched over Christmas. The Chinese movie “Pegasus 3,” which was not a Motion Picture Association release, has the slight edge for the 2026 global record, however.

It’s also a dip from the first film, which opened to $204 million domestically during the same five-day time frame in 2023 ($147 of that was from Friday, Saturday and Sunday). “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” went on to be the second biggest movie of 2023, with over $1.3 billion in box office receipts.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which features returning voice actors Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day, had a massive footprint in the U.S. and Canada, where it played in 4,252 theaters, including 421 IMAX and 1,345 premium large format screens. It made $15 million from the IMAX screens alone.

“It’s exactly the kind of broad, crowd-pleasing release that brings people into theatres,” AMC Chairman and CEO Adam Aron said in a statement.

It also cost around $110 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. But it arrived on a wave of less-than-stellar reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently sitting at a lousy 40%. Ticket buyers were more enthusiastic, however.

The family audience gave the movie five out of five stars according to PostTrak exit polls, while general audiences gave it four stars and an A- on CinemsScore. Audiences skewed male (61%) overall, although when it came to families attending there were slightly more moms (52%) than dads.

“These kind of audience reaction scores just point to a ridiculously strong run, not only throughout the spring, but likely into the summer as well,” said Jim Orr, Universal's president of domestic distribution.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” will open in Japan later this month.

Last year, the first weekend in April hosted the launch of another video game blockbuster, “A Minecraft Movie,” which had a bigger three-day debut ($162.8 million) but didn’t have a “Project Hail Mary” in a strong second place, meaning the weekend overall is still up around 5%.

As expected, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ended the two-week reign of the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi hit “Project Hail Mary,” which landed in second its third weekend in theaters where it added $30.7 million, bringing its running domestic total to $217.2 million. Worldwide, it's made $420.7 million to date.

Third place went to A24’s provocative new movie “The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which made an estimated $14.4 million from 3,087 theaters. The film’s stars have been on a massive and charming press blitz to promote their R-rated movie about a engaged couple grappling with an unnerving revelation, which cost a reported $28 million to produce. The reveal has drummed up a fair amount of cultural discourse. While reviews have been more positive than not (82% on Rotten Tomatoes), it got a less promising B CinemaScore.

“Hoppers” and “Reminders of Him” rounded out the top five. And the box office outlook looks bright overall, up around 30% from last year.

“There’s no better opening act for a great summer than a huge month of April powered by a mega blockbuster like the 'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,'" said Paul Dergarabedian, comscore's head of marketplace trends.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1.“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” $130.9 million.

2.“Project Hail Mary,” $30.7 million.

3.“The Drama,” $14.4 million.

4.“Hoppers,” $5.8 million.

5.“Reminders of Him,” $2.2 million.

6.“A Great Awakening,” $2.1 million.

7.“They Will Kill You,” $1.9 million.

8.“Dhurandhar The Revenge,” $1.9 million.

9.“Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” $1.8 million.

10.“Scream 7,” 915,000.

The deportees will start arriving in Congo this month, the Congolese Ministry of Communications said in a statement, without further details on the date or the number of deportees expected.

It described the arrangement as a “temporary” one that reflects Congo’s “commitment to human dignity and international solidarity.” It would come with zero costs to the government with the U.S. covering the needed logistics, it said.

The U.S. has struck such third-country deportation deals with at least seven other African nations, many of them among countries hit the most by the Trump administration’s policies that have restricted trade, aid and migration.

The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a report released recently by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Lawyers and activists have raised questions over the nature of the deals with countries in Africa and elsewhere. Several of the African nations that have signed such deals have notoriously repressive governments and poor human rights records — including Eswatini, South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.

A key bone of contention in many such agreements is that they involve many migrants with protection orders from a U.S. immigration judge not to be returned to their home countries over major safety concerns.

Congo’s government said no automatic transfer of the deportees is planned, adding: “Each situation will be subject to individual review in accordance with the laws of the Republic and national security requirements.”

Not only has the conflict cut off vital shipping routes, creating a global energy crisis, it’s also disrupting supply chains for aid groups, forcing them to use costlier, more time-consuming routes.

Key pathways such as the Strait of Hormuz have been effectively shuttered and routes from strategic hubs such as Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi have also been impacted. Transport costs have spiked with higher fuel and insurance rates, meaning less supplies can be delivered with the same amount of money.

The World Food Program says it has tens of thousands of metric tons of food heavily delayed in transit. The International Rescue Committee has $130,000 worth of pharmaceuticals intended for war-torn Sudan stranded in Dubai and nearly 670 boxes of therapeutic food meant for severely malnourished children in Somalia stuck in India. The U.N. Population Fund says it's delayed sending equipment to 16 countries.

Steep U.S. cuts to foreign aid already had hobbled many aid groups, who say the war is exacerbating the problem.

The United Nations says this is the most significant supply chain disruption since COVID, with up to a 20% cost increase on shipments and delays as goods are rerouted. And the war is creating new emergencies, such as in Iran, and also in Lebanon where at least one million people have been displaced.

“The war on Iran and disruption to the Strait of Hormuz risk pushing humanitarian operations beyond their limits," said Madiha Raza, associate director for public affairs and communications for Africa for the International Rescue Committee.

Even when the fighting stops, the shock to global supply chains could continue to delay lifesaving aid for months, she said.

Longer and more costly routes

The war has forced organizations to find new ways to transport goods, with some bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal and rerouting vessels around Africa, adding weeks to the delivery.

Others are using a hybrid of methods, including land, sea and air, increasing costs.

Jean-Cedric Meeus, chief of global transport and logistics for UNICEF, said his agency is using a mix of land and air routes to send vaccines to Nigeria and Iran in order to get them there in time for the vaccination campaigns, but the costs have soared.

Before the war, UNICEF sent vaccines to Iran by plane directly from vendors around the world. Now it’s flying the vaccines to Turkey and driving them into Iran, which has increased costs by 20% and has added 10 days to the delivery time, he said.

Save the Children International, which would normally send supplies by ocean freight from Dubai to Port Sudan, will now have to truck the goods from Dubai through Saudi Arabia and then by barge across the Red Sea, it said. The route adds 10 days and increases costs by about 25%, at a time when over 19 million Sudanese face acute food insecurity. The delay puts more than 90 primary health care facilities across Sudan at risk of running out of essential medicines, it said.

The spike in prices also means organizations have to choose what to prioritize.

“In the end, you sacrifice either the number of children that you serve ... or you sacrifice the number of items that you can afford to buy,” said Janti Soeripto, president of Save the Children for the United States. The group said it has stockpiles in countries where it works but some of those could run out within weeks.

Rising costs are also impacting people's ability to seek help within their countries.

Doctors Without Borders said rising fuel prices across Somalia — where some 6.5 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity — have driven up transport and food costs, making it harder for people to get care. In Nigeria, the IRC says fuel prices have surged by 50% and clinics are struggling to power equipment, such as generators and mobile health teams have scaled back operations.

Hunger crisis could deepen

One of the biggest concerns is the impact the war will have on global hunger.

WFP warns that if the conflict continues through June, 45 million more people will be acutely hungry, adding to nearly 320 million people facing hunger around the world.

Some 30% of the world's fertilizer comes through the Strait of Hormuz and with planting season ahead in areas like East Africa and South Asia, small farmers in poor countries will be hard hit. Sudan imports more than half its fertilizer from the Gulf and Kenya approximately 40% from there, aid groups say.

The U.N. secretary-general has established a task force to facilitate fertilizer trade — modeled on the Black Sea Grain Initiative. But aid groups say that won't be enough. If there's no ceasefire, governments need to provide more funding for organizations to respond to the rising costs, they say.

Humanitarian experts say there's been a slower international response to fund aid during this war compared to previous conflicts like Ukraine, which could reflect growing pressure to invest in security over aid at a time when the world is in turmoil.

“They’re making hard choices between defense security and humanitarian aid,” said Sam Vigersky, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has written about the war’s impact on aid.

He said when the U.S. goes to war, it normally has provisions for aid, but hasn't been “activating” those provisions. “It’s not a capacity issue, it’s a policy decision,” he said.

Tommy Pigott, principal deputy spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said that the U.S. has been the “most generous country in the world" when it comes to humanitarian aid.

The department said it's releasing an additional $50 million in emergency assistance to Lebanon, including to the World Food Program and working closely with the United Nations and others to address the humanitarian needs.

—

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations

No injuries were reported and no suspect was found after a search of the park and the surrounding area after midnight, the agency said in an online post.

President Donald Trump was spending the weekend at the White House, which had no immediate comment on the incident. White House operations remained as normal but security in the area was increased, according to the Secret Service.

The park has been fenced off for weeks of renovations.

The Secret Service said it was working with District of Columbia police and U.S. Park Police.

Maybe you read parts of it from a floppy disk or a CD-ROM for that social studies project due tomorrow. Or scanned its list of countries for Latvia, because that is the country you are representing next week in Model U.N. Even better, you wandered the earth in your imagination as you held the physical Factbook in your own hands, unfolding its maps and understanding, perhaps for the first time, that the thumbs-up gesture your friends flash each other is considered an obscene insult in parts of the Middle East, Europe and Argentina.

Who knew? The Factbook and its readers did, for more than six decades.

Its authors — some of the world's best intelligence-gatherers, who contributed thousands of their own photos — kept the curated database updated and online for public use at no charge. The reasons stated were geopolitical and philosophical. But since we are talking about facts, it also is true that the Factbook went public in 1975 with lofty statements of purpose at a time when Congress was revealing abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA.

“We share these facts with the people of all nations in the belief that knowledge of the truth underpins the functioning of free societies,” the CIA itself explained in its pages.

The spy agency is not sharing them anymore.

On Feb. 4, the Trump administration abruptly shuttered this widely accepted account of humanity and its flags, nations, customs, militaries and borders. The CIA framed the move as one of progress for an agency whose core mission has changed.

A great wave of grief rose from Factbook fans. Many said they mourned an America that valued knowledge for its own sake. Some saw darker forces at work under a president whose administration has promoted — in times of war and peace — “alternative facts.”

“Stay curious,” the CIA advised in its “fond farewell" to the Factbook.

And, it might have added: Good luck figuring out what's true from the wild and frequentlyinaccurate world of the internet and artificial intelligence.

The Factbook's origin story

Decades before Google became an everyday verb, there was the Factbook.

Its origin story is rooted in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, a U.S. intelligence failure that inspired a more coordinated approach to gathering and organizing information on America's enemies. The Joint Army Navy Intelligence Studies was born, the country's first interdepartmental basic intelligence program. But by 1946, national security experts agreed that “the conduct of peace involves all countries, all human activities — not just the enemy and his war production,” in the words of one, George S. Pettee.

The job of gathering basic intelligence on other countries was assigned to the newly minted CIA in 1947, according to the agency's website.

The Cold War exposed the ongoing need for a one-stop source of basic intelligence — and an opportunity for what in 1971 became the unclassified Factbook. It was released to the public four years later.

In addition to becoming useful to students, it held geopolitical influence. The Factbook showed off American intelligence capabilities to the former Soviet Union and other enemies. Being included in it could confer legitimacy upon a nation or an opposition party. And it was ironic that an agency founded on the need to know and keep secrets was sharing so much data — called “basic intelligence” — with the public.

The Factbook also likely served as a boost to the CIA's public image and put distance between it and other intelligence agencies tarnished by congressional investigations. In 1975, U.S. Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, convened a panel that held more than 100 public hearings, many televised, of the most significant oversight of intelligence agencies since World War II.

In 1976, the Church Committee reported widespread abuse by the CIA, IRS, the National Security Agency and FBI, including the revelation of the CIA's “Family Jewels.” That was an internal account of illegal CIA activities, such as spying on American activists and an assassination plot against Cuba's Fidel Castro.

Also in 1975, what would become the CIA World Factbook went public, ascending as a reliable research tool often recommended in class projects. There was never confirmation that the bad press inspired the wide release of the Factbook, but doing so around the same time fit the CIA's need to rehab its brand.

In 1981, the CIA renamed the publication The World Factbook, and in 1997, it leapt online. The CIA has described it as representing “a tremendous culmination of efforts from some of our country's brightest analytic minds."

The jolt of its Trump-era demise

News of the Factbook's end shocked more than just U.S. students and researchers. It was picked up by news outlets abroad. The story shot across social media, with Reddit users pointing each other to archived Factbooks and racing to set up and identify other sources of unbiased information that might suffice.

Isabel Altamirano, chemistry librarian assistant professor at Auburn University in Alabama, said the information is still out there, but “it'll be harder to find.” University libraries, for example, offer similar resources to students, who get access through their tuition.

“It was so easy, because it was all in one place,” she said in an interview, noting that on Feb. 4, when she saw the news, she rushed to delete the Factbook from a list of resources for her students in a business communications class.

Fundamentally, one analyst said, a Factbook assembled by a government agency with secret agendas and shadowy methods might never have been unbiased in the first place.

“The compilers aren't, nor can they be expected to be, neutral,” said Binoy Kampmark, a professor of global, urban and social studies at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. Mourning its loss, he wrote in an email, would be “misplaced.”

The Factbook, he added, might be better saved as a historical document. Its last publication on Feb. 4 is already outdated, according to an archived version: Under Iran, the country's head of government is still listed as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei was reported killed March 1 in U.S. and Israeli strikes. And the world changed once again, this time without the Factbook to note it.

“What was the nature of the controversy of Graham’s tattoo he received while in the Marines?” an emcee recently asked at a local community center.

The answer? “It was claimed to be a Neo-Nazi tattoo (totenkopf).”

This was not a new way of delivering opposition research, but an official campaign event for Platner's supporters. And it showed how the 41-year-old oyster farmer and military veteran has capitalized on voters' willingness to forgive past transgressions and embrace a populist message.

Platner is facing Gov. Janet Mills, 78, in the June 9 primary, with the winner taking on five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, 73, in a race that could help determine Senate control.

“Graham Platner’s campaign gave me a place to put my energy in a positive way,” said Beth Knight, a 63-year-old teacher who attended the trivia night in Kittery, a small seaside town on the border with New Hampshire. “I believe he has a true redemption story.”

Participants drank soda and ate cookies while listening to Dropkick Murphys, a Boston punk band that Platner likes. Some seemed to know a lot about a candidate who was practically unknown just last year, from his dog's name to the name of a bar where he once worked in the nation's capital.

Among the questions was “what characteristics make Graham the best candidate to beat Susan Collins?” One of the options was “he is handsome and has a deep voice,” but the correct answer in the game was "he has grown as an individual and is honest.”

Mills, now in her second term, is backed by the party leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, and other Democrats who say it is too risky to support an untested candidate such as Platner. Maine has one of the oldest voting populations in the country, and voters often elect politicians with a reputation for being moderate.

But Platner has excited some supporters with an antiestablishment message that his campaign believes could carry him to victory.

“What specific group did Graham identify as the primary enemy in his campaign launch video?” the emcee asked at trivia night. The answer was "the oligarchy and the billionaires.”

Increased visibility

Platner has centered his campaign on affordability issues such as housing and health care, but much of the news coverage has focused on his past behavior. He has been dogged by questions about the skull-and-crossbones tattoo reminiscent of a Nazi symbol that he said he got during a night of drinking while on military leave in Croatia.

Platner has maintained that he was unaware at the time that the image had been associated with Nazis, and he has since covered the tattoo with a different design. But there also have been lingering questions about inflammatory comments he made in old online postings, which he has since disavowed. More recently, he has been questioned for being a guest on a podcast hosted by Nate Cornacchia, a retired Green Beret who has been accused of antisemitism.

All the while, Platner keeps filling theaters, meeting halls and rallies. From his August campaign announcement to the end of March, Platner had hosted 50 town halls throughout Maine. His campaign accused Mills and Collins of holding none.

The events include traditional canvassing and phone-banking training, as well as happy hours at breweries and poster-making before No Kings protests. That wide footprint has increased Platner's visibility. For example, on the same night that the campaign hosted the recent trivia game in Kittery, Platner was more than 350 miles away at a town hall in Fort Kent, in the state's far north.

“He’s bringing an energy of wanting to create something in this race, win or lose. He wants to create a lasting connection in communities where people can get together and can actually talk to their neighbors face to face again,” said Megan Smith, a community organizer with the Maine People’s Alliance, an advocacy group that has endorsed Platner.

The Mills and Collins campaigns both rejected the idea that Platner is more accessible to voters, and both cited their candidate’s busy workload as an elected official.

“As the only Democrat to have won statewide in 20 years, voters trust Janet Mills, they know she is the only candidate who has delivered progress for Maine people, and they see her leading our state every single day,” Mills campaign spokesperson Tommy Garcia said.

Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen said that “town halls are often organized by partisan or dark money groups."

“She prefers smaller group meetings, rather than holding town halls where very few people get to speak, and the level of civility is often not that high,” she said.

Spending and scrutiny ramp up

To date, Platner has significantly outspent Mills on advertising since jumping into the race in August, $4.8 million compared with Mills’ $1.5 million according to a recent analysis by AdImpact.

The spending comes as the campaign intensifies as the primary nears. Mills recently released a video in which women read some of Platner’s old social media posts that were dismissive of sexual assault.

Platner's defenders do not appear worried about that increased attention, arguing that Democrats are more willing to elect candidates who are honest about past mistakes as long as they make an effort to show how they have changed.

“In this environment, you know, where we have people like Donald Trump in public office who have done terrible things, there is more appetite in the Democratic Party to have people that are not just purely polished and have been on an election track their whole lives,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat who has endorsed Platner.

Questioning the establishment

Smith, the community organizer, said some voters bristle at the assumption that outsiders such as Schumer know better than Mainers.

“Mainers are kind of stubborn and we don’t like to be told what to do,” she said. “They’re not thrilled to have D.C. Democrats weighing in on our primaries.”

Still, Platner will have to overcome historical precedent to beat Mills.

“Historically, there’s been an inclination of Democratic primary voters in Maine to pick the known candidate,” said Michael Franz, a government professor with Bowdoin College. “Oftentimes, that is an older candidate who’s been in office for a while.”

Franz described Platner as “a high-risk, high-reward type of candidate.”

“He might end up being the new national figure that captures everyone’s attention if he’s elected to the Senate," he said. "Or he might just be the candidate that everyone thought could come out of nowhere but ended up only getting 42% of the vote.”

___

Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I. Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

Rain chances climb into the 40 to 50 percent range this afternoon as temperatures warm into the mid to upper 80s inland, with lower 80s along the coast. That heat, combined with increasing moisture, will help fuel scattered showers and a few thunderstorms.

Along the coast, isolated showers could begin developing around midday as the east coast sea breeze sets up. Through the afternoon, storms will become more widespread and push inland, with the highest coverage expected where sea breezes collide later in the day.

A few of these storms could turn strong. The main concerns will be gusty winds up to around 40 to 45 mph, small hail, and frequent lightning. Some activity may drift back toward the coast into the evening before tapering off overnight.

If you have outdoor Easter plans, the morning will be your best window to stay dry. Just be ready to dodge a few showers and storms later in the day.

If your Easter plans include the beach, be aware there is a high risk of dangerous rip currents, and it’s safest to stay out of the water.

A strong cold front moves into Central Florida on Monday. We’ll start the day dry, but by the afternoon, rain chances jump to around 70 percent as the sea breeze interacts with the approaching front, helping spark scattered to numerous showers and storms.

The bigger story is what happens after that.

This front is expected to stall across the state, keeping rain chances elevated through much of the week. That will also bring a noticeable cooldown, with highs only reaching the 70s for several days.

Looking ahead, some models suggest we could pick up anywhere from 1 to 4 inches of rain over the next five days. That would go a long way in helping chip away at our ongoing drought, though locally heavier totals will be possible.

That’s according to Darden Restaurants, which revealed that the chain — with only 14 locations left — is “no longer a strategic priority.”

The other 14 locations were set to close by April 5, with some surprisingly shutting down operations even before that date.

Meanwhile, the remaining locations are slated to be converted into other Darden-owned brands over the course of 12-18 months.

[BELOW: Buc-ee’s is not the most satisfying convenience store in Florida, study says]

“They are expected to continue to operate until any temporary closures are needed for the conversion,” a release from the company reads. “At this time, the company is not disclosing the specific Darden brands into which these locations will be converted.”

The list of locations in Florida that have either been closed or will be converted is as follows:

“The company believes the conversion locations are great sites that will benefit several of the brands in its portfolio,” the release concludes. “Going forward, the primary focus will continue to be on supporting team members, including placing as many as possible in roles within the Darden portfolio.”

Darden’s portfolio of brands includes many popular chains nationwide, including Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Yard House, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, The Capital Grille, Chuy’s, Seasons 52, and Eddie V’s.

[BELOW: Hotels, Airbnbs see uptick in cancellations after viral Daytona footage]

Off went the jackets and backpacks, on came burgundy cassocks and white surplices. Then they trooped into the cathedral, opened their mouths and sang as one. The youthful gaggle had become a choir, giving voice to a tradition of choral music in the Church of England that has survived largely unchanged for almost 500 years.

“I think for me, it’s one of the sounds of our country,’’ said Adrian Bawtree, the choir’s music director. “All of our cathedrals are beautiful, sacred spaces where you can come and just sit and be and you can be immersed, bathed, nourished, sent out back into the world transformed by an experience in 30 minutes.”

The epitome of that tradition is Choral Evensong, an evening service of hymns, psalms and prayers laid out by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant archbishop of the Church of England, in 1549. The service is performed by the choir, with the congregation participating simply by listening.

But that tradition is under threat as the demands of modern life, declining church attendance and tight funding make it harder to find and train the next generation of choristers.

Enthusiasts are trying to reverse that, launching a campaign for the government to recognize English choral services as an important part of Britain’s culture under a U.N. program that seeks to protect “intangible cultural heritage,” as well as historic buildings and natural wonders.

Traditions strengthen identity

The U.K. government is seeking nominations for a nationwide inventory of cultural traditions — from Morris dancing to the craft of building dry stone walls — that should be preserved. Protecting such traditions is crucial to strengthen community identity and bolster the U.K. economy as heritage tourism generates billions of pounds in annual spending, the government says.

While many people have been introduced to English choral services through the angelic voices of the choristers in flowing robes and Elizabethan ruffs who sing at royal weddings and carol services, choirs perform every day in much more humble settings.

And many are struggling, according to the Cathedral Music Trust, which was founded in 1956 to stem the decline of church music after World War II. Last year it gave 500,000 pounds ($661,000) to 28 cathedrals and churches around the country.

It can be a lot. Rochester, for example, spends about 250,000 pounds ($330,000) a year on music, a substantial outlay for a provincial cathedral but less than some.

The trust hopes recognition of the English choral tradition will bring attention and much-needed funding to choirs, which it says are an important training ground for the musicians of tomorrow, both religious and secular.

“Whilst it happens every day, it is actually quite fragile,” trust CEO Jonathan Mayes said. “It takes an awful lot of work and it takes a lot of funding to actually make it happen and that doesn’t come without effort.’’

Evensong links the present day to the Protestant Reformation

Preserving Evensong is important historically because the service was instrumental in the development and spread of the modern English language, said Diarmaid MacCulloch, an expert on Christianity and an emeritus professor at the University of Oxford.

The service is based on the Book of Common Prayer, compiled by Cranmer to make English the language of the Church of England after it broke away from the Latin-dominated Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation.

The idea was to create services everyone could be part of.

“It is very much a drama, and it is a drama which has been performed by the people of England from 1549 through to the present day,” MacCulloch said. “It’s far more a vehicle of public consciousness performance than any play of Shakespeare.’’

And while a growing number of choirs including Rochester now take girls as well as boys, in other respects it hasn't changed much since then.

“The service would be really quite recognizable to Queen Elizabeth I as much as Queen Elizabeth II," MacCulloch said. "And that’s quite remarkable.”

The power of music to transform lives

Bawtree, the music director at Rochester Cathedral, is one of those working to preserve the tradition as he oversees the youngest singers, aged 9-13, known as choristers, as well as a youth choir for older children. All are backed by professional adult singers.

Bawtree said he was captured by church music the first time he heard an organ play and a choir sing when he was about 9 years old. Now he wants people to know that services like Evensong make it possible for anyone to turn up and listen to beautiful choral music, regardless of their beliefs.

“When I heard it, it was like big octopus arms came and grabbed me and said, ‘You’ve got to be part of this.’ So I think I am trying to speak to that 9-year-old child and saying actually this is something that could speak to most people, if not everyone.

“And because I had that experience, I would like to share that with future generations and be passionate about that," he said. "We talk in the world of mindfulness and the power of music to transform lives. This is an extraordinary arena where that can happen.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

He spent much of that time grimacing or biting his lip. And he didn't look much more comfortable when he did return to start the second half Saturday night against Arizona.

The good news is Michigan didn't need much from the first-team All-American as it cruised to an unexpectedly lopsided 91-73 win in a matchup of the NCAA Tournament's last two No. 1 seeds, not with the Wolverines' depth simply overwhelming the Wildcats. The question now is how Lendeborg's injuries might affect him for Monday night's NCAA title game against UConn.

Lendeborg said he rolled his left ankle and sprained his MCL. He also was emphatic when asked if there was any chance he would miss the Wolverines' first appearance in the championship game since 2018.

“Absolutely not,” he said at his locker, surrounded by multiple rows of reporters. “Unless I wake up and I get up and fall off my feet, I'm going to be in that game.”

Lendeborg was effective even when hobbled

The 6-foot-9, 240-pound Lendeborg entered the game averaging 15.2 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists, offering strength and size with versatility to chase on the perimeter. He finished with 11 points on 3-of-4 shooting in 14 minutes, including a pair of 3-pointers in his hobbled post-halftime minutes.

For much of the second half, he rode an exercise bike behind the Michigan bench, clapping for baskets or screaming with glee as the Wolverines made big play after big play.

He also spent time late in the game sitting on the court near the end of the bench and almost alongside the photographers on the baseline before having an ice pack wrapped around his left knee. He wore that for the final minutes and still had it on as he carefully made his way through the postgame handshake line with the Wildcats.

But he stayed engaged throughout, climbing to the raised court to greet teammates with high-fives as coach Dusty May emptied the bench in the final minute.

“Our team has extreme depth,” guard Roddy Gayle Jr., said. “We have the ability to feel happy when other people are being successful. Then, even when you're having a bad night, you're able to lean on your teammates for extra help.”

Lendeborg had to count on his entire team to carry the load without him.

Injury leads to a scary moment

Lendeborg had a rough start with two quick fouls and then exited after he stepped on the foot of Arizona big man Motiejus Krivas and twisted his left ankle, the same one he had tweaked during the loss to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.

Fear hit hard in that moment.

“I tried my best to get up as quickly as possible to try to not dwell on that feeling. I tried to walk it off,” Lendeborg said, adding with a chuckle: “It didn't get walked off.”

Lendeborg left the bench for trainers to retape his ankle and treat it with ice, returned briefly, then went back to the locker room again.

“I was going to give it a go but there was like five minutes left (before halftime) so they advised it was best to get treatment right away,” he said. “I sat there, got treatment, got ice. I did the best I could to analyze the situation. I was watching the game and trying to make it feel better.”

Lendeborg wore a brace on his left knee when he returned for the second half.

Getting ready for Monday

Lendeborg checked out at the 13:02 mark and headed to the bike. He returned again at the 7:10 mark after Arizona had cut a 30-point deficit to 20, saying he wanted to be a secondary ballhandler.

Why did May put him back in with the big lead?

“Well, apparently you missed the UConn-Duke game,” May said, referencing the Huskies' rally from 19 points down to stun the tournament's No. 1 overall seed in the Elite Eight.

Lendeborg said he told his teammates he would largely work around the arc and avoid crashing into the interior to raise the risk of aggravating the injury. He also said he wanted to get a feel for how he might be able to function with the Wolverines headed for one more game.

Michigan had more than enough to put away Arizona, notably with 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara going for 26 points to lead five players in double figures. Michigan shot 47.8% and made 12 of 27 3-pointers. Now, Lendeborg will race to be ready for the shot at leading Michigan to its first national title since 1989, as well as the first by a Big Ten school since 2000.

“For me, it's a lot of treatment, a lot of time with the trainer, a lot of time away from my teammates which I'm not going to like,” Lendeborg said.

Whatever it takes.

“I'm playing,” he said. “I have to.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Michigan overpowered Arizona early and humbled the ’Cats for 40 long minutes Saturday, turning their highly anticipated Final Four matchup into a 91-73 Wolverines dunkfest-slash-highlight reel.

Junior center Aday Mara scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds. About the only question in this one concerned the health of Wolverines forward Yaxel Lendeborg, a first-team All-American who landed on an Arizona player's foot, rolled his ankle and sprained his knee, but still had 11 points over 14 minutes.

He vowed he'd be ready for Monday's title matchup against UConn, a 71-62 winner over Illinois in the early semifinal that was billed — wrongly — as the undercard to this battle of No. 1 seeds.

“It’s going to take a full 40 minutes of fighting,” Lendeborg said.

This one was over in about five.

The Blue blew through their fifth straight March Madness opponent by double digits while becoming the first team to break 90 points five times in a single tournament.

It was all quite a shock, considering Michigan and Arizona came in with the nation’s top two defenses, a pair of top-five offenses and somewhere between eight and a dozen NBA stars between them.

But it was the Wolverines (36-3) who looked like pros, running to a double-digit lead only 5:31 into the contest, then swatting (three blocks) and slamming (nine dunks) Arizona into oblivion.

“These guys have such, I guess, extensive background in playing high-profile basketball games,” said Michigan coach Dusty May, who was spotted at courtside earlier in the evening, scouting UConn-Illinois for a Monday night game he sensed he'd be part of. “We just felt like we are battle-tested.”

The game plan against the Big 12 champion Wildcats (36-3) couldn't have worked any better.

Michigan packed the paint on defense, basically giving the team that averaged the fifth-fewest 3-point attempts in the country this year free rein from long distance, then daring Arizona to create inside. The Wildcats failed at both.

Koa Peat had a quiet 16 points and 11 rebounds for Arizona, which shot 6 for 17 from 3, 36% overall and had two assists and nine turnovers over a first half that ended with them trailing 48-32. Sparkplug Jaden Bradley got his fourth foul 94 seconds into the second half and finished with 13 points, most in extended garbage time.

Arizona’s only two losses before this were by four and by three back in February. The Wildcats trailed by nine less than 2:30 into this one.

“No one has been able to do that to us all year,” said Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, who got a contract extension over the weekend, presumably to keep him from going to North Carolina.

Making it all the more impressive for Michigan was that it started this runaway without Lendeborg, who committed two fouls within five seconds of each other less than 90 seconds into the game, then landed on Motiejus Krivas’ foot a little later and went to the locker room for ice.

Lendeborg called the injury “a weird feeling” but promised, “there’s no way I’m missing the game on Monday no matter what goes on.”

In fact, he returned for the second half and made two quick 3s to push Michigan's lead past 20. He was on the bench — and the stationary bike — for good with 5:19 left, enough time for rest and ice to get ready for UConn, which is going for its third title in four seasons.

Michigan is going for only the program’s second championship (1989), though its most famous team — the Fab Five, which made the final twice in the early ’90s — was in the building to helm an “alt-cast” of this Michigan celebration.

Some of this — the dunks, the alley-oops, the rim hanging and jersey tugging (but no baggy shorts) — might have reminded them of them.

Freshman Trey McKenney made four 3s and had 16 points for the Wolverines. Elliot Cadeau overcame a bout with his nut allergy to compile a crazy stat line: 13 points, 10 assists, six turnovers, five rebounds and four steals on 5-for-17 shooting. Even with that, Michigan finished 47.8% from the floor and 12 for 27 from 3.

Asked why he kept Lendeborg in for as long as he did, May recalled UConn’s second-half comeback from 19 down against Duke in the Elite Eight.

“We felt like the game was still in hand,” May said.

Not really.

What sufficed for drama down the stretch was whether May’s team would join Jerry Tarkanian’s 1990 UNLV juggernaut as only the second team to hit triple digits at the Final Four in the modern era.

The Wolverines emptied the bench with a few minutes left and came up short, but no matter. Everybody knew who the better team was in this one. That it got figured out so early was the real shock.

“It's tough for me to process this right now,” Peat said.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

Michigan still might need a healthy Yaxel Lendeborg to end the Big Ten's 26-year title drought.

It's a Monday night title tilt between two loaded teams that have peaked during March Madness. The Wolverines have been installed as 7 1/2-point favorites, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.

“There’s no better feeling than being on that bus on Monday night, just being one of the last two teams standing,” Huskies coach Dan Hurley said after Saturday's 71-62 victory over Illinois. “It’s just a cool experience. I look forward to obviously the ability to max out the season to get to the last game.”

Hurley has grown accustomed to playing into April. Three years ago, his team beat surprise finalist San Diego State 76-59 to win the school's fifth title. Two years ago, UConn beat Purdue 75-60 to become the first back-to-back champ since Florida in 2006-07.

After making an early exit against the Gators last season, UConn is back with a chance to celebrate Hurley's 200th win with the Huskies by becoming just the third Division I school to win seven national titles. North Carolina and the UConn are tied at six, behind only UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight).

No school has won three crowns in four seasons since the UCLA dynasty won eight in nine (1967-75), with only N.C. State's 1974 title preventing a clean sweep. Alex Karaban can become the first player since those Bruins squads to win three titles during his career.

Behind 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara, coach Dusty May's Wolverines have looked virtually unbeatable in the tournament, winning four games by 17 or more points, including the last two. They are the first team to reach the 90-point mark five times in a single March Madness.

The good news for UConn: Hurley faced a similar predicament in 2024, when the Huskies had to contend with Purdue and 7-4 Zach Edey, the two-time national player of the year.

The Wolverines could be even more formidable. After losing starting point guard L.J. Cason to a season-ending torn ACL in late February, Michigan has steamrolled through its schedule, with the exception of an 80-72 loss to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament championship game.

The biggest question for Michigan: What's the status of Lendeborg, a first-team All-American who averages a team best 15.2 points per game? He reinjured his left ankle and sprained the MCL in his left knee against Arizona.

“I’m going to bust through,” Lendeborg said. “There’s no way I’m missing the game on Monday night no matter what goes on.”

Michigan also has some unfinished business.

The program's only title came in 1989, when it beat another Big East foe, Seton Hall, 80-79 in overtime after coach Steve Fisher replaced Bill Frieder for the tourney. Since then, Michigan has lost four straight title games — with the Fab Five in 1992 and 1993 against Duke and North Carolina, respectively, to Louisville in 2013 and to Villanova in 2018.

Michigan State was the last Big Ten team to win the title in 2000, and that came in Indianapolis.

Move over, Sparty. Big Blue could cut down the nets in Indy on Monday night.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

She was considering traditional therapy but decided instead to try single-session counseling. Rather than committing to weekly therapy sessions, she would get only 60 minutes to tackle the problem. It worked.

“It helped me get unstuck, is how I would describe it, in a very positive, meaningful and effective way,” said Hart, of Springfield, Virginia.

Hart joined what experts say is an increasing number of people who, at least for now, have decided to forgo the weeks, months or even years that traditional therapy implies in favor of a more targeted approach.

The therapy is what it sounds like: one session, typically an hour, where a counselor helps the client identify concrete steps toward relieving a specific problem. The intention is not to completely solve a problem, but rather to help clients walk away with a toolbox of strategies on how to approach it.

“Those strategies made all kinds of sense,” Hart said. “But you can’t identify them when you’re in it.”

Where single-session therapy comes from

It’s not new. Sigmund Freud notably offered it.

But it has become increasingly common as a way to fill gaps in access to mental health care, and the need is greater than ever, said Jessica Schleider, a Northwestern University psychology professor and the founding director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health.

The cost of traditional therapy has risen to several hundred dollars a month, and even those who can afford it or have insurance encounter long waiting lists.

“Even if we doubled miraculously the number of trained mental health professionals overnight, we still wouldn’t come anywhere close to meeting the need for mental health support,” Schleider said.

That doesn’t factor in other barriers, such as people who can’t take time off work to attend weekly sessions.

Besides, data show that the most common number of sessions people are likely to receive is just one because many people start and don't come back, Schleider said.

“It’s a really elegant solution to get people support they need at the moment that need arises,” she said.

How it differs from traditional therapy

Sharon Thomas, a psychologist and director of signal-session therapy at the Ross Center in Washington, D.C., said both counselor and client enter the session with expectations: “That the client will be able to have meaningful change in their life, and that we’ll see an improvement in both their self-efficacy and a decline in their symptoms in just one visit.”

Rather than do a full assessment of the client’s past and current circumstances, the counselor targets a specific problem. By the end of the session, the client walks away with a written plan of steps toward alleviating it.

“Not everyone wants to discuss childhood trauma,” Thomas said. “It’s very much focused on what the client wants to focus on in that moment.”

Who it’s for

Most people can benefit from single-session therapy, whether they are struggling with a difficult circumstance like a work problem or something more persistent, such as anxiety, said Arnold Slive, a psychology professor at Our Lady of the Lake University in Texas, who helped pioneer walk-in single-session therapy clinics in Canada in the 1990s.

Slive said counselors still have an obligation to screen for risk of self-harm, and many people with chronic mental health issues could still benefit from traditional therapy or medication.

“It’s not meant to replace all those other things that mental health professionals do, but it can help people feel better,” Slive said.

Another expectation is that every client already walks in with strengths that will help them address their issue. Single sessions also often attract a different type of client, such as someone who might be skeptical about whether traditional therapy is right for them.

“It’s like putting a toe in the water,” Slive said.

Experts point to research that it works

Schleider said research on single-session intervention has “blossomed in the past five or 10 years to where this has become a more well-established form of mental health support.”

Her lab conducted a meta-analysis of 415 clinical trials and found that in most cases, single-session approaches reduced mental health difficulties across various problems, including depression and anxiety, for both youth and adults, she said.

For Hart, she has continued to feel better months later, and she said she felt more confident because she knew she could come back.

“I left feeling so optimistic,” Hart said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, food and travel. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

Only when he turned to the courts as a last resort did he learn that the girl had suffered alleged sexual abuse at the foster home where she’d been placed after immigration officials separated her from her mother.

“She was so long in there,” said her father, who is a legal permanent resident in the United States. “I just think that if they would have moved faster, nothing like that would have happened.” He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to prevent identifying his daughter as a victim of sexual abuse.

President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting detained immigrant children, like the man’s daughter, last year when it implemented new rules and procedures, which were immediately followed by a dramatic jump in detention times. The federal government intensified efforts to expand family detention indefinitely by motioning to terminate a cornerstone policy ensuring the protection of immigrant children in federal custody.

For months after the girl was placed in foster care, her father’s attempts to be reunited stalled as the government told him it couldn't make an appointment to take his fingerprints.

During that time, according to court documents, the girl said she was sexually abused by an older child staying with her in foster care in Harlingen, Texas. A caregiver noticed the child’s underwear was on backward, according to the lawsuit. The girl then told the caregiver she was abused multiple times and it caused bleeding. Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement officials told the father that there had been an “accident” and his daughter would be examined, he told the AP in an interview.

“I asked them, ‘What happened? I want to know. I’m her father. I want to know what’s going on,’ and they just told me that they couldn’t give me more information, that it was under investigation," the father said.

The girl underwent a forensic exam and interview. Although the father wasn't told of the outcome, the older child accused of the abuse was removed from that foster program, according to the lawsuit.

The girl was forensically examined and interviewed, according to the lawsuit. The abuse allegations were reported to local law enforcement, said Lauren Fisher Flores, the lawyer representing the girl. The Associated Press does not typically name people who have said they were sexually abused.

“To have your child abused while in the government’s care, to not understand what has happened or how to protect them, to not even be told about the abuse, it is unimaginable,” Fisher Flores said. “Children deserve safety and they belong with their parents.”

The ORR and its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, were named in the child's lawsuit but did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Trump administration changes release policies

The girl and her mother illegally crossed the border near El Paso on Sept. 16 of last year. When her mother was charged with making false statements and they were separated, the toddler was sent to the custody of the ORR, which cares for immigrant children in shelter or foster settings.

Children in ORR's care are released to parents or sponsors who submit to a rigorous process that has grown more extensive under the Trump administration.

Stricter rules were imposed on documentation required for sponsors, border agents started pressuring unaccompanied children to self-deport before transferring them to shelters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement started arresting some sponsors in the middle of the release process.

Legal advocates filed lawsuits challenging the policy changes, anticipating that they would result in prolonged detention.

Average custody times for children cared for by ORR grew from 37 days when Trump took office in January 2025 to almost 200 days this February. The total number of children in ORR custody fell by about half during the same time period.

Attorneys are now turning to habeas petitions, which function as emergency lawsuits, to expedite the release of children to their parents and sponsors.

Fisher Flores, legal director of the American Bar Association’s ProBar project, said that this year the organization has worked on eight habeas corpus petitions representing children who have been held in federal custody for an average of 225 days. They had not filed these kinds of petitions for children before the start of this Trump administration.

Fisher Flores said that legal intervention helped prompt the federal government to respond to the father’s sponsorship application.

Alleged abuse wasn't immediately disclosed to the father

After the monthslong delay, attorneys sent the government a letter in February and prompted them to allow the father to receive appointments for a fingerprinting background check, a home visit and a DNA test. Then ORR stalled again, offering no timeline on her expected release.

Attorneys filed the habeas petition in federal court and two days later, ORR released the girl to her father.

It was while the attorneys prepared the lawsuit that the father realized that the “accident” officials had told him about was alleged sexual abuse.

“Increasingly, we have to turn to the federal courts to challenge these harmful legal violations and demand that children be released,” Fisher Flores said.

The fingerprinting policy was challenged during the first Trump administration by legal advocates including the National Center for Youth Law. Other nationwide lawsuits are opposing more recent changes affecting the custody and care of immigrant children.

“This represents yet another version of family separation,” Neha Desai, managing director at Children’s Human Rights and Dignity at the National Center for Youth Law, said of the 3-year-old girl’s case.

“A bipartisan Congress designed protections around the simple principle that children should be released to their family quickly and safely. This administration has been consistently flouting its legal obligations to release children to their families, profoundly jeopardizing children’s health and well-being,” Desai added.

When the father finally reunited with his daughter, he cried. His daughter was happy to see him, too.

But after her five months in detention, he started noticing changes: She had nightmares and was easily upset. “She was never like that” before, her father said.

The pair now live in Chicago with the girl's grandparents while her case moves through the immigration court.

Fabulous freshman Braylon Mullins made another last-minute 3-pointer — his only basket of the second half — and the Huskies muscled their way past Illinois 71-62 on Saturday to reach their third national championship game in four years.

Tarris Reed Jr. had 17 points and 11 rebounds and Mullins finished with 15 points as the Huskies (34-5) rode strong inside play and tough defense to their 19th straight victory in the Sweet 16 or later rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

They'll face Michigan with a chance to win their seventh national title, all since 1999, as Hurley tries to become the only active coach with more than two championships.

“We’re a tough program, we’re a group of fighters,” said Hurley, who won it all in 2023 and 2024. “We’ve got incredible will. We go into these games, we’re ready for battle. For us, it’s not a game that we’re just kind of running around in uniforms throwing the ball around, hoping it goes in. That’s not what we’re doing out there. We’re fighting. It’s a life-and-death struggle for us to get to Monday night for the opportunity to win a championship.”

Mullins sent the Huskies past Duke, the top overall seed, in the Elite Eight last weekend with the shot of the tourney — a 35-foot 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left. He was equally effective this time, a short drive from his hometown of Greenfield, Indiana.

After Silas Demary Jr. secured an offensive rebound, Mullins hit a catch-and-shoot 3 with 52 seconds left that gave UConn a 66-59 and thwarted Illinois' late charge.

“The set was going to be run for anybody on the team. You’ve just got to shoot with confidence,” Mullins said. “Just trying to find the best look on the floor, and I know our point guards are going to get us the ball, so I think that was the biggest shot I hit tonight.”

UConn needed it on a night star forward Alex Karaban struggled with his shot. He had nine points on 1-of-8 shooting while adding four rebounds and four assists as he tied Hurley's brother, Bobby, for second in career March Madness victories by a player with 18. A win Monday also would make him the first player since John Wooden’s dominant UCLA teams in the 1960s and 1970s to finish as a three-time champion.

Thanks in part to Karaban, the Huskies haven’t lost a tournament game played past the opening weekend since 2009, when they fell in the national semifinals to Michigan State. With one more victory, they would break a tie with North Carolina and move into third place alone in national titles, trailing only UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight).

Freshman guard Keaton Wagler had 20 points and eight rebounds to lead the Fighting Illini (28-9), who reached their first Final Four since losing the championship game to UNC in 2005.

Wagler and Mullins became the first pair of freshmen to top 15 points in a Final Four game since Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing in 1982.

“It’s margins, they’re so small,” said Illinois' Brad Underwood, a 62-year-old coaching lifer who reached his first Final Four. “Getting here is really hard. Winning is really hard. It’s why I have so much appreciation for Alex Karaban. He’s been to three of them. That’s freaky. It’s a rebound, it’s a loose ball, it’s a ball rolling in, it’s a banked 3.”

Tomislav Ivisic had 16 points and seven rebounds for the Illini, who couldn’t replicate the blueprint that carried them to double-digit victories over Penn, VCU, Houston and Iowa. Illinois made just 3 of 14 3-pointers in the first half and finished 6 of 26 beyond the arc.

UConn took full advantage even though the Huskies had two long scoring droughts — nearly six minutes in the first half and more than six minutes in the second. The latter allowed Illinois to charge back from its biggest deficit of the season, 57-43 with 9:43 to play, to get within 57-53 with 5:03 remaining.

But the Huskies answered and closed it out at the free-throw line for their fifth straight win in the series. UConn beat Illinois 74-61 on Nov. 28 in Madison Square Garden, and now the Huskies have held the Illini to their two lowest scoring totals and shooting percentages of the season. UConn also beat Illinois 77-52 in the Elite Eight two years ago.

“We held them to 35 percent (shooting),” Underwood said. “They just made more 3s than we did.”

And finished with a little more punch.

“The year hasn’t been a joy ride,” Hurley said. “We haven’t been a machine of destruction. We’ve been a team that’s had to grind out games like this.”

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Following an NHL-record 14 seasons of futility, during which the team finished no better than 19th in the league, the Sabres clinched a berth on Saturday when the New York Rangers defeated the Detroit Red Wings in regulation. Buffalo's playoff drought was among the four North American major sports’ longest active streaks, ranking second behind the NFL's New York Jets, who last qualified in 2010.

The Sabres clinched with six games left in their season, before being beat 6-2 at Washington on Saturday night, and are in contention to earn the Eastern Conference's top seed. At 46-23-8, Buffalo is riding a 35-9-4 surge that has vaulted the team after sitting last in the East in early December.

The turnaround has been remarkable for a franchise that through Saturday has gone 5,458 days since the Lindy Ruff-coached team lost Game 7 of a first-round series to Philadelphia on April 26, 2011.

“Obviously unbelievable. I’m happy for the city, I’m happy for all the guys that have been grinding here for years, like the equipment managers, trainers, my teammates ... wow, it’s going to be special, that’s for sure,” captain Rasmus Dahlin said.

In the ensuing years, the Sabres have finished last overall four times and are on their seventh coach, with Ruff back for a second stint, and their fourth general manager, Jarmo Kekalainen.

Buffalo’s run up the standings coincided with Kekalainen being promoted from his position as senior adviser on Dec. 15, replacing Kevyn Adams, who was fired after five-plus seasons.

The Sabres already had won three straight when the change occurred and proceeded to go on a franchise record-matching 10-0 run. They’ve not looked back since. Buffalo is 14-4-2 since returning from the Olympic break, and the team’s worst stretch since December has been a 0-1-2 skid.

“The guys have worked so hard to get to this point,” Ruff said. “Every month has been pretty darn consistent, and we played a good brand of hockey. We’ve gotten rewarded for how hard we’ve played.”

Though Adams’ firing played a role in spurring the team, so did Buffalo getting healthier.

The Sabres’ top two lines were replenished with the return of Josh Norris and Jason Zucker, and their goaltending got a boost with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen shaking off an early season injury to resume sharing the starting duties with Alex Lyon. After opening the season 4-5-1, Luukkonen has gone 15-4-2 since Dec. 21.

“I find that we deserve to be where we’re at. ... From where we were at the start of December to where we got, asked a lot of the players and got a lot back,” Ruff said.

Kekalainen also added depth at the trade deadline last month by acquiring center Sam Carrick, forward Tanner Pearson and defensemen Logan Stanley and Luke Schenn.

The team is led by two of its longest-tenured players: Dahlin, the No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft, and forward Tage Thompson, who was acquired in a trade that sent Ryan O’Reilly to St. Louis in the summer of 2018.

Dahlin ranks sixth among NHL defensemen with 69 points, while Thompson is tied for 11th among all skaters with 38 goals.

The next test for Buffalo is winning a playoff series, something the team hasn’t done since beating the Rangers in six games in the second round in 2007.

The turnaround has revived a fanbase that had grown weary with losing, various rebuilding plans that failed to generate a winner and a revolving door of talent being shuffled in and out of Buffalo — from O’Reilly’s departure to Jack Eichel being dealt to Vegas in November 2021 following a lengthy standoff over how to repair a neck injury. Each went on to win the Stanley Cup with his new team.

The Sabres have not hoisted the Cup through their first 54 seasons of existence.

“It’s something that we’ve worked hard for for a long time to be able to get into the postseason,” Thompson said. “It felt good.”

“I’m really proud of the group,” Alex Tuch added. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Buffalo has had 21 home sellouts this season, including 15 in a row, a year after selling out just five games.

This season, the Sabres have shown resolve in rallying back from deficits. Buffalo entered Saturday with 19 come-from-behind wins, tied for seventh in the NHL. That included defeating Tampa Bay 8-7 last month after trailing 7-5 with nine minutes left in regulation.

The Lightning also clinched Saturday, before beating the Bruins, for their ninth consecutive appearance and 12th in 13 years.

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AP freelance writer Sammi Silber in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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Not far away, Illinois freshman Keaton Wagler headed dejectedly to his bench, pulling his jersey over his face. He disappeared into the arms of consoling teammates, then emerged with his head covered by a towel as the handshake line formed.

Only one of the two fantastic freshmen could end the night in triumph, but both led their teams on a rough offensive night for the Huskies and the Illini in UConn's 71-62 win Saturday in the Final Four.

Mullins — the home-state hero who hit an incredible shot to send UConn to Indianapolis — got off to a fast start and finished with four 3-pointers and 15 points. Wagler, a second-team All-American, had a game-high 20 points to go with eight rebounds while the Illini never found the groove that had brought them to their first Final Four since 2005.

Both hit key 3s as UConn fought to maintain its tenuous late lead. And by the final horn, Mullins and Wagler had become the first opposing freshmen with at least 15 points in a Final Four game since 1982 — when a couple of kids named Michael Jordan (North Carolina) and Patrick Ewing (Georgetown) were squaring off for the national title.

Only Mullins will have a chance to add to his March run.

“We’re so ready for the national championship game,” Mullins said after exchanging an exuberant hug with coach Dan Hurley. “This is what I came here for. Let’s get it on Monday.”

Mullins is an Indiana star and the face of March Madness

Mullins was a prep star out of Greenfield, roughly 30 miles from Lucas Oil Stadium, the cavernous home of the Indianapolis Colts that hosted the Final Four. He was already the star of the week in Indianapolis after hitting the 3-pointer that capped UConn's stunning comeback from 19 points down to beat No. 1 overall tournament seed Duke in the Elite Eight last weekend.

This time, he faced an opponent that had elevated its defense to go with its season-long efficiency. The Illini allowed just 0.976 points per possession through four NCAA Tournament wins to lead the four remaining teams while leaning on their paint-controlling size advantage.

That only magnified the importance of Mullins, a 6-foot-6 wing who came armed with a fearless look — whether shaking off a second half full of misses or ending up on the floor after getting stuffed at the rim on a baseline drive before halftime.

He set the tone during the opening three minutes, when he knocked down his first two 3-point tries, the second after losing Jake Davis around a screen then backpedaling and clapping with a big grin. He even banked in a straightaway 3 for a 37-27 lead, prompting him to grin sheepishly and stick out his tongue.

“The shot clock was winding down and I was just trying to find a pick and pop,” Mullins told reporters huddled around his locker. “I knew when I saw that separation I was going to put it up. But I did not expect to hit glass. You’ve got to have a smile on your face when that happens because those shots do happen.”

He saved his biggest moment for the second half. Mullins was 0 for 5 since halftime when Illinois had trimmed a 14-point deficit to four. Alex Karaban missed a 3-pointer, but Silas Demary Jr. outfought Illinois’ Ben Humrichous for the rebound to set up Mullins’ 3 with 52.1 seconds left.

It was his only second-half basket as UConn shot just 28.6% after halftime in a rock fight of a game.

Wagler has raw emotions after loss

It was a harder night for Wagler, the former four-star recruit who rose to prominence this season as part of a stellar freshman class nationally. He finished 7 for 16 from the floor but went just 2 for 10 from 3-point range — he entered shooting 40.7% from behind the arc — on a night when Illinois shot just 33.9% overall.

“I felt like I was settled in, it was just my shot was off, which happens,” Wagler said. “So I was just trying to stay confident throughout the game and keep shooting them. I felt like I'm a good shooter so I kept shooting them.”

He came through with a big one to answer Mullins' late 3, hitting a step-back against Demary with 43.5 seconds left to keep Illinois within four. But he missed another one moments later, slapping his right thigh in frustration as it became clear the game was finally out of reach.

By the end of the night, he sat his locker with teammate Ty Rodgers' left arm wrapped around him.

“Every day when you go through something like this with a group for this long, and you love them, it's hard when it ends,” Wagler said, pausing to fight back tears as Rodgers patted him on the shoulder. “You know, when it ends, it's just sad.”

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